Episode... Chapter Three

Yu-Gi-Oh!
Episode Nine and Three Quarters

CHAPTER THREE – PLATFORM 9¾ AND THE HOGWARTS EXPRESS

September first came faster than the three boys had counted on, and they soon found themselves and their luggage at London’s Kings Cross Station.  There, they were to get on their train – the Hogwarts Express – and take it along with their fellow students up to wherever it was that the school was located.  There was just one slight problem: the platform on their tickets said nine and three quarters.  Marik and Bakura looked at the dividing wall for platforms nine and ten, while Yugi pondered over the instructions his grandfather gave them.

“Lemme get this straight,” Marik began, pointing at the wall.  “Mutou Ojii-san wants us to run right into a brick wall… and expect not to get hurt?”

“Well, he did say some things were hidden from muggle view,” Yugi pointed out.  “Maybe the wall is like a teleport or something.”

“You can go first, Yugi-kun,” Bakura said, uneasily.

Chicken, Yami Bakura sneered none too nicely.

Bakura sweatdropped.  “Never mind.  I’ll go first.”

Before the others could stop him, Bakura gripped the handles of the cart that his luggage was piled on and plowed right toward the wall.  Marik and Yugi winced, looking away just before he hit the wall.  Instead of the crash they expected to hear, however, they heard nothing except the normal goings on of the train station.  They looked back at the wall, to see that Bakura had vanished.  They looked at each other perplexed, before Marik gripped the handles of his cart.

“I’m next!” he exclaimed.

“Right behind you!”

The two of them ran right for the wall, and just when they were going to crash headlong into it, a whooshing sound filled their ears, and all of a sudden they found themselves staring at a large scarlet steam engine.  Above them was a large sign that read in English, “Platform Nine and Three Quarters; Hogwarts Express, eleven o’ clock.”  Just a ways inside, Bakura was waiting for them, a giddy expression spreading across his face as they joined up with him.

“That was so cool!” the three of them said at once.

~.oOOo.~

Marik, Bakura, and Yugi sat about their train compartment, preoccupying themselves with various tasks.  Yugi was busy staring out the window; being the only one there that had never seen any country outside of Japan, the scenery that whizzed past the train fascinated him.  Marik was polishing the Millennium Rod, something that he claimed he had not done in awhile.  Rishid was curled up along his master’s shoulders, pawing at the rag he was using to clean the Item with every time it came close.  Bakura was reading a book he had bought, entitled Hogwarts: A History.  Even though it was not part of the curriculum, he had thought it would be best that they knew as much about the place they would be staying and learning at as possible.

“Interesting,” he muttered under his breath, “even the staircases have a mind of their own in this place.”

“I hope stairs that go up don’t decide to become stairs that go down without warning,” Marik commented dryly, returning his Item to its proper place in his back pocket.

“Not like that, they just change where they lead to without warning,” Bakura replied, closing the book as the other boy sighed.

“This is the most boring part of the trip,” he announced.  “No offense, Yugi-kun.”

Yugi turned away from the window.  “None taken.  There’s not much to look at out there.”

Marik smiled slyly, taking out a harmonica from a pocket hidden in his shirt.  Bakura groaned at the sight of it, covering his face with a hand.

“I regret ever getting you that,” he mumbled.  “You only play one song on it.”

“Geeze, you say that like it wasn’t one of your favorite songs,” Marik replied sourly.

“It does get a little repetitive, Marik-kun,” Yugi added

“Ah, quiet and sing it, will ‘ya?” Marik said, before putting the instrument to his mouth and playing the opening sequence.  Yugi and Bakura started singing along, quietly at first, but then more jovially as they started to pick up on the beat of the music.

Kono mama mou sukoshi
Arukou kata wo taki
Kieyuku yume wo kazoe
Kareteku nakama wo mita
Kayoi nareta michi ni mayoi komu kono goro
Yami ga mou hitori no jibun wo tsukuru

Kawaita sakebi ga
Kujike souna mune ni tsukisasu
Kimi wo sasotte sakai wo mitai na
(COME ALONG WITH ME)
Darenimo dasenai, kotae ga boku no naka ni aru
Kake hiki ga kagi todoke FLY AT HIGHER GAME

Marik started to play the interlude between the first chorus and the second verse of the song, but he hit a sour note, letting loose a noise that did not sound too pleasant.  The three boys practically fell on top of each other laughing, and in their mirth, did not notice that someone was knocking on the door of their compartment until the person snapped it open.

“I thought I recognized a foul noise coming from here.”

They looked up in surprise to see Seto Kaiba standing at the doorway, glaring down at them.  The CEO of the largest producer of electronic games looked out of place, having traded the trench coat he was known to wear almost all the time for a wizard’s robe.  Marik managed to pull himself together first, looking the taller boy up and down.

“Well now, I see you finally decided to join us here,” he commented.  “Which raises the question: ‘Who’s the more foolish?  The fool or the fool who follows him?’”

Yugi pulled Marik back down to his seat.  “You’ve been watching too much American television.”

Seto spared the three of them another glare – most of it focused on Yugi, of course – before whirling around and heading back to his own compartment.

“Snob,” Marik growled.

“I hope he ends up in Slytherin,” Bakura said.

“Come again?”

“It’s one of the four houses in Hogwarts,” he explained, holding up the book he had been reading previously.  “Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw; named after the four people who founded the school.  Slytherin is where ‘those with cunning’ go to, and it’s also the house that’s produced the most dark wizards.”

“Lovely, just what we need,” Marik said sarcastically, crossing his arms across his chest, “a bratty dark –”

He was cut off as a young girl with bushy brown hair poked her head into the compartment.  She did a rough scan of the small room with her eyes before turning her focus to them.

“Have you seen a toad by any chance?” she asked in a heavy British accent.  “A boy named Neville’s lost one.”

“Sorry, no one here but us kids,” Marik answered in Japanese.

“Pardon?”

Marik repeated himself, in English this time, but she wasn’t paying attention.  She had caught sight of Yugi’s hair, and was gawking at it rather rudely.

“Good lord!” she exclaimed.  “How do you get it to stay up like that?”

“It’s natural,” Marik and Bakura said at the same time as Yugi blushed.  The girl stared at his hair a moment longer, before shrugging and leaving.  Marik leaned forward in his seat.

“Whatever house I end up in,” he began.  “I hope she’s not in it.”

“Ditto,” Yugi agreed as Bakura nodded.

“So, what are the other houses supposed to be like, Bakura-kun?” Marik asked, leaning back in his seat again, and giving Rishid a friendly stroke of his fur.

“Well, Ravenclaw is basically a house for people who excel in the brains department,” Bakura began, skimming through his book.  Marik grinned.

“No one here; next!”

Bakura chuckled.  “Hufflepuff is a house of patient folk who are loyal to their allies,” he continued.  “I think I’ll end up in that one.  And Gryffindor is for the brave at heart.”

Marik pointed to himself.  “Oh, yeah!  That’s the house for me!”

A worried look crossed Yugi’s face.  Which one was the house for the shy kids that did not want to draw too much attention to themselves?  None of those houses seemed to really describe him, and that fact was making him re-think about going to this place.

“Just as long as we don’t end up in Slytherin, we should be good,” Marik continued.  “After all –”

He cut himself off, looking up to see a pale blonde boy and two others that could only be described as thugs standing in the doorway, staring at them.

“Is there a problem?” Marik asked, making sure he said it in English.

“What bloody language are you people speaking?” the pale boy demanded, staring at him and Yugi, mostly at his hair.  Bakura, being the most normal looking one in the group, decided to speak up in his friends’ defense.

“We’re speaking Japanese,” he answered.  “We’re here from Japan.”

The boy scoffed at his reply.  “Bloody foreigners,” he snapped.  “Isn’t your own magic school good enough for you?  And what is with you?” he asked, directing the question to Yugi.  “Did you get into a fight with a starfish?”

Yugi looked down at his feet as Marik stood up, towering over the boy.  “Care to repeat that?” he asked darkly.  The boy just looked up at him, a confident sneer spread across his face.

“I’m sorry, ma’am –”  He cut himself off, mockingly putting a hand over his mouth.  “I’m sorry, with all that jewelry, I didn’t realize you were a guy.”

Marik looked like he was going to kill the boy.  He reached behind his back, and had his hand completely around his Millennium Rod before Yugi jumped up and latched onto his arm.

“Iie, Marik-kun!” he exclaimed.  “It’s not worth it!”

He looked down at Yugi’s pleading eyes before settling on pushing the pale boy roughly and slamming the compartment door closed in his face, locking it this time.  He plopped back down in his seat, a deep scowl settling on his face.

“And I thought Kaiba-kun was bad,” Bakura commented softly.  Marik shook his head.

“No matter how much of an asshole you think someone is, there’s always another person that’s ten times worse,” he replied sourly.  “Bakura, I take back what you said for you.  I don’t hope Kaiba will end up in Slytherin, because I know for sure that brat will be there, and I wouldn’t wish that ill on anyone I know.”

Bakura blinked.  “You hate the kid that much?”

“Bakura-kun, not many people I meet I want to send to the Shadow Realm right away,” Marik explained.  “That kid… I wouldn’t’ve minded sending him there in pieces.”

Yugi turned his gaze back out to the window.  It had darkened considerably since he had last cared to look, and he could have sworn he felt the train slowing down.  Just then, the announcer came on the intercom, saying that they would be at the school soon.  The three boys reached up to their suitcases, scrambling to put on their robes before the train stopped.

“This is it,” Marik said, fitting the robe on easily enough, used to the feel of such a garment from his days as the leader of GHOULS.  Yugi and Bakura struggled a bit, feeling a little silly in such odd clothing.  “No turning back now, right guys?”

“Like we were ever going to,” Yugi commented sourly.  “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m a little nervous.”

“Ah, don’t be nervous,” Marik urged, giving him a friendly slap on the back.  “Whatever happens, happens.  It can’t be any worse than what we’ve already been through.”

Yugi cocked his head, looking like he was listening to something, before smiling.  “Yami Yugi-kun says you took the words right out of his mouth.”