Chapter 2 - On the Train

Yami Bakura stared up at the enormous, old-fashioned train engine.

'A new kind of a magic. A new opportunity.'

But the spirit did not let his excitement cloud his judgment. He still needed to proceed with extreme caution here, or risk detection, which would likely lead to confrontation if not outright expulsion. Now was the time to gather information, and wait to seize the new power when he could be certain of the way to do it.

Transfer student. That was what the mortal had said. The train was taking these adolescent children to a school of some kind, presumably to learn how to use the magical powers of this society. That was where he needed to go.

The spirit hung back a ways, watching those boarding the train carefully. There did not appear to be any kind of regulation on boarding the train, or even a ticket inspector, though the spirit caught sight of more than one child clutching a ticket reading Platform 9 3/4 . Rather, it appeared all were coming and going as they pleased. In theory, he should just be able to step right onto the train and go completely unnoticed. However, it occurred to him that there was a risk that there was some trick here, some magical spell or power that would sense he had no ticket, or even if he had one, that it had not been legitimately obtained, and so would bar him from entering. And then he would bring the hostility of this entire group of magical beings down on his head.

'Nervous, are we?' he asked himself mockingly. 'When it is they who ought to be nervous of a confrontation? How embarrassing.'

The spirit, smiling to himself, removed his coat and draped it over one arm. As much as he liked the look of the trench coat, the girl had been right in telling him it was bound to attract attention, more attention than he wanted just then. Faded gray jeans and a T-shirt made him look less like a troublemaker. There was nothing to be done about the scarf.

He decided it couldn't hurt to get his hands on a ticket of his own and, brushing by a kid who was whining to his mother, some nonsense about wanting a different pet, the spirit slipped the kid's train ticket right from where it looked like it was about to fall out of his back pocket and into his own.

In one fluid movement, the spirit stepped up onto the train and into the main passage. He stood there a moment, half expecting to be hurled back out by some invisible force, but nothing happened. He was on, with absolutely no resistance. It had been so simple the spirit was almost disappointed. He could only hope there would be better challenges forthcoming.

The spirit kept his senses on high alert as he made his way down the train passage in search of an empty compartment, in which he might keep a low profile for the duration of the train ride.

"Nice scarf, pretty-boy."

The spirit's eye flickered slightly to his left, and his gaze fell on a pale boy with slicked back hair so bleach blond it was almost as white as his host's. The boy was smirking broadly to himself as he brushed by him, a gang of snickering teenagers all around his host's age following just behind. One gave the spirit a slight mocking shove.

The spirit felt a wave of irritation, and he had the overwhelming urge to follow them to their compartment and suggest they play a little game. Then he would introduce these arrogant mortals to his own kind of magic.

However, before the impulse had fully solidified itself into a plan, the spirit hesitated as something within the group caught his attention. His eye narrowed as his gaze came to rest on the back of the boy with the blond hair again. He felt his Millennium Ring humming against his chest, and he realized he sensed something different about that boy than the others. He sensed a darkness, an aura of evil the others lacked. The spirit's eye flickered down to the boy's left arm.

The spirit decided to remain silent for now. Low profile, he reminded himself. Though he silently vowed the boy's day of reckoning would come.

The spirit walked a ways further down the corridor, and at last his eyes fell on a compartment still unused. He closed the sliding door behind him and took a seat next to the window.

He stared out through glass and watched as people boarded, dragging their trunks behind them, saying goodbye to friends and family. The blend of such mortal normalcy with that which was anything but normal was a strange thing. These people had powers, there could be no doubt about that. But on some level, they seemed to be ordinary mortals, too. It was hard to tell at this stage how serious he needed to take them. Most likely the powers they possessed wouldn't hold a candle to his own, but there was a chance they could turn out be a threat to his plans. Carefully and secretly, those were the operative words at the moment. Stay away from the others as much as possible.

Just then there came a knock at the door, and a large boy with dark hair cut in a short, military style, poked his head into the room.

"Hey, you there. Mind if we chilled in here? Everywhere else is all filled up already."

The spirit, feeling distinctly annoyed, was about the decline, but the boy didn't wait for a response as he called over his shoulder and a moment later he and three of his friends piled into the confined space.

The spirit's lips thinned, but the group didn't appear to notice, as they took to helping each other shove their luggage onto the overhead racks, before sitting down and proceeding to talk and laugh in loud voices as though the spirit wasn't even there.

The spirit glared out the window. This was going to be a very long ride if he was going to be subjected to trivial and mundane mortal conversations the entire way. His host may have been used to putting up with this kind of treatment on a regular basis, but the spirit had half a mind to chase them out, his intent to keep a low profile notwithstanding.

However, it suddenly occurred to the spirit that, as frivolous and inconsequential as this group's conversation was, there was likely to be a wealth of information about this secret society, details that may come in handy later on if he needed to lie his way into the place they were headed to. So the spirit held his tongue, and he settled into his seat.

To the spirit's great interest, 'the war' was the chief topic of conversation. Names that meant nothing to him such as 'Dumbledore' and 'Harry Potter' were bandied about, and at least twenty minutes were dedicated to predicting the premature deaths of who the spirit gathered were important individuals, who worked for an organization the boys referred to as 'the Ministry'.

After a woman pushing a cart stacked with bizarre-looking candies stopped by the carriage, and the boys purchased several items, the conversation turned in a slightly less morbid direction, but somehow the humans managed to look even more gloomy, even as they chewed on their snacks.

"Bet McGonagall'll pour a bunch of homework on us now that our O.W.L.'s are coming up," one said morosely, a smaller boy with light brown hair and freckles, as he unwrapped what looked like a chocolate frog.

"McGonagall? I'm more worried about Snape," said another as he leaned over freckle-boy's shoulder. "Which one did you get?" he added, trying to see the chocolate frog's cardboard wrapper.

"Dumbledore again," he replied. Then, "I know. Snape is the worst. But speaking of Snape, who do you think will be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year?"

"Who knows. But I bet it'll be someone off his rocker."

"Anyone will be better than Umbridge," put in a third.

The four paused for a moment, and they all shared dark looks of silent agreement.

Several hours passed, with the group continuing to chatter on complacently as though there wasn't a fifth occupant in the compartment. All the while the spirit stared out the window, listening carefully to everything that was said and filing it away for future reference, trying to fit the puzzle pieces into the still very incomplete but slowly forming picture of this strange new world. They talked off and on about something called 'Kwi-dich,' which was apparently a sport played on broomsticks, and more about the war, about creatures called 'Dementors,' and types of magical spells and potions.

The sun had already fallen below the horizon and the darkness had settled over the idyllic landscape whipping by outside when at last one of the boys said, "We'll be getting there soon, probably. Better change, I guess. Robes are so stuffy, though, I can never wait until Christmas break when we don't have to wear them. I don't know how all the wizards down through the ages did it."

Grumbling a little, the boys all simultaneously began dragging down their trunks and the spirit saw them pull out long, night-black robes.

The spirit remembered then the girl from the train station saying something about robes. Apparently they were a uniform of some kind for this school. He would have to get his hands on some himself or he would attract attention.

Taking notice of the spirit for the first time since they had first piled into the compartment without waiting for his permission, a couple of the boys stared at him. One asked, "Hey there, aren't you going to change?" Then his eyes wandered to the space above the spirit's head, and he seemed to realize that the spirit had no luggage. Confusion briefly clouded his face, followed quickly by suspicion.

Options flashed through the spirit's mind. He needed to avoid attracting too much attention, but that now had to be weighed against his need to acquire the proper dress for this school. Additionally, he needed to relieve these humans of any disquiet they might feel at his not having a trunk. A quick, logical explanation.

The spirit's thought processes hit on a plan. No choice, it seemed, he would have to forgo the low profile for the moment.

"I left my things in another compartment, with some… friends." As the spirit had expected, the boys gave him a disbelieving look. The spirit then folded his arms and let his mouth tighten into a thin line, the picture of barely suppressed hostility, as though his aggravation had been building over the course of the entire ride. "I was rather hoping for some time alone."

The boy who'd asked him if he was going to change, the big one with dark hair who'd initially 'asked' if they could share a compartment, threw up both his hands in a defensive gesture, the look of suspicion replaced by a flicker of irritation. He seemed to immediately understand the little back story the spirit was hinting at and said, "Hey, sorry you got into it with your pals or whatever, but this isn't some roomy hotel with plenty of space for everyone who just wants to go off on his own. And it's not like you said no, did you, kid?"

Kid, thought the spirit incredulously. Even if he hadn't been a three-thousand-year-old spirit, older than the boy's grandparents fifty generations back, his host was undoubtedly this boy's senior by at least a year.

The spirit didn't answer, just let his expression twist and his face redden with apparent anger. "All right," he said evenly, "I'll be going then."

He started to turn for the sliding door, but then he stopped, and in one vicious movement, lashed out with a foot and kicked over the boy's trunk sitting open on the seat, sending its contents everywhere.

It was one push too far. The spirit suddenly felt a fist buried in his stomach, and he doubled over, collapsing to his knees over the pile of debris.

"Get out of here!" snarled the boy.

Still bent over and without fully getting to his feet, the spirit spun around and scrambled from the compartment like the devil was on his tail, face full of resentment and humiliation. The sliding door slammed after him.

As soon as the spirit was out, and out of view of the compartment's glass window, he straightened up slowly, his lips curling into a smile. Next to the black trench coat still slung over his arm now hung a pair of crisp, black robes. He held up his prize to take a look at it, then quickly put the trenchcoat back on and pulled the robes down over top. He attracted a few looks from a few people loitering in the corridor, but he smiled shyly and waved a little, and they seemed to lose interest.

The robes were a little on the baggy side for him, but they would have to do. He had seen the boy had had more than one set of robes in his trunk, so with a bit of luck, he wouldn't notice his loss for some time, if he noticed at all.

The spirit smoothed out the creases and brushed himself off. Just as he was considering finding another compartment, an announcer's voice echoed throughout the train. "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

People then began flooding into the passage from their compartments, and cramming together in the already narrow corridor until it was jam-packed. The spirit would have liked to break the fingers of those mortals pressing up against him, but he forced himself to close his eye and be calm.

As he was standing there, he overheard the conversation of a few people standing in the doorway of a compartment just across from him.

"He hasn't come back, Hermione," said a round-faced boy nervously. "Should we wait?"

"Let's give him a minute," answered a girl with bushy, brown hair. "But if he doesn't find us, then we can just meet up with him later in the Great Hall." However, she was looking a little concerned herself.

The train slowly ground to a halt, and the crowd began pouring out. The spirit was then jostled and pushed by the crowd toward the nearest exit, so he heard no more of the conversation.

As the spirit stepped outside, he stopped a few paces away from the train and took a deep breath of the crisp, night air, glad to be away from the claustrophobia of having mortals pressing in on him from all sides.

However, after a second he opened his eye, surprised. He gazed up at the dark starry sky and he realized that he could actually feel it thrumming in the air. The magic.

The spirit's lips curled into a smile. Time to find out what all of this was about. And, if fortune was with him, claim a brand new kind of power that would finally guarantee his success.