Torn Fate, Bound Destiny

Chapter One

Beginnings

Disclaimer: I own neither Yu-Gi-Oh! or Harry Potter, they belong to Takahashi and Rowling respectively and I take credit only for the situations in which I put their characters. I am also not making any sort of profit out of this story…would be great if I did, but I'm not so that's that.

Summary: The Ceremonial Duel ended and the Pharaoh was given the choice of either moving on or staying. Too used to the World of the Living and attached to his friends, he decides to stay and is given his own body to inhabit in this new life. With his destiny fulfilled and the world safe once again, the Pharaoh feels without purpose and unneeded…at least until a certain young wizard comes into his life, binding their fates and taking the Pharaoh into a whole new set of crazy adventures. Action, Adventure, Angst and Slash!

Pairing: Atem/Harry

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Everyone has a purpose in life; everyone has a destiny to fulfill that no matter how great or small may seem is equally important and necessary. This was one of the greatest motivator people had, something that made them move forward on and on to achieve that one goal despite whatever burdens they may carry and whatever obstacles they may have to overcome. It gave them a reason to live.

The same could once be said of a certain once-Pharaoh. He had gone through a lot, survived (sort of, at least) everything Fate threw at him and waited three thousand years to fulfill his destiny, and he had never felt more alive than when he had finally achieved that. But then what?

After everything was done and over with, when the world was finally safe from a demon that had haunted it for millennia, what was he left with? He could have gone on, of course, entered the Doorway to Death and finally went to rest alongside those he had left behind when he'd first 'died', but he hadn't.

Why hadn't he? He supposed it was because he'd never really had the chance to actually live before he'd been sealed inside his own Puzzle and then when he'd finally been released…well, that lead to what certainly became the better days of his life, with his friends, their adventures, their duels, everything; but it hadn't been his life, it was Yuugi's and would remain Yuugi's regardless of who exactly was in control of the body at the time. And so he had lived a few years as Pharaoh and then a couple more as Yuugi Mutou, but he'd never before had the chance to just live as himself and he wanted that chance.

So he had stayed and, perhaps reading his thoughts and deciding to grant his greatest wish, the very gods had granted him his own body to inhabit, releasing him from the fate of remaining an immaterial spirit for whoever long he remained in this world. That had been quite the surprise, he recalled, for himself and those who witnessed it; the Doorway closing, the duel ending and still two almost mirror images, two boys who had fought and survived together, who had been one, standing there, facing each other.

He also recalled that Yuugi had ran to him and hugged him with as much strength as the boy could muster, relived and ecstatic that his Other Self had not left after all. The Pharaoh had returned the embrace and the whole thing had ended in a group hug consisting of almost everyone present, bar a certain CEO and the Ishtar siblings. It had certainly been one of the better moments in his life, the perfect one with which to start this new life. And everything was fine.

Only, things never remain fine for a very long time. Atem went to live with Yuugi and his grandfather, as they were practically family by now and the old man had absolutely insisted. He stayed there and helped Sugoroku Mutou run his little game shop and waited for the next adventure to come his way; only, it never did.

Things stayed quiet and calm for one whole year and Atem stayed the same, just at home helping run the shop. He couldn't go to school with the others, not even though it was their last years together, because he had absolutely no legal identity or documents to prove that he existed in this age. In other words, legally he didn't even exist and that put quite a lot of limits on the things he could and could not do.

The only times he could even go to a Tournament was when Yuugi was invited and kindly gave his spot to the once-spirit. The boy loved the Tournaments, yes, but he knew that his Other Self got terribly bored and missed the excitement they'd once shared and so they took turns going. Fortunately enough no one ever noticed the differences between the two versions of Yuugi Mutou, no one ever had anyways. These occasions and the constant support from his friends were the only thing that kept him from regretting not dying after that Ceremonial Duel, and even that faltered sometimes.

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It was in fact a Tournament (the European Finals, if you were wondering) that had brought him all the way to England, and made him mentally promise to thank Yuugi later for learning English and passing the skill onto him when he was still the Spirit of the Puzzle, he was lost enough as it was and he couldn't even imagine what it would've been like if he didn't know the language.

He had arrived two days before the Tournament started, having learned by now that it was better safe than sorry, and when the anxiousness and boredom had finally gotten to be too much for even a man of his patience, he had decided that it would be a good idea to go sightseeing. A misunderstanding at the train station ticket booth, an argument with some idiots in the train, an irritated train guard and a lot of his luck mixed in and he had somehow ended in a town called Great Hangleton.

Now, Atem being Atem, he had not let that stop him and had spent what remained of the day wandering around the town, not really finding anything too interesting, not yet.

He was still walking aimlessly around the positively boring streets of Great Hangleton, hand in the pockets of his black leather pants and gazing distractedly at the sky, when a noise had caught his attention. He turned and found, not a new enemy or megalomaniac to defeat, but a harmless old man struggling to lift some groceries he had dropped without having the rest of it, or himself, fall down as well. Perhaps not his most heroic act, but the Pharaoh still hurried to help out the poor man, knowing that he would be grateful if anyone did the same for his own grandfather…err, Yuugi's grandfather…whatever, it was still the right thing to do.

"Here you go Ji…err, sir" The teenager said, slipping for a moment back into the more familiar words in Japanese before correcting himself.

He handed the man his dropped items back and lifted the bag so the elder could get a better grip on the whole thing and not have it happen again. The man gratefully took everything back.

"Ah, thank you, my boy. Incredible how a few little things can give you so much trouble" The white-haired elder said with a laugh "But then, when you get to my age everything seems to give you trouble"

Atem supposed that much was true, even though he tried very hard to ignore and outright deny the fact. He spent a lot of his time accompanying grandpa these days and, reluctantly, he had noticed the way the old man struggled with his daily activities more and more as time went by. He knew, if he thought about it rationally, that grandpa would one day die, but he was trying very hard to ignore that little fact, along with his own newly regained mortality and that of Yuugi and the gang.

"I've never seen you 'round these parts, lad" The once-in-trouble old an said, bringing Atem's attention back to him and away from unpleasant topics "What is a foreign lad like you doing in a dull old place like this?"

Atem was asking himself that very question and so couldn't help the sheepish look he gave in response "Well, I ended up here accidentally and thought I'd explore around some, only…"

The old man chuckled amusedly "Only you didn't find anything worth exploring" He said, saving Atem from having to explain the situation himself, which only brought relief to the Pharaoh "I'm not surprised, there's hardly anything of interest around." The words didn't cheer Atem any, since the afternoon was already over and he was much too tired to travel all the way back to London and enjoy anything there.

"Unless of course you're interested in the paranormal" And if that didn't get the attention of an ancient-spirit-turned-corporeal then certainly nothing would.

"Like what?" Atem questioned, fully willing to trust the old man's knowledge on the points of interest of his own hometown.

"Oh, ghost and spirits and such" He said, waving a hand almost dismissively for a second before hurriedly putting it back in his back of groceries, which had tilted threateningly for the second he had removed said hand.

"Oh?" The Pharaoh made his interest obvious and silently willed the old man to explain further.

"Yes, yes. There's this haunted house not too far from here, where a family was mysteriously murdered some fifty years ago" The elder explained, his eyes taking on a faraway look as he reminisced "Terrible thing, terrible. And I remember it well, too, no wounds on them, nothing to explain why they stopped breathing, they just did"

And that was what made Atem absolutely determined to go and check this particular haunted house. He wasn't really all that interested in the occult, not like Ryou was at least, but this mysterious murder sounded suspiciously close to Shadow Magic and if that was so then it was entirely plausible that the souls taken from those murdered people were still residing in the house, waiting for someone to free them. He was entirely too willing to do that, knowing what it was like to not be able to go on to the Afterlife and still not be able to be part of this world either.

"Where?" The teenager asked in almost a gasp, ready to bolt in the direction the old man gave and go correct this atrocity at once.

"In the little village right next to this one, Little Hangleton. The house is called Riddle Manor"

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Author's Notes: The plot bunnies keep sneaking up on me to attack at random . This is an idea that just suddenly got into my head and won't leave me alone, just like the others I guess. Unlike my other stories though, with this one I have no idea of how it's gonna end or where exactly it's going after the first five or so chapters so basically just about anything could happen.

Also, I think I started this one because "Sons of Ra" is set almost entirely on YGO world while "Light and Shadows" is set completely in HP world so I needed one that would have both worlds mixed together to complete the collection XD

Also, I am aware that the timeline for Yu-Gi-Oh! is kinda messed up in this, but it was the only way to make things work so let's just pretend that events in the YGO world happened sooner so it is now 1995 and a year since the Ceremonial Duel ^-^

Well guys let me know what you think of this one. I know the first chapter is kinda boring, but trust me when I say it more than makes up for in chapter two and so forth, those are more action-filled XD