And… another chapter!

Started 1/26/05

Chapter 16 – Syaoran

< Yue. What is going on? What are they hiding? It must be something important, otherwise I would not be here. >

< I know, Syaoran. >

< Clow sent me here for a reason. > I’m still not ready to say ‘My father’. I mean, he was never there, so…

< Hai. >

I wish I knew what it was, if there were some guide somewhere… maybe… maybe… wait! Is Harry sneaking out of the common room?

I guess I can see invisible people now… amazing what overdosing on magic can do to you, but that’s not the point.

I sigh and follow him. He’ll get into trouble if he’s wandering alone… where is he going? I don’t know, but I’m cloaked in Shadow…

Shadow is another one of Yue’s cards… odd, sun and star are the same, and moon and moon attract each other…

Er, maybe not. Last time I checked Yue wasn’t affectionate towards me. It was just inevitable… I mean, after the magic transfer it turned out I was Clow’s son. Maybe he just feels he owes me something.

Yes… that’s it.

So I sneak after Harry, and pretty soon, we’re in this big, dusty, empty room with a giant mirror in it. It’s a very nice mirror, tall and golden-edged, but I don’t see what is so special about it…

Until I look inside, and to my shock, there’s me, with Yue by my side, and I’m holding Sakura’s first staff in hand, only it’s blue and green with a black bird’s head, and… what is going on?

“My family…” Harry whispers.

His family? There’s something wrong here!

Unless it’s an illusion? Then that would make sense.

“Illusion…”

The card appears before me, but it shakes it’s head. So it’s not an illusion? Than… I guess I’ll have to use…

“Mirror.”

The mirror card appears in her glory, smiling. Mine’s different from Sakura’s in one aspect though, she’s not in love with Touya. However, that isn’t the point.

“Mirror, tell me… what’s going on with this mirror?”

“Look at the letters on top.” She says. That’s the only clue I get before she vanishes. Cards have a will of their own after all…

So I look up, and sure enough, there’s a bunch of letters strung together in some odd pattern. My English isn’t very good, even with the language spell… funny, I thought it would be my last spell, but it turned out to be my first actually. Still…

Nothing up there looks like a familiar word. Maybe it’s not in English? But no, the spell is supposed to make me understand almost all the languages on earth…

Aliens? Could that be why I can’t read what’s written on the mirror?

Well, magic exists, why not creatures from another planet?

Harry is still staring at the mirror. This could be bad.

“Harry!”

He doesn’t seem to hear my voice at all…

“Harry!”

This does not look good… wait! He’s actually being sucked into the mirror, or is this just an illusion? No, better make sure…

“Shadow!”

Shadow grips onto Harry, and sure enough, it’s starting to vanish as well. How do I break this mirror then? I guess I’ll have to take a risk.

“Sword!”

There’s a kind of painful elation as the sword card is created, and then it’s in my hands and I’m chopping away at the mirror…

But it’s not working. If anything, I’m going to be pulled inside as well. I can’t just run and leave him here though, can I?

Maybe…

“Time!”

I can feel the energy draining out of me, but the mirror has stopped, so I grab Harry and pull him out until we’re both free of the mirror. Time restarts…

But Harry seems to have finally regained his senses.

“What were you thinking?”

Harry looks completely befuddled. “What do you mean? I saw my family in there, what about you?”

“You were almost eaten by the mirror.” I’m not exactly happen with the current state of events. Didn’t he realize he could have died? Apparently not…

I feel the time card vanish back into the void it occupies with the others when I’m not using them. “Listen. Don’t look at that mirror again. It eats people.” That finally seems to get his attention.

“W-what?”

“You heard me. It devours you… look at your shirt.”

Harry screams upon realization that his shirt is mostly gone. “Where’d it go?”

“Into the mirror of course!” How can he be such a dense person? Well, at least I managed to save his life once. “I’m going back to bed. If you’re smart you will too.”

“But how’d you get here?” Ah, it seems he finally notices that little discrepancy.

“Trade secret. Let’s just say you’re not the only one with an invisibility cloak…”

Harry look surprised. “You never told me you had one.”

“I just got it from my father. Early Christmas present apparently…”

“I see…”

Harry privately wondered about Yuki’s father. Who was he, that… well, it wasn’t as if Yuki was a braggart, but he hadn’t missed the teacher’s covert looks and signals.

Yuki was special in some way, but how?

He wasn’t particularly good like Hermione, or a prefect, or anything like that…

He couldn’t fly a broomstick worth anything…

All in all, Harry wondered.

Maybe it was something like his situation. Fame not your own but your parent’s… or relatives, or something!

It had to be that.

Why is Harry still staring off into space?

“Harry, it’s nearing 2 A.M. I think we should be getting back to the Common Room before we’re missed.”

“Right!”

He says he saw his parents in the mirror, but I saw the Clow cards… does it show our predecessors then? Because in some strange way, I am ‘related’ to Yue as well.

Wait! That makes Cerberus my ‘uncle’ or something… these relationships are so confusing! Oh, great, related to a stuffed animal, I’ll never live this down. And Touya!

No, that can’t be it.

Mirrors that show the past don’t eat people. It wasn’t like the return card. That was actually damaging. Speaking of Return…

As soon as I recover my energy from using Time, Yue and I are taking a trip to the fact to find out what Clow was drinking when he dreamed up this scheme…

Was he going to pair Sakura and me together? That’s like inbreeding! But maybe he wanted stronger magic.

Sakura made her own choice though.

Well… I mean, I still kind of like her, but not in that way anymore. Finding out she was my sister kind of put a damper on things in the romantic field!

No matter, I’ll live. I mean, I’m not about to slit my wrists over love, even after what happened. Besides, now I’ll have my own set of cards, so it will be fine (hopefully).

One can hope.

But on the other hand, maybe the mirror was just trying to send Harry into the past. But still, does it show alternate lives maybe?

I’m so confused now.

End Chapter

Completed 1/27/05