The Magic of the Cards

Prologue: The Skeletons in the Closet

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Cardcaptor Sakura in any of its incarnations.

Author's Note: Hey guys, this is and adoption/revamp of wolf-shinigami's fic Harry Meets the Cardcaptors so the credit for the original fic idea and plot goes entirely to her. Also, a warning, you can expect that there will eventually be copious amounts of slash (but this will not be fore a while).

Anyway that being said please enjoy!

Number four Privet Drive had been a beehive of frantic activity all week since Aunt Petunia had received the telephone call. Apparently his grandmother, who'd left England while his mum and Aunt Petunia were both still in school to live in Japan, had just died and there was the matter of her will to discuss.

Since that day Uncle Vernon had been complaining at top volume about loose women, family duty and common decency and Aunt Petunia had been in a rare bad temper and had been taking it out on Harry and the dirt and dust of the house. Dudley had even been snapped at for putting his feet up on the coffee table and had been spending a lot of time one street over at Piers Polkiss' house.

By the time Thursday rolled around the house was medically sterile and, through a great deal of shameless eavesdropping, Harry had finally worked out what was going on.

Apparently his grandmother had been involved with a company that did business in Japan before she'd married his grandfather and had lived there for three years and had a baby girl with her Japanese lover. Her daughter had been raised in Japan by her father's family since the boy was underage at the time and his grandmother had been transferred back to England after the scandal of her pregnancy only to meet and marry his grandfather.

When his mum and Aunt Petunia were still just girls though his grandfather had died in a work related accident and had left his wife quite well off with the insurance money. Then, apparently, her Japanese lover got in contact with her and since his mum and Aunt Petunia were both away at boarding school for most of the year she went to live in Japan and married him, coming back to England for the summers until Lily and Petunia graduated.

As Harry understood it, the problem that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were facing now was that the money inherited by Aunt Petunia from her mother was going to be divided three ways between her second husband, her other daughter's family and the Dursleys, which meant that it wasn't really that much money at all.

Aunt Petunia didn't even seem sad to hear that her mum died, she was just angry all the time and she was especially displeased when she found out that she would be playing host to the Japanese brother-in-law she'd never met.

That wasn't to say that Uncle Vernon and Dudley weren't also annoyed by the whole ordeal but rather that they were more annoyed by having to acknowledge Harry and treat him like an actual human being, including, but not limited to, setting up a sleeping bag in Dudley's second bedroom where Harry would be staying as long as Fujitaka Kinomoto was in England.

Harry considered it an annoyance because, sure, he would get a week of no chores and sleeping in a room with a window, he definitely wouldn't be sent to bed without meals and his cousin wasn't allowed to beat him up without getting a cursory scolding, but he was also exhausted from all the cleaning his aunt was making him do in preparation for the visit and he could be sure that the weeks after this one were going to be absolutely awful to make up for it.

And that was just if everything went well, if anything wrong happened, well, before his uncle had left to pick up their houseguest from the airport he'd pulled Harry aside and warned him that if his conduct wasn't absolutely perfect it would be bread, water and the inside of his cupboard from now until the start of school.

Outside there was the tell-tale crunch of tires on the gravel drive, and Harry snapped out of his musings.

Aunt Petunia looked up from her post at the living room window, twitching the lacy curtains back into place and smoothing the pursed unpleasant expression from her face and replacing it with a very elaborate and patently fake smile.

"Harry, go get the door for your uncle."

Harry stood from the couch and obediently went to open the door while his aunt and cousin lingered behind him a ways.

"Here we are," said Vernon in the same overly jovial tone he used when he was on the phone with his important business contacts.

Ushered through the door was a tall, thin man with a kind face and light brown hair and eyes, he was dressed in trousers and a shirt and tie but seemed rather rumpled from the long plane ride.

"Here now, this is my wife Petunia and our son Dudley, and that is our nephew Harry," Vernon introduced.

"It's good to finally meet you all," said the man, bowing slightly, "Thank you for welcoming me into your home."

"It's no trouble," said Petunia, her voice high and tinny with false graciousness as she shook her brother-in-law's hand for the first time, "I was sad to hear of your wife's passing. Though we talked a few times I wish I'd been able to meet her in person."

"I am sure she would have liked that. My condolences as well, the loss of both your sisters and your mother in such a short period of time, well, I can't imagine what you must be going through."

"Thank you," said Petunia a bit stiffly.

Harry wondered how she thought she was going to be able to pull off this whole charade if she couldn't even make it past the introductions.

"Well, best not to dwell on it too much," said Uncle Vernon clearing his throat, "I think dinner will be ready in a short bit, but I'm sure you'll want to freshen up a bit from the flight first. Harry, if you could please show Kinomoto to his room."

"Ah, thank you, sorry to trouble you," said Kinomoto toeing off his shoes and smiling kindly at Harry, "Please lead the way."

"This way," said Harry gesturing for his newfound uncle to follow him up the stairs.

"How old are you Harry?" asked Kinomoto curiously.

"I'm six," Harry answered a bit warily, "But I'll be seven in July."

"I thought so," said Kinomoto, "My daughter, your cousin Sakura is about the same age."

Now, Harry was well aware that the first rule of a quiet life in the Dursley house was don't ask questions but he was curious, and couldn't really help himself.

"I have more cousins?" he blurted without thinking.

"Yes," said Kinomoto with a chuckle, not seeming offended by the question at all, "Two of them from me, Toya is the older one he's thirteen and then there's Sakura. My wife Nadeshiko also had a younger sister Sonomi and her daughter Tomoyo could be considered your cousin as well."

Harry's head all but spun at the implications. He'd always thought that the Dursleys were his only living relatives and had wished countless times in the dead of night locked up in his cupboard, tired, hungry often hurt and feeling very alone, that some unknown relation would appear one day and take him away from them. Now that he had found such a relation though, he was too scared to ask.

"Maybe if your aunt says it's alright you and Dudley might like to stay with us for a few weeks next summer. It's such a shame that we don't know each other that well, we are a family after all."

"I'd like that," said Harry politely, although he didn't think that bringing Dudley along was a good idea at all, and he was absolutely sure that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would never allow it, "This is your room."

The guest bedroom wasn't anything special, there was a bed, a desk and a closet with a dog bed for when Aunt Marge, Uncle Vernon's sister, came to visit. Aunt Petunia had had him change the usual flower print sheets for plain white ones and they'd aired the room out just yesterday. Kinomoto took everything in with clear interest all the same.

"e bathroom

The bathroom is just there, and there are towels and things in the closet if you need them. And you can put your things away if you want, 'cause Aunt Marge never keeps anything in here."

"Thank you Harry, please tell your aunt and uncle I'll be down for dinner in a few minutes."

Harry took his time heading back downstairs and when he did appear he was promptly ordered into the kitchen to help Aunt Petunia cook while Uncle Vernon, speaking in a low cajoling voice, bribed Dudley with the promise of new video games to get him to behave during dinner.

They didn't have anything special for dinner, just ham and boiled potatoes, but Kinomoto was effusive in his praise and acted like everything in front of him was an exciting new dish, complimenting Aunt Petunia on her skill and the cleanliness of the house while he asked Dudley and Harry about what they were learning in school and whether they played sports or were in any clubs.

Dudley was quickly won over by Kinomoto's interested attitude and explained about all his favourite games and television shows and the sweets that Mrs. Polkiss had served at tea, while Harry wracked his brains for answers that wouldn't upset the adults and ate as much as he could manage.

It was like this pretty much all week, during the day Dudley and Harry would go off to school while the adults discussed legal issues and went to visit the lawyers that Uncle Vernon's company employed and made lots of phone calls to the lawyers in Japan.

Harry was surprised, but everything was going smoothly.

On Saturday when he was awake earlier than everyone and had started cooking breakfast out of habit, Kinomoto joined him in the kitchen, impressed that he seemed so used to it, and talking about how Toya was also getting quite good at cooking and that he was trying to teach Sakura a little bit but that she didn't come by it naturally.

There was one tense moment when Kinomoto caught sight of the large raw scrapes on his knees and elbows, but Harry was able to explain it away as a bike riding accident rather than telling Kinomoto about how Dudley and his friends had cornered him in the schoolyard every day that week to exact retribution for Dudley's being forced to be nice to him at home.

He explained away all the scars that way too, accidents that happened to everybody, rather than saying what had actually caused them. He thought that Kinomoto was just too good-natured to notice the truth and Harry wasn't about to say anything about what the Dursleys really thought of him, not when someone was finally paying attention to him and being nice.

Which was why he was as surprised as anyone when the police came to pick him and Dudley up from school one day and it was explained to him by a lady officer and a social worker with a grave expression that the Dursleys had been arrested for the way they treated him and that he and Dudley were going to live with other relatives.

Harry had, at first, thought that this meant he would be going with the screaming, crying Dudley to live with Aunt Marge and her many, terrifying dogs, and found himself thinking he'd be better off with the Dursleys but while Dudley was calmed and led away by a pretty lady with blonde hair to the waiting room where Aunt Marge was arguing with the desk sergeant, his grave-faced social worker took him deeper into the police station, and to Kinomoto.

"How did you—" asked Harry wonderingly, after Kinomoto explained that he had noticed how poorly the Dursleys treated him and had decided, after much thought, to bring the problem to the proper authorities rather than just threatening his aunt and uncle with exposure and taking him away with him to Japan.

"I was looking for the broom and dust pan and I happened to open the cupboard under the stairs," said Kinomoto, his expression uncharacteristically dark, "I had enough occasion to observe Petunia and Vernon to know that they weren't the nicest of people, but I never imagined— well, after seeing that it was like my eyes were opened, and it became obvious what they were doing to you. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed the signs before, but then again you are a strong child and so brave."

"No one ever believed me," Harry confessed in a small voice, his green eyes welling up with tears of relief, "When I was younger I tried to tell my teachers that the Dursleys didn't feed me, that my bedroom was a cupboard. They thought I was making it up and when they called Aunt Petunia to tell her—it was really bad."

"I'm so sorry Harry," said Kinomoto, pulling the small, dreadfully thin child into his lap and stroking his messy hair in a way that Harry had never experienced, his heart sinking when Harry immediately stiffened in his arms.

"I know this is going to be hard for you, but I'd like to take you with me to Japan. We're not as closely related as people might like and the social workers are worried about taking you out of the country, there's been some consternation over your lack of birth certificate and medical records too, but the social workers have said it's up to you. What do you think Harry? Would you like to come live with me?"

"Can I?" asked Harry pulling away from his embrace wide-eyed.

"Of course," said Kinomoto, "I've spoken to Toya and Sakura already and we'd love to have you, Toya's already agreed to share his room and if I know him at all I suspect he'll already have rearranged everything by the time we get home."

At this point Harry really couldn't hold in his emotions anymore and just threw his arms around Kinomoto and cried like he hadn't allowed himself to cry since he was a very small child.

More than convinced, the grave faced social worker quickly pushed Harry's case through the courts and just a week later Harry had been legally adopted and he and Kinomoto, that was, Fujitaka oji-san, were on a plane to Japan and the start of a whole new life for Harry.

AN: And there you have it. For those of you who have read Harry Meets the Cardcaptors you'll notice that while the overall premise is the same the content is quite different, please don't let that put you off. Also I made the stylistic choice to contain everything that happens before the start of the CCS anime/manga to this prologue so unfortunately we will not get to see the Kinomoto siblings' first meeting with Harry. Hopefully this family fluff in the next chapter makes up for this!

Also my Japanese is at a very very basic level, though I probably wont include it often, more experienced speakers who notice mistakes in honorifics or terms please don't be shy to correct me.

I very much hope you enjoyed and I would love it if you guys took the time to write a little something to let me know what you thought. This story is still in the planning stages after all and I really value your opinions and comments!

Til next time!