Ever had a chapter that fights you as you write it every step of the way? Yeah this chapter was like that for me.

To Darkfire Kitten: Thank you for the review. Sorry for the wait.

To ARGLE: Thank you for the review.

To theygotstyle: I'm glad you enjoyed the prologue so much. Thank you for the review.

Disclaimer: If I owned Hetalia there would be more Canada.

Chapter 1

The bell rang, signifying the end of the day. Beside Matthew, Gilbert let out a whoop. Not even waiting for the teacher to dismiss them, he grabbed Matthew by the wrist and pulled him out of the classroom and into the hall. Together they began to dodge and weave through the crowd of chattering, school weary teenagers.

"I have a plan for what you can do with the awesome me," Gilbert proclaimed.

"What?" Matthew said.

"Come with me to my locker and I'll show you."

Gilbert virtually dragged him down the hall to his locker.

"W-wait! Slow down! I need to drop off my books as well eh?"

There was no answer from the albino. He just continued pulling Matthew in the direction he wanted to go.

"Gilbert!" Matthew tore his wrist away and fell back into someone.

"Aiyaah!"

"S-sorry!"

Wang Yao stared back at him in surprise. "Who are you? You just appeared out of thin air."

Matthew chuckled nervously. "A-actually I sit beside you in biology class."

"Is that so? I could have sworn..."

"It's okay. I seem to be a very forgettable person," Matthew said. "I'm Matthew."

"Ah that's not right. I will make sure to remember it from now on. I am Wang Yao." The Chinese boy smiled at him

"It's nice to meet you," Matthew said.

"Would you li-"

Wang Yao was cut off by Gilbert. "C'mon Birdie! I have to beat you at that new game at the arcade."

"Sorry. I'll see you later," Matthew said as he was inevitably dragged away again.

"Bye."

Because of the size of the town that Matthew lived in, their arcade was small. It had been here for several years now and he vaguely remembered it being a laundromat when he was a child. As they pushed open the door, a bell rang, barely heard over the din of explosions mixed with the occasional 'game over'

The vague odour of sweat reached Matthew, making him wrinkle his nose. He blamed it on the other teens that crowded the room.

"Look, Birdie!" Gilbert said. "They finally got Battle Arms 2. Will you submit to the honour of being challenged by the awesome me?"

Matthew felt his entire demeanour change and a smirk twisted his lips. "Gilbert, Gilbert, Gilbert. When will you realize that you are simply out of your league? When it comes to shooting games, I reign supreme."

"You wish. I'm going to beat you this time, Birdie," Gilbert said.

"Go ahead and start the game if you're so confident," Matthew said. He pulled some quarters out of his pocket.

Gilbert pulled out his own coins and shoved them into the machine. "I'll make you eat those words," he said.

"You can try, but you will fail," Matthew said.

His soft voice was almost completely drowned out by the music and electronic explosions. Judging from the narrowing of his best friend's eyes however, he had heard him.

In unison, both of them pulled the plastic guns from their slots. They held their guns at the ready as Gilbert chose a simple versus game out of the many options that were available to them. Within moments, Matthew shot him. Gilbert let out a protest as the screen went black.

"Again," Gilbert said eventually.

Matthew smirked.

"Mon petit, Matthieu, I have a present for you," Francis' voice echoed up the stairs.

Matthew jumped. He hadn't even known that his father was home. He carefully marked the page of the book he had been reading and set it down on his bed. Dodging the dusty mess that was his new bedroom, he slid down the ladder to the second floor. It had taken him some time to convince his Papa to allow him to turn the attic into a room. His initial reaction had been one of refusal.

'Non, Matthieu. It is dusty up there and there are spiders. It's utterly disgusting when we have such a large house.'

He had only been allowed to move in up there after he had promised to clean it from top to bottom. Which he hadn't done yet, but so far Francis hadn't checked on him.

Matthew skidded to a stop. His father was standing in the hallway wearing his usual stylish clothes and a beaming smile. Matthew gave him a hug in greeting.

"I have found the perfect thing for your room!" Francis exclaimed.

And unlike other teenagers, who may or may not have panicked at that statement, Matthew was just curious. His father was Francis Bonnefoy, and a world famous interior designer. Whatever he had chosen would was more likely than not to be something that would look really nice in his room.

"What is it?"

"You will have to help me get it out of the car, first. It is rather heavy," he said.

Matthew followed him outside, confused as to what would be large enough that they would both need to move that he didn't already own.

"Voila!" Francis said pulling the door open. Taking up most of both rows of seats in the rather spacious car was an antique, full length mirror. There was a cast iron stand still attached to it.

Matthew's jaw dropped. Then again, every once in a while, world famous interior designer or not, Francis would have a swing and a miss moment. This was one of those times.

"Uhm... Papa?" Matthew said.

Francis glanced at him. "Do you not like it? It's a real find too! I got it at a good price."

"It's... nice," he said weakly. "Thank you."

"Ah! Well it will grow on you," His father, as usual saw right through him. "The stand for it should be behind the driver's seat. Matthieu, could you take it upstairs and set it up? Now let us get this inside the house."

"Sure."

Matthew gingerly lifted up one side of the mirror with his father and realized that yes, it was indeed as heavy as it looked. Possibly even heavier. Together, the two males struggled with it all the way up inside the house. They set it down in the entrance hall so that his father could close the door behind them. It made a dull thunk as it met with the floor.

Matthew took the opportunity to give the mirror a proper once over and saw that it lived up to the name antique. The mirror itself was unadorned. The frame was painted a faded gold and despite its age still looked strong. It was a simple frame, though when Matthew looked more closely he could see a faint patterns of vines twisting gently in the border of the wood. He had to admit that it was rather beautiful. It just wasn't him.

"Papa? How old is this mirror?"

"At least three hundred years old," Francis ran his hand along the mirror's frame.

"How... how did you get it?" Matthew asked.

"An antique dealer who did not know what he had. When I expressed interest in it, he gave me a very low price. He seemed a bit eager to get it off his hands."

"Really? Why?"

"He never said, though he did seem afraid of it. He refused to handle it himself," Francis glanced back at the large piece. "Ah well. His loss."

It took a good ten minutes of struggling to get the bulky thing down the hall and up the ladder into Matthew's room. Matthew reached along the wall and flicked the light on.

Francis sneezed and waved a hand in an attempt to clear the air. "You still haven't cleaned up this mess?"

"I did start," Matthew said defensively.

Francis glanced around. "I can see that. You will clean up the rest of this after dinner. Now as for the mirror, I believe it would look best standing over here..."

It took a couple of minutes of further struggling and sneezing before his father was satisfied with where the mirror was set.

"I am going to cook dinner and you will continue to clean up this mess, oui?"

"Oui, Papa," Matthew sighed.

With a smile, Papa headed back down the steps. Matthew glanced around the room and took note of the large amount of boxes set pretty much everywhere besides the small area that he had carved out for himself.

"This is going to take forever," Matthew moaned.

He sat down and grabbed the first box, releasing a small cloud of dust in the air. Was all of this stuff even theirs? He sighed and wandered over to his desk and picked up a pen. Matthew knelt by the old box and broke the seal. He winced when he saw what was inside. A picture of his parents on their wedding day. Matthew picked it up and took a really good look at it. They looked so much younger, especially his father. He ignored the twinge in his heart and carefully set the picture out of the way.

He glanced back into the box and found that it was full of pictures; all of them featuring his mother. Matthew let out a sigh and resealed the box. He placed it in the corner and labelled it 'to keep'. He grabbed the next one which turned out to be full of some of his old toys.

"I guess I'll donate these," he said to no one in particular.

He pulled out another box from the pile. Matthew saw with a little catch in his throat that it was labelled in his mother's loopy handwriting that was so similar to his own. Gently, he eased the box open. A dozen old spell books stared up at him.

"I wonder if Papa knows about these..." Matthew gently lifted the uppermost book out of the box. The book was mottled with water stains and seemed extremely old. The faded silver lettering of the title gleamed dully in the light of his room.

"'The Basics of Spellcasting?' 'How to Talk to the Fae?' 'Rituals of Revenge?' The last one sounds kind of dark," Matthew murmured as he set the first book down and began to look through the box in earnest.

Matthew rarely got to see the family from his mother's side with the exception of his cousin Arthur who had known his father for a very long time. There was no other way to describe their relationship. The two men toed the line between friends and enemies far too often for that. He knew that his mother's side of the family had been practising sorcery for hundreds of years, but he hadn't known that his mother still had some of her spell books. The occasional time that they had visited the Kirkland family, he could tell that his father had not truly believed in the rituals that his wife's family had observed. And thanks to some drunken gossip that he had overheard as a child, he knew that his mother had given up her spell work without telling Francis when they first began to date.

"I wonder if Arthur would like to take a look at these..."

An hour later, Matthew heard his father call him downstairs for dinner. A gleam off the mirror caught his eye. He peered into it only to see his own reflection with tired eyes matching his staring back. Matthew shook his head. He really didn't know what his father had been thinking.

"How was your day, Matthieu?"

Matthew looked up from his soup. "It was fine. We have to do a collaborative project on a play by Shakespeare for English. Gil's coming over tomorrow after school for a couple of hours to work on it with me."

"Ah, that's good. Do not forget, Arthur is coming over tomorrow for supper."

"I remember," Matthew said.

"I'm leaving in again in a couple of days. There is an interior design show in America that I have been invited to attend. There is also the prospect of a job down there so I may be a few months."

"Ah," Matthew said with sad smile.

Francis winced. "I an sorry Matthieu. I know I said that I would be here a little longer this time."

"It's okay," Matthew said quietly. "You're busy right?"

For a few moments, it was silent in the room except for the clinking of cutlery on plates.

"So, I've been thinking. It is not good for you to be here by yourself all of the time," Francis said. "And lately I've been called away so often. I think we should rent out a room so that there is someone else here. What do you think?"

Matthew paused and thought. "Well, it would make the place a little less lonely."

"Then we shall begin the search when I come back."

It was late at night by the time that Matthew had finally finished cleaning his room. He flopped onto his bed and picked up his old stuffed bear, Kumajirou. Kumajirou. The beloved bear had been in his possession ever since he was a toddler. It was a gift from his mother, making it all the more precious since she had passed away a few years ago. The last time he had seen her, she had been about to leave for a brief road trip with her girl friends. She had embraced Matthew and told him that she loved him. Then with a kiss for his father, she had been out the door. When they had gotten the call, his father had been devastated and had all but thrown himself into his work in the following months. The nights that his father did go out, he rarely returned until late the next morning. Matthew shook his head in an attempt to get rid of his depressing thoughts.

He let out a yawn and glanced at the clock. He should have been asleep hours ago. There was school in the morning. Matthew rushed out of his room to the washroom and quickly readied himself for bed. He turned off the light, leaving his entire room in darkness except for the light of a streetlamp streaming in from his window. It cast ominous shadows from the stacks of boxes that he had piled in one corner of his room. Matthew clutched Kumachi closer and stifled another yawn.

He had always loved this time of night. It was as if the whole world was at peace with itself. The floorboards creaked under the weight of his feet as he headed towards his bed. He had definitely done a good job cleaning up today. Something gleamed out of the corner of his eye.

Matthew pivoted, and let out an undignified yelp of surprise as a shadow of a man loomed out of the corner larger and bulkier than himself. His heart pounded as he stretched a trembling hand along the wall. He nearly gasped in relief when his fingers found the light switch and he flicked it on. It was... his own reflection. Feeling silly, he walked over to the mirror and gazed into it to see his own face staring back at him. He sighed. Maybe he had been talking to his cousin too much lately.

Snuggling down into his bed, he dropped off quickly, unaware of the blue eyes watching him from the corner of the room.

Curled up with the double edged affection of the mist, Alfred heard a voice pierce through the darkness for the first time in decades. He opened his eyes and found himself leaning against the portal. His heart skipped a beat as he heard that voice again answering someone else.

"How old is this mirror, Papa?"

Alfred shakily got to his feet. He had to see who this person was. The one with the sweet voice. His saviour. He glanced out of the portal, making sure that he was far enough away that they couldn't see him in the mirror on the other side. And there he was. If Alfred was a religious man, which he wasn't not in the conventional sense anymore at least, he would say that he had just caught sight of an angel. If he was a poet, he might mention how the young man with golden curls and violet eyes was like a beacon light in the ever present grey fog he lived in.

Alfred wasn't either of those things. The teenager examining the mirror with a frown on his face meant one thing to him and one thing only.

He was someone whom he could replace. A way to get out of the mirror and once again try to earn his freedom.

I am my own beta, so if you noticed any mistakes that I might have missed, feel free to point them out to me.

Thoughts?