Chapter 10: Sakura's White Day
After returning from her trip to Japan, Sakura found that life in Hogwarts was very much like life had been before the holiday season.
The most obvious indication of this was the disappearance of the decorations surrounding the castle. By the time she had returned to Hogwarts, all of the Christmas decorations had been removed. This only had the effect restoring the castle to its ordinary level of splendor. It wasn't just the physical setting that had been reverted either. Shortly after Sakura's return, the Hogwarts Express and its load of students had arrived, filling the school with life and restoring a vivacious atmosphere to the castle.
Sakura had been the first Ravenclaw girl to return and was sitting in the Ravenclaw common room alone, reading through her Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook, when all of the students on the Hogwarts Express entered. She managed to catch up with Lisa and Anthony the moment they entered Ravenclaw Tower, and had found Gloria shortly thereafter.
Lisa had enjoyed a pleasant, intimate Christmas with her parents. In contrast, Gloria's family had opted for something more exotic and had gone on their traditional long holiday through continental Europe; this year's destination had been Paris. Anthony expressed some jealousy at all of the girls' carefree break, having been forced to work for his parents throughout the holiday rush.
Since returning to Hogwarts, there was one major change Sakura had noticed as compared to the previous year. The change was more in herself than anything, and it was her attitude towards Lisa. Sakura honestly thought that Lisa had nothing to do with The Jump's rampage, but after having so many people point the finger of suspicion, it was hard not to keep an extra close eye on her roommate.
After Sakura spent the evening catching up with her friends, the daily routine of school life picked up more or less right where it had left off without any event or incident. That was only inside of the classroom, though. Outside of class, there had been a brief bit of excitement in Sakura's personal life.
From her past experiences with the mail, she knew it could sometimes take weeks for a parcel to travel from her to Syaoran in Hong Kong or to her family and Tomoyo in Japan. She had been idly thinking about this when she looked forward in the calendar and realized that Valentine's Day was just a few weeks away as well. This had led to her spending a frantic evening putting together a gift package to send to Syaoran.
It had been quite a trick to get into the kitchen to make some chocolates for him. In the end, Kaho had managed to pull a few strings and arranged for Sakura to get access to both some supplies as well as one of the stoves on the side of the kitchen for a few hours.
Without the help of Tomoyo or anybody else, the end result of Sakura's efforts ended up being several rather clumsily made chocolates. However, they were brimming with handmade love and affection, and that more than made up for the sloppy edges and occasional lump they contained.
The final step in the process had been for Sakura to entrust her confections and a hand written valentine to Kaho, who in turn promised to make sure that Eriol would send them in time for Syaoran to receive them by Valentine's Day.
After this brief bit of excitement, Sakura's life finally returned to its regular pattern of classes, studying, castle exploration, and the occasional Quidditch match.
Classes were very much like they had been before the break. Professor Snape was still glowering, Professor Binns was still boring, and Professor McGonagall was still able to hold her classes in awe with her presence and force of personality.
Potions class had moved on to more complicated formula, using six or seven ingredients now and multiple containers. Sakura still excelled in this class relative to her classmates, at least whenever she remembered to pay attention to the idiosyncratic rules the formulas dictated. Strangely, even when her mind wandered and she didn't pay exacting attention to the inscrutable instructions while brewing her potions, Professor Snape would only very rarely correct her, either not noticing or choosing not to call her out on it. Professor Snape's tacit favoritism from early in the school year had grown to the point that everybody in the class noticed it. Deborah was desperate to find out Sakura's secret, having been caught by Professor Snape's sharp tongue far too often, but Sakura had no explanation for his behavior either.
Whatever good fortune had blessed Sakura in Potions class, though, it certainly did not extend to Charms class. Eriol's explanation about how a wand was different than the Key had helped a little, but only to the point that Sakura now had an intellectual understanding of what was going on. It didn't help her in actually being able to use her wand to cast charms. She still felt a major lack of control whenever she tried to follow Professor Flitwick's instructions, and she frequently found herself deviating from procedure whenever she let her mind wander too much. Unlike Professor Snape, though, Professor Flitwick would always seem to notice whenever she did something wrong, and his constant chastising of Sakura to pay more attention and follow his instructions became a common refrain in class. Sakura was becoming increasingly annoyed as the weeks progressed, not only at the class and Professor Flitwick for having instructions which were so counterintuitive and hard to follow but at herself as well for not being able to follow the instructions even though she thought she understood what she was supposed to do.
Unlike Charms class, Sakura's intuition helped her considerably in Herbology class. She seemed to have a natural affinity to plants which stood her in good stead. Her natural instincts only seemed to take her so far, though. Since the start of school, the other first year Ravenclaw students had slowly but steadily caught up to her, and since classes had restarted she found herself solidly in the middle of class.
One class Sakura was having much more success in was the Defense Against the Dark Arts class. After the long holiday break, Professor Quirrel seemed much more energetic than before, and he brought this new found energy into the classroom. This suited Sakura quite well, who had devoted much more of her time and effort into the subject since the Halloween scare with the troll. She had learned a great deal about many magical threats since that time, even if she would never be able to look at an iguana the same way ever again; and while she wasn't the absolute top of the class, she was definitely one of the students the others turned to for assistance whenever they had problems with their homework.
In contrast, one class Sakura had started out poorly in and continued to do poorly in was Flying class. When she had first encountered magic with the Clow Cards, Sakura had been delighted to fly on the Key through the night sky. Footage that Tomoyo still had sequestered safely away in her Memorial Video box proved that. However, that was before Sakura had learned to fly on her own two wings. Since experiencing the increased mobility and stability the current incarnation of The Fly provided her, the idea of sitting on a stick flying through the air now felt precarious, constrained, and uncomfortable. The fact that her transportation might explode out from under her at any moment didn't help either. As a result, her skill of flying on a broomstick had only shown limited improvement even after months of practice. It was a commentary on the poor performance of the first year Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students as a whole that Sakura was still solidly in the middle of the class here as well, despite her continued challenges.
Any hopes that the History of Magic class would improve after the break proved to be entirely in vain. Professor Binns had returned, just as monotonous as ever. It might have been due to English not being her native language, but Sakura swore that Professor Binns had started class in mid-sentence right where he had left off last December, as if the long break hadn't even happened. It wasn't long until Sakura, like the majority of the class, had soundly fallen asleep.
Astronomy class had also failed to improve after Sakura's extended break from it. Professor Sinistra hadn't revealed some withheld revelation about the true power of the heavens, and Sakura found the class just as lackluster as it had been before the holiday. In fact class was now worse than ever, as the chilly winter air made the Astronomy Tower that much colder and less hospitable than before. Even an overcast night was no reprieve, as the students would still be expected to gather in the tower and stare at star charts at a time when Sakura would much rather have been sleeping in her warm bed.
In contrast to the uninspiring and frigid Astronomy class, Transfiguration class had continued to develop and was more exciting than ever post-holiday. Sakura's skills in it had increased in equal measure, and she was now undoubtedly the best performing student in the subject. It was rapidly becoming Sakura's favorite class as well, and she looked forward to the days she could see Professor McGonagall and learn more about the fascinating subject. It was this reason that Sakura was walking towards Professor McGonagall's classroom with a particular spring in her step.
Sakura surreptitiously patted the inside pocket of her robe, checking yet again that she had all of the Sakura Cards with her. Keroberos occasionally teased her, expressing mock amazement that Sakura was actually succeeding in keep the cards with her all the time post-holiday, but it was indisputable that Sakura had yet to leave the cards behind in the dorm room since the incident with The Jump. Whether it was a coincidence or it was Sakura's presence, none of the cards had given any hint of going rogue like The Jump had last November.
Sakura was standing with the rest of her classmates at the top of a staircase, waiting for what seemed like the millionth time for it to adjust so they could get to class. Luckily, they had plenty of time, so the stairs just seemed quaint and annoying rather than interminably slow and evil.
"What do you think Professor McGonagall is going to teach us today?" Lisa asked as the staircase locked into place
"I don't know, but it should be exciting," Sakura said. "That's what she told us last time, right?"
"No. That is not what she said. She just told that we would be starting something new today," Lisa said.
"I hope so. I'm getting so bloody tired of trying to make that bloody vase," Anthony said from behind the pair.
"It wasn't that bad," Sakura said, carefully keeping her eyes forward as they walked down the stairs.
"Speak for yourself. I can barely get the blasted box to curve. I swear this is the hardest class in the entire school," Anthony said.
"What are you talking about? Transfigurations are not nearly as difficult as charms are. I still cannot get that feather to fly right," Lisa said.
"What? That's easy. Trying to turn a wooden box into a glass vase? Now that's bloody impossible," Anthony said.
"Maybe charms are easy if you have had years of practice, unlike some of us here," Lisa said, having stopped at the bottom of the stairs to turn and face Anthony. The rest of the class continued forward on their slow pace, ignoring the discussion the three students were having.
"That's not it. Charms are just much easier than transfigurations are. Isn't that right, Sakura?" Anthony asked, turning to face Sakura.
"No. Transfigurations are easy and charms are just impossible, is that not so, Sakura?" Lisa asked in turn, likewise turning to face Sakura.
"Hoe?" Sakura asked, suddenly faced with intense stares from both of her friends. "I think charms are harder than transfigurations."
"See?" Lisa said.
"That doesn't prove anything," Anthony said. "It's so unfair."
"Unfair? What do you mean unfair?" Lisa asked.
Anthony affected the posture of a boy who knew how the world worked and said, "Everybody knows that girls always stick together. Boys don't do that. And girls always get everything too. If there's a fight the boy always gets blamed, and we're always being told to be nice to girls. Like on Valentine's Day, we have to give out chocolates even if we don't like a girl."
"On Valentine's Day? That's strange. Girls are supposed to give boys chocolate on Valentine's Day," Sakura said.
"No, that is not right at all," Lisa said. "Boys are supposed to give girls chocolate on Valentine's Day."
"Yes it is. I'm sure," Sakura said. Memories of making chocolate late into the night in January were still vivid in her memories.
Lisa looked to Anthony for support, who despite his comments moments ago found himself settling the disagreement between the two girls. He said, "I'm sure boys give girls chocolates. We always have to set up the inn special on Valentine's Day, and all these boys show up and give these girls these large boxes," Anthony said.
"No," Sakura insisted as she started walking towards the classroom again, the other two just behind her. "Girls give boys chocolate on Valentine's day. The day boys give girls presents is Howaito De."
"What is Howaito De?" Lisa asked.
"It's maybe White Day?" Sakura tried again, turning the words around in her mouth to pronounce them in a more English way.
"Okay, then what is White Day?" Lisa asked.
"White Day is White Day," Sakura tried to explain. "It's the day that the boys are supposed to give gifts back to the girls."
"You mean Valentine's Day?" Anthony asked.
"No, that's the day that girls give boys chocolates. White Day is the day that the boys give presents back to the girls," Sakura insisted.
"What?" Lisa asked.
"Things are strange in Japan," Anthony said with a shrug towards Lisa.
"Then what day is this White Day?" Lisa asked.
"It's," Sakura thought for a bit, "March 14."
Anthony paused in thought before asking, "March 14? That's tomorrow isn't it? This isn't some trick to get me to buy you some chocolate or anything, is it? "
"Oh, it is tomorrow," Sakura said, abruptly stopping at the sudden revelation and almost causing Anthony to run into her back. Thoughts of White Day naturally led Sakura to think about Syaoran half a world away.
"You are blushing," Lisa said as Sakura's cheeks turned red. "Is it..."
"Time to get started. Settle down children," Professor McGonagall said cutting off all the students' conversations and saving Sakura from a potentially embarrassing conversation. All the Ravenclaws instantly quieted down and took their seats. Professor McGonnagal had that effect on all of her classes.
"Some of you have mastered the basics of transfiguration," Professor McGonagall said, casting a glance at Sakura, "while some of you have continued to struggle," Professor McGonagall continued, casting a second glance at Anthony.
"If you are in the second category, I expect you to spend a lot of time studying in your off-hours to figure out what you're doing wrong. That should come naturally to you Ravenclaws. You had better learn fast, too, because today we're moving on. Today you are going to start learning about the transfiguration of living animals," Professor McGonagall said.
Professor McGonagall then launched into a long theoretical discussion about the differences between trying to transfigure an inanimate object, like a match, and a living animal, like a mouse. Most importantly, a living animal had its own will and, even if transfigured, would maintain it. As such, if the animal wanted to, its will would eventually allow it to restore itself to its original form; and every animal, no matter how simple, always wanted to revert to its natural form.
Sakura was only half paying attention to Professor McGonagall's lecture. With the realization that tomorrow was White Day, the pit had fallen out of her stomach, leaving a painful feeling of loneliness gripping her heart. If she were home right now she would be with her family and she would surely get a package from Syaoran, and maybe even a visit from him. However, that just couldn't happen with her halfway around the world. It was almost enough to bring her to tears, although she managed to keep enough control of herself to prevent an unseemly scene.
Professor McGonagall continued with her lecture irrespective of Sakura's preoccupation. She continued to talk about class safety and the dangers of what they were going to be doing. She also gave some advice for the squeamish about how to handle the animals and the proper procedures for dealing with them. All in all it, was everything they had gone through when they first started Transfiguration class last September, only more so. This included an impressive demonstration of power and magic that Professor McGonagall performed. The demonstration went mostly unnoticed by Sakura, though, as lost in her own world as she was.
In an attempt to distract herself, Sakura tried to refocus herself on what Professor McGonagall was talking about. She found it exceedingly difficult, though. The normally fascinating Transfiguration class had lost all of its luster in the face of Sakura's loneliness, and what Professor McGonagall was talking about only barely registered to Sakura. Even so, the poor distraction was better than nothing.
Sakura was walking towards Kaho's office carrying several letters. It was Saturday, and while that meant there were no classes for Sakura to sit through in a distracted state, it also meant that unlike the previous day, there were no classes to distract Sakura from her loneliness this White Day. Instead, Sakura had distracted herself by composing several letters in her head that she planned to send to her family, Tomoyo, and, most importantly, Syaoran.
During lunch Lisa had brought Wayne to join them at the Ravenclaw table while Gloria had wandered over to join Sakura, Lisa, and Anthony of her own volition. The five had then spent the meal talking about how classes since the holidays had been going. Sakura had only half-heartedly participated in the conversation, though. She had been preoccupied thinking about what to write to Syaoran, and so barely said anything except to answer specific questions that had been asked directly to her.
After lunch, Gloria had suggested the group go castle-exploring. Anthony had had no interest in practicing his transfigurations, Lisa had had no interest in practicing her charms, and Wayne had had no interest in practicing his potions; so they had all quickly agreed to join Gloria. Sakura, on the other hand, had begged-off, explaining that she had some letters she wanted to write instead.
So while the four students had gone wandering throughout the castle, Gloria as always trying to get them to explore the mysterious third floor while the other three came up with every reason not to, Sakura had gone back to the Ravenclaw common room and put quill to paper to write the long letters she had been composing.
The actual writing of the letter had proved to be relatively fast, especially as compared to amount of time she spent writing out her daily homework in English. In about an hour Sakura had three multi-page documents written with only a minimal number of mistakes and scratched out kanji characters. Writing with ink and quills was much more tedious and difficult than writing with pencils and their ever handy erasers, and the stray drops of ink that quills sometimes dropped risked transforming a kanji character into nonsense, but as quills were the only writing utensils that Hogwarts seemed to have Sakura was forced to use them.
Once the letters had been successfully composed, Sakura had then ventured into the halls of Hogwarts to reach Kaho's office, taking the shortcut she and Gloria had discovered all those months ago when her term at Hogwarts had originally started.
Sakura wasn't consciously aware of it, but there was a huge difference within her as compared how she had been that day last September when they had first found this shortcut. The Sakura from the start of the school year would never have ventured into the ghost-laden hallways of Hogwarts on her own. In contrast, the Sakura who made her way to Kaho's office to deliver her letters in March had no problem traveling through the dimly lit hidden corridor. She had spent so much time in the castle that the whole place felt like a second home to her. Or at least it felt like a third home, if Tomoyo's mansion was her second home. Or maybe like a fourth home, if Reed Manor was her third home.
Sakura exited from the corridor and turned towards Kaho's office. At that exact moment, Kaho stepped out into the hallway, causing the two to almost collide.
"Oops. Sorry Sakura. I almost didn't see you," Kaho said.
"No, it's my fault," Sakura said, reflexively bowing to Kaho.
"Actually it's quite good timing that you should show up just now. I was about to go looking for you," Kaho said.
"You were? What for?" Sakura asked.
"Why don't you come in? It'll be easier to explain in here," Kaho said, leading Sakura into her office and to a seat. "The first thing is I heard back from the Japanese government about your portkeys."
"You did? So I can use them now instead of flying back and forth?" Sakura asked. She had decided that, while the luxury of flying was nice, she wouldn't miss it once she started being able to use Eriol's faster and more convenient magical mode of transportation.
"I'm afraid not. The Japanese government has strictly forbidden the usage of your portkeys to travel into and out of the country," Kaho said.
"Hoe? Why?" Sakura asked.
"Officially they are saying that portkeys aren't safe and they won't have any of their citizens subjected to the risks of teleportation," Kaho said.
"They won't? Are portkeys that dangerous?" Sakura asked, disappointment and concern creeping across her face.
"No, they're perfectly safe. Apparating on one's own can lead to some very serious injuries if one isn't careful, but portkeys have many of safety precautions built into them. There hasn't been a serious injury directly from using a portkey in over 100 years," Kaho said.
"But if there haven't been any injuries, why do they think they are so dangerous?" Sakura asked.
"They don't trust any magical devices. They think that given apparating is dangerous, any teleportation which uses a device must be even worse, seeing how the wizard or witch no longer has direct control over the magical power being used. They think all magic should come directly from a person. It's not just portkeys either; they don't like any of the magic that the West makes. Even if Japan is one of the most advanced Eastern country in terms of magical item development and use, it's still probably a few hundred years behind the United Kingdom," Kaho said.
"Is that why Eriol didn't want to register the portkeys?" Sakura asked.
"It could be. Even so it would have been dangerous to not register them. Regardless of if you used them, just having them could get you in big trouble if some authority in Japan or the United Kingdom caught you carrying an international portkey," Kaho said.
"What about all the other things I have then, like my wand?" Sakura asked.
"Your wand is fine. Like I said, while concern for the safety of the portkeys was the official reason they won't allow their use, it probably isn't the real reason. While the wizards and witches out in the East don't approve of Western magic, they usually don't have a problem with people who practice it. They just think it's a waste of time. I think the real reason they aren't allowing the portkeys is the international implications of the travel they enable. For example, a criminal could use them to escape the country, or worse, a country could use them to send an army for an invasion or something," Kaho said.
"Hoe," Sakura lamented. The disappointment on her face was entirely predictable to Kaho, who had just the thing to cheer her up. She had decided to talk about the portkeys first for just this reason.
"While I can't give you the portkeys, I can give you something else," Kaho said, pulling a wrapped box out from behind her back and handing it to Sakura.
"What is it?" Sakura asked, still frowning but taking the box.
"Why don't you open it and find out?" Kaho suggested.
Sakura needed no further prompting and ripped the wrapping off the box. The box contained an envelope and another smaller box. Sakura looked up at Kaho, who gave an encouraging smile and a nod. Sakura opened the envelope and pulled out a card. It read:
"Dear Sakura. I got your Valentine's Day chocolate. It was very good. I'm sorry I can't be with you today. I wish I were at Hogwarts with you. Please accept this present as a sign of my affection. Happy White Day. Love, Syaoran"
"It's from Syaoran," Sakura said. Her earlier disappointment instantly evaporated, forgotten in light of this new development. "How did he get it here?"
"He sent it to Eriol weeks ago to make sure it got here in time," Kaho explained. "Why don't you open the box?"
Sakura's heart was beating so quickly that it almost jumped through her throat, and her shaking hands made it difficult to hold the box straight, let alone open it. Nevertheless, she opened the smaller box as carefully as she could. Inside was a necklace. Nothing precious in its own right but beautiful nonetheless, all the more so for the difficult trip it had taken from Hong Kong to reach her. Sakura carefully pulled it out.
Kaho let Sakura admire how the beautiful necklace sparkled in the torchlight for a minute before gently prompting her, "You wanted to see me for something too?"
"I did?" Sakura asked, then remembered why she was there and said, "Yes, I did. I wrote some letters."
Sakura pulled the letters out from her pocket and handed them to Kaho.
"I'll make sure they're delivered," Kaho said.
"Thank you," Sakura said. Then, with her head still in the clouds, she walked out of the office.
Sakura kept absently fingering the necklace in front of her as she walked down the hallway and wasn't paying too much attention to her surroundings, and so made for an easy mark for Peeves who happened to be floating by. It was a simple task for a prankster as experienced as the poltergeist to swoop down, grab the necklace out of Sakura's hand, and fly with it into the air.
"Ha ha! Got your toy!" Peeves taunted.
"Give that back!" Sakura shouted, chasing after Peeves.
"You've got to catch me first," Peeves teased, flying backward and holding the necklace just out of Sakura's reach.
"I'm serious! You bring that back right now!" Sakura shouted.
Peeves came to the end of the hallway where it formed a T-intersection. He was tempted to just fly through the wall, hopefully causing Sakura to run face-first into the stone. However, the chances of tricking her like that were small, even if he had gotten a student to do it once before, and he hadn't teased her nearly enough to allow it to end it now if the wall gambit failed. Instead, Peeves just stopped and started dangling the necklace barely above Sakura's reach.
"Oops. Nice try. You almost had it there," Peeves said, raising the necklace whenever Sakura jumped to try and grab it.
Sakura was feeling an emotion she rarely felt. She frequently felt love or warmth, and occasionally felt worried or concerned. Almost never did she feel what could be considered anger. Stealing the precious necklace that Syaoran had gone to so much trouble to get to her on White Day was not enough on its own to make the normally happy and forgiving Sakura get mad. The taunting may have gone a good bit further towards that end, but even it wasn't enough to truly anger Sakura. That it was Peeves taunting Sakura, with his early history of terrifying her and more recent history of just generally annoying her, was what pushed her over the edge.
"You better give it back," Sakura said. Those who knew Sakura would have been shocked at the tone of voice she was using.
Peeves, who had long gotten used to hearing this tone from helpless students and the occasional professor completely disregarded the promised pain and continued to taunt, "Oh yeah? What if I don't then?"
The question ran through Sakura's head. If she had been thinking straight she might not have been able to answer it. With the cloud of emotion hanging over her head, though, she knew exactly what she was going to do.
Sakura pulled the Key out from under her robe and quickly chanted in Japanese, "Key which hides the powers of stars, show your true power before me. Under the contract, Sakura commands you. Release!"
The Key grew to its full size inside of Sakura's closed hand. Peeves was briefly concerned when Sakura started pulling out a magical item, but then the bright pink color of the Key did exactly what it was designed to do and masked the true power of the artifact from casual observation. Peeves disregarded the Key as a child's toy and continued his taunting of Sakura, holding the necklace as if it were some bait to be used in his attempts to fish for Sakura.
If Kaho had been around she might have been able to talk some sense into Sakura and keep her from using the cards in Hogwarts. If Keroberos had been around he might also have been able to dissuade Sakura by explaining the danger of using the cards out in the open.
However, neither Kaho nor Keroberos was present, and Sakura's vision was purely focused on Peeves. She would stop Peeves's torment and get back the gift that Syaoran had sent her.
Sakura reached into her robe pocket and blindly pulled the intended Sakura Card into her hand. She threw the card into the air, and chanted again in Japanese, "Dark, trap that evil poltergeist and hold him tight! Dark!"
Sakura slammed the Key through the air where it intersected with the boomeranging card. Both the Key and the card stopped in mid-air while the star on the head of the Key spun from the sheer force of magic flowing through it. Using such a high power card might have been considered too much in ordinary circumstances, but, in Sakura's opinion, this was far from ordinary circumstances.
Peeves looked down at his diminutive target in sudden worry. His dismissal of the vulnerable first year student quickly turned to fear as an inky blackness erupted from the end of the pink rod. It flew straight up towards him, engulfing him before he had a chance to react. He dropped the necklace he was holding in sheer surprise.
Sakura looked up in satisfaction as The Dark encapsulated Peeves in an orb of absolute darkness as if he was some rogue Clow Card. The sphere transcended a mere absence of light, transcended the color black, and almost seemed to transcended reality itself. It manifested itself like a two dimensional absence of content interposed onto a three dimensional world, as if somebody had taken a photograph and then pasted the blackest of papers over the section displaying Peeves.
Having experienced the same absence of everything herself, Sakura knew how scary being so absolutely alone and lost could be. Her satisfaction was slightly diminished when she heard from the center of the darkness Peeves calling out, "Hello? Anybody there? Professors! Help! Unauthorized magic!"
Sakura willed another card into her hand, threw it in the air, and chanted again in Japanese, "Silent, block this spirit and mute his voice! Silent!"
Sakura again channeled her magic through the Key, and, through it, the card. To Sakura's magical sight, she could see a feminine shape with a high-collared dark dress emerging from the card. The Silent then ran outward, encircling the darkness trapped Peeves. His cries abruptly ended as The Silent finished surrounding the hole of absent light floating in the air.
All around Peeves, he could only see pitch blackness. It was so dark he couldn't even see his hand in front of his face, and seeing how he literally glowed this classified as a very bad thing. He tried to move, but without being able to see and with walls not affecting him as such he had no idea if he was having any success. His cries for help had also ended, or at least he could no longer hear himself despite all his efforts to shout out, although it was hard to tell given his metaphysical state if he was doing it right without the feedback of sound to help him.
Without being able to touch anything, see anything, hear anything, Peeves was utterly lost. All he knew was that he completely and absolutely alone, and he didn't like that one bit. He tried to think of a way to get out of this predicament but drew a blank. He never thought for a moment that facing that little first year girl, who had run screaming from him for so long, would have resulted in this situation. He wasn't worried, though. Somebody was bound to find him eventually, and then they would certainly help him, wouldn't they?
Sakura looked above and watched the black absence of light slowly meander around. Her revenge complete, the haze of anger slowly melted away from her body.
She knelt down and picked up the necklace from where Peeves had dropped it on the ground. She quickly looked it over to see if the fall onto the hard stone had damaged it in any way, then breathed a sigh of relief upon confirming it was still in sound shape. Syaoran's gift being restored to her possession went a long way towards mollifying her.
It was only at this point that she noticed some movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked up and saw Lisa, Anthony, Wayne, and Gloria staring at her with a mixture of expressions on their faces, varying from Anthony's look of shock and possible fear to Lisa's look of admiration and wonder.
"Hoe?" Sakura asked surprised, than gave a tentative wave and said, "Hello."
It made for an almost comic scene, Sakura standing waving with a look of tentative nervousness on her face while a cloud of supernatural inky blackness drifted above her in a lazy circle.
Wayne was the first to speak, asking "What was that?"
"It's," Sakura struggled to think of something to say, "a toy. Yes, a toy."
"A toy?" Anthony asked. Then realizing something continued, "Wait a second, isn't that the same thing you used to make that cake on the train way back when?"
"I think so," Sakura said.
"I heard it was amazing but I had no idea. Brilliant toy. I'd love to be able to do that to Peeves, he drives me crazy," Wayne said, absently rubbing his nose and forehead.
Gloria and Lisa were listening carefully. They both were as curious as the boys were about this mysterious toy, maybe even more curious then the boys were, but dare not ask any questions themselves for fear of a giant fire-breathing lion eating them in their sleep. However, Wayne and Anthony were under no such limitations.
"Can I try it out?" Anthony asked, his hand reaching out for Sakura to hand the book and Key over.
"No, me first. I saw it first," Wayne said, his hand reaching out likewise.
"Ahh," Sakura said hesitantly.
"Come on, hand it over. Let us have a look. We're friends, aren't we?" Anthony asked.
"I'm not supposed to let others use it," Sakura said, clutching the book possessively and holding it close to her.
"Come on, just one time. It won't hurt anything. Who's going to know anyway?" Wayne asked.
"No, I really can't," Sakura said, shaking her whole body in rejection to the request.
"Aww, fine, stingy. Who'd want to play with your silly little toy anyway? It's all pink and girly," Anthony said, his face not quite agreeing with the sentiment he was saying.
"Where'd you get it from?" Wayne asked.
"Ahh, somewhere in Tokyo. I don't think you can get it here," Sakura said. It was literally true, even if misleading.
"What's it called? Can I get one?" Anthony asked, completely forgetting his dismissal just moments earlier.
"Ahh," Sakura stalled. She could tell it was going to be a long conversation and she was already regretting having used the cards like she had.
The five students walked down one of the corridor, with Anthony and Wayne taking turns asking Sakura questions in an attempt to find out more about the strange book and stranger pink cards it contained while Sakura did her best to avoid answering them and to end the interrogation.
Behind them Peeves, long forgotten by Sakura, continued to float in a befuddled lonely empty silent darkness.
Every Sunday, half of the Ravenclaw students would gather for a weekly trip through the halls of Hogwarts Castle. This wasn't so much an intentional gathering as much as a logistical necessity. Logistics dictated that if they wanted maximize their time in the library but still get to the Great Hall in time for lunch then they would all need to take approximately the same path and leave at approximately the same time. First one student would notice the time and get ready to leave, which would prompt three more to check the time, and, like an uncontrolled chain reaction, the library would suddenly be practically devoid of people.
Sakura was talking to Grey Lady about some great tournaments that Hogwarts had participated in in the past with these two other European schools when the wave of motion had swept past her and notified her of the time and more importantly of the pending meal. With a casualness borne of months of familiarity, Sakura and Grey Lady parted company, Sakura joining the exodus in the direction of food and Grey Lady searching around for any students who had decided to skip the meal in favor of staying in the library.
As Sakura left the library, the bottom fell out of her stomach. Right across of the hall stood Anthony. For a brief moment Sakura considered ducking back into the library, but before she could do so Anthony made eye contact with her. She was stuck having to talk to her friend.
Ordinarily she would have been thrilled to see Anthony, and indeed would likely have sought him out before leaving. That was before the events of the previous day, though. Sakura still felt burned out from the questioning she had received from him and Wayne and she really didn't want to deal with another question and answer session.
Sakura had been forced to endure several minutes of questioning by Anthony and Wayne after her encounter with Peeves. It had been tricky at times but Sakura had managed to end the interrogations without revealing anything too important. At least she thought she had managed to escape without revealing anything too important. Furthermore she had even managed to get them to agree to not spread rumors about the cards around either, although she wasn't sure how reliable their casually given agreements were.
The question and answer session could have lasted for hours except that Sakura had come up with an excuse that she had to meet with a professor and so was able to dodge away from the other four children. It was true that the professor had been Kaho, but it was equally true that Sakura had wanted to speak with her. As she had walked away, though, she had practically felt the eyes of Anthony and Wayne staring at her from behind her back as if trying to find some way to take the cards away from her. It had been bad enough when it had only been Lisa that Sakura had needed to keep an eye on. With the interest of the two boys and possibly Gloria as well, Sakura was starting to feel downright paranoid.
Her talk with Kaho had proved fruitless. Sakura had thoroughly expected to be scolded by Kaho for letting her emotions overrule her reason and carelessly being seen using the cards in such a flamboyant way. This scolding never came. Instead Kaho had lent an ear of sympathy to the distressed young girl. However, Kaho hadn't have any good ideas about what to do next either. Kaho could have had a talk with the children who had seen the cards being used, but that seemed very heavy-handed. Furthermore having an adult be visibly interested in the situation would likely cause more problems than it would solve. That was to say nothing of Peeves himself, too. If the poltergeist started talking about what he had gone through there was practically nothing anybody could do about it. In the end, Kaho's only advice had been to try and keep a low profile in the short-term and to be more careful with what she did in the future. Whatever else would happen would happen.
One minor consolation was that Lisa was practicing her charms together with Wayne today, so Anthony was the only person Sakura was inclined to worry about. Gloria still seemed as disinclined to have anything to do with the cards now as she had been when Keroberos had stared her down several months ago.
"Hey Sakura, there you are. I was wondering where you'd gone off to," Anthony said as Sakura left the library.
"Hello, Anthony," Sakura said back.
"Headed to lunch?" Anthony asked.
"Yes. You too?" Sakura asked.
"Yes," Anthony answered.
With their destination established, the pair walked towards the midday meal. While they were surrounded by several other Ravenclaw students who were sharing in the genial conversations of friendship, Sakura and Anthony themselves remained silent.
They were getting near to the Great Hall when Anthony finally turned to Sakura and said, "Say, I..."
That was all he got out before being interrupted by a scream from the front of the crowd.
"Come on. Just one kiss. See? He likes you," Peeves said.
"Eww, no way. Take it away," Su said from the front of the crowd, cutting through the conversations of everybody present.
Sakura and Anthony looked up, to see the familiar sight of Peeves hovering just ahead. He was holding something out to somebody.
"Get lost, Peeves," Thomas said.
"What's going on?" Sakura asked Anthony. Despite being relatively close to the front, Sakura's short height meant that she couldn't make out what was going on very well.
"It's hard to see, but I think Peeves is holding a toad at Su's face," Anthony said.
"And deprive Mr. Toady here? He only wants one measly kiss. If you kiss him, he might even change into," Peeves said before noticing Sakura talking with Anthony and shouting out, "Ahhh!"
The sight of Sakura brought back memories of the hours of terrifying boredom he had spent just the day before. Abruptly he turned around and flew off as quickly as he could, calling out behind him, "Well alright then. I'll just have to find another princess for Mr. Toady then. The Hufflepuff girls are prettier than you anyway, Su."
The gathered crowd of Ravenclaw students stood in nonplused silence for a few seconds. Eventually, Paul asked, "What just happened?"
"I don't know, but I want to find out. Peeves is never that easy to get rid of," Jeremy said.
"Yeah, what'd you do, Thomas?" Penelope asked.
"I don't know. I just told him to leave," Thomas said hesitantly.
"Are you sure that's it? You're not holding out on us or anything, are you?" Richard asked.
"How could I? You saw everything didn't you? I didn't do anything special, I think. How about you Su? Did you do anything weird?" Thomas asked, curiosity for a way to banish Peeves overriding his concern for how the first year student was doing.
"No idea, I'm just glad he's gone," Su said.
Slowly the group of Ravenclaw students continued on their way to the Great Hall, although everybody present resolved to figure out what exactly had happened. A way to drive off Peeves was worth its weight in gold, no matter what it was.
After the group was thoroughly on its way again, Anthony turned to Sakura and said in a low voice, "You know, sorry about yesterday. We've seen enough stuff in the inn that you'd think I'd have learned to mind my own business. If you want to keep that book of yours a secret that's your business. I won't go prying or spreading it around or anything."
Sakura was taken aback at this sudden assertion, but said, "Thank you."
"Still, seeing what just happened, I'm not sure how much longer it's going to be a secret for, what with Peeves acting that way. It won't take too long for people to put two and two together and figure out something's going on. That's assuming Peeves doesn't outright tell somebody himself," Anthony said.
"Do you really think he might?" Sakura asked, her concern from yesterday rearing its head again.
"I don't know. He seemed pretty scared a minute ago so maybe he won't. It's hard to say with Peeves," Anthony said.
"I hope he doesn't," Sakura said.
Despite the short interruption Peeves had caused, the group of students still managed to reach the Great Hall in time to take their seats before lunch began. In fact, they had arrived early enough that there was even time for Gloria, who arrived at a fast jog on her own after them, to join the pair as well.
"Whew, I thought I was going to be late. I really hate Professor Snape," Gloria said as she took a seat.
"Professor Snape? What did he do this time?" Anthony asked while Sakura made her customary preparations to eat.
"Oh, he accused me of cheating and getting unfair help. He made me go and remake a forgetfulness potion this morning. I swear that man is evil," Gloria said.
"Professor Snape did that? That doesn't sound like something he'd do," Sakura said as she loaded her plate with the various edible items that the house elves had laid out on the table between the students.
"As if he'd do anything to his favorite student," Anthony said, and then took a large bite out of a piece of bread.
"That's not it at all. Professor Snape is a nice person. He wouldn't do something like that," Sakura insisted.
"What's with you, Sakura? Every time Professor Snape does something you always defend him. I'm sorry, but making me spend a Sunday morning making potions just because I used some of Ron's ground aloe is not the actions of a 'nice person,'" Gloria said. She angrily stabbed her fork into her salad as she spoke.
"Ground aloe? What did you use ground aloe for?" Sakura asked, and then continued eating her salad in a much less violent way.
"Oh, you know, ground aloe? The fifth step of the forgetfulness potions. Grind some aloe, and then using your thumb and ring finger add two pinches to the cauldron," Gloria said.
"I don't remember that being part of making a forgetfulness potion," Sakura said.
"Are you saying that you forgot about the aloe?" Anthony asked.
"No. I just put dropped some aloe leaves into the cauldron," Sakura said.
"What? Whole aloe leaves? Why'd you do that?" Gloria asked.
"The instructions said to add some aloe so I did it, but after a minute it started to feel weird so I fished them out," Sakura said.
"And Professor Snape didn't yell at you or anything?" Gloria asked, shock clearly visible on her face.
"No," Sakura said.
"Maybe he didn't see you," Gloria said.
"I doubt that. Professor Snape watches Sakura the most carefully of all of us in class, especially when we're mixing potions. He never yells at her, though," Anthony said, exaggerating the truth but only slightly.
"Great. He makes me waste all Sunday morning and almost miss lunch for borrowing some of Ron's aloe, but you just drop some whole leaves into the cauldron and he's perfectly fine that," Gloria muttered bitterly, stabbing her salad with her fork one last time.
"Are you sure you didn't grind up your aloe? When we tested the potions at the end of class, yours was the strongest one, wasn't it Sakura?" Anthony asked.
"Yes I'm sure. I just threw some whole leaves into the cauldron, and then pulled them out after a minute or two," Sakura said.
"Weird. I don't know what you did, but you're lucky, Sakura. Neville in our class messed up his potion and it somehow turned his hair green," Gloria said.
"I'll tell you what, though. I could use some of that luck myself. It took me four tries to get my forgetfulness potion to come out right," Anthony said.
"Oh, what are you both planning after lunch?" Gloria asked, changing the subject.
"I'm going to go revise for that Herbology test coming up," Anthony said.
"I knew it. You Ravenclaws are always studying. I'll bet Lisa is off somewhere studying too," Gloria said.
"It's better than you Gryffindors, always flitting away all your time. Don't come complaining to me when you fail your Herbology finals," Anthony responded.
"Finals are still months away, and for your information we aren't just flitting away all of our time; we're out experiencing life. It's better than having your nose in a book all day. Life should be lived, not just read about," Gloria said.
"What are your plans for the day?" Sakura asked Gloria.
"Oh, I'm going to go practice my broom flying. It's only six months until next year's Quidditch tryouts, and there are still a few good hours of daylight left in the day today," Gloria said.
"But you were just saying that there's plenty of time before final, and they're a lot closer than next year's Quidditch tryouts," Anthony pointed out.
"That's different," Gloria answered back quickly.
"It's really cold outside too. Won't that make practice difficult?" Sakura asked. The Great Hall was warm enough, but the corridors of the hallways were still chilly even without the wind whipping outside the thick stone walls.
"It's not that cold in the sunlight. I'll just bundle up a bit more. Besides, if I get good now, when the weather turns nicer I'll be that much better," Gloria said.
"You're crazy," Anthony said, shaking his head.
"How are you going to practice? I thought you needed supervision to ride a broom," Sakura said.
"Oh, the Slytherin Quidditch team has the pitch reserved for practice, and my brother promised to let me sneak in," Gloria said.
"How are you going to do that? You'll stick out like a sore thumb with your Gryffindor colors everywhere," Anthony said.
"I thought of that too. I'm going to borrow one of his cloaks and scarves as a disguise," Gloria said proudly. "How about you Sakura, do you want join me? I can probably find another set for you if you want to come along."
"No thanks. I'm going to go double check that forgetfulness potion formula. I want to figure out what happened with my potion," Sakura said.
Sakura had no inclination to spend any more time on an uncomfortable and potentially explosive broom than she needed to, and being able to avoid the cold March day only made the decision that much easier. Besides that, what Gloria and Anthony told her about the forgetfulness potion formula really did worry her, and she wanted to figure out what exactly had happened with her potion earlier.
Last Updated: February 5, 2013