"I tried to think about rainbows
When it gets bad
You got to think about something
To keep from going mad"

No Doubt, "In My Head"

3

Library. Hesperian Institute. Tomoeda, Japan. November 2002.

Divination was normally Meiling's favorite class, but as she stared at her tarot card assignment, it seemed much less favorable than usual. Having just completed a unit on tarot cards, Professor Zechariah had provided each member of the class with seven three-by-five cards, all blank. It was on these that she was meant to design her own deck.

But what to draw? She could be completely unoriginal and draw a "standard" deck with cards such as "The Tower," "Six of Wands," or "The Sun." Or, she could make her own and obtain extra credit in Hiiragizawa's class. The latter option was more difficult, but it would be worth it. Ever since Meiling had discovered that Hiiragizawa was teaching Magical Art, she had put minimal effort into the class; as a result, her grade could seriously do with some improvement. Despite the fact that there was no need to obtain decent grades, she was still too proud to allow herself to fail a class.

The textbook was providing no inspiration, so Meiling stuffed it in her backpack, gathered the cards in her hand and wandered off to the art section.

As she browsed through the books full of renaissance paintings and Stone Age sculptures, Meiling found herself uninspired. The pictures were pretty to look at, but that was all they were—pretty pictures. There was nothing that she could base her tarot deck on.

She ambled past the shelves, hoping something would catch her eye. They were mostly stuffed with dusty old tomes that looked as if no one had ever read them. Meiling walked to the very end of the library, and decided to poke about the shelves there. Scanning the titles, she decided that this was the mythology section. Muggle mythology, to be exact. One book caught her eye.

But it was on the very top shelf, and looked to be slightly beyond her reach. Setting her stuff down on a nearby table, Meiling made her way back the shelf with the book (Muggle Greek Mythology) and stood on her toes, reaching for the book. It was still out of her reach. She jumped; yet she could not jump high enough. Balling her hands into fists, she glared at the book fiercely, forgetting for the moment that it was an inanimate object.

"You don't know how ridiculous you look," Hiiragizawa commented behind her.

"Shut up, you," she retorted, turning around to face him.

He shook his head mockingly. "That is no way to speak to a teacher, especially one who could be of assistance."

"Assistance? I don't need it," said Meiling defiantly.

Hiiragizawa gave a sly smile. "Are you sure, Li-san? You do need that book, and, seeing as you're too short to reach it…"

She seethed. "Then what do you suggest I do?"

He began to walk away. "The spell you need is accio," he called over his shoulder as he left. "And you're welcome!"

Meiling glared at him behind his back, but decided to try out the spell, despite the person who had provided her with it. She took her wand out of the pocket of her robes and pointed it at the book.

"Accio!" she yelled.

Nothing happened.

"Accio!" she tried again.

Not even a quiver.

"Accio! Accio! ACCIO!"

Her eyes began to widen in horror as every book the in bookshelf began to fall off the shelf—and right on top of her. Meiling ducked, but it was no use; the books continued to bombard her until she was lying at the bottom of a large pile of mostly old dusty tomes.

Less than a minute later, she heard quick footsteps headed her way.

Just what I need. Public humiliation.

To her tremendous relief, it was Sasaki who poked his head around the corner of the bookshelf. Unfortunately, his reaction was to burst out laughing.

"Shut up, Sasaki!" she hissed. "You'll draw attention, and I don't need anyone else seeing me like this!"

He stopped abruptly. "Need a hand?"

Meiling sent him an incredulous look. "Do I look like it?"

Sasaki took it as a yes, and silently offered her his hand. She grasped it and pulled herself up.

"So what were you doing here? I've never seen you at the library, not even the art section."

"Serving detention," he explained. "What were you doing here? And how did you manage to get buried in a pile of books?"

"I need extra credit in Hiiragizawa's class, and if I create an original tarot deck in Divination, he'll give me extra credit for it. I was looking for inspiration," Meiling replied. "But Hiiragizawa gave me a lousy spell to get a book I wanted on the top shelf."

He tsked sympathetically.

"And it didn't even work properly at first! I had try it five times before it worked!" she complained further.

Sasaki smirked. "Then it must have been a very difficult spell, since Li gets everything on her first try."

His taunt was half-true. In Charms, Meiling was Professor Niwa's star pupil—that subject came to her naturally. At the moment, she liked it better than she did Divination.

"Shut up," she repeated, though this time with less animosity.

After Sasaki had figured out what spell had caused the books to topple off their shelves, he and Meiling had found the counterspell in their textbooks (apparently, all she had used was a Summoning Charm). Exercising much more caution than she had before, she sent the books back (except for the one she wanted, which she checked out) and they left the library for dinner.

Outdoor Cafeteria. Hesperian Institute. Tomoeda, Japan. November 2002.

"Li, stop poring over that book! You're scaring me!" Sasaki complained. Meiling was eating at her usual steady pace, but in front of her was the library book, and it was open.

"But these pictures! I think I'll use them for my deck," she protested.

"Doesn't matter. You're acting like the nerds at that table." He gestured toward a nearby table where all of the students read during mealtimes.

"And you always act like those girls at that table." Meiling pointed to another nearby table of nearly anorexic girls who ate barely enough to sustain themselves, for fear of gaining weight.

He looked down at his plate. Meiling saw that it was nearly empty, yet she had seen him take only a few bites of food.

"I told you, I don't get hungry very easily," he said, albeit not convincingly.

"Sure," she replied sarcastically.

Sasaki sent her an unreadable look, pushed his plate away from him, then got out of his seat and left, leaving her there to stare at his empty spot.

Dorm C. Hesperian Institute. Tomoeda, Japan. November 2002.

Meiling was utterly confused by her surroundings.

Everyone here was dressed in robes, though they were all of different colors and materials. She herself was wearing golden robes of silk, sitting on a spiral staircase next to someone who looked suspiciously like Hiiragizawa. In the nearby corner, a silent and stony-faced Kinomoto-san sat in an ornate golden chair, speaking only to rudely refuse offers to dance. And the music was out of date by perhaps three centuries.

"Kitson, don't look so gloomy," said Daidouji as she walked up the corner where Kinomoto-san was sitting.

"Miyazaki, do I look as if I care?" Kinomoto-san replied with a calm exterior.

Daidouji shrugged. "You might. If you smiled more often, maybe then your fiancé might pay more attention to you."

Apparently, this had touched a nerve. Kinomoto-san stood up angrily, and pointing to the crowded dance floor, she declared hotly, "Leave. It may be your birthday, but I will not hesitate to hurt you. Badly."

The only thing that Daidouji did was to adopt a smug look on her face. "Touchy, are we?"

To Meiling's surprise, Kinomoto-san drew a real sword out of her pocket. She pulled it out of its scabbard, and the blade gleamed in the dim candlelight. "Magically enlarged pockets are useful," she remarked almost complacently, running her fingertip gently along the edge of the sword so that she did not bleed. Kinomoto-san pointed the tip of the sword in Daidouji's direction, right in front of her face. "Care to find out how?"

"Lightner!" Hiiragizawa hissed frantically. "Your father and mother will kill you for this!"

But Kinomoto-san did not move, only smirked, as the expression on Daidouji's face changed from haughty to fearful.

"Scared, are we?" she mocked.

"Lightner," Hiiragizawa repeated. "Put the sword away."

Kinomoto-san granted him his request, jamming the sword back into the scabbard, which went back into her pocket. "Leave," she repeated.

This time, Daidouji complied, leaving the three of them to themselves.

"You should really learn to control yourself," Hiiragizawa scolded. "That was most unwise of you. Had someone seen you…"

"I know," Kinomoto-san gave a weary sigh. "But she provokes me."

"What happened to you two, Kinomoto-san?" Meiling asked. "Just last week you and Daidouji were still the best of friends. And when did you gain a fiancé and a sword?"

Both Hiiragizawa and Kinomoto-san stared at her.

"Aello? Are you feeling all right?" Hiiragizawa asked hesitantly.

"Of course I am," Meiling replied dumbfounded. "But why are you calling me Aello?"

Kinomoto-san sent her a bewildered look. "Because that is your name."

Meiling fumbled blindly for her wand, being mostly without light, and upon finding it she whispered, "Lumos!" A tiny light shone at the tip of her wand, lighting up her bed area and casting shadows on the walls of the room. She saw that everyone, excluding herself, was asleep. Apparently, she had only been dreaming. But it had been such a strange dream…

Library. Hesperian Institute. Tomoeda, Japan. November 2002.

It had been a week and Sasaki still refused to speak to her.

Her criticism about his eating habits had offended him so deeply he acted as if she did not exist. If she tried to speak to him, he made no reply. When she entered a room he left it.

But he was just a silly boy, right? She was fine without him. Her tarot deck was nearly completed; all she had to do was add was the color. The only problem was how.

Being not much of an artist, Meiling had few art supplies. While she could have borrowed paint from Hiiragizawa, she still did not think much of him. And magic markers would look terribly inappropriate on her tarot cards. But they were all that she had. Just as she was about to surrender and just make do with the markers, Sasaki appeared.

"Accio!" The marker flew to Sasaki's hand. "You are not going to use magic markers on that assignment. I would never forgive myself."

He pulled out the chair adjacent to hers, and made himself comfortable in it, ignoring her stunned gaze. Out of his backpack came a set of watercolors. "I am going to teach you how to paint with watercolors," he declared. "But first, get me some water."

She had not realized how much she had missed her best friend. When she was younger she never had a true best friend—Syaoran was the closest. Even in Japan, her classmates were mere acquaintances. But here, she and Sasaki had spent most of their time in each other's company—up until a week ago. It was reassuring to have him back.

"They don't look half bad now," Sasaki assented. The two of them had spent the better part of three hours in the library; one hour for Meiling to learn how to paint with watercolors properly; two hours for her to finish the cards.

Meiling had decided to base her cards on the book that had caused her so much trouble to obtain. All seven of them each had an image of a Greek goddess, which had been difficult to draw, but the cards had turned out much better than she had expected them to.

"Thanks to you," she grudgingly admitted. "And I…I'm sorry about what I said. I didn't know it would affect you like that."

Sasaki shrugged. "You couldn't have known. Just…don't ask about it, okay?"

"As long as you don't collapse from lack of food, I won't," Meiling promised him. She wasn't willing to spend another week with her best friend giving her the cold shoulder.

Author's note:

I have no time whatsoever. But winter break is coming! I'll have more time to write then. Sadly, I've already begun to lose interest in this story, but I'm determined to finish it. It's going in a slightly different direction from what I intended it to.

About Eriol:

He teaches Magical Art in this fic because he's a good artist in the anime. There's an episode where Sakura and Eriol are drawing the same thing, and while Sakura's drawing looks like something a child drew (and she is a child), his is lifelike and gorgeous. I have a feeling that it's the Alice in Wonderland episode, but I could be mistaken.

On Accio:

Harry Potter didn't learn the summoning spell until fourth year. Since Hogwarts' system is slightly different, Meiling would learn it in her second year, since at Hesperian Institute they condensed seven years into four. She is currently a first year, despite being a ninth grader in real life.

On Reviewing:

Thank you to all who have reviewed so far. But if you're reading this, and you haven't reviewed, then I'd really like to hear from you. It's good to know what people think of this fic. I can't improve at writing if you don't tell me what I need to improve on, right?