"Get away from me
This isn't gonna be easy
But I don't need you"

Counting Crows, "Have You Seen Me Lately"

4

First Year Boys' Dorm D. Hesperian Institute. Tomoeda, Japan. November 2002.

Daisuke felt himself falling asleep. His Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook was open to the section on artifacts of dark magic, and an essay he hadn't yet started on was due the next day—but he couldn't bring himself to write anything.

"Items of dark magic are used with an intent to harm, blah blah blah…" he muttered to himself as he scanned the section for anything interesting. Spotting nothing, he flipped through it until a certain page caught his eye.

There were several pictures on this page. The first one was of two tarot cards—one of them looked suspiciously like the cards Li had painted earlier that day. Another picture was of a man who could pass for Hiiragizawa-san, although the caption said that his name was Clow Reed. But what had really drawn him to the page was the last picture. Clearly, the caption read Aello Lasair Savill, but the girl in the painting was Li.

Of course, there were a few minor differences between "Aello" and Li. For one, Aello's hair was long and straight, her eyes were not red, but a warm hazel, and she looked older. Secondly, her frilly silver robes were fashionable—but only if she had lived three centuries ago. Daisuke wondered if Aello and Li were distantly related. He began to read the page.

Clow Reed (figure 7-4) created the powerful Clow Cards (figure 7-5) in the early 18th century, simultaneously creating a new type of magic that combined eastern with western magic. His closest friend at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Aello Lasair Savill (figure 7-7), created her own version of the Clow Cards. These were aptly called the Curse of Pandora (figure 7-6).

According to muggle Greek Mythology, the first woman was called Pandora. Out of revenge for Prometheus stealing fire from the gods and giving it to man, Pandora was presented to Prometheus' foolish brother Epimetheus to be his wife. She had also been given a jar (better known as Pandora's Box), and while she was beautiful and had many talents, she had a fatal flaw—curiosity. Under no conditions was she to open the jar, but she was desperate to see what was inside. Disregarding her instructions, she unsealed it, releasing the evil spirits inside that to this day plague mankind.

The Curse of Pandora consists of seven cards, each based on one of the spirits inside Pandora's Box. Unlike the Clow Cards the Curse of Pandora cards imitated, they were malevolent spirits that were able to inflict serious harm on humans and objects.

It is widespread belief that Rei Miyazaki destroyed the Curse of Pandora, but it is uncertain whether the spirits found new hosts or the threat is truly gone.

Daisuke took a quick glance at the clock on the wall. It was now nearly midnight, which was enough motivation for his lazy, procrastinating self to start working on that essay.

Magical Art Room. Hesperian Institute. Tomoeda, Japan. November 2002.

"You don't look so good today, Sasaki," Meiling remarked as her best friend stumbled into the classroom.

"Shut up," he snapped grouchily.

She was mildly surprised. Sasaki was normally an over-cheerful person whose lack of depression had been compensated for by a tendency to annoy others with his constantly jovial mood. Leaning towards him, she asked, "Is something the matter?"

He muttered something inaudible.

"Could you repeat that?"

"Li-san? Please refrain from talking during my class time." Hiiragizawa fixed her with a stern look.

Instead of looking sheepish, like most students did, she shot him a glare. He ignored her, although Meiling was sure he had seen her silent act of defiance. She still found little to like about him.

The lesson passed slowly. Hiiragizawa was showing them how to make motion paint, which involved a good deal of potions skill. Having little skill at concocting potions, Meiling botched hers up horribly, but not as badly as Sasaki did. His attempt had exploded, splattering most of the class with color.

Fortunately, Hiiragizawa was fairly lenient on Sasaki, cleaning the mess up himself and sending the poor teenager to the hospital wing. After the mess was cleaned up (whatever Sasaki had concocted, it was sticky), the lesson was nearly over.

"Those of you who did the divination extra credit, please come up to my desk," Hiiragizawa called out.

About two other people rose out of their seats. Hiiragizawa glanced over theirs, marked their grades in his grade book, and then waited in silence as Meiling fished her deck out of her bag.

"Here," she said once she'd retrieved them all, tossing them onto his desk seemingly without care.

His reaction was not what she had expected. "Li-san, did you copy these out of a book?"

"Are you accusing me of plagiarism?" Meiling demanded angrily. She'd actually put effort into this assignment, and he thought she'd copied it out of some library book!

"No. But please see me after dinner today," said Hiiragizawa. "And I'll be keeping these for now."

She turned around and stalked back to her seat, fuming. Now she had to waste even more time on this idiot?

Moonscape Cottage. Hesperian Institute. Tomoeda, Japan. November 2002.

"Please, sit and make yourself comfortable," said Hiiragizawa as he gestured to the overstuffed armchair facing across from his.

Meiling was mildly concerned for the state of his sanity, but said nothing, merely accepting his offer with her customary scowl.

"So, what tarot deck did I allegedly copy?" she asked abruptly, not wanting to spend all night sitting across from her least favorite professor.

Hiiragizawa ambled towards the large and overflowing bookshelf in the corner of the room, and pulled out a book titled Artifacts of Dark Magick, which was dusty and looked about a century or two old. As he flipped to the page he wanted, Meiling noticed that the pages were a shade of yellow that spoke of mustiness and age.

"This is the Curse of Pandora. Does it look familiar to you?" Hiiragizawa said matter-of-factly.

"What?" Meiling exclaimed in outrage, nearly leaping out of her seat. "They copied my deck! Those lousy—"

"You appear to be genuinely surprised, so I doubt you plagiarized. But that also spells bad news," he mused.

"What do you mean, bad news?" she sent him a questioning look.

"Read about the Curse of Pandora in your Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook," said Hiiragizawa, avoiding her question. "Then I'll answer your questions."

First Year Girls' Dorm C. Hesperian Institute. Tomoeda, Japan. November 2002.

Meiling did not immediately look up the Curse of Pandora. She did have homework from her other classes. But those assignments were finished quickly, and so she took out her Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook.

As she read, her eyes widened in horror. So this was what he meant by bad news.

She let a long string of curse words loose.

"My virgin ears," her dorm-mate mourned.

Syaoran's Apartment. Tomoeda, Japan. December 2002.

Syaoran had always known that Meiling could take care of herself. She was fierce and independent, with a bad attitude and martial arts skills that surpassed his own (which he grudgingly admitted). But his mother insisted that she was in trouble and needed his help. And being the clan matriarch, she had to be obeyed.

He still thought that it was a bad idea.

Meiling valued her independence. Despite having been extremely attached to him when they'd been younger, she did not appreciate feeling like she needed to be taken care of. So Syaoran was wary of her reaction to his presence.

But he could put that off until the next day. It was late, he was tired, and it would be a Saturday.

She doesn't have classes on the weekends, does she?

How could he have been so foolish? It hadn't been until just now that Syaoran had realized he had no way of contacting Meiling.

A phone would not work; even if there were working phones at her school, he did not have the number. Sending her a letter would take too much time. Did the muggle mail even reach Hesperian Institute? And the preferred method of communication among western sorcerers, by owl, was not an option either. Most people did not keep an owl as a pet, and Syaoran was one of those "most people."

Looking out the window, Syaoran could see two hills in the distance. One of them had an amusement park, bringing a flood of unpleasant memories back to the surface of his mind, but the other was empty and barren. Or so it seemed. He sensed a faint aura of Clow magic coming from the hill, a hazy and familiar gray.

Hiiragizawa.

Hurriedly putting on his jacket and heading out the door, he began to run—not quite sprinting but not jogging either—in the direction of the so-called barren hill. Syaoran was on the outskirts of the town when rather abruptly, an unknown magical aura flooded his senses with its sheer amount of power. Halting to a complete stop, he focused more intently on it, sensing that it belonged to a person. But to whom? Was this person the source of Meiling's trouble?

It was a dark shade of pink with a streak of…emptiness. Pitch-black wasn't quite the right description for it. There was a vague familiarity associated with the aura, but Syaoran could not think of anyone who fit its angst-ridden tones. Whomever it belonged to did not seem to be far away, so he headed in his or her direction.

Syaoran ended up at the edge of the "empty" hill. There were two girls walking ahead of him, going up the stone steps while talking in normal voices to each other. The one on the right, with long gray hair, had no magic. But it was to her auburn-haired companion that the strange aura belonged.

Cautiously and silently, he followed the pair, wondering if they knew of what was located on the hill. Using an eavesdropping spell he'd picked up while browsing through the vast library at home, he listened in on their conversation as he trailed behind them.

"—kind of sudden that he asked us to drop by today. I haven't seen him since…"

"…since when?" pressed the girl with gray hair.

"The end of August, I think, after that idiot managed to spill ice cream on me. I dreamed about the past. Eriol-kun didn't look too happy after I asked him about it."

So they knew Hiiragizawa, and presumably were making their way up the hill to see him.

"What happened in it?"

Her companion shrugged. "Nothing much. I didn't think it was very important. I did feel strange during it, though, as if it were a…memory."

By now they had reached the end of the steps, and to his surprise a tall, metallic black gate materialized. Soon after, the rest of Hesperian Institute came into view. Syaoran ducked behind the nearby shrubbery, hoping to conceal himself from their view.

"Hello, you two. I see you have company." A young man's voice called out.

"Company?" The auburn-haired girl whirled around, and to his horror, he could feel her eyes on him. After a few moments in which he could see her thinking furiously, she gave a bitter smile.

"Welcome back, Li."

Greenhouse 5. Hesperian Institute. Tomoeda, Japan. December 2002.

"Agh! Li, could you lend a hand?" asked Sasaki.

"What's the matter?" Meiling snapped at him, irritated.

The pair was serving detention again for disturbing the peace in the library. After reading about the Curse of Pandora in her textbook last week, she had gone to the library the next day to read more about it—Meiling hadn't particularly wanted to go back to Hiiragizawa's cottage. Sasaki had gone with her, having nothing else to do, and so he had been next to her when she had gone into hysterics.

This time, Meiling hadn't been at the edge of the library, so Ms. Okada (the librarian) had heard her. And not being very lenient, she had given both teenagers detention with Professor Kawano, the Herbology professor. Normally, they would have ended up working in the library, but Professor Kawano had needed help with the puffapod plants.

Each of them had been given a large wooden bucket, which were to be filled up to the brim with beans. They had headed to separate plants, snapping the pink pods off the plants and emptying the beans in the buckets for an hour, when Sasaki had asked her for help.

"I spilled a bunch of beans. Could you help me get rid of them? Kawano's going to be mad if she sees them."

Meiling turned around, noting that magnificent flowers that looked like chrysanthemums had burst open from the beans.

"After we're done filling up the buckets," she consented. She was almost done, and hopefully Sasaki was as well.

A few minutes later, when her bucket had been filled, Meiling carried it to the door and placed it next to it, where Kawano had asked them to leave the puffapod beans. Sasaki followed suit, and they went to retrieve the puffapod blooms.

"I think we should burn them," Sasaki suggested. "They only release their magical properties in potions."

"Yes, and we'll let the rest of the greenhouse catch on fire as well!" Meiling scoffed.

"We'll take them outside first."

Each of them grabbing half of the beans, gripping the puffapods by their lengthy, slender stems, they headed out of the greenhouse.

"Know any good fire spells, Li?"

Meiling gave an exasperated sigh.

Arcadia Pond. Hesperian Institute. Tomoeda, Japan. December 2002.

"Incendio!"

The puffapod blooms burst into flame, and turned into ashes in mere seconds.

"These ashes are kind of visible on this fake snow," said Sasaki.

"Shut up," Meiling retorted. "Let's see you try to get rid of them."

After wandering aimlessly around the grounds of the school, concealing the puffapods beneath their heavy jackets, they had ended up at the pond. It was a large one, but it still couldn't be classified as a lake. And while it did snow in Japan during winter, it was not supposed to be snowing today. Someone, mostly likely a third or fourth year student, had conjured up the snow as a joke.

"Maybe we could—"

"Hush!" she interrupted him. It felt as if there were someone nearby.

"What—"

Meiling clamped her hand over his mouth, effectively silencing him, and pulled them both behind a nearby snow-covered tree. She could now hear snatches of conversation.

"—surprised she hasn't killed me yet—"

"—doesn't have cards—"

"—lucky I am—"

The voices stopped abruptly. Meiling tried to breathe as quietly as she could. Sasaki wasn't a problem, as she was still stifling his speech.

"Hello there, Li-san, Sasaki-san. Care to join us?"

Eriol-kun had a real knack for spotting hiding people, Sakura thought as she saw a bedraggled and snow-covered Meiling-chan and an equally pitiful Sasaki-san come out from behind a tree.

"Eriol-kun, how do you always know when someone's hiding?" she asked.

"I am constantly reading auras," he said, "putting my abilities to good use." Eriol-kun sent her a pointed look.

Sakura ignored it, looking the other way at the eavesdroppers.

"Um…sorry for spying on you guys…we were…um…" Meiling-chan tried to come up with an excuse, but failed.

Tomoyo-chan smirked. "Having a romantic rendezvous?"

"Uh…yes!" Realizing her mistake, Meiling-chan flushed scarlet. "No, wait, no! Wait! Um…"

At this, Tomoyo-chan gave a high-pitched and evil-sounding laugh. She didn't quite sound like her usual self. "I'll not ask what you two were up to."

"Daidouji, are you feeling all right?" Li asked, looking mildly concerned.

"She's fine," Sakura snapped angrily. "Why do you care so much all of a sudden? Are you planning on scarring her for life too?"

"Calm down, Sakura-san!" She felt Eriol-kun's hands gripping her shoulders tightly, holding her in place. But he needn't have bothered. She was going to have her revenge on Li, but it wasn't going to be physical.

Well, maybe just a little. 

Author's Note:

I was really hoping that I could write more quickly and get this out earlier, but apparently not. Sorry it took me so long again. And the Tomoyo/Syaoran parts might not come for a few chapters, but now that Syaoran's back it'll come eventually.

On "Butterfly Collector":

The little portion in the beginning of chapter 2 is talking about how Sakura isn't good at magic anymore. It's not the song's true meaning, but those two lines fit somewhat. Emphasis on somewhat.

On Reading Auras:

People with Clow magic/eastern magic can do it, but it must be a conscious effort. Eriol does it, Syaoran does it, but Sakura doesn't since she doesn't use her magic very often anymore. She didn't detect Syaoran following them because of it. But she still has the ability, and she's still got a lot of power. She's only choosing not to take advantage of it.

On the Curse of Pandora:

I will try to sketch these sometime, so you can see what they look like. They function like the Clow Cards/Sakura Cards, but they don't look like them, more like tarot cards.

On Hesperian Institute:

I messed up. Originally, I had it so that anyone could see it, but the muggles stayed away because there are muggle-repelling charms everywhere (like the ones in GoF at the Quidditch World Cup). But then I changed that around in Chapter 2, without realizing it. So I'm just going to claim that muggles can see the school, but people with non-western magic can't. In case you're wondering, it doesn't make any sense to me either.

On Tomoyo's Evil Laugh:

She's got a laugh like that in canon. In the second movie, as she's talking to Kero-chan about how she made excuses for the costumes in the movie she made, she gives an extremely high-pitched laugh. Kero-chan comments that he never knew she was so bad.