Hello. This is coming to an end soon. There are only a few chapters left. *Jinko Kawaii tires her best to mop up the last ocean she created*

Disclaimer: NOT MINE!!!!!!!! *Jinko cries ANOTHER ocean to replace the one that she mopped up*

A New Riddle

Chapter 15

The Ball Announcement

Harry got up from his bed in the medical ward and looked around. The pain from his scar was so bad that he had been knocked unconscious.

 "Harry! You're awake!" Kayne cried and hugged him. "We were all so scared. You just fell and-and, oh, we were terrified. Ron and Hermione have gone off to dinner. You were out of it for so long. Madam Li said that she has an announcement. Come on, before we miss it."

Kayne dragged Harry out of the bed and down to the large dinning room. Panting, they both took a seat at the Gryffindor table.

 "Despite rumours, Lord Voldemort has not come to China. He is well away from this castle and shall remain far away from here. There is nothing to fear." Dumbledore said to the whole school. "Now, Madam Li wishes to say something."

Yelan stood and her daughters and Nakuru squealed lightly, knowing what was happening. "Every year, my family celebrates the day that Clow Reed, my ancestor, defeated Ayane Tale with the Clow Cards. This year, we want to celebrate with the whole school by having a ball-a dance." Giggles came from most of the girls, like Sakura, Tomoyo and Kayne, and they started to look around the room for the special guy, most of the boys groaned, like Harry, Ron and Syaoran did, while the others, including Eriol, looked for the girl they wanted to dance with. "But," Yelan continued after the chatter and giggles died down, "this year, you will not choose, but instead pull a name from a hat, boys' choice." A large groan came from both genders and they all looked at the people that they wouldn't want to be with. Most of the boys looked at either Hermione or Sara with detest.

 "Ugh, I'll probably get stuck with Neville again." Kayne whined to Harry who chuckled.

 "Knowing my luck, I'll be stuck with Sara." Harry groaned back.

 "She's not that bad."

 "Riiight."

 "I am right."

 "We already have the names of all the females, which have been sorted into seven groups, one for each year level. The boys will come out in alphabetical order and pull out one name, whether if they like the person or not." Yelan said.
 "That's leaving me the last pick." Ron muttered on the other side of the table from where Harry and Kayne were sitting.

 "And everyone has to be involved with this." Yelan informed them, though it seemed more like informing Sara to everyone. Yelan was staring right at her. Sara rolled her eyes, but kept them at the table in front of her. She was already feeling weaker, as if her cards had been taken as far away from her as possible.

~*~

 "Can you wait for the ball?" Fuutie asked Sakura as she walked to her room, which was near the Gryffindor rooms.

 "I wonder who I'm going to be partnered up with." Sakura wondered. "This will be my first dance."

 "Really?" Sheifa asked.

 "Yeah. For all of us." Tomoyo agreed. She was taking the long way to the Hufflepuff rooms.

 "I hope you're with Eriol." Kayne said, looking forward at the boys who were walking faster then usual, not wanting to talk to the girls about this matter.

 "Well I hope you're with Harry."

 "Not as much as she does." Meilin, who was with them, too, laughed.

 "I do not. He's just a friend. Hermione, who do you want to be with?" Kayne asked, hopefully changing the subject.

 "I have no idea. Maybe Syaoran. He's not bad." Hermione giggled, purposely getting Meilin revved up.

 "OH NO YOU DON'T!! Syaoran is Sakura's!!!!!" Meilin yelled. The girls all saw Syaoran's back tense before Eriol who started chuckling hit him on the back. Tomoyo quickly ran up to Eriol, pulled on his arm and whispered something to him quickly. He chuckled and whispered something back.

 "That's perfect." Tomoyo chimed, her eyes all starry.

 "Oh, come on. You can let me in. You know I forget the passwords." Neville's voice was heard as he pleaded with the Fat Lady guarding the Gryffindor tower when she wouldn't let him in.

 "I've told you Neville. No password, no entry." She retorted.

 "Oyasumi nasai, Sakura-chan." Tomoyo said and keep walking to the Hufflepuff rooms. "Oyasumi nasai, everyone."

 "Oyasumi nasai." Sakura, Syaoran, Eriol, Meilin and Naoko said as they all took their parting ways.

 "Goodnight, I think." Harry said.

 "That's right." Sakura said. "Do we have any homework?"

 "The usual from Snape."

 "But I don't want to." Kayne whined and then looked at the portrait. "Sakari Sheira."

 "Okay." The Fat Lady said and swung open.

 "It is never going to stop surprising me, that." Sakura said in awe.

 "You get used to it. Um, my counterpart wasn't too sure about it either." Eriol said. "Especially that page, that Cadogan guy."

 "He's a Sir now." Harry said.

 "Things change. When, uh, when he was here, there were three headmasters instead of one, Gryffindor, Slytherin and Hufflepuff. Ravenclaw died of old age before he went there."

 "He?" Hermione asked. "Who's this counterpart?" Eriol paled. He had never thought that she would have asked.

 "He's my, he's my-" Eriol started.

 "Eriol has a multiple personality disorder and his counterpart has lived for over a hundred years." Kayne said. Syaoran snickered.

 "Riiight. So it was Eriol's counterpart that tried to kill Sakura all those years ago." He scoffed. Eriol glared at him. "No, it would have been Eriol trying yo kill her. It was Eriol's counterpart that was stopping him from doing so."

 "If I were you, my counterpart's cute little descendant, I'd shut up before you tell anymore."

 "Oh, Eriol can't call me his cute little descendant anymore because they'll find out." Syaoran said in Japanese.

 "Shut up, Li."

 "My, my, Hiiragizawa-kun, I thought we were actually on a first name basis, or are we going back to Japanese?"

 "Descendant…" Eriol threatened through gritted teeth.

 "I'd say no more if you don't want the English students finding out."

 "That's enough, boys." Sakura said, standing between them. "Now, Eriol, talking about your counterpart, Tomoyo thinks that she might have something to do with your counterparts' life, regarding an old friend with the initials AT."

 "AT, AT, why is that so familiar?" Eriol started pacing around the room, his hand rubbing his chin. "AT, AT. Can I have a hint?"

 "She was shot."

 "But guns and cannons weren't invented back then."

 "Then what else shoots things?"

 "I don't know. Who shot her?"

 "Shot."

 "What a funny name."

 "Sakura, your otousan must have gotten all the brains." Syaoran groaned. "Think back to a war that happened, now think of thing of fifty-two things that your counterpart created, go down the list alphabetically until you get to the thirty-seventh and you have it."

 "You mean she thinks she's Ayane Tale's reincarnation?" Eriol asked in Japanese.

 "Hai! Finally!" Syaoran laughed.

 "Congratulations. You worked it out." Sakura said, sarcastically.

 "I'm not that bad. So, when did she tell you?"

 "When she was in the medical ward."

 "Did you guys see Sara at dinner? She seemed so tired. I hope she's okay." Kayne said, apprehensively.

Hermione took out her books and started on her Arithmancy homework.

 "You really should do Divination. It is starting to get interesting." Harry told her.

 "I'm sorry, but I really have no time to talk, Harry. I'm less then one hundred pages ahead." Hermione said in a rush.

 "Oh well."

 "I wonder if Tomoyo is going to make my dress." Sakura wondered aloud and picked the sides of her cloak up as if it were a dress and danced around.  Kayne giggled and joined her.

 "What will I wear?" she asked.

 "Tomoyo will make you a dress, any bet, or maybe we can wear the same dress that we wore to her birthday."

 "I am not wearing those dress robes again." Ron demanded to himself.

 "My mother will probably want to make me wear something that dates back far too many years. It'll probably have been Clow Reed's in the first place." Syaoran groaned.

 "How bad can that be?" Eriol snapped. "He had a good fashion sense."

 "Sure, that's why you wear that uniform with that crappy hat." Syaoran snickered in Japanese.

 "It's better then what Sakura wore everywhere." Eriol said in English.

 "Tomoyo made them, for your information!" Sakura yelled. Eriol looked down as if he was ready to sink to the floor.

 "Oh, you made Eriol feel bad, Sakura." Kayne giggled before Harry swung her around as he danced with her to unheard music. Ron and Hermione, who had actually looked up from her books, stared at the two in shock.

 "Have we missed anything?" Ron whispered to Hermione.

 "I think so." Hermione said.

 "Harry and Kayne."

 "Kissing in a tree."

 "K.I.S.S.I.N.G." three voices teased, the first two were very much alike and the third was the Quidditch commentator.

 "Hey Fred, George and Lee." Eriol greeted them. He had gotten used to them and their tricks. Lee had fed him a Canary Cream the first night he stayed there. He smirked as the three stopped in the middle of their stride and pink goo, much like Ron's 'pear' in Transfiguration, started to slime its way up their legs.

 "What the heck?" George asked as the pink blob reached his thigh.

 "You really should have watched your goblet when Madam Li announced that you could be put with anyone. When you were staring at the girls that you wouldn't want to be with, I slipped in a little bit of my favourite potion. Okay, a little bit more then a little big, considering I had a full bottle and I don't have any left now. I'm afraid you won't be able to move for a few minutes, though. That blob'll set as hard as rock." Eriol announced. "I really hate birds."

 "Weekend tomorrow! Finally." Sakura said, changing the subject.

~*~

 "Are you okay?" Mana asked Sara as he rubbed a massage turtle the size of him over her back.

 "I'm fine. I'm just sending out more of my magical energy, that's all. I'll be fine."

 "Wow, you didn't even yell at me."

 "Do you want me to hurt you?" Sara asked, sitting up from her lying down position on her bed. She rolled her head, cracking her neck in multiple places. "Thanks. Do you think Malfoy could've taken them? He was gone when I woke up."

 "I don't know. It's really weird. Who-who would have put you to sleep?"

 "I'm not too sure. I think he also put Malfoy to sleep so maybe it wasn't him."

 "Do you have any homework?"

 "I've done it all."

 "Then go to sleep. You'll need all the sleep you can get, especially now that all your cards are gone."

 "Whatever." Sara said and walked into the bathroom after grabbing her pyjamas. She came out and crawled into bed. Man made sure that she was tucked in tightly before he blew out the candles that were lit around the room. Dumbledore had dropped in over the week and created a fireplace to warm up her room, like all the other students had one in their common room. He kept that lit but flew to the desk where Sara had made a little bed for him out of the robes that McGonagall had given her to wear to her classes.

~*~

 "She is growing weaker." Lucius said to Voldemort. He had been watching her from a tree near her window.

 "Is it hurting her? I will come for her once Cornelius leaves, just like I told the orphanage." Voldemort replied.

 "No. She's just sleepy."

 "Has Draco been sent the letter?"

 "Yes. He'll get it tomorrow."

 "Good."

 "I have heard that Cornelius Fudge will be around for the ball that Yelan Li will be putting on. It's not for another week. Do you think she'll last that long?"

 "I hope so." Voldemort said. Then he noticed a light from the dinning room, where the names were placed. There were seven hats, each one labelled with the year level. "What's going on?"

~*~

A shadow ran from his Gryffindor room to the dinning room and then to the hat labelled Year 5. He pulled out his wand and waved it over the hat, muttering 'Syaoran picks Sakura' and then took off, but ran into something hard and taller then him, knocking him over.

 "What are you doing here, Hiiragizawa?" the larger person demanded.

 "I'm just-wait, what are you doing here?" Eriol asked Syaoran.

 "I sensed you out here and decided to come out."

 "Well, lets go back."

 "I just want to do something."

 "Like?"

 "Don't worry yourself about it." Syaoran sneered and continue to walk to the hats when he was sure Eriol had left. He pulled out his own wand over the Year 5 hat and muttered 'Eriol picks Tomoyo'. He ran off, catching up to Eriol. Just as he did, they both sensed a purple aura in the dinning room.

They heard a shriek after a loud bang like firecrackers and a usually calm voice yelling at 'pinging' lights.

 "You stupid piece of-hmm, Eriol." Tomoyo muttered once feeling Eriol's aura. She waved her wand over the hat again and said "Harry picks Kayne."

 "Tomoyo's after her 'kawaii moments'." Eriol chuckled.

 "Typical." Syaoran groaned. "So who did you curse?"

 "You and Sakura. You?"

 "You and Tomoyo."

 "Ah, and she did Harry and Kayne…"

 "Draco picks Sara. Ron picks Hermione." They heard Tomoyo say, too.

 "And Draco and Sara." Syaoran muttered.

 "Plus Ron and Hermione. Don't you think the staff would worry? Your mother will sense our powers at work."

 "There will be too many to pick out just one."

 "Right." Eriol smiled.

~*~

Everyone sat at their table, eating their dinner when two owls could be heard. Everyone looked up in shock. The owls never came at night. One owl landed on the table in front of Draco while the other was a large snowy owl, Sara's large snowy owl, which had never brought her anything but a dead rat.

Sara was shocked to see her owl, Blizzard, fly in through the large window and land on her shoulder, dropping a small, thin present on her lap. When she opened it up she saw a small replica of the Death Card. On it was a note. 'This could come in use very soon-Dad.'

Sara jumped back, looking at the note, rereading it.

Draco, on the other hand, was quite pleased with his letter.

 "What ya get?" Pansy asked, looking over his shoulder. He snatched his letter back, knowing that if it was from his father it had to either have privet family notes or even more privet Voldemort notes.

 "What's it to you? It's probably just stupid stuff about mum and Amy and how Amy's still alive."

 "So why aren't I allowed to look at it?"

 "Because I don't want you to." Draco said playfully. Sara, who was walking past them to go to Dumbledore, hit them both on the head on her way.

When she got there, she threw her 'present' down on the table before Dumbledore.

 "What's wrong?" he asked.

 "I was ambushed yesterday. They put me under a sleeping spell then proceeded to take my cards. Then I got this via owl." Dumbledore read the letter over to himself then handed it to Yelan. Once she read it, she handed it along the table to everyone else on the table. Dumbledore stood up. (A/N: Cornelius had left. Voldemort doesn't know that yet.)

 "Excuse me, students. I'm afraid we will not be having your usual weekend celebrations. No one is allowed outside, and I mean no one," Dumbledore said, eyeing Harry, knowing about his Invisibility Cloak and his reputation for breaking the rules. Groans erupted from the students while Sara walked back to her seat. Draco was happy that Pansy was now too angry to bother about his letter and read it, a smirk printed on his face once he was finished. "We have some disturbing news that will be a danger to the students at the school. Now, no one is to be alarmed. With Madam Li and her helpers here, we will be all right."

 "Is it He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" a small boy asked.

 "I'm afraid so." Yelan stated and stood up, too. A few screams came from the students; Neville paled and fainted while some were too stunned to do anything. Dumbledore, though, glared at Yelan.

 "That's a perfect way to keep the students calm, Yelan. Now, as I said, Madam Li, Yue and Nakuru are more then enough for Voldemort."

 "Everyone is to stay within the castle for the rest of the weekend. Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures will be postponed though everything will be the same. We will still have the ball at the end of the week. Any students caught outside without a supervising teacher, helper or without my family," Yelan said, looking at Syaoran, seeing if he had picked up her mistake, which he did. Most people only knew that Fenren, Sheifa, Fuutie and Feimei were her offspring and hardly knew of Syaoran or that Meilin was her niece, "Will be punished. I'd say a good five hundred points from their house would be sufficient. I would appreciate it if this message was passed to poor Mr. Longbottom. And Sara, a word please?" Yelan got up and started to walk up the stairs to her office. Sara rolled her eyes and followed.

~*~

And hour later, Sara walked out of Yelan's office. She was to stay in the castle and was never to be in her room all by herself. Dumbledore had told her that as all the teachers had joined the meeting. She was to sleep in the dinning room like everyone else had to and she had to be accompanied by Yue or another professor that could easily fend off a spell. When she got to the dinning room, there was at least seventeen different groups of students huddled together, drinking the red potion that saved them from the Cruciatus Curse and the Imperius Curse. They had also brought down with them their luggage and a pillow and a few blankets. Some of them had already made a little tent out of blankets and were set up in little spots; Sakura, Tomoyo, Naoko and Meilin included. Kayne was sitting with Hermione and some other girls, hating it how the girls started to talk in Japanese about what Dumbledore had said to Cornelius the day before. Syaoran, Eriol, Harry and Ron had decided to sit with each other, being too 'manly' to sit with the 'girls'.

 "So what's the story with Eriol? Full blood wizard or Muggle?" Ron asked.

 "I'm a full blood sorcerer." Eriol bragged.

 "And what's up with your multiple personality disorder?" Harry laughed, knowing very well what it was, but trying to get them in trouble.

 "Eriol-sama has no such disorder!" Nakuru piped up from behind them. She got a glare from Eriol, telling her not to tell. She smiled. "He's just special. Now, Eriol, you know how much I love you, right?"

 "What do you want?" Eriol groaned.

 "Well, you know how I cut my hair and all?"

 "Yes."

 "I want it long again. Tomoyo just told me that her mum's growing it out all long. The way that I used to have it is the fashion back in Japan these days. Did you know that they built a theme park over our old house? They just bulldozed our perfect mansion where Sakura-chan started her acting career from and built a theme park over it!" Nakuru said with tears in her eyes. Eriol groaned again and waved his hand at her. Her hair grew back down to her original height and she smiled widely, losing her tears. "Arigato Eriol-sama." She said and hopped back to Syaoran's sisters.

 "What does this Eriol-sama mean?" Ron asked.

 "Never mind." Syaoran said. "Eriol would have put it in the most untrue sentence."

 "Not true!" Eriol snapped. "I am merely her watcher."

 "But you look at least ten years younger than her." Ron said.

 "Just like the reason why Kaho left." Eriol groaned.

 "Kaho?" Harry asked.

 "His ex-girlfriend." Syaoran informed them.

 "Oh."

 "So is there anything between you and Tomoyo?" Ron asked.

 "Not-not that I know of. Has she said anything to you?" Eriol stuttered while blushing.

 "I never knew Hiiragizawa blushed." Syaoran snickered. He was hit over the head quickly.

 "Baka! What would you know?" Eriol asked and chased him around the room, not even noticing when they almost knocked over Sara.

 "Go Syaoran!" Meilin called out.

 "Go Syao-kun!" Sakura joined in.

 "Come on, Eriol!" Tomoyo yelled, making Eriol blush even more.

 "Tomoyo! Since when were you interested in Hiiragizawa-kun?" Naoko gasped.

 "NANI?"

 "Why are you going for Eriol?"

 "Why would I go for Syaoran? He made me break so many cameras."

 "Well, one time was caused by Eriol." Sakura said.

 "But Syaoran did it."

 "Tomoyo, Eriol had him under a spell. He had no control over himself. He told me to get away, remember?"

 "But Eriol was trying to help you transform the cards."

 "That probably was his counterpart. Eriol is just evil."

 "He is not."

 "Eriol and Tomoyo make such a perfect couple, huh?" Meilin asked Naoko quietly.

 "About as cute as Sakura and Syaoran." Naoko agreed.

 "We are not!" Tomoyo objected.

 "Syaoran and I are not cute!" Sakura protested.

 "Yes you are." Naoko said.

 "You just don't know it yet." Meilin said, but then looked over to the staircase once she heard a loud noise from it.

~*~

Sara was leaning against the wall, not being able to stand for herself. She was getting weaker and was feeling every bit of it.

 "Are you okay?" she heard someone ask, but was completely shocked when she saw Draco standing next to her, offering his hand.

 "Like you care." Sara said, glaring at his outstretched hand and got up by herself.

 "I got a letter from your father today. He explained that you're the Card Keeper of the Ayane Cards and that because he now has them, you'll get weaker."

 "So?"

 "This is to keep you away from Fudge."

 "Well he should have just told me not to show up when I'm around him. Don't you have anything better to do?"

 "I was told to look after you."

"Well good for me." Sara snapped sarcastically and started to walk away.

 "Where are you sleeping?" Draco asked, following her.

 "Far away from you."

 "Very mature."

 "Why do you feel that you have to watch me?"

 "Because our fathers told me to."

~*~

Darkness surrounded them once all the candles had been put out, though Sara stayed awake. She looked around. All the people guarding were still standing around. To her left, she saw Dumbledore who was talking to Yelan and by the doors stood Yue.

Just as Dumbledore turned to leave Yelan, a loud bang was heard from the other side of the doors that Yue was guarding. All of the students jumped awake, some knocking Sara as they did, and half of them screamed.

 "Is it him?" a little kid asked, as did many others. A second bang had the professors standing by the door. The students were counted, finding that all but one was there.

 "Who's missing?" Dumbledore demanded.

 "The little Japanese girl with the glasses. Oh, no! Looks like we'll never be seein' her again." Peeves laughed.

 "Naoko! She is missing!" Meilin cried, looking around. Naoko was next to her when she fell asleep.

 "That's the one that's your cousin, right?" Ron asked Harry, who had turned white, though his scar was hurting like hell. He usually got dreams when Voldemort killed someone, but he didn't have one, so Naoko would have to still be alive.

 "She's still alive." He announced.

 "What would you know, Potter?" Draco sneered from next to Sara. She hadn't even noticed that he had run next to her after the first bang. Sara hit him on the side of his head. Sara stood up, but fell almost immediately for she had not got any sleep that night. Draco caught her before she reached the ground.

 "Sara!" Kayne screamed and ran over to the two. "I-is she alright?"

 "Just unconscious."

 "What about Naoko? Sara isn't the problem here!" Meilin shouted and cried into her hands. Tomoyo ran over to her and wrapped a comforting arm around her.

 "We'll find her, don't worry." Tomoyo cooed. Sakura got up and walked over to Yue.

 "Voldemort doesn't have an aura. He mustn't be so powerful." He said in Japanese.

 "I know, but what if he's with Jintaro? We have been feeling his presence a lot and when we do, Harry's scar hurts."

 "That could be a problem."

 "And Sara is very weak. Why would she just faint like that?"

 "She could be using more magic to sustain Jintaro if he's more active these days."

There was another bang and the doors swung open. Naoko was thrown inside, though whoever threw her wasn't seen. She landed hard by Professor McGonagall's feet.

 "Naoko!" Meilin cried and ran forward, not even caring that she almost knocked over Draco, who was standing up with Sara limp in his arms. "Will she be okay?"

 "I think so." McGonagall said, inspecting her. She found a letter tied to Naoko's hand. When she opened it, she saw a bone white face surrounded by a black hood. It was a moving photograph and she gasped when the face opened its red eyes. Harry's scar instantly started to hurt even more. Then, on the letter, gold writing appeared underneath the face. She paled after reading it. "Albus, h-have a look at this." She stuttered. Dumbledore read it to himself and immediately looked over to the boy that this letter was addressed to.

 "What?" Draco asked.

~*~

Wooo, what did Voldemort send Draco? –Jinko.