Listen up. I'm seriously considering giving this up. I hate it, I really do. This is a really bad story, and revamping it really isn't helping it. I'm probably going to upload the other chapters with the main changes and start a new project. I've been doing this story for over a year now, and I'm sick of it.
Gimme a Hand, Hogwarts!
Chapter 3: Sisters and mothers and cupboards… oh my!
Ah, sweet cupboard. You are my only saviour. Shall I compare thee to the fire on a winter's eve, or thy darkness to my light of hope.
It's sad, but this is what my older siblings did to me.
Speak of the devil, here comes one now. Tip tap tip tap. Were all four of them born with high heels on? That must have been uncomfortable for mother. Perhaps I should go bake her something in pity once I get out of here.
Perhaps I was right last time when I said I should find a better hiding spot. They can't be silly enough to look this cupboard over, even though they are silly enough not to retrieve the enchanted map from the library.
Ooo! Lolly! Lime! I love thee sweet cupboard! Thy tender clothes caress me as thee offers me thy fruit.
Syaoran paused in his writing. Is this madness, he wondered. After giving a small shrug, he returned to his journaling.
Alas, fair cupboard, of late I have been spending much time on disloyal thoughts. Our meetings now are more panicked, and I fear that I may be discovered, and then I shall see thee no more.
Footsteps are drawing closer. Have they found me out? Am I to be returned to the hell that is the outside world?
"Xiaolang, this really isn't proper behaviour for the future leader of the Li Clan."
I have frozen in fear. Oh, cruel cupboard who shall no longer give me bliss, why, O why have you forsaken me? I was good to you; I gave you gifts, why then, have you
"And stop writing in that tattered old book."
Farwell, sweet cupboard.
"Get out of there Xiaolang and give me the book."
Syaoran, dignified future leader of the Li Clan, sorcerer extraordinaire, climbed out of the cupboard under the stairs and sulked.
He continued to do so until the alarms in his head started buzzing. He gave a hasty bow to his mother, grabbed his journal and bolted. Not a second to soon either, for the second he disappeared around the corner, the foulest, most terrifying creatures reached their mother. These atrocities, freaks of nature that could make grown men wet their pants each gave a squeal each more terrible then the last.
"XIAOLANG!"
"WHERE ARE YOU, XIAOLANG?"
"WE BOUGHT YOU HAIR CARE PRODUCTS!"
"HERBAL ESSENCE! OOOHHHH!"
The mother of the Li Clan extended an arm and pinched two fingers together, effectively grabbing a female ear. The female she had grabbed squealed before coming to a sudden stop.
"How many times must you be told, ladies? You shouldn't terrorise him."
The three girls not caught in their mother's grasp slumped. "But we want to meet Kawaii Sakura-chan again!"
Yelan Li raised a delicate eyebrow. "What brought this on, of a sudden?"
"Little brother was talking in his sleep."
"Mumbling, really."
Yelan pursed her lips in thought.
"Come daughters," she decided. "Leave your brother to himself. We have things to do."
Everyone was going mad. That was the only possible conclusion, according to the future Li Clan leader.
He looked around and ducked into a slender hallway. His mother passed me and went into the chamber before me.
He'd taken to creeping around corners in the middle of the night about three weeks ago. It was quite an exhilarating hobby, he had found. The thrill of being caught, the run, the … The…
He would have much rather walk through the hallways of the Clan Household confidently like he had four weeks ago, but in order to maintain any sanity, he had reverted to slipping into empty rooms for hours on end.
Why, anyone would ask if they cared to, would a young, healthy teenage boy want to be alone and not abusing his position in power?
Because people were looking at him funny.
He could imagine the weird looks he'd get if he confessed this to anyone. Great, they'd say, there's another loony Clan Leader on the way. I thought we'd be safe after Eric the Excentric.
(Eric the Excentric was Syaoran's Great Uncle. He'd taken the throne by default after an arrow had shot and killed Syaoran's Great-Grandfather. The Li family likes to pretend that Great-Grandfather had nothing to do with the assignation attempt and was instead just an unlucky victim. Eric had taken the throne and immediately set to righting problems that needed righting, helping the needy and finding a wife or four. He started this by giving Chickens the right to sue their keepers. After four months, the Chickens revolted after so many "revolting" jokes. Eric the Excentric was beaked to death.)
In any case, the looks he was receiving currently (having not told anyone that I was receiving them) were not "He's going mad" looks. Nor were they "Let's kill him tonight". They were what he had dubbed "Tomoyo" looks. That annoying look that screams I-know-something-you-don't-know-and-I'm-busting-my-gut-trying-not-to-laugh-at-you.
Syaoran was getting really sick of it.
The last time he'd gotten the looks from so many clan members was when the Elders were making arrangements to send him to Japan to look after the Clow Cards. Since he was on a much longer leash seven years ago, he had had the time to spend an hour or so trying to get the answer out of Kitchen hands.
Not surprisingly, it hadn't worked. The cook, he'd been told, has a sixth sense for taddle-tales.
He was getting worried though. Not just about the looks either, though that did imply that something big was on the horizon, but also because of the Elders. Traditionally, the Clan Leader in Training would train until his Eighteenth Birthday with Elders while his mother/aunt/sister(s)/cousin were off looking for an eligible, pretty, magical girl for him to spend his doomed life with. However, Syaoran's seventeenth birthday was not too far away, he was being let away from the Clan from September until the end of the School year to go to England and his sisters, who couldn't keep their mouths shut about gossip like what should be going on, were strangely silent.
It was too confusing.
His gut twinged when he thought of the arranged marriage. He was no longer marrying Meiling, so his Mother and sisters should be in an uproar trying to find a replacement. He couldn't get any information out of them either. His sisters knew nothing about the matter and he couldn't ask mother. She'd take it as a sign that he wanted to get married, and that was a risk that he was not willing to take.
Not that he's much of a risk taker anyway.
An Elder slammed the door in front of me and Syaoran almost jumped. He scanned the elder's body for keys, or any enlightening documents, but the Elder was one of the ones that did nothing and only helped to make up a majority.
Much like the Hufflepuff house, really, he thought cynically.
As the Elder closed the door, I felt the faintest trace of magic emerge from the room. So, he thought, they're doing magic. What a surprise.
Syaoran honestly couldn't remember when he'd gotten so sarcastic.
He was, however, certain that whatever was going on in that room, it involved him and his future. Most things in this household did.
Soon he'd be able to return to Hogwarts, where nothing revolved around him. He was able to fade into the background, only emerging every so often to sneer at something or give someone a detention for trying to break into his room. He could relax and keep an eye on Harry like he had for the past couple of years. Cast little barriers around him to stop Voldemort from getting him killed. Of course, a few little scars weren't life-threatening and it had been entertaining to say the least to watch that oaf Lockhart remove all Harry's bones.
It was Harry's fault for being too polite to him, anyway.
A servant walked through the corridor and he contemplated jumping out and demanding why they were here. This corridor was forbidden to Servants at the best of times. The problem was, that at that moment in time, it was also forbidden to Syaoran.
"Xiaolang-sama is getting very suspicious."
Riiight, thought Syaoran. He's talking to a wall.
It was a fairly attractive wall, covered in a tapestry of a group of men with a woman in the middle. It gave me a fright when the woman's mouth started talking and Mother's voice floated out.
"Naturally. Tell him that we are keeping an eye on the Wizards' foe. That should satisfy his curiosity. Tell him, we are concerned that the project he is committing so much of his time to is unworthy of him and that we are not to be disturbed. He is also to read "The Lord of the Rings" and devise a plausible excuse to tell Humans if a large eyeball were to come out of the sky."
Right, he thought, I'm going to believe that.
Since he doubted very much that his mother would tell a simple servant why they were in that room, he would assume that she was making it up. Then why were they really in there?
He also doubted that they had the slightest interest in what he'd been doing for the past four years. If he could only barely make out Voldemort's aura at the best of times, then he doubted they even knew the wizard existed.
I was just getting to the thought about whether Sakura or the mad man magician (aka. Eriol) could sense Voldemort when the servant asked a question that made him stumble.
"Is he granted the help you requested?"
'Pah', Syaoran thought cynically, 'it's probably an inspector from the clan. I wonder what they'll be helping me with. Oh no, maybe it's a prospective bride, and they'll stick us together in hopes that we become a little more then just friends. Oh mother, you wouldn't. I've always been a good son. I helped you clean up; I helped you ward off the four demons. I went to Japan when you asked me to. I was a good son. You know I don't want to marry anyone other then Sakura, please don't try. Not to your only son.'
"Indeed, it was,"
'No, I don't want to be married off to someone the Clan chose. It can't be that. The Elders KNOW that I'd run away. I'll go join a monastery, I'll renounce my title. I'll become a Eunuch! … No, I don't think I'll go that far. Never that far. Please, mother you can't have…'
"And how is she going?"
'You did! Mother! I don't need help in my love life! I need plane tickets!'
"She is even stronger then we thought. She detected our magic the second we started watching her."
'Oh mother, you can't of… Hang on. She's not in the Clan? Let's see, who else would they like that's not in the clan?'
"And you are now certain she returns our Master's regard?"
'Meiling's in the Clan, and she's the only female that I can think of with a drop of Li blood that I don't detest. So, that leaves all the females I met either in Japan or in England.'
The tapestry's smile widened. "We are positive of the fact. As to how she will react to seeing him again, we can only guess."
'Okay,' thought Syaoran, who was beginning to calm down, 'so I'm not marrying a stranger. I'd met her before, she must have magical blood, and the Elders know of her. It's either Sakura or a guy.'
With that lovely thought (And the traces of a mental image of Eriol in a wedding dress) Syaoran drifted back to his room. Alas, if he had only remained where he was for a minute more. The servant and Yelan Li finished their conversation, and, as the servant was turning a corner, Yelan spoke into the darkness.
"Li Sakura has a nice ring to it."
Right, that may be the last revamped chapter I can do. I suppose it depends on whether anyone still reads this piece of trash. If they do, then I'll work on this whenever I get really bored of everything else in the universe. If not, then this is going in the dung heap. Have a nice day.
Oh, by the way, it was double the length of the old chapter.