Title: Letters to No One
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I don’t own Harry Potter; I don’t own Gundam Wing, and I’m sure I’ve seen this idea somewhere else, (I think one was Harry/Draco and the other Sirius/Remus) so I don’t own the basic plot, either. The only original biggie plot type thing in this is that the relationship between the writers is completely platonic.
Summary: Harry needs a diary, Heero needs a shrink, and Hedwig likes stirring up trouble.
Warnings: Spoilers for the books and the series, swearing (who didn’t see that coming?), character death (ones that were in the books and series), and a too smart Hedwig.
Timeline: It starts towards the end of Harry’s fourth year and after Heero and Trowa begin the search for Noventa’s family. It skips around a lot, and the timeline of the Gundam Wing series and the Harry Potter books have been shifted around some so everything fits.
Characters/Pairings: Heero, Harry, Cho, Relena, Petunia, Duo, Wufei, Quatre, Trowa.
Author’s Notes: This Cho knows the importance of keeping secrets, even from friends and family. I’m going to try to keep her as close to her canon self as possible while adding this into her personality.
Chapter Notes: This chapter has quite a bit of filler. Interesting filler, but still filler.
Letters to No One
Part 2/?
Um...HI?
Heero doesn’t use names usually, but I think I know who you are. He mentioned you in his last email. He did tell you he’s been attending school under your name, right?
As for what he was talking about, do you believe in magic? Wave a wand, say some messed up Latin, and something happens kind? Because that’s what he meant.
You see, I go to a boarding school, Hogwarts, for witches and wizards. I’m getting ready to start my fifth year there. I’m not sure how to explain it...Except for the classes, I guess it’s just like a non-magical boarding school. There are seven core subjects: Astronomy, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, Herbology, and History of Magic. The electives to choose from are even stranger: Arithmancy (I was thrilled to discover mathematics was an elective, regretting not taking it now), Ancient Runes (magical languages), Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Muggle Studies (that’s where witches and wizards learn about non-magical people and technology; according to Hermione, it’s not a very good course), and Flying (though that’s only for part of the first year.).
Before you say anything, Heero’s already given me the lecture about how unbalanced of an education that is and that any wizard won’t be able to survive in non-magical societies. I know, and after being subjected to an angry Heero, I wrote a professor from school. He says the muggle studies teacher can arrange for a student to continue their muggle education, but the professor told me the students who choose to do this are required to buy their own books and teach themselves—the professor simply oversees the exams. I’m trying to convince my godfather to let me leave so I can visit the bank and see if I can afford to do it before owling the school for more information...
Sorry about the info babble. Heero did rant a bit when he found out I spent a good deal of time last year learning how to change kittens into puppies and nothing he considered important, and I’m hoping you won’t do the same...Please? I’ll answer any questions you have if it means I can get out of another lecture.
Anyway, I am free to talk for another few hours if you’re bored enough. My godfather won’t come storming in here for at least three hours. He’s drunk at the moment and my fight with Hermione has scared everyone else off...please write back. I’m worried about Heero. He never just says he’s going on an assignment. He always gives me an estimate of how long it’s going to take and when he might write back to me.
Harry
Duo’s first response was to hit Google and search like crazy. He covered everything from mental disorders to new street drugs to strange chemicals being released into the colony’s air to see if Heero and this Harry kid were insane. Then, when he found nothing beyond the rumors he already knew of and didn’t apply, he entered the name of the kid’s school into the search engine.
He hit pay dirt.
Duo’s jaw dropped at the number of results the word Hogwarts produced. There were hundreds of news articles covering a boy’s murder, a few articles covering the accidental Kiss of a man named Mundungus Fletcher near a Hogwarts’ student’s home, private websites and blogs of students, the school’s main web page, a website for something called the British MOM discussing the ‘Changes at Hogwarts’, and one rather foul reporter’s idea of an online newspaper. And that was just the first ten pages of results the search engine spat out.
Duo stared at the computer screen in shock, his hand automatically clicking on the link to the school’s main page. He didn’t put it past Heero, if he was bored enough, to create all of this so Duo would be too busy and curious to think of leaving his hospital bed, but Duo wanted to believe this was real, that it was possible for magic to exist. With all the weird he had experienced with Howard and his crew (without help, it was not possible for someone as memorable as Howard to go unnoticed for as long as he had when he had Une on his tail, and Duo never had discovered how Howard had come up with perfect replacement parts for Deathscythe the very same day Heero striped it for parts), Duo was hoping magic would explain it.
It was also damn cool.
He poked around on the site for a few minutes, absorbing all the information he could, before his conscience kicked in and reminded him Heero had asked him to write to Harry. Heero, who Duo suspected needed emergency surgery to remove the stick J had wedged up his butt, was making a serious effort to keep in contact with this one kid. Not Relena, not the other pilots, just this kid.
“I should check out that program he was talking about,” Duo muttered to himself, reluctantly hitting the back button until he reached the school’s main page. He highly doubted Harry had been faced with Heero when he was really pissed off (that honor was solely reserved for Zechs), but if Heero was lecturing, Heero cared, and he wouldn’t be happy if Duo let Harry go ahead with enrolling in a program that was substandard.
If the clothes in the pictures were anything to go by, Duo suspected any normal education the school offered was out of date.
Twenty minutes later, Duo knew it was out of date.
By about one hundred years.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
...so behind. No offense, but your whole society is living in the stone ages compared to the rest of the world. Schools on the colonies have to keep up so they don’t accidentally blow all of us up, but you Earth people...
Harry, I’m gonna be blunt here. Heero would shoot me and you if I let you waste your money on something so archaic. So, since I don’t care to get shot and spend more time being tortured by the nursing staff, I did a little research into some online adult schools. None of them are as good as the real thing and you’ll have to arrange to have someone take you in for your testing, but they’re loads better than the crap offered by your school. I put the list of the best of the lot in your general area (I’m assuming England/Scotland because of your school) on the bottom. If you’re going to spend a few thousand credits to catch up with the rest of the world, those are your best bets.
Now, on to the more interesting stuff...
*rubs his hands together and cackles* Just remember, you said I could ask you anything.
Invisibility cloaks. Where can I get one? Do they work for people without magic? How much are they? Has anyone ever thought of turning one into a suit...
...about Transfiguration and Charms? They look like they’re closely linked, but none of the school websites I’ve looked at show anything about the two classes working together or combining the subjects. And Defense Against the Dark Arts. It’s different from country to country and the colonies...whoa, you would not believe how lax colony magic users are compared to you Earth magic types. Of course, from what I’ve read, they consider charming a gun for never ending bullets dark but you don’t have any laws against...
...Potions and Herbology look interesting. Can you imagine the kind of explosives I could create if I had access to Lavender Fire? Thoughts like that are what keep your world separate from mine...
...think that’s it. I hope you can answer all those. I’m going to have a whole new list by tomorrow. This is just so freaking cool!
Duo
Looking at the long rambling paragraphs of questions and random thoughts, Harry did what any sane wizard would do when confronted by a curious Duo Maxwell.
He whimpered in fear.
Three days and what felt like a million questions later, Harry finally realized Duo was trying to distract him from his worries about Heero’s latest mission. Which meant...
Heero’s mission was going to get him killed.
Every window and mirror in number twelve exploded, the cold furnace suddenly sprouted a white hot flame, a good number of paintings, including Phineas Black and Mrs. Black’s portraits, were nothing more than ash, and the door to Harry and Ron’s room was a mass of splinters embedded in the wall across the hall.
With how fast both Dumbledore and McGonagall flooed to the house, how quickly Sirius raced towards his room, demanding to know what had happened, and the small little fact the magic purging device for his computer was completely full when it had been empty just seconds before, Harry was fairly sure the magical blow up he’d had at the realization was anything but normal.
That didn’t stop him from sending Duo an email detailing exactly where he could go and what he could do with a flobberworm when he got there.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
...far too late for me to return to normal school, but I do want to continue it. Unfortunately, I can’t simply drop out of Hogwarts without attracting the wrong kind of attention and making our family vulnerable to attacks from the same man who killed Mum. I’d like to enroll in an adult school online program, and while I know you would enjoy the idea of me never returning to this place, this is the only option I have. There are a few computers at school I can use and I promise it won’t cost you a thing. I simply need your permission to do it. Please sign the forms I’ve enclosed.
Harry
Petunia wasn’t stupid. She knew the boy was buttering her up, saying he’d like to leave that freak school, but the idea still sent a pleasant shiver down her spine, rather like she had just stepped into a cool, shady spot on a hot summer’s day.
The boy wanted to continue his normal education. Even though he was going to continue his freakish schooling, he wanted normal as well. Lily’s son wanted something he had scoffed at for the past four years. Lily’s son wanted to be normal.
Petunia eyed other letter from the boy’s freak of a headmaster sitting on her kitchen table with disgust. The old man wanted her to deny the boy’s request, saying if Harry Potter (like the boy was actually worth something) attended muggle (what a horrid word) school in any fashion it would be devastating to the magical community, that it would be best if he put it off for a few more years.
Although it went against nearly fourteen years of practice to give the boy anything he asked for, the old man’s letter was enough for Petunia to fill out the forms and send them off with the boy’s owl without one second of thought or hesitation. She didn’t even so much as blink as she signed the form so the boy could access his trust fund to cover the cost.
She did a small dance as the boy’s owl flew out the kitchen window and her smug, satisfied smile didn’t leave her face for the next week. She might have given the boy something he wanted and had allowed that owl to stay in her kitchen for a little over an hour, but she had upset the old freak, upset an entire community of freaks, and possibly made the boy a social pariah among the freaks.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harry stared at the stack of books sitting on his bed in dismay, horror, fear...
Harry forced his eyes to look at the pile of spiral notebooks, pens, pencils, and erasers instead. Far less threatening. Oh, they meant the same thing, that he had finally lost his mind, but they weren’t full of things he hadn’t seen or thought of since his Hogwarts letter.
Harry decided to look at his new trunk. Big mistake.
It was a normal double expanded trunk, two compartments instead of the one. He had asked Mrs. Weasley to get the cheapest one she could with what Mad-eye considered a barely adequate security system—and she had, but Ron had eyed it with a little longing and jealousy before smiling stiffly. Harry didn’t know what Ron was jealous of. Ron was a prefect. Ron had Dumbledore’s support. Ron got a new broom. Harry was committing suicide by exhaustion, signing up for muggle school along with Hogwarts, and he got a new trunk for it.
Ron was getting the better deal in Harry’s opinion.
Not that he wanted a new broom—his Firebolt was still the best thing out there and it was from Sirius—but still. Harry was fighting against the world’s stupidity to prove Voldemort was alive, studying twice as much as Hermione to receive half the results, and would be working his butt off to do muggle classes at the same time this coming term, and all without the help of a time turner because “Children with...issues like Mr. Potter’s cannot be trusted with such a powerful object”.
Harry snorted. He wasn’t the one with issues. He wasn’t the one huddled up on his bed with his head under a pillow and his arse up in the air, pretending the scaly monster under the bed was a garden snake and not a wand wielding, red-eyed, psychotic freak of nature...
He could picture Fudge doing that, actually, bowler hat, pinstripe robes and all.
Harry snorted again, amused instead of disgusted.
His eyes drifted towards his computer.
He still hadn’t heard from Heero.
Or Duo.
Or any of the others.
Not that he had communicated with the other pilots, hadn’t really with Duo after he had figured out what was going on, just a message saying Duo was following Heero and not to worry because he would do everything he could to get both of them got out alive. He didn’t know if Duo had received his reply to be careful, to not die.
Harry didn’t have much faith. He believed Duo would try. He believed Duo would make it hell for the soldiers of the base he was going to. He wanted to believe they would both make it out.
But even with all their training and skills and the psych out factor of them both being Gundam pilots, war was war. War meant death. Someone was going to die.
He prayed it wasn’t Heero...or Duo...
...and wondered what it meant for him that he was praying someone else died so someone important to him didn’t. What kind of person did that make him?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harry’s new trunk disturbed Ron more than Harry and Hermione’s fight.
There was some truth to what Hermione was saying about Harry’s sudden changes. Harry was different in little ways that were slowly adding up to big changes. He was still short, but he was fitter, sleeker. His temper (Oh Merlin, did Harry have a temper) was focused now—he hadn’t just blown up about them not writing, but that Ron hadn’t thought to write in code saying Dumbledore asked them not to write anything of importance. And his letter to Dumbledore...
Ron wasn’t ashamed to admit hearing about The Letter scared him.
He had always thought Harry looked up to Dumbledore, Harry said he still did, but that letter.... Ron shivered, looking out the window at the passing scenery so Harry and Hermione wouldn’t see his face, something all too possible the way they were looking at him to avoid looking at each other.
No one outside of the Order’s inner ranks knew what Harry had put in it, and Ron was sure no one but the headmaster knew all of it, but there had been a series of very strange reactions from the adults in the house. Sirius had pulled Harry to the side every day for a small chat and had given him something of his father’s (Ron didn’t know what; Harry had packed it while it was still wrapped in brown paper). Professor McGonagall had sighed, smiled tiredly and told him to be more careful, but really, it had needed to be said. Mad-Eye had shoved a shrunken stack of books into Harry’s arms and told him it was about damn time. Lupin had frowned at him, shaking his head in disapproval, Ron’s father had done something similar, and the three way argument between Harry, Sirius, and Ron’s mum...well, everyone had heard that.
“I’m not his toy soldier! He can’t move me around and position me just bloody so!”
“Harry, dear, you need to let the adults make these choices. You’re just a baby.”
“I need to let adults make my choices for me? Every adult I’ve ever known has made choices for me or about me, and none of them were good ones!
“It was Dumbledore who gave me to Aunt Petunia! It was Aunt Petunia who locked me in that bloody cupboard. It was professors who made the traps three first years broke through to save the stone because another professor was stealing it, and none of them stopped to listen when we said someone was going to steal it. It was you who said I was exaggerating how Aunt Petunia treats me, never mind the bars on my window and cat flap so they could shove food through the locked door. It was fucking Snape that took away my chance of a home that doesn’t include four locks on my bedroom door to keep me locked away from the normal people. It was you fucking lot who decided I needed a guard this summer and forbade Ron to write me, never mind someone telling me about my guard so I wouldn’t smack Tonks in the face with a bloody rock when she followed me into the library one morning.”
“Harry...”
“Cupboard! When were you in a cupboard?”
“It was my bedroom before my first few Hogwarts letters. Other than Sirius, Mrs. Weasley.”
“He sees you as your father!”
“Cupboard! She put you in a cupboard?!”
“He sees me! He’s the only one of you lot who hasn’t been shooting looks at me and Ginny since Mad-Eye passed that old Order picture around...Damn it, Sirius, calm down. I haven’t been in it since I started Hogwarts...”
Ron imagined the Muggles next door had heard. If they hadn’t, then they had definitely heard the fight to stop Sirius from running off to Surrey to hex Petunia. It had only been Harry’s rather sarcastic remark of “hunting muggles is a Death Eater party game” that stopped Sirius from leaving. Harry looking right at Snape while he said it might have had something to do with Sirius’s sudden about face as well.
The fight had sort of scared Ron, but finding Harry later and seeing him shiver in disgust and turn green as Sirius teased him about using the word fuck in the same sentence as Snape’s name had reassured Ron Harry was still Harry. Even the magical blow up Harry a few days after that hadn’t phased Ron, just confirmed what he already knew—Harry was damn powerful, completely oblivious of that fact, and too nice at times. Hermione had only seen destruction; Ron had seen no one had been hurt by it.
The trunk, though...The trunk was something else. Mad-Eye’s idea of barely adequate was the average adult’s idea of paranoia. Mad-Eye was the product of two wars and a life long career as an Auror. His choice of trunk for Harry was proof of that. Harry’s satisfied smile and sigh of relief as the old man expounded upon its many defensive spells and anti-theft charms said Harry was preparing for another war. Even if Harry hadn’t needed a bigger one because he was pulling a Hermione, Ron knew his mum still would have been forced to take Mad-Eye with her after their letters had arrived. Harry, predictable, oblivious Harry, was positive another war was coming and didn’t want to risk having anything valuable falling into enemy hands.
When had Harry started reading the signs Dumbledore said were there, not just listened to Dumbledore’s interpretation of those signs? Why did Harry care now when he hadn’t before? When had Harry become so paranoid he didn’t trust his best friends to have access to the map and cloak?
Ron hated that damn trunk and every change in Harry it represented.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
...why I’m bothering. You’re not there to read this; I don’t even know if you’re alive. Maybe for something normal now that the world’s gone insane?
Other than second year with Lockhart, I’ve always enjoyed reading and rereading my defense books. Normally the books have little dueling tips and advice on how to use a spell to its fullest potential or spells to counter it or which shield charm works best. This book is turning out to be another to add to my collection of useless defense books. This year’s crackpot assigned us an absolutely horrid book. It is completely and utterly useless. It all opinions and debates about theory and centuries year old essays about theory, and all of it’s tainted by the author’s fear of defensive magic. Like a Levitation charm with a sudden cut off can’t do the same thing as the killing curse. The instructions on a pack of toilet paper are more helpful than this shite...
...I should have hexed that...that...there isn’t a word foul enough for the woman! She hasn’t been able to get me to say I’m telling the truth about Voldemort (not while in class where she can catch me at it, anyway...I feel compelled to add a ‘yet’ here) so as we were leaving class today, she decided to have go at werewolves. Werewolves! Professor Lupin is the best defense teacher I have ever had, and that hag had the balls to insult him! Calling him a half-breed of a man and a flea bitten sheep dog!
Fuck her! If she’s meant to a good example of an inbred pure blood, it only makes me prouder I’m friends with, in her words, a ‘half trained ape-child’ (she was talking about Dobby! What did Dobby ever do to her? How does she know about Dobby?) and a wolf!
Toad lady needs lessons from Aunt Petunia on how to insult people. Aunt Petunia’s tend to repeat themselves, but they’re far better. She has hate and jealousy behind hers; toad lady is just towing the party line and sucking up to Malfoy...
...Chang, a girl a year above me, caught me on the pitch with my computer last night. I had this one brief moment of “Oh Merlin, I’m a dead man!”
Then she pulled hers out of her bag.
Turns out Chang’s cousin, who shall remain nameless, has gone missing. She hasn’t been able to find him anywhere online and her family in the L5 cluster hasn’t heard from him either. If you see him, tell him to contact her when he can. She misses their debates.
She’s started up an online newspaper and message board for people outside Hogwarts so they know what’s really going on here. I think it’s a good thing and not a good thing all at once. The Ministry doesn’t recognize muggle technology here. They know it exists and all, but they don’t recognize it is superior in any way. But if we do this, we’re drawing attention to things the Ministry has ignored for years.
She also wants me to write an article about what happened that night in the graveyard and I’m not sure if I can without breaking down...
...Heero, I know you’re not reading this, but please ask someone to check your email or send me an owl or something. Une’s bragging she has all but two of you. Someone’s attacking colonies. .Chang’s scared for her cousin; I’m worried for you and Duo. Please let someone know you’re okay.
If you don’t write back soon, I’m contacting Relena to see if she knows where you guys are, dead or alive.
Harry
Trowa’s left eyebrow twitched ever so slightly as he finished the eighth email from the boy, the only outward sign he was thinking of strolling down to the cells and throttling Heero Yuy and Chang Wufei.
Putting fingers to keyboard, Trowa wrote a very quick, terse reply to Harry’s emails and a warning that if he did contact Relena, Trowa would go back to Earth just to shoot him for sheer stupidity.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Heero, Duo, and Wufei are fine.
Do not contact Relena. You will only draw attention to yourself and Relena, and I will be forced to come down there and shoot you. Relena does not need the attention your attempts to contact her would draw. Our hands are tied. We need her influence right now, not for her to loose any influence she has because she’s supporting the British magical community’s current outcast and scapegoat.
Trowa
Safe behind the cursed-shut curtains of his bed, Harry winced guiltily as he fingered the thin cream colored envelope in his hands, wondering if he should respond to the email to say he already had written Relena and she had written back.
One week into the school year and he was ready to collapse from mental and emotional exhaustion. With his new drive to learn muggle subjects along with magic, he had been forced to resign from Quidditch. He had thought he would be okay, that he could survive without taking to the air every other day, loosing himself in the freedom of flight. Things had been so much easier this summer, he really had thought he would be okay.
Then reality had set in.
Without Heero to vent to, talk with, share things with, to just be Harry with, life was so much harder. He did have Sirius now—something about his letter to Dumbledore had awoken Sirius to the fact Harry would never be James, but the taint of that was still there and Harry couldn’t tell him everything. Even if he did feel comfortable telling Sirius, the mirrors were not perfectly secure. Sirius couldn’t look directly in it, Harry couldn’t call him anything but Paddy, and the hugs that had been such a central part of their summer talks were nothing but memories.
Harry knew he needed someone to talk to, someone who wasn’t here at Hogwarts. He missed the blunt common sense of Heero’s letters that witches and wizards didn’t have.
He ripped the envelope open and quickly read the girl’s letter. Relena wasn’t Heero and he wouldn’t be able to have the same openness with her he had with Heero, but it was something.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When he was five seconds away from dying, Heero found it amazing how many stupid things flew through his mind masquerading as thoughts. Regrets, what might have beens, should have dones, denied wishes, and forgotten childish dreams.
As he watched the closest thing he had to a best friend die to save Quatre from himself, Heero discovered the number of inane thoughts tripled when it wasn’t him with one foot inside Death’s door.
He forced himself to work through it.
There was a moment where he heard someone using his voice to tell Quatre it was his fault Trowa was dead, and he felt his hands and feet guide his borrowed OZ suit to stop Quatre from chasing after Trowa’s destroyed suit, and knew he wasn’t working through his grief as well as he should. Trowa had asked him to not be too hard on Quatre.
Trowa had asked the impossible.
Duo was his first friend among the other pilots, but not the closest, not the one who knew him best. That was Trowa, the one who had seen him at his worst and knew what it took for him to give up everything for nothing, the one who understood what he was thinking without asking, the one who shared his morbid sense of humor. Trowa was the one who had stitched him back together, nursed him back to health, and then stood aside as Heero tried to commit suicide by handing his victim’s family a gun, knowing without being told it was something Heero needed to do to move on.
“Heero, please...”
If, and that was a big if, if Trowa was still alive, his best chances for survival were not with them. If he and Quatre rescued him, added together with Trowa’s frequent visits to their cell, it would be a glowing neon sign to where Trowa’s true loyalties lay. Trowa would be thrown into the cell with them, his injuries ignored and forgotten. A Gundam pilot’s biggest concerns were the colonies and each other. If he let Quatre go after Trowa, the world would know Trowa was one of them.
However, Vayeate was drifting away from them and towards another colony, the same colony Catherine and the circus were moving to next. As long as Quatre didn’t interfere with its trajectory, it would arrive there within two or three days, something Trowa could survive.
Trowa’s best chance, slim though it was, for surviving lay in Heero and Quatre staying put.
“No, Quatre. Let his death mean something,” Heero said softly, relieved in a strange, painful way he had managed to say anything without choking.
As he destroyed the Mercurius’ cockpit recorder and listened to Quatre sob, Heero focused on the inane, silly thoughts he had tried to ignore before so he wouldn’t breakdown like Quatre. He wondered if Harry had ignored Trowa’s order to not contact Relena and if Relena had written back and if she liked Hedwig. He hoped she didn’t; he liked being able to scare the feathers off the bird by shooting at it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
...love of Merlin, are you daft? All war is unnecessary? Tell that to the arse that murdered my parents. Sometimes people like Voldemort bring the war to you. Sometimes you don’t have a choice.
Oz and the Alliance brought war to the colonies when they had Heero Yuy assassinated! They brought war to the colonies when they stripped away their basic rights! The creation of the Gundams and the training of their pilots is a response to that. You can’t tell me no one saw it coming. At the base of it, humans are animals. Beat an animal long enough, corner it, hurt it, and it’s going to fight back. We humans can think, reason, know when to lift the toilet seat and when to put it down, but we’re still animals. We just use weapons instead of claws and teeth.
I also find your arguments for me to help you convince Heero to stop fighting funny. Here’s why: You are fighting a war.
Yes, it’s bloodless (on your side), but it’s still a war. You are fighting a war against war. You use speeches as weapons and are a living example, making yourself the General of your non-violent army, and inspire people to follow your philosophy. They are sitting on their arses and doing nothing in a way that hurts your opponent. You retaking your birth family’s throne was your opening shot.
You are fighting a war, Relena, just a different one than the pilots.
I should probably rewrite this or something, but I have class in five minutes. Sorry for the crude language, I’m used to writing Heero, who could honestly care less if I don’t edit my letters before I send them. He might be upset about this one, though.
Harry.
P.S. In answer to your question, Hedwig likes bacon if you can’t get owl treats. Cooked lean bacon. I cannot stress the cooked part enough. Hagrid’s gone and I don’t know if I can trust his temporary replacement with Hedwig unless I have no other choice.
P.P.S. If you’re curious about magic, you will eventually be contacted by a representative of the magical nation your kingdom falls under, but you can search for my school on Google if you’re impatient. The school’s site has links to other sites designed to explain the classes to muggle parents. An online newspaper you might be interested in will also pop up from a search for Hogwarts.
Noin’s lips twitched as she tried to hide her smile, and not because Relena had a plate piled high with bacon for the snowy owl to eat. “He did apologize for his language,” she said diplomatically.
Relena chuckled softly, her eyes watching the owl perched on the chair by her desk devour the bacon and coo at her for the treat. “But is he right? Am I fighting a war?”
“In a sense, yes, you are,” Noin said slowly, organizing her thoughts. If she spun her response incorrectly, Relena might take a far less active role in fighting against Romefellor, and Lucrezia Noin was selfish enough to admit she found it far more satisfying to protect a nation and its princess than protecting a teenage girl hell bent on getting revenge for her father’s murder and chasing her crush. “But it is a war someone needs to fight, Miss Relena. If no one stands up and says enough is enough, the bloodshed will continue. Your beliefs and your parents’ beliefs are well known. Because of that, you’ve become a shining example for others to follow.”
Relena nodded, more to herself than Noin, and picked up her pen. She tapped it against her desk as she thought. Suddenly, she pulled her stationary pad close and started writing.
“You’re writing back?” Noin asked, dropping the letter. She couldn’t believe Relena was going to continue writing to this boy now that he had passed on the news Heero was still alive. He was crude, insulting, and...and...and everything that wasn’t part of Relena’s norm.
“I enjoy a challenge,” Relena said, an eerily familiar smile on her lips. It was the same smile Zechs’s wore when he went into a battle he knew he would need all his skills to win.
Noin had the uncomfortable realization she would be spending a good deal of her time researching wizards and this Voldemort character and his potential threat to the Sanc kingdom. By being a friend of Heero Yuy’s, Harry Potter had become someone important in Relena’s world. Perhaps she should write her own letter to the boy to see if he could give her any information that would help her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Typing in the address of the message board from Harry’s latest email, Heero absently listened to J and the other scientists and resisted the impulse to knock the old men into the walls for scoffing at Quatre.
Seeing Trowa’s destroyed suit without Trowa had killed the small hope Heero had for Trowa’s survival. Hearing Quatre begging the old men to look for Trowa was pulling on the emotions Heero was doing his damnedest to hide. Showing any emotion around J during what could be classified as a mission was dangerous for Heero’s mental well being. The old man had protested Dekim Barton’s orders to eliminate Heero’s emotions, but he had carried them out to best of his ability, only backing off when Heero perfected his mask. Heero had no plans to forgive the old bastard for what Heero considered a betrayal of their agreement.
If J or any of the other scientists came at him with a needle, Heero had plans to kill him however he could and in the most painful way he could manage with the tools he had access to at that time. He knew Wufei and Duo had similar plans for such situations. Quatre and Trowa were lucky; H and S had only had limited access during their training due to lack of time in Trowa’s case and an extensive, over protective family in Quatre’s.
A point between Heero’s shoulder blades itched. He stiffened and looked over his shoulder at the blond behind him. “Quatre?”
Quatre was visibly battling against his natural instinct to smile a greeting at Heero and obey Heero’s earlier warning to not let the scientists see him display too much emotion. Not that his begging the men look for Trowa hadn’t been an emotional display, but it could be written off as a soldier being concerned about their numbers being lessened. It would be by H at any rate; J and O’s disgusted expressions said they had caught and understood what H didn’t. Or didn’t want to understand. Heero didn’t know enough about the man to say if he was blind, stupid, or surprisingly compassionate concerning Quatre and Trowa’s friendship. The latter was most likely considering the man had encouraged Quatre’s partnership with the Maganac Corps.
“What are you doing?” Quatre asked softly, his head tilted forwards ever so slightly so he was looking up at Heero through his white blond bangs. This combined with his naturally wide blue eyes made him appear far more innocent than he was. Heero had the irrational urge to take Quatre to his sisters and order them to hide the younger pilot away.
Heero knocked the impulse away with a sharp shake of his head. Quatre was a Gundam pilot. He had killed. He had used his innocent looks as a way to escape capture on Earth and later kill his targets. He was not the innocent child Heero’s instincts said he was.
“Asking one of my contacts if he knows more about the others than J,” Heero said.
Quatre perked up, his lips briefly forming a smile before he forced his expression to blank. “Do you think they’ll be able to look for Trowa?”
Shrugging, Heero signed in to the message board using the name and password Harry had sent and immediately went to the administration section. As he posted his quick message, he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in Harry or the Chang girl was awake and aware enough to figure out what he wanted.
The response was far quicker and informative than Heero had imagined it would be.
You’re lucky we’re up this late. We wouldn’t be if SS hadn’t assigned an essay today that’s due tomorrow.
1) Where have you been? I swear H’s going bald worrying about you.
2) Alive, safe, and chatty. He’s keeping us up to date on the latest gossip.
3) No info, but we’ll keep our ears open. H says he’ll contact Len tomorrow so she can look. She has more resources than we do.
4) Good to know. My cousin was worried. Wouldn’t give me details, though. We pass along our condolences for his father’s murder.
5) Alive, nowhere near safe, and annoying me. If you see him before I do, smack him for me. I know who murdered my boyfriend and I don’t appreciate him calling me and H liars. I’ve seen H’s memories of that night; he hasn’t.
I’m not going bald, thank you very much, C. I’m going grey, as R pointed out.
Don’t die between now and tomorrow morning, Len won’t get my letter until then. Actually, try not to get killed at all. Your friend accidentally let me know the last was attempted suicide. Don’t do that again either. I blew up a lot of windows after figuring it out. I can’t afford to get all the windows at school replaced. When you get a chance, send me an email, or letter if you make it here. I’m worried, and this does nothing to make me stop.
I know it’s not much, nor does it have a high chance of success, but we’ll try a tracking charm or two with some Astronomy charts tonight and see if we can give Len a general area to look in.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
You are a fool, Chang Wufei. The next time I see you, I will hex your bits to the moon and curse you to follow them. Just because you haven’t seen Him face to face does not mean he isn’t alive. That’s like me telling you Treize Kushrenada isn’t real because I’ve only seen him on the telly. It’s a bloody stupid thing to say and you know it. I never thought someone as intelligent as you would place so much faith in propaganda from an obviously corrupt government. What happened to the scholar Meilan married?
Cho
P.S. I am not dating Potter!
Wufei snorted at Cho’s weak denial. Who did his cousin think she was talking to, an inbred British wizard? He knew Cho wasn’t dating the boy now; he had simply said it was obvious she was interested in the Potter boy and close to asking him to accompany her to Hogsmeade, something Wufei thought was dangerous and fool hardy considering Diggory’s death had happened just months earlier. The Diggorys and what remained of the Long clan on Earth had been discussing marriage between Cho and Diggory. Cho becoming romantically attached to Potter so soon was disrespectful to Diggory’s memory and would shame their clan.
A romantic relationship at this time would also do nothing but hurt Cho and Potter in the end. Cho would constantly compare Potter to Diggory and find him lacking, and Potter would be forced to try and live up to Cho’s idealized image of Diggory.
Perhaps that was the best argument to use to explain his thoughts on the situation. Wufei did not know his cousin as well as he should, but he did know her status in the clan meant very little to Cho, but knowing she would be hurting an innocent person she called friend would go a long way in making her understand his thoughts on her current situation. The Voldemort issue, however, Wufei planned to leave untouched for the moment, other than apologizing to his cousin for accusing her of lying. Once the war was over, he would make time to meet Potter and decide if the boy was truthful about Voldemort’s return or simply insane.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
...rumors are flying fast and hard up here, mostly rehashes of the old ones. One of the newer versions says Lady Une went nuts and was killed. Another says she’s the one who released me and ‘Fei, then was shot, and is in a coma. The ones about Heero, Quatre, and Trowa are all disturbing, but they all have the same common theme that Heero and Quatre are back on or heading to Earth and Trowa’s somewhere in this general area.
I know it’s not much, but I thought you should know the latest changes. Mind telling me what Len is up to? Word here is she’s restarting the family business.
Duo
Harry let the cursor hover over the reply button, wavering over responding.
Duo was doing the over-protective thing again.
Duo wasn’t lying, not quite. He was omitting information, leaving out little details, and not telling Harry things. He was lying by omission, which really wasn’t a lying at all but was because Harry knew Duo wasn’t telling him everything he could.
Harry took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. He was giving himself a headache, trying to figure out if Duo was lying by not lying by not saying anything.
He shoved his glasses back on, glaring at his computer screen. He had just made his headache worse and he was no closer to solving his problem. Latest problem. He had nine others needing his immediate attention and one he and Cho had sort of solved. They were hiding in the hallway leading to the Chamber of Secrets, taking a quick break before they went back to cleaning up the rat, cat, owl and toad bones littering the floor of their new hideout.
A well meaning parent had informed Fudge about Cho’s online newspaper. According to the Hogwarts rumor mill, the idiot had printed out several of the articles and owled them, along with a letter demanding answers, to Fudge. When they hadn’t received what they considered a proper response, they had owled that day’s articles to Prophet and kept sending new ones every day, getting other muggles and muggleborns to send in the same, until the Prophet had no choice but to act. Now the Prophet was printing their articles, along with their (a.k.a. the Ministry’s) scathing, absolute denial responses.
The first letter sent to the Ministry had brought Umbridge’s wrath down on Harry during class, but not much else. The letters to the Prophet had set off a chain reaction, ending in Fudge giving Umbridge free reign inside Hogwarts and Harry and Cho deciding to spend their weekend finding a place to hide their barely legal computers. Cho had suggested the Room of Requirement, but Harry, in a spout of Heero-induced paranoia, had instantly vetoed her idea. He reasoned that while the Room was a good temporary meeting place for the DA at the moment, eventually they were going to be noticed. Thirty kids all disappearing at the same time once or twice a week was going to draw Umbridge’s attention sooner than later, and the last thing they needed was for their computers to be confiscated, especially Harry in the current political environment. Mr. Weasley’s Muggle Protection Act made it possible to possess spelled muggle things as long as one didn’t use them, and the Ministry couldn’t prove they had used them without breaking the law themselves to check, but neither Harry or Cho thought someone else breaking one law to prove Harry had broken a law worthy of time in Azkaban would bother anyone in the Ministry too much at the moment.
So they were hiding under the school, a fresh cave-in keeping them out of the Chamber itself. Not that the hallway was a bad hiding place, being protected by a Parseltongue password, but Harry would have felt a lot safer if they were in the Chamber. Unfortunately, neither of them had mastered the bubble head charm or the stabilizing spells they felt were necessary to venture further.
That was a good description of their current situation over all. They didn’t know enough to help Heero or the others. They didn’t know enough to get Umbridge out of power. They didn’t have the contacts needed to counter Fudge’s attacks. They were just two teenagers attempting to stand up against corrupt adults with more power, more resources, more everything.
“We need help.”
Part 2/?
Um...HI?
Heero doesn’t use names usually, but I think I know who you are. He mentioned you in his last email. He did tell you he’s been attending school under your name, right?
As for what he was talking about, do you believe in magic? Wave a wand, say some messed up Latin, and something happens kind? Because that’s what he meant.
You see, I go to a boarding school, Hogwarts, for witches and wizards. I’m getting ready to start my fifth year there. I’m not sure how to explain it...Except for the classes, I guess it’s just like a non-magical boarding school. There are seven core subjects: Astronomy, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, Herbology, and History of Magic. The electives to choose from are even stranger: Arithmancy (I was thrilled to discover mathematics was an elective, regretting not taking it now), Ancient Runes (magical languages), Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Muggle Studies (that’s where witches and wizards learn about non-magical people and technology; according to Hermione, it’s not a very good course), and Flying (though that’s only for part of the first year.).
Before you say anything, Heero’s already given me the lecture about how unbalanced of an education that is and that any wizard won’t be able to survive in non-magical societies. I know, and after being subjected to an angry Heero, I wrote a professor from school. He says the muggle studies teacher can arrange for a student to continue their muggle education, but the professor told me the students who choose to do this are required to buy their own books and teach themselves—the professor simply oversees the exams. I’m trying to convince my godfather to let me leave so I can visit the bank and see if I can afford to do it before owling the school for more information...
Sorry about the info babble. Heero did rant a bit when he found out I spent a good deal of time last year learning how to change kittens into puppies and nothing he considered important, and I’m hoping you won’t do the same...Please? I’ll answer any questions you have if it means I can get out of another lecture.
Anyway, I am free to talk for another few hours if you’re bored enough. My godfather won’t come storming in here for at least three hours. He’s drunk at the moment and my fight with Hermione has scared everyone else off...please write back. I’m worried about Heero. He never just says he’s going on an assignment. He always gives me an estimate of how long it’s going to take and when he might write back to me.
Harry
Duo’s first response was to hit Google and search like crazy. He covered everything from mental disorders to new street drugs to strange chemicals being released into the colony’s air to see if Heero and this Harry kid were insane. Then, when he found nothing beyond the rumors he already knew of and didn’t apply, he entered the name of the kid’s school into the search engine.
He hit pay dirt.
Duo’s jaw dropped at the number of results the word Hogwarts produced. There were hundreds of news articles covering a boy’s murder, a few articles covering the accidental Kiss of a man named Mundungus Fletcher near a Hogwarts’ student’s home, private websites and blogs of students, the school’s main web page, a website for something called the British MOM discussing the ‘Changes at Hogwarts’, and one rather foul reporter’s idea of an online newspaper. And that was just the first ten pages of results the search engine spat out.
Duo stared at the computer screen in shock, his hand automatically clicking on the link to the school’s main page. He didn’t put it past Heero, if he was bored enough, to create all of this so Duo would be too busy and curious to think of leaving his hospital bed, but Duo wanted to believe this was real, that it was possible for magic to exist. With all the weird he had experienced with Howard and his crew (without help, it was not possible for someone as memorable as Howard to go unnoticed for as long as he had when he had Une on his tail, and Duo never had discovered how Howard had come up with perfect replacement parts for Deathscythe the very same day Heero striped it for parts), Duo was hoping magic would explain it.
It was also damn cool.
He poked around on the site for a few minutes, absorbing all the information he could, before his conscience kicked in and reminded him Heero had asked him to write to Harry. Heero, who Duo suspected needed emergency surgery to remove the stick J had wedged up his butt, was making a serious effort to keep in contact with this one kid. Not Relena, not the other pilots, just this kid.
“I should check out that program he was talking about,” Duo muttered to himself, reluctantly hitting the back button until he reached the school’s main page. He highly doubted Harry had been faced with Heero when he was really pissed off (that honor was solely reserved for Zechs), but if Heero was lecturing, Heero cared, and he wouldn’t be happy if Duo let Harry go ahead with enrolling in a program that was substandard.
If the clothes in the pictures were anything to go by, Duo suspected any normal education the school offered was out of date.
Twenty minutes later, Duo knew it was out of date.
By about one hundred years.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
...so behind. No offense, but your whole society is living in the stone ages compared to the rest of the world. Schools on the colonies have to keep up so they don’t accidentally blow all of us up, but you Earth people...
Harry, I’m gonna be blunt here. Heero would shoot me and you if I let you waste your money on something so archaic. So, since I don’t care to get shot and spend more time being tortured by the nursing staff, I did a little research into some online adult schools. None of them are as good as the real thing and you’ll have to arrange to have someone take you in for your testing, but they’re loads better than the crap offered by your school. I put the list of the best of the lot in your general area (I’m assuming England/Scotland because of your school) on the bottom. If you’re going to spend a few thousand credits to catch up with the rest of the world, those are your best bets.
Now, on to the more interesting stuff...
*rubs his hands together and cackles* Just remember, you said I could ask you anything.
Invisibility cloaks. Where can I get one? Do they work for people without magic? How much are they? Has anyone ever thought of turning one into a suit...
...about Transfiguration and Charms? They look like they’re closely linked, but none of the school websites I’ve looked at show anything about the two classes working together or combining the subjects. And Defense Against the Dark Arts. It’s different from country to country and the colonies...whoa, you would not believe how lax colony magic users are compared to you Earth magic types. Of course, from what I’ve read, they consider charming a gun for never ending bullets dark but you don’t have any laws against...
...Potions and Herbology look interesting. Can you imagine the kind of explosives I could create if I had access to Lavender Fire? Thoughts like that are what keep your world separate from mine...
...think that’s it. I hope you can answer all those. I’m going to have a whole new list by tomorrow. This is just so freaking cool!
Duo
Looking at the long rambling paragraphs of questions and random thoughts, Harry did what any sane wizard would do when confronted by a curious Duo Maxwell.
He whimpered in fear.
Three days and what felt like a million questions later, Harry finally realized Duo was trying to distract him from his worries about Heero’s latest mission. Which meant...
Heero’s mission was going to get him killed.
Every window and mirror in number twelve exploded, the cold furnace suddenly sprouted a white hot flame, a good number of paintings, including Phineas Black and Mrs. Black’s portraits, were nothing more than ash, and the door to Harry and Ron’s room was a mass of splinters embedded in the wall across the hall.
With how fast both Dumbledore and McGonagall flooed to the house, how quickly Sirius raced towards his room, demanding to know what had happened, and the small little fact the magic purging device for his computer was completely full when it had been empty just seconds before, Harry was fairly sure the magical blow up he’d had at the realization was anything but normal.
That didn’t stop him from sending Duo an email detailing exactly where he could go and what he could do with a flobberworm when he got there.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
...far too late for me to return to normal school, but I do want to continue it. Unfortunately, I can’t simply drop out of Hogwarts without attracting the wrong kind of attention and making our family vulnerable to attacks from the same man who killed Mum. I’d like to enroll in an adult school online program, and while I know you would enjoy the idea of me never returning to this place, this is the only option I have. There are a few computers at school I can use and I promise it won’t cost you a thing. I simply need your permission to do it. Please sign the forms I’ve enclosed.
Harry
Petunia wasn’t stupid. She knew the boy was buttering her up, saying he’d like to leave that freak school, but the idea still sent a pleasant shiver down her spine, rather like she had just stepped into a cool, shady spot on a hot summer’s day.
The boy wanted to continue his normal education. Even though he was going to continue his freakish schooling, he wanted normal as well. Lily’s son wanted something he had scoffed at for the past four years. Lily’s son wanted to be normal.
Petunia eyed other letter from the boy’s freak of a headmaster sitting on her kitchen table with disgust. The old man wanted her to deny the boy’s request, saying if Harry Potter (like the boy was actually worth something) attended muggle (what a horrid word) school in any fashion it would be devastating to the magical community, that it would be best if he put it off for a few more years.
Although it went against nearly fourteen years of practice to give the boy anything he asked for, the old man’s letter was enough for Petunia to fill out the forms and send them off with the boy’s owl without one second of thought or hesitation. She didn’t even so much as blink as she signed the form so the boy could access his trust fund to cover the cost.
She did a small dance as the boy’s owl flew out the kitchen window and her smug, satisfied smile didn’t leave her face for the next week. She might have given the boy something he wanted and had allowed that owl to stay in her kitchen for a little over an hour, but she had upset the old freak, upset an entire community of freaks, and possibly made the boy a social pariah among the freaks.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harry stared at the stack of books sitting on his bed in dismay, horror, fear...
Harry forced his eyes to look at the pile of spiral notebooks, pens, pencils, and erasers instead. Far less threatening. Oh, they meant the same thing, that he had finally lost his mind, but they weren’t full of things he hadn’t seen or thought of since his Hogwarts letter.
Harry decided to look at his new trunk. Big mistake.
It was a normal double expanded trunk, two compartments instead of the one. He had asked Mrs. Weasley to get the cheapest one she could with what Mad-eye considered a barely adequate security system—and she had, but Ron had eyed it with a little longing and jealousy before smiling stiffly. Harry didn’t know what Ron was jealous of. Ron was a prefect. Ron had Dumbledore’s support. Ron got a new broom. Harry was committing suicide by exhaustion, signing up for muggle school along with Hogwarts, and he got a new trunk for it.
Ron was getting the better deal in Harry’s opinion.
Not that he wanted a new broom—his Firebolt was still the best thing out there and it was from Sirius—but still. Harry was fighting against the world’s stupidity to prove Voldemort was alive, studying twice as much as Hermione to receive half the results, and would be working his butt off to do muggle classes at the same time this coming term, and all without the help of a time turner because “Children with...issues like Mr. Potter’s cannot be trusted with such a powerful object”.
Harry snorted. He wasn’t the one with issues. He wasn’t the one huddled up on his bed with his head under a pillow and his arse up in the air, pretending the scaly monster under the bed was a garden snake and not a wand wielding, red-eyed, psychotic freak of nature...
He could picture Fudge doing that, actually, bowler hat, pinstripe robes and all.
Harry snorted again, amused instead of disgusted.
His eyes drifted towards his computer.
He still hadn’t heard from Heero.
Or Duo.
Or any of the others.
Not that he had communicated with the other pilots, hadn’t really with Duo after he had figured out what was going on, just a message saying Duo was following Heero and not to worry because he would do everything he could to get both of them got out alive. He didn’t know if Duo had received his reply to be careful, to not die.
Harry didn’t have much faith. He believed Duo would try. He believed Duo would make it hell for the soldiers of the base he was going to. He wanted to believe they would both make it out.
But even with all their training and skills and the psych out factor of them both being Gundam pilots, war was war. War meant death. Someone was going to die.
He prayed it wasn’t Heero...or Duo...
...and wondered what it meant for him that he was praying someone else died so someone important to him didn’t. What kind of person did that make him?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harry’s new trunk disturbed Ron more than Harry and Hermione’s fight.
There was some truth to what Hermione was saying about Harry’s sudden changes. Harry was different in little ways that were slowly adding up to big changes. He was still short, but he was fitter, sleeker. His temper (Oh Merlin, did Harry have a temper) was focused now—he hadn’t just blown up about them not writing, but that Ron hadn’t thought to write in code saying Dumbledore asked them not to write anything of importance. And his letter to Dumbledore...
Ron wasn’t ashamed to admit hearing about The Letter scared him.
He had always thought Harry looked up to Dumbledore, Harry said he still did, but that letter.... Ron shivered, looking out the window at the passing scenery so Harry and Hermione wouldn’t see his face, something all too possible the way they were looking at him to avoid looking at each other.
No one outside of the Order’s inner ranks knew what Harry had put in it, and Ron was sure no one but the headmaster knew all of it, but there had been a series of very strange reactions from the adults in the house. Sirius had pulled Harry to the side every day for a small chat and had given him something of his father’s (Ron didn’t know what; Harry had packed it while it was still wrapped in brown paper). Professor McGonagall had sighed, smiled tiredly and told him to be more careful, but really, it had needed to be said. Mad-Eye had shoved a shrunken stack of books into Harry’s arms and told him it was about damn time. Lupin had frowned at him, shaking his head in disapproval, Ron’s father had done something similar, and the three way argument between Harry, Sirius, and Ron’s mum...well, everyone had heard that.
“I’m not his toy soldier! He can’t move me around and position me just bloody so!”
“Harry, dear, you need to let the adults make these choices. You’re just a baby.”
“I need to let adults make my choices for me? Every adult I’ve ever known has made choices for me or about me, and none of them were good ones!
“It was Dumbledore who gave me to Aunt Petunia! It was Aunt Petunia who locked me in that bloody cupboard. It was professors who made the traps three first years broke through to save the stone because another professor was stealing it, and none of them stopped to listen when we said someone was going to steal it. It was you who said I was exaggerating how Aunt Petunia treats me, never mind the bars on my window and cat flap so they could shove food through the locked door. It was fucking Snape that took away my chance of a home that doesn’t include four locks on my bedroom door to keep me locked away from the normal people. It was you fucking lot who decided I needed a guard this summer and forbade Ron to write me, never mind someone telling me about my guard so I wouldn’t smack Tonks in the face with a bloody rock when she followed me into the library one morning.”
“Harry...”
“Cupboard! When were you in a cupboard?”
“It was my bedroom before my first few Hogwarts letters. Other than Sirius, Mrs. Weasley.”
“He sees you as your father!”
“Cupboard! She put you in a cupboard?!”
“He sees me! He’s the only one of you lot who hasn’t been shooting looks at me and Ginny since Mad-Eye passed that old Order picture around...Damn it, Sirius, calm down. I haven’t been in it since I started Hogwarts...”
Ron imagined the Muggles next door had heard. If they hadn’t, then they had definitely heard the fight to stop Sirius from running off to Surrey to hex Petunia. It had only been Harry’s rather sarcastic remark of “hunting muggles is a Death Eater party game” that stopped Sirius from leaving. Harry looking right at Snape while he said it might have had something to do with Sirius’s sudden about face as well.
The fight had sort of scared Ron, but finding Harry later and seeing him shiver in disgust and turn green as Sirius teased him about using the word fuck in the same sentence as Snape’s name had reassured Ron Harry was still Harry. Even the magical blow up Harry a few days after that hadn’t phased Ron, just confirmed what he already knew—Harry was damn powerful, completely oblivious of that fact, and too nice at times. Hermione had only seen destruction; Ron had seen no one had been hurt by it.
The trunk, though...The trunk was something else. Mad-Eye’s idea of barely adequate was the average adult’s idea of paranoia. Mad-Eye was the product of two wars and a life long career as an Auror. His choice of trunk for Harry was proof of that. Harry’s satisfied smile and sigh of relief as the old man expounded upon its many defensive spells and anti-theft charms said Harry was preparing for another war. Even if Harry hadn’t needed a bigger one because he was pulling a Hermione, Ron knew his mum still would have been forced to take Mad-Eye with her after their letters had arrived. Harry, predictable, oblivious Harry, was positive another war was coming and didn’t want to risk having anything valuable falling into enemy hands.
When had Harry started reading the signs Dumbledore said were there, not just listened to Dumbledore’s interpretation of those signs? Why did Harry care now when he hadn’t before? When had Harry become so paranoid he didn’t trust his best friends to have access to the map and cloak?
Ron hated that damn trunk and every change in Harry it represented.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
...why I’m bothering. You’re not there to read this; I don’t even know if you’re alive. Maybe for something normal now that the world’s gone insane?
Other than second year with Lockhart, I’ve always enjoyed reading and rereading my defense books. Normally the books have little dueling tips and advice on how to use a spell to its fullest potential or spells to counter it or which shield charm works best. This book is turning out to be another to add to my collection of useless defense books. This year’s crackpot assigned us an absolutely horrid book. It is completely and utterly useless. It all opinions and debates about theory and centuries year old essays about theory, and all of it’s tainted by the author’s fear of defensive magic. Like a Levitation charm with a sudden cut off can’t do the same thing as the killing curse. The instructions on a pack of toilet paper are more helpful than this shite...
...I should have hexed that...that...there isn’t a word foul enough for the woman! She hasn’t been able to get me to say I’m telling the truth about Voldemort (not while in class where she can catch me at it, anyway...I feel compelled to add a ‘yet’ here) so as we were leaving class today, she decided to have go at werewolves. Werewolves! Professor Lupin is the best defense teacher I have ever had, and that hag had the balls to insult him! Calling him a half-breed of a man and a flea bitten sheep dog!
Fuck her! If she’s meant to a good example of an inbred pure blood, it only makes me prouder I’m friends with, in her words, a ‘half trained ape-child’ (she was talking about Dobby! What did Dobby ever do to her? How does she know about Dobby?) and a wolf!
Toad lady needs lessons from Aunt Petunia on how to insult people. Aunt Petunia’s tend to repeat themselves, but they’re far better. She has hate and jealousy behind hers; toad lady is just towing the party line and sucking up to Malfoy...
...Chang, a girl a year above me, caught me on the pitch with my computer last night. I had this one brief moment of “Oh Merlin, I’m a dead man!”
Then she pulled hers out of her bag.
Turns out Chang’s cousin, who shall remain nameless, has gone missing. She hasn’t been able to find him anywhere online and her family in the L5 cluster hasn’t heard from him either. If you see him, tell him to contact her when he can. She misses their debates.
She’s started up an online newspaper and message board for people outside Hogwarts so they know what’s really going on here. I think it’s a good thing and not a good thing all at once. The Ministry doesn’t recognize muggle technology here. They know it exists and all, but they don’t recognize it is superior in any way. But if we do this, we’re drawing attention to things the Ministry has ignored for years.
She also wants me to write an article about what happened that night in the graveyard and I’m not sure if I can without breaking down...
...Heero, I know you’re not reading this, but please ask someone to check your email or send me an owl or something. Une’s bragging she has all but two of you. Someone’s attacking colonies. .Chang’s scared for her cousin; I’m worried for you and Duo. Please let someone know you’re okay.
If you don’t write back soon, I’m contacting Relena to see if she knows where you guys are, dead or alive.
Harry
Trowa’s left eyebrow twitched ever so slightly as he finished the eighth email from the boy, the only outward sign he was thinking of strolling down to the cells and throttling Heero Yuy and Chang Wufei.
Putting fingers to keyboard, Trowa wrote a very quick, terse reply to Harry’s emails and a warning that if he did contact Relena, Trowa would go back to Earth just to shoot him for sheer stupidity.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Heero, Duo, and Wufei are fine.
Do not contact Relena. You will only draw attention to yourself and Relena, and I will be forced to come down there and shoot you. Relena does not need the attention your attempts to contact her would draw. Our hands are tied. We need her influence right now, not for her to loose any influence she has because she’s supporting the British magical community’s current outcast and scapegoat.
Trowa
Safe behind the cursed-shut curtains of his bed, Harry winced guiltily as he fingered the thin cream colored envelope in his hands, wondering if he should respond to the email to say he already had written Relena and she had written back.
One week into the school year and he was ready to collapse from mental and emotional exhaustion. With his new drive to learn muggle subjects along with magic, he had been forced to resign from Quidditch. He had thought he would be okay, that he could survive without taking to the air every other day, loosing himself in the freedom of flight. Things had been so much easier this summer, he really had thought he would be okay.
Then reality had set in.
Without Heero to vent to, talk with, share things with, to just be Harry with, life was so much harder. He did have Sirius now—something about his letter to Dumbledore had awoken Sirius to the fact Harry would never be James, but the taint of that was still there and Harry couldn’t tell him everything. Even if he did feel comfortable telling Sirius, the mirrors were not perfectly secure. Sirius couldn’t look directly in it, Harry couldn’t call him anything but Paddy, and the hugs that had been such a central part of their summer talks were nothing but memories.
Harry knew he needed someone to talk to, someone who wasn’t here at Hogwarts. He missed the blunt common sense of Heero’s letters that witches and wizards didn’t have.
He ripped the envelope open and quickly read the girl’s letter. Relena wasn’t Heero and he wouldn’t be able to have the same openness with her he had with Heero, but it was something.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When he was five seconds away from dying, Heero found it amazing how many stupid things flew through his mind masquerading as thoughts. Regrets, what might have beens, should have dones, denied wishes, and forgotten childish dreams.
As he watched the closest thing he had to a best friend die to save Quatre from himself, Heero discovered the number of inane thoughts tripled when it wasn’t him with one foot inside Death’s door.
He forced himself to work through it.
There was a moment where he heard someone using his voice to tell Quatre it was his fault Trowa was dead, and he felt his hands and feet guide his borrowed OZ suit to stop Quatre from chasing after Trowa’s destroyed suit, and knew he wasn’t working through his grief as well as he should. Trowa had asked him to not be too hard on Quatre.
Trowa had asked the impossible.
Duo was his first friend among the other pilots, but not the closest, not the one who knew him best. That was Trowa, the one who had seen him at his worst and knew what it took for him to give up everything for nothing, the one who understood what he was thinking without asking, the one who shared his morbid sense of humor. Trowa was the one who had stitched him back together, nursed him back to health, and then stood aside as Heero tried to commit suicide by handing his victim’s family a gun, knowing without being told it was something Heero needed to do to move on.
“Heero, please...”
If, and that was a big if, if Trowa was still alive, his best chances for survival were not with them. If he and Quatre rescued him, added together with Trowa’s frequent visits to their cell, it would be a glowing neon sign to where Trowa’s true loyalties lay. Trowa would be thrown into the cell with them, his injuries ignored and forgotten. A Gundam pilot’s biggest concerns were the colonies and each other. If he let Quatre go after Trowa, the world would know Trowa was one of them.
However, Vayeate was drifting away from them and towards another colony, the same colony Catherine and the circus were moving to next. As long as Quatre didn’t interfere with its trajectory, it would arrive there within two or three days, something Trowa could survive.
Trowa’s best chance, slim though it was, for surviving lay in Heero and Quatre staying put.
“No, Quatre. Let his death mean something,” Heero said softly, relieved in a strange, painful way he had managed to say anything without choking.
As he destroyed the Mercurius’ cockpit recorder and listened to Quatre sob, Heero focused on the inane, silly thoughts he had tried to ignore before so he wouldn’t breakdown like Quatre. He wondered if Harry had ignored Trowa’s order to not contact Relena and if Relena had written back and if she liked Hedwig. He hoped she didn’t; he liked being able to scare the feathers off the bird by shooting at it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
...love of Merlin, are you daft? All war is unnecessary? Tell that to the arse that murdered my parents. Sometimes people like Voldemort bring the war to you. Sometimes you don’t have a choice.
Oz and the Alliance brought war to the colonies when they had Heero Yuy assassinated! They brought war to the colonies when they stripped away their basic rights! The creation of the Gundams and the training of their pilots is a response to that. You can’t tell me no one saw it coming. At the base of it, humans are animals. Beat an animal long enough, corner it, hurt it, and it’s going to fight back. We humans can think, reason, know when to lift the toilet seat and when to put it down, but we’re still animals. We just use weapons instead of claws and teeth.
I also find your arguments for me to help you convince Heero to stop fighting funny. Here’s why: You are fighting a war.
Yes, it’s bloodless (on your side), but it’s still a war. You are fighting a war against war. You use speeches as weapons and are a living example, making yourself the General of your non-violent army, and inspire people to follow your philosophy. They are sitting on their arses and doing nothing in a way that hurts your opponent. You retaking your birth family’s throne was your opening shot.
You are fighting a war, Relena, just a different one than the pilots.
I should probably rewrite this or something, but I have class in five minutes. Sorry for the crude language, I’m used to writing Heero, who could honestly care less if I don’t edit my letters before I send them. He might be upset about this one, though.
Harry.
P.S. In answer to your question, Hedwig likes bacon if you can’t get owl treats. Cooked lean bacon. I cannot stress the cooked part enough. Hagrid’s gone and I don’t know if I can trust his temporary replacement with Hedwig unless I have no other choice.
P.P.S. If you’re curious about magic, you will eventually be contacted by a representative of the magical nation your kingdom falls under, but you can search for my school on Google if you’re impatient. The school’s site has links to other sites designed to explain the classes to muggle parents. An online newspaper you might be interested in will also pop up from a search for Hogwarts.
Noin’s lips twitched as she tried to hide her smile, and not because Relena had a plate piled high with bacon for the snowy owl to eat. “He did apologize for his language,” she said diplomatically.
Relena chuckled softly, her eyes watching the owl perched on the chair by her desk devour the bacon and coo at her for the treat. “But is he right? Am I fighting a war?”
“In a sense, yes, you are,” Noin said slowly, organizing her thoughts. If she spun her response incorrectly, Relena might take a far less active role in fighting against Romefellor, and Lucrezia Noin was selfish enough to admit she found it far more satisfying to protect a nation and its princess than protecting a teenage girl hell bent on getting revenge for her father’s murder and chasing her crush. “But it is a war someone needs to fight, Miss Relena. If no one stands up and says enough is enough, the bloodshed will continue. Your beliefs and your parents’ beliefs are well known. Because of that, you’ve become a shining example for others to follow.”
Relena nodded, more to herself than Noin, and picked up her pen. She tapped it against her desk as she thought. Suddenly, she pulled her stationary pad close and started writing.
“You’re writing back?” Noin asked, dropping the letter. She couldn’t believe Relena was going to continue writing to this boy now that he had passed on the news Heero was still alive. He was crude, insulting, and...and...and everything that wasn’t part of Relena’s norm.
“I enjoy a challenge,” Relena said, an eerily familiar smile on her lips. It was the same smile Zechs’s wore when he went into a battle he knew he would need all his skills to win.
Noin had the uncomfortable realization she would be spending a good deal of her time researching wizards and this Voldemort character and his potential threat to the Sanc kingdom. By being a friend of Heero Yuy’s, Harry Potter had become someone important in Relena’s world. Perhaps she should write her own letter to the boy to see if he could give her any information that would help her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Typing in the address of the message board from Harry’s latest email, Heero absently listened to J and the other scientists and resisted the impulse to knock the old men into the walls for scoffing at Quatre.
Seeing Trowa’s destroyed suit without Trowa had killed the small hope Heero had for Trowa’s survival. Hearing Quatre begging the old men to look for Trowa was pulling on the emotions Heero was doing his damnedest to hide. Showing any emotion around J during what could be classified as a mission was dangerous for Heero’s mental well being. The old man had protested Dekim Barton’s orders to eliminate Heero’s emotions, but he had carried them out to best of his ability, only backing off when Heero perfected his mask. Heero had no plans to forgive the old bastard for what Heero considered a betrayal of their agreement.
If J or any of the other scientists came at him with a needle, Heero had plans to kill him however he could and in the most painful way he could manage with the tools he had access to at that time. He knew Wufei and Duo had similar plans for such situations. Quatre and Trowa were lucky; H and S had only had limited access during their training due to lack of time in Trowa’s case and an extensive, over protective family in Quatre’s.
A point between Heero’s shoulder blades itched. He stiffened and looked over his shoulder at the blond behind him. “Quatre?”
Quatre was visibly battling against his natural instinct to smile a greeting at Heero and obey Heero’s earlier warning to not let the scientists see him display too much emotion. Not that his begging the men look for Trowa hadn’t been an emotional display, but it could be written off as a soldier being concerned about their numbers being lessened. It would be by H at any rate; J and O’s disgusted expressions said they had caught and understood what H didn’t. Or didn’t want to understand. Heero didn’t know enough about the man to say if he was blind, stupid, or surprisingly compassionate concerning Quatre and Trowa’s friendship. The latter was most likely considering the man had encouraged Quatre’s partnership with the Maganac Corps.
“What are you doing?” Quatre asked softly, his head tilted forwards ever so slightly so he was looking up at Heero through his white blond bangs. This combined with his naturally wide blue eyes made him appear far more innocent than he was. Heero had the irrational urge to take Quatre to his sisters and order them to hide the younger pilot away.
Heero knocked the impulse away with a sharp shake of his head. Quatre was a Gundam pilot. He had killed. He had used his innocent looks as a way to escape capture on Earth and later kill his targets. He was not the innocent child Heero’s instincts said he was.
“Asking one of my contacts if he knows more about the others than J,” Heero said.
Quatre perked up, his lips briefly forming a smile before he forced his expression to blank. “Do you think they’ll be able to look for Trowa?”
Shrugging, Heero signed in to the message board using the name and password Harry had sent and immediately went to the administration section. As he posted his quick message, he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in Harry or the Chang girl was awake and aware enough to figure out what he wanted.
The response was far quicker and informative than Heero had imagined it would be.
You’re lucky we’re up this late. We wouldn’t be if SS hadn’t assigned an essay today that’s due tomorrow.
1) Where have you been? I swear H’s going bald worrying about you.
2) Alive, safe, and chatty. He’s keeping us up to date on the latest gossip.
3) No info, but we’ll keep our ears open. H says he’ll contact Len tomorrow so she can look. She has more resources than we do.
4) Good to know. My cousin was worried. Wouldn’t give me details, though. We pass along our condolences for his father’s murder.
5) Alive, nowhere near safe, and annoying me. If you see him before I do, smack him for me. I know who murdered my boyfriend and I don’t appreciate him calling me and H liars. I’ve seen H’s memories of that night; he hasn’t.
I’m not going bald, thank you very much, C. I’m going grey, as R pointed out.
Don’t die between now and tomorrow morning, Len won’t get my letter until then. Actually, try not to get killed at all. Your friend accidentally let me know the last was attempted suicide. Don’t do that again either. I blew up a lot of windows after figuring it out. I can’t afford to get all the windows at school replaced. When you get a chance, send me an email, or letter if you make it here. I’m worried, and this does nothing to make me stop.
I know it’s not much, nor does it have a high chance of success, but we’ll try a tracking charm or two with some Astronomy charts tonight and see if we can give Len a general area to look in.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
You are a fool, Chang Wufei. The next time I see you, I will hex your bits to the moon and curse you to follow them. Just because you haven’t seen Him face to face does not mean he isn’t alive. That’s like me telling you Treize Kushrenada isn’t real because I’ve only seen him on the telly. It’s a bloody stupid thing to say and you know it. I never thought someone as intelligent as you would place so much faith in propaganda from an obviously corrupt government. What happened to the scholar Meilan married?
Cho
P.S. I am not dating Potter!
Wufei snorted at Cho’s weak denial. Who did his cousin think she was talking to, an inbred British wizard? He knew Cho wasn’t dating the boy now; he had simply said it was obvious she was interested in the Potter boy and close to asking him to accompany her to Hogsmeade, something Wufei thought was dangerous and fool hardy considering Diggory’s death had happened just months earlier. The Diggorys and what remained of the Long clan on Earth had been discussing marriage between Cho and Diggory. Cho becoming romantically attached to Potter so soon was disrespectful to Diggory’s memory and would shame their clan.
A romantic relationship at this time would also do nothing but hurt Cho and Potter in the end. Cho would constantly compare Potter to Diggory and find him lacking, and Potter would be forced to try and live up to Cho’s idealized image of Diggory.
Perhaps that was the best argument to use to explain his thoughts on the situation. Wufei did not know his cousin as well as he should, but he did know her status in the clan meant very little to Cho, but knowing she would be hurting an innocent person she called friend would go a long way in making her understand his thoughts on her current situation. The Voldemort issue, however, Wufei planned to leave untouched for the moment, other than apologizing to his cousin for accusing her of lying. Once the war was over, he would make time to meet Potter and decide if the boy was truthful about Voldemort’s return or simply insane.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
...rumors are flying fast and hard up here, mostly rehashes of the old ones. One of the newer versions says Lady Une went nuts and was killed. Another says she’s the one who released me and ‘Fei, then was shot, and is in a coma. The ones about Heero, Quatre, and Trowa are all disturbing, but they all have the same common theme that Heero and Quatre are back on or heading to Earth and Trowa’s somewhere in this general area.
I know it’s not much, but I thought you should know the latest changes. Mind telling me what Len is up to? Word here is she’s restarting the family business.
Duo
Harry let the cursor hover over the reply button, wavering over responding.
Duo was doing the over-protective thing again.
Duo wasn’t lying, not quite. He was omitting information, leaving out little details, and not telling Harry things. He was lying by omission, which really wasn’t a lying at all but was because Harry knew Duo wasn’t telling him everything he could.
Harry took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. He was giving himself a headache, trying to figure out if Duo was lying by not lying by not saying anything.
He shoved his glasses back on, glaring at his computer screen. He had just made his headache worse and he was no closer to solving his problem. Latest problem. He had nine others needing his immediate attention and one he and Cho had sort of solved. They were hiding in the hallway leading to the Chamber of Secrets, taking a quick break before they went back to cleaning up the rat, cat, owl and toad bones littering the floor of their new hideout.
A well meaning parent had informed Fudge about Cho’s online newspaper. According to the Hogwarts rumor mill, the idiot had printed out several of the articles and owled them, along with a letter demanding answers, to Fudge. When they hadn’t received what they considered a proper response, they had owled that day’s articles to Prophet and kept sending new ones every day, getting other muggles and muggleborns to send in the same, until the Prophet had no choice but to act. Now the Prophet was printing their articles, along with their (a.k.a. the Ministry’s) scathing, absolute denial responses.
The first letter sent to the Ministry had brought Umbridge’s wrath down on Harry during class, but not much else. The letters to the Prophet had set off a chain reaction, ending in Fudge giving Umbridge free reign inside Hogwarts and Harry and Cho deciding to spend their weekend finding a place to hide their barely legal computers. Cho had suggested the Room of Requirement, but Harry, in a spout of Heero-induced paranoia, had instantly vetoed her idea. He reasoned that while the Room was a good temporary meeting place for the DA at the moment, eventually they were going to be noticed. Thirty kids all disappearing at the same time once or twice a week was going to draw Umbridge’s attention sooner than later, and the last thing they needed was for their computers to be confiscated, especially Harry in the current political environment. Mr. Weasley’s Muggle Protection Act made it possible to possess spelled muggle things as long as one didn’t use them, and the Ministry couldn’t prove they had used them without breaking the law themselves to check, but neither Harry or Cho thought someone else breaking one law to prove Harry had broken a law worthy of time in Azkaban would bother anyone in the Ministry too much at the moment.
So they were hiding under the school, a fresh cave-in keeping them out of the Chamber itself. Not that the hallway was a bad hiding place, being protected by a Parseltongue password, but Harry would have felt a lot safer if they were in the Chamber. Unfortunately, neither of them had mastered the bubble head charm or the stabilizing spells they felt were necessary to venture further.
That was a good description of their current situation over all. They didn’t know enough to help Heero or the others. They didn’t know enough to get Umbridge out of power. They didn’t have the contacts needed to counter Fudge’s attacks. They were just two teenagers attempting to stand up against corrupt adults with more power, more resources, more everything.
“We need help.”
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