Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction ❯ Peace, Love, and Family: The Story of the Vanuli Three ❯ Waking Up is Hard to Do ( Chapter 28 )

Disclaimer: I do not own any things Harry Potter-the characters, setting, plot, everything belongs to the wonderful J. K. Rowling and whomever else she decides. I do not own anything Gundam Wing-the characters, setting, plot, everything belongs to (I think) Bandai and Sunrise.

Spoilers: This fic contains spoilers for books 1-5 of Harry Potter and all of the episodes of Gundam Wing. This fic does not include Endless Waltz.

Rating: NC17

Pairings: Neville/Harry, 2x1

Category: crossover, fantasy, general

Author: Selune

Author's site: http://www.gundam-wing-universe.net/fanfiction/menu.php?id=113

Summary: Two years ago, the One Year War ended. At this time, the five heroes-the Gundam pilots-disappeared from the Muggle world. Three of them-pilots 02, 03, and 05-reappeared shortly after in the Wizarding world, as students at Hogwarts School of Witchraft and Wizardry. Now, twenty months after the fact, Heero Yuy and Quatre Winner are coming to Hogwarts, and they're bringing all of their secrets with them. The world-especially one Harry Potter-will never be the same.

Peace, Love, and Family:

The Story of the Vanuli Three

Chapter 28: Waking Up is Hard to Do

Heero was so hot, his skin burning, his body twitching in agony. He tried to scratch, curse, charm, anything the pain away, but he couldn't move, and he couldn't speak. Hands pawed at him, holding him against the bed, leaving ice wherever they touched.

Heero didn't like the touch. It was unfamiliar and wrong and not Harry or Quatre or Dorothy or Relena or anybody who could touch him and make it all better. Harry would feel right-he would help make the fire go away. Quatre, too, and the rest of his sub-family. They should be there, helping him. They always were before.

Quatre! Harry!Heero thought as another pulse of fire burned through him.

***

"I'll see you later," Quatre said, giving Harry a pat on the shoulder. "Dorothy wants to go, now." She had been motioning for them to leave the Great Hall for the past fifteen minutes. Quatre was reluctant to leave because he knew that he was in for a long, long night of potion making. Normally, Quatre could happily spend days on end brewing some new and improved miracle concoction-or not-but tonight, he would rather be nowhere near a cauldron. It put their failure at healing Heero to the front of his mind. Not to mention, Quatre was nervous about the results of the potions.

It was too late for Quatre to make any Wolfsbane potion. It was too late two weeks ago when Heero was hurt. The Wolfsbane potion took a month to make, and that was with pre-prepared ingredients. Quatre was going to have to duplicate Remus' potion (which he still got from Snape, to avoid suspicion as to why he didn't need it anymore) using the Conduprico elixir. Quatre was going to have to make several dozen doses of Wolfsbane from the doses Remus had squirreled away from the last two months. Given the properties of the duplicating potion and the complexity of the Wolfsbane potion, it was likely that the resulting mix would be ineffective, at least partially, and Hogwarts would have over a hundred rabid, ravenous werewolves prowling around in the Forbidden Forest.

It was not a good situation.

Quatre got up from the table and motioned for Dorothy to follow him. He might as well go ahead and get started.

***

I should probably leave, too, Harry thought. The dinner hour would be up in five minutes, and he was almost the last person at the table. He was saved from that fate by Gracie and Greysa Freebird, twin third years who had twin crushes on Dennis Creevey, if the rumor mill was to be believed. There were half a dozen other students scattered among the other tables, three of them at Slytherin. Barton, Maxwell, and Rosencrantz.

Harry could never figure out those three-or most Slytherins, for that matter. Dorothy included.

Barton was quiet, quieter than any other Slytherin Harry had ever met (and that included Blaise Zabini, a seventh year whose name Harry hadn't known until sixth year). He never talked in class except when he was called on, and even then, he used the least amount of words possible to convey the correct answer. And it was always the correct answer.

If Harry watched him long enough, his eyes would eventually flicker over to Quatre, look him over, then flick back, unnoticeable except if you were looking for it. By Quatre's own admission, he and Barton had started to start something in the middle of the Muggle war. For some reason, it had fizzled out. Quatre didn't like to talk about it, and Harry knew why now-Quatre cared nothing for anyone who wasn't family, and that included Barton.

Unlike Barton, Maxwell wasn't quite the enigma he pretended to be. On the outside, he was the same as every other Slytherin to ever attend Hogwarts. He was a pureblood (according to him, anyway. According to the gossip, which Harry never listened to, Maxwell was an orphan and didn't even know who his parents were.), he was overly ambitious (Harry shuddered in remembrance of the day Snape had made all tell their dream jobs, to make sure a truth potion was made correctly), and he hated Gryffindors. Except he didn't .

Heero loved to talk about Maxwell, and the picture he painted was a lot different from the Maxwell Harry saw. Heero's Duo was kind. He would give you the shirt off his back if you were a friend. Heero's Duo was a clown. He was loud and boisterous, and Heero cried himself to sleep some nights after talking about how mean he'd been to Maxwell during the war, and how he'd ignored him. Heero's Duo wasn't the withdrawn, sullen Slytherin Harry had observed over the past year and a half, and it made Harry think. Which Maxwell was the real Maxwell?

The real Rosencrantz was elusive, too. Everything about him screamed "EVIL!" to Harry. From being one of Malfoy's sidekicks to taunting Hufflepuff first years, Rosencrantz had his Slytherin persona down pat. At the beginning of the year, on the train, Rosencrantz had made fun of Heero with exquisite cruelty. Everything Quatre told Harry about Rosencrantz and his past with Heero made Harry's blood boil. Still...what Rosencrantz did on Halloween was miraculous. If he hadn't teen there, they might have lost Heero for good. Rosencrantz confused Harry, and he wasn't happy about it.

When did the minor characters start being actual people? Harry thought, angry with himself for wasting his time thinking about unimportant people. Oh, well. Harry looked around and saw that he and the Slytherins were the last people in the Great Hall. I guess I should go.

Harry got up, grabbing his things and heading towards the door.

CRACK!

"MisterHarryPottersir," a squeaky voice said from behind him. "I is glad to be finding you. I is having a message from MistressMorgan."

Harry turned around to face Dobby. The House Elf was being loud enough for his voice to echo. "What is it?"

"MistressMorgan is saying for MisterHarryPottersir to be going to the Infirmary at once. MisterHeeroYuysir is to be waking up bad," Dobby said.

"Heero's awake?" Harry asked, grabbing Dobby by the shoulders. "Are you sure? Is he okay? Does Quatre know yet?"

"I is not knowing," Dobby said. "MistressMorgan told me to be telling you right away."

"Right, yes, I should be going, then," Harry said, turning back to the doors.

"MistressMorgan says I am to be taking you there," Dobby said, touching Harry's hand.

"Oh, yeah," Harry said, trying to clear his mind. His head was so jumbled. Heero was awake! "House Elves can Apparate in Hogwarts. Go ahead and take me to Heero, please."

"Oh, MisterHarrryPottersir said 'please,' " Dobby gushed. "MisterHarryPottersir is so nice! Right away, MisterHarryPottersir."

***

"Something's going on," Daemon said after watching Potter and the House Elf Apparate away.

"Do you think so?" Duo asked harshly from the other side of the table. "What do you suppose it concerns?"

"Heero, you idiot," Daemon snapped, tearing his eyes off the door. Was Duo really that stupid?

"I know that perfectly well, Rosencrantz," Duo said, getting up from the table. "I guess no one ever taught you what 'rhetorical question' meant."

"Why I oughta-" Daemon leapt from his seat and was halfway across the table before Trowa caught him.

It had been like that for two weeks, after the night Daemon eavesdropped on Duo in the Hospital Wing. Duo or Daemon would say something, the other would take offense, and Trowa would act as referee-and stop them from killing each other. It wasn't exactly a perfect setup, and they weren't exactly Daemon's friends, but it helped with the stress of waiting for Heero to get better. Not to mention, it was good for Daemon to have other war buddies around who had never tried to kill him.

"I suggest," Trowa said, pulling Daemon back onto his feet, "that we go to the Infirmary and attempt to find out what's got Potter in such a tizzy."

Duo and Daemon both agreed, shaking hands at Trowa's prompt. Daemon and Duo would never be what anyone would call friends, but as two people who cared about Heero Yuy, they could be civil to each other every once in a while.

"Well, somebody's going to have to tell Wufei," Duo said, eyeing Daemon.

Well, maybe not.

"There is no way in Hell," Daemon snarled, "that I'm going to spend Merlin knows how long tracking down your Ravenclaw friend, while you go see Heero."

"Fine, then," Duo said. "Trowa?"

"No," Trowa said, slipping back into the monotone he used while thinking very hard. "I'm not going to leave you two alone to kill each other in my absence. It would reflect badly on Slytherin as a whole, and me in particular."

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Daemon asked, exasperated. They were wasting valuable seconds here arguing with one another, when they could be heading towards the Hospital Wing.

Trowa sighed. "I guess we'll all just go find Wufei together."

"But-" Duo protested.

"I don't-" Daemon said.

Trowa pulled them both up to his eye level by way of their collars. "We. Are. Going. Together. Or. Not. At All," he said through clenched teeth, finally showing the stress of the last fourteen days.

"Okay," Duo and Daemon said together.

***

Quatre followed the House Elf-Timbly, or something like that-who Apparated him and Dorothy to the Infirmary. It was pandemonium in there. Half or more, most likely all who could be found, of Quatre's Vanuli siblings were milling around in there. Maddy was running back and forth between Heero's private room and a large table with many different vials set up in the middle of the Infirmary proper.

"Get me the Pyro-Soother™," Maddy yelled from Heero's room.

Most of the noise-and there was a lot of it-was coming form in there. Quatre sniffed and smelled charred flesh, curtains, and something he couldn't identify.

No one moved to get Maddy the potion, all under the impression that someone else would do it. Quatre sighed and grabbed the potion (One-hundred percent GUARANTEED to soothe all your burns, bumps, and bruises!) and ran into Heero's room, Dorothy at his heels.

Quatre barely had time to notice Harry's presence before Maddy grabbed the vial from his hands. While Maddy rubbed the salve over Heero's chest, Quatre joined Harry, Dorothy, and his sister Morgan in putting out the fires around the room. As soon as he put one out, another one sprang up behind it.

"What's going on?" Quatre yelled over the crackling.

"I'm not sure yet!" Maddy yelled back, now holding Heero's body onto the bed. "And would somebody please bring me the damn Sleeping Draught?"

Allegara rushed in with a vial Quatre recognized as a moderate sedative. It would put Heero out cold, but he'd be awake again in about a half an hour. Two of Quatre's brothers-Larol and Hatir, if he remembered correctly-held Heero down as Maddy pried open his mouth and forced him to drink the potion.

Almost immediately, the fires in the room snuffed themselves out, and Quatre could hear something other than their crackling.

"Okay, Maddy, what happened?" Quatre asked as soon as he got his bearings back.

Maddy huffed and lightly patted Heero's shin under the miraculously unscathed sheet. "I''m really not sure," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose with her other hand. "My only guess right now is that the mixture of magics in Heero caused some sort of chain reaction when he woke up. He was calling for you and Harry for the first few minutes, which rapidly deteriorated to incoherent screaming, and then to nothing."

"Is he going to be all right?" Harry asked.

"Of course he's going to be all right," Dorothy snapped. "He just needs his family."

Dorothy crawled in the bed with Heero, mending any charred material as she went. She hugged Heero's back to her chest and started cooing at him.

"I'll have to do some tests to make sure, but Dorothy might be right," Maddy said.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Harry asked. Without waiting for an answer, he crawled onto the bed, hugging his chest to Heero's.

Maddy pulled Quatre to the side and spoke softly to him. "The sedative should wear off in approximately twenty-three minutes. I'm gong to be right outside the door. You come get me if there is any change before then. I mean, if his eyelid flutters, his finger twitches, anything, you come and get me."

"Okay," Quatre agreed.

Maddy nodded her head once and walked out of the room, closing the door softly as she went.

Quatre looked at the bed where his brothers and Naiyama lay. Now how am I going to fit on there?

***

Chang wasn't too hard to find. He was at the first place Daemon, Duo, and Trowa looked, which was, predictably, the library. It was hard, though, to drag him away from his studies. It took them ten minutes of convincing-and that was after they'd mentioned it was about Heero's health.

That was nothing compared to getting into the Infirmary. Even using all his charm, wit, and sneakiness, Daemon hadn't been able to get past the guard stationed at the entrance. She said her name was Claudia and she was re-stocking Madam Pomfrey's stores, but Daemon had dubbed her Miss Fort Knox, unholy gatekeeper to his ex-brother's well-being.

"Come o-on," Daemon whined,. "Let us i-in." He was reduced to this, humiliating himself for a glimpse of Heero.

"No," the short, dark-haired woman (who had already taken all four of their wands-twice) said. "Family only."

"But we are family," Duo protested from beside Daemon. He hadn't quite lowered himself to Daemon's level yet, but it was only a matter of time.

"Yes!" Daemon said. "We're, um, cousins of-" (Daemon leaned down to whisper to Chang "Who did you say was your keeper? The one who got hurt?) "Michael."

"Yes," Duo cut in. "We're terribly worried. After all, he's supposed to be in the game tomorrow."

Claudia looked at them suspiciously. "Why are you so worried about him playing? Aren't you in Slytherin?"

Daemon moved to cover the Slytherin badge on his robe, before realizing it was useless. "Yes...but they're playing Gryffindor tomorrow. The lesser of two evils."

"Okay, then," Claudia said, giving in. "But only two at a time. And be quiet! I don't want you waking the other patients."

Daemon nodded his head, quickly agreeing. Claudia opened the door a bit, and Daemon squeezed in, not caring who was behind him.

***

Maddy sat just outside of Heero's room, once again reading her book. She listened with one ear for any trouble in the other room. Before coming out, she'd taken a sample of the magic literally oozing from Heero's pores. The sample was currently being run through three different types of wizard machines.

The first one, called merely Identi-Mage, identified and catalogued al the various types of magic in a sample. It was usually used in testing the air after a magic spill, usually after a very strong wizard's duel. The results were even in a simple-to-read pie chart with each type and the percentage of each type.

The second machine, called the Compare-A-Wiz, was usually used for comparing and identifying compatibility/incompatibility between the magics of two different wizards. It w usually used to determine which type of marriage bond should be used during a wedding. Now, though, Maddy was using it t compare the compatibility among the magics the Indenti-Mage identified.

The third machine, called a Predict It!, gave a list of all the possible outcomes which could happen based on the particular magics and their compatabilities.

Based on the results of all three machines (but especially the last one), Maddy could be reasonably prepared for whatever Heero might go through in the next few weeks. The magic sample was currently in the Compare-A-Wiz, and Maddy expected it to be in there for a little bit longer. The results from the Identi-Mage were pretty much what Maddy expected. Centaur magic in the least amount, then werewolf (some of it inextricably linked with wizard magic, which meant some of the donors had been born human, and then turned). There was a little bit more vampire magic, and the other various magics kept increasing in volume, hippocampus, merrow, Siren, pixie, thestral, Veela, wood nymph, and finally Vanuli magic in astounding quantities.

After Maddy added up all the numbers, she wouldn't have been surprised about the fire Heero made any more than if he were a match with a complementary barrel of gasoline. Even if all the types of magic were compatible (which was highly unlikely, given the number of and differences in the magics), Maddy would have been more surprised if Heero didn't have some sort of reaction. Maddy would have to wait until she saw the results of the other two machines, but Maddy's preliminary diagnosis was that Heero simply had so much magice in him that, while not toxic, was dangerous. Her recommendation would be to surgically-or magically, if possible-remove as much of the non-Vanuli magic as possible.

Maddy put down her book-luckily not at a steamy part-as the Compare-A-Wiz started the chugging and clanking that meant it was done. She picked up the results and started flipping through the pages. Right on the first page, she started seeing very bad things.

The vampire, Siren, and Veela magics were similar in that they attracted humans, wizard and Muggle alike, by a type of magic similar to Imperius. They drew people to them. But whereas vampires and Sirens used their magic as a food gathering source, Veelas used it to draw potential mates, much as male birds used their bright plumage to draw females. The Imperius-type magic was completely opposite that of wood nymph and thestral magic, both of which had a type of Notice-Me-Not spells on them, except when it came to certain types of people-those who have seen death for the thestrals, and nature-loving tree-huggers for the nymphs. And those were the easy to compare magics.

Maddy sighed and fed the sample magic and results page into the Predict It! She hoped the results of that were easier to understand, so she could figure out how to plan the surgery, or even if there needed to be one.

As Maddy fed the last of the twelve page document into the machine, she saw a flash of black out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head, she saw that two boys were about to open the door to Heero's room.

"Hey!" she called out, half-jogging to them. "You can't go in there."

Honestly,she thought. I turn my back for one minute!

***

"Oh, shit," Daemon said, his hand on the door. The Healer's heels clicked on the stone as she ran over to them. "She's caught us."

"Not yet, she hasn't," Duo said from behind him. "Open the door. Hurry, before she gets here."

"Okay, okay," Daemon said, fumbling to turn the knob. Apparently, he wasn't going fast enough because Duo swatted him away just as the Healer reached them.

She grabbed Duo's hand. "You can't go in there."

Daemon looked to Duo. His left eye was twitching, just a little bit, but after sharing a dorm for over a year, it was easier to pick up on these little idiosyncracies. Duo was royally pissed off. He looked at the woman, grabbed her hand, and peeled it off his.

"Yes, I can," Duo said, calmly, quietly. He turned the knob and opened the door.

***

Quatre was awake, watching his sleeping family. He hadn't been able to figure out how to get in the bed without disturbing the others and waking them up, so he had settled for sitting beside them, his arm patting Harry's head. He used a little trick Dorothy taught him and was levitating a couple of feet over the chair under him.

It was a different, but not unpleasant sensation, to be sitting on air and magic, but it was fun for him. Quatre so rarely used his magic for something so frivolous as levitation. He spent his time and energy making good, practical potions, rather than flittering it all away on charms and transfigurations. Especially transfigurations.

Quatre shuddered at the memory of his first-and last-attempt to change his body, like Heero did as a matter of routine. The experience had been, not just unpleasant, but bone-crushingly, mind-numbingly, "scream you lungs out until you can't scream anymore, then scream again" horrifying. Quatre had been stuck for hours in the transfigurations before Dorothy and Heero had been able to help him back. After that, Quatre had decided to never, ever transfigure himself again.

Harry stirred in his sleep, and Quatre froze. He looked down at his brothers, trying to figure out if Heero had moved, too. Surely, it must be time for the potion to wear off. It felt like he'd been watching over them for hours.

The door creaked, and Quatre jumped. It must be Maddy, he thought. Quatre floated down to sit securely in the chair and waited for his sister to enter. He sat there for several seconds, as the knob turned several times, but the door never opened. Somewhat fed-up (and curious as to why Maddy didn't just open the door), Quatre walked to the door.

As he approached the door, he heard voices. Two males, arguing with each other. Quatre couldn't make out their exact words, but their tones sounded angry. A female joined them, and Quatre recognized it as his sister's.

The door creaked again, and Quatre took a big step back. The door swung inward, and he didn't want to get hit by it. The door opened, and the person behind it stepped in.

***

Heero was warm and cozy. Not like earlier, when he thought he was on fire. No, he felt more like he was in bed and his entire family was around him, all piled together-over or under the covers, it didn't matter because their bodies generated enough heat to keep them warm. Heero felt like he had after figuring out who Quatre was. So happy and loved and free to love back.

An arm hugged Heero from behind, and one hugged from the front. A head lay on his shoulder, and hair fell over onto his nose, tickling him. A chin lay on his forehead, a knee over his thigh.

The air smelled of butterscotch and lemon drops, summer days and winter nights. The air smelled like family and home and love and trust. Like Harry and Dorothy and Quatre.

Heero took in all these feeling and scents and sounds (he could hear so much! Breath hot in his ear, the beep-blip-bloop of a something or other, the hushed whispers of visitors), all dozens of times better just because he was aware of them, and he was aware that he was aware of them. Heero knew it was time to wake up, for good, and go face the world again.

Heero took a deep breath. This was going to be hard. With all of his strength and energy and magic, Heero keyed himself up.

He woke up and opened his eyes and the first person he saw was

"Duo."

Selune