Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction ❯ Peace, Love, and Family: The Story of the Vanuli Three ❯ Vanuli Parties ( Chapter 29 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

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 29: Vanuli Parties

"You came," Heero said, looking straight at Duo. Heero vaguely remembered dreaming about Duo while he was unconscious. Duo saying that he loved Heero and wanted to be with him again, and other things like that. Maybe they weren't dreams, Heero thought. Maybe he really said it.

"Can Duo and I have a few minutes alone?" Heero asked no one in particular. Heero needed to know as soon as possible. Was there a chance for him and Duo?

"I really would like to check you over first," Maddy said from the doorway. She must have come in after Daemon, who was standing flush against the wall, seemingly trying to disappear.

"Please?" Heero asked. "Just for a few minutes.

Maddy frowned. "Okay, but only for five minutes, Heero Yuy." She pointed her finger at him. "Don't even think about escaping. I'll be right outside the door."

Maddy herded the others out (including the bleary-eyed and protesting Dorothy), and Heero felt a great weight lift off his shoulders. He arranged the pillows behind him and sank into them, halfway sitting up.

"Hell, Duo," Heero said, a little nervously. Heero couldn't remember how long it had been since he was last alone with Duo. "So, how have you been?" Heero played with the fringe on his blanket. He was never really good at small talk, and he knew it showed.

Duo didn't answer him. He just stood there, staring intensely at Heero. Heero squirmed under his gaze (Maybe this was a bad idea.) and looked away.

Heero didn't see Duo cross the room, but it took him less than three seconds to do so. Duo sat on Heero's bed, next to his thighs, and laid one hand on Heero's, stopping its fumbling movements. With his other hand, Duo cupped Heero's chin and made Heero look at him. Duo's eyes (so beautiful) locked on Heero's as he moved in for the kill.

Duo's lips were on Heero's, and Duo's tongue was fighting with Heero's, and Duo's hand was on Heero's chin with the other one on his thigh, and Heero's hands were wrapped around Duo's arms, keeping himself steady, and then it was over, and they were apart from each other, and Heero was panting, and Duo was hugging him, and it was so warm and loving and perfect, and Heero wished it would never end.

Heero buried his head in Duo's shoulder and latched his arms around Duo's waist, determined to never let him go. Duo latched his own arms around Heero, moving his hands in comforting circles around Heero's back. Duo was muttering something, but Heero didn't pay too much attention to it, instead choosing to take in the sights, smells, and sounds that made up Duo Maxwell.

***

Maddy opened the door as soon as her watch told her five minutes had passed. She told Heero five minutes, and five minutes was all he was going to get, thankyouverymuch.

Heero and that Slytherin boy, Maxwell, were curled up practically in each other's laps, Maxwell declaring his undying love for Heero. It didn't surprise her, really, since Maxwell had been "sneaking" into Heero's room almost every night for the past two weeks. Maddy never had really agreed with Madam Pomfrey's visiting policy, so she usually didn't stop anyone-only if they were friendlies, of course-trying to visit Heero, no matter the time of day. Of course, her relaxed visiting policy did not extend to include the first few minutes after her comatose patient had woken up.

Maddy cleared her throat-loud enough to wake some of the most heavy-sleeping people in the world, her sisters Danielle and Aruba-and the two broke apart. "Okay," Maddy said, wheeling in a cart of goodies. "Mr. Maxwell, if you will just step outside for a moment, Heero and I can get started."

"I'm not going anywhere," Maxwell said, scooting back over to Heero.

"Mr. Maxwell, I simply cannot allow you to remain while-"

"I'm staying and that's final."

"Mr. Maxwell, if you think-"

"It's okay, Maddy," Heero said. "I don't mind if Duo stays."

"Fine!" Maddy huffed, throwing up her arms. She pointed to a chair in the corner of the room. "Mr. Maxwell, you can sit over there."

"But-"

"No 'buts,' " Maddy said sternly. "If you are going to remain in this room, you will follow my rules. Is that understood?"

"Perfectly," Maxwell said through clenched teeth, but he sat where she told him to.

"Good." Maddy turned back to Heero and gave him a once-over. He didn't look too bad, a little emaciated from having an I.V. instead of actual food for two weeks, and he had bags under his eyes, but otherwise, he was fine. "Sit up," Maddy commanded, then she helped him into a fully upright position. She went through all the standard Muggle procedures first: checking his ears and throat, listening to his heart and lungs, taking his blood pressure, and finally gently removing the I.V. drip.

"So far you check out fine," Maddy said after putting away her Muggle devices. Heero relaxed slightly, and she grimaced as she got out her next instrument. It was a circular, hand-held device, silver in color, and it emitted a faint whirring sound when in use. It was used to detect where magic was distributed in a body, so a Healer could unblock clogged magic. It was called, simply, a Magic Detector.

Maddy had used it on Heero before during the Muggle war, and she knew that Heero had some rationally irrational fears about it.

Quatre had just killed Trowa-or so they thought at the time-and had injured Heero. Quatre was tore up at the thought that he had killed someone he could have loved but even more so at the thought of hurting Heero, when he'd just come to terms about being brothers with him. Luckily, Quatre thought the injuries Heero sustained were worse than they actually were and dragged Heero to Maddy's office in Sank. Heero's injuries were small-a sprained wrist and a bruised back, both easily treatable by a Healer of Maddy's caliber-but it was in her office, with the use of the Magic Detector, that she'd discovered Heero's real problem.

It would be terribly difficult for her to give Heero the grave news, so she cowardly passed it on to Quatre, as his next of kin, to give to Heero. To know Heero was to love him, and she couldn't ever give him such horribly bad news. Maddy thought Quatre, as Heero's brother, could break the news better. He would know just how to tell it, so Heero wouldn't feel so hopeless.

Maddy still remembered that day; it was imprinted in her mind the same way the ink of a newspaper imprints on the skin when slept on.

"Heero," Quatre said from the living room. They were staying with Maddy for a few days, until they figured out where to go. "I think you need to sit down for this."

Heero looked over at Quatre. He was at his laptop, as usual. If she hadn't seen him away from it-in her examining room, downstairs-Maddy would swear he was physically attached to it.

"I am sitting down," Heero said in the monotone that was his staple during those days. Maddy felt her heart go out to him, a child who had to grow up much too soon.

"I mean, you should come over here and sit." Quatre patted the couch cushion beside him. Another child-soldier. "It's important."

Heero nodded and left his laptop, not bothering to shut it down. He sat beside Quatre and said nothing, staring unblinkingly until Quatre spoke again.

Quatre took Heero's right hand in both of his. "I have some good news and some bad news." Quatre squeezed Heero's hand and took a deep breath. "Maddy had discovered how Dr. J has been stealing your magic all these years."

Maddy had done every sort of test on Heero that she could think of, but it was the Magic Detector that gave her her first big clue.

"The bad news, and there's a lot of it," Quatre continued, "is that, first, Maddy doesn't know how to reverse it; second, it's grafted to your bones, which it why Maddy can't get it out, and it probably explains why you're so strong; third, whenever you get a surge of magic from an outside source, it makes yourmagic pool in several key areas of your body; and four, if these pools of magic aren't periodically released-like venting gas, I suspect-then the magic will get backed up and sort of...explode."

Heero's face didn't change the entire time Quatre was talking. "What are these things that J put inside of me made of?" Heero asked.

"Gundanium," Maddy answered from the kitchenette, where she was washing the dinner dishes. She hesitated before continuing. "It has special properties that makes it ideal for this type of use. For the harvester, anyway. The donor, of course, isn't exactly safe."

"Gundanium draws magic like a sponge," Heero said, sounding like he was reading from a text, "but it also regularly purges the magic before soaking it up again. If a wizard were to touch the alloy during the surge of magic, and then pull back before the Gundanium began soaking up the magic again, the wizard could, theoretically, obtain all of the magic contained in the metal.

"That's what saved me after self-destructing. I was healed by the magic in Heavyarms. Apparently, if what the two of you say is true, that magic is contributing my condition."

He sounded like he was talking about the weather, but Maddy could see, even from the kitchenette, that his eyes were shiny. A second later, it was gone, and she wondered if it had been a reflection from one of the lamps.

"I'm dying, aren't I?" It was directed to her.

"Yes."

"How long do I have?" he asked.

"Six months to a year, if left untreated," she said. "Possibly longer if you live a completely Muggle life, with no contact with magic. Less, if you have regular contact." She walked into the living room and sat on the ottoman in front of the couch. "Not too long before the end, you'll start losing muscle control, maybe have a few seizures. You'll become very weak, and you may even have some memory loss. Permanent blindness is also a concern." Maddy looked away from him. "Even if, by some miracle, you find somebody who can remove the wards, you'll never get your strength back. I estimate about a ten percent bone loss, and that's if nothing goes wrong. If it does, though, there could be major spinal damage. You could end of paraplegic, quadriplegic. It could even kill you."

"A case of 'damned if you do/damned if you don't,' then," Heero said, a small smirk playing across his lips. "I guess I can live with that, for now."

Maddy hadn't been told what they were going to tell the other pilots about Heero's health problem, but she knew what he was going to do about it, so he could pilot his Gundam until the end of the war. Before Heero and Quatre left her place, to go to Relena Peacecraft's school, Maddy gave Heero several heavy-duty painkillers, including morphine. That, coupled with stimulants, was what got him through the rest of the war.

Later, after the war, when she was fixing up all five pilots and everyone else who survived on their side, she learned that Quatre and Heero never mentioned Heero's condition to the other pilots. Apparently, it was Heero's idea-he didn't want their pity. She also learned that Heero didn't have the strength to get out of bed in the morning unless he took his drugs. Maddy had been horrified to learn that, sometimes, Heero couldn't feel his entire left side. His body was atrophied, and she'd given him mere weeks to live, if he wasn't treated soon. When Heero and Quatre left in the middle of the night, Maddy had had no doubt as to where they were going or what they were doing.

"Okay, Heero," Maddy said, finishing her examination. "You are as healthy as can be expected."

"Great. Can I go, then?"

"Not just yet," Maddy rummaged through the cart, finally pulling out a vial and a red pill. "Take these first." Heero was in no shape to be taking care of his werewolves, either tonight or tomorrow night. Luckily, Maddy had enough contracts to get 100+ bottles of Wolfsbane potion and more than enough bottles of Cassus libinus.

Heero took the medicine, and Maddy smiled at him.

"Good boy," Maddy said. "I expect you to come see me every other day at 9 o'clock sharp, and come sooner if you have the faintest twinge of pain. Or anything else. Maddy handed him his clothes (also pulled from the cart). "Now put these on, and you can leave."

***

Dorothy jumped when Madrigal came out of Heero's room. "How is he?" she demanded, crossing her arms.

"He seems fine," Maddy said in her most doctorly voice. She leaned against the door, her hands covering the doorknob. "I'm letting him leave the Infirmary tonight."

"Why so soon?" one of Heero's sisters asked. Dorothy wasn't sure which one it was because she'd never bothered to learn their names.

"Madrigal must have a good reason," Dorothy snapped, effectively shutting up the noblewoman. Dorothy smirked and turned back to Maddy. "So? What's your reason?"

"He's been in the Hospital Wing for a fortnight," Maddy began, "and even if he doesn't remember it, his body does. Lying down for two weeks straight isn't good for anyone. He needs to start working those muscles again, expend some of that excess magic."

"Well, what about that?" Quatre asked to the right of Dorothy. "What are the odds of something like that fire happening again? And what are we supposed to do if it does?"

Maddy stepped away from the door. "I'm going to continue operating my practice out of the Hospital Wing. I will be here less, but when I'm away, I'll be at my office treating my other patients. In the case of an emergency, I'll only be a Floo away."

"So, what's the probability of Heero accidentally setting off the sprinkler system?" Harry asked. Many of the people around Dorothy did not get the joke.

Dorothy narrowed her eyes. Maddy had skipped that question.

"Well," Maddy said, biting her lower lip. "It's very unlikely that Heero will cause another freak fire like before."

Dorothy-and everyone around her-breathed a sigh of relief. That group of fires had been impossible to put out.

"However, it is highly likely that at least one of these things," Maddy brought out a piece of parchment that rolled down to the floor, "will happen over the next four weeks, which is the time hypothesized when most of the foreign magic in Heero's system will be purged and when Heero's own magic will be back at full strength."

"So the good news is that Heero's alive and relatively well," the same sister from before said, "but the bad news is that he could, inadvertently, kill, maim, or otherwise damage someone or something until all of his current magic-exempting, of course, what he's gained back of his own-is used up."

"Pretty much."

Dorothy didn't know whether to smile or frown. After all, Heero was okay. But he might blow up at any second. Normally, Dorothy wouldn't mind (after all, she had enough bubble wrap and duct tape to put him back together), and Mother knew Dorothy didn't care if Heero hurt any of his fellow Gryffindors, but it plagued her thoughts that Heero could be dangerous to her other Niamos, and that just wasn't acceptable.

Dorothy was still musing on this when that same, infernal girl spoke up again. "You guys know what this means, don't you?" she asked. Without waiting for an answer she screamed (and was subsequently shushed), "This calls for a party!"

***

Heero and Duo sat in the hospital room, neither saying anything. Heero knew why he was silent-he was contemplating what and how much exactly to tell Duo. Should he tell Duo everything, starting with his first meeting with his mother and go on from there? Was that too much information to throw at Duo all at once? Should Heero tell what he and the others were going to reveal at Halloween?

"Duo, I know-" Heero began. He looked down at the blanket on the bed and began messing with it again. "I know that I have a lot to make up for and a lot of explaining to do."

Duo took Heero's chin in his hand and forced Heero to look at him. "None of that matters now," he said. "When I saw you, bleeding-dying-on the floor of the Great Hall, I realized what I've been denying since you came to Hogwarts. No, what I've been denying since you walked away form me."

"I'm sorry, Duo," Heero said. He'd put Duo through so much pain.

"Don't be sorry. It doesn't matter anymore. We're here, and we're together. And I-I love you. That's all that matters."

Heero screwed his eyes shut and pinched his thigh. Hard. Surely something this good couldn't be happening to him. It must be another dream.

"Ouch," Heero whispered. He'd pinched almost hard enough to draw blood, and it probably would have been more than hard enough had he been wearing a hospital gown instead of his own thick pants.

"This is real, isn't it?" Heero asked, still not quite ready to get his hopes up. "You're really here? You really want me back?"

"More than anything," Duo said.

Heero angled his head slightly to the right, and Duo angled his to Heero's left, just like they always used to kiss. It was amazing what little details one could remember about his lover.

Heero closed his eyes in anticipation-this time, he would be ready!-and his breath hitched. He could feel Duo's breath-hot and moist and smelling of chocolate-growing steadily closer. Heero fought to close that last little bit of a distance. Almost there, now. Just a few more inches-

The door banged open, and with it, all the sexual tension (okay, maybe not all, but a good deal of it) dissipated. For the moment. Heero and Duo jumped apart faster than two teenagers afraid of being caught making out by their parents. Which wasn't too far from the truth, as Dorothy was no doubt somewhere in the crowd assembled in the Infirmary.

"C'mon, Eemy," Allegara, the offending girl who'd broken up his chance at a quick session of "kiss and make up" said. "You have to come to your impromptu "Back to the Land of the Living" celebration in that great big room on the first floor."

Heero whimpered and clutched Duo's hand as his sister threw a garland on his head.

***

The party had been going on for hours, and tons of students (mostly from Gryffindor and Slytherin) joined in on the fun. After all, it was Friday night (which meant astronomy or the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw seventh years, excep most of the Gryffindors had dropped it in late September), and there were no classes tomorrow, and even if there was, who would pass up the chance to go to a party largely thrown by a people known for their wildly decadent parties, for the sake of being awake and aware for their classes the next morning? Besides Hermione Granger, anyway.

Heero had stayed by Duo's side the entire time-garland still firmly in place-and politely declined all attempts to get him to join in the festivities. If it really was his party (which he doubted, seeing as his siblings were the type of people to throw a party about getting a window fixed which had been broken at the last party. Literally. It happened in April.), he reasoned he could do what he liked. And what he liked was to hang on Duo's arm and follow him around like a simpleton for the rest of the night. Heero would stop, if Duo seemed to dislike the attention, but as he firmly held Heero's arms in place with his other hand, Heero didn't think that was the case.

"Come on, Heero," Harry pleaded for the fifth time. "Just play one, and neither I nor anyone else will bug you for the rest of the night."

"A how are you going to pull that off?" Heero asked. He trusted Harry to keep his word, and his promise made Heero terribly curious to find out as to how he would accomplish it.

"With my natural charm, grace, beauty," Harry fluttered his eyelashes at Heero, "and a particularly vicious Dorothy to finish them off it they don't bow to my will."

Heero laughed. "Going to get Dorothy to do your dirty work for you, then?"

Harry straightened up to his full height-which was exactly that of Heero, and but still considerably shorter than Duo-and said, in a haughty voice, "Of course."

"How very Slytherin of you," Duo commented.

Harry winked at Heero, and he had to fight back a laugh. Harry had told him about almost being placed in Slytherin the same night Heero revealed the same thing about himself and Hufflepuff.

"More than you know, Maxwell," Harry said. He turned his full attention on Heero, his lower lip protruding in what Heero knew would soon become an all-out pout, and which both brothers knew Heero could not resist. "So, one game?"

"All right, all right," Heero caved. He unlinked his arm with Duo's, reached up to kiss him on the cheek, and whispered, "I won't be long. You stay here, and I'll be back in twenty minutes. Tops." To Harry, he said, "Only a short game, though, and a friendly one at that! We don't want any innocent bystanders being trampled because of us."

"Done!" Harry agreed, and he dragged Heero over to where their mother was a few minutes ago, describing the Game to several interested Ravenclaws. "Huh," he said when she was nowhere in sight. "I wonder where she went."

"She went to go find one of those, what do you call thems?" Morgan the 8th said from behind the brothers. "Loos?"

Leaving the brothers, Morgan called her siblings over to her, taking over as leader of the Games. As she went over the rules (and adding that, this time, as it was a demonstration for the interested students, cheating was discouraged. Which meant "staying inside the boundaries, Nelat."), Heero sidled up next to Harry, getting ready to jump as the Vahir was released.

***

Daemon stood in one of the few shadowed places in the Great Hall, watching Heero. He knew he should give up ever having a chance to talk to him privately and that he should probably leave because Heero was fine, but he still stood the like a rock, watching Heero's obvious joy at being with Maxwell and his friends and family, at just being alive.

When Heero finally agreed to play some sort of game with his family, Daemon was surprised. Not just that Heero actually let go of his deathgrip on Maxwell, but also because of the complete change in Heero's stance. He went from utterly relaxed and carefree one minute, to a cat licking is lips before pouncing on an innocent, unsuspecting baby bird. Daemon knew Vanuli to be especially competitive (from the book Vanuli and You: How Not to be Offensive), but seeing it in full force like that was a little nerve-wracking.

The game itself was very interesting, especially since hurting other competitors seemed not an unfortunate consequence but necessity to the game. It only lasted about fifteen minutes, as it was just a demonstration, after all, so the humans could see what Vanuli did in their leisure time-but Daemon figured he knew the game reasonably well.

Harry Potter, and Heero, since they were partners, won the game by tackling a frail-looking older woman to the ground and running from the other players with Quidditch-honed reflexes for the next thirty seconds. As soon as the cheering and booing died down from their victory, and after all the sherbert lemons were tucked safely away in robe pockets, they started a new game, one that would be played as viscously and as drawn out as usual.

As the Vanuli left the Great Hall-playing "follow the Potter"-Daemon looked around to find that he'd lost Heero.

***

Heero wiped the sweat from his brow. The shorter Games were usually more intense because of their compactedness. It caused Heero (and the majority of the other players) to act more viscously, to push, shove, and bite anyone who wasn't on his team away from the Vahir. It was a good Game, and he won, but he was done for now, and would stay that way the rest of the night.

As Heero made his way back to where he'd left Duo, he saw Daemon hiding in the shadows. Smiling, Heero changed his features in a flash, becoming a twenty-something blonde woman in mere seconds. Heero-once more disguised as the beautifully dangerous Annette-made his way over to Daemon.

Heero had been thinking, on and off, about Daemon all night, trying to decide what the outcome of all the things Daemon did to and for Heero would be. Heero had decided, but before he told Daemon, he would make him sweat bit first.

Selune