Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Gundam Wing Goes to Hogwarts ❯ Holiday Cheer ( Chapter 11 )

Chapter 11: Holiday Cheer

Harry woke up to the feel of a rough tongue licking the side of his face. “Stop it, Crookshanks!” he muttered, trying to push the cat away.

“I'm not Crookshanks,” Roku's voice answered.

Harry's eyes flew open. His bed suddenly seemed very small with a goodly portion of it filled up with tiger. He sat up quickly. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you to wake up. How do you feel?”

“Oh!” Harry gasped. He clutched his head in his hands and slumped back down, his face going green and sad at the same time. “I feel terrible! What did I drink? And did I really overhear something about my parents and Sirius Black?”

“Yes, you did.” Roku nodded. “Papa Duo thought it would hurt less if you had a pounding headache to go with the sadness. Does it help?”

“No.”

“I suspected as much. Some of Papa Duo's ideas are a little harebrained.”

Harry squinted at him in surprise. “Can you talk about your father like that?”

“Papa Duo doesn't mind.”

“Should you be being a tiger right now? What if someone sees you?”

“Everyone's gone. It's the holidays, remember? Only Ron and Hermione are downstairs.” Roku hopped off the bed. “Come on, it's almost lunchtime. I'm hungry.”

Harry rolled out of bed and put on a clean shirt before following Roku downstairs to the common room.

Ron's eyes went round at the sight of Roku. “Do you have to do that? It's creepy!”

“I think he's adorable!” Hermione squealed. She scurried across the room to stroke Roku's fur. Roku purred and swiped at her hand with his tongue. Hermione giggled delightedly.

“I say, Harry,” Ron began, “about last night…”

“I don't want to talk about it,” Harry said quickly. “Let's go eat. Hadn't you better change, Roku?”

Roku shimmered into human form. “Too bad everyone didn't leave,” he said. “I'm getting almost no tiger-time and it makes my fur get all matted. And I want some raw meat.”

“You would rather be a tiger than a person?!” Ron exclaimed, turning a little green at the mention of raw meat.

“I am a tiger,” Roku said. “I'm shape-shifting when I'm a person.”

Ron stared. “That's weird.”

“I think it's brilliant!” Hermione exclaimed. “I've never met anyone who was really a talking animal before.”

“Leave it to Hermione to be excited by something like that,” Ron muttered.

“Anyway, Roku,” Hermione continued, “you promised to show me how to use my storage space.”

“I remember. Let's see,” Roku tapped his lip. “First of all, you need to get a feel for it.” He and Hermione walked ahead of the others as Roku explained. Hermione listened intently, her face rapt.

“This is so not good,” Ron whispered to Harry. “She'll have a whole library stuffed into her wherever by dinnertime.”

“But think how happy she'll be,” Harry said, trying to sound cheerful.

“Humph!” Ron grunted.

They had not yet reached the front hall when Alexa and Jett came bounding down a staircase, trailed by an exhausted-looking Hadeya.

“It's almost Christmas!” Alexa shouted. “And Mommy and Daddy said they have presents for me, but they're hidden!” She skidded to a halt by grabbing Harry's hand, nearly yanking him off his feet. Jett completed the job by grabbing Harry around the waist to stop herself. All three of them went down in a heap.

“Ow!” Harry gasped.

“Sorry!” Jett giggled. She popped to her feet.

Harry got to his feet more slowly, inhibited as much as assisted by Alexa tugging on his arm.

“You shouldn't go drinking with Uncle Duo, Harry,” Alexa advised. “He can drink gods under the table.”

“Gods?!” Harry, Ron and Hermione exclaimed in unison.

Alexa nodded, despite the subtle shushing motions Hadeya was making. “Mommy said it didn't bother the Norse gods that much, but I remember it used to make the Greek gods really mad, especially Bacchus.” Alexa giggled. “He would get all red in the face trying to match Uncle Duo goblet for goblet and then he would pass out.”

“You… you met Greek and Norse gods?” Ron rasped faintly.

“Well, I don't remember the Norse gods that well because I was just a baby when were in Asgard, but Mount Olympus was lots of fun. That's where I learned how to dance. And I got to throw lightning bolts!”

“I want to throw lightning bolts, too,” Jett pouted.

“I still have a few scraps of lightning in my storage space,” Roku said. “We can go outside after lunch and throw them at dementors.”

Jett clapped her hands. “Goody!”

“You have lightning bolts in your storage space?” Hermione asked, her shock turning to excitement in an instant. “How does that work?”

“They're sort of like rock in their dormant state. They don't turn to lightning until you throw them. It's something about flying through the air that makes them activate. It's pretty cool. Hephaestus showed me how he made them. It's part magic and part blacksmithing. Hephaestus is really strong and has huge shoulders.”

“Hephaestus, God of the Forge?” Hermione exclaimed. “You talked to him?! Like a real person?!”

“All the gods are real people,” Roku said. “Ask Hadeya. His mother is a god.”

Ron, Hermione and Harry stopped dead in their tracks and stared at Hadeya.

Hadeya put his head in his hand. “You probably should not have mentioned that, Roku.”

“Why not? I like Freya. And she's really pretty.”

Hermione goggled. “Your mother is Freya, the Norse goddess of beauty and love?! But… but… I thought Mister Yuy was your father!”

“He is.”

“But how could a mortal… I mean…” Hermione's face turned bright red.

“The gods have sex just like people do,” Roku said matter-of-factly, unmindful of Hermione's flaming cheeks. “And Freya is the goddess of fertility, too, so she used to get upset that she didn't have any children of her own. But since Papa Heero is a mortal, Hadeya is only a demigod.”

Ron blinked, wide-eyed. “Does that mean you have special powers, Hadeya? Can you fly?”

Hadeya shook his head. “I can only do a few things a normal person cannot,” he said. “My main gift is being able to see and cross the Rainbow Bridge into Asgard. And I might be immortal,” he added as an afterthought. “Although I will not know that for certain until I have not died.”

“What?! Wait a minute!” Ron scratched his head in confusion. “You won't know that you'll live forever until you haven't died?! That doesn't make any sense at all!”

“Yes, it does,” Alexa said. “If he dies of old age then he'll know he's not immortal.”

“Of course,” Hadeya continued thoughtfully, “I can be killed just like anyone else and if that happens we'll never know for certain if I would have lived forever.”

Ron rubbed his temples. “I think we need to stop talking about this.”

“I smell food!” Jett announced and she dashed ahead into the Great Hall.

After lunch, everyone went outside, despite the falling snow, to throw lightning bolts at the dementors. Harry especially found it quite satisfying when the brilliant flashes sent the dementors scurrying into the clouds in panic. But eventually it got too cold, so they decided to go visit Hagrid.

But when they arrived at the big man's hut, they found him blubbering mightily over the fact the Buckbeak's case had been referred to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures.

“Buckbeak hasn't got a chance now!” Hagrid howled, devastated by the turn of events. “I don' know what to do!”

“Can't Buckbeak just fly away?” Alexa asked innocently. She and Jett were staring up at the big hippogriff with wide eyes. Buckbeak paused in the middle of messily consuming some unidentifiable dead animal to incline its head politely.

“I can't let `im go!” Hagrid moaned. “They might put me in Azkaban again!” He hung his head in his hands.

“Well,” Hermione suggested, drawing herself up officiously, “we'll just have to make a case for Buckbeak, that's all! We'll go to the library and research old cases. I'm sure we can find something to prove Buckbeak's not at fault.”

Hagrid brightened a little. “Do yeh think so?”

“I'm positive!” Hermione said. “Let's go. There's plenty of time before dinner.”

They all went back to the library, but just Hermione, Ron and Harry did research. Alexa, Jett and Roku played hide and seek among the bookshelves, which Roku did in tiger form. Hadeya sat with Harry and the others. It was quiet, except for occasional whispers from Hermione or Ron or Harry when they found something that seemed like it might be useful, but then an explosion of growls, squeals and giggles broke the silence, immediately followed by someone making shushing sounds.

Hermione glanced toward the noise and then frowned at Hadeya. “Shouldn't you check on them?”

“The girls are safe with Roku,” Hadeya said, “and I have been watching them all day. It is exhausting.” He settled more comfortably in his chair. “I used to fight in battles all day with the heroes of Valhalla and it was not as tiring as playing with two little girls.”

“The heroes of Valhalla?” Harry looked up from the heavy tome he was reading. “Does that all really exist?”

“Of course. I grew up in Valhalla.” Hadeya leaned back and closed his eyes. “Although there really is not any reason for the heroes to train for battle anymore since Ragnarok already happened, but what else are a bunch of warriors going to do to entertain themselves? You can only spend so much time eating, drinking and screwing. Besides, I think some of them enjoy dying and being resurrected again.”

Hermione blinked. “Ragnarok already happened? But… I thought the world was supposed to be destroyed by Ragnarok.”

“It was destroyed.” Hadeya yawned. “But Roku put it back together. That would have been something to see,” he added sleepily.

The three young people stared at the half-asleep demigod.

“Wait just a minute!” Ron demanded. “Roku put the world back together?” He enunciated each word slowly and carefully.

“It was a really long time ago,” Hadeya said without opening his eyes. “I doubt there is any evidence of the destruction and reassembly left.” He folded his hands over his tummy. “I have been meaning to track down Jormangand to ask him to tell me about it since he was inside the Earth when it broke apart, but I have not been able to find his head. I have only found loops of his body.”

“Who's Jormangand?” Harry asked curiously.

“The Midgard Serpent.”

“The Midgard Serpent is a myth!” Hermione exclaimed in a squeaky voice.

“Anything that existed or happened a very long time ago tends to become a myth,” Hadeya said. He yawned again. “Actually, there is a piece of his body lying close to the surface not too far from here. I can show it to you if you like.”

Hermione's eyes went round. “Yes! Please!”

Ron leaned over and tapped the book lying open in front of Hermione. “Shall we attend to Buckbeak first, Miss Needs-To-Know-And-See-Everything?”

Hermione blinked at him. “Yes… of course…” She pulled the book toward her and started reading again.

A soft snore drifted from Hadeya, punctuated by another burst of giggles and growls from somewhere in the depths of the library.

After several hours, Harry pushed away the book he was reading and stuck his fingers under his glasses to rub his eyes. “I'm exhausted and it's almost time for dinner. Let's take a break.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Ron agreed.

“Let's take these books back to the Gryffindor common room first,” Hermione suggested. “Then we can keep reading after dinner.”

As if summoned, Roku, Alexa and Jett appeared to help carry books and then they all went down to the Great Hall for dinner.

The next morning after breakfast, Harry, Hermione and Ron sat in the Gryffindor common room reading, hoping to find something to help Hagrid with Buckbeak's case. When they emerged through the portrait hole at lunchtime, they found Roku, Alexa and Jett sitting just outside playing jacks. Hadeya was sitting on the stairs nearby.

“Why didn't you come in?” Harry asked.

“We didn't want to disturb you,” Roku said. “But the girls wanted to eat lunch with you, so we waited.”

Alexa and Jett jumped to their feet and grabbed Harry's hands. “Come on! We're starving! Let's go! Let's go!” They dragged the hapless young wizard toward the stairs.

“Why is Harry always the popular one?” Ron muttered under his breath.

Hardly anyone was in the Great Hall for lunch that day. None of the Gundam pilots showed up and only a few of the remaining professors were there. They had just finished eating when Wu-Fei came in with the Chutes and Ladders game balanced on his head and an irritated look on his face.

“I thought you children might like something to do to entertain yourselves,” Wu-Fei said.

Roku smirked. “Everyone's being naughty again? Didn't they just do that this morning?”

Wu-Fei rolled his eyes. “For hours! You'd think they weren't just doing the same thing last night as well. Sheesh!”

“They're gonna get raw,” Roku snickered.

“Which is why I elected to make my escape,” Wu-Fei said. He set the game down on the Gryffindor table where they were sitting. “Didn't there used to be more playing pieces in this game, Roku?”

Roku looked inside the game. “Yeah. Some of them escaped again. They like to climb so they keep getting out. I'll make some more.” He held his hand over the corner of the board where the playing pieces were stored and four more little people dropped out of his palm one after the other. A woman in an evening gown, a gentleman in a top hat and tails, a girl in a cheerleader's uniform and a man in wizard's robes who looked suspiciously like Severus Snape joined the other four pieces, a girl, a boy and two men, who had been sitting in the corner. The newcomers shook hands with the previous residents and then they all looked up expectantly.

“How did you do that?” Harry demanded eagerly. He turned Roku's hand over and stared at his palm.

Roku scratched his nose with his other hand. “It's kind of hard to explain.”

“You said they weren't real people,” Harry said, “so why would they leave the playing board?”

“They get curious,” Roku shrugged.

Hermione leaned over to stare at the pieces. “They look just like tiny people. What do you mean they're not real?”

“They're sort of like solid holograms,” Roku said, “so they don't eat or breathe or excrete, but they can move around independently. And they love to climb. The higher they can get the happier they are.”

“But what happens if they leave the board?”

“Well…” Roku paused and looked a little sheepish. “They sort of wander around.”

Wu-Fei put his hands on his hips. “Exactly how many have escaped?” he asked sternly.

“Um…” said Roku, “well… I started with six and then I made two more so there was eight, but then five of them disappeared so I made five more and then two more got out so I replaced them, and then all eight went missing so I made eight more and now I had to add four more to bring it back up to eight. So that makes nineteen.”

Wu-Fei regarded Roku with a stern expression. “So there are nineteen tiny holographic people roaming the halls of Hogwarts at this moment?”

“Possibly. Probably. Ok, yeah.”

“And you didn't think it was worth mentioning to anyone.”

“They won't cause any harm. They'll just climb stuff.”

“And you don't think seeing tiny little people climbing the tapestries will upset anyone?”

“Nobody's seen one yet.”

Wu-Fei rubbed his eyes. “How long will these things last?”

“I don't know. I can make them disappear, but I have to touch them to do that.”

“But you don't know where they are.”

“Jett could probably find them. She's good at finding stuff.”

Jett nodded vigorously. She picked up the man in evening dress and placed him on her palm. He took off his hat and made a sweeping bow. She giggled and bowed back, carefully keeping her palm level. “Let's play! I want to use this piece.”

Alexa picked up the woman in the evening gown.

Roku picked up the man in wizard's robes.

“That looks like Snape,” Harry said.

Roku nodded. “I can make them faster if I model them on people I've seen. There are enough pieces for everyone to play.” He grinned at Wu-Fei. “You should play, too, Papa Wu-Fei.”

Wu-Fei sighed. “Oh, very well.” He leaned over the board and selected one of the two remaining adult pieces. Ron, Harry and Hermione took the others and everyone moved their pieces to the starting square.

“Jett's the youngest,” Harry said with a fond smile. “I think she should go first.”

Jett grinned and picked up the dice.

The eight of them were still playing when dinner time rolled around and the game was moved down the table to make room for the food.

“I think we should cover that,” Ron whispered when Snape swept into the hall. “I'm not sure what would upset him more: a three-dimensional playing board with self-moving pieces or the fact that one of the pieces looks like him.”

“Good idea,” Harry agreed.

Roku immediately produced a blanket from his storage space and draped it over the playing board to hide it.

“Hey Roku,” Alexa asked suddenly, “did Mommy give you my presents to hide from me?”

Roku blinked at her innocently.

She glared suspiciously. “He did, didn't he?”

“Not saying.”

“You do have them.”

“And you'll get them on Christmas morning.”

“Aw man!”

But fortunately for everyone, they did not have that long to wait. Christmas finally arrived and Jett and Alexa exploded into their common room excitedly while it was still dark outside. At the start of the holidays, Quatre had put a small but attractive Christmas tree in front of the windows, lighted with little flickering lights in several different colors that glowed all day and night without generating heat. On Christmas morning, the area under and around the tree was filled with presents and one sleeping tiger.

Roku blinked sleepily at the two girls. “You couldn't wait for the sun?”

“It's Christmas!” they cried in unison.

“Oh, all right.” Roku pushed to his feet and stretched, revealing his long and wicked-looking front claws. “You should at least wait until our parents are here.”

“We're here,” Quatre muttered irritably as he entered the room rubbing his eyes. Trowa trailed after him looking not awake at all. “I don't know how you expected anyone to sleep through that.” He flopped into a chair and glared pointedly at Jett.

Jett ducked her head sheepishly.

The others came in from their rooms looking no more awake than Quatre and Trowa, except for Hadeya who looked fully rested.

“You wouldn't be so sleepy if you hadn't stayed up all night having sex!” Alexa scolded.

“Hey, some of us like to get our presents on Christmas Eve,” Duo grumbled. He looked like he had not slept at all. Heero's eyes were bloodshot and Wu-Fei was limping. He sat down very gingerly.

“Some of us know how to pace ourselves,” Zechs said archly. He and Treize did not look completely exhausted. He smiled fondly at the girls. “Go ahead and open your presents.”

“Yay!” Alexa and Jett dove on the pile.

Upstairs in Gryffindor tower, Harry was unwrapping the best present ever: a brand new, shiny, magnificent Firebolt broomstick; the finest broomstick made anywhere. He and Ron were so enthralled by this fantastic present that they refused to notice the worried expression on Hermione's face. They might even have skipped Christmas dinner that afternoon, except that the smells of delicious food that had been filling the castle for days could not be resisted. So they went down to dinner and refused to be daunted by Madame Trelawney's dire predictions of imminent death for the first person to leave their unluckily-numbered table of thirteen people.

At a second table set up for the Gundam pilots and their children, Alexa and Jett were trying to stuff vast quantities of food down their throats as fast as possible so they could return to their presents.

Watching them, Treize shook his head in amazement. “How can they eat that fast and not choke?”

“I don't think they need to breathe when they're eating,” Trowa speculated.

“Well, it's not particularly ladylike,” Zechs said mournfully.

“But Alexa does manage to look graceful while she eats an entire mince tart in one bite,” Treize said helpfully.

Zechs sighed. “Is it really one bite when she leaves a quarter of it mashed on her cheeks?”

After dinner, while Ron and Harry raced back upstairs to look at his new broomstick, Hermione hung behind.

“Professor McGonagall,” Hermione said hesitantly. “I think there's something you should know.”

“What is it, Miss Granger?”

Hermione scuffed a toe, looking unhappy. “Harry received a new Firebolt broomstick as a present, but there was no name or card with the package. He doesn't know who it came from.”

McGonagall frowned. “I see. I think I'd better have a look at that.”

Quatre was standing nearby and spoke up. “Do you mind if I look at it, too? I haven't seen one of these broomsticks close up yet.”

“Of course not, come along.”

So Quatre went with Professor McGonagall and Hermione to the Gryffindor tower. Having nothing better to do, Duo and Heero tagged along behind.

When they entered through the portrait hole, McGonagall immediately went up to Harry. “So, this is the new broomstick? I think we'd better have a look at it before you try to fly it, Mr. Potter.”

“What?!” Stunned, Harry turned furious eyes on Hermione. Hermione ducked behind Heero.

Quatre studied the broomstick curiously. “Are you concerned there might be a hex on it, Professor?”

“That is exactly what I am concerned about.”

“Can your knife tell if there are any bad spells on Harry's broom, Duo?” Quatre asked speculatively.

“I don't know. I'll check.” Duo pulled the knife from its sheath at his waist. “Hey, knife, what about it? Are there any spells on that broom?”

It's a flying broomstick. Of course there's a spell on it.

Duo blinked. The knife's response sounded, well, petulant. “Uh, yeah, but…”

You bring me to a place that's stuffed foundation to rafters with magical items and you want to know if a FLYING BROOMSTICK is magical. You should give me back to the dragon.

Duo blinked again. “Um, I don't think the knife is going to be any help.” He put it back in its sheath.

“Oh, well,” Quatre said. “I guess the professors will have to check it then.”

McGonagall took the broom and marched out, leaving an incredulous and angry Harry behind. He and Ron both rounded on Hermione.

“Why did you have to tell her?” Harry shouted. “I need a new broomstick for Quidditch!”

Hermione blinked unhappily and Quatre put an arm around her. “Now, don't be so upset, Harry. If you don't get it back, I'm sure I can make one just like it for you, now that I've seen it.”

Harry stared. “Really?”

Quatre nodded. “And if not, I'm sure Roku can. But I imagine you'd much rather have that one back. So I'll see if I can't hurry the professors along for you, ok?”

“Ok, thanks.” Harry sighed mournfully. “But it's still depressing.”

“I know what will cheer you up,” Duo volunteered. “The kids are due for a bath this evening and it's my turn to help. You can help me bathe them. A few rounds of Mobile Suit Attack will take your mind right off that broomstick.”

Harry went pale.

“See? It's working already!”