Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Never Say Let Go ❯ Chapter 3

Title: Never Say Let Go

Author: Skeren Dreamera and Hoshi-Tachi

Spoilers: All the way up to book four, and some from book five, not to mention most of the GW verse

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, though I'm the one that says what happens to them.

Feedback: Skeren Dreamera: Mickeofas@yahoo.com, Hoshi-Tachi: koukennin_kaze@yahoo.com

Chapter three

The prefect (who had introduced himself as Theodore Nott) stopped Duo and the group of first years in front of a featureless stretch of damp stone wall. "This," he announced in ringing tones, "is the entrance to our common room. Mark it well; it's very easy to get lost down here. If you get lost, just ask one of the older Slytherins to help you."

He paused for a moment, waiting until each of the group had nodded. Duo quirked a smile at him instead. "All right. Now, to get in you have to know the password. It changes every week, so every Sunday evening ask either myself or Pansy Parkinson for the new password. This week's password is Spartacus." All of the eleven-year-olds 'oohed' and 'ahhed' as the wall behind him slid aside.

Inside was a low-ceilinged, rather dimly lit room. An ornate fireplace provided most of the light and a negligible amount of warmth, while a few hanging lamps made the rest. The furniture was mostly leather, running heavily to wing-backed chairs and low-slung couches. Duo shivered in the chill that pervaded the air, and jumped as Blaise's voice spoke from behind.

"Don't worry," the wizard said with a slight smile. "Our dorms are much more... welcoming. And warm," he added, seeing Duo's shivers.

The teenager sent him a relieved grin. "Good. I don't know how you people can stand the cold. Where the hell is this place, anyway, under the ocean?" he asked, eyeing the dampness that slowly seeped from the walls.

"The lake, actually," Blaise answered, leading him further into the room. "Come on," he said, heading towards a flight of stairs that led even farther down. "I'll show you where we sleep."

Duo eyed the boy in front of him consideringly, as though making sure that he wasn't joking. When he confirmed that he was, indeed, being serious about the lake thing, he shook his head. "This school is freaky, you know that?"

The shorter haired boy simply shook his head in amusement, pointing out a door that had a silver number five hanging over it. "Since you've been put in the same year as us, you'll be sleeping in here." He pushed open the door, showing six beds, only one of which, towards the back of the room and directly across from the door, had no trunk or belongings. "Looks like they already made a bed for you."

The braided teen nodded, studying the bed with it's silver and dark green hangings before he tossed his bag on top of it. "Made?"

"There were only five before." That drew out a line of blinking before Duo sank onto the mattress himself, eyeing the room with a considering eye. "How old are you? I don't want to seem rude, but you look a little young to be in fifth year."

That drew an amused look and a grin before the braided teen shook his head. "I'm sixteen." At the astounded look that got, he only laughed. "I'm a little small for my age."

Blaise studied him carefully. "A little? What happened, you get hit with a Anti-Growth Charm while you were going through puberty or something?"

Duo blinked again. "There's such a thing as an anti-growth charm?"

The other boy shrugged, sitting down on the bed with him. "Dunno, but there's a Growth Charm, so it stands to reason there'd be a counter hex to it."

"I'll say it again, you people are odd." Duo shook his head bemusedly, and looked around the room. Espying a trunk a couple feet from his bed, he rose and walked over to it. "What's this?" he murmured, curious.

It was made of an incredibly lovely dark wood, one that after a moment he identified as ebony. The teenager couldn't resist running a finger over the delicate carvings on the lid, and found the wood as smooth as silk to the touch. A flash of off-white caught his eye, and Duo saw a folded piece of parchment lying on the stone floor. He picked it up, and realized it was a note from Dumbledore.

Duo,

I hope you've had a pleasant time with your new classmates so far, and apologize for not being able to spend more time preparing you for this world. Please, if there is anything you wish to know, simply ask Severus or myself. His quarters are only a few steps away from your dorms.

As for the trunk, it is yours. Surprisingly, as we left my office Severus was the one to point out that you could not be carrying many possessions in that knapsack of yours, so I took the liberty of procuring a few uniforms and the various schoolbooks you will need in the months ahead. The robes are charmed to be self-sizing. Some time within the next day or two one of our professors will accompany you to Diagon Alley to purchase a wand and any other essentials you may require.

And please, have no worries over the cost. It is rare to have such an interesting student as yourself within these halls, and such entertainment is well worth such a paltry thing as money. So I entreat you, enjoy your time here to the fullest, and remember, my door is always open.

Albus Dumbledore

Eyeing the note for a long moment, Duo shook his head. "Entertainment? What am I, a vid?" Dropping the letter in front of him, he ignored Blaise's questioning look as he opened the ebony trunk, entranced by the beautiful box. Why would he give him something so extravagant? Was he trying to bribe him or something?

Shaking off the immediate questions, he pawed around in the box a bit, noting a cauldron, a set of materials for potions. He was already sure he would be leaving the knife with the set there for all eternity. It was a crappy blade. He then noted the robes, taking one out and slipping it around his shoulders. He'd just be ignoring the other clothes in the box for the time being. He'd wear his normal outfit under the robe, thank you very much. He wasn't about to switch to some plaid monstrosity that only he would likely see anyway.

Nodding a little to himself as he refolded the robe and put it back, he noted the books with a shrewd eye before closing the trunk. "I need to get more books when I go shopping. More clothes too."

Behind him, he heard a yelp, and spun around in time to see the abandoned note go up in flames in Blaise's hand. The boy was quick to drop the sheet of parchment, and it turned completely to ashes before even hitting the floor. Duo watched with a humorous grin as he inspected his burnt fingers. "Let me guess, you got curious?"

Blaise gave him an abashed look. "Yeah... sorry. Guess the saying's true about curiosity killing the cat..." he muttered, wincing again as he saw how red his fingers were.

"Ah, but satisfaction brought it back, ne?" Duo chirruped, bouncing up. He grabbed the boy's wrist and took a look at the burns himself. "Bad, but not as bad as it could've been," he finally judged, letting go. "You've got good reflexes."

"Um, thanks, I think..." Blaise said, still rather surprised that the American wasn't angry with him for trying to snoop.

And the braided boy must have seen the slightly doubting expression on his face, because he grinned at him. "Don't worry, B, I'd probably have done the same thing myself. And then I'd be the one burned." Duo cocked his head, studying him thoughtfully. "Tell ya what, to make it up to me you can show me where Severus' hidey-hole is. I need to have a chat with him."

Blaise almost choked. Sure, Professor Snape was his Head of House, so the man probably wouldn't kill him if the boy ever dared use his first name, but that still wasn't something he wanted to test... Finally he shook his head bemusedly. If the American wanted to die horribly, it really wasn't his place to stop him. "Sure," he said with a quirked smile. "I'll show you where he is. I need to go to the Hospital Wing anyway." He winced at the thought. Madame Pomfrey was not going to be happy that he'd managed to get hurt on their first day back...

"For that? I can do something about that before we go if you want. I mean, it's not like that's that serious of a burn." Having not yet released his wrist, he dragged him closer to his bunk, using his other hand do dig around for a salve. "Ah, here. This'll take the burn out of it. Made it m'self just before I came here. I didn't know what to expect y'know, so I was prepared."

Blaise blinked as a pale green cream inside was revealed when the cap was spun open, and he held still out of pure curiosity. "What is it?"

"I call it Mordaine. I'm sure it has some official name if it exists at all here, but I don't know it. Here, if you just hold still..." He smeared a little of the substance on his fingertips, and they immediately cooled away from the burned feeling. "There, better?"

"Yeah, thanks. I tend to get burned allot... Think you can show me how to make that? Madame Pomfrey gets a little upset that she sees me so often for burns and things..." He shot a hopeful look at the other boy as he watched him put the canister away.

"Sure, I don't see why not, maybe you can help me catch up with all the stuff I don't know about here?" He turned back around, heading for the dorm room door. "But later, I wanna bug Severus."

Blaise stared after him for a moment, then followed, resigned. Damn, but that boy did have a death wish...

It was only a couple minutes later, and a few twists and turns along Hogwarts' maze of corridors, that the wizard was pulling Duo to a halt beside an imposing, darkly finished wooden door. Undaunted, the braided pilot pounded loudly on it, without pausing for a break. After all, it was more annoying that way.

After about a minute of the noise and wide-eyed looks from Blaise, and just as Duo's fist was starting to hurt, Severus pulled open the door with a scowl. "What?"

Of course, then he had to lean back quickly, since Duo wasn't able to stop his fist quite in time. "Oops..." the boy muttered sheepishly, pulling his hand back down. Then, in a lightning-fast change of disposition, he beamed at the hawk-nosed professor. "Heya, Sev! Dumbledore said it'd be a good idea to come have a chat with ya, so here I am!"

Severus stared down at him and felt his own hands curling into fists at his sides. Oh, how wonderful it would feel to grasp that slender neck in his fingers and listen to the boy gasp for breath and beg for his life...

He was about to do it, too, when he saw movement from the corner of his eye and looked up to see a very pale Blaise Zabini slowly stepping away from the object of his wrath. He relaxed slightly, giving him a mental nod of approval at the intelligent action, even if it wouldn't be necessary. After all, Albus would have his head if he found that Severus had murdered one student in front of another...

No, no, it would be best if he waited until there was no one around to see, and then strangled the infuriating little monster.

When Severus didn't immediately move out of the doorway to let him in, Duo waited. Blaise shifted off to his left, not sure if he should leave to let his companion get murdered or not. Finally, the braided teen heaved an exaggerated sigh and put his palm on the taller figure's chest, nudging him aside so that he could slip into the room.

"Hey Blaise, see you later about that salve, alright?" The shortest of the three gave him a little wave before pulling on the older wizard and closing the door, leaving the other teen to stare in shock. It wasn't as though he'd expected his head of house to not kill the boy for actually touching him after all.

As soon as the door was shut, the black haired man regained his senses, spinning on the boy as he clenched his fists, tempted to go through with his earlier impulse. The boy even went so far as to invade his private space without invitation. "Have you no respect?"

Settling himself in a comfortable chair, the teen gave the older man a particularly amused look, grinning over the glare he was getting instead of cringing like any normal sane human being would be. "Me? Yeah, plenty. Now, you and I need to have a nice chat about all the things I need to know about this place."

For a moment Severus fumed, feeling his nails bite into his palms as he clenched his fists even tighter. Visions of bloody mayhem danced before his eyes, including a very clear image of Duo standing in clothes stained by his own blood. Then the visions were replaced by one of Albus' disapproving gaze, and he swallowed the caustic tirade that had been about to pour from his lips. "Very well," he bit out, forcing himself to sit down on his couch. "What do you wish to know?"

Duo shrugged, trying to decide what to ask first. "Well... Blaise mentioned something about a Potter kid getting in trouble, and then everyone looked at me funny when I didn't know who he was."

The Head of House grimaced. The boy just had to pick the biggest hornets' nest to ask about first, didn't he? "That is a very... complicated subject," he stated, trying to figure out how to best approach it. "It will require quite a bit of explanation."

Duo spread his hands, indicating he had all the time in the world, and Severus sighed. "First I must give you a history lesson.

"A few decades ago, a promising young wizard by the name of Thomas Riddle turned to the Dark Arts and was corrupted by them. He attempted to take over the wizarding world, using pain and terror to try and dominate the population under the name Voldemort. Many wizards fought him, and the war between them stretched on for over a decade. Until a little less than fourteen years ago, in fact."

"Voldemort... 'wings of death'," the boy translated automatically in an undertone. "What happened then?" he asked, finding himself beginning to be spellbound by the way the man spun his tale.

Severus frowned at him, not exactly pleased by the interruption. "What happened then is the reason that Potter is famous." And a thorn in my side, he added mentally. "Voldemort, or 'You-Know-Who', as many had begun to call him, attacked the Potter home on October 31st, 1981. After killing Lily and James Potter, the Dark Lord went after their son, the one-year-old Harry Potter. No one knows what happened that night, but somehow Potter survived a curse that everyone had thought unsurviveable, while the Dark Lord was reduced to a wraith-like parasite."

Duo looked thoughtful, tugging gently on his braid. "So, the kid's famous for taking out this guy?"

"Precisely." The professor leaned back, settling himself more comfortably on the couch. "Unfortunately, however, with a typical display of carelessness he didn't manage to finish the job. Voldemort returned last June." He let the grimness he felt at the thought fill his words.

The pilot frowned at his new teacher. Didn't finish the job? Hell, the kid was just a baby! What did he expect, miracles? "Somehow I get the feeling you don't like this kid much," he ventured cautiously, aware that he might be making his way through a minefield.

Severus' jaw tightened. "He's an arrogant, rude little thief," he said simply. Then he stared at the boy, puzzled, as he snickered and muttered something.

Odd, but he could have sworn the boy had said "Sounds like me..."

Quickly calming himself down, Duo sat up straight and looked at the older man. "Okay, next question. Has Dumbledore found anything else out on how I managed to get to this time?"

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Outside, Blaise frowned, perplexed. What did Duo mean, this time...?

To be continued.