Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Never Say Let Go ❯ Chapter 4

Title: Never Say Let Go

Author: Skeren Dreamera and Hoshi-Tachi

Notes: Those of you anxiously awaiting the rest of the G-boys? STOP. They'll be represented how they are, but STOP begging for them to be introduced, please.

Chapter four

Severus cursed when he heard movement outside his door, and he quickly whipped out his wand, waving it in a gesture that would encompass the entire room. "Silencio." He then shot a glare at Duo as though the forgetting of the spell had been his fault. "You should have said something!"

"Why, what did you just do? Was it one of those things I'll have to be learning here?" He gave the professor a wide cobalt stare, noticing that the room seemed more muted somehow now.

"Yes, that was a silencing spell. I can not believe I would forget such a thing. Your question... No. He's been quite entangled with the ministry officials this evening. You might have a few weeks to wait before that becomes at all clear." He felt strangely vindicated as the boy threw himself back, his shock apparent.

"Weeks? I can't believe this. Well, okay, so I can believe this, but isn't that an awfully long time?" He wasn't used to waiting so long for information, and he found the situation grated on his nerves.

"No, the Headmaster is a very powerful and busy man." Speaking in very measured tones, Severus failed to get the reaction he desired at all. "What is it now?"

Shaking his head to stave off some giggles, he waved a hand quickly. "Sorry, you said that like I should be impressed or something. He runs a school, c'mon, nobody would do that if they had better options unless they were at least a little around the bend, know what I mean?"

The wizard simply looked at him, doing his best to suppress a smirk. "For your information, Albus has been asked several times to be the Minister of Magic, the head of our government. As for why he declined..." The urge to smirk superiorly was nearing overwhelming proportions, and he finally gave in to it. "However did you manage to gain the impression that he wasn't 'around the bend', as you put it?"

Duo blinked at him. Surely the man couldn't be serious...? "Damn," he said after a long moment, and a maniacal grin formed slowly on his face. "I think I'm going to like it here."

Any earlier feeling of vindication vanished as Severus saw the rather disturbing grin on the child's face. Somehow, he hadn't expected his statement to go over quite that way... Scowling, he decided to change the subject. "Was there anything else, Mr. Maxwell?"

The pilot thought for a moment, then brightened, remembering something. "Oh, right! Some of the other kids mentioned something about flying on broomsticks, and something called 'Quidditch'?"

The put upon teacher could only stare for a moment before he sighed, rubbing at his temples with the air of someone who'd dealt with the same tiresome thing for far, far too long. "Of course you had to come around to that topic."

"What? Is it something taboo or something?" Duo blinked, not having expected that look to accompany his question.

"No, not at all. It is a game played on broomsticks. I believe we should see if you'd do alright on a broom at some point. Who knows, you might be able to play in the game if it rouses your interest." He gestured, indicating he really didn't want to get into the rules of the game. "You could ask one of your dorm mates about it, I'm sure one of them would love to get into a discussion with you about it."

Duo nodded, unable to think of anything else just yet, having already figured out that the Ministry of Magic must be some form of government. "Alright, was there anything you wanted to ask me before I leave then?"

Severus frowned yet again, feeling a thought itching at the back of his mind. Then he recalled something young Zabini had sad, and the frown turned to a true scowl. "I seem to recall Mr. Zabini mentioning a 'salve'. Should I understand that to mean that you administered an untested substance to one of my students?" he growled menacingly.

The teenager sat up, indignant. "What do you mean, 'untested'? I tested it! I've been using the stuff for years!"

"Oh? Then why don't you tell me the ingredients, so I can see whether or not you've poisoned the boy," Severus purred dangerously. Damn it, how dare the whelp pull something like this?! And on one of his charges, to boot?

Duo scowled at him. "Fine. It's a tincture of aloe, mint leaves, white willow bark, and some other stuff I don't know the proper names for, all right?"

The potions master paled slightly. "That you don't know the names of... For Merlin's sake, boy! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

"Hey! One is an anti-coagulant, like the willow is, only it doesn't have the same pain relieving properties! I know one gets turned into food, but is good for burns, and the other one I know how to brew into a proper tea solution so that it isn't poisonous anymore. Besides, it's good for numbing an area." Giving the professor an annoyed look of his own, he continued his little tirade. "Just because I don't know the names of the stupid things doesn't mean that I don't know what they do. The others would come to me for my salves and things all the time, and Heer..." Duo immediately trailed off, snapping his jaw shut before he mentioned how Heero preferred him to relying only on Sally's advice. He didn't want to get into it.

"And what exactly?" Severus saw the pained look the boy sported, but he needed to know just what the boy was thinking in playing with things he wasn't nearly old enough to be an expert about, no matter where he came from.

"My friends, where I'm from, trusted me more than they'd even try to trust doctors, alright? They may not have had allot of choices, but there still was one. Besides all that though, if my Mordaine mix was gonna kill me, it would have years ago, just like I said." Duo took a deep breath. "Besides, it'd take more than a slightly poisonous experiment to kill me."

Severus stared at him with a small frown. Was the boy really so blasé towards death that he could say something as naïve as that? Unless he managed to get in as many life or death situations as Potter did, the professor couldn't see how that was possible. But then he saw the shadow in the braided boy's cobalt eyes, and wondered...

Finding that no words would make it past the lump in his throat, the wizard stood abruptly and strode over to a set of bookcases, one of several in the cluttered room. He searched their titles for a moment, and finally found the one he was looking for.

A few more steps put him back in front of Duo, where he shoved Phyllida Spore's One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi into the boy's chest. "Congratulations. Your first assignment of the year is to find each of those ingredients and memorize their properties. Then I expect you to write your recipe down, and we'll go over it with a fine-toothed comb so you understand why it hasn't poisoned you."

Someone so young was not supposed to accept the possibility of death so calmly. If it was the last thing he did, he'd teach the boy how fragile life was, and how precious.

Duo gave the man a small smile, taking the book in hand as it was released, and the expression seemed genuine. "I'm pretty sure I know why it hasn't poisoned me so far Severus. I'm just that hard to kill. But... I'll do the assignment. It never hurts to learn something you didn't know before."

The older man kept the eye contact with the boy, trying to convey his intentions in that look. He wanted Duo to value life more than he seemed to, but it wasn't something he was permitted to come out and say. "I want that before your first tutoring session with me."

"It shouldn't take me that long. Goodnight Severus. Sleep well." He gave the professor another of those secretive smiles before letting himself out, leaving the man to stand there staring at the door he'd just left by.

"Sleep well? You give hints that you've nearly been killed before, and you tell me to sleep well?" Severus spun on his heel and stalked over to stand near his fire, staring into the flames. "How I dislike this sort of puzzle."

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

Duo hurried back to his dorm, and he blinked a few times as his dorm mates all seemed rather shocked that he was standing there. He didn't see what the big deal was. "What?"

Slowly, Blaise stepped forward and carefully looked him up and down. "Well, all four limbs are there... I don't see any obvious signs of mutilation, either..."

Draco Malfoy shrugged carelessly, leaning back against a nearby bedpost. "Maybe Snape's losing his touch?" he suggested, sounding bored with the entire issue. "Besides, it isn't like he's ever been harsh with us. Just with the Gryffindorks."

Two over-sized brutes of children that Duo had yet to be introduced to snickered rather dim-wittedly at the insult, while the American just stared at the boy, incredulous. "Oh, please," he said, disgusted. "Don't tell me that's the best you can come up with."

The blonde pushed himself upright, scowling at the teenager. "And just what do you mean by that?" he asked coolly.

Duo shrugged, utterly unconcerned. "Just that I can come up with better insults in my sleep than that pathetic little thing. Who's it going to offend, a pre-schooler?"

By now sporting a full-on scowl, Malfoy took a step towards the braided boy. "Really? Let's hear it, then, Maxwell. Wow us with your incredible skills," he challenged with a sneer.

Disbelieving, the Gundam pilot stared at him for a moment, and the events of the day, from the transport spell, to finding out he was again posing as a student, to the encounter in Severus' quarters, to this stupid little argument itself... and most of all, to not finding Heero... suddenly came crashing down on his shoulders, nearly bowing him under their weight. "Not tonight, Captain Peroxide," he said wearily, turning and walking over to his bed.

God, since when had his peers seemed so much like... children?

"Captain... Peroxide?" His voice came out as a disbelieving mutter, and he gave the braided teen a wide-eyed look. Nobody had dared to call him anything like that since he was a child. Well, Potter didn't count.

Blaise snorted, rolling over in bed and closing his eyes. "Deal with it Captain. Night Duo. We get class schedules tomorrow."

Duo only nodded a little, moving to his bed and pausing only to kick off his shoes before crawling under the covers. He'd deal with the... immature children he had in his dorm later.

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

"G'morning..." Blaise smothered a yawn with his hand as he dropped into the seat next to Duo. He sleepily reached for a jug of the cinnamon-spiced hot pumpkin juice that as far as he knew graced no other table but their own, and poured a gobletful of it for himself.

"Hey," Duo replied absently, turning another page in his plant book. Honestly, just how many different kinds of hallucinogenic mushrooms did this place have?

"Wha's that?" the brunette mumbled, taking a sip from his steaming goblet, and only then reaching for the basket of blueberry muffins that sat just in front of him on the table.

"Severus assigned me homework last night," the pilot answered, never taking his eyes from the book. They had a plant that killed people by screaming...? Herbology was going to be interesting... "I'm to find all the stuff I put in my salve and report it to him."

"Oh..." Blaise's attention drifted for a moment as a small 'bang!' came from the direction of the Gryffindor table. A moment's observation led him to dismiss it as simply the Weasley twins fooling around again, and he glanced back at his companion. "Aren't you going to eat anything?"

Duo grimaced, looking up at him for the first time. "They don't have any coffee," he complained bitterly. "How'm I supposed to function if they don't give me my caffeine?"

Blinking at his new friend, the short haired boy took Duo's glass and poured out some of what he was drinking, and then held the glass under the other boy's nose. "Have some sin cider."

Raising an eyebrow over the item held under his nose, the pilot cautiously took the glass, giving the steaming glass a dubious look. "Sin cider?"

"Yeah. It's been here at the Slyth table since as long as anyone can remember, but nobody else has it. It's great. I heard the name got shortened up from the cinnamon in it at first, but now, eh. Now it's as good a name as any. Doesn't hurt that us Slytherins are 'evil incarnate'." The last was said with air quotes. "It'll wake you up." He nudged at the glass. "Give it a try."

Duo sipped at it cautiously, having stumbled over the pumpkin juice the night before. He still didn't care for the popular drink. This wasn't that bad though. It smelled spicy, and tasted more like gingersnaps than anything else. "Is good."

The reply only got a pleased nod as Blaise resumed nursing his own glass, his brief chattiness quickly being passed over for the normal morning haze.

"Maxwell. Zabini." Duo looked up again to see that Malfoy had taken a seat directly across from them. He had a brief second to wonder why the blonde was willing to be that close to them, when he could have sworn they didn't get along, before the two Brutes from last night sat down on either side of him, making the table shake. Ah, so they were bodyguards...

He snorted. Two seconds, tops, to take them both out...

"O Captain, my Captain..." Blaise proclaimed blearily, nearly knocking over his half-empty goblet as he waved a hand theatrically. The movement almost made him overbalance, and Duo couldn't help but wonder if the formerly quiet boy was always like this in the mornings as he reached out a hand to steady his friend.

Malfoy scowled at him, running a self-conscious hand through his gelled hair. "Shut it, Zabini," he snapped irritably, snatching a plate of bacon from the center of the table. "Crabbe, stop stuffing your face," the blonde ordered with a revolted expression as he watched the slightly larger of the two boys stuff an entire pastry in his mouth. "That's disgusting."

Crabbe paused, turning a little to look past the blond, communicating something to the other big boy with Malfoy before that boy shrugged and they both resumed eating apparently dismissing the concerns of their leader. The other boy just snickered before turning back to his meal. It was the small things that annoyed their friend, and he just never figured out they did it on purpose.

Duo shook his head after the interaction and continued to sip at his glass as he resumed flipping through the book, relying on his excellent memory to take care of him as he memorized herb after herb. Do I want to know why that plant needs dung beetles?

Blaise gave a muted snicker as he looked back into his glass, not up to arguing with Malfoy just yet. "Yes sir, Captain sir!" He gave a lopsided salute before refilling his goblet.

"Has Snape handed out schedules yet?" Malfoy asked, taking a bite of his eggs.

The brunette shook his head. "No sign of him yet," he said, finally starting to become more like his usual serious self. "Maybe the strain of not killing Duo last night tired him out enough that he slept in?"

"Or perhaps Mr. Zabini should remember that patience is a virtue," replied the drawling voice of the aforementioned professor. Gulping, Blaise turned around slowly, and winced when he saw the potions master standing almost directly behind him with an eyebrow raised sardonically. The boy gave him a weak smile, and then ducked his head, trying not to dig himself into an even deeper hole.

Severus continued staring at Blaise for a moment with dark eyes, then turned his attention to the braided teenager sitting next to him. "And I see you're actually taking your assignment to heart," he commented, sounding mildly surprised. "Somehow I hadn't expected that."

For a second it seemed as though Duo hadn't heard him, but then the boy started, and glanced up. "Oh, hello Sev," he said distractedly. "Sorry, I didn't see you there. Good morning."

The professor twitched a little over the pet name and took out the schedules, accompanying them with a glare as he dared the students to make a comment. "It's Professor Snape to you Mr. Maxwell." He passed out all the fifth year schedules, but left Duo out of it.

The teen didn't even notice, having returned his attention to the book. He was three fourths of the way through, and if they just left him alone, he was sure he'd be able to finish the volume before class...

"Mr. Maxwell." There was no reply. Severus repeated himself with a mutter of annoyance. "Mr. Maxwell." Still nothing. "Duo Maxwell! Will you spare a moment from the tome and pay attention to the fact that someone is speaking to you?" That, said in a decidedly cutting voice, finally got the boy's attention.

"Wha?" Duo blinked a few times, turning around to look at the man as he tried to figure out why he was getting grouched at.

"I need you to come with me about your schedule." The elder wizard was vindicated by the baffled expression on the boy's face.

"Oh. Um, right then. Be right with ya Sev." He then flashed a smile at the students sitting around the table, staring at him like he grew another head... or three. He just waved a little and collected his book. "See you later guys. So, teach, lead the way."

To be continued.