Finders, Keepers

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Gundam Wing. I am making no money from this work of fanfiction.

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Summary: The war is over, and Harry has made a startling discovery: he has an older brother, who is a Muggle (most likely), who was adopted away before he was ever born. Crossover with Gundam Wing. Pairing: Heero/Harry Post DH (no epilogue), and Endless Waltz


Finders, Keepers
Chapter 5

Duo left Harry’s room reluctantly. He wanted a piece of whatever guy dared to speak to his little brother like that.

As soon as Duo shut the door, he pressed his ear against the door, so he could hear what was being said. The rooms were almost soundproof, but some sound trickled through.

“. . .lucky. . .showing up. . .back,” the guy on the phone said. Harry must have it on video for him to come through so loud.

There was a few seconds of silence, then Harry yelled, “Talk to Ron!” Again, Duo couldn’t make out what they were saying, then Harry (thankfully, he inherited Duo’s big mouth,) yelled again, “Told. . .that, too! . . .What else. . .them!. . .Private information!”

The other guy began to speak a bit more loudly, and Duo listened eagerly. “Collapsed. . .level poison. . .magic. . .eating. . .Go to. . .dead zone!. . .Proper healer!”

Then, there was suddenly no sound at all on the other side of the door. Absolutely no sound at all penetrated. Duo pressed himself harder against the door, straining to listen, but there was nothing for it. Either Harry had hung up, or they were speaking in whispers—maybe Harry was paranoid that someone would hear them. He wouldn’t know how poorly sound travelled from his room to the hallway.

Just in case, Duo backed away from the door. He looked at the guards, who stared straight ahead and said nothing. Duo had known he’d picked the right guys for the job—although, what if they let just anyone sneak up to Harry’s door like that? They were supposed to be protecting Harry, not Duo!

Duo made a note to assign different guards to his little brother. He tried to think of any of the Maguanac teams who would be good enough, but none of them passed the litmus test. Even split apart from their partners, the Maguanacs were all either too lustful, sloppy, lazy, or concerned with Rashid’s approval to be of any use.

No, what Duo needed was someone like himself. Dedicated to the job. Driven to protect Harry at all costs. Would put Harry’s safety above all else—even their own lives or the lives of countless others. The only person Duo could think of—besides himself—was Heero.

Heero had a lot of work, though. He might not be able to spare the time to watch after Harry. On the other hand, bodyguarding had always been Heero’s favorite post-war job. Then again, he was gay, and might find Harry too tasty a morsel to resist, in which case Duo would have to chop off his best friend’s hands—and maybe other parts. He’d be useless, then.

Duo didn’t think Heero would seriously be attracted to Harry, though. Besides Relena, all of Heero’s significant others had been soldiers.

That settled that—after he and Harry got back from shopping, Duo would ask Heero to guard Harry whenever he couldn’t.

Harry finally opened the door and came back to Duo, and he beamed at his little brother.

“Are you ready?” Harry asked, like Duo would ever make him wait.

“Hell, yeah!” Duo shouted, grabbing his brother and dragging him to breakfast.

Later, he would think on the odd bits of conversation he’d heard, but for now he just wanted to spend time with his brother.

***

Four hours later, Harry was about to drop. Duo had dragged him to more clothing stores than he’d ever been to in his life—and that included the shopping trips Petunia made him go on, when hunting for a pair of trousers for Dudley that wouldn’t rip when he took a deep breath.

“Duo, I don’t think I need that,” Harry protested, as Duo picked up a horrid sparkly shirt. It was made of spandex.

“No, you’ll need something for when I take you clubbing,” Duo said, then froze. “You’re right—you don’t need that.” He put it back on the rack. “We’ll go to a sporting goods store for that. Get you a nice, sturdy bat.”

Harry, not for the first time today, fought back his irritation. If he looked at it in a certain way, it was actually kind of sweet. Duo cared about his enough to want him to be safe, even going so far as to scare away some of the attendants who suggested things Duo deemed to be “too slutty”—such as shorts and t-shirts.

Come to think of it, Duo only drove away the males. He showered attention and compliments on the female staff, asking for their suggestions on what would look best on Harry, but he wanted all of males as far away from Harry as possible. Even the customers.

He’d actually thrown a hanger at a man two stores back, who he accused of leering at Harry. They had almost gotten thrown out. Thankfully, the man hadn’t wanted to press charges after learning who Duo was—as long as he got an autograph.

Still, Harry had to wonder—was his brother a homophobe? And if he was, could he tell Harry was gay, and was that why he acted the way he did? Since Harry was gay gay gay (practically on fire, from the way Neville talked), he worried how that would affect them if Duo found out. Maybe he could subtly feel Duo out on the matter.

He didn’t want to keep two—well, three—secrets from his brother, but he would if he had to. He wasn’t going to push his brother away this early.

“And try this on, and this one, and ooh, this is nice,” Duo said, throwing items of clothing in Harry’s arms.

“Erm, Duo?” Harry said, struggling under the weight. “Little help, here?”

Duo turned and his eyes widened. “Oh!” He lunged forward to take some of it, before Harry fell. He whistled, and two of the staff appeared. “Carry this,” he said, and the male attendant came forward. “No, not you.” He shook his head. “Her.”

The petite redhead sighed and took the clothes from Duo. Struggling for breath, she said, “I’ll just—huh—take this to a dressing room, shall I?”

Harry sighed, and when Duo’s back was turned, quickly handed the rest of his load off to the man—who was openly leering at Harry—and stuffed a tip in his trouser pocket, as his hands were full.

“You come back anytime, sir,” the man, whose name tag read ‘Tony,’ said. “Next time, leave him at home, though.”

Harry smiled, enjoying the man’s attention. This bit of flirting came only from his own attractiveness—not his fame or money or anything else. Duo finally realized Harry wasn’t keeping up with him, and ruined the moment by dragging him away.

“Oy!” Harry yelled, rubbing his wrist when Duo let go. That had hurt!

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Duo said, looking contrite. He bit his lip, a nervous habit he and Harry shared. “I just—look, you’re very pretty and there are men out there that will want to hurt you because of that.”

“I don’t think he wanted to hurt me,” Harry said, ignoring the ‘pretty’ comment. He was handsome, damn it, not pretty. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“Yes, and even he might think that,” Duo explained, his eyes wide and big, pleading. It was a trick Sirius used to use. “But men are ultimately bad people, and he would eventually hurt you.”

“You mean like you just did?” Harry asked, holding up his still sore wrist.

Duo winced. “No—Yes. I mean, he could hurt you in a lot of ways. Emotionally, physically. . .sexually.”

Harry reached out and grasped his brother’s arm. “You can’t protect me from everything, Duo. I can and will get hurt—and I should. That means I’m living properly, yeah?”

Duo grunted and looked away, but he didn’t shrug off Harry’s hand.

“Duo, are you—are you homophobic?” Harry asked, regretting it as soon as he said it. What if Duo said yes?

“What?” Duo shrieked. This time, he did wrench out of Harry’s grip, so he could pace. “Of course not! What makes you think that? My best friend is gay! Why would you think that?”

Harry bit his lip to keep from smiling at Duo’s words—not only was Duo not homophobic, but Heero was gay! He better make sure that’s who Duo was talking about—just in case he meant one of the other guys, or someone else that Harry hadn’t met yet.

“Heero’s gay?” he inquired, crossing his fingers for luck.

“That’s what I said!” Duo yelled. They were garnering a lot of attention, by now. Duo grabbed Harry’s shoulders, looking into Harry’s eyes. Harry winced at the pressure—Duo was so strong—and Duo released him. “Why would you think I could be something like that?”

“Well, um,” Harry stuttered, at a loss for words. He hadn’t realized Duo would react this strongly. But it meant that Duo was definitely, obviously, anti-anti-gay. Maybe even pro-gay. “The, um, the way you react to all men who come within ten feet of me was what made the idea pop up, actually.”

Duo deflated. “Oh. I guess I can see how you’d think that, then.”

Harry waited for Duo to keep going, but he didn’t. “Um, if you’re not homophobic, then why do you do that with men, and not with women?”

“To protect you, of course,” Duo said. “You’re tiny, and—“

“I’m the same size as you!” Harry interjected.

“Yeah, height-wise, maybe, but you’re at least thirty pounds lighter than me. I can swing you around like a sack of potatoes,” Duo said, his face growing stern. “If I can do that, so can other men. Women are smaller, like you, and have less upper body strength. In a fight, you could probably take on a woman, but a man would wipe the floor with you. An then I would have to step in.”

Harry actually took a step back. The way Duo said that—Harry had no difficulty thinking that Duo would kill anyone who tried to hurt him, in any way.

“You, um, you ready to do more shopping?” Harry asked, desperate to change the subject.

Duo flashed his teeth at Harry and linked their arms. “You betcha, little bro! There’s a changing room around here somewhere with your name on it!”

Harry groaned, and let his brother take him to try on mounds of clothes.

***

When they got back to Quatre’s house, Duo made Harry let him bandage his wrist. He couldn’t believe that he’d hurt his brother like that!

Harry tried to say it was fine, but Duo knew it wasn’t. He confessed what he did, when Harry tried to pass it off to the other guys as an accident. Harry didn’t like it when Duo did that, which made him suspicious.

Was Harry used to covering it up when people hurt him? Did he think what Duo did was okay?

Because it wasn’t, not at all, and the fact that Harry might think it was made Duo see red. The thought that someone Harry knew—and cared about if he was so willing to lie for them that his cover for Duo just rolled off his tongue—had hurt him, ever, made Duo want to track that person down and kill them, and then do the same for everyone who knew about it and did nothing.

Duo swallowed his anger and focused on the conversations around him. There was no need to get ahead of himself. Harry might not have been abused. That seemed unlikely, from where Duo was sitting, but it was possible.

They were eating diner in the small dining room, again, but this time the other pilots had maneuvered things so Harry was sitting across from Duo instead of beside him. Quatre and Trowa had engaged Harry in a conversation about music, of all things. Harry seemed to be lost, his head batting back and forth between the two men.

“They’re like vultures, those two,” Wufei muttered under his breath, folding his napkin on his lap.

“Huh?” Duo said, breaking his eyes off his brother. “What do you mean?”

“Take your elbows off the table, Maxwell. That’s rude,” Wufei corrected. “What I meant is—look, you left your brother alone with them for five minutes to speak with Yuy, and now look at them. They’re the best of friends.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Duo asked, confused. He played with his mashed potatoes, adding more salt and butter. The chefs had cooked to Heero’s tastes tonight—he must have batted his eyelashes in their general direction again. “I want you guys to be friends with Harry.”

Wufei cleared his throat, and looked at his plate, to cut his steak. “Yeah, well. . .”

An idea dawned on Duo. “Are you jealous? Do you want super special alone time with my little brother, too?” he cooed.

Wufei dropped his fork and pointed his knife at Duo. “You’ve completely misunderstood what I meant, as usually,” Wufei said through clenched teeth. He picked his fork up, speared a piece of steak and bit into it.

While he was chewing, Duo took the opportunity to tease his friend. “Aw, that’s so cute,” he said in a baby voice. “Harry’s such an awesome little brother, even the Great Untouchable Wufei Chang wants to be his friend.”

Wufei swallowed, and opened his mouth to speak, but Duo cut him off. “Harry!” he called, and his brother looked up, stopping mid-word. “Do you want to hang out with Wufei after supper? I think Wu-man is lonely.”

Wufei sputtered, his face growing red, and Harry laughed.

“I think I can fit that into my oh, so busy schedule,” Harry said, eyes sparkling. “I mean—that is, if you want to.” He turned to Wufei, biting his lip.

“I would be honored,” Wufei said, which made Harry smile.

“Great!” Duo exclaimed. “You two can have a wonderful bonding moment—that is completely platonic, with absolutely no funny stuff.” He directed the last at Wufei. Duo was pretty sure he was straight, but it was better to be safe.

He glanced at Harry out of his peripheral vision, who sighed and rested his chin on his hands. Duo grimaced. He knew Harry didn’t approve of how protective Duo was—especially with anything having to do with sex—but he couldn’t help himself. His brother was just so dainty and vulnerable that his “serve and protect” instincts went into overdrive.

Maybe he should talk to Hero while Harry was with Wufei. They needed to go over the specifics of Heero’s Harry-guarding duties. He could ask Heero how to suppress some of his over-bearing big brother traits while he was at it.

But first, he would make sure to instruct the staff in the TV Room to keep a close eye on Harry and Wufei—and on Harry just in general—and to intervene if it looked like anything untoward might happen.

***

After dinner, Heero led Duo to his office. It was where they usually spoke, as there was only the one camera there and no other audio devices. Heero had the code to turn off the camera, if he chose.

“Do you want me to—?” he waved to the camera.

Duo swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, turn it off.”

As Heero put in the code for the camera, Duo flopped down in “his” chair, the comfiest in the room.

“Heero, do you think I’m a bad big brother?” Duo asked.

Heero frowned. Duo had used his real name—he must be serious. Heero sat in the chair he used when it was just him and Duo, the same one Harry had sat in when in this office. “Why do you ask?” Heero inquired. “Did Harry say something?”

“No—God, no,” Duo said, waving his arm in a slashing motion. “Harry’s great, and he thinks I’m great, too, from what I can tell. But he thought I was homophobic—and I grabbed him! Did you see his wrist?”

“I saw the bandage,” Heero confessed. Harry had tried to hide it with a long-sleeved shirt, but all of the pilots had noticed it. “You’ll have to make that up to him.”

“So I am a bad brother!” Duo wailed. He rubbed his hand over his face, worry lines showing at his mouth and eyes.

“I didn’t say that,” Heero pressed. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt him—so does Harry for that matter. He doesn’t seem the type of person who would lie about it if you did it on purpose. You just need to be more careful.”

Heero paused and went to Duo. He hesitated, then knelt before him. His friend looked miserable. “You’re stronger than Harry. You could seriously hurt him very easily, if you used your normal strength on him like you do with us.

“Pretend that he’s made of glass—or better yet, crystal,” Heero advised. “Then, every time, before you touch him, before you touch him, picture him breaking, and be gentle.”

Heero stood up, patting his friend on the shoulder. “It’s what I do.”

As someone strong enough to bend metal, everyone was glass to Heero. He had learned the hard way that everyone was delicate compared to him. He had bruised Relena once during lovemaking, and had refused to touch her again until he could do so without fear of hurting her.

All of his bedmates since then had been made of sturdier stuff. The fragile frames he preferred his lovers to have were just too easily damaged.

“I’m—Harry thinks I’m too protective of him,” Duo said, biting his lip. “Do you think. . .?”

“He’s right, but as long as you keep him safe, that’s what matters, right?”

“Exactly!” Duo jumped to his feet. “I knew you would understand, He-chan.”

Duo stalked to Heero’s desk, and sat on it. “Now—we need to talk about how the two of us are going to make sure he’s safe.”

Heero bit back a groan. Duo wanted to kill him, obviously, wanting him to spend time alone with Harry. Didn’t Duo know that he was one of the guys he wanted to keep Harry away from?

“All right,” Heero said, resigned to his fate. “Who will we have as back-up, in case we are incapacitated?”

Duo threw out a few suggestions, and then it was just a matter of banging out the details.

***

“I would like to thank you,” Wufei said, as he led Harry to the movie theater that Quatre apparently had in his home. Wufei was going to let Harry pick out the film.

“Huh?” he said. “What for?” He’d never gotten to pick a film to watch before—and had actually never seen one all the way through—so he was quite excited. He hoped he chose a good one.

“I’d like to thank you,” Wufei repeated, “for saving the world.”

Harry whirled on Wufei. “What? What are you talking about? I don’t—I’m not—“

“Relax, Harry,” Wufei said, holding up a hand to placate him. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’m not a fanatic out to steal your underwear. I just wanted you to know that I know. It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Potter.”

“But you’re a Muggle!” Harry exclaimed, then clamped a hand over his mouth in horror. His eyes darted around the hallway, but there were no flashing lights, sirens, or SWAT team members out to get him. Duo didn’t magically pop around the corner. Harry lowered his hand. “How did you know? You are a Muggle, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Wufei said. “I was born in the L5 cluster, and didn’t set foot on Earth until I was fifteen. Space drained away any magic potential I might have had, leaving me a Muggle. Just like Duo, I suppose.

“I do have magical family, still on Earth, though. The part of the clan that decided not to move to the colonies, and kept their magic. I’ve gotten in touch with them since the end of the war—wars, I would say. Yours and ours.”

“And?” Harry asked, fearful that Wufei would ruin things by telling Duo—and hopeful that maybe he already had. If Duo knew that Wufei had magical ancestors and was still such good friends with him, it was a good bet that he wouldn’t care his brother was a wizard.

“Cho Chang, a distant cousin of mine who lives in England, speaks very highly of you,” Wufei said, and Harry reddened at the mention of his ex-crush. “She said you were a true soldier, and honorable, willing to lay down your life for innocent people.”

Harry started. He hadn’t known Cho thought of him that way after what Hermione did to Marietta.

“I know that Duo doesn’t know this about you, and that’s why he—and the rest of the guys—treat you as they do,” Wufei continued. “I know you’re strong, though, stronger than any of them can imagine. Until you’re ready to tell Duo the truth, I will keep your secrets.”

“Tha—thank you,” Harry said, overwhelmed. He had never expected an ally like Wufei to fall into his lap. “Thank you so much.”

He surged forward to embrace Wufei, hugging him hard. Wufei stood awkwardly in his arms, and patted his back.