Finders, Keepers

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Gundam Wing. I am making no money from this work of fanfiction. Also, in chapter 6, the lyrics to the song that Harry sings are also not mine—they belong to J.K. Rowling.

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 8

Harry stared in the mirror, wet hair dripping down his back. He set his wand on the sink and leaned closer to the mirror, raising onto his toes.

The bruises were still there. Harry had used a healing spell, which should have made the bruises fade entirely, since they were such minor injuries. Instead, the marks had expanded, and were now easily twice the size they were previously.

They’d gone numb, though, so that was all right. Harry poked experimentally at the love bit on his neck. He didn’t feel a thing.

Harry snatched up his wand, and pointed it at his face with trepidation. He couldn’t see Duo, looking like this, but after that last spell, he was worried. What if he made himself disappear?

Harry shut his eyes and muttered the charm that should disguise his bruises, making his flesh appear unmarred. After waiting through a few beats of his heart, he opened his eyes.

It wasn’t so bad. The mark on his neck was still there, but it was red, instead of the purple and yellow it had been. Maybe he could pass it off as an allergic reaction.

Harry applied the charm to the wrist opposite the one Duo had grabbed, and decided to let the rest of them alone. No one would see them under his clothes.

Harry dressed, sticking his wand to his arm. He opened the door, only to run smack into Wufei. Harry liked the guy, but even so, he had grown tired of having highly trained Muggle terrorists (or ex-terrorists) following him to the loo.

He wasn’t a bloody child!

Wufei peered at him over wire-rimmed glasses, a book tucked under his arm. “I don’t like this anymore than you do.”

Harry grabbed his dirty clothes from the floor, cursing himself for being so transparent. “When is Duo coming to switch out?” He really needed to check his mirror. His friends were probably going frantic with worry.

Wufei knew about magic, so using the mirror in front of him wouldn’t be a problem. Wufei didn’t know about Harry’s illness, though, which anyone he talked to from back home would be sure to mention.

“Approximately twenty-five minutes after 8 o’clock, like usual,” Wufei replied, opening the door to Harry’s guest room.

Harry walked through the door, and turned back to Wufei. “Do you mind staying out here for a few minutes? Read some more of your book?”

Wufei frowned and shrugged. “I’ll knock in five minutes. If you don’t answer, I’m going to assume you’re in trouble, and act appropriately.”

Harry winced, imagining what Duo would consider “appropriate” in that situation. Wufei seemed to have a bit more sense. “So, you’ll call my brother? Or will you break down the door, guns blazing?” Harry teased.

“Both, naturally,” Wufei returned, a glint in his eye. “I might break down the door with your brother. Now, leave me alone. I just got to the good part.” Wufei waved Harry away, before sitting in the chair provided for the guards.

“Have fun reading your porn,” Harry said, slamming the door before Wufei cold respond. No one looked at a weapons catalog like Wufei did. No one Harry knew, anyway.

Harry went to the nightstand—the one closest to the door—and drew out his mirror. He cringed when he saw the face. It was a bright cherry red. Still transparent, though, thank Merlin.

Harry said the passcode that would let him reach his messages. The red faded and turned black. An orange number 47 began blinking on the mirror’s surface.

Harry touched the number, and the first message began to play.

“Hi, Harry, it’s Hermione—”

“—and Ron,” the red-head burst onto the screen, and just as quickly fled.

Hermione glared in his direction, before turning her attention back to the mirror. “We’ve heard some distressing things from George, and we wanted to call to check on you. George has been a bit. . .out of it, since Hogwarts, as you know. I wanted to see if he was overreacting. Call me back when you get this. And take care of yourself, won’t you?”

Hermione’s pleading stare faded, and “46” began to flash on the mirror. The previous message was gone, and couldn’t be watched again. One of the drawbacks of a mirror phone, as compared to a Muggle phone, was that they couldn’t save messages. Still, they were better than Floo calling, which couldn’t take messages at all, and they still worked in magic saturated areas.

Harry pressed the mirror, and George’s scowling face came onto the screen. Harry listened to a few minutes of him yelling, before going to the next message. The next four messages were all from George, his face getting redder with each one.

Message 41 was from Molly Weasley. She was sitting in her kitchen. Her eyes were red, like she’d been crying. Harry could make out the family clock in the background. He saw his hand, but couldn’t read where it was pointed.

“Harry, dear, are you there? It’s Molly. I’m—I just wanted to know that you were okay, love. Mirror me as soon as you can, okay?”

Molly hadn’t gotten over Fred’s death—not that she should have. He’d only been in the ground for six months. But it made her cling all the tighter to the children she had left. Harry was counted in that lot. He was disgusted with himself for making her worry.

He clicked to message 40, to take his mind off of it. The next ten messages were from George, Ron, and/or Hermione, all three quite ticked with him.

Message 30 was from Minister Shacklebolt. He seemed just as displeased as those three were, but at least he didn’t yell. Kingsley was a great Minister—better than any other Harry had known—but he was pants at hiding his emotions. He was obviously scared for Harry.

Since the war, several people had tried to kidnap Harry, some fans and some definitely not. One group actually succeeded. Thanks to Kingsley, Harry had only been with them for a few hours, and he’d been unconscious for most of that.

Kingsley had cultivated a tendency towards excessive concern after that, not that Harry blamed him.

Harry turned off the mirror, and set it on the dresser. He would check the rest of his messages later—this was depressing him. He checked his watch, and he still had ten minutes before Duo would turn up. He could return one call, and have the person spread it along that he was fine, thus relieving him of his guilt.

Harry wracked his brain for the appropriate handle. He picked his mirror back up, and held it close to his face.

“The sky is falling. The sky is falling,” he whispered. It was too embarrassing to say it any louder. “Chicken Little seeks Young Mother Hubbard.”

The screen began to clear, when there was a knock at the door.

“Shite!” Harry cursed, quickly stuffing the mirror in a dresser drawer. He punched in the emergency disconnect code, but he wasn’t sure it worked.

Another bad thing about mirror phones: it took forever to hang up.

“Coming!” Harry yelled, striding to the door. He hoped Mrs. Weasley didn’t pick up her mirror before his turned off, or she’d be even more worried.

Harry slammed open the door to find—Heero. Harry broke into a smile. He glanced to Wufei, who raised an eyebrow and went back to his book.

“He-Heero. Heero,” Harry stammered, staring at Heero’s lips. He remembered what those lips could do. “Do you, um, do you wanna come in?” He pulled the door open wider, so Heero could get past him, if he wanted.

He didn’t. “No, thank you,” Heero said. He stood perfectly rigid, his eyes never meeting Harry’s. “Duo asked me to fetch you. There are three people at the gates, who claim to know you.”

“Oh!” Harry yelped, hurrying out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. “Who is it?” It could be almost anyone.

“Hermione Granger, and George and Ron Weasley,” Heero replied. He still wouldn’t look directly at Harry. There was none of the gentleness in him that Harry had seen last night. He was closed off, cold.

That couldn’t be a good sign.

“We should let them in,” Harry said, choosing to focus on that, for now. He would find out what was wrong with Heero, later. “They’ll be pissed enough at me, already.”

Heero did not ask why, or make any other inquiries.

Harry darted a glance at Wufei, who only raised another eyebrow. Wufei stuck a bookmark in his book and stood up. He slung an arm around Harry. “Let’s go see what they want.”

Harry looked gratefully up at Wufei, before turning back to Heero. “Where are they?”

***

It was Ron’s turn to pace, back and forth in the small building the three had been told to enter. It was only one room, with a plain desk, and several hard chairs that tried to eat you, if sat on the wrong way.

George slouched in his odd Muggle chair, scowling with his arms crossed. Hermione sat primly on the edge of her own seat, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

Harry was nowhere to be seen. He had not, in face, even spoken to them through the Muggle voice carrier, which Hermione called a “speecher.”

This brought Ron to one of three conclusions. The first—and least likely—was that the Muggles would not allow Harry to see his friends. This was improbable, though. Ron doubted the Muggles could stop Harry from doing anything he wanted to. Even full-grown wizards and witches would be hard pressed to force Harry to their will.

The second possibility was that Harry had not yet been told of his friend’s presence. Given how long it took for Ron and the others to be let in the gates, this idea had some merit. These people didn’t’ seem to be in too much of a hurry about anything.

They were lucky that Ron and the others hadn’t just blasted their way in. Hermione had thought that might put Harry in a “less amenable” mood, given the situation with his brother.

The third option, however, was the most likely: Harry was ignoring them in the hopes that they’d go away. Harry had always been uncomfortable when his friends worried about him, thanks to those sodding Dursleys.

If Harry thought he was fine, then he was fine. And he always thought he was fine, no matter what anyone else said. Even if he was gushing blood—or had died only twenty minutes before.

Harry didn’t like it when someone else—be it Ron and Hermione, Madam Pomfrey, or the whole sodding community of British wizards—argued with him and said, for instance, “Get that cut taken care of before you bleed out on the floor and make a mess.”

He might about the second part—Harry hated making messes. But he would ignore the first until the goblins gave up banking and warring, and started a ballet troupe.

Harry did not take care of himself, because he didn’t think his health was important. It came as no surprise to Ron that Harry had skipped out of the hospital, but it was his job as Harry’s best friend to make sure he went back.

Even if he had to knock him out and drag him back.

Ron huffed explosively and dropped down in an empty chair. It was too flimsy to be a real chair. Ron couldn’t believe Muggles sat in these, day in and day out. His arse was already getting sore.

“Be patient, Ron,” Hermione said. Her hands were moving in one of her knitting patterns, but she didn’t have her needles or yarn with her. “They’ve let us inside, so it’s only a matter of time.”

She’d calmed down a bit, since coming inside. She’d been stressed all week—longer than that, actually, by quite a large margin. She deserved to have a bit of a calm period. At least she found her parents.

“Of course,” Hermione said, “we always have our back-up plan, if Harry is not cooperative.” She turned to George. “Do you still have the. . .”

“Yep,” George quipped, still scowling and hunched over in his seat. He drew a green vial from his pocket and tapped it on his knee. “It’s activated and everything.”

***

Heero glared at Wufei, whose arm was holding Harry possessively. Harry did not seem to mind. In face, he looked positively welcoming.

Heero clenched his teeth, physically biting back his jealousy. Harry was not for him.

He wasn’t for Wufei, either. Heero would make sure he realized that, as soon as they were alone.

“Your friends are in the security building, where you were first placed on your arrival,” he said, letting no emotion into his voice. This was his job, his new “mission,” and feeling could not enter into it.

Heero let his mind go where it did during missions. Nothing mattered, except the goal. After so many years of training, it was second nature to let the “Perfect Weapon” take over, driving him forward to the end, with no secondary considerations.

His goal was to shove Harry away—he would not be able to do that if forced to face his own feelings on the matter.

“Shite. They are going to be pissed at me,” Harry cursed. His cheeks flushed, and Heero knew objectively that it made Harry beautiful—he felt it, even—but he felt no stirring of desire, no want or need to court or claim him.

Harry looked at Heero, bit his lip, and turned to Wufei. Heero felt no jealousy, as he had before.

“Could you take me to them?” Harry asked Wufei. “Quickly, before they start throwing things?”

“Heero can do that,” Wufei said, giving Heero a pointed look. “Can’t you?” He directed this to Heero, raising his eyebrow. “I’ll go tell Duo what’s going on.”

He sped off before Heero or Harry could object.

“Um, thanks,” Harry said. He fidgeted with his hands, his cheeks reddening from a whole other reason.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Heero barked. He marched down the corridor, not waiting for Harry.

Harry caught up a few moments later, out of breath. Heero was reminded of another time he had made Harry pant, and viciously squashed the thought.

He and Harry were nothing to each other.

They walked in silence. Harry sneaked a glance at Heero every few seconds. Heero did not acknowledge this, or the mournful, pleading look Harry wore as he did it. Heero stared straight ahead, making sure to keep Harry in his peripheral vision only.

The tension between them grew with every corridor they passed. Heero did not want to be near Harry—he had made a terrible mistake. There was no way to rectify it, except by making sure it never happened again.

“Heero,” Harry said, a bare few moments before they reached the foyer, and Heero could pass Harry off to a Maguanac—regardless of Duo’s orders. “I, um, about last night. . .”

Heero waited a moment for Harry to continue. When he didn’t, Heero snapped, “What about last night?”

Harry flinched, and looked to the wall. He swung back around, narrowing in on Heero’s eyes. “Why did you leave? You said you would stay.”

Harry’s eyes were so green and beautiful, just like the rest of him. He couldn’t stand to look at them, but the alternative would make him appear weak and uncertain. “I was finished, and I had better things to do with my time than babysit you all night.”

“Like what?” Harry challenged, the light glinting off his glasses. He crossed his arms, his lips thinning into a hard line.

“I had work,” Heero said, keeping the lines of his body relaxed. He affected a nonchalant expression, as if the conversation bored him.

“I thought I was your work,” Harry said. “Last night, I mean. You were—Duo asked you to watch me.”

“I don’t report to Duo,” Heero said, turning around, so he didn’t have to look at Heero. “And I don’t have time to coddle you, anymore. What happened, happened. I’m done, so get over it.”

“Oh, okay,” Harry said, so softly that Heero wanted to change his mind. Things used to be so much easier when he actually was an emotionless soldier, instead of just acting like one.

But he couldn’t give in. Harry was Duo’s brother, and much too small and delicate to be Heero’s lover on an ongoing basis. He was surprised that Harry had no visible bruises as a reminder of last night—Heero had not been gentle. Which was just another reason they couldn’t be together—Harry made him lose all control.

After the first time, Heero had decided to slip out when Harry fell asleep. Instead, he had fallen asleep himself, only to wake up grinding into Harry’s ass. Harry had somehow turned away from him during their sleep, and Heero was at the perfect position to rub against Harry.

His actions had woken Harry up, who received Heero’s attentions just as enthusiastically as the first time.

Heero didn’t recall making a decision to fuck Harry a second time—the first time was a bit hazy, as well—but he knew he had been rough with Duo’s little brother. Animalistic, even.

He couldn’t allow that lack of control to take hold of him ever again.

Heero didn’t say a word until they reached the outpost where Harry’s friend were. Harry didn’t, either, and the silence was bitter and stifling.

Heero handed Harry over to the Maguanac in charge, then went back to the house to make his report to Duo.

I could never be with him, Heero told himself on the way. Even if he wasn’t Duo’s brother, eve if he was just some stranger off the street, it wouldn’t last. He wouldn’t understand my past, the things I’ve done. I would only scare him. I can only be with another soldier.

***

Harry swallowed the bile in his throat and blinked back his tears. He had never been rejected so harshly before—as if he was just an annoying fly the other had to swat before moving onto real tasks.

He couldn’t believe that Heero would act that way. Heero, who was beloved by the Maguanacs and house staff alike. Who Duo spoke of as if he hung the moon, and checked it’s correct placement every night. Heero, who was such a giving and considerate lover.

Harry couldn’t comprehend it. What had he done wrong?

Last night had been perfect. He had been dozing when he heard a deep voice speak his name. In his dream, the speaker was a combination of Heero, Neville, and an up-and-coming Quidditch player who was sex on toast. In the dream, the man had touched him, very gently.

When someone licked his neck, Harry came partially awake—enough to realize he was touching himself, not his perfect dream man. Harry’s eyes had flown open when the person on top of him forced his hands above his head. It had frightened him, until he saw Heero above him.

Even still, he hadn’t fully realized the reality of the situation, until Heero touched his groin and entered him. Last night had been his third and fourth, respectively, experiences with anal intercourse, and the sensations were still new.

In one night, Harry had doubled the number of times he’d had sex.

“Are you ready to go in, sir?” the bodyguard, Marcus, asked.

Harry nodded, startled to find that Heero—the prick—had left several minutes ago. “Might as well get it over with, yeah?”

***

Hermione jumped when the only door clicked open. A man she didn’t recognize entered the room, and held the door open. He looked around—his eyes resting on Hermione, Ron, and George most specifically—before leaning out the door. He spoke to someone outside, before returning. A very familiar face followed.

“Harry!” Hermione greeted, rushing to hug her friend. The guard stepped between them, hiding Harry with his body. “Harry?”

A hand appeared on the guard’s shoulder, and a dark head peered around. “It’s okay, Marcus. These are my friends.”

Harry slipped around the guard, and Hermione surged forward to tackle him, and usual. She was startled by how bony he felt.

It proved that they were right to come here.

Hermione let go of Harry, so Ron and George could say hello. She stood back as they hugged, watching Harry.

He moved slowly, like he was stiff. His arms around Ron’s shoulders looked like twigs. He was close to collapsing.

Harry pulled back from Ron and George, and the three boys turned to her. Harry fidgeted with his hands, while Ron played with his hair, and George with the bottle in his pocket. All three waiting for instructions from her.

It was time to take Harry home. Hermione felt no guilt for the actions she was about to take. First, however, she would try reasoning with him.

“Can we speak to you alone, Harry?” she asked, her eyes darting to the guard blocking the door.

“Oh—yeah, yeah. Of course we can!” Harry exclaimed. He turned to the man, who frowned. “Will you wait outside?”

“Mr. Potter, my orders are to stay with you at all times.”

“I’m in a sealed box, with three of my best friends,” Harry argued. “What could happen to me here?”

Hermione caught Ron’s eye and slipped her fingers into his. Harry was going to hate them—he might never forgive them.

His safety had to come first.

Harry and the guard argued for several more minutes, until the guard conceded and stepped outside.

He would be fired by this time, tomorrow.

Harry shut the door behind the guard, and turned to look at Hermione and the others. “So, uh, what’s up, guys?”

“Why haven’t you been answering your mirror!” George demanded, stalking toward Harry. “I called 22 times!”

Harry backed up, his back hitting the door. He raised his hands defensively. “I couldn’t get to it—Duo’s had me watched all week.” His eyes darted to Hermione and Ron, pleading.

Hermione took pity on him. Letting go of Ron’s hand, she surged forward—careful, though, not to put herself between George and Harry.

“We’re just worried about you,” Hermione soothed, running her hand down Harry’s arm. “After what George said—why didn’t you tell us you were sick?”

Harry shrugged her off and stomped to the middle of the room. “I’m fine. I told George that!”

“You ran away from the hospital!” Ron yelled, before Hermione could answer. He grabbed Harry by the shoulders, shaking him. “You collapsed! You were unconscious for three days!”

“I got better,” Harry said, when Ron let him go.

“Bullshit!” Ron made to grab him again, but Hermione stepped in.

“That’s enough,” she said. Harry’s eyes were dazed, unfocused. She motioned to George, where Harry couldn’t see, and he sneaked behind Harry. “Come home with us. Let the Healers take another look at you. If they say you’re healthy, we’ll leave you alone about it.”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t need to see the Healers. I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Hermione nodded to George. She had tried to let this be Harry’s decision.

George touched the vial to Harry’s bare neck, said “Portus,” and in an instant, they were gone, taken to St. Mungos.

Hermione stepped back, and grabbed Ron’s hand, which was holding their own Portkey. Hermione looked into the camera filming them, before they, too, were whisked away.