I used so many things and ideas in this thing, if this was any more of a patch quilt, I could use it as my blanket this winter.

Title: Hero - Heel
Author: Ileana A. (babygray)
Pairings: ... still working on that bit... but leaning heavily towards Harry/Severus
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine. This is pure jest.
Warning: AU, typos, parody, and maybe some OOC. Rough and un-beta'ed.
Notes: This is a parody/send-up of children action shows (specifically Japanese sentai shows), with a lot of stuff thrown in for good measure (i.e. because they stuck). There's a long story as to why this plot jumped at me, and the list of references is even longer... but I bet I've bored you enough. Also, the title comes from a related, but completely un-related, comic by Makoto Tateno. In either case, please enjoy.

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--Flight of the Lion --

Not three hours into his seventeenth birthday, Harry Potter left his house with no thought of ever coming back. To be more honest, he ran away, since there was nothing keeping him there, with nothing more than a bag he got as a hand-me-down from his aunt, some clothes that used to be his cousin's, and some money that his uncle knew nothing about. The money was not much, only what he had been able to earn for himself on the sly since he was fourteen, doing odd jobs for his neighbors, Mrs. Figg and Mr. Snape, or for some of the local stores.

But it wasn't running away, at least not to Harry. He was walking away, with no intent of ever coming back.

His plan was to get to London by taking the first bus out of town. From there, he would eventually head towards somewhere warm, somewhere new. Maybe southern France. Something told him that the weather would be agreeable and the people beautiful down there.

Yeah. Nice or somewhere equally pleasant-sounding would be great. He'll head out there and make a new life for himself, a life that didn't on occasions involve sleeping in a cupboard in his own family's home.

He was going to miss a few things, and a few people, but he needed to leave. He has lived in that house with those people for far too long as it was, and he needed to take advantage of what strength and youth he had before the summer was over and it was too late.

He needed to prove himself. He needed to escape.

So, not four hours into that day, Harry was trying to figure out what to do with the hours before the first bus of the morning was scheduled to roll out.

He could have left later, that was true, but that would have been emotionally difficult. This was not because any expected show of concern or cries of protest from his family. Truth be told, his guardians weren't all too fond of him; if he had left while they were awake, they would have taken over the scenario and shape it into looking as if it was their idea all along, and he wanted it known that his choice, and his alone. His own conscious, personal decision.

Even if he was to be the only one that knew it.

He sat down on the pavement, hidden in the shadows with his back against the wall of a building. Across the street was the bus stop, perfectly within his line of sight. He could wait for as long as he needed to for that bus; his plan depended very much on faith and patience. A couple hours of waiting was nothing to pay for the freedom he intended to gain that day.

His plans, however, were interrupted by a flash of steel striking the pavement right in front of him.

"Oh my, look at what I found. A little cub out of its cage," said an elegant, very snooty voice.

Startled by the sudden strike, he looked up. Harry saw, not ten spaces from him, a blond-haired boy about his age. He blinked involuntarily at the boy, for he was wearing the most ridiculous outfit Harry had ever seen outside of the adult novelty store he sneaked into a couple of times last year: all buckles and straps with a black Kato mask on his face and a very shiny codpiece that was obviously designed to draw a person's eyes down.

He drew his eyes back up to the relative safety of the boy's white-blond hair. "The hell?" he finally sputtered. "Left the costume party late, did you?"

The blond-haired boy scowled, crossing his strap-covered arms over his buckled chest. "Like you should talk."

"I should talk?" Harry said, rising to his feet. "I'm not the one dressed like some S&M enthusiast."

"I'll have you know that this is the height of fashion-"

"-if you're part of the bondage set."

"Better than what you're wearing. At least this fits me."

The boy had Harry there. He was wearing his cousin's hand-me-downs, the only clothes he ever had, which hung off his thin frame atrociously. Considering his cousin's size, Harry was safe in saying that the shirt alone could moonlight as a circus tent if it so desired.

A puff of gold-green smoke poofed itself into existence beside the blond-haired boy, leaving behind a tall figure wearing deep-green robes and armed only with a silver-tipped cane, the top of which looked heavy and sinister. Like the boy, he too had white-blond hair, his being so long that it fell past the black obi keeping the whole ensemble from falling apart every time he moved.

"It doesn't help our plans if you belittle the boy," the man said to the blond-haired boy in a voice that was older, but just as aristocratic and snooty. "Much," he added after a bit of thought.

"He was insulting my clothes, Father," the boy protested.

The man let his eyes glanced down, taking in all the steel buckles and leather straps, before coming back up to his son's face. "Well, they are a bit much, don't you think?"

Before the boy could respond, four pops, each as loud as a car backfiring, sounded off. Suddenly, four more people entered the scene, surrounding the father-and-son duo in a semi-circle, while at the same time leaving Harry with even more things he couldn't just rationalize away. Strange things always happened to him, it's true, such as that one summer when his aunt swelled up like a balloon and floated away, never to return. And then there was when he learned he could talk to snakes, which had helped him to convince his cousin it was in his best interest to be nicer to him. But, oftentimes, with the exception of Aunt Marge, these strange things only involved Harry. It was exceedingly rare for other people to get sucked into the strangeness that surrounded him on a daily basis.

If he had time to dismiss the first two, and completely ignore their interesting entrances for sanity's sake, he would have convinced himself that the blond-haired boy, with his sense of fashion, was probably just lost on the way to some suburban sexual dungeon. His father, perhaps also heading to the same dungeon, could have decided to celebrate the occasion by wearing the most emasculating set of drapes this side of Scarlett O'Hara.

But he would have needed a bit more time with the four newcomers, who, if Harry didn't know better, seemed very much like rejects from some defunct children's action show. Dressed in matching suits, complete with helmets, capes, and plastic-looking wands, they were differentiated only by the color of their suit and the emblem of some animal on their chests.

They actually looked even more ridiculous than the buckles and straps boy; at least he had the good sense to stick to black.

"Hold it right there!" cried out the one nearest the middle, a short girl, he guessed by the skirt that made up the bottom half of her shiny, black suit. Her gloved hands moved about with exaggerated twitches as she spoke. The emblem on her chest was that of a fox, its tail wrapping around the top edge of the circle.

"Great, if it isn't the Primary Color Action Squad," drawled the blond-haired boy, sneering at the girl in black. "How's your brother, Black Fox? Still down with the giggles?"

"That's none of your business, jackass," the girl in black grounded out through gritted teeth, her plastic wand being waved around rather recklessly.

"Stand aside, Malfoy," said another girl, this one dressed in yellow with the emblem of an owl, staring relentlessly into the night. She was older, taller, and a bit fuller on the hips, though she too accompanied her words with jerky arm movements. "We're not letting you take him tonight." She emphasized this by clutching her fist and swinging it round to the front of her face before crouching and rising quickly. It gave her the look of a very determined goofball in white knee boots and shimmery fabric.

"You will have to kill us before we let that happen," said the third girl of the group in a dreamy voice that seemed to float unfazed by the reality of dying, her arm movements slow and not nearly as urgent as those of her companions. She was thin and wore blue; the emblem on her chest was of a dolphin, caught mid-jump, high in the air.

"That's right," said the fourth costumed fighter, the only boy at that, in a meek voice and with a weak hand gesture that made Harry almost pity him, being stuck with a flock of girls and in that outfit as well. He was chubby, and a bit shorter than the girl in yellow. On the emblem of his green suit was a frog in repose.

"I have to 'kill you', huh?" the blond-haired boy said, the barest hint of a snarl on his lips as he extended his hands towards the costumed four. The buckles and straps, which were there for a reason outside of being 'fashionable', magically lashed out and wound around the four, striking at them with its steel buckles.

After that, Harry couldn't say because, without a second glance, he was grabbed his second-hand bag and ran.

-----

Harry Potter was hiding, and he wasn't ashamed of admitting it, either. He was actually quite good at hiding, or at least, he liked imagining so. He's had plenty of practice, for he has hidden for almost all his life, and not just physically. His abilities, his weaknesses, even the extent of his affinity for snakes, he was careful to hide it all. Things were easier in life for him that way.

So he hid. He ran from the bondage boy and his feminized father, from the brightly-dressed costumed heroes, and stopped only when he reached a nearby park. Seeking shelter, he dashed to a dark corner in the wooden area of the park and huddled underneath some bushes, intent on never letting any of those people find him that day. He knew he was going to be safe there, even if he was forced to stay there long after the sun rose. He has hidden from others before this way, and he's not too proud to not do so again.

He wasn't berating himself in the smallest way for running. He was curious, certainly, but too many strange things have happened to him all his life to make him believe that this particular episode would end well.

He could live without knowing what the hell those people were on.

Vigilantly listening for the sound of approaching footsteps, in case any of those fancy-dressed goofs had followed him, he was startled when a hand wrapped around his ankle and pulled him out of his shelter.

"Found you," said a voice, a deep familiar one that has always reminded Harry of something dark and very bitter.

"M-Mr. Snape?" Harry sputtered, trying to regain his bearings as he stared up at the person that has found him. The sky, which only moments ago was growing lighter with the impending dawn, was now as black as pitch, and a high, full moon glowed ominously in the sudden, unnatural night.

Surrounded by all this darkness was his neighbor, Mr. Snape, the snarky man that lived right next door. The man taught Chemistry at Harry's secondary and tolerated very little and no one. Surprising, at least to Harry, the man that tolerated no one was a lot kinder to the boy than Harry's own uncle. He helped Harry with school work, even if it included a lot of grumbling and snide remarks on things like his handwriting note-taking skills. He paid Harry quite well when he did work for the man, even if as he did so, he muttered on the boy's 'abysmal skill' in using that money for things he actually needed, like clothes that fitted for once or a replacement pair for the glasses he has broken quite a few times already and was barely held together by tape as it was. And, by the sheer virtue that he taught at Harry's school, the man was also a figure of authority in his life, and just having him next door had probably saved Harry more times than he could count.

The man was a damn God-sent to Harry, despite being a dissatisfied misanthrope most of the time, but he couldn't tell anyone, much less Mr. Snape, was he was planning to do with the money he was earning. He knew the man would protect him, would even take him in if he asked him, but he has been a burden enough to the man, and he wouldn't be satisfied until he escaped completely from Privet Drive.

And yet, despite how much he didn't want Mr. Snape to get even more tangled than he was into Harry's life, even as he realizes the man was somehow involved in whatever insanity Harry had stumbled unto that early morning, seeing him brought a sense of calm to Harry. It made him feel as if everything was going to be okay.

Or that he was suddenly very insane.

Mr. Snape looked down at Harry with an amused, concerned sneer on his face. It was a look, Harry was embarrassed to say, he was used to receiving. "Even in the face of danger your laziness prevails... or are you planning to get to your feet sometime soon, Mr. Potter?"

Harry, who was still half-crawling on the ground and attempting to bring himself to his feet, was still shocked, but not enough to not notice the odd tinge of anxiety in Mr. Snape's snide remark. "Why is it so dark?"

"You surely don't think this is real? If I had known you would be affected so by a simple illusion, I would have performed on around you sooner."

Illusion! Everything Harry had seen that past hour had been beyond rational thought already; the fact that Mr. Snape was also involved left him a bit mindboggled. Dressed in high-collared robes blacker than tar, the man looked taller and stiffer than Harry had even seen. His face, surrounded by the black of his clothes and his hair, was pale, nearly sallow-skinned, as white as the pregnant moon that hung heavily in the illusioned sky.

"What's going on?" Harry asked as he tried, and thankfully succeeded in, getting to his feet without falling into the strange, overgrown bat Mr. Snape has turned into.

"They didn't tell you, did they?"

Harry shook his head in reply, asking a question of his own. "You're a part of this, aren't you?"

The man, his face serious, did not hesitate. "I am."

"How?"

"It's a long story," Mr. Snape conceded, sneering at his own words before the natural scowl Harry was accustomed to reappeared on his face. "Why did you run away from home, Mr. Potter?" he asked in a voice Harry always associated with the man when he was more of a disciplinarian than a teacher.

"I needed to," Harry replied, unruffled by the cold, stern tone in the man's voice. "I waited too long as it is."

"You have one more year of schooling, Mr. Potter. However much you loathed it there, it was only for one more year."

"I barely made it this year."

"You know you could have turned to Mrs. Figg if you were so ready to leave that place," Mr. Snape said, his voice a bit warmer and more personal, the sort of voice he used when they sat together in the evenings he tutored him, just before Harry was to go back home. "Both of us know what kind of treatment you received there. All you needed to do was say the word, she would have been happy to take care of you."

Harry took a step closer to Mr. Snape. "And you, sir?" he asked in a quiet, hopeful voice.

Mr. Snape looked down into Harry's eyes, his black eyes warm and unreadable. "You are fully aware of where you stand with me."

They stood together like this for a moment, less than an arm's length apart, staring into each other's eyes. Harry, for his part, was searching for something in Mr. Snape's expression that wasn't the cool blankness on his lips, something that was more than that warm regard he had always professed for the boy. But he couldn't find it in time, and the moment was lost when Mr. Snape, as if hearing an inaudible sound, jerked his head to the side.

"They're getting closer," he said cryptically, more to himself than to Harry.

"I left you a letter," Harry said in a small voice, his thoughts still lingering on what had just happened between the two of them and was now lost.

Mr. Snape sighed under his breath. "However much I wish it wasn't true, the fact that you have run away is not the most underlining issue. What it caused is more troubling."

"What did it cause?"

"Aside from those costumed blunderheads looking for you?" he said, his sneer returning at the thought. "There was a spell on you to make you unnoticeable and useless to them until you were of age." His eyes began to glower. "Or if you willfully left the place where your mother's blood dwelled."

"My mother's..."

"Blood, Mr. Potter. As in your aunt." He tucked the thick folds of cloth tighter around himself as he crossed his arms. "If your relations had cast you out against your will, then this wouldn't be an issue and the spell would have held." Staring down at Harry dumbfounded expression, he said, "Then again, you've always been a willful, stubborn boy."

Harry frowned at the comment, thinking that perhaps it would have been a better idea giving his relatives a show.

"Now that the spell is gone, they sense your power, making you quite easy to spot." At Harry's confused expression, Mr. Snape's scowl developed an amused layer. "Are you so dense, Mr. Potter, that you haven't yet realized that you are on fire?"

"Shit! I'm on fire!" Harry cried out, looking at the palms of his hands, surprised by the little tongues of white flames rising from his skin with a pure, steady glow.

"Language, Mr. Potter," Mr. Snape said as a mirror unveiled itself into existence with a flick of the man's long fingers. Harry could only stare at his reflection in awe.

"Is this an illusion, too?" he asked, entranced by the white fire he was engulfed in. The flames, licking and dancing its way from his soles up to the top of his head, gave him the appearance of a human torch, burning away with a pure fire. He couldn't shake the feeling that, however odd it appeared, it was perfectly natural. It felt as if the fire was a part of him, coming from somewhere warm within the very core of his being, and was only now reaching out, feeding on air.

"It is a visualization of your powers," Mr. Snape answered easily. "Until you learn how to control it, it will stay quite visible to those who have the ability to see it as well, and some of these people are not nearly as honorable as the Rangers. Even if their sense of taste is odious, they will keep you safe and teach you control."

"Wait, you're not going to keep me safe?" Harry asked, looking away from the mirror to the black-robed man. "You have powers too, right? So why can't I learn what all this white fire means from you?"

Mr. Snape flicked his fingers again, and the mirror disappeared, the heavy black curtain of night falling over its surface and tucking it away. "You're not safe with me, Lion." Before Harry could comment, Mr. Snape continued, saying, "Letting your enemy know your real name can get you killed. Remember that."

Harry did not like how Mr. Snape had used the word 'killed' with such a serious voice that Harry couldn't dismiss as over-dramatic. "I'm guessing everyone involved in whatever this is also has some random nickname," he commented with a bit too much light-heartedness.

"They're neither random, nor nicknames, and you will learn this in time." His head jerked again at some inaudible sound, a sneer of frustration on his lips. "They're too close." Staring down at Harry, Mr. Snape made sure he had Harry's complete attention before continuing. "If some unfathomable reason, Mr. Potter, you must speak of me to your future spandex-wearing friends, you will refer to me as Snake, understand?" Noticing the look Harry had on his face, an odd mixture that spoke volumes about how not funny he found the code name, Mr. Snape gave Harry an amused smirk. "You're not the only one with an affinity for snakes."

"Not much different from your real name to be a good nickname."

"I only pray for both of our sakes that you don't let my real name slip." He gathered his robes tighter around
himself, making the darkness pull in. "I will contact you again soon."

"How?"

Mr. Snape's smirk became more pronounced at the question. As the darkness tightened around him, his face became paler, more shadowed. A moment later, he disappeared on an unfelt breeze, leaving Harry in darkness eerily similar to unconsciousness.