A/N: Ok, so this chapter was supposed to get Wufei all the way to Hogwarts and I didn't get quite that far but I think it worked out ok. As usual it's not beta read so please excuse any blaring mistakes. The next chapter might take a little bit more time but I'll have it up as soon as possible.
"speaking"
/thoughts/
Magic and the Dragon: Chapter 1
Chang Wufei,
We are pleased to inform you of your acceptance to Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry, entering into fifth year by post-mortem request of Treize Khushrenada (graduate of the class of AC 189). Attached you will find a list of supplies and prohibited items, please send your response before July 31st.
Sincerely,
Minerva McGonnigal
Deputy Headmistress
Wufei blinked at the page of slightly yellowed parchment he held in front of him, feeling more than a little bewildered.
The magic itself was of little surprise, everyone in his clan had some sort of magical talent that was trained to a certain extent through meditation and regimen, he could perform the few wandless spells that the Change family used for combat training and that was all.
The big shock was that Treize would have thought to include anything about him in his will, much less a full scholarship on the Khushrenada tab.
/Did he care about me enough to want to see me secure after the war, or is this some sort of payment for services rendered?/
Wufei didn't know what to think.
He could fill tears welling up, unbidden, at the thought that Treize might have been planning to manipulate him, or that Treize thought of him as a whore.
Wufei angrily dashed his tears away and threw the letter down on to the coffee table in front of him. Nearly a week earlier and this letter would have been carelessly thrown away.
Today however, Wufei was holding another letter; his letter of resignation to Lady Une of the Preventers.
After the Eve Wars had come to an end, those that had fought for piece or justice or revenge found themselves at loose ends. Wufei, along with Duo and Trowa, had joined the Preventers because he hadn't known what else to do with himself.
His two compatriots had thrown themselves back into the world of battle and subterfuge that they had always known, with just enough hope for themselves and the future to keep themselves from self-destructing.
But Wufei hadn't felt the same righteous anger that had driven him through two wars. Loosing Treize to his own sword, and then loosing Mariemaia (the closest connection he could find to his former lover) to the Earthsphere childcare system. Had left him without the drive to fight.
He could remember Duo walking headquarters just a few days earlier shouting, "I love my job!" at the top of his lungs.
"Typical Maxwell behavior." Wufei had snorted in derision, shuffling papers.
"It's great!" Duo responded, throwing himself onto Wufei's desk and giving his friend a goofy grin.
"Where do I get to blow stuff up at the beginning of the day, and rescue a few puppies after lunch, and then go home to my a sexy piece of man-meat when I'm ready for bed"
Wufei could remember clearly the way that Duo's eyes had shined with his enthusiasm, and Trowa's cheerful chuckle from across the room.
Duo's previously mentioned "man-meat" entered the room at that moment accompanied by a suit-wearing Quatre. Heero caught the tail end of the conversation and took it as a hint to go embrace his braided lover.
Wufei ignored the pang of hurt he felt as he saw the four people he would consider friends, neatly paired up with each other and perfectly happy.
"Mmmmm… Hey there man-meat." Duo had never been one to avoid public displays of affection; he kissed Heero just as enthusiastically in the office as he would in the privacy of their apartment.
"Hello, stupid." Heero had replied with a wry smile that Wufei couldn't have even imagined a year ago. His fingers, stained with various paints and colors, wrapped themselves around Duo's braid in a possessive clutch.
"Look out, you'll never get charcoal out." Trowa warned from where he had risen to greet his own lover.
"Heero! I told you to wash your hands before you touch the hair!" Duo growled in shock, not moving an inch from where Heero was caressing his braid.
Neither Heero nor Quatre had taken the route of the other pilots after the war. While Quatre had taken over leadership of Winner Enterprises, Heero had done the completely unexpected and gone to school. Art school, seriously.
If anyone had told Wufei that he would one day see a paint covered Heero Yuy joking about shampoo he would have told them they were crazy. And then shot them. But that's what the once perfect soldier had chosen to do.
It was on that day, watching his four friends and compatriots joking and laughing and normal and in love, that Wufei realized how much he hated his job.
Being a preventer was not nearly the same as being a gundam pilot, nor was it similar to serving in Mariemaia's army. It wasn't all "blowing stuff up and saving puppies" as Duo so eloquently described. Wufei felt too restrained by the strict supervision of his commanding officers. There was too much liability involved when he went on a mission with a partner he didn't trust. There was paperwork.
Wufei hated watching his friends drawing closer to each other and farther apart from him. Making their lives so real and solid and normal while he felt suspended in time, as if waiting for the next enemy attack.
And, more than anything, Wufei hated working under Lady Une. It wasn't the woman's fault that she represented everything he had both loved and despised during the war. That she had taken his lover's child while he was forced to pretend he didn't care. Lady Une was a respectable woman and a strong leader.
Wufei hated her.
On that day, Wufei left the Preventers office and headed to his apartment where he sat down to pen his resignation letter to a woman he couldn't help but despise, and found a inconspicuous parchment envelope sitting on his desk, bearing his name in bright green ink.
Wufei found himself on a plane to London a few months later with fewer belongings in his single duffle than he had traveled with during the war and his grandfather's old wand in the pocket of his coat. It had taken him quite a few weeks to officially leave the Preventers and pack up his small apartment. He didn't have much in the way of possessions, and what little he hadn't sold fit in a single bag.
Just like it had been during the war, Wufei was left with a couple changes of clothes, a few pictures that had survived the destruction of L5, and his old katana. It was almost a liberating experience.
Wufei couldn't help but chuckle to himself as the plane lifted off the runway, /Here I am, a year later and still marching to the beat of Treize's drum/
/Will I ever be free of him?/ Wufei's hand lightly touched the wand in his pocket, a tool that he associated more with Treize than with the man he had inherited it from.
The general had been an excellent wizard, but an even more outstanding pilot and commander, which is how the man had ended up so thoroughly ensconced in muggle politics. Wufei often wondered how the war would have proceeded if Treize had decided to pursue a career in potions.
/It doesn't matter/ he reminded himself, /I'm going for myself, to start a new life./
/This isn't about Treize./ Somewhere in the universe, Wufei imagined, someone was laughing at his lies.
The plane touched down at Heathrow airport in the early afternoon on a completely pleasant day in September, as if to thumb its nose at Wufei's contemplative mood. He gathered his bag and moved as quickly as he could to get off the plane through the crowd of chattering travelers. Wufei found himself longing for the days when he could fly anywhere in the Earthsphere on his own time.
Wufei was greeted at the gate by a giant of a man clutching a bright pink umbrella and holding a sign that bore his name in what appeared to be soot.
The former pilot approached his guide and waited expectantly, but he didn't seem to be paying attention to anything at Wufei's eye level. Wufei cleared his throat a few times but when that got no response he reached up and tugged on the man's sleeve, feeling like nothing more than a small child.
"Huh?" the big man grunted, finally glancing down.
"I am Chang Wufei"
"Oh… Oh!" The giant paused to look at his sign before looking back down (way down) at his charge.
"Righ' sorry. Never been to an airpor' before an' it's got me a mite distracted. Name's Rubeus Hagrid, pleased t' meet ya!"
Wufei decided not to dignify that with an answer, but the large man insisted on giving him a crushing handshake in greeting.
Hagrid was fascinated by the monitor that displayed arrival and departure times, as well as the baggage carousels and the automatic door. He put out that Wufei hadn't checked any bags.
It took Wufei nearly fifteen minutes to convince Hagrid that they really should be leaving, especially since they would be taking the train. The groundskeeper managed to maintain a steady flow of cheerful banter, leaving Wufei free with his own thoughts so long as he remembered to nod every now and then.
They took a cab (quite the experience with a companion the size of three gundam pilots) to Kings Cross.
"I was going to be taken' you to Diagon Ally but the 'eadmaster said you already had a wand and we can get everythin' else on order." Hagrid told him as he led the way through the crowded station. "It's a little late anyway, as the train leaves today."
Wufei grunted a response, following the by a few feet from the entrance to the gate, pretending he wasn't a little bothered by the fact that they happened to walk through a wall in between.
Wufei honestly hadn't even thought of the supplies list that had been included with his letter, and he was beginning to regret it as he saw the other students who crowded the platform. They milled about, some already dressed in the school's robes, with large trunks and cages and chattering family members.
/I will not admit to being intimidated. / Wufei told himself, /I am stronger than these children. /
"It's jus' fine!" Hagrid told him, somehow managing to read his uneasiness, "I'll get you onto a compartment an' the 'eadmaster will meet you at 'ogwarts!"
Wufei snorted at the suggestion that he was unsure (although the crowed of unknown wizarding children was a little daunting) and shouldered his duffle.
"Thank you for you guidance." He said, probably the first thing he had said in hours, giving Hagrid a slight bow before turning towards the Hogwarts express.
If the platform had seemed chaotic, Wufei was completely unprepared for the inside of the train. Children filled the aisles and the compartments, jostling around with heavy luggage and badly executed spells. Wufei ducked into a compartment as quickly as he could, not really looking at which compartment it was.
Three heads turned to stare at him as he slammed the door, muttering curses in a few of his favorite languages. Caught in the gaze of Hogwarts' most inquisitive students Wufei found his expletives trailing off into an awkward silence.
"Ummmm…." Wufei blinked a few times, "Would you mind if I joined you?"
"Sure!" The boy with the glasses said, "Take a seat."
Wufei slid himself into the nearest seat and pushed his bag under the chair beneath him, "ariga- thank you." He was so used to speaking only to his fellow pilots that the habit of speaking in Japanese was hard to break.
"I've never seen you before." The girl probed, "are you a first year?"
"Are you suggesting that I am eleven years old?" Wufei responded coldly.
"Errr… Of course not!" the red head said, "I'm Ron by the way."
"I'm Hermione."
Wufei turned his face to the boy with the glasses, waiting for an introduction that didn't come. "I am Chang Wufei," he said pointedly.
The boy looked at him, as if waiting.
After a few moments of pointed looks, Wufei lost his patience, "What is you're name, boy?"
"You mean you don't know?" Ron asked.
"Of course I don't know! Do I look like a mind reader to you?"
"I…" the boy with the glasses looked both surprised and pleased, an uncommon reaction from people Wufei yelled at. "I'm Harry Potter."
"That wasn't so hard was it?" Wufei growled irritably.
"I guess." Harry responded, "Where did you say you were from again?"
" I didn't say."
Hermione gasped suddenly, "You're not a professor are you?"
"First you think I'm an infant and now you think I'm elderly? I'm not a professor!"
Ron and Hermione seemed to be getting fed up with Wufei's brusque attitude, but Harry was chuckling under his breath. Wufei wasn't sure how he felt about the odd boy, he didn't like to be considered entertainment, but he also wasn't trying to make enemies out of the first people he had met in England. /Treize would have had them wrapped around his fingers by now./
/but Treize isn't here./ Wufei reminded himself, not for the first time.
After a few minutes of verbal sparring, Wufei decided stop remaining purposefully obtuse, he had seen what it had done to Maxwell and he didn't want his new acquaintances to even think about touching his shoes.
"I'm a transfer student." He told them, "From the colonies."
There was a long pause, while the trio thought about his answer, before he was barraged with questions.
"Why are you transferring?"
"Hogwarts doesn't have transfers!"
"Aren't the colonies full of muggles?
"What are the colonies?"
"Ron! You don't know about the colonies?"
"Have you been to outer space?"
"What do you mean outer space?"
Wufei sighed, /this is going to be a long trip/
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