Carry Our Burdens.
Chapter Ten.
Worried About Her.
Edit: 06.10.11

[I've finally come to realize we are all the same]

Mouse shivered as she watched the students walk back towards Hogwarts. She had released her Byakugan and now her eyes looked normal but they felt like they were on fire. She sat down on the grass and rubbed them, glancing up at Dove to see that he was messaging his temples. She patted the ground next to her and he sat down while the others remained standing, chatting together and pointing out things that they had all done really well or could improve on.

"Dove?" Panda asked as the redhead grimaced, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said quickly, taking his hands away from his head. She looked at him in confusion but shrugged it off as him just being his normal anti-social self.

"Is everyone gone?" Mouse asked. Fox nodded and the group disappeared behind the trees around the fringe of the Forbidden Forest to use their genjutsu to change their clothes again.

"Are you okay, Mouse?" Fox asked, placing a hand on her shoulder when he saw her rubbing her eyes again. She smiled softly and shrugged his hand away when she noticed Dove watching them intently.

"I-I'm fine, just got s-something in my eye. T-That's all," she said quietly. Fox watched her hurry to catch up with Panda and Slug.

"Worried about her, are we Fox?" Viper asked sarcastically as he passed him. Fox frowned at him and kept walking, looking at the ground. He was acutely aware of Dove's eyes on him, boring holes in the back of his head. He tried to ignore the older ANBU and just focus on the oh-so-interesting ground in front of him.

[Baby, seasons change but people don't]

"That had to be the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life. They were all over the place! Did you see them? They didn't even use magic all the time. It was like they were those ninjas out of animated cartoons only they were real!" Ron gushed as he waved his hands, talking to Harry and Hermione. Unfortunately for him, Harry was talking to Hermione who was pouring over a book about wand-less magic.

"It really can't be possible. I don't care how elite they are; there is no such thing as wand-less magic. Nobody can make magic just come out of them like that and I want to know how Muggles would be able to do something like that! They shouldn't even have magic!" Hermione ranted and slammed the book shut.

"I just guess they're just more secretive than you thought," Harry said, trying to placate her.

"But Panda, Mouse, and Slug answered all our questions! I don't know why they would have lied about anything." Hermione flung herself down on a couch and stared at the ceiling. "I don't understand this," she muttered.

"Well, they might have answered all your questions but how much did they add outside of the specific stuff that you asked?" Harry wondered aloud, sitting across from her. He opened up the book in his lap and looked over the contents before shutting it again; too many words.

[You always struck me as the type to take him lightly]

Harry, Hermione, and Ron made they're way to the Care of Magical Creatures class (which Harry was dreading by the way). Once they made it there they stood with the rest of the Gryffindors and with the Slytherins. As Harry looked around he spotted Viper and Fox standing in the shadows of the Forbidden Forest, leaning against the fringe trees.

"Bowtruckles," Professor Grubbly-Plank said as she waved a hand in the direction of the strange stick men wandering around on the table. A few seemed to bend over and pick at the strange white things that were moving slowly around between them. As the class surged forward to pick out their creature Harry asked the professor where Hagrid was. She just said that she didn't know and her tone told him to get lost.

"Maybe he's messing with something that's too big for him, if you catch my drift," Malfoy sneered as he reached around him to grab a large bowtruckle. Harry looked at him, aghast. What did Malfoy know?

Viper listened silently to the blond wizard. Malfoy seemed to be in on something that could be potentially bad for the Order. Not that Viper cared much about it, but Fox had ordered them to keep their eyes and ears open. The ivory haired man shrugged, tucking what the boy had said away in the back of his mind to report to Dumbledore later.

"Mr. Viper and Mr. Fox, would you like a bowtruckle?" Professor Grubbly-Plank asked, seeing the two guards having nothing to do. They looked at each other and shrugged, Fox snatched one up and was immediately scratched by its long, sharp fingers.

It didn't take long for Viper to decide that he did not like the thin little beasties and for Fox to realize that he loved them. Poor bowtruckle. Harry glanced at the guards every once in a while as he drew the body of a bowtruckle for a project. Viper was always standing several feet away, arms crossed, looking off somewhere else while Fox knelt on the ground in front of the poor creature, prodding it or talking to it. Weirdo.

As they left Harry looked over his shoulder to see Fox following him and Viper slipping off towards the school. The young wizard shrugged and kept walking with his friends, trying to pay attention to what Hermione was saying.

" – Don't go picking fights with Malfoy, he's a prefect now. He'll make life hard for you." Hermione looked at him for a moment when he sighed.

"I really wonder what it would be like to have a hard life," Harry said sarcastically. Hermione tensed when she heard those words come out of his mouth. She screamed when Slug suddenly appeared in front of her. She looked around and saw the Hufflepuff fifth years heading towards Care of Magical Creatures and guessed that Slug had been with them.

"Say that again, Potter-san," Slug ordered, her voice low and dangerous. Harry glanced over her shoulder and saw the Fox had been distracted by the Hufflepuff prefects who seemed to be asking him a question that he thought was funny.

"Um… I wonder what it would be like to have a hard life?" he said. Slug sucked in a breath and it sounded like a hiss as it passed her perfect teeth. She leaned in very close to him and whispered hoarsely in his ear.

"I know what kind of life you have had, Potter-san. I know that your parents are dead and that Voldemort killed them; but what I do not know is why you insist upon complaining about it every time someone brings up something about having a difficult life. Your dependency on your reputation makes you weak.

Death is not as unusual as you think. Dove has no parents. Viper has no parents. Fox has no parents. Panda only has her mom. We know the kind of loss that you went through and, to be frank, we are all appalled by the way you handle it." She straightened and glared at him, her green eyes flashing angrily. Harry was stunned into silence.

At that moment, Fox walked over to them. Slug waved briefly to him and vanished into the line of Hufflepuffs. Harry stood frozen into place until Hermione tugged on his arm and they started walking again.

Harry nearly had a heart attack when he saw Luna Lovegood making a beeline from him out of her Herbology class. She stopped a little bit in front of him, her innocent eyes wide as she looked at him.

"I believe you when you say that You-Know-You is back and that you fought him and that he killed Cedric."

[Finish the bottle full of empty dreams]

Viper slipped through the halls. He didn't feel like getting caught and asked questions so he removed the genjutsu and moved around easily in his ANBU uniform. He left his mask hanging from his belt though as he walked through the shadows.

He murmured softly to himself as he thought over what the Slytherin kid had said. He had heard him make another comment a few weeks earlier that had hinted that he knew that Sirius was an unregistered animagus. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

He reached the gargoyle in front of Dumbledore's office and spoke the password softly. It slid away and Viper walked into the room, dodging half a dozen strange things hanging from the walls and ceilings.

"Dumbledore-sensei," he called. The old man waved from his desk, motioning him to come in further. "Dumbledore-sensei," Viper said, right to business, "I overheard something today that I thought you might need to know."

Dumbledore looked up at him from his desk, mildly amused, "You 'overheard' something, Viper? You mean you were eavesdropping?" The ninja tensed and Dumbledore knew that he did not liked to be joked with. Of course, that made no difference to the old man.

"Whatever you want to call it, Dumbledore-sensei," Viper muttered, "Draco Malfoy is the son of a Death Eater, correct?"

"Yes."

"Are you aware that perhaps the Death Eaters might know more about the Order's movements than you want them to?"

"That is a possibility. Why do you ask?"

"Draco Malfoy makes it quite clear that he knows not only that Sirius Black is an unregistered animagus but also that Hagrid-san is currently out on a mission involving speaking with the giants."

"How do you know this?" Dumbledore hid his unhappy surprise well but ninja were masters of reading emotions. Viper's lips tightened into a thin line as he went on.

"He drops hints to Potter-san in casual conversation. I already assumed that he is no friend of Potter-san's but I also noticed that he doesn't have much intelligence where subtlety is concerned. Perhaps his father is informing him of the updates and he, either through prodding or not, is telling Potter-san about it."

[It starts with one thing, I don't know why]

Harry wandered through his next classes without much enthusiasm, thinking about the mound of homework that he had in the dorms waiting to be done that night. He glanced over his shoulder as he and Ron made their way up to the Gryffindor common room. Fox walked behind him and Dove suddenly appeared next to the captain.

The commotion in the room hit them like a blast of cold air as they entered through the hole behind the Fat Lady. Fred and George were sitting among a small group of first years, a few of which were falling randomly out of chairs and laying on the ground like they were dead while the twins made notes.

Ron ran away to hide upstairs in the dormitories as Hermione stalked over towards them. From her expression of fury both of the boys guessed it had something to do with the Fred and George's escapades, something that Ron wanted no part in whatsoever.

Harry sat by himself next to the fire, everyone else wandered around the edges of the room in little huddles. He was vaguely aware of someone creeping up behind him but he still jumped when Fox swung himself over the back of the couch and sat next to him. Dove slid past him and sat stiffly in the chair across from him.

"Why so glum, Harry-kun?" Fox asked, poking him in the side.

"No reason," Harry lied. He looked at the fire, thinking about what Malfoy had said. Perhaps Hagrid really was in trouble, hurt, or maybe even dead. He shivered and curled up in a ball even though the fire was plenty warm.

"Don't lie. You aren't fooling us," Dove said. Harry winced at the flat monotone that his voice always carried. He tapped his chin for a moment as if thinking and then smiled slightly. He looked from Fox to Dove, remembering what Slug had said earlier and wondering if they would answer one question.

"I'll answer a question if you both answer a question," he said slyly. Fox glanced at Dove and the redhead shrugged, already having lost interest in this conversation.

"Shoot," Fox said, leaning back and flinging his arms over the back of the couch.

"How did your parents die?"

Harry had about half a second to realize that he had made a very, very stupid mistake. Fox had fallen off the couch in surprise and now sat on the floor with a dazed expression but Harry was on the floor too. Dove sat on his stomach with a knife to this throat. It was a very awkward position but Harry wasn't worried about what it looked like to other people. Right now he only feared for his life.

Other people had stopped their discussions and the room was completely silent. Everyone heard what Dove whispered to the wizard under him even though it was in the quietest of tones.

"Never ask about my parents again," Dove whispered, "How they died is no concern of yours."

Fox had regained his composure for a moment and put a hand on Dove's shaking shoulder. The guard took the hint and got off Harry and, in fury and sadness, didn't even bother taking the door. He slammed open a window and dropped out. A few girls shrieked but no one was brave enough to see if he had survived the fall. Fox glanced at Harry with a glazed expression and left through the main way.

[Author's Note]

Song lyrics belong to My Favorite Highway, Fall Out Boy, The Dresden Dolls, Sum 41, and Linkin Park respectively.