Harry was in devastated shock when he was finally brought up to the Hospital Wing and he fought hard against the hands that had wanted him to lay down on a bed to sit next to the still form of his older brother, Duo. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, he kept touching Duo's braid running the end through his fingers as he fought back his tears. He heard soft voices behind him, then hard angry voices before he was lifted up. He protested but was set on a lap, which sat next to Duo, his finger combing of Duo's hair joined by another's. "This isn't your fault, little one," Quatre whispered in his ear.
"But it is," Harry said as he leaned back into the strong chest of the SandRock pilot, "he wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for me."
"Harry," Heero's deep voice cut through the young boy's shock and grief, "you know as well as I do that Duo has been to every Quidditch game last year whether you were playing or not," Harry's shocky green eyes looked into Heero's calm blue eyes and what he saw seemed to help him to understand and become grounded pulling him out of his despair and help him to actually think.
Harry nodded seeming to relax as he turned and buried his head in Quatre's shoulder. "I just told him… I told him about the voice I keep hearing," he said his voice soft, "and I think I heard it again when Duo left the dorm tonight."
"What voice, Green Eyes?" Heero asked sitting next to him on the visitor's chair.
"I keep hearing a voice," Harry explained as he moved his head from Quatre's shoulder so he could speak clearer, "it keeps saying that it's hungry and seems to move by me so fast, no one else could hear it."
"Explain, please," Heero prompted.
"I started hearing a voice just about the time of the attack on Mrs. Norris, Mr. Filch's cat," Harry said, "I heard it the night before last when I left Professor Snape's quarters after I was talking with Duo, and…" Harry paused and bit his lip, "I think I heard it again tonight but the noise from the victory party made it hard to tell."
"What exactly is it saying?" Snape asked from his place on the other side of Duo's bed.
"Umm…" Harry closed his eyes and tried to remember the odd words wanting to imitate how they sounded, "Let me rip… Tear… So hungry…" he opened his eyes and noticed the shocked expressions around him and grew very nervous, "did I say something wrong?"
"Potter," Snape cleared his throat after a few stunned seconds, "have you ever talked to a snake?"
Harry brightened, "I did once!" he snickered at the memory, "it was Dudley's birthday and we went to the zoo. There was a boa constrictor and we talked a bit," he bit his lip as he remembered what else had happened, "umm… I got knocked down and ummm... accidentally vanished the glass that kept him in his enclosure and it snuck out and said, 'thanks amigo, Brazil here I come.' I wonder how far it got."
He again noticed the stunned expressions, "sir, is something wrong?"
"You're a Parselmouth, Potter," a new voice from close to them added and Harry whipped around and turned to see Malfoy sitting up in his bed, his eyes wide with shock and a bit of excitement.
"A what?" Harry looked back to the Professor hoping the man would explain.
"A Parselmouth," Snape explained, "it means you can talk to and understand snakes."
"Oh that's kind of cool," Harry looked a bit excited until he noticed the uneasiness on Snape's face, "isn't it?"
"Parseltongue is very rare," Snape said, "very few magicals actually can speak it."
"The last one was the Dark Lord," Draco said.
Harry looked at him in horrified shock, "does that mean… am I becoming…"
"Absolutely Not!," Quatre said his voice firm, "and I would know." His hand was placed against his chest making Harry remember his Emphatic ability, "believe me Harry, you are not evil." Quatre leaned forward a bit and kissed Harry's messy black hair. "Rest, little one, Heero and I will guard your dreams."
Harry turned so that he could more comfortably rest on Quatre's lap, his head laying against the blonde's shoulder, his fingers still tightly curled around Duo's braid and let himself be comforted to sleep.
HPGWHP
Draco watched with awe and a bit of jealousy as Harry was gently lulled to sleep by the soft conversation between the two strangers, "you are suppose to be asleep, Mr. Malfoy," Snape said softly when he came around to Draco's bed.
Draco winced as a particular stab of pain made itself known in his arm, "sorry, Professor," he whined a bit, "it hurts."
Snape nodded and waved his wand to cast a diagnostic spell, "the bone is about 90% regrown," he said as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed. "Draco…" he looked at into the grey eyes of his godson, his expression solemn, "that Mr. Potter is a Parselmouth is his secret to tell, not yours." Draco's eyes held something in them that made him continue, "do you understand what I am telling you? I do not want you telling anyone about this, nor…" he made sure that he had Draco's complete attention, "nor do I want you trying to blackmail Mr. Potter with this. If you do, I will be most displeased… and Draco, you know that I will know."
Draco scowled, "it's not fair." He said finally, "I just wanted to be his friend and he… he doesn't want to be mine."
"Have you ever tried to be his? I mean really tried?" a deep voice came from the curtains and he looked up into the piercing blue eyes of the older teen staring at him, "from what I have seen, all you do is mock him and his friends."
"He started it by refusing a Malfoy's hand," Draco pouted
"Ah…," Heero nodded, "so because Harry refused a the hand of a person whom he has never heard, a person whom he had met twice, both times insulting his companions, it is Harry's fault."
"I didn't…" Draco broke off scowling, "well he didn't have to be sitting with Weasley."
"How do you know that Mr. Weasley didn't sit with him?" Draco flushed a bit, "and what did Mr. Weasley do to you?" Snape asked now that the truth was finally coming out.
Draco's face went pink, "he made fun of my name."
GWHPGW
Trowa and WuFei looked around the spot where Duo had been found. They had both been to the hospital wing and been completely unnerved by the still form of their friend who as far as they knew was never still. Ever. They had listened as Harry was comforted by Quatre until Zechs had come in and led them to this spot, so now they were hunting for clues anything to give a hint as to who or what had hurt their friend and little brother.
They found four casings that Duo had fired before he had been petrified and were now trying to find the slugs. "Barton, found another one," WuFei called and Trowa came over and marked the spot on the wall with a florescent pink chalk. They had found two other bullet holes and from what they could tell, something had started about three feet off the ground and than rose quite high to almost 8 feet, from where Duo's latest bullet had been found. It moved fast, they knew how fast Duo could shoot and the shots would have been in rapid succession, so whatever it was it was able to move fast and the bullets had all missed. Which was shocking, Duo was the second sharpest shooter of them all.
The last bullet however they couldn't find and pulled out their flashlights to search in the darker corners and shadows as the sun began to rise and students began to stir.
Twenty minutes later, Trowa spotted something that looked wet, "Chang," he called and the Chinese teen came over and looked at the spot that his flashlight was highlighting. He reached out and came up with something red, "blood…" Trowa said, his voice flat.
WuFei nodded and shinned his flashlight around, "he got in one hit at least," he said sighing with relief before spotting another blood drop further down the corridor going towards the stairs, "this way."
The two followed the sporadically spaced drops of blood down the stairs of the seventh floor and to a door on the second floor. WuFei nudged Trowa's arm and pointed to something on the opposite wall of the door that they were about to go into. Words in blood red paint splattered the wall filled with warnings and dire predictions. They turned back to the door and pushed it in, carefully looking around.
The room was a girl's loo. The blood drops disappeared by the sinks and no matter where the Preventers looked they could find no other drops of blood. What they did find were two crying students. One was a ghostly girl who wailed, as she hid in her toilet and the other was a classmate of Harry's, Neville Longbottom.
HPGWHPGW
For the second time in 12 hours Quatre found himself comforting a distraught boy. Neville was shaking so hard that it took two draughts of Calming Draughts before he could speak coherently. "I found the diary in my school books this year. I had been carrying them at Diagon Alley and I tripped and scattered them everywhere, when I picked it up I found the book. I thought… I thought that it was a present from my Uncle Algie for surviving first year and actually being a wizard not a squib like he thought. But when I wrote into it the ink… it disappeared! I thought it was kind of cool and something just for me. When it wrote back… at first I was scared, but it was nice to have someone to talk to, the others treat me…" he looked down biting his lip.
"Treat you how Neville," Quatre asked softly.
"Like I am a fool and that I am invisible." Neville whispered, "it was nice to have someone who didn't ignore me, mock me, talk down to me or tell me I should be more like my parents. Tom was really nice… at first. Then I began thinking mean things about… Harry and Ron and the others and I found I didn't like that. I lost time once for about a minute the next time it was a bit longer. I woke to find chicken feathers all over me one morning and than I lost several hours and when I woke up Mrs. Norris was petrified, I was covered in red paint and…" Neville started to cry again, "I had no one to talk to and I was so afraid."
Quatre pulled the now crying boy onto his lap rubbing him gently and rocking the boy. It took a good five minutes before Neville was able to continue. He could barely remember being held, it was always, 'Don't be such a baby, why can't you be more like your father,' or 'oh stop sniveling Neville, your mother would be ashamed of you.'
"After the Quidditch game tonight, I remember being at the party, being alone because I didn't want Fred or George to play another prank on me and then… I blacked out. I remember waking up in the loo and racing up the stairs and seeing Harry…" Neville quickly dashed his tears away, "Harry crying over Mr. Maxwell and I ran to my dorm, grabbed the diary and ran back to the girl's bathroom and tried to flush it away."
Quatre continued rubbing the boy's back wincing at the almost over whelming guilt and self-loathing coming from the child. Before it had just been loneliness and hurt, but now… Quatre vowed he would be seeking out this child at least once a week until the year was over and Neville wasn't so overwhelmed with hating himself.
"I panicked this morning," Neville began again, "what happens if it didn't flush and someone else finds it, figures out how to use it, what if… what if Tom told them my secrets or worse what if Tom makes them do things too, but when I got to the bathroom, it was gone and before I could get out, Preventer Barton and Chang found me."
"Neville," Quatre said making sure to keep his voice firm and calm, "I want you to know, this isn't your fault."
"But…" Neville protested.
"No," Quatre was firm, "I promise you, this isn't your fault, it is the fault of Tom in the book, not yours, and Duo would and will tell you the same thing when he wakes up."
"How long until he wakes?" Neville turned to where the braided teen was laying. He blinked when he noticed that Harry was curled around the hard form, his hand holding tightly to the end of the braid.
"Mr. Maxwell will need a Restorative Potion, fortunately there are several Mandrake plants in the Greenhouses, and I believe you helped repot them?" Snape was looking at the boy he hoped with compassion, at Neville's timid nod he continued, "we need to wait for them to mature before I can brew the potion."
Neville was quiet for a long time than got a stubborn look on his face that Snape recognized from seeing it on his mother Alice's face when she was a fellow student and she had made a decision. "I want to help… please let me help."
"Not with the potion," Snape said and held up a hand when the boy looked crushed, "I won't even let any of my top NEWTs students help me with this one as I want it to be perfect, but what you can do is look after the mandrakes. Have Professor Sprout pick the maturest one and you will take care of it. I will talk with her about it." Neville got that look on his face again and Snape had to hide a smile, Quatre looked at him behind the boy's back and gave him a firm nod. He knew he had done the right thing and hopefully this would help the boy's self worth issues.