Title: What Courage Means

Author: Daeleniel Shadowphyre

Feedback: darkone2813 at mindspring dot com

Fandom: Harry Potter - AU

Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drama

Rating: R

Notes: Please reference the prologue for the summary, disclaimer, and any other relevant information.

Distribution: Ask, and ye shall receive.

Part I - Chapter One

The Boy Called Lightning

Oi! Dealan, wake up!'

'Ten pounds say 'e's na in there.'

''Ell's bells, Ems, where ye gon' ge' ten pounds from?'

'From ye, if ye take m' bet!'

From his vantage point up in the supports across the room, a boy with slightly large, bright-green eyes watched his friends cluster around the curtained-off cupboard he usually slept in. He was a thin boy with a thin face, and smaller than he really should be, with knobby knees and pale skin and too-long black hair that hung limp around his face and down his back. His clothes were either too big or too small, and were frequently torn. Still, he was relatively clean, having had it drilled into him at an early age that if you were clean, the coppers were less likely to smell you hiding. He had figured out for himself that when you were clean, even if you looked scruffy, you tended to blend in better with people in the city.

"Dealan" was not his real name, of course, but he couldn't remember that, and his mum hadn't known. His "mum" wasn't really his mum, either, but Nat had stepped in along with her best friend Olly to take care of Dealan as a baby, so he had regarded them as "mum" and "uncle Olly." Nat got nailed by the coppers near five years back. Olly had looked after him then, until he was killed in a knife fight with a guy called Rat a year later. Dealan missed them both dearly, but he never let on to the rest of their gang. Jayze, new that he was to leading the gang after old Dom, had guessed, though, and he'd put Dealan to work around the Loft -- the abandoned apartment their gang called home -- instead of sending him out on the lifting lay. Dealan hadn't said, but he'd been grateful to Jayze for that.

Dealan smirked as his friends' argument became more heated. Ems and Danny had the same argument every morning, and every morning Ems won the 'bet' between them. Those two were really more like siblings to him than just friends, them and another girl, Chrissy. She was standing slightly to one side of the pair, watching them argue with the same amusement Dealan felt. Then she looked up and winked at him, and he sighed. Now he had to go down.

''Ere now, wha's all this, then?' he asked cheerfully, swinging down to join his friends. Ems and Danny jumped, and Chrissy grinned at him.

'These two were jus' having their morning conversational opening,' she said, her speech pattern a mix of clear upper-class diction and the rough, street-bred speech of her friends. Chrissy had only been on the streets for three years since her mum had died and her father kicked her out of the house. Why, she wouldn't say, and refused to talk anymore about her past. Everyone else had theories, of course, including Dealan, but no one ever said them to her, understanding through the entire group that she'd tell them if and when she chose to.

'An' 'ere I though' I could'na ge' away wi' sleepin' in, so's I'd bes' be up afore ye!' Dealan chuckled, casting his eyes upwards. 'Oi, who'da known?' To Danny, he added, 'Ain' ye glad ye dinna take Ems up on 'er bet?'

'Yeh, an' ev'ry other bloody mornin'!' Danny replied, ducking his head sheepishly. 'She allus knows! 'Ow? 'Ow in bleedin' 'ell do she allus know!' Ems smirked and buffed her rather dirty fingernails on her even dirtier jumper.

'Jus' a talen' I go', Dan. Live wi' i',' she said smugly. Chrissy and Dealan laughed, which made Danny just grumble good-naturedly.

'Oi, now!' a voice rang out from across the room. 'Dan lose a 'nother bet t' Ems, then?' The four friends turned to see a brown-haired, blue-eyed boy smirking at them from the entrance to the Loft, and all of them grinned back.

'I dinna take i' this time, Ash!' Danny protested as the other boy scrambled the rest of the way into the Loft. Ash grinned back, and Dealan took a moment to really look at his friends.

Ash, like Dealan, had been raised on the streets, and if he'd ever had a name besides "Ash" he couldn't remember it. The other boy was all of thirteen years old as best anyone could tell, but he barely looked eleven, which made it handy for him to get in and out of tight spaces, working his way through crowds with the ease of someone twice his age. He and Dealan had learned the art of pickpocketry together, and while they were naturally a little competitive, they were every bit as good friends as Dealan was with Ems or Danny or Chrissy. Even the competitive nature of their friendship had eased when Dealan had taken up learning roof walking from Sean, an older teen with uncanny balance and an acrobat's grace.

Ems, on the other hand, had medium brown hair that might have been fluffy if she'd ever bothered to wash it more than once every other week, and bright, mischievous brown eyes. She'd run away from the orphanage where her grandmother had dropped her after her parents' deaths, thinking she'd rather make it on the streets than grow up unwanted. She made it plenty, learning the ropes of the pickpocket trade with enthusiasm.

Danny had a similar story to Ems, except he'd been dumped with an old uncle that never noticed him, and he'd run away out of sheer desire to find someplace he could make his mark. Olly had started to train the lad in knife fighting before he was killed, after which Jayze himself had taken over the young red-head's tuition, taking Dealan under his wing for fighting training as well. Danny did well at it, and Dealan figured that his mate would do just as good at any of the other lessons they had around the Loft, if he ever applied himself.

And lessons they had, in plenty! When Chrissy had shown up, she'd done something that few of the others besides Jayze and another older thief, Alan, could do-- she'd set up the Loft to teach the younger kids how to read, write, and figure. Jayze and Alan - besides being in charge of the whole Loft - also took time to teach any of their gang that wanted to learn how to fight, Jayze with knives and other weapons, Alan with bare hands and feet. Chrissy had been the one to teach Dealan how to mend his own clothing and even how to cook, to a limited degree.

Chrissy, with her white-blonde hair and slate-grey eyes, who was even now looking at her watch-- a large, clunky thing that told time in digital numbers that she'd nabbed off some bloke around St. Paul's cathedral. Which suddenly reminded Dealan of the real reason he was up before everyone else today.

'Cor!' he exclaimed. 'Th' zoo!'

His words spurred the others into near frantic action, washing up hurriedly in the old boiler room that had been converted into a washroom and getting dressed in their cleanest, most reputable clothing. Within moments, the five friends had raced from the Loft, headed for the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens.

For once, it was sunny. It being a Saturday, there were plenty of people milling around the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens when the ragtag crew of children reached the gates. They blended in with the crowds of families out of habit, looking around animatedly, but keeping quiet to avoid attracting attention. They smiled up at the lady at the gates as they presented their passes, and the lady smiled back before bending a disgruntled frown on another family with a very loud and very fat child in tow.

Once inside, the first order of business was to locate a directory. There seemed to be so much to see, it was difficult to decide where to start. Ash wanted to see the elephants first, which then led to the zebras and giraffes. Dan dragged the group off to the primate habitats where they stared at the gorillas. Then Ems declared that they just had to see the exotic birds. Dealan filched a few pounds out of the pocket of a rich bloke who didn't even spare him a glance and bought the group lemon ice pops, which they enjoyed while watching the crowds pass and made fun of a fat man and a thin woman who seemed to be bending over backwards to placate the fat boy with them and, to a lesser degree, the much thinner boy tagging along.

Ice pops finished, Chrissy announced that she wanted to see the Reptile House, an idea that was greeted enthusiastically by the boys and a sigh from Ems. Still, though she preferred not to be too close to the glass enclosures, even Ems had to admit that some of the lizards were beautifully colourful. The snakes, too, though most of them were mottled shades of brown and green and grey, save only the poisonous ones.

So it was that Dealan found himself standing alone, quite unexpectedly next to that same fat whiny git, in front of the largest snake in the entire Reptile House. The snake really was impressive, and looked as if it could have wrapped itself around a lorry and crushed it like a can-- but at the moment it looked to be fast asleep. Not that it mattered to Dealan, who gazed at it in awe while doing his best to ignore the fat kid with his nose pressed greasily against the glass.

'Make it move,' the git whined at the fat bloke who could only be the boy's father. The man tapped sharply on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.

'Do it again!' said the bossy git, and the man rapped smartly on the glass with his fat fist. The snake continued to snooze.

'This is boring,' the kid moaned, and waddled away.

Dealan, however, moved closer. Something about the way the snake lay completely still seemed... wrong, somehow. He snorted softly, thinking that perhaps the snake had died of boredom with no company except stupid gits drumming their fingers on the glass and disturbing its rest. He could relate, living in the Loft with the others and barely any privacy. 'Like livin' inside a bloody glass box,' he whispered softly.

The snake suddenly opened its eyes. Black slits in glittering gold sought and found Dealan as it slowly, very slowly, raised its head until it could look Dealan in the eyes.

It winked.

Dealan felt his own eyes widen. He glanced around quickly to see if anyone was watching him or the snake. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and, after a moment's hesitation, winked back.

The snake jerked its head at the fat kid and his father, then cast its eyes upwards with a look that - to Dealan - quite clearly said:

'I get that all the time.'

'Mus' be annoyin', mate,' Dealan murmured, not sure if the snake could hear him or not. Well, it seemed to have heard him the first time.

The snake nodded.

'Where'd ye come from?' Dealan asked, curious. A part of his mind was jabbering about how only loonies talked to snakes, but he ignored it as the snake gestured with its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Dealan looked at it, frowning slightly at the words.

Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

'Brazil?' he asked, and the snake nodded again. 'Was i' nice there?'

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Dealan noticed the smaller script: This specimen was bred in the zoo. 'Oh, I see-- ye never been there, then?'

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Dealan made both of them jump. 'DUDLEY! MR DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU SHAN'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!'

Dealan barely had time to look around before he was being elbowed hard in the ribs by that annoying huge git. Caught by surprise, Dealan fell sideways onto the concrete, hard.

What happened next, no one could rightly say, but suddenly the fat kid and his friend fell back from the display with cries of horror. Dealan twisted around to look... and stared.

The glass was gone.

Not cracked or broken. Not shifted to one side or lying in pieces all over the floor. It was just... not there. Vanished, as if it had never been there at all. The snake, which really was quite large, was uncoiling itself rapidly and gliding out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house began screaming and running for the exits. Dealan could have sworn he heard a hissing voice murmur, 'Thanksss, amigo,' but the sounds were drowned out by the fat kid yelling.

'He was talking to it! That boy over there was talking to it!' Dealan turned his head to blink at the boy and met the eyes of the boy's father. The man caught sight of him at the same time and drew back sharply, his face a mask of horror. Dealan could only blink as the man began babbling about "no" and "dead" and "them" over and over, barely discernable over his son's insistence that Dealan had been talking to the snake and that he must've made the glass vanish.

'Of course,' a cold, disdainful, female voice broke in, cutting through the din like a knife. 'Made the glass disappear? Talked to a snake? Really, sir--' and here the voice dripped contempt, '--has your son always been so... imaginative?'

And then, Chrissy was there, standing between Dealan and the man, her back straight and head held high and proud as she faced down the stares of the strangers. Ash was helping Dealan stand and Ems was checking him for bruises and Danny kept asking if he was alright. Dealan shook himself slightly, then shook off Ash and Ems' hands and straightened. 'I don' know wha' 'appened t' th' glass,' he said shortly. 'An' snakes don' talk.' Turning on his heel, he walked away with Danny, Ash, and Ems hurrying after him.

Outside the Reptile House, Dealan stopped abruptly and leaned against the side of the building. He was shaking, and he didn't know how to stop, so he just closed his eyes and tried to ignore everything. He heard Danny ask him something and Ems tell him to hush. Ash didn't say anything, but his hand on Dealan's shoulder said more than words would have.

'Dealan,' he heard Chrissy say softly, close to him. He opened his eyes to stare into her grim face. Her voice was soft, but very serious as she asked him, 'Were you talkin' to that snake?'

Biting his lower lip worriedly, Dealan whispered, 'Yea', I think... I think I was.'

Much later, Dealan lay awake in his cupboard, staring up at the dull wood with unseeing eyes. His mind kept spinning, turning the events of the afternoon over and over. The more he thought about it, the less sense it made. That glass had vanished into thin air. He had been talking to that snake, and he was starting to really think he'd heard the snake talk back to him. But what really got to him was the expression on Chrissy's face as he admitted to having talked to the snake.

Chrissy had been scared. Really scared, as if she might have been a little afraid of him, and that scared Dealan. He wasn't scary, was he? Blimey, if something like this was rattling his friend, it was probably good he'd never told anyone about the dreams he had some nights of a flash of green light and high-pitched evil laughter. They'd really think he was nutters then!

I probably am, he thought miserably. Who has dreams about green light and laughter and motorbikes that fly, anyway?

Who makes glass disappear or talks to snakes? a tiny corner of his mind whispered.

I didn't do that, Dealan thought with a frown. Did I? Could I have really made the glass disappear? Talked to the snake? If I did, then how? I've never done it before, so why would I be able to do it now, anyway?

And, very softly, in the back of his mind, he thought to himself, What else could I do?