A/N: Thank you for the reviews!

-Remus, to Duo: This is nice... Just you, me, and this emotional wall you've built between us.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or Harry Potter.


Chapter 8

Star Dust


Waking up after a full moon night was no easier even with a helping of Wolfsbane Potion; the only thing Remus found relief in was knowing he'd been in control of himself the entire time. This wasn't always the case, of course, as with Order missions taking priority, the availability of the Wolfsbane Potion was not always guaranteed – either Snape or Remus himself would be called away by their duties and be unable to make it in time.

Given that Dumbledore had essentially put a hold on any missions that kept Remus away from Grimmauld Place, and subsequently Duo, for more than a few hours, Snape was able to provide the potion and Remus was able to keep his sanity while transitioning. So he'd spent the last night locked in his room, making sure Sirius kept his promise to keep watch on Duo through the night and ensuring his own room was warded to be silent and locked until the morning.

The Wolfsbane Potion was not foolproof. The fatigue, the nausea, the insistent pains that wracked his body after every transformation were all present, and it took Remus nearly half an hour to crawl his way back into his bed. Sirius had come in some time just after dawn, gaunt face clearing somewhat at Remus's tired eyes, and he set about cleaning him up briskly and checking him over for injuries. Remus had been changed and tucked back into bed, the ease of long practice and ability to be useful giving Sirius some peace of mind. The dog Animagus had left, mumbling about getting breakfast started, and Remus had thought he would sleep through the morning and hopefully feel well enough to join his friend and son for lunch.

He didn't have to wait until lunch to see Duo though, as the braided young man popped his head through the bedroom doorway to gift Remus a bright grin. Remus smiled in kind, although even he is taken by surprise when the teen fully steps through carrying a tea tray.

"You brought me tea?" Remus asked, equal parts touched and delighted.

Duo nodded, setting the tray down on the nightstand. There's only one cup, and Duo poured the tea into it, the steam rising and the smell wafting up. Remus identified it a moment later – jasmine tea, heavy and soothing as he inhaled it into his lungs.

"Jasmine tea is s'posed to be good for you," Duo said impishly. "I figured an old man like you would appreciate it."

"You sure have made a lot of jabs at my age lately," Remus observed dryly.

Duo grinned back, unrepentant. "If it's any consolation, between you and Sirius – you wear it better," he replied.

Remus chuckled, accepting the teacup handed to him. Duo pulled up an armchair to the side of his bed, taking a seat and just watching quietly as Remus took a few idle sips. It was a strongly-flavored brew, likely brought to headquarters by Emmeline Vance, and Remus hoped the woman wouldn't mind too much that Duo had pilfered from her supplies.

Duo had a bit of a habit of getting into things he shouldn't be able to, locked storage containers a common target. It didn't matter how well they locked and warded it; if Duo wanted it, he somehow had it the next day, feigning ignorance of any such wards to begin with. He'd been getting a lot more restless lately, wandering the house and breaking into rooms they'd locked. Remus nearly had a heart attack when Duo uncovered a nest of live doxies in the parlor, cutting through them with a knife he'd somehow acquired when they attacked him. He'd been bitten but they kept vials of doxy antidote in the kitchen for such occasions; Duo had been rather carefree about the entire affair, even if it took Remus a few hours to calm down and stop hovering around the boy. Sirius and Kingsley had taken care of the doxy nest, and no one had dared to breach Duo's immediate vicinity in fear of riling Remus up further.

"So," Duo started, tone deceptively casual. "Every month, huh?"

The question was clear as day: was it always this painful? Remus knew what he looked like - pale in pallor, rife with scars, and fatigued; he would fit in easily among the long-term hospital patients. He'd never cut a strong or powerful figure, and he wrestled with the hurt that swelled up inside that he couldn't even appear to be a reliable figure to the boy next to him. Duo was right to be disappointed in the father the universe had given him.

"My friends used to call it my 'furry little problem,'" Remus remarked, smothering the doubt and forcing humor into his voice. "Our classmates were under the impression I owned a badly-behaved rabbit."

Duo burst into laughter, repeating the words in a breathless echo that clearly conveyed his agreement with the choice of phrasing. Remus rolled his eyes in good humor, taking another languid sip of his tea. Only after Duo recovered and began to glance around the room did Remus become keenly aware he'd left all of his notes and research open to curious eyes.

It wasn't Order business, of course – Remus would never been so careless. However, it was a self-given project that Remus had devoted himself to with equal fervor: research into the muggle war that had so affected Duo's life. It was remiss to begin with that Remus knew so little about the war that had rocked the very foundations of most of the the world's population; it was even worse now that he knew his child had somehow been involved in it.

Duo rose, moving over to the desk where stacks of muggle newspapers practically covered the rich mahogany surface. One hand settled over the front page of one such newspaper, almost as if to trace the words printed beneath his fingertips.

"You've been doing some homework?" Duo asked lightly, the words somehow at odds with the teasing air. It was the animalistic instinct Remus often associated with his lycanthropy that seemed to sense the strange atmosphere settled as a shroud over Duo's shoulders, and Remus knew to choose his next words very carefully.

"I…don't know very much about the muggle- about the Eve Wars," Remus admitted softly, switching to the proper name. Calling it the 'muggle war' marked it as something other, something Remus had no connection to, which was not the impression he wanted to give Duo. "I didn't think that was right, so…"

So Remus had been researching, had looked up all he could about the war, about the star islands, about anything that could have even remotely affected Duo. Decades of war, civil unrest that led to bloody revolts and horrible abuses of power; the carnage left in the wake of humanity's foray into the stars had remained largely unknown to their wizarding counterparts, and the more Remus read, the worse the dread grew.

Duo turned to look at him, expression simply curious. "Making any headway?"

"Some," Remus answered the query, glancing back down at the stack of newspapers atop his desk. Unlike the Daily Prophet, these were in strict black-and-white, every picture utterly still and each section cleanly sectioned off from one another.

Muggles had mostly moved away from print media, which was more than mildly exacerbating where Remus's research into the Muggle war was concerned; he couldn't access the computers Muggles seemed to favor, and he currently had limited access to televised news programs. If he had more free time or wasn't under such limited mobility, he could have gone to a public library – but he was wary of leaving Duo and Sirius alone for so long in Order headquarters.

Remus had asked the other Order members for help collecting old Muggle newspapers, which they had agreed to without issue; by this point, all of the Order knew about his Newtype son and assumed Remus's interest in the Muggle war was just to better understand the boy he'd found himself sharing a home with.

Hermione Granger had been a great source of information, being a Muggleborn with active and current connections to the Muggle world – namely, her parents. While the Order had plenty of half-blood members, most of them had been removed from the Muggle sphere of life for so long that they, too, had little information regarding the war. Hermione herself had been slightly more helpful, but she had admitted to Remus in her letters (passed along by Arthur Weasley) that her parents did not talk about the war with her, as she was considered too young for the subject.

Hermione was one year younger than Duo.

"A little pop quiz then," Duo stated, words teasing and smile bright. Remus could not shake the feeling he was being tested in more than history, tensing slightly where he sat. His tea was slowly growing colder in his hands.

Duo pulled one of the newspapers off the desk, swiftly returning to Remus's side to place in his lap. It was over a year old but Remus had gotten to it only a couple days ago. He had tried to start learning about the Muggle war from its beginning, but just trying to discern where it had started was impossible. Colony revolts, assassinations, the destruction of the Sanc Kingdom…. It was like the Muggle world had been at war the entire time, and Remus had just missed most of it.

The little time stamp in the corner proclaimed the edition to be printed on May 20th of AC 195.

Massacre at New Edwards Base!

"What's 'Gundam'?" Duo asked.

Death.

The passage of time had had the greatest effect on Remus's understanding of 'Gundams'; the papers with the most recent time stamps painted an objective, nearly-benign image of them, while those from earlier dates painted them as a force much more sinister.

There were no mentions of the Gundams in the beginning, just a citation here or there about a terrorist attack at an Alliance base, attacker unknown. But then, as time went on, these terrorists became more and more known – their appearances increased, along with their body counts.

"It's a weapon," Remus answered.

Duo took a seat on the edge of Remus's bed, one finger tracing the outline of the Muggle war machine printed on the page. The picture was still, but somehow, it still gave the impression of a frightening amount of power: a humanoid-shape crafted from gleaming metal, wielding what almost seemed like a sword of light – a beam saber, Remus recalled from the article – as it sliced what looked like a Muggle airplane in half.

"Do you know what they used to say about them?" Duo asked, voice almost quiet, as close to subdued as Remus had ever seen. "Those who have laid eyes on a Gundam shall not live to tell about it."

Remus made a quiet noise of understanding. In one of the later news articles, there had been an eyewitness account of a Gundam attack in late September – one that had put the muggle war into an entirely new perspective in Remus's eyes, and pushed 'Gundams' to the forefront of the devastating heights of horror their war had reached.

'It was a monster. It destroyed an entire colony.'

Remus could not even imagine – a weapon powerful enough to eradicate an entire star island. What if Duo had been on that colony? The more Remus learned about the Muggle war, the more he could not help but marvel Duo had even come out of it alive. The sheer number of casualties was staggering. It was no wonder that the Muggle world now clung to their peace with a fervent reverence, more than willing to celebrate with strangers.

"Duo…" Remus breathed out, the question hovering just behind his lips.

It was the unspoken topic he never broached with Duo directly – exactly what was Duo's role in the Muggle war? To take Duo at face-value, with his easy smiles and casual jokes, it was easy to think he'd been nothing but an observer. Remus had lost the luxury of that assumption after Duo had left his rental cottage strewn with Death Eater bodies, bloodied his hands by gouging out Moody's eye, and subsequently broken out of magical restraints to strangle Remus seemingly on reflex.

"Wars aren't started by God, but by people," Duo stated.

Remus blinked, startled by the proclamation. From Duo's tone, it was obvious he was quoting something, and the boy gave him a conspiratorial smile at his bemused look.

"That's what the good ol' Father told me," Duo explained. "Wars aren't started by God, but by people. And what people begin - people must end for themselves."

How all-encompassing the war must have been, for even a priest to tell such depressing things to one of his wards. It must have seeped into everything Duo knew growing up, and Remus knew that growing up in a warzone was one of the most harmful things imaginable.

"How old were you…when you left the orphanage?" Remus asked, voice tentative.

It was as if Duo switched off – gone was the smile, the false cheer. It was unsettling, to see how quickly those false emotions could bleed out of that carefully-cultivated mask Duo so often wore. It was in moments like this that Remus could believe this was the same person that had killed three grown wizards without getting more than few bumps and bruises.

"…It was destroyed in an Alliance attack," Duo answered, words curt and even. "I was eight."

I was eight.

The words seemed to echo in Remus's mind. Duo had stated he had been raised by the church orphanage, and now he had said it had been destroyed before he'd even reached double-digits in age.

Remus's hands fisted in his bedsheets.

"I was there for it in the only way you can be for war."

"How old were you?"

"What does that matter?"

Duo's body wasn't littered with the scars of a civilian lifestyle.

I was eight.

Remus had lost most of his young adulthood to war. He hadn't realized his son would lose his entire childhood to it.

"Oh, I found something cool in the drawing room," Duo suddenly stated, standing up and donning a jarringly chipper smile. "Let me get it-"

He was darting out of the room before Remus could get a word in edgewise. The man was left blinking and discontent at Duo abrupt departure, before he recalled the boy's words. Remus had locked the drawing room himself; Moody and Kingsley had said they believed there was another doxy nest in the curtains, and possibly a boggart in the writing desk. Remus hadn't wanted to risk Duo's safety, so he'd locked and warded the room to stop the teen from entering it.

"Duo, wait!" Remus jumped out of his bed, trembling lightly at the sudden strain of his desperation. The drawing room was on the first floor, only one floor below Remus's room. But Duo was young and quick on his feet, which meant Remus did not have a lot of time to spare when going after the boy.

Remus didn't pause, pushing his exhausted body faster and practically jumping down the steps. He reached the landing, and a few quick steps had him reaching the open doorway of the drawing room where he could see Duo standing frozen a few feet inside. The drawing room was at one time an exquisite space, with large windows overlooking the street in front of the house and a large fireplace, a grand piano flanked by two ornate glass-fronted cabinets, and a large, dark-wooden writing desk kept closed but rattled ominously every time someone entered the room.

It was open now, and Remus was a scant step behind his son before he found his attention arrested by the figure crawling its way out of a space that could not have possibly held it.

It was a boy, seemingly around Duo's age. His hair was a dark brown, wild in a way like Harry's own wayward locks, with piercing blue eyes set in a face that betrayed no emotion. He was thin in frame and short in stature, a near-match to Duo's waif-like look, adorned in a simple green tank top tucked into a pair of blue jeans.

He was holding a gun.

"…Hero?" Duo's voice was a disbelieving whisper, some bastard mixture of shock and joy.

The figure, this other boy who Duo clearly recognized, raised the muggle weapon to point at his own temple.

"「Ninmu kanryou」 "

Remus reached forward just in time – he caught Duo's shoulders in an arresting grip just as the teen tried to rush forward with a desperate cry, watching as the strange figure pulled the trigger and the gunshot rang through the air.

Remus had never seen someone die from the muggle weapon before. He knew what a gun was through years as a floater in both the muggle and magical realms, but firearms were rare in Britain, and he'd certainly never been close to someone who had been using one on themselves.

The force of the weapon sent the gun spinning out of lax fingers and to the ground, and blood exploded from the other side of the boy's head in a spray of flesh and bone and gore. The blow sent the body toppling sideways, a flail of limbs that landed on the drawing room floor with a mute thud and a sick slap of leaking brain matter on carpet.

"Heero!" Duo screamed, shoving Remus away. He twisted sharply out of Remus's grip, eyes locked on the prone figure with a crazed look on his face. Only the adrenaline being pumped through his veins gave the older male the strength to hold on. Remus realized the braided teen wasn't calling out for help – it was a name, likely the name of the seeming corpse on the floor. "Heero!"

"Duo, stop, stop, it's not real!" Remus cried, reaching out again to grab the boy. "It's a boggart, Duo! It's not real!"

It took a moment, where Remus thought the boy was actually going to snap his wrists, but finally the words sunk in and Duo stilled in his grasp. His wide eyes remained locked onto the body on the floor, his previously frantic breaths being choked back into something more regular, even as that terrible stillness seemed to have frozen him in place. Remus glanced back to the body, watched with equally horrified eyes as it crumpled in on itself, dissolving into shards and then into dust. Duo made a noise deep in his throat, an instinctual sound of devastation that alerted every nerve ending on Remus's body.

Remus pulled Duo behind him, putting himself closer to the boggart and felt a sharp spike of relief as the dust of the dead boy warped and shifted into Remus's worst fear.

That was, until it was Duo's corpse on the floor, blood soaking into the carpet from savage bites torn into the soft flesh of his neck. Remus didn't need to look closely to know the wounds were made from the maw of a wolf.

Thundering footsteps came down the stairs and then Sirius was throwing himself through the doorway, brandishing a wand and dark eyes sweeping over the room. "Sirius," Remus choked out, unable to tear his eyes away from Duo's corpse. "Sirius – it's the boggart-"

"I got it, I'll take care of it!" Sirius said, voice ragged. "Get him out of here, Remus!"

Remus stepped back, then finally forced himself to turn and half-push, half-carry Duo out of the room. Only when he was halfway down the hall did he stop, trying to catch his breath after realizing he was near-hyperventilating. He had Duo practically clutched to his chest, and the boy was distressingly still, silent but even in breathing. Remus forced his fingers out of their death grip on the boy's clothes, taking a small step back and looking down to gauge Duo's state.

Duo could flip through emotions so quickly that it was hard for Remus to keep track of what was real and what was a mask. The expression on Duo's face now, however, was probably the closest to authentic Remus had ever seen on his son's face before.

Complete and utter heartbreak.

"It wasn't real," Remus repeated, the words falling clumsily from his lips. Anything, anything to get that expression off Duo's face. "It wasn't real, Duo. It-"

"It's a boggart," Duo interrupted him, voice cold and eyes unseeing. His face twitched, then shifted slowly into something less real, a facsimile of control that was no less painful. "An amortal shape-shifting non-being that takes on the form of someone's worst fear. It instantly changes into one's worst fear when one first sees it."

Remus recognized the description Duo had given as lifted directly from the school textbook. He pulled the teen back into his embrace, but only a short breath later, Duo was pushing him away. "Sorry," Duo murmured, taking a step away, eyes not quite meeting Remus's own. "I need to… I need some time to think. By myself."

Remus did not want to let him go but knew better than to push. Duo turned away from him, back straight and shoulders set, heading back up the stairs. Remus watched him climb, desperation licking at the base of his spine.

"Duo," Remus called out, not quite believing he'd dare. Duo paused on the steps. "If you… If you want, we can…talk about…" What just happened in the drawing room. What happened in the war. What happened in the church. Anything that Remus could do to alleviate, even just a little bit, the demons that weighed on the boy that shared his blood. "Just – if you need, we can always talk."

Duo did not turn around.

"…No," Duo replied quietly. "We can't."

He climbed the last few steps in a staircase as quiet as death.


AC 196 July 26

"Just so we're clear, this is not an…exact science."

Quatre gave the Preventers agent seated across from him a comforting smile. "We're aware," he nodded. "But anything you can discern would be of great help."

Preventers Agent Echo nodded once in acknowledgement, pulling their long black hair up into a sweeping ponytail, dark eyes leaving Quatre's figure and settling on the simple blade laid on the table between them. Trowa had wrapped it in a white towel and then tucked it away in his luggage for the duration of their travel back to Preventers headquarters, not wanting to complicate matters by getting his fingerprints all over it.

They would run the blade through CSI, but only once they had Echo handle it first to see if they could pull anything useful from it. Echo was considered a Level Two Newtype, solely through their ability of tactile retrocognition – they were able discern past events from physically touching inanimate objects.

Echo began to pull off their black gloves – mixed-fiber cotton, at this time of year. Quatre made a mental note to gift them leather gloves charmed to adjust to the weather later, as a token of thanks for their current help.

"I'll mostly get impressions, but if there's anything in particular I should be looking for, it would help filter out unnecessary details," Echo said.

"Anything that happened in the past two weeks," Quatre stated, then added cautiously. "With particular focus on Special Agent Maxwell."

Echo's eyes widened at the name. "Is…Is everything alright with Agent Maxwell? I thought- I heard he was on leave?" they murmured unsurely.

"Agent- Rory, please," Quatre interjected softly. "I wouldn't have asked you if I didn't think it was vital."

Echo calmed at the sound of their actual name. "Right. I-I'll start, then," they said.

Echo's fingertips settled lightly over the handle of the blade, and their body stilled, breathing turning deep as they allowed their eyes to slip closed. Quatre could see the quick movements beneath those closed lids, as if Echo was watching events play out on the back of their eyelids.

Tactile retrocognition had only recently been recognized as legitimate, given Preventers new knowledge of magic's existence. Like most Newtypes who had honed such specific abilities, this ability had left Echo unable to perform wizard-like spells; their magic was so strongly concentrated internally that they were unable to cast magic outside of themselves. However, Echo's particular ability was indispensable in terms of investigations, making them a highly-valued Preventers agent.

Quatre's empathy – his 'space heart' – would have been seen as similar, but unlike his peers, he was able to cast magic. It was a skill he would not take for granted, especially in light of future altercations he may be involved in with wizards.

The others had theorized it was wizards that had taken Duo. Quatre could not fault their logic; few people could get the drop on Duo, and Remus Lupin showed all the markers of a terran magic user. Magical Britain had been cited as a possible site of terrorist activity, a matter in which Preventers was currently investigating, and finding a Preventers agent – even one on leave – gone missing while in England was foreboding.

Echo's brows furrowed, their lips twitching downwards at the corners, before their fingers slid from the handle to the flat side of the blade. Quatre watched them carefully, letting Echo's emotions nudge at the corners of his presence: determination and curiosity, turned to caution which was slowly filtering into subdued alarm.

Quatre had grown with a tight fist around his empathy, hating the way others' emotions seeped into his very being ever since he was old enough to realize it was happening. It was only after the Maguanacs had taken him under their wing that Quatre finally opened himself up to his 'space heart', developing it gradually over time so that he controlled it moreso than being drowned by it.

His empathy had developed to such a state that he could gauge any person in his immediate vicinity, as well as lightly affect their mood in return. Emotional compulsion was not an ability Quatre would ever willingly use if he could help it, so that branch of ability had yet to be fully explored, but Quatre had happily furthered his ability to reach out to his loved ones.

Distance no longer mattered, not for his ability to recognize their emotional states. They could be a city, a continent, a galaxy away – and so long as Quatre kept his heart open to them, their emotions would reach him.

Quatre recalled the feeling that had jolted him awake all those nights ago. It had been sharp alarm tinged with tightly-coiled fear – distress in its most natural state. Duo.

Finding Duo was the priority. Quatre would use everything at his disposal to do so. He could not help but think it was partly his fault Duo had even been put in such a situation – if Quatre had first acted when he felt the stinging hurt and terror that had wracked Duo at Heero's betrayal, if he'd sought out his friend in the months between rather than give Duo the space to run and hide as he'd wanted, then perhaps Duo would be here with them now.

Quatre allowed the regrets to slide off him, at least for now. They must find Duo first – everything else was secondary to the mission objective.

Echo took in a deep breath, fingers pulling back and eyes opening slowly. Their dark eyes were at first unseeing, clearly trying to draw back their powers with another long exhale, fingers left hovering over the table without touching.

Another minute passed, Echo's vision clearing, eyes turning down to glance over the blade one final time as they absently pulled back on their gloves. Quatre allowed the moment, watching silently as Echo recollected themselves and came back to the present.

"I saw him," Echo started, at first sedate before they began to speak at a more normal pace. "I saw Agent Maxwell. He kept this blade on his person, concealed I believe – there was nothing vibrant for a long while, but then – death?"

Quatre sucked in a harsh breath.

"Not Agent Maxwell," Echo quickly corrected, realizing the error of their words. "He was- He was fine, I think. But it's not just this blade – it's a pair, isn't it?"

Quatre nodded. "Identical blades, but we only recovered this one at the scene," he explained.

"Its pair was the one to draw blood. And- there was magic, a spell colored bright green. Agent Maxwell – he was… I think it was a fight." Echo paused in consideration. "Agent Maxwell – is he a Newtype?"

"Yes," Quatre answered shortly.

Echo's fingers flexed, a subconscious movement as they recalled their vision. "Impressions can be vague, but these were almost stifled. Agent Maxwell might have concealed himself purposely or subconsciously – I can't tell – but the only truly clear vision I got was when he threw the blade," they explained. "It did not hit its intended target – a barrier of magic stopped it short."

Shielding charm, Quatre recognized. "Did you discern the reason for the altercation?"

Echo nodded, a small frown on their lips. "Not specifics – but Agent Maxwell was attacked first. It's why the blade's pair was used."

Quatre took this all in with a carefully neutral expression.

Those who knew the Winner heir would have immediately recognized the danger.


Grimmauld Place was a strange place that defied not only the laws of physics and logic, but also the laws of good taste. It was as if someone had thrown outdated designs and poor lighting into a blender and poured the result into physical being; the wallpaper was frayed and discolored, the flooring was dusty and scratched, the halls needlessly narrow, and the rooms were redundant to the point of frustration. (What even is the difference between a parlor and a drawing room? Duo thought in spite.) This had nothing on the strange décor, such as the shrunken heads of some goblin-like creature hung along the staircase, the portraits in the rooms that sneered down at him, or the myriad of locked doors that Lupin kept trying to keep him away from.

Duo had spent the past week just trying to adjust to the new environment and the rules that governed it – and just how far he could push it before it broke. If there was a locked door, Duo found a way inside; if there was a restriction on what Duo could study, he went out of his way to circumvent it. It's why he found himself in the Black family library so often, a mirror to his own biological father investigating a world left largely unknown to him. For Remus, it was the space colonies and the Eve Wars – for Duo, it was the world of magic.

According to Sirius, his own family had been on the side of the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord (Duo tried not to snort at the ridiculous title) during the magical war over a decade ago. This explained the slurs that the screaming portrait on the stairwell spewed; although it had never seen Duo face-to-face, given his quick and silent steps, there were times when a stray Order member roused its attention.

The Order was another thing Duo had to consider. His father wasn't just a civilian, but an active combatant opposed to the blood purists. Remus Lupin was considered such a high threat that even a previously-unknown son had become a target simply for existing, which suggested that not only Remus, but the Order itself was a principal actor in this war.

The war that Lupin and the rest of Dumbledore's followers seemed so certain about was one of the most interesting aspects about all of this. According to the government and most of the society involved, it simply wasn't happening; Duo had perused the newspaper of Magical Britain, called the Daily Prophet, and it never mentioned anything about this Dark Lord or the Death Eaters. What Duo did find were snide mentions of Dumbledore, and interestingly, one Harry Potter.

Although they never openly discussed the Boy-Who-Lived (Duo had discovered the title in both his DADA and history textbooks), Duo caught enough conversation between Order members to know that Harry Potter was more than just a celebrity to this small resistance group. They were keen on his protection, and sometimes, Black would refer to the Daily Prophet's second-favorite punching bag so familiarly that it was clear he knew Potter well.

Duo didn't bring up Harry Potter with either man. He gave them their space, knowing that as long as he kept the buffer between them and found things out for himself, then they had no grounds to ask him for more information about whatever Duo was involved in.

Like why the thing Duo feared most was Heero Yuy killing himself.

Duo had known that something dwelled in the writing desk, as it rattled every time he dared breach the doorway. He hadn't expected it to finally emerge, and he definitely hadn't known it was a boggart. He only recognized the creature's name because he'd glanced through his magical creatures book very briefly, and it had been further explicated in the DADA book Duo had been studying much more seriously.

That didn't settle the frazzled nerves, didn't soothe the way his heart hurt so much that sometimes he found it hard to breathe. To not only have his worst fear thrown in his face like that, but to also have some stranger like Lupin see it and then ask him about it.

As if he had any right ask, as if he had any right to know.

It didn't matter, Duo tried to remind himself. Heero was alive, somewhere out in the world, doing Preventers work. He was still waking up at some ungodly hour to go on a morning run with Wufei, taking a quick shower, making coffee and omelettes- no, omelette, it was just Heero now. Maybe Wufei had finally been able to convince him to turn his back on coffee and embrace tea as his drug of choice in the morning. Who would Heero eat lunch with? He hated that sandwich shop Sally preferred, Wufei brought lunch from home, and Noin had still been in honeymoon-mode with Zechs now that they didn't have war hanging over their shoulders. Maybe Quatre if the blonde was in town, or possibly Trowa-

"nin mu kan ryou"

Duo stopped abruptly on the steps, breathing loud and ragged, blood pumping so loud in his ears as the sound of the gunshot echoed in his head. "No," he murmured, too quiet to be a whisper. "No, no, no…" Duo took a moment, leaned against the banister and tried to feel comfortable in his own body as training kicked in and forced him back into calm.

His eyes found the curtain that covered his self-given mission, and the purpose settled into his bones and straightened his shoulders.

Lupin and Black were involved in an Order meeting at the moment, and through experience, Duo knew they'd locked and silenced the room. He could probably break in if he felt inclined to, but it'd be pointless to burst in and just further agitate the members that were already wary of him. (Well, to be fair, only that Vance lady seemed to be wary; Duo was under the impression the one-eyed Moody actually liked his gall.) While they were otherwise occupied, Duo thought he could finally do something that would be equally beneficial to himself and the people of the Order.

The robes he'd donned felt out of place on his thin frame, despite the adjustments he'd made so that they fit. They were outdated, of course, pulled from a wardrobe in one of the bedrooms. The Black family crest that had been woven into them had been a pain to remove, and Duo's calloused fingers tingled at the memories of the sparks that had licked at his appendages when he'd replaced them with his own, a simple golden-threaded 'W' wreathed with a silvery outline of wings.

Duo took another calming breath, hands grasped at the curtains that covered the portrait of Walburga Black. She was more than just an annoyance, at least to Duo; she acted more like an alarm system, hollering at the top of her lungs at the slightest hint of noise from the foyer. If Duo actually ever wanted to take a trip to the local electronics store to get his laptop replaced, he wanted to clear as many entrances and exits as possible.

Duo pulled the curtain aside and light spilled onto the portrait of an old woman in a black cap. The light did not disturb her despite its suddenness, but the painted likeness of Black's late mother peered back at him in disdainful confusion before her expression was replaced with a haughty look of expectation.

"Good evening, Madame Black," Duo greeted with a polite smile. His words were saturated in a heavy American accent, adopted from his time among Howard's men who worked off the coast of the once-nation. "You look more beautiful every time we speak. Has your paint been refreshed?"

"Only mongrels compliment so superfluously, Mr. Howard," the portrait sniffed. "Is your work complete so that I am no longer burdened with your bothersome existence?"

His work, namely as an intern of world-famous interior designer and restoration specialist Zechs Merquise ("He's almost impossible to book, you know," Duo had told the painting. "But when he heard it was for your noble family…") who had been hired about a week ago to update the Black family home.

"Not quite, but we're also expecting to extend our workload. Master Merquise thinks a little renovation is exactly what this place needs," Duo said with utmost certainty.

"This is the ancestral home of my family," Walburga Black's portrait replied, voice heavy with disdain but – most importantly – at normal volume. "It does not need-"

"Madame, I do not mean to offend you," Duo interrupted with a drawl. "But unless you are from the noble and pure bloodline of spiders, there's no reason to keep the cobwebs. And do not get me started on this wallpaper – it's peeling and crusty! The craftsmanship is so poor, I'm embarrassed on behalf of the doxies living it up in your curtains!"

The portrait blustered for a long moment, even as Duo dramatically appraised everything in his view. "Don't think of it as a renovation," he interrupted Walburga's flustered mutterings. "Think of it as… a restoration! To the true noble heritage of the Black family!"

There was a long moment as the portrait seemed to consider this. This was the deciding moment that Duo had been working towards since he first recognized the danger of the screaming portrait; since he'd first introduced himself to the painting under the guise of intern Max Howard, he'd been spending a few minutes once or twice every day just warming her up to the idea of relocation.

"And where will I be placed after this restoration?" the portrait demanded, voice once more the haughty tone.

Duo made sure his smile didn't shift into the devilish grin that wanted to break out on his lips. "Well, of course, you won't be sharing this corridor with the rabble," he said, eyes flicking over to the shrunken heads of the creatures hanging further up. "Master Merquise believes you should be hung front and center in the drawing room. A much more suitable place for such a regal lady."

Duo's smile was equal parts charming and supplicating. "We'll finish with the drawing room in a few days' time, we just have to complete restoration of the furniture," Duo explained. "But we've already replaced the wallpaper and updated the lighting, so we wanted to ask if you're ready to move to your new space?"

Duo could tell, even from that painted planes that made up Walburga Black's expression, that the idea charmed her. "Of course I am ready, you incompetent!" she scoffed, restless with her false sense of superiority.

Duo's smile took on the edge that was so often reflected back at him in the screen of Deathscythe's cockpit. "Then with your permission, allow me to move you," Duo said. The portrait gave a short nod and Duo grasped both sides of the frame, pulling up and off with a devil's grin. It came off without a hitch, and Duo tempered the flow of victorious emotions as he ambled down the staircase to the final landing.

"Finally, no more of that ugly curtain," the portrait sneered in his hands. "That ungrateful whelp of a son placed it there himself. I can't believe that idiot actually agreed to have me placed in the drawing room."

Duo chuckled. "To be perfectly honest, I haven't actually told him," he admitted truthfully. "I think he'll be pleasantly surprised though."

"That traitor could never be considered pleasant!" it cried out. "He's a disgrace-"

Duo interrupted her self-righteous rant with a cheerful "We're here~!" and a wave of the hand, the small supply closet door flying open at his wandless spell. The portrait, still facing Duo and not the direction of her new home, settled into an imperious expression just as the confines of her frame passed into the cluttered space full of dusty and broken cleaning supplies.

"What-"

Duo dropped the frame unceremoniously, stepping back and shutting the door swiftly. With a few quick taps of his fingers against the wooden grain of the portrait's new prison, the silencing spell snapped into place and the beginning piercing noises of the portrait's abhorrent screams cut into a still silence.

Duo considered the closed door for a moment and remembered the screams.

Screams pulled into the silence of the stars and the black, a grave to hundreds of thousands, to millions. Sound stolen from the throats of corpses, floating among the shrapnel and ghosts the war had left behind.

They do not bury their dead in space. The top tier could afford the luxury of a burial, turned into a lowering tree or precious stone; the most unfortunate were those left to float forever in the dark of space, bodies unable to be recovered. The majority, however, were turned into clouds: their bodies reduced to flesh and bone, then to dust, and then released into the void between stars, great clouds of human debris the only remnants of those who had been.

For we were made from dust, and to dust we shall return.


End Chapter 8


A/N: Oh no they've angered Quatre.

-任務完了ninmu kanryou – "Mission complete."

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