I'm sorry for not updating sooner, but this chapter was being difficult. I'm still not completely happy with this chapter, but it's better than the first few drafts.
AN2: This is NOT an update. The Pit killed my line breaks (and everyone else's for that matter) and so I'm having to go through and change them all so as not to have my chapters as indistinguishable blocks of text.
"Written/typed text, e.g. books, notes, web pages"
"Sign language"
#Radio communications/telephone/vid phone/TV/radio broadcast#
-Parseltongue-
"Normal speech"
'Thoughts'Severus Snape cursed and ducked under a knife, retaliating with a punch to his drunken assailant's gut. The odds against him weren't good, and he couldn't retreat while he was protecting the teenager who lay unconscious at his feet. The group of drunk soldiers were leering at the both of them now, and Severus had no illusions about what would happen to him and the boy when, not if, he was overpowered. Without using magic, which would bring down the Département pour la Commande Magique on him for using magic in front of Muggles, he saw no way to escape his current situation.
'Think Severus. You got yourself into this situation and you can get yourself out if you try hard enough.' The dark-haired wizard counted the number of men that were intent on assaulting him and his newfound charge. Ten on one was never good, however you dressed it up, and when you factored in the knives and guns that the soldiers carried, the odds got even worse.
"OI, OZZIES, YOU WANT A FIGHT?" The shout echoed through the surrounding trees, and the soldiers turned to see who was addressing them in such a bold manner. Severus couldn't see anyone in the darkness, but the soldiers were also similarly handicapped. Severus carefully picked up his charge, shocked at how light he was, and began to back away as the soldiers all stared in the opposite direction to the one he'd chosen.
"Follow me," Severus nearly dropped his burden as a teenage boy materialised from the darkness and began to lead him into the trees. Behind him the soldiers seemed to have realised their disappearance as they began to yell loudly. "Don't worry about them following us."
"Your friend in the shadows...he will be able to deal with them?" The boy nodded and carried on walking through the dark forest. Severus opened his mouth to ask the boy where they were going and then shut it again. The teenager probably wouldn't answer him. Loud bangs erupted behind them, and the screams of dying men followed.
"The soldiers won't be a problem. You can't kill something you can't even see," Severus could have sworn that he saw a faint smirk on the young man's face, before it returned to its previous impassiveness.
"Hey there, miss me Hee-chan?" A second teenager materialised from the trees behind Severus, gun held loosely in one hand. "Is Harry okay?"
"I have not had time to assess Harry's condition. Why didn't you use a silencer?" The teenager frowned and lifted his gun to show the attachment on the end of the barrel. Severus knew more about Muggle technology than most people thought he did, and so he recognised the silencer that would have stopped the weapon from making the amount of noise he'd heard.
"They tried to shoot back and completely missed me. We'd probably better get out of here though, since someone's gonna have heard that noise," the braided teenager pushed past both of them, stopping briefly to gently brush some of Harry's hair out of his face, and vanished into the trees ahead of them. Severus followed as the other teenager, glared at him until he moved.
Harry sat up slowly and cautiously, curious as to what new injuries he had from the beating that the soldiers had given him. He was surprised to find that he was completely free of pain, and that there wasn't a single cut or bruise anywhere on his uncovered arms. Pulling off his T-shirt he found his chest and back to be similarly unmarked by the fresh injuries he knew he had to have received.
'What's going on? The only way that I could have healed this quickly is if magic was involved.' With this thought he looked around, noticing his surroundings for the first time. The room he was in looked exactly like his room in Quatre's mansion, but he couldn't remember being brought back there, nor could he think of a reason why the pilots would want to bring him back. 'I fucked up. Why are they still bothering to help me? And how did they heal the injuries that I had?'
"Hey, Earth to Harry, come back from beyond the moon so we can talk." The laptop that dropped in front of him already had text on the screen for Harry to read. Duo sat down next to him, carefully placing a loaded breakfast tray between them on the bed that was easily large enough to fit five people. "You really gave us a scare, you know."
Harry quickly tapped out a reply on the keyboard, "Why did you bring me back/ I thoght thatyou wuldn't want me after wat i did."
"You're taking the blame for what Wu Fei did? Don't. He doesn't blame you for what he did. Man, you really are stubborn. We're not the kind of scummy bastards who'd abandon you for such a small thing and, from what he told us, he's the one who kissed you."
"That's not the problem. Not all of it anyway." Harry was surprised that he was so willing to use the laptop and explain things to the violet eyed pilot. "I thik that I actually I actually liked it. Is that wrong after" Harry couldn't type anything more and he pulled his hands away as if the keys burned his fingers.
"No, it's not wrong. I'm not an empath, not like Quatre, but if you liked the kiss, then maybe it's because of who was kissing you and not the fact that you were being kissed. Maybe it's Wu Fei that you like." Duo sighed and squeezed Harry's hand reassuringly."And there's no shame in loving another guy, you know. You can't let what those bastards did to you rule your life forever. Show them that they can't win by moving on and living your life the way you want to. If anyone says that what you are doing is wrong, that it's disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself, then give them a good beating. Or, as Quatre tries to get me to do, be the better man and ignore them. Either way, you win." Duo didn't need to be an empath to see that Harry understood at least some of what he was trying to say. He was sat up straighter now, and a shaky smile was beginning to creep onto his face, which was no longer turned away from Duo as if he was afraid that he was going to be hit. DeathScythe's pilot grinned and punched the air, pleased at actually managing to get through to the stubborn teenager.
Three cloaked and hooded men stood in front of a suburban house, staring at the seemingly innocuous house in curiosity. The few people that were out on the streets in the middle of the hot summer day seemed not to notice them, despite the strange way in which they were dressed, and the fact that the summer's heat didn't bother them at all.
"So, is he in there?" The man on the right asked, looking towards the man on the left for the answer.
"The scent is at least a month old. He hasn't been here for a while," the other man answered, shaking his head. The first man growled angrily, shaking a scarred fist at the house.
"Where in Hades name could he have gone? What are the wards like, bro?" He turned to the middle man, the tallest of the three and the only one with a wand out. He also shook his head, sighing deeply.
"The blood ward that should surround this property is nonexistent. I would guess that such a thing never existed in the first place. There are other wards here though, and I would rather have not found them." He scuffed his foot on the floor, before looking up at his brother. "There are wards to bind people to this place, to prevent magic from being used here, to ensure the silence of the occupants and to stop people from paying too much attention to the house and its occupants and a weak obliviation ward keyed to one of the occupants. The most worrying piece of spell work is the last, and most powerful, ward that I've found. It's a hatred ward, keyed to one specific person, set to affect every other non-magical person who enters the house. Whoever set these wards wanted him to suffer. But why?"
"To soften him, make him easier to manipulate into the perfect weapon for the light. To make him into someone willing to do anything to please those that continually rescue him from the hell that he is repeatedly forced back to." The second man's voice was quiet, as if he had been expecting to find something like this. "I'm sorry, cub, I failed you."
Don't kill me, please. Everything will be explained in the next few chapters. The next chapter should be up by May, as long as RL doesn't interfere again.