Silence's Bond
Abby Ebon
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LizzieLyn's prompt: HP/Gundam Wing/AC Crossover -Continued.
(My question: Out of curiosity, which would you have him meet first?)
JER : Trowa, the entire "no-name" vs. Harry's "Boy/Freak" Good bonding over that, plus the connection that Harry had w/Hedwig goes well w/ Trowa's animal keeper abilities. I see a lot of Trowa in Harry.
(My reaction: Crap. Plot bunny.)
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"I'm a bit too old for this, don't you think?" Duo asks of Death, a confused look on his face. It's true that Duo has never been to a circus – and apparently, neither has Harry Potter – but they are both almost a few years short of twenty. Or at least Duo is… he has no idea how old Death is, and doesn't think it proper to ask that sort of question. It could end badly for Duo.
Very badly, as in early Hollow-hood. Duo doesn't want to end up like a inanimate but sentient object like the Resurrection Stone, or the Elder Want or the Invisibility Cloak just yet, he had things he wanted to live for.
A traveling circus just didn't rank very high up in his list, was all.
"You're never too old for magic." Duo isn't about to argue with Death about the small fact that a muggle circus isn't really magic. He gets little enough free time to spend with Harry between piloting his Deathscythe, lessons with Professor G and Sweeper's work – which had taken them here.
Harry never had any problems with working around his schedule, he'd even shown up when Duo hadn't known he was going to get free time. Sometimes Duo wondered if Harry had a life outside spending time with him, making up for a mistake against Duo that even Duo knew Harry couldn't take the full weight of shouldering. Shit happened, and you lived with managing the best you could and tried to keep going forward.
Duo thinks that in the wake of that, dealing with sticky floors and gum under the seat and people who just don't shut up should be easy. It isn't, he's as nervous and fidgety as a newly born colt, sure that someone is going to pick him out as not belonging. Harry nudges at his shoulder, smiling as if he knows what Duo is thinking – and as Harry is Death, and a wizard, it isn't beyond possibly.
The lights finally grow dim, and the show starts, in the dark Duo feels more comfortable, and he doesn't really understand why that's so true, why he feels like he belongs just out of sight. Watching, but never being watched. Duo knows he's going to free the colonies and fight in a Gundam to do it, but when that happens people will be watching his Deathsythe, and seeing a symbol of their liberty. Not him.
Duo glances to Death and sees that Harry's attention is fixed on something – no, someone else. Duo thinks for a moment he's about to see someone die, because there's a clown and his back is up against the target and some girl is throwing knives at him. Duo doesn't think he'll ever trust anyone that much, but this guy – this painted clowns, he doesn't even flinch.
"Gutsy." Duo admits, soft so only Death can hear, because only he's listening. Harry's lips tilt, as if Duo hasn't seen anything yet. Duo knows that he's rarely wrong, so he watches and waits for it, and doesn't miss anything.
As if playing at being a target isn't enough, the clown rides a one wheeled bike through a ring of flame, and then the show really starts. Animals that Duo has never really thought of – at all, because any animal in space is usually tamed and trained and kept locked away so only their owners see them…yet that danger that Duo never thought he'd see twists his guts and makes him shiver and sweat as if he's the one facing down what the half masked clown does without so much as blinking.
Duo's never seen anything like it, and doesn't know if he cares to see such a thing again. He looks to Harry, who's smiling at the colorful clown, not as if he only likes the show, but as if he recognizes someone familiar, it's the look he gets sometimes when he doesn't know Duo is looking at him. Duo almost hates this clown, because this is the first time Harry's smiled like that, familiar and hopeful - at a person.
It's usually birds, pictures and paintings and once when Duo got him a stuffed one, they are called owls.
Duo's never seen a live one.
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"Look." His Master's voice is hushed and reverent, as if it might be in a church and Duo can't help in obeying him. There they are, owls, white ones and small little brown ones and ones half white and half brown and every kind of color between white and brown and black. They come in so many breeds that Duo wonders how they are all still claimed to be the same species. He knows too that these are only a handful of the kinds of owls there are on Earth.
"Weren't they the bird of Athena?" Duo asks, and Harry nods thoughtfully. He studies the white one, who watches him with looming golden eyes, as if measuring him. Harry turns away from that gold look, something pained flashing like a shadow in his green eyes.
"The Little Owl was that, but the Eagle Owl and the Barn Owl were the birds of Ares her brother – while Hades had the Screech Owl as his sacred bird." Duo wonders if Harry knows every kind of owl, and what the white ones he likes so much are called.
"How do you know that?" It's a softly spoken question, and Duo looks up to see a tall man, lean looking and calm. It's the calm that the pilot of Deathscythe recognizes as belonging to the half masked painted clown. Duo can't help but tense and wonder if he'd been watching them and listening. Duo hates that he can't say for sure, because the tall boy with his hair half covering his face is just that good.
Harry's lips quirk at the question, as if it's one he's often wondered of himself.
"I had a friend once who read it out of a book, she was a bit of a know it all – but some things stick with me better than other things." Harry shrugs it away, and Duo has to wonder if one of those things that Harry might have forgotten about her was her face or her name; or if those things about her had become like sacred mysteries to him.
"Who the hell are you?" Duo demands it of the stranger who nods so thoughtfully, as if he understands better than anyone what Harry says. Death sets his hand on Duo's shoulder, to calm him, and Duo shrugs the touch away but takes the hint – he'll keep quiet and let Harry handle this, even if he doesn't like it.
"I'm Trowa…would you like to touch one of them?" Trowa can't honestly say why he offers to let this black haired man with soothing bright green eyes near the birds he seems so interested in. Trowa recognizes that look though, that longing to be near something freer than a person can ever be.
"If you think that best." Harry can't quite hide his eagerness and Trowa opens up the door that separates the owls from the people who might otherwise be temped to touch or take. The cage isn't really for the owls, they are tethered to their posts, the sharp bird of prey talons digging in or loosing depending upon their tempers. Trowa spots white and knows it's the Snowy Owl that the green eyed man had locked gazes with so keenly.
Trowa puts on a hunter's glove and takes her up onto his leather covered arm, holding her as carefully as any baby, tying her jesses so she can't flee. Those green eyes are fixed upon the owl, and Trowa wonders if he was wise to bring the Snowy Owl out, this man and his friend could overpower him and steal the owl he's offered like a gift.
"Hello there, aren't you lovely?" Trowa approves of the soothing voice he uses, and the slow movement of the back of his hand against white feathers.
"I thank you for this, Trowa Barton." For only a moment do those green eyes meet his, but it's the only moment he needs. It feels as if he's been given permission to ask what he wants and be assured of some answer. Out of anything and everything he could question, there is just one thing he really wants to know right now.
"What's your name?" Trowa asks wonderingly. That's all he really wants, a name to go with this persona.
"Harry Potter." The owl lifts her head to touch his still hand with her feathers, soft and stubborn to get a last touch or two in. Harry indulges her as if he knows just how she likes to be touched. It had taken Trowa weeks to learn to do what Harry does in just a few moments, utterly charming the Snowy Owl into a content daze.
"We must get going, good hunting Hedwig." Trowa doesn't often approve of their visitors naming animals, but this Snowy Owl hasn't yet got a name and it suits her. She sits heavily upon his arm and it isn't until she's back upon her post that Trowa realizes he had never told Harry Potter that last name, but he had said it none the less.
Trowa looks quickly for Harry and other boy who had been at his side, but there is no sign of them. He does the only thing he really can and looks up Harry Potter and Hedwig after activating all of Doktor S's protections; all he finds is a mention of him as her master upon the inscription of the Tomb of Familiars. He had been one of the last wizards the Boy Who Lived they called him until there hadn't been any proper witches or wizards that could find him.
Trowa sends information about the boy who had been at Harry's side, and gets from Doktor S only an unsure silence. Trowa Barton doesn't need to be told to watch for them, his curiosity once stirred is as bad as any cat's. He's sure, though there isn't anything to pin down for a reason to that feeling, he'll see them again – and soon.