Disclaimer: Usually I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but I find myself not really interested in doing so this time as it is very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I am not making any money off of this story or any of the other stories I have written.

Warnings: Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, brief mentions of implied rape (no descriptions), alternate universe (i.e. kiss canon goodbye), angst, drama, Dumbledore and Snape bashing, implied bashing of select Weasleys (no specifics mentioned), OOC moments, and who knows what else.

AN: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.

Chapter 2: Uncertainty in the Face of Madness

Heero Yuy, pilot of the Gundam designated as Zero-One, stared at the small boy's back as the child slipped beyond the curtain that made up the entire southern wall of the small room in which he'd woken up. He was confused as hell about what just happened and more than a little uneasy over the boy's reaction to being held at gunpoint. It wasn't just the fact that the kid had shown no fear over having a gun held in his face but the way the kid stood there and watched Heero without saying a word.

When he'd woken up to find himself lying on a strange bed in an unfamiliar room no longer wearing his spacesuit; he'd instinctively reached for the gun he kept at the small of his back. He'd just started to search his immediate surroundings for any threats as well as any clues as to where he was, how he'd gotten there, and who'd partially undressed him when the boy had entered the room with his nose buried in an old book. Aiming the gun at the kid had also been instinctive but the kid hadn't even bothered pulling his eyes from the book until Heero had released the safety and charged the gun.

When he'd first aimed his gun at the child he'd fully expected the kid to scream and run or burst into tears and beg for his life. At which point Heero had planned to grab the child and use him as a hostage in order to get some answers; thinking that the boy's parents would come running to see what was happening. Instead, the boy had slowed to a stop and looked up and Heero had thought for certain the boy would grow frightened over the presence of the gun; only when the boy had looked beyond the barrel of the pistol there'd been nothing but calm resignation in those dark emerald eyes.

It had bothered him to continue to aim the gun at the kid; the situation had brought back memories of a young girl and her dog and he'd had to fight to keep his arm steady. The longer the boy had simply stared at him as if waiting for something, the more the situation bothered him and the obvious knowing look in those green eyes had made Heero feel weak and ashamed. It was the feeling of shame that had driven Heero to harshly declare his intent to kill the kid; hoping the cold words would drive the kid to behave as expected.

What he wasn't expecting was for those eyes to darken slightly before they filled with amusement as the boy flippantly told him to get in line and casually announced that other people had given him death threats. The fact that the boy had then proceeded to ask him what he was waiting for before going on to give him advice on how to be 'properly' evil and intimidating had been utterly surreal. He was further shocked when the kid actually raised the gun back up to his head and practically ordered Heero to kill him; there was something seriously messed up about an eight year old kid practically asking for death.

"And I thought my life was seriously fucked up," Heero muttered to himself as he ran a hand over his face.

Shaking his head, Heero climbed back to his feet, walked over to where his gun had landed, and leaned down to pick it up off the floor; no sense in leaving it around for the kid to find given how the kid had reacted. Tucking the gun into the waistline of his shorts, he headed into the bathroom where he was immediately confused by the lack of actual plumbing in the room. Sure, technology had vastly improved over the years but you still needed pipes to move the water. Odder yet was the fact that everything appeared to have been carved from rocks; including the toilet.

He stepped up to the basin he thought would function as a sink and noted the two carvings sitting at the back of the top edge of the basin; one done in red and the other in blue. Curious, he reached out to touch the blue one and jumped back in shock as cold water began pouring into the sink from the area just below the lip of the basin right between the two carvings.

"That shouldn't be possible," Heero muttered as he reached out to let the water run over his fingers as he probed the spot where the water was issuing forth. "There's no opening for the water to flow through; so where the hell is the water coming from!?"

He spent another five minutes fiddling with the sink, touching both carvings as he tried to figure out how they worked and how both the hot and cold water ran at a constant temperature no matter how long he left the water running. Eventually, he shoved the confusing matter out of his mind and turned to study the shower which had a similar set up as that of the sink. He was wary of leaving himself vulnerable but figured if whoever had brought him to this strange house had wanted to kill him they would have done it out on the beach instead of dragging him back to their house. And he really wanted to wash away the dried salt, sand, and sweat from his body as his skin was beginning to itch.

Twenty minutes later, Heero was standing in the middle of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist wondering what he was going to wear. He could put his original clothes back on but really didn't want to wear them as they were dirty. Clicking his tongue in exasperation, he picked up his gun and held it at his side as he walked back into the room he'd woken up in with the intention of locating the nearest adult so he could ask to borrow some clothes. He practically jumped out of his skin and nearly shot the kid from earlier when he unexpectedly found the eight year old appearing from out of seemingly no where carrying a pile of clothes and a plate of sandwiches that he set on the bed.

"Damn it, kid, don't you have any sense of self-preservation!?"

"Of course I do," the boy snorted as he glanced disdainfully in Heero's direction. "If I didn't, I wouldn't have bothered dragging myself up out of the water when I first woke up on the beach. Besides, there are things far worse than death. I don't know if these clothes will fit you but they're the best I can do. I also didn't know if you were hungry or what you prefer to eat so if you don't like what I made I won't be offended if you don't eat it. All I ask is that you don't throw it out because my supplies are limited and I'd rather not waste the food."

"Where are your parents?" Heero demanded as the boy turned to leave the room once more.

"Dead."

"Damn," Heero cursed once the boy was gone again, a frown marring his face as he glared down at the clothes and food sitting on the bed.

After several minutes, he reluctantly dropped his gun on the bed and proceeded to get dressed, surprised to find the clothes fit far better than he would have expected based upon the boy's earlier comments. They were also far newer than he would have expected; as if they'd never been worn before but that made no sense unless someone had gone to the store to purchase them just for him. He sat down on the bed and tucked his gun behind the small of his back before he lifted the plate from the tray and tentatively inspected the sandwiches on it.

He lifted up one of the sandwiches and pulled it apart in order to check it for poison or drugs but found nothing out of the ordinary. Taking a small bite of the sandwich, he climbed to his feet and began inspecting the room as he carefully chewed what was in his mouth; waiting to see if there would be any tell-tale tingling from an unknown poison or a feeling of sleepiness from a hidden drug.

When nothing happened he continued eating the sandwich as he opened the door to the wardrobe that appeared to have been carved directly out of the rock wall. He pondered on what it could mean that everything seemed to be made from rocks even as he sifted through the items inside the wardrobe. He was a bit disappointed when he found nothing but a couple pairs of shoes, a windbreaker, and a couple of extra pillows in the stand-alone closet as he finished the sandwich and closed the door.

Returning to the bed, Heero grabbed another sandwich and let his eyes wander over the décor once more as he tried to pinpoint exactly what was bothering him. It finally hit him when he realized there was absolutely no technology anywhere in the room; not a single light fixture, no switches or buttons, no computer, no electrical outlets, and not even a handheld gaming system – nothing. The room was obviously lived in given the worn comfortableness of the bed and the distinct lack of dust coating anything; so why wasn't there any evidence of even the most basic technologies? And where the hell was the light coming from?

The sound of stone scraping against stone had Heero pulling out his gun once more as he jumped up from the bed only to lower the pistol in disbelief as he watched the kid slowly back into the room through the curtain that blocked off one entire wall as he dragged a bed frame made from rock across the floor. The kid's back was currently facing the Gundam pilot and he couldn't help but furrow his brow as he listened to the constant stream of complaints the kid muttered between grunts as he steadily pulled the bed into the room.

"Stupid Sirius; couldn't have sent me to a forest. No, he had to drop me on an island in the middle of nowhere where there isn't even a single damn tree big enough that it could be used to make a bed instead of these stupid rocks. Stupid saving people thing; wouldn't have to worry about a damn second bed if I would have just ignored my conscience and left the guy on the beach. But no… I just had to be all noble and save a perfect stranger who turns out to be as trigger happy as an irate Voldemort faced with incompetent minions. If I'd known my luck was going to be this bad I never would have crawled out of bed this morning."

Heero slowly put away his gun and had to resist the urge to snort as he called out to the kid, "Would you like a hand with that?"

The boy whirled in place to stare at Heero as if he'd lost his mind before shaking his head as he moved around the bed so that he could watch both Heero and the bed as he started pulling it sideways towards the wall beyond the end of the bed that Heero was currently sitting on. Huffing in exasperation, Heero climbed to his feet and moved to help the boy anyway only to watch the kid freeze in place and stare at him with narrowed, mistrustful eyes. Ignoring the kid's stare, Heero leaned down to place his hands on the bed and gave it a gentle push to get the kid moving again.

The bed was almost to the wall when Heero stopped and waited for the kid to realize he was in the way of the bed while shoving aside the insane urge he felt to pin the boy between the wall and the bed in order to make him hold still long enough to interrogate him. It took the boy nearly a full minute to figure out why Heero stopped and he still hesitated to move; as if he didn't trust Heero not to try and attack him. Smart kid, Heero thought silently as he finished shoving the bed up against the wall once the kid finally moved out of the way.

"Anything else you need help moving?" Heero asked casually as he tucked his hands in his pocket and studied the kid out of the corner of his eye. He wasn't surprised to see the kid shake his head no and begin slowly backing away from Heero. "Stubborn little cuss, aren't you? Can you point me in the direction of your guardian or the nearest adult around here so I could talk to him or her about getting some supplies so I can get out of your hair?"

"There are no adults here, thankfully," the kid replied matter-of-factly as he simply turned and walked away, slipping through the curtain once more.

This time Heero chased through the curtain after the kid intent on securing the little twerp in order to get the answers he needed only to pull up short when he found the tip of what looked like an antique broadsword pressing lightly against his chest the moment he cleared the curtain. A sword that he hadn't even realized the kid had been carrying on him. He automatically put his hands up to show he was unarmed as he took a step back and gazed at the hard emerald eyes glaring at him from over the two fisted grip on said sword.

"I am not helpless nor am I stupid," the boy hissed. "I don't care who you are or why you ended up on my beach but I'll be damned if you think I'm going to just let you rob me blind. Don't think I can't or won't kill you just because I look like a kid; I've faced men far crueler than a teen with a gun and won."

"I don't steal from children," Heero protested indignantly as he glared down at the younger boy.

"But you do steal," the kid countered flatly.

"Only when I have to; in order to complete a mission or so I can survive."

"Liar," the kid muttered even as he dropped the sword and backed away. "You steal whenever it suits you and I seriously doubt that it really matters who you steal from."

"Look kid, I just want some answers and enough food and water to make it to the nearest town. Barring that, I'd be satisfied with access to a computer so I can make arrangements for a place to stay."

"The food and water I can do," the kid replied as he slid the sword through the belt he was wearing so that it hung at his side. "I don't know what you'd expect to do with a computer though; not that it matters since I don't even own a computer and in case you didn't notice I'm a little short on electricity."

"Why aren't there any adults here? Where did they go? How is it you don't have any electricity? Where the hell are we anyway? Who brought me here if there aren't any adults around? And just who the hell are you?" Heero demanded as he dropped his arms and tried to appear intimidating as he could without drawing his gun again.

"I don't have to answer you."

Heero growled and darted forward, intending on tackling the smart mouthed little brat only to suddenly find himself dangling upside down several feet off the floor. Twisting around he tried to figure out how he was being held up but couldn't see any ropes or cables so he turned his attention back to the annoying little twit and soon found him standing just out of reach with his arms crossed. Heero then reached back to grab his gun only to slowly bring his arms forward once more when he didn't find it. He then watched as the kid glanced down at the floor and Heero followed his eyes to see his pistol sitting on the floor directly below him and just out of reach of his hands. He opened his mouth so he could yell at the kid, only to find he was unable to make a sound.

"I'd thank my godfather for teaching me that handy trick if I knew how to find him. Of course, if I knew how to do that I wouldn't have been stuck here all alone for nearly two years. I hope you don't mind hanging around for a while but I have a few things I want to do before I go to bed for the night. If, when I'm finished, you think you might be able to control yourself; I will consider letting you down."

Heero watched the kid walk away and felt the urge to scream before he returned to figuring out how to get out of the trap he'd gotten caught in. About twenty minutes later, he heard a series of explosions raining down from somewhere nearby and he renewed his efforts of escaping as he feared that the Alliance or OZ had discovered his presence. He was more than a little shocked when the explosions lasted for well over three hours (though they'd slowed down in frequency after the first hour) before silence descended upon the room once more. He swung around searching for any sign of the enemy coming for him only to have his eyes fall on the eight year old boy as the kid staggered into the room covered from head to foot in dust and blood from where he'd been cut on the hands and face and once again muttering to himself.

"Bloody hell; why did the damn things have to be so damn big? Someone somewhere sure has a massive inferiority complex; that's for sure. And here I thought ole Tommy boy had some serious issues. I suppose I could just leave them where they are but the damned things are practically blocking my cave. I could also just throw them back from where I got them but there's always the chance that they will be found anyway and if that happens I'm screwed. I need to find something with a bit more power because the Blasting Charm just isn't working and barely does any real damage. Damn it all to hell; why did you have to send me away, Sirius!?"

Heero watched the kid walk right passed him close enough for him to reach out and touch him without seeing him but all thoughts of trying grab the kid to get his attention flew out the window as the palpable grief in that final whispered sentence blindsided him. Not for the first time, Heero wondered if the boy had mental issues as he twisted around so he could watch the boy disappear in the direction he knew led to the bedroom he'd woken up in earlier.

Lost in his thoughts as he was, Heero didn't notice the passage of time until he heard the soft sound of bare feet padding across the stone floor. Looking up, he saw the boy walking towards him once more; his black hair still damp indicating that he'd gone to take a shower. He was a little surprised when the boy stopped just a few feet away from him and calmly met his gaze as he'd thought the kid had actually forgotten about him.

"Can I trust you to leave me alone or do I have to leave you hanging there all night?"

"I promise I will not attack you while you sleep," Heero swore through gritted teeth, somewhat surprised to find that whatever had prevented him from talking earlier had worn off at some point without his knowledge.

"Hnn… not very reassuring but I suppose it's the best I'm going to get at this point," the boy muttered with a frown as he turned around and walked back through the curtain.

Heero opened his mouth to call the boy back in order to make him let him down only to find himself crashing down to the ground before he could form the words. Cursing, Heero reached up and cradled his head as he blinked away the stars that had filled his vision when he'd smacked his head on the floor. Once the pain subsided he began thinking up a hundred different ways to torture the damn kid for both humiliating him and managing to catch him off guard. He then sighed and shoved the murderous thoughts out of his mind as he recalled his promise not to attack the kid in his sleep.

Resigned to dealing with the madness (at least for the night), Heero picked up the gun the kid had left on the floor before following the boy back to the bedroom and found the lights dimmed low and the kid curled up in the newer bed. Unable to help himself, Heero slowed to a stop and stared at the kid for nearly fifteen minutes; watching the boy shift beneath the blankets for several minutes in order to get comfortable.

He considered taking advantage of the fact that the kid had apparently let his guard down only to recall both his promise and the sword the kid had had on him earlier. Sighing in frustration, Heero headed over to the bed he'd woken up on earlier, pulled down the covers, and crawled into the bed as he realized just how tired he felt. He made himself stay awake just long enough to hear the kid's breathing deepen, a clear indication that the boy had finally fallen asleep, before he joined the boy in dreamland.

The rebel pilot would be torn from his dreams some four or five hours later by a piercing scream. Jumping out of his bed, Heero pulled out his gun and searched the shadows for the source of the disturbance as he shook off the lingering haze of sleep. A series of pain filled moans coming from behind him had Heero spinning around just as the moans became a frantic cry.

"No! Not Cedric! Muum! Daad! Ahhh…!"

Heero's eyes soon fell on the bed where the eight year old had fallen asleep earlier and he lowered his gun as the realization that the kid was having a nightmare sank in. He took a couple of steps in the direction of the bed intent on trying to wake the kid up only to freeze when the boy sat up, leaned over the side of the bed, and vomited onto the floor. Heero watched as the kid's shoulders shook as he sobbed and he felt more than a little uncomfortable with the situation.

"Hey, you alright kid?" Heero asked after a few minutes when it became obvious the kid wasn't calming down.

"What do you care?" the kid barked out in a raspy voice without bothering to look up. "And stop calling me kid, damn it."

"What the hell else am I supposed to call you? It's not like you bothered introducing yourself."

"Says the pot calling the kettle black."

Heero couldn't help the soft snort of amusement he let out at that since it was true and after another few minutes spent studying the kid he introduced himself (silently hoping the kid would do the same), "My name is Heero, Heero Yuy."

"Heero…? Almost sounds like hero… an entire world once called me hero as if I'd done something special because I managed to survive where no one else had before because of something my mother probably did to save me. Best to ignore the mindless sheep no matter what they call you or what you've done because they will turn on you in heartbeat the moment you do something they don't like. They are like parasites… leeches that pretend to care about you as they bleed you dry until the moment you have nothing left to give and the next thing you know they are calling you an attention seeking liar and praying you'll die slowly and painfully as quick as possible. Ungrateful the lot of them; bloody useless scavengers that only dare attack from the shadows when they think you're weak."

"You're awful cynical for an eight year old runt," Heero declared on the heels of a second snort.

"Go piss up a rope without a raincoat, you bloody wanker," the kid growled vehemently as he shifted just enough to glare up at Heero. "Not my fault I'm short… it was bad enough when I actually was eight; even worse now that I'm sixteen, almost seventeen. If I ever get my hands on Padfoot, I'm gonna kick his ass for making me even shorter."

"Pull the other one, brat, you can't be a day over nine and even that is pushing it."

"Ha! Shows what you know. I was fourteen nearly fifteen when I ended up on this wretched island nearly two years ago and I may have stopped attending grade school when I was eleven but even I know that fifteen plus two equals seventeen. I'm also fully aware that the current year is nineteen ninety-seven and ninety-seven minus eighty (which is the year I was born) is seventeen as well."

"You must have hit your head pretty hard at some point, kid, because you've got your years all mixed up as the current year is one-ninety-five after colony."

"After colony? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You live under a rock or something? Everyone knows the new dating system began when the permanent space stations were finally deemed habitable and a large percentage of the Earth's population colonized them in short order due to severe overcrowding here on Earth."

"In case you didn't notice, I am living under a rock," the kid bit out sarcastically as he gestured around the room with one hand before he bit his lip and leaned forward to peer at Heero in confusion. "There are people living in space? Since when are there people living out in space? How is that even possible? I… am I even on a planet then? I had thought I was on Earth because everything felt so familiar even if the stars were all mixed up; though Sirius did say he didn't know where I would end up. Where the hell did you send me to, Sirius!? Oh god… what if I… what if everything I did… what if whatever is making this place work fails because I…"

"Calm down, kid," Heero urged as he witnessed the kid's face steadily lose color in the dark room. "You're still on Earth if that's what you're worried about. Although I have no idea how you could possibly not have known about the colonies; they have been there for nearly two hundred years after all."

"People living in space, giant robots falling from the sky, and murderous teens washing up on the beach; what next!? Merlin and to think I thought dragons were going to be the death of me. Maybe if I go back to sleep there is still a chance I will wake up and find out this has all been nothing but a terrible nightmare. I knew I should have never wished on that stupid star this morning… but no… I just had to tempt fate. Damn it, Sirius, if I ever find my way home I'm going to curse you from Hogsmeade to Surrey and back again or better yet, feed Padfoot to Fluffy."

Heero shook his head as the kid stopped making any sense, "You've got some serious issues, kid."

"That's because it's all Sirius's fault," the kid muttered petulantly as he curled up under the blanket and hid his face from Heero. "And I told you to stop calling me kid, damn it! My name is Harry."

Dropping back down on the bed he'd been borrowing, Heero stared at the quivering lump that he knew was the kid as he went over everything he had learned during the decidedly strange conversation. He'd heard the kid, Harry, speak enough times now to narrow the accent down to one of three nationalities; English, Canadian, or Australian. He couldn't be certain which one it was since he hadn't studied the accents of the various regions on Earth all that closely.

He'd need access to a computer to look up the places the kid mentioned to know for certain. He was pretty certain that Harry was suffering from some sort of head injury or mental illness because of his insistence that he was nearly seventeen years old when the kid's obvious physical appearance said otherwise. He was also either extremely clueless or a very good actor as he'd appeared genuinely shocked, and more than a little skeptical, at hearing that there were people living in space; which made absolutely no sense.

Heero was half dozing when his brain finally registered the fact that the kid had mentioned giant robots falling from the sky and he bolted upright and reached for his gun as he finally connected the 'robots' with his Mobile Gundam and the Alliance Leo that had crashed into the ocean. Something made him hesitate as he stared at the child he knew had fallen back to sleep once more; he couldn't help but feel that the child was no threat to him or his mission and it bothered him because there were no facts upon which to base such assumptions.

Doctor J had always told him he had an uncanny ability to judge people with just a glance but Heero had always scoffed at the notion; firmly believing that the true ability came from having learned how to read the people around him through their body language. With Harry though, the kid was a walking contradiction; he talked and carried himself as if he was much older than he appeared and changed his emotions and thoughts as easily as one flipped a switch (exuding calm confidence when faced with danger and radiating uncertainty and inexperience an instant later).

He was also quite strong despite how fragile he looked, given how the kid had moved the rock bed all by himself (completely unaware that Harry had used his magic to temporarily make the bed lighter) until Heero had stepped in to help. The kid was also very untrusting and seemingly unused to the presence of other people. Settling back against the stone wall behind him, Heero mentally snorted at the earlier sarcastic comment Harry had made about actually living beneath a rock as he felt the cold from the stone wall seeping through his borrowed shirt.

Heero ended up watching Harry's small form toss and turn for the rest of the night. As he watched the child (because he was, despite his assertion to the contrary, most assuredly a child); he continued to analyze everything he'd learned from the kid and compared them to the observations he'd made during the short time he'd spent in the presence of the kid.

03-12-16: This chapter has replaced with an edited and revised edition that added fifteen words to the story content and removed any unnecessary author's notes. ~ Jenn