One glance was all it took. It may have been ten years, but Duo would know Solo anywhere, at any time. Now he just has to convince the stubborn wizard to let him help. Master of Death? Sorry Snake Face, the Shinigami has no master. 02/HP, 04/03

000

Chapter Seven

Duo didn't know what to say, or do, as he held Solo in the semi-gloom of the Ares cotpit, the older teenager shaking himself to pieces as he blindly gripped Duo's jumpsuit in white knuckled hands, face pressed desperately into his shoulder as if to hide from the world. Four years. He had been living with the utter terror of being erased, being killed but still living, or having everything that he was become someone else, for four years. And Duo knew Solo: He would have hidden that fear, would have pushed it to the side, refused to acknowledge, pretended to be this 'Harry Potter' these people needed until he wasn't sure where he began and Harry ended – all the while the fear would chew at him inside, like a fucking cancerous growth.

Until he ended up like this. Unable to trust himself, his memories, and afraid of ever letting anyone know in case they decided they needed to start again – in case they did a better job this time.

"...Why?" he asked, his voice cracking as he gripped Solo tighter.

"Because – because they needed a Boy Who Lived, I think," was the whispered reply.

"A what?"

He felt Solo shrug, his shaking slowing a little as he turned his head to rest his cheek against his shoulder, and leaned a little more into him, exhausted and almost limp. "That's what they called him, called me. The Boy Who Lived."

Duo sneered into his hair, "Dumb name. Whose idea was that, a drunk monkey?" he demanded caustically. Thankfully it had the intended affect of startling a brief snort of laughter from the boy in his lap, even if he did go almost immediately quiet and curl in on himself even more.

He sighed, "I didn't tell you the whole story, did I? There was... I suppose you could call him a terrorist at first, but it's a bit more complicated now. He was all for the Nazi superiority thing, unsurprising given he drew up in the blitz. He went around killing a lot of people twenty years ago. Tortured them. He wanted to wipe out those he considered inferior blood, people born without powers, and enslave those who were born with them to parents who didn't; the people with powers who married those without, helped them, or stood up for them, were called Blood Traitors, and targeted as well. He and his followers targeted them publicly, but truthfully, it was anyone in his way. Anyone who disagreed with him, fought him, or insulted him. He didn't particularly care about purity of blood, he was just using those beliefs to get power. My mother's parents didn't have powers, but she did. My father was a Blood Traitor. They were everything he hated, and they joined the resistance group that the Headmaster created, the Order. Them and their friends. Towards the end of the conflict, the headmaster held a job interview with a woman whose family were known to have powers of foresight. She told him that a baby would be born with the power to end the fighting, to parents who had fought and defied their deaths at the hands of the Dark Lord three times.

"Whether it was true or not at the time, who knows. But belief is powerful. They believed it. And... They decided it was me. My family went into hiding, but one of my father's friends betrayed us. He came on Halloween, and he killed them. My parents. And then he tried to kill me. But I survived the power he used. No one has ever survived, not just when he decides they need to die, but that power in particular. If it touches you, there's no surviving, ever. Instant death. No take backs. No do overs." He tapped his forehead then, the cool lightning bolt on his forehead that Duo had always envied a little because it was so much cooler than the brand on the back of his neck. "Left me with this. It... marked me as his equal according to the divination teacher, and it means that until one of us kills the other, neither of us can die, or even properly live. So, no one but me can kill him. And Voldemort will just keep coming and coming until he wins."

That name again. The one whose followers had killed Solo's godfather when he was fifteen. Still...

"Bullshit," he grit out darkly. "So you're the only one who can kill him, nothing stops anyone else from maiming, crippling, arresting, or otherwise putting him into a vegetative state," he pointed out hotly. "You don't have to shoulder this whole thing alone just because some old crone said so, and everyone agreed!" Solo shook his head again and Duo growled a little, pushing him away and grabbing his face in both hands, lifting his head to look him in the eye. "You don't have to do this, Solo. You don't. Just say the word and I'll take you away, no one will ever hurt you again, I swear."

Solo's face twisted in a mixture of pain, fondness, and heartbreaking resignation as he gently pulled Duo's hands down from his cheeks, "If I don't... then no one else will."

Duo opened his mouth to tell him exactly what he thought of that bollocks when the gunfire started.

The two of them jolted in alarm, Solo shooting to his feet with Duo immediately behind him, the two of them poking their heads out of the cotpit as shouting tore through the air, gunfire, screaming, and the familiar hissing woosh of spellfire underneath it all.

"Fuck shit! I knew we shoulda changed location!" Duo cursed as he grabbed Solo around the waist and shoved him back down into the cotpit. "Hell no! We're staying in here!" he exclaimed as a bullet narrowly panged off the armoured chest piece a few feet away from his head, he grabbed the manual handles of the hatch and yanked them shut, throwing them into pitch black darkness.

"Duo! We can't just – ah!" The former street rat yelped as Duo threw himself into the pilot seat, and nearly sat on him in the process. The younger of the two blindly pulled Solo down into the footwell before reaching forward ahead of him and keying several buttons and twitches on the screen that came forward when the hatch closed. The cotpit lit up with a hum, and the screens came to life as Duo tapped several other keys and grasped the control handles on either side of the piloting seat, and pulled them back.

Solo yelped, grabbing the brunet's legs as the world tilted abruptly forward, threatening to smash his head onto the console in front of him.

"Hold tight, Solo," Duo told him, shifting one leg to swing over his shoulder and pin him against the chair.

"What are you doing?!" he yelped as with a few tugs on the handles, the world tipped forward again and then backwards. Duo grinned ferally, orchid coloured eyes narrowing as he bared his teeth in a smile that was the furthest thing from nice.

"Teaching these assholes what it means to fuck with the Shinigami of L2."

Whatever the Death Eaters expected, Harry didn't think it was a military grade aerial assault mobile suit to suddenly come to life amongst them. The Ares was the size of a giant, and a hundred times stronger. It's armour was thick, and normal spells did little more than ping off the metal or dissipate entirely. Even the Death Curse did little more than heat the metal.

There were nine Death Eaters visible on the screen, the first one was crushed under the Ares hand as Duo brought it down flat on top of them. Harry inhaled sharply, his grip tightening on Duo's leg as nausea rose hard and hot in his throat as the sound of bone breaking came through loud and clear on the audiofeed and blood spurted out between mechanical fingers.

The second he snatched up in the other hand and crushed like an errant fruitfly.

Harry had to look away.

They may have been Death Eaters, but still... There was something just so viscerally unpleasant, something so stomach churning, about being so overpowered and helpless, about so violent and painful a death. It felt... Merlin, his nightmares were going to be filled with the sound of crunching bone and cut off screams for years. His stomach rolled at the thought.

"Did that guy just teleport?" Duo squawked in horrified offence.

Harry risked looking up at the screens, spotting the remainder of the attacking witches and wizards making desperate retreats before they were snatched up by the mecha, turning on heel and apparating away from the scene before blood and viscera dripping fingers clawed them up.

"Apparating. Yes. It pretty much is teleporting," he admitted as the last of them tried to run, and got shot in the side of the head before they could make the jump, dropping like a marionette with its strings cut. He slumped against Duo's legs, horrified and sick, and exhausted.

"Can you do that too?" Duo asked warily.

He nodded, "Yeah... but you need a licence to do it legally. Sounds silly, worrying about the law when they're trying to kill me, but unlicensed Apparation is recorded and tracked. If you get a licence you're essentially white-listed in their system, it won't pick you up, and they can't track you when you do it," he explained slowly, watching with dull eyes as the pilot manoeuvred the Ares out of the hanger and onto the ship's main-deck. Probably to make cleaning it easier. "I was supposed to sit for my licence after my birthday but... Never got the chance. And if I show up to do it now, I'll get executed. Hermione was our designated driver on that front, so to speak. Her and possibly Ron. I don't know if he got his licence during the summer or not. They were old enough."

Duo hummed thoughtfully as he put the mecha into neutral and powered it down, the cotpit descending into darkness once again. He released the controls in order to bury his hands in Harry's hair, they weren't shaking, but they did twitch a little every now and again as he raked his fingers through black strands. "This is the second time they've found you," the former Gundam Pilot observed quietly in the dark.

Harry nodded, feeling more comfortable, braver, in the dark to let Duo touch him, "I know. I should go. I'm putting everyone here in danger. I need to meet up with Ron and Hermione, the sooner we finish this, the sooner..." he trailed off unsure of what to even say. He had never... considered life after Voldemort, "I can get on with my life," he decided. He would figure the rest of it out when he knew he had a chance of actually living long enough to do something with his life.

Duo sighed, "Solo, you can't just leave, it's too dang – " the brunet began.

Anger flushed hot, and nauseatingly fast through his veins, enough to make his stomach turn as he yanked his hair free of the brunet's fingers. He twisted in place, shoving Duo backwards against the pilot's chair – forearm braced just below his throat, knee on the chair between his legs as he loomed over him in the darkness.

"I'm not made of fucking glass, Duo!" he snarled, "You can't keep me from this! I have to fight, because if I don't, people are going to die!" he shouted, feeling Duo's hands come to rest on his hips, "Innocent people who have nothing to do with what happened to me!"

"Solo – "

"No!" Harry snapped, moving his forearm away so he could cover Duo's mouth with a hand. "No," he repeated, gentler this time, "I made my choice, Duo. Last year. You can try to stop me, but I don't want you to. You don't have the right to take that from me. No one does," he said firmly, sitting back and removing his hand so he was no longer hunched over the pilot so aggressively.

Duo caught his hand before he got too far, and squeezed it gently, "But you could die," he pointed out quietly.

"You could have died in Operation Meteor," the Gryffindor retorted coolly, he couldn't see Duo's facial expression in the dark but he felt his hands spasm against him. "I may have been forced into this, but I intend to see it through. I could have run. I could have hidden, and left them to fight their war on their own. But I chose not to. I'm going to fight. Someone has to."

He felt the hot puff of Duo's breath on his neck before the pilot's head thumped down in defeat against his collarbone. It was easy, in the dark, to wrap his arms around his shoulders and head, to bury his fingers into the brunet's braid and hold him. Easier in the dark to let himself be Solo, if only for a little, for now.

"You're not going to give this up, are you?"

"Did you?"

He felt Duo huff a laugh and let go of his hand to wrap both arms around him in a hug, "Heh, no. I suppose you're right. I ain't got a leg to stand on."

Harry shifted, twisting himself sideways to sit on Duo's lap, guessing that he wasn't going to be released any time soon. Duo apparently got clingy when he got anxious over Solo's safety. The pilot buried his face into Harry's neck as the Gryffindor leaned against him and rested his chin on top of his head.

"No you don't. Now, take me to Ron and Hermione. We've been delayed long enough."

000

Colonel Une stared at Deathscythe's pilot through the screen of her communicator.

"Do you know what you're asking of me, oh-two?" she asked coldly.

He nodded solemnly, "Yep. Wouldn't be talkin' to ya right now if I didn't know how serious this was. Mind control, memory erasure, memory modification, instant death, and somehow they're able to find us where-ever we are. I'm not lettin' Solo face this alone. So yeah. Besides, pretty sure the seized assets of the last eight boy-bands I sent your way could pay for it."

She refrained from grimacing, but it was a very near thing. He wasn't wrong. In fact, he was entirely correct about that last comment. He had financed the project three times over just by himself, especially since he passed recommendations to Howard up at Lunar Base who did the majority of the work at a reduced rate simply for the scientific curiosity of 'can we do it?' (the answer was yes. Yes they could).

"Look, Une, I need the edge. Solo does too, though he won't admit it, and if we can keep the other two from dying, well, it's a win-win. I know you like the girl. I can see the recruitment papers on your desk," he added with a sharp grin, and Une carefully did not cover them like a schoolgirl caught writing love-letters in class.

"And you know for a fact they are for her?" she asked coolly, eyebrow raising delicately.

"You'd ignore the comment if they weren't," was the sassy, knowing, retort. Touché.

"My concern is the security logistics, oh-two. Not the loss of equipment, you left enough Gundanium scrappage strewn across the United Earth Sphere that people are still tripping over pieces at junk-shops that we could simply rebuild them. However, the New Oz would collectively have a coronary and believe us preparing for another war. It is publicity we could do without," she snipped.

"No worries there. They don't do tech, Une. Their powers interfere with the electricity and short it out. They don't even have phones. Who would they tell? And how?"

"And you're somehow sure they won't destroy it?" she demanded sceptically, growing rapidly annoyed even though she damn well knew oh-two wasn't as stupid as he liked to pretend.

"About that. Solo and I found somethin' pretty interesting when we were cleaning up after our last rodeo," Duo announced, his face lighting up with boyish excitement and mischief. "Howard kept some scrap from when Heero dissected Deathscythe to repair Wing back in the early days. Even though it wasn't hooked up to anything, it was actually functioning, all the lights were on and according to the diagnostic read-out all connected systems were operational. It died not long later, but Solo prodded it a little and it started working again, no power connectivity what so ever. The cores had been removed years ago. Gundanium apparently conducts whatever energy they have, and insulates against negative effects. So it'll be fine, hell, they could probably power it without the cores and save Howard a pretty penny," he suggested brightly as if he hadn't just announced that there were humans out there capable of breaking all known laws of physics and biochemistry.

She sighed in aggravation, "You realise it will take time, right? We only commissioned for the Preventer Agents, and yourself for when your finished with your sabbatical."

"Bull," oh-two chirped casually, "There's one for all Active Agents, former Gundam Pilots, and those known to us by name. Even Relena has one assigned to her."

Une hissed furiously, "Have you been hacking our systems again?!"

"Nope. Howard keeps me updated, some of the more fiddly stuff I developed, his eyes ain't what they used to be, and I get bored easy," the former pilot admitted casually. "I know we have the parts for another three. I've already got Solo's measurements, though Sally's going to have to get his biometrics to send off. Knowing you, you've already had the other-two tested extensively since you found out they were a bit differenty."

"As 'differenty' as oh-four, yes," she grit out unhappily.

"Oh cool. I had wondered," was the blithe reply.

"You're making remarkably light of this, oh-two," Une observed through gritted teeth, and froze when he treated her to a beaming smile that made all the hair on the back of her neck stand straight with alarm.

"Light? Oh no. Nothing of the sort, Une. But Solo was right about one thing, until we deal with this Voldemort fuck, there's no point in discussing anything else. Luckily this will be a much cleaner war than the last one – we have a clear target. And as Heero would say: Mission accepted."

The transmission ended before she could open her mouth to reply, her skin crawling with the cold chill of realisation.

That was Shinigami's smile.

She reached for her personal communicator, "Get me Agent Winter, now!"

000

And Harry finally manages to talk his way into freedom – I just don't think he expected Duo to come with him. Also, this has veered so much off from my original plans I don't even know what's going on anymore. Everyone's doing their own thing and I'm left holding several sheets of paper going "guys? GUYS?! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO – oh come on. I'm short and fat here, I can't keep up with you bastards!"

EDIT: Just rewrote the scene in the cotpit between Duo and Solo, hopefully that's a little easier on the eyes now.