With gunfire echoing through Norris Hall, and the horror of what was happening more apparent by the second, Henry Lee joined his French professor in a futile attempt to lock that horror out of Room 211.

Or so it seems.

Joe Ly said state police told him that the body of his little brother, a William Fleming High School graduate, was found near the door of the room where he died of a single gunshot to the head in the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech.

"They presume Henry and his teacher rushed up to the door and shut the door," Ly said. Early accounts of the shootings described how professor Jocelyne Couture-Nowak pushed a desk against the door to keep Seung-Hui Cho from entering. By then, he'd already sprayed bullets into two other rooms.

Ultimately, Lee, Couture-Nowak and 10 other students died in Room 211 after Cho forced his way in.

"I think he [Henry] just tried the best he can," Ly said. "I think he's probably not strong enough, because Henry's a small guy."

State police declined to confirm the account. It's small comfort to Lee's parents and nine siblings, but it does temper their grief with an added measure of pride.

"We're really proud ... that he did his best to try to save the class," said Lee's brother Manh Lee, who just finished his junior year at Tech.

Their grief, however, has been nearly unbearable at times, beginning with the sickening feeling that Monday when news of the shootings flashed across the planet but Henry Lee was nowhere to be found.

His family, like so many others, dialed his cellphone repeatedly, sent him e-mails and lingered at Montgomery Regional Hospital hoping to learn he'd only been wounded.

At last, Joe Ly and his sister Chi Lee went to the Inn at Virginia Tech, which became headquarters for families to learn about their loved ones.

Joe Ly put his name on the list to get information, caught between wanting to hear anything, and fearing he'd hear the worst.

At last, sometime between 6 and 7 p.m., his name was called, and Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum delivered the devastating news.

"I couldn't even walk," Joe Ly said.

Joe Ly was the first of his family to go to Tech.

Henry Lee was the fourth, and had already made his family immensely proud. He graduated second in his class at William Fleming High School in 2006, and arrived at Tech with a raft of scholarships to study computer engineering.

Last week, his family undertook the grim task of packing up Lee's belongings in his room in West Ambler Johnston Hall at Tech. Most remain packed away, but Manh Lee was pleased to show off an origami Hokie Bird his brother had made from hundreds of meticulously folded pieces of paper locked together to form a foot-high turkey with "VT Hokies" spelled out on its fantail in maroon and orange.

In death, Henry Lee holds a place of honor on the mantel in his family's home off Williamson Road. His portrait rests among letters bearing the sorrow of Roanoke Mayor Nelson Harris, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Rep. Rick Boucher and the Virginia Tech administration.

Before the portrait sits burning incense and an offering of food that changes three times a day.

"We treat him like he's still alive," Manh Lee said. "Every time we eat, we share with him."

The offerings and prayers will continue for 49 days from Henry's death, Joe Ly said.

The family is Chinese, though they came here in 1994 as refugees from Vietnam.

Henry Lee became a U.S. citizen a year ago, and took his more American-sounding name to replace his given name, Henh Ly.

The shrine on the mantel is not always enough to remind the family that their boy is gone.

Joe Ly used to pick up a favorite food of his little brother's, an Asian fruit called a durian, from an Asian market to have after dinner when Lee was in town from school.

"He loved that stuff," he said. The other day, he called his wife and asked her to pick up some for Henry. "I started crying," he said.

For all the mourning, the family has felt good will like never before.

"We've gotten a lot of support and a lot of care from friends and family," Manh Lee said.

Friends and neighbors have brought in food, flowers, cards, tissues. One neighbor mowed their lawn without being asked.

The family is a large one with moderate means. Henry Lee's father, Song Ly, recently retired from his job at the Home Shopping Network.

Before the funeral, the Sears store at Valley View Mall, where Henry Lee and three of his siblings have worked, invited the entire family in to pick out clothes for the services.

"They said, 'Don't look at the price tag. Whatever you want, just take it,' " Manh Lee said.

Money from the Virginia Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund paid for much of the funeral expenses, and the American Red Cross paid the rest. Blue Ridge Memorial Gardens donated a burial plot.

Nancy Calkin, a volunteer with Roanoke's Refugee and Immigration Services who has worked with the family since they arrived in Roanoke, said she and Joe Ly have applied for other assistance to help with medical bills. The family's mother, Mui Lenh, was hospitalized a few times with high blood pressure in the days after the shooting.

Her children are rallying around her.

Manh Lee might give up a summer internship in Iowa to stay at home. Chi Lee, his sister who will graduate from Tech this year, will look for work in accounting in the area.

"We know we'll have to take more time with Mom," she said.

Staff writer Reed Williams contributed to this report.