A/N: Because Luna has always been my favourite character in Harry Potter other than Tom M. Riddle Jr.
For all purposes of the timeline, Luna's birthday will be on the 2nd of May, the same day as the Battle of Hogwarts in 1998. I'm also going to make the year Luna meets Tsuna, 2010: twelve years after the battle.
She also refers to people using this format: First name – Last name, because that's how general British nomenclature works.
Also, Luna is less odd here, but that's explained by trauma and maturation. Lots of HP character death.
Posted: 8 Dec 2014
Edited:
Luna Lovegood had just turned seventeen when she decided that she had to leave Great Britain.
She had to live somewhere without so much death, where the blood of her friends and family no longer clung to the soles of her shoes as she walked (and oh, the spirits around her would grieve those that had passed away, lost in the violence and to never cross into the Undying Lands), where she could no longer feel the ambiance of jubilation and loss that pervaded the air and clung to her skin like a cloud blanketing the sky.
She knew her friends wouldn't begrudge her escaping the mournful magic that had carved its way into the very rocks Hogwarts had been built upon. The battle had taken its toll upon the history of the school, and she knew that the wounds of 1998 would never be forgotten by anyone, nevertheless by those who had fought in the battle.
Wounds, after all, would heal, but scars remained until the very end.
Luna also knew for a fact that Harry Potter wouldn't tell her to stay: he had been the one to tell her to leave Britain in fact.
Harry Potter, the first to choose her as a first and not a last option, had urged her to seek her Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, and to capture one of Fudge's hidden Heliopaths; to explore the world and to find life elsewhere from Britain. Luna had laughed at him, telling him not to be silly: Heliopaths wouldn't have stayed now that Fudge wasn't in position!
He'd smiled oddly at her, fondly and wistfully, before walking away. Each step filled him up with more and more courage, and she could see the Nargles surrounding him slowly drop off one by one, freeing him of any earthly burden he carried with him as he joined three figures off in the distance.
Even as the last Nargle fell away silently, she knew that they had to be Ronald Weasley, James and Lily Potter.
The four of them were so beautiful together, faces clear of all tenseness and pain and hurt, and she wouldn't help but smile widely at them.
Ronald had given her a small wave, and mouthed to Luna an apology for his baby sister and family. James and Lily Potter had smiled back at her with gratitude in their eyes, telling her to live so that when she finally joined them, she would've lived enough for not only herself, but for all those who had died in the battle.
She'd waved at them as they disappeared, smiling as resolved finally settled in her heart. She'd left to tell her father that she would leave his home to travel to Europe, to Asia, to America, to find herself again. She would return, but she didn't know when. Would he be willing to wait for her to come back?
Xenophilius, eyes misty and lacking sight from his time under the Death Eaters, had pulled her into a hug, crying tears into her hair like moonlight. But he'd let her go, giving her his blessing and a gentle kiss on her forehead. The last time he'd kissed her that way had been the night before her mother had passed away.
Gently turning away from her father and the hovering spirit of Pandora Lovegood, she had left Ottery St. Catchpole for Diagon Alley. There she had found at Gringotts' something left to her from Harry Potter.
The Peverell vault once belonging to Ignotus Peverell had been left for her. In it, no money was to be found. Instead, a lonely Grimoire, accompanied by a dusty monocle and several black diamond beads, were lain out, waiting for her to take them.
The Wrackspurts had fallen silent for the first time when her fingertips touched the vellum that covered the Grimoire. Human skin, she noticed belatedly, stretched over de-scaled dragon pelt. However, the skin had none of the regrets or pain or memories that magic usually etched into the dying, and instead had felt like—home.
Carefully prying the book open, her fingers had ghosted over ancient parchment, stirring magic that had stagnated over the centuries of being untouched. Under her fingers, it had awoken much like a cat would from a long nap, fur bristling and back arching under the unfamiliar touch.
She had breathed life back into the book as she flipped through from front to back, moon-silver eyes focusing on the unknown words that were scrawled across each page. Upon closer inspection, she had noticed that each letter inscribed onto the ancient parchment was composed of smaller, archaic, runes, all written in a blood-saturated ink.
But it hadn't mattered to her that she couldn't read the Grimoire, nor decipher the runes. She would merely have to learn whatever she needed to learn to understand what Harry Potter had bestowed upon her in his deathbed.
It would merely be the first of the numerous things she would need to learn to live like James and Lily Potter had charged her to.
Placing the book into her pouch, the monocle was settled over her eye, where it hovered without assistance or support. The beads were threaded into her messy hair, braided and tangled until they were lost under her blond locks, settling against the back of her left ear like a reassuring weight. It was Harry Potter's last gift to her, and she would treasure them no matter what.
The monocle and the beads had thrummed excitedly in unison as she left the Peverell vault, left Gringotts, left Britain for the last time in a long time.
Luna Lovegood had just turned seventeen when she decided that she had to leave Great Britain.
She wouldn't return for another century and a half, when her hair had paled from a dusky blonde into a moonlight-silver to match her timeless features, ever youthful despite her age, her hair beaded and threaded with numerous trinkets, and runes etched into her wrinkled skin.
She was eighteen when she'd been taken in by Peruvian shamans and taught the ways of the necromancer. She had learned about what it truly meant to live in the fear of Death. Runes had been etched, scrawled into her skin, glowing purple and white to mark her as one favoured by the Master, despite his having passed over into the next life.
She was twenty-one when she'd learnt to properly read the Peverell Grimoire Harry Potter had left for her in the forgotten temples of the Amazon, where the warrior women and the great Boiúna took her in as a kindred spirit and taught her their ways: both magical and mundane.
She was twenty-four when she was bestowed the title Sphinx by the Grecian scholars that worked in the Libraries of Alexandria. The little British Sphinx, they had laughed, with all the courage of a lion, the sharp eyes of the eagle, the deception of a woman, and the instincts of a snake. Her mind was always in the moon, they had said, and that she truly was a lunatic in every sense.
But she'd already known that she was broken, for who escaped torture untouched? Charged to study in Hong Kong, where wandless magic would be taught by those who sought the masters out until she was twenty-nine, she eventually found herself in Japan, in a small town of Namimori where she finally could find respite from her travels.
However, she hadn't realised it yet, but Namimori would be where she finally healed.
When the gaijin had moved in next door, the sight of her sheer strangeness and her looks had captivated Tsuna's nine-year-old imagination.
Alabaster skin that could belong only to a white person was covered with freckles and tattoos. It was so unlike his own tanned and golden skin, unmarred by anything but childhood-wrought scars, that he'd stared at the patterns for hours, just tracing them with his eyes in awe.
Her eyes, silver under the sunlight and grey under shade, were so pretty compared to the brown that everyone else he knew had. If he had to compare them to anything, he would say that they reminded him of the stars, or of the moon, or of his mother's silver jewelry because of how pretty they were.
Her hair was long and messy, it was yellows and browns and golds and silvers and so bright against the black of everyone else's, and it had beads and feathers and jewels of all sorts adorning it. She even let him play with it whenever he had the courage to peek over the garden wall to stare unabashedly at her as she tended to her wild garden of plants and flowers.
And as if she wanted to stand out even more, she dressed in strange dresses that were made out of a material he'd never seen before, and she also spoke of the strangest things, making her seem more and more out of the norm of any gaijin who came to live in Japan.
After all, who in modern-day Japan, or Britain, or the United States, would still believe that a kirin had visited her home and nibbled at her sunflowers? Or that the a phoenix, one of the mythical firebirds his mother often talked about, often visited her home to trill songs to her?
Nevertheless, she let him come over to her garden whenever he wanted, as long as his mother was alright with it. She let him, despite his being a dame and his being clumsy, help her out with her plants whenever he peered at the curiously curled up plants and flowers. She even helped him with his subjects whenever he mentioned that he was failing class!
However, she didn't seem to understand his subjects any better than he did, but he really appreciated her attempts to help him with his maths and Japanese homework.
Waving away his mother's gifts of cookies and cakes with a distant smile, Rabuguddo-san was a strange woman, but Tsuna liked her a lot despite her oddities: they were charming in a way that was different to his own oddities. People didn't seem to like him much, but they seemed to like Rabuguddo-san more than they liked him.
After a few months of knowing her, she became like an aunt to him, and he'd told her so. She laughed and told him to call him Tsukiko-ba-chan. Her name meant that, she'd told him. Runaa meant Tsukiko. And he liked that a lot too: she really was like the child of the moon, down from her moonlight-eyes to her yuurei-like features, but also in the strange way she dressed. She was like a spirit of the night… but not as scary as the stories his mum had told him as a kid.
But the strangest (and admittedly coolest) thing about his Tsukiko-ba-chan was the secret that she asked him to keep for her after a year of knowing her. It was one that he was determined to keep, no matter what. Though he'd only once been allowed in the second floor of her home, he'd never forget what he'd experienced in her home.
His Tsukiko-ba-chan was a magician. He'd never realised until he'd been assaulted by a myriad of smells and sounds and sights that permeated the rooms of her second floor: the cauldrons that bubbled, and the books that floated in midair around her, and the paintings that moved and spoke just like any other person did, and the way she'd only have to flick her wand and hand to make things happen… it was astounding!
The flower she'd conjured up for him, a small stem with one bunch of pink-blue-purple hydrangeas, had been given immediately to his mother. Tsukiko-ba-chan had told him that they would never die, and that he should tell his mother that even though they were fake—plastic, he reminded her with a giggle—she should keep them in a water vase.
It would stop the Nifflers from trying to steal his mother's porcelain, after all, Tsukiko-ba-chan had added, her eyes crinkling with happiness.
He didn't know what Nifflers were, but he had assumed that they were something that could wreak havoc at home, and he was pleased that she was thinking of both Nana and his safety.
He hadn't realised just how much she valued their safety.
He would never find out that she'd omitted the fact that her flower was a charm against harm towards both his mother and himself within their home, that would only ever deactivate when Tsuna intentionally threw the flowers away to rid himself of the charm. By not telling him the purpose of the flowers, it was her way of preventing the charm from ever failing even if he threw them away.
He'd never realised how protective his baa-chan could be over the two of them until the day he turned thirteen, when Reborn came into his life, guns blazing and Vongola behind him.
"Tsunayoshi, here, have some of these cookies. I've put a calming draught in the sugar ones, and a mild pain-relieving one in the chocolates. Don't eat them unless you have to," Luna said in her usual nonchalant way, handing the brunet a small box to put into his bag for yet another day at high school. "I'll know if you're eating them despite not needing them – it could very bad for your digestive system! We wouldn't want that, now would we?"
"Of course not, Tsukiko-ba-chan," Tsuna chimed obediently, placing the box at the very bottom of his schoolbag. "Are you going to walk with me to school today?"
Shifting his feet anxiously, he looked up (he was almost at the same height as her now, he realised belatedly) at her worriedly. His gut was tensing, and he felt awfully jittery that day, and he was wondering if his aunt could feel it too. It might've been the day-old stew he'd eaten as a midnight snack the previous night, but he couldn't help but think that it could've been something else.
Luna's eyes were fixed onto something in the distance, but she nodded with a pleasant smile on her face. No matter how absentminded she could get, Tsuna knew that she was paying attention to him no matter what. The five years they'd known each other were enough to teach him that much, at least.
"The Wrackspurts are back," she murmured suddenly, blinking her eyes rapidly for a few seconds. Her eyes had focused on him again.
The non sequitur put Tsuna off for a moment, but he sent her a wry smile, not commenting on the strangeness of her words. That was the first time she'd mentioned urakkusupaatsu to him, however. She usually talked about naagurusu (Nargoors? He couldn't remember what they actually were) instead, which he'd come to realise were related to either bullies or minor problems. So what was the meaning of these… wracksupaatsu?
"Come. Let's go, Tsunayoshi." Luna's hand curled around his own hand, the pulsing warmth of her tattoos (or rather, runes, as Tsuna had found out just a year ago) seeping from her skin into his. "Why don't you tell me about what you're looking forward to today?"
"I've got Nezu-sensei today, so I'm not really—…"
"…—I'll be sure to help you with your—…"
"You don't have to! I mean, it's not—…"
As they chattered rather mindlessly about random subjects, Tsuna couldn't help but feel a growing sense of dread as they approached school. His stomach was churning, and his fingers were twitching. His head was starting to throb ever so slightly, as if he were experiencing his first migraine.
His body seemed to be warning him of something, but he didn't know exactly what. Was there going to be a change? He hoped not: he rather enjoyed life as it was…
As he parted ways with Luna at the school gates, he noticed Hibari Kyouya approaching, and yelped rather loudly. Maybe it was that he'd been dreading!
Quickly rushing to class before the scary boy could think to hurt him, he was oblivious to Luna lingering at the school gates, staring rather intently at a patch on the wall.
"Come out." Luna stated firmly, uncharacteristically focused as she continued to stare at the wall with sharp silver eyes. She took a step closer to it, moving out of Hibari Kyouya's glaring stare from the inside the school property. "I know you're here for Tsuna."
There was a moment, before the sheet covering the figure was lowered, revealing a small child and a chameleon on the brim of his fedora.
"Ciaossu," the baby greeted.
Ageless, obsidian-black eyes met timeless and mercurial eyes. An eternity seemed to pass before they both blinked, slowly. Magic had settled around them like a warm cloak, and Luna smiled at the child.
Reaching out, she picked him up without any resistance, placing him onto her shoulder. Feeling him grip onto her hair with tiny hands, playing with the black diamonds hiding behind her ear, she began her walk back home.
They were silent as she walked them, avoiding crowds and staying in the back alleys out of habit.
"You don't wish to harm Tsunayoshi," she stated simply when she finally opened the front gate to her home. "But I don't know what you want from him… but it's something important, is it not?"
The moment the gate was clicked shut, her wards rippled. The baby tensed on her shoulder at the shift in atmosphere—warm, safety, privacy—, but didn't respond otherwise.
At least, not until she opened the door to her home. He jumped onto the cabinet where she stored her shoes, landing silently despite the force of his leap.
"I'm going to make him the next boss of the Vongola family." He confirmed without much ceremony. The chameleon flicked its tongue at a passing fly. "And you can't change that."
Luna smiled again. "I wouldn't want to. He's going to be a good boss," she murmured quietly, eyes going distant momentarily. Yes, Tsunayoshi would be. He was just like Harry Potter: timid, but meant for greatness. "My name is Luna Lovegood. Tsunayoshi, however, calls me Tsukiko."
"Reborn. The world's greatest hitman, but you already knew that didn't you?" The baby responded bluntly, arms crossing over his chest as he watched her pull out a monocle from one of the charms threaded in her hair. Placing it over her eye, she looked at him.
The monocle hovered over her eye without support, and seemed to glow with a golden light. He shivered under the piercing gaze that the monocle only helped to amplify, and he narrowed his eyes on her.
Baby he may be, he was still an Arcobaleno; an adult cursed to live eternally as a child until the curse was broken. He'd lived longer than she'd been alive, he was sure of that… so the feeling of being stripped under her gaze more than a little disconcerting. And it was convincing him more and more that this woman might be better off dead.
His fingers clasped the brim of his hat, and Leon's tail flicked against his small hand almost reassuringly.
"You are cursed. I cannot get rid of it for you, nor can I sever your ties to the others," she said finally, pulling the monocle away from her eye.
The sensation of nakedness left with the disappearance of the monocle, and Reborn relaxed ever so slightly.
Luna looked slightly puzzled as she considered the baby in front of her. The magic sight that the monocle granted her had shown her just how Death's magic had rejected his soul, unwilling to reap it until the curse was taken from him. The curse sustained the child in a state of eternal youth—but she could see that the curse itself had aged, it showed just how old the child was. He had to be at least five decades old, if not older.
She couldn't help but pity the child. "Not even Death is willing to rid this curse from you," she said softly.
"I wouldn't expect him to be," the hitman retorted bluntly. "You're a witch, aren't you? Probably from Hogwash, or whatever that school is called, considering you're British."
They'd switched from Japanese to Chinese of all things, he'd realised. Probably due to how similar the two languages could be at times. But that merely peaked his curiosity: why would this obviously British witch need to learn Chinese—and not just Putonghua, like most people, but Cantonese, the dialect—and Japanese? The British magicians were notorious for their elitist culture: learning anything but Latin, Ancient Runic languages and English was considered folly by most of them.
Luna's hesitance faded and she smiled at him. When she spoke again, it was English, tinted with a slight Irish brogue. (Her ancestry could probably be traced there he assumed; it was a norm for not a small number of British citizens.)
"Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft. I'm unsure of what you are, however, Hitman Reborn. You are not a magic adept, nor are you a squib or muggle."
Her words puzzled Reborn only momentarily. Squib? Muggle? Probably terms for those without magic, he reasoned.
"Flames. The Mafia use the Flames of the Sky as power," Reborn divulged without much care for the Omertà that usually bound mafiosos' tongues on the pain of death. He was Reborn, the World's Greatest Hitman. He had more than enough authority to choose who was allowed to know about the secrets of the Mafia. "That is our… magic."
Luna nodded at his explanation with a simple smile on her lips, choosing not to ask him any more questions about the Mafia or Flames.
Smart girl, he noted. He could possibly, actually bring himself to like her.
"You are going to shape Tsunayoshi into an heir worthy of the Mafia, are you not? Let me help you, Hitman Reborn. As both a witch and as his aunt," she said just as delicately as any woman he was acquainted with.
While genuinely sweet, it was full of steel and there was more than a little warning hidden behind the words. It was not a suggestion.
Reborn corrected himself mentally. He could definitely find it within himself to like her.
But he couldn't rule the possibility out that one day, he would have to kill her.
For her, life with Reborn had settled frighteningly fast into a rhythm that was both unpredictable but good. It made her feel… settled again, and normalcy was a luxury she would never take for granted, not after the war.
Although she had settled roots into her little home in Namimori, the sheer activity that came along with the Vongola and hitman Reborn was more than enough to keep her mind stimulated and wanderlust in check. Those Sylphs were determined to keep her wandering until her feet collapsed beneath her, but she gently turned them away.
Tsunayoshi needed his Tsukiko-ba-chan, and she would use all of the powers she had in her disposal to help him where she couldn't help Harry Potter.
However, she'd found herself becoming less and less a fixture in his life. After four years of being the main source of friendship and human interaction for Tsunayoshi, she found herself becoming disconcerted with the silence of her home.
But she'd pushed aside all of her emotions to watch as her surrogate nephew grew and mature under Reborn's guidance.
It had been Hayato Gokudera with his dynamites that had triggered Tsuna's need to get stronger for both himself and those he cared for.
It had been Takeshi Yamamoto who had made him feel accepted and worthy of friendship.
Then came Trident Shamal and Skullitis, bringing Kyoko Sasagawa and Haru Miura, and also Ryohei Sasagawa into his circle of friends. He'd grown in confidence and happiness, more at ease with the world and himself.
His family of friends had grown to include Bianchi, Gokudera's sister, and Lambo of Bovino and I-Pin, who'd somehow found their way into their little home.
The house next door to Luna's seemed to radiate love and warmth, and it made her wonder just when her own had grown so cold.
"His Flames have been sealed away."
She had remarked this offhandedly one day, as she sat primly by a hydrangea bush in Nana's beautifully tended garden with Reborn on her lap. Unlike the bushel that she'd gifted to Tsunayoshi, the flowers were purple and pink, and the petals were much smaller, but that was the wonder of magic: the manipulation and blatant disregard of the laws dictated natural world was something Muggles could only dream of doing.
"I wonder how cold he feels, without anything to keep him warm inside?" Luna wondered rhetorically. "How has his heart stayed so warm despite it all?"
She and Reborn were watching as Yamamoto and Tsunayoshi were studying away and complaining about their homework to each other whenever they met a particularly hard problem. Gokudera was off to the side, smoking in the far end where Tsunayoshi wouldn't be able to smell the toxins that his cigarettes emitted.
While Luna didn't necessarily approve of his unhealthy habit, she remained silent: Gokudera was all but emancipated, which was why he could bear the title 'Smoking Bomb Hayato' without being affiliated to a particular family at his age. She had no right to berate him for his choice to throw part of his life away to the carcinogenic addiction.
Besides, what right did she have in scolding him, when she herself would spend unhealthy amounts of hours diving into a Pensieve carved into her bedroom wall to revisit simpler days, when they weren't just shades, when Harry Potter had taught them all how to conjure a Patronus while hidden away from the gaze of Umbridge?
Her Patronus was still a rabbit, but she wondered when it would change to reflect the brokenness inside of her.
"His flames will be unsealed when the time comes. Until then, I'll be helping him." Reborn replied as he set Leon down onto the grass beside her. The chameleon crawled up her thigh and settled in the dip of fabric between her legs, stretching out to soak up the sun's warmth while it still could.
Luna noticed that he didn't say anything about the feelings that accompanied the lack of flames. Reaching out, she gently stroked the back of his head where the fedora didn't cover, smoothing down his spiky hair.
"I'm glad," she murmured, "that he has a man as fiery as the sun to help him until that time."
Reborn's eyes narrowed on her immediately, suspicious at her choice of words. He hadn't said anything about the types of Flames that existed. Was it merely a coincidence?
(He didn't believe in them.)
Gently tugging at the fedora, her lips curled into a gentle smile even as her moonlight eyes disappeared under the pale skin of her eyelid. "Without the sun, none can see the sky for there wouldn't be any light.
"… But he will be the one to support you one day, Hitman Reborn."
If her words rang with power and prophesy, Reborn ignored it. (He didn't believe in them either.)
When Tsunayoshi had brought them to her, she had accepted them into her home without question, trusting in his intuition that they would be important to him.
Chrome and her two companions had settled into their rooms in Luna's simple home after two weeks of residing within her residence. While they would claim to be used to the strangeness of the woman, they had yet to experience everything that could happen in a witch's home.
Ken and Chikusa were sitting on the couch by the empty fireplace, the former playing one of his muggle video games, and Chikusa reading one of her many tombs. Behind them, Chrome was attempting to bring to life an illusion of butterflies, and her face was screwed up with concentration, her fingers outstretched and trembling.
And then the fireplace spat and hissed with green flames despite the lack of any logs.
Ken and Chikusa, obviously startled, backed a few steps away from the spontaneous fire, the former sending irate glares at Chrome, who'd all but thrown herself towards the wall in an attempt to get away from the fireplace.
Well, that wouldn't do, Luna couldn't help but think. It was obvious that Chrome hadn't summoned those flames: no illusionist worth their salt would conjure flames that were green.
If anything, the spontaneous flames could be attributed to those pesky pixies, but they rarely left their home located in the parallel dimensions of Ireland.
Blinking with placidity, Luna pulled her wand from its holster, turning the heat under her cauldron down with a short flick. Chrome was cringing at Ken's glares, while Chikusa was watching the fire warily.
"It's just the Floo," she said in her usual airy way, wandering to the fireplace to place a few logs onto the fire. "There's no need to be so defensive, boys."
The moment the log landed upon the metal grill that made up the floor of the fireplace, the flames burst upwards and outwards, flaring into the shape of a woman.
Coughing as she stumbled out of the fireplace, Hermione Granger straightened herself up and flicked her wand to clean all and any soot from her decidedly muggle clothing.
The children stared, eyes goggling at the (to them, at least) nonsensical materialisation of the brunette witch.
"Luna, you should always have some logs in the fireplace! What if there was an emergency and I couldn't reach you? You of all people should know that that is very irresponsible!" Hermione Granger berated, not even pausing to look at the children sat on the couch, who were still shocked by the appearance of the woman.
Indeed, Hermione Granger was a sight to see with her hair flaring out as if emulating her irritation, her eyes lit up with passion and emotion, and her voice filled with imperious demand.
"Not to mention, Flooing across continents is not a particularly nice to do when you're stuck in between chimneys and false-fireplaces, waiting for a certain woman to open up the fireplace to receive you!" Her wand was stuffed back into its holster, but her mouth continued to move to berate Luna.
However, Luna ignored Hermione Granger's scolding with ease, smiling at her.
Reaching out, she brushed the scars that covered her flushed cheek with her fingertips. "Congratulations, Hermione Granger. You look very fetching with all of those Blathering Happings floating around you."
The non sequitur put the brunette off for a few moments, before an irate look crossed her face.
"Blathering Happings don't exist, Luna! Besides, I came over here to ask you whether or not you would—"
Beaming at her, Luna quickly took Hermione Granger's hand, fingers gripping her palm tightly. The ring on Hermione Granger's fourth finger was warm against her skin. "I would be more than happy to! Viktor Krum is a good man, and he was a very good friend to Fleur Delacour, was he not? It's a shame that he's never gotten rid of those Nargles since the Triwizard Tournament…"
Torn between pleasure and irritation, Hermione Granger's expression switched between blushing, smiling, and frowning. It amused Luna quite a lot, even if the children behind her only seemed to get more and more confused at their interaction. They all understood English, even if they were better at Japanese and Italian.
"Come and meet my children. This is Chrome Dokuro, and Ken and Chikusa. Mukuro Rokudo, however, isn't here at the moment because he's away. They are all very sweet," Luna introduced as she gestured at her so-called 'children'.
Ken's features had twisted into revulsion and confusion at how he was being introduced, while Chrome had turned a bright red. Chikusa, however, didn't seem to care too much, even if he'd pulled his hat down enough to cover his eyebrows.
Luna hummed softly in discontentment, pushing his hat up to reveal his face. It was rude to hide your face to guests, after all. She then moved to pat at Ken's hair, pulling at his cheeks until he was no longer disgusted and instead was annoyed at the (wo)manhandling. Chrome, however, received a smile that was returned tentatively.
Hermione Granger looked at the children strangely, before turning to look at Luna with unamused brown eyes.
They were very much like chocolate, Luna mused. Honeydukes' chocolate, in fact. Perhaps when she went to Bulgaria as one of Hermione's bridesmaids, she could get Neville to buy her some chocolate to share with Tsuna and his friends?
Though lost to her thoughts for a few seconds, she didn't miss Hermione Granger's following words. "If they're your children, who's the father?" She asked drily.
She didn't expect another voice to answer.
"I am."
Luna smiled as Reborn found a wand between his eyes, glowing a dark and almost caramel-like gold with the lethal intent of Hermione Granger's magic. The light however faltered when Hermione Granger noticed who she was pointing her wand at, and she lowered it enough to not be threatening the child anymore.
"… And who are you, kid?" Hermione Granger asked, voice warm though her eyes were defensive. The war had left scars both physical and mental on the brilliant woman, and she would never lose her wariness of strangers… regardless of age and intent.
Scoffing as he pushed his fedora up, the baby stared up at the scholar with a dark humour in his eyes.
Walking towards Luna, he was picked up without the need for words and placed upon her left shoulder. His fingers buried into her dirty blonde hair without pause, and unerringly found the black diamonds beaded into her locks.
"Reborn, the world's greatest hitman. You are Hermione Granger, sorted into house Gryffindor and friend to the late Harry Potter, saviour of the Wizarding Britain… Luna has told me about you." Reborn said without much inflection to his words. Before Hermione could say anything, he buried his face into Luna's hair, in an act of childishness that suited his current body.
Luna reached up to pat one of his legs, turning to smile at Hermione Granger. "He is the father to my children," she affirmed.
The look on her friend's face told her that she felt betrayed by Luna, and that she thought that Luna was crazy for going along with the 'child's' games.
Sometimes, Luna wondered why Hermione Granger would remain so blissfully and willfully ignorant when she was so brilliant and smart.
Reborn was not merely a child, and Luna wouldn't betray their secrets to just anyone. By now, Hermione Granger should have known that Luna was more than just a strange witch that had survived the war with her, but Luna found that Tsunayoshi knew more about her than her friend at times. His warmth was all encompassing, and led him truer than any Seer could.
"Why don't you have lunch with us, Hermione? It'll be nice to have some company," Luna said with a smile. "And I'm sure Nana wouldn't mind having one more person at the table."
Luna found out that while she had been in Bulgaria, attending Hermione Granger and Viktor Krum's wedding with the rest of the survivors and friends and family who had been invited (even her father had attended, older and more wizened than ever with various scars now adorning his fingers that bespoke of expeditions), Tsunayoshi had been involved in a series of fights against the Varia and had won the right as the Heir of Vongola through battle.
Reborn had sent her a curt, short message on the health of all the children: Chrome, Ken and Chikusa had no injuries while Lambo, Ryohei Sasagawa and Gokudera Hayato were still hurt enough to have to stay in bed to rest. Tsunayoshi and his friends had defeated Xanxus and his subordinates in battle.
She soon returned to Namimori and found herself in Tsunayoshi's room, sitting patiently in front of her nephew as he mulled something over.
There was guilt on his face, as well as a more internal, mental pain. The same look she saw on Ginerva's face every time she thought no one was looking.
"It wasn't like when we fought with Mukuro-kun," Tsunayoshi finally murmured, lifting up vulnerable eyes to look at Luna. He'd grown, she realised. Matured while she wasn't looking. "The Varia were trying to kill us. And they almost succeeded."
She reached out to place a hand on his head. "Almost is the keyword here, Tsunayoshi. They tried to kill you, but they didn't. No one died," she reminded him. "Neither you nor the Varia had any casualties."
Tsunayoshi was silent as he leaned into her touch. "He trapped his own father in the Gola Mosca. He was trying to kill his father, trying to kill me to get the title of Don Vongola."
Pausing for a moment, Luna gently tugged him into a loose embrace, an arm going around his back and a hand pushing his head into the crook of her shoulder. He was starting to grow taller than her, but she paid the difference no mind.
"What makes people that cruel, ba-chan?"
Moonlight eyes slid shut as Luna buried her face into soft brown curls. "Humans are all selfish, Tsunayoshi. Not everyone can be as altruistic and selfless as you are. You are special, Tsunayoshi, and are unlike the other mafiosos of the Vongola or the other families."
Tsunayoshi took in a deep breath, and his body trembled ever so slightly under her hands. In her mind's eye, she could see his will flare up and warm up the coldness of his core—and his soul glowed the orange of embers, dying by the second but ready to come alive with the right kindling.
"I want to change it. I want to change the Vongola… as the Tenth Boss of the Vongola," he said finally, one hand covering the other to touch the inconspicuous ring on his hand.
And if his words rang with power and prophesy, Luna believed wholeheartedly in it.
(She'd always believe in him.)
"You've come to tell me what you planned not to tell me, haven't you Reborn?" Luna asked absently as she pruned the vines of the Angel's Snare plant in front of her.
Neville had been kind enough to send her the seeds to the plant when she'd mentioned its effectiveness in preventing Lethifolds and Dementors from drawing close, and that she'd been interested in testing its properties for a very long time in potion making, at Hermione Granger's wedding just a week ago.
Reborn snorted, choosing not to comment on her foresight and words, having gotten used to it over the few months they'd known each other.
"It's been long enough, and you should know more about the Mafia now that you've declared yourself his aunt, and made yourself his Mist Guardian's tutor and… guardian." His lips twisted at the irony. "There won't be any escape from this world now."
Luna hummed, relinquishing her grip on her gardening pliers when the vines wrapped insistently around it. Lightly stroking the main stem once, she turned around to face Reborn.
Reaching out to pick him up, she carried him out of her small shed (which had been magically expanded into a greenhouse that could rival the sizes of Hogwarts') to the second floor of her home. Locking them in her study, she placed him on the writing desk in the middle of the room.
He looked around speculatively, having never been on the second floor of her home—though not for the lack of trying. She had had it warded against all entry, friendly or not, unless she'd given the guest permission to come up into her private sanctuary.
"Interesting collection," he remarked as he gestured at the multitude of bookshelves that lined the walls of the room, from floor to ceiling and even then some: if his eyes weren't deceiving him, the bookshelves seemed to have no end to their depth. Layer upon layer of books could be seen before darkness consumed the tomes, and he had no doubts that there were even more hidden in the gloom.
And Reborn was fairly confident that she'd read each and every one of the books she kept stored in the room.
Luna smiled widely. "I'm a Ravenclaw… I think it rather comes with the territory," she replied, as if that explained the innumerable books she kept. (And it probably did, Reborn mused. It was a Hogwarts thing, he assumed.)
"Hn. At least you're well-read," Reborn said, words curt but voice amused. Letting Leon hop off of his fedora and onto the table, he launched into an explanation of the Vongola and Mafia without any warning.
He told her of the truth of the Flames, and of the Guardians to which Tsunayoshi was the Sky. Of the Tri-Ni-Sette, and of the Rings that made up two thirds of the balance and the Pacifiers that made up the rest. Of the Arcobaleno and the curse that they held, of the pacifiers that hung around their necks in reminder of their penance. Of the Families and of his ties—which he gave solely to the Cavallone and the Vongola, but it wasn't them who benefitted; it was him, for it was Reborn who had taught the Bosses, and it was Reborn who had them contact him first and not the other way around. And before long, he found himself telling her briefly of his life and of his relations with other women and men, of the Arcobaleno as people, of Dino Cavallone, of Timoteo, of Tsunayoshi's father, of Shamal, of Bianchi and of his lovers.
Before long, he found himself listening to her, and her explanations of magic and of the war she'd fought against Voldemort. Of being a part of the Defense Association and of a magical battle within the catacomb-like Hall of Prophecies. Of the deaths of her friends, of the torture her loved ones had all experienced. Of Harry Potter and his bravery, and he could see the frailty of her mask as she told him of her fifth year at Hogwarts, when she'd accompanied him to a dinner party and he could see that that had been the moment she'd fell in love with this Harry Potter.
The unnecessarily excessive sentimentality of women disgusted Reborn, but he didn't let it show. He merely blinked at her, waiting patiently for her to finish her emotional tirade—but she smiled at him.
She'd moved on from the boy, it seemed, when she'd seen his spirit depart from her side. It was obvious she'd never considered her feelings towards Potter as love, and for that, he was partly amused by and partly glad. Romantic love never ended well when it came to war or the Mafia, and she'd just come out of one to become part of the other.
She'd learnt what she needed to become stronger, to heal herself as well as to be able to defend those who needed to be defended. She'd become a Necromancer, titled the Sphinx (how fitting the title was; enigmatic, full of feminine wiles, different from humans in both personality and being), and came to be in Japan.
"So that's why you have all those beads and trinkets in your hair." Reborn remarked when the flow of words from Luna had finally come to a momentary pause. "It's a symbol of your power."
Luna nodded, pulling out the original string of black diamonds in her hair. "This is what Harry Potter had gifted to me. These are the first, and they will be the last to come off." She fingered them for a moment, looking oddly hesitant. "They remind me of you, and your eyes."
Reborn paused, before a smirk formed on his lips. "So I remind you of death, you mean? I'm not surprised."
She shook her head, taking his fedora and placing it to the side. Stroking his cheek, she smiled. Lifting him up, she buried her face into his spiky hair.
Luna finally spoke after a moment.
"Protection. These beads are the Master's protection from Death's touch as I dabble in his magic. You are warm like the sun, Reborn. You'll never be death to me."
You'll never be death to me.
Nine years into the future, and those words still rang in his ears as clearly as the day she'd said them.
A/N: This was originally a one-shot, but it grew way too long, and I couldn't bring myself to write the ending of it. This is the first part out of two.