And so we return to the Vongola Alliance Conference! Just assume that the last five days have been spent with Reborn toting Harry around Italy on a vaguely illegal sort of tour, weaseling out bits and pieces of Harry's story and with Harry trying to do the same to Reborn, with less success but admirable determination.

Thanks again, everyone, for all the reviews/follows/favorites! You guys are awesome :)

Warnings: There's probably some cursing somewhere. Also, Byakuran.

Disclaimer: If you recognize any terms, characters, or concepts, that's because they don't belong to me.

Chapter 4

Uproar. Chaos. Music to Reborn's ears. His cute grandson seemed less thrilled, but at least he didn't cower away from the din, and he was sure the boy's acute discomfort – obvious to himself – was less so to the others in room, with the exception of Timoteo (who was chuckling heartily, looking simply delighted with the revelation) and a scant few others. Yes, Reborn supposed Harry's poise under pressure was satisfactory for the time being, given his age. He would have plenty of time to mold him in the coming days.

Reborn let his gaze travel away from his grandson and around the room, gleefully taking in the shocked expressions and pointedly ignoring the exasperated ones. Verde, for example, was making a grand show of rolling his eyes, and Mammon was covering her face with one hand, leaning her body weight into the elbow resting on the table. The Simon Famiglia was too young and too unfamiliar with him, so their lack of enthusiasm, while a tad disappointing, was not unexpected.

Apart from those obnoxious naysayers, however, the rest of the reactions were simply superb. A number of formerly implacable Mafiosi had lurched out of their seats and were gaping incredulously, while others had simply frozen in shock. Colonello, in particular, looked close to fainting. It was glorious. Foolish rival, thinking you could best me for attention with your wedding pictures. Beside him, Lal Mirch's eyes were larger than he'd ever seen them. Tsuna's and Timoteo's guardians were all suitably impressed, gasping and murmuring amongst themselves, although they all had the presence of mind not to question him blatantly – expected in the Nono case, a pleasant surprise in the Decimo one.

Most others seemed to be regarding the revelation with the same incredulity and importance as one would the end of the world: It must be a joke, but the evidence is clear, then we must prepare, hissed over and over again from different mouths and to different ears, but the premise remained, and the tension built and morphed and a tinge of wariness began to permeate the rampant incredulity in the room. On the other side of the spectrum, Byakuran was looking thrilled in the way of a nihilist finally getting to see the world burn. Reborn would have to keep an eye on that.

Yes, apocalypse seemed to be the consensus, which was acceptable in its amusement value. Although, Reborn noted with displeasure, there were a select few who seemed to be taking it too far, eyeing Harry with notable distrust and distaste. The Don of Los Seis Brazos, one of the Torego attendants, the Tomaso's right hand. They would be educated otherwise. And then Reborn turned to his left, having saved the best reaction for last.

Tsuna was gaping unattractively – disappointing; Mafia bosses don't show their surprise so easily – but at least he was not shrieking in the way he had been so prone as a child, nor had he fallen out of his seat. Most of the other bosses in the room were also wearing fixed expressions of shock, but that was no excuse. Vongola had higher standards. He would have to make time for a few lessons in the near future. Or maybe some joint lessons with Harry, bringing his grandson up to the standard necessitated by having his blood. Reborn's smirk twisted with cruel anticipation at the thought.

So many possibilities.

Fon was not entirely sure at first which emotion dominated him. Rueful exasperation was there, certainly, warring with disbelief such as he had not felt for some time; he had thought officially allying himself with Vongola had inoculated him somewhat from such surprise given the family's predilection towards chaos, but Reborn was Reborn, after all. He finally settled on grand amusement after examining everyone else's reactions, and lifted one voluminous sleeve to hide his smile.

He carefully examined the young man standing beside his old comrade. Rather short and slender, with pale skin and what seemed to be innumerable, untamable cowlicks in his dark hair. His cheekbones were high and defined and his lips were rather thin, but that nose and chin… Yes, those were undeniably Reborn's. Remarkable.

But more remarkable yet were those eyes. Fon could not recall ever having been treated to the sight of such vibrantly green irises before.

And he held himself with such admirable grace and stoicism for his age. The young man – Harry, Reborn had called him – was certainly nervous, Fon could tell; the stiff set of his shoulders, the rapid blinking, and the light flush across his cheeks were dead giveaways to the observant, after all, but yet he stood tall and proud and did not waver before the collective shock and attention of some of the most powerful Mafiosi in the world. Yes, he most definitely shared the blood of Reborn.

Better still, Fon saw no signs of the man's incorrigible smugness, none of his – admittedly well-earned – infinite self-confidence. In its place was a certain modesty, that of a man who was regrettably resigned to being seen and observed, but did not particularly enjoy it. The faint downward tilt to the corner of his mouth was quite telling in that regard. It was an intriguing combination, this bold humility.

Yes, Fon decided, he would quite like to acquaint himself with this Harry.

Tsuna's mind was blank with…something. He wasn't sure what. He vaguely congratulated himself on not vocalizing that whatever-it-was, although he could not quite tramp down on his physical expression of that-strange-something.

Because at some point in the past – some very distant past, apparently – Reborn had procreated. The thought was terrifying, of course, but it also left Tsuna feeling strangely disgruntled. Oh, he knew Reborn had had a life before becoming Tsuna's tutor, knew that there had been a time when he had been Dino's tutor, had even been a time before the curse.

And yet being confronted with this incontestable proof of some other world, known solely to Reborn, was unaccountably frustrating. The thought that Reborn had an entirely different life apart from him and had not bothered to share it with him…

It stung.

"Decimo," a discreet voice murmured in his ear. Tsuna shook out of his trance and turned to regard the mansion's head butler, Cesare Idoni. "Signore Magro has just arrived with grave news. I have directed him to the third floor business lounge."

Tsuna immediately surged to his feet. Antonio Magro was the right-hand man of the don of Trad 6. It was disturbing enough that the don himself had not arrived as well, but that Cesare had sent the right hand to the most secluded of the secure lounges was even more so; Magro must have been so noticeably distraught that he did not wish to be seen by the majority of the alliance. It did not bode well for the don's niece, who had gone missing last week.

"Please continue to enjoy the meal while I handle a small bit of business," Tsuna said smoothly, voice echoing out over the sudden silence that had descended upon his rising. Hayato and Takeshi were tall and still and grave behind him. "Dessert and coffee will be served shortly in the drawing room, and then I shall join you in the conference room for discussions afterwards."

He swept out of the room, his right- and left-hand men on his heels.

Harry breathed a silent sigh of relief – or perhaps not so silent, given the faintly admonishing glance Reborn sent him – as the Vongola Decimo hastened out of the room. The sudden gravity that the surprisingly young man had exuded upon a quiet word from the butler had chilled the entire room, pulled the dumbfounded eyes off of him, and let him breath again. And then he felt slightly guilty, because something must have happened, something very worrisome, to have called the conference leader from his place at the table with such solemnity.

A hand brushing against his shoulder caught Harry's attention, and he hurried to follow his grandfather who was now striding confidently out of the large dining hall and into what Harry assumed was the drawing room the Vongola Decimo had indicated.

"Prepare for the onslaught, nipote," Reborn murmured to him through closed lips. Harry grimaced faintly. He was certainly not unused to being the center of attention and had become able to cope with searing, probing gazes following him wherever he went, but he enjoyed it no more now than he had as a child being accused of petrifying his classmates.

"The back wall beside the window," Reborn continued. "No one can approach unexpectedly, and there's an escape route."

Harry nodded – he'd been heading there anyway, his Auror-trained senses disliking the feel of so many dangerous, unfamiliar gazes upon him – when a sudden voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Signore Reborn," a quiet voice murmured. The butler was back. "Decimo is requesting your presence in the third floor business lounge."

Immediately, Reborn's self-satisfied good humor drained away, leaving in its place a cold, blank professional.

"The wall, Harry," he reiterated. "Be on your guard." And then turned to follow the butler with scarcely a nod or goodbye.

Leaving Harry all alone. He swallowed faintly and glanced around; as soon as Reborn had passed through the door, the eyes that had been following him became infinitely more blatant, burning with hungry curiosity. Harry wondered if bolting would incite them to chase, like wild predators on the trail of a sick, wounded, baby deer.

Byakuran had been anticipating this conference for quite some time. He had not seen Tsunayoshi or Mukuro for almost a year and he was dearly looking forward to antagonizing them with his mere presence; they became so adorably ruffled whenever they saw him! A mocking smirk here, a harmless insinuation there, and Wham! Instant tension. It never got old.

But oh was this even better than he had been hoping. Because Byakuran had no idea who that boy was. In all the parallel universes he had ever been privy to, not once had Reborn ever claimed another person as blood family, let alone introduced a grandson of all things to the entire Vongola Alliance!

And then Reborn was even kind enough to leave his progeny alone and entirely at Byakuran's mercy! Before that troublesome hitman had even crossed the threshold out of the room, Byakuran was gliding through the crowd, nudging subtly and administering just enough intent and pressure with his flames to let others know his aim and that their interference was not welcome.

Within moments, his course had him stood behind the young man's shoulder, just close enough to give the impression of looming but not enough to be imminently threatening – it wouldn't do to scare him off too soon, after all.

"I've never seen you before!" Byakuran trilled with precisely the right mix of delight, presumption, and condescension to induce acute discomfort. Reborn's adorable little grandson whipped around immediately and blinked his lovely green eyes in shock, but otherwise was able to maintain his composure. Byakuran looked forward to changing that.

"It's nice to meet you, then…?"

"Byakuran Gesso. But enough about me, tell me all about you~" Byakuran let his grin widen to an eerie degree, and Reborn's grandson tensed faintly and took half a step back. How cute.

"T-there's not much to tell, really. Um, d'you think you could back up, a little?"

Byakuran laughed lowly and inched closer.

"So shy, are–"

"Might I interject?" came a cool voice. Byakuran was pulled up short not by the words, but by the faint warning in the tone and the vaguest pressure of potent, volatile Storm flames closing in around his throat. He caught a glimpse of arms hanging loose and dangerous rather than folded placidly into sleeves, and pouted.

Drat. Foiled.

"Good day," offered the soft, low voice of the Asian man who had come to his rescue as the creepy white-haired man waved cheerily and sauntered off. He was quite tall and lithe, and his finely-sculpted features appeared several years older than Harry. Garbed in a long silk robe, the long braid draping around his shoulders was a dark slash against the solid crimson of the fabric, the starkness of it a salient contrast to his gentle smile. His dark grey eyes were warm and kind as he carefully insinuated himself between Harry and the demanding gazes of the others in the room. Even without that subtle motion, Harry was in his debt for shooing away that unnerving Byakuran guy.

"My name is Fon. I must say, despite my long familiarity with Reborn, I would never have guessed he had family."

"It's a bit of a recent development," Harry admitted, then narrowed his eyes slightly, scenting the possibility of information. His grandfather had been annoyingly vague and evasive on certain topics over the past week of their acquaintance, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy Harry's frustration. "How long exactly have you been familiar with him?"

The man looked faintly amused as his smile broadened and warmed past the point of distant formality. "We have been friends for a good deal longer than I appear to have been alive, I confess."

"Ah, that mysterious curse I've heard about? I don't suppose you'd be willing to shed light on it?"

Fon laughed softly, the sound of it light and airy like an echo of distant wind. "If your grandfather has not shared the story with you, then I shall not ruin his fun."

"What's this about ruining Reborn's fun, kora? I'm game," called a new voice. Harry turned to see a very tall blond man with striking blue eyes accompanied by a blue-haired woman, similarly striking with a scarred, stern visage and mahogany eyes.

"Name's Colonello, kora, and this is my wife–" the man's whole face lit up in a magnificent way at the word. A wisp of envy wormed through Harry as he witnessed the man's happiness, recalling uncomfortably the near-disastrous fallout of his own previous relationships with Cho and Ginny.

"Lal Mirch," the woman cut in. "I'm capable of introducing myself, brat." Despite the harshness of her words, there was a noticeable softness to her eyes.

"Heh, of course. Anyway, we've been working with Reborn for a long time. Never knew he had a grandson, though. Or even a kid, for that matter." Colonello's voice had tightened slightly with suspicion by the end, and Harry swallowed nervously. Although they had not moved or shifted, the couple's bearing suddenly seemed abstractly dangerous.

"I don't trust you," Lal Mirch interjected bluntly, eyes narrowed. "You seem too…normal to be descended from that guy."

Fon frowned slightly at their words. "Come now, surely you are too unfair."

"I dunno, I sort of agree. You look like a pretty nice guy," came yet another new voice. A second blond man had just appeared, looking about the same age as the other three around him. His brown eyes were lit up with good humor and he wore an easy grin on his mouth. "Name's Dino Cavallone," he continued. "Reborn was my teacher, and there's no way that sadistic guy could have had a hand in bringing up someone so modest."

"Oh," Harry said faintly, slightly overwhelmed. "Well, if it makes a difference, I didn't know he was my grandfather until a week ago. I didn't know he existed at all until a week ago."

There was a disbelieving pause, before Dino laughed weakly. "Good jok–"

"What the hell do you mean, kora?" Colonello demanded.

Harry shrugged, sighing internally as he repeated an abridged version of the tale his paranoid grandfather had forced him to recount at least thrice a day for the past week. "I was going through some old documents and found an incomplete divorce file from my grandparents. Turns out my grandmother had an affair with Reborn and my mum was born from it. I poked around a bit, found a lead, and ran into him at one of his apartments. He was really, um… surprised to find out he had a grandson, too, who knew his real name, but the blood work came back positive, so, yeah," he finished lamely, drawing back slightly as he took in his audience's reaction to the tale.

"I'm sorry," Dino said incredulously. His grandfather's three contemporaries seemed similarly taken aback, their eyebrows risen in stark disbelief. "But I thought you just said you happened upon one of Reborn's hidden bases, found him there, spouted his real name, and are still alive to tell us about it."

"Well, I was having a particularly lucky day," Harry grinned. There was no way he would have known to dodge his grandfather's bullet without that little sip of the Felix Felicis Hermione tended to keep in her potions stores, and he probably would have gone to the apartment immediately upon finding the address rather than waiting three days as another sip of the potion had intuited him at the time.

Harry was about to ask Dino what exactly his grandfather had been a teacher of, eager to move on a different topic, but stopped suddenly, frowning in the direction of the window over Colonello's shoulder. The others turned to follow his stare. He could have sworn he just saw a person with purple hair peek through the glass and then dart back into the bushes.

Shit, shit, what do I do?! Skull thought frantically. He hadn't wanted to show up to this stupid conference in the first place – the Great Skull had better things to do with his valuable time – but after that nasty business with the Carcassa and Mafia Land and letting Vongola Decimo beat him, he was sort of obligated to respond to Vongola's 'recommendation' for his presence.

He had hoped to at least make the best of a rotten situation; that stupid bully Reborn would be here, but so would a lot of other people, who would hopefully keep that ugly jerk occupied and away from him so Skull could try to enjoy the few benefits that came with being here, like the food.

But then the smug bastard had shown up with that monster. Skull had never been so terrified in his life. He had frozen for a moment, petrified with fear, before bolting and diving into the Vongola's expertly trimmed hedges. He'd been crouching there for over an hour, now, and his legs were cramping. He wondered when it would be safe to move again.

He took a deep, fortifying breath, then carefully raised himself up to glance through the window and–

Shit! That monster was staring right at him!

He hunkered back down, shaking faintly, and when the glass above him creaked and the window slid open and that horrific visage peaked out, Skull could do only one thing.

He screamed and ran.

When Reborn returned, it was to find Harry with his blond fool of a former student and three of his fellow ex-Arcobaleno at his back, all five of them staring perplexedly out a window. He clicked his tongue, vaguely disgruntled that he would have to express some modicum of gratitude to them in the future; they were all carefully situated around Harry to block him from the potentially less-than-altruistic gazes of others in the room. Then Reborn frowned a bit and thought that even so, Fon was standing a tad too close to his cute little grandson for comfort.

Fifteen centimeters is far too friendly, he thought irritably, and subtly elbowed the other man further away as he pressed in close to peer over Harry's shoulder out the window. Fon glanced at him, entirely straight-faced but for his eyes – which glimmered with maddening, knowing amusement – and obligingly shifted over.

"What's so interesting out here?" he bit out. Dino jumped at the shortness of his tone – too obvious a reaction, but at least he hasn't forgotten his training – and Lal and Colonello eyed at him askance. Only Harry did not react to his tone beyond a faint tensing of his shoulders, and tilted his head up and back to look at Reborn. He shouldn't bare his throat so easily.

"There was a purple guy hiding in the bushes. Um, Skull, they called him? He screamed and ran when he saw me," Harry said, sounding adorably befuddled. That's not the normal reaction when people see me, Reborn read in his grandson's expressive eyes. What have I done wrong?

That mindset would have to be rectified in the very near future.

"Tch," Reborn sneered. "What's that coward even doing here?"

"That's a little harsh, don't you think?" Dino laughed awkwardly.

"No," Lal said sharply. "Reborn is right, this time. That guy's too pathetic."

"Don't concern yourself with him, Harry. He's not worth the seconds you waste thinking his name," Reborn said flippantly, hoping to alleviate his concern. Harry's frown only deepened. Bully, his clear green eyes accused. There was anger there too, and surprise. Disillusionment.

For the first time in a very long time, Reborn felt a hint of disappointment in himself. Not at his treatment of Skull, of course – the fool deserved it – but rather that he had let his grandson down in some way that was apparently important to the boy. Reborn grimaced internally, but said nothing more and gave no hint as to his feelings.

Except that damnable Fon was looking at him knowingly again. This time, Reborn let his mouth curl into his most condescending sneer before taking Harry by the shoulder and guiding him away, just in time for–

"EXCUSE ME!"

Perfect timing.

The deafening, familiar voice bellowed from the drawing room door, where Ryohei Sasagawa stood waving an arm exuberantly, the rapid movement making his bright yellow tie flail wildly.

"I bid you all an extreme welcome to the 173rd Annual Vongola Alliance Conference! Please follow me to the conference room, and we can begin the talks!"

Dammit, why did I think it was a good idea to write a conference? It's hard writing so many characters and trying not to let too many of them fall by the wayside. I hope I haven't neglected anyone whose reaction someone really wanted to see (Mukuro and Hibari weren't there, btw; they're still all caught up in the rather violent game of cat-and-mouse from the first chapter).

For those that don't know, 'nipote' means grandson/granddaughter or niece/nephew. D'aww, look at Reborn being all familial.

Also, I should note that in this sequence of events, Colonello and Lal actually waited until Colonello regained his adult body before getting married (the Arcobaleno aged at an accelerated rate, about two to three times normal, until they reached their pre-cursed age roughly seven years after the curse broke).