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Playing With Fire
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Harry notices some oddities to his mind and memories, gaps and misunderstandings and things that just don't add up. When everything is said and done, he goes to a Healer, and learns that Dumbledore's manipulations run a lot deeper than anyone could have imagined. Reborn/Harry.
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I do not own Harry Potter, or Katekyo Hitman REBORN. I'm just playing in the sandbox.
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CHAPTER FOUR
He knew he probably shouldn't have been there.
But he couldn't stand another minute in that tiny cabin with his thoughts. Of course, now he was out here with his thoughts, but it no longer quite felt so claustrophobic. Harry sighed, propping his head up on his hand as he stared at the polished brass taps of the ship's bar in the faint light from the corridor outside. He'd snuck out in the wee hours of the morning, slipping free of the bed and lightly stepping over Renato who had decided to sleep on the floor than risk crawling in with him. Harry would have felt guilty, and he did, but the Italian had dragged him out of England and was now taking him into a hive of scum and villainy. He didn't feel guilty or charitable enough to have him within the same bed as him at this particular moment in time (he wanted him in the bed, but alas, both morals and pride were at war with affection and teenage hormones. It wasn't a pretty fight). He'd snuck into the closed and darkened mess just to sit and think without having the Italian hovering like a nervous puppy in his shadow.
He imagined this would go better if someone was actually there to serve alcohol.
He snorted quietly to himself, like anyone would actually serve a fifteen year old alcohol, 'Sky' or not. Somehow he also doubted that the alcohol would help him deal with this situation either, as much as he hoped that it would.
No matter how he rationalised this mess, all of his morals, everything he had been taught by those around him, said that he should ditch Renato and run for it, summon the Aurors and have him arrested. The problem there though... was that he just didn't want to. He liked Renato, and didn't want to leave, or get him in trouble. And that there, started another moral dilemma.
He didn't care as much as he thought he should have when it came to Renato being a Hitman for Hire.
He wondered if he even completely understood what it meant given his lack of care for it, yes on an intellectual level he knew and understood, but did he actually understand? He wasn't so sure. Dumbledore, Hermione, Ron, would have been ashamed of him for wanting to stay with Ren, for being selfish, for leaving England when he knew Voldemort was back, for worrying them like this.
But a small part of him, vicious, selfish indeed, Slytherin, told him to screw Dumbledore and his poxy war. Harry didn't ask to be involved, they forced him! Them and whatever thrice damned backwards ass reason they had that they wouldn't tell him about! They forced him by throwing him at Voldemort time and time again because they either weren't there, or didn't listen, or someone was in danger. He hadn't been given any choice! Well, now he did! Didn't he?
He had Renato.
He had been expelled from Hogwarts, so nothing was really tying him to England anymore. His Uncle had thrown him out onto the streets with only the clothes on his back, and he wasn't so materialistic to care about anything beyond maybe his photo-album, Firebolt, and Invisibility Cloak simply because of the emotional connections he had through them. Only his friends remained – his friends who would join in on trying to convince him to fight a Dark Lord fifty years his senior that he had no chance in beating because of his fucking substandard education. For fuck's sake, a different Defence Professor every year? And only two of them being worth their pay-cheque? ONE OF THEM WAS A MERLIN DAMNED DEATH EATER! He would die if he faced Voldemort.
And for what?
A country full of sheep that thought he was an attention seeking lunatic, in a fight he hadn't even started.
Harry scowled darkly, fuck that, he concluded. And anyone that tried to force him back.
He'd made his choice. Now, he just had to live with it.
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Renato was still sleeping when Harry crept back into the room, his lanky frame sprawled out through the tiny sliver of floor space between the bed and bathroom door, limbs akimbo, and his neck bent at an uncomfortable angle. He would get a nasty crick like that, Harry noted as he lingered in the doorway staring down at his face only faintly illuminated from the deck lights through the porthole window.
He couldn't help but crack a smile. A bitter mixture of affection and resentment in equal measure, his stomach churning as he watched the rise and fall of the teenager's bare chest.
This was the person he picked over everyone else in England, in his world. Over Ron and Hermione, over Sirius and Remus, over the memory of his parents.
He picked Renato, and the slim chance of a future. A future where he might live to see beyond his twentieth birthday.
He carefully stepped over the Hitman's sprawled legs, and dragged the bedding off onto the floor, he gently took the jacket that Ren had been using as a blanket away and threw it onto the bed even as he carefully tucked the teenager into the white and blue duvet. He didn't stir, even when Harry shifted his head to slid the pillow under him. Then, Harry squirmed in beside him, he was just about small enough to make it work in the infinitesimal space, pressed tightly against the older teenager's side.
He propped his head up on an elbow and watched him. And wondered just what kind of magic he had cast to make him care like this... to care enough in the scant day, two days, he had known him, over Ron and Hermione despite their many years and life threatening circumstances? Over Ron who could make him laugh no matter what, who knew his favourite foods, how he liked his tea, that Harry was always an early riser unless he wasn't feeling well, his best Quidditch Plays, where to stand in a fight to have his back; over Hermione who could take one look at his face and know exactly what he felt even when he himself didn't, who knew exactly what bothered him and how best to resolve it, who kept her head even when he lost his but had to pretend otherwise, who shored him up and never forgot what he needed help with or what homework he hadn't yet done because of this or that asinine reason.
Perhaps it was because they didn't have that shared history that it was... easier. There was no expectation between them. He didn't know about the Boy-Who-Lived. He didn't expect Harry to save him from Voldemort, or be the perfect Golden Boy. Harry was allowed to be... Harry. Even when Ron and Hermione couldn't let him. He sighed quietly and pressed a kiss to the teenager's forehead and settled down beside him properly, cheek on his shoulder. He would worry about it in the morning, when he could ask Ren about it properly.
He fell asleep to the feeling of the other teenager sleepily drawing him closer, wrapping him in warmth, like sunlight on a hot summer's day.
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I know this Chapter is shamefully small, but I honestly can't come out with anything more. This was just such a lovely place to leave it off that I had to. Bunny doesn't want this chapter to have any more content. Fic is still on-going, but this chapter is done. Merry Christmas! 8)
As part of your Pressies this holiday, I have updated the following fics:
Niflheim Academy
Against My Nature
Echoes of Green
Storming Skies
Protectors
Playing with Fire
Hand You're Dealt