Tsuna wasn't the only one relieved when Fon announced that their first lesson, which would also double as an impromptu potions class since Snape clearly had no idea how one was supposed to teach children (throwing the direction on the board and demanding they follow it did not count as a proper teaching method), would be how to cook their own food.

He was only mildly surprised when, after Tsuna mentioned where they were going and what they would be doing, Neville shyly asked to join in.

The boy had attached himself to Tsuna very quickly, as the timid lion was somewhat of an outcast in his own house. Considering his repeated catastrophes in potions class, he needed all the help he could get.

Oddly enough, another joined in on their class from the Ravenclaw dorms. An active Rain-Cloud by the name of Luna Lovegood.

From what Reborn and Fon could tell, the poor girl had activated early and her dreamy-eyed look (which appeared more 'stoned' to them) could be caused by an overdose of tranquility in her core, causing her to be a bit less lucid than normal. The fact she hadn't been picked up by now was a bit baffling.

Her Cloud secondary was also somewhat underdeveloped, but it was pretty clear once she found a proper Sky to attach herself to she would be fiercely loyal.

Mukuro decided to let a bit of his own Sky out in the hopes she would drift towards it, since Tsuna already had Takeshi and he didn't trust Byakuran for a minute.

A little bit of kindness and the fact that he could openly create the creatures she 'saw' went a long way and there was no doubt in the adult's minds that Luna would become Mukuro's first proper Guardian.

Though Reborn was highly amused at the speculative looks she kept giving his own student. While Kyoko was an 'acceptable' wife for Tsuna, mostly because her brother was his Sun, she was far too much like Nana. The last thing he wanted to deal with was Tsuna getting an Oedipus complex of all things...Iemitsu's narcissistic and egotistical behavior was damaging enough.

"Today we are going to be learning how to cook simple basics. Neville, I'm going to teach you and possibly Luna how to do basic prep before we even remotely move on to active heat sources. This has nothing to do with your performance in potions and more that I simply wish to ascertain how much you already know about such things before we move on to the real deal," said Fon gently.

Neville perked up at that, and Fon mentally pegged the boy to have the same confidence issues as Tsuna.

Luna, surprisingly enough, quickly moved on to working with Chrome with the actual cooking while Ken and Daemon were stuck learning the bare bones of what Fon called "proper prep work". Daemon could burn water and Ken's knife work left much to be desired.

Mukuro was somewhere in the middle, and once he got over the tedious aspects of potion making he proved to have something of a knack for the art...which easily carried over to cooking, much to his surprise.

Meanwhile Takeshi was simply learning how to make proper sushi with the fish from London. He learned a long time ago that when it came to cooking, he did best without any heat involved. Last time he had burnt the entire pan up and his father had banned him from using anything save the microwave.

Fon gently coached Neville in how to properly hold the knife and cut his ingredients up. Since this was a simple salad, it wouldn't matter overly much if he cut them incorrectly.

It was amazing how quickly the somewhat pudgy boy was able to pick up on a basic lesson, and by the end of it he felt a little more confident about using a knife.

"Fon-sensei, can Neville join us in basic warm up exercises in the morning?" asked Tsuna respectfully.

Neville blinked.

"I don't see why not, but he'll have to get up a bit earlier than normal. It would give me time to come up with some simple exercises to hopefully work off some of that excess fat he has," said Fon.

"I don't want to be a bother," said Neville nervously.

"Nonsense. A child that wishes to learn something new should be encouraged, not mocked. If I wasn't inclined to allow you to join I would have said so," said Fon. "Never mind the fact that there is an appalling lack of physical education available. A bit of exercise and hard work is good for young men your age."

Neville seemed to be very shy, but Fon could also tell the boy was happy someone thought he was worth the time to train. Considering what he would find later, he suspected the boy was using an ill-fitted wand and was heavily discouraged from his real passion which was herbology.

Defense was such a complete joke that Reborn told them not to bother with it. They had better things to do with their time than listen to the propoganda that foul woman was trying to shove on them.

Reborn and Fon were both openly disgusted that the woman was telling children about to take important exams that if they were attacked they were simply to hide their heads in the sand like ostriches and wait for the Aurors to arrive.

Never mind the fact that these same children needed good grades in defense in order to even be considered for the Auror Academy, which meant the fool was literally shooting herself in the foot when it came to new recruits. To top it off she was so angry that they were avoiding her lessons she even banned study groups, which would only make it harder for them to pass their exams.

Fon was already drafting a letter to the exam committee with a strongly worded complaint about Umbridge's teaching style, or lack thereof. He also had complaints from several students of prominent families, such as Susan Bones who's aunt was the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

He made sure to point out rather bluntly how difficult it would be for her niece to make Auror if the defense teacher assigned to the school didn't even have a Mastery and insisted on enforcing a strict policy of not allowing the students to practice the very spells that could save their lives.

He made sure to use a special courier owl bred by the family that would ensure the letter reached the intended recipients and not be waylaid by anyone else.


"Tsuna, why is there a bandage on your hand?" asked Fon somewhat sharply.

Tsuna flinched, and tried to hide it. Naturally he failed, as Fon grabbed his right hand causing him to wince openly.

Unraveling the bandages, Fon openly scowled. He could sense the dark magic on the boy's hand.

"What happened."

It wasn't a request.

Tsuna tried to speak, but couldn't. It wasn't that he was ashamed of what happened...he had only been following the direct order of a teacher and he knew damn well how Kyouya felt about students skiving off a detention (in Namimori it was simply easier to go, because Hibari had a habit of hunting down and putting people in the hospital for a month if they tried to ditch).

Except he couldn't speak. Every time he tried to explain all that came out was gibberish.

Fon's frown deepened.

"Let's try a different method. Tsuna, were you in detention with Umbridge at any point?" he asked carefully.

Rather than vocalize, he nodded.

"I see. Did she make you use any 'special' equipment or bring out anything strange?"

Tsuna thought for a moment, before he went to his bag an pulled out a random quill. He quickly scribbled the kanji for 'black' (pointing at the quill as he did), before writing down 'blood' and 'ink'.

A black quill that used blood ink.

Fon's ire was so great his eyes turned a very vengeful red color.

"She made you use a black quill that used blood for ink?"

Tsuna nodded.

"First we are going to find Reborn so he can properly heal up your wound. Then I am going to have a chat with the others about this matter. Under no circumstances are you to follow any orders from that woman or anyone else that results in you being alone with her for any length of time after this. I don't care if it's the headmaster himself, are we clear?"

"Yes sensei," said Tsuna relieved.

"Remember, while the teachers do have some limited authority over you, in the end you answer to Reborn and myself first. Our orders override theirs when it comes to your health and safety, and I don't care what they have to say about it."

Tsuna looked considerably relieved hearing that...after hearing a fraction of what went on in the school from the last few years from Neville and the twins, he felt safer having to deal with Reborn's antics in Namimori over the school's idea of security.

Reborn looked rather pissed when Fon explained to him what happened, and quietly healed over Tsuna's injury. Fortunately he had only suffered through one detention with the foul woman so the wound was relatively easily to fix, even with Reborn's limited skills in healing.

However the fact she used what was basically a torture device on his student... the toad had signed her death warrant.


McGonagall thought herself a hardened veteran of two wars.

However the sight before her was enough to turn even her stomach as she vacated the room long enough to empty her stomach contents all over the floor.

Out of the other teachers, only Snape and Dumbledore were able to keep from throwing up...barely.

Whoever had killed Umbridge had not been quick or 'pleasant' about it. It was very clear she had been worked over by someone who knew exactly what they were doing to inflict maximum pain as she had been quite literally tortured to death for hours. Her wand was kept just out of reach on the table, while Umbridge herself had been shackled to the wall with the same manacles that Filch often threatened the students with.

Ironically the man in question was one of the most pale as he had been the one to discover the woman's corpse along with his new cat, Mrs. Norris the fourth.

"Who could have done this? The wards should have picked up on magic as foul as this!" said McGonagall, once she reclaimed her compusure.

"Magic? Don't be ridiculous," said Snape.

The other teachers, including Dumbledore looked at him.

"Take a look over there. Whoever did this didn't use any magic whatsoever, which is why the wards never picked up on anything until she actually died," said Snape. "They must have done something to really piss off a professional, for them to do this much damage in so little time."

Snape had a very good idea who was behind it too, as Zabini had explained to him exactly what Mukuro was and what he could do the second he recognized him the morning after the sorting.

Finding out they were hosting two of the Arcobaleno had come as a nasty shock, especially when Zabini warned him about Mukuro and Byakuran.

However he wasn't stupid enough to bring down the ire of Reborn on his ass by alerting the headmaster exactly what he had allowed into the castle. He wasn't suicidal.

Instead Snape decided to kill time before the Aurors came to investigate the scene to track down the two cursed men and have a long overdue chat.

"Next time you plan to murder someone, do it outside the castle. Dumbledore's irritating enough as it is without dragging me into investigating someone's long overdue demise," he said flatly.

Reborn and Fon didn't even try for innocent.

"Whatever do you mean," asked Reborn.

Snape gave Reborn a flat look.

"Dumbledore might be an idiot, but even I know what the word Arcobaleno means. I barely get enough sleep as it is with the damn patrols and classes I have to teach, and I don't want to deal with any more open murders on top of it."

"I'll be sure to let Kyouya and Takeshi know to dump the bodies where the acromantula will find them then," said Fon, only half joking.

"...If you plan to off any of my Slytherins, could you at least give me fair warning so I have time to pre-draft a condolence letter?" he asked.

He wasn't about to stop these two from doing a little 'cleansing' of the gene pool. Some people were better off being removed early before their stupidity spread through their children. Like Crabbe and Goyle for instance.

Reborn was so openly amused by the request that he agreed to it.

On the plus side they had basically been given carte blanche to get rid of a few idiots that would cause trouble later so long as they gave Snape some warning ahead of time so he could draft a condolence letter and didn't have to deal with searching for the body.

If that didn't amuse Mukuro, Daemon, Hayato and Kyouya, nothing would. All three of them had been getting very antsy for the past two weeks having to restrain themselves from their more violent responses.

Takeshi had it easy. Everytime someone brought up his lack of wand or the fact he avoided any class that required far too much magic, he was able to skirt the issue claiming his clan didn't allow it and would scare off the one asking with a rather terrifying smile that implied they were about to meet the business end of Shigure Kintoki if they didn't drop it.