"Uncle we need to go pick up my other Mist-"
XxXxX
"Uncle my Lightning is scared and lonely and little, we gotta go back to Italy-"
XxXxX
Harry was really coming to dread every time his niece entered his office and started a sentence with 'uncle', because it meant so much paperwork. Not to mention that it was never just one person they were finding, it always ended up with extra tagalongs. Not that he didn't like the extra kids running around underfoot, he adored every single one, even the very uncute Mukuro who's newly discovered passion for pranking meant hell on earth for everyone else in the castle.
Mukuro, Ken, and Chikusa had been seeing mind healers every other day, and were making good progress for the sheer amount of trauma they'd suffered. They were all quite taken with Tsuna, especially after they discovered her plans for whoever it was that destroyed so many of Hayato's internal organs. The trio-who were all either wizards or just above squib level with their magical cores-were soon inducted into the Black family as wards, and honestly Harry had scrambled to lock up the more dangerous books in the library.
Takeshi liked them quite a bit, though he tended to like most everyone unless they threatened the people he cared about. The boy was otherwise very chill, until he got competitive, and then all bets were off. He was slightly more powerful than a squib, like Hayato and Ken, with plenty of magic to fly a broom, and the boy had taken to the idea of Quidditch terrifyingly well.
A beater to be feared if he'd ever saw one.
Tsuna was a natural seeker, and Hayato was a pretty good keeper in his own right. Kyouya, on the other hand, was like Takeshi in that he was a natural beater. Mukuro and Chikusa preferred the chaser position, along with one of the newest arrivals, a very sweet and shy girl named Nagi.
Nagi was Tsuna's other Mist, and definitely related to Mukuro in some way, the resemblance was too cose to think otherwise. She had been liberated from her abusive actress mother's household with relative ease-the magical laws regarding Soul Fire were pretty extensive in Japan, and Elements/Guardians were given a number of protections, from family and Skies alike. The actress had been so vile about Nagi that the Japanese Auror who'd gone to investigate had authorized emergency extraction for a young witch, so she too was now a ward of House Black.
While still painfully shy, with Tsuna, Kyouya, and Mukuro establishing themselves as sibling-protectors Nagi was slowly beginning to open up and undo some of the damage her birth mother had left her with. She was also currently Harry's favorite, because she didn't cause trouble. Not that she didn't get into trouble, but that was usually Mukuro's fault.
The most recent arrival was three-year old Lambo, the toddler his niece's youngest Guardian and the child with the second-worst medical issues. The boy was brilliant, and unfortunately the Famiglia he was born into had taken that to mean he was ready to be electrocuted daily as 'training' to be useful. As a result the poor kid had active Soul Fire, a shit ton of accidental magic, and needed careful managing that he hadn't been getting with the Bovino.
The Italian Ministry of Magic hadn't even bothered asking him if Tsuna was the toddler's Sky this time, tales of his exploits on his niece's behalf having spread even there, just authorized an 'extraction' as well as started an investigation into the famiglia for any other potential wizards and witches being abused there.
With Lambo came his underage father, one Romeo Bovino who'd been at his wits end, unable to protect his tiny son because he was constantly sent out on increasingly suicidal hits because apparently he was the favored heir after the current Don and the Don's son didn't like that (the Don only being such because he was the brother of the recently deceased previous one).
Romeo was seventeen, his child's mother having died in childbirth and apparently not a Bovino to begin with, so he'd been struggling until Harry had arrived with Tsuna.
The young man had noticed immediately what was going on and had outright begged on his knees, which had gone a long way to fast-tracking the magical ministry's actions.
Because Harry was a bloody bleeding heart he offered Romeo the choice to come with back to Japan, and a job in helping Harry finally check out all the properties he'd inherited and seeing what they needed to be returned to useable condition. He got to see his son whenever he wanted, had help with raising him because the house elves were delighted with another little one, and got the support he so desperately needed.
On the other plus side, Teddy and Lambo got along like a house on fire, so there was that. Actually, out of all the kids only Kyouya and Mukuro actually had a love-hate relationship; Hayato could get pretty irritated with Takeshi sometimes but he was also viciously defensive of him, and the rest of his psuedo-siblings, as the pack of children had become.
On Harry's side of things, he had expanded his own friend group somewhat with the inclusion of Tsuyoshi and his wife Emi. The Hibari matriarch-and he didn't dare even think of the woman by her first name, invitation be damned, she was like a viper and he'd bet his wand that she would find a way to make him regret being so casual no matter how much she claimed to like him-had been peripherally aware of them, but now they were spending much more time together, as the kids were constantly running around the castle.
The poor house elves were run ragged keeping up with them, though the elves appeared to love every minute of it.
Inori was also a regular presence, the healer having opted to re-do her contract so that she was the exclusive healer for the Black and Potter families. It was a well-paying position that afforded her a lot of respect amongst her peers.
Over the years his relationship with her had settled into a sibling-esque bond, her fierce protectiveness over the kids something they had in common. They'd also both been raised by awful relatives, but what they had wasn't in any way romantic, no matter what Teddy liked to tease.
She was, however, a calming presence for the traveling zoo of children that was the crowd he took out every weekend, either around Namimori or to magical zoos or shopping center. Inori also happened to be the real reason Tsuna was able to lure in her Sun Guardian and informally adopt the boy's younger sister and her best friend, as being a doctor won her major brownie points, the others being accepted by association.
XxXxX
Tsuna felt the, by now, familiar tug of one of her Elements in need, and veered off from where she'd been walking ahead of her family on their way back from the movies. Hayato sped up to walk next to her, green eyes sharp.
"Another?"
"My Sun, and two others," she replied, quickly transitioning into a jog when the tug got sharper. She raised her voice after checking that the street they were on was empty. "Uncle, I'm going ahead! I think it's the park!"
With a crack, her focus and magic brought her just off to the side of a group of what looked like high school students, a handful of then attacking a younger boy with white hair while two more restrained two girl's about Tsuna's age. Her Flames, reached out, reading the situation, and she scowled. Drawing on the heat from her Flames, she pushed, Harmonizing her Will over those of the high school boys. They dropped like rocks, and she hurried over to check on the white haired boy who had collapsed.
"Onii-san!" The brunette girl rushed over to, her face a mess of tears and a hand-shaped bruise. The slightly taller girl with black hair followed, her lips pursed and chin jutting out stubbornly even though her eyes were shiny with tears too.
"He's unconscious but mostly just bruised," Tsuna told the boy's sister, after having checked his pulse and given him a careful once over in search of blood. There was only a bit from his broken nose, but what she said was true, most of his injuries were just bruises. Bad ones, of course, but bruises nonetheless. "My uncle should be here soon, he can help."
The younger sister sobbed, but nodded, the other girl pulling her away and into a hug. The black haired girl's eyes were flinty, and now that she wasn't in any immediate danger there was fury and frustration filling the space where forced calm had been before.
"Tsuna-chan!"
"There he is," she said, leaning back on her heels slightly to wave him over. The rest of her family came with, Inori-sensei passing over baby Lambo to Takeshi so she had her hands free. "And this is Inori-sensei, she's a doctor."
"What happened?" Harry asked, kneeling down next to the girls, who'd all but clammed up with the swarm that had approached.
"The older boys were beating him up and ganging up on him, and two of them were holding onto these two," Tsuna replied, motioning with a hand to each person as she spoke.
"You did something to them," the black haired girl stated, eyes narrowed. "Without touching them."
The sheer level of demanding suspicion there was frankly impressive. It also set the mood for the rest of the afternoon, a territorial baby Cloud trying to figure out a way to extract her unfortunately curious little girl of a territory from 'the nice people who helped us and Onii-san' with a frustraingly small amount of success.
As it turned out, Hana's mother was a squib-there sure were a lot of them in Namimori-who was still on good terms with the magical family, so after being introduced the girl was slightly less suspicious and more resigned because even in Japan the Potters, Blacks, and Peverells had some powerful reputations.
Though the local Hibari branch of the clan was much worse. That they were allied with Tsuna's own families just made it worse in Hana's eyes.
Kyoko, however, had seen how affectionate Tsuna and her Guardians/siblings were, and decided they were all going to be great friends because they saved her brother and her and her friend, so they had to be good.
Ryohei, for his part, had been loudly appreciative of Tsuna coming to help his sister, and since Kyouya was actually socialized they organized a spar for the boy with endless energy. Tsuna was pretty sure her uncle was going to sulk because there was no way Ryohei was going to be anything but unapologetically boisterous, even in the castle, because he would be at some point. Kyoko and Hana were also invited, of course, though they'd had to get the elves to clean up the hidden, mundane driveway around the backside of the property.
Only Hana ever questioned why nobody could see Blackfeather Castle from town, nodding appreciatively when told about the muggle-repelling wards and other charms that prevented it.
XxXxX
When Tsuna was twelve and had been enrolled in Mahoutokoro's magical day program for several years, Nana was deemed mentally well enough to come back to Japan to live with them; this whole time she'd spent overseas in a special hospital that specialized in magical mental healing had done the woman good. She'd responded well to the extended therapy and treatment, and had regular appointments scheduled with a local mind healer she'd have to attend for some years yet, but Tsuna was looking forwards to seeing her mother again.
Everyone else had opted to scatter, though they remained pretty close as a silent show of support, just... not really in sight.
Harry had gone to pick Nana up, and they would be Flooing back through the fireplace in the main foyer, so Tsuna was fidgeting in her day dress and sandals around the room as she waited.
It had been a long time since she'd seen Nana, long enough that she struggled to remember exactly what her mother looked like. Instead, the young heiress had struggled with memories of her pleas for help with school being ignored, or how unnerving the woman's obsession with Tsuna's absent father was.
Harry had told her, that it wasn't really Nana's fault, how they'd found that somebody had broken her mother's mind and hadn't put her back together right. It had still taken years for her to learn how to move past the hurt.
So now she was waiting to see if mentally knowing that it had been out of both her and Nana's control would be enough to have the emotional knowing kick in, too.
The fireplace flared green long before she was ready, but she'd been training as an heiress, so she straightened her spine and school her facial expression into something more befitting of her station. Of course, it all came crumbling down the second her mother stepped into Blackfeather Castle and met her gaze; Tsuna burst into overwhelmed tears, reaching for the mother she had silently been missing, and then they were hugging each other tight.
"I'm so sorry I wasn't there, baby," Nana sniffled into her hair. "I'm sorry I wasn't good for you, but I'll do better now, I promise."
Only able to nod into the woman's neck in response, the little witch struggled to keep her magic from reacting explosively, calming a bit when a familiar hand rested on top of her head. Her uncle was there too, a comfort when she wasn't sure how to feel about Nana's presence even though she really had wanted her mother back for so long, Harry would make sure that she didn't get hurt again.
"Why don't we get up on one of the couches," Harry said, helping the girls up off the floor. "I'll go get some tea, and then Tsuna can show you up to your room, Nana. The other kids will be around, so if you haven't met them all by dinner time we'll introduce you then, as well as the other adults here."
"That sounds lovely, cousin," Nana agreed as they settled into a plush, oversized armchair, her fingers trailing through her daughter's hair. "Oh, honey, you've grown up so much! Let me look at you?"
Lifting her face, Tsuna's smile wobbled but held. Nana looked... not old, but less young than in her memories. Her brown hair was longer than it used to be, loosely braided and pulled over one shoulder, and the eyes that Tsuna had inherited were brighter, too. That slightly vacant expression was gone, the hazy, air-headed look in her eyes absent, and in their place was a woman so real that the old fake-ness hurt in comparison.
"My beautiful, beautiful girl. Still cute, not so little anymore," Nana murmured, cupping Tsuna's face with her hands. "Harry's been good to you, right? You like it here?"
"Uncle's been great, Mama, he helped fix me and helped all my friends and my Elements-" She cut off with a squeak, but her mother only laughed wetly.
"It's alright, Tsu-chan, Harry told me about magic and your Soul Fire. The mind healers felt it was best I understand fully what your father used on me, to help me break out of the compulsions. I'm so sorry I wasn't able to fight it off alone, baby, if I'd been..." Nana stopped herself and sighed. "No, the what-ifs don't help. All I can say is that I won't ever be like that again, okay? I won't let that happen, for your sake."
A flare of hot fury shot up Tsuna's spine at what her mother had revealed-sure, she'd suspected that Iemitsu hadn't stopped at Sealing her Flames, but Harry had never actually said anything so until just now she hadn't been sure-but instead of voicing it she just leaned into her mother's chest, snuggling close. Nana smelled like flowers and tea, the scent faded and hollow in her memories but comforting to her now.
"Welcome home, Mama."
Maybe she'd give her mother Iemitsu's severed head as a present, so they could both be sure he'd never be able to hurt them again.