Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Katekyo Hitman Reborn and I don't earn any money with this story.

Author's note: Writing this chapter was like pulling teeth. Shark teeth. With bare hands.

Rating: M

Warning: Violence

Beta'd by the lovely NonchalantxFish, thank you very much :)

Potter stepped through the apparently solid wall of rock without batting an eye, but then again Reborn hadn't expected anything else from him. On the other side of the illusion Snape, Shacklebolt and Weasley were waiting for them in a narrow cave passageway, barely high enough to accommodate the men's not insignificant height. All three of them were holding their respective wand in one hand and a torch in the other – though one lit with fire, not the expected electric version.

"Normal electronics don't work well in places with high magic density. The Lumos spell is usually a good alternative, because our wands turn into a sort of magical torch, but other spells can't be used simultaneously," Potter explained upon Reborn's inquiry about the outdated light source and promptly transfigured a rock into a torch, added some liquid out of a phial, then lit it with a muttered Incendio .

The hitman hummed and raised his right hand towards his fedora, where Leon had waited for his time to shine – literally. The chameleon turned into a green torch, through which Reborn directed a moderate but steady stream of Sun Flames to create a light.

"What the-" Potter, who had watched the transformation from the corners of his eyes, gaped in astonishment and hesitantly tapped a finger against Leon, who twitched a bit when the brunet accidentally found a ticklish spot. "Can he transform into anything?"

"He can't change his size and he has to have seen the object before, but otherwise yes," Reborn confirmed, smirking. It was nice to turn the tables and throw a wizard for a loop instead of being the one shocked or confused.

"Yes, marvellous indeed, the chameleon can shapeshift. You can discuss its amazing transformation skills later," Snape drawled. "Or should we leave you to your picnic and get the Horcrux ourselves?"

" Please don't shoot my Cloud Guardian," Potter entreated Reborn quickly (and there was definitely an amused glint in his eyes) as the hitman contemplatively fingered his gun. Reborn saw Snape roll his eyes from the corner of his eyes, but his attention had shifted back to Potter.

"Oh? What will I get for sparing him?"

"You will make me very happy?" Reborn stared at the brunet with all the force of his wholly unimpressed being. "…and Tiramisu, as soon as I have time to make it."

"Hm, fine. It better be good."

Potter snorted as he first squeezed past Shacklebolt, then Snape to align himself right behind Weasley. Reborn, who was still sitting on the brunet's shoulder, silently pondered who and which factors had decided this order. The reason quickly became apparent to him, when Weasley edged around apparently innocent looking parts of ground, ducked under air here and there and at times got dragged back by Potter's hand in his robes.

Traps then.

Shacklebolt and Snape were following their lead unquestioningly. It all seemed pretty random, but considering Reborn hadn't even seen the entrance to the cave, he was grudgingly giving both of them the benefit of the doubt.

They walked for about ten to fifteen minutes, before the cave broadened enough to allow two people to walk next to each other comfortably. Potter pointed to a slightly protruding, innocent looking rock to their left. "This is where we had to abort the mission last time."

A short while later, Weasley jerked to a halt and raised his hand to stop them, as well. The redhead cast a few spells and a web of differently coloured threads appeared in front of them. They reached from one side of the tunnel to the other, were tightly interwoven and ended each in a circle of symbols. Runes?

"Hm, that's a problem," Weasley mumbled, while tracing each thread and the corresponding runes with his eyes.

"What's wrong, Bill? What does it do?" Shacklebolt inquired. His voice sounded calm and collected, but Reborn picked out a faint undertone of concern.

"Several things, this curse web is a pretty disgusting piece of work." The redhead furrowed his brow as he pointed to a dark blue thread. "This here will melt skin, if you come even close to it and the red one over there will make your blood boil." He critically studied an anthracite, almost black thread and its respective symbols. "I'm not quite sure what this one does, but it probably won't be pretty," Weasley added gravely and cast another spell, which made the threads pulse for whatever reason.

"But you can deactivate them, right?" Potter asked hopefully, looking back and forth between Weasley and the obstruction.

"Individually they wouldn't pose a problem, but they're tightly interwoven with each other. That means I can't take them down one by one. It has to happen simultaneously, otherwise the whole thing will explode into our faces and if we survive that, we'll be smashed to pieces by the cave in. Too bad we can't get rid of the anti-apparition wards in this place or we could just apparate to the other side."

"I don't suppose we can assist you in taking this down?" Snape inquired, but Weasley shook his head before the brunet had even finished the question. "None of you has enough training. Getting the timing just right is tricky. Curse breaking teams have to practice for hours until they can dismantle a curse web like this."

"We could just circumvent it by building a tunnel," Reborn pointed out dryly, making everyone else come to a dead stop. Their flummoxed expressions conjured a smirk onto the hitman's lips, who was starting to like this day a lot more than the previous one. "I assume there's an appropriate spell for getting the job done?"

And indeed there was. Probably even more than one, but the only spell coming up was one of Weasley's, apparently used during digs. It was a slow-going process, which only removed an inch or two of rock per spell use, but an hour and a half later they finally stood on the other side of the curse web.

"Let's hope there won't be more wards like this…," Potter muttered, while casting a Scourgify on himself, then on Reborn, who only heard him because he had resumed his seat on the brunet's shoulder after walking through the new tunnel.

The cave passageway declined, leading them even deeper underground, until they came to a forked path.

"What now? Should we split up?" Weasley didn't sound too thrilled by that option.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Potter retorted, critically eying the tunnel Reborn was currently illuminating with Leon. "There's another fork over there and I bet the other way leads to at least one, too. Looks like this might be the entrance to a cave labyrinth…" The brunet uttered a deep sigh. "I hate labyrinths, especially when they're somehow connected to V. In moments like this I wish the Point Me-spell would actually point towards something you're looking for and not just North."

In the end they took the left path and the further they followed it, the more Potter was frowning and tilting his head, like he was hearing something. Reborn heard nothing but their breathing, their footsteps and the rustling of their clothing.

"What is it?"

"There are snakes behind these walls, they… it seems like they have the order to kill us. Well, anyone who reaches this place, actually, but they're waiting for something."

So Potter understood snakes... For some reason, Reborn wasn't even surprised anymore.

"What are they waiting for?"

"The 'white ones'. I guess some kind of welcoming committee is awaiting us," Potter offered with an empty smile and gripped his wand a bit tighter.

They took a few more turns without anything happening, but suddenly scuffling could be heard and in the next moment a pale creature lunged at them from the darkness. Reborn was the first to fire a shot. The bullet broke through cranial bone, but the thing didn't even seem to notice and was certainly not slowing down. Then fiery rope encircled the creature, before a fist-sized fireball exploded against its chest. The being screeched (perhaps in anguish, perhaps in fury), as it was quickly consumed by the flames.

"More Inferi are coming! Keep the fire spells up and don't forget the snakes!" Potter shouted, before casting spell after spell at the oncoming zombie-like creatures. Reborn jumped to the ground and sent Sun Flame infused bullets at the Inferi, which weren't anywhere as effective as the fire spells the wizards were using, even if they slowed the monster down a bit.

With a heartfelt grumble Reborn turned to the venomous, hissing snakes, which charged at the wizards as soon as they dropped from the holes and cracks in the wall. There were dozens upon dozens of them, every single one more deadly than the next. The pale ones, like the Inland Taipans, were easy to spot, before they had the chance to bring about damage, but others were barely visible in the dim light of the cave, especially now that only two torches continued to burn on the ground. Fortunately Reborn had had lots of practice at eliminating opponents and marks in worse situations.

Easily evading grasping, rotting hands, or kicking the moving corpses away from him, Reborn put one bullet after another into snake heads. Meanwhile part of his attention remained on Potter, whose continuing existence was the only one that mattered to him (and perhaps Snape's as the teen's Guardian). The brunet's back was to the cave wall and his spells were incinerating Inferi by the second, but as soon as one turned to dust, another one took its place in a seemingly never ending onslaught.

By chance Reborn witnessed Shacklebolt bumping against part of another wall, which had to be yet another trap, because in the next moment purple light flashed from the spot, engulfed the man's right arm up to the elbow and squeezed . A pained cry tore out of Shacklebolt's mouth as the curse not only broke the bones, but visibly shattered them. The man's wand clattered to the ground, just as a new Inferius lunged at him, but a whip consisting of fire wrapped around the creature in time and dragged it back, while simultaneously setting it aflame.

"Activate your emergency portkey!" Snape, who was the one wielding the whip, shouted even as he dodged an incoming zombie attack. Reborn shot the Tiger Snake above the brunet's head.

"But-"

"Now, Kingsley!" Shacklebolt clenched his teeth, but nonetheless disappeared into thin air after retrieving his wand.

"Fall back!"

Reborn's head whipped to Potter, whose expression was furious, as he first eyed the spot where Shacklebolt had stood, then another one the hitman couldn't see, but was probably the location of Weasley. Potter took a deep breath and on the next the force of his resolve tinged his green eyes orange as the brunet entered Hyper-Dying Will mode. More Inferi were incoming, but this time they didn't even have the chance to come close before a tornado of Flame swallowed them. There was nothing graceful about the attack that filled the cave with ear-splitting screeches, but the pureness and abundance of the Sky Flames alone took Reborn's breath away.

When the fire finally died down there was no Inferi army left and Potter was on his knees, gasping for breath. The Dying-Will Flame above his brows had flickered out. And there, on the other side of the cave passage, Snape's fire whip disappeared as the man crumbled to the ground, a Black Mamba falling with him. A few feet away Weasley lay unconscious, bleeding profusely from a head wound and several gashes.