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

Author's note: So sorry it took me this long to get out the next chapter! Plot bunnies took over my body and forced me to write other stuff. I'm still looking for a beta reader. If anyone's interested, please drop me a PM.

Rating: M

Warning: None

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

Well, that had escalated quickly. A Sky with Flame exhaustion, a Guardian with at least half a dozen snake bites on his neck and one of the most lethal snake poisons in his blood stream, a man whose arm bones had been all but pulverised, another one who was on his best way to bleeding to death and, last but not least, a very frustrated Sun Acrobaleno. Strongest hitman in the world, indeed; Reborn hadn't been this useless against an opponent in decades.

Reborn took his prior assessment back, he couldn't wait to see the back of this day.

Potter staggered to his feet like a newborn fawn and limped over to his downed Cloud. Nobody could claim the teen wasn't tenacious. "Can you activate Bill's emergency portkey, please? The others can do a better patch-up job than me," the wizard requested, his voice strained, but his hands steady as he rummage through Snape's pockets. He pulled various boxes and phials with dubious looking liquids out of them and piled them up next to him.

Reborn watched him open one of the small boxes, while he himself toddled over to Weasley, smeared some of the redhead's blood over the bracelet on his right wrist to make it controllable for him and spoke the activation phrase. The redhead disappeared without further ado.

The box contained dark stones or at least something similar. Who knew with magic in the equation? Potter picked one of them and forced Snape to swallow it, before he finally activated the older man's portkey, as well. Only then did the brunet sigh in relief and sit back.

"I'll keep searching," Potter informed him as he fiddled with the beeper attached to his belt and then inspected his swollen ankle. "We can't afford coming back a third time," he tapped the possible sprain with his wand and mumbled ' Episkey' . When the swelling lessened slightly but didn't disappear, Potter uttered another sigh.

"Severus will kill me… and then Shamal will somehow revive me and kill me too. Maybe the other way around."

"Your brother won't?"

"No… he'll give me this kicked puppy look, which he reserves just for me, and that's a lot worse," Potter grumbled. He stuffed the boxes and vials into the pouch with the gadgets and downed the contents of the last one. Shortly thereafter, steam was coming out of his ears. The brunet still looked weary, but a bit more energised.

Yeah. Okay. A magical energy drink. Why not?

"This'll keep me on my feet for another hour or two. You good to go?" Potter scrutinised him, probably belatedly checking for injuries. Reborn scoffed in reply. As if he'd get injured during such a small skirmish. He hopped onto the brunet's shoulder and tugged none too gently on one of the dark strands in retaliation for the ridiculous assumption. Potter batted at him half-heartedly but didn't try to dislodge Reborn from his shoulder.

"Do you plan on running around like a headless chicken some more?"

Potter frowned at him, before taking a look around. After a moment of contemplation, he zeroed in on one of the remaining snakes, probably a black-banded sea krait. It was eyeing them attentively, but didn't attack. The wizard pointed his wand at the reptile, which stopped swaying the moment the spell hit it and slithered up to them, when Potter started to hiss at it. The hitman inched his hand towards his gun, but the medium-sized snake docilely wrapped itself around the brunet's left arm. A hissed conversation, to which Reborn wasn't privy to, followed, then they were moving forward.

"It knows where V went and it'll navigate us to the right spot," the brunet explained and either didn't see or ignored Reborn's dubious gaze.

"It could be lying." Maybe. Were snakes capable of lying? Reborn honestly wasn't sure, but it was a possibility. "They did try to kill us and almost succeeded in one case."

Potter shook his head, the expression on his face bordering on guilty.

"Don't worry, I used the Imperius curse on it. It's a mind-control spell, so the snake has to tell me the truth."

As they, or rather the wizard, followed the winding path through the underground maze, Reborn pondered the ability to force one's will upon another being with magic. Threatening someone or blackmailing them could lead to the same result, but this magical equivalent seemed more unnerving somehow.

"Can everyone cast the curse? Does it work on everybody?" Would it work on Reborn? On Potter? That'd spell not only trouble, but a catastrophe of epic proportions.

"Yeah, I guess so, it's one of the three Unforgivables, though, and usually means a direct trip to Azkaban, our prison. Fighting it off can be hard, it depends on the person, but it's definitely possible with enough training. And, uh, according to the snake we've reached our goal."

Both of them stared at the dead-end in front of them. It didn't even hide an invisible entrance, it was just a solid wall of rock. A solid wall of rock that the ominous V apparently had an open sesame to.

"Bloody hell…" The wizard released their guide, before getting down to business. Reborn hopped off his shoulder, when Potter stopped guessing passwords and began to hurl blasting charms and mini bombs at the wall. He even tried the digging spell again, but the rock remained undamaged. The thing was better reinforced than Fort Knox. Finally, Potter sank to the floor with his back to the supposed entrance and wearily rubbed his face with both hands.

"We came this far and now- Fuck!" The brunet furiously slammed his fist against the rock to his left, and grimaced in pain. The problem hadn't even been the force of the momentum but the now blood-smeared, sharp edge Potter had managed to hit. Reborn rolled his eyes and called him an idiot.

Red rivulets ran down the teen's arm and disappeared beneath the sleeve, but neither of them paid attention to it any longer, when the rock started to rumble and finally slid to the side, revealing the elusive entrance they'd been looking for.

They locked eyes in astonishment, before the wizard quickly scrambled to his feet, swayed for a dangerous moment, before cautiously entering the room. It was empty, bar a stone pedestal in the centre, which displayed a plain casket.

"This must be it!" Potter stepped closer and poked the casket with a transfigured stick to test for traps. When nothing happened, he nervously licked his lips and slowly reached out with both hands.

"Let's hope it's not cursed. Bill would be really handy right now..." Sporting a wry smile, Potter grasped the casket and quickly stepped back. No trap exploded into their faces and the teen's hands remained intact, if one ignored the blood dripping onto the floor.

"I guess that's that. Let's go."

The portkey transported them to an entrance hall. If Reborn had to take a guess, he'd say it belonged to a manor of considerable age, if the décor and architecture was anything to go by. The walls were barely visible behind the staggering number of moving portraits and tapestries with coats of arms on them. Above their heads, a sizeable chandelier was glittering in the afternoon sun.

"It's one of the estates people have gifted me," Potter informed him and Reborn was alarmed at once, when the words came out slurred. It was the first and only warning he got before the teen crumpled to the ground, unconscious. The hitman jumped to the nearby balustrade just in time, but the casket clattered to the marble floor, though stayed intact.

A small creature clad in a pillow case popped into existence next to them. It's bulging eyes widened even more, before it disappeared again. Moments later several footsteps could be heard rushing in their direction. A young brood of redheads – Weasley's family? – entered the hall first, followed shortly by Shamal and Spanner.

"Careful my arse," Spanner grumbled. His face was impassive, but his concern was obvious in the way he shifted from foot to foot while Shamal checked on his brother.

"We should really consider putting a leash on him, so he can't run off without us," Shamal agreed with a long-suffering sigh and shot a glare in the direction of a pair of snickering, identical twins, when the word 'kinky' could be heard from their general vicinity. Their responding grin was utterly unrepentant.

"You'd think he's a Gryffindor-" one of them started, but stopped mid-way. Reborn hoped to God they weren't like the other set of twins he'd met a decade or so ago. The young hitmen-to-be had always finished each other's sen-

"-and not a Slytherin,"

"but in his defence,"

"the hat said he'd fit into all the houses."

Yeah, no. Just no. Reborn wouldn't put up with that headache, though the long-suffering grimace on Shamal's face almost outweighed his annoyance. It was understandable, though. The other hitman barely tolerated other males on a good day. Adding his injured and unconscious (and also ironically male) Sky to the mix and Reborn was surprised the brunet hadn't snapped, yet.

"Shut up and get him to one of the rooms," Shamal growled and nodded to the wide set of stairs.

"At your service," the twins saluted, snickering again, before one of them cast a feather light charm on the younger teen. The other one slipped his arms under Potter's back and legs to lift him up into a princess carry, which elicited a snort from the only female redhead of the group.

"Harry's going to kick your arse, when he finds out you've been carrying him like that again."

"If he doesn't like it, he shouldn't give us so many opportunities to do it," both twins countered, not only unconcerned but also simultaneously, before quickly disappearing upstairs with Spanner in tow. Reborn followed their departure with a contemplative gaze.

"We could've just told one of the house elves to bring him upstairs, like we did with Kingsley, Bill and Snape, couldn't we?" yet another redheaded, this one tall and gangly, mused with raised eyebrows.

"True, but this way, the two horrors are busy for a while." Shamal pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and took a deep drag after lighting one of them. Only when his shoulders relaxed somewhat, did he turn back to Reborn. "What happened? Kingsley told us about the Inferi attack, but Severus and Bill weren't exactly in a condition to give us an update." He carefully picked up the casket and eyed it with distaste. "Guess this means you were successful, at least."

"After sending Snape and Weasley in your direction, we took a stroll through the maze, found the X on the treasure map and travelled here." Reborn smirked at Shamal, when the other hitman stared at him in exasperation for honing his report down to the bare bones. It was always fun to irritate him.

"Who's that anyway? Some kind of magical creature we haven't learnt about? A dwarf?" the remaining male redhead 'whispered' to his sister(?), who shrugged her shoulders, but eyed Reborn curiously too.

This time Reborn didn't hesitate to send some bullets into their general direction, making extra sure to miss only by a hairsbreadth.