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

Author's note: I totally want to tell you all who the mysterious Guardian is :( But unfortunately I can't for several more chapters, sorry. Someone actually got it right, though, but I won't reveal who ;)

Rating: M

Warning: Violence and a lot of minor character death

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

To give everyone enough time to recuperate from the cave mission, Operation Starcup had been postponed for a few days. They'd spent the time hashing out the details of the plan and unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Reborn had started his little side project of finding out what had happened to Harry's erstwhile and soon-to-be-again Guardian.

It wasn't as big a clusterfuck as the hitman had expected, no, it was an even bigger one. Unfortunately, Reborn didn't have the time or means at the moment to detangle the mess in its entirety, but he'd get to it in due time and had at least set his plan in motion.

For now he'd go eat breakfast, continue his study on rituals, runes and arithmancy, scheme some more and on the following day he'd catch himself a crazy witch. Reborn was getting used to this magic thing.

When he got downstairs, only Harry was in the kitchen, fiddling with something on the worktop in front of him. Reborn was pretty sure the teen knew he was there, but didn't acknowledge him for another minute or two. Rude. On principle he initiated a half-hearted apple assault again and watched with an internal sigh as the fruit was snatched out of the air without Harry even glancing at it or commenting. The hitman couldn't quite decide if he was impressed or exasperated.

Finally, the brunet turned around and set a cup of espresso and a perfectly rectangular piece of tiramisu in front of him. In the top of it was a burning birthday candle.

"It's 'thank you for not shooting my Cloud' tiramisu, as promised," Harry explained and added, after a noticeable pause, "I guess it could also count as birthday tiramisu?"

Reborn blinked down at the cocoa powder-covered, mouth-watering dessert, then slowly raised his gaze to squint suspiciously at the brunet in front of him.

"It's not my birthday." It wasn't . Not anymore.

Harry nervously licked his lip and looked like he was barely refraining from fidgeting. He was clearly uncomfortable with the situation, which brought up the question why he'd dropped this bomb shell in the first place. It wasn't rocket science that Reborn'd want to know how Harry had acquired such sensitive intel.

"I know it's not Reborn's birthday, just, uh… don't you want to try the tiramisu? I think it turned out well." It was a ridiculously weak diversion and they both knew it. Harry knew it and a few moments later he caved. "Shamal didn't snitch, I swear. There're things even I couldn't get out of him. I got the information from my teacher, the one who taught me how to control my Flames..."

"The one whose identity you don't want to disclose to me?" Reborn inquired sharply. He'd shoved the mysterious teacher to the back of his mind and had planned to ponder about it at a later date. Apparently the time had come. Who the hell would know his original birthdate after Shamal had got rid of his past? What else did they know about him?

"The very same," Harry mumbled and heaved a sigh. Green eyes closed and when they opened next, the brunet appeared a lot calmer. It was surprising that any flicker of orange was absent. "Okay, okay. Her name is Aria…"

Reborn stared at him, knowing where this was going but hardly believing it anyway.

"…Giglio Nero."

What were the odd that his student's (although he hadn't taught the teen anything, yet) Sky Flame tutor was the current Sky Acrobaleno? Not only that, but also Don of the Giglio Nero Famiglia, daughter of his late friend Luce and genetically predisposed to a talent for foresight .

If all of this was a coincidence, he'd eat his fedora.

"And how did I, in general, and my date of birth, in particular, come up?" The question was calm and even and promised all kinds of pain.

Harry barely bat an eyelid.

"Aria sent a letter to my post office box out of nowhere. She gave me an update about her life during the last two years and you didn't come up until the postscript. It consisted of the date, advice to tell you her name if the topic came up and a winking smiley."

That sounded like Aria alright, but what was her angle in all of this? What did she know and what did she hope to accomplish? To have his past aired without his consent left a bad taste in his mouth, even if she had a good reason for this. He'd become 'Reborn' and had had his past erased for a reason, and if they managed to break his curse it would probably stay buried. Reborn hadn't decided, yet.

While he contemplated his honorary niece's actions, Reborn cut a corner off the tiramisu piece with his fork and slid it into his mouth. His thoughts came to a screeching halt as he tasted a piece of heaven. Harry wasn't a bad cook, but this was divine . He'd kill for more of this.

"Can you make anything else?" Reborn inquired hopefully after a moment, before he promptly shoved another fork-full into his mouth with relish.

"You mean Italian desserts?" Harry frowned bemusedly at him, most likely blindsided by the sudden change of topic. "Yes, I guess. Spanner and Grandpa were more partial to Japanese and British food, but we did live in Italy, so I tried my hand at that. The only thing Spanner can make without anything exploding is his lollies and Grandpa wasn't… the best cook either, so I did most of the cooking when I was old enough."

The hitman demolished the last bite and leant back with a satisfied sigh.

"Make me more desserts that are on par with this one, not necessarily Italian, and something interesting may happen."

"Interesting? Like what?"

"You'll just have to find out," Reborn replied with a small smirk curling his mouth, but then the hard glint returned to his eyes. "In case you ever learn anything else about the me before Reborn, by whatever source, get it off your mind! That me is dead ."

The brunet stared at him for a long moment, but, in the end, nodded earnestly.

"Alright, I promise," Harry pledged, just before a mischievous twinkling crept into his eyes as if to counter the hard glint in the hitman's. "Doesn't mean I won't try to find out about Reborn ."

Reborn was sitting in one of the trees in the Forest of Dean, appropriately garbed in a ninja outfit, while Leon was doing a great job acting as his forehead protector. On the ground, a group of people appeared out of nowhere, in their midst a young man with dark hair and emerald green eyes.

Considering Shamal wasn't all that good at creating animated illusions in the real world, the men and women seemed pretty realistic - At least realistic enough to fool those without knowledge of Flames. The man was probably trying extra hard to keep Harry from jumping out of nowhere and switching places with his look-alike. In the first draft of the plan he'd wanted to do the deed himself, but the idea had quickly been shot down by all three of his Guardians.

When their trap was in position, Shamal nodded in his general direction and wrapped himself in Harry's invisibility cloak. Reborn uttered 'Voldemort', one of the many words and phrases with a Taboo on them, and held his breath. Seconds later five men and a woman appeared in the small clearing. As expected, all of them had a red tie wrapped around one arm – Snatchers. So far so good.

The constructs gasped and screamed, while scattering to the four winds. One by one they disappeared as if they'd Disapparated and Reborn hoped to God the Snatchers didn't notice that their spells sometimes went right through the fleeing 'people'. The Harry illusion disappeared last, with a bleeding wound on its leg, and just a few feet in front of a burly Snatchers after a piece of paper had fallen out of its pocket. That, too, was an illusion, but a real note had been prepared beforehand at the same spot and was now waiting for one of the Snatchers to pick it up.

Unfortunately, Burly was too dim-witted to notice, but the woman shuffled closer and took an interest in the note, while the men were cursing and blaming each other for letting Harry Potter escape.

"Looks like the address to a house under the Fidelius. Guess Potter wanted to bring them to a safe house." The blonde cackled and shoved the note into a pocket. "Bet that'll bring us a pretty Galleon." The men agreed as their mood picked up again. All six of them Disapparated with smirks on their faces, not realising that a disillusioned stowaway with a silencing and featherlight charm was joining them.

Reborn barely refrained from cackling himself.

As soon as they appeared on a driveway, lined on both side with hedges and leading to what was hopefully Malfoy Manor, the hitman jumped away from his means of travel and tried to calm his stomach, while the group of Snatchers argued with the man guarding the inner gate. Reborn still wasn't a big fan of Apparating, but at least their plan had worked so far.

Getting onto the property with people keyed into the wards had led to his undetected arrival and his lack of magic was supposed to make sure it'd stay that way until he'd finished his task. Unfortunately, the spells on him were fading fast, because he couldn't sustain them on his own, but that's where his skills as a hitman came into play.

When he felt well enough to move without losing his breakfast, Reborn climbed over the gate and closed in on the building. The entrance door was closed and the hitman wasn't willing to wait for it to open, so he rounded the manor and found a servant's entrance at the foot of some cellar steps. The room behind it was silent, so he quickly picked the lock and carefully opened the door with his gun in one hand.

It didn't lead to the kitchen as expected, but to a dark, bare hallway, riddled with a few plain wooden doors. The room in front of him was filled with rows upon rows of food-laden shelves, from another the unmistakable sound of shattering glass could be heard, followed by wailing and a weird banging sound. Reborn grimaced and headed towards the stairs at the end of the hallway.

The ground floor was crawling with Snatchers and the odd Death Eater, if the identical black robes were anything to go by. None of them appeared particularly important, though, and definitely not like the dark-haired witch he was looking for. Before Reborn continued his search on the first floor, he held a pouch full of Spidbots against the wall and waited for them to scuttle out. One went towards the ceiling, the rest dispersed to the rest of the building. Installing new bugs in Voldemort's headquarters was a nice side benefit of his visit.

Evading the sight of people, house elves and moving portraits alike, Reborn finally lucked out on the second floor. A meeting was taking place in what looked like a spacious dining hall. Reborn recognised most of the attendees as high-ranking Death Eaters from the pictures Severus and Harry had shown him. Among them was Bellatrix Lestrange.

The Death Eaters were silent, not even whispering to each other, though every now and then one of them side-eyed the staircase on the opposite side of the room. They were clearly waiting for someone, maybe Voldemort.

Waiting for the meeting to end seemed like a waste if the inner circle of the enemy fraction was already nicely arranged for him on a silver platter.

While Leon transformed into a tranquilizer gun, Reborn readied his normal handgun and used Sun Flames to give his reflexes a little boost. Four of the fifteen people died with a bullet to their head or heart before they even noticed that they were in danger, though Bellatrix dodged the tranquiliser dart directed at her and whipped out her wand to send a curse back at him.

Reborn took cover behind one of the stone pillars and dived towards another one, when the curse blasted halfway through it. Two of the remaining men tried to get to the stairs to flee, but never reached their escape route. The hitman sent another tranquiliser dart at the dark-haired witch, who grabbed one of her companions and used him as a shield. The blond stared horror-struck at his chest, blinked twice and crumpled to the floor.

Before he had the chance to try again, Reborn sensed danger from behind and jumped from the mantelpiece to the chandelier just in time to avoid becoming snake food.

"Cazzo!" That beast was at least fourteen feet long , what the hell had Voldemort fed it with? Reborn probably only counted as a little snack. Shaking his head he shot through the chain holding the chandelier in place and hopped off before the monstrosity collided with the wizard who'd tried to get to him. The crystal shattered on the ground and cut into the man's flesh, but the Death Eater was already unmoving, bleeding profusely from the head. Just to be sure, Reborn sent a bullet through his brain, before once again evading the monster snake and several curses.

Six men, Bellatrix and a reptile to go.

Reborn reloaded his ammo and weaved through the men, hopped on the last one on his path and waited for Nagini to catch up. Bellatrix, who'd turned her wand into a whip, reacted first, but instead of catching Reborn, the whip wrapped itself around the throat of poor bastard he'd been standing on seconds before, choking him to death even as the snake's fangs buried themselves into his shoulder.

The hitman took advantage of the opportunity to slide over the polished floor and rammed the tranquiliser dart directly into the witch's calf. She emitted a furious scream and launched threats as she tried to stumble after him, but after a few steps she crumbled to the floor. It took another ten seconds for her to succumb to unconsciousness, which was actually impressive.

Reborn slapped the portkey on her and activated it, before his focus went back to the remaining five men and one snake. Now that his mark was dealt with, he made short work of them by using his notorious Chaos Shot. The wizards breathed their last as intended, but Nagini barely slowed down. He'd expected that, though, and quickly exchanged his current magazine with the one containing Sky Flame infused bullets. Harry had claimed Sky Flames worked on living Horcruxes, but not on inanimate ones and had handed him the bullets before his departure. Considering a fragment of a soul leeching on to another being was hardly a good example for harmony, it made sense.

Reborn empties the whole magazine into Nagini. It was overkill for sure, but he really didn't care. For a long moment the reptile squirmed and writhed on the floor, but then an unholy screech echoed throughout the dining room as black mist drifted out of the now unmoving snake.

He smirked at Snake-Face, who was running down the stairs, and portkeyed back to Rose Cottage.