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

Author's note: This has officially become my longest story, wohoo. Also, you will probably hate me by the end of the chapter.

Rating: M

Warning: Talk about character death

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

When Reborn arrived in the uninhabited house they'd unanimously agreed would be the perfect place to interrogate Bellatrix, the dark-haired witch was already securely chained to a high-backed, sturdy-looking chair. Considering the tranquiliser was supposed to work for at least half an hour, they had ample time to prepare while the woman was still unconscious, but it was always better to be safe than sorry.

Everyone from their little Rose Cottage group was already present. Spanner was setting up a video camera to film the interrogation for later perusal; the other three men were talking to each other in low voices, maybe going through the questions they wanted to ask one last time.

Harry was the first to acknowledge him, even going as far as approaching Reborn and checking the hitman for any obvious injuries.

"Welcome back. How did it go? Did you come across any problems?"

Reborn shrugged as he peeled himself out of his ninja garb, beneath which he had worn his surprisingly still pristine looking suit. The nonchalance was belied by the smug, little smirk curling his lips, however.

"Infiltrating the manor went as planned. I entered the building through a service entrance and installed the bugs as soon as I reached the ground floor," the Acrobaleno reported, accepting his fedora from Harry with a nod of thanks. Reborn had entrusted him with it prior to the start of the mission. "I found the mark on the second floor, in the company of most of her fellow high-ranking Death Eater colleagues. The ones you showed me photos of. As you can see-" The hitman nodded to the bound witch. "I managed to sedate Lestrange and send her here. I also neutralised the remaining Death Eaters in the room, as well as Nagini, who arrived during the skirmish. V turned up as I was leaving."

Now Reborn had everyone's attention on him and a not-inconsiderable amount of astonishment was directed at him.

"You…" Harry started, wide-eyed. "You got all of that done in less than an hour?"

"It could admittedly have gone faster, but scouring the manor for Lestrange took some time," Reborn replied, deliberately misunderstanding the statement to fan Harry's admiration. It was nice to get his ego stoked after the disaster with the Inferi. He didn't even care about Shamal's mockingly-raised eyebrow.

"We have to work quickly, then," Snape interrupted with a grim look on his face. "With most of his inner circle and his favourite Horcux destroyed, not to mention Bellatrix kidnapped, V will up his game. He's already destroyed several Muggle monuments and hunts everyone who opposes him. With the surveillance system back in place, we have a way to keep an eye on him again, but if he issues a wide-scale attack - or worse - before we can find the last Horcrux, then there will be even more casualties."

"Let's get down to business, then, and wake up Sleeping Crazy," Shamal drawled; he fished a syringe out of his coat pocket. As soon as he received affirmative nods from everyone, the brunet removed the protective cap and injected the pre-prepared sedative counteragent into Bellatrix's arm.

Half a minute ticked by before the witch started to struggle against the chains binding her. Her eyes snapped open and her deranged gaze zeroed in on Reborn at once, even bypassing Harry, who was Undesirable No. 1. It promised a drawn-out, painful death.

"YOU! You little maggot. When I get my hands on you, I will pluck your limbs off one by one and feed them to you!" Her rage reinforced her fortunately futile struggling.

Reborn looked back, unimpressed.

"Guess she's awake enough to be interrogated. You said something about a truth serum?"

Snape rolled his eyes at the blasé tone, but pulled a vial out of his robe pocket anyway. A few seconds into trying to administer the veritaserum to the witch, who was all but frothing at the mouth like a mad dog, the brunet cursed softly and cast a Stupefy on her to make things easier for himself. He removed his spell afterwards but did not tug away his wand, even though Lestrange was now sitting calmly on the chair, her eyes staring off into space and glazed over.

"What is your name?"

"Bellatrix Cassiopeia Lestrange," was the witch's monotone reply. He would only admit this to himself, but Reborn found the drastic change in demeanour a bit unsettling.

"Is Hufflepuff's Cup still in your vault in Gringotts?" Snape inquired, not beating around the bush.

Finding the last remaining Horcrux was agenda point number one. They'd debated on waiting to destroy the boxed-up diadem until they had the chance to question Bellatrix about a way to open it, but in the end they'd discarded that line of thought. The X-ray scan had given them enough assurance about the diadem's legitimacy to destroy the whole thing by Fiendfyre (which had been quite the dangerous spectacle).

"No."

"As expected," Snape grumbled, before focussing back on the witch. "Where is Hufflepuff's Cup now?"

"With Potter's little blood traitor friend."

Hearing the unexpected proclamation Potter's body turned rigid for the most part, though apart from grinding his teeth, he kept his mouth shut. Shamal, who was the teen's closest standing Guardian, still laid a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder, whereas Spanner and Snape shot him a concerned look. The latter took a deep breath and demanded clarification from the Death Eater.

"What is the name of the person you just referred to?"

"Blaise Zabini."

"What did you do to him?" Harry growled as he tried to rush up to the witch. Most likely having anticipated such a reaction, Shamal quickly wrapped his other arm around his Sky and held him back, even when one of Harry's pointy elbows was shoved into his gut. Reborn had heard the name Blaise mentioned once or twice before, but until now it hadn't been of much interest to him. Seeing Harry's fierce reaction, however, got him thinking.

"I extracted information from him and then my Lord attached the Cup to him."

Harry paled, obviously knowing quite well what 'extracting information' entailed.

"When did you catch him?" The teen inquired faintly.

"A week ago."

"I- I talked to him the day before our second trip to the cave." Harry gulped audibly. "One of the safe houses ran out of food and he wanted to meet up with his usual contact to get more. I got the usual note that everything went well."

"He probably got ambushed and the note… maybe they stumbled over the information, while interrogating him." Shamal mused. His restraining grip on the teen had turned into more of a reassuring hug as soon as Harry had stopped struggling.

"How did you capture Blaise Zabini?" Snape asked the witch, his tone freezing.

"We found out who his supplier is. We threatened him and lured Zabini into a trap."

As expected, then.

"For what purpose was the Cup attached to Blaise Zabini?"

"The chain and the Cup now hold the Deeris curse. If Zabini or anyone else takes both off or if the circle gets broken by destroying part of it, he dies."

"So, it's a deadman's switch…" Spanner pondered from his place next to the camera. "If Blaise isn't in contact with the… let's call it a necklace - the curse gets triggered."

"Indeed. It was often used in the past by dark families for various, nefarious purposes - for example to keep someone under their thumb. When the Auror division was established, though, it fell out of practice, because it was one of the things Aurors kept a sharp eye on. My guess is that they're relying on none of us being willing to sacrifice Blaise's life, especially because he is Harry's friend. And considering Slytherins are known for self-preservation rather than self-sacrifice, they don't think he will kill himself to destroy a Horcrux."

Reborn didn't know much about the characteristics of Slytherins or any other Hogwarts house, but he had to admit it was a genius move to secure the Horcurx to an important hostage and to make sure said hostage would die if the Horcux was destroyed. Nobody from the so-called light side he'd seen so far could probably stomach killing the teen and Harry's group was emotionally compromised anyway.

"Is there a way to negate it?"

"Not to my knowledge," Snape admitted regretfully with a shake of his head and carefully avoiding looking in Harry's general direction.

"Maybe Bill knows of one?" Said teen suggested quietly, with a last shred of hope flickering in his eyes.

"It is… possible," the Cloud permitted slowly, though his blank face gave some indication of how improbable it was. Blaise Zabini was bound to die if they wanted to make V mortal in order to get rid of him for good. "We should continue the interrogation, before the Veritaserum stops working. We can discuss everything else afterwards." Snape turned back to the witch, who was still staring off into space with glazed over eyes. "Where is Blaise Zabini now?"

"I don't know. My Lord didn't tell anyone."

While the wizard continued to interrogate Lestrange, Harry squirmed free of Shamal's hug to join his brother, who had pulled out one of the tablets connected to the SpidBots, in hope of finding Blaise in Malfoy Manor.

Reborn remained behind and finally asked Shamal the question that had been eagerly waiting at the tip of his tongue.

"Who is this Blaise Zabini?"

"He's one of Harry's best friends from Hogwarts and ultimately the reason why he chose Slytherin as his house, even though he could have gone to any of the other three. I think they met on the train ride to school... and apparently they tried dating at the beginning of their fifth year, but it didn't work out. Nowadays he's responsible for keeping the safe houses well supplied with everything they need."

The Acrobaleno hummed and looked back to the two teens on the other side of the room, who were staring intently at the screen in Spanner's hands.

"Did they-"

"Harmonize? No, Blaise isn't Flame active, but seeing him dead will still break something in Harry."