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

Author's note: Hi everyone, this time I brought to you an interlude to give you some more of Harry's background story, before we venture into the second arc of this story :) Hope you enjoy!

Rating: M

Warning: nothing, I think

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

Harry, sitting at the kitchen table and supporting his chin with one hand, was watching a little fox made out of Sky Flames running around the room. It represented a memory of Aria teaching him Flame control back in the day and to this day the brunet wasn't even close to reaching her level of skill. Maybe someday he would.

Getting up from his chair, Harry gave the rest of the room a cursory glance and smiled. He was literally surrounded by memories of his home in Italy, the one he'd shared with Spanner and his grandfather, and moments of his life he connected with his family.

A few years ago Severus had taught him how to enter his mindscape, how to best shape it into whatever he wanted and how to organize his mind afterwards. It helped Harry remember important things, but it also worked as a mechanism to repress things he didn't want to deal with, by shoving them into a box and ignoring it as long as possible. Unfortunately that didn't work infinitely. He always had to work through it in the end.

But these moments in his mindscape gave him a breather. He could focus on whatever part of his life he wanted and re-experience happy memories.

The days following Voldemort's defeat, Harry was either reliving the last few months in the form of nightmares, or he was simply brooding about the past and what the future would bring now that he didn't have a megalomaniac after his life. Entering his mind and surrounding himself with good memories were an attempt to lift his mood.

Harry stopped in front of an old but well-loved robot plushie. The memories connected to it had become a bit blurry by time, but he still remembered the most important parts. One of the happiest turns in his life.

"Give it back!"

Five-year old Harry looked up from where he was playing with toy blocks in one corner of the playroom. Several of the older kids had surrounded a blond boy, who'd only been at the orphanage for a few days - taunting him and keeping a robot plushie just out of his reach. Harry saw the tears in the blond eyes, but he was still jumping up in an attempt to get hold of his toy. It was probably something he'd got from his parents, before he'd ended up in the orphanage. Harry didn't even know what had happened to his own parents. One day, a few years ago, he'd just turned up in a basket in front of the orphanage - or so matron had told him. The only clue had been the name 'Harry Potter' stitched onto his blanket.

"It's ours now!" Daniel, the biggest of the boys, declared and shoved the blond hard enough that he would've fallen on his butt, if he wasn't still surrounded.

Harry frowned. He hated those bullies, who'd tried to pick a fight him once or twice in the past as well. The brunet put the toy block in his hand back onto the table, stood up and, without further ado, tackled the boy holding the plushie to the ground. Harry pried the robot away from Daniel and threw it towards its owner, before one of the other boys managed to kick him in the side. Fortunately, things couldn't escalate too much, because one of the caretakers must have heard the ruckus and quickly stopped the fight. The whole group ended up being punished, but Harry still thought it worth it, when the blond boy, Gabriel, thanked him with a wide, gapped-tooth smile.

A few months passed, during which Harry never spent a minute alone. Gabriel had started following him around and playing with him, especially when toy blocks were involved. Sometime he even climbed into the brunet's bed at night, his robot plushie clutched to his chest.

Then, one day, Gabriel was asked to stay behind after breakfast. Harry waited for him to come back for what felt like ages but was probably only half an hour. Finally, the blond dashed into the room Harry shared with five other boys around his age. Martin the robot fell as Gabriel clung to him like an octopus. That, more than anything, told Harry that something was wrong. Under normal circumstances his friend would never let go of his toy.

Shortly thereafter an older man and matron came into the room, conversing in quite tones and eying him and Gabriel with a look Harry couldn't interpret.

The man crouched in front of them with a welcoming smile on his lips.

"Why don't you introduce me to your friend, Gabriel?"

The blond shifted and glanced warily towards the man.

"Harry. Won't go without 'im!" Gabriel insisted with a glare and clutched Harry, who was becoming increasingly more confused, even tighter. Did that man try to adopt his friend? Harry bit his bottom lip. He didn't want the blond to go, but if he still had family…

"Hello Harry, my name is Hamish. I'm Gabriel's grandfather. I've heard you two have become great friends and I think you want to stay together. Am I right?"

Harry nodded enthusiastically and would have done so even without Gabriel's big, imploring eyes directed at him.

"I could adopt you, then you could stay together. Would you like that?"

Harry beamed at him.

Grandpa had called in a few favours to pass through the adoption process quickly, before they'd all travelled to Hamish's house in Italy. He'd been busy with a top-secret project at the time of his son's and daughter-in-law's car accident and had only learned of Gabriel's placement in an orphanage a few months later.

A soft smile curled Harry's lip, as the wizard set the plushie onto a shelf and went on. He let his fingertips graze across an item or two, getting short flashbacks of his happy childhood in the process, but stopped short, when he spotted a little dolphin keychain. It had belonged to his childhood friend - his would-be Rain Guardian if things had turned out better. With a lump in his throat, Harry skirted around the item, being extra careful not to touch it. Those were memories he didn't want to deal with at the moment. Neither was the syringe symbolising the awful day his Grandpa had been killed and Spanner had become his Lightning Guardian.

Harry left the room through the kitchen door and stepped into his hospital room in Ospedale Nicollò de Luca. It held both happy and frustrating memories for him. On one hand, he'd met Shamal here, his Mist who drove him crazy some days, but who, despite not liking males all that much, always looked out for him. Whom he'd trust with his life. On the other hand, it was also the place where Death Eaters had found him despite the wards Severus had erected, thus setting Harry and his friends and Guardians on their path to look for the Horcruxes.

After fondly patting the pillow he'd thrown at his Mist more than once, Harry walked through the door, which would've led to the room beside his, if he'd really been in the hospital. Instead he ended up in the Slytherin common room – his 'Home away from home' for almost five years. It was the place where Malfoy and his gooneys had tried to make his life miserable and where he'd spent quite a bit of time with Blaise. The dorm room had been the place where Blaise and he had kissed for the first time, though it had taken barely a few weeks to decide that they worked better at friends. Still, Harry was glad he'd been able to explore that part of himself without much pressure.

He'd met the other teen at Ollivanders all those years ago and they'd been thick as thieves at once.

"What's next on your list, Harry?" Grandpa enquired even as he drifted towards one of the shop windows. It wasn't the first time one of them had done the same, which was probably the reason why they'd been in Diagon Alley for almost four hours and still hadn't finished Harry's list for Hogwarts.

The brunet unrolled the scroll in his hand and checked the items that hadn't been crossed out with a pen, yet.

"I still need a wand and my books, we've bought everything else," Harry declared and looked around for either a wand shop or a bookstore. "Ollivanders – Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C." sounded very promising.

Upon entering they were promptly greeted by rain (half a storm, really). Indoors. In a multitude of colours. Not to mention by swearing in Italian courtesy of a boy, who threw the wand in his hand on the counter in front of him as if he'd been burned. The woman next to him, the boy's mother perhaps, flicked her own wand and the rain stopped at once.

"Wow, that was amazing! How did you do that?" Harry exclaimed in Italian, figuring the other wizard lived in Italy, too. Said boy turned around wide-eyed and blushing in embarrassment, but soon after introduced himself as Blaise with a grin. It took another five minutes until his new friend had found his first ever wand – Larch with a unicorn tail hair core.

It took another half an hour for Harry to get his own holly and phoenix feather. Blaise's willingness to talk his mother into waiting for him, so they could go to Flourish and Blotts together, cemented Harry's wish to end up in the same Hogwart's house as his new friend.

Harry sometimes wondered what would've happened if he'd met another Slytherin-to-be in Diagon Alley back then - Malfoy for example. Would the brunet have begged the hat into putting him into a different house?

Probably.

Maybe Gryffindor, which wouldn't have been too bad. He could've spent more time with Hermione, maybe become friends with her sooner than a few months after school had started.

The first month of school wasn't even done, yet, and Blaise and Harry were still drowning in homework. So were a lot of other students, if the crowded library was anything to go by. Unfortunately, they still needed to be here, though, because some of their essays required input from books only found in the Hogwarts library.

„There're a few chairs free on that table," Harry noted quietly after a cursory glance around the room. All the tables he could see were packed with students, but the one he was pointing to had only one occupant.

"You want to sit with a Gryffindor?" Blaise didn't sound particularly thrilled, but not completely against the idea either. Certainly not as disgusted as Malfoy or a lot of the other Slytherins would've sounded.

Harry shrugged.

"Do you have another idea? Our Potions essay's due tomorrow. Not much time to come back later." And he really didn't have a problem with sitting at the same table as a Gryffindor or Hermione Granger in particular. The whole inter-house fighting, especially between Slytherin and Gryffindor, was ridiculous and although Hermione could be a little know-it-all in class, she didn't seem like a bad person… She seemed lonely, to be honest. Even her fellow Gryffindors were avoiding her.

"Hey, do you mind if we sit here?" Harry whispered after they'd approached the table. Hermione looked up from her frantic scribbling and eyed them suspiciously, but finally shook her head, before going back to writing.

"What's that?" Hermione asked sometime later, when Harry was taking a break after finishing his Potions essay.

Harry looked up from the dark-haired figurine he was fiddling with.

"My brother built it for me," the brunet explained with a proud smile. "I told him about Professor McGonagall's Animagus form. He thought about what kind of animal I'd be and built this." Harry then demonstrated how the figurine, which looked vaguely like him, could be transformed into an animal. Hermione's lips twitched.

"A mule?"

"Apparently I can be as stubborn as one," Harry agreed with a shrug of his shoulders and a wry grin. He completely ignored Blaise's muttered 'Understatement of the century'.

"Maybe I-" The dark-haired witch lowered her head until her frizzy hair made it impossible to see her face. "Maybe I'll have the chance to see for myself, if that assessment's accurate?"

Harry stared at her in confusion for a long moment, during which Hermione fidgeted on her chair. Then the penny dropped.

"Oooh, I get it, you want to be friends. Sure!"

Harry had never regretted his decision.

And then there was his Cloud Guardian – Severus Snape, Harry mused as he stopped in front of a shelf filled with vials, little cauldrons and stirring rods.

In the beginning, Severus had loathed him. Although the former Potion professor hadn't humiliated him in front of the Hogwarts staff or students from the other houses, Severus had sneered at him or assailed him with disparaging remarks whenever they were alone or in the company of other Slytherins. He'd also given him detention whenever possible, though he'd never ever taken any points.

Back then, during his first year at Hogwarts, Harry had wondered why Severus hated him so much, considering they'd never met before. That's why he had, on the last day of school before Christmas break of first year, decided to confront him.

It had been quite the ordeal and ended just as disastrously as Harry had expected. There had been shouting and cursing and at one point Severus had even thrown a glass container with flobberworms at him, which Harry had fortunately managed to dodge.

In the end Severus had unwittingly revealed a clue to the answer. The sentence "You're just as arrogant as your father!" had been pretty telling. From then on Harry had tried to find out more about the relationship between Severus and James Potter and had learned from various sources that Severus had been bullied by him and his friends. He'd also learned that the Potion professor had been best friends with his mother Lily Evans until they'd had a big falling out.

It still hadn't been a reason to pick on Harry and nothing much had changed between them until the end of the brunet's third year.

Even at thirteen Harry was a pro at Disillusionment charms. He was prone to nightmares after fighting that basilisk just a few months ago and the dementors roaming the Hogwarts grounds in search of Sirius Black weren't exactly helping.

And so Harry had started wandering through the castle at night and under aforementioned Disillusionment charm whenever he couldn't sleep. Like today. The brunet was walking along a second floor corridor, when he noticed two dark shapes movements close to the Whomping Willow and the occasional flashes of light that could only be spells.

He should really, really stay in the castle; maybe even go back to his dorm room...

Harry ran towards the entrance hall and descended the stairs, jumping over the trick steps. The front door was actually half-way open, so Harry just dashed through it onto the grounds and into the direction of the fight or whatever else was going on.

A few minutes later Harry came upon a scene he hadn't anticipated. Snape was defending himself against a freaking werewolf! The beast lunged at Snape, who barely managed to dodge. Harry noticed him favouring his left leg and the lack of wand in his hand. Both had probably happened sometime during the fight.

What was a werewolf doing here anyway? Had it come from the Forbidden Forest? Or was that… oh God… was that Lupin? Harry and his friends had suspected that their Defence professor might be a werewolf. Either way, Snape didn't look like he could go on for much longer. Harry wasn't the man's biggest fan, but he certainly didn't want him dead.

The brunet took a deep breath and concentrated on manifesting his Dying-Will-Flames like Aria had shown him. As they coated his hands and forehead, the Disillusionment charm flickered out of existence. Snape noticed him at once and turned even paler than usual.

"You idiot, what are you doing here?" Snape shouted. "Get back to the castle, you dunderhead!"

Harry ignored him and instead tried to channel his Flames through his hands. He knew he could use them similarly to normal fire and hoped to chase the werewolf away with an inferno (although it'd probably be more of a jet of fire than an actual inferno).

The Flames surrounded the werewolf as planned, but instead of burning or at least singing the creature, black mist exuded from its body. That… wasn't quite the reaction Harry had expected, but it still seemed to work if the pained howling was anything to go by. The werewolf futilely tried to shake the fire off and finally retreated into the Forbidden Forest.

Harry watched it disappear, before reluctantly turning back around to Snape. He was sure to get yelled at and would probably receive a year's worth of detention, if his head of house didn't plead for his immediate expulsion.

To the brunet's surprise Snape was more focussed on the Flames still flickering on Harry's hands. One of his own hands was raised halfway, as if he wanted to touch, but didn't quite dare.

"You have them, too…," Snape croaked after a moment, his face reflecting a complicated mix of feelings. The expression disappeared just as quickly as it had come and Snape was almost back to his usual self.

The night had ended with a dead Pettigrew, supposedly killed by Sirius Black. Harry had never met his godfather and would never have the chance either, because Sirius had been Kissed by a dementor the same night. Remus had disappeared, but considering his belongings had been gone the next day, too, Harry assumed he'd survived whatever his Sky Flames had done with the man.

Severus, on the other hand, had started to behave a bit more amicable towards Harry (after giving him a month's worth of detention for being out of bed during curfew and running headlong into danger). He'd even helped him during fourth year, when Harry had been entered into the Triwizard Tournament against his will, by giving him pointers and getting him gillyweed, when Harry needed to breathe underwater for one of the tasks. The brunet had never had the heart to tell the man that he'd have solved that problem by using one of Spanner's inventions.

The biggest change in their relationship, the step to become Sky and Guardian, had happened at the end of the year, after Voldemort had kidnapped him and used his blood to resurrect himself. That night Harry had killed someone for the first time, while he'd tried to escape.

Harry was sitting on top of the Astronomy tower, legs dangling over the edge. He needed some alone time after the last few hours. First he had had to fight through that damn maze for the third task, then he'd been kidnapped by Voldemort to 'help' in his resurrection and then…

Harry curled his hands into fists hard enough that his fingernails cut into his palms.

The sounds of footsteps coming up the tower pulled him out of his dark thoughts.

"Potter, I know you're here. Drop the Disillusionment charm." Of course it was Snape. Though to be honest, his Potion professor was a better alternative than a lot of other people, especially that meddlesome, old codgerDumbledore.

"How did you know?" Harry wondered quietly after he'd reluctantly dropped the charm.

"I didn't," Snape admitted with an almost smug grin curling his lips. "I speculated and you proved me right."

Harry gaped at him, especially when the older man sat down next to him and studied the night sky. Was this really Severus Snape or rather someone disguised as him with the help of Polyjuice?

"Are you here to ask more questions about Voldemort's resurrection?" Harry sounded bitter even to his own ears. Dumbledore had already bombarded him with said questions, while most other people had celebrated his victory. Barely anyone in the audience had noticed that something was wrong, when the brunet had appeared at the goal.

"No, I'm here to make sure that you aren't doing anything stupid, you dunderhead" Snape said, though his insult lacked the venom it had held in the past.

"Like jump from the tower?" Harry snorted. "I'm not suicidal, you know? It's just…" Harry pressed his lips together and looked down to his lap, fiddling with his sleeve. He didn't know if he wanted to talk about this with Snape of all people, but it wasn't like he had anyone else (his grandfather or Aria really) available right now. "After Voldemort was resurrected, he released me and wanted to duel. Our wands they- When I tried to flee and get back to the cup, Barty Crouch Junior was suddenly in front of me. I had to act quickly or they'd have caught me again. I- I killed him and grabbed the cup." Harry shuddered as he thought back to the scent of burning flesh and felt bile trying to climb up his throat. Somehow he managed to keep it down.

Of course he'd already killed the basilisk in second year, but that had… felt different.

Snape was silent for a long time, before he uttered a deep, slightly self-deprecating sigh.

"I should have found a way to get you out of the tournament."

"Why?" Harry frowned. "Because you're my head of house? Because you were friends with my mum?"

Snape's dark gaze settled on him. He was probably wondering how Harry knew about his friendship with Lily Evans.

"Because I'm your head of house. Because of the life debt I owe your… father and you. Because of the Unbreakable Vow I made to protect you. There are many reasons." 'And I failed anyway' wasn't said aloud but implied.

Harry watched him from the corner of his eyes and was admittedly a bit speechless. He'd suspected some of it, but knowing the full extent felt like an added weight on his shoulders.

"I don't think it's the head of house's job to keep students out of a megalomaniac's clutches and… I don't know why you made an Unbreakable Vow to protect me, but I can release you from the life debts and I do." There wasn't a flash of light or anything, but Harry felt a slight shifting of magic as Snape gasped.

Afterwards, the man looked conflicted.

"You shouldn't ha-"

"What will happen to you now? With Voldemort back?" Harry interrupted. This time Snape was the one frowning. "You used to be a Death Eater, right? I saw the mark. I figure you're not one anymore. Voldemort was pretty vocal about what he'd do to the people who didn't show up to his resurrection. Didn't sound pretty."

"I will undoubtedly be encouraged to… spy on the Dark Lord again," Snape sneered. Harry was pretty sure who'd be the one doing the encouragement. And 'again' implied that he'd done it before Voldemort's downfall more than a decade ago. Dumbledore had probably promised to keep him out of Azkaban if he 'helped' in the war.

"And if you didn't have Voldemort's brand on you, would you still be expected to do it? Would you still be willing to do it?" Harry asked.

"A pointless question. There's no magic on earth which can get rid of it. The Dark Lord would be able to vanish it, perhaps, but he most certainly won't," Snape answered.

"Do you want it gone?" Harry stressed. The other man was free to help defeat Voldemort, of course, but he should be able to do it of his own free will instead of having Dumbledore hanging over his head.

After a long moment, the Potions master gave a barely visible nod, as if he was too scared to admit it.

Harry laid a hand on Snape's forearm, right over where he suspected the dark mark to be, and concentrated. His Flames flickered into existence without problem. The brunet wasn't sure if he'd be successful or not, but maybe what had worked for his cursed scar would work for the dark mark as well.

As soon as his Sky Flames seeped into Snape's flesh, Harry felt resistance from the dark magic, which was inherent to the dark mark, but he refused to lose to against a glorified tattoo. After a few long minutes the dark magic finally started to fade and that's when Harry encountered something he hadn't expected. He encountered Flames that were twining around his own as if in greeting. The brunet couldn't tell which type they were, but the purple fumes coating Snape's arm hinted at Cloud.

Harry glanced up at his teacher, who looked utterly floored.

A final shudder went through Snape, who carefully pulled his arm out of Harry's grasp and rolled his sleeve up with shaking fingers. The skin revealed was unblemished. The man touched the spot where the mark used to be with his fingertips, lightly, as if the mark would come back if he pressed to hard.

"I didn't know you have Flames," Harry voiced after a while for lack of anything else to say. He was also curious, to be honest.

"Apparently I get them from my father's side of the family. They only appeared once, however, when I was still a boy and Lup- when I was attacked. I suppose the Dark Mark was suppressing them," Snape explained, going back and forth in studying the purple fume around his arm and the spot where the dark mark used to be.

Finally, he raised his gaze and looked at Harry solemnly.

"Why have you done this? As a spy I'd have been more useful. I'd have been better able to protect you. What do you get out of this?"

Harry shrugged.

"Nobody should be forced to bow to Voldemort… or to any master, I guess."

"You are a Sky, are you not? And as far as I know they need Guardians to keep them out of trouble."

"You don't hav-"

"I won't deny my former friendship with your mother does not play into it, but I want to do it for you, as well. I know how much trouble you find yourself into frequently and even if I can't keep you out of it completely, I will help you overcome it in once piece. Willingly."

Harry tried to swallow the lump in his throat down, but when that didn't work, he just nodded. Seconds later he felt something click into place in the back of his mind.

Harry's last stop was Rose Cottage, where he'd spent the last few years with his Guardians and sometimes with a few of his friends. It was the place where they'd planned their next moves against Voldemort and where he'd first heard about the Arcobaleno looking for him.

"I've just had a very interesting phone call," Shamal announced with a smirk as he stepped into the kitchen of Rose Cottage.

Harry looked up from where he was debating with Severus who'd join them during their next Horcrux hunt in a cave in the Scottish Highlands. He raised his eyebrow in inquiry and rolled his eyes when it became apparent that Shamal wouldn't tell him more until he voiced his question out loud.

"Who did you talk to?"

Shamal nonchalantly flicked non-existent lint from the sleeve of his coat and leant his hip against the table, before he recounted the contents of the conversation.

"Reborn. The Arcobaleno I mentioned once or twice. Apparently he's looking for the third Vongola Decimo candidate on behest of Timoteo Vongola. He already visited your cousin and the second one is the son of CEDEF's leader. According to Reborn, both seem to be utterly useless."

Severus snorted.

"And because he can't find Harry, he's enlisted your help?"

Shamal nodded and probably expanded his reply to Severus's question, but Harry had already zoned out. The brunet had that itch in the back of his mind. His supposed Vongola Intuition that was making itself known.

"I think we should tell him," Harry decided. Shamal and Severus fell silent at once and stared at him in incredulity.

"Have you lost your mind? If you haven't noticed, we're busy enough at the moment without adding the Mafia to it," his Mist exclaimed, most likely craving a stress cig.

"He's the world's best hitman, though, isn't he?" Harry mused. "That's what you said. If we can talk him into helping us, maybe we can finally finish this damn war. We've destroyed a few of V's Horcruxes, but we're still missing a few and we have no idea how to get them. At this rate it'll take another few years until we beat him. If we win at all."

"And you're willing to sell yourself to the Vongola for his help?" Shamal asked sceptically. "Because if he knows where you are and you agree to become Vongola Decimo, you actually have to go through with it."

"I can at least agree to try it out. If I find it absolutely terrible, I'm sure there are ways to get out of it." Harry had complete confidence in his Guardian's skills. "It's not completely my decision though. It affects you, too."

"I'm in if you're going to do it," Spanner announced from the door, covered in grease and a lollipop in his mouth as usual.

Severus sighed.

"I still think it's a bad idea, but I know you'll do something even more harebrained if I don't agree, so yes, I agree."

"Well, looks like I'll call Reborn and set up a meeting... But I think we should keep him waiting for a few days first," Shamal added, also giving in.

Sitting on the front step of his mindscape's Rose Cottage, Harry absentmindedly stared at the fedora in his hands and let his thumb stroke along the orange ribbon. It was the item that currently symbolised most of his memories of Reborn.

One more day.

Only one more day until he'd leave The-Boy-Who-Lived behind and became Vongola Decimo.

Harry wondered if that'd turn out to be a blessing or a curse.