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, hope you're doing good despite everything :) Have a little fluff and comfort.

Rating: M

Warning: Talk about various permanent injuries

Beta'd by the lovely NonchalantxFish, as usual! :)

The first thing Harry did upon entering Hermione's room was dodging a hex the witch was throwing at him. He was becoming familiar with this kind of welcome. Blaise's had been similar, when he'd visited his friend a few hours ago, who'd promptly chewed him out and jumped on the bandwagon of never leaving Harry alone ever again. Both he and Severus had decided on tailing him. Harry had his fingers crossed that their fussing would stop after a few days of nothing life-threatening happening.

"You leave for a vacation island and end up possessed and in prison? What the hell, Harry?"

Harry tried to placate her with a crooked grin that had sometimes worked in the past. Unfortunately, this time the stormy expression on Hermione's face didn't lessen much. He sighed and plopped down on the couch seat next to her. She was still living in what had been a safehouse a short while ago. Some people had left to rebuild their lives now that the war was over, but quite a few, especially those whose homes had been destroyed, were staying.

"I don't know what to tell you. It's not like I was asking for it. It just happened!"

"It always does," Hermione mumbled, after she'd thrown her arms around Harry and burrowed her face in his neck. Harry smiled a bit at the familiar feel of being attacked by her wild hair. "I'm still not thrilled about the whole mafia thing."

"Neither am I," Harry admitted as he returned her hug and rested his temple against her head. "But there are several reasons why I can't refuse. Being hounded by them until I give up is only a small part of it. I made a pact with the dev- I mean, Reborn, as you know. His help in exchange for me becoming Vongola Decimo. He more than held up his side of the bargain and now it's my turn. But more importantly… on Mafia Island I met the only other viable candidate. He's a fifteen year-old boy, who was a civilian not even half a year ago. Before coming to me, Reborn assessed and discarded him, then his arsehole father pushed another tutor at him. He doesn't want to be part of the mafia and he's not cut out for it, either."

"Well, you're going to be some big shot mafia overlord, aren't you?" Hermione asked, reluctantly releasing Harry enough for her to be able to look at his face. "The Godfather basically. At least you can bring some positive changes to the mafia, I guess. I'll do some research for you!"

Harry snorted, but just squeezed her tighter, instead of commenting.

"How have you been, Hermione?" He asked instead, not-so-subtly changing the subject. He still felt slightly guilty for leaving her behind for his trip to Mafia Island. Hermione's robes covered most of the space, where her left lower leg should've been, which was probably intentional. At least she didn't seem to be in pain anymore.

"I read a lot- I know, shocking, isn't it? I didn't want to wallow too much, I guess, and reading is something I can do without going out and interacting with too many people for now. Walking is a struggle, too, even with a cane to support me..." His friend's voice had become more subdued again, even though Harry knew she was trying to sound brave. Still, it was traumatic to lose part of your own body and Hermione needed more time to come to terms with everything.

"I asked Spanner to design and build a prosthesis for you, if you want it," Harry blurted out. Then he cringed. Way to go being sensitive. But now that he'd revealed that part, he might as well come out with the rest. "And… I can't promise anything, but- uh…"

"Out with it, Harry."

Harry reluctantly explained his thoughts on the positive effects of Sky Flames on dark magic he had experienced. Hermione looked intrigued and even though Harry was pretty sure she was using her curiosity as a distraction from her personal situation, he was glad to see the familiar gleam in her eyes. Which, unfortunately, quickly turned into a suspiciously wet sheen. Oh Merlin, no! Tears were always his undoing.

"It's an intriguing possibility. There have to be tests and everything and I guess you won't be able to cure everyone in Britain, but…" Hermione said after a few moments. She offered him a somewhat shaky smile, while trying to wipe away the tears from her cheeks without much success. "I-I would be grateful if you could try, Harry. But first you should take some time for yourself. A lot happened, and not only in the last few weeks."

"Speaking of time… there was actually another thing I wanted to talk to you about," Harry said, in no way trying to change the topic again to stop Hermione from crying and by focusing on other people's problems and deflecting from his own situation. "Did you do any more research on that Arcobaleno ritual, perchance? I recently found out that there might be a deadline, which… is sometime within a year? So we'd really like to perform it sooner rather than later."

Hermione stared at him in disbelief and dawning horror.

"What do you mean there's a deadline and it's within the year?"

Great, no tears, instead Harry was being subjected to the somewhat shrill quality of Hermione's voice that made an appearance in situations like these. It was still his preferred option, so he told her everything he'd found out or had conjectured.

By the end of it, Hermione hummed thoughtfully and leant to the side to pull over a few parchment scrolls from a little table. "I actually did do more research. I talked to some people… well, I wrote letters and they replied. It needs some more fine-tuning and double-checking, but I think I can get back to you next week. The ritual itself can only take place in a month or so, however, because the one doing the ritual has to store both magic and Flames into crystals and due to the amount necessary, that takes time."

"I'll be the one to do it," Harry decided at once. He'd promised Reborn (his future Sun, if everything went well) to break his curse and if what Hermione had said was true, it had to be a magic user with active Flames and that made the pool of possible candidates pretty small.

"I figured you'd be the one to throw yourself at the problem. It's probably the best choice, too. You have both strong magic and Flames, from what I've seen throughout the years, and either the Harmony aspect of a Sky or a very skilled Storm seem to be the best fit for the ritual," Hermione agreed and started to explain the adapted ritual in more detail.

"Harrykins, weren't you supposed to-"

"- go on vacation? You look like-"

"- you went a few rounds with-"

"-a dementor!"

Harry was glad that he'd long since gotten used to the twins' obnoxious way of speaking, otherwise, he was sure, a headache would've been imminent. Like this he just rolled his eyes and accepted being sandwiched between them. It was a nice change in welcome, too, because Fred and George didn't know what had transpired on Mafia Island and therefore couldn't scold him, too. Although, Harry wondered if they would've done that in the first place, troublemakers that they were.

It was hard to say, now after everything that had happened. They made a valid attempt at seeming normal, but how could they be after the death of their brother and what had happened to them individually? The ragged bite wound he saw in the crook of George's neck illustrated that point even more.

"Stuff happened, you know me, but I'm fine." Harry shrugged, not willing to extricate himself from their hug, even when neither twin seemed willing to stop the hug anytime soon. He wasn't sure if they were just trying to be annoying or if they actually needed a good hug, but he was willing to offer them one either way. "I actually bought you some souvenirs."

Hermione had been happy about the Mafia Island history book he'd chosen. She was probably working on a ten step plan on how Harry was supposed to better the mafia world with his position. For the twins, he'd chosen some graphic tees that didn't make the connection to the mafia world too obvious. They had a lot less info about everything than Hermione did.

"Oh, presents. Show us, Harry!" Fred urged, finally letting go of Harry and stepping next to his brother. Only then did Harry notice that-

"What the hell happened to your eye? I mean… you have one." Yeah not a particularly tactful day, apparently. Reborn would've been exasperated, if he'd heard him and lectured him about diplomacy. Fortunately his friends were used to him, so Fred barely batted an eyelid.

"Someone in another safe house is the bloke who made Mad-Eye's eye. He gave me a discount, because we apparently helped his son during the Last Battle, so now I have this baby. It can't rotate 360 degrees like Mad-Eye's though," Fred explained. Harry was in awe. While Moody's eye had been creepy with its constant movement, this one looked very natural, if slightly different in colour to Fred's natural one. If he didn't know better, Harry never would have assumed it was an artificial one.

"Still, it couldn't have been cheap, right?" Harry asked suspiciously after a moment of appreciating the magical object as it was meant to be. The Weasleys never had much money and the twins hadn't even finished school before the war with Voldemort had really started. The practiced 'nothing to see here' grin, which both of them were directing at him now, just fueled his bad feeling about this. He held Fred's gaze and after a long battle of wills, the older teen sighed.

"We may have used the savings for the joke shop. We talked about it and thought it was a good decision to agree, and-"

"By which he means," George interjected with a snort, "that I bullied him into agreeing, when he wanted to refuse the offer, because he thought it would be selfish."

"And I only agreed-" Fred narrowed his eyes at his brother, while Harry followed their explanation like a tennis match. "-if we used the rest to buy the ingredients for the Wolfsbane potion, until we found work enough to buy it with our salary or wage."

Harry cringed slightly. He hadn't actually tried to make Fred and George argue, which they seldom did in front of others anyway. Usually they presented a united front and probably argued in privacy later on.

"Which was stupid, because we didn't even know if I got infected or not!" George ground out, pressing his hand, most likely unconsciously, over the bite mark.

"If you hadn't been, we wouldn't have to buy the ingredients anyway and could've just used the rest of the money as planned for the joke shop!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Both of them huffed and crossed their arms in front of their chests. By this point Harry doubted they even knew what they were saying anymore. It didn't make much sense in any case.

"I may be able to help with that," Harry interjected, before the argument could devolve any further. The gaze of two sets of brown eyes snapped to him at once. Initially he had planned to conduct some experiments, like Hermione had suggested, before offering his help to the twins. Now that he stood in front of them and saw how much they were suffering, George more than Fred by the looks of it, he couldn't wait that long to give them some hope.

"Well, you know I have that whole other energy thing that's not magic and… I may have used it to fend off a werewolf in the past?" Harry nervously rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, when the intense gazes became even sharper. "And, uh, said werewolf recently wrote to me that it kind of works like the Wolfsbane potion for a time. I actually don't know if I can repeat the effect after it lessens, but… if you're willing to try, I'd be more than happy to work something out, George. Maybe we can try with your eye, too, Fred."

"You mean that orange Flame thing-"

"-you refuse to tell us more about?"

"The one that at least Snape and your brother-"

"-also have in a different colour?"

"And that's probably connected to the arrival of-"

"-that baby and your spontaneous trip to-"

"-a vacation resort?"

Oh great, they were back at it. Harry chose to take this as a good sign, even though this was quickly turning into the Spanish Inquisition. He wasn't too surprised that the twins had figured out that much. Both of them were quite clever.

"Uhm, yes? I'm honestly not even allowed to tell you this much," Harry certainly hoped this wouldn't come back to bite him one day, especially considering his recent trip to Vindice Prison. "But you're my friends and if I can help you in any way, I'd like to do it."

He gasped, when he once again ended up as the filling in a Weasley twins hug sandwich.

Harry looked up from the third crystal he was filling with Sky Flames (as instructed by Hermione), when the sound of Apparition in the garden caught his attention.

About a week had passed since his return from Vindice Prison and it was the day his combat teacher, an Arcobaleno he hadn't met before, was supposed to arrive. Harry was still a little exasperated that Reborn had disregarded their decision to keep mum about the ritual and the deadline for now and used the information as incentive instead. To be fair Reborn had never actively voiced his opinion on the matter, but Harry had thought they were in agreement.

Reborn and Severus had gone to fetch his new teacher from London about twenty minutes ago and Harry couldn't help looking forward to meeting him. Due to his bad habit of stumbling from one problem to the next, they hadn't covered the basics of hand-to-hand as planned, yet, and all of them agreed that he should get some top-notch, specialised training as soon as possible in order to defend himself without using magic or just throwing a shite-load of Sky Flames the enemy's way.

He carefully put the crystal down on the table and went to the window to get a first glimpse of the new Arcobaleno. So far he knew that his name was Fon, and that he was a member of the triads and a master in several martial arts. Shamal had also agreed that he could be trusted with magic and Harry in particular.

The Sky spotted a small, red-clad person hunched next to some bushes after no doubt losing their last meal. First-time Apparition did that to some people, no matter how tough they were. What Harry hadn't expected was the second baby-sized, similarly dressed person with a tiny monkey perched on their shoulder. Harry frowned. Two Arcobaleno?

Five minutes later, the double doors leading to the patio opened and the group came in. By then Harry had returned to his seat and fiddled with the crystal some more to avoid looking like a creep to the newcomers. The one with the monkey on his head stopped next to him and Harry was a bit caught off guard by the gentle smile on his face. He could feel the contained Storm Flames and so far every other Storm Harry had met had exuded a certain aura of wildness. With Fon he felt more like he was in the eye of the storm.

"Greetings, Vongola Tenth," the Arcobaleno joined his hands together and bowed in greeting. The other person, who Harry had first expected to be his new teacher, bowed as well, but didn't say anything. "I'm Fon and these are my apprentice I-Pin and my animal partner Lichi."

Harry mirrored the bow as best as possible while sitting and offered them a welcoming smile.

"Nice to meet the three of you, I'm Harry Potter; please call me Harry, if you'd like. Thank you for agreeing to be my teacher and making time for me on such short notice." Harry barely quashed the urge to throw a light glare in Reborn's direction. "We've only prepared one room for you, but if you need another one, that's no problem. Also you… don't seem to be surprised by the teleportation or the suddenly appearing house?"

Now that things in the magical world were going back to normal slowly but surely, Harry had gone through the proper channels and asked Kingsley, the acting minister, for permission to reveal magic to a Muggle. Harry didn't even know what to feel when the man had agreed without further ado, when it was revealed that said Muggle was going to be Harry's martial arts teacher. Was he really that bad that even people outside his protection squad were worried about him?

Harry watched as Fon turned towards I-Pin and presumably translated what he'd said. He didn't know any form of Chinese, so he couldn't be sure.

"One room is more than enough, thank you," Fon said, after he'd finished relating everything to his student and turned back toward Harry. "And please do not worry. I've come into contact with magic before and so has I-Pin. We're not well-versed, but we have a decent grasp on the basics. We would like to store away our luggage first and, if you're agreeable, I'd then like to assess your current skills. Reborn has told me that you'd like to master the bo staff."

"Yes, someone I knew used the bo staff and let me try it out. I feel like that's the weapon that speaks to me most, though I don't have much practice with any of them. Until now I've mostly used magic to fight," Harry admitted. Fon was studying him and he was surprised that the intense gaze didn't make him want to squirm. Maybe it was the still serene smile on the Arcobaleno's lips?

"Quick reflexes can already go a long way. I'm sure we will figure something out," Fon assured, with a strangely soothing quality to his voice that made Harry wonder, yet again, how this person could be a Storm. "Now, do you mind showing us to our room?"