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

Author's note: What is this? Another chapter just one day after the last one? Indeed! Thank past me for that, because I re-read the draft for that chapter and noticed that I only had to tweak some things. I had to rewrite the last chapter, which took... a lot more time.

Thanks everyone for your well-wishes 3 And that you stayed with the story until now. There's only the epilogue left and then I've finally finished the longest story I've ever written.

Rating: M

Warning: Potter Luck TM

Harry went through some mental exercises he'd learnt from Severus, while everyone else put the finishing touches on the ritual set-up. He wanted to be as calm and concentrated as possible to avoid screwing up, when everything hinged on him.

Reborn was already lying in the middle of the magic circle, clad in a white robe that almost drowned the hitman in its folds. It was several sizes too big on purpose in order to cover Reborn, when he grew taller. Hopefully he would grow taller. That was still a point in contention. Either way, Harry knew Reborn would be ecstatic just getting rid of the Curse itself.

Harry traced the intersecting lines of the magic circle with his gaze. The spaces between them were filled in with tiny, barely legible runes. He barely knew what they said or did and he remembered his eyes glaze over, when Hermione had tried to explain the intricacies to him. By now Hermione had checked every last detail at least half a dozen times, so Harry was sure no mistakes had been made. Hermione was still limping a little, but had mostly gotten used to the prosthetic leg Spanner had finished about a fortnight ago. Testing his ability to burn dark magic out of wounds was still on their to do list, though.

Spanner and Basil set the last few crystals down on the outer circle, alternating those with Sky Flames and magic. Four big, white candles for cleansing and new beginnings were already positioned to match the cardinal directions. Several smaller, black candles had been lit closer to the centre of the magic circle.

The rest of Harry's Guardians and Fon stood to the side, talking quietly to each other. Most of them had put on their poker faces, but the room basically vibrated from their nervous energy. It was understandable. It was an important event, after all.

"Alright. Everything's set up. Are you ready, Harry?" Hermione appeared next to him and squeezed his shoulder. Harry took a deep breath, nodded and knelt down at his designated spot. It was where all of the lines connected. Rather than saying some fancy words in Latin, the plan was to carefully lead his energies through the lines to activate the runes in a certain order. The crystals' job was to amplify the effect. Nobody's reserves were big enough to finish the rituals without them.

He entered Dying-Will-Mode and put his hands on two small circles. With one hand he pushed out Sky Flames, the other one did the same with magic. It was difficult even though he'd it for more than a week until he could do it perfectly. Several lines started to glow in a bright, blue-ish light, others were set aflame. All of them formed an intricate web around Reborn's body, who was almost as still as a stone.

One by one the crystals started glowing, as well, in either blue or orange. The whole magic circle was active for several long seconds, before Reborn's pacifier lit up, too. It separated from the hitman's body and floated a few inches above him. Now Harry only had to give the magical circle one last little push to successfully finish the ritual.

Of course that was the moment everything went wrong.

The light in Reborn's pacifier concentrated into one single beam and connected with Fon's. At once Harry felt the strain. Instead of pushing out Flames and magic, they were rapidly pulled out of him. Several people screamed for him to stop, but that was something Harry couldn't do right now. He instinctively knew neither Reborn nor Fon would survive if he wrestled free from the pull now. He had to finish this!

Harry grit his teeth and tried to keep the balance of magic and Flames even. It felt like trying to control a raging current. As more and more energy left his body, Harry sank further onto the floor Black spots started to dance across his eyes, but before Harry lost his consciousness completely, he felt his wrist heat up. To this day they had not unravelled the purpose of the bracelet wrapped around it.

When Harry woke up, he felt weird. He was tired for one, which was nothing new when he came to after being knocked out (something that happened entirely too often). What confused him the most was the dichotomous feeling of emptiness and completion.

It took him a while to peel his eyes open, but even before then Harry knew he was lying in his own bed and that someone was in the room with him. He turned his head to the side and studied the sleeping man, somehow elegantly slouching on a chair at the side of his bed. Harry couldn't help the bemused smile, when he noticed the perfect fit of the suit he was wearing and the adult-sized fedora covering his face. Knowing the man, he'd secretly tailored it himself leading up to the ritual. Harry was so glad it had worked, despite the incident. What had happened to Fon, though? Was he alright?

"I can hear you fret." Reborn pushed his hat out of his face and smirked. He looked pretty much like the one from the future, albeit a little bit younger. The decade had barely left any marks, so it was safe to say that Reborn was going to age well.

"What happened after I passed out?" Harry asked, his voice surprisingly strong and not particularly scratchy. "And how long was I out?"

"The ritual was yesterday," Reborn explained and Harry frowned, when the man wrapped his hand around Harry's, which caused a light sting in his wrist. He noticed the lack of bracelet and the dark red markings, before Reborn raised their hands higher and dropped a kiss to the back of Harry's, leaving the wizard gaping in shock. "Fon is fine and also free from the curse. I know you're worrying about him. We used the box for cursed objects like planned and that will hopefully keep Iron Hat away for some time. How are you feeling?"

"What is-" Harry could still feel the phantom touch of Reborn's lips on his skin and was… 'Confused' wasn't nearly enough to describe how he was feeling right now. Had he ended up in a parallel universe somehow? With his luck, it wasn't out of the realm of possibilities.

"You're mine now."

"I'm yours? What do you- Oh…" That was the feeling of completion he was feeling now, wasn't it? Sometime between Harry passing out and waking up again, Reborn and he had Harmonized. The constantly throbbing pain left behind by the broken Sun bond was gone completely and in its place was the feeling of summer sunshine on his skin.

"When things started going wrong, you could have just stopped, instead you were willing to burn out your magical core and… whatever would have happened to your Sky Flames. It was a stupid things to risk yourself like that, but someone who'd do that for me is someone I'm willing to follow and protect. And also someone I want to make mine completely." The smirk on Reborn's lips widened. It was his plotting expression, which sometimes ended well for Harry and sometimes didn't. "But don't worry too much about it for now."

Harry felt his face heat up rapidly and ordered his heart to stop whatever weird thing it was doing. He didn't even know where to start unpacking everything Reborn had just said. So he started with the safest choice and the one as far away from that propositioning as possible.

"Is that why I feel so empty? Did they burn out?" But no, that couldn't be it. At least his Sky Flames must be there somehow, otherwise the Guardian bonds would have disappeared, as well, and he still felt all of them. When he tried to manifest either magic or Flames, though, nothing happened.

Reborn raised a somewhat mocking eyebrow at the obvious change in topics, but offered information without further comment.

"If you'd have finished the ritual with only the energy in your body, you would've destroyed both of them. You spared yourself that fate, though." Reborn pushed Harry's wrist, which he still held in his hand, closer to Harry's face. At a closer look, Harry noticed that the runes, which had been on the bracelet, were now burnt into his skin. "From what we could gather, the future you stored a lot of energy into the bracelet. Before the ritual caused irreparable damage, it was released. You'll recover in time, but it will take a while."

"Reborn, what-"

"Renato," the man interjected, making Harry blink.

"What?"

"I'm no longer Reborn the Arcobaleno and the person from the time before that is dead. I'm Vongola Decimo's Sun Guardian Renato now," the hitman explained. At first Harry thought he was joking, but after a long moment it became clear that 'Renato' was quite serious.

"Do you plan to change your name after any life-altering situation to a variation of 'reborn' then?" Harry asked, clearly mocking him a bit.

"Maybe only my last name, sometime in the future," was Renato's quip with his ever present smirk.

It took an embarrassing long moment for Harry to understand the implication, but then he once again turned beet red and spluttered.

"Are you unhappy that you didn't get your old body back?"

Fon had heard his old friend approaching, but even when Reborn- Renato was talking to him, his gaze remained on the garden outside his window, where the twins were currently trying to test some of their inventions of Basil. The Rain looked just about ready to pop a Hyper-Dying-Will pill to fly away.

"No, I'm more than happy to be finally free from the curse. I can wait another few years to grow up the natural way." Even in this small, uncursed body, he still had most of his power and knowledge, so it wasn't much different from being an Arcobaleno. The difference was, he now had a future. "I only came here to learn about the ritual in the first place, so I got a lot more than I had anticipated."

"Too bad the Aging Potion didn't work, though. What's wrong then?" Renato had propped one shoulder against the wall next to the window. His arms were loosely crossed in front of him. It was a pose he'd often seen from the hitman before they'd been cursed, but the different physiology of an Arcobaleno made it hard to maintain the same body language or even habits. Seeing the man like this was making him nostalgic.

"Nothing is wrong per se… It's just… You're lucky. Not because you've regained your original size, but because you've met Harry at the right time." Fon finally turned his face to the other man and saw his eyes widen a bit, as Renato connected the dots.

"You would've liked to be his Storm Guardian."

"I haven't known Harry for long," Fon began, picking up his cup of tea. It was oolong tea, something Harry had procured after learning that it was Fon's favourite. "He's still young, but he's already a great Sky and he will undoubtedly be even more fabulous in the future. I think my stance was similar to yours. I liked what I saw, but it wasn't quite enough to change my life in order to focus on him long-term. When I saw how far he was willing to go, that was the last push I needed. Though contrary to your situation, I was too late. Maybe not even by all that much. I thanked him for lifting the curse for me and apologised for my part in the botched ritual. He just waved it away like it was nothing."

Fon saw from the side of his eye how Renato dropped his gaze and knew it would've been accompanied by the tugging down of a fedora, if the man had been wearing one at the moment.

It was a missed opportunity. One he had to live with and which tasted bittersweet on his tongue. Something he could do was repay Harry for his freedom.

And what better way was there than making Fred and George the best Storm Guardians possible?

Sorry Fon, maybe next time. And yes, that hurt me just as much as it hurts the ones, who've been rooting for Fon. Like I said, I would've liked to make ALL the Storms Harry's Guardian XD