As an eleven year old, he is not particularly ambitious nor has he developed enough to be considered cunning but he is loyal to a fault, or at least he will be once he finds people worthy enough.
"Better be…. GRYFFINDOR!"
He does not consider himself to be brave, only capable of working under pressure and doing what needs to be done.
Apparently a sentient hat and a table full of strangers find this definition of his self most applicable.
But he would rather be with them than the group in yellow smiling indifferently.
.
"Look what I have here! Looks like Longbottom forgot something!" The blond kid is a spoiled prat.
He sighs, no one else was doing anything and he does not much mind Neville.
"Give it back, Malfoy." Trash.
The entire situation is ridiculous, he is 50 feet in the air and diving head first towards the ground just to catch a toy.
He lands to the cheers of his housemates and he honestly cannot find it within himself to care. That is, until he is carted away by a professor.
Then, he fears for his life.
He iss still so young and still so naïve.
.
His first kill is accidental, honest.
And probably could have been prevented if he had not gone along with his friends' ideas and suspicions.
As he sits on the stairs staring at the hands that dissolved a professor, he realizes two things.
He is not the person everyone wants – expects – him to be and there is no reason he should have to bend himself backwards to meet their ideals.
He is 11 the first time he kills a man and he cannot care less.
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Who in their right minds send a possibly traumatized child to live with abusive relatives?
He is not – traumatized that is – but that does not mean that he will not work that angle for all it is worth.
After a day of unnecessary physical labor, he sits in the smallest bedroom at Number 4 Private Drive in Surrey, he realizes.
"Muggles are trash."
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He is being harassed by a freakish creature with large ears and even larger eyes.
It took his mail and causes him to be locked in his room.
Then, it has the gall to block the barrier.
Ronald may not have realized but he knoes it was that thing's fault.
Standing awkwardly outside of the barrier, Ronald is quick to suggest – and suggest and suggest – that they take the spelled car to school and while they briefly entertain the idea he has a better one. Scrawling a quick note on scrap paper, he sends Hedwig off to locate. Professor McGonagall.
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Ever since the idiot manhandled him in the bookstore, he really wanted something terrible to happen to the new Defense professor and he would have no qualms being that terrible something.
The man is a moron and most exciting thing that has ever happened to him had to do with someone forgetting his favorite color.
Regardless of that, the man can spin elaborate tales that are only problematic when introduced as fact. Then, then, it is unacceptable.
.
When people are scared they whisper but never approach. He thinks that sounds wonderful.
But now he is pissed, positively irate.
If people are to be scared of him he would rather it be because of what he has actually done, like basically murdering Quirrel – something that everyone seemed to conveniently forget.
But, no. Of course not.
He just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and now everyone thinks he is aan evil muggle-hating foe.
It does not help that he can speak with snakes – God forbid he tries to help someone again. And that mess had just begun to pass when the incident occurres.
.
Ronald's sister and the giant snake are dead and before him stands a man that should not exist.
It is a mess of a situation.
Apparently a diary – of all things – possessed Ginerva Weasley forcing her to locate and open the supposedly lost Chamber of Secrets.
Guess it wasn't so lost anymore.
I am Lord Voldemort.
By all rights he should br terrified, but he wonders how long it took to come up with an identity that was an anagram of his name.
Dumbledore's phoenix swoops in with the Sorting Hat – he wonders if the situation could possibly get more surreal – which held an ostentatiously golden sword.
In a last ditch effort to save his hide, he holds the sword above his head as the snake's jaws closed down. The sword is driven up through the roof of the snake's mouth and it stills. But, as the universe continues to remind him, no good deed goes unpunished and he soon finds himself writhing on the ground the snake's vemon coursing through his veins.
In his agony, the diary and Ginerva Weasley slipfrom his mind.
The phoenix begind to sing drowning out his screams and it's tears sooth away the pain. As he reorients himself, the diary man smirks as he walks towards him a wand in hand.
He is 12 the first time he intentionally kills.
The sword weighs more than someone his size can realistically fight with. So, with his entire 95 pounds behind it, he hefts up the sword and swings.
The man is dead, Ginerva Weasley is dead, and so is the giant snake.
He wonders when his luck will finally run out.
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Molly's daughter is dead and she is still coddling him. He supposes it could be worse, she could be cursing his name.
He can only assume she is putting off dealing with the tragedy until she is in private.
Ronald, however, is switching between depressed and furious.
"You're Harry Potter!"
"That doesn't mean I can bring back the dead."
He is still a child. A child who put his hopes in a person incapable of making them reality.
He is still a child who had his first taste of death.
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"I didn't plan on having the conversation until you were much older. However, with circumstances being what they are I believe it needs to be had now.
"The diary and the young Tom Riddle that you faced were created through one of the darkest rituals of the soul and are known as Horcruxes. A soul for a soul.
"By taking life, the Dark Lord was able to split his soul into several pieces and distribute them amongst objects of great personal significance."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"It is possible that the scar you bear was caused by the accidental creation of a Horcrux."
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The school knows he wasn't to blame for the attack and yet there were still whispers.
"He's Harry Potter, he should have saved her."
He wants nothing more than shed away the gilded skin of Harry Potter.
He steps off the Hogwarts Express and a thought strikes him with such clarity, such tenacity, that he cannot fathom how it did not occur to him before.
"Muggles are trash, and so are wizards."
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His strength gleaned from hours of manual labor is the only thing he can even entertain thanking the Dursely's for.
Marge insults his family. His mother, his father, his birthright.
He does not need magic to show he is more. He does not need magic to show dominance.
He moves before he can formulate a better plan. With all his strength he grabsher by the neck and slams her and her chair to the floor.
She screams bloody murder and Vernon slams him against the dining room wall.
"OUT BOY! GET OUT!"
He spats on his uncle and slips upstairs portraying a calm he does not feel.
He commandeers one of Dudley's old backpacks filling it with extra clothing and lets Hedwig out the open window.
And without a second thought, he leaves his wand were it remains hidden.
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He is only on the streets for two weeks when a couple of punks with bb guns kill his only family.
They were stalking him all day and when he finally stops and lets her land on his arm, they shoot six times only hitting twice. But, once is enough.
He watches in horror as her talons releases their grip on his arm and watches her fall lifeless to the asphalt.
In her honor, he braids several of her feathers into his hair and buries her in a park within a hole deep enough no one would dare try to exhume her.
He's killed a man and the soul fragment of the most powerful wizard of the age. He feels no remorse when he beats the punks within an inch of their lives. He leaves them bleeding in an ally way and next thing he knows, rumors spread once more.
The called him Kid Ruthless.
He thinks it lame and uncreative but even the adults leave him be.
.
A nice woman takes him in for the winter months but she is ill and he probably does more for her then she could ever do for him.
For once, he does not mind.
Only days before her death, he accidentally calls her Mom.
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The woman is in bed the day she introduces him to an old friend introduced only as Timeoto.
She pushed for them to meet with the hope that he would leave with him when the man returned to from which he came.
When she dies, he puts several coins in a payphone, and his life truly begins.
….
The mafia is something new. Of course he had heard of the Families of Italy but they were there and he was in England where his biggest problem was whether or not he would get to eat that day.
He certainly did not expect the nice old man Timoteo to be the Don of the most powerful Family in Italy.
The man took him in, dressed him nicely, and sets him up with tutors to teach him Italian and the years of school that he missed.
He accepts him as his own and even gives him a name.
Xanxus.
.
Flames.
When Timoteo first explains them Xanxus' first thoughts are of magic.
Muggles that have their own form of magic but only a select few knew how.
A secret society within the secrecy of the criminal underground.
He thinks it funny.
Wizards think they know everything.
.
Wrath flames.
Timoteo says he is a corrupted sky.
That he can still obtain a set of guardians but will never have the harmonization factor that pure skies radiate.
The horcrux is a likely source of corruption.
He cannot say he minds.
He does not think he could handle being crowded 24/7.
He had his fill of that in England.
.
Flame training does wonders in getting his accidental magic under control.
He learns how to combine his magic with his flames.
He is stronger for it, possibly even stronger than Timoteo.
He has always known that he would have to do something about his haywire magic but he always operated under the idea that he would cross that bridge when he must.
And low-and-behold the answer falls right into his lap.
.
He is fourteen when he is enrolled in the Mafia Academy, Academia Colombo, half way through the school year.
He decides he likely holds the record of being the only person in the world to have attended schools in two separate secret societies.
For the first few months, he is quiet.
A loner.
He will never admit it, but it was mostly due to his shaky Italian.
He spends the time observing though very few of his peers are worth noticing.
Those with money affiliated with the Mafia send their children to Colombo to make allies to strengthen the Family.
Lower level Famiglias trying to move up in the world by sending their children to a place made for making connections.
Trash.
The lot of them.
.
There is a kid that has been watching him intently since his first day.
He has short messy hair – that was very nearly white – and sharp grey eyes.
He is often seen in the company of the Cavallone heir – someone he knows would grow to be formidable.
Xanxus hates the feeling of eyes on his back. Watching him, categorizing him, bating him.
But the eyes watching him are not the eyes of a curious child, or the eyes of scared brats. They are cold, calculating as though he is constantly trying to determine if he can best him in a fight.
Then, one day, when he feels those eyes on him, he turns and smirks.
.
Superbi Squalo, his name is.
The boy takes to tailing him about the school and through him he becomes acquainted with the Cavallone heir and their flamboyant upperclassman Lussuria Abano.
Lussuria who takes it upon himself to proclaim them both his younger siblings.
Xanxus decides that it was nice to have people that are not scared of him.
People were scum, trash, but his people were alright.
.
"One day you'll be glad to have me at your side!"
.
Xanxus is still fourteen the first time they fought back to back.
Back to back with no sign of rescue and without a clear win in sight.
He feels alive.
The group attacked them once they were off the neutral grounds of the academy.
Their attackers have guns but, per academy policy, they are unarmed.
They won, overwhelmingly.
Afterwards, he took Squalo home with him.
.
They were fresh into their sixteenth year when Squalo surpasses the Sword Emperor and they make Varia theirs.
Lussuria joins them and a follower of Tyr swears his allegiance to Xanxus.
That night they celebrate with wine and whiskey.
A week later, Timoteo officially announced his ascension.
It is the beginning of the decline of their relationship.
.
Unfortunately, becoming the head of an independent assassination squad is not an adequate excuse for skipping school.
As he and Squalo walk the halls, he categorizes three types of people.
Those who fear them.
Those who want their favour.
And those ambivalent.
The Cavallone brat remains the only one in the third category.
.
Xanxus is being stalked.
By a kid. By a literal child.
Lussuria notices him first when the kid follows them from school to headquarters. Lussuria has graduated at this point and spends his time cleaning house and establishing a new security protocol.
He knows everything from what an underling had for breakfast to some kid slipping past the surveillance.
It is bizarre but convenient.
Squalo is upset he got bested by a kid.
Xanxus is begrudgingly impressed.
.
The kid's name is Belphegor.
They call him Bel.
He slaughtered his family, has a pennant for knife fights, and frequently speaks in the third person.
He fits in well.
Lussuria thinks him adorable and Squalo thinks him something.
Xanxus is just glad that the kid was not really a kid.
He was not even good with children when he was a child.
And he certainly does not have the patience for a whiney brat.
A murderous prince he can handle.
.
At seventeen he and Squalo leave school and put all their effort towards rebuilding Varia.
It is much easier to focus on what is important when someone was not hounding you about the Pythagorean Theorem.
Neither of them were much for school anyways.
Besides, photosynthesis wouldn't help with an assassination.
They still make Bel endure Lussuria's tutoring.
.
Massimo is an idiot, a dangerous idiot, and Timoteo is blind.
A stupid, blind, old man.
Fredrico, the favored candidate was killed and Massimo is next in line.
If Massimo became Vongola Decimo the world would burn.
They couldn't let that happen.
They loved the Family too much.
.
"He could have you killed for this!"
"If I do this, then he'll wonder what else is going on under his nose. He would never expect me of all people to betray him."
"Why is that?"
"He took me off the streets. I owe my life to him."
"So, he isn't your father. I thought so."
"He was an old friend of a lady who took me in while I was still in England. She died, and I called him."
"England?"
He pauses for a moment.
And then tells him the truth.
Squalo listens raptly and when he voiced his concern about Squalo's belief in his story he simply shrugs and says:
"You hate liars."
.
The supposed coup goes as planned.
Varia storm Vongola headquarters and Xanxus absconds with the Sky ring.
He is burned by the purity of the ring against his Wrath flames.
And for all that they are an assassination squad, no lives are lost.
.
Zero-Point Breakthrough.
Vongola Primo's technique.
He did not thought Timoteo was strong enough.
He really is not, it takes all he had.
The ice should have killed him.
It was only his magic that keeps him alive through those years.
He is kept in complete and utter solitude.
He can only hope that Squalo iss taking care of his men.
He knows he is.