Samsara: Treading On Scorched Sand

by Shivani

Sequel to Samsara. Yet another life, though this one has the odd benefit or so.

3. λ15 : 03: 1991-1992

Classes were boring—aside from a tinge of malicious pleasure in seeing Granger puff up whenever one of them demonstrated they could do the spell in question before anyone else—so they concentrated on the tasks they had set themselves.

During one of their evenings in the Room (of Requirement), which they had taken to calling Roary's to throw people off the track should any overhear, Ken had quite sensibly pointed out that Riddle had attended Hogwarts and might hold some measure of fondness for the place. That being so, he required of the room any items or artifacts that Tom Marvolo Riddle had left at the school.

There were odds and ends, but nothing of actual importance, except for one item, a gleaming diadem. Considering the man's humble beginnings (and a penchant for thievery, as taken from the old goat's mind based on the initial visit made to the orphanage where Riddle was housed) and his general disappearance from the world (they had tracked down a stint as a worker at a shop in Knockturn Alley, Borgin's, which was one of the places that tragically disintegrated), the diadem moved up the scale from surprising to downright suspicious.

Add to that Tsuna's unease with the thing…

Hayato gave a sharp nod and set about disintegrating the thing, then scowled when another of those odd clouds came out with a screaming face.

"So that's, what, four so far?" he said, "Though I expect the one was an accident."

Daemon required something, which came in the form of a book, and flipped through it until he found whatever he was looking for. "Numbers of significance in the magical world are three, five, seven, thirteen—you can see where this is going. Five not so much, but it really depends on the situation and what you're attempting to accomplish."

"With four already, we're probably looking for seven," Hayato concluded, "which means if he has the means, he will make at least one more, assuming we're counting his starting portion of the soul as one of the set."

Tsuna nodded slowly. Prime numbers and all that. That much he did remember, even though he continued to not be fond of maths in general. "We should consider checking into the area where his mother came from, the orphanage—assuming it still stands—and possibly places the orphanage staff would have taken the children as treats. Would they have done things like that back then? Would they even have the funding?"

"We may have missed something when looting known associates," Chikusa said. "A vault makes sense, but some of these people stored things at home. We store things outside that bank or any traditional vault. Why wouldn't they?"

"Which leads to learning more about being able to locate magic, see it, or at least detect it, and potentially curse breaking," Mukuro added.

"Right," he said. "So two goals. The third floor corridor, and detection and curse breaking. That's on top of keeping an eye out for suspicious behavior related to the Dark in general and the mystery the old goat is hiding."

Daemon frowned. "That means you're likely to have to be along. Whatever is down that corridor will probably be protected, and we'll need your ability to harmonize through things."

He nodded. "My conclusion as well. I'm thinking me, a Mist, and Hayato at bare minimum, though having Chikusa along wouldn't hurt, for his powers of tranquility. I can temporarily anchor a Bounding Box to keep people away while we're investigating, but I do wonder if there are alarms or alerts on that corridor."

Daemon stopped frowning. "Detection methods first, then. And because, while you can bypass a ward by not going through it, if you can't see its boundaries… Shall we get started, then?"

— — —

"The door itself isn't warded beyond a locking spell," Hayato reported. "Not seeing any alerts or alarms. Conclusion: there might be something in there that someone needs to regularly attend to."

Tsuna had set up a Bounding Box on the whole corridor that would subtly divert people to other places and other interests. "And the wall is clear."

Hayato nodded.

Tsuna stepped forward and began the process of harmonizing his way through the stone. His only goal was to get a clear enough look at the other side to be able to open a window from the corridor. As his hand started to merge into the stone he heard Chikusa say, "What would be the effect of a highly localized Bounding Box on our leader? Would something like that deflect any tracking charms or what have you?"

He pursed his lips as his arm sank in up to the wrist. "We can test it after. Might also work as a fantastic fangirl deterrent."

Hayato laughed. "If it does, I want one for myself! It might not get as much use here since I'm not in my usual body, but…"

He tossed a grin his Storm's way and nodded, his arm having sunk in up to the elbow. "Okay. Here we go." A few minutes later he was staring with minor disbelief at the three-headed dog in the room beyond the door and the enormous bone all three heads were able to gnaw on at once. He stepped Between a moment later and pulled up a window so everyone could see.

"A cerberus?" Ken said. "I wonder how well one would work as a pet?"

Daemon pointed. "There, a trap door, under it. It's guarding the way."

"Give me a minute," Xeul said. "I'm going to go require information on them, to see if there's a known method we can use to bypass it, or if Chikusa will need to try tranquility."

Tsuna nodded and reached into his storage for something to drink. He could just use a Bounding Box to deflect the beast, but holding one already unanchored doubled the strain on him. Add to that the necessity of his other talents…

After draining half the bottle he opened a window to Ki-san on a whim, and luckily he was there reading a book. "Ki-san~!"

Reborn smiled as he looked up, then his brow went up at what was visible from his side.

"We're having an adventure," Tsuna said happily. "I thought you might like to float along with us. We've just determined that there's a cerberus behind this door here, guarding something."

Reborn's smile was all teeth, and his eyes sparkled. "So kind of you to think of me."

"Always, Ki-san~! Oh, any requests for goodies? Same, different? I think I'll send along some butterbeer next time. It's a bit like liquid butterscotch, but diluted enough to be enjoyable. Slightly alcoholic."

"Mm. Yes. As for what? Cannoli, and some of those pineapple tarts."

Tsuna nodded as Xeul stepped back in. "News?"

Xeul took a second to give Reborn a nod, then said, "Music puts them to sleep. Probably a good thing I know how to play the flute—damn that Asari—because I don't fancy shifting a piano into that room. Roary's had one handy, and since it's real, it must be something left behind or lost by a student. And speaking of that…"

"A fine opportunity for some extra cash," Daemon said.

"All right. Xeul, you start playing while Daemon shifts you into the room. Once we're certain the thing is asleep, we can open that trapdoor and get a look inside for another shift."

Xeul did a quick cleaning spell on the instrument and started to play a lullaby. Daemon carefully slid an arm around his twin's waist and stepped Between, taking his counterpart along. The view through the window showed the beast becoming sluggish, then sleepy, and finally falling asleep.

"Mukuro, take Ken in with you. I think we'll need more than one person to shift those paws to get at the trap door."

Mukuro nodded and shifted the two of them inside. It was short work between the three of them—Xeul kept up his lullaby—to clear enough space to get at the trap door. On opening it, however, they revealed only darkness.

"This has to be a trap for the unwary," Hayato said.

"Daemon or Mukuro, please step out and pick up some glow-sticks for us. I don't think I have any in storage, but I think will from now on."

Daemon stepped out and was shortly back with a case of the things. One was activated, tied to a string, and lowered down. "Some kind of plant…? Wait, it's shrinking back."

"If it doesn't like light… So we use Earth Flames to maneuver it around until we find a clear place we can shift to, and avoid that plant altogether. I don't remember going over whatever it is in Herbology, and if we damage that thing, it might clue in the old goat that someone is making progress through here."

Daemon nodded and pulled the stick back up, untied it, and glanced at Mukuro before taking control of the light with flames. Mukuro opened a window and, when the glow-stick went inside, followed it with his window.

The next room was quite tall, but there was a clear space down at the bottom and a corridor leading away, so once they were certain of a location, the trap door was closed, the glow-stick left in place, and people started shifting or being shifted Between to get there, with Xeul being the last, since he was ensuring the cerberus stayed asleep.

"This is way more interesting than everyday life here," Reborn commented, looking wistful. "Just think of all the opportunities for chaos."

Tsuna grinned. "I wish you could be here, but I'll not risk turning you into a sentient mass of flame that absorbs all the flame around it."

Reborn nodded, still looking wistful.

"All right, another door," Daemon said, picking up the glow-stick.

Everyone else grabbed one (and the crate was stored), activated them, and attached them to their clothing for the time being.

"Why not use magic?" Reborn asked.

"It would tie up a wand, for one thing," Tsuna replied, "and we don't yet know if there's anything down here that would be set to retaliate against magic use. We're not aware of—wait, there are bluebell flames, I suppose. Those can be created in a jar and carried around. But nothing I can think of offhand that would create a light that stuck in place, not outside of some of the video games I've played. Runes might manage it, though."

The corridor sloped downward, making Tsuna seriously question magical architecture. Daemon and Hayato were busy casting detection spells as they walked. A soft rustling and clinking sounded from farther on.

"What on Earth is that?" he muttered. "It doesn't make me uneasy, but…"

Xeul sneaked off ahead using Between to hide him, and came back a minute later to say, "Flying keys."

He blinked. "All right? Sure. Let's continue, then."

They ended up in a tall, brilliantly lit chamber with a door on the side opposite them.

"Door, keys, and an obvious conclusion," Hayato said.

"So obvious I have to wonder how a 'proper' magical would see it," Ken said.

"Check the door, please," he said. "I'll just harmonize my way past it like the last one. There's no point messing with fluttery keys and risking damage to any of them."

More detection spells went out. The door was locked with a more complicated spell—certainly more complicated than the one upstairs, and the surrounding wall was clear of anything.

Tsuna nodded and stepped forward again to start harmonizing his way through. The other side was dark, even with the light from his glow-stick, but the second he stepped out of the wall, the space lit up to reveal a massive chess board and towering pieces. He blinked a few times, then stepped back to his family.

"A chess board. Door at the far end." He opened a window to show them, and then they all shifted past the obstruction like it didn't exist. Once they could all see their destination, another shift was done.

The door and alcove it resided in were checked for magic, then Ken opened it and promptly shrank back at the rank smell. "What is that!?" he said, burying his nose against his sleeve.

"I see a door at the far end," Tsuna said quietly, feeling only mild unease. "And whatever that is… Chikusa?"

"On it." His Rain went to work tranquilizing the humanoid beast right into somnolence.

"Once we're at the door, someone set up a Mist barrier, please," he said, then trundled forward. Hayato and Mukuro checked for magic along the way, but reported only what looked like boundaries for the beast itself. The door was reinforced but clean, as was the wall.

"I'm feeling mildly uneasy," he said, staring at the door. "I think there's a trap of some sort on the other side. So we open the door and look from here. Send in spies, find a place we can shift to safely."

Everyone nodded and Mukuro opened the door.

The room itself seemed innocuous enough, but there was a parchment of some sort on a table, along with seven differently-shaped bottles in a line. There was no door at the far end, but there was what looked like a short corridor.

The Mists sent spies into the room and to the far end, while Tsuna opened a window over the parchment.

Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,
One among us seven will let you move ahead,
Another will transport the drinker back instead,
Two among our number hold only nettle wine,
Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide
You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.

"Potions and logic?" he said. "This had to have been set up by Snape."

"A fair logic puzzle," Reborn commented, "but considering your collective talents…"

He nodded, then gazed at his Mists.

"There's a final room over there," Daemon reported, opening a window to show all of them. There was a table in there, rather plain, and atop it was a blood-red stone. It looked to share more qualities with amber than it did a ruby.

"That's what he's hiding?" Tsuna said in disbelief. "Well, let's get in there and see what we can figure out."

"I'll go first," Xeul said, "just in case. A volunteer to assist with the detection spells?"

Ken's hand went up, so off they went, and were shortly seen to be busy casting at everything and anything in there. When an OK came back the rest of them shifted into the room and eyed the stone.

"Do you think this is connected to that article about the attempted break-in at Gringotts?" Hayato asked.

"Whatever that is," Reborn said, his brow crinkled thoughtfully, "it can be substituted, don't you think? Open a window to whatever version of Talbot you feel comfortable with and see if he can create a fake? He can sense more than most can. Also, check that table to see if there are any pressure-related traps, such as if the thing was lifted up."

"Oh, good point," he said, then ducked down to check the underside of the table. It looked normal, but… Careful examination showed that the wood appeared to be all one piece, with no seams or defects that would suggest a trap.

Tsuna pulled out a old-fashioned camera and started taking pictures from every angle. Once that was done and the camera stashed away he said, "My intuition is saying nothing bad. It's more like neutral. Thoughts? Suggestions?"

"I say we leave it for the moment, and get in touch with Talbot—actually, would he be able to sense anything through a window?" Hayato said.

"Not a clue, but let's find out. Assuming he's available." Tsuna opened a window to the dimension they solved the Arcobaleno issue in and poked around for the old man, and found him puttering around in his garden.

The old man clearly felt the eyes on him, as he said, "Ah."

"Hello, Talbot-san," Tsuna said. "We have a question for you, if you're available."

"Where have you found yourself this time?"

"A world that also has magic."

Talbot appeared startled at that. "Magic. Is there, by chance, a personage by the name of Nicolas Flamel in that world? As more than just myth, that is."

"Yes," Daemon said, "though we've not met him. The Philos—" He paused to eye the stone. "Huh."

"Oh my," Talbot said. "Some of my counterparts get up to such antics. There is every chance the local Talbot is also Nicolas Flamel, which if you were to view him, would become apparent."

"Wait, we just stumbled over your secret?" Hayato asked in disbelief. "You're using alchemy to live approximately forever?"

Talbot scoffed. "Hundreds of years, yes, but not forever. For that to be true I would have had to come into existence at the precise moment the universe did." He reached up to remove his blindfold, and revealed that he had a perfectly fine set of eyes that gave every indication of seeing as a normal person would. "I use the blindfold to make my alter-sight easier to work with."

"So this stone here?" Tsuna said, pointing.

"Appears to be a philosopher's stone, yes," the old man replied. "What do you plan to do with it and why is it not with my counterpart?"

"We're not sure why, but we were considering replacing it with a fake," Tsuna said, then went on to explain the situation. "Reborn suggested we consult with you to see if you could make a credible one."

Talbot pursed his lips. "I will craft you a credible fake. In return, I wish to handle that thing personally to see if it is the real thing or merely another credible fake. I shudder to think a counterpart of mine would be so foolish as to let a mere child attempt to protect a real one. If it is a fake, I shall be reassured. If not, a time should likely be arranged to see what my counterpart is up to."

Tsuna thought about for a half second and nodded. "Agreed. How long will it take you to make a fake?"

"Give me just a moment. Come," Talbot said, then wandered off into the house, Tsuna's window following him.

One of the old man's workshops had a plethora of stones, gem-quality and otherwise, not to mention metals of all sorts. Talbot shuffled through numerous drawers and cubbies, and eventually located a stone that resembled the one in the room quite well, though not exactly.

"If you would, focus your window, or one of them, on that stone."

Tsuna promptly opened a third window, trying to ignore how draining all this was getting to be, and focused it on the stone.

Talbot started working on the stone he had, occasionally asking Tsuna to shift the focus to another part of their stone, and an hour later had a credible fake. Tsuna acquired it when prompted and let Daemon take care of swapping the two and sending the local one to Talbot.

"Give me a bit of time to investigate this," Talbot said, "especially since you're looking rather peaky, young man. Inquire tomorrow evening and I will share my conclusions."

"All right. We'll do so. And thank you, Talbot-san, for your assistance."

Talbot waved him off. "Tomorrow evening, perhaps nine."

Tsuna closed the two extra windows and rubbed his face.

"Get some rest, Heul," Reborn said. "Though I wouldn't mind being able to join in tomorrow."

He smiled fondly. "Sure. We'll see you tomorrow."

Back in their room—only a quick shift away—Daemon hustled him into the en suite and pointed at the shower. "An early night for you, I think."

— — —

The next evening, after another boring day, Tsuna opened a window to Reborn, who had clearly been waiting for it, and then one to Talbot of λ10, the Solution dimension.

"Ah, young ones," Talbot greeted them. "The stone you sent over is a fake, a very good one. That having been determined, I should like to point out that my counterpart has placed a mark at the very center, visible only to alter-sight, which clearly marks it as one of his creations." He pointed to the stone and made shooing motion with one hand.

Daemon acquired the stone back and set it down.

"Any advice for us before we attempt, at some point, to speak to your counterpart?" Tsuna asked. "Right now we're magicals. It's not time yet for us to shed these roles and return to what we've known, though that part might not matter with him."

Talbot nodded. "If he's anything like me…? I would say check in the usual location and leave a note, along with that fake as proof. If you've some place he can reply to, innocuous and unremarkable to the wrong sorts, much the better. You said you're at a school for magic, yes?"

"Yep. Which makes all of this quite suspicious. Why would the headmaster here put something like the Philosopher's Stone out as bait and place every person here, most of them students, into danger? It's a dangerous game he's playing, and we'll have to dig a bit deeper, it seems."

His Mists exchanged a look that promised results.

"I can only hope my counterpart was unaware of the purpose behind the fake. Either that, or he believes magicals in general aren't worth saving if they do stupid things after being taught to ignore the brains they were born with."

Tsuna couldn't refute that line of thinking considering the sheer amount of idiocy he had seen already amongst the Hogwarts population in general. "All right. We'll work from there, then. Thank you."

"Mm. If you require further insight or an outside point of view, do contact me. But for now, I have things I must do."

Tsuna nodded and closed the window. "Huh. Anyone else thinking what I am?"

Hayato eyed him. "That all of that is more of a test than protection? Nothing there was something a determined first year could not have powered through. Seriously. A plant that I have since determined we're to learn about this year? Flying keys when half the population is quidditch mad and likes to fly? Chess? The troll? That's more of an issue, admittedly. And the logic puzzle was probably the hardest of them all, considering magicals do like to pretend that logic and common sense are irrelevant to daily life."

"So Longbottom, Weasley, Granger, and our hero?" Mukuro suggested.

"If so, we've nixed that combination early," he said. "Neville is timid, probably from the abuse—which reminds me we might want to look into his Great Uncle Algie—and what confidence he has is being steadily eroded by Snape. He also never puts himself forward. Weasley may or may not be a whiz at chess, but otherwise he's only interested in flying, eating, and sleeping.

"Granger hasn't yet been indoctrinated into misplacing the greater part of her brain, so the logic puzzle would have been easy enough for her, especially with a spare bit of paper and a pencil to help chart it out. That leaves either Weasley for the keys, or the old goat is expecting me to be a decent flyer, and those lessons aren't for another week."

"I suggest you do get into contact with Flamel, then," Reborn said, "if only to ensure he knows what the fake's being used for. I've no doubt he can protect himself, but if your Dark Lord does get his hands on the thing and realizes it's a fake…"

Tsuna nodded.

His Mists immediately bent heads together to plot, so that was presumably sorted.

"Is the issue of the strain due to your age, or…?"

Tsuna eyed his friend blankly. "I don't usually hold open so many cross-dimensional windows at once, so I'm not sure. There's also the complication of having harmonized through several walls, which always takes a fair bit out of me. I wouldn't be surprised if the age of this body is a contributing factor."

Off to the side, Mukuro began crafting a letter with the help of Daemon and Xeul. Hayato, Chikusa, and Ken had also gone into a huddle and begun plotting.

"The very idea of being here for seven years is such a drag. Though, there's a set of twins here you might find amusing. The Weasley twins. They're pranksters, though some of what they do is downright childish, and some of it might cross the line into bullying. They appear to have brilliantly creative minds for this sort of thing."

"Oh? Do tell," Reborn said, his brow going back up in that imperious way.

— — —

Great Uncle Algie was given an attitude adjustment, one that saw him "accidentally" defenestrated without benefit of wand. Tsuna had heard that the funeral was lovely, though Neville seemed a touch upset over the whole thing. Augusta, Neville's grandmother and regent, was also given an attitude adjustment, but in her case it took the form of a swift kick in the arse regarding her attempts to pretend Neville was her son, rather than a person in his own right.

Neville had been overheard in the common room stating that he was being taken to get a new wand during the Yule holiday.

Tsuna could only hope no more was heard about the boy being abused, or he might end up with even fewer living relatives once Samsara got done taking action. Hayato, Chikusa, and Ken were still plotting with regard to the Longbottom family, so who knows what else they might come up with.

With regard to Flamel, a letter had been placed, along with a box containing the fake, in one of Talbot's more frequently used workshop rooms. Included were two options for contact. One, a post box in Diagon Alley, rented for that purpose, and two, a dead drop in Rome. Hopefully Talbot would be intrigued enough to respond to a message from someone so clearly both magical and mafia.

Another look at the old goat's mind revealed that yes, it was a trap, both for Harry Potter and for the Dark Lord, though the old man did not seem all that concerned about either. He was suspicious of the scar the Boy-Who-Lived was famous for and wondering if it was anything like a Horcrux.

However, having no evidence to prove that given Harry Potter's complete lack of expression with regard to such a hypothesis, it led the old man to believe that if it was related, the boy was unaffected, though he did not rule out the possibility that whatever Dark magic was in that scar (he clearly had not taken a close look at Harry Potter at any point prior to Samsara having obtained the house next door to № 4 to see if the "dark magic" had adversely affected the child in any way) could become active and make magical Britain's hero into a liability or threat.

The other factor brought up from the most recent investigation into the old goat's mind was that he had been searching for some years as to ways in which Tom Riddle, self-styled Lord, could have prevented his final death, which led back to the topic of Horcruxes. The man had searched for evidence of whatever Riddle might have used, had obtained memories he could study, and analyze, and study some more.

Keeping a wary eye on the old man was definitely in order, for it might come down to actively having him or one of his lackeys after his head. Having a localized Bounding Box was looking more attractive every day.

Daemon had called attention to one memory in particular, taken from a Ministry official, one who had gone to the Gaunt shack.

"He 'won' against them," Daemon said, "so to speak. With the protections already on the place, plus any he added, might have been deemed sufficient to hide one of his shards."

"In addition," Mukuro butted in, "they were insane, so I would expect insane protections. We aren't nearly good enough at detecting to risk that place, not if we intend to keep living for long."

"So we nudge the old goat that way," Xeul said. "Maybe he'll run afoul of whatever protects what we suspect is there. And if not, and he comes after you at some point, he will die."

Tsuna nodded his approval. "So let's table that shack for the moment. There is at least one more, possibly two. Do we sit back the remainder of this year and observe, research, learn, or continue to be active?" His personal preference was to take a step back, but he wasn't going to say that so as not to sway the others.

Everyone looked down, recognizing his tactic, and considered, then looked up and nodded. "Step back," Hayato voiced for them.

"Awesome," he replied.

— — —

Charms class went well, if one was of the opinion that Weasley sending the Granger girl off in tears to be a good thing. Tsuna sent off a spy after getting a nudge and continued on his way. The girl refused to come out of the bathroom she'd holed up in, one rarely used, and missed several classes.

Clearly a sign for an impending apocalypse.

At dinner, the Halloween feast was in full swing, with thousands of bats (Tsuna dearly hoped they weren't real and therefore would not be dropping guano everywhere), carved pumpkins, and their plates and tableware were golden again, as they had been at the opening feast.

He was just helping himself to a jacket potato when Quirrell sprinted into the Great Hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. On reaching the head table he slumped against it across from the old goat's chair and gasped, "Troll—in the dungeons—thought you ought to know."

Quirrell then slumped down in a dead faint.

Tsuna's brow went up at such awful acting and knew his dinner was in imminent danger of being taken away from him.

It took several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Dumbledore's wand to bring silence to the screaming panic that had erupted. "Prefects, lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!"

"Wow," he whispered. "He must want a lot of students dead." He opened a window only Samsara could see as he got up and prepared to follow Pompous.

Daemon promptly created a clone to take his place and disappeared. Tsuna watched as Granger's head snapped up at something only she could hear, and then raced for the safety of Gryffindor tower, wiping away tears as she ran.

Daemon seamlessly blended back in with and absorbed his clone, and on they went, at least until Ken made a disgusted sound and covered his nose.

A look went around. 'Shit,' he thought, 'the troll is up here somewhere.'

"What is that smell!?" Chikusa complained.

Pompous looked frightened and trying to hide it as he hurried his charges along down a different path. It would make getting back to the tower take twice as long, but it was good thinking on his part.

Tsuna did wonder where the hell the other prefects were during this crisis. Pompous seemed to be the only one who gave a damn about his duty.

His spy was dismissed the second Granger entered the tower, so at least he knew she was safe.

Dinner service was resumed once they were secure, and Tsuna got his jacket potato with sour cream and butter, as well as some steak and asparagus. It still wasn't the best cooking, but it was decent enough.

"So, I expect that was a ploy to get at the bait," he said once in their dorm. "Kind of stupid when you think about it. Why not just go after it in the dead of night rather than having everyone awake, scared, and staff members crawling all over the school. The dungeons can't be that extensive, can they?"

"Eh," Hayato said. "It takes one hell of a foundation to support a building this size, even with magic playing a part. They might be way bigger than we've ever seen. After all, we never go farther than down that staircase to the Potions classroom. And Hogwarts: A History says that the Slytherin common room is actually under the lake."

"What?" Ken said. "The castle is up on a cliff for fuck's sake. The lake is way far down."

Daemon shook his head. "I'm going to chalk this up to the insanity that is magic and not worry about that."

"Still," Xeul said, "the headmaster is connected to the castle wards—or I at would at least hope so. There are portraits everywhere that probably tell him things. House-elves, too. I should think there would be eyes everywhere. I agree with Tsuna, doing this now was foolish."

— — —

The sign-up sheet for those staying at Hogwarts for the winter holiday made the rounds, and all seven of them ignored it. Tsuna wondered if this would equate to, in the minds of people like Dumbledore and McGonagall, the idea that his home life was at least adequate, if not downright loving and homey.

He rolled his eyes and went on his way, his family keeping his sides and back protected as always, especially from fans and detractors of the school-aged sort.

Snape, when it came down to it, wasn't much of an open threat. He sneered, he slandered, he barked and boasted, but in the end, his word functioned as a leash. And the more Tsuna blithely ignored all of it, the more frustrated the man got. Tsuna sometimes wondered if the man honestly thought he was doing the child of his schoolboy rival a favor by attempting to keep him from getting a swelled head.

That tactic might work on a true child, but not on someone who was approaching two hundred years old and had already gone through more than one life being the whipping boy of everyone in the vicinity.

The old goat did send the occasional glance his way during meals, but otherwise seemed to treat him as any other student.

A week later they were riding the Express back to London—or so it seemed. They grabbed a private compartment for themselves, Tsuna set up a temporary Bounding Box, and then they all shifted to № 6 and sighed with relief.

One of the Mists opened a window to keep an eye out for when Tsuna would need to release his creation, but aside from that they ignored the far-too-long journey everyone else was taking.

"Free at last!" he cried, then dashed into the kitchen to hug his stand mixer.

Daemon snorted in laughter at his silliness and begged him prettily for a proper lunch.

"Italian, Japanese, Chinese, American…?"

"I vote Mexican," said Ken.

He hummed. "I could do fajitas, or a taco salad."

Ken got starry-eyed in response.

"Everyone all right with Mexican?" he called.

A rush of bodies piled into the kitchen and nodded.

"Right, let's get to shopping, then."

A bit later they had an assembly line of sorts going. One chopped lettuce, one did peppers, and so on. Tsuna took ingredients as necessary and began to cook, though he let one of the others handle deep frying the tortillas into bowl shapes, and assembled taco salad for everyone, while Ken took care of setting out various strengths of a dressing somewhere between a sauce and a salsa, as well as sour cream.

They had a lovely lunch with plenty of flavor and crunch and texture and came to a decision to visit Disney World that summer and experience lots of different food all in the same place.

Oddly, on Christmas morning, Tsuna found a hand-wrapped gift on the bed he never used at № 4, from an anonymous source. Inside was a admonition to use it well, penned in loopy writing, and an invisibility cloak. That got chucked straight into storage as being quaint.

— — —

It became clear that something was wrong with Quirrell when he attempted to kill Tsuna. It was positively rude just how obvious he made the attempt, too, nothing at all like a seasoned mafioso.

Daemon lashed back with a bit of mind-fuckery and Quirrell wandered off in the opposite direction, stuttering something about preparing for class.

They continued on their way to dinner, as if nothing had happened.

That evening they convened at Roary's to discuss the event. Daemon started off by saying, "We need to do an in-depth on him."

"Agreed. I still have a tendency to liquefy or explode people, so…"

His Mists smirked at him and nodded.

He left it at that, knowing the three would flit off on their assignment and let him know the results when they were again in a safe spot.

"Any observations to share?"

"Longbottom seems to be doing much better," Ken offered. "The change in wand and the death of an abuser seems to have perked him right up and helped with his confidence."

"Weasley is still a lazy idiot."

"Granger still nags anyone who dares to breathe in her vicinity."

"Brown and Patil giggle incessantly and talk about beauty and boys."

"Finnegan is still trying to turn water into rum, while Thomas tries to convince him and anyone else he can catch that football is the superior sport."

"And the rest are more like cardboard cutouts of people than actual people with how they blend into the background so well. I'm almost afraid that if you shot water at them they would dissolve."

He nodded. "So Longbottom has a chance at becoming a man, while the rest… I hate to say it, but they rather sound like the trash Xanxus goes on about so much. And speaking of that family, we need to take some time this summer to look in on the brothers three. Again, I want us to do our best to ensure that my counterpart is not the only one in the end. We still don't know how to fix the blood-lock on those stupid rings."

He pondered for a moment, mainly to see if his intuition would kick up an idea, then continued, "Right, that's it for now."

— — —

Daemon had a very weird look on his face the next night at Roary's, as did Xeul and Mukuro.

Tsuna's brow went up slowly. There wasn't much that would make his Mists wibbly.

"The Dark Lord is a parasite on the back of Quirrell's head."

"Oh, joy," he said dryly. "And the old goat is either blind to it, or salivating over the idea of a confrontation? Too bad for him we're not going near that room again to be his test cases or pawns. Anyway, Quirrell's goal is the stone, I presume."

"Yes, as part of some ritual to restore the Dark Idiot to life, one assumes. I imagine the gold it's rumored to create would be a welcome bonus, though anyone with sense would realize that it would completely destabilize the value. The Elixir of Life… Does anyone even know if someone with Horcruxes would still die properly if it was a natural death, such as old age?"

A look went round, and faces were blank.

"I've yet to see anything about that," Hayato said, "not from any of the books we've acquired or required. I'll look into it again, with this focus. If we find them all, though, it won't matter in the end except for peace of mind."

He shrugged. "It'd still be interesting to know. Let's work on runes tonight so we can get closer to tinkering with those laptops. Months of not having my favorite forms of entertainment is torture."

— — —

Quirrell tried a few more times to off Harry Potter, but as the Mists were on guard and Ken could smell the man coming from a mile away, nothing ever came of those attempts. The year rolled on with boring classes, endless whispers about the Boy-Who-Lived (some in awe, some in disdain, and more than a few claiming he was a stuck-up snob), and learning as much as they could about Ancient Runes.

Tsuna would step out at the weekend to do some baking, both for them and as a treat for Reborn, but generally their time was laid back.

Exams came and they breezed through them.

Then Quirrellmort made his next move. Daemon spied out that Dumbledore had left the castle—how convenient—and Quirrell looked particularly pleased by that.

They exchanged a look and Tsuna opened a window so they could watch. All they lacked was popcorn.

Mukuro stepped out long enough to fetch some.

Quirrell bore a nasty expression of arrogance on his way to the third floor corridor. A harp was spelled to play to get the cerberus to fall asleep, and once through the trap door Quirrell quickly used fire to get the Devil's Snare to back off. The poor key was brutally manhandled—

"What kind of locking spell is on that door that a professor can't open it?" he muttered.

—and shoved into the lock, twisted, and released to flutter brokenly back to its fellows. Quirrell was off in a flash, using his wand to blow up chess pieces as he raced across the board.

(Tsuna opened a second window just so he could see what happened to them afterward.)

The troll was summarily offed, and the logic puzzle wasn't even a brief hesitation, as Quirrell used some spell or other—non-verbal on his part—to inure himself against the black flames. The final room no longer held a table with the stone. Instead there was a standing mirror.

"Eh?"

(The chess pieces pulled themselves back together and retook their places on the board; Tsuna dismissed the window.)

They watched for a while, eating popcorn, as Quirrell paced back and forth before the mirror, muttering to himself, pausing occasionally to peer into it. He was clearly seeing something they could not.

Xeul opened a window and focused on the writing that ran around the border. "I see not your face but your heart's desire. Backward writing. How adorable." The window was stored away again.

It became clear over time the danger the mirror presented. Quirrell kept pausing to look into it, and started spending more time doing that than pacing and muttering. Soon enough he was seated on the floor before it, just staring.

"You still have that spy on the old goat?"

"Yes. He's having a gillywater at the Three Broomsticks. Seems remarkably unconcerned. Flirting awkwardly with Rosmerta."

"Riiiight. What the hell is he waiting for, then? For this guy to be completely under the spell of the mirror? Or for Harry Potter to race off to protect something he's by all rights not even aware of?"

"Probably the former," Hayato said. "It is an interesting defense, I admit. But…"

"Yeah," Mukuro said, "that doesn't mean the face on the back of his head is likewise entranced."

Tsuna started to feel a mite uneasy. "If I step out suddenly, it'll be because the parasite breaks free. In fact, let's toss up a nice illusion here of all seven of us, and go to the house. We'll keep watching, but…"

Never one to question that sort of directive, the Mists teamed up to create the illusion of the seven of them sleeping peacefully in their beds.

Tsuna strengthened the Bounding Box, then they all shifted to № 6 to continue their vigil.

Mukuro opened a window to their dorm room just in case someone managed to get past the protections to check on them.

"Worried that the Dark Spirit will come looking for you?" Chikusa asked quietly.

"Sort of. I was uneasy. Better safe than sorry."

Dumbledore seemed to get tired of flirting and wandered back to the castle—though he had told McGonagall he would not be back until morning—and up to the third floor corridor. The various protections had obviously been enchanted in some way to ignore the headmaster, as he walked through them as if they didn't exist.

In the final room…

The Dark Lord seemed to become aware of his minion's predicament and broke free. Quirrell dropped dead on the spot. The wraith spotted Dumbledore and dove at him—why they could not tell—and Dumbledore tried some fancy, complicated magic.

The end result was the wraith flying right through the old man, who looked weakened by it, and then through the stone wall.

Dumbledore took a moment to rest, with a somewhat sulky look on his face, then went up to the mirror. A moment later he reached into it and retrieved the fake stone. "It is a sad thing," the old man said quietly. "I shall have to convince my old friend of the need for this to be destroyed. Voldemort will just keep seeking it to effect his return."

Tsuna blinked. "What, the man's suddenly forgotten the Fidelius Charm exists? Or hiding it in plain sight? Good thing Talbot gave him a fake to begin with."

"I'll write up a letter to let Talbot know what happened, so he can react accordingly," Mukuro said.

"Thank you. If the Dark Lord is a parasite, I expect he'll find someone new to attach himself to. Or an animal, perhaps. Let's give it an hour or so, and then we'll go back. Sooner if the old man heads toward Gryffindor tower."

— — —

The Leaving Feast saw them using golden plates and utensils again. They'd been told that Quirrell had been called away by an emergency and nothing more was said on that matter aside from normal exams for Defense having been canceled that year.

Slytherin colours were up—no surprise with how Snape handed points out like sweets to his own house and took them from others—but considering the students never actually saw the House Cup except by chance, anyone who cared about that had clearly been drinking the Kool-Aid.

A suspicious look was sent at the pitchers of too-sweet pumpkin juice.

Slytherin House looked prideful and arrogant, as if they themselves had had anything to do with winning the cup.

"Probably a very good thing we decided against them," he muttered.

"I'm still wondering why we're having the Leaving Feast when we don't actually leave for two weeks," Ken grouched, stabbing a carrot moodily.

"Exam results are supposed to be out on Thursday, but we don't leave until the twentieth, a Saturday. OWLs and NEWTs are done at the same time as normal exams, just in here, and the Ministry is the one scoring those. So basically, more magical idiocy?"

"Parents who want a few extra weeks of peace before getting their kids back?" Tsuna suggested. "Let's just lay low."

With exams over everyone had a lot more free time. Classes were still on, but the teachers spent that time giving an overview of what to expect the next year and offering help with any spells a student was having troubles with. They were warned there would be summer homework, to further help prepare them for next year.

They were all pleased to board the Hogwarts Express, temporarily ward a compartment, and step Between to avoid the lengthy ride.

The first thing they did was go out for pizza. They never served pizza at Hogwarts.

His Mists opened windows to the Iron Fort and sent in spies to cover the three brothers.

"The Iron Fort here is the same configuration as two dimensions ago," Daemon reported a week later.

He shuffled memories around in his head, then nodded. "The boys?"

Daemon rolled his eyes. "Strutting peacocks, all three of them. Timoteo is hopeless at being a father."

Tsuna sighed. "We'll keep an eye on them. Worst case we ensure they get married and start popping out babies, to keep the line alive. That's the only reason I'm giving a fuck about the Vongola right now. I'm starting to think the only way to fix this is to arrive early enough and give Teo-jiji a swift kick in the arse via attitude adjustment.

"Or, you know, find a way to deal with that blood-lock. Teo-jiji and his sons are sending Vongola straight into the toilet with their idiocy. Or! Or," he said, "land far enough back that we personally vet whoever the hell it is Daniella ends up procreating with to get a child other than Teo-jiji and is raised with at least half a brain if not more!"

Daemon pulled him into a hug and smothered him with affection to get him to shut up.

— — —

Letters arrived on the twelfth of August. To stagger first years and older years at Diagon Alley? There was the minor issue of Harry Potter's letter being missing, but they made a note of that and otherwise ignored the oddity.

Mukuro volunteered to go get their supplies, but Hayato raised the objection that the old goat might have watchers reporting back to him about whether or not Harry Potter showed up as expected.

Tsuna heaved a sigh and nodded, so they went the next day, slipping through the crowd like ghosts to pick up various books (had to keep up appearances), new robes, parchment, and so on. There was supposed to be some thing going on the next week, some famous author coming to sign books—

Tsuna glanced the utter crap they'd been forced to purchase, written by Gilderoy Lockhart, and heaved another sigh.

—and people were twittering madly (rather like his owl did) about being sure to be there to get their very own autograph from the man. Kami help them all.

"You do realize the man needs to die, right?" he asked conversationally back at the house.

"Quite possibly," Mukuro said. "No one but a narcissistic twat would force students to buy all of his books if he wasn't the one hired for Defense this year. We see if he's as much of an idiot as we think, poke around in his brain, and then probably arrange for a tragic accident to remove another defect from infecting other people."

Tsuna flapped his hand and wandered off to the kitchen to do some baking. He opened a window to see if Reborn was available to talk (he was) so he could blow off some steam and tease his friend at the same time.

"So what was the outcome?"

"Ah. The Dark Lord was a parasite on the back of Quirrell's head this whole time," he said as he measured out flour. "The old goat left the school, probably on purpose—I mean, he did tell McGonagall that he was going to fly to the Ministry, which is patently ridiculous—and Quirrell seemed pleased. He raced off to go whip through the protections on the stone while the old goat spent time at a pub in the village, having a drink and flirting with the proprietor.

"He got all the way to the end, and we saw that the table had been replaced by an enchanted mirror. The reversed writing on it said, 'I show not your face but your heart's desire,' and it was a doozy of a trap."

"A mirror?"

"Yeah. You look into it and see just that, your heart's desire. Did a bit of research after the fact. Many people have been claimed by that mirror, so desperate for what they see in it that they sit there and waste away. And that's what was happening to Quirrell at the end."

"That can't be all."

"Nah." He measured out the milk he needed and poured into his mixer, then set it going. "The Dark Lord apparently woke up from his nap, realized his minion was enthralled, and started to make a break for it. The old goat wandered in right on time, but his complicated swishy wand movements were useless against a wraith.

"Quirrell ended up with a blown out head and death for his troubles, the Dark Wraith got away—though not before swooping dramatically through the headmaster—and the old goat got all sulky that his big plan failed. He also decided that the stone needed to be destroyed, so we sent a message to Talbot about it so he could act all surprised and resigned and shit. I assume Flamel dies and Talbot becomes Talbot full time."

"Something tells me this next year will be just as weird," Reborn commented.

"You and me both, Ki-san. We're thinking that this year's Defense professor will be an author, a beloved celebrity who writes utter tosh about his alleged adventures fighting off various beasties. The book list for this coming year has every student buying a copy of every damn book he's written, and what better way to force better sales to rise?"

Reborn snorted. "And here I thought I was full of myself."

Tsuna laughed merrily. "We already plan to investigate to see if our theory pans out. If necessary, well…" A serene smile slid into place before he moved on with his baking, adding cocoa powder to the mix and some cinnamon.

"The worst part is having to stick around here most of the time because of those stupid blood wards. If I'm not where expected, I think the old goat would have a coronary and start a nation-wide search. We already think he's defective, but we'll see how it goes. If necessary, well…"

He shut the machine off and started scooping the batter into paper liners.

"I don't suppose you're going to be making cheesecake anytime soon?" Reborn said hopefully.

"For you, Ki-san~? Sure. I will make one today, and you can have it tomorrow, after it has properly rested in the refrigerator. Would you like a compote to go with it or…?"

Reborn pursed his lips. "I'm feeling feisty. How about a drizzle of caramel around the edges and a bit on top?"

"Sure~!" He was already planning the smiley face with a toothy grin he could "draw".

"There are days I wish the local Tsuna was like you."

Tsuna blinked, then shook his head. "No you don't, because then you would be flirting with him and not me!"

"It would still be nice if he could cook!"

Tsuna sent his friend a sad look. "Even if you did manage to shore him up with some extra spine, Ki-san, I still feel pity for the poor guy. True, it's not easy constantly jumping dimensions and dealing with all this stuff repeatedly, but I'd still rather this than being stuck behind that desk and drowning in paperwork."

"Mm. How did you die the last time, anyway? You didn't mention."

Tsuna shuffled his feet in embarrassment. "Uh… I was eaten by a shark?"

Reborn stared for a long moment before he busted out laughing. "All those times you faked your own death by shark attack, and it happened for real?" He went right back to laughing.

He kept a sulky look on his face, but inside he was laughing and pleased. He got Reborn to let loose again.

— — —

In the other room Daemon shared a look with his fellow Mists. "Do you think he even realizes he's in love with Reborn?"

Xeul snorted and Mukuro shook his head. "Not a chance in Hell," Mukuro said. "I adore Heul, but he is kind of thick at times, especially when it comes to relationships."

"I remember, that one day," Daemon said softly. "In the world where we created Samsara. I had mentioned I had a face I could use to go after the information we wanted from Talbot. He had this look on his face. He was practically bleeding worry for me, but he didn't seem to realize just how much he cared. That was the day I honestly started to wonder if I could harmonize with him."

Mukuro shifted his weight, which told Daemon he was feeling out of his comfort zone. "The day I finally got that he was … genuine … not like those Estraneo bastards, that he honestly wanted us to be safe and well trained, and that he would fight for our sake…"

"And he's a divine cook," Xeul said, which lightened the mood again and made the other two smile.

— — —

"I suggest," he said slowly, sliding plates onto the table with Ken's help, "that if that Lockhart fellow is the fraud we think he is, we borrow his vault key, and go loot it in his guise."

They had tried to get through those books, but everyone had given up in disgust barely half a chapter in.

"Motion carried," Daemon said, picking up his fork.

"I think we skipped the voting part," Chikusa said, "but I agree."

"I'll open a window so we know when he arrives in to Diagon Alley to sign autographs," Daemon said. "Then I can step over, rummage through his head while he's playing peacock, and if he is a fraud, I'll mind-fuck him into visiting his vault so we know where it is, and have a view of the inside. Then we drain him dry."

"Excellent plan," Tsuna said. "And if he is the one slated to be the new Defense professor, just think of all the fun we can have with him."

Ken grinned.

Suns could do some interesting things with their flames, and for a peacock dandy like Lockhart…

When the time came Daemon did as promised and opened a window to the interior of Flourish & Blotts to keep an eye out for when the peacock showed up. It wasn't a bother considering they were all playing Cluedo and he was the odd man out that time.

"Ah," Daemon said as the noise level of transmitted sound rose dramatically. There was even girly squealing coming through and far too many sighs. "There's my cue."

Tsuna absently opened a window of his own so they could all witness the train wreck in progress, and Daemon stored his and stepped out. Lockhart didn't even seem to notice that someone was rifling through his brain and carried on playing to his audience of adoring and air-headed fans.

He was amused and appalled at just how many older women were there, blushing and adjusting their hair and twittering like barely pubescent girls.

They managed to get through their game and start another one before indigo words formed in the air, reading: He's a fraud, and the only spells he can actually cast are the Memory and False Memory Charms and personal grooming ones. I'm proceeding with the plan, so it'll be late when I get back. Don't want this guy to get away.

"I wonder how much gold we'll get?" Xeul mused. "And if he'll be stupid enough to complain to the goblins and start another revolt."

"After all, stealing from Gringotts is impossible!" Ken crowed.

"Ah, but we aren't stealing from Gringotts," Tsuna pointed out. "We're stealing from Lockhart. Totally different thing."

"It's very important information that he can mess with people's memories," Mukuro said. "All those books are probably about other people's accomplishments, except that they don't remember any of it now."

"So we pay him back in kind later?" Ken said.

"Very likely," he said. "I want a more detailed report from Daemon first. But yes, if we're all in agreement. I realize my morals are skewed, but a parasite like that should not be left to prey on people. And face it, losing his memories would be the ultimate irony if we went that route."

Daemon did not get home until evening. When he did arrive he had a sly smile on his face. "I cleared everything out, even the garbage, into a couple of those extended trunks and shoved them into storage. We can melt it all down later into ingots."

"Just how bad is he?"

"He gets wind of some big deal happening," Daemon said as he took a seat, "whatever ends up being the subject of the book—and books it there as quickly as possible. Interviews everyone who knows anything, and then alters or erases their memories of the event. The one who actually accomplished the deed is similarly interviewed so he has the right details, then he alters their memories to again support his version of events. Then he goes off and writes his next book, gets it published, and makes a boat-load of gold."

"You said memory charms and personal grooming spells? Seriously? He's that lame?"

Daemon grimaced and nodded. "He is exceptional with memory charms, and for whatever reason, personal grooming charms are equally easy for him. Anything else and he'll fumble it. Which should make class interesting, I suppose. He is a complete publicity hound, and he already has it in mind to use you, darling, in class, as a sort of assistant. He seems to be under the impression that you're as much of a media whore as he is."

Tsuna frowned. "Did you get or can you get information on his victims? So we can, like, haunt him with their ghosts as a prank? We've already agreed that erasing most of his memories is a likely option, but I'm thinking I want him to suffer first."

"Of course, darling Heul. Between me, Xeul, and Mukuro, we can get everything we need from that brain of his."