Rosethorn woke up with a god awful migraine...and in different clothes then what she had been wearing the night before. The party had been a complete blast...once she started sharing some of the pranks she brought with Reborn and the two conspired to get the most people. The pained (and horrified) look on Vongola Nono's face had made the entire thing worth it...especially at the massive grin Xanxus had on his, in between Daniela's cackles at the chaos they were causing.
Feeling something shift next to her, she turned to find...Xanxus?
"...Exactly how much did we drink and how the hell did I get out of that dress?"
"Nonna let us crash in her mansion and let you borrow some of the spare clothes they have around...and then proceeded to get us both very drunk in the hopes of pairing us off. You more or less crashed once you hit the bed and I was too lazy to find another room," grunted Xanxus. "Go back to sleep."
"I believe you," she said honestly.
Even she knew there would be evidence of them sleeping together if they had. She didn't exactly have time for that sort of thing before she came to Italy, and after she was too busy running missions to find a decent boyfriend.
When she tried to move she found his arm around her waist. It was like a steel band pinning her to him...she was strangely reluctant to remove it.
Feeling a sharp stab of pain in her head, she decided she'd rather sleep off the hangover than actually get up. Besides the bed was very soft and she knew he wouldn't actually try anything without her consent.
She cautiously leaned against his bare chest and listened to the sound of his breathing. It was ridiculously soothing and lulled her back to sleep within minutes.
Xanxus was ridiculously pleased by this turn of events.
Daniela, more so. She wanted great grandbabies to spoil, and her other grandsons weren't cooperating!
In the Varia...
"So Boss, how was the ball? I noticed you didn't come back last night..." said Luss grinning.
"Crashed at Nonna's place after Hexe went and got a pint-sized enabler. Should have seen the bastard's face when he recognized her and then realized there was a connection between her and the prank spree from hell," grinned Xanxus.
"'Pint-sized enabler'?" repeated Mammon.
"She ran into Reborn, and then proceeded to exchange phone numbers with him after they pranked the living hell out of everyone with some stuff she brought...and gave Nonna a camera to capture blackmail. Pretty sure she'd sell you copies if you asked," said Xanxus.
"Tell them the best part... your grandmother was openly shipping us to the point she made very sure we'd end up in the same bed together, even if all we did was sleep," said Rosethorn dryly.
Squalo was openly grinning at Xanxus now...so was Luss.
"And what exactly was with all the staring? It's like they weren't expecting to see you with a date or something," she complained. "Before I forget, thank you for getting that king cobra for me. Best deterrent from horny morons ever."
"Mu. It was my pleasure," said Mammon snickering.
"Pretty sure that was why Reborn bothered to approach me. Though apparently his ability to speak reptile somewhat extends to snakes."
"Somewhat?"
"His accent was very weird and kept throwing me off," said Rosethorn.
Xanxus smirked and pulled out his phone. He held it out to Mammon.
"What is this?" asked the Mist, smirking.
"His expression when she started speaking snake to him. Took him a few tries before he figured it out, but after that they spent over an hour freaking everyone in their vicinity out. Fucking hilarious, especially when the cobra got into it with them."
Mammon started laughing.
"Which reminds me... Daniela promised copies of a younger Boss if I loan her my pensieve and show her how to take pictures inside it," smirked Rosethorn. "And by 'younger' I mean Bel's age when he first joined and was still a little scrapper from the streets young."
"Voi, are you serious?!" said Squalo grinning like a shark. Xanxus was actually pouting at the reminder.
"Yup. Just need to visit her with the penseive and take several rolls of film with me."
Rosethorn was digging out one of her books. Someone (she suspected Xanxus) had sent a bouquet of several different flowers to her office. It wasn't anything as cliché as a bunch of red roses, but she did recognize jasmine, hyacinth and tulips in there.
When she figured out the subtle message her face went red with a blush.
She had never been properly courted before, so this was something new. Especially considering the source.
She had nothing against Xanxus...far from it. He was a guy she could easily fall for (and not for the same reasons most females would) and remain loyal to for life.
It was just...she was so badly damaged after that damn war and her own shitty childhood that she had no idea what to do with romantic love. She could and did share the love of "family" with Belphegor and the love of a "friend" with Luss, Mammon and oddly enough Squalo (Levi had never quite forgiven her for using his division to sneak into the Varia and thus completely embarrassing him in front of the Boss).
But the feeling of love between romantic partners?
That was something she was totally and utterly unprepared for.
When in doubt on how to handle such things, she went to the best source of sorting it out...that wouldn't charge her for it of course.
"Come on in, darling~!"
"Hey Sorella... I think the Boss is courting me," she said, sitting down in Lussuria's office.
Rosethorn had an understanding with Luss. She would come in for the regular check-ups and general health problems... so long as she didn't have to go into the infirmary to do it.
Every time she was in there it gave her flashbacks of how weak she always felt after her 'yearly' adventures and the number of times Dudley had successfully managed to hurt her badly enough that she required hospital care.
Which were thankfully few in number, but the simple fact remained that "hospital" would always equate to "weakness" in her mind. Namely if she was a patient then she was too "weak" to survive.
She was just glad Lussuria was willing to compromise on that front. The fact she was willing to work with the Sun made her one of his least difficult patients. She would submit to medical treatment if she needed to...so long as the gender-confused Sun didn't mind a slightly different location.
"Well it's about time! The Boss has been rather grumpy lately because he didn't want to chase you off."
"That's not likely," snorted Rosethorn, settling in with tea and food. "Joining the Varia is the closest I've ever come to being myself and not some bloody poster girl for people who deserve an asskicking for sheer Stupidity. I wouldn't let something like an awkward office romance ruin that."
Lussuria patted her on the shoulder.
"You're the first female he's had close contact with regularly that hasn't made a big deal about the most ridiculous things. He knows you like him for him, not as Xanxus Vongola."
"On an unrelated note, I've been able to schedule an appointment with a trustworthy healer. Once you've signed the consent paperwork and had the appropriate spell-checks, you'll officially be a woman. Just remember it's going to take a few weeks to adjust while it becomes permanent."
Everyone knew that the Sun Officer was a woman trapped in a man's body. He had never let it stop him from acting as he truly was, but when Rosethorn had offered to let the gender-confused man become an actual woman with none of the usual side-effects and dangers from the normal procedure, Luss had to take some time to consider it.
Apparently gender-swapping was common among magicals, to the point you just needed healer approval (and enough gold) to take a potion that would permanently adjust your gender to the one your soul and mind identified with. There was a one-month period where the healer would monitor your condition, but once your body settled into the new normal, that was it.
Lussuria had been fine in his body, even if it was the wrong one, so he had never considered the chance that the imbalance might be corrected. He certainly never would have bothered with the long road to doing it the normal way, even if Sun Flames would have negated some of the risks.
However taking a potion and having a month off so his body adjusted properly was completely different. More than that, it was an already proven method of correcting what many magicals considered a "simple" problem. There wasn't even any bias against those who went through it.
The Boss certainly didn't care so long as Luss could still do his job as the Sun officer. He was one of the few who had accepted him right off the bat.
"So you need advice?" asked Luss.
"I have no idea how to handle this. The closest I came to an actual date was a rather disastrous mandatory dance when I was fourteen...and the company left much to be desired."
She hadn't talked to Ron or the others in years, outside of helping Xanxus owl-order from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
It was popular opinion that she was dead or off recovering from a nasty injury from the Final Battle. It didn't help that she had put some very strong owl-wards around her, or that any mail from the enclaves went to the Goblins first.
She had yet to bother going to that vault to pick up her mail.
Luss patted her shoulder with sympathy.
"In this case, the best response is to let things progress on their own. You aren't expected to sudden develop romantic feelings for him or act on them. The Boss knows full well that you didn't exactly have a normal teenage experience, much less have a chance to date."
"What?" squeaked Rosethorn.
Luss looked at her with some sympathy and a little amusement.
"He had Mammon get all the papers from the time you entered Hogwarts to Dumbledore's funeral. Did you know they had a 'Potter Watch' in there? Seems your old classmates had some very loose lips and were very gossipy."
Rosethorn fumed. Of course there would be an entire column dedicated to her in that glorified gossip rag. Bloody wizards.
"Actually there were some new columns dedicated to 'Savior Sightings'," said Lussuria amused.
"Of course there would be," she growled. She hated wizards and was glad to be gone from that backwater country. Then she suddenly had an evil grin on her face. "I think I'll visit Mammon later. I'm sure they'd be delighted to have a bit of fun with those idiots."
Lussuria laughed, and once Rosethorn finished her tea she went to find the Mist.
Mammon adored Rosethorn for multiple reasons. The main one being that she didn't mind being used to generate blackmail material and actually kept the repair bills down. One of the few things Rosethorn did was go over the broken things and use a repairing charm on them.
Like the plumbing in the Lightning division, when some idiot cracked one of the pipes and would have left the entire division without water for a week. Which would have meant having to share with another group, and that would have raised tensions and possibly caused even more damage, since the division right next to theirs was the Storm.
One simple charm and the damage was more or less fixed until the pipe could be inspected.
"Time is money, do not waste mine," said Mammon without looking up.
"How would you like to make even more of it off the idiots in England?"
Mammon looked up. A smirk bloomed across their face upon registering their favorite witch.
"I'm listening."
There was a reason why Rosethorn made the tiny Mist their representative with the goblins. After the incident where she broke in and stole a dragon, her standing with them was tenuous at best. So she reached a compromise...they gave her a way to access her funds without having to go near the bank and in exchange they looked the other way if she happened to use a go-between when she needed to do business with them.
Coincidentally within the first meeting the goblins had declared Mammon an "honorary goblin" considering how quickly they had sorted out the mess that was Rosethorn's vaults and ruthlessly reclaimed all the funds that had been siphoned off while Dumbledore had control of even a fraction of them. Including 'loans' that people evidently had no intention of repaying in this lifetime.
"I heard from Luss that they're still using my name in England...something about 'Savior Sightings' or something equally ridiculous. I wonder how much we can fine them before they take the hint and forget I even existed?"
Mammon cackled.
"You're the new 'Dumbledore'... which means we're going to bleed them dry before they get a clue or figure out why they're losing all their gold."
Mammon had already set up a fine so that Rosethorn was being paid by anyone over the age of seventeen who dared to use her old titles. She wanted the myths of the Girl-Who-Lived to die a painful death, not encourage them. The only reason she hadn't bothered to make up new fines was because she hadn't cared enough to find out what her new titles were among those idiots.
As it was, there had yet to be a single new book on "Rosethorn Potter" or her fictional adventures... Mammon had gone to town with making sure that the requirements to use the name or image went hand in hand with heavy fees and deductions (most of which went to Mammon with a percentage of it going to Rosethorn) to the amusement and approval of the goblins.
It was so bad that there wasn't any actual money to be made and the goblins were all too happy to send their lawyers after anyone who didn't get approval from the "public image manager" of the "Savior".
Mammon certainly didn't object if Rosethorn happened to cuddle with them. She made the Mist enough money that they put up with such indignities without complaint. Besides, it was nice being hugged.