Ivy Raven: Thank you for the review. I wanted to let you know that it hadn't even crossed my mind to do this differently than I did until you brought it up and I appreciate it. I wanted you (and the others) to know your thought had sparked an idea in me. I will be posting an AU oneshot of Slip Up that covers what may have happened if Skull had decided he was ready to tell the Arcobaleno of his past himself. If he had told them because he was ready rather than what happened here.
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Skull waits for each of the Arcobaleno to voice their understanding on what will happen to him and to them if they let slip anything he is about to tell them before he takes a deep breath.
"What you need to understand" Skull began explaining "is that Flames and the Mafia are not the only powers or societies hidden in the world." He sighs. "There is a society that hides behind protections that predates even the Mafia itself. It predates written history. For as long as man has walked the earth, these people, this society, has walked beside them."
Skull paused. After he had become the Cloud Arcobaleno he had actually dove into magical research in an attempt to break the curse itself as well as see if their history had contained anything about Flames, the Arcobaleno, or Checkerface. He had found quite a few things, but nothing to help break the curse itself. Instead he had discovered information on Flames themselves. The information itself was so old it was virtually forgotten which was why no one had been able to identify the Cloud Flames he had been using as Harry Potter during the war.
"I discovered in fact that it is from this society that Flame Users spring from. This society considers itself to be Wizards and Witches, to be users of Magic. In a way, they are correct. The people of this Wizarding World are capable of bending reality to their whims with a word, of changing their own shapes, the shapes of everything around them. They are capable of affecting people's minds and wills, of defying the laws of physics using the energy they call 'magic.' Inside this world there are those considered to be 'pure blood' who can trace their family trees up at least four generations where their parents and their parents' parents are magic users, 'half-bloods' who have one pure blood parent and one muggleborn parent or one wizarding parent and one muggle parent, and then muggleborns who have no signs of magic in their family for at least four generations prior to that 'muggleborn'. Muggles are of course the society's term for what we consider to be civilians. People with no magic or in any way aware of magic and these peoples."
Skull gave them the information they would need to understand what he would be dragged into later on in his story, pausing to be sure they had followed the explanation. He received nods from each of the Arcobaleno, their eyes dark as they waited for the rest of the pieces to fall into place about their Cloud.
Skull took another breath, his eyes glazed with memories as he picked up the story. "There are then those called 'squibs' who are children born to magic users who have no ability to use magic. Internally, they have magic, but there are no channels for the magic to be used. The first Flame Users were born from squibs who when put in a life threatening situation they were determined and resolved enough to survive. This resolve and determination as well as their internal magic all resulted in Flames coming into being."
Skull paused again as he ponders how to explain this "Magic is…strange. There are no true laws in which magic can be contained, no limits that magic itself cannot break. It is always the person in control of the magic that limits its capabilities whether that is because of their resolve and belief or their power levels. Magic in and of itself is sentient in a way. It will react to ensure its survival and the survival of its user. In the case of the squibs that activated Flames it was their magic reacting to their resolve and the threat to their lives in the only way it could with no external outlet. It reached for its users' soul."
"As mafia I'm sure you all already know that Flames are manifestations of a person's soul. It is why no matter how many of one Flame type there are you can always tell the difference between a Storm, Sky, Sun, Lightning, Rain, Cloud, or Mist that you know even if you are standing in a room full of the same Flame types. No one's soul is exactly the same as another. It took a spark of magic to bring the Flames into being, to give the soul an outlet for its power. This history was recorded in the Wizarding World of course but was later forgotten and lost because of the difficulty Magic users had in accessing Flames. Magic users didn't have a true need to reach for their Flames if they had access to their magic and it resulted in too few Flame users for the magic users to keep the history I just told you all well-known."
Verde tilted his head "Why do you know this history than?" his voice was steady, but the very fact he had asked told Skull how interested he was in what Skull had told him. None of the Flame users knew exactly where Flames came from after all- just that they were a manifestation of the soul.
Skull smirked humorlessly. "I doubt any of you knew this, but on the Fated Day- the day we were cursed to be the Arcobaleno- I was barely 18 maybe a month or two after my birthday when it all happened. I was still 17 when I first met you all."
He was observant enough to see each of the Arcobaleno blanch and flinch at the information despite how well they hid their emotions and reactions. It had barely been after the war when he'd been cursed Skull remembered. He'd been asked to lead after winning against Voldemort and for a little while- for a little less than a month- he had. He'd gotten fed up with it quickly. He hadn't had any time to grieve for his losses, or focus on himself- it was always 'help us…' or 'can you…' It had gotten to the point that Harry had left only to end up as a stunt man.
Then Checkerface had gotten to him and he'd done a few jobs before the Fated Day where everything had turned on its head. Thirty-three years later and Skull should have been 51 except the breaking of the curse had brought them back to the age they had been when they were cursed to begin with so Skull was 51 mentally and 18 physically. Physically Fon and Colonnello were 23, Verde was 24, Lal was 25, Reborn was 26 and Viper was 29 so Skull could understand why his age would be unpleasant to them. They'd all been considered at least a few years into 'adulthood' as well as raised with the Mafia when the curse was placed on them. Skull technically hadn't been. Mentally he had felt years older, but he could imagine they didn't like the idea of a civilian being introduced to the mafia before he had even broken the age of 18.
"I was barely 18 when Fated Day came to pass and I wanted to fix it. I wanted to be myself again, wanted my body. I had fought in my body, survived some crazy things, things I should have never walked away from in my body and this curse had taken it from me. I felt…" he paused trying to put it into words how it had affected him when he no longer had the body he was used to the body he had survived in. "It wasn't me. I was too small, couldn't reach anything, and people treated me like I was the two year old I appeared to be. I thought that I could find a way to fix it all if I looked hard enough. I dug into the history of Magic in an attempt to break the curse. I didn't find a way to manage that, but I did find the origin story of Flames buried in the depths of too many old tomes."
Skull shook his head "We're getting off track." He sighed. He hadn't really wanted to talk about his history so he had allowed the conversation to drift, but he needed to get this over with.
"I myself am considered a half-blood since my father was a pureblood and my mother a Muggleborn. Magical children receive an invitation to the closest Magical School to their 'home' location when they turn eleven. I was eleven when I received an invitation to Britain's magical school Hogwarts. It was my glimpse of light. A flicker of hope. A place for children like me. A place I was not considered a freak where I would be welcomed and allowed to flourish."
He snorted.
"It was a fool's dream. A child's hope."
He fell silent staring blankly at nothing for a moment before he shook it off, shoving the emotions back behind his barriers and taking a breath. "First you need to know my birth name: I was known as Harry James Potter before I became Skull. Do not refer to me as Harry ever. It is dangerous for you and for me. I left that behind me even before I met any of you. I was Skull before I met you and I am Skull now. After I was tracked down to be given the letter that invited me to the Magic school by a half-giant personally he took me to the magical shopping district and I learned within the first five minutes that I was famous" he spat the word like it was poison and the Arcobaleno blinked in surprise. Skull reveled in being 'the famous Skull-samma who even Death hates' so hearing the loathing in his voice now was odd. Skull shook his head "It was…horrible. I had learned to be unnoticed with my relatives and suddenly everyone knew who I was, everyone wanted to know what I was doing, everyone wanted to touch me like I was a god walking among humans for the first time and it drove me mad." (Skull had been dealing with Cloud instincts even at this point though he hadn't known it. It certainly hadn't helped the 'everyone is touching me' issue at the time anyway.) "I wanted to be like everyone else for once and it wasn't happening. When I finally managed to get out of the crowds I asked questions and figured out my parents had died for me, to protect me from a mad Dark Lord who had terrorized Britain's magical population for years in a war. I found out that my parents died in the attempt of protecting me and when the Dark Lord turned to me I survived what was supposed to be a one hit instant kill as a one year old and I was suddenly made famous because of it because the Dark Lord died in the attempt."
The Arcobaleno scowled at the information someone had tried to kill their baby Cloud. It didn't matter that they hadn't even known who he was at the time of the attack. It just made them angry that someone had tried.
Viper kept her mouth shut about the fact that Voldemort had come back to try and kill their Cloud again. She was angry enough on her own she didn't need to deal with the others until she absolutely had to.
"I was given my first birthday present while I was there though. A pet. Or a partner. A snowy owl I named Hedwig. She was to me what Oodako and Leon and out partners are now. I was handed my ticket and sent back to my relatives." A pause as Skull thinks on Hedwig who had died for him that night so long ago before he continues "To get to Hogwarts the children ride on a train. It was here that I met the first members of those I would come to consider my family, those I would come to consider mine to love and protect; those I would teach and shield when they could not shield themselves." Skull pulled his magic to the surface as he focused. There was no wand to be tracked or tagged when Skull used his magic so he was able to create an image to accompany the names without drawling any attention to his location. (Wandless magic had gotten much easier after using his Flames and such for so long. He wondered if it was because Flames were their own sort of Soul magic. Technically anyway.)
The Arcobaleno watched as Skull's eyes began to gleam with power before in a subtle shimmer of air two people came into being. There was a male standing at a solid six feet two inches with gleaming orange-red hair and laughing blue eyes, a smirk painted over his lips one arm thrown over the shoulder of the woman beside him. The woman only came up to the man's chest with curling bushy brown hair tamed only by the tail she had bound it in and matching eyes that were frozen mid roll a fond expression on her face and her mouth open in what obviously mid conversation, one hand in the middle of gesturing. "These" Skull spoke softly, his voice wistful and slightly pained as his emotions resurfaced for a moment "are the siblings of my heart. The man was Ronald Weasley and the first friend I ever made. He was not Active, but I know now that he was a Classic Storm Flame. We clashed a few times, had our fights of course-some worse then others-but when the chips were down he stood at my left. The woman was one of the most brilliant people I ever met." Skull's mouth pulled up into a half-smirk "Her name was Hermione Granger and we didn't get along very well at first, but face-to-face encounters with trolls changed some things. She wasn't Active either, but she was an Inverted Lightning and had all the lightning focus of one." Skull blinked his eyes turning to Verde "She would have been good for you Verde. A woman you could have talked with not at who would have challenged you at every turn even if she wasn't quite at your level. She was our driving force, the focus we needed, the strike of light in the darkness. The one who stood at my right when the world turned away. Even when the Storm turned away from me, Lightning was there to light the way. She was loyal in even the darkest of times."
The warm eyes filled with grief for a moment before they dimmed again "Of course, this image is of the two when they were older" another subtle shimmer and the images aged down until the eleven year old versions of his friends stood before the Arcobaleno. "This was the two of them when I met them."
He stared at the images of his best friends- his siblings- frozen in time before they were touched by darkness. When they were still…children. Children untouched by war, whose biggest worry was the Potions Essay that was due at the end of the week.
He let the image fade as he continued to speak. "I was an eleven year old child who had been basically isolated and hurt by those who should not have hurt me. I was all of this and then I was told of magic and how I belonged there. I was told of the world my family had lived in, the world my parents had defended. I was told I belonged. It was a long time before I saw the manipulation for what it was. It had been taking place even then, as early as my first steps into this new world."
Skull took a breath before he began to speak of the first year submerged in magic.
He told them of the awe and wonder seeing the castle he would call home for the first time, of the shock that came from seeing pictures with personality that moved and spoke and interacted with the people around them. He told them about the ghosts and the stairways that moved. The way the layout of the school never stayed the same, about the trick stairs and the passageways that were there only sometimes. He told them of the Great Hall and the Sorting Hat. He spoke of the Houses of Hogwarts and what they were supposed to represent. (Bravery and Chivalry, Cunning and Ambition, Intelligence and Wisdom, Hard work and Loyalty) He spoke of what the children of the school actually believed the Houses to be even though they never actually said as much- just expected it to be so and were angry when it was not. (Rushing headlong into danger with no plan and calling it 'bravery', Backstabbers and evil waiting to happen, Bookworms and know it all's, the Leftovers) He spoke on what he would later learn was the truth about the Houses. (Of how the Brave were usually the most frightened, but how they stood up anyway and stared their fear in the face, of how the Brave often needed other people to tell them to stop. He spoke of how the Cunning were fiercely possessive and protective of what was 'theirs' of how the Cunning stood most viciously in defense of the others, of how they were the ones to think their way around the issues. He spoke of the Intelligent and how they were the most dangerous of the lot. How in the pursuit of the knowledge they needed there was no rule they would not break, of how they were the ones to provide the Cunning the knowledge they needed to think around the issues and give the Brave the path they needed to take in their charge of the Intelligent who teamed up with the Loyal and helped to clear the way. He spoke of the Loyal and the cutthroat sort of outlook they had on the defense of those who had earned their loyalty. Of how the Loyal were the taskforce behind the rest of them, the hands and feet that reached out and cleared the way for the others to take over and think their way through the next problem so the Hardworking could go out and clear the next place.)
He spoke of how he was almost placed into the house of the Cunning before he talked his way out of it and was instead placed into the house of the Brave. He told the listening Arcobaleno of the classes he took, the teacher who held a grudge but was the one who ended up saving him the most. He shared the story (and used his magic to show it to them- he really should just pull out the Pensieve) of going after Hermione and running into the troll that had gotten into the school. He spoke of the thing in the woods that killed the unicorns and the curse that would be laid on those who drank the unicorn's blood as this thing had been doing. He told the Arcobaleno of the very first Christmas he had celebrated- truly celebrated with gifts and giving and being with people he wanted to be with. The Invisibility Cloak he had gotten that had once belonged to his father and the photo album that was even now one of his most cherished possessions.
He spoke of the subtle manipulations he hadn't seen then, too blinded by the light of hope and joy that was the sun to his Icarus. He spoke of the stone and the murder attempts on his person. He spoke of his suspicions throughout the year the clues they put together until they had a solution. Then he spoke of how the Headmaster left the school. He spoke of the frantic attempt to tell an authority figure of what they had learned, the attempt to let someone who knew what they were doing take on the defense of the Stone. He spoke of being brushed off for his age, told to leave everything alone.
Skull explained being unable to leave it alone. The manipulations that lead to him walking into the third floor corridor with Ron and Hermione walking in at his side. He spoke of the traps and obstacles in his path. The hindsight that let him look back now and realize he had been lead in by his nose to that corridor how nothing in that corridor had been above a first year's ability to get past apart from the very last trap.
In hindsight even that last trap had been pure chance. Someone who wanted to find the stone but not use it…Technically Quirrell hadn't wanted to use the stone. He'd wanted to give it to someone. To Voldemort. If that thought had been in his head when he looked at the mirror instead of the idea that Voldemort would use it…everything would have ended there.
He spoke of making his way forward and how it ended up being he alone that stood at the end. He whispered of discovering the wraith of his parents' murderer possessing one of his professors. Of staring that wraith in the eyes and telling him 'no' of the way the man had tried to kill him.
He told them of his very first kill. The way the man had burned under his hands into nothing but ashes until all that was left was the wraith who had then proceeded to attack him.
He told the listening Arcobaleno of the first of many visits to the Hospital Wing.
And then he explained leaving that castle and the magic. Of asking to be allowed to stay so he wouldn't have to go back to his relatives. He told them of the refusal. And then he shared how his relatives had been informed he couldn't use magic outside the halls of Hogwarts. How his relatives had been frightened and angry he had learned anything at all of all the 'freakishness'.
He spoke of the workload they dumped on him in retaliation as well as the pain that would come to be dealt out to him in response.
He took a deep breath.
"I have something called a Pensieve that I can retrieve later." Skull offered "It will allow you to see what happened to me. Allow you to view my memories of these events as if you were there. It will not allow you to interact with anything or anyone, but you will be able to see it all." It would be a good way for the Arcobaleno to draw their own conclusions and see anything he hadn't mentioned to them or see more details wherever they wished he had expanded on what he said.
"And all of this was just my first year." Skull snorted in the silence. "It only got worse from there."
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What am I doing? I don't like this one very much, but here it is anyway. Some scenes will be expanded on later or in the 'Pensieve Session'. Skull is informing them yes, but he still needs to get going to save his Family. This is sort of a quick run-down so he can get back to the Neo Eaters and their ragingly stupid move of taking his family.