Viper was late, which was somewhat unusual. For reasons only known to the prickly Mist, Fon was the only one they trusted with the location of a safe house which was close to a dead drop point they sometimes favored.

You could imagine Fon's shock when he came to the house...only to find a small boy roughly about 8 or nine years old with vibrant green eyes, messy black hair that went down to his neck and wearing an outfit very similar to the ones Viper tended to favor.

The child looked at him with suspicion.

"Who are you?" he asked calmly.

There was a sense of impending death if Fon answered wrong, which he found unusual.

"My name is Fon. Is Viper here?" he asked, smiling politely.

Dead silence as the boy stared at him incredulous.

"You're Fon?" he said in disbelief.

Fon continued smiling, but had to wonder what stories Viper had told the child if his reaction was that.

"Can you prove it?" asked the child, clearly not willing to let him in just yet.

Fon carefully pushed aside his shirt to reveal part of his dragon tattoo and let a little bit of his Storm flames out. Very few people were aware of his tattoo after all.

The boy smirked when he saw it though.

"So you're the one Papa has a crush on that he won't admit to."

"I do not have a crush!" said an irate voice, before it started coughing. It did not sound pleasant at all. Viper glared viciously at Fon. "What are you doing here?"

"You were late and Luce was worried," said Fon simply. He had to wonder at the growl the boy gave when he said Luce's name. "So she asked me to look in on you. The others are getting rather annoyed at the hold up."

"Tell them I have the flu and won't be available for a few days."

"If you would just let me get the medicine..." said the boy exasperated. He hated seeing Viper like this.

"You know the rules. You're not to go anywhere without an escort," said Viper. "It's bad enough that random famiglia will try to nab you when I'm not around, I'll not risk them showing up again."

The child pouted, which Fon found adorable...while mentally cataloging the crush comment for later.

"Perhaps a compromise? You said he needs medicine, correct?" asked Fon pleasantly.

Viper glared at him, but the fact he didn't shoot down what Fon was obviously going to suggest was a good sign.

"I know where the alley is, but I can't access it just yet," said the child.

Viper was not happy, but they hated being sick even more. And out of the others, Fon was someone they knew they could reasonably trust to an extent with Harry.

"If you take longer than two hours I will hunt you down myself and deal with you," said Viper darkly, coughing a bit.

"Fair enough," said Fon. Clearly Viper was protective of the child.

Harry quickly went to get his bag and a handful of gold coins for some odd reason to pay for the medicine.

Fon was amused and curious about the child. Mostly because he wanted to know what it was about the boy that would get so thoroughly under Viper's skin that he wouldn't say a peep about the child using gold as currency.

Fon POV

Fon was amused by little Harry. The boy was a curious bundle of innocence and energy, and being around him was like a breath of fresh air.

Fon wasn't ashamed to direct the conversation to the comment Harry made about Viper having a crush on him though. It was too amusing not to elaborate on.

Harry gained a bit of a mischievous gleam in his eyes when he realized what Fon wanted to know.

"He can pretend all he wants, but his tone gets different whenever you're brought up."

"Oh?" said Fon, a conspirator's grin on his face.

"He turns wistful and always blushes when I call him on the fact he has a crush," snickered Harry. Fon grinned with him at that... it was information he knew Viper would love to keep quiet. "And he made sure that I knew what your tattoo looked like in detail... he kept stammering when I asked him how long he had to have been staring at it for the details to stick out that much."

Fon laughed...there was no way he was going to let Viper live that particular tidbit down. Not when the results would prove to be very amusing in the long run.

Harry easily went into the apothecary to get the medicine for Viper... Fon noted that it was a magical one, which would explain how the Mist had hidden the child from them in the first place. None of them were aware Viper had a son.

Viper gave Fon a flinty look when they returned, but patted Harry on the head for being able to procure the potion needed to deal with his flu. Steam poured out of his ears for a few moments, before he went to get ready.

It was when Harry went to hug Viper that Fon had a flash of insight as to why Harry was so unhappy about Luce, or why the woman failed every time she even remotely tried to lure Viper into her Sky.

Viper already had one. And the boy's flames were strong enough that it was sending out gentle temptations to Fon's Storm. He could tell right off the bat that Viper was his only Guardian, likely why the Mist had hidden him in the first place. A child that young would be easily molded into whatever a famiglia wanted if they managed to ensnare him with a bond.

Fon smiled at the boy and making sure Viper saw what he was about to do, patted him on the head much like the Mist had done.

And nearly froze.

Fon was a natural sensor, and while he was a Squib he could still sense magic.

Which was why the second they were in the car, Fon turned to Viper with a serious expression.

"Your son is an Obscurial."

It wasn't a question.

Viper flinched, before his glare turned hard and cold. This wasn't a friendly acquaintance. This was a Guardian in full protective mode that was fully prepared to murder anyone that tried to hurt their Sky. Especially one that they had bonded to as a father.

"I found Harry when I murdered his 'uncle', who was merely married to his bitch of an aunt. The fool tried to stiff me and was openly planning to use the child as an errand boy for his underworld dealings to keep his hands clean, unaware that Harry was an Active Sky and therefor more valuable. Frankly it's a miracle no one tried to snatch him up before I took him in. We were in Milan when some idiot English wizards tried to kidnap him and Harry snapped into mist the first time."

"How stable is he?" asked Fon seriously.

"Considering I took him from an abusive situation and provided him stability and affection, fairly stable. I believe if he finds more elements his Flames will naturally cause his magic to stabilize to the point no one will be able to tell he's an obscurial in the first place. He only really loses control if our bond is being threatened or someone is attempting to take me away from him," said Viper quietly. You could feel how frazzled he was over it. "It's taken considerable effort to keep him from going after Luce, for instance, and that's only because I don't want him anywhere near the likes of Verde."

Clearly Viper had been keeping the child close, to prevent incidents. The fact Fon hadn't suspected a thing until he sensed it meant that it was working, amazingly enough. And what Viper said had a ring of truth to it. Sky flames were akin to a spiritual glue, and an obscurial was the result of an imbalance driven by fear and instincts going haywire.

There was every possibility that if Viper's son found more Guardians, his core would stabilize and he would no longer be a threat to others.

Didn't mean Fon was going to allow Luce to continue trying to poach the Mist though. He had no illusions about what would happen if she continued and Harry came into contact with her.

Harry was a little confused by the fact Viper allowed Fon to visit so regularly, when he was so paranoid about others knowing about him.

Fon was nice, and he knew all sorts of interesting recipes. Besides, he liked tea, unlike Viper who preferred straight coffee. The two of them shared amusement at the positively zombie-like appearance Viper had in the mornings before his second cup.

Harry rather liked Fon. He made Viper happy and he was nice to be around. The first time the Storm saw his 'mist-form' as Viper blithly called it, he had merely blinked. Sure, he was tense in case something happened, but he didn't attack or treat Harry like a monster after.

Instead Fon pulled Harry into a firm, but gentle hug once he returned to human form. It unleashed some of the tension in his body.

"So you've been training him in how to use his obscurial form offensively?"

"I've noticed that the color of the mist itself has changed since the first attempts. Originally it was as black as night and as deadly as Renato in a mood, but now it's much lighter," said Viper. "There's also the fact that it seems to have unlocked a rather peculiar ability after the first few times he did it deliberately."

"Ability?"

"Show him," said Viper.

Harry concentrated and scrunched up his nose a bit...before turning into a smaller version of Fon with a slightly shorter braid.

Several emotions flitted through his mind too quickly to identify, but the effect it had on Fon was pretty obvious. It was no wonder Viper got so attached to the child, if he could turn into a smaller version of him.

A wicked thought occurred to Fon, which had Harry perk up in mischief.

"I sense chaos," he said brightly.

"What are you planning?"

"Could you imagine the havoc we could create if we introduced Harry looking like a mini-Renato to the others and have him call that arrogant Sun papa or something similar?" said Fon with an evil grin on his face.

Viper cackled a little at the thought of it. Before it was drowned in a wave of possessiveness. Harry was his son and he'd be damned if he allowed that bastard Renato to try and get his claws into him like that. Even so, the idea of the chaos it would create especially with Renato was too amusing not to imagine.

With the others

Luce looked between Viper and Fon with some amusement...and suspicion. Out of all of them, those two were the only ones who were displaying signs of being pulled to a different Sky, or had been claimed by one already. Viper's flames had never once drifted in her direction and the way Fon reacted every time she tried said volumes.

The two had gotten very close indeed, if the hickey Viper kept trying to hide was any indication. Luce thought it was adorable.

"Anything you two care to tell us?" purred Renato.

"It's none of your business," said Viper sharply, without hesitation.

"Oh I think the fact you're spying on us for a different Sky is very much my business," said Renato darkly.

The tension in the room was so thick you could choke on it. Fon snorted.

"Viper's Sky has no interest in the mafia, at least not yet. If anything his only concern would be to brutally murder Luce for trying to poach his Mist from him."

Dead silence.

"You know who Viper's Sky is?" said Lal sharply. She was angry over the 'fact' Viper was betraying them to someone else. She took loyalty very seriously.

"He's nine," said Fon bluntly.

"...What?" said Renato, almost dumbly to Fon's amusement.

"Viper's Sky is only nine years old," repeated Fon. "One that has been abused so extensively by his blood family that his flames were on the verge of complete Discord before Viper took him in."

An uncomfortable silence descended.

"How sure are you about his age?" asked Renato, trying to prove Fon wrong. However a Sky going into complete Discord was not something Fon would bandy about lightly.

Viper glared at them all.

"I'm not telling any of you anything without a hell of a lot of money first. I take his safety seriously, especially after what I found out."

Viper was mildly surprised at the amount of money they quickly forked over. A part of him should feel gleeful about having this sort of information to hold over them, but he just felt hollow. He barely tolerated sharing his son with Fon as it was...these bastards were all just as greedy and possessive as he was.

"Harry James Potter, born July thirty-first exactly nine years ago to one James and Lily Potter. His mother's original surname was Evans and upon her death he was illegally placed with his maternal aunt who despised her sister to the point she treated her nephew as a live-in servant. It was so bad that he openly admitted his 'room' was the cupboard under the stairs, despite the fact they had more than enough bedrooms in the home," repeated Viper dully, though you could feel the rage in his voice. "The first time I met him, I had just killed his 'uncle' who was trying to skip out on a loan he owed me. Apparently the fat pig had been using the child as an errand boy on top of the fact he treated the little one as his personal punching bag, claiming it was 'childhood roughhousing'. The only reason I took him with me was because I could tell right away he had Sky Flames."

Renato snorted darkly.

"You were planning to 'sell' him off to a famiglia in exchange for favors or money, and ended up roped in as the boy's Guardian," he half-asked.

Viper couldn't look any of them in the eye.

"The thing that pisses me off is that someone has been trying to force my son back into that home, despite the clear evidence of abuse and neglect. From what he's told me, his aunt would react quite badly if he ever returned...she moved her petty jealousy towards her much more successful younger sister to her nephew, even forcing him to cook the moment he was just tall enough to reach the stove and know how to use the oven."

Seeing the way the others turned cold with fury hearing that, they could understand why Viper was keeping the boy well hidden. It was bad enough to abuse a child, but abusing a young Sky? That was tantamount to suicide around flame users.

Fon took one look at the expression in Luce's face before he said flatly "No, Luce, we are not bringing him here. Absolutely not."

"Fon, you of all people should know how dangerous an untrained flame user is. Especially one with Sky flames," she said with a disappointed tone.

"It's less because I'm worried about what you lot will do to Harry and more to do with the fact that I know he will react badly when he meets you in particular. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind he will turn you into meaty chunks the second he finds out who you are or if you try to coax your flames near him. He's already pissed you've been trying to take his father from him," said Fon bluntly.

"Don't be ridiculous. How could a child get past us?" said Renato.

Fon's expression said volumes.

"Harry's flames are in such a disarray it's a miracle Viper's been able to stablize him this much. However they're not so stable that he will accept any intrusion of other Skies without lethal force, and with what he is he will kill Luce at this stage... and there would be nothing any of us could do about it."

Fon said this all in a matter of fact voice, as if it was a foregone conclusion the child would murder Luce if they met.

Seeing they didn't believe him, Viper gave them the best example they could think of to prove it.

"Have any of you seen photos of the Phillipe Don? I don't mean the current one, but the one that 'mysteriously' died in a way that made it clear he pissed something off he shouldn't have?" asked Viper.

"I have. Whatever did that left such a mess it was almost impressive," said Renato immediately. Luce looked a little green, as she had seen the pictures as well.

Mostly out of curiosity, since the previous Don was a Sky she was allied with.

"The idiot tried to shove his flames on me while Harry was nearby and he reacted. Badly. It took me four hours before he calmed down enough that I could safely abscond with him to a safe location without the culprit being tracked down to us," said Viper bluntly.

"You're telling us a child did that?!" said Renato in disbelief. "The man looked like he had been thrown into a shredder, and the room itself looked like a bomb had gone off!"

"Well, that tends to happen with children that have Harry's unique and quite unfortunate condition," said Fon with a shrug.

There had been quite a bit of speculation what caused the damage, but Fon had never made the connection to "obscurial on the warpath" until he met Harry and Viper. He had merely had to ask if Viper had ever had contact with the don to confirm his suspicions.

It certainly adds weight to Fon's warning that introducing Harry to Luce at this moment is a very bad idea.