Chapter Text
Xanxus was nine years old when the witch invaded the shitty kitchenette he shared with his mother during one of his weekly runs to the convent near the city center that distributed food to the poor. She did not appear to be more than ten or eleven years older than he, and she had the reddest hair he had ever seen, almost as red as the crystals in the stained glass windows of the town's cathedral. She had wide green-hazel eyes and a stick in her hand, and he would have mistaken her for a college girl or something if she hadn't been standing next to Xanxus's mother's unconscious body.
"What the fuck are you doing to her, you bitch?!" The boy screams, alarmed because hey, that was his mother on the floor, even though she is horrible doing it – and very crazy in the head on top of it. "Did you kill her?!"
"What?! No! She's just passed out!" The girl responds, waving her stick in the direction of Xanxus when he jumps towards her with his fists raised, dropping the bags with the jars of soup and loaf on the floor. He froze in the air – what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck – and with a few more stick movements, he was carefully deposited lying on his side of the bed that he shared with his mother when she wasn't away on her job. "Look, kid. I know how that looks from your point of view, but I swear to Merlin that your mum is perfectly fine, just asleep." As she speaks, the woman moves the stick once more, floating Xanxus's mother to the tiny shabby sofa in the corner of the two-room kitchenette and placing her there before pointing that thing at the door, which slams shut with another spinning of the woman's magic wand. The food – even the soup that poured from one of the jars – begins to float. "The thing is that she is my cousin once removed by my mother's side, and she is the only person outside of my sister who could give me an ovum so I could have my baby."
"And why didn't you get one from your sister, dammit?!" Xanxus asks, immediately surprised to be able to speak, even though he still can't move far beyond his head. "Why come right after my ma?!"
"Because my sister hates mágico, and therefore she hates me." She explains, finishing placing the repackaged food on the small table where Xanxus and his mother ate before turning back to him. "I just want a baby, you know? A little person who is half me and half my husband. Only whenever I try... Whenever I try, nothing happens, you know? So I took exams and..." She took a deep breath and dried her eyes on the cardigan sleeve. "I investigated and did tests. Your mother's DNA is similar enough to mine, and that's what matters to me. And look at the positive side of it, kid – you will have a little brother or sister, the only difference is that they will not come directly from your mother and that you will not have the same father." The woman's smile is painful and hopeful, and Xanxus realizes that he doesn't want to take it away from her, even though it costs something to his mother. "The only thing that complicates everything is that, in my world, there is a law about non-magical beings witnessing magic, and it can be dangerous for both me and the baby and you and your mother. And I don't want anything to happen to you just because I was a selfish bitch."
"So what are you going to do with me?" Xanxus asks, after thinking about what she said.
"The same thing I already did with your mother – I will put a tie on your memories." She says as if it were the simplest thing in the world, and given everything Xanxus watched her do with just a stick and magic, tying someone's memories didn't seem so absurd. "It won't be a strong thing, since you are just a child and I don't want to end up hurting you, and it will wear out over time." She sits next to Xanxus and, with careful fingers, moves a few strands of hair out of his eyes. "If one day you remember, and you're going to, come to the village of Godric's Hollow, in Wales, Great Britain, and look for Lily Potter. And if you want to stay, even if only for a day, you will always have one place waiting for you, okay...? "
"Xanxus."
"Xanxus. Are you ready? Or do you have any last questions?"
"Only one more." And it's not for her to stop petting his hair, because that's a really good feeling that he probably won't have again, since his mother was... Well, his mother.
"Spill it, brat."
"What will my fratellino's name be, hag?"
"First of all, the term is witch, don't hag. It's just rude to call someone like that, magic or not." She says, slightly pulling a piece of Xanxus' hair in scolding. "What about your little sibling's name, well... If they were a girl, I would call her Rose Harriet." Rambles the witch, Lily, still combing Xanxus' hair in a way that was almost putting him to sleep. "And if it was a boy, um ... What do you suggest, Xanxus? They're your sibling, so you also have to give an opinion." She asks, and if Xanxus' eyes and pillow get wet, she doesn't comment.
"I like Adriano." Mutters the boy.
"Hadrian?"
"No, A-dri-a-no. Like the emperor."
"Oooh. Adriano James. That sounds very nice, Xanxus."
Xanxus blushes with the compliment and turns even redder at the affectionate smile Lily gives him. "Any more questions?"
"No," Xanxus replies, and he truly doesn't want to lose the feel of her fingers in his hair, but he understands that she has to go. "Do your voodoo, witch."
"Grumpy, isn't it?" She laughs and touches the tip of her wand at his temple. "Until next time, Xanxus."
"Until next time, witch."
"Obliviate."
And everything fades to black.
On July 31, 1980, eight and a half months after secretly traveling to Italy and meeting Xanxus, Lily Potter gave birth to a healthy baby with eyes greener than his mother's, James' dark, untamed hair, and warm, healthy light brown skin, just a shade or two lighter than that of his Italian older brother, most likely because of the Nordic heritage in James' blood from his Black ancestors.
She called her precious little boy Adriano James Potter.
At the same time, back in Italy, Beviláqua Vacchiano – not that she remembered her surname, since she hadn't used it in a long, long time – delivered her only son to one of the most powerful men in the mafia underworld, claiming that her Xanxus, who displayed a pair of fists filled with red-orange fire at his mother's orders, was his son.
He had never met this woman in his life, much less slept with her to the point of making her pregnant, but given that the boy was an Active Wrath Sky, the first since Vongola Secondo, it would not be Vongola Nono to refute her word, not when letting a Sky of this caliber run wild could mean that one day he would become an enemy of the Famiglia. Therefore, Timóteo di Vongola claims the child as his and takes the boy back to Sicily, to the disapproval of his Guardians and his donna, while his three oldest children are ecstatic as soon as they find out about the new little brother.
Xanxus always has the persistent feeling that he is not the youngest and that something is missing from the Harmony that he established with his eldest brothers after he arrived at the Iron Fort. But he never says a word to anyone about it.
He also never sees his mother again.
On the night of October 31, 1981, back in England, the Potter cottage at Godric's Hollow is attacked by the Dark Lord Voldemort. James Potter – an auror, a Sunny Storm about to be completely Active – dies at the foot of the stairs after placing himself between the Dark Lord and his fleeing family. He and Voldemort duel for almost five minutes before James is defeated and killed, and it is only the sudden cloud of crimson-yellow fire that explodes from the man the second the Death Curse touches him that prevents Voldemort from pursuing the Evans girl and the child of prophecy. He wastes two precious minutes in a frantic recitation of flame-freezing spells before the fire dissipates as if it were never there in the first place, and he can feel his anger boiling in his chest at that point. He goes up the stairs after the girl and her stupid child and finds both barricades inside the nursery since Voldemort placed an anti-apparition ward around the house as soon as he set foot in the garden. He blows up the door and whatever the girl had piled up behind it and enters the room, only to see her standing in front of the cradle with open arms like an idiot, as if her body could prevent him from exterminating the child standing in the crib behind her.
"Get out of the way, silly girl. Get out, and I will allow you to live."
"Never!"
"Get out now!"
"No! I won't let you touch Harry!"
"Get out of my way!"
"No!"
"Avada Kedavra!" Shouts Voldemort, because at this point he's furious with this ridiculous situation, and screws what Severus wanted with the damn plague that was that filthy mudblood. Voldemort waves his wand idly and the girl's body is thrown to the side, and he finally has a clear path for the child, who stares at him with big, stupid green eyes full of tears that have yet to fall. "Well, look at this, Harry Potter. There's no one else between you and me, is there? And to think that Dumbledore believed that you could defeat me." Mocks the Dark Lord, raising his wand to what should be the last Death Curse of the night. He points the branch of yew and phoenix feather at the baby's head and, almost tediously, casts the spell. "Avada Kedavra."
He regrets a few seconds later.
The green light flies and hits the child, and immediately the air is filled with electric green and dark purple, and all Voldemort can hear are the child's screams and the sound of thunder shaking the small room and himself, mainly because he doesn't even have a chance to scream for himself, much less cast any spell due to the wave of static electricity and purple fire that takes over the room, shattering Voldemort's body with a fury worthy of the great lightning storms that are more commons on the high seas than in a small cottage in the middle of Wales. All of this occurs in a matter of seconds, and when it ends, part of the ceiling collapsed and the child in the crib is still there, alive and screaming due to the open wound on his face, an irregular and deep scratch that extends from the root of his hair and going down the eyebrow to the left cheekbone, cutting the eyelids of the left eye and failing miraculously on blinding the boy's eye.
The lights soon go out as if they had never been there.
A fat, brown rat comes out of the shadows and picks up the white wand from the folds of burnt fabric on the floor in front of the crib with the teeth. He soon comes back where he came from and disappears.
There is a crack in the corridor, and soon a hook-nosed man in black robes enters the room, barely paying attention to the crying child before falling to his knees beside the red-haired woman, sobbing desperately as he hugs her against his chest and cradles her, cursing profusely the names of Albus Dumbledore, James Potter and the Dark Lord, blaming them all, himself and the child for the death of his most loved and precious person in the world, still completely ignoring the screaming baby less than five feet away from where he was on his knees clinging to a corpse.
The child sobs and stops crying little by little, and this is the only sound in the whole house besides the man's murmurs until the roar of an engine is heard outside, followed by hurried steps and cries of pain and anger on the ground floor. The man in black carefully places the woman back on the floor and spares the child in the crib and the remains of a tunic on the floor a look before disappearing with a crack so low it was practically muted, and then a man with a biker jacket and long hair stumbles into the room, sobbing when he sees the woman lying on the floor, but unlike the other, he goes towards the baby and carefully pulls him out of the crib, hugging the child to his chest while leaving tracks of tears in his dark, fluffy hair before carefully examining the cut.
Fortunately, Sirius Black is proficient in first aid magic, or else little Harry's eye would be completely lost when he is in his aunt's lovely care. He murmurs spells for pain relief and healing as he runs the cut with the tip of his wand, and then there is a sensitive, red scar where there was a deep rip before. He then carries his godson out of the nursery and down the hall, and when he comes down the stairs, he carefully presses Harry's face against his shoulder, preventing the baby from seeing his father lying on the floor like a broken doll. He crosses the living room and the lobby, and steps outside in time to witness a gigantic man appear on the sidewalk with a resounding crack. Soon, the giant man has the baby safely wrapped in a thick conjured blanket the motorcycle keys, and clear instructions to take the child directly to Poppy Pomphrey at Hogwarts, without detours. Then Sirius Black is also gone, silently disappearing into the air like the Hitwizard that he is, going hunting for the man who betrayed his best friends and left his precious godchild orphaned by both parents.
Now, Rúbeus Hagrid wanted to comply with Sirius' request, he did, but he had instructions from Professor Dumbledore to take little Harry to him in Little Whinging, Surrey, and he couldn't disobey the director – mainly because Hagrid was an Active Lightning, and Albus Dumbledore was his Sky, not that Hagrid knew about it since his Flames were mostly Low Emission Hard Flames, and therefore invisible to the naked eye unless you knew exactly what you were looking for. So, instead of going ahead with the request of the highly furious and completely vindictive Passive Cloud, Hagrid rides Sirius' bike and heads towards the London suburban area. And just over six hours and a few minutes of conversation later, Adriano "Harry" James Potter is deposited on the steps of the home of his relatives along with a letter – both to be found next in the morning with the milk delivery and the newspaper –, the boy sleeping under a light charm to be awakened by the screams worthy of a banshee a few seconds after the door of the number four of Privet Drive was opened by a dignified and composed Petunia Dursley in one of her best nightgowns and robes.
Meanwhile, in a mansion on the outskirts of Rome, Xanxus di Vongola has the disconcerting feeling that something very wrong has happened and that something worse is about to start happening.
Weird.
Xanxus di Vongola is sixteen years old when he loses one brother after another because, somewhere, there is a hole in the security. Enrico dies in a shootout on the way to Genoa, Massimo is found floating in the Adriatic almost a month after disappearing in Venice, and Federico... Well, the only thing left of Xanxus' third brother was the bones, and even that is questionable since most of them were shattered by whatever destroyed Federico's body after he died.
Needless to say, Xanxus and his Guardians hunted and tore to pieces each one that had something to do with the murders they managed to put their hands on, not to mention the main Guardians of Xanxus' brothers, those who were not connected to them through politics, such as Massimo's Storm, Sparta, Enrico's Cloud, Hamlet, and Federico's Mist, Salieri. But while they dealt with the perpetrators, they never really found out who had orchestrated and ordered the murders of the Vongola heirs.
Then came the rumor about a state coup.
It started with a comment here and there in the Varia Cloud Division, mainly from the part of the scumbag that was the Head of the Division, one of the only remaining agents from the time when Varia had been under the command of the Ottava's Rain Guardian and Sword Emperor, Tyr. Nobody gave a shit about the "gossip", and it wasn't long before Xanxus' second-in-command put the son of a bitch in place and shut him up, at least inside the headquarters. Only then the bastard started gossiping around the CEDEF dogs, and when Xanxus finished dealing with the self-immolation of his brothers' Elements during the elimination of their Skies' murderers and finally returned to paying attention to what was happening in his fucking territory, Sawada Iemitsu started sniffing around, spreading even more false rumors and adding to the already great paranoia of Xanxus’ father, who hadn’t stepped out of the Iron Fort since his week-long trip to Japan to meeting Sawada's family a few months before Enrico's murder, from which he returned even more paranoid than usual.
Xanxus sent Mammon to find out what the hell was going on in the Famiglia's main house. The result of their research left Xanxus' feathers upright, because "apparently" he, Xanxus, was planning to depose Timóteo and take over as Vongola Decimo.
As if he wanted to have something to do with the asylum that was the main house being that he was perfectly fine and happy at the Varia Castle near the Vatican border. He said that to the old man, and instead of believing in Xanxus and stopping Sawada from stoking everyone and their mothers against him, the old man goes and announces to the Alliance Families that Xanxus was adopted, and that the Varia Leader never had a drop of Vongola blood inside him, cutting through much of the influence that Xanxus already had, still having and could have in a good part of them and undoing good three-quarters of the effort that Xanxus, Salieri, Sparta, and Hamlet put in the hunt for the principals of the murders of Enrico, Massimo, and Federico, in addition to making Xanxus the biggest joke in the organized crime underworld.
Simple like that.
Squalo and the other idiots on Xanxus' Set were livid. Bronco Dino and the Mammon's acquaintances at the Arcobaleno too, or as much as they could, since one was Don Cavallone and the others could not get too involved in the affairs of the Famiglia without a contract. Squalo, Lussuria, and Levi wanted to turn Iemitsu into beef steak, Bel wanted to turn the Vongola Nono into a knife cushion, and the less talk about Mammon's silent but apocalyptic fury, the better. At least they were able to use part of this mess to "take care" of Ottavio, who was the scum who kept leaking information to Sawada and his bitches. The relationship between the main house and Varia was so tense as to be tangible, and when Ganauche III arrived with a summons calling Xanxus and only him to the Iron Fort, well... It was the opening for breathing that he was waiting for, it is not? It was Xanxus' chance to go and tell the old man – no more father, never father again – that the blood in his veins didn’t matter, the only thing he wanted from the family was the Varia.
Then he took the Ninth's word, answered the summons, and entered the Iron Fort for the first time in almost a year and a half of passive-aggressive discussions and tense and angry silence on both sides alone. Soon the news that Xanxus tried to kill Don Vongola before disappearing swept Italy like wildfire, and both his and Varia's reputations reached a new level of low, to the detriment of the Famiglia's Assassination Squad business, making them even more alienated from the Alliance than they already were, to the point that the main house ordered to the Varia Officials to call everyone back and put the headquarter in an undefined lockdown.
Three days later no news of Xanxus other than what CEDEF was publishing had Xanxus' Guardians knocking on the doors of the Iron Fort, Mammon of the Arcobaleno included, despite their curse preventing them from forming a true Guardian Bond with Xanxus' Sky. Squalo, being the first Element in Xanxus' Harmony and his right arm in the Varia, was the only one who was allowed to go down to the dungeon where Xanxus was being kept, and when he returned – accompanied by Timóteo and Visconti on the way to and back – he just grabbed Bel under one arm, grabbed Levi's wrist with his other hand and left, trusting that Mammon would follow them back to the car.
Then they found out what happened in the main house.
Xanxus was completely trapped there, buried under layers of chains with Mist Flame seals and traps, as well as a complete surveillance system powered by Cloud and Lightning Flames. And that was not the worst, oh no. The worst thing was the damn Zero Point Breakthrough that sealed Xanxus alive under an insurmountable and impassable ice layer for anyone who didn't have Sky Flames as or more powerful than those of Vongola Nono. And to close with a flourish, Nono had warned Squalo and ordered him to give the word to the rest of the Varia Leader Set – a finger was out of line, and Xanxus would die, shattered together with the crystal that held him.
Therefore, the new protocol was – no one moved a finger without the main house knowing, and every year on the day Xanxus was frozen, Squalo would be allowed to visit and, if he was lucky, ask the Ninth to release their Sky. After that, not a word about Xanxus to anyone outside the Elements of his Set – that it was the whole of Varia, lucky for them, or else Squalo would have to find another hole in the orders of the Nono, which could end badly –, or else Xanxus would pay for it.
Needless to say, the Varia followed the order of the letter. And every year, on the same sunny day in July, Squalo asked for the freedom of his Sky only to be summarily denied.
And when they saw it, eight years had passed.
It turns out, if Lily Potter hadn't been a selfish bitch – her own words about herself – a lot in Xanxus' life would have happened differently. Among those things, there was the pertinent detail of Xanxus – after coming out of the ice – to be more controlled by the inherent anger of his Wrath Flames and accumulated grudge than any other feeling he could have for Timóteo di Vongola or Sawada Iemitsu. And because of this, since they tried to force Xanxus into the Varia's mad dog role, that was almost exactly what Xanxus became after Breaking the Zero Point on his own because fuck them all, as would say Xanxus himself.
But Lily Potter and her selfishness happened, and things changed.
The Zero Point Breakthrough is a technique where the use of the Harmony attribute from the Sky Flames forces the opponent's Flames to petrify in place, wrapping the opponent in a cocoon – for lack of a better word – of unbreakable and impassable ice for anyone who isn't as or more powerful than the launcher of the technique invented by Volgola Primo. But over time – and eight years was a long time – what keeps the ice intact – which in this case were Xanxus' Sky Flames – eventually wears out, and the ice starts to break.
And Xanxus' Storm Flames were nothing but little opportunistic bastards – which was probably what attracted Belphegor's Storm Flames to Xanxus in the first place, the little gremlin. Then the red fire stretches for the first time in almost ten years and begins, slowly but accelerating as it progresses, to consume the first layer of ice of several.
Xanxus, still motionless but now with a few millimeters of space between him and the ice, blinks.
And it is with a roar of fury that he forces the rest of his way out, no matter how many layers of skin he left behind along with pieces of clothing and X-Guns spoiled in the fucking ice on that the old man dared to try to seal Xanxus. High-pitched alarms go off, but Xanxus doesn't give a damn about them, too busy running around in his Storm Frenzy to worry about anything other than getting out of that shitty basement and going back to the Varia Castle, where he never should have left, it didn't matter what the fucking old man said to him.
Xanxus doesn't notice right away, very focused on ripping his way out of the Iron Fort, but in the back of his mind, a tie placed on a specific day of a specific year snaps, leaving the memories of what happened that day in December rise back up to the surface of Xanxus's mind. He has the collar of one of the Elements of the Ninth in one hand – he thinks it's Visconti, but he and Brow Nie have always looked alike, the old bastards – and the other closed in a bloody fist when he realizes that particular thought, and to the terror and relief of many people around, Xanxus freezes.
"She tied my memory, that hag." He says, marveling at the discovery, before dropping a bloody Brow Nie Jr. on the floor and turning to a terrified maid who was trying to look as small as possible in a corner of the hall. "Hey, you! What day is it today?" Xanxus asks because he actually read the journals with the story of the Famiglia, and therefore he knows exactly what the old man hit him with. "I don't fucking have all day, so spill it!"
"May 29, 1995!" The woman squeals, and Xanxus swears again while he goes to look for a car and a change of clothes. If what the woman said was true – and it probably was –, Lily Potter had given birth in the last fourteen or fifteen years. And Xanxus missed at least half of the big milestones in his baby sibling's life.
He's so fucking late.
But not for much longer.
On the night of the twenty-eighth to the twenty-ninth of May 1995, in an abandoned graveyard in the village of Little Hangleton, a Harry James Potter watches his first in everything being murdered in cold blood for the thing that betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort – once a worm, always a worm.
When Cedric falls, something inside Harry's chest breaks, and the agony of this is so intense that it overcomes the pain in the scar.
He doesn't stop screaming when he is tied to a tombstone, and he keeps screaming until he is muted by a silencing spell. He's so delusional in agony that he barely feels Wormtail cutting his arm to collect blood, and he doesn't pay attention to Voldemort until the man himself – could that be called a man? – slaps Harry in the face with such force that he sends Harry's glasses flying.
"Ridiculous, Harry Potter. But to expect more of a pathetic creature like you would be asking too much, isn't it?" The reborn Dark Lord mocks, and the newly summoned Death Eaters laugh along with their master. "Screaming because of a boy who was stupid enough to fall in love with you to the point of following you here only to die? You are quite your mother's son, that filthy mudblood who tricked her way into James Potter's heart only to kill him in the end, just like you did."
Harry didn't try to refute, after all, Voldemort was right, wasn't he? He killed Cedric. He killed the light of his life, his precious, brilliant Sun.
(Inside Harry, something purple-orange shifted and yawned, waking up from what appeared to have been a long, long sleep.)
Voldemort went on talking, and he may have thrown a Cruciatus or two at Harry, but the boy was too lost in his shock and agonizing pain to notice more of the same things happening to him. After Voldemort orders Wormtail to return Harry's glasses and wand to him because they are going to duel, the heat in Harry's chest increases, making the boy finally realize how angry he is at Wormtail, at Voldemort, at himself, at Dumbledore, of everyone, even Cedric, for dying and leaving him alone.
He refuses to die lying down and helpless.
In the stands of the Quidditch pitch, flames of red, blue, and indigo shine in the hearts of certain people. There is a whirlwind of purple in the bowels of a certain dog, and he is quickening his pace across the grounds of the castle.
The beast much like a Hungarian Horntail that is Harry's temperament growls and bares its teeth. And it is not Voldemort who casts the first spell in the duel.
"Confringo!" Shouts Harry, completely ignoring Voldemort's monologue on dueling etiquette and heading straight for the throat. "Reducto! Alarte Ascendare!" He jumps to the side, rolling on the floor to dodge a pair of spells in a familiar green, and raises his wand again, not in the least intimidated by the pair of Death Curses or by the fact that Voldemort narrowly avoided both Harry's hexes of destruction and expulsion spell. None of the duelists or spectators notice the small flames of purple fire sewing Harry's flesh and bones, much less the flashes of orange in each spell that flies between the boy and the Dark Lord. "Expelliarmus!"
"Avada Kedavra!"
The spells collide in half of the way, and the subsequent pressure wave sends much of the Death Eaters flying. And as much as Voldemort pushed his magic into the Curse, Harry's orange Expelliarmus was just... stronger. Strong enough to push the white light beads back into Voldemort's wand without much effort on the part of Harry, who was using his anger and accumulated spite and resentment against Voldemort as fuel for his magic in that farce of a duel. And when the little white ball touched the yew wood, causing screams from the wand, Harry's lips parted in a smile so sharp and bloody that it terrified not only the Death Eaters but Voldemort himself, because Dumbledore's little gold pawn definitely shouldn't have a fight spirit like that. He should have been kneeling at Lord Voldemort's feet, begging for his own life, not... not resisting!
And then the Priori Incantatem begins.
Wormtail's silver hand, Cedric Diggory – sorry, I'm so sorry, I love you, take me back with you, sorry for leaving you alone... –, Berta Jorkins – that's right boy! Beat the son of a bitch down! –, the old man – so he was a wizard, huh? Finish him, son! –, Lily Potter – that's right, darling! Hang on just a little bit longer, your daddy wants to see you! –, James Potter – That's right, son! Show him, Harry! –, and it would have continued if Voldemort himself had not pulled his wand and severed the connection by force because the boy did not surrender and seemed capable of continuing with it all night if he hadn't cut the Priori Incantatem. So the ghosts throw themselves against him, and the Potter boy runs to the corpse of his boyfriend, grabs him, and convoking the Triwizard Cup to him.
And he is gone.
And if the furious howl of the Dark Lord ends up making Wormtail piss himself with fear, well... nobody gives a fuck to this.
In a house in London's suburbs, two days after the graveyard disaster, an Active Cloudy Sky with a broken and bleeding Guardian bond awaits something he still doesn't know exactly, despite attributing the sensation to letters from friends and godparents who never arrive.
But despite that, he continues to look to the east.