238A/N: Forwarning, I do not speak Italian, I used Google Translate which is awful at best and hilariously misunderstanding at worst. So my apologizes for any mistakes, if you know the correct way to phrase such, please feel free to inform me.
🎵Once I was twenty years old, my story got told
Before the morning sun, when life was lonely
Once I was twenty years old🎵
She is nine months old the first time she performs magic, summoning the family's ginger cat from across the room into her eager hands, much to the astonishment of her parents. She is eighteen months old when she manages to vaporize the Dark Lord with the help of her mother who briefly flares in light green flames with her dying will of, 'Not Harry!' and unusual orange flames that erupt from her own body but it does not burn her, it shields her, protects her from the one who seeks to harm her though she doesn't know it yet nor does she remember the warmth and safety the flames promised. She is three when her hair: soft, black curls that only illuminate how pretty, how different she is compared to the Dursleys, grows back overnight after Aunt Petunia chops it off. She is five when she manages to unlock the Cupboard door to sneak into the kitchen to eat because her stomach feels like it is eating itself and her last meal was three days ago and the only thing giving her energy is a strange warmth inside her chest, that urges her to eat, to sneak some snacks into her cupboard and hide them under a loose board to prepare, just in case. She is seven when she manages to apparate on to the gymnasium roof to escape Dudley and his friends.
🎵Once I was 7 years old my momma told me
Go make yourself some friends or you'll be lonely
Once I was 7 years old🎵
She is seven when a strange man with white hair and a funny mask asks her if she wants to help be a superhero and all she has to do is carry a pacifier around her neck. Little Harry looks up with wide, neverinnocent eyes and agrees because something within her, something that has kept the hunger at bay, that heals the hurts and makes the pain go away, tells her she must say yes, cannotsayno, BAD THINGS will happen if she says no. She is not told that she could live longer if she changes her shape to a toddler, she is not told of the orange flames that wait to be called forth or the world that the flames belong too. She is told nothing but that she must hide the Pacifier, cannot show anyone because it will lead to Bad Things. She looks at the man with the funny mask and knows, feels it in her very core, that he is tired and sad and so many emotions she does not have the name for yet, and she makes a silent promise to herself to do her very best when she grows up to make it so he won't be sad for much longer.
She is nine when she talks to a Boa and releases the similarly caged snake to freedom. She is eleven when she finds out she is a witch, that her parents were too and they were murdered because of her; she is eleven when she kills for the first time consciously, orange flames covering her hands and burning her teacher to ashes while the familiar light green flame that gives her the feeling of a cuddle, of unrelenting love that spreads from the scar on her forehead, bouncing the curses away and protecting her from harm acting as a shield. She is twelve when she sacrifices herself for the first time but not the last time, when she slays a thousand-year-old monster and becomes poisoned and in turn, poisonous. She is thirteen when she learns that sometimes authority figures cannot be trusted and she can only rely on herself and the orange flames with the undertone of green that terrify the Dementors away, shrieking a spine-chilling sound in fear. She is fourteen when she is tortured for the first time and watches someone die for being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. She is fifteen when she feels true hatred and rage for the first time and her hand and soul are forever marked by it. She is fifteen when she learns that sometimes, words can leave lasting, scarring impressions. She is sixteen when she understands betrayal. She is seventeen when she dies for the first but not last time.
🎵Once I was twenty years old, my story got told
I was writing about everything, I saw before me
Once I was twenty years old
Soon we'll be thirty years old, our songs have been sold
We've traveled around the world and we're still roaming
Soon we'll be thirty years old🎵
Magic had always been with her, from her first breath to her last, a constant presence that was never far away and never like what everyone else described it. Magic fills her up and surrounds her, it tickles every spot and leaves with every breath. It weaves through the very cracks in her soul, the empty spaces left behind from having a soul shard sharing space beside her very own soul. It soothes and comforts as nothing else in her entire life has and with every little caress, she falls deeper into a peace she has never known. She can feel magic, freely given, dance on her skin, and taste it on her tongue. She has never quite fully understood the soothing undertone of warmthprotectioncare that hides underneath the magic, mingling and separating in a coexisting manner. She thinks that perhaps magic and death tangle and dance around her, laying claim and fighting for custody over her soul. It brings an amused smile to her face at the thought of a bickering mother magic and stoic father death arguing in a court of Eternals over who deserves to have custody of her full time.
She is seventeen when Death, her patron because while she carries the title of Master of Death, Death is infinitely older than her and could never actually accept a Master, shuffles her life around with a gentle nudge towards Gringott's, from there, she is directed towards a complete family tapestry of the Black's where she discovers that there is a small branch family that lives in Italy and she accepts the sudden push from both her instincts and Death to book a flight through the goblins. She may have been born a child of Magic, will forever call her Mother and be blessed with her gifts, but Death has earned it's due and she can welcome both with open arms in her all-encompassing soul. She laughs at Death's not-at-all subtle nudging and agrees, having spent the past several months after the war burying the dead and hiding away from the masses who swarm her, overwhelm her with their needy, violent magic. It has made her a recluse in the very apartment that Sirius was shut away in and she yearns for something she has never had before but has always desperately wished to have, to hold, to feel at home, to be loved by family. She takes the escape for what it is and runs away with nary but a letter addressed to Hermione and Ron and spirited away an infant, orphaned child with her with the blessings of Andromeda, who longs for some peace by herself to mourn. The plane ride is easy but long and she spends the flight time dozing and reading, only being woken by a stewardess who informs her they are landing.
Teddy, only a few months old, fusses only momentarily at all the shifting about and noise in his car seat as they disembark the plane before Harry allows her orange homefamilyloveharmony magic to cocoon the child in resemblance of a hug. The witch gazes around the airport, eyes taking in the new sights and extremely grateful for a translation charm that she had cast before leaving, giving her an idea of the words spoken and written around her. With the brilliant flare of magic around her, so unconscious a reaction to soothing the child, Harry does not see the sudden whiplash several people take to look around before zeroing in on her. She is ignorant of the piercing gazes as she looks up from Teddy to find the correct exit in the terminal. With another invisible nudge that keeps her distracted from the attention, Death urges her away from the airport and toward a taxi.
Florence is beautiful and Harry spends the first week after finding a nice hotel to stay in, exploring the city, tasting every bit of food that catches her attention, buying souvenirs for her friends, and buying toys and clothes for Teddy. Winky is a godsend, helping care for Teddy during the night so Harry can try and sleep, though the nightmares limit what peaceful sleep she can gain on a regular basis. She takes the handle of hours when she can and basks in the love the infant gives her with no stipulations.
Her fear has kept her from contacting the Italian branch of Blacks until then, fearful of their answers. She sends a letter off after much prompting from Winky with a carrier owl during her second week in Italy, unable to push it off any longer.
She knows her little vacation will have to have something happen, she begins thinking three weeks in, without a response yet from the Black's and having traveled to Ravenna to see the ocean. Something always happens whenever she is enjoying herself, as rare as that is. She is right in her dismal luck, in that while exploring a market she had accidentally stumbled upon, that boasts beautiful craftsmanship that easily catches her attention, enjoying a rare moment of beautiful sunshine while Winky has taken Teddy back to their hotel room for his nap, that she ends up kidnapped and thrown into the back of a van that speeds away before she can even defend herself.
Harry sits wide-eyed on the seat bench between two henchmen who stare at her with the star-struck expression that reminds her violently of a certain camera-carrying wizard and she recoils into the seat. While she has her wand strapped to her holster on her arm, it is invisible and she is currently only wearing a light, white summer dress, decorated in soft flowers for a feminine touch with a pair of Grecian sandals and a matching sun hat. The pair and the driver are silent during the ride, either entirely too focused on driving or on herself for Harry to get any kind of clue about where she is being taken and every shift or movement gathers their eye so she can't try to escape yet.
Harry licks her lips nervously as several minutes pass before they are pulling into an estate, a large one judging by the thick gate and guards standing outside of it. She is gently, much more so than any time she had ever been kidnapped before (with possibly the only exception being Barty Crouch Junior, who had seemingly decided she had become his Lord's Heir and had been trying to smuggle her out of the castle when he had been caught), carried out of the van. She has only a moment to glance around the courtyard before she is carried inside the doorway to a luxurious entry room before being shuffled up a large, extravagant staircase, down a long hallway before she was ushered into a large, furnished bedroom suite.
The young woman felt her eye twitch momentarily as she glanced around her surroundings, taking note of everything. There were several large windows, with one opening into a small balcony that overlooked what had to be a vibrant garden given the amount of green she could see. The large four-poster bed was delicately carved with silk sheets and a matching blanket. The furniture of the bedroom which included the dresser, end tables, vanity, chest and bed set, were all a rich, dark oak wood. Combined with the overall lavishness the entire property is decorated with, the room dripped in wealth. She hated every millimeter of the entire room and everything it stood for as a whole.
She spends two days locked away in the room with her only visitors being the two meatheads she has affectionately dubbed Goyle and Crabbe in memory of her two old classmates before she finally gives in to the urge to escape. The room has the most elegant and feminine dresses that she has ever seen and the witch loathes them and what they represent. There is expensive-looking jewelry located on the boudoir and shoes that even she knows must have cost a pretty copper. Harry spends two days wearing the relaxing t-shirt and jeans she had been wearing during her shopping trip and refuses to do anything with the rest of the clothing available to her. When she is done waiting, for someone to tell her their grand plans or whatever they have planned for her, she is quick to actually escape. She makes quick work of the grunts, knocking them unconscious and strolling out of the room as if she had not a care in the world.
It is as she is exploring the opulent manor, peeking into rooms and sending a stupefy directly into the face of any opposition that she finds a man, tied to a chair in what is obviously supposed to be a prison cell on the basement floor. The witch pauses only for a moment before she wanders towards him, taking note of the fact that he appears to be unconscious - through her eyes narrow on the softly subtle twitch of his finger as her shadow draws within view of him. Ah, perhaps not as unconscious as he would like their captors to believe. Her intuition sings to her and Harry follows along with its urging. "Mi scusi, parla inglese?"
The man's head raises slowly to look at her and Harry blinks in surprise at his roguishly good looks - he is well dressed despite his captivity with a tailored three-piece suit. His hair is dark brown, almost black in color, and with the pattern it is currently in, Harry has a feeling he typically wears a hat. He looks at her for a moment, eyes gauging her obvious common clothes and foreign features before something warm and fuzzy runs up against her magic and neatly causes her to melt into a pile of goo on the floor. She feels tingly all over, with the hair rising on her arms in goosebumps at the feeling. She can't help sending her own magic back in return, feeling it caress up against him, he seems to sag momentarily in his seat before his breath seems to catch, brown eyes widening momentarily before he answers her, "My lady, where are your guardians? You shouldn't be without them in a place like this." His tone is lightly scolding and Harry can't stop her impulsive bristling if she tried, not that she does. She doesn't care for someone attempting to chide her when she just finished a war, thank you very much.
"I will have you know that I am seventeen and am legally considered an adult, thank you very much. Let's get you out of these ropes." She bends down to untie the knot only to find him shrugging out of the hold and standing up without any hardship, as if he could have escaped anytime he wished.
"Nessun tutore? Chi è la tua famiglia? Sei un civile1?" He asks.
"Oh." She murmurs, standing back up to find that she has to crane her head back slightly to stare at him. "Um, I kind of understand your question. I'm a tourist- I was visiting the area on vacation. Two henchmen or whoever they were kidnapped me from the market. I got bored of waiting for whoever it was that is their leader and decided to leave."
The man sucks in a sharp breath, mouth tightening at whatever thought he had before bending over in a bow, reaching for her outstretched hand and placing a gentle kiss on the back of her right hand. Harry gave a small grimace at the momentary stillness of the scar on the back of her hand before he continued as if he didn't notice it. "My Lady, it would be my honor to escort you out of here and to safety in lieu of your guardians."
He is quick to gather up what Harry assumes to be his belongings, which include a hat with a yellow ribbon on the brim, two handguns and a cell phone. They leave the room, with the stranger leading her through the hallways with a firm grasp on her hand as if she would get left behind despite technically her being the one who had found him. They face few opposition, with the handful of hired help that they come across getting a bullet to the forehead. Harry can't stop her startled gasp the first it happens, drawing the man's attention. "How did you get down to my cell? Where were you located? Do we need to grab anything? How did you escape your room?"
Harry barely manages to tear her gaze from the dead body to the hitman in front of her. "I...I… I was upstairs, in one of the suites I think. I grabbed what few items I had from when they kidnapped me. I've just been knocking everyone unconscious when I've stumbled upon them."
"Figlio di puttana2!" He curses out before hurrying down the hallway. She finds herself thoroughly lost within moments as almost all of the hallways look identical. It is roughly half an hour later that he has stolen a car from their garage after stumbling upon it and they are driving away. Harry takes a moment of their awkward silence to check on her faulty intuition to find it silent and mentally scowls at it.
Her magic swarms up from her core to soak into her skin, easing any hurts that linger and wrapping her in a warm embrace. The witch is drawn out of her mental basking to find the man serving again, cursing under his breath and glancing at her wild eyed. Harry takes a moment to realize that she doesn't even know this man's name and summons up her Gryffindor courage to ask, "What's your name?"
The man looks away from the road to look back at her, "I am known as Reborn, the World's Greatest Hitman, at your service. May I have the honor of knowing your name, cielo principessa3?"
Harry glances at him for a moment before letting out a shy smile in return. "I'm Harry, it's nice to meet you."
"Harry…" Reborn trails off his sentence, obviously expecting her to tell him her surname.
"Just Harry." The witch answers, a pleased smile growing across her face. She loves the thrill that echoes in her heart over someone not immediately knowing who she is, where she has come from, supposedly everything there is to know about her.
"Where were you staying?" He asks, eyes focusing back on the road though Harry can still see him paying her the utmost attention from the corner of his eye.
"The Regal Pinnacle Hotel and Spa in Ravenna." She informs him, watching his eyes momentarily widen before narrowing slightly. The hotel was an extravagant one, and certainly cost more a night than most of the higher-priced hotels in the area. Harry merely hides her smile, knowing the image she portrayed was vastly different from what she was actually worth. Between the Potter family fortune, the Black family fortune, and the numerous vaults she had inherited from people who had donated it to her upon their passing due to her defeat of the Dark Lord as well as the bounty she had claimed after the War, she had become one of the richest people in the entire Magical World and easily in the world. The Potter's held the patents for some of the most popular potions around, getting a portion of any income generated from their sale. The Black's owned numerous businesses and homes, estates and villas that all generated income on a monthly basis.
"Ah, we will be there in an hour or so, signorina. Do you wish to call anyone to inform them you are safe?" He asked, reaching into his pocket to pull out a cell phone.
Harry sent a beaming smile in his direction, "Thank you." She dialed the number for the hotel, before typing in her room number when prompted. She hummed gently under her breath while she waited for the call to connect.
"Winky speaking for Misses Potter." Winky answered softly into the phone.
"Hi Winky, it's Harry."
"Misses Harry, we is been missing you. You is okay?"
"I've been doing okay, I got kidnapped again. I'm currently on my way back now with a kind gentleman who helped me escape." Harry explained.
"Winky is glad you is being okay, Misses Harry. Baby is doing good, he is napping. Misses letter from Blacks has arrived. They be wanting to speak with you as soon as you are available. They says they need to figure out who be new Don for the family."
"Thank you Winky, I'll deal with the Blacks once we are back. I shall see you in an hour or so." Harry said.
"Yes Misses, we be seeing you and guest soon. Winky will be ready."
"Thank you, and if you wouldn't mind preparing a meal, I find I'm frightfully hungry and I do not think I will have the patience to cook, I would appreciate it so very much."
Winky seemed to perk up at the thought, "Misses be letting Winky cook? Winky begins now, no take backsies." The elf hung up without another word, startling a laugh from the witch at the eagerness she displayed. Winky had been very upset upon learning that Harry liked cooking for their small family.
Reborn glanced over at her before accepting the phone back, tucking it back into his pocket. "I couldn't help but overhear, you said the Blacks?"
Harry smiled softly, "Yes, I believe they go by the Nero family over here. I recently inherited the Head of for the entire family and I have been trying to get into contact with them for a few weeks."
The car swerved again, "I'm sorry, did you just say that you became the Head of the Nero familiga?" Reborn asked, eyebrows raising in surprise until she couldn't see them under the low tilt of his hat.
"Yes," she answered, quirking an eyebrow at him in question.
"In cosa sono incappato?" He murmured to himself.
Harry merely hummed in answer, her translation charm had worn off the day before and she had no idea what he was saying anymore whenever he spoke in Italian. He had said he was the World's Greatest Hitman, perhaps she could hire him as a bodyguard for a few weeks until she figured out who had kidnapped her and why they had done so in the first place.
A/N: While I have another chapter or so planned for this, don't expect an update soon. It'll probably be a while before I come back to this particular fic. It's not abandoned by any means but it will be on the back burner while I finish up my Rebirth fic.
Check out my tumblr at darkladyeris for updates to my fics, my general thoughts or even if you want to put in a request.
Translations for the Italian spoken words:
1 ) Nessun tutore? Chi è la tua famiglia? Sei un civile? = No guardians? Who is your Family? You are a civilian?
2 ) Figlio di puttana = son of a bitch
3 ) cielo principessa = Princess Sky
4) In cosa sono incappato? = what have I stumbled upon?