There wasn't a moment in his life as Harry Potter that Takeru hadn't wondered what his parents would be like, wondered what his life would have been like had the Potters lived. He'd imagined siblings, younger ones, brothers or sisters. From the moment he'd discovered the lie the name had become, and had learned his real name and the existence of a living family, he'd tried imagining what they'd be like.

Parents, uncles, and a brother.

It had all been abstract, even with the pictures he'd found on the internet. He couldn't make an emotional connection to photographs, no matter how hard he'd tried with the thought of the Potters. There had always been some kind of distance, and he'd thought that he just didn't understand the concept of family. Family was something other people had.

His mother constantly showered him in love, hugs and kisses. It was nothing like the way Mrs Weasley treated him, with her large, engulfing hugs that felt like she was trying to make up for everything he'd ever missed in a mother. Hibari Yun's brand of affection was so very gentle in the way she caressed his cheek and smoothed his hair. Even in the way she hugged him, like he'd break if she hugged too hard and at the same time it felt as if she was scared that he might disappear on her again if she let go. The distance between them was one of unfamiliarity; she was nothing like Mrs Weasley, it never felt like she was trying to crush him under love at all. Also, there was that carefully hidden edge of emotion that made him realize that he wasn't the only one holding back an ocean's worth of pain.

His dad was a man he couldn't compare to anyone in his life as Harry Potter. Mr Weasley, for however hard the man had tried to connect with him, had been all awkward conversations, handshakes and poorly hidden awe. His own father was a solid presence that folded him into hugs every chance he got, and was so very real and simply THERE. There was awe, but it was there only for the fact that he existed, that he was sitting right there in front of him and not because he was famous. Exhausted relief crept around the edges of his eyes and the hugs he folded Takeru into weren't just for reassurance for him, it was for the both of them. The man was as overwhelmed as he was at having him back in the family and lapsed into bouts of nearly uncomfortable silence where the man would just look at him. There wasn't a single question spoken to him about where he'd been for all these years, possibly warned by the doctor not to push him for answers, but his grey eyes were sharp and always searching for clues to string together that would answer those unspoken questions for him.

This was where he'd gotten his ability to piece together mysteries from.

It seemed to run in that side of the family. His Uncle Minoru was also a sharply intelligent individual who was outwardly cold to everyone. The man complained bitterly about the work he did as a Police Detective and the people he had to put up with, (here he always gave Takeru's older brother a pointed look). He would always leave for a bit and then bring back books and games every time the family was chased out of the room for Takeru's medical tests. The man set everything up and invited him to join him in enjoying his time off work. He hid his observations and searching looks behind sarcastic and pithy observations of whatever game they was playing and for all his outwardly cool and slightly grumpy attitude he was just as quick with affection as anyone in the family and panicked the worst out of them whenever he thought he was mentioning something that might hurt him.

"I used to be JUST like that." His father confided in him once while watching his Uncle Minoru grump his way through several work folders a fellow detective brought over, having been pulled away from the game of Guess Who they'd been playing. "But then I met your mother. We're all waiting for when he finds his perfect someone, then it'll be OUR turn to point, laugh and be sarcastic about it."

His Uncle uttered a word in a language Takeru didn't understand, though it had to be a swear-word given the way his mother reacted to it. She slapped the upside of his Uncle's head with her slipper and told him to watch what he was saying around 'the kids'.

"I WAS watching what I was saying." Minoru hissed, rubbing the back of his head with his hand and then checked his fingers, presumably for blood. "Notice how it wasn't in Japanese!"

These people were better than the family he'd tried dreaming up, better than his imagination by a long stretch. They were everything he'd ever wanted and— he couldn't possibly tell them anything. Every time he tried, every time he even so much as opened his mouth to try his mouth glued shut, his teeth clicked together and he started imagining the consequences.

The wizarding world landing on him and his family. His Uncle who was just barely 'magical' enough to meet the requirements of being Wizard enough to be tossed into Azkaban WITH him. His family Obliviated of all knowledge of the both of them. Someone stealing him back from his family and putting him to use again as a passable Harry Potter.

Takeru tried forcing himself to say something, tried pushing away his terrifying imagination, tried doing it every time he saw the questions and grief in the eyes of his family but—

He couldn't.

His mother, possibly noting the beginning stages of his discomfort, tried everything in her power to ease it. She even went so far as to go and bring him the first home-cooked meal he remembered getting. She made sure his Uncle Fon was going to be watching over him and vanished for a few hours, reappearing flushed, excited and thoroughly pleased with herself. 'Bento' was automatically translated into 'boxed lunch' in his head and Takeru discovered something about his mother that he hadn't known about her as a child. She subscribed to the same school of cooking Hagrid did. The rice crunched, as did the fried chicken, all the way through. The carrots were sour to the point of near-inedibility and the salad tasted gritty, like she hadn't washed the lettuce before she'd cut it up.

"Minoru, keep an eye on things for me. I'm going to do some damage control." His dad joked not long after his mother went home to cook and reappeared with a boxed lunch of his own, one that outwardly looked identical to the one his mother made but was actually edible. He distracted his mother with a bag full of clothing he'd brought from home and very sneakily replaced the lunch Takeru had been trying to soldier through with a conspiratorial wink. His dad apparently did most of the cooking at home and, from each bite of rapidly consumed evidence, was very, very good at it.

The clothes his father had brought were apparently Kyouya's old things, ones his mother had sat down with and sorted through with a critical eye. The rejected pile of clothing looked good enough to him but then again he'd been wearing Dudley's old cast-offs for as long as he could remember so perhaps he wasn't the best of judges regarding clothing. His mother scolded his 'nii-chan' for being so rough on clothes he probably hadn't worn in years and got a half-hearted snort in return. She bounced out of the room after giving Takeru a quick, edgy and desperate hug. "I'll be right back, I just need to get you some decent clothes!"

After that his mother was always coming in and out of the hospital rooms, coming back each time with new clothes, more than he really needed.

His family as a whole would have fit in at Hogwarts like they belonged there; they all went that crazy over his 'reappearance'. Even magicless, they had to be the single most interesting humans Takeru had ever met. His older brother alone was a piece of work the founders would have been utterly proud of and learning what made him and the rest of them tick was the most entertaining past time he'd ever come up with.

The best comparison Takeru could think of was that his brother Hibari Kyouya acted like a cat.

The teenager only accepted 'advice' when someone couched it in ways that made it seem like it was his idea. Like when they had first met and the doctor had dryly mentioned that maybe Takeru might be more comfortable in the hospital room instead of staying in the hallway? The protective four-year-old in his memories had nothing on the Kyouya that had promptly stalked towards the room indicated without letting him out of the vice-like hug. He'd taken one look at the hospital room he'd woken up in and demanded they be moved elsewhere to a bigger room. Because he was staying too.

His Nii-chan had gotten exactly what he wanted with hospital staff jumping to follow his orders. It wasn't long before Takeru was settled into a larger room, which was more like an empty ward, and his brother claimed the bed next to Takeru's. The older teenager pushed it right next to his and leaned back into it like it was the most luxurious piece of furniture he'd ever relaxed in.

His brother also shared a love of sunning himself with cats and spent daylight hours napping; he would have been an oasis of calm and relaxed atmosphere had it not been for how irritable and moody he got when the sun shifted positions. He also got possessive with the bed he'd claimed and wouldn't let anyone who wasn't blood related anywhere near, not without that blood related someone taking his place.

He was the overly-protective brother Takeru didn't particularly need now but had desperately wanted his whole life. He never let strangers into the room. People had to be vetted by the doctor and he got snappy with the rest of the hospital staff, especially during the tests and therapy, as he and everyone else were chased out of the room. It was how Takeru discovered a way to calm his brother down during one particularly prickly stand-off. He'd called for his brother's attention and had slipped into the barely-remembered speech-patterns of his two-year-old self. The polite 'Kyouya' became 'Nii-chan' and in a split second and everyone in the room had frozen. His brother looked like Christmas had come early and was apparently charmed enough by the slip that he didn't even TRY fighting with the nurses when they ushered him out of the ward along with the rest of his stunned family.

If it kept him calm Takeru would continue to call his brother 'Nii-chan', it rolled off the tongue easier than calling his brother by name anyway. Over the next few days 'Mother' became 'Kaa-chan', 'Father' became 'Tou-chan' and his Uncles became, 'Minoru Oji-chan' and 'Fon Oji-chan' respectively. It felt ridiculously awkward at first, almost embarrassing, but it eased a bit of the tension out of him and from the atmosphere, it also turned his family into mush whenever he used the half-remembered names he'd called them by as a toddler.

It felt like he was somehow saving the hysterical breakdown for a later date but he didn't care. He'd already had his breakdown, all-out crying jag. He didn't want another one. Also even though he was so very uncomfortable with being 'guarded' like this by his family, he could tell it was helping them and being able to ease even a bit of the pain they were carrying just by letting them do it? That felt amazing, and in turn it felt like it was soothing the raw edges of discomfort for him as well.

He learned that his Uncle Fon was not as Muggle as Takeru had first assumed, now that he'd had time to observe. There was the tiniest spark of magic hidden under the seething black miasma that surrounded him. Though he was largely unaware of it, Fon had magical potential, enough that he'd have gotten a Letter if the Curse that was sitting so heavily on him had allowed him the chance to age past childhood.

Had that potential always been there or had it been sparked to life over the years from being the anchor to such a powerful curse? Was it possible that anything could gain magic if exposed to it long enough? Like Hogwarts and more recently the Ford Anglia the Weasleys had owned? The kind of Magical pressure would have to have been enormous to even spark that tiny bit of potential to life, how had his Uncle endured it? The strain of it should have killed his two-year-old body!

Aside from Fon's Magical potential, Takeru also discovered that his Cursed Uncle was unexpectedly crafty for someone who outwardly seemed so serene and easy-going. He never followed everyone when they left the room whenever they were pushed out the door and instead tried to use his small size to his advantage. If it hadn't been for the, frankly disturbingly, dark and tainted aura the under-sized adult was surrounded by Takeru would never have noticed. The man tried to blend into the background, tried hiding behind things and had once even made it seem like he'd left and came darting back in so fast Takeru had barely seen him.

Doctor Shamal might have missed it a few times if Takeru hadn't accidentally given away his Uncle's hiding spot each time. It was hard NOT to stare when his Uncle tried hiding behind or under things when his aura stood out from behind or above whatever cover he was using like a black, human-shaped cut-out. Another time Fon Oji-chan had left through the door and had tried coming back in through the open window. He'd tried hiding under the folds the curtain made with the way it had bunched up at the sides of the window.

"I believe we talked about this?" Doctor Shamal drawled as he lifted the curtain off his Uncle to pin him with an irritated glare.

"Please forgive me, I will take my leave now." Was Fon's instant reply. He straightened up from the small ball he'd huddled up in as if he hadn't just been busted and dropped to the ground. He looked completely and utterly unapologetic at being caught and acted innocent the whole while. He bowed at the doctor as he left, outwardly contrite but with an air about him that Takeru compared to the one time he'd caught Crookshanks trying to dig cat treats out of Hermione's bag.

Shamal had given the man a glare, reached into the curtains and tossed a white ball of fluff at his Uncle's retreating back. "You don't want to forget this do you?" The russet eyed toddler caught the baby monkey the doctor had rustled out of the curtains, and—

"Don't you click your tongue at me, we had a deal. You going to follow through or do you want to find another doctor? Same to you too, Hibari Yun," Shamal projected, leaning out the window, looking sideways instead of down. Takeru heard his mother's shocked yelp coming from the direction of the air-conditioning unit set in the window. "Are you trying to give your son a heart attack?"

"I— No! Mama is a very good at climber, Takeru-chan! I wasn't in any danger at all!" she exclaimed as she crawled back into the hospital room through the open window Fon must have entered through. "Please forgive me! I'll leave you to your work!" his mother flustered, darting forward to give Takeru a rather panicky cuddle and kiss on the cheek before she was bolting out the doors after her brother.

Takeru was beginning to see where his brother got his cat-like insanity from; it clearly came from his mother's side of the family. Takeru heard a bit of the hissed argument over who had been the one to get them caught between his mother and Fon as the doors closed behind them and muffled a giggle behind a hand. He was also beginning to understand where he'd inherited the lion's share of his athletic abilities from. 'Good at climbing' had to be one of the biggest understatements he'd heard in a while.

A week passed

It wasn't the best seven days of his life, nor was it the easiest. He'd been separated from his family for too long, had been brought up in a completely different culture and it showed. They had been without him for too long and they were all strangers to him, living cheek to cheek in the same hospital room, and they were all desperately trying to make things work.

There were hiccups, moments of blinding breathless pain on both sides when a word, gesture or comment dug into old broken wounds only just beginning to heal. Even with the truth of where he'd been for all these years sitting like a heavy and unspoken weight between them, they tried to connect with him and for Takeru, who had never really had anyone even try do that, it was enough. It was enough that he could look at them and see how much they wanted him. That he had somewhere he could belong. This was somewhere he could make himself whole again, a family he knew he could cherish knowing they'd love him the same way.

He wouldn't have to settle for second-hand love given to him for who he'd been related to or by the fickle creatures of his 'adoring public'. Didn't have to borrow warmth from a home he could always wish he belonged to but never would. They were trying to love him for who he was and he had a home ready and waiting for him for when he was released from the hospital, had one right here in the hearts of the people camped out in the ward with him.

Just the promise that they would one day heal into the family he'd been dreaming of having his entire life was his greatest wish come true. Even though everything felt so very new, raw and awkward, what with everything he'd been through and the history he held back from them, he knew they'd continue to love him.

It showed in everything they did and for that? It didn't take much for him to love and it wasn't long before he was loving them just as fiercely as they were trying to love him. He'd always connected with people rather fast, gave his heart away too quickly, but he couldn't help himself this time, couldn't even begin to try. His family were wearing their injured hearts on their sleeves and he was helpless to refute the urge to do anything he could to help heal their injured souls.

How could he resist?

OoO

Takeru was slowly introduced to the people close to his family's lives.

It was a gradual process, starting with the baby monkey that belonged to his Uncle Fon. The little white-furred animal was a boy monkey named 'Lichi' and was what his Uncle affectionately called his 'Animal Partner'. The question of whether or not the animal acted as his Familiar was on the tip of his tongue, but he kept it to himself. That was a can of worms he wasn't anywhere near ready to open.

Lichi was introduced to Hedwig and Shuu at the same time, his owl having swooped in through the open window the first chance she'd gotten, bringing Shuu in with her. Hedwig had managed to scare the ever living daylights out of practically everyone in the room save her owner upon first meeting. Takeru would have thought the owl had done it on purpose if it hadn't been for how completely offended she'd gotten at the reaction. If everyone hadn't started showering her with praise over how she'd been able to find him once Takeru explained that she was his 'pet' she might have actually started sulking. Shuu abandoned him for a bit in favour of being cooed over by his mother and Hedwig spent every bit of time in that hospital room being spoiled rotten by absolutely everyone who saw her.

A group of Detectives from his Father's agency in Tokyo arrived with stuffed bears, bouquets of flowers and food. There were lots of congratulations bandied about as well as barely stifled tears, grins and back-slapping. They jokingly pretended like they were setting up for a party and snickered when they were chased out of the hospital room by Takeru's irritated brother. They all left rather jovially, as if they'd expected the reaction the whole time, one of them even daring to ruffle the teenager's hair on the way out.

Members of the police force were always coming in and out of the hospital at all times of the day, dropping off and picking up files for his Uncle Minoru. His Uncle was the one to chase them out of the room when they lingered for too long and huffily spent some time looking over the papers they brought and making a few half-hearted notes. Minoru Oji-chan abandoned the work whenever he got the chance and spent more time than he probably should have teaching him how to play some of the video games that had been ignored in favour of the more familiar board games.

Takeru got hopelessly addicted to playing Monster Hunter very quickly, as did his brother, who had apparently never heard of the game before.

The people who reacted the most, rather more expressively than any of the other visitors that came by to see him and his family, where his Nii-chan's friends. The teenagers with the strange hair-styles he'd noted from when he'd been skulking around his parent's house went into the kind of emotional meltdown that wouldn't have been out of character with a House Elf upon first meeting him.

Fist clenching, shaking and manful stifling of already flowing tears had been the least of it.

It had looked completely ridiculous. They were all tall, hugely muscled teens built like Beaters or linebackers and they'd been sobbing about as freely as children. The tears had gotten worse when they heard that Takeru had been the one to find his own way home, and they'd completely lost their minds to the fact. Reverberating low-pitched howling and joyful sobbing started up.

It— it had almost been like being surrounded by miniature Hagrids.

He'd thankfully been called out of the room by the amazingly well timed Doctor Shamal for another test and Takeru returned to a room blessedly free of crying teenagers with only one of his brother's friend's still remaining, one Kusakabe Tetsuya. His brother had apparently gone off with his friends to take care of something and had left his best friend behind to relay the message. Tetsuya had remained to chat with Takeru, and to answer a few questions, grinning crookedly around a split lip and trying to squinting at him through a freshly blackened eye the whole time.

He was an easy person to talk to, answering questions freely and then asking a few undemanding questions of his own. Takeru soon learned his brother was the Chairman of his school's Disciplinary Committee, one that worked tirelessly for their cause. The school his brother attended was one of the best schools in the area and was meticulously guarded by Committee members. The Committee members all wore a different uniform from the rest of the school's population to better identify who was who and the 'Regent' hairstyle all members but his brother wore took a whopping three hours to style.

"Isn't that a bit of a risk though? All of you wearing the same hairstyle?" he asked, handing the teenager a bottle of water from the mini fridge to press to his sore looking eye as his traitorous mind instantly came up with at least three different ways to use the information against them. "If someone wanted to keep you all busy for three hours all they'd have to do is steal all your hair product, wait till you're in a meeting or something and set off the sprinklers. If they'd really wanted to keep you busy all they'd have to do is leave a few tubes of hair gel lying around after and you guys would take each other out fighting over them. That's not very… smart." Takeru bit his lip to stop himself from saying anything further as he got a good look at the shock that was bleaching the colour out of Tetsuya's face.

He looked away and busied himself with the handful of Pygmy Puff as silence stretched after his idle remark, valiantly suppressing the urge to laugh in the older teenager's face. Shuu burrowed under his palm demanding petting and Takeru gratefully took the distraction. He couldn't even remember where he'd lost the cream coloured ball of fluff or the last time he'd even checked on the poor thing. He was a terrible pet owner and Hedwig was a life saver.

"… remind me never to piss you off?"

"Be thankful you never went to my school." Takeru couldn't help the quiet snicker that escaped him at the teenager's comment; he'd been trying so hard to hold it back too! "That was just off the top of my head, I knew a pair of twins that would have eaten you alive and made money off of you at the same time."

"Wao~!" his brother smirked, leaning in the doorway of hospital room. He'd apparently caught the tail-end of his conversation with Tetsuya. Kyouya had come back looked refreshed and highly pleased with himself, like he'd had a lot of fun with whatever he'd gone to 'take care' of. "Kusakabe Tetsuya, tell the rest of the Committee members. Takeru is correct; you should get a hair-cut."

"… yes… Chaiman…" Tetsuya choked, stiffly jolting out of his seat.

"I— he's not actually going to get a haircut, is he? I was just joking." Takeru asked haltingly as the dejected teen marched himself from the room.

His brother crawled into the bed next to his, stretching languidly back onto the pillows and shrugged at the question. "Who knows." He snorted, smirking as he got comfortable. "In any case it seems I've been remiss in my duties as Chairman, to not notice such a glaring weakness. If they don't, I'll do it for them. They're long overdue for a shearing."

Takeru felt a little squirm of guilt at that. He might have accidentally set his brother on his own friends, however jokingly he'd put the observation. What if his brother lost his friends over this? People got strange over their hair and he distinctively remembered how painfully embarrassing it had been the one time Petunia had sheared all his hair off. Even if no one but the Dursleys had seen the result it had been mortifying, he'd been so very glad the next day when it had 'grown back' that he hadn't even bothered protesting the punishment.

"Y— you could always have them carry extra stuff on them, just in case? Making them all get a haircut seems a little extreme."

"The school rules dictate that boys are not to wear their hair past their shoulders. They've been breaking the rules behind my back this whole time and were disguising it." His brother clarified.

"That's really in the school rules?" Takeru asked skeptically, raising a challenging and somewhat disbelieving eyebrow. Not even Hogwarts mentioned anything about the way you could wear your hair in its school rules. The only thing Hogwarts Charter had rules about was what one did to another witch or wizard's hair.

"See for yourself." His brother suggested, slipping a hand into an inner pocket of the jacket he had draped over his shoulders and withdrawing a slim book to pass over to him.

It turned out to be a student handbook. It was so SMALL for something that was supposed to have the entirety of the school rules in them. They were stupidly simple too, most of them having to do with your appearance and behaviour whilst on school grounds and off.

Takeru wondered how would his rule-abiding Nii-chan take having a habitual, and sometimes unthinking, rule-breaker for a younger brother? For that matter… how would his family take having a wizard in the family?

That brought up another line of thought though.

School.

OoO

Keeping his mind off the idea of his immediate future was easy enough to do in hospital; he was kept busy. If he wasn't playing games with either his parents, his Uncle Minoru, or his brother, he was talking with the doctor or nurses. He also spent time eyeballing the massively corrupted aura standing above his Uncle Fon and giving Hedwig, Shuu and Lichi attention.

Any other thought was practically lost to the hive of activity he was now the centre of.

His height and weight were measured. A trip to an optometrist confirmed what he'd already told the doctor at the beginning, that he had perfect twenty-twenty vision. His throat and ears where checked, and then he was taken to the dentist to be given a check-up by them, a lesson on how to properly brush his teeth, a canary yellow tooth brush and some 'special' tooth paste. Sticky dots were taped to seemingly random spots on his body and he was told to do specific exercises. He jumped, ran, walked and even did a few cartwheels before people were sufficiently satisfied with his overall health.

Takeru was beginning to feel like a performing monkey.

He'd never been too comfortable with hospitals, not when he'd been with the Dursleys, not when he'd been at Hogwarts and certainly not now. His patience felt like it stretched to a hair-thin and fragile line, and his sanity felt like it was going with it. By the time the doctor was satisfied enough with whatever results he had gotten from the battery of tests he'd been subjected to, the teen started to fantasize about his invisibility cloak and escape strategies.

He loved his family, but he hadn't had a moment alone since the day he'd woken up from surgery! Now that he had them, now that they knew who he was and were right within touching distance, Takeru didn't even know what to do with himself. The thought TWISTED his insides into a knotted mess at the thought of letting them out of his sight for longer than it took for the doctor and the nurses to cluck over him. Not only would that be cruel, but he'd never forgive himself if something happened to them while his back was turned.

It was illogical and irrational but he couldn't help it. They knew nothing of the wizarding world and he'd been so stupid to get in contact with his family so soon after escaping the wizarding world! What if someone realized who he was? He was putting his family in SO MUCH danger just by being here!

He wanted to stay and build a life here with them. At the same time he wanted to run and put as much distance between them as humanly—wizardly possible. He didn't want to think about the fallout of Harry Potter's disappearance had caused but at the same time he wanted to know if the people he'd once called friends were safe. That was greedy of him wasn't it? He'd upped and abandoned them without a second thought, gotten the hell out of dodge and now he wanted to know how they were? How they had taken the news? The only thing that would have made that even MORE greedy of him was if he'd stuck around to witness their reaction first-hand.

The fact that he was thinking all of this whilst surrounded by the family he'd abandoned them all for made him feel so guilty he could barely stand it. The moment it all became too much was one day when he left a particularly gruelling 'physical therapy' session. He'd spent more time bending and stretching than he'd ever done for a game of Quidditch, even when Wood had still been captain of the team and when he was done. No one was waiting outside the exercise room. There was no nurse, no doctor or detective. There wasn't even a single uniformed officer or beefy looking teenager in sight. For once he was alone and the sheer relief of it nearly sent Takeru to his shaking knees.

He should have given himself the time to get used to the idea of a family. This was so much more than he'd ever imagined, almost more than he could really handle. It was too much too soon and he didn't know how to deal with it! The hospital finally became too much and the walls started to feel like they were closing in on him. Before he could consciously realize what he was doing Takeru was heading for the nearest exit, his feet speeding him away from the crowded halls and the bright white and sterile smell. He needed grass. He needed wind. He needed light that wasn't powered with electricity and warmth that didn't come from a blanket. Sunlight, he needed it.

Takeru found a garden and scaled the tallest tree, climbing up its branches as high as he could and wedged himself in the crook of the first branch that looked sturdy enough to hold him. The sky overhead was a brilliant blue speckled with a sparse smattering of fluffy white clouds and a light breeze carried the crisp scents of damp earth and freshly cut grass.

This would have been perfect weather for flying. Takeru almost wished that he hadn't left the Firebolt Sirius had gotten for him for his… Harry's birthday.

Two weeks. Had it truly been two whole weeks since Sirius had—

Scrubbing a hand across his face, he pressed the heel of his palms against his eyes and wondered when the emotional see-sawing was going to stop. If it was ever going to stop. He wanted to throw himself into this life but all he was doing was putting on a brave front and screwing things up. He hadn't even TOLD anyone where he was going and when they noticed him gone they'd panic so badly and even KNOWING that didn't make him want to get down from the tree and face them.

He knew what he wanted. He wanted to be happy. He wanted his family to be happy. He wanted to forget what had happened in the past and become the Hibari Takeru he'd meant to be before he'd been kidnapped on Dumbledore's orders.

But he'd hit his limit. Human interaction hadn't ever been his strong point, not even with his mind and memories twisted in on themselves and forcing him to act and react in certain ways. As much as he loved them he couldn't force himself anymore. The mere THOUGHT of going back into that hospital room was making his skin itch with the urge to bolt somewhere and hide for the next thirty years.

"You know, I was beginning to think you were some kind of saint." A voice remarked from the ground and Takeru nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized the voice was being directed up at him. "Even I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the hovering and I'm not the one people are hovering over. You've got amazing patience for someone with a Cloud Attribute as strong as yours is, considering it's only a secondary Flame." Takeru glanced down at the doctor who was standing under the tree and shading his eyes against the sun with a clipboard.

At the blank look Takeru was giving him, Doctor Shamal let out a long sigh. "Yeah, I knew you weren't going to know what I was talking about but it was still worth a shot. I know you don't want to go back into the hospital right now so how's about you and me go for a walk; we need to talk. Don't worry about your family, they've been informed, one of the nurses saw you leaving and let me know. I passed the message on and told them I'd take care of it."

There was a hint of 'I have a secret to tell you' in that and it tickled at the instinctive, and apparently genetic, need to investigate. Takeru ignored the smug looking grin that appeared on the Doctor's face as he jerkingly climbed down from the tree and swapped out the hospital slippers he'd been wearing for the pair of sneakers the man handed him. "Cloud Attribute?" He asked as he slipped his feet into the shoes. "Also, it's not that I don't want to go back to the hospital it's just that…" Takeru trailed off, unable to really put into words just how trapped he'd felt and how the feeling had seemingly come out of nowhere.

"It's just that you don't want to end up painting the place with gore and viscera like you would if you stayed there a second longer?"

Takeru blinked up at the doctor and stared for a very long moment, eyes wide and startled.

"Not there yet? You really do have the makings of a saint, don't you?" The doctor remarked with snort, withdrawing a cigarette from a packet he pulled out of a pocket. He lit up as he waited for Takeru to get to his feet. "Granted not ALL Classic Clouds are violent shit-heads but here you are, coming straight out of an extremely volatile situation, you're a week out of surgery and people are hovering over you. I'm honestly surprised it took you this long to crack. Leave the slippers here, someone will be by later to pick them up."

Takeru did as the man said and followed the doctor as he led them on the way out of the garden he'd holed himself up in.

A flicker of deep blue fire flared to life and dispersed like a haze to cocoon them and Takeru returned the doctor's questioning look with a highly interested one of his own.

"Reporters." Shamal said breezily as he walked them breezily past a pair of oblivious photographers hiding in the bushes at the entrance to the hospital.

Takeru latched onto the doctor's sleeve with a desperate grab and felt himself brighten with excitement. "You said you were going to teach me when I was ready for it, right? Can you teach me that? I HATE reporters!"

"We'll have to find out, won't we?" the doctor said somewhat cryptically, allowing the flames surrounding them to fade away as they got further away from the hospital and nosy reporters. "I'll admit it's one of the reason's we've kept you in the hospital for so long, also another reason for all the tests. We want to see what you're capable of and if you've got any other underlying conditions we're not aware of. If you hadn't reached a breaking point soon we might have had to resort to drastic measures."

"And 'drastic measures' include?"

Trident Shamal snickered around his cigarette. "A forced 'crack' where you'd most likely end up running around town in your underwear screaming to the whole world what you regret the most at that particular moment."

Takeru felt the blood rush out of his face and suddenly felt rather glad he'd made a break for freedom when he had.

"Think fast~!" the doctor sang, tossing him something small over his shoulder. Takeru caught it easily and without really thinking about it, years of Quidditch training having him close his hand around the small crystal vial with ease.

"That is a sample of your flame, taken a couple of days ago when you were on the exercise bike with the electrodes on the arms. Tell me how many colours you spot and what they are, will you?"

"… you can't see them?"

"I can, but I need to know if YOU can see them. Take your time and don't answer straight away, there's no rush and no right or wrong answer. Just what you see and what you should be seeing, which I'll tell you afterwards so I don't influence your answer."

OoO

For all that that Shamal had heard about the so-called 'retirement village' of the underworld, Namimori looked fairly normal. If you weren't already 'in the know' or knew what signs to look out for you probably had to either have a rather sharp eye or be a long-term resident to spot the tell-tale signs of Underworld involvement in the town. That or be welcomed by the local flame community upon arrival. Then again, for the place to have been relatively unnoticed by the rest of the world since Vongola Primo's time it would have HAD to seem unimpressive out of necessity.

Flame users wanting a new life had to blend in with regular civilians, smother the instincts a lifetime of fighting instilled and keep Omerta. It wasn't a lifestyle he could see himself adapting to very well but for some reason he felt that his newest patient would take to the atmosphere like a fish to water. The kid was so high-strung that he'd scaled a tree to get away from his own nervous tension, living in a town like this would only be therapeutic for him.

It wasn't long before he spotted a place that would reasonably sell flame-infused food and beverages and steered the kid into the restaurant, a 'Curry House'. He asked for a private booth, took the menu and immediately ordered himself some sake. Baby Hibari was long past the need for immediate medical attention and if he was going to be giving the kid the 'flame talk' then he wasn't going to do it so painfully sober.

The kid rolled the vial around in his hand as he sat down, staring at the flames in utter fascination in a way that obviously wasn't feigned and Shamal poured himself his first shot.

The unfamiliarity could mean all sorts of things. The kid was acting like this was the first time he'd ever seen flames, his own flames and that was just plain weird but not unheard of. The kid was far from stupid so there was probably either some mental damage caused by his close encounter with Discord, hypnosis or brainwashing involved. Given that the kid's flames had shown an elevated level of purity he'd had to have used it before to temper it to that kind of quality. Also some of the damage Shamal had been forced to fix had been self-inflicted, that meant that there had to have been a point in the kid's life where he'd forced his flames Useful out of sheer desperation.

"So?" Shamal asked, knocking back a shot. "Any colour that immediately jumps out at you?"

Baby Hibari quirked an eyebrow at him and there was the sass was familiar from their first meeting at the airport. The kid didn't feel quite stable enough in his environment, new as it was, to give that kind of sass to his family but 'strangers' were another story, weren't they?

"Yellow." The kid answered after indulging himself in that bit of sass-relief. "White, purple and… I think there is another one in there but it's like all the colours are playing musical chairs, I can't see the last one clearly."

"Okay. Since I don't have the patience to give you the whole explanation I'm going to leave that to your Uncle Fon and give you the basic rundown." Shamal started. "Rule One, keep everything I'm about to tell you a secret or you'll spend the rest of your life in a rather nasty prison. That is not a threat, that's a promise."

Rather than take that as the joke it sounded like, Hibari Takeru's eyes narrowed and held his to see if he was being serious before accepting it. Just like that, no question, but quiet expectance then a raised eyebrow and a nod that was the kid prompting to continue.

"Rule Two, no practicing or trying to figure any of this out on your own. You go to either me, your mother, your Uncle Fon or someone we introduce you to as an expert. You could kill yourself."

"Okay." The kid replied, again with easy acceptance.

"Rule Three, don't freak out. Everyone around you is a criminal."

OoO

Takeru stared at the doctor and searched the man's face for any sign that the man might be joking.

"Well… I guess I'll fit right in." he heard his mouth say without any cooperation from his mind. Then again his brain was too busy processing the information the man had just dumped into his lap to fight the words from the hijacking. "I'm not even going to ask." Shamal remarked, face schooled in near-sarcastic blankness. "I'm just thankful you haven't started screaming."

Fon, his even tempered uncle that was trapped in a toddler's body… was an active member of the Chinese Triad. Sure it wasn't that much of a surprise coming from someone with such a hugely corrupted aura but it would have been nice to have some kind of warning before hearing something so off-the-wall.

His mother was a retired assassin for the Chinese Triad, one that had been hugely successful mainly due in fact to the ability she'd passed down to him. An ability to call up and create flames up out of thin air that she and everyone else with the same ability called 'Flames of Death Perception.' The ability came in different colours depending on whatever attribute you happened to have been born with and accordingly had different capabilities.

Shamal had given him a rundown of the different types called 'Attributes', how they effected the user, and how users interacted with the regular public and with each other. The man had also pointed out how to find other stores like the Curry House they were in, to get access to the calming drink the man had all but shoved in his direction, and had indirectly reminded him that he really was surrounded by criminals. Like the waiter that took their order and the cooks that had made their meal and the cashier who totaled the order and took the Doctor's credit card.

The whole town was run by retired criminals like his mother and some of them set up shop like the people who ran the restaurant. People with Flames could usually sense each other in some fashion though Takeru would likely never be able to do it as he'd injured his 'Flames' close to breaking point. Eventually he'd be taught, either by Shamal or by his mother or Uncle on how to spot a Flame User but for now, that was a lesson for another time.

Takeru was then given the reason, or so the doctor thought, as to why he'd been wound up enough to go scrambling up a tree. The white was an indication of how pure the flames themselves were while the other three colours he'd spotted in the vial were separate attributes. Sun, Cloud and that illusive third colour neither of them could pin down because it wasn't quite mature enough to be obvious on the visible spectrum. His 'Cloud Attribute' was apparently driving him crazy because it was making him desire solitude.

Most of this sounded very familiar to him somehow but he really couldn't figure out where he'd heard it before. It had to have been something he'd heard in the wizarding world, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out specifically where. It all sounded like this was all a branch of magic, one that he'd somehow made himself insensate to because of the injury the doctor said his 'flame' had suffered.

If that was the case though, then the Ministry of Magic would have a new and never before seen species of cow over this! Muggles had discovered magic, had done it hundreds of years ago and had been using it all that time to commit all sorts of criminal acts? This was the stuff of an Auror's worst nightmare and it was made all the more worse because it was all kept secret in nearly the same way magic was. Omerta might as well be another name for the Statue Of Secrecy!

Takeru knocked back the tall glass of glowing blue apple juice Doctor Shamal had ordered for him sometime in the middle of his silent freak-out. He recognized the effects of what felt like a calming potion filter through him and had it not been for the artificial calm washing it all away he would have broken that third 'rule'.

Should he tell someone? Then again who would he tell? He didn't even know if Japan had Aurors and he didn't want them paying any attention to him less they discover who he'd been for the last eleven years. On one hand, if he told the wizarding world about the Criminal Underworld he'd be breaking Omerta and there was apparently a lovely prison called Vindicare waiting to suck out people's Flames out for eternity on just that kind of infraction. On the other hand if he told anyone about Wizarding world he had Azkaban waiting for him.

He was caught between Omerta and the Statute of Secrecy with the choice of whichever prison sounded nicer.

Damn it, forget the Aurors. He can't have been the first wizard to have been dropped feet-first into discovering the truth of the 'Muggle' underworld and if he hadn't heard anything about it so far, then who was he to rock the boat? He was thirteen. He was too young to be making uninformed decisions about secretly magical criminal societies. He was going to act like a real wizard for once: bury his head in the proverbial sand and focus on himself.

"Can I learn how to control it and then just ignore it?" Takeru asked tiredly, slumping back a little in his seat and fighting the urge to just let himself slide all the way down so he could hide under the table.

"At the risk of sounding repetitive… It's all up to you, the choice is all yours. As long as you keep it under wraps I don't see how anyone is going to force you to do anything."

"… that's something at least." Takeru muttered, flicking his eyes to the vial of flames he'd set on the other side of his nearly untouched plateful of food. Hopefully it wouldn't interfere with him as much as his magic did; he had enough to worry about without these Flames making his life harder.

"Here, have a distraction~!"

Takeru almost dropped the mobile phone that was tossed at him into his empty juice glass and had to plaster it between both palms to save it.

The doctor smirked, scooped up the vial of flames and pocketed it, another mobile in hand and tapping away as he got up. "That is a present from your parents. You can leave whenever, I've already paid the bill. I'm going to go ahead and go on that date I've been putting off all week~! Ciao~!"

Takeru let the man leave.

He could have stopped him, the lazy stride the Doctor had adopted looked like it was meant to give him enough time to call the man back… However, the fed-up feeling that had him escaping the hospital had yet to go away. He'd been surprised out of it when Shamal had appeared and had been mostly distracted with the man's Flame and subsequent discussion. It had come back full force now though, and forcing a conversation when he didn't want to be anywhere near people would just be painfully awkward.

The mobile was a flip phone and it looked just like one he'd seen his brother use in the hospital, though this one was blue instead of black. It flipped open easily and he gave it a somewhat bemused look; he'd never actually held one of these before. It seemed simple enough to use, quite a bit like the phone Petunia Dursley had gotten for Number Four, but how long would it last against his over-surging magic?

The contact list surprised him.

He'd spent a little time playing with the phone, learning the ins and outs of it and found the Contacts, not really expecting much he'd opened it and scrolled through the long list of names, the top of which belonged to his family. Others included the Doctor who'd just gone off on his date, the nurses from the hospital, his father's co-workers, his brother's apparently long list of friends and the police officers who'd come to visit him and his Uncle Minoru. Someone had also saved what had to be Japan's emergency number to the list too.

He'd been expecting a near-empty contact list, to find otherwise actually surprised the hell out of him. It was an unexpectedly sweet gesture, and the fact that they'd given the phone to the doctor to hand over was the cherry on top. They weren't forcing a confrontation whereas 'Harry' would have been forced to draw on the invisibility cloak and would have had to pull off some professional-level stealth to get anywhere near this kind of alone-time. There were upsides to completely turning his entire life upside down. Like no one nagging at him for anti-social behaviour when he got like this, just a family who saw and accepted it as part of who he was.

The phone in his hands rang.

Takeru nearly died, the sound had startled him so badly that he'd nearly tossed it across the room. Speaking of nagging, had he spoken too soon? According to the screen that was his mother on the line. Was he already being called back to the hospital?

He wasn't ready to go back yet.

He left the plate of nearly untouched curry and bailed out the restaurant, ignored the looks he was getting from the other patrons and hurried outside. He spent a moment listening to the strange ring-tone, which was playing a song that sounded like it was sung by his brother's friends, and wondered if it was somehow possible to turn off the vibrating later on. He didn't want the living daylights scared out of him every time the phone rang, the song would be enough to catch his attention on its own.

Grimacing, Takeru gingerly flipped the singing phone open again, having accidentally closed it, and floundered. He wondered if he maybe should have mentioned his lack of familiarity with technology beforehand. It took a very long moment before he took a gamble and pressed the green coloured button with the miniature picture of a phone on it.

The phone stopped singing.

He hadn't turned the phone off accidentally, had he? He held it to his ear, checked the screen and noticed a timer had started. So had the phone connected?

"Uh… hello?"

"Takeru." His mother answered, her voice sounding nothing at all like she was gearing up to cajole him into returning to the hospital. "I— I feel like all I want to do is keep apologizing to you so I won't, instead— Did you have any questions you want to ask me? About anything? Doctor Shamal just told me he'd finished his talk with you. I know you must have questions. — anything you want to ask me I'll answer as fully as I can."

"Maybe when I get back." Takeru replied as he let his feet guide him away from the Curry House. "I do have questions, but I don't think they're good for asking over the phone." He waited for the inevitable question of exactly when he was going to come back but it didn't come.

"This might surprise you considering the way I've been clinging, but I do know a bit about how you're feeling right now. We're very similar in a lot of ways; you could say we have the same 'warmth', so to speak, though not exactly. I'll tell you more when you feel like coming back, okay?" his mother sounded like there was a lot more she wanted to say, but she bit it back.

"Okay." He murmured and curled his fingers around the phone when the call dropped. His mother was letting him have the space he needed, just like that.

He wouldn't have been nearly so understanding in her position. He'd have clung on and he'd have done it even more desperately than she'd been doing. He'd have cast every protection spell in existence with some more on top. He wouldn't have been able to hang back and trust the world enough to leave his son alone for even a moment. How did she have this much faith when this was the same town he'd been kidnapped from in the first place? Then again given how insensate he was to Flames did she have someone watching over him? An acquaintance in this town full of retired assassins and former hitmen? He'd have someone tailing him in her place, someone she trusted. It couldn't be Fon, the man stuck out like a sore thumb and everyone had noticed his 'uncanny' ability to pinpoint him by now.

Regardless, his mother didn't even know half of the information Takeru had unearthed about his kidnapping. Even if she did have someone following him, if she wasn't doing it herself, she had to be terrified he'd disappear on her again. Just like how he was terrified that one day something would happen to tear this fragile beginning apart and break his new world into pieces.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when his phone made a new sound at him, and looking at the screen he caught sight of a little envelope sweep across the screen. The words 'You have a message!' popped up along with a helpful suggestion of how to open said message.

'In recognition of your current state, being of similar constitution, I award you with the title Not-A-Social-Butterfly. Welcoming you into our ranks are myself, your uncle Minoru and your older brother. Your mother has a temporary membership to this club as such moods only strike her once in a blue moon.

Title privileges include a private list of places with a great view, unlimited lunch boxes to take with you wherever you wish to go and doctor's notes to be given to your teachers when you start school.

To redeem these rewards, simply visit your closest Hibari.

P.s. Take all the time you need, we know the drill. You wouldn't believe some of the stories I could tell you about your uncle and brother. Just don't turn off your phone, it's got a GPS tracker installed.'

Takeru started laughing, he couldn't help himself. No wonder his mother hadn't seemed too worried about letting him wander around town on his own! She probably knew exactly where he was, all without getting someone to tail him! This was better than the previous theory he'd had about her having someone secretly following him!

The itching suspicion that someone might be watching him faded.

His dad had known exactly what to say too, had let him KNOW he was being tracked and how. There was an unspoken option there with the way his father had let him know the phone was being tracked. He could do whatever he wanted with the phone, ditch it somewhere, keep it or whatever. His family really did seem to know exactly how he was feeling at the moment, how crazy was that?

His phone beeped again with a new message for him.

'How do you feel about sushi tonight?' came the forewarned text from his Uncle Minoru.

Again there was no expectation. Just a simple question with an implication that he would be back in time for dinner.

'I don't know, I've never had sushi before.' Takeru typed out haltingly, swallowing nervously as he hit the send button. He watched as the message seemingly folded in on itself to form an envelope and swept off the screen.

His phone beeped with the reception of a new message.

'Challenge accepted.' The newest text from his Uncle read, making him tilt his head at the screen in mild confusion. What part of his message had seemed like a challenge?

A bubble of warm affection washed through him and all at once Takeru almost felt like he might be ready to go back and figure out just how much more he had in common with his family. He had a family, not just any family but one that was so much like him that they even understood that when he hit his breaking point he had to find somewhere else to decompress.

Now that he was thinking about it, he understood what had driven him so abruptly insane in the hospital. It wasn't so much the hovering his family had been doing, though that hadn't helped, it had been the build-up of a sense of security. Even before the revelation of his mother's past and his Uncle Fon's… job he'd started to allow himself to relax into the same rhythm he'd lived his whole life.

Hope for a brighter future was usually inevitably followed by a brutal, crushing defeat. Could he afford to let himself believe that this really happening?

His Uncle Fon was an assassin.

His mother was a retired one.

He knew he should probably be a bit more shocked at the revelation but all he could think or feel was relief; his priorities had to have warped somewhere between England and Japan. Out of all of his family members they would be the most likely to be able to defend themselves. They'd also be on the look-out for anything or anyone suspicious. Catching two assassins off-guard had to be all kinds of difficult even with magic, he could work together with them to protect the other three, right?

He didn't want to spend the rest of forever jumping at shadows, real or imaginary. Did he want to spend the rest of his life waiting for the other shoe to drop?

He could spend the rest of his life doing that if he let himself, doubting everything from the turn of fortune he'd had to his own strength. He could enjoy the good while it lasted and spend the whole time silently worrying… or he could prepare himself for the worst and let THAT calm his nerves until he was more comfortable in this new situation and skin, until he was confident enough in his ability to protect both himself and his family.

Closing the mobile phone, he slipped it into a pocket and pulled back his sleeves. Eyeing the wand holster Takeru was glad now that he hadn't given into the recurring urge to dump the thing down the closest storm drain. He'd considered it daily, magic shackled his wrists with a constant reminder of his past, a past he wanted desperately to forget and put behind him. Excess baggage (literally!) was dragging him down from one side and doing the same on the other side was the key to a weapon that had cut him so very deeply.

The satchel that was currently pretending to be a leather cuff on his left wrist, he would set that down the first chance he got. There was no real need to keep carrying it around everywhere he went. He wasn't about to leave Namimori anytime soon, at least not of his own volition, he'd rather cut his own two feet off before he did that! He didn't really need anything he had in there.

The wand, the only reason he hadn't thrown it away each time the urge to do so had come up was simply one thing. The voice of paranoia continued whispering at him. It would be a waste to throw it away when it was one of only two things he had that he could use to defend himself with, defend his family with. The sword of Gryffindor wasn't exactly made for pulling out at a moment's notice and it was poisonous to boot. One accidental scratch and he'd kill himself or, god forbid, someone in his family!

His father and his Uncle Minoru were the ones who seemed the most vulnerable to him. His brother would eventually get the same training Takeru had just gotten the introductory talk to, but how far away into the future was that exactly? He wasn't allowed to mention anything about it until his brother had 'Shifted to Useful', less Kyouya forced it and injure himself in the process.

Like he apparently had.

Doctor Shamal's quick lesson on 'Flame Actives' and how they all interacted with each other had shed new light on old memories. He remembered the warmth he'd felt whenever he'd been around Ron or Hermione, select members of the DA, Professors at Hogwarts and even Dumbledore himself.

The twinkle in the Headmaster's eyes, the competitive streak hidden under Professor McGonagall's straight-laced demeanor, the soothing quality to the air that Hagrid's hut and Professor Lupin's classroom had shared. The excited energy Flitwick brought into the Charms and the frigid clash of instant dislike that had come from Snape hadn't all stemmed from his being 'Harry Potter.'.

The pressure of being forced into the shoes of 'The Boy Who Lived' had very nearly burnt him out and he was now completely insensate to flames. He'd probably be the same way with the more delicate and less obvious magics as well. He would probably have to be smacked in the face with Flames for him to sense it in any way that wasn't visual like the Doctor's Flames had been.

Until he could figure out a way around his 'disability', he was going to have to get creative in thinking up ways to protect himself and his family. As much as he wanted to rely on his mother and Uncle Fon's collective experience with flames, he couldn't afford it. Magic working together with the Muggle world was what had gotten him kidnapped the first time around. He wasn't going to wait for another such collaboration catch him off guard and the one thing he could do right now, at this moment, was finish the check he'd been doing of Namimori before he'd gotten arrested.

Takeru had yet to check the school his brother attended for magic.

Digging into his pockets for the notes Detective Kiriyama had given back to him, he retrieved the Muggle map of Namimori he'd gotten. With a quick glance at the closest street sign, he located both where he was and the school and allowed his senses to stretch as far as they would go as he led himself to his target.

The knowledge that he was currently unable to sense the more delicate traces of magic made him nervous. Which in turn had him slipping his wand out of the holster long before he got to the school. Making sure the wand was still tucked in his sleeve, he cast detection spell after detection spell, searching for any sign of magic that he might be missing.

Takeru didn't know what he'd have done if the feedback he got on the last spell he'd cast hadn't come back to him at the same time as the school came into view. His brother was standing at the closed gates, phone in hand and looking for all the world like he hadn't expected to meet him here. He couldn't sense the ember flickering away inside his brother without the detection spell going, and another quick detection spell gave him feedback he didn't know how to interpret. That wasn't an active spell at all and it wasn't the spark of magic that had ignited under the pressure of the Curse his Uncle Fon was suffering under either.

The obvious answer was that he was sensing his brother's potential 'Flame'.

Kyouya saw him, but apart from nodding, made no move to come over. There was a silent message in the greeting, a 'The ball is in your court, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let anyone invade that court until you're ready to play again.'. It carried over loud and clear and had Takeru slipping his wand back into his holster without breaking stride.

He could continue scanning the school whenever he wanted.

When he reached his brother he tried to think of something to say but his mind went blank, there really wasn't an excuse he could make up for why he'd ditched the hospital. A glimpse at the phone now held at his brother's side and Takeru noted that he'd had it open and ready to write a message but had yet to actually start typing. Communication difficulties on both sides.

"There really is no doubting our relation is there?" Takeru asked, laughing a little as he fell in step with his brother, who had started walking through the school gates.

"None." Kyouya smirked, pocketing his mobile as he closed the gate behind them before leading him into the school.

They walked into the building through the front doors, where his brother stopped them in order to swap their shoes with plain white ones. The shoes they had been wearing were stored in little lockers the size of a mail-box; the white pair of shoes he'd been given to wear were brand new and fit him perfectly. His brother replaced the blank card sitting in the name slot on the door of the small locker with another card and Takeru had to swallow back a sudden lump in his throat at the sight of his name.

This was going to be his new school? How long had his brother been planning this?

Kusakabe Tetsuya met them just before they reached the stairs heading up to the second level and handed his brother a plastic bag and backed off, giving them their privacy. Takeru briefly considered asking what was inside the bag but didn't want to break the comfortable silence they'd fallen into. Instead, he followed his brother up another flight of stairs after reaching the second floor and then out onto the school roof. He could practically see the entire school from where they ended up and the view only got better when his brother showed him a ladder that would get them to an even higher elevation.

"When you start school, come here or the reception room whenever the 'mood' strikes, I'll show you where that is later. Most of the herbivores know not to make too much noise." His brother advised softly, sitting down on the lip of the raised area they'd climbed up to so he was facing the open sky instead of looking directly at him.

"I— when I start school here? I haven't been to a proper school since I was what… nine? I think? I don't think I'm anywhere near ready for middle school yet, I'd tank all the classes for sure!"

"I said 'when' not 'now', I will help you. It doesn't have to be tomorrow, or in a week or even a month." His brother snorted, grey eyes slanting a look of amusement at him as he handed over the plastic bag Tetsuya had given him earlier and nodded at him to open it. "The preparations are already complete, so whenever you are ready you will start school here."

There was a school uniform in the bag.

Takeru mulled that over and thought back to the minor episode of jealousy he'd had over Syaoran's effortless ability to step between the magical and Muggle worlds.

"What if no one likes me?" Takeru heard himself ask and slapped his hand over his mouth in horror that such a juvenile question had managed to slip out. What the hell had that been? He wasn't a kid anymore! That couldn't have been a more immature question if he'd tacked on a whinge at the end!

His brother's serene face shifted into a look of fanged anticipation.

"Then I'll bite them to death."

Takeru laughed, folding over himself in mirth and didn't stop until Kyouya pulled him into a headlock.

OoO

They stayed up on the rooftop till the sky darkened and watched the sun set. By the time the sun had completely gone down, Takeru felt like he'd had enough 'alone' time and was more than ready to head back to the hospital. As promised, his brother showed him where the reception room was on the way out of the school and pulled a helmet out of one of the filing cabinets inside. He then lead the way out to what Takeru assumed was the teacher's parking lot and headed for the only vehicle there. A motorbike.

"You are officially the coolest brother ever!" Takeru breathed, taking a seat behind his brother, grinning wildly as the older teen gunned the engine. "When did you get your license?"

"License? I don't need one of those." His brother smirked over his shoulder, leaving him somewhat perplexed, what did he mean by that?

They sped out of the parking lot and out into the town, going about the same speed as his old Nimbus had at cruising speed. At first he didn't pay too much attention to which direction they were going in but when they passed by the train station, he realized something.

"Nii-chan! We're going in the wrong direction!" he yelled over the sound of the engine.

"No, we're not."

"But this isn't the way to the hospital!"

"We're not going to the hospital."

"… where are we going then?"

"Home."

Takeru's heart skipped a beat.

Leaning his head against his brother's shoulder-blades, he bit his lip against the tightness in his throat and closed his eyes against stinging tears. Was he going to cry at everything his family sprung on him? What would happen on his first day at his brother's school? Would he cry then too? He needed to pull himself together already, this emotional roller-coaster couldn't be too healthy for him!

Looking up as they passed the stairs leading up to the shrine, Takeru spotted Hedwig flying overhead and wondered if his family had told her about the move or if she'd anticipated it. She was certainly clever enough to have figured it out on her own.

Kyouya took a turn into a driveway Takeru hadn't noticed on his stake out of the house the first time he'd been here and took the direct route up to the house. He parked the motorcycle just as the front door of the house opened and their scandalized Uncle Minoru caught sight of them.

"Kyouya! A motorbike? Where the hell did you get that? Did YOU drive that up here— DID YOU JUST DRIVE TAKERU UP HERE!? I can't believe yo—mrf~!"

Their father appeared behind him, grabbed their uncle by the back of his neck and yanked him down to his height to whisper something into his ear. Minoru struggled a bit before abruptly stopping and then made a strangled noise of smothered outrage.

"We can talk about the bike later. Kyouya, give me the keys." Takeru's dad asked simply, expectantly holding out his free hand without letting Minoru go.

Kyouya didn't protest, he just dropped the keys into their father's palm and swept inside with a parting smirk at their uncle. Their dad let go of Minoru to give Kyouya a light smack upside the back of his head at that. "Stop teasing him, it's not good for his health."

"You can't just let him off with that! He just took Takeru out on a joy-ride!"

"Um, please don't be angry! We weren't even going that fast, we barely even went over a hundred on the way over, we were perfectly safe! He even made me wear the helmet!" Takeru protested.

Minoru oji-san covered his face with his hands, turned away and started counting.

"We… can talk about that later too." His father added somewhat weakly, wry grin stretching across his suddenly pale face. "Let's just head inside shall we? For now though—" the man trailed off, taking Takeru by the shoulders and leading him into the house where his mother was waiting for him.

"— Welcome home."