Xanxus took one look at the strays Harry had protected during the attack on the labs, and snorted. It didn't take a genius to guess that Harry was going to adopt them and put their asses into a special therapy.

"What took you so long?" asked Reborn.

"I had to get these idiots to quit arguing over who was going to come," growled Xanxus. Behind him you could hear Enrico and Dino arguing. They had been in the room when Harry activated Tsuna's special 'alarm' and he had made the mistake of telling them what the racket was. "Where's the brat?"

"Safe at home behind so many defenses it would take more than these morons have to get to him, with Colonello, Kyouya, and Fon guarding him. I swapped placed with him for a day to find out who was stupid enough to take a Sky clearly under the protection of the Vongola," said Harry snorting. "Reborn came as back-up."

"So you going to take the ducklings under your protection then?"

"They were experimented on. Only an idiot would let them go without at least trying to give them time to adjust being out of this hell hole first and realizing not all mafioso are the same," said Harry rolling his eyes.

Besides he had more than enough room at his house.

Daniela clucked her tongue when she saw the three little ones Harry had rescued. However even she could see that they would do far better away from Italy and the Cosa Nostra... at least once the shock of being outside the labs had worn off and they had stabilized. It was only natural that the children would develop some form of PTSD after what they went through... and considering the little Mist looked far too much like a younger Daemon Spade, trying to integrate him into another mafia family without giving him time to heal was just begging for something nasty to happen.

Mukuro and his friends seemed openly confused around Harry. Fortunately he knew better than anyone to take things slow... he was a victim of systematic abuse, neglect and outright torture.

Harry bent down to take the missile that was a worried Tsuna with ease.

"I'm home," he said gently.

Tsuna buried his head in Harry's neck, hugging him tightly while Kyouya hovered nearby.

Tsuna was half-asleep when he heard the sound of thunder outside. Rather than try to sleep on his own, he picked up his stuffed animal and left his room. It wasn't that he couldn't sleep through a thunderstorm...but he took any excuse he could find to snuggle against his big brother, who didn't really care if he decided to crash in his bed.

He paused outside the shared room of the three odd boys his big brother had brought back. Something in the back of his head told him to check on them.

The blond boy was shivering at the loud crack of thunder, while the one with the duo-colored eyes was watching everything with suspicion. They had been kept so deep underground that this was the first time they had heard thunder at all.

"Are you alright?" he asked in Japanese. Seeing the confusion on their faces, he quickly switched to his slightly clumsy Italian.

"Loud noise. Scary," shivered the blond. Ken, if Tsuna remembered right.

"It's called thunder," said Tsuna helpfully. He slowly walked to their bed. The one with the odd hair style eyed him warily, like he might attack them. "Big brother doesn't mind it if we sneak into his room and use him like a big teddy bear if we're scared."

"Big brother?" repeated the quiet one. Chikusa rarely spoke at all.

"Harry. He has big green eyes and really messy black hair and he likes to cook things and gives great hugs," said Tsuna brightly.

Ken looked a bit wary.

"Do... Do you think he'd mind if we stayed with him?" he asked, not daring to hope.

Tsuna held out a hand, and it didn't take much coaxing for Ken and the others to follow him to Harry's room. He even let Ken hold his stuffed wolf which the other boy held like a shield.

Harry didn't even bother opening his eyes or turning on the light. The second he heard the door open, he rolled over...but not before patting his bed in invitation.

Tsuna let Ken crawl in first. The first crack of thunder had him practically jump under the covers and hold Harry's side.

That did make Harry open one of his eyes briefly. He knew Tsuna was almost over his fear of thunder, so this had to be one of his more recent rescues.

"Well climb on in then," said Harry with fond amusement.

Tsuna didn't need to be told twice. He practically curled into Harry's lap like a kitten.

Chikusa and Mukuro were far more reluctant...but the temptation of being so close to Harry's calm, protective Sky proved to be stronger.

Ken's shivering slowly dissipated as he fell back asleep. It didn't hurt that Tsuna's gentle, playful Sky was right between him and the outside of the bed. Once the other two were settled in, they slowly fell asleep as well. The bed was warm, soft and was more or less saturated in the feeling of Harry's Sky. It was one big cuddle pile.

Some time later...

"Ken, what have I said about stealing cookies before they're cool enough to eat? I have to go through this enough with Reborn and Colonello," said Harry with fond exasperation.

Ken looked like a wide-eyed puppy, which only made Harry's amusement grow. He gently patted the kid on the head and gave him some brownies...which were cool and had finally set with fresh chocolate icing and sprinkles... to divert him away from the chocolate chip cookies.

Happily settled in with his treat, Harry was quick to hit Mukuro and Chikusa with a hex that left them dangling from the air.

"You'll have to get up a lot earlier if you want to pull a diversion and actually make it work on me," he said playfully.

Seeing Mukuro openly pout (without the look of vengeful hatred that had been present in his eyes before), Harry considered his prank a success.

"Next time try coordinating with Colonello or Reborn. Or if you can manage it, Fon. He's usually fast enough to swipe the entire plate before I notice," said Harry amused.

Only to turn and find that someone had in fact stolen said plate of cookies while he was chastising the two.

And his name was Kyouya, who looked far too smug.

"Cheeky bastard," said Harry. He let Mukuro and Chikusa down...only to find that Ken had stolen all the brownies and was sharing them with his friends. Mukuro looked far too smug about that fact.

Harry smirked behind their backs.

There was a loud squawk of surprise as Ken turned into a canary.

He cackled.

"Looks like that time-delayed canary cream recipe was a total success!"

Seeing the wide eyes of Tsuna, he laughed.

"Go see if Kyouya would be willing to share the cookies... or perhaps I could have some enterprising volunteers that would help me bake some more for everyone," said Harry with a grin.

So what if he was domestic? Seeing the kid's eyes light up at the idea of helping him make treats and possibly get them fresh from the oven before the fake babies made it entirely worth it.

Especially Mukuro and his friends. Seeing them act like the children they were was very rewarding.

Harry considered it a major victory when he was able to hug the little Mist without the boy tensing up. It had taken years before his family was able to partially train him out of his habit of flinching at unexpected physical affection. The second Reborn had found out Harry flinched at being hugged without knowing it was coming, he had made it a point to surprise the teen with them at random intervals and it hadn't taken much to convince Dino to join in.

Which coincidentally lead to most of the Harry/Dino fantasies in Mafia Academy.

Mukuro mostly put up with Harry's hugs and affection with annoyed tolerance. Mostly because he knew better than to bite the hand that made such delicious foods and kept the filthy mafia far, far away from him and his brothers, as Harry insisted on calling them.

Ken and Chikusa really didn't know how to react to the news Harry had quite literally adopted the three of them.

To be fair, Mukuro only really warmed up to Harry when the older male had sighed in exasperation and decided to corrupt the vengeful boy to the wonders of Daniela's special basement. One look at that and the knowledge they wouldn't bat an eye if he got his revenge on all the people who helped the Esterneo kidnap and hurt innocent children (with proper supervision, since it was unlikely he'd know how to operate said devices properly) or if he happened to take a bit too well to the Black family magic had settled something in his soul.

Mukuro would always have that seed of darkness and hate in his heart. But at least under Harry's careful guidance and the fact Tsuna was slowly starting to harmonize with the older boy, he might be able to hide his darkness well enough to fool most civilians long enough to get the job done.

The Mist was a Slytherin to the core, or Harry would give up flying with his Sky Flames.

At least Mukuro had recognized Harry as a superior "Survivor". He took the idea of treating Harry and Xanxus (both of whom gave off the same aura Mukuro himself unknowingly did) as older brothers fairly well.

They treated him like a thinking adult capable of making his own damn mistakes. They only asked that he run it by one of them first before he jumped into something big...after all, they (mainly Harry with his adventures, though Xanxus was pretty close) had certain experiences that might make things easier and a little advice never hurt. He didn't have to take it, but having it might help anyway.

Though Harry had a very amusing look on his face the day he caught Mukuro using parseltongue on a conjured snake. That had been fun... Harry and Mukuro drove everyone up the wall for hours using nothing but snake speak while the only other person who had any idea what was possibly being said was Reborn who spoke fluent Reptile.

Due to the suddenness of rescuing Mukuro and the others, Harry had reluctantly placed his plan of putting CEDEF through the same hellish week they had subjected the lower Varia ranks through.

However Mukuro was more than happy for a bit of "family bonding" as Harry affectionately called it, in the name of forcing CEDEF to either weed out the weak and unworthy or collapse from internal strife.

Harry was not technically part of the Vongola familigia. He held a rather unique position that the Don allowed purely because he didn't want to be reminded of his cousin or give Harry any reason to visit the Iron Fort more often than necessary... it wouldn't do to have any corruptible influences on his heir, after all.

Instead his "position", which coincidentally kept him very useful to the Family without actually forcing him to do any actual paperwork or hold any "power" as the Ninth believed it, was to slowly take over the Eighth's little social circles and discreetly train the hidden heir of the Primo without actually alerting anyone in the Cosa Nostra of his existence.

All the Alliance knew was that Harry had become absolutely smitten with Iemitsu's only son and had practically adopted the kid as a younger brother. The boy was almost on the verge of going Flame Active, and since it was very well known that Harry was a Sky who still had open positions, that meant he was either planning to groom the boy as one of his Guardians or insure that Iemitsu's young son became prime Guardian material for another well connected Sky.

The mere idea that the child in question might also be a Sky as well never crossed anyone's minds. And by the time it did, Tsuna would have been well trained and with Guardians of his own...too late for anyone to corrupt him against the Vongola.

Even so... Iemitsu screamed "wrong" to every sense Harry had, and that was before Flames came into the picture.

It wasn't the fact he was clearly an inverted Sky...which neatly explained why the braying jackass had no Guardians (regular Skies were hard enough to harmonize with) as inverted ones were so narcissistic and so assured of their own self-importance that it was nearly impossible to match them up with Guardians... but that Iemitsu's almost blatant disregard or concern for his family's well-being and safety really pissed Harry off.

As an orphan who had a really crappy childhood because of the adult's open blind eye to the abuse and neglect he was suffering, the fact Iemitsu had been so quick to ruin Tsuna's childhood because he didn't want to raise or even train his son had firmly cemented the fact that he would never, ever get along with his cousin.

Xanxus would have loved to have an excuse to make Iemitsu's day worse. Sadly this was one particular exercise he was banned from because he was the Varia Sky.

Didn't stop him from supplying ideas to Mukuro and Harry though.

As it was, Mukuro, when informed of Harry plotting (and subsequently demanding to be allowed in on it, if only to make a mafioso's life hell and being paid to do it with Harry's cookies) started to cackle in an almost terrifying manner...when he wasn't "playing" with the Skylark.

If Mukuro didn't end up as the weirdest best friends with Kyouya, then he'd probably end up in bed with him. Harry wasn't going to say that to their faces...their fights were entertaining when he wasn't being made to clean up after them and they were having too much fun to actually make the really cutting comments that would push things from "bizarre bonding ritual" to "caustic relationship".

Harry had to sit Tsuna down to explain that the fighting between Mukuro and Hibari wasn't anything to be freaked out over.

Yes, the two going at it was terrifying, but it was the best way they knew how to communicate with each other.

Mukuro had a very violent and sad past before now and had come out of it a not very nice person. However he was very loyal if he thought you were worthy of it, and outside of being a little scarring mentally he would never truly harm those he cared about. He was just awkward about showing how much he cared about others because he was terrified of losing them.

Hibari was lonely because the adults that he interacted with were generally taught by the people around them that being violent was a "bad thing". The only reason he got away with being as violent as he could be was because his father was highly placed in the police and he was very selective of those he really went wild on. However like Mukuro once he found someone who could look past his more violent tendencies and aloof manner, his loyalty was unquestioned. It might be difficult to interest him in helping with the pack, but he would never hesitate to protect those he had given his loyalty to.

The reason why the two were always fighting was because they instinctively recognized each other as "alphas" and thus their instincts demanded that they show the other who was the superior of the two of them.

It was Tsuna's job to make sure that things didn't get too out of hand and that they found a strange way to coexist with each other.

When the fighting got too bad, Harry coaxed Tsuna out into the battlefield and flare his Sky Flames...which made Kyouya's Cloudy-Mist and Mukuro's Mist flare back. Since Sky's nature was "Harmony", the two would settle down.

And if that didn't work, Tsuna was allowed to bribe the two battle nuts with cookies or some of Harry's cooking. That always did the trick, even if Harry then had to make some if they were out.

Right now though... Harry and Mukuro had some rather terrifying grins on their faces.

By next month, they would be in Italy for a bit putting CEDEF through their paces. At the end of it, those that hadn't resigned from the stress test of two unrepentant pranksters from hell would have one final test.

Harry was going to gleefully unleash Fon's nephew on the survivors for a combat test. He wasn't fully trained, so they had a chance of surviving his playtime with their bones intact.

However this was Kyouya, who took perverse pleasure in being a carnivore and "played" with delinquents and more recently the minor yakuza. He was going to be a nightmare to fight against when he was older. And the part that pleased Fon the most was that it was very, very clear he only needed one good nudge to go Active...and properly bond with Tsuna.

Kyouya had firmly taken the "older brother" role for the smaller boy. Tsuna not only accepted his violent tendencies, but he also didn't mind acting as the go-between with the other students and the Disciplinary Committee, thus limiting the amount of "herbivores" Kyouya had to deal with.

He still had to deal with the adults and teachers, but at least he didn't have to hear the whining of the students.

"Right... so we're set up for next month then?"

"Lal agreed to let you put CEDEF through their paces while she goes through all the paperwork in the other branches," said Reborn smirking. Mukuro's grin wasn't much better.