A/N: Hey, guys. Yeah. I know. I don't have an explanation for what I'm doing here either. It's the year of our lord 2019, and my brain was like 'hey, you should write Hetalia'. So. Here I am. Writing Hetalia.

Also, yes, this is Spazz, the original author of the account, and not the person who was supposed to take over for me but didn't. Probably gonna have to change that name. Ableism isn't cool, kids, and I'm not sure if being diagnosed with ADHD during the literal years away allows me to reclaim that term.

There was a very long time when they weren't sure he was going to get a letter at all.

Lovino asserted whenever it was brought up that he did not care, and that wizards were fucking stupid anyway, and that Hogwarts was probably a dirty shithole, and then he went upstairs and locked himself in the closet while his grandfather and Feliciano pretended they couldn't hear him sobbing through the paper-thin walls.

The last time his grandfather tried to give him a heart-to-heart about how important and loved he was, Lovino punched him in the dick so hard he was incapacitated on the floor for a good fifteen minutes. The last time Feliciano tried, he ended up sympathy-crying for an hour and massively dehydrating himself. Eventually, Romulus decided to just buy him a Kneazle and hope that some degree of animal instinct would be able to comfort his grandson.

Thus, at seven years old, Lovino Vargas went to Diagon Alley for the first time.

They had to take the knight bus, because side-along apparition always upset Lovino's stomach. Romulus brought a Caprese Salad in a small tupperware, and tiny fingers picked out the tomatoes as the bus ricocheted around corners, ignoring traffic lights and kicking up tiny pebbles that dinged against the hubcaps of other cars.

"The mozzarella too, Lovino. You can't only eat the tomatoes."

"Vai a morire ammazzato." Romulus's eyebrows furrowed. Where the hell did Lovi pick that kind of language up from? He certainly didn't talk like that, and they didn't know any other Italian families in Britain.

"Lovino," Romulus said sternly, and watched his grandson squirm in his seat. "I will take you home."

Hazel eyes beseeched him as his head whipped around. "Nonno!"

"The mozzarella." Reluctantly, sullenly, sticky fingers picked up the white chunks of cheese. The secretly amused grandfather watcheed Lovino lick every trace of oil and tomato juice off before taking a mouse-sized bite of the cheese.

Better than nothing.

They dismounted the Knight Bus on the outskirts of London, and Lovino promptly displayed both hands, palm-up. A simple cleaning charm took care of any residual stickiness, and then the two were off.

That morning, Lovino had insisted on dressing himself, and had chosen the neatly-pressed shirt and pants that were usually set aside for weekend mass, as well as his best black shoes. Evidently this added a degree of smug self-assurance that was typically hard to find in Lovino's skulking slouch, and Romulus took notice of his grandson's unusually heavy footfalls as he clearly tried to give his steps some grativas.

"I want to open the wall," he announced self-importantly, tilting his pointed chin to defiantly stare down his Nonno.

Romulus's lips twisted into a half-smile. There was something undeniably cute about his tiny dictator. "You don't have a wand, passerotto."

"Give me yours," he demanded.

Normally, Romulus would say no. Neither of his grandchildren were particularly good at keeping things unbroken. Lovino's chorea hadn't been much of a problem once they had gotten him to drink a daily potion, but it seemed that the boy was naturally clumsy as well. The odds of getting his wand back in one piece were...admittedly small.

But today was about Lovino. Feliciano had never been permitted to hold Romulus's wand, and he knew that letting the older boy do so would speak louder to his importance than anything that could be said. So, he swallowed the dismissal and instead said, "when we get closer, I will. Be careful with it, mm?"

Lovino's whole face lit up, hazel eyes sparkling, dimples pressing into his face, fingers gripping his grandfather's pants. "You mean it, Nonno? I can? Just me?"

"Just you," he confirmed, almost wanting to cry. How long it had been since he'd seen that smile…

His spirits much higher, Lovino babbled to his grandfather nearly without breathing as they made their way to the Leaky Cauldron.

"Nonno, I want to go to Fortiscue's first! And then I want to go to the bookshop, and I want to look at the brooms, and I want to see the wand man, the really old one, and I want-"

"Hush, piccolo," his grandfather laughed. "We'll go wherever you like."

"Then Fortiscue's."

"Alright. And what would you like there?"

"I want vanilla ice cream." No surprise-that was the only flavor Lovino would eat. "And I want a lemon ice cream. So-so I can take it home, and eat it later." Romulus bit back a smile. Lovino hated fruit flavors-unlike Feliciano, who loved them. It would be much easier if Lovino were able to be honest with his feelings, but the therapist had insisted that they not push, and so he simply said, "Then we should go at the end of the day, so it won't melt on the way home."

"Tch, fine," Lovino said with no real bite. "Is that it? The Leaking Place?"

"The Leaky Cauldron. Yes, this is it. Hand in mine, please."

Making a great show of grumbling, Lovino let his grandfather take his hand, and they went into the leaky cauldron together.

It was still early in the morning, and the Leaky Cauldron was largely unpopulated. A few wizards quietly sipped at coffee here and there, but there were only a handful of people around, which was how Romulus had wanted it. The eyes of strangers flickered to him as he walked by-their expressions grew shocked and their eyes darted excitedly to Lovino, only to take him in properly and look away dismissively. Red with a combination of anger and shame, Lovino stuck two fingers up at them.

"Lovino," Romulus murmured.

"They're unhappy," Lovino said loudly, glaring around at everyone in the shop, daring them to meet his eyes. "They wanted Feliciano and instead they got me, and so they're unhappy."

"Don't be silly, passerotto. Come. The bricks are in the back. Or should I open the wall for you?"

Lovino looked at him for a moment, eyes flickering with something like betrayal, before he pushed his way past his grandfather and out the back of the pub. Romulus frowned softly. His little sparrow really was too perceptive for his own good. A Ravenclaw or a Slytherin for sure-that is, if the whispers of 'squib' in the London parlors weren't on the mark.

The older man stood behind the boy in the tiny courtyard out back. When he was in a strop, Lovino preferred to wait to be spoken to, and so Romulus was content to loiter, hands in his pockets. Eventually the boy turned, lips set in a scowl somehow even more vicious than ever. "You never stick up for me."

Surprise arched across Romulus's face. "Against them? Tesoro, they were just looking. Surely you wouldn't like me to pick fights with every person who looks at you."

The set of Lovino's jaw implied that, actually, that was what he wanted, but all he said was, "your wand."

Normally it was a bad idea to give a wand to a child when they were emotionally volatile. It could cause problems of the explosive and dramatic variety. But any peek of accidental magic, even wildly destructive magic, would have been a relief for Romulus, to show that despite what had happened, his grandson wasn't broken. Alas, when he handed over the wand, not a single spark went off between his strong fingers and his little one's little ones.

Now it was Romulus trying not to gaze at Lovino with bald-faced disappointment.

Oblivious to this, the wand-wielding boy gave the stick a few dramatic flourishes and, to protect his spirits, Rome wiggled his fingers in a little wandless charm to open the bricks right when his piccolo tapped them properly.

"I did it!" He shrieked in delight, hurling himself into his grandfather's arms. His Nonno peppered his face in kisses.

"So you did." The lie tasted sweet, almost like caramel, and went down easily. "Now let's go get you a pet, my darling."

The hustle and bustle of Diagon Alley was good for Lovino and served to help him forget how angry he was. There was a frenzied energy largely absent in the Italian wizard community, and Romulus privately thought that little head might unscrew if he kept whipping it about to see so many things. This entire trip had been built off the condition that Lovino hold Romulus's hand the entire time and though he often forgot and tried to dash off to look at something that caught his fancy, his grandfather was able to recapture his wrist and force them to head over at a more sedate pace. But Lovino loved the vibrancy, loved looking in the shop windows, eagerly bounced over to the bookstore and bragged about his (actually rather mediocre) reading prowess. The curious-turned-pitying expressions were lost in a sea of faces, and occasionally a shop vendor would venture out of their store to actively sell their wares. Rome himself was jokingly turning off the advances of one of the older women working at Madame Rosmerta's when Lovino yanked on his robes for attention.

"Nonno! Nonno, look at that!"

Romulus froze. A heartbeat. Two. Three.

Lovino was oblivious to the sudden stiffness of the hand holding his, and simply pulled harder. "Nonno, that's amazing! What is that? It's so big and scary!"

The crowd itself had gone silent. So many faces, turned towards Lovino. The only person who didn't was the animal's handler, still dutifully tugging the harness through the streets, hugging the sides so business could go on as usual.

"Lovino," his grandfather tried, his throat clenching.

"I want that! Nonno, buy me one of those!"

But there was nothing where Lovino's finger was pointing. Just a harness-a horse's harness, floating midair where his grandson's tiny finger followed like an accusation, and each heartbeat was painful, the valves slotting into place like iron bars as it struggled to pump blood into a body that did not want it.

A thestral. Lovino could see thestrals.

The door was open.

The door was open, and Chiara was a scatterbrain, just like he was sometimes, so she might have left it unlocked, but Gabriele had a good head on his shoulders, never let her forget, and anyway, why would it be open?

Why the fuck was the door open.

Something was slowly seeping across the floor, and it looked like blood, just for a second, but it was water, with clumps of sod, come from the plant, likely, the potted one that Gabriele had been trying to help Lovino grow crocuses in, the pot was broken and the water was oozing out but why was the pot broken, why was it so silent in the house, the door was open and the flower pot was broken, and why the fuck-

Romulus heard a small, thin wail and, before he even realized, started to run.

"Nonno! You aren't listening to me! Stop staring already, stronzo! I want you to-"

"Lovino," Romulus said in a shaking voice he had never heard before. "For once, please, shut up."

In slow motion, Romulus watched in horror as his grandson's heart trembled, cracked, shattered.

"Hold on-Lovino, wait-" Romulus tried, but Lovino ripped his hand from his Nonno's grip and disappeared alone down a narrow alley.