"Just stop, I'm too tired for this shit right now," Skull says. His gloved hand trembles in the air to his right as he keeps his back towards the hitman. He stands in the center of the rather bare room, between Reborn and the window, facing out to the green lawn below.

How many times have I told him not to leave a clear line of sight into the room? Reborn wonders as he scowls at Skull's back. "Lackey?" he asks and sets the the tank lid he's holding on the light wood end table just inside the door.

"Don't call me that!" Skull jerks his head. Purple eyes flash over his shoulder for a breath before he settles back into his original position. "Not today," he says quieter.

Reborn looks the man up and down. Judging by the deep impressions in the cream carpet beneath his boots, Skull hasn't moved from that spot for some time- a sniper's dream. His black eyes sweep across the rest of the room- all light wood furniture that match the ones Reborn had replaced months ago. The only spots of color in the room are Skull's purple hair and the red octopus in the tank beside Reborn.

"Not today?" Reborn forces his voice to be calm. His hands clench into fists and unclench again. He looks down into the tank. Oodako waves his arms slowly at Reborn, and his eyes seem especially large as he looks at the hitman. Reborn leans down and runs a gentle finger down Oodako's body. "Why not today in particular? Why no protest yesterday? Or last week?" The last thirty years? Reborn draws away from Oodako and sets the lid of the tank back into place. He turns to face Skull, sliding his hands into the pockets of his black trousers.

Skull shakes his head, purple hair shifting from side to side.

Reborn bites back a sigh.

Skull's hand moves up to his face, and the very front of his hair stops moving. His shoulders hunch, his knees start to bend, and Skull seems to fall into the hands he wrapped in his hair.

Reborn blinks. Moving quickly, he grasps Skull's shoulders and follows the stuntman's slow progression to the ground. He looks down at the back of Skull's head- had Skull really been this small before the curse?- and asks in a hushed voice, "Skull, what's wrong?"

Skull takes a deep shuddering breath. "Why the fuck should I tell you?" He says through hitching breaths.

Reborn bites back his initial reaction and takes a moment to think. He's right, he realizes. Why should Skull tell him? Reborn doesn't know this man at all, and, if he's being honest with himself, he's been downright cruel to Skull over the years. Still, there's something so very wrong in the bareness of Skull's room and in the line of his shoulders. "What do you need me to do?"

"I don't suppose telling you to leave would work?"

Silence fills the air for a moment before Skull sighs wetly. "Figures." The stuntman straightens beneath Reborn's hands and shifts so that he's sitting rather than kneeling on the ground. After wiping his hands down his face, he loops his arms around the tops of his knees and weaves his fingers together loosely.

Reborn removes his hands from Skull's shoulders and sits beside him- one knee raised, the other resting on the floor as his leg loops under his raised knee. He rests a forearm on his knee, and his fedora falls forward just enough to shade his eyes. His shoulder brushes Skull's.

"I need you to pretend I'm not beneath you in every way," Skull says. Reborn carefully doesn't move; he doesn't want to break whatever spell is causing Skull to actually talk to him. "I need you to pretend that I'm worth your time, and I need you to listen because I'm not saying this again." Skull's voice sounds strained and old and oh so tired.

Reborn nods silently. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Skull look at him with a considering scowl. A moment passes.

And then Skull tells him. He weaves a tale of literal magic, of witches and wizards, of a giant looking a little boy in the eye and saying, "You're a wizard, Harry." A tale of loyal friendships, of a girl with wild bushy hair and a love of knowledge, and of a redheaded boy with a knack for strategy. Skull paints a picture of a wide-eyed, trusting boy who was excited to explore the new world he found himself in and how the boy ended up having to fight for his life because the man who murdered his parents wasn't going to stop until that boy was dead as well.

Reborn turns his head towards Skull just enough to be able to watch the stuntman's face as he tells the story. He watches as Skull wistfully describes the ceiling of the Great Hall, pictures that moved, and how his wand felt in his hand- "The closest thing I can compare it to is how I've heard harmony described, Reborn." He continues to watch as Skull's eyes darken and his hands pick at the ends of his jacket sleeves. Skull tells him in low whispers of a boy and his camera, of twins separated by death, a mirror that shows your greatest desire, and the children he taught how to defend themselves because there was a war and no one was doing anything about it.

Then, Skull breathes in shakily. "It all ended, thirty-five years ago today," he says. "The Dark Lord attacked Hogwarts, attacked a school, attacked my home." And Reborn flinches at the pain in Skull's voice. Thirty-five years away from his territory, Reborn thinks, assumes, because a Cloud's first territory was always their home. And if Skull had just had to defend it in a war, there was no way he left it willingly which explains the bareness of Skull's room. A Cloud needs some form of closure to accept a new territory after all, and it sounded like Skull didn't get that closure.

"My army was made of school children who had to teach themselves how to fight, even beyond what I had taught them," Skull continues. "There were maybe thirty adults, including the professors, fighting with us." Skull takes in a deep, shaking breath. "It was early in the morning when he stopped his attack. He told me to come to him. To sacrifice myself so they would live."

Cold runs down Reborn's spine. His hand spasms as if he could stop Skull from ending the story, could stop the boy Skull once was from doing whatever it took to protect his own.

"I walked into the forest, surrounded by the ghosts of my parents and godfather," Skull says slowly. "I looked him in the eyes and dropped my wand." Skull looks up at Reborn. "I died thirty-five years ago today, and then," Skull pauses with a sardonic smile curling around his face, "I woke up."