Fanfic / Black Sky

When you're a Black, you're a Black and nobody gets to hold all the cards except you. Not a Dark Lord with a grudge, not a Headmaster with a prophecy and certainly not the world's most influential Mafia Family... Dorea is as much a Black as a Potter and she is not about to let anybody walk over her!

Black Sky is a fanfic written by Umei no Mai. It begins with its focus in the Harry Potter setting but elements of Katekyō Hitman Reborn! become more prominent as the story develops.

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Black Sky contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Timoteo Zabini cast his bastard son with his mother away to die because he wanted to see his male descendants by his late and much loved wife taking the throne instead. Oh, and he also wiped the mother's mind, destroying her sanity, to assure that she would not find him again.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Dorea managed to net twelve Guardians and some additional Flame-bonds. It's partially explained by her being very powerful for a Sky, but her huge following is mainly due to the fact she wasn't raised Mafia and so didn't know a Sky is supposed to limit themselves to a set of six Guardians.
• Altar the Speed: Dorea immediately starts her research for a husband after passing her OWLs in her fourth year and ultimately uses a ritual which will send her to the perfect groom for consummation of the wedding. When he lays eyes upon her, Xanxus is hit by Love at First Sight, they exchange their vows and spend the night together. Why would you wait after finding your true love ?
• Arranged Marriage: Dorea uses a Potter ritual in order to find a suitable groom. It picks Xanxus, and in spite of many, many obstacles, has the potential to become a Perfectly Arranged Marriage.
• Ascended Extra: The author really does use the numerous characters from both material sources, and she does it so well.
• Attention Whore: Every Lightning Flame-user loves the spotlight, even when conditioned to have no personality. Terrence Higgs is quite subdued in this domain as he only seeks to have Dorea's attention, not everyone's.
• The Baby Trap: When the Prince of Sabina visited her brothel, Mariella Zabini had a three-months affair with him, resulting in the conception and birth of Alexandro Zabini a.k.a. Xanxus, banking on the ancient tradition automatically naming the firstborn son of a childless wizard his heir no matter his legitimacy (or lack of). As the mother of the future ruler of Sabina, Mariella would have been entitled to financial safety and lavish comfort. Too bad for her that Timoteo Zabini wasn't on the same page.
• Badass Crew: Basically every group apart from Vongola.
  • The Varia. They're Crazy assassins. Yes, the Crazy deserves a capital C.
  • The Constellation. Dorea's study group will make you pass your exams, help you ascend to positions of power in order to help your Benevolent Overlady keep Magical Britain obedient, and teach you to bend reality with pretty-coloured fire.
  • The Zabini. They are descended from a Titan, a wizard powerful enough to be worshiped as a Forge/Fire God, the predatory avian Sirens and some Veela here and there. These fireproof peoples have their own separate nation, like poetry, art and music of all kinds. They are also Enraged by Idiocy, think the death sentence is perfectly reasonable if properly monitored and strong enough to physically rip you in half. Xanxus fits right in.
• Badass Family:
  • The House of Black most certainly qualifies. As stated in the page quote, the Black Family strives to "hold all the cards" even if dark lords and school headmasters are dealed in as well.
  • The Zabini are so widespread they're a nation, but the Royal Family certainly count. Dorea's technically adopted into it, and they think her declaring a Blood Feud on Voldemort was the cutest thing ever.
• Becoming the Mask:
  • When his twin is petrified by Slytherin's Basilisk, George goes and hides amongst the Slytherin fourth-years under the "Jerry Prewett" persona, a reserved and quite serious young man — Justified by his depression over Fred's condition. However, he refused to relinquish the persona when Fred was cured and it's mentioned he identifies more as Jerry than George nowadays.
  • When Theodore assumed the undercover role of Stefano Torretta, he never thought he would come to care for Daniela Vongola as if she was his own grandmother and actually grieves her passing over. Him Harmonizing with her is a proof of how much he was comfortable with her.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Luna wears rollerblades in a eye-watering shade of orange on a daily basis, needs to adorn herself with a kilogram of turquoise jewellery to have the slightest smidge of sanity, and is so powerful she's estimated as a potential rival for Mammon. The freaking Mist Arcobaleno.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family:
  • The House of Black; with members on different sides of a civil war and insanity in the blood, it was inevitable.
  • The Vongola Famiglia has its fair share of issues as well.
• Birds of a Feather: The wedding ritual used by Dorea deliberately invokes this, as it's supposed to find a spouse sharing the bride/groom's interests. Meaning that Dorea and Xanxus are very compatible with each other — people love to note how they are just terrifying as fuck for everyone.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Barty Crouch Jr borders on that. He has no problem to switch his allegiance from Voldemort to Dorea when she kills the Dark Lord because she's his Master's Heir, and everyone knows that you have to serve the Heir when they inherit.
• Born in the Wrong Century: When she reflects on Terrence's courtly devotion to her, Dorea thinks he should have lived in King Arthur's court for his relationship with her to be commonplace.
• Brick Joke:
  • Blaise is appaled by Dorea's tendance to endanger herself and says at one occasion that if she was a fairy tale princess, she would marry the dragon rather than run away like any human being possessed of common sense. Sure, Dorea goes and find herself the wife to the ill-tempered, possessive and ruthless Xanxus, who's flattered by the comparison. Oh, and he's also the heir to the Sabina Principality, making Dorea a princess by marriage.
  • While he was on a world recruitment tour, Squalo was cibled as a potential groom for a South American priest's granddaughter. Two years later, the girl shows at the Varia to become an assassin and jokingly refers to Squalo as her husband.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The Varia is such a bag of crazy that you will marvel at finding one smidge of sanity between the entire division. They're also the most feared assassins in the mafia, because they are Quality and they won't let you forget it.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Because of Sirius confessing under Veritaserum that the Potters never produced offspring together, nobody gives any credit to Dumbledore's claim that a child was present on the scene of Voldemort's downfall.
  • Later, Dumbledore is ridiculized and spat upon for declaring Voldemort's return. He kinda brings it upon himself as he refuses to justify his claim or give any evidence, just insisting You Have to Believe Me!, which no one wants to do except for his devoted followers.
• The Clan: This stories focused on three particularly prominent ones, the House of Black, the Zabinis, and the Vongola Famiglia.
• Composite Character: Nicholas Flamel and Talbot are actually two of many identities used by one single man. He thinks it adds some spice to his life and it helps to throw people off his scent.
• Crusading Widow: Angelique Zabini — Blaise's mother — was passionately in love with her first husband. What did she do after his death at the hands of Voldemort's followers? Why, she married his killers and murdered them after bankrupting them.
• Cultured Badass: The whole family is the epitome of high society standards.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Terrence Higgs flattens two of Don Nonno's Guardians for assaulting his client, which makes him a bit of a legend amongst the Vongola Alliance.
  • The Lightning Ring Battle ends in less than five seconds, and Lambo wasn't the winner.
• Deconstruction Fic: For all Dumbledore fans, be prepared to see any decisions of him mercilessly criticized. As for the Vongola silliness, the author wastes no time nor effort to showcase the colossal mess it would lead in the real world.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: An ongoing theme:
  • The Wizarding world has its own social code, meaning that the Muggleborns are often rude and insulting without any malice. Dorea has to break it to a eleven years-old Hermione and gave her books about etiquette in order to correct her demeanour.
  • A Zabini auditor feels justified in burning alive a Mafia heir because the guy was a rapist, and quotes ancient Roma laws recommanding it as a punishment to Squalo.
  • Played for Drama when Xanxus learns Dorea's age when she married him. For a witch, marrying is okay when you have your OWLs, so girls often find a husband when they are fifteen or sixteen years-old. But in a Mafia world, having a sexual experience with someone under sixteen years old is considered as pedophilia, meaning that Xanxus is flat-out horrified to discover he slept with a barely fifteen-years-old. He gets over it easily enough, though.
  • Zabini, particularly the Royals, equate closed-couple dancing as foreplay to sex, or more intimate than sex when between a married couple. This was never explained to Dorea in enough detail, so when she tried to dance with one of her Guardians, Xanxus flew into a Berserker Rage and burned her arm, causing her personal ward to throw him out the window in shock. They make up later though.
  • Due to the dancing thing mentioned above, when Nono forced Xanxus to dance with marriageable of Guardian eligible young women at Vongola Alliance Balls, he was essentially pimping Xanxus out. Luckily, Xanxus had some Veela blood, to whom dancing equates to hunting, so he could fall back on those instincts by imagining his dance partners dead. Nevertheless, the violent daydreaming while not being able to actually kill, the feeling of wrongness from being whored out and being automatically disliked for being a whore's son meant Xanxus was teetering on the edge of insanity when he met Squalo.
  • When Spiderman finds themselves on a kinda date with Daphne Greengrass, their Squad Leader Hawkeye purposely stays in the room to ensure Spiderman is not going to goof off or be hurt by the witch. Daphne doesn't protest his presence, apparently considering him as Spiderman's chaperone — someone watching over a younger one's virtue and reputation.
• Devoted to You:
  • Xanxus is hopelessly, willingly and utterly bewitched by Dorea. Seeing him crumple and dote on her with all his might is actually very sweet.
  • Skies can inspire this amongst their followers, which is called Sky Attraction and is generally seen as a problem. Exhibit A is Gokudera who obsesses so much over Tsuna he's basically Loving a Shadow.
• Disappeared Dad: Courtesy of being imprisoned in Azkaban, Sirius misses three years of his daughter's life.
  • While he's on ice, Xanxus becomes a father of twins. He's also a victim of this trope, as his own father abandoned him to die with his mother.
  • It's strongly implied but never confirmed that Reborn is the biological father of Aria Giglio Nero.
  • When Federico dies, Aria is pregnant with Yuni and decides to hide her daughter's parentage to prevent the Vongola of stealing her baby.
• Divine Right of Kings:
  • Downplayed with the various Lordships in the Magical World. Only the Family Head can use the full extend of the Family Magic, but the Head by law isn't always the Heir to the Family Magic.
  • Played straighter with the Zabinis, who treat the Prince of Sabina as a divinely/magically appointed tyrant, as said by Squalo. What the Prince wants is what will happen.
• Doorstopper: Already more than 1,000,000 words and still ongoing.
• Dramatic Irony: The prophecy Dumbledore was obsessed with and was determined to fulfill at any cost? It was actually about him and how he would be killed by Blaise Zabini.
  • All his life, Xanxus was scorned and looked upon for being gutter trash not good enough for the Vongola Family. He's actually the heir to the oldest magical royal bloodline in Europe, meaning that becoming Decimo would have been aiming low for the Zabini standards.
  • Timoteo Vongola tried to find a new Rain Guardian for his mother after the death via cancer of her most recent one, but she rejected all his candidates for over many years. Then, when he finally throws the towel, she bonds with a young man who entered in the Vongola's service as a spy and certainly not to become a close confident and ally.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him:
  • Dorea thinks this about Bellatrix's death, crushed to death by a Venomous Tentacula controlled by Neville.
  • Dumbledore is unceremoniously poisoned by Blaise when he starts showing signs of danger for Dorea.
  • Voldemort is killed by a bullet in his brain, shot by Dorea who approached him in his back while he was observing the Death Eater assault on Hogwarts.
• Enraged by Idiocy: Xanxus is amused and disgusted by incompetence from enemies. Incompetence from allies makes him angry though.
• Everyone Is Related: Very much in effect in the Wizarding Britain upper-crust, mirroring the traditional aristocratic inbreeding.
  • The Vongola Alliance doesn't fare any better. It's said you can find a Superbi anywhere in the Mediterranea and about half the Alliance has a Vongola Don in the lineage tree. Except for Xanxus, who has no blood relation whatsoever to the Vongola because he's a Zabini through and through.
  • Also, Primo's lineage wasn't content with a Single Line of Descent so Tsuna learns he's a more-or-less removed cousin to Hibari, the Sasagawa siblings and Shoichi Irie.
• Evil Aunt: Bellatrix Lestrange, while strictly speaking more of a cousin than an aunt to Dorea, certainly qualifies.
• Fairytale Motifs:
  • Xanxus and Dorea are often compared to a princess and the dragon guarding her, the key divergence being the marriage between the two parties.
  • Terrence Higgs plays the devoted Knight to Dorea's Lady. Talbot quickly nicknames him the Green Knight, as in the Arthurian mythos.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Blaise complains about Dorea running head first into danger, declaring she would rather marry a dragon than do the reasonable thing and flee to save her life. Her future husband is not a dragon, but he's ridiculously unsafe to know.
  • Many of the Vongola employees considers Federico's tendances to chase anything wearing a skirt as a Fatal Flaw, and Squalo even declares that he will end up killed by a furious male relative after one of too much affairs. Sure, Catrin the Storm Guardian to Aria Giglio Nero — who's old enough to be her grandfather and certainly dotes on her as if he were — reduces him to ashes after seeing him exiting his Sky's bedroom.
  • In universe foreshadowing, but Timoteo Vongola has a deep, hypocritical distaste for the Varia and their services, despite making use of them regularly. Enrico is murdered by Squalo, the Rain Officer. Massimo by Belphegor, the Storm Officer. Federico is killed by the retired Varia Quality Catrin, Aria Giglio Nero's Storm Guardian. Vongola Skies are known for their intuition and foresight. In some subconscious level Nono knew that Varia would murder his boys. He feels instinctive loathing for the Varia, but chalks it up as having moral superiority over the 'amoral killers'.
• Former Teen Rebel: Sirius Black was quite the rebel in his school years, but upon acquiring a daughter he became a responsible, shrewd and proper Lord Black.
  • When Xanxus attends Pantera's wedding with Dorea and baby Daniela in tow he is perceived as thus by the Alliance. As a teen he was rather wild and hotheaded but it is clear to all that he is now a devoted family man. Which a lot of the attending Dons find very appealing and reassuring.
• Half-Truth: When Dumbledore asks Sirius the whereabouts of Rose Potter, James and Lily's daughter, Sirius answers that Rose Potter doesn't exist and James and Lily never had a child together. Lily did have a daughter, but Dorea is actually Sirius' by blood, James having adopted her because of his inability to produce an Heir.
• Happiness in Slavery: Barty Crouch Jr has no greatest ambition than cater to the whims of Voldemort and later Dorea, with whom he's bonded as a thrall.
• Heinz Hybrid: The Zabinis boast descent from Titans by their Siren ancestry, a magical species created by the Palikoi, sons of the female Titan Aitna and her consort Hephaestus (here a powerful wizard rather than a god). They also have Veela blood and frequently marries humans in order to produce sane offspring, as an excess of Siren blood makes you a little bit feral.
• Heir Club for Men: Played with. The inheritance of Family Magics are often gender-related for justified reasons, such as the Black Magics being dangerous for a witch's health and babies, meaning that a daughter is unable to become Lady Black and that Dorea's son will become Lord Black after Sirius rather than Dorea herself.
  • It's also invoked by the Vongola Family. Daniela is explicitly mentioned as having many siblings but being the only one with Sky Flames, she became Ottava after her father. This trope also prevents Maria-Chiara Vongola — Timoteo's daughter and lastborn child — to be considered as a successor since she's not a Sky.
  • This is also the reason why the Zabini are so pissed with their Prince: by hiding his bastard son and rightful Heir, he almost deprived the Zabini from their magical inheritance.
• Hidden Backup Prince: Xanxus is actually the rightful heir to the Principality of Sabina, but his father took great pains to ensure his being maintained as away as possible from the Zabini family, refusing to let a bastard son succeeding him when he had his grandson by his late wife. Alas for him, the grandson has no interest in ruling and happily supports Xanxus as heir and ruling Prince.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Everyone amongst the Vongola knows that Stefano Torretta — the cover name for Theodore Nott — was assigned to Federico Vongola's service after the Ottava's death in order to stop the skirt-chaser from banging every woman he sees. Federico actually asked for Stefano to be conscripted in his household because he didn't wanted his Nonna's last Rain Guardian wasting away from depression and heartbreak.
• Hidden in Plain Sight:
  • When Dorea decides to hide George to help him to cope with his twin's petrification, she dyes his hair brown, renames him Jerry Prewett and asks the Slytherin fourth-years to make him pass for one of theirs. It works without a hitch, as absolutely no one would go seek a Gryffindor in the Snake pit, and the quiet and reserved Jerry is too different from George's usual flamboyance.
  • Believing Sirius would rather raise his best friend's daughter in safety, Dumbledore spends ten years searching the Potter estates in foreign countries. He wasn't wrong per se, Sirius did put Dorea in safety... by taking her to his family, which makes no mystery about their heiress.
• I Am Who?: Xanxus isn't an ordinary bastard, he's the bastard son of the ruling Prince of Sabina, and his legitimate heir by blood and birthright.
• Identical Stranger:
  • Draco Malfoy bears an uncanny resemblance to Alaude Le Tellier, first Vongola Cloud Guardian, leading some to speculate about a possible blood relation.
  • Mainomai is also noted for having the Lanza looks, which leads the wider Vongola to assume he's Erica's cousin rather than her lover. Both decide to not correct the mistake.
• Idiot Ball: Timoteo Vongola's decisions can be really questionable.
  • Encasing his adopted son in ice because they were fighting gets some leeway. However, Don Nono keeps Xanxus on ice almost six years while his subordinates and family pester him for release on the grounds Xanxus deserve all of his attention when freed and he currently has too much on plate. As Daniela Vongola points it, Timoteo is Boss of the Vongola Alliance: he will never have the opportunity to devote himself to one single matter. There's also the time factor, since Xanxus will need to readapt to the world after freed and Nono's hesitations mean the gap is growing more and more. Finally, when Ottava — who was very close with her adopted grandson — dies, he still refuses to let Xanxus attend her funeral, uncaring that his son may want to say good-bye.
  • So, Xanxus is free again — not because Nono finally decided to be reasonable — he was at large long enough to reconnect with his wife and have a baby girl with her, and he's visibly pissed off about his imprisonment, saying Don Vongola can "wait on him for once". Does Nono let him space to breath and calm himself? Wrong! He immediately demands to talk with Xanxus since he's his father and of course they need to talk right now. When Xanxus deliberately avoids him by spending time with his wife and kids and leaving on Varia missions, Nono starts to harass the Varia by constantly phoning them, visibly not getting the clue he's very much unwanted.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite everything that is different in this story, the Battle of the Ministry still takes place and Sirius Black still falls through the Veil.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Between Daniela Vongola and Theodore Nott, who's pretending to be "Stefano Torretta" in order to spy on the Vongola. She takes a shine to him and he quickly comes to consider her as the grandmother he never had. When she dies in her sleep, he's heartbroken because he Harmonized with her as her Rain Guardian, which can only be achieved with trust and common ground.
• In the Blood: Dorea's friends and acquaintances brush her Young Conqueror status as 'meh, she's a Black. Sometimes they do that'.
  • Zabinis are ruthless, bloodthirsty and idiocy-allergic as a rule. Just look at Xanxus.
• Invented Individual: Because of Sirius claiming under Veritaserum influence that James and Lily never had a child together, Rose Potter is assumed to be one. Meaning that Dumbledore's plans to make her a Light icon and Messianic Archetype backfires on him as he proclaimed her the Girl-Who-Lived and Voldemort's downfall and it's now proved that such a child never existed.
• The Joys of Torturing Mooks: There are plenty of low-level Varia around, most of whom aren't named, making them handy canon fodder.
  • Dorea visits Xanxus at Varia HQ, travelling on Sirius' motorbike. When mooks try to tamper with the unattended bike, the Magic on it turns them into rabbits for anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes. Some Varia assassins catch on and start filming gleefully.
  • Lektor's first act after becoming Officer, is to sacrifice a mook to the Varia Archive on the provided altar in exchange for personal information on his Lightnings.
  • One tries to attack Dorea in a friendly way but her personal Flame Ward throws him into the wall, breaking the majority of his bones. It only reacted this harshly because she was pregnant with her's and Xanxus' fourth child.
  • Xanxus decides to bring a nesting King Cobra home as a present for Dorea, so makes a box out of his Mist Flames to put it in and makes an Apprentice Lightning named Tokki(meaning 'rabbit') carry it around the rest of the day, sit next to it during the midnight watch and the entire next day. Anything made with Mist Flames tends to abruptly evaporate once it reaches it's limit; Xanxus knows it will last a long time, but Tokki and the other mooks don't. Also, the box isn't even closed, so Tokki has to grab the snake and lift through the warded door when it goes hunting in the middle of the night. He also stares at the box, worrying that the snake's eggs will hatch into aggravated an deadly little cobras. Xanxus also rests the box on his lap when they take the plane home and goes to sleep, leaving the mooks to stare in horror at the snake snuggling underneath his jacket for warmth.
  • Tokki is later Named Serpentari (meaning 'Snake Handler') for the aforementioned 'Snake In A Box' incident, and is getting really tired of his comrades putting live snakes in his bed.
• Klingon Promotion: Several examples of this.
  • Dorea took over Magical Britain by killing Voldemort, who had just conquered the place. She inherited his Death Eaters as well, Barty Crouch/Black becoming a permanent addition to her household.
  • Belphegor became Storm Officer at eight years old by breaking in and murdering his predecessor.
  • Squalo took over the Varia before giving it to Xanxus by cutting off his own dominant hand and engaging former Varia Head and Sword Emperor Tyr in a days-long battle, beheading Tyr by the end.
  • This is subverted when Xanxus returns to the Varia and kills Ottabio for being a dirty traitor and puts all of Cloud Division through Training from Hell. The Vongola spy takes this to mean Xanxus is the new Cloud Officer, not recognising Xanxus as Nono's disgraced adopted son.
• Lady and Knight: Dorea and Rence. He swears himself to her and is very devoted to her.
• Ladykiller in Love: Federico Vongola is a notorious skirt-chaser unable to resist any woman. When he meets Aria Giglio Nero, he falls hard for her and seriously considers proposal. It doesn't end well.
• Lady of War: All the properly raised House Black ladies qualify because "lady" and "war" are both part of their upbringing.
• Love at First Sight: Xanxus of all people is hit by this because a spell designated him as Dorea's perfect groom.
• Magic Knight: Dorea and Rence are both Flame Active, use magic and are trained in swordsmanship.
• Mama Bear: A pregnant Aria Giglio Nero decides to delay her baby's birth a la Portgas D. Rouge because otherwise her daughter would be suspected to be Federico's as well (she is) and she refuses to let Yuni become a puppet for the Vongola Family.
  • Bel asking to meet her young daughter is enough to make Erica Lanza — Timoteo Vongola's grandddaughter — Activate her Sky Flames.
  • When Umbrage reduces to tears a first-year Gryffindor girl by torturing her with a Blood Quill, Hermione enlists Theodore Nott and proceeds to utterly destroy her sanity. Oh, and our Badass Bookworm of a lioness also killed Greyback when the Death Eaters attacked Hogwarts, by melting his face with her Flames.
• Mind Rape: Since Sky's attribute is Harmony, an upset Sky-Flame user can fall victim to "Harmony of Purpose", meaning a stress trigger will unlock a knee-jerk, emotional, disproportionate reaction which makes perfect sense at the time, and the Sky will be so utterly convinced of its righteousness they will drag their Guardians into the mess merely by asking them to help. An upset Sky can actually whip a quiet town into a lynching mob. Just... yikes.
• Mission from God: When she accidentally activates the Resurrection Stone, Dorea invokes a strange entity who asks her to find his long-lost son and care for him until his natural death. It's implied the son is actually Skull.
• More Deadly Than the Male: The ladies of the House of Black are known to be so much more ruthless and generally terrifying than their male counterparts.
• Noodle Incident: How Lucretia Prewett met Feng's — the Storm Arcobaleno — mother: it involved a Chinese zombi, a Blessing and his little sister.
  • While on a recruitment tour for the Varia, Squalo managed to be mistaken for a flood deity in South America and narrowly escaped a wedding with the high priest's granddaughter. Alas for him, she found her way to Italia and became a Vongola employee.
  • What exactly happened to Levi when Lektor replaced him as Lightning Officer. Some mooks actually wonder if Lecktor ate him because Housekeeping never cleaned the mess a corpse would have left.
  • Xanxus remembers paying Mammon to wipe his memory of what happened the last time Lussuria got bored. The fact he asked for a memory-wipe scares him enough to make sure Lussuria never gets bored again. A Varia assassin named Amharc who is traumatised in Lussuria's presence is referenced as being a 'Sun-turned-Mist' and Lussuria mentions that he's 'very sorry about what happened', leaving us to wonder if a bored Lussuria somehow broke the laws of Flame Affinities on a whim.
• No Social Skills: The Zabini aren't human, the Blacks are crazy and the Varia is a house full of assassins. Of course, some make bigger impressions than others. Squalo seems to be the Only Sane Man in the cast.
  • Xanxus, as a Heinz Hybrid, instinctually works off a different paradigm than humans. Enraged by Idiocy is the most prominent.
  • Belphegor is a Child Prodigy with a taste for blood and a royalty complex which makes him view the majority of humans as 'peasants'. His odd mentality is partly attributed to having Water Nix heritage; a type of Fae known for it's grudges, childish cruelty and human-eating habits.
  • The majority of all Lightnings have been brainwashed into being the ideal Cannon Fodder. Needless to say, socializing was not included in their training. Tyrant and Lektor have been making progress on deprogramming them, though.
  • Kuchisake is a Varia Mist with a penchant for the disturbing. You know, like horror movies, giving herself a Glasgow Grin and collecting mummies and other preserved necrotic items. She's not exactly subtle about her hobby, either.
  • Lektor is The Sociopath. And not even a particularly high-functioning one. He may or may not be a cannibal, joined the Varia solely to fund his research, is happy doing paperwork, will Human Sacrifice to the local Magical Library in exchange for paperwork, thinks that turning someone inside out(painless, but resulting in four hours of sensory deprivation) is an appropriate punishment for stealing a book and relies on holding Tarot readings to decipher peoples feelings. Even more terrifying is that his Patronus is a rabbit. Although, it's stated that he's fond of Monty Python. Which makes the rabbit Patronus even more horrifying.
• The Obi-Wannabe: Dumbledore tries to become a mentor to Dorea in order to fulfill Trelawney's prophecy, but she has so much contempt for him he fails again and again, and the way he goes to earn her trust does not endear him to her.
• Oblivious to Love: Subverted Daphne adores Dorea but knows her feelings aren't returned. Dorea senses this, and tries not to hurt Daphne, while hoping that she'll find someone else.
• Obvious Rule Patch: After Lektor kills a Mook in ritual sacrifice to the Archive, the newest Varia law is that no Human Sacrifice is allowed unless authorized by the Head.
• Ominous Owl: The Black Family breds particularly aggressive owls. Go on, just try to intercept their mail, but be prepared to lose an arm... or your life. It varies following the owl's mood, really.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted with Timoteo Vongola and Timoteo Zabini. The name is what convinced the brain-damaged Mariella Zabini that Don Vongola was her son's father.
• Only Sane Man: Squalo for the Varia. Alas for him, it means he's the resident Butt-Monkey.
  • Played for Drama with Erica Lanza in the Vongola Alliance, since she can see her family being ruined by her grandfather and Iemitsu's utter idiocy and is unable to do anything about it.
  • Tsuna's Ragtag Bunch of Misfits was unofficially tested for psychiatric issues and the results are that Kyoya Hibari and Takeshi Yamamoto are the more normal and well-adjusted members in the band. For the record, Hibari is an Ax-Crazy Jerkass and Yamamoto was Driven to Suicide over a perceived failure at fourteen years old.
• Passed in Their Sleep: The official story of Dumbledore's death. He was actually murdered by Blaise for the sake of Dorea's safety.
  • Daniela Vongola peacefully dies after being visited by Dorea, who was acting as Lady Peverell because Daniela delayed her death with her Flames. At least she met her granddaughter-in-law and learned she had three adoptive great-grandchildren.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Dorea and Blaise. He makes her his sworn sister and she views him in the same light.
• Playing with Fire: Once upon a time, all Zabinis were able to conjure fire due to their Siren ancestry. Nowadays it's more of a Royalty Superpower.
• Prophecy Twist: Dumbledore seeks to fulfill the prophecy he believes concern Voldemort and Dorea. He never knew that a prophecy is always delivered to the one it applies, meaning that he is the dark lord destroyed by Blaise Zabini, born on the seventh month of the Roman calendar to the Zabini family (his political opponents) using Soulfire, a power he never heard about.
• Puppet King:
  • The reason why Aria Giglio Nero keeps mum about the fact she successfully carried and birthed Federico Vongola's child: the Vongola would try to use Yuni and she won't have it.
  • Also the reason why Erica Lanza refuses to run for the Decimo position. She would be this for Xanxus as she knows he's much more competent than her, but she doesn't want to establish a precedent which would let ambitious mafiosi taking over "unfit" heirs.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Red-eyed Zabinis are more strongly Siren than their kin, making them a teeny bit feral. Do not anger them if living is one of your hobbies.
• Single-Minded Twins: Harshly deconstructed with Fred and George Weasley, as no one cares enough about them individually to differentiate. They also are so used to be together that Fred being petrified utterly traumatizes George who's unable to cope with the perspective to be on his own. Dorea immediately jumps on the occasion to help him becoming independent by disguising him as "Jerry Prewett" and hiding him in the Slytherin dorms.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Because Barty Crouch Jr is an intelligent Lightning and speaks a ridiculous amount of languages, Squalo considers his very existence as a personal insult. Barty himself finds amusing to troll the shark.
• Stalker without a Crush: Being obsessed by Trelawney's prophecy, Dumbledore seeks to mould Dorea's life as he sees fit. He searched for "Rose Potter" ten years, then at Dorea's arrival at Hogwarts, tried to gain her trust by posing as a mentor figure. Dorea feels more exasperated and annoyed than flattered by his manipulations, and becomes flat-out angry when he directly attempts to control her.
• Stealth Insult:
  • When Dumbledore tries to ingrate himself to Dorea by suggesting to cast protective charms upon Hermione for the Second Task, Dorea answers she would prefer Professor Moody — actually Barty Crouch Jr under Polyjuice — as the caster as he takes seriously his students' well-being. That's right, Dorea would rather trust a Death Eater than the so-called Leader of the Light.
  • Dorea loves flower language, and gets Xanxus to make the hairpins for her. She plans to declare war on Nono's regime by wearing certain flowers to Vongola Alliance parties. Since Nono doesn't know flower language, he'll be completely in the dark.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Federico Vongola falls for Aria Giglio Nero, the Sky Arcobaleno, meaning that if he marries her, he would outlive her and one of their children would inherit the Arcobaleno Curse. He refuses to let this stop him and successfully woos her... Then her Storm Guardian discovers the affair, thinks he was only after her for sex, and kills him to avenge his Sky's honour.
• Strong Family Resemblance: All Zabinis look eerily similar. That's what let Dorea guess that Xanxus is actually a Zabini.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders:
  • When Xanxus returns to the Varia from being iced, quite a lot of the post ice recruits get the hots for him despite a lot of them not being attracted to men. It is because he has siren and Veela blood.
  • Mainomai, being a descendant of Aphrodite. He reduces Tsuna to blushing and stuttering just by smiling at him. Tsunayoshi compares being smiled at by Mainomai to being smiled at by his crush Kyoko-chan.
• Succession Crisis:
  • Dorea needs to marry and bear a son to be the Black Heir sooner than later, since becoming Lord Black would endanger her health because of the Family Magic's toxicity. She manages to snatch a husband and fall pregnant at fifteen years old, avoiding a big clusterfuck just in time for her father's death one year later.
  • The Ruling Prince of Sabina has to be the firstborn son of the precedent ruler, which poses quite a conundrum for Timoteo Zabini's succession. He did produce offspring from his short-lived marriage... a daughter, it is. Her son is considered the Heir to Sabina, but his status stays shaky because of the female line of inheritance. Then Dorea's brand-new husband is revealed to be the Prince's bastard son, currently missing and impossible to find. And no, his unborn son cannot inherit because he's already the Black Heir, and his son after that has to become the Potter Heir. By luck, they do find him before too much time has passed, meaning he can inherit the crown and siring a proper heir.
  • And of course, the infamous Vongola Succession Matter: Don Nonno — who's very elderly and as such needs to retire soon — had three eligible sons but he dragged his feet so much they all died before being instated. So he decides to force a civilian teenager into the role, in spite of the kid being very much hostile to the idea. The Alliance does not like this perspective and would rather support Xanxus as Heir candidate... but he has no Vongola blood so can't be picked.
• Take That!: Primo Vongola and his Guardians' clothing is grossly inappropriate for the historical period, which infuriates some history nut in the Varia.
• Teen Pregnancy:
  • Dorea falls pregnant three days after her fifteenth birthday. Bonus points for being an unplanned event, in spite of the wedding being very much planned.
  • Xanxus has it even worse, since he's on the verge of being seventeen years old when he knocks up Dorea, but becoming a Human Popsicle makes him a Supernaturally Young Parent, since he stays sixteen until his children are five years old.
• Tranquil Fury: Neville's reaction to Lucius Malfoy confessing his parents' death after their abduction from St Mungo is to calmly declare a blood feud against the House of Lestrange. Awesomeness ensues.
• Unequal Rites: The Dying Will Flames are very different from wizardry, being explicitly from the soul — which gave it the name Soulfire in the magic communities — while wizardry comes from the blood. Narcissa blatantly considers Soulfire-users as different from magic-users, but places them above Muggles as they nonetheless possess power.
• Unexpected Inheritance:
  • Xanxus is utterly floored to learn he's actually Royal Blood, and the heir to a magical nation as he was considered as a Son of a Whore gutter trash unfit for the Vongola.
  • Dorea is a descendant of Vongola Primo's mother, who eventually married a Potter. Yes, she is eligible for Decima, but would rather avoid that mess or break the system entirely.
• Young Conqueror: When Dorea kills Voldemort, she automatically gains all of his possessions by right of conquest. As he already conquered Magical Britain, she became its de facto ruler before her seventeeth birthday.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Xanxus ends up deciding Levi is too much trouble to keep and pits the replacement his wife sent at the Varia against his Officer, making use of the Klingon Promotion.

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