cloudy with a Chance of freedom

chapter 9

Skull was so very tempted to bang his head against the cold stone of the castle walls. Only the fact that Blaise would notice it and demand an explanation with an exasperated voice kept him from doing so.

That and Nott was still in the room.

They had 'returned' to the castle long enough to get their Christmas presents (the house elves weren't fooled in the least by the way they were getting around, likely chalking it up to school boy antics since they weren't doing anything bad) and make an appearance to keep up the ruse they hadn't actually left school grounds, and Skull had rather gleefully opened up the package he knew damn well came from Dumbledore.

Only to find the Elder wand and the Stone falling out of the folded up cloak. The second he picked the items up in disbelief, he felt the connection that he had thought lost when he traveled back.

His life, why? It was like he was turning into an overpowered character out of a manga. Preferably not Dragonball Z ... he refused to suddenly gain massive man pecks by screaming his lungs out or turning into a freaking gorilla by looking at the moon, regardless of how fond Fon was of monkeys.

Skull sighed in exasperation, before doing the sensible thing.

He took the overpowered wand and the stone...and tossed them in a drawer inside his suitcase that he promptly locked and forgot about. He didn't need either of the items to deal with Voldemort or Dumbledore... in fact if he was caught with them then it would only bring an endless amount of headaches and problems for him at this stage.

Everyone underestimated the loudmouth, brash idiot. The teachers all took one look at his behavior and immediately assumed he was a green-eyed clone of his father and dismissed his actions entirely, save for Snape. No one looked too deeply into what he was really doing and he preferred it that way.

Reborn might be the world's greatest hit man (or would be, anyway), but Skull was the world's most unassuming assassin. If Reborn had even an inkling of the skill set Skull had, he would have felt like his title was being challenged by the man they had all dismissed as the uninformed, cowardly lackey. He thrived in the shadows, mostly as a product of how he had been raised and the way he had fought in the war.

Oh well. That was one headache he wouldn't have to rectify later, even if Dumbledore was guaranteed to have a panic attack trying to find out what the hell happened to his 'special' wand once he realized it was missing. So long as Skull didn't deviate from his usual behavior in the school, it was unlikely the old bastard would realize where it went. That and the fact Skull had the perfect defense by using his previous memories with a few alterations that the old man was unlikely to detect.

He had to adjust them for Slytherin settings, but by this point the Slytherin tower was just as familiar to him as the Gryffindor one had been in his previous life as a Hogwarts student.

Skull flopped back on his bed. He would go and 'investigate' the mirror before he took Viper with him to see it... Blaise had made it clear he wanted no part in any more 'adventures' on Christmas, so he'd refrain from taking the other Cloud with him for now. Unless Viper mentioned it and he wanted to see the mirror for himself.

Later that night...

Viper took one look at the mirror and was immediately suspicious, rather than enraptured. It didn't take much for her to guess the actual trap of the mirror.

"How exactly did you managed to find the infamous Mirror of the Erised?"

"I call it Potter luck. I'll tell you what I see if you tell me what your 'desire' is."

Last time he had seen a family he had never known, but had always yearned for. He hadn't even bothered to try it out, as he wanted back up in case it was something he wasn't ready to handle.