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Ellè stretched languidly before she shuffled forward, making her way towards the kitchen and- most importantly- her morning cup of tea.

It was late in September, so the heat of the summer had mostly passed, which meant that it was quite comfy on the private isle. Ellè and Nick had also had the opportunity to meet some truly fascinating people and the vintage information they were uncovering! It was positively fascinating!

The 'Potter Expedition' was divided up into five 'companies'; the Flamels had come to learn. Once they had gotten used to the idea, the hierarchy actually made a great deal of sense. Each squad was comprised of people from some or all of the companies, but their designations certainly made finding personnel for a specific job or situation extremely easy. Especially as most of the time they needed to find a person with a specific skill in the middle of high-stress, sudden circumstances.

Personally Ellè thought that the Expedition's structure was one of the most efficient, yet flexible systems she had ever witnessed.

First Company was affectionately referred to as 'Typhoon Force'. This company was led by the fierce Cassi Black and the Storm Arcobaleno, Fon of the Triads. They could be easily distinguished by the bright blue ribbons that were affixed to the upper left arm. Ty Squad members were the scouts, the ones who went in and secured an area, disabling or triggering traps, making preliminary maps, and ensuring that no undue hazardous creatures or magical nuisances were left behind- well, to the best of their abilities.

This was also the company that did most of the hands-on Ward analysis, as the ancient Wards of the Isle had relatively nasty little surprises woven into them, even when the teams were exceedingly cautious. It was for this reason that a sub-division of Ty Force was called 'Savant Force', and they focused more on the Ward-mapping aspect that the other members of the Force. The members of Ty-Sav were characterized by the bright purple wrist-warmers that Ellè- Nick was their leader, though the previous leader, young Bill Weasley was his Second-in-Command- had crafted for them. The wrist-warmers had many protections woven into them as an extra layer of security, and even Nick had benefitted from them a few times in the weeks since she had arrived!

Second Company was known as the 'Pathfinders'. They went in and fully mapped areas, carefully cataloguing any and all flora, fauna, along with any other things of interesting note in a particular area. They also laid down or refurbished roads, based on the needs of the Expedition or based on the plans that Heir Potter had for the future of the island. Pathfinders wore magenta strips of cloth- though a surprising number of them used their designation color as some sort of hair accessory, much to the amusement of Ellè. This particular company was led by Itsuko Tanaka. A rather quiet but intense young woman with bright purple hair and a seemingly endless supply of colored contacts whose father was a transportation engineer in Tokyo, of all places.

Third Company was referred to as 'Horizons Force'. This was the company where the researchers were centered, and the name came from the saying about 'broadening horizons'. Nanako Hibari co-led that company with Percy Weasley. Cassi had informed Ellè over tea one afternoon that the Weasley had originally tried to act a bit pompously towards the others, but had been quickly brought back down to earth by the level-headed, dark-haired, bright purple eyed Hibari woman. This particular company's color was gold, though most of their members chose to just wear their company colors in the form of their t-shirt, as opposed to the usual strip of cloth, hair accessory, or wrist-band route.

The final group was Fourth Company, also known as 'Hearth Force'. Hearth Force housed the medics, messengers, cooks and all of the other odds-and-ends but vital jobs that the Expedition needed to stay happy and healthy. Hearth Force was headed by a wonderfully colorful character named Catarina Venter. The woman spoke no less than seventeen languages and was the eldest member of the Expedition- well, Ellè was not entirely sure of the Arcobaleno's age. At any rate the vivacious, silver-white haired, hazel-green-eyed woman was the grandmother of a number of the Hibari cousins. She ruled the kitchen with an iron fist, but was uncannily talented at ensuring there were plenty of wonderful foods that appealed to everyone. Given the breadth of Hearth Force's duties, Catarina had a number of Captains who handled separate tasks, but the no-nonsense elder woman was the stalwart glue that held the Force together.

Ellè was actually a member of Hearth Force, though she was pulled to assist other companies quite often. Her skills as an Artisan Enchantress and a Runemistress were put to good use and Ellè had always enjoyed taking care of people. Her current major project was attempting to learn how make communication devices work on the Isle. Due to the unique situation they were in it was quite the challenging task, despite the woman's incredible knowledge in magical communications methods and being well-versed in nonmagical methods as well.

"Ugh." Nick groaned as he stumbled into the kitchen, pausing long enough to press a kiss to his wife's hair before falling onto the prepared cup of tea with incredible tenacity.

Ellè raised an amused eyebrow- you would think the man would be more accustomed to mornings, by his age. "Rough day?"

"We- by that I mean the command Team, myself included- are going over the information we've gathered from the obsidian cluster points today." Nick nearly whimpered into his tea. "That means reading Yucca's horrifying handwriting."

"Why did you not have someone else-" Ellè began, amused at her husband's complaint.

"Yucca is the only person- well, other than myself, but I did not wish to miss out on all the fun- who could hold the necessary spells for an extended amount of time." Nick sighed mournfully as he finally reached for a breakfast croissant. "You know how many spells it takes to deep dive, let alone deep diving while also keeping your entire body dry, so you can scribble on a clipboard."

"Ah, well." Ellè replied with a definitively amused lilt to her voice. "I'm going to be working with the Remodeling Teams in one of the house clusters about twenty miles south of the main house. We want to set up another Base Camp, as well as fix some of the houses so we can start housing people there instead of constantly using tents or constantly housing people on the Palmaria. There are only so many tents, and most of them are assigned to squads instead of people. Cassi also wants to be able to have the Palmaria freed up, as it is incredibly tiresome to constantly be relaying coordinates. I think I'm about at a breakthrough point with the communication devices, though!"

"Yes, well." Nick said as he swallowed his second croissant and reached for a third. "I still am so not looking forward to today."

Ellè laughed. Loudly.

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Hikaru grinned brightly at Kyouya, earning him a tonfa swipe. "Oh, come on Kyou-kun!" Hikaru sang cheerily. "Is it really so bad?"

The elder boy was teasing Kyouya for walking into one of Blaise's prank traps. Well, sort of.

Blaise had a habit of poking people until they poked back. Unfortunately for little Hayato, Blaise found the young Storm's eruptions hilarious. Today's prank had been ridiculous amounts of glitter hidden under an illusion- it was posing as a legitimate button on Hayato's clothes- that was to be triggered by Hayato's favorite phrase. Unfortunately for Hayato he and Tsuna had been running late and had been met by a supremely unimpressed Kyouya at the gates of the Elementary school.

Hayato said the magic word and poof.

The Elementary school principal was a particularly shrewd older woman who understood the facts of life. Therefore she had called Nami-chuu and informed the DC that Hikaru was needed at the Elementary school to calm down his 'unruly children'.

Hikaru chuckled a little as he caught sight of the eye-searing rainbow of colors that were stubbornly clinging to Hayato's pale hair. Tsuna was torn between laughing at the spectacle Hayato made and keeping his face straight out of sympathy for his friend being caught in another one of Yoichi-sempai's pranks.

Kyouya had already departed and was most likely searching for Blaise to 'bite him to death'.

Hikaru felt exactly zero sympathy. In the three months since he had returned from Italy, his friends had been doing their level best to smother him. He and Blaise had video conference calls with Dino and Romario- and occasionally special guests such as Reborn, Marius, or Shamal, among others- at least every other evening. Hikaru was convinced that the Italy branch of their eclectic family called so often was in order to ensure themselves of his continued good health.

Of course, there was a great deal of things going on in Italy, so maybe Hikaru was reading too deeply into the frequency of their calls.

Nono Vongola had finally announced his impending retirement and Federico would be installed as the Decimo next year, most likely in the summer. However, the Varia had a great deal of work ahead of them to secure Federico's inauguration.

According to e-mails that had arrived from his Papá, Aria of the Giglio Nero was working closely with Reborn on a number of things. Reborn had assured his son that things were well in hand, though he was keeping Adriano out of the loop on a great deal of those operations for 'plausible deniability' purposes. Reborn was also disturbingly chipper about cheerfully informing his son that not only was Marius thriving in the Varia's care, Sirius was now working with the elite assassins as well.

The thought of Sirius and Marius under the direction of Xanxus of the Varia was nearly as terrifying as it was brilliant.

"So, what did we learn today?" Hikaru asked once he had patiently listened to Hayato's explanations.

"That Yoichi-sempai is a jerk?" Tsuna ventured hesitantly, still trying to without his amusement at Hayato.

"That you should be careful, even when you're in a hurry." Hikaru gently corrected, with a smile to ease any sting out of his words. "You're still kids, so it's all fun and games right now, but the lessons behind the pranks will be invaluable later on." Hikaru planted his hands on his hips, his DC gakuran shifting slightly and creasing as he bent forward conspiratorially. "Now, what are you going to do to Yoichi-sempai in retribution?"

"Hmm…what can we do?" Hayato muttered grumpily as he crossed his arms and sulked.

The little guy looked sort of like an angry, glittery unicorn. It was disturbingly adorable and hilarious.

"Mm." Hikaru hummed with a smirk edging its way onto his mouth. "Nothing? Nothing at all?"

"Wait." Tsuna said slowly, looking between Hayato and Hikaru a few times while he worried his bottom lip with his teeth. Eventually Tsuna came to a decision and looked back at Hikaru resolutely. "Hikaru-sempai, would you help us get Yoichi-sempai back for his prank on Hayato?"

Hikaru laughed and bounced forward jubilantly. "Now, that's using your head, chibi~!" He sang rightly as he snatched both younger boys up in a warm hug. "Always, always use your resources wisely, it'll save you a lot of time and effort if you just swallow your pride and ask. It's surprising how many people ignore the simplest solutions just because they overlook the obvious." Hikaru released the two and looked gently nudged them towards the door. "Now, back to class, and think about what you want to get Yoichi-sempai with! I'll see you two after your Club lets out!"

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Aria hummed lightly as she added a few strokes of paint to her artwork. It was breezy and humid on her balcony overlooking the beachfront the main Giglio Nero estate bordered, and aria was enjoying her day of freedom to indulge in her favorite pastime. It's rather refreshing, she thought with a silly grin painted on her lips, to be actively working towards a brighter future instead of having to allow fate to control your life.

Aria huffed lightly and dabbed her brush in a few colors on her palette before returning her brush to the canvas. Mother and Yuni would be horrified, but I've always been a bit different. I'm not so afraid of losing that I won't fight at all.

On her middle finger the Sky Mare Ring pulsed gently and the Arcobaleno Pacifier hanging from her pocket glowed lightly, but Aria was far too lost in her thoughts and her art to notice.

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