Hi, so I promised myself I'd concentrate on other fics I have going and original stuff but I just missed writing in this world so here is a collection of vaguely connected one shots about Nico and Tom's time in Wools Orphanage. This is set in the AU of my other fanfic - These Stupid Wizards - so it helps if you've read that but it's not absolutely necessary. Anyway, welcome to the short introductory chapter and enjoy!

A boy struggled down a cobbled road, tugged along by a girl a little older than him. Her face was set. The boy paused and stopped.

"Bianca," he whined, his voice thick with tiredness. "I can't go on anymore."

"You have to Nico, mi fratello. We're almost there." The girl also sounded exhausted, perhaps more so than her brother.

"Where?" the boy asked. "Where are we going?"

The girl – Bianca – sighed. "Somewhere safe. Papa said so. We follow this man somewhere safe." She turned to her brother. "He's a lawyer." She added as if this made everything more official. Maybe to her, it did.

"Why? Why can't we stay with Papa?"

Bianca sighed again and pressed her palm to her head, although not in exasperation. Nico was too young to really understand. "Papa is too busy. He has his business in America." She explained, repeating the words she had repeated almost every hour.

"And Mama left." Nico sniffed, dangerously close to tears which Bianca could not deal with right now. She was close to weeping herself.

"Yes, Mama left." She said gently. She tried not to let herself remember the flash of light. The strong arms of their father grabbing her and Nico, pulling them into a dark orb. She tried not to remember Mama's scream as she was hit, Papa's howl of anguish as he realised she was left outside. Bianca was still young, but she knew that her mother had been killed. In fact, she probably knew more about death than any eleven year old should – she learned from visits to Papa's workplace where he dealt with funerals and death. She swore she could sometimes see the still grey swirls of shapes moving about in that giant room that papa took her to before they went across the black river. She had also become friendly with the receptionist – Charon – and he let her touch the material for his special Italian suits. It had never occurred to her that any of this was strange.

Nico was never allowed on any of these visits. Mama said he was too young and Papa agreed, but he admitted to Bianca privately that he didn't think Nico would ever be able to come. Then he turned around and told her that 'of course he didn't have favourites.'

Papa always had an American accent and spoke in English which was why Bianca and Nico spoke it so well for their age. Still, it was annoying having a father who couldn't speak Italian.

Turning her attention back to the struggling Nico, she grabbed his hand and gave a thumbs up to the impatient lawyer who had stopped to wait for them and was tapping his foot.

"Andremo bene" she whispered to him. "We'll be ok."

The dark clouds over their heads rumbled with the sound of an upcoming storm as their guide stopped in front of two giant cast iron gates, seeming to Bianca like they were the bars to a cage. On the gates was written wools orphanage.