AN: Well, this is it, my first fic. Please remember, almost every plot hole is part of the over all story, and will be filled later (hence the mystery genre). This story will probably contain graphic violence and light to heavy sexual references. I will not reveal the possible pairings (I haven't fully decided), but I can promise it will not be slash or Harry/Ginny, nor will it be Harry/OC, and it probably won't be Harry/Hermione (so don't be fooled by any interaction). Like all other authors, I'd greatly appreciate review, criticisms, and flames (make em' lulzy pleeze). Particularly if you feel that a sentence or word didn't flow very well. However, "what's gonna happen next?" and "Ooh but what about X, why didn't HE/SHE do anything here?" are a bit futile. I've planned this pretty well, or at least, I'd like to think I did :P.

If anyone wants to grammar beta, I'm looking for one of those, as well as someone to bounce the overall idea and my notes off of (but they will be massively spoiled).

A warning to all those who prefer fics that strictly follow canon, this story will not. The canon universe might be (mostly) the same, but I'll be turning the plot of Harry Potter into something mostly unrecognizable to canon.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor do I own anything in relation to Harry Potter except my plot, and my OC's.

Joseph hated Halloween.

He hadn't always hated Halloween. Of course, he hadn't always been called Joseph, either. He had been born Aled Arwel to a Welsh wizarding family. Now, the name Aled held no meaning to him other than its translation: offspring. Where he had once cursed his father for his lack of originality, he now recognized the importance of anonymity. The anonymous remained hidden always. If one is unnamed, one can hardly be found.

Joseph watched as two young children, a little girl dressed as a witch and another he believed to be a mummy, marched up the steps onto the porch of the house in front of him. 16 Haven Lane was an unassuming white house in the unassuming town of Effingham. Joseph observed the two children as he had countless others in the past three hours, and just like the seventeen other children, they eventually gave up and left after only knocking three times.

Joseph had been watching this house for the past three hours carefully, waiting for it's occupants to signal him. He was nervous. He hadn't been in England for many years, and he didn't plan on staying any longer than he had to. As he watched the children leave number 16's small porch, he began to reminisce about his own childhood.

His family had never celebrated Halloween, neither the muggle nor magical way. They still practiced the ancient holiday of Calan Gaeaf, the first day of winter when spirits roamed the earth. He remembered the small, eight year old boy, anxiously awaiting his turn to place his stone, a small, flat stone with Aled printed on it in his neatest script, into the flames of the Coelcerth. The ancient ritual would supposedly predict who was to die within the year. He remembered clearly waking up the next morning, rushing immediately to the sight of the fire. Sifting through the ashes, he found each of his brothers' stones, then his mother's, and finally his father and grandfather's. His stone hadn't been found. He remembered his dread as he realized it would be his year to die.

His parents had comforted in the usual way, telling him it was a silly old ritual. But having seen his parents so reverently regard the old ways in the past, he could not help but let his fear overcome him. It was that fear that made him reconsider his life, his purpose on Earth. The next November came and went, and Joseph lived. However, the little Welsh boy named Aled died that year.

It had started with his grandfather, who'd died a few months after Calan Gaeaf of old age. Then his father had drowned in the river near their home days before his mother and all three of his brothers met their ends when a bus was mistakenly blown up by the Irish Republic Army. Aled was passed from orphanage to orphanage before his seventeenth birthday, when he officially dropped his name, faked his own death, and moved into the backwaters of society. He had studied hard while at the orphanage, mimicking wand motions and memorizing the incantations written in his grandfather's journal. Using the ancient Welsh magic left to him by his grandfather, Aled made a new name for himself. Joseph, the anonymous man who murdered for a living, all the while running away from the Coelcerth, Calan Gaeaf, and his purported fate.

A crack resounded from in front of him, and Joseph was startled out of his memories. Angered at his loss of focus, the forty-four year old Welsh assassin quickly realized he was late.

"Darfod," whispered Joseph.

A rustling sound emanated as the cocoon of branches that had previously been surrounding him died and crumbled under his weight. He hit the ground with a slight thump, and stood up slowly, straightening and cleaning his brown overcoat as he did so.

After slowly checking the area around him for the third time, Joseph slowly began to walk to the front door of number 17, Haven Lane. He walked up the porch steps and to the large, white door with as much purpose and decisiveness as he could muster, knowing the occupants of the house were watching him closely. He knocked four times and waited.

While he did, he couldn't help but admire in awe the placement of the house. Who would expect the home of such a notoriously bigoted wizard to be in such a place? There was nothing at all that gave away the house as anything more than completely ordinary.

Joseph heard a shuffling beyond the door, and further steeled his resolve. He would go in, negotiate as fast as possible, and then quickly get out of England on the Ministry's next international Portkey.

The door opened a crack, and Joseph could see a thin face peer at him from behind it.

"You have gold?" a crackling, old-sounding voiced asked him. Joseph knew the face attached to the voice, and it took a lot of steel resolve to not recoil when he heard it.

"Of course." Joseph's voice was quiet, deep, and more importantly, held no indication of any accent of any kind, British or otherwise. It was, in that way, a strange voice, but one you could forget almost immediately after hearing. It helped that Joseph rarely used it.

As the door swung open, Joseph gripped his wand, hidden in the right pocket of his coat. 9ΒΌ inches long and made of a very stiff oak, its size made it easy to stash away, as well as quick to draw.

"Come in, quickly. We wouldn't want any of the," the elderly man sneered, "children to see you, now would we?"

Joseph sympathized. He hated children as much as he hated Halloween.

As he crossed the threshold of number 17, and the old man shut the door behind him with a resounding click, Joseph examined the old man in front of him.

Around five foot and eight inches tall with a tightly drawn, thin face and a thatch of now gray hair that covered his eyes, Caractacus Burke matched his description quite nicely.

If Mr. Burke fit his description perfectly, then his house fit him terribly. To Joseph, it seemed much too normal, much too ordinary to belong to the famed dark object collector, even if he was deep in hiding. It had cost him a great deal for Mr. Burke's current address. Even after calling in a few favors and a life debt, the information had cost him a considerable sum.

"I believe you've already been informed of what I might purchase from you." Joseph worded carefully. He was trying his damnedest to not let Burke know just how badly he wanted what he came to buy. Had he pondered for awhile longer, he might have realized that Mr. Burke knew exactly how much he had paid to find him, and therefore knew exactly how badly he wanted to buy from him.

"Yes, yes," Mr. Burke rushed in his speech, "right this way, Mr. Joseph".

With that, Burke walked briskly past his own dining room whilst Joseph followed; through his kitchen, living room, and some sort of den they went until Mr. Burke stopped at a large, black-faced box, which Joseph recognized as a muggle television.

Mr. Burke flicked out his wand, startling Joseph a bit, as he hadn't even seen hints of a wand on Burke's person, and waved it around a few times. In short order, the television was levitated and moved, and the rug it had been resting on rolled up. Mr. Burke then slowly bent down, where he placed his palm on the wooden floor. Joseph heard a few whispered words and a trap door appeared where the floor had once been. Lifting the latch, Mr. Burke gestured towards the ladder.

"I believe you'll find what you're looking for down here." He then began to slowly climb down the ladder.

Slightly impressed with the old man's vitality, Joseph followed after.

Caractacus Burke's underground storeroom fit the man about as well as the house above conflicted with him. Dark and sinister looking objects were stacked upon rows and rows of shelving, a small table with two, seemingly uncomfortable wooden chairs were placed in the center of it all.

"Sit." Burke said in what he must have thought was a charming way. While Mr. Burke was indeed a crafty salesman, it was not his voice that made him such.

Burke, once again flicking his wand, summoned an object from the back of his storage room. As it floated towards him, he noticed Joseph eyeing it with intensity. He smirked as he caught the apparatus, placing it on the small table between them. The small cylindrical clip and omnioculars were certainly among the more interesting of his trinkets, though it was also one of the tamest. It allowed the user to zoom in on a target that the wand with the clip attached was pointed towards. Looking from the wands point of views, the omnioculars provided pinpoint accuracy for a long range spell; perfect for long-distance spell work like assassination. Like all magical items useful for battle, it had been declared dark when it was shown to the Ministry, and the few that had been produced destroyed or confiscated. He'd only managed to get his hands on the original prototype because his brother had known the man who invented it.

"Forty galleons." Joseph offered while still eyeing the omnioculars. Burke's smirk disappeared, replaced by a wide sneer.

"You think me a fool! This is one of a kind! It's worth a few thousand galleons at the very least!" He exclaimed. Joseph looked a bit disgruntled, but persisted with an only slightly higher price, to which Burke also responded similarly. The back-and-forth bargaining continued for a few minuets, both occupants of the basement storage room refusing to back down, or in Joseph's case go up, to the other's level.

"I refuse to take any less than 400 galleons for this precious artifact! It's an old family heirloom of a friend to the Burke family!" Burke pounded the table in front of him in his excitement.

Suddenly, Joseph stood, and a small shock wave of power flipped over the table in front of him. Joseph of course, knew he had cast a silent 'Hypa' charm, meant to push a close-quarters attacker away slightly. Burke, however, had no such luxury of knowing about ancient, silent cast Welsh spells. He had taken the display as one of pure magical force, an impressive display at that. Beyond all of the staunch defiance, Joseph saw the seeds of fear had been planted. He spoke, making sure to keep his wand trained on the elderly Burke.

"You value this no more than you value anything in this blasted basement for its sentimental value." He snarled in what he hoped was a menacing way, before backing down and settling back into his seat. "If I'm to pay such a heavy price for these, I'll be wanting something else as well."

Burke raised an eyebrow. "What else would you be liking, Mr. Joseph?" Joseph gave a cruel smile.

"Surprise me." With that Burke began flicking his wand. A few tattered objects flew in from the shelves around them. He took the first, what appeared to be a large fang, and held it out in front of him.

"The Fang of Bardow, an ancient object that brings strength to the holder's animagus form."

Joseph frowned, "And what use would I have for that? I don't plan on getting into any creature brawls any time soon Burke." Joseph also failed to mention that his animagus form, a seagull, would have little use for the power-up.

Burke mimicked Josephs frown, and put the fang down. Rummaging through the small pile next to him, he pulled out what Joseph recognized as an old Soviet Geiger counter. "And what use would I have for a muggle device? Stop wasting my time, old man."

"Tut, tut," Burke said, "not everything is as it seems. This," he said while patting the Geiger counter, "device detects magical signatures. It can also be set to block out its users signature, so your own magic will never confuse it; quite useful for detecting wards in more isolated areas." Burke smiled when we realized Joseph was interested. He had, as always, made the sale.

"Deal." Joseph reached into the inner pockets of his coat, and took out a large, heavy seeming bag. He pointed at it, and whispered a few words. Burke had, of course, seen such things before. Bags that filled themselves directly from one's vaults, activated by whispering a password and amount. He looked up again and saw Joseph place the now heavier bag unto the table, which he had put back in place a short while ago. "I trust you'll find this is quite enough." Mr. Burke silently cast a weighing spell on the bag. It was indeed enough. The weight of a galleon was almost impossible to mimic, so weighing was a quick and easy way to determine if a correct amount was being paid, as opposed to counting the galleons individually.

With that Joseph picked up the omnioculars, wand clip, and magical Geiger counter, and hurried up Mr. Burke's ladder, and out of number 17 Haven Lane. It would only be a few hours later when Mr. Burke went to count his profit that he would discovered that near half the galleons he had counted by weight before were, in fact, made of iron. After staring in awe for nearly half an hour at the iron coins, and rolling the thought of how brilliant their creator's spell work must be to mimic goblin galleons so perfectly in weight and size with iron, he realized he'd been had. Angry beyond reason, Burke swore himself to revenge. He hadn't been tricked many times, but if there was one thing he could say about his life, it was that Caractacus Burke always completed the sale.

As Joseph began walking away from Haven Lane, he couldn't help but let a wide smile appear on his face. After all, he'd just pulled a fast one over on the slimiest, craftiest, and possible greatest salesman in a century. He silently thanked his friend in the Soviet Union for the iron galleons. It'd cost him a life debt, but saving 200 galleons had certainly been worth it. Quite satisfying, too.

He looked down and began to more closely examine the Geiger counter. Turning it on, it emitted a steady stream of clicks. He pointed it towards himself, and the clicks increased dramatically. Smiling, he fiddled with one of the knobs until the clicking stopped. Satisfied with having tuned it to his magical signature, he was about to turn it off when he heard a faint click. Puzzled, he held the magic detector, as he'd decided to call it, in the air. Sure enough, a slow and steady stream of clicks came. Based on what he knew, there was no magical neighborhood in the county of Surrey. Certainly there were no magical residents in Effingham other than the heavily warded number 17 Haven Lane, but the clicks only came when he pointed the detector away from Burke's house.

He mounted his broom, suddenly determined to follow the stream of clicks to the source of magic. Normally, he would never have been so bold, but working off the high of purchasing exactly what he wanted, for a price much cheaper than he was willing to pay, he zoomed off into the sky following the directions given by the magical detector.

Several minuets later, the clicking of the detector reached a climax. He followed it down into a small neighborhood. He figured he hadn't traveled very far. He was probably still in Surrey. He walked down the street after landing, only slightly bemused by the rows of absolutely identical white houses. He looked up towards a street sign at the corner; it read 'Privet Drive'. He continued down, following the clicking noise of the detector, until he came upon Number Four. Looking up, he saw nothing spectacular about the house, and felt no wards that might indicate a wizarding abode. He doubted a wizard could have hidden in such an ordinary street anyway.

Suddenly, Joseph heard a soft cry. Startled, he looked at its source; the doorstep of number Four, Privet Drive. On it, there was a small basket, and in that, a baby.

Surprised by his findings, Joseph inched forward. By the time he was near the baby, his magic detector was going crazy. The kid was emanating an insane amount of magic. He examined the child and found a scar, in the shape of a lightning bolt, on his forehead. Curious, he slowly brought the magic detector towards the scar. When it was relatively close, the clicking increased to an insane amount, and its handle grew hot in his hands. With a yelp, he dropped it on the ground next to the basket.

Either this kid was the next coming of Merlin, or more likely, Joseph thought, he had been struck by quite the powerful curse. Magical scars were rare, and for one to be giving off this much magical energy... Joseph's thoughts trailed off.

Snapping his head back and forth, Joseph made a decision. Scooping up the basket and the child inside, he quickly disillusioned himself and the child, mounted his broom, and kicked off.

It wasn't until the next day, after hopping on the earliest Portkey of the morning, which happened to be to Paris, that he saw the early morning edition of the magical newspapers and realized the gravity of what he had done. After reading the story of the boy-who-lived, and making a quick double check at his baby's forehead, he did the only thing he had prepared to do in such a situation; he cursed violently and lucratively in all of the seven languages he spoke, and a few that he didn't.