What if Isobel died at the same time as Reginald Crawley? What if Patrick Crawley died of a childhood disease? What if Matthew is forced to become the heir and move to the abbey after the loss of his parents, how will he cope?

Completely AU, none of the ages are right, nor are the deaths but they needed to be this way for the story to work, get over it its fan fiction

Matthew's POV

Matthew Crawley was neither happy to have his life moved from Manchester, where his parents were buried, where his school was, where all his friends were, to Downton Abbey or pleased to find out he was the heir to the place. He was still grieving and desperately wanted to stay in the place that held the most memories of his parents for him, he didn't particularly want to live with strangers, of course he had met Cousin Robert when he came to see him but that didn't mean he knew him. However as he was only just 14 he didn't really have much choice in the matter. His schooling had been changed as his new guardian wanted him to be taught somewhere appropriate for the new heir of Downton and so he would be going to Eton come fall.

Cousin Robert had told him all about the new family he had never met, the Dowager Countess Violet, who certainly sounded like an interesting character. The countess of Grantham or Cousin Cora as he was supposed to call her now, who was actually American, and of course his three younger cousins, Mary who was a year younger than him, Edith who was 10 being almost four years younger than him and finally Sybil who was currently 5 years old. He was slightly terrified of meeting his cousins, them being girls and all; he hadn't really had much contact with girls near to his own age.

He had been on the very early train deciding that if he was up he might as well go he couldn't exactly put it off any longer after all. He knew he would arrive far too early at the Abbey so he assumed no one would be up, not even the fleet of servants he was sure they had. He resolved himself to sitting on the doorstep until someone found him. As the car pulled up at the front of the house he got out and looked up in awe at the house he was to live in now.

Mary's POV

As the only real light sleeper in the house Mary was the only consistently early riser, usually she would stay in her room until it was a respectable time to get up. However it wasn't every morning that she woke up to the sound of tyres coming up the drive way, remembering that HE was supposed to be coming today she pulled on a robe and slippers and quietly ran down the stairs. It wouldn't any good for another heir to die of the cold before she'd even had a chance to meet him. Mary knew that the only way she would be able to keep Downton would be to marry him, after all that's what she ha told everyday by her mother ever since her fifth birthday. It was Patrick now it was this new boy.

She got to the receiving hall in time to see him stepping from the car through the window, she couldn't really see much after all it was only five in the morning and still dark outside, however it would only be half an hour and the servants would be up so she wouldn't have to entertain him for too long. She pulled the heavy lock across the door and opened it slightly seeing that the car had already left the driveway,

"I assume your Matthew then"

He leapt what seemed to be five feet in the air and yelped, she smirked slightly at the image,

"What, oh yes that's me."

"Well then Matthew, it's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Mary, the girl that was meant to be a boy well at least according to my father," she murmured the last bit.

Ignoring her last comment he replied, "Well nice to meet you."

"Yes, yes, come in before you catch a chill, we can't have another heir dying can we?"

She could see he had completely missed the sarcasm, she smiled he seemed to be so naïve but he was older than her so she couldn't really tell him that to his face.

"Come on I can take you to the parlour while we wait for someone to wake up. So are you excited to live here it certainly is a good place to grow up, imagine all this space just to roam around in." she said with a wistful air. As they walked in to the parlour she smirked very slightly as his extremely awed look,

"Yes, it's beautiful, isn't it? One day all this will be yours," and hopefully mine she added in her head, he didn't seem too bad, he hadn't really said anything but she supposed she hadn't given him much time.

"It's strange, one minute I was a doctor's son now I'm heir to all of this, I'll do my best but I don't think my best will be enough for all this." He said.

"Of course it will, you will end up loving Downton just as much as Papa does; he's always said that Downton was his fourth child. Don't worry your not your own you have us all to help you to make sure you get there. So do you ride?"

"Well no there wasn't any need in Manchester and before you ask I can't shoot either."

"Really, well then I just suppose I'll have to teach you then, not the shooting of course, papa will handle all that but I can certainly teach you to ride, we'll start in a couple of days, after all we only have a few months to get you ready for Eton."

At that moment the scullery maid walked in to start the fire.

"Ah, finally someone's up, could you fetch Carson please and tell him the Matthew Crawley has arrived early."

"Of course ma'am, right away ma'am," the maid said stuttering slightly as she rushed out of the room.

"Who was that?" Matthew asked, "Oh just the scullery maid, she lights all the fires in the morning", she said dismissively.

That was when Matthew realised that things really were going to be very different at Downton and he best get used to it quickly.