But For a Stone (A Matou Shinji Series AU)

A Harry Potter / Fate Stay Night Story

Disclaimer: Though I wish it were otherwise, I do not own or in any way, shape or form hold a legal or moral claim to elements of either the Nasuverse, the Potterverse, or other works I may reference in the course of this story.

Summary: What if there had never been a Boy-Who-Lived? What if, at the end of the Wizarding War, young Harry Potter had died alongside his mother and father, killed in the explosion that destroyed the house at Godric's Hollow? What if there was no figure of hope for the British Wizarding Community to rally around, just a knowledge of the high cost of victory? And how will Matou Shinji, fresh come into his status as a wizard, adapt in a Hogwarts with no easy route to fame...or notoriety?With this, Shinji's preparations for heading to Britain are now complete. He has a wand, basic school supplies, and books to study - both of which he has a decent aptitude for, and by the time he receives a Portkey to take him to Kings Cross, he feels ready.


Chapter 27. Musings on the Road

Things were silent for a time in the passenger compartment of the limousine, after having discussed such weighty topics. Shinji, at least, didn't have much to say, looking out the window as the scenery sped by, a mottled landscape of whites and browns and greens.

'I thought the West would be more colorful, but it isn't…it's just like rural Japan.'

Well, the houses looked different, but that was a minor thing, really, failing to distract him from his turbulent thoughts.

Between the talk of snogging and dogging and what have you, his mind was in no fit state to concentrate on serious matters, as it kept jumping from visions of murder to lechery and back, despite his best efforts to focus on something else. Anything else.

Which was why it was a welcome thing when Phelan, of all people, broke the silence.

"So, Miss Tonks, who's this Dark Lord fellow?" Phelan asked, his attention fixed on the Auror trainee, who for her part, had just discovered the mini-fridge in the limousine and had proceeded to pour herself a drink. "And why do people call him You-Know-Who?"

"Mm, I'm curious too," Amber chimed in. "That seems like it could lead to some big misunderstandings."

Indeed, such a misunderstanding had occurred only minutes ago, when the Hogwarts alumna had panicked, thinking that the "You-Know-Who" they had been talking about was some long-fallen villain returned to life.

"...I thought everyone knew about him," Tonks replied, after emptying her glass in a single go with. "Huh. It's not firewhiskey, but it's not bad," she mused aloud, frowning as she noticed Matou Shinji looking over at her, his featured pinched and disapproving. "What?"

'...drinking all the time. Just like that man,' the Japanese boy thought with disgust, before he schooled his features back to some semblance of normalcy.

"It's nothing," the boy said, looking away, his body relaxing – only to tense in a different way as Amber squeezed his hand. "Really."

His words convinced exactly no one, though Amber knew him well enough not to push, and Phelan didn't really care, as his attention was elsewhere.

"About You-Know-Who then?" the earl's son asked intently, leaning forward.

"Fine. If you're that interested, I suppose I can tell you what I know," the Auror trainee conceded, after yet another slug of hard liquor. "You have a right to know. And as muggleborn, you wouldn't have heard about any of this, I suppose," Tonks realized, shaking her head. "It's not something I think about much, since I'm not around people your age much." She looked down into the cup filled with amber liquid. "That, and none of you exactly act like muggleborn, since you seem more…confident than most."

"Maybe that's because I'm not muggleborn?" Shinji snarked, though the Hogwarts alumna shook her head.

"No, that's not it. You're the least confident one here, which is odd," Tonks remarked, with Shinji grimacing at how easily he was seen through.

"It's probably because my brother and I are more gently born," Amber replied. "We're both of the Noel family, one of Britain's noble houses."

"...I didn't realize even muggles had traditions like that," Tonks grumbled. "I thought it was just my family."

"Oh? Are you of the nobility too?"

The Auror trainee looked away, as she didn't really want to deal with this topic. She said nothing for about half a minute, sipping from the heady brew in her glass, as if it would give her courage – or at least remove some of her reluctance.

"I am...part of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black," the metamorphmagus said eventually, with her hair growing turning blonde and her skin pale, such that she looked almost like an older – female – version of Draco Malfoy. "Or at least, what's left of it, these days."

"The House of Black?" Amber echoed. "I thought Minister Fudge said that there were no noble houses left since Lord Black left for America...? Was that a lie?"

"It…not exactly," Tonks temporalized. "The House of Black exists in that there are still daughters of the House, but our wealth, our power – that is all gone."

"Oh?" Phelan leaned closer. "How did that happen? The war perhaps?"

He knew that war was a very expensive thing, after all, especially if it ran for any significant length of time.

"Something like that," the Auror trainee remarked with a sigh. "My...uncle, Lord Black, the Last Black – they call him now – fought against You-Know-Who, at Dumbledore's side, as did his best friends. But one of his comrades – one of his oldest friends, was a traitor to the cause and was secretly working with…the Dark Lord. His treachery led to the deaths of Lord Black's closest friends."

"Oh." Phelan didn't know what to say to something like that.

"It also led to the death of You-Know-Who," Tonks related tiredly. "Which Pettigrew brought up during his trial. Even with the Ministry's best efforts – even with Dumbledore's aid, the Dark Lord was winning, until he died facing the Potters." Her face was pale, and Shinji thought he noted signs of something dark just beneath the surface. "The night they died was the night that Wizarding Britain was spared the conqueror's wand. What did the death of one family matter next to something like that?"

"…isn't that the correct conclusion though?" Shinji asked, surprised by the bitterness in the Auror trainee's voice. "Objectively, putting one person in danger to let a hundred or a thousand, live, is the right thing to do."

Wasn't that what heroes – Aurors – did, after all? Using themselves as a shield, a thin red line, between the populace and the threats that lurked in the shadows?

Tonks eyed the Japanese boy for something like a minute, as if finding him rather strange.

"…that's what the Wizengamot thought," she said finally. "Especially since the Order of the Phoenix, who fought the Dark Lord, had already taken the law into its own hands by fighting You-Know-Who. And since Pettigrew was the Potters' Secret-Keeper, and their most trusted friend, the Wizengamot ruled that what was thought a betrayal must have been another reckless stratagem the Order had devised. One which worked, where nothing else had."

She smiled, but the expression was a grim one.

"Victory, you see, washes away any number of sins," she murmured. "And so, not only did Pettigrew not go to prison, he was awarded an Order of Merlin, First Class, for engineering the stratagem that brought down the Dark Lord. The Potters, who died defeating the Dark Lord, were also accorded that honor."

"…Lord Black couldn't accept that, could he?" Amber noted quietly.

"He couldn't, no," Tonks affirmed. "He said, quite publicly, that a Britain which honored traitors like Pettigrew was a Britain he wanted no part of. So he sold off the family house and holdings, emptied the accounts, and left for the New World." She shook her head. "The Black family more or less ceased to exist as a power after that, with the Malfoys buying everything they once owned. Which just means that Aunt Narcissa effectively controls what once belonged to Uncle Sirius now, just as she would have even if Uncle hadn't sold everything off."

"Ah. But why?"

"Because Mum had been disowned, and my uncle forgot he could do something about that in his hatred for Britain," Tonks noted, with Amber wincing sympathetically. "So as the only Black left in Britain, Aunt Narcissa became the acting head of the family."

"Ah."

"It hasn't been all bad, I suppose," the Auror trainee noted. "She let Mum back into the Black family after Dad died, and even passed the title of family head to her, since Mum has no competing interests, unlike Aunt Narcissa. Still… that's largely a formality, since we don't actually own anything of note these days."

"That sounds...complicated," Phelan grunted. It reminded him of some of those noble arrangements he didn't really care for.

"Does that mean you might be the heiress of House Black?" Amber asked, with the Auror trainee's lips pressing together at the girl's query.

"Who knows?" she replied, almost diffidently. "But I've gone my whole life just being Tonks, and I'm not about to ask people to call me Lady Black or some rot."

"Then Miss Tonks it will always be," the Earl's son said gallantly, bowing slightly.

The earl's daughter wasn't especially pleased with that answer, but she didn't press the issue, as she thought people should have a right to choose their fates, not have destiny thrust upon them.

Not that the world worked that way.

One could rarely choose the hand one was dealt, only how one played one's cards.

"I believe you were going to tell us about You-Know-Who?" she said instead, noting that the older woman had – on several occasions now – tried to distract them from asking more about the dark wizard. "If you don't mind, that is."

"I do, but seeing as all of you want to know, I'll tell you what I can," Tonks relented, glancing at the walls of the car, as if trying to gauge how quickly they were moving. "Odd. From the window, it looks like the world is flying by, but I don't feel the wind on my face."

"Miss Tonks…"

The woman bit her lip.

"Fine," she said flatly. "Was there something in particular you wanted to know?"

"Well, how about something easy: who was he?" Shinji asked, deciding to get the obvious out of the way. "Who was the Dark Lord that people speak of only as You-Know-Who, over a decade after he died?"

It seemed his request was not as simple as he'd imagined though, as the Auror trainee did not reply immediately.

"What I know is that he called himself Lord V-voldemort, and that those who fought on his side were mostly purebloods," the older woman answered as Shinji was beginning to grow impatient.

"That sounds almost french," Amber mused. "Flight of Death or something, maybe. Was he a foreigner, perhaps?"

But the Hogwarts alumna shook her head.

"I don't think so," the Auror trainee said, her face morphing into something like what Amber might look like in a few years' time. "A foreigner wouldn't have gained the loyalty of the purebloods so easily. He didn't speak like one either, but I didn't bother with foreign tongues or the like."

"Ah."

"Wherever he came from though, he was powerful though," Tonks admitted. "They say Dumbledore is the only one he ever feared." The woman shook her head. "But this is just wot I heard. He was before my time."

Her answer raised more questions than it laid to rest, however.

"...Dumbledore?" the Japanese boy echoed, looking rather confused. "But why would a Dark Lord fear a Headmaster?"

While it was true that the heads of some schools in Japan were strict disciplinarians, whose iron-fisted rule over their institutions struck fear into the hearts of their students, he didn't think a Dark Lord whose name struck fear into an entire country would have anything to fear from a mere teacher. After all, the boy found it unlikely, at best, that the head of a school would just happen to have incredible prowess in the martial and magical arts.

'Well, unless we're talking about the Director of Atlas or the head of the Clock Tower, but those are two of the Association's Great Branches.'

Hogwarts, on the other hand, was a school for children and teenagers – and certainly no place for a master of various arts to keep up one's skills.

'Unless maybe the Headmaster used to be famous when he was young or something?'

Shinji thought that was rather unlikely, as—

"Y-you mean, you don't know?!" Tonks all but squawked. "How can you—"

"You'll have to excuse Matou," Amber interjected. "He doesn't find Binns' lectures particularly compelling."

The Auror trainee looked as if she ha bitten into a particularly sour lemon at that response.

"...I'm not one to judge, I s'ppose," she grumbled. "Still, to think you don't know that Dumbledore ended the Global Wizarding War..."

'The Global Wizarding War? The headmaster did?'

Something like that strained the limits of credulity nearly beyond recognition.

'It doesn't make any sense. If he'd done something like that, why wouldn't he be Minister of Magic or something? Besides, if this was something like a world war, I'm sure I would have heard about it before now.'

Or perhaps he had – maybe the events had been mixed up with those of World War II or something, since he knew that the Third Reich had been quite curious about the possibility of enhancing their warfighting abilities by dabbling in the occult.

There had been Nazis in the Third Grail War – or so he'd heard once. Apparently, some Yggdmillennia fellow had attempted to steal its power for their own use, with his grandfather defeating the man and his minions handily.

"...ended the war, you say?" Shinji echoed, finding it difficult to picture someone as unsophisticated and eccentric as the headmaster in some position of responsibility that would let him do something like that. "Did he broker a peace treaty or something? Convince people to come to the negotiating table through a sternly worded letter?"

Neither of these would make him feared though, so…

"He fought a duel," Tonks corrected, perhaps a bit more peevishly than she meant to. "One of the longest and most brilliant duels in the history of the world, against the dark wizard Grindelwald, whose reign of terror had brought Wizarding Europe to its knees."

"…really?" Shinji asked, more than a bit skeptical.

"Yes, really," the Auror trainee insisted. "You don't believe me?"

"You're telling me that someone like the headmaster fought a duel against a criminal capable of bringing low entire countries," Shinji stated bluntly. "That he won. And that after winning he…became a schoolteacher?"

"He was already a Professor at Hogwarts before that," Tonks corrected mildly. "I think he taught transfiguration?"

"…that's even more unbelievable," the Japanese boy grunted. "I don't suppose anyone actually saw the duel in its entirety, did they?"

"Well, no…," Tonks admitted. "There were witnesses, but none of them saw the whole thing from beginning to end. Those two…were apparently on a whole other level compared to most wizards."

"Did anyone see how the duel ended?"

"A few," the young woman revealed. "They don't know the exact method by which Dumbledore did it, since they were casting silently, but he managed to disarm Grindelwald and strike him down. He left with the body of the dark wizard, presumably to dispose of it somewhere no one could find." Tonks shrugged. "Personally, I think he just thought even a criminal deserved a proper burial, instead of having his body desecrated, as many would have wished."

"…or maybe Dumbledore didn't kill Grindelwald," Shinji mused aloud. "Maybe he left the man alive because they were friends or something."

"W-why would you even think something like that?" the Auror trainee asked, her expression one of utter horror as she stared at the Japanese boy as if he was some kind of...alien.

Which in a legal sense, he supposed was, but...it wasn't like he had two heads or something. Well...he supposed that maybe he did if one counted his berserk state as another entity, but...

"Because no one else ever confirmed what happened?" Shinji answered. Wasn't it just common sense that one should never take someone's word as enough, especially where matters like life and death were concerned? "No one saw what he did with the body or confirmed Grindelwald's death. No one saw the entire duel from beginning to end." The boy shook his head. "How do you know the person who fought really was Dumbledore anyway, not someone wearing his skin or pretending to be him? Maybe a…metamorphmagus, someone like you? Or someone using a potion?"

"I…" Tonks was speechless before the boy's tirade, and rather disbelieving at how far he would try to go to reject what she told him – something that everyone in Britain knew to be true. It…she shook her head and sighed, letting out a particularly long exhalation. "Think what you will. It's of no concern to me, really," she half-growled.

"So…what did Voldemort want?" Phelan asked, almost lightly, trying to banish the awkward atmosphere that lingered in the wake of Matou's acerbic skepticism about a true hero.

"...what every dark wizard in history has ever wanted," the Auror trainee replied simply. "Power."

"But if he was strong enough that the only one he feared was a hero who ended a world war, then why would he need to seek more than that?" the earl's son questioned, trying to understand the motives of this Dark Lord, only to flinch as Tonks turned her gaze on him.

"Dark wizards never have enough power. That's just how they are," she said flatly, words that greatly unnerved the boy. "Like dementors, they are always hungry. Never satisfied, no matter how much they gain, or how far they come." Then she smiled, an expression that was altogether false. "Now, I rather think it might be a good thing to ask about something else, don't you?"

"W-well, how about your days at Hogwarts?" Amber inquired with a cheer that rang just as hollow. "Surely you must have adventures you could share? Or perhaps you were a prefect."

"Heh. I was never a prefect," Tonks corrected. "My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities."

"Like what?" Phelan asked.

Tonks' lips curved up ever so slightly, though this time, it was genuine.

"Like the ability to behave myself."

Shinji found this quite odd, given that she had decided to go into law enforcement. If she couldn't be trusted to follow the law, or to enforce rules at Hogwarts, why had she been hired to enforce the Ministry's?

"Well, since you were obviously up to no good," Shinji inquired mildly. "Did you happen to discover anything interesting during your time as a student? Secret passages or things like that?"

"A few," Tonks admitted. "I might even tell you about them if you make it worth my while." She eyed the first years speculatively. "Not that knowing the ones inside the castle will do you much good if Filch finds you. He knows 'em all too, see?" Then she blinked, as if remembering something. "…no, that's right, Filch is dead, isn't he? Can't believe he of all people got an Order of Merlin…"

"Yes," Shinji answered, though he couldn't quite meet Tonks' eyes. "I...I couldn't save him," the boy said, his lips pressing together tightly. This was, strictly speaking, quite true.

"If your Defense Professor couldn't save him, then you shouldn't be blaming yourself," Tonks replied, her words a bit brusque. "Unless you think you're at the same level as Quirrell."

"I…no, but—"

"Well, since that's settled, who's the new caretaker?" the Auror trainee asked, her voice quite casual – too casual – by Shinji's estimation.

"...I don't know," the Japanese boy admitted. "I haven't been paying attention."

"I think that Hagrid fellow is filling in for now," Amber supplied helpfully. "The one who is supposed to start classes as a third-year student next year."

There had been something in the paper about how new evidence in the Chamber of Secrets had exonerated the half-giant from any involvement in the death of Myrtle Warren, meaning that he could continue his long-interrupted education at Hogwarts, starting as a 3rd year. Of course, the investigation had also implicated him in the trafficking of exotic animals such as acromantulae, a finding which had disqualified him from receiving any reparations from the Ministry, or from receiving the usual financial aid offered to most students, so to cover the cost of his tuition, he would continue to be working for the school.

"Ah, Hagrid, huh?" Tonks echoed. "Good fellow, that. Or so I hear."

"How can someone who breaks the law be a good person?" Phelan asked, though he notably did not look at Tonks while he asked this.

"Sometimes, people have their reasons. Sometimes people make mistakes. And sometimes, people actually don't know better," the Auror trainee replied. "Not that I'll admit to saying that, mind. I'm an officer of the law, after all."

"Or perhaps it just depends on the law?" Amber mused aloud. "Some are well and good. Some are well-meaning and ineffectual. Some are just better off ignored."

"I can't encourage people to ignore the law," Tonks said flatly. "Would cost me my job. But yes, sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Sometimes, people do the wrong thing for the right reasons." She shook her head. "And sometimes, what you do isn't as important as the context in which you do it," Tonks noted. "It's like...people call Dumbledore a hero for killing Grindelwald, but if he'd killed the man before his rise to power, he'd have just been a murderer."

"So, a crime is only a crime-"

"When people agree it's a crime," the Auror trainee noted. "If enough people, especially those in power, agree something isn't a crime, then it isn't. That's how society works."

"And what if the people are wrong? What if say, the Dark Lord had won and taken over the Ministry, with the people's blessing?" Amber questioned. "Would this Voldemort then be in the right? Would it then be evil for Dumbledore to keep opposing him?"

"...huh. I hadn't thought about that," Tonks admitted, shaking her head. "Binns never asked this sort of thing, you know."

"Class would be more interesting if he did," the copper-haired girl noted. "Instead he just drones on and on. Not a very good way to make us care about the past. As Matou here can attest."

"Huh? What was that about Binns?" Shinji asked, not quite following the conversation on ethics and morality. He'd never bothered studying such things himself, as magi didn't really find such things useful…

"You see my point?" Amber was saying.

"...yes, I believe I do," the Auror trainee remarked with some amusement. "But unless Binns leaves of his own accord or Dumbledore fires him, that's how things will be, since no one will apply to replace him if there's no opening. Even if we all wanted Binns binned."

Phelan made a face, while a sound suspiciously like "Ugh" escaping Shinji's lips.

'Maybe I should look into necromancy a bit more,' the Japanese boy thought to himself. 'It might be a good way to get rid of Binns.'

If he remembered correctly, there were rituals that would allow him to sacrifice human souls for power, and it wasn't as if he'd be hurting something that was actually alive.

In fact, he'd be doing Binns – and everyone else – a favor, right? Since it would help them advance their education, what evil he did would be justified in the name of the Greater Good.

"And what if he oh…moves on one day?" Shinji asked. "Goes to the other side."

"Eh, that doesn't happen to ghosts," Tonks replied. "Once they choose to become ghosts, they're forever bound to this plane of existence."

"Huh. And there's no magic that can change that?"

That…wasn't how ghosts worked, as far as Shinji knew. Unless these ghosts weren't souls in their entirety, just impressions of them.

"Not that I know of," the woman answered. "Spells to seal them into an item, if they're being a right nuisance, sure, but making them move on?" the Auror trainee shrugged. "Maybe the Unspeakables know. They do all sorts of strange things down in the Department of Mysteries."

"The Department of Mysteries?" Amber echoed, recalling something. "You didn't give us a tour of that place when we were at the Ministry."

"And I'm not going to talk about it. Like I said, I value my job. And my freedom."

"Your freedom, huh?"

"Talking about what they do there, or learning about it without authorization, could lead to being thrown into Azkaban," Tonks informed the copper-haired girl..

'Ah."

'Mysteries, huh?' Shinji mused. 'Perhaps that's where the truly interesting bits of witchcraft are researched. Everything else so far is so...tame.'

Wave a wand, produce some physical effect – that was about all he'd seen.

Nothing that dealt with concepts. Nothing that affected the spirit…except for curses.

'Well, I'm still a first year. Maybe that has something to do with why I'm not seeing more interesting things.'

Even so, the fact remained that what he had access to wasn't enough.

He wanted – no, needed – more.

"Enough boring talk," Phelan interjected. "Tell us more about your adventures."

"Well, there was the time that someone, who will remain anonymous, laced the castle's pumpkin juice supply with love potions," the young woman said matter-of-factly. "Everyone did quite a bit of snogging that night. Filch just about went spare."

"Love potion?" Amber echoed. "Isn't that a bit…"

"Oh, not the stuff that makes people feel things for other people. Just the stuff which erases all their inhibitions. Let's them act on all the desires and frustration they normally hide from the world." She smiled, ever so slightly. "Funny, how so many avowed enemies - especially Slytherins and Gryffindors - found their way into broom closets together, after a bit of dueling."

"What? Why?"

"Well, when you think about someone all the time, wondering where they are, what they're doing, how they'll feel when you finally best them, the lines between love and hate tend to blur. Especially when people grow obsessed or fixated. Wanting to impress a potential partner isn't that different from wanting acknowledgement from a rival as some people think," Tonks said with something much like a smirk. "Things like love and hate aren't opposites, really. If you didn't care about someone at all, you wouldn't hate them with all your heart, and dedicate every fibre of your being to proving yourself to them, or showing them up. You just wouldn't think of them at all."

For some reason, Shinji felt a chill go down his spine as he listened to her words about obsession and rivalry, but for the life of him, he couldn't quite think of why.

Before he could think of why, however, Phelan cut in, his words a welcome distraction…

"Say, about those secret passages…" the earl's son said, glancing at Tonks. "You said you wouldn't mind telling us about them?"

"I said I might, if you made it worth my while," the Auror trainee amended. "And you haven't gotten to that point yet, Mister Noel."

"Then what do I need to do?"

"Why, Mister Noel, didn't anyone tell you that it's a man's job to figure that out?" Tonks teased, her expression coy, as her features shifted once more, letting her take on the appearance of a tall, willowy blonde with brilliant green eyes – almost like what Selina might look like in some years' time. "I'll let you know if I'm…satisfied."

"R-right."

For some reason, the earl's son turned quite red indeed.