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 44. Conversations

Unlike Selina Moore, the storyteller who enjoyed sharing tidbits from her many adventures, Matou Shinji was a much more private individual. Were it up to him, he wouldn't be talking about his past to yet another person, but well…he owed Selina some answers, after the events of the scenario.

…in particular, the part where he'd summoned dark lightning to erase a simulacrum of his grandfather from the world, while laughing.

She'd agreed not to speak of it to anyone else, in exchange for as full an explanation as he was willing to provide at a later date, and well, after a week or so had gone by and he thought she'd forgotten, he'd received a note from her at breakfast, asking if he'd found some time for them to chat.

'She's never going to let it go,' he'd realized, with it dawning on him that refusing to talk to the person he would be spending the summer with could make things very awkward indeed. Or could even lead to him being…disinvited from their summer trip in favor of something else, something which the boy did not want to see happen. Not because he wanted to go to France, mind you, but because he'd had enough of being passed over, of being set aside, of being replaced.

So he'd written her a note inviting her to a picnic by the lake, figuring that if they were to talk about such weighty matters, it might as well be somewhere where others were unlikely to come by, and that things might go easier if the blonde was disarmed by the promise of good weather and good food to go with the answers she sought.

Thankfully she'd agreed, and so the late morning found them setting up for said picnic by the gnarled tree at the shore, assisted by House Elves laded with buckets of fried chicken, fried potato wedges, and a salad of various boiled greens topped with slices of egg. It was admittedly a good contrast to their last experience with a great body of water, with trolls and other vile creatures popping out of nowhere to ambush them.

Shinji mentioned as such, with Selina chuckling slightly.

"Well, it's not as if we would ever have to fight a troll while at school, right?" the girl commented wryly. "After all, Hogwarts is supposed to be 'the safest place in all of Wizarding Britain,' since people care about children more than anything else."

"And if you believe that, I have some ancient relics I'd like to sell you," Shinji replied, his voice dry as bone. "Why, I'll even throw in information on a ritual some…practitioners use to pass their knowledge on. Something about carving the knowledge into yourself and making a circuit…"

"Heh. You know, I wouldn't put it past some wizards, but…I don't think you'd have any reason to know about such things." Selina mentioned pointedly.

"…point. I've only ever heard of it," the boy added defensively.

"Right…" Selina grunted, shaking her head. "About the scenario then? There were things you wanted to talk about. Things you didn't want other people to hear?"

There was a long moment of silence.

"Well, it gave me more respect for Weasley, if that's what you mean," Shinji joked, remembering how the redheaded boy had somehow managed to escape the dangers of that scenario.

The blonde rolled her eyes.

"You know very well what I mean, Matou," she retorted, with the boy's face falling as she did.

"Right. Well…where do I even begin?" he asked, having little idea of what she wanted to hear. There had been so much that had happened – the encounter with the false version of his grandfather, the origin of his odd powers, the fact that he had…issues…

Or how, in the end, he'd been able to turn his hatred of his grandfather and everything the archmagus represented into a terrible weapon…

"Normally, one would begin at the beginning, but before that…"

"Yes…?" the boy inquired.

"Well, first things first – did you invite anyone else to this picnic, or is it just the two of us?" Selina asked with a sultry smile, looking up at the boy through her lashes.

Shinji blinked.

"Uh, well…Natsumi and Amber are on their way," he responded after a moment. "I…we've talked about things like…like this before," he added, by way of explanation.

There was a beat, with only the sound of the wind and water filling the silence, before…

"You trust them, even with your secrets," the blonde murmured, something quite unreadable in her voice.

"Some of them," the boy admitted. "Others…"

"You have more, then?"

Shinji looked pointedly at the self-professed adventuress.

"Doesn't everyone?"

"…touché."


If asked, Shinji would have said that the reason he invited Natsumi and Amber to join them was because they could fill in details that he glossed over and provide some objectivity to the discussion. He wouldn't have admitted (or perhaps would only have admitted under extreme duress) that he'd asked them to be here because he didn't want to talk about his past without some sort of emotional support, and well, he didn't want to bother senpai, as she was busy with one thing or another.

And to be frank, he needed the support, since speaking about his family – even just his grandfather, not his…sister, was difficult for him.

Indeed, as he spoke, a dark haze was visible around his body, almost making his image shimmer or perhaps sparkle in the afternoon sun. What he shared – it wasn't everything, wasn't even close to everything, but it was enough for Selina to get an idea of the darkness within Matou Shinji's heart of hearts.

"Yeah, I'm afraid, but I told myself that if I have to be afraid, I might as well turn fear into power," he muttered, with Natsumi reaching out and squeezing his hand supportively. "Fear, anger, hate – for so long, these things tormented me because I was…" His voice hitched, and he swallowed. "…because I was powerless, compared to people like th—like my grandfather. Well, no more. No more. No more."

For a long moment, silence reigned, with none of those present knowing just what to say. Eventually though, Selina broke the silence.

"I had no idea that was how you became a warlock," the bespectacled blonde murmured softly. "To make the darkness into your power…you are stronger than you let on."

"...even if I am, I'm not yet strong enough," Shinji replied, shaking his head. "Even if I can erase constructs, can unmake things made with witchcraft...it's not enough." He sighed heavily, swallowing. "It's not enough," he repeated. "I need…I need to do more, to become more."

"'More' you say?" Amber asked quietly.

"That's right. More," the boy said. "Until it's finally enough."

"…and what would be enough?" she pressed.

The boy's expression was almost sad as he heard the question, his lips twisting in an odd way, as if the very notion of something being enough was almost absurd. Yet, if that was what he thought, he didn't speak such words aloud.

"When I possess a power that can twist the laws of cause and effect, reverse black and white, overturn the order of the World," the boy stated, his eyes intent and intense with a fervor bordering on madness. "A power that can remake what has been unmade, can unmake things set in stone. A power that comes from reaching the root of all creation…" He smiled brittlely. "Something like that."

"…that…that doesn't sound like something a person can actually do," Amber tried to point out, but Shinji shook his head.

"Some have managed it," he disagreed. "You've even met one of them – one of the five who remain in the modern age."

"The five...?" Natsumi echoed, brows furrowed in concentration. "Who…?"

"Well, Miss Blue, for one," the boy pointed out. "The Master of the Fifth Magic."

"...the woman from the museum?"

"Yes."

"...she didn't look that scary," Selina murmured thoughtfully, glancing between the Japanese boy and his two female friends. "But I suppose power doesn't have to be immediately obvious."

"Even if she's a monster, she's still human," Shinji muttered, shaking his head. "It's not like she's a Dead Apostle or something."

"A…what?" Amber echoed. "Did you say Dead Apostle?"

"Eh, like a vampire, but even more deadly," the boy explained. "It's not important – you wouldn't run into one around Hogwarts." Then he paused, as something about that statement seemed to ring false to him, though he wasn't sure what. "At least, probably not. One would have no reason to be here."

"You called Miss Blue a monster…as if you were terrified of her," the blonde said, trying to return the conversation to its original flow. "Why?"

"Because she is one of the five most terrifying beings in the world, unbound by any rules other than those she chooses to follow," the boy replied, shaking his head. "No practitioner – no army in the modern age – could stand against her if she desired their end. Someone like me – she could have erased me with a thought, and made the world forget I existed in the next."

"I—I wouldn't forget!" Natsumi spoke up, puffing out her cheeks indignantly. "Even if Miss Blue wanted me to!"

Shinji, startled by the brunette's outburst, glanced over at here, finding that his chest felt…warm as he drank in the feelings behind her words, even if she said was impossible. Opposing a Magician…it couldn't really be done unless one either was a magician or something far beyond human.

"I…it would be nice if that were true," the boy whispered, a look of profound loneliness writ across his features. "If you could defy her like that. But you can't…"

"...she's that powerful?" Natsumi questioned, her eyebrows rising in shock from the revelation.

"She is," Shinji stated solemnly. "Powerful enough that opposing her would be ruinous, unless you were as powerful as she."

"Then I'll become that powerful," the brunette replied, just as solemnly. "One day, you and I will both gain that sort of power, and through power, we will gain victory. Maybe not over her, but over our fears, over the things we tell ourselves. And through victory…our chains will be broken."

Shinji was taken aback by this declaration, but nodded.

"…well, we can certainly try. It depends on if we can, you know."

"No, it doesn't. It's not a matter of can or can't," Natsumi pressed. "Some things in life, you just do."

"…just like that?"

"Well, no, but you're a Hufflepuff. You can't be afraid of hard work," the Japanese girl quipped, with the boy smiling weakly at that.

"You've got me there," Shinji conceded.

"So, about Miss Blue," Selina chimed in, "How is it we don't learn about people like her?"

To this, the Hufflepuff boy shrugged.

"Maybe the Ministry doesn't know. Maybe its terrified. Maybe it just thinks there's no point – I don't know, and I don't really want to find out."


The other odd conversation that Shinji found himself involved came unexpectedly, with the boy being sent a missive at breakfast directing him to head to a specific room in the Castle at dinner time. Said room was on the seventh floor of Hogwarts, across from a tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy attempting to train trolls in ballet, and when he arrived, he found Miyuki-senpai gesturing for him to enter, closing the door behind him once he did.

His eyes glanced about the room, finding it to be a near-perfect replica of the Headmaster's office, with magical looking instruments scattered all over the shelves, a pile of books on the desk, and a small round table around which the others who had been invited for the evening were seated.

Hermione Granger and Nigel Wroxton from Ravenclaw.

Natsumi and Ernie from Hufflepuff.

"Did you…ask us all to come here tonight, Senpai?" the boy asked after he took a seat, turning to the older girl who'd sat down next to him with a touch of concern. Could it be…that she had called them together to let them know she was leaving? But no…if that were so, there would be no reason to invite Granger, and Amber would be present, so…

"No, such was my doing," a voice spoke from behind him, with Shinji (and the others) turning just in time to see a familiar looking face appear out of thin air, with the rest of Sialim Sokaris quickly following suit. Unlike her guests, who were dressed in black Hogwarts robes, the dusky-skinned girl was dressed in a flowing white gown, with her arms bare, save for a pair of golden armlets. "It is good that you have all come."

"What's going on, Sokaris?" Nigel spoke up, the grey-haired boy seeming torn between worry and curiosity. "Why call us all here tonight?"

"Of those at Hogwarts, you have been more than passing acquaintances," the purple-haired girl replied solemnly. "As such, it is…appropriate that you are informed I will not be returning the following year."

"Wha—" Hermione Granger nearly fell out of her seat in shock, saved from a nasty crash by the intervention of Natsumi, who absently gestured with her hand, setting the Ravenclaw girl back in her place. "Why?" she whispered hollowly, her features pale. "Why won't you be coming back?"

"I have been offered a position at another institution," Sialim Sokaris responded, her expression not changing a hint in the face of Hermione's distress. "One more suited to the study of Alchemy."

"Ah."

There was little that Hermione – or anyone in the room – could say when confronted with that, as it was obvious to all of them that Hogwarts was perhaps not the best school for such, especially now that its Headmaster – a former pupil of Nicholas Flamel – had been missing for months, with no sign that he would ever return.

"Where will you go?" Shinji found himself asking.

"I doubt a British practitioner of witchcraft would recognize the name," Sokaris replied quietly, "as it is located on another continent."

"I see," Nigel said, after a moment of silence. "Why...like this?"

"It was the most efficient way."

The nature of the response stopped most of the first years cold.

"…tell them the rest, Sokaris," the voice of Miyuki Tsuji broke in, with the dusky-skinned girl nodding.

"It was the most efficient way, as you may discuss which of my possessions you desire."

"That is, the curriculum at her new institution is quite different from Hogwarts, and so she is giving away most of what she purchased for her time here," the raven-haired Hufflepuff supplied. "Six objects, enough for each one of us to have one."

One by one, the girl in question placed items were placed on the table.

A set of first through fifth year schoolbooks, each annotated by the eccentric Ravenclaw.

A pass permitting "the bearer" access to the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library, home to some of the more expensive – and dangerous – tomes stored at the school, signed by Professor Quirrell himself.

A large, curiously blank piece of parchment.

A flute wrought of what seemed like glass, with intricate patterns etched along the interior which seemed almost like runes.

The enchanted cloak she'd worn to conceal her presence when they'd all arrived.

And last, but not least…

"No…you're…you're giving up your wand?" Hermione whispered, the finality of her friend's imminent departure underlined by the fact that she was offering them the instrument through which she wielded magic – a wand wrought of wood from an ancient olive tree, with a chimera scale – one of the rarest materials in the magical world – as a core. "But…why?"

"I have no further need of it," Sokaris replied evenly, with Hermione reeling as if struck.

"B-but wands choose witches, don't they?" the Ravenclaw brunette asked plaintively. "And you would just…you would just abandon it?"

"I have no particular attachment to this wand, nor does it have any particular attachment to me," the purple-haired girl stated bluntly. "It is an old and finely made instrument, but another Code may be better suited for what I am now."

Shinji blinked.

'…Code…?' he echoed in his mind, his thoughts working furiously. 'As in…a Mystic Code…?' But why…would she know that term? It wasn't a term anyone who wasn't a magus – or who knew of them – would readily use, after all, so… 'Who are you…?'

Admittedly, he'd wondered that about the girl for quite a while now, ever since his demon form had recoiled from the mere thought of attacking her, but it was also a question he was careful not to give too much thought to, lest he find the answers he sought and be destroyed by them.

After all, either she was like him, a scion of a family of magi who was had little power of her own…or she wasn't.

And if she wasn't…

…well, there were reasons the boy carefully tried not to think about things too much.

"Do none of you desire this wand?" Sokaris inquired, looking from one guest to the next as her fingers stroked the wooden instrument in question. Most looked down, unwilling to give an answer – except for Shinji, who found himself nodding when her eyes met his.

"I-I'll take it," the boy spoke up, with the purple-haired girl nodding as she handed the implement to him.

"Then it is yours," she said simply.

"…what are the magical properties of a wand made with chimera scale?" Nigel voiced, perhaps seconds too late. "Or olive wood, for that matter. I don't know much of wands or wandlore, but I do know that Ollivander doesn't use such materials in his wands."

"Such materials are not available to him," Sokaris replied. "Olive trees do not grow in Britain. Chimerae are extinct within the domain of man."

"And their properties?"

"Power enough to match any modern wand, and resilience against the most destructive energies of our Craft," the dusky-skinned girl remarked, something that made Shinji sit up straighter. After the holly and phoenix feather wand he'd wielded alongside his wand of cherry and worm, had been destroyed due to him channeling the darkness inside him, he'd thought that he might not be able to use such an ability again – or that at least, it would be very expensive and impractical to do so. But if this wand could survive even his most destructive abilities… 'This has possibilities.'

"I-I see," the boy replied, bowing low in his seat. "Thank you for this, Sokaris!"

In the wake of Shinji's decision to accept the most significance-laden of the objects, the others turned to dividing up the rest of Sokaris' possessions, immediately hitting a snag over the disposition of her books, as Nigel, Natsumi, and Hermione all wanted them – and had, at least in their minds, fairly compelling reasons for their claim.

Nigel, of course, had been Sokaris' close companion over the last year, desired the books because he thought they would encourage him when she wasn't around, in addition to whatever he could learn from them.

Natsumi, who had worked closely with Sokaris, learning the craft of calculations and the arts of the mind from her, desired the books so that she might continue learning from the purple-haired girl once she was gone.

Hermione stated that Sokaris had been her first friend, and what while it was true she might not have understood her fellow Ravenclaw too well, believed that obtaining – and studying – the books, was the first step towards remedying that.

Shinji didn't know what to do in a situation like this, since it was obvious that none of the three were willing to budge or listen to someone else's arguments, and he didn't feel it was his place to step in.

Ernie, however, didn't seem to share his reluctance, clearing his throat and, when the others looked to him, producing a six-sided die.

"Why don't you roll for the prize?" the blond Hufflepuff asked, with Hermione blinking at the suggestion.

"What?"

"I said, why don't you roll for it?" the boy repeated. "Since you all have a claim, let's let chance or fate decide who gets the books? It's the fairest way, isn't it? Each of you roll the dice, and we'll see how things turn out."

Hermione looked reluctant, but Nigel seemed to think it a good idea.

"Well, why not? Only I suggest a small change," the grey-haired boy spoke up.

"Oh?"

"Each of us will roll for one of our rivals. I will roll for Natsumi, Natsumi will roll for Hermione, and Hermione will roll for me," Nigel explained. "That way, we eliminate any temptation for untoward play, since we wouldn't be rolling for ourselves."

"I…suppose that's fair," Natsumi grumbled, holding out her hand. "I'll roll first, but for Nigel."

Ernie handed over the die, and the brunette Hufflepuff did as she said she would, with the number 5 visible on top.

"Hm, not bad," the grey-haired boy noted, reaching over and picking up the die. "I'll roll next then, for Hermione."

Sadly for the brunette Ravenclaw, fortune did not seem to be in her favor, as Nigel rolled a 1 on her behalf.

Luck was not with Natsumi either, as Hermione rolled a 3 for her.

"In that case, the books will go to Nigel then," Ernie declared, smiling slightly. "I assume none of you have complaints?"

Hermione looked as if she had something to say but swallowed her words as she shook her head.

"He won the roll," Natsumi conceded, "so let him have the books. In that case, I'll take the parchment, if no one has any objections?"

This time, there were none to be heard, meaning that only the cloak, the restricted section pass, and the flute were left.

Ernie laid claim to the cloak. As a budding adventurer, a fine cloak – especially an invisibility cloak – was always a useful tool, with this one in particular having some useful features, such as helping the wearer maintain a comfortable temperature and increased their carrying capacity.

Hermione, who had never been politically musical, chose the pass to the Restricted Section, leaving Miyuki with the flute, though the Japanese girl didn't seem unsatisfied, as she said it would have been first choice in any case.

With all of that settled, the group settled in for a meal – a last supper for their mutual friend, wishing her well, wherever she might go.