Harry's stomach grumbled.
Usually his uncle, aunt and cousin would have finished a dinner he cooked by now, going by the setting sun dying the streets whose names he couldn't read in orange and red.
He's been wandering the streets for quite a long while now since he's been separated from the Dursleys. He figured that since he's probably going to wind up back with them next time he woke up anyways like that time he tried to run away, he might as well enjoy being away from Vernon's scornful gaze while he's away.
It felt like his head had been continually swiveling around ever since he was brought to Japan after Uncle Vernon won a raffle at his company. Fuyuki was so, so different from Little Whinging. It was so much bigger, had so many black haired people and was cleaner. It even had a big river running through it - London must look something like that. The nights were pretty noisy though. Those gas explosions or something seemed pretty scary too.
He really liked that lady at the hotel the Dursleys stayed at. She even picked up that little booklet for him that his uncle dropped so that he wouldn't have to! Nobody's been that kind to him before.
Harry looked on longingly at the playground he reached. There was almost no one there. They wouldn't mind if he stuck around for a bit, would they? He almost never could hang around the one in Little Whinging because if he was spotted by Dudley and his crew a Harry Hunting would start.
He approached a swing with two spots, with one of them taken by a purple haired girl about his age. Or was she? Harry was always smaller than the others and they would mistake him to be younger than he is. Would she let him sit on the other swing near her? Maybe she would be as kind as the hotel lady was.
Hesitantly, he approached, and stopped half a dozen steps or so away. It took a few moments for her to register that he was looking at her. Shily, he started gesticulating, suddenly remembering that people around here didn't speak the same language as him.
"Uhm...can I…?" he asked, pointing first at himself, and then at the empty swing next to the girl.
The girl blinked slowly a few times before she caught on, giving a small nod.
"Thank you!" Harry cheered, and plopped his bum on the swing. He didn't get on the swing a lot, as the one back in England seemed to be always occupied.
He swung his feet for momentum, the apex of his swing becoming incrementally higher each time he reached the apex. The swing was the best. He loved the way the wind tousled his hair, and how fast the world around him went by for that small moment. This is how flying must be like.
In his merry swinging, Harry suddenly remembered the girl next to him. As he looked to the side of the girl, he noticed that she was looking at him. ...Was he doing something wrong? Maybe...she was expecting him to do something? Because she let him on the swing? She stopped the small swinging she was doing since he started doing his thing...oh! She must be waiting for him to push her on her swing!
He slowed down a bit, and jumped down mid-swing, making a small dust cloud before he went behind the girl despite her befuddlement.
Harry carefully grabbed the girl's swing seat, pulling back so there would be more momentum - "E-eh?...yamete-"- when he pushed.
The girl was swung forward with a small "Kyah!", raising higher every time she was pushed. For a second, the messy haired youth thought he was doing something wrong before he heard a small giggle and smiled.
They kept this up for a few minutes, Harry's efforts even earning him a few more giggles. It was fun.
All of a sudden, the girl stopped giggling and started thrashing. The boy slowed the swing as fast as he could, but she fell mid-swing anyways. He quickly went to check on her, he was about to reach for her to help her up when his hand was - "Sawanaide!" - smacked away. He instantly froze.
She seemed to calm down after a moment, but she was still gasping for breath. She looked up at him (was that something moving below her collar?) with sorrowful eyes, muttered something like "Gomen" and ran away.
Harry was confused. What happened? They were having so much fun!
Did...did she somehow find out as they were swinging? That he was a freak? That must've been what happened. Everyone back in Surrey knew that he was a freak, no-good delinquent that nobody approaches. He was hoping that nobody knew him here. How did she find out?
Crestfallen, Harry started walking away from the park. It was well within nighttime now, the sun was beyond the horizon and the street lamps were turned on.
He noticed the road sloping downwards behind one of the buildings. It was one of those...underground parking lots? Harry only knew because he once had to go with his uncle to the company building, which had one of these.
Yawning, the boy noted he was getting sleepy. Maybe he could sleep in there? That way, nobody had to look at a freak like him sleeping on the streets.
~~o0o~~
Arturia had done it. She had taken down Lancelot.
She was still in shock. How had her actions resulted in her faithful Knight of the Round falling so low as becoming a Berserker?
She must make it right. She will, once she has the Grail.
The king watched on forlornly among the flames of the ruined underground parking lot as her knight's form dispersed into golden motes of light. Halfway through however, she noticed an oddity. A good chunk of the motes were not fading and were in fact...heading specifically somewhere?
She followed the trail leading to one of the more intact supporting pillars. Behind it was…a child? Slumped over, with his clothes and face covered in soot and dirt. The motes of the dispersion seemed to congregate to a spot on the child's forehead where they were absorbed by a...glowing lightning shaped scar?
Arturia blinked at the unusual sight Merlin would just squee in excitement to decipher, scowling at the thought reminding her of the pain in the ass of a mage. It managed to knock her out of her stupor, though. She had to get this child out of here right away!
The Saber hoisted the child over her shoulder, and leapt to the exit of the parking lot, going so far as to use a small Prana Burst to expedite the process. Who knows how many fumes the boy had inhaled.
Once outside, Arturia frowned at her choices in the situation. She couldn't afford to waste time. Kiritsugu at this moment must be facing off the other remaining Master, therefore she had to move on as swiftly as possible to the theater. Yet, the little one in her arms required immediate medical assistance! To just leave him in the streets in his state would not do!
She looked around, scowling at nothing in particular, before she spotted a black haired figure nearby wearing a green sweater. What was Rider's Master doing here? No matter. As much as she loathed the Servant, at the very least, Iskandar's Master proved himself to have an acceptable moral compass, therefore would do.
The blonde Servant leapt in front of a startled Waver with puffy eyes, and practically threw the little one at him. "The boy was caught up between my fight with Berserker. Take him to a hospital as quickly as you can."
And then she left as quickly as she came, unaware that she was on her way to an approaching disaster.
~~o0o~~
A few hours and a massive fire later...
Waver cursed his luck as he laid against his chair in the hospital room the messy haired kid's bed was in.
As he was heading back to his "grandparents" house after Rider died at the battle on the bridge, Saber (King bloody Arthur herself!) appeared out of nowhere, threw an injured kid at him and then went back to wherever the hell she came from.
It was scary as hell. Not many survive an encounter like that with the strongest Servant in the Holy Grail War.
Fortunately for the kid, the doctors saw to him and patched him up. He only got a few mild burns and his breathing seemed normal, but he saw the hospital personnel exchange a few heated words when they saw how thin the boy was, along with the scars he had on his body.
What happened to you, kid? He rhetorically thought, unable to ignore the unusual nature of the situation.
Patients were quickly rolled in as talks of a massive fire spread. The Grail War must have concluded, somehow. He was mildly surprised; this definitely wasn't what he was expecting. Waver fidgeted with the singed hotel booklet the child had on him, watching a ginger kid (they had them in Japan too?) have his bed rolled into the room when he heard a groan.
He stood, watching as the diminutive figure blearily blinked, as green eyes slowly focused on him.
"Wh-" was all he could pronounce before hunching over, going into a coughing fit.
"Easy," Waver tried to comfort him, rubbing his back. "You breathed in a lot of smoke."
"Wh-where am I?" the boy finally managed.
"You're at a hospital. Someone saved you from a burning underground parking lot." He decided to leave out the bits involving Heroic Spirits. "What were you doing there anyways?"
"I-I was lost." His eyes suddenly widened. "And there was this blue knight lady and a really, really scary man in black armor. They were fighting and the black knight shot at the lady but couldn't hit her and then threw a car atherandthen-"
Just as he was about to hypnotize the child clearly going into hyperventilation and make him forget about the likely traumatizing incident, he felt something pulse from the boy, after which the lights blinked and any unattached small objects clattered.
Quickly discarding the previous plan once he realized the implications, he put both hands on the boy's shoulders instead.
"Hey, it's alright now, the man in black armor is gone. It's over. You're going to be okay," he tried to reassure. "Now look at me, and take a deep breath, like I'm doing, and now breathe it out slowly..."
Eventually he managed to calm the boy down as he downed a much-needed cup of water.
"What...what will happen to me now?" the green eyed boy (he should really ask his name) asked timidly.
"Well- hold on. Could you tell me your name?" Waver redirected before he could forget again.
"I'm...Harry." he introduced himself.
"You can call me Waver. So, we'll have to get back to your family, yes? They must be worried sick about you. I can't imagine a family of wizards would be happy to lose their heir or such." he said with a smirk.
Much to Waver's surprise, Harry just...stared. "Wizards?" he asked with furrowed brows.
"You don't have to act like that with me," Waver chuckled. "I'm a, er, magical too. I know about magic." No point to revealing he's a magus specifically.
"But magic isn't real. I'm not a wizard. My family aren't wizards. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia both hate anything like books and cartoons with magic in them."
That...couldn't be right? Must be one of those strange families that are overdoing concealing magic so much that even their child misunderstands. He wouldn't put it past them.
"Oh it's real. Your family must be just trying really hard to hide all the magic and spells they do. Making sure magic stays secret is very, very important, you see?" he reasoned.
"Huh." was the intelligent reply of the boy. After a moment, he looked up again with scrunched eyebrows. "What about me? How do you know I'm a wizard?"
Time to seem like he actually knows all about this instead of just remembering a general description he was taught in class.
"Lessee… when you feel something or want something very much, strange things happen around you. Things just fly into your hand and such."
"Like when I turned my teacher's hair blue and he couldn't make it go back no matter what he did?" Harry piped up.
"Exactly!" Ha! Smooth.
"Oh. So we're secret wizards?"
"Something like that." Waver nodded. "So, can you tell me about where your family is staying? They should let you go soon from the hospital."
"Uhm..." Harry pondered. He seemed to remember something, but became dismayed when he looked at his clothes.
"Looking for this?" Waver raised the singed booklet. This and the passport were the only things Harry had on him. In retrospect, he could've just looked at the latter for the kid's name.
The boy pointed at the item in question. "Yes! The hotel lady gave it to me. I think I saw a little map on it."
"Alright the-" the magus stood, and blanched as he realized he didn't notice the other person coming into the room.
They stared at each other for a long moment before registering who they're looking at.
Waver instantly broke out in a cold sweat. Shitshitshitshit-
The much feared Magus Killer just huffed. "Calm down, kid. I'm not going to do anything to you. This farce of a war is over anyways."
"I-I see..." Waver sighed in relief.
"I see you managed to save a kid of your own?" Kiritsugu asked, glancing at the boy with messy hair.
"I-I was getting back...to the place I stay at when Saber appeared out of a burning parking lot and shoved him into my arms, telling me to get him to a hospital."
"Huh..." he hummed, somehow looking even more exhausted than he already did.
They sat there besides their corresponding kids for a few minutes with Waver shifting uncomfortably in his chair, not sure what to make of the assassin. Then, Kiritsugu appeared to finish whatever he was contemplating and took out a notepad, scribbled something on it and palmed it to a startled Waver.
"Here. Call me if you think I can help with anything with the kid, if you need later. Might as well use all this money I'm sitting on for something useful," he sighed. "At least these two lived..."
Waver was baffled. Kiritsugu fucking Emiya just gave him his personal cell number.
"I-I a-appreciate it but I was going to get him back to his family anyways..."
"Save it."
"Okay."
He wasn't about to say 'no' to The Magus Killer.
What a day.
~~o0o~~
Harry was nervous.
He was sitting off to the side, in the room the Dursleys were staying in, dressed in a better fitting simple black tee and jeans, courtesy of Mr. Kiritsugu. As Aunt Petunia and Dudley were out looking at Japanese candy, it was only his walrus-shaped uncle who was in to meet Waver bringing him back, both of whom were now talking at the coffee table in the spacious hotel room, each having some sort of greedy glint in their eyes. Harry remembered Waver saying something about learning about wizards because he wasn't one, while his Uncle only let them in after he looked Waver over and saw the quality and tailoring of the magus' clothes.
It had never occurred to him that the Dursleys might be only trying really hard to appear as though they hated magic, because hiding it was really important. Maybe they really didn't like all the magic stuff other people came up with, because theirs was real and so much better.
Harry tried to hold himself back, but he couldn't help his imagination going absolutely haywire due to the fact that he, by extension his relatives, might be magical.
Maybe it was just some kind of test, and Harry would've been told about magic and his aunt and uncle would treat him like they treat Dudley after he passed it.
Maybe he wasn't a freak after all, if they were wizards like him.
Maybe it'll be alright.
Suddenly, Harry felt the mood in the room go cold, which shook him out of his rumination.
"I don't know what you mean." He heard Vernon say coldly.
"Erm, pardon my frankness, you are a wizard family, yes?"
Dread gathered in Harry's gut as Waver fell from the unexpected sucker punch.
An irate, red-faced Vernon then turned to Harry, his meaty arm already reared back to dish out another punch, with no mercy to the child he's about to hit.
His voice was like thunder to Harry. "HOW DARE YOU, YOU USELESS FREAK! Not only do you fail to sod off and stay that way, but you bring ANOTHER ONE OF YOU AND INSULT MY PERFECTLY NORMAL FAMILY?!"
He shouldn't have listened to Waver. He should've kicked and screamed, so he'd never come back again.
But he couldn't help it. He dared hope that with Waver's reassurances, that they'd be able to talk out whatever misunderstandings they had and it would turn out they were worried about him and wanted him despite their treatment and everything would be okay.
But nothing was okay. Waver was knocked down and Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were all angry at him and they would punish him harshly like a freak like him deserves.
What little hope he had for acceptance crumbled away, and for the first time, Harry truly despaired. Harry whimpered and shut his eyes, raising his too-thin arms to brace himself, finally sure that they really, didn't want him and really, really hated him.
With a resounding thump, the hit connected, the force of it knocking Harry against the wall. His small form slumped down. It hurt a lot. But it didn't hurt as much as the firm knowledge of being unwanted by his family hurt.
"I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT FREAKS LIKE YOU DESERVE!" Vernon roared. He stomped towards Harry, uncaringly stepping on the still dazed Waver's stomach, making him groan and curl on his side, then began winding up for a kick as he was about to reach the whimpering child.
Harry was hurting in more ways than one, utterly miserable and terrified.
A bit of praise, a pat on the head, asking about how he is sometimes. All he wanted was someone who treated him like he sometimes saw other kids' parents treat them. None of the Dursleys could be that for him. Now they were going to hurt him. Badly.
As he watched Vernon's foot start to come down upon him, he cried out in fear, and badly wished for someone to save him.
You would have missed it if you blinked.
Still untamed at Harry's young age, volatile magic reached out into the ether. It found the still existing Grail, through which it reached a...place, if you could call it so.
Through the thread of magic, a desperate hope for salvation pulsed. It was something many in the Throne of Heroes were intimately familiar with.
Yet, not just anyone would do. It needed someone who would understand. Who was like...him. An outcast. A freak.
The connection reached a deity who killed countless for the sake of protecting her family from a jealous goddess that cursed them, only to become so deeply drenched in blood that a monster was birthed, destined to be killed off for another one's glory.
She raised an eyebrow at the thread trying to connect to her. It was curious. She could discern the spellcaster's age from the feel of the magic. Such a young summoner...the connection was shaky enough that she could refuse if she wanted. She's seen it search, looking for the right person. It chose her. Granted, there were many worse than herself, but why would it choose a monster like her over all the other heroes?
Curiosity piqued, she gently caught the thread between her fingers.
Someone...save me...please… a child's voice whined.
Emotions came through unfiltered: fear, sadness, resignation, pain both physical and emotional, and a childlike, yet desperate wish to be saved and cared for.
She blinked. This...she didn't expect this at all. At once, she was absolutely convinced that someone else would be much better suited for this, and that she absolutely cannot refuse this summoning. Her pride as a Heroic Spirit won't let her. Her name meant "Protector", dammit! She'd cut her throat open before refusing to be summoned by someone who needs her like this!
She latched onto the connection and pulled.
AN: If any of you happen to be in a discord server with people interested in Fate/ and Fate/ xover fanfics, throw some links at me. It gets awfully dull figuring out this fic all by myself and one other person who knows enough about both franchises.