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

"He's going to be the one, I am certain of it."

"How can you be so sure? You've been wrong before, why are you so sure about this one?"

"I am not infallible, I've learned that now. You know why I was so sure about the last one; this one is different. He's different. If your careful, you can even feel him now, his attachment to the grid is far beyond what it should be at his age"

"Regardless, you've been wrong in the past, and you could be wrong now. The last one was skilled too. You cannot simply assume this six year old boy will grow into the man that can and will defeat you."

"That's why I didn't assume anything. I tried my hardest to stop him before he began to grow; you can plainly see my failure in that regard. All of my precautions wasted because of one, small oversight."

"So why not just go after him now? Why wait for the petit garçon to grow?"

"I don't have time to wait for another, Cassius. I need to leave soon, to continue my travels. You will inform me when the body is ready?"

"Do not assume I am completely en ton flanc! I will inform you what I wish to inform you, and nothing more."

"...very well."

Harry gazed out of the window of the moving vehicle, taking the in sights and colors of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France. They'd taken a taxi from the busy city of Marseille, where'd they'd spent the last nine months.

The small flat situated above a fish market had become somewhat of a home to him. The fish monger himself had taught him about all of the different kinds of fish, as well as helped him learn to speak the language. He was now working his hardest on learning to read and write in both the Queen's English and his current home's French. So far, he'd read only a few small children's books in English. However, he'd read many more of the more available French story books.

Having gotten his fill of the beautiful countryside, he turned back to the book on his lap. Illustrated with soft, wistfully done pictures, Le Petit Prince was quickly becoming his favorite book. He would have continued to read it, too, if the taxi hadn't come to a slow halt. Glancing up, he saw they'd arrived at the beginning of a winding pathway. The surrounding meadow was vast, and Harry took the picture in with a not-too-small sense of awe.

"Come now, boy, this shouldn't take too long." Joseph said, as he opened the taxi's door and stepped out onto the path. He sounded excited, like he'd been anticipating whatever was about to happen for a long time.

Harry silently rolled his eyes; 'this shouldn't take too long' almost always meant it would take quite a long time, and Harry would be very bored. He was again thankful he'd brought his book to read. They started walking down the dirt path, and Harry noticed again that Joseph was anxious, he was walking faster than usual, and it took a lot to make Joseph act anything but perfectly bland and normal. Harry took his anticipation as a sign that Joseph wasn't, as he'd once suspected, as bland as oatmeal. Harry wanted excitement, Joseph gave him normality. If it hadn't been for his books, Harry might have grown up to be a whiny prat. Perhaps whomever they were going to meet would be interesting; despite being an incredibly bland person, Harry had always found Joseph's 'friends' to be lively and colorful, or at the very least cold and scary. They were all much more interesting than his guardian, or at least it seemed that way to Harry.

After as few minuets of walking, Joseph came to a halt, almost causing Harry to run into him as he stumbled to catch up. Joseph stared in front of his, seemingly at nothing. The open expanse of a meadow looked very plain. Harry was disappointed.

"What are we looking at?" he asked. Joseph snorted, showing his disapproval, before responding.

"You have to look past the wards. You're a magical child; you should be able to see it."

Sure enough, as Harry refocused his vision to take in the meadow entirely, he was able to see the faint ripple he associated with magic. He focused on looking at a point past it. Slowly his vision expanded to include what seemed to be a large farm of come sort. In the distance, a villa sat atop a decently high plateau. Workers, a mixture of house elves and men, worked the fields, harvesting the small bunches of juicy looking red grapes from their vines. Harry later made the connection to a vacationing pamphlet he'd borrowed from the fish monger for reading practice. This was a vineyard.

They were soon met by a short, stumpy man who introduced himself as Alphonse. The man quickly explained that his Lord wasn't quite ready to see them yet, and was in the middle of an important meaning. Joseph had tensed at this news, something that didn't go unnoticed by Harry. Whoever this "Lord" was, he was obviously very important to Joseph.

During a quick and event less tour of the vineyard, Harry manage to pick up from the conversation that October was a very busy month, as it was the month of the grape harvest. He started phasing out the conversation after Alphonse began to blather on in French about the different types of grapes and wines they made. It might have been an interesting topic to Harry, if Alphonse hadn't have spoken in such an uninspired monotone.

Harry, however, began listening again soon enough, as Joseph became impatient and began to question Alphonse about the whereabouts of his Lord.

"It is very important that I see Lord Valmont. I have been kept here long enough, I've been waiting for this meeting for almost a year, and I will not wait any longer!" Alphonse looked up at Joseph, trying and failing to hide his intimidation. Harry couldn't help but think it was stupid of Joseph to have revealed he'd been waiting so long. It made him seem desperate, and Alphonse would surely tell his master. However, Harry thought, if this Lord Valmont is as important as he seems, he probably already knew they'd been living here.

"Very well," Alphonse said in a defeated voice, "follow me." He then began to lead them up the side of a sloping hill, to the top of the plateau where the villa was located. The small inlaid stiars were hidden quite well, and could hardly be seen at all from a distance. Harry noted they were made of a shiny, white colored stone. The villa was done in Roman style. A small, man-made pond was situated in the front, and was filled with a variety of fish Harry recognized from the market.

Alphonse continued to lead them through the doorway, and past a the first few rooms, which Harry assumed were mainly for show. A variety of haughty looking portraits stared at them as they passed by. Eventually, Alphonse came upon an archway covered by cloth veil. He lifted the veil to one side, and gestured for Joseph and Harry to walk through.

The room beyond the veil was large. Harry marveled at its utter size, staring up at the ceiling, which was enchanted to look like a starry sky. It was a bit strange, looking at such a ceiling and knowing that it was only midday.

In the center of the room, a man whose back was facing them was seemingly demonstrating something to three elderly -and, judging by their clothes Harry assumed rich, men. He was waving his wand around a small, levitated stone, making slow and deliberate circles around it. That wasn't what most interested Harry, however. It was the great array of glowing circles, symbols and the small pile of metals at the center that caught his attention most. The man, whose stone had now begun to glow as well, began to speak. Harry thought his voice sounded strong and robust; a stark contrast to the usually meek and screechy voice of his guardian.

"Vicis immortalis. Sol solis. Etiam Luna ut Ortus. Astrum intereo. Plagiarius No. Humanus Repo!" He pronounced each syllable fully, giving emphasis to the last word in the chant. Suddenly, the air around the glowing circles began to spin wildly. Harry wasn't entirely sure what happened, but when the glowing faded and the winds died down, the small pile of random bits of metal had become something else. Harry wasn't close enough, however, to determine what exactly that something was.

Joseph decided that now that he'd seemingly finished his work, it was time to approach him. Both he and Harry walked forward. As they neared him, Harry picked up snippets of his conversation with the three men in front of him.

"...you have it! I trust you are all pleasantly impressed by my, ahem, presentation. If you'll excuse me, I have other business to attend to."

The men nodded with understanding, and took their leave through the room's second door, which Harry saw led outside to the grape fields.

The man in front of them, who by now Harry had determined to be "Lord Valmont", turned around to face them. At once, Harry was confounded by his height! He was very tall, towering over Joseph as well as Harry's six year old body. He had broad shoulders and a strong jaw, he looked a lot like the busts of Roman emperors Harry had seen in travel guide books. He gave off an overall appearance of an aristocrat, but much more capable and worldly than the few other nobles Harry, or rather Joseph, knew.

"Je suis désolé pour making you wait so long. I had important business I had to see to which I could not reschedule. I am hoping Alphonse showed you an expected amount of hospitality?" Once again, Harry was taken aback by the quality and nobility of his voice. Joseph simply nodded in response.

Walking over to a table behind them, Lord Valmont picked up a wooden cup filled with a multitude of grapes, all in different shades of red or purple. He stuck his wand into the cup of fruit, and slowly began to turn it while speaking in the same voice he'd used before during his 'demonstration'.

"Saecula saeculorum Vinum." As he spoke, the grapes in the cup glowed and turned to a dark, purple colored liquid. He raised the cup to his nose, inhaling deeply. "Ah! Très bon! Mourvèdre grapes mixed with Cinsaut for heat tolerance, Grenache and Carignane to add softness and bouquet and a hint of something else. Very nice. Would you like some, Monsieur Joseph?"

"No thank you," responded Joseph, "I've never been one for alcohol." Lord Valmont frowned a bit, seemingly insulted. Harry decided it was his time to speak up. He knew you weren't supposed to turn down a gift from your host; you definitely didn't turn down gifts that were obviously planned, like the wine had been.

"I'll try some." He said. Glancing down, Valmont looked surprised, as if he had totally missed Harry's presence before that moment. With a small look of approval, he bent down to offer the cup to him.

"Alright then. Be sure to inhale its scent first. Them once you have taken in its aroma fully, take a small sip." Harry followed his instructions carefully, making sure to fully take in the smell before taking a sip. When he did drink a bit of the liquid, he found it burned a bit, but beyond that was actually quite good.

"It's very, um, smooth? It has some sourness to it, I think, in the background." Valmont looked very surprised, much more so than he had when Harry had first spoken up.

"Very good. Do you think you can you tell me what the 'sourness in the background' comes from?" Harry frowned a bit, puzzled.

"I'm not sure. I think I'd need a few more sips to figure it out." Valmont chuckled a bit and gave a stern smile. He handed Harry the cup again, and instructed him to wait in a room off the side of the atrium while trying to figure out what the 'sourness' came from.

"Drink it slowly though. I wouldn't want to be responsible for such a young boy becoming drunkard!"

"You mean like the man who drinks to forget that he drinks?" Harry said excitedly. He liked it when things paralleled what he read. For the third time that night, Valmont looked at him with surprise, but this time the look had a very interested shade to it. Harry knew he must have been surprised that he'd read something like Le Petit Prince. He felt his pride inflate; he held himself a little higher after that.

"Yes, I wouldn't want to be responsible for you becoming something as silly as that."After promising he'd never become such a thing, Harry hurried out of the room, and only waited by the door long enough to hear the very beginning of Valmont and Joseph's conversation.

"-going to do this, I'm going to need more money."

"I'm already giving you quite enough; the fame you'll gain in the underground world should be quite enough extra to-"

Harry sat down at the small, round table he found in the room he'd been sent to. As he sat, slowly sipping the wine, now completely determined to defeat this challenge and figure out what the taste was, he couldn't help but replay the magic he'd seen in the atrium over in his head. The large glowing circle had given off quite a bit of magical power; whatever the spell was, it Harry knew it must have been very complicated. He had seen a great number of ripples around the circle, many more than he usually saw in wards! Whatever it was, Harry knew he wanted to learn about it one day. He added it to the long list of things he was determined to learn; it was getting a bit long, so Harry decided he'd have to drop learning how to be a master fisherman. This looked much more interesting, after all.

"Remember, the man thinks he's Hannibal incarnate. He's absolutely obsessed with recreating the so called 'Empire' of Carthage. He'll be surrounded by bodyguards day and night, all of whom know how to handle assassination situations. You're sure you can guarantee you won't be caught or traced to me?" Joseph hesitated a bit, not wanting to reveal his thought that Cassius Valmont had been equally as insane about recreating the Roman Empire not to long ago. Soon enough though, he bristled a bit at the insult to his skills.

"I'm the best. I won't leave a single track for them to follow, and as far as tracing is concerned, I do not exist. Not in the muggle society, not in magical society, not anywhere." He glanced back at Valmont, who was looking contemplative. It had been a long round of negotiations, but in the end he'd gotten a good sum for his work. 400 galleons, half to be paid now in cash, and the other transferred to his account at Gnomergan, the Swiss wizarding bank.

Valmont paused before asking his next question. "Has the boy begun any sort of magical education yet? If he's old enough to read and understand Le Petit Prince, he's certainly old enough to begin basic training. Obviously, you can't teach him actual magic until his connection to the lay lines stablilize, but it's never to early to begin teaching wand movements and incantations. I assume you intend him to be an apprentice?" Joseph was surprised the great Cassius Valmont was bothering to take interest in his ward.

"I've thought about it. I don't know if the boy has the intelligence or power to keep up with what I could teach him." He seethed a bit. It wasn't that he didn't want to teach the boy; Merlin knows the kid has a huge thirst for knowledge, it was that he feared him. Only seven years old, and already he had as much inner magic as an eleven year old first year student. He'd picked up reading and writing at a great, though not unheard of, pace. He hadn't exactly been a model parent; he feared the boy would rise up against him in revenge.

"Take him with you then."

"What?"

"Take him with you on this job. See if he has a knack for anything important. He could become a great asset to you, if you train him right. He'd be loyal to you as well; who wouldn't be loyal to the man that taught them magic?" It was true, Joseph thought, Harry was usually loyal to his teachers. The fish monger whose store was below their flat had certainly garnered his loyalty. Maybe it was time to teach him. After all, Joseph thought, if I start teaching him wand movements now, he'll be able to glide right through years of his education come his eleventh birthday. He'll just need to be taught how to interact with the matrix.

"I'll take that into consideration. Now, as the conversation has drifted from my job to my ward, I assume we're done with business?"

"Of course. You may call the boy back in, if you wish." Valmont seemed happy, and as always, Joseph was wary of anybody's happiness after a negotiation he hadn't rigged. Only after convincing himself that Valmont was just happy to see business completed, did he calm down.

"Very well. Boy!" he yelled out. From the other side of the room, a small creaking noise echoed as Harry opened the door he had left through.

"You're done, then?" he said.

"Yes. We're leaving now." With that, Joseph walked up, took Harry's arm in his hand, and began to pull him towards the veiled door they'd entered through. However, before he could drag Harry out of the room, Harry turned around and spoke to Valmont.

"Apples. The sourness came from apples." Valmont raised his eyebrows, clearly impressed. It was obvious to Joseph that Valmont hadn't expected Harry to actually guess the flavor.

"Can you tell what kind?" Valmont questioned.

"Green, I think." Harry responded, after scrunching up his face in concentration.

"Bon! I'm impressed!" Valmont then walked across the room, stopping in the middle of the circle he'd been using before. He bent down and picked the object in the center off the floor. "Come here, boy."

After shrugging off Joseph's grip, Harry hurried over to Valmont. Valmont proceeded to place a very plain looking platinum watch on his wrist. It immediately tightened to fit him.

"It's the newest watch in my company's line. I own a watch company, you see, called Valmet, and this is our newest product. You see here," he said pointing the the buttons on the side of the watch, "these controls what the watch will tell you. It can give basically all of the astronomical information a wizard could possibly want to know. The position of the planets, stars, the moon, the place of Earth on it's axis as well. It will also, obviously, tell time with perfect accuracy. Quiet stylish as well, or at least I'd like to think it is."

Harry looked up with awe. Joseph knew he'd never received a gift like the watch before, mainly because he'd never truly given Harry anything. He'd never bothered to. His own birthday wasn't exactly a happy time for him, and he hated holidays. Why should he give Harry happiness when he so lacked his own?

"Thank you!" Harry managed to gasp.

"Come on now," Joseph said "we're leaving."

Joseph thought that if Harry had known he'd meant they'd be leaving France all together, and not just Valmont's villa, he might have been a little more reluctant to leave.

The next few years for Harry went by quickly. After moving to Tunisia and watching Joseph assassinate General Motumbu, Joseph decided it was time to have him trained. He started to learn basic theory as well as wand movements and incantations. He practiced with a coreless wand, not actually performing magic, but making sure each and every flick and swish he made was perfect. It was during this period that Joseph changed as well. He went from a relatively harmless guardian, to a task master, demanding perfection. The bubble that was his career was now inflated, and his confidence had grown to the point of arrogance. The assassination of Motumbu had launched his fame in a way that should have been impossible for the totally anonymous man. Harry knew Joseph hated the fame, but he was now respected. People began to see him as a true assassin. And that, more than anything else, made him demand nothing but perfection and beyond from his estranged apprentice.

As well as magical theory, Harry learned to take part in the hunt. The small, magical Tunisian tribe they stayed with had taken him under it's wing. The young males accepted him as an out-of-tribe brother of sorts, and even let him participate in their adolescence entry ritual at the age of 8, signifying the beginning of a time of change by letting him take part in one of the adult hunts. Though, like most young boys, he didn't manage to bring home any game, Harry had managed to impress them in his own way, using his instinctive connection to magic to guide them towards a group of game animals. Though he'd gotten a bit flustered when they hadn't immediately listened to him, he'd managed to prevent himself from throwing a fit; something he, as an outsider, had been expected to do by many. It was a sign of great respect that the few hunters who'd listened had followed his directions. It was an even greater sign of respect when they'd given him one of the skins, fashioned into a flask.

As time wore on, however, Joseph began taking more jobs. As his popularity grew larger in the underworld, there stays at each destination grew shorter. Time and time again he was called off for jobs. France, Spain, Kosovo, New Zealand, they never stayed in one place for longer than a few weeks. Joseph now owned property on every continent but Antarctica.

Harry traveled with him, jumping from place to place, either by floo or muggle transportation, though never in the same way as Joseph, and never the same method twice in a row. As Joseph gained more respect, his arrogance and pride grew. By the time he was eleven, Harry had developed a hatred of the coward he called mentor. If Joseph hadn't been his teacher, he would have found a way to leave him as soon as he could.

What angered him most wasn't the way Joseph treated him, though in no way did he enjoy the utter lack of respect he was given. No, what Harry despised was his cowardice. The man was an assassin who'd never won a fair fight in his life. He never took credit for his kills, always disappearing and leaving the country after a successful hit. He also turned down many jobs that he thought might have been too dangerous. Harry just thought he was afraid of a challenge, afraid to fail. As well, while Harry saw the necessity of anonymity in his profession, Joseph took it above and beyond to a whole different level. He had no friends, no family, no real home, and most of all no loyalties to anyone and no one loyal to him. Apart from Harry, he was completely alone.

It was for this reason that Harry had trouble acquiring a wand come his eleventh birthday. After waking up to a surprise physical attack by his 'mentor', and successfully fending him off while staying conscious (the goal of the exercise), they'd spent the rest of the day searching for a wand maker who wouldn't immediately recognize him as the boy-who-lived, or who could be trusted enough to keep it a secret. It wasn't that they'd recognize what Joseph had called his 'cursed scar'. Few knew about it. It was more that he looked a lot like the popular auror and Hogwarts Head Boy, James Potter. Joseph refused to risk having a wand maker guess who he was, or even having a European wand maker mention him to Ollivander, who would surely be able to decipher his identity.

Harry knew well what his position as boy-who-lived meant, but his disappearance from the wizarding world had caused many to doubt his very existence. It also didn't help that rumors were being spread that Voldemort had indeed survived that Halloween night, but was now in hiding for whatever reason (Harry much preferred The Quibbler's version of the story, in which Lord Voldemort abandoned his quest for domination to take up singing as a gender-confused stripper in wizarding Las-Vegas).

It was his quest for a wand that brought Harry, as well as Joseph, to Escondido Bolera, or 'Hidden Alley', the magical community located in Peru on July 31st, 1991 . As it was his first time in Peru, Harry was constantly snapping his head to an fro, soaking in the sights, sounds and Culture. Of course, as he didn't speak nor understand any Spanish, he couldn't really understand any of the things he heard or the signs he read. Joseph, who'd been to Escondido Bolera before, was leading him past all of the shops and up various stair cases. Unlike Diagon Alley, Escondido Bolera wasn't linear. It was in fact a pyramid, with a total of 17 stairway-like shelves. The wand shop they were headed towards was on shelf 14.

After stopping for a few minutes to admire a particularly small Peruvian Vipertooth that had been recently captured, and was on display in what seemed to be an obscure pet shop, Harry and Joseph made their way to Castillo's Wands. It was a large shop, quite a bit larger than Gregorovitch's, the only other wand shop Harry had ever seen. When they opened the glass door, a small ringing sound pinged, which Harry assumed informed the owner of the shop someone had come in. Hundreds upon hundreds of wands lined the walls and shelves throughout the store. Few of them looked well made, and many had small knobs or other disfigurements poking out of them. It was only a few minuets of waiting before the owner of the store appeared.

The Peruvian man that appeared before them after the bell's sound had echoed around the store a bit was very plain looking. He was of average height, middle aged, and looked as though he had a bit more native blood than Spaniard in him. A man, Harry thought, that one could forget almost instantly; quite a bit like Joseph.

"¡Bienvenidos! ¿ En que manera los puedo ayudar? " The man spoke excitedly, apparently glad to be getting customers this early in summer. Harry stood back a bit, startled.

""Lo siento, no hablamos español." Joseph managed to get out whilst "Castillo" was taking a breath.

"Oh, I see. Is English alright then?" His English was good, though he had a heavy accent, Harry noted.

"Yes," said Joseph, "we're looking for a wand for him." Joseph proceeded to point at Harry.

"I should have guessed. Ok then, mijo," Castillo said, "which arm is your wand arm?"

"My right." said Harry. No sooner had he finished speaking that a tape measure had sprung out of the man's sleeve, and proceeded to wrap itself around his right arm in various places.

"Ah, I see, I see. Lot's of power you got there, mijo." He was now eyeing Harry warily. "I think I have just the wand for someone like you."

He walked off into the back of his shop, leaving Joseph and Harry alone.

"I knew this was a bad idea! He's already suspicious. We could leave before he contacts someone." Joseph was speaking quickly, Harry could easily see the man was afraid. It was pathetic.

"We're not leaving until I get a wand. I've been waiting for almost 5 years to start practicing real magic, I'm not waiting any longer." Joseph glowered at him.

"Very well. But know we're only staying because my floo detector hasn't gone off yet!" Harry rolled his eyes at Joseph's attempt to save face. As if he ever had it to begin with.

Castillo returned from the back of his shop, carrying four rectangular boxes. "Try these three first," he said, motioning towards the three cased in cardboard.

After a few minutes of testing, it became plain to see that the three wands weren't even a decent match. The first had immediately shot out of his hand and impaled itself into the wall in front of them, nearly missing Castillo's ear. The second had simply shattered as he waved it (they still had to pay for it, of course). The third had had perhaps the most interesting effect. When he waved it, it let out a horrifying shrieking noise that had Castillo screaming at him, telling him to stop waving the 'maldita vara' or 'damn stick'.

Castillo sighed as he moved on to the fourth box, which unlike the others, was actually made of wood.

"I was afraid of this. You have too much magic for my, er, more generic wands. This is probably the only one in my store that could handle you. It was made by my great, great grandfather. The core is the heartstring of a particularly nasty male Peruvian Vipertooth that my great, great grandfather killed himself. It's made of aged Olive Wood, and a good specimen of it at that. Quite supple, good for powerful magic, terrible for delicate work. Probably the highest quality wand in my store, my father said it could even rival a wand sold by Mr. Ollivander himself!" Mr. Castillo handed the wand to him.

Harry raised an eyebrow. Ollivander's was probably the most well known wand maker in the world, his wands were greatly sought after, especially since he refused to sell them in bulk, or to anyone that didn't plan on going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He took the wand from Mr. Castillo. As he did so, he felt himself connect to the magical matrix around him.

"Well, go on, wave it mijo. See how it feels. It having not blown up yet is a good sign, if you didn't know that." Harry did so. It gave off what Harry could only be described as a pleasant, high-pitched rumble. It felt warm in his hands, and he felt himself connecting to the magical matrix that surrounded him. It wasn't perfect; he felt a bit blocked off, like the wand wasn't quite agreeing with his will, but it was certainly a good feeling to finally be connected to magic.

"Not the best fit, but the best I'm going to get for now," he said "how much?"

"Considering that it's my best wand, the quality of the aged Olive Wood, and the sentimental value -" Mr. Castillo was cut off by Joseph's magical flare. Having been pushed out of the picture for awhile, Harry guessed he wanted to re-establish his authority.

"We don't have time for this, Spaniard. Give us a price so we can be on our way!" Harry could literally feel the magic pouring off of him as heat, it was definitely getting the right effect, as the wand maker looked very scared.

"Forty galleons." he managed to stutter out.

"I'll give you twenty." Joseph proceeded to slam a bag of twenty galleons on the table, grab Harry's arm, and pull him out of the store. Harry was a bit annoyed at the show, but was to glad about getting his first wand to really care much.

"It's about time you learn to help me with my work." Joseph said as he lead Harry back down the massive pyramid that was Escondido Bolera. "We'll start real magical training tomorrow, no more children's play." Joseph spoke with a deeper, darker tone than he usually did, which only succeeded in having Harry silently laugh at his attempt to scare him. Later, Harry would be a bit resigned to admit that a little fear might have helped him in the coming years. Though he was coward, Joseph was a powerful wizard, and a clever one. Fear might have softened the blow to his pride when he discovered his own inadequacies.