Matou Shinji and the Philosopher's Stone

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: Ladies of Eternity, magi of the past hiding in the present, with ancient, nigh crafts at their command. That is the destiny of a Witch in the Moonlit world, with the female child of a witch bearing the destiny of inheriting the blood and history of their line without any exceptions, upon which the mother will expire, her task done. But this is a story of a Witch's son – a boy tossed aside by destiny – a boy determined to become someone special, with blood, sweat, and wand. This is the story of Shinji Matou, and his newfound path in the Wizarding World.

Chapter 2. Close Encounters of the Wormish Kind

After a night of fitful sleep interrupted with nightmares of being torn apart by worms, the young master of the Matou (or so he liked to believe himself) had come to a conclusion about the previous day's dilemma. While there was little he knew about the man he called Grandfather, perhaps the man would have a familiar he could post a letter with.

…a familiar that wasn't a worm, or worm shaped.

Because now that he thought about it, didn't owls eat worms? He supposed a normal owl wouldn't dare, but these were magical owls.

…magical owls that had somehow tracked him across half the world, no less. That still bothered him, since it meant he had somehow been marked when he was born and that his family either didn't have the skill at magecraft to sense it or just didn't care enough about him to check.

He didn't know which one bothered him more, but there it was: the fact that to his family, he had always been useless.

Well, the letter he held in his hands would change that. Hopefully.

Still, he knew that what he was asking wasn't as simple as borrowing a familiar to post a letter. And that was the rub.

That was why he had ultimately decided against asking the Second Owner for assistance: even if she had agreed to do him a favor, he was sure that that consulting an outsider about a family's magecraft – even if witchcraft wasn't it per se – constituted a taboo. Which would mean that he would probably be removed from the family without any guarantee of continuing financial support.

…unfortunately, he had grown accustomed to the creature comforts the Matou wealth was able to secure, so that wasn't an option. And he strongly suspected that, as with the Association – or really, any alternative educational facility, there would be an enrollment fee.

Probably payable in precious metals or gemstones, given their universal value. Which meant he had to go to someone who knew about money and magecraft.

And since his father was a worthless, depressed drunk who cared nothing for his own flesh and blood, blaming Shinji for his own failures…his grandfather was the only real choice.

Shinji grimaced.

He knew next to nothing about his grandfather, except that the man presumably was a magus and in control of the Matou estate – and had probably been the one to throw his mother into the worm pit.

By troubling the man, was he to share his mother's fate?

After all, the practice of Witchcraft – though not true Witches - was something looked down upon by the Association. Would his Grandfather think that his acceptance to a school for Witchcraft was just proved that not only was he a drain on the family resources, he had a penchant for attracting attention from unwanted eyes?

He hoped not.

Matou Shinji did not want to die.

He stood outside the forbidden door, hand on the handle, swallowing once as he tried to damp down the racing of his traitorous heart. This was it – the room where everything had changed. The room where he had discovered that that girl was his replacement, that he was beneath consideration, that his father had never loved him.

The room where his world had ended, leaving him wishing he had died.

Yet here he was again, of his own volition. Here he was, about to face down the Final Boss – or so he told himself in an attempt to quell his rising panic.

A more courageous man would have just opened the door and stepped through it, heedless of the danger, but he was not a courageous man.

He remembered the last time he had opened the door, as the assault on his senses was burned into is mind.

The putrid honey sweet stench of death and decay; a sound that was a cross between the worst wailing in the world and a half-eaten corpse being dragged across a stone floor; a darkness that seemed foul beyond measure, stained by death.

And the sight of everything half-melted. The stone, the meat the worms feasted on, everything. Everything except a young girl.

That…Tohsaka girl.

He remembered what he wished – that the person in that place where time itself was rotten and meaningless as the grave was him. That amidst the stone walls fragile like rotten trees, amidst the roiling pit of worms, there he would be, the true heir of the Matou.

He bit down, tasting blood as he dispelled those memories, those wishes. Sakura would not be down there, for she had gone out with his father.

Besides, reminiscing about the past was not why he was here.

So he opened the forbidden door, and was met with...nothing.

No harsh rebuke.

No sounds other than the slithering, squelching, wailing of the worms.

No patriarch of the Matou family.

'But how can this be?'

Nothing but the sea of death.

Matou Shinji almost wanted to laugh - had he come this far for naught? No. It couldn't be. His grandfather was probably down there. Somewhere.

He had to be.

So Shinji grit his teeth and took a slow, hesitant step down into the room, the echo of his foot echoing like a gunshot in that chamber.

Still…nothing.

Swallowing, he continued down, down, down into the forbidden chamber, down onto the platform from which stairs descended to the pit itself.

"Grandfather?" he called out, not fully expecting a response. Yet… something answered.

A laugh. A grating, hollow laugh arising from the center of the decay – a misshapen lump in the middle of the writhing mass of worms.

Matou Shinji felt his skin crawling in revulsion as he bore witness to the sight before him

A great rotten living mass of worms, taking shape as a man. Worms crawling up misshapen feet, skin, ankles, burrowing into their host.

Not hundreds – thousands. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. So many that if a human were swarmed by the black carpet, they would not last even a minute.

A human like his mother, with all her bones and meat taken by the worms and crumbled into a boneless skin.

But this…this thing did not crumble. No. The more worms entered the mass, the more complete it became.

He understood in a flash – whatever was before him wasn't being consumed by the worms;

the worms swarming the room are the ones being eaten as the thing laughed.

This thing that took the flesh and shape of Matou Zouken, the master of the basement.

The patriarch of the Matou family.

His…

"…grandfather."

And just like that, Shinji was paralyzed, frozen to the spot.

When he had last entered the room, he had just seen Zouken supervising Sakura being covered and infused with worms.

…he had not expected this.

Not expected that his grandfather was a monster. As he approached the door, he had told himself that this was like approaching the dungeon of a game, the lair of some final boss – he hadn't expected to be right.

He was going to die. He was going to be eaten. He was going to be torn to pieces.

He was going to…

"What do you want, boy?" a voice asked, as Matou Zouken finished taking form in the tainted darkness.

"I…"

"You have come to this place in spite of your powerlessness, in spite of a being a disgrace to the name of Makiri," the voice pressed, the presence of something rotten almost overwhelming. "You have nerve, boy."

Shinji wanted to retch, to run, to move, to cry out – but he could not.

He had been foolish.

He had been wrong.

Any moment now he would be devoured. Any moment he would eaten. Any moment…

"How unlike your good-for-nothing father," his grandfather spoke, the sheer disdain in his voice palpable. Shinji would have quaked if he could, but he could not, paralyzed like prey hypnotized by the gaze of a supreme predator – until all of a sudden he wasn't, the sudden relief as something lifted from him nearly bringing him to his knees. "Speak quickly, or leave this place."

"…a message…" was what Shinji managed to get out.

"What?"

"I received a message, Grandfather," the boy continued, his words coming out in such a rush that they nearly stumbled over themselves. "A message from a school. For Witchcraft."

Wordlessly, the monster compelled him to continue.

"I've been accepted. To the school."

…

…

…

For close to a minute, the seething mass of worms grew still, the familiar, almost comforting rotten squelching, wails, rasps and slithers ceasing entirely, replaced with an uneasy, oppressive silence that was not just the absence of sound – but its opposite – anti-sound. Nothing could move. Nothing could speak. Nothing could breathe.

Nothing could think.

Not even Matou Zouken.

…

…

…

As a centuries old Archmagus, the great patriarch had borne witness – and participated – in the creation of wonders. He had created the Command Seal system to bind Heroic Spirits and their Noble Phantasms to the will of man. He had orchestrated the rise of corporate empires, learned magecrafts far beyond any except the Magicians themselves, gone further than any mortal in his quest for immortality as he had seen his bloodline diminish to nothingness.

He had thought he was beyond surprises.

"…what."

Evidently, he had been wrong.

"I-its true, Grandfather," the boy spoke, pro-offering the letter to the twisted mass of worms and flesh, who took it, the slightest sign of a frown on his weathered face. "An owl delivered it last night. To my room."

Now that he'd gotten the message out, Shinji felt a little stronger. Surely, his grandfather would believe him now that he…oh no. Had he actually handed over the letter? What if the magus just shredded it? What if….

But his thoughts were not the more troubled of the two individuals in the room, for Matou Zouken had been surprised.

And no magus – especially ancient archmagi - liked surprises.

The letter itself was a simple thing. A form letter of some kind, which suggested that the school in question routinely sent out notifications to applicants in this fashion. That it had been delivered to Shinji's room on the other hand – that was more troubling.

It meant that someone knew of his grandson – that someone was likely keeping track of his well-being, that a Witch had managed to set up a spell which had gone unnoticed in his house, under his very nose.

But the only person who might have been capable of such a thing, who had ever come into contact with Shinji was.

'…his mother.'

The useless woman, that scion of a third-rate magus, who he had thrown to the worms after she had failed to produce a magus child. After all, he had arranged for his worthless son to marry her due to her inheritor trait, so that was left of the Makiri bloodline might be preserved, but she had failed even to breed an heir.

Perhaps she had not been as talentless as he imagined.

This…was unexpected. Though what was even more so was that this missive had come from a school in Britain, instead of one of somewhere closer. One of the small institutes had become familiar with through his dealings which trained students in Black Magic, like the Koldovstoretz School in Russia, or Mahoutokoro in Japan.

...he would have to look into this, contact some old associates.

"This…is pathetic," the master of worms spoke at last, looking at the missive as if it personally offended him. "You. Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, reduced to attending a school of Witchcraft. Not the Association. Not Atlas. Not an institution of Sea of Estray. But a school for Witchcraft."

He laughed, a low grating sound reminiscent of bone scraping against bone.

Shinji paled even more than before, as the monster's presence grew and grew, that terrible laugh echoing from the walls. Yet…had his grandfather said attending? A small grain of hope rose in his chest. Perhaps…this was not the end? Perhaps…

"Still…this was more than what I have come to expect of you – and more than anything your disgrace of a father managed," the Archmagus continued, what passed for lips on that sunken face curling up into a twisted semblance of a smile. "And you have some sense of pride coming here, unlike your worthless uncle who tossed away his gift, only to come begging for power to save your…sister. Tell me this, do you wish to attend this…school?"

"Yes, grandfather," Shinji managed, hoping against hope that this meant Matou Zouken approved, even if in some small, twisted way. "If you will allow it," he added, knowing that here, in the heart of the worm master's sanctum, he was completely at the other being's mercy.

The Archmagus allowed the boy's words to hang in the air for a long, lingering moment. Long enough that most would lose their nerve and recant their words – but the boy did not, unflinchingly meeting his gaze.

In spite of himself, Matou Zouken was…impressed.

"I will do more than that, boy," Zouken answered at last, noting that the last of his grandson's strength almost left him as he answered in the affirmative. "I will arrange for your missive to be delivered, yes – but I will also grant you a boon."

"…what."

This time it was Shinji's turn to be surprised. This…monster, his grandfather was actually doing something for him?

"You are a disappointment. An embarrassment to any magus," the mass of worms noted coldly. "But you are no longer a disgrace, as was your father. And as the last child of Makiri, some small help is not…unwarranted."

Shinji swallowed, not knowing what to expect.

"I believe it is traditional for those who have come of age to be given a mystic code, yes?" Zouken continued, glancing to the supply list. "And you require a wand, do you not?"

Shinji nodded wordlessly.

"Then I will make arrangements for one to be crafted for you," the Archmagus noted. "Something you may hold with pride as the last of the Makiri, should you desire."

"I…thank you, grandfather. That is more than I dared to ask," was all that Shinji could really say to that, as the master of worms returned to the center of the pit, his form melting away as the worms roiled under him, becoming incoherent.

"And more than one should expect," the worms rumbled and rasped and whispered, as the form of Matou Zouken returned to a seething sea of flesh-eating familiars. "But should you wish to accept my gift, I will make arrangements for a chaperone of sorts as well. Should you not, well, I will know when you provide me your reply to the Hogwarts missive."

"I…understand, grandfather" the boy answered, controlling his voice with last shreds of willpower he had.

"Good," the sea of decay almost hissed. "Now get out."

Shinji all but bolted from the room.