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 unfathomable 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 20. Witch on a Holy Night

After a time of magic, mayhem, and mixed feelings about both at a school hidden away in the wilds of Scotland, Hermione Granger found it almost odd to be back in her childhood home in London for the winter holidays. She'd taken the Hogwarts Express back to King's Cross with most of the other students once fall term had ended, and the first few days of being back had been...strange.

Everything was so orderly, so neat. The pictures on billboards and in books didn't move, and modern fashions took some getting used to, after the sea of black robes the students had worn and the archaic attire of the teaching staff. Not that they were any less bewildering. As an example, bomber jackets and ripped jeans were in vogue now, with too-skinny boys wearing oversized selections to try and make themselves look muscular, though they ended up looking like inflated Michelin men. And then, many girls were beginning to wear slip dresses and heavy duty DocMartens.

…and where many at Hogwarts had clamoured for a broom or other magical item for Christmas – which was why Quirrell's Challenge had been such a draw for them – children her age seemed to be obsessed over something called Sonic the Hedgehog, a spiky-haired anthropomorphic hedgehog with red sneakers, according to her parents. Incredibly, they described how many of the stores around London had been packed with adults trying to buy something called a Sega Megadrive at a staggering price of £190.

She'd been much more sensible in what she bought her friends – well, someone who might be more than a friend and someone who she wasn't sure to be a friend rather than an acquaintance – their presents, going to what she had always liked receiving most at Christmas – books.

For her sometimes-friend, sometimes-rival Shinji Matou, she'd bought a nice hardcover edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, as she thought the boy probably hadn't been exposed to any of the Bard's plays quite yet, and somehow doubted that he would hear much about them at Hogwarts or his homeland.

And for her friend-rival-who-knew-what Sokaris, she'd managed to find a nice collectible edition of The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Both of these had been sent off to Hogwarts via the Owl Post station at Diagon Alley, in what she thought would be her last encounter with magic for the next few weeks.

After all, Muggle London had no magic that she was aware of, aside from the magic of its history, and she herself was forbidden from casting any spells due to the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, which banned the use of magic outside of school by those who had not reached 17 – the age of majority in Magical Britain.

…although Sokaris had told her it was not enforced among wizarding families, as the magic of a child's magical parents would interfere with the charm used to monitor underage wizards and witches. She'd thought that was a poor choice for a way to keep things fair between people from muggleborn families and people from wizarding families, since even if most people followed the rules, there were always some who wouldn't – and who certainly wouldn't if there was no consequence for their rulebreaking.

Back in the days before the Parselmouth Incident and its fallout, Sokaris had hypothesized that the Trace hadn't actually been designed for its current purpose of enforcement. Given a long history of persecution by Muggles – especially the Catholic Church—Sokaris had suggested that the Trace had originally been meant as a means of protection for young practitioners – especially those who were not born to wizarding families, so as to let the Wizard's Council know if one was in distress and needed assistance, as they would otherwise not have other wizards or witches around to protect them.

Hermione supposed that sounded reasonable, but couldn't find any evidence of that in the books she perused. All she knew was that Pureblood/Muggleborn tensions dated back to at least the Founding of Hogwarts, given that Hogwarts: A History had mentioned Salazar Slytherin's now-notorious insistence that the school only enroll Purebloods – a rule which had seemed bigoted and wrong to her, and that wizarding history recorded how ineffectual witch hunters had been at catching true wizards and witches.

Regardless of the reason though, if she was caught using magic when she wasn't supposed to, the brunette knew there would be consequences. In the worst case, she might even be expelled, which was about the worst possible thing she could think of.

After all, to a normal child, death was something abstract, something one didn't think about as something that could really happen to them. Such was the province of the old, the sick, and characters in movies or books, not of the young, which is why things like liability waivers didn't mean much to them, with youths of every era known for aggression and rebelliousness. As such, things like notes sent home from school, detention, or expulsion were far more concrete, far more real, especially for someone who'd lived a comfortable, rather sheltered life like Hermione Granger.

And since she'd never gotten in trouble at Hogwarts, she didn't understand why so many students utterly detested Argus Filch, the caretaker of the school, when he was just doing his job. Certainly Matou had spoken of the man's cruelty and how Filch had tried to kill him, but Hermione couldn't believe that was true. It surely had been a misunderstanding of some kind, since someone that Headmaster Dumbledore had hired to watch over the school wouldn't actually try to harm a student…right? That the caretaker had tried to kill Matou was about as preposterous as rumors of students being forced to do detentions in the Forbidden Forest – a place filled with all sort of dangerous creatures, as everyone knew.

In any case, she'd almost gotten used to the way that rooms and stairs at Hogwarts would shift at the slightest provocation, something had to be factored in when going to class in the morning, given that one could going down a staircase to the Grand Corridor one moment, only to find oneself heading towards the dungeons in the next, almost as if the Tube changed directions at a moment's notice. Or the way that, in some of the corridors, the helmets of the many suits of armor would turn and watch students go by, as if reminding them that someone was looking out for them.

There was nothing like that in Muggle London. Places on the map never changed locations, so walking to different places was always predictable, and when one walked by, no one noticed. Even the air was filled not with the sound of the wind, but with the toots and honks of motorcars speeding by.

But that wasn't the worst part of being away from Hogwarts.

The worst part, besides being away from the two people her age who had seemed to appreciate her intelligence, even if they hadn't needed her help, was that she couldn't talk about magic at all, that the details that made up her life were now a secret.

Whether at family gatherings, dinners with family friends, or casual conversations with other children, she had to pretend that Hogwarts, that magic, didn't exist, that she was just at a prestigious boarding school for gifted children.

And the terrible thing was, even though Hermione Granger was a terrible liar, she got away with it because no one really seemed to care, with most of her relatives just asking for the sake of making conversation. They just answered "How Impressive," and "That's nice, dearie" as they always had, as if she could have said anything and it wouldn't have made a difference.

Of course, her parents, despite being quite ordinary and somewhat bemused by her oddities, were quite proud of her – and since they already knew about magic, she could tell them all about what she learned—but she knew they didn't really understand.

How could they, when all they knew were a few basics, like the existence of the magical world, along with tidbits like the location of Platform 9¾ or the fact that Hogwarts existed?

She wanted so badly to show them what she could do – to make something fly, to turn a needle into a matchstick—something. She'd even settle for making potions, but she didn't have the ingredients for any, nor had she brought most of her school supplies home.

Except for the books of course, so she could read them again. The textbooks covering the specifics of each spell, so she could see it in her mind's eye. The way the authors talked about the history of Hogwarts, almost as if sharing their secrets. The way the wizard in the books her parents had gotten her for Christmas talked about travels with trolls, holidays with hags, gadding with ghouls, and wandering with werewolves had described the life of an adventuring wizard, someone brave enough to explore the uncharted vistas the world had to offer.

It was…well, magical. Honestly, the only reason she hadn't thought Professor McGonagall was crazy the day she'd found out she was a witch and had been accepted to Hogwarts was that she'd always half-believed magic existed to begin with – because of books – because of the worlds of words that poured off the page and became real in her imagination.

Of course, given her run through Quirrell's Dungeon Challenge - which had been decidedly unfair, given that the situation it depicted was utterly unrealistic, with the person she was escorting taking credit for what she did - she had remembered the name of Gilderoy Lockhart, the man who coincidentally was the author of the books her parents had gotten her for Christmas.

But she thought nothing of it, guessing that Professor Quirrell probably just didn't like the man very much, since he'd come up with all the scenarios, which she'd heard odd things about. She'd never heard of such an exam before, and some of what people had had to go through seemed extreme, but since Quirrell was a good teacher though – and a skilled wizard - she thought the reason why he had designed the challenges as he had was a genius' eccentricity.

She'd read about that often enough when it came to people like Albert Einstein.

But even thinking about all this was difficult to stomach, with her stuck in her thoroughly unmagical childhood home.

It would have been different if she and her family had gone on vacation to somewhere new and exotic, some foreign destination that she'd never been to before, but here…

Tap-tap-tap.

…a tapping on her window pulled her out of her thoughts, with Hermione Granger looking up see two barn owls, each burdened with a vaguely rectangular parcel.

Hurriedly, the girl opened the window, with the owls dropping off their parcels on her desk before flying out into the cold once more, presumably having more deliveries to make.

She watched as they disappeared into the distance, bearing north, and closed the window, sighing. Then she turned to the parcels, curious as to who they might be from.

They were both wrapped in plain brown oilcloth and twine, though the hand had that addressed each was rather different. The first one she knew very well from study sessions and watching the other work—it was Sokaris', meaning that the purple-haired girl had actually sent her something. She hadn't been sure Sokaris would, after she started spending more time with…Matou.

…whose handwriting she thought was on the second parcel.

The timing of this…the way the packages were wrapped. The two hadn't picked out their presents…together, had they?

She swallowed, her mouth a little dry as she banished the thought and began unwrapping Matou's parcel first, wondering what he had sent her, with the oilcloth and twine falling away to reveal…

A book.

A pretty volume bound in pale green leather entitled The Tales of Beedle the Bard, with an accompanying note from the boy resting on top.

Hermione,

Thank you for the very interesting present. Even in Japan we know of Romeo and Juliet, but I've never had the chance to read it.

Since I noticed how much you love books, I thought I would send you this collection of fairy tales which are popular among many practitioners of witchcraft.

Merry Christmas,

Matou Shinji

It was a simple note, but to Hermione, it was touching – two words of the message itself being particularly so.

I noticed.

Because the sad truth was, people didn't often notice her when they didn't need her, expect if they thought she was a nuisance. And she knew full well that he didn't actually need her, even if he seemed to…maybe enjoy her company?

She leafed through the book briefly, finding that it was apparently a collection of what, as Matou said, were essentially fairy tales for young witches and wizards (in his rather peculiar and insistent terminology). Fairy tales – the first exposure even wizarding children had to magic, and it was not a panacea, how it brought tears as well as laughter, sadness, as well as joy. Though she had to smile that the witches who were the heroines of these tales seemed more active about seeking their fortunes than those in the fairy tales she knew of.

Was this a way of saying he…appreciated how hard she worked, instead of finding her annoying? He had said he enjoyed spending time with her on that day, and had been so nice. He'd even referenced Romeo and Juliet in his note.

…but he hadn't denied liking Sokaris, and that made her nervous, and a little afraid, though she didn't know why. He was just a boy who was a friend. Maybe the only boy she'd ever thought of as a friend. But that was all. There was no reason for her to react like this to a simple gift.

Or for her to feel a little nervous as she looked back at the other parcel, the one addressed in Sokaris' hand, but wrapped identically to the one from Matou. But curiosity got the better of her, as she wondered what the purple-haired girl (who she still thought was a metamorphmagus) would send her.

She'd always seemed a little aloof, even if she noticed much more than she really should.

Not unexpectedly, this was a book as well, though it was obviously far older, with intricate designs worked into the forest-green cover, and the words Book of Potions inscribed in gold – along with the picture of a steaming cauldron - against a purple backing. The author was apparently one Zygmunt Budge – a name she'd never heard of before.

And alongside it were two pieces of paper. The first of course, was a note.

Hermione Granger,

The knowledge in these pages should prove interesting, should you choose to study it in depth. And for future reference, the use of magical artifacts does not violate the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery.

Sokaris

And the second…was a note authorizing the bearer to use the Book of Potions until the end of the school year, signed by Professor Cuthbert Binns. But that meant that…

'…this is a library book! And from the Restricted Secton!' she thought in horror, looking between the book and the note. As much as she loved the library, even she knew that it wasn't right to give someone a gift that they would later have to return, so why had Sokaris…well, not even given, since it would have to be returned…sent her this?!

The only occasion where something like that might be appropriate was if the book was something like the Book of Spells, a one-of-a-kind item that was more than—

"Well, don't just sit there, are you not going to bother opening me?" the…book? was saying to her now, with green smoke billowing from its pages as It flipped open of its own accord. "I was told by my last reader that you had a fierce intellect, but after suffering the indignity of being wrapped up and being transported by owls who seemed to make a game out of hitting every patch of turbulent weather, only to be just left here, I'm beginning to think she was wrong!"

Ok…perhaps she should have given Sokaris the benefit of the doubt…

"…who are you? Are you…the book?" she asked, never having imagined she'd have to deal with a situation like this in her childhood home.

In response to her question, the smoke thickened, with the dark silhouette of a wizard in robe and hat projected into it.

"You…haven't heard of me?" the silhouette asked, seeming almost shocked. "Why…I am Zygmunt Budge, and I am the greatest potion-maker ever born!" the voice thundered, as the smoke rose and vines and leaves arose from the pages. "This is no empty boast. I invented many of the wizarding world's most powerful potions. I discovered the properties of hundreds of secret plants and creatures. I have dedicated my life to the most mysterious and misunderstood branch of magic, and these pages contain the secrets of my art, distilled for new generations of Hogwarts students."

Hermione thought back to her Potions textbook – to the books she'd read in general for any mention of a Zygmunt Budge, but didn't recall a single one.

"…why haven't I read about you if you did so much?" she asked, puzzled. "In any of my textbooks?"

It wasn't as if this was someone like Nicholas Flamel, the genius alchemist, who would not be mentioned in a basic potions text. Someone who claimed to have accomplished so much would surely be credited for what he had done in even the most basic books, for after all, what could one possibly gain from not doing so?

"I…agh," the voice said, seeming to growl in disgust. "The sad fact is that I was cheated of my rightful place in wizarding history by the short-sightedness, the pettiness, and the meanness of a headmaster whom I shall never name, because he does not deserve to have his name in print besides mine!" Then the shadow sighed, his rant apparently running down. "Suffice it to say, my genius was unappreciated in my own lifetime."

Now, Hermione Granger knew a great deal about books – even magical books—but she'd never heard of a book that…had its own personality like this.

"…so what are you, exactly?" she asked, drawing her wand in case she needed it. "Are you the book? A ghost? Or something else?"

"Aha, finally a good question," the shadow spoke. "Why you, young potioneer, are fortunate enough to have before you my masterpiece: my 'Book of Potions', containing my experience, and all of my distilled knowledge. I can teach you more about Potions than anything your textbooks - mere rubbish, those – or your professors could ever do. Why, we could make quite a team, you and I, with my genius and your…still having a body, at least if your colleague Sokaris was right about you."

Hermione wanted to argue, as this Zygmunt Budge reminded her of nothing as much as Professor Snape on one of his tirades, only considerably more self-centered and less incisive. But, she was distracted by the mention of her friendly rival's name, and the implications of it in this context.

After all, one of the classes where Sokaris and Matou consistently outperformed her was Potions, where the two almost invariably worked together, and achieved the best results. She didn't know why either, since they didn't seem to follow the recipes laid down in the basic…

…ah.

"Did you…teach her?" the brunette asked. She wanted to know if this book was why Sokaris had done so well, for if the purple-haired girl had used it and excelled, well, it was a book, wasn't it? Presumably a more advanced one?

"Ah, yes, now she was a delight to work with," the voice rhapsodized, the mood of the book – or was it the potionmaker – shifting unexpectedly to a more contemplative tone. "She, after all, appreciated what is literally my life's work – that I poured my very spirit into these pages to create a living tome, a store of knowledge, ingredients and tools unsurpassed by any creation like it today."

…poured his very spirit into the pages? His soul? But why would someone do such a thing? It struck her as something only someone obsessed with a goal – with proving something to the world – would do. And she hadn't met any wizards quite like that.

"But enough of such talk," the spirit of Zygmunt Budge was saying, as the shadow seemed to look directly at her. "Let us test your skills. I assume you know how to make a Cure for Boils, at least?"

"Yes."

"I thought as much. Too simple, that," the voice agreed, seeming to ponder what would work. "Perhaps a Beautification Potion then. Yes, that should work quite nicely."

"A Beautification Potion?" Hermione asked. Somehow, she didn't think that was in the first year curriculum. At least, she hadn't seen it in the textbook.

"Yes, a concoction which when drunk enhances one's appearance to match society's ideal of beauty," the spirit answered. "Painlessly, of course. Not to worry, the effects are only temporary. Imagine spending your life attracting hordes of admirers because of your looks!" The book made a retching sound at the very notion of it. "Ugh! A repellent thought, indeed!"

With that, the shadow vanished, and with a puff of smoke, a cauldron appeared from the pages and hopped off the book, onto her desk, propelled by what had looked like a human leg. It made what seemed like a sniffing sound as it shook itself, as if it had been sleeping for quite some time.

"There we go, my old hopping cauldron! Who says you can't take it all with you, eh?" the book said, its pages turning by themselves to the section on Beautification potions. "These cauldrons are faithful friends to any potioneer. Well, at least until you try mixing fluxweed and Exploding Fluid in them. After that, they tend to be less cooperative."

Hermione Granger was a little concerned, since this was nowhere to brew potions, as she lacked ingredients, didn't have a burner, or any such. But what she needed, the book supplied, as it was in and of itself a mobile potions laboratory, complete with fresh ingredients – including plants that she only assumed were fed with magic.

…she was starting to believe that if nothing else, Zygmunt Budge had been at least a great wizard. And that Sokaris had been right about magical artifacts, since no owls had come pecking at her window with a missive from the Ministry of Magic telling her off.

"…could I brew this somewhere else?" she asked hesitantly, thinking about her parents downstairs, and how, if she wasn't going to get in trouble…she wanted to show them some of what she could do. This book might be rude, uncouth, even presumptuous – but if it could let her show her parents part of her world, she wasn't going to complain. "I…want to show this to my parents. If that's alright."

"Well, I don't see why not," the book said reasonably. "After all, I have no qualm with more people appreciating my brilliance. Come now, cauldron, back to the book!"

The cauldron sighed and shook in place, as if exasperated.

"Come on, chop chop."

But with a clanking sound, it hopped onto the pages and vanished in a poof of smoke.

"Good. Now, lead the way to where you intend to brew, young potioneer! And to your audience," the voice said, almost…excited. "Why, I haven't had a proper one of those in years. Not since that…cretin denied my request to participate in the Championship. It was life on an island for me, and then after I made this book, Hogwarts had the nerve to just put me in the library, where I sat on a shelf for hundreds of years…until your colleague kindly opened me. Frankly speaking, this is a breath of fresh air – not that I need air anymore, of course."

And so Hermione Granger closed the book and took the gifts from Matou and Sokaris down to her parents – who teased her about the Boy-From-The-East, but looked with at first interest – and then amazement at the Book of Potions, which quickly warmed to the occasion, showing off its collection of still-living plants, its Hopping Cauldron, the many tools it contained, and its ability to project directions into a room.

This one book was, frankly, the most magical thing Hermione Granger had ever seen, aside from the look of excitement and joy on her parents' faces to be seeing something of her world.

Yes, it argued with her about proper recipes, insisting her textbooks were rubbish, and that it knew better, as the spirit of Zygmunt Budge insisted that he should, for he was the most brilliant potioneer ever born, not nobodies like Arsenius Jigger (the writer of Magical Drafts and Potions) or Libatius Borage (who wrote Advanced Potion-Making, the book for NEWT-level classes), whoever they were.

It had been a novel concept to her - that books could disagree with one another, and she almost thought the reason she had issues with Budge was that in some ways, that smug certainty reminded her of...Matou. Yet – like the boy-she-thought-of-as-a-friend, when Budge felt like it and ceased his ranting – his spirit would gently explain the core concepts of the potions and ingredients they were using, as well as why the more basic recipes were utter trash (a point which Hermione felt strongly about, but stopped arguing over after Budge said that if chose them over him, he wouldn't give her access to the resources of his masterpiece).

The Granger household was a bit more lively after the receipt of those parcels, with Hermione's language becoming perhaps a bit more...colorful. Still, over winter break, she had a chance to practice and to demonstrate her craft, had been given something to bridge the gap between the two worlds she bestrode. Rude, argumentative, and crass the book's spirit may have been, it had granted her wish, to share the world of magic with her family.

No. Sokaris had granted her wish, knowing as she did how valuable the book was. Just as Matou had in his own way. And for what they had done for her, she had only one thought, though she still worried about what Matou and Sokaris were to each other, and disagreed with them greatly on the importance of rules and respecting authority.

Gratitude.

A/N: For those curious about the Book of Spells and the Book of Potions, their existence is indeed canon - but they are not Horcruxes, as those involve the murder of something else.