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 27: On a Pale Horse
He drifted through a sea of white – no, not white, only what his eyes told him was supposed to be white, as they refused to process what was really there, his mind reeling from the reality of was all around him – the nothing that was all around him. This was something humans couldn't comprehend, were not made to comprehend, a place that wasn't a place.
An expanse, a「 」with no name, a primordial void where nothing existed.
Not light, not air, not color, not sound. Not form, and certainly not time.
Yet within this void, his body floated, sunk, fell deeper and deeper into nothingness.
No, he couldn't be falling, as there was nothing here, nothing to fall from, to fall to, to fall through, so the very concept of falling itself was meaningless.
But how had he gotten here? His mind was fuzzy, his thoughts were clouded. What had he been doing? Where had he been before this? Who was he?
The last thing he remembered…
Oh.
…was a flash of green light.
The Killing Curse
I see. Then this death. It's…peaceful.
But the moment he had this realization, something began to exist. First something like time, then something like color, then more and more and more, a world spinning into existence before his eyes, until Harry Potter found himself no longer falling, but standing in a wide-open space.
The place was at once familiar and not.
Familiar, given the features of it – the place was larger by far than the Great Hall, with its domed glass ceiling glittering high above, and radiant sunlight streaming in. He was dressed in the robes he'd worn the first day he came to Hogwarts, but that couldn't be. Bits and pieces of memory were coming to him now, and remembered the touch of fire, whispering across his flesh.
This place…
…it seemed like Platform 9 ¾ at King's Cross Station, the place where his journey had begun.
Harry sighed. So this was it, then? He'd died and soon the train - the Hogwarts Express from the look of the engine pulling in now – would come to take him on some new adventure?
It was odd. He couldn't feel the aches and pains that had bothered him for so many years, couldn't even feel the familiar weight of his glasses on his face.
He touched his face to be sure, but it was true, he wasn't wearing glasses, yet he could see perfectly, better than he ever had, truth be told.
But that wasn't what felt most wrong about this place, what made the familiar so very alien.
No, what felt out of place was the fact that no one was there.
No one except a flayed and burned thing that might have once been a child, stuffed thoughtlessly under a seat. It flapped and flailed weakly, gasping for breath, its skin cracked and blackened, its face a bloody ruin.
Harry swallowed, a frisson of fear passing through him, as he saw it, though he didn't know why.
It was a small thing, fragile and wounded, yet he did not want to approach it, almost as if some sixth sense were warning him not to get closer.
A WISE DECISION. Harry froze at the sound of another voice, one that resonated in his head. He turned, only to blink at the sight of a skeleton in a very tattered robe, wielding a scythe that gleamed in the morning sun. The very image of the Grim Reaper, from the pictures he'd seen on books he'd never had the chance to read himself. YOU COULD NOT HELP IF YOU WISHED.
"You're…Death, aren't you?" he asked in a very small voice, swallowing as he took a step back from the skeletal figure.
SO SOME HAVE CALLED ME.
Fingers of bone made as if to tip A hat at the boy, but as Death was not wearing a hat, the effect was mostly lost.
"Then…I guess I am dead," Harry concluded, his shoulders slumping. "If I'm here and you are…"
YES AND NO.
Harry blinked.
"Could you…explain that?"
Yes…and no? How was that even possible? Wasn't someone either dead or not dead?
IMAGINE IF YOU WILL, A CAT IN A BOX.
That seemed something of a non-sequitur, but Harry did as he was told. After all, this was Death Himself – or itself (the pronouns got messy), and he didn't think cutting off the skeleton would be a good idea.
INSIDE THE BOX IS AN UNSTABLE POTION SECURED TO ONE SIDE WITH A STICKING CHARM. THE POTION MAY OR MAY NOT EXPLODE, BUT IF IT DOES, THE CAT WILL DIE.
Harry nodded. That didn't seem to be too hard to follow so far, even if it was a fairly cruel thing to do to a cat, but he still had no idea what this had to do with him.
FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD, ONE CANNOT TELL IF THE CAT IS ALIVE OR DEAD UNTIL THE BOX IS OPENED. THIS IS THE BOX. YOU ARE THE CAT.
"…but why?" Harry asked, his brows knitting together in confusion. "He hit me with the Killing Curse, didn't he?"
YOU HAVE BEEN HIT WITH SAID CURSE BEFORE AND DID NOT DIE.
Harry was forced to admit that this was true – this was in fact the very reason he was called the Boy-Who-Lived, but he thought that had been a fluke.
"So the same thing happened again?" he asked. Could it have, though? He didn't have any memories of this place, where he did of the green light, of his parents, of flying.
NO.
"Then what?"
DUE TO OLD MAGIC, VOLDEMORT'S KILLING CURSE COULD NOT HARM YOU. ALL IT COULD HARM WAS SOMETHING WHICH WAS NEVER MEANT TO EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE.
One of the Reaper's long, bony fingers pointed to the child-like thing that had been shoved under the seat, discarded like unattended baggage.
Harry blinked.
"You know what it is, don't you?"
A BROKEN PIECE OF A FRIGHTENED SOUL.
"What."
How had such a thing? But he knew…almost unbidden, Harry's hand moved to touch his scar, but it wasn't there. The skin was smooth and unblemished.
ASK.
"It's part of Voldemort's soul, isn't it?" Harry half-asked, half sighed, feeling his stomach sink. "That's why I could feel him, why it hurt when he looked at me."
YES, AND YOU ARE HERE BECAUSE IT WAS LINKED TO YOUR OWN.
This was not as big a shock as it might have been once. Harry had wondered sometimes why others thought he was like the Dark Lord - was it because he had carried around a piece of the Dark Wizard's soul for all these years?
"So what happens now? To it…and to me?"
That was the important question, really. If he was both alive and dead, what would Death do with him?
THE SOUL FRAGMENT I WILL KEEP. ITS FATE IS CONTINGENT ON THAT OF THE WIZARD FROM WHICH IT FIRST CAME. YOUR FATE IS YOURS TO CHOOSE.
"To choose?"
YOU MAY BOARD THE TRAIN OR GO BACK.
"And where will that train take me?" he asked, though Harry had a feeling he knew. Where else could it go, but the world beyond?
YOU ALREADY KNOW.
"…my parents are there, aren't they?" he whispered, an icy chill of certainty racing down his spine, as he thought about what it would be like to see them again.
THEY ARE. YOU COULD JOIN THEM, IF YOU WISHED.
The two who had died for him. The parents who he could barely remember, who had left him to the Dursleys. If he took the train he could join them.
If he took the train – went onwards – he wouldn't ever have to suffer again. He could leave pain, sorrow, heartbreak, and more behind, lay down the burdens and expectations others had placed on him.
He wouldn't have to be a hero if he didn't want to be.
It was…tempting.
Tempting beyond words.
But it was a temptation he couldn't accept, because his friends were still in danger. Shinji. Sokaris. The Weasleys. Even Hillard. They'd come with him on this mad quest that he would have undertaken alone if he had to, not because they had to, but because they chose to.
Because they were his comrades and believed in him. They trusted him enough to put their lives on the line for something that was his duty to do.
He couldn't leave just them to die in his place. Especially not at the hands of the person he was called a hero for killing, a Dark Wizard who had never truly died. Quirrell – no – Voldemort – was very much alive, and had said that he'd deal with Harry's friends with his own wand.
He had nothing to fight with, but he had to take responsibility for this mess.
He had to do something.
He had to go back.
YOU HAVE MADE YOUR DECISION?
"I have," Harry answered, his green eyes looking into Death's empty sockets. "I'm going back. I'm not going to leave my friends behind."
VERY WELL.
The skeleton seemed to give a slight bow.
UNTIL NEXT WE MEET, HARRY POTTER.
The world began to fade, but as it did, Death added one more comment, almost as an afterthought.
ONE REQUEST. BE MINDFUL OF MY CLOAK.
Harry was about to ask more, but before he could, the world faded fully into nothingness, the station vanishing as if it was never there to begin with, as he fell down, down, down into a void. Still, at least this time, emptiness had the decency to seem darker than black.
When he came to, he could feel cold hard stone beneath his back, the hinge of his glasses which had been knocked sideways by the fall cutting into his temple, and the tight roughness of Quirrell's conjured ropes chafing his wrists and legs. Every inch of him ached, and the place where Killing Curse had hit him felt like the bruise of an iron-clad punch.
He tasted blood in his mouth, and the smells of burnt metal and flesh mingled in his nostrils.
Familiar, yet noxious, they made him want to gag, to retch, to heave out what little was in his stomach, but he resisted, forcing himself to focus on what else might be out there.
But he heard nothing.
The sound and fury that had echoed in the chamber, the sound of combat he half-expected to hear, all of it was gone. All he could hear was the song of a meadowlark.
And the morning sun was warm on his face.
Wait. What?!
Harry's eyes flew open as he realized just how wrong these things were, bolting upright – or rather, trying to, but finding himself restrained by the still-extant bonds Quirrell had conjured. Still, he did his best to look around and see just had happened.
In the middle of the room, two clawed feet were all that remained of the Mirror of Erised, with the rest having been destroyed by Quirrell in the blast that had knocked Sokaris off her feet and let him stun her.
The room itself was a shattered ruin. Rubble was everywhere, and stone walls and ceiling were marred and webbed with scorch marks and cracks.
In at least one place, the ceiling had collapsed completely, revealing – high above – the light of the rising sun, with the charred remains of a body – barely recognizable as Quirrell's due to the turban – crushed by rubble, with only the head and hands protruding.
Near the figure's hand, glinting in reflected light, were two mangled wands. One was the blackened, broken remnants of what his foe had been holding – the olive wand that had belonged to Sokaris.
The other was Harry's own wand – the length of holly broken in two, its two halves of holly barely connected by the finest thread of phoenix feather.
Even the black flames that had blocked the entrance to the room had gone out, as if blown out by a giant's breath – though right past where it had been was a trail of ash and the burnt remains of a potions satchel, as if something or someone had been caught in a massive wave of force and hurled through the fire.
And of the Philosopher's Stone, there was no trace.
This was the scene that Filius Flitwick discovered during his morning stroll around the castle grounds, with the diminutive head of Ravenclaw House immediately alerting his fellow instructors to begin a search and rescue operation.
Potter was the most fortunate, being largely uninjured, but he had to be sedated and levitated out, as he wasn't in any state to move, looking at the door and repeating the name Sokaris over and over again.
The other Stone Cutters were not as fortunate, and they needed to be taken to St. Mungo's for immediate treatment.
The Weasley Twins had been found unconscious, their limbs twisted at unnatural angles, with splinters of broken bones protruding through the skin.
Matou Shinji had been found cold and blue, with shards of broken flasks stabbed into his stomach and his leg crushed under rubble.
Robert Hillard had several fractured ribs, blood running from his mouth, and burns over much of his body – it would be weeks before he fully recovered.
And the body of Sialim Sokaris would never be found.