Matou Shinji and the Heirs of Slytherin
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: Trouble is brewing in the Wizarding World. In the wake of the Stone Incident, Albus Dumbledore has begun quietly preparing Britain to survive the coming war. The Stone Cutters, a new organization at Hogwarts for the most talented and distinguished of students, seek new blood to bolster its strength. The Boy-Who-Lived seeks his destiny as the Heir of Slytherin. And a boy from the east meets a specter of the past.
Chapter 4. Pandora's Box
"Verdimillious Tria!"
Jagged green lightning tore apart the darkness, racing for the form of an unarmed man – who caught the chaotic energy of the spell in one hand, looking at the caster disdainfully as he forced the connection to remain open, pulling more and more of his assailant's magic from him until he returned it all – with interest – in a blinding white bolt that only missed vaporizing the head of the Boy-Who-Lived by the margin of a hair.
"There is much anger inside you, Potter," Tomas' voice intoned coldly as he circled the Boy-Who-Lived, who gingerly kept his wand trained on the man who had identified himself as his teacher. "Clouds your judgment, it does."
"Flipendo Tria!"
Swirling blue lights shot forth from the holly and phoenix feather wand at the puppet, but a silently cast shield spell deflected each and every one, with the blue bolts rebounding upon the hapless boy, whose attempt to dodge proved futile, as he could not avoid the spray of reflected Flipendos and was hurled to the ground by his own spell.
"Ugh…" Harry groaned, finding himself on his back yet again, with his wand having fallen out of his hand from the shock of impact.
He reached for it feebly, only to find the length of holly in the hands of his opponent, pointed squarely between his eyes.
Harry stared at it, swallowing as he imagined a bolt of green energy erupting from it and slamming into his chest, only for his instructor to step back and give him a small salute.
"Your loss, Mister Potter," the puppet commented, examining the wand he held. "Again. Now, do get up, unless you would like me to demonstrate creative uses of transfiguration in combat again."
Knowing that Tomas' threat was far from idle – the man had demonstrated his mastery of transfiguration by transforming Harry into a chicken once, among other things – the Boy-Who-Lived scrabbled to his feet, upon which the older teen tossed him the wand.
"You are ill-equipped to face a serious enemy, Potter," Tomas noted, eying his charge critically. "Your passions get the best of you, unlike your friend Matou, as even you recognize. You have some small talent for the Dark Arts, but you are deficient in much else. You are not aware of your surroundings. You do not adapt. You were – and are – not vigilant. That is why Sokaris died."
Harry ground his teeth at the man's goads, wanting nothing more than to blast Tomas with some spell to make him stop, to make him shut up – but managed to stop himself from giving in to the temptation, knowing that the man would simply make another lesson out of it. It wasn't the first time he'd done this – used Sokaris' death against him – cruelly mentioned his failings and weaknesses.
After all, a Dark Wizard wouldn't spare his feelings.
"…teach me then," Potter growled, breathing hard as he glared at his instructor. "Teach me to be like you. To become powerful enough that no one else has to die."
A quiet "hm" was Tomas' only response. It did quite amuse him to humble those he taught, to dispel any misconceptions they might have about their abilities – it wouldn't do for someone who was given an Order of Merlin for show to believe they'd actually earned it, after all.
"You're not much older than I am, but the way you use magic—"
"—is not enough for what you desire, Harry Potter," Tomas whispered sibilantly. "I have lost more than you could possibly imagine, become a shell of myself in my quest to defeat an enemy so great, none can truly be said to have defeated it."
This was new, Harry thought. His instructor had never mentioned this before.
"…Voldemort?" the Boy-Who-Lived asked quietly.
"What he represents, rather," Tomas answered. "You see, I am descended from the Peverell family, whose motto is this: 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.'"
This caught Harry's attention.
So other wizards had sought to defeat death – to surpass the limits of mortality.
"…but they didn't defeat death, did they?"
"No, they did not," Tomas admitted, his face almost contemplative as he spoke. "Though what they created – the Deathly Hallows – in their quest to surpass Death itself, are legendary items, on the scale of the Philosopher's Stone."
"Oh?"
"One of the Peverells is said to have crafted the Elder Wand, a wand of unsurpassed power capable of feats of magic considered impossible."
Tomas blinked once, his eyes narrowing as he came across a very interesting memory in Harry's mind, one that he brought to the Boy-Who-Lived's attention.
Albus Dumbledore fixing Harry's broken holly and phoenix feather wand, which the old man had justified by saying he simply knew things that Harry – and Severus Snape – did not.
"…feats such as repairing a wand broken to that degree," Tomas whispered, the image of the slender wand carved with clusters of elderberries burned into his mind, his red eyes seeming hungry, almost inhumanly so before his usual mask of geniality slammed down over his features.
Harry froze.
That would certainly explain the Headmaster's power, if his wand was more powerful than any other, on top of whatever native talent he had. With a wand like that…could he defeat Voldemort? Was that why Voldemort feared him?
And then he thought back to his encounter with the skeletal figure in the train station between life and death – a figure who had asked him to be mindful of his cloak – and a shiver went down his spine.
Could it be that his cloak was a Hallow?
"Was one of the Hallows a cloak?" Harry asked slowly.
"…yes, the Cloak of Invisibility, said to have once been owned by Death," Tomas replied, his gaze intense as red eyes met green. "That which is said to hide one from the sight of any being. Even Death. Your cloak."
The air suddenly became tense, as the puppet grew perfectly still – though still active. With this, he knew – or suspected - the locations of all three Hallows – how could he not, when the last was one that had been made into one of Lord Volemort's Horcruxes?
If he killed the boy – took his cloak, reclaimed the—but no, then the explosives worked into the frame of the puppet body would activate, and he would be no more. It was hard, very, very hard to resist the urge anyway – such was the call of power.
"…and what is the third Hallow?" Harry barely managed to get out, as a surge of what seemed like killing intent faded.
"The most useless of the Hallows – and the one which I possessed in life," Tomas growled, turning his face away from the Boy-Who-Lived. "The Resurrection Stone."
"The Resurrection – an artifact that can raise the dead?!" the Boy-Who-Lived exclaimed, eyes wide with shock. "How is that—"
"—useless?" the puppet finished, shaking his head derisively. "It doesn't raise the dead. Not on its own. All it does is summon the spirits of the dead into the world of the living as spirits. It cannot truly give them life – not without something like the Philosopher's Stone to give the spirit a true body."
"…I see," Harry murmured. The Wand, the Stone, the Cloak. "And what if one brought all three together?"
"Why, it is said that that person would become Master of Death," Tomas answered, a mirthless smile on his lips. "Albus Dumbledore once sought that for himself, in collusion with Gellert Grindelwald, the revolutionary, until his quest ended his sister's life."
"…why didn't he seek out the Resurrection Stone and the Philosopher's Stone to bring her back, since Nicholas Flamel was his friend?"
"Because he did not know who held the Resurrection Stone at the time, and without the soul from which to build a body – as the soul is the body's blueprint - the Philosopher's Stone cannot bring someone back to life," the puppet responded after a moment's hesitation. "And I doubt Flamel would have loaned him his creation for such a purpose – after all, in all his years, he only managed to make the one, and it wouldn't do to let his young friend possibly slide into bad habits again, now would it?"
Tomas' face was bitter at this, his red eyes cold once more as he said those words, as if it was something that affected him personally.
"…you said you owned the Resurrection Stone in life," Harry said slowly, meeting Tomas' gaze once more. "How did you die?"
"The one responsible for separating my soul from my body is the wizard you know as Lord Voldemort," Tomas said heavily.
…which was just as Harry had feared, though he didn't know what use the Dark Wizard would have for that Stone.
"…how did he know you had it?"
"He traced the family tree of the Peverells and found their descendants, of course. My family. And yours, Harry Potter. For the Cloak and the Stone have a much tamer history than the Wand, and were passed on through the lines of the Peverell brothers."
Dumbledore had said that the reason that Voldemort had come after him was a prophecy made before he was born: "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies..."
Did that mean that he was destined to unite the Hallows? As he already had one Hallow to match the Dark Lord's stolen relic?
"I see," Harry said, sighing. "Then we are alike."
And all that saved me was a sacrifice…
"More than you know, Heir of Slytherin."
In the days to follow, Tomas taught the Boy-Who-Lived many things about spellcraft – the different types of spells – single-target, area of effect, continuous or single-cast – and which spells fell under which criteria. It wasn't always a neat separation, but in general, spells were either cast once – like Flipendo or Avada Kedavra – or continuously cast, like Verdimillious Tria, the Cruciatus Curse, or even Lumos, though of course, some could be used both ways, like the Imperius, Fiendfyre, or a number of other spells.
He learned quite a bit about the strengths and weaknesses of each type of spell – and how some could be combined with his basic ofuda.
…and he also learned that while Tomas could cast a very powerful shield spell, he generally disdained their use, as he found it easier to move or deflect a spell with another spell, much in the way Quirrell had done.
Harry was beginning to believe that the spell-deflection skill was a pre-requisite to becoming a masterful duelist, and asked the man to teach him, though Tomas noted that unless he had the reflexes for it, learning such a thing would be difficult – and it wouldn't protect him against area-effect spells.
…that in itself was a fairly strong argument for learning a basic shield spell – and of course, to shore up his mental defenses so he could retain the element of surprise in a duel. And if the Boy-Who-Lived thought Quirrell's classes at Hogwarts had been fierce and unforgiving, they had nothing on Tomas' style of teaching.
A sink or swim environment where the only option was to grow stronger – or perish.
Later in the week, Harry found himself in the shopping district of Mahoutokoro with a haggard looking Shinji, confronting his most dangerous and difficult challenge to date – buying a gift for a girl. Not in a romantic sense, as Shinji was almost too quick to explain. It was just that if Harry was going to visit Shinji's home town during the weekend off that Aozaki-san had given them, there were formalities that needed to be observed, since the magic users of Fuyuki were (in theory), supervised by the last daughter of a family of nobles, and it was customary for visitors to bring a gift.
"That's just the Eastern rules of hospitality," Shinji said, as they passed yet another shop. "And since you're coming for the first time, you'll want to impress her."
After all, it never hurt to make a powerful impression of how powerful his friends were on Tohsaka, given that it would only bolster his reputation.
But what to get?
"I've…never bought anyone a present before," Harry said quietly. And until last year, he hadn't gotten any presents either, so this whole business was still foreign to him. "What would be a good gift?"
Speaking of which, he did have to buy presents for Daphne and some of the Stone Cutters before he left, but that would be later.
"Heh," Shinji acknowledged. "Well, since we want to give the image that you're nobility from the West, there are a few options."
Harry was about to protest that he wasn't actually nobility, but remembered a few things like the fact that as part of the Order of Merlin, he was technically the equivalent of a knight, and that even if he wasn't, as a descendant of the Peverells who held one of the Deathly Hallows, he might be considered nobility as well.
"Like what?" the Boy-Who-Lived asked. He'd have to read up on more of these customs, since he probably would get more invitations to events and to meet people, given his new status – as if being the Boy-Who-Lived wasn't troublesome enough.
"Since Falconry is traditional among western nobles, maybe something like an owl or a raven," Shinji mused, walking past one of the shops that sold basic familiars, and noting their usual assortment of animals – owls, snakes, and other such. "That, or a knife or other tool useful for magic, though if we're giving a knife, we need to get a coin too."
"A coin?"
"Just giving someone a knife is symbolic of cutting off the relationship," the Matou scion explained. "Unless you're Finnish, but…"
…somehow, he didn't think Tohsaka wanted to be reminded of the Edelfelt family. And he didn't think using more jewels would be appropriate, as he'd already given her a chest full at Christmas, and the point was not to humiliate the Second Owner.
"Would she want an owl?" Harry questioned, noticing some interesting looking specimens – one of which was going "morpork, morpork" and another of which was a regal snowy owl – much like Hedwig – whose feathers were fluffed up in discontent.
"Hm," Shinji said, thinking about what he knew of Rin, but… "I don't actually know."
"It wouldn't be right to give her a pet then," Harry said softly. "Not if she doesn't want one – it's a lot of responsibility."
…that, and he felt bad for not spending enough time with Hedwig during the school year. For all that she was one of his first companions, she'd been largely neglected.
"A normal knife is probably out too," Shinji mused, as they walked past a shop that sold all sorts of blades – even some that he thought were goblin-forged knives. "We need something more impressive…"
"…like that?" Harry cut in, pointing to a mechanical owl in the window of a shop of curios.
"Huh."
A clockwork masterpiece in gleaming silver and red lacquer, with gems for eyes, a beak of gold, and…razor-sharp feathers – which moved as if it was alive.
"Let's go inside."
As they said that, the door opened, with two young girls – one with blue hair and one with pink, stepping outside and chorusing: "Welcome!"
They took the arms of the two boys and led them inside the shop – where they came face to face with the apparent proprietor, a tall, thin woman clad in a kimono, with pale skin, red eyes, and long black hair down to the back of her knees, cut in many layers. She was…lounging on a chair, it seemed.
"A child of destiny," she intoned, looking directly at Harry and taking a long puff on a pipe. "And one who runs from fate itself."
"Destiny?" Harry echoed.
"Destiny refers to an event that will definitely happen. Without it, nothing is possible. From one thing you see, many others can be imagined," the woman spoke, lowering the pipe and looking at the two blandly. "What I said just now was translated from the Japanese learning dictionary, second edition."
For indeed, she'd spoken in English – not a language one heard too commonly in Mahoutokoro, except from tourists or in classrooms.
Shinji felt the hairs on his back standing on end – there was something about this shop that was triggering every cautionary bone in his body.
"Your names?" the woman asked.
"Harry Potter," the Boy-Who-Lived answered quickly.
"Matou Shinji," the other answered.
"Birthdays?"
"July 31."
The last day of the seventh month, and…
"May 5."
Which coincidentally was Children's Day (or Kodomo no Hi) a day set aside to respect children's personalities and to celebrate their happiness.
The woman laughed then, a merry, jovial sound as she sat up.
"I never knew anyone who would so willingly give their real name and birthday out to strangers," she noted with amusement. "By giving out your name, you are giving someone the ability to take your soul. By giving out your birthday, you have given over control of your entire life."
Shinji was rapidly becoming nervous.
"We are just here about the owl."
"Impatient, I see."
"Simply cautious," Shinji replied, bowing low. He was getting the impression that this woman could be very, very dangerous if angered, and that this shop was her workshop.
"Very well, then," the odd woman noted, standing as she glanced sidelong at the two and walked to the owl. "For everything you desire, you must pay an equal price in return. You cannot break the balance, else there will be…mishaps."
"What."
"Whether to one's physical self, or to one's hidden fates – or even to spirits from another world."
Shinji blinked. This sounded much like equivalent exchange writ large – as if the shop itself were some sort of magic circle, or were built around some ritual.
…what have I stumbled into?
"Do not worry – I do not kill," she said, which didn't quite reassure the would-be onmyouji, since it discomfited him to know how easily she saw through him. "No matter what the reason, killing gives the killer a heavy weight."
Harry was getting a bit nervous too.
"…about the owl?" he asked. "We just wanted to buy a gift for someone we are visiting."
"Is that so?" the woman mused, looking at the two. "And who shall pay the price?"
"I will," Shinji spoke up, wanting to get this over with. Somehow, he didn't think money alone would suffice…would it? "Will…will this do?"
He held out his copy of the Ofuda and Origami book – what Toroi Surein had called a proof copy of a book of hidden arts.
"A proof copy – the only one of its kind, though there are other editions out now," the woman answered. "I assume you do not wish to pay another price?"
Shinji shook his head.
"Very well. The cost should be sufficient."
Wordlessly, Shinji simply handed it over, with the proprietress of the shop handing the owl to her two assistants, who wrapped the item and presented him with a blood red box. Twas surprisingly heavy, until Shinji just opened his Mokeskin pouch and placed it inside.
After that, he and Harry were ushered from the shop by the two young assistants, with Shinji only all too happy to be outside and free of whatever odd magic was in that shop.
Harry still looked dazed.
"…is shopping always like this?" he asked, distractedly.
"No," Shinji answered. "But now, at least we have a gift for Tohsaka. I suppose we will get a present for my grandfather, if we have to."
The Matou scion sighed, feeling tired all at once – he had a perception he'd dodged a fireball somehow, though he didn't know what the danger would have been.
"Your grandfather…" Harry echoed, thinking back to what he could remember of Shinji's family. "Your mother went to Hogwarts, right?"
Shinji stiffened, but answered "Yes."
"What about your father?" Harry asked, wanting to know since they would be visiting his hometown soon.
Shinji averted his gaze, turning his face towards the setting sun.
"…I have no father."