It was Christmas Eve during the fourth year after Kanda had been adopted that the family met the boy they would come to know as Allen Walker. All three families were over for Lunch as a celebration and they all watched as Kanda excused himself to go walking. It was expected now that he would leave at some stage to go "looking" as he put it, all those years ago. Not even Lavi, Lenalee or Marie, those he was closest to, knew what he was searching for. The adults wondered if the boy even still expected to find it, or if his walks were now more out of habit than any real expectation to find whatever it was.

Lunch was long over, and Tiedoll was happily putting the finishing touches on his Master Piece, when the front door of the house burst open with force. He looked up in shock to see Kanda running in with small, white-haired, child on his back.

'Yuu-Chan!'

'Call a doctor, now!'

Kanda hadn't reacted to the use of his name, that more than anything else set alarm bells off in Tiedoll's head. Getting up he raced to his son to get a better look at what he was carrying. The boy was hurt, bad, covered in blood from various wounds. But more important, he realised, the kid's eyes were glassy and his lips were blue. It was snowing outside and the kid was in nothing but rags; thin top and pants with no shoes, cloth that was ripped and blood stained.

He was sending a message to Mr Lee before you could say Patronus. Mr Lee Apparated to an out of sight place in the house the second he got the message.

There were two difficulties when trying to treat the child; one was that Kanda refused to let the boy leave the house, the second was that the kid wouldn't let go of Kanda's clothes.

The first thing Mr Lee tried to do when he saw the child was move him to St Mungo's Hospital. Even if the kid was muggle, he was so sick he didn't think anyone would turn him away. The problem with this came from Kanda; he refused to let them take the boy out of the house and away from him. Despite the fact that Kanda would have known it was best to move the child somewhere more qualified to help him, he wouldn't let the boy be separated from him. The adults realised quickly that, for the child's health, it would be better to move on to treating him then delay by arguing with the stubborn Kanda, which brought them to the second problem.

The half-frozen and injured boy had a surprisingly good grip on Kanda's cloths, and he wasn't letting go.

No matter how they talked, coaxed or used physical force the child would not release his death grip on Kanda's cloths, he refused to be separated even more that Kanda had. Eventually Tiedoll suggested that the only way they would be able to get the boy to let go so he could be treated would be to get Kanda to undress. This almost work, except the boy switched his hold to Kanda's long hair that he refused to cut instead. Mr Lee decided that would have to do since at least now they could examine and treat the boy with slightly less interference, it just meant Kanda wouldn't be going far.

As they tried to assess the extent of the boy's injuries and get his body temperature to a more reasonable level at the same time, both adults got a better look at their patient. The child was tiny compared to Kanda, and hideously underweight, Malnutrition was likely playing almost as large a part in his condition as hypothermia. They also noticed other things now that they were looking properly; as well as white hair and grey eyes that would stand out the child had a painful looking scar running down one side of his face, a scar that looked like a person had spent a lot of effort to get to look the way it did. The boys left arm appeared crippled, the skin red and wrinkled, neither of the adults would have been surprised if the limb was paralysed.

It took longer than Mr Lee was comfortable with to get the kid treated, by the end he was disgusted with anyone that could do that to a child. He wished he could say that it was all muggles; that wizards were more advanced than to do that to anyone, but the actions of he-who-must-not-be-named and his supporters begged different. He had to use both muggle and magic means to treat the child.

It was late at night by the time he had done the best anyone could. The child was curled up with Kanda, they still couldn't separate them, for warmth; but he didn't like the boy's chances. Mr Lee didn't say it, but he thought it would be a Christmas miracle if he was alive in the morning.

The adults spent the rest of the night discussing the pros and cons of finding the boy's family. The driving force was that if the parents had done this to him, then they had someone definite they could punish. Part of them hoped he didn't have a family, as that would mean that there weren't people capable of doing this to their own child, and they would have an easier time of adopting him since separating him and Kanda was clearly out of the question.

If he survived that was.

So far, the only lead they had was that he was not in the ministry's records. He didn't have a trace so if he had magic it hadn't used it yet and if he was Magic born the parents had never admitted to his existence.

The next morning, Christmas, Marie woke to the sound of a wild animal roaring and then rustling in the kitchen. Carefully, he navigated the house to try and figure out who would be up at this hour. He was surprised when he heard Kanda and someone he didn't recognise. He stood in the doorway and tried to figure out who the second person was. Eventually he heard his father come to stand just behind him.

Tiedoll was in shock; the boy was not just alive, he was standing in the kitchen while Kanda made food. Kanda did not make food, partly because he was too young but most because of his personality, even the bland soup that was being made in curtesy of the child's damaged stomach. Scratch that, especially food that was made with someone else in mind. The boy in question seemed to have noticed them, and was desperately tugging on Kanda's sleeve to get his attention.

'Old man, there isn't enough for you so you have to make your own. I am not apologising.' Seeing his father's face at the idea that the two boys would eat the giant pot of soup that Kanda was making on their own, he added, 'the Moyashi eats a lot.'

Tiedoll watched as the white-haired boy made a squawking sound, whether in protest to the name or the comment on his eating he had no idea. He was more concerned with the supposedly half-dead child clinging to his son, a son that was acting more familiar with a person he had met the day before, than he ever did with his family that he had known for four years. Finally, the boy gave up on scolding Kanda and turned to Tiedoll and Marie.

'A-Allen Wa-alker.' The boy said as he pointed to himself, then he smiled and held his hand out in a gesture of greeting.

That Christmas Eve was the last time Kanda went walking, and the others wondered, but never asked, if it had been Allen he was looking for all along.

Allen was just as strange, if not stranger, than Kanda. After two years of living with him this was the only reasonable conclusion they could come up with. When it came to progressing mentally and physically faster than what was considered 'normal' he certainly managed to keep up with Kanda, even given his rather unfortunate circumstances early in life and his younger age, to the point where they were not entirely sure that Allen wasn't ahead of him.

The first week of living with Tiedoll's adopted family had highlighted several abnormalities that the boy displayed, more than Kanda had ever had (and he had quite a few). Komui had casually done a scan for traces of magic on the boy as a check-up for his father and found layer after layer of it all round the Allen's body. There was so much that Komui couldn't even get an accurate reading for some of it.

There was only one conclusive result; the boy was cursed, most likely several times over.

They never did find the boy's family; mostly because Allen simply refused to talk about it. Some things he would let slip, but never enough to paint a completed picture of what the child had endured for the first four years of his life.

As Kanda had said, Allen ate a lot. He would often eat his own body weight at meals, and yet he remained hideously underweight. Komui and Mr Lee suggested medication and spells, but Tiedoll feared hurting the boy by messing with something that, if the scan was anything to go by, appeared to be rooted in magic means.

Despite his lack in weight the kid was strong, Daisya saw him doing strange push ups during the first few months up to a number approaching 50, Marie confirmed it was a regular occurrence. As the years went by the number increased; until Marie reported that he had heard the boy count to 150 one morning.

Allen and Kanda were both home schooled, for quite a few reasons. One was that they were both ridiculously advance; once Allen got his hands on some books he proved just how smart he was. If the two had been placed in school, they would have been bored, and most likely alienated for being different.

Another reason was that the two were inseparable. They had tried, once, to get Kanda to stay home while Allen went somewhere else, this attempt ended when Kanda nearly killed someone and Allen had a panic attack. This also proved that, despite his politeness, Allen also hated (or feared) people almost as much as Kanda.

Even after two years Allen never fully acted as if he was part of the family, at least not in the same way the other three boys did. Allen behaved the same way around them as three families acted around each other; close friends, maybe a branch family, but still slightly separate. He was not a brother quite the same way the others were. His relation to Kanda was something else entirely and everyone agree that that was their business, some things you just didn't examine properly, despite common sense trying to claim otherwise.

Allen's knowledge of languages was revealed after about a year of living with them, it was not a conversation they were likely to forget. While it was common knowledge amongst the family that both boys were fluent in both English and Japanese, they hadn't realised that Allen knew so much more than that.

Marie had heard a lot of swearing coming from the boys' room one day when they were meant to be doing homework. He and Tiedoll went to see what all the fuss was about. They found Kanda arguing with Allen over something while the other boy quietly refused his demands.

'Yuu-Chan, what's the matter?' Tiedoll was concerned; it was rare to see the boys seriously arguing.

'The Moyashi stole my homework last night and translated it all into Hindi! How the hell am I meant to do it now?'

'Baka, it's your own fault. You need the practice if you ever want to know anything other than swear words.'

'That doesn't give you the right to translate my homework into another language!'

'Allen-Chan,' Tiedoll tried to distract the boys, 'you speak Hindi?'

'Yes, Mr Tiedoll.'

'And you are trying to teach it to Kanda?'

'That's right.'

'Do you speak any other languages, besides English, Japanese, and Hindi?' asked Marie, though that was already a slightly ridiculous list for six-year-old is his opinion, even given that it was meant to be easier for a child to learn a language than an adult.

'French and German are the only other languages I speak fluently, but I know bits and pieces of Russian, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese as well.'

Just how smart was the kid? It was scary.

There were two other people, besides their brothers, that Allen and Kanda spent time with, with any sort of regularity. One was Lenalee, who had revealed that she had magic soon after Allen turned up. The other was Lavi, the Bookman's only son, who they were fairly sure was a squib; given that, at ten years old, he had never performed any sort of accidental magic.

When it came to the intriguing mix of Magic and Muggle words, the adults felt it was handled quite well. None of Tiedoll's adopted sons, Allen included, ever performed accidental magic. The ministry reported that none of them had ever triggered the trace, and Lavi didn't seem to have magic either. Of the six children, only Lenalee ever proved to have magic, so the adults decided that they would simply not tell them so they wouldn't feel left out. The Bookmen decided that it was best for Lavi if he never found out what his family was, so they kept magic a secret from all of those without for years. It worked quite well, in fact, for a long time.

Of course, things got more than a little messed up when everyone walked in on Kanda and Allen dangling Lavi by the ankle in mid-air.