Those of you who were reading my So I'm a Spider, So What? crossover Xenogenous Souls will no doubt have seen me raise a suggestion as to my doing another crossover with another isekai series, one debatably more popular in many regards. True, it was not without controversy, as the anime adaptation had the bad timing to be released about the same time the MeToo movement was gathering steam, and yet, it's still a damn good series, up there with Overlord, The Saga of Tanya the Evil, and So I'm a Spider, So What? in terms of being the best isekai series.
I'm talking about The Rising of the Shield Hero.
I was introduced to this franchise years ago when I stumbled across sakurademonalchemist's Potterverse crossover Shield Wizard, back when The Rising of the Shield Hero was mostly known for light novels and a manga adaptation. I found the series intriguing, but didn't get around to reading the novels until relatively recently. However, I did want to do a story based on it eventually, and there's actually a dearth of Potterverse crossovers.
I also wanted to do it as a Harry/Raphtalia story, but the pairing is fraught with issues. The most obvious is her age: while Raphtalia ages up both mentally and physically with experience, there's no getting around the fact that she's still about ten years old. I do make exemptions to my age rule with pairings for artificial beings like AIs, androids or Homunculi, but to get a pairing with Raphtalia to work, I had to get creative with some timey-wimey bullshit. Indeed, the original story idea I had had Raphtalia join Harry on his Hogwarts adventures, and then, they travel back to her world in time to help Naofumi out. But that didn't quite feel right to me. So I decided on this story. The first couple of chapters are set in the Potterverse, but come the end of the second chapter, that will change.
Another part of Raphtalia's canon relationship with Naofumi that I take some small issue with was her devotion to him, particularly wanting to have her slave brand re-applied. That has some unfortunate implications in my mind, and while Naofumi was kind to her in many regards, he also did treat her pretty harshly, and in the light novels, he even considered using her as a means to take out his anger towards Myne/Malty on. Don't get me wrong, their relationship is actually quite sweet after Naofumi realises how loyal she is, but I have to wonder how much of Raphtalia's devotion to him is Stockholm Syndrome or something similar. The relationship between Harry and Raphtalia will not be without its speed bumps, but it'll be healthier, I hope.
I'm also hoping to shine a spotlight in this story onto more interesting portrayals of King Aultcray, Pope Balmus, and Ren. I hope to ensure Ren is Harry's ally from close to the beginning, and Harry's relationship with Aultcray, while still mutually antagonistic, will be more complex and less antagonistic than Naofumi had with Aultcray. Balmus will still be an unrepentant villain, but he will have interesting wrinkles to his character.
We won't be adding much to Malty, though. Because fuck her. Or rather, don't.
Also, I brought up a potential Devil May Cry crossover in Xenogenous Souls, with Vergil becoming the Sword Hero in Melromarc instead of Ren. That's still a possibility, and if nothing else, I will post it as a challenge later on.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
SAUDADE
CHAPTER 1:
AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
Wind tore at her clothes and body, unearthly wind that was visible, in sickly colours, like an eldritch oil spill. She couldn't help but scream in pain as she was torn from the last vestiges of what she knew. Then again, she knew she was about to die. She just didn't expect it to be this way.
That fat noble had gotten his kicks torturing her, but now, he had a use for her, he had told her. Mages under his employ were working on a ritual to reverse the ageing of a person using time magic, but he was cautious. The ritual was dangerous and experimental. He wanted to use her as a guinea pig. He taunted her, hoping she would regress to an infant or a foetus he could stomp to death.
But things had gone wrong. The only consolation from her death was that she saw that wicked man and his cronies ageing, withering, decaying and crumbling to dust before the energies consumed her completely. That, and perhaps she would be able to see her mother and father again. True, she was leaving behind her friends, Rifana and Keel, but perhaps the noble's demise would lead to their freedom. It was a probably vain hope, but she clung to it regardless.
After too long, her journey ended, and she found herself in a darkened chamber, almost bereft of decoration. A stone hard floor, cold and unwelcoming, was all she could see in the dim light. She wondered whether this was the domain of Death, that this was the cold anteroom before judgement.
She spent the best part of a minute weeping, her tears beading on the stone floor, before a door opened, and then, the chamber was filled with light. It took her a moment to adjust, though she heard the soft footfalls which came to a stop near her. She looked, and saw the robed figure. Was this Death? Was he here to judge her?
The robed figure knelt next to her, and a hand gently brushed away her fringe. She realised that, if this was Death, then it wasn't the skeletal reaper she had feared. Indeed, she glimpsed a face beneath the hood. The lips moved, and he spoke, but she couldn't understand the words.
"…M-M-M-Mr Death, I d-don't understand you," she said.
After a moment, he nodded, and took what looked like a magic wand from his robes, casting a spell on her. As she flinched on instinct, the man took off his hood, revealing an older, vaguely thuggish and yet scholarly face(1). "Can you understand me now, child?"
She nodded, not trusting her voice. But he smiled a kindly smile. "It's okay. I'm not here to hurt you. It seems someone has done more than enough hurt to you already," he remarked, looking at her bruised limbs and tattered clothes. He touched her shackles, and examined the half-revealed slave crest on her. "Nasty piece of work. I don't recognise the circle, but I think I can guess its intent. Just a moment. Alohamora."
Her shackles popped open, and fell onto the floor with a soft clatter. She looked up into his eyes, and realised he would help her. "Sir…" she began, "…who are you? Where am I? Are we still in Melromarc?"
The man blinked. "Melromarc? Where have I heard…? No, never mind. Child, you're in the Department of Mysteries, underneath the city of London, England. Though I suspect that you come from another world, especially with those ears and that tail. Wherever you came from, you came here by accident, and I am not sure I can return you. But as to my name, I am Saul Croaker, a scholar if you will. And what's your name?"
It took her a moment to gather her courage, trying not to think about her being trapped on another world. Instead, she said, "My name is…"
"FILTH! HALF-BREEDS! BLOOD-TRAITORS! DEFILERS OF THE MOST ANCIENT AND VENERABLE HOUSE OF BLACK! I OUGHT TO…"
And then, there was blissful silence. Harry Potter, who had been drawn out of his room by the noise, frowned when he heard it suddenly cut off. Not that he didn't welcome the sudden silence, but when people finally drew the curtains across the portrait of the late and unlamented Walburga Black, she did continue for some time, albeit muffled.
He hated this house. He was sure Sirius hated it too, and with more reason, considering Sirius grew up in it, in an abusive family who would rival the Dursleys. But he hated this place almost as much as he hated 12 Grimmauld Place. He was a virtual prisoner here, just as he was at the Dursleys. The only difference was that his friends were here, and the Dursleys weren't. And even then, he despised them keeping him in the dark, and on Dumbledore's orders. There were too many times whether he wondered whether they were his friends at all now.
Hell, given what he learned, that damned hearing he had suffered through a week ago, there was a dark part of him that wished to be away from Magical Britain, to let Voldemort have it. While he dismissed those darker thoughts as swiftly as they had come, he still felt trapped and imprisoned by his reputation, and by Dumbledore, the old fossil claiming it was for the best of intentions. But Harry knew of a certain idiom about what the road to Hell was paved with.
But in the end, he couldn't abandon his friends, and those he cared about.
When he arrived, however, it was to an extraordinary sight. Two people he didn't recognise as being part of the Order of the Phoenix were standing in front of the portrait. One of them, an older man who looked vaguely familiar for some reason, somewhat thuggish and yet scholarly-looking, was speaking with Dumbledore. "…Needed to do this, Albus, or I would have lost my mind from her xenophobic ranting. And while she looks in the library, under the supervision of Mr Black, I think you and I will have to have a long and hard discussion about…"
Dumbledore noticed Harry, and interrupted. "Harry! Good timing. I don't believe you have ever met Saul Croaker?"
The name rang a bell, and finally, Harry remembered where he had seen the man before. "Actually while we didn't meet, I saw you at the Quidditch World Cup. You're an Unspeakable, with the Department of Mysteries. Mr Weasley pointed you out to me."
The older man smiled, and shook Harry's hand. "Ah, yes, Arthur. A good man, but one who could stand to better his education about Muggle technology. But it is good to meet you properly at last, Harry. Your mother worked for me for a time, actually. A waste of a brilliant mind, and an even greater heart. Though you yourself are impressive. Why, casting a Patronus at your age, and while facing a pair of Dementors, creatures that I have heard you have a worse reaction than most wizards do. Though with that little incident, you only need a bit of thought to smell a rat. Then again, too many wizards don't even have a bit of thought."
The other newcomer pouted. Harry hadn't brought attention to her yet, if only because he had been distracted by Croaker's spiel. "Mr Croaker, it's not that bad!"
"Not that bad, my girl? I showed you the headlines from that government-controlled tabloid rag," Croaker said. "The populace eats it up! At least in Muggle society, there is no real monopoly on the news, despite the intentions of, well, say Rupert Murdoch. But even there, you need a good bullshit filter. Magic only magnifies the follies of humanity. That is one of the many fundamental truths all Unspeakables must know. Sorry about that rant, Harry. But I find myself frustrated at the Ministry's idiocy and cupidity. I'm sure you feel the same way."
Harry nodded, feeling it safer. "Were you at the hearing?"
"Yes, though we Unspeakables are unable to intervene on such matters. Officially, anyway. The Department of Mysteries…well, I suppose, to put it simply without giving away too much, we are close to a university research department, albeit with the secrecy of a military black project in Muggle terms. We study the fundamental forces of magic, as well as the more esoteric and obscure branches. That's about all I can say about it, though I'm sure, given what Albus has told me, that your friend, Hermione Granger, was it? She'd talk my ear off with questions, and I could probably only answer a third of them."
"…And who is this?" Harry asked, turning his attention to the other newcomer.
"My…ward, for want of a better term, and an apprentice, to some degree. I'll let her introduce herself fully."
The girl was about his age, surprisingly enough, and whereas Croaker was dressed in fairly generic-looking academic clothing, the girl, like Tonks, was dressed in surprisingly casual Muggle clothes. Specifically, jeans, and a shirt advertising a Japanese anime film, Pom Poko(2). Her hair was a light brown, framing gentle, beautiful features. Her eyes, oddly enough, were a dark pink, not quite red.
But her eyes were far from the oddest thing about her.
A pair of roundish animal ears twitched upon her head. A rather large, fluffy tail protruded from her rear. And considering it wagged gently, it was no fake.
"Hello, Harry Potter," she said with a smile. "I am Raphtalia…"
Both Hermione and Sirius happened to be in the Black family library, with the latter supervising the former as she read. Harry gave a slightly curt greeting to his bushy-haired friend. He was still a little miffed at her for kowtowing to Dumbledore and keeping him in the dark. It wasn't enough to sunder their friendship, but Harry was still sore about it.
However, the moment Hermione saw Raphtalia, she began firing off her usual questions. Raphtalia bore them with bemused good nature, until Sirius helped her look for some of the books she wanted. As she began looking through the books, Hermione frowned. "That's rather advanced stuff. Spatial magic?"
Raphtalia nodded. "There's much in the Department of Mysteries on time and space magic, but not much about travel between worlds, apart from a rather facetious traveller's guide by someone called Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg. You see, I come from another world."
Harry, Hermione and Sirius blinked. It was not often that you heard someone say they come from another world. Hermione was the first to recover. "Do you mean…a parallel Earth?"
"Not exactly. My world, to my knowledge, isn't an alternative version of Earth. The atlas is different, very different, and so is society. I admittedly was only…about ten years old when I ended up here. I didn't go to Hogwarts partly because of my appearance, and partly because my magical abilities are highly specialised."
Harry nodded, remembering what Hagrid went through, even if his heritage wasn't public knowledge until last year, and of course, what Remus went through. A girl with animal ears and a tail? She'd definitely be bullied. "So, what are you, exactly, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Not at all. You're just curious, not malicious, as is Hermione. I'm a demi-human. That's basically the standard term for what you would call a therianthrope here. In other words, while I am mostly human in many regards, I do have certain traits that set me apart, including the obvious." Her ears twitched, and her tail wagged slightly. "Back home, we are considered kin to monsters, especially as we can age rapidly with combat experience. I am unusual in that I have aged normally, but I haven't exactly been fighting. Demi-humans are feared by humans, partly for that reason."
"…How badly?" Hermione asked, seeming to suspect and dread the answer.
"…The country I lived in, Melromarc, despised my people. Not without reason: my father told me of the wars of the demi-human country Siltvelt and their depravities against Melromarc. But…when my parents died, my friends and I were made into slaves, and slavery of demi-humans is legal in that country, just as human slavery is legal in Siltvelt. I…I don't want to talk about what happened then. I was lucky, but my friends…"
"You want to see them again," Sirius said softly.
Raphtalia nodded. "…Even if it is nothing but their bones. And…perhaps to fight, if there's anything left to fight for. The Waves of Catastrophe are no laughing matter. The first Wave in years devastated my town. A Cerberus monster, worse than the creatures here, tore my parents to shreds in front of me. They…sacrificed their lives for me, and…" Her voice caught in her throat, and her eyes glistened with tears.
And Harry knew how that felt. Well, not quite. He never knew his parents. But Raphtalia had been old enough to know them before they were torn from her. "Waves of Catastrophe?" Hermione asked.
"I don't know exactly what they are, but I think they are interdimensional rifts that appear at certain intervals. But I saw them appearing…great rippling wounds in the sky, disgorging monsters. I do not mean to be dismissive of Voldemort when I say such a thing, but he is nothing compared to a Wave of Catastrophe. Indeed, it is thought that the only people who could stand up to them are the four Cardinal Heroes. The Sword Hero, the Bow Hero, the Spear Hero…" And then, a slight smile touched her lips. "And the Shield Hero…"
CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:
So, Raphtalia is in the Potterverse. And she's basically an apprentice Unspeakable. But this won't end well for Harry…
1. I've had it in my mind since Just a Touch of Kleptomania that Croaker would be played by David Troughton, the son of Doctor Who actor Patrick Troughton. Although David Troughton often plays villainous roles, I think he'd work well as Croaker.
2. The thought of Raphtalia, who is half-tanuki demi-human, wearing a T-shirt about a film about tanukis, is a funny one.
