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Story: [Waiting for one's arrival]

Summary: Albus Dumbledore has no Boy-Who-Lived. What he does have is a headache, and two very odd children searching for a cure to a wasting illness in Hogwarts' library.

Crossover: (Fate/Stay night) / (Harry Potter)

Genre: Mystery? The PoV is a bit too distant from the action to tell.

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

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The Dursleys had lost him.

And so a hundred plans upon plans came crumbling down. All because he hadn't expected the incompetency of the muggles that he'd long since made certain would never defy him.

A single miscalculation and half-a-decade of planning went down the drain.

The worst part was that he wasn't sure to what the muggles had lost the Boy-Who-Lived. A wizard? A magical creature? A muggle? There was no way that he could plan properly if he wasn't sure who was holding the boy's reins, or if he was even alive still.

He hadn't even been informed of their failure to keep the boy under wraps until he'd been gone for over a month. They knew nothing, the trail had gone cold, and the magic that he'd originally planned to track the boy with had turned out to be dysfunctional to the extreme.

Apparently, making a human tracking-device was a lot more complicated than making one for animals. He really should've run more tests before relying on it. As it was, all he could do was track down the biggest concentration of blood that was related to him. Such as, say... half the purebloods of Britain, or the Dursleys.

He'd been lucky that he'd only made a fool of himself with that to those blasted muggles, otherwise more people than usual would've believed him to be going batty in his old age. And whilst that rumor kept people from thinking too deeply on anything in particular that he did, and made it slightly more complicated for some of his political adversaries to attack him outright, becoming known as too batty would launch him away into early retirement.

And that meant that even more of his plans would end up crumbling to dust.

No, it was very lucky that he'd discovered the complications with the device long before he'd gone hunting down anyone related to the boy and tried to kidnap someone's heir, simply due to a misunderstanding. Very, very lucky.

Frowning out over the grounds of Hogwarts, Albus entertained himself with wondering who could've anticipated the boy's placement, and reacted with enough swiftness to steal him away from under everyone's nose in the way that had happened.

It was an old puzzle, and it wasn't made any easier by the knowledge that it was equally possible that someone might simply have stumbled upon him through cheer coincidence, or that he'd run away by himself and died in a ditch somewhere.

Too many variables, too few facts, and an endless list of suspects.

Sighing to himself, Albus laboriously climbed to his feet. He wasn't getting any younger, and his bones ached far too much for comfort. Even so, he should make an appearance at dinner. He was headmaster after all, and he couldn't be seen neglecting his staff.

It wasn't until he was halfway down the stairs from his office, that the wards of Hogwarts chimed like a gigantic bell, nearly knocking him off of his feet in a mixture of force and surprise.

An intruder, magical by nature, capable of somehow launching themselves directly through the wards without permission.

Albus didn't know of anything that could do that. Though he could imagine that it might be doable if the one doing so had moved onto the grounds without using a portkey or Apparating. It might be easy to walk into Hogwarts, but it was damn near impossible to use magic to arrive directly onto the grounds, and with good reason.

Generation upon generation had added onto the wards surrounding the school, and whilst many of them had not been particularly skilled in their efforts, the sheer amount of layers against Apparition and portkey-usage should've stopped cold anyone trying to use those methods of gaining access.

As for more... unusual methods of magical transportation... well, it was possible that some things had been lost, or something had been secretly gained. So, it might be possible for another method to break through the thinner – or possibly not-even-present – wards that were supposed to stop them. If the user had enough power.

Though why in the world they would want to do such a highly inefficient thing, rather than simply walking the hundred-or-so yards from outside of the grounds to the castle entrance, Albus couldn't even begin to imagine.

Wand in hand, Albus walked through the Great Hall, taking care to keep his hurry dignified. Both for the sake of his reputation, as well as the fact that he wasn't as spry as he used to be. Better that he walk calmly, despite his worry, than that he twist one of his ridiculously fragile ankles and spend the next few weeks walking with a limp.

If he wanted to be injured heavily enough to limp, then he would make sure that lethal danger was involved somehow, otherwise it just felt so pathetic. Dammit, he was old, not a cripple.

The Hall grew eerily silent as his serious mood was picked up on by the students and the staff members. It was a rare day indeed when Albus Dumbledore walked into a room without a smile and a twinkle in his eye.

Still, beyond a sharp glance towards the four Heads to make sure that they were wary enough of the situation to be acceptable – even if not entirely informed about it – Albus didn't slow down at all as he moved towards the doors of the Great Hall.

A brief flick of his wand, and they opened wide.

A pale girl with white hair and red eyes, a tanned boy with black hair and poisonously green eyes. Two so completely contrasting children stood outside. Both were dressed in heavily warm clothing, the girl in purple, the boy in dull red.

Their faces were both blank, though there was a different... 'taste' to their blankness. One was the face of a noble who was politely greeting potential enemies. And the other was the face of a person who was carefully keeping themselves from feeling much of anything.

Two contrasts, two children. And they were alone. Couldn't be older than thirteen, probably not younger than ten. And they were the ones who'd forced themselves through the wards in such an absolutely impossible manner.

That complicated things.

Albus knew that some children were cruel, but generally they could be taught not to be. And it was always difficult to tell how much of a child was them reflecting their parents, and how much of it was the actual child itself.

In this current situation, their youth meant that it was highly likely that they hadn't appeared on their own behalf, but on the behalf of someone else. And whether or not that person was belligerent or not, was a very good question. They could've been sent because of a whole slew of reasons, from 'distractions' to 'warnings' to 'cannon-fodder' to them actually being sent 'away' from someplace elsewhere.

Too many variables to be anything but warily polite, rather than demanding.

And this also meant that he was unlikely to get to hex anyone for setting-off the Hogwarts alarms in his head unannounced. Those things were loud enough that he'd probably have a headache for the rest of the day. Just his bloody luck.

"Greetings, my name is Illyasviel von Einzbern." The girl curtsied.

The boy inclined his head. "Tetsu Tohsaka." He stated with an awkward pause and a heavy accent. Albus wondered briefly if he'd paused because he was unused to introducing himself, or because of some other reason, but then the girl started speaking again.

"We're following bread-crumbs, as it were. And we believe that you might have something of use to us." The girl watched him with careful neutrality.

The boy's eyes flickered over at her as she spoke, looking a bit like he had to force himself from sneering at her. But quickly returned his wary gaze towards Albus and the professors following him.

Albus mentally revised their current positioning as having been sent for the sake of diplomacy. Or rather, that whoever sent them believed that it was much more likely that the two children would be able to suggest a 'bargain' that they wouldn't approve of, without being killed on the spot. Considering that this was a school, and that Albus himself was fairly well-known for being in favor of second chances in most things, whoever had made the decision to send children in their stead probably wasn't incompetent.

That only left the question of who they were, and what they wanted.

Visibly relaxing himself, so that the two children would understand that he didn't have hostile intentions, Albus sent them a smile and allowed his eyes to twinkle brightly. "Oh, indeed? And what, may I ask, are you looking for?"

The boy's eyes snapped towards him, his face slipping momentarily into disgust, before the blank mask once more returned. At the same time, the girl sent him a warm smile, with perhaps the tiniest hints of childish mischief behind the carefully constructed politeness.

That was interesting.

It seemed like whilst the girl reacted well to his shift in personality, the boy instead reacted to it with hostility. It made him wonder if he had bad experiences with grandfatherly-people, or if his ire came from the sudden shift. No matter.

"We're looking for a Philosopher Stone." The girl explained bluntly, still smiling cheerily.

Albus blinked. That... hadn't been what he'd expected. And it probably meant that their information was fairly outdated. Which might allow him to glean some manner of information out of the two of them before he admitted to it having already been destroyed.

Humming thoughtfully, Albus met the girl's unsettlingly red eyes. "I see. That's a bit of an unusual request." He absently pointed out. "Might I ask why you'd want one? After all, I only know of one, and it'd be rather difficult to replace."

The girl's nose wrinkled childishly in annoyance, before again smoothing out into something a bit more polite. "According to the calculations, we should only need to use it once, so we're only asking to borrow it."

The boy muttered something under his breath in a language that sounded a bit like Japanese, and the girl threw a nasty glare at him in return. There was a brief moment where Albus honestly expected both of the children to drop their carefully constructed politeness and launch themselves for each other's throats, but then the moment passed, and the girl turned back to him.

"Of course I'd be tempted to experiment a bit on it, but my academic interest on the matter is hardly worth offending anyone over." The girl explained, her face once again a polite mask. "So no, we'd only need to use it once."

Albus felt something very unsettling stir in his guts, because the only thing he knew of that needed to be 'only used once' in regards to the Philosopher Stone, was using it to bring back the dead. As much as 'the dead' could ever be returned to life. True, there was potentially a way to use it to cure a disease, but there was sure to be quite a large number of other cures for said disease, without resorting to something as extreme as a Philosopher Stone.

And bringing the dead back to life... well, it wasn't exactly like there were many 'people' that were capable of being brought back to life through the process dictated by using a Stone. In fact, the only one he could think of that might fit the criteria was a certain undead Dark Lord.

Albus really didn't want to be the one to help a couple of children to bring back Voldemort to life.

However, he supposed that it was possible that he was leaping to conclusions, and that this matter truly was related to a disease of some kind, and that the children had no plans on bringing any insane wraiths into the picture. Though why they would need to go as far as using a Philosopher Stone when there was sure to be other magical cures out there... well, he didn't know.

Though again, he was struck by the way the two children interacted.

The girl seemed to be spokesperson, but the boy didn't seem like he approved of deferring to her in any shape or form. Apparently enough so, that he was willing to 'jeopardize' their attempts at diplomacy simply because he wanted to send a verbal barb at her. Silently muttered though it might've been.

This meant that despite them being there together, they were hardly presenting a united front. Which was, again, interesting.

"Ah. Well, it seems as if your information is a bit dated." He began, eyes remaining carefully sympathetic. "The Philosopher Stone that was briefly kept in this school for safe-keeping, was destroyed by its owner a few months ago."

Frustration mixed with annoyance briefly broke through the girl's mask, and when it returned to its polite blankness, it looked quite a bit stiffer than it had previously. Next to her, the boy's eyes narrowed suspiciously, seemingly not believing him for some reason.

Albus could understand why the boy might not trust him on his word, but it wasn't as if he was lying, so he wasn't entirely sure why the boy looked so thoughtful.

The boy's eyes turned back to the girl, and he said something in Japanese.

Now, Albus knew a lot of languages, and quite a few ridiculously obscure ones, but he was fairly rusty in most of them. So whilst he did catch something along the lines of 'magic' and 'arrived here for a reason', he missed out on most of it.

The girl sent the boy a glare, looking a bit upset and... maybe jealous? Possibly. It was hard to tell.

However, her glare rapidly softened into a sort of disgusted annoyance. "Your English isn't that bad, and you're being impolite."

The boy met her glare with an apathetic stare of his own, before turning towards Albus and giving him a thin smile that held absolutely no hint at all of any sincerity. "We wouldn't have landed here, if being here couldn't help us." He explained, his words heavy and awkward with a mix of Japanese and a few hints of German.

Albus agreed with the girl. For a boy his age, to seemingly have learned at least the basics of three separate languages was hardly something to scoff at. The fact that the girl was easily more talented in the area of English certainly didn't diminish the impressiveness of it.

Two young, bright children, arriving at the doorstep of Hogwarts straight through the near-impassable wards, asking for a very valuable artifact, both wearing carefully polite masks that seemed unsettlingly out of place on their young faces.

If it weren't for the fact that the two of them seemingly spoke Japanese with such fluency, Albus would've been frowning at himself for falling so out of touch with the goings-on in other countries, that he'd completely missed the emergence of what could easily be prodigies. As it was, he instead wondered to himself if perhaps he should do some catching up on some of the more distant magical countries, just to see if anything interesting had happened that wasn't related to Voldemort – he'd been keeping an ear to the ground for information about sightings and possible sightings of the undying wraith for over a decade by now, regardless of which country the information was coming from.

Albus made a thoughtful noise. "Well, I wouldn't know what that 'reason' might be. There truly isn't a Philosopher Stone on Hogwarts' grounds." He glanced back towards the teachers who were curiously listening in on the conversation. "Though, I suppose, if we knew what you needed such a Stone for we might be able to help you solve it through some other means?"

The girl opened her mouth, looking quite annoyed indeed.

But the boy answered him before she could. "We would of course welcome any help you can give us on the matter." The boy smiled thinly, politely, and completely without any true warmth. "However, it is a somewhat delicate subject."

The girl looked momentarily outraged, before the two children's eyes met, causing it to quickly cool into frustrated annoyance. The exchange left Albus with the feeling that the boy had just gotten her back for her earlier comment about his impoliteness.

The girl again took up the position of spokesperson. "We're looking to cure a disease in a specific individual. The disease is magical in nature, and in the simplest terms it causes the individual's body to begin breaking down. A wasting sickness, if you will."

Albus silently praised himself for guessing their purpose in getting their hands on Philosopher Stone, but allowed himself to wonder about what kind of illness that the girl was referring to. There were certainly quite a number of diseases with those exact symptoms, and probably even more curses that could leave similar signs.

"Might I ask for a bit more information? Your description doesn't do much to narrow it down." Albus asked the girl.

The girl nodded with a chillingly detached look on her face. "The illness is a direct result of an attempt to allow the individual to channel an impossible amount of magical energy. As such, the individual in question is part homunculus."

Albus could hear a few of the teacher's gasp in horror from behind him, but was a bit too distracted by the sudden graying at the edges of his vision to really pay attention to them.

Homunculus.

That was-... well, to put it bluntly, that was Dark. Very much so.

"Who decided to... attempt this procedure?" Albus asked.

"Their grandfather." The girl answered calmly. "The individual in question would've been quite young at the time."

Through his horror at such actions being done to an innocent by a family-member of all things, Albus noticed incredulously that the boy was now rolling his eyes at them, looking exasperated... and perhaps bitterly amused?

The part of his mind that never ceased to analyze things, wondered what the boy's relationship to this homunculus-individual was. It didn't seem as if he was overly worried about their disease, or the Dark magic that would've been used to alter them, but even so he was still present for this attempt to find help for them.

He was present, despite not looking like he enjoyed his current company much at all. Interesting, but probably inconsequential in comparison to the girl's admittance of such Dark magic having been performed.

"I see." Albus nodded to himself. "I might not know how to cure it myself, but it's likely that there is some sort of records in Hogwarts' library that might shed some light on the matter."

The girl's face continued to remain carefully calm, most likely waiting for a confirmation that they would be allowed to make use of said library. The boy's face also remained blank, though from the way his eyes focused on Albus, the child was waiting to hear what the conditions would be to make use of said library.

Which really only reinforced the impression of world-weary bitterness that he seemed to project. Because even if the girl was wary of being disappointed, the boy was already assuming that any aid from their side of things would come at a price.

It saddened Albus that he couldn't exactly disprove the boy's cynical views on this matter. But it wasn't as if he truly needed much of anything that two children might provide him with, so it was more a case of necessary ground-rules that should be brought into the open before he had to run damage-control with the Ministry.

Said and done, he began with explaining that violence on the grounds wouldn't be tolerated – and that 'technicalities' in regards to this rule wouldn't be considered even remotely appropriate.

Disturbingly enough, whilst both children seemed surprised by this, it was the boy who reacted positively, with the girl almost touching on the offended side of the spectrum. Albus initially merely assumed that this was because the thought of violence hadn't crossed her mind, but the amused scoff from the boy made him wonder about that assumption.

Was it possible that she was actually offended at being kept from using violence against others? Albus considered both children for a long moment, before dismissing that thought. She would've been more offended in that case. Here it was more as if she was unhappy that she would be vocally held to such standards, when it shouldn't have been necessary to do so.

It reminded him a bit of some war-veterans whom he'd met, that had been displeased with having to explain that they weren't going to react badly to anything now, but were also resigned to the understanding that people would continue asking about it.

It was slightly disturbing to recognize the expression of a war-veteran on the face of a prepubescent girl. But then, the boy seemed about the same age, and the only reason he'd reacted positively to his demands was that he'd been expecting some potentially heavy negotiations before ever reaching that point.

A cynic and a veteran. What had the world come to, that two children would be such?

Then again, these two were on a friendly basis with a part-homunculus, and Albus sincerely doubted that the circumstances behind their meeting would've been very pleasant.

XXX

Albus had briefly considered making both children try on the Sorting Hat, and then just let them room with whatever dorm that they were Sorted into. But then he'd actually considered it, and decided that that was probably an absolutely terrible idea.

Who knew how the children would react to being separated? Who knew how they would react to sleeping in dorms with other children? Albus certainly didn't, and they were still far too much of a mystery to him for that situation to be even remotely comfortable.

No, he'd convinced the House Elves to ready more appropriate quarters for their young guests. He'd also made sure that they knew to give them at least two separate rooms with beds. Even if it turned out that the un-child-like children were too paranoid about the rest of the castle to sleep separately, presuming that to be the case could far too easily lead to being perceived as being very rude. And 'rude' was something that he'd always tried not to be.

There were quite a number of things that he still didn't know about the two children, but they truly didn't seem to have any interest at all in causing trouble – despite seemingly being fairly antagonistic towards each other – and he couldn't really bring himself to turn the two of them away.

Still, it was interesting to see how they'd both handled being introduced to the rest of the castle.

His own students seemed heavily intrigued by the mysterious arrivals, with most tables breaking out in fierce whispers, after he'd explained that they would be making use of the school library in order to aid them with an unpleasant situation of theirs. Their stay was as such indefinite for the moment, but it was highly unlikely that they'd remain until next year.

Albus carefully pretended not to hear the boy muttering something along the lines of 'one way or another' in agreement with him on this point. He honestly didn't want to know how steep of a deadline the two children were on in order to find this unknown cure of theirs.

As for the rest of their reactions... the girl appeared to be wary but cheerful about the crowd, whilst the boy seemed both wary and uncomfortable about it. Thus, leaving Albus to guess that the boy was most likely quite bad at making friends his own age. Or possibly at any age.

Beyond that, the table that the two children ended up at was the Gryffindor one.

Albus wasn't entirely certain what the motivation behind that was. It was true that Hufflepuff could be a bit intimidating with how it tended to close ranks when the ones in it were confused, and Slytherin never actually looked very friendly to begin with, but Ravenclaw had books clearly laying open along its table and surely the two of them would aim themselves towards intellectuals who might help them sort through the library?

Then again... perhaps it was instead in an effort to avoid being addressed? Because it was well-known that Ravenclaws couldn't leave a puzzle alone when it was placed right in front of their noses. Or was there some other reason?

It hadn't been until he'd heard Minerva comment on the faces of their students that he'd ended up with a different possibility. Slytherin had looked suspicious, Hufflepuff had looked confused, Ravenclaw had looked intrigued, and Gryffindor had looked like they were collectively ready for a nap.

The two children had gone towards the House which looked as if it would ask the least questions. A theory which coincided fairly well with the mixture of wariness of the student body that they both seemed to share between them.

It would most likely change in the coming weeks, with everyone getting to know one another, at which point the two of them would most likely end up at another House's table, or perhaps even separate outright in order to eat at different tables.

Albus sighed, only time would tell. And he still had a search for a certain frustratingly un-find-able boy to conduct.

The Boy-Who-Lived wouldn't find himself, after all.

XXX

"So, how are our two guests doing?" Albus asked the group around him, eyes twinkling as the conversation made its way into gossiping-territory.

"Well, Miss Einzbern seems to have befriended Miss Granger." Minerva admitted, a touch of relief in her eyes at the thought that her friendless charge would have someone to talk to, even if they weren't a fellow Gryffindor.

Albus answered her relief with a warm smile, because he agreed perfectly. "And Mr Tohsaka?" He asked, turning to see if anyone else had anything to say about him.

Filius made an uncomfortable sound. "He's had an... 'altercation' with the Ravenclaws, in regards to Miss Lovegood's treatment by her Housemates." He looked somewhat guilty over it too.

"'Treatment'?" Minerva raised a very foreboding eyebrow at the smaller man.

Filius nodded unhappily. "It seems as if my charges have been... 'creative' with the amount of independence that I've been given them."

Albus frowned, because that was never a happy topic. Filius was a busy man, but he'd managed to keep his life relatively balanced by letting the prefects of his House take care of most matters. It was a way of doing things that had been replicated by all the other Heads – except Pomona, because she insisted that it would go against the 'Hufflepuff spirit' of things – for its effectiveness.

To now hear that this brilliant time-management had directly led to an abuse of authority... Yes, this would cause quite a bit of complications for all of them. Because Filius would be kept horribly busy trying to dig around to see how far this 'corruption' had leaked into his House, and Minerva would probably try to make sure that she didn't have the same problems with her prefects, which meant that all of a sudden Albus would be swamped in all of the paperwork that his Vice Head suddenly wouldn't have time for.

And that would mean that he wouldn't have time for all of the things that he needed to do, which could easily mean that someone snuck something around him in the Wizengamot. And really, this situation was just a horrific headache waiting to happen.

Still, the initiator of this mess was a bit unusual as such things go. Mostly in that both of their two guests had been explicitly informed not to use violence on the students residing in the castle.

"What kind of an 'altercation', Filius?" Albus asked warily.

Filius blinked, obviously startled from his own dark thoughts of a completely ruined schedule. "Some very loud and very vicious words, some rather pointed insinuations about their ancestry and the sexual orientation of their family pets, and a truly remarkable amount of colorful ways of describing both them and their current situation." He paused, looking both bewildered and amused. "I believe Miss Lovegood took notes."

There was a muffled snort of laughter from someone in the room, and Albus found the twinkle in his eye flaring back to life, as they were all at least momentarily distracted from the looming complications of future schedule-rearrangements.

XXX

"Albus!" Minerva hissed as she entered the office.

Albus blinked blearily up at her from his chair, feeling quite befuddled about what she might be upset about now. He certainly hadn't done anything, had he?

"Please tell me that you have found some clue as to where our two guests come from." She said as she loomed ominously over him.

Albus frowned. "I'm afraid not, Minerva. But why this sudden... 'enthusiasm' on the subject?"

She took a deep breath and slumped down into an available chair. "He has a rather large scar across most of his forehead, it's usually hidden quite well by his hair so I only noticed it today. When I asked him about it, he told me that it was from when a priest had tried to scalp him!" She paused, pinching her eyes shut in a visible attempt to calm herself down. "From what little he'd say on the subject, the only reason the priest didn't succeed was that Mr Tohsaka bit one of his fingers clean off."

Albus silently praised himself for forbidding violence in the school at hearing of such an act of brutality – no matter how necessary – from the boy, but then started to actually try to understand how any of that had made any sense at all.

For example, why would a priest try to scalp anyone, let alone a child? Did this have anything to do with the part-homunculus that their two guests needed to cure? Where had the child's guardians been when this happened? What had happened to the priest? And could a child's jaws truly have the necessary power to bite off a grown man's finger?

"What happened to the priest?" He asked, frowning.

"That's part of why I would like to talk to his family." Minerva began, mouth a thin line. "Because he seems to be under the impression that his sister gave Miss Einzbern's brother her knife and told him to gut the bastard. And he did."

Albus felt a headache beginning to form. He really didn't want to be the one to deny the irate woman in front of him the ability to confront these people, but at the same time, he wasn't actually able to point her in their direction because he honestly didn't have a clue where they'd come from. Which by itself was fairly bizarre, as both children had traces of both Japanese and German accents, and it shouldn't be that difficult for him to get information from either of those countries. And yet he didn't have a single lead.

"Are you certain that he isn't exaggerating?" It was possible after all, considering their ages.

"Miss Einzbern helpfully pointed out that he didn't so much 'gut' him, as he shoved the knife straight through his heart and then emptied the magical charge within it straight into the wound. Because apparently the knife in question was a magical artifact that the priest had given his sister at her 'coming of age', because he was the one who raised her." Minerva elaborated on her attempted interrogation of the duo.

Albus made a pained sound as his headache chose that moment to bloom in full.

Why couldn't these people be easier to understand?

XXX

No matter how he looked at it, their two guests had definitely been part of some very violent events in the past.

The boy was perhaps the most obvious, in that he was clearly wary of most people, but also in that no matter how unfailingly polite he was – as long as Miss Einzbern wasn't around to provoke him with her presence – it was quite obvious that he couldn't even being to comprehend how the brains of his peers worked. He seemingly showed all of the signs of a child-soldier, but remained too undisciplined for Albus to guess that he'd ever been part of an army, whilst at the same time being too socially aware and unfailingly polite to have grown up in the wild somewhere.

The girl on the other hand... she was a perfectly nice girl. Cheerful and perhaps leaning a bit towards being spoiled in her insistent childishness, except-... except every now and then she would look at someone. The kind of look that someone gave a particularly unpleasant pest that should be exterminated with all due haste. And Albus got the distinct impression that – other than the reactions of those around her – she would see no issue with following through on that look's promise.

A child-soldier, and a murderer. That was his thoughts on the matter.

Except Miss Einzbern wouldn't kill anyone. That was Albus' strange and inexplicable conclusion after his observations. Not because she was too kind to do so, or because she would find the act unpleasant, but rather it was because her – to him still frustratingly unknown – brother would disapprove of such actions, and she was far too fond of him to risk his disappointment in her.

As for Mr Tohsaka... well, Albus got the feeling that he had been removed from battlefield conditions for quite some time before arriving at their doorstep. But despite that, it was clear to Albus – after well over a month of observations – that Mr Tohsaka hated Miss Einzbern.

It wasn't something he flaunted, to the point where most would see no problem at all with their supposed friendship – which for some bizarre reason had his entire staff convinced that they would make a cute couple – and it seemed as if the boy wasn't especially happy about hating her. In fact, it seemed as if he felt guilty for being completely unable to forgive the girl for whatever might've happened between them. But even so, he hated her.

And Miss Einzbern appeared to be fully aware of this, often reacting with a sort of frustrated disgust at his inability to 'forgive and forget'. Which made it seem as if she considered the cause for his hatred a small matter, and he considered it anything but a small matter.

Albus would've praised the boy's willingness to at least try to forgive the girl for whatever slight that she'd committed, if it wasn't for the slowly dawning realization that Miss Einzbern was quite close to her brother, and he was finding it increasingly likely that Mr Tohsaka was quite fond of said brother

Love and forgiveness were both things that Albus considered important, but he generally tried to stay away from weighing one way or the other when the 'forgiveness' stemmed from an unwillingness to alienate another person that they loved, rather than actually wanting to forgive the person in question. It was still praiseworthy perhaps, but it wasn't nearly as unselfish.

The boy's family-situation was also apparently a bit more complex than the girl's. Something about having one sister and another sister, and some technically-family people who were all deceased, and then some mentions of a servant who'd practically raised him on their lonesome.

How that could've happened when both of his sisters had been alive and well, Albus couldn't say, but it seemed as if the servant had been an individual with a very noble heart and had raised him accordingly.

However, whatever violence had happened long before arriving at Hogwarts, the boy was now cynical and bitter, even if he kept himself in line through unfailing manners and a polite smile that was as welcoming as barbed wire. In contrast to that, the girl was cheerful and childish, but could glare down statues when she felt like it and was sadistic enough to use said glare on just about anyone who annoyed her.

Albus didn't relish the thought of being responsible for either of the two – let alone both – and so he silently tipped his hat towards the unknown people who'd managed to wrestle both of them into some semblance of child-like personalities, because he got the distinct impression that once upon a time they were a lot worse. At least this way their guardians had indirectly lessened the complaints that he would undoubtedly be receiving from the Ministry about Hogwarts' two guests.

He had enough of a headache already, thank you very much.

XXX

It was nearing Christmas, but despite the season, Albus most certainly wasn't feeling especially jolly.

The Chamber of Secrets. Opened. Again. In his school. With his students.

Oh, he knew that it was possible that someone was simply doing a copy-cat over the events fifty years in the past, but how far they'd be willing to go to replicate it was unknown enough that Albus felt no problem with beginning to plan for the absolute worst case.

Which was that Voldemort hiding out inside of his school. Again.

But surely not even Tom would be foolish enough to attempt such daring a second time? Not without taking precautions to avoid the problems of last year. And Albus was certain that Tom shouldn't have emerged from that encounter unscathed, at least not unscathed enough to try again the very next year.

The wraith of a former Dark Lord might have grown more experienced in dealing with its current shape, but considering that the first time around it had taken him an entire decade to get back to even that pathetically weakened form, Albus would've placed his money in the three-to-four years range, rather than the six-months range.

Which allowed for both the possibility of a copy-cat, and for the possibility of a new Heir.

Albus could admit to not knowing exactly how a person received the ability to open the Chamber, though he could guess that it was related to Salazar and parseltongue – most everything about Slytherin's Founder had something to do with snakes.

His guesses had seemed to hold fairly true once, and had in fact led him to the late Gaunt family, as well as the remains of the Riddle family.

Tom had a certain way of putting his mark in places even where he probably shouldn't have. Albus considered it a great boon, that his opposition was arrogant in such a way, but was forced to reluctantly admit that there was a well-founded reason for Tom Riddle's arrogance. The boy-turned-Dark-Lord was talented, on a level that sent shivers down even Albus' aged spine on some nights.

Still, that was neither here nor there. Someone was claiming the Chamber of Secrets had been opened, there'd already been a victim – thankfully only petrification, rather than whatever had happened to poor young Myrtle – and the Ministry was bound to start lashing out.

He really wanted to ask Hagrid to get out of the country for a little while, but that would just make the circumstances look all the more suspicious, and the gentle man wasn't on very solid footing in regards to the Ministry already.

Even if Albus had managed to get that dragon off of school grounds before anyone noticed it.

No, the Ministry would lash out, Hagrid would land hip-deep in trouble, and Albus himself would get stung in the backlash of 'having once supported him'.

Albus took a deep breath. It was times like these that he wished – really wished, with all of his heart – that he could just heap the blame on Severus and be done with the disgusting man. But they all had parts to play, and no matter how sickingly twisted the man's motives may be, he was on their side. And they would need every wand they had – especially ones that could bring inside information to the table – if they were to stand a chance against Voldemort when Tom finally figured out a way to get back into a proper body again.

No, he didn't like it. No, he would much rather just hex the whole Wizengamot into some very colorful radishes – at least that way, they were sure to at least finally reach the average level of expected intelligence of their species. But even if he might've been able to pull it off, that way lay hypocrisy and madness.

And Albus had seen enough of fancy dreams of 'greatness' to last him a lifetime.

To this day, the expression on her face still haunted him.

Shaking the thoughts of his foolish youth out of his head, Albus wondered at what kind of wrench his two guests would toss into the machinery of the imminent show of force from the Ministry.

He kind of hoped that they'd be able to do something to at least keep the poor man out of Azkaban.

Irresponsible and bad with secrets Hagrid might be, but nobody deserved that place, least of all such a kind and gentle soul.

XXX

Albus sat down with a heavy thud.

When he'd sincerely wished for the two guests to throw a wrench into the whole mess, this had most certainly not been how he'd expected it to go.

There was a gigantic snake in the fifth floor corridor, it was dead, and it was bleeding all over the place. They'd had to send the paintings of the corridor away to be cleaned back up from the splatter, and Filch was reaching into hysteria over how much scrubbing would be necessary to get the stone floors back into non-blood-drenched condition.

Yes, the monster within the Chamber of Secrets would never trouble anyone ever again. But Albus really not expected just how... messy, the physical aftermath of the event would become. Not to mention that he'd just hoped that the two strange children would somehow cause the Ministry to pause in their arrest of Hagrid, rather than them actually solving the problem.

That wasn't to say that there weren't other problems than an ancient basilisk bleeding out in his castle.

Tetsu Tohsaka had lost his eyes.

They'd turned blackened and dead, and by the time Madam Pomfrey arrived at the scene, they'd already been in an advance stage of rot.

The disturbing part was that not only did the boy not seem to be overly horrified by this set of events, he had also openly admitted that he'd looked into the basilisk's eyes. And he'd survived.

Albus was honestly grateful that the boy hadn't died, but seeing as how meeting a basilisk's gaze directly was instantaneously deadly, he'd been understandably confused.

Which was when Miss Einzbern had burst into the hospital wing, looking dangerously smug.

Something which had made every adult present frown at her, because that was her friend sitting on the bed, blinded beyond the means of magic to cure him. And she could at the very least attempt to act as if she'd been worried about his close brush with certain death.

The girl had then cheerfully cleared her throat and waited expectantly. After a few moments passed, she'd frowned and told him to thank her for her brilliance.

He'd looked up at her with empty eye-sockets and smiled his ever-polite smile. "I'll be sure to thank you for your accidental stroke of brilliance, Illya, if you can make me another pair, just like them."

Miss Einzbern had looked borderline outraged, but had then stalked out of the door in a huff.

Nobody had received any explanation of these events whatsoever.

Until Miss Einzbern barged in through the door a second time, carrying a bag of something, and wearing a dress that looked as if it was made of spun gold.

When Madam Pomfrey tried to block the girl's path to her patience, Mr Tohsaka was the one who vouched for her. "Miss Einzbern has my full confidence in this matter. Please stand back, ma'am."

Oddly enough, the girl didn't preen smugly at hearing this, her face instead remaining perfectly blank. Though Albus was perhaps the only one who wondered about the boy's change in address of the young girl.

What followed was perhaps one of the most disturbing thing that Albus had ever seen in a hospital environment – that wasn't directly related to Dark magic.

Miss Einzbern cradled Mr Tohsaka's head in between her hands, she then proceeded to chant softly to herself, and Mr Tohsaka in turn kept his head perfectly still even as his knuckles turned white and his entire body tensed and shifted as if he was fighting the urge to writhe in pain.

It wasn't until she removed her hands that the boy collapsed back into the bed.

There was a long moment of silence as Mr Tohsaka made a valiant effort not to whimper in the aftershocks of whatever the girl had done to him, before the unsettled silence was broken again. "Thank you, Illya."

Miss Einzbern considered him for a long moment, before speaking herself. "I'm sorry."

The boy on the bed froze, every muscle tensing for an instant, before relaxing once again. "It was War. Don't patronize him."

The girl's nose scrunched up in annoyance. "Don't feel bad. Big brother's only survived because he got himself killed too early on."

There was a choked breath of laughter from the covers. "That thing was a monster."

"He was the strongest." Miss Einzbern corrected him, but there was a longing type of fondness in her expression.

A sort of companionable silence lingered over the two for a long moment, before Tetsu sat back up. And then opened his poisonously green eyes.

After that, the hospital wing became the scene of a pandemonium.

XXX

The reason that Tetsu Tohsaka survived meeting a basilisk's direct gaze, was because he met it with his eyes. And Miss Einzbern had at some earlier point remade those very eyes through magic.

He could meet the basilisk's gaze directly, because his eyes were not a part of him. They were just enough removed from 'being himself' that the basilisk had instead directly killed his eyes, and thus merely left him bereft of his sight.

Albus knew enough of the academics of dealing with magical creatures that he was quite comfortable in saying that there would be something of an uproar in regards to this. Because nobody had ever studied how a basilisk killed with its gaze before. Mainly because nobody was foolish enough to actually approach one, and anyone who did encounter them didn't do so in situations that allowed them to properly experiment with things like this – though that was admittedly because they generally only realized that there'd been a basilisk involved in the equation when they were already dead.

Mr Tohsaka's fortunate luck was most likely going to be the start of the petrifications and deaths of several highly acclaimed academics, whose excuses for their injuries and deaths would be that they'd wanted to see exactly what this newly discovered facet of a killing gaze really meant.

Albus was for a moment infinitely grateful that he only had to worry about the safety of Ravenclaws within the school. Otherwise, he'd probably have his hair go white all over again from the stress.

As for Miss Einzbern casually creating eyeballs on a seeming whim, dressed in oddly ceremonial clothing... well, that was a headache that he was unfortunately actually in charge of dealing with.

The clothing was an heirloom from her family – though from the way she spoke of it, she didn't appear terribly fond of said family – and so Albus was most grateful for this fact to bash the Ministry over the head with before they tried to whisk it off into the depths of the Department of Mysteries. They were obsessive, yes. But no pureblood – and the Ministry was unfortunately largely stocked with the aforementioned purebloods, no matter what campaigns he might attempt in an effort to bring in just about anything else – would willingly set a precedent of stealing someone's inheritance.

That was the kind of things that line-wars had started over.

No, the girl's ceremonial dress was safe. The girl had even been clever enough to realize what could've happened, and had politely thanked him for it.

As for the girl herself... well, St Mungos wanted to talk to her. Badly. Actually, they wanted to talk to Mr Tohsaka as well, mostly in an effort to see how his artificial eyes might've affected the rest of his body, but certainly in no small part because they wanted to see if they could reverse-engineer the boy's eyes – just in case Miss Einzbern wasn't receptive to telling them how to do it themselves.

However, seeing as how St Mungos would have a wide collection of experienced medical professionals, neither Albus nor his two guests were especially opposed to a visit to the wizarding hospital. The reason that they'd arrived at Hogwarts in the first place had, after all, been in search for a cure to a disease.

Not to say that either of the children had been willing to leave the castle without explicit lines being drawn, to avoid getting dragged too deeply into whatever fancies the hospital staff succumbed to.

So, his two guests were going to be making a few excursions to St Mungos, and life was finally returning to normal within the school.

Now, if Albus could just figure out whom it'd been that had opened the Chamber in the first place...

XXX

"So, you've found what you've been looking for?" Albus inquired of his two guests.

"Yes." Miss Einzbern bowed her head politely. "Thank you for giving us this opportunity, Mr Dumbledore."

The boy next to her echoed her slight bow, but didn't add any words of his own.

"Ah, but who am I to say no to such interesting guests?" Albus smiled at the two of them. "Though, I'll assume that Miss Lovegood and Miss Granger will be missing you."

Red eyes narrowed at him for the briefest glimmer, a kind of horrible promise of danger, before it disappeared.

Albus might've felt unsettled by the girl's reaction, if it hadn't been for the fact that he was quite certain that the expression stemmed from protectiveness. The girl seemed to have become quite fond of Miss Granger, and it was nice to see that her protectiveness of her wasn't entirely linked to the young Gryffindor's usefulness.

The boy on the other hand had had a much more peculiar reaction to his words.

He looked thoughtful and vaguely confused. As if he couldn't quite picture the idea of anyone missing him when he was gone.

That was actually a bit more unsettling than the girl's brief moment of protectiveness.

Nonetheless, it didn't seem like either of them had suddenly decided to join their new friends in Hogwarts. Which was a bit of a shame, and a bit of a relief. They'd caused him enough headaches over these last few months.

XXX

They were standing outdoors, with a great many spectating students lingering in the background in hope of a show.

It wasn't every day that people would be leaving directly through Hogwarts's wards using magic that even its staff members had never heard of before.

Miss Granger had given Miss Einzbern a rather thorough hug, and Albus wasn't entirely sure if the creaking of bones from the smaller girl had been entirely imagined on his part. Miss Lovegood was fiddling with some kind of box that looked both valuable and distinctly magical. And the two guests were once again dressed in the clothes that they'd arrived in.

One moment, there was nothing, the next there was a young woman.

"Ah, you're still alive." The woman said calmly as she looked at Miss Einzbern. "Good. It would be annoying if all this effort went to waste."

"Oh? Is that something you should be saying to the girl who saved your little brother's life?" The girl responded with a dangerously sharp smile.

The woman raised an eyebrow and turned her attention towards the boy. "Your eyes have changed." She said bluntly after a long pause, before turning back towards the girl. "Can't you at least try to make them look the same?"

Mr Tohsaka had winced somewhat when Miss Einzbern had mentioned saving his life, and was fidgeting a bit even after the young woman had stopped eyeing him critically.

Miss Einzbern however appeared quite offended, puffing up the way she did. "It's a delicate procedure!"

"Right, right." The woman waved away her excuses. "But you'll be the one explaining things to Sakura. She liked his eyes."

Miss Einzbern froze in the middle of her outrage, suddenly looking quite uncomfortable. "But there was nothing left of his old ones?" She tried to argue, even though it came out rather unusually meek.

The woman shook her head with a sigh. "That doesn't excuse shoddy workmanship, Einzbern."

"Is that why you're carrying Ruby, Rin-nee?" Mr Tohsaka interrupted the budding argument.

Rin blinked, almost stumbling despite standing still, and turned to stare at him for a long moment. Her gaze switching in between the two children, before the fight suddenly seemed to escape her. "Whatever. Let's just go back home."

Albus might've been reading a bit much into it, but he was quite certain that she'd been surprised when the boy took Miss Einzbern's side in the argument, rather than her own. And maybe it was his imagination, but she looked... bonelessly relieved that he'd done so.

It made him remember his original conclusion of the relationship between the two children.

Mr Tohsaka hated Miss Einzbern.

And yet... yet he'd now taken her side in an argument with his own sister. A sister that he'd always seemed to admire wholeheartedly.

And if she in turn knew of their complicated relationship, and had been trying to get the two of them on more personally cordial grounds – rather than simply having them present a united front when pressed. If that was her intention with sending two children off to research something this important, then suddenly her boneless relief that her gamble had paid off made an awful lot of sense.

But that was a bit convoluted, even in his own head. So maybe he was just over-thinking things?

Still, why had the young woman greeted them in the way that she had?

Alas, his unvoiced question was interrupted before he could ponder on it any further.

"Oh, but master! We should be doing a proper show for the-!" An oddly echoing voice exclaimed cheerfully, before it was suddenly interrupted.

The ground cracked.

"Ah." Mr Tohsaka made a pained face at the sight of his older sister beating a magical artifact into the ground with ruthlessly extreme force.

"Master!" The staff – because it was definitely the staff that was doing the talking, impossible as that might sound – tried to stop the violence wrecked upon it by its own wielder.

"You shut up!" Rin stomped down on the winged head. "Just get us out of here already!"

"But a proper magical girl-!" The staff tried to reason with the young woman.

"Shut up!" The woman shouted back at it, using something to suddenly encase its head in stone. Everything was silent as the woman panted heavily, but then she plastered on a definitely-fake smile that suddenly made it very clear to Albus where young Mr Tohsaka had inherited his own smile. "Right. Let's get going, shall we?"

Neither of the children argued. Though Miss Einzbern appeared amused, and Mr Tohsaka vaguely embarrassed.

Not long after that, they were gone.

Straight through the Hogwarts wards, without a single trace of how they'd accomplished it.

Truly, magic was amazing.

XXX

Albus briefly entertained the irony of trying to simply will a headache away, before returning his attention to the young woman in front of him.

"So, Miss Lovegood found a diary and decided to send it to Mr Tohsaka through the letter-sender that he gifted her with." Albus began repeating the story to make sure that he'd heard it correctly the first time. "And somehow the diary found its way into the hands of a muggle woman whom you're all quite close to. This diary then turned out to be malevolent, and very nearly killed the woman. So now you're here to find out where it came from."

Rin nodded, face politely blank as she sipped at her tea. "There is of course also the matter of retribution, but Emiya-kun tends to be a fairly forgiving individual. Why, I doubt he would even consider doing anything more than simply killing the ones responsible for it."

Albus was glad that he wasn't smiling, as he was sure that the expression would've grown quite flat at the woman's words.

This woman was... He wanted to say that she seemed like an unforgiving murderer, but that wasn't actually the impression that he was getting.

The impression was that she was actually quite fond of Emiya's 'peaceful' approach to settling disputes, but that she saw it in the context of 'oh my, what a bizarre way to go about things'.

It was the kind of attitude he might expect from a pureblood who'd never been exposed to muggles, but then unexpectedly found them quite fascinating, despite what they must've been told of them by their more 'purist' relatives.

If anything, rather than being a cold blooded murderer, he would've liked to classify this woman as a kindhearted person.

Except she truly believed that killing people – well long after the actual danger towards the individual had passed – was a perfectly sensible response to having someone close to them endangered.

It was a culture shock. And it wasn't a pleasant one.

Though it did perhaps go a long way to explain the attitudes of his two former guests.

"I'm not quite sure how you deal with such things, wherever it is you come from." Because whilst she'd been fairly open about 'traversing worlds', it wasn't something that Albus could really prove one way or the other. "But there are laws about these kinds of things here. Quite a thorough bit of law, too." He should know, he'd helped rewrite a whole bunch of them in order to get rid of various loopholes.

The woman looked up at him. "Mr Dumbledore, I'm not entirely certain how to describe it for you." She closed her eyes briefly. "In the political terms of things, the victim in question was a close ally of the Emiya clan. And the Emiya clan just so happens to also be closely allied with the Einzbern, the Matou, and the Tohsaka family."

Ah, Albus could guess where this was heading. It was heading into 'old families who're more than happy to take an opportunity to put on a show in front of other old families'-territory. He really hated that territory.

Rin seemed to realize that he understood. "The Matou family has suffered some... terminal disagreements within itself in these last few years, and the Tohsaka family has unfortunately been quite substantially damaged in the financial spectrum of things. But the Einzberns have... well, with the exception of Illyasviel, they're all quite dead." The woman sighed in aggravation, apparently unable to come up with a more 'subtle' way of phrasing it. "She's proud of it too." She admitted with a hint of frustration.

The way that she'd phrased that made it seem as if it was more than simply proudly surviving where others had failed. It sounded an awful lot like she'd been methodologically eliminating them until she was the only one remaining.

Still, that didn't quite explain why-...

"Of course, whilst none of us truly have much of the political clout that our family-names would once have inspired, we're all survivors of the Holy Grail War." Her eyes were like frosty steel. "And none of us survived that massacre by being talentless."

Albus sighed. "Ability is not the problem here. The laws are made the way that they are for a reason, and anyone who breaks them will have the full weight of the Ministry pressing down on them." Shaking his head, he continued. "I understand that you wish to get to the bottom of this incident, and preferably get your hands on whoever was behind it. But you will not accomplish this through a show of force." His eyes weren't twinkling, and they were just as hard as her own. "No matter how capable you may be."

The woman matched his stare for a long moment, before shaking her head in wry amusement. "'To be a magus, is to walk with death.'" She quoted silently. "I suppose you'd be teaching your children somewhat differently here."

And Albus had never been more relieved to agree with anyone, as he was that evening.

Because a Hogwarts filled with 'magi' rather than wizards and witches, would've been hell to manage.

If only because they would've needed a dozen extra janitors just to mop up all of the blood.

XXX

Albus sighed and tried to pretend as if Mrs Weasley wasn't currently showing her mighty displeasure over having her daughter subjected to an almost-interrogation at the hands of some strange foreigner.

He wasn't doing very well, but that was mostly because she was quite difficult to ignore.

Miss Tohsaka was a force to be reckoned with.

Three days, that was the time that had passed since she'd first declared her intention of investigating the source of that book, and she'd already managed to find the person who'd been responsible for opening the Chamber. Not that she'd much cared about that, instead focusing on where she got the book from.

Unfortunately, the girl didn't actually know the answer. Though there were some clues that might prove quite interesting indeed, should Albus actually prove himself capable of pinning them down into facts.

In response to this, the dangerous woman had gone to have 'a friendly chat' with Lucius Malfoy, leaving Albus behind to deal with a somewhat-traumatized little girl who thought she'd be shipped off to Azkaban.

Mrs Weasley's furious disposition hadn't exactly made the situation more pleasant.

XXX

Albus felt his jaw slacken as the young woman in front of him dumped item upon item onto his desk.

A ring, an amulet, a goblet, a diadem, and something which might've once upon a time been a book. All lined up in a row. All stinking of Dark magic. And at least a few of them easily recognizable as artifacts of the Founders, despite how they all appeared to have been warped in their destruction.

"Turns out, the bank wasn't warded against interdimensional interference." The woman commented absently with a glance towards the goblet.

A statement which sent a distinct shiver of unease down Albus's back, because one didn't defy the goblins of Gringotts without consequences. There was a reason nobody even tried to rob that bank, and it wasn't entirely related to the actual security measures involved in it.

Miss Tohsaka sat down in an available chair, looking quite pleased with herself. "Unfortunately, Mr Malfoy truly had no idea what he was doing when he handled that book of his. So I had to continue up the line until I found someone who did." Her smile was bright as sunshine and as merciless as a glacier. "I believe he called himself 'Voldemort'." She continued. "But really, there's not much point talking about him anymore. I made sure of it."

Albus decided then and there that maybe he should start seriously looking into retirement. Because-... he didn't need to find the Boy-Who-Lived anymore, did he? This woman would know if she'd failed to kill something, and she was certain of having done so.

The prophecy... was null? Or had it spoken of another Dark Lord? Or had it already been completely fulfilled back when he'd attacked the Potters?

In the end, Albus simply laughed. "Ah, but fate makes fools of us all." He shook his head in wry amusement. "I hope that you didn't cause too much collateral damage in doing so?"

The woman stared at him for a moment, and something behind her eyes softened at the sight of his genuine relief, but her brightly dangerous smile didn't dim. "That depends." She began. "Does tarring and feathering a certain mindlessly irresponsible adult in his own home count as such?"

Ah, so that was why he hadn't seen hide nor hair of Lucius for a while now.

Albus quickly shook that thought from his head. It wouldn't do to ruin his good mood with a headache.

XXX

"Miss Lovegood," Albus started. "how do you know Harry Potter?"

The girl tilted her head. "He's my best friend."

Albus carefully suppressed the urge to frown at her. "And where is he?"

"I don't know." The girl admitted. "I never understood the terminology very well."

Albus decided to try a different approach. "Why did you empty his vaults at Gringotts?"

"Well, I couldn't think of a good birthday present for his sister, and it wasn't like either of them knew of the vaults before, so sending the contents of it to them was like a shared surprise present from me and him."

Every now and then, Albus was reminded of just how strange the Lovegood family tended to be. But right now he was distracted from her absentmindedness due to the sheer confusion of the Boy-Who-Lived having a sister. He was an orphan, and a single-child.

Maybe someone had adopted him into their family? But who? And what was their relationship to Miss Lovegood?

"I see. And why would they have been unaware of the vaults?" Because surely any wizarding family would've known the name 'Harry Potter'.

The girl hummed thoughtfully for a moment before answering. "I suppose it might be for the same reason why he worried that I was going to end up in trouble for fraud with his signature."

Albus felt his mind start racing. Did this girl just imply that Harry Potter didn't know that his name was Harry Potter? Had he hurt his head somehow? A memory charm gone wrong perhaps?

"And does Mr Potter go by a different name nowadays?"

Miss Lovegood nodded. "Yes, he's quite fond of it from what I hear."

He felt his eyes twinkling cheerfully at the girl. "And what is this name?"

"Tetsu Tohsaka."

Albus felt the world screech to an impossible halt.

What.

How.

When.

But.

"Mr Tohsaka is Harry Potter?" He asked for clarification.

"Yes." She nodded again. "It wasn't that hard to figure out."

Albus quite sincerely disagreed with that statement, but in the end he just gave up this entire interrogation as a bad job. If Mr Tohsaka truly was the Boy-Who-Lived – and the goblins would agree, since they'd accepted his signature on the transfer documents – then he was clearly both out of his reach and safer than anywhere else he could imagine placing him.

The thought of antagonizing his sister by trying to separate them didn't even cross his mind.

He was old, not stupid.

XXX

A/n: This was a lot of fun to write, mainly because of the very awkward PoV that it's based around. However, I'm guessing that the PoV left quite a bit of questions to be answered, such as "what happened during the Grail War" and "how did Tetsu get adopted by Rin". I'll try to answer them in these notes.

"Why wasn't Tetsu recognized?"
James and Lily were cheerful and social children with British accents. Tetsu is a bitter and distant child with a horribly mangled English language, odd tan, different-green-than Lily's eyes, and with lots of scars. He's also from a different world and has an unusual family, rather than a dead one. Of course the connection could only be made by someone who heard the entirety of Tetsu's origin story, but still knew about Harry Potter, such as Luna.

"Why does Tetsu hate Illya?"
Berserker killed Tetsu's Servant. The only person who'd ever been nice to him, was killed on Illya's orders, and then she kidnapped him in order to have someone to play video games against. Their relationship is Bad.

"Which Route did the War follow?"
Mostly the Fate one. Though obviously, having Tetsu running around (however briefly) with a Servant of his own would've twisted the Plot a bit.

"How did Tetsu get adopted by Rin?"
When Berserker was killed, Tetsu was retrieved along with Illya to the Emiya home. After the War was over, Rin realized that putting Tetsu and Illya in the same house was a recipe for turning Tetsu into a paranoid mess (because he can't let his guard down around her), and so let him stay at her place.

"How did Tetsu get his name?"
Tetsu became 'Tetsu', because he didn't actually have a name before the War (the Dursleys only called him Freak, and his Servant called him Master) and so Shirou gave him one (Illya's suggestions were all rejected because he hated her guts). Tetsu is 'iron' because Shirou is obsessed with Swords. His name is 'Tohsaka' because Rin thought it would be inappropriate to live indefinitely with someone without a shared surname.

"What about Sakura?"
When Tetsu was adopted by Rin, Sakura kind of classified this as 'her being replaced', and kind of went on a bit of a rampage because of it. This is why the Matou family only has Sakura in it anymore, and why Sakura is classified by Tetsu as an older sister. Tetsu's and Sakura's relationship is awkward but generally pleasant.

"Why was Rin shocked/relieved when Tetsu took Illya's side?"
Because Tetsu admires Rin terribly, and he also hates Illya. So him taking Illya's side proves to her that he's letting go of that hatred, and at the same time beginning to slide into a more comfortable role than 'worshipful' in regards to his sister.

"What is Tetsu's relationship to Shirou?"
Oh, he's crushing on him. Crushing on him hard. He's however keenly aware that it's one-sided and has no intention of admitting it to him, though Rin sometimes teases him over it. He's also befriended Issei as a result of this shared crush of theirs.

"Who was Tetsu's Servant?"
Honestly? I have no idea. I'd probably say Assassin (an unusually noble and idealistic one), but it's hard to tell, since that might screw with the Fate Plot a little bit too much... I could never give a proper answer to this.

Anyway, I hope this fic was as enjoyable to read as it was to write. And no, there will be no sequel/prequel to it. I'm happy to leave it off right here.