Hey Everyone, Neolyph here to bring you my first foray into fanfiction. This story is based off a challenge posted on Arawn D Draven's profile. Go check it out there and read his stuff. Also, as this is my first attempt at fanfiction, I will likely be editing some things here and there as I realize how stupid certain elements of this story are. As always, read, review, moo. I legitimately need reviews so I know what I'm fucking up story-wise. I have taken certain liberties with Fate/stay canon, but only to better mesh the two magical systems and universes a little better.

(I do not own Harry Potter or Fate/Stay Night)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Six year old Harry Potter was unfamiliar with the concepts of love and family. Sure, he knew about them in an academic sense, as he often hid from Dudley in the local library, and had taken up the habit of reading in his spare time, but he had never actually experienced them in his life. The only form of physical contact he had with his aunt and uncle came in the form of belts, burns, beatings, and worse. The last time he had slipped and spilled some tea on his aunt's dress while pouring it for her, she had held his head underwater in the bathtub until he passed out, and then for about another minute.

The only place Harry could find any modicum of safety and comfort was the local library, where the librarian had some suspicion as to the state of his family life and taken pity on him, allowing him to hide out there from his cousin and friend, whilst reading to his heart's content.

It was in this particular library that young Harry met the particular individual that would change his life forever. Harry was browsing the shelves he could, those at eye-level for a six year old, when he saw a man he had never seen in the library before round the corner. The man was tall, with graying hair, a strong jawline, a bushy beard, and strangest of all, red eyes that bore the unmistakable spark of gleeful madness in them. The man stopped and observed Harry in a way that made Harry's ingrained suspicion twitch. Harry's suspicion was less the suspicion of one suspecting themselves about to be the victim of a child predator and more the suspicion of one suspecting themselves about to be the victim of a practical joke. Harry and the stranger observed each other for a few moments before the man looked over at one of the nearby tables motioned towards it and sat down in one of the accompanying chairs. Harry, against his better judgement, sat down opposite to him.

Never let it be said that Kischur Zelretch von Schweinorg, master of the Second True Magic, the Kaleidoscope, never took an interest in the affairs of his home dimension. One of the things he often observed in other dimensions was the Holy Grail War, the fifth to be precise. He looked at the commonalities between all of them and compared them to his home dimension. The Wizard Marshall observed that his reality's war would occur five or so years before it typically did, even with the accelerated start. He observed that in all of the Grail Wars that didn't end catastrophically, there was a common factor: a boy by the name of Shirou Emiya. Zelretch's world did not possess such an individual.

Emiya's main purpose was in befriending one Sakura Matou and anchoring her enough to prevent the release of Angra Mainyu, which would destroy the world. Zelretch could directly intervene, as with his knowledge and power he could stop the evil god, but that wasn't really his style. Instead, he began searching through alternate realities and examining any individual that caught his eye to see if they could serve as a suitable alternative to Shirou Emiya.

It was during the course of this search that he came across the young Harry Potter, a boy whose hellish life was rivaled only by that of young Sakura Matou. Further investigation showed that the boy was not only in possession of tremendous power, but also of staggeringly strong character, avoiding being broken even in the absolute hell his relatives put him through on a daily basis. Upon examining the boy's background, the Second Magician learned that the boy was a heroic figure of the local magic community. Deciding that this boy would do nicely for his required purposes, Zelretch approached the boy in the library he frequented.

"Can I help you sir?" the boy asked, somewhat nervous.

"I do hope so young man, as I came quite a distance to make you this offer."

"And, what sir, is this offer exactly?" Harry asked, even more unnerved.

"How would you like to be free of your relatives, become a hero, and receive a family that loves you?"

"What would I have to do exactly?"

"I will not lie to you, child, it will not be a pleasant experience. I am what you might call a dimension hopper, a term you have likely picked up from those books you read. I need a boy to take back to my home reality, to fulfill a role that will determine the fate of the world. In order to do this, you will be put through pain and torment surpassing even that which your current relatives put you through. At the end of it though, you will receive power, love, and family. You will become a magus in a family that will torture you for years on end, but you will get a loving fami-

"-I accept," Harry unhesitating interjected, without any need for further offers or explanations

"Very well then, prepare yourself."

And with that, Harry Potter's life was forever changed, for better or worse.

Zelretch took young Harry back to his rooms in the Clock Tower, in his home dimension, and began examining him to see what advantages he could give the young wizard. He examined the boy's magical core to see if he could convert it for magecraft. The average wizarding core from his observations held tremendous amounts of energy, but the nature of it prevented them from utilizing it in any way aside from narrowly channeling it through sticks, drastically limiting the power. Put this in perspective with Harry's immense magical reserves, even for a wizard, and you had ludicrous amounts of power just waiting for a bigger channel to move through, which magical circuits provided.

What Zelretch did was put Harry under, and install circuits taken from another dimension into the boy, specially modified to draw from his magical core. When all was said and done, Harry had two hundred and sixty-seven high-quality magical circuits, with another fifty coming from Zelretch's specially made magical crest so that the boy would eventually be able to utilize the Kaleidoscope to return home.

With Harry recovering from the immense surgery, the Wizard Marshall looked for a good place to drop the boy off where the Matous would find him. He settled for Fuyuki City, which was in the midst of the Fourth Grail War, and about to be a burning hellhole.

"Why doesn't someone help them?" was Harry's first reaction upon awakening in the middle of a raging inferno. Years of living with the Dursleys had completely desensitized Harry to pain and suffering, to himself at least. Sure, it was really hot, but compared to the time he had burned breakfast and his uncle has held his arms over a lit burner until the skin blackened, it wasn't all that bad.

The only thing bothering Harry was the other people there, screaming, dying, suffering. Harry had gone through too much pain in his six years to wish it on anyone that he didn't feel deserved it, and these were innocent people.

Walking through the inferno, Harry watched all manner of suffering. He saw mother clutch their children as houses collapsed on them, he saw a teenager trying to pull his younger brother out from some burning framework only to be burned in a flash as a gas main ignited, and he saw a young child, desperately clutching his mothers blackened and charred hand as the life faded from her eyes. The scenes he saw burned themselves into Harry's mind as he dragged himself through the fires, unable to help them himself.

The last thing Harry saw was a middle-aged man in a suit and trench coat, dragging himself along in much the same way Harry was, his grey eyes desperately searching for something, or someone. Harry was about to call out to this individual when he heard a creaking sound and looked up to see the house he was in collapse on him.

Zouken Matou walked through the ashes of Fuyuki City, searching for the fragments of the grail shattered by that bastard Kiritsugu Emiya. Approaching the center of the city, he felt a heavy concentration of prana. Not believing his luck at having found the grail this easily, he went towards the collapsed building it was emanating from.

Utilizing magecraft to clear away some of the larger beams, Zouken found not the grail he was looking for, but an emaciated young boy. The boy was in a sorry state. He looked like a scarecrow, wearing clothes that hung on his ragged frame, absolutely no muscle or fat on him, badly scarred in any area that wasn't immediately noticeable, and more recently heavily burnt from the recent blaze. What astounded Zouken the most was the sheer degree of prana coming off of the boy. The prana came off the boy in waves, each hitting the elderly Matou like a physical blow.

A quick check revealed that the boy had a whopping three hundred and seventeen top quality magical circuits, outclassing even some dead apostles. The boy was likely the result of some experiment of a hermetical magus, or even one of the more active dead apostle ancestor. Regardless of his origins, Zouken knew that he had to take this boy and use him. He had originally intended to use the Tohsaka girl he had taken in recently, but he decided that she was better used as a backup support while this boy acted as the Matou master in the next war. His mind made up, he pulled the boy out of the ruined structure and set him aside to pick up later.

With the matter of the boy settled, he found and collected the remains of the shattered grail to implant in his prize and an unexpected bonus in hand, Zouken brought the boy and the grail out to his car, and brought them back to the Matou estate

Five year old Sakura Matou was unfamiliar with the concepts of love and family. Sure, she had some small experience with them before her bastard parents threw her over to this twisted old man to be tortured on a daily basis, but those experiences were tainted by the knowledge of what they had done to her. The only sensation she had felt in this pile of maggots her new grandfather had thrown her in was unspeakable, agonizing pain.

She had been screaming for so long that she had forgotten that she was even doing it. The worms had been eating her from the inside out and outside in for the last few days and even then the pain hadn't dulled. So she simply laid there, unable to do anything but scream, and just hoping for this hell to end. When she vaguely heard the door to the basement open, her hopes soared. Perhaps her new bastard of a grandfather was going to let her out! Her risen hopes were suddenly dashed when she saw the beaten, burned, scarred, and starved boy her grandfather was dragging after him. The boy looked her age, but with his emaciated state, he was likely a little older.

"Look beloved granddaughter, I've brought you some company," the bastard said, in that rasping voice of his. "You'll be even more delighted to learn that he'll be taking your place to an extent, which should make your life a little easier."

Without another word he woke the boy up with his familiars, having already implanted the grail-tainted worms in the boy, and unceremoniously kicked him into the pit next to Sakura.

The boy screamed and writhed in the pain of the worms burrowing into his flesh and attaching themselves to his insides.

Sakura watched as the boy in a herculean display of willpower began to block out the pain, regaining control of his body and ceasing his screaming.

The boy looking over at her still screaming for, put on a comforting smile, despite the immense amount of pain they were both undergoing, and took her hand in his.

"My name is Harry, and I am going to take care of you."

With that, Sakura felt the first happiness she had felt in a long time.

*3 Months Later*

Harry and Sakura sat in a room in the basement of the Matou manor. After three straight months of uninterrupted hell in the worm pit, Zouken had permitted the two magi to climb out. Sakura was barely holding on to her sanity, only her newfound dependency on Harry as the only good in her life helped her hold on. Consequentially, she had not let go of Harry's hand since he first took hold of hers in the pit. She had undergone noticeable change in the pit. Her once black hair was now purple, and her vibrant blue eyes had turned a dead purple.

Harry hadn't come out of the slimy hell either, as his own black hair now had a streak of purple in it, and his skin had turned slightly pale from the stress of blocking out the pain so he could better comfort Sakura. Normally, he would have been crippled by the worms, as they fed on bone marrow in the spine if they didn't get enough magical energy, but the sheer amount coming from him kept them sated, and even drew some off from Sakura.

The door opened and Zouken walked in. Despite his exhausted and pain-wracked state, six year old Harry's blood boiled at the sight of the man. Harry could take abuse and torture on himself, he had experienced it since the age of one after all, but to force him to sit next to and watch abuse and torture be inflicted on another was too much. It was only the knowledge Zouken had given them upon them leaving the pit that the crest worms could control them like puppets that kept Harry from trying to kill the man, six year old atrophied muscles be damned.

Zouken walked in and surveyed his new "apprentices."

"Good morning," he said, with a sarcastic sneer on his face.

Neither Harry nor Sakura replied, one due to anger, the other due to a near catatonic state.

"I am going to be instructing you both in the ways of magecraft, so that you may participate in the next grail war."

He received similar replies.

"So, young boy, tell me your name."

"Harry Potter, sir." Harry replied, realizing the danger of this man and falling back on his "don't get beat" techniques from his time with the Dursleys

"Harry, that's an English name. Tell me, what were you doing in Japan?"

"I don't remember anything before that fire, sir." Harry answered, knowing that this old man probably wouldn't accept, "I'm an inter-dimensional traveler apparently sent to infiltrate your family."

"Intriguing, my name is Zouken Matou, and as I stated earlier, I am a magus."

"What's a magus, sir?"

"A magus is a practitioner of magecraft, or magic. There is an entire secret society built around practicing the craft, and since you possess magic circuits, I am going to teach it to both of you."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't call me sir, since I am training you alongside my granddaughter to win the next grail war, you will call me Grandfather."

"Yes, Grandfather."

"Now, for some background on the grail wars. Many years ago, five magus families discovered the location of holy artifact capable of granting wishes, the Holy Grail. The five families all turned on each other, resulting in all five explorers being killed, the First Grail War. Later, the same five families rediscovered it, and planned to fight over it again, with similar results. In an attempt to regulate it when it happened again, the Clock Tower, the most powerful magical organization in the world, set up rules and regulations. The Third Grail War was a bloodbath due to all of the preparation put into it, but nobody won. The Fourth Grail War ended three months ago, when Kiritsugu Emiya tried to destroy the grail and caused that fire I found you in, Harry. We are preparing for the Fifth Grail War, which according to my sources is going to be in approximately ten years."

Harry neglected to correct him and say that it was actually going to be in five.

"Now, two important aspects of being a magus are your element and origin, which determine what types of magecraft you can do and what types you will be good at. Harry, we will start with you."

"Yes, Grandfather."

"Come over here and lie down on this table"

Harry complied, still stiff and weak from the pain of the worms, along with his burns from the fire and the pain of hunger. Sakura stood, still holding onto his hand, walked over next to him, and sat down next to him, not letting go for even a second.

Zouken pulled Harry's shirt up on his back and placed his cold, slimy hand on the small of Harry's back. Harry felt an uncomfortable sensation, as if the old man's disgusting hands were reaching through his back, up his spine, and grasping his brain. A normal person might have called the sensation extremely painful, but after three months of the crest worms and six years with the Dursleys, Harry was all but immune to pain. Finally, after what felt like and hour, the hand retracted from his body.

"Interesting, your origin seems to be [Creation], and you are an average magus, meaning you can use all five elements with equal proficiency."

"What are the five elements, Grandfather?"

"Though there are exceptions, the five standard elements are [Water], [Fire], [Air], [Earth], and [Aether]."

"What is Aether, Grandfather?"

"Aether is essentially magical energy in its natural state."

"Now it's your turn, Sakura."

Sakura didn't reply as she changed places with Harry, still holding his hand in a death-grip.

Harry had to resist the urge to punch the bastard as Zouken did the same technique on Sakura, and he saw her wince at the mental probing.

After quite some time, Zouken took his hands off.

"Granddaughter, your origin is [Devotion] and your element is [Light]. Any question?"

Neither child replied

"Good, you both have half an hour to make food in the kitchen, then return here for magecraft instruction."

Both children raced upstairs. Harry utilized his knowledge of cooking from the Dursleys to make food for himself and Sakura, only slightly hampered by the fact that she still had not let go of his hand.

After decimating half the kitchen in an attempt to recover from months of starvation, the two children returned to the basement withing the time limit, to find Zouken waiting for them.

"Marvelous, you returned on time. Now, for your first lesson..."

And with that, Harry Potter became a magus for the world to fear.

"Children, today you are starting school."

It had been seven days since the start of Harry and Sakura's magus training. Harry had been forced to sleep in the worm pit every night, Sakura had only been forced to stay for the first due to her less vital role. She had tried to return the second night so that she didn't have to be apart from him, but Harry vehemently refused, not wanting her to be further tortured simply to be with him. They compromised with Sakura dragging out a futon near the edge of the pit and sleeping there. She still held onto his hand every humanly possible second, and Harry complied since it comforted her. She still spoke almost never, and when she did, it was only to him. When anyone else was nearby, she retracted into an emotionless shell, a defense mechanism, Harry believed they were called.

"Harry, you will be enrolled in K-6, Sakura, you will be enrolled in K-5."

"Yes, Grandfather." Harry replied, Sakura just looked at them both and nodded slightly.

"Good, here are your backpacks. I will walk you both to school memorize the route because you will walk it alone afterwards."

The walk to school was quiet, with Harry still hating Zouken with the passion of a thousand suns undergoing simultaneous supernovas, Zouken not really caring, and Sakura silently following slightly behind Harry, holding his hand.

*6 Months Later*

It quickly became a well known fact at Fuyuki Elementary that you did not even look at Sakura Matou the wrong way unless you wanted to be reduced to a bloody pulp by Harry Potter. A group of boys had attempted to pick on and beat up the seemingly emotionless Sakura two months after school started while on the playground. They didn't get a single punch in as Harry came up behind them and brutally beat them down. Between his new diet, vigorous exercise regime, and Zouken's lessons in reinforcement, Harry had gotten pretty damn strong. As such, Sakura faced no problems after that, which further increased her devotion and infatuation with Harry.

Along with their mundane education, the two's magus training was also going along swimmingly, minus the torture via crest worms for Harry every night and once a week with Sakura, who still refused to sleep anywhere but either in the pit with Harry or next to it, despite his protestations. Sakura was working on a technique to manipulate shadows into a physical form. She had moderate success as her shadows could touch and harm spirits, but she couldn't get them to touch physical objects yet.

Harry with his origin of creation displayed amazing talent at mystic code crafting, projection, and alchemy. His projections were amazing, to the point where he passively structurally analyzed and mentally stored anything that could be called, "created," that is, taken from raw materials and reshaped into a new form. This applied to everything from electronics, weapons, mechanical items, furniture, books, paintings, et cetera. Once he had seen these things, he could almost perfectly duplicate them from the blueprints in his mind, even magical items. The largest thing he had been able to project so far was a pickup truck Zouken had instructed him to, which left him winded and with circuits flaring. Zouken told him that his projection would improve with time.

Harry also excelled at Mystic Code Crafting and Alchemy. Zouken had promised to get him reagents to craft codes and recover some books stolen from the Einzberns on the creation and use of Homunculi. The idea of creating artificial people and souls disturbed Harry at first, but he couldn't deny the effectiveness.

Hellish magical training aside, Harry's only real problem at home went by the name Shinji Matou. Shinji had to have been the single most irritating fourteen year old Harry had ever had the misfortune of meeting. He was like a weaker, more cowardly version of Dudley. Harry had to kick his ass on an almost daily basis to keep him from hitting and bullying Sakura, but the idiot just never learned. Fortunately, Harry's training in reinforcement meant that this wasn't much of a problem, despite his being older than Harry. Harry would feel bad for the kid, being the only one in the family that didn't possess magical circuits, if he wasn't aware of the sheer torture Matou magi underwent under Zouken.

Harry and Sakura's lives fell into a routine. Wake up, climb out of the worm pit, make breakfast with Sakura holding one of his hands, eat breakfast with Sakura holding one of his hands, beat up Shinji after he tried to bully Sakura because she didn't make breakfast for him, go to school with Sakura holding his hand, go to class, walk back with Sakura holding his hand, beat up Shinji again when he tried to bully Sakura due to Harry beating him up, magus training with Zouken, cook dinner with Sakura holding one of his hands, eat dinner with Sakura holding one of his hands, more magus training with Zouken, sleep in the worm pit, and repeat.

This went on for several years, as he and Sakura advanced their magecraft. Sakura eventually advanced her shadows to the point where she could shape them freely and kill solid beings with them, with a high degree of proficiency. Harry received permission from Zouken to turn one of the rooms in the basement into his workshop. There, he crafted numerous Mystic Codes, which he stored mentally for later projection, along with three combat-model homunculi. All identical triplets, two of them, Leanna and Joy, were close-combat models while Monica, the third and leader, was designed to use magecraft. As Harry was their creator and actually treated them like actual people instead of tools like the Einzberns did, they displayed an extreme degree of loyalty towards him. He had to repeatedly and explicitly order them not to kill Zouken when they learned of his and Sakura's "sleeping arrangements." Even then, Zouken didn't often remain in the same room with them for very long purely because he didn't want to have to go through the trouble of making a new body due to Monica incinerating him. Their sole defect, as all homunculi needed one, was that they were born without wombs, and were therefore incapable of reproduction. None of them really minded this, as they all stated that they wished solely to serve Harry, and therefore had no desire to have children. They were frighteningly effective in combat though, due to the sheer amount of care and prana Harry put into their production. If the three worked in tandem, they could together operate at the level of a mid-tier servant, which was a scary thought.

Another one of Harry's side projects he developed was a set of tattoos for each arm that permitted them to act as alchemic relays, enabling him to preform transmutation without the need for a transmutation circle. The actual process hurt tremendously, as he had to channel prana through the relays as they were being tattoo'd on, which cause his arms to undergo alchemic change as they were being tattoo'd. The end result was worth it though, as he could now preform alchemy in combat easily, and the tattoos were easy to hide with either long sleeves or concealment magecraft.

Sakura Matou loved Harry Potter, that was a fact she had known since he had first taken her hand and smiled at her in the pit.

You see, when one goes through the unspeakable hell Harry and Sakura went through, one of two things will happen. The first is that it will make you stronger, which was what happened with Harry. Sure, Harry hadn't come out of the experience unscathed, but he came out a hell of a lot better than most people would, and as a result he had been hardened and improved.

Sakura, on the other hand, had undergone the second possible result of her trials. She had been broken. She had been broken so badly that the only thing she was sure of anymore, the only light remaining in the world was of the boy who went into the pit so she didn't have to, the boy who had ignored his unbearable pain so that he could comfort her instead, the only person since her parents abandoned her to ever show any degree of affection to a worthless individual such as her. A girl who had been thrown out like the filthy trash she was didn't deserve to have someone like Harry look out for her, caring for her, but he did anyway, and that was why Sakura knew, as an absolute, immutable fact, that she would belong to Harry as long as she may live. The only way she knew how to repay him was with her complete and unwavering devotion. She knew that he had undergone the same treatment she had, but she only had to do it once a week. Harry slept with the worms every night, and chose to do it so that she wouldn't have to. Even more, he hadn't let it break him, unlike her weak, dirty self. How someone as dirty and worthless as her got such a kind and strong person as Harry to care for her, she didn't know, but she would repay him for it, any way she could.

It was three months before Harry's eleventh birthday that he knew something was wrong. Grandfather was late for his and Sakura's magecraft lessons. Normally, this would be a good thing, as magecraft instruction under Grandfather was very rarely pleasant, and even after over four years of living with him, Harry could barely stand to be in the same room as the slimy bastard. What he did to him and Sakura on a daily basis was unforgivable, so normally, his not being there would be good. The only problem was that Grandfather was never late for anything, never. What was even worse was that when the old man finally did come down, Harry saw, for the first time, the unmistakable look of panic in his eyes, though the old man did well to disguise it on the rest of his features as he walked calmly into the room.

"Is something wrong, Grandfather?" Harry asked.

"Just some... unforeseen events, my boy. Nothing to worry about, but we will have to accelerate our timetable somewhat."

"Our timetable for the grail war?"

"Yes, my boy, the grail war is not happening in a matter of years, but days."

Harry faked surprise on his face, as revealing the knowledge Zelretch imparted to him as to the actual time of the war would not go over well.

"Will I be summoning my servant soon then, Grandfather?"

"Yes my boy, you will. Today, in fact. Grab the necessary regents from your workshop, and prepare the summoning circle."

Harry departed, with hand-holding Sakura in tow, to gather the necessary supplies.

In a dark room in the Matou manor basement, Harry prepared a circle with painstaking detail. Sakura, along with his three homunculi, Leanna, Joy, and Monica, assisted him with it, as it was a rather intricate circle. Harry took the catalyst the old man had given him, an ancient Greek mirror that supposedly belonged to Perseus and as such would likely summon him, and placed it in the center of the circle. Harry told Sakura and the homunculi to stand back as he began channeling all the prana he could into the circle.

"For the elements silver and iron. For the foundation, stone, and the archduke of contracts. For the ancestor, my great master Schweinorg. Close the gates of the cardinal directions.

Come forth from the Crown, and follow the forked road to the Kingdom

Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill

Repeat five times. But when each is filled, destroy it. Set.

Heed my words.

My will creates your body, and your sword creates my destiny.

If you heed the Grail's call and obey my will and reason, then answer me

I hereby swear...

That I shall be all that is good in the world

That I shall defeat all that is evil in the world

You seven heavens, clad in the three great words of power, come forth from the circle of binding... Guardian of the Scales!"

*Flashback*

After the three months in the work pit, Harry sat in Zouken's office, staring down the man who had just informed Harry of his intentions to use him as a pawn in the grail war.

"And why should I comply with you and act as nothing but a piece in your twisted chess game?"

"You remember my young granddaughter correct? You seemed rather attached."

"And what of it. What you are doing to her gives me even less motivation to assist you."

"But, my dear boy, should you refuse to comply with me, who do you think will have to take your place with the worms every night from now till the grail war?"

A look of shock and horror crossed Harry's face at the thought of the young girl he had sought to protect being forced to undergo that every night for years. Without someone to protect her and give her hope, she wouldn't last longer than a week without becoming and emotionless and battered husk of a person.

"If you want to protect her, my boy, you will have to play along and win me this upcoming war."

Harry gritted his teeth

"Fine, but after I win this war, you are done with me and Sakura. You take your damn worms out of us, and let us go."

"Of course, my boy. I am a man of my word."

Somehow, the shark-like grin accompanying those words did little to comfort young Harry.

Medusa sat in the throne of heroes partaking in her favorite pastime, reflection. Throughout her entire life, which she had spent caring for her younger sisters, all she had wanted was for someone to care for her. Her desire to care for her sisters had led to her becoming a monster, and she had sworn that she would never let someone go down that path again. Imagine her surprise when she felt the tug of an appropriate catalyst calling her towards a summoning in the Holy Grail War. She felt through the link to her summoner to see if she could get a feel for whether she wanted to be summoned by them. What she felt nearly shattered her heart: a broken and beaten boy, who had never been showed love in his entire life, and was now hosting tainted worms, feeding on his body, a boy who dedicated himself to the protection of a girl smaller and younger than himself, a boy who went through unimaginable pain and horrors every night so this young girl he knew didn't have to. She saw a boy who was going down the same road she was, and resolved to change it. She cared nothing for the grail, but she would fulfill the role she never had and this boy needed, a protector for the protector.

A flash of light and smoke invaded the small room with the summoning circle. Harry peered through it to see one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen kneeling in the center. She had purple hair, slightly lighter than Sakura's, she wore a strange outfit, black with purple lines on the edges, and what looked like a dog collar around her throat. Strangest of all though, were the strange symbol inscribed on her forehead, like a "2" with a line through the end, and purple blindfold going across her eyes. Harry had been so focused on examining this unearthly beauty that he nearly jumped when she looked up to gaze on him, despite the blindfold.

"Servant Rider answers your summons. I ask of you, are you my master?"

And with that, Harry knew that his part in the Fifth Grail War had begun.