Hullo! Long time no see. Been busy with RL, as always. Sorry about that. If you really want to know how busy I am, you can just PM me. I'll be glad to rant.
Other than that, thanks for the favs, follows and reviews! I'm truly sorry for not being able to reply to every single review, but I do read them all. They really made my day :D.
Without further ado, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own FSN nor HP.
Warnings: Mention of a certain three-ahem, (purposely) confusing names, some misunderstandings, Shirou's artistic skill.
And, goodness, Harry Potter and their unresolved mysteries.
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Arturia stared at the redhead baby in front of her, brows furrowing.
Shirou, or rather Archer, fidgeted nervously, sweating bullets as he refused to look at her in the eye.
"Saybah?" A baby voice snapped her out of her trance. Shi—err, Shirou no. 2? Alternate-Shirou?—looked back and forth between the two, not really understanding what was going on.
Arturia cleared her throat. Or tried to, as a "Hem hem" came out of her mouth instead.
"How…," she trailed off, not sure how to phrase her question. She opted to gesture at the Emiyas' overall babified state, instead.
Alternate Shirou shrugged. "Lin skewed up. She's 'ere too."
Lin? As in Rin, Master of Archer? Arturia couldn't remember much, but she did remember bits and pieces, like their three—
Err.
Arturia slapped herself silly and put that memory at the far back of her mind. Not now, she reasoned to herself, when we're older. Because those impure thoughts were certainly inappropriate for a baby like her current self.
(Let it not be said that her memory was much better than Archer's. She didn't have to deal with existential crisis (er, much) in Avalon, nor did she have to kill people all the time for the sake of humanity. She had plenty of time and mood to relive better memories than Archer did.)
"Uh, you 'kay?"
"Yea!" Arturia shrieked in reply, prompting Alternate Shirou to stumble back and fall on his butt. "Yea, 'm fine. Tot'lly fine."
She composed herself and adopted the cool mask she'd mastered since she was a king. Arturia pretended that her face didn't feel hot.
Alternate Shirou looked at her weirdly, while, uh, Archer-Shirou stole a glance at her.
Speaking of which, the Alternate-Shirous thing was getting confusing, especially when they looked identical to each other. Calling Shirou Archer also felt weird.
"Name?" Arturia asked both twins.
They stared at her in confusion, before Archer-Shirou caught on first.
"Joceph," he said.
Alternate-Shirou blinked, before whacking his twin's head.
"I'm Joceph," Alternate-Shirou said. "He's Daniel."
Archer-Shirou pushed his twin in retaliation.
"Don lis'n to him, Altolia. He's Daniel -"
"I'm olde', you acchole -"
Their squabble soon escalated to wrestling. This was truly unbecoming for warriors such as them to fight like...children…
Nevermind.
Still, that didn't excuse their behaviour. They were also warriors once. So when a short sword appeared in Archer-Shirou's hand, Arturia snatched it to smack both of their heads with the flat of the blade.
The sword bent and bounced off their heads harmlessly.
Arturia gaped at the sword. Never in her long life did she encounter a sword literally this flexible.
It still did its job, nevertheless. The twins' attention was now at her.
Arturia stared down them both. The twins slowly sat in seiza with their heads down, chastised.
"Light," she huffed. Now because of their scuffle, she didn't know which twin was who. "Chiyou- no, Achaa-Chiyou."
The twin on the left perked up. "Yea?"
Since he'd said it first… "You be Joceph."
Archer-Shirou beamed. Alternate-Shirou made a noise of protest, but it quickly died down when she leveled a cool stare at him.
"You be Daniel," she said to the twin on the right.
"...'kay…"
Satisfied, she pointed a thumb to herself, "Legina. Legina Malpoy."
The twins blinked, frowning at her name for some reason, before nodding.
"Now…," Arturia turned to the one named Joseph. "E'plain."
Realising that he was still in trouble, Joseph started fidgeting again and avoiding eye contact. He was saved when Dobby tapped her shoulder.
"Milady," he whispered to her ears. "Master Lucius is coming."
Arturia blinked, looked down at the sword in her hand and the two boys sitting submissively in front of her, before spluttering.
"S-stanaph!"
"Huh?" the twins said dumbly. Their nose twitched, eyes widening before scrambling to stand.
They only managed to dissipate the toy sword and kneel from their seiza position when the door opened to reveal her father.
"Regina—" Lucius froze at the view in front of him. He stared at the kneeling twin boys and his standing daughter before smiling proudly. "You've gained your first followers? As expected from my daughter."
Arturia gaped at her father, but before she could deny his misunderstanding, the door opened again.
"My boys—," the red-haired man from earlier bumped into her father. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't realise—Malfoy!"
Her father whirled around, hand twitching to reach his wand. "Weasley," he hissed.
The two men began circling slowly around each other.
"What are you doing here," the red-head, Weasley, demanded to her father. He stood in front of the two baby twins protectively.
Lucius eyed the other man in distaste as he stood in front of his own daughter. "Well, my presence here is none of your business. Are those your children?"
"They're my sons," Weasley admitted hesitantly as if revealing that would guarantee deaths to his sons. "What of it?"
Lucius' expression soured. "Out of all purebloods, the blood traitors…"
Arturia could almost see Weasley's hackles rising. "Says you, Death Eater…"
Both men glared at each other. The presence of babies was the only thing that prevented a bloodbath occurring then and there.
However, her father held an advantage because Dobby was there. Arturia realised this when his father signed for the house-elf to take her to safety.
"Nuu!" Arturia scrambled towards the Weasleys, shocking the two adults. One of the twins, Joseph, met her on the way (despite trying to avoid her moments ago) because they refused to be separated. Not yet, not again.
"Regina! What are you doing—!"
"Daniel, come back—!"
Both fathers made a grab at their respective children, but the baby grips were surprisingly tight.
Meanwhile, Shirou and Dobby watched the ensuing chaos from the sidelines, completely forgotten. Arturia and Archer were hugging each other tightly like koalas. Lucius and Arthur were shouting at each other, pulling on their daughter/son as if they were competing in a tug of war.
"Stop laying your filthy hands on my daughter, you bastard!"
"Why don't you let go of my son, you git!"
'What is this, Romeo and Juliet?' Shirou couldn't help but think.
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July, 1980
Arturia stared at the gruesome face of her father's boss cooly.
"Hmm," Lord Voldemort stroke his chin in contemplation, noting the lack of fear in the baby's eyes. "You have quite a daughter here, Lucius."
Lucius nodded silently in return. Arturia noticed the slight tremble in her father's grip on her.
"What's her name?"
"It's Regina Malfoy, my lord."
"Ah, destined to be a leader, I see…," the snake-like wizard purred. Honestly, the face of Caster of the Fourth Holy Grail War was much more disturbing than this, but Arturia could see why allies and enemies alike were wary of the Dark Lord. What had happened to him to have violated his face like this? "Teach her well, then. She'll be a good addition to our ranks, just like our dear Bellatrix."
Arturia fought not to scrunch up her nose in disgust.
It hadn't taken her long to realise that her family had sided with the supremacists. She wanted to believe that the organisation wasn't the 'bad guys', to put it simply, but 'Death Eaters' wasn't exactly as noble-sounding as 'Knights of the Round Table'. The members never hid the fact that they hated 'muggles', people who had no magic and were not born from any magical family. Hell, many of them relished torturing muggles and were proud of their high kill counts.
Arturia had participated in wars from medieval Britain and saw the peace achieved in 20th-century Japan. Yet, she'd never seen a society more divided than this. The Death Eaters were a motley collection, nobles mingling with thugs, and they gravitated toward the leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty. They were the opposite of the 'Light', the so-called blood traitors, mudbloods and muggle lovers, which included the Weasleys. Arturia lamented the fact that she was stuck here, in the 'Dark' side, away from Shirou.
Because no matter how sure Lord Voldemort was about where her future loyalty would lie, Arturia could never imagine herself sitting amongst these people.
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"Then don't, milady," Dobby said simply.
Arturia blinked in surprise. "Weally?"
"Dobby is sure," her house-elf nodded sagely. "Dobby knows the choice lies on Young Mistress Regina. Never the Dark Lord. Young Mistress' fate is in your own hands, milady."
Arturia was lucky to have such a wise and loyal friend.
"Then," she leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially to the house-elf. "Wat can you do, Dobby?"
Dobby gave her a wicked smile.
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August, 1980
"Lily Potter née Evans has just given birth, my Lord," Severus Snape reported in the early morning, in the meeting of the Death Eaters at Malfoy Manor. "A boy, born last night, minutes before midnight."
"A half-blood," Lord Voldemort hissed. "'Born as the seventh month dies…'"
Severus shivered, face paling rapidly at the implication. "My Lord, the Longbottom heir was born the day before. He's also a possible candidate."
The Dark Lord narrowed his eyes at him. Severus gulped, terrified out of his wits, but remained in position. Lily was his friend and he loved her despite already betraying her, so he was obligated to keep her safe. Or, at the very least, stall her impending doom.
"A half-blood and a blood traitor," the Dark Lord tapped his chin idly as if he was contemplating on what to have for lunch, not plotting an infanticide. "Both the Potters and the Longbottoms have defied me a couple of times. The Fidelius Charms makes it tricky to find their whereabouts, however…"
He turned to Peter Pettigrew, who squeaked in fright when the attention turned to him.
"Pettigrew," Lord Voldemort smiled sweetly. "You're new, yes?"
"Y-y-yes, my Lord!"
Severus' blood ran cold when he realised what the Dark Lord wanted from the traitorous spy.
Nobody in the room noticed a house-elf hiding under a strong Disillusionment charm.
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Nobody in the Burrow also noticed said house-elf appearing in front of the younger twin pair an hour later, conveniently when they were alone in their room.
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"...Whadja' doing?" Rin asked curiously.
The Emiya twins glanced at her briefly before going back to their work: drawing on the floor with their crayons.
"Savin' you," Shirou said resolutely. "And lil' Haely."
Rin frowned in confusion. Her and Harry? From what?
Archer tapped the floor, done with his drawing. Or that was what Rin initially thought it was because, after squinting, she realised it was a set of messily-written katakana.
'ヴォルデモート'
It took Rin a second to realise what it meant.
'Voldemort.'
"Pug," Rin cursed. "How didja 'now?"
Archer opened his mouth to reply, but someone else beat him to it.
"Woah, that's some fancy art," Charlie Weasley chimed in from behind Rin, making the reincarnated magus jumped in surprise. "Look, Bill! Our baby brothers are going to be amazing painters, someday!"
Bill, the oldest Weasley son, was a bit more skeptical. "For some reason, those look like words to me..."
Rin quickly picked up a crayon and drew a very deformed stickman from the last katakana. Shirou and Archer scrambled to follow her lead.
"...Nevermind," Bill blinked in bewilderment at the babies' eagerness to doodle many unnamed creatures on the Longbottom Manor's floor. Mum could clean the floor with Scourgify just fine (those weird quill called crayons were non-magical, thus easy to clean), so the older Weasley boys left the kids to happily make a mess on it.
The reincarnated babies sighed in relief when they left to play Exploding Snap, before continuing their business.
(Shirou was tasked to doodle on their secret messages because Rin took too long to draw unnecessarily realistic drawings, and Archer refused to draw flowers and bunny ears on Japanese characters.)
'Artoria,' Archer wrote. He continued on when Rin nodded in understanding. 'Born Malfoy. Death Eaters.'
Rin frowned. Arturia being reborn into this world was surprising, as was her being born to the Malfoy family—allegedly one of the Dark Lord's most loyal families. But that didn't explain why the Potter children were specifically being targeted.
'Why me? Harry?' She wrote.
The twins shrugged. 'Longbottom too,' Archer wrote as Shirou nodded at little Neville, who was being fussed over by one of the house-elves. Archer tapped the word 'Voldemort' before writing, 'want to kill, something about the end of July.'
Must be the date of birth, as Harry was born on the 31st of July and now was already August. Still didn't explain why, though.
Archer waved, dismissing her question as unimportant. He continued writing, unconsciously sticking his tongue out when concentrating on writing unfamiliar words in katakana.
'Fidelius Charm. Peter Pettigrew. Secret Keeper.'
'Betray.'
Rin narrowed her eyes. Peter Pettigrew—one of her dad's best friends, the one who could transform into a rat. She had no idea what Fidelius Charm or Secret Keeper are, but Archer's message bothered her. If the intel was right, her family was in great danger.
They had to do something. She had to do something.
Throughout their secret conversation, Shirou furiously drew every single animal he could think of that he could combine with the hiraganas and katakanas the other two had written. Quality be damned; they're babies.
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Thanks for reading!
There are several things to take note of:
1) I'm not sure whether the Burrows was already protected under Fidelius Charm in the First Wizarding War since that particular spell was supposed to be super rare. I'll just assume that it was protected with a strong Anti-Apparition Charm or something, which could be bypassed by House-Elf's magic.
2) Making sense of Harry Potter lore is truly a pain in the ass.
3) I did consider using owls to deliver the message to the Emiya twins, but they might make too much noise, and both Shirou and Archer are not familiar with owls yet. I might be wrong though. Thinking hurts.
4) Finally, a plot! This is one of the reasons why I'm still stuck with the babies part. I have a rough idea of what to do with Voldemort trying to kill baby Harry plot thingy, but suggestions are always welcome.
5) The who-is-joseph-who-is-daniel will be resolved once they got their Hogwarts letters.
6) Timeline is a mess. There is a one year gap between Voldemort hearing about half the prophecy from Snape and him visiting the Potters to murder baby Harry.
7) Have I said that making sense of Harry Potter lore is a pain in the ass?
Also, I'll be off to the Philippines to do a community project for the rest of December. If I have time, I may be able to continue writing, but I can't promise anything. Sorry about that.
See you next time!