HPSS - A Mothers Love - CH1

A Mother's Love
A Harry Potter/Saint Seiya Crossover Fanfiction
Chapter One: The End Of The World As We Know It

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England was, by far, one of the strangest places that Mu had visited. The people were unique, of course, but she found that true of most places, and the buildings were nothing like what she remembered of Sanctuary, certainly not at all like her home in Jamir, and they could absolutely not be compared to any place in Asia she had visited in the last four years. She supposed the ridiculous change of architecture was up to the people, though.

What bothered her the most was probably the fact that people stared, as though they had never seen a lavender-haired teenager before. Although she supposed that her clothes, quite traditional for Tibet, did make her stand out a bit among people wearing black suits that appeared made for no other purpose than to be impractical. It was obscure! Surely they must know it was nearly sunset?

Speaking of sunsets, it was time she began her own way home, wasn't it? She could come back and continue exploring sometime next week.

This plan in mind, the fourteen year old turned into the nearest alleyway-- and nearly tripped over a tiny frame that whimpered and curled in on itself.

A part of her- her womb, rather than her brain- recognized it instantly for what it was; a beaten, bleeding child, too small, too thin, too frail to be healthy, too feverish to be considered lucid even slightly. Sadly, that made asking him much of anything very much pointless, so she could not ask who would do such an awful thing to a child.

It was not only inhumane, but it made her honestly want to hurt the perpetrators, and that was something hard to do. She was a pacifist by nature, after all.

There was no one around who seemed to care the child was there; he was half-hidden behind a dumpster, as though purposely left there so no one would find him until it was too late to save the poor thing. His clothes were tattered rags about ten sizes too big, and the most revolting color green Mu had ever had the displeasure of seeing.

It was obvious to anybody, from the grandest Titan to the lowliest insect, that this little thing was unwanted and unwelcome, and it tugged at her heartstrings. This was absolutely criminal!

It wasn't that Mu made a conscious choice on the matter, it was that there really was no choice. The child was hardly bigger than a sack of potatoes, and, terrifyingly, hardly as heavy as her Clothbox, which weighed.... nothing to her, actually; she should not have been able to pick him up so easily as she did. She was almost afraid to touch him, terrified that he would shatter.

And then she found a scarier thought- not that he might shatter, but that he might break in her arms, and that would make it her fault, and she didn't think she could handle that.

Once he was gathered in her arms, she looked around, as though someone might see. Nobody was around, nobody searching for the child, nothing....

It wasn't right. He wouldn't be missed.

A golden star shot across the sky.

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Mu sighed quietly as she bathed the body, the figure sleeping silently, restfully. She had brought him home nearly three weeks ago, used her Cosmos to feed him broken down atoms (grant, it had looked like a bowl of brown slush), and once he'd swallowed it, she had moved and worked the atoms into his system, flooding his body with much needed vitamins, nutrients, and minerals. She had continued to do it every meal, along with spending hours burning Cosmos she didn't think she had to mend his hurts. If he had died, it wouldn't have been for lack of trying.

But three weeks had passed, and now Mu was truly getting worried. He had responded a bit in his sleep, and it was a few days ago that he had started to keep food down with out her breaking it up for his body even further. It meant he was getting better, healing.

But what worried her was how she even fathomed she could raise a boy. She'd grant she was a teenager, but she didn't have experience in this thing. What was she supposed to do?

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The first time the boy opened his eyes, Mu was painting dots on his forehead with her fingers. Well, not yet; at the moment she was still mixing paint, trying to find the color that would suit him best and read a scroll on adopting at the same time. Lumarians were born with dots, after all- they didn't have to be applied.

Still, she stopped when she noticed him watching her, her smile soft. Beautiful, emerald-green eyes watched her back. Maybe that color... She wiped her hands on a paint-stained cloth and started mixing anew. "Good afternoon." He continued to watch her, so Mu continued to talk. She had sung to him while he slept, but it really wasn't the same. "I'm glad to see you awake at last."

After hours of conversation, abeit one-sided, emerald dots went on his forehead.

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It was a week before her young charge finally spoke. His voice was quiet and cautious, as if he expected punishment. "Why are there no stairs?"

That was a good question.

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Mu didn't learn the boy's name until the third month, over dinner made of rice and chicken, some dried nuts and fresh fruits from the garden her mentor had once tended. It was her job now.

She had also managed to get fresh milk. She had bought a handful of goats in the market the week before and had managed to get the in the small plot of grass a short ways down the mountain. Her son seemed to enjoy it.

"Why are you so nice to me?"

"Why would I want to do otherwise?"

"Because I'm a freak."

Mu saw red, but struggled to remain as calm as possible. She knew he reacted badly to anger and violence- had learned when she had got frustrated with her canvas. Aries had a lot of time up here, and she spent it doing various arty things. "Kid," The term was an endearment- Mu was an Aries- a goat. "What is your name?"

He looked surprised and ducked his head a bit. "...Harry Potter."

"Harry... you are my son--" He opened his mouth to comment, most likely to protest, but Mu shook her head. "No, you are. I take responsibility for you, tend to your needs, and swore to care for you wholly. I do not go back on my word. In all estates, you are my son. Adopted, perhaps, but my son never the less. And I love you, so believe me when I say you are not a freak. You are unique and special, and I want to hear you say it."

It wasn't until after dinner Harry said it, but Mu didn't hardly hear it.

"I am not a freak. I am unique and special... and Mama loves me."

Mu gave a teary smile to herself as she washed up the dishes.

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Five year olds were notoriously curious, Mu noted, watching Harry's inquisitive expression in amusement. He was paying rapt attention to her and the pottery wheel she was working on. She didn't mind- Shion too had encouraged development, and part of the standard Greek schooling were arts, music, and sports. It was therefor good for Harry. She smiled at him. "Do you want to try, Harry?"

Harry made a bowl by the time Mu had to start dinner.

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"Harry, stop squirming. Meditation requires stillness."

"Sorry, Mama."

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"So what is Athena like?"

Harry's question did not come as a surprise, but Mu truly hadn't expected it to come during bathtime, either. And although she had previously wondered, thought and plotted what she would say to him, it abruptly fell short. Instead, she told him honestly, "Like love."

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Mu and Harry were on their bi-monthly trip to the town at the base of the mountains, mostly for no other reason than Harry wanted to see the Hindi people. Mind, Mu also used the trips to sell her artistic work- abeit it was a trade for foods that didn't normally grow up here, although she did have her son hooked on Dragonfruit already. Thank Athena they were close to China.

However, this trip was going to be interrupted. Someone had spotted the pair with pink dots on their foreheads and weaved through the market for them. Somehow, Harry noticed him first and clung to her sleeve, effectively stopping her.

She looked.

He was huge- his shoulders broader than she remembered Master's being; his hair was a bright orange-colored red, like a hot pan from the kiln, and his eyes were embers. The pair of dots he too bore meant he was also a Lumarian, and Mu knew then instinctively what would happen. Nothing could, would stop it. He stayed with them for two whole months and then continued traveling, leaving her womb filled with his seed and her emotions frayed.

Still, their Race mattered more than a few hurt feelings.

His name had been Shishi.

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Harry, Mu was pleased to note, had taken the two-moth interlude in relative stride, although he had glowerd and growled and just over-all seemed to make Shishi unwelcome. Now that the orange-haired Lumarian was gone, he seemed to be returning to normal, although still a little tense. Mu could hardly blame him and apologized over and over to him, confidant that he would understand one day.

Of course, he also now insisted he monopolize Mu's time, perhaps afraid another stranger might encroach.

Even so, she just worked at night.

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Christmas was a holiday Mu understood and used to her advantage every year to pester Shaka, who lived not so far away in a private Hindi temple. Her friend was the only one who knew her secret, and kept so tight-lipped of it the Pope himself could demand the truth and the Virgo would commit the grave sin of lying.

It was the relationship they had. They had grown up with one another- out here, before Sanctuary. When Shion had found her, he had taken her back to Sanctuary- Shaka's trainer had found him and trained in the mountains. It wasn't until years later, when they were gathered at Sanctuary shortly before Aioros had been declared a traitor, that she saw him again. And after that night, Mu had come out here to Jamir, having only returned to Sanctuary once- to fight the Titans that had encroached.

That's why she had been taking a walkabout, she supposed. After the Titans, Mu had wanted to explore. It had served that purpose and others.

She'd found Harry.

And it was Harry who, after Mu had finished buttoning up his clothes, told the purple-haired youth in a rather round about way, that he'd never had a Christmas gift.

Mu had only been intending to take Harry to the market, but this admittion forced Mu to change plans. She was initially going to forgo her trip to Shaka's- she was heavily pregnant and the child was due in four months-  but the change happend never the less.

"Come, my little one. Off we go."

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Christmas was also the one holiday that Shaka claimed he didn't like but still let his trainees do what they wanted.

Mu knew there were a total of five, but she only saw two, and they were busy making the ends of the pine needles glow. She wondered where they got the tree.

Harry was positively fascinated.

Mu wondered if perhaps Shaka would teach him how to do it. Then she wondered if Shaka would... if perhaps the blond wouldn't teach her son control in general.. Harry had a ridiculous amount of Cosmos, much like the raw well of a Gold Saint, but Mu couldn't bring herself to be upset she was training him for a Silver Cloth. He would be all but a Gold Saint, which was good, because the Chalice deserved such power. Mu couldn't think of someone better.

But Harry's problem was not in the amount of Cosmos, but rather his ability to grasp and hold onto something that went three different directions at once.

But Shaka was the reincarnation of Buddha, who was the reincarnation of Vishnu, and if the blond wasn't good with handling immense amounts of volatile Cosmos, Mu supposed they'd all be dead.

Ironically, it was Harry's Cosms that made the two present turn to stare, the other three come out of the woodwork, and Shaka show his face, less she be hunting him down. And any other time, Mu would have laughed at the surprised expression on her old friend's face, but the other teenager probably wouldn't have appreciated this joke at his expense.

"Good morning, Shaka." By the way Shaka started, Mu had the notorious feeling he hadn't sensed her for her son.

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The Western New Years was a simple affair. Mu showed her son the mountain of the Two Peaks, the one where the miracle water flowed, though Mu did not tell him such things. She started his studies of various types of terrain, flora and fauna around the world, told him of the various protectors of the Earth- from Athena, to Odin, to the great Gaia Herself, and what the speculation as to their homes might be, and what she remembered of the traditions in Sanctuary.

When she revealed the Mask law, Harry had been so confused. "They don't know."

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The birth of her second child came in the month of Aries. All Saints adhered to the calender of the Sun, which passed through thirteen constellations without fail. The only month, ironically, that did not have a Gold Cloth to it's name was Serpentarius, which had been horribly broken beyond repair many Wars ago. What few peices they'd had did make up part of the new Snake-Bearer Cloth, but much Silver had been used to make it a feasible Cloth once more, and so it was.

Many of the Temples had been destroyed that year, and Serpentarius had been one of them. As it was no longer a Gold Cloth, it's Temple hadn't been replaced.

Mu wondered what it might have meant had her young one been born in said month, then decided she was better off not knowing, and had instead joyously showed her screaming baby to her son. The infant had a swatch of orange hair, but his mother's grey-green eyes.

"Name him, Harry."

Harry looked more than a little confidant as he spoke, a self-assurance he had repaired his first armor back in February, during the Eastern New Year. "Kiki."

Mu smiled. Yes, her little Sunshine.

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Somehow, between her infant and Harry's training under Shaka, Mu had found enough time to finish the Mahjong set she had been working on for what felt like ages. It was a gift for Harry's birthday, which Mu only knew because her son had rather fluent conversation in his sleep in approximately five different tongues.

Mu had learned early on that Harry knew neither how to read nor write, and Mu had quickly rectified that by teaching him half a dozen languages at once. It was how Mu had been taught, and therefor, how she taught.

Harry had caught on ridiculously fast, and that was why there were so many tiles, letters and numbers. Sets for every language. There were easily thousands of tiles.

When harry came home from his training with Shaka that day, he found a wrapped package where his plate should have been.

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Kiki's first birthday came with chocolate cake, a treat that Harry had worked ridiculously hard to obtain and make. It was his gift to his little brother, Mu knew, and that made her proud.

She'd make him something special on his own birthday.

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Mu still thought perhaps that it was a bit early, but she had confidence in her son, so when ten year old Harry asked to try for his Cloth, Mu saw no reason to deny him.

"Tomorrow, Harry." Mu promised, and after he went to bed that night, and four year old Kiki was out like a light, Mu took the Chalice and planted it for the Trial.

And when morning came, Mu took her eldest child to the lip of Death Valley, deep in the Alps. "Somewhere in this Valley the Cloth you have trained for all this time is hidden; you must find it, Harry, but that is only the first task set to you. There is a fresh-water spring, and you must gather water from it to fill the Chalice to the brim. You must find your own food, your own water, and your own way. I cannot help you- you must do this on your own. Return here when you are done, successful or otherwise."

"I'll come back with my Cloth," Harry promised. "I wont let you down."

Mu's smile was wane. "I know, Harry. Trust me, I know."

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Mu did not know how long it took to attain a Silver Cloth, but after a week waiting impatiently at the edge of Death Valley was making her fearful. Harry had not come out, and Mu was beginning to sincerely worry. Should she have held him back? Waited longer?

Kiki was presently being watched by one of Shaka's students, the one training for the Peacock, a Silver Cloth that belonged to the same collection of Birds that contained the Dove, Crane, Phoenix, Eagle, Love Bird, Swan, and others. Mu did not worry for her youngest. No, she was worried instead for her first child, the one who should have climbed up by now.

Mu remembered when she had attained her own Cloth; Shion had shattered Aries, and Mu's Trial was Repair. Mu, who'd had a natural talent for making and repairing things, had accepted without hesitation. Nothing she had done had worked- she worked and worked with no sleep and little food until at last her hands were raw and bleeding, blood from her fingers soaking into the cracks as she spread Star Dust over the abused and broken metal, and her repair held firm. It had been a hard lesson- Shion had told her he had found her laying over a repaired golden ram, unconscious from pain, bloodloss, sleep deprivation and dehydration, and she well would have died had Aries not called out to him- but it was one Mu had to admit, she would have learned no other way.

But she had not thought the Survivor Trial too much for Harry. She prayed she had not been wrong and waited. When he finally climbed out, he held the Chalice in both hands, filled to the brim with not a drop spilt, and looking more than a little like an Aquarius cup-bearer in the dimming twilight.

Mu was certain she had never cried so many tears of joy, both that he was safe and that he had succeeded in his Trial. Nothing, Mu was certain, could have made either of them happier.

The Celebration would be spectacular.

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Harry wasn't fully recovered from his trip into Death Valley for two weeks, and he slept through the most of it. When he woke, Mu was the first thing he saw. It was a relief to see her, his mother, the woman who loved him and took care of him. Even though he was aware he was adopted, that his real mother had died in a car crash, he had accepted her in this place.

Of course, actually finding his mother wasn't that hard- her purple hair was practically covering his face. Mother's hairtie must have come loose. "...Mama?" Even after all these years, he still called her that. It was easier to do when he was sleepy, and she beamed at the seams with pride whenever the affectionate was used.

He used it now, childish though it seemed, and was rewarded with a gentle but wearied reply.

"Yes, kid?"

That, of course, was her affectionate for both her children, though Harry was sometimes called Emerald and Kiki was forever Sunshine, and it made him smile. "...the Chalice.. it showed me things. I wanted--"

Mu quieted him easily, like she always had before. "Whatever it showed you, my child, is not for eyes nor ears but yours."

Bewildered, Harry looked up at her; Mu had shifted, so now there was a curtain of lavender around their faces, and Harry could see the sad eyes of his Matron. "..are they true, though, Mama?"

"Only the Three Sisters know, I'm afraid. Very few in this world are privy to the certainty of the future."

"Oh.."

Silence reigned for a few moments as Mu shifted, popping her spine. She was  alot easier to mistake for a boy with long hair then she had been when Kiki was little. Her boyish figure had returned after she had stopped nursing him.

Truly, Harry was more comfortable with this appearance.

"Do you want me to tell your brother you're awake, or are you inclined to sleep more?"

Harry got up.

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The Celebration of his success was held the day after he had managed to stay awake a full twelve hours.

It was a bit like his last birthday, made different by the fact that Mother produced an old, dusty bottle of Lumarian Scarlettemper- a spicy, blood-colored Lumarian wine that got more alcoholic and tasted delicious- as well as several kegs of Sweetwater, which was shared by all as they spent the day at the Buddhist Temple with Shaka and his students.

Harry had brought his Cloth on Mu's insistance - "You should always look your best when around other Saints, my dear. " - but he had taken it off so he could wrestle with the trainees, who took the temporary freedom with delight. Harry had already pledged his skills to Athena and the protection of the world, aware, as he was always, within the presence of two Athenian Loyalists who'd had their Clothes for a long time, although he did not know how long nor their rank.

When it came time for lunch, the seven of them- Harry, Kiki, and Shaka's five trainees- marched off to wash up, leaving the adults to set the banquet out.

While Mother and Master Shaka stayed by the low stone table, everyone else had retreated to the crown of a large shade tree. It had fruit this time of year, which was amazing when one considered both the time and the altitude into consideration.

Harry liked it mostly because it had more than enough room for the seven of them and then some. And may be because of the snake he'd once found up here when Mother let him and Kiki sleep over.

"So Harry, what did it feel like? Wearing your Cloth, the first time?" Shiva asked, his hair so green it blended almost too well with the tree.

Harry found six pairs of curious eyes on him, and realized rather belatedly that his friends had boxed him, all extremely eager to ask questions, but all controlled enough not to ask at once. While Shiva was not the defacto leader of the group, Harry understood how much thought Shiva was putting into his own request to fetch his Cloth. It made sense.

"Like love," Harry answered slowly, not quite sure how to describe how it had felt. It was hard to put into words. "..like warmth and adrenaline, and a rush of pure... power, like I had the ability to right all the wrongs in the world."

"It wasn't heavy, was it?" This time, the question came from the redhead two years older than himself; Agora hardly looked like someone who had spent half his life on a diet of nuts and fruits, easily twice the size of Shiva, and nearly three times Harry himself. He certainly didn't strike Harry as the sort of person Harry would have expected to be trying for the Lotus, a Cloth Harry was pretty sure resided somewhere in the silted bottom of the Nile river.

Harry tossed him the still-unnamed fruit, which Agora caught with ridiculous ease. "No heavier than this, promise. Mama said that when a Cloth recognises you are the one to wear it, and it feels the fire in your spirit, it's like wearing a layer of clothes instead of armor."

Tarun, a brown-haired boy once from India, questioned him about what his Trial had been like, and Harry had tried to avoid giving a true answer of the week he spent inhaling the scent and taste of sulfur, until Ravi stated he'd quite like to know, too, and in joined Kiki to gang up on him, and so Harry sat to tell the not-so-interesting story of his Trial as interestingly as possible.

It took a while.

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It took a while to get both Mu and Shaka to agree to let Harry spend the night at the temple, but eventually they ahd relented, and now Harry lay out on the soft grass that lay about the temple, the others with him to make a six-point star. Kiki had to go home, but that was okay because he'd fallen asleep long before the party was over.

"Hay Harry?"

"Yeah, Aiacos?"

"Is that your constellation there?"

Harry looked. "Nah, but it does kind of look cool, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

"There's the Big Dipper!" Ravi declared, and they all looked, because Ravi was the eldest, having a month on Agora, but he knew the constellations better than the back of his hand. It was indeed the Big Dipper, and they listened intently as Ravi explained how to follow it across to the Northern Star, and from there he pointed out to them the Great Cross and the Cygnus. He told them about Cetus, the Whale, and Cassopiea and her husband Ceuphus, and their daughter the princess Andromeda.

Eventually, Ravi's voice lulled them to slumber.

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Shiva went on his Trial the following month. His Cloth was hidden deep within the Indian jungle, in an ancient palace. Harry had no idea why Aiacos decided to tell them the story of the Jungle book, about a little boy who'd been raised by a jaguar and uncled by a bear with a wolf pack for brothers and sisters who fell under the rule of the Monkey King and became the mightiest hunter when he bested a man-eating tiger and a King himself when he fought and killed an Anaconda...

What came to Harry's mind during the story was the Blood Orchid, and he was fairly certain aforementioned flower was in South America somewhere up the Amazon, so he didn't worry about a giant snake killing his friend. Besides, Shiva would have been a stringy bird anyway.

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Apora went on his Trial during the middle of March.

Hary couldn't have been happier when they learned it really was at the bottom of the Nile. He threw himself a private party while they waited for Apora's full recovery to have his Celebration.

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Kiki's birthday came with his own game of Styx, a game like Pick Up Sticks only it contained about thirty-five hundred pieces, twenty colors, and bits of ribbon.

It left when Kiki went to bed under the Aurora Borealis at about five in the morning.

Harry blamed his brother's mixture of cake, Sweetwater, and an empty jar of Mother's favorite cooking spice that Harry himself could swear was pure suger.

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July, however, just plain started weird. Harry was sure about this because after he had come in from milking the goats and had set the table, he went to wash up for breakfast and found a bird sitting on the balcony wall outside his room.

Harry had, of course, studied birds of the world, and he knew it to be an owl, just as he knew that no bird came to Jamir, save the vultures, because of the Cloth Graveyard. Needless to say, he was quite surprised.

He washed up, left the creature alone, and went for breakfast.

"Mama, there is an owl on my balcony."

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They made a special trip to Shaka's that day, letter in hand, to get the other Saint's thoughts. Because it concerned Harry, the adopted Lumarian was allowed to stay and converse; Kiki was sent out to play, and he did so, tackling Aiacos.

"I don't understand, Shaka. Magic? I didn't think Magus existed anymore, not in the collection someone would need a school...."

Shaka shook his head; Harry felt a bit out of place. "They do. They ward their very lives much in a mockery of Sanctuary, and now turn away others who are not like themselves, shunning creatures we knew as every day, and even members of their own families if they are different or do not conform."

Harry decided he didn't like the sound of these Magus at all. Nobody should do something like scorn their family for being different. It wasn't fair!

"And yet, if we decline to send him, they will send someone after him."

"What?!" Mu sounded scandalized; Harry did not like what the sentance insinuated. "They can't! He is our son!"

Harry's world froze. Their son...

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Harry eyed himself in the looking-glass, a bit warily at the 'western clothes' he now wore- a mix of loose pants made with an unfamiliar material and a shirt that was the same, declaring 'Hot Topic' in boxy Roman letters Harry rarely used. Greek was the common tongue among Saints, save when Harry was only talking to Mu and Kiki, and then it was in Lumarian, barring the random sentance out of the blue when Mother would use something else.

Harry didn't really know how to think of himself, though. He looked a bit awkward in these strange clothes, they clashed with the golden band on his arm that beheld a green emerald the size of a walnut, were too dark for his markings- the Lumarian dots he was not born with, but had been imprinted permanently onto his skin when he had accepted Mu as his mother, and the Buddhist dot- a red mark in the dead center between two marks of green- his newfound father had given him still made him want to reach up and pick it off.

The day he'd received his letter, his mother had come out of the closet. Truly, they had spent the following day helping Mu decide what colors to anoint her new sons with. It had been fun to watch Apora squirm when someone suggested pink for him.

Harry frowned and peeled of his shirt- okay, he could live with the pants, but he needed a lighter colored shirt to live with. Harry lived with an artist, and was an artist by nature, so he was rather wonky about colors.

Harry shuffled through things he hadn't owned a week ago, and finally came up for air with a white, shortsleeved shirt that was thoroughly plain and declared himself victorious.

"Ready, Mama!"

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Shaka, Harry had learned, had an insane amount of information that awed him, but this one, he decided, took the cake. Their teleportation, a skill he and his brothers hadn't mastered quiet yet, had landed them in London, across the street from a place who's Roman letters looked as though they had seen better days. It took him a moment to unscramble them- he hadn't used much of this language for a long while, and he had a notorious feeling he'd need it quite a bit in this place.

A blond family made of three entered. Shaka made for the building, and together the nine of them entered. Harry wondered if he was supposed to feel a shock when he stepped inside, like Cosmos but indefinitely different, rolling over him, a warm but biting energy; he felt his hair stand on end, and reached out to grab the end of Mu's hair, praying he hadn't been the only one to feel it.

Kiki grabbed his own. Shiva shot him a curious look, but Harry only grinned at him. Yes, he knew they looked a bit like a line of elephants.

Shaka stopped at the bar. "We need to get to the shops behind your establishment."

Harry blinked. He had never heard Shaka speak in anything but Greek; the words he spoke now were smooth and sweet, very regal and refined, almost aristocratic in nature. It seemed to have surprised the bartender too, Harry was pleased to note.

"I will take them, Tom," A voice interjected just as the barman opened his mouth, and Harry turned, glancing up at the tall blond man he had seen entering the building before them. Harry was taken back by just how much he looked like Shaka.

There were differences, of course- no Bundi dot, shorter hair, and eyes a silver-grey, far from the 'pure crystal blue' that Mother claimed the other Saint had. His hair was a different shade of blond, too. But he still looked like the Buddhist in the face.

"Welcome," The stranger greeted, even as the bartender- Tom- went back to work. "If you would come with me, please."

Dutifully, they all followed Shaka, who followed the stranger with no sign of worry. Then again, Shaka rarely looked worried, so that wasn't the best thing to go by, now was it?

It was when the door found itself closed from the alleyway behind the Leaky Cauldron- honestly, who would call their place a leaking cooking-pot?- that the blond stranger turned to Shaka and smiled. Unnerved, Harry listened.

"So does this mean that you owe me a course in your world?"

"Perhaps."

The stranger gave a wry smile. "I suppose a bit of introductions are in order. I am Lucius Malfoy."

Mu's smile reassured Harry somewhat. "Hello, Mr. Malfoy. I am Mu, and you already appear to know Shaka. These are our children; Ravi, Agora, Aiacos, Shura, Harry, Tarun, and Kiki."

Lucius smiled faintly. "I must admit, when I received the letter, I did not really expect him to bring the whole family. Its a pleasant surprise." Lucius turned for a moment, produced a long, thing stick from somewhere on his person, and tapped a brick on the wall as he spoke. "I did speak with the goblins on your behalf, Shaka, just incase; they said it was thoroughly possible to recover the boy's key. Dumbledore has it- I wasn't able to get it from him. My apologies." Shaka waved for him to continue- Harry and everyone else simply stared at the wall, which had begun to move and part, a bit like the Red Sea.

It stopped in a grand archway of red brick, and beyond it was a bustle of people and interesting, foreign buildings.

"Quite the spectacal, isn't it? Diagon Alley is the largest collection of Wizarding Shops in England. Not necessarily the best, but the only location you can get all you require in one stop. I sent my wife and son ahead of us. They'll be joining us at Madam Malkin's a little later. Draco was indefinately pleased when I told him he might have a new playmate. I think he might cry for pleasure when he learns there are seven of you."

Harry decided kind of liked this man. Some Magus might be fun after all.