Harry Potter and the Not-Fatal-At-All Cultural Exchange Program
(continued here) is a Fate/stay night/Harry Potter Fusion Fic by Pale Wolf.
A Holy Grail War is brewing... but this is not your usual Holy Grail War. In this universe, the Masters and their Servants are converging on England to do battle. Nobody is quite sure where such a potent artefact came from - not the Church, not the Iranians, not the Japanese, not the mercenary, not the thrall of Voldemort, not the werewolves - but everyone has something they want out of it, and one Harry James Potter gets involved when he accepts the invitation in order to save Sirius Black during the events at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Now part of this fracas, it's up to him and his Servant to step up to the bat and win... or die trying.
Spoilery handy cheat sheet for Master and Servant identities at bottom of page. Also beware possible unmarked spoilers for all HP content up to the divergence point.
This fanfic contains examples of the following:
- Alternate Universe Fic: Quite a bit is... off... from canon Nasuverse. For example:
- This is the first Holy Grail War in this universe.
- The Grail is NOT corrupted. Except it really is, and the participants don't know... because it's corrupted by canon Nasuverse's Angra Mainyu, rather than the local one, so the Iranians monitoring the local one haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary.
- In Scene 22 it's mentioned that Kayneth Archibald was the DADA teacher two years before Quirrel.
-
Word of God states that Waver Velvet was the DADA teacher immediately before Quirrel. - In Scene 24 Tokiomi Tohsaka is mentioned as one of Voldemort's foreign backers, and Kiritsugu Emiya shows up in his company in Scene 26.
- Rin and Sakura are happy at least.
- Bazett is an Irish Auror.
- This is the first Holy Grail War in this universe.
- Anticlimax: The Japan/Britain treaty issue, the prime motivator for the Kuzukis— which they murdered Fudge over— is solved by Amelia Bones simply nullifying the treaty without any flair, completely flooring Saki, who didn't even have a chance to negotiate.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
- In scene 21, Faolan's inner monologue uses a variation of this to praise Harry.
He had been quite impressive. Nothing like his reputation - neither a terrible dark child nor a burgeoning demigod of magic - but instead, something far more deadly: A driven, clever young man, quick on his wits. It was unfortunate they were opponents, she rather liked him.- This author comment on Servant skills.
Broadly speaking, skills (as in, actual skills - knowledge, how good they are with a sword, tactics, etc) always come in full, and generally receive 'modern era' upgrades - Cultural Archer is massively enjoying this with guns and IEDs out the ass, riders have some idea what to do with 'modern mounts', and Gilgamesh actually knows which end of the sword you stab the other guy with. - Ascended Fanboy: Downplayed, but Assassin's entire behaviour and fighting style seems to be a literal love letter to Arturia. He acts like a Knight in Shining Armor, created his own version of Excalibur, can cast Invisible Air, and has created his own variant of Prana Burst (Sword). Because he's actually Shirou.
- Beleaguered Bureaucrat: The author's take on Dumbledore is that he is genuinely competent, but his need to struggle with multiple highly demanding hats is what creates the impression of incompetence.
- Best Served Cold: In Scene 31 Amelia says that vengeance for something "Crouch" - no idea if this is either of the canonical Barty Crouch or someone else - did is one of the motivations Ettore has for getting involved in the War.
- Black Comedy: A lot of Harry's internal commentary amounts to this.
- Boring, but Practical:
- How does Ettore di Rosetti, an Italian criminal wanted by the British Magical community, enter the country undetected? He flies in on a muggle airplane.
- Harry's fighting style is a magical version of this. He's not a showy magical genius like Voldemort or Dumbledore, a crazy Servant level Kung-Fu Wizard like Faolan, nor does he have a powerful Origin like Shahrizad, but his ability to spam Killing Curses like they're Tickle Charms can make him a credible threat to far more powerful fighters.
- Charles Atlas Superpower: Being a Nasuverse crossover this is fully in play. Saber outright says in her first scene that Kotomine is approaching Heroic Spirit level.
- Child Soldiers: Greyback favours turning children because they're much easier to indoctrinate.
- Combat Compliment: Faolan congratulates Harry for successfully casting a killing curse, even though she was the intended target.
- Combat Pragmatist: Quite a few, but Archer puts them all to shame with ridiculous amounts of traps and enough explosives to make the Demoman think twice.
- Didn't See That Coming: By Word of God, personal combat freaks like Faolan or Kirei are... a little above what Ettore was expecting in the War's Masters.
- Distaff Counterpart: Berserker sometimes comes off as Female!Harry at times having similar character tics and speech patterns. Justified because it was a compatibility summon.
- Enemy Mine: In Scene 19 Harry and Shahrizad team up to fight Faolan. It becomes a proper alliance shortly after, at least until they're the only two Masters left.
- Gender Flip: Given that this is the Nasuverse this trope was practically contractually obligated to happen. In this case it turns out Viriathus was a woman.
- The Gift: Many people in story note that despite Harry's average magical ability and young age he has an unnatural talent for fighting and killing.
- Had to Be Sharp: By Word of God, the reason why Faolan is so damn badass is because she has the need to be.
- Hanlon's Razor: Discussed by Amelia Bones in Scene 28, who can't decide if Fudge killing the suspect in Cedric Diggory's death was out of overzealous stupidity or deliberate coverup.
- Hermetic Magic: Power-boosting runes are used extensively by Faolan.
- Insane Troll Logic: Fudge engages in this in chapter 9 to justify his paranoia against Dumbledore in his own mind.
- Kiss of Death: Archer kisses Caster with a mouthful of poison.
- Manipulative Bastard: This Voldemort is one.
- Misapplied Phlebotinum: The Killing Curse was originally a medical spell used to kill diseases.
- Mundane Utility: Shahrizad uses fire magic to clean herself in Scene 20. In Scene 23 she uses the Killing Curse to get rid of the lingering effects of Faolan's attack. Apparently there was linguistic drift between the original Aramaic and what the English wizards know of it.
- Mythology Gag:
- In Scene 2 it is noted that the Japanese town of Misaki is drawing an unusual number of Dead Apostles.
- In Scene 11, Kotomine tells Shacklebolt to "Rejoice!"
- Scene 22 reveals that Kayneth, though never coming anywhere near a Grail here, still lost his magic ability and ended up in a wheelchair anyway.
- Kirei summoned a Servant that takes a special interest in him, but instead of trying to turn him into a super-villain his Saber wants to see if he can become a Heroic Spirit.
- There are 27 members of the DA (Defense Association/Dumbledore's Army). There's another DA with 27 members in the Nasuverse...
- Never Trust a Title: The name of the story is pretty much Blatant Lies.
- Overshadowed by Awesome:
- Astarte is a Master of Illusion. Problem is, in a straight fight she's theoretically the weakest of the Masters. Of course, in the Nasuverse things rarely are so straightforward.
- Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix are pretty competent wizards, but of the lot perhaps only Dumbledore and Snape would last more than a few seconds against any of the War's participants, and Harry knows it. That's why he wants them to stay out of the way.
- Perception Filter: Lancer appears to have this talent - or full-on invisibility, it's not particularly clear - as Dalton doubts his having seen her.
- Subverted, as it turns out that his confusion was due to her simply assuming her astral form right before her appearance fully registered.
- Private Military Contractors: Ettore is the founder of Rosetta Stone, a bunch of wands-for-hire.
- Reasonable Authority Figure:
- Dalton Wolfram of the Unspeakables is willing to hear Harry out, offers to use Veritaserum on himself to establish trust, and makes an agreement with Harry to let the latter do as he needs to in order to fight the War. He takes it very well when Harry starts spamming Killing Curses in an attempt to defeat Faolan.
- Amelia Bones is a far more competent and reasonable Minister than Fudge.
- Right Hand Versus Left Hand: Both Astarte and Faolan converged on Number 4, Privet Drive intending to capture Harry for Voldemort. Neither knew the other was working for Voldemort. Both being Masters, a fight naturally broke out.
- Seen It All: Harry's general attitude to all this weirdness.
- Setting Update: In this fic, the timeline of the Harry Potter series has been advanced by ten years, so it takes place in 2005 instead of 1995.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: The interpretation of Harry here is someone way too comfortable with death and fighting even before you take his age into account.
- Shipper on Deck: In Scene 20 Tonks tries to ship Harry and Shahrizad.
- Shout-Out: "Avada Kedavra. What a wonderful phrase. Avada Kedavra. Ain't no passing craze. It means no worries, for the rest of your days. It's our problem free philosophy. Avada Kedavra."
- The last names of the characters from the Department of Mysteries are Wolfram and Hart.
- Squick: This is Harry's In-Universe reaction in scene 22 when Lupin informs him that Faolan is such a young mother due to Greyback's... machinations.
- That Came Out Wrong: It's mentioned in Scene 20 that it's possible to get prana by "sucking it out of the general population", which gets a snicker from one of the In-Universe listeners.
- Tears of Joy: Harry sheds these when Privet Drive burns down.
- The Unfettered: Ettore is willing to put aside his qualms to win the War, including using Polyjuice to disguise himself as a female prostitute and then acting the part.
- Wham Line:
- "I'm not Caster."
- Though he wasn't that Archer, regardless of how hard he'd freaked when he'd first seen that bastard's face staring him in the mirror - growing up was crappy enough when you didn't include 'realizing that asshole was you all along'.Explanation
- "There's been an eighth Servant summon."
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The inversion (great insanity leads to great power) is Dalton's opinion of Harry, expressed in Scene 31.a normal person could not cast Avada Kedavra so easily. The problem was, it was that particular form of insanity that began around where the subject forgot human limitations, and ended before human morals fell by the wayside. Just crazy enough to pull off the impossible.
Handy cheat sheet for Master and Servant identities (SPOILERS!)
- Archer — Viriathus — Faolan
- Assassin — Shirou Emiya — Shahrizad Ebrahimi
- Berserker — Hervor — Harry Potter
- Caster — Karna — Astarte Azel
- Lancer — ??? — Saki Kuzuki
- Rider — Salazar Slytherin — Ettore di Rosetti
- Saber — Jadwiga of Poland — Kirei Kotomine
- Ruler — Llacheunote — The Grail
