On a Pale Horse
AU. When Dumbledore tried to summon a hero from another world to deal with their Dark Lord problem, this probably wasn't what he had in mind. MoD!Harry, Godlike!Harry, Unhinged!Harry. Dumbledore bashing. DISCONTINUED.Harry Potter, T, English, Humor & Adventure, chapters: 25, words: 69k+, favs: 16k+, follows: 16k+, updated: Aug 26, 2017 published: Sep 11, 2014, Harry P.
Harry Potter, Master of Death, Destroyer of Worlds, Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, was studying his reflection in a spoon. The utensil was not particularly adept at displaying an accurate picture of himself, but it amused him to see his face warped and inflated in a bug-eyed stare. Harry didn't really care. He knew what he looked like, and didn't need the dubious surface of a spoon to remind him.
Idly, he flipped the spoon over and stared into the reverse side, watching as his head was compressed like an hourglass. He opened his mouth and made a face at his reflection, wrinkling his nose and widening his eyes in an attempt to make himself as ridiculous as possible. A few moments later he caught himself and stopped, letting the spoon drop from his fingers where it dissolved into ash halfway to the floor.
Heaving a sigh, Harry leaned back and sat down on a chair that materialized out of smoke and shadow just in time to catch him, angling his head toward the 'roof' of the expanse of nothing that made up his entire world nowadays.
He was so bored.
There was nothing to do anymore. He'd outlived all of Earth, twice, taken over various civilizations in various times and places, been a Dark Lord more times than he honestly cared to count, killed Tom Riddle as an infant six separate times out of sheer spite, and even united all the squibs in the magical world in revolt against their wizard superiors—which was surprisingly successful, seeing as squibs weren't afraid to use guns while their enemies disdained 'muggle weapons' as 'nonsense.'
And the purebloods kept on believing it was nonsense up until the squib President of the United States dropped a bomb on them.
Harry sighed again, letting his arm dangle off the side of his conjured smoke-chair and brushed the ground—it felt like grass for now—with long bony fingers that hadn't been that way before he'd made the mistake of retrieving the Resurrection Stone from the forest.
Honestly he couldn't even really call himself 'Harry Potter' anymore. The only features he had in common with the old Harry were the hair—still an untamable mess, even though it was made out of shadows now and moved on its own, which only made controlling it even more difficult—and the eyes, which had always been 'a bit creepy' but were now literally the color of the killing curse, instead of just often compared to it in passing.
He was much taller now, thank Merlin, but he'd also lost basically all of his body mass until he resembled either a skeleton or a concentration camp survivor, whichever one was worse. His fingers were longer, as if he'd somehow gained an extra knuckle somewhere along the way, and while his famous scar was finally gone he'd ended up trading it for a massive tattoo of the Deathly Hallows spreading across his entire back.
Oh, and he'd gained the delightful ability to steal the soul of whoever touched his bare skin—no matter how accidentally—which had immediately destroyed his sex life and any sort of possibility at normality he could ever have, forever. And when he said 'forever,' he wasn't just being an emotional teenager and angsting about his situation. He actually meant forever, seeing as how he was now immortal.
Fan-bloody-tastic.
But he wasn't bitter. Sure, he had spent a century or two throwing a temper tantrum that plunged the entire world into another Dark Age, but he'd gotten over it. He'd even been a bit excited once his emo stage was over, thinking about all the things he could do and learn and accomplish now that he had all the time in the world.
And it had been bearable. He'd learned to live—sort of—with the fact that he was going to watch all his friends and family die, and eventually the pain of losing them dulled to a sort of numb indifference—which really helped, actually, because being in constant emotional agony due to something he really couldn't control sucked. He'd learned everything he could think to learn, read everything he could get his hands on, found teachers to teach him things he'd have never imagined, and did just about everything he'd ever wanted to do.
And then there was nothing left. Nothing. He had done everythingpossible to be done. No matter how small, how bizarre, or how dubiously moral… he'd done it.
And now he was bored.
Tossing a ball that hadn't existed until he'd wanted it to up and down in his hand, Harry pondered.
'Master of Death' was a bit of a misnomer, really. Death was not a person, or a creature, or a thing that could conceivably have a 'master.' Death simply was. Being Master of Death did not give him control over 'Death' as the name might have once implied. No, being Master of Death meant that the concept of Death, of The End of All Things, of The Final Breath of the World, was personified in him. He became Death. He was 'officially' in charge of making sure souls got to the afterlife once they died, but that whole business was done entirely subconsciously—he wasn't even aware that he was doing it until two thousand years in during a period of intense meditation—meaning he was free to do basically whatever he wanted in the meantime.
As Death, he (obviously) could not be killed. At all. Oh he could be injured, wounded, torn apart, atomized, liquefied, or otherwise obliterated, but he always pulled himself back together in short order. Killing Death was like trying to make water wet, or set fire to a flame. It was pointless because it was already true.
Harry was always 'dead,' so killing him again was useless.
He sighed again. He was getting introspective. The last time he'd gotten introspective, he wound up creating the dementors. He'd already known they existed, of course, but he'd gone back to a point where they didn't and made them exist because he figured if he had soul-sucking skin, he may as well make soul-sucking monsters to match.
It was slightly ironic that he used to have such a strong reaction to them as a mortal, since he'd actually created them in the past after he'd transcended mortality in the future. Paradoxes. They still boggled his mind.
But none of this solved his problem. He had nothing to do. He supposed he could go back to Earth again and screw up the timeline or something, maybe blow up a village or a small town, but he'd already done that so many times it really wasn't worth the effort. He sort of wondered if this was why Death had never been personified before. It wasn't like there was a 'Master of Life' he could talk to. He sort of hoped there never would be; despite how much he'd kill for some company—his jokes had only gotten worse due to the isolation—he would never wish his existence on anyone. Especially not the personification of Life itself.
Harry was halfway through another sigh when something interesting happened.
He almost missed it at first. It was a faint sort of tugging in his chest, like someone had tied a thread around one of his ribs and was pulling on it a bit. He felt an initial flash of irritation—Who goes and ties things around people's ribs? Honestly!—before he realized that this was different. This had never happened before, which was such a novel experience that he leapt from his chair (which dutifully dissolved unnoticed behind him) and stilled himself unnaturally so he could focus his considerable senses on this strange phenomenon.
It took him only three fractions of a second to scan his vast reservoirs of knowledge before the answer came to him.
He was being summoned!
He laughed aloud, the sound dry and rusty and rattling like the last breath of a dying man, but he barely noticed. Someone was summoning him! Him! Death! The Pale Rider himself! He paused at this revelation, furrowing his brows. No… not Death. No mortal could summon Death. But…
But.
A smile pulled at his lips. It was a slow thing, a dead thing, cracking against the pale skin of his face like a Glasgow grin. They might not be capable of summoning Death… but they could summon Harry Potter.
He stretched out his power along the thread tied to his chest, following it curiously, only to find it led nowhere. It reached to the Edge of his formless Void, before abruptly vanishing into nothingness, as if the thread had materialized there and existed nowhere else. His mind raced with possibilities. The thread had not led him in the direction of the Earth, which meant the summoner was not on Earth. Or… at least not on this Earth.
He had toyed with the idea of alternate realities of course, but had never dared try and cross over to one, not even in the depths of boredom. He had no way of knowing if a Death already existed there, and had no desire to find out what would happen should he wind up in conflict with another personification of Death. But another reality had reached out to him. This, logically, meant his arrival there would not bring him into conflict against another entity like himself. The Death there would not have allowed it, just as he would not have allowed some other Death to piggyback on a summoning from his Earth.
The grin on his face could not possibly be equated to a human smile any longer, full of teeth that sharpened the longer he held the expression until it would not look out of place on a shark. Harry paused, only briefly, as he considered what might happen to this world if he answered the summons. He was confident that, as Death, he had the power to remain subconsciously connected to this world so as to perform his duties. After all, didn't Death exist in all worlds and all places? It made sense that he could do likewise.
Pulling his power around him like a shroud—no, really, it was an actual black shroud; where do you think the idea for the dementor cloaks came from?—Harry took a step forward and found himself at the end of the thread, having crossed the distance between him and it without actually having had to do so. Lifting up a pale, long-fingered hand, Harry delicately grasped the faint white thread between forefinger and thumb, his other digits raised elegantly in the air, and gave it a gentle yank.
Sensations of shock/fear/surprise/hope/elation echoed across the thread from whoever was summoning him—no, summoning Harry Potter, the boy he used to be—and the tug in his chest doubled. It was still barely noticeable to one such as himself, but at least his summoners knew he was paying attention now. His smile tilted oddly at the thought; he wondered just what they would think if they knew they'd just gained the full attention of Death.
With a wide, feral grin, Harry stepped forward off the Edge, and decided to find out.
AN: By far my favorite type of Harry Potter fanfiction is the "someone summoned overpowered-Harry from another dimension to fight their battles for them" cliché. I also adore stories where Harry is the Master of Death, and that the title actually means something as opposed to just being frivolous. Also, Unhinged!Harry and Godlike!Harry are enjoyable as well. So, I figured, why not mix all of them together?
Just to be clear, I have not actually read all of the Harry Potter books, or even actually watched all of the movies. Most of my knowledge comes from the thousands of fanfictions I've read, pieced together from canon events that they all had in common and therefore assured me they were fairly accurate. But this is a massive AU anyway, so I feel pretty secure about myself.
I've written lots of Harry Potter fanfiction starts (154 of them, to be exact, not including crossovers) that, obviously, I have never posted. Mostly because they're all pretty stupid in my opinion, and are all short. This one is short too, being only about 5k words so far, but I still liked it enough to put it up and prove that I'm not dead to my three loyal fans. No, this does not mean I have any sort of inspiration for any of my other fandom stories.
Here, have a cup of pudding for your trouble. It's chocolate, I promise.
Chapter 2
1996, #12 Grimmauld Place
Harry Potter did not like this plan. He did not like it at all. Dumbledore, in his infinite wisdom, had decided that he just 'wasn't cutting it' and that they should summon a 'hero' (the actual term used was 'Vanquisher of Voldemort') from another dimension and then somehow convince this unfortunate person into helping them with their own Dark Lord problem. Harry didn't know where Dumbledore got this ritual from, but he could feel in his bones that it was going to end very, very badly.
Harry rather doubted that any 'vanquisher' they summoned would be in any sort of mind to actually help them. If someone pulled himfrom his dimension by dubiously legal means and expected him to fight their war for them, he'd probably laugh in their faces, tell them to go to hell, and to do creative things to themselves with a nearby chair leg while they were at it. There were just so many things that could go wrong with this ritual, and Harry was slightly horrified with himself that he'd let Dumbledore talk him into actually being present for this abomination, even if he'd managed to wiggle out of actively participating.
The magic had gotten progressively thicker until it was a little hard to breathe, until it leveled out at the point where Dumbledore had told them (them being the Order of the Phoenix, of course) that the ritual was making contact with the 'hero' on the other side. This was necessary because, apparently, the magic was supposed to implant a compulsion in the recipient to follow the pull back to this dimension—which Harry found rather sketchy, but he'd been outvoted on the matter—and encourage them to come along without fighting the ritual, which could damage all parties involved.
What was not supposed to happen was the magic pull being pulled back. The whole room seemed to jerk in place, as if some sort of god had just gripped hold of reality and yanked on it. Everyone began talking over each other in shock and surprise, wondering what had just happened and if the ritual was working right, as the uneasy feeling in Harry grew. Almost without thought, his green eyes met black as the only other protesting party met his gaze from across the room. Incredulously, Harry realized that only he and Snape seemed to have realized that the ritual worked just fine. It was just… whatever they'd hooked on the end of their line was far, far bigger than they were.
"Guys…?" Harry ventured tentatively, going largely unheard in the chaos, but pressing on regardless. "This is a really bad idea."
He was, of course, ignored.
Dumbledore twinkled reassuringly at them all, raising his hands benevolently as a gesture for calm. "Please, settle down everyone. The ritual is working correctly; we simply miscalculated how much power it must take to cross dimensions in such a fashion." And as if to prove this statement, the magic in the air doubled itself as Dumbledore obviously pushed himself even further, which slightly impressed Harry, but he was far too horrified to honestly care about how much magic the old man was throwing around.
Just as Harry thought the magic in the air would drown them all, it all seemed to be sucked to the middle of the room just as the air ripped itself in half. A huge, jagged crack had just appeared in midair, showing nothing but empty, formless black on the other side. Harry's unease tripled itself.
A pale, long-fingered hand gently curled around one edge of the tear in reality, a large silver ring set with a black stone adorning one bony finger as a booted leg stepped out of the rip and onto the wooden floor, which blackened and began to rot immediately. A man emerged from the crack as if this sort of thing happened every day, draped in black and silver that curled around him like an intangible serpent, and the tear sealed itself up behind him as if it had never been.
Harry stared. The man was tall, very tall, but there seemed to be almost no flesh on him at all; he was all bones and sharp angles and unnaturally long limbs, with a mane of black hair that writhed in place and evaporated itself like colorless, smokeless fire set over eyes that were an unforgettable shade of electric green. Avada Kedavra green. The grin on the man's face sent a cold chill down Harry's spine; it seemed to crack his face in half from ear to ear—it was as if the man's flesh were made of clay, and the smile had caused tiny fissures in his skin—and his jaws were full of inhuman, nightmarish fangs unlike anything he'd seen on any sort of creature, magical or otherwise. There was a silver cloak over his black robes that seemed to move and ripple like liquid, pinned together by a strange silver symbol of three shapes that had Dumbledore choking on his own saliva.
All this Harry noticed in an instant. And then the man's aura washed over the room.
It was the bite of hoarfrost, the rattling breath of a dementor, the heartbreaking scream of a mother holding the corpse of their child, the hysterical laughter of a man staring death in the face. It was unfathomable, outside of human comprehension in every meaning of the word; a single ripple of it lanced outward from the man in a tangible shockwave of power that lasted only a single instant, and every heart in the room skipped several beats in shock as everyone fell to their knees, gasping for breath and clutching at their chests. Then the aura was visibly pulled in, locked inside this… creature and stored away like a slumbering dragon.
The creature looked around the room, Glasgow grin still filling its face, until those killing curse eyes landed on Dumbledore and sharped into something impossibly dangerous. The beast opened its fanged maw, a black tongue—too long for a human, too long toolongtoolong!—licking over its lips as it spoke.
"Albus Dumbledore…" it breathed, a rattling gasp that bypassed their ears as irrelevant, speaking directly to their very souls. Harry inhaled deep, desperate for air, and wondered just what sort of monster Dumbledore had called here. The large grin cracked impossibly wider. "You… summoned me?"
Harry closed his eyes against the horrible whisper of a voice, grating on his nerves like sandpaper, and prayed for death to take them swiftly, because he doubted this creature would make it fast or at all painless.
As if it had heard him, the creature's electric eyes flicked towards him, its jaws clenching together in an interlocking mass of fangs and razor-sharp teeth as the smile took a more feral turn, pupils expanding like ink in water until they covered both iris and sclera, leaving only an expanse of black. Harry did not like that smile. He did not like it at all.
He liked the rasping, deep laugh that followed even less.
AN: Just a quick warning: this may or may not contain a bit of Dumbledore bashing, simply because I find the man's actions all incredibly suspicious and I've read far too many manipulative!Dumbledore stories for my opinion of him to remain pure and benign. Plus, anyone who decides that pulling someone out of their dimension against their will in order to fight a war for them has some serious issues.
Chapter 3
Harry—he supposed he had better start calling himself Death now, considering the boy currently shuddering on the ground a few yards away—was having the time of his life. Well… the time of his death, really. He could tell the moment he emerged into this reality that there had not been a Death already present. In fact, he seemed to have automatically absorbed the position into himself, and could already feel the departing souls passing through him in a river parallel to the ones he could still feel from his original world.
Excellent. Death turned back to Dumbledore—and didn't that just make him want to crow with laughter!—and found him still staring at the pin he used to keep his Invisibility Cloak closed over his shoulders with horrified comprehension. Oh well. Dumbledore had always been a useless, manipulative bastard as far as he was concerned; it just looked like he was a bit slow in this dimension as well.
Ignoring the old man—he paused and cackled aloud at the mere idea that this man was old in any meaningful way—he turned to face the body of his alternate self, grin seemingly fixed on his face at the vast amusement he was getting out of this whole situation. The whole room seemed horrified, and he hadn't even done anything yet!
Laughing again, just because he could and because it had been so very long since he'd had anything to laugh at, he took a step towards his other self, pleased when he didn't recoil in fear like those nearest him were doing. He always knew he was a brave one.
"Why have you summoned me here?" he asked the boy curiously, finding himself absently fascinated at the way the room seemed to be reacting to his voice. Oh. Right. He hadn't talked to a mortal in so long that he'd forgotten what he sounded like. Oops.
Other-Harry swallowed nervously, still on one knee from where he'd collapsed after Death emerged for some reason. Maybe they were showing him deference? He couldn't fathom why they'd all fallen to their knees otherwise. Inwardly he preened, pleased that they held him in such high esteem already. He was awesome and he knew it, but it was nice to have others acknowledge his amazingness as well.
"D-Dumbledore wanted to summon a hero," Other-Harry explained concisely, and rather evenly considering the way his face had paled and the way he was swaying slightly. Was he ill? Death was concerned for about half a millisecond before he got over it. "From another dimension. To kill the Dark Lord."
They wanted him to kill someone? Well, he was very good at that. But… a hero? That couldn't be right. He hadn't been a hero in… well, about four Earths' worth of time. Something of his thoughts must have reflected on his face, because Other-Harry's lips thinned in agreement. Well, they were almost like the same person. It made sense that they'd think alike. Only, he was an immortal personification of Death and the little-Harry was a teenage human wizard, but regardless.
But, he couldn't just go around letting these people think they owned him or something. He'd have to get some sort of agreement out of the lot of them. Maybe make them promise him their firstborn son or something? He discarded the thought as soon as it formed. What use would he have for a bunch of infants?
"I may not be a hero, little wizard, but I am very, very good at killing things," Death admitted with a renewed grin. This universe was already so very much more exciting than the last one! He kicked one leg out and lounged back in the huge black throne-like chair that formed itself out of the shadows in the room behind him, slightly bewildered at the sharp intakes of breath from all around the room at the action. It was just a chair. Why were they getting so worked up over a chair? Shrugging to himself, he kicked one leg over the arm of the chair and relaxed there, observing the mortals in the room through half-lidded eyes, smile turning lazy and content as he waited for them to gather themselves.
Dumbledore seemed to finally catch up to the situation at hand, standing and straightening his obscenely yellow robes. Death took a moment to stare at the robes, decided he didn't like the color of them, and promptly turned them a sedate royal blue instead. There, that was much better. Ignoring the further intakes of breath at this—honestly, these people were so easily surprised—he stared at Dumbledore and waited for him to speak. He was patient, after all. He could wait.
"Welcome to this reality, my boy," Dumbledore beamed, spreading his hands and twinkling madly. Death frowned at him, displeased at being called his anything, and for some reason the entire room seemed to flinch and shrink back at the expression on his face. Dumbledore paled slightly, but kept on with a noticeable dim in his twinkling eyes. "As young Harry has just informed you, the ritual used to summon you here called for someone who had already vanquished Lord Voldemort. Would I be correct in assuming that this is accurate?"
Death blinked mildly at the man. Lord who? Oh. Voldemort? Hadn't that been that Dark Lord that had kept trying to kill him when he was a mortal? Honestly, after the first thousand years or so he'd completely forgotten about the man. He was just a mortal, and Death had been in a bit of an anti-mortal phase for a few millennia there. Plus, the man's name was just insulting. Flight of Death? Oh, and he made those horcruxes too. That irritated him, because mortals were supposed to leave their souls intact instead of breaking them and leaving pieces all over the place. Broken souls were so much harder to coax on to the afterlife that he usually just ate them instead. It wasn't really worth the effort to send them to the other side since anyone who made a horcrux was basically evil anyway, and they deserved to spend eternity in his stomach. The soul of the last wizard who'd made a horcrux was still being digested, he thought; he hadn't checked in a while and it wasn't like he kept an eye on these things. He'd let him move on eventually. Maybe. If he remembered.
"I have taken the soul of a mortal by the name of Tom Riddle, yes. Many times," Death admitted with a pleased smile. Revenge had been sweet, indeed. Tom's soul had tasted like dark chocolate, and he'd had the pleasure of taking his soul seven different times. It was rather funny since the soul seemed to remember its numerous previous deaths even if the body didn't. He idly wondered if Lord Voldemort's soul would taste similar in this new dimension.
"'Taken the soul'?" Other-Harry asked, slightly horrified and slightly fascinated, blatantly ignoring Dumbledore's warning glance to be silent. Death turned to Other-Harry, Tom forgotten as he refocused on his alternate, mortal shell. "What do you mean you 'took his soul'? You mean like a dementor?"
Ah! So dementors existed over here, too? He wondered when he'd get around to going back and making them. He grinned at Other-Harry, wide and sharp and more than slightly mad, running his tongue over his teeth in remembrance. "It's far more accurate to say that dementors take souls like me."
Death didn't know why these words made the mortals around him so horrified, but it made him laugh nonetheless. Oh he was going to have such fun here. He could practically taste it.
AN: Obliviously Arrogant!Troll!Death!Harry. My life is complete.
Chapter 4
Death was honestly waiting for someone to try and touch him. They'd been sitting here in this room for a few hours now as the mortals debated amongst themselves as to 'what to do with him,' which was incredibly rude seeing as how he was actually still present and taking slight offense as to how these people seemed to think they could do anything to him in the first place. He kept quiet though, alternating his attention between frowning at Dumbledore and grinning at his shell-shocked alternate self. Really, these people were far too fun to tease.
Nothing was happening though, which was disappointing because the whole point of coming here was to find something to do, so Death figured he may as well go and do something productive with his time. Like rescue a kitten, or turn Dumbledore bald, or unleash Cthulhu on the unsuspecting populous of Earth.
Abruptly, Death stood. And, equally abruptly, silence fell on the gathered mortals like a ton of bricks, complete with dumbfounded, shocked faces and gaping mouths. Terribly unattractive. He stood for a moment, still in the way that only Death can be, eyes roving over the gathered humans as he weighed the possibility of leaping at one of them suddenly and seeing how they react against setting himself on fire just to see what would happen.
Instead of doing either of those potentially hilarious things, Death instead smiled at them all—which oddly did not reassure them as much as he'd sort of hoped it would—and nonchalantly put his hands in the pockets of his robe (his robe hadn't actually hadpockets until a second ago) as he strolled out of the room, ignoring the wards meant to keep him there as if they were made out of cobwebs. The magic holding them together cracked and shattered like glass as he walked through them, an amused grin on his face as he wondered when the mortals would gather their wits enough to realize he'd just walked out on them.
He actually made it all the way down the hall before voices erupted behind him, which made him laugh, long and loud, quickly silencing the room again. He cut off his laughter, frowning, and wished they would stop going so quiet when he laughed. It wasn't funny if they were quiet, which meant he couldn't laugh, and he very much liked to laugh.
Death wandered the house for a minute or so, enjoying the sheer novelty of actually walking somewhere for once, before he found himself in a large library. He glanced over the shelves of books, knowing that there wasn't anything new for him to learn in here but having been drawn by the feel of magic emanating from a back corner. Silent as the grave—how very punny of him—Death glided toward the source, peering around a corner at the witch with the incredibly bushy hair and a book for a head. Oh. Wait, no, she simply had her head buried in a book; the book wasn't actually her head. He frowned in disappointment. A witch with a book for a head would have been very interesting, and he eyed her speculatively and wondered how she would react should he actually turn her head into a book for his amusement.
As if she somehow knew he was thinking uncharitable thoughts about her person, the witch raised her head and locked eyes with him. Death's smile grew slowly, pleased to find someone willing to make and maintain eye contact with him without going mad, and—conversely—the witch's frown increased in proportion to his smile.
"Who are you?" the witch finally asked in a slightly bossy manner that Death decided to overlook in favor of an actual conversation with a living being.
Death drifted towards the table, observing the witch as she shifted uneasily, one hand going to where her wand was concealed up her sleeve, and reached out a pale hand to pull back one of the chairs. The wooden chair blackened and began to creak warningly as he touched it, but he ignored her wide-eyed reaction to this and settled himself at the table, frowning at how uncomfortable mortal chairs were. With a flick of thought, he rearranged the chair more to his tastes and leaned back, pleased, when it adjusted to his standards.
"I am Death, Destroyer of Worlds," he grinned, teeth sharpening in response to his glee. The witch stiffened, hair frizzing out even further—much to his interest—as her eyes flickered slightly with rapid thoughts. It amused him that this was the first person to actually ask who he was. Not even his summoners had bothered to find out, which was a rather large oversight on their part considering who and what he was. "I have been summoned here by your peers in order to vanquish the Dark Lord Voldemort." …Again. Honestly, how many times was he going to have to kill this guy before the universe was happy? Wasn't eight enough? Not that it was much of a hardship; he enjoyed killing things very much, and enjoyed killing naughty, evil things even more.
"The Headmaster summoned Death to kill Voldemort?" the witch asked incredulously, seeming simultaneously impressed at the sort of magic necessary to do such a thing as well as horrified that anyone would be foolish enough to summon Death for anything at all.
"…it's a bit overkill, actually," a strained voice interjected from around the corner. Death's lips turned up in a pleased smile that made the witch shudder for some reason (honestly, his smiles weren't that bad) at the voice of Other-Harry. It was absolutely marvelous how similar they were! They even had identical senses of humor! He'd have his mortal shell cracking death jokes in no time at all.
Other-Harry staggered into a chair next to the bushy haired book-witch, looking far more exhausted than the short walk from the arrival room to the library honestly warranted. His other self was terribly out of shape. Death eyed him, wondering if he should do something about that; he couldn't have a weak mortal shell, after all. That would reflect poorly on his power and prestige, which was unacceptable.
Other-Harry frowned slightly and stared back at Death, paling as he did so but not looking away. Death approved. "So… you're really Death? Like… the Death?"
"As opposed to some other Death?" he replied, honestly a bit confused. Were there other people named Death here? That would be awfully complicated; he would have to go find these other Deaths and remove them from existence as to avoid any future mix-ups. He knew there were no entities of Death here, but there might be a mortal or two who had the misfortune to be named after himself. It wouldn't be too terribly difficult to remedy the situation, and he was rather pleased with his mortal minion-shell for bringing the problem to his attention. He would have been tempted to pat the boy on the head for a job well done, except he rather doubted anyone would appreciate him accidentally ripping the boy's soul from his body.
He could put it back, of course, he was Death, but the experience of having one's soul reaped and absorbed into himself was beyond unpleasant from what some souls had told him. He settled for a rather approving smile, which—again—failed to actually reassure the person he was smiling at. If he'd cared what the mortals thought of him, this refusal to accept his smiles as a good thingwould have hurt his feelings slightly.
As it was, it just amused him. He resolved to smile at everyone he met from that point onward.
His mortal shell and the book-witch exchanged a Look, both distinctly unsettled. Death supposed he couldn't blame them. He was awfully magnificent, and sometimes mortals had a difficult time adjusting to the sheer glory of his presence. Death waited patiently as Other-Harry turned his attention back to him—as if there was anything in the room more interesting than him to look at anyway—and cleared his throat. Perhaps there was something stuck in it? Death again wondered if the boy was ill in some manner, but refrained from checking. If it was important, someone would bring it up eventually.
"Dumbledore and the others aren't quite sure what to do with you," Other-Harry admitted, which made Death frown again. Honestly. These people needed to learn they couldn't have done anything with him in the first place. "They had been expecting a hero. A… well a wizard. Not… not you."
Well that was more than a little insulting. Death was far superior to any mortal hero they could have possibly summoned! Reining in his temper (now was not a good time to get upset), Death refocused on the shivering forms of the teenagers across from him. Was it cold in here, then? Death didn't really feel the elements all that much, so he really had no way of knowing. But they were wizards, and they should know how to use a damn warming charm by now. He decided not to care.
"Albus Dumbledore reached across Time and Space in search of a vanquisher, a conqueror, a god. He should not be complaining when he's been given all three."
Death, after all, had conquered entire worlds in the eternity of his existence. A single Dark Lord and his minions was barely even worth the effort it would take to find and eradicate them like rats.
"It's not that," Other-Harry hurried to explain, obviously afraid he'd been offended. Which he had been, but Death knew better than to take his anger out on his mortal shell. "It's just… well Dumbledore likes to be in control of everything, and he isn't quite sure how to go about making sure you do what he wants you to. You know, considering your rather dramatic entrance." Other-Harry offered a weak grin, but Death was as far from amused as he had ever been.
Firstly, what dramatic entrance? He'd just stepped out of the dimensional rift. He hadn't even brought any necromantic constructs with him for effect!
Death narrowed his eyes, his mouth a thin line as he felt his power flex around him. Albus Dumbledore sought to control him, did he? Ancient, long buried memories flickered through his consciousness. The Dursleys, his cupboard, the prophecy (dancing to the fickle whims of Fate) Dumbledore's manipulations, being set up to die for the Greater Good, his forced, unknowing Mastery of Death...No more. He would never be controlled again. He submitted to no one's will but his own! He rose from the table, gathering his magic around him like a cloak, and the room seemed to darken and wilt around him. He barely noticed the two teenagers scrambling out of the chairs as the table and seating began to warp and rot beneath them.
"I am Death," he rumbled, voice low and gravelly with hate and anger. He could almost taste the brimstone in the back of his throat as his voice rose to a roar. "And NO ONE CONTROLS ME!"
Chapter 5
I am about to die, Harry thought frantically, pressing himself and Hermione back into the furthest corner of the library, wide eyes fixed on the maelstrom of rage and malice shrieking into existence around the previously-amiable figure of Death. He had no idea what had set the entity off, but he could guess. Dumbledore's almost obsessive need to control every aspect of his life had often sent Harry into a rage himself, but nothing on this level.
"I will NEVER walk the path of that meddling old fool again!" Death barked, his voice echoing like the legion of the damned, shaking the foundations of the very world. Harry was confused though, terribly so. Death wouldn't walk Dumbledore's path again? When had Death ever been controlled by anyone?
Hermione, bless her curious heart, seemed to have caught on as well. And, despite his frantic tugging and nervous hand gestures, pushed her way forward and—rather foolishly, if bravely—stepped forward closer to the razor-sharp, vicious aura gouging deep marks on the walls and floor around the irate form of Death himself.
Hermione, in a fit of sheer Gryffindor stupidity, decided the most expedient way to get the attention of Death himself—did he mention how this was DEATH—was to throw a book at him. Harry was both impressed at her gall (for Hermione to throw one of her precious books was a monumental occasion indeed) and one hundred percent convinced that Death was about to smear his best friend across the library walls.
The book didn't actually reach the man of course. Rather, it was shredded into tiny pieces by the black and silver magic burning around him, and then dissolved into ash. But it did catch his attention, and solid black abyssal eyes locked on Hermione's slightly trembling form.
"W-when did the Headmaster try to c-control you?" she managed in a remarkably steady voice, considering who was glaring at her. The question both seemed to calm the entity down and simultaneously enrage him farther.
Death's fiery anger turned ice-cold in a heartbeat, frosting their breath in the air and crackling around them like breaking glass. "He martyred me," Death snarled, a guttural, feral sound that had no place coming from a human throat. "Sacrificed my humanity for the Greater Good." Then he grinned, long, jagged fangs gleaming behind cracked lips as a black tongue ran over his teeth. "I locked him inside my cupboard and left his body to rot while I swallowed his damned soul." Death's smile was all teeth; vindictive pleasure all but radiated from him as his frozen magic slowed down and returned to the same heart-stopping aura from his arrival. "He was the last mortal to ever try and control me. I made sure of it."
Harry's breath was frozen in his chest. Hermione had obviously not made the connection he just had, and he honestly was in no hurry to enlighten her. His eyes darted all over Death's face, his form, his shadow-like hair, his absinthe eyes… how did he not notice this before?
Death caught his eye and that wild grin was back, the oppressive aura gone like it had never been. It was obvious from the look on Death's face—a sort of macabre pleasure and a strange sort of possessiveness—that Death already knew exactly what Harry had just now figured out. Harry could barely hear past the blood thundering through his ears, and could only be grateful that Hermione was currently distracted trying to set the library to rights (good to know her priorities have been straightened out).
Death stepped closer, crossing the length of the room in that single step and drastically invading Harry's personal space. He resisted the urge to flinch away, still trying to come to grips with the revelation that had just whacked him upside the head.
"You've realized it then, my mortal shell?" Death whispered smoothly, his already eerie voice lowering into a register just barely audible to human ears. And if he hadn't been sure before, hearing Death call him that merely confirmed it. "Yesss… little wizard. See what your Headmaster has done to me? To us?" Death spread out his hands as if in supplication, but all it did was draw Harry's attention to the unnatural, skeletal limbs and too-long fingers. Death's hands made corpses look portly. "Gifted the infamous Invisibility Cloak of Ignotus, groomed for the Elder Wand of Antioch, and tricked into retrieving the Resurrection Stone of Cadmus." Death reached out, as if to grasp his face in both hands, but they settled on the wall behind his head instead, looming over him, killing curse eyes bleeding black. "Look at me, my mortal shell. Look at what your precious Headmaster has done to me." Death's whisper-soft voice turned mournful, and it reminded Harry of weeping children and a mother screaming out to take her instead and spare her son. "I have not touched a living being in millions of years. Millions, my shell." Death's long fingers trembled where they were pressed against the wall, curling slightly as if attempting to claw through the stone. Death's head lowered, hair like wisps of shadow and fire surrounding him like a living mane.
And then, without any sort of warning, Death was suddenly several feet away, hands clasped behind his back as if he'd always been there. That wild, unhinged grin was back on his face, shark-like teeth white against the grey paleness of his skin, and his eyes were again that unsettling shade of electric green.
Harry rather doubted his alternate self—Death—was entirely sane, and wondered why it had taken him so long to reach this conclusion. He had, however, earned an entirely new appreciation for his distrust of Dumbledore. If some alternate, future version of the Headmaster had manipulated him into turning into… this… then Harry felt perfectly justified in his paranoid dislike.
Death's smile changed then, as if in response to his resolution, lips closing over sharp teeth and offering him a crooked half-smile that he recognized from every time he looked in the mirror. Harry simply nodded to himself, in both meanings of the term, and stepped away from the wall.
He had always been alone in his distrust of Dumbledore. Hermione worshipped authority like a wizard worshipped Merlin, and the Weasleys were so far in Dumbledore's pocket he was surprised they were able to breathe. Remus was indebted to the man, and Sirius—Harry's breath caught in his throat at the thought of his godfather, but he fought back the guilt and the loss—had been so damaged by Azkaban that he'd been barely more mature than he'd been as a teenager.
But now… Harry glanced at Death (broken and dead and warped in ways he could barely imagine), standing silently in the middle of a wrecked library, and smiled tentatively back. Death's return grin was both blinding and terrifying, full of needles and fangs and darkness, but Harry didn't really mind.
He'd never trusted anyone but himself. Not really. He supposed it made sense to trust this other version of him, then, no matter how frightening or powerful or inhuman he might be.
After all… they were almost like family, and he'd always wanted one of those.
AN: I got a review I just had to respond to, bare with me. *clears throat*
[Annoy mouse], I apologize; I am, regrettably, female, so you becoming a female to have my babies would be anatomically infeasible. I do appreciate the thought, however. Should I ever be randomly transfigured into a male, and you ever spontaneously transmuted into a female, you shall be the first potential child bearer I go to.
Chapter 6
Death did not turn around when the doors blew open and his summoners filed inside, wands drawn and pointed threateningly in all directions, searching for the threat. Of course, there no longer was a threat, as Death was no longer angry and therefore no longer scything through the ancient Black Family wards barely clinging together around the property.
Instead, he continued grinning at his newly-enlightened mortal shell, beyond pleased at the understanding they seemed to have reached. Of course, he'd had no doubt that his shell would be able to empathize with him—they were the same, after all—but it was still a wonderful feeling for a being that hadn't been smiled at in millennia.
Very few mortals have cause to smile at Death nowadays.
Death cocked his head and glanced at the crowded mortals in the doorway out of the corner of his eye, watching amused as they took in the destruction his momentary lapse in control had done to the highly-warded Black Library. Death doubted it would happen again. He had very few triggers left after all his eons of existence, but manipulations and beings who sought to control him were two of the most potent. Dumbledore had the misfortune to be a trigger for both.
Dumbledore, holding a very familiar wand outstretched in hand, turned still-twinkling eyes to his mortal shell. "Harry? Would you care to explain what happened here?"
Death ignored whatever his shell came up with as an excuse, keeping his eyes fixed on the mirror of his most destructive Hallow. Its presence brought up an interesting quandary: what would happen if someone in this reality gathered all three Hallows like he had done? Would they become Death like he had? Death frowned heavily, the air around him thickening with displeasure. No. He would not allow it. Another Death might attempt to assimilate him—just as he would have done to the new Death—and that was entirely unacceptable.
Death, deciding to be prudent and remove the possible threat, absently summoned Dumbledore's wand to his hand. All heads swiveled towards him, and many wands followed as they switched targets. Death eyed them with contempt. What good would those sticks of dead wood do them? Instead, he turned his eyes to his newly confiscated Elder Wand (the II) and twirled it between his fingers.
Dumbledore's eyes were definitely not twinkling now.
"My boy," Dumbledore began, and Death lifted his head and lookedat the man, making him visibly falter before pressing on. Death had to admit, the wizard had an incredibly low sense of self-preservation. "Now now, there's no need for such dramatics!" the man actually chortled. "Return my wand—that's a good lad—so we can adjorn to the meeting room and conclude our business." Dumbledore's expression was firm as he extended an expectant hand, as if compliance was assured.
Death curled his fingers around the weapon in his grasp, knuckles cracking at the strength of his grip. Somewhere to his left, his mortal shell winced. A smile tugged at Death's lips, but it was not a pleasant expression. This was a baring of teeth, a primal declaration of war, and a mocking challenge to an insignificant opponent. The skin on his face cracked with the force of it, eyes bleeding black as the abyss. This was the smile he gave to the men whose souls he meant to devour.
The temperature of the room plummeted, hoarfrost coating the ground around his feet and making the mortals' breath emerge like smoke. Death kept a vice-grip on his power, forcing it under his control, smoothing over the sharpened, malignant edges that had bristled into existence at Dumbledore's command of him, and soothed it into a quiet murmur. His aura unfurled around him like massive wings, bringing with it the silence of a graveyard—desolate, abandoned, still. His mortal shell fell to his knees, followed by three of the others; the rest crumpled to the floor entirely, eyes roiling in their sockets as wands fell from nerveless fingers.
Dumbledore alone remained standing, hand still outstretched, flesh bleached white and pupils mere pinpricks in horrified blue irises.
"Your wand, Dumbledore?" Death asked him in a quiet murmur, black eyes trailing the length of the wand in his grasp. His shell whimpered and braced himself on his hands and knees. Abyssal eyes flicked up to meet frozen blue.
The Elder Wand dissolved into ash in his hand, the remains swirling around him before sinking through his robes and into his skin. Dumbledore's expression froze into a mixture of fury and fear—it was utterly amusing. Death laughed.
"It never belonged to you, foolish mortal." Death stepped closer to the frozen man, his power sweeping aside the collapsed mortals in his path before he reached them. He loomed over Dumbledore, staring down at him with the same chilling smile he'd been wearing since this impudent mortal had dared to command him. "I crafted this wand to be unbeatable, to be a thing of great power." Death's smile widened as comprehension slowly dawned on the man who, in his arrogance, had never questioned just what he'd dared to summon into this realm. "I crafted this wand for a man whose cunning and arrogance condemned him to an early grave. It is a weapon bathed in blood, mired in agony, baptized in suffering..." He peeled back his lips, a growl rumbling up through his throat. "But it belongs solely to its Master, and never have I met a mortal so unsuited for that title as you, Albus Dumbledore." Death stepped back, face expressionless and eyes burning like cold fire. "Oh… and do not command me like I am one of your puppets, mortal. I have crushed greater men than you for trying."
Harry almost pitied Dumbledore. Almost. Death had swept from the room on the heels of his rather cold announcement, and Harry had breathed a quiet sigh of relief when the feeling of smallness and the petrifying terror went with him. Pushing himself back to his feet, Harry surveyed the witches and wizards still collapsed around him, several twitching and mumbling to themselves, and others unconscious altogether.
Hermione was slumped against a bookcase nearby, completely out of it. Snape had been one of the three Order members to remain marginally upright, and also the fastest to recover aside from Harry himself. The man glanced Harry's way, sneered on reflex, before looking around at his colleagues and grimacing at them. Harry didn't blame him. Most of these men and women were fully trained adult witches and wizards, and yet they'd collapsed to the ground when a fifteen year old, half-trained schoolboy had weathered it mostly upright?
He shook his head and headed for the door, looking at Dumbledore's odd expression as he passed. The man still looked like the genial Headmaster he normally portrayed, but his eyes were furious. Furious and terrified. It was not a good combination, and Harry made a note to keep a close eye on the old wizard just in case.
Harry didn't bother looking for Death. He doubted he would have been able to track him, and even if he did there really wasn't anything he could say. Instead, he headed for Sirius' old room—the one place in the house that was guaranteed to be empty and stay that way—and sat on the bed.
He was not surprised when Death stepped out of the shadows to his left and stopped beside him, looming over him with hunched shoulders and a wild, fanged grin. Death's moods were incredibly mercurial, and Harry could only be thankful that so far he did not seem actively hostile. It did, however, make him slightly uncomfortable to be sitting down while Death was standing. Ingrained instincts and courtesy had him patting the bed beside him before his mind caught up to his actions, but he couldn't bring himself to take it back. Death's smile faltered a bit at the action, but he did sit down—at the very edge of the mattress as far from Harry as he could conceivably get and still be on the same bed.
"So… I guess Dumbledore's wand was something special, then?" Harry wound up asking, hating that he was still so ignorant as to wizarding things, and having a feeling that if he'd grown up as a wizard he would know what all those names and items meant.
In response, Death made a strange gesture with one hand and the wand that had previously dissolved appeared loosely grasped in his fingers. "The Elder Wand of Antioch," Death mused, tracing a vertical line in the air with the wand and leaving a flaming mimicry behind, much like Tom Riddle had done in the Chamber back in second year. Death flexed the fingers on his wand hand and light reflected off the ring there and the black stone held within, as he traced a circle around the flaming line. "The Resurrection Stone of Cadmus." Then Death rolled his shoulders, and the silver cloak he wore rippled as if someone had dropped a pebble into a still pond, and Death promptly vanished. Harry sat up straight in shock, watching as the now-invisible 'Elder Wand' traced an equilateral triangle around the circle and the line, leaving the symbol holding his cloak together floating in the air, drawn in green fire. "And the Invisibility Cloak of Ignotus," came the disembodied, eerie voice of Death.
Harry shivered slightly, not liking that he could no longer see the entity but assuming he was still in the same place. He did, however, wonder about that invisibility cloak. Harry had one that had belonged to his father, but it had to be covering all of him in order for it to make him vanish like that. Death's had merely been hanging over his shoulders and back like a cloak, yet it had hidden his hands and exposed face, and even his wand.
Death reappeared with the same unsettling swiftness he had previously vanished, twirling the wand between his fingers and staring at the floating symbol with a strange grin. "Together they make the Deathly Hallows, three artifacts that when united make one the Master of Death." Death's grin turned slightly wry then as he banished the burning symbol with a mere glance. "I'll admit, it was not one of my brighter moments… giving those tools to the Peverell brothers. When I became Death by collecting the three Hallows, I had wondered how they had come to be when there had never been a 'Death' before me which could hold a physical form." Death laughed, the same chilling cackle he'd been using since he arrived. "Turns out I made the Deathly Hallows on one of my trips through time. I was so bored then, desperate for something to do, that when the three brothers beat my riddle I made them the Hallows without actually realizing what I'd done." At Harry's disbelieving glance, Death spread his hands and shrugged. "It had been millennia since I'd been a wizard, since I'd read the stories about the Hallows. By then, they weren't things I'd collected as a mortal—they merely were, in the same manner that I was. By the time I remembered, it was already too late. But, I suppose, I had always been meant to make them—just as I am likely going to create them here, as well. Dumbledore already having the Elder Wand is merely proof that I've yet to go and recreate the Hallows in this reality, but that I eventually will."
Harry's mind spun. Hermione had always warned him about what happened to wizards who meddled with time, but it seemed like Death's entire existence was based around paradoxes. Shaking his head to clear it, he turned back to Death only to jerk back in shock, nearly falling off the bed at seeing Death's wide grin inches from his face.
"Bloody hell!" Harry blurted out, alarmed, only his seeker reflexes keeping him on the bed as his flailing hands grasped the nearest bedpost and the edge of the mattress. Death didn't make a sound, but Harry was convinced he was being laughed at. Breathing heavily, pressing one hand over his chest, Harry took a closer look at his maybe-quite-possibly alternate self and was mildly worried to find those absinthe eyes focused on his forehead.
No, on his scar. The reasons for this were not reassuring. Anything that caught Death's attention like this couldn't possibly be a good thing, and he debated briefly on whether to ask or not. He hated being kept in the dark, but he knew better than most that there are some things he just really shouldn't know.
Death's grin widened, fangs clenched tight, as he avidly stared at Harry's forehead as if it was the most delicious thing he'd ever seen. Understandably, this made Harry very, very nervous. "Oh dear," Death crooned, "you've something on your face, my mortal shell." Long, bony fingers lifted to hover over his head like claws, close but not touching. "Allow me to take care of that for you."
Death lowered one long digit and pressed it against Harry's scar, and the world around him faded into black.
AN: The original chapter 6 was too short even for MY tastes (and I'm notorious for annoyingly short chapters), so I finished up chapter 7 and smushed them together. Problem solved!