Chapter 7
The terrified soul fragment of Tom Riddle squirmed from where it was pinched between Death's forefinger and thumb. Death glanced at the unconscious—but fortunately still ensouled—form of his mortal shell, pleased to know that his incredibly spur-of-the-moment decision to rid his alternate self from the horcrux hadn't taken along the boy's soul for the ride. He would have fixed it in no time if that had happened, but it would not have been pleasant for his shell, and Death would rather keep the mortal happy with him—he might even get smiled at again for his consideration.
Death leaned closer to the struggling horcrux, studying it through abyssal black eyes and observing the various soul-threads leading off from it into the distance. One of them actually led to somewhere else in the house, which was both delightful and incredibly disappointing; he did so enjoy a good hunt every now and then. Death curled the fingers of his free hand around the black thread leading further into the house and pulled on it in much the same manner as he'd done to the summoning ritual which had had the audacity to wrap around his rib.
The thread rapidly began reeling in his direction, the wards protecting it unable to hold up against the Call of Death, and soon the horcrux in his fingers doubled in size as its younger twin collided with it and was absorbed. Death smiled crookedly at the jagged, black soul in miniature as he tilted his head. As if it could read his intentions—really, he wasn't being very subtle about them—the fragment renewed its desperate attempts to escape. Death just chuckled, amused that the horcrux was putting up so much of a fight when full souls had given him far less trouble.
Death leaned his head back and held the now deathly-still—he was such a comedic genius—fragment above him, still grinning up at it through clenched fangs. Souls always went still like this once they realized what their fate would be. Truthfully he didn't actually devour that many souls—he wasn't a dementor, and he didn't really gain anything from them other than the satisfaction of punishing a person with eternal torment. Had this been any other soul, any other horcrux, Death probably would have just banished the thing to purgatory to await the rest of the fragments. But Death had always had a special place in his heart for Tom Riddle, having taken his soul a grand total of eight different times now.
He doubted Tom's horcrux appreciated this special consideration he was being given. Souls were so terribly rude to him, especially the naughty ones. Death smirked, ignoring how the fragment twitched at the expression, as he wondered what Tom would think of being called naughty. Because honestly, Death couldn't really call him 'evil.' Death had done things exponentially worse during his many tenures as a Dark Lord when he was in a bad mood, but he was petty enough to keep punishing the man regardless of his relative evilness.
Death heard his mortal shell stirring with a groan, and decided he should probably hurry up before the boy woke up and had a chance to panic properly. The last thing he needed was to accidentally drop the horcrux between the mattresses somewhere. Death opened his mouth and let go of the fragment, registering and ignoring the fact that the horcrux seemed to be squealing despite lacking vocal chords or any sort of physical form with which to squeal, and clamped his teeth behind it. His magic latched onto the trembling fragment in his jaws and pulled it down, and Death promptly stopped caring about its existence once it left his tongue.
Death ran his tongue over his teeth—this one had tasted like coconuts, how odd—and lowered his head as he glanced at the wide-eyed, blanched expression on his mortal shell and wondered what the boy was so freaked out about. Truthfully the whole 'swallow your soul' thing was entirely metaphorical. He didn't have to actually swallow a soul to lock it within himself, but it was so much more fun to do it physically—plus it amused him when the souls realized what he planned to do to them and tried to get away. For some reason souls (humans in particular) had this sort of deep-rooted fear about being swallowed alive, which served him just fine.
And people were odd about him going around licking their souls to see what they tasted like. Much easier to simply find out this way than deal with all those awkward questions.
Harry felt like a bludger had just lodged itself in his chest cavity, caught sight of a snitch somewhere in his skull, and fought its way out of his body via his forehead. Basically, he felt like shit. Cracking open bleary eyes, the first thing Harry noticed was his rather awkward sprawl over half of the mattress. The second thing he noticed was Death leaning back on one hand and dangling some sort of glowing cobweb-crystal-magic ball thing over his mouthful of leering fangs.
Harry stared at the thing in Death's hand, a niggling thought trying to break through the fog of his current state of being half-awake, before the thing began to struggle—could glowing magical things struggle?—and a familiar magic oozed from it as if it were trying to be intimidating.
Harry wasn't intimidated. He was horrified.
That little weird ball thing with the wispy trails had Voldemort's magical signature all over it. It didn't take a very large leap of the imagination to figure out that that thing had been in his scar, and that Death had apparently removed it by poking him in the forehead. Harry's mind was racing. Why had that thing been in his scar? What was it? How did it get there? Was that why he kept getting those headaches and visions? Did Voldemort know about it? Did Dumbledore know about it? That last thought actually bothered him the most.
There was no chance Dumbledore hadn't noticed a ball with Voldemort's magic in it inside his scar, not with how strong the man was supposed to be and how often he'd been in close contact with the old wizard. That meant that Dumbledore had knowingly left a piece of Voldemort's magic—or whatever this thing was—inside his scar for fourteen years and did nothing about it.
His already poor impression of the Headmaster soured further.
Harry was about to ask Death about it—he believed he had earned some damn answers—when Death's leering expression shifted towards ravenous, predatory intent in an instant. Harry's heart lodged itself in his throat as his eyes blew wide. That was an expression he could have happily lived his life without ever seeing. Ever.
Death's head tipped back further and his jaw lowered, baring a maw full of jagged, nightmarish fangs that were so much more horrifying when coupled with the bestial hunger scrawled across his pale face. Harry understood Death's intention milliseconds before the ball did, and it immediately began writhing in Death's grip and honest-to-Merlin shrieking. Harry didn't blame it. He felt a bit ill just watching, and he didn't even know what the ball was. He pitied it, however. He pitied it something awful.
Death dropped the ball thing into his mouth, and his jaw clicked shut after it, a maze of interlocking fangs trapping it in the last place Harry figured it wanted to be. Harry stared, unable to look away, as Death's throat worked as he swallowed and the muffled shrieking immediately cut off into an eerie silence.
Harry continued to stare, half horrified and half morbidly curious, as Death glanced his way with abyssal eyes that slowly shifted back into his normal electric green. Half a dozen questions flew through Harry's head, but he shoved them away and asked the one he felt most pertinent.
"What was that… thing?" Harry amended quickly, unsure if his originally open-ended question of What was that would earn him an unwanted description of whatever digestive system Death employed for glowing balls of magic.
Death grinned at him, seemingly amused. "That was the unintentional seventh horcrux of Tom Riddle, combined with the one stored in the locket a few rooms away," was the entirely unhelpful answer. The sad thing was that Harry was certain Death meant to be helpful, but just didn't seem to understand that Harry had no idea what a horcrux was or why an 'unintentional seventh' one was so significant, or even why there was a second one inside a locket in the house. He did, however, comprehend that he'd been right in his guess that Voldemort had left it there on accident.
"Ok," Harry replied agreeably, careful to keep his tone neutral, "and what's a horcrux?" Harry figured it was some kind of spell residue left behind when someone casts something incorrectly. If he was lucky it might have been a part of his magical core, which meant Voldemort would be down two parts of his core now—the weaker he was, the better in Harry's opinion.
Death seemed confused that Harry did not seem to instinctively know what a horcrux was, but Harry tried not to hold that against him. Death hadn't been mortal in so long it was probably impossible for him to empathize with someone not knowing something.
"A horcrux is a fragment of a wizard's severed soul," came the slightly annoyed reply. Death's face was twisted in a moue of distaste, and in any other circumstances Harry would have found that particular look on his face hilarious.
As it was, he was too busy being in shock to appreciate it.
…fragment of a wizard's severed soul. Severed soul. Sweet merciful Merlin… Harry had a piece of Voldemort's bloody soul in his head?! Completely outside his control, Harry began to panic. Had it done anything to him? Did anyone else know about this? Oh hell, that thing was probably why he could speak parseltongue, wasn't it? His thoughts went back to his previous assumption about Dumbledore knowing about his scar, and he blanched further. Dumbledore was widely accepted as a very knowledgeable wizard. There was very little chance he had not recognized what exactly lay inside his scar.
The Headmaster had just left it there inside the head of an infant! Impossibly, Harry's disgust at the Headmaster expanded to new heights.
"Don't panic." Death's unexpected voice brought him out of his shock like a bucket of ice water to the face. Harry slowly looked up into an unhinged, inhuman grin fixed in what he was sure was meant to be a reassuring expression. It might have worked if his eyes hadn't looked like he was debating whether or not Harry was edible. "I took care of it."
Oh. Well, that was true he supp—
Wait. Death had swallowed that horcrux. Harry had heard it shrieking in fear. Death had just devoured someone's soul right in front of him.
Harry manfully held onto consciousness, refusing to let something as… spectacular… as Death's newfound diet bother him.
Morbidly, Harry wondered what a horcrux tasted like.
"Like coconuts," Death replied, and Harry realized he must have asked that out loud.
"Oh," Harry nodded from where he was still sprawled out on the bed, slowly coming down from his shock. He furrowed his brow as he idly watched Death run his long black tongue over his fangs. "…Tom Riddle tastes like coconuts?"
"Yes," Death grinned again, seeming pleased to have someone to talk about this with. Harry doubted anyone else would be taking this half as calmly, but if the man had wanted to eat Harry's soul he probably would have done so already. "I'm looking forward to sampling the remaining five pieces and seeing if they match."
Harry just began laughing helplessly.
AN: Another pair of smushed chapters. Smushed. This is my new favorite word.
...Tom Riddle's soul tastes like coconuts. So I have declared, so mote it be.
Chapter 8
Death stood quietly behind the irritated form of his mortal shell, standing head and shoulders above his—rather scrawny—height, eying the old wizard seated before them with an amused grin. The man couldn't see him, of course, since he was wearing his Cloak, but his shell knew he was there and that was all that really mattered.
Dumbledore had summoned his shell here for dubious purposes, and Death had no intention of letting his new—and only—friend spend any time alone with the man whatsoever.
"You wanted to see me, Headmaster?" his shell asked in a remarkably bland tone of voice. Death was rather proud of him; had it been Death addressing the man, there likely would have been screaming, decapitations, and/or maniacal laughter as he went about removing the right kidneys of everyone present.
Dumbledore stroked his beard in what was probably meant to be a wise, grandfatherly way… except for the fact that Dumbledore was neither wise nor grandfatherly, and the action only made Death's fingers twitch with the urge to reach out and strangle the man with his own facial hair. As if his shell could sense his less-than-peaceful intentions, one hand discreetly reached back and tugged sharply on his sleeve.
Death went still immediately, eyes locked on where his mortal shell had just pulled on the sleeve of his robe. He doubted the boy knew how very close he had just come to having his soul accidentally removed, but that did very little to change the fact that someone had just willingly touched any part of him—even his clothes. Death made a mental note to record this event for posterity.
"Yes… my dear boy, Miss Granger mentioned that the two of you had an opportunity to converse with our guest before he vanished?" Dumbledore paused, waiting for his shell to nod, before twinkling at him benevolently. Death manfully resisted the urge to reach out and pluck out one of those eyes and crush it like a grape.
"If by vanished you mean how he left after you addressed him like an unruly child, then sure. Hermione and I talked to him a little," his shell replied, just as calm as when he'd entered.
"Now Harry," Dumbledore began, peering at them over his half-moon spectacles as if they were somehow in the wrong, "I realize you seem to have grown rather close to our summoned hero, but surely you understand that he is merely here to perform a duty—it would not do to get too close to him. Don't misunderstand, my boy; I'm pleased that you've made a friend, but there is always the chance our visitor is, regretfully, Dark and may not be as inclined to aid us as we had originally hoped. If this is the case, it would be far more prudent to find a method of ensuring he does not join Lord Voldemort or betray any secrets he may have learned here."
Death bristled at the man's tone, noting that his shell was reacting similarly.
"And how, exactly," his shell began in a cool tone Death recognized as the mortal version of his own speak truthfully, lest I wrest your tongue from your jaw voice, "do you suggest we go about ensuringthe cooperation of Death? Sir?"
Dumbledore frowned then, only briefly, but enough that Death was sure his shell had seen the angry, frustrated expression as well. "I highly doubt the man is being truthful in his claims, Harry," Dumbledore replied in his patented I'm-so-disappointed-even-a-first-year-would-have-known-this voice. "Whatever reason he has for being dishonest as to his identity is likely for nefarious purposes. I suggest you distance yourself from him until we can conclude beyond doubt that he means us no harm."
His mortal shell stared silently at Dumbledore for a long moment. Death wondered what the boy was pondering. He was thinking about how he very much intended harm to several people in this house.
"He removed the horcrux in my scar, Headmaster," his shell announced abruptly and with no subtlety at all. Dumbledore whitened as if he'd seen a metaphorical ghost, mouth opening and closing as if he had forgotten how to use his vocal chords properly. "He did this by touching it. I highly doubt an ordinary wizard could do such a thing." His shell paused, apparently waiting for some kind of reply, but from what Death could see Dumbledore was too busy staving off a mild heart attack to speak. Death silently prodded at the man's magic, attempting to incite the heart attack into being more lethal, but unfortunately the wizard recovered with few problems. "You planned on telling me about the soul fragment in my scar when, Headmaster?"
"My dear, dear boy," Dumbledore began in a sorrowful voice that Death believed about as much as he wanted to sink to his knees and call the old wizard Your Majesty, "I had not wished to burden you with such knowledge. I hoped to give you as normal a childhood as possible, Harry, and you could not have had such with the weight of Tom's madness resting on your shoulders."
His precious mortal shell scoffed in derision of this excuse, back straightening with indignation. Death felt his own anger seeping into the air around them, noticeably lowering the temperature. "A normal childhood, Headmaster? What part of being forced to live in a cupboard is in any way normal? What is normal about a child who doesn't even know his own name until his class laughs at himfor introducing himself as Freak?" The boy shook his head, not even looking at the older wizard anymore. "Tell me, sir, what, exactly, is normal about being denied food, water, bloody hell even the most basic human courtesy, all as punishment for daring to breathe?"
Dumbledore, seeming to have regained his composure during his shell's angry demands, smiled condescendingly back at him. Death was positive that if the man had been standing closer to them, he would have reached out and patted his other self on the head. "Now Harry, there's no reason to exaggerate the situation. The Dursleys are your family, and it's incredibly immature of you to lie about them in such a hurtful manner." Dumbledore's eyes had the audacity to twinkle. "I'm sure your relatives appreciate the protection your presence in their home grants them, and if you would simply make an effort to get along with them then you'd see that there's no reason to act out." His mortal shell was incredibly still as he listened to Dumbledore's little speech, and Death himself was as motionless as the grave. "I had monitors tied into the wards around your Aunt's home, my boy; they would have alerted me if any such things had actually occurred. Maintaining your story won't do you any good, Harry. You'll be returning to them in a few days for the remainder of the summer regardless, and perhaps you can use this time to mend a few bridges?"
Dumbledore smiled at them again, stood, patted his mortal shell on the head as he passed and dug out a lemon drop from the pocket of his robe to pop in his mouth as he walked away, humming.
His mortal shell didn't so much as twitch as his eyes followed the old man's progress out of the room. Death felt the Cloak's power drain away and stood silently beside his shell, black eyes staring down at the shorter form of his alternate self. Death wished at that moment, more so than in all the cumulative eons of his existence, that he could reach out and offer some sort of comfort to the young wizard beside him.
"…you'll stay with me?" came the small, tentative question of his broken shell, his frame beginning to tremble. Death inhaled, scenting betrayal and pain thick in the air around his little wizard.
A pale, long fingered hand hovered over his shell's shoulder for a moment before he flexed his fingers and withdrew it, peeling off his Cloak to drape over his shell's shaking form instead.
"Always, little shell."
AN: I don't know about you, but I'm greatly looking forward to introducing Death to the Dursleys.
Chapter 9
Harry awoke. This would not normally be a strange occurrence, but he had no memory of actually falling asleep, and thus waking up at all was highly suspicious. The memories of the previous evening cracked into his waking mind with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and Harry felt his eyes and throat burn. He stubbornly forced the horrified tears back, refusing to cry over Dumbledore's betrayal. He'd always suspected that the man knew how he'd been treated at the Dursleys, but to know that the man had monitors around that house and still claimed Harry was lying…?
It was more than obvious that Dumbledore knew exactly what went on there, and simply did not care enough to do anything about it. Harry flexed the fingers on his scarred hand, idly studying the words there. He wasn't a liar, no matter what the wizarding world liked to think. He never really had been. The Dursleys had punished lying almost as harshly as his accidental magic, and Vernon seemed to have some sort of supernatural ability to detect when he was being lied to.
Dumbledore had to know about the neglect, about the abuse, about the cupboard and the withheld meals and the long nights sick with fever as he sweated it out alone and unwanted. He must have a reason for keeping him there. But what did Dumbledore gain from keeping him weak and beaten down? If he was supposed to vanquish Voldemort—or, at least, he had been meant to do that before Dumbledore jumped the gun and went and summoned Death to do it instead—shouldn't he have been trained and groomed for this? Shouldn't he have been prepared for a fight against a wizard sixty years his senior? Didn't Dumbledore want him to actually win?
A chill spread through Harry's veins as he thought about it. No… no, he rather doubted he'd been meant to win at all. He remembered the horcrux Death had pulled from his scar, remembered how black and twisted it had looked, remembered how sick it had made him to think he'd been living with a piece of Voldemort's bloody soul in his head.
"…Death?" he whispered into the dark, quiet room, certain that the entity was there even if he couldn't see him.
"Yes, my shell?" came the prompt response, eerily only inches away from his left ear. Harry resisted the urge to turn his head and remained limp on his front on the bed.
"How do you destroy a horcrux?"
Death was quiet for a moment, and Harry breathed deeply as he tried to remain calm. He felt the bed dip behind him and figured Death had just sat down and again resisted the urge to turn his head over and look at him. He wasn't sure he could keep his emotions in check if he actually looked at him.
"The only way for a mortal to destroy a horcrux is to destroy the vessel it's stored in. Basilisk venom and fiendfyre are the two most common methods of doing so."
Harry inhaled steadily. "And if the horcrux was stored in a person?"
Death's silence was telling.
Harry's breath hitched, fingers clenching in the sheets beneath him. So that was it, then. Dumbledore had known about the horcrux—he had to have—and had been setting Harry up to die. Voldemort would kill him, and in the process destroy part of his own soul. It was almost poetic in a way, if he ignored the fact that the man had been raising him to be a martyr.
All this, on top of the earlier revelations, left Harry feeling incredibly cold. What else had Dumbledore had a hand in? His mind raced as he made connections he'd previously ignored or dismissed. It was awfully convenient that the Weasleys had been at the muggle entrance to King's Cross that day, wasn't it? Didn't Mrs. Weasley have five children who'd already been through Hogwarts or were already enrolled there? She'd had to have been going there for years, and would not have had any reason to be yelling about Platform 9¾.
And why had Hagrid been the one who came to deliver his letter? Harry liked Hagrid, but the man couldn't even perform magic legally and was definitely Dumbledore's man. Shouldn't the safe reintroduction of the Boy-Who-Lived to the magical world have been performed by a wizard actually capable of protecting him and answering his questions? Hagrid had never been a muggle; he wouldn't have had any reason to know what sort of questions Harry had but had been too shy or afraid to ask.
Did this mean Ron had been engineered to meet him on the train? Harry didn't doubt that the boy was his friend, but Ron's loyalty had always been a bit iffy when things got rough. Harry firmly shoved the thought aside; he could afford to be reasonably paranoid, but actively looking for conspiracies among his own friends was a bit much for now.
"You will not be a martyr, little shell," Death's voice broke through his thoughts, pulling him back into the present. Harry rolled over and looked at the looming, shadowed figure of Death sitting on the edge of the bed a noticeable distance away. "Dumbledore has already damned one of us with his machinations. He will not damn another."
Harry frowned in concern. Death's shoulders were taut with tension, and although it was too dark to see his face, Harry would bet ten galleons his eyes were black. Harry wanted to reach out and comfort him, but remembered how meticulous Death was when it came to avoiding touch. He also remembered the one time he had been touched, he'd had a soul removed from his forehead. There was likely a connection there, but Harry wasn't sure how to go about asking in a polite manner.
"Have you tried gloves?" Harry wound up asking, honestly curious. Death tilted his head and glanced at him, light glinting off mirror-black eyes. Harry didn't elaborate, figuring the question was rather self-explanatory, and was rewarded with a strange sort of mad grin in return.
"The Touch of Death cannot be stopped by a layer of fabric or leather, little shell." Death sounded amused instead of insulted, which Harry counted as a win. "You are correct that the effect is strongest around my hands and fingertips; should anyone have the inclination to touch me through my robe, they would feel only a sharp tug on their soul rather than have it removed outright. Trust me, my mortal self, I have experimented extensively to find a way around this… unfortunate aspect of my existence." Death was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was soft and unmistakably wistful. "I was… not successful."
"You're sure it won't affect me differently since we're basically the same person?" Harry wondered, feeling rather bad that Death was handicapped like this.
He'd always craved touch after how the Dursleys treated him, but he'd been incredibly awkward about accepting it and never initiated it himself. He couldn't imagine a life where he literally could not touch another living being without killing them. He was rather surprised Death was as sane as he was if this was the existence he'd had for the past… forever.
"My Touch does not discriminate between souls, dear shell," came Death's strangely pleased reply. "I doubt that your soul's similarities to my past self would have much—if any—effect on my inability to touch the skin of another."
Harry pushed himself up and leaned against the headboard, staring at the slouched figure sitting a few feet away. He studied the rather resigned grin on Death's face now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness a little better, and felt something in him clench in sympathy. Harry had always hated seeing people hurt; Hermione called it his 'saving people thing,' and he knew if she had been here she would have already started yelling at him for what he was considering. He couldn't help it though. Death was what he could have become, what his future would have been if he hadn't been summoned here from another world. It didn't even cross his mind not to try and help.
"How can you be sure?" Harry finally pressed, watching as Death's eyes snapped to his, the grin fading to be replaced by an uncharacteristically serious expression. "I mean… it's not like you've ever had a chance to try before."
Death straightened, staring at Harry in a sharp, intense way that Harry hadn't ever seen him use before. "Unacceptable," Death's voice was flat, unyielding, a sheer titanium wall springing up metaphorically between them as if that would somehow keep Harry at arm's length. "The removal and return of a soul transcends mortal comprehension. It has been described to me as an agony on a level that would break the mind of anyone not already mad."
Harry faltered slightly, but pushed on regardless, unwilling to give up so easily. He was a stubborn bastard, he'd admit, and he wasn't letting go of this without a fight. "But you can return it?"
Death's lips were set in a grim line, absinthe eyes staring through flesh and blood and bone to the soul beneath. Harry almost thought he wouldn't answer, holding his breath as the air around them grew thick as Death released his stranglehold on his power. "Yes," Death admitted, his voice low and deep like a slow roll of thunder. "I can."
Harry felt like his heartbeat had just tripled itself. He would be lying if he said he wasn't terrified out of his bloody mind, but being scared had never stopped him before. If anything, fear just made him more determined. Death's expression was a strange mixture of intense displeasure, severe disapproval, and an infinitesimal flash of hope. It was the latter that firmed Harry's resolve.
Taking in a deep breath, Harry lifted one trembling hand and held it out between them, palm up. Death stared at his hand as if he'd never seen anything quite like it: his face was a mixture of half fear of the unknown, and half burning curiosity. Harry watched, shivering, as Death stirred from the corpselike stillness he'd fallen into as soon as Harry offered his hand.
Death lifted a long-fingered, skeletal hand and let it hover over Harry's shaking one for a moment that stretched on into eternity. Harry kept his eyes locked on that hand, clamping down on the urge to yank his hand away and hurl himself off the bed and into the far corner. He firmly reminded himself that even if this didn't work, Death could still put him back together. He had a rather high pain threshold, and if he could handle a crucio from Voldemort, he was sure he could handle having his soul returned to his body.
He had just enough time to pray to Merlin, Morgana and Mordred before Death's cold hand clasped his own.
AN: Cliffhanger. You may proceed to bludgeon me with various objects in protest. *spreads arms expectantly*
Chapter 10
Death had spent eons studying his inability to touch others. There had been a period of a few centuries where did nothing but experiment with it, repeatedly removing and replacing the souls of various creatures in an attempt to discover any variations. He'd learned the exact amount of contact needed to take the soul of an adult human versus that of a small bird. He'd learned how to make the return of a soul drive a man mad, and how to make it simply agonizing beyond what the mortal mind can conceive.
He had discovered that the removal of a soul was actually painless—souls were meant to move on eventually, and speeding it up did not cause any sort of undue pain. Returning a soul to its body, however, was entirely unnatural and was the only thing he'd found in all his many millennia of existence that was capable of actually causing pain to a soul.
Death had learned the hard way that so much as accidentally brushing against someone as he walked by was enough to leech the soul from a mortal if he made skin-on-skin contact with them. He had to be much more purposeful to do so through clothing; an accidental brush against someone's arm through a sleeve would only jerk on the person's soul (the equivalent of having someone wrap a chain around one's sternum and pulling on it, hard), but he could press his palm flat against a person's chest through a robe and get the same results if he concentrated. Touching a mortal's skin was nonnegotiable—there simply was no way to prevent his Touch from working.
This was the one aspect of his existence that he had never learned to accept. The immortality had stopped bothering him after the first few thousand years, and the unlimited power wasn't something he could complain about. But he missed the casual touches, the comfort of a person's hand on his shoulder, the reassurance of a motherly hug. He could hardly even remember what it felt like to be touched. Touching a mortal and removing their soul was not the same as touching a human and feeling skin beneath his fingertips. His hands were slick with his magic, his power, and even when removing a soul he was unable to feel the skin beneath his fingers.
So it was with a sort of numb surprise that Death stared at where his hand was wrapped around that of his mortal shell, and he felt skin. It was unlike anything he could ever remember feeling. Clammy and rough and calloused and trembling and the most wonderful thing he'd ever felt in the entirety of his being. Death's eyes flicked to his mortal shell's face, noting how he had his eyes clamped shut and how he was biting his lip, before returning his gaze to the hand he was holding.
Death exhaled, long and slow and shuddering, and tightened his grip on the limb he was grasping. Death felt as if the world was simultaneously pressing down on him and removed from his shoulders, all at once. There was a pressure behind his eyes he did not recognize, a burning in his throat, a constriction in his chest where his heart used to be. He wondered if he were the one having his soul removed, for surely this was the only explanation for why his entire being suddenly ached.
The fingers he was staring at moved then, wrapping around his hand and wrist instead of just lying there shaking. The ache in his chest suddenly increased exponentially, and Death sucked in a sharp breath in response. He had no idea what was happening, why he felt like this. It had been so very long since he'd felt anything, and not merely with his hands.
His shell was not trembling anymore. Death could feel the eyes on him, saw the other hand come to rest atop of his own shaking hand, could hear the way his mortal shell's panicked breathing was calming back down even as his own became ragged and uneven. Had they traded roles? Had he not merely taken his shell's soul, but replaced it with his own in turn? Death did not—could not—understand.
"Hey," his shell whispered, leaning closer, and Death found himself frozen, utterly incapable of movement. "Are you all right?"
Death breathed. His shell had risked his soul in an effort to aid him in some way, and he was worried about Death? He wondered if this was what it was like to go into shock. He wondered if perhaps his age had finally caught up to him and he'd lost what little sanity he had left. He wondered, he wondered, he wondered… but he did not understand.
"Whoa, don't be upset!" his shell was saying a bit frantically, obviously in response to some sort of expression he was unaware he was making. His shell patted his hand, lifting his own to grip firmly on his shoulder. "It's ok. Just take a deep breath. Calm down." His shell's face twisted into a rueful smile. "Somehow I had imagine these roles being reversed."
Death could feel that hand on his shoulder as if his entire world had narrowed to the foreign pressure of a hand on his shoulder. Comforting him.
Death reached up with his free hand and hesitated, unsure if he was willing to press his luck and terrified—him, terrified!—that if he touched his shell again he would remove his soul. He was not sure he could stand it if this turned out to be a unique occurrence. He was sure he would break, then, utterly and wholly, and the world would crack beneath the weight of his grief.
"It's ok," his shell repeated, smiling reassuringly as he removed the hand from his shoulder and grasped the one hovering in the air between them. Death felt lightheaded. He hadn't even known he was capable of feeling lightheaded. His shell shifted closer until he was sitting beside him on the mattress, still holding both of his hands. The boy released his hand and leaned against his side, wrapping one arm around his waist and pulling him into an awkward hug.
Death felt his entire world shift on its axis. Slowly, carefully, Death wrapped his own arm around his mortal shell and returned the one-armed embrace, scarcely believing this was real, that this was actually happening.
Death stared across the room through unseeing eyes, his mind having completely given up trying to make sense of this development. His mortal shell shook him slightly in concern, peering up at him.
"…how do you feel?"
Death blinked, and the world began turning again. A slow, lopsided grin tugged at his mouth as he tightened both his arm around his mortal shell and the hand still being held between them.
"Alive," Death decided. "I feel alive."
AN: I couldn't feasibly leave that cliffhanger there for a whole day. I'd feel far too guilty about it.
On another note, I want to mention that this is NOT going to be slash. I don't have anything against slash stories, but I wouldn't have the first idea how to write one. I imagined the Death/Harry relationship being more of a brotherly/guardian/crazily overprotective uncle sort of thing. Of course Death is likely to be incredibly touchy-feely once he gets used to the situation, but it won't be in a romantic way. Death simply doesn't know or care about little things like 'boundaries' and 'personal space.'
Plus Death is unfathomably old. To him, every human being on Earth is the equivalent of a newborn infant-if not only physically, but in terms of sheer mental maturity. I can't see how I would be able to make a relationship out of that, and that's not even counting how he's entirely unable to touch anyone except Harry, who he sees as more of an extension of himself than a potential mate.
Chapter 11: Hermione Interlude
Hermione Granger liked to think she was a rather intelligent witch. She hated to think poorly of her friends, but she considered herself the 'brains' of the Golden Trio and was proud of this fact. Ron was… well Ron, and if it didn't have to do with Quidditch or food he really couldn't be bothered to care. She was constantly pestering him to do his homework and study for class and to practice his spells; she despaired of ever getting him voluntarily into a library. And Harry…
Harry just didn't seem motivated to do well in class. She knew Harry was intelligent, and she knew he was more powerful than he let on, but he seemed to have followed Ron's lead on how to handle homework and classes rather than her own. It was almost worse in her eyes that Harry was smart enough to pass all his classes with an A or above without actually putting forth any effort. She just knew that if he actually pushed himself he could easily be up in the top of the class with herself.
It was more than disappointing, but she'd had almost six years to become accustomed to the boys and their deplorable study habits.
Hermione was not oblivious, nor was she particularly naïve. She knew she could come off as a little bossy to others, and she was fully aware that her 'know-it-all' tendencies that cropped up when she was nervous had done very little to endear her to her housemates in first year. And she knew she tended to mother Harry more than was strictly necessary—or appropriate—but she couldn't help it. He was always getting into life-threatening situations, and the worst part was that he wasn't actually looking for them so much as he seemed to blunder into them completely by accident.
She was going to have grey hairs by the time she was thirty, she could tell.
And seeing as how Harry had absolutely no compunctions about throwing himself headfirst into various dangerous schemes with little to no regard for his own wellbeing, Hermione had taken it upon herself to be the Voice of Reason he obviously lacked. She was actually rather concerned about his strange martyr tendencies, and had often considered that he was under some sort of spell to make him exceptionally reckless. She'd discreetly looked up counter-curses to compulsions and other behavioral-modification spells and hit him with them when he was distracted, but nothing had changed that she could tell.
She was completely unrepentant that she'd hit Harry with spells without his knowledge. If he had been under a compulsion, she would have dispelled it and no one would have been the wiser. If he hadn't been… well that was almost more worrying because that meant his behavior was completely his own. She wasn't sure what that said about his mental state, but it made her uneasy.
All of their yearly adventures had given Hermione almost a sixth sense for when Harry was endangering himself needlessly. So it wasn't much of a surprise when she sat bolt upright in the middle of the library when her Harry-senses suddenly went haywire.
"Oh dear…" Hermione sighed, closed the book she'd been reading (a rather fascinating tome about the art of conjuration) and stood, preparing to go find Harry and make sure he hadn't caused some sort of irreparable harm to himself while she wasn't there to watch him.
She hurried down the hall towards the stairs, sure that Harry would have retreated to Sirius' old room in an effort to avoid everyone like he usually did. She met him halfway down the second floor hallway staggering out of a room under the weight of a big black robe, and smiled in relief that he didn't seem maimed or otherwise injured. She paused mid-step when Harry turned to look at her and his strangely bulky robe turned with him.
Oh.
That wasn't a robe at all. That was Death—she was skeptical about his true identity, but lacking any evidence to the contrary she would merely accept it for now—clinging to Harry's back like a strange, bipedal leech. Oddly enough, Death seemed to have both his (unhealthily thin) hands wrapped around each of Harry's wrists and it was this awkward position that had made Harry stumble in the first place.
She mentally took a step back from the problem and attempted to understand what she was looking at. Harry looked fondly exasperated (not an expression she'd ever seen on his face before, but one that suited him), but not excessively bothered by the fact that a grown man was hanging off of him or standing so very far into his personal space. Harry generally hated people touching him, and kept a bubble around him that was nearly physical in intensity when around others. He flinched from her hugs and shied away from claps to the shoulder and back, and she could only remember three separate times where he initiated any sort of physical contact with someone. This made it especially odd that he was exhibiting none of the tense body language he normally did when being touched in a purposeful way. In fact, if she didn't know any better, she'd say Harry looked positively relaxed.
Death, on the other hand, looked almost as if he was simultaneously terrified that something horrible was about to happen, and incredibly ecstatic that it wasn't happening now. Those unnerving electric eyes were staring fixatedly at where he was holding onto Harry's wrists, almost as if he was not entirely sure he was awake. His face for once was not stretched into a manic grin, but rather into a wistful sort of smile that looked like it belonged on the face of someone much older than he currently appeared.
"…Harry?" she ventured tentatively, hovering uncertainly a few feet away. Harry smiled reassuringly at her, and Death flicked up absinthe eyes to momentarily stare into her very soul before returning to his strange wrist-fixation.
"It's all right, 'Mione. He just hasn't touched anyone in a while."
Somehow Hermione figured that was a massive understatement.Par the course for Harry, she thought fondly. She was unable to figure out what had set off her Harry-senses though. He didn't seem injured, and with Death glued to him like that she figured no one would have been able to slip him something without it being noticed immediately.
Fortunately Death enlightened her, seemingly without actually noticing that she was present at all. "It is fortunate our souls are similar enough that you were spared my Touch, little shell. I would have dreaded returning your soul to your body, knowing the pain it would have caused you."
Hermione felt her world narrow to a pinprick.
What. Harry had what.
Souls? Touch? Hermione's mind was running in circles, struggling to comprehend the enormity of what Harry had somehow blundered into while she was otherwise occupied. Harry himself had paled, staring at her wide-eyed, and she knew that he was about to make excuses and promise that he had everything under control.
"'Mione, I can explain—"
Nope. Hermione would have none of it.
If he hadn't had a man currently holding both his wrists hostage she would have latched onto his arm to ensure he couldn't flee. Her expression must have been suitably foreboding, because Harry attempted to make an escape.
Unfortunately for Harry, his passenger did not seem to sense the danger—or care about it—and prevented him from fleeing by the simple process of being both taller and (seemingly despite all evidence to the contrary) physically stronger than Harry and was thus unmoved. Hermione smiled grimly, satisfied that her friend could not wiggle out of this conversation. And it would be a conversation. Hermione Granger could nag with the best of them, but this was a situation that required promises of avoiding future life-threatening situations that threatened the soul, and so they would both be participating, she'd make sure of it. And if she could knock some sense into the boy in the process, well…
She wouldn't mind too terribly much.
AN: Oh Harry... you are in so much trouble.
Chapter 12
Harry had mixed feelings about this predicament. On one hand, he was beyond relieved that his foolhardy experiment had not ended with him having his soul removed. On the other, Death apparently did not know the meaning of personal space and was practically glued to him now. He wasn't complaining though; he couldn't even imagine what it must feel like to be able to touch someone for the first time after countless millennia of being unable to.
And despite the fact that Death was literally just skin and bones, he was a surprisingly good hugger. You know… if you ignore the sharp, bony points and the cold, clammy skin. It was going to be interesting to try and explain why he had their 'summoned hero' attached to his back like this, though. He'd been attempting to get down to the kitchen to make something to eat when Mt. Hermione had intercepted them and erupted spectacularly all over his sense of self-worth.
Death, the bastard, hadn't so much as bothered to notice that there was even anyone else in the hallway before announcing to all and sundry what the consequences to his actions could have been—he knew it had been reckless, all right? There's no need to keep reminding him about it!—and had been entirely unhelpful when Hermione was all but biting his head off in her (rather warranted) rant.
Harry had tried to listen to what Hermione was saying (yelling), he really had. But it was somewhat difficult to concentrate when Death was distracting him by burying his face in Harry's neck and experimenting with various positions of hugging as if trying to find the one that let him keep as much skin contact as possible despite his own voluminous robes getting in the way.
Harry sympathized, he really did, but he was pretty sure no one else in the entire house was going to take Death's rather needy actions with any sort of rational calm. Even Hermione was noticing it, and Merlin knew the girl had tunnel vision when she was lecturing about something.
"Er, Harry?" she ventured tentatively, having paused after a rather insistent You will not risk your soul like that again, Harry James Potter! to stare oddly at the strange sight Harry was sure they made.
"Yes, 'Mione?" he replied calmly, as if nothing interesting was going on at all. If he pretended not to have noticed what Death was doing, maybe she'd just let it go?
Hermione watched as Death untangled himself from where he was hanging off Harry's waist to wrap one arm around his shoulders and neck instead, draping himself even further over Harry's exasperated self like a rather intoxicated cat. Her hair seemed to be frizzing out in her distress over the situation, and if her eyes got any wider he would have worried she'd lose them.
"You…" she gestured rather helplessly, "And he…" pointed hand waving accompanied her gesturing, "Harry?"
"Are you all right, 'Mione?" Harry asked, genuinely concerned. It wasn't like Hermione to speak in broken sentences like that. Maybe she was tired? She did look like she'd been dragged face-first out of one of her books a few minutes ago.
Whether it was because of the subject, the awareness that someone else was standing a few feet away, or even the sound of Harry's concern, Death finally lifted his head and stared with his usual intensity at his friend. Harry couldn't see his expression from this angle, but it was obviously not comforting to Hermione.
"Is the book witch ill, my shell? She sounds especially disjointed this evening."
Hermione seemed a bit put out to be referred to as 'the book witch' rather than her name—or even a more flattering title—but concealed her grimace rather well. She had just opened her mouth to respond when suddenly Death was looming over her, peering down at her through slightly glazed absinthe eyes.
Harry paused in momentary shock. The man had just been wrapped around him like a pretzel; there was no way he could have untangled himself and moved over there that fast without Harry noticing. It was as if he'd simply crossed the intervening distance without physically having to do so.
"You are tired," Death announced with his normal, manic grin. "Sleep."
Hermione dropped like a stone, collapsing to the ground like a puppet with her strings cut. Harry winced slightly; these halls all had hardwood floors—that drop could not have been comfortable. But really, what could he have done about it? She'd dropped too fast for him to cast a cushioning charm, and it wasn't like Death could have caught her.
Well… he could have, but Harry was rather grateful he hadn't.
Death stood motionless for a moment, staring down at the unconscious witch, before he straightened again and began tugging at the sleeves of his robe, as if trying to work out non-existent creases in the fabric.
Harry blinked when Death slung an arm around his shoulders, having honestly expected him to launch bodily at Harry and resume hugging him again, and began leading him towards the staircase.
"Come, my shell," Death grinned, teeth sharpening back into fangs from where they'd been relatively normal only minutes before. "You are, regrettably, still mortal and are limited by the restrictions of your living body."
Harry stumbled slightly, trying to keep up with Death's long strides, as he tried to mentally translate what had just been said into understandable English. He was pretty sure Death was pointing out how Harry had been heading for the kitchen earlier, and was therefore likely to be hungry. Of course, Death could have also meant anything from subtly hinting at 'fixing' Harry's 'limitations' via some horrible necromantic ritual, to just poking fun at his 'silly mortal body' and all its inadequacies.
There was really no way to tell.
This did bring up an interesting question, though. Harry eyed Death speculatively as he was dragged bodily down the stairs, politely ignoring the way he was being manhandled like a life-size Harry Potter doll.
Could Death eat? Harry rather doubted he had to eat, being Death, but could he? Did he? Granted Death had only been in the house for less than a day, and there hadn't really been any meals that they had attended in which Harry could have watched Death for an answer, but now that he was thinking about it he found himself incredibly curious.
Harry glanced up from his musing to find that he had managed to completely ignore the entire trip from the stairs to the kitchen, and that the kitchen was not quite as empty as he'd been sort of hoping it would be.
Mrs. Weasley was standing by the oven, staring at them with wide eyes, and Snape was lurking in a corner near the door like the bat he resembled. Remus was half-way out of his chair, having apparently lurched from it as soon as Harry had stepped inside, his eyes solid gold and lips peeled back in a half-completed snarl.
Harry was taken aback at this extreme reaction, stumbling backwards in surprise. He'd never seen Remus like this. He'd actually rather thought Remus was so disconnected from his wolf that he couldn't get like this. He also rather wondered when Mrs. Weasley had arrived; she hadn't been present at The Summoning, and he hadn't seen any of the other Weasleys since he'd been brought here to participate in the ritual that had dragged the personification of Death into this reality.
He only realized his mistake when he'd finished stumbling back and felt the hand that had previously been resting on his shoulder clamp down like the claws of a dragon. He'd managed to momentarily forget that Death had been the one that brought him down here, and that the man… monster… other version of himself might react negatively to seeing Harry threatened in some manner.
Now that he was thinking more clearly, it was obvious that Remus wasn't snarling at him, like he'd originally assumed, but was rather snarling at the tall, pale form of Death accompanying him. He felt a bit silly about thinking Remus had so much as noticed his presence; with someone like Death standing beside him, the odds of someone so much as looking in his direction before having their attention diverted to the Obvious Threat were minimal.
Harry barely had time to finish processing this thought before he acted, not willing to have a fight break out or have Remus' soul ripped out of his body over a misunderstanding. He threw out an arm across Death's chest, the barring gesture more symbolic than actually restraining, and held up his other hand in a warding-off motion towards Remus.
"Whoa! Calm down!" Harry all but shouted, having to raise his voice as Remus had transcended snarling and was outright growling now, the sound surprisingly loud for such an unassuming man. "Remus!" Harry was really tempted to yell 'down boy!' but resisted. "It's ok. He's a friend."
Death's grip on his shoulder loosened—which was good, because Harry had started losing feeling in that arm—at the word 'friend,' and Harry could feel the form beside him relax and dismiss Remus as a threat.
"He smells like death, cub," Remus warned, voice low and gravelly but thankfully not growling anymore.
Harry glanced up at his companion in time to catch the cocked brow and fanged grin.
"How delightful," Death purred, steering Harry further into the room via the arm around his shoulders. "Did you hear that, my shell? I smell like myself."
Harry snorted and coughed into his hand, biting back entirely inappropriate laughter as he sat at the table at Death's gentle shove. He looked up and found Remus still hovering half out of his chair, eyes still gold and face frowning at the two of them. "Remus, it's all right. Really." At Remus' disbelieving glance, Harry decided introductions were in order. "Remus, this is—" he paused for a heartbeat as he debated how he should go about introducing their guest without inciting another panic attack in their resident werewolf, "—the hero Dumbledore summoned from another world to fight Voldemort."
There. That was suitably tactful and not at all alarming.
"Yes. I am… quite the hero," Death murmured, obviously amused at Harry's attempt at subtlety. Had Death been within arm's reach Harry would have elbowed him, but the entity was currently walking the length of the room for no discernable reason Harry could find, except perhaps to make the current inhabitants even more nervous.
Remus finally sat down, his eyes more gold than amber, and started calming down again. "So Albus went through with the ritual, then?" Remus sighed, running a tired hand over his face. His expression was written with disapproval; obviously Remus had not agreed with this course of action, which explained why he hadn't been present. He turned his attention back to Death, who had returned to hover behind Harry's chair. "You have my apologies. I tried talking him out of it, but everyone knows how stubborn the Headmaster gets when he sets his mind to something."
Death grinned, making Remus flinch at the unexpectedly feral expression. "Do not apologize, lycan. This is the most exciting thing to happen to me in millennia. I'm quite enjoying myself."
Remus blinked, both at the name he'd been given and the insinuation that the 'hero' Dumbledore summoned was thousands of years old. "…pardon? I believe I misheard you. Did you say 'in millennia'? As far as I'm aware, only vampires could live that long, and while you smell like blood, you do not smell like a vampire."
Harry just sighed, figuring he'd given it his best shot, and if Death decided to tell Remus his name it was no longer his fault if he panicked.
Death's grin widened impossibly further. "Dear me," Death all but breathed, "where are my manners?" He swept himself into a low bow that was simultaneously mocking and elegant. "I am Death, the Pale Rider." Death's grin turned teasing at the edges. He swept back upright and lifted a hand, palm up. A large, heavy black book bound in chains and trembling faintly fell into his hand out of thin air, which he proceeded to open and skim through over a set of rimless rectangular glasses that were now perched on his nose. "Hm. I wasn't meant to meet you for another few years. I suppose I could make an exception though, just for you. I have always loved dogs…"
Remus stared at him, horrified, before his eyes rolled up in his head and he fainted, hitting his head on the table as he collapsed.
Harry just sighed, resting his face in his hands as Death's hoarse, rasping laugh filled the room. So much for being subtle.
A small noise made him glance up at Mrs. Weasley, who had been halfway to the table with a plate of sandwiches and was now staring pale-faced at the laughing form of Death. Death just continued chuckling as the book in his hand dissolved into ashes and the glasses evaporated off his face, leaning over to pluck the tray out of Mrs. Weasley's hands. He set the tray down in front of Harry and patted him on the head.
"Eat up, my little shell." Death chuckled again before he abruptly dissolved into shadows and vanished into the floor. Snape, who had remained quiet and tense until now, visibly relaxed and glanced at the unconscious werewolf. A smirk twitched at his lips before he whirled from the room in a sweep of billowing robes.
Mrs. Weasley was still standing where she had been previously, hands still outstretched as if she were still holding the tray of sandwiches and eyes still fixed on where Death had vanished from.
Harry glanced at Remus, then at Mrs. Weasley, then at the dark corner to his right where he could make out a flash of killing curse green and a fanged Glasgow grin, before shrugging and taking a sandwich off the tray.
At least he hadn't killed anyone.
Chapter 13: Lord Voldemort Interlude
Voldemort had a headache, and he was one hundred and twenty-four percent certain that it was all Potter's fault. The Dark Lord was not in a particularly good mood, which was probably why his useless minions had all suddenly had Things To Do the moment he had hissed and clapped a hand to his forehead in the middle of Avery's report on the progress of his current Break My Worthless Followers Out of Azkaban plan.
The fact that he'd begun handing out crucios like candy only a few moments afterward had absolutely no relevance at all, he was certain. Sharing was caring, after all (he'd learned that particular lesson in the orphanage, and if he'd interpreted it in a slightly different way than the Matron had intended, well that wasn't his fault at all, now was it?)—if Lord Voldemort had to be in pain, then so did his servants.
Voldemort was not an idiot, despite how he might come across to the less-informed members of Dumbledore's little Phoenix Club, and he could appreciate the irony of the fact it was Potter giving him a headache for once, but that didn't mean he had to like it. In fact, he disliked this development so much that he'd actually killed Wormtail on accident. The fat little rodent had been sniveling the closest to his chair when his headache had struck, and had therefore borne the brunt of his Lord's aggravation before Voldemort had gotten ahold of himself again. In Voldemort's defense, only an extremely magically weak wizard could have had their heart explode under the Cruciatus like that, and he'd obviously severely overestimated Wormtail's strength as a wizard (this was not very flattering to the late Pettigrew, seeing as how Voldemort had previously compared the rat's power levels to that of the recently-defecated dung of a sickly kneazle).
Now that he was alone—spineless cowards, the lot of them—Voldemort could put his Occlumency to use and go back over the rather bizarre sensations he'd experienced in the moments before his link to Potter had been abruptly and brutally severed.
As he reviewed his memory of the event, a frown pulled at his lipless mouth. The feelings he was getting over the link felt different than the ones he'd received from the brat the previous year. Normally the emotions were muted, as if he were feeling them through a rather thick pane of frosted glass—he had surmised that this was because the feelings did not originally belong to him, and thus he was receiving them secondhand. But the ones he'd gotten before the headache… those were particularly vivid. In fact, if he didn't know any better he'd have thought they were actually his emotions, simply broadcasted from Potter's head for some unknown reason.
Normally the Dark Lord would simply dismiss such a preposterous possibility out of hand, but the emotions he'd received had been so very different from anything he'd ever gotten out of the brat before, and were eerily similar to how he remembered feeling in the seconds before the rebounded killing curse had connected with his chest all those years ago.
Potter had been afraid before, of course—Voldemort had felt the boy's fear, his panic, and it was nothing like the soul-deep terror that had spiked across his consciousness moments before the link was broken. The sheer horror that had burned through Voldemort in those few seconds was almost unnatural; it simply could not be possible for a human being to feel terrified on such a deep level without there being a serious reason for it. And the brat had been perfectly fine before that, if not a little startled and wary. There had been nothing, absolutely nothing, that warranted such a spike of sharp fear.
He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair he'd sat in as he thought, furrowing his brow. Mentally detaching himself from his emotions, Voldemort observed the memory clinically.
Observation: the emotion was unconnected to anything the Potter brat was conscious to witness, but unconscious minds do not project emotions. The emotion had been clearer and more vivid than any previous emotions passed along the link.
Hypothesis: the emotion did not belong to Potter, both because Potter had not been conscious to feel it and because it did not feel like anything received from Potter in the past.
Question: who then did the emotion belong to, since the only mind connected to his was Potter's?
Voldemort stilled, red eyes widening a fraction. He knew, logically, that his link to Potter had something to do with his failed killing curse on the boy, and was therefore tied to that blasted scar on his head. But, perhaps somewhat foolishly, he had never really looked into why such a connection existed in the first place. He had simply discovered that he could send the boy visions through it and feel the brat's emotions, and had promptly taken advantage of the opportunity without so much as researching why he could do those things in the first place.
The boy's scar—on the few occasions the two had come into physical contact—had always looked red and raw, as if he'd just received it despite it having been there since the brat was an infant. Naturally such a thing should have healed by now; the fact that it hadn't was an obvious hint that it was a Curse Scar, and someone—Dumbledore—should have noticed and investigated it. No one just leaves dark magic in the scar of a fifteen month old infant without trying to heal it first, which begged the question: why had no one removed the magic in the boy's scar?
Of course, obviously someone just had, which was the only explanation he could think of for the severing of their link. But it had taken them fifteen years to do so? No. Something else was going on here, and Voldemort was determined to find out what.
:Master?: Nagini's concerned voice called, and Voldemort glanced over at his familiar, feeling the reassuring presence of his horcrux stored within her. :You feel distressed, Master.:
Yes, that had been a pleasantly unexpected side-effect of turning Nagini into his horcrux. Not only did it increase her lifespan to match his own immortality, but it had given them the ability to sense each other's emotions; this had proven especially useful when he sent her on missions, allowing him to keep an eye on her without having to be present.
Fortunately the emotions were blunted, since feeling the pure emotions of a snake would be highly distract—
Wait.
Voldemort froze in his chair, eyes wide with shocked comprehension. No. No it couldn't be. His mind raced as he connected all the clues he'd previously missed, and horror dawned as the picture finally became clear.
He'd made the boy his horcrux. That was why he could feel the brat's emotions, and why he could influence the boy's mind in such a significant way. It also explained why the scar had never healed, and why no one had removed the magic in it yet. The only way to remove a horcrux from a living container was to destroy it, and obviously no one was going to go and kill the Boy-Who-Lived just to remove a…
…no, that wasn't quite accurate. Dumbledore most certainly would have killed the boy if it rid Lord Voldemort of one of his horcruxes. The old man might be rather mad, but he was also sharp enough to have recognized the horcrux in the boy for what it was. Dear Merlin, this meant Dumbledore knew about his horcruxes! He'd known about them for years!
But, surely he would have felt something if the old man had destroyed the others? He'd certainly felt something this time, when someone had obviously destroyed his unintentional horcrux inside the Potter boy.
Voldemort paused, mind clearing of its panic, as he considered this. If his horcrux had been destroyed, didn't that mean someone had killed the brat? Briefly he felt a surge of irritation—the boy was his to kill!—before tentative triumph replaced it. Was it over, then? Was the boy prophesized to defeat him dead without him having to lift a finger? He supposed the loss of one of his horcruxes was an acceptable price for the death of Potter. He'd have to find out who'd killed the boy and reward them. After he tortured them a little first, of course; he'd made it very clear to his Death Eaters that Potter's death belonged to him.
He had just allowed himself a small smile of success when his wards flared, announcing the arrival of his Potions Master and spy, Severus. His smile sharpened; obviously Severus had come with news about the brat—hopefully it was to tell him the boy was dead and the Order was in disarray. His good mood had been restored, and he was feeling generous enough to not crucio Severus for arriving unannounced like this.
He waited and watched as his spy swooped into the room and fell to his knees in front of his chair, prostrating himself as he waited for permission to speak. Such a good dog, his Severus. If only the rest of Voldemort's worthless followers shared his loyalty.
"You have news, Severus?" the Dark Lord enquired, unable to completely mask his contentment. This was, after all, a good day.
Severus raised his head, fixing his black eyes on a spot somewhere over Voldemort's left shoulder. His spy never did make eye contact with him, but he did it so obviously that Voldemort knew it was out of respect rather than fear over having his thoughts read. "Yes my Lord," came the prompt, emotionless reply. "Dumbledore has performed the ritual I mentioned a month ago and summoned a 'hero' from another dimension."
Voldemort frowned. He'd been sure the old man wouldn't go through with it. Voldemort had researched that very ritual in his youth, and been dissatisfied with the possible results. Sure it was meant to summon a being of great power which matched a series of pre-set conditions, but there was no clause of obedience or even a binding that prevented the creature from immediately turning on its summoner. No, Voldemort would not have performed such a dangerous ritual, and he could barely comprehend that the old man had been foolish enough to do so.
Maybe he'd gotten especially lucky, and the old fool was dead as well?
"And who did he summon, Severus? Did he succeed in his venture to find a hero to vanquish me?" Voldemort could not entirely hide the humor he felt at such a concept. It amused him that Dumbledore had obviously had as much confidence in the Potter brat's odds of success as the Dark Lord himself.
Severus hesitated, drawing Voldemort's sharp and immediate attention. Severus Snape did not hesitate, not even when he bore bad news. "My Lord… I do not believe Dumbledore has summoned a wizard at all."
Voldemort carefully did not react outwardly to this news. He was not foolish enough to jump to the conclusion that Severus meant that Dumbledore had summoned a muggle—as amusing as that would be. Judging by his spy's hesitance, the Dark Lord would even go so far as to venture that Dumbledore had actually summoned something incredibly dangerous. Perhaps the old man had summoned up an Old God?
His index finger twitched imperceptibly, the only sign Voldemort allowed himself as a hint to the anxiety such a thought brought him. If the old man had just loosed an Old God on the world, Voldemort would resurrect the man's corpse himself just so he could kill him again for his idiocy.
"What did he summon then, Severus?" Voldemort asked casually, trying to hold onto the hope that the old man had simply summoned a vampire or something, and not a demon of the ancient world.
Severus took a breath. "It claims to be Death, my Lord. And I'm inclined to believe it."
Voldemort felt his magic spike in alarm. If Severus was inclined to believe something, odds were high that it was true. Merlin's balls! This was so much worse than a mere Old God. The old fool had summoned Death? Voldemort's fingers were white-knuckled where he gripped the arms of his chair. There was a reason he had named himself Flight from Death, and it wasn't just because that was all he could get out of an anagram of his original name. Death was his single greatest fear; it was the entire reason he'd made a horcrux when he was just sixteen, despite the numerous warnings and consequences to breaking one's soul before Magical Majority. He'd been afraid to die since the time he'd hung Billy Stubbs' rabbit from the rafters and realized how fragile life truly was. If Death were truly walking the Earth…
"Severus, what of the Potter brat?" Voldemort asked, keeping his voice even and betraying none of his tumultuous thoughts. "Surely Dumbledore wouldn't keep his prized weapon in the same house as Death."
Severus seemed even more hesitant. Voldemort groaned internally. What was going to go wrong now? "Death seems to have taken an… interest in the brat, my Lord. It follows him constantly, and Potter is the only person in Headquarters which it will willingly touch."
Voldemort was very careful to keep his expression blank. Potter had been touched by Death? Well. That would certainly explain where his horcrux had gone. Death would have noticed it clinging to Potter and likely removed it immediately. Pity. This meant the brat was not only alive and unharmed, but he was also under the implicit protection of the one being that Voldemort honestly could not simply order killed.
He could feel his headache returning, this time completely of its own accord.
"Fortunately, my Lord," Severus began again, obviously having noticed some of Voldemort's returning bad mood despite his attempt to hide it, "the being seems to hold Dumbledore in complete contempt. It is likely Death will make no aggressive move towards you without Potter's input—as far as I've observed, Death appears entirely indifferent to humanity as a whole, with Potter as the sole exception."
Voldemort closed his eyes and would have pinched the bridge of his nose, had he had one. Instead, he rubbed his temples as he tried to stave off the migraine he could feel building. Excellent. So the reins of Death were in the hands of the one boy in Magical Britain who hated Voldemort more than anyone else alive.
Abruptly, Voldemort stood and dismissed his servant with a negligent wave of his hand, not even bothering to crucio his spy for coming to him with such horrible news. He walked swiftly towards his office, thoughts and plans being made and discarded with record speed.
The Dark Lord was justifiably arrogant, but not even he was delusional enough to think he had any sort of chance of somehow avoiding Death himself or that his horcruxes would be worth anything at all when faced with such an adversary. The news that Death had a grudge against Dumbledore was welcome, but the fact that the Potter boy had such control over the entity was very worrying.
The simple fact was that unless he could somehow convince Potter not to send his new attack dog after him, the Dark Lord would likely not live to see Yule.
So. All he had to do was talk the boy whose parents he had murdered in cold blood and who he had personally tortured and belittled mercilessly over the years into calling a truce. Voldemort sighed as he pulled a piece of parchment towards himself and inked a quill, not liking his odds.
Maybe he could gift the boy Bellatrix? She had killed the boy's godfather, after all.
Sighing again, Voldemort put the quill to parchment and began to write.
AN: Obviously, my Lord Voldemort is less insane than he otherwise appears. It would be rather hard to miss having part of your soul devoured by Death; I figure even if he wouldn't feel the destruction of the others by mortal means, he definitely would have felt that one.