Chapter 14
Death lurked in the shadows of the kitchen where the 'Order' had gathered—watching the mortals watch his shell. They all seemed… wary. Death grinned, wondering what his shell had done to earn such watchfulness, and how he should go about rewarding him for it. This was, after all, extremely entertaining for him. It was not often that mortals would overlook his presence to focus on a fellow mortal, after all. Death was not putting much effort into remaining hidden, having not even bothered using his Cloak, and yet only a mutilated mortal with a magical eye had seemed to take any notice of him at all.
Cackling mentally as he switched the positioning of the paranoid mortal's silverware again and watching as the man grew more and more agitated as he failed to locate the reason for the discrepancies, Death kept the majority of his attention on his little shell. He'd positioned himself directly behind his shell's chair near the wall, and was rather looking forward to the expressions the others would wear once they noticed him. Perhaps he should do something extremely noticeable, like transfigure himself into a purple nundu for his own amusement?
Death could tell his shell was getting irritated by all the questions and condescending reprimands being aimed at him by the Order, as if they had any sort of right to interrogate his shell at all. He frowned at this, his displeasure coating the room like hoarfrost. Conversation slowed as all eyes began glancing around warily, and Death made himself known by putting both hands on the shoulders of his shell and staring at the gathered, gossiping mortals, unimpressed.
"Are these mortals bothering you, my shell? Shall I silence them for you?" Death murmured to his shell, not really bothering to lower his voice any, and sized up the unfortunate wizards nearest to his person. He rather hoped his shell let him show these upstart mortals their place, but was aware that was rather wishful thinking on his part. His shell was simply too nice to these interfering busybodies to allow him to mutilate or otherwise traumatize them in such a fashion.
"I'm sure they're finished with the Inquisition now," his shell casually replied, his eyes daring the bristling, affronted Order members to disagree. "I mean, it's not like I've done anything wrong, now have I?" Now his expression was blatantly challenging, and Death matched it with a wide, leering grin.
Death noticed the mortals were far more reluctant to continue their questioning with him noticeably present. He was not entirely sure why—sure they had been mostly questioning his shell about him and his intentions, but it wasn't like he hadn't already been in the room. They just hadn't seen him there.
As the mortals began protesting that of course we weren't interrogating you, Harry and that we only want what is best for you, Harry dear, Death lifted his head and stared at a small window set high up the wall where owls generally came through. Of course, there were 'extensive' owl wards around the property, so the window saw very little use. He said 'extensive' rather mockingly, seeing as how mortal wards were about as potent as cobwebs as far as he was concerned.
As he watched, an unremarkable barn owl with no distinguishing markings or patterns fluttered into the room with an unremarkable roll of parchment tied to its leg. The owl was so entirely boring and uninteresting that Death almost reached up and swatted it out the air for the sole purpose of ensuring it could no longer breed and spread its unremarkableness throughout the owl population of Magical Britain.
Death immediately suppressed his presence utterly, pulling all of his aura and magic into himself and removing any sort of innate warning the owl would have instinctively felt due to his presence. His shell jumped slightly and glanced back at him curiously, and Death made a note that his shell could apparently sense his aura to a greater degree than any other mortal in the room, as no one else had noticed.
Death stared with a raised brow and a growing grin as the owl circled the room a few times, drawing attention to itself in the process, before heading towards the tallest perch available.
That this perch happened to be his shoulder filled Death with an indescribable, vindictive glee. His grin almost reached his ears he was so eager—desperate almost for this horribly uninteresting owl to land upon him and have its soul removed.
His shell jumped to his feet and snatched the owl out of the air before it reached him, sending him a Look that said I know what you were going to do, and while I find it hilarious, my morals won't allow me to let it happen.
Death scowled at his shell, releasing his aura again and making every mortal in the room shudder slightly. His shell was remarkably unaffected by his visible ire, which was enough to flip Death's mood back into amusement as he imagined what the others would have done had he scowled at them.
Had heart attacks and fainted, most likely.
His shell untied the parchment from the now-terrified owl, whose wide eyes were locked onto him as it now felt and understood what it had almost landed on. Death leered at it with a wide, fanged smile and all the owl's feathers fluffed out simultaneously in an almost audible puff of noise. His shell glanced at the extremely puffy owl and snorted aloud before he turned back to the parchment as he began to read, his expression going flat with practiced blankness almost immediately.
Curious, Death stepped forward and glanced down at the letter over the shoulder not occupied by a fluffed-up owl. There was a spell on the parchment that prevented anyone but his shell from reading it, but Death ignored it as if wasn't even there and flicked his eyes down to the signature, wondering who was writing to his shell with such a horrible owl.
LV.
Death blinked. Twice. Then he threw back his head and howled in laughter. Several snooping Order members shrieked in alarm at the sound and threw themselves backwards, tripping over each other as they tried to flee from his apparent glee. The owl screeched, flapping rapidly as it launched itself away but seemed to forget how to use its wings properly, and simply flopped to the ground where it flailed for a moment before going still, apparently taking its chances at playing dead.
Death chortled to himself, even as his shell continued staring rather blankly at his letter. This was fantastic. He hadn't had such a good laugh in eons! Death plucked the letter from his shell's frozen hands, leaving his shell to stare numbly at where the parchment had just been as Death glanced down at his prize.
Potter,
It has come to my attention that you have recently gained a rather powerful ally due to a certain bumbling old fool's interference—he does so like to interfere, doesn't he?—and I found it prudent to address the situation before any impulsive moves were made on your part.
No, don't argue with me. I have been receiving reports on your annual school-year 'adventures' since the Tournament, and never have I seen such a textbook example of a foolish Gryffindor. Challenging my basilisk, Harry? With a sword and a hat? Tut tut. What do they teach at Hogwarts these days?
Regardless, the purpose of this letter is not to mock you (no matter how you deserve it), but rather to come to an agreement that both of us can find suitably satisfactory.
You do not want me to hunt down and kill your friends and family.
I do not want you to sick your new attack dog on me.
Taking into account that there is simply no feasible way that a teenager like yourself could prove to be such an annoyance without some measure of intelligence to your name, I am sure we can come to a reasonable compromise on these points.
Do not take this letter as proof of how I'm 'changing my ways' or 'putting the past behind me.' I hate you. I loathe the very reality of your existence. I dream of ways with which to dispose of you so utterly that the infamy of your death would outweigh the fame your miserable excuse for a life has brought you. Before you work up too much of a fuss over the truths I have spoken, do recall that I do not lie, Potter. I find the act itself the mark of a weakling, a coward; and I am neither weak nor cowardly.
As a… peace offering, of sorts, I am willing to negotiate the unconditional surrender of two of my Death Eaters, both of which share a personal history with you. Should you agree to draw a truce, I shall turn Bellatrix Lestrange and the remains of Peter Pettigrew over to you. I do apologize for the state of poor Peter. He was a worthless, spineless excuse for a wizard, but I am sure you'd have rather executed him yourself. Revenge is something I understand very well, Potter. Perhaps, if you ask nicely, your new friend could resurrect him for you?
And for Merlin's sake, boy, don't reply with that blasted white owl of yours. She's incredibly conspicuous, and the last thing either of us needs is for some pesky busybody to follow her to one of us.
I expect your response, Potter.
-LV
Death thought the letter was, overall, rather straightforward and polite considering who had written it and to whom it was written. He would be having words with Voldemort, however, on the proper way to respect his shell. He grinned at the thought, wondering if he should go force some manners into the man before his shell had to reply to his unexpected offer.
Noticing how his shell was still in shock, Death draped an arm around his shoulders and pulled them through the Void for a brief moment until they reemerged in the room his shell had been using. Knowing their abrupt departure would have likely sent the Order into a panic, Death chuckled again, stirring his shell into life.
"Is this genuine?" his shell asked, bewildered and more than a little horrified.
Death paused, reaching a sliver of his power out across Time and probed at the emotions surrounding Voldemort at the time this was written. Fear, wariness, determination, anger, and a rather grudging respect. Nothing that suggested a plot being plotted or a scheme being woven, in the very least. Returning to the 'present'—the concept of now is, of course, meaningless to Death—he glanced at his shell, who was staring at the letter still held in his hand.
"Yes, little shell," Death murmured, amusement coloring his voice. "Voldemort has run from me and the mere thought of what I represent since he was six years old. Once he was made aware of my presence here, his first thought was how to ensure his own survival. He is not a fool, my shell; he knows that it would take but a single thought for me to erase him from existence, and he seeks to avoid this fate in any way that he can."
His shell thought this over, absently taking the letter from him and reading it again, looking troubled. "But… this is Voldemort. How can he possibly think I'd agree to a… a truce with him? He killed my parents! He all but killed Cedric! And… and hundreds—thousands!—of other people! I can't just… ignore that!"
His shell seemed to be panicking. Death wondered how he should go about fixing that. "Technically, the mortal known as Lord Voldemort has only personally killed fifty-seven people. He has been indirectly responsible for the deaths of six hundred and twenty-four," Death offered helpfully.
His shell stared at him, and Death felt a bit chagrined that he didn't seem to be helping quite as much as he'd like to be. He was so terribly out of practice at this. It had been, what, thirty-four thousand years since he'd last tried to calm someone down? He was usually the one causing people to panic, after all. Calming them down afterwards was incredibly counterproductive.
Apparently deciding to pretend he hadn't heard what Death said, his shell started up again. "He's been trying to kill me since I was a baby!"
"Because of a prophecy Dumbledore was told in a highly-public, unwarded room in a popular pub," Death pointed out, trying to be helpful again.
"He's trying to subjugate the entire world, Death!"
"Actually, he's only really trying to overthrow the Magical Government of Britain. I doubt he's made any plans at all for the rest of Earth."
"Voldemort plans to kill all the muggleborns and the muggles. Tell me that's not something I should be upset about."
"His goal, if that were the case, is entirely impossible. There are almost six billion people currently in existence, 97% of whom are muggles or muggleborns. Taking into account the fact that, even should Voldemort attain True Immortality and kill a hundred muggles a day for the rest of his unnatural life, there would still be almost 350,000 others born for every hundred he killed." Death really thought he was getting somewhere with this, now. Mortals liked to debate things that bothered them, right?
"Well he's… he's… he's evil, ok? I just don't…" his shell sighed, seemingly entirely distressed and frustrated now, but it was better than his previous panic. Death grinned at his success at having calmed his shell down. And he'd thought he'd be rusty at this…
"Is he?" Death wondered, purely for the sake of wondering. Death had, after all, done things exponentially worse than anything a mortal like Voldemort could even dream of, and he didn't consider himself evil.
His shell threw his hands into the air, scowling. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"
Death paused, a bit confused at the sudden accusation. It must have shown on his face, because his shell just sighed and ran a hand across his eyes.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you," his shell apologized, looking sheepish. Death was bewildered, but accepted it regardless. He rather doubted his shell had done anything worth apologizing over recently, but since so few people apologized to him at all, he figured he'd just take it while he could. "It's just… pretty much everyone has always told me that it's my destiny to kill Voldemort, and now here he is: offering a truce. I'm not sure what I should do."
"Well," Death began, not entirely certain why this decision was apparently so difficult, "what do you want to do?" It wasn't like it was 'everyone's business whether or not his shell agreed to a ceasefire. It was his shell's life, after all, and Death rather thought the rest of the world was unimportant in comparison to that.
His shell froze, eyes wide as he stared at Death. Death froze with him, incredibly unsure what had made his shell react like that, and wondering if it was fixable. He seemed to be making more conversational blunders than usual, today. Perhaps he should practice in front of a mirror?
"What I want to do?" his shell repeated, quietly. Then he laughed, a short, bitter thing. "No one's ever asked me what I wanted to do before."
Ah. And Death understood. His poor little shell, so mistreated by these foolish mortals. Death wondered if his shell would protest should he suddenly grab him and bundle him inside his Cloak where he could keep him safe. Not that he couldn't keep him safe anywhere else, but he'd always sort of wanted to wrap someone in blankets and see if that actually provided any sort of tangible protection from harm.
"It is your choice, my little shell. Agree to a truce, refuse one, make unreasonable conditions on his half of the compromise, give me the word to go and rip out what remains of his soul… decisions, decisions…"
Death grinned when his shell smiled weakly. Reaching over, he plucked the crumpled letter from his shell's hand and skimmed it again—even though he had memorized it the first time, it was nice to look at the physical copy.
"You do have the upper hand here. If you but asked it of me, I would fetch this Bellatrix myself, removing the need to bargain with Voldemort entirely. I could also simply devour his soul and its fragments, removing the threat to begin with."
His shell took a moment to think on that before refocusing. "…what do you think I should do, Death?" At Death's questioning frown, he hurried on. "I'd appreciate your opinion."
Death bared his fangs in a hungry grin. "I think you should gather up his remaining horcruxes and feed them to me so that I might ascertain if they all taste like coconuts." He paused for a moment before his face eased out into a more serious expression. "Truthfully, my shell, you and he are Fated Opposites. You have been since the prophecy was set into motion by a conniving old bastard and a paranoid Dark Lord. Even should you agree to a truce with him, you will never agree with his practices or his policies. You would be discontented with the way things would go, with being unable to act against him when he inevitably finds loopholes in your compromise and toes the line of what could constitute a Breach of Contract. You would not be satisfied with neutrality. It would eat at you, at your conscience, at your soul, until your morality forced you to act against some perceived malevolent plot, and then you would be right back where you began, as enemies." Death stared down at his silent, contemplative shell solemnly. "I can offer you only advice, dear shell. And my advice is not to leave an enemy at your back."
His shell nodded slowly, taking a fortifying breath. "Thank you. I appreciate your honesty, Death," his shell smiled, and Death grinned back, pleased. His shell's expression shifted to amusement. "I better write him a reply, then. And if I wasn't so sure he'd kill her out of spite, I'd send it with Hedwig just to be difficult."
Death's grin slowly widened as an idea spawned, making his shell eye him nervously while he hunted for parchment and a quill. "No," Death purred, "allow me to deliver it for you, my shell. I shall make it… memorable."
His shell snorted as he finished up his—extremely short—reply and rolled it up, handing it over to a gleeful Death. "I don't doubt that." He eyed Death warily. "Do I want to know?"
"No," Death smiled. It was all teeth, fangs sharpening as his eyes bled black. "No, I rather think you do not."
Lord Voldemort was pacing in his office, his mind tumbling over the possible courses of action he'd have to take depending on the answer from the Potter brat. He cursed the loss of their emotional link; he'd have quite happily slaughtered a small family for an insight into what the brat was thinking right now.
Would he agree? Would he refuse? Would he ignore his warning and send that blasted, highly-noticeable snowy owl of his? He'd kill the thing on principle if he had.
Voldemort was a realist. He always had been. He knew it was highly unlikely the boy would consent to a truce, no matter how he sweetened the pot with promises of revenge. He had already scoured through his library—and the libraries of his followers with manors not yet confiscated by the Ministry—for anything he could use to protect himself should the worst occur.
He'd found next to nothing. There was a brief mention of something called 'the Deathly Hallows,' which were supposed to make one the 'Master of Death' once collected, but all of them were lost to time, and it would take far too long to track them down and earn any sort of protection they offered. There were also legends in ancient scrolls of men who'd 'dealt' with Death—he was assuming this was in the gambling sense, and not the murdering one—selling their souls or bargaining the souls of others for their lives. He had put thought into that possibility, wondering how many souls he could get away with trading to Death in return for his own. Surely the souls of his Death Eaters would be enough in recompense for his own, tattered one? Their consent didn't matter to him. They were branded by his magic, and were by all rights his chattel. He could sell them to the devil if he so wanted and there was nothing they could do about it.
This was, of course, all based on the theory that he would actually have a chance to interact with Death at all if it came for him. There were no limits to what the being's powers could be; for all Voldemort knew, the entity could likely kill him from anywhere in the world, regardless of wards or distance.
He did some quick calculations in his head. He had one hundred and forty marked Death Eaters in his service. The unmarked ones he, sadly, did not have a magical right to, but the others were fair game. If he handed over his Death Eaters in return for his life, maybe—
"How presumptuous of you, mortal," a voice suddenly cracked through the silence of his study like the Voice of God, making Voldemort stumble back into a wall, his pale yew wand appearing instantly in his hand, "to title your followers connoisseurs of Death."
There was no doubt in his mind who had just spoken to him. It was in the deep, hoarse, rasping timbre of its voice, in the way reality seemed to be fragmenting like glass in the air around him, and in the way every shadow in the room had just converged to the middle of the floor and was now hanging there like an oppressive, vaguely-humanoid silhouette.
The power hanging around that figure was unfathomable. It licked at the air like tongues of black flame, creeping across the ground in veins of silver hoarfrost, as it weighed down the very world until Voldemort found himself forced to his knees under the enormity of it.
"'Bow to death,' you told him," the voice rumbled, the sound vaguely menacing in its apparent humor. "Fitting, then, that you should bow to me in the end."
Voldemort stared, transfixed and horrified, as the figure in the center of the room abruptly warped, skeletal limbs draped in void-black cloth twisting out of the darkness as eyes the color of death speared him with all the careless malice of a child nailing an insect to the ground with a pin. Its maw opened in a hideous parody of a grin, jaws full of long, nightmarish fangs as the hair upon its crown writhed like living shadow. Its form lengthened unnaturally until it loomed over him, long-fingered hands clasped at its back as it smiled at him in the manner a wolf smiles at the deer that doesn't know it's dead yet.
The being leaned closer, making Voldemort press back into the wall in an aborted effort to maintain distance, and its killing curse eyes bled black like oil spreading across the water. It inhaled deeply, making Voldemort twitch with the realization that it was smelling him.
"Can you feel it, mortal?" it asked him, fangs bared in a Glasgow grin. "Can you feel the fragment of your soul screaming for you?"
Voldemort froze. He could feel it, he realized with numb horror. A sort of frantic, desperate pull deep in his chest, leading straight to the entity leaning over him. He had assumed his horcrux had been merely destroyed when the link was severed. It seems he had been… slightly mistaken.
He recoiled slightly when suddenly one long, skeletal hand was pressed to the wall beside his head, uncomfortably close. There was a bone-deep chill radiating from that hand, almost like the concentrated presence of a pod of dementors. He did not like the implications this brought.
"Oh how it begged me, mortal," the being—Death—crooned. "It thrashed and it struggled, and it writhes still." Voldemort could almost hear a shrill voice screaming, but was unsure if it was in his head or not. He shivered all the same. Death leaned even closer, until he could feel the aching cold of its breath on his face. "I wonder…" Death purred, "if it would care for some company?"
Voldemort understood the intention a mere heartbeat before the entity acted. The hand not resting on the wall behind him suddenly shot forward, burying itself to the wrist in his chest as if it were entirely intangible. But Voldemort felt it. He felt that hand grip onto something deep inside him, something weak and broken and desperate, and he gasped for breath, clawing at the arm impaling him through the torso.
No! Voldemort thought, terrified. I cannot die like this! I am Lord Voldemort!
Death laughed, mocking him, its voice an amalgamation of rasping, hoarse screams that scraped across his mind like shards of broken glass. "Die?" Death queried, its grin widening impossibly as an inhuman black tongue ran over its teeth. "No, mortal. You shall not die. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not in a thousand years. But oh… oh how you'll wish you had…"
With a grin and a hungry flash of abyssal eyes, Death jerked his hand free, and with it came pain. Agony. Voldemort felt, for the briefest moment, stretched in four separate directions before the other threads that had brought him comfort of I am not alonesnapped abruptly, leaving him screaming in a voice that no longer existed as his body dissolved into ash behind him. The fingers tightened around him—he was a mass of sensation without a physical form, but those fingers were so cold they ached—and dragged him closer to the grinning, cackling form of the one entity he feared above all else.
Death slowed its laughter, still grinning, as it peered at the trembling, terrified soul of Lord Voldemort. Heaving a satisfied sigh, Death leered at its captive as it brought the soul closer to its face, ignoring how it struggled. "Little mortal," it cooed, fangs clicking shut a hair's breadth from his form as it grinned, "I have a message for you…" Death waved his free hand and a rolled-up parchment appeared there, seemingly written on the back of part of a Potions essay. Slowly, leisurely, Death unrolled the parchment and turned it so the shuddering soul could see what was written there.
Give my regards to Pettigrew in Hell.
Death threw back its head and cackled with laughter as the soul of Lord Voldemort struggled to free itself, just as all others had done before him. Still laughing, Voldemort felt himself lifted until he hovered over the wide, grinning fangs of Death. Petrified, he could do nothing but stare as the jaws opened and bared the black Void within for him to see.
"I would say goodbye, Tom Riddle," the whisper-voice of Death crept through his mind despite the entity not speaking aloud, instead releasing his fingers and ignoring the shrieks as Voldemort fell into the maw of Death, "but it shall be Eternity before I let you die."
The last thing the soul of Lord Voldemort heard was chilling, rasping laughter.
AN: So. The death of Lord Voldemort was entirely unplanned. It simply happened that way.
I had honestly intended Harry to take the truce, but then I started writing and this is what happened. *shrug*
And I do so love Creepy Death.
Chapter 15
"I brought you a gift."
Harry glanced up at the familiar voice of Death, spotting him standing incredibly close to his person as if he'd always been there, rather than simply appearing out of nothingness like he usually did. His eyes flickered over Death's figure, wondering what on earth the entity had decided to bring him, and noticed something very… odd.
"Death," Harry began, keeping his voice carefully neutral as he fixed his eyes on the top of Death's head. "Why are you wearing a tiara?"
Death reached up with a long-fingered hand and adjusted the… frankly girly crown he was wearing with a wide, manic grin. The piece of jewelry looked so incredibly out of place on Death's person that Harry actually pinched himself to ensure he wasn't dreaming. The spike of pain insisted he was not, but that was almost worsebecause that meant Death actually was wearing a tiara.
To be fair, it was rather pretty. It was silver, and shaped like a bird with its wings outstretched, centered with a large round sapphire. It didn't really match anything Death was wearing except his Cloak, and the being's hair kept coiling around the tiara like a nest of curious snakes. Harry bit his lip to stop himself from laughing, not wanting to offend Death's choice of fashion.
Ignoring Harry's question, Death reached out and grasped Harry's wrist, tugging him closer and depositing a square piece of some sort of leather in his hands. Looking down, it seemed Death had just handed him a scaled wallet. Harry had never even owned a wallet before, not having ever had any money or an ID to put in one. He certainly didn't need one now, seeing as how galleons wouldn't fit in a wallet and that was just about the only currency he bothered carrying.
But it would be beyond rude to point this out to the being who'd just given him a gift. "Thank you. I've always wanted a…" Harry studied the wallet closely, thinking the scale pattern looked somewhat familiar. "…snakeskin wallet?" he trailed off questioningly, hoping he was right. What else would he have made a wallet out of? Dragonhide?
"Yes," Death replied, seemingly pleased that Harry appreciated it. "I made it myself. The serpent who donated her flesh for its creation was truly delicious."
Harry paused. "…delicious? You ate a snake?" Honestly, Harry didn't know why he bothered being surprised by anything anymore. So Death ate souls and snakes, did he? There were weirder diets, he supposed. He couldn't think of any off the top of his head, but he was sure there were somewhere.
Death gave him a bewildered sort of stare, as if Harry had just sprouted an additional four heads. "Why would I have eaten the snake, my shell? Her souls were plenty satisfying on their own."
Harry mentally backtracked, now considering the fact that Death was apparently so hungry he was eating the souls of animals. Wait, did Death just insinuate that the snake had more than one soul? He repeated this question aloud, earning another wide, fanged grin.
"Of course she did, silly shell. I do not make it a habit to devour the soul of an animal without a reason. There's no flavor to them at all, no intelligence, no fire… animals are bland, tasteless things." Death's smile tilted at the corners into something vaguely malicious. "This one happened to be doubling as a horcrux, which gave an ordinarily plain soul a hint of pineapple."
Harry lifted a hand and ran it over his face, feeling a headache coming on. At least this made a bit more sense than Death going around randomly eating the souls of various reptiles. Another horcrux, then? Harry felt rather relieved that Death seemed perfectly capable—and willing—to track down and find these things on his own. Harry wouldn't have the first idea where to look for one, nor did he have access to basilisk venom or fiendfyre in order to destroy it in the first place.
"Does this have anything to do with why you're wearing a tiara?" Harry asked, not willing to let the subject drop. It was a tiara for Merlin's sake! He could have at least worn something a bit more… impressive.
"Oh, this?" Death smiled innocently, the expression surprisingly convincing despite the sharp teeth and writhing hair. He reached up and plucked the tiara from his head, turning it around in his hands as if it fascinated him. "I found this in the castle. The late Lord Voldemort certainly liked leaving bits and pieces of himself in the strangest of places."
Harry took a moment to process this, and then casually hid his smile behind his hand. So. Voldemort owned a girly-looking tiara, did he? And he used it as a horcrux? He'd always known the man was a bit mad, but really? What was it with Voldemort and jewelry? First the locket that Death had mentioned from Grimmauld Place, the tiara Death had walked in wearing, and Harry would bet ten galleons that new ring (suspiciously identical to the other ring he was wearing) currently resting on Death's right index finger was one too.
Harry looked at his new wallet. Had Death just come into the room carrying three ex-horcruxes on his person? And wait, did he say late Lord Voldemort? Harry blinked, suddenly alert.
"Death, when you delivered my response to Voldemort, did you do something to him?"
Death frowned at him, putting the tiara back on his head and balancing it carefully, despite the fact that his hair immediately wrapped around it again. "Of course I did. Were you expecting me to leave him be? Why on earth would I have done that?" Death smirked then, the expression entirely too satisfied. "You'll be pleased to know, my shell, that Voldemort's main soul tasted pleasantly of rum. It was intoxicating." Death grinned at his own joke, and Harry resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose as he tried to wrap his mind around the fact that, apparently, Death had just killed Voldemort on a mere whim.
He wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that. He was glad he wouldn't have to kill him, now—he wasn't sure he had it in him to be a murderer, even for someone like Voldemort—but it was so very abrupt! Only a handful of hours ago, Harry had been mentally preparing for war, and now… his destiny was over? Technically he supposed the prophecy had been fulfilled. Death was merely an alternate version of himself, so Voldemort did die at 'the hand of the other.'
He huffed out a laugh as he wondered how he was supposed to explain to everyone what had happened to Voldemort. Oh, Voldemort? Don't worry about him. Death went over and ate his soul, so no worries. Yes. He could see that going over splendidly.
It took a while to sink in, but once it did, Harry sat heavily on the couch behind him. Voldemort was dead. Voldemort was dead. A hysterical, relieved laugh bubbled up in his throat, but Harry bit it back, not able to hide his slightly-crazed grin. The prophecy was fulfilled. His destiny was over. He could be normal now! And there was no way people could try and push more fame onto him for this, because he hadn't done anything.
"It's over," Harry said aloud, tasting the words as he spoke them. He knew it wasn't over, per se, since there were still Death Eaters out there, but that wasn't any of Harry's responsibility. His only duty had been the death of Voldemort, and that was over and done with! Dear Merlin… he could have a normal school year for once! He was almost more excited about this than about the fact that Voldemort was dead.
Death sat beside him on the couch, leaning back and stretching his long arms out across the back, looking amused and entertained at Harry's 'revelation.' "Technically, it's been 'over' for about three hours now."
Ignoring him, Harry collapsed back into the couch cushions in an ungraceful sprawl. The relief was making him slightly lightheaded, and he knew any minute now he was likely to do something undignified, like giggle.
Death reached up with one hand and lifted the tiara off his head, the coils of shadow masquerading as his hair uncurling from it rather reluctantly. Death sat the tiara on Harry's head without further fanfare, making Harry pause as he automatically lifted a hand to straighten it. Debating for a moment, Harry shrugged and ignored it. So he was wearing a tiara now. So what? Voldemort was dead! If Death wanted him to wear this tiara, then he would damn well wear it and wear it with pride.
"We have to tell the others," Harry said after a few minutes of silence, not bothering to really get up to go do as he had suggested. Death made a sort of agreeing noise, but he seemed too busy rolling his new ring between his fingers to really pay attention. "They need to know," Harry tried again, trying to work up the motivation to get up and go confront the Order about the death of Voldemort.
"It would be funnier to not tell them," Death pointed out blandly, betrayed by the wide grin pulling at his lips.
Harry sighed, shaking his head with a wry smile. Heaving himself to his feet, Harry mentally prepared himself to go and tell the first Order member he finds about Voldemort, then he was fully ready to retreat to his room and lock himself in. He had no intention of answering any questions; the Order had been ready to toss a sixteen-year old, half-trained wizard at the Dark Lord and cower behind him. Harry really couldn't work up enough good feelings to care what the Order thought. He had an obligation to tell them Voldemort was dead now—or as close to dead as he figured Death would let him get; he was valiantly trying to not think too hard about it—but not one to explain how it was accomplished. He'd let them pester Death for answers if they wanted them so badly.
Determined now, Harry marched for the door as if he were walking off to battle, feeling more than seeing Death trailing at his heels. He passed Hermione carrying a stack of books from the library on his way to the kitchen, where he was more likely to find an Order member, and absently noted her startled glance up at his hair. Ignoring his friend's odd behavior and tentative question, Harry threw open the door to the kitchen hard enough that it made a satisfactory bang against the wall.
All eyes turned to him.
Harry felt his mind go momentarily blank. He seemed to have impeccable timing, seeing as how it was a full Order meeting in progress he'd just dramatically interrupted. Pressing on, Harry stepped into the room and locked eyes with Dumbledore, ensuring the old man would bear the full brunt of what he was about to say.
"Voldemort is dead," he announced in a voice daring anyone to contradict him. This was his moment, damn it, and he wasn't about to let anyone ruin it for him. "He has been for three hours, and he's not coming back this time."
Nodding, satisfied that his message had been delivered, Harry turned on his heel and marched right back out the door, feeling Death's fleeting touch to his shoulder as he passed. He aimed a quick grin at the being before heading for Sirius' room, already running through the series of locking spells he intended to throw at the door as he waited for the Order to get over their shock.
They would have questions, and likely not believe him. That wasn't any of his business now. He was officially his own man, and he wasn't going to let those people walk all over him anymore. He'd kick the first person who tried somewhere very unpleasant.
Death's grin was seemingly fixed onto his face as he watched the reactions of the Order to his shell's announcement and departure. The general consensus seemed to be that his shell was either lying or had gone mad. He wasn't about to contest the latter, but Death was not about to let these mortals make disparaging remarks about his shell.
"Do you doubt my ability to remove the soul of a mere mortal?" Death asked them, frowning at the lot of them. "This is, after all, why you summoned me here."
Honestly. You'd think these people would be more appreciative of his efforts. Not that it had been much of an 'effort,' but they didn't need to know that. As far as they knew, removing a soul required a long, tedious ritual accompanied by a ceremonial bloodletting. He figured he'd keep the fact that he'd basically shoved his hand through Voldemort's chest and ripped out his soul—very roughly at that, to cause the most discomfort—to himself… unless they annoyed him, then he'd be more than happy to demonstrate his technique.
Dumbledore shifted in place slightly, seeming torn between demanding answers, offering a lemon drop, twinkling brightly, or having another heart attack. "I don't suppose you have any evidence to reinforce your claim, my boy?" he settled on, his eyes bloody twinkling again. Death's fingers twitched with the need to remove them. Forcibly.
"Evidence?" Death repeated, one corner of his mouth tilting up into a grin. They wanted evidence? Did they expect him to produce a body from his pocket? Well… he absently reached down and patted his robe. He probably did have a body or two in there; you never know when you might need a corpse, after all. "The mortal's body dissolved into ashes upon the removal of his soul. What evidence do you expect me to provide you?"
It was one of the other foolish humans that replied, in as condescending and rude a manner as Death could ever remember being spoken to. "They're obviously lying, Headmaster," the man, wearing an unfortunate top-hat and cursed with prominent jowls, all but sneered. "The boy's gone round the bend, he has! He was wearing a bloody tiara, for Merlin's sake." The man looked around earnestly, oblivious to the fixed, predatory stare locked on him from the cloaked figure of Death. The others were not so oblivious, and were edging discreetly away from their unfortunate comrade. "We all know this man isn't death," he insisted, scowling at the worried, fearful expressions of those sitting nearest to him and somehow ignoring the oppressive, aggravated magic building in the room. "Just look at 'em!" A hand waved in Death's direction, and solid black eyes followed it as if contemplating ways to remove it from its owner. "He's likely one of You-Know-Who's Death Eaters, all dressed up like that. Are we really trusting this man without so much as a Vow to his name?"
The room was quiet on the heels of the man's impassioned speech. It was not a contemplative silence. Rather, it was the still, stale silence of an ancient graveyard.
"You require evidence?" Death broke the silence, his voice cajoling and anticipatory. "You believe that I am not Death? That I would lower myself to lying to worms?" Death chuckled, a smooth, slick sound that was the opposite of his usual rasping laughter. Abyssal eyes rippled like water as he grinned, his full attention fixed on the now-nervous form of Dedalus Diggle. "So be it. You shall have your evidence, mortal."
Death lifted a skeletal hand and slowly slid it through his own skin, his fingers going intangible as he reached into his stomach and grasped hold of the weak, near-mindless remnants of Tom Riddle. He pulled out his hand, fingers re-solidifying once they were free of his physical form, and dangling from his fingers was a haphazardly spherical ball of grey mist, black patches seeping like oil to drip upon the floor as it shuddered and whined in his grip.
The room recoiled at the sight of it, the stench of its decaying magic, and the sound of the quiet, animal-like noises of terror coming from its slightly pulsing form. Chairs were scraped back as the Order members leapt from the table with oaths and curses, wands appearing in hands as faces drained of color, their magic recoiling at the broken, damned thing currently sobbing in relief at this brief respite.
"Your evidence," Death rumbled, the soul flinching at the sound of his voice. Death curled his fingers more securely around it, before closing his hand into a fist, dispersing the cloud into trails of smoke that sunk back into his skin and returning to its punishment. There was no reason to repeat his devouring of it in front of these mortals. He was annoyed enough as it was. He was more likely to bite the soul in half than swallow it properly, and that would be too quick an ending for such an irritating mortal.
Death stared unblinkingly at the pale face of the man who'd called him a liar. "I trust," he drawled, "that that was satisfactory?"
Eying the gathered Order members, glance lingering on Dumbledore, Death grinned sharply, making several of them flinch. Good. They were beginning to understand. He met Dumbledore's eyes and smirked at the weak, fluttering feeling of magic attempting to read his mind. Foolish mortal. Had Death allowed that magic to connect to him, Dumbledore's head would have likely exploded under the strain of attempting to comprehend his existence.
It would not have been much of a loss, surely, but he had plans for this mortal. Plans he intended to keep from his delicate shell until he was sure the boy could handle the… darker aspects of his being. It was one thing to know and understand that an alternate version of yourself was the personification of Death. It was another thing entirely to accept that after countless eons of watching humanity destroy itself over and over and over again, Death had become a monster capable of cruelty on a level that the human mind cannot even fathom.
He'd give the boy some time to wrap his mind around the concept. Death was patient, after all. He could wait.
Pausing for a moment in case one of the Order worked up the nerve to ask him another question, Death turned to leave. He halted near the door, eyeing a small end-table resting innocuously to the right of the exit. He reached into his robe and pulled out a gold cup engraved with a badger, and absently created a single black rose to store in it. He set the cup-turned-vase on the end table and tilted his head at it.
Yes. Setting that there seemed appropriate.
Death grinned, and left the room humming a funeral march under his breath.
AN: To all four of my loyal readers: no, this story is not almost finished. Just because I offed Voldemort doesn't mean that Death's through chewing his way through the wizarding population of England. There are plenty of people who are very likely to step on some toes or say the wrong thing to the wrong person in front of an overprotective Death and get killed for their trouble. Two of them come to mind immediately, and their names both start with the letter D.
Also, someone asked me why I had this under Humor as a category. I kinda thought I was being pretty funny in the places where Death isn't creeping on various people. Oh well. It's fun for me to write and I think it's funny, so hah. Deal with it. *flounces off with a huff*
Chapter 16
Harry was hiding.
Huddled beneath his father's invisibility cloak, he crouched down by the front door, remaining half-hidden behind a conveniently placed potted plant for extra security. He eyed the plant suspiciously. It was a very convenient plant, to be honest, and now he couldn't stop thinking about it. In fact, he was almost positive that the plant had not existed until he'd been looking for something to hide behind in case Moody or Dumbledore came by with their 'all-seeing eyes' and spotted him. Where, exactly, did this delightfully suspicious fern come from?
A fleeting touch to his shoulder from an invisible entity answered that particular question, and Harry stopped feeling paranoid about randomly-appearing plants. If Death could materialize a book and glasses, why not plants?
Despite the fact that he was silenced, disillusioned, underneath an invisibility cloak and squatting behind a plant, Harry still held his breath when Mrs. Weasley went trotting by, her face worried as she obviously searched for him. He felt a bit bad for worrying her, but honestly he was about to go mad.
The Order had been hounding him constantly ever since he'd dropped the 'Voldemort's dead, deal with it' bombshell the other day, obviously unimpressed with his descriptive skills or Death's demonstration which he had—thankfully—not been present to witness. The secondhand accounts had been creepy enough; he had no desire to see any half-digested bits of Voldemort, thank-you-very-much.
The hand on his shoulder squeezed briefly as if in response to the direction his thoughts had taken. Harry was unable to be surprised by this point. Death could do just about everything else; reading minds couldn't be that far of a stretch for him. Harry contemplated his own reaction to this new development, wondering why he wasn't as bothered by the idea of Death reading his mind as he would be if, say, Dumbledore were doing it instead. They were both invasions of his privacy—something he guarded religiously—and he was equally powerless to stop either of them.
But he trusted Death. He wouldn't trust Dumbledore not to pass him cyanide if he asked for salt. Death, though…
Death had protected him, been honest with him, and seemed to genuinely care for his mental and emotional wellbeing, which was more than what most of the adults in his life could claim. Also, Death was massively powerful and perfectly willing to use and abuse this power for Harry's benefit, which he shamelessly took advantage of whenever it suited his purposes. Case in point: Voldemort.
Harry peered around his plant and watched for any other Order members that might come across them at an unfortunate time, such as when he was preparing to open the door and get the hell out of Grimmauld Place before he went mad and started eating people's livers with a side of fava beans. He could almost feel Death's amusement at that particular possibility, and Harry cracked a grin in reply.
He couldn't help but notice that he was rather steadily adapting to Death's odd sense of humor, and even using some of it himself. Whether this was a result of something Death had done to him or simply a side-effect of actually having a close, almost-family member for the first time that he was spending an actual length of time with was uncertain, but Harry wasn't too terribly bothered by it. Death seemed to be getting on just fine, odd humor and all, and Harry would be happy if he could grow to be a tenth of the man Death was.
Just… you know, without the being dead and immortal, part. He could do without those.
Deciding the coast was as clear as it was going to get, Harry quietly and carefully lifted one hand for the doorknob, making sure to remain concealed under his cloak. He knew he could have simply gotten Death to take him from the house, but it didn't feel right using the entity like a transportation service. That, and he sort of missed the thrill of sneaking around.
The door opened with a god-awful squeal of rusty hinges, and Harry bolted through it, not taking any chances of the sound attracting attention, cursing himself for not thinking to silence the bloody door before he opened it. He was getting awfully rusty at this.
Mentally smacking his head against a wall at the horrible puns his internal monologue was coming up with, Harry made for the corner like he had Fluffy on his heels. By this point his cloak was pretty useless, having flown up around him as he ran like any other cloak would have, turning him into a pair of sprinting, disembodied legs for anyone who cared to look outside at that particular moment.
He rounded the corner and pressed his back against the nearest house, catching his breath and letting the cloak settle back around him again. He could almost imagine hearing the raised voices from panicking Order members, but of course no sound actually escaped the wards. Smiling with success, Harry began striding off around the corner, hoping to find a rather hidden spot to summon the Knight Bus. He planned to visit Diagon Alley—the Order never would have let him go, not even under heavy guard—and pop by Gringotts while he was at it.
He'd had plenty of time to think while the Order tried to tear down his locking charms, and he'd become convinced that Dumbledore's repeated insistence that he return to his relatives was beyond illegal. Surely his parents had left a will behind or something? And what right did a Headmaster of a school have to go around placing orphans with muggles, anyway?
Not that he was all that worried about the Dursleys anymore. He had Death with him now, and a part of Harry sort of wanted to go back to Privet Drive just so he could watch his fat walrus of an uncle try something and have Death react. He shoved that part of him farther back, trying to ignore it. Those urges had always been there when it came to the Dursleys, but Harry wasn't quite at the point where he could, in good conscience, go to their house with the express purpose of having them brutally murdered.
Because that was what would obviously happen should he return there. Either Death would take umbrage to the fact that his relatives treated him like a house-elf and would do something unnatural to them, or Harry would finally snap and blow the house up with accidental magic.
Harry wasn't particularly proud of these thoughts, but that didn't mean he felt guilty about them. These people had enslaved him since he was barely old enough to walk, and he had absolutely zero compassion for them and their eventual fate. He could feel Death's hand still gripping his shoulder—it had magically not left even during his spastic sprint, which was both creepy and impressive—as it tightened briefly. Harry knew he had no control over Death's actions. He also knew Death knew exactly how the Dursleys treated him (in fact, if his guess was accurate, Death had lived through the same thing, only without the presence of a Death of his own to protect him) and that the Dursleys were living on borrowed time.
Harry was certain that the moment he gave even the slightest indication that he wanted the Dursleys harmed, Death would slaughter them in a myriad of creatively macabre ways. The only question at this point was whether he'd be present to witness it or not.
"We've arrived, my shell."
Harry jerked and looked up, surprised to find himself standing behind the Leaky Cauldron and in front of the entrance to the Alley. He eyed the invisible space beside him suspiciously, wondering if Death had simply transported them here while he was lost in thought, or if he'd just legitimately traveled via Knight Bus and through a busy pub without registering any of it.
Death's hand never left his shoulder even as his other bled into visibility just long enough for the Elder Wand to tap out the opening pattern on the wall. The wand dissolved once the wall opened, and Death returned to the utter invisibility that put Harry's own cloak to shame.
Sucking in a fortifying breath, Harry strode out into the Alley, careful to weave around the people walking up and down the storefronts as he kept his cloak wrapped tightly around him. He had no intention of drawing attention to himself—his face and scar were practically the wizarding equivalent of neon strobe lights—but knocking into someone while invisible would do the same thing just as quickly.
Harry paused at the steps of Gringotts, knowing that he really shouldn't walk into a bank covered in an invisibility cloak. He was sure they had wards to detect that kind of thing, and didn't want to be mistaken for a thief. He was equally reluctant to take off the cloak though, knowing he'd attract all sorts of attention the moment he did so. If Death were visible, he'd easily hold all the attention—which Harry preferred—but he'd also cause a mass panic the moment someone saw his teeth or his hair or even felt his magic.
"Don't fret, my shell," a completely unfamiliar voice said in a very familiar tone, the hand on his shoulder suddenly solid in a way it had never been. Harry whirled around, utterly surprised, and the cloak was neatly pulled off with the motion as the tall, black-haired man standing beside him plucked it off via the hand on his shoulder. "I do know the meaning of discretion."
The grin was all teeth, and unnervingly familiar on such a human face. There were no fangs or shadows or absinthe eyes, but the bloodthirsty, rather mad expression was something he'd only ever seen on the face of one person in his life. Harry gaped dumbly at the human form of who could only be Death, earning an amused smirk in reply.
He greatly resembled the picture Harry had seen once of James Potter, only taller and with Lily's eyes. In fact, Harry would go so far as to say Death currently looked like a thirty-year old Harry Potter without the scar. It was blatantly obvious they were the same person, and Harry could only stare as his mind whirled chaotically. Was this what Death would look like if he were more than simply flesh and bones? Is this what Harry would look like when he was older?
"We look identical," Harry finally choked out, getting unnerved by the mirror-image effect going on in front of him. Death cocked a brow in response, the gesture eerily familiar. The features of human-Death and immortal-Death weren't terribly different. This Death had actual flesh and muscles and was still unfairly tall, and his skin was tanned rather than the sickly sort of grey it had been before, but Harry could see bits and pieces of Death in this human before him. "People will notice," he finished lamely, wondering why no one had started pointing and whispering at them yet.
Death frowned, looking himself over briefly. "We are identical, my shell," came the rather bemused reply. "Did you expect me to look like someone else?"
Harry supposed not. It was easy to forget that Death was actually Harry Potter, only from another dimension and from uncountable millennia into the future. But he rather thought Death was missing the point.
"You can't look like me. I'm me. People will notice if my older clone is walking around Diagon Alley."
Death stared at him rather blankly, as if the concept of people noticing an older version of the Boy-Who-Lived was utterly incomprehensible. Then, as Harry watched, Death's hair bled white from root to tip like paint dripping in reverse and his eyes turned a pale shade of blue that was almost translucent. His facial features didn't change, but with his new hair and eyes Death no longer looked like a clone of Harry.
Harry sighed in relief. Honestly. Sometimes reasoning with the entity was like pulling teeth from a Cerberus. "Thank you," Harry muttered, accepting the cloak when the grinning being offered it to him. As Harry headed for the bank, pointedly not looking at the guards in case they'd been watching and saw the whole thing, he glanced over at the nonchalant form of Death strolling along beside him, hands in his pockets. "You sound normal now," Harry observed.
The voice was actually what bothered him the most about this transformation. Harry much preferred his deep, rasping voice to this new tenor one.
Death made a face, as if he'd just tasted something unpleasant. "I know," he protested, sounding more like a whining child than an ageless immortal being of ultimate power. "Talking like this makes my throat ache. It's surprising the amount of effort it takes to craft a fully functional set of mortal vocal chords without them rotting immediately."
Harry smirked at the sulking entity slumping along beside him, glancing up only to stop mid-stride. Every goblin in the bank was staring at them. Silent as the grave and completely motionless, each teller and guard had wide eyes locked on the two of them. Harry started feeling distinctly uncomfortable. The goblins rather resembled small animals that had just caught the scent of a massive predator, and had gone utterly still in an effort to avoid drawing attention to themselves.
He glanced at Death out of the corner of his eye. The entity was grinning again, eyeing the goblins like one would eye a particularly delicious piece of chocolate, and Harry decided he should probably do something to prevent whatever it was Death was contemplating. Straightening his shoulders, Harry took a breath and headed for the nearest teller, Death strolling along at his heels.
He couldn't help but notice the goblin he was approaching growing tenser and tenser as they neared, spindly fingers twitching as if reaching for a weapon before jerking and resting flat on the counter. Harry stopped in front of the counter, feeling more than seeing Death looming over his shoulder, human face doing nothing to hide the malevolent glee lurking behind the façade, and looked down at the gold nameplate resting innocuously in front of him.
"Redaxe," Harry spoke, making the goblin and the four others closest to them recoil slightly. Harry paused briefly, frowning at the twitchy goblin teller, and it abruptly stilled into motionlessness again. "Redaxe," he repeated, continuing and ignoring the way the goblins had subtly closed the bank doors and were now guarding them with polearms and large battle-axes, "I'd like to talk to someone about the Potter accounts."
There. That was polite and to the point, Harry thought. The goblin, Redaxe, didn't so much as breathe. Growing irritated now, Harry grasped for his patience with both metaphorical hands. He had sort of half expected something like this to happen after he'd seen how Remus and the owl reacted to Death, but the entity wasn't even wearing his creepy form at the moment! He looked perfectly human, and wasn't even doing anything remotely threatening. Harry couldn't quite understand where this irrational fear was coming from. He'd never felt any sort of utter terror from Death, even before they'd become better acquainted.
"Oh honestly," Harry grumbled, turning on his heel and pressing his palm flat against the looming Death's chest, pushing firmly. "Back up. Maybe if you're not so damn close to him he'll remember how to function properly."
Death leered at him, grinning wide, and obligingly took a few steps back. The goblins had all gone rigid the moment he'd touched Death, flinched backwards when he ordered Death to back up, and their jaws actually dropped when Death obeyed.
Suddenly, every goblin in the room was looking at Harry as if he were Merlin reincarnate. Redaxe apparently regrew his spine and addressed Harry with the sort of deference one would expect to be reserved for the Queen, or perhaps the Emperor of Earth.
"My most sincere apologies, Mr. Potter," said the goblin, all but oozing charm. Harry stared at the goblin as if it had just burst into song. "Allow me to show you to Livercrusher's office; he is currently acting as the Potter Account Manager since the Chief Mugwump's guardianship was lifted."
Harry watched as the goblin, who had apparently had a personality transplant at some point in the past two minutes, stood and politely bowed, gesturing for Harry to follow him as he headed towards a side hallway.
Death slid up beside him, his human form flickering along the edges like a poorly-done illusion, and patted him on the shoulder with a look of mock commiseration on his features. "There, there," Death cooed, voice momentarily lowering into the deep, hoarse register it normally occupied as his eyes flickered absinthe green. Clearing his throat with a Cheshire cat sort of smile, Death all but beamed at the exasperated wizard. "I'm sure they aren't planning on treating you differently from any other wizard." The entity nodded gravely, betrayed by the wide grin plastered on his face.
Harry stared at the face of the grinning immortal, and kicked him in the shin.
AN: Oh Harry. You'll never be normal, not if Death has anything to say about it.