Chapter 21: Lily's Memories
Harry emerged from the pensive gasping for breath, both hands white-knuckled on the edges of the silver bowl as his mind ran around itself in circles trying to make sense of the maelstrom of emotion currently rampaging through him. There was a painfully tight grip on his shoulder where long, pale fingers had clamped down in sympathetic reaction but Harry hardly noticed.
"He knew," Harry breathed, eyes burning as the joy he felt at seeing his father properly for the first time warred with the sudden, horrible understanding that Dumbledore had known Sirius was innocent, and had left him to rot.
Death was silent at his shoulder, and when Harry turned to look at him he saw a face that could have been carved out of stone. There was no fanged smile on that face, nor was there even a hint of green in terrible void-black eyes. Death was staring at the quietly swirling pensieve without a shred of emotion to betray what he might have been thinking, and—not for the first time—Harry wished he knew how to read minds.
"It is strange," Death finally spoke, voice soft and hoarse. "I had… forgotten what grief felt like."
Harry took a deep breath as he shoved back his own reaction and studied his companion more closely. How would this feel to Death, he wondered? For an immortal who had gone eons without so much as thinking about his human past, to suddenly be confronted with the first, undeniable proof he'd ever had that his mortal father had loved him?
Death's face twitched slightly, and his lips peeled back into a familiar, sharp grin that was far less friendly than the ones Harry normally saw. "Shall we proceed, my shell? Or shall we put my spell on the old mortal to the test?"
Harry steadied his heartbeat as he tried to make a rational decision. He wanted to watch his mother's memories desperately, but he also felt a burning desire to go confront Dumbledore where the whole Order would see. He wanted to make everyone aware of what the old man had done to Sirius and to his parents. He also wanted to climb up to the top of the Astronomy Tower and cry out for everyone to hear that his father had loved him.
He was almost afraid to watch his mother's memories. What if they revealed more horrible secrets he hadn't known about? What if they managed to cool down his anger enough that he forgot about confronting Dumbledore?
"Time will wait for us, my shell, if I will it to."
Harry glanced up at the amused, patient smile on Death's face. There was no hint of the previous, slightly-mad expression or the cold emotionlessness of before. Harry didn't know if that meant Death had simply gotten over it so quickly, or if he was just far better at hiding it than Harry was.
He watched absently as Death waved his hand over the pensieve and the threads of memory rose out of the bowl and sorted themselves back into the empty vials. Death reached for one of the remaining ones still in the box and pressed it into Harry's hand, cold fingers closing around both the vial and the hand holding it.
Death leaned over his shoulder, his breath like ice as he spoke into Harry's ear. "I am here, my shell. I am with you. You are not alone." Death's other hand combed through Harry's hair in a bizarrely comforting motion. Harry became aware of a wave of magic washing over and through him, leaving him shivering and shuddering in its wake as the world around them became unnaturally still. "Take your time," Death murmured, "We are patient. We can afford to wait."
Harry was a bit worried about why Death had suddenly started speaking in plural, but he appreciated the sentiment. He was also rather positive that Death had literally just forced the rest of the world to stop moving so Harry could have time to make up his mind.
Taking a steadying breath, Harry reached out and tipped the vial in his hand into the pensieve, watching as the other memories from the box rose up and joined it with a flick of Death's wrist. He swallowed heavily as he watched his mother's memories float and twirl inside the silver bowl, feeling Death lean back and return his hand to Harry's shoulder.
Steeling his nerves, Harry leaned forward and pressed his face into the pensieve, feeling the hand on his shoulder tighten in response before his world faded away.
Lily frowned, resolutely focusing on her Charms essay in an effort to avoid listening to Potter braying about with the other Marauders. She paused mentally as he laughed at something Pettigrew had said, and had to admit that he had a rather nice laugh. It was low and slightly husky, and it was far more genuine than those fake-sounding malicious laughs he'd used to use whenever he tormented Severus.
Keep it together, Evans! Lily scolded herself. She couldn't allow such thoughts to manifest, not when Ja—Potter was in the same room! The boy had a sixth sense for knowing when someone was thinking about him; it was almost unsettling.
She could feel his eyes on her from where she hid behind her book, and she could practically feel the blood rushing to her face as she tried to nonchalantly duck down further. Darn. He knew she was thinking about him, like always. If things followed the pattern, he'd come swaggering up to her with compliments and a cheesy smile as he attempted to convince her to go out with him. He'd been doing this since third year—when he finally realized that girls weren't gross and did not, in fact, carry the wizarding equivalent of cooties—and had been pulling her metaphorical pigtails since their first day on the train.
She waited, but nothing was forthcoming. There was even a heartbeat of silence from the Marauder's corner near the fireplace. Lily lifted her head with a frown, looking over in time to see Jam—Potter turning back to his friends with a strained, defeated sort of smile as he said something that made Black and Remus laugh.
Something cold and painful clenched in her chest at the sight of that smile. Had Potter given up? This thought was oddly discomfiting, considering all the times Lily had wished the boy would leave her alone for a change. The idea of a year without Jame—Potter chasing after her was not a comforting one, and she found herself riddled with the desire to go over there and shake some sense into him.
He couldn't just give up like that! Lily's previous hurt swiftly transformed into anger. James Potter was not allowed to surrender like this, not now that Lily had finally noticed that he wasn't terrible looking and that he had a nice laugh! Slamming her book closed with authority normally reserved for judges and Wizengamot members, Lily stood from her chair with such force that it scooted back a few inches with an unholy amount of noise.
Lily set her face in a fierce scowl as all eyes in the common room locked on to her, as she straightened up and began marching towards the Marauders and the startled, deer-in-the-headlights stare of the bane of her existence.
"You're taking me to Hogsmeade this weekend," she informed the bewildered Chaser curtly. "You're going to wear something publicly appropriate, buy me a bunch of roses, and we're going to have a wonderful time together. Is that clear?"
"Yes ma'am!" James saluted, grinning ear-to-ear as he all but vibrated in his chair, the earlier defeat and heartache gone from his expression. Something eased in Lily's chest at their absence, feeling much better about herself now that he didn't look so miserable.
"Good," Lily nodded, still frowning but no longer feeling the desire to whack James upside the head with her Charms book. "I'll see you Saturday."
She turned on her heel and headed for the girl's dorms, ignoring the triumphant "Woop!" coming from the corner she'd just left and the good-natured ribbing she could hear going on, along with familiar delighted laughter. And if she found herself smiling as she went up the stairs, well…
He did have an awfully nice laugh.
"I look like a whale," Lily informed her friend mournfully, earning a bright giggle that she couldn't quite bring herself to match. She was tired and sore and her feet hurt, and there did not exist a chair in the world that gave her aching back the support it needed. And here was Alice, the lucky woman, who looked like being eight months pregnant was a walk in the park.
"Don't be ridiculous," Alice chided. "You look beautiful, and I'm sure James agrees."
Lily knew James basically thought she hung the sun and moon. It was written all over his face every time he laid eyes on her—a dazed, delirious sort of happiness like he couldn't believe he'd been fortunate enough to have married her. It didn't help her feel better, though. Her emotions were all over the place and she was practically stuck in the bathroom all the time and she wanted to give birth already.
As if she could read her mind, Alice laughed. "Just hang in there for a few more weeks, Lily." Alice brightened, looking excited as something crossed her mind. "I wonder if the boys will be born on the same day? Wouldn't that be something?"
Lily smiled, imagining it. She and Alice were due for around the same time, so it was actually rather possible that they might end up giving birth on the same day. Lily could already picture little joint birthday parties for Harry and Neville, certain that the two would be best friends just like she and Alice. With Frank and James working so closely at the Ministry and with the Order, there would be plenty of opportunities for the mothers to share babysitting duties.
Because there was no way Lily was entrusting her unborn child to the likes of Sirius Black, the scoundrel. He'd probably wind up accidentally converting her son to pranksterdom, and then just sort of shrug helplessly when she confronted him about it. Now Remus, she wouldn't mind leaving little Harry with Remus. She could trust the gentle werewolf to actually exercise self-control, unlike a certain wolfhound.
"Lily," Alice began, breaking her from her thoughts. Lily turned to her curiously, only to see Alice's round face marred with nerves. "Frank and I… we were hoping that you'd agree to be Neville's godmother. Just in case… well, you know that I plan to go back to the force once it's safe to do so and with the war acting up…"
Lily smiled and reached over to stop her nervous rambling, covering Alice's hands where she'd been wringing them together and squeezing reassuringly. "I'd love to be Neville's godmother. You'll be Harry's, I hope? I'll need someone with some sense to counteract James's mad idea of making Sirius his godfather."
Alice beamed, reaching out and hugging Lily as best she could with them both so pregnant. "Oh I'm so glad," she breathed, looking exceptionally relieved. "Frank was sure you'd agree, but I was worried…"
"Nonsense," Lily interrupted, smiling at the sheepish look on Alice's face. "Knowing us, they'll be practically brothers anyway. We might as well make it as official as we can."
Lily laughed as Alice hugged her again, babbling about plans and birthdays and future parties, and she just listened with a smile on her face, glowing with anticipation.
Lily couldn't stop looking at him. Her son, her little Harry. He was just… so absolutely perfect that she could barely bring herself to step out of the room without him in her arms, even after several months had passed. James was even more besotted with their son than she was, which made her feel both indignant and fondly affectionate simultaneously.
This was one of the rare times where Lily had Harry all to herself, having literally shoved a protesting James through the floo to go bother Sirius and Remus an hour ago. If her darling husband had his way, he'd likely just permanently attach Harry to his chest with a sticking charm and be done with it.
Lily stilled as big green eyes opened a little to stare in her direction before closing again, and she felt a wave of increasingly-familiar emotion wash through her. Those were her eyes, on the face of her son. She still woke up sometimes in the middle of the night, convinced that Harry's entire existence was simply a wonderful dream. She'd start crying then, hating herself and hating her mind for conjuring up such happiness only to snatch it away, and then James would reach over, half-asleep, and pat her on the arm as he tells her in a slurred voice that you'll wake up the Prongslett, Lily-flower.
She fell a little deeper in love with him every time he did that.
Unable to help herself, Lily reached into the crib and took Harry into her arms, cradling him close as if trying to fuse him with herself. She couldn't help but smile when he didn't even stir at the movement. Harry was such a deep sleeper—he got that from his father, Lily knew. Lily herself woke up if a branch outside so much as creaked, but waking James for anything less than the apocalypse was a feat worthy of song.
Lily was thankful that Harry was such a quiet, sweet baby. Unlike poor Alice's son. Now Neville was a crier; he was fine if Alice or Frank was in his line of sight, but if they so much as stepped behind an open door or behind a piece of furniture, little Neville started bawling his heart out. It was kind of adorable in an overly-attached-baby kind of way, but Lily was still glad that Harry could express his displeasure through oddly serious Looks and tiny little involuntary frowns.
Sirius—the mutt—sometimes called Harry a "little old man" as a joke. He was always joking when he said it, but Lily couldn't help but think the term old soul fit more. James, of course, thought Harry was perfect and the best baby in the entire world (which he was), and his retaliation pranks against Sirius were always a bit more ruthless if he overheard his friend calling his son names.
There was just so much potential in little Harry that it frightened Lily sometimes. She wasn't afraid of her son, no, but she was afraid for him. He hadn't displayed any accidental magic yet, but you could feel the power coming off him, even in his sleep. That sort of power was addicting, and not necessarily to the wielder. She could name four people off the top of her head who were just power-hungry enough to see the same potential in her son as she did, and one of them was Albus Dumbledore.
She trusted Albus, sure, as much as she trusted anyone, but she trusted no one with her son. No one but James, who she knew would lay down his life (God forbid) for Harry if the situation called for it. Becoming a mother had made her incredibly paranoid, Lily realized wryly. She was double-guessing the intentions and words of everyone and anyone who so much as laid eyes on her son, ready to take on all-comers if there was a single sideways glance in his direction.
It was her paranoia which had kept her from letting Albus visit her son, even though he'd known about Harry's birth for the past seven months. She was running out of reasons to keep him away, and even James was starting to eye her oddly whenever she insisted that now just really isn't a good time, Albus, maybe next week?
She didn't even have any solid reason for wanting to keep her son all to herself. It was just a feeling, the kind that had warned her not to invite Petunia to her wedding but that she'd ignored when James insisted, which told her that her son was in danger. Constantly. It was enough to make her rather frazzled, and she was beyond grateful that she had this time of quiet to herself with which to calm down a little.
Harry stirred a little in her arms and she leaned down to press a kiss to his brow without even thinking about it. Lily's eyes cut towards the wall across from her, behind and beyond which was the warded safe-room James had shown her. He'd taught her the activation key to bring up the wards and had run her through several mock-attacks in which she had to get inside with their son as fast as possible.
Potter Manor was one of the best-warded properties in Britain, but the wards on that little safe-room were as secure as Hogwarts. Lily looked at the room when she was feeling stressed, reassuring herself that even if worst came to worst, they could survive a nuclear holocaust in that room.
Smiling to herself, Lily leaned further back in her chair and clutched Harry tighter to her chest. They would be fine. Her feelings had been wrong before, after all. Besides, what kind of danger could a seven-month-old infant really be in?
Lily glanced at the doorway, double-checking that James wasn't popping in for another one of his 'babynapping' escapades, before turning and finishing the final rune on the walls of the nursery. Stepping back, Lily watched as the carvings encircling the room flared black and silver—How odd, she mused, those aren't the colors of my magic at all—before fading out of existence. But she could feel them, still. Humming with suppressed power and an ominous anticipation, just waiting for the sowilo she'd painted on little Harry's forehead a while ago to burn to life.
Don't get her wrong; she loved Godric's Hollow, but without the thick wards of Potter Manor she felt positively vulnerable, no matter how much faith Albus had in his fidelius. The solution to her renewed paranoia had been rather simple in hindsight.
She had been frantic the moment James let it slip that Albus wanted them to leave the safety of Potter Manor and come to this little house with nothing but Peter's strength of will (she wondered what, exactly, James had been drinking when he decided to let Peter be their secret-keeper. Loyal he may be, but brave he was not) standing between her son and the Dark Lord Voldemort. Lily had been certain that she could develop protection for her son, but she hadn't been so confident that it could be done in a reasonable time frame.
It wasn't like Voldemort was going to wait until she was ready before he decided to attack, after all. And he would attack. The Prophecy—which Lily had little to no faith in, but was resigned to the fact that both Albus and the Dark Lord did—all but ensured that her little boy would have a target painted on his back for the rest of his life.
The runic ritual she'd created had not been difficult. She couldn't quite understand why no one else had discovered it before she did, but figured it was more of the wizarding world's lack of logic at work yet again. It was a Sacrificial Ward, and it would protect her son from any and all harm at the cost of her own life. The only downside was that it was based on runes, which meant she had to restrict the Ward to a single room or else it wouldn't be as effective.
She'd chosen Harry's room because it was the most logical choice. Anyone coming after her baby would likely do it while she and James were sleeping across the hall, and she wouldn't have the time to set up anything more elaborate. This Ward didn't need any input from her at all now that she'd activated it. It would sense the danger coming for her baby and take action to stop it from happening, using her magic as a power source. If she'd designed it correctly, the Ward should only take the amount of magic from her that was necessary to rebuke the attack, and nothing more. But if the attack on her son would be fatal, as she suspected it would likely be, the Ward would rip every scrap of her magic from her body and use the ambient magic of the house to make up the difference. The shock of losing her magic like that would kill her, but it was a sacrifice she was more than willing to make for her son. And on the off-chance that she was assassinated before they went after her son, her magic would be absorbed into the Ward to complete its purpose regardless.
Lily stepped up to Harry's crib and scooped him into her arms, smiling as Harry babbled up at her and made grabbing motions towards her hair. Her little Harry was fascinated with her hair, which—of course—James found hilarious. She'd made her fool of a husband sleep on the couch the last time he'd laughed at her though, so she thought he'd probably learned that lesson by now.
She rubbed her thumb over the sight where the sowilo had been, it having disappeared once the runes around the room came to life. Her smile turned wistful, praying to any deity that would listen that her Ward would never be needed, and Harry would never have to know he had a protective rune inked on his forehead, just waiting for a hostile act to burn to life. She hoped it wouldn't hurt him when it activated, but she had no way of knowing for sure. It might hurt, but at least he would be alive. And James would be there to look after him, she was sure. And… Lily swallowed and hid it behind a smile that she buried in Harry's tuft of hair. And if he weren't, she knew for a fact that James' Will put Harry with any number of good families. He would be raised well.
"Your mum loves you, Harry," Lily whispered, shivering as she felt the Ward around the room pulse as if it were alive. This behavior was more than a little unsettling, as runes were not supposed to act like this, but as long as it did its job she could overlook a little oddity like sentient magic.
Harry babbled back at her and took some of her hair in his little fist, staring at it, enraptured. Lily smothered a laugh at the look on his face, not wanting to distract him.
"My son's got good taste, eh Lily-flower?"
Lily smiled and turned to the door where James was lounging, his hands twitching slightly as if he wanted to snatch her baby from her and cuddle him. It was beyond adorable how much James loved their son, and Lily was getting used to having to be creative whenever she wanted Harry to herself.
Lily watched as James' face contorted slightly as she felt Harry stuff the hair in his hand into his mouth, and she frowned sternly at her husband, daring him to laugh. She kept the frown as James' face slowly turned red as he suppressed his natural Marauder-tendencies, and sent him numerous warnings with her eyes that if she heard so much as a chuckle he'd be out on the couch for aweek.
Well… maybe not a whole week. She did enjoy married life as much as her husband, but sometimes sacrifices had to be made for the greater good. She conveyed this thought with a pleasant smile, the kind she wore whenever she caught Padfoot peeing in her flowerbed or James attempting to teach Harry how to fly despite him being thirteen months old. In a pavlovian reaction to that smile, James' face lost all its color as he blanched and backpedaled out of the room as if she'd sprouted tentacles and six extra limbs.
Lily smirked smugly as she pulled her hair out of Harry's mouth, striding proudly out of the room in search of her wayward husband.
Oh yes. She knew who wore the pants in this family.
Lily cracked open one eye as she watched James 'stealthily' make his way out of the bedroom and into the loo, 'quietly' closing the door behind him. She couldn't help but smile. James was about as stealthy as a brick, and as subtle as one too, but it was cute of him to try and keep from waking her up.
Too bad Lily woke up if James so much as shifted in his sleep.
Ah well. This would give her some time to go see Harry before her husband returned and hogged their son all to himself. Slipping out of the bed—in a much more silent manner than James—Lily headed into Harry's room and sat in the huge overstuffed armchair James had smuggled into the room when Lily wasn't looking. It was a garish, unattractive thing colored the most obnoxious shade of bright gold that she'd ever seen. Looking at it for too long made her eyes hurt a bit, so she tended to throw a nice blue blanket over it whenever she was in the room to avoid it giving her a headache.
She dearly hoped little Harry wouldn't wind up staring at it for too long and end up needing glasses like his father. Perhaps it was James' tendency towards horribly bright and clashing colors that had made his own eyesight so awful?
Smiling a little at the—highly likely—thought, Lily peered at the sleeping Harry in his crib. She was very proud of that crib, having fought tooth and nail against James to prevent it being covered in animated lions and griffons.
Lily didn't want to wake him—she knew perfectly well that her overprotective husband had warded the room to let him know the moment Harry woke up—so she simply sat and drank in the sight of him. Her baby boy.
The runic Ward around the room was still strong, just as subtly oppressive and unnerving as ever. Incredibly, neither James nor her rather magically-sensitive son had noticed it yet. She supposed she should count her blessings, because if James had noticed and started asking questions, she wasn't entirely certain she could explain why the magic felt this way. She certainly hadn't given the Ward sentience or such… personality.
Giving into temptation, Lily scooped Harry out of his crib and held him as he slept, stilling when he stirred with a disgruntled frown before settling again. She heard James 'silently' making his way towards Harry's room and smiled fondly. It would be just like him to be sneaky like this and squeeze in some extra time with their son while Lily was supposedly asleep.
He stepped through the door and froze, eyes wide like a startled deer. That expression always secretly amused her, because it was almost exactly the face his animagus form had every time Padfoot startled him while they were out playing like overgrown children.
Oddly, James was wearing an ostentatious set of red and gold robes that she didn't recognize and had even attempted to fix his untamable Potter hair. Lily cocked a brow at him, pointedly staring at the robes as James cleared his throat and ran his fingers through his hair with a nervous grin.
How, exactly, did this man get away with anything at all during his school years? He had the absolute most obvious "guilty face" that she'd ever seen.
"Going somewhere, James?" she asked quietly, mindful of the sleeping child in her arms, and attempted to look serious and unamused. It wasn't really a natural look on her, though, since just looking at James tended to make her smile sappily like a lovesick schoolgirl.
James smiled sheepishly and with a wave of his wand his robe melted back into the pair of trousers he wore when he slept. "Ah… just… posing in front of the bathroom mirror."
Lily deadpanned.
James laughed nervously.
Sighing, she decided to let it go. She could imagine her ridiculous husband 'posing' in front of a mirror, even if it was something she'd expect out of Sirius instead of James. Beaming at her in lieu of his 'victory,' James pranced over to the huge eyesore of a chair and squeezed and squirmed his way in it until he and Lily were rather uncomfortably squashed together with Harry between them.
"Cozy," James grinned, waggling his brows as he slung an arm around her shoulders and tugged her against him. She halfheartedly slapped at his chest before snuggling into him, holding Harry in her arms.
They were quiet for a while, the only sounds their soft breathing and Harry's occasional grumble of noise.
She stirred out of her half-doze when she felt James press a kiss into her hair, the arm tightening around her shoulders.
"You seem worried, Lily-flower," James whispered into the crown of her head, eerily insightful like he tended to be anytime it concerned herself or Harry. It was endearing, seeing as how he was so utterly obviously in everything else.
"I just have a bad feeling," Lily admitted, knowing better than to try and hide something like this from her husband. "I'm sure it's nothing, though," she dismissed a second later before James could get truly concerned. "I've been having bad feelings pretty much since Albus told us about the prophecy, and nothing's happened yet."
James smiled into her hair. "Have a little faith in Peter, honey. The Fidelius is unbreakable, and I trust Albus' spellcasting to hold even under duress."
Lily pushed aside her constant worry—and the slight derision she felt at 'having faith' in Peter—and poked at James in his ribs, making him jerk with a stifled yelp. She knew all of James' ticklish spots, and she wasn't above using them whenever it suited her. "Such a big word, James," she teased. "Duress. Did Remus teach you that one?"
James mock growled at her, and she knew he was giving her The Eye because—unlike her husband—Lily was not ticklish at all. She lorded this fact over him every time he tried to initiate a Tickle War, and she inevitably came out victorious. "Yes, as a matter of fact he did," James replied snootily. Lily giggled at the sound of it (James did not have a voice predisposed to sounding snobbish) and James just harrumphed in reply.
"You're very intelligent dear," Lily consoled, patting him on the chest where he was all but wrapped around her and Harry. She'd said it teasingly, but she knew James was actually very clever when he wanted to be. He just didn't showcase it often, preferring to come off as goofy and ridiculous rather than 'stuffy and pretentious.'
"I prefer the term 'gifted,'" James admitted without any shame. "'Prodigious,' even."
"Oh dear," Lily fretted, placing the back of one hand against her forehead in a suitably dramatic fashion, "I appear to be suffocating beneath the immense weight of your prodigious ego. Oh woe. Oh woe is me."
"Very funny, Lily-flower." James' voice was a dry as a desert.
"Thank you dear," Lily beamed back angelically.
James sighed expansively and just shook his head. "I don't know where people get the impression that I'm the troublemaker in this family."
"You make a magnificent scapegoat, James."
"I believe the term you're looking for is scapestag…"
"Oh James…"
AN: Sorry it took so long to update this time. I've actually had this mostly finished for a while now, I just wasn't happy with it and occasionally forgot about it altogether. And I may, MAY, have been distracted by chocolate. Maybe. *shifty eyes* I admit nothing.
Chapter 22
Death did not often indulge in the use of pensieves. Why would he? He could recall every moment of every second of his innumerable eons of existence in perfect detail whenever he so chose, so what good did a pensieve do him? He found the pensieves of this era to be the technological equivalent of crude stone bowls, especially after that one enterprising mundane-born had created an electronic, holographic version that did not require one to put one's finger (or, in versions where you wished to watch the memories in third person instead of from the viewpoint of the owner, one's face) in a bowl of liquefied memories.
So Death did not often indulge in the use of pensieves, but he had used them before, extensively, and so was prepared for the odd out-of-body experience and the disorienting nausea of having one's mind forcibly adjusted to the viewpoint of another person. Temporarily. If the effects had been permanent, Death would not have let his shell anywhere near such a device. But, the mind-switching only lasted a few moments in the outside world, so Death was content to stand back and watch as his shell emerged from his mother's memories, gasping for breath and with a heart-wrenching whisper of James on his lips.
He very politely refrained from making any sort of incestual jokes about the incident, although it was terribly tempting. Death did, in fact, possess enough tact to know that such a thing would not only be very inappropriate, but would likely cause extreme emotional distress to his shell, which was entirely counterproductive to Death's current desire to keep his shell happy and mostly-sane and functioning for as long as was possible. He had this tact, yes; he just normally chose not to use it.
Death watched, clinically curious, as his shell slumped to the ground beside the pensive, trembling and breathing rather heavily, and attempted to comprehend what his shell must be feeling at the moment. He, himself, was not nearly as affected. He had lost all possible attachment to his mortal parents millions of years ago. In fact, the amount of time since he'd last thought of them in anything but abstract terms would be comparable to the birth and death of three consecutive stars.
He had watched a star die, once, many ages ago. To this day, he has never seen a sight more enrapturing than a star going supernova, although the sight of his shell smiling at him (at him) was a close second.
Regardless, Death could not quite grasp the upheaval his shell would be experiencing after watching the memories of his parents. He could understand, in vague terms, that such a thing would be both uplifting and distressing, but he could not empathize, no matter how much he may wish to. Such depth of emotion had long since been lost to him, and he found himself rather curious as to what it might be like to feel so strongly about something again.
He knew he was capable of emotions. He had them, but they were faint, distant things that he tended to ignore unless it suited his purposes. He felt curiosity (an endless, ceaseless curiosity which had prompted him to taste the soul of a mortal for the first time with his teeth and tongue and found nirvana), and he felt amusement (always searching for the next bit of entertainment, digging his fingers into the throat of a phoenix and watching it die and be reborn again for hours as he laughed and laughed and laugheduntil the stars went out).
And he felt anger. A cold, black void of emotion that razed worlds, cracked entire planets in half, and fractured an already shattered mind until the only thing that was left was The Pale Rider, Bringer of the Apocalypse, the only of his kind no matter the legends the mortals made about him and his non-existent brothers, and nothing of Harry remained at all. Those were the times when entire oceans ran crimson, when the sun was snuffed out like a candle, when entire galaxies collapsed upon themselves beneath the weight of his rage.
But Death rarely felt so strongly anymore. He had been terribly young when he still lost his temper like that (only a few million years old, then, still a child in all the ways that mattered), and it had taken so very little to set him off back then. The Earth was fortunate that it never remembered its countless deaths, and that he had feared isolation enough to always reset Time so that it was as if nothing had ever happened.
(But Death knew. He remembered those deaths, those ends of billions of worlds, and he laughed about it now that he was older, wiser, calmer, about how his tantrums had extinguished more lives than had ever existed at a single moment.)
As his shell bowed his head and rocked slightly on the ground, not making a noise but folding his hands above his head and gripping his own hair, Death stood quietly and watched. He extended a tendril of power to his distressed shell as he had often done when he was curious what the mortal was thinking, brushing against his mind and his soul and feeling that familiar-foreign magic rise up in welcome and anger and fear and—
—rageagonysorrowlovehappiness—
—physically jerked away because it had been so long since he'd felt like this and—
—fearhategladnessreliefgratitude—
—he was still listening, still feeling, and he couldn't break the connection because—
—furylaughtersadnessanguish—
—this was his shell, and he wanted to know what his shell felt, but—
—loathingabhorrencedisgustanger—
—this was the kind of emotion that extinguished stars, that broke open worlds, that condemned galaxies to an early grave. Death severed the connection more abruptly than he otherwise might have, making his shell twitch slightly, but he was far too focused on containing the sudden maelstrom of emotion filling the void where his soul had been. Or, perhaps, he still had a soul after all. Could someone without a soul feel this much, even if the sensations were borrowed?
Death could not focus on his shell or the glazed, concerned green eyes staring up at him, because if he so much as breathed he was going to end the universe. In the past, he did not have this problem. If he was bored, he entertained himself. If he was amused, he laughed. If he was angry, he killed planets.
He could not allow himself to lose control as he had in the past. His shell was here, only inches away, and if he were to destroy the world he would destroy his precious shell in the process. It did not matter that he could simply wipe the slate clean and make it as if it had never happened. Death would know. Death would remember that he had killed his own shell, had ripped the life from him and then torn him from the Beyond to satisfy his own whims. He would not forgive himself if that should happen, and for Death, that meant he would never forget.
A hand suddenly grasped at his own, solid and present and aliveand Death found his foreign rage draining away like a sieve. Its absence left him strangely hollow, as if the anger had taken with it everything else as well, leaving him the shell he fondly called his alternate self.
But Death was ancient, and experienced, and a better liar than Loki.
Nothing showed on a face cracked open by a fanged grin as Unforgiveable eyes leered down at the exasperated—exhausted—boy at his feet. With more flourish than anything he could remember doing in a long time, Death sank to one knee beside his shell and clapped a (not trembling) skeletal hand to his shoulder.
"I am greatly looking forward to ripping the liver out of the old mortal and devouring it in front of him. I will, of course, gladly save the best morsel for you, my shell."
As predicted, his shell blanched slightly at this unseemly—creative—suggestion, but smiled in fond amusement regardless. Death felt the numbness recede slightly as a warmth replaced it. His shell did more than merely tolerate him, Death felt. His shell understood. Death's grin turned more genuine at the edges at the thought.
Death watched as his shell's small smile turned grim, and fought with his magic so it wouldn't immediately seek out the cause of such distress and eliminate it. He had plans for the older mortal, after all, and his magic lacked the same sort of patience he possessed when it came to such things.
"You can have his liver, but his heart is mine."
Had Death been a human being, he would have felt his breath catch. Instead, he felt his eyes turn black and his grin turn hungry.
Ah, my darling shell. You are truly more and more like me every day.
Death was looking forward to the day when his shell would stand up and say 'Bring me the stars, Death. Bring them to me so that I may wear them around my throat like jewels, and that I may adorn my crown with the sun and moon.' On that day Death would bring his shell the stars, weave them into ropes and braids and thread them into his clothing, so that in his footsteps trailed the cosmos and in his laugh would be Eternity.
Of course, his shell might simply ask him for a sandwich instead, and Death would gladly give him that too. It was all the same, in the end, and Death laughed and imagined he would keep laughing until the day came when his shell's soul loosed its hold on the world. Then he would simply grin, and pluck a dying star from the dark reaches of space and bring it to the Earth so that the mortals could—in the final, worthless moments he would allow them—appreciate the only thing more wondrous to him than the smile of his shell.
The sight would be beautiful.
Emerging from the pensieve was the single best and worst experience of Harry's life. He was not just Harry Potter, but also Lily Evans. He loved his father, but he also loved James. And that's not even counting the near-fanatical devotion he felt towards… himselfas an infant. And then the clarity seemed to fade, and Harry was once again just Harry. Alone in his head except for the nosy entity currently standing silently beside him.
Harry was exhausted. He was emotionally numb, although resting beneath the shock and haze of nothingness lay a whirlwind of chaos and anger and love and joy and agony. He hadn't ever felt like this before, as if his entire world had just flipped itself on its axis, and then turned upside down for good measure.
He was so glad, so unspeakably glad, that he had these memories, these precious few moments with his parents. He had known that his parents loved him (they had died for him, after all), but it was one thing to know it objectively, and another entirely to know it beyond a shadow of a doubt. He felt like crying, and laughing, and punching the wall hard enough to break all of his fingers (he was pretty sure Death would fix them for him if he asked).
And he still had those letters to go through, the mere thought of which caused a spike of not-quite-pain through him, and which convinced him that those could wait a while indeed.
He also, quite unsurprisingly, felt a renewed sense of loathing towards Albus Dumbledore, and not entirely for the reasons he had initially assumed. Yes, he was pissed that Dumbledore had let Sirius rot in Azkaban knowing full well he was innocent. Yes, he was enraged that Dumbledore had beguiled his parents into giving up their well-protected Manor and moving into the little house on Godric's Hollow. But he was also mad because Dumbledore had kept these from him. Knowingly. Dumbledore had had, in his possession, the only memories of his parents in existence, and if Death hadn't gone with him to Gringotts and fetched the strongbox through some sort of mystical magical death-powers, he would still have them.
Harry sank to the ground and folded his hands atop his head, grabbing onto his hair for balance as he rocked back and forth absently. He wished, desperately, that he'd actually learned Occlumency, because he had a feeling that would have helped a great deal in containing this… this well of emotion currently running rampant with his mind. He simply felt too much, and it actually hurt a little, like a bone-deep ache in all his limbs, concentrated at the back of his skull like liquid fire.
He felt the questing thread of Death's magic (familiar as it was to him now, now that Harry had learned to feel it out and watch for it; Death's magic felt like winter and the dark and forever, and it scared and enthralled him every time he sensed it) prodding at him, and as soon as it touched him he felt the incredible overwhelming emotions simply shift away from him and into that thread, which—alarmingly—jerked away immediately as if burned.
With the emotions dulled enough now that he could concentrate past them (he made a note to thank Death for that; he might have had problems gathering his composure otherwise), Harry could raise his head and look up at the towering figure of Death standing unnaturally still beside him.
There was no telling emotion on Death's face, no gleam in his eyes or wild grin tugging at pale lips. But Death's magic…
It felt like a storm. Calm here, at the Eye, but whipping out at the edges into barbed spikes and jagged blades ready to tear up the earth and upheave oceans. Harry had never felt anything like it. Not even when Death had first stepped through that portal, and his unrestrained aura had sent them all crashing to their knees in horror. Then, it had been just magic. Incredibly powerful magic, yes, but just magic in the end.
This magic was not 'just magic.' This magic was emotional.
Tentatively, Harry reached up and took one of Death's hands in his, hoping to maybe comfort him or ground him or something, and just like that…
The magic stopped.
There was no gradual slowing, no calming, it was simply there one moment, and gone the next as if it had never been. Harry was actually more alarmed at this sudden switch into nothingness than he was by the actual event, and even more so when Death suddenly grinned (empty empty empty that is the smile of someone dead inside) and sank to one knee beside him, clapping him on the shoulder with killing curse eyes that almost played at being human, but didn't quite make it there.
It was so easy to forget, sometimes, that Death wasn't human. He acted like it, if a bit more eccentric and bloodthirsty than a usual human, and despite his unlimited power he didn't tend to give off any sort of godly signals to Harry. But this, this empty grin and emptier eyes, a hollow shell (how ironic) trying to mimic a human face…
This was death. This was not the Death Harry had befriended, or the Death that was the closest thing to family that he had (his parents did not count; memories did not replace a physical presence no matter how wonderful they were). This was simply death, the End of All Things, staring out of lifeless eyes with a smile that said he had seen a painting of a human once, and that the person in the painting had been screaming, but this was the best approximation of happiness he could come up with when that work of art was his only reference.
And then the empty shell that had replaced Death with deathopened its mouth and spoke in a familiar rasping voice which was as false as those eyes and that smile, but was welcomed regardless.
"I am greatly looking forward to ripping the liver out of the old mortal and devouring it in front of him. I will, of course, gladly save the best morsel for you, my shell."
It was delivered almost correctly, with the right inflection and almost the right amount of bloodthirstiness, but Harry could tell something was still wrong. But, the words still invoked an instinctive shudder of revulsion and—reluctant—amusement. Because that was just the sort of thing Death would do, Harry mused fondly. He would rip out Dumbledore's liver, and eat it, and would also probably save him a piece under the mistaken impression that that was something that appealed to him in the slightest.
At his obvious amusement, the smile on Death's face turned more real, and Harry quietly cheered inside at this return to normality.
Normality. The cheer fell slightly as Harry remembered what he'd just seen, just watched, just lived through, and realized that the thought of Death eating Dumbledore's liver wasn't quite as horrible as it had been a few moments ago. The realization frightened him, because it was even more evidence that he was slipping, but he let it go for now. He could worry about his strange shift in morals later, when he wasn't trying to make Death come alive again (the irony burned).
"You can have his liver," Harry offered, grimly amused at the way this conversation was going, "but his heart is mine."
And it was. Dumbledore's heart, his dreams, his fears, his hopes, they were his. Harry didn't know Death's plan for the old man, but he figured it had to do something with crushing everything the man loved and bringing down his world around his ears. That's what Harry would do, and he thought Death would probably do likewise, only better.
The expression that crossed Death's face just then would have made anyone else soil their trousers, Harry was certain. His grin was slow, dark, ravenous in the way only truly feral things are, and there was something innately unsettling about the way those abyssal eyes fixed on him as if he had personally hung the sun and moon.
Harry wondered, sometimes, what Death really thought about him. He was only a mortal, after all. He would live maybe two hundred years, if he was lucky, and Death would still be around when the world ended. It couldn't be healthy, this attachment the entity had to him, but Harry couldn't bring himself to really care. Maybe it was because they were basically the same person, only from different points in their lives. Maybe it was because he was the only person Death had touched in Merlin-knows-how-long, or because Harry had been so desperate for a family—any family—that he latched on to the first godlike being that came around claiming to be him from another reality.
He shrugged off the thought. So what if no one else would ever understand their weird, wonderful relationship? So what if people would get the wrong ideas from Death's closeness and disregard of personal space? It worked, and it was wonderful, and Harry wouldn't change a single thing.
He jolted slightly, the realization rushing through him. He wouldn't change a thing. If he could go back in time (which he could, he realized, just by asking Death), and was given the chance to save his parents, to kill Voldemort early, to stake Wormtail's head on a pike and put it in Diagon Alley for all to see… he wouldn't. Because if he did any of those things, Dumbledore would not have felt it necessary to summon a hero, and Death would not have come through to this reality. He wouldn't change a thing, because then he wouldn't have met Death.
Impulsively, Harry reached out and grabbed the startled entity around the neck and hugged him tightly, unnerved by his own resolution and the chilling knowledge that he would rather his parents stay dead than lose out on his camaraderie with Death. It felt like a betrayal, almost, but he hoped they would understand. They had loved him, he knew this now, and they would want him to be happy.
This odd friendship with Death made him happy.
And really, Harry figured he deserved a little happiness after all he'd been through over the years. Would they be proud of him, he wondered? James and Lily? Were they disappointed with him, with how he was handling all of this? The betrayal, the theft, the manipulations?
Cold fingers combed through his hair. "They will love you until the stars go out, my shell," Death's rasping voice whispered in his ear. "And after that, they shall love you still."
Harry smiled. "You'd know, wouldn't you?"
"The death of a star is a beautiful thing, dear shell. But they? They shan't even notice it, too captivated by their love for you to watch as the universe dies."
Harry relaxed, believing him because he was Death, and if Death didn't know how the souls of the departed felt, then who would?
He did wonder, though, when Death had seen the death of a star. Those took millions—billions—of years to explode, and the thought of just staring at a star until it happened, doing nothing else…
Well, Harry was just happy that he wouldn't have to deal with that sort of boredom like Death obviously had. He had enough trouble staying awake during Binns' class, never mind watching a star die for lack of anything better to do.
Harry leaned back as Death released him and slid smoothly to his feet, grin fixed in place and twirling a vial with a memory in it that Harry didn't recognize before it vanished with a flick of his fingers. And Voldemort had wanted to be immortal.
What an idiot.
AN: I had way too much fun writing Death's part of this.
To comment on those of you who didn't seem to understand/appreciate why I bothered to put the last two chapters as memories... it amuses me that you seem to think I have any sort of order to what I do at all. I don't plan anything ahead of time. I don't have an outline as to what will happen or what I should write next. I just write when I get inspiration, and the chapters usually make some sort of sense when all put together. That's just how I work: spontaneously and with no planning whatsoever.
Want to know a secret? *looks left and right* I suck at planning. Shh... don't tell anyone.
On another note, exams are over! Yay! As and Bs across the board. So happy. And I get to take my art home on Friday from the show! *happy nerdy white girl dance*