A Cosmic Decision
Death did not interfere with the living. It had seen empires rise and fall, had watched as the greatest of wizards and the lowliest of mortals came and went like flickering candles in the wind. The balance of life and death was a natural order, one that should not be disturbed. And yet, even Death had its limits.
For years, it had watched Harry Potter. A boy burdened with a fate he never chose, manipulated from the shadows by those who claimed to love him. From the moment he was placed on the doorstep of Number Four, Privet Drive, Death had observed the cruel hand he had been dealt.
It had seen him shiver in the cold, heard his cries in the night as hunger gnawed at his stomach. It had witnessed the way his so-called family sneered at him, treating him as less than human, as if he were a stain on their perfect little world. But that was not how it had always been.
Once, the Dursleys had loved Harry. He had been cared for as one of their own, held in the same warmth and affection they had for their own son, Dudley. Petunia had rocked him to sleep, sung him lullabies, and Vernon had bounced him on his knee, telling him silly stories. Dudley had clung to his tiny cousin, giggling as they played together. They had been a family.
But Albus Dumbledore had changed that.
The old wizard, revered as the greatest of his time, had orchestrated a fate so cruel that even Death itself found it abhorrent. It was not simply neglect that had defined Harry’s childhood—it was carefully designed suffering. The Dursleys, once ordinary in their love, had been twisted by magic. Potions and spells woven into their very existence, forcing them to hate the boy, to break him, to mold him into something weak and desperate for love.
A tool.
Harry was never meant to be just a child. He was a sacrifice. A pawn in a game far older and darker than he could ever understand. Dumbledore had set the pieces in motion long before the boy had even spoken his first words, ensuring that when the time came, Harry would walk to his death willingly, without question, without hope.
And yet, there was something the old wizard had never realized, a truth that had been hidden since the dawn of time.
The Peverell brothers had not merely bargained with Death. They were his sons.
Death had watched over their descendants, generation after generation, but none had drawn its attention like Harry Potter. His very blood carried a fragment of Death itself, a connection stronger than any wand, any magic. The boy had unknowingly inherited not just the Hallows but the legacy of the one force no wizard could escape.
Death did not like games.
And so, for the first time in millennia, it made a choice. The balance of life and death would be disrupted, not for power or chaos, but for justice. Four souls, stolen too soon, would be returned. A family torn apart would be given a second chance.
With a flick of its skeletal fingers, time and reality trembled.