Family Ties
Saturday, 12 September 1998
After Regulus’ spirit dissipated, Harry stood in silence trying to decide what to do next.
“How are you, Hadrian” Death asked in a soft voice.
Harry weighed that question for a minute before answering, “I think I’m alright. I’m just trying to decide what to do next.”
“What time is it?”
Harry glanced down at his watch, “just after noon, I didn’t realize we’d been here so long.”
“What do you need to get done today?”
“I’d like to go to Gringotts to get my mother’s ring like Regulus mentioned, I think it’d be nice to have them all together.”
“Would you like me to come with you?”
“Who all can see you?”
“No one unless I want them to.”
“That didn’t sound threatening at all,” Harry teased.
Seeing that his young friend’s humor was back, Death smiled, “oh you know how I love to threaten.”
“Ah yes,” Harry said with a slight laugh, “what would people do if they learned that the All Feared Death was just a guy who has as much trouble taming his hair as I do.”
“Brat,” Death said, lightly pushing Harry’s head to the side, "my hair has always been like this. Antioch and Cadmus both had very sleek wavy hair, but Ignotus’ hair was exactly like yours. It became a rather prevalent line trait that carried over to the Potter line when Iolanthe Peverell married Hardwin Potter.”
“I always wondered where my full name came from when I had several grandfathers and great grandfathers in both Lily and James’ families named Henry and the name Hardwin was also in the Potter family, how’d they land on Hadrian?”
“Ah, I can answer that actually.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Death said, smiling, “my fabled meeting with the Three Brothers wasn’t actually the first time I interacted with the Peverell line. What do you know of the origins of your family?”
“Nothing past the brothers,” Harry said, “what am I missing.”
“Did you ever wonder why I could get into the Peverell vault without you?”
“Yeah, actually, I meant to ask but we sort of had a lot going on.”
“Understandable,” Death said with a nod, “do you wonder why we share a line trait?”
“I thought maybe you chose your appearance based on the family you aligned with,” Harry said with a slight shrug.
“Not exactly.”
Harry thought for a moment before it hit him, “you’re a Peverell?”
“Hadrian Ignotus Peverell at your service,” Death said with a mischievous grin and a mocking bow.
Harry couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him, “we have the same name?”
“Indeed.”
“That can’t be a coincidence can it?” Harry asked, still laughing.
“I don’t believe in coincidences, Hadrian.”
Harry had so many questions, like whether or not it was weird for Death to call someone else by his own name, but he landed on, “how did you become Death?”
“The Peverells have always had a talent for necromancy, but it started with me. Well, more accurately, the family started with me. To make an incredibly long story short, I lived in what is now France many, many centuries ago. The area was then known as Gaul. When I was around your age, the Greeks arrived at our shores and established a trading post known as Massalia, though you’d know it as the city of Marseille. Magic was more prevalent in that day. It was before the witch hunts, before the Statute of Secrecy. Muggles and Magicals mixed freely. I’m sure that knowledge helps explain much of what is now known as Mythology?”
“I really wish we’d had a better History of Magic teacher,” Harry said in response.
With a laugh, Death continued, “anyways, when the Greeks arrived, our lives changed. With that shipping post, our economy grew and we had more opportunities. But the most important thing, at least as it relates to this story, was that they brought their culture. Necromancy, as I have told you and will teach you, isn’t raising the dead, it’s communing with the other side and allowing spirits to rest. It also opens a whole world of healing magic that isn’t available to the average witch or wizard. The Greeks who settled around my home heard word of my skills and were impressed. I spent the rest of my life traveling and teaching. Stories of my deeds traveled even further than I myself did and eventually I had people worshipping me to some extent.
“The gods you’ve heard of across cultures are real in some manner. They started as people with extraordinary skill and were worshipped in such a way that they became immortal. Their stories and names changed from place to place, but the King of Gods is real whether he’s called Jupiter or Odin. The spirit of the sea is powerful whether you pray to Poseidon or Varuna. The Ruler of the Underworld has many names, Hades, Pluto, Hel, Arawn, Osiris, but no matter the name, they have someone at their right hand.”
“You.” Harry said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“I’ve been called Thanatos and Mors and Anubis and many other names throughout the years, though my favorite is and always will be Hadrian Peverell.”
“What does that make me?”
“As I’ve told you before, you will forever be Lord Peverell. Once you die, you will roam freely between the realms. You will stand by my side.”
“Alright,” Harry said, nodding slightly and deciding that he’d unpack … all of that … at a later date, “alright.”
Laughing slightly, Death continued, “but back to your initial question. Hadrian is a Peverell name that has been used every so often over the centuries, but most notably, it was the name of a Roman Emperor in the early 100s. He was a respected emperor known for traveling throughout his domain and for taking on great infrastructure projects. I believe your mother liked how regal the name sounded and that it could be shortened to Harry like her father and grandfather’s names without giving you the same name.”
“That makes sense, ever since I found out it was my full name it’s felt right,” Harry said before smiling over at his companion, “I think I like it even more now.”
The pair then collected their ritual elements and Harry made quick work of taking down the wards and spells around the cave. It was much easier now that Voldemort was dead, he’d tied most of them to his life, truly believing himself to be immortal. Very few of the wards were tied to anything lasting. Once the last enchantment fell, Harry took great pleasure in vanishing that demented potion and sending a bombarda at the weird ass bird bath it had been stored in.
With that taken care of, the Death disappeared, and Harry turned on his heel.
* * *
They appeared again in an alley next to Gringotts.
The pair made their way up the stairs, both greeting the guardian Goblins respectfully, and headed into the bank. If people could actually see Death, they’d probably fall over in shock at the image of an immortal deity waiting in line for the next available teller. But that’s exactly what they did.
After a couple of minutes, the world’s strangest duo made it to the front of the line.
“Good afternoon, Master Teller, may your gold ever flow,” Harry greeted with a nod.
“Good afternoon to you as well, Lord Peverell and…” he trailed off noticing Harry’s companion, “Lord Death, may your enemies flee in terror.” the Goblin greeted back with a sharp grin.
“Good one,” Harry said with a smile, “is there anyone available to take us to the Potter artifact vault?”
“Of course, Lord Peverell,” the Goblin said, “please press your Potter ring to this stone to ensure you are who you say you are and that you have access to the indicated vault, and I will fetch a runner straight away.”
30 seconds later, a second Goblin appeared at the side of the teller’s desk.
“Good afternoon Lord Peverell, Lord Death,” the runner greeted, “please, follow me.”
Harry and Death bid goodbye to the teller and followed the runner toward the mine carts.
After a truly mindboggling ride, the trio stepped out of the cart and made their way toward the largest of the Potter vaults.
Harry pressed his ring against the door where the runner indicated and made his way inside the vault.
He’d only been here once before, to fetch James’ ring after Frank told Neville where to find it. He hadn’t spent much time looking around. He did now though.
Last time, he’d been there alone. He’d wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible. But today, Harry had a companion and didn’t have anywhere else to be. There were so many things he wanted to look at but decided to find the ring first. He walked toward where he’d found James’ ring – a shelf full of jewelry boxes.
How he hadn’t noticed the box right next to James’ engraved with “LJP,” he wasn’t sure.
When he opened the box, he found both Lily’s engagement ring and her wedding band, along with several other beautiful pieces. He immediately slid the wedding band, a simple thin gold band, onto his right ring finger.
The feeling that washed over Harry the moment all three rings sat next to each other on his finger was more powerful than the magic he’d felt when he put on any of his Lord rings. It was similar in the sense that the magic seemed like it was welcoming him home, but it felt so much more personal. He could feel the magic of each of his parents.
Harry simply stood there and allowed the magic to surround him.
When it stopped, he shook his head, wiped away the few tears that had fallen, and thanked whoever was listening for giving him magic so he could be a part of something like that.
With a deep breath, Harry looked back toward Lily’s jewelry box. Something in him felt off at the idea of leaving the engagement ring behind so he opened James’ box, looking for the simple gold chain he remembered seeing the last time. Once he located the chain, he slid the engagement ring on and secured the clasp at the back of his neck.
That taken care of, Harry started to look around at what else was in the vault. He’d had most of the furniture and portraits moved back to Potter Manor over the summer, but there was still a lot of family history surrounding him.
It was quiet which was odd, Death tended to chatter.
Turning around to see what was up, Harry found Death staring down at a table in the center of the room.
“What’d you find?”
“Did you notice this before?” Death asked, holding up an envelope with a key attached to the outside.
“No,” Harry said, wondering if maybe Hermione was right, and he really was frighteningly oblivious. The envelope was on a table in the middle of the room, he’d walked straight past it both times he’d entered the vault now.
“It’s addressed to you.”
Wondering what it could be, Harry took the envelope from Death’s outstretched hand. He set the key down on the table and then opened the note. It was written on muggle notebook paper. Harry knew who it was from before he even read the signature.
Hadrian,
Most everything of monetary value is either stored in this vault or will automatically be moved here should the worst happen, but price isn’t necessarily what makes things valuable. If you’ve grown up without us, I’m hoping that you grew up with Alice and Frank, that you know all of our friends and you still have your Uncles Padfoot and Moony. But, if by some awful circumstance, you don’t grow up with one of the people we’ve chosen, you probably know very little about us.
The key attached to this envelope is to a personal vault under the name Lily Evans, you are listed as the beneficiary, but it probably won’t show up on any audits you request as there’s nothing of monetary value.
Know that I love you, Harry. I hope you’ve found peace, and I hope you know how special you are.
Love always,
Mum
Deciding to ignore whatever Potters of centuries past had decided to store here, Harry put the letter into his pocket and walked out of the vault.
“Have you finished?” the runner asked.
“With that vault,” Harry answered, he then handed the key to the Goblin and asked, “would you be able to take us to this vault? It’s a personal vault under the name Lily Evans.”
“Of course,” the Goblin said with a nod, “it’s up a few floors.”
After checking to make sure the artifact vault’s door had closed, the group got back in the cart and made their way toward the surface.
A few minutes later, they stepped out and approached the door of a much smaller vault. Like Harry’s trust vault, this one simply opened with the key. No scan of ring, blood, or magic was required.
Inside the vault, Harry found a veritable treasure trove. His mum had been right, though the Goblins would assign very little value to the contents of this vault, it was worth more than any of his other vaults.
He found his parents school trunks and a shelf full of their books. Next to James’ trunk was a bookbag like Harry’s. Grabbing it, Harry turned to the bookshelf and found James and Lily’s 7th year textbooks, thinking that their annotations might be helpful, or at least fun to look at. He wondered for a second why only James and Lily’s belongings were here before he remembered that all of Regulus’ things were still in his room at Grimmauld Place.
Apart from school things, there were boxes of his parents clothes, photos of them and all of their friends, and a collection of records that would rival the one they’d found in Sirius’ bedroom at Potter manor.
It was next to the records that Harry struck figurative gold.
Potter Manor had an adapted gramophone so that it could also play muggle records and Harry had found a charmed Walkman in James’ childhood bedroom, but they hadn’t found anything portable that could play music out loud.
It was an issue that had truly been plaguing the Gryffindors.
When Bill Weasley was in school, he and his roommates had warded a corner of the Gryffindor common room so a record player would work. Since then, the muggleborn lions had been building a House vinyl library. Everyone loved it. It made parties far more fun than just listening to the wireless and it allowed the muggleborn students to easily share their favorite music with their wizard-raised classmates.
The issue, however, was that they didn’t have something like that in their new tower and no one had wanted to bother Bill over something relatively small.
Harry had just found the solution.
Lily Evans, charms genius that she was, had charmed both a boombox and a record player.
With a giant grin on his face, Harry made sure that both machines were also charmed unbreakable before placing them into his bag.
He’d already purchased Hermione’s birthday gift but he might just have to add to it now.
* * *
Death and Harry spent a few more minutes looking through the vault before Harry decided it was time to head to Grimmauld Place. He wanted to see Teddy and he needed to tell Andromeda and Narcissa about how he’d spent his morning.
He bid Death goodbye for the moment after promising to call for him if he needed help explaining anything to his family and then turned on his heel and apparated to the front step of Grimmauld Place.
Kreacher popped up right as Harry closed the door, “good afternoon, Lord Black, how can Kreacher be helping?”
“Hello, Kreacher,” Harry greeted with a smile, “could you ask Andromeda and Narcissa to join me in the family sitting room and then would you join us as well? I have something to tell you three.”
“Of course, Lord Black,” Kreacher responded before bowing his head and popping out.
As Harry walked up to the sitting room, he thought about how he was going to go about telling them everything. It was going to be rather difficult to explain what had happened without admitting to being the Master of Death. So far, the only people who knew were Neville, Hermione, Ron, and Theo. Susan and Luna each knew most of it, but he hadn’t actually said the words I’m the Master of Death to either of them.
Neville and Hermione knew the most; Neville because he had been the one to help Harry sort everything out while Ron and Hermione were in Australia and Hermione because she asked as many questions as she could, wanting to understand.
There were still things Harry didn’t understand himself.
But after his conversation with Death in the cave, Harry felt he had a better understanding of his place and the legacy he had joined.
As Harry approached the sitting room, he found himself wondering when and if he should tell Draco. Instead of letting that thought fester, he looked toward Kreacher who was standing in the corner and asked, “Kreacher, would you be able to pop over to Hogwarts and ask Draco to floo over here?”
With a nod of assent, Kreacher popped over to Hogwarts, before Harry had a chance to properly greet Andromeda and Narcissa, Kreacher was back and the family floo flashed green.
“That was fast.”
“Well, you’ve been missing all day and then Kreacher showed up telling me to floo over here, I was sitting right by the common room fireplace so it wasn’t exactly a difficult journey,” Draco snarked back before looking Harry over from head to toe, “you’re alright? Nothing’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” Harry said, sounding slightly confused, “what do you mean?”
“Like I said, Hades, you’ve been gone all day. You didn’t show up to breakfast or lunch and no one I talked to knew where you were.”
“Did you talk to Neville?”
“…No,” Draco admitted, sounding slightly sheepish.
“Next time you think I’ve disappeared, find someone I share a tower with.”
“Good point.”
Shaking his head, Harry turned around to greet Andromeda and Narcissa. Draco did the same and then they all settled onto the couch.
“Is this a tea conversation?” Narcissa asked once everyone was settled.
Before anyone could respond, Kreacher snapped his fingers, and a tea service appeared on the table.
“Thank you Kreacher,” Harry said with a nod, “before I start talking though, Draco, should I let anyone know I’m alive?”
“Maybe ask Neville to tell people he knows where you are … or send a Patronus to Hermione, she was starting to get curious though I think she’s far more accustomed to you disappearing than the rest of us.”
Harry quickly summoned Prongs to send a message off to Hermione that he was dealing with Black Family business and that he and Draco would be back soon.
He then turned back to the room and said, “I have a lot to tell you.”
Deciding to start from the beginning, Harry started to explain the Peverell Family. He skipped over a what Death had explained about his own origins, deciding that was maybe a story for another time. He began with the story of the Three Brothers, knowing that they’d be familiar with the story from their childhoods. After he reached the end of the true story about the brothers, which Draco had heard that summer, Andromeda looked up at Harry, waiting until he made eye contact before asking, “how do you tie into this?”
“I’m the Master of Death.”
“Truly?” she breathed out.
“Truly,” Harry said with a nod, “there’s a lot to it, a lot I still don’t understand. But you should know that the common belief that anyone who held all three Hallows would become the Master is wrong. There are several requirements, but most importantly you have to be chosen by Death.”
“What does that mean?” Narcissa asked, “to be chosen by Death?”
“Narcissa when you told Voldemort I was dead you wouldn’t have been wrong had you reached me 30 seconds earlier.”
“You actually died?”
“I did,” Harry confirmed with a nod, he then pulled off his jumper and his under shirt.
“What in Merlin’s name are you doing, Had-” Draco started before cutting himself off at the sight of Harry’s scar.
“It’s like the one on your head,” Andromeda said, her voice hardly above a whisper.
Knowing that they’d seen what he needed them to see, Harry put his shirt and jumper back on before continuing, “not only did I die, but I greeted Death as a friend. I willingly walked into the forest; I stood there while the bolt of green shot toward me. I didn’t try to weasel my way out of it; I didn’t beg to be saved. That behavior, that intrinsic knowledge that Death is but the next great adventure is central to the Peverell ideology. From the beginning, the Peverells have been associated with Death. I never once thought that the Hallows would allow me to escape Death.”
“I can see how that would be important,” Narcissa reasoned, “Death wouldn’t want to ally with someone who allowed power to corrupt them.”
“Exactly,” Harry said, “but what the reason I’m explaining this is that the Peverell family magic is Necromancy. The art has gotten a rather bad reputation over the years, but at its core, Necromancy is healing. There are healing spells that only a Necromancer can use but, more than that, it’s spiritual healing. Necromancers are able to release trapped spirits and can help spirits travel from this plane to the next.”
“That is far different from the way necromancy is explained now,” Andromeda said, “I’ve always thought it was used for things like inferi.”
“The creation of inferi calls on necromantic magic, yes, but it is not true Necromancy,” Harry explained, “However, Necromancy can be used to release the spirits of those who have been trapped as inferi.”
“Ah,” Narcissa said, realizing where this was going, “that’s what you’ve been doing today, correct, Hadrian?”
“Yes, Aunt Cissa.”
“Where were there inferi?” Draco asked.
“The cave.”
“The cave?”
“Yes,” Harry told Draco, “That’s where I was this morning.”
“Oh.”
“But” Harry said, “the reason I’m telling you this isn’t just to say that I got rid of the inferi and to tell my family something about myself.” He then paused to take a steadying breath, “while I was in the cave, I also completed the ritual to send Regulus to rest.”
“What does that mean?” Andromeda asked, “did you release his spirit or were you able to send his body to rest?”
“Both,” Harry answered, “I sent his body to rest at Potter Manor where I had my Mum and Dad moved.”
“I think that’s what he’d want,” Narcissa said with a decisive nod.
When Andromeda nodded her agreement, Harry decided to keep his conversation with his Papa to himself. He’d have shared it if he needed proof that that is what Regulus wanted but, without needing that confirmation, he decided to be selfish with that moment.
“Can we visit?” Andromeda asked.
“I was hoping you’d ask,” Harry said with a soft smile, “I haven’t been yet. I just asked the elves to move them yesterday and only sent Regulus this morning.”
“Let’s finish our tea and once Teddy is awake we’ll all go,” Andromeda decided.
For the next few minutes, they all drank their tea and talked about what had been going on at Hogwarts. Just as Narcissa was getting Harry and Draco to promise to come for a family dinner after the next Wizengamot session, Andromeda’s wand lit up indicating that the charm she’d set to alert her when Teddy woke up had been triggered.
“I’ll get him,” Harry said, setting down his teacup and grabbing his cloak, “I’ll meet you all back here and we can floo over to Potter Manor. You might want to grab a cloak; it’s always a bit colder by the sea.”
They each nodded and headed toward their rooms, Draco asked Kreacher to pop over to Hogwarts and grab one of his lighter cloaks.
Stepping into the nursery, Harry couldn’t help but smile. Teddy was awake and babbling to himself. He was quite a way away from talking, but he certainly seemed to think he was able.
Harry made quick work of getting Teddy ready to go.
By the time he got back to the family room, everyone was ready to go. They took turns stepping through the floo to Potter Manor. Once there, Harry asked the head elf to lead them to the family cemetery.
After a brief walk through the grounds, they came upon a well-kept cemetery.
There, right at the front, was a brand-new headstone.
“It’s beautiful, Hadrian,” Narcissa said after a minute of silence, coming over to place a hand on Harry’s shoulder.
Harry rather agreed.