Master of Death
Hermione had explained it as this: Harry’s patronus had scared the shit out of her in her office at the Department for Magical Creatures so she’d floo’d to Ron’s office in the Aurors department before it had even finished its message, kicking Zacharias Smith out just as Harry’s patronus filtered into the room to repeat the message. Ron had then shown Hermione the coordinates for the den he’d sent Harry to and they both apparated straight there.
Even though she used every last bit of healer training she had from the war, it wasn’t enough to save Harry from his stupid, imbecilic self, so he’d succumbed to his injuries whilst hanging limply on the spear. Ron lifted Harry off and they’d spent a good twenty minutes crying over his dead body and wondering what they should do—who to call first, what they should tell people, how to tell the world that Harry Potter, their beloved Boy-Who-Lived-To-Conquer, had died in a freak accident of his own making—when Harry had made a horrendous noise and gasped for air and woken up with no injuries.
It became obvious to the trio that something was terribly off about Harry and they all had their suspicions when they side-along apparated to Harry’s house to find the three Hallows arranged neatly on his bookshelf. It took only one denial from Harry of having put them there himself for Hermione and Ron to realise their friend had become something more in their time during the war and they just hadn’t realised. Hermione had noticed something, of that she was adamant.
“Well, I did notice that you look awfully fit,” Hermione had said, a finger to her chin in contemplation and Ron scowled in the background.
“Is that all?” Harry drawled, downing a glass of fire whiskey and rubbing absently at the new scar on his abdomen. It had been awfully odd being impaled. Not his most enjoyable death, by any means.
“You haven’t noticed?” Hermione asked them both. “For someone fresh from a war, with alcoholic tendencies, PTSD, and insomnia, you’re awfully well-rested. Not a wrinkle in sight.” Harry scowled at her mention of PTSD and poured himself another drink.
Ron looked at him then—really looked. He stopped his frantic pacing and walked right to Harry, gripping his face and inspecting every centimeter of it. Harry’s silvery scar was still there, echoing down his forehead and across his nose like a pure bolt of lighting etched across the sky. Apart from his scar, Harry’s face was smooth. It had already been four years since the war but beneath the whiff of alcohol, ten day old stubble and war-hardened eyes, Harry still looked seventeen.
It wasn’t a drastic thing, by any means. Most people probably wouldn’t notice. But everyone changes, even within a year. Subtle things, like a fine line under their eyes or on their forehead or between their eyebrows. Maybe a few grey hairs that pop up once in a while before they notice and pluck it out as though doing so could reverse the act of ageing or remove stress. Ron honestly had more grey hairs than he knew what to do with in the first few months after the war until he settled into his new life and his stress decreased.
But Harry? Harry hadn’t ever complained about grey hair. Or having a sore back. He’d not even developed a wrinkle. Ron’s not sure how he’d missed it until now. Harry had been worrying them both with his habit of drinking himself to sleep and finding muggles to waste away with at all times of the day. He’d turn up to work with yesterday’s clothes on and Ron or Hermione would have to wave a few discreet charms his way, beg him to go back to the mind healer, and invite him to Sunday dinner, again, even though Harry rarely turned up or stayed longer than an hour if he did.
Ron let go of Harry’s face and stepped back. Harry wanted to crawl back into Death’s chest cavity. He’d felt safe there. Well, maybe safe wasn’t the right word. He’d felt content there, at least, almost at home in Death’s company. Rested. He considered offing himself again but decided to swig his firewhiskey instead, knowing any subsequent suicides would have to be done away from Ron and Hermione’s watchful eyes.
They’d all come to the same conclusion but none of them uttered the words: Master of Death. Instead, Hermione began doing what she did best. She planned for the possibility (likelihood, but they didn’t want to acknowledge that either) of Harry’s awfully long and lonely future where he was stuck as a perpetual seventeen year old and couldn’t even off himself for more than a restful nap.
They spent a few years putting her plans into action.
It was hidden from the world, even from their closest family. Only the three of them knew that beneath the glamours and ageing potions, Harry was burdened with the face of a seventeen year old. He lived and aged with his friends for a few more years, and Hermione began the political machinations to remove the Wizarding World’s over-reliance on their Saviour. Ron dutifully used his promotion to Head Auror to give Harry random, obscure missions with less combat each time and more magic work: curse breaking, unbindings, anything that required the dismantling of Dark magic.
Eventually, Harry stopped entering the field and Ron assigned him to training Aurors instead, not able to risk an accidental spell dispelling Harry’s fake wrinkles and revealing the smooth skin beneath. They told everyone it was because Harry could raise the standard of Aurors, make them each stronger with his teaching, something he was great at after his time teaching Dumbledore’s Army.
No one questioned Harry’s slow removal from society—the way he stopped attending Ministry events, no longer turned up to major votes at the Wizengamot, instead preferring to cast his votes from the comfort of home (a privilege Hermione demanded be given to him from Shacklebolt, citing Harry’s terrible PTSD as the reason, nevermind she had made him go to a mind healer for three years and any PTSD he may or may not have had was certainly not impacting him to the point of being unable to cast a vote every other month).
Hermione and Ron got married and had a daughter called Rose, and Harry was her godparent. He thought it a good choice, seeing as he was guaranteed to always be around for her. Harry remained woefully single but not alone—he often enjoyed he company of muggles but he usually kept the ageing glamours on. He wasn’t really into hooking up with teenagers when he was actually mid-twenties. If he went glamour-less, no respectable muggle would flirt with him as they were seeing a seventeen year old Harry, barely legal.
It was six years and some change later, when the trio was approaching twenty-six, that Hermione deemed their plan ready.
Harry left for America.
The deciding factor in where Harry moved was that he needed to be out of the UK and in a country with less restrictions on magic. The American Ministry for Magic was well known as the most liberal of the world with a lowered age for the restriction of magic use, no tracking of apparition outside of major cities, and unrestricted use of extension charms on anything inanimate. Harry wasn’t sure he wanted to find out why inanimate was a key word for that regulation.
It was easier, still, for their decision to send Harry to America when Ron realised he could send Harry there legally, on a top secret mission tracking unnamed Dark wizards and Death Eaters, allowing him entry into the country and effectively free, untracked use of his magic with the American Minister’s permission and endorsement.
Although the trio is a suspicious bunch, so Harry gave his wand to Kreacher and asked him to apparate around the country every few weeks to cast some random spells. It wasn’t normal for an elf to use a wand and Kreacher grumbled about even the idea of it, but he would do it nonetheless. that way, if Harry was tracked, they would actually find him doing something. Ron had decided to send captured Dark wizards to some obscure location in America every now and then too, posing them as though caught by Harry. Kreacher demanded a pay rise for his troubles.
Harry had one last Sunday dinner at the Burrow, this time with all his old friends in attendance, wishing him luck on his continued hunt for Dark Wizards and asking him to write often, return home soon. Luna had patted him on the arm and said “Your chest is awfully hollow, Harry. Don’t rest too much.” And that had made Harry relapse on firewhiskey (he’d been sober for around six months) until he passed out on Ron and Hermione’s couch, dreaming about the hollow in-between Death’s ribs and how he fit there perfectly.
“Don’t be a stranger, Harry,” Hermione said the next morning with tears in her eyes, dutifully not mentioning that Harry had drank himself to sleep. He appreciated it. “I might have helped you escape to another country, but I do expect you to keep in touch and visit every now and then. Secretly, even.”
Harry’s seventeen-year-old face broke out into a weary smile and he pulled her in for a hug. Hermione’s magic always smelt like the embers of a campfire and it made him remember months in a tent together, the way they’d danced with tears in their eyes and hugged each other close in the darkness. He breathed her in, deeply, so deep it felt like the first breath after death.
“Course, Hermione,” he agreed easily and maybe that was a sign that the mind healer had done their job, because old Harry wouldn’t have agreed so easily and certainly wouldn’t have meant it.
The current him realised, though, that he had to leave to protect his secret and the possibility of someone finding out that the Hallows are real—that immortality is a possibility, if only you could steal it from Harry Potter. He can’t risk the people he loves by putting them in danger if someone were to realise the power he has. If it was between Ron, Hermione, Teddy, Rose or the Hallows? He doesn’t doubt he would give the mantle of Master of Death away to save them.
Although, he wasn’t positive they would stay away from him. He has tried getting rid of each item, even going as far as snapping the elder wand and dumping it in a river. By the time he was home, it was back on his bookshelf, mocking him.
So, he would leave, he would add distance to his friends and family. But he wouldn’t forget that his loved ones only have one life and he needs to be there for it—to remember it, remember them, be there for their inevitable deaths and watch over their families. He couldn’t abandon them. Not when they would be here for such a short time. Not when he couldn’t ever join them in the afterlife.
He let her go and Ron stepped up, gently moving his wife out of the way with a pat to her head and a lingering touch to her shoulder. Harry wondered what intimacy like that would feel like. He wouldn’t know, not truly. He’d thought about it. Maybe meeting someone and lying to them about everything and living a life together but he truly can’t see past the first few years. Eventually they would start to age more and more and Harry, if all went absolutely perfect and they never once saw him without an ageing glamour, would one day have to see his lover die.
So, no. Harry had decided that true emotional love was not an option for him and he instead would have to rely on purely physical connections. He did, rather morbidly, feel that his closest connection outside of his best friends and godchildren was Death themself, but he didn’t want to think about that too hard lest the desire to curl in their chest became too strong and he decided to Avada himself. Again.
“We’ll come visit you real soon, mate,” Ron said, wrapping his strong arms around Harry and tightening like the Basilisk once had. “Teddy and Rose will want to spend a weekend with you every now and then, too.”
Harry hugged Ron back and breathed in the magic he expelled, like laundry softener mixed with a spark that reminded him of the WWW line of mini fireworks George released last year.
“I’ll make up a guest room for them.”
And then Ron stepped back and Harry could see them both, standing together and looking their actual ages.
They were both taller and Hermione had lost the baby fat in her cheeks but softened into motherhood in some abstract way he couldn’t put his finger on. They both had slight wrinkles in the corner of their eyes and Ron had more grey hairs than his red could hide. They were older but not old—simply weathered with time and blurred with age. Harry wanted to cry looking at them.
“I’ll see you guys soon,” he promised, before disappearing.
His apparitions were no longer accompanied by loud cracks of arrival and they hadn’t been since he’d become aware of his role as Master. Since then, he’d simply been able to disappear and reappear at will, silently. He’d always been ridiculously magical, but since becoming Master it became something different, something more.
He didn’t mind giving his wand to Kreacher because he had the elder wand to spare and, mainly, because he no longer needed a wand at all. His magic was more intuitive than ever and more powerful than he could even consider. He didn’t need a portkey to America at all—his silent apparition dropped him into his new home across the globe without so much as a twinge of magical exhaustion.
Ron and Hermione stared at the empty spot where their best friend had just left, and hugged each other tightly, happy that their plan was finally enacted, but sad at the life Harry was going to be forced to live forever. A life of running and hiding and never dying. A life of being so horrendously alone that a night with Death’s company was a blessing.