The Three Lessons
June 27th 2169
The Afterlife, Limbo
"I don't understand, Neville said that... Why would a Primordial Being even want a Master?" Harry demanded, and Death's face didn't change, but Harry felt an imperceptible chill wash over him, and Harry was certain that if he currently had a body, it would have dropped dead.
Right. Maybe don't sass the Primordial Being who could reduce entire universes to atoms...
"Is that what you were hoping for? Master?" Death's tone dropped, and Harry instinctively took a step back at the agitation that vibrated in the Being's voice.
"No! I never even wanted the Wand or the Stone, they just kept coming back" Harry stressed, and Death's lips quirked in amusement, and the hostility melted away.
"I know. I found it quite amusing" Death's eyes sparked like supernovas, and Harry's throat tightened.
"What do you want from me?" Harry asked tiredly, and Death studied him carefully, and Harry felt the Being's awareness brushing over his essence, and knew that nothing could be hidden from this person shaped Being in front of him. Every mistake. Every regret. Every heartbreak. Every thought, every memory, hope or dream... It was all laid bare.
"Your friend was partially right, the Hallows were a Trial, but no trickster god would have dared imitate me," a dark smile peeked through, sending chills down Harry's nonexistent spine "after all, even gods die, and as you know... There is no hiding from Death" Death purred, and Harry's mind spun.
"Unless you have Death's invisibility cloak... But Ignotus didn't try, so why not him?" Harry asked, and Death shook his head.
"Because he didn't understand the lessons that his brothers failed to learn" Death explained, and Harry thought about the story of the Elder Wand and Resurrection Stone.
"The cloak teaches that Death is inevitable, the Stone teaches that the Dead and Living can't coexist, and the Wand... that power corrupts?" Harry mused, and Death watched him carefully.
"Close enough" Death waved a hand and their surroundings blurred, and suddenly the two of them were standing on a riverbank, three figures stood on one side, and a shadowy figure of Death watched them from the other side.
”I’ve offered my Trials to hundreds of worlds, and none before you have passed. A few have mastered one or even two of my Hallows, but never all three” Death explained as then watched as the three wizards created a bridge.
“Why even have the Trials? What are you looking for?” Harry asked, his eyes on the scene in front of him as the youngest brother, Harry’s own ancestor, fell from the bridge into the water. The other brothers quickly pulled him out, and laid him on the ground on the other side.
Harry could sense that the brother was dead, but the two other figures didn’t panic, simply raising their wands, unfamiliar words spilling from their mouths, and then the youngest brother gasped, opening his eyes.
”Did they’d actually cheat Death? Or were you just waiting for an opportunity to introduce your Trial?” Harry asked, and Death’s lips quirked.
“Death is inevitable, but only Fate decides when Death will come. I was always going to collect Ignotus Prevelle, whether at this moment, or 59 years from now. It matters little to me, though I will admit that collecting some souls is more... satisfying than others... I particularly enjoyed collecting Tom Marvolo Riddle and Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore-both individuals who thought to Master me, but failed to understand even one of my Lessons" Death scoffed, and Harry blinked as he registered that.
"I'm the last person to stand up for Dumbledore, but he did technically sacrifice himself, wouldn't that count as understanding the cloaks lesson?" Harry asked, and Death's face soured.
"Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore did not 'sacrifice' himself because he understood that Death is inevitable, and Change is apart of the natural order. It was his pride and self righteousness that couldn't abide the 'Great Albus Dumbledore' going out without a fight. He wanted his death to mean something, and couldn't stand the thought of any part of his life being meaningless" Death scorned, and Harry didn't disagree with him.
Dumbledore had always gripped to the dead so tightly, and expected everyone else to hold the same reverence for their lost family members.
Harry had mourned his parents over countless nights nursing cuts and bruises from his Cupboard, and by the time he came to Hogwarts, it wasn't so much them that he missed, but the opportunity for a better life. A happy and safe childhood, where he grew up with two loving parents, maybe even a couple of younger siblings, surrounded by love and warmth and comfort and safety. A life where there would be no Cupboard under the Stairs, food being pushed through a cat door, bars on his windows, and Professors trying to kill him. No Dark Lords, basilisks, illegally incarcerated godfathers, triwizard championships, or political smear campaigns.
He had mourned Sirius more than he'd truly mourned his parents, and he still didn't know Sirius as well as he'd hoped. He knew that Sirius had loved him, that he would kill and die for Harry, and Harry had loved him back, but it was the loss of another potential-life that he'd truly mourned.
Dumbledore had centered his life around Arianna's death, and he never moved on, he'd been so consumed with being 'reunited' with Arianna, that he'd put that cursed ring on, and he'd died for it. It might not have been the Curse that did him in, but Death was right when he said Dumbledore was too proud to go out quietly. If he hadn't already been dying, he never would have 'sacrificed' himself to further Snape's position.
"So, what was the point? You've obviously been searching for someone pretty specific, so what do you want now that you've found him?" Harry asked tiredly, and Death watched him silently.
"No one can live forever, not even Death" Death admitted, and ice stabbed through his heart.
"You want a successor" Harry whispered, horrified, thoughts of Teddy, suddenly an orphan, of Luna and Neville without his protection or even answers of what happened, echoed in his head and his heart raced as Death gave him a grim smile.
"Yes, but calm yourself, I won't be taking you quite yet" Death smirked, and Harry's heart slowly calmed, and he was able to think more rationally.
"... This has something to do with these 'quirks'... My connection to the Hallows, it must have... opened the door? But I'm not actually dead, so I can't become your Successor yet..." Harry thought aloud, and Death's eyes sparked in amusement.
"Correct. You were never supposed to unlock the true power of the Hallows until your final Death, but this worlds magic is a persistent little bastard, and pushed and pushed until it formed the connections necessary" Death grimaced, and Harry took a careful look around them, noticing the greyscale environment, the persistent chill, and the feeling of Other that echoed like a scream in a empty cavern.
"This is limbo" Harry realized, and Death's eyebrow quirked up at him, looking reluctantly impressed.
"That is one of the names that humans have given this place," Death looked around them with undisguised contempt, "miserable little place, isn't it?" Death asked, and Harry nodded absently.
"It feels... Wrong" Harry admitted, and Death's face lit up with delight.
"Yes, yes it does" Death hummed pleasantly, and Harry looked down at his hands, where he finally noticed that the new ring that the Hallows had made was gone. Harry hadn't even registered that he'd been wearing it this past week, but seeing it gone reminded him of its existence like shoving the last piece of a puzzle into place.
"What will my power be?" Harry asked, and Death held up three fingers.
"My Hallows represented the 3 core ideals of my essence, and the Lessons that one needed to learn to Master them. The Cloak’s closest English translation means MovementInto Death. The Ring represents Soul, and the Wand represents Power” Death explained, and Harry sighed, a heavy weight seeming to press on him.
Movement, Soul, and Power could translate into the sort of quirk that would cause him untold problems with this worlds government…
“What does that mean for me?” Harry asked, and Death tilted his head as he looked at him.
”You are still mortal, quirk or not, so you won’t be able to access your full power. But the Cloak gives you the ability to enter limbo, walk the realms of the Dead as if you were one of them, travel through shadows and the invisibility, intangibility and invulnerability that you enjoyed through the use of the cloak. It also grants you some passive powers, such as speaking every language" Death explained, and Harry’s eyes widened.
-all that from just one of the Hallows, and the most passive one at that, what would Soul and Power be capable of-
“Souls are the binding of matter, without which matter begins to unravel, and True Death is experienced. Everything has a soul, not just humans and animals, but the lakes, mountains, hills, forests and oceans all have their own essence. The Ring allows you to sense and influence souls, allowing you to impose your will upon them, track a soul you’re familiar with, alter it, eject it from its vessel or even destroy it. Changing a soul could have serious and permanent effects on a persons personality, memories, magic, and vessel, or simply destroying a soul will simply erase that being from existence, as if they had never been" Death explained, and Harry's face felt cold.
The thought of either Voldemort or Dumbledore with that kind of power...
"Like what Luna can do only... permanent" Harry murmured, remember the unsettled look on Luna's face when she explained that her astral creatures could make people obey a command, give them horrific nightmares, forget something, or cause indescribable pain. But most of these effects ended when Luna called the creatures off, astral creatures were innumerable, and needed neither rest nor food, so she could leave them in place for years if necessary, but the effects were essentially temporary.
"Yes, the Others that Luna Lovegood can command can influence souls, but you can affect them directly" Death explained, and Harry absorbed that.
"And the Wand?" Harry asked, afraid to ask, but needing to know.
"The Wand gives you heightened power: physical, mental, magical and spiritual, it enhances every aspect of yourself. A side effect of this is the ability to sense magic, similar to what you can do know, but infinitely stronger. I suspect you will be invaluable in teaching the people of this world how to use their little abilities, if you so choose" Death explained, and Harry blinked in surprise.
After what the Stone was capable of... Harry had expected that the most powerful weapon in existence would be more than a simply power boost...
Reading what Harry was thinking, Death's lips twisted in a smirk, he raised his foot, and stomped, the bastard hardly used any effect, but the effect was instantaneous. The world shook as the planet cracked open like an egg, unearthly screams shattered his eardrums as billions-no trillions-no more- of lights were snuffed out in seconds.
Suddenly, Harry found himself stumbling and falling to his hands and knees back in the alley, Death standing over him, arms casually linked behind his back, as relaxed as anything, as if he hadn't just utilized unimagined power with barely a drop of effort.
"Time is immaterial in Death, Darling, I could have done that to your world before your kind had even taken form, when humans were nothing more than bacteria struggling to survive in a cesspool of predators, and no one would know" Death admitted casually, and Harry shuddered.
"Can I do that?" Harry stumbled to his feet, his heart pounding, and Death smiled at him as if he'd done something cute.
"Not yet, you're still mortal after all" Death acknowledged, and Harry left lightheaded.
"Oh. Fun" Harry wheezed, and Death rolled his eyes, and conjured a chair behind Harry, gently pushing him to sit, and waited somewhat patiently as Harry pulled his brain back together.
"Are you finished?" Death asked, and Harry met his eyes, seeing entire star systems being created and dying within the Beings impossibly dark eyes, and felt true fear for the first time since he'd been in the other Beings presence.
"How do I learn control without doing... That" Harry grimaced, and Death's lips twitched, and he reached across the distance between them, and flicked Harry between the eyebrows.
Pain split Harry open, and he was frozen, unable to even scream as new pathways opened within his mind, knowledge sliding into place, memories of a life he hadn't lived burning itself into his retinas, and Harry suddenly found himself on his back in the physical world.
Pain wracked his body, and Luna crouched beside him, her face impossibly pale as she gripped his shoulders, her lips moving, but no words reached Harry's ears, until suddenly color, sound and sensation slammed into him, and Luna held him through the spasms, her grip leaving bloodless white fingermarks on his skin.
"Its okay" Luna soothed him, her fingers combed through his hair soothingly once he stopped seizing, and when Harry choked on a sob, her arms tightening protectively around him, her face buried in his hair, their foreheads pressed together, hers warm and his ice cold.
The two of them sat like that for who knew how long, until finally Harry was able to force himself to sit up, his grip on Luna's hands didn't soften, his chest and throat tight with grief, "I need to hold my son" Harry choked out, and Luna nodded, and together, they made their way out of the alley.