A Conversation with Death, Part One
To die at the hands of someone who had sworn to love and cherish you, was unarguably worse than dying at the hands of an enemy. At least an enemy didn't betray your trust, couldn't betray something they never had. Ten plus years of marriage down the drain, and for what?
Greed?
Not that it truly mattered now.
One would assume walking to ones death would be a debilitating thing, yet to Harry it was as easy as breathing. He had always known he was destined to die young; every moment in life, every breath endured in the Dursley's house, every test put forth by Dumbledore, it was all leading to that moment in the forest. When he came back to help the wixen world defeat a megalomaniac, it was with eyes open to the possibility, probability, that it was the beginning of the end. Harry had always assumed he would go out with a bang, instead, like so many before him, he went out with a whimper.
The night it began, the night in the forest where Harry Potter defeated The Dark Lord Voldemort with an Expelliarmus.
Boy was free for the first time in his life (or so he thought);
Boy wanted family and love so badly he took what was gladly given. (not the first mistake but a fatal one.);
Ginerva Weasley. On the surface, the perfect partner for the boy-who-lived, they looked like James and Lily reincarnated. (why did no one think to question how off that was?);
Thirteen years under Amortentia, and Harry never knew, never suspected a thing. Only in death did he learn the truth.
Ginny never even thought of the possibility of Harry eventually becoming immune to the effects, either. When the impossible happened, she had the bright idea to simply add more. Never knowing she was slowly killing her beloved husband. Until one day his heart gave out in his sleep.
Harry should have known his life was never his, it was forfeit before his birth.
Now here Harry was, in a place not unlike Grimmauld Place, across from a being who looked not unlike himself. If Harry was being honest, it was unnerving to see yourself in another being, and yet, see that he is also nothing like you. No light could hope to escape the dark hole of a person in front of Harry. (was it, he?, even a person?)Like his ancestor before him, Harry did the only thing he could; he sat down and greeted Death as a friend.
"Hello."
"Hello, Beloved. It's nice to finally see you. I was indisposed the last time you were here." Death smiled in a way that told Harry it was not a lie and this being truly wanted to see him.
"Last time?"
"Your time in the makeshift Kings Cross should have been our first meeting, if not for meddling Headmasters." Death's facial expression told Harry that the being was both amused and irritated by this.
"Nonetheless, we have all the time in the world to talk now, and we have a lot to talk about Hadrian."
Harry couldn't help the sharp inhale of breathe before he tasted the name on his lips.
"Hadrian?"
Death smiled placidly. "Yes beloved, your name, the one your mother gave you at birth. One would assume you would like to use it, seeing as how you haven't championed for a name of your own in your current lifetime."
Current lifetime.
For a moment Harry, no Hadrian, felt like he always did, a spectator in his own life. He was done with that heavy all-consuming feeling of thinking you know yourself, only for everything to be turned on its head and finding out you know nothing.
"What do you mean by my current lifetime? Why am I here and not with my family?" Harry couldn't help the way his voice choked on the word family. (Were the people he'd never known family? Was blood truly everything? Although he had loved Padfoot and Moony, he had loved the idea of who they could be to him more than he did them, he never really knew them.)
"I think you know why you're here, even if you don't want to believe it." Death smiled placidly at Hadrian.
It took a moment for him to remember The Tale of the Three Brothers. A long forgotten memory of Hermione's voice reading it aloud in the Lovegood home.
"No, those were fairytales they were never real and I never collected all the Hallows." He denied vehemently.
"You know thats not true, Beloved, every fairytale has an element of truth to it, or we wouldn't be here having this conversation."
"So what you're telling me is that I'm your master?" Harry's tone was heavy with disbelief. It seemed improbable that a being such as Death could truly want, or need, a master.
"In a manner of speaking," Death's smile was indulgent. "You certainly hold the title of Master of Death."
"I don't remember ever collecting the Hallows, what would being your Master even mean." A thread of hysteria could be heard in Hadrian's voice.
"Deep breaths, Beloved, we wouldn't want you to choke while we're still in the beginning." Death chuckled.
"The Three Hallows came to you in such a convoluted way, Beloved, that if it were anyone but you, I would assume it impossible, but you have always defied impossibility. The first Hallow you received on you first Christmas at Hogwarts, a gift I gave my son Ignotus which was then passed from the Peverell's to the Potter's through marriage. It was yours by birthright, how Dumbledore got his paws on it I never checked, but I wouldn't put it past the old goat to have taken it while your parents were under Fidelius."
"..."
"I'm sorry," Hadrian never knew his voice could reach such a high pitch. "Did you just say your son, Ignotus?"
"Did I forget to mention that tidbit?" Death looked sheepish at that.
"Yes, you very much did. The story that's told is the Peverell Brothers cheated you and so you gave them gifts that were also curses."
"Cheated Death?" Harry could easily pick out the thread of disbelief in Death's voice.
"So the story goes." Harry shrugged, he was simply relaying information that he had seen in the wixen world, he could not be beholden to information he did not create.
"We will come back to that, cheated death honestly. Onto the second Hallow, The Stone of Resurrection, it was passed down from Cadmus through the Slytherin line then to the Gaunt Family, where Tom decided it was a lovely idea to turn it into a Horcrux, that boy I swear." Death huffed, a small smile on their face that told Harry he was more amused than anything.
"You're not angry that Tom made Horcruxes?" Harry couldn't help but ask. From what he had known, which was not much to begin with, Horcruxes were unnatural soul magick that never should have been touched, yet here Death was talking about Tom and his Horcruxes with the indulgence of a parent.
"Why would I be angry, Beloved? Everything that lives must eventually die. Whether it is now or in a thousand years, matters little to me; time means nothing. I let the Philosophers Stone exist, I could have easily taken the knowledge of the Stone and Horcruxes from history. I could have gone back and killed the first people to publish the knowledge before they could do so. I am the beginning and the end, you cannot cheat death, you may only postpone the inevitable."
Death's eyes flashed as an opalescent ball of light appeared to hover in his hand.
No. Not a ball of light, a soul.
"Besides, Tom Marvolo Riddle, The Dark Lord, Voldemort was many things but, especially in the beginning, a fool he was not. My poor child was raised during World War Two in a warring country; wanting to live long enough to see your eighteenth birthday is an admirable goal, even if the path he took was less than elegant. With a mind as bright as his, he very well could have changed the future of, not just British Wixen Society but of, the Magical World at large. It's sad when such brilliant minds are lost to us."
Hadrian's mind was racing, If Death themself, the being supposedly cheated by Horcruxes, didn't care why did Wixen?
"You haven't sent him on?" Hadrian couldn't help the question as it burst out of him without his permission, it seemed the only possibility after seeing how easily Death conjured Tom's soul. (A beautiful iridescent soul).
"No, Beloved, I have two souls here in Purgatory which have not made their way on; the three of you are always so intertwined, it's hard to send just one of you on when your souls always yearn to be together." Death said before conjuring up another soul, this one reminded him of aurora borealis, a beautiful swirling light of blues, greens, pinks and purples -- it could only be one person.
"Severus." Hadrian said with no small amount of wonder.
"Yes, Beloved, the three of you always go together or not at all. We're getting sidetracked though." Within an instant Death's hands were devoid of life and Hadrian felt an ache at the loss no matter how temporary.
"The Second Hallow, was given to you by Albus, surprising given how obsessed he was with the Hallows in his youth. No matter, you were presented with the snitch and opened it to find my Stone, which you promptly decided to lose in the Forbidden Forest." Death's stare of disappointment was nothing to scoff at. Hadrian could feel his cheeks coloring and ducked his head.
Death cleared their throat and when Harry looked up, he only saw a small smile on the being's lips.
"The Third Hallow is where it gets all the more convoluted. Antioch my oldest was an arrogant man, I loved him to pieces but I was not ignorant to his flaws. He knew he was a son of Death and that made him believe himself more than he was. The blessing of Life is not mine alone to gift, I may give suggestions but, it is ultimately out of my hands. If Antioch could not find the answer himself, it was not something I could help him with. Thus, my son fell to his own hubris. I never wanted to know who killed him afraid of what I would do. So, the wand traveled from owner to owner and eventually Grindelwald had the Elder wand, if only for a time, and when Dumbledore defeated him, he won the allegiance of said wand. Years later, Draco Malfoy disarmed Dumbledore before failing to kill him, in that moment Draco won the wand's allegiance. Now when you were captured and brought to Malfoy manor, you wrestled away three wands from Draco, and in that moment won the allegiance of the Elder wand. Thus becoming the the Beholder of all three Hallows."
"Does that mean Dumbledore could have been Master of Death since he at one point or another had all three hallows?" Hadrian couldn't help but ask despair swimming in his gut at the possibility.
"No, Beloved. Only a descendant of Death could ever be a Master. In every universe, in any timeline, only my blood holds the potential. Besides, if collecting my Hallows were the only requirement, many before you would have already been my Master. Death chuckled lightly, a sound that seemed to reverberate in Hadrian's very being.
"We'll get to the other requirements later. I know you caught on when I said your current lifetime, Beloved."
"Yes, what does that mean, current lifetime?" Hadrian's mind went through possibilities, but they were disregarded as quickly as they were thought up.
"What it means is that so long as Death shields you, you have options and, Beloved, I will always shield you. I told you, I am the beginning and the end; there will come a day when all that exists will go into the void, nothing will survive. Time means nothing to Death, and neither does the Multiverse, Fate, Destiny, Dream, Mischief or Mayhem."
A feeling welled up in Hadrian that he could only describe as Love for this celestial being, who was apparently family.
"What are my options?"
"The easiest options are to either go back to your timeline, anywhere in your life is possible, though when you were closest to death will be easiest for me to slip your soul in for them to merge; or you can leave. Jump dimensions whether it be to a world without magic, whether you want to be another Hadrian, or a different reincarnated soul entirely. In reality, Beloved, the world is your oyster. You have the freedom of choice and all the time in the world to think about it. Depending on where and why though, it does come with conditions that we would need to discuss before I send you along."
"Is it just me you would be sending along?" Hadrian wasn't sure what exactly made him ask but once the question was out he knew he needed the answer.
A slow smile spread across Death's face, "That depends entirely on you, Beloved, I could send you along alone. I could just as easily let you take Tom, Severus or both. The only caveat there is that they would have to want to go back as well, along with my conditions of course."
"Of course. There is always a price, isn't there Death?" Hadrian knew that everything had a price it was a rule of life.
Death's smile softened, "Yes, Beloved. Thankfully in this realm, the price is not quite as steep as, let's say a Goblins price, and the price will always be to your benefit. I would give nothing less to any of my descendants that Mastered the Hallows."