Harry considered the turn his life had taken as he lay on the road bleeding out. After the war, Harry had never gotten back together with Ginny. He didn’t bother with relationships at all, in fact. He spent his time hunting down escaped death eaters and helping Kingsley clean up the ministry from corruption and incompetence.
He never settled. Nothing ever felt right. He could barely work it out in his own head, much less try to explain to any of his friends who asked. He felt unmoored, like there was a purpose to his life and he was missing it. When his thirtieth birthday came and went, he just felt hollow. He tried, he really did, to keep up, be social, have a ‘life’, but everything felt empty and hollow. He assumed it was left over trauma from the war. He had spent his entire childhood in one kind of battle or another. He was either fighting for his place with the Dursleys, fighting against the fame or scorn bestowed on him in the wizarding world, or outright fighting for his life against Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
By now the rest of them were rounded up and the ministry was a more competent, less corrupt body of government. There were no battles left to fight. And he was at a loss. This must be the most anticlimactic death he could have had, hit by a speeding car on his way to the grocers. Boy-Who-Lived, Chosen One, Defeater of the Dark Lord Voldemort, killed by an idiot who was apparently too busy on their phone to pay attention to the road.
Harry ignored the frantic muggles around him and struggled for one last breath before choking on his own blood and simply closing his eyes. He was thirty two years old, and he’d never see thirty three. He had made it longer than he had thought he would when he was still a kid, so he counted it as a win.
“You’re an idiot.” A flat voice said sharply as he felt a smack on the back of his head.
“What? Wait, What?!” Harry jerked forward as he looked around and noticed the white space around him and looked down to see his naked form and immediately thought of a robe to cover himself, sighing in relief as it formed around him.
“I said, ‘You are an idiot.’” The voice said again, and Harry looked around until he saw a dark haired woman scowling at him with her arms crossed.
“Why?” Harry asked, completely bewildered.
“That has to be the most boring way you could have died and you counted it as a win? What kind of angsty thought process is that?” She asked, rolling her eyes as she sat, seemingly in midair, and crossed her legs, annoyance pouring off of her.
Harry had no idea what to say to that. Who even was this person to have opinions on his life and death? What right did she have to come here and berate him for the way he died? What the hell? “Who are you?” He asked aloud.
“Death.” The woman answered in a droll tone. She waved her hand and plucked a file from thin air. It was a thick manilla file with pieces of papers and parchment escaping its confines and a blue sticky note barely hanging onto the front of it. It fluttered off and disappeared before hitting whatever ground they were standing on as she opened it with a flick of her wrist. She barely cast it a glance before looking back to the papers in the file. “It says here you are a Master of Death.”
“Master of… No! I gave up the stone and broke the wand! I’m not—“ Harry said, alarmed.
Death heaved out a sigh and leaned with her arms braced on top of the file balanced on her knee, “You collected the Hallows and Mastered them. It doesn’t matter what you did with them after that. Their power will always be with you.”
“How?” Harry asked harshly.
Death tapped a long black nail against her lips as she thought. “A wand and a stone, you said. Hmm... I remember those. There was a cloak too, yes?” Harry nodded with a confused frown, so she continued, “If you broke the wand, you likely felt a backlash from that. That would have been the power being forcefully shoved into your body. The stone on the other hand, you said you ‘gave up’, does that mean you threw it away, left it in a vault, gave it to a friend?” She questioned.
“I dropped it in a forest.” He said.
Death nodded thoughtfully and flicked through a few pages in the file, “There are a few possibilities. It may have sunk into the earth and just followed you home. The power could have seeped out over time and made its way to you. I can’t be sure without having been there myself, of course. The fact remains, however, that you gained the power of the Hallows.” She shrugged and pulled out another little stack of sticky notes and started writing on one.
Harry sighed heavily and dropped his head into his hands for a moment of utter frustration. He took a deep breath, preparing to face this next hurdle or challenge or whatever the hell this ended up turning into and scrubbed his hands up his face and into his hair, linking them behind his head. “So what does that mean for me? Am I dead or not? What does being the ‘Master of Death’ mean?” He asked, rolling his eyes and laying on the sarcastic air quotes for the supposed title.
Death frowned and flicked a finger at him, hitting him in the side with a stinging hex. Harry yelped as he jumped back, his arms coming down, one hand going to his side to rub the sting away. “Ow.” He complained.
“I said you are ‘A’ Master of Death. There are many who have passed the trials in several different realms. You are not special in that.” She corrected.
Harry sighed in relief at that. “Thank Merlin,” He muttered to himself.
“Anyone who Masters Death, in one way or another, binds themselves to Death. You will serve in my Court. It means that you are not quite dead.” She considered for a moment, then hummed in thought, “Or I suppose you are in your current realm but you will move on to another, the one I favor.”
“The Underworld?” Harry asked with another roll of his eyes.
Death laughed, “No, you silly boy. Nevarah.” She closed the file, ripped off the new sticky note as she gracefully rose to her feet and stepped forward to slap it onto his forehead.
“What the—“ Harry started, alarmed, when he felt a pull from his chest as he was slammed backwards.
Harry screamed in pain as he felt himself free falling into the sudden darkness. It felt like he was falling for ages, and the pain continued ripping through him, before he finally slammed into something hard, flat, and cold. Before he could catch his breath he felt his skin ripple and his muscles twitched. His claws scrabbled along the black marble floor as wings burst out of his back in a spray of blood and tissue. He lay there for a moment panting, trying to regain control of his body, and heard shoes clicking as someone walked towards him.
He tried to look up but could barely move and suddenly someone was bending down and ripping the forgotten sticky note from his forehead.
“A new Master for you, from Earth! Have fun! Love, Death.” A male voice read out before scoffing.
Harry finally managed to catch sight of him as he tossed the sticky note to the side and crouched in front of him. He was pale with black hair and red eyes and reminded him strongly of a vampire at first glance. “My name is Aiden Arythmoor. Welcome to Death’s Court, Submissive.”