Master of Death

King's Cross

He lay facedown, listening to the silence. He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself.

A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to him that he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because he was lying, definitely lying, on some surface. Therefore he had a sense of touch, and the thing against which he lay existed too.

Almost as soon as he had reached this conclusion, Harry became conscious that he was naked. Convinced as he was of his total solitude, this did not concern him, but it did intrigue him slightly. He wondered whether, as he could feel, he would be able to see. In opening them, he discovered that he had eyes.

He lay in a bright mist, though it was not like mist he had ever experienced before. His surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapor; rather the cloudy vapor had not yet formed into surroundings. The floor on which he lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be.

He sat up. His body appeared unscathed. He touched his face. He was not wearing glasses anymore.

Then a noise reached him through the unformed nothingness that surrounded him: the small soft thumpings of something that flapped, flailed, and struggled. It was a pitiful noise, yet also slightly indecent. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was eavesdropping on something furtive, shameful.

For the first time, he wished he were clothed.

Barely had the wish formed in his head than robes appeared a short distance away. He took them and pulled them on. They were soft, clean, and warm. It was extraordinary how they had appeared just like that, the moment he had wanted them....

He stood up, looking around. Was he in some great Room of Requirement? The longer he looked, the more there was to see. A great domed glass roof glittered high above him in sunlight. Perhaps it was a palace. All was hushed and still, except for those odd thumping and whimpering noises coming from somewhere close by in the mist....

Harry turned slowly on the spot, and his surroundings seemed to invent themselves before his eyes. A wide-open space, bright and clean, a hall larger by far than the Great Hall, with that clear domed glass ceiling. It was quite empty. He was the only person there, except for-- He recoiled. He had spotted the thing that was making the noises. It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath.

He was afraid of it. Small and fragile and wounded though it was, he did not want to approach it. Nevertheless he drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment. Soon he stood near enough to touch it, yet he could not bring himself to do it. He felt like a coward. He ought to comfort it, but it repulsed him.

"You cannot help."

He spun around. An ethereal being was walking towards him. They seemed ageless and yet looked to be at the same age as himself. They looked both male and female at the same time, radiating ancient power and beauty beyond his comprehension. They walked towards him in a noble manner, wearing what seems to be expensive midnight black robes seemingly sucking in light and radiating it at the same time, threaded with what seemed to be real gold.

"Harry." They spread their arms wide. "Its nice to meet you, young brave man. Let us walk." 

Stunned, Harry followed them to a bench, feeling the familiar and yet foregin magic radiating from them, reminding him of the deathly hollows.

"You are Death then? Or Thanatos or Hades or even Persphone for some, Hela or Freya, maby Anubis or even Osiris, can it be The Morrigan?" "Oh yes," they said matter-of-factly. "All of them, choose one of them to refer to me, and think quieter, your thoughts are really loud and you should have natural Occlumency, then again I cannot blame you with that parasite, the bloodwards and Dumbledore syphoning most of your magic away or I bet you would be changing forms before me too."

"Then I'm dead."

"Ah, thats a good question. The simple answer is yes but no and no but yes. You are dead yes but not wholly. We are in an in-between place, a place of your imagination. Well not the place itself but how it looks like. Kings Cross, because it represents for you options to choose from where to go, back to life, to the fight. Moving on even if you yourself will never really move on yourself sadly, the problem with becomming immortal I'm afraid. Or you of corse could go back if you choose so." 

Harry looks around in the station, clean as it is contemplating how he of all people would have become immortal. The hollows certainly where an option but he hadn't had owned the Elder Wand and gave up the cloak and stone before taking the killing curse. But after some thought that was actually the only option and thus conclusion. Him came a thought, Snape killed Dumbledore, but Malfoy disarmed him and he himself later disarmed Malfoy in his own manor, thus maby getting the alliance of the wand.

"Yes exactly" he heared Freya, he went with Freya because why not and it made it easier. "Master of death, in your case sometimes mistress too as every metamorph uses gender more as a spectrum to choose from. I think they refer to it as genderfluid. Like how Loki, and even I myself, is sometimes a male, sometimes a female and sometimes neither or even both and many more stages. I currently am nonbinary and use they/them. Then again you should have known it yourself without the manipulations that happened around you. Honestly that Dumbledore man was not good for you."

Harry remembers Freyas comment from earlier about Dumbledore syphoning magic from him but that can't be, he was like the grandfather Harry never had. Unwittingly Harry come instances to mind that he really should attribute to him but somehow always thought nothing of, like how in first year the challanges seemed to be made specifically for him and his friends, how in hindsight Dumbledore must have known where the entrance of the chamber of secrets is, he could have done many things to help Sirius but didn't. There are many things like this which showed him in a darker side.

"You have a choise to make. You have eternaty to make it but I would prefer you to do it in a timely fashion. I will come with you whatever you choose to do. Oh and Master of Death is rather misleading, rather companion or something similar, soulmates so to say, not necessarily romantic no. Actually not romantic at all, I already have a significant other and while I am poly, its for short flings or similar."

"You said earlier I can go back, right? What do you mean exactly with that? Would it be like with a Time Tuner or would you shove me in my younger body?" "All of them are possible, you could choose to go in your body and we could fling it backwards in time. Fancy going to school with the founders teaching you? I can also deage you, fancy going to school with your Parents? Or with Tom? Stopping the mess at the beginning. Or maby you don't want to live in this world at all? So many possibilities. You can even do multiple of these things after another. Then again I would choose something familliar for you first to acclimate you to it. Maby your eleventh birthday, or even your seventh?"

"I can understand my eleventh, but my seventh?" "Well maby you want to plan things, maby you want to already forge alliances. It gives you more time really."

"Okay, my seventh Birthday then. I can right several wrongs and save people from death better if I have the right time to plan."

"Close your eyes, this time I will not actually come as a person your age with you, I will only interfere if you wish me to, springing in as an adult for example. Otherwise I will let you come to therms for this arrangment"