Chapter 1
Everyone in the clearing waits a moment to be sure Hari bloody Potter won't pull some new miracle out from thin air after letting herself get hit with an AK in the chest and collapsing instantly. After a moment when nothing happens, though, Voldemort lets out a victorious cackle and turns around to his followers and Nagini, saying "At last-" And then he's cut off by a dark green glow starting from behind him. He whirls around, another Killing Curse already shooting from his wand at…the gate that appeared.
A woman with long, black hair in a green and black outfit steps through just in time to get AK'd in the chest by that Curse, only to say "Well, that wasn't very nice. Unless you meant to tickle me, I suppose." She surveys the clearing, wrinkling her nose in disgust at…well, at everything apparently, and says "Well, I think its pretty clear none of you are the ones that freed me from Odin's imprisonment spell. And yet," she locks her gaze onto Voldemort, specifically at the wand still pointed at her, "you have the wand I created. Interesting." She looks around again, her eyes finally landing on the very dead Hari Potter, and she mutters "You've got to be kidding. When I made it so they would only choose someone who could accept and understand me…I didn't mean dying." The Stars just love to mess with her, don't they? At least she has a few options for dealing with this particular setback, as opposed to before Odin imprisoned her.
Voldemort, finally having reached his limit of patience with the situation, demands "Who are you?"
She looks back at him, and says "Oh, didn't I introduce myself? The name's Hela Odinsdottir, the Norse Goddess of Death. And I'm going to assume that you’re the one that killed the girl that was just chosen to be my eternal companion." How she wishes she could change that wording, but that's the way her desperate, lonely younger self worked the magic all those millennia ago. She has her Soulmate now, doesn't need an eternal 'companion' anymore - but, still, that's what she's got now. Before anyone can even blink, she throws an arm out towards Voldemort…and he's impaled by several black swords that appear from her hands. Promptly followed by Bellatrix, who lets out a screech of fury that Hela responds to almost dismissively. She then raises an eyebrow even as she plucks the wand from Voldemort's dying grasp, and asks "Anyone else?"
Most all the Death Eaters either run, Apparate, or surrender. They've read the stories about the Norse Goddess of Death, and they are bloody.
Hela hums, then turns back to the three bodies left. "Bellatrix Lestrange, born Bellatrix Black. Well, at least your soul isn't much of a hassle. You, on the other hand, Tom Marvolo Riddle, are absolutely going to be a headache and a half for the foreseeable future." They'll have to track down all the pieces of his soul first, basically stitch him back together with some rituals, and it's only then that they can deal with him. And just tracking down all the pieces could take a while, even with Anubis, Thanatos, and all the other right hands on it.
Voldemort weakly lifts his head, catching Hela's attention as he coughs up blood, and asks "Why are you..."
"Here personally? Simple. Her."
Voldemort groans, losing any and all strength to lift his head as the Norse Goddess of Death points at his years-long enemy he's been trying to kill for so long. Of course. Figures Hari bloody Potter would somehow summon a Death Goddess when she died. The last thing he sees is his dead enemy's peaceful expression, as if she's no idea what her death just caused. And then he doesn't see anything else, since Hela just decapitated him.
And then, after killing Nagini as well for that soul piece, Hela gathers Hari up in her arms and mutters "Mortals. All the maturity of toddlers, the lot of them." Bar her new companion, who's apparently got the maturity of a small child rather than a toddler.
Odin and Frigga are just entering the royal wing of the palace with their sons when a wave of bone-chilling cold washes over all of them...followed by a dark green light. Odin quickly levels his spear at the emerging figure, while Frigga pulls Thor and Loki behind her and draws a sword and gets a spell ready on her lips, only for the darkened figure to easily sidestep the deadly beam. The portal or gate closes, revealing a woman in a black and green outfit with black hair down to her back, light blue eyes...and an unconscious blood-red-haired child propped up on one arm. She sneers for a moment, then says "Well, I suppose that's one way to give a warm welcome."
Thor asks "Father, who is she?"
Odin growls "She was banished long ago. Never to return to Asgard, Hela."
Hela deadpans "You used me as a weapon to slaughter your way through the Nine Realms in your conquest of them, then tossed me aside like a broken weapon when you had no more use for me." Rather, when he couldn't control her. "Excuse me for desiring battle when I was raised and trained to be your weapon of mass destruction and genocide across the Nine Realms."
Frigga icily asks "What?! You told me she died in the war!"
Hela nonchalantly says "Oh, this must be your new love. What was her name...Frigga? Nice to finally meet you, I suppose. And, oh look at that. I've got brothers, lovely." Odin moved on and had a family, she knew that much - whether or not this Frigga is his Soulmate, she doesn't know. Hasn't had a chance to meet her half-brothers before now, though, seeing as her way out of Odin's Banishment spell didn't appear until just recently.
Thor blinks, asking "Brothers?!"
Hela gives a small curtsy, and says "Hela Odinsdottir, his firstborn child, only daughter, and living weapon he trained to be a ruthless killer and deadly assassin since she could walk."
Loki breaks the sudden tension by asking "So...who's she?"
Hela smirks, asking "Smart one, aren't you? She's been adopted by a little project of mine. Unfortunately, she's a short seventeen years old. And was recently mortal. Ergo, that means she still needs someone to raise her, despite whatever she might say otherwise."
The red-head suddenly groans, taking everyone's attention when she slurs "Oh m'ed, wh'pp'nd?"
Hela says "We de-aged you, gave you a Heritage Potion that turned you into an Asgardian that I had a Potion Master brew as a punishment for something or other, and brought you here. Asgardians tend to be much sturdier than Midgardians, and Osiris didn't want you breaking yourself so easily again." And, incidentally, it triggered an ability the Black Family can somehow replicate - they call it Metamorph Magic, the ability to change their body at will. Asgardians simply call it shapeshifting, and all it takes for them is years of practice and study.
Odin angrily asks "Why bring her here?" Call him paranoid, but he's wary about this mysterious girl that his long-banished daughter just up and appeared with.
Hela gives him an annoyed glare, and says "Do tell me where else I could take an immortal girl. She's not going to die, dammit, so she needs somewhere she won't be hunted down every century or so. And, incidentally, she needs a family, even if she won't admit as much." Hades must be rubbing off on her far too much, if she really just said that - she used to be of a similar mindset, that she could do everything on her own. Finding her Soulmate certainly helped, her Soulmate not condemning her for the sheer number of people she's killed one way or another helped even more.
The mystery girl groans, and slurs out "Don' 'eed a f'mly. M'de 't th's far 'n m'wn."
Hela rolls her eyes, and says "Yeah, right. You only say that because your so-called family hated you just for breathing."
Frigga sucks in a sharp breath, asking "What?" Hela thinks, right from that, that she might actually like this woman - even Odin jumped at that tone of voice, that's apparently her 'don't argue with me, this is happening' voice.
Hela nods, and says "She's a Midgardian Witch, or was anyway. Orphaned at fifteen months old, young even for the mortals, by one Tom Marvolo Riddle. Her mother put up some kind of protection even I'm not familiar with, however, and so she lived through a Killing Curse and came out of the experience with this." She pushes the blood-red bangs off Hari's forehead, revealing the shining silvery scar for a moment before Hari pushes weakly at her hand in annoyance. And slurs out something about 'even when I'm dead, people can't stop staring at the bloody scar.' "There was something else in there, but that's not relevant any longer as its gone." She's not giving Odin any more details than necessary, call it daddy-issues.
Frigga takes Hari from Hela, despite the exhausted girl's tired protests, and asks "What was in there? Some curse residue?" She'll have to take this girl to Eir, get her scanned - she's so small, for one, small and light. Though, that could very well be because she used to be a mortal - less dense than Asgardians, they're lighter and less strong, and her body may well need time to adjust to being Asgardian now.
Hela grimaces, and says "You wish. A bit of Riddle's soul."
Frigga and Odin both gasp, and Loki asks "His soul?!" Even he knows the dangers of messing with one's soul, and he's not even 200.
Hela laughs humorlessly, and says "It gets better and better. Riddle split his soul multiple times. The piece in her scar here was just one of the smallest pieces. We have to go hunt down the rest and piece him back together before we can do anything with him. And hope nothing else happens in the meantime."
Loki curiously asks "We? As in…others that help you?"
Hela waves her hand back and forth, saying "Something like that. I'm the Norse Goddess of Death, but that doesn't mean I'm the only Goddess of Death. Hades, Pluto, Osiris…I work with them all. They were thrilled when suddenly we were all alerted that my little experiment back before I was imprisoned in the underworld was a success. Saves us from worrying that we might've missed any souls, and hopefully she can help us find the ones that tear themselves apart."
Loki incredulously asks "People do that to themselves?! On purpose?!" One of the first things he was taught was the dangers of Soul Magic, how trying to mess with your soul had the very real possibility of destroying you entirely one way or another. From tearing your soul to shreds to destroying your sanity, there are always consequences to Soul Magic.
Hela nods, saying "Every once in a while, we find a soul that tried Herpo the Foul's little experiment. Though, I can't say any of the others have gone so far their soul becomes as unstable as Riddle's."
Frigga demands "What did he do?!"
"Split his soul so many times it just about fell apart when I took it to the underworld. About…I'd say eight or nine now, its hard to tell with such a tiny fragment to start with. Even if we did get the piece from Hari's head. But, yeah, he's going to be an absolute nightmare to deal with." Hela turns to leave, then glances back and says "Oh, and Odin?" When she's sure Odin's listening, she says "If you use her like you used me, you hurt so much as one hair on her head, and I can promise you your time in the underworld before you're reborn will not be a pleasant one. And, considering time is more of an afterthought than a linear flow down there, we can draw it out almost indefinitely. Get it?"
Kali, her best friend, is all too eager to have a little chat with Odin after what she finally cracked and told them all about how and why she ended up in the Underworld. Hades ended up being her Soulmate, so there's that at least. Odin unknowingly gave her what she so craved by Banishing her from Asgard forever.
Odin glares, but nods his head.
"Good. Well, I'm off to work again. It waits for nobody, and all. Have whoever's the new head Healer take a long look at her, no matter what she says or does to try and convince you otherwise. Osiris may be our resident doctor, but he's not used to dealing with bodies, just souls. And keep her off Midgard, at least some small little island there called Britain, for the 1900's. I can go back and forth in time, but changing it wouldn't be good." And then she's off, leaving everyone staring in confusion and uncertainty at the mostly-asleep girl in Frigga's arms.
She does enlist Hecate's help to slip another Heritage Potion into Loki's drink, though - knowing the future and being able to change it is dangerous…but Loki being half-Asgardian won't destroy the timeline or anything.
If anyone's wondering, this is what Hari's eventually going to look like.