Continuing my effort to get all of the ideas I've had which are already written up looked at and reviewed a bit before being posted elsewhere for consumption, this is the next one in line. This one is a post-Deathly Hallows story, which is... kind of... sort of... epilogue compliant. For a certain value of compliance.
The idea is probably... third place maybe in my Harry Potter fanfic ideas? At least as far as what I want to focus on at this point when writing. Further down overall, since some of the other fandoms I write in have ideas that trump it.
I do like the concept though.
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Harry Potter and the River of Death
Chapter 1
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Albus, Rose, Hugo, and Lily laughed. The train began to move, and Harry walked alongside it, watching his son’s thin face, already ablaze with excitement. Harry kept smiling and waving, even though it was like a little bereavement, watching his son glide away from him. . . .
The last trace of steam evaporated in the autumn air. The train rounded a corner. Harry’s hand was still raised in farewell.
“He’ll be all right,” murmured Ginny.
As Harry looked at her, he lowered his hand absentmindedly and touched the lightning scar on his forehead.
“I know he will.”
The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.
---
"Are you sure?"
Ron's last question echoed in Harry's brain and he grimaced as he held his hands to his temples, the vision fading slowly. Ron and Hermione, both on their knees beside him, looked grim and his best friend asked, "Are we celebrating too soon? Did we miss one? Your scar isn't bleeding, but..."
Releasing his head, which was rapidly improving, Harry shook his head carefully. "No, it wasn't Voldemort, it was... I'm not sure what, really."
"I gave one last look at the wand and, well, I was considering whether I was really right." He paused, looking at it again, almost cautiously, with his eyes narrowed. He remained conscious though and there was no repeat of the odd dream or whatever it was that he had experienced just moments ago. Deliberately, he considered keeping the wand and finding the stone again. Nothing.
Hermione frowned at his expression, then said with no little amount of exasperation, "You just said you'd had enough trouble for a lifetime, Harry James Potter. And you're already reconsidering? What happened, a vision of power or what you could accomplish with the wand? Artifacts like this seem to want to survive and be used if Voldemort's Horcruxes are anything to go by."
He shook his head again, confused. "That's the weird thing. It wasn't anything like that." He paused, trying to arrange his thoughts and recall details of the vision he had just seen. Three children, Ginny, Ron and Hermione and their children-- it all kind of spun around in his head with brief fragments of the previous nineteen years. Next nineteen years? Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was crystal clear, but it almost felt like he had lived the intervening years-- gotten a glimpse of the happiness that he would have.
"It was... it was almost like a glimpse of things to come, with me well, happy, for lack of a better word. I had three kids and you two had a couple and we were sending them off to Hogwarts. It was kind of a happy ever after."
"That's a little bizarre, mate," Ron chimed in. "So it was like, trying to convince you to go ahead with your original decision or something?"
Harry nodded, his mind racing. "Why would the wand want its power to be broken, though?" he asked slowly, turning to look at the portraits again. He clambered to his feet, using Dumbledore's desk to pull himself up and holding the wand in front of himself. The collected assembly of headmasters were surprisingly silent, but he noted that Phineus Nigellus's eyes were on the lower right corner of a bookcase.
Hermione was already watching the portraits as well, though she hadn't risen to her feet. Harry glanced down at her and offered her his hand, since Ron had already stood up. She took it, then said, slowly and deliberately, "What if it wasn't the wand, Harry." Her hand dipped into the beaded bag she had carried around for the past six months and came up very briefly with the Tales of Beedle the Bard. She appeared shaken.
The eyes of most of the portraits seemed to be focused on the headmaster's chair for some reason at this point, and Harry saw one or two routinely disappearing from their portraits, then reappearing. Dumbledore appeared to be frowning at these, though he failed to do or say anything more himself.
Swallowing, Harry reached into his robes and pulled out the Invisibility Cloak. Slipping it over himself, he let out an involuntary gasp and reached back for Hermione, gripping her arm as if it could convince him that he was awake and seeing what had appeared as soon as he let the cloak slip over his head.
A tall figure sat in the Headmaster's chair, a pitch black cloak shrouding its features in shadow that obscured anything within other than a hint of a tiny blue star deep within the depths of the cowl.
"Hermione. Ron. Do you... see that?" he whispered.
His friends glanced over in the direction of his voice apprehensively, then slowly shook their heads. He had been afraid of that.
However, the absolute stillness of the figure was disturbed briefly as the blue eye (or so he assumed) blinked out momentarily, then reappeared and... moved out? Harry blinked as a tiny figure in a cloak stepped out of the cowl, seemingly walking on air.
Clad in an almost identical replica of the outfit out of which it had just walked, the tiny figure appeared to be a small skeleton of a... rat? Twin pinpricks of a cold blue light gleamed within the eye sockets of the creature and it was holding a little scythe in one paw and a piece of cheese in the other.
With great solemnity, for a tiny upright figure of a rat skeleton, it pointed at Harry.
SQUEAK.
The wizard in question blinked. "Umm... Hermione, did you see anyone slip anything into the food in the Great Hall?" This resulted in a frown, then a shake of the head from his friend as she slowly stepped away from the chair the portraits had been pointing at.
SQUEAK. SQUEAK, SQUEAK.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Harry pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes, gave himself to the count of ten and then opened them again. He sighed in relief. The rat skeleton was gone.
"Sorry about that. I usually have less trouble stabilizing."
Whirling around, Harry almost lost his Cloak and did manage to knock over Ron, who protested with a curse that had Hermione hissing his name indignantly. As he stabilized himself, however, Harry found himself staring at a rather good looking woman with pale skin, a tatoo around one eye, rather tight and revealing black clothing, and a silver ankh pendant around her neck.
"Who are you?" he asked, eyes narrowing slightly at the cheerful smile on the woman's face.
Grinning, the woman said, "Come now, you've already figured it out, haven't you? You can say it."
"Death," Harry stated flatly. The word caused the fierce whispers he had been ignoring between Ron and Hermione to stop rather abruptly, the bushy haired girl letting out a little squeak, despite having been the one who had considered the possibility in the first place.
"Bingo." She smiled prettily again, though he realized abruptly that after his little stumble, she was looking perhaps a foot to the right of where he was actually standing. Of course, Hermione and Ron were still openly staring at the chair with their mouths open, so there was that. Still a bit interesting though.
"You're really supposed to be Death? Capital 'D'? Why don't you look like a skeleton anymore?"
This statement caught Hermione's attention again and a cross expression flitted across her face, much like the time he had and Ron had played keep away with a book she had been looking to read for over a week. Also much like that time, just before the two of them came to regret the little game, her face morphed into a determined expression and she darted a hand out at him that caught hold of the Cloak. Harry grabbed at the other side, trying to prevent it from sliding off of him and she scowled. "There is no way I'm missing this, Harry, hold still!"
"Fine! Just be careful." The ginger-haired boy beside him snorted at the behavior of his girlfriend and finished getting to his feet, a bit farther away this time. A moment later, Hermione was under the Cloak and Harry was almost deafened as she let out a shriek at seeing Death.
"It's Death!"
"No kidding? I said that, Hermione."
"No, it's Death! From the Endless! Oh, my god. This is amazing!"
Attention pulled from the presumable incarnation of the most inevitable force in the Universe, Harry eyed his friend oddly. "What on Earth are you on about, Hermione?"
"It's a comic book by Neil Gaimann. It's amazing. She's like my favorite fictional character ever. Except she's not. Fictional that is. I don't believe this, she's exactly like I pictured her, but I never in a million years would have thought she was the actual Death."
This seemed to finally provoke a response from Death herself, who smiled in something approximately the direction of the excited witch. "Maybe he knew something. Or maybe I'm just pulling this from your head as your ideal version of Death," she said after a moment, her smile widening slightly.
"Hah!" Harry poked at Hermione, his own grin widening at the abrupt flush on the witch's cheeks that only he could see. "I didn't even know you read comics. I thought it was all text books, super boring histories, and magical treatises."
Slapping her friend's hand away, Hermione said, "Shush, you, she'd probably be a skeleton Quidditch Keeper or something if it were up to you and Ron. And I'll have you know I had an excellent collection of fantasy novels at home. At least until I started living one, complete with the scary adventures and everything."
"Umm, guys, facing off against a living, breathing Avada Kedavra here," Ron reminded them, which did sober the two a little. "One who is also invisible and inaudible to some of us, thanks a lot." Harry almost missed the last bit, which was muttered under Ron's breath, but he wasn't trying too hard to keep it from him.
"So, uh, it's an honor and all, I guess, but, umm... what are you doing here? Was that vision or whatever from you?" Harry still almost felt like he had jumped back in time, rather than simply had a weird dream of some kind.
Death nodded simply and said, "Something like that. It was on my behalf anyway."
Hermione's breath caught, and she started peering around the room into shadows, but Harry ignored that. He assumed it was something else related to the comic books that she liked.
"A little look at what is to come, should you hold to your convictions. Not such a bad life I think."
Harry nodded slightly, not that she could see that. "It wasn't, but why bother? I mean I wasn't really thinking seriously about keeping them. Is that whole 'Master of Death' thing literal?"
This provoked a slight giggle and she shook her head. "No, no immediate promotion to the boss of me if you happen to collect the Hallows. I'm afraid this is a one woman job and I have awhile to go yet before I can quit or hand over my responsibility to another."
"Then what do you care? What can they do that is so terrible?" Harry was a little curious at this point and wondered if the woman, force, or whatever she was in front of him knew that this was making him more likely to look into the Hallows than less.
"Ah, ah. Not going there. No clues I'm afraid."
"So are you going to try and take them away, then? If they're that bad?" Harry asked, not entirely sure if he'd put up a fight for them or not at this point. He would hate to lose his Invisibility Cloak, but he had already planned to give up the wand and stone, so it wasn't like he would really be losing anything other than that.
Death shrugged and shook her head. "No, not really my place. This was really more of an affirmation, maybe a reward for services rendered even. This life is behind door number one, it's a good life. That's all I was really trying to get across." She smiled again and hopped down off of the hardened air or whatever she had been sitting on. Brushing her hands together as if dusting something off, she appeared ready to vanish.
Harry was about to protest, when she held up a finger. "One more thing-- if you do decide against a simple life, don't use the stone while it is still damaged. I'd rather not come and get you before your time." This confused Harry, because he was fairly certain he had already used the stone without any noticeable ill effects. Other than that slightly disconnected feeling, of course. Already having been determined to die, it was hard to say if that was his state of mind at the time or something else. And if something else what kind of effect would that have on him now when he wanted to live. Was the numbness that had ended with him dropping the stone actually just fear or paralysis in the face of his death as he had assumed?
"Before his time?" Harry started, having forgotten about Hermione at his side. They had done this frequently enough that even with the rather close confines now that they were both adults, her presence brushing up against him was comfortable enough that he scarcely noticed.
Death paused for a moment at the question, her mouth twisting as she tried to find the correct words. "Well, such as it is, anyway. Just a turn of phrase really. I am fairly certain pre-destination is done with Harry at this point. All three of you, in fact. I'm always there if you need me though." This, presumably inside, joke caused her to laugh again, though Hermione also giggled, so perhaps she could explain it later.
Harry blinked as Death turned away and he finally asked, "So that's it?"
"Yep."
"Most anti-climactic confrontation with the ultimate end of everything ever." He shook his head. This entire encounter was just bizarre and, well, not at all what he would have expected out of facing the Death described in the Tale of the Three Brothers that Hermione had read to them. There had to be something he could do to get her to tell him something else about what was going on. Death simply smiled though and turned away. Opening the door, she took a step and he hurriedly reached out, stepping forward to grab her. Hermione's eyes widened beside him and she stepped forward as well, though it looked as if she was grabbing for his arm, rather than Death.
With both of their eyes mostly on Death, it took a moment, however, to realize that they were no longer in Dumbledore's study. Instead, they were standing outside of the castle on a bluff overlooking the Forbidden Forest. Both he and Hermione froze at the sight, then Death took another step and was gone.
Eyes tracking across their surroundings, both Harry and Hermione looked back and saw Hogwarts with the sun just cresting its tallest towers behind them. As Harry pulled off the Cloak with one hand, just barely holding on to it, he met his friend's gaze. They held that tableau for nearly a minute, then she proceeded to rap him on the forehead with her knuckles. Hard. Ouch.
"What were you thinking, Harry? Were you really going to try and hold Death back with your bare hands?"
He grinned, though it was strained. This had been a rough day and he was feeling a touch hysterical again. The 19 odd years of acceptance that had been stuffed between his ears gave him a little perspective that he hadn't had when they headed up to Dumbledore's study though. "Ok, maybe not the best idea I've ever had, I realize. It's not the most dangerous though, you have to admit that."
This didn't have quite the effect he was hoping for, as Hermione burst into tears instead of laughing and grabbed him in a hug so tight that he was having trouble breathing. As he gingerly wrapped his own arms around her, he felt a little like letting some of his grief out himself, but just tightened his arms around Hermione instead.
"I thought you were dead, you know," she finally said, her voice muffled and a bit broken by sniffling as she fought back the last of her tears. She didn't bother to pull away. Instead she simply rubbed her face against his robes, tears and no little amount of snot adding to the grass, dirt, soot, and blood that already made them a lost cause.
"I know. I'm sorry."
They stayed like that for a few minutes, then Hermione finally pulled away, wiping her eyes. Pulling her wand out, she did a better job of cleaning herself up, then did the same for Harry before she pulled herself up. "I've had a thought and I want you to tell me if I'm being foolish."
Harry raised an eyebrow, then said, "Well, I am the expert."
This got an exasperated sigh from the bushy-haired girl, though it did hide a smile. "You know that's not what I meant. Ok, let's start a different way. What is the biggest limit on magic, the rule that absolutely can't be broken?" Her voice had taken on the lecturing tone from fourth and fifth years.
Groping for an answer, Harry finally said, "Uh, the food thing? Gramp's Law of Elemental Something?" It had been awhile since they had gone to class and at this point, Harry frankly wasn't sure he was going to bother going back. He didn't think he had in the vision, though truthfully, most of those memories were of family and friends, rather than training, work, and the like.
"Honestly, Harry, even Ron remembered that." Hermione gave him a wry look. "No, I was thinking more fundamental. Ressurection, actually." She finally added, after Harry had started to look blank again.
He smiled apologetically. "Sorry, it's been a long day or two at this point. Yeah, I do remember that though. You can't bring people back from the dead." He actually remembered asking about that sometime during his first year, after he had run across the Mirror of Erised. McGonagal had ultimately been the one to field the question and while she hadn't gone into details on some of the horrors he would run across later, she had been very firm that it simply was not possible. Not just inadvisable, dangerous, or foolhardy, but could not be done.
Hermione nodded and said, "The thing is though... do you know, for sure, that you weren't actually dead?"
"Well," Harry said slowly, thinking, "Dumbledore definitely said I wasn't, he mentioned me being tethered to life. But he also said that I could move on if I wanted, that it was a choice."
"That's the thing that stood out to me, too. And... while it's probably dangerous, it makes me wonder in light of the experience we just had." She looked over at Hogwarts again, and Harry followed her gaze taking in the smoke still hovering in the sky near the castle, the bodies of the giants and acromantula that had not yet been disposed of, and the courtyard he knew she couldn't see into that held the solemn rows of smaller, white, shrouded bodies.
"Almost everyone has ties to life after they're gone. Perhaps not magical and I'm sure not as strong as those that Voldemort inadvertantly created. Not enough to just let you... return. But what if they're enough to work with? If you have the right tools?" Her gaze turned from Hogwarts to the Cloak that Harry still held in his left hand and the Wand in his right. "Dumbledore said the real strength of the Cloak was the ability to protect and shield others. You can Disillusion another person though or place a Shield in front of them. What if the Cloak and the other tools let you go beyond what normal magic allows though? What if it lets you reach those who can't normally be reached?"
She fell silent at that point and didn't press Harry for an answer, so he took his time thinking. He traced his way back through the things that Dumbledore had said, those he hadn't, and he thought about their recent encounter with a strangely pragmatic and lackadaisical Death. One apparently unconcerned with how her own tools would be used, if she was the one to originally create them as the stories said.
Finally, he said softly, "To the well-organized mind, death is the next great adventure.
"I wondered a little, after Dumbledore told me that and then again earlier today, what would qualify as a well-organized mind? And if you don't have a 'well-organized mind', what is death to you then?" He looked up at Hermione, who was looking curious at where he was heading with this and a little horrified at the latter. "Snape was a horrible teacher, but one of the things he emphasized in our sessions was that I needed to control my emotions, discipline my mind. That sounds a lot like having a 'well-organized mind' to me.
"I don't know about you, but of the people who died today, I only know maybe... three or four, that were probably trained in Occlumency. And at least two of those were Death Eaters."
Turning, he started walking further into the Forbidden Forest, aiming for the former home of the acromantulas, Hermione hurried to catch up after a few moments. Smiling over at her to take some of the solemnity out of the situation, he said, "I for one, think that your questions deserve a little research at least. And we'll definitely need to bring at least Ron in on it. But he probably won't want to be there for this next part."
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Author's Notes (Spoiler Warnings)
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I'm not anticipating writing more of this in the near future, so I'm including some of my notes along with the first chapter that I've written. (If someone wants to play with it, feel free, just give me a heads up so I can read the results.)
The idea is probably... third place maybe in my Harry Potter fanfic ideas? At least as far as what I want to focus on at this point when writing. Further down overall, since some of the other fandoms I write in have ideas that trump it.
I do like the concept though.
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Harry Potter and the River of Death
Chapter 1
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Albus, Rose, Hugo, and Lily laughed. The train began to move, and Harry walked alongside it, watching his son’s thin face, already ablaze with excitement. Harry kept smiling and waving, even though it was like a little bereavement, watching his son glide away from him. . . .
The last trace of steam evaporated in the autumn air. The train rounded a corner. Harry’s hand was still raised in farewell.
“He’ll be all right,” murmured Ginny.
As Harry looked at her, he lowered his hand absentmindedly and touched the lightning scar on his forehead.
“I know he will.”
The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.
---
"Are you sure?"
Ron's last question echoed in Harry's brain and he grimaced as he held his hands to his temples, the vision fading slowly. Ron and Hermione, both on their knees beside him, looked grim and his best friend asked, "Are we celebrating too soon? Did we miss one? Your scar isn't bleeding, but..."
Releasing his head, which was rapidly improving, Harry shook his head carefully. "No, it wasn't Voldemort, it was... I'm not sure what, really."
"I gave one last look at the wand and, well, I was considering whether I was really right." He paused, looking at it again, almost cautiously, with his eyes narrowed. He remained conscious though and there was no repeat of the odd dream or whatever it was that he had experienced just moments ago. Deliberately, he considered keeping the wand and finding the stone again. Nothing.
Hermione frowned at his expression, then said with no little amount of exasperation, "You just said you'd had enough trouble for a lifetime, Harry James Potter. And you're already reconsidering? What happened, a vision of power or what you could accomplish with the wand? Artifacts like this seem to want to survive and be used if Voldemort's Horcruxes are anything to go by."
He shook his head again, confused. "That's the weird thing. It wasn't anything like that." He paused, trying to arrange his thoughts and recall details of the vision he had just seen. Three children, Ginny, Ron and Hermione and their children-- it all kind of spun around in his head with brief fragments of the previous nineteen years. Next nineteen years? Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was crystal clear, but it almost felt like he had lived the intervening years-- gotten a glimpse of the happiness that he would have.
"It was... it was almost like a glimpse of things to come, with me well, happy, for lack of a better word. I had three kids and you two had a couple and we were sending them off to Hogwarts. It was kind of a happy ever after."
"That's a little bizarre, mate," Ron chimed in. "So it was like, trying to convince you to go ahead with your original decision or something?"
Harry nodded, his mind racing. "Why would the wand want its power to be broken, though?" he asked slowly, turning to look at the portraits again. He clambered to his feet, using Dumbledore's desk to pull himself up and holding the wand in front of himself. The collected assembly of headmasters were surprisingly silent, but he noted that Phineus Nigellus's eyes were on the lower right corner of a bookcase.
Hermione was already watching the portraits as well, though she hadn't risen to her feet. Harry glanced down at her and offered her his hand, since Ron had already stood up. She took it, then said, slowly and deliberately, "What if it wasn't the wand, Harry." Her hand dipped into the beaded bag she had carried around for the past six months and came up very briefly with the Tales of Beedle the Bard. She appeared shaken.
The eyes of most of the portraits seemed to be focused on the headmaster's chair for some reason at this point, and Harry saw one or two routinely disappearing from their portraits, then reappearing. Dumbledore appeared to be frowning at these, though he failed to do or say anything more himself.
Swallowing, Harry reached into his robes and pulled out the Invisibility Cloak. Slipping it over himself, he let out an involuntary gasp and reached back for Hermione, gripping her arm as if it could convince him that he was awake and seeing what had appeared as soon as he let the cloak slip over his head.
A tall figure sat in the Headmaster's chair, a pitch black cloak shrouding its features in shadow that obscured anything within other than a hint of a tiny blue star deep within the depths of the cowl.
"Hermione. Ron. Do you... see that?" he whispered.
His friends glanced over in the direction of his voice apprehensively, then slowly shook their heads. He had been afraid of that.
However, the absolute stillness of the figure was disturbed briefly as the blue eye (or so he assumed) blinked out momentarily, then reappeared and... moved out? Harry blinked as a tiny figure in a cloak stepped out of the cowl, seemingly walking on air.
Clad in an almost identical replica of the outfit out of which it had just walked, the tiny figure appeared to be a small skeleton of a... rat? Twin pinpricks of a cold blue light gleamed within the eye sockets of the creature and it was holding a little scythe in one paw and a piece of cheese in the other.
With great solemnity, for a tiny upright figure of a rat skeleton, it pointed at Harry.
SQUEAK.
The wizard in question blinked. "Umm... Hermione, did you see anyone slip anything into the food in the Great Hall?" This resulted in a frown, then a shake of the head from his friend as she slowly stepped away from the chair the portraits had been pointing at.
SQUEAK. SQUEAK, SQUEAK.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Harry pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes, gave himself to the count of ten and then opened them again. He sighed in relief. The rat skeleton was gone.
"Sorry about that. I usually have less trouble stabilizing."
Whirling around, Harry almost lost his Cloak and did manage to knock over Ron, who protested with a curse that had Hermione hissing his name indignantly. As he stabilized himself, however, Harry found himself staring at a rather good looking woman with pale skin, a tatoo around one eye, rather tight and revealing black clothing, and a silver ankh pendant around her neck.
"Who are you?" he asked, eyes narrowing slightly at the cheerful smile on the woman's face.
Grinning, the woman said, "Come now, you've already figured it out, haven't you? You can say it."
"Death," Harry stated flatly. The word caused the fierce whispers he had been ignoring between Ron and Hermione to stop rather abruptly, the bushy haired girl letting out a little squeak, despite having been the one who had considered the possibility in the first place.
"Bingo." She smiled prettily again, though he realized abruptly that after his little stumble, she was looking perhaps a foot to the right of where he was actually standing. Of course, Hermione and Ron were still openly staring at the chair with their mouths open, so there was that. Still a bit interesting though.
"You're really supposed to be Death? Capital 'D'? Why don't you look like a skeleton anymore?"
This statement caught Hermione's attention again and a cross expression flitted across her face, much like the time he had and Ron had played keep away with a book she had been looking to read for over a week. Also much like that time, just before the two of them came to regret the little game, her face morphed into a determined expression and she darted a hand out at him that caught hold of the Cloak. Harry grabbed at the other side, trying to prevent it from sliding off of him and she scowled. "There is no way I'm missing this, Harry, hold still!"
"Fine! Just be careful." The ginger-haired boy beside him snorted at the behavior of his girlfriend and finished getting to his feet, a bit farther away this time. A moment later, Hermione was under the Cloak and Harry was almost deafened as she let out a shriek at seeing Death.
"It's Death!"
"No kidding? I said that, Hermione."
"No, it's Death! From the Endless! Oh, my god. This is amazing!"
Attention pulled from the presumable incarnation of the most inevitable force in the Universe, Harry eyed his friend oddly. "What on Earth are you on about, Hermione?"
"It's a comic book by Neil Gaimann. It's amazing. She's like my favorite fictional character ever. Except she's not. Fictional that is. I don't believe this, she's exactly like I pictured her, but I never in a million years would have thought she was the actual Death."
This seemed to finally provoke a response from Death herself, who smiled in something approximately the direction of the excited witch. "Maybe he knew something. Or maybe I'm just pulling this from your head as your ideal version of Death," she said after a moment, her smile widening slightly.
"Hah!" Harry poked at Hermione, his own grin widening at the abrupt flush on the witch's cheeks that only he could see. "I didn't even know you read comics. I thought it was all text books, super boring histories, and magical treatises."
Slapping her friend's hand away, Hermione said, "Shush, you, she'd probably be a skeleton Quidditch Keeper or something if it were up to you and Ron. And I'll have you know I had an excellent collection of fantasy novels at home. At least until I started living one, complete with the scary adventures and everything."
"Umm, guys, facing off against a living, breathing Avada Kedavra here," Ron reminded them, which did sober the two a little. "One who is also invisible and inaudible to some of us, thanks a lot." Harry almost missed the last bit, which was muttered under Ron's breath, but he wasn't trying too hard to keep it from him.
"So, uh, it's an honor and all, I guess, but, umm... what are you doing here? Was that vision or whatever from you?" Harry still almost felt like he had jumped back in time, rather than simply had a weird dream of some kind.
Death nodded simply and said, "Something like that. It was on my behalf anyway."
Hermione's breath caught, and she started peering around the room into shadows, but Harry ignored that. He assumed it was something else related to the comic books that she liked.
"A little look at what is to come, should you hold to your convictions. Not such a bad life I think."
Harry nodded slightly, not that she could see that. "It wasn't, but why bother? I mean I wasn't really thinking seriously about keeping them. Is that whole 'Master of Death' thing literal?"
This provoked a slight giggle and she shook her head. "No, no immediate promotion to the boss of me if you happen to collect the Hallows. I'm afraid this is a one woman job and I have awhile to go yet before I can quit or hand over my responsibility to another."
"Then what do you care? What can they do that is so terrible?" Harry was a little curious at this point and wondered if the woman, force, or whatever she was in front of him knew that this was making him more likely to look into the Hallows than less.
"Ah, ah. Not going there. No clues I'm afraid."
"So are you going to try and take them away, then? If they're that bad?" Harry asked, not entirely sure if he'd put up a fight for them or not at this point. He would hate to lose his Invisibility Cloak, but he had already planned to give up the wand and stone, so it wasn't like he would really be losing anything other than that.
Death shrugged and shook her head. "No, not really my place. This was really more of an affirmation, maybe a reward for services rendered even. This life is behind door number one, it's a good life. That's all I was really trying to get across." She smiled again and hopped down off of the hardened air or whatever she had been sitting on. Brushing her hands together as if dusting something off, she appeared ready to vanish.
Harry was about to protest, when she held up a finger. "One more thing-- if you do decide against a simple life, don't use the stone while it is still damaged. I'd rather not come and get you before your time." This confused Harry, because he was fairly certain he had already used the stone without any noticeable ill effects. Other than that slightly disconnected feeling, of course. Already having been determined to die, it was hard to say if that was his state of mind at the time or something else. And if something else what kind of effect would that have on him now when he wanted to live. Was the numbness that had ended with him dropping the stone actually just fear or paralysis in the face of his death as he had assumed?
"Before his time?" Harry started, having forgotten about Hermione at his side. They had done this frequently enough that even with the rather close confines now that they were both adults, her presence brushing up against him was comfortable enough that he scarcely noticed.
Death paused for a moment at the question, her mouth twisting as she tried to find the correct words. "Well, such as it is, anyway. Just a turn of phrase really. I am fairly certain pre-destination is done with Harry at this point. All three of you, in fact. I'm always there if you need me though." This, presumably inside, joke caused her to laugh again, though Hermione also giggled, so perhaps she could explain it later.
Harry blinked as Death turned away and he finally asked, "So that's it?"
"Yep."
"Most anti-climactic confrontation with the ultimate end of everything ever." He shook his head. This entire encounter was just bizarre and, well, not at all what he would have expected out of facing the Death described in the Tale of the Three Brothers that Hermione had read to them. There had to be something he could do to get her to tell him something else about what was going on. Death simply smiled though and turned away. Opening the door, she took a step and he hurriedly reached out, stepping forward to grab her. Hermione's eyes widened beside him and she stepped forward as well, though it looked as if she was grabbing for his arm, rather than Death.
With both of their eyes mostly on Death, it took a moment, however, to realize that they were no longer in Dumbledore's study. Instead, they were standing outside of the castle on a bluff overlooking the Forbidden Forest. Both he and Hermione froze at the sight, then Death took another step and was gone.
Eyes tracking across their surroundings, both Harry and Hermione looked back and saw Hogwarts with the sun just cresting its tallest towers behind them. As Harry pulled off the Cloak with one hand, just barely holding on to it, he met his friend's gaze. They held that tableau for nearly a minute, then she proceeded to rap him on the forehead with her knuckles. Hard. Ouch.
"What were you thinking, Harry? Were you really going to try and hold Death back with your bare hands?"
He grinned, though it was strained. This had been a rough day and he was feeling a touch hysterical again. The 19 odd years of acceptance that had been stuffed between his ears gave him a little perspective that he hadn't had when they headed up to Dumbledore's study though. "Ok, maybe not the best idea I've ever had, I realize. It's not the most dangerous though, you have to admit that."
This didn't have quite the effect he was hoping for, as Hermione burst into tears instead of laughing and grabbed him in a hug so tight that he was having trouble breathing. As he gingerly wrapped his own arms around her, he felt a little like letting some of his grief out himself, but just tightened his arms around Hermione instead.
"I thought you were dead, you know," she finally said, her voice muffled and a bit broken by sniffling as she fought back the last of her tears. She didn't bother to pull away. Instead she simply rubbed her face against his robes, tears and no little amount of snot adding to the grass, dirt, soot, and blood that already made them a lost cause.
"I know. I'm sorry."
They stayed like that for a few minutes, then Hermione finally pulled away, wiping her eyes. Pulling her wand out, she did a better job of cleaning herself up, then did the same for Harry before she pulled herself up. "I've had a thought and I want you to tell me if I'm being foolish."
Harry raised an eyebrow, then said, "Well, I am the expert."
This got an exasperated sigh from the bushy-haired girl, though it did hide a smile. "You know that's not what I meant. Ok, let's start a different way. What is the biggest limit on magic, the rule that absolutely can't be broken?" Her voice had taken on the lecturing tone from fourth and fifth years.
Groping for an answer, Harry finally said, "Uh, the food thing? Gramp's Law of Elemental Something?" It had been awhile since they had gone to class and at this point, Harry frankly wasn't sure he was going to bother going back. He didn't think he had in the vision, though truthfully, most of those memories were of family and friends, rather than training, work, and the like.
"Honestly, Harry, even Ron remembered that." Hermione gave him a wry look. "No, I was thinking more fundamental. Ressurection, actually." She finally added, after Harry had started to look blank again.
He smiled apologetically. "Sorry, it's been a long day or two at this point. Yeah, I do remember that though. You can't bring people back from the dead." He actually remembered asking about that sometime during his first year, after he had run across the Mirror of Erised. McGonagal had ultimately been the one to field the question and while she hadn't gone into details on some of the horrors he would run across later, she had been very firm that it simply was not possible. Not just inadvisable, dangerous, or foolhardy, but could not be done.
Hermione nodded and said, "The thing is though... do you know, for sure, that you weren't actually dead?"
"Well," Harry said slowly, thinking, "Dumbledore definitely said I wasn't, he mentioned me being tethered to life. But he also said that I could move on if I wanted, that it was a choice."
"That's the thing that stood out to me, too. And... while it's probably dangerous, it makes me wonder in light of the experience we just had." She looked over at Hogwarts again, and Harry followed her gaze taking in the smoke still hovering in the sky near the castle, the bodies of the giants and acromantula that had not yet been disposed of, and the courtyard he knew she couldn't see into that held the solemn rows of smaller, white, shrouded bodies.
"Almost everyone has ties to life after they're gone. Perhaps not magical and I'm sure not as strong as those that Voldemort inadvertantly created. Not enough to just let you... return. But what if they're enough to work with? If you have the right tools?" Her gaze turned from Hogwarts to the Cloak that Harry still held in his left hand and the Wand in his right. "Dumbledore said the real strength of the Cloak was the ability to protect and shield others. You can Disillusion another person though or place a Shield in front of them. What if the Cloak and the other tools let you go beyond what normal magic allows though? What if it lets you reach those who can't normally be reached?"
She fell silent at that point and didn't press Harry for an answer, so he took his time thinking. He traced his way back through the things that Dumbledore had said, those he hadn't, and he thought about their recent encounter with a strangely pragmatic and lackadaisical Death. One apparently unconcerned with how her own tools would be used, if she was the one to originally create them as the stories said.
Finally, he said softly, "To the well-organized mind, death is the next great adventure.
"I wondered a little, after Dumbledore told me that and then again earlier today, what would qualify as a well-organized mind? And if you don't have a 'well-organized mind', what is death to you then?" He looked up at Hermione, who was looking curious at where he was heading with this and a little horrified at the latter. "Snape was a horrible teacher, but one of the things he emphasized in our sessions was that I needed to control my emotions, discipline my mind. That sounds a lot like having a 'well-organized mind' to me.
"I don't know about you, but of the people who died today, I only know maybe... three or four, that were probably trained in Occlumency. And at least two of those were Death Eaters."
Turning, he started walking further into the Forbidden Forest, aiming for the former home of the acromantulas, Hermione hurried to catch up after a few moments. Smiling over at her to take some of the solemnity out of the situation, he said, "I for one, think that your questions deserve a little research at least. And we'll definitely need to bring at least Ron in on it. But he probably won't want to be there for this next part."
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Author's Notes (Spoiler Warnings)
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I'm not anticipating writing more of this in the near future, so I'm including some of my notes along with the first chapter that I've written. (If someone wants to play with it, feel free, just give me a heads up so I can read the results.)
So ultimately, I'm seeing this as kind of a crossover between Harry Potter and Odysseus. Obviously, the epilogue in Deathly Hallows was actually a vision sent by Death of what Harry's life could be like if he ignores the Hallows. Harry decides to use them anyway-- ends up essentially gaining the ability to cross the River Styx except the Hallows have the ability to bring someone back with him. I see each of the Hallows having a different function, with the overall goal being "let's resurrect people" and the story as a whole would probably have three major arcs. Exploring the Hallows and figuring out exactly what they do would be the first part of the story.
The second phase of this fic would then be utilizing the Hallows-- probably on a scale that they has never been seen before, because Harry isn't going to stop with his immediate friends and family. He will start there and those will probably be the only ones that are actually written up in the story rather than summarized. At it's root, this would be about recovering people who haven't moved on and searching out those who are reincarnating before they go too far. Order would probably end up being dependent on strength of mind, attachment to material world (parents), and other factors.
The third part of the fic would probably overlap a bit with the latter parts of the second, because there have to be some consequences to bringing that many people back from the dead. And here I am talking less about potential magical consequences and more implications of what actual resurrection being available means for the Wizarding World in moral, political, legal, and other terms. Haven't really delved into this much, but I suspect there's a lot to play around with here.
- Elder Wand: My thoughts on this are that the spell for creating Inferius is a bastardized version of a spell that can preserve corpses indefinitely and make them eligible for healing which can only be used with the wand. Healing magic is ideally done with the Elder Wand, but it isn't necessary.
- Body (Inferius Spell; Healing) - Ressurection Stone: Allows one to actually brew memories when used as a focus in a potion. Used to allow magic to affect the soul, used in conjunction with the Elder Wand to unite body and soul while the Cloak of Invisibility is used to hide the action from Death.
- Mind (Potions of the Mind; Amortentia, Memory Potion, and others) - Cloak of Invisibility: True use is to allow you to see and follow Death across the River Styx without being found, as well as hide up to two additional souls after crossing-- though this becomes somewhat risky. (Doorway in the Ministry is another method, but it lets out in the river Lethe, which is why no one ever returns. They typically wander across into Hades-- makes rescuing Sirius difficult. The soul is largely where the personality resides; restoring body and mind can get you part of the way there, but without personality you're missing something essential)
- Soul (physical retrieval)
The second phase of this fic would then be utilizing the Hallows-- probably on a scale that they has never been seen before, because Harry isn't going to stop with his immediate friends and family. He will start there and those will probably be the only ones that are actually written up in the story rather than summarized. At it's root, this would be about recovering people who haven't moved on and searching out those who are reincarnating before they go too far. Order would probably end up being dependent on strength of mind, attachment to material world (parents), and other factors.
The third part of the fic would probably overlap a bit with the latter parts of the second, because there have to be some consequences to bringing that many people back from the dead. And here I am talking less about potential magical consequences and more implications of what actual resurrection being available means for the Wizarding World in moral, political, legal, and other terms. Haven't really delved into this much, but I suspect there's a lot to play around with here.
