Work Text:
In the early hours of a dreary Saturday, shouts and curses flew within a castle and on the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Screams and chaos ensues as each side tried their best to conquer the other, to win, to live.
Guts and blood spilling out of the corpses like crushed pomegranates and pulverised peaches haphazardly mixed and carelessly thrown, with sinew and bones exposed to the air and any wandering eyes, where it should have never been seen.
Mingling with cooling bodies, are the warm ones.
Living flayed bodies gurgling with the most horrifying screams a human could make, kept awake and prolonging death simply by the will of a caster.
Children with rapid heartbeats covered in debris, sweat and tears as they try to quieten their sobbing, defecating and relieving themselves in terror while hearing their schoolmates being tortured, being murdered.
War cannot be romanticised when one is living in it.
Or can it?
Students working together, casting shields tandemly, protecting each other, bravely defending themselves and the injured others behind their back, accomplishing an emergency makeshift area to heal the heavily wounded.
Gryffindor student and now Protector of Hogwarts Neville Longbottom casting Bombarda Maxima at a wooden bridge while twenty-five members of a faction known as Death Eaters stood on it, resulting in them falling into a ravine, killing them and as an outcome protecting his fellow students from further harm.
A grey-haired wizard killing a Death Eater by a simple, yet effective Stupefy curse to the heart.
Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall charging against giants nearly five times her size, performing exquisite and complex magic to awaken Suits of Armor to defend their beloved Hogwarts and its students within.
The Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter facing his nemesis, the Dark Lord Voldemort, chief of the Death Eaters. Severely abused as a child, played as a pawn and raised for slaughter; Harry willingly laid down his life because he knew of no other way, as that’s all he has known, other people’s lives are worthier than his own. All he has known was to survive, but now it is time to die.
Crimson eyes.
Jeers.
Green light.
Black, then White.
A place that resembled King’s Cross railway station but bleached and endless. And empty.
He walked along the railway for… minutes? Hours? For what was time when he was dead? Or stuck in limbo, Harry thought to himself.
One eternal moment, it was only Harry in this boundless landscape; the next, he was joined with a cloaked man.
Not a man.
Death, He, It, They introduced themselves.
Harry was proclaimed death’s master, the Master of Death.
He was given a choice.
He could move on to Death’s realm, or he could go back to the Living.
He could meet his parents. He could see Sirius. He could rest finally. It was over.
Or he could go back, to a disastrous world where he was struck as villain, a liar, a saviour, their saviour, a world where all he knew was pain.
But he had also known light. Ron and Hermione. Friendships he had made. Laughter he was allowed to partake in. Happiness.
He went back.
He lived. Tentative hope. Despair. Determined. Harry faced Voldemort once again, and for the last time. He finally defeated him.
He breathed. Calm. Care. Passion. Wonder. Harry helped with rebuilding of Hogwarts, he lived with his best friends, he came across romantic love without fear for the first time, he began a family, he travelled, he experienced what was once denied to him.
He died. Peace. Harry passed away serenely and met Death again.
Why do you always revisit those specific memories?
Harry looked up at Death. From between his cupped hands, a silver cloud spinned gently.
“It’s to remind me what being human means.”
You are not human anymore, you have undergone eras no human being, let alone a being that is considered alive can comprehend.
“I know,” Harry frowned tersely. “I lived through that. You were there.”
Not an infinitesimal second passes, where I am not with you, yes. That is why it perplexes Me why you visit your memories.
Harry looked back at his hands, the silver cloud still spinning. He then let it go and pushed the cloud away from him with his will. Harry and Death watched the cloud go in a seemingly meaningless way until it smoothly settled against a larger red mist.
They both know that it’s in the proper place for they have visited this particular nebula an inestimable number of times. The silver cloud against the red mist circling green shades of dust. The Orion Nebula.
The nebula is formed from Harry’s memories. Just like all nebulae in existence. Along with constellations and other cosmic systems. The Sun itself is just one of the many long-lived and ancient lives. Along with all the other stars.
Death is the vast endless void. Harry fills the emptiness and expands it.
There was always Death. Just like there was always Harry.
“The universe has ended and started six times; and each time I have to rearrange my memories,” Harry huffed angrily, “I know that I can do it with barely a wave of my hand but…” He paused.
Death came closer to Harry and cupped his face, lifting it to face Them. Harry looked into the familiar void that is Death’s eyes.
He leaned against the Eternal being’s hands and closed his eyes. “I just want to breathe,” He admitted quietly.
Harry felt Death place Their forehead on his own and calmed down. Death always knew what to do.
I have a proposition.
Harry opened his eyes and hummed with question.
I can tamper your memories so that you will only need to blink to access them. More than what you are doing. We can then take a vacation.
Harry smiled gently, snaked his arms around Death and held Them.
“Thank you, I think I need this. Where to, this time?”
A world of your own choosing. This time, I shall accompany you in my human form.
Harry grinned in surprise and accepted.