CHAPTER ONE
Harry Potter was tired. Sick and tired of just about everything. His training to become an Auror, the creeping feeling of unwelcome the longer he stayed in Grimmauld, Ginny and her pestering about their non-relationship… everything.
He had been thinking about leaving Auror training for awhile now, but Ron just seemed so happy there, and he was loath to leave his first and best friend. Besides, what else did Harry have a talent for besides chasing bad guys? Nothing he could think of. So he stayed. For now.
But he didn't really like it anymore. He had fought for too long, and since the fights were no longer personal, he didn't feel forced to act like he used to. Like he had no choice. Not anymore. He was free to stop fighting for his life if he so chose, and the option was becoming more tempting by the day.
Number 12 Grimmauld was freaking him out. The house seemed to actually hate him. The corners seemed to grow darker, and the wood floors louder in its creaking complaints when stepped upon. Portraits of Blacks long dead would pop up on random walls in the mornings (he suspected Kreacher), and he could hear them whisper sibilantly into the darkness at night.
Whether their whispers were to one another, to themselves or simply to freak him out, he didn't know. The hiss their whispers resembled always reminded him of Nagini at the worst of times; right after waking, thrashing, from a nightmare of the large serpent striking Snape's throat over and over and over.
He had begun to hate the house in return, and considered abandoning it, even if it was his final link to Sirius. Yet for now he stayed.
Ginny wanted him to stay with her too. Get back together, start making a family and officially become a Weasley "Just like you always wanted". Harry had to scoff at that. They had both changed, and she wanted to fly for the Harpies anyway, so what sort of settling down would that be? He figured they could either wait, or they both could just move on.
Like everything else, he was getting more and more annoyed with things that he refused to address and it was wearing on him.
So much so that when Harry found himself staring Death in the face that night in a dream, he very nearly rolled his eyes in resignation at what he figured was the loss of his sanity.
Unfortunately for Harry Potter, nothing for him was ever so simple as that.
~o-o~
"Hello, Master," Death mocked in a voice that scratched like nails on a chalkboard and yet was smoother and deeper than the depths of the darkest abyss. Death itself was darkness, and the blinding light at the end of the tunnel. It was ageless, black cloaked and ever changing.
It was genderless, and at the moment, literally without a face: a blank expanse of sallow skin, pulled taut over a skull, so one could see the vague bump of a nose bone, and where there should be a mouth, but it was all covered in papery thin, blue-veined skin, skin, skin.
Shocked, horrified, and confused, Harry simply gaped. He didn't know how he knew he was facing Death, but know he did, and he was starting to worry that he may not actually be dreaming, but had somehow died in his sleep.
Death moved forward slowly in the dark, shifting as It moved, morphing with the creak of brittle bones popping and the snap of young bones breaking into something different, with a face this time, of an old woman with a cruel look, and eyes that refracted light. Death rasped out It's amusement in the crazed laugh of a man who had finally succumbed to madness, which was strange, coming from the face of an old woman.
"You fear for your life, mortal?" Death finally spoke in the voice of a child. "How absurd! If I had come for you in death you would never see me. This is merely a dream and a message for you concerning your new role."
Harry's horror at the rapid changing and confusion towards It's words grew. "U-uh, er, what you said a-about me being your Master earlier- that doesn't actually mean anything, does it?"
"Of course it does, mortal!" The child-like voice coming from an old woman's face continued. "Just not in the way you'd expect. The legend is something I made up in order to tempt mortals into collecting my Hallows. You see, I am so pleased to finally meet you. I've been desperate for some entertainment. I was beginning to worry that no one would ever pick up my three little toys!" A childlike giggle passed the lips of Death's newest face, that of a middle-aged man. "I have to say they certainly stayed apart longer that I thought they would, given the greed you mortals possess."
A shadow passed over Death and grimaced into the face of a tattooed teenager before brightening as though there was never a darkness in It's face to begin with. "I made them so I wouldn't have to pick a mortal at random and hope for something interesting to happen while I observed them."Death chirped out in the voice of a young woman. "I figured that the trials one had to go through in order to bring my Hallows together would require and create a fairly interesting mortal."
Death's eerie light-refracting eyes, that stayed constant on every face Harry had witnessed so far, stared deeply into his own cautious emeralds. Abruptly, there was a blinding lance of pain as Death looked into his mind and SAW. "Oh yes, you will do nicely. It seems you are already quite familiar with me. How perfect," Death smirked in a grin too wide and dark on the face of a now cherubic-like child and then the pain in Harry's head abruptly vanished.
Harry groaned in relief from his spot where he had fallen and slanted a careful glance up through his longish obsidian hair. Death was terrifying, and yet, the words It spoke rang true. Death couldn't possibly have a master, and that was why It had sounded so acerbic as It spoke the word. But to be bored? That made sense to Harry. He had never understood Tom Riddle's obsession, for he himself had always thought living forever would be boring and lonely. So Harry definitely understood that Death would crave some company in It's eternity.
He also knew Death was right about being familiar with It. Death's magic felt like a choking wet blanket and the warm comfort of what could only be a mother's embrace, and Harry had felt it more than once before. Harry had had so many brushes with Death he had an honorary bed in Hogwarts, but Harry had been familiar with Death even before then. Not when he was given his curse scar by Voldemort, although that surely counted as his first brush with Death.
No, Harry meant back in his cupboard, when he had been so sick he couldn't move, aches and wracking coughs shaking his small frame, or when he had been starved as punishment for imagined offenses and he would count his own ribs out of sheer boredom as he wasted away in his little prison cell. Harry was familiar with Death, he always had been. Just not like this. This was overwhelming.
"This is a win-win situation, Potter." Harry gasped and whipped his gaze up from where it had drifted to stare into the familiar sneering face of Severus Snape. "I shall be endlessly entertained by you and the mortal world," Snape's caustic drawl faded as Dumbledore's voice affectionately murmured, "And you will never be alone again."
Harry blinked away tears rapidly at the sudden emotional assault. He hadn't even considered Death using the faces of dead people he knew, that just seemed unfair.
Death morphed back into the faceless, genderless nothing of before. Wheezing a laugh that sounded like the choking burbles of a drowning man, Death turned and everything went black.
~o-o~
Harry practically threw himself awake, hurtling upwards into a sitting position as he gasped for air. His throat closed in horror as violent shivers wracked his spine.
Just what was that? And why did that dream seem so similar to the visions I used to receive from Voldemort? "That was not a normal dream!" Harry railed in terror and rage.
And it hadn't been normal. Harry's dreams usually consisted of the crippling nightmares supplied by his tireless guilt-complex. But not this time. This had been too real, too random and something he hoped that not even his twisted mind would simply conjure up for no reason.
Harry was horrorstruck. Going back over the entire 'dream' again in his head, he began to make various noises of shock, fear and even mild amusement. Of course he shouldn't believe such a thing, how ridiculous could one get? But as he thought again of those strange eyes and the ever changing face and voices, a sense of foreboding grew. It had told him things that he did not know, and had mentioned the Hallows.
Harry hadn't thought of the Hallows very often these past three months after the war. There had been too many funerals and speeches and parties celebrating his victory. Now Harry had been cruelly and horribly reminded of something he had thought was completely over and done with.
And what did Death mean by "you will never be alone again", exactly? That was something he surely wanted, especially because everyone and everything he ever loved seemed to either die or abandon him. But he certainly didn't want Death constantly keeping him company. That would not be so nice. So here he was, at a loss and his day most certainly ruined.
Unable to do anything further about his dream as his stomach grumbled in complaint, Harry shook off the fear and unease as best he could and pulled himself out of bed. No sense brooding. Or cowering. Might as well grab some breakfast.
The stairs creaked louder than the day before as Harry slowly made his way down to the kitchen, avoiding looking at the numerous faces of disproving Blacks and their derisive mocking as he sleepily plodded along. They mocked his blood, his posture, his lack of proper attire, and lack of silencing charms as his 'foul screaming had yet again, woken us all'.
The sconces on the walls now barely illuminated the halls, making it difficult to see, guttering in what seemed to be a hope for his demise in a tumble down the stairs.
It was after this dark and depressing walk down to fetch his breakfast that led to Harry finding Kreacher's stiff and oddly, already rotting corpse laid out on the kitchen floor.
~o-o~
Well? What do you think? Do you like it so far? I wanted more stories of Death and Master of Death!Harry and Harry interacting with death without it being a crossover. My inspiration was the amazing Hyliian and wanting more Death Following Harry Around stories. So I've decided to make one.
Death is coming to visit! I'm still trying to decide if Death will drive Harry crazy or not. I'm not pairing Death and Harry together... Death is just booooored and Harry is a fun toy.