AN: Hello and good day. This fic will be on the darker side of things. It will have a little humor, but don't get your hopes up. Oh, and keep in mind that everything has two sides. I apologize if anything gets too philosophical for your tastes; I tried keeping that stuff to a minimum.

enjoy!

"Life leads to death, and death begets life. It is a never-ending cycle; as long as life exists, death stands immortal. As long as there is creation, there may be destruction. Even gods die, even beliefs die, so long as there exists inkling of thought; of probability. Death is eternalized in the soul of every man, every earth, and every infinity. It is a part of everything.

"It is your soul which has intertwined itself with death. It is a soul of damnation, one black and white, chaotic, which shows your affiliation with both life and death. How? It is not what I know. All who have harbored a hollow have faced oblivion, for that is what they were meant for. The wicked give immortals toys to play with. Fate has put down the strings of your life, and laughed all the way until her untimely demise. With your death, her essence ceased existence. Your bitterness ended her."

"But… how? How did I kill a god? I'm dead. I can't do anything." Harry looked at the deity in front of him. A dreary red river flowed silently and stagnantly, winding over the desolate sands and dunes of dust, the deity motionless on top of the river.

"Tell me, Harry: How does it feel to have killed a god? Does it make you feel powerful? Does it make you feel mightier?" the thing whispered monotonously from beneath its black shroud, face pitched in shadow. Its eyes—what Harry assumed were eyes—glimmered a brilliant white. Shadows bathed the humanoid being like a cloak, making the deity appear as if an ink blotch on a paper.

"I didn't do anything!" Harry yelled, despite his better judgment. "Why do you think I did!?"

"Because you have. You ordered I, Death, to kill her. Tell me, Harry: Do you want to be a god? Do you, Harry Potter, wish to be stronger, greater, better?"

"NO!" Harry screamed. "I don't want to be a god. I just want to save my friends from Voldemort and die peacefully. I don't care about power, or about immortality. I just want to live a normal life!" Harry's black, unruly hair fell limp from the sweat, falling past his emerald eyes and to his cheekbones.

"I have seen you, Harry Potter. I watched from my throne of skulls as you fought for power! I saw your desire to become stronger and your ambition to be the greatest. You fear powerlessness, and you overcame that."

"I only did it to save my friends! I'd do anything to help them. But I've already succeeded in my part. If it is my time to die, then so be it." Tears began to fall from his face.

"You cannot pass on. Tell me, Harry: if you are so accepting of death, why have you worn the ring? Why did you win the wand? Why did you grasp the cloak? You cannot end until I have; until there is nothing in this world or the next. Until existence falls, you are the Master of Death. You are Death."

Harry didn't say anything for a while, just standing there. Death seemed content just floating right above the water. "I didn't want this…" Harry mumbled. "I didn't fucking want any of this! I did everything I could save my friends and live a happy life with them! I wanted to have a family and die happily with them! I didn't want this…"

"What has been done cannot be changed. Time can be rewritten, but you will always be the same."

"What about the other gods? Won't they be angry? Will they try to do something?"

"They may try, but they cannot touch you. They fear you, for you can murder them all, and they despise you, for they are shackled by your will. You are the god of death, the ender of life, the shinigami, the reaper of souls."

There seemed to be nothing left to say. Both stood in place, Death unmoving and Harry swaying slightly in the cold wind. Pale golden sand and dust whipped by, picking up until it blocked Harry's view. When it vanished, Harry was left in complete darkness. And then his eyes opened back to the world of the living.

"Your savior is dead!" yelled a voice over throngs of gasps. Voldemort smiled at the helpless faces peering over to look at the dead Harry Potter. The body lay on the ground broken and beaten. Blood spotted the boy's face, slowly dripping down his cheeks like tears. Any fighting had stopped in order for everybody to stare at the seventeen-year-old in either dismay or glee, unbroken.

Hermione screamed and ran forward, caressing the boy's head. Ron followed soon after, grabbing Hermione with the one arm he still had and tried to pull her back, out of the way of the Dark Lord. Neville stumbled forward, fumbling to grasp his wand in a threatening manner, ready to give his life for his friends. Others backed away, few still willing to fight. Minerva MgGonnagle, one professor of Hogwarts School, along with the heavy-hearted Fillius Flitwick stood their ground. Many of Harry's friends stood by their side.

"This silly quarrel need not continue," Voldemort spoke. "End your resistance and you, the strongest who have survived, shall be hailed as kings and queens for your power. Any who refuse will be killed."

"We will never surrender!" Neville yelled back. Several of the people who had slunk back raised their attention to the boy. "Harry gave us an opportunity to win. He died to protect us, and I will gladly die to protect this castle and everybody living in it!"

"Then you shall die! Avada Kedav—"

Voldemort was caught off guard when Harry's eyes snapped open. The spell, incomplete, hit Neville and gouged a small cut in his arm. Neville stumbled as his arm suddenly flared in pain, burning like fire, but then the pain stopped. His wand refocused itself on Voldemort once more, only Harry was slowly standing up in its line of sight.

"How are you not dead!? It matters not… Avada Kedavra!"

The green light flew right into Harry. Harry simply continued standing, as if nothing happened. His black robe, made darker by the blood stained into it, merely fluttered as if a particularly strong gust of wind blew past it.

Harry looked Voldemort straight in the eye, green meeting a sickly yellow. "You know, if it didn't work the first two times, what makes you think it'll work the third?"

"AAAARRGGG! You insolent brat!" The snake-like man raised the Elder Wand in a threatening manner before hurling more spells at Harry. "Magnumdatocue! Nigredine! Elevernos! Why—Won't—You—DIE!"

Hand raised, each spell faded out before it could hit Harry or anybody else. Everybody simply watched, too mesmerized to do anything, as Harry calmly strode towards Voldemort. A smile lit up on Harry's face, and then he spoke.

"I do believe that wand belongs to me." With a flick of his wrist, the Elder Wand broke free of Voldemort's hold and into Harry's.

Voldemort turned and began running, trying to flee certain doom. His footsteps echoed on the hard stone ground, but just as he started to pass through the remains of the shield once protecting Hogwarts, he felt himself stop against his will. Spun around, then deposited on the ground, Voldemort could only look up as Harry raised his hand. A knife materialized in it, inlayed with rubies and emeralds, black blade connecting to intricate black and silver dragons on the guard and hilt. Voldemort closed his eyes.

"Harry! STOP!"

Harry stopped, frozen in place. "Wha…? What happened?"

Hermione rushed forward and hugged Harry's arm. Ron jogged up behind her, eyes wide with an amazed expression. Parts of Ron's red hair were singed, his face blackened by soot. Hermione's brown hair crisscrossed in tangles as if she shocked her hair.

"Harry! Please… don't kill anymore," Hermione cried. "Enough people have died. Voldemort's beaten. The rest have surrendered. There's no more need for bloodshed."

Ron looked scandalized. "'Mione! What are you talking about!? The bastard killed so many of our friends! He took my arm! He deserves to die."

"Nobody deserves to die," Hermione argued. "He's beaten. Voldemort shouldn't have to die, too. No matter what he's done, there's no reason to kill him."

"No reason to kill him—no reason to KILL HIM!? Have you been around the last two years? Have you seen what he's done? Murdered and pillaged muggle towns, watched his men rape—rape!—hundreds of women and children. The only prisoners he took were the ones he wanted to play with like cats play with food! Does that deserve life? Does he deserve—"

"RON! Stop! Just… stop. I know what he's done. I know what he did. Just drop it. Nobody deserves to die."

Ron looked ready to retort, but stopped himself. He looked towards a disoriented Harry. "That was bloody awesome, mate! How'd you do all that!?" He paused for a second. "Harry? You alright?"

Harry startled for a second, then "Yeah. I'm fine. What happened?"

Hermione tenderly got off Harry's arm and looked at him. "How could you even think about killing him, no matter what he's done? That's not you, Harry."

"I—W-what?"

"Harry, mate," Ron butted in. "You were about to finish Voldemort off! It was bloody brilliant, what you did. How'd you do that?"

"I don't…" Harry started.

"Why did you stop, for a foolish mortal? Tell me, Harry: Why not end that man's life, who tried to surpass death?" a voice whispered at the edges of Harry's ears.

Immediately Harry was on guard. "What did you do!?" he yelled out. "What did you make me do!?"

"Harry, who are you talking to?" Hermione asked. Harry wasn't listening.

"I did nothing," the voice blew along, like wind. "You were fulfilling the prophesy, or at least what little of it there was left."

"The prophesy? I thought Fate was dead. I thought this was all over! I don't want to be anybody's pawn anymore!"

"Harry!" Hermione screamed at him. Ron had tried to shake him, but was thrown back by an invisible force. "Harry! Wake up!"

"Fate is dead, but her power has not passed. It has attached itself to your mortal form, leeching off it until it is no more. Kill the mortal now, so Fate will be gone!"

"Never! I will not kill him! I'm not a murderer, he's already beaten. He can't move!"

"I will not have a master shackled down in chains! You will not be a mere puppet because you, the Master of Death, couldn't cause death! Kill him or I will kill him myself!"

"Why didn't you just kill him yourself before?" Harry yelled back. "You could have done it any time you wanted, and yet you didn't!"

"Before? I didn't care before. I let Fate have her fun. Now, though… should I come, everybody near you would die. I know you wouldn't want that… would you?"

"Fuck you. Fuck you. Leave my friends alone! You hear me? LEAVE MY FRIENDS ALONE!"

"Then fulfill the prophesy. 'Kill the spare,' as you would," the being whispered. There seemed to be some amusement in its voice at Harry's anger. "Death brings life. To die is to allow the passage of a new soul. Everything dies, just as everything is born. So kill him, and allow new life to bloom."

Harry stood still for a while in silence. He looked upwards, hands shaking. The black blade still sat obediently in his hand, absorbing what little light was left in the onset of dusk. Hermione and Ron had taken to simply watch, wondering what to do. They watched, hoping for some sign that Harry was okay. Then, in a flash, Harry stabbed Voldemort in the throat.

Hermione screamed as blood seeped from the man's throat. A shrill scream of horror and of disbelief. Ron whispered "Merlin," though Harry couldn't hear it. Harry watched in abject fascination as a thin trail of red blood streamed down Voldemort's bare chest, looking like a lonely river. A gurgling sound came from the man before he slowly fell to the side, motionless. Harry felt oddly at peace; not disgusted by the revolting scene before him.

When he turned around to greet his friends, they greeted him with deadly wands.

"Who are you?" Hermione whispered.

"What are you talking about, Hermione?"

"I said WHO ARE YOU!? What have you done with Harry? Why are you possessing him!?"

A frown made its way on Harry's face. "I'm not being controlled. What makes you think-"

"Bullshit! Harry would never purposefully kill someone in cold blood!" Hermione yelled just as she grabbed Harry and threw him to the

"Yeah," Ron added. "My best mate wouldn't ever do something as cold as that."

"I…I…" Harry couldn't respond. He didn't know what to say. He just did it to protect them.

"Answer me!" Hermione reiterated.

"Yeah! Answer her!" Ron followed.

"I did it to protect you!" Harry blurted out. "I did it to save you!"

"Save us from what? Voldemort couldn't do anything. What—would he stare at us to death?" Hermione asked.

"We can defend ourselves pretty well. We're not stupid." Ron lowered his wand, but kept his stance defended.

"Should true death come, death would befall all. I did what I had to to prevent that."

"…What?" Ron asked.

Hermione looked like she was thinking hard, trying to solve the riddle in his words. Harry turned to leave. He needed time to think by himself. Just as he stood up, though—

"Harry, mate—aahhh—"

Harry spun immediately, robes whipping across his body. He raised the elder wand, prepared for a fight. He gasped.

"R-Ron?"

There, right in front of him, lay a dead Ron Weasley. Blood the color of his hair flowed freely from him, wetting the dirty ramparts like a pond. Ron Weasley, best mate, lay as a log in a red pool, unbreathing; unmoving. Unliving. And above him gloated a black-haired psychopath, Bealatrix Lestrange, as Hermione fell to join him. Slowly the laughs came; even slower did Hermione drop through the ground and into oblivion.

Tears burned in Harry's eyes. Red blood now soaked his feet, parting around the stones and meeting back again. Crisscrossing welds in the stones rose up to greet the falling bodies, and Death greeted the passing souls as an old friend.

Harry exploded.

"You bitch! You killed them! You fucking killed them!" His hand rose, glowing an eerie black. The Elder Wand dropped, dissolving and forgotten. "I'll murder you! Just fucking die!"

Waves of black covered him, white intertwining like a malignant tumor. The ground beneath him shook and the blood rose to cover him. Harry peered down at the woman as if she were an insect, and she just laughed. Then she spoke. They would be her last words.

"Who are you, little Harry? Who are you to kill my master!? You're nothing! You're nothing, and I made sure of that! You don't have friends, now, so who's left? What's your purpose now? You can't do anything to me! You already took my life! So I took yours! HahahahaHAHAHAHAHA!"

"You will lose more than your life," Harry intoned. "We will never meet again."

A wave of black and white erupted from him, circling everything, and then crushing down. There was little left alone, and then the great power evaporated. All that was left was a crater where civilization once stood. The ground was scarred and beaten, nothing remaining.

Then the pain came. Terrible, excruciating pain. Harry's arms purpled to a sickly color, veins turning to a dark yellow. His skin started shriveling up, cracking bones and crushing him. Then, his skin started altogether falling off, yellow puss instead of blood boiling out as muscles and tendons rotted. Harry couldn't see anymore—his eyes had lost sight, just as his ears had lost the capability for hearing. Thirty seconds later, Harry Potter was dead. His body was destroyed; reduced to a pile of yellow blood and strips of flesh.

"Why can't I go to the afterlife?" Harry asked.

"Immortal souls are barred from the afterlife. Only I, Death, may visit. You will be unable to pass the border between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Only the dead may, and then only with the rights to do so."

Harry stared back at the shadowed entity before him. Death was once again standing on the river surrounded by dust and cold wind. Harry took a seat on the sand. "But my body is dead, just as you said. Where else can I go? What else can I do?"

"The realm of immortal death can easily be found by one such as you. It is the space between death and undeath. Tell me Harry: do you want to see your cute little parents once more? Your dead friends? Maybe your esteemed 'dead' headmaster."

Hands clenched, Harry turned a glare to the unmoving figure on the water. It was all he could do to hold himself back. "Is there no other place I can go?"

"You can go anywhere else. There are millions of planets separated by shifts. As everything is touched by death, you may traverse any of it. Some aren't as affected as others, but that is of no consequence. Death creates reality; be careful where you go, as your mere presence may change the way of life."

"But I wouldn't be seen. I couldn't interact physically with anybody."

"You are still sentimental. It is of no consequence… you will come into your own soon…"

"What was that?"

"A body will be born to hold your soul, should you so desire. It will be strong, for as the soul grows stronger, so, too, does the body. Tell me, Harry: How do you think you evaded me for so long? Your soul was always strong for a mortal, though far from the strongest. Dumbledore, how I hate him, could have withstood my might for another half century had he not so nobly sacrificed himself."

"Don't talk about the headmaster that way! He was a good man no matter what he did."

Death seemed to almost smile. "The man who trained you to die? I was looking forward to the moment you would kill him, but I guess that never happened. I still find it humorous, no matter how insulting, that he tore apart your life and sentenced you to the life you lived. I would have thought you would revile him."

"He did it to save the world!" Harry yelled. "He did it for the greater good! My life means nothing if it means saving hundreds of thousands more."

"Fool. You're lying to yourself. You do hate him for sending you to the Dursleys. You hate him for making you a martyr. You hate him for leaving the war in your hands. I know you, Harry. Tell me: how can you love a man for destroying your life?"

"I gave my reasons. I refuse to continue this conversation further."

"Then be gone. You will find the doors when you want. Your soul will attach to a body newly formed. Whether you wish to use the body or your soul, you may decide. I am done with your idiocy."

"Wait… you have to tell me… how did I die? It hurt. A lot." He rubbed his arm, phantom pains still crawling up his body.

"The power of death was too much for your mortal shell. Over time, maybe it would have adjusted with the usage of that terrible power, but you used too much at once and your body degenerated. Until your soul is stronger, any bodies you inhabit will probably mutate with the usage to accommodate the strain. The stronger your soul, the less the body will change. Is that all?"

"Yes. Goodbye. I hope we never meet again."

"That is a false hope, then. Now, leave."

Harry did so, and turned to walk away across the dusty sands and skulls (when had those appeared?) that covered that empty world. The black sky, devoid of stars or moon, should have made it impossible to see, yet there was a soft white glow permeating the air coming from the white and gold ground. As he walked, Harry watched the sands stretch out to infinity. Briefly, Harry wondered if they were the sands of time.

Harry, in the bleached robes he woke up in, kept pace. He looked for anything other than the sand. There was nothing; no structures, no trees, no water besides that one river. It was a true wasteland. It was a world where one would abandon all hope. Harry still had no idea where he was. Was it an in-between? The land Death presides over? He didn't know.

It felt like he had been traveling for hours. He was getting tired. Harry was exhausted when he finally sat down, only to be greeted once more by death.

"Why is it you haven't left yet? Wasn't it your intention to leave?" Death asked.

"I would have left if I knew how!"

"If you truly wanted to leave, you would have done so. You have the power as well as the ability. Why stay?"

"Why do you keep expecting me to just know how to do something? I'm not omniscient!" Harry yelled. His frustration was only buffered by his exhaustion.

"You are not? Should you be? I don't know. Death is ultimate, you will learn. Omniscience is limited by what you believe. You need not be omniscient if you are omnipotent or omnipresent. As I am, you are. Tell me, Harry: What haven't you tried?"

"You know, for something so dark and evil, you sure talk a lot."

"For something that controls death, you talk much, as well. Death is not evil; I am not evil."

"Really? You sure act like it. You're just missing the arrogance."

"Do not worry. I have plenty of that, too." Harry swore the being floating over the river was smirking (And how did he get back there in the first place?)

"Just tell me how to get out of here later. I'm tired; think I'll get some rest."

"You truly are weak if you must sleep. But don't worry: your soul will grow. Your greatness will exceed anything before. If you cannot leave yourself, then I will do it myself. Good day, Harry Potter. When you wake up, you will find yourself in a world of relative peace; a place with minimal death. I'm sure you've heard of it before. Upon your arrival, everything will change. Nothing, after all, can be perfect in the presence of Death; utopias cease to exist and perfection fails. And then, chaos reigns.

"You will be the one, Harry James Potter. You will be perfect soon enough."

By then, Harry had already fallen through a white and red door into a brilliant light. And Death laughed a chilling laugh.

"Soon. Soon, it will be time. You will have a choice, and I already know your answer."

AN: I hope this is alright. It's just an idea that I got yesterday and decided to write. I have the entire plot already formed, but the plot is not reliant on what worlds or dimensions Harry goes to. Yes, this is a multi crossover fic, but I hope I do a good job. Root for me or something. If anybody has any worlds they want to see done, I'm open for suggestions. Just send your idea in a review or PM. I appreciate follows more than anything, though reviews are great, too, because they let me know how well I did. I am curious as to how I can do better.

READ THIS! I will put up a poll on my profile on what worlds I should use in this story. If there are others that you want to suggest, leave it in a review or PM. I appreciate all feedback I can get on my ideas.

By the way, for those of you waiting for updates to some of my other fics, many of them won't be updated or will only be updated one more time. The reasons are as follows: Black Flames:There are so many plot holes that I can't possibly continue. I might make one more chapter before I finally decide I'm completely stuck. Also, I made the characters too complex and included too many. I was actually planning on including several more including a Tobi-Draco Malfoy. I was also going to have the founders be reincarnations of people even though they're dead. God King Book 1: Geneticist:I'm sorry, but this story is absolute crap. It has no plot, no characterization, and I refuse to continue it. If anybody wants to try, go for it. Turning of an Era:Another thing with too many plot holes. I tried to make the character incredibly smart and somewhat powerful, but I ended up with a character so overpowered that it's impossible to do anything else. The Wrong Door:I might do another chapter on this, also, but the biggest reason I can't continue this is because I can't accurately do Hagrid's personality, and while I have a great many ideas for this story, I simply can't continue it in fashion. I would definitely love to see somebody else give this story a go, though! A Question of Reality or Mortality:I might actually continue this, but at the moment I've put it at a rest. A continuation would be fun, but with the current characters, I'm trying to figure out how to put in the characters that I want while still keeping the plot together.

If anybody wants to use any ideas from any of my stories, just PM me because I'd like to read what you come up with. Same thing if you want to adopt one of them or write another version.

I will be continuing this story (if it's popular enough), Sitting in theRain, and Understanding.

Good day, Benedark.