Author's Note: To those about to read this a few warnings. One, this is a side fic crossover of "The Unwinding Golden Thread" as well as "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" if you haven't read any of those this will be readable but really stupid and weird. And also, because I don't want to get into all of this, this is NOT CANON to either universe.
"Hey, kid, you getting up?"
There was a woman staring down at him, eyes a large dark unending green that seemed to glow from within, face pale like marble a more inhuman white than Malfoy's skin, and thick red hair framing her face in curls as she stood over him.
Red hair, green eyes, and all he could think was, "Mum?"
She blinked, her face twisted into one of awkward hesitance, and glancing over him she said, "God, I hope not."
Groaning he forced himself to sit up, noting distantly the absence of nausea as well as the lack of cold, and as he continued looking at her he couldn't help but notice how in focus she and her surroundings were even without his glasses.
And looking at her while not lying down, he realized that she was right, or that he was wrong and she wasn't Lily Potter. She looked sort of like her, the eyes and the hair color, but his mum's hair had always been thinner and straighter than this woman's. And her eyes were a different shape, the nose too, and Lily Potter had never looked this pale in the old photographs.
"Oh, um… Sorry, you just… You look like my mum."
"Strangely enough, I get that a lot. Don't worry about it." She shrugged off casually, although as he continued to stare he wondered if she was just saying that, because she didn't really look like anyone he'd ever seen before.
She had one of those faces that seemed to defy age, where she could be anywhere from a little older than him to her late thirties, but her eyes seemed old at the same time much older than how she looked like she'd seen everything that had ever happened. Stranger was her clothing, old, worn, and foreign like it could have come out of one of Dudley's science fiction movies, it was also all in different colors, nothing really matching but all of it had probably once been very bright.
If she hadn't been staring over him, if he'd been passing her in the street, he'd never have mistaken her for his mother.
"Right, well, I'm Harry Potter." He finally said, she didn't respond, just sort of raised dubious eyebrows at him like that was the most ridiculous thing he could have ever said.
He was about to ask her for her name, or tell her off for staring, but there was something bothering him more than her just staring at him like he was an idiot. Everything was white, not blindingly white, but an unreal too bright sort of white anyways. The last thing he'd remembered had been fire, screaming, blood, and death… And it had been very dark in that burnt down building they'd left him in.
Now he was in what looked like a surreal version of Kings Cross Station, specifically platform nine and three quarters, with a glistening Hogwarts Express awaiting passengers for the start of term.
"Oh, I'm dreaming, aren't I? You're just some dream version of mum." It didn't feel like a dream, it was a bit lucid for that, it could be a Voldemort dreams but even those hadn't felt this lucid. He never was really in control in those ones, his thoughts always twisted into Voldemort's thoughts, and it was always dark and narrow.
Here he felt more like himself than he had in ages.
"I think I'm insulted." The woman said before adding, "Or, I would be, if you weren't so horribly… new."
She sighed, suddenly stood next to him, wrapped an arm over his shoulders and led him to a nearby table. With a wave of her hand a kettle and two cups appeared and as they sat down she poured both of them tea, handing Harry a cup, "I suspect this is going to be a very long, surreal, and painful conversation."
Suddenly she looked up at him, her eyes piercing through him, almost reminiscent of some of Tom Riddle's expressions, "How old are you?"
"Sixteen." He said, then blinked, wondering why he felt the need to answer her like that, especially if this was all in his own head.
It was nice, nicer than where he'd been, but of course this also couldn't be a good sign. This sudden bout of lucidity probably meant he was near the end of his rope, if he wasn't there already, and then he'd die alone and forgotten having destroyed everything he'd ever cared about.
He was so tired, tired of running, tired of being angry, and just… tired.
It was nice, not to hear anyone screaming.
"So basically filled with teenage angst if not regular angst as well." She pursed her lips, "We may need liquor to get through this conversation."
"What conversation?" He asked, taking a sip of the tea, which was actually fairly pleasant. He hadn't thought he'd remembered what tea would taste like.
"The one about angst, actually." The woman said before clarifying with the help of erratic hand gestures, "Angst, not teen angst, is defined as a deep feeling of dread or anxiety about the overall state of humanity or just the world in general. Teen angst is wondering if little Billy is going to be asking your girlfriend to prom and wondering why you're so goddamn unpopular."
"What makes you think I've ever been concerned with something as stupid as that?" He asked and again she seemed to reevaulate him, her expression became less casual, less derisive, and again reminded him of Tom. How his face could become stone in an instant, giving nothing away but the idea that he would kill you if he had to, and he wouldn't even blink at it.
"Most Harry Potters are, to some extent. Those who don't are few and far between." She said, not bothering to explain what she meant about 'every Harry Potter', like there was more than one of him or something, but he was used to these sorts of conversations with Tom so he didn't rise to the bait.
"First off, you're not dreaming." She said, instead, causing his eyebrows to raise.
"And I'm supposed to believe that because my dream is telling me to?" He asked to which she just looked at him with that unamused expression.
(In a way, he thought, it was like someone had mixed his mum and Tom Riddle together into a person, given her parts of each and a dash of something else. It wasn't unpleasant but that realization was a bit unnerving.)
"Some say life is nothing more than a dream that God happens to be having, so perhaps, in that sense you're right. And, in the sense of Descartes, perhaps everything is merely a dream you yourself are having since your thoughts are the only thing which you can verify exists. But, putting all of that philosophy aside, you're not dreaming, you're dead."
Cold, he'd been so terribly cold, slipping away, in and out of sleep and…
She continued talking, "This is the train station called Purgatory, a waystation between realities, as well as life and death itself."
"Dead?"
"I'm sorry, Harry." She said, setting down her own cup of tea, and for a moment looking as if she meant every word. Like she truly was sorry that he was dead, that he'd wasted away in some German camp, dying for nothing.
He started laughing, uncontrollably, because somehow he did believe it. It didn't really feel like a dream but maybe this was what death was like. Maybe this was hell, this mixed version of his mum and Tom Riddle mashed together, all with the Hogwarts Express promising everything to him but only bringing him closer to that moment where he would destroy everything.
"I always thought… I always thought it would be Voldemort. That it'd be fast and terrible and that him killing me is the worst thing that could have happened… I almost wish it was him instead." At least Tom killing him, at least that he understood, at least it would have been quick. He didn't understand this, wasn't willing to understand how all of this could have happened.
"You can still go back, you know." She said, "It's one of the few great things about being a Harry Potter, you get a choice."
"A choice?"
She nodded towards the way they'd come, towards the white air, the bright peaceful lighting, "Sure, turn around and walk back into the world of the living. It doesn't have to be permanent."
"Maybe it should be." He sighed, stared down at his reflection the tea, looking like how he felt. Thin, hollow cheeked, dark circles beneath his eyes, and looking just on the verge of collapsing in on himself, "I've killed pretty much everyone in England, you know. I don't even know how, but I did. Turns out I only ever make things worse."
She stared at him for a moment and then slowly said, "It's ultimately your choice, but it isn't one I'd make lightly."
"I'm not making it lightly!" He said, pounding the table and causing the glass to shake, her eyes narrowed and for a moment she simply looked at him.
"I know, Harry." She paused and said, "I too, am a being of great destruction. My very existence is responsible for a great many deaths. But, I've also seen things you people wouldn't believe. I've seen C-beams off the Tannhauser Gate. And for that… For that I'm willing to allow myself to be more than just a destroyer of worlds."
She sighed, looked at him, and said, "I don't know what happened to your world, what you think you've done to it, but from personal experience I know that you won't get very far running from it either."
"You think I'm running away? Aren't I a little old for that?" He asked, his lips quirking up, and hers did too in response like this was some joke between the pair of them rather than an insult directed at him.
"You're never too old to run from your own shadow."
Out of the blue she started singing, something that sounded like it belonged in one of Aunt Petunia's musicals, "Running away, let's do it, free from the ties that bind. No more despair, or burdens to bear, out there in the yonder. Running away, go to it. Where did you have in mind? Have to take care, unless there's a 'where', you'll only be wandering blind. Just more questions. Different kind. Where are we to go? Where are we ever to go?"
"I'm really not in the mood for singing." He pointed out but she kept going, a small smile tugging at her lips, and in spite of himself he found himself smiling back even as she continued.
"Running away, we'll do it. Why sit around, resigned? Trouble is, son, the farther you run, the more you'll feel undefined for what you have left undone; and more, what you've left behind." She finally stopped, looked at him for a moment, and slowly took one of his hands into hers.
"Harry, that's a very lonely and bitter path you're resigning yourself to. Unfinished business has a way of haunting even when you have an eternity to forget it." She squeezed his hand and stared directly into his eyes, and as she did he almost felt like he could see her memories just by staring at her, the long eternity stretching out before her, the betrayal, the emptiness, the wandering…
And Tom Riddle's face, older, in his thirties, wearing a bright red scarf, and staring back at him with a somber and indecipherable expression.
"Death once said to me that life is like jenga, not chess. There is only a tower to build, one you must build with pieces you already possess, sometimes risking everything for something very small. And when it falls, when it collapses under its own weight, you build it again. There aren't winners, there aren't losers, and there aren't failures."
She let go of his hands, smiled softly, "Go build your tower, Harry."
He stood slowly, wanting to tell her everything, every specific thing and justification for why he shouldn't go back, but then… Then he felt she already knew, had already heard it a million times before, and that she also knew that he was leaving the world broken if he left now. He couldn't leave that broken world to Tom Riddle.
Perhaps he'd destroyed the world but that didn't mean he shouldn't try to save it.
"…Thank you, for the tea, I mean."
Author's Note: Written for the 300th review of "The Unwinding Golden Thread" by Zeir who asked for a fic where a billions of year old Lily confronts Harry from "Unwinding" in Death's customary role. Which, I've got to say, going through that much backstage development for Lily is quite bizarre. Also, to those who have noted general themes in my works, Death almost always plays the role of the Mysterious Man from "Into the Woods", it's just more blatantly referenced here than it was in the Jenga interlude chapter.
Thanks for reading, reviews are appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.