A/N:
I started writing this ages ago, but somehow never got around to finishing it. It kind of explores the idea of Harry being the Master of Death, and what it means for him. Since it all happens after DH, a lot of it is headcanon. English is not my first language. I apologize in advance for any mistakes.
The Seven Deaths of Harry Potter
The first time it happens, Harry is expecting to die. There is apparently only one way to get rid of the piece of Voldemort's soul that has leached onto him, and he is a noble self-sacrificing fool with a save-people-thing. So instead of doing what any sane, self-preserving person would do, he walks right up to his enemy (unarmed, and don't forget the whole army of darkness!) and does nothing to avoid the killing curse coming for him. He sees the flash of green light, and he knows what will happen when it impacts.
Or so he thinks. Nothing really could have prepared him for the weirdness that comes after death. Almost-death. Whatever. He is not quite sure he gets Dumbledore's explanation, if there even is a Dumbledore with all of it happening in his head, and truly he has no time to think about this afterwards, since he's too busy pretending to be dead and defeating Voldemort and winning a war.
It is only much later that he remembers his experience after the killing curse, and by that time he is half-convinced the whole episode has been nothing more than a dream, conjured by his subconsciousness to give himself the answers said subconsciousness had already figured out. Though it is rather strange that his subconsciousness would take on the form of Albus Dumbledore (and quite convincingly, too). But then he is used to Dumbledore having all the answers, so maybe it is not strange at all. He puts the incident out of his mind and almost forgets about it.
The second time it happens, Harry is acting on instinct. He has only recently become a full member of the Auror Department, but the war has taken its toll and every man and woman is needed whether they're ready or not. His team is trying to arrest a group of Death Eaters that have so far escaped persecution, but the situation quickly escalates and soon the Aurors are fighting for their lives. When he sees a stray Avada Kedavra hurtling towards Dean Thomas, there is no time to think and only one thing he can do: He jumps right into its path. Save-people-thing... he just can't shake it off, no matter how often Ron, Hermione, and lately Ginny reprimand him for it.
As the familiar sight of King's Cross forms around him, Harry is more annoyed than scared. There is a fight going on, for Merlin's sake! His team needs him!
"I don't have time for this, come on!" he shouts into the white mist, and to his surprise he is back in his body a moment later. Hexes and curses are flying over his head and Ron is crouching next to him, still fighting, though with a worried eye on his friend. The relief on his face is almost tangible when he notices that Harry is conscious.
"You ok, mate?" he cries while deflecting a severing curse with a practised motion of his wand.
"I'm fine!" Harry cries back, ignoring the pain in his chest where the curse hit him. With an angry snarl he jumps to his feet and dives back into the action.
In the end they are victorious, the Death Eaters are being shipped to Azkaban, and Harry soon starts to believe that whatever hit him was not, after all, a killing curse. Everything happened so fast and in the heat of battle. How can he be sure of what he saw? No one else saw what happened, and he could only have been down for a short amount of time. Most importantly: There is no way he could have survived another killing curse! If Dumbledore (or his subconsciousness – he's still in two minds about that) was right, he only survived the last one because Voldemort was alive at the time and had used Harry's blood to create his body, thus tethering Harry to life as effectively as a horcrux (though without the whole soul-splitting thing). Harry is quite sure that Voldemort is very much dead now. So how can he survive Avada Kedavra? The simple answer is he cannot, therefore whatever curse he took for Dean cannot have been a killing curse. He is rather proud he has come to this conclusion on his own. Even Hermione could not argue this one, surely.
The third time it happens, Harry is not expecting it at all. A lot has happened since the previous incident a few years ago. Harry has had some success as an Auror, has gotten married, and has just found out that he is going to be father. In fact, he is so busy with life that near-death experiences are the last thing on his mind.
The situation is similar in some ways, though this time it is only him and Ron, and they are not hunting Death Eaters but two long-time criminals, who are wanted for theft and murder. In an empty warehouse in a large city's industrial district they finally corner one of the dark wizards. It should be an easy arrest. The man is obviously scared, and does not have the heart to fight. But he is desperate, and desperate men are known to do desperate things. Harry carefully tries to talk him down.
They are so focused on the man, that they do not notice his companion sneaking up on them until it is too late. It's stupid really, a rookie's mistake. CONSTANT VILIGANCE rings in Harry's mind (in a voice sounding suspiciously like the late Mad-Eye Moody) as he sees a beam of green light rushing towards him.
It is a lucky shot. If Harry had not turned at exactly this moment, the curse would have missed him. No one is more surprised than the criminal who fired the curse. When it finally sinks in what he did, he panics and flees. There's probably a special kind of hell reserved for the person who kills the saviour of the wizarding world and he does not care to find out. The other man takes the chance to escape as well, while a frantic Ron pays them no mind, trying desperately to revive his fallen friend.
Meanwhile Harry finds himself back at King's Cross. This time he does not leave immediately, taking a few minutes to look around. The place is exactly as he remembers it - high, bright, and clear, with empty seats. A strange wailing and flapping noise reaches his ear, an unpleasant sound, yet familiar...
When he finds the source of the sound, he cannot help but stare. He knows this form, child-like in appearance, its skin raw and flayed. It repulses him, disgust him, and yet he comes closer, feels himself inexplicably drawn to it. However, he does not touch it, just gazes at it, and has the feeling that the thing is looking back. 'Well,' he thinks. 'If all of this is indeed just a creation of my subconsciousness, I wonder what it is trying to tell me! Should I be worried?'
Harry is sure he has been hit by the killing curse this time. He has heard the incantation, for heavens sake! Avada Kedavra, there can be no doubt. So he should be dead, shouldn't he? Instead he is here again, in this creation of his mind. If it is in fact that – a creation of his mind. Watching the ugly, disgusting child, he is beginning to be quite sceptical about his initial theory. Assuming he has been hit by the killing curse (again) and assuming he is not dead (yet), he must be somewhere between life and death, which would be supported by what Dumbledore had said about Harry having a choice between "going back"and "going on". Does he still have this choice though, when there is technically nothing left to tether him to life, since Voldemort is dead? Can he still go back?
When he finds himself returned to his body a moment later - a body that is very much alive – he has the answer to his question. Ron is kneeling beside him, desperate and in tears, and quite a bit shocked when Harry suddenly starts to stir.
"You were dead, mate!" he keeps saying over and over again, in between hugging his friend and apologizing (for some reason he is blaming himself for the whole débâcle).
"Not quite," Harry says, "Not quite." What he does not understand is why.
The fourth time it happens, Harry may have been looking for it a little. No, he is not suicidal, thank you very much! He is not seeking death, but lately death appears to be seeking him. Apparently the two criminals who escaped have spread the tale, and now Harry has become target practice for every piece of scum the wizarding underworld can muster. And well, he still has not solved this riddle (though by now he has a few theories – thanks Hermione!), so maybe he deliberately moves a bit slowly out of the range of this one particular killing curse aimed at him. He has been dodging them for nearly an hour, he is allowed to feel a little tired!
Therefore now he is back in this white, bright place between life and death, and it is nice and peaceful and he remembers somewhere else his body is really tired, so he decides to stay for a while. When he grows tired of looking at the station (it is eerie how much it resembles its counterpart in the real world, only cleaner), he walks over to the seats with the child-like thing and sits, careful not to touch the 'child'.
"This is all your fault!" he tells it. "I could have had a normal life, without horcruxes, Hallows, unwanted fame, and whatnot... But no, you had to listen to that stupid prophecy and mark me as your equal! Since then every impossible thing has happened to me. It's like not even the rules of magic apply to me any more! I won, you're gone, and still I can't have a normal life! Hell, I can't even have a normal death!"
The child stares at him. It has gone quiet, seems to be listening to him.
"My existence is a gigantic cosmic joke," Harry laments.
Then he sighs. He is being melodramatic again, he realizes. Ron and Hermione would roll their eyes if they could see him now, and Ginny would give him that really unimpressed look of hers. His life isn't so bad, is it? He has a home, a job he loves (sans the paperwork), a wonderful wife, and soon he will also have a child...
Yes, it could be worse. So what if he has become immune to the killing curse? Apparently it happens all the time – the more often a person gets hit by a charm, hex, or curse the more likely they are to develop an immunity. Admittedly the required number of hits is usually much higher, but then people usually don't get struck by the killing curse more than once, so who knows. It is Hermione's favourite theory, anyway, and she is more often right than not. Ron on the other hand prefers the one of Harry being the 'true master of Death', whatever that is supposed to mean. Though the Hallows are real, Harry suspects he story about Death is nothing more than a legend - and besides, he has given up two of the Peverell artefacts.
He stays at King's Cross till he feels he has calmed down, but his annoyance flares up again when he returns to the world of the living. This time there have been several witnesses who saw him being hit by the killing curse, one of them the Auror department's own healer, who swears that for a few minutes Harry has been "dead as a Diricawl". Inevitably there are reporters of various wizarding magazines – he has long ago given up trying to figure out how they always know about these things. What appears to be half the bloody Department of Mysteries arrives, led by Blaise Zabini, who keeps trying to question him. Harry has some good suggestions what the Unspeakable can do with these questions, which Zabini skilfully ignores, the bastard. In the end Harry decides a tactical retreat is in order (he is not running away, damnit!).
It doesn't end there, of course. Afterwards the wizarding world, spurred by the media, speculates for months about his perceived immortality. His colleagues and even some of his friends look at him weirdly for a while. The Department of Mysteries never quite leaves him alone after the incident, no matter how many times he tells them that he is not available for their experiments. All in all it is a great big inconvenience. Harry vows never to get hit by a killing curse ever again.
The fifth time it happens, there is no killing curse involved. The whole thing is actually quite embarrassing.
A lot of time has passed since the last incident. Harry is now the head of the Auror department. He has three kids, the eldest of whom, James, has recently graduated from Hogwarts. Which doesn't stop him or his cousin Fred from playing a prank on everyone who has come to their graduation party!
One second Harry is enjoying a large piece of Molly's unsurpassed chocolate cake. The next, he is 5 inches tall, covered in feathers, and choking on a piece of cake now much too large for his little beak. The last thing he thinks is 'Canary cream? Really?' Then he's back at King's Cross station.
Looking down he is relieved to find himself returned to his human form in the afterlife (inbetweenlife – whatever). Then the realization hits him.
"A piece of cake!" he shouts. He stalks over to the seats with the child-creature. "You're really still here," he wonders, momentarily surprised. Then he shakes his head. "Can you believe it?" he tells the creature. "Harry Potter, the-boy-who-lived, vanquisher of the Dark Lord Voldemort, saviour of the wizarding world, head of the Auror Department, hero-extraordinary choked to death on a piece of cake!" He groans and sinks down on one of the seats. "I'll never live this down!"
Again the child has gone strangely still, staring at him.
For a while Harry just sits there. Then he starts to wonder. This time there has been no killing curse (he's actually managed to keep his vow all these years). Does that mean he is dead for good, or can he still go back?
Not even has he finished the thought when the mist rushes back in.
He awakens in St. Mungo's hospital, healers swarming around him. His throat hurts. Distantly he can hear his wife's shrill voice, trying to convince the healers to let her in – and apparently she's decided that channelling Molly Weasley is the best way to go about it. He winces as his head starts hurting, as well. Something Ginny shouts sounds suspiciously like "unspeakable bastard", and sure thing, when he looks up, there is Blaise Zabini sitting in the corner taking notes. Blasted Unspeakables!
The sixth time it happens, there is a train waiting.
Many years have passed. Harry is an old man now, wrinkled, aching, his still unruly hair completely grey. He knows his time is coming. None of his friends are with him any more – even Ron and Hermione have been gone for years. A few months ago it was Ginny's turn - Ginny, his wife, the love of his life. He had been with her until the very end. Now he is alone.
Harry is only vaguely surprised to find himself at King's Cross station. Dimly he remembers waking to a pain in his chest, probably a heart attack. With interest he regards the train, noting that it looks a lot like the Hogwarts Express, but as white and misty as the station.
He walks over to the seats and the creature lying beneath. "Hello Tom," he says quietly. "It's been a while, hasn't it?Ah well, you know how it is. Life's been keeping me busy. Never thought it'd be like this," he muses. "Back then when you were hunting me, I didn't believe I'd even reach my 20th birthday. Now I'm nearly 150. I've had a great life, with everything I hoped for. Love. Happiness. A big family. I'm a father, a grandfather, even a great-grandfather. Good times, most of it, though not all, of course. But it's the good times you remember." He smiles wistfully. "I'm going to miss them. My grandson Julius has just been promoted. He is going to go far... used to be in Slytherin if you can believe it. First Potter to actually end up there. His heart's in the right place, though. Sam – another grandson – is tipped to be the next head of the Auror Department. Poor boy doesn't know yet what he's in for! And Sally, my youngest granddaughter, is having a child soon... says she wants to name him Harry if it's a boy." His smile dies. "I didn't even say goodbye."
With a sigh he looks back at the train. Maybe he is not quite ready to move on, after all.
"Soon," he tells the train. Then he goes back one last time.
The seventh time it happens, Harry passes away in his sleep.
All battles have been fought, all tears have been shed, all goodbyes have been said. He is at peace. And so very very tired...
There is the familiar sight of King's Cross and the train still waiting for him. He smiles. All the aches are gone, he feels better than he has in years. Of course, this is not his real body, but nevertheless he enjoys the experience, taking one last stroll around the station. When he comes across the familiar child-like form of his old enemy, he stops.
"This is it, Tom," he says. "This is goodbye. I'm about to leave for good."
The creature has gone quiet at his approach, but now it makes a distressed sound.
Harry frowns. "Shouldn't you be happy about this? Wasn't this your goal all these years? I'm going to die! Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived will actually be dead!"
Again the child makes the sound, tries to wriggle.
For the first time Harry really looks at it, considers what Tom's existence must be like in this form. "...There are things much worse than death..." Dumbledore had said once, and Harry sees the truth now. Tom is stuck here, alone, not alive and not dead, helpless in this horrible, child-like state. There's nothing he can do but lie here. How fast does time pass in this place, compared to the world of the living? Has it already been a lifetime? Longer? What does it matter in the face of eternity?
Harry tries to think of all the things Voldemort did to deserve this, tries to summon the feelings he once associated with him, the hate, the anger, the fear. But to no avail. The truth is, after a lifetime in Magical Law Enforcement Harry has seen pretty much every horror there is, and sadly Voldemort was far from being the worst. All he can feel now looking down at the miserable being before him, is pity.
An idea takes shape in his mind. It is mad and probably stupid and Harry tries to ignore it. But the thought won't leave him alone.
"Stupid save-people-thing!" he mutters. With a resigned sigh he kneels down next to the child.
"I'm going to offer you a choice," he says. "You can stay here, as you are, for how ever long this place will exist. You will be alone. Unless someone else ends up here like you, which I doubt. But who knows, eternity is an awfully long time - anything can happen." He pauses for a moment. Again the child makes a distressed sound. "Or I can take you with me."
The child stills, staring at him.
"I don't know if it would work," Harry admits."It would probably break a hundred rules. Still, when have the rules ever applied to me?" 'And if I am really the Master of Death,' he thinks. 'I should be allowed to do this!' "I don't know where we will be going. I don't know what to expect. However, I think I can give you a true death. I think even you could find peace. But the choice is yours. It's what you tried to avoid all your life. Maybe you actually prefer your current state of existence, I don't know."
He looks at the child and the child looks at him. It makes a soft sound.
"Is that a yes?"
It repeats the sound, stronger this time, and starts to wriggle, never taking its eyes off him.
"Hmm... I dare say it is."
Carefully Harry picks up the child, settles it on his chest. Surprisingly he does not feel repulsed. Tom is incredibly fragile, but while his skin looks raw and flawed, it feels smooth and soft.
"Alright then," Harry mutters, smiling as he prepares to board the train. For some reason he is feeling happy and excited. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
After all, to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure.