Harry's face rose out of the Pensieve and he gasped brokenly.
"I have to die." He whispered to himself in horror. His mind was a chaos of confused emotions. Snape had loved his mom. He had been carrying a piece of Lord Voldemort's soul since his infancy. He had to die. He had to DIE! That is what all his thoughts kept coming back to. As long as he lived Voldemort would survive.
Harry's hands clenched the edge of Dumbledore's desk painfully hard and he hyperventilated, alternately sobbing and dry heaving, as he processed the grim truth that his entire life had been meaningless. His years of suffering, of being hated and adulated by the fickle wizarding public, of being hunted by Voldemort and his followers, it had all been pointless. Sirius had died for nothing. He had thrown his life away to protect a boy who needed to die.
When his breaths and feelings had calmed to the extent that he could string together a coherent thought Harry spared himself an indulgent moment of morbidity to wonder if the wizarding world would mourn him. Would they be sad when the boy-who-lived defied his name by dying? Or would his death be overshadowed in the celebrations of Voldemort's demise?
'There'll be fireworks and celebrations all across the country, just like when my parents died. I'll probably get another memorial statue in gratis.' He thought bitterly. 'If they knew the truth they'd blame me for not dying sooner.'
He made his way back down from Dumbledore's office sullenly. A quick tempus charm revealed that half of the hour allotted by Voldemort for his surrender had passed already.
His heart beat fast as he moved through the castle for the last time, as though his heart wanted to get in as many last beats as it could before his quickly approaching demise. He ran into Neville on his way out. He distractedly assuaged Neville's concerns that he was handing himself over and threw in a warning about killing the snake for good measure. He couldn't afford being stopped now. It was taking all of his resolve to walk to his death as it was.
As he crossed the Hogwarts' grounds Hagrid's hut loomed in the distance. He could see a swarm of dementors hiding in the forbidden forest and it chilled him to his core.
He knew he wouldn't be able to defend himself against them now, he had never felt less happy. He trembled involuntarily, his body's only sign of revolt against his suicidal path. But he pressed on, marching ever closer to his murderer.
He felt suddenly jealous of all those remaining in the castle. He wished he had known today would be his last. He thought of all the time he had wasted they past months fighting with his friends, flailing, the meager subsistence that he and his friend had survived on while they hunted horcruxes and he couldn't help but resent Dumbledore a little for having purposefully left him in the dark. He would have lived differently if he had known his days were numbered. He hoped his friends would forgive him for not saying goodbye. For everything he had put them through these past seven years. All for nothing. They at least would survive today. They would live on. Their last moments wouldn't be spent alone, abandoned and betrayed. They would live to see another day. His last hour on the other hand was quickly drawing to a close…
"I OPEN AT THE CLOSE!" He remembered the snitch and excitedly searched his pouch for it.
He pressed its surface to his lips and whispered, "I am about to die." The snitch cracked open and inside sat Voldemort's ring. The resurrection stone glinted in the dull light of the dark overcast sky.
He turned the stone over his hand three times and summoned the incorporeal forms of his loved ones. His mother, his father, Sirius, and even Lupin were there. They looked upon him with love in their eyes and he breathed a sigh of relief. They at least didn't seem to blame him for not dying sooner. They didn't resent him or accuse him. Instead they comforted him and stood by his side: An invisible honor guard as he marched to his doom.
His parents hushed their encouraging whispers as he approached the edge of the forest. He could hear footsteps beside his own and a rustle in the trees revealed two emerging figures.
"Someone there?" A harsh voice that Harry recognized as Dolohov called out.
Another voice Harry thought might have been Yaxley answered "I definitely heard something, but I don't see anything. I heard Potter's got an invisibility cloak."
"It could be an animal. That head case Hagrid kept a whole bunch of stuff in here." Dolohov replied.
Harry watched on, shielded by his invisibility cloak as Yaxley checked his watch. "Time is nearly up. Potter has had an hour. He's not coming."
"The Dark Lord was so sure too. He's not going to be happy."
"We'd better get back and find out what the plan is now."
Harry followed the duo silently as they unknowingly led him to their master. They stopped in a clearing that Harry thought must have been the former haven of the acromantulas given how the edges of the clearing were still swathed in webbing.
A fire burned in the middle of the clearing and its light cast eerie flickering shadows on the surrounding circle of death eaters.
Voldemort stood in the center of the gloomy gathering, twirling the elder wind between his fingers and ignoring the uncomfortable shuffling of his frightened followers.
When Dolohov and Yaxley rejoined the circle Voldemort looked up.
"No sign of him, my Lord." Said Dolohov.
"I expected him to come." Voldemort replied after a painfully long silence. "It seems I was…mistaken."
"You weren't." Harry answered as confidently as he could. He slipped the resurrection stone off his finger and his entourage vanished. He didn't want his loved ones to watch him throw away the sacrifices they had made for him.
A voice yelled, "HARRY! NO!" and Harry flinched. He hadn't expected Hagrid to be here. The half giant was bound to a nearby tree and looked more distraught than Harry had seen him since Aragog's funeral.
"QUIET!" one of the death eaters yelled, silencing Hagrid's lamentations.
Bellatrix looked on disgustingly eager but Harry barely spared her a thought. All of his focus now was on the wand point digging into his chest. He was vaguely aware of Nagini floating in a protective sphere in the background, but he knew that was a lost cause. His horcrux hunting days were over. He had done his part. Someone else would slay the snake. Now was his time to die, for the greater good.
Voldemort inspected him curiously. "Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived." He whispered in hushed tones that nevertheless carried across the deathly silent clearing. Everyone present seemed to be holding their breath, waiting.
Harry just wanted it to be over. He had forced himself this far. His resolve was waning. Mercifully Voldemort seemed to agree that the moment had drawn out long enough and with a murmured incantation and a flash of green light everything was gone.
Harry awoke to the sensation of his face pressed against the floor. There was no sound. There was nothing. Harry opened his eyes and noticed firstly that he was naked and secondly that he appeared to be alone on some expansive misty white terrain. He sat up and searched his body. He appeared to be unharmed. Though his clothes and glasses were missing.
He sat in silence for what seemed like a long while before he heard a sound in the distance. For the first time he became concerned for his nudity. No sooner had the desire for clothing appeared in his mind than a folded pile of robes appeared before him. He rose to his feet and dressed himself quickly. They were warm and comfortable and he didn't bother himself with wondering where they came from. Instead he trained his ears to the steadily increasing volume of the soft pattering sound.
As Harry inspected his surroundings they seemed to define themselves from the mist. Suddenly the nondescript whiteness took the form of a domed glass ceiling and walls enclosed him in a Great Hall. The pattering sound became clearer. It was a soft thumping, a whimpering even. The sound wrenched his heart and he didn't know why.
He spun around and realized he was not alone. The sound was coming from a small child. A red blotchy pitiful looking thing. It was naked and abandoned and he couldn't help but draw nearer to it. It's skin looked flayed and raw. It looked so fragile that he wanted to comfort it.
"You cannot help."
Harry spun around to the sound of the new voice. Albus Dumbledore was walking towards him.
"Harry." The old man called out, his arms opened wide as though he wished to embrace Harry. "You brave brave boy. I'm so proud of you."
Harry balked at Dumbledore's cheery visage. He couldn't help the flash of anger he felt at seeing his former mentor's smile. The twinkling of his eyes seemed to taunt Harry. 'Does he have to look so damn pleased that I'm dead?' Harry thought bitterly.
"Why didn't you tell me." He asked. The old man's smile faltered.
"You weren't ready, my boy. I wanted you to live unburdened."
"You wanted me to die at the opportune moment." Harry corrected and Dumbledore's smile fully vanished.
"It is a terrible burden to know in advance that one must die for the greater good. It is not a cross that I wished for you to bear."
"And what exactly makes that your call?" Harry asked, his voice rising in anger. "Did it not occur to you that I might have lived my life differently if I had known my days were numbered. Did it not occur to you that I might have been less reckless. That others, people like Sirius, needn't have died to protect me had my fate been known."
"Sirius was a tragic loss, but in the end it was his choice to pursue you at the Ministry. The weight of his death is not on your shoulders."
"No, it's not!" Harry exclaimed. "It's on your shoulders. If you had told me the truth any of the of times I asked you then I never would have even gone to the ministry. Sirius' life never even needed to be risked. You knew why Voldemort had access to my mind. You must have heard from Snape that Occlumency wasn't making a damn bit of difference why the bloody hell didn't you take that obvious opportunity to enlighten me. You could have saved everyone a whole lot of effort. Why didn't you just let Voldemort kill me at the ministry? Why did you risk Sirius and the rest of the Order?" Harry demanded.
"It wasn't yet your time, my boy. The horcruxes had not yet been destroyed. There was no reason for you to die prematurely." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as though he expected this answer to appease Harry but it just infuriated him even more.
"And what about Sirius? What about everyone else who has died since then. And for no reason. They all died fighting a battle they had no hope of winning against an enemy that you alone knew was immortal but didn't bloody bother telling anyone."
Dumbledore frowned. "Now Harry. I couldn't risk the horcruxes becoming common knowledge. If word had leaked out to Voldemort that we knew about his safeguards than he might have created more. Or worse he could have sought out some alternative method of preservation of which we knew nothing about. We couldn't risk it."
"No, instead you just risk or worse intentionally endanger the lives of everyone foolish enough to follow you. Anyone naive enough to trust that you had their best interest at heart."
"Now Harry, you're letting your anger get the better of you. I've been forced to make difficult choices, but someone has to do it. Someone has to be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. The ministry is too corrupt to do what is right and so the burden fell to me."
"My whole life was a farce. Was I ever anything more than a pawn to you?"
"We are all but pieces in the game of life my boy. There is no shame in that."
Harry shook his head in disgust. In a horrifying moment of clarity he asked. "Is that why you put me with the Dursleys? So I'd be so beaten and downtrodden by the time I got to Hogwarts that I wouldn't question authority?"
Dumbledore pursed his lips disapprovingly. "I placed you with the Dursleys so that you would be protected by the blood wards." Dumbledore answered condescendingly.
"Bollocks! By your own admission I've been carrying a piece of Voldemort's soul the whole time I've been living there and the ward's never tried to keep Voldemort out. Even if the blood wards did work they would have been negated when he used my blood to resurrect himself. Which leaves the question of why you put me there. If everyone else's representation of my parents is to be believed than I know the Dursleys would not have been their choice for me. Even in the absence of Sirius my parents would have wanted me raised in the wizarding world. My mother died to protect me. She would have wanted me to live."
"When your parents drew up their will they had no way of knowing that you would end up being a horcrux. Light wizards that they were, I doubt they even knew what Horcruxes were."
"My parents would have wanted me to live." Harry reaffirmed. "Did you even try to find any other way to remove the Horcrux without killing me."
"The prophecy my b-"
"So that's a no then. You didn't even try to save me. You just decided that I needed to die. Wonderful, nice to know that my years of faith in you were well placed." Harry rolled his eyes exaggeratedly.
"You are running out of time." A third voice broke into their conversation. Harry's head jerked and the voice seemed to be coming from a cloak of shadows. It reminded Harry a little bit of dementors but instead of feeling cold and awful it emitted a sense of warm comfort.
"Who are you?" Harry asked timidly.
"I am Death and you are my master." The shadow answered.
Dumbledore tensed and quickly interjected. "I had not expected you to become the Master of Death Harry. This is wonderful news. You can go back and kill Nagini. You can finish Voldemort off. All you have to do is leave his soul fragment here to be claimed by the abyss and then will yourself alive."
The frail child squirmed and wailed out again piercing the tense silence of the domed hall.
"You'd like for another child to be abandoned to death wouldn't you?" Harry rejoined.
"You can't save him. He's beyond saving. He was always beyond saving."
"I think I'm about through with limiting myself to your self-serving advice. History has not proven you to be the most forthcoming with me." Harry turned to death and asked. "What are my options? What are ALL my options."
The shadow released a warmth pulse that Harry thought must have been its equivalent of a smile.
"The old one is not wrong. You CAN return to the time you just left. You can leave the horcrux behind. Or you can return to any of the prior occasions when you directly encountered death. You can return to the death of Cedric Diggory, the death of your godfather, the death of your mother, the passing of your headmaster or the death of Professor Quirrell. Those are the occasions in which you have directly witnessed the passage of life to death. I can only bring you back to those moments in time where I was present in your life. You can choose any of them, but know this. Should you choose to travel back to any of the deaths before today you will no longer be the Master of Death. In all of your encounters with me before today you had mastered only the cloak. You will have to reclaim the items again if you wish to retain mastery over me."
Harry mused over his options.
"Harry! You must go back to the battle. You must destroy Voldemort. If you go back in time the Horcrux will remain within you and this will all have been for nothing!"
Harry couldn't help but smirk at the growing desperation on his former headmaster's face. "I wouldn't say it's for nothing." Harry countered. "I know the truth now. Finally the cards are on the table and I know what I'm up against. I have choices now."
"There is no choice! You have to die to fulfill the prophecy!"
"Hmm, perhaps. But I'm not quite as fatalistic as you seem to be. I'm willing to explore other options. It troubles me that you never even tried to remove the Horcrux from me non-lethally."
"Tick tock Harry." Death mused. "You really are running out of time."
"I choose to go back to the death of Quirrel! Anything later and I won't have enough time to fix anything and I don't want to go back to being a baby."
"Death of Quirrel it as." Death's warm embrace pulsed through Harry as the domed illusion faded to black.
The darkness faded onto a familiar scene. Harry was back in the chamber where the philosopher's stone had been hidden.
"KILL HIM! KILL HIM!" Voldemort yelled.
Harry's arms were wrapped unyieldingly around Quirrell's body. Harry could feel Quirrell's face melting against his fingers, but he held tight even as the pain of contact made his head feel like it was going to explode. Quirrell's pained shriek quieted and his body slumped onto the floor.
Voldemort's spirit had escaped in the chaos of the struggle. Harry collapsed to his knees panting from the exertion of having subdued a grown man with his malnourished eleven year old body and from the residual pain in his scar.
Quirrell's corpse was a mess of burnt flesh and Harry was shocked that he didn't remember this from the first time around.
'You suppressed it.' A voice answered his unspoken query.
Harry glanced around frantically. He had thought Voldemort was gone.
'I'm in your head.' The voice answered again, this time with an unmistakable hint of amusement. 'Now that you know about me and have accepted my presence in your mind I don't have to remain dormant anymore. I can talk to you.'
"I haven't accepted your presence in my head!." Harry replied out loud.
'You know you don't have to speak. I can hear your thoughts.'
'If you can hear my thoughts than you should know that I reject you!' Harry retorted.
'Your actions would suggest otherwise. In limbo you wished to comfort me, to help me. When given the choice to abandon me to death you chose to keep me. That counts as acceptance in my books.' The horcrux replied smugly.
Choosing to sidestep the discussion altogether Harry instead asked. 'Where's Dumbledore? In the hospital wing he told me that he arrived on the scene as I was fighting Quirrell and that he saved me.'
'Yes, another of the myriad lies that the old man has fed you over the years. He won't be here for at least an hour.'
'How would you know?' Harry thought petulantly.
'You are smart enough to figure that out without asking. I may have been silent the first time around, but that does not mean I was oblivious. I was always watching. Always aware, even when you weren't.' The horcrux finished ominously.
'Why don't I remember this. Quirrell's body, waiting for Dumbledore. I don't remember any of this.'
'You were in shock. Your eleven year old mind couldn't handle the fact that you had gruesomely murdered a man so it blocked it out. When Dumbledore arrived you were catatonic and curled up on the floor.'
'Bollocks. I didn't murder him.'
'Oh?' The horcrux chuckled. 'Dropped dead on his own did he? Or are you suggesting it's only murder if someone else does it.'
'It was self defense.'
'One could argue that my attacks on you were self defense, yet somehow I doubt you see it that way.'
'I was a baby.'
'The prophecy marked you as a threat to my continued existence and so I defensively attempted to remove that threat. Ergo self-defense.'
'That's a pretty self serving definition.'
'Claims of self-defense are always self serving. You're the one refusing to accept that he is a murderer, not me. It's pointless for us to continuing arguing the point. You asked a question and I answered it. You don't remember because your mind chose not to.'
'Okay, so why am I not curled up in a fetal position crying this time?'
Harry thought he could feel the horcrux smirking. 'Several reasons, I'm sure. For one you are not in shock because you arrived onto this scene expecting to see Quirrell die. Two, this is no longer the most horrible or graphic thing your young mind has witnessed. You have watched loved ones die. You have watched people you care about tortured in front of you. Thirdly, you don't want to be protected from the truth anymore. You are here in the past with the deliberate intent of unveiling the lies that have been fed to you. You are no longer in denial and so therefore your mind no longer tries to protect you from the truth.'
'So are you always going to be talking in my head now?'
'Don't be ridiculous. If Dumbledore becomes aware that I am awake within you he won't hesitate to kill you to kill me. It would be very counterproductive for me to reveal myself in that manner. And since you clearly find talking to me highly distracting I don't think we would be able to keep me a secret for very long if I were constantly talking to you while you are around other people. So in short no. I will not be chatting with you constantly.'
'Good, because I don't want to talk to you.'
Voldemort chose not to dignify that with a response and the silence lingered. Harry suddenly realized that he had no idea what he was supposed to do now. As Voldemort had so kindly pointed out he had just brutally murdered his teacher and was now trapped in a room with the very condemning evidence of his crime. Harry looked over at the portal he came in through.
'Yup, still covered in fire.' He cursed his bad luck. He didn't have the faintest idea how to overcome that little charm and it's not like he just kept doses of that flame freezing potion on his person.
Harry didn't want to think of how Dumbledore would react to him just casually hanging out around a dead Quirrell. He may have escaped consequences the first time because he was a catatonic mess and Dumbledore had no reason to doubt that his self-martyring grooming was right on track. But Harry had no doubt that Dumbledore would react to the scene very differently if Harry seemed less than traumatized. Harry couldn't risk Dumbledore thinking he was going dark or was being influenced by the horcrux. One snoop into Harry's mind would be all it would take and Harry would be fucked. Harry wasn't cocky enough to think he could take Dumbledore in a duel. Especially considering Dumbledore still had the Elder Wand.
'I could help you escape this room, for a price.' Voldemort's voice chimed in.
'How? You are nothing but a voice in my head.'
'A voice that knows a fool proof way out of this room.'
'Why would you help me?'
'Other than a desire to not be destroyed when Dumbledore inevitably sees through your abysmal acting skills and realizes that you are no longer his pawn? I did mention a price.'
Harry felt a sudden wave of wariness. Harry knew he shouldn't even ask. How many tales were there about the folly of making deals with the devil. But still if he stayed here he would have to face Dumbledore.
'What do you want?'
'The stone, and your assistance in creating a new body for myself since you killed my last assistant'
'Oh is that all?'
'No, I also would insist on a wizard's oath that you will cease fighting me.'
'Why, would I ever agree to that?!' Harry interrupted him.
'Because if you do I will do likewise and we can end this infernal prophecy once and for all. You'll never be free otherwise. It will always be hanging over you like a sword of Damocles. Do you truly think you will withstand the wizarding world's expectations of you without a vow binding you?'
'I'm not going to be a martyr again.'
'If you remain here Dumbledore will use you. Make no mistake of that. You are his prized pawn. He has already sunk ten years into grooming you.'
Harry paced back and forth clenching his hands. He hated that he knew that Voldemort was right. Dumbledore would never let him live his life the way he wanted to and the Wizarding world would never get up off as their asses and save themselves if he was around. Harry would need to leave Hogwarts. No, there was no place in Britain that Dumbledore wouldn't find him. He'd have to go abroad. Maybe take a new name and make a life for himself in America or some other English speaking nation. But to do that he would first need to get out of this thrice damned room. Harry was wavering, he really didn't want to take Voldemort's offer but time was at a premium here and there weren't any other solutions forthcoming. Sensing Harry's waning resolve Voldemort added.
'I will get a body eventually with or without your assistance. You already know this. However, with your help and the with the Philosopher's Stone I could be properly restored, with my sanity intact rather than the crazed monstrosity that you faced at the end of your fourth year. In helping me you would be sparing the wizarding would the fate they faced at my future counterparts hands. You aren't the only one who has traveled back in time and now has the benefit of foresight. I don't want to become an insane genocidal tyrant anymore than you want me to.'
'Oh because you were all puppies and rainbows during the first war.' Harry rolled his eyes.
'I was a political revolutionary and I targeted political opponents. I didn't hire vagrants to hunt mudblood children or populate Hogwarts teaching staff with sadistic child haters. Those are not the actions of a sane man and that is not the vision I had for Wizarding Britain.'
Voldemort sounded like he was telling the truth. The words felt true and frankly Harry wanted to believe him if for no other reason because he wanted to assuage his guilt about having chosen his own happiness over the fate of the wizarding world. Harry sighed.
'Fine what do I have to do?' Harry asked wearily. Harry could feel Voldemort triumph through their link and almost rescinded his compliance.
'First the vow.' Voldemort answered quickly so Harry wouldn't have time to second guess himself. 'And then we grab the stone and get out of here. Time is of the essence, our hour is nearly up.'
'But I still don't know how to get through the flames.'
'That will not be an issue. Now for the vow, I want you to swear on your magic that you will never raise your wand against me with the intent to harm.'
'That's all? You're not go to make me swear to join you or some such.'
"I'm not an idiot. You would never agree to such a stipulation. I am content for you to not be able to fight me.'
'Fine, I Harry James Potter swear on my magic that I will not raise my wand against Tom Marvolo Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort, with the intent to harm him so long as he vows the same.' Harry smiled as the tick of annoyance he felt from Voldemort at his addition.'
A moment's hesitation passed but then Voldemort replied. 'I Lord Voldemort swear on my magic not to raise my wand against Harry James Potter so long as he assists me in regaining my corporal form. So mote it be. There now grab the stone and the potion vial in Quirrell's pocket.'
'Do I have to?' Harry really didn't want to have to dig the the charred melted mess that was once Professor Quirrell.
'Not if you don't mind staying here and explaining all this to Dumbledore.'
Harry silently cursed himself for not having thought through his choice to return back in time to this moment as he begrudgingly made his way over to Quirrell's corpse. It was every bit as gross as he imagined it would be. The smell of burning flesh was pungent and thick in the air surrounding the body. Luckily his teaching robes were mostly intact and with a little shuffling of the body Harry was able to find the pocket and the aforementioned potion. It was the flame freeze potion. Of course it was. He was an idiot. Obviously Quirrell wouldn't have come in here without an exit strategy on his person. And Harry had just sold his soul for a potion he could have just taken for free. Lovely. He picked up the stone from where he had dropped it when he woke up in the past and made his way back to the flaming portal. He popped the cork off the potion and downed it in one shot.
'Let's get this over with.' He grumbled. He could feel Voldemort's smugness as he walked through the flames and into his new life.