Where We Come Alive
by starcanopus
Prologue
Hariel Lily Potter is dead. Again.
It's never a great feeling, dying, to be honest. But she thinks that it's the part when she wakes up that is infinitely worse.
There's a moment, just before she opens her eyes, when all the joy and misery and pain of her past lives converge into a singular, crippling grief pressing down on her chest. It paralyzes and suffocates, until it's like she's dying all over again. Harry feels that now, so fully and deeply.
Her first time waking up alone in this place is still etched into her mind. It's so cold, had been her first thought. An unwelcome, dark, and foreign place, at least until she finally realized what this place was and why she was here.
She had fallen to her knees, so crushing was her realization of what was gone. Names and faces flashed into her mind, lingering as if to taunt her and make her see that she had failed in so many ways. Ron. Hermione. Luna. Ginny. Even Malfoy, who she'd finally made amends with. Harry had won the war against Voldemort in her world...but she'd never quite managed to come back from it. She kept fighting on in that life, both against her own demons and the remaining fragments of Voldemort's legacy, until one day a killing curse finally hit its mark.
She's not sure when she finally lost track. At some point or another, she had just stopped counting the lives lived and lost. Stopped caring so much, loving too hard. It used to ache so much, losing everything over and over and over again. Things are more manageable now.
Well, to a certain extent.
Harry sits up slowly, pressing a cool hand to her forehead in an attempt to soothe the pounding headache chipping away at the inside of her skull. She can still hear the echoes of screams, the ghost of a heavy scent of blood assaulting her nose.
"Welcome back to the land of the dead."
Death's voice is far too pleased for Harry's liking and she levels an ugly look at his back.
"I felt that." complains Death, spinning around in the sleek and modern swivel chair he is perched on. The familiar dark robes obscure his person from her view. Instead of trying to make out his mysterious features as she had after her first few deaths, Harry fixes her gaze on the rippling black of his outfit, a dark, Stygian material that indicates clearly it's no ordinary cloak.
Harry remains sitting, focusing on clearing her mind and making quick work of suppressing the memories she wants to forget. Her attempts at Occlumency in her first life had been a disaster of epic proportions, and she had only started to pay attention to the skill after one particularly trying death, realizing that if she pushed hard enough, she could protect her mind not only from others, but also from herself.
Her forehead creases in concentration. Completely forgetting is a futile task and she had given up trying long ago. All Harry can hope to do is construct mental barriers stowing away the most painful memories. It doesn't make her forget, no matter how small the memory, but it dulls the ache. It's like seeing images through fragmented, stained glass instead. She much prefers that over the alternative.
Harry clenches her jaw. This one is more difficult. Wars are harder to contain. They sink into everything, every memory, every wound, squeezing with a vice grip until you scream for air and still they won't let go. But she still tries. She has to.
When she finally does shift her weight to her hands and pushes herself onto her feet, an exaggerated sigh comes from across the room. The computer screens cast a white glow on Death, who is spinning round and round in the chair like a child.
"You're getting slower, Master," he laments. "It used to take you much faster to box away all that."
Harry scowls. "Shut up, you old coot. It's been a while since my last war."
"I see, so you're out of practice then."
She sighs and stalks toward him, choosing not to rise to his taunt.
"So what's next?" Harry asks wearily, placing a hand on the back of Death's chair. Her fingers sweep over the material. Hm. Expensive leather. Surveying the monitors on the large, curved desk sitting before Death, Harry winces when she sees the images on them, familiar and violent scenes from the life she just lived.
"Quick and to the point, I see. You're that eager to be rid of me?"
Harry lets out a snort. "I've spent too much time with you already. Our relationship works best when I just pop in to say hi and then get the hell out."
"True," agrees Death. "We'll drive each other mad if this goes on any longer."
"Glad to see you agree." Her voice is amused. Harry looks around again and frowns. "What is this place supposed to be?"
Death's voice is disappointed. His shoulders slouch down. "You can't tell? I spent so long designing this place."
Harry gives him a skeptical look. "You know, this might be the least helpful Void you've ever shown me."
"What? How dare you."
"It's a bloody...cave." Harry quips, unimpressed. She gestures at the black desk, chair, and her surroundings. Admittedly, Death did do a nice job with the room, dark and impressive stone walls stretching up and up, but it's not like she'd ever tell him that. His head's far too big as it is. "With a computer. This could be any gamer and his grandmother."
The room seems dismally lacking, as though there's a chunk of its essence simply missing.
Death's habit of molding the Void to foreshadow her next life, while at first helpful, had quickly turned into a how-to-confuse-my-Master-as-much-as-I-can game for him. The bastard was quite good at it.
"I did wanted to upgrade this to its magnificent self but that would be giving you too many hints." Death wags a finger at her.
"Yes, Merlin forbid you ever let me have an easy go of things." Harry sighs but accepts the fact that she won't be squeezing any more information out of him.
A brief pause falls over the two and they both stare absently at the computer screens, with Harry turning her eyes away after a few seconds, unwilling to relive the past.
"Well," Harry breaks the comfortable silence. "If there's nothing else...shall we?"
Death raises his hand and places it on her forehead. A mischievous note seeps into his voice and Harry is barely able to catch his words to her before she falls unconscious.
"It's an interesting world. I think you'll like it."
He watches over her in the beginning, as he has for every one of her lifetimes.
The woman is moaning in pain, teeth clenched tightly as a thin sheen of sweat glistens on her forehead. Death's gaze draws towards the space between the mother-to-be's legs. Waiting patiently.
He is not a fool. He knows this time something will be different. When his Master had awoken before him, in the very spot where she always appears, he'd nearly fallen off the chair with the petrifying realization that he couldn't sense her anymore. He couldn't sense the pieces of her that gave her strength, and the humming of their bond, while still there, was alarmingly weak. There would be a reckoning for that, he muses, and this life will test her to her very core.
A shrill cry pierces the stale air in the room. The woman is shivering violently, but she still reaches out for her child.
Death gravitates toward the two, hovering expectantly.
His Master's eyes open and though she cannot see anything at this stage, Death meets her eyes anyways. They are bright green, as always, the hue of new spring growth after a harsh winter, every shade of green in a forest. They are bright and they are alive.
And then, for the first time in what could only be eternity, Death...feels something. A stirring in the cosmos and whispers of change. His gaze remains steady and he moves closer to his Master.
Six brilliantly golden strings burst from the newborn's chest, so sudden and unexpected that he has to take an unsteady step backwards. Each strand hurtles out the open window and into the night sky like individual arrows, twisting away from their parallel paths as soon as the open air greets them.
Death parts his lips and lets out a stunned chuckle. "I see..."
He continues staring long after they have vanished into the black sky. It's only when his Master gives a displeased cry—her magic has sensed that the woman on the hospital bed is no longer moving or breathing—does Death draw his attention back.
He waits until the humans in the room have plucked his Master from the dead woman before moving towards the glass box she is placed in.
He traces a long, mottled finger down her forehead, an angry red scar following the path. Death pauses for a moment, evaluating his options before picking up his Master's tiny arm. The mark of the Deathly Hallows shimmers silver before settling out of sight on her wrist, and he ignores the obvious fact that it no longer glows as brightly.
Everything is as it should be.
Apart from that whole string business. He doesn't envy her.
But, he thinks, it will be worth it.
It has to be.
Because as much as he does not want to admit, his Master is damn good at what she does, and the thought of the consequences should she not...well, Death is almost unwilling to go there. He's grown quite fond of her, after all.
He touches her chest, where her tiny heart beats on.
"I hope you find what you need, Master."