Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, setting, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. All other concepts and ideas from other books or stories belong to their respective authors. No copyright infringement is intended.
Day One
Battle of Hogwarts: 1998
As Harry lay at Hagrid's feet and looked out through slit eyes, to see Voldemort light the sorting hat afire, he had one of those moments of clarity that so many people spend lifetimes hoping and searching for. With the shattered Hogwarts as a backdrop, its defenders cowed though still defiant. Surrounded by the corpses of both sides, mighty giants lain low, piles of ash signifying the remnants of vampires, the results of a particularly zealous fire spell, Acromantula locked in the rictus of death, and the shattered, flayed, and torn apart remnants of wizards, witches and werewolves, Harry came to two distinct and illuminating conclusions.
The first and probably most important one being, that the practice of stunning people trying to kill you, if all that was needed to revive them was a third year spell, was one he would no longer partake in. Harry would later learn that this idiocy was the result of the now removed soul fragment utilizing his compassion which combined with the passive mentality the Dursleys had instilled in him limited his threat potential. As a consequence his " slytherin tendencies" rarely made themselves known, ambition being proactive.
The second conclusion: listening to his instincts when they told him to stun the ever living shit out of Remus and Tonks Lupin, and then portkeying them to shell cottage would be one of his proudest moments.
So when the moment ended and Neville proceeded to pull the sword of Gryffindor from the hat only to cut Nagini's head clean off, he did not wait around only to have some amazingly climactic final battle complete with witty one liner. No! He lifted his arm from where he lay, completely unobserved, and cast a silent reducto that proceeded to splatter what remained of the dark lord's head over the death eaters that stood nearest. And so when he sat up and the only sound to be heard was the thump of dead death eaters hitting the ground he did not relax his guard, no! He did his absolute best to embrace the most intelligent words any being had ever communicated to him " CONSTANT VIGILANCE". This led to one of those intuitive leaps Harry had become well known for. Instinctively understanding it was marked death eaters that had perished so conveniently and their marks all being connected to Lord Voldemort he instantly distrusted anything that seemed even remotely positive. Thus he summoned the Elder Wand away from where Voldemort's maybe-corpse? lay. Catching it and taking a step closer to the maybe corpse he got a perfect view of the head actively regrowing. Frantically searching his mind for the most destructive spell he knew, he imitated Goyle ( or maybe it was Crab?) and proceeded to summon Fiendfyre, causing the consumption of Voldemort's' body. If one listened close enough (which Harry did) one could hear the shrieks of Voldemort's' soul as it was consumed by the fire.
Magical historians would go on to posit that this was how he had destroyed the other soul containers, seeing as Neville quite obviously had the sword of Gryffindor, which was later returned to the Hat.
Hermoine would go on to write a research paper in which she would dub " the Potter effect" to describe the times when magic would simply not follow its own laws when around specific individuals (Harry would hypothesize that the consistency of the potter effect occurring was a definitive way of measuring a magicals "awesomeness".) Two millennia into the future Muggle linguists would come to the belief that the common slang " a potter's effect" was used to reference the myths of man being crafted from clay and was supposed to mean that an action was successful through the help of 21st century myth: Lord Potter AKA Potter of Potters, who was said to help people through magic or godly intervention.
Sadly for Harry and a few others he was not only a novice at being actively vigilant, the Dursley's for all their inadequacy had taught reactionary methods rather than proactive ones, and so, being not only sore and tired from fighting in an admittedly short siege, dying, and then coming back only to kill the reigning dark lord twice, he missed the dark wisp of smoke that arose from one of the bodies and fled to the forbidden forest.
Harry unaware of this turned to regard the stunned masses before him and Neville who was putting out his burning hair. Now not being in the healthiest state of mind having gone from determinedly suicidal to just about every other combination of determined and an emotionally charged adjective under the sun, his reaction to the attention of so many people would have to be excused. Summoning the resurrection stone silently (leaving it there was a recipe for disaster) he twisted, disapparating and leaving behind a perpetually stunned mass of people.
Grimmauld place 1998
When Harry arrived from killing his first Darklord he naturally proceeded to smack into the front door his state of mind not doing him any favors. Opening the door to enter he absently congratulated himself for having the foresight to have Hermione remove the practically useless " security" features that guarded the entrance. On his way to the master bedroom he called Kreacher. With a pop to herald his arrival the very same appeared.
" Yes master Potter" Kreacher rasped in his anything but Dulcet tones.
" I need you to first make sure the house is safe, then I want you to go to my friends and tell them that I'm healthy..." He made sure not to say "fine" or come hell or high water Hermoine would make sure of his health, she was suspicious like that. "...and will get in touch with them when I wake up. Then tell Ginny that I understand she has more important things to do and if she needs anything she can get to me through you. You may then rest till I or she call on you again."
" Yes master Potter" and creature popped away again, he didn't usually speak to Kreacher this way since Hermione was usually around. But he simply responded better to a firm hand.
When he'd finally reached his bed and peeled himself out of his clothes he set the deathly hallows on his nightstand, flopped onto the bed, curled up under the covers and promptly fell asleep.
? 1988 1 1/2 hours ago
As Harry touched the resurrection stone for the first time the power inherent in the Trinity of the deathly hallows responded to being in possession of a single person the first time in history, binding them together till death do them part.
Later when Harry " killed" Voldemort for the first time, the 698 deaths that resulted from this action were used to power an awakening for a being that had not been conscious for millennia and had not expected that change at any time soon.
After Harry had finally truly killed the Darklord the consciousness started to plan. If its goals were to be achieved it would first need information so as to be able to plot a proper course as it were. It facilitated this by exploiting the newly formed connection to gain insight into its host, for lack of a better term. Not one to leave a resource untapped, it sifted through the mountains of memories it had access to using the souls of the now dead Death Eaters so that it would be capable of projecting its chosen form. Thus when Harry burrowed into bed and fell to sleep, it was ready having already chosen the form deemed to be the most advantageous for the coming discussion.
Harry
After what seemed to be less than an instant he opened his eyes only to find himself lying on what to his hands had the texture of stone, though none of its hardness, feeling to him as if one had cast upon it a cushioning charm. Standing up brought neither the tiredness of the day's battle nor the aches that should have come with it.
As he looked around himself, now aware of his condition if not its reason, he saw that he was surrounded by a roiling black mist that formed a corridor through its absence. This led to a room in which a low black table and two chairs had formed on either side. On the chair farthest from him sat an inhumanly beautiful woman, close proximity to veela having given him something of a sense for it, the unnatural perfection precipitated by her near perfect symmetry being a tell. Walking towards what was likely his seat he took the time to study the being in front of him: long straight black hair, ruby red lips, hard brown eyes, slender body, long shapely legs and pale milky white skin, in addition to regal posture and an undeniable presence made this female one of the most beautiful he had ever seen. Having taken the walk to appreciate her he set his mind to the task of determining the reason for his presence and the best way to proceed from here.
Taking his seat he proceeded to ask the question of supreme importance.
" Good evening, do you have tea?"
If he was to die here he would do it proudly tea in hand and back straight. The woman taking a moment to shake the stupor from her mind snapped her fingers materializing two pre-filled teacups. Utilizing the moment of silence created by him partaking of the tea she rejoined with:
" Good evening to you as well Mr. Potter. We have much to talk about and you have much to do when you wake."
Harry nodded in response slightly surprised his life seemed not to be at an end.
" To keep this talk efficient I will proceed to monologue for the most part. Ask questions if you have any." Another nod.
" I am Death, to be more specific I am a death. There are a few death gods and the like, Hades, Osiris, and Thanatos being some of them. This has led to negative consequences for me. The main one being that I get a very few souls as things stand. Eventually when those gods cease to exist I will absorb them and their domain, this will not only take a long time but also leave me weak in the interim. This is where you and the hallows come in, the purpose of the hallows was to find a worthy bearer, the criteria were many, the most important one was that you had to have completed a prophecy thus rendering you marked both as someone to whom a prophecy applies (this allows me to slot you into a new prophecy if useful) and as someone who has completed his/her own prophecy, thus keeping you from activating a bunch of them by accident or being roped in by an already existing one. Any questions so far?"
Harry took a moment to assimilate this windfall of knowledge.
" Do I have a choice in this?" Harry could practically feel his self righteousness compelling him to throw a tantrum at the amount of bullshit he had to put up with.
" No, you do not have a choice, this is the price you paid when you decided not to die at the crossing."
'Well shit!' Harry thought tiredly 'would have been nice to know that beforehand.'
" Now, while you don't have a choice in fulfilling your duty, you will be given as much freedom as practical. I see no reason why our partnership cannot be mutually beneficial."
Now this Harry could approve of! This was more than Dumbledore had ever offered him. He would have to be careful not to trust too quickly though, that had burned him before. Besides CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
" Knowing who and what I am as well as the reason for your presence we can move on to your title, as well as the duties associated with it. Finally I will tell you the benefits and drawbacks associated with the title. Titles as you should have been taught in history of magic are not simply labels that are given but often have intrinsic effects. You are now, both in title and in effect, my representative on earth, my high priest. We will have to come up with a sufficiently dramatic name in the future. Your duties extend to gaining followers, and helping me gain power. Ways of doing this usually involve you doing something of epic importance to one or more people. This is why being fate marked is so important. I can simply have you take the leading role in a prophecy of importance, from which you not only gain access to the skills you learn on your quest (thus increasing your personal power) as well as monetary, political, and or interpersonal rewards but due to the inherent nature of prophecy you will almost always affect many people in a profound way.
On a side note you should anticipate ending up with a harem, seeing as you will likely accrue many a life debt. The second piece of advice I want to impart upon you is to create something of a hobby for yourself, creating a multidimensional library that you will fill with everything in existence would be a sufficiently lofty goal as to alleviate boredom.
Moving on to the positives and negatives: you are practically immortal. The reason for this being that should you die your soul is sent to me, if your body can still sustain life, IE death by killing curse, you can simply re-enter your body. If your body cannot sustain life you either spend a lot of power to gain a new one or you go the Voldemort route possessing beings till you gain a body another way. When I say "power" I really mean souls, you can gain these by directly causing the death of human beings or humanoids. Most things that can learn from experience and increase their complexity will have a soul, this in fact includes animals. There is a distinction between the quality of one soul and another, complexity is what measures the quality of a soul.
Harry preceded to squint his eyes together " So you, want me, to wander around sacrificing people to you for power?" He asked incredulously, if she thought this was going to happen she obviously hadn't set the hallow search criteria well.
"You seem to assume that you will be" she made air quotes " 'slaughtering' innocents. This is where the brilliance of prophecy comes into play" Harry snorted at the idea of Prophecy being brilliant. " there are many beings whose death would make the world a better place, Voldemort's' evil is not the worst, not by a long shot. So while you go saving worlds you also gain access to souls that you can use to gain many other abilities, becoming a metamorphmagus for instance.
A negative of this ability is that most beings will simply not live as long as you, and the resources required to keep them alive with you are immense.
The second negative of this title is that you'll be working a lot. Generally I plan to send you somewhere to complete your mission and whether that takes minutes, years, or decades you will stay until you are finished. Some of this can be mitigated, time travel being of use for this. After a successful operation you'll usually have something around a year as downtime.
The last thing of note is that your timeline is permanent. If you were to travel back in time you would in fact be traveling to a separate Dimension that is identical till that point in time. This is slightly flexible, with time Turner's being a good example seeing as they allow one to travel to the past in which the future is already certain, subjectively. Another nitpick would be pausing a timeline allowing you to be gone a few years but returning an instant after you left. Believe me, you will be very thankful for this ability in the future.
Moving from the theoretical to the practical. The hallows are, for the moment, almost exactly as they were before you left, you can spend power to enhance them.
I will now give you access to the three abilities you will need to fulfill your duties.
The first skill is legilimency, you know what this does. The second ability works in harmony with the third one and allows you the ability to create mental "masks" that hide aspects of you from all manners of detection, excluding things that for example can visually be witnessed. It is imperative that you use this the moment you are able, being my chosen "colors" your magic and it's feel would be most distressing to the average mortal.
The third and final skill you will gain is both the most important as well as the most useful you will ever gain, bar none. What I'm giving you access to is your soulscape, it is very similar to a mindscape, with a few key differences. For instance if you were to create a representation of your resolve it might be a pond or a lake. The cleaner the lake the stronger your resolve, in a mindscape cleaning the Lake would have a symbolic effect and would indirectly affect you by making you aware of the problem, in a soulscape this is not so. The increase of control now makes this change have both symbolic as well as actual effects.
An example of the danger inherent in this would be if one were to imagine a tree that represents say… Your hatred for Albus Dumbledore. If you were to use the waters of your resolve to water the tree and you did so using a hose for a minute a day you would be in control of its growth. But if you were to put the tree at the edge of the lake the tree would grow uncontrolled and your hatred would eventually exceed the wanted size. Thus you may end up strangling the headmaster in the great hall because he ended the dinner early costing you your treacle tart."
Now Harry was impressed, killing someone over treacle tart in private was one thing (it was the food of the gods after all) but doing so in publicly was less than intelligent. He did know how to build a mindscape, he had read the books Snape gave him, he'd simply never gotten that far.
" Cumulatively that costs you all but one unit of power. I would advise you to set up a system that counts them in your soulscape. You'll wake in 9 hours real world time. I would advise you to get on good terms with the Goblins, they will be most useful. I look forward to our next meeting, have a pleasant week."
With that abrupt ending she snapped her fingers and Harry saw black.
Harry
Harry sat in the dark surrounded by the billowing dark gray mist that was the material his will would give form to. Having been a Gryffindor for most of his life acting before thought was his modus operandi, but here he had a chance to reevaluate his opinion and make actual near immediate changes! Sadly he had nowhere to enact the changes, so his inner Gryffindor charged ahead any way. Harry knew that the more alien he made his mind function the more difficult an enemy would find attacking him. This is due to an enemy mind having to function through the legilimency probe which acted like a translator to overcome the inherent difference in individual thought process, legilimency being influenced by the user's will, their chosen form of attack (so a battering ram to blow through shields etc.) and finally the experience of their probe when it came to translating the attack into a viable equivalent.
The most alien and simultaneously useful thing Harry could think of was a computer. Now Harry had never owned a computer, but he had occasionally managed to gain access to one, as well as a few SCI Fi novels, so he was reasonably sure he could create a functional mental approximate.
To start with he created a very comfortable office chair, having heard from uncle Vernon these were preeminently important. Next he willed a curved table into existence, it was made of Mahogany, not the most technological of materials, but this was his mind so he would do what he wanted. Having created most of the periphery he moved onto the computer itself. Naturally the power was supplied by his will and as such was effectively limitless, a good quality to have so as to not accidentally have it shut off. Drawing on his SCI Fi "knowledge" he materialized a holographic interface that followed the curve of his table so that he could look ahead and 90° to the left or right and still have space to work with. Now came the difficult part, seeing as power was unlimited and storage space was the mind itself (making this effectively limitless as well) his only limit was in Processing Power.
Before Harry did anything else he wanted to know what he had to work with, not wanting to accidentally turn himself into an invalid by having too little Processing Power to move. So Harry used his still unregulated mind to have the monitor display what he had available. The monitor showed he had two processors to work with, one was already permanently assigned to function for him personally, (which is how he thought now) it had a ludicrously high clock compared to the other one. In contrast the second processor only had a maximum clock of two GHz, though this was easily five times as fast as the current real world speed. In contrast to the first one it had four different cores, which he could assign to four different tasks simultaneously.
Harry immediately assigned one core to cataloging and archiving his memories. The second core was set to scan his physical body, magic, and emotions, then interface with the first processor so it would gain real time input as well as data on himself. His third core was set to mental defense and was to analyze and then defend against all threats to his mind. Finally the fourth core was the bridge between his mind processor and this extra processor. Harry told his bridge to have him sleep until either his first or second processor were finished or his third processor was activated.
Two real world hours later, 6 hours remaining:
When Harry was once again conscious the first thing he saw was a warning that his second core gave " Due to limited-knowledge databanks scan utility is incomplete.". Waving that message away three screens came up, he moved the bar showing archiving progress to the far right. The second window which showed his current emotions in graph form as well as certain psychological stati, such as impulsiveness (which he left alone for now, it had been useful after all and he did not want to change too much too quickly) paranoia (of which he was proud) and cunning ( which he turned from intermittent to permanent), he moved to the far left. The third window showed his physical body and had tabs for abilities, skills, and attributes, as well as miscellaneous. Harry navigated to the miscellaneous tab and hid his Master of Death title using his mask ability. At the bottom right he could see his soul points: currently at one. Not wanting to mess with anything else he had the bridge put him to sleep till the 9 hours were up.
Forbidden forest: 30 minutes after Harry disincorporated Riddle the first time
After her lord had been disincorporated once more she had immediately felt the drain upon her magic. She was not surprised of course, she was a Black after all, she had known her marks purpose. Sadly being a Black had prevented her from telling her master that not only did the black family rituals supersede his slave mark (should they ever be called on, unlikely with the house in ruins) but her own fallback plans would have done the same. She had tried everything to make him aware, from having him search her very mind to the imperius or veritasium. Eventually she had to settle and trust in her beloved master, not that she had ever doubted him, he had defeated death after all! He had said so.
But here she sat… or really floated, seeing as she didn't have a body, and thought about what she should do. It wasn't like her master was dead, so she would have to make him a new body this time, before some lesser beings could gain the honor! Following the call of her mark she made her way south. Had she known feeling it was possible in this form she would have killed herself the first time. She should tell her lord of her ignorance, maybe he would be merciful and crucio her for a full minute! Maybe, maybe he would even lay a hand on her physically! The mere thought caused her spectral form to quiver in joyous anticipation. Mind awhirl Bellatrix Black-Lestrange flew to where the pull, which she assumed to be her mark, took her.
2 1/2 hours later: Grimmauld Place
When Bellatrix arrived outside Grimmauld Place she quickly cycled through a multitude of reactions. Her first was surprise that her lord resided in the Black family's London residence, They were an ancient and noble family, the idea that this was their main or even only home was ridiculous. Surprise at her lord's place of residence quickly morphed into shock that he had pierced the fidelius that she was now sure had lain upon the house. Bellatrix, who had not become Voldemort's most feared lieutenant by being stupid, quickly theorized that in her more open state that the dark mark had given her the necessary information so she could attend to our masters needs, much like a house self. Beings that she had always gotten on surprisingly well with, or maybe not, seeing as they both had similar motivations. As Bellatrix made her way through the house she picked up on the dark aura that filled the building. Such a feeling was not new, but it had always been only undertones that spoke of both rituals (only minor ones in this house) and the extensive presence of dark objects. Now the house was filled with a roiling miasma that had she not aligned herself so firmly with the darker side of magic would have sapped her strength and twisted her mind to its purpose. Whatever contingency had brought her lord back to her this time had to have been of a power she could scarcely comprehend. Not having noticed it till now spoke of a worrying weakness to her form. Bella would be surprised if the muggles five blocks away weren't having the most horrific night terrors their minds could conceive. She didn't mind of course her lord hated them with a passion,so naturally she did as well.
When Bellatrix entered her lord's room, an honor she had never before been privy to, her master's true brilliance and cunning rocked her to the core.
For before Bellatrix Black-Lestrange lay Harry James Potter, Boy-who-lived, champion of the light, and Man-who-won, all in her lord's possession. All the hopes of the people had been with this boy, he would be the next Albus Dumbledore. People would worship his every word, with careful planning his fearsome reputation would grant him near immunity from the populous. Bella had known that as things were going Lord Voldemort could not have stayed in power forever, eventually someone would lead a revolution and succeed. But now, her lord had nearly the same influence, the adoration of the masses, and the Leader-of-the-Light mask from behind which he could work!
Bellatrix decided to wait for her lord to awaken. She would spend 10 minutes thinking in a corner about how they could hide his dark aura. When that too disappeared she would simply marvel at her lords genius, to have planned so far ahead. Had she been able she would have sighed...dreamily.
9:00 AM, Grimmauld Place-Harry James Potter
When Harry woke he had the bridge go through what would in the future be the very basics of his return to consciousness protocol.
First he had his body and mind checked for changes: all changes were benign or sleep related, as far as his limited experiences could tell him.
Second he checked his immediate surroundings: his mundane senses were pitiful, he did not even have magical ones.
His final task was the creation of a to do list, this consisted of: checking on his friends, learning of the consequences of Voldemort's' death, and treating with Gringotts.
Having completed his preliminary checks Harry rolled out of bed and opened his eyes.
He promptly sat back down.
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When Bellatrix saw her beloved master gracefully (in her eyes) rise from his slumber she hastily made to the center of the room. Her attempt at genuflection was stifled by her need to will herself into a non amorphous form, but she persevered nevertheless.
" My lord, your most loyal servant has returned to you, speak and I will do my utmost to see your will done!" She spoke with utmost reverence, hereby reaffirming her loyalty and tying herself to him by acknowledging him as master of her mark. " Though without a body my utility is limited so I might not perform to your satisfaction." She finished slightly mournful.
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Harry's life, even for a wizard, had been anything but normal which had given him a certain resistance to the unusual. Therefore his newly active cunning came to play much earlier than would otherwise have been possible. So he did what seemed most natural, he imitated Voldemort.
" My recent victory leaves me temporarily limited, I will need access to your mind to make certain of your current situation. Then we will see about crafting your body." This seemed like a sufficiently vague statement to gloss over the fact that he had no clue who he was talking to, as well as grandiose enough to match his opposites tone. Finally he had implied it should lower whatever barriers it may have around its mind without definitively stating that he couldn't have gotten through if it didn't indulge him. He hoped his opposite did in fact have a mind, that being his statements' only obvious weakness.
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Bellatrix, completely unaware of Harry's thoughts was beyond ecstatic. Her lord only ever spoke quite this dramatically when he was sure of his victory. Though when it came to Potter his senses seemed to have fooled him on occasion. Of course now she knew it was all an elaborate ploy to fool even the most paranoid of observers. Not only that but he was even deigning to enter her mind with her permission. She considered this the highest form of recognition on his part, allowing her to showcase her devotion, instead of bypassing her shields himself to showcase his power as he did with the others.
" My mind is always open to you my lord. I will not be able to remain active for very long as staying corporeal is taking much of my effort, I believe I will adjust soon though."
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Harry hoped that it meant the 'always open' comment literally. Thanking his foresight he set the bridge to refine his legilimency with the data it gained from his attempts, until he had a core he could dedicate to this ability exclusively. Without further ado Harry called upon his death given knowledge and wandlessly cast legilimency.
To best make use of his unique mind Harry came up with an uncommon method of attack. His brute force method was fairly simple and was based upon a piercing attack. Using the advantage he gained from the speed with which his mental cores could work he would throw the equivalent of mental spikes at his opponents shield and wear it down. The more experience he gained the more powerful each throw. When stealth was essential he would throw the equivalent of grains of sand until he found the weakness which he could exploit to pass through undetected, here experience would allow him to make the grain smaller and thus less noticeable.
It took a less than a 100th of a second to move past the beings natural defenses. Having access to who he now knew was Bellatrix left him in a bit of a quandary. Bella was irreversibly insane, this manifested in an unbelievably powerful obsession with whomever she identified as her master. This having changed from her head of house to Lord Voldemort when it became her duty to serve him. She was also a bit of a sadist, though this was a conditioned trait to please the Darklord. The quandary came about because while she would never feel remorse, she truthfully couldn't be considered mentally culpable by reason of insanity. Since he couldn't kill her and both the government and the public very much would, insanity being considered impossible in wizards and witches much like most other muggle illnesses, she had become his responsibility. He could not trust her as she was now so he would have to work to secure her loyalty on an emotional level. Harry had the bridge place a part of his soul in hers so that what he was about to do could not be done to turn her against him. He then had the bridge shift the loyalty she felt to Voldemort, whom she believed to be possessing the body, to the soul he had placed in her.
Though he didn't know, he had inadvertently created half of a soul bond. More importantly though this would allow her to always know when he was there and who he was by following their connection.
Harry was rather leery of what he had just done seeing as he had, in many ways, infringed upon her free will. But he was unsure how else he could guarantee both his safety and her compliance. He was thankful that at least in this way she might gain some of the validation that seemed to be her raison d'etre.
That done he left her mind before he did anything more that made him feel like an evil git.