Disclaimer: This is DEFINITELY not the work of JK Rowling. Though I wouldn't mind if you mistook me for her.

If this gets a little boring, then please skip this chapter. It wouldn't make much difference to just read the summary at the end of the chapter.

This chapter involves Lily and James Potter, Harry Potter and the Girl Who Lived, the Peverell brothers and Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort.

Written in Death's point of view.

INTRODUCING DEATH

PROLOGUE – In Which Death Makes a Curious Discovery or The Truth Behind the Deathly Hallows

There's that line they say. What was it again?

You can't cheat fate.

But I, my attentive audience, can.

If Fate was, let's suppose, a dance, then I am most certainly not attending.

Perhaps I was not invited.

Dances do not amuse me, just as Fate does not either. I watch from the sideline as all you poor, misguided men and women relish victory at the thought of mastering flimsy movement, waste away with anxiety at the thought of impending singularity, pine over unknowing people without ever truly grasping their thoughts as I have.

But if fate was a dance, then I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that every boy and girl, every man and women, young and old, poor and rich, would be dancing. Old Time, with his wizened grin and clever, nimble fingers, would be tapping away a beat as all of he ladies and gentle, boys and girls, young and old, poor and rich, etc danced along with it. Everything would be smooth – no, naughty Chaos was not invited either, though he sometimes sneak in – and nothing would be out of place.

Except, of course, me.

And I would be standing a little away from all of them, waiting impatiently for this strange dance to end.

Similarly, if Fate happened to be someone else, say, a Venus flytrap, it'd ensnare me with its trap and shut its claws on…nothing. I simply seep through, bored at the flytrap's lack of intelligence, and amused at its incredulous doubt.

And if fate was, say, a deadly green light coming my way, I'd most sincerely greet it like a lost child.

Question: And what, you ask, is this prodigal light? What is it that causes me to so welcome it?

Answer: The mere colour, see, is one which I tolerate most, particularly this shade of swift, violent green. Not fresh, green grass, no. Much too vibrant for my taste. Nor the dense forests in which I have flew across, their dark shade blurring my sight. This green was different. To put it simply, this was an Artificial Colour. Mother Nature did not welcome it and shook her head sadly at me when I did. Welcome it, that is.

And why should she? This green was my colour. I was, after all, once one of Them.

Wizards. Witches. Among the good, we were neutrality.

So long ago it was. I was there only slightly after the world first began. And then there was that day, the day I'd dappled in things I shouldn't have, knowing full well Mother Nature was shaking her head at me as if I were a lost cause. I dappled in things just as my forefathers had done, things that should not have been dappled with.

I welcome many things. Things others - Time, Fate and Chaos also, to some extent, welcome.

But why shouldn't we? We had the potential to do things no one else could. Why shouldn't we indulge in our potential?

One reason: There had been more than just Adam and Eve in that nice little garden God keeps me from. We had all eaten the forbidden fruit.

But what made us so different? So much better?

Another reason: Simply put, my forefather and his sister had eaten an extra apple.

Suddenly, we became different. Better. So much better. It was as if the extra apple had unlocked something deep inside, something so much deeper.

I imagine, by now, that you, my wonderful audience, would know who I really am. I am Death.

I wasn't always like this. In fact, once, I was just another spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the children who had, mischievously, eaten another apple. I was, as they call us now, just another wizard.

Question: So what changed me?

Answer: My thirst.

So God had cast us out of his garden and into a world we never made. Wonderful. My forefathers never complained. It was an opportunity to explore what we could, and for so many generations, we did. And all the while, the world prospered, numbers grew, and no one ever died.

It was my great-uncle who constructed the first wand, something which could channel our abilities so precisely that we'd rarely lose the control we seldom had when exploring our talents.

The second wand, I must say, was constructed with much greater care. It is, to this day, the best wand ever made. The Elder Wand, they call it now. The Death Stick, the Wand of Destiny. It's the best because I made it. It was with this wand, this powerful, wonderful wand, that I was able to perform amazing feats my kind had only dreamt of. And it was with this wand that I discovered the Avada Kedavra.

I said before that I was often thirsty. I dreamt of knowledge, of power, of being able to accomplish things no one could ever before. This was at the tender age of fifty-nine, and rather young age at the time. I was arrogant, I was determined, and I was thirsty.

At fifty-nine, I made the Elder Wand.

At sixty-two, I invented the curse, the one curse that granted instant, painless death, the one curse that was undefeatable, the very curse whose light suddenly spread across the world and as all the men and women, girls and boys, young and old, rich and poor, were engulfed in the light, things were suddenly different.

It didn't take me long to realise what I had just done – I'd created Death. I was death. And I had, accidentally mind, turned the world into an extremely mortal world.

I panicked. At the death of so many loved ones, I rashly created a stone, one with just the right actions persuaded the dead back to us.

Question: Did this work?

Answer: No.

I was sorely disappointed when I bestowed the stone upon one of my sons, who used it to bring back his dead beloved. But the Dead, I soon came to understand, were just that – dead. They could never be resurrected, because Death was infallible. The stone that I had created never truly did what it was said to do. Instead of relieving one of their grief, it increased it by ten-folds, until they were mad with grief, until they could no longer stand the pain of living in such a world.

This was when I was eighty. I was no longer the naïve boy I once was. When I soon realised that I had cheated myself, I finally realised the consequences of my thirst.

Then, on my hundredth birthday, I wove a cloth that hid person when they sheltered under it. It was the one invention to which I felt true satisfaction. I bestowed the cloth upon my only surviving son, in hopes that Death would not find him at his last hour, and therefore he shall thwart Death, and thwart Fate.

But I should have realised, even so many years ago, that no one could cheat Fate. So when my last son's time was up and he died, even with the cloth clutched tight in his hand, that was when I realised that Death, after being created, could not be thwarted. Not usually, anyway. I collected up my treasures, the Elder Wand which issued out instant Death, the Resurrection Stone, is it was later called, that proved Death could not be thwarted, and the Invisibility Cloak, and I left my humanity to become the Master of Death.

And that is what I happen to be now.

During the entirety of my career, it so happened that my theory of the impossibility of thwarting death made an exception in three circumstances.

One concerned the fate of three brothers who so reminded me of my own long-dead sons. When they thwarted me the first time, I granted them the instruments of which I had created long ago, instruments that, after so many years of travelling, were now of little use to me. The Deathly Hallows, they were soon called. I was attempted not to be thwarted twice.

Question: Why?

Answer: Perhaps it was due to their uncanny similarities towards my own sons that I became absolute in my efforts for them too to be captured, just as my sons were not able to escape Death.

I gleefully took the life of the brother with his powerful wand the very next day, a knife cut deep into his throat and his murderer sharing my feelings as he examined his new wand

I smugly grasped onto the soul of his younger brother, of whom I'd given the stone to, finding his last minutes of agony as he finally decided to hang himself.

And I waited, patiently of course, for the life of the youngest brother, the wisest, one so different to his oldest brother and his unbeatable wand, who truly understood that it was only possible to avoid me and thus postpone my meeting. Who seeked not the past nor power.

I admit, I was slightly reluctant in collecting his soul. I became curious as to what would become of my treasure, whether his descendents would ever cross paths with me. Thus it was purely on a whim that I began to collect a list of his line.

It wasn't difficult. Though he had many children and even more grandchildren, most married inside the family, a second or third cousin or perhaps the daughter of their mother's cousin's half-sister. The blood of the youngest brother stayed strong over the years, but I was disappointed when none ever held close to his nobility and wisdom.

But nevertheless, this was one bloodline whose soul I could never collect. In a sense, the youngest brother had evaded me. His blood spread, ramifications that expanded till the line was so thin it was possible to collect a soul from whose body would only contain a drop of that blood…

And then a war between my kind, wizards as they say, began. I was everywhere. So many bodies at such a speed. I mourned over the loss of so many lives, the result of such a simple spell I had discovered so long ago. What little remorse a creature like me could still have after living as Death wracked through my being and so I took my time to study each face and their expressions as they met their demise, I spent less time (though it still worried me) tracking down the line of that young brother whom I had met so long ago and more on the result of my people.

Which of them would be my descendent? How many of them had my blood, my thirst, my intelligence, the potential to invent the Killing Curse?

How young they all were. Their lives had merely just begun and already, already their paths were set for them, merely waiting for these innocent children to step across and greet me solemnly.

My second encounter of evidence against my theory of the impossibility of thwarting Death was with a couple who would thwart me not once but thrice.

Lily Potter nee Evans

Answers to the name of Lily, Lils and Evans

Graduated Hogwarts Gryffindor

Current member of the Order of the Phoenix

Muggle-born

James Potter

Answers to the name of James, Potter and Prongs

Graduated Hogwarts Gryffindor

Current member of the Order of the Phoenix

Direct descendent of the Peverell brothers

Pureblood

Question: Did I know who they were?

Answer: No. Not for a few years.

A young, fierce girl and her beloved, fighting in the very heart of war, hardening my ache as I realised they were still so young. It was the man, the beloved, with such courage, such strength and such devotion that first drew him to my attention. Indeed, though he possessed neither the sort of intelligence or wisdom his ancestor had, I recognised him almost immediately as the direct descendent of the youngest brother. He, too, seeked not Death, for he did not want to die, but the power of being able to take Death and embrace it in such a manner that proved he was not afraid of me.

A noble soul, him. Unfortunately, during such an intense time of war between my people, I had grown accustomed to this attitude, to this almost suicidal way of thinking. So I ducked my head almost apologetically, though I knew he could not see me, and turned away until his time was up.

He didn't have much longer. I turned to his beloved, shaking my head sorrowfully, knowing full well she wouldn't last a minute longer under the pain she was in until I took her.

While it was he that drew my attention, it was she that truly captured it.

There she was, her face fresh without the dark scars of war, twisted in anguish and stubborn defiance, forehead laced with sweat as she struggled not to scream. I held my breath as she lifted her head up, almost as if she could see me.

I admit, being Death, I was not easily surprised. Indeed, I knew things, for I held the knowledge of so many an era, I understood universal concepts after replaying them time and again across the arena, and yet here I was, completely, utterly startled by this amazing girl.

Her eyes were green. They were, as I would call it, and Artificial Colour. The colour, the exact shade down to the very tone, of the Killing Curse. Indeed, I was not mistaken, having come across the very shade myself an infinite number of times. This girl had Death in her eyes, the blood of Death in her veins, and Death's mark pierced onto her soul.

She could not die. Not yet.

Question: Who was she?

Answer: I had absolutely no idea.

Later on, when I berated myself for letting her live, I justified by saying that it would be undeniably shameful to allow such a complete soul be murdered by another who had ripped his shamelessly to shreds.

This wasn't true. This man, with his ripped souls, had killed in cold, freezing blood five others. Why should this woman's soul, this mere human whose lineage was the least remarkable, why should her life be kept while others suffered? Indeed, I was the thief who returned the jeweller's gold watch.

Thrice I saved the man and woman from the same ripped soul, and thrice I scolded myself for my stupidity. They had thwarted me, and I was confused as to what to do.

Then there was Fate, who watched the turn of her dance with glee. She interfered and granted another woman with a prophecy.

I shall not tell you the exact contents of this prediction, for I am sure you already know, but Fate, allowing herself to step in as the hostess of this dance, arrogantly challenged the pair to thwart her.

It so happened that a union was soon created between the descendent of my time-transcending obsession and the Death-marked girl whose lives I have avoided stealing three times during such a war. Lily and James Potter, I soon discovered them to be called, for their courage and nerve that had drove them to survive for so long was often among the last thoughts of others who died. They had a child too, I soon learned. And Fate, finding it right to only inform me of the impending doom, this blast that was about to occur hanging above the players of this chess board, smugly told me that this child had the potential to save my people from despair.

By now, I was helpless. The fateful night of Halloween soon approached.

At the same time, I was in a million other places. A raid of sorts was taking place in the Ministry building. Masked men were falling as Aurors truimpehd. Hungry boys that prowled the roads of Africa, and France would wake up tomorrow with five less patients, the result of a power shortage in a near-abandoned hospital. Lily Potter, as I had learned her name to be, was busy tending to her child.

An Apology: Sorry. Children. It seems that she had twins.

While the prophecy, as darling Fate had solemnly informed me, spoke of one destined child, there were two currently held in her arms. One boy and one girl. I wondered which would die.

Lily Potter took a deep breath. One of her last. "G-god?" She gulped. "I know you're there."

I stared at this woman amazingly. This woman who clutched her children tightly with trembling fingers. The two of us listened in silence at the cackling laughter of the ripped soul as her defiant husband fell.

There was Fate, the green light aimed by Tom Riddle at James Potter, the direct descendent of Peverell. I winced as I took his soul, ignoring his accusing glare as I pulled him out of his body.

In all truth, his death was a loss to me. This man, whom I had done so much for, whose life had held so much potential, was brutally robbed of a future, a crime for standing on the wrong side of the football field. Lily Potter trembled as she thought of his limp body, his lifeless eyes and Voldemort – Merlin, he's standing over James with his blood-red eyes and his wand's still glowing from the Unforgiveable –

I winced. What an unpleasant image.

"I can see you, you know," she said quietly.

I almost sneered. Almost.

"God, you have to help me protect my children," she continued, staring a little too high at a spot above my head. "Protect the destined babe. It's our only hope. Our only -"

It took me a few seconds to realise why she had stopped talking. With her bedroom door blasted open and such a disgrace of a wizard staring coldly at her, she had grown silent, almost scared, then suddenly frantic.

"No! No! Not my children, not them! Please, please!"

"Stand aside, girl," the voice growled.

I wanted to laugh.

Question: Why?

Answer: Tom Riddle was an arrogant man who had no idea just how evil his voice would sound compared to my own.

"No, not Merry, not Harry, not my children! Please, have mercy!"

I tuned their voices out, instead turning my attention to the children who were placed hastily onto the bed by their Death-marked mother. I curiously wondered what their names were.

Mistletoe Petronica Potter

The First Child

The child they thought would be their only son, but called her as such anyway

Mistletoe for short, nicknamed Merry

Harry James Potter

The child they hadn't expected

Harry formally, and Harry informally

Answers to the name of Prongslet and kid

There was injustice as I stared at the two. One with such an extraordinary burden of a name and then other with one so plain and dull, as if the instant his parents had seen his plain hazel eyes, they had decided that his twin sister, with her glowing emerald eyes, was better. His name was Harry.

I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

It was obvious to say that the mother cared remarkably for both children. But if she had asked me, if she had only given me one choice, only one to save…

I shook off my cloak, a second invisibility cloak that I had created after the absence of my first. In one swift movement, just as this beautiful, deadly green shot towards her, I engulfed her with the fabric, shivering at my vulnerability. This would be the third instance where one had escaped me. And this time, like the first, it was because I allowed.

Tom Marvolo Riddle froze at the sight of me. Though this tortured soul's eyes held not the Artificial Colour Lily Potter's eyes had held, they saw me none the less. Young Mistletoe Petronica Potter also stared at me, though lacking the fear the other held.

Harry James Potter was giggling when the Killing Curse bounded off his sister and struck him.

Tom Riddle was halfway through shrieking out another Curse when the same disaster struck him too. He howled in horror, reaching forward to claw at the girl but finding that he had no strength…that he had no power…

I turned away, disgusted. Here was one tampered soul whose destruction I had no wish to witness. After collecting the soul of Harry James Potter, who sobbed as his one-year-old mind finally seemed to understand death, I left.

And so the day concluded. I turned to Fate and I said, "I have won. The girl has thwarted her fate. She remains unharmed."

But Fate merely grinned at me, her smugness still apparent. "And that is her fate, dear Death. The prophecy dictates her fate and her fate began ticking the moment she was born. The instant you decided to let her thwart Death, her fate was sealed. This is her destiny, Death. She is chosen for this fate, and she has chosen to relent. Thus, she cannot yield."

Perhaps Fate was sad when she said those words. She, after all knew what the inevitable future held. And sadly, the phrase remains true –

You can't cheat fate.

Over the years, as I journeyed across the world, being here and there all at once, I became weary as to when I would greet the destined babe with such a bitter fate again. The time never came. Curiously, I decided, just as I had done with the youngest brother who had thwarted me all those years ago, to track her down.

This is the part where I, your narrator, graciously ask you to journey back in time with me and read on.

Summary: In a nutshell…

So Death is pretty actually quite human - he was once just a man whose thirst for knowledge overcame him, causing him to truly discover the Killing Curse, and of course death.

This guy thinks he's pretty tough, and he pretty much is, except throughout his entire career, he's been tricked by humans, three times. (This guy thinks humans weren't worth much, as he understands it is the human conditions in him that caused him to be who he is now.)

First were the brothers mentioned in the Deathly Hallows, second were Lily and James Potter, and third is their daughter...erm, let's just call her Merry. Her full name's way too long.

Yeah, yeah. Mistletoe's name is way cooler/weirder compared to Harry's. That's because she was named by someone else. Any guesses who?

This is a Girl-Who-Lived story, sort of like a parallel to Harry Potter. Keep an eye out for the 'soul' part, though. Especially concerning Voldemort. In this story, the Chosen One isn't actually a horcrux (so she won't be asking Voldie to off her any time soon) and therefore Mist won't have a scar.

Any guesses on what her recognisable trait could be/involve? I pretty much give it all away in this chapter...

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Mask With A Truth