Summary: Harry's life didn't go as he wanted, but he was alive. And then he died. Again. But this time he learned what it really means to be the Master of Death.

Pairings: Not yet decided.

Disclaimer: This is fanfiction. The actual fiction of Harry Potter is J. Ro.'s work. I'm merely a fan paying a tribute. So in other words, don't sue me. On another note, the plot will have some similarities with other writers, since I was a reader long before I started to write, but I didn't cheat. If you can name whose idea it was, I'll give due credit here.

Warnings: Adult language, some bashing, slash.

Updated: 19/06/13

Edited: 27/09/13

Recently beta read by BadGirlgoesworse. She did a awesome job of it!


"Something has changed within me
something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
of someone else's game"

-Defying Gravity from Wicked.


Prologue:

"Wha-? Where am I? What happened? What time is it?"

When Harry woke up on the early morning of May 3rd, 1998, finding himself back in his bed in the empty Gryffindor dormitory, he was rightly a bit disoriented when his eyes landed on his familiar scarlet bed curtains after months of waking up in a tent.

But soon memories of the previous day started to flood his conscious mind and what he felt was an acute relief –down to deep in his bones - that made his body lethargic, since he had no more goals to pursue any time soon for the first time in a long, long, while. And despite his body craving more rest to recharge his depleted energy levels after months of being on the run with limited food and because of all the energy he had exerted the day before, his mind was excited. Because he was free.

For the first time in his eighteen years, he was free. To do whatever he liked, whatever he wanted - no Dursleys to make him fit into their version of a normal family, no Dumbledore to mould him into a weapon against the Dark and sacrifice when needed, no Snape and(however painful it was to admit) no Marauders to make him be the 'James Potter reincarnate'. From this day onwards, he can become his own man. I will be my own man, he swore to himself. And with thoughts of that oath bright in his mind he called Kreacher to him without delay to ask for some clothes, as he left his bed. In the back of his mind he was busy with his bubbling excitement and already half-forming plans of what he wanted to do, while he took a shower and prepared to join the rest of the world for some breakfast in the Great Hall.


As life would have it, in the following week Harry's happy mood slowly crumbled away, one piece at a time, when the magnitude of the carnage at Hogwarts and in Wizarding Britain in general came to light. It reminded him that all was not well in the aftermath of the year-long rule of the Dark Lord. But Harry was determined that he would prevail, thus he dove in head first to give a hand in the rebuilding wherever it was needed.

Funerals of all the fallen heroes had proven themselves to be a tiring hurdle for Harry, where he had to face the remaining families of those who had died. Especially hard for him was to face George Weasley and little Teddy Lupin. But however sad he may be, he didn't lose his determination to be his own man and his optimism that things could only get better from here on had made him content even in the face of the mourning.

Many of the survivors were staying at Hogwarts the week following the final battle, either to support others or because their houses were in disarray, or they had nowhere else to go. But at the end of that week, slowly but surely, people began to leave. When the Weasleys moved back to the Burrow they wanted both Harry and Hermione to come with them. Hermione readily went with her boyfriend's family, because her parents had sold their house after they were charmed and she needed to get them back first. Harry refused though. All of them had asked him to come, repeatedly. But Harry resisted citing a need for privacy after all the gawking he had endured in the last week, as well as not wanting to be in the other's way, which was bound to happen with all of them at the Burrow.

So Harry went back to 12 Grimmauld Place with Kreacher, because indeed he was in need of some privacy. But more than that, he needed a place where he could break down without witnesses, seeing as he had come to a horrible realisation in that week that had shattered the rose coloured glasses he previously saw the world through.

In this last week Harry came to understand that no one, almost no one (a very small minority didn't care one way or other) in the wizarding world had any intention of letting him be his own man. They all had an idea, a plan of what Harry should be doing next and how he should do it, and they all expected him to be a good puppet and follow it without protest. They wanted him to be back at Hogwarts next fall to complete his N.E.W.T.s (and promote Hogwarts, so that the students would return). Then they wanted him to be a highly decorated Auror (and promote the new Ministry). They wanted him to marry a respectable Light witch - most preferably Ginevra - and settle down to have children, to become the ultimate role model (and it would also be his weakness should the Ministry need something to bargain with in the future, if he got to powerful for them to handle). It wasn't enough that he killed Voldemort; he was now bound to always be the Saviour of the Wizarding Britain.

To them he was an idea, an ideal. Not a boy whose life was always controlled, not a man who wanted to be free now that he had done his duty. It was a thoroughly washed-out, exhausted and grief-stricken young man that went to sleep that night in his godfather's room surrounded by his memories.


The next time Harry went in public it was to attend the Weasley family dinner that Friday at the Burrow, five days after he had secluded himself in his godfather's childhood home. He was told that he was family and thus he must come. Harry did so, but he was in what he would call his public persona from then onwards.

How was he loath to put a Weasley family dinner as a public event, but no matter how much that hurt it was nonetheless true. To the world at large he was their Saviour, who would join the Auror Corps next year and catch Dark wizards, so that the masses could sleep soundly at night. To those who saw him only as his parents' son - he would be a charming Head Boy like James and somewhat studious like Lily (Hermione declared that now, since there wasn't a madman after his head, Harry could study better and so he did). To the Weasley family he remained their seventh son, who would become officially a part of the family as soon as he married their daughter. He became whatever anyone wanted him to be - or so they believed. But underneath it all he was the ever consummate Slytherin, as the Sorting Hat had said he had the potential to be all those years ago. He learned masks - relearned the ones he had discarded when he left the Dursleys and naively thought he wouldn't need them again, because surely, those who were magical like him would accept him openly - and employed them to highest success.

Harry didn't need to go to all this trouble, he could have very easily left everything behind and disappeared into the muggle world. But that would have meant forsaking his magic - the only true companion he had. Harry could also have tried to fight the presumptions and assumptions, but that would have only lost him whatever fond acquaintances he still had left and put his name on Ministry's most wanted list (because Saviour or not, he wastoo powerful for them without a leash). It was like he was caught in the middle of an elaborate spider's web. Harry was almost certain that the spider in that case was Albus - too many bloody names -Dumbledore himself. Harry had been suspicious, at least for a while, that the man was leading him by the nose, but he had been blinded by the bright golden thread of the prophecy - to kill or be killed. Add to the fact that before he could decide on it either way, Dumbledore had died. What he now realised was that behind that golden thread were many hidden threads that Albus - the spider – wove, which he had never noticed and if he brought out his claws now to snap them, which he definitely could, it would only make him alone and hunted. By the Ministry, who wanted him in its grasp, so that he did not go Dark or Merlin forbid got powerful enough to overthrow them, hunted by those who still wanted him to be a fairytale hero and a miniature James Potter with some of Lily thrown in, and Godric forbid that he had his own opinions, and deserted by his friends who wouldn't take it lightly that he didn't want to be bound to them at the cost of his own freedom.

So Harry decided that he would endure, he would survive. He was first and foremost a survivor. He survived the Dursleys, he survived Voldemort - he could very well survive the rest of the freaking world.


So, years went by. He did become the Head Boy (it was given to him to appease him and the rest of the students who put him on the pedestal), he passed N.E.W.T.s with O's, E's and A's (one less than Hermione in total. He could have easily tied with her or even bested her with the amount of studies he had done that year - but that would have brought attention to him). He joined the Auror Corps, became the best one out there (no one could claim he got it through his fame only). He also memorized the laws, so that he wasn't caught breaking any.

Five years after the battle when the masses and the Weasleys started to become restless - he got married to Ginevra Weasley and later had three children with her - James Sirius, Albus Severus and Lily Luna (the names were Ginevra's idea and proposed in a public place, so he couldn't refuse). But he bound Ginevra (he always called her by the full name, because it irritated her) in an iron-clad marriage contract with a secrecy clause. So their marriage was one of convenience - he got a part of his mask, she got the money and prestige. Three years after their youngest, Lily, left for Hogwarts Ginevra Potter was caught kissing another man (Ginevra had been unfaithful for a long time, but Harry needed the children to be at least in their teens before acting on that information) and they got a clean divorce (another perk of the contract), and she moved to France with her boyfriend. Harry played the part of an understanding husband and lamented that maybe they got involved too young and their spark had died.

Harry had also taken on the mantle of Lord Potter-Black, but had never publicised that he claimed them and worked in shadows. Harry had decided to name his heir after his youngest hit fifteen - and he was leaning towards his daughter, because she was the one whose upbringing he took the most direct role in after her birth. He had retired from the Corps when she was 4, because he had injured his legs on duty from a spell cast by the crooks they were apprehending. So she was the only one he had the most hand in shaping as a person. But 6 months before her birthday, tragedy struck.

Every year for the last quarter of the century, survivors of the Hogwarts battle and their families gathered on the hillside of Devon for a memorial - to gather and remember the fallen and celebrate their survival. It had become a tradition. In the late afternoon on 2nd may, 2023, the clearing they were gathered in was bombed by muggles - muggle military to be precise - on the orders of their magic-hating Prime Minister - and out of the 500 gathered at that time only 30 or so survived, but with grave injuries. Most of them died from those injuries in the days following. Muggles had declared war on the Magicals. The wizards answered in kind and soon bloodshed started everywhere. The collected families of Potter, Weasley, Lupin, Longbottom, Scamander, Malfoy and Zabini were in attendance at that hillside. Harry had avoided the celebration by dropping out early and leaving before it started to get crowded, citing his injured leg. When the dust had settled and Harry came back there were only 2 left from his whole extended family - his 14-year-old daughter and the 2-year-old Sirius Lupin - Teddy and Victoire Lupin's son. But both were grievously injured and died within 3 days at St. Mungo's. In one swoop Harry was left all alone.


In the last 25 years many things had changed with Harry, he slowly but surely, became a reclusive wizard who was curt but cordial to most he met. Adults he only talked to casually and to children he was that uncle who showered them with expensive and many gifts, but was not too familiar with any. Out of his very big extended family there were only two that he was close to - he genuinely liked spending time with them and they with him - and they died in his arms. Harry mourned the others - children more than the adults - but burying them was only sad, not terribly upsetting. But his little Lulu and Riri were another matter altogether. Harry became hell-bent on revenge.

When Harry became injured in the line of duty and the Healers had said that he would always have a limp, Harry took it as an opportunity to retire from the Ministry, saying that he didn't want to die on his children. People were sympathetic to his plight and supported his decision; and after a month or two they forgot all about the injured Auror. But Harry was persistent and with hard work and a copious amount of money spent, Harry slowly but surely, regained the use of his legs in the 30 months that followed. But he had never said anything to anyone about his recovery and kept it a secret. And in-between caring for his children, when his wife was out living her life, Harry became somewhat of a scholar, with the whole of the Potter and Black libraries open for his pursuit. As an Auror Harry had never been prejudiced against the Dark Arts, but had only ever used the legal spells that the Aurors had the authorisation to use. Alone in his warded room Harry had no restriction and soon became proficient as a Grey wizard that he always had regarded himself as.

In the month that followed the burial of Lily Luna Potter and Sirius Edward Lupin in the backyard of his house, Harry Potter rained hell on the muggles. More prominently, he massacred whatever base of their war against wizards he could find. He was on a mission to exterminate as many muggles as he could before he was killed - the only thing on him were the clothes on his back and the moleskin pouch Hagrid had given him all those years ago on his seventeenth birthday. In it were some things in memory of Lulu and Riri - pictures and their gifts to him and the Deathly Hallows- his Hallows. His cloak that he never passed on to his sons who were very much prone to pranks and trouble or his daughter who didn't need the cloak to cause trouble - less because he didn't want them to cause trouble and more because he had learnt that passing it on meant choosing his heir. The wand and the stone he had promised to leave alone, but after finding out about the web he was caught in during those early days after the war, he couldn't leave them where anyone had access to them (but he never used them).

The massacre was covered up by the fact that many wizards were doing the same. No one had realised that just one man was responsible for the gruesome bloodshed he caused and the number of bodies he left behind. But as it would have happened sooner or later, one day his luck ran out and he got caught in an explosion, while he was blowing up a naval base, and as darkness claimed his consciousness Harry knew that he just died.


When he woke up he found himself in a meadow. The clearing on the hillside in Devon to be precise as it was before it became a mass burial site for his family. The last time when Harry was sure he had died, he had ended up in a replica of King's Cross station. For a long time afterwards he had wondered why his subconscious mind had chosen it and came to the conclusion that it was symbolic to the one event that had changed him for life.

Before Hogwarts his biggest wish had been to somehow survive the Dursleys until he was 16 and then gain emancipation and live his own life far, far, away from them. But crossing the platform 9 and ¾ had changed him fundamentally; it marked the beginning of his journey as a wizard, with changed dreams and ideals. So, when he was supposed to start his journey for afterlife the in-between had looked like the station, marking another beginning. And if Harry went by the same theory, he could certainly guess why he was in that clearing this time around.

After the war ended and the Ministry was rebuilt with the supposedly Light side in power, any and every thing with a hint of Dark was persecuted - you either renounced being Dark and lived like a second class citizen - always under suspicion; or you died for being Dark. It was politics and stupidity at its best. The muggle government hadn't taken kindly to the death toll of the last war, but they were still wary. The Ministry had made laws to appease them; gave them more power and the muggle-born more leeway to avoid being seen as Dark. In the end, the muggles had elected a Prime Minister who hadn't taken kindly to the news of a hiding population with massive powers, and fights and bombs started around 2020. While some looked at Harry for guidance, to the majority of the population he was a hero long past the days of his glory and a cripple at that. They didn't want his help. And Harry didn't want to help, because to him they brought this on themselves and he had no sympathies for stupid masses. Had Lily and Sirius survived he would have simply taken them and gone into hiding, but their deaths were a catalyst and the destruction that followed was not for the sake of the Wizarding world, but to satisfy his own desire for vengeance. This clearing was symbolic to the change in himself from an indifferent bystander to someone on the road to muggle annihilation - and that was why he was here.

As Harry completed his thoughts he came to realise that someone was sitting in the shade of a tree to his right. Harry was curious about who came to see him this time. Definitely not Dumbles, but maybe it's Voldie this time,Harry's lips quirked at the humorous turn his thoughts had taken. So, he faced the tree fully to evaluate the creature (a man most probably) in front of him, who was wearing a black hooded cloak and looking directly at him. But Harry couldn't see anything more, since it was shrouded in shadow rippling around it like water. Harry contemplated if he should say something, seeing as this creature was most likely here to see him off to afterlife, but before he reached a verdict it spoke in a smooth dark voice.

"Hello, Master!"

Harry found himself having a strong suspicion as to the identity of the creature before him, but he still enquired to be sure, and it was confirmed when it drawled, "Death, of course. At your service."

In the years since the war Harry had trained hard and honed not only his magic, but also the use of his brains as well. So it took him only a few moments to process the information provided and realise that the title of Master of Death, his title, was not merely a figurative one, as he had assumed.

"So what does that mean? For me? And you?" he asked. It seemed Death was pleased with his prompt response and gestured Harry to take a seat with him in the shade.

"It means, you are my Master and as such I can't take your life. I need you alive and killing others." Here Harry quirked an eyebrow at the pause and so Death added, "as long as it takes a next one to become Master of Death. But it usually takes a century or five for the next one to emerge. So for now you'll stay alive."

"Okay, but what will happen to me? Do I go back like last time? Because that would be a bad idea. The last time I was only AK'ed, this time my body was burned to bone for sure." It brought a grimace to his face when he thought what state his body would be in after the fire of the explosion.

"Of course not! Last time there was a special circumstance. You had already won the wand's allegiance, but you didn't have it, so you had to go back. And since you didn't have all three, I couldn't meet you. The people that could meet you were Dumbledore, your father and Morfin Gaunt."

The previous owners Harry realised. "And Albus Dumbledore happened to be the one you met, because he was the last to die and the one you knew the most."

"And he manipulated the information even beyond his grave", Harry exhaled an angry sigh. "So, what happens now?"

"That is for you to decide. Death is all-encompassing and uniform across all the universes. You can go back to your own dimension at a point of time and create a new one from that point onwards. Or you could go to a completely new one without any similarities to your present one. Or you could go to one in between, where there are as many similarities as differences."

Harry put some thought into what Death had said, "But at what point will I go back?"

"I assume you want to go back to your present universe?"

Harry nodded.

"Then you can go back only as far as you had the ownership of at least one Hallow. Because in your own universe that is your point of origin as the Master of Death."

"My first Christmas?" Harry mused aloud, but immediately realised that it was not when he became the owner of the Hallow. He became its owner on the 31st October, 1981, after the death of its last owner, his father. With a grim nod he stood up and said, "Do it."

As his surroundings started a blur, the last thing he heard was Death's shout, "You can always call on me, if you need me, Master!"


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