Author's notes
Warnings: Rated M (NC-17?) for a reason. Underage sex (13+), intimacy, bdsm; off-screen character death, language. If these offend you, skip this story.
All H.P. Characters belong to the rich lady in England.
I checked the internet and found " s/5282929/1/Harry-Potter-and-The-Apprentice-of-Death" this is not that story as far as I know, I haven't read it. However there are a lot of ideas taken from other fan fiction stories. Where I remember where the idea came from credit is given, otherwise I'm sorry I did not give appropriate credit. The idea for the relics of fate comes from the book "The Three Fates" by Nora Roberts, the luck of the fates comes from there also, as far as I know the rest of it's mine. Death and the Rite of AshkEnte comes from the Discworld Series by Terry Pratchet, specifically the bits with Rincewind in them.
Idea's swiped from "Partially Kissed Hero."; Luna is related to the Darlings (Peter Pan, Wendy Moira Angela Darling is her great x ? grandmother), the Sands (Babes in toyland, Tommy Sands and Mary Contrary, x? Grandparents, gypsies, elves, etc, christmas / toy maker fey?), the Liddells (Alice in Wonderland, Alice Pleasance Liddell, and her sister (Luna's aunt / great aunt?) Edith still lives and can travel to wonderland and back, it is a fey realm),
The five horsemen are an out take from Pratchets books also.
Mort is death (Terry Pratchet); Ares is war(greek); Artemis is plague(greek), Erra is famine(mesopotamina), and Eris is chaos(greek).
Major Edits by JS.
-HPDAJS-
Prologue
October 31, 1981
Fifteen minutes before midnight a hooded female figure stood in the shadows of the Potter cottage in Godric's Hollow. She held an odd three sided statue in her frail, wrinkled hand, the visible side of the silver figure depicted a woman with one eye holding a pair of shears. The statue blinked and the woman disappeared as the roof of the cottage exploded outward in a ball of orange flame.
In the blink of an eye the figure reappeared in a field the color of darkness that existed in a world outside of time no living mortal would ever reach. She walked slowly through the ebony blades of grass toward the gray stone hut in the distance. Moonlight reflected off the obsidian roof of the small structure as she approached.
Reaching Death's home she pushed open the heavy wooden door, entering without so much as a knock. "Damn it DEATH! There were only supposed to be two deaths tonight, not three. What happened?"
Death raised his skeletal face from where he bent over the ledger of souls to peer in her direction. "You know Atroposfor being in charge of cutting threads in the weave, you should pay more attention to the shears. There were two deaths tonight."
"Bollocks!" Fate bellowed stomping a foot against the stone floor in anger. "I watched as life left James and Lilly Potter. I saw Tom Riddle turned to ash! It was supposed to be just James and Tom! What happened?"
"You botched your prophecy, it wasn't fulfilled."
Fate turned the statue in her hand which visible shrank as the bones morphed into that of a young girl free of wrinkles and the marks of age. Her silver effigy portrayed a woman with a spinning wheel as Clotho, the spinner of prophecy took command of their body. "WHAT! I've never botched a prophecy. It's not possible!"
Death shrugged, his black cloak wrinkling on his skeletal shoulders with the movement. "Take it up with the boss then Clotho, not me. I just do the work. You spin, you measure, you cut, I just collect. No one whose time has come has ever escaped me. You should realize by now though that prophecies are doggy things, even for us, and no one not even you knows what they mean until after they've been fulfilled. Maybe the boss knows but they sure don't share that with me."
"I'm FATE damn it! Gods tremble before me, mortals bow to my whims in fear, all is within MY domain!" The walls shook as her anger caused her to lose control of her identity and her booming voice, the voice of all of her identities as one, surrounded Death seeming to come from everywhere, an invisible storm of noise battering against Death's bony structure.
Death laughed, an eerie hollow sound echoing softly through the darkened dwelling, a sound not filled with humor, but with barely contained menace. "That's rich! Make sure you tell the boss that next time you see them." Flames straight from the depths of Tartarus, the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked, flicked in the black sockets where eyes should have resided, the only outward indication of his rising temper. "You know very well that I DO NOT ANSWER TO YOU. Neither does the boss. You were not here before the spark, and will not be after the last light is extinguished. Think what you will, but the truth is."
"The truth is WHAT?" Clotho interrupted as she found her control.
"It just is. Nothing more or less."
Fate stomped again, even knowing that the action made her look like the child she resembled in this hooded form. "DAMN IT! This gets me no where. How do I fix this catastrophe?"
"Oh, you want advice do you?" Death crossed his arms over his chest. "I can't offer you any, generally speaking you're above my grade, power wise. Besides which, it's your prophecy. If it can be fixed, you have to fix it. That's if it's even broken."
"What do you mean, not broken?"
"Look, what do I know about prophecies?" He resumed looking at his ledger, dismissing her as if she were a minor nuisance. "Go ask the Delphi Oracles or something."
Fate walked to the desk pushing the ledger from his grip, not willing to be dismissed. "You know better then anyone that I can't allow the dead to help the living."
If Death had had more than an empty skull for a face she imagined his expression would have been irritated. "Well, the last time I helped the living it was a disaster, two out of three of the idiots failed their tests miserably. One didn't even live long enough to have children, which is the basic rule as you know. There must be balance, life leads to death, death feeds life. Botched the plan for the Hallows up but good."
"So you won't help me?" Clotho pouted child like, just the same as her form.
"You're not listening." Death exclaimed angrily. "BALANCE! I can't help you! There must be a balance, as you very well know."
Clotho paced as she pondered the issue, then looked back at her companion. "Then how did you get the relics of death into the mortal world?"
"Murder, suicide, and life." Death took a seat in the high backed chair behind his massive desk. "Plus the boss approved it, thought it was a good idea at the time. It didn't hurt that you needed to control all three of them to hear the voices of the dead. Only the master of all three, the master of death, can bridge the veil. Was a good bet that the three brothers wouldn't join the relics together, and they did not. For two of the relics, only their children can master them, any in their line. Antioch Peverell's line died with him, but that relic is passed by conquest, not blood line. Then again, he was murdered. I still don't know if that was the bosses plan all along or if the conquest of Antioch caused that relic to change how it was passed. They won't help you though, they're not your relics and you can't interact with them."
"You could though," she suggested.
"What would be the point?"
Fate sighed in exasperation, rolled her eyes, and thought could he possibly be more irritating? "It'd help me fix this mess, you know the bit about three dead people?"
"I told you, there were only two dead people. I only escorted two souls to their earned places."
"That's not possible, there were three bodies!"
"No," Death corrected. "You said two bodies and ash."
"So?!" She raised her hands in the air, waving them in an irritated gesture. "Ash, body? What's the difference?"
"You know the price for my expertise, one act of death for one act of fate. Balance."
"Fine, I'll owe you. Just tell me so I can try to fix this."
Death leaned back in his chair with an air of superiority that grated on her nerves. "A mortal realm dweller watching Tom Riddle turn to ash would not be able to see Thestrals still. Contrary to what the mortals might think, it is not the body dying that allows for the sight of my horses, or watching the life leave the eyes. It is actually watching the soul leave their plain of existence."
"So?"
"Seriously?" He sat up straight again, black holes formed in his eye sockets as he stared. "You can't put it together? What is wrong with you?" The hesitation in his voice indicated his surprise.
"Damn you!" She yelled losing her barely contained hold on her childish temper. "I've never botched a prophecy before and still don't know how I botched this one or what the boss is going to do about it!"
"Fine," Death sighed. "Tom Riddle's soul did not leave the mortal plain of existence."
"Ghost?" she questioned "That shouldn't have botched the prophecy."
"No."
"Then what blast you!" Clotho slammed her small palms on the front of Death's desk, he didn't so much as react to the action.
"Disembodied spirit."
"But that means..." she gasped, realizing the horror of which Death spoke.
"Yes," Death said, answering her unspoken question, finishing her unspoken sentence. "He made a horacrux. Well, at least one, anyway. His soul is tied to their plane until it or they are destroyed and the spirit exorcised, he regains a body and dies of old age, or he regains a body, the horacruxes are destroyed and he is killed."
"So he is outside your grasp and you allow this?"
"Mortal magic allows this," he corrected. "The Flamels are outside of my grasp as well. One is good and one is evil for mortal values of such things. Balance you see. They will both come to me eventually. The Flamels probably will not be reborn as some are, they have earned their rest. Riddle on the other hand... I doubt he will like where I escort him to eventually."
"So you will not help me? Not even to obtain the soul out of your reach?"
"Why would I?" Death stood, walking toward the door as if to see her out. "Time means nothing to us. His soul will be processed in due time, even if it waits till the end of the mortal realm, that span of time means nothing to me."
"I'm desperate for the boss not to find out I botched a prophecy, it'd be the first and I doubt they'd let me allow more out. Oracles and Seers long to be heard, and their souls must be processed the same as any others. I can not allow them not to be, and if they are not it would be my fault for failing them in the weave. You know I am responsible for those souls directly impacted and impacting the weave."
"Still, why ask me to help?" his eerie bone fingers rested against the partially open door as he looked over at her. "What could I possibly do?"
"Potter is the last heir of the youngest Peverell brother." She offered the information, almost pleadingly. She could not afford for Death to turn away from her now, as much as she hated to admit it, she needed his help. "He has one of your relics. Help him and you could get it back."
Death shook his head the cloak falling forward over his face. "Not worth it, the boss wanted them in the mortal realm, I'm not going to mess with their plans any more then you will."
"You said the boss wanted there to be a mortal master of death at some point, right? Why not now?" She asked summoning every bit of persuasion she could muster. "He has one of the relics, and may be entitled to another in his line if the line of Cadmus Peverell has died off."
"So?" Death argued. "He'd still be short the third. He'd need to win it from it's current owner, that's typically been done via killing in some fashion. I will not force him to tarnish his soul that way, it is not my place. My place is to escort them where they belong, not entice them to another."
"I could intervene so he doesn't have to kill the owner," she hedged.
He shook his head again. "I won't use the act of fate you owe me for that. You'd have to address the balance yourself."
"Fine!" She snapped. "What do you want!?"
"One act of fate per Riddle's soul fragment. If he only has one, you'd owe me two. If Riddle has I don't know, four, you'd owe me five, and so on."
"Do you have any idea what that might do to the balance?!"
He shrugged, leaning back against the wall beside the now open door. Again saying without words that she could take or leave his offer, he really didn't care. He held all the cards and he knew it. "You came to me for help, if you want me to try to get your prophesied one to be the master of death so that he can breach the veil and ask those on our side about the prophecy or prophecies that's the deal. Otherwise take it up with the boss."
"Fine. What now?"
Death grinned, the action more frightening than his anger. "Now, I need that first act of fate. I need him to become my apprentice."