BOLD is Harry's thoughts

Chapter 2

He wasn't sure where he was going so he just picked a direction and started walking. He had taken to keeping a shrunken chest in an expandable bag around his neck. He hadn't had to take it off once since leaving the Forest of Dean with Ron and Hermione, but he did know it had more than enough inside of it for him to survive. Before the end of the war he had emptied out the Black vaults and all of the Black residences into the pouch just in case his "undesirable' status with the ministry reverted all of his godfather's vaults back to the next living Black relative. He wasn't sure who that would have been at the time. Those vaults had rivaled the Potter vaults in monetary value and were filled with books on the kinds of magic he hadn't wanted used against him.

He felt both relief and guilt that he still had all of the contents with him. On the one hand, he would have time to figure out what to do here and maybe learn the language if he decided to stay; but on the other hand he had basically cheated Teddy out of his black inheritance. He tried to console himself with the thought that he had left everything the Potters owned to Teddy, aside from the shares in Weasley Wizard Wheezes. And the few things he had left to Hermione and Ron. And over half the library that he had also taken and combined with the Black library. Shit. He was a horrible godfather. At least Teddy and a few generations after him would be financially set for life.

Harry shook his head and pushed the thought from his mind. There was nothing he could do about it now. He had tried to find the return point to the veil in the forest when he realized he was alive but really he didn't try that hard. He didn't actually want to go back, and he knew it was selfish of him but no one knew who he was here. Aside from the few ghosts he's passed on the street no one has even given him a second glance. He felt like a weight was lifted from his soul.

When he spotted a jeweler across the street he made his way over and exchanged a few galleons for a lot more money than he thought they were worth. Apparent pure gold was pretty rare and the pound to yen ratio he worked out in his head was pretty high. He knew he needed the money though so he tried not to think about the feeling of guilt that he took too much money for the gold.

When he left he made his way to a café with outdoor seating. He wasn't lying about being hungry. All the food he had on him was in the chest because it had preservation charms in it. Everything else was just floating around in the pouch. He was thankful now he had never gotten around to buying another chest for the library. He couldn't chance unshrinking it at the moment, what with what had happened with his magic in the forest. He closed his eyes to think back on it.

When he had stumbled out into the forest he had looked around for a few seconds before he passed out. He felt like he had been both walking and standing still with no rest for years now.

Once he finally woke up he didn't actually know how much time had passed. Everything was eerily quiet and smelled quite stale. It made no sense to him that he was in a forest. He couldn't even hear any birds in the trees. He tensed up thinking that meant there was something dangerous around. After searching for an entrance back into the veil and to his world without success he tried to flick out his wand from its holster only to realize it wasn't there. When he set his hand over the holster all he noticed was a burning pain. How am I only noticing that now? Shit.

When he pulled up his sleeve he saw there was no holster on his arm. Instead there was a glowing red-orange feather that looked perfectly preserved just under the skin of his forearm. All around it and further up his arm were singed places. It honestly looked like his wand had exploded into his skin. What the fuck am I gonna do now? I don't know any wandless magic damnit, I'm only 18 for fuck's sake! "I need my wand!"

He started heavily when he heard his voice echo aloud. Then even more so when a wand flew out of the bag around his neck. When he reached out to grab it he was hit with a blinding headache and a conversation flowing into his ears.

"Normally if you had passed into this veil you would end up in my realm. But as my master you are not allowed entrance. This is both a punishment and reward Harry James Potter. The Hallows will never part from you and eventually you will begin to absorb them until they become a part of your soul."

"What if I don't want them?" Harry asked.

"Unfortunately you do not have a choice Harry James Potter. You will age and die and age and die into and out of parallel worlds until the absorption process is complete. Because your old wand bonded to your soul the moment you passed the veil the elder wand will take the longest time to settle. The two must come to peace with each other before finding a place inside of you."

"What does that even mean?" He demanded. "And who even are you?"

He got the feeling the voice was staring at him and he shuffled his feet, a bit uncomfortable. " I am Death Harry James Potter and you have mastered me. This means that eventually, in time, you will become me and I will just become. You do not yet have the power to see me in any form and even this conversation will cost you time. As for the wands, they are sentient of course. As part of living creations each wand chooses who to bond to. As two wands have chosen you, the two must now learn to coexist. Because of this it will likely take you many lifetimes to be able to handle the full power of both wands."

Harry made to interrupt but Death just kept speaking over him.

"The cloak will also probably not be mastered completely within your next life. It is temperamental itself and has been trying for many generations to reattach itself to my cloak. When you become Death millennia from now the cloak will officially settle down as you will then inherit the rest of the original from me. That does not mean you will be unable to use it. It will serve you well as long as you keep I with you."

"The stone though, is another matter entirely."

"How so?" he asked curiously.

"As you died and then made the choice to re-enter your former life, and then again made the choice to freely enter death, the stone has already become bonded to your soul. The souls of the past have seen and recognized you as kin. As such the full powers that come with the stone will be available to you in your continuing journey," Death stated monotonously.

"And what are these powers that you're talking about?"

"The wands should be self-explanatory. As the cloak is now, it will shield you from dying but not from getting hurt, whether it be serious harm or not. Even life threatening hurts you will have to heal naturally from. The stone of course lets you call on the dead. However you are limited to only a few people from your old world and everyone from the new. Each time you start a new life the world previous to the one you died end will limit the number of summoned souls from that plane."

"What? But I thought the ring was all about letting you talk to any souls?" Harry exclaimed!

"Yes, and because it is fully bonded to you already it makes it possible for you to summon a limited amount of people from the previous world that your soul has touched. I could not even give you a number as it depends on your own power. However, when you have mastered the wands and they are both one with each other and your soul, you will be able to pass between planes. As Death there is no limit to where you can go and who you can see"

"I have already been speaking to you for too long. The price will become too large for you to live normally if we continue speaking here. You will see my representatives throughout your long life as we cannot talk directly too often without a price. You must continue walking from here. Find your own doorway to pass through."

With that Harry was once again left alone to wander in the dark of the veil.

He let go of the wand in his hand as though burned. That conversation seemed surreal to him. The only thing he remembered seeing during all that time was the doorway that eventually led him to here. When he picked up the dropped wand and got no memories he decided to look around. Wherever here was it was pretty fucking creepy. The forest didn't seem to get a lot of light and that combined with the silence and thousands of close knit trees all around him led him to believe that he wasn't anywhere near any kind of civilization. That meant it was safe to use a little magic to help him out until he found people.

He held the wand up and clearly stated "Aguamenti".

A giant fucking river shot from his wand and blew him into the tree behind him. He released the wand reflexively and the stream of water stopped. He sat up dazed "the wands have to bond Harry, you haven't mastered the wands Harry, they need to be one with your soul Harry" he muttered snidely in a mimic of Death's monotone. He tried again without using the wand; instead just using the arm that had the feather embedded in it. While the stream was pathetically weak at least it not only hydrated him but gave him information. The wand was too powerful to use for spells that needed a little force behind them. Unless he was trying to kill someone. Which he hopefully wouldn't need to do while he was here, but he liked to keep his options open. His feather arm, on the other hand, was too weak to do even moderate level spells so he'd have to experiment a bit. Plus he'd heard from Hermione once about how the hardest part of wandless magic was trying to use it purposely for the first time. After that it was supposed to be like a muscle that exercised the output from the magical core. So really, he already had the hardest part down thanks to his wand literally being imbedded in his arm.

Weirdly he felt the dissatisfaction from the elder wand at the thought that his old holly wand would be the one he would use. As a compromise he decided that he would strap the elder wand over the feather as soon as soon as he could so that the wands could maybe mix in the downtime. At that thought he felt resigned acceptance with an undertone of dislike from both wand cores.

Harry just shrugged it off and decided to start walking. He got a déjà vu moment the longer he walked. At least there was some light here though, not like in the veil. And now he is aiming for a destination instead of just wandering around hoping to hit something in the dark. Granted, he didn't know his destination but still.

What he assumed was his second night (because there was no telling how long he had slept) in the forest was even creepier than in the daytime. He couldn't sustain a lumos that wasn't blinding and his weak version highlighted all the shadowy things that seemed to be moving in the dark. He honestly spent most of the night awake and jumping at things seen in the corner of his eye.

Although he was tired he decided to start walking again the moment he saw any form of light the next morning. Hopefully he was walking in the same direction as yesterday because he really didn't want to spend a third night in this forest. Eventually the things he was seeing in the corner of his eyes finally manifested the knowledge in his mind that he was seeing ghosts.

When he tried to talk to one it looked at him and just kept walking. Even without words though he figured that meant he was nearing to some form of civilization. The more ghosts he passed the more relaxed he became; he must to coming close to the edge of the forest. Really though if they had tried to talk to him he would have been overwhelmed so he was thankful that the ghosts here seemed to keep to themselves.

After a couple more minutes or hours or seconds, he wasn't sure, he finally stumbled out on to a road.

Harry startled when he heard the waitress trying to get his attention. "Ah. No Japanese." He said apologetically.

The waitress smiled and nodded and started to point to pictures on the menu to get his order. He ended up going with some kind of salad because he wasn't sure what the heck the meat options were. He didn't recognize any of them.

He sighed in relief when he was presented with his food. He figured he's take the time to think about what he learned about this place while he ate.