Harry Potter and the Aspects of Death

I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters of the Harry Potter Universe. JK Rowling owns it and receives all profits from anything derived from that universe. I receive no monetary gain from this work of fiction.

AN1: I appreciate those who review and I make it a point to reply to every one of them as time allows. Please review, as that is what helps me continue.

AN2: A warning, the story is going to get darker from here on out. I'm not a fan of illogical gore and violance, nor am I a fan of gore and violance for the sake of gore and violance. That said, Harry is going to learn to kill and he will be a relatively dark and hardened character as he develops.

/Egyptian/

[parsel]

deathdeathdeath

Chapter 4: Of Life and Death.

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

- Mark Twain

Being shaved bald wasn't a big deal for the average Egyptian. The average Egyptian in ancient times didn't grow much body hair to start with, and that which they did grow tended to be shaved off due to the extreme levels of heat; a common practice in many of the "warmer" parts of the world. The lives of both the elite and poor Egyptian were partially formed around dealing with the heat, and near the Nile, the humidity. The buildings were built of stone or mud, most of them somewhat open so that they could catch any breeze that attempted to pass by them. Similarly, the clothes that the people wore were minimalist at best, open flowing robes that often left arms bare, shaved heads, and wraps for the loins; very much like a kilt but a whole heck of a lot lighter. It wasn't uncommon for the people, both men and women, to go without a top of any sort. However, what might be easy to understand and deal with for a sun bronzed and dark complexioned Egyptian was a totally different story for a pasty white Brit whose scalp and skin had never seen the sun and who was used to temperatures cooler by a good 20 degrees Celsius.

"Yes," Harry thought as the sweat dripped down into his eyes for the hundredth time, "This really DOES suck!" Stopping to wipe the sweat from his brow and off of his polished bald head.

"/Again Saba! Again! Thrust, thrust, deflect with the shield, and thrust over it with the spear! Again! Again!/" yelled Satesh, the temples Head Guard and trainer of the soldiers who protected the complex of Anubis and the graves of the kings and royal magicians.

"/Your shield is too low! Do you want to be leaking soup from your kidneys? Protect your body, use the shield to push your enemy off guard, and then stab the torso! Again I say, or you will be running the circuit of the kings again!/" Again shouted Satesh.

Harry really really didn't want to run the circuit of the kings again. Every morning he had to run from the barracks in the temple, through the main doors, and then 5000 meters, a little more than 3 miles, to the great pyramid that was closest to the temple. Then he had to run around the pyramid, and back again to the temple. The last one of the neophytes or temple guards who made it back to the temple had to run it again. Harry hated running, but he was getting good at it. It seemed that the body development that Death had "gifted" him with was a benefit to him in his training. His training, now that was something that Harry hadn't expected.

When Amotep had first guided Harry out of the Naos he had expected to be trained to do "priestly" things. He had some knowledge about what a Priest to Anubis would do, (pull a brain out of a nose here, mummify a body there, that sort of thing), thanks to his gifts from Death.

Unfortunately, he was beginning to realize that just because he had all of this knowledge it didn't mean he had instantaneous access to it. Yes it was there. Yes it was all sorted in his brain due to his skill in occlumency. However, the sheer magnitude of the knowledge shoved into his head was daunting to go through. He promised himself that he would sort through his "library" of thoughts, but because he hadn't lived all of the knowledge in his head, he didn't really know what he knew, if anybody knows what that means… Basically he was an incredibly knowledgeable and mature infant in a man's body. He had the experiences of life from one dark lord and knew how to use what Voldemort did, a strong and gifted body aged to look almost twenty, and a head packed full of so much knowledge that it would make the Chief Librarians to the libraries of Alexandria and Atlantis drool and offer to have his babies.

However, just because somebody has an incredible amount of knowledge doesn't mean they know what to do with it. It was as if Harry was the most brilliant Einstein in history, yet his lab came equipped with boxes of bolts, screws, filaments, and widgets, and he was expected to use that knowledge to hand build all of his tools before he could get to work using his knowledge to calculate e=mc squared. Frankly, he needed to experience life and gather more understanding of what he had been gifted with before he could ever think to utilize his "blessings." In Harry's case, the mind was willing and able, but the body didn't know what the hell it was doing.

That was Harry's first major hurdle, he had to learn about his body and figure out what it could do. So it was that Amotep introduced Harry to the life he would be living for the foreseeable future. First came the barber… Now that was an interesting experience…

Thinking back to the instance, Harry had been led to the threshold of the temple; a giant gate which was connected to the 30 foot limestone walls that encircled the complex. Buildings were placed along the insides of the walls and in rows through the middle of the complex. It was to one of these buildings next to the gate that Harry went to get his first haircut, the first of many apparently.

"/Saba, this is Tec'man, he will shear your head and then I will give you your tattoo so that you may join the ranks of the Priests. Tec'man, you may begin./" Harry sat down on a two legged stool, it almost looked like a sawhorse, and he turned his back to Tec'man at the barber's motion for Harry to turn around. Taking out oil, Tec'man poured it on Harry's head and worked it into Harry's hair. Harry really wasn't looking forward to this. Frankly, his memories of his home life were of his dad having hair, his Uncle Padfoot having a lot of shaggy hair, and jokes about his uncle Moony having a "furry problem." The only person that Harry "knew" that was bald was Voldemort, So in Harry's mind men were supposed to have hair on their heads. He had never "really" seen a bald man until he met Amotep. Faced with the large curved blade that Tec'man was wielding, he really didn't want his hair to be shaved, and that is where the problems began.

*scrape* Tec'man started at the forehead and drew the curved blade along Harry/Saba's scalp, taking a huge swath of hair out with a quick practiced swipe…

...Only for the hair to grow back out about 3 seconds after Tec'man removed his blade and got ready for the second swipe…

Open eyed, Tec'man looked to Amotep with confusion, one eyebrow raised, before looking down at Harry's head, and putting the blade back to the starting spot and whipping the blade through Harry's hair, taking out an identical swath to the last patch… *Scraaaaapppppeeeeee*

This time the hair grew back even faster…

Sticking out his tongue and biting it, Tec'man stared at Harry's head and scraped the same spot again… and again... and again…

*Scrape!* *grow* … *SCRAPE!**GROW* Finally frustrated beyond belief, Tec'man went all out on the hair that refused to bow to the power of the master barber!

*… SCRAPE!*

"/Ahhh Hah! I got it!/" Tec'man yelled, startling Harry who had been completely oblivious to the entire battle between Hair and Man. After all, Harry had never experienced a haircut before.

Tec'man's statement was just in time for Harry's hair to grow back again.

And Grow… and Grow… and GROW, until he had a band of hair down the center of his head that, if gelled, would form a two foot tall mohawk right down the middle of his head.

Amotep looked at Tec'man. Tec'man looked at Amotep, and then Tec'man lost it.

Ranting and raving Tec'man threw the razor over his shoulder and stormed out of the room. "/By Apophis, that son of Seth! Bah! I give up!/" Tec'man said as he stormed out of the room.

"/Um, is there a problem?/" Harry asked while looking up at Amotep, totally oblivious to the hair that now hung down his left side and down his back.

Amotep looked down at Harry/Saba and tried to fight the smile that threatened to creep onto his face. "/No Saba,/" Amotep stated, "/It is just a gift from Anubis that we will have to deal with. You don't want to be shaved, do you?/"

"/Um, no, not really./" Harry stated, a bit ashamed.

"/That explains it, you have the gift of Anubis. The ability to change your features. You truly are like the Jackal for which you are named, for they are wily and able to blend in or change to suit their environment./" Amotep explained. "/You, as the magi or royal magicians would say, are a metamorph-magi, able to use your magic to change your body./"

Harry was stunned for a second, only to be drawn out by the realization that it was just one more new thing to deal with. Heck, if death didn't startle him all that much, if waking up and finding out you had aged 19 years didn't startle him too much, then learning he could change his body should just be another thing to add to the pile of new weirdness that was his life.

"/So what now, Amotep?/" Harry/Saba questioned.

"/You must be shaved, you must wear the mark of the priesthood if you are to be trained by us, so you have a choice. You can deal with your hair… or I can use my powers over death to deal with it./" Amotep stated, gazing into Harry's eyes. "We will have to teach you about life and your body before we can teach you about death." Harry didn't really know what Amotep meant by "deal with his hair," So he just looked at Amotep with confusion.

Amotep desided to take measures into his own hands. Holding out his hand above Harry's head, Amotep started a groaning sound deep in his throat. A deep guttural soul wrenching sound seemed to utter from Amotep's diaphragm as he closed his hand in a fist over Harry's head, and then with a sudden flinging of his hand open, palm pointed down towards Harry's head he uttered, /Ka'va'da!/ To which a green kind of sandy powder seemed to materialize out of his hand and settle on Harry's hair.

Harry's black and rich hair, with the mohawk in the middle, aged in a second... turning brittle and grey, and then withering to nothing and blowing away on a wind that shouldn't exist in an enclosed room. Harry was left with a bald and shiny white head, unblemished in its roundness.

"/There Saba, now you can begin your training/" Amotep stated with a slap to Harry's forehead, Harry immediately felt a burning cold sensation on his head, and then the senation was gone.

"/Here, have a look./" Amotep said, handing Harry/Saba a polished piece of metal that served place as a mirror.

Harry looked at his face and head and was surprised to see the figure of an Ankh emblazoned on his head in the same light swallowing black as the tattoo on his back. The dark of the Ankh a stark contrast to Harry's very green eyes and very white skin.

/Now you begin your training Saba. For you must first learn how to live and control your body before you can learn to control the soul and that which is death./ And with that, Amotep led the now bald Harry Potter, known as Saba in that time period, out of the room and to the beginning of his training.

And train Harry did, both night and day. Do this Saba! Do that Saba! The first few days had been very harsh. Not to say that Harry didn't have the muscle growth to deal with it, no, he was very fit and strong.

The first month was a period of learning to grow into his body; learning to use his legs to run, but also to use them to break kneecaps. Learning to use his hands to write the script and runes of the times, but also how to use his hands like a claw to tear out windpipes and to thrust a spear or a sword through the ribs of his enemies. For the priests of Anubis were also the guardians of the pathways of the dead, meaning they protected the graves of the great Pharaohs and the royal magicians from those who would steal from their burial hordes. He spent his days training his body, and his nights were spent in introspection and meditation at the gates of the mounds, both learning to traverse the pathways of his mind and map the memories and thoughts that he had been gifted, as well as protecting the graves of the dead from those who would rob them.

Beyond the sun burns and sweat of the first days, Harry had grown in skill, advancing at a pace that was unheard of in the ranks of the temple guards and priestly initiates. His days were filled with using his skills to their full extent. The Head Guard was also a metamorph-magi, so Satesh was able to guide Harry in how to change his body mass so that it could be sleeker for long distance speed or denser for short bursts of strength to overwhelm an enemy. Though no matter how Harry learned to change and grow his body, the Spell that Amotep had to cast on Harry's head seemed to have burned out all of the hair follicles, rendering the dead matter that is hair unable to grow on his scalp. He did not know if he would ever be able to grow his hair back again, but he figured Death may have an answer to that the next time they chatted.

So it was that Harry trained, trained hard for half a year, all without learning anything about controlling souls or dealing with death; other than the art of killing that is. So it was that Harry was on the field, sparring against a reed filled dummy for his 4th hour in a row in the hot hot Egyptian sun.

"/Again Saba! Again! Thrust, thrust, deflect with the shield, and thrust over it with the spear! Again! Again!/" yelled Satesh, breaking Harry out of his daydream.

"/Enough!/" Said Amotep, walking between the pillars and out into the sandy practice grounds. "/It is time for you to read the Book of the Dead. It is time for you to fully learn the secrets that Death has gifted us. Come./" With that, Amotep turned around, assuming that Harry would follow him back into the temple's main chambers and in the direction of the Naos.

Which is exactly what Harry did, dropping the spear and shield where he stood and trotted to catch up with Amotep.

Entering the main chambers of the temple, Amotep and Harry proceeded towards the Naos. At the entrance to the Naos was a pool of water sunk into the stonework, forcing any who would enter the Naos to enter the pool and wade through the water that would go up to their neck; ceremonially cleaning all who would attempt to seek to commune with Anubis.

The cold water felt refreshing to Harry as he waded into the water and through the pool; a nice respite from his training in the sun. Passing out of the pool, with his wrap still dripping, he followed into the Naos and before the statue of Anubis. However, instead of walking up the steps of the dais, Harry followed Amotep around the back of the stone feature, and at the base of the structure (between the feet of the black statue and raised dais) rested a hole with a ladder disappearing into its dark depths.

Amotep reached to the back of the dais and removed the reed candle that was placed there. Turning to Harry he said, "/Take this candle Saba and follow the ladder down. When you get there, confront the Book of the Dead and learn the lessons that have been passed down to the Priests./" Giving Harry an appraising look he continued, "/If I should see you again, then we shall see what changes death has wrot upon you. Good luck.../"

With that, Harry took the candle and descended the ladder into the darkness.

Descending a ladder while attempting to keep a reed candle lit is a daunting task. However, that challenge was no where near as daunting as what faced Harry when he reached the bottom of the ladder. As Harry descended he saw that he had left behind the smooth cut stone of the temple structure and had entered a natural looking cave made of what looked like bones. Closer inspection with the candle showed Harry that it was really white sandstone that had been chisled by seeping water and compressed sand from the desert that surrounded the temple complex. The skeletal structure of the natural cave was eerie in both its natural formation and that for the images that it inspired in Harry's mind. The fact that the stone was made of sand didn't seem to make him feel much better however, as the candle cast little light and the darkness of the cave seemed to steal what meager light the candle was able to give out. Walking around the cavern, Harry saw that a corridor seemed to lead farther into the ground. Seeing as that was the only way to go, Harry followed it, candle leading the way.

Coming around a corner, Harry was confronted with a dead end. But it wasn't the dead end that caught his attention. Right at the apex of the far wall, the final point of the corridor, rested what looked like a book resting on a pedestal or lectern. The darkness made it hard for him to pick up any details, so he was forced to get closer; he could only assume that this was the Gook of the Dead.

Issuing closer to the book, Harry realized that it was a disgusting sight; the book seemed to be breathing...

Examining the book, yet not touching it, he saw that the cover seemed to be made out of skin. It appeared as if the face of some poor individual had been scraped off of their frame and formed into the front cover of the book, the "hardcover" aspect made from the pounded, flattened, and shaped skull of the individual. The binding was the vertebrae and notches of the spine, and it appeared as if tendons and veins of blood bound the cover to the pages inside; which appeared to be made of individually overlapped layers of tissue or skin. A clasp seemed to keep the book locked, the interweaved bones of the hands used as locks to keep the book from being read.

That was only the book, for the stand seemed to be made up of the rest of the body of the poor soul... that or made from multiple body parts of different individuals tied together in some sort of frankenstein-esk formation for holding the book... A beating heart was firmly held in the center of the pedestal with blood clearly being circulated through veins that marbled the fleshy pedestal from floor to ceiling.

Taking a gulp, Harry stepped forward and rested his hand on the latching fingers, attempting to gently pry them open... only for a sudden scream to wrench the air around him.

The face on the book came alive, screaming its proverbial head off... It uttered a ghastly wind and wale that immediately snuffed out Harry's candle and pitched him into darkness.

But the scream continued, uttering its lonesome call, raising in pitch, and with it a pallid grayish-green light began to issue from the book. Slightly illuminating the end of the corridor with the eerie light, the book flung itself open, still screaming the whole time... The hands that had once been clasped now lay attached to the front and back covers of the open book, and seemed to twitch... The bony hands repeatedly clenching and unclenching into fists as the book sprung open and the pages began to flip as if turned by some invisible force or some unseen wind.

Twitching, twitching, the hands seemed to captivate Harry's eyes... "Maybe this wasn't the best idea," Harry thought, Taking a step back away from the book, he figured it would be safer to head back for the ladder... but it was too late...

Exploding from the book with a splattering of ichors, the hands that had held the book closed became skeletal arms which reached out and grabbed Harry by the sides of his head. As fast as they had exploded from the book, they quickly retreated into the book, bringing Harry's whole body with them, literally picking him up by his head and off of his feet.

Making a sick sort of sucking sound, the pages seemed to eat Harry head first; Harry now joining in the scream of terror as he was swallowed by the pages of the book...

Finally with Harry's feet disappearing into the pages of the book, the cover suddenly shut, and all was quite...

The cover was closed, a muffled burp* was heard, and then the face became still, the skeletal hands once again clasped together locking the book shut. The light that had been issuing from the book faded back into the darkness.

In the cavern beneath the Naos, all was still and quiet. There was no sign of Harry Potter, only the Book of the Dead was left, resting in the dark; its heart steadily beating...

AN: So there is the next chapter. A fair warning that this story is going to get darker as it goes along. I didn't think it made sense to have somebody go from baby to emotionless in the face of death, so it will be a progression. Please, please, please review. I am attempting to become a better writer with each work and each chapter, so please take the time to write something, even if its criticism. As I've said before. More reviews equal more chapters if you like it, and if you don't like it, more such reviews equals less chapters. Best wishes.