Chapter 38 – Three Step Forward

Oh my gosh! I see that most of my readers are a bit upset with how I ended the last chapter. Or rather that I left the fate of dear Antonin Dolohov open ended and without resolution. I must say, here and now, that I'm not sorry for having done so. But I will gladly say, that you will find a hint to that resolution if you read the end of the previous chapter again.

Having said that, I would like to thank all of you who reviewed – Silvermane1, Kamagong, HowInMadHowie, shugokage, C'mon, Wedge12, davis, darkest magic, Lycan01 and two Guests. Your reviews were exciting and they convinced me that you are all very much looking forward to this next chapter.

So, I'm going to cut to the chase and ask you to read on without further ado. But afterwards, please, do review. I would really like to know your responses to this chapter.

Enjoy!

It was a red dawn that morning. There was red in the sky and red on the grounds. Red in the green and red in the brown. And the Manor with its pristine marble walls reflected all that red back tenfold with a blinding intensity. It was a gruesome scene, one completely devoid of life, except for the werewolf and the boy sitting in the middle of it all.

It wasn't much later that the doors of the Manor opened to allow the ten anxious occupants of the house to step out and see for themselves the events of the late night fight translated into harsh facts in the light of the new day. Everyone looked stricken at the violence they had seen on the Estate Model, but it had enforced a sort of disconnection from the reality of it. Now, looking at the darkening pools of blood, the cold corpses and the red, torn earth all around them, that reality was hard to escape from.

Sirius and Amelia exchanged grim looks as they began, by mutual consent, to catalogue and collect the wands of the intruders, along with gathering what identification of them they could. Here though, they were surprised to find that thought the bodies were mauled and gutted and all but ripped to bloody shreds, the faces of all 32 of the Death Eaters that had fought the wolves had been entirely untouched. Lips pressed into hard lines, they continued their task without a word.

A few short steps away from that fight lay the soulless bodies of the three men who had lost their souls to the Dementors early in the fight. Leading away from that spot, Blaise, Theo and Teddy found several black cloaks that belonged to the now dead Dementors. All the cloaks were charred or singed and were still smoking slightly. Nobody touched them. Around the cloaks, however, the ground was broken in ridges where the Firedancers had been summoned through the earth. None of those creatures could be seen anywhere in the light of day, and Amelia at least, looked questioningly at Harry.

While Luna and Tonks both came to sit with Moony and Harry, Draco and Hermione went no further than the front steps of their home, looking out at the carnage with pensive faces. And if there was sorrow and anger in their eyes, then no one could fault them for it. Draco had an arm around his wife's shoulders, sharing the warmth and support that they both needed. Hermione and Harry looked at each other across the expanse, sharing an entire conversation in expressions, but neither of them could find the strength to move. Luna just patted Harry's knee.

Draco looked at the grounds of his house. This was a place where he had once been happy, where he had grown up amidst the wild natural beauty and carefully cultivated civility. A place that a few outcasts had turned into a place of horrors. The pond of fresh water lilies was muddied and its flowers trampled under uncaring boots. An entire grove of old, deep-rooted trees had suffered considerable damage from the battle of the Death Eaters against the wolves. Many were lying on their sides, completely uprooted, while the heavy limbs of several others lay littering the grounds. All of them were scorched with stray spell fire and bore evidence of sharp teeth in the bites and gouges on branches and trunks. Loose leaves were scattered everywhere drawing a plain picture of the struggles between the warring factions. None of the party looked away from the pale cold corpses and the thick black pools of blood mixed with wood chips and layered heavily with dust.

A while later, having handed over the official work to Susan, Sirius was happy to simply transform into Padfoot and flop down next to his oldest friend and godson, keeping them both company in their exhaustion. But the days discoveries were not yet done, and as the winds shifted, his sharp sense of smell caught a scent fairly close to their current position and with a low growl, he rose to investigate.

Harry watched the large dog nose about the grounds until he found what he was looking for. A shocked doggy yelp echoed across the grounds, catching the attention of the rest of their family, all of whom came to investigate. Tiredly, and with help from Moony and Luna, Harry rose to his feet as well. He was sure he would want to see whatever his godfather was snarling at so fiercely.

Amelia had reached Sirius first and her gasp had Harry pushing his body to move faster even as he pulled together his reserves of magic to respond to whatever the threat could be. But when he finally did look down at what Sirius had found, he could only stare in shock.

Lying there, encased in the earth, was Antonin Dolohov. His eyes were open but completely white, as were his hair and what could be seen of his skin. The skin looked like old parchment, ready to fall apart at the first touch, but it was remarkably well preserved. Almost all of his body barring his head, shoulders and feet was encased in tightly packed bands of earth. Dropping to his knees, Harry touched the ground, feeling for a magical signature. The most important question was almost immediately answered.

"It is Antonin Dolohov," he said out loud. "And he is most certainly dead."

Having given that pronouncement, Harry tuned out the murmurs of his friends and began his diagnosis. Settling himself Indian style, and laying his palms flat on the ground, he thought back to the lessons he'd learnt during his time on Luzon. Reaching again into the well of universal magic, he accessed the magic of the Earth, searching for answers. He didn't have to look too far.

As though eager to speak, the elements under his hands surged to life, allowing Harry to relate to an avid audience what the Earth had done, apparently on his behalf. His voice became a deep rumble as he became a mouthpiece for magic. The sweet aroma of fresh cut grass surrounded them, cleansing their bodies and minds.

'We were called forth to assist the young speaker. He asked us to stop all evil and so we did. This mortal we encased within the Earth, draining all magic from the shell that it may return to dust as it should have long ago. Its magics were old, older than its years, and cruel. We removed them from the land, as the speaker asked of us.'

"Does… does that mean… Dolohov is finally dead?"

Harry raised glowing green eyes in Hermione's direction. 'Yes speaker-kin. This mortal shell is ready to dissolve into dust and it shall return to our care. Its essence is pure again.'

"Can you keep it here for a while longer?" asked Amelia.

'We understand, child of sorrow. We shall keep the shell encased in our magic until you no longer have need of it. When you are ready to let it go, you may inform us through the speaker.'

Amelia nodded in thanks. She would need the Auror Department to make an official record of the events of the day and her work had only just begun. It would be a nightmare to deal with the fact that the invading force had been defeated by Harry Potter alone with only a lone werewolf for help. She may have promised Harry not to bring him up on charges for what was self-defense, but the Wizengamot would probably not see things that way. Never mind that they were all dependent on him for their collective well-being as well as the inescapable fact that he still held the Ward Stone of Britain. Those old men would rather antagonize an ally than make the required effort to brush off the old ways that had almost brought the entire nation to ruin. She sighed and turned back to the Manor; at the very least she could indulge in a warm bath before heading back into the chaos that the Ministry had recently become.

Sensing that the questions were done for the moment, Harry thanked the elements and released his hold on them. Getting to his feet, his brushed himself off and turned to his friends with a bright smile. "Well, that happened."

Teddy chuckled and shook his head, accustomed to his madcap uncle, and only asked, "Harry, could I maybe get my human father back, please?"

"Uh…" he began, only to have whatever scheme he may have had cooking in his head, stopped in its tracks by the glare he was getting from Tonks. His smile dimmed and he raised his hands in a placating gesture. "Uh, sure. Just, uh," he stepped around Moony who looked as amused as a werewolf could. Harry gestured between Tonks and Teddy and his godson obligingly pulled his mother away.

"Ready Moony?" The werewolf only rolled his eyes and hit Harry with his tail. "Alright, alright. Then here we go."

Repeating his actions from the previous night, he placed his hands on Moony's head and back. Several minutes passed, but nothing seemed to be happening.

"Harry James Potter!" and that was Tonks. "If you have gotten my husband stuck in that form, then you are in for a world of pain!"

Harry winced from the volume of that screech and looked pleadingly at Padfoot. The Grim's tongue lolled in a laugh, but he put his large body between the irate Auror and his godson. Meanwhile, the young mage directed his magic alongside Moony's and showed him how to control the change, much like an Animagus. Working gently, Harry and Remus returned to the surface together, and the others watched as the werewolf gradually turned back into his human form.

"Hey Harry, if you could change his form so smoothly, why didn't you do that last night? You would have spared him all that pain," Teddy asked, watching his parents hug each other. Sirius, having turned human again, raised his hand, seconding that question.

"Because guys, in order to push the werewolf to accept manipulation, it had to be pulled out of Remus's core. This could only have been done with pain since the werewolf was not only distrustful of my motives but also could not depend on the call of the full moon to emerge on its own. Now that Moony knows that he isn't locked away or neglected or even reviled, he is willing to merge with Remus and come when called, just like an Animagus form. A very cool Animagus form." Harry grinned and gestured to everyone, "Now, come on, lets get back inside. Dobby!"

"Yes Master Harry, sir?"

"Breakfast for everyone in the family parlour please, okay?"

"Okay, Master Harry, sir." The elf wiggled his fingers and popped away.

As everyone began moving back to the Manor, talking amongst themselves, Harry noticed Draco and Hermione standing together, looking over the grounds. With a frown at the sorrow in the blond's eyes, Harry turned his attention to the grounds and with a wave of visible magic returned the grounds to their pristine state. The fallen trees, however, he banished with a wave of his hand to a small clearing in the woods. They would in time be reclaimed by the land.

Lowering his arm, he felt a pair of familiar arms twine about his waist and a chin came to rest on his shoulder. "Are you alright?" the voice whispered.

He rested a hand on the ones holding him. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?" And his voice held the implied query as he turned to look his sister in the eye. Over her shoulder he saw Draco nod at him before turning away to play host of the Manor. The siblings watched him go in silence.

"I'm okay now," murmured the brunette woman, coming to stand beside him, one arm remaining in place around his waist. "I knew you would take care of it. Though it is a relief to see that Dolohov is finally gone for good. Draco is more shaken than I am. I think he's just realised how vulnerable his position is. The mistakes of his father will make things difficult for him if the Wizarding world is embroiled in another war."

The man beside her nodded, black bangs falling into his eyes. He slid an arm across his sisters' shoulders. "He does know he's family, doesn't he?"

"He does." Hermione released an amused huff of breath. "I doubt there's anyone that you've adopted into your family who doesn't believe it by now." She looked at her brother, amusement sparkling in her brown eyes. "It's a good thing you have such large Estates. You keep bringing more people into your family, and pretty soon you'll have half the wizarding population of Britain living on your land."

Harry did laugh then, turning his head to press a kiss to Mia's temple. "I'm just glad I have the power to actually be able to ensure that our family can be safe."

"True. But now that you've wiped out what we assumed was the threat to the New Families of the Wizengamot, along with what looked like the entire herd of Dementors, where does that leave us?"

"It leaves us with a few more questions, Mia," replied Harry, his mien turning serious. "But let's continue this conversation with the others, shall we? I'm sure they have similar concerns."

Hermione smiled and detached herself from her brother, taking hold of his hand and tugging him into the house. They made their way to the family parlour where breakfast had already been served and their friends were busy tucking in, including a more rested looking pair of women from the House of Bones. Hermione went to sit beside Draco on the love-seat and Harry draped himself over the free third of the sofa beside Blaise and Theo.

"Anyone saved me plate?"

"I'd be willing to bet that Dobby did, but that would be a sucker bet, so no," mumbled Teddy through a mouthful of bacon from the other side of Theo, where he was sitting with Luna.

"Actually," Luna said dreamily, "I did." She picked up a plate already loaded with Harry's breakfast favorites from where it was sitting in front of her and floated it over to its eager recipient.

"Aw, come on! That wasn't fair! You could have told me that was for Uncle Harry."

"I could have if you had asked. But if you call me an elf, I might have to drastically change your perspective."

Teddy sputtered and shifted away from the scary witch who still kept her wand behind one ear, muttering about honorable bets and transfiguration counter curses. Harry, who knew Luna's method of teaching belonged to the 'do or die' school of experience, muffled his snickers and dug into his food.

For a long time, the only sounds in the room was the chink of cutlery and the soft murmur of light conversation. With the yellow sun brightening up the room, shining on its pale green wallpaper, the mood in the room was soothing and mellow and no one wanted to break it. Then Remus gave Harry a meaningful look and broke the ice.

"So, we were wondering what kind of magic accomplished all of that. You know," he tilted his chin in Amelia's direction as he spoke, "just for the unofficial record before we figure out what to put on the official one."

"Thanks for getting the ball rolling Remus," put in that monocled witch, as she pulled a sheaf of parchment and a few quills from a nearby footstool. Susan, for her part, had set up a recording device that was usually used for interrogations, but would do perfectly for this conversation.

"No problem. He's all yours." Remus winked at Harry's half-hearted glare.

"Right, so, lets just start with the beginning. This is just between family, Harry, so you can tell us everything in detail and we can decide what to put out officially afterwards. Alright?"

"Yeah, alright," Harry sat straighter in his corner of the sofa and looked to Amelia alertly.

"Good. Then tell us, Harry, everything you did from midnight last night till you won the fight early this morning."

'Well, following the intelligence Draco brought back regarding the imminent attack of Death Eaters on this property and the promise you made to me that this incident would be understood to be purely self-defense on my part, I went outside to prepare for the upcoming brawl." The entire Lupin family rolled their eyes at that.

"In my ascended form as Eclipse, I can access and use both mage magic and demon magic. I used both forms to lay out a few traps based on the known behaviour of Death Eaters. I set up a layer of my magic over the grounds of the entire Estate, which would alert me if anything approached from a position where I wasn't or couldn't reach in a hurry. This helped later because it told me when the Dementors entered the grounds from the other side of the Estate. As we all know, gates hardly matter to the soul sucking creatures."

"After that, I used a variation of a basic demon summoning spell. That would be the blanket of ashes on the grounds. It was linked to a trigger spell. Unless I activated them, those ashes would have remained dormant. Evidently, I did activate them to call the Firedancers to take on that herd of Dementors."

"One moment, Harry. Firedancers?"

Harry nodded at the Auror. "Yeah, Firedancers are lesser fire-demons. Reptilian bodies, powerful as hellhounds, and with quite a taste for bones." His grin at the memory was sharp and many of those watching shivered at the unexpected coldness in his eyes.

"Alright, continue."

Harry pulled himself back to attention and explained about changing Remus into Moony. "He spent a good half hour insisting that he was the only one here who could help and that he knew I could force the change in him, which meant that he was the perfect candidate for watching my back. He kept pushing for it and he wasn't wrong and I knew he just wanted to do his part, so I agreed. It takes a lot to take down a werewolf, as you all know. Besides, it definitely had the element of surprise."

He took a breath and a sip of water. "The wolves I created were golems, except that I put an extra bit of my own magic in them to give them more autonomy and the intelligence that wolves would have. Then I put them to follow and guard Moony. What? I couldn't put you out there on your own!" he exclaimed at the frowning werwolf. But Tonks nodded her thanks and that was enough.

"There's one thing I need to ask you at this point. But we have to go back outside for this one," said Amelia. Harry nodded agreeably and everyone walked back out into the sunshine. Amelia walked up to the mauled Death Eaters, pointing to several who had black lines running over their bodies, all leading outward from a single hole in random parts of their bodies, which directly corresponded to the shape of several odd looking blue stones lying on the ground.

Pointing to those bodies she asked, "What in Merlin's name happened to them?"

Harry shrugged. "Well, I thought this would be the perfect time to try out one of my new experimental potions."

"You mean poisons, don't you?"

"Potayto, potahto, Sue. Poisons are potions too." He slapped his hands together. "Anyway, this a new strain of poison I synthesized long ago. And I'm sorry I cannot tell you the source, but you can be assured that I am the only one with access to both the source and the poison. However, I'd never had a chance to see it in action and I certainly didn't want to go around killing innocent rabbits just to satisfy my curiosity, so its just been lying dormant until now."

"Yes, alright, we believe your integrity. But how did you do it?"

"Oh, it was quite simple really. Years ago, when I first learnt about my true heritage, I came across my Family Grimoires. Fun stuff there. But it wasn't until relatively recently that I came across this little gem right here. Literally." A twitch of a finger had the stones, left behind when the wolves dissolved into smoke, floating before them.

"Now do not touch. I don't care how curious you are," he shot a pointed look at Hermione, who huffed, but stuck her hands back in her pockets. "Might still be some residue of the poison on them. I'll have to purify them first before they could be used again."

"Anyway, the House of Peverell is one of the Oldest Magical houses in the country and they have really old investments as well. Things that I've had to learn and take over now; thank Ragnok for the Goblins really! Now, many of these investments are in gemstones, and one in particular is of this stone here. This is the magical version of a blue stone called Benitoite to which the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Peverell has long held sole mining and import rights from the quarrys in California. Its extremely rare, which is why the majority of the magical world doesn't know about it."

"Now, the most useful property of a magical benitoite gemstone is its ability to absorb potent magic whether potion or spells, which it can then release over time if not held in stasis. I'd already had several of these specially prepared poisoned gems kept in stasis, and it was a simple enough thing really to summon them here and make them a part of the golem wolf bodies. When the Death Eaters were stabbed with the benitoite, it released the poison into the body."

"As you can see," he gestured at the corpse before them, as if giving a lecture, "it spread through the bloodstream, leaving black trails all over the body until finally, the heart turned black and the body fell to the ground in a rictus of pain with the skin having split apart like stitching due to the ruptured blood vessels. I agree that its not a pretty sight, but the poison is most effective, and quick, making it an excellent defensive weapon for times like this."

There was a long silence after that graphic description and many of the faces were watching Harry's enthusiasm, not in horror or disgust, but in contemplation. Which last was quite true, because they could not fathom where he'd found this vindictive streak that would take such obvious pleasure in an enemy's pain. And while Amelia, Hermione and Sirius and even Remus to an extent, were on the verge of saying something, anything that would express their inability to understand Harry's new-found disposition, the results of the night's fight left them with nothing to say. They just looked at each other, acknowledging their twisted humor and subsided. Clearly, being around Harry for so long had affected their way of seeing the world too.

The rest of the session was conducted back in the parlour and was simple enough. All Harry had to do was explain the spells he had used. This he did readily, especially the one that Dolohov had used before his end. "It was a Necromantic spell, Amelia. A very old one too, being rooted in runic magic as it was."

"Could you explain that, Harry?" she'd asked, despite the tense atmosphere in the room.

"Magic has not always been as you know it to be now. Much as been forgotten or banned as Dark Magic. The memory of magic is short and is growing shorter still. But the fact remains that runes were once a powerful medium for magic and not used only in warding as they are now. Necromancy found a use for runes a long time ago and the Necromancer Mages created a set of Necromantic Runes specifically for wielding their magic. It was as powerful as it was devastating. I don't want to go into details, but that runic array that Dolohov used was for the specific use of draining my life. Had even the slightest bit of that spell touched me, I would have been irreversibly changed depending on the amount of exposure I suffered to that spell."

Harry paused and looked around the room, meeting every pair of cautious, watchful eyes. "What I mean to say is, that if Dolohov was pronounced dead and was still here to attack us today, then he was definitely healed by the Necromantic Arts. And the fact that he could wield that spell means that someone out there has been using the blackest of Necromantic Arts." A grimace twisted his paling features as he said, "Human Transmutation."

He visibly swallowed down a rising knot of bile at the very thought and picked up a goblet of water in slightly shaking hands to take a small slow sip of the cool liquid. The others watched him in concern as he took deep breaths, fighting to regain control. Only Luna was brave enough to sit beside him and rub a soothing hand down his back. He gave her a faint smile in thanks, but kept his eyes on his hands as he spoke.

"What all of that means is that there is, unfortunately, a Necromancer on the loose somewhere, who seems to be sympathetic to Death Eaters if Dolohov is any indication to go by." He put a hand to his mouth and had barely whispered, "M'sorry," before he ran out of the room to the closest bathroom down the hall.

Minutes later, Luna found him there, dry heaving into the porcelain toilet bowl. She helped him clean up, then sat down beside him against the cool tiles. "We will fight this together as we have everything else, Harry. Teach us what we should know and let us help you."

Harry concentrated on breathing and trying to make the headache between his eyes go away. "Its not as easy as that, Luna. There's one piece of the puzzle I don't yet have the answer to."

"What is that?" his companion asked quietly, as if realizing he had a headache, which she probably knew anyway.

"Human Transmutation is a Dark Necromantic Art, but it has its roots in an older discipline. Dark Alchemy. That someone has performed a successful case of Human Transmutation only means that this person either knows Alchemy or has a Philosopher's Stone. Which means we are dealing with an entirely new type of Evil Villain this time round. We got insanely lucky that we knew Dolohov and that I can identify Necromancy. If either of these two eventualities hadn't occurred, we wouldn't know anything about this looming threat right now."

The two friends sat there in silence for a while, until Luna rose decisively and pulled Harry to his feet and out of the bathroom. They walked in silence till they reached Harry's room in the Manor and entered. Then Luna turned to him, blue eyes looking into green, as she spoke, "Believe in us Harry just as we believe in you. You are more than you yet realise." She smiled, patted his cheek and danced out of the room.

Harry stood there in shock for a while, but his lips soon pulled up in a fond smile. Knowing that Luna would explain his absence to the others, Harry changed into a pair of PJs and slid into bed. He didn't know when Dobby came around to open the windows, pull up the covers around him, or to pick up his close for washing. Harry slept peacefully through the day and night recuperating from the large amount of energy he had used, and enjoying a rare spell of dreamless sleep.

Over the next few days, while Amelia created quiet waves in the Ministry and Draco created big ones through the news, over the events of the attack on Malfoy Manor, sending the Wizarding world into a state of violent socio-political upheaval, Harry retreated to Potter Manor to continue his own research that had been forgotten by the wayside. Unfortunately though, his research into the backgrounds of the Chitauris and Guardians came to a dead end. There was simply no older resource available on Earth than that which belonged to the tales of Norse myths. Ergo, the Asgardians. Frustrated with the lack of results, Harry stormed into the training room and spent several hours in there, blasting dummies and mummies alike. It was only towards the end, when he'd finally managed to tire himself out that he had an idea.

Rushing through a quick shower in his own rooms, he dressed and made his way back to the library. Right at the back of the library was a simple ash grey door. A door made from a single block of the wood of an ash tree, upon which were placed layer upon layer of intricate spells in runic links, charms and hexes. The magical energy was so thick that it emanated from the door and could be felt up to three feet away. Or at least it could have been if not for the binding placed on it with Harry's blood protection.

To Harry it looked like a simple door. To anyone else, it simply did not exist. Any more than the room behind it.

Pushing open the door, Harry stepped into what seemed to be an empty room, with grey slate flooring and filled with a flickering golden-blue light with no obvious source. It was cold, but Harry remained unaffected, striding forward confidently, steps sure and purposeful. The entire space was bereft of any signs of life. Although the floor extended in all directions, its end could not be seen; nor, for that matter, could anyone have spotted the walls or the roof. But the answer to that was simple; there were none.

In truth, Harry, with Azazel's help, had created his own pocket dimension within the walls of the Manor. An undetectable space that could be accessed only from the door portal in the library and then only by Harry himself. Because this was where Harry truly let himself be the Master of Death. This was his own back door into any space or reality he chose to enter, no matter the dimension of origin. Because Death touched everything, everywhere, eventually, the Master of Death could access literally any place across any universe where life existed in its many varied forms.

"Come to me, Lady Death."

A fog seemed to rise out of nothingness before Harry, and from within it stepped forth the black clad figure of Death, robes of darkness billowing about her. Behind her came the Grim Reaper of popular fiction, tall, scarecrow like figure, loose-limbed and creaky, a long gleaming scythe in one skeletal hand. Harry'd never understood why Death liked to divide herself in this way, making the soul collector her male counterpart.

"It's because most death gods are male, My Lord," Death spoke, answering Harry's unspoken question. "Hela is, in fact, one of the few women to have got that post in recent eras."

"But she is a young goddess, is she not?"

"Quite young, going by the ages of the Asgardians. She is after all the grand-daughter of Odin All-Father. Yet, she is by far the eldest death god, by Midgardian standards."

"Indeed," said Harry in a preoccupied manner.

"How may I aid you, My Lord?" asked Death, drawing Harry's attention back to herself.

"You may tell me about the Guardian, Lady Death."

She remained silent.

"Do you remain silent by choice or compulsion, Lady?"

"I may not assist you, My Lord. Even though you are my Master, I am not allowed to give mortals the secrets of the universe."

Harry turned to face her fully, the ambient light flickering off his face and giving his eyes an unearthly glow. With a flick of his hand he dismissed the Grim Reaper behind her. "Well then. Perhaps you would speak freely with an immortal."

Giving over completely to the demon in his blood, he allowed Azazel to take control. For the first time since they were joined in the same body, the demon's blood flowed strong and hot in his veins. Harry's human body was obliterated and molded into a new form within the space of heartbeats, while his consciousness observed from within Azazel's mind. The immortal could feel a sense of surprise emanating from the figure of Death. When he spoke his voice was a harsh double timbre, different and familiar, with both Azazel and Harry speaking together.

"Perhaps now you would be willing to tell us what what we wish to know, Lady Death."

Once summoned by her Master, Death could not leave unless by her Master's command. The Deathly Hallows that she had left on Earth many centuries ago were a means to reap more souls when the souls of those three crafty brothers were lost to her. And what glorious reapings they had been. All that bloodshed and grief and sorrow and fear had been in her name, in the seeking of her prizes. She had not considered what it would mean if all three of her gifts were ever to be united by one person. And that too one such as this one who chose to use her gifts for peace over war.

But she had learnt. The day had come when she had felt the powers of her Hallows being absorbed into the mortal shell of one Harry Potter who had become her Master. She who was the oldest of beings in all the universes, she who had always been free, she now had a Master. A Master of Death. And there was nothing she could do but obey her now immortal Master.

But she had never known of this. The demon Azazel was of the oldest of demons in the world. That he should willingly share his host with her Master, even to give him complete control was unheard of among the ranks of Underworld dwellers. This could only mean that the mortal had been found worthy. And with that realization, Death knew she had lost.

"Many millenia ago, when the Earth was less than a ball of dust and gases, there was a pact made among the first beings of the universes, that we would never interfere with mortal lives. Due to that pact, there is much that I am unable to tell you. But I can tell you that this Guardian you seek is one of the first. He has long wished for power to gain dominion over the universe and all the stars and galaxies. It is his only goal."

"For what reason?"

Death turned her head away as she replied, "He seeks to reap the largest number of souls as a gift for me, in order to gain my… affections."

Heat. There was heat everywhere. Death spun to look at her Master, dark robes billowing about her. Her Master's visage was twisted, his eyes red with only the slightest hint of green. "And you did not think to tell us that a mad alien immortal was trying to kill everything living for your benefit?" he hissed.

Before she could reply he spoke again and his voice was as the clashing of thunderstorms and the grinding of asteroids gravitating together to form a new planet. "Lady Death, your relationship with this being is opposed to the peace we wish for this planet and its beings. Earth is under our protection. Should any of our loved ones be harmed, you and your acolytes will pay the price. We shall demand our loved ones back without equal payment and you will obey. We shall ask you to return any lost innocent souls and you shall obey. We shall request weregild and you shall obey. We desire that you inform this being to desist from his pursuit of you at once. And You. Will. Obey."

Death bowed before the enraged immortal, shuddering at the weight of his words. She felt the power of the Master of Death reverberating through the distant connection she still had to her Hallows, binding her to the commands of her Master. She struggled to keep from falling to her knees, panting with the effort. "Yes, My Lord. It shall be as you have commanded."

A whip of fire lashed out and coiled about her neck, jerking her down to her knees. She screamed in pain, a high thin sound that dissipated quickly in the vacuum in this space. "We shall know, Lady. Now, this being's name."

She drew breath time and again and knew that her Master could hear the dryness in her throat. Her voice was strangled when she was finally able to speak. "Th-a-Thanos, My L-Lord."

A hand swept the cowl off the head and loosened the coil of fire from her neck. A long black fingernail raised her head. She was a beautiful woman, with flawless pale skin and midnight black hair. Her lips and eyes were pale blue, the shade of death. "The most beautiful woman is death, and you are such a one." Death gasped in shock when a black veined hand grasped her jaw, forcefully tilting her head to the right. A tongue, hot and slick, licked the side of her face, his breath hot on her skin. "We have tasted Death and lived. Such is the power of the Master of Death. Remember this Lady."

Her pale lips trembled. "Yes, My Lord."

"Very well. Leave us and return to your duties but not to Thanos."

Trembling, the woman rose and replaced her cowl with shaking hands. With a bow she retreated into the shadows, turning once more into smoke.

There was a moment of silence. Azazel flexed his shoulders and drew out his bat-like wings, sighing with pleasure. A thought created a flux of wind currents in the dimensional space and Azazel took off, enjoying the simple pleasure of the wind in his wings. In his subconscious, Harry smiled and shared his joy in perfect accord. They flew in that manner for a long time, silent by mutual consent. Then at some unknown marker, Harry asked quietly, "Did we have to do that?"

"Do what?"

"Traumatize Lady Death."

"Power will only ever be overpowered, Harry. All I did was to show her that we are powerful together, more than any power she can hope to exert on you. Now she will take you seriously."

Harry thought about that for a while. "You do know you're a bad influence, don't you? I would never have agreed to something like this before."

The demon laughed in fond amusement. "You're welcome Harry."

Harry groused at that, but let himself be lulled by the comforting motions of Azazel's flight, knowing that the demon would let no harm come to him. In the recesses of their subconscious, Harry finally fell into a restful sleep.