Disclaimer: The characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I wouldn't own anyone anyway.

Summary: Bored and lonely after his victory, Harry Potter decides to depart for the next great adventure. Normally, the peaceful embrace of death doesn't elude anyone, irrespective of whether or not they seek it. But Harry Potter could never be accused of normality. Finding himself in a parallel universe, one where he appears to have been born as a girl, was not part of the plan, but he's certainly up to the little challenge. Now if only the mysteries of life and death could be that simple. Some, though, are best left unsolved.

Warnings: All universes are AU;

Main Characters may have an ambiguous sense of morality (they get anthracite for Christmas);

The title likely alludes to the legend of The Master of Death, but who knows(?), it might hold deeper secrets;

Pairings: Harry Potter/Hermione Granger/The Girl Who Lived (Yes, I know you might not like the sound of it. Give it a chance though, this work isn't categorized as a romance anyway);

Protagonists may be smart and powerful (but then again, it isn't a canon story about the interminable and hopeless struggles of poor, traumatized kids who only survive because of their polar luck... rather, a tale of the mysteries thrown their way and the adventures they get themselves into, often because they want to...);

Rated M just to be on the safe side;

AN: Reviews would be welcome and very much appreciated.

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Harry Potter apparated into the deserted atrium of the Ministry of Magic, its practically abandoned state reflecting the devastation wrought upon the British wizarding world. He might have enabled it, but really, they only had themselves to blame. No, he had the burden of but one regret. One he had now carried for so long...

He entered the elevator, and pressed the button for the lowest level. As the lift descended, his thoughts were drawn back to that fateful day, which still sometimes haunted his dreams. The death of his first, and perhaps the only friend he had ever had, Hermione Granger, and his eternal lament of being a little too late. Weasley had insulted her and he hadn't seen her since. But that day he had had a lot on his mind. His parents had died on that day a decade ago, and for the first Halloween he was aware of it. When Quirrell told them about the troll, he chose to make Weasley follow him, expecting him to apologize for his bullying. If only he had known... But there had been no reason to believe Quirrell would publicly lie about the location of the troll. By the time he had reached that third floor bathroom, the troll had his club raised, and he has watched as it swung down on his friend, as she cowered in sheer terror. He watched as her head and torso were completely crushed by the club, as blood and viscera flew every where, her screaming abruptly shut. He didn't realize when Weasley fled, as he fell to his knees in utter shock and grief. His magic reacted and the troll was, within seconds, incinerated to a crisp, its blood curdling screams not penetrating his daze. The troll suffered through its death, but it was too little, too late. A student had died, but no one had cared. After all, she was just a mudblood.

For his traumatized state, he had received punishment, a loss of points which anyway held no meaning to him, and sent back to his dormitories. The death of Hermione Granger was regarded as just an unfortunate incident, one not warranting any investigation or even their sympathies. He had been shocked at that too, but he had later realized, it was a recurrent theme in the wizarding world. When the next year, the fabled Chamber of Secrets had been opened, quite a few purebloods had openly rejoiced, taunting their fellow muggleborn students. They were being attacked, and the school continued normally, the petrified bodies of the muggleborns dumped in the hospital wing, nary a thought to their education, something which Hogwarts dearly charged them for. They didn't even bother importing mandrakes from abroad. Who cared if a few mudbloods lost precious months of their life and education? Or even died due to extended petrification? That indifference changed when finally, a pureblood Ginevra Weasley had gone missing. The monster had now moved onto purebloods too, and the school, now no longer considered safe, was to be closed. The blatant bigotry sickened him. Still, the naïve child that he then was, he had hoped things would one day change. They never did.

Each year had only brought questions, mysteries he was the unwilling subject to. In sixth year, he had gotten the chance to find some answers, and he had naturally taken it. Dumbledore, the great old man unsubtly manipulating his whole life, had taken him on a horcrux hunt. Why he had drank an unknown potion instead of feeding it some conjured animal, he didn't know. But it was the only time he could be reasonably sure that Dumbledore's occlumency would be weakened. Harry had delved deep into the headmaster's mind and was sad to realize that he wasn't the least bit surprised by what he found. In Snape's own words, he was just a "pig for slaughter". Obviously, he disagreed. Unnerved by painful visions, he had gotten rid of the soul shard in his scar, in his fourth year itself, at great risk to his life and magic. But why would Dumbledore the great, care. Dumbledore, who alone was right and, always so, the omniscient, the executor of people's destinies... The headmaster was overpowered, obliviated and had the privilege of living his last moments, and dying, the way he had planned. Naturally, Snape died that day too. Poor boy-who-lived, traumatized by his favorite headmaster's death, had killed the traitorous death eater in his grief. It was too good an excuse to let go. By the end of the day, Harry Potter was now the proud[verification needed] owner of the three deathly hallows. He couldn't feel any difference though. Perhaps the legend of the Master of Death was just that, a legend.

He had spent most of the following year abroad, expanding his knowledge, sharpening skills, and building a horcrux detector. The war had then taken the rest of his 'friends and family', which included his godfather. But Voldemort had been destroyed, utterly so, and for good. It was hardly enough. Nothing had ever changed. He had waited days, weeks, months... Hoping they'd learn... that they would care. Hoping they'd stop staining people's blood, when they couldn't differentiate between the reds of the pure and the impure. Hell, they didn't even know that blood groups existed! But it was the same. The nepotism, the blood bigotry... The purebloods, and the half's with richer ancestry, filled up the partial vacuum in the ministry that the war had generated, while the rest were plunged to the lower echelons of the 'society'. They weren't as bad as Voldemort, but well, someone was needed for those menial jobs which no one wanted, and the mudbloods were, obviously, only good for that.

Then there had been the post war award ceremony. The pureblood survivors of the battle of Hogwarts, were to be awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class for defeating Voldemort and his armies, while he was being given the Order of Merlin, Second Class, for casting the killing blow on Voldemort. Of course, if a halfblood could do it, how difficult could it have been? It was the last straw. That day, he had cursed them. The purity of blood they so coveted... their ancestry they took so much pride in... the past whose shadows they dwelt in, they'd pay dearly for it. A fair trade, really. They had laughed at him, scoffed that his words uttered from the fantasy of a common muggle, would hold any power over them. The witless fools, ignorant of the true nature of magics, crutching themselves to spells and potions. Their mirth lasted a week. Till they finally discovered the dark truth. All the births at St Mungo's since then, were discovered to lack a magical core. Magic had deemed the curse worthy and extracted its price. And to them, for whom magic was all they even remotely knew, what a price it was!

They had called for his head, the upstart dark lord. They had come after him in droves, both the public and their self-proclaimed protectors... and fallen at his hand, as the Deathstick had hummed in perverse delight. Really, if they had shown such unity and initiative against Voldemort, his parents would never have died. He'd likely never have become who he was... wouldn't have cursed a whole people. Whose fault was it then but their own. Did he feel remorse? Well, a little bit. But would he change his actions if he could? He mentally scoffed. Most likely not. They had dug their own graves and buried themselves in, he was just the soil. Some had even tried to leave the country, hoping to escape the curse. But magic, hardly recognised artificial boundaries... This is not to say that it was inescapable, for curses always had a cure... one just had to renounce their base beliefs, which they clung so tightly to. But such things take lifetimes and one cannot hope to fool magic with false reassurances of enlightened change. Sure, the magical world would eventually recover, over generations, but it was a hard blow, and a surprisingly effective one. They had chosen to be wrong, and paid the price in blood and magic.

The elevator slowed to a stop at its destination, drawing Harry away from his musings. Another deserted corridor brought him to a single door, which opened into a circular room. It was lined with a dozen identical closed doors. As soon as he closed the one he had just entered through, the wall around him started spinning at dizzying speeds, and he was grateful that the floor was as stable and still as a floor should be. It did raise the question then, that what did the spinning walls hope to achieve. Unless it was actually the floor that had rotated, and they had unwittingly invented inertial dampening, a concept from muggle science fiction, he wondered what would their reactions be if they did realize that. It seems the department of mysteries had weird ideas about security. It was, to him, hardly an inconvenience let alone a deterrent. He raised his right hand, the Elder wand clutched loosely in it. "Point me." The wand jerked in his hand, stopping to point at a door to his right. It was unlocked.

Opening it, he stepped into a large room, which reminded him faintly of an arena, with steps carved around the great hall, leading downwards to a flat space, where gladiators would fight to the death. Instead, it was imposingly occupied by an ancient looking stone archway, somehow supporting its own weight despite the distinct lack of pillars or any other form of support. A thinly veil reached down from it, fluttering as if in anticipation, beckoning him... calling to him... with welcoming, soothing noises coming from somewhere beyond it. He could feel the answering twitch of the deathly hallows, and he wondered what was it that they were now plotting, for he knew that they had minds of their own. But with magic, that was not a surprising fact, even normal wands could gradually attain a sort of semi-sentience of their own, with all the magic they channeled. These three though, they had a deep history, a life several orders of magnitude older than his own, and the thought of all they could teach him, was a salivating prospect.

He went down the steps, his footsteps echoing in the vast chamber, an unearthly wind picking up, ruffling his robe and hair in no particular direction. The voices were now louder, but still as indecipherable as ever. The veil itself was now billowing mightily, yet hardly a crease was visible upon it. His wand, the elder one, now felt uncharacteristically warm, thrumming in excitement, much like a puppy about to be reunited with its master. He stopped just in front of the archway, the undulating layer of deathly fabric, almost coming to touch him, to caress him, but not quite. Not yet.

He paused to once again contemplate his course of actions. He had no one left he could call family, but that wasn't what had brought him here. The grief, the pain, they were never enough to make him give up, to break him. For he knew he wasn't a broken man, he had only grown stronger through his trials and losses. No he was here more because of his own curiosity. Having scrapes with death so many times in his rather young life, he had always been curious as to what lay beyond. What awaited him, the inevitable destination of all who lived, or would ever live. There had to be, after all, an existence beyond the veil, the next great adventure. The ghosts were a proof of that. And even more so, the piece of rock which he now possessed, the resurrection stone, which could call upon the souls of the dead, disturbing them from their peace, and which had as yet yielded to no test he could think of that could even remotely give him an indication as to its constituents. These three mysteries which had come into his possession, and now another one which fluttered in front of him, they had lured him here.

Harry was aware of their story, how death had used to claim the souls of those who had evaded him, and now, amusingly enough, he was to be the next. Besides, he had fulfilled the only goals he has had in his short life. The revenge for his parents' death, and even Hermione's, had been extracted. Voldemort was dead, along with his marked followers. He had personally ensured that. Moreover, those that would look down upon his mother, his dead friend, and even himself, had been rather suitably punished. As a bonus, he had, if rather unconventionally, even succeeded in uprooting the blood bigotry in the magical world, at the very least for several generations to come. The magical world would eventually recover, as magic gifted itself to those born to the muggles and those more tolerant, but none would dare forget their lesson. He wasn't sure though if his curse would ever expire or limit itself to a country... or even a species. There was not much known about curses after all. Though from reading about myths and legends of the civilizations past, it was unlikely. Magical sentient beings had come and gone so many times... but magic wiped away at their traces... their mistakes washed away, no longer an example for the younger life to learn from.

He put thoughts of this world aside, it would no longer be the one he called his. He had brought with him, all his considerable worldly possessions (including the Hogwarts library for he was rather fond of it), that could fit in the expanded space of a trunk, not because he was a greedy person, or even really materialistic. But the thought of actually taking his wealth away with him as he passed on, while so many civilizations so desperately and unsuccessfully had tried to do the same, tickled his sense of humor. Take that pharaohs... and take that goblins who looted their sarcophagi!

Harry finally closed his eyes and stepped forward, passing right through the veil as if it wasn't there. He felt strange sensations, feeling the deathly artefacts reaching for his very soul, and before he could react through his shock, he knew... He could tell that they were now a part of his very soul, indistinguishable and yet, quite assuredly there. Of course, his death was to be the catalyst for activating their deathly characteristics. So much for the master of death being just a myth, he certainly didn't feel very dead. He slowly opened his eyes, not sure what he was expecting or even hoping for. At a first glance there was nothing. Just an eternal nothingness. A second more careful glance informed him of the endless specks contrasting against the fabric of dark void, though how it was a contrast, he couldn't tell, for the small dots, infinitesimal points, themselves were darkness.

The wizard tried moving forward, and instead of feeling the sensation of walking, he could instead observe the whole void seemingly shifting backward. This made him look downwards at his feet, only to realize they weren't there. He tried raising his hands to his face, but they too, didn't exist. He didn't exist. Or rather, his body didn't. How was it then that he was seeing? Oh right... he wasn't. He didn't even have eyes. That explained why everything was dark and yet there were things still distinguishable. He could simply sense the void, that is his soul, now merged with the eldritch artefacts, could. He turned back, feeling the void turning around him. If he expected to find the veil which he had come through, he was disappointed. Where did he step through then? As this thought crossed his mind, he could sense the archway materializing, again made of the the same darkness which composed everything else here. A morbid thought crossed his nonexistent mind. Perhaps, perhaps, his own soul was now the same... the same nihilistic darkness, devoid of any being. He gave a metal shudder at that, but it was true, he knew... nothing else could be true here.

Coming out of his distractions, he could now sense an infinitude of the veils, doorways, filling up the vacuous inexistence, replacing what were earlier little specks. To his mind, used to thinking like a human, finding himself in and actually experiencing a multidimensional expanse was rather disconcerting, the veils littering the hyperspace, all present in geometrical patterns and shapes beyond even the usual non-Euclidean. The stillness of everything, was itself rather eerie. As he tried navigating the void, wondering if time even existed here at all or was it present simply as the other dimensions, stagnant, not giving the comforting feeling of movement, of life, which he had till now taken for granted.

This in turn, seemed to change something fundamental, as the surroundings shifted again, pandering to the human taste of their guest. This spatial metamorphosis was much welcome, albeit still confusing. At least, everything now seemed limited to the three dimensions he was familiar with, the veils all around him now had resumed their perpetual flapping. But now there were other shapes visible... things... he had no name for them in his rather limited vocabulary, and doubted any living human did. Floating in space, quite nonchalantly ignoring his presence, a convolution of the same dark matter, their indiscernible contour giving him a metaphorical headache the more he stared at them. Thankfully, they were busy doing nothing, and most importantly not noticing him, and he tried to put them out of his mind for now, concentrating on more important matters...

Like where was he now and what was he going to do to change his immediate position to some more palatable destination. Looking around, he let the fact sink in that he was completely lost. All that spatial shifting of this labyrinthine abyss, this nexus, meant he didn't know which was the portal leading back to the world he had just abandoned. The portals were now sporting a spiral arrangement along passages, which branched continuously, occasionally even merging, somewhat like the roots of a grand tree. He tried navigating them, but there was not an end to them, and the intricate network made no sense to him. Quite possibly, these were all entrances to different universes, the almost tree-like lattice representing their shifts and divergences, along with the occasional convergence. Still, this didn't tell him which one to enter, or even if he should, the idea of being cheated out of his willful death, ironically, did not much appeal to him. Then again, he didn't want to spend an eternity in this place, whatever it was, being and doing nothing.

At the edge of his scope of observation, he saw one particular veil surge violently, something shooting out of it. By the time he turned to look, whatever it was, possibly a fellow soul, was lost to the void, either merged with it or departed to wherever things went at the end. With nothing better to do, and a lack of sources of credible, and relevant information, Harry gave a mental sigh and crossed that portal, again passing right through the still riffling veil.

AN: Thank you for your kind reviews.