CHAPTER 1:

WHEN HARRY MET HIIRO

His whole life was a lie.

He stared into the face so like and yet so unlike his own, the hazel eyes looking at him with barely-veiled contempt and disdain. He clutched at the burns on his cheek, inflicted by the man right in front of him, a man he had heard the praises sung of for much of his time at Hogwarts. And yet, the irony was, one man that he hated above all others, and who hated him in his term, had been right.

"You dare defy me?! Your own father?!" snapped the man in front of him. "After all I have done for you, even despite knowing you weren't of my blood?"

"What have you done for me?" he retorted back. "Hidden like a coward, left me to rot with those poor excuses for Muggles, who treated me like a servant? Left me to face Voldemort so many times, when good people died?"

"I let you have the fame you didn't deserve then, and you deserve it even less now. And if the Dursleys had killed you, all the better." Suddenly, he was wrapped in chains, and that thing claiming to be his father levitated him into the air. "Well, if you reject my overly generous offer, then you can follow Black into the Veil. I'll just say the Horcrux in your scar took you over."

He couldn't speak, but his confusion and shock was writ large on his face, alongside his anger. And his so-called father snapped his fingers. "Oh right, you don't know what a Horcrux is. Albus didn't tell you. You have a fragment of Voldemort's soul in your scar. That is why you are expendable. That, and, well, you're proof that Lily was unfaithful to me. And given the trouble you've put me to, well, being cast through the Veil is too merciful. But I'd rather it be over and done with. Oh, and if you ever run into a freaky, evil bitch called 'D'…tell her you're my gift to her."

And then, without a further word, he was hurled into the Veil, cold winds rushing past him as he fell into the void…

"Git gud, you filthy casual."

Of all the things to herald Harry Potter's waking from a lack of consciousness, he wasn't expecting that. Spoken by a girl or young woman, in a sickeningly cheerful voice that managed to sound even more false than Umbridge's own saccharine sweet tones. It was a hollow cheerfulness, masking something beneath. His eyes flickered open to see…well, very little.

The room was dark, illuminated only by the TV, to which was connected a gaming console of some sort. The darkness was a palpable thing, not merely an absence of light, but a presence. On the TV, a figure clad in blood-soaked clothing, including a leather coat and a tricorn, stood over the fading corpse of another person, in a vast Gothic city. Then, the figure seemed to use something, and faded.

And sitting in a chair, manipulating a controller, was…

"Oh, you're awake," said the figure, looking at him from behind glasses. "Good timing, too. I just ganked that casual. Thought he was the king of Yharnam, but I'm the Queen of Yharnam. I killed Queen Yharnam to get that title."

Harry looked at the figure. Theoretically, even with the light from the TV, he should be able to see something of the figure. But he couldn't see much. She was female, with long dark hair, and dressed in what could have been a school uniform from Japan, but he couldn't discern anything of her facial features. Except for her eyes. They seemed to change colour depending on the angle he saw them at. Red, gold, or even bottomless abysses of black.

But even if he couldn't see her face properly, he could already tell she wasn't exactly going to be her friend. Not just because of the voice. There was also the smile on her face, just barely visible, but unmistakeably malevolent.

The last few years had not been kind to him. Well, truthfully, his time at Hogwarts had been pretty crappy, but his enjoyment of magic and the adventures had overrode that disquiet that this was not even remotely normal, even for Magical Britain. But when Sirius escaped from Azkaban, and the Dementors were posted around Hogwarts, well, Harry felt things were getting increasingly worse for him.

His godfather was never exonerated. There were the increasing nightmares of Voldemort. The attack on the Quidditch World Cup. The Tri-Wizard Tournament. The bad press. Voldemort's revival. His being kept in the dark by his friends. Umbridge and Fudge's actions. And then, it all culminated in Harry being lured to the Department of Mysteries…and the return of his so-called father and twin brother.

Harry's hand came up to the burn on his face. Even now, it was tender, a brand inflicted by James Potter when Harry, in his anger over what his so-called father claimed and his attitude, told him that Snivellous, for once, had been right. James Potter had left his best friends to rot (one in Azkaban, the other in poverty), along with his son (at Durzkaban), and out of cowardice.

The worst part was, despite his anger with them, he didn't know if Ron or Hermione were all right. Ron had been attacked by those brain things, and Hermione had that curse by Dolohov inflicted on her. That was one of his biggest regrets, that he would never know if they were all right. That, and whether Lupin, Tonks, the Weasleys, whether they would ever mourn him, ever consider him to be the true Boy Who Lived, not that Johnny-come-lately fake.

The only consolation was that he was still alive, despite what James Potter intended.

"Who the hell are you?" Harry asked. He was frightened, but more than anything else, he was angry. And understandably so.

"Rather rude of you to demand such things of me, but I suppose under the circumstances, it's understandable," the girl in front of him said. "I have many names, but you can call me 'D'. And yes," she interjected, as a thrill of dread filled his soul, "I'm the one Iggy-Jamie-chan meant. Not that he would ever give me a gift out of the kindness of his heart. He doesn't have any. Not anymore."

"…Then what are you?" he demanded, trying to stop his fear from overwhelming his anger.

"Oh, that's easy! I'm an evil goddess!" D chirped. "I love watching people. All their struggles and conflict…it makes for fun viewing, and I get bored so easily. Your life was a fun one to watch."

"…Fun?" Harry asked in a quiet, dangerous tone, before he stood. "FUN?! I WENT THROUGH ALL THAT BOLLOCKS, SUFFERING, ALONG WITH ALL THOSE PEOPLE, AND YOU FIND IT FUN TO WATCH?!" he roared at her.

"Yes."

Harry's anger overwhelmed him. If this truly was a goddess, and a self-proclaimed evil goddess at that, then she made Voldemort look like a kitten. All that power, and she got off on watching his misery, his suffering. Even so, he whipped out his wand, and fired off a strong Bombarda. The games console, TV and controller disappeared in an explosion, much larger than the ones he was used to when practising the spell. But even as the smoke cleared, Harry knew better than to assume he had done more than scratch D…and even that was unlikely.

He was proven right when he heard her speaking gently into his ear, her cool breath tickling it, "You know, you're lucky I can repair those with a thought. Otherwise, I might be upset. You're so much like Antioch when he whipped his penis extension out, the one I gave him. It's ironic, considering you're descended from Cadmus through your mother. He had a few bastards running around after his wife died. Still, you've got balls, attacking a goddess like that." He could actually hear the smile in her voice, a genuinely malevolent mirth, that poked through the hollow shell of fake cheerfulness. "And I will admit, that's what's fun. You're so much like him, and yet, so much more, and so much less."

A pale hand waved from behind him, and the TV, console, and chair seemed to come back together. He frowned when he saw the game again, of the leather-coated figure now in some ethereal garden. D then walked back over to her chair. "Ah, Bloodborne. Good game. Hard, especially to casuals, but easily one of the best on the Playstation 4."

"…Playstation…4?" Harry asked. But that couldn't be right. He knew the Playstation 2 was out, it was one of Dudley's consoles.

"Yep. Oh, right, I forgot to tell you. You fell into my domain. Normally, that would be lethal, but I decided to keep you alive, albeit in stasis," D said. "For ten years, actually. I was wondering what to do with you. And before you ask, Tommy Boy is dead, thanks to Iggy-Jamie-chan. I got that little scrap of his soul out of your scar. You're welcome. I actually have him as a plaything."

"Plaything?"

D smirked, and gestured, with an image appearing in front of her. It looked like a grown-up version of the teenaged Voldemort Harry had encountered in the Chamber of Secrets, only, he was naked, and…oh. He…uhh, didn't know what was happening, only that it looked disgusting and painful…

"Nice, huh?" D said, erasing the image with a careless wave, to Harry's relief. Voldemort might have deserved such a fate, but Harry wasn't sure he wanted to actually watch something so horrifying. "I rotate the punishments every day. But…this world I oversee…it's a mite more fun. And I've decided to send you there."

"Wait, what? What the hell do you mean?" And he was trying to come to terms with what the hell was happening. Ten years? What had happened to Hermione? Ron?

"Well, in a way, it's home for you." Her smile widened a little. "Your real father came from there, though he has forgotten you, albeit with a little help from yours truly. I also had the old goat seal away what you got from your father. Your real father, I mean. When I decided you might be interesting thrown into that world, I undid that seal a little. Just enough to give you a fighting chance."

"What seal?" She waved a hand, and a mirror seemed to form itself in mid-air, revealing his face. His eyes widened when he realised it had changed. His skin was a little darker, like he had gotten a tan. His teeth seemed a little sharper, his ears had a slight point. His face seemed a little different too, less like James Potter's. The scar was faded.

But the biggest difference was his eyes. The colour was the same, but they seemed more…reptilian now. He realised with a start he wasn't wearing glasses anymore.

"Oh, right," D said, gesturing, and a pair of glasses appeared on Harry. "You're cuter with them. Not that you need glasses. Anyway, I'm sending you to meet with another pet project of mine. I actually had this inspiration: you two can help each other! I think it'd be fun, for the Boy Who Lived to meet with Mahou Shoujo Kumoko-chan! And then to go on a journey that will probably end horribly! Though you might get to meet some familiar faces along the way!"

"…Sorry, what?"

"Nope, no more time for Q&A!" Suddenly, a hole appeared right behind Harry, and he teetered on the edge. And then, she was right in front of him, her features still more or less obscured, though whether that was by the lack of light or a spell of her devising, he didn't know. "Hey, say, 'This is blasphemy, this is madness!'" As he stared at her in confusion, she seemed to pout. "…So uncooperative. Okay, I'll just say it." She then screamed in his face, "THIS! IS! SPARTAAAA!"

And then she kicked him down the hole…

Hiiro Wakaba had just been involved in a brutal battle to the death. Far from the first she had been forced into in the past little while. After all, she somehow died, was reincarnated as a monster spider in another world, in the middle of a lethal cavern system known as the Great Elroe Labyrinth. But this was perhaps her most arduous battle yet, against one of the most fearsome creatures in the Great Elroe Labyrinth, aside from the Queen Taratect that had birthed her second life.

Namely Araba, the Earth Dragon.

The battle was pretty much over. All that was left was the coup de grace. Araba had put up a damn good fight, but he was pretty much dead. He just hadn't stopped breathing. True, Hiiro was pretty banged-up herself, but killing Araba off would help her level up and thus heal up automatically.

But as Hiiro began approaching, there was a sudden scream from above. Hiiro looked up, only for someone to crash to the ground between her and Araba. Not something, but someone. A boy about her age, with dark hair, tanned skin, albeit with a nasty burn on one cheek. Appraisal and Wisdom turned up nothing on him.

But this presence…it felt familiar. But why? And Araba, despite his exhaustion and injuries, paid attention too.

The boy struggled to his feet, revealing reptilian, emerald eyes behind glasses. When he saw her, he recoiled. "What the hell?" He turned, only to see Araba. "What the hell?!"

Hiiro blinked. Was…was that English? Not her native Japanese, but certainly a language she had learned and could speak. Nai wa. And a British accent, just like her English teacher, Ms Wilkins.

As Harry stared at Araba, with the Earth Dragon staring back, Hiiro came to a sudden decision. She had just enough Skill Points to invest in a Skill she thought she'd never have cause to use. Telepathy. She thought she'd never be able to use it, given that the people here, including that Administrator, spoke only Isekaiese.

Hiiro purchased the Telepathy ability, and then cleared her throat mentally. She wasn't sure how she was going to do this. She had been very much a recluse in her first life, never socialising much with anyone, let alone her classmates. She had been shy and filled with social anxiety. But this was the first person she had met in a long time that she could potentially talk to…well, unless 'D' counted. Which she didn't.

She just hoped she wouldn't regret this. She was hurt, in pain, and if she didn't finish off Araba soon, he would start fighting back. But she had to try.

Tentatively, she tried talking. Umm…hello? Can you hear me?

The boy whipped around in shock. "Who said that?!"

Here. You saw me earlier. The spider? She saw him whirl to face her, and she waved with the foreleg that was least injured, though it was still painful. Hey. Sorry, we'll talk in a moment, but I need to finish this guy off. I promise, I mean you no harm.

"…Uhh, what? What?" the boy said, before Araba shifted around. For a moment, Hiiro thought he had rallied, but he simply raised a clawed finger to his mouth, and bit it off, before handing it to the boy solemnly. He then pointed to the severed finger, and then to his mouth, looking only at the boy the whole time. "…You want me to eat it?" Araba, astonishingly, nodded, before he turned back to Hiiro.

Hiiro was ready to start firing off spells, but she realised, thanks to Appraisal and Wisdom, that the Earth Dragon was actually removing all his Skills. He was giving her a solemn gaze. And Hiiro soon realised that he had accepted his fate, had become resigned to it, and felt he had fought well, to the end.

This angered Hiiro. She had struggled to survive every step of the way, and never gave up, despite everything. And yet, this beast, the one that scared her so much, was resigning himself to his own demise?

She used her Evil Eyes on Araba, annihilating him almost instantly. The victory had a bitter taste in her mouth, even as she levelled up and regenerated. If she could cry, she would have.

The irony was, despite the rather aggravating way her victory over one of her nemeses felt, she had gotten something good out of this, at least. Someone who, even now, was staring at her in confusion and wariness. Someone who, despite his inhuman looks, spoke English, and seemed as much at sea as she did.

But why did his presence feel so much like that Administrator, Güliedistodiez? Nai wa…

CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:

So, Harry's ended up near the Great Elroe Labyrinth, and has met Kumoko! But what link does James Potter have to 'D'? Why is he acting this way? And what link does Harry have to Güliedistodiez?

No numbered annotations this time.