Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Sixty-Two—The Light Meets the Master of Death

"It feels weird having my brother watch me."

Jonathan grinned and simply leaned back against the pillows on his bed, watching. Harry rolled his eyes at him and then closed them and let the contours of his body drift out and break, writhing around the room in brilliant colors.

Jonathan blinked and stared. It really brought home to him how Harry only held onto his human body most of the time because it was convenient and—

Well, because he wanted to keep them comfortable, honestly. Jonathan wondered if he should feel frightened of Harry because of that, but he didn't. He just felt happy that he got to see Harry in all his bodies and he had been comfortable around him for a long time.

And when summer ended and the autumn term started, Harry would be coming to Hogwarts. Jonathan couldn't wait to see how some people reacted to him.

The colors settled back together in front of him, but Harry's head hovered a lot higher than it had been. He shook back shaggy black hair and stared down at himself. He'd dressed in wizard robes that were finer than almost all the sets Jonathan had ever seen, except for some of Dumbledore's and some of Sirius's that he'd worn once to Christmas as a lark. They were blue and had silver edging.

Jonathan whistled the way some of the Muggleborns did, and Harry grimaced at him. "I told you it was weird having my brother watch me."

"All right," Jonathan said, raising his hands. "Besides, I reckon that you don't want me whistling at you like that anyway."

"That's right."

"Voldemort's the only one who gets to do that."

Harry choked and glared at him. Jonathan just grinned back. Honestly, he thought Harry was an idiot if he denied it, and Jonathan would be sad to think that his brother was an idiot. Harry would admit it if he wasn't so wrapped up in his worry about hurting Voldemort, or influencing him, or something.

"Voldemort is—confused," Harry said finally. "He understands what I am, and he's attracted to my power. But he still wants immortality and me to join him, and he'll never understand that I want something else."

"Wants can change," Jonathan said quietly. "Even the Master of Death can change, or you never would have told me and Mum and Dad what you were."

Harry gave a shrug that made his robes shimmer, and pinned something to the front of them. Jonathan squinted at the thing. It appeared to be a large jewel, a ruby maybe, with a symbol in gold on the front of it. The symbol of the Deathly Hallows, Jonathan made out a minute later, and he grinned.

"Is that something you've always had? I'm surprised you didn't wear it to those meetings with the Parkinsons and the Flints."

"It's made of pure magic. It comes and goes as I please, and sometimes it's dissolved into the other power," Harry said absently. He faced the mirror that Jonathan found himself using more and more often now, stared, and then adjusted the pin. "It's been forever since I've worn it. I feel a right berk."

"You look like a right berk," Jonathan agreed cheerfully, and laughed when Harry glared at him through the reflection. "But what's important isn't what I think. It's what the wizards you negotiate with think." He waited until Harry relaxed, and then added, "And what Voldemort thinks."

Harry shook his head with a long, slow motion that made Jonathan frown. It sure looked more decisive than anything else he'd done before. "If you're waiting around for that to happen, Jonathan, I'm afraid that you'll be disappointed. Voldemort wants what he wants, and we only share one common goal, the peace treaty. After that's secured, I wouldn't be surprised if we stopped visiting as often."

"You're his friend. I don't think you would stop visiting him entirely, any more than you would stop visiting Sirius or me or Mum and Dad."

Harry only frowned a little, as if thinking about something. That was one reason Jonathan loved him. Even though he was so much older and knew so much more than Jonathan, he didn't dismiss his thoughts out of hand or act as though it was stupid for Jonathan to give him advice. Jonathan sprawled forwards on the bed now and listened in interest to what Harry had to say.

"Maybe not," Harry finally said. "But this is political for me in a way I can't afford to lose. I already interfered with the way the war would have run in this world. I don't want to make it worse than it would have been, instead of better."

"You're mad if you think that's what would happen," said Jonathan, and didn't bother to hide the roll of his eyes. "I just want you to think about being his friend, and about what he's likely to want."

"Oh, I know that already. I just can't give it to him."

Jonathan shrugged and said nothing. All he could think was that his brother was probably going to be immortal forever, while he wasn't, and he would die someday. And so would Sirius and Mum and Dad. It would be good for Harry to have someone who understood him and who would live as long as he did.

It would be good for Voldemort, too. Jonathan decided that he would play up that angle the next time he talked about this. Harry wasn't likely to respond to anything that just seemed to be based on what was good for him.

Voldemort saw the moment when Harry walked into the peace treaty negotiations.

Of course, he had been watching for Harry in any case. But it was easy to see the ripple of reactions that tended out from him. Harry might think the human body he wore was normal, compared to the lightning and darkness he had channeled for Voldemort more than once, but it proclaimed his power in its own way.

Voldemort rose from his chair and walked across the room towards Harry, the only one who was moving in that direction. Harry nodded to him and glided to a stop. His stride was utterly confident, without a trace of the slight insecurity that most people here would be feeling. And his green eyes, which he kept claiming were exactly the same as his mother's, had a depth of experience and feeling that no one here could help recognizing.

Harry inclined his head to Voldemort, and Voldemort felt the visceral response tremble through him. He kept his face blank with an effort. "Lord Voldemort. Thank you for inviting me to these negotiations."

"Who exactly are you?"

That was Augusta Longbottom, who had proven far more congenial than most of those nominally on her side. Voldemort saw the way Longbottom's face twitched as she looked at Harry, though, and wanted to smile. She did know who he was.

"My name is Harry Potter," Harry said, his voice smooth and deep and resonant. Voldemort started to imagine some contexts where he would hear it, and then had to banish such contexts from his head. "I am also known as the Master of Death."

Some people gasped, but Longbottom only folded her arms. "Then you are the one who is responsible for restoring Lord Voldemort, and suggesting that he seek out a peace treaty with the Light."

"I am."

"Do you consider yourself a Light or Dark wizard?"

Harry's smile sharpened to the point that Voldemort wanted to reach out a hand, to see if he could cut himself on pursed lips. "Madam Longbottom, that would surely come down to the question of if I consider myself human, first."

"Say that I accept that question as something you can answer. Answer it."

Voldemort gripped his temper. He simultaneously admired Augusta Longbottom's nerve and wanted to curse her for it.

Harry shrugged, his eyes merry now, his hair tousled as if he had reached up and ruffled it—or by the waves of power rising from within. "In some ways, I'm probably more human than anyone in this room, Madam Longbottom. I've lived thousands of years in various bodies." For a moment, darkness swept across his face, and Voldemort knew he was remembering his life as a Dementor. But he banished that smoothly enough, and continued on. "In other ways, less. Humans were not meant to live as long as I have, nor experience what I have."

"Are you sympathetic to the wants and needs of humans?"

"I've found that a useless question. They differ based on the time period and even the individual person who's saying that they want a certain thing. I can say that I'm sympathetic to the needs of mortality, and that I've fought to defend individual humans, and that before this life, I never revealed who I was to anyone. I think a need a lot of humans have is for normality, and that's one I can't gratify."

Longbottom studied Harry's hair as if it had personally offended her. "There is one more thing…"

"Yes?" Harry asked encouragingly. Voldemort schooled his face into relaxed sternness. He had nearly smiled at the revelation that he was not the only one who got afflicted by that particular tone in Harry's voice, but he would not do so in front of Longbottom. This was not their clearing in the woods.

"Harry Potter is a child, as far as I know. Are you truly him?"

Harry laughed a little. "Is it such a challenge for the Master of Death to change bodies and ages? Think of it this way, Madam Longbottom," he added, when the woman's stance didn't alter. "If I had come to you as a child, at least half of the people here would have discounted anything I said. And that only because of the outer form I wear, without looking at whether I can do anything useful for you or the like. It would be ridiculous of me to even try it. In this older form, I can radiate confidence and many other things, and earn your trust."

"Or our distrust."

"True. But it at least is not ridicule, the way it would have been had I turned up the form most people in this world know me in."

Longbottom abruptly relaxed, shoulders turning down as she took a deep breath. Voldemort narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Perhaps it was simply his long holiday from normal human emotions, but he truly did not understand her. She seemed to find reassurance in things that he knew would have annoyed his Death Eaters, the most "normal" human companionship he had had in decades.

"Very well. Then you have the chance to prove yourself to us, Mr. Potter. Master of Death. However you would prefer to be titled."

"Call me what you want. It doesn't matter much to me."

"Harry," Voldemort interrupted, so that he could show the busybody Madam Longbottom that he had rights she didn't presume on. Harry glanced at him. "Can you do something to demonstrate who you are other than coming in an older body?"

Harry slowly shrugged. "Why would I need to? Either they'll believe who I am, or they won't. There's not much point in me showing off flashy magic."

"We would like reassurance that you aren't a Dark wizard," interrupted someone Voldemort had come to know as Thalia Greensprings. The woman seemed to live for sneering. "Do something that only a Light wizard could do."

Harry snorted. Greensprings jerked back as though he'd tried to light her robe on fire. "What would you suggest I do, then? There's no spell that a Light wizard can cast that a Dark one can't, as far as I know."

And he should know, Voldemort thought. The thought intrigued him nonetheless. His mind had immediately gone to the Patronus, which not many wizards who had spent time working with the Dark Arts exclusively could cast.

"I mean—I mean that I want you to show us your magic, so we can see whether there's any taint on it."

Longbottom's eyes widened, and Voldemort hissed despite his attempts to keep his Parseltongue under control around his uneasy allies. Greensprings had just overstepped herself. There were indeed spells that could show a visual impression of a wizard's magic to someone else, but they were intensely private and held almost sacred by some people. Asking someone to perform it in front of you was akin to asking them to strip in public.

Harry studied Greensprings in silence for a moment. Voldemort found himself hoping that Harry would send her soul to the eternal darkness between the stars for daring to make the suggestion, but alas, he knew they wouldn't get that lucky.

Harry did in fact know that spell, and he also knew that a clever wizard could alter the results so that the colors or display appeared in whatever manner he wanted it to appear. But he wasn't about to advertise that knowledge to a room full of suspicious Light wizards.

And if there was someone in the room who was inclined to believe Dumbledore's ravings because he had shown up as the Master of Death, this ought to reassure them.

Instead, he said merely, "Very well," and raised his hands.

"Where's your wand?" snapped the woman. By the look of her face, she was a Greensprings, which had been a nasty family in every world except the second.

"Mr. Potter, you need not," said Augusta at the same moment, looking somewhere between uncomfortable and scandalized. "That is—a private matter. We should not have had one of our own ask it of you." By the narrow-eyed look she directed at the Greensprings woman, she might not be one of "their own" much longer.

Harry shrugged. "I don't mind." He could see Voldemort frowning from the corner of his eye, and struggled not to sigh. Voldemort was probably jealous that Harry was showing off his magic to the Light or something.

But if he thought about it, he ought to see that it was exactly the reason he had asked Harry here at all, and to make his peace with it.

"You still should not have to—"

"Please," Harry said, and smiled as Augusta faltered to a stop. Maybe she had seen the magic starting to gather behind him. "Think of it as a gift to my allies."

"If we must," said Greensprings, with a noise that made it sound as if she was on the verge of folding her arms, which she then didn't actually do.

"Yes, you must," Harry said quietly, but it was enough to silence her. He turned his head to face the wall and closed his eyes. He could feel the power gathering behind him, snapping tendrils, and then he opened it further.

"That's dark! It's a tunnel of darkness—"

"Hush, Thalia," said Augusta, and her voice was hushed itself, with awe.

Harry opened his eyes and turned around, despite already knowing what they would have seen. He didn't deny himself a sight of this kind of beauty when it happened.

The tunnel behind him was lit with glowing stars, and the stars danced, slowly trading places, a fast rotation of constellations and nebulae and shining planets now and then, visible at the outer edges before they were gone. Harry knew them well, although they weren't Earth's constellations. He should know them. They were what he saw when he woke from his lives and found himself in the space between them, with stars.

They weren't, perhaps, the single truest representation of his magic. But what he looked like would terrify anyone who wasn't Voldemort, and drive perhaps even Voldemort out of his mind. He'd been very careful with what he showed Voldemort so far. He had been immortal, yes, and a Dark Lord, but he was human, still, no matter what he told himself.

Will this convince him that I'm not?

Harry turned around, because suddenly knowing the answer to that question was more important than savoring the sight of the stars.

It took him a moment to find Voldemort. He'd moved from the spot where he'd last stood, probably because that spot had filled with gaping Light wizards. Instead, he had found a clear space where he was staring with widened eyes, standing in silence.

And the look in his eyes was not fearful. Instead, they were filled with more wonder than Harry had seen Voldemort express in any world he had ever lived in.

Voldemort glanced at Harry, who was watching with widened eyes himself because he couldn't help it, and then bowed his head. Harry smiled before he could help it.

He ended the smile when he thought some of the Light wizards might turn around and take it as a sign of conspiracy between the Dark Lord and the Master of Death, but Voldemort had seen it. He nodded at Harry and offered a smile of his own before he went back to his seat near the front of the room.

As the pause ended and the Light wizards began to question him, Harry wondered at Voldemort's action for a moment. Most of the time, he would take any step he could to remain near Harry. Why end it like this?

And then he knew.

He's confident that I'll still be here when he turns around. He doesn't fear me vanishing on him.

And that, of all things, was what stirred Harry's own wonder, before he put it firmly aside to embroil himself in the peace process.