Yeah, this is so not the beginning of a bad joke.
I do not own Harry Potter.
The next day, Kino and Luna made their way down to Hogsmeade together and entered the Cat's Eye Café just a little bit before four.
"Looks like we're early." Kino noted, looking around but not spotting Death or Mister Ollivander.
"So, it seems." Luna agreed, "Is Stubby Boardman going to be here too?"
"Don't know." Kino shrugged, "I sent him an invite though. You never can tell with old Stubby."
Stubby Boardman was Luna's way of saying 'Sirius Black.' She certainly had believed Kino when he'd said Sirius Black was innocent, only she had been relatively certain that he was actually the retired singer, Stubby Boardman. When Kino had denied this part and told her the actual story, she nodded along and agreed that that made some sense, but they continued using the name as a sort of codename so as not to draw suspicion.
Kino ordered a coke, as this was one of the few places in the wizarding world where one could get non-magical drinks and Luna, deciding to be a bit adventurous, ordered the same thing, along with a bizarre desert that Kino had never seen before. It looked a bit like French toast sticks covered in cream. It was a good sharing thing.
At exactly four o'clock, a clocked figure materialized beside Kino, causing the waitress to drop a plate and stair at the group with an open mouth.
It was during this time she was staring that the door opened up and a man with brown eyes, blond hair and tan skin entered the café. He froze when he saw Death, jaw dropping open slightly.
"Stubby! Over here!" Kino waved, calling him over.
Sirius approached them,
"Hey, Harry…" he didn't take his eyes off of Death, "Who's your friend?"
"Oh right," Kino said, trying to hide his amusement, "This is Luna Lovegood." He introduced the blond who waved at Sirius.
"It's nice to meet you, Mister Boardman."
"Uh huh…you too." Sirius added on hesitantly, "I meant the guy in the cloak, but…"
"Oh, that's Death." Kino introduced, "Death, this is my godfather, Sirius Black, but we're calling him Stubby Boardman, because he's an escaped convict."
"Nice to meet you." Death said, his voice like a cold echo that sent chills down Sirius's spin.
"Uh, n-nice to meet you too." Sirius sputtered, then looked at Kino, rather terrified, "Okay, jokes over, you got me. Who is he, really?"
Kino gave him a confused look, though it was Luna who answered for him,
"He's Death. Harry just introduced him, remember?" she looked at him rather concerned, like he was the crazy one.
"Uh…" Sirius was frozen, not quite sure what he ought to do in this situation.
"Sit down, Sirius."
"Not so loud!" Sirius hissed, looking around to see if anyone had heard them, only for him to realize…no one was moving. They were all frozen.
"Don't worry." Kino said, "They can't hear us right now."
"What…the…hell?" Sirius wondered, looking around.
"This might be a bit too much for him." Luna told Kino gently.
"Alright, alright." Kino rolled his eyes, "I kind of just wanted to see his reaction."
"Harry, what's going on?" Sirius asked his godson, approaching one of the frozen people and waving a hand in front of her face. He got no reaction.
"I stopped time." Kino answered, "I was worried you might give yourself away. Shocked people do all sorts of silly things, and I can't stop them from doing stupid things since that would go against everything I stand for."
Sirius looked at him blankly, and Kino wondered if he'd put the pieces together or not. Nearly a minute passed before Kino was starting to grow concerned.
"I think you might have broken him." Luna offered.
"Aw, crap!" Kino said, "My dad will never forgive me if I broke my godfather…Luna, what do I do?"
Luna looked pensive,
"Draw on his face?" she suggested.
Kino looked thoughtful, then finally nodded,
"Yes…that does seem like the logical course, doesn't it?" A black marker materialized in his hand and he got up, uncapping it before Sirius finally said,
"There's no need for that!"
Kino let out a disappointed sigh and sat back down, the marker disappearing from his hand,
"Looks like he fixed himself…"
"Looks like it." Luna agreed.
"Harry," Sirius interrupted, causing the group to go silent, "Are you…how are you…are you…"
"His mind hasn't quite rebooted yet." Kino commented.
"Give him a moment." Luna suggested, "These things take time."
Sirius was starting to look frustrated,
"Are you some sort of god?"
Kino blinked,
"Yes."
Sirius blanched, looking around and rather hoping that someone would start speaking and say, "Just kidding!" but that didn't happen, and it was starting to look more unlikely by the second.
Sirius fell into a chair next to Luna, staring at Kino disbelievingly,
"How?"
"How?" Kino repeated, "Didn't anyone in your family ever read you the Tales of Beedle the Bard when you were little?"
Sirius opened his mouth, then closed it,
"There's no way. You can't actually be Kino." He shook his head, "There's no bloody way." He then looked up at Death, then back over at Kino and figured he must be crazy to even be considering it.
"You're Kino?" he asked weakly.
Kino gave him a smile, green eyes glowing in an otherworldly manner,
"Yes."
Sirius stared at him blankly as his eyes returned to a normal color.
"My story takes place in a time that never happened." Kino said lightly, "Before I was born, a prophecy was made that predicted the birth of a boy who would one day defeat Voldemort. Me."
Sirius nodded, he'd read that part in the story. How had he not seen that before?
"The invisibility cloak was something passed down through the Potter family line, I inherited it when I turned eleven. During the war, Gellert Grindelwald possessed the Elder Wand until Dumbledore defeated him and gained the wand's allegiance, never telling a soul that he had it. The resurrection stone, the last owner was Voldemort's mother, Merope Gaunt, but Voldemort never owned it."
Sirius paused,
"So, the teacher in the story that took the stone…"
"Was Dumbledore." Kino nodded, "He took the stone in hopes of seeing his sister, Ariana. But there was a curse on it that caused him to die. There was another inaccuracy in the story. Snape was supposed to have the wand, but it was actually Draco Malfoy that took it. I disarmed him and became the owner quite accidentally. I then found out that my scar was a horcrux, a fragment of Voldemort's soul sealed inside me, so he couldn't die unless I did. I used the stone to resurrect you, Remus, my mother and father in order to give me the courage to accept my death."
"Wait, me? I was dead?" Sirius looked startled.
Kino gave a nod,
"You died saving my life, if it helps any. Bellatrix murdered you."
"Oh." Sirius said weakly, not sure how he felt about that.
"Remus left behind a son." Kino added in helpfully.
"What!?"
"Teddy Lupin. He made me godfather." Kino offered, "He married Nymphadora Tonks, your cousin…or he will marry…or maybe he won't. I hope he does."
Sirius thought on this, rather liking the idea that Remus ended up marrying his cousin. It practically made him family, after all.
"And then, Voldemort cast the killing curse on me. I died temporarily but came back, the horcrux was removed from my scar, and I fought him and won. He died, life went on. I married Ginny Weasley who murdered me when I was twenty-one. That's when Death came to me, said I was his master and that I had passed his tests. He also said that in order to test out what sort of god I was, he would grant me one wish, that wish would then decide it all."
"What did you wish for?" Sirius asked him, a little worried and confused over the fact that he had been murdered.
"I wished to go back in time and give the children and parents at Hogwarts during the final battle and before that, the chance to have a family, or the chance to make a choice that was different from before." Kino explained, "My whole life had been plotted out by fate…and I left my godson, Teddy with his sick grandmother. I know everyone and everything dies eventually, but seeing children being unable to share those happy memories with their parents, or those parents unable to see their children grow…I just wanted to make the world a little bit better."
"Which is why you're the god of orphans and familial love." Sirius summarized as the pieces of the puzzle all started to fall into place.
"Yup." Kino chirped happily, "It's also the reason why I don't plan on defeating Voldemort."
Sirius looked horrified,
"You don't plan on…why?"
Kino smiled,
"Voldemort is not a monster, well, not a literal one anyways. He's human. I could definitely destroy him and all his horcruxes right here and now." Kino crossed his arms over his chest, "But I won't and do you want to know why?"
"Why?" Sirius frowned, it made no sense to him at all.
"Because I'm the god of Free Will." Kino answered, "I can't make a person do anything. I can influence them, plant an idea in their head, give them another choice. But I can't make a person make that choice. I won't kill Voldemort because this is a human problem, and it should be a human that kills him. I want someone other than me to kill him, to show people that not everything is determined by fate, that you and they have a choice." Kino looked his godfather in the eye, "Voldemort is only part of the problem. All things in this world have a right to live. There is no 'superior' or 'inferior.' Everything and everyone has the right to experience life, and one day, all of those things will be taken by Death. There is no way or means of measuring 'superiority.' Not by blood or breeding, not by brains or strength. We all have a right to live and we all have a right to die. That is why it has to be a human that kills him, or no one wizard in Britain will learn."
Kino raised a hand and snapped his fingers. Time restarted and the four of them were left at the table as Kino shuffled cards,
"You wanna play a round of rich man pour man while we wait for Ollivander?"
"Ha?" Sirius was still trying to process that his godson was a god that he barely noticed as he was passed a bunch of cards.
"So…" Sirius trailed off, "You-know-who has you-know-what's. And you aren't going to…"
"Why don't you do it?" Kino asked him.
Sirius was taken aback,
"Me?"
"Why should I have to do anything?" Kino asked Sirius amusedly, "When I was human everything was put on my shoulders. I was a kid. A child. Do you not see anything wrong with that?"
Sirius swallowed and gave a nod. He saw plenty wrong with that, but he'd never actually been told it outright before like that.
"The thing is," Kino said calmly, "When a person decides that something's going to happen, it probably will. If a person decides that nothing has been decided, then nothing has been decided. That's me fighting against fate. We've been at each other's throats for a very, very long time, Sirius, me and fate. Fate is what's determined, but Free Will is what you determine." Kino looked at Sirius pointedly, "In other words, if you were to decide that you would be the one to defeat Voldemort, then you likely will be."
"Me?" Sirius's eyes went wide.
"It's a possibility." Kino said lightly, "There is a possible future where you defeat him. There's one where Luna defeats him." He added in, "But I'd rather Luna not do it. Not that I'd stop her. Free Will and all."
"Why not?" Luna asked him curiously, "Why would you rather I not defeat him?"
"Quite simple." Kino said, "Because you're still considered a kid. I don't like the idea that the wizarding world put all their hopes on the shoulders of a kid. It's wrong. Sirius is an adult…sort of."
"What do you mean 'sort of'?" Sirius protested.
Kino shot him an amused look as he put down a card. Death followed, putting down another card, though it was clear the being was listening to his master closely.
"I would very much like Sirius to champion Free Will. He's a perfect candidate, considering Fate had originally planned for you to die in Azkaban without ever having your name cleared. Yet, in nearly every timeline you defy that, in nearly every one of those timelines, you become the first person to ever break out of Azkaban prison, and then go on to save the lives of so many. I would take you as my champion, I would even give you a magical blessing. But only if you were to decide it. Free Will and all." Kino grinned.
Sirius looked shocked at the declaration,
"Me?"
"Why not?" Kino shrugged, "You're my godfather, I think my parents made a damn good choice. You were their champion, now you can be mine."
The door to the café opened and Ollivander walked in. He didn't at all look surprised to see Death there.
"Hello, Harry, Luna, Death. I'm sorry, I don't know who you are." He looked at Sirius who let out a groan and hit his head on the table.
Ollivander took a seat next to Luna,
"He sure is a peculiar fellow, isn't he?"
Kino nodded in agreement,
"He is a bit strange."
"You're calling me strange?" Sirius lifted his head disbelievingly.
"Well, it is a bit strange, introducing one's self by hitting one's head against the table." Luna offered, then turned to Ollivander, "That's Sirius Black in disguise at the moment. We're calling him Stubby Boardman though, since we can't exactly go calling him by his real name."
"Ah, I see." Ollivander nodded in agreement, then looked over at Death, "I assume…you are the one who created the wand, correct?"
Death gave a silent nod and Ollivander's eyes traveled over to Kino,
"Then that makes you…"
"Kino." Kino agreed, "God of Free Will. Of course, I attained that title in an alternate timeline. It's a bit of a long story."
"Oh. Well it's quite an honour, Mister Kino. Who would have thought I'd end up selling a wand to a legend…though I suppose the one you use now is far better…"
"I actually quite liked the wand you made me." Kino admitted, "I used it for years and years and years, until I could no longer use it. I think it might have had to do with me becoming a god, different magic and such."
Ollivander hummed in agreement,
"So then, poker?"
"Quite." Kino agreed, starting to deal the cards.
"This is so freaking weird…people are staring." Sirius noted.
Kino grinned,
"Drink the reversal potion and maybe we can have a little more fun."
"Right, because this obviously isn't fun enough." Sirius snorted, but actually started considering it, "You know, it's almost like a bad joke. Death, a wandmaker, a criminal, and a god walk into a café…I don't think I know what the punchline is."
"You'll get it eventually." Kino said sympathetically.
Deciding the whole thing was absolutely barmy anyways, Sirius took the reversal potion out of his pocket and took a sip, returning to his true appearance.
It certainly did cause a stir, but the group continued on with their game.
Death let out a groan, which caused all those watching to shiver.
"You really aren't all that good at this, are you." Kino noted, looking over his shoulder and at his hand.
"No…" Death admitted, "I haven't played poker in centuries."
"Hmm…after this round we could try a different game then, maybe." Kino suggested.
No one seemed to protest.
"So…" Sirius began, "Death tournament?"
"Yeah…" Kino agreed with a sigh of exasperation, "Another scheme to kill me no doubt."
"You'll be fine." Death said sympathetically.
"Thanks." Kino said, "I know the first task is probably going to be dragons again. You know, unless I've really screwed up the timeline. I don't think I have though, so we should be good."
"What do you plan on doing?" Sirius asked him.
Kino shrugged,
"I have a few ideas. Don't know which one I'll act on."
"It's always good to keep your options open." Ollivander offered, "I suggest coming up with several strategies, so if something does go wrong, you'll have something else to fall back on."
Kino hummed,
"I might just take that advice." He agreed.
The door to the café burst open and a bunch of aurors came running in, wands drawn, though it was clear there was confusion all over their faces. Amelia Bones came in too, Kino was a tad surprised at that.
"Hello, Amelia Bones." Ollivander waved, still concentrating on his cards, "Redwood, rigid, twelve inches, unicorn hair." He mumbled absently.
The head of the DMLE looked at the five poker players incredulously, she was weary of the cloaked skeletal figure, she got shivers just looking at him. The others were Ollivander, the man who had just greeted her, Harry Potter, and Sirius Black. She didn't know who the girl was though.
"What is going on here?" She normally wouldn't ask this, but the whole thing was simply too ridiculous not to ask…
"We're playing cards." Kino answered simply.
"With Sirius Black?" Madam Bones repeated.
"Hm?" Kino looked up at Sirius and back over at Madam Bones, "Oh, right, I almost forgot."
He reached into his robes and pulled out a box with three holes in the top of it. He opened it up casually and pulled out a stunned rat. He paused a moment and looked at Sirius who had gone wide-eyed.
"Is that…" Sirius whispered.
"When's your birthday, Sirius?" Kino asked him curiously, "You never did tell me…"
"Er, November third." He answered.
"Oh, rather good timing then." Kino said, brightening somewhat, "Happy late birthday." He then pointed his wand at the rat and shot a spell at it.
The rat grew, and grew…and grew, until the aurors were looking, in utter bafflement at an unconscious Peter Pettigrew.
"That man is Peter Pettigrew." Kino said, "He was my parent's secret keeper, and the one who blew up the street all those years ago. When Sirius saw Pettigrew in his rat form in the paper that Minister Fudge left behind, he thought I was in danger and escaped Azkaban to protect me. You'll notice that he's missing two fingers. He cut them off in order to fake his own death, then transformed into a rat and escaped into the sewers."
"It's really him…" One of the aurors whispered.
Some of them were certainly old enough to remember Pettigrew from their own school days. Madam Bones looked pained,
"Great…that's just what we need…"
"Sirius was never given a trial." Kino added in, "So…is he off the hook? And can we finish up our game?"
"Arrest Pettigrew." Madam Bones ordered.
Two of the aurors went to the unconscious man and cuffed him.
"Mister Black…would you please come with us to answer some questions?"
"Uh, sure." Sirius said, a bit dazed. He was seriously going to go free? Really?
"Mister Potter, you too. Would you be willing to answer a few questions?"
"Sure." Kino agreed with a smile on his face, "Perfectly willing. Oh, sorry, Luna. I don't mean to abandon you…"
"It's quite alright, Harry." Luna said brightly, "I've had a most interesting day. Will all our Hogsmeade visits be like this?"
"I promise I'll try to keep things interesting." Kino decided.
Luna beamed at him,
"Just wait until I tell daddy about this!"
Kino chuckled,
"Alright, I'll see you later, Luna, Ollivander, Death."
They all waved, leaving for a very peculiar scene as both Sirius and Kino were escorted away by the aurors.
