Summary: With the Battle of Hogwarts over, wizarding Britain sets down their wands to enjoy a peaceful life. Then a group of Muggles stumble across the great castle and it all falls apart.
Tags: original characters, original villain, trauma, necromancy, character death, descriptions of violence, war, Dumbledore-bashing, powerful Harry, light Harry, OC pairings, experiments, reflecting upon death, quick Draco redemption, WIP, EWE,
SOME OF THESE TAGS ARE NOT YET PRESENT IN THE TEXT BUT WILL BE LATER
Note: ._. means a perspective shift, (=) means a passage of time, and ~~~ at either end of a section means a flashback
A/N: Hey everyone! Like all great ideas, this one came to me in a dream. It's not quite 'floating on a raft with Hermione and Ron in the Pacific Ocean after Grimmauld Place gets blown up', but it's something. Who knows? It might come up later, or it might not. I hope you enjoy this story, it's going to be quite dark, and any AU stuff is completely accidental, as I intend to stick to canon, excluding of course Nineteen Years Later. That shit never happened, I don't care what JK says. I have many strong feelings about the Epilogue, but I digress…
Some bad news. This story isn't finished, and I don't know if it ever will be. It's currently at around 50,000 words. I can't say I'm working on it all the time; writing doesn't come naturally to me, and I am not often inspired. It's taken me almost three years to get here, and this was the easy part. What I can say is that I want to get this done, and that I will work to do so eventually if I am able. Honestly, this may be too ambitious, especially as my first longer work, but I'll do my best. Also, I'm really proud of what I've done so far and have been itching to share it with the fanfic world for ages. Finished or not, I hope you can appreciate this work for what it is right now, and not what it isn't yet.
Chapter One: Master of Death
Monday, May 4, 1998: Early Morning
The war was over. This thought echoed in the minds of every combatant who had taken part in the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry Potter slew the Dark Lord, and now everyone was collecting the bodies. Their robes were torn up and bloody, but no one bothered to repair them. Everyone was so tired. They just wanted to sleep, but the sun would glint off an unblinking eye, or another broken thing would be noticed, and they returned to their work without hesitation. It was going to take weeks to fix up the castle, even with the substantial aid of magic. Some sections were blown away completely, leaving behind only a smoking pile of rubble and ash. The roof of the Great Hall had fallen away to reveal the sky outside, no longer a fanciful illusion.
The charred remains of those who had fallen littered the grounds, Death Eaters and Order members alike. Those that were left hardly slept. There was always work to be done, and doing nothing felt wrong. The Aurors and Ministry officials were tireless in their efforts. Carrying out their duties, they allowed students and grieving families to take the occasional break. But this was hardly a reprise. periods of inactivity provoked thoughts on what had just happened, and nobody wanted to think about it. Living this hell was bad enough.
Hermione's hair, bigger and bushier than ever, crackled with determination as she set to rights all the injuries she could. She wished that someone else would take charge of the situation and let her sit down and think for a while, but knew that nobody else would be able to fill her role. For the past year, she had carried the burden of two grumpy teenage boys, had shouldered the impossible task of destroying Voldemort's fragmented soul. Her now boyfriend had been loving and affectionate one minute and hostile the next. She had no sense of constancy, nothing to look forward to. She simply had to push on, compartmentalising the pain, sadness and stress that attempted to drown her under their all-consuming weight.
Plastering a smile to her face, she healed the wounded and answered all questions directed at her. She threw herself into her work in an attempt to forget. What she wanted most she could not have. Her parents were in Australia, had no idea who she was. She would never get them back. She was struggling to remember how unconditional love felt to receive. She knew all too well how it felt to give.
Nobody could love her like that. Not Ron or Harry, not even Mr and Mrs Weasley. The true love of her parents was little more than a fading memory, and no matter how hard she tried, it spilled like water through her outstretched fingers. She wished that she had spent more time with them during her meagre holidays, but had always travelled to the Burrow after a week or two for some reason or another. To spend more time with Ron, to make sure Harry was alright, to attend some stupid Quidditch game. It all seemed so ridiculous now.
They still loved her though, continuing to support her decisions even if that meant losing her a little more each passing year. All she wanted was for them to be safe, and with no means of contacting them, there was no way she could be sure. There had been no word from the Royal Australian Magical Parliament that Voldemort's crusade had stretched across the globe, but accidents happened. There was no way of knowing what went on in other parts of the world.
"No, Arthur," she said for what felt like the tenth time. "I'm very sorry, but I haven't seen him today. Yes," she continued over the older man's gentle protest. "I am sure he is safe. And if I spot him, I will inform you immediately." Sated, he walked away to rejoin his family. She watched him shake his head at Molly, the latter of whom's face crumbling into renewed sobs as she held him. Hermione glanced at the double doors which led into the Entrance Hall. Ron had awoken early that morning to find Harry's bed empty. He had only been missing for a few hours, but it didn't take people much to start worrying. Where was he? She only hoped he was safe.
._.
Harry did his best to help, but also stay out of the way. He couldn't face anyone at the moment. Everyone who had died had done so for him. Remus, Sirius, his parents, Fred, Tonks, Hedwig, Mad-Eye, and so many others had lost their lives to Tom Riddle and his supporters. The love they had for him had been their weakness. They didn't have to do anything, but they did, and paid the ultimate price for their troubles. And he couldn't save any of them; not even the Resurrection Stone could restore them to who they once were.
The universe was cruel in its persistence to take away every parental figure in his life. It was almost as though he was not meant to be happy, not supposed to have a real family. Wonderful and loving though the Weasleys were, they were not his family, with the exception of perhaps Ginny, who he was sure would be his wife one day. The other Weasley children were like his brothers, but it wasn't quite the real thing. It always felt like he was just outside their tight circle of love and trust, welcome but not one of them.
A stray thought crossed his mind, cutting through the black tendrils of misery pulling him down. The cloak, the stone, and the wand… All his. He had taken the allegiance of the Elder Wand from Malfoy, someone he desperately wished could slip from the forefront of his mind. The little ferret was a Death Eater, he even had the mark to prove it. But he did not identify Harry when being questioned by Voldemort's henchmen. He had said that he was not sure if the puffy-faced young man really was Undesirable Number One.
That alone cast doubt over his loyalties. There was no way the blonde boy had not known who he was. Harry could not understand why his enemy of seven years had saved his life that night. And he had returned the favour when Crabbe had cast Fiendfyre that he could not control. It caused his death, and they had barely managed to escape. Harry shook his head in frustration and tried to think about something less painful.
The cloak had been a gift from his father, presumably passed down from father to son for Merlin knew how many generations. Now it was his, and he never let it get too far away from him. Only when the threat of expulsion or death arose did he leave it behind, but always promised to return. It had saved the lives of him and his friends so many times, not to mention all the rule-breaking it facilitated and consequent trouble that had been avoided. He smiled despite himself, the silvery, water-like material pouring over his trembling hands. He did not remember taking it out, but he clung to it now like it was the single most important thing in the world.
It was one of his most prized possessions, along with his Firebolt. When everything was fixed up, he would fly again. He missed the freedom of being in the air, so high he could forget about everything. Nothing dragged him down up there; he had complete control. He could outfly even a dragon, something which he had proved more than three years ago when facing a Hungarian Horntail in the Triwizard Tournament. He could not run away from his problems, he knew, but just to get away for a while was definitely tempting.
It did not take long for Harry to learned that life never let you take a break, as would be the case for anyone with the misfortune of growing up with the Dursleys. It beat you down until you either fought back or succumbed to the sweet caress of death. He had somehow managed to do both, and was grateful to have been given a second chance. After some time, he put the cloak away. He really had to get up and actually contribute to the clean-up effort, and not just sit here pondering his mortality.
Harry poked at the black shiny stuff in front of him. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, and had been for a while now. Muttering something to Hermione about needing some air, he had ascended the Grand Staircase and wandered around the castle until he found one of the passageways that very few people knew about. It was a shortcut that saved him many late arrivals to Charms class over his years at Hogwarts. He had stumbled upon it during one of his nightly explorations under the cloak, and relished its discovery ever since.
He missed learning, missed the biggest problems in his life being a dream journal for Divination or an upcoming Quidditch match. He remembered sitting in soft, comfortable armchairs by the fire in Gryffindor Tower with Ron, making up the most bizarre and violent dreams to satisfy Professor Trelawney's fixation on his untimely and gruesome death. In a way, she was right, but of course she had no idea how the event would actually transpire.
But there were always larger issues behind it all, casting a shadow over his life until Voldemort's inhuman body hit the floor of the Great Hall. It had only been a soft thud, but to Harry it marked the end of a seventeen-year-long day that was finally over. He had never felt so tired, the grip of sleep so strong and overpowering it took everything he had not to simply collapse after his purpose had been fulfilled.
For isn't that all he was? Dumbledore's trump card? How had Snape put it, a pig raise for slaughter? The memories he had seen in the Pensieve were finally catching up with him. For more than six years, he thought that Dumbledore had loved him, thought he was proud of everything he had done. But with some time alone to think, Harry now knew that all of his heroic feats were manufactured like levels in one of Dudley's computer games. Tests, trials, training exercises. He was never really in danger. Hell, in most cases, he never really did anything. It was everyone else who turned up to save him. Fawkes, his friends, his mum…
He took out the smooth, round stone from the moleskin pouch Hagrid had given him for his birthday. Harry did this often. It reminded him of the importance life held, that even a stone of resurrection could not bring back the dead. He had kept it on his person when he faced Voldemort in the forest, deciding that it was safest in his possession. It was unremarkable in appearance; it would in fact pass as any stone one might find lying innocently on the ground. Harry did not like the stone. It was a lie. It could not bring back deceased loved ones, at least not in the way he craved. They were hollow impersonations of life, transparent and tainted by what lay beyond the Veil.
He had considered tossing it somewhere impossible to find, along with the Elder Wand, which seemed more of a risk to his safety than the unbeatable weapon Ron insisted it actually was. But something stopped him, an idea that lurked in the back of his mind, trying to break free and engulf him in its blinding terror. What if something else happened? What if another Dark Lord rose to power? It would not be difficult to rally together the remaining Death Eaters and burn down whatever ashes of civilised wizarding society still remained. To destroy his home, the only place to which he had ever truly belonged.
He would not let that happen. He couldn't. Harry decided to keep the other two Hallows, if for no other reason than peace of mind. As the master of death, he had great power. Reuniting the Hallows had ensured victory in his final duel against Tom Riddle. For he was only that. A man, just like him, tainted by the darkest magic. He had decided to keep the Elder Wand after repairing his phoenix feather one. Both were important to him in different ways, and he thought they were both valuable. He would have to learn how to cast with his left hand, but was sure Hermione would be happy to help once this was all sorted. Besides, Dumbledore would not be needing it anymore.
He was becoming more proficient in non-verbal magic, having extensively practised the skill during their countless hours of spare time camping in the wilderness. Once he mastered dual wand-wielding, he would be a force to be reckoned with. Maybe then he could protect the ones he loved.
Not only did his friends and family lose their lives in this war, but he too had sacrificed himself. He had taken the Killing Curse willingly, played right into the old man's cold, dead hands. For the greater good. Words from one of the most evil men to ever gain power. He let a wry smile twitch his face briefly as he thought of Albus. Even his murder had been a calculated move to secure his martyrdom. This, however, was one of the few plans of Dumbledore's that had not worked out. His true nature had been exposed, and by none other than Rita Skeeter. Harry wished he could hear the old man's reaction to her little book, though he did not wish to converse with a sentient painting. He had been bad enough at King's Cross.
"Hey mate," said a voice from the passage entrance.
Harry looked around, not surprised to see a lanky redhead staring down at him. Ron's face had more lines than he expected it ever would have had if not for the war. He inclined his head in acknowledgement.
"What are you doing?"
Harry shrugged. "Trying to fix this suit of armour, but it must have been cursed by a dark spell or something. Nothing I've tried has made any difference." Surreptitiously checking his watch, Harry discovered that he had been sitting here for several hours. His absence had finally been noticed.
Ron pointed his wand at the shards of metal and muttered a few phrases under his breath. Nothing happened. Harry raised his eyebrows. "Hermione would go mad if I didn't at least try something. But if you couldn't, I can't bloody think how I would." He offered Harry a lopsided grin.
"Best not to incur her wrath," Harry agreed, rising to his feet and stepping away from his failed job. "Now I need to find something else to look busy doing."
"You don't want to help?" he asked, frowning. "It's been two days and you can't even bring yourself to be useful?" Ron leaned against the stone wall of the passageway, arms folded across his chest.
"What? No!" Harry spluttered. "I just don't know what to do. I'm more useful out of the way."
"Mate, people just want to see you. You killed You Know Who. You're a hero." He didn't sound particularly thrilled at the idea.
"What do you want me to do, give a speech?" said Harry, months of suppressed rage and frustration beginning to leak out. "And say his name. There's no taboo now, no one's going to come after you."
"Just show your bloody face so we know you're real! It still feels like a dream. A nightmare." He couldn't suppress a shudder. "How are they supposed to know he— Voldemort," he corrected himself at Harry's raised eyebrow, "won't just stand up, laughing? If not now, then in another thirteen years."
Harry looked up at his best friend for a few seconds before striding past him toward the Great Hall, his head down. Ron followed close behind.
A/N: So that's the first chapter. I will try to keep them at similar lengths because I'm a simp for symmetry. Or maybe a bit longer or shorter depending on how I feel, whatever. I'm not sure if I'm going to utilise Dumbledore's painting in this story as a means of getting information and wisdom, but I might change my mind as it progresses. Also, Harry's the master of death. He kept the wand and stone rather than destroying or throwing them away respectively.
Alright, maybe this is a little AU. But trust me, it's more fun this way. I also know that being the "Master of Death" is more about accepting your mortality rather than actually conquering death, but I thought this could be a fun idea to explore. So yes, I am deviating from canon in a few pretty significant ways. If you're not into Harry being powerful and, if not immortal than something like it, please stop reading. Anyway, I hope you're enjoying the story so far, the first few chapters aren't going to be that action-heavy, but things will ramp up as the plot progresses. I am quite a chill writer though, so if this didn't do it for you, don't let the door hit your arse on the way out.