Harry hadn't intended to be bestowed the title Master Of Death gained from his fight with Voldemort; honestly, all he'd really wanted was for the war and endless bloodshed to end.
But Harry hadn't had much say in the process, and it hadn't done much to change anything else in his later life; in fact, he hadn't even realised his Mastery until his death.
He'd initially become an Auror with Ron; then, after a few years of that, he had switched careers and become a teacher which he had found suited him much better. He had a nice cosy life with Ginny when she wasn't off gallivanting around the world as a star Quidditch player.
And then, at the grand old age of 168, he had died, nice and wrapped up warm in his bed. He'd simply taken a nice deep breath, shut his eyes, then never opened them again.
But therein lay the issue. Because after what he felt was roughly half an hour later, he opened his eyes once more at King's Cross Station — luckily not that terrible righteous white this time. Yet again, there was an issue, a most pressing one indeed: no trains, and it looked like no trains were scheduled as he looked up at the overhead boards.
Oh dear, it looked like he was walking.
And so he started walking. He didn't quite know where he was travelling to, but there was an urge to walk and he had never been one to ignore his bodily urges.
As he walked, the train station morphed around him; his whole life played out in reverse alongside him. He took note of the key occasions: when his great-grandson was born, when his son had been born, when he'd married Ginny, when he'd become a teacher, when he'd become an Auror, when the battle had ended, when he'd been accepted into Hogwarts, his first memories of his parents.
He had briefly paused his walk when he got to that point, taking a moment to revel in the warmth and joy this moment in his life would have brought him at one point.
He also took the time to try and figure out what would happen when he kept walking once more, would he simply hit a dead end? Maybe he would need to run into it like at the station? Was that truly what his death led to? Running into a cosmic brick wall? Oh well, he'd give it a go.
So once more, he started walking.
Luckily for him, he didn't need to run into a brick wall, though maybe he was a little sad about it; he wasn't really sure at this point.
He kept on walking, witnessing the war as it had been in his parents' era, then the years his parents were at Hogwarts, then back further and further, the first war, Dumbledore's time at Hogwarts, then back even before his birth.
He kept walking and walking, taking in the world events. Sometimes he strayed a bit from his set path, he wandered around sideways, taking in the events that all happened at the same time.
He wandered around the halls of Oxford University, taking in the way the bricks and mortar looked when new and comparing it to Hogwarts. Then he continued walking through those events and stumbled upon the Aztec empire, learning about their culture and beliefs and how they worshipped their gods with the natural magic they seemed to possess.
Once he'd finished that time, he continued walking the long path. Sometimes he ran, out of breath and heart pounding as he only witnessed glances of the world around him. Other times, he all but took a detour, wandering around the entire globe before he found himself right back at his starting point and continuing.
He did that one time after stumbling upon a Woolly Mammoth and nearly gave himself a heart attack as he just barely moved out of its way before it could trod on him. That set him off on a vast journey where he saw the building and development of the pyramids in Egypt to the mass settlement accepting defeat and leaving in giant hordes as their only water source dried up and became non-existent.
But no matter how much he wandered, he always ended up on the path, trudging on through time. He was starting to wonder where the end would be.
He'd witnessed the reverse order of the development of humans, then trudged on, more and more miles to see the asteroid hit that decimated the planet, then on before even that as he witnessed great fights between the dinosaurs of the past.
And yet he still kept walking. He walked across vast plains of earth that were still morphing and moving beneath him, then he kept walking as even that burned the soles of his feet, as the world burned when its insides had poured outwards.
He kept walking, walking, and walking.
Then he hit the cosmic brick wall.
Harry swore and looked up at what had stopped him. There wasn't even anything there!
Correction: he had hit an invisible cosmic brick wall.
He took in everything around him.
Nothing.
Absolute darkness. It seemed to be just him and his consciousness.
He looked down at himself, finally stopping for a moment to take in what he was now. He saw himself cloaked in dark robes that seemed to draw in the darkness towards it. He saw his hands, now skeletal and frail-looking, but he felt strong enough to crush an army with a finger.
He pictured his face, how it would look if similar to the way his hands now appeared. Gaunt, thin, a hollowed-out replica of what he had once been.
He found he didn't really feel strongly either way about how he now looked. Everything was just as it was, nothing he could do to change it; it just was.
It took a moment of perfect clarity for him to suddenly realise that he hadn't just been granted the title Master Of Death—he had been handed down the mantle of Death.
He took in a breath that he didn't need in a universe that didn't yet have oxygen.
He surveyed the darkness around him and nodded once.
Death stepped forward and the whole universe exploded into life once more.
THC/The Houses Competition.
Round 7 - Standard
House - Ravenclaw
Class - Potions
Theme - Travel
Prompt(s) chosen -
(Quote) "A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting."- The Third Doctor, Doctor Who
1058 words (wordcounter .net)