The disclaimer is in chapter one.
Praise the Higher Power for one more chapter.
A hug to my Mom and Son.
A hug to The Deathly Minion for his support. Also, I want to remind everyone that a couple of ladies helped with the original version. SlytherinSal and Tweety-Scr-Clt9. Hugs to them two.
No trolls, please.
Reviews are welcome.
M.
-oo0oo-
The Rise of the Master of Death.
As Harry continued to fight his medical condition, magical exhaustion, clearing his curse-riddled frame, and PTSD he noticed many people in the British wizarding world were afraid of him.
Annoyed, and tired of the love-hate relationship, the wizarding community continued to pursue, Harry decided enough was enough, and he traveled to the continent. Made peace with the goblins, and while there, he claimed his inheritance only then, did the other shoe drop.
Harry owned the largest joined fortune of Potter and Black and while putting his paperwork in order, he uncovered a series of marriage contracts, and too many people invested in keeping him in the dark.
Harry returned to his Black estate on the continent and meditated on the recent information unveiled by the reading of the Potter and Black wills.
In a way it made sense. It's probable, Voldemort wanted to kill the Potters and the Blacks and claim the fortunes from his coup, but now, Harry alone held the means from half of wizarding Britain and some other in Eastern Europe, and he could understand why so many were afraid of him surviving the war, the sudden interest from the Weasley family and the change of heart in Narcissa Malfoy-Nee-Black.
He felt dirty at the idea that those pureblood leeches could try to get on his good graces, which made his blood boil. Harry couldn't understand why so many feelings seem to seep from nowhere and everywhere, he still needed to heal, and thankfully he had other goals, he needed to find her, but Kreacher was right, he needed to be healthy and of a sound mind, he would find her, but he had so many scars, so much ugliness embedded, it was like a perfect shell. Just like a hermit crab, carrying a world of pain, but so used to it, what could he offer, if not despair?
Again, Kreacher cracked and interrupted his dark thoughts.
"Master Harry, please, Kreacher knows you lived a nightmare your entire life, and before today, but you cannot let the Darkness possess you, you owe it to yourself and to her, please, find some help and heal, I understand if your concern, you got raised from orphanhood to be sacrificed, but by accepting this fate, you are also sacrificing her love, is that Darkness so important, that you would continue on this path and lose sight of what really matters, your happiness and your witch?"
"Fuck, Kreacher, I don't know, I mean, we got manipulated, used, and discarded like toilet paper, and, MERLIN! I want to kill and destroy, but how do you destroy memories and past abuse, how, how do you look at yourself in the mirror, and mend what is so utterly fucked? HOW?!"
Harry's Magic rose in a rumble that made the house tremble.
"I can't blame anyone anymore, they're all dead, and again, I stand alone, and I want some fucking answers, and everyone is mute, and the one I love, is not here, why, what is the purpose of my life? If no matter how hard I try, I end up with open arms begin to the universe for love, and there's no answer, just the echo of this maddening lament,"
Harry wept, as Kreacher held his master Harry, just like he did his master Regulus as a child. "So far two women have loved you unconditionally, trust that, your mother when she sacrificed her life for you, and the bushy witch, when she followed you to the pits of hell, can you remember that, master? Please keep that in mind, always, you were loved, and the bushy witch needs a good man and a powerful wizard, and I know, so many sacrificed so much, and it was not, for nothing. More than a few loved you, so trust that love, the love they all felt for you, had you mature into a man of worth, of self-worth. I already lost one young and wonderful master, and another bitter one, to the greed and stupidity, of others, don't let the venom of the insane Voldemort or the blabbering of the bearded goat hold any more power over you, fight the darkness master, and rise, rise from these ashes."
Harry wept for a long time, holding on to Kreacher, bleeding all the bitterness and sadness. His despair continued to manifest as the Black property on the continent got reduced to rubble, however, both the elf and Master, Harry, could afford a new house or castle or island to destroy, and as a plus, his magical core got patched again.
"Kreacher, what happened?" Asked Harry.
"Just another Blackhouse that needed renovation, you just uh, moved the reckoning ahead of time. Details Master Harry, now, you must go to Swiss Banking Gnomes, they too, have a medical facility and they treat muggle-born Wizards with a little more dignity and are better at treating PTSD than the goblins. Thank me later, oh and ask about their bounty hunter program from missing magical folk, they banned the gnomes from England for a reason. Goblins hate Gnome competition," said Kreacher.
Harry nodded, and after a day he was back on his feet and began investigating options on how to locate a magical person. A magical signature. A person with a new magical identity.
Opposed to his experience during wartime, It was easy for Harry to gather intelligence.
New and more adequate options for tracking a mundane/magical became available for a price. The Swedish gnomes had a more amenable way of finding wizards and witches, the banking Institution had the record for bounty hunting worldwide. It was their detectives who could sense her lifeline. According to the investigation by the Gnomes, Hermione was still alive, however, her magical core remained hidden.
'The old frog house-elf was right,' Thought Harry as he stepped out of the Swiss Bank. The treatment he received seemed professional and courteous, opposed to the grunts and malicious stares from the goblins. True, he was no saint, but trusting goblins became even more difficult with Griphook's betrayal. When he went to pay for repairs, the knowledge that one of their own wanted to aid the dark lord, created weaves, and as for Harry, the whole thing was a reminder of that dark day in which Hermione, Ron, and himself broke into the bank. Desperate measures by three half-starved unstable teens, insane and stupid magic, more death, and pointless violence. That poor, blind dragon, her cry when released from her chains. It made Harry recall that still, he stayed disenchanted with the Wizarding World, and in tandem with goblins.
After making his payment. The goblins received a million galleons in reparations, but lost the billionaire sum of the Potter and Black estate and fortunes to the Swiss Banking Gnomes, and gained the animosity of the Master of Death.
This was a surprise to the proud Goblins, as Harry could call the Hallows to himself, once his full legacy got avowed by magic. The goblins changed their attitude in one-hundred and eighty degrees. They offered medical aid to the heir of the houses of Potter and Black and healing of his wounds. The Master of Death retorted, "No, you were of no help in my time of need, I will not be there when the wheel of destiny reverses for you, I've made my peace, but that's what you will have the peace of a tomb from me. Goodbye goblins, I leave you to your prejudice and stale code of honor. I saved you from a greater evil, but I don't need your help anymore. When I did, one of your own decided it was better business to sell me, and my friends to the highest bidder, wounded as I was. I still won but to a greater cost to the magical world. You've made your bed, now lie in it,"
The goblins trembled as the vow from the Master of Death took shape. The Gnomes offered a program in a time chamber, to heal Harry from his extensive life abuse.
Harry turned to Kreacher, trusted only him, to guide him along this pathway. At the moment the only sane enough to see for his best was the elder house-elf, who was the last of his family.
Kreacher suggested the treatments, and medical scans, to help him 'patch better,' to Harry, it seemed possible to visualize a hard road ahead, but according to the Gnomes, their medical facilities, a time chamber, and a ton of rehabilitation for his body, mind, and soul, not just his magic, Harry would reconnect with his core, and the original purpose of his life, which was just to love and live. While in recovery Harry wondered if Hermione was doing okay if she was safe, if she had a roof on her head, money for not just food, but to go out and get whatever she needed, he had all this wealth, and he felt so useless.
Kreacher told him that there were several charities, good ones, that needed help, plus rebuilding Hogwarts, he could donate to those, as an anonymous wizard, help others, just as he was being helped and healed. Harry agreed and sent aid to orphanages from the war. Donated aid to the families of war heroes lost in battle. Donated to the cooperative for the rebuild of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Sorcery. The school was pulling back a program for arcane magicks. He donated to the affected areas in the mundane cities, ravished by malicious magic, during the war.
He didn't spend his entire fortune, but it left him five million galleons shorter from his billionaire legacy.
Five was a recurring number, as he spent five years healing, in and out of the time chamber, struggling through his healing path.
To the healers at the start of his recovery, it was a miracle that Harry was still standing. He had such a terrible case of magical exhaustion; he was anemic, almost a squib, his magical core was a quarter of what his original core was to be, that reading scared Kreacher because if he was a wimp that able to level houses, with just a quarter, he could not think, what his complete magical core would do to the world, once restored.
And of course, there was his very inadequate Magical education. After considering his previous experience, before and during the war, Harry wasn't dense to the suggestions of his counselors that he needed, a decent score for his A-levels and a good team of Magical tutors to re-take his OWLS and NEWTS, but this time following the highest standards for the ICW, besides returning to the Mundane education, since the Magical Institution held no appeal at the moment.
His life-coach Kreacher, agreed to this path, since the Blacks and the Potters rose to power, not only because of Magic but also using their devious and brilliant minds, plus Harry's legal team of advisors and himself formed a sensible plan on his next steps.
The treatment gave its fruit since Harry could recover his magical core to seventy-five percent. The damage had been considerable.
As a last act of defiance to the British Magical world, Harry wrote a letter and sent it to the Daily Prophet, a message explaining that he was not interested in arranged marriages, and since that was a measure needed in the middle ages to fortify the alliances between neighbors, survival during the famine, war and assured families and bloodlines after the conflict done, plus bringing heirs to keep the tradition, a scenario that no longer fitted this day and age.
He didn't realize that he and Hermione lacked guidelines in this new community of wizards and witches when they got their Hogwarts letters. Nor that he realized, knowledge was a commodity, a valuable commodity that was denied by Goblins, the late Albus Dumbledore, or even the wizard of traditional values, next to him, called Ronald Weasley. He couldn't blame his parents for their lack of information, or his education, since they died, he got raised by magic hating mundanes, he couldn't blame his Godfather Sirius Black, since he was an innocent man, condemned to hide and to whom, he had little contact, and even the press, who had too much fun, slandering him and his friend Hermione, to even consider that what they lacked, was the knowledge of such upstanding traditions, since, from the start, it was clear, both he and Hermione got used as cannon fodder, he did not believe in the so call amazing legacy of magic and the British Magical world. And, at last, Harry Potter, heir to the houses of Potter and Black, denied the marriage contracts. Harry's signature pressed the Deathly Hallows symbol. And, no one could say a single thing against him. Not even Kingsley Shacklebolt Prime Minister of Magical Britain.
Because of the public outcry from the letter from the Master of Death, a new law made headlines. They placed a revamped class for Wizarding Etiquette in the Hogwarts Curriculum. And, a parallel revised Muggle-born class, given by the magical soldiers from the royal armed forces. An announcement on the Daily Prophet and a heavy apology to Harry and Hermione got published and as a plus, the law approved by an embarrassed Wizengamot body asserting anyone found a victim of prejudice because of muggle-born, half-blood, and magical creature heritage or even werewolf origin and differential treatment got awarded fifty galleons by the bigot, person, or entity, spouting such vitriol. And a public apology, if the offender could not pay, then he, she, they got tagged for public service, such a Dragon Dung cleaning in Gringotts, rebuilding with no magic, the Hogwarts castle, and hand-feeding the Threstrals meat while on their mating season.
To Harry, the initiative of the law was good but arrived too many years and deaths later. Still, the law was a much-needed change.
He then enrolled for psychiatric and psychological aid to treat his many issues, his mediocre childhood, the violence, and the PTSD over the wizarding war. Plus, he had to go to group meetings for war veterans. He used a glamour, and a fake identity, but talking about his time during the conflict helped him realize, he felt closer to feeling human, flawed and awkward, but human, and thank Merlin for that.
The five-year healing journey got stretched in every way possible.
With a tool such as a time chamber, Harry could recreate, restructure his self-knowledge, and self-awareness and understand that from all the people in his life he could only count the real friends with one hand.
Hermione's name kept coming up top. After five years, Harry could not forget, nor push aside his need to meet her again. He could obliviate himself from magical Britain, but her memory flared brightly even at his darkest moments. He loved her, the question was, did she love him too?