Disclaimer: The characters and the world in the story belong to J.K. Rowling. I am not earning any profit from it.
Note: I have been a fanfiction reader for quite a lot of years before I gave this fic a shot, so if you see any ideas seeping in that I do not openly acknowledge, just let me know and I will add the credits. I have read too many to keep a track of them but I will try my best.
1) The idea of totems belongs to Catsarecool who is writing A Marauder's plan .
2) The basic idea of dimension travel comes from Hollow Thunder, Vital Lightning by Aariya07. You will see quite a few similarities in the first couple of chapters but it diverges after that.
3) Harry was born a girl as Juniper Anastasia Potter. Everything is as it is in canon except for her romances. This is not because I don't read slash or like it. You will see a lot of them in my favorites but because I don't think that I could do justice to that genre and because I want to do this. If you do not like such fics, do not read. Please do not flame. I will welcome criticisms, I know I am not perfect, just don't meaninglessly bash me for nothing.
4) THE RATING OF THE FIC HAS BEEN CHANGED TO 'M' because of slightly more graphic descriptions of violence. It is mostly a safety measure and does not contain anything triggering yet. Future updates will carry warnings of triggers, if any emerge in the course of the story.
For your references
"Talk"
"Parseltongue"
Interlude: 6
Death Calls her
Cordelia felt the pull in the exact moment somebody tried to pull her in a space of her mindscape. Mindscape was never yours completely. There were pockets, strange places where other entities controlled you. Cordelia as a child of magic was immune to them. Her mind was strong, protected by the strength of pure magic. So, when she felt the pull, she knew it was a deity that was interfering with her dream skills.
She found herself sitting in the dreary kitchen of Grimmauld Place. She had only gone there occasionally to check on Kreacher after the Hogwarts battle and not at all after he passed away. He had helped her consolidate the memories on Blacks but he had been kind enough to do that in the Malfoy manor. The place contained bleak memories, nothing else.
She was sitting on the table where countless order meetings had taken place, where she had seen the plans of the order, where she had heard about the 'weapon' the light had. The Prophecy was such a sham.
She was sitting where she had first sat beside Sirius when she had arrived in this place.
A figure started to appear from across her, right where Molly Weasley had stood up and said the cruel words to Sirius.
It was Death.
Even after years of seeing him, Cordelia still got a kick out of his appearance. He preferred to look like a gangling 19 year old boy who just happened to own an oversized trench coat. He had olive skin and black tousled hair. They reminded her to her hair before her magical inheritance, or that of James Potter, her father. Still it did not surprise her much. What surprised was the harshness and coldness in his voice.
"What have you been doing?" He scolded with a scowl.
"What do you mean?" She asked, genuine confusion in her voice.
Death gave her a withering look.
"Making Tom feel, like I planned to…" She said a minute later, unsure why Death was this unhappy with her. Sure, she was his mistress in a sense but angering a deity was not a good idea. Never a good idea.
"Not that Mistress. Why did you block all the emotions that you got from June? You blocked everything…even your ability to feel." He bristled out every word, especially spatting on the mistress.
"I…."She stammered. Blocking her emotions was a weak point for her. She still was not sure if it was the wisest idea but it had worked well up until now, so her tone turned more resolute, " It has helped me focus. I was a mess and it made me goal oriented."
'Goal-oriented…"he spat.
"What is it with…"She began angrily.
"No, you are listening to me before you explain. You forget that protecting you is my job now. I watch you. I know things." Death began scolding her.
She looked at Death expectantly and nodded, "Go on…"
"You are a Robot. You are checking things off a list. You love Tom, I am not doubting that but you are working with strategies to make him feel. Strategies are not wrong or immoral but June, you need to take your feelings regarding him into account. You feel so strongly about him. Always have. And I know you have been afraid of those feelings. I do not really blame you because they have consumed you for a long time but locking or blocking feelings is stupid and juvenile. You are escaping, running away. And you are manipulating situations around you and Tom. I, for one, got the impression that you had wanted things to be more organic between the two of you." Death recounted his grievances, eyeing her flatly.
The silence pervaded. June just looked at him wide eyed.
"After all, Tom Riddle needs someone to organically care for him, not feed him the pretense of care and love." Death completed his bit.
"I did this, blocking so that things could be organic, okay. The memories of Sid… I was not just upset, the magic of the magicae within me was revolting at the separation from a mate and pushing me towards Tom. You did not see how my magic clung to him. I was afraid that if I did not block my memories, I would end up initiating a bond when Tom was not ready or agreeable to any of it. I did not want to take his choice away." Cordelia reasoned.
"But it did not turn out the way you wanted or expected." Death said simply.
Cordelia met his eyes, and shrugged.
"That is what happens when you dabble in the unknown, Mistress. This was why I had advised you to research till the world's end before you hatched the ritual of time travel. Things go wrong when you do not factor in variables that you cannot see or know about. Not always but mostly. It is better safe to be sorry, and I do not understand how the Hat put you in Slytherin when you are making such impulsive moves that would make Godric shed tears of pride." Death said in an extremely superior and sarcastic tone.
Cordelia raised a brow at that.
"You mortals, you think everything is so much in your reach…" Death said in an irritated manner.
"Technically, I am not a mortal." Cordelia pointed out astutely.
"I see that you have not lost your sass with your emotions. Quite a predicament…" Death said pointedly.
Cordelia rolled her eyes, "Look, I regretted it the moment my head cleared. The overwhelming emotions made me take an unprecedentedly stupid decision and I know that. My original plan was to break the seal after Tom and my majority but if you paid attention to this dimension in a little while, you would realize that a Lestrange stunned me into falling down a few stories, which put me in a magical coma, which has me in this weirdly emotionally dysphoric state all the time. It is a good thing that I am a fine actress and task master.
"Thankfully, my emotions towards Tom were not completely taken away, only muted to a level where I could well, be calculative around him. Now, that is not something that I am comfortable with, but when life gives you lemons, you try and find ingredients to make a meringue. So, I am trying to do all the mind drivel in this time. I know when the seals break; it is going to be really bad. I will start projecting my memories outwards, I will lose sense of what is happening around me, I will mistake the people in this timeline for the people in the original one, I will feel extreme emotions; from despair, to lust, to exuberance, but mostly despair, I will get seizures, as my body is taken over my chemicals from the emotional rush. I know how bad it can be. The best bet I have is prepare Tom for the possibility without telling him the true details because when I do tell him about the original timeline and dimension, I want him to have the complete information. "
"Fair enough, but things are not so great otherwise as well. Calculative moves aside, you are trying to control everything and you are trying to fix him. Weren't you against that by principle? How many times you repeated it to your gang of friends that you did not wish to fix Tom, but love, care for, and help him all the same. Respecting his wishes and trying to empathize with him is different, but being so wary around him, not trusting his humanity, not trusting him to react rationally is not done. You could have easily told him that he was being hunted by Carrow. You could have and should have. You did not want him to deal with it. Why? He is not a child, he is certainly not incompetent. In trying to spare him the worrying, you left him vulnerable. He has the rights to protect himself; he is not your baby. He is your equal. In trying to do right by everything, for the greater good of Tom, you are emulating the man you came to despise, Albus Dumbledore. You do not need to keep so many cards close to your heart. I understand that you cannot reveal all the time travel bits to him and that decision lies with you and is quite wise. But trying to shield him, shelter him from everything is not how Tom is going to grow or learn."
"I know! Which is why I stopped and confided in him. He, he knows I am a magicae. I told him about the Black luck. I also discussed contacting the Veela and goblins with him at great length and reached a decision. I also, in a roundabout way, tried to make up for the surveillance he has been under because I have studied his life. He has the watch; he can look up what I am doing any moment. I understand that loving is a two way street, Azrael!" Cordelia banged her fists on the table.
"It is a two way street indeed, Cordelia and I never denied that you know that. But giving him power over you is not the only way we trust partners. We trust them to take care of us, be there for us, even when we are in the wrong. You do not have to do all of this alone. The world is a big, bad place for Tom. But it is also a bad place for you; despite your powers, knowledge and an intimate directory of future events. You will burn out this way. You cannot keep taking care of everything but yourself. And you really need to trust and reach out to someone who can empathize," Death asserted gently.
"He will hate me…" She whispered faintly.
"You are giving him very little credit, then. He loves you. The past few months have been a good example of that. He does love you. Now, I am not denying that this will be an exceedingly hard conversation; that telling him is going to take courage and most of all, time. I am not denying that you will need some solid proof and grounding to convince him of your origins and story. But I believe that your intentions would take less of an explanation. However, that does not mean that you cannot confide in the little things, small fears, and pain for things apart from his and your relationship…"
Cordelia's eyes were wider.
"You were scared at what happened with Greengrass. You were expecting questions on your character, but you did not think that someone would reduce your physical affections with Tom to vulgarity. You felt vulnerable; you were so glad that Tom was there. So very glad….did you confide in him at all? He sensed it, that much I know. But he did not hear it from you, what his gesture meant to you?"
"He felt it…I did not say it but he felt it." Cordelia's voice was stronger.
Death's face was impassive.
"I clung to him. I held his palm and fingers so closely that I may as well have used a permanent sticking charm…"Cordelia spat out in anger.
"You are not happy about that, though?" Death asked.
"I. Don't. Know. What. To. Think," Cordelia said exceedingly slowly with gritted teeth.
"Didn't you wish his love, his care?" Death asked.
"It is not that simple," Cordelia cried out.
"What is so hard about it?"
"What if he hates me? The real me. He is in love with a fictitious woman who never existed. I am afraid that he is going to shut himself off further when he realizes that I deceived him…" Cordelia said helplessly, her shoulders sagging.
"He opened himself up…for what? For being string on the whims of a time-traveler who thinks that he needed saving…"
"What happens when all of it…all of it turns out to be a lie?" She stuttered.
"I will break his heart and this time, Tom Riddle would turn away from humanity because of me!" Cordelia began sobbing.
"Well, Malfoy really did a number on you with his theatrics…" Death looked at her pensively.
Cordelia stopped crying because of the shock and kept staring, already formed tears rolling down her cheeks that gave away how gobsmacked she was.
"See…" Death allowed his lips to form a small, crooked grin.
Cordelia opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again…
"See you have such a flair of melodrama now that it is actually amusing," Death lightly pointed out.
"Very subtle way to change the topic and stop me from crying, Azrael…" Cordelia said blandly, fixing him with a glare.
"What can I say, it worked…" Death gave her a superior look.
"My concern in real, so is my fear," She asserted.
"They might be real, just like suspicion often is. But like suspicion, you will also find that your concern and fear might be unfounded and a result of your paranoia and pessimism," Death said gently.
"When did you turn to believe in happy endings?" Cordelia snapped.
"I don't. I am just incredibly good at judging people now and I know Tom Riddle is a lot of things but I just don't see him reacting the way that you are anticipating…and I have seen a lot of humans, potential and actual psychopaths included," Death stood up on his toes as he said bemusedly.
" He is not a psychopath," Cordelia said aggressively.
"He has the potential to be one?" Death questioned, "according to you, at least. That's what you are trying to prevent in a way, aren't you?"
"No, I am just trying to teach him that he has other choices besides his destructive path. He can still choose the destructive one. That is upto him, entirely. I am just giving him a way out if he wants one…" Cordelia admitted.
"So gracious all the time, mistress. One would think that after giving up your entire life and universe and time for him, you would have certain expectations?" Death probed.
"I gave things up so that he does not have to…I took all the expectations of the world so that he does not have to…I gave up my life, my friends, my family, my world, so that he has a chance to know what all they are…so no, I do not expect things out of Tom, Azrael. He has been deprived of basic humanity for too long. I did not come to this world to take. I came here to give, out of my own volition. Tom did not ask for this, any of this. So, I do not hold him responsible for reciprocation. I do not hold him responsible for understanding what this entire thing has cost me. I certainly would like it if he does not hate me, if my love means more to him. But I cannot and will not blame him if he does not see things my way. He is free and he will always have me looking out for him, even if he hates my every fiber of being. .."
"I was just checking if you remembered your convictions clearly. I don't want you to take steps that you come to regret, especially because you have given up so much. All the best, mistress. Tell magic I say hi, she is close to bursting out of you!" Death smiled genially and disappeared.
As did Grimmauld place.
****4
Dear Readers,
As promised, the interlude is up. Sorry for the delay, things just have been too much of a roller coaster.
So, well, as people probably guessed, I am in a Univeristy and this was my final year. So, last few weeks were quite hectic. But hoorah, I graduated. Had my convocation and all that….staying back and working with my mentor on a research project. My health was also a bit of wonky coz my new doctor was cutting down my meds seriously.
But good news, he has me on several supplements (that work as preventive medicine for migraines) and has cut down on my serious side effects meds almost completely. And I am doing much better!
However, this does not mean that I am not pressed for time. I will be applying to PhDs this fall and application procedure is a nightmare. I am also working on research and all that, so I am sorry but I cannot promise more rapid updates. We will be sticking to the monthly schedule, though. My world building and planning is completely done but writing aint't very easy but I have lately started using commuting as a good time to write, so fingers crossed.
Next update: Within a month
P.S. Can people guess what the next chapter would be about? I think I left a pretty decent hint here!
