Harry liked being in the park. It was nice. Peaceful. So far into the trees it was easy to pretend, if only for a moment, that he wasn't in New York and it wasn't nineteen forty, but rather it's 2007 and he's in the Forest of Dean. He's only wandered away from the tent to get away from Ron and Hermione's bickering/flirting and find some quiet for himself. It smelled just like it did in the Forest of Dean, woodsy and wet, the air had the same bite of mid-winter, and now that the sun had set, it even sort of looked like it.
None of that made it easier being there, but it was still nice to pretend for a little bit.
From where he lay, Harry could almost see the shape of the stars, peeking down at him through the wide gap of leafless branches, the silence around him was heavy, comforting, more than he'd had since migrating to New York. The sparse bit of snow on the ground had long since begun to seep through his clothing and chill the backs of his limbs and torso, it was uncomfortable, but not unbearable, so he didn't move, he didn't rise from his spread eagle sprawl or even briefly contemplate making the trek back home because he didn't want to. Not yet. He wanted to hold onto this moment, this brief period of peace for as long as he was allowed.
The explosion of anger and emotion and magic had done him well. He felt better, he felt lighter, the suffocating misery that had been pressing in on him from all sides had passed. He was self aware enough to know it wouldn't last forever, there would be more moments of loneliness and doubt, but he would deal with them as they came and he wouldn't allow his resolve to crumble when they did. Because he was getting home, one way or another, he was resourceful and stubborn enough to see it done.
He would make it home and he would stop himself from uniting the Hallows and he would defeat Voldemort a second time over and when that was done he could finally breathe. He could take a vacation, a long one, maybe even come back here to New York to see it without the taint of misery and war ruining the experience. And after, he could finish school, he could apply to become an Auror or join a Quidditch team, hell he could spend every day doing nothing if that's what he wanted, the Potter and Black vaults would certainly allow for that. He didn't have to decide now though, or tomorrow, or the day he returned to his present, or any of the days following, because he would have time, all the time he wanted to decide, or at least all of the time a normally lengthed lifetime would allow. He just had to be strong for a while longer.
Harry slept in the forest that night, just because he could, and he slept well because of it. When he woke there was no lingering unrest or exhaustion, he felt prepared for the day, perhaps even eager for it. Mrs. Aronoff was infected by his mood, she smiled more than she ever had with him and spoke extensively of her sons as he worked with an unprecedented buoyancy to his movements.
The woman behind the fruit stand was as well, she didn't smile (she never did), but she tsked in warning whenever his hand strayed too close to an apple that had been carefully arranged to hide the places where it was peeling and bruised.
His friend with the sandwich was not.
He arrived with only one sandwich in hand, a shiny black automobile waiting for him at the curb, and the hurried explanation that important business had come up. It was urgent, needed his attention immediately, he would be unable to sit in for their usual meal.
Harry was disappointed and he knew he did a poor job of masking it. He didn't particularly want to resume yesterday's conversation, he was in no hurry to disrupt the good mood he found himself in, but he also wasn't all that excited by the prospect of taking lunch alone, he'd come to enjoy the easy company.
"You could come with me, if you'd like."
Of course the man had noticed his disappointment, nothing about Harry was subtle. The offer, however, was a surprise. Come with him? The man who was only a week's worth of sandwich's and talks of war past being a stranger. It was common sense not to get into a car with a stranger. Even if the stranger had a kind smile and an enticing sandwich. Especially then. But Harry could hold his own if something went down, couldn't he? And something within him wanted to trust this man.
"Yes. Where are we going?"
"I have two jobs." Was the explanation Harry received as he entered the car. "One pays, one does not, but they are both equally important. We are headed to the one that does not pay."
"What do you do?"
"I'm a doctor. I lend my expertise to the rich and the intelligent who wish to see the world become better, when I am not with them I help those too poor or too sick to see a doctor.
"We won't be going far today, only just up the road a ways."
Not far was almost an hour's drive spent in silence. Past streets, buildings, and landmarks Harry, who'd never really left his comfortable corner of the city, no longer recognized. Into parts of the city more run down and derelict than even the rat colonized, rubbish infested alley he took shelter in.
When industrial buildings and storefronts made slow way to row houses and tenement buildings, the car, so out of place in the way it shone bright and new and wealthy even in the weak sunlight, slowed to navigate the tight streets before rolling to a full stop.
"This is Brooklyn?"
"Yes, Flatbush." There was a pop of knees spent folded in one position for too long and Harry's companion sighed, relieved as he stretched contracted muscles on the sidewalk. Once suitably recovered from the long car ride, he nodded to the building closest to them, it was identical to the two flanking it, save for the four numbers peeling over the arched entryway.
"We go to the top and to the back."
The woman waiting for them five flights up looked made of sharp edges and hollow bird bones except for where her stomach protruded strangely, full with a child prepared to join the world any day now. Shadows not caused by the windows too dirty to filter through anything more than the most tenacious rays of sun added unneeded depth to her cheeks, her collarbones and beneath her eyes. She was frail with hunger and grief and too much hard work, but she was beautiful in that, even when weighted with child and fatigue, she smiled waveringly, but sincerely and met both men with a steel grip and a gaze that promised pain if they made her regret inviting them into her home.
"She's asleep, been down for a few hours." The apartment was cramped, tiny, with a living room that doubled as a kitchen and a bedroom with a door that didn't even sit properly on the hinges. There was a girl in the actual bedroom, curled on the flimsy mattress in the corner, she was sweat soaked and fever flushed but it seemed as if every quilt and blanket that could be found in the apartment was piled on top of her.
"Ms. Walker down the hall used to be a nurse, she said it looked like strep and that I should see a doctor for her as soon as I could. But I can't afford a day off, there'd be no food to bring home and no apartment to come home to, and the amount they were asking is beyond what I have. So she gave me some home remedies and has been keeping an eye on her while I worked. But it's been almost a month and last night she got worse, was up until the early hours wailing loud enough to raise her Pa from his grave."
The little girl's limbs were stiff, difficult to manipulate, under the doctors touch, with joints irregularly shining and so swollen she could barely bend her elbow or roll her ankles.
Tools were unpacked swiftly from a leather satchel and used to measure her fever, her heartbeat, the irregular pattern of her breathing. Lights shone in her eyes and mouth, checking for responsiveness and the tell-tale features of strep throat.
"She fell asleep when?"
"Early morning, seven maybe. The first few hours she woke once or twice, was disoriented when she did, but she hasn't stirred in a good three hours."
"It's not strep. Not anymore." Two needles and two vials of clear liquid were retrieved from the bag, the older man's hands remained steady as he filled each needle before injecting their contents into the crook of the girl's elbow. "It's rheumatic fever now. That was penicillin to help fight off the bacteria and aspirin to try and bring that swelling down some. But we must get her to a hospital, with proper equipment and medicines, immediately. She's gone untreated too long, her heart's begun to fail."
Grey eyes half hidden behind rounded spectacles found Harry, where he'd been lingering uncertain but out of the way at the door of the bedroom. "I'll need your help on this part, we need to get her down to the street."
"Of course."
The girl weighed nothing in his arms, even after five flights of stairs, but the alarming heat her small body was letting off and the random jerks of her arms and head made her presence a constant point of awareness for him. The car hadn't moved from the curb in the quarter of an hour they'd been gone, the unnamed driver was still seated behind the wheel, but a woman in a simple grey dress had made herself comfortable in the passenger's seat of the car. No one acknowledged her presence, not even the doctor questioned what she was doing in his car, and for a moment Harry assumed it was because she was there to lend aid to the girl. But they pulled away from the curb, the car angled towards the closest hospital twenty minutes away, and not a word was spoken to the woman or a glance spared in her direction, so Harry looked again and, this time, he actually saw.
There was no proof, but after one real look, he understood, she wasn't acknowledged because she wasn't there, she couldn't be seen just as Death couldn't be seen by anyone but him.
"You're his protégé, the one with the Heart in your soul." Her eyes were wide and dark and made incredibly unnerving by the fact that she didn't blink once. "I'm Tamiel. I've come for the girl, but it's a pleasant surprise to meet you."
She was, in whatever way, one of Death's, Harry could feel it in her aura, in the way something inside him reached for her. So perhaps, in some ways, she was his.
"Don't take her." He spoke softly, but neither the doctor nor the mother heard, so engrossed were they in ensuring the girl was comfortable. "Please."
Tamiel frowned. "I have to. You know that. She lived the time she was allotted, anymore would cause upset."
"She's too young."
"She is, isn't she? She must have been an extraordinary soul to have fulfilled her purpose here so quickly. I can't wait to see it."
Harry jerked in tandem with the girl when Tamiel reached back and splayed her fingers over her sternum. Her fingers bore down, they would have broken skin if she were tangible, they corkscrewed one way, then another, then drew back sharply. A light came with it bright and beautiful and shining with a rainbow of colors Harry couldn't even name.
"I was right." Tamiel's entire demeanor shifted with an unspeakable joy as she looked at the light, the soul. "She's extraordinary."
She was gone after that, and Harry was left to watch as the car's occupants realized that the little girl curled in her mother's lap had gone. There was a single wail of despair and a barely audible sigh of distress. But Harry remained still and so silent it looked almost as if he too had stopped breathing. Because as the life drained from the body now absent a soul, something in Harry stirred and it rejoicedat what he'd just witnessed. The part of him that was Death suddenly felt powerful.
The girl and her mother were dropped at the hospital where the body would be properly dealt with. Harry kept quiet throughout the entire painful process of seeing them off and for a large portion of the ride back to their side of town. His entire body buzzed with a deadly energy that could only derive from the Hallows, he could barely repress the shudder that wanted to quake him like a windblown leaf and sitting on his hands was the only way to stop their perpetual trembling.
"I wasn't aware how critical the child's condition was, if I had I wouldn't have exposed you to more death. I'm sorry."
The soft leather of the car seat squeaked with the shift of Harry's body. "Don't apologize. If I spent the entirety of my life trying to run from Death, I would have a very exhausting existence. It can't be avoided."
"No, maybe not. But that doesn't make it any less tragic." The doctor sighed another of his tired sighs, he slid his glasses from his nose and carefully cleaned the lenses with the hem of his shirt, more out of a need for something to do rather than for real visibility. "A year ago, a happier woman would have been hard to find. That family, that beautiful young woman and her precocious child, were whole, alive in all of the ways that mattered. They didn't live in those slums. Her husband had not been lost to gunfire or mortars across the sea, her daughter was not suffering from a disease that is so easily treated. Now she and her husband and her daughter and the child growing within her are just another family destroyed by a war they never asked for."
"No one ever asks for it." Harry shrugged, exhausted even as he was wired from the strange energy running through him, but far too used to the cloying misery that succeeded death to be jarred by it. "No one but those who are evil."
"Who was your evil?"
"My evil?"
His companion nodded. "A sickness, a war, a man. Something made you suffer."
Harry's bottom lip rolled between his teeth as he observed the man beside him. They were strangers still but this awful, miserable experience had allowed him to see a side of the man that there short visits hadn't allowed. He wasn't with Harry because he wanted something from him, he didn't ask because he wished to use the information against him one day. He just wanted to know. So he told him.
"A man. My evil was a man. One much like Hitler actually, he drew people to him because he was charming and knew just the right things to say. He too was obsessed with lineage and he was willing to go to great and horrible lengths to see only his version of the perfect race thrive."
"I've not heard of anyone like him."
Harry shook his head. "You wouldn't have. My war wasn't like this one, it wasn't between countries and enormous powers. It was small, between only a few communities, but that didn't make it any less devastating."
"You lost your family."
"Yes, much of them. A part of me misses it though. It sounds awful and not a moment fighting was one that could be considered happy, but when I was at war I had purpose, I had no concerns other than surviving one more fight. Always one more. With it gone, that part, though small and dormant most days, is lost, helpless."
There was something in the man's eyes, a spark of some sort of intrigue, maybe hope, that made Harry fall silent, curious to see what he had to say in response.
"You would want it back? That purpose?"
That hadn't at all been what he was expecting. "That isn't…are you being hypothetical?"
He received a small smile and a shake of the head. "The rich and intelligent men and women I said I worked with, the ones who seek to make the world a better place, together we are working on a project to take men like you, good men, and make them great."
A furrow carved its way between Harry's brow. "And what do you intend to do with these men?"
"End this war. Prevent another mother, father, wife, daughter, from feeling the pain that we've endured."
"You want me to be a soldier."
The doctor slid closer to Harry, suddenly eager to make him understand. "You would be no ordinary soldier, you would be more."
"How would we achieve that?"
"Through the miracles of science and modern medicine."
Considering Harry was sixty years in the past, he doubted any of their medicine would pass as modern to him. "Some sort of…drug?"
"Serum. I have been working to develop this for years."
"It's completed? Tested already?"
That gave the man pause, though not for long. "Not complete, not yet. We had only one test subject and it failed even when it succeeded. I find that it lacks a certain…balance. But once I have found it, through the help of those like you, we could restore peace."
"Men like me…" Harry faltered, saddened, unsure. "You're wrong. I'm not great, I'm not good."
Something akin to surprise crossed his companions features, then gentle amusement. "I did not tell you," he said, "but I saw you that day with the girl and the man who thought terrible things of her because of her differences. I saw how you shamed him, drove him off, even as others looked away, even as others approved. And though when I approached, it was not with the intention of extending this offer, I still hoped. And when we spoke, of this war, of your war, of our lives, I knew. You are good. You are great."
"Maybe so." Harry's fingers twisted in his grip. "Maybe you're right. Or maybe I am. But either way, it doesn't matter. I would have to fight….I'm sorry, I can't. I can't fight anymore."
The speed with which the doctor wilted made guilt curdle in Harry's stomach. But he had a purpose already, he had to get home. He couldn't put that off to help fight a war he knew they would win without his aid.
Neither of them spoke again, not until the landmarks around them once again became familiar and the car was cruising along the street that would lead to the library. When they stopped only a few meters away from the familiar set of stairs, Harry reached for the door immediately and swung it open, but he hesitated for just a moment before leaving.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you." He spoke without turning to face the man. "I wish I could be different. I wish I could be the man you think I am."
"I don't. I respect your decision, I understand it, and I would never wish for you to be anyone other than who you already are. Whoever that might be."
Harry couldn't help but laugh at that, all the times they've spoken and they never once shared names. "That would be Harry. I'm Harry."
"Harry. I am Abraham Erskine." Abraham smiled with no ounce of disappointment or resentment. "Will I see you tomorrow, Harry?"
"Yes, you will."
Harry was used to being hungry. His pitiful meals, insubstantial even with his daily dose of cheese, meat, and fresh baked bread, allowed for nothing else. He was used to being tired. The menial but back breaking task of hefting crates of vegetables several hours a day, seven of seven days a week wore away the little energy his meager caloric intake was able to produce. He was used to being cold. Used to always being not quite dry despite numerous anti-damp spells. He was used to these menial discomforts, they'd become a reluctantly accepted part of his existence and, so long as his ribs remained only a vague shadow rather than a clear imprint against his chest, so long as he had enough in him to keep himself standing upright, and so long as his extremities continued without the distinctive blue hue of oncoming frost bite, then they would remain menial discomforts.
But then he watched the girl die and simply being in proximity of the act of death saw him renewed.
The hunger was gone. No more quiet ache of exhaustion. If he hadn't known any better, he could have mistaken himself for the Harry of two years ago, comfortable within the halls of Hogwarts, if not fully happy then at least safe, warm, fed. And he knew it was because of the girl and whatever twisted connection his newly Hallowed soul had with Death and dying.
It was awful, but it was also exhilarating. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to feel whole and human and he didn't want to forget again. Even if it meant being near it again, witnessing it again.
It would be far too easy to become addicted to the feeling.
The girl was rendered unconscious and bound to her seat, the man was allowed to remain aware and unbound only because these backwards people still didn't fully understand, of the two, who held the real power. They were in the largest courtroom of the Ministry, which also so happened to be the most intimidating, and upon the raised dais encircling the room were wizards and witches of all backgrounds and ethnicities, any country with a significant magical presence had sent the representatives of their governments to oversee the proceedings within the courtroom.
In their time of crisis, the acting Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, had been retired and replaced by the full body of the Wizengamot whom answered and reported directly to the ICW. They had reached such times where one wizard could no longer be expected to shoulder the full burden of the disaster upon them.
Babajide Akingbade of Uganda, the current Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, took the place of honor at the head of the courtroom and, once all representatives had settled into their seats, wasted no time in addressing their only conscious intruder.
"You are muggle."
Strucker blinked, then frowned, then bowed his head in a false attempt at humility. "I'm afraid I don't understand."
"A muggle," the word was spat, not with disgust, but incredulity. Disbelief that this man with no magical background was able to breach their most hallowed halls. "There is no magic within you or your immediate ancestry."
"Magic as is in the supposedly inconceivable power that can be harnessed within?" A saccharine smile, sweet as rotten fruit, exposed Strucker's teeth. "Perhaps you would be correct in assuming I have no such power within me. But that does not mean I am completely without it, as my Aliana only just proved."
"You are not one of us," Akingbade amended firmly. "You should not have been able to enter."
"Yes, well, you've all been so focused on the protections outright falling, you failed to notice those that only weakened, not much, but enough to allow men such as myself to exploit them."
"Why did you come?"
"Because my people have been watching you and yours for decades, trying to understand who and what you were. We'd been unsuccessful until only very recently. When your magic began to fail and your secrecy became threatened, it was an easy task to collect a few of your unsuspecting folk and learn what we needed from them. Your race is threatened, your people are dying, you will be extinct in a century, a century and a half, perhaps, if you're careful. But continuing on as you are now you will all see your end soon."
Akingbade was unimpressed, when he spoke again he merely repeated his earlier words with ten times the ferocity. "Why did you come?"
"I have a proposition for you."
There was a rumble around the room, a short outburst of disbelief and amusement, this muggle dared come into their Ministry, wreak havoc on their halls, and then offer them a deal? He was surely insane.
However, Strucker was unfettered in the face of their derision. "We two have a common enemy, muggles you call them, and the government they look up to as if they are gods. Because of them our world has fallen to war and ruin. Help me destroy them and I will usher in a new world order where you and yours no longer need cower in fear of those inferior to you."
"Who are you to make such promises?" It was clear Akingbade was not remotely convinced, a quick look around confirmed that his colleagues were of the same mindset. "What makes you so certain you would be successful in bringing down the muggles? And why would you even want to? They are your people."
"They are." Strucker nodded. "But they are sick, flawed to their core. Every day my people are lost to starvation and war, poverty and hatred and it is because those elected to preside over them do not have the nerve to do what must be done. If we want this world to prosper, those rotten in the bunch must be done away with. My organization and I are willing to see that done, we're willing to do it ourselves, for the good of all. It cannot be done alone though."
"And you assume we would help you? Why? Why when we could cut out the hassle of a second player in the game and rid the world of the rotten muggles ourselves?"
"If it could be done, you would have done so long ago rather than cower behind your steadily weakening wards." Strucker shifted in his seat and the chains that had not yet bound him moved along with him, a clear threat. "Neither of us can do this alone. If we want to see those who hold this world back from it's potential eradicated, then we must work together. Your people are powerful, far more powerful than those who oppose you, but you are few and fewer every day, you might find success in ending the governments of your enemies, but the people would rise up and destroy you, not because they are stronger, but because there are many more.
"On the other side, my organization has enough men at their command to keep any who might overthrow the current leader in power long enough to make some sort of difference. But we are not yet at a place where we could actually overthrow those leaders. We could cause unrest, eliminate many important figures, but it would not be enough to topple a government, let alone the multiple ones needed to be ended in order for this coup to be successful.
"So you see, where one is incapable the other is astoundingly able. If we were to join our forces it could be done."
A soft murmur had begun to build among the crowd of wizards, a murmur that almost sounded considering, but Akingbade held his hand up, silencing them at once. "Your offer comes at an interesting time. We are close to war and here you are offering a convenient solution. It smells of a trap, and we are not in a place where we can afford to risk the lives and safety of able bodied fighters."
"You would not need to, the weak and sick will do just fine. This disease plaguing you, I've seen what it's done, what it's taken." One of Strucker's pale hands reached out to stroke through the hair of the girl still unconscious beside him. "Aliana was once one of you, talented, powerful, her illness stripped her of that potential, that one thing that made her special. But I gave it back."
"No. Returning a wizard's magic once it has been taken by the plague is not possible." Akingbade was flush with anger at just the thought of it. "You, a muggle, could never achieve what some of are best were unable to."
"I should have been more specific." Strucker amended. "I cannot return her ability to cast as she once could, that is likely gone forever, but she was not fully stripped of her spark, and with it I was able to create something new, something that, with the right tools, could grow to be more than you all have ever been capable of."
"Who gave you this right?" the representative for the French Ministry, Sabine Moreau, rose from her seat, anger contorting her otherwise beautiful face. "Perhaps you were successful in granting her some form of magic back, but she and her magic were not yours to meddle. You are not one of us."
Strucker laughed with a malicious sort of humor. "If I and my colleagues kept away from all that is not ours by right, we would not be the force we are today. Some toes must be trod upon for the sake of progress. If you can find the strength to get over your bruised toes you can ensure the survival of your race.
"I don't need much, as many wizards who have lost their power to this disease and a few healthy ones, for research."
Moreau rounded on the Supreme Mugwump who had gone uncharacteristically silent. "Akingbade, the fact that we have entertained this horrible man for so long is insulting." Those around the woman nodded their agreement. "To hand over our own to a muggle who wishes to strip them down and expose the secrets of our magic is blasphemy. It is the one thing that should not ever be considered."
"Without me, you all die." Strucker spoke calmly despite the mounting hostility within the room. "Without you, I will find another way to see it done. But it would be much easier and far more beneficial for the both of us if you were to agree. You have everything to gain from this proposition and so little to lose."
"You, who has not lived a single day among our people, know nothing of what we would lose," Moreau spat.
"Enough." Akingbade's gaze was solemn as he surveyed the outraged wizards and witches. "We are in dire times. No option can be overlooked." There was another rumble of protest that was quelled with only one glare from the Supreme Mugwump. "We will take three days to discuss, debate, and decide. Three days only and you will have our answer."
The answer was yes, it was always going to be yes despite the uproarious protests.
Two days later, the worst victims of the disease with no visitors and no family to miss them were transferred to a facility across the sea and their work was started.
A/N: Anyone still here? It's been some time, I know, I don't think it's ever taken me so long to update a story in all the years I've been publishing on this site. There's a whole laundry list of reasons excusing my absence, but it really boils down to the fact that what I had planned for this story really just wasn't working. So I took time, too much time, to re-evaluate just about everything I knew. But now I have a new plan, a solid one that I'm about ninety-five prevent certain I'll be able to stick to, so now I can continue actually writing and producing chapters without a whole four plus month wait.
I'm still on Tumblr and somewhat on Facebook under my penname. Plus I have a shiny new Twitter account! Follow me so I'm not tweeting to no one!
