[DARK OCEAN]
**** 1 ****
Soft flowing hums, gentle caresses along the ash of black sand. Their waves gradualling inching closer before falling back to join the rest of itself.
Where am I?
A slight dry breeze grazes my face as I slowly look up. Gazing back at me was a dim beam of a mystical silver ball illuminating along the lining body of darkness, like a setting celestial body it seemed to be. But it never passes the final threshold into a complete sunset. It is stuck gazing at a shore forever, similarly to me.
Coldness drafts the side of my grim face.
"Who are you?" I ask the new presence suddenly beside me, not bothering to face it directly.
"My name is of no importance." Thin tendrils of dark masses fluttered from the side. Its voice bone chillingly deep, and its form cloaked in pure shadows. "I'm simply what's left."
"How shall I refer to you then, if you don't have a name?" Slightly tilting my head towards the chilling being. Its fluttering shadows continued to swirl and roam, but more quietly as if pondering.
"Throughout time, many have referred to me as a God—Hades." It answered slowly. "Humans have referenced me as death, but I am not an entity that can be truly understood by mortals." My gaze shifts somewhat skeptical at its cryptic reply. I huffed a sigh after it seemed to be done.
"Well… that didn't answer much." Turning my gaze away from the intrusive being, feeling that it was too bothersome to pay it anymore mind. It sounded like a low whine broke the thin silent air though.
"Forgive me for giving you such a vague answer, Master," its dark voice raised slightly, but the unpleasant title stung my ears. "It may be easier to refer to me as Grim if you so desire."
"Grim?" I chuckled a bit. "As in the Reaper?" But it only continued to motionlessly face me.
"That is the most conceivable way for humans to refer to me, yes."
"...seriously..." cursing slightly under breath.
"So I'm dead?"
"Yes." Was its simple answer.
It's a wonder why this place felt so off putting. The chilling air; the endless dark ocean in front of me, and the shadows encroaching from every corner...
"You're here to drag my soul to hell, then?" I say darkly as I stand up, facing the intimidating being straightforwardly.
"If that is what you desire."
"Okay then, a question first," whirling thoughts racing through my mind, "Why did you call me Master?"
"Because that is what you are, my Master." Suddenly the cold wind that was once a soothing breeze flew more fiercely. And its honeyed voice dropped with the temperature. "My Master of Death."
Those words rang through far connections deep in my subconscious. My shifting feet stumbled slightly as the sparks trickled. I then felt a boney structure grip around my arms—pale gray limbs as if gloved in leather...
The spike in fear shooting up from my bones trembling through my drastically smaller form. Its cold form was so close up to my face. An… an abyss was all that stares back at me. Its faceless darkness gauging me with dim lights so far away, no one could ever hope to reach them. Truly, I could not comprehend what a being it is.
"How… how did I die?" I managed to get that out with a trembling throat.
"Search through your shadows, Master." Its covered grayed limbs… gently? Balances me back onto my feet.
Coldness suddenly surges through our direct contact. The swirling darkness stung along the brows of my eyes, shutting my eyes closed. The foggy glass slowly cleared for me, but the process was a constant pang and migraine…
… . . .
… . . .
Hands… arms… fleshtone reaching for me… dark iron and steel. Dark chains dangling malnourished and pale wrists. There are cloaked monsters staring through the harsh stone walls with mouth watering intentions. Greed of both monsters and flesh directed at me. Vivid nightmares forcibly brought back out by those merciless creatures. No trial… simply taken, and relentlessly tortured.
Hands… arms… fleshtone entering from a dimmed doorway, clattering iron swung open. Ironclad boots slamming straight into the unprotected flesh at my center. Curses, unforgivable that the light said they would ban… the hypocrisy.
The strength sapped from my limbs, and my voice was taken from me. My feeble underdefended form dragged and dragged. The small stones digging at my bare feet. My sharp green eyes glaring all the while at the increasing clamor around. The highest above were full of judging eyes with disdain and greed. The mock trial with no hope of a defense. Even the pleading eyes eventually relents with the rest in betrayal!
The traitors all of them!
Voices…
Voices…
"Guilty!"
Hands… arms… fleshtone decorated with shuffling cloaks and embroidery. They threw my feeble form forward. Crimson… crimson spilling through the stone, broken bones and a broken nose. Dark chains wrapped so threatening around pale limbs.
"Kill the second coming of the Dark Lord!" The flashes of chilling emerald light blinded all of everything… true hypocrisy...
And a final gulp of air. Wallowing darkness… the shadows were the only things gently cradling me, never leaving my side as I fell.
… . . .
… . . .
The soothing waves of darkness returned to the forefront of my senses. Shadows bleeding back into its cloaked figure once again.
"..." the vivid connections relived tragically. "I did everything for them…" my voice demonstrating the sense of a meltdown. And Grim quietly listened to me. "I would sacrifice my everything for them… … … I sacrificed everything for THEM!" My emeralds of Avada Kedavra sparked with anger. "How dare that old man! How dare they all toss me aside like trash!" Despite the furious energy expelled from my whole being directed at lifeless objects and the dark leafless trunks, the dark being's chilling aura oddly felt comforting during my distress. And it never once motioned to leave my side.
"He is here as well, isn't he?" My voice finally calmed down.
"Master, you refer to your ultimate enemy? Yes."
"Then I seek to correct their fraud." My voice slithering low like a snake, the biting fury thinly veiled. "The two of us can easily destroy their manufactured world..." Taking long strides from the black sands. "And they all deserve to rot from his darkness."
"You wish to escape the course of nature and return to the living land?" It casually followed. "That will require twisting fate."
Instantly stopping dead in my tracks. "I am your Master of Death, am I not?" My voice almost hissed as I turned on the being with a snap. "Everything Death, I can weave as I will, am I incorrect?"
At this the being seemed to make a sound almost like a low whine again.
"No, you are correct, my first and only Master." Its voice carried a somewhat somberful tone. "Master would have been amazing at reigning over the souls in the underworld… But yes, as I said Master, I am yours to command, whether or not you wish to take up your rightful position now... or later."
"So I can revive…" I said somewhat more pleased than I've ever been. "Okay then, where is he? I can still somewhat feel him, despite our connection supposedly being broken."
"That connection is because your souls have been intertwined since the conception of time, no mortal or otherworldly means can destroy that." It points with its elongated pale, gray hand. "He is there but shattered. His pieces that I can restore once you find them all."
A subconsciously held breath finally escapes my lips. "So I'm not alone…"
A deep-seated plan in my mind, I resume my trudge through the dark sands and dead foliage. Until suddenly, I am confronted by a hissing sound. And the shine of beautiful emerald scales slithered closer. I could see the visible ink of venom dripping from her tremendous fangs. Her body straightened and easily reached my own height in length, poised and ready to sink her fangs in her enemy.
"Nagini." The language of snakes rolling off my tongue with masterful ease.
"Sspeaker?" The large snake's slits widened in surprise, instantly withholding her venom. "You are Harry Potter? Where are we?" She slithered closer from the murk of dead foliage hiding her whole form. Still in slight trepidation, she remained at arms lengths.
"I mean you no harm." I calmly hissed. The large snake drew closer at this. "I sseek to find your masster's sscattered ssoul piecess and tie them back together."
"I ssee, young sspeaker's aura doess feel different." She happily shrunk into the size of a regular garden snake. Accepting the hand I held out to her, she climbed onto my shoulder. "Doessn't feel too bad though." She hissed next to my ear while observing the strangely dark being following me. "Delicioussly dark."
"I've become Masster of Death ssince the lasst you ssaw me." I beamed at the closeness of the majestic creature. However, Grim seemed to whine lowly at this. "Don't be jealous." I hissed at the dark being. "I apologize about our lasst life, having you killed and everything." Feeling true regret at having to slay the large snake.
"It wass undersstandable, young sspeaker." She hissed forgivingly. "Even Nagini noticess how depraved Masster hass become."
I nod at her hisses. Snakes have always had this comforting sense on me. The isolation an abused orphaned boy faced, he could only seek some form of escape in conversing with them. That is why Dudley needs to die before he could ever harm another snake.
Continuing with the search of the other containers of his soul. A few minutes of walking, and my senses caught the crisp sound of paper, brown leather flowing with the cold breeze as it peacefully sat atop a wooden bench. Approaching the leather strapped book, a mystifying shadow crept out when I drew a hand too close.
"Potter." The shadow serpently hissed. The shadow melding together until a clear form was visible. The tall figure with dangerous maroon eyes.
"Wait." I jumped backward. "Before you start spitting curses at me, know that I am here to help you."
The untrusting teenage form chuckles as if I was a joke. "You, who stabbed a basilisk fang through the pages of my diary, want to help me?" Maroon eyes lit with the intentions of windless casting. "I wasn't born yesterday."
"Geez, Masster really can't lissten to other's well." Emerald scales slink down my leg. Her head held high as her form enlarged once again. "Young sspeaker only wantss to help, Masster." The giant snake flicked her tongue.
"Nagini?!" His tone visibly shook, "Speaker…?" His eyes quickly snapped back to me. "What are you up to, Potter?" He basically snarled, but seems to be giving me a chance.
But I could suddenly feel the dark being behind me grow chillingly colder, and his cloak now swaying in front of me. "Hold on, Grim." I sighed with a tug on the riled up being, pushing it back behind me. Maroon eyes suddenly lighting up with an emotional response to the sight of it. "He's obviously going to be confused, so let me explain it better. And stop scaring him." I scolded the being.
"..." Its pale limb circles protectively. "Apologies, Master. The ungrateful thing was being an annoyance." Hissing chuckles clearly escaping from the emerald snake.
"Now, as I've said," I hissed back at the teenager, "helping you."
"Alright," the young man said slowly, still eyeing the dark being in trepidation, "What exactly do you want then, Potter?"
"To put your soul back together." I say slowly, but his eyes clearly showed confusion and suspicion. "Listen, it will be more beneficial to you and I both, if you regain your sanity when we return."
"Return?" He eyed me suspiciously. "To where?"
"To the land of the living, of course." I turned back to the dark being behind me. "How far back can you revive us to?"
"Only as far back to your conceived existence."
"So essentially, the limitation is the day I was born?" At this, the young man seemed to become very interested.
"To the day before I tried killing Potter as a mere infant…" I did not like the devious look in his eyes.
"Oi…" Snapping back to the diary man. "We'll both retain all of our memories and the experiences we've had in our first life and here. So don't try a fast one on me, since I'll just hex you right back even as still a baby." Maroon met Green as rising sparks seemed to try to pierce through the other.
"But yes, I want to revive us that far back, to when he first attempted to kill me. But since his sanity will be back, I doubt he'll make those irrational decisions again." I stepped right up to him. "Right?" A cheeky grin just for a little teasing.
"Hmph." He stared back with ice. "Why do you seek to do this anyways?"
Growing quiet at his question. Even remembering the reason why was gut wrenchingly terrible. My stomach churning, the perspiration induced by fear, the heartache, the despair, but most of all the one's rising above it all were my undying anger and hatred.
"I seek vengeance." His maroon eyes narrowed, though interested with subtle amusement flickering within them. "All those who wronged me. All those who betrayed me. All those who manipulated me… they will feel the same as I did, marking my promise."
"Hmm." His eyes seemed to soften. "They must have really done something quite terrible to make The Boy Who Lived become so deliciously dark." The traces of a smirk on the corners of his lips.
"Shut up." I fearlessly walked up to his diary. "For the record, I've always detested the sensation the light gives off. It has always felt off and disgusting like slime on my skin, but I've wanted to fit their mold so badly that I threw my true self away…" The glow of dark emeralds filled with concealed power. And he seemed to take notice of them as he honed onto my words.
"Anyways…" Quickly changing the uncomfortable subject as I fiddled through the leather. His maroon eyes didn't budge however, not moving a single twitch even as I held up the leather pages. "You trust me quite a bit, to just let me walk up and grab this." Nagini slinks back into my shoulder while beckoning her master closer.
"Either way, I am stuck in limbo due to my horcruxes." He lazily says while walking in step beside me. "What little do I have left to risk?" His hand casually stroking the top of her emerald scales. "At the very least, you seem to be playing an interesting game enough for me."
The dark waves crashing against the sands as they crept further.
"I'm glad you find my suffering a game." I added quite spitefully. The being following us both now solemnly quiet.
He simply hummed in response. "I'm quite liking the new darker outlook on you, Potter." His genuine words struck an unknown cord within me.
"I'm not sure if that is a compliment or not." Opting to not focus on him and simply look ahead for the other containers. I don't want to explore why showing him my true self felt this refreshing...
"Hmm," I could feel his maroon eyes burning into me. "It does make you somewhat more bearable than your disgusting goodied nature from before."
Choosing not to respond, even I felt no pity for my own situation and mistakes of my first life. The utter idiocy I was to believe their false grooming, so easily might I add. An orphan was clearly no match for a manipulative adult who could defeat even the previous dark lord.
The crashing waves of the darkness on our left had this calming effect on me. It was soothing. My rabid thoughts seem to lessen a bit at their white noise. Even just hearing his dark comments at some intervals during our search was somewhat relaxing.
.
.
.
.
Though the sinking darkness was all that was ever around us, it felt as if they had led us perfectly to where each of his soul pieces were thrown.
Following his diary incarnation, another form with a priceless gold chain locket. Another with a gold cup fit for a king at feasts in his hands. And the final with the glitter of gold upon the ring finger of a taller, bit more older form of his. But his sharp crimson eyes still eyed me with suspicion.
"So we're all okay with just following Potter, like this." The incarnation from the golden ring made his distrust known, but nonetheless continued to follow me like the other forms of him did.
"You can leave then," I turned my heated emeralds back at him, flashing him a smirk. "I wish you luck on finding a way to regain your sanity and life without me." The snickers from the diary, locket, and cup made little effort to conceal them. The ring's red eyes quickly lit up with what I presumed to be both anger and humiliation.
"Get used to this new, darker Potter." His diary form stepped forward beside me, walking in tune with my steps. "Or he'll eat you alive." He grinned at the ring.
As a sparkle of silver finally caught my eye, I ignored to retort from the ring as I raced ahead of all of his selves. The black sands just barely allowed it to peek out from the darkness.
"Found it!" Excitedly raising my voice. Their shuffling steps hurriedly rushed to my side. "The diadem." Gently caressing the smooth silver and intricate design in my hand. Suddenly, a mist of shadows flowed out of the crown, whipping all around me, my vision suddenly of only darkness and deadly crimson. Shooting through the darkness, a pale hand struck out, curling its sharp nails over my windpipe.
"You." The crowned figure's red eyes filled with malice.
"Don't." Emeralds sparked up. "Touch." The wave of power instantly unleashed. "ME!"
The black sands beneath our feet flurried away from the sheer force. Red eyes darting in such surprise as I forced him back. His other forms quickly took cover behind a decaying trunk and large boulder. The intensity creates an impenetrable barrier.
Step.
Step.
"Potter!" His familiar dark voice broke through the raging wind, but the darkness of my heart continues to keep me in its clutches. And his voice only barely an audible whisper.
… . . .
… . . .
Muffled… crimson dripping down fragile skin. Cold dark stone encased my skin. Croaked voice and abused cords. Their cruel laughter surrounds me. The flash of their crooked sticks. I was dancing, simply dancing to the palms of their hands
Muffled… crimson dripping down fragile skin. The forcibly torn fabric made the cold drafts chill more easily between my limbs. The dangling chains glued onto me. Splayed ankles and wrists to posts on every corner. The crimson is still dripping down from that place...
Muffled… crimson…
"Save me…"
… . . .
… . . .
"AHHH!" The screeching cords vocaling through the wells of my throat. The bitterness and anger. I don't care who but…. "I will drag you ALL to hell with me!" The crackling sparks from my eyes and hands burned. They stung. They hurt...
Save me...
A flash of crimson… that horrible, revolting, welching color, but this one... this one blows soothingly. A still comfort within its deep coloration.
"Potter!" Strong limbs wrapped around my middle. His raspy breath is evident from stupidly forcing his way through.
Suddenly, the crushing waves felt as if they dropped all around me. The gravity defying wind was pulling me back up. Maroon turning crimson eyes now clear for me, the blinding light nowhere in sight anymore…
"Idiot," I peered into the relief washing over those slowly fading red eyes. "You trying to do a double suicide with me." I heaved as the torrent finally died down completely. The tossed sands and debris now still as they lay all over the dark grounds. He remained oddly quiet though. I was expecting his usual quip.
"...I saw some stuff." He finally voiced. "I'm sure the rest of them did as well." Maroon eyes flashing towards his other incarnations as they cautiously stepped over to us from their covers. But as the crowned form stepped closer as well, I glared at him with uninhibited distrust.
"My suspicion in you was well warranted as well." The diadem held its head up in confidence. "Though you do have my sympathies for the struggles you have gone through." His arrogance was like a disease to me.
"How… how did you see them." Ignoring the diadem's meek attempt at apologizing. Instead, I faced the diary that continued to let me lean back on his chest for support.
"Your Grimly friend did say our souls are linked, so I suppose that is why." He shifted a bit, slowly helping me back onto my feet.
"Interesting." I patted my pants from the dust clinging onto it. "Right, sorry about that outburst earlier, let's go find your main piece now." He nods in silent agreement.
The shuffling of many steps following suit.
But despite how far we walked, how low we searched, we couldn't find the last piece. The main piece and the fragment I had carried were nowhere in sight, no matter how well the darkness led us to their energy signatures.
"Grim." The dark being instantly appears in front of me. "That's all of the ones I could find." Holding out the key items towards the dark cloaked being.
Besides his teenage form from the diary, his other selves seem to refuse to look Grim in the eye. The oldest of them in his adult form stood several meters away. But at least all of them were here now, all except for one though…
"I couldn't find his actual main soul…" the sense of loss weighing my voice. "I couldn't find him despite knowing he's here, feeling that he's here somewhere."
Grim simply nodded at my complex explanation I tried to convey.
"It's like he is so far away, and yet right here."
"Hmm." His incarnation from the diary hummed in thought. "It does feel like he's here, but just not tangible it seems." It glances towards the being of death. Nagini also does the same.
"Master, you have not realized it yet then." Its limb slowly raised forward, lightly tapping my chest. "As I've said, your souls have always been intertwined. Your degrading state before your inevitable betrayal at their hands, was also largely due to the forced severe of your link."
I gaped at its words.
"If our fates were so woven together, how was I able to kill him?" The diary form of the man visibly winced at my side from the choice of words. "Sorry…" Giving the maroon eyed man an apologetic frown.
"You didn't," Grim said simply, "At least not in the sense mortals understand." Tapping at my chest again. "Feel it through your shadows cradling it." The swirling reds and green began to emerge. "He never truly disappeared." It said.
As the shadows spread out from within me, two crimson orbs glared back. The whirling dark mass congregating together, until finally, his familiarly tall, handsome form arose. His knees on the dark floor as he huffed long breaths obviously exhausted.
I looked on in shock.
"Has he been inside me this entire time?!"
"Your soul is a part of his, as his soul is a part of yours." The being replied somewhat cryptically. "You also hold a small fragment of his woven in your very soul. Call for him, nurture it and he will come."
Closing my eyes at the dark being's words. I followed the gentle darkness within the depths of my very soul, a soft line leading me. Until finally, swirls of gray shadows wisps around all of us. A small figure whisking into existence in my arms cradling the darkness. Soft brown eyes peering up at me. His small hand reaching for my own, holding my hand for comfort at the unknown of its surrounding.
"Wow." I observed with wonder at the youngest form of the man I have come to know. "Most of your incarnations always attacked first before listening to me." Maroon eyes snap towards me as if offended.
"He is familiar with your soul." Grim says. "As he has lived with yours protecting his own for all of his conscious existence."
"Ah.. that makes sense now."
The youngest of his incarnation tightly gripped my hand for comfort as he hid the rest of his small body into the nook of my neck and arm.
"That is embarrassing." The diary chuckled nervously.
Meanwhile, Nagini cooed, or hissed beside me as she rushed up towards her returned Master. But his eyes, his red eyes still held within them the same unstabilty as before.
"Potter!" He hissed, his arm immediately raised to strike.
"Wait!" I summoned dark tendrils to temporarily hold him down. This form of him was still very, very dangerous. He thrashed relentlessly against the bonds, even as a steady flow of crimson began to mar his anemic skin.
"Masster is sstill a bit unhinged." Nagini visibly sank as she slithered back a safe distance away.
"Grim, can you return his sanity now?" I gritted my teeth as I struggled to keep the tendrils holding him.
"Of course, Master." The dark being began lifting each sacred item with a glow of purplish energy.
As each of the different incarnations began lifting up with the same glow, Nagini and his main soul included. The soothing energy encasing them was marvelous. Before going, the smallest one hugged my hand once last time before joining up with his others. Then finally, maroon eyes shifted right next to me.
"Thank you," His whisper was almost completely inaudible, "Harry." And soon, he too glowed with the same energy signature and joined his others. Not even letting me shoot one more witted comment back.
The flash of blinding light and shadows, and everything seemed to still for a short few moments. Icy and chilling to the very bone.
Then darkness returned.
Cough.
Cough.
"Nagini?" I called cautiously. The residual energy still thinly flutters through the air before me. The small reflection of emeralds quickly elated me as she slithered through the smoke, and headed towards me. Her size was that of a compact garden snake.
Feeling through her soul, it seems that indeed she is no longer a horcrux. Firmly securing her around my arm, I then proceeded to walk through the smoke.
"Tom?" I called cautiously. His soul piece containers had reluctantly accepted me calling them that.
Red eyes suddenly blinked open from the dark swirls. "Potter…?" His steps were slowly, approaching me with the same level of caution as I did him.
"The bird of mockery?"
"A mockingjay…" he quipped back.
"Nice," the tension in my shoulders released almost immediately. "I thought that you wouldn't remember anything. And that scared me for a bit." Plomping down on my bottom right after that strenuous ordeal.
His tall dark legs stepping right beside me. Soft crunches of sand beneath his feet, until he too crouched down right beside me. The ordeal must have been utterly exhausting for him most especially, considering how the pieces of his souls were pushed back into him all at once.
"How do you feel?"
"I haven't felt this good in a long time." He stretches his hands forward in examination. "This whole… it may be even better…" his eyes were still red, maybe since he and I were both essentially unnatural beings at this point.
"The two of you have reconciled your souls together, so it is no wonder why you have regained the true power you were supposed to have." Its chillingly deep voice arose back from shadows.
"True power?" Tom murmured aloud in dark thought.
"Master." Grim gusted back into existence as it turned to me. "Would you like to depart for the land of the living now?"
"Of course." Tom was the one who quickly answered first. His eyes held great ambition within them.
"Yeah." I nodded eagerly. "I am excited to see this show launch its premiere." Grinning with dark promises behind them.
"A charming thought, my snake." Tom hissed the end.
"I will be choking them right underneath their noses after all." I returned with a slight hiss and a fanged smile.
"Then, please step through." Grim bows as it summons an eerie doorway made out of pure darkness. The tendrils sticking from its sides does not help its image in the least.
The figure standing beside me twitched slightly. The coldness permeating from the shadows very reminiscent of death. As I glanced at him, I could just see the very subtle shiver under his skin. And without a second thought, I grabbed his hand as I did for his younger incarnation before.
"Let's go, partner in crime." A genuine reassuring smile plastered on my face. Not even giving him enough time to react, I pulled him through the portal after me.
Green dancing with Red through our walk of time.
Soothing swirls of grays and purples all greeted us. It wasn't what I was expecting at all, to be honest. For weaving fate and time, the sensations were contrastingly calm as a gentle breeze. Even as the flashing colors whipping us by as Grim's portal continues shifting through time, the lights were quite dim, as if not disturbing us. The oddly calm way it was reversing our deathly fates.
Then finally… A new canvas to work on. Finally… A second chance to truly live...
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TO BE CONTINUED. . .
ENDNOTES
INSPIRATION: The amazing writer of "The Darkening of Your Soul" on AO3 wrote an amazing Fanfiction. Please check out Maeglin_Yedi who wrote such an amazing and interesting story!
W/N: The scenes here were inspired by the Dark Margin in the Kingdom Hearts games.
Also, I apologize for many details I get wrong as I continue my story. I've only ever watched the movie versions and it has been a long time since I have . Thank you for bearing with me! ❤
Thank you so much for reading my story!
- Cya next time readers o/