Chapter 3: A Dead Man Tells His Tale...

"Zancrow, I summon thee" He murmured as he twisted the ring three times.

Everything seemed to shiver for the briefest instant, as was prone to happen whenever the more powerful life and death related powers were at work. The soil frozen and thawed, the plants withered and revived, life ended and restarted and the very air stopped before moving on in its perpetual movement. Whenever these moments came to pass, something monumental happened. On Tenrou Island this was the second time in relatively quick succession that this happened. The first time it had caused the demise of Zancrow of Grimoire Heart, the second time it called his shade from the beyond.

"Oi oi oi, what's this!" Apparently Zancrow had not yet fully processed his demise and his sudden forceful return to the living realm had only enhanced his confusion. "Zancrow of Grimoire Heart" When Harry spoke his voice had lost all of its life, each and every single syllable resonated with the power that came with being the Master of Death "I have summoned you from the eternal rest to answer my questions. Do you understand?"

Zancrow looked like he wanted nothing more than to prove the saying of 'Dead Man Tell no Tales' true, however in the face of Harry's power... Dead man did in fact tell tales, for they could not lie nor remain silent in his presence. "Fine! What do ya want? And how are you able to make me do this!" "How I am able to do this? The stone on my ring. What do I want? I want you to tell me how you died and what gave you your magic." Using the Resurrection Stone required an enormous amount of power so Harry was being very economical in his questioning of Zancrow, he knew that every minute that he kept the shade on the mortal plain he would repay with at least an hour of rest before he'd be back at his normal level.

"I died because that bastard Zeref decided that would be a great thing to do, I don't know why, you should ask him. As for how I got my magic? Well, most of the members of Grimoire Heart came from the Bureau of Magical Development. After we got away from there, master Hades taught us various magics that he had discovered on his travels. God slayer magic comes from lacrima that are imbued in people. Where they are made and what is inside them is not something I know." "So you weren't trained or whatever by some sort of godlike being?" "Unless you count master Hades in this category, no." "Thank you, now rest eternally Zancrow of Grimoire Heart."

Harry watched as the shade of Zancrow faded out of the mortal plain whilst he contemplated the meaning of this latest bit of information. 'It would appear that there are no gods around so that's good. However, I am slightly concerned about these lacrima. I wonder who or what has the means to make them, and how they do so. Well, that's something we can worry about later, I should probably go and find those brats that Makarov talked about. They do seem like a lively bunch don't they?...' He let his thoughts trail of as he used an incendio charm to burn Zancrow's body, it was the closest to an actual funeral he was willing to go for his unfortunate fool of an opponent.

Harry had been tracking Makarov's magical signature for quite some time now, he thought that if he managed to find the 'master' (or whatever title the old man held) then he would find the rest of his 'allies' soon enough, when he arrived at a semi-large clearing in the woods that covered a large part of Tenrou Island. In this clearing he found a group of people fighting against a single man. However, as this man had the same mark as Zancrow had, Harry assumed that this man was a part of Grimoire Heart and therefore an enemy.

Harry contemplated whether or not he should include himself in this fight, but as he was watching one of the fighters used some pretty nifty magic to control one of his 'allies' which meant that he could attack his opponent despite his opponents rather impressive usage of magic to trap all of his opponents. After a few more seconds of readily delivered violence the Grimoire Heart flunky was sent flying.

Seeing as the group was still in battle-mode and not wishing to fight potential allies when low on magic Harry decided to announce his presence before approaching the group. "Hello there, am I correct in assuming you guys to be members of the Fairy Tail guild?" As one the entire group turned to look at him which caused a series of reactions. Most of the group appeared to think he was a potential enemy, which caused them to get into fighting positions, whilst Makarov simply raised an eyebrow at his appearance. However, one member of the group, Bickslow if the cries of his friends were to be believed, fell to his knees as he moaned in pain. "Aaah! What's wrong with your soul!" "Ah, that's a bother..." Apparently this Bickslow used some sort of soul-based magic which worked through his eyes, that kind of magic really didn't mix with his status, time for damage control, no need to play that card yet. "My sincerest apologies Makarov. It appears that your 'brat' or whatever you called them has soul-magic. Unfortunately, due to some pretty annoying artefacts that got fused with me in my youth, I no longer have a normal soul so to speak. I imagine his brain is currently trying to comprehend my human-not-human soul and the fact that it doesn't function normally." "What do you mean 'not function normally'?" "I don't age, well, my body doesn't." 'And neither do I but they don't need to know that ... yet ... I think'.

The entire group looked stunned by this revelation, though Makarov had managed to convey his status of 'ally' to the others so at least the hostility was no longer present. A teenage girl with white hair seemed to gather herself and asked "Exactly how old are you? You look 17 just like me." "Well, my body got frozen at that age but that was quite some time ago. Unfortunately I don't exactly remember much of what happened in my recent history, amnesia or something I assume, but the last birthday I can remember was my 139th one."

End of Chapter 3: A Dead Man Tells His Tale...

Author's note:

I really would have liked to upload this chapter way earlier than this but I am really bad at writing interactions between characters that I do not fully control, which means that writing dialogue for this story is though. If I have characters that I can completely mould as I see fit, I can actually write some pretty decent stuff but I do not want to make the characters in this story too different compared to their respective canon.

Rules/Notes/Etc.:

- Harry Potter really doesn't like people who think they are (like) a god.

- Earthland has no gods, Celestial Spirits and the 18 gods of battle are magical creatures that are simply a bit fucking powerful.

- The whole Natsu eating Zancrow's flames thing doesn't happen. Removed it because in the rest of canon Fairy Tail this has no impact (that I know of).

- Harry's scar is sensitive to life and death related things (death magic etc.)

- Using the Resurrection Stone requires a lot of power

- I made the Bureau of Magical Development as the origin of the members of Grimoire Heart that I do not know/cannot find the specific origin of. This way they have some sort of root which allows me to develop their characters if I ever want to.

- "talking" 'thinking' foreign language (parseltongue/Dutch/whatever)

- I don't know whether or not Makarov was actually present during the fight with Rustyrose but for the sake of convenience I've added him.

- I decided to make Bickslow's kind of magic have an adverse reaction to Harry's existence just because I felt like soul-magic and MoD didn't mix.