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Harry Potter and the Breath of Life
"I have often wondered whether or not the dead are subject to the Weave. While alive, I have come to the conclusion that every action is more or less dictated by this universal construct of Fate and it even dictates when and by what, one dies. Then what about ghosts? Echoes of a soul, trapped on the mortal Realm because of some "unfulfilled" task, is that even possible? It indicates that the Weave can be thwarted, however temporarily, by an untimely death but then what happens afterwards? Are they fragments of a whole, the rest gone off to where ever the dead go? Do they have a Fate of their own? Are they lingering in punishment? No matter how many times I ask, the Greater Being in charge of the living, Life, has refused to reveal the truth but I did manage to gain this little piece of insight: They owe a Debt. But what does that mean!" -Notes penned by Orion Nigellus Black
Thana had next to no idea how Always was going to 'fix' her but only realized that it might have been better to be more specific after she woke up with a headache the size of her Realm. You always have perfect vision in hindsight, eh?
"Bastard," Thana mumbled under her breath as she squeezed her eyes shut tight, trying to make the universe stop spinning. "I'm going to be sick..."
"Please don't."
Thana cracked open an eye at the sound of her own voice but after a moment, she opened the other eye too. She was sitting on the floor, still holding her splitting head, in a place that looked just like her Void but without the familiar feeling of Death. It was almost as if Always had stripped all of the stars and galaxies out of the ever present view of Everything while she was out, leaving just a solid darkness that stretched out forever in all directions. The mysterious Realm wasn't the problem though, who cared what it looked like? It was more the fact that she wasn't alone.
But rather there with herselves.
Standing there in front of her with a straight-backed regal stance was a thinner version of her, close to being a skeleton in skin with white hair and the gold eyes of Death glinting coldly. To the right was a black haired Thana with the same gold eyes and a more openly arrogant posture, hand on her left hip in an 'I dare you' gesture. The last one on the left was curled into herself, black hair hiding a lot of her face and wide pure white eyes gazing out shyly, glimmering with unshed tears.
Suspending her disbelief for a moment, she pointed at the white-haired one. "What the fuck is going on?"
Thana's Death persona had a slightly confused expression before curling her lip in obvious disgust. "I see we have picked up more than a bleeding heart from the mortals," she drawled disdainfully. "How much farther do we have before we Remember everything?"
Arrogant Thana tossed her hair behind a shoulder and a familiar smirk faded into sight on her face. "A month, I'll give us a month. Pretty pathetic, isn't it?"
For a minute, there was complete silence as the three stared at Thana expectantly. She, in turn, shifted around on the ground uncomfortably but managed to keep a cool facade as she raised an eyebrow. "What? I'm not going to cry over it, what's done is done."
"Harry's worth it..." the third version murmured quietly, shrinking away as two pairs of gold and one of pale blue eyes turned to her. "Well, he is!"
The white-haired Thana had a "shoot me now" look on her face as she sighed. "Spare us all the agony. If I've told you once, I've told you ten thousand times to keep quiet."
"N-no! That's what got us like this in the first place!" Thana's headache was not fading but instead getting larger as the three alternate Thana's began to bicker back and forth about something or other. Of course, she placed the blame solely at Always' metaphorical feet, it certainly had the power to fix...whatever this was without the fanfaire. But noooo...was she really that unlikeable?
"SHUT UP!" Cue blinking from herselves as she rubbed at her temples. "What. Is. Going. On?"
Whitey stepped up first. "I am the Incarnate that existed before we ever got interested in a mortal, we were everything that mattered."
Arrogant then with a lazy shrug. "I'm the mask you created for the boy become real, human enough for him to get attached but immortal enough to remember our place."
And finally: "Our sense of inadequacy, our guilt and our sorrow. I are the result of Remembering what it is like to be mortal."
Thana's face twisted with a slightly scewed sense of concern. Always had thrown her into her mindscape to confront her multiple personalities. It was hard to believe she actually had different personalities...So she had more than just Death speaking in her head... "Fuck," seemed like a good way to describe this.
She looked up at her alternate selves and discovered two things: She had no idea how to get out of her mindscape as well as no clue where to begin 'fixing' herself. Apparently Always thought it a 'do-it-yourself' type of job.
"Fuck," described those realizations pretty well too.
"Nott?"
Most of Pomfrey's beds in the Hospital Wing were occupied and for once it wasn't because of Slytherin/Hufflepuff Quidditch matches. The medi-witch looked about ready to tear her hair out as she bustled about, trying new potions, writing up reports to St. Mungos and generally being very, very busy. No one suffered from major illnesses, not even the wizarding flu, but it didn't make that much of a difference.
No one was getting better.
Theodore Nott was the most extreme case. He had three parchment cuts on his hands, two on his palms and one on the side of his right pinky finger. The first two were of no real concern, they were really shallow and could be bandaged tightly enough to stop the leak. The pinky finger, though, held an artery and with the cut as deep as it was, Nott was slowly bleeding to death.
"Nott?" Harry tried again, seated at the edge of the cot. His Slytherin bunkmate was even paler than he usually was, enough to show the veins under his skin and completely out of it. It had seemed like just yesterday when Harry had dismissed his concern about non-healing cuts and now he knew that this was definitely his fault.
No, he was not quite to blame fully...
He was going to rip Pal a new one if he ever found her.
"I'm sorry, Nott." Harry said simply, as if he was discussing the weather, well aware that people might be listening in. "You really might die before I fix this," he continued in the same tone. The boy didn't know what he was expecting, but when the sick Slytherin didn't respond at all, he felt a small sense of disappointment. And then anger.
--This is what happens-- his sporadic whisper commented. --This is what happens when Life rejects a location--
Cuts don't heal?
--Growth and healing is Life's jurisdiction. No one will grow older but you. No one gets healthy once sick, no cuts heal and unless Death is powering them, no magical creature will survive for very long either--
Harry's head jerked up at the last bit, suddenly realizing why Dumbledore looked like the sky was falling down around his ears. Just about everyone knew about the man's familiar. Fawkes!
--Yep, phoenixes are Life through and through. Not surprising, really--
Harry tilted his head to the right, face scrunching up in his "thinking face." I'll grow because Life doesn't have a hold on me?
--Yeah...-- a more uncomfortable sounding whisper drawled. --It's a mind over matter issue with us--
Huh?
"Mr. Potter, you are still here!" The immortal boy flinched at Pomfrey's cross tone. After sneaking out of the Hospital Wing after that Astronomy Tower incident, she didn't seem to be so inclined to like him anymore. He was unsure whether it was her paranoia at diagnosing his cracked vertebrae or the fact that he slipped out from virtually right under her nose. He just scratched the back of his neck, flushing.
"Yeah, I'm still here..."
The medi-witch was glaring at him, a hair's breadth away from throwing him out when paniced voices fillid the Wing.
"Madam Pomfrey, Ernie fell down the stairs!" Cursing, she threw Harry one last dark look, but hurried off to deal with yet another patient. He just turned to Nott's unmoving form and took notice of the blood replenishing potion that was being dripped into his mouth by a tube. Harry made an irritated noise in his throat.
"I can probably fix this," he deadpanned and Nott twitched. "But I have no ruddy clue how."
And that's when it hit him.
Since Harry had taken to slinging the Rose across his back (it had been making funny shapes in his robe when he sat down) it had just hung there, mostly weightless and if he didn't have to take it off just to sleep every night, he would have forgotten about it completely. But now, now he was almost uncomfortably aware of it. The handle was just over his right shoulder, right in reach to draw it...
Harry licked his lips, green eyes shifting around the room for witnesses. Nott will die if I don't... There was a reassuring pulse from the Rose, as if someone right behind him had squeezed his shoulder affectionately.
--...harry!...-- The cry was so faint, Harry wasn't even sure he actually heard it. It almost sounded like it was scared of something. There was another pulse and the boy relaxed. Probably nothing to worry about. He was positive that the sword could save Nott, save everyone...his thinking was getting a little fuzzy as the pulses got stronger and more frequent but he knew he wanted to play hero just this once. No harm done, right? His right hand twitched upwards.
--...harry, please...listen!--
The Rose can save anybody, from anything! He argued in his mind, no longer sure of who he was supposed to be talking to. His hand rose higher. From anything...
"Draw me, Harry." Someone breathed into his right ear but when he turned his head to look, there was no one there. "Use me, we'll save the boy and everyone else." Harry nodded dumbly but didn't make anymore moves. "Don't you want everything to go back to normal?"
Normal...And his mind made the association with a less than pleasant memory. You freak! His breath hitched and green eyes narrowed as a single thought made it through the haze. "Now why...should I listen to you?" This time the pulse felt like a blast of frigid air. "Should have quit while you were ahead and let me think it was my idea, it's the Slytherin thing to do." Harry stood up, jamming his hand into his pant pocket to prevent it from getting any funny ideas and gave the pale boy on the bed an apologetic glance.
"Sorry Nott. I'm not a Gryffindor."
The Slytherin Potter and turned away and then stopped dead because the Head of his House was currently blocking the exit.
Snape was sweeping his eyes over both Harry and Nott, for a moment looking like he was seeing some kind of nightmare come to life before his face settled back into that usual "I taste vomit in my mouth" scowl he always had on when Harry was within ten meters of him. "No, Potter," the man literally spat onto the floor. "A Gryffindor you are not." The potions master shifted his body in a way that opened up at least half of the doorway but when Harry tried to pass, his arm was roughly grabbed. "And talking to yourself, Potter?" Snape drawled. "You have some explaining to do."
Harry nodded woodenly, already making the decision to lie through his teeth. He'd spill whatever they wanted to hear about Pal, but he was definitely leaving Thana out of it.
They'd find out about her over his dead body.
And just like that, a disturbingly happy smile spread across the boy's face.
Which is never.
--We worry me sometimes, glad to have you back--
Stop switching your bloody tenses. Harry yanked his arm free and made a sweeping gesture with the same arm. "Shall we?"
Empathy had been waiting with Truth when Thana emerged from the gateway to Always' throne, white haired but still holding her infamous pale blue eyes somehow and looking far more thoughtful than either of them had ever seen her.
"You're calmer," Yin noted through Empathy with some approval lacing her voice. "Less...turbulent."
Thana simply blinked in her direction. "Harry called me bipolar once or twice, you know. Little shit was right." Truth snorted loudly at the young immortal being called a "little shit", scratching his cheek absently as he inclined his head.
"Since Always is hiding it...what did you have to do?" he asked politely, unsure of exactly how to act around a "fixed" Death Incarnate.
Those pale blue eyes stared so intently at him that he actually felt it, shifting around like some mortal about to be punished for a petty crime. "Stop fighting," was all she would say and his attempts to peek into her mind met with a glaring example of evidence that this was still Thanatos they were talking about. She hadn't reverted back into Death personified with her previous swearing, which he was happy to see, but it was still painful.
"The Universe doesn't fart, Death," he said dully as Empathy twitched.
"I would have thought a decade enough to get that out of her system." Yin replied as Thana put on an offended face.
"Well, something stinks in there and it was strong enough to knock the Void out..." she trailed off with a teasing grin and Truth realized that he had been had. "You know I don't like you reading my miiiiind," she sang and then slowly, rather than the abruptness of before, she sobered into a mildly content expression. "I'll miss being everthing that mattered."
Both Truth and Empathy nodded but only Truth offered, "The boy will make it up to you."
"Hmmm," she hummed. "He had better."
I have no idea why this took so long to get out...it's not anything impressive anyway! At first I was worried that I was losing interest but no, it was just my stomach acting up. Whoever recommended green tea, it tastes like shit but it helped! You are indirectly responsible for the series continuing...isn't that pathetic of me?
Anyway, Harry's showing some possessivness, the Rose has awoken and the Hogwarts situation has gotten a bit worse...expect it to decline even further. Good news, step number one towards Harry/Thana has been completed, now if only I told you what exactly that step was. I think it's obvious but then again, I'm the author which annoys me to no end.
