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Harry Potter and the Breath of Life

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies ... and make our lives hell. The last part is not officially part of my True Prophecy, but it may as well be." - The Weaver


Thanatos watched in wary amusement as Harry watched his cut hands heal, the flesh knitting together right before his very eyes. "How do you do that, anyway?" He asked absently, flexing his fingers as the last of the self inflicted wounds closed up. "I wondered, but never thought to ask..."

She shrugged lazily and watched the boy push himself off the stone floor and stretch. She knew what he was doing, of course. He hadn't forgiven her; Harry wasn't the type to forgive easily. But he was ignoring it. Pretending, for now, that nothing was wrong. For now. "I suppress Death for while, freeing up Life to do the work," she told him matter-of-factly and then moved on to another subject. "You shouldn't have to worry about the challenge anymore." This tidbit was tentatively offered, unsure how he would take it and in spite of herself, she was erring on the side of caution. Harry had gone from a tool, to a possible friend to a ticking time bomb in her eyes.

Much to her annoyance.

"Pal said all year," he pointed out.

"Just leave the Rose down here. Problem solved."

Harry blinked, taken aback for a moment. Then he looked between her, the Rose and a catatonic Pal incredulously before slapping his forehead. "Now why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you're an idiot?" Thana said brightly and kept the smile on her face even as Harry's was wiped of all emotion as he stared at her.

"Yeah, a right fool," he bit out; his green eyes flashing. "Silly me."

It hurt, in an oddly clarifying way. He had every right - and it wasn't as if he could brush the issue of his parents off as easily as her other offenses; if she even allowed herself to hope that he might (which she didn't, but it would be nice...) then it would become obvious that she didn't know the boy at all. But she did and that meant she would have to watch her back when he got older. It was like a veil had been lifted off her eyes as Harry sneered, standing up stiffly with wounded pride.

"I'm Waiting for that blond friend of yours." The boy's eyes went wide with guilt and in seconds, he was dashing towards the Chamber entrance. She heard him hissing but didn't think much of it, preferring to brood.

She wasn't in control. Harry had a power over her she didn't fully understand and the wrong words spoken, a poorly timed question, a stray spell, anything at all and the boy would realize that she never had intended to give a damn about him at all. Which would be devastating to more than just her plans and for the first time, she was angry at herself for ever thinking she could pull it off in the first place.

She had given Harry her weakness, exactly as she had said. But what she had not said was that she meant it literally. The boy had her weakness and her weakness was her vulnerability to the unwritten rules of the universe. The universe deemed that she had the ability to kill other Incarnates but it had not ordained that she should and doing so meant punishment. But as long as he had on that bracelet, she could fully open the link between them and let him take the consequences of her actions. Up to and conceivably including oblivion.

She blew out a breath. "Fucking hell..."

"Are you going to kill me?" a small whisper interrupted her thoughts from Palquenta; a shivering ball of white as she coughed lightly. "It will never be as it was, never," she murmured brokenly. "He's gone and it will never be alright, never, forever...are you going to kill me?" She repeated. "Please do."

"Giving up already," Thana said blandly, not quite caring about how telling it was for Life Incarnate to have a death wish but some what glad that Harry was out of earshot. "Have a Chosen yet? You are third, you know," she waved a flippant hand. "After War and obviously, I haven't killed him..."

She wasn't quite sure what Pal would take from the tiny reveal of her future plans, but by her aggravated sigh, she had apparently figured out that no, Thana was not going to kill her right now. "Of course. Never one to do what I want, are you?"

"I don't do what anyone wants. Haven't you learned?"

"Except," Pal started a bit cruelly. "The boy."

"I'm not doing a good job of that either. Anyone not deaf and blind could figure that out," she shot back without any heat to her words. What was the point? I fucked up. Not point in crying about it. She let her face settle into a blank mask: disinterested and unconcerned. "You should probably restore Life."

Pal's form stilled and then began to shudder with chuckles as she slowly uncurled. "How casually cruel!" Pal screamed with an edge of hysteria, before she withdrew and smiled widely. Thana felt her eyes narrow. "I can not."

"What do you mean, 'you can not'!?"

Pal sniffed haughtily and patted her robes absentmindedly. "It took a great deal of work rejecting this school in the first place. Until the ninth of August once more at the very least, if not until the next full moon on August ninth, I can not accept Hogwarts once more." The blonde Incarnate smiled bitterly, showing the white of her teeth for a moment. "There is something of a disagreement between me and Life, you see and unlike you, I have no raw power to fall back on."

"You can try on the twelth month, can't you?" Thana could almost ignore the pleading tone in her voice. Death doesn't beg. "Or fake it, or something?"

Pal was giving her such a cold, unmoving look that it seemed hopeless. She could see it in her mind's eye - being forced to simply Wait for everyone and having them notice that as one by one they grew sick, or injured themselves that no one was dying. Hundreds of people being effectively immortal for months; the others would undoubtedly notice, and Always forbid if the Weaver thought to get involved like she did last time...

Pal stood up, forcing Thana to refocus. "I still hate you," she snipped moodily and Thana frowned. And that means...what...to me? And Pal then bent to pick up the Rose and with a swift movement, unsheathed it and drove it blade first into the ground. A conduit, the dark haired woman realized immediately and felt a slight tremor shake the ground as Hogwarts' wards proceeded to start greedily draining the Artifact. Palquenta nodded once, sharply, as her stance became unstable. "As you requested, I'm faking it."

"Thank you." It was heartfelt, and Pal could only blink owlishly in disbelief ("You meant that") before vanishing.

She had meant it. Because of what it would inevitably mean to Harry.

Thana laughed harshly, more of a disdainful bark than a sound of joy. "Always...I'm pathetic."

Death had finally ceased lying to herself.


Even while missing a few limbs and several pints of blood, Draco got heavy rather quickly. Harry was reasonably sure that he could always just drop the boy on the ground and drag him but since it was his fault, carrying him was almost like a self inflicted punishment. The burning pain of his muscles struggling made him feel a little less guilty about being so caught up in everything, about forgetting him and all the others like Nott...

A suspicious burning tingle was making itself known in his eyes and as the monotonous grey of the corridor began to blur, Harry could only reason that a speck of dust must have gotten in behind his lenses. Nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about...

There was a sarcastic grunt in his head. --Don't worry, at least I believe you --

The boy scowled mightily but said nothing in response. Instead, hobbling along and feeling a warm, stickiness seeping through his robes with an ebb and flow reminiscent of a heart beat. Draco might not die while Thana was Waiting, but there was nothing keeping him from bleeding out all the blood he had. What happened, when she waited? Did the tissue still die but the brain still live? Was it only referring to an attached soul? Could you be an immortal vegetable, braindead? A zombie?

Did he even want to find out?

Harry continued to bustle along, straining to remember each turn that led to the Hospital Wing. Was it right or left here? He paused, turning his head back and forth to peer down both halls. He thought left...but as soon as he stepped in that direction he stopped, bit his lip and turned around to gaze sadly at a near identical corridor. Or was it to the right...? He could almost scream in frustration: the worst possible time to start second guessing himself and what was he doing? Bloody fucking second guessing himself. He turned this way and that, cursing the Founders for their horrid architecture. Right or left?

Malfoy stirred ever so slighty. "P-potter..." he whispered with great effort, labored breathing was yet another sign or how badly the boy was doing.

"I'm going to get you to Pomfrey, so just hold on," he said quickly. Left, he began to walk again but a little faster this time. It had to be left. "Okay?"

"Hate....you...."

Harry almost smiled. "Good on you." The corner up ahead was looking familiar, which the Slytherin took to be a good sign. Speeding up, he hit it full force, shifting his center of balance so Draco didn't spill out onto the floor, rounding the sharp curve of the wall and-

Opening his eyes to a blank, slightly off-white ceiling.

--What happened?--

I have no idea.

Harry sat up. The ceiling stretched on to meet equally white washed walls, familiar because he had been here before. The Hospital Wing. But - and Harry looked around, taking in the full beds but the utter lack of a busy medi-witch - how did he get here? Time was missing, and he couldn't remember anything like a flash of a spell, a feeling of magic, or even pain of being bludgeoned over the head that would have at least given him some kind of clue. But there was absolutely nothing. One moment, he was walking down a hallway and the next he was here.

At least, he could see Malfoy's blond head about two beds down.

Mission accomplished.

Somehow.

He swung his legs out from underneath the sheets and discovered his shoes just underneath the lip of the bed's edge. He stuffed his feet into them, looked around while half expecting the missing Pomfrey to burst out of hiding and then darted out the door thinking sneaky thoughts.

He exited the Hospital Wing onto the seventh floor.

"Roight," Harry muttered, casting his gaze up and down the corridor and feeling incredibly vulnerable without a wand. "Like this isn't the least bit creepy." The castle was as quiet as it had ever been. No ghosts, no Peeves, no students, no teachers...He swallowed past a lump in his throat. "I just need to find the stairs."

After approximately fifteen minutes, he didn't find stairs but he did find an open door.

It was just like the other doors in Hogwarts, made of a thick and sturdy wood with metal hinges that might have seen a faint dusting of rust. A little ways off the floor to allow for air flow and a keyed lock. However, this door had quite suddenly appeared in the wall and it actually led somewhere. The castle was rife with vanishing doors. Vanishing rooms was a little more rare.

Harry tried walking past it but he ended up walking all the way down to the very end of the corridor, turn a corner and find him right back at the other end of the hall. First, he was being shuffled around and now something wasn't letting him leave; it was a blatant attempt to get Harry to do something that he probably, in hind sight, would decide that he didn't really want to do.

His eyebrows furrowed. Can I just shut the door?

--Can we?--

He eyed it, sticking straight out from the stone wall like a rigid sail. Probably won't do any good... And so he approached it carefully with more than a little hint of reluctance and edged around the door frame.

Black mist greeted him, shifting in the room like the sea tides and to the back, a mirror.

"Desire welcomes you, Harry Potter." He caught a glimpse of a poisonous yellow eye and dark red hair as a feeling washed over him. Something primal nudged him into the room, something that made him want- it was uncomfortable, like his pants had suddenly become three sizes too small and his robes were suffocating him. He was getting warm, but shivering and it was-

"Stop that!" he snapped and the emotion washed away. The outline of a woman wearing a flowing shirt that had been cut away from just below the hollow of her neck to curve diagonally across and down to above her left hip, a bare arm of the darkest skin tone Harry had ever seen that was covered in scrawling pink scars, a thoughtful frown...

"So you can feel it," she drawled and the mist rushed to conceal her again. "Interesting."

Harry gave a wordless snarl. --Who is this?--

--Desire--

What does she want?

--How am I supposed to know?-- the whisper spat back. --Desire is more of an bleeding enigma than even Mystery-- It was exactly the kind of revelation Harry did not want to hear.

The boy slapped a hand to his forehead. "What do you want?"

A chuckle. "Must I beg after a price? Can I not wish to help you free of any charge?" The mist was thinning again, the lazy shifting of the black vapor was almost relaxing, lulling him into a strange sense of security. It just felt too peaceful to be a prelude to violence.

Harry considered her questions for about half a second. "Altruism is beyond you people."

"That statement is telling." He felt something brush against his cheek and he unconsciously leaned away from the touch. "After all, in a few years time you would be one of us."

Her words sent a tiny spark of panic through him, having not forgotten Eternity's claim that he was meant to be replaced. "Explain."

The mist parted to create a path straight to the back of the room where the mirror stood. There was no answer. It was rather obvious what he was now being pushed to do and for a moment, Harry thought about simply walking back out of the room. He didn't need to deal with this shit but the aforementioned "shit" probably would not leave him alone. It was as if the universe was out to get him sometimes.

He started walking deeper into the room and Desire's voice began to sound from all around him.

From the right: "The universe seeks balance. All Incarnates are hosts to a universal force, that is the way of things."

To the left: "From the moment of its creation, it was an extra that should not exist. This was swiftly remedied."

Coming up from behind: "A weak will or a broken mind would have seen the building blocks of your very personality replaced by Eternity Incarnate as dominant. This was her intention."

From the mirror before him: "For the moment, this destiny has been thwarted and something far more pressing lurks on the horizon."

Harry's eyes swept the top of the mirror and the familiar backwards lettering. He gazed into the dark, smoky glass and to his mild disappointment, once again saw nothing but darkness. "You mean, Voldemort." Glowing, yellow letters began to form in the glass as if they were floating up from the depths of a deep pool to form the words: I am Lord Voldemort. And then rearranged themselves. "Riddle!" Harry spat, surprised and angry at once. "That was the name on that diary, wasn't it?"

"They are waiting for you," was all she said in answer.

"They?"

There was another light touch on his face. "Plague would never accept a tortured wraith, or a powerless apparition to be her Chosen. He needs a body, will you go confront them?"

A shudder rippled through his body, remembering what it had felt the last time they came into close quarters with Voldemort. "No..."

Desire's voice was decisive. "Then they will confront you."

"Why me? The truth," he added before she gave him some bogus answer like "Why not you?" There was silence as the moving mists stilled with tension. "Tell me!"

--Be careful in pushing her...--

Harry ignored the warning. "Shame? Petty revenge after having his ass kicked twice? Is that it?"

"A..." she paused and Harry made a show of turning around as if to exit, stopping only at Desire's soft cry. "A prophecy!"

And something, a memory, filtered into Harry's mind. Of a voice, of an older male voice telling him something about a Born...about a thread...Fate...and then even further back into first year... - Why me?

Because he's a coward...you remind him that he cannot change the Weave...

"What does it say?" Was the obvious question but he was disappointed.

"I can not say."

"Will not or can not?"

"I can not say," she repeated and Harry bit his lip, thinking over anything he might have missed.

"Bugger." And something occured to him. "Why does Voldemort need a body?" Shouldn't he have one already...? Sure, it was pretty creepy that he had been hiding out in Quirrell's head but he had just brushed it off as a regular possession, like how Harry had done it to Draco. An act of necessity, or something similiar, as a way to get back to his own body.

"He split his soul to avoid Death." And quite suddenly, the voice was coming from right beside him as the elusive women bent over to inspect the letters still floating within the distorted reflection. "To kill him you must destroy them but I would strongly advise you to let him live."

"Why!?" he blurted. "All he's going to do is try to kill me and I should just sit still and let him do whatever he bloody feels like?"

Desire turned her head towards him and for a moment, gravity pulled her dark hair away from her face revealing what it hid: A white eye, larger than her other one due to having no eyelids to cover it, with an angry, inflamed streak running through it to match perfectly with the beginnings of a mottled scar that continued down from the eye socket, over her collarbone and further until it disappeared underneath her shirt. The contrast between the left side of her face and her flawless right was jarring enough to have Harry shrink back from it.

"Destroying the pieces," she spoke calmly as if she took no notice if the boy's reaction. "Is killing him little by little. Should you or anyone that can be associated with you commit this crime, Plague can spin an ample reason to declare war."

War. A nasty three lettered word that reverbrated through his skull, vibrated his spine and numbed his toes. War with..with gods! "It won't be just against me, will it?" Because that wouldn't turn out very well.

"Plague believes the modern world to be overdue for an armageddon." The way she said it, it was almost like the punch line of seom private joke.

"Fuck!" He ran an aggravated hand through the tuft of hair on his crown and smiled crookedly. "Which side will you be on?"

"My own."

"Of course." He rolled his eyes. "Should have seen that coming and - argh! I don't want this!" He threw his hands up in the air and then slumped to stare into the mirror moodily, willing it to show something, anything, as a distraction. And obediently, the letters cleared and the dark mists within began to lighten. A cute scene fluttered into focus, rippling like a reflection after a pebble was dropped into the waters, of a boy and a girl sitting on a beach of black sand. The boy was him, he could see that immediately. The girl took some struggling with his memory, and even then it wasn't until she turned her head to say something silently did he recognize the pale, blue eyes.

Thana, he knew, in a weird way that he couldn't explain.

Both were periodically pointing upwards, watching clouds or pointing out constellations. The boy in the mirror pointed at one and dropped his hand innocently on top of hers. All activity paused. The girl amused, the boy fearful. A second later she bopped him on the head and corrected his hand so that their fingers intertwined. And then she pointed over his shoulder excitedly and his head snapped towards where she was pointing, an embarrassed smile fading into a content one. Carefree. Happy. No challenges, no ulterior motives, no Voldemort, no Dursleys and even, he realized a bit guiltily, no magic.

He stopped short of touching the mirror surface and pulled back. "My life sucks."

"Be cautious," Desire's throaty voice warned him. "Many have wasted away before my mirrors, pining after what they can not have."

"Just a little longer," he murmured, not looking away. "Five minutes."

And a small seed was planted as Harry stared into the mirror and felt his heart ache, one that was buried deep, planned and powered by the presence of the Desire Well. He was immortal. He could do magic. In spite of all the odds, he survived. A mixture of confidence, vanity, convetousness and a need to be in control for once... No matter what Desire told him, he could have this.

He would make sure of it.


Behind the boy, Adi was watching with a hooded gaze as she counted the conversation. She had not given away anything she hadn't planned to but had learned quite a bit about Thanatos' champion. He was naive, gullible even, to believe everything she said at face value. For the most part, she had not uttered a lie but it was all trivial information. He would find out about Riddle eventually. War was coming, provoked or not, it would arrive.

Having him know now changed nothing.

But the difference between now and later, was that now he owed her. And Adi had every intention of extracting her pound of flesh in payment. She had nothing against the boy, he was tolerable, but sometimes sacrifices had to be made, in order to obtain your desire.