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Infinity: Rise of an Empire

Chapter Two

Facing death was nothing new for Harry Potter. Before he had even turned eighteen, he had already experienced a lifetime of near-death experiences. Death had been around him as far back as when he was a mere baby, when Voldemort killed his parents and first tried and failed to kill him.

Later on, there was the weekly abuse from his uncle when he had been living with those wretched relatives of his. Those times had him feeling like he was often on the verge of death, especially on nights when his uncle had drunk too much. Then there were the brushes with death while he was at Hogwarts as time and time again Voldemort and his followers tried to kill him.

All the while, people around him continued to die. But Harry never did, always somehow escaping death's touch even as it hovered around him all his life.

Finally, during the final battle with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, he had even gone through what could best be described as a half-death. Some might have called it limbo, others purgatory, but what mattered was that he did, for a time, appear in a mysterious place that appeared to be halfway between life and death.

Maybe it had all happened in his head. Or maybe it was real. Maybe, if not his body, at least his soul had been transported there at a time when he should have died. He had no way of knowing for sure.

Having been there before, however, Harry recognized that he was back there again. The place even felt the same, strangely enough. But instead of the train station that had greeted him before, now there was simply nothingness. An empty, utterly silent void greeted him.

Except instead of darkness where a void typically existed, there was instead a dim, omnipresent light that seemed to come from everywhere. There were no shadows here, only a plain white nothingness that had him feeling a sudden sense of extreme vertigo.

He closed his eyes to center himself and keep his mind from spinning. When he finally felt like he could open his eyes again, he first started by looking down at his own body. Something to look at that would keep him anchored. Strangely, he was dressed in an all-black suit, with only his pale hands and feet bare to this otherworldly place. He also noticed that it looked like he was floating.

Because of the way the space was illuminated, it looked like there was no floor. He took one step forward. Yep. He was definitely stepping on a surface that he could not see. He decided it was better not to think on it too much lest he end up going mad trying to figure it out. There were more important things to worry about, such as what he was going to do now.

As he turned his head back up, he immediately jumped backwards in shock.

"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed. His peripheral vision was, as far as he knew, working well. Yet he somehow failed to notice that someone had appeared about twenty paces in front of him.

Instead of Dumbledore, who had been here the first time he had visited this strange place, now there was a young woman standing before him. She wore a simple yet elegant long evening gown of darkest black, showing some skin but very tasteful. Long, silky black hair fell in waves down her bare shoulders. Her hands were clasped together in front of her waist, with her slender arms slightly flared out.

Her smooth skin was even paler than Harry's, and there was a glow about her that reminded him of the moon. Of something ethereal. Her makeup was somewhat reminiscent of a goth girl, yet in a more… refined and dignified manner.

Overall, she looked very much doll-like, with features seemingly too perfect and too pristine to be real. Yet she was clearly in front of him and very much alive, given how she was blinking and standing there, staring back at him. Well, perhaps alive was not exactly the best term to describe her, considering where they were. But she was at least present and moving. She existed.

Objectively, having a beautiful young woman meet him here instead of Dumbledore should have been considered a significant upgrade, but Harry wasn't so sure that was a good thing. Where was that old coot anyway? He glanced around as if the departed headmaster might suddenly appear too.

After what seemed an inordinate amount of awkward silence, Harry swallowed hard and decided to finally break the silence first.

"Hello?" he said warily.

The young woman cocked her head to the side but said nothing. He wasn't sure if she understood him, or if she was perhaps considering how to respond. Whatever the case, her eyes never left his. She stared at him with unrestrained interest—not in a sexual way, but in a highly inquisitive way. Like she wanted to understand everything about him because he was something new and unknown to her.

Harry found it increasingly unsettling. It also felt like in the desire to understand him in his entirety, she could very well cut him open and see how he worked from within. He placed a hand on his abdomen, already partially imagining a scene straight out of a horror film. He shook his head to clear those thoughts away. Now was not the time for that.

"My name is Harry Potter," he said, hoping she might take the hint and introduce herself as well.

Still nothing. Wait, no. There was something. She smiled. It was slight at first, and he almost missed it, but looking closer her lips had definitely moved. She was definitely smiling. A small smile, but a smile nonetheless. That meant she understood him, right? But given her lack of a verbal response, Harry wondered if she might be mute. That certainly complicated things.

"Can you talk?" he asked.

She took a step towards him. Then another. He took a step back as she slowly closed the distance between them. She seemed to almost glide across the space, though the movement of her body and her dress indicated that she was indeed walking.

She did not appear to have any weapons, nor did she look like she was going to harm him, but he could never be too sure. Besides, he knew nothing about this girl other than that she existed in this space. For all he knew, she could have destroyed Dumbledore's spirit here and everything else in this realm, which was why it was all so empty around him.

That line of thinking certainly didn't help.

"I don't suppose you could help me get out of here?" he said, trying to remain calm.

She was only a few steps away now. What reason did she have to get so close?

"Stop!" Harry held up a hand in a last-ditch effort to get her to back off.

Surprisingly, the woman complied and stopped midstride before standing straight, hands still poised primly in front of her. She certainly would not look out of place in a fancy ball filled with members of royalty and nobility.

Harry let out a sigh of relief. The errant thought of why he was even breathing in a place like this ran through his mind before he quickly pushed it aside. Before he could say anything else, the woman gracefully stretched out her arm, pointing a finger straight at him. Or perhaps, something behind him?

To be sure, he quickly turned at the waist to look behind him. As before, there was nothing except the vast expanse of dull white that stretched infinitely onwards. When he turned back, he was immediately frightened as the woman was suddenly so close to him that their noses were almost touching.

"Whoa!" Harry's body reacted instinctively, and he tried to jump away while at the same time swinging an arm around to smack in the face whoever it was that had invaded his personal space.

However, his hand was caught quite easily and stopped and held in place so firmly he couldn't even free himself to get away. The woman had frightening strength, far more than she ought to. She did not seem to care that he had tried to hit her, nor did she seem bothered by their dangerously close proximity to each other.

He realized he had instinctively called upon his wand and his magic, but neither seemed to work in this place. In fact, his wand was nowhere to be found. He realized how defenseless he was and wished he had learned some kind of martial art to help him in such a situation. Yet another addition to the list of skills and knowledge he wished he could have learned in the last few years.

With one hand firmly secured on his arm, the woman reached out to his face with her other hand.

He could not for the life of him comprehend what was going on. "What are you—"

Her fingers caressed his cheek softly. They were surprisingly cold. Worryingly so, in fact. Were they not here, he would have thought her to be dead. His skin tingled where she was touching him, feeling like there was electricity running between them.

Then, without warning, there was a massive jolt of energy from her, and his mind felt a presence carefully worm its way through his mediocre mental defenses. So much for all that occlumency practice. He tried desperately to fend her off, but she was so far beyond his skill he might as well have been fighting a fighter plane with a bow and arrow.

It only took him a moment to realize what she was doing. She wasn't attacking him. She was communicating with him. Within seconds, he learned who she was and why she was here. There was other information she was trying to convey, but it was all too much for him. Even her mere presence in his mind was beyond his ability to fully comprehend.

"You're… Death…" he managed to whisper, unable to believe it even as he said it. Thought it. Felt it.

He was literally staring death straight in the face.

And then she kissed him, and he could have sworn there was an explosion of energy surging through him from the kiss before the world immediately went dark.

-=H=-

Not for the first time in his life, Harry jolted awake and abruptly sat upright with a sharp intake air. He proceeded to take in big gulps of air as if he had been holding his breath for too long. His airways and lungs burned like they hadn't been used in a while, and he started to cough.

After the coughing fit subsided, feeling somewhat sluggish and very confused, he realized he was on a hard, cold stone floor. He took stock of his surroundings. A large hall with a raised platform on the far end. Several bodies littered the stairway that led up to the platform. He suddenly remembered everything that had happened, and he frowned.

He should have been dead. Patting himself down and running his hands over his arms, he physically checked himself. Nothing hurt. He had no injuries save for the burning sensation that continued to irritate his lungs and nasal passages having dried out while he was dead, but that was slowly subsiding.

Why was he alive? The memory of what had happened in the realm between life and death had him reach up to touch his fingers to his lips. Death must have had something to do with it. There was no doubt about that. But why had she brought him back to life?

And how had he gotten back here in the main hall? That answer came after a little bit of thinking. The Jade Dragons had most likely retrieved his body for some reason. Perhaps they were checking to make sure he was really dead, or maybe…

He quickly checked his things and, to his relief, found almost everything still there. Surprisingly, they had not looted his body. How strange. While he only carried around a few things, some of them were quite valuable. And he would not have really blamed them for taking his stuff since he was dead.

The only thing missing from his possessions was his Phoenix Feather wand, which was likely lost somewhere in the rubble in that caved-in back hallway. Thankfully, he had the Elder Wand tucked away in a hidden wand holster in case of emergencies such as this. With a flick of his right wrist, the wand shot out from somewhere beneath his sleeve and appeared in his hand.

Harry had not used it in a long time. Had not needed to, thankfully. While the Elder Wand allowed him to cast more powerful spells than his normal Phoenix Feather wand, it also presented a risk in the event that he somehow lost, resulting in the Elder Wand changing owners to whatever opponent he lost to.

For that reason alone, he had been tempted to leave the blasted thing in his Gringotts vault until he was confident that he was skilled and powerful enough to wield it regularly.

But in the end, given the nature of his quest, he also figured he needed a good backup wand, and he did feel a lot safer having it on him. Sure, he probably could have gotten a secondary wand from Ollivander's—which would have required him to register it with the Ministry—or from the black market, but who knew how long it would take for him to find a proper one.

Raising the Elder Wand over himself, Harry ran a few diagnostic spells he had learned over the past two years to check his physical state. Everything really did appear to be in order. No damages. No injuries. No ailments. In fact, the diagnostics said he was in perfect health. That couldn't be right though.

He very much remembered the feeling of his bones snapping and his body being crushed in an overwhelming amount of pain before darkness took him. Thinking back on it made him shiver involuntarily, and he realized he had been tensing his body and holding his breath while the memory played in his mind. Gasping for air again, he took a few deep breaths and practiced his occlumency to calm his mind.

Right when he was finally calm and collected, he heard the sound of someone stirring directly behind him, and immediately froze, wand gripped firmly in his hand. Whoever it was had somehow been in his blind spot even as he had quickly taken a look around earlier. Harry imagined Moody having a fit at his lack of vigilance and thought he could even hear the man raving at him in the back of his mind.

"Mmmm…"

Slowly, Harry turned enough for him to take a look at whoever else was here with him. Perhaps one of the Jade Dragons had stayed behind for some reason. When he finally caught sight of who it was, his jaw dropped, eyes going wide as his mind effectively stalled for a few seconds. It was probably one of the last people—things?—he expected to see.

Lying on her side, completely naked with her long dark hair all messy over herself, was none other than the woman who had kissed him only moments ago. Not only had Harry inexplicably returned to life, but somehow, Death had come back with him.

AN: This is probably one of the shortest chapters I'll have for the story. You can expect each update to be at least 2.5k words, but on average it'll be closer to 5k per chapter. That being said, we've got a long way to go. If you're following my other stories, they'll all be updated this week. Yes, I do mean all of them. Thanks for reading!