AN: new chapter is up, enjoy!

Chapter 38 - Prophecy (I)

'Please be okay! Please be okay, 'Arry! Please, don't die on me! Please!'

She repeated those words in her mind like a mantra. Even in her semi-berserk state, she could feel his blood flowing from the back of his head onto her arm. Her powerful wings stirred winds as she flew above the forest, gaining more speed with every passing second. Soon, the forest ended and gave way to plains. It was a rather beautiful sight to get a bird's view of the English countryside but Fleur was not in the state of mind to enjoy such things. Flying in a straight line towards London, the only thing in her mind was to get to St Mungo as soon as possible.

'What am I to tell the Healers?' she stressed over in her mind.

The Healers would naturally ask questions about how he got injured to such an extent. From then on, it was only a matter of time before the Aurors discovered them. Worse still, the Healers would undoubtedly discover that he was under the effect of an Ageing Potion and his Transfigured features would be reverted to his original appearance as well.

'It's my fault. I dragged him into this. He warned me that something was wrong but I insisted we go. I put him in danger.'

Tears started flowing from her eyes again but the speed at which she was flying dried them off instantly.

'I was this close to achieving my goal...'

Ever since Harry had come into her life, Fleur had started to live again. She had mended her relationship with her family, Harry had become her best friend and even her lover too as of last night. Life seemed to have taken a brighter turn for her. Greyback had been the last on her list. After all the killing, after everything that she had sacrificed, she was going to taste the fruit of her labour: a life without Voldemort's regime of terror, a life where her family was alive, one where she would be together with the man she loved. Happily ever after. But the reality was often different from dreams.

⁂

There was no light. There was no sound. He could not feel any wind and he could not sense the temperature of the air either. He could not even see his hand in front of his eyes. There was only darkness.

He closed his eyes and sat down on the floor, lying on his back with his arms and legs spread eagle.

'I died.'

He was not unfamiliar with the place he was currently in. He had been there once before, in his past life. Or, better said, between his past and second lives, after stepping into the Veil of Death.

'At least Fleur managed to escape. She is safe,' was the first thing that came to his mind next.

Then, the third thought that popped up was: 'I wish I could've seen Bella one more time.'

He did not know for how long he had sat there unmoving. Time did not exist in that place. But as he sat on the ground, his mind wandered to the past.

Memories of Bellatrix and their very first piano lesson started playing at the front of his mind. He smiled at the mental image of her putting her hand on top of his and guiding him through the solfege while singing the notes aloud. The scene of him and Fleur pelting each other with snow and her chasing after him with a vengeance after coming on the losing end of their snow fight also began to play in his mind. He found himself smiling at the airheaded Luna who told them that if they wanted to wrestle they needed to be naked, like her parents.

As he travelled down the memory lane, he also recalled the few but not any less important moments spent with his extended family, Sirius and the Tonks.

Lastly, his mind went to the previous night, to the moment of love and passion that he had shared together with Fleur when they became one.

'I'll never get to see them again.'

As realisation dawned on him, the smile was wiped off his face. Sorrow and regret was the only thing he could feel at that moment. When he had stepped into the Veil in his past life, he had had nothing else left. He had been a tired, weary and crippled middle-aged man, someone who had wasted his life away on the battlefield. Everyone that he had ever cared about had been killed. His only regret back then had been that he had not learned about the Horcrux in his scar earlier - he would've killed himself from the get-go and prevented the deaths of Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys.

But this time around was different. Physically, he was not even 13. Moreover, he had found a family in Bellatrix, Sirius, and the Tonks and a lover and a new best friend in Fleur. In addition, his cute snowy owl was alive too and he had also found a new adorable familiar in the form of the sassy green Anaconda. Even as tears were falling from his eyes, he could not suppress a snort of laughter at the memory of Asmodeus throwing tantrums whenever he called him Big Head.

But his amusement did not last. Grief took its place again. He would never see them again.

"I take it you enjoyed your second life? Master?"

The disembodied voice made his skin break into goosebumps. He jumped up to his feet in trepidation. Then, for the first time since arriving in that dark place, his sense of touch returned - an ice-cold hand touched the back of his head. The same hand came to his torso, on top of the place Alastor Moody's Reductor Curse shattered his ribs. Finally, it gripped his elbow, the one that had been bent into an unnatural angle.

Even as that foreign hand touched his body, he did not dare to move a muscle. Not that he would have been capable of doing that anyway. He was frozen, paralyzed. It was as if someone had cast a Full-Body Binding Curse on him.

He was still completely blind but he did not need to see the being in front of his eyes in order to recognize their identity.

"Death," he said in a low voice, not any louder than a whisper. Despite that he was filled with regrets of what his second life could have been, he said: "I blew it. The second chance that you gave me. I messed up. Still, thank you. None of it could have been possible without you."

A breeze of freezing wind passed by him as the invisible being slowly flew around him.

"It's only fitting that I serve my new Master, is it not?"

That cold, ambiguous voice - he could not tell whether its owner was male or female - sent shivers down his spine. In spite of Death calling him their 'Master', Harry had no illusions whatsoever about his real position in their eyes.

"Besides," the voice continued "you are not dead yet. Your time has yet to come."

"Then why am I here?"

"I just wanted to see you, my Master," the voice suddenly whispered in his ear and he broke into a cold sweat. "It's been almost two years since we have last seen each other. I wanted to meet you again. And what better moment to do it than after you acquired another one of my Hallows. My wand."

"I-, I am not your master," Harry said hesitatingly. "How could someone like me lord over you?"

The disembodied voice cackled maniacally, its laughter sounding like that of nails scraping a chalkboard.

"And that's exactly why you are worthy for me to serve you. You know who you really are, unlike the Peverells. And you know who I am. You know that you are just a mortal that I could squish like a bug."

Half a dozen Dark Lords and many other dark wizards and witches had met their end at his hands. Towards the end of his past life, he had even become a one-man army, someone so powerful that multiple wizarding countries trembled at the thought of him crossing their border. However, all his power and all of his accomplishments meant nothing when standing in front of an entity like Death. Thinking that a primordial entity like Death would let themselves be ordered around by a mere mortal was just a bad joke in his mind.

"I can't be your master. I shouldn't. I won't."

It was the second time that he had turned down Death's offer of becoming their master. The first time had been after stepping into the Veil together with the Deathly Hallows.

"You may say that now. But you can't outrun your destiny, Harry Potter," Death said, their cold voice reverberating deeply into his soul.

Harry did not say anything in reply. He knew better than to start an argument with an all-powerful being that could erase his existence with a thought.

"What are you going to do with me now?" he asked eventually.

"I told you: it is not your time yet. Your wounds were not mortal. Besides, I took the liberty of healing them for you. After all, you are my Master, how can I let you suffer?"

"Why go that far just for me? I am just a man. I'm just Harry."

For the second time, Death's raspy laughter echoed in the air and made Harry involuntarily break into a cold sweat again.

"You could call it an investment. I have invested quite a bit in you, Harry Potter. I gave you a second chance at life. I even pulled someone from the future and gave them a second chance at life, just for your sake-"

"You're the one who brought Fleur back in time?!" he cried out in shock.

"Who else? Time travel on that scale is not something a mortal can do."

"...Why?" he could not help asking again.

Harry could not wrap his mind around the fact that Death would go that far just for his sake. He could not understand their thoughts. He knew that he was outstanding among other wizards but Death was an all-powerful entity. Why would it want to become the servant of a human? What could a human do that Death themselves could not?

"You wouldn't have gotten involved with Tom Riddle otherwise. You wouldn't have gotten into a conflict with Albus Dumbledore- and that would have meant that you wouldn't have gotten the chance to get my Hallows again either."

It was then that Harry realized that everything that happened was according to Death's plans. It looked like he was nothing more than a pawn dancing in the palm on their hand. It was not a reward for returning the Deathly Hallows that had granted Harry a second chance at life as he had initially thought. It was no mere coincidence that Fleur travelled back in time either.

"Did Fleur falling in love with me happen because of you? Are you the one who made me fall in love with her too? Were we just puppets hanging from the strings in your hands?"

"That was all you. Two souls from different timelines, two people who have experienced death and pain like few others. Two people that were given a chance to live again. Growing to love each other was just a matter of time."

Death slowly flew around Harry in a circle, their passing leaving a cold wind in their wake.

"I won't force you to become my Master, Harry Potter. I cannot do that. Your destiny is to become my champion but, ultimately, it still depends on you willingly accepting to become mine."

Two ice-cold hands cupped his face and Harry lost his breath in terror when he got a glimpse of Death's dark eyes, eyes seemingly even blacker than the pitch-black darkness in that space.

"We won't be seeing each other for some time. But you will be presented with a choice in the future. A matter of life and death. You will be at a crossroads, Harry Potter. Should you choose to call my name at that time, I will answer you, and you will become my Champion, my Emissary. But if you do not, I will no longer try to tempt you. You will be set free. Free to pass on to the afterlife when your time comes."

Harry could not see anything but the pair of black eyes but at that moment he got the feeling that Death was smiling when they spoke:

"However, I can see it. I know that you will call for me. You will become my master. For I am inevitable. I am Death."

⁂

When he came to himself and woke up, he was met with a pair of vibrant blue eyes that he would recognize out of a thousand. They were Fleur's eyes. She was sitting on the bed, her back resting against the headboard, Harry's head in her lap. He looked around briefly, taking in his surroundings - it looked like they were in a Muggle hotel room.

Then, he returned his eyes to her. For a while, they did not speak, merely content with just looking at each other. But when he saw tears starting to fall down her cheeks, he sat up from her lap and embraced her.

"Hey, don't cry. I'm fine. Everything is fine," he said soothingly. He wanted to engulf her in his arms but it looked like he had returned to his original appearance as a 12-year-old boy during the time he had been unconscious. He ended up being engulfed by her embrace instead as she hugged him for dear life.

"I saw a big explosion. There was a tornado of fire. I thought something 'appened to you and I came back. And you were bleeding. Your arm was broken and you wouldn't wake up and I-"

"It's okay, Fleur. I'm here. I'm fine. Everything is alright," he said again in a gentle voice.

"-I thought you would die."

By now, she was crying out loud with her head buried in the crook of his neck.

"I'm sorry, 'Arry. Because I was stubborn, you-"

"Shhh," he shushed her and caressed the back of her head softly.

The girl's body rocked from her sobs for a long time. Eventually, she cried herself to sleep, the emotionally draining events that day having caught up with her. Harry's gentle caresses only sped up the process. But even in her sleep, she would not let go of him, her hands clutching on the fabric of his now oversized shirt.

He would have loved nothing more than to fall asleep together with Fleur but there were too many things on his mind at that moment. His meeting with Death was fresh in his mind. It filled him with trepidation still, filled him with anxiety regarding the future.

'The Master of Death? What a bad joke.'

He did not believe it for a second. To him, it sounded more like he would become Death's servant, their slave if he accepted the deal. He wanted to pass on when his time came and be reunited with his loved ones. Or, as Dumbledore would put it, to start his next great adventure. He did not want to be eternally bound to Death's whims.

Hearing the soft snores coming from the sleeping girl in his arms, his expression softened. He was still not 100% sure about whether Death had been truthful or not but he knew that his feelings for her were as real as they could be. He was not blinded by infatuation, he had not lost his mind to her Veela Charm and perfect beauty. Mentally, he was in his 40s - although her beauty was, indeed, a factor in his attraction for her, he was not as shallow as to ignore her personality. He would not have started to love her had it been just physical attraction. He liked everything about her - even the vain and immature side of her she sometimes showed. Even her stubbornness that had almost gotten them killed today, he accepted that side of hers too. Nobody was perfect, everyone had their own flaws. He accepted her as she was, with both the good and the bad.

He laid down on the bed on his side and Fleur almost stirred awake at his movement. But she did not fully wake up, she was too exhausted. Harry closed in the distance between them and put his arms around her, bringing her deeper into his embrace. Instinctively, the girl buried her face into his chest and hugged his waist with her arms, seeking his warmth, his comfort.

The present was uncertain and the future a dangerous mystery with Death's Prophecy looming over his head. But, as he laid in bed with Fleur in his arms, Harry did not feel discouraged. Sometimes, men were simple creatures. Having someone that depended on him like Fleur did, having people that he wanted to protect like Bellatrix, Sirius, and the Tonks ignited a smouldering fire in his chest, a will to surpass any adversity, and a drive to become everyone's pillar of support. He was not just going to lay down and accept his fate. He would struggle with every fibre of his being, until his last breath, to forge a path for himself, a path where he and his loved one would be safe.

AN: Death has plans for Harry, even going as far as to make a prophecy for him. But things will slow down for a while, you've got your share of action in this arc. As for Fleur, she obviously noticed the fact that Harry got miraculously healed (that's why they were not in a hospital but in a hotel room) but they did not talk about it because, well, she was crying and apologising, overwhelmed with guilt.