Death's Scythe

LizzieLyn's prompt: HP/Gundam Wing/AC Crossover. The "Master of Death" (Harry Potter) has heard whispers about the "Deathscythe" (Duo Maxwell) for awhile now and he's (Harry) always wanted to meet him (Duo). Now he finally gets the chance.

LizzieLyn's Notes: "Master of Death" is not just a title, it has to mean something (closer
relationship with death/immortality/can order death not to take someone/can
bring people back maybe only under certain conditions/whatever). I see the
'whispers' as coming from either Death or Harry's magic, but they could just
be rumors. It depends on how you want to develop Duo, I know some people like
to make Duo something like a personification of Death (which could be cool but
if you go that route I'd like to get a feel for how Harry's status as "Master
of Death" affects their interactions). Possibly Harry/any pilot pre-slash or
slash if they get that far.

0o0o0

Death isn't just one being, it isn't just one entity, and it is in everything and everything which might one day die. Harry Potter sits in his garden and tends to green and growing things, and knows with a whim he could take that bit of mortality from the garden he tends. He does not, because he knows there is a balance, some must die so others might live. The universe may be a very big thing, but the Earth is an island alone in the sea of black and stars and it knows no neighbor…yet.

Harry looks to the stars, to where the colonies spin about like small little boats, dancing in the dark. Harry Potter knows there is no one like him, not one wizard or witch or muggle man or woman is quite the same as he is. That is because there can only be one Master of Death.

If Death is an entity, that can manifest a persona and shape with form Harry has yet to meet him or her or it, and does not wish to, ever, if at all possible. Magic is in everyone, everything, but so too is death. They go hand in hand. Some have more of one than they do of the other, and that is what makes a Hallow, for a Hallow is death given a form and shape, Harry has the resurrection Stone, the Elder wand, and the Cloak, all these objects which were made by a magic that is by nature is dead more than living.

Harry Potter feels it, like a pinch, when the Stone gleams and he knows someone has been born who can make and unmake Hallows, one who is born with more death than life within them.

"Show me." Harry mutters to the Stone, and it does, a squalling babe, with eyes the color of the sea at storm. The Stone whispers in the shapes of the once living, that this child can become a Hallow, asks if the Master is pleased with this child? He can become anyone, anything, but Harry is the Master of Death and this child is his.

The child's cries calm, and Harry Potter knows that just as he can see the baby, the boy can see him – Harry wonders what the babe sees. Harry sees a loving mother, a dotting father and is reassured that the child might live a life free of death and dying, free of the Master of Death and fear of ever becoming a newly born Hallow. He is named, and Harry thinks it suits the boy.

He is safe. Harry Potter looks out for the child at first every day, than every other – perhaps just once a week, or once a month, a few days in a year, letting the boy grow up to be raised by his parents – not in fear of someone who watches him and who he can see and who never speaks.

It is only when a church burns around the boy that Harry Potter realizes how grave a mistake he made in not watching over him more carefully. Harry puts on the Cloak and it takes him to the boy's side, it only takes a breath and he's beside him, a bow who doesn't know his own name – much like Harry hadn't known he was a wizard.

0o0o0

Duo Maxwell watches his world burn, and cries like he's dying. The heat from the flames burns, but it's better to feel something – anything, than the nothing creeping into him. There is a creeping upon his skin, coldness at His presence, and Duo looks around sure that He is here. He is Death, Duo is sure, and Death has watched Duo all his life.

"Have you come to gloat?" Duo asks with a sneer, tossing his braid behind his back and standing to face off with Death, who looks about the ruins and wreck as if taking in the view. Duo doesn't expect an answer, least of all the one he gets.

"Why would I do that?" It's softly spoken, almost a whisper, and Duo has the sense that this is a man who doesn't speak often – but is making the effort now.

"I, you – you've been watching me my whole life, and you speak up now?" Death's head tilts, and he looks Duo over from his braid to his toes, as if to be sure of whom he is. Duo Maxwell stopped talking about Death, but he never stopped remembering him – he's the first thing that Duo remembers ever seeing.

"You never needed my help before." Duo feels that coldness touch the echoing nothing and it's heavy in his throat and he can't even cry and get it out. He laughs instead, and it is bitter and biting.

"You weren't watching closely enough if you think that!" Duo Maxwell wonders if he's going to die when Death frowns at him.

"You are right and I am sorry, I thought you loved, safe, and happy. What happened here? Where is your mother, your father?" Duo thinks about all the times he's seen Death, and knows it's always been when things were going good in his life – when he was happy, Duo always thought Death was an omen, a good one.

"Both are dead, I've been living on the streets with a gang until this church took me in." Duo shivers and looks to the mobile suit that he took, that he stole and flew and fought in – he piloted it, and it had felt…good. Even standing in this, this crumbling world, he felt that thrill when he looked at it. It was wrong, he was sure, that it felt so right.

"Death, have you come for me?" Duo asked, as he looked at that suit and wondered if feeling as he did was a sin.

"I'm not Death." Duo is surprised, jerking his head to look around again at the figure of strength and shadow who had watched over his life from cradle to this, this grave.

"Who are you?" Duo demands, taking a step forward, wondering what he can do against this person who comes and goes but he's never seen arrive or leave.

"My name is Harry Potter, and I'm the Master of Death." Harry Potter smiles tightly, as if that title pains him.

"Why, why me…?" There are people never ready to hear what Harry Potter would answer to that question, but Duo Maxwell is a Hallow, a mortal more dead than alive who will – or won't – in dying, give form and shape to a Hallow. Who can destroy the Hallows that Harry himself is Master of.

Duo Maxwell is not a boy; he's seen more of life and knows more of death than to ever be called that. Harry takes Duo away from the ruins of his home, and walks the streets where he grew up, and talks of how's and whys, it is something Duo never forgets – and he decides at the end of it that Harry Potter may be the Master of Death, but Duo thought he was Death – when Duo is really more like Death than Harry is, he calls himself Shinigami – the God of Death, for he thinks that's what he is most like as a living Hallow.

He thinks if he becomes a Hallow, he'll be a Scythe, and laughs at the thought of his Master wielding him.