Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. There is an onscreen character death, but it's a gentle thing and lightning bug HEA? Also, Penny has his canon-typical potty mouth but, like, internally. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: Don't mind me while I fix the mistakes of canon. This is exactly what I thought was being teased and I feel cheated.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 15); MC4A (Year 4)
Individual Challenges: Other School MC; Magical MC; New Fandom Smell; Fresh Fandom High; In a Flash
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 15 – Assignment 04
Subject (Task No.): n/a
Other Hogwarts Challenges: 365 [267](No Fem Characters); Fantastic Beasts [143](Gods & Goddess AU); Auction [D22-A1](Hades & Persephone)
Other MC4A Challenges: Ship (Traveler's Lament)[SpMic1 (Librarian/Archivist); 2E (The Matchmaker)]; Chim [Dextrin] ("Wait for It" from Hamilton); Fire (Fix It Felix); Garden [Mixed Bag](WC Less than 1K)
Representation(s): Penny Adiyodi/Kady Orloff-Diaz; Hades/Persephone; Friends as Family; Passing the Torch
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: n/a
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: n/a
Word Count: 997 words

(^^)
A New King
(^^)

"The thing about gods," Hades explained as Penny just tried to remember how to breathe. It wasn't as easy as it sounded. Being dead made it hard to remember how to do a lot of things. Being in the Underworld for any extended period of time made even more memories distant and fuzzy. Pretty much all he would remember of his previous life was his friends—his nutty little family forged from the broken shards of rejected people.

And now he had to deal with the god of the Underworld wanting to monologue, too?

Man, he just wanted to sort some books and maybe help some people process their shit before moving the fuck on.

"Are you listening, Penny?" Hades asked, cutting through the angry buzz of thoughts in Penny's head. Knowing better than to lie, Penny just shook his head. Hades sighed as if exhausted but didn't strike out. "It's okay. I will repeat it, but listen this time, because this is important. The thing about gods is that they have to exist. The divine energy of them cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred. And no matter what has been tried, certain aspects continue to replay themselves whenever that happens."

"Okay, but what does that mean?"

"My Persephone is gone," Hades said. Despite the simple words, the god's voice held an eon's worth of grief. Penny could fell it pressing on his mental shields like the air in the moment before the storm finally breaks. "But there must be a Lady of the Underground. The realm must have its Queen. I find myself unwilling to replace my love."

"Makes sense, yeah," Penny agreed. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that for supposedly omnipotent beings, gods were bound by a bunch of arbitrary rules that rarely made any actual sense. Still. There had to be a reason that Hades had requested him personal to discuss this topic. "Sir? Is there a reason you wanted to talk to me?"

"I want you to become the new God of the Underworld," Hades announced.

Penny's first reaction was an instinctive denial. He was not cut out for godhood. He didn't have the temperament or the constitution for all of the nonsense. He could barely handle it when he was being dragged around on motherfucking quests.

Fuck, he missed that group of jerks, even Quintin with his love of Taylor Swift.

His next reaction was the dawning realization that as God of the Underworld, he would have to pick a Queen. There was only ever going to be one applicant for that. It had been Kady since that first day in class. It had always been her, no matter what hurts they had dealt each other..

It always would be her.

"Kady has obligations in the Above," Penny said out loud, needing to hear the words against the dull roar of the hope of being reunited with her more than a brief time before she moved on to her final resting place. "She can't just drop everything. People are counting on her."

"Yes," Hades agreed. Penny opened his eyes, not even realizing that he had closed them. The god was actually smiling instead of his stern neutral expression or the mask of painful grief that he had at the start of the conversation. "That is how the story goes. You would be bound to this realm, just as I was, unable to leave except for brief trips. She would come and go like the tides, as free as chaos and as forceful as the spring. Her duties would take her away, but—"

"Her love would bring her back," Penny completed, not even noticing that he was interrupting the god. Penny rubbed a hand over his mouth, unable to fully grasp what was even happening. "I don't understand. Julia—she had spend dedicated time nursing her spark, and she still ended up having it snuffed out in the end. Wouldn't both me and Kady need to do something like that?"

"You will need to learn how to step back and look at the bigger picture," Hades warned. Penny frowned at him. He looked a bit older suddenly, just a bit more ragged around the edges maybe. "What do you think you've been doing all this time, Penny Adiyodi? This has been the end of the path for a long time. You've almost come close to it so many times. This is just the one that succeeds. That is all."

"And Kady?" he asked, his heart hurting for the loved but forgotten child she had been, the one that made her fit the story so very well. "Will I need to trick her into eating fruit?"

"You might start with just asking her," Hades suggested. Penny couldn't deny it now. Hades was aging quickly. "I suggest doing so quickly. Ours is not the only tale that is likely to repeat before too much longer. Maybe this time, some of them might get a happy ending."

"Real life doesn't always get the fairy tale ending," Penny reminded him as he helped recline in his chair a bit. Hades smiled as he closed his eyes like he was too tired to keep them open.

"That doesn't mean it can't ever," the old god whispered with his last breath. Penny held his hand for a moment longer before Hades' body began to dissolve into a cloud of sparks that moved like ten thousand lightning bugs against endless gray of the office.

Penny looked around, thinking about how this was now his office, located at the center of what was now his realm. He was now the god of the underworld. All of this was under his purview. He was now the one who would hear all of the reports. He would set the challenges for the others who were moving upwards through the ranks.

He moved quickly towards the elevators to the Above.

He had a Queen to seduce, didn't he?