A request from Thrushsong k'Varis

Harry, no Merith, ambled around the Nether Realms, slightly lost. After his conversation with the moon deity (when will he stop being surprised by this), the deity handed him a scroll of instructions left behind by the previous Master of Death. Within the instructions there were guidelines on how to enter the Nether Realms and this is where he found himself now, examining his surroundings as he tried to figure out his next step. The young spirit watched cautiously as shadows flickered in his peripherals, thinking of the very first warning his predecessor had mentioned.

Beware of the creatures that stay in the shadows, for they prey on souls and won't hesitate to attack you for a taste.

Suddenly, Merith heard a ping echo in his head, feeling an immediate urge to head north. Shaking his head in confusion, Merith refocused onto his surroundings, walking in a random direction in hopes of figuring out some sort of bearing in the Nether Realms. A few minutes later, the ping echoed again in his head, this time with a feeling of foreboding, as if something terrible would happen if he didn't hurry.

Now paranoid, Merith decided to follow his intuition, as it rarely had steered him wrong during his previous life, especially during the Horcrux hunting.

Focusing on the ping going off in his head, Merith turned on the spot and apparated to the location the ping was taking him; when he blinked , he found himself in a very different kind of surroundings. Instead of dark forestry surrounding him, there were now stretches of vast grasslands before him, scraggly trees being the only thing to break up the gray skyline prominent of the Nether Realms.

Merith stared at his surroundings in amazement; he had never been outside of British soil and had only experienced forests by way of the Forbidden Forest or the forests he, Ron, and Hermione camped in during seventh year. To see a different landscape he had only read about in primary school was absolutely fascinating to Merith, and if another ping didn't echo in his head, Merith might've stayed longer and explored. But following the ping, Merith trekked along for a ways until he reached a village with buildings made of mud and straw.

Merith peered around in curiosity, goggling at the type of buildings he saw until he remembered that he was centuries and centuries in the past, and they probably didn't have cement or metal structures yet. He walked further in the village to find out what the ping was trying to get him to find. It was hard to make out distinguishing features when the world of the Nether Realms was a pale, greyscale imitation of the real world, but as Merith walked deeper into the village, he noted these dark wisps in the shape of humans walking around and assumed they were the representation of living souls walking in the mortal realm.

He finally reached the hut that made the pinging feeling in his head resonate loudly before abruptly silencing. Unsettled by the sudden silence in his head, Merith drew his scythe as his eyes searched the room of wisps.

And then he saw it.

A little wisp approximately the size of a small child stood out in stark relief amongst the adult wisps. Despite the fact that it was so closely surrounded by other wisps, and even partially obscured by the wisp figure cradling it, Merith could easily pick it out in the dim room. The little wisp was getting lighter and lighter, gradually going from black to gray and then white. As it got lighter, the features became clearer, the smokey features solidifying to reveal delicate limbs curled upon themselves over a small chest as they supported a tiny head propped onto the dark wisp.

Merith came closer to see the wisp was a young boy of about ten, a look of pain on his face as a shudder went through his body. Merith couldn't hear noise from the dark wisps, but the boy's soft cries of pain and fear were becoming clearer and louder in the Nether Realm.

'He's dying', realized Merith sadly.

The form of the boy grew clearer until with a flash of light, the boy's presence solidified in the Nether Realm as he slowly sank down to the floor, though the dark wisp seemed to still be clutching onto him as if he never left its arms. The presence of the dark wisps of the mortal realm faded quickly into obscurity.

Realizing that this was the arrival of a soul into the Nether Realm, Merith carefully walked towards the young boy so as not to startle him in what was already probably a scary situation.

"Hello."

The boy startled from where he had been curled up in the spot he appeared in the Nether Realm. He stared at his new surroundings in confusion and alarm, tears building up in his eyes.

Trying to stem the incoming panic, Merith softly spoke to him, inwardly shocked at what he heard as English but sounded very different leaving his mouth (like when he realized he was speaking Parseltongue).

"My name is Merith and you're in the Nether Realm right now."

Looking warily at Merith, the boy spoke. "Why am I here? Where is my family? My mama and baba?"

Merith paused to take a breath as the boy's questions floated in his head. How do you explain to a child that they had died, that they wouldn't be able to see their family again but instead must follow a stranger to take them to their next destination in the afterlife.

"Well, um, actually, what's your name?" asked Merith as he crouched awkwardly in front of the young boy (spirit?).

"Ah, my name is Chidi. May the gods bless our meeting."

"Oh, uh, you as well. Ok, well Chidi. You remember being sick for a while?"

Chidi frowned before a flash of recollection went through his eyes.

"Yes. Yes, I was. I had lots of body aches and my body felt hot and cold for a long time. Even when baba called for the medicine man, everyone looked so sad. And then,..." his voice got slower as the excitement started slipping out of his voice. "...then this morning I felt so cold. Everything became colder, and darker, until I couldn't see mama and baba anymore. And I opened my eyes here. Why am I here?" Chidi asked, even as tears rolled down his cheeks; even though both of them knew the answer to his question.

"You have passed on to the next point in life." Merith said, almost whispering the words. He didn't believe in sugarcoating the truth, and it would feel like an injustice to even try considering how smart and brave the boy was right now. "I'm here to guide you safely to your next destination, young one."

"Then you- you are Owuo? I am so sorry for not knowing!" the young boy scrambled to bow down, eyes wide with apprehension at the possibility of having slighted a god.

'Owuo? Who is- ah, yes, now I remember.'

You are the representation of death and rebirth across the world, and will be recognized as whatever entity the soul will recognize from their most recent past life.

"Ah, no, you don't have to do that. You should get up, it's fine." Merith said quickly, slightly flustered at the treatment he was getting, but just glad it wasn't a response of fear. "Anyway, I think we've been sitting in one spot for long enough, it's time for us to get to where you need to be, little one. Are you ready?"

"I-I think so." Chidi said bravely, though his voice quavered slightly as he looked at the monochromatic version of the village he had lived in his whole life. There was none of the warmth that he was used to, no laughing cries of his friends playing, women singing joyfully or gossiping as they got their daily chores done. No comforting arms of his mama when he got scared or fond rub on his head from baba after playing in the cooling afternoon together. Just this empty haunting place with sights and sounds that only gods would dare to tread in.

Chidi nodded more firmly. "Yes, I am ready to go with you, great Owuo."

So at long last, I finally got one of my requests done, and one I've wanted to do for a long while, even before the last chapter. Unfortunately, at the time, I still wrote in notebooks and lost the notebook with this chapter for a long time. This character is inspired by reading about Ghana mythologies and I thought it was fitting. From what I looked up (and please correct me if I'm wrong), one of the religions practiced in Ghana was/is the Akan religion, and they had a god named Owuo who represented not only the end of life, but the transition of souls from the physical to the spiritual, to the next realm of existence. This felt very fitting for Merith's role as the Guardian of Death because that's what I wanted him to do, just like Charon from Greek mythology or many other cultures that have a similar thought process to death.

Here are the rules in which the Guardian of Death must follow, and I am sure you will see what happens when they aren't followed. I hope you enjoyed this!

The Rules

Protect the souls of Children, and guide them safely to the Gate, where they can be sorted into their next life.

Beware of the creatures that stay in the shadows, for they prey on souls and won't hesitate to attack you for a taste.

You are the representation of death and rebirth across the world, and will be recognized as whatever entity the soul will recognize from their most recent past life.

As one of your gifts, you can speak and understand all languages of the living and the dead, and understand the deities of death that you represent.

Souls should not linger, for the longer they stay near their death, the higher the chances of becoming stuck.