Chapter Text
“Wakey, wakey.”
Chapped lips peel back in a soft groan, eyelids fluttering open to reveal eyes the color of deep forest pools. “Wha...what happened?” A dazed and disoriented Harry Potter rasps as he squints up at the tall, hooded figure looming over him.
“You died,” the stranger deadpans, a peculiarly melodious undercurrent echoing in an otherwise droll monotone. “Or rather, you lost the will to live, which brought you to my domain.”
“What?” He tries to lift his head to pin the—man? Being?...Ubergoth?—with a skeptical frown, biting back an irritated response as said being casually pokes his cheek with a stick. Once. Twice. Three times for good measure. Enough to be labeled a nuisance.
“Will you stop that?” He snaps, ungracefully flopping onto his side to escape the annoyance of being poked and prodded like some poor, dead creature on the side of the motorway.
“Why?” Cloak and Dagger inquiries flatly, with very little inflection in Their tone that it would have struck him as alarming if not for the fact that he’s still coming to grips with his second—or was it third?—death. Well, maybe this time it’ll actually stick. A guy can dream, right? “My siblings will be rather pleased to see that I have recently uncovered the long-held secret to what you humans call self-satisfaction. You see, they believe I have grown staid in the duration of this past millennium, but with this, I will have proven them wrong.” And thus, as if to prove a point only They have any true hope of understanding, They once again commence with the poking.
“Ugh. Just go away,” the wizard mutters as he turns his face away, burying it against the strangely undulating carpet of grass—since when does grass move like that?—wondering if his soul has somehow debarked in the magical version of purgatory and what, if anything, he needs to do to return to the land of the living, although their sense of judgment and logic could use some serious fine-tuning.
Shifting his head slightly, Harry squints up at the being, his gaze guarded and wary. “How do I will myself home?”
The cloaked figure pauses with a tilt of Their head, peering down at him from the dappled, rippling shadows of Their hood, piercingly direct in Their study—before heaving a put-upon sigh of faint exasperation. “You don’t.”
“There has to be a way.”
“There isn’t.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Hurts, doesn’t it?"
“What?”
“Using more than two percent of your brainpower."
Wow. His brow puckers in the ensuing silence, bafflement trickling through him. "Wow,” Harry says aloud—because the bafflement deserves to be given a voice. A flash of irritation crosses his gaze. "I dunno how to even respond to that."
"I understand how difficult that must be for you."
Fighting back a groan of resignation as he comes to the realization that this strange being he hasn’t even known for five minutes is well on Their way to gifting him to the Janus Thickey ward, complete with a bow and an open-only-at-Yuletide card, Harry briefly considers slamming his head against the ground to knock himself into the next century (and preferably into a new realm, world, universe...whatever) but ultimately decides against it. He doesn’t need that kind of headache right now. “Has anyone ever told you how bloody aggravating you are?”
“Quite often, I’m afraid,” a soft, ethereal voice suddenly interjects, startling him into gawking like a schoolgirl with her first crush. Which, unfortunately, brings back memories of his one-time, nightmarish visit to Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop. Thank you for that, Cho. “But unfortunately, They’ve shown quite the talent for obliviousness when They feel the situation warrants it.”
Harry says nothing, too busy staring in blatant stupefaction at the newcomer, taking in the wisps of long, white-blonde hair framing an elfin face, accentuating her delicate cheekbones and gentle, violet eyes. A sheer, white dress flutters around her calves, only enhancing the otherworldly, mysterious aura she gives off, reminding him distinctly of Luna. Poor, misunderstood Luna, her life snuffed out like a candle—tortured to the very brink of insanity, brilliant mind cracking after days of agonizingly painful shocks and several accompanying blood boiling curses.
“You wound me.” The words—apathetic and lukewarm, tinged with just enough sardonicism to raise an eyebrow—snap him out of his maudlin thoughts, the painful image of Luna’s wide-eyed, sightless gaze dissolving into nothingness as the curiously familial interaction between two imposing forces catches his attention. “Perhaps I take after this one, hm? Talent or not, he has obliviousness down to an art form. It’s quite impressive—for a mortal.”
“Mors.” Her tone drips faint disapproval. “Leave the poor boy alone. He doesn’t need your brand of absurdity on top of everything else he must contend with.”
“Pepromene,” the recently named Mors grumbles halfheartedly, but after a long, sullen moment of pouting like a child being denied Their favorite toy, They finally relent and drop the stick, emitting disinterest as it dissipates in a puff of black smoke. “You’re such a buzzkill.”
She rolls her eyes, seemingly unruffled by Their muttered complaint. “I look forward to the day you start to act your age.” Not waiting for Their reply—the threads of icy energy thickening the air, roiling and pulsating with Their irritation, reveal just how strongly They wish to refute her comment—she turns to offer the dark-haired wizard a kindly smile. “You must have questions.”
“Uh, yeah,” Harry says guardedly, hesitant to give voice to them lest he manages to offend them in some way. But at her encouraging nod, he shelves his reluctance for the moment. “Right. Uh. So where am I?”
Definitely not London.
London is usually damp and overcast, a maze of broad, urban motorways interspersed with modernized, historic buildings that usually hold some symbolic meaning to the area, and this place—it’s definitely not that.
Tall, majestic trees surround him, knotted limbs forming a thick canopy of dark green leaves interwoven with fluorescent blue veins overhead; thick branches flail and sway to an inaudible beat, almost playful, definitely sentient, blocking out a sky that is the color of freshly spilled blood, strewn with ocelot-shaped clouds and multiple blue moons in various phases. Moony would have found that fascinating.
“You, precious child, are currently in Hellonde,” Pepromene divulges. “It is what you would call the In-Between and, as Mors so eloquently put it, Their domain.”
His eyebrows pull together, confusion clouding a face that is said to share a remarkable likeness with James Potter, right down to the uncontrollably messy head of black hair, aquiline nose, and prominent cheekbones. “Wait. But I thought I died?” That’s what the Ubergoth said, anyway.
“Just your body,” a new voice cuts in.
Harry jerks, startled, and pirouettes away from the Luna lookalike...only to find the formerly vacant space behind him occupied by yet another being of indeterminate power sporting a head full of curly, lime-green hair. She’s nonchalantly straddling a dark purple picket fence that clashes rather harshly with her outlandish orange and yellow, floral-patterned tracksuit, and her arms are fondly draped across the shoulders of a young, dark-haired boy with the worst case of defeatism he’s seen in ages. Including his own. And that’s saying something. “Unfortunately, the poor, malnourished thing perished in the fiendfyre the noseless wonder set in order to ensure you couldn’t pop back up again and ruin his impending celebration. A bit of an overreaction, I’d say, but it got the job done. Wouldn’t you agree, Henrik?”
A grimace of distaste settles on the boy—Henrik's—face, a full-body shudder of repulsion sweeping through him as he leans back into the casual embrace. “Yes, Lady Physis. Evil such as that should never be left to run...unchecked. It could potentially disrupt, perhaps even destroy, the balance of the universe.”
“How right you are!” She exclaims cheerfully, hugging the boy to her chest. “All those poor, poor lives Mister Demort ruined on his quest for world domination...Such a naughty boy. How should we punish him, hm? Mors, Pepromene?” She looks to the other two in eager anticipation.
“Paint his toenails a garish red, then string him up by them and watch as all the blood rushes to his head, causing it to swell to the size of a hot air balloon?” Mors suggests lackadaisically.
“Oh, yes. Yes.” Physis gives an enthusiastic nod, running fingers tipped with neon blue nail polish through Henrik’s dark brown hair. “And afterward we could tie a basket to it and offer tours of Sonoma Valley and the Eastern Shore. Once we’ve managed to procure a fortune off of that swollen mass of ego, we could then deflate it and hang it on the wall of that adorable, little bed and breakfast we visited ages ago.”
“Or,” Pepromene interjects calmly, as if used to acting as a mediator of sorts between the others to ensure they don’t resort to petty, childish games to alleviate their boredom. “We could ask our young friend, Harry, here what he would like to do. Is that not why we’ve...reconvened after so many decades?”
“You take all the fun out of death,” Mors mumbles, deliberately turning Their back to Pepromene with a petulant harumph. Shadows writhe and coil around Their feet, reacting to an emotional state that is reminiscent of humanity without the underlying hysteria often prevalent in their make. Then the landscape begins to ripple and distort, blurring around the edges, the sky darkening to a rich mahogany as the increscent clouds descend onto the trees, tendrils of precipitation and water vapor wrapping around the grasping branches in a strange rendition of a hug between friends.
“Honestly, Mors.” The blonde lifts her omnipotent gaze heavenward and sighs. “Have you ever heard of the idiom, act your age, not your shoe size? No? Well, look it up. Maturity would do you a world of good, you know.”
Physis snickers, her otherworldly eyes—lavender with swirls of starlight glimmering like constellations shooting across the night sky—lighting up with amusement. She begins to clap, slowly at first before picking up speed, and wolf-whistles through her teeth like she’s in the middle of watching someone net a win in football, pausing only when she catches Harry’s look of bewilderment. “Sanctimonious or not, she brings up a valid point, darling.” Gently nudging Henrik aside, she nimbly jumps down from her perch, and landing with a gracefulness that bespeaks of her divinity, languorously stretches her arms above her head. “What do you want to do?”
“Do?” The surprising question earns her a skeptical frown and a furrowed brow. “I have a choice?”
Physis giggles gleefully, latching onto Henrik’s arm and steering him toward Harry. “Of course you do, you silly boy. You’re an interesting specimen who brings quite a bit of entertainment value to the table. We’d be fools not to take advantage of that.”
“What my esteemed sister is trying to say—and quite awfully at that,” Pepromene interrupts before Physis can resume what must be her version of humans-were-created-to-entertain-us debate, “is that we would be remiss in our duties if we simply allowed you to...pass on without at least providing you with the choices made available to you in light of the remarkable deeds you selflessly committed in your past life.”
“But I didn’t do anything...” Harry fiddles with the cuff on his sleeve, the tips of his ears turning red as thoughts of cupboards and castles and suspicious glares and disgusted sneers and threats and red-hot pain flash through his mind, too quick to decipher. “I wasn’t alone. My friends helped, and look how that turned out...They’re dead because of me.”
“Hm.” Apathy bleeds into Mors’ tone, a festering wound of indifference that proves distracting enough to divert him from memories better left forgotten. “Look at you, wanting to take responsibility for Flight of Death’s megalomaniac attempt at population culling. How cute.” The hooded figure bends Their head until They’re eye level with Harry—or as close to it as the undulating, motley shadows encompassing Their hood will allow. “Don’t be ridiculous, child. You have choices. As in plural. As in more than one. Why must you humans limit yourselves so?”
Fighting the urge to take a step away from the menacing aura emanating from the being, Harry draws his bottom lip between his teeth as resignation finally begins to set in. They obviously won’t let him go until they’ve exhausted every avenue of choice, and since he won’t be allowed to pass on until he’s made a decision, he may as well get this over with. Besides, there’s no harm in listening to what they have to say. “Fine,” he concedes, “I’ll bite—what are they?”
“Move on,” Mors speaks matter-of-factly, treating Their answer as the sans pareil of choices. “Find your own slice of Heaven in the Great Beyond.”
Harry bites the inside of his cheek, teetering on the edge of indecision. “Wou...would I—uh—see my family again? If I...moved on?”
“Sure,” comes the formulaic reply, Their shrug suggesting a sort of distant, indifferent, lazy manner. “Might have to wait a few hundred years for your souls to flock to the same region, though. Time is irrelevant.”
His shoulders slump in disappointment. “Oh.”
“Ah! Don’t despair, my young friend. You should take good, old reincarnation for a spin,” Physis eagerly suggests, lips stretching into a wide, toothy grin as she throws her arms around the former, venerable savior of the wizarding world. “And maybe skip the dreaded waiting list.”
Harry immediately tenses at the unexpected touch but then forces himself to relax. After years of being ignored and neglected, on top of being verbally belittled and dismissed time and time again, he can’t help but flinch away from something as basic as human contact. In fact, the Dursleys practically conditioned him to fear it from the time he could walk. “What, like rebirth?”
Physis scoffs. “Nothing so plebeian.”
Pepromene pinches the bridge of her nose, and ignoring the shameless grin Physis tosses her way, pointedly looks away from her to address Harry. “We would, of course, have to construct your body from scratch, should you choose this path.”
“Oh.” He shifts uncomfortably and then glances between them, mulling over their words. “I wouldn’t want to be a burden.”
“Pish posh.” Physis waves a dismissive hand. “We love burdens. It’s what makes mortality so incredibly fascinating. You’re all so very burdensome that it astounds me when one of you lives past childhood. A truly remarkable feat.” There’s a certain gleam in her eyes that doesn’t bode well for a boy who once thrived on misfortune and tough luck, self-deprecation and insecurity.
Harry rubs the back of his neck, not knowing whether to take offense to her comment or simply ignore it as any smart human with basic survival skills would. When dealing with a deity of unimaginable power, the latter is probably best.
“Take your time, Harry.” Pepromene smiles encouragingly, enough to settle his nerves. “There is another option to consider.” He perks up slightly at that. As if two mind-boggling options aren’t enough. “After much consideration, Janus himself has agreed to lend you his key. With it, you will be able to return to an undisclosed time, somewhere between 1981 and 1991 to give yourself a chance to reacclimate to your previous existence.”
Before everything changed, goes unsaid.
“Tick tock, tick tock,” Mors adds unhelpfully, but before Harry has the chance to answer, hesitation fluttering through him, Physis suddenly reaches for his wrist and with a gentle tug, links his and Henrik's hands together—but not before flashing a sly grin at her companions. “Brothers should stick together.”
“What.” Harry stares uncomprehendingly at Physis, ignoring how tightly Henrik is gripping his fingers, as he tries to shake the disconcertment her offhand comment prompts; it shot out of left field like a rogue bludger, hitting him so hard he almost felt sloshed.
“You didn’t know?” She flutters her eyelashes innocently.
“Physis!”
“What?”
Pepromene levels a stern glare at her, hands planted firmly on her hips. “We agreed not to interfere with his choice, sister.”
Physis shrugs, the gesture positively screaming nonchalance before she flings her arms around the shoulders of both boys, bringing them closer for the squeeze of a lifetime. “Did we? Hm. Goodness me, I’ve been so forgetful lately. I should really look into fixing that.”
Harry knows he should probably intervene before their argument gets out of hand, but he’s still utterly flabbergasted by that tiny, shocking detail of brotherhood. It hasn’t escaped his notice that Henrik seems perfectly accepting of it, though. As if he already knew about their connection. “But...what? Are you implying Mum was pregnant when she—?”
“Imply? Moi?” Physis lets loose a theatrical gasp that would have put an actor to shame. “I would never.”
“Oh, do grow up, will you?” snaps Pepromene, her tone that of an elder sibling who is simply done with a capital D.
Physis purses her lips in the most pretentious, melodramatic pout Harry has ever seen. “Mors is right. You are a buzzkill.”
“This isn’t a game, Physis,” comes her retort, sharp and pointed, as if hoping the other deity would finally deign to give up and accept her responsibilities without trying to turn everything into a game of sorts. “I wish you both would take your responsibilities more seriously. We have far too much work to do to simply leave it all to chance. Honestly. What if your little games led to the end of humanity, hm? What then?”
“You forget, Pepromene. I am the end,” Mors’ tone is placid, appearing unbothered by the thought—even as Harry and Henrik watch all three beings volley insults and snide remarks back and forth like they’re at a muggle tennis match, just waiting for one of the balls to miss its mark.
Until Physis abruptly turns to Henrik, a smug look contorting her perfect features into something that is passable enough to mimic human emotion...If you squint hard enough. “Why don’t you tell our lovely Harry about your family, darling? Terrible business, that.”
At the brief mention of his family, a sad frown tugs at the corners of Henrik’s lips as he turns to look Harry in the eye, ignoring the wizard’s befuddled expression. “My siblings are in terrible danger, Harry,” he begins, a solemn note in his voice as he fixes his unwavering gaze on Harry as if trying to impart the gravity of the situation. “When I died, our parents sought to protect the others by any means necessary—to make them stronger...invincible. Father especially. He all but pushed Mother into the bosom of dark magic, uncaring of the price she might have to pay for daring to upset the balance of nature. And she allowed it, driven by a terrible, all-consuming grief.”
Ah, of course, Harry thinks with an inward shake of his head. Grief can make us do crazy things.
“Once she found a suitable spell, Mother called upon the sun for life and the white oak tree for immortality. Father played his part as well by tricking my siblings into drinking wine laced with the blood of a Petrova doppelganger before plunging a sword through their chests to complete the ritual.”
Harry fights back a small wince, able to imagine how distraught a parent would have to be to willingly turn to dark magic as a solution for immortality. His own mother had given her life for his, so it’s not exactly difficult to imagine Lily Potter in this mother’s shoes, desperation and a fierce need to protect urging her to trifle with forbidden magic. Just as his own mother had.
(Such magic often comes at a price, after all.)
“Nature was irate, however, and sought to restore balance, sentencing my siblings to a cursed life, one without sun and a glaring weakness in the presence of a white oak tree,” Henrik continues, a mournful, subdued air about him. “It is, in fact, the only tree in the world capable of destroying them. Worse still was their inescapable thirst for blood upon awakening and their utter disregard for human life...And, well, Mother died as a result...Niklaus, uh, did it...But...But he was just so hurt after she suppressed the wolf in him...I understand why she did it. I do—he’d slaughtered an entire village...He was out of control...And I don’t condone his actions. I promise I don’t...but to be disconnected and isolated from such an integral part of himself...It must have been so disconcerting, making him volatile and unstable...And Father. Time had not been kind to him...He hunted Niklaus through the centuries, tormented him, nearly came close to killing him several times...”
Harry is quiet throughout the other boy’s explanation, a thoughtful knot between his brows as he considers Henrik’s words carefully, rather invested in the story. Whereas Henrik himself seems to briefly lose himself in his memories, the boy’s frown deepening, distracted for the moment by memories of his brother...how close they once were before Death drove them apart. How despised and reviled Klaus is by the world, by his parents and sometimes even his siblings when family should have meant protection, safety, and above all a judgment-free zone.
Giving his head a firm shake to remove whatever unbidden thoughts must be lurking in the depths of his mind, Henrik lifts his somber eyes to meet Harry’s gaze. “Mother seeks to undo all her—their—work by ensuring my siblings are destroyed, that nothing of the creatures they have become remain. But it’s not their fault,” he is quick to defend them. “They are what nature intended even if She is terribly displeased by it all.”
Physis sneers. “Please. As if Gaia has any real reason to be upset. It’s not as if she opposed their creation in the first place...That hypocritical old bat thought it would be amusing to see how the world adapted to their presence and even started a betting pool on just how many lives would be forever altered by this one, infinitesimal thing in the Grand Scheme. Gods, what a drama queen.”
“You would know,” replies Mors in that apathetic manner of Theirs. “What do the mortals like to say? Takes one to know one?”
“Oh, shut up,” Physis counters, eyes narrowed in warning.
A sharp, amused sound much like a snicker leaves the shadowy depths of Mors’ hood, but They otherwise don’t react, merely tilting Their head in Harry’s direction, faint curiosity trickling through Their aura as They wait to see what the wizard will do.
Unfortunately for Them, Harry doesn’t know what to say—nor does he know what to do to comfort a boy who would have apparently been his younger brother in a past life, if Physis is to be believed. (He doesn’t see why she would lie about that; she seems pretty straightforward for a deity despite her impishness.) So he chooses to give Henrik’s fingers a brief but sympathetic squeeze. Because if anyone knows what it’s like to have complicated, familial relationships, it’s Harry. All one has to do to come to that conclusion is look at a wizarding family tree. Everyone is related in some way, no matter how tenuous or distant the relation proves to be. (Even muggleborns, whose ties often consist of squibs kicked out of house and home for having no access to magic of their own.)
“See, my adorable, little cricket?” Physis’ exaggeratedly sad voice breaks the tense, awkward silence that has fallen between them. “Poor Henrik’s siblings are on the riotous verge of kicking the proverbial bucket any day now. Mommy Original is a relentless force of nature herself—she won’t stop until her children are buried six feet deep and counting. So what do you say?” She pokes his forehead where the lightning-shaped scar used to be, a gesture meant to goad the wizard into acting as he’s always been known to do at the slightest provocation; it’s his curse to bear, his need to save as many people as is humanly feasible.
Why should a family of vampires be any different?
“Just think, Harry,” adds Physis, unrepentant in manipulating a wizard who’s always been a bit of a people-pleaser, conditioned to want to help from a very young age regardless of the dangers. “You'll finally get to experience that one thing you’ve always yearned for: a family.”
Indecisive but tempted (so, so tempted, more than is probably wise), Harry shifts his attention to Pepromene, who surprisingly hasn’t called out Physis’ obvious ploy and is instead smiling a soft, benign smile that accentuates her features flawlessly. “It’s your choice, Harry. Whatever you decide, know that I will accept it as long as it is your decision and not something you feel coerced into agreeing to.”
Mors makes an affirmative sound, skeletal fingers casually tracing the sharp, serrated edge of Their sickle as if bored of the conversation already.
Harry glances back at Henrik, pensive in his silence—and saddened, for all the other boy has lost, forced into the role of casual bystander as his own mother plots the destruction of his remaining siblings. “I’ll do it,” mutters the wizard, green eyes flashing with determination, not bothering to think it over before committing to the idea of saving a family of dangerous, powerful vampires from the hatred and disgust of their mother.
Physis leans forward eagerly, one perfectly trimmed, lime-green eyebrow raised in anticipation. “Say it, child. What will you do?”
“I’ll save them,” Harry says confidently, his agreement earning a relieved, grateful smile from Henrik, who impulsively throws himself against a startled Harry, hugging him while thanking him over and over again. Awkwardly patting his back, Harry peers over the boy’s shoulders at Physis, not even a little surprised to find the deity grinning from ear to ear, an odd gleam in her mismatched eyes. “I...Uh...Choose reincarnation. Yeah.”
Physis squeals, practically jumping up and down in her excitement before enfolding both boys in a big, rib-crushing hug. “You won’t regret this, Favored One. You will know happiness—it shall find you once again. So mote it be.”
Pepromene and Mors exchange knowing glances, a percolation of calm acceptance flowing between them. “So mote it be,” they echo, a blinding flash of white encompassing them for a moment before fading away, leaving Harry to blink the phantom black spots dancing in front of his eyes away—only to gape when he realizes he’s alone save for a beaming Henrik, whose silhouette is beginning to flicker like a candle in a nonexistent breeze.
“Thank you,” are the last words he hears before total darkness falls, engulfing everything in its path.