Chapter Text
“Kill the snake,” Harry says to Hermione, “kill the snake, and then it’s just him. Then it will be over.”
It’s not that Harry wants to die, but since the moment he realized he had to a weight seemed to have dropped from his shoulder, so much that the walk to the Forbidden Forest felt oddly comforting, like he was just on his way to visit a friend.
And, in a way, he was.
He keeps rolling the resurrection stones between his fingers, the same way he had been doing since he figured out what it was. There was never a time where he wanted to make use of it, maybe because he knew that like in the story the ones he loved and were gone wouldn’t be happy to be brought back from their eternal rest. Or maybe because deep down he knows that if he was ever meant to get reunited with them then there was no need to rush things.
And yet he couldn’t help but wish that someone had come and told him that everything was going to be okay, that for the first time in his life, this sacrifice was going to be a hundred percent worth it and it was going to do more good than bad.
That the impact it was expected to make actually was made and that he could die peacefully like all of them once deserved to do so.
“You’ve been so brave,” Sirius voice suddenly says.
“Why are you here?” he asks scared, not of the ghost of his godfather, but because what if he had used the stone without realizing it?
“I never left, none of us did.”
“Does it hurt? Dying?” he can’t help but ask making Sirius smile.
“Quicker than falling asleep,” Sirius says lovingly, “c’mon, you’re nearly there.”
“I’m sorry, I never meant for you to die for me, I never meant for no one to do so,” Harry says on the verge of crying.
“It’s okay, some people are worth dying for.”
“Are you going to stay with me?”
“Until the end,” Sirius answers and they continue walking.
“Would they be able to see you?”
“No, we’re here,” Sirius says as he signals Harry’s heart, “always and forever.”
“Okay.”
Dying was not like falling asleep, it was more like that second when you’re about to wake up from a dream where you’re falling into an abyss. It felt like, well, dying.
As a half-blood, there was always that uncertainty in what was next when you died that Harry never got to shake off, sure, magic has explained a lot of mysteries of life but none about death; so much that wizards keep finding ways to delay the inevitable.
Whether it was drinking unicorn’s blood or creating the Philosopher's Stone wizards feared death the same as muggles did, and while Harry never really grew up with the religious connotations that the afterlife tended to come with he still couldn’t help to wonder what happened next.
Well, no need to keep waiting, because the first thing he noticed was feeling painless, not a single bit of residue of all those years of mistreatment nor the last few months of living hell he had put his body through. He also felt weightless, like for the first time he wasn’t carrying the wizarding world on his shoulders.
“Well, we sure intended to meet you many years later,” a female voice finally came through the mist surrounding him.
“And in better circumstances as well,” a man added.
“Who’s there?” Harry asked he was already dead, there was no need to fake having self-preserving instincts.
“Oh yeah, it makes sense you wouldn’t recognize our voices, you were so little when you last heard them,” oh yeah, he knew that voice, only every time he heard it it was screaming from pain and grieving rather than the sweet and soft one talking to him right now.
“Mom? Dad?” Harry found it a bit odd that even in the afterlife he could feel sadness, he wasn’t crying, not knowing if it was because he was too shocked to do so or because he had lost the ability by dying.
“It’s nice to see you again,” his dad smiled.
Harry had long accepted he was going to die, maybe because it was the only thing he had known since forever since before knowing magic existed there was death. Morbidly, death always seemed to surround him, whether it was all the insects that found a home next to his bed back in his cupboard or all the people who had died and would continue dying since Voldermort returned.
“I’m sorry but aren’t you dead? Does that mean I am dead?”
“Oh yes, that’s the question isn’t it?” his mom said in a teasing way, “To put it shortly, not really,”
“Huh?”
“What died tonight was a part of you, but not you if that makes sense,” his dad tried to explain but only confused him further.
“I am afraid not,” Harry said faintly making his mom smile softly.
“Well, as you may suspect, or know by now, Voldemort and you had a connection greater than fate, ever since that night at Godric’s Hollow anyway,” his mom explained further and realization downed into Harry.
“So it was true then, a part of him lives inside me, isn’t it?”
“More like did,” his dad clarified, “which brings us back to your original question.”
“Am I dead?” Harry asked once again now getting what they tried to tell him a couple of minutes ago.
“Not really, at least not unless you want to, sadly we have spent too much time here and there’s one more person that wants to greet you,” his mom hurried her answer and hugged him tightly, quickly joined by his dad.
Suddenly Harry wondered if he had the Erised mirror in front of him after this encounter. Would he still see the same? Or would his deepest desire have changed?
“I hope we see each other again, not for a long time though, but regardless of your decision remember that there’s nothing you can do that would make us less proud of you,” his father said, it sounded awfully close to a goodbye.
“Nor love you any less,” his mom said with a big smile, “if anything, you deserve to be a little bit more selfish love,” and with that, he was alone again.
He walked a bit more into the path, now that the mist had dissipated he began to truly see his surroundings, it felt like a much cleaner and quieter version of King’s cross, is this what the afterlife meant? Crossing a train to the other side? A bit cliché if you asked him, but exciting nonetheless.
“So we meet again, good friend,” that voice, he did not recognize, was too soulless to be human but too human to be anything else.
“Sorry, I don’t recognize you,” Harry said truthfully making the voice laugh softly.
“I didn’t expect you to, after all this is our first time meeting properly, without any rushes,” an ambiguous-looking dark figure appeared in front of him.
Harry felt like he should be scared, and yet he hadn’t felt so at peace in a while. It was indeed like meeting an old friend, one that you only see every few times a year and yet seemed to be overjoyed to meet with you again.
“Who are you?” Harry asked, even if something inside him already knew the answer.
“I go by many names, but people know me best as Death,” the creature answered, “and you Harry Potter are my master,” Harry’s confused face must have let Death know that he had no idea what it was referring to since it continues speaking, “you are the bearer of three gifts I gave away a long time ago.”
“The deathly hollows,” Harry said beginning to understand, “but Voldemort has the Elder wand, not me.”
“Just because someone has something doesn’t mean it belongs to them, the wand that you have on yourself is not yours either, and yet you have it,” Death reasoned, and Harry then remembered that indeed the wand he has been carrying all this time was Malfoy’s, not his.
“If I’m the Master of Death, then why did I die?” a bit of a redundant question, yet one Harry felt genuinely curious about.
“Oh but that’s the thing, isn’t it? You are not dead, the fragment of Tom Riddle’s soul is,” Death answered with an almost cheeky tone, “so now that we clarified that, let’s not waste more time, as of right now you have 2 choices; the first one you can die and finally rest in the afterlife along all the people who’s been waiting for you, the other is to go back and put an end to a war other people has made you the leader of.”
“None of them sounds very exciting if you ask me,” Harry said tiredly.
“I had a feeling you might say that, which is why I’m willing to offer you a third option, a reset for lack of better words.”
“So… live through it all once again? Not sure if that’s any better than just putting an end to it for once and all.”
“Yes and no, us deities believe that everything has a reason and a path to follow, nothing is by coincidence but rather because of destiny,” Death began explaining, “your path has been meddled by so many people in ways that most of us find disrespectful, this outcome was one of many but not the one you were meant to live.”
“So you’re telling me I’ve lived a life that wasn’t meant to be mine?” Harry feels what could be best described as numbness, like if none of this was supposed to happen then why it did?
“Exactly, it was fabricated by someone who deemed themself as a deity on their own, and don’t worry, they paid their wrongs, but don’t be fooled, while you experienced a lot of hardships that weren’t meant to be there that doesn’t mean you weren’t destined to live a hard life.”
“If I go back all of my loved ones do as well?” hopes of him living with his parents in this new reality began growing inside his heart only to be shattered by a voice full of pity.
“Oh dear child, I can’t give you what your heart truly desires, your path was meant to be walked without your parents by your side, but that doesn’t mean you were meant to walk it alone as you did in your childhood.”
Harry opened his mouth, eager to inquire more about this new reality being presented to him, he felt like the first time he rode a broom, full of life and eagerness to do it many more times and for longer.
“I’m afraid I can’t give you all the answers you wish to have, that wouldn’t be fair, but rest assured that this path is going to be a much gentler one than the one you’ve walked so far,” Death said.
“And if I go back, the fragment of Voldemort’s soul inside me does as well?”
“Well, let’s just call it the price you had to pay for going back, so no, no other people’s souls are going back with you,” Death said with complicity making Harry smile.
“And what about my memories?” Harry asked, he knew he was asking for too much but the thought of having a faint idea of what was about to come gave him comfort and a sense of security he could describe as hope.
“Destiny has written yours already so there’s not much you can do to change the outcome,” Death reasoned, “however you must remember that no mattering the resemblance of this past life you might encounter in this new one, this was the path you were supposed to walk by, so you don’t get to be angry when things don’t go as you might expected.”
“I think I can deal with disappointment,” Harry joked. “Let’s do it then,” he decided, “worst case scenario we end up meeting again sooner than planned, am I right?”
“I believe we’ll meet much more than you’ll realize.”
But before Harry could question what Death meant a bright light blinded him and the same sensation he felt on his first train ride to Hogwarts replicated in his stomach.
“Oh dear lord, thank Merlin you’re alive,” a familiar voice said, “don’t worry little prongs, Uncle Padfoot is going to take good care of you.”
And maybe being left alone in the dark wasn’t as scary as he thought it would be, he had a safe pair of arms holding him close with such care he had never got to know until he was eleven years old.
Harry could only think that he could get used to this kind of treatment.