Chapter Text
31st of October, 1981 AC
It was Samhain night, and just like anywhere else the people were celebrating, but here in Godric’s Hollow it was no more than a cold October night, more so was it a silent night. Or so it would be if the world was no more than the devasted remain of the once lively Potter Cottage, a crumbling wreckage barely strong enough to support itself- for now that is.
The once warm and welcoming home filled with laughter and joy was no more than a grave for the parents to young to depart from their child and realm of the living, was no more than a tomb for the man whom his ambitions have led here where he found his downfall.
And soon enough they all would be joined by the young babe, no more that a winter of age clinging desperately on to life, robbed of the future she was promised, torn away from her only a few minutes ago.
She lay in a crip, no more that a few paces from the remains of her young mother, the ashes of her murderer dusting her little bed. The child bawled pitifully, but not loudly she had no strength to express her emotions, her very soul shattered by what she experienced.
There in this crib she would die from the killing curse, alone and bitten by the frost that heartlessly robbed her and the room of the last warmth there was.
It was truly horrible to see such a pure child, such a young child, to die in such loneliness, but that wasn’t true, was it?
The child was not truly alone, she was joined in her finale moment by the Reaper, Death itself.
Death, Grim Reaper, Apollyon whatever one might call him regarded the scene before him whit empty eyes, He knew no emotions yet still he was no heartless being, so he stretched out a fleshless arm over the crib and only for her, only for her finale moments willed the frost back, welcomed warmth to comfort the child. His cloak ragged as it was danced around his skeletal body and her soon to be grave as if freed from all earthly law, shielding the both of them from prying eyes that did not exist.
Death thought himself indifferent to most the torment of men, yet he still lingered by the girls side, regarded her with no purpose. Granting her respite from her torment before he would claim her, he could comfort her. He had done so for many before her.
Still, he felt he could not take her, not just yet. It was her time that he knew but she was not ready yet.
He could wait for her, he had time, still he thought it wasteful. The girl before him was barely in this world and yet departed already, it was wasteful. It was all too often wasteful.
A self-proclaimed Lord of Darkness, pretender of immortality, killing hundreds of his own chosen people in a delusional crusade against the lesser race. Such a fascinating character brought to a swift and unexpected end. All because of his own misconceptions.
All that charisma, all that power, all that glory, his singular obsession with eternal life all swept away in the torrent of his own hubris. A singular moment was all it needed to reduce him and all he was worth to nothing but a name in history, forgotten and never thought of again as the living will march on. Time would claim his legacy as it did with so many others before him and would with so many after him.
His death was oh so righteous and deserved, still it was paid with the blood of a father defending his family and a mother sacrificing herself to safe her daughter and still would claim one more life in exchange for his damnation.
Unfair, even Death thought.
The Babe took a staggering breath, her wailing subsided, if it was because of the comfort he offered her or because she grew that much weaker he could not tell. All that he knew was that this breath, however hopeful it was for her survival, was still one of her last.
The cold marched onwards around the two of them, engulfing the room in its chilly grasp. Surrounding them if the young girl was prey, one it knew weak, waiting for her guardian to abandon her to her fate, let the cold extinguish the last warmth in this home.
He was a Gurdian so much he could admit, he was the Gurdian of the Dead, protecting and guiding the souls of the past to his Kingdom of the Damned. Still, he did not know why he made so much effort to comfort this child, he often questioned himself in such moments. She was not yet his obligation, not yet his to guide.
Nonetheless he indulged in his need to comfort her.
Around them he heard, whit no ears of his own, the cracking and moaning of the walls. They threaten to end the fading life of the child under falling rubble. The World around them was decaying and dying just as fast as she was.
For once Death did not it to be so.
He did not do it consciously yet still his cape further enclosed around them, an indestructible yet frail shield under which he sought to give the girl before him protection from this cruel world.
Despite how ancient he was in origin, a consciousness traveling this world before men ever walked on the planes, how powerful and inescapable he was, he could not make this moment of peace and tranquility make last.
How he wished he could make time here what he pleased it to be.
His gaze still lingered in the creation before him. Short hair that seems to be made of red hot flame in color, he thought it must be the envy of silk whit how soft it looked, he dared not touch it. What if he broke the spell that allowed this moment? Her eyes, shining like the brightest emerald, mocking the same shade of light that sought to end her and it still would. Her skin pale, sickly so, but he could not find it an imperfection, because how could he fault her in her final moments.
But the aspect that held him captive the most in this moment, had him driven to extent this departure as long as he could was her soul. So unimaginably bright illuminating the darkness of the room whit a golden shine that only he could see. It burned him, brought him agony but still it was a small price to see such a pure soul of goodness, innocence and righteousness, he knew none that had ever compared.
It bothered him to see something so unique, so singular wasted, never to blossom into what it should have been.
She was on her way to his Kingdom, yet he did not want her, she deserved more. She should not meet her procreators yet, beyond the vail, should not have to face her murderer there.
Yet… it should not be possible, could not be Death knew it. The Pretender was not yet truly dead but still he also was?
It was a sensation that was foreign to Death, a Soul that was held not by a single thread, such he has meet before, but instead was held back from the gates to the pit of darkness by a whole web of ankers, clinging to life, so desperately, so fearfully. Clawing into the web as if fearing it could not hold him to this world.
Anger, Death knew not, but he knew annoyance and he was annoyed. What a feeble, what a pathetic attempt to trick him. Surely it could have worked, the Reaper could admit so much. It could have worked was it not for him having taken notice of the Pretender and his quest to defy him long ago.
Still the Pretender did something Death had not thought possible, thought such insanity could not ever be achieved. Such mutilation of one’s own soul never successful.
The Lord of Darkness, he was no Pretender of Immortality, no was truly a Defier of Mortality.
Death knew him to be a fascination one, it was a fascination with the grotesque, horror he thought to study, for how far could a human truly fall? Such self-mutilation? Splitting a soul six times? Still there was a seventh piece missing, could it have been lost in his quest for eternity?
Death did not know, but he knew the Child before him to be of different fascination to him than that monster.
How could he not have taken a fascination to her? How could he not have taken a tenuous liking to her? She was everything he could not be. A radiant light of life, shinning beacon of hope. Not the darkness, not the coldness, not the fear of the unknown like he was. He did not envy her, he knew himself to be what he must be, knew that he was needed to balance all things good.
Fascinated he still was of both of them, in so radically different ways yet they shared one thing he was curious about. Where both born of the blood of the Men that made Death bow. A Legacy he found deeply annoying, found all three of the brothers to be forsaken, damned by their attempts to have victory over his eternal duty.
But why did the Girl have to be the one to pay for her Lineages foolishness?
Why could the Defier not have died in any other way?
But he was not truly dead not yet, the Reaper reminded himself. He would collect his Soul, if only because he cut the life of such a bright soul short.
Death was still standing guard at the side of the now sleeping child. It where only seconds since he started his guard but still how eternally long his watch felt. Unseen, Death let his reach span across the land, a chilling breeze travelling along was all that revealed his actions, his all-knowing gaze searching for the cursed objects holding the tarred soul to this world, they where all to easy to make out, the rotten threads of corrupted life span across the land, each steadier secured than the last, each a container of immense power. Beyond the power of most to destroy, but not the Grim Reaper.
Each one of the cursed things he stripped of the blackened soul-shard, each thread he severed, the mutilated soul of the Defier ever more precariously dangling above the endless abyss.
Each one her severed, until the very last that was binding the rotten one to the mortal realm, than that last lifeline too was severed as well, yet still… yet…
yet the Defier did not fall?
Still the horrible soul was suspended over the endless darkness, floating as if mocking Death with his resistance. No not even floating the blackened one was, but rising, rising ever so slowly to the mortal realm, not held back by the threads binding him in place, where they too only a burden to him? It was not possible, it could not be, yet still the blackened one still arose higher and higher back to the realm of the living.
Another breath of the child, that was what broke the concentration of the Reaper, it was slower, weaker, labored. The girl he guarded was almost in his grasp, that breath was her very last he knew, her body betraying her betraying her right to exist. Her he would guide gently, would give her the comfort she deserved.
That brightness of her soul was fading. The shine that should have glowed across the lands ever duller… that should not be. Her mortal shell was fading yes, but her soul was unbound by the physical plain, why it too began to change?
Her last breath was taken, her body ceasing to fight, her time was upon her…
Yet she would not fall? Would not part from the mortal realm?
For the first time since his very own creation did Death not have the Power to claim a Soul, he did not have the power to claim them both.
Death could not comprehend, could not conceive of a way that these mortals had tricked him and that brought forth a rage he knew himself uncapable if. He did not face such humiliation since the three brothers had tricked him.
A terrible screech boomed across the streets of Godric’s Hollow, a darkness descending upon the village as if the very sky was falling. Bitter cold ensnaring the homes of families. In his anger Death willed fourth a hateful wave of magic that would consume not only this village but all the lands in endless night, a terrible winter lasting generation if he willed it so.
Enraged, whit pure hate for all of creation the Reaper clawed his fleshless fingers into the very souls of both the tarred one and the golden one, his grip more than that of a claw and with all his might he pulled, demanded they be forced beyond the veil.
Yet for all his power, he could not move them, could not stop the golden one from lingering, could not stop the tarred one from ascending, no it was him, it was death that was punished his clawed hands of bones, burning as if he touched the light of god himself, as if his acts where not in the grand design of things to come yet he knew that no such design could ever entail such afront to nature itself.
In all his rage, as endless night swept across the land, Death could do nothing but watch, watch the horrible soul rise, never should it have been possible for a soul to rise yet it did. The blackened soul ascended higher and higher, nearer and nearer it came to the place where it lost its mortal shell. Only it did not linger there, where it was once alive, no, the blackened soul of the Defier instead settled before the face of Death, above the undead girl before him.
And in in the very presence of the hateful Grim Reaper, it descended upon the golden child and when the tarred one touched the golden one for the first time the young girl screamed a scream of agony and pure torture, a sound no mortal could ever make. The tarred one descended further, nestled himself right in the center of the golden soul. The Child was dead, yet she wasn’t and lurched and twisted as no human ever should, made sounds so horrible even death recoiled from the unholy scene. Then before his very eyes the girl settled, again returning to her undead state.
In all of existence, this was the first time Death felt true disgust, utter horror at what he witnessed.
The Defier had merged whit the golden one, had forced his tarred soul to hide in the dimmed yet bright golden light if the child. Two Souls, light and darkness, alive and dead, yet still all the same dying bonded together in a limbo between the realms. Still part of the mortal realm yet just as much part of the damned. Caught between the light of this world and the darkness he called his own, Death saw these insignificant creatures find shelter in the shadows, had triumphed over deaths unrelenting grasp.
How dare they?!
How dare they defy him?!
Defy nature itself?!
How dare they escape him? It would not last Death knew, the body would crumble under the forces it had to content with, yet still they achieved victory over death however short lived it was.
But still how dare that bloodline of fools yet again challenge him?
How dare they yet again succeed?
Purest darkness, purest cold enclosed the two beings, the forces Death conjured around them tried to consume the girl, yet she was still untouched. Death was not surprised by such, yet he was foolish for all the might he held in that room, he did not think of the darkness that conquered the world, of the cold that dared to consume all warmth it could find, it did not matter to him, not when faced whit such a challenge to himself.
An ugly noise came from the amalgamation before him, a wet, scratching noise, a noise of drowning yet all the same the thing before Death breathed slowly. Death neared ever so slightly, inspecting the thing he could not touch, with such care to detail, he needed to understand. Nearer and nearer he drew until the warm breath of the monster touched his veiled face.
Now he could see it all so clearly, now he could truly see the corruption taking hold of her, and death did not miss a second of the mutilation. How did he not see before? The soul was still bright yes, but all the much darkened by the foul leech corrupting it. Still both fought in union, fought to safe the failing body, a body to young, to frail to ever contain such power, such foulness. The shell would burst, succumb to the stress put upon it, and they could do nothing to stop it.
They were delaying the inevitable. How very human it was.
He could wait, Death decided and so he did , each moment, each second, however insignificant it was Death could not miss it for the fight before him. He longed to hold this abomination in his arms, longed to perceive this impossibility however he desired, longed to understand it.
Death wanted to understand it, so he told himself, so that such an afront to nature could never exist again.
Death knew he lied to himself.
He longed to understand because this was something he could try to understand, did not know already, a mystery, a puzzle he could solve, because he knew it should be impossible and still before him lay prove of the opposite.
What Death had before him was an enigma, a challenge to him that only a Peverell could ever dare him to understand and what he saw was so simple yet so hard to understand.
A Child, small, precious, dependent, fighting, losing, dying, living, horrendous, beautiful.
A Soul, pure, golden, shinning, fading, tainted, corrupted, powerful, destructive, shattered.
It may have been hours, may have been seconds but Death truly lost himself in the paradox before him, and he held regret, this perhaps was not the abomination he thought it to be in his anger.
The darkness lightened across the world.
Perhaps it was only something new, something unseen, unheard of, something he thought himself fascinated by, not in admiration or disgust like each of the halves that made this whole but by the singular thought to understand it.
The cold warmed the frozen earth.
Perhaps this girl was something so singular, it would only exist once again, Death thought, it was all too little of time. Too little time to truly study her, understand her and what she truly was, what would become of her, of this unholy yet glorious union.
How disappointing it all was in the end, the legacy of the three brothers brought to an end not only whit a finale insult to nature but whit a truly fascinating being that Death could perhaps never truly learn to understand, a finale mockery to his abilities, to what he was, who he was.
Maybe he would never understand the life that was created this night,
But maybe this creation, as pathetic, as glorious, as short lives it was, maybe it could be great if only given the chance. The cruelty was not lost to him, a scion of light and dark, would be doomed by the same actions that made it even possible to exist, crafted from the paranoia of a great man, terrible he may was, crafted from the brightest of all souls, mended together by the love of a mother sacrificing herself for her only child, all powered yet destroyed by the unrelenting influence of the death curse.
Half dead, half alive, yet all the same dying, precariously balancing on a rope that threatens to snap at any moment.
Peacefully the girl lay in her crib, yet in agony the souls fighting were.
Perhaps Death could acknowledge the effort of the Defier, perhaps he could pity the child robbed of her destiny, one independent of her murderer.
Perhaps this could not be the end of this Story.
Perhaps this could only be the beginning.
But not here, no. Not now, not in this form and not with the cards already dealt.
Not as two Soul too conflicting for one vessel, but one, truly one godless whole.
Not in this Land and Age of Strive and Progress but one of Fire and Ice.
In a realm where the Reaper presided more directly, could observe his fascination undisturbed, unbothered by the doings of lesser mortals.
Slowly, ever so slowly the warmth retuned in full to the still chilling room, a warmth all to reminiscent of what has been lost, ever so gently the Grim Reaper reached into the crib before him, afraid a single touch might break this perfection of all that shouldn’t be. Softly, with a care that he thought himself incapable of, did Death lift the sleeping child in his arms, cradle her to his decayed chest. It burned him, brought agony to flesh long gone but that was a price he was willing to pay.
The Babe stirred, it did not cry and maybe that was all the confirmation he needed, enough of an agreement of the world around him that here in this Samhain Night Death made the right choice.
As his hollow eyes gazed at the thing in his arms, he truly was mesmerized by what he saw, because he did not know what he saw.
He could abandon his duty this once, Death thought. His boney, clawed fingers carefully gliding across the forehead of the sleeping child.
This once he could escape his eternal duty.
He fooled himself, he knew, but he did not care for all the souls in this World, this soul, this one right in his arms, deserved his undivided attention.
A Legacy that held him captive for nearly seven centuries culminating in this final gift.
Still, he held contempt for the Defier and his tarred soul, however important he was in the creation of Deaths chosen. For however great this gift was, it would never be of the true perfection the girl was before the blackened one used her for shelter.
Death could be honest, could be clear with himself, and he knew what he was to do would be more than just petty, yet he was no better than this and he would not allow the man to succeed in any meaningful way.
This bright soul, the girl, would have her life the one the tarred one denied her, the blackened, the man, would pay the price for his redemption and her ascension.
She would have the future denied to her, one of peace and stability, he one the Defier had taken form her before she was even born.
He would pay his depts to her and more, but not without a gain of his own of course.
He would have all he hoped to achieve, in service to her legacy.
He would have his greatness realized, as a tool to her destiny.
He would have his mind of clarity, as a voice in hers.
He would have his Soul a whole, as part of hers.
With the girl cradled to Death, disguised by the thin rags of a cloak both him and his chosen vanished into nothingness and with them so departure also the last life, last strength of Potter Cottage. Collapsing in on itself, sealing the graves left behind and ending the legacy that could have been of Rose Lily Potter.
There was no such Girl anymore.
In the Realm of Fire and Ice, Death would call the Child of Gold his blessed.
Laid before the Steps of a wooden door, he left her behind.
So by Deaths word, let it be commenced.