Chapter Text
Harriett lay there, facedown in a void that existed yet did not. The silence enveloped her, a void so vast, so profound, it felt like the absence of everything, not just sound. She felt as if she were lost in time, untethered, floating in the nothingness of pure existence. Was she real? Was she even here?
Her mind, for a long moment—or perhaps for no time at all—drifted, unable to grasp the concept of time. She could only sense the faintest traces of her own consciousness, the soft hum of awareness that indicated that perhaps, just perhaps, she did exist. She lay on a surface. Something beneath her body was there, supporting her. Something had to exist if she could feel it. And it was there, undeniably, a touchstone to reality, grounding her in this place.
The realization came in a rush. I must exist, she thought. I am more than just a floating thought, some disembodied fragment of consciousness. The simple knowledge that she was lying on something—whatever it was—was enough to confirm her existence. She was not just a mind. She had a body. And with that body, she had a sense of touch.
The moment she reached this conclusion, a new realization crept in, crawling under her skin like a chill. Harriett was naked. The awareness of her own nudity was not a shocking sensation, nor did it seem to concern her, for she was utterly alone, devoid of anything or anyone that might gaze upon her exposed form. Still, something about it intrigued her. It wasn't fear or shame, just an odd fascination. She was, after all, alone, a solitary figure in an empty, undefined space.
Yet even as she examined her nakedness, a thought took root in her mind. If I can feel, surely I can see. With a tentative movement, she opened her eyes.
The world she saw was not like any she had known before. It was a bright, soft glow, akin to mist—but it wasn't mist in the conventional sense. The world around her seemed to be made of a hazy fog, but the fog itself was still forming. It hadn't yet materialized into anything solid, like a vague memory slipping through her fingers. There was no horizon, no shape to anything, only the faintest suggestion of something... and the floor. The floor beneath her was pure white, neither cold nor warm but simply neutral, an empty canvas upon which she could exist.
She slowly sat up, her body unscathed and unmarked by any injury, as if she had never been hurt at all. Her fingers brushed against her face, feeling the smooth contours of her skin. One thing, though, seemed to have disappeared—her glasses. They were gone, vanished as if they had never existed, and for a brief moment, Harriett wondered if this new existence was somehow linked to their absence. What did it mean that she no longer needed them?
As if in response to her thoughts, a sound cut through the thick, empty quiet around her. It was a soft, repetitive noise—a thumping, muffled but insistent, a sound that suggested something struggling. She frowned, feeling an uneasy flutter in her chest. The sound was pitiful, weak—almost shameful. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was hearing something it wasn't meant to hear, something secretive and indecent, like stumbling upon a private moment that should not have been exposed.
Her nakedness, which had been a fleeting concern, now felt less important. Harriett stood, the sensation of the soft earth beneath her feet grounding her further into this strange, disorienting reality. She had to find the source of the noise, this strange sound that gnawed at the edge of her awareness.
She turned in a slow circle, the white space around her bleeding away like watercolor. What replaced it was a meadow—a strange mix of mellowsweet flowers and bluebells stretching out before her. The sight, though serene, confused her. She wondered why she was in her meadow. The meadow was a place from her dreams. She'd been dreaming of it ever since she could remember. But she was sure she was not dreaming now.
Then, as her thoughts wandered, she remembered something. Voldemort. Her mind, still fuzzy, recalled the last image she had of him—his rage, the killing curse aimed directly at her, his wrath. I had died, she realized. Her thoughts raced. This must be some fragment of the afterlife, a space between worlds.
A deep sense of loneliness settled on her shoulders. She was the only one here—save for whatever made that strange, pitiful noise. The silence that had once felt like peace now felt oppressive. It pressed against her like an invisible weight, urging her forward, toward the source of the sound.
Harriett moved slowly through the meadow, her bare skin tingling with the brush of mellowsweet flowers against her thighs. She felt like Eve in the Garden of Eden, untouched by time, alone in the wilderness—yet lacking her Adam. She was a solitary figure in this strange new world, stripped of everything but her body and mind.
As she reached the end of the meadow, she saw the object of her quest. The thumping, pitiful noise became clearer, sharper, as she drew near. There, lying beneath the shade of a towering Pacific yew tree, was the source of the sound.
At first, Harriett recoiled, her breath catching in her throat. What she saw before her was a creature of pure grotesquery. It was small, no more than a baby, but its skin was raw and rough, almost flayed, as though it had been scraped raw by some unimaginable force. The baby's body seemed fragile, and broken, and it lay there, helpless, shuddering beneath a thin seat or cloth that had been carelessly discarded atop it. It struggled for breath, every inhale labored and painful.
Harriett's heart skipped a beat. Fear flooded her senses, though she knew not why. It was a small, fragile creature, unable to defend itself. But still, there was something about it—something deeply wrong.
She stood there for a long moment, unable to move closer. There was something repulsive about it, something that twisted her stomach, but there was also a deep, gnawing sadness that tugged at her. She felt pity, but that pity was tainted by a deep, instinctual fear. Could she approach it? Could she help it?
Then, as if driven by some external force, Harriett's mind was flooded with the image of another—a different, distant memory. It came to her in a rush, unbidden, like an image thrust before her eyes from a darkened corner of her mind.
She saw the words from the pages of the book The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and the image of Mr. Button sitting in horror beside his son. The memory of the book, of the grotesque, impossible child in it, became inextricably tied to the thing before her.
"Mr. Button sank down upon a chair near his son and concealed his face in his hands. 'My heavens!' he murmured, in an ecstasy of horror. 'What will people say? What must I do?'"
She could almost feel Mr. Button's helplessness. The grotesque image of the child, unwanted and misunderstood, who could not be loved in the world of the living, hit her like a gut punch.
Her hand, trembling, moved forward. She took the baby in her arms, feeling its frail body in her hands. It opened its eyes, and they were blue, hauntingly familiar—like the eyes from the diary of Tom Riddle, like the eyes of the boy who had once inhabited her life. Her breath caught in her throat.
The baby, too, calmed as she held it, it's shuddering slowing, the quiet, broken breaths becoming steadier, more even. Harriett rocked the child gently in her arms, her fingers moving instinctively to soothe it, though a sense of horror still gnawed at her.
She looked down at it, her mind racing. This is a part of him. This thing, this grotesque, twisted child—this is a piece of Voldemort that had lived inside her for sixteen years. Her mind recoiled at the thought, but she couldn't deny it. There was no other explanation.
"Tom," she whispered into the stillness of the air. She had no other name for it. It was as if she were acknowledging something deep within herself. She could not deny it any longer. This was part of him. Part of the monster she had once loved, part of the darkness that had consumed so much of her life.
The baby whimpered against her, and her heart broke. She wept—not out of fear, but out of sorrow. This was not the creature she had once known, the terrifying, dark force that had twisted so many lives. It was just a baby now—helpless, wounded, and utterly alone in a strange world. Harriett felt a deep, overwhelming sadness. The baby in her arms might have been a fragment of the darkness that had lived within her for so long, but it was still a child. Still a baby. It had no choice in what it had become.
With a sob, she clutched the baby closer, pressing its face against her naked chest. It was warm, fragile, and she felt every ounce of her humanity return in that moment. She didn't care that she was naked, didn't care that the baby was, too. There was only the sorrow of what had happened to him—and to her. The love she had buried deep within her heart, the love she had locked away when she was just a child, burst through the iron curtain of her emotions, overwhelming her.
The realization hit her like a sudden wave of clarity. This was not just some twisted fragment of Voldemort's soul. This baby, this vulnerable, fragile thing, had once been her. She had been the vessel for the darkness, the bearer of a horrible fate. She had loved him once, or thought she had. Now, all that remained was pity, and that pity made her heart ache with a sorrow she had never known.
Harriett held the baby, rocking him gently in her arms, and for the first time in a long time, she cried—not out of fear or regret, but because she understood something far deeper than she had ever realized. This was the end of something—something dark, something that had ruled her life. But now it was just a baby, fragile and helpless, and in her arms, it was not a monster anymore. It was just... Tom.
And she wept for him. She wept for the boy he had been, and for the man he could never be. She wept for the love that could never be, and for the chance that had slipped away from them both.
"You cannot help it."
Harriett, startled, looked up to find Professor Albus Dumbledore standing before her, sprightly and upright, wearing sweeping robes of midnight blue.
"Harri." He spread his arms wide, and his hands were both whole and white and undamaged. "You wonderful girl. You brave, brave woman."
Stunned and becoming very aware that she was naked, blushed bright red from shame as well as blooming with righteous anger at her old Headmaster.
He tossed her a white robe and she quickly pulled her arms through the sleeves after carefully setting Tom back on the grass. He immediately began whimpering again, she quickly plucked him back up in her arms to calm him.
Dumbledore stared at her, his brows furrowed as if he could not understand why she even bothered to comfort Tom.
"He's a baby," She said harshly.
"You can not help him," Dumbledore insisted.
"I can comfort him," She whispered, gazing down at Tom. "You're not alone, Tom."
Dumbledore sat down on the grass and she sat back down beside him. Her gaze was trained on his face. Dumbledore's long silver hair and beard, the piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: Everything was as she had remembered it. Happiness seemed to radiate from Dumbledore like light; like fire: Harriett had never seen the man so utterly, so palpably content.
"When Tom took her blood, Harri," Dunbledore began. "He took your blood and rebuilt his living body with it! Your blood in his veins, Harri, Lily's protection inside both of you! He tethered you to life while he lives."
Harriett frowned thoughtfully wondering why he he was saying this when it suddenly hit her.
"Am I not dead?" She blinked in suprise.
"You were the seventh Horcrux, Harri, the Horcrux he never meant to make. He had rendered his soul so unstable that it broke apart when he committed those acts of unspeakable evil, the murder of your parents, the attempted killing of a child. But what escaped from that room was even less than he knew. He left more than his body behind. He left part of himself latched to you, the would-be victim who had survived.
"And his knowledge remained woefully incomplete, Harri! That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped.
"He took your blood believing it would strengthen him. He took into his body a tiny part of the enchantment your mother laid upon you when she died for you. His body keeps her sacrifice alive, and while that enchantment survives, so do you and so does Voldemort's one last hope for himself."
Dumbledore smiled at Harri, and Harri stared at him. "You raised me like a pig for slaughter," She said, a lot calmer than how she truly felt. She wanted to curse him - perhaps even the deep shameful desire to have been the one to kill him, herself.
"I do not minimize your sufferings, which I am sure were severe," Dumbledore said. "I am sorry for what its worth, Harriett. For the things I did all in the name of the Greater good."
Harri glared at him, she wanted to strangle him but she remembers something rather pressing. "The Deathly Hallows," she said, and she was glad to see that the words wiped the smile from Dumbledore's face.
"Ah, yes," he said. He even looked a little worried.
"Well?" She demanded.
For the first time since Harriett had met Dumbledore, he looked less than an old man, much less. He looked fleetingly like a small boy caught in wrongdoing.
"Can you forgive me?" he asked. "Can you forgive me for not trusting you? For not telling you? Harri, I only feared that you would fail as I had failed. I only dreaded that you would make my mistakes. I crave your pardon, Harriett."
"What are you talking about?" asked Harriett, startled by Dumbledore's tone, by the sudden tears in his eyes.
"The Hallows, the Hallows," murmured Dumbledore. "A desperate man's dream!"
"But they're real!"
"Real, and dangerous, and a lure for fools," said Dumbledore. "And I was such a fool. But you know, don't you? I have no secrets from you anymore. You know."
"What do I know?"
Dumbledore turned his whole body to face her, and tears still sparkled in the brilliantly blue eyes. "Master of death, Harriett, master of Death! You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. They accept that they must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying."
As if summoned by the words themselves, Harriett, Dumbledore, and the baby Tom were no longer quite so alone.
A shadow formed from nothing, its whisps moving about like limbs until it took the shape of a human. A young boy, perhaps no more than seven years old. He was wearing a three-piece suit... Oddly enough, barefoot too.
His eyes seemed to suck the light from around him, it was so black it was like a void. It sent shivers down Harriett's spine. The boys gaze was trained on Dumbledore however.
"I've permitted you to ask for pardon - now ask for it and return to my relam, Albus," The boys voice was cold and raspy - echoing all around like a rattling cage and several set of lungs plagued by their impending death.
Harriett slowly looked at Dumbledore to find him smiling sadly. He turned his familiar blue twinkling eye gaze on her. "My dear girl... Could you forgive me for having wronged you in my process if doing what I thought was right?"
Harriett wanted to scream at him and stomp her foot and tell him "NO FUCKING WAY!" but that was not what she said, no she smiled softly at Dumbledore because in some way... She did understand him. She was angry yes. Hurt too but she didn't hate him. She probably should but she didn't.
"I forgive you, Professor," She said softly.
His smile was tremendous. He patted her shoulder and got up. "Do not pity the dead, Harri. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love."
The boy snapped his fingers and Dumbledore was gone.
He sat down beside her. Harriett wanted to cringe away from him but she sat still.
"The Hallows are real, as you know," The boy began. Harri looked down at him though his gaze was trained on the baby in her arms. "The Cloak, as you know now, traveled down through the ages, father to son, mother to daughter, right down to Ignotus's last living descendant, who was born, as Ignotus was, in the village of Godric's Hollow. You are his descendant. Just as Tom here is Cadmus's decedent."
"The ring," Harri said.
"Precisely."
"Wh-Who are you?" She asked.
Finally the boy looked up at her. "My realm is born of darkness. The mortals... they all fear it, foolish as they are. Unable to even see its power. The wretched shades of Tartarus are bound to me in death for their mistakes in life. They answer to me... Like all those who pass on. Can you take a guess on who I am?"
Harriett furrowed her brows and then let out a soft sigh. "You are Hades."
He smiled as if her answer had brought him great joy. "I haven't heard that name in some time," He said. "Most mortals just call me Death."
"Have you... Come to collect us?" She asked. Her hands pressing Tom closer to her as if to protect him.
Death laughed. "In my domain, you either find your place, or learn your place. There's work enough to go around, believe you me, I'd appreciate the extra set of hands. But no, Harriett. I have not come to collect you and Tom. I've come to offer you a deal."
"... A deal?" Harriett was reminded of the story about the demon called Crowley, the Prince of hell, and his famous trades for people's souls.
"The Hallows, Harriett," Death said wistfully. "You've collected all three."
"I never collected the wand--"
"You did when you disarmed Draco Malfoy at his manor. You won its allegiance. It answers to you and to you alone."
"What does that mean?"
"It means Albus was correct. You are the Master of Death, Harriett. Though do not take it as if I am your underling. I work for no one but myself and my wife."
Harriett eyed his small form that was childlike. Death smirked.
"This form is less likely to terrify you. Mortals tend to respond better when facing a child," He explained. Then pointedly nodded at the baby in her arms. "Case in point. Had Tom not been a baby... You would not be comforting him, would you?"
Harriett blushed because he was quite right.
"Despite all of which Tom Riddle had done to escape giving what is rightfully mine," Death hummed, reaching out to touch the baby and brushing his little toes with his pinky. "I find myself strangely fond of him. His ambition, it's fascinating to me."
Harriett did not know how to feel about that because all she felt was horrified about just how far Tom went to get immortality.
"Do not lie to yourself, Harriett," Death said icily as if he read her mind. "That ambition was and is something you understand. You both wanted nothing more than to survive. It's the survivors in you both that made you love the Teenage boy that Tom Riddle once was."
Harriett did not like to be reminded of her poor judgment. Nor her poor taste in boys as a pre-teen.
"I will let you go back under one condition."
Harriett perked up at the idea of going back and not going on to what Dumbledore had once called "The Next Great Adventure."
"Yes! I'll do it!" She was practically vibrating with joy. She could have the life she always wanted - if only she could just live. "I'll do anything!"
Death gave a cruel smile."You really shouldn't agree to things without first reading the fine print..." He then poked one of his long fingernails at where her womb was.
"Congratulations, it's a Boy."