Chapter Text
"Where do you think you're going?"
Sharp bones tore into flesh as skeletal fingers clamped down on her shoulder. Mottled red spread from its touch, deepening to charred black as it raced across her skin, crawling over her neck like liquid ice—
"TELL ME!"
Its voices shrieked at once, layered like broken static. To mortals, it would've been agony. But to Harry—She turned. Dull emerald eyes, framed by round glasses, met the faceless entity.
"Death," she said flatly. "Let me rest."
Desperation had long since burned away; now her plea was ritual, offered only in the faint hope that someday it might be granted. Someday she might rejoin the friends and family whose faces were already fading in her mind. Would she even recognize them, if they met? Her expression flickered with sorrow. She missed them, even if she could no longer quite remember who they were.
Death stilled, then threw back its head and cackled.
"You say that every few centuries! Always so dramatic!" Its voice cracked between a thousand registers, from childish squeals to shrill falsetto, like a puppet master arguing with itself. "Rest, rest, rest—you’re such a broken record!"
Molten rage consumed her, and she wrenched its hand from her shoulder with a roar of magic.
The giggling cut off.
"Ah."
Weight crushed her chest, bone grinding against bone. Pain shrieked its highest pitch, and she could only let out a choked cry, knees buckling as her body began to rot—upright only by sheer force of will.
"That will never happen," Death whispered, mockery curling in its voice. "My Master of Death, my perfect avatar."
Even now, she felt them. The chains that had bound her the moment she had united the Hallows. The moment fragments of Death’s power had seeped into her magic, into her very being—and the moment she had signed herself into its servitude.
Master of Death.
What a treacherous tale. What a hoax. Shaking hands clenched white around the dagger. How had witches and wizards ever believed that three trinkets could leash a god?
… Enough.
Without hesitation, she drove the dagger into her heart. Her breath hitched, an aborted sob as her vision went white in mind-blanking agony. Blood poured, seeping into the runes carved into the ground.
They flared, the runes lighting around her.
"What futility is this?" Death gave a chilling laugh as a barrier closed around it. "Your soul will wait in my realm until I drag you back. Do you think death itself can hold you if I forbid it?"
She collapsed—but not onto the ground.
The last circle of runes ignited. Beneath her, the floor dissolved into a veil of white. The Veil of Life. The culmination of her millennium of research into a forgotten history. While the Veil of Death lay in the Department of Mysteries, this was its counterpart—summoned at last. It was reckless, she knew. The spell might fling her into a world even worse. But it would be away, and that was enough.
Death’s howl shook the void, tearing through stone and flesh alike.
Harry only bared her teeth in a blood-slick grin. “See you never.”
And then—
She was free.
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Harry woke to the patter of raindrops. They slid down the curve of her face and over the fractured lens of her glasses. She blinked once. Twice. Sighed. Damnit, she must've botched the spell—because she remembered. She wasn’t supposed to. The spell should've carried her into a new world with no memory of what had come before. A new life.
But at least her research had been right about one thing.
In this universe, there was no ruler over death—no faceless master with a cruel sense of humour. The chains were gone, and the sudden absence of them was so sweet it almost made her smile. She could die now. Nothing could stop her.
With effort, she raised a hand and pulled her cracked glasses from her face.
"Reparo."
To her relief, magic leapt to obey, her glasses knitting together at once. She pushed herself upright with a groan, blinking blearily at the rain-slick alley. It was night, and she shivered as the wind brushed over her dampened skin. Harry had just cast the warming charm on herself when she heard a quiet scuffle. Then a desperate shriek for help—the fight sounded near.
She grimaced. "Just my bloody luck."
Vanishing the blood off the ground, Harry padded towards the sound. This would be her last good act before her well-deserved retirement.
She heard muffled cries before she saw it: a woman pinned against the wall, a knife to her throat, a hand up her skirt. Harry barely flinched. She’d seen far worse during her years of servitude. Still, the scene gave her pause.
The attacker wasn’t quite human. Rhino-headed.
Harry blinked owlishly.
"Er—Poor weather we're having tonight, isn't it?"
They both turned to stare at her. The woman’s eyes pleaded through her tears, while the rhino-man made a great heaving noise, which Harry supposed was common language for anger. But Merlin pinch her—that did not look like an Animagus. Or maybe it was, and it was just a transformation gone wrong?
"Oh? Another one?"
Japanese! So she was in Japan? But more importantly—bloody hell, the rhino-man spoke.
The woman cried again.
"SHUT UP!" the rhino roared. He sneered when she silenced herself. "Stupid bitch." He turned back to Harry. "You gonna be mindin' your own business or what?"
Harry shrugged. "Sorry mate. Last good deed."
In the blink of an eye, with a wordless and wandless flippendo, the rhino was thrown back into the wall. The bricks shattered beneath the force—and yeah, she’d have to repair that because that was some serious property damage.
Seeing how the rhino was on the ground, unconscious, Harry turned her attention to the woman, who trembled under her gaze.
“A-are you a h-hero?”
Harry's brow furrowed. "Haven't been called that for a while… but sure."
She’d been known first and foremost as the Handmaiden of Death before she had jumped universes. Still, despite the hesitance that must’ve been obvious in her voice, the woman seemed to relax at that. She even managed a small smile.
"So you're a vigilante! Thank you for saving me!" She gave a bow. “Who do I have to thank?”
Vigilante and heroes? What on earth? But ultimately, Harry decided it didn’t matter. Not when she wouldn’t be here for long.
“Prongs,” she said, the name rising unbidden to her lips.
The woman bowed again. "Prongs-san, thank you so much!"
She hurried off into the night, leaving behind a painful throb in Harry’s chest at that name—familiar, yet so distant.
Harry sighed, repaired the wall, and apparated away.
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When she woke again, things were marginally better. Better than yesterday, at least. It was the same dank alley, but at least the sun was shining, and she wasn’t miserably wet—though the blood-soaked robes clinging to her were doing nothing to improve her morning.
“Reckon that didn’t work,” she muttered, flicking a silent Scourgify until the fabric was spotless.
Why hadn't it? Just what was dragging her back to life? Was it because she still held fragments of Death's power even after their bond's severance? But how could she get rid of that, when those fragments had already been melded into her magic, her very lifeblood?
Harry frowned but shoved the thought aside as she set about making herself presentable. Life went on, after all. It wouldn’t hurt to enjoy a few years before she tried to solve the new problem. It wasn’t like there was a rush. She had time. Too much of it, she’d daresay.
Minutes later, she had transfigured her robes into Muggle wear, tamed her hair into a ponytail, and cleaned up her face so she no longer looked like she’d walked straight out of a homicide.
Deciding to do some reconnaissance, Harry apparated onto the rooftop.
Her mouth dropped.
Clearly, she’d landed in the slums, because beyond the cracked streets rose steel titans of skyscrapers. Billboards flashed adverts in garish colour, and the people—Merlin, the people. Some looked perfectly human, but others... apparently, the rhino-man from last night was not an anomaly.
Literally, there were people of all colours, shapes, and sizes.
Harry blinked. If she hadn’t known this was another world, she’d have thought she’d inhaled dodgy potion fumes and gone round the bend. Even after over a millennium of life, she’d never quite been able to curb her curiosity—especially not after the initial centuries, when consequences no longer mattered. She couldn’t die, and there was no one left to threaten her with.
A few apparitions later, Harry found herself in the heart of the city: Mustafu, home, according to the locals, to the best hero school in the world. She hadn’t cared much… until a crowd surged past like Honeydukes was handing out free samples of some new treat.
Harry fell right in line.
People were screaming their heads off—“Death Arms!” and “Kamui Woods!”—phones raised high, filming as if it were a concert. Except there was no music. Rather, there was magic.
They were using bloody magic. Wizards, battling a giant down the street: one from range, and the other in close combat—why? A rune master? And the Muggles weren’t panicking—they were cheering. Filming. As if this was… normal?
She had so many questions.
“Hey, kid,” she said, poking a sparkly-eyed boy with fluffy green hair who was scribbling furiously into a notebook.
“Wah! Ah—!” the boy jolted like a startled rabbit, his notebook flying, and his head spinning so fast towards her that Harry could practically hear it snap.
She winced. “Here.”
With a thought, the notebook zipped back into her hands. The boy took it with wide eyes, muttering about 'quirk' and 'telekinesis' before he flushed abruptly, red as a tomato.
"S-sorry, miss."
Harry smiled. “Not a problem. But—what’s got everyone so excited?”
He gave her an odd look. "...it's a hero fight?"
Hero. That word, again. She had a niggling feeling it didn't share the same meaning as 'wizards.' "And their powers?” she asked. “Are they the only ones with it?—Is that why no one else is helping?"
“You mean… quirks?” the boy said cautiously, which told her that she’d probably asked the wrong questions. “O-other people… they can’t… I-I mean, that’d be—vigilantism, right?”
...Ah, fuck. What had that woman called her last night?
Harry pinched the bridge of her nose. “Got it. Thanks, kid. And… sorry about this.”
She dove into his mind, obliviating him clean and reweaving his memories so he wouldn't notice the slip in time.
That evening, she got to work sorting her new world. The public library had been a blessing. Archived books and free access to computers gave her near-unlimited amounts of information. Certainly enough for her to piece together that this place ran not on magic, but on quirks—something far more restricted. And yeah, maybe she should’ve started at the library, but foreplanning had never been her strength.
Whistling under her breath, she sat down with her stolen dinner—only to pause.
Her alley was already occupied.
By a massive yellow worm.
It twitched. A faint zip split the evening silence.
Then a man’s head slowly emerged from within the crack.
For a beat, her mind was blank as she gawked at him. He stared back.
“What?” he croaked.
And Harry Potter, Master of Death, bane of Dark Lords, holder of far too many grim titles—shrieked like a first-year in Potions.
His eyes flashed red.
Her voice cut short.
Not out of fear. Not at all. But because at that very moment, the one constant she had always relied on—the presence she could depend upon—vanished from within her. Her magic was gone, and the fragments of Death along with it. She felt the shackles of mortality settle deep in her bones. And she knew, without a shred of doubt, that if she were to kill herself right then, it would be permanent.
He was the answer.
Then he blinked, and magic slammed back into her body.
Harry didn’t even twitch. Her eyes misted faintly, her heart beating with the gentlest warmth. Like he was her spring after the longest winter. Like he was the star that lit her skies.
“Hey,” she said softly, “what’s your name?”
Tired, bloodshot eyes returned her gaze blankly.
“Not your business,” he deadpanned.
Then he rolled over with a grunt and went right back to sleep.
Harry stayed silent. Her throat clenched as emotion welled up, seizing her voice. Finally, she could see the end. After all these years.
With quiet footsteps, she placed her dinner near him. He tensed, though he pretended to sleep. Better not let him die of starvation or the weather. She cast a warming charm and a tracking spell on his sleeping bag.
As the charm took effect, he went deathly still.
“It’s a cold night,” she said, uncharacteristically tentative, aware of the stakes in establishing a relationship with him. After years of servitude and lost freedom, she had long sworn off imperius and disliked other forms of mental manipulation. She would try not to force him to use his quirk on her.
She glanced at the food. “And you should eat… it’ll help keep you warm,” she added in a small, awkward voice when the man stayed silent.
She hadn't had to impress someone for so long. Her mouth twisted into a rueful smile.
“I… suppose I’ll see myself out, then. See you some other time?”
With that, Harry left, unaware of unreadable black eyes watching her every step.
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The next morning, she blinked awake to a luxury pre-packaged dinner set from a chain convenience store. Harry rolled herself upright and inspected the package. Her brows knit. It was sealed, untouched. Did that man leave it for her? But… he was homeless, how could he afford this?
She frowned, shrugged, then ate.
What was it going to do? Kill her?
Harry let out a chuckle, finishing her breakfast before dragging herself off to find the grump from yesterday. She tracked his sleeping bag to an apartment, and she watched, concealed beneath her disillusionment charm, as the man eventually emerged. Not homeless at all, even if he looked the part.
What’d he been doing out in the slums at night anyway?
She followed at a distance, but he still seemed to sense that something was up. His movements remained unhurried, and he still walked with a slump, but he began scanning the crowds. Harry clamped down on her reflex to duck into the shadows, apparating to the top of a building instead. Had he sensed her? But her charm was still working… She tensed.
Was it someone else?
Better safe than sorry. Harry stuck with him till the man stopped before a sprawling complex: glass and steel towers loomed over the entrance, and on the gate, in bold letters, was written: U.A. High School.
Blimey, wasn’t that the hero school the locals had been raving about yesterday? Only pro-heroes worked there, as far as she’d heard…
The man tapped an ID against the metal gate, which swung open without fuss. Then he went straight in.
“You cannot be serious,” Harry muttered.
Weren’t heroes supposed to look… marketable?
She scratched her head, then twisted on her heel and disapparated, her mind racing. How was she supposed to approach him now without looking like a total stalker? The alley was too far from the school or his home, and she doubted ‘coincidental meetings’ would fool him—she could tell from his behaviour yesterday. And cameras were probably everywhere at the school and his apartment anyway.
She returned to her alley and flopped down on the ground, letting out a long, world-weary sigh. She’d give it a week to see how often he returned here, though she doubted it; a man that cautious wouldn’t make himself predictable. Still, she could hope. But if he didn’t… well, bloody hell.
She might actually have to go to school. Again.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
“I jinxed it, didn’t I?”
Two weeks on, and she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him. Oh, she could always track him down, but if she wanted to run into him regularly…
Well.
Harry stared despondently at the papers in her hands: the falsified identification she’d just wrangled, featuring her own sullen, fifteen-year-old face and the name 'Potter Hari.' At least it hadn’t been difficult to create a new identity. It was just a matter of asking the right people, using a spell or two, beating up a few villains... so nothing that offended her conscience. Though, admittedly, the gleam in Giran’s eyes had set her teeth on edge, so she'd mindwiped that motherfucker clean of her presence—just after she’d made him torch all the footage he had of her from his cameras.
She tucked the papers away, picked a direction, and went in search of a new convenience store to nick dinner from.
Pure happenstance brought her to a gang fight.
And—she whistled lowly—they were really going at it. Fists and quirks were exchanged in the gloom, shadows stretching monstrously across graffiti-stained walls as every crash echoed down the dark, empty street. Harry was used to petty muggers, but this was different. Intervening would guarantee police attention, if she didn’t already have it. For some reason, 'Prongs' had a reputation in the underworld.
Better not, she thought, letting caution win for once.
She was turning away when movement snagged her eye. At the edges of the fray, gang members began dropping. A strip of grey lashed out. One, two, three down before anyone noticed.
Ah. A hero.
That was interesting. Usually, she just saw them around during the day, surrounded by crowds.
For a while, the hero stayed hidden until someone yelled, “Hey! Who’s that?”
"A hero's here!"
That seemed to be the call for a temporary truce, and both gangs turned on the interloper.
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” Harry groaned when she saw who the hero was. Of course. Who else lurked in alleys at ungodly hours, looking like he hadn’t slept in a decade?
She vanished then reappeared on a nearby rooftop to watch.
His movements were precise, methodical: emitters first. He avoided mutation quirks unless he could use them strategically, tossing them into the line of fire as shields. A villain resembling a praying mantis charged. His bladed arms swung out—but with barely a glance, the hero wrapped his scarf around them, flinging them into a rock-like villain.
"Watch it!"
"What did you say, you piece of shit?? You were the one who fell on me!"
The scarf tightened, slamming them together before he yanked and leapt into the air. Eyes flashed red behind his yellow headwear, black hair streaming behind, grey scarves rippling around him—then snapped taut, shooting straight towards the last emitter.
He pulled sharply, rushed downwards—
Then the hero was back on the ground, weaving in and out of attacks, accompanied by the scarves that were at one moment gentle, then steel. Every action connected fluidly, like a choreographed dance. It was rather...
Beautiful.
He grunted in pain, and she snapped back to focus. But there were too many bodies blocking her view to gauge the severity. Her lips pursed as she squinted. His movements were still steady. They hadn’t faltered, or turned frantic—like a cornered animal’s desperate spurt.
She reckoned he was fine.
It wasn’t until the remaining villains thinned that she caught the metallic gleam buried deep in his thigh. He’d done all that, injured? But then the rock villain rose, rallying the remaining mutants. The fallen foes on the ground stirred.
As the fight continued, Harry noted the hero’s faint limp and the fractionally slower recovery before he moved to his next target. She frowned. He still hadn’t found a way to counter the rock villain and seemed to be stalling.
"Waiting for backup?" the rock villain sneered as he charged.
The hero leapt backwards without a word. But when he landed, Harry’s gut twisted with the same slow dread she’d felt on battlefields past: his injured leg buckled—and the villain was there.
Towering over him, arms of jagged granite crashed down.
A sickening crack split the air as the hero took the blow on his arms, shielding his head. She heard his rough, pained gasp as blood spilled where stone bit into flesh.
She couldn’t lose her ticket to death.
Magic followed her will. In a single breath, the rock villain was hurled away, tearing straight through an abandoned building under the force of a brutal knockback jinx.
The fight froze. The other villains, who had been circling the injured hero like sharks, halted mid-step. Silence fell heavy and absolute, broken only by a distant crack echoing through the night. Dust lingered in the air, drifting lazily through the aftermath, and somewhere a streetlamp flickered, casting trembling shadows across the shattered pavement.
Then footsteps approached—calm and unhurried, but impossibly certain.
Harry stepped into the dim light. Moonlight caught her skin, pale and almost luminous against the darkened streets. Shadows clung to her feet, stretching behind her as if night itself followed. Every eye was drawn to her. But she was indifferent to them, looking upon the only one who mattered.
She smiled, a slow curving of the lips.
"Fancy meeting you again. Need help?"
"…You're not a hero," he said bluntly.
Harry shrugged. "Prongs—is what they call me."
The villains reacted, her name sweeping through them in rapid whispers.
"The one who captured Moonfish!"
Who?
Those who could move bolted instantly. Catching the exasperated look the hero sent her way, Harry gave a sheepish grin. Then she reached deep within herself. Her eyes glowed a deathly green, magic coiling around her like a storm, suffocating the very air. Static hummed and rose in pitch until she spoke:
"Stupefy."
Magic erupted like a tidal wave, rippling out as it washed over every enemy. Those still standing toppled immediately, bodies collapsing to the ground. Harry breathed through the ozone-tinged air and strode forward, long-since numb to the fear-stricken gazes of the defeated.
"Don't use your quirk," she said sharply as he tensed, hand rising to clutch his scarf despite his injuries. "Unless you want to release them all."
For a tense beat, he was still. Then he slowly released his scarf with a grunt. "How long does your quirk last?"
"Uh—"
Huh. She didn’t actually know. Rarely had her work in the past millennium involved stunning people. As her title suggested, the Handmaiden of Death usually dealt in more… permanent solutions.
The hero frowned.
A fleeting memory brushed her mind—of a similar man in black robes, with a far crueller stare. Instinctively, Harry bristled under the hero’s gaze. "I don’t know… maybe a few hours?" she huffed.
He blinked.
"Okay," he said calmly.
And that was so unlike the voice in her memory that she jolted back to the present, cheeks flushing. Harry cleared her throat and looked away. "Sorry," she muttered. "Bad night."
He gave a noncommittal hum, relaxing his stance—a subtle shift Harry was certain was meant to ease the mounting tension.
"So—er—called the ambulance yet?" she asked awkwardly after a moment.
"They'll be here in five." Dark eyes lined with exhaustion watched her for a minute before adding, "the police, too."
"Oh. Well, glad that’s sorted.”
"Vigilantism is illegal," he deadpanned.
Harry nodded sagely. "You're the second person to tell me that."
He sighed like the last five minutes had taken five years off his life. Ducking his head into his scarf, he said, “If you want to avoid trouble, the logical move is to leave.”
He… wasn't going to try to arrest her? Harry let out a soft breath and lingered for a moment longer. Scruffy though the hero may look, she couldn’t help but admire him—her song of rest.
"My Lullaby," she murmured.
"What?" he said flatly.
She gave him a lopsided smile. “Just thought of a name for you, since you still won’t tell me yours.”
"…Eraserhead.”
Harry snorted. A bit on the nose, wasn’t it? "Got it," she said, turning away as the distant wail of sirens grew. "See you later."
With a backward wave, Harry melted into the shadows of the alley. The hero remained, silent and alert, listening as a sharp crack echoed moments after she vanished.