Chapter Text
Harry Potter:
Does it hurt?
Sirius Black:
Dying? Not at all. Quicker and easier than falling asleep.
-J.K.Rowling
Lyra Aquarius Malfoy
Dying isn’t all that hyped up that one makes it to be. Sometimes it’s merely a gap, a moment of peaceful nothingness, a glimpse of void and then.... it’s; what did Sirius Black say? Quicker and easier than falling asleep. I just woke up one day as Lyra Aquarius Malfoy. There really wasn’t an in between for me...
Who was I? Well I’d like to think I was a pretty badass woman... Not to toot my own horn, I was many things... An entrepreneur, a successful businesswoman and a lot more... I still cannot believe I didn’t reach even half a century though... What a disappointment! I was just a week from my 50th birthday. I actually wasted about a decade of my life so I really didn’t want to die but well when you gotta go you gotta go...
Why a decade? Oh I lost my fiancé and my baby in a car crash... My baby was still in my tummy but well I survived the crash on the expense of his life. Apparently I went in premature labor due to induced stress. My parents were the conservative sort, most of my family was even though my cousins weren’t all that close to me, so having a kid outta wedlock, it took a toll on our relationship. Which was already pretty distant especially as I moved countries in pursuit of higher education. The distance wasn’t their fault mostly mine. My parents were hardworking upper middle class doctors and my little brother pursued to follow them so you see they couldn’t afford me much time and I in the throes and arrogance of youth made everything a big issue...
After my lover and child’s death I was in a very bad place. I didn’t drink or take drugs I was phobic. It was a pretty weird phobia, I resented losing control of any form over my own self. My words, my actions must and should be my own. In this fake society, to be as much original you can be, it is a completely valid fear. Besides that I was OCD and a perfectionist.
I was depressed for a few years barely doing anything except to put my body in extreme duress.
I let myself go... Sometimes I stress ate other times I didn’t eat at all. Sometimes I slept for days at end and other times bouts of insomnia would keep me awake till my body shut down in exhaustion. Weight fluctuations from overweight to downright skinny.
My family came true despite everything. My little brother aimed for a super speciality degree, applied for the college in my city and then mum and dad came for frequent visits ... I mended our relationship; it took horribly long but well I got that stubbornness from somewhere right?
They came through.... It took me three years to get back on the peak of my life... We barely enjoyed an year as a family and I lost my mum... Dad was affected pretty badly... It was an arranged marriage you see and despite the years they made it work in true partnership. Dad didn’t seem as affectionate or as emotionally invested or so I thought during my childhood as he mostly focused on work. I was wrong...
And he was already struggling here. He didn’t enjoy city life much. He only stayed for us and did frequent check backs home but...
My brother and I mutually agreed that it would have been better for him to be home and my brother wasn’t much like me either, he preferred countryside life to here. He also had to take as over the hospitals director instead of my father.
So I forced them to return for their own well being. They did and my brother flourished. Dad, I think persevered till he taught my brother the reign and then he too went away...
I was pretty shaken again... My brother drowned himself in work trying to be the best and I? I didn’t falter in my work but I started on different ‘ventures’ to put it politely.
I tried to take up a lot of my old hobbies but either they centered around my lover or the time during pregnancy or my childhood cantering mum and dad. So outlets... I lost myself in physical intimacy with others. Broadening my horizons you could say.
Yeah I am coughing, that awkward one, you get it? There wasn’t ever a consistent lover because I could not commit again. My lovers were pre warned and I tried to be very discrete in the beginning.
Then I flourished again. It stabilized me. And I think you are pretty aware of the act which involves control and giving up control... I am trying to keep everything PG rated.
For now that is... Please imagine a salacious wink.
So I was finally completely stable on my own. There was only one particular husband and wife pair that I attribute it mostly to. I don’t really think that I was ready for a relationship or I would be ever again. So even the polyamorous one I was offered made me breakdown. That is one another topic which we won’t talk about. But after we got around the awkwardness they became my best friends. They brought me out of my funk. Though sometimes the air would get with heavy lingering sadness and longing that I couldn’t handle.
And then I found about my brothers upcoming nuptials. Well he was pretty much an all or none fella anyhow...
She was a sweet thing, but had a core of steel as required for handling my mood swingy brother. She wasn’t very pretty but had an underrated cuteness to her with bright expressive eyes and she smiled with the most adorable dimples. I could see why my brother was smitten. He always had his priorities straight. I mean I remember him telling me that for him looks didn’t really matter as much as the personality of the girl. Ah that incidence, maybe I will elaborate later on.
I teased my brother for a long while.
An voila an year later she had a beautiful baby girl. It was really a bittersweet moment. And my brother understood... It took me awhile to approach them. And then they had a boy three years later.
I always remained the cool aunt from out of country who spoiled them rotten.
My brother and I had a very good relationship... We always did.
He made fun of me and my relationships saying that I would contract STDs if I kept on going like that...
I kept it up for a while. What can I say young mature men became a weakness of mine. All of them flings though. They weren’t very frequent and gradually lessened till I stopped entirely.
I started donating and opening up charities, specially for orphanages. I opened my own series of orphanages. Each of them I visited every month. I focused on making four of them, named for each person I lost...
The one after my child was the main centre. The children were shuffled around according to their interests and their personalities and their requirements. Each catered to a mixed age group to teach them responsibility and live together as a family with different sets of priorities. Even the caretakers were chosen specifically, priority given to those who lost their kids and family so they could feel at least a semblance of home.
Yet again I was the cool aunty instead of the benefactor not that I ever stopped visiting my nephew and niece.
The entire franchise had a specific hospital for them which I got admitted into the last two years of my life. It was a pediatricians wet dream. That hospital, catering to all prominent diseases specializing in child treatment. I had specific doctors appointed as at least I wanted to be with these terminally ill kids in my last stages of life. They were my own after all... I thought of my brother and our remaining family but I couldn’t burden them so, watching me waste away.
What happened? I was in a pretty shape, I never let my body go again but as you see everything has repercussions. The long lasting effect of my depression... The stress that my body faced during those two years.
I got weak. It wasn’t particularly painful just I got tired easily, needed to sleep more and had to eat specifically.
I could have lived on my own but the doctors wanted to monitor me so I decided why not there, instead of my home?
My last night was a pretty fun one with spunky terminally ill teens. I remember bidding them goodbye and entering my apartment-like area of the floor. Laughing the way I got as immature as them. That was the last thought as I drifted off to sleep with the last laugh probably still on my features.
And lo behold here I am... At least changing appearance at will is a pretty sweet added deal to the already granted boon of magic, the things I could do with my imagination...
Harry James Potter
Harry after the war took a short hiatus to think upon what he wanted. Dying once and the entire life goal that was prophesied for him completed, left him strangely bereft.
After that scene left him weirdly detached from the world he started thinking more... Raised for a pig for slaughter indeed. Questions queries and all sorts of doubts manifested in his head. He took a month in isolation... Rounding up the death eaters was left to ministry and the team Kingsley Shacklebolt made. He had done enough.
He was questioning his life choices..Drinking pensively in Grimmauld palace. Did he even want to fight? That was who he was raised as yes, but really? The real reason he wanted to become Auror because that’s what his dad was, he didn’t know anything else or what people expected him to be?
In one universe Harry Potter pushed all of these feelings back and threw himself on his originally carved path of being the perfect Gryffindor Dumbledore made him to be. Years of suppressing his Slytherin instincts and accepting that what he did was right, was for the greater good.
But in this one he hesitated.
He decided to return back with Hermione into Hogwarts instead of joining the Auror forces with Ron because Hogwarts had always been his home, the new lease of his life.
He made the right choice, Hogwarts had never failed him before and now after everything gave him a new direction, a future path when he felt all was lost.
Hermione encouraged him, Ron didn’t understand and tried to make Harry change his mind but Harry was adamant. And Ron had no other choice to reluctantly accept and bless his simple heart he tried to be supportive.
Hermione helped a lot. He threw himself into his studies. The Dursleys never allowed him to outperform his cousin so he had never given his best and that habit remained ingrained in him. And he had been afraid of Ron and Hermiones reactions as they were the closest thing to family he found. Now though after going through so much together and facing the war that changed their lives both had mellowed down.
He took on different electives Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. Hermione applauded his conviction and tried to help him whenever she could. He had been always good in Maths anyway. Passing on her previous notes after digging them out of her abandoned home despite the pain she felt going there. Harry appreciated her friendship and felt truly blessed to have her in his life.
Despite that she was very busy with her numerous subjects so she could only help so much. That’s where he consciously took on the perks of being Harry Potter. Getting discreet tutoring to help him start on the subjects taken from third year and becoming above average in all others. The teachers were pleasantly surprised. But not really astonished, not because he was the lauded saviour but because James and Lily Potter had always been some of the most brilliant students to ever cross the halls of Hogwarts and finally that brilliance shone through him after their fruitless years of wondering why he was such an average student.
He made new friends that also helped him in this endeavour..
Misunderstood ones. Harry always had a soft spot for the underdogs and now those were the Slytherins. Draco Malfoy and him had burnt too many bridges to ever be close friends but after testifying for him and his mother and of course Narcissa Malfoy wanting to reconnect with her only living distrusting sister and her grandson which also happened to be Harry’s godson made them friendly acquaintances at best. He surprisingly made good friends with the neutral Blaise Zabini who helped him out on his newly chosen electives. Astoria and Daphne Greengrass became good friends and Tracy Davis was a riot and together they were a hoot and a half.
His Slytherin friends emboldened his Slytherin side.
That was not to say they immediately became thick as thieves.
He graduated with good marks in all of curriculum subjects and passed with a good margin in his electives which was only needed.
Yet again being the boy who lived helped as he got additional help in being an unspeakable. It required the top grades which his weren’t despite putting so much work in, because one can only do so much in an year. He got in on the agreement in contract form that he would be aided by other unspeakable as tutors to make him up to par and won’t be allowed to go along with the other graduates unless deemed satisfactory by them.
He tried getting back with Ginny but it felt weird and wrong especially after the numerous jokes about Oedipus complex because unlike Ginny who loved him or at least the idea of him for the entirety of her life, he started having feelings for her in late sixth year.
After thinking it through he finally figured it was because of desperation of war, grabbing the most familiar person trying to be Ron’s family for real. He was already emotionally vulnerable after Sirius’ demise and she shared the experience of being possessed by Voldemort and he thought that she understood him in that aspect but after that war even that changed. No one could understand being a living hocrux after all.
Ginny was very mature about it. She could recognize partially that even though they both had changed from the war he had come out very different. She understood but she was badly disappointed.
Things were awkward with Weasleys, it took awhile but they went back like before though still a lot had changed. He grew closer to George and the gaping loss of Fred was always felt deeply. They were yet another connection to the Marauders and now it hurt too much to talk. He and George started discussing bout his products, as he had gotten quite interested in research during his job as an Unspeakable and George could tell. And apparently he was family and as he had the given the startup to their business he had his own share of WWW. So he aided George and Ron after he left the Auror force in WWW though he mostly bounced of ideas and did research with George for new products.
Hermione was as always supportive. She managed to patch up things with her parents though they would never be as close as they once were. She understood or at least tried to understand and reach halfway. Being a muggleborn she had her world uprooted once already and then she chose him over her family. Ron didn’t have that advantage of looking from another perspective. He tried though and that was enough.
After school he kept in contact with his Slytherin mates. Draco felt like a cousin. Nicer version of Dudley. Narcissa and Andromeda had patched things and whatever family Teddy could get Harry wouldn’t deny him. Teddy was like his almost child. He doted upon him as such but his job took a lot of time away though he managed to balance it.
Astoria married Draco and Daphne was the badass single lady with a shrewd mind in business and politics.
Blaise Zabini became his best friend and confidante as a fellow Unspeakable he spent the most time with him.
Additionally their research overlapped. Harry unsurprisingly focused on the Veil of Death, Death and Love and Blaise was set on Time travel, Alternate Dimensions and to Harry’s astonishment at first Magical Creatures.
He later found out that Blaise was categorised as one. His mother Lady Zabini was the Principessa of the Zabini family which was royalty, the major royal family of Italy that governed their sovereign nation. That’s why no one could confront his mother about her numerous murders which he was later told deliberate.
Apparently his mother married high influential males that dehumanized magical creatures and were involved in pretty shady crimes themselves. Anti creature laws, trafficking rings and the like.
That’s why Blaise hated blood traitors as he put it. Harry had an argument with him as he confessed upon eavesdropping on the Hogwarts Express on the beginning of his Sixth year. Blaise dispassionately explained that the the blood traitors enforced Anti magical creature laws and banned old rituals which while performed by wizards were different and viewed dark, pretty much essential for beings of their heritage.
He then asked Harry to question Fleur Delacour if he couldn’t trust him. Fleur had a talk with him in private and pretty much confirmed it.
Blood traitors were the worst according to him. He didn’t have a problem with muggleborns or half bloods or even pure bloods but defying and turning back on ones values and traditions was the absolute worst thing somebody could do. And the wilful negligence and ignorance of the pure bloods wasn’t any better.
He was of the line of Emyrs and Le Fay as they both had a child and that female married into the royal Zabini family ages ago and brought upon her own heritage. Apparently there was truth in Merlin’s creature heritage.
After Teddy’s 17 birthday after throwing him the biggest celebration both for his coming of age and for congratulating him on his apprenticeship as a curse breaker that would soon cause him to leave his teary Grandma to go adventuring all around the world, Harry took on a major research project with Blaise as his partner.
At the age of 33 on All Hallows’ eve as the dimensional and death barrier is thinnest they tried an experiment for which Harry retrieved the elder wand for the last time and brought along the invisibility cloak. The Veil of Death made a ghostly garish sound and with the sudden appearance of the Resurrection stone that was meant to be lost forever Harry locked his eyes with Blaise’s golden ones that reflected that same terrified shock of the realisation that everything had gone wrong.
Harry found himself once again in Kings Cross Station though this time he heard the faint groan of Blaise beside him.
They glanced at each other and Harry sighed and said, “Imagine clothes.”
As they finished dressing Blaise pinched the bridge of his nose, “Geez Harry, I know you said that this was what happened the last time but it is still hard to believe in.”
“Welcome to my life.” Harry laughed sardonically.
Suddenly a haunting voice started echoing around and dark figure seemingly made of wisps of smoke and dark matter coalesced in front of them causing them both to jump in defensive stances.
“Collector of my hallows and being of the line of Myrridin you have tried to alter the balance of the worlds. The only reason why both of your souls haven’t been consumed in oblivion are because of the position one of you has acquired and other has inherited.” It spoke in a echoing voice that consisted numerous ones layered upon each other.
”You are death then...” Harry stiffened and Blaise retorted soon after, “What about the title of Master of Death?”
“There is no singular thing as Death. It just is. Thus there cannot be any specific master as death isn’t a single piece but fractures of everything. You have done well being careful of not naming the Collector of my hallows that foolish title brought by the arrogance of humans. The only reason both you aren’t in limbo is attributed to what I said before.” The being gave a chilling laugh that sent shivers down their souls.
“What will happen to us then?” Harry asked in shaky voice feeling the loss of his bravado seeing Blaise shudder uncharacteristically from the corner of his eye.
“You wouldn’t be sent in the normal soul cycle if that’s what you are wondering, but you will be granted a chance as you have chosen to act on an auspicious age and date in addition. You wished to find about alternate dimensions so you both will be sent to one. Make sure to bring about Mother magic at its zenith and all the worlds will stabilize again despite you foolhardy humans trying to destroy magic with magic. You do not get a chance nor anything else to decide, it will be deemed upon magic and your soul where and when your sent.” The voices increased in volume warningly.
Harry and Blaise could only watch on wide eyed and helpless as it once again spoke haltingly a last advice,“ You have been granted a boon ‘Chosen one and Collector of my hallows’ the power you hold is for you to discover. Child of the line of Myriddin, find out about your true heritage then and only then you will be able to aid your companion. Remember auspicious numbers for magic are seven and three. Do what you will with my last bout of knowledge. Fare-thee-well.”
That was the last they heard as they felt themselves dissolve into nothingness.