Chapter Text
They still search Marlene's childhood home. It is done in silence, the three of them needing the quiet to digest the terrible revelations of the day. They find letters in Harry's godmother's room, most of them addressed to Lily and Bathilda Bagshot and others to clanspeople. A particularly heartbreaking child's drawing is tucked into the letter of a caretaker who bemoans how hard it is to keep children entertained while in hiding. Harry retches when he reads this, yet he keeps it into his pocket when they finally leave the house. He cannot bring himself to let it be.
The one who breaks the quiet is Sirius, who sits down on the ground and puts his face between his hands, his shoulders shaking, before he sighs, "What are we going to tell James when he wakes up?"
Remus turns away to hide his own turmoil, and Harry is left looking at the two men fall apart. He needs the certainty of his godfather's "when" though it aches him to think of that very scenario.
"The truth," says Harry quietly. "We'll tell Dad the truth, and we'll be there to help him through it. Just like we've been here for each other through all this."
Sirius' hands drop to his sides. He stares at his godson with a tangle of awe and regret that is almost painful to accept as it is directed at him.
"You're right. We'll be there. It might not be enough but it will be something."
They leave soon after that, their hearts and minds heavy with the revelations of the day. Harry asks the two men for duelling practice, eager to turn his anger and pain into productive energy. When he finally gets to bed that night, he is so exhausted he almost goes to sleep before seeing his father. In the end, he still drags himself to the library and sits by James Potter's side, his forehead lowered to his father's breastbone. He does not cry, though he dearly wants to. Instead he breathes deeply and tries to ignore the pain in his chest at the thought that the mother he has idolised so long is no parent to him but instead a blacksmith, Harry being the master weapon she shed blood, sweat and tears to craft.
He was not raised, he was forged.
He cannot even tell if it worked. He is nothing special, just Harry, the boy who relied on luck to survive every encounter he's ever had with the Dark Lord he's meant to defeat. And yet, his hands, which now cling tightly to the couch on which his father lay sleeping, have burned a man to a crisp. The cleansing fire his mother sacrificed herself to gift him has worked once against Quirrel, and Lily could not have anticipated that Voldemort would use his own blood to resurrect himself, like she could not have guessed that a Horcrux would lodge itself in his scar, that his prophesied enemy had torn his soul into enough pieces to throw a wrench into all of her hard work.
The weapon she turned him into is serviceable enough to cut, but not sharp enough to do real damage against an immortal foe. There must have been more to it, he thinks. This cannot be what her gamble amounted to.
The Last Friend of Death will be its Master.
Harry falls asleep with these thoughts in his mind, and he dreams. First of a mundane death, an ancestor of his succumbing to a long illness as he watches over them, the dying man mourning that his family will be too late to say their final goodbyes.
"It will weigh on them," he bemoans before smiling, "but at least they will know that I was not alone. I told them the Last Potter will watch over me, and here you are."
Then the scenery shifts and Harry sees a redheaded man slips a collar on a dark haired witch's throat. The muggle's hair looks like blood, he notes with helpless anger as the woman is killed in front of his eyes, her only solace the teenager witnessing her death. His eyes slip close when she takes her final breath, and he opens them anew on a lonely winding road at twilight. He follows three brothers as they reach a river, too deep to wade through, and too dangerous to swim across.
The brothers pause upon seeing the obstacle, and after conferring for a moment, raise and wave their wands. They pull stones from the river and raise them into a bridge, the magic they use much rawer than Harry is used to. This was before Hogwarts, he remembers, before the standardisation of spells. In that time, the feat these men were accomplishing was extraordinary.
The three brothers call themselves names that have become legends in Harry's family. They walk halfway across the river when their path is blocked by a hooded figure. Harry, walking behind them, stares at the stranger on their path. If the myth rings true, this is Death personified. Harry thinks he believes it. This might explain why this dream is so unlike the others. Like being struck with the Killing curse did not kill Lawrence and the other Potters that came after him, this encounter will not kill his ancestors but the soul magic permeating the air is enough to call him, the Last Potter here.
Or perhaps Harry is truly dreaming for once. Somehow, he doubts it.
As he watches the brothers ask for a boon each from the entity that compliments their magic, Death defies his expectations. It does not inspire the terror of dementors. It is a dark figure, but its presence is not oppressive. It is soothing instead. Deceptively gentle. When it extends a hand, its fingers have the quality of dreams, white bones overlapping with the wispy blue texture of ghostly bodies, normal sunkissed knuckles and rotted flesh. It should make him shiver, but he wants to cradle it instead, bring it to his cheek like the Weeper did on McKinnon land. His eyes lower to look at the thick stream-like scar her tears left on his skin before he raises them again to watch Death hand out its tokens.
Antioch discards his own wand and brandishes his gift from Death. Harry exclaims when he recognises Dumbledore's wand, its shape unmistakable even in another's hand.
Cadmus cradles his stone to his chest and falls to his knees, though he does not dare try to use it in front of witnesses. Harry wonders whose judgement he fears. Death's? Or his brothers'?
Ignotus, his ancestor, the friend of Death, does not look at the very familiar cloak draped across his forearm. His eyes do not leave Death until the entity has disappeared. Positioned as he is, Harry cannot make out his expression. What he does notice, however, is that Ignotus is much younger than his brothers. He must be Cedric's age and no older, he thinks with a pang to his chest.
He does not get the time to ponder it, because Death is looking at him. Harry does not know how he can tell, everchanging as the being's face is, but the weight of that gaze is something he feels in his very soul. It roots him to the ground as Death extends a hand once more, and, without moving its myriad lips, calls to him.
"Walk with me, son."
Harry walks past the three brothers. Antioch and Cadmus Peverell do not notice him, preoccupied with their own gift, but Ignotus' eyes turn to him and widen. Harry smiles at him, awkward and unsure, and a strange urge makes him lean forward and trail a hand on the cloth of the cloak.
"Use it well," he murmurs and keeps walking.
He reaches Death and takes its hand. They walk through a forest Harry cannot help but compare to the Forbidden Forest, and if the river and the winding path they are taking were not there, he would have thought he was back at Hogwarts, serving detention there.
"We are in Britanny," says Death, seemingly reading his thoughts. "In the forest of Broceliande. The Peverell family originates from Normandy, a few hours to the northeast. They will emigrate a hundred years from now, escaping ceaseless attempts to steal my Hallows. It will not stop their pursuers, of course. As you know, it took the shedding of their name for them to gain a modicum of peace."
Harry swallows, his mouth dry. The topic of conversation is almost mundane, yet he finds himself at a loss. He's not sure how he's meant to carry out a conversation with a god.
Death chuckles. Harry flinches.
"I am as much a god as you are a hero."
"Is that supposed to reassure me?" he murmurs. "I am not sure what I am."
And yet the thought relaxes him. Titles do not matter. Maybe Harry is the champion of an engineered prophecy, maybe he is just a child in over his head. More likely, he is both and neither. Maybe Death is a god that has patroned his bloodline for a millenia and a half, maybe it is just the manifestation of the Potters' magical gift. But for now, they are two magical beings dreamwalking through an enchanted forest.
Is that not absurd enough?
"You have had my blessing since birth, young Harry. As all the Potters were before you, you are a friend of Death. The threads of Fate might have tangled the boon I gifted to your bloodline, but you are the last bearer of my favour. I am not inclined to hurt you."
"I am not scared of being hurt."
"Indeed you are not. It is being used that frightens you, is it not?"
This feels true enough, so Harry nods. "How did that happen, anyway?" he dares to ask. "None of my family's stories explain how you befriended Ignotus Peverell."
Death hums.
"Did you never wonder why a being as inevitable as Death would care that a trio of brothers crossed a river?"
Harry hesitates. Of course he didn't. He wanted it to be a fundational myth, a symbolic event indicating some kind of ritual took place. He didn't want to believe, because he does not have the energy for faith of any kind. And yet here he is, speaking to Death itself.
"It is because the Peverell brothers committed a taboo. Antioch fancied himself an aspiring dark lord, Cadmus his right-hand-man. Ignotus was his own man, but raised with an interest in the dark arts all the same. When I intercepted the three brothers, they were on their way back from a pilgrimage to Greece, where they sought out the shade of Herpo the Foul, hoping to be taught the dark arts by a renowned master. In exchange, they would assist him in creating a body. They learnt from him then came here, to the forest of Broceliande, where a herd of unicorns grazed. The intention was to cull them and use their blood in a ritual not unlike the one you have experienced, and call forth their master's shade into a cursed body which they meant to tether to them to keep him subservient."
Death's hand closes into a fist, the after-images solidifying into an armored glove.
"I could not let it happen, so I gave them boons which would entice them to me. They wanted immortality? I would make them crave death. I did not know Ignotus then, and took him for his brothers' creature. I was angry that he escaped me. I thought the cloak would make him want to disappear, and I sought to use it to lead him to his end. Instead he took my gift and turned back to his master, to Greece. Aided by the cloak, he tricked my enemy into revealing the location of his Horcrux and destroyed it himself. Only then did he remove his cloak and show himself to me, accepting that I would come for him." Death turns to Harry. "Before he was my friend, Ignotus was my champion. I let him keep the cloak and his life. I thought it would be the end of it, but often we would cross paths. Ignotus dedicated his life to chasing down the people who sought to escape me. We grew fond of each other then, and he became a companion to me."
Its face shifts to resemble a wizened version of Ignotus' visage, its expression soft in remembrance.
"On his deathbed I asked if he wanted a boon from me. Perhaps without meaning to, I turned the offer of a gift into another test. I did not truly expect him to ask for immortality, but I had never had a friend before him, and knew not how to speak to mortals without testing them. Again he surprised me, and asked that I be a friend to his son as I was to him. I gave him that and more, and his family repaid me many times by continuing the work of their forefather. And now his last descendant stands before me, unwillingly forced into the role Ignotus took on of his own volition."
Harry digests the entity's words.
"Are you saying my mother did not need to do all this? My family always took on this task, and we would have done done so no matter what?"
"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Lily Evans certainly gave you more chances to succeed, though in doing so she has made a blade out of something that ought not to cut. Besides, your mother failed to account for my blessing properly. She thought it symbolism, not fact, and imagined she could trick it. Your father lays in the in-between because of it, and belongs to Death as much as he does Life."
Harry stiffens at the mention of his father. The entity softens at it.
"Do not fret. Your father's state is no more a violation of my tenets than the existence of vampires are. Death is an extant form of Life and many creatures thrive in the blurred edges between us. I only object to the creatures who attempt to remove themselves from the cycle altogether. I have kept James company for the years he has spent in this cursed state, waiting for your magic to be mature enough to withstand the Last Potter's Presage."
Harry takes note of the wording. "What about the Master of Death? Is there really such a thing?"
"There has never been a Master of Death, and I am not Fate determined. As such I do not know what it will mean for you to be made one."
"It's a worrying title, though. I don't want to be the master of anyone."
Death chuckles. The forest starts to blur around the edges.
"Do not fear, little lapwing. It will take more than the mere possession of a few trinkets to shackle me. And remember, Harry, there is more than one way to achieve mastery."
Harry wakes in his bed. Sirius must have carried him there. He stares into the darkness of his room for a long time, unmoving.
After a while, he raises, and goes to join the other inhabitants of Grimmauld Place for breakfast. The dining room is lively and warm, the shadows of the townhouse long receded. His godfather's childhood home looks nothing like the mausoleum he entered weeks ago. Ron gives him a hesitant smile and Hermione starts telling him about the book she read the day before. He listens while buttering a piece of toast, the corners of his mouth lifted. Sirius goes around the table to press a kiss to his temple and Remus pats his shoulder before asking him how he slept, and he lets himself be pulled along a soft conversation about their plans for the day.
He does not tell a soul about his dream.
Hedwig comes back with letters from the four Sri Lankan Houses Harry contacted. All of them rejoice at the confirmation of his father's survival, though they are unsettled by the vague description he gives them of his condition. They tell him they get few news from Europe since tragedy befell House Potter, and are happy to hear of him though worried about the evil stirring in his country. They have heard about the attack at the Quidditch World Cup, and it was enough for them to believe his words about Voldemort's return. Harry hadn't even thought to worry they might think him a liar; he is relieved all the same.
He is told the four Houses communicated with each other and a handful of his cousins have volunteered to join him in England during the winter holidays to assist him. They will bring with them a specialist in purification rituals who can perform Kandyan dance to cleanse his father, and some of them will stay and see if they can help him win this war.
A cheeky addendum from House Samaraweera's letter adds that one of his incoming relatives will teach him Sinhalese.
Some of the letters are warm, others matter of fact. Either way, they are more than the Dursleys have ever given Harry. He treasures them all.
His world is so much bigger now, he thinks. Death and tragedy have carved a space in his bloodline, but there is life and joy there too.
Maybe the world is bleak and Harry's mother has birthed a soldier instead of a child, but for all the people she has sacrificed, Death has spared his father, a final testament of its care for the bloodline of Ignotus. Harry investigated his father's death wishing to find closure, and found hope instead. He will cherish it.