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Chapter Text

Dumbledore had been telling him about the absolutely mental option of going back when he disappears midsentence. The station is as white and bleached out as it was before, but he is alone on the bench and the whimpering that had been coming from the horcrux is gone. In fact, the horcrux itself is gone, and by the time Harry acknowledges that he is now completely alone, it’s an incorrect statement. On the other side of the bench, closer than Dumbledore had been, but still a fair distance away is… well. This being, whomever they are is wearing a massive cloak that somehow reminds Harry of what little he knows of lethifolds. It’s so large that their face is hidden in the shadow of the hood. This person reminds Harry of what it was like facing hundreds of dementors — the cold and fear, the despair and terror but also the adrenaline and the rush of bittersweet happiness of hearing his mum’s voice in her last moments. They are simultaneously a gaping void of nothingness and endless hope with a promise of peace.

They are also currently speaking but the only thing Harry catches is “or you can stay with me?”. Paragon of eloquence that he is Harry’s only response is a half muttered and confused “what?”

This is when their aura shifts and suddenly they’re fiddling with a scythe Harry was sure hadn’t always been in their hands. There is a type of dark material coating their long fingers; it looks like a supple inky dark leather but Harry is sure normal leather doesn't flow around in twists and curls. They turn a bit to face him and then begin to do what Harry would refer to as ramble with any other. “Well, I just thought well you walked to death on purpose and um—”

Because Harry is clearly a suicidal idiot — does it count when you’re already technically dead? — he interrupts to clarify, “It’s more like I wanted to live less than I wanted him to die.”

“Right of course, but you also, well, you collected my things and had them together before allowing yourself to come here—”

“Your things?” he questions as his brain makes a connection with that statement, their appearance and the bloody scythe that leaves him reeling. They continue as if he had never spoken, voice layered as though hundreds are speaking at once in one genderless ominous lilt.

“—and so, I mean you also come here briefly really often so I thought—”

“I did what?” He questions, startled. He’s ignored once more. It’s as if they fear they’ll never get the words out if they stop now.

“—well you just really aren’t afraid of me but not in a disrespectful way so,” and now they are shifting close on the bench, hooded face tilting down but it is still impossible to see beneath the hood somehow, “you could stay if you wanted,” there’s a pause as they lean close enough to touch and when he doesn’t move away they gleefully continue, “I’d like it if you did, master.”

And Harry startles at that, shifting away a few centimetres in the process, almost certain he had heard that last word wrong. He utters a frantic, utterly bewildered “Pardon?”

“Wait, I have an idea. You started this wanting to get rid of Tom so I’m going to let you go back and then I’ll see you if you wanted to when you go sleep”

And Harry is exhausted and confused but here is an actual goal to work towards, the same task he’s been working towards for so long, so he agrees somehow and then suddenly he’s on the hard ground and Mrs Malfoy is lying about his state of being.

.

A few hours later Harry has used the Elder Wand to repair his own Holly wand and stashed it back in Dumbledore’s tomb. And then he goes to sit in the clearing he had died in, unable to bring himself to face everyone inside the damaged remains of his first home.

Perhaps it’s morbid of him to prefer to go to the place where he had been struck down, but there’s no one there to call him out on it. He sets up wards on instinct then settles at the base of a tree and looks up at the limp remains of what used to be an elaborate web — a home. He had died in the remains of the home of a colony of giant man-eating spiders. And now he’s alive again, with no idea of what will come next. He’s completed his major task, hasn’t he? What now?

Harry’s finally crashing from the adrenaline rush of the day, musing on the idea of truly being the Boy-Who-Lived now, with his only goal being to live, when he realises he’s been using his fingers to worry the knobs on the Elder Wand again. The wand he had just replaced in a tomb. When he looks beside him from where he’s slumped against the forest floor during his introspection, he sees other impossible items there. His invisibility cloak is folded up beside his head and on top of it, in his direct line of sight is the resurrection stone he had dropped quite a distance from here.

His last, delirious thought before his body fails him and he drops into a deep sleep despite the panic is “Oh, their things.”

Chapter Text

When next Harry opens his eyes his location has changed. He’s still in a clearing in a forest, but these trees are taller, more twisted, and bone white. Only some of them bear leaves, others full of thorns and even those heavy with fruit have them in colours that for all their brightness and beauty seem to scream poison at him. They are the right colours, but the shades are all reminiscent of blood, dark curses or acid. A bright green of the killing curse, the yellow and purple of bruises or poisons. He cannot see the sky from his vantage point, still laying on the forest floor, but he’s sure even that has changed.

It’s the voice that clues him into the fact that he has not awoken but is merely no longer alone in his dream — if this even is his dream. He may not actually be asleep at all. He wonders if he will be rested if he had not truly slept.

“You did wonderfully,” the being beside him comments, once again close enough to touch.

A part of Harry settles at those words, spoken in their layered voice. He had not been doing it for accolades, but he cannot deny that a part of him had felt hurt at the way everyone had been celebrating but treating it entirely as if it was his duty to have aided in the destruction of an extremely powerful Dark Lord many decades his senior. It had smarted a bit, the way many seemed to just view his accomplishment as if he was intended for nothing else. A small voice whispered the question of how long it would take them to twist this into another reason to hate and blame him. Maybe they’ll start being upset he hadn’t done it sooner by things have settled.

For all that they may have just wanted the removal of one so arrogant to eke out a pseudo-immortality and claim a name that taunted the very being they fear, Death seemed to be genuinely proud of his accomplishment. So of course, he has to let her-him?-they know how much he appreciates that. “Er, thanks. You too”, yeah great job Harry, you absolutely nailed it there.

Less than a second later he’s hit with the realisation that they have a proper job and might have things to do other than press closely to him on the floor of a forest. “Oh no, am I keeping you from work?” he’s trying really hard not to ponder the extent of what that work may be.

They wave a gloved hand dismissively, and Harry’s eyes catch on the way their cloak does not slip down as their hand is raised, “You’re so sweet, no, I know how to delegate”.

He’s blushing at that but decided to focus on the latter part of their sentence, muttering out “Right…” and then utterly failing to come up with anything else to stay. A minute or two passes — or at least it feels that long, he has no way of knowing — before he fidgets awkwardly and tries again, “So…” tries and fails, that is.

But it’s okay because they turn onto their side to look at him, and he can feel their gaze taking all of him in despite the way that even now, with him looking at it dead-on, he cannot see anything beneath the hood of their cloak. He feels pinned beneath that gaze, like his very soul is being pulled out and weighted. He tenses a bit, awaiting a verdict, but they only release a sigh — it sounds simultaneously like the rattle of a last breath and the gusty relieved sigh of having survived an encounter — and says, “Sorry, I don’t really know what to say. I hadn't prepared for you to return so quickly.”

Despite the newfound question of where here is and how he even got here if it was not their doing, the tension eases. The heavy feeling in the air dissipates as he tries to reassure them, “No it’s fine. Thanks for letting me go back”

“Of course, I’d do anything for you, Master”

His brain screeches to a halt — stuck on the implication in that statement and the way they had addressed him as ‘master’. His response, when it comes, is a stilted, awkward attempt to shift the conversation but genuine nonetheless, “and what can I do for you?”. The giggle that greets him at those words brings a flush to his cheeks and a swooping feeling in his stomach that he ignores as they tell him that “being here is okay”.

He mimics their position, lying on his side to face them as he agrees, “Right. I can do that, no problem”. The next few moments are silent, and Harry spends them watching the leather twist and swirl on the hand that rests between them. He’s so caught up in his study of it that he makes it halfway through the motion to touch before he realises what he’s doing. He freezes then, hand hovering inches from theirs and tries to squash his internal panic before it can show on his face.

The thing is, he’s literally seconds away from contact and it’s already abundantly clear what his intention was. So, he desperately hopes that this encounter happening in his head means he won’t die from touching Death and rests his fingers lightly against the back of their gloved hand. Nothing significant happens unless one counts the way his cheeks get significantly hotter and even the tips of his ears begin to burn — which Harry pointedly does not count as significant himself.

The silence continues, though now Harry spends it following the swirls that feel no different to the rest of the gloves and pretends not to feel the heavy weight of their stare shifting from where his fingertips trail against their hand, the glove the only barrier, to his face intermittently.

Between one blink and the next Harry finds himself looking up at destroyed webs once more, alone but for the subdued sounds of the forest and with his neck twisted at an uncomfortable angle on the floor of the Forbidden Forrest. He does the entirely sane thing and proceeds to panic. He may be barmy enough — and been through enough weird things to write that off entirely as a dream but he cannot so easily dismiss the absence of the ache in his joints that had plagued him before his drop into his subconscious. Nor can he deny the fact that he did not bring the Hallows with him during his self imposed bout of isolation.

His body tingles as he stretches then tenses enough to bring back remembered pains as he catches sight of a dark smudge upon his wrist. It takes up about half the space across but is only about an inch long. When he brings it close to his face, adjusting his crooked glasses with his other he realises it is, as he feared, more than just a smudge. It’s the symbol of the Deathly Hallows. The Hallows that he remembers seeing before he passed out. The Hallows that are now gone.

Chapter Text

He begins his trudge out of the forest after a few seconds, deciding he can always panic about things later in favour of eating and finding somewhere else to sleep. Flashes of memory from his original re-entrance into the wizarding world when they had only heard of him defeating the Dark Lord have him missing the anonymity and safety the cloak provided. He can already picture the clamour and vying for attention he will have to face now that they’ve witnessed him defeating Voldemort.

He almost wants to hide out in the forest for longer but takes a deep breath and dutifully makes his way across the pitted and scorched grounds. The weight of expectations looms over him, a near physical thing. They will question absolutely everything he does now. Even more than before. What job he takes, whom he dates, what he eats. Can he even get a job without NEWTs?

Maybe he’ll have to return to take them. The castle will need to be repaired before then, and new wards raised. Will they even be able to raise wards like those again? Hadn’t they existed from the time of the founders?

So caught up in his mind and worries, Harry makes it up to the sixth floor without noticing much of his walk. It’s when he gets there, standing near portraits that he looks down at himself and realises that everyone was not respecting his space as he had futilely hoped they would. No, they just cannot see him as he’s somehow invisible now.

How did he manage that? Can he fix it back? Will he be invisible for the rest of his life? Well, there goes half the job options. Other than Aurors or the Unspeakables he can’t think of any job that would want an invisible person. And even that wouldn’t be full time invisible. Maybe he can just fade into obscurity, fix up Grimmauld Place, and haunt his friends. Keep a counter for how many times Ron says ‘bloody hell’ when he sneaks up on him.

The portrait across from him hisses at him, and he steps closer to see a tiny ashwinder near the left edge. When he binks in confusion the snake repeats, and this time words accompany it, “why were you hiding?” and Harry responds “why not?” before shooting a smile and walking away quickly.

Brilliant, no longer invisible. New problem: why can he still speak Parseltongue? Wasn’t the horcrux gone? Did some of it linger? Had he absorbed some of it? Had he always had the ability? What if his newfound invisibility is still there but snakes can see through it? He’ll be—

“Harry! Where were you?” so the invisibility is properly gone again then. He’s somehow made it up to the seventh floor and been found by Hermione. Guess he needs to put aside the panic about the invisibility and parseltongue until later. That list of things to panic about is getting longer than is probably healthy.

“I fell asleep in the forest,” he responds, hoping she won’t ask why. Luck must be on his side for once though because she only looks at him sadly for a moment before nodding.

There’s a moment of silence as they walk together, but they make it to an empty room before Harry inevitable blurts out what’s on his mind, “I think I saw Death and uh-”

But that’s as far as he gets before Hermione interrupts him, “ Oh Harry, I don’t think that’s how it works. It was a story in a children’s book,” she starts, with that look on her face that’s a mix of sadness and pity, as if he hadn’t held the Hallows, “and some had said it was just to hide the true origins of powerful items…”

She’s saying more but Harry is no longer listening, now focussing on the fact that the story had depicted Death as a man, but the being he met had shifted between feminine and masculine energies and voices as if on a whim. There was no rhyme or rhythm to the choices, being neither and both or at times more one than the other.

“What do you think Death’s pronouns are?” Harry can tell he had just cut her off from the way her lips purse and her nose twitches a bit. She gives him a look that he’s seen enough times to know that he’s about to be berated for being ‘silly’ so he cuts that off as well, “Right I’ll just ask them myself. Good talk ‘Mione, thanks” and he leaves again, ignoring the way she calls him back.

He ponders if there’s a way to ask without somehow offending the anthropomorphic embodiment of The End of All Things as he picks his way through rubble, walking aimlessly. Technically they had never seemed to lean to one preference and had never given him a name to refer to them as. They had never referred to him by his name either. He purposely doesn’t focus on what they do call him, lest he ends up adding that to the list of things to panic about later.

After a bit, Harry finds an alcove he’s sat in before. It’s in a terrible state - as if hit by a blasting hex or two but he’s hopeful a reparo will help enough to give him a place to rest.

The first reparo does very little to help, but that’s not what makes him pause. No, that honour goes to the odd thrum in his chest as if he had been hit by a warming charm from the inside and his heart had vibrated from the shock of it. He frowns a bit at the sensation, afraid to question its source. He dismisses it as an issue for later and goes to try reparo again, only to find that he cannot.

Instead, he has an eery feeling as he witnesses his hand, now inexplicably holding the Elder Wand, going through a complicated series of wand movements. It’s all loops and spirals —  nothing like the usual quick and easily memorised type of spells he usually prefers. The accompanying incantation that passes from his lips is one he’s never heard of. That doesn’t tell him much, however, as there are many a spell of which he has never heard.

Were it not for his intimate and horrible experience with actual possession he would think this is what was occurring now. As it is, he watches himself go through the motions of fixing the alcove and then the rest of the hallway. It takes a few hours, and though he isn’t casting the spells himself it feels like he is. There’s the weight of the wand and the ache in his core, as well as the exhaustion over time. It’s less like his body has been controlled and more like it is not solely his body.

As the hours pass - and he fixes portraits with a spell despite being told that's not possible - the feeling shifts. At some point, it had genuinely become him doing the spells, only as if his wand hand was being guided and the words coaxed out. It felt as if he was doing something long forgotten — except he had never done things like this before.

When he feels fully drained — and the entire hallway now looks as it had before, perhaps better — Harry slumps onto a cushioned bench in the alcove. He’s musing on the length of his Future Panic Fuel list as he drifts into an exhausted sleep.

Chapter Text

He opens his eyes to the forest from before, with twisted bone-white trees and fruits the colour of lifeblood or poison. He thinks the sight should be alarming, but he can’t bring himself to fear it. This time he lays sprawled in the position he drifted off in, on a chaise lounge that looks incongruous with this forest clearing. Death is standing a few feet away this time, so he pulls himself up to stand despite the way he can feel they did not require it of him.

They speak before he can, and the words are rushed with a type of eagerness and longing that makes the words “Do you feel accomplished?” sound less like a snide remark and more like ‘Did I do well?’. What follows is the unsurprising realisation that they are behind his newfound knowledge and skills, and perhaps the disappearance and reappearance of the Hallows or their powers.

“It was an, er, interesting experience,” despite not seeing their face Harry somehow knows it just fell in disappointment, so he continues, “but I uh, I was pleased to be able to help rebuild my home”

“Yes, I thought you might. I wasn’t sure mind you, but it seemed like something you’d appreciate”

“Uh. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was brilliant.” he falls silent after, and so do they.

During the quiet he glances around more, taking note of the glowing mushrooms and the vines that spread like a web on some of the trees. His eyes are drawn to the chaise lounge that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the splendour of a wealthy manor. Perhaps one from Sirius’ family if they had a manor, considering the carvings are of poisonous vines and miniature skulls.

He sits on the comfortable surfaces and instinctively pats the space beside himself before his thoughts catch up to him. Great job Harry, invite the physical representation of death to sit beside you in a commanding way, why don’t you.

They sit close enough that some of their voluminous cloak covers a section of his left leg and the hand he had on it. It’s ridiculously soft and has a soothing cool temperature. He finds himself inching a bit closer to them.

The silence is broken when Harry remembers the conversation he had with Hermione earlier. Before he can force himself to think of a proper, respectful way to ask he hears his voice say “So what do I refer to you as? I mean I figure you’re Death but uhm, what are you?” This is it, Harry, you survived two killing curses only to get smote while asleep.

“I’m a primordial being. Or I suppose a representation of a concept known to all”

“Right but like, what’s in your pants?” I need to make a new list of things to gain and put a brain to mouth filter on it.

“I don’t wear pants. This is a cloak of shadows and souls” he has the distinct feeling they’re humouring him, so like a fool he carries on with his line of questioning.

“Yes but er, what’s beneath it?”

“Why would there be something beneath these shadows? Do you want there to be something there Master?” this is the first time they’ve addressed him as such and Harry cannot tell if it was meant to be flirtatious or a warning.

“I meant, uhm, are you male or female? Both? Neither?” and he’s still going, despite the part of his brain distinctively going off yelling about danger. This must be how Ron feels half the time.

“I’m Death. I predate humans. I predate the concept of male and female.”

“But what should I refer to you as?” Might as well learn the proper address to make as one ceases to exist.

“Death, The Ultimate End.”

“No like should I say she or he or…” Idiot, you’ve been using 'they' this whole time. Why did you think it was a good idea to ask?

“Both, neither; you may refer to me as the End of All Things, or just Death is fine.”

There’s an encompassing silence now, a frozen moment of building tension that screamed of the smallness of human existence and forever nothingness. Harry feels breathless in a way that tells him this may be his last inhale. He feels minuscule, a tiny blip of life amongst trillions in the universe. There is darkness reaching for them from the edges of the clearing and the warning in his mind is now a deafening scream. The being, Death, shifts even closer and tilts their head, hood shifting with it. Harry’s brain reminds him of dementors and a voice that sounds like Hermione questions if they eat souls because Death can. His breath hitches, and he can’t even take in the faint traces of air anymore.

There was a whisper then, “or you could call me anything you wanted; servant, Azrael, yours”

Harry stills at the tone of voice, wondering if you could hallucinate in a moment between time, or if this all was a hallucination.

The being groans and suddenly the darkness is retreating, and the air is breathable once more. “What would make you stop calling this fake? Do you want something more tangible than a mark?”

“No, I- uh- I never- uhm. Wait you can hear my thoughts?” those thoughts are now a frantic ramble with an echoing scream thrown in.

“I belong to you, Master, but no matter, I will send you proof.”

Harry gasps awake in the alcove once more, and after some desperate inhales finally moves. He decides to leave the school, maybe after fixing a few more hallways. He’ll make sure to be seen from a distance helping for an hour or two, but no longer. He has no idea what proof would look like or if it will even occur but he’s sure it shouldn’t be received in public.

Perhaps it’s the memory of the chaise lounge and the thoughts it prompted but a part of him believes now would be a good time to return to the house of his godfather. Can he even just go there? Who would know?

Chapter Text

Harry has been mostly working on autopilot since he awoke. He spent some time making sure he was seen helping to rebuild then somehow triggered the invisibility — or maybe fell back on his usual skulking skills — to help him leave. Then there was the apparation to Diagon Alley — is that supposed to be easy? — and the goblins approaching him before he can leave to Number Twelve.

In the bank, there was an influx of information that Harry only absorbs because he prefers it to being left in the dark. There was an owl redirection ward, he has a vault of funds and possessions from people who wanted to give things to the Boy-Who-Lived. It was supposed to be a private revelation and he’s never been here alone and of age.

There was a fee for checking the things received for curses.

And a fee for breaking into the bank.

And one for stealing their dragon.

And another for damages to the bank itself and the Goblin Nation including their reputation.

There was a signing of numerous Merlin be damned papers involved and weapons waved.

Grimmauld Place had been willed to him, that had been known. What wasn’t known was that it was willed alongside the majority of the Black fortune because of both interbreeding and Sirius’ status as the original heir to the family and Harry’s godfather. There was talk of costs to repair it but harry had decided to put that discussion — and all the others that the sheaves of parchment promised — for a later date. A decision that was driven by his unwillingness to deal with more paperwork and possibly bills and also a fear of others witnessing the potential proof he was to receive.

He left as quickly as he could after they announced that he’d receive a letter with a date for a follow-up meeting — it sounded like a threat.

.

Grimmauld was decidedly different than it had been before he was explicitly told he was the ‘heir presumptive’ to ‘the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black’. It’s not just the lack of yelling from Sirius’ mom’s portrait and Kreacher not appearing yet — though both are ominous and the silence vaguely eerie.

It’s the way the house seems to hum a bit, a low pitched sound he feels more than hears. It’s the way that he actively sees a rug rise and dust itself out on his walk to the kitchen. The plume of dust and insects that rise and fall from it respectively disappear mid-air behind him as he watches from the corner of his eye.

He sits tiredly at the kitchen table where Sirius once sat, finally taking a moment to take stock and think. The war had barely ended a full day ago and his body is still keyed up, not believing it's really over. He’ll need to talk to Hermione soon because a fair amount of his things are with her in her beaded bag. It’s not much but that which is there includes things of sentimental worth.

He props an elbow on the table and startles as it nudges something. There is a crystal water goblet there, and its presence alerts him to the fact that he’s not had anything to drink in hours. The goblet looks new, free of smears or dust but its newness is belied by its golden rim and the Black Family motto engraved around the base of the stem in a way that screams ‘antique heirloom’.

He's never seen it before, but as he uses his wand to fill it with water he reckons that’s not surprising. He drinks deeply, refilling it once more before putting it down. When he places the glass down the tabletop beneath it is free of curse — and scorch — marks. It’s a gleaming dark oakwood with little etched snakes at the corners.

A pop pulls his attention away from the snakes before he can give into curiosity and try to speak to them. It’s Kreacher, and he’s giving Harry a look of awe, glee and excitement that reminds him vividly of Dobby.

“Master is staying now?”

“Er – yes. Well, I have to see Hermione for some of my things soon”

“Master should send Kreacher to his mu- friend for his things”

Kreacher doesn’t look like he actually wants to ever see Hermione again, but a part of Harry thinks he fears that Harry will leave and not return. He agrees and is left in silence once more.

If prompted later Harry will not be able to explain why he did what he did next. Not that he could ever be prompted about this set of actions, since if he has his way no one will ever know about this situation and his actions and reactions during it.

He heads up the stairs, entering an office he’d never been in before and throwing open a window high up in the wall with a spell he never learnt. There is a darkness in the distance, moving closer swiftly.

Scarcely three blinks later he is no longer alone in the room, staring at the hood of a dementor and shivering slightly. Other than the cold he has no other reaction — hears nothing but their breathing and his own shaky inhales. A frantic part of his mind wonders if that’s because he died or because he met Death.

The dementor is holding something out to him and the sight makes him release a wheezy slightly hysterical laugh.

It’s flowers.

A whole bouquet in pinks and purples. The flowers are typical garden flowers and irrationally pretty. There are pink peonies, asters and buttercups with pink and purple tulips and sprigs of lavender. They glimmer in the sunlight streaming in from the open window, the leaves and petals are coated in a thin layer of ice that aid in the whole reflective effect. The stems were uneven from where he could see some of them beneath the dementor's clutched hand. They look as if purposefully bitten or frozen off.

The familiarity of the flowers and the way they must have been collected makes Harry think that there’s a muggle out there mourning a section of their garden — he hopes it’s Aunt Petunia.

The flowers are far from neatly arranged, held in clusters and a tiny bit crushed on top of being semi-frozen with their ragged stems and they’re being held by a literal soul-sucking amoral being.

And yet –

It was the most beautiful bouquet Harry had ever seen.

He reaches out to take it, reflexively thanking the dementor and mentally cataloguing the odd sound it makes in response to use later as panic fuel. Harry briefly considers going downstairs but the mild wariness that he’ll be followed has him summoning a vase instead.

The one that comes zooming at him is the skull-shaped one he bought to support — to stop being hackled by — a hag earlier that very morning. he’s quite certain it’s an actual skull but at least it’s uncursed.

(Or the curse is slow-acting, and Harry is properly a fool)

Oh, would you look at that, the dementor is sucking a soul from his new vase. Great. That’s just fantastic. Point one for Harry; feeding the delivery dementor inadvertently. Hopefully, they don’t start visiting him for snacks.

The dementor makes a breathy noise and there’s an accompanying little nudge in Harry’s brain that makes him hear the words “Thank you, Chosen”. Chosen? Chosen for what?! Harry plans to ask right after ‘You can speak?’ but he’s pre-empted by the sound of the floo going off.

Harry turns to face the open doorway for literally a moment but when he twists back around the dementor is flying away in the distance. The skull vase is propped up on the left corner of the desk taking up a fair amount of the room, bouquet arranged in it. there’s an empty portrait behind the desk and harry leaves to answer the floo before its occupant can return, grabbing his vase as he goes.

Chapter Text

He goes to where he hears a voice calling — the floo system has been wonky since before they left for the hunt, and any calls to the house can occur in almost any fireplace in the house. Harry swears there are even more fireplaces than before. And a lot more portraits on the walls. And considerably less damaged wallpaper. Maybe he should give that some thought. Soon, he assures himself, pretending he won't just procrastinate until he’s forced to face it.

The vase is placed on a side table in a little private library beside a sitting room, neither of which he had ever seen, as he settles to his knees before the fireplace. It’s Hermione, of course, calling to confirm he sent Kreature then scolding him for sending Kreature.

.

The sound of someone calling him pulls him awake again. It takes only a few seconds to remember the way he had worked himself into another panic about hearing a dementor speak on top of the flowers thing – with that perhaps being the proof Death had mentioned. Kreature had found him in the sitting room and gave him hot chocolate that was probably laced with something considering how quickly he calmed down and fell asleep. He can’t find It in himself to be mad at the house elf.

“Harry?” his attention is pulled to the fireplace across from him, where Neville’s voice emanates from.

Harry shuffles over there, greeting him and granting him access so that within a moment he’s stepping through the floo. He looks exhausted, drained yet triumphant and happy to be there.

“Luna said I should visit,” he offers as an explanation before they settle into a pattern of idle small talk. They skirt around the war as if it wasn’t the entire focus of their lives and especially in the last few years. Instead, Neville mentions the rebuilding briefly and then talks about plans to perhaps join the Aurors. He’s mentioning the indecision because of an offer for an apprenticeship for herbology when his eyes drift past the bouquet and then snap to focus on it.

There’s a brief flash of surprise before his face settles into this soft blend of understanding and fondness. Still, he says nothing, continuing to speak on the proposed apprenticeship as if his eyes didn’t keep drifting to the bouquet. For a moment Harry fears Neville has noticed the skull masquerading as a vase on the table. A part of him irrationally begins to panic that Neville will be able to tell that the skull contained a soul up until less than an hour ago when a bloody dementor ate it.

He lets the conversation flow for a while before inevitably his own eyes fall on the pink and purple spot of colour. He internally winces at that because as he feared, Neville takes that as his cue.

“I think it’s nice that someone is taking the time to do a proper courtship despite the state of our world” which is not exactly what Harry expected as a comment, making him turn back to Neville in confusion only to flush when Neville looks pointedly at the flowers once more. Harry follows his line of sight and tries to see what Neville has apparently found in the blend of flowers. Whatever he has found, it’s thankfully not the fact that the vase is a human skull. Is it a human skull? To be fair it’s not like Harry is intimately familiar with how skulls look – empty bone white skulls at that.

“May I?” he asks and at Harry’s nods drift closer. He pauses when he is close enough to touch – except he doesn’t, if fact he makes it a point not to touch, going as far as to hold his hands behind his back with his right arm clasped against his left forearm. Harry has a distinct feeling there is something that he’s missing being displayed in all these actions.

Neville makes a humming sound and there’s a grin on his face when he speaks again, as if he can tell how much harry is flushing at his words despite not facing him – intent as he is on observing the flowers. “These are very romantic, less of an intent to pursue and more a declaration that you’re their chosen. The asters and buttercups both symbolise charm and attraction, though the asters are also a symbol of the Goddess of love. The peonies are for romance and prosperity, though usually used as a good luck charm. The lavender is for serenity, but the tulips, those are for perfect love. Interestingly most of these are associated with long lives or eternal love.,” he glances briefly at harry, “it’s saying that they’ll love you eternally and that in their eyes you will forever be beautiful and worthy of adoration”. At this point, even Neville is blushing lightly, but he seems excited for Harry.

Then he clears his throat as he turns a bit and makes eye contact with a blushing Harry, switching focus a bit to make him relax, “it’s an interesting charm to preserve them though, I’ve never seen it”

“Neither have I, it seems like ice”

Neville is visibly shocked at that answer, “it came preserved?” he asks, but there seems to be another question there that harry doesn’t know the answer to.

“Yeah, I thought that was because of the method of delivery”

“Maybe,” he says but harry knows him enough to know that Neville looks unconvinced. Still, he makes no mention of his doubt – leaving soon after upon some signal that harry doesn’t notice.

.

After he leaves harry drapes himself across the couch. What was once a moth-eaten mess was now a new, vibrantly deep purple velvet couch that was incredibly comfortable.

He stares at the flowers for what seems like hours, pondering both the meanings that Neville explained and the parting comment he made. “Interestingly this bouquet could mean traditionally a wish for you to have peace and a declaration of love. Or- well. Or everlasting love with an emphasis on the idea of everlasting in terms of living forever.”

He's still looking at the bouquet – the potential courtship initiation - as he drifts off.

Chapter Text

Harry dreams of nothing. It feels as if he had taken a blink and daylight had filled the room. He’s rested, and his back is stiff in a way that indicates hours in one position, but it does feel like time has passed.

The room is cleaner than it had been when he first lay down. He sits up slowly, and his feet land on a soft, elaborate black rug decorated with spirals and symbols he’s almost sure are runes. That wasn’t there when he first sat on the settee. He looks at it in confusion for a moment before his eyes are pulled to the small table as a tray of breakfast pops into existence. He takes in the toast, eggs and bacon before uttering his thanks.

Most of his day is spent with the goblins, reading and signing and discussing things when he’d rather do almost anything else.

When he returns to the sitting room there is food waiting on him and as intent as he is on eating he misses the other thing waiting on him.

Pressed up against his first bouquet are a few new flowers. There are only four of them, two of each type and iced over – but then, so is the skull vase now.

Harry is drinking his juice and staring at them when Neville calls to check in on him. he lets him describe the flowers to him and tells him what he knows of them in return before settling back into updates before leaving the flames. Carnations and gardenias. All of them pink and speaking of fascination and new love alongside purity and deep everlasting love in respect to the gardenias. He finds himself flushing, cheeks heated red as he brings his cup up to his smiling lips.

He distracts himself by walking around downstairs and trying to log changes. Harry is sure the house is expanding and changing around him but he can also admit that he’s not the most observant person so he could have just missed most of the tiny details he’s noticing now that he’s here alone.

Well except that – he’s sure that curtains didn’t shake themselves out and change colour before this.

When he returns to the couch he slept on before Kreacher is waiting there and essentially bullies him up the stairs and into what is probably the biggest room in the house. It’s clean and very extravagant. It feels like a stage really, but his things are set up in there and there’s a fire going so he lets himself settle into it.

There’s an en suite and so he cleans up before settling into the bed. This time he feels himself fall asleep and knows he will dream.

.

When Harry opens his eyes he’s in a familiar forest clearing, laying on that same piece of furniture that fits the title of ‘fainting chaise’ more than anything else. He stands slowly, turning in what seems an automatic move to face Death despite not having seen them.

“Hi,” they say cheerfully, quite obviously pleased.

“Hi,” he responds, and then immediately flushes at how soft it came out.

“Hi,” they repeat absently, stepping closer- close enough to touch.

“Hi,” he parrots, looking up into the shadows beneath their hood, voice wistful and the words were drawn out on an exhale. It betrays him, laden with affection and accompanied by a soft smile and flush as he finds himself swaying towards them.

Seconds pass, maybe even minutes before he blinks rapidly, clearing his throat and looking towards a glowing mushroom.

“Did you get the flowers?”

Oh. They were actually from – oh. Is he-? Are they? Does it mean what Neville thought it did?

“Yes,” he blurted out, realising he’d been silent too long, “yes I did. I uh, I loved them.” He clears his throat again, feeling like he was suddenly very hot. “Why didn’t the ice break in the dementor's hand? Or erm, melt after?” he asks after casting around for something to change as they patiently watched him try to be a person who could speak without stumbling over their words in their presence.

“Did you want it to?” they ask, voice a strange mixture of amused and hurt.

“Uh, no! no of course not. Just thought they’d snap in those big hands” he jokes. Like a fool. A fool who fails at their job because they can’t even make a proper joke. If he were a court jester he’d have to exit stage left or summat.

“You think dementors have big hands?” Death asks, somehow sounding amused. Score! Two points to Harry.

“You don’t?” he asks instead of doing a stupid dance to celebrate making them sound pleased. He looks at their gloved hands and proceeds to lose their brain-to-mouth filter, “of course you don’t, your hands are bigger”

“Are they?” Death asks and harry has the distinct impression they’re analysing themselves.

“Well, yeah, compared to mine,” he says then somehow finds himself latching onto their hand, “see?” he asks, pressing his left palm against their right palm to show the size difference. He forced himself not to freeze up, properly taking in a fact he hadn’t even realised he had noticed.

“Oh,” says Death, voice low and surprised. Harry is almost sure their breath hitched a bit.

“It’s a bit cool, yeah” he acknowledges, eyes trained on the sight, feeling like he was overheating as he stared at their long fingers.

“What is?” and their voice is definitely lower, softer too, as if they might be overheard. But Harry does not elaborate, face mimicking a tomato as he focuses on their connected hands, resisting the urge to curl his finger through their own [their longer, thicker ones attached to a palm that dwarfs his, making him feel small in a way that is somehow comforting and makes no sense because why would he-].

“What is, master?” Death asks imploringly as they do what Harry was too afraid to do and slips their fingers between his own, sliding their thumb down to brush against Harry’s wrist. Once. Twice. Then pressing upon his pulse point. Harry feels his heart beat even faster in response to the glide of their touch, a part of him hating the gloves for the contact they deny him and another grateful for the protection they provide – fearing his own reactions at further intimacy.

“How well we fit” he finally answers, voice deeper than usual, while pressing their palms even closer together and looking up into the darkness where their face should be.

The darkness pulls him in and between one blink and the next he’s staring up at the darkness of the lavish master bedroom at Number 12 Grimmauld Place instead. His heart is still racing, face flushed as his left hand tingles, pulse thrumming.

Chapter Text

There are many things to wake up to that would make people smile immediately – food, a loved one, maybe a book. What does it say about Harry that his reason is opening blurry eyes to a dementor holding flowers? He slips on his glasses – for all that, they aren’t proper prescription and only help a little – and stares. This bouquet is pink and white, he notes as his eyes focus on the point where they are held.

The dementor's hands are grey and look scabbed over. A distant part of him wonders if that’s because of their whole frost thing. As if they can sense his gaze they lay the flowers beside him and pull their hands back into their tattered cloak. Harry has the most bizarre idea that the dementor might be shy.

His eyes drift back to the bouquet. He really needs a book on flower language or something; he can't just keep calling Neville. This means he’ll need to leave the room. He awkwardly smiles at the dementor and then heads into the bathroom.

The dementor is still there when he exits the bathroom. Not in his room, but he can still feel them within the wards. He finishes getting ready quickly and heads down for breakfast.

In the kitchen he finds the dementor floating across from where his breakfast is set – actively sucking a soul from one of the fancy crystal tumblers. This is obviously great because that means he’s winning at this hosting thing and feeding his guests. It is also terrifying because he used that glass yesterday and had no idea a soul was in it. How many items in this house are secretly dementor snacks?!

He doesn’t comment, just focuses on his own food and shouts his thanks to Kreacher as the elf shuffles out of the room.

There’s a part of him that knows the dementor will be gone as soon as he leaves but he doesn’t think he should just let it- them?- wait while he’s gone so he just sends a wave as he leaves. Of course, he promptly freaks out about the fact that he just waved to the soul-sucking creature the entire walk to the fireplace in the smallest dining room.

Harry didn’t actually have a proper plan for when he left the house. Just the vague idea of maybe learning the flower language or finding Neville. He makes his way to Hogwarts to help out while he thinks.

He stays away from most people, not wanting to get drawn into conversations. Instead, he focuses on pulling memories of fixing walls when he had been guided by Death’s hand and tries to replicate it. It works to an extent but after a while, he can tell that he’s once again being aided. He wonders if Death is actually there or just decided to allow him this knowledge to use as he sees fit.

When he gets tired, Harry finds a little nook to take a nap in. he’s woken by Kreacher dropping off food. After eating, he gets right back to work.

At one point, he crosses paths with Ron who invites him to the burrow that weekend since Fred will be out of St Mungo’s by then and his mum is making his (and everyone else’s) favourites to celebrate.

He also finds Neville who after extensive questions (including petal size and shape) tells Harry that the flowers were Peruvian lilies (devotion; and stays in bloom so long they’re thought to represent everlasting affection), Casablanca lilies (beauty) and pink hyacinth (peace and commitment). Harry tried to ignore the way he blushed at the meaning.

Neville let him have his moment before earnestly telling him he was very pleased for him before heading off to whatever section of the property he was helping out in.

When Harry gets in that night he’s exhausted but can't help but smile at the way the very presence of the place seems to perk up as he enters and welcomes him. This must be what having a home is like.

He trudges to the kitchen and slowly eats the meal he somehow just knew would be waiting for him then goes to prepare for sleep. A quick shower later and Harry opens the closet then snorts and pointedly rummages in his trunk for something to sleep in. he falls asleep to Kreacher’s muted mutterings.

*.*

Despite the fact that there is only darkness between the hooded cloak, Harry can tell that Death is staring at his choice of sleep clothing.

To be fair to Harry, he didn’t see them last night and had chosen these clothes more to tease Kreature than anything else. He keeps his sleep clothes and other things in a locked trunk for fear of Kreature throwing them out and forcing him to buy clothes that match his steadily improving surroundings. Just yesterday, when Harry opened the closet there were dark robes with silver stitching in place of the shirts and jeans he had put there. Items he would never purchase – not least of all because he didn’t know robes could look like that.

Still, he may not have worn them if he had known where he’d go in his sleep.

The clothing he chose to sleep in are lurid orange pants (charmed that way by Fred who had done to same to one of Ron’s shirts as well as Ron’s bedroom walls) and a quidditch jersey. It's a Gryffindor quidditch jersey that says ‘Weasley’ on the back. Harry can't actually tell whose it is – it might even be Ginny’s.

After a long stretch of silence where they settle to sit near each other and Harry takes advantage of their attention to his clothes to peer at them in turn, Death speaks.

“Interesting colour choice, Master”

Harry snorts inelegantly, “at least I’m wearing pants,” he teases then flushes as he desperately does not think about the insinuation.

“Had I been wearing any, mine would be hot pink” Death divulges and Harry doesn’t understand but gains enough for the intonation to know it was meant to be a joke.

He wants to question it but instead just chuckles a bit and leans back. They spend the rest of the time like that, just sitting near each other in comfortable silence amongst the intricate twists of the massive roots of a bone-white tree.

Chapter Text

When next he’s awake a flower is beside him in bed. Harry decides that he definitely needs to find a book on flower language and sets off to the library. Upon entering he witnesses the insanity that is the contents of the room. The bookcases seem to be in the process of waddling around to reorder themselves and books are floating everywhere. Against logic, Harry asks the floating books if any of them contain the language of flowers including pictures and is unsurprised when he actually gets something of an answer. Who needs logic and the laws of physics when you live in what is turning out to be a sentient magic house? Not Harry.

But the library doesn’t have the book, maybe they never did, or it was stolen or thrown out.

Harry has breakfast and then gets ready for the day in one of those fancy hooded cloaks – hoping to conceal his identity while looking for the book.

He’s barely been in Diagon for a minute when a… person who seems like they were only glamoured to look human and were doing a very bad job at actually playing the part slinked out of the shadows of an alley to give him two books and a red candle. They say absolutely nothing, but Harry gets the impression he should return home.

The first book is an illustrated one on flower language – including annotations regarding those of them that have tales that include death. The second turns out to be a series of stories that mention people meeting death, from Wixen and muggles but also from other beings. Some were translated with the original beside them and most of them were relatively short.
The very first one was the tale of the three brothers but halfway through was the one that seemed to be the reason for this gift - “death came to see me in hot pink pants”

**

Harry spends the day reading – and somewhere out there Hermione probably feels inexplicably pleased and proud. The single flower was a red anemone, a symbol of love and death with an association with Greek mythology of a man loved by goddesses. Harry learns a spell to make a vase; it doesn’t turn out exactly how the description said but it also didn’t fall apart so no complaints.

Near the end of the day, after Kreacher has fussed him into eating and respectable pyjamas he checks in on the library to see books still zooming around. The room seems significantly larger as well, but Harry doesn’t ponder that, just brings himself to bed.

He doesn’t dream that night, and when he wakes without seeing death he tries to pretend he’s not disappointed. His eyes land on the red candle he placed by the nightstand in the room [which hadn’t been there when he first started sleeping there but that’s not his business] and he wonders if he was supposed to have lit it.

Well, there’s no use wondering about it at that moment. So, he heads into the bathroom and muffles his laughter when he hears Kreacher muttering about proper lords and their attire. Just to spite him Harry looks for the most simplistic of all the new robes.

The Weasleys are pleased to see him, and he can say the same. Still, after being smothered in hugs he sneaks out to sit against a tree for a bit. Despite the years in Gryffindor, he’s still not always at ease in the loud and busy atmosphere, especially not after these past few days.

Harry thinks he may have settled into a sort of quiet haze, not exactly dozing but not entirely present. He is pulled out of it by the sensation of being stared at.

Just beyond the wards of the Borrow are two women and after a quick moment, he decides to go to them.

One of the women wears sunglasses, which seems a bit odd to him as they aren’t something he expected to see in the wizarding world. She’s also wearing an elaborate emerald green headdress that shone under the sun. a lot of her golden skin is on show, with only a wide strip of leather covering her breasts paired with a very short tight skirt with a slit on the side plus thigh-high boots, all of which seemed to be made of snakeskin of a poisonous dark green that matched the headdress with smatterings of lighter scales.

The other woman is wearing a gleaming white toga with elaborate draping so that other than her head only her left arm from the elbow down is on show. The edge of the toga brushes against the ground as it flows around her. there are flowers and leaves threaded through her hair. in her hands, she holds a potted plant with thin succulent leaves and a flower that is less a bloom and more a differently shaped series of leaves in a deep blood red.

They wait patiently for him to analyse them, seemingly doing the same.

“Harry Potter?” the woman in the toga asks after a moment.

“Uh, yes. Hi.” He stutters out, trying not to feel arrogant when he realises he’s shocked they had to ask.

“Hello” they chorus in response. Harry blinks rapidly when he realises they speak with a slight hiss.

“This is for you,” the one wearing a toga says, holding out the potted plant. She has fangs, Harry mentally notes as he reaches out – beyond the ward boundary – to accept the plant.

“Thank you,” he says as he looks at the plant more closely. He misses the way her face lights up in surprise followed by pleasure at the thanks and the fact that he made contact with it and pulled it closer to him with no adverse reaction. Of course, it had not occurred to him that he should have checked it over and shouldn’t just be accepting things from strangers.

“It is our pleasure” the other woman, the one dressed in snakeskin, tells him. she speaks with more elongated hisses and there is also an echo to her voice – what seems to be more hisses coming from under her headdress. “thanks for getting rid of the annoyance” she smirks a bit and Harry has the feeling she just winked at him, despite not being able to see it with the sunglasses. The hisses in the background raise in volume.

“Farewell,” they chorus and take three steps back, effectively dismissing themselves. Harry mumbles out a  goodbye and awkwardly makes his way inside, very aware of the fact that they are still watching him.

When he gets inside Mrs Weasley is fussing as all the hands on the family clock are pointed to ‘mortal peril’ for everyone but Bill who was ‘in transit’ despite everyone but Bill being in the room with her.

There is the distinct sound of apparation outside and all the hands, including Bill’s, move to ‘home’.
Bill arrives inside a few seconds later asking why the wards were telling him there was a gorgon near their home.

“Er. They told me thanks for getting rid of ‘the annoyance’ which I think means Voldemort. Oh, and they gave me this” he holds the plant up to display it.

Everyone stares at him for a moment then Ron burst out laughing. Harry hears at least three people say “only you” as they start moving from where they had clustered near the clock.

“Oh, how lovely!” Mrs Weasley exclaims, quickly distracted now that the danger is gone, “Be careful with that Harry, a kiss of death needs plenty of sunlight”
Harry freezes.
A kiss??
Was this an invitation? A declaration?
A warning?!
Or… was this them dropping a hint for the future?

Chapter Text

Lunch is as chaotic as expected. Fred proved he was well recovered by turning everyone ‘sunshine’ yellow and only able to speak through varying bird-like chirps. Somehow they could still understand what the others were saying, they just had to wait until the chirping finished and began to register as words. George turned half their cutlery into silver snakes that fled at the sound of the chirps. Harry was the only one who could understand them complaining about ‘huge two-legged egg-stealers’ but his laughter was infectious.

Ginny corners him to talk after he had been rebuffed from helping with clean-up and had been heading outside. A part of him doesn’t want to talk to her, afraid she’s going to bring up his promise and attempt to rekindle their relationship. He had been sort-of-but-not-really avoiding her for that very reason. Well, that and the fact that he had begun to feel awkward and separate from everyone. His theory was that it had to do with him literally dying. A voice that sounds like Hermione tells him he’s just avoiding conflicts and having to explain things.  He obviously ignores that voice.

In any case, she’s caught him now and there’s nowhere to go so he takes a deep breath as silently as he can and squares his shoulders. Gryffindors charge ahead.

“You know, Ron and Hermione kissed at the battle” is what she starts with. He tenses slightly. Kissing. Oh no.

“I saw” he mumbles. A gust of chilly wind blows in from the window.

“Everyone must have,” she jokes, shuddering in maybe false but teasing disgust. “anyway, it got me thinking” this time the shiver is real, though slight.

Why? Why must women think? Thoughts are the enemy Ginny don’t be like this.

“Thinking?” His voice breaks a little on the word and he clears his throat, looking to the side. For some reason, the room seems darker than before.

“About us” she clarifies, and Harry begins to despair.

Why him? What is he even to say to this? This is the worst moment ever.

“Us” he repeats stupidly, half question and all fear.

There’s a flash of lightning in the distance that pulls his attention momentarily. It highlights the darkness of the sky and the chills in the air. Wait. Wasn’t it just a clear and sunny day? Harry looks around in earnest now, eyebrows pulled down in confusion. There are strange shadows in the room, and the candles flicker slightly as a chilly wind blows through the room despite the closed door.

Harry flicks his eyes back to Ginny, who shivers despite not seeming to notice the changes. He hopes she gets to the point soon so he can somehow let her down gently.

“Yeah. No offence Harry but you were more of a first-crush situation. I don’t think this could work long term”

… oh, thank Merlin. Harry slumps in relief.

She ruffles her hair, quirking her lips up briefly “Don’t tell mum but I’m not even looking for long-term right now.”

“Oh,” he says, distracted by the way the darkness and shadows leach out of the room and the candles stop flickering madly.

She snorts then punches his arm, “no need to look like you’re facing death Harry, you’re still a part of the family whether or not you date one of us”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way” he laughs then shoves her lightly as they’re called outside for a pick-up game.

The sun is beaming down on the others, blindingly bright and hot.

“Plus, if you want to do it formally, Charlie is still single” she jokes. Thunder rumbles in the distance. Harry laughs nervously and heads over to join Ron where he sat against a tree.

.

It’s late when he gets home, sweaty, and exuberant. Somehow his feet lead him to a room with massive windows full of plants that have overgrown their boundaries if they ever had any. Three of them try to bite him, and by the time he’s conjured a high-up shelf for the potted kiss of death, there are vines creeping up his thighs and holding him in place.

He pets them gently and slowly unwinds them before leaving. The fact that they let him says more about this house than even the dementor’s snacks. One of them holds its pot bodily and walks on vines behind him to his room. He only notices it halfway down the hallway and decides against making a comment.

By the time he exited the shower [clad in the silk pyjamas that Kreacher replaced the actual sleep clothes he had chosen and brought in there] his room held at least seven more plants. Most of them had arranged themselves in a divot carved into the wall to the left of the bed. That space had not existed twelve minutes prior. One of them has arranged itself into a passable resemblance to a looking throne-like chair on the other side of the bed. It seems to be trying very hard to stay still and entirely manages it except for the way the top of the ‘chair’ cannot seem to decide how tall and sharp their spikes should be. The windows above the bed are much larger, taking up most of the wall, and the kiss of death now held a place of pride in the centre of the ledge.

Harry looks from it to the ledge of trailing vines and a pot that held what he was certain was devil's snare and over to the very green ‘chair’. He went ahead and made himself comfortable in bed. The massive green [now a beautiful green to match his new plants where before they had been black] curtains pull themselves closed and the gleam from the stars is blocked out.

The room is very dark, and Harry can hear some of the plants actively creeping along the walls. He easily falls asleep, nonetheless.

Chapter Text

“The redhead plays a dangerous game,” says Death as soon as Harry opens his eyes to find himself on that chaise lounge in the forest.

He scrambles to sit up, for some reason blushing at being sprawled out while Death stands above them. And then what was said sinks in. “what?” he blurts out, instead of a reasonable query.

Death sits beside him silently, and Harry resists the urge to shuffle closer. “first, she made it sound like she wanted you,” they say in a tone Harry would describe as terse, “and then! She says she doesn’t want you!”

Harry takes a moment to try to understand why they sound angry. “er, well, I don’t want to be with her either”

He gets the impression that Death is pleased with themselves. “however, she is insinuating you aren’t someone to covet. Who wouldn’t want my master?”

“er,” harry starts, but then closes his mouth as he can come up with no way to continue.

“Perhaps she was lying. Maybe she does want you” Death says as they stand, growing angry once more.

“I don’t think she does. And uhm, it doesn’t matter, as I’m not interested” Harry says, getting up and shuffling closer to pat them on the arm in what he hopes is a soothing manner. He wonders if Death is aware that he had once been interested in Ginny. Just in case, he vows to never bring it up.

They turn to face him, and though there is still only darkness beneath the hood, Harry is sure the look being levelled at him is pondering.

“Perhaps I should take on a more feminine visage and claim you the way some women do, with smeared red lipstick and heated cheeks”

Harry is momentarily floored by the fact that Death thinks women wear red lipstick to purposely leave smudges behind as some sort of sign of possessiveness. Like a physical claim or something; claiming territory.

And then he flounders at the idea of Death doing that to him. Is this the kiss that was promised? A claiming tactic?

He blushes at the idea and looks to the side briefly. When he looks back up death has turned to face him fully and stepped closer as well.

Kiss???

They reach out as if to hold him.

Bloody hell! Is this? Are they?

Their left hand rests gently on his cheek, leather cool against his heated face.

!!!

“You’re so pretty” they breathe out, all soft as they touch his cheek. He looks up to where their eyes would be, leaning into their hand.

Okay, stay calm, Harry. Focus on them instead of the pretty comment. Well, that didn’t help at all.

They release a breath sharply and lean back a bit. Though their hand is still against his cheek, and their taller form is taking up his entire field of vision, they are not as close as they just were.

Nooo.

He decides to steer the conversation back on track, for lack of anything else to say. “I- uh, I like this look. You don’t have to make yourself more feminine if you don’t want to”

“Oh?” their hand shifts to tangle loosely in his hair, tugging lightly as they seek to run their fingers through the messy locks.

“Yeah,” he pauses, swallows as his voice goes airy on the word, “there are other ways to claim me” he doesn’t look at it, but he thinks about the symbol of the hollows stark against his flesh. Technically you already have, he thinks but does not say.

“Some people use jewellery.” They comment as they move their hand from his hair slowly. There is an accidentally sharp tug as they do, and Harry forcibly tells himself that it was painful and not the other thing that causes nerve endings to tingle. As their fingers grazed his cheeks he finds himself tilting into the touch, pressing closer to the coolness of their leather-clad palm.
There is a pause. A hitched breath. A stillness to their movements and the air itself.
He starts to shift away only to have their other hand pressed again his hip and draw him even closer.

“I don’t know if I’m a jewellery person.”

“Are there specific types of people who wear jewellery?”

“Well, there are people who wear specific types of jewellery.”

They hum, and then their thumbs are moving in opposite directions, rubbing circles in maddening repetitive movements against his cheek and above his hip bone. His breath stutters and Harry feels himself shiver a little.

“And you think you couldn’t look good in jewellery?”

“I’ve never really tried” Harry answered, voice soft and skin tingling - very aware of the soothing motions of the thump near the corner of his lip.

“Perhaps it’s time to change that.”

“You think so?”

“Yes,” they say, pressing closer, “you can always change your mind”

Harry doesn’t think this is about jewellery anymore.

“Okay” he breathes out, tilting his head and giving in the urge to press an open-mouth kiss to the thumb that had been teasingly drifting closer to his lips with each soothing stroke.
“Okay” he repeats, mouth moving against Death’s thumb, eyes drifting closed for a moment as he subconsciously licks his lips and feels the brush of their glove against the tip of his tongue and on his now hypersensitive lips.

When his eyes raise up a moment later, looking up despite knowing he’ll see nothing but the darkness under their hood he’s entirely surprised to instead be faced with the ceiling of his room – now featuring two different creeping vines that dangle tendrils above the bed. He stays there a moment, breathing in softly and pulling his lower lip in to chase the taste of leather lingering there and on his tongue. 

Chapter Text

Harry glances around the room, all the walls were covered entirely in vines in varying patterns, spirals and loops and even one very thick braided section at just the right height to swing and throw himself into bed. He’d know, part of the reason he took this long to get up is that he swung himself back into bed the first time. The only wall not covered was the one with a curtain shielding the window that now encompassed more than 2/3 of the wall and went all the way to the ceiling. 

“So, uh, where’s the door?” He asked - maybe the house or maybe the plants themselves.

Logically the door should be across from the bed where he last entered through. However, he wouldn’t put it past the house to move the door. Or the bed. Or the room itself.

A mass of vines swings open across from him. 

Beyond it is the bathroom, now featuring green marble tiles with gold veins. 

“I meant to exit the room” he clarifies. 

The shower turns on. 

He stares at it.

A glass vial of what looks like body wash shimmers into existence in a small square divot in the wall.

Well, bathroom first it is. 

When he exits later, he’s in a silky black shirt and dragonhide pants combo he hadn’t purchased. [He wonders if these clothes were hidden in the house and are being altered by Kreacher to fit him perfectly. Or does Kreacher know his measurements and went to get clothes for him? With what money?]

The bathroom door closes behind him in a silent swing and settling of vines.

On another wall, some vines retreat just enough to form an archway opening. Flowers bloom around the edges in reds, yellows, and purples. 

The wooden panelling beyond it abruptly disappears. 

Outside it is a hallway Harry thinks leads to the kitchen somehow.

Breakfast is a lovely affair, and this time there are no dementors lingering nearby- which is probably a good thing despite how at ease he is growing with their presence. After all, he’s supposed to meet Bill and Charlie today to talk to them about the women (gorgons apparently – how could he have known that?) he had spoken to. And if they are anything like Ron, they would floo over here to drag him to their lunch meetup if he lingered too long. And then he would have more things he can't actually explain to… explain. Is this what having older brothers is like? The Weasleys seem willing to give him the full experience.

When he stops in the hallway to pull on his shoes, he conjures a little stool to perch on.

A mass of vines, which must have been waiting especially for a moment like this, shoved his little stool away so that he ends of perched on what is essentially an elaborate green throne. Within seconds there are tendrils curling around his ankles and partway up his calves. He doesn’t feel trapped but still has to resist the urge to flinch.

He reckons the plant would be pretty upset if he did that. Or flailed around. Or shot a lumos solarium at it.

So he just pretended this was natural. Keep calm and carry on, and all that rot. Maybe he should ask Kreacher for a pot of tea to emphasise how very normal this all is.

He just did not want to hurt its feelings. And no matter what logic said, this house and its… furnishings, definitely had feelings.

And skills! Bloody hell did it just use a tendril to grab his shoes and put them on him? That's it. Harry will never get over how great magic can really be.

.

“Promise to let us know if something like this happens again. Dark creatures really aren’t known to approach wizards, especially not ones presumed to be Light”

Harry wonders if he should explain that he doesn’t really know what any of that means. He nods and agrees instead. All else fails he’ll hear about it in one of Hermione’s rants or ask George.

Harry decides he wants to take a walk when the other leave, and walking to avoid crowds decide to see if Diagon has any side streets. Good news? It does. Other news? They crisscross each other and Harry ends up in Knockturn. Well, at least no one will mob him here. Not for whatever the wizarding equivalent of autographs is anyway. Maybe still autographs? Touching his clothes? He hopes never to find out.

The stores down this way aren’t as scary as they seemed when he was twelve. Still creepy but withered hands holding lamps and skulls are not as eerie when you’ve faced inferi and currently have a bouquet in what is probably a human skull on your side table.

Oh, look it’s the woman who sold him that skull. Should he go say hi? It would be polite of him.

Hopefully, she doesn’t try to sell him another skull.

.

.

In Harry’s defence, knucklebones sounded like something interesting to own. And hey – it’s not a skull.

Better than the little snuff box-looking thing filled with dried poisonous herbs she sold that other guy. What would he even need that for? Potions?!

.. oh right. It’s probably for potions.

Like whatever potions this woman is using to make her hair so shiny. Malfoy wishes he had what this woman has.

Wait a tick. What is-? Wicked!

This woman has barely-there silver outlines of horns curving backwards on her head.

She smiles when she notices his gaze and signals him closer. Harry approaches, still staring at the wicked sharp horns that look like goat horns.

Chapter Text

Maybe people would say following a mysterious-looking woman in Knockturn was a bad idea. Even Especially if they were the one who signalled you closer. And those people would be right. It wasn’t Harry’s best idea. But in his defence, all the people in Knockturn look mysterious. And also he’s made a lot of bad ideas and is still alive.

…

Maybe that isn’t the best defence on account of the whole only being alive by strange luck thing.

Anyway! The point is: Harry followed the lady to her store full of shiny things and he was perfectly alright.

She had asked him to wait for a moment and left him in the main area.

The store was a lot like Borgin in that very little was being cases, and all the items sat on stands and tables with nothing to visibly stop theft. Perhaps that was a warning in itself. That they didn’t need cases to protect the items.

In any case, almost every surface had jewellery of some kind; rings and strange chains, necklaces and bracelets and other things that Harry couldn’t understand where they went. Some things were plain and others had engravings or gems. Others still were twisted to make designs themselves.

Harry found himself pondering a gold contraption when the woman entered once more.

In her hand is a carved wooden box, no langer than the palm of her hand.

“The Hooded One sends their regards,” she says, placing the box in his hand.

From the corner of his eye, Harry sees the shimmery outline of a tail swish behind her.

His attention is captured by the box. The Hooded One, she said. Death, he thinks, and feels himself blush.

He stutters out his thanks and holds the box tighter for a moment before tucking it away into the depth of his cloak. He wants to savour the gift, whatever it is, and dares not open it here.

He clears his throat awkwardly and looks around once more.

.

Somehow, Harry ended up walking the woman home.

[Along the way, she actually revealed herself to be a nymph in a way that told Harry she was expecting a specific reaction. Except that Harry barely knew what that meant and ended up just nodding and asking if Knockturn had restaurants.]

She lived further into Knockturn, on a little offshoot that had more trees than houses.

When they got there, there was another woman there waiting. She was hard to look at directly, seeming to shift in and out of focus. When she spoke, Harry thought of leaves falling and flowers blooming for some reason.

“Would you like to stay for tea?” this other woman asks cheerfully.

Harry pauses, and the warning from the older Weasley brothers drifts across his mind.

“Worry not, child, it would be foolish of us to ruin our efforts to remain safe by poisoning death’s chosen”

A part of Harry wonders at the confidence with which this young-looking woman called him a child. However, most of his thought are overtaken by the words “death’s chosen” and the way it settles seamlessly on his as an aspect of his very person. This is a title of ‘chosen’ he would never fight.

.

The shop owner's friend [lover?] had a multitude of little piercings on her left ear that made an elaborate vine trail complete with flowers. Separately they were just very pretty stones but together they made an image.

Harry knew it was a bit rude, but his eyes kept being drawn to it during tea and the conversation – mostly small talk about their work and garden with very little input from Harry.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise she commented on it, but what she said was.

“My little moonbeam did it for me. Do you want one?”

“I have bracelets in a similar style, as well”

Harry can only blink in response at first. He’s not sure about getting a piercing but the bracelets – “I like the detailing, I’d wear something similar”

“You want a piercing then?”

That’s not exactly what he meant - and a part of him thinks she knows that - but despite the hesitance, he nods.

“I think I have something that matches both this and your courtship gift! Give me a moment” and then she off, heading up the stairs Harry had not even noticed. They were carved to look like the other panels of the wooden house.

He’s beginning to sense a theme.

“She used a ritual on this one. Maybe you should have her do a small circle around your intended area.”

A ritual? Harry must wear his confusion boldly, as she explains a moment later.

“It helps the jewellery to hold extensive charms without destabilising later because of the body’s inherent magic fighting with the magic on the signature. It’s not a technique done anymore as most people are more prone to changing jewellery now but the technique was popular a few centuries ago when there were only a few artisans”

Bloody hell. Harry can hardly imagine – wait. Centuries?!

“Alright, I’m back. Close your eyes for me, Chosen”

.

When Harry is only a few feet away from  Grimmauld he pauses to take everything in. The house, though significantly cleaner and no longer falling apart is still a mood board for the word gothic. At the moment, there is a hoard of dementors just flying around the upper level. Really adding to the ambience.

A smile is on his face as he steps in.

There are windows high up on the wall that were not there the last time he looked – and for that sake, these walls were not that high. All the same, they slide open and dementors swoop in. There is an eerie sound that Harry’s brain translates to an excited exclamation about his presence and continued existence.

By the time the stream of them has stopped approaching him and are just drifting around, he has a colourful bouquet of preserved roses. Two dozen single roses were brought to him individually by dark beings feared across the globe. Creatures that were now playfully dodging vines sneaking down from the ceiling in his entry hall.

Harry has to warn a vine off from trying to subsume the bouquet as he makes his way to the sitting room. He is trailed by both plants and dementors but pretends not to notice and he settles onto the plush purple couch.

Petals and leaves fall dramatically from the ceiling when he refuses an ottoman made of vines as he finally pulls out the wooden box he had been given.

Chapter Text

The box holds what looks like either a cuff or a strange necklace. It’s made of a supple black leather as dark as night with four little hoops near the lower edge made of some sort of silver metal – looped through these little circles is a delicate, barely visible silver chain. A little skull hangs from it, also silver but eerily reminiscent of a shrunken actual skull transfigured to be made of metal. Near what seems to be the middle is a small red gem embedded in the leather.

The leather is about an inch wide, and the piece itself is long. Based on magic's ability to have things sized down this could just be a bracelet.

Something has him reaching a hand up to lift his hair from his neck instead before an idea crosses his mind. He closes the box and tucks it into his pocket instead before lying back to face the ceiling.

Above him, the dementors swerve between trailing vines. Harry tilts his head to watch one of them almost get caught and then startles as they all turn to face him. there is a loud humming from them as they abandon their game to swarm him in excitement.

It takes Harry almost a minute to realise it’s his head they are staring at – specifically his ear. The earring of obsidian and silver that his left ear now features.

The jewellery is a well-crafted and beautiful piece. There is the base of it where a little black stud in the shape of a raven’s skull with a tiny scythe in its beak now pierces his ear, which had three silver chains of differing lengths attached to it leading up to another obsidian clasp in the shape of a skeletal hand that now cradled the side of his ear.

The noise level increases when Harry turns so they can see it more clearly. They seem to be purposely excluding him from a conversation before one of them rushes to the ceiling and then drifts back down to him. they carefully shift some of his hair – which had been growing out and is now an awkward length a little above his shoulders – and then put something in it a little above the ear.

Harry smiles as they move away and then transfigures the pile of flowers into a flimsy but workable mirror.

In his hair, pulling it away so that his ear is always on view is a flower. It looks like a red fanged geranium with lush leaves and with tiny offshoots from the stem that work like a little comb to keep it in place. There was a thin layer of ice on it and a slight dampness to Harry’s hair.

“Thank you” he beams up at the dementors and plants before Kreacher pops a plate of cookies onto the table before him.

They hum as he eats, drifting close to pet gently at his face and hair.

.

That night, Harry wears a button-up silk shirt and matching pants to bed. He lays down on his back with the wooden case resting between his hands on his stomach.

He counts petals as they drift down from the ceiling to aid in his endeavour – too nervous to drift off naturally despite running around the house playing tag with some of the dementors to wear himself down.

He lets his mind drift as they fall upon him and between one slow blink and the next he’s on the death-themed fainting couch.

Harry stands quickly, one hand gripping the box tight as the other nervously fiddles with the edge of his shirt.

Death stands a few feet away from him within moments.

“Hi”

“Hello, master”

“I – erm,” Harry clears his throat and holds the box up briefly, “put it on me?”

There is a pause before death is suddenly inches away from him, seeming to warp the world around them instead of taking the two steps necessary.

Harry conjures a full-length mirror before him as he turns away from Death and hands them the gift. A shiver runs down his spine as their gloved fingers brush over his heated skin. The clasps disappear when it’s closed, morphing into a seamless band of leather.  The small red gem sits at the hollow of his throat and slowly shifts through multiple colours. When he lets his eyes drift half closed he can see the faint image of the Hollows symbol within the gem. For a moment Harry tilts his head to the left and slightly back and he takes in the full effect.

Death makes an odd sound that only increases in pitch when Harry tilts his head back even further to peer up at him from this angle. His robe is soft against Harry’s cheek and for a moment his eyes shift closed as his magic seems to sing of comfort and safety.

Harry raises a hand to unbutton the top button of his silk shirt and trails a finger over the leather band around his throat, “Quite a claim” he comments, staring in the mirror once more.

“You are my master” they say but there is a sort of undercurrent to it that sounds like a question.

“Yours, huh? Well, I have no complaints.” He turns to face them, peering up into the darkness, neck arched to aid in the endeavour and putting the proof of Death’s claim in their line of sight, “I think I’ll enjoy being yours”

Death makes a sound akin to a purr overlayed by bones rattling and at their feet, narcissus and deadly hemlock grow and bloom.

Chapter Text

When Harry awakens that morning, both he and the bed are covered in petals. They fall in a heap off him and onto the floor beside the bed when he gets up.

As the day before the vines around him only opened up to show the bathroom so he had a quick shower with that fancy body wash that showed up in a big potion vial. He learns that the choker got larger when he went to wash his neck to facilitate washing below it before immediately adjusting. Like yesterday, he finds another outfit he never bought. It's another pair of some sort of black leather this time, secured by laced-up silver chains at either side of his waist all the way down to his hips that reveal his skin somehow despite him putting on boxers. Did it vanish them somehow in those areas? Is it an illusion? Harry had no idea. At least the shirt just looks like a regular white shirt, despite feeling much more comfortable and fitting well.

Beside the bed, the petals have somehow compressed themselves into a beautiful little rug. Beside them are a pair of what seem to be leather boots. Harry has no plans for the day so he attempts to leave the room without putting shoes on. He is of course, uncessful as the vines do not move beyond blooming.

The shoes make his footsteps echo as he makes his way to the kitchen.

He stops short before the stairs and doubles back.

There is a room beside his room, with wide glass doors covered by white curtains. Curious by nature, he makes his way into the room and then pulls the doors open only to pause once more.

Harry peers warily up at the pomegranate tree taking up the entirety of a garden beyond the doors. 

It made no sense for many reasons: 

Firstly, this sitting room was not there last night nor the many nights before this.

This he can easily excuse - randomly appearing and disappearing rooms have become par for the course here.

Secondly, there’s no space for a garden near this townhouse. This can also be excused by magic and wizards' lack of logic. Of course, they could have a garden appear near the townhouse. The townhouse itself doesn’t even exist usually. 

It would be entirely fine if not for the other reason:

The new sitting room is on the first floor, that is, the one accessed by going up the stairs. This massive pomegranate tree reaching for the skies is firmly rooted in the ground.

Harry stares dubiously at it once more, taking in the sight of what seems to be a snake with feathery wings swooping between its branches and nods decisively to himself before heading back inside. This may as well happen. He glances towards his bedroom and the vines trying to sneak out of it and just makes his way to the kitchen.

His breakfast today is already set when he gets there - toast and an omelette plus a steaming cup of tea in crockery Harry is sure were thrown out because they were cursed. it is accompanied by a small flute of a bubbly pomegranate champagne cocktail with 7 bright red seeds resting cheerily within it. He makes no comment until he’s finished everything else and risked a taste of it. 

It’s delicious of course - suspicious and strange- but delicious. 

He gives Kreacher his thanks, lets himself be bullied out of the kitchen when he attempts to clean up after himself and heads to the nearest sitting room. There are so many of them now he may have to start calling them by their colours or something like a ponce.

Now, if he were someone else, this would be the point he started thinking deeply, maybe trying to resolve this mystery. Perhaps ponder on the idea of agreeing to be Death's and then given a pomegranate. But Harry’s mysteries were mostly revolving around a maniac despot who is now dead. And they very rarely concerned him.

He heads out to help in the efforts of rebuilding Hogwarts.

.

The few people who see him (Neville, some centaurs, and a few house elves) seem happy enough to do so and he allows himself to let the magic necessary flow. So maybe he had never learned these spells before using them, but they work and don’t hurt him or anyone. That is enough.

Neville spends some time with him, congratulating him on the progress in the courtship and examining the living flower holding back a section of his hair. The conversation is light as the work is extensive. They make tentative plans to hang out soon.

Harry doesn’t remember much of the day beyond the energy exerted and progress made but it was still time well spent.

.

After showering and dinner, Harry settles into the new sitting room in his silk pyjamas. He snacks on a little platter of dark chocolate-coated fruits that follows him in. Both the platter and a letter were held aloft by tendrils of vines from plants that – based on the flowers – Harry is convinced don’t actually grow as vines.

The letter is from Hermione, presumably sent to Ron and him both about her intentions to find her parents and hopefully beg for forgiveness after unblocking their memories. She mentions planning for the future and the broken government systems. There is a comment in there about a book that for some reason reminds Harry of his godson.

He wonders if he’s allowed to visit him. if it’s even safe. What if he brings unnecessary attention?

He writes a letter instead.

It’s probably awful in the eyes of Andromeda, despite using his best penmanship. But it is honest and heartfelt, and he convinces the dementors that none of them need to deliver it for him.

Of course, that leads to him sending one of the many crows that now circle the townhouse but Harry thinks she’d much prefer that.

Despite the nervous tension that fills his body, Harry drifts off between one blink and the next, right there in the sitting room.

Chapter Text

The nap is very short, and Harry spends a few seconds trying to pinpoint what woke him. It was neither discomfort nor a fire call or any loud noise.

It’s just the knowledge that something is not the same as it was a few moments before. Which, incidentally is no true news – in this house nothing is as it was moments before. Still.

Something has decided he needs to be awake for this. And so he is.

He finds himself walking the ever changing hallways of his home, finding many things of note- new tapestries and sconces, a room where once was only a blank stretch of wall, flowers and vines where cobwebs once were, resting dementors – but nothing that makes him think “oh, here is the reason I’m awake”

He continues walking. Passing portraits in a hall he doesn’t remember and in turns sinking his toes into carpets he never bought and striding across gleaming wooden floors.

He reaches what was once a dead end and is now a massive arched window with stained glass depicting a beautiful woman drinking a vial of purple potion in a field. In front of it is a dementor gorging themselves on what seems to be a candle holder.

How many souls do I have just laying around?

He turns around.

And there hovers a swarm of flying creatures in miniature.

Oh.

They lead him to his own room, this mass of Cornish pixies and doxies, making indecipherable noises and waving their little arms the whole way.

Harry tries desperately to understand what they’re saying, for he’s doesn’t want to hurt them by telling them he can’t.

He fails to grasp anything beyond the fact that he is being scolded for something.

Thankfully they settle down once he gets to the room, and he crawls into the bed they gesture to.

On another day curiousity might have kept him up- or perhaps if he were someone else. As it is, Harry just yawns, gives a general good night to the room along with its other inhabitants and goes to sleep.

Everything else can be handled by Harry of tomorrow.

.

“Hello my master” he opens his eyes on his day bed in Deaths domain.

“Hello, Death…darling” he greets in response, adding the term of endearment just to see the being who so boldly claimed him pause in their steps and make that bone rattling purring sound.

“You are well?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“I am what I am”

“And in this moment, is that good?”

“I can be nothing but pleased with you here” they say and Harry finds himself blushing.

For a moment he can think of nothing more to say, so he decides to be brave and gesture for Death to sit beside him. For a moment he thinks about holding their hand between his own but Gryffindor he may be, but he’s not there yet.

Death shifts their hand closer and Harry remembers they can hear his thoughts. He blushes but rests his own hand atop theirs and ignores the heat in his cheeks.

“Can you speak to pixies?” Harry blurts out a few moments later.

Not exactly a planned thought but maybe better than asking about the way flowers had bloomed at their feet last time- or about the purring.

“There are no lies or secrets in death”

Harry takes that as a ‘yes’, “is there a trick to it?”

“The language itself? No. But the nuances are less in words and sentence structure and more in body language. It’s in the hand gestures, the way they move their wings and the colours and patters on their body and wings”

He slumps a bit, “so basically impossible for me”

Death does not answer but Harry feels their confusion and explains. “I can’t distinguish those things, my glasses were barely good the day I got them, they definitely can’t help me see things like that now”

“That can change little master” They announce and Harry turns to face them for an answer but is quiet as they turn their hand in his so they’re pressed palm to palm and pulls them up into the shadow of their hood. “See you soon” they say and then Harry feels it.

A kiss.

The barest brush of lips against his knuckles really.

Vague and chilly but soft and plush.

It sets him alight.

.

Harry wakes up in his head with blood roaring in his ears, over heated and blushing red.

He presses one hand to his chest and the other- tingling and chilly – to his mouth to hide his massive grin.

A kiss!

A kiss!

Chapter Text

It takes him a while to calm down and notice the waiting dementor with an icy flower and a message.

Hearing a dementor recite poetry definitely wasn’t on his list of things to experience.

Not that it was truly a poem. No, it was more akin to rhyming words but still eerie.

Believed extinct and beyond our reach,

These women cannot be found along the beach.

They hold a metals and flowers that are the key, 

Druids and dryads are an aspect of nature one has to see.

Now, Harry may not be the most well read, or focused, or aware, or –

Anyway. He may lack knowledge but he has friends.

A part of him wants to go to Hermione but he can’t imagine how much time would wasted explaining how they got to this point.

He tries to floo call Neville but the flames don’t change.

And so he asks they only other being in this place.

“Master is being told to visit half breeds,” Kreacher bemoans with a frown that deepens as Harry tries to go for the door immediately.

“Master had better not be trying to leave in his sleep clothes” he scolds then pops away.

The vines across the dour to exit weave themselves into a lattice design as the bathroom door opens and petals falls to form a carpet leading the way.

Right, shower first.

His friends down Knockturn meet him at the entrance this time and guide him to their home. They spend ages fawning over his necklace and hair and the living flower comb in it while he sips the tea given. Conversation hardly occurs and as soon as he places the cup down a little hunk of metal is placed in his hand. It is barely larger than the bowl of his teaspoon and seems a random blend of silver and gold.

“Unfortunately we cannot spend much time together today, but I must beg a favour anyway. Please visit The Dusty Tome on your stroll home, and then leave what you receive with my friend at the front desk of Fangs and Fumes”

Harry agrees easily enough, pocketing what he’s told is electrum.

It takes him until he’s in the bookshop being handed a few books by what he’s sure is a vampire that he realised she had spoken in rhymes.

At least this one didn’t speak, just smiled at him and handed over the books.

Fangs and Fumes is apparently a potions supply store, and at the front in the woman who gave him the Kiss of Death plant.

He blushes almost immediately at the thought.

“Hello darling” she greets with her echo of hisses as she takes the books from him.

She places in his hand a vial with scales suspended in a viscous liquid he assumes to be venom.

“You’re just in time for my break” she says, coming to stand beside him and lead him out the door.

He spends the walk to the Leaky admiring the cross cross pattern of the back of her sleeveless snake leather top. The sides of her matching skirt have a similar pattern near the hem that lands above her knees.

Harry hardly heard what she orders, and then she somehow tricks him into letting her pay before guiding him to a seat. When his food arrives she only receives a drink which she drinks in mere seconds before patting him on his shoulder and striding off once more.

Bill comes out of the floo barely a second after she leaves his sight and greets him warmly.

Harry asks for updates and barely does not mention his recent visit to Knockturn for fear of being scolded.

When he gets home the swarm meets him at the door. The big one made up of the little bodies of his newest housemates that is. The dementors are busy ducking and flying around in the vines.

There is a parchment in his pockets with a recipe in his pockets that call for all the things he got today – including the flower from this morning - as well as a few other ingredients.

The other ingredients are in the potions lab he is led to. It is his first time seeing this room. And he doesn’t have enough knowledge to be sure, but it seems to be a good lab.

.-.

Harry is guided by pixies and vines and gets it done on the first try.

Mostly because it was just boiling and stirring. No fancy cutting and he had the ingredients in the exact amounts he needed.

Death must have so much faith.

He goes to drinks it without questions and is stopped by high pitched yells. They lead him to the kitchen and only after eating is he allowed to take the potion. Well after being made to go to a sitting room.

He doesn’t need to speak the language to know the little beings are bemoaning his decisions.

He almost feels sorry for them if they’re so easily alarmed and plan to live here with him.

Little bodies and vines land on his arms as his eyes begin to itch as he drifts off for a nap.

.

When he wakes from a rest without dreams or Death he automatically reaches for his glasses on the side table.

Only, his vision blurry so he takes them off to clean them on the edge of his shirt and realises he can see. As in he can make out the details on the wallpaper and the individual leaves on the vines.

He is seeing way too much- much more than usual.

Right. Time to speak to someone who can be rational at least half the time.

.

“And you just took it? You didn’t research it? Did you even read the full thing before attempting?”

“Well.. uh”

“Oh Harry why didn’t you call?”

“I didn’t think about that.”

“Harry! You foolish boy we’re here for you” hermione scolded

“Yeah mate, you know we wouldn’t let you do stupid things alone” Ron said with a grin, skillfully dodging the smack Hermione aimed at him.

Hermione goes back to peering at the parchment which is apparently written in gibberish for her despite Harry’s ease of reading it.

She keeps second guessing what he reads because apparently these ingredients are inedible or shouldn’t go together. As if that can’t be said for most options.

Thankfully Neville is there to provide silent moral support. He didn’t even say anything to dispute Harry’s story when he said he got the recipe from someone he told his glasses were getting old.

Harry leans closer to him as Hermione reads through the transcribed translation of the potion.

The couch- one of two in the rented room at the Leaky- dips with his weight.

“I had mentioned being unable to see something, and instead of the potion they sent me on an unknowing hunt for the ingredients” harry comments but Neville seems to hear the unspoken question.

“An act to display they can provide for you. It’s the first step after public acceptance of the suit”

“Public?”

“Is that not what the necklace is? I’ve never seen you with jewellery before”

“You can see it? Then why haven’t Ron and Hermione said anything?”

“Maybe they’re waiting on you to bring it up. Or maybe it’s because I knew of the declaration of intent”

“We’ll come back to that. Provide for me? I can take care of myself”

“But you don’t have to,” Neville points out, “ and the fact that it was a quest for the ingredients and you made the potion yourself is an acknowledgement of your own skills and abilities.”

Harry ponders that for a moment, and finds himself flattered as Neville speaks again.

“It shows they think you can handle things you are face but that they wish to assist. Plus the eyes are said to be associated with the soul; it could be sone sort of allusion about access to your very essence”

Harry blushes at that but decides to query it to be sure.

Hermione calls his name, bringing their attention back to her.

“I’ll look into this further Harry but until then, do you want to replace the lens with glass panes or show people the new look?”

“I think going without would make the focus more on him - especially at the trials” Neville adds.

“The trials?”

“For the captured Death Eaters. Weren’t you told?” Ron asks, looking at him in confusion.

Chapter Text

Harry wants to say he gave his full attention to the trials.

But that would be a lie.

Don’t misconstrue, he was present and involved in as many as he could be. He even got Malfoy and his mum to be let go and somehow that meant Lucius would do some Azkaban and then what equates to house arrest.

Harry hopes no one notices the way the dementor population at Azkaban is diminished.

Anyway. The point is that he paid attention. But a lot of focus went into not making everything about him and aspects of his appearance and also avoiding people and suddenly noticing so many so-called dark creatures and beings around whenever he left the house.

Everyone wanted to know about his grown-out hair and the flower he wore in it, the way he dressed, and what he ate while they were supposed to be handling the aftermath of a war. Very few people ask him directly as he is usually surrounded by his friends but he hears the comments.

And then one day he gets photographed while in the Alley and the next morning he’s awoken by the floo.

The room the house let him allow them through the floo into is the one he’s dubbed the green parlour in his head.

The ceiling and walls are a deep green with silver sconces and fires of the same colour.

The floor is wooden but almost entirely taken up by a carpet with the black family crest and bordered by designs of vines and snakes.

The furniture is a firm black leather 3-2-1 couch set with low backs and green throw pillows.

This too, is a room mostly unfamiliar but with the missing vines and his other house company it just looks like one of the sealed rooms instead of something new.

Thankfully, Hermione was a bit too caught up in the current situation to think about the house.

He hopes. She may just be addressing this first.

He goes about making her a cup of tea from the set that popped into existence on the dark wood round top side table as she lays a copy of the prophet on the table.

They all have a copy actually, but Neville and Ron put them away.

Harry wonders which aspect of the trials has caused this furore.

Instead, it’s a picture of his face looking up at him. He’s never seen that expression on his face but thinks it may be what he looks like with Death.

Neville points out the society pages acknowledging the potential of an ongoing courtship.

“Look Harry they put the advertisement for Twilfitt and Tattings and Quality Quidditch Supplies around your article!”

“Is that good?”

“The last people to get both of those was the Malfoy wedding- they usually keep the advertisements separate unless they think people will be storing the page”

“How do you know that?”

“Perception in society papers affects the business of the family.”

Hermione and Harry blink up at him but Ron just nods.

“More importantly though Harry, what are they talking about?”

Harry stares at her and Ron, knowing he’s wide-eyed and clearly a bit panicky.

“Uh, well, you see, uh”

Hermione looks at him with growing impatience.

“They sent me flowers! And they’re really nice to me and they care about me, not The Boy Who Lived, and I just really enjoy spending time with them so I accepted the jewellery and the implied question behind it”

“Harry…” Hermione said in that gentle tone that somehow made him feel cornered.

He tensed himself up for what he knew might be a minor argument.

“Harry, mate, someone is doing a full courtship?”

“Yes”

“I didn’t know people still did that”

Ron doesn’t seem upset.

“I didn’t know it was a thing” Harry shrugged.

“Wait, it’s not a Slytherin is it?”

“No, of course not”

Ron nodded in acceptance, “what flower did they start with?”

And then before Harry can respond it all goes to hell.

Hermione whirls on Ron in anger and says something about Harry being impulsive about his partners. And then the cheerful warm room gets oppressively cold. Poisonous vines up from the wooden floor and head straight for Hermione while dementors make themselves known in the corners of the room.

Harry is so startled he doesn’t react for a few seconds.

“Wait, no, she didn’t mean it! She just doesn’t understand!” Harry yells pleadingly as vines wrap around Hermione and Ron who was trying to help her, trapping their arms against their bodies.

The vines thankfully stop squeezing them but their mouths are covered by blooming tendrils that with a lurch throw them and floo powder into the fireplace.

Dementors swarm down to stand before the flames and the wards of the home exert excessive pressure on them.

Harry speaks futilely to the house, trying to explain what Hermione meant. But it refused to change its mind.

Their owner was a pretty, gentle, powerful wizard chosen by death himself and no one was to make him second guess any decision he made.

With a swoosh of the flames it all ended. The dementors left, and most of the vines retreated beneath the floors.

Neville, who had sat quietly as the vines crisscrossed him as a precautionary measure, gently pet a tendril as it left him to join its lurking fellows.

He scanned the room and considered these new facts before deciding that despite the danger Harry himself was safe.

He clears his throat gently, “I’m considering accepting the offer of an apprenticeship in herbology”

Harry perks up, “Neville, that’s great!”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely! They could not do better with a choice”

“Well we still have to finish fixing up the school first”

“Right. There’s that”

Neville leaves after another tray of tea and biscuits followed by a delicious lunch.

The floo closes behind him.

Chapter Text

Harry doesn’t mention the situation that night.

He opens his eyes a few feet away from Death and does something actually impulsive to prove a point. He takes a running leap into their arms and they actually catch him.

He’s held up with arms beneath his bum and his own arms around their broad shoulders in a seamless movement.

Being this close to their face brings up memories of that brief brush of lips against his knuckles last time and his cheeks flush at the thought and their position.

“Hello darling” he smiles mischievously despite the blush.

Death's reaction is a now predictable rumbling purr firstly and then a verbal response after.

“Hello mine own soul, how was your day?”

“It was pretty good, I spent time with friends and the trials are now officially over”

They hum, “The aftermath of war is always interesting.”

“Because of the deaths?”

“No, because of the lives. People who survive wars cling to each other, they form unlikely bonds and create life. They fall in love, have children, make friends, and inspire others. They create so much. Some of them create family units, some hide away and live in seclusion. They rear animals, for food or beauty. They keep bees and have little butterfly gardens or grow flowers and food. They adopt animals and people and are so full of life.”

“I thought you’d prefer the influx of death from war. Those types of fulfilling lives may take a while.”

“I’m patient. Why would I want a thousand lives when they can live and live and live and create thousands more.”

“Patient indeed”

“There’s no need for rush my chosen, I’ll get them all in the end.” Death affirms, and shifts to holding Harry up with only one arm, sliding the other along his waist and to the centre of his back.

“Well, you already have me” he gently teases, tilting his head so the courting gift is displayed in the small distance between their bodies. Harry thinks he could be getting obsessed with the way Death purrs in response to most things he does and says.

Harry smiles and leans closer as he loosens his hold on their waist, and is allowed to slowly, gently slide across their body to stand on his feet. It does nothing to reduce his blushing flustered state.

“The media seem to be focusing more on me than the trials though. What I wear and say. It’s a good thing we replaced the glasses lens with plain glass so I at least look like they expect to some extent”

There is a stillness to the air where there wasn’t before. “Right. That might be best” they respond.

Harry doesn’t know when he began to pick up nuances in a multilayered ominous voice but something about that phrase felt wrong.

He reaches for their hand, shaving not left their shared bubble of space. “What is it?”

“Nothing of consequence dearest one”

Harry frowns a bit at that. Possessed by some sort of impulsiveness he gently brings their gloved hand to his face, dropping a delicate kiss to the knuckle of their index before resting the back of their hand again his cheek. “Come on Death, you’re mine aren’t you? Let me understand”

The being shudders, and the sound of bones rattling echos around even as they sway towards him.

“I- You- it feels as if you don’t want to show off my gift. I know you have your reasons, but that is the way it feels”

Harry is quiet but presses their hand more firmly against his face as he thinks.

“Is there anything else I can do or wear to make your claim clear?”

Death makes a sound then- like a muffled whimper- and Harry’s feet tickle a bit, making him glance down briefly to see carnations and orchids grow and bloom at his feet.

Those mean desire don’t they?

When he raises his eyes once more his vision is filled with the sight of massive wings flaring out from behind Death. The wingspan is larger than Harry’s super king sized bed and the feathers are a fathomless black that provide a foreboding contrast to Death’s hooded cloak.

He feels himself drift imposingly closer despite the confusion, a breathless utterance of “Azrael” on his lips.

The word meets the air of his room instead.

“Jesus Christ” he mutters, falling back on childhood exclamations as his minds wraps itself around the idea of wings and Death somehow being even more enthralling.