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Chapter Text

Dying was most certainly not something Harry looked forward to in his lifetime, but even he knew what the outcome of this meeting was going to be. The Forbidden Forest was a place not to be taken too lightly (as he had since learned throughout his years attending Hogwarts), and for him to be willingly entering in order to meet Voldemort? The word disaster was written cleanly in the fresh dirt right in front of him—yet, he forced his eyes away and took in a shaky breath.

All of these feelings were fighting for the forefront position in his mind, yet the one he could feel the most was a disturbing sense of calmness. He supposed that from all of the shit he had to endure during his time of wizardry schooling, the thought of knowing he was walking to his death and being prepared for it wasn’t as terrifying as walking the path of unknown outcomes. Or maybe he was just being optimistic. Both ideas were completely plausible, to be fair.

His mind sounded like radio static, but he felt little to no physical touch anywhere. The feeling of his clothes rubbing against his skin was non-existent, and he could only identify the wind by the occasional rapid movements of his hair. These things, paired with the foggy forest and the strange sense of numbness, further spelled him into a trance-like state; it was as if his body was moving forward with a mind of its own.

Maybe that’s what caused him to not remember the walk there until he and Voldemort were face-to-(hideous) face. His hands were still clenched into fists by his side as he stood there, his back straight and his gaze startlingly steady. He took a few brief seconds to look at the other people gathered, as they would be the last faces he would see before he finally met his end (he just hoped one of them would be remorseful enough to mourn him in his death. When his gaze caught Narcissa Malfoy’s, his lungs betrayed him with a hitch in his breath).

He had just let the invisibility cloak slip from his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor right behind him without anyone the wiser, and the shimmering outlines of Sirius and his father had both faded away some time ago. To Harry, it just felt as if it was just him and Voldemort; the multiple other presences just seemed to cease to exist once he fully stepped into the small clearing. The trees were looming far overhead, leaves swaying with the breeze—a perfect environment to succumb to Mother Earth and meet Death.

“Harry Potter,” Voldemort’s voice was soft, unnervingly so, and the cunning smile on his face made it all the worse. “The Boy Who Lived.” The Elder Wand was now in his grasp, poised right at Harry’s face with no sign of any shake. “Come to die.”

The words, for some weird, odd reason, felt comforting. He felt as if his body was wrapped in a warm blanket, ready to fall asleep in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor Common Room. It was a feeling he would never get to experience again.

Harry had seen Voldemort’s mouth form the words, but his ears didn’t interpret any sound. His eyes saw the green light for the spell coming closer with every beat of his heart. The light got so close and so bright he had to shut his eyes to prevent himself from going blind; a futile attempt at saving himself when it would be useless, really.

The spell hit, and down he fell. For some reason, he was still alive enough to feel the impact of the forest floor hit against his back under the cloak. A second later, he was no more; the resurrection stone was exposed, and his hand loosened its grip.

Chapter Text

Death is an odd thing. Many different people have their own views of it, but not one of them could tell you what the experience is like, so you must form your own opinion. Nobody is able to come back to life and tell of their moments with a god or devil, maybe even nothing gracing their spirit at all. No one is able to. No one, except for Harry Potter. Although, he doesn’t know it yet.

Harry felt the harsh light beat against his eyes, his arm coming up to shield them as best as he could. His body felt light and moved as if he had never felt the burden of fighting within an inch of his life for the past seven years. It was a staggering feeling, a freeing one.

He sat up and took in a deep breath; the air was cleaner, but it felt as if it were stiff—it was weird, and he couldn’t exactly explain it. When he opened his eyes, he could have an understanding as to why.

He was in what appeared to be a garden of some sort, maybe a park or something similar in idea. The grass was short, with trees sparsely placed and a swing set five paces away. They were all moving as if caught up in a breeze, but Harry himself couldn’t feel anything—it was a strange sense of deja vu and he didn’t understand why.

He looked around more, and caught sight of a castle. It was big and grand, but its only color was white. There were multiple bridges with lamps adorning their posts and flowers of all kinds lining their sides, but an eerie feeling just kept lurking up his limbs. It was incredibly unsettling, but he had to explore in order to find out where he was.

The closer Harry got to the looming building, the more he realized that he underestimated the size of it. The glass windows were enormous, and the doors could have fit two giants on top of one-another and still had room to spare (don’t even get him started on the width). The floors were glossy, and the walls were smooth; he could even hear the soles of his shoes hit the ground. It was so quiet—though, the longer he kept walking the more that sound started to grate against his ears.

He must’ve walked around for hours, although he wouldn’t’ve been able to tell because the sun outside hadn’t moved an inch, it was as if it was always noon there. It was only when he finally reached the fourth floor that he found something–er, some one .

“Uh, hello?” Harry’s voice called out quiet, but it still managed to carry quite easily in the midst of all of the silence. He really hoped that the man (person? Thing?) couldn’t hear the crack in his voice.

He took a few more steps forward and came to realize that the person was covered in a cloak (maybe a veil?) of some kind that seemed to glow like a clear night sky. It covered the whole entity, although toward the bottom it looked as if the person was floating instead of standing in place.

“Hello?” He spoke again, trying to get the other’s attention. By this point, he could hear deep murmurings, and could see a very subtle shake of a head. It took a few more seconds, but when the other turned around, he was finally registered. 

“WHAT THE FUCK—” the other person seemed to float up a bit in resemblance of a jump. Their voice was deep, but he flinched back when he heard it. It was mystifying to hear it, because when they spoke, it sounded as if he was hearing in his head, not just interpreting it into his brain. 

“Uh, huh?” He spoke back smartly. What was he supposed to say to that?

“What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here!” 

Great, that’s exactly what he wanted to hear. Lovely, maybe this person would tell him how to leave?

“Fuck, now I’m stuck here with you…” The voice started to fade away, as if he wasn’t supposed to hear it.

‘ Okay, well, never mind then. Yay. Exactly what I didn’t want to hear. ’ He rolled his eyes. Alright, so he was stuck here apparently. Why, though?

Where exactly was here , anyway? How did he get here? He had way too many blank spots scattered throughout his mind to make sense of his situation, and he had an odd feeling that those “spots” just kept growing.

“Okay, kid. I’m going to need you to do a few things for me, alright? Alright.” They kept talking, but he felt too out of it in order to hear the words. Why was he worrying about being here; where would he be if not? “Hey! Kid, listen to me, got it? This is a precarious situation we’re in. We need to get you to remember or else this will not go well.”

Remember? Remember what? What was so important about him that he needed remember it? What about him? Wait, him? Who was him? Who was he?

He felt a cold touch on his shoulder, but not the press of any skin or fabric, just the change in temperature. His hollow gaze turned up, and was met with fabric once again, although it looked as if he could make out the faint shape of a face.

“Hey, kid. What’s your name?”

He stood there for a second, digesting the question only to stand there in awkward silence afterward. He didn’t know the answer to that. Was that bad?

“Oh dear, it’s affected you already (that bastard needs to pay for this; maybe I’ll drop by and visit him in a bit). How come I didn’t notice you enter before? Oh, Fate is going to have my head for this.” The voice started to fade out again.

Oh. So that was a bad thing. That’s… That would be a problem, wouldn’t it?

He could feel his breathing start to get faster, and his limbs suddenly started to feel a little tingly. Was that bad? Probably. If he couldn’t remember his own name, that surely meant that the buzzing feeling he felt under his skin was bad, too.

“-y.”

His ears started to ring; nothing very noticeable, just a single high-pitched ringing he could faintly hear in his left ear. The more he started to feel himself shake, though, the more prominent it became. He tried to take deep breaths, but they barely seemed to work. Suddenly, he felt something strikingly cold rest on his shoulder, as if that part of him had been encased in ice that was constantly being covered with freezing water—it was incredibly startling, enough so to shock him out of his panic.

“Harry!” The voice sounded as if it was in panic.

‘ Harry..? That sounds familiar. Why? ’ He cocked his head a degree to the left, staring at the figure in front of him that was finally coming back into view. 

“Harry, can you hear me?” The voice from in front was becoming clearer, as well as the emotions embedded being more prominent.

“Are you talking to me?”

A sigh was heard. “Yes, boy, I’m talking to you. Do you know your name?”

This made him take on a pondering look. “I’m guessing my name is Harry, right? That’s what you were calling me earlier.”

“Yes, that’s correct. Do you know how you got here?”

This was another question that made him hesitant. The moment was not present in his mind, but the nagging feeling in the back of his head kept getting more pressing by the minute. He had a feeling that he got here from something important, he just didn’t know what. He pushed the feeling away, and instead shook his head in a meager attempt to respond.

“Yes, I figured so. Well, lucky for you, you have quite a lot of time to figure it out. So, in an effort to get your memory back, I’ll be doing something that is required of me anyways. I hope you like stories, so get comfortable, kid.”

For the next two hours, the figure that Harry came across in this weird place (who he would soon come to find out is Death), would recount his years at Hogwarts to him. Apparently it was protocol to explain the events that lead up to the reason for showing up here, in the Inbetween. Come to find out, being in the Inbetween meant you were dead.

Over the course of being told his years at Hogwarts, his memory slowly came back to him, of course they were jumbled and barely made any sense, but he had them. It was, at the time, the least he could ask for. 

The bits and pieces he could make out ended up either terrifying him or making him mad. Both of these emotions were stemmed from a man he came to learn was called Albus Dumbledore. 

“Wait, so, you’re telling me that this ‘ Dumbledore ’ guy—who placed me in my abusive aunt and uncle’s care—did it on purpose?” Harry’s voice was loud and demanding. When he was told of his time as a first-year at Hogwarts, his memory of his childhood came back to him; boy was that a painful moment. “And he also didn’t try and get my godfather a trial when he knew that he was innocent even though he would’ve had the political power to get him one? That’s absolute bollocks!” His hands were clenched, his knuckles white and digging into his skin enough to draw blood. He was pissed. “That guy is insane, he is. You said he died, right? Good riddance to him, then. Merlin, how did I not see his manipulative side earlier?”

“Yes, and that’s not even the worst of it, sadly.” Death’s voice was remorseful, bringing a hand up to wipe their face in disappointment.

That made Harry stop and look at the other. “What do you mean.” The words, although making a question, were spoken like a statement. He was demanding an answer, and he wasn’t going to leave Death alone until he got one.

“Well, Harry, Dumbledore is old, and being a wizard of high-standing power also makes him powerful. Unfortunately, that also brings unnecessary power up as poison into his mind, making him believe that he has the power to do as he pleases and in return not be punished for possibly doing something immoral. No one wants to risk getting on his bad side, afraid of the things Dumbledore could do to them, even if they could see all of the shit he was doing.” Death gave another sigh, “with all of the years he was in power, his view of the ‘Greater Good’ has changed, and terribly so. “

Harry was starting to get impatient, tapping his foot onto the polished white quartz floor. “Can you please get on with it, Death?”

Death narrowed their eyes at the boy. “I’m getting there, hold it.”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Harry scoffed.

“Hush.” The boy could feel daggers being thrown in his direction from underneath the sparkling veil. “Tom Riddle, who later became known as Voldemort, was once a student at Hogwarts, as you now know, and was a very gifted child. One that made Dumbledore go and personally seek him out to be a student there. But, once Tom became old enough and started to become too clever, Dumbledore started to fear him. He feared that he would soon become a force to be reckoned with, and Tom was open about his opinions—opinions that were different from his own. When Tom later took on his alias of ‘ Lord Voldemort ’,  Dumbledore became anxious, waiting for a moment the younger would strike. Years past and the two of them would collide in battles that would be written down in history books. And then, a group of students would be enrolled in Hogwarts and Dumbledore would start to develop a plan.”

A sense of foreboding fell on Harry's shoulders at the words and he did not like it one bit. He knew from past experiences that this would not turn out great.

“Dumbledore was able to manipulate a professor that had just previously started working at Hogwarts behind the scenes to proclaim a prophecy, claiming that a couple would have a child born of light and would grow to be the one to vanquish the Dark Lord. The professor would believe this prophecy to be true, running to the Headmaster to inform him, not knowing that he already knew. Just days before, James Fleamont Potter and Lillian Jane Potter-Nee-Evans had announced their coming child; you.”

The situation was starting to make more sense, but there were still some things that Harry didn’t quite understand yet. “Why would Dumbledore make a fake prophecy that fully depended on my mom giving birth to me at the end of July; how did he even know that she would? I mean, early and late births happen all the time, right?”

Death inwardly applauded Harry for his deducting skills, “yes, well, Dumbledore had found a way to make sure that it would happen. When Lily had entered her third trimester, Dumbledore had given her a potion that was disguised as a nutrient potion, when in reality it was actually one that was meant to force labor in the following few days. You were born a month before you should’ve been.” Death then paused for a second, and then their posture changed in a way that made Harry believe they had some sort of revelation. “Now that I think about it, Neville Longbottom was born under the same conditions as well, although I don’t know the reasoning behind it.”

Harry’s mouth was hanging open, his tongue quickly going dry from shock. “So, you’re telling me that Dumbledore basically poisoned my mom? What the hell?!”

Death shrugged their shoulders. “Hey, I’m only the messenger. I don’t know what goes on in his head, kid.”

Harry was still in the process of stewing in his newly gained information when a woman barreled into existence, knocking Death out of balance, and started spewing words at a speed that Harry could hardly understand.

“Oh, this is a travesty, my dear Death! I cannot believe that Tom would do this to my careful planning!” Her voice was higher pitched, yet it was a pleasant sound all the same. The back of her hand was displayed rather exaggeratedly on her forehead, her eyes closed and head leaned back in a way that looked like she fainted. Harry felt the corners of his lips start to go up.

“Yes, Fate, it is truly something terrible. But, uh, could you please let go of me? This is not how I would like to be displayed in front of Harry.” Their arms were hanging awkwardly in the air around the woman (Fate? It shouldn’t’ve been as surprising as it was if Death themself could have a corporeal form), not daring to touch her.

The mention of Harry’s presence made Fate freeze up for just a couple moments before she abruptly turned on her heel and started running straight for him. Her arms wrapped tight around him, squeezing him hard enough that he was beginning to see spots in his vision. Only when he tapped her repeatedly on the shoulder did she get the hint and let him go. 

“Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry! This was not supposed to happen; I’m pretty sure Tom screwed up my plans, and bad. The war wasn’t supposed to happen now. Sirius wasn’t supposed to die. I’m so sorry this had to happen!” Tears were gathered in her eyes and her lips were trembling. Harry felt his heart reach out to her.

“It’s okay. Plans go haywire, I get it.” He shrugged his shoulders in an attempt to act unaffected.

“No, it’s not. But, we do have a plan to fix it.” Fate stepped back again and turned her head to look at Death, a smile adorning  her soft face. “I figured in the back of my mind that this would one day happen, I  just didn’t expect it to be this soon. There is someone that can help us, though.”

Harry raised an eyebrow, curious about who this person was. He didn’t know of any way that they could fix this unless they were talking about time travel, but even then time turners couldn’t go back far enough to fix barely anything—so, he crossed it out on his mental list.

Death then decided to speak up again. “I was able to contact Father Time, and he said that he could lend us a hand. Essentially, we could send you back to your first year at Hogwarts and let you change your life and the events that were after it that way. If you’re up for it, he’ll be here in five minutes, tops.”

Oh, okay. So, maybe time travel was a way that they could fix this. It was mind-boggling, really. It was already startling during third year with the time turner, but going back seven years ? Would he have to operate in the shadows for that long? But, that wouldn’t work, he’d already died—if he was going to use some kind of time-turner in order to prevent his death or any events, then this wouldn’t make any sense. What did Father Time do exactly?

“How would it happen if I said yes? Time-turners don’t go that far back, and I doubt that I was already using one for the past seven years, not to mention I’m pretty sure that it would collide at some point from my previous use of one from my third year, correct?”

Fate nodded her head. “Yes, that is correct. A person cannot use a time-turner while still in the process of using another one, as well as a time-turner only being able to go back so far. You would not be using one, dear boy. Father Time would be able to give your past self your present memories from both your time alive, and from right now, here in the Inbetween. However you wish to use them would be up to the you from the past, not the present.”

“So, you’re saying that my current self would cease to exist and my memories would transfer to my past self, thus making an alternate reality or timeline? This present timeline would just…stop?”

“That would be correct.” The voice that responded was deep and gruff, but soothing in a way that Harry had never felt before. He turned, and he was faced with a tall, burly man with greying hair and a long, fluffy mustache that covered most of his mouth.

The boy thought it over for a few seconds, fueling the silence more. Then, his eyes gained a determined glint and looked up at the other three present. “Alright, I’m in. Tell me how we’re doing this.”

“Great to have you.” Fate’s voice took on a gleeful tone, one that Harry could happily agree with.

Ten minutes later, after the group of them talked in depth about how they were going to go about this, they were all gathered around Harry as he tried his best to prepare himself for the memory transfer. His body was taught and his eyes were forced shut with the expectancy that the process would hurt.

Fate was the one who noticed just before Father Time began. “Harry, dear, relax. It won’t hurt, I promise you; trust that it will be okay.”

Harry’s body relaxed, and he marveled in how Fate knew how to calm him down time and time again. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he exhaled, his muscles loosening and his shoulders becoming lax; the stress from the possible unknown becoming less prominent.

Father Time’s voice soon rang over, his deep voice soothing as it spoke the spell needed to start the transfer. “ Incipiat memoria translatio .” He let a hand rest on Harry’s shoulder, a soft glance in his direction. “Memoriae ab hoc tempore…”

Harry closed his eyes once more, breathing in the air around him, readying himself for the memory transfer. 

True to everyone’s comforting words, the prod against his mind that captured moments of unaltered joy in the throes of shimmering strings was completely harmless. If anything, it was something close to relaxing; almost as if it was someone’s arms encircling his waist, holding him to their chest and murmuring nothing but sweet words that were swallowed up by the looseness of his limbs and the darkening of his consciousness.

Once Harry's body slumped over, his chest no longer moving, all three other-worldly beings could feel the shift in the current reality. A few minutes passed until all of a sudden Death’s voice struck out, their head cradled in their hands with frustration leaking out of his throat.

“I completely forgot to tell him that he’s the Master of Death.”

Father Time and Mother Earth took it upon themselves to laugh at their misery, although Mother Earth at least had the decency to hide it behind her hand. Fate was the only one that took a small pity on them, patting her hand on their shoulder in a way to try and best give her condolences for their oversight.

“I think it’ll be alright. I mean, there’s no way that it’ll take a long time to say your name, right? 

Death gave a noncommittal huff and shook their head. “Knowing him, it might take until his third year of Hogwarts at the very least.”

The cackle of amusement came from Father Time, bending over his stomach while attempting to stay up-right. He had completely forgone the formality of being polite.