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If someone travelled back in time just try and fix him… he thinks he’d fall in love.
Terence lay moping on his bed, the curtains shut toght around his bed on a Sunday morning in his dorm room at Hogwarts. His hair all mussed up from the match against Gryffindor earlier.
Terence doesn’t even remember how he got onto the topic of time travel, much less someone “fixing” him. He’s a Slytherin with a less well-known pureblood name. Just a nobody.
Though he’d love to say there’s nothing to fix about him, he’s thought up quite a bit that could be changed.
Maybe he could try to fix such things himself but damn is that hard. At least his parents aren’t aware he’s a poof. That’d be worse than Harry-fuckin-Potter finding out that his dad’d been a Death Eater back in the day. Or worse, Dumbledore the goat himself.
Suddenly, something very strange happens.
Terence feels like everything has slowed down around him, his body moving slower past usual, and then he’s falling.
Black consumes the soace around him and his first thought isn’t panic. It isn’t about his parents. It isn’t even about how nobody’ll probably notice his death. It’s,
‘Lady Magic must’ve gotten sick of me and sent me to Death’s arms early’
He closes his eyes and allows himself to continue falling, not struggling but accepting.
Maybe he shouldn’t have thiught of Harry Potter. Maybe he should’ve tried harder to push Harry off his broom during the Quidditch match.
Maybe he just shouldn’t have been such a poof for that mysterious boy bamed Tom Riddle in the books, said to have been the best of his year with looks that could kill.
God he’d only seen one photo but he revisits that memory as much as his Occlumency practice allows with whatever spare energy he has to offer.
His magic core wasn’t that strong, just average. Everything about him is average, normal… forgettable one could say.
He doubts Potter was even aware of his existence after the match ended, just another slimy Slytherin git to him.
Just as suddenly as he started falling he suddenly stops, midair with the dark still surrounding him as he cautiously opens his eyes.
It doesn’t scare him. In fact, it’s a little comforting. The abyss around him reminding him of his bed with the curtains fully drawn and warded against any snooping roomates, even if they only have two roomates a room in Slytherin. Three if its an odd number and that barely happens anyways.
Then? there’s light. All around him and yet nowhere at all. It blinds him but wraps him up in this cozy embrace. Admittedly the falling had been a little too soothing and he’d almost fallen asleep.
So this harshnotbright light covering him is a bit disorienting to him.
There’s a noise, barely there and loud enough to be heard across the world at the same time. A woman steps out of the door leading back into the dark place he’d been falling through mere seconds ago.
Instinctively, he knows this is Lady Magic.
He feels a bit bad, she looks a little haggard. Maybe because he had gotten in her way or something. Created a distraction from her duties. Her magic, her being, feels so light, warm enough to be an embrace and a slap in the face at the same time.
He floats, frozen and watching with eyes still tired and mopey.
His breath caught in his chest and she nears at a leisure pace. Until she’s mere inches away from him.
“Terence.”
He flinches slightly at his name being spoken by her. Suddenly feeling plain and unimportant in the face of his name on her tongue.
“I have a job for you, Terence.” She pauses and crouches, so they’re eye level instead of her looming over him.
He nods quickly, swallowing back fear as a comforting aura washes over him. Blinking his eyes back open but unable to keep in a shiver as her fingers brush through his hair. God he was a mess and she was seeing him like this, what a lousy meeting.
“Terence,”
He snaps back to attention, a sixteen year old shouldn’t be this disrespectful to such an important goddess.
“Y-yeah?”
“Will you do this job for me?” Lady Magic smiles warmly down at the boy in front of her, her warm skin seemingly heating up the entire room.
“I can do it.” Terence says, switching back into a more serious tone.
Well, as serious as you can be dangling from invisible strings in front of Lady Magic, the one person- does she count as a person?- you don’t want to be a goof in front of.
Despite this his expression is determined even in the face of her smiles. Watching as her lips stretch and show teeth before he suddenly feels as empty as his surroundings. Lady Magic gone, the white turned to black. And a splintering white hot pain scorshing through his head and where he knows is his magic core.
He screams but no sound escapes. Pain wracking his body and not even shivers or twitches showing it.
This goes on for days seemingly. Unable to tell the passage of time as he feels as though he’s being rifled through and being tossed around like some worthless file nobody wants to take care of.
Until he’s on the ground of another white place, this one isn’t the same as the last with Lady Magic. Nor did it exist before he came to be.
Came to be? He was born not made.
Then he notices a mirror appear next to him and glances over at it. Jumping slightly st his appearance. Or… lack there of. There’s just, nothing. In the mirror, he means.
A note flutters down in front of his face and he grabs it with his nothandshands and reads the words on the page.
Sorry for the abrupt change, you are now on your way to become Death-
He stops there for a moment. Blinking his currently nonexistent eyes before looking at the mirror again and flinching at the skeletal figure looking back. God damn that must be him!
He wishes it weren’t, wishes he had stayed the way he used to look, when he was Terence and not Death.
His appearance shifts again and he watches with wide sockets as he shifts back into Terence Higgs. Its… wrong, somehow.
Not him anymore.
His appearance changes yet again and an even worse variation comes to. Well- worse in his eyes, its like him, but much older, mid thirties without the wrinkles and longer hair. Now coming to rest just past his shoulders and taking on a more silvery shade instead of the blond it had been mere moments ago.
He feels a tug and jerks slightly, it felt like it’d come from his chest.
Grasping at his clothing where his heart would be- though feeling no hearteat anymore-, which had become a simple black robe. His hair now tied back because he’d offhandedly thought of how in the way it’d be if it were loose.
He follows the tugging. Unaware that it’d be only his first reaping of the night.
___________________
Some millenia go by, and god that time went quick, and he finds himself staring at the face of his mother, on her death bed and his baby face in a carrier next to her. He remembered this vaguely from when he was still human, still mortal. He’s grown used to it, seen the ages go on and reset and he stay.
Simply there to watch, to take. To try and find purpose more than that useless note had all those years ago.
Nothing more had been written on that note other than some crap about “help him” useless he repeats in the safety of his own mind.
He’s so bored, so so bored. The years pass with him watching his past self climb the social ladder and fall into his place, back where he’d always been.
__________________
Death creeps into the room, unable to help his curiosity as he peels the curtain back and slinks onto the bed with his past self still fast asleep, noting that it’s fourth year. Two more years. Maybe he should’ve paid attention instead of letting this one go to waste again.
He curls up around his past self, surprised to feel Terence relax further. Death plays with his hair, the strands still a dirty blond rather than the silver than had befallen Death. He’d gotten used to this form. It changed sometimes, grew to feel more like him, less like a stranger.
Little Terence sighs contentedly and suddenly his hands are grasping at Death’s cloak, he’d forgotten how much of a clingy sleeper he was. He never wants to do so ever again.
Death stays with Terence until sunrise, when Terence starts waking. Then he tries to slowly slink into the shadows so as to not startle or surprise Terence. Disappearing expertly into the shadows after such a time of wait.
Terence shoots up in his bed, having gotten a glimpse of the being that’s been watching him since even his earliest memories. Only seen to him. Every time he me tioned it everyone would look at him funny.
Breathing heavily and looking around for another glimpse he only sees the meager beginnings of sunlight peaking through the water of the Black Lake into the room’s windows, right where a curtain is piled innocently in his bed in the corner. He knows he shut his curtains though.
Terence slips out of bed, having slept in his robes his grabs his wand and a muttered Scrugify has him feeling a bit more refreshed.
Death watching from afar before making his rounds around the school, making sure no one will be in Terence’s way while he’s getting breakfast.
Changing his appearance to something more fitting, he stands in the common room, now looking fourteen and like a smaller Tom Riddle. Though he obviously makes some changes, he doesn’t need Dumbledore trying to get to him just because he looks like baby Voldemort.
He decides his name will be Ignatius Reges T. Thence as he disguises himself to make the most out of these few years before Terence disappears like he always does in sixth year, Titus for short.
He watches as Terence walks down the stairs to the Slytherin dormitories. Yawnin and holding onto the railing. Stopping at the bottom to finish his yawn, freezing as their eyes connect.
The one bad thing about this form is that he has to consume energy to keep the body ‘alive’ as in, his lungs try to collapse as soon as he stops paying attention and it’ll be hard to speak, might as well not, since its only two more years.
‘Titus’ waits for Terence to come over. They don’t look much similar anymore, but this is an unknown in the common room.
According the Terence’s expert thought process this is his secret spectator.
Death makes sure he doesn’t come in contact. This form unable to touch without making the person rot or die.
“Who’re you?”
Terence asks almost shyly. Fiddling with his robe and now untucked tie, he’d worked hard to get rid of that habit.
“Titus, Titus Thence.”
Death introduces, almost going to hold out his hand before thinking better of it and simply standing still, unaware that his staring was weird, to him it was weird seeing Terence up close.
So similar to him and yet different in every aspect now. Death blinks when he feels Terence tugging him along to breakfast with his robe sleeve in between his fingers, like they had been last night.
Death blinks, blanching as he looks at the sleeve of his robe caught between those small pudgy fingers. Had it been anyone but his weakness they’d be dead by now, he’d never allow them to touch him. Ever.
Instead, he pulls his sleeve over his hand to cover it more and make sure he doesn’t accidentally touch Terence.
Allowing the actual 14 year old to lead him to the Great Hall for breakfast of course. He sits down at the table with Terence, staring bsck at anyone that walked by looking. After a few moments he looks down at the plate in front of him. Reality slowly shifting to allow him to stay for a while, students no longer staring as he fills the now prepared spaces in their memory, just a nobody, like Terence. He then notices Terence staring, he hadn’t bothered to do that with Terence, after all, he basically knows already. Not fully.
He sees Terence purse his lips at Death’s untouched full plate. His stomach is full of naughty souls but he makes room to appease Terence by eating. Picking up a roll and eating it after buttering it and stuffing it with a bit of meat and veggies. He doesn’t want Terence to be upset, or worry. And as soon as Terence sees him eating his expression relaxes.
A part of him purrs at the sight of Terence returning to peaceful tiredness instead of worrying about if ‘Titus’ is eating.
Luckily, his last name ‘Thence’ is ‘cool’ enough for nobody to get hung up about it not being a known pureblood household. They wouldn’t find it in the books because it’s across the world.
The rest of the day passes with Titus following after Terence or being outright dragged from class to class. Until they’re back in Terence’s shared dorm. Both curled up in Terence’s bed, though Death is careful to not touch.
No matter how touch starved he knows Terence is. How touched starved he still is now. Instead he waits and waits until Terence is just barely asleep before shifting back into his silver haired glory.
Death pulls Terence to his chest and cups his head behind his head in case Terence woke up from the movement. Not wanting Terence to freak out or anything.
Death releases his aura behind the tightly shut curtains and listens to his mini’s breath suddenly shudder as a shiver rips through him. He almost goes to pull it back before he picks up on the way Terence’s body basically goes limp and pliant against his chest.
Oh,
Not a negative reaction then.
Death pulls the blanket over them properly before holding Terence close, his body settling again soon after as he falls into a deeper sleep than before. Leaving at midnight just in case.