Chapter Text
"I open at the close."
The words echoed in his mind like the ringing of a bell. As Harry walked into the forest, he knew it had all been leading up to this. All of Dumbledore's machinations. His plots and plans. Harry's whole life had been one long con to get him here. He hadn't even really processed the devastating revelations from Professor Snape's memories.
Harry had to die for Voldemort to be vulnerable enough to kill. That's what it meant. He had a piece of that sick bastard in his scar. So it was the only way.
Harry fiddled with the golden snitch in his hand, turning it over and over as he approached the edge of the Forbidden Forest, where he could feel the inexorable pull of Voldemort's presence.
Ten years. Ever since he had entered the wizarding world, Voldemort and Harry had been caught in a game of cat and mouse, dancing around each other until, four years ago, Voldemort struck his final blow against Dumbledore, and the world went to shit. Four years of running, hiding, and destroying Horcruxes. Four years of finding obscure magics, guerrilla tactics, and doing their damndest to survive. Four years of the world finding out magic was real, and running from the witch hunters as well as the Death Eaters.
"Didn't count on that, did you, old man?" Harry grumbled as he took in the destruction around him. The last remnants of the Light were barricaded in Hogwarts. Muggle planes flew overhead, dropping missiles on Voldemort's forces, not really caring if they hit the 'good guys' either. As far as the Muggle governments were concerned, the only good magical was a dead magical.
But it was all coming to an end soon. At least for Harry. The only way to end it was to allow Voldemort to kill him.
Harry kissed the snitch. Some glimmer of hope in his heart died shortly thereafter as out tumbled a small onyx stone that Harry recognized. The Resurrection Stone. Harry idly traced the triangle and circle bisected by a line that was the symbol of the Deathly Hallows. Harry was intimately familiar with the rune as it was embroidered into the fabric of his invisibility cloak. Some small part of him had hoped it was a weapon of some sort or some last bit of advice from the old bastard. But no, just the Resurrection Stone. A silent confirmation that Dumbledore wanted Harry to die here. Bastard. Harry muttered to himself as he shoved the stone into his pocket and continued his trudge to the clearing where he could sense Voldemort. Fine. If he was going to die, he would do it on his terms. Harry wrapped himself in the invisibility cloak and slipped into the shadows.
Voldemort was surrounded by his sycophants giving some nonsense speech about how great he was, or some drivel. Harry didn't listen. He edged his wand so the tip was just outside the fabric and began chanting in a low tone. The wind around the clearing picked up. The foul magic of the dark forest mixed with the spell Harry began weaving. The trees swayed and balked before suddenly,y, alaroundnd the cleari,ng, branches lanced ,out, spearing through hundreds of Death Eaters all at once.
Shouts of disbelief.
Green flashes of the Killing Curse.
Harry ducked and wove into the shadows as magic started spilling out from the leftover Death Eaters. Harry may have to die, but he would take as many with him as he could.
Voldemort shouted in impotent rage as he sensed his nemesis nearby. "POTTER!"
Harry cackled.
"Hello Tom, you Ken Doll looking bald fuck!" Harry threw off the cloak, and the two started dueling, sharp cracks of magic splashing back and forth between the two until it was just the two of them left. The Death Eaters were either dead or had fled. Good. Finally, Harry saw a flash of green and cast Bombarda at the snake fucker just as he felt the heat of the AK touch him.
His last sight was of Voldemort's Horcrux body exploding.
0.o.0
As suddenly as the blackness had engulfed him, the blinding warmth of light came crashing into his consciousness. Harry gulped in great swaths of air. He expected pain, the screaming void of eternity. Some small part of him expected to be in hell after all he had done in the war, but judging by the lack of gnashing teeth and horrific screams, this was not that.
In fact, he felt better than he ever had in his entire life. Harry opened his eyes, frantically patting his body down for injuries. It was at this point he realized he was stark naked. Just as he was turning red from embarrassment, wishing he had clothes, some appeared on his body. Harry looked around, trying to get his bearings, and found himself in a shining white train station—all modern and clean, as though it were some ethereal version of Platform Nine and Three Quarters.
There were the waiting benches, King's Cross's iconic arches and brickwork, and even a set of tracks Harry could see in the distance.
"Where am I?" Harry asked aloud.
"At a crossroads," came a light, melodic voice from behind him.
Harry spun and gasped in shock. Standing there in the same black turtleneck and blue jeans she had passed away in, her red hair framing her smiling green eyes, was Lily Potter—a face Harry had only ever seen in his dreams.
"Mum!" His voice came out in a whisper that echoed around the empty train station.
"Hello, my boy," she said with a tender smile.
"Mum!" Harry repeated, still in shock. The last vestiges of the tension of the war seemed to fall away in the face of the woman who gave him life.
Lily rushed forward and embraced Harry. It was everything the love-starved boy had ever hoped for. His mother's arms were warm, and the hug didn't smother like Mrs. Weasley's hugs did, but they still carried all the love and care of a mother's love.
The two stood there, relishing in the embrace for who knew how long. Eventually, Lily guided them over to a bench so they could talk.
"So I died then," Harry said with quiet resignation.
Lily smiled sadly. "In a sense, yes," she said.
Harry groaned. "Don't start sounding like Professor Dumbledore, Mum! Speaking of, Where is he? we have a score to settle." Harry’s face grew dark as he considered the Headmaster.
Lily giggled. "Sorry, it's the nature of this place." She motioned around them to the otherwise empty station. “And don’t worry about the old goat. He has been sent on to his just reward.” Lily said with a dark look.
"What place is this?"
"It's known as the Between. Very few souls get to see it. Usually they die and either pass on to their great reward or judgment, or return to the cycle of souls without ever stopping."
Harry sighed. "And of course I'm different."
Lily nodded. "That would be my fault, kiddo," she said with a sigh. "The ritual I used to protect you from Voldemort had some unforeseen consequences."
Harry's head perked up. "So it wasn’t love that saved me afer all?"
Lily smiled widely. "Of course it was.” She said playfully. “But it was more than that too. I used an old Druidic ritual that used my own life force as a sacrifice. It was supposed to destroy the attacker. But because Voldemort had done some other rituals to keep his soul anchored to this plane of existence, my ritual saw the threat as still active, so it kept me here in the crossroads, watching over you."
Harry didn't know when he had started crying. "I'm sorry, Mum. I've kept you from being with Dad—"
Lily placed a hand on his shoulder. "I was right where I wanted to be—watching over my son and doing what I could to protect him."
"So what now?" Harry asked.
"Now, Mr. Potter, it's time for the two of you to move on." Harry and Lily looked over to see a man in black robes walk through the mists of the station. The man had a slight Asian look to his face, but also Germanic. Then, as the light shifted slightly, Harry thought he saw darker tones in the man's skin—or was it pearlescent? Harry couldn't get a bead on the man.
Lily stood, putting herself between Harry and the stranger. "Who are you? I've been here for years and not seen anyone else."
The man smiled, bowing slightly. "Forgive me, Lady Potter. I am known by many names in many cultures. You would know me best as Donn, Arawn, Gabriel, or Morrigan."
Harry looked at his mother, confused. "Excuse me, are you saying—?"
"I am," the man looked directly at Harry, his face melting away to a skull with soulless eyes and a hood rising up, "Death," his voice dropping into a deep, rumbling bass as all light seemed to be sucked from the room around the figure.
Oddly, neither Harry nor Lily felt fear, and as they both realized that the man's face came back just as enigmatic as it had been, with no trace of the skull or cloak. "And you are a bit of a special case."
"How so?" Lily asked curiously.
The being, Death, seemed to growl low in his throat. "Your actions have led to me being able to capture one who has..." the growl now seemed to reverberate through the entire train station, "evaded me." Just as quickly, the anger was gone. "As a result, you get a chance to pick your next life."
"Pick?" Harry asked skeptically.
"Indeed!" Death said, waving his hand, and three of the arches filled with images from three vastly different worlds.
One looked out over vast oceans. Scenes played out of people in ships traveling to different islands. There seemed to be a loose pseudo-tyrannical government fighting against the chaos of anarchy. The magic of the world was contained in the people, sea monsters, and fruit that granted people random powers, ranging from godlike to mundane.
The second arch showed a world of warriors who wielded magic through hand signs and sigils. There was a vast continent divided into different elemental nations. There seemed to be relative peace at the moment, but Harry got the impression that just under the surface, war was brewing.
The third arch revealed another world whose magic was divided along elemental lines, this time into the four cardinal elements: earth, air, water, and fire. Right now, fire seemed to be dominant, with earth and water nations mounting a defense. Air seemed to have been wiped out.
"Each of these worlds is on the verge of a great change. Souls like yours will always be drawn to such times in history, but this time, I will allow you to pick which you are reborn into, and keep knowledge from this life that will allow you to gain perspective to affect change in these universes."
Harry looked to each arch and then to his mother. "What do you think, Mom?"
Lily smiled sadly. "None of these look like they will be easy lives, but they all look like great adventures, whatever you pick, son."
"Ah," Death lifted a hand, "I can only allow you to go Harry. Lily you will be allowed to go on to the afterlife finally.."
Lily's smile faltered at that. “Well then"
“Mum!”
The bright smile was back, “Don’t worry son, your dad and I will be waiting for you.”
Harry nodded. "Right." A sadness seemed to overtake the boy.
Lily placed a hand on her son's shoulder. "Hey, don't look so glum. You get to be your own person. I'll miss you, and you'll miss me, but we'll always have now."
Harry nodded, hugging his mother close. "We'll always have now," he said.
"Well then, take some time to study each arch and decide which world you want to be reborn into." Death said motioning to the scenes playing in each arch way.
"Any hints?" Harry asked.
"The middle and right ones have magic systems closest to yours, though still vastly different from both each other and the magic you are used to, but accessing it is similar enough that you would have a more instinctual grasp. In fact, now that I think about it, if someone had the right intuition, the magic of the center world could be recreated in kind in your world."
"Well, That’s something at least, though the one on the end looks to be immedialy embroiled in war again." Harry muttered.
"As a Parselmouth, you'd have the most advantages in either the ocean world or the shinobi one," Death continued. "Though that comes with some down sides as well."
Harry and Lily both perked up at that. "Wait, I thought the Parselmouth was due to my connection to Voldemort?"
Death looked at him and shook his head. "No, not at all. That was in your bloodline through Lily, though in the shinobi world, it will have a slight stigma depending on when in the timeline you appear. Though not as strong as in the wizarding world.”
After some more thought and discussion, Harry stepped up to the central arch. He turned to his mother and gave her one last hug. “We’ll always have now,” Harry muttered before turning to death and bowing slightly. “Thanks, guess I’ll see you on the other side of this life.”
With a final wave Harry simply tipped backwards and fell into the Shinobi world ready for his next adventure.
Lily laughed as she watched her son's soul fade into the new world.
O.o.O
Twenty-six years later.
Kakashi stood looking at the memorial stone, his lone eye reading the names of men and women who had gone before him. His father, sensei, teammates, and many more. Scenes played out behind his storm-grey eye, lost in memory.
This world had been no less tragic for Harry. But he refused to allow himself to stagnate. He had seen his first world consumed and nearly destroyed by war. This world was no less wartorn, but despite all the loss, Harry—Kakashi, as he had been Kakashi Hatake now five years longer than he had been Harry Potter—still had hope.
Hokage-sama had asked him to be a genin sensei this year, and Kakashi was eager to take the position. No matter what life, he always enjoyed teaching. Not to mention he would be teaching his sensei's son. The Uchiha brat and the Haruno chick would need to be beaten into submission, but Naruto looked to be a diamond in the rough, learning the Shadow Clone in a single night.
"Yeah, I'll be entirely ignoring the academy assessments. I'll break the three of them down and rebuild them in my image," Kakashi said with a vicious smirk as he vanished from the memorial stone in a swirl of leaves.