Chapter Forty-Nine of 'His Twenty-Eighth Life'- Memories in the Dust
Chapter Forty-Eight.
Title: His Twenty-Eighth Life (49/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Eventual Harry Potter/Voldemort; mentions of others, including canon pairings, in the background, and past Harry/others
Rating: R (more for violence than sex)
Content Notes: violence, torture, gore, manipulation, angst, Master of Death Harry Potter, reincarnation, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts
Summary: Harry Potter has been reborn again and again into new bodies as the Master of Death, some of them not human, none of them exactly like his old one-but he has always helped to defeat Voldemort in each new world. Now he’s Harry Potter again, but his slightly older brother is the target of the prophecy, and Harry assumes his role is going to be to support Jonathan in his defeat of Voldemort. At least, that’s what he thinks until Voldemort comes that Halloween night, discovers what Harry is, and kidnaps him. The story of a long fight between Voldemort’s sadism and Harry’s generosity.
Author’s Notes: This is going to be a very long fic, exploring some fairly dark character interactions. While the heart of the story is Harry’s relationship with Voldemort, that’s going to change only slowly and over time, and there will be plenty of concentration on other characters, too. Also, please take the tags/content notes seriously.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Forty-Nine-Memories in the Dust
Albus stopped. There was a ripple of dark motion on the stairs ahead of him leading up to his office.
Albus narrowed his eyes. Lately, he had stopped giving his password to anyone; instead, he asked students and professors who wanted to see him to wait by the gargoyle. A small bell would chime in his office, and he would let them in. There should have been no one here, there could have been no one here.
But there was. Albus saw a shadow, and it was small, as though a first-year had cast it. But he knew very well that no first-year could get past the gargoyle, even with a blast of accidental magic. That left one candidate.
“Harry Potter,” he whispered. “Come out.”
The shadow trembled and danced for a moment, as though Harry was considering rebelling against him for no good reason. Then it formed, after all, into the boy. He was leaning on one of the stones that projected far enough to scrape at Albus’s robes every time he went up the stairs, his eyebrows raised a little. His hair was longer than normal and his smile was lazy and mischievous.
Albus felt his stomach lurch in dread. “Why are you here?” he whispered. “How are you here?”
“You must at least suspect that,” Harry said, and pushed himself away from the wall to stand in front of Albus with his hands on his hips. It should have looked ridiculous, given that he was ten years old, but Albus had long since ceased to see him as a child. He knew what wore that body like a cloak. “I’m the Master of Death, Albus. I can go wherever I want.”
Albus’s lips felt like stone. “And the why?”
Harry smiled at him, and the smile was a wolf’s. Albus had never been afraid of werewolves, but suddenly he thought he understood what it must have been like for Severus to stand in the mouth of a tunnel staring up at Remus’s parted jaws. “What have you always suspected about my true allegiance?”
“Why-why would you yield to him, Harry?” Albus’s heart was cracking, piece by piece, tumbling and flaking like dust to fall on some floor far below. “He is fated by prophecy to try and destroy your brother! He cost you a normal relationship with your parents by kidnapping you for three years and forcing you to reveal yourself! Do you think that you can work with him? He’ll never tolerate an equal!”
“Oh, Albus. You think I would, either? He’s my dog, on my leash.” Harry leaned near and whispered, “He thinks otherwise, of course. Don’t tell him?” He capped the confession with an obscene giggle.
Albus backed up. It was indeed his worst nightmare come true. Harry was so dangerous that he had managed to subjugate Tom, and he had evidently given up on taking over the wizarding world slowly or quietly. He would probably let Albus die now if he saw him poisoned by the Horcrux.
Harry laughed. No hyena could have made a worse noise, as far as Albus was concerned. Albus put his hands over his ears.
And then Harry was-gone.
Albus turned slowly in place. On the one hand, he wanted to believe that Harry hadn’t been able to Apparate out, since that would indicate the security of Hogwarts had changed forever. On the other hand, he could hardly have done worse than shown up in Albus’s private staircase even if he didn’t Apparate.
But no sound answered him when he gave a low call. Albus went into his office and asked the portraits if they had seen Harry wandering around Hogwarts, but they all answered in the negative.
Frowning, Albus took his place behind his desk. The only thing he knew for certain was that Harry had openly declared war.
And that meant Albus, too, could unleash the forces he had been holding back for too long a time.
*
“Jonathan.”
Jonathan opened his eyes with a gasp. He could have sworn that he was in his bed in the Hufflepuff dorms the last time he looked. But now he was standing on top of the Astronomy Tower, his hair blowing in the brisk wind.
He turned around slowly, wondering if Dumbledore had kidnapped him and brought him up here, and what he would need to do to contact Harry and avoid any spells on his mind.
But he felt his heart gallop with relief when he saw Harry standing behind him, lit up with some kind of green-black outline that made the night blaze. He extended his hand, and Harry came forwards and grabbed it.
“Sorry to come to you in dreams like that,” Harry said. “But I have to talk with you, and I think it’s better to do it like this so we can be absolutely private. Even Dumbledore can’t spy on memories like this.”
“But how are you doing it?” Jonathan asked in interest. “Are you Master of Dreams too and you just never told me?”
Harry laughed. The sound made a strange kind of vibration wake up in Jonathan’s bones. “No. Dreams are on the edge of death-a kind of neighboring realm. A lot of people die in their sleep. They dream of dying. Or they enter into a state that’s different from the waking world, which is a lot like the world I can move through. I can reach you here and it’s more private and better than trying to speak to you when you’re awake.”
Jonathan cocked his head and looked at him. The light around Harry still wouldn’t settle, and kind of hurt his eyes, not that this was real darkness or real stars. “You made the decision to wake up and use all your power?”
Harry hesitated once, but Jonathan glared at him, because, damn it, he was not too young to know this. Harry finally nodded. “Yeah. I’m done giving Dumbledore and anyone else chances. He’s going to be acting strange for a while, but you don’t need to worry about that. I’m going to make sure you’re protected.”
“How are you going to do that?”
Harry extended his hands and closed his eyes. Jonathan looked around expectantly, then wondered if he should expect anything after all. Harry had said they were in a dream. Maybe Jonathan would just wake up in his bed with a headache and he wouldn’t know that anything was different.
But instead, images started to swarm towards them. Jonathan saw a deep pool of water, floating on the air in the way that their mum had described images on Muggle telly, and a set of stairs, and a wand glowing with the color of the Killing Curse, and a sharp stone, and so many other things that he couldn’t keep track of them. They swarmed around him, and then they acted like they sank into his skin. Jonathan looked cautiously at his arms. He didn’t look different.
“What’d you do?” he finally asked, since he had no idea.
“I protected you from various forms of death that someone could try to inflict on you,” Harry said. His voice sounded hoarse and exhausted, and when Jonathan looked at him again, the green-black glow had turned into colors like sunset. “All the spells I could think of, falling, someone stoning you to death, drowning, fire. There’s lots of others.”
“You made me immortal?” Jonathan wasn’t sure he liked that. Being immortal had messed Voldemort up. Jonathan didn’t want to lose all his eyebrow hair and have to regrow it the way Voldemort was sort of starting to do.
Harry laughed without sound, and dropped his hands. The sunset glow faded away. “Oh, of course not, Jonathan. I’d never do that to you without asking you first.” His smile was warm, and Jonathan found himself smiling back the way he had when Harry first came home after being kidnapped. “Just unable to die in a lot of common ways that someone might try to murder you.”
“Who are you worried about, though? If you’re keeping Dumbledore busy?”
Harry’s smile faded. “Allies of his. Stay safe, Jonathan.”
And Jonathan woke up in his bed, extremely annoyed that he hadn’t got to hug his brother good-bye.
*
“Father. I’d like to talk to you, please.”
James eyed his youngest son warily as he unlocked the door to his study. There were books in there, as well as some half-finished pranks, that he tried to keep out of the way of his children.
But the being that stood in front of him and looked up at him with solemn green eyes was far away from being a child.
James sighed, beaten, and opened the door. “Okay. Fine.”
“Thank you,” Harry said, and walked in and turned around, standing in front of the couch like the world’s most solemn ten-year-old, even though James knew he wasn’t really that at all. “Would you prefer that I call you Father for the duration of this, or James? Which one would make you more comfortable?”
James stared at Harry and tried to think of what to say. Honestly, nothing came to mind. It was-this whole conversation was surreal. But he decided that he was going to face up to reality, and that meant doing it all the way. He folded is arms and leaned on the back of the armchair in front of the fire. “Call me James. I was never really your father.”
“You were-in this life.”
“That you have more than one life is exactly the problem.”
Harry smiled a little sadly. James paused. For some reason, the expression looked wrong to him, but he didn’t know why.
It was only when he realized that he’d been expecting Harry to smile at him with desperation that Harry started to speak. “Well. I’m still trying to give this my best effort, James. The reality is that I’ve decided to stop holding back on using my own powers and waiting for Dumbledore to reform.”
“What do you mean? What does Dumbledore have to reform from?” James realized he was snapping, but he couldn’t help it. It sounded-it sounded as though Harry blamed Albus for acting to keep the world safe, and James honestly couldn’t stand that.
Harry only looked at him, and the immortality behind his eyes had never been on such open display before. “He tried to fog Jonathan’s mind and keep him a mindless, obedient slave. I used Occlumency to protect Jonathan’s mind so that Dumbledore thinks he’s still in control. I also used my power to free him.”
“That’s-that’s not true. Albus would never do anything like that.”
“I know that you probably know the charms the Order of the Phoenix used during the war in other worlds, the ones that make sure no one can lie in a particular confined space,” Harry said quietly. “Will you cast one now?”
James became aware that he was holding onto his chair in a way that was more about not falling over than just being comfortable, and tried to make himself stop. He shook his head. “Why should I? You would probably laugh at that level of precaution. You would-you would be able to resist it.”
“So I’m too powerful for you to trust me?” Harry bowed his head a little. The light behind his eyes had gone wintry. “Why is the same not true of Dumbledore, given how much you seem to worship him? Of course, I know I’m at a disadvantage because you’ve known him longer, but I did hope that the fact I loved you made some difference.”
James closed his eyes, but the words came spilling out of him exactly as if Harry had cast one of those truth-forcing charms on the room. “You’re not my son. Not really. Not the son that I should have had. You replaced the spirit that should have been my son. Didn’t you.”
Silence. It got so long and so awful that James finally opened his eyes, looking for the space that Harry would probably have stood in. And he still thought of him as Harry even though he wasn’t the boy who should have been born wearing that name and that body, which was awful in its own way.
Harry still stood there, though, and watched him with an intense look of pity. He shook his head once James caught his eye and said quietly, “I might have replaced a baby that would have been stillborn. It’s one of my theories about my lives. I don’t have as much proof of it as I would like. But I realized something else recently.”
“Yes?” James had never known his voice could snap like that, like a whip.
“That I was born where I wanted to be, at least some of the time.” Harry grimaced. “I certainly never wanted to be born a Dementor, or a Kneazle. But I was born in the time period that would mean I would keep on fight Voldemort, defeating Voldemort. In a way, I was afraid of letting go of what I knew. Otherwise, why keep being born in this time period? I should have made a tour of history. There’s at least a good chance I would be born in another country. Britain’s not big enough to contain all the possibilities. I was the one controlling it, though. I resented what I thought was my destiny sometimes, and it was me after all.”
James blinked. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I wanted to be born to you, to you and Mum.” Harry looked up at him, and his eyes had gone luminescent and more boy-like than immortal. “If I’d known it was possible, I would have been born a Potter in my second life. I didn’t know it was, so I didn’t make that conscious choice. But I was overjoyed when I was born here again, even though I thought at the time that I’d have to sacrifice my life to defend Jonathan and help him fulfill the prophecy. I chose you to be my parents.”
James wavered and tried to sit down, but there was nothing behind him. Then his arse met something after all, and he looked back and realized that a chair was there. Since none of the furniture in his study was enchanted to move by itself, he knew who must have cast the charm.
He turned around with a deep breath. Harry was reaching a hand towards him, eyes wide and adult again. “Are you all right?”
“I-” On the face it, of course, James thought, nothing had changed. He still thought Harry was ridiculously powerful, he knew Harry was ridiculously powerful, and he still didn’t like his accusations against Albus. And if Harry had said those things that had affected him so strongly, well, he might have said them for that reason. Just to affect James and make him agree with him.
But it still affected him.
James swallowed and stretched out his hand. Harry came over and immediately took it, smiling up at him. James managed to contain the urge to blurt something out, and sat and thought about it, instead.
He still thought that he would have liked to have a normal son. But Harry was standing here, safe and warm, and he was the one who was present. James’s hypothetical son might never have existed at all, especially if Harry was right about the fact that he would have been stillborn instead.
James said softly, “Besides fogging Jonathan’s mind, what has Albus done?”
“He keeps doubting me and thinking the war is going to start any second when I know that isn’t true,” Harry said. “He went after an artifact that Voldemort made, and he did it in a stupid way that meant he would have died if I hadn’t come and saved him. And he still continues to think I’m evil.” He paused. “Did you know Fawkes left him?”
“What?” James felt weak and was glad he was already sitting down. He knew that the last time he had visited Albus in his office, Fawkes’s perch had been empty, but that happened often enough when the phoenix had a burning day. James had never once thought that it could somehow be a permanent absence.
Harry nodded. His eyes were strikingly sad. James wondered for the first time if living as long as he had had actually increased Harry’s ability to feel things, rather than blunting his emotions the way James had assumed would happen. “Fawkes doesn’t talk much about the reasons for his decision. He did still help me save Albus’s life when it mattered, but I don’t think he’ll ever go back to him.”
James exhaled. He had never thought much about the fact that a phoenix followed Albus, it had never been the reason that he had given his allegiance and his time to the Headmaster, but that the bird the Order was named after had gone missing now...
“Do you think Albus is still capable of good actions?”
Harry didn’t hesitate. “Yes. But he also doesn’t have a lot of foresight and can’t always see how other people are going to react to his actions.”
James nodded wearily, closing his eyes. That sounded more like Albus than unthinking evil. Albus thought a lot, in fact, but sometimes in the wrong directions. The enemies he anticipated hadn’t always materialized, even during the war, and he had trusted Peter right along with the rest of them.
If Harry, on the other hand, believed the war wouldn’t start again any time soon and opposing Albus was the right thing to do...
“Are you going to kill him?” James asked, not sure what the answer would be, not sure what he would say to any answer at all.
“No.” Harry gave a faint, grim smile. “I have a plan that should keep him chasing shadows until the point where he can’t do anything against us anyway.”
James swallowed. “Then-then I’m on your side of the war.”
And the joy in Harry’s eyes was just joy, neither mortal nor immortal, but there for the sharing.
Chapter Fifty.
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