Chapter Fifty-Four of 'His Twenty-Eighth Life'- Integration
Chapter Fifty-Three.
Title: His Twenty-Eighth Life (54/?)
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.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Fifty-Four--Integration
Severus took a deep breath as he landed at the edge of the wards that defined the manor. He didn't want to do this. Only his sense of self-preservation kept him walking at a steady pace, and ignoring the way the Mark on his arm burned.
Once he reached the edge of the wards that would ring bells inside the manor and let the Dark Lord know he was here, Severus knelt.
The stocky man who came to greet him had never been one of Severus's favorite Death Eaters, but that was beside the point now. Severus tried his best to keep a mask of unruffled calm while he nodded. "Thorfinn. I need to see the Dark Lord as soon as possible."
"Really? And what if he doesn't want to see you?"
Not least of Severus's loathed traits in another Death Eater was stupidity. Severus lifted his head a little to meet the man's eyes. "Don't you think you should let him make that decision?"
Thorfinn hesitated, then said, "Wait here," and reentered the manor while glancing over his shoulder as if he thought Severus would be stupid enough to attack him from behind. Severus didn't appreciate the implied insult, but kept his eyes on the ground.
Long moments slid past while presumably Thorfinn gave the Dark Lord his message. Severus drifted through them with Occlumency, and playing over and over again in his memory the moment Dumbledore had showed him when Potter came to Hogwarts. There still had to be some trick to it that Severus did not understand.
Light footsteps strode towards him, and Severus crouched further while frowning. That did not sound like the way the Dark Lord walked.
"Arise."
Nor did that sound like his voice, and it was odd to be given a command like that before he had cringed and groveled sufficiently. Severus still obeyed, because he wanted to see who would be taking the Dark Lord's place. He did not really believe the man could have been killed or appointed an important subordinate without Albus being aware of it.
The Dark Lord did stand in front of him, but different, less pale than Severus had ever seen him, less red-eyed, more human. Severus stared in shock, and the next second his left hand's fingers writhed back on themselves with crippling pain.
"Perhaps you should look away from me until you adjust to the shock."
Severus gritted his teeth, glanced at the ground, and murmured, "Forgive me, my lord." The pain in his hand stopped the minute he did, which made his shoulders twitch. The Dark Lord had never been able to do that before. He liked causing pain too much, and would use any excuse that he could get to do so.
Nor had he been able to stop a curse that intense without so much as a twitch of his wand.
"Why have you returned?"
Severus took a long breath and, still without looking up, murmured, "I thought that Albus would give me a place of honor in his hierarchy and that I could gain more by leaving you. But he introduced me to none of his allies and has given me nothing I want. I--I have returned to you, my Lord, in hopes of forgiveness." And that was all technically true, to make it impossible for even so strong a Legilimens as the Dark Lord was to detect a lie.
There was silence, pressing on him like an enormous spiderweb. Severus wanted to look up, but he remembered the sensation of his own hand turning against him well enough to stand motionless.
"You left intending to betray me. Why should I let you return?"
Severus tensed all his muscles against a flinch. His strategy had relied on telling technical truths, going through torture, and begging until the Dark Lord granted him another chance. Logical argument was...
Not something the man had been capable of the last time Severus saw him.
Severus took a chance and raised his eyes. The Dark Lord gazed back at him, motionless, except for his fingers rapping slightly on the outside of the holster that held his wand. Severus managed to say through a dry mouth, "I only have my repentance and knowledge of Dumbledore to offer as a--a reason, my Lord."
"That will not be good enough until you make me an oath."
An oath, Severus had not anticipated swearing. He refused to allow his hands or face to betray his surprise. "What oath, my lord?"
"An oath that you will not harm Harry Potter."
Severus jerked back a step. The Dark Lord only watched him, his fingers curled on nothing, his eyes so brilliant that Severus imagined for a moment that he had done something that restored his sanity.
But no, there was no potion that would do that, and no Dark Arts ritual that Severus knew of, either. Severus managed to smooth his face and say in a calm, neutral voice, "I will swear that if you wish, my lord."
The Dark Lord nodded. "Then come here and place your hands between mine."
Severus drew back with a rattling hiss, and didn't care that it might ruin all the deceptions he and Albus had decided on up until this point. He had expected to draw his wand for an Unbreakable Vow, which he was an expert at finding loopholes in. He knew exactly how the Dark Lord wanted him to swear now, and there was no way to trick it.
The Dark Lord smiled, his fingers curling in the air again. "Come, Severus. If you are truly coming back to be loyal to me, you should have expected this."
"I--did not." It would do no good to lie. Severus moved forwards with a sense of unreality singing through the air near him like a huge lute string. To swear this kind of vow would mean that his own magic would coerce him along the way and take over his body like an internal Imperius Curse if necessary, to force him to its own desires.
Or the Dark Lord's desires.
It should have been impossible for the man to manage it. It required power, which the Dark Lord had an excess of, but also a clarity of purpose and a desire to understand someone else's magic that Severus could not remember the Dark Lord having.
"You will be happy to note," the Dark Lord said, while Severus held out his hands with his mind whirling, "that the very being I am asking you to swear to protect taught me how to attempt this."
Severus glanced up, although he had to keep his face more relaxed than he otherwise would have. "Oh, my lord?"
"Yes. Harry Potter was the one who taught me how much I had lost by pursuing the path of immortality above all other goals. I had to grasp that that was detrimental to some things I wanted to achieve even more. And so he directed me back towards the mortal ends and means of magic."
Another reason to hate the brat, Severus thought, and then winced as the Dark Lord's fingers clamped down around his.
"I can sense your loathing of him," the Dark Lord hissed, sounding more like the man Severus had known. "Harry asked me to spare you, as an indulgence to his memory of other versions of you in the worlds he had inhabited. But if I decided you were too great a risk and killed you, he would side with me. There is a way of binding your soul to your bones and enslaving your consciousness for centuries as a source of knowledge that he showed me. Shall I show you?"
"No, my lord," Severus whispered, shivering. He had never been this filled with what felt like thin, cold bile. Now he owed his life to the very being he most hated.
"Good. Now put your hands between mine and repeat after me. I will never seek to bring harm to Harry Potter, not by thought, not by deed, not by word, not by spell, not by wand..."
The list continued, distressingly long and specific conditions that his magic would enforce on him. Severus seethed, but far below the level of his consciousness where the Dark Lord could have seen it.
That the amused, knowing dark red eyes focused on him anyway was something that made Severus shiver harder than the realization that he owed his life to Harry Potter.
*
"I don't even know why we're attending classes. We're learning more in these private study sessions of yours than we ever learn in classes."
Jonathan rolled his eyes a little at Fred's pronouncement. He was lying on the floor in the room that doubled as his and Sirius's study room and his friends' practice room. His chest and head ached and his hands were numb. "It just seems that way because they're teaching us second-year spells in our classes. We're learning more advanced ones here."
"But why are we learning more advanced ones? If we can learn them, then why can't they just teach them in our classes?"
Jonathan rolled over and shrugged at George. "Because not everyone could get them? The second-year spells are supposed to be something that every second-year student can learn."
"That's a stupid reason," Acanthus murmured, but she sounded lazy and had her eyes closed. Jonathan at least hoped that wouldn't result in another argument.
"Yeah, someone should change the school," Cedric said. He sounded determined and like it wasn't going to be an option to skip the argument. Jonathan held back the impulse to beat his head against a wall.
"Well, good luck on getting anyone to do that," Jonathan said firmly, so they would all stop arguing and let him relax. "There's a board of governors that like things just the way they are. And there's people who don't want to think about any change because they like the way they were taught when they were children. And there's--" He stopped.
Acanthus sat up then, which was a bad sign. Her smile was light and amused. "It's cute the way you try to prevent us from blaming the Headmaster, when it's pretty obvious you do blame him."
Jonathan just looked down and tried to keep his cheeks from flushing. "Well, he's a dangerous enough. You could be in danger if you fight him."
"The way you're doing?" Acanthus asked sweetly. "The way your brother is doing?"
Jonathan scowled at the floor. Harry would just love that, if it came out that lots of people thought he was an enemy of Dumbledore’s. Even if the Parkinsons were allied to him. Jonathan decided to sit there and say nothing.
Cedric was looking back and forth between him and Acanthus, though. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“Nothing you need to worry about, Cedric,” Jonathan said.
“Oh, no,” Cedric said. His mouth was set into the kind of flat line that Jonathan always hated, because it meant that Cedric was going to be a stubborn Hufflepuff about things. “I want to know. You sometimes act as though you’re closer to Acanthus and the twins, and I don’t like that, Jonathan. We’re Housemates. You included me in this in the first place. You should tell me.”
“But it’s dangerous,” Jonathan said. Acanthus had a powerful family that could protect her, and he had the feeling that Fred and George’s parents were allied closely enough with Dumbledore that it didn’t matter. But the Diggorys didn’t have a lot of political power or a close alliance.
Cedric folded his arms. “I want to know.”
Jonathan looked at Fred. He just grinned and shook his head. George was the one who said, “He does have a point about including him and then never telling him the truth, mate.”
Jonathan turned to Acanthus, although he didn’t think she would help. She was studying her wand with a faint frown, and now she looked up and said, “What? Oh, it’s not my decision. You need to make this one on your own.”
Jonathan really wanted to tear at his hair, but that would be very immature and not get him anywhere. He turned to Cedric. “Okay, but we need some way to keep this secret. You can’t look Dumbledore in the eye, okay?”
“Why not?”
“Because then he will read it out of your head with Legilimency.”
“What’s Legilimency?”
Jonathan sighed.
*
It was no trouble to put together an older body of drifting shadows and clouds. Harry contained it within a solid frame of bone, and then draped himself with a cloak and went trotting down Knockturn Alley to assess the state of the resistance to the Ministry.
Three hours later, he was sitting, still draped in the cloak and still contained within the frame he’d put together, on the doorstep of a dilapidated shop not far from Borgin and Burke’s. He frowned. It seemed that there were a lot of big talkers here, but not many people who actually wanted to overthrow the Ministry or lead violent revolution. Voldemort must have drawn most of the Dark wizards to his side already.
That’s good, right? That means that he has people who’ll follow him instead of causing trouble when you start making those reforms.
Harry sighed. That much was true, but he was more than a bit bewildered by the state of Dark magic here, in what had always been the most notable cesspool of the British wizarding world in the other dimensions he’d lived in. Oh, not that the most notorious outlaw werewolves or notable Dark wizards had been here, but there had always been people who could get in contact with them. That didn’t seem likely to be the case here. People had melted away from him in a pub where he had merely mentioned Voldemort’s name.
“Wotcher.”
Harry turned his head. A hag was standing in front of him, assessing him with rheumy eyes. There was a tray around her neck that held fingerbones-bones from monkeys, not even humans, Harry knew with a single glance.
“Wotcher,” Harry said, uninterested, and stood up. He supposed that he would have to ask Voldemort about where he had done his recruiting, if it was from some other place in Britain or always by word-of-mouth.
“You were asking about Dark wizards,” the hag said, stepping in front of him.
Harry nodded, watching her with a vague interest. She had only one eye, and a patch covered the other. The hands that clutched the tray of fingerbones were so wrinkled that she looked as if she couldn’t unclench them. “That’s right. What would you know about them?”
“I know a lot more about some things than you think.”
Her voice had changed, the British accent dropping away to reveal something much flatter and more neutral. Harry narrowed his eyes a little, but didn’t move. It wasn’t as though there was anything here that could hurt him. “Oh?”
“I know what you are,” the woman said, and now something did slip into her voice, an emotion Harry didn’t think she was feigning. “The Master of Death.”
Harry cocked his head. He was interested to find that word of that title had spread without either Dumbledore or Voldemort apparently being responsible. “Where did you hear that from?”
“It’s something this body can sense,” the woman said. Her single eye closed in a slow wink at him. It had a blue-silver glow that Harry had never seen before. “Would you like to come with me and meet the other bodies and discover the things they can sense?”
“I don’t know if I should. I have a distressing tendency to agree to things like that and then find myself fighting off an enraged dragon or something similar.”
The hag laughed and held up one of those crooked hands, fingers bent in so that Harry could barely make out the nails against her palm. “This body swears that neither it nor the other bodies this consciousness controls mean the Master of Death any harm.”
“You’re a consciousness spread out among many different bodies?” Harry demanded, delighted. He’d heard of creatures like that, but he hadn’t met any since his eleventh life. “That’s wonderful. As long as you don’t attack me, then I’d like to accompany you and learn from you.”
The hag nodded and started walking down Knockturn Alley again. Harry followed her, ignoring the pitying glances that he got. Well, yes, hags normally ate people, but his current body didn’t look anything like a child’s. Somewhat rude of them to assume I would have trouble fighting her off.
They stepped through a swaying curtain at the front of a shop-or at least Harry thought it was a shop; it had a hook where a sign might once have hung, but so could a pub. He found his eyebrows rising as they entered a stone tunnel that was much longer than it had looked from the outside. The tunnel sloped into the depths of the earth, and the hag kept walking in front of him, tilting her head back on her neck instead of ducking when the roof became low. Harry simply released his hold on his shadowy body and resumed the short form that he wore most of the time.
The tunnel at last opened into a wide room festooned with stone arches, looking as if it had been carved out of the earth itself; everything that wasn’t an arch was packed dirt. Harry looked around and found many other bodies, mostly women but with a few men and children, standing together.
“Will you speak through just this one, or all of them at once?” he asked, as the hag who had led him here pivoted around in front of the crowd and faced him.
“Just this one for now,” the voice said, although Harry saw the blue-silver gleam begin to shine around all of the heads in front of him. “Hail, Master of Death. We have waited for you for several years now.”
“Several? Not since I was born?”
The heads swayed back and forth. “No. We could not sense you then. We could sense you only when your musings on the nature of this world intertwined with our own purpose.”
“And that is?” Harry breathed, a deep thrill moving through him. This was new, a kind of creature he had never encountered before.
“We know,” said the voice, deep and booming now even though it continued to come through the one mouth, “why this world is so different from others that you have lived in.”
Chapter Fifty-Five.
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