To Rise from the Ashes. A new life for a lost soul.

Summary: Voldemort killed Hope Lilith Potter. She didn't come back to life in her own world but was instead told by Lady Death and the Soul King that if she wants to get back to her own world and win her war the way it should have been won, she is going to need to gather warriors from all walks of life and the ones that her soul is tied to. And so, ends the tale of Hope Lilith Potter and begins the tale of Nozomi Shihōin, a Vampire-Hollow-Shinigami Tri-Blood Hybrid, Nekomata, and Psychic. Master Thief and Assassin Nozomi Arashi. The adoptive daughter of Yoruichi Shihōin and Heiress of the Shihōin Clan. Oh, and her mother got her betrothed to Kisuke Urahara.

Evil: Yamamoto, Central 46, Mayuri and Division 12, Division 2, Division 5, Division 7, Komamura, Division 8, Division 1

Good: Suì-Fēng, Aizen, Gin, Tōshirō, Kenpachi, Ukitake, Kyōraku, Unohana, Tōsen, Division 13, Division 11, Division 10, Division 6, Division 4, Division 3, Division 9, Visoreds, Espada, Ichigo, Chizuru, Don Kanonji, Shiba Clan, Kisuke Urahara, Isshin, Karin, and Yuzu Kurosaki, Keigo, Orihime, Sado (Chad), Tatsuki, Uryū, Yoruichi

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns the Harry Potter series and Tite Kubo owns the Bleach series, I only own my own ideas for the story, Kageneko and nothing more.

A.N.: This is a crossover Fanfic. If you don't like how the story was written in the first place, stop reading it after the first sentence and don't continue and make my life a living hell (not that I believe in the catholic and Christian underworld since I am a pagan) I don't have the time or patience for people who are stupid enough not to look stuff up for themselves and I am only writing this for fun and nothing more! I have read all seven Harry Potter Books a long time ago but I am only using how he died and nothing more since I believe that Harry Potter shouldn't have been able to come back to life after he had been killed and visited Dumbledore in Limbo and I am watching the Bleach series as I am writing this story so it can be as accurate at possible! After Hope Lilith Potter is reborn she will be referred to as Nozomi Shihōin from then on; the story will be taking place from Hope/Nozomi's point of view; I'm also turning Ichigo Kurosaki into a female because I feel that there isn't enough strong, female heroes in stories anymore but I am not changing anyone else's gender, that means that Hichigo/Shiro (White Ichigo/Hollow Ichigo) and Zangetsu are still male and in Ichigo's head. Feedback is wanted and appreciated but flaming is unwanted and unneeded. I also know that Bleach takes place in 2001 and 2003 but I am going to change it to 2011 and 2013, so don't tell me I'm wrong just because I change some things.

Warning: Story may contain: Bondage, Bonding, Character Death, Dark, f/f, f/m/m/m/m, m/m, m/f, Genderbender, Heat Cycle, and UST.

OFC: Sayomi (Zanpakutō spirit)

Nozomi Shihōin (former Hope Lilith Potter: always-a-female Harry Potter)

Ichigo Kurosaki (female, keeps the same name because it is both masculine and feminine)

Pairings: Nozomi Shihōin/Kisuke Urahara/3 other males

Side Pairings: fem!Ichigo Kurosaki/4 others, Nozomi Shihōin/fem!Ichigo Kurosaki, Yoruichi/Suì-Fēng

One-sided: Orihime/Chizuru, Nozomi/Keigo

Parental: Nozomi/Yoruichi, Nozomi/Kenpachi

Sibling(s): Nozomi/Sōsuke, Nozomi/Rukia, Rukia/Byakuya.

"Blah" talking

"Blah" talking to snakes

"BLAH" yelling

"BLAH" 2 or more people yelling

*Blah* Nozomi Arashi or Hope thinking

*Blah* other peoples thoughts

Prologue

Finally, the truth. Lying with her face pressed into the dusty carpet of the headmaster's office where she had once thought she was learning the secrets of victory, but that is in the past. Hope Lilith Potter now understood at last that she was not supposed to survive. Her job was to walk calmly into Death's welcoming arms. Along the way, she was to dispose of Voldemort's remaining links to life, so that when at last she flung herself across Voldemort's path, and did not raise a wand to defend herself, the end would be clean, and the job that ought to have been done in Godric's Hollow would be finished. Neither would live, neither could survive.

She felt her heart pounding fiercely in her chest. *How strange that in my dread of death, it pumped all the harder, valiantly keeping me alive,* she thought, feeling confused. *But it would have to stop, and soon. Its beats were numbered. How many would there be time for, as I rise and walk through the castle for the last time, out into the grounds and into the forest?*

Terror washed over her as she lay on the floor, with that funeral drum pounding inside her. *Would it hurt to die?* she thought. All those times she had thought that it was about to happen and escaped, she had never really thought of the thing itself: Her will to live had always been so much stronger than her fear of death. Yet it did not occur to her now to try to escape, to outrun Voldemort. It was over, she knew it, and all that was left was the thing itself: dying.

If she could only have died on that summer's night when she had left number four, Privet Drive, for the last time, when the noble phoenix feather wand had saved her! If she could only have died like Hedwig, so quickly she would not have known it had happened! Or if she could have launched herself in front of a wand to save someone she loved... She envied even her parents' deaths now. This cold-blooded walk to her own destruction would require a different kind of bravery. She felt her fingers trembling slightly and made an effort to control them, although no one could see her; the portraits on the walls were all empty.

Slowly, very slowly, she sat up, and as she did so she felt more alive and more aware of her own living body than ever had felt before. Why had she never appreciated what a miracle she was, brain and nerve and bounding heart? It would all be gone... or at least, she would be gone from it. Her breath came slow and deep, and her mouth and throat were completely dry, but so were her eyes.

Dumbledore's betrayal was almost nothing. Of course there had been a bigger plan: Hope had simply been too foolish to see it, she realized that now. She had never questioned her own assumption that Dumbledore had wanted her alive. Now she saw that her life span had always been determined by how long it took to eliminate all the Horcruxes. Dumbledore had passed the job of destroying them to her, and obediently she had continued to chip away at the bonds tying not only Voldemort, but herself, to life! How neat, how elegant, not to waste any more lives, but to give the dangerous task to the girl who had already been marked for slaughter, and whose death would not be a calamity, but another blow against Voldemort.

And Dumbledore had known that Hope would not duck out, that she would keep going to the end, even though it was her end, because Dumbledore had taken trouble to get to know her, hadn't he? Dumbledore knew, as Voldemort knew, that Hope would not let anyone else die for her now that she had discovered it was in her power to stop it. The images of Fred, Lupin, and Tonks lying dead in the Great Hall forced their way back into her mind's eye, and for a moment she could hardly breathe. Death was impatient...

But Dumbledore had overestimated her. She had failed: The snake survived. One Horcrux remained to bind Voldemort to the earth, even after Hope had been killed. True, that would mean an easier job for somebody. She wondered who would do it... Ron and Hermione would know what needed to be done, of course... That would have been why Dumbledore wanted her to confide in two others... so that if she fulfilled her true destiny a little early, they could carry on...

Like rain on a cold window, these thoughts pattered against the hard surface of the incontrovertible truth, which was that she must die. I must die. It must end.

Ron and Hermione seemed a long way away, in a far-off country; she felt as though she had parted from them long ago. There would be no good-byes and no explanations, she was determined of that. This was a journey they could not take together, and the attempts they would make to stop her would waste valuable time. She looked down at the battered gold watch she had received on her seventeenth birthday. Nearly half of the hour allotted by Voldemort for her surrender had elapsed.

She stood up. Her heart was leaping against her ribs like a frantic bird. Perhaps it knew it had little time left, perhaps it was determined to fulfill a lifetime's beats before the end. She did not look back as she closed the office door.

The castle was empty. She felt ghostly striding through it alone, as if she had already died. The portrait people were still missing from their frames; the whole place was eerily still, as if all its remaining lifeblood were concentrated in the Great Hall where the dead and the mourners were crammed.

Hope pulled the Invisibility Cloak over herself and descended through the floors, at last walking down the marble staircase into the entrance hall. Perhaps some tiny part of her hoped to be sensed, to be seen, to be stopped, but the Cloak was, as ever, impenetrable, perfect, and she reached the front doors easily.

Then Neville nearly walked into her. He was one half of a pair that was carrying a body in from the grounds. Hope glanced down and felt another dull blow to her stomach: Colon Creevey, though underage, must have sneaked back just as Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had done. He was tiny in death.

"You know what? I can manage him alone, Neville," said Oliver Wood, and he heaved Colin over his shoulder in a fireman's lift and carried him into the Great Hall.

Neville leaned against the door frame for a moment and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked like an old man. Then he set off on the steps again into the darkness to recover more bodies.

Hope took one glance back at the entrance of the Great Hall. People were moving around, trying to comfort each other, drinking, kneeling beside the dead, but she could not see any of the people she loved, no hint of Hermione, Ron, Ginny, or any of the other Weasleys, no Luna. She felt she would have given all the time remaining to her for just one last look at them; but then, would she ever have the strength to stop looking? It was better like this.

She moved down the steps and out into the darkness. It was nearly four in the morning, and the deathly stillness of the grounds felt as though they were holding their breath, waiting to see whether she could do what she must.

Hope moved toward Neville, who was bending over another body.

"Neville." Hope whispered.

"Blimey, Hope, you nearly gave me heart failure!"

Hope had pulled off the Cloak: The idea had come to her out of nowhere, born out of a desire to make absolutely sure.

"Where are you going, alone?" Neville asked suspiciously.

"It's all part of the plan," said Hope. "There's something I've got to do. Listen -Neville -"

"Hope!" Neville looked suddenly scared. "Hope, you're not thinking of handing yourself over?"

"No," Hope lied easily. "'Course not... this is something else. But I might be out of sight for a while. You know Voldemort's snake. Neville? He's got a huge snake... Calls it Nagini..."

"I've heard, yeah... What about it?"

"It's got to be killed. Ron and Hermione know that, but just in case they -"

The awfulness of that possibility smothered her for a moment, made it impossible to keep talking. But she pulled herself together again: This was crucial, she must be like Dumbledore, keep a cool head, and make sure there were backups, others to carry on. Dumbledore had died knowing that three people still knew about the Horcruxes; now Neville would take Hope's place: There would still be three in the secret.

"Just in case they are - busy - and you get the chance -"

"Kill the snake?"

"Kill the snake," Hope repeated.

"All right, Hope. You're okay, are you?"

"I'm fine. Thanks, Neville."

But Neville seized her wrist as Hope made to move on.

"We're all going to keep fighting, Hope. You know that?"

"Yeah, I -"

The suffocating feeling extinguished the end of the sentence; she could not go on. Neville did not seem to find it strange. He patted Hope on the shoulder, released her, and walked away to look for more bodies.

Hope swung the Cloak back over herself and walked on. Someone else was moving not far away, stooping over another prone figure on the ground. She was feet away from her when she realized it was Ginny.

She stopped in her tracks. She was crouching over a girl who was whispering for her mother.

"It's all right," Ginny was saying. "It's ok. We're going to get you inside."

"But I want to go home," whispered the girl. "I don't want to fight anymore!"

"I know," said Ginny, and her voice broke. "It's going to be all right."

Ripples of cold undulated over Hope's skin. She wanted to shout out to the night, she wanted Ginny to know that she was there, she wanted her to know where she was going. She wanted to be stopped, to be dragged back, and to be sent back home...

But she was home. Hogwarts was the first and best home she had known. She and Voldemort and Snape, the abandoned children, had all found home here...

Ginny was kneeling beside the injured girl now, holding her hand. With a huge effort Hope forced herself on. She thought she saw Ginny look around as she passed, and wondered whether she had sensed someone walking nearby, but she did not speak, and she did not look back.

Hagrid's hut loomed out of the darkness. There were no lights, no sound of Fang scrabbling at the door, his bark booming in welcome. All those visits to Hagrid, and the gleam of the copper kettle on the fire, and rock cakes and giant grubs, and his great bearded face, and Ron vomiting slugs, and Hermione helping her save Norbert...

She moved on, and now she reached the edge of the forest, and she stopped.

A swarm of dementors was gliding amongst the trees; she could feel their chill, and she was not sure she would be able to pass safely through it. She had not strength left for a Patronus. She could no longer control her own trembling. It was not, after all, so easy to die. Every second she breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on her face, was so precious: To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and she was clinging to each second. At the same time she thought that she would not be able to go on, and knew that she must. The long game was ended, the Snitch had been caught, and it was time to leave the air...

The Snitch. Her nerveless fingers fumbled for a moment with the pouch at her neck and she pulled it out.

I open at the close.

Breathing fast and hard, she stared down at it. Now that she wanted time to move as slowly as possible, she seemed to have sped up, and understanding was coming so fast it seemed to have bypassed though. This was the close. This was the moment.

She pressed the golden metal to her lips and whispered, "I am about to die."

The metal shell broke open. She lowered her shaking hand, raised Draco's wand beneath the Cloak, and murmured, "Lumos."

The black stone with is jagged crack running down the center sat in the two halves of the Snitch. The Resurrection Stone had cracked down the vertical line representing the Elder Wand. The triangle and circle representing the Cloak and the stone were still discernible.

And again Hope understood without having to think. It did not matter about bringing them back, for she was about to join them. She was not really fetching them: They were fetching her.

She closed his eyes and turned the stone over in her hand three times.

She knew it had happened, because she heard slight movements around her that suggested frail bodies shifting their footing on the earthy, twig-strewn ground that marked the outer edge of the forest. She opened her eyes and looked around.

They were neither ghost nor truly flesh, she could see that. They resembled most closely the Riddle that had escaped from the diary so long ago, and she had been memory made nearly solid. Less substantial than living bodies, but much more than ghosts, they moved toward him. And on each face, there was the same loving smile.

James was exactly the same height as Hope. He was wearing the clothes in which he had died, and his hair was untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr. Weasley's.

Sirius was tall and handsome, and younger by far than Hope had seen him in life. He loped with an easy grace, his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face.

Lupin was younger too, and much less shabby, and his hair was thicker and darker. He looked happy to be back in this familiar place, scene of so many adolescent wanderings.

Lily's smile was widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew closer to him, and her green eyes, so like her own, searched her face hungrily, as though she would never be able to look at her enough.

"You've been so brave.

She could not speak. Her eyes feasted on her mother, and she thought that she would like to stand and look at her mother forever, and that would be enough.

"You are nearly there," said James. "Very close. We are... so proud of you."

"Does it hurt?"

The childish question had fallen from Hope's lips before she could stop it.

"Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep."

"And he will want it to be quick. He wants it over," said Lupin.

"I didn't want you to die," Hope said. These words came without her volition. "Any of you. I'm sorry -" she addressed Lupin more than any of them, beseeching her. "- right after you'd had your son... Remus, I'm sorry -"

"I am sorry too," said Lupin. "Sorry I will never know him... but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life."

A chilly breeze that seemed to emanate from the heart of the forest lifted the hair at Hope's brow. She knew that they would not tell her to go, that it would have to be her decision.

"You'll stay with me?"

"Until the very end," said James.

"They won't be able to see you?" asked Hope.

"We are part of you," said Sirius. "Invisible to anyone else."

Hope looked at her mother.

"Stay close to me," she said quietly.

And she set of. The dementors' chill did not overcome her; she passed through it with her companions, and they acted like Patronuses to her, and together they marched through the old trees that grew closely together, their branches tangled, their roots gnarled and twisted underfoot. Hope clutched the Cloak tightly around her in the darkness, traveling deeper and deeper into the forest, with no idea where exactly Voldemort was, but sure that she would find him. Beside her, making scarcely a sound, walked James, Sirius, Lupin, and Lily, and their presence was her courage, and the reason she was able to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Her body and mind felt oddly disconnected now, her limbs working without conscious instruction, as if she were passenger, not driver, in the body she was about to leave. The dead who walked beside her through the forest were much more real to her now than the living back at the castle: Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and all the others were the ones who felt like ghosts as she stumbled and slipped toward the end of her life, toward Voldemort...

A thud and a whisper: Some other living creature had stirred close by. Hope stopped under the Cloak, peering around, listening, and her mother and father, Lupin and Sirius stopped too.

"Someone there," came a rough whisper close at hand. "She's got an Invisibility Cloak. Could it be -?"

Two figures emerged from behind a nearby tree: Their wands flared, and Hope saw Yaxley and Dolohov peering into the darkness, directly at the place Hope, her mother and father and Sirius and Lupin stood. Apparently they could not see anything.

"Definitely heard something," said Yaxley. "Animal, d'you reckon?"

"That head case Hagrid kept a whole bunch of stuff in here," said Dolohov, glancing over his shoulder.

Yaxley looked down at his watch.

"Time's nearly up. Porter's had her hour. She's not coming."

"Better go back," said Yaxley. "Find out what the plan is now."

He and Dolohov turned and walked deeper into the forest. Hope followed them, knowing that they would lead her exactly where she wanted to go. She glanced sideways, and her mother smiled at her, and her father nodded encouragement.

They had traveled on mere minutes when Hope saw light ahead, and Yaxley and Dolohov stepped out into a clearing that Hope knew had been the place where the monstrous Aragog had once lived. The remnants of his vast web were there still, but the swarms of descendants he had spawned had been driven out by the Death Eaters, to fight for their cause.

A fire burned in the middle of the clearing, and its flickering light fell over a crowd of completely silent, watchful Death Eaters. Some of them were still masked and hooded; others showed their faces. Two giants sat on the outskirts of the group, casting massive shadows over the scene, their faces cruel, rough-hewn like rock. Hope saw Fenrir, skulking, chewing his long nails; the great blond Rowle was dabbing at his bleeding lip. She saw Lucius Malfoy, who looked defeated and terrified, and Narcissa, whose eyes were sunken and full of apprehension.

Every eye was fixed upon Voldemort, who stood with his head bowed, and his white hands folded over the Elder Wand in front of him. He might have been praying, or else counting silently in his mind, and Hope, standing still on the edge of the scene, though absurdly of a child counting in a game of hide-and-seek. Behind his head, still swirling and coiling, the great snake Nagini floated in her glittering, charmed cage, like a monstrous halo.

When Dolohov and Yaxley rejoined the circle, Voldemort looked up.

"No sign of her, my Lord," said Dolohov.

Voldemort's expression did not change. The red eyes seemed to burn in the firelight. Slowly he drew the Elder Wand between his long fingers.

"My Lord -" Bellatrix had spoken: She sat closest to Voldemort, disheveled, her face a little bloody but otherwise unharmed.

Voldemort raised his hand to silence her, and she did not speak another word, but eyed him in worshipful fascination.

"I thought she would come," said Voldemort in his high, clear voice, his eyes on the leaping flames. "I expected her to come."

Nobody spoke. They seemed as scared as Hope, whose heart was now throwing itself against her ribs as though determined to escape the body she was about to cast aside. Her hands were sweating as she pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and stuffed it beneath her robes, with her wand. She did not want to be tempted to fight.

"I was, it seems... mistaken," said Voldemort.

"You weren't." Hope said it as loudly as she could, with all the force she could muster: She did not want to sound afraid. The Resurrection Stone slipped from between her numb fingers, and out of the corner of her eyes she saw her parents, Sirius, and Lupin vanish as she stepped forward into the firelight. At that moment she felt that nobody mattered but Voldemort. It was just the two of them.

The illusion was gone as soon as it had come. The giants roared as the Death Eaters rose together, and there were many cries, gasps, even laughter. Voldemort had frozen where he stood, but his red eyes had found Hope, and he stared as Hope moved toward him, with nothing but the fire between them.

Then a voice yelled: "HOPE! NO!"

She turned: Hagrid was bound and trussed, tied to a tree nearby. His massive body shook the branches overhead as he struggled, desperate.

"NO! NO! HOPE, WHAT'RE YEH -?"

"QUIET!" shouted Rowle, and with a flick of his wand, Hagrid was silenced.

Bellatrix, who had leapt to her feet, was looking eagerly from Voldemort to Hope, her breast heaving. The only things that moved were the flames and the snake, coiling and uncoiling in the glittering cage behind Voldemort's head.

Hope could feel her wand against her chest, but she made no attempt to draw it. She knew that the snake was too well protected, knew that if she managed to point the wand at Nagini, fifty curses would hit her first. And still, Voldemort and Hope looked at each other, and now Voldemort tilted his head a little to the side, considering the girl standing before him, and a singularly mirthless smile curled the lipless mouth.

"Hope Potter," he said very softly. His voice might have been part of the spitting fire. "The Girl Who Lived."

None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting: Everything was waiting. Hagrid was struggling, and Bellatrix was panting, and Hope thought inexplicably of Ginny, and her blazing look, and the feel of her lips on her own - Voldemort had raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. Hope looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while she could still stand, before she lost control, before she betrayed her fear –

She saw the mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.

She lay face down, listening to the silence. She was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. She was not perfectly sure that she was there herself.

A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to her that she must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because she was lying, definitely lying, on some surface. Therefore she had a sense of touch, and the thing against which she lay existed too.

Almost as soon as she had reached this conclusion, Hope became conscious that she was naked. Convinced as she was of her total solitude, this did not concern her, but it did intrigue her slightly. She wondered whether, as she could feel, she would be able to see. In opening them, she discovered that she had eyes.

She lay in a bright mist, though it was not like mist she had ever experienced before. Her surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapor; rather the cloudy vapor had not yet formed into surroundings. The floor on which she lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be.

She sat up. Her body appeared unharmed. She touched her face. She was not wearing glasses anymore; not that she really needed them in the first place, they had been charmed to hide my vampiric half; but she was still wearing her choker with a large silver cross with a ruby stone on it.

Then a noise reached her through the unformed nothingness that surrounded her: the small soft thumping of something that flapped, flailed, and struggled. It was a pitiful noise, yet also slightly indecent. She had the uncomfortable feeling that she was eavesdropping on something furtive, shameful.

For the first time, she wished that she were clothed.

Barely had the wish formed in her head than a black t-shirt and black cargo pants appeared a short distance away. She took the clothes and pulled it on, noticing that the t-shirt had an Anarchy Distressed symbol on it and smiled. The clothing were soft, clean, and warm. It was extraordinary how it had appeared just like that, the moment she had wanted something to wear...

She stood up, looking around. Was she in some great Room of Requirement? The longer she looked, the more there was to see. A great domed glass roof glittered high above her in sunlight. Perhaps it was a palace. All was hushed and still, except for those odd thumping and whimpering noises coming from somewhere close by in the mist...

Hope turned slowly on the spot, and her surroundings seemed to invent themselves before her eyes. A wide-open space, bright and clean, a hall larger by far than the Great Hall, with that clear domed glass ceiling. It was quite empty. She was the only person there, except for - She recoiled. She had spotted the thing that was making the noises. It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath.

She was afraid of it. Small and fragile and wounded though it was, she did not want to approach it. Nevertheless she drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment. Soon she stood near enough to touch it, yet she could not bring herself to do it. She felt like a coward. She ought to comfort it, but it repulsed her.

"You cannot help," She heard someone say from behind her. She spun around. Albus Dumbledore was walking toward her, sprightly and upright, wearing sweeping robes of midnight blue. "Hope." He spread his arms wide, and his hands were both whole and white and undamaged. "You wonderful girl. You brave, brave woman. Let us walk. There are things that we must discuss before you meet Lady Death."

Stunned, Hope followed as Dumbledore strode away from where the flayed child lay whimpering, leading her to two seats that Hope had not previously noticed, set some distance away under that high, sparkling ceiling. Dumbledore sat down in one of them, and Hope fell into the other, staring at her old headmaster's face. Dumbledore's long silver hair and beard, the piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: Everything was as she had remembered it. And yet...

"But you're dead," said Hope.

"Oh yes," said Dumbledore matter-of-factly.

"Then... I'm dead too?"

"Ah," said Dumbledore, smiling still more broadly. "That is the question, isn't it?" In a more grave tone he continued. "I am sorry to say that you are. When you died, there was a huge magical backlash that could be felt around 100 to 300 miles away from where you had died. This magical backlash killed anyone that your magic has perceived as too dark and the ones that were perceived as walking the line between dark and light survived."

They looked at each other, the old man still looking grave.

"What do you mean my magic killed anyone who it had perceived as too dark?" repeated Hope.

"It means that your magic so pure that when Voldemort had killed you, he also upset the balance between light and dark and it had to fix the balance before that universe was destroyed," said Dumbledore.

"But..." Hope raised her hand instinctively toward the lightning scar. It did not seem to be there. "But I shouldn't have been that pure – I thought that Voldemort's soul would have changed me in some way – I didn't defend myself when he had cast the killing curse at me! Shouldn't that have been a sort of suicide?"

"And that," said Dumbledore, "will, I think, would have made all the difference. If you didn't do it to save someone. Didn't you have a reason to let Tom kill you? Think about it this way, if you didn't have a reason for letting Tom kill you then, yes it would have counted as suicide and we wouldn't be having this conversation right now." Happiness seemed to radiate from Dumbledore like light; like fire: Hope had never seen the man so utterly, so palpably content.

"Explain," said Hope.

"But you already know," said Dumbledore. He twiddled his thumbs together.

"I let him kill me," said Hope. "Didn't I?"

"You did," said Dumbledore, nodding. "Go on!"

"So the part of his soul that was in me..." Hope asked and Dumbledore nodded still more enthusiastically, urging Hope onward, a broad smile of encouragement on his face, "... has it gone?"

"Oh yes!" said Dumbledore. "Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is whole, and completely your own now, Hope. It didn't change one bit after years of having a piece of Tom's soul attached to your own."

"But then..." Hope trembled over her shoulder to where the small, maimed creature trembled under the chair. "What is that, Professor?"

"Something that is beyond either of our help," said Dumbledore.

"But if I am dead," Hope started again, "why am I here? Where is here anyways?"

"You're in limbo," said Dumbledore. "You died being the true master of the Deathly Hallows. You can't go on into the afterlife because since you were the master of the Deathly Hallows and your body was destroyed with your death, you can't go on into the afterlife but you can go into other worlds and help where you're needed."

"So you're saying that even though I am dead I can still do good things?" Hope asked.

"Yes, that is what he is saying," said a female voice that coming towards them from Hope's right. Hope turned and saw what looked like a pretty teenage girl, with black hair and icy blue eyes, and what appears to be a 20 something year old man, with slicked-back dark hair, oval eyes with black sclera and unusual pupils and very thin eyebrows. She was dressed in a t-shirt that said "Lady Death" on it, black ripped skinny jeans, and black knee high all-star converse. The man was wearing a shihakushō (black kimono worn by Shinigami).

"Dumbledore you aren't needed for this conversation anymore," the man told Dumbledore. Dumbledore disappeared from the spot he was sitting at his dismissal. "You may leave. I am the Soul King in the new universe you will be going to. You have to know that with each universe you go to, they will have a whole new set of deities, religions, and rules that you must follow."

"And I am Death, or you can call me Lady Death since I am in a female form," the teenager, now known as Lady Death told Hope. "I was the creator of the Deathly Hallows that you became the master of. But you aren't the ruler of Death, you just have the same powers as I do. Hope, you and I know that isn't your true form. So, why don't you show us it?"

Hope's form changed slightly, her hair became pure white and her eyes changed to black pupils, red irises, and black sclera and gained cat's ears on top of her head. To say Hope looked like a modern day vampire-feline hybrid was saying something. "Thank you," Hope began saying. "It's been four months since I have been able to be in my true form without people looking at me in disgust."

"You never have to hide your true form from us," Lady Death said. "We will start explaining things right now. So, wait until the explanation is over to ask questions because there is a lot you need to know before you are reborn into this new world of your. Okay?"

"Fine with me," Hope answered. "But will I be able to keep the information that you are going to tell me or am I going in with a new body with old memories locked away?"

"Don't worry about your memories," Lady Death soothed Hope. "You will keep the knowledge you need to have but every other memory of your former life will be locked away because we don't want you to get confused."

"The main thing that you need to know about the new would that you are going to be in is located in Japan," the Soul King started, making Hope excited because it was one of the places that she had planned on visiting if she had made it out of the war alive. "In the world that you are going to live in, there exist many races outside Human and all of them use what I like to call Reiryoku or Spiritual Power. There are the ones you will encounter are Shinigami, Hollows, and Quincy. What I am asking you to do in this world that I can't do myself is to bring about peace between the Three World. You were the Keeper of the Balance in your own world you are going to need to train the Warrior of the Three worlds who will be born in your new world and help her fix her world."

"How will I know who she is?" Hope asked the Soul King.

"You will know her because she will be raised as a warrior by her father who is just trying to protect her from the Hollows who are going to be after her because of her powerful Reiryoku," he answered Hope. "So, will you do it?"

"I have always loved a good adventure and the way you are talking it seems like I will have a lot," Hope answered. "So, yes I will do it."

"Do you have any other questions before we send you to your new world?" Lady Death asked kindly.

"Yeah, I have a few," Hope began. "What will I be when I go into this new world? And will I still have the same abilities as I had before my death?"

"Both are good and reasonable questions," Lady Death said. "You will still be a psychic shapeshifting vampire hybrid and have the ability to walk in the sun, but now you will be the first and only Vampire-Hollow-Shinigami Tri-Blood Hybrid. Your Hollow side will be an Arrancar level Hollow and you will be a Lieutenant Level bordering on Captain Level Shinigami. Your Shapeshifting abilities will get a boost, meaning you will be able to do a complete shift and you will also be able to shift what you are wearing. So, in a way, you will be like Mystique from the X-men comic books you like so much."

"You will be entering a world that has always been at war," the Soul King began. "We need your help bringing a stop to that war and ending the corrupt Captain-Commander Yamamoto and Central 46. It won't be easy and it will take time and the gathering of like-minded people."

"We wish you luck, Hope," Lady Death said. "We also wish for you to find love and a family of your own in this new world of yours."

"We will see you again," the Soul King said.

The Soul King and Lady Death each placed one of their hands on top of Hope's head, sending a pulse of their power to send her into a new world. A world with many dangers and adventures waiting to happen. A world that Hope new needed her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~End of Prologue~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N:

Lady Shiro: Wow this is my first story and first chapter I have written and I have had to rewrite twice now.