I haven't updated anything here in a while, and this is why. Though if you use AO3 you might already known about it, since I posted it there first.

I'm trying to get this thing out of the way before I go back to my other projects, to keep them from piling up. Only problem... this has literally no planned plot. There's a subconscious plot, but my consciousness hasn't figured it out yet.

Anyway, enjoy. Warning - I'm using this to experiment slightly with my writing style so certain parts might be weird.

The castle walls rose high on both sides, yet they were in ruins. Dark shadows loomed over the rubble that was left over after the battle that had occurred only hours before. Blood painted the ground and watered the burnt plants, and the air was thick with leftover smoke from the rapid firing of spells. The echo of steps broke the silence, the echoes growing in volume until it sounded as if a giant was walking through the empty corridors. There was no other sign of life, the scene of the battle long since abandoned by the survivors and their fallen comrades.

The echoes of steps danced between the walls, danced up staircases and past destroyed classrooms. It felt like hours before they came to a stop in one of the castle's towers. The same tower where a murder, or perhaps it was an assisted suicide, had happened only last year. The echoes started up again as the steps grew closer to the tower's window. The steps were soon exchanged for the sound of shoes scuffling to find purchase on the window ledge.

"You could do it." The words sounded as if they were dripping honey, sweet yet hard to trust. "Of course, you wouldn't succeed in much beyond breaking your bones, but it would be entertaining."

"Entertaining for whom?" a dead voice asked, with hints of wary tiredness. The dead voice's shoes had finally found purchase. It wouldn't take much to jump, or to fall.

"For me." the honey replied. The dead voice did not offer up a comment, instead settling for a noncommittal hum.

"What else is there?" the dead voice suddenly asked, almost changing into something strangled but otherwise not giving any signs of life.

"Life." the honey answered, although the words were thick with adverseness. The dead voice gave a strangled laugh, the first sign of real emotion.

"Life." it repeated thinly with a rough edge around the words.

"Stop acting as if you were already dead." the honey snapped, more strident than sweet. The words danced between the tower walls, and the echo seemed to never die out.

"But I am." the now rough voice answered, in a manner that stressed the words insistently. "Or I was!"

"And now you're not." The honey had once again smoothed out, the words sweet and placating. "And you'll never be."

There was a scuffling sound as the shoes lost purchase, followed by a sharp inhalation of breath. The echoes readied themselves for the sound of a thud, or a scream, but neither came. Instead there was the sound of movement as the rough voice moved to sit down upon the window ledge. As the conversation seemed to drag on, it was a decent decision.

"You're lying." The words were monotonous, as the roughness had lost its edge at the revelation.

"Now, why would I be lying about that?" the honey asked rhetorically. It was the sweetest sentence yet.

"Because you're Death." the monotonous voíce replied, ignoring that the question had not expected an answer.

"Ah." the honey turned toneless. "So you realised that. What a clever boy you are, Harry."

Harry turned his head so that he looked into the tower, instead of out over the castle grounds as he had done since he first reached the window. If he was surprised to see a tall, dark-skinned man with the white outlines of a skull etched into his skin, Harry didn't show it. The skull shimmered like gold in the moonlight coming through the window, only adding to the ominous feeling in the tower room.

"I never wanted to become your Master. I inherited the cloak, I was forced upon the stone, and I never meant to win the wand." he said matter-of-factly.

"Which makes you the perfect Master." Death answered, their voice once again sweet as honey. Harry turned to look out over the castle grounds again, greatly preferring the view of the remains of battle over the personified concept behind him.

"Can you undo it? If I give you the Hallows?"

"I can not, nor would I even if I could."

"Then what do you want, if you've accepted me as your Master?"

"Entertainment, Harry. I want entertainment." Death answered wistfully.

"Was the battle not sufficient enough?" Harry spat, the words like poison on his tongue. Death laughed, and it sounded like rattling bones. The contrast to the honeyed tone made him shiver. Harry took a deep breath and told himself that it was because of the cold air. He wasn't afraid of death, nor of Death. He welcomed the former, and was wary of the latter, but he wasn't afraid.

"There's no entertainment to be found in war."

The words did not have time to echo before they were taken by the wind. Harry quelled the urge to turn and look at Death. He lifted his gaze towards the moon hanging in the sky instead. For the first time since the battle's end, he gave himself a moment to mourn. For a moment, he even mourned the death of Tom Riddle. He would never mourn the death of Voldemort, but he couldn't help but feel for the man behind the monster. More so when he thought back to the Tom he had encountered in the Chamber of Secrets all those years ago.

"I could bring him back." The words were whispered in a smoky voice into his right ear, Death's lips barely touching as they moved. A pair of wiry muscular arms embraced his waist, securing him on the window ledge.

"W-who?" Harry asked, the question strangled.

"Tom." A kiss to the skin behind his ear. "Marvolo." A pair of lips slightly dragging over his earlobe. "Riddle." The sentence was punctuated by Death sucking at his earlobe and teasing it with sharp teeth. Harry exhaled a shaky breath.

"W-why?"

"Because you desire it." A kiss to his jawline. "And I aim to satisfy." Death moved down to suck on his neck, once more teasing with teeth. It would likely leave a mark, but Harry was not in the right state of mind to care.

"I don't." Harry protested.

"You do." Death moved down to the junction of his neck. Harry suddenly felt aware of the layers of dirt, sweat and blood that covered him. "I read it in your soul."

"Stop." Harry demanded. Death withdrew, and he turned to look at them properly. "You're lying."

"Death cannot lie, Master."

"I still don't believe you."

"Your soul was intertwined with his for almost 17 years. There's a piece missing of you, and he's the only one that can fill the hole."

"What happens if I leave it be?"

"You'll never feel complete again. There'll always be something missing from your life. It'll start as that little thing you just can't put your finger on and spiral from there."

"It's better than bringing Voldemort back to life."

"But who said anything about Voldemort?" Death whispered, the words devastatingly sweet. "Tom Riddle is the man, not the monster. You said so yourself."

"The man that became the monster." Harry corrected. He did not question that Death had read his thoughts without using legilimency.

"Same difference."

"It's not-" Harry started to protest when Death straightened up and cut him off.

"I'm not bringing back Tom's whole soul anyway. Only the half. The one that never became Voldemort."

"You mean..." Harry trailed off as he processed what Death meant. "The Horcrux from the diary?"

"So clever you are." Death praised, once again bending their head to kiss Harry's jawline. "Yes, I'll bring back the Tom Riddle that you killed with a basilisk tooth at the age of twelve."

Harry turned his head to look at Death, their lips separated by mere centimeters.
"You know about that?"

"Everything is in your soul, Master." Death replied with a chuckle, once again the sound reminiscent of rattling bones. They closed the distance and gave Harry a closed-lipped kiss before drawing back. Death straightened up for a second time and withdrew their arms from around Harry's waist. Harry swung his legs over the window edge so that he faced the inside of the tower room, and therefore Death.

"Is there anything about this that I should know?" Harry demanded. He did not trust Death, and no honeyed words or kisses could change it.

"No."

There was a snap of Death's fingers, and in a cloud of smoke as if it was a mere muggle magic trick, 16-year old Tom Riddle showed up in the tower room - disoriented yet emitting an aura of being in control of the situation. Harry pressed his hands into fists to calm himself down. This was not the man that he had duelled against hours before, this was a boy that he had met in an underground chamber as a child, and that he had destroyed. He could do it again if the need arose.

"Oh. Perhaps I should have mentioned that your souls are now bound together." Death's honeyed voice broke the eerie silence that had settled as Tom processed the situation and Harry fought down his emotions.

"A soul bond, you say?" Tom asked, a calculating gleam in his thankfully dark eyes. Harry did not know what he would have done if red had been looking back at him.

"Two halves of one whole." Death confirmed. Harry felt the urge to rid their voice of honey. The sweetness radiating from Death was overwhelming and made him lose focus on the conversation. It took a moment before it settled in, and Harry jumped down from the window edge so that he was standing in the room. Death was close enough to touch.

"Master, calm down." Death warned, as Harry's magic rose wildly around him. Harry turned sharply so that he was facing them.

"I asked you if there was anything I should know, and you lied to me, after you told me that you can't." Harry's voice was low, the edges of the words sharp as knives.

"I didn't lie. I didn't think that you should know."

"You didn't-!"

The words had barely left his mouth before Harry's magic forcefully apparated him away.

Comments/reviews are literally what keeps this going. People on AO3 seem to want a happy ending, what do you guys want?