I was recently overcome by a desire to re-read Transliterations, but upon scouring the internet could not come across a single copy, until I remembered I had squirreled away a copy of this fic some years earlier.

And so, I decided I would also take the time to post this fic under a dummy account to allow others to also enjoy it once more. Transliterations is my favorite Thor/Avengers fic period and also one of my favorite Harry Potter fics. I hope everyone else will find it as enjoyable as I did and that ikkiichiyuu will someday return, if only to yell at me to take this down.

I claim no ownership of Transliterations and had absolutely no hand its creation, I simply place it here to be enjoyed. From now on any author's notes will be from ikkichiyuu including what is below this. The die is now cast, let it fall where it will.

A writer, I would fancy myself, if things would be. But take note, I do not write for others – I write for my own amusement, and my brand of storytelling is my own – I only share these worlds that I dream up.

In between the dark and the night,

within the day and the night,

inside of the twilight and the half-light,

Death waits... regardless of right.

He had never been able to fathom the reasons why – staying unchanging while the others around him had continued to grow older, weaker; more worn out. It had been nearly too late to discover his state of stasis, but the ripples of the war had obscured it well. Death no longer influenced his body – no longer sipped at his life – and it was unnatural, to not feel oneself slowly dying.

Debilitating wounds that would have killed any other were of little consequence, and the Healers who treated him had marvelled at his recovery and sturdy physique, chalking it up to his status of being the Chosen One to defeat Voldemort.

But with all his years spent under the care that the Dursleys provided, the lesson had been taught and learnt – to never stand out. He had drawn upon those willing to share their knowledge, weaving glamour upon illusion and vice versa, carefully layered and augmented with potions. The time consumed had paid off, and Harry lived out a natural life as much as possible, mirroring the common age ailments that those of his age suffered.

But now, maybe there are inklings of those reasons, as he sends his last friend into the unknown.

All Hermione sees is the smiling visage of her parents, forever immortalized in her memory, standing together with an equally youthful Ron. She steps into their outstretched embrace with nothing less than elegance and a blinding smile, barely a glance for her aged body on the bed.

Death is a formless entity, maintaining no form till the instance of collecting a soul. She – he had decided that Death was female – appeared as what the dying had envisioned her. He has seen her in countless garbs and different skins, looking into minds without any difficulty - he has seen winged angels with matchless grace, humorless skeletons with scythes, enormous Grimms, terrifying faceless spectres, and the tender visages of loved ones long past.

There is a haunting beauty whenever she surfaces to claim a soul, shaped in detail to the eyes of the dying. The souls are reaped with gentle hands, and there is always the sense of an abundance in patience and care, no matter the purity of the soul – rare are the ones drenched with darkness and evil, but even then the sheer black taint from corrupted souls was always more than his stomach could bear. But still she handles even those with an aching sort of tenderness - absolving souls from the darkness and evil, leaving behind the silvery souls and shimmering threads.

The threads are precious evidence of living through trials and tribulations - memories, defining moments of every person. He had looked into them once, and had never done so again. The memories had clung to his mind and memories, desperate to live on and be useful as knowledge.

He has seen too much and yet not learnt enough - the Afterlife is the only mystery left unknown to him, barred from the passage that every soul was gently guided to. He has tried entry into Death's consciousness before, but the barrage of mental images is nothing but distortions of color, tinged with a chimeric range of emotions.

The deed is done, and so he stands from his perch at the window, just as the hospital staffs make their discovery of a cold body on the bed. He is done here - with the intersecting Worlds he has always lived in. There are no more dear friends as of tonight, and his children and godson have long flown the coop, with families of their own, survivors in times of adversity. There is no more need for Harry Potter, and there is good reason for that.

Harry Potter has long ceased to live in these intersecting worlds – the Master of Death stays at the window as a silent spectre, as unobtrusive as Death. Watches as they make their report - Hermione Weasley Née Granger has passed away... all alone in that hospital room, in the dead of the cold winter night.

He turns to Her, with one hand outstretched.

She has different lives in different realms, multifaceted as they are, and yet she is one entity. She is worshipped; feared, envied, and all living things live by her laws.

Her work is never done, and he is the Master of Death, after all that has happened.

She feels his call, and he takes her outstretched hand.

The room warps; it melts away like frost under an overpowered heating charm. He regains his sense of balance, and finds himself within a cavernous room, where the walls are carved and painted with astonishing lifelike landscapes.

A step closer reveals the details of a tiny painted flower, and he revels at the microscopic brush marks that lend texture and vibrancy. Five steps in retreat reveal the entirety of a meadow in Spring, blanketed in full sunlight and flowers so realistic that Harry half-expects the scent of flowers to fill the air. Neville's once-famous gardens would have been put to shame by the realistic artwork.

He steps further back, and angles his head to watch as the speckled lush hills give way seamlessly to buildings wrought of gold and silver, forests of green and rich browns, a night landscape with speckled with faint light from stars and galaxies… to the red-hot landscape, seemingly ravaged by fire and magma.

And then, he feels his heart dropping into a gaping abyss when he sees the opposite wall of the room. Everything is dead – ashy greys and inky blacks – even the living flame and molten rock have been extinguished. And the worst thing is that it sparks the realization that it is not just a painting – it is the eventual truth of all that is to come. It is a beautiful yet terrible tragedy, and the sheer realism of the artwork inflicts pangs of hurt in the recesses of his soul.

"Few have seen this room, and fewer still have looked upon it for as long as you have. None have committed the truth of this room into their mind, Master of Death."

He turns to the source of the methodical voice, and sees a woman; the darkest of shadows are clinging to her like a veil. She bows slowly, the shadows shifting and twisting to accommodate her movements.

"Welcome to Niflheim, Master of Death. I am known as Hel, and I stand in this realm, presiding over the dead of the Nine Realms who hath not passed under the glory of valour." her articulation prevails of gloom, and she remains immobile, not even shifting or fidgeting, "I carry the words of Death, for the only words that Death speaks is understood by the dead. The Hallows three hath decided on a Master worthy, and Death now implores you to save the balance of the worlds and all the life that it holds, oh Master of Death."

She speaks the words of his mute companion, so the Master of Death listens.

Harry slouches onto the banister, and enjoys the view of the vast estate of Hel's abode. The creation of her vast lands has come about from the bordering realms of fire and ice, and the perpetual mist and half-light lends a seductive allure to the gardens.

The mists seem to devour and strip everything down – the layers of his visual camouflage have been worn thin. The wrinkles on his hands, the age spots, and the thinness of his hair are mere memories. The white mist slithers over his skin, sapping colour until he looks - for a lack of description - deathly pale, like many of the servants that stalk through the hallways like wraiths.

He feels the constant tug at his life-force, but it is a futile battle. He cannot die, has not aged since that day, and Death is but a companion to him. He remains immune to her pull, but he acknowledges the fact that he had been obsessed with just ending it all. Acknowledges the fact that he has tried and failed... several times.

"Thanos… He is born of madness."

"The Mad Titan seeks to erase all Life as a tribute to Mistress Death."

Hel's message – or rather, Death's revelation – had only served to compound the growing unease that he had been feeling in his heart of hearts. There had been a growing sense of wrongness that only he could feel while living the remainder of his life, and now… and now, he could guess at its source.

"Mistress Death only works to reap the souls so that life may be born again."

He knows of nothing of the rightful course of actions that can be taken, compared to Death, who has had purpose and direction since the barest flickers of life all throughout the universe, long before the World Tree had even come into being as a seedling. She had seen the wanton destruction, known its implications, and acted accordingly, crafted objects for other beings to take up the mantle of Protector, but of all the worlds and Hallows and civilizations scattered throughout the vast galaxies and universes, he was the only one who had mastered all three Hallows – other worlds had either destroyed the Hallows... or themselves.

"Without Life, there is no Death, and there is no Essence for which Life to be born again."

Thanos was no part of the instrumentations of Life and Death - an anomaly. His actions led to the sheer destruction of whole worlds, affecting the balance of life across galaxies; the excess of snuffed lives had led to exponential growth in others, collapsing whole systems.

He had attained the rights to be the Master of Death, and it was his obligation to steer the fates away from destruction whilst she reaped the souls to fuel Life.

"There is not enough of Essence at hand to delve into the making of Thanos, and Death cannot unmake him."

He senses Hel at the corner of the balcony, and strangely, she feels so familiar to him, though he has never met her before these few short hours during which she had dispensed the reasons for his existence. He acknowledges her presence, but he does not turn to meet her, "How will I know?"

Hel shifts, and Harry gets the feeling that she is smiling, even if he cannot see it, "There is no one judgment that is solely right, and there is no one decision that cannot be justified, oh Master of Death. Inaction or not, there are consequences."

"I fear that you may only go back far enough to make Death's unwilling march cease in its footsteps."

The situation weighs heavy on him, and Harry feels nausea from the bottom of his stomach.

"Fret not, oh Master of Death, for the threads of the Norns shall not encumber you. I shall see you in my far past then, Master of my Master."

There is barely enough breath in his lungs for even a sound of alarm or a choked scream when he falls backwards in the Void.

There is nothing that he can do - no air to draw breath to scream panic, no medium for his magic to condense into. And now that it has no outlet to escape, it shifts restlessly, like a caged beast that snarls tightly in his chest. It roils like the magma that he had seen long ago, a rare documentary on the telly that the Dursleys had not minded him watching from the closet.

He falls, and continues falling.

There is little comfort to be had, falling into the unending void in between the worlds. Death's heavy presence is the weakest of anchors, only staying his sanity after he has fallen into insanity each time – a parody of a bungee cord if it ever was. The panic has finally gone, and it feels like he has spent decades, watching the stars brighten and fade into the black. He has drifted through clouds of dust and gas, watched the births and deaths of the lights he had once thought to be eternal. Sleep eludes him even in the eternal darkness, and hunger is such a persistent prodding that he has become numb to it. It is not as if he can die from anything now, anyway.

He thinks himself into insanity once again with all the 'what ifs', drafting the possible paths in his admittedly short time on Earth – he has spent more time in space than on Earth now, an eternity to be precise – and lives through one hundred thousand simulated lifetimes in his own mind before laughing madly and clawing himself out of the insanity again.

Galaxies swim past, and he looks onto the surfaces of the planets, feels their pull, watching as asteroids light up into shooting stars and burn out in the air. The worlds go past, and Harry discovers the true depth of the universe, underneath the dusting of stars and the kaleidoscopes of every imaginable colour, and declares it to be unending. He sees the fabric of the universe and the strings of existence that he identifies as magic, in its unbridled and untainted form.

He spends another eternity – maybe even two – staring at it, unable to investigate it further. It is all around him, yet he cannot touch it, cannot investigate it, and cannot understand it.

Harry has only barely scratched the implications of his discovery when he arrives at his destination, of which 'arrival' is a mild way of putting it, and 'destination' even more ridiculous, because his fall through the void has been largely unchartered. Still, it is the only description that comes to mind, especially when he crashes into the ground at high enough speeds to create a crater wide and deep enough to fit the whole of Little Whinging.

The first thing that comes to mind is sensation. He is robbed of his breath, eyes staring into the blue skies above. There is gravity... there is the sound of silence... the is the hum of residual magic in the air... and then there is agony. The immense pain is a novel thing, his flesh burns as though it has been seared, and it gradually subsides after a torturous amount of time, adrenaline and magic coursing through his veins like a mind-clearing sedative, but the damage remains.

And for all his immortality, he is left helpless when his body and his magic begins to literally pull itself together. It feels like Skele-Grow all over again, except that the nauseating feeling permeates from the very insides of his brain to the surface of his skin. He can literally feel his bones in their attempt to un-fracture themselves, and his internal organs slithering back together over each other, his skin itching something uncomfortable as it knits back together.

He does not truly need to breathe, but it is ingrained deeply in his bodily functions and his memories, so he does. He breathes shallowly as soon as it is allowed and a little deeper each time when his broken ribs are raised by tendrils of his magic, to avoid creating more damage and flooding his lungs with blood. The ribs are barely held in place, but he takes the deepest breath yet by far, and holds it in.

His mind cursorily acknowledges the sweetness of the air, before formulating a rigorous study of the afflictions along the span of his body. The list is exhaustive, and runs along the definition of horrifying – beyond the catalogue of comminute and oblique fractures, there are torn muscles and ligaments, ruptured organs and arteries.

His rate of healing is faster than the average human, but it will take at slightly under two weeks to recover fully, more than a miracle for fragile living creatures, but it means that he will be trapped in this crater for more than a week. Death stands at the edge of his vision, a watchful albeit translucent sentinel for the better part of the day as the sun scorches his skin. She quickly fades out of his sight as the sounds of clanking metal approach.

"My Lord… this is…"

"Bind him to ensure that he does not escape. He is to be presented to the Allfather as Heimdall as ordered."

The figures are silhouetted by the setting sun, and all Harry can do is concentrate on his breathing. His ribs crack even more when they apply their weight on him to prevent struggling, as if they expect him to exert monstrous force in attempting an escape. He cannot even make his pain known, there is barely any sound to wring from a parchment-dry throat. Harry blacks out when his still-healing wrists are fractured again by the sheer weight of his restraints.

"Your thoughts will define the future; your actions will carve those foundations."

When he awakes, he finds himself folded over broad shoulders, and Harry consoles himself with the fact that he isn't being dragged across the ground like a carcass, because the terrain is all sharp rocks and dead forest. The blood stays heavy in his head, the veins swelled, and the blood pushing against weakened walls.

"I wish you luck, oh Master of Death."

He awakens a few times to nausea before succumbing to the sweet bliss of darkness, but he keeps himself awake when he is jostled roughly through blinding whirls of light and movement. His 'transport' lands with steady feet, which Harry is thankful for, because another hard knock will not do wonders for his current condition.

"The Allfather awaits you in the Throne Room."

"Thank you, Heimdall."

Another wave of black overwhelms him when he is transferred from shoulder to the back of a horse, but Harry swears that the rainbow-covered ground is not a figment of his imagination, even if the nausea and the colours are reminiscent of the effects of Fainting Fancies.

He jolts awake at the sensation of falling, and Harry barely has the energy to give voice to the sheer pain that screams through his body when he lands on the floor from a great height. The pain blots out his mental processes before it recedes enough to process garbled voices.

"….my King… Heimdall… war grounds… Elven… the one who fell from the skies. We set off for the lands of Alfheim, and found him where Heimdall had Seen. And by his word, we brought him back for your direction."

An unyielding grip pulls at his left arm until he is upright and on his knees.

The recent shock of pain has released enough adrenaline to clear his muddled thoughts, his magic roils deeply instead of healing, and Harry ignores the pain long enough to register the golden hall. There is a man – no, perhaps the best way to describe is – there is a King on the throne, decked out in armour, looking down at him.

"Unbind him."

The shackles come off immediately, and Harry doesn't know what he should be feeling as the release in his restraints cause his wrists to snap back. The fractured bones rub against bone and flesh, and a strangled moan of agony makes it out between his clenched teeth.

His head is tilted up, and Harry's eyes snap open to see sky-blue orbs staring into his own. He feels his spine arch to straining point at the intrusion attempt, and Harry forces himself to maintain the mind contact whilst shielding everything but the pain and the truth in his mind. He slips a little, and there is the image of flowing red hair that flickers before he manages to reclaim his control.

'What are you? For such a youthful visage, your mind is aged, and your veins sing of seiðr. What do you seek from the Realm Eternal – power, bloodshed, destruction and death from us Æsir?'

Even in his own mind, the king's inner voice is of tempered experience coloured with grief, with a hint of foreboding. It is an ominous mind, filled with thoughts of war and bloodlust, of power and subjugation. Years of diplomacy between different Wizarding Colonies have at least hammered home the importance of a starting statement, so Harry replies in deference.

'I am Harry. I am my own person – I came to your lands through no choice of my own – and despite the hospitality of your men, I am disinclined to bring about suffering or loss of life unless in defence of my own… your Royal Highness.'

'Very well, seiðmenn. Tread carefully, lest our weapons make their mark on a deceitful heart.'

The connection is broken off, "Bring him to the Healing Chambers. Have Eir attend to him."

"But my King, his eyes are red like the Jötnar. He is the enemy!"

"SILENCE!" The hall falls silent, "his eyes bleed, not unlike a hard blow to the head. He is grievously injured, which is why Heimdall sent you to retrieve him, and his afflictions have been made worse through fetters and harsh travel."

The leader of the protest stammers his apologies, but if the King has anything to say, Harry does not hear it, having been lifted to his feet by soldiers on their King's orders.

The guards move at a more sedate pace, but his escorts are still brutishly strong, and his ribs protest at the frog march. By the time his escorts have brought him to the healing chambers, the route that they have travelled is spotted with blood conceived by violent hacking, and his mouth is slick with blood. At least the issue of his parched throat has been solved.

"Eir! Odin Allfather has decreed that you attend to him."

Through his hazy vision, maidens – there is only that one word to describe them – appear out of the flowing cloth partitions, dressed in white and flowing material. His mind flutters along with the movement, and a tiny part of him – that sounds like Lee Jordan – comments that survival rate of Aurors in the field would have improved if all the Healers looked like that.

One of the women steps out from the crowd, "As the Allfather decrees. If you would assist me in getting him onto the bed, honourable guards," the request is gently voiced, but all Harry can see is the flaming red hair, long and gleaming through the sunlight. It is a balm to his hazy vision, and Harry strains to see her face. They set him on the bed none too gently, and as the healers assess his injuries by poking and prodding him, one of them pours a honeyed liquid down his throat.

It washes away the coppery blood clogging his tongue, as well as his awareness. He recognizes Eir purely by the sound of her voice, and the tones of her voice accompany the caressing touches of the healing magicks – it is the only thing that keeps him anchored between drifting off into oblivion and the fleeting pinches of pain.

He is suddenly aching at the thought of her – he has seen her for a hundred thousand lifetimes in his mind – and he finally falls into the darkness with her on his mind.

It is twilight, but the large window lets in enough residual light to light the large chamber. He stretches his senses out for the innate magic that he has associated with the Æsir, not unlike a fisherman's net; the room is nearly void of life, save the guards at the door… and the lady healer standing at corner of the fabric partitions.

Eir. The shadows come into play upon her face, melding reality with his memories, and the moonlight sets her red hair alight. He twitches from the realization of her resemblance, and she is quick to show her hands, bared to the elbows as a sign of mutual vulnerability, "I mean you no harm, Warrior."

He stares at her for a moment longer, pondering her words and reconciling it with the events so far, before surrendering the tension in his body. He can barely defend himself at this rate without bringing an entire castle of Æsir down on his head. Something more stays his hand as well – red hair and brown eyes and memories and heartache.

She crosses over to his bedside when he relaxes, and Harry allows her to manoeuvre him into a sitting position. His tattered robes are gone, replaced by a loose fitting tunic and pants. He has long overcome mortification – it seems as though, even in different worlds, that Healers are indeed prone to frown upon bloodied and torn clothes. There is something to do with hygiene and the works, but usually the pain was too much for him to care about the specifics.

She is gentle, but there is an underlying strength about her like her fellows; a flick of her wrists and he would be the only one suffering from broken bones. But the contact is much relished; having gone without the interactions of another living being for longer than he can recall.

His lungs are pleasantly free of blood and pain when she instructs him to breathe deeply, though[1] the bones have a deep-seated ache when his ribcage expands. She tilts his head back and pours down his throat of the sweet liquid from earlier on, and it sends a rush of warmth through his body. It sends his healing muscles into relaxation, and then she begins to smooth his hair back from his face, "What brings you to Asgard, Warrior?"

He thinks that he murmurs something to the effect of 'I have no idea at all', and then the muted alarm bells in his head go off. The answers are being pulled from his tongue like Veritaserum.

Another sip is coaxed down his throat, and he cannot refuse either draught or question without becoming suspicious in her eyes. He cannot tell whole lies, so he settles for half-truths and truths obscured by omission, succeeding by keeping his tone steady and gaze connected. It is not an impossible task; he has spent much of his time in the Void dreaming up worlds and drowning in insanity.

"You heal fast," not a question, just a statement, but already he feels the compelling urge to tell her everything.

The barest of truths then. "It is… the heritage of my people." Magic is a heritage, the Hallows have been carved from magic, and the Three have always been passed down from witches and wizards alike. The fact that he has the Three and immunity from Death are just the unforeseen bonuses.

Eir looks down at the strange man. His voice quavers that tiny little bit, and the cast of his brow reveals sorrow. She knows that look well - families and lovers wear it ever so often every single time she has to break the news to them. But her job is not yet done.

The question about his parentage invokes a bittersweet smile - Hjortr and Lilju, 'the stag' and 'the lily' - and Eir feels something like guilt at his strange tone of voice. It seems like a wound still very much raw, and she is digging deeper into it. And worse yet, the circumstances of his appearance will be made known to the Court.

The last sip will send him into deep sleep, and as the emerald succumbs to heavy eyelids, she whispers to him.

"Rest well, Haraldr, Son of Hjortr and Lilju."

With his searching gaze shuttered, she is now free to look upon him. He is a strange sight in Asgard - hair like the inkiness between the stars, a handsome face evident even with the gauntness of his features. He seems young, but his body tells a different story - a study in scars. There are runes carved into the sensitive skin of one hand, and several jagged cuts that run the planes of his torso.

It seems like barbaric torture, but the more she had looked upon them, the more it looked like that they had tried to kill him and then failed.

Few of the Æsir, or the Nine Realms, would have endured such collective agonies. She counts his breaths, and watches for any pain on his brow.

The study of his thick black lashes is interrupted by one of her sisters, who has brought salves to replenish the diminished supply and rags to cleanse the remains of dried mud and blood from the floor.

"The Allfather wishes for your attendance in his hall."

The guards escort Eir to a small room - something reserved for privacy - where the King and Queen are already waiting. Frigga regards her with a placid smile, but the Allfather has a mask of indifference.

"I am at your service, my King."

They motion her to the seat across them, and Eir does so.

"Tell me about the man currently in your care."

There is a moment of pondering where to begin, but her thoughts spill over into words after the hesitant first sentences. He calls himself Haraldr, son of Hjortr and Lilju, and… is still in pain from his injuries, but she can sense that he holds no detectable ill intent. There had been no cause to suspect him of untruths, for she had questioned him under the heaviest of sedative draughts.

He is without a doubt not of Ӕsir origin, and the tongue that he speaks seems to be derived from the Immortal Languages, though the turn of speech and words are sometimes ill-fitting. Hjortrson is on a mission of sorts, but even he does not have a clear idea of what he is to do, only that he has to accomplish it.

The green-eyed stranger is a warrior, jaded by wars since his youth – many, many wars - and with the trials and tribulations carved into flesh. A warrior unlike their own, for he is so much weaker than even a young Ӕsir boy. And yet, he has endured much more than that would have killed an Ӕsir.

Eir leaves, and Frigga watches as the Healer disappears behind the closing door. She has yet to see this Haraldr Hjortrson herself, but her husband assures her that the man is under a binding oath to not harm anyone unless in the act of self-defence.

She feels her vision cloud over for the barest of moments, and instead of the vague and heart wrenching feelings that linger in the glimpse of a long forgotten dream, there is something like change.

Something like hope.

Perhaps Haraldr Hjortrson is a sign of better things to come.

Author's notes:

Well, it has taken me quite a while to get this done. This story is a mix of Nordic mythology, Marvel's Thor and Potterverse. The characters that I will be using are more or less 'canon'.