A/N: I haven't written fiction in six years and I'm very rusty. Please don't eat me.

The first time it had been a blinding white. The brightness of Kings Cross station with Dumbledore to greet him made for a slightly less depressing first death if truth be told. Harry snidely wondered if it was compensation for the gloom and abject misery of real death. In front of him stretched a wall of impenetrable darkness. His fingers clutched at empty space and he doubted if it was even air that filled his lungs. It felt like air, but in his experience he had long since learnt that what something felt like in a world of magic was entirely irrelevant. His feelings of intense optimism, for instance, were more often near factual predictions of some inevitable doom. He had long since stopped pushing his luck when it came to certain assumptions. However he travelled through the vast dimension was also a mystery and not one Harry was in a position to investigate anytime soon. He simply drifted without control through a sea of almost complete nothingness.

Time lost meaning and basic spell casting lost to him no matter how insistently he swished, flicked, cursed and complained at his uncooperative wands which remained stubbornly inactive. As he wafted along the invisible currents he listened to the chirping of nameless being and an occasional whisper of some entity far beyond his reach. Darkness clearly could not be equated with emptiness. Harry opted to keep his mouth firmly shut. Whatever managed to exist in a world capable of snuffing out magic was not something he wanted to deal with while floating helplessly through an abyss. Provoking whatever lived in this world was somewhere at the bottom of his to-do list along with attending peace talks at ICW headquarters and meeting with the British Minister for Magic. Fat chance of any of those happening now, Harry thought idly. Time itself seemed to have halted and Harry's consciousness continued to waver as his attention finally broke away from the outside world.

Naturally, it was not to last. Harry gave a strangled cry as a serpentine piece of metal entwined itself around his legs. He groped blindly for the clinking chain only to feel it constrict before his hands had found purchase. Harry grunted as chains encircled his chest and with a dizzying lurch he came to an abrupt halt on the cold hard ground. With an almighty CLANG that echoed in his ears, Harry's journey had ended. He was sprawled in a bedraggled pile on the floor, as if spat out by a particularly vindictive Floo. Harry could've sworn that some bastard off in the distance was laughing at him. He blindly extended the bird in the most suspect direction of the sound just to be sure.

For the first time in the Void he saw light. Twin gleaming pinpricks in the distance beckoned him on as the chains binding him slackened even as he stumbled to his feet. A chilling rasp lifted the hairs on the back of Harry's neck left him reaching for his phoenix feather wand.

Lumos, he thought, but like some many times before no light appeared. Even with an insistent smack of his wand not even so much as sparks emerged. Wand unlit Harry fumbled for the chain guilty of snaring him. Unnaturally fine links greeted his dragon hide gloves and clicked gently against the scaly black surface.

With an experimental tug he found himself drawn to the distant lights that glowed ever brighter and shifted as he staggered across the harsh landscape. Step by step the world around him became clearer. Harsh crags and towering pillars ascended into the emptiness above with the unequal ground below unbalancing his stride. The material below was marred as though a giant had slammed a calloused heel clean through the rock and left shattered shelves behind. Blackened and with a wicked glint to the edges Harry rather thought the ridges looked like glass. It was as if he had fallen into the crater of a long dormant volcano. Trekking carefully through the cavern, his hided boots toed endless drops and he kept a hold of the chain which now glimmered in the brightening glow.

Harry's breath emerged in puffs of mist and his teeth chattered noisily as the temperature plummeted with the final approach. With each tug on the chain the presence at the other end insistently tugged back, strength growing as the distance decreased.

"Finally!" Harry muttered stepping onto the most level land he had come across yet. The two orbs cast a glare with their brilliance, spilling light across roughly hewn pavers.

They were fiery eyes set into the skull of a giant dark-haired man who stared intently at Harry even as he slouched on his decaying throne. Taller than Hagrid, Harry noted as he stepped forwards. His sharp features and even sharper eyes were framed by a curtain of lank hair that left Harry vaguely reminded of Snape. The expression of familiar contempt left Harry feeling nostalgic for the old days where Voldemort and sadistic Potions professors were his main lot in life. It had long been the case where both Snape and Voldemort's actions paled in comparison to the people who supposedly acted to the benefit of the society they governed, much to Harry's dismay. Their allowance of Death Eaters to frolic freely through society after committing genocide was but one such example. The experiments conducted by Unspeakables within the depths of the Department of Mysteries was another when those mysteries were no longer quite so mysterious.

Spiked gauntlets sporting sheer clawed edges sat clasped before the figure cloaked in shifting shadows. Pulling the chain Harry watched the entity arch backwards, hissing in discomfort, revealing the iron collar binding his neck and nearly dragging Harry to his knees. Harry contemplated dropping the chain and fleeing as fast as humanly possible in the opposite direction. Preferably while he was at liberty to scream bloody murder to his satisfaction without inciting the wrath of the other creatures lurking in the bleak space. A rumbling groan filled the air and Harry snapped to attention. Neck aching, Harry watched cracks speed along the shelf's edge and widen drastically as the crags groaned under the sudden stress of the narrow connecting bridges giving way. Breaking away it plummeted into the mass below with a crunch and explosion of dust that soared upwards to meet Harry's eyes. Harry promptly returned his gaze to the now entirely smug chained figure. Then it spoke.

Oh bollocks.

A harsh grating emerged from the immense man's mouth. Harry's ears protested as a rolling shockwave boomed forth loosening the dirt at Harry's feet and the man's face set itself into a cold sneer. Finally the words faded and Harry felt as though Draco Malfoy's first introduction in Madam Malkin's all those years ago had honestly left a better first impression. Malfoy's posture and tone of voice didn't reek of the same degree of casual disregard and utter contempt even if he did come off as a spoilt daddy's boy prat. The sense of indifference from this being was almost a tangible force pressing against him.

"If you're going to insult me you may as well do it in a language I bloody understand," Harry said loudly.

Their eyes met and icy daggers instantly plunged into Harry's mind and hacked mercilessly at his Occlumency barriers. Harry groaned under the flurries of alternating bone melting heat and soul freezing ice slicing at his mind.

Alright you bastard, let's go! Harry thought ferociously, sharpening a blade imbued with every insult, implied or otherwise he could conceive of in his native tongue and thrust it into the attacking mind. Narrowly grazing his opponent, Harry watched his weapon tumble from his mental hands only to be greedily devoured by his foe. Willing the distraction to work, Harry almost held his breath. For a fleeting moment Harry and his antagonist eyed each other, one in annoyance as he attempted to look away and the other in growing fascination.

Too slow to move, the assault began anew. Staggering under a renewed effort, Harry's knees buckled as a frozen spike lanced through his defences and in slurry of mystical letters, ancient and black tongues, ideas of grammar, structure and diction all filled his mind. Tacked almost spitefully to the end and secreted within a ball of fire was a list mirroring Harry's own. Harry felt a perverse sense of satisfaction even as his scar burned and a migraine began to throb in his left eye socket. For another lasting moment their gaze held and then it was over.

"Nice to meet you too, you bastard" Harry gasped.

"Likewise," replied smooth tones in an approximation of Harry's own accent. Harry shuddered at the echo. His gaze wandered to the figure's amused smirk and he thought back to the introductory speech while he raised an eyebrow.

"It's good to know that even with apparent eldritch abominations body language and tone of voice still makes up most of the meaning." Harry dusted off his knees as he stood. "D'you normally attack people on first sight or am I just special?" He absent mindedly scratched his itching scar.

"What insolence. Normally those who are privileged with an audience kneel in my presence and accord me with the proper respect," the giant hissed. "Lest their flesh be flayed from their bones and their mind exposed to horror beyond their meagre conceptions." Harry snorted derisively as an image of Voldemort came to mind.

"Yeah yeah, if you say so. I just have to wonder about the sort of respect you had for you to end up wearing chains in the middle of nowhere." Harry panted and stepped closer, careful to remain beyond the figure's enormous reach. His black robes whispered along the ground even as a particularly unfortunate piece of stone snapped under heel. "You're just as dead as I am after all. You aren't in any position to dictate while you're chained to that throne." He observed the coils of the chain binding the giant's form as though it were a great twisting serpent. They strained under the force of the titan's ongoing struggle.

"Dead?" The figure snarled darkly. "We are not in the Halls of Mandos, boy. We have not been granted that reprieve as instead we drift here in the Void of eternal nothingness until our return is willed by higher beings!" The being spat and Harry almost leaned back at the force of the words as the creature's eyes wandered past Harry. "This is not death, but exile!" His gaze refocused upon a nonplussed Harry. "It does raise an interesting question though – what was your failing in purpose for you to receive a fate so similar to mine? You are the first guest I have had in many an age."

"So I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with practically no way to get back to where I was? I'm not sure if that's brilliant or not to be honest," Harry mused. On the bright side, no more Ministry of Magic, on the downside, there's nothing here but there was nothing left back there anyway.

"You did not answer my question!" He rumbled resulting in Harry braving a buffet of scorching winds and drawing his holly wand threateningly. Much to Harry's pleasure a shower of angry red sparks blasted from its tip.

"If you do that again we're going to find out if my Transfiguration skills extend to turning giants into teapots." Harry snarled, holding his wand aloft. "As for the answer to your question-" Harry shrugged indifferently "-I tripped. Nothing too hard to do. As for purposes, can't say I believe in those enough to think I screwed up mine. Never been a huge fan of destiny." Harry felt the wind shift from a searing heat to a more manageable desert temperature and resisted a Cooling Charm. The entity was laughing with the hall itself trembling. Harry could only liken the sensation to being stabbed with burning knives as the laugh resounded with a lack of mirth exceeding the late Tom Riddle. For a moment Harry saw the gleam of blackened armour beneath the shadowy cloak before the heaving settled.

"Ah, a like-minded soul then." The shadowy mass learned forward intently in his restraints. "If we are to be acquainted then I will require your name." Praise Merlin, he wants to be friends, thought Harry sarcastically.

"Harry Potter, not particularly unique but there you go." Harry suspected good old Voldemort was turning in his grave seeing as Harry's name managed to induce pants soiling terror in Dark wizards through deeds alone without need for any moniker. As it turned out associative context worked wonders when the context involved bits of people being blasted across the countryside. When that part of the countryside by cheerful coincidence was Diagon Alley and the said Dark wizard was a high up member of the Ministry it made for a very memorable context. It also made for a very large bounty. In Harry's expert opinion it was entirely worth it.

A tingle travelled up Harry's spine as the air lost its oppressive edge and the being settled in his makeshift throne. The giant's lofty head was inclined and eyes burnt with an unholy light as he spoke:

"I am Melkor."