Harry Potter and the Sunshine in Spring

Even great wizards aren't infallible; when Dumbledore makes a mistake on that cold Thursday night, the predestined Master of Death meets Death early, and Death is none too keen on having a master. Character Death and Rebirth; Harry Potter may have breathed his last but Haruno Haru has just breathed his first, and the two most unimaginatively named children in Konoha are about to shake up the story.

WARNING: Story features Violence, Death, Bad Language and Icha Icha.

Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner, he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.

'Good luck, Harry,' he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak he was gone.*

A chill breeze rustled its way down the street, heavy with omen and the smell of promised frost. Dew gathered on the perfectly square lawns of Privet Drive. On the Dursleys' doorstep, young Harry Potter rolled over in his blankets and dislodged his letter with a soft swish. Had this been any other doorstep, the letter might have snagged on a worn welcome mat, in a crack in the concrete or long stemmed weed hugging defiantly to the step. The letter would have remained close to the baby, and the enchantments that Dumbledore had placed upon it would have done their work, and the baby would have been safe. Alas, this was Petunia Dursley's doorstep, and Petunia Dursley's doorstep was so spotlessly clean and smooth that one could eat off it, if one was inclined to be so uncouth. Petunia Dursley's doorstep had nothing at all to halt a wayward letter, and so as quietly as the letter fell it was gathered up by the breeze and whisked away down the street to somewhere quite far from Privet Drive. Eventually, it would snag on a graveyard hedgerow, and the squirrels that lived there would fight over it, tear it up, and drag it up into their nests for the winter.

On the doorstep, Young Harry Potter shivered.

The fabric of reality rippled like a veil in the wind. For the swiftest of seconds a muted whisper could be heard, as if a heavy curtain had been pulled away from the door of a crowded room. Then reality dropped back into place, and as soon as the sound had come there was silence. Death stepped onto Privet Drive with a purpose. A soul was wavering, here. He could feel it.

Death stepped purposefully down the street, like a bloodhound on a scent. Souls bared themselves to Death as he passed; the house of Mrs. Figg, nine years of life remaining, respiratory disease caused by the hoarding of cats; the house of Piers Polkiss, ninety-three years, gangrene following an ill-fated mountaineering effort; and his parents, sixty and fifty-eight respectively, pneumonia and fatal stroke… Death passed silently through the hedge of number four; Vernon Dursley, thirty-four years, second heart attack; and paused over a bundle of blankets on the doorstep.

Harry Potter; twenty three seconds, exposure…

The dawn lifted the morning dew into a thin fog. Bands of red crept over the rooftops, casting a dull glow over the street. It was into this eerie scene that Death carried the soul of Harry Potter. The mist swirled around the hem of his cloak, rising steadily until, with a hurried press of whispers, Privet Drive disappeared and the place that was not quite King's Cross station took shape around them. Death examined the soul of Harry Potter critically; this waif was destined to be the Master of Death, wielder of the Hallows. His master. With a derogatory snort, Death raised his scythe. SLASH. He ran the blade clean through the child's forehead. Impaled on the point was a grotesque approximation of a child's body, twisted and flailing.

The soul he had been denied... In the recesses of his hood, Death bared his teeth in a gruesome grin.

'You wished to fly from me, didn't you, soul?' whispered Death. The abomination thrashed wildly, howling, malformed limbs trying to free its soul of the scythe. 'Fly,' said Death.

With a clicking flick of his wrist, he sent the soul flying from the tip of his blade and soaring through the window of the awaiting train. The window shut itself. The howling suddenly and abruptly cut off.

No soul could evade Death.

Death looked upon the soul of Harry Potter once more. Death crossed his arms. So this was the boy destined to become Master of Death. He cocked his skull. Free of the taint, the child might have become worthy of his Hallows, but… Death did not want a Master. Death didn't need a Master. Death did not need to be mastered; he didn't need to be controlled. He was not reckless and impulsive, as DEATH was want to be; the DEATH OF RATS was proof enough of that, let alone that debacle with the apprentice and the girl. He was not Grim, so easily tricked as to be enslaved by mere children. He was not chaotic and greedy like Shinigami…

Ah.

Death grinned his fearsome grin once more. He gathered up the soul of Harry Potter and retreated from the train, heading down the platform. Reaping the soul of the predestined Master of Death was no guarantee, after all, objects of importance found their way through the veil all the time, as burial favours, accidental losses, even destruction of evidence. But then again, his was not the only veil, and he was not the only reaper of souls…

The mist swirled and condensed, taking on new forms; gleaming tiles, pillars and stairs; an underground station. This was no steam train, but a bullet train, all smooth, streamlined edges and crisp lines, named in stark black kanji along its side. With a gentle swoosh the doors parted at his approach. Death laid the soul of Harry Potter on the floor of the carriage, dead centre, and retreated with a mocking wave. From behind the yellow line, Death met the eyes of the soul formerly known as Harry Potter with his own, fiery, gaze.

'Nothing personal', said Death, and with that the doors slammed shut, and the train sped out of the station, indeed, like a bullet. It went backwards.

The soul formerly known as Harry Potter felt warmth, then discomfort and sudden cold. Colours blurred into one another and voices bubbled and mumbled. He might have thought it akin to drowning in treacle, if the soul formerly called Harry Potter had known to compare it to that. And all was overlaid by a whisper, whisper, whisper like wind in the trees, getting louder and quieter with the rhythmic, persistent pressure against his back. Then, a sudden, shrill wail pierced through like a hot spoon in a honey pot and sound and light burst into his awareness with sharp, startling clarity. The cry shot down into him, hitting something primal, something instinctual that triggers only when one child opens its lungs in the presence of another. The soul, formerly known as Harry Potter, answered the only way it could.

The child opened his lungs and wailed right back. Haruno Kizashi burst into relieved, half-hysterical sobs.

'He's crying, Mebuki! Thank Kami, he's crying!'

He almost snatched his son from the attending nurses, cradling him with his bristly cheek pressed against the little boy's chubby one, cooing and blubbering and completely failing to calm the baby. The midwife checked and swaddled the second baby with professional bustle, announcing to the room at large, but the parents in particular that it was a girl. She was settled quickly into her mother's arms, where she promptly stopped crying, and so did he.

'It was her,' the happy father told Mebuki with a teary grin; 'she called him back.'

Haruno Mebuki merely held out her arms for her son. The midwife and nurses helped her clean up, gathered the afterbirths in a towel for a respectful burial, and quietly left the room exchanging discrete high-fives. For one heart-stopping moment, there had been only one healthy Haruno baby. It was almost creepy how quickly and suddenly the little boy had come back, the very minute his twin cried! It was a good thing nurses weren't superstitious women. The Harunos barely noticed the women leave, so engrossed were they in their new, perfect little family. Kizashi took a spot next to his wife and leaned over to examine his baby girl.

'My hair was this colour when I was born,' said Kizashi, running the pad of his finger over his little girl's downy baby-fuzz.

'So she'll be a pinkette too, hmm?'

'Pinkette isn't a word, Mebuki…'

Mebuki looked at him expressionlessly. 'I had a thirteen hour labour,' she stated, like she was reading a mission report, 'thirteen hours of excruciating pain. Over half a day. I tore my-.'

'Pinkette is an excellent word, dear.'

Kizashi looked a little green at the thought and she didn't miss the way he suddenly re-crossed his legs. Mebuki snickered. Somehow she figured their children wouldn't be getting the Talk from their father… Kizashi rested his head against her shoulder. He always disarmed her with his thoughtlessly affectionate gestures.

'You did it, Mebuki' he whispered, shifting the baby in his arms so that their son and daughter were side by side. Mebuki quickly blinked the moistness from her eyes. The two babies were sleepy eyed, skin pink from the midwife's rubbing. The little girl was born with a soft coating of peach fuzz atop her head, but the little boy was near hairless. Aside from the different colours of their swaddles there were few immediate differences in the twins.

'I want to call her Sakura,' she said.

'I want to call him Haru,' said Kizashi.

Mebuki reared back, shoulder accidently smacking her husband's ear.

'Haru? Haruno Haru? That is the worst- The most unimaginative-'

Kizashi raised his eyebrows, rubbing his ear with his free hand. 'Yes. No take-backs. You said I could name him.'

'Yes, but when I said you could pick the name for a boy; I expected you'd call him Mebuichi or something.'

Kizashi gasped. 'You want Mebuichi but I don't get a Kizako? Vain, woman, vain.' He waggled a finger and prodded her gently in the nose.

'But Haruno Haru…'

'Oh shush, I let you have Sakura. If it makes you feel better, we can spell it with different kanji. 'Sunshine' maybe. Hm?'

Mebuki groaned her despair to the ceiling. Kizashi cackled cheerfully, rubbing noses with the newly named Haru.

'Cherry Blossoms in Spring and Sunshine in Spring**,' he grinned, toothily. 'They're going to hate us.'

Mebuki began to gently knock her head against the wall behind her.

The neighbourhood was awoken by Petunia Dursley's scream, when she opened the door to put out the milk bottles. The poor woman collapsed in hysterics at the sight of her sister's glassy eyed child on the doorstep, and had to be led away by a policewoman to be wrapped in a blanket and given tea. For once, the nosiness of the neighbours was not unwelcome; they confirmed the child had never been seen at number four before. When the child was found to have died in the early morning, it was suspected that the parents had abandoned the child, uncaring of the consequences of leaving a baby on a concrete step, in November. A search commenced for the elusive parents.

When questioned, Petunia could give no reason why her sister had chosen to abandon the child on the step, without so much as ringing the bell. She stated that she'd not seen hide nor hair of her sister since Lily had been sent to a boarding school, of which Petunia couldn't remember the name, and stuck to it.

'She didn't even come to my wedding,' she told the policewoman, and anyone else that asked.

When pressed, Petunia was able to recall that her sister had been friends with a rude and unpleasant boy in the neighbourhood, who had been sent to the same school by his parents. Name of Snape, as she recalled, though mostly what she remembered of him was his dropping a tree branch on her head, quite deliberately. When the gossip mill got hold of that one, the general feeling in the neighbourhood was that poor Petunia Dursley had had the misfortune to be saddled with a delinquent sister who was sent to some kind of correctional school, along with her hooligan friends. Petunia did absolutely nothing to quell these rumours, of course.

Petunia Dursley buried the body of her nephew in the cemetery of a local, respectable church. She made sure that the gossips on her street saw her carrying flowers to place there, and in so doing, she felt quite vindicated in her dislike of all things freakish, and went back to adamantly insisting she had no sister. People mistook it for bravery and righteous shame and strong moral code, and that was just fine with Petunia.

Privately though, she remembered Lily's dinner table rants of prejudice among the freaks. The idea that freaks like that took issue with nice, normal people had offended Petunia's sensibilities like nothing else. Lily had married into one of those freak families, and she only remembered that because at least it wasn't that horrible Snape boy. This mode of thinking led her to wonder if the child had not been freaky enough, and been thus cast aside. Petunia could think of no other reason that her sister's family would try to dump a child of theirs on her nice, normal family.

She mourned the possibility that her poor nephew had died for his normalness.

'Just proves you were right about those freaks, love,' Vernon said, when she confessed this to him in the dead of night. 'Poor kid's probably better off.'

Haruno Haru, I imagine, is the equivalent of calling your son John Johnson. But hey, these were the parents that named their pink-haired daughter Sakura in canon, which is a bit like calling your blonde kid Buttercup.

As for the Dursley interlude: had Petunia never had a handy dandy note explaining the situation, I rather suspect this is the conclusion she might have come to. After all, she hasn't spoken to her sister in years and has no way of knowing that Lily and James are dead.

*Rowling, J.K (1997) Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Bloomsbury Publishing Co. Page 18

The alternate incarnations of Death, in order, are Terry Pratchett's Discworld series' Death and Death of Rats©, Cartoon Network's (Atoms, M) Grim from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy © and, of course, Shinigami © Naruto manga and anime series by Masashi Kishimoto.

**Roughly translated, the literal name meanings of Haruno Sakura, and Haruno Haru (spelt with kanji for sunshine) respectively.