Disclaimer: I own things, yes I do
Disclaimer: I own things, yes I do. But they're nothing compared to everything about the Harry Potter Universe. I just lend the characters for this little fic, here.
Status: OneShot – complete
Summary: Harry gets a special visitor, when he's asleep.
Beta: IBelieveInMaryWorth (thank you so much, I owe you)
Warnings: This is Slash! If you read it, also you don't like… well, your fault, not mine.
Implied Mpreg, Lemon
Note: This isn't supposed to be blasphemous. If you think of it so, I'm sorry, but can't change it nevertheless.
«Talk»
«Thoughts»
!!Rate and Review!!
Shinigami
He strutted into the room, as though he ruled the world and, in a strange kind of way he actually did. Even the always-creaking door must have found him special, as it had kept quiet when he'd slammed it open roughly.
The night was silent; even the old grandfather clock down the hall didn't dare announce midnight and he went through the room in complete silence.
People might reasonably have thought that, considering who he was, he'd be able to see in total darkness. When he landed on the floor with a quiet 'thud' because he'd stumbled over a mountain of discarded clothes and gotten tangled in his own long cowl, that assumption might be refuted.
«AAAARGH, BOY, can't you keep order! What would people think if I left corpses left, right and centre when the souls have left their bodies?»
He stood up and went over to the huge bed with its sleeping occupant. He looked down at the boy and scrutinised his sleeping form.
«All this ruckus because of one madman with an enormous inferiority complex. Boy, I don't envy you at all.»
«Boy!» he spoke for the first time this night and his voice was deep and clear. Harry Potter lay unaffected in his bed and didn't even stir at the unfamiliar voice next to his bed.
«BOY!» he repeated, this time louder.
Harry groaned in annoyance and stirred slightly.
«Boy, get up. NOW! »
The Golden Boy realised that someone was standing next to his bed and sat up instantly. A hooded form stood in the darkness and stared at him. Well, at least he thought he was being stared at, he couldn't be sure as the hood hid the face entirely. Harry's still sleepy eyes went round and huge when he saw the scythe in one of the foreigner's hands. And to top it all off, the hand was without flesh and skin. Osseous digits curled around the long wooden pole of the scythe and the index finger tapped impatiently against it.
«Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. You're Death.»
Death sighed in annoyance, leaned his pink umbrella against the bed and brought the free hand to his hood, where it vanished completely as in a black hole. Harry heard the scratching sound and assumed that he scratched either his eyebrow or something else at his face, his skull or whatever. Either way, it was obscured by the hood.
«First of, I am not your god. And second…yes, I'm DEATH. You're one of the smart ones, huh?»
Harry's rising panic deflated the moment he saw the pink umbrella and he stared at it, interested but confused, not caring about the sarcastic retort.
«Why do you carry around a pink umbrella?»
Death's bony shoulders slumped in disbelief.
«Is he for real?»
«I don't believe you. Death is standing in front of you, you know, the Grim Reaper, and you're wondering about my umbrella?»
«Well,» Harry looked up and focused on the darkness where a face was supposed to be «You see, I didn't imagine Death would run around with an umbrella, and a pink one at that. But…» The boy fell silent for a moment and pondered the situation. «I've never met you before. So why shouldn't you have a pink umbrella.»
Once he heard that, Death began to lose his patience slowly but steadily. «Listen! God and Akuma sent me to…»
«Akuma?»
«Blimey! Don't they teach the youth of today properly anymore? I mean the Antichrist, Chutriel, Tchort, the Horned God (1), Diabolus, Satan, Beelzebub, den Leibhaftigen, Lucifer…»
«You mean the Devil?»
Death mentally surrendered.
«Yes,» he sighed «I'm talking about the Devil, but he doesn't approve of that name much.»
Harry stared at Death with knitted eyebrows.
«Why not? It's the most popular name for him, isn't it?»
«So much for getting home quickly. Why can't this boy be like all the others and ask me, why I, Death, am here to pay him a visit?»
«You answered yourself, Boy. Because it's the most common name for him. No one feels intimidated anymore, do you? And the Lord needs to maintain a certain amount of reputation. Or - how would you young people say it again? – he has an image to maintain.»
The Boy-Who-Was-Supposed-To-Kill-Another-Lord raised one eyebrow mockingly.
«Oh, and 'Akuma' is so much more intimidating?»
«BOY!» Death's voice boomed through the room and made Harry's skin crawl in quite an uncomfortable way.
«I'm sorry.» The dark-haired boy said, lowering his head «So, eurm, God and A-kuma sent you… why do you call the Devil 'Akuma' and God 'God'?» Harry interrupted his own question with another and looked at Death, who stood totally motionless in front of his bed for the entire time. He heard the low growl of displeasure coming from the cowl-hooded form, but felt brave enough not to wince.
«Okay, Boy,» Death's voice sounded strained. «That'll be the last question I'll answer about that topic. I'm here about an important matter, not to give you a lesson in matters of faith.»
Harry looked a little rueful but curious at the same time.
«Well, the terms 'God' and 'Devil' are more like hypernyms. You know, every religion has their own characterisation for them and calls them by a different name. All in all, it actually leads to one and the same… 'person' would be stupid choice of words… let's say 'Power'. See, there are many names for those two identities, but actually they all mean the same. And 'the Devil', as you call him, opts for 'Akuma' as his name. I don't know why that particular one, but I know it's the Japanese characterisation for him. And God, well, he likes that characterisation because he thinks it sounds mighty.»
Harry looked at Death with one raised eyebrow that implied his doubts.
«Your so called 'Powers' are weirdos.»
Death leaned his scythe against the closest post of Harry's four-poster-bed and crossed his arms in an offended way.
«First off, Boy,»
«It's 'Harry'.»
«First off, a LOT of people would call that statement blasphemous and second…come on, they're just people like we are.»
«Riiight.» The Gryffindor answered while rolling his eyes.
«But now, on with business. God and Akuma sent me…»
«Did they send you to get me? You can't, I'm only 16 years old and I need to kill Voldemort! I haven't…»
«BOOOY!!» Death's voice echoed through the room and Harry saw piercing green dots flaring up inside the hood. «If you interrupt me one more time, I'll make you the next ghost of Hogwarts.»
The dark haired boy bit his lip and looked apologetically at Death.
«As I already said,» Death went on after he'd inhaled in a strained way «God and Akuma have sent me to motivate you.»
«Mo…» Harry saw the green dots again and held his tongue.
Death looked around the room and his gaze landed on an armchair in front of the fireplace. The armchair moved towards him as though it was magnetic and he sat down in it. His bony elbows rested on the armrest and the sleeves of his cowl revealed osseous hands that tapped against each other in front of his ribcage.
«Boy,»
«It. Is. Har-ry.» the boy thought.
«I'm not here to get you before your time. You do have a job to do in this world and your destiny isn't fulfilled yet. Not even close. They want you to want to master the task that was imposed on you, even more than you do, perhaps.»
Death fell silent and Harry looked at him expectantly.
«Oh, uh, am I allowed to speak now?» The hood moved and Harry took it as a nod. «Does that mean, even God and the De…Akuma are against Voldemort?»
«Yes, sort of. They've slightly different reasons, but yes.»
«And they would be?»
«Well, you see…» Death intertwined his fingers and brought them to his chin, at least they vanished in the darkness of his hood. «Over the last few years the fear of Voldemort increased tenfold in the wizarding world. People can't cope with the agony and the uncertainty. To be honest, not many people do believe in your success, because of your inexperience.»
«But I…»
«I know, you've beaten the Lord, as he likes to be called, about, I don't know, four-hundred times? But the world doesn't know about those encounters. They just see the one when you were a baby boy. Quite a cute one, I might say.»
Harry looked at Death as though he stood in front of him under a pink umbrella. The fact that he actually owned one wasn't helpful at all.
«And those hysterical people are the reason the Powers want you to kill Voldemort at all costs.»
«But…but…» deep furrows formed on Harry's forehead «Doesn't that mean they've got to deal with him later on?»
«Yes, of course, Boy, but that's the point… they think it's easier to handle one madman instead of thousands. They're tired of all those wizards that appear every day in Heaven and Hell because they've blown up themselves.»
«Blown themselves up?»
«As I said, they don't trust in you and try to save their own skins. Not such a bad idea, some might say, but the way they go about it is just dim-witted. For example, there's one group that believes in…you call them muggles, right? Well, this group believes in muggle contraptions, in guns to be precise, and what happens?»
«They shoot themselves?» Harry asked in horror.
«Exactly. They end up shooting themselves because they don't know about guns. There's also the people that try to cast complicated charms on themselves they found in ancient books, to guarantee their security. So what happens? Some explode, some implode, some simply deflagrate and so on and why? Because they couldn't read the ancient texts properly or were too stupid to convert old units into new correctly. And all those wizards and witches populate Heaven and Hell now. Some celebrate, because they 'got away' early enough from Voldemort. Others fear that Voldemort will hunt them down even though they're already dead. And others fear you, because they believe you'll be angry with them for not supporting you. And all those imbeciles, as I love to call them, are driving the Powers insane. They don't want anymore of those, you see?»
Harry rested his head on his hand and shook it in disbelief.
«This is the worst nightmare I've ever had. Like it's not enough that I've got to save the wizarding world already? No, now it's Heaven and Hell as well. How stupid can wizards become? Okay,» The Gryffindor looked up and stared at the hooded form in front of him. «Suppose this is all true and I'm not having a really strange dream. What will this motivation that you're talking about be?»
«Okay, so we're supposing that this isn't a dream. It isn't anyway. I will show you your future, or at least you can sneak a peak.»
«That's useless, Dumbledore said that…»
«Argh, that old codger. I'm practically counting the hours until I can use my scythe on him. You're alluding to the prophecy, aren't you? Forget about that, it's all rubbish. There isn't a prophecy. It doesn't exist. It's just one of the old dork's ideas to prepare you. There are two possible ways that the final battle can come to an end. Either you'll die and Voldemort will take control over the wizarding world with an iron grip or you'll kill him and will bring a bright future to the whole world. It's that simple.»
«That simple?»
«That simple, exactly. And that's why I'm here. The Powers want to give you an incentive to destroy Tom Riddle. Actually it's not my job to do that, you should know that, but just hear me out.»
Harry just nodded. He still had his head buried in his hands and couldn't believe what he was hearing. Dumbledore had lied again and about something as essential as his life. And who'd told him this news? Death, for fucks sake, on behalf of God and the Devil. What the bloody hell was wrong with him? Actually, maybe he shouldn't be cursing Hell considering who he was with. The Gryffindor threw his legs over the edge of his bed and looked at Death.
«Okay, fine, show me my future.»
If he wasn't mistaken, he could have sworn he'd heard Death snort.
«Today must be your lucky day. Not only are you allowed to see things no one has ever seen before, but you can choose the times as well.»
Harry lifted a questioning eyebrow and looked at the Grim Reaper as though he was questioning his sanity. But Death wasn't the slightest bit offended and went on unimpressed.
«The Powers will allow you three peeks. Which means you can look into three different situations of your life. You tell me three different ages of your choice and the situation you'll see will be chosen by Faith. Any questions?»
The dark haired boy was flabbergasted. Was this just a crazy dream? It seemed so real, too real to be precise. But what did he have to lose? Nothing actually, Harry thought. He could play along and dream the dream, if it was one, and of that he wasn't completely sure anymore.
«No.» he mumbled.
«Very well, then I would like to hear the first age of your choice. I would advise a random number to begin with.»
«Eurm, oh, uh, well, how about, uhm, 34?»
Death stood up, grabbed his pink umbrella and put it up. Without warning the room began spinning around him and everything went blurry for a second. Harry closed his eyes to fight the feeling of nausea and landed suddenly on hard stone floor on his bum. He opened his eyes and glared at Death who stood next to him, with his pink umbrella above him.
«Next time, you could give me a warning.»
«Sorry.» The amusement was clearly audible.
Harry looked around and noticed the Hogwarts platform 9 ¾. Adults, children and teens bustled around and, to his horror, through him. It must be the beginning of another school year, he thought and wondered why he was here when he was 34.
«Follow me, Boy.» Harry heard Death speak and trailed after him in defeat. The skeleton in a cowl would never call him Harry.
They came to a halt, close to the train, and Harry saw a man kneeling in front of a beautiful little girl that pouted mercilessly. He walked around the pair and gasped. The man was him, only older. He had long curly hair, well-trimmed beard and no glasses, just his shinning green eyes looking at the girl pleadingly.
«You can hear them, if you concentrate on him being you.» He heard Death advising.
Harry closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated on the man that was supposed to be him.
«But Daddy, that's not fair.»
Harry gasped. This cute little girl was his daughter? How? She had blond hair that fell in curls over her shoulders. He edged around so that he faced the girl and he could see that she had his eyes. A pride that he hadn't felt before in his sixteen years of life occupied his chest. The Gryffindor concentrated again and listened closely.
«I know, Etamina, but I told you Dad will come. He promised.»
«But all the other parents are already here. And I won't leave without Dad hugging me.»
«I know,» the older Harry sighed «you already said that. But it's not Dad's fault that he's late…»
«It's the Ministry's.»
«…and he'll come for sure.»
Etamina hugged her Daddy and kissed him on the cheek.
«Will you miss me, Daddy?»
So this girl would be his daughter? And he would have a man by his side? His eyes wandered to the left hand of his older self and saw the silver ring – a husband; he would have a husband by his side. Who would he be? What would he be like? The only thing he knew was that he would be blond. He saw the girl's eyes getting big and shining and she let go of his older self.
«Dad. Dad. Dad.»
She ran right through him, which threw him off for a moment. He watched the older Harry getting up and flashing a smile in his direction, but his eyes were focused on someone behind him.
He would see his future husband. He just needed to turn around now. Harry turned his torso first and felt the spinning again.
The next moment he was back in his bedroom and stumbled over the pile of discarded clothes. Death seemed happy about that.
«Why did you do that? Why didn't you let me see him? Why?» Harry punched the laundry angrily.
«Now, now, Boy, don't be unreasonable. I told you, I don't choose the moments you're allowed to witness and I told you also that they would be peeks, which means they are limited in time.»
Harry crawled out of the laundry and sat on the floor, staring at the floor absentmindedly.
«This girl will be my daughter. What did I call her again? Etamina? And I will have someone who'll love me and will marry me and will live with me and want to have children with me. I want this. I need this.»
Death had closed his umbrella the moment they'd reached the boy's room again and he poked him with it hard.
«OWW! What was that for?»
«If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were an ungrateful brat. I sacrifice my precious time for you and you don't even listen to me when I talk to you, you just drift off into your own little world. Look what you've done, getting all worked up about that event – everything in the room is vibrating. Stop it! It's not good for my scythe.»
Harry stood up and glared at Death. Not many people could say they had done that.
«If you had let see me him, I wouldn't have damaged your bloody scythe.»
«BOOOOYY!» Harry saw the green dots ignite again in the depths of Death's hood and felt a little stupid for taking his anger out on the Grim Reaper.
«If you're that eager to see who he is, why don't you tell me the next age you'd like to see? Then we can get on with this little game. You're starting to get on my nerves.»
«The girl is from my husband?»
«How am I supposed to know, Boy? I'm concerned with life after death, not with life before birth.» Death grumbled.
«Okay, okay, I get it…» «Think Harry, think! Etamina was on her first ride to Hogwarts; that means she was eleven. I was thirty-four. If I'm lucky, I could see her father in the future when I'm twenty-two. Oh my god, I'll be with child when I'm twenty-three. Oh my god, oh my god… does that mean I'll have killed Voldemort before then?»
«Are you done squashing your head? It won't help anyway.»
Again, Harry glared at Death, feeling it become easier every time.
«22»
«Very well.»
Death put his umbrella up again and Harry saw his room spinning again. He held his hand in front of his eyes but felt his insides churn nevertheless. The pace slowed down and he stood still in his room again.
«Eurm, did something go wrong?» he asked Death, who looked rather hilarious with his pink umbrella and, to be honest, looked a lot less intimidating and credible.
«I. Don't. Think. So. Damn it, why do I have to see THIS? Isn't it enough that I have to deal with this task? You'll find me in the bathroom.»
Harry watched Death with a confused look as he vanished into the bathroom. He turned around slowly, curious as to what Death had to complain about, and almost choked on his own tongue.
Two guys. Two guys on his bed. Two guys, having sex on his bed.
He'd wanted to know who Etamina's Dad would be, but this was a little too explicit. If this was the night when Etamina would be conceived, Faith had a strange sense of humour.
Golden Boy was torn. On one hand he felt horribly embarrassed and his cheeks burned, although he knew one of the men was him. On the other hand, he was close to exploding with curiosity about who the other man was. Curiosity got the best of him and he went closer to the bed.
His eyes closed, he concentrated on his older self again and suddenly heard the pants and moans of the two 'occupied' men.
«Please stop. Don't tease me like that.»
The other man leaned over him and Harry noticed his firm, sexy behind. His eyes wandered up and travelled over milk white skin stretching over broad, gorgeous shoulders. He saw long blond hair that ought to be tied back in a ponytail. Strands had loosened in the heat of the moment and hid the face of the mysterious man from Harry's eyes.
«It's our wedding night, baby, did you really think I'd let you go that easily?»
Harry shivered at the deep, husky voice and saw his older equivalent doing the same. He watched when the blonde inserted a finger to stretch him and felt his pants becoming tight. He saw himself squirming on the bed and felt jealous of his own future self. His dick was played with in front of him and his hand went down to his own hardness, stroking it unconsciously.
Harry felt ashamed about the voyeuristic aspect of the situation. After all this was an intimate moment that he was disrupting, but he couldn't turn his eyes away.
The blond man turned him around and lifted him up so that he kneeled on all fours, and entered him slowly. The older Harry craned his neck to look at the man that leaned over him and the younger Harry saw the ecstasy flashing through his eyes. The two newly-weds shared a slow sultry kiss and his future husband began to thrust into him.
The Gryffindor concentrated on eavesdropping again, hoping it would distract him from the straining erection he sported.
«Ah, aaah, yes,» his older self panted and his younger self realised that he now knew how he looked when he was, well… «Fuck, yes, Draco, harder. Please...»
Harry's knees got weak and he sank down on the ground. He watched the blonde in pure shock. The man who fucked him right now, and leaned over him to kiss his neck, was… was… was DRACO MALFOY??
That couldn't be right. «We hate each other. Well, maybe hate is too harsh a word.»
He watched Malfoy's every thrust, unable to deny the excitement he felt. Being Draco Malfoy's boyfriend, husband, carrying his child – it all had an appealing effect on Harry. Malfoy was beautiful, he never had a problem admitting it, he was intelligent and Harry was certain that behaving like such a git was just a mask to hide his real self.
Death came out of the bathroom and held his umbrella aside, to conceal the bed from his sight. Harry knew it was time.
«I love you, Harry.» That was the last thing he heard coming from Draco's mouth, before the room spun again like a funfair thrill ride.
The bed was empty. No scent of sex lingered in the air. They were back in the present. Death closed his pink umbrella and sat down in the armchair that stood close to Harry's bed.
«Much better. Much, much better.» He mumbled to himself and disregarded Harry entirely.
The dark haired boy leaned against one post of his four-poster bed and was again absorbed in his thoughts, not even noticing when the scythe began to slip.
Just to make it plain… he'd marry Draco Malfoy, would have a child with him and apparently he'd be providential. That is, if he killed Voldemort. But did he want to be with Malfoy? The thought made him all hot and giddy.
Slivers of his potential wedding night flashed his mind and he hurried into his bathroom. It would be the first time that he'd touch himself while thinking of Draco. When the scythe fell to the ground because he'd bumped against it in his rush, it didn't even reach his consciousness.
«If you damage my scythe one more time, I might just catch your throat with it! I really wondered how long it would take you to run into your bathroom to take care of that boner you were sporting.» Death said when Harry came out of his bathroom, making the Gryffindor blush furiously.
«What would you know about erections?» Harry tried to cover up his embarrassment and the fact that he'd chagrined Death again.
«Hey, hey don't get cheeky here, boy! I was once alive as well. It's just been a while. But that doesn't mean we didn't have to deal with the same problems back then.»
«If he wiggles his eyebrow now, I'll shoot myself. No one would ever believe I'd had that kind of talk with Death. I wouldn't have believed it either.» Harry thought and suppressed a mental groan.
If someone had told him yesterday that he, Harry Potter, would want to kill Voldemort so he could have a future with Draco Malfoy, he would've called the healers to lock them away at Saint Mungos. But now…he didn't think about anything else. He would go to war here and now and would kill Voldemort without scruples to get what he'd seen in those so-called peeks of his future.
But how should he and Dra…Mal… damn it, Draco, become an item? The blond Slytherin hated him with a passion. After all they had been enemies at school for six years now, he'd helped to arrest Draco's father and they'd gotten into serious fist fights more than once. Colourful insults and colourful bruises.
Looked at in that light, everything seemed more like a dream than before. He had one more chance to find out if this was a dream or if Death was really sitting in his favourite armchair and staring at him right now.
Harry shook his head to clear his mind and focused on Death.
«Ah, have we awoken from our daydream? Will you tell me the final age of your choice now? It's already taken longer than I'd hoped for. You know, people don't die of their own accord.»
The-Boy-Who-Lived grumbled something that sounded like «But they won't get away from you either.»
,but kept it low, so as not to provoke Death anymore.
Death arose and went over to Harry.
«So?»
«Show me my next year?»
«Huh?»
«Awesome, Death is slow-witted.»
«17.»
The umbrella was put up for the third and last time and Harry closed his eyes quickly, before the room started spinning again.
«Oh my, that will take me some time to deal with.»
Harry wondered what Death referred to again and opened his eyes.
Dirt. Smoke. Fire. Ruins. Grey. Everything was chaos and Harry saw what Death had meant. Corpses. Corpses everywhere. All over the place like a battlefield. A battlefield, that's it, it was a battlefield. Harry looked around frantically and saw a little group of four in the middle of the scene of devastation. He ran closer and saw shredded clothes, blood and dirt crusted faces and tears. A lot of tears.
He himself lay in Malfoy's strong arms and looked almost dead. Hermione and Ron stood next to them and he could see their black despair. They just watched their two forms, Draco and himself, kneeling on the ground, and stayed silent in their defencelessness.
Harry felt tears welling up in his eyes and forced himself to concentrate.
«Baby, baby, answer me!» he heard Draco babble desperately «Wake up! You promised me that you wouldn't leave me alone. Harry, please, baby, open your eyes. Say something. Cough at least. Come on. You can't die now. I wanted to propose to you after this shite here. I'll hunt you down, if you'll leave me now. Haaaarry!»
The blonde began shaking his unconscious body. Quiet coughs escaped his older self's mouth and he felt tears of relief running down his face.
«Draco.» he coughed and the Slytherin tightened his embrace around his badly injured body.
«You're awake. You're alive. I thought I'd lost you. God, Harry, don't do that ever again.»
Ron and Hermione sank to their knees in relief, when Draco pressed his lips gently against Harry's.
Death stepped to his side and put a bony hand on his shoulder that jerked him out the scene.
«It's time to say farewell. But let me remind you, this'll be your future, provided that you defeat Tom Riddle. You know the other way, don't you? I know it'll be hard, Mr Potter, but the fact that this version of your future already exists, shows that you can master this obstacle. Faith wouldn't have weaved it without cause.»
Harry didn't even have the chance to answer. The room began spinning again and everything went black.
Harry awoke with a start.
Mrs Black was screaming bloody murder down the entrance hall and swearing vilely. Golden Boy jumped out of his bed and ran down the stairs. Mrs Black could be screaming because someone had rung the doorbell. Harry was alone.
He came to a halt in the hall and threw a curse at the Black woman's picture to shut her up and close the hangings in front of her. In front of the door he paused for a moment to control his breathing. His hand went to the handle and he opened the door.
Draco Malfoy stood in front of him looking insecure.
«Mo-Morning Potter. Dumbledore told me your address and, eurm, wants me to stay here.»
Harry looked at him in disbelief and the whole last night flashed through his mind in seconds. He bit his lower lip bashfully and stepped aside.
«Come in, Draco.»
END
Explanations:
Shinigami is the Japanese Death
The name of the girl: Etamin is the brightest star in the Dragon constellation. Maybe you can suppose why I've chosen it for a name. It's rather hard for me to explain. I just added an 'a' for the feminine sound.
The pink umbrella of Death: I borrowed that idea from a hilarious comic
the German version: www.cartoontomb.de/deutsch/tod.php
the English version: www.cartoontomb.de/english/death.php
(1) I am NOT referring to the God worshipped by Wiccans. So, please don't take offence. Thank you to Skeledog Lover for informing me about this lapse. I had no idea, because I'm not religious.
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