Chapter 8

"In my home world, I am the Master of Death."

Silence ensued, a suffocating thing as Glorfindel and Elrond peered at the Hallows in Harry's lap with varying degrees of calculation and disbelief. In short order, Elrond recovered his wits and formulated his response – a dry remark, conveying the Elf lord's wary incredulity.

"This story gives little in the way of answers and more in the way of questions."

Harry, despite the precarious nature of the situation, smiled a little bitterly at that, and with a half-hearted shrug offered, "Ask away, Lord Elrond. And you as well Glorfindel. Although I cannot guarantee answers to all questions."

Certainly, Harry would not willingly recount his trip to the Halls of Mandos. That would be far too alarming, and it was private – a pleasant, if unsettling, memory to treasure as his last of Hermione and Ron. Perhaps another time, if it became more relevant.

Glorfindel and Elrond exchanged a brief glance, and it seemed they shared their queries and conclusions in that spare moment before the blond Elf began, with an unexpected softness in his questions, "You say yours is a mixed heritage, that of a part Elf. All Half-Elven and their descendants are accounted for, Dominic," at the mention of his alias Harry gave consideration to revealing his name, but there was no time as Glorfindel barreled onward.

"Either you cannot be as you say you are, or you are indeed from an unreachable and unknown land. What can you tell us of this place you called home?"

In that moment Harry perceived Glorfindel's openness in his question for what it was – friendship, and a wish to leave old wounds to heal. Glorfindel knew Harry's harshness for what it was – a cloak to hide behind, a shield against the harms that had once come his way – and did not wish to force the wizard to reveal more than he liked.

It was an epiphany to realize that he had made a friend after years of solitude, and above all this was a friend he could well and truly keep. The realization set Harry off balance, unpleasantly shocking yet warming all at once. Affection was a hard emotion to readjust to.

Pulling himself back to the present conversation, Harry gave the bare minimum. Even if he were woven into the fabric of time, there was no need to provide unwarranted peeks into the future. He gave a morsel more of the truth, "My home may well be considered gone now. There are no means, magical or otherwise, that can take me home now. All that can be done is to wait until the means present themselves."

A veiled allusion to time travel was good enough in Harry's opinion, and it seemed the implications were not entirely lost on the Elves by the looks of their revelatory expressions. Harry didn't know if they had leapt to time travel as the explanation, but whatever they thought must have been astonishing in its own right.

"I see," Elrond commented mildly – Harry truly appreciated the Elf's capacity for understatement and aplomb – before pursuing another line of questioning, "Through these Hallows you have transformed a mortal shell into one that more closely resembles your heritage as an Elf. How did these artifacts come to you? And what changes have followed for yourself in this transformation?"

Harry pondered the inquiries for a moment as he returned the Hallows to his pocket. Truthfully he wasn't certain why the Hallows came to him – the confluence of dumb luck, fate, and sheer willfulness was all he could cobble together. As for the changes, he hadn't yet dared to fully experiment with the Hallows to see the extent of his powers, and he feared his ultimate fate as he fell in the liminal space between Man and Elf.

"I should say they came to me through luck and fate. I was a child of prophecy, and as I took steps to fulfill the prophecy, the Hallows became interwoven in my own fate. I never looked for them to become as I am now."

Harry paused to fiddle with the veil that had previously covered his lifeless form, uncomfortably contemplating the strange space he occupied as not fully Man, nor Elf, nor Wizard, and he said, "I do not know what changes wait for me. I do know I cannot stay dead, although I have only been killed a few times, and through mostly conventional means."

For a moment, Harry wondered morbidly if decapitation could truly kill him, as he had only suffered three killing curses and a well-placed arrow. He didn't wish to find out, if only to avoid a messy revival.

The Elves absorbed the information that Harry provided, seeming to mull over the strange tale and stranger answers. Harry could see that there were more questions awaiting him, but he hoped – perhaps futilely – that Elrond and Glorfindel would be satisfied to ask only the essentials. As he expected more questions, Harry was bewildered by Elrond's next words.

"These Hallows are gifts from Death itself, you say, yet there is but one entity that claims Death as his dominion – Mandos. If these are the work of Mandos perhaps one who has spent some days in the Halls of Mandos can recognize the products of his labors."

Glorfindel's brows drew upward as he – and Harry – at once understood Elrond's meaning. Slowly, with the hesitance of one approaching an untamed, unpredictable animal, the blond Elf turned to Harry and extended his right hand.

"If you permit it, I would look at these artifacts closer. One ought to do."

Once again, Harry reminded himself that these two – immortal as they were – would have no use for all three Hallows. However, one was treacherously destructive, and the other an indispensable tool for deception. The only one suited to this task was the Resurrection Stone, and so Harry withdrew it reluctantly, glad that he had not elucidated each artifact's purpose and power in detail. For all the Elves knew, Harry had simply grabbed the "powerful weapon" he had mentioned earlier, although they were certainly clever enough to deduce that he had given them the least dangerous of the three and so unlikely to be a weapon.

The wizard placed the stone in Glorfindel's hand, his gaze wandering from the stone to the Elf's own countenance, and settling on the Elf's own intent expression. There was no greed in Glorfindel's eyes, no malicious intent – Harry had never seen as much in the Elf – and Harry was reassured, put at ease by the Elf's analytical frown.

After several minutes of careful inspection, Glorfindel ventured, "I cannot say for certain, but it is a familiar sensation. I would not say it is unrelated to the works of Mandos. However, I would need more time with the object, and more meditation on my memories, to make a sounder guess."

He handed the stone back to Harry, as simply as one would with a mere trinket.

Elrond commented, "That is enough as it is. I have a guess, then, as to the origins and potential purpose of these Hallows. However, I would hear more of your prophecy, Dominic, if I am to make a sound judgment."

Of course, the prophecy – always the damned prophecy. There would be no half-truths here, not with this part of the story, not with a history so complex, so rife with conflict, so full of terrible consequence. He could, however, spare them most details save the most important.

Harry summoned his courage, and began his abbreviated tale, "I was born destined to challenge a man who called himself Lord Voldemort – a tyrant and murderer. It was stated in the prophecy that either he would die, or I would. And so he attempted to destroy his would-be vanquisher before the child could become a threat, yet his plan backfired. I survived, was marked his equal, and he was sent to the brink of death, reduced to a shadow of a man."

He paused, gathering his thoughts and considering how to pare that latter half of his tale down to the minimum, then continued.

"This Lord Voldemort was a man obsessed with death, and avoiding it. So he pursued all means of immortality – hence his survival in our first encounter. He pursued ultimate power as well, and so became enthralled with the Hallows – the weapon in particular. His interest in the Hallows, and my inheritance of one, brought the Hallows to me in the moments leading to one of our final confrontations. I was meant to die in that meeting, for I was the final tether that leashed his soul to the mortal plane. But because the Hallows had come to me, I did not die, and so in our final confrontation, when Voldemort attempted to use my Hallow against me, I prevailed. The prophecy was fulfilled."

Elrond, with the barest moment of pause to consider his thoughts, brought forth his own conjecture, "It seems that you were indeed destined to master these Hallows, these very Hallows that may be the labors of Mandos, the Vala of Death. I cannot guess the reasons as to why Mandos would place such treacherous objects in the world, or in a world so different from our own, but a reason there must be. Could it be mere happy accident that a child of prophecy would master such objects, made by the Vala whose dominion is also prophecy and doom?"

The Elf Lord let his query suspend between them, and the air was laden with implications. The inferred proclamation, much as it may have been an extraordinary guess, made a certain sense to Harry. He had not been Master of Death as a child, and yet he had survived; it may have been his mother, or it may have been this Vala of Death and Doom. Perhaps Mandos – whom Harry had considered a mythical figure until this day – was truthfully behind Harry's continued survival, and Harry's mastering of the Hallows.

The reason and means of his visit with Ron and Herimone, and the truth of the voice that ushered him back to life, became less ambiguous by the moment.

Harry found his thoughts swerving into uncharted territory – no time like the present for an existential crisis after all – as he pondered whether his existence, his entire path to the present, was fated and contrived. It was like hearing the whole prophecy again for the first time. Then again, he didn't know if it truly mattered that it was contrived. If the details of his existence had been arranged, there would be little he could do to change that, as it had already been planned thoroughly, without an ounce of his input. But would that be so terrible? It felt to him that all decisions made of his own will had only ever backfired with alarming consistency.

Yet, perhaps his failures born of free will were also arranged. Was free will a simple illusion as well?

Something of his dazed emotional state must have presented itself in his expression, as Elrond settled his palm – substantial, heavy, a tether to reality – against Harry's shoulder, prodding the wizard to lay back.

"Rest. It is enough that you have answered what you have. When you feel well again, consider my words."

Numbly, and grateful for Elrond's timely interruption of his increasingly surreal thoughts, Harry nodded. The darker Elf lord departed with a small smile, a crinkling of the eyes' corners, and left Glorfindel to the task of reassuring the younger man.

"Do not worry overmuch, Dominic. Lord Elrond is wise, and his words may hold the truth – or they may not. We cannot know without a sign from Mandos himself, can we?"

Harry wondered if he had already been given the sign, with his vision in the Halls of Mandos and all. He reigned in his wandering thoughts, and gave Glorfindel a wan grimace, "Of course."

"You are overwrought, my friend, as one should be after such an ordeal," the blond Elf rose to his feet, and gently laid a heavier covering over Harry after stripping the death veil away. "I will return on the morrow, and you had best take this chance to rest undisturbed. The twins will be impossible to restrain in the morn."

Glorfindel stood for a moment, and Harry perceived the Elf's fatigue – not physical, but emotional – and deep relief, paired with a burgeoning fondness that Harry did not fully comprehend. Guilt seized him very suddenly – for having caused worry, and for his many deceptions.

"I apologize, friend, for being so burdensome. I fear that it is a just punishment to leave the twins with me for a long while." The young man smiled, and while it was brittle at the corners, it was genuine and warm. Glorfindel, meanwhile found himself inordinately pleased with the guileless use of such a simple endearment from one so emotionally void as the wizard.

"So it will be," Glorfindel remarked, a teasing smirk alighting his visage as he set toward the hall. "You have to do naught but call if you need, even for the slightest of things. Be well, Dominic."

Ah, there was still the matter of his name to attend to. Harry could not find it in himself to stop Glorfindel as he eased the door closed, though, for a piece of knowledge that would likely seem rather trivial. The wizard still remembered, though, that names had power, even though the Elves perhaps did not care or utilize such arts. He did not know yet, though, if there were others who did practice those arts outside the Elven haven.

Moreover, a better time would present itself. He would rather not have to reintroduce himself a dozen times over. With a promise to himself that he would reveal his name in due time, Harry settled against his bed more comfortably and heeded Glorfindel's advice. Tomorrow would be a trying day.

(3/26/2016): Well. I'm sorry to those who waited for a very long time. Here it is, short and sweet and I make no promises about the next update.