Chapter Text
“These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.” - The Secret History, Donna Tartt
Harry woke up in a different body, in a different time, in a different place. He stared up at the sky and blinked, his throat was raw and bloody but was rapidly stitching itself back up seamlessly, like he was told it would.
He was killed. He remembered the weight of the body on his, a human trafficker that was too eager with a blade. He and Susan Bones, his partner, had cornered him in a warehouse. His name was fading fast but it was Unger or something equally as inbred. Harry was caught by surprise and before he could even raise his wand, there was a knee on his chest and a blade in his throat.
Ginny was traveling. She would have to come home to identify his body.
But that was then. Now he was dragging his much smaller body out of a giant hole in the ground, his hands smaller than he was used to - his center of gravity lower. He was younger, he could tell, but there was something… off.
Spitting out a mouthful of soil, he looked around him. He was sitting on the edge of a giant hole, it was silent and hot around him. It smelled rancid and sour, like trash left out on the curb a day too long. He turned toward the hole and almost lost his footing, almost sliding right back into the soil gouge in the earth. He was climbing out of a mass grave. Bodies stacked only Merlin knew how deep, various wounds and decomposition phases staring up at him. Bile rushed up his throat and he threw himself the last few feet out of the hole and vomited on the soft soil beside it.
Ok. Mass grave. Smaller body. I need to get out of here. I need to leave.
He patted his legs for his wand, surprised at the soft material of his soiled trousers. There it was, tucked into a small pocket at the center of his back. The design wasn't very practical for sitting, he thought, but was extremely practical for surprising somebody with his wand. He took the wand out and looked over the pale yew wood, there was a crack in the center. It was not hanging on by a thread, but it would need to be repaired or replaced.
He ran. His feet were bare, and smaller than he ever remembered them being. He was in a sparse woods, it was colder than it was when he died.
He probably shouldn't remember that he died. Death never told him what would happen when this happened, only that it could happen. Death had never explained where his soul would go, only that his body would. He needed to find somewhere safer than the trees and rubble that surrounded him. He needed to meditate.
He kept running. There were remains of buildings, smoke long gone in the air - any survivors already finding refuge anywhere else.
Bombs? Okay. Soul displacement was never really explained to me and I was lazy. Why was I fucking lazy?
His breath was coming in ragged and he finally slowed to a stop under a half collapsed stone cottage, roof only partially hanging down instead of completely blown to smithereens like other buildings. The door was gone, the glass in the windows gone, the once faded floral curtains were nothing but shredded remains of the people who once called this cottage home.
He stepped into the building, there were fallen floorboards revealing the soft subfloor. The kitchen cupboards had long since been opened and rifled through. No bed, no furniture at all. The fireplace was still standing, and he remembered seeing the stone smokestack still standing on the roof. There was no wood. He would have to leave and gather some for a fire before the sun set.
There was the smallest piece of a mirror leaning over the fireplace, like somebody else had been here and tried. Tried to make it better. Tried to make it right. Tried and failed, because nothing would be right after this kind of damage.
They were dropping bombs on England.
Now he just needed to find out who the fuck They were and he would be okay. He could do that. He walked over to the sliver of mirror, he needed to know what he looked like now. Soul displacement was a side effect of being Master of Death.
He was a woman.
His eyes were still the same vibrant green he held in his past life, his skin a slightly lighter olive tone. He angled the mirror, his hair was still widely curly and untamed - but he wondered how much of that was due to the blood and viscera that resided inside it. He stared at the sliver of his face, fighting flashbacks of bright blue eyes looking at him while he ran for his life so many years ago.
A lifetime ago.
He looked… pretty, regardless of being half-dead. Undead. Dead dead. Whatever, fuck it. He was alive. And he was pretty.
His lips were naturally pouty in a way that reminded him of Cho. His nose was straight, the end a small round kiss on his face. Hermione had called this type of nose a ‘button nose’ once and they rolled their eyes. His jawline was not angular, but slightly curved. It was feminine. He was feminine. He was pretty.
He put the mirror back on the mantle and grabbed at his pockets, knowing he wouldn't find anything useful - they took her shoes when they took her life. They left this girl with nothing, and then Harry came and stole her body. He felt slimy.
He had no idea how old he was, if the Trace was active, if people were watching. So he sat down on the filthy half rotten floor and closed his eyes and faded away.
When he opened his eyes the house was gone and instead he stood in a starry abyss. Sometimes it was pure white, sometimes pure black, sometimes it was a charcoal drawing of a bridge and Death would always greet him like a friend.
This time, he was floating in a starry night. The stars shifted and Death walked from between the Big Dipper and Sirius.
“Ah, you have died.” Death's voice hummed around him, and stars lit up with every word. As if Death was speaking through the stars.
“Seems I have.” Harry watched as the stars lit with his words as well. “Are we a star tonight, old friend?”
“This new form was a star every night. She was Alsephina Lyra Black.”
“I don't remember seeing her on the tapestry.”
“Because you are in a new place, Master.” the stars twinkled as Harry fought the urge to blush.
“I'll be honest, I never researched soul displacement. I don't know what you mean.”
“Research would have gotten you nowhere. Nobody has ever been my Master and nobody will be again.”
If Harry could have sighed, he would have sighed. The stars stayed still, no wind would come from his chest.
“So, will you tell me what it is or will I have to guess?”
If Death could smile, Death would have smiled.
“It is when your soul is untethered to your universe, to your plane of existence. You floated from universe to universe, between the blankets of being, to find a recently departed body who would magically match your own soul and core. You existed as nothing more than a wisp as time began and ended and began again.”
Harry blinked. He looked into the stars, who were still twinkling as Death's words faded into blackness.
“So I am… where?”
“In another world, another place, another plane. The world you knew is still existing, but you have departed. You are new.”
“New but in a new way or in a weird way?”
“You are inhabiting the body of a 15 year old girl who was brutally murdered for the simple crime of being too strong, in a world where women are not strong enough.”
“Okay, so weird way.”
If Death could chuckle, Death would have chuckled.
The stars twinkled, but he watched as the heart of Leo thumped between Death's words. As if providing a heartbeat for a lion long since gone.
“So what now?”
“You do as you wish. You are living a life now, though I make no promises that death will greet you peacefully in this world. The war to end all wars wages on, as Grindelwald stalks the seas.”
World War 2 and Grindelwald's war.
“I never realized they happened at the same time. Do they happen at the same time in all planes?”
“No. Yes. The planes exist separately yet connected. Some events cannot be changed. These wars are those.”
“What about…”
Voldemort.
“Some events can be changed. That is one of those.”
The stars danced and Harry felt a hand on his chest, Death was pushing him back to the land of the living. It was always on a timer, these visits. If he stayed too long, he stayed forever.
“I have one more question.”
“Ask.”
“Do you need anything from me?” The stars stopped their dance. Death stared at him, through him and beyond him.
“Nobody has ever cared.”
“Nobody has ever been Master of Death, you said that yourself.”
“True. Very well, yes. There is one thing. Your soul will begin to separate if you do not accept this change. Your body will rot, your heart will stop, your vessel will become what you call an Inferi before your soul finally leaves and tries to find another host. You will become Alsephina Black.”
The hand on his chest pushed and he fell back on the floor of the rubble house he found himself in. The sun had set. He was shivering from the bone deep chill that caused sharp aches in his body.
Firewood. Then, in the morning, we find out where the hell we are.
It took a full day of walking to find the refuge camp. It was Muggle, no magic tinted the area, no wards, no children on broomsticks or waving play wands while laughing.
He swallowed thickly and looked at the small camp of people covered in bruises and cuts and bandages. Someone was limping with a branch as a support. Someone was screaming somewhere. He fought the images of Voldemort's war down, and stepped forward from the brush.
“Excuse me? Can you help me?” His voice was rough with disuse, but so feminine he tripped over his own feet in shock and landed on his knees in front of the camp.
“Oh dear, are you okay?” A woman rushed out from her make-shift tent. She had brown hair tied up high with floral scraps of fabric tying it up. Her skirt was dirty around the hem but the fabric looked so comfortable.
“Yes, I'm sorry. I just - I just came from town. I can't - I don't know what today's date is.” He couldn't tell them he didn't know where he was, they would ask more questions, worse questions.
“December 2nd, 1942 deary. Oh but you are ice cold. Come on, we'll get you by the fire and try to find some tea. Some shoes.” The woman picked her up by the arm and together they stumbled to the firepit in the center of the camp.
1942
Tom Riddle was at Hogwarts. He hadn't made his first Horcrux yet.
Voldemort wasn't born yet.
“Some events can be changed.”
It took three days to learn they were just outside of Bristol. Close enough to be affected by the bombs, but not close enough to worry about another strike.
Harry worried.
He worried about it all. He worried about how hard it was to learn his new body, about how he kept running into things and tripping over the wrong things. About how soft his new hands were. About the new curves of his body, curves he's never seen because there's no mirror in camp. He worried about how he would get to London, to Gringotts.
He worried about the kids in camp who played too quietly. He worried about Meredith, the woman who took him in, and her husband Jonathan, who was out on the front lines and had no idea their home was destroyed.
He worried. He worried. He worried.
He slept. He worked. He slept.
He cooked with Meredith, cleaning the children's clothes with Isabelle - one of the many mothers in camp. He foraged with the boy children, who thought it was so funny a girl was coming with them.
It was a week from stumbling across the camp and he didn't know how he knew that but he knew that. It was night, the chill was biting into his bones and leaving marks that would haunt him for days. He was outside the camp, on the edge of the woodline, wrapped in a blanket and a coat he managed to borrow off of Phillip - who reminded him so much of Arthur Weasley it made his heart clench every day.
He was staring at the sky, and then he blinked and fell back into the oblivion between space and stardust. Where Death only greets him and kisses him goodbye.
But it was not Death that stared at him, gray eyes flashing in an emotion he couldn't name.
Alsephina Black stared at him, her hair tamed curls down her back. Her lips were tinted a soft red, reminding him of strawberries. She wore the robes Death wore, long and brushing the tips of stars that had long since died out and been collected.
“You have taken my body.” Her voice was a voice he was familiar with, since he had heard it everyday for almost a week.
“It was not my plan, I'm sorry.” Harry bowed his head.
“Plan or not, it is what has happened. Do you know why I was murdered like Muggle vermin?”
If Harry could get angry, he would have.
“No.” He tried to clip his tone, but the stars sang around his words and he couldn't be upset. How could he be upset when even the stars were happy to see him?
“Because I lived like Muggle vermin.”
And oh that was unexpected.
“My mother kept me away from the madness that is house Black. She hid me away from my father. She knew what I was. She knew what I was to be. She knew what my father's family was. She knew what would become of her if she was discovered to have given birth to a half-blood out of wedlock. And so - she watched as he returned to London, leaving his Mudblood mistress and future child behind.”
Harry watched as the girl in front of him stayed calm, he watched as the stars danced their dance to their tune.
“What was your mother's name?”
“Lily Steele.”
And oh that made more sense.
Yes the magical core of Alsephina was comfortable, but he had not been able to cast magic. But to know her mothers name was his mothers name was -
Painful.
“What is your father's name?”
“Regulus Black.”
He wished he could flinch, he wished he could react in any way except the slow nod he adopted.
This was not Sirius’ Regulus, he told himself. This was 1940's Regulus. The first Regulus.
“You need to accept my body, it is already starting to decay.”
“What?”
“Your feet. My feet. The bottoms are showing bone, since you are walking and working so much. The skin is thin. You are not Harry Potter anymore, you silly man. You are ruining the body you stole.”
“I didn't steal your body.”
“You did not ask if you could have it. Therefore, you stole.”
“I -”
The stars danced more between them.
“How do I accept your body?”
She shrugged, an artful up and down that spoke of someone who was trained in being careless instead of falling into it due to laziness.
“That, I do not know.”
“What do you know?”
“That you do not have long.”
“Why were you murdered?”
“Because Grindelwald’s men believed I was a Muggle and I was too scared to fight.”
“Why were you scared?”
“They had just killed my mother in front of me. One of the reapers was still using her body while it cooled. They found me. They grabbed me. They almost took me, until the bombs dropped. The bombs saved my life, and their blade ended it.”
“.. brutally murdered for the simple crime of being too strong, in a world where women are not strong enough…”
“Yes, Death tends to know everything and keep nothing a secret.”
“I'm the only soul Death has spoken to in all of existence, and I'm a great conversationalist.”
“I am sure. However, are you also great at simply surviving?”
“I have been told I am.”
“Then you need to learn how to accept me immediately or you will not only disappear back into the cosmos - but you will ruin my body as you go.”
It's consent.
He needs her consent.
That's step one.
He wished he could straighten his back, however he simply stared forward as he spoke, “Alsephina Lyra Black, will you accept my magic and soul into your body?”
“What will you give me in return?”
And oh bargaining was always a good sign he was on the right track.
“Revenge.”
“Oh, darling soul, I would have accepted for a much lower cost.”
“But what you deserve is revenge, and I will exact it for you. I will strike fear into their hearts in your name. I will go to your father and let him know what Heir he lost. What opportunities he left behind.”
If Alsephina could blush, Harry knows she would.
“I accept. Take my body, use your soul and your magic and your will. Forge the world in my image. So mote it be.”
The stars twinkled too bright, the heart of Leo pulsating in the dark sky, and Harry had enough time to reply before the stars swallowed him whole and he became one with the cosmos. A constellation in the truest of forms.
“So mote it be.”
She woke with frost in her hair.
The camp was still sleeping.
She had a deal to make good on.
Rising from her sitting position, she walked further into the woods. The coat and blanket were left behind. Her wand hummed in her hand, the damaged yew wood stark in the dark forest.
She twisted on the spot, knowing that Gringotts would never change - no matter what universe.