Chapter Text
When Harry sleeps, he sees a serpent and a skull.
The serpent is not green, like he always pictures snakes to be. For some reason, he cannot think of this creature as a snake. The word is not powerful enough to encompass this thing, with its scales made of carefully carved onyx and obsidian and its eyes set in its skull like gems into a ring, gleaming gold. But when he blinks, they gleam red. Then blue, green, purple, pink, orange, yellow. Every color under the sun. They begin to change while his eyes are open, a rapidly flickering sequence of colors, never the same twice, until it makes him so dizzy he thinks he may throw up. They change so fast that he cannot keep up; they become a blur of everything and nothing, where all things lie and where all things are gone. Then they pause. They become nothing. Not just the absence of color. They literally disappear, leaving only gaping holes. A bullet wound without the blood. Beyond them rests the wicked, creeping darkness of the serpent's skull. Harry stares wide-eyed in horror, a morbid curiosity settling over his chest, coiling around his ribs like vines.
He blinks. The serpents eyes are red. They are no longer gems. Only the normal, piercing eyes of a serpent.
The skull is pristine. It's so white that it can't be natural. It's in perfect condition. Not a crack, scratch, or mark on it. Harry wonders if that's what all bones look like beneath the skin, flesh, muscle, or if the blood stains them within the body. And then the skull is not pristine. It begins to grow yellowed and greyed, aging before his very eyes. A crack forms at the temple. From experience, Harry knows that's the weakest point in the skull. The crack spreads like an infection down the side, down to the jaw. It splits across the face, from the right temple, across the nose, to the left side of the jaw. The entire skull crumbles to dust. Harry blinks, and then it is only an average skull. A bit yellowed, a crack or mark here or there, but normal nonetheless.
Suddenly, he sees two pale hands. They are held flat, palm up. The serpent coils around the right arm, head raised to hover above the palm. The skull rests, still, in the left palm. Harry follows the hands, the arms, up to the shoulders, then to the neck, then the head. Their hair is long and the color of fresh ink. Their skin is so pale that it's white. Their eyes are not there. They are black, hallow expanses of endless horrors, sunk into her hollow, gaunt, sickly skin. Harry shrieks with all the air in his lungs, stumbling back. Away from her. Him? Them? It?
He crashes to the ground, heart slamming itself against his ribcage. His limbs are shaky. He feels sick.
She steps forward with so much grace, her long black dress and cloak sweeping the floor.
That must gather so much dust, he thinks absently.
"Hello, Harry Potter," she whispers. Her voice is the echo of thousands and the emptiness of none. She lowers herself to her knees. Harry tries to move away, but he can't.
"Who- who are you!?"
She smiles. "The Lady of The Hollows. The Guardian of The Bridge. The Mother of All Things. The Keeper of Souls. You have known me a long time, Harrison. Would you care to guess the name of mine most known?
Though she doesn't, she sounds like she rhymes. Her words are poetry and song. They are ash and bone. In them he hears echoes. A woman screams, a spell he knows too well. The shriek of Quirrell, the eternal screech of the diary, the dementors. The thud of a body hitting the ground. He remembers the ache, the cold. The adrenaline soaring in his blood like an eagle. He remembers fear, but he also remembers a rush of feeling so insurmountably alive. Her voice is the moment before the body falls, the millisecond before the curse is cast. Her voice is bones rotting away, caskets being lowered. Her voice is the echoing sob of mourners, the emptiness of grief, the shriek of a banshee.
He does know her. He has known her all his life. In the many, many times where it has almost ended. In every time he has witnessed another life end. She is a ghostly figure standing behind a monster of a man, watching him behind a veil as he wails, nothing but a scared infant. She hovers forever in this house, the Dursley's. She is in the Mirror of Erised as he kills Quirrell, smiling wryly. He sees her in the shadows of the Chamber of Secrets, staring sadly at the slain basilisk. She walks with the dementors like a general. She is holding a third wand, one achingly familiar that he cannot place, as the ghosts appear in the graveyard. She kneels over Cederic's body like a guardian. And as he flickers through the years, her presence changes. First, she is haunting, she is cold, she is terrifying. But now she is familiar. An almost comforting figure.
"Death," he whispers at last.
Death nods. "That I am. That is the name by which all have known me." She raises her hands, lifting the skull. "This is mine. This is what I am. I am the bones beneath your flesh and when you die, they return back to me again. The flesh rots away. I get the bones."
Harry stares at the Serpent. "Whose is that, then?"
A wide, ominous grin overtakes her gaunt face. "You."
Harry doesn't know what that means, but he feels himself waking. The room seems to flicker. Death looks up. A clock chimes loudly, echoing through this empty chamber. She seems distressed. The still, statue like quality she has disappears. In a flash, the serpent and skull are gone. She hurries to her feet, staring up still. "Wait," she calls out, "Brother, have you not sympathy? I need more 𝐭⃥⃒̸𝐢⃥⃒̸
𝐭⃥⃒̸𝐢⃥⃒̸
𝐭⃥⃒̸𝐢⃥⃒̸
𝐦⃥⃒̸𝐞⃥⃒̸
𝐭⃥⃒̸𝐢⃥⃒̸𝐦⃥⃒̸𝐞⃥⃒̸
𝐭⃥⃒̸𝐢⃥⃒̸𝐦⃥⃒̸𝐞⃥⃒̸
𝐓⃥⃒̸𝐈⃥⃒̸𝐌⃥⃒̸𝐄⃥⃒̸𝐓⃥⃒̸𝐈⃥⃒̸𝐌⃥⃒̸𝐄⃥⃒̸𝐓⃥⃒̸𝐈⃥⃒̸𝐌⃥⃒̸𝐄⃥⃒̸
Her voice grows more distorted as she cries out, on and on until the words are nothing but an animal's shriek. She howls at the empty space above, jaw open wide. He sees, now, the resemblance between her and banshees. The noise makes his ears ring. Suddenly, somebody grabs him, pulling him from behind. Away from Death and her wails so loud, so engulfed with emotion, that the soundwaves seem visible and the ground shakes.
"Do not mind her," a voice whispers, "she is only grieving."
Harry wonders what Death could possibly have to grieve.
Something slides around his neck, just before he closes his eyes. The world seems to shift. When he opens them, he is awake in his bed. Trembling, shaken, heart racing, but awake. Alive.
Something hisses in his ear.
"Hello."
Harry twists his head around so fast he fears it'll snap. An inky serpent with gleaming red eyes.
Either he isn't awake, or that wasn't a dream.
He's not sure which is worse.