Chapter Text
The transition from his Aunt Hyacinth’s quiet cottage to the bustling streets of London was surprisingly nostalgic, and Harry did not hate it despite his initial expectations. Harry had slipped away the moment he thought his aunt wouldn’t explode at the mere sight of him, eager to get his bearings in this unfamiliar era.
He just hopes she will still bbe in the cottage when he gets back, and maybbe no longer in the same spot.
He navigated the muggle streets with surprising ease, eventually finding the familiar, dingy facade of the Leaky Cauldron. It was difficult at first when he realized he could not take the same commute routes as during his time, but he managed to find his way by making small jumps in apparition which is honestly a feat without a wand. Stepping inside, he paid no mind to the patrons who went dead silent the moment he crossed the threshold—he simply figured people in the 1940s were exceptionally suspicious of out-of-towners.
Mind your bloody business, people.
He slipped out the back into the small, walled courtyard. Reaching into his pockets, Harry paused. He hadn't actually tested his magic in this new, younger body yet. But as he closed his eyes and breathed in, he could feel it. Deep within his chest, his magical core hummed with the same heavy and vast well of energy he had carried for over two centuries. The sheer volume of it was staggering, vibrating right down to his fingertips. No new-body rustiness here, then.
He won’t have to worry about lacking in power to keep up with his veteran instincts.
Grinning, Harry tapped the brick wall—three up, two across—exactly the way Hagrid had shown him in his very first life.
The bricks rumbled, sliding and folding away to reveal the cobblestone streets of Diagon Alley. But before Harry could even take a step forward, a sudden drop in temperature hit the alleyway. A wisp of freezing, ink-black smoke drifted out of thin air, coiling rapidly before morphing into the shape of a pitch-black cat. The feline entity leapt gracefully through the air, landing with a soft, silent patter right at Harry's feet.
"Hey there," Harry said, bending down to scoop the cat into his arms. "Thank you for delivering the Hogwarts letter, by the way."
The cat settled against his chest, its glowing green eyes blinking up at him. It asked what they were doing in the bustling Alley.
"Preparing for school, obviously," Harry murmured back, adjusting his grip on the remarkably heavy feline. "I need books, robes, a cauldron, an owl, a wand... the usual."
The cat let out a low, vibrating purr that sounded suspiciously like stones being ground together. It instructed Harry to gather its funds from the local bank first and foremost.
Harry paused, guiding his gaze down the street toward the towering, snow-white marble building of the wizarding bank. "Do I even have a vault here? I don't exactly have a key."
Death gave a slow, lazy blink of its green eyes, conveying that his wizarding family’s assets had already been transferred to his name.
Harry nodded, digesting the information. He assumed his parents in this timeline were dead, just like before. Safe to say his mother was likely a Muggleborn again, which meant this gold was coming from his father's side of the family. He began walking down the cobblestone street, looking around. The shops looked largely the same as they did in his future—Ollivanders was still in the same corner, and Flourish and Blotts was just as packed—though the names on some of the signs were slightly different. Still, it wasn't drastically altered.
The cat in his arms suddenly pawed at his chest, a subtle reminder not to dawdle.
"Alright, alright, I'm moving," Harry rolled his eyes, quickening his pace as he climbed the white stone steps of Gringotts.
The moment Harry pushed open the heavy bronze doors and stepped into the vast marble hall, the entire bank went dead silent.
It was instantaneous. The scratching of quills ceased. The quiet chatter of witches and wizards vanished. Every single goblin in the hall froze mid-task, their heads snapping toward the entrance in absolute, paralyzing terror. To them, the air in the bank had suddenly disappeared, a suffocating, primordial pressure rolling off the messy-haired teenager like a suffocating shroud.
Harry, entirely failing to recognize the sheer panic in the room, merely assumed the goblins of the 1940s were incredibly disciplined. He casually strolled up to the center counter, where the Head Goblin was watching him with wide, unblinking eyes, his green-tinged face entirely pale.
Being a highly cultured, two-hundred-year-old man, Harry knew exactly how to greet goblins. He offered a polite, respectful bow. "May your gold flow and may your enemies’ blood pool at your feet."
The Head Goblin violently choked on his own breath. He stared at Harry, his long fingers trembling against his ledger, before his eyes slowly drifted down to the pitch-black cat cradled in the boy's arms.
"Ah," Harry said, noticing the goblin's intense stare. "My apologies if pets aren't allowed inside. I can leave him by the door if he's a bother?"
He looked around the hall, noticing that literally every witch, wizard, and goblin in the building had stopped moving, their eyes glued directly to him. Wow, nosy buggers, Harry thought, inwardly shaking his head. People really are weak to gossip no matter the era.
The Head Goblin seemed to forcibly snap himself out of his stupor. He scrambled backward, lowering his head so low to the desk that his pointed nose nearly touched the polished wood. "I... we... we did not anticipate your arrival, My Lord," the goblin stammered, his voice incredibly high and strained.
"Oh," Harry muttered, feeling a bit sheepish. "My apologies. I didn't realize you had to book appointments here. I can come back later if you're busy?"
The cat let out an annoyed, echoing meow, urging him to hurry up.
"Right, sorry," Harry sighed, completely forgetting to introduce himself or offer any identification. He just waved a dismissive hand. "Just take me to my vault, please."
The Head Goblin practically fell off his high stool in his haste to comply. He didn't ask for a key nor a name. He simply scrambled down the steps, bowing repeatedly, and gestured frantically toward the cart tracks. "Right this way, My Lord! Immediately!"
The cart ride that followed was absurdly long. They sped past the high-security vaults, past the subterranean waterfalls, and past the nesting grounds of the blind dragons. They descended deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth, plunging into darkness so profound that Harry was almost worried they were going to reach the Earth's core.
Where the bloody fuck is my vault?
Finally, the cart ground to a halt before a massive, ancient stone door embedded directly into the bedrock.
The goblin scrambled out, refusing to look Harry in the eye as he pressed his palm against the stone. With a deep, echoing groan, the massive door ground open, revealing a cavernous space. The goblin gestured inside, his entire body trembling so violently he looked like he might faint. He didn't even announce the vault number, which Harry failed to realize.
Harry stepped inside, allowing Death to hop out of his arms. The cat immediately began to lazily wander around the vault, strolling over towering, glittering mountains of gold, ancient silver chalices, and mountains of priceless gemstones.
Harry's jaw dropped. The sheer volume of wealth in front of him made the Potter family vault look like a pocketful of spare change.
"I didn't know the Peters were this rich," Harry murmured, gawking at the glittering hills. "Is Peters even a wizarding family name?"
The cat hopped onto a pile of Galleons, let out a soft meow, and gave him a heavy, informative look. It made Harry understand that Peters was his mother's name, but his father's surname was Gamp. Though this vault belongs to an older, more ancient name from their gigantic family tree. Harry made a face at that, noting how Death skirted around what the old name was.
"Gamp?" Harry repeated, tilting his head. The name didn't ring any bells, though he felt like he might have read it in a textbook once. He shrugged. "I suppose Aunt Hyacinth made sure I kept my mother's last name because she disapproved of my dad's magical heritage. That's actually quite clever of her. Aunt Petunia couldn't have been bothered to do something like that."
Accepting the explanation, Harry walked over and scooped a generous, sizable handful of Galleons into his bottomless mokeskin pouch for his school supplies and allowance. The massive mountains of gold barely shifted; it was like removing a single grain of sand from a beach.
As he turned to leave, he noticed the cat had jumped onto a beautifully crafted, dark iron chest sitting in a place of pride right in the center of the vault.
Harry cautiously approached it. "What's in there?"
The cat let out a soft meow, conveying that it was something belonging to the Master of Death.
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Is that me, or is there some specific other guy you're waiting for?"
The cat gave him a look of deadpan exhaustion. It was him, obviously.
"Right. Just checking."
Hesitating for only a moment, Harry reached out and pressed his palm flat against the cold, dark metal of the chest. The moment his skin made contact, a warm, golden glow flared beneath his hand. He gasped softly, pulling his hand back as a sharp, tingling sensation washed over his skin.
He flipped his hand over. On the back of his right hand, etched in stark, dark ink like a flawless tattoo, was the unmistakable symbol of the Deathly Hallows—the triangular shape of the cloak, the stone, and the wand.
The cat meowed in deep satisfaction. It made him understand that the Hallows would answer his call whenever he required them. They were his. He is the Master of Death.
Harry stared at the mark, his mind racing. "Wait... the Hallows will come to me? Even... even the Elder Wand?"
The cat nodded.
"But..." Harry grimaced, a sudden wave of dread hitting him. "The Elder Wand is currently in the possession of Gellert Grindelwald. If I summon it right now, won't that crazy, genocidal maniac storm Hogwarts in a mad rage trying to find his stolen stick?"
The cat gave a slow, deliberate blink. It didn't deny it, but it also made him understand that he couldn't use another wand in its place. The Elder Wand was his. Any other wand he attempted to use would reject him, and his own wand was useless in the hands of that thief right now anyway.
Harry let out a loud, pathetic groan, rubbing his temples. "What a bloody headache."
He couldn't just walk into Hogwarts and casually wave the Elder Wand in front of Dumbledore's nose—the man would have a literal stroke. But he also couldn't buy a wand from Ollivanders if the magic was just going to explode in his face.
"Fine," Harry muttered, crossing his arms. "I'll just find a decent-looking stick in the Forbidden Forest and parade it around as my wand. I have two hundred years of magic under my belt anyway; I can do wandless and silent casting in my sleep. I'll just fake the wand movements to keep everyone off my tracks."
At least, until he eventually ran into Grindelwald, defeated him, and "won" the wand back in a way that looked completely legitimate to the public.
"Yeah," Harry sighed, picking the cat back up. "That's a much better plan. Come on, let's go buy some excessively expensive schoolbooks."
Death meowed in agreement.
Harry abruptly paused and looked at the cat. “You know, I have to give you a name, so I’m not announcing to everyone that you’re Death.”
The meowed to tell him that no normal human being would assume that a black cat really is Death just because it shared the name. Harry narrowed his eyes at it, detecting sass.
“Yes, but I wanna give you a proper cat name,” he argued. The cat seemed to have given up debating and waited patiently for him to announce his grand idea for a name. “I think I’ll call you…”
Harry grinned, his eyes glinting with that familiar hint of Gryffindor trouble.
“Sunshine.”
Armando Dippet sat in his high-backed chair, staring grimly at the flickering green flames of his office fireplace. Albus Dumbledore stood quietly by his side, hands folded neatly inside his long, starched sleeves, his usual whimsical air entirely absent.
The grate suddenly roared, throwing a violent burst of emerald fire into the room. Out stepped Leonard Spencer-Moon, the Minister of Magic. He brushed the soot from his immaculate, pinstriped robes with a broad, practiced politician's smile, raising a hand in greeting.
"Armando, Albus! It is good to see you both on such short—"
The Minister’s voice died in his throat. He froze, his hand half-raised, as his eyes locked onto the sheer, exhausting dread etched into the lines of Armando’s face. He glanced at Albus, finding no comfort in the deputy headmaster's grave, unblinking expression.
Leonard slowly lowered his hand, his smile vanishing. "How bad is it? I couldn't make out much from that coded letter you sent in a panicked haste."
"It's bad, Leonard," Armando said, his voice sounding older than usual. He stood up slowly and gestured toward the far side of his office, which housed a small, private lounging area. A low coffee table rested on a thick, dark carpet, surrounded by a long velvet couch and two matching solo armchairs. "Come. Sit with us."
The Minister complied, sinking heavily into one of the armchairs. Dumbledore quietly moved to the side cabinet, pouring three glass tumblers of firewhisky. He handed one to the Minister and one to Dippet before taking his place on the long couch.
Leonard took a long, burning swallow of his drink. "Now, Armando. Give me a detailed explanation. From the beginning, if you must."
Armando let out a slow, heavy breath. "It began with a non-conspicuous enrollment letter. We didn't think much of it at first, just a homeschooled muggleborn boy who seeks to enter our magical society. Then the boy arrived. He was nothing like the letter suggested, he wasn’t like anything we could describe at all, actually. We had no choice but to let him enter. I assigned Tom Riddle—our fifth-year prefect in the same year—to tend to the creature, trusting him to keep a close eye on it and guide it through our halls."
Armando offered a dry, completely humorless chuckle. "Though, if we actually survive this crisis, I believe we should award young Tom some very generous, special privileges at the Ministry. The boy is doing public service."
The Minister didn't laugh. He pursed his lips, his fingers tapping anxiously against his glass. "I need to see this creature to confirm it for myself. What exactly are we dealing with here, Armando? Is it a demon? Something more ancient?"
"Melody Hubble, our Divination professor, all but confirmed its identity," Armando whispered, leaning forward. "She believes... he is Death. Or at least, some corporeal segment of him that has chosen to walk among us."
Leonard blinked, looking stunned. "Death? Walking the corridors?"
It was a very hard concept to grasp. Something like Death actually coming to the land of the living and walking among them. He’s heard the tales of the three brothers, but it’s storytime for children.
"Hogwarts is, and always has been, a sanctuary to house magical beings," Dumbledore spoke up softly, his blue eyes solemn. "We share our walls with ghosts, and a giant squid resides in our lake. But Death's physical arrival upon our grounds is... another matter entirely. A highly delicate one, one we have no capale means of traversing."
"I shall go fetch him," Albus said, rising gracefully from his seat. He offered a small, respectful bow to the Minister. "Allow me to go assist the creature."
As the heavy oak door clicked shut behind Dumbledore, Leonard turned back to Dippet. He leaned across the coffee table, his expression desperate. "Armando, we are good friends. We were mates back in our school days here. Tell me the truth."
Armando raised an eyebrow, taking a sip of his drink. "We are friends, Leonard. But what relevance does our schoolyard friendship have to the possible end of the world?"
"Be straight with me. No bureaucratic bullshite," the Minister pleaded, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Is this creature going to be a problem?"
Armando stared into his amber glass. "Honestly? I do not know. But I do know that ancient entities like Death operate on rules of their own. It is highly unlikely for such a being to go around mindlessly slaughtering children in its wake. On that front, I believe our students are safe. But without knowing what he actually wants... we have absolutely no leverage over it."
"I will assign a team of Unspeakables to the case," Leonard promised immediately, his voice tight. "They will work discreetly within the castle's premises. They won't interrupt the students, but they will monitor the creature and confirm whether it is truly what you say it is."
"I appreciate that," Armando said.
A sharp, polite knock echoed through the room, cutting their conversation short.
The Minister braced himself, his posture locking as the heavy oak doors slowly swung inward. Albus stepped inside first, but Leonard’s eyes instantly bypassed him.
Walking behind the deputy headmaster was a silhouette of absolute nightmares.
To the Minister, it didn't look like a teenager had entered. It looked like a walking, twisting tear in the fabric of reality, his to be precise. A thick, suffocating darkness clung to the boy's frame, swallowing the light around him so completely that his uniform looked like a black void. From beneath a messy fringe of dark hair, two radioactive, violently glowing green orbs stared out.
Merlin, have mercy on us, the Minister thought, his heart hammering violently against his ribs. He felt a sudden urge to drop to his knees and pray.
Harry, meanwhile, was mentally frowning.
As he stepped into the room, he immediately recognized the man sitting opposite Dippet. He had seen his face plastered across the front page of the Daily Prophet during his frantic shopping trip in Diagon Alley. That was Leonard Spencer-Moon, the Minister of Magic.
What on earth is the Minister doing at Hogwarts? Harry wondered, adjusting his collar. And why was I called away for this? He hadn't even had a proper chance to unpack his trunk or introduce himself to his new dorm mates yet, which was incredibly annoying. Tom had looked entirely unsurprised when Dumbledore came to fetch him, though, which Harry found rather odd.
Fighting the urge to roll his eyes and ask them what the bloody hell they wanted, Harry opted for his best, most polite student behavior. He offered a respectful, elegant bow to both men, casting a warm smile in their direction.
"Forgive me for interrupting, Headmaster," Harry said, his voice quiet. "I was told you summoned me?"
"Please, Harold. Take a seat," Armando offered, gesturing to the empty space on the long couch next to Dumbledore.
"Thank you," Harry murmured, politely sliding onto the velvet cushions.
As he sat, he couldn't help but notice that the Minister was staring at him with wide, completely unblinking eyes. The man looked like he had just witnessed a murder. It was incredibly uncomfortable. Not one to back down from a staring contest, Harry turned his head and looked the Minister dead in the eye, offering a calm, steady gaze.
To Harry's satisfaction, the Minister convulsed slightly and scrambled to look away first, staring down at his firewhisky.
Right. The Minister is a massive creep, Harry decided internally. I'll have to ask Death for some information on him later. For my own safety.
Harry shifted in his seat, turning his attention back to the Headmaster.
To Armando, the creature's sudden, fluid neck snap was horrifying. The entity's glowing green gaze locked onto him, its lips curling back to reveal a flash of sharp, stark-white canines that seemed to mock the fragile mortality of everyone in the room.
Armando swallowed hard, clearing his dry throat. "Harold... the Minister simply wished to meet you. You must understand, a homeschooled Muggleborn suddenly enrolling at Hogwarts under such... unusual circumstances is quite rare. The case piqued his personal curiosity."
Harry’s brow furrowed. That is the least convincing lie I've ever heard. The Minister of Magic doesn't visit schools just to meet random transfer students.
But then Armando continued. "In fact, the Ministry is currently reviewing our integration policies. We are considering new laws pertaining to how Muggleborns are introduced to the wizarding world."
Suddenly, Harry perked up. His eyes widened, and he leaned forward, entirely eager.
Oh now that is truly something!
"Oh! Really?" Harry asked, his voice bright. He had spent years thinking about how terribly the wizarding world treated Muggleborns, throwing them into a completely alien society with absolutely zero guidance. Now that he was talking to the literal leader of the government, he wasn't about to let this opportunity slide.
He is about to grab this opportunity by its throat.
"If you're looking for suggestions, I have a few radical ideas," Harry said enthusiastically. "I honestly think there should be a mandatory transition school for Muggleborns. A place they can go for a year or two before heading to Hogwarts, just to learn the absolute basics of our world. Unlike children raised in magical households, Muggleborns are at an extreme disadvantage being thrust into a society they know nothing about. Our children need to be prepared far more thoroughly before they are thrown into the deep end."
The room went dead silent.
Armando’s breath hitched in his throat. His fingers trembled against his glass.
The war, Armando realized, a cold dread washing over his soul. Grindelwald's war.
The Muggle world was currently tearing itself apart in their own global conflict, and right on its heels, Grindelwald was waging a brutal, relentless war of extermination against Muggleborns and Muggles alike. The casualties were staggering. Children, families, innocents... all of them being slaughtered by the day.
So much magical blood spilled.
Our children need to be prepared far more thoroughly before they are thrown into the deep end.
Dippet looked at the glowing green eyes of the creature. Death is receiving too big a reception, he realized, his mind racing with terrified awe. The veil is overflowing. The slaughter is too massive. That's why he has come to Hogwarts... He wants to end this meaningless war. He wants to stop the flood of innocent souls entering his domain.
Armando could have wept at the sheer, tragic nobility of the sentiment, had he not been absolutely terrified that the creature sitting across from him could turn his bones to dust with a single thought.
Harry cooed down at the cat, entirely pleased with its heavy, rumbling weight against his chest, before turning around to proudly show his new pet to his dorm mate.
"Meet my lovely cat," Harry said cheerfully, presenting the pitch-black cat like a proud child. The sarcasm is lost on all of them. "This is Sunshine."
Tom did not seem amused.
In fact, Tom stared at him with an expression that was rapidly bordering on sheer, jaw-clenching offense. Sunshine? The creature had to be jesting. It was playing a sick, twisted game with him. To take that thing posing as a cat and naming it Sunshine was an act of mockery. It had to be.
The more Tom looked, the more he understood that the cat is not a mere pet. The creature is petting it lovingly, it’s darkness-covered hand stroking the pitch black fur. But only, it’s not simply black. It was the complete lack of colours and life, that is no normal cat.
Not to mention the eerie feeling Tom was receiving from it. Underneath the creature’s smooth, youthful mask, Tom could feel the phantom smirk deriding his sanity.
As if on cue, the cat's ears flattened. Its slitted green eyes locked onto Tom, and it let out a low, echoing, hiss that shocked them both. The cat had green eyes as well, but not glowing like the creature’s.
It appears to be a normal skinny cat, but the way it looked at him suggested otherwise. Or perhaps it looks unremarkabbly normal next to something like that creature that calls itself Harry.
The creature let out a light, bubbling laugh, entirely unfazed. "Ah. Sunshine must not like you."
The cat let out a sharp, rumbling meow. Harry heard the complaint loud and clear. Death dislikes Tom for the very reason that he would dare defy the natural laws of the world. He had split his soul six ways to avoid his clutches. Harry tuned him out as he began reciting the many brutal ways he could punish Tom.
Harry casually stroked the cat's back, trying to smooth down its bristling black fur. "Calm down, Sunshine. Tom here won't make that mistake."
Because Harry would not let him. Perhaps this ruse is as much for Death as it is for Harry. They both have scores to settle with Tom.
A violent flash of sheer, freezing panic ripped across Tom's features for a fraction of a second, but Harry was already looking back down at the cat and missed it entirely.
Tom's heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.
Tom here won't make that mistake.
He was nearly choked by his own breath. Had the creature just read his mind? Tom had literally just been standing there, looking at the cat, feeling a dark, familiar surge of malice. He had thought about how easy it would be to throw that vile thing back into its iron cage. He had briefly recalled the rabbit he had hanged back at Wool’s Orphanage—a silent, cruel reminder that he knew how to master smaller, weaker things. He had been wondering if he could find this entity's threshold for pain.
And then, with terrifying, effortless casualness, the boy had whispered: He won't make that mistake.
Did the monster possess a form of Legilimency so potent it could pierce his mastered mental shields without even a glance? Was Tom’s entire soul laid bare before those bright green eyes?
Before Tom could spiral deeper into his quiet hysteria, the heavy oak door of the dormitory swung inward, cutting the suffocating tension in the room like a blade.
Tom turned his head, grateful for the distraction, as the rest of his Knights filed into the room.
Theodore Nott entered first, followed by Abraxas Malfoy and Orion Black.
Tom watched them closely, noting with a dark, bitter sense of validation that his followers were immediately struck by the exact same primitive, paralyzing fear he had been battling all day. They didn't even try to hide it. Nott, usually the most stoic and quiet of his circle, was doing a miserable job of acting natural; his face was stark white, his hands trembling visibly at his sides as he clutched his textbook.
Malfoy, on the other hand, was about a single pinch away from an embarrassing, full-blown screaming fit. The blonde pureblood had frozen solid on the threshold, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and bloodshot as they locked onto the literal shadow of nightmares standing at the far end of the room.
Black looked as if he had forgotten how to breathe entirely.
"Oh, Hello," Harry greeted them with absolute, radiant glee, entirely oblivious to the fact that his cheerful expression is not translated well to the terrified boys.