Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Harry yawned. How much longer would he be here? Oh, yeah, eternity. Fuck. He groaned.

“Death, who’s next on the list?” A figure appeared, the tattered fabric of their black cloak wrapped around them to conceal the lack of human flesh beneath. They exuded a presence that should’ve instilled fear into the 17 year old in front of him, but alas the boy was no teenager, and he had long grown used to the skeletal ‘monster’ beneath the cape.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle. Age 10. Cause of death; bleeding out.” A raspy voice replied. Harry almost choked on air. God knows he wanted to.

“Are you…sure about that?” He mumbled, posture now stiff and uncertain, but his eyes sparkled. Tom, Tom, the murderous Tom, dead? At long last? After all he’d done to track him down and kill him, attempts all shut down by Death and it was finally happening after so many excruciating years? Almost too good to be true.

“I have never been wrong before.” The reply came quickly, and was accompanied by a whisper.

“You can’t afford to falter, Master. I know how you feel about the death of children, that is why you don’t have to come for this one, I can do it myself, the souls of kids are very light to carry.” Harry sighed. Death was correct. Harry could not be certain that the sight of a child, even if it was Voldemort himself, bleeding out and dying when he could stop it wouldn’t keep him from taking their soul like it had before. He glanced briefly at death, wondering how horrible it must be for them to have to take those poor souls away.

“Thank you, Death. I’m…grateful…for you.” Harry forced a warm smile and patted Death’s head. This seemed to cheer it up.

“I will be back before dawn, Master.” It had told him before leaving. That had been a lie. Harry tapped his fingers impatiently against the chipped wood of the table. He was bored. So utterly bored. A moment without his dear friend Death meant a prominent loneliness would wash over him like waves on a beach. Without anyone to complain to, he turned to animal souls, petting the kitty cats and puppies, letting the mice scutter around and the snakes slither on his arms. Birds clung to his hair and fingers, none of the animals scared of the other knowing both pain couldn’t be inflicted on them ever again, acknowledging that fear would only plague them if they let it. Harry smiled, petting and rubbing and cuddling and holding until all his irritation melted like butter on his tongue.

“Master.” Harry jumped, the animals immediately being whisked away into their afterlives. Death looked at Harry with vague judgment.

“Death!!! Please, be noisier when you’re teleporting.” Death nodded, affirming he would try.

“Master. I require your assistance.” Harry raised an eyebrow, wondering what it could be. His eyes flickered to the lack of a soul in Death’s arms.

“No. No, No, No, No. Don’t tell me…” Harry sputtered

“He refuses me. He refuses to die.”

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”What do you mean he refuses to die?! He- He can’t do that!!!” Harry was on the verge of what seemed to be his first ever tantrum. How dare the universe play tricks on him. How dare it, how dare it, how dare it! He was so close to revenge for Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Cedric, Luna, for everyone and now fate had decided it wasn’t gonna happen? ‘Fate is a cruel mistress’ those words never rang so true. But Harry Potter had had enough of leaving things to fate.

“Take me there. Right. Fucking. Now.” He spat out. Death nodded solemnly and whisked them away to Tom’s bloodied body. He had bruises on him in places that were hard to spot, but Harry knew. His time with the Dursley’s would only come about multiple decades in the future, but he remembered what life was like before he heard the fateful click of the time turner, felt its grooves digging into his fingertips and knew never again would he be clean. No matter if he scrubbed and scrubbed until he was a flayed corpse, he would still remain filthy. Tainted with the blood of those who trusted him to save them. Tainted by Voldermort’s touch. Tainted by the little kid in front of him.

“He looks like he’s dying to me.” Harry spoke dryly, as if trying to delude himself this was just another soul and not the Dark Lord himself.

“No, Master. When I try to take his soul it fights for him. Violently.” Harry rose an eyebrow. He’d never known souls to be able to fight. He felt giddy reaching for Tom’s, eager to know whether it would be as black and cold as his heart. Instead, he found that the soul was incomplete. In fact, there were clear cuts, 8 to be precise. It was strange, but then again this was the Dark Lord, everything about him was an enigma. The other 7 parts of his soul could rot in a ditch for all Harry cared. The strangest thing happened when Harry touched the soul though. There a clear sound that rang in his head. ‘Avada Kedavra!’ Voldy’s voice rang in Harry’s ears as the death of his parents and the way his first scar came about flashed in his mind. He lurched forward, falling to his knees by the boy. Horror engulfed Harry like flames as another shard of Tom’s souls clicked with the first.

“The horocruxes…” He whispered to no one. “That’s why he won’t die. He’s immortal with his horocruxes, and if the Master of Death is one of them…I have to sacrifice myself…again?” Better than watching everyone I love die another time, Harry told himself, unaware on Death’s cold embrace holding him as he shook on the ground. After all, all that is ignored by the warmth is comforted by the cold.

“Please do not leave me Master. Please.” But those words fell on death ears. Harry eventually composed himself and formulated a plan. One that would require years of dedication, but he’d wanted to kill Tom for more than just mere years. He reluctantly (though why he was reluctant he did not know) pulled his hand away from Tom and the shard broke off again, flying right back at Harry. Tom’s voice called through the silent room.

“Help…” he muttered. Harry complied, transforming to a younger version of himself, one the same age as Tom, and healing the injuries with magic. He forced the most happy grin he could muster in the moment as Tom looked at his cleansed, fixed self in awe and told him the very words that had turned Harry’s miserable life upside down to the man who’d ruined that very life and many others

“You’re a wizard Harry  Tom.”

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Tom stared up at the girl in front of him, utterly confused. 

“A wizard. Hah. Sure.” He replied flatly. Harry scowled when the Dark Lord mumbled “Maybe Mrs. Cole was right, I have gone off the deep end…”

“I’m not lying. Haven’t you ever felt…different to other children your age?” Tom blinked.  Now that it was mentioned, he always did feel he didn’t belong near them. Maybe magic wasn’t as far a reach from reality as he’d initially thought. Suddenly, the eager child hiding beneath the surface poked out and he was all smiles. 

“Am I really a Wizard? You aren’t kidding?” Tom stopped short. “Are…are you a witch then?” He exclaimed, sparkling. Harry briefly thought to say yes, but for once he thought ahead, wondering how on earth he’d explain why nobody in the wizarding world knew who he was. And so, he lied. Right through his teeth with the biggest smile ever actually.

”No, I’m..uh…” his eyes darted to the bible on the library shelf. “An angel! I’m your guardian angel.” Tom from an hour ago would’ve called the man batshit crazy, but Tom in the present wasn’t so quick to judge.

”Wow…an angel…” he revered. “No wonder you’re so beautiful miss…”

MISS??? Harry was taken aback. Sure, his hair was a little long since he hasn’t been bothered to properly cut it for the last couple years, but he occasionally sliced some off so he’d figured it was short enough. And even if his hair was ridiculously long, he didn’t look THAT feminine. 

“Harry. My name is Harry.” Tom was confused once more. He’d sworn Harry was a girl. His hair was dirty and disheveled, reaching his shoulders and his tan skin was filled with many scars, perhaps more lurking beneath his clothes. He had a skinny figure, that of someone who forgot they needed food often. Or perhaps Harry knew he didn’t need it at all and simply always looked that malnourished. His big doe eyes were a piercing green, mesmerising like a dragons. He was quite short in his childish form, but he was using magic to float in the air so what did it matter? Tom swore he was much taller when he was healing him.

”Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Harry..”

”Doesn't matter. Let’s just…I’m going to adopt you now, then you’re going to come home with me, okay?” Harry dreaded adopting Voldemort more than a child dreaded the dentist. Luckily Tom offered an alternative that was slightly better.

”They won’t let you adopt me, you look like you’re my age! Why doesn’t he do it?” Tom asked, pointing to the figure cloaked in darkness and probably thrifted black fabric. Death. Beautiful, wondrous Death. How much Harry loved it right now.

”Okay!!! You heard him Uhm…” Harry was sure some serious panicking would ensue if he shouted ‘Death’ so he bit his tongue. He’d choose a new, meaningful name for Death right now. And that’s what he did. Sticking to the angel theme, he re-tried his sentence. “You heard him, Azarel.”

And that was the beginning of Harry’s angel arc.

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“Mr. Harry.” Tom exclaimed without much emotion. Harry groaned. “What is it, Tom? I’m working y’know.” Tom nodded thoughtfully. “That’s what I wanna ask you about. What do you do, as an angel?” Harry sighed. “For Merlin’s sake, I told you this yesterday. I just file stuff.” Harry tried to mimic Uncle Vernon’s annoyed voice whenever he complained about his job to Aunt Petunia. He seemed to think putting bank files away was important, gruelling work and he made it very, very known. “Oh come on boy! I’ve worked my arse off all day and you can’t even hold a damn glass!” He’d shrieked, banging his fist on the table with such ferocity the table shook and two more glasses fell and broke, though it may have been something more magical that neither of them was aware of at the time. Harry sighed at the unpleasant memory, focusing back on Tom who has that look in his eye he got when he was suspicious. “Funny. I’ve been doing some reading, and I couldn’t find the name Harry OR Azarel any where in the bible.” Harry’s heart almost stopped. Of course Tom did some research, the Dark Lord would never trust someone without knowing every detail about them. Still, he played it cool. “I’m not in there since I didn’t do anything of note. Azarel isn’t mentioned by name, just as Angel of Death.” At least now when souls came back Harry would have an explanation. He internally applauded his own brilliance. Tom was, once more, utterly star struck. For a moment, a terrifying moment, he looked like a kid. An excited kid learning about a whole new world. To be specific, he looked like Harrison James Potter and it was surreal, at least to Harry. It was like he was staring at a magic mirror that was distorting his being and he feared it. “Truly? Is Mr. Azarel really THE Angel of Death?!” Tom pried. Harry’s spiral of self hatred came to an abrupt stop and he nodded a little fast. “How come you don’t have wings? All the angels in the books have wings.” Harry sighed and muttered a spell ; I crescere alas and two large, fluttering angel wings sprouted from his back. Unfortunately he used the wrong spell, so instead of having angel wings, he grew them. It was painful and quick and the tip of the wings were dripping Crimson-Scarlett. Most would cry out in pain but Harry was numb to it at this point. Instead, his first instinct was to try comfort Tom. Tom was not in need of comforting though. He was rather fascinated by the beautiful reds shown on Harry’s wings and the flecks of flesh falling off them.

”…You’re a sick kid.”

”I’m actually quite healthy compared to the average child my age. Apparently the only concerning thing about me is my malnourishment.”

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Harry flapped his angel wings, now an addition to his daily life to keep Tom from asking too many questions. It did work sometimes, but no spell is foolproof and Harry had read so many religious works he could recite any proverb or teaching at any given moment. It was great for winning arguments and making random people do things when he impersonated priests in his ever shortening free time. Tom, the annoying kid, had seemingly forgotten his initial hostility and was completely enamoured with his angel friend, more like a brother now, and was as clingy as a piece of gum stuck in Harry’s hair. Constant chattering filled once silent rooms, Tom’s presence bringing life into rooms plagued with death. 

“Harry! Harry!!! You’ll never guess what happened! This kid…” Harrison sighed, trying to appear interested for Tom’s sake. It was extremely hard.

“That’s great Tom. Great.” Tom’s face seemed to crumple at the thinly veiled lack of enthusiasm from Harry.

“Oh, uhm, it’s my birthday soon…” he mumbled, fiddling nervously with the ends of his shirt.

“Yeah? How old are you turning?” Harry muttered, preoccupied with writing down everything he could brainstorm on how to punish sinners.

“Ten!”  Clack. Harry dropped his pen. Time was a funny, nonsensical and unimportant thing to the dead, even more so to the immortal and Tom was neither. What Harry had assumed to be a year or two had been 5. In about a year, Harry would be able to freely get all the horocruxes and finally do what needed to be done. He admitted to himself he was stalling, waiting till Tom was an adult to end him, but he allowed himself some morality. He had all eternity to kill Voldemort and indirectly himself, if he felt like waiting, what did it matter? Plus, he was exactly sure on how he’d go about killing himself. He was, like the Dark Lord aspired to be, immortal. Magic didn’t work, regular weapons wouldn’t work, and he couldn’t exactly just…will himself to die. More pressingly, Tom needed to go to a magic school, and Harry desperately wanted it to be Hogwarts. For the memories, and for the confirmation that Tom would always be an evil snake. He needed him to be Slytherin. It had to be Slytherin.

“That’s great! Now, how are we going to get you on Dumble- on a magic school’s radar?… Suppose we’ll need a home for them to send an owl to. Azarel! Find us a house in..” Harry hesitated to say ‘my’, not sure if he could handle being drilled on his past by a certain someone who believed he had lived in heaven for the majority of his life.

“A house in a nice area. Somewhere with lots of owls.” Harry smiled, waiting for Death to get the clue, a small reference to all the owls that had come for Harry when he was first invited to Hogwarts, letting Death try and find an area full of owls for a few minutes before giving up and clarifying that he wanted a house in the Dursley’s neighbourhood and pretending that they were just some humans he met once that lived in a nice area to Tom. Death couldn’t find a house and couldn’t disappoint his Master so he did the smart thing and magicked one up, brainwashing the residents of the entire town that it had always been there and some old lady and her husband passed away, leaving the house to their son, ‘Azarel’ and his two kids.

“Thanks. Tom, grab everything you want to keep, we’re moving.”

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“What a pretty house, Azarel . When was it built?” Death mumbled something nervously, eyeing his master with an apologetic look. Harry sighed. A house made by magic was definitely going to be noticed by Hogwarts. And the ministry of magic. Annoying, and the house was creepy. Death really went all out, just not in the greatest way. The house looked suspiciously similar to the underworld. Creepy metal gates and a front garden as big as a football pitch, with grass that looked too dull to still be alive but somehow was still green. The house itself was massive, and gloomy. It reminded Harry of something he saw in a movie, one that came out just before he found that turner in the same place he found Dumbledore’s elder wand and knew what he had to do, “The Addams family” or something of the sorts, with a house much like this one. The only colour that wasn’t dull was the occasional buttercup hiding away beneath blades of grass.

“No.” He said dryly. Death looked distraught. Harry just waved his hand like a wand, using wandless magic to cast a spell.

“ Hoc pulchrius faciam .” And magic swirled around the house, keeping it its original structure, but beautifying it through a paint job, piping, electricity and furnishing. He also cast a spell so the house was much bigger on the inside, just because he could. He also turned the front yard into something that would put the world’s best garden to shamel, a variety of flowers, an (albeit currently empty) orchard, a fish pond, really everything that screamed “ ℒ𝓊𝓍𝓊𝓇𝓎 ” to Harry. If the ministry was to badger him about a house , of all things, it was going to be the most magnificent house anyone had ever seen. Tom marvelled at this transformation, even more excited about the magic lessons Harry had promised him.

“Wow…” They walked along the newly made stone pathway, over the bridge that helped them pass over the moat and entered their new home, the most ridiculously unaffordable thing ever. It was absolutely, incredibly, completely unnecessarily big. 30 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, an indoor pool, and a library with a copy of every book ever written stacked in its shelves, conveniently leaving out anything about dark magic or horocruxes. Entire rooms dedicated to hobbies, a ballroom like they knew anybody in the mortal realm that they could invite to a ball, and, Harry’s personal favourite, a spiral staircase! Hell, Harry managed to magic up a bloody ice ring. He couldn’t even ice skate! Still, Tom was in awe and was Harry feeling weirdly proud of his abilities. They all chose their favourite rooms almost instantly, Death deciding on the stargazing room, while Tom and Harry both favoured the library.

“Harry! This is amazing!!!” Tom marvelled (or Marvolo-ed…Eh? Eh? Okay I’m sorry that wasn’t even funny back to the fic…)

“Master, I mean, Harry, you’ve outdone yourself.” Harry’s eyes sparkled. Being praised by Death was a high honour, to him at least. Of course there were more matters to take care of. For one, he accio-ed some clothes that were in style for the three of them. Next, They needed to do something about Death’s appearance. He was their legal guardian for practical reasons, but there was no way a muggle or a wizard or squib or anybody would be able to stomach seeing a whole skeleton with something reminiscent of smoke emitting from him and a multicoloured, luminous ball of compressed souls inside it’s eyes.

“Switch forms? But master, I like my-“

“Yes, but you need look human.”

“…Fine.” And with that Death changed from form to form till they found a compromise. Bones finally had skin, deathly pale skin that made ‘Azarel’ look almost sickly, but skin nonetheless. Eyes that seemed to shift colours like souls did, with a transformation so slow you barely realised it was happening unless you chose to gaze into them for a prolonged period of time, something no mortal could ever bare to do. Eyes that still had a faint glow to them, flickering like candle light but definitely there, if you knew to look for it, and long hair, black like Harry and Tom’s. Death’s presence was intimidating, even in his fleshy form and he seemed to tower over the child and the immortal in the childlike form.

“How tall did you make yourself?” Tom muttered, craning his neck.

“I heard that people found tall men admirable, and that 6’0” and larger was considered large. I am currently 6’7.” Death replied factually. Harry glowered at him.

“Shrink.” He ordered. Death complied, becoming exactly 6’0”.

“…Good enough. Now, both of you to bed. Tom, your lessons start in the morning. You already know the basics, so we should be fine. Oh, we’ll also go over muggle topics…I should probably make a lesson plan…” Harry walked off, mumbling to himself. Tom and Death watched him go, both leaving to find the bedroom they wanted to call theirs.

Chapter Text

The girl’s eyes sparkled as she badgered Tom, speaking non stop while he started to realise why Harry was always so exasperated when he asked a lot of questions.

“Do you actually live in that house?! Truly!? I’ve always wanted to see what was inside it but the old coot who lived in it before you was so…creepy. Can I go in? Please?” She begged, but Tom would not relent. Harry had told him not to invite muggles home and even if he hadn’t Tom was reluctant to share his home with an outsider.

“No.” He answered simply. The girl huffed, crossing her arms. Her sandy brown hair was frizzy with vaguely noticeable curls, and her eyes were a similar shade to Tom’s, just a slightly lighter brown. She was slightly plump, and had freckles all over her face.

“Now that’s just rude! What’s your name anyways?” She asked, now more annoyed than excited.

“Tom.” He replied bluntly, not wanting to continue the conversation.

“Nice! My name’s Margaret. Margaret Dursley!” Tom straightened. Harry had mentioned a family called the Dursley’s when choosing their neighbourhood.

“That’s a pretty name.”

“Thanks! Mama says that…” The girl chattered on, while Tom listened carefully.

“U..Uhm Mag..Maggie…Mama says we need to…we need to go back inside to help her c..cook.” A timid, lean boy mumbled, looking down and twiddling his thumbs. He had the same sandy brown hair as Margaret, but with deep, bright blue eyes. He also had freckles, but his were sparsely speckled across his cheeks. Margaret rolled her eyes.

“Rob! Speak clearly, you’re making a fool of yourself infront of our neighbour!”

“Sor…sorry Margaret!.. N-Nice to meet you…” he whispered to Tom, sniffling like he was going to cry just from having to talk to him.

“I’m…I’m Robert..most people just ca..call me Rob o-or Rob..Robbie..I’m Margaret’s bro-brother..” Tom wrinkled his nose at the pathetic display in front of him.

“Uh, yeah, nice to meet you. I’m Tom. Tom Riddle.” The boy, Robert, gave a stiff nod and scuttled off, dragging his sister by her hand. Tom watched them disappear into their house, turning to see Harry, staring at it. Trembling. Azarel was next to him, stroking his hair and murmuring what Tom could only assume were reassurances. He wondered what about that house was so special an angel had such a visceral reaction to it. Harry quickly felt his gaze and snapped out of it, walking over and smiling.

“Hey Tom. Have you made any friends yet?” Tom nodded and made conversation, keeping his question to himself.