A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next FIVE chapters are up on my for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!
Harry has Fleur take a day while he and Death have a talk. Luckily he's kept a low profile so far… right?
-x-X-x-
After a long moment, Harry sighs. He knows what he should do, and that's to send Fleur home to France right here and right now. However, he sees the determined glint in the part veela's eye and worries at what she might do if he doesn't at least give her a shot at the job he had in mind for her.
Sure, one might think there's nothing Fleur can do in this situation… but technically she does have one weapon in her arsenal that Harry can't or rather wouldn't be willing to do anything against. If she wanted to, she could swear a magical life debt to him right here and now that would bind them together so securely that even Harry would be hard pressed to break it.
The circumstances in which he saved her from the goblins, even if he technically was the one who endangered her life in the first place, were just too fresh at the moment. In a few months the magical potential of such a debt would be dissipated, but if Fleur knew about life debts and decided to be obstinate about things, she could just go for it.
And the problem there is, Harry knows Fleur knows about life debts. Back in his original life, his original Fleur had confided in him years and years later that she'd been half-tempted to swear a magical life debt to him right there at the Black Lake all those years ago during the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament.
So yes, Harry wanted to avoid that at all costs because he wouldn't be able to bring himself to do the things he would need to do in order to break a life debt like that. Better to just let Fleur work for him properly and then in a few months to a year, Harry could gently let her go once the possibility of a life debt had passed.
Letting absolutely none of this show on his face, Harry smiles at Fleur Delacour and shakes his head.
"Take the day."
Fleur blinks and opens her mouth to respond, but before she can speak he lifts up a hand, cutting her off.
"There's no need for any further interviewing, Ms. Delacour. If you truly want the job as my assistant, it's already yours. However, you've just been through a very traumatic experience. So I'm not going to accept any decision from you until you've had a full day to consider it, alright?"
Fleur's mouth closes with a click of her tongue as Harry continues on with a wave of his hand.
"Go and relax. Take a bath if you like. Read a book from the safer section of the Manor Library. Hell, I can even provide you with a two-way portkey that will take you home and then bring you back if you decide you need to see your family."
He can tell that last one does indeed interest her. She wants to see her mother and sister again, no doubt. Her father is usually dead by now from what Harry remembers of the timeline, but the rest of the Delacour Family should be all the closer for it.
Fleur still hesitates so Harry flicks out his wand and creates a glowing light that hovers over to her. She blinks at it while he smiles.
"Go. Anything you need to know about where to find things in the manor, just ask the light to guide you and it will take you where you want to go. If you decide you want that portkey after all, just have it bring you to me and I'll make it for you, alright? No pressure either way. Just… relax."
Letting out a sigh, Fleur slowly nods and then rises to her feet and bows to him.
"Thank you, Lord Hallows."
Harry watches as she departs from the room, her little guide light bobbing through the air next to her. Then, he turns to regard Death. Smiling back at him with dark red lips, Death just bats her eyelashes.
"Something the matter, Master?"
"I suppose this is the surprise, is it? Some manner of secret force killing all of the wizards in Magical Britain? No one to really challenge me here if all of the more powerful and bigoted wizards are dead, is that it?"
Death just giggles, which admittedly is a rather unnatural sound when she's still wearing Morticia Addams face and body. Still, stepping up to his side, she places one hand on the back of his chair and the other down on the table as she leans over him. Harry doesn't bother looking away as she gives him a view of not just her cleavage, but completely down the front of her dress. If she didn't want him to stare, she wouldn't have done it.
"Oh Master. Tell me true… would you have really been content for long in a world that was completely and utterly peaceful?"
Harry just grunts, eyes narrowing as he glares at her.
"I was looking for a vacation Death. Not another challenge to solve."
"Staycation, I think you mean."
Lifting her hand up, she studies her pitch black nails for a moment before pouting at him. This expression is more Morticia's speed.
"Fine then. Ask and I'll tell you right now what's going on here, Harry. You can have this whole mess solved within the day and spend however many years as you like in this place as the Hero of the Wizarding World. Or rather… given the gender disparity, the Witching World might be more appropriate these days~"
His eyes narrow further, all the way to slits. Death just smirks.
"Just say the words, Harry. You have omnipotence on a leash, just like always. I know and see all, especially that which lies within my domain such as is the case here. Every wizard who has died to this mystery, I know exactly how they died. You just have to give the command, O' Master."
Harry scowls.
"I know what you're doing, Death."
Her smirk widens.
"And yet…"
Snorting in amusement, he nods his head.
"Yeah. It's still working. Fine. Fuck it. I'll admit that I'm at least a little intrigued by all of this. Some mystery plaguing Great Britain and killing off only one gender of magic user… and it's not some sort of Death Curse cast over the isles or something? Tch… fine, I won't have you spoil it for me right now."
At the same time though…
"That said, I do want to know a couple of things before we continue. I could just look it up I suppose, but I'd rather not draw too much attention to myself. So as long as it doesn't completely spoil the mystery, I want you to tell me how the original Harry Potter of this world died."
Death hums, tilting her head to the side.
"… Of course, Master. It is as you said, no great secret. And truthfully, not much changed from what happened with you. Unfortunately, the Lily Potter of this world was not quite so skilled as your own mother. She did her best, but in this instance, her best wasn't good enough."
Frowning at the disparagement of one of his mother's alternates, Harry gestures for Death to get to the point. Death shrugs, causing Morticia's breasts to bounce up and down very enticingly in her black dress.
"The Harry Potter native to this world died the night of October 31st, 1981, as just an infant boy when Voldemort cast the Killing Curse on him. This world's Lily Potter found and used some of the same protections as your own did, but not all of them."
Ah, he's starting to get an idea of where Death is going with this.
"… In the end, the feedback was still enough to destroy Voldemort's physical form and send him into that wraith-like state where he was neither completely alive nor completely dead. Your other self just didn't survive the encounter as you did."
And so the infant had died. Where he had lived and grown up as an unintended living horcrux for Voldemort, this timeline's Harry hadn't made it out of the crib. Shame, but then to be fair Harry was growing used to it by this point. After all, he could not exist in a world where the original still lived. So the very fact that Death had been able to bring him here in the first place precluded the other Harry from surviving.
Honestly, he was just glad that it wasn't worse. The one where he found out his counterpart died in the cupboard under the stairs from extreme neglect had been… particularly taxing for Harry. And enraging, to say the least.
"So in this world, Harry Potter died as an infant but still succeeded at banishing Voldemort. And somehow that change led to most of Magical Britain's wizard population dying out a decade and a half later? How?"
Death just smirks again.
"Now, now Master. THAT would be telling. But to be fair… not everything in this world revolves around you, you know."
Harry gives Death an exceptionally dry look at that. Sure it fucking didn't. He just knew somehow, when he finally got to the bottom of all of this, that he was going to find out it had SOMETHING to do with him in some way…
For now though, he sighs and just shakes his head. Harry had to decide now just how he was going to go about things moving forward. After all, he now knew he was something of a 'hot commodity'.
Frankly, if most of the wizards in Magical Britain were dead, just walking down Diagon Alley might have gotten him swarmed. Luckily, he'd developed a preference for being sneaky over the many worlds he'd lived through so he hadn't been that foolish.
At least nobody important knew that he was around yet. Harry could still plan out his 'entrance' into the Wizarding World. And if all went well, he should hopefully be able to avoid becoming some celebrity this time around…
He just had to be cautious not to make too big of a splash.
-x-X-x-
Amelia Bones had never wanted to be Minister of Magic. Her 'ambition' if it could even be called that ended with the position of Director to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
The DMLE was where she'd been most comfortable, where it felt like she had done the best work, especially after Voldemort went and got himself killed all those years ago and it fell to her and her Aurors to clean up his frenzied Death Eaters afterwards.
Being directly involved in taking down the Lestranges after they drove the Longbottoms to insanity had been what catapulted Amelia from her position as Head Auror up to DMLE Director a couple years later, but she'd never wanted anything more than that, truly.
Unfortunately, the world didn't much care for what she wanted. When wizards started dropping like flies eight years ago, there'd been a power vacuum almost immediately. Cornelius Fudge had been the last Minister of Magic to last longer than a month before her. He'd been Minister from 1990 all the way to his death in 1994, at which point every single male successor he'd had after that had dropped dead within weeks.
Until finally, the position had all but been forced upon Amelia by the remainder of the Wizengamot in a desperate bid to stabilize the Ministry. Her chief 'rival' for the spot at the time had been Senior Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge and truth be told, if it had been any other witch, Amelia might have just passed on the job entirely and let them have it. But not Umbridge. Just thinking about that crazy bint sent shivers down Amelia's spine even now.
Fortunately, everyone else agreed with her. In the end, all of Dolores' allies, all of the wizards that the toad of a woman had been sucking up to all her life… were dead. Plus, Amelia was considered to be just more qualified for the job, plain and simple. She was a Ministry Director after all, and Dolores had never been anything more than a glorified assistant.
And so Amelia Bones become Minister of Magic and much as the Wizengamot had hoped, she'd lasted longer than a month. Fuck, now she'd been Minister of Magic for over six years, almost as long as the crisis itself had been going on.
Stabilizing the Wizarding World had proved all but impossible, especially as more and more wizards had died and nobody could figure out exactly what was killing them. The Wizengamot had shrunk further and these days was completely female. As was the Ministry itself. And their entire way of life was slowly but steadily dying off.
She-
A knock at the door pulls Amelia from her morose thoughts and she straightens up in her chair behind her desk.
"Come in."
The door to her office opens and Penelope Clearwater, her current Senior Undersecretary, steps inside, her heels clicking across the floor as she strides right up to Amelia's desk.
"We've just received news from Gringotts, Minister. There's been movement among some of their oldest accounts."
Amelia furrows her brow in confusion as she takes the parchment that Penelope holds out to her.
"I don't understand."
"You will once you read it, Minister."
Frowning, Amelia nevertheless does. Slowly, her brow furrows even more… before unfurrowing as she goes more and more wide eyed.
"This is…"
"Yes Minister."
"But why would the goblins give us this? They don't have to report something like this for up to six months thanks to the last treaty. And they usually bundle up everything of this nature in one massive drop so that it's hundreds upon hundreds of pages and takes us even longer to go through."
It was, of course, infuriating… but then, that was goblins in a nutshell. Amelia had long since stopped expecting basic decency or respect for others' time from the bankers over at Gringotts. Which is why it was so surprising to receive this notice. Because this was big news… maybe the biggest news in years even.
"… If I had to guess, Minister, I would say that this 'Lord Hallows' pissed the goblins off in some way, but for whatever reason they cannot retaliate as they normally would."
Amelia hums. Penelope might be on to something there. Because this? This was rather blatant wasn't it? Sure, Gringotts HAD to report that someone had accessed the Potter and Black Vaults to the Ministry. And sure they HAD to also report that someone had created a new vault under the name Hallows. But they didn't have to bundle that information together so cleanly like this. And they didn't have to do it nearly this early.
… Yes, Penelope was right. Gringotts no doubt expected the Ministry of Magic to leap on this opportunity like a pack of starving hyenas and in the process disrupt whatever plans this 'Lord Hallows' might have in place. They were counting on the Ministry of Magic to be their bludgeon of choice for revenge against whatever slight the wizard had done to them.
Unfortunately, the goblins' motivations didn't really matter. Because the truth was, she couldn't afford to just ignore this. Not when they had someone who was apparently of both House Potter and House Black lineage moving around Magical Britain again. The Ministry needed to get this locked down before whatever had killed every other wizard got to this one too.
The only question was how to go about doing so.
-x-X-x-
The Vote:
[ ] Send Aurors to take him into protective custody (hard approach) - 11%
[X] Send Penelope to arrange a meeting with him (moderate approach) - 77%
[ ] Send a letter by owl so as not to spook him (soft approach) - 12%
-x-X-x-
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