FIC: Xerosis -- Chapter Seven, Part Two -- T -- Voldemort/Harry

[batsutousai]

Title: Xerosis
Author: batsutousai
Beta: tsuki_no_suzu & magickmaker17
Rating: T
Pairings: Voldemort/Harry (post-Harry/Ginny)
Warnings: SLASH, AU, character death, super!Harry, Dark!Harry
Summary: Harry's world ends at the hands of those he'd once fought to save. An adult-Harry goes back to his younger self fic. Super!Harry

Chapter Seven, Part One


-0-

Harry didn't even realise what time it was, so distracted by his spell work, until his friends hunted him down, looking a bit worse for the wear, but generally accepting of his secrets.

"You weren't at dinner," Terry offered when Harry glanced up at the group silently clustered at the other end of his table. Luna had already plopped herself down in the seat next to him.

Harry blinked, silently conjured the time, then grimaced. "Oops. Got distracted. Luna, what are you putting in my hair."

Luna smiled down from where she was carefully arranging the crown of comfrey flowers she'd braided while the others had spoken of Harry's revelations by the lake. "I made you a crown."

"It better not be more foxglove," Harry warned, more amused than irritated at his best friend. "One afternoon with hallucinations was more than enough."

Luna giggled. "It was fun, though."

"You didn't get cornered by Siri afterwards when he was trying to figure out what potions we'd been sniffing," Harry retorted with a shudder. "I swear, he gives the worst parental talks ever."

"I'm having a hard time envisioning your godfather giving you a 'parental talk'," Lillian commented, carefully pulling out a chair to sit in.

"Exactly," Harry replied, rolling his eyes. "Luv, this crown... It's not pink, is it?"

Luna giggled in response and smacked his hands away when he reached up to remove it. "It's very fetching, Harry. Now, leave it alone."

Harry sighed and obediently returned his hands to the book he'd been reading when his privacy spells had let them past. "As long as it's not foxglove," he decided.

Morag took the seat next to Lillian, commenting, "You make a very bad Dark Lord, Potter."

Harry smiled at her. "You mean, I act like a very bad Dark Lord." He took on a slightly child-like air. "But, I'm only fifteen."

"Bollocks," the girl retorted as the others all took seats around the table. Hermione dared to take the seat on Harry's left, much to the others' apparent relief. "The lions and Lil told us about you, about it being your 'second chance' or whatever."

"Hmm. I'd wondered if they would," Harry replied a bit absently, glancing back down at the book in front of him. "To be fair, then, I am playing the part of a fifteen year old student who has a tendency to know a bit more than your average student and who is expected to vanquish the evil Lord You-Know-Who and become a kick-arse auror."

"Why?" Millicent wondered honestly.

Harry smiled a bit bitterly and looked over at the other half-blood. "What else would I do?" he wondered. "For all that I am an adult, I remain in the body of a child."

"You managed to make a persona for yourself as a second Dark Lord," Tracey commented.

"It never would have happened if I hadn't caught his attention back in our first year." Harry cocked his head to one side. "Well, and made a deal with him that summer. Hn."

"Our first year?" Li repeated. "When? How?"

"Professor Quirrell was holding Vol–" Harry stopped as most of the people around the table flinched. "Oh, for Merlin's sake! He's not going to pop in and start cursing people if I say his name!" He shook his head at the faintly sheepish looks he got in response. "Why he had to go and make his anagram forbidden to say..."

"Anagram?" Hermione asked.

"Huh?" Harry blinked. "Oh! Yeah. He took his full name and made up a new one with the letters. Bit clever of him, given, but what's the point if no one ever uses it?" He rolled his eyes. "Idiot."

The students all laughed a bit nervously at that.

Luna let out a dreamy sigh and reached over to fix Harry's 'crown'. "You could just use his real name," she commented.

"I don't want to break them," Harry replied.

Luna just smiled and pulled some string out of her pocket to fiddle with.

Harry rolled his eyes at her, then looked back at the others. "Right, so..." He frowned. "What was I saying?"

"Something about Quirrell?" Terry offered.

"Oh, right." Harry shook his head. "He had Voldie's–" a few of them choked, "–spirit riding along on the back of his head." He smiled at their horrified looks. "Long story, that. Anyway, he was in the school to get the Philosopher's Stone, which was down that forbidden section on the third floor that Dumbledore warned all of us about at the feast, you remember?" They all nodded while Luna hummed a song ever so quietly and reached over to braid the string she'd been playing with into Harry's hair. "Luna..." Harry sighed.

Luna smiled at him and kept on, earning some helpless giggles from around the table.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Anyway, Voldie was here for the Stone, so I traded it to him in return for his promise that he wouldn't kill me while I was still a student."

"And he couldn't just get you expelled?" Tracey pointed out.

Harry shrugged. "He could try, I suppose. Did, in fact, by having Barty stalk me. So I took Barty back to his base and had a little tête-á-tête with Voldie. We made a couple of deals, some curses were thrown back and forth, all very boring..." Harry grinned at their disbelieving expressions. "It wasn't until the summer before third year that we formed any sort of partnership, though." His grin morphed into something of an evil smirk. "I like calling him my friend just to freak him out."

There was some helpless laughter at that and Millicent asked, "Are you insane?"

"Yes," Harry agreed.

Harry's stomach made a loud noise, reminding all of them that the teen hadn't eaten yet. "Let's get you something to eat, Harry," Lillian said, shaking her head.

Harry sighed. "Oh, fine. Help me put these books back?"

The books were put away and they all headed out of the library under the watchful glare of Madam Pince. Out in the hallway, it was agreed that they should part ways, since there was no real point in all of them going down to the kitchens and being out after curfew. The Gryffindors, Morag, Terry and Li all said their good nights, then made their ways up to their towers, Terry carrying Harry's brooms. Luna and Harry accompanied the Slytherins downstairs, then parted ways at the stairs down to the dungeons.

When they were finally alone in the kitchen – at that time of night, the house elves had other things to be doing – Harry asked, "How were they?"

Luna shrugged. "They already knew you weren't who you appeared to be in the school or at home. It was a bit of a shock, perhaps, to find out that you're Xerosis, but they didn't seem honestly surprised. Are you going to silence them?"

"I spelled their chairs as soon as Lil moved to sit," Harry admitted, not the least bit ashamed at that. He trusted his friends, yes, but there was no reason to allow a chance for them to slip.

Luna nodded, then cocked her head to one side, considering the 'crown' and 'hair decoration' she'd given Harry. "You look absolutely lovely."

Harry rolled his eyes and started in on his food. "Can you at least spell the flowers a Ravenclaw blue or an Avada green? Wearing pink makes me feel like some sort of gay Gryffindor with a complex."

"But, aren't you?" Luna wondered.

Harry shot her a dirty look. "Change the colour or I refuse to wear it tomorrow."

Luna pushed out her bottom lip in an impressive pout.

Harry pointed his fork at her. "I had a daughter and Merlin knows how many nieces, luv; I am immune to all forms of pitifulness from females."

Luna sighed and quietly cast a colour-changing charm to make the flowers a pale blue. Seeing his raised eyebrow, she pulled a small mirror out of her pocket and handed it over.

Harry considered the change, then nodded and held the mirror back out. "Acceptable."

Luna sniffed and stuffed the mirror away. "You've upset me. Terribly. I insist that you make up for it."

Harry chuckled and handed her a chocolate éclair he'd saved off to one side. "Will this do for now?"

Luna took the offered pastry and nibbled at it. "For now," she decided, "but you still owe me. I quite like pink on you."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Dark Lords do not do pink."

"Normal Dark Lords don't spend their average day surrounded by teenagers with hormone problems and sex on the brain, either," Luna retorted.

"Well, no, I don't suppose they do..."

"Or flowers."

"Okay, okay! Point taken!" Harry rolled his eyes upwards and stared at the ceiling for a moment, then glanced back at Luna. "I'm not a normal Dark Lord, but I do not do pink. Good?"

Luna sighed. "Oh, I suppose."

"Good."

"What about lavender?"

Harry shuddered. "I'm having flashbacks to my niece and godson's wedding, thanks."

Luna smiled. "They used a lot of lavender?"

"The bridesmaids' dresses, the ring-bearer's suit, the flower arrangements, even the bloody cake," Harry complained. "It was the only colour Victoire, Teddy, Andy, Ginny, Molly and Fleur could all agree on."

"You didn't get a say?"

"I avoided all the planning like the plague." Harry shuddered. "Teddy tried, though. He tried to drag both myself and Bill into it, so he could have some 'male sense' involved, but we banded together and stayed out of it." He cocked his head to one side in thought. "Well, to be fair, Bill and I stepped in and refused all shades of pink right at the start, but that was the only part we assisted with."

Luna shook her head, smiling. "No lavender, then. Pale blue and bright green."

Harry chuckled and returned to his food.

-0-

"I had wondered when you'd track me down," Harry commented, not looking up from the broom he was working with. "Honestly, I half expected I'd have only just laid down after leaving Dumbledore's office before my bed would be set aflame."

Fawkes settled on the perch the Room of Requirement provided for him across from the teen on the floor. The phoenix seemed content to just sit and watch Harry's spell work for the moment, so the teen continued on.

Once he'd reached a good stopping spot, Harry set the broom to one side and looked up at the bird. "Talk."

Fawkes ruffled his feathers a bit, then met Harry's sharp green eyes and connected them mentally. The teen shuddered at the sensation of letting someone in his mind, even just the outer reaches, but didn't force the phoenix out, so Fawkes said, 'Albus returned to me with a story of how you dream of killing and torturing Voldemort. I am not a fool, child, for all that Albus bought your lies. What are you?'

Harry's lips twisted with a cold smile. "So he bought that after all? Excellent. And I am a human, for all that Death gave me the gift of a dementor."

Fawkes let out an angry sound. 'You are being purposefully vague, little Dark Lord. Don't mock me or I will burn you to death.'

"Don't threaten me, bird," Harry hissed, eyes sparking with his power as the room chilled. "I know how to end your cycle of rebirth. You don't want to see who will come out on top."

Fawkes flinched away from the cold and wreathed himself in a protective halo of flames to ward it off.

They remained at a standstill for a good ten minutes, glaring at each other with silent threats.

Finally, both fire and cold vanished and they were cloaked in darkness. "Now, normally, I really don't care what you people do with your lives," Death commented as he appeared next to them, "but this is ridiculous."

"Do you ever stay out of my life?" Harry wondered of the apparition.

"No." Death snorted and turned his dark hood to Fawkes. "You can't kill him, so don't even try. He's working on my behalf, though how he's chosen to go about it is his business."

Fawkes chirped in response, and Harry heard his words translated to, "You don't usually play in the lives of mortals, so what's so special about this one?"

"He mastered my Hallows, in another life, and he keeps me amused," Death retorted.

Fawkes turned sharp eyes to the young Dark Lord. "Another life?"

"I died the Master of the Hallows and Death gave me a choice. I didn't like how the world turned out, so I chose to come back and fix it."

"You chose to come back and murder helpless muggles."

"Those 'helpless muggles' were hours from ending all life on the planet when I died, bird."

Fawkes looked surprised and turned to Death in question.

"Hours is a bit overly dramatic," Death commented. "They lasted about another two weeks before the radiation from their war eradicated the last of the species on the planet." His voice took on a pout as he added, "It made me rather useless, too. Can you imagine an entire world already dead? I was going to have to start forcing the dead to come back to life and die from the radiation just to keep in business."

"Woe is you," Harry snarked.

"It was terrible!" Death complained. "I was out of a job and it was boring and everything! It was like the time that silly Cold War wasn't so cold. I had to redo that one seven times before I found the right person to keep that first bomb from going off." He paused, then turned his dark hood to Harry and ordered, "You'd better not make me do that again, or I'll devise the absolute worst punishment for you when I finally toss you to Hell."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm working on it. Merlin."

Fawkes ruffled his feathers. "How does starting a war with the muggles keep them from destroying all life on the planet?"

"It doesn't," Harry replied, shrugging. "But it does get the magical world to move their collective behinds in an attempt to find a solution to obliteration. Last time, we started retaliation too late and they were much more advanced. This time, we got the head start."

"What are you going to do, build underground caverns to hide in?" Death wondered. "You do sort of need the muggles to continue populating your own species."

Harry grunted. "I don't know. Underground caverns are viable, but they would get a bit enclosed after too long. No, Luna mentioned something about the moon. Have to discuss it with Tom."

"Voldemort is actually working with you?" Fawkes asked, surprised. "I'd have thought he'd have killed you on sight."

"Not for lack of trying," Harry retorted. "We reached an accord and we're working together, now."

"They're both evil, insane and brilliant," Death commented. "Truly a terrifying duo."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," Harry decided.

Fawkes chirped to get their attention again. "I'll leave you to your business," he informed Harry, "but I don't like you."

"I don't much care for you, either, bird," Harry returned. "I'll avoid you to the best of my ability if you agree to do the same."

"Good." Fawkes flamed away, leaving Harry and Death alone in the dark nothingness.

"I have a question," Harry offered when it looked like Death was getting ready to leave.

Death sighed and turned to him. "Oh, very well. But only because you're my favourite."

Harry blinked, shook his head, then asked, "I'd have thought you'd hate phoenixes."

Death cocked his head to one side. "Hate them? I created them. Every time they're engulfed in their element, they die, which gives me a point, and then they get reborn again. They're kind of awesome."

"Sure, awesome," Harry agreed, rolling his eyes. "Yet Fawkes hates me because I'm a murderer."

"He's spent so much time around that human of his, is it really any wonder? I made their species, but their personalities are their own." Death waved a hand at him. "Go play with your sticks. And if you move your people out into space, stick to the moon, hm? The others planets are outside my jurisdiction."

Harry saluted him and the room returned to its original brightly lit self. "The moon, huh?" he murmured, picking his broom back up to work on the spells a bit more.

-0-0-0-0-0-

-0-0-0-0-0-

A/N: I'd gotten a couple of questions about why Death would let Harry reset the world, so I hope that answers those. XD

So, I was totally uncertain with what to do with the magical people without completely decimating the muggles, and talking to Shara about the satellites and space somehow brought the moon into the picture. Honestly don't remember which of us mentioned it at the start, but there you go.

WIZARDS ON THE MOON!

And, because magickmaker17 rolled her eyes at it a bit: For those of you not familiar with Japanese culture, they see a rabbit on the moon pounding mochi where we of the western world see a face. 'Usagi' means rabbit and 'Tsuki' means moon. So Luna was talking about the Rabbit [of the] Moon.
And if you figured all that out without my explanation, kudos!

~Bats ^.^x

Edit: First off, I HATE SAILOR MOON. So stop mentioning it to me. *glare*
Second, thanks to CloudySky who reminded me that Harry had used the Imperius on Wormtail in his first year, so he has used all the Unforgivables. Whoops.

Chapters:
Pro - If We Could Only Turn Back Time / 1 - Long Road
2 - Never As It Seems ||| 3 - The Bad Man, the Sad Man ||| 4 - Armies of Robbers and Thieves
5 - Fear Falls Like Rain ||| 6 - Rage Like Fire ||| 7 - Born From Conflict
8 - Reach Any Star ||| 9 - Cold Fields ||| 10 - Ice Inside Your Soul
11 - King of Anything

.

Comments

[sphynxisms.livejournal.com]

I just had Bats!gasms. Um Yes. Your writing is really that awesome. Everytime you update it tries to tempt me into reading what you do have finished just to get more of a high. Must remember that I am reading something else right now, or I really will wander off to read something you've finished.

I'm really starting to LOVE Death. Really really.

[batsutousai]

LOL. Whatcha reading? (No, wait, the last thing I need is another distraction from writing. XD)

Death is wicked awesome. ^.~

[mist-walker.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I am really enjoying this story. One thing I love is that you've made Fawkes NOT totally in love with Harry. lol Don't get me wrong I like the stories where Fawkes is all over Harry like white on rice but it's fun to find a good story where Fawkes hates Harry's guts! lol Keep up the great work Dark!Crazy!Harry is a fun Harry to read about. Can't wait to see more.

[batsutousai]

Yeah, the whole 'Fawkes is good with Harry no matter what' thing is turned into something of a cliché in the Dark!Harry fandom. Seemed I should change that a bit. XD
Glad you're enjoying! ^.~

[ringermaker.livejournal.com]

Love the last scene with Death and Fawkes! Death is wicked awesome!!! XD

Wee! And now Harry's roped in some Slytherin grunts for his personal army!

Lol. Luna and Pink! I agree that Lavender is an evil evil colour! Still get nightmares about the time my mum was choosing curtains. She was like, "Hmm, which shade of Lavender should I get? Should I get the darker ones which can block more light or the sheer ones which are really pretty?" She went on and on about it for hours and finally decided on sheer pale sky blue... -.-

That said, great chapter! I'm high again! Note to self: Do not eat chocolate and read Batsutousai's stories at the same time. It makes me so hyper! ^-^"
Want some? XD

[batsutousai]

Death is pretty rocking. XD

At least she decided on something not lavender? ^.^"

XD Sure! Always up for some chocolate! (Especially when there's none in my house... ;.;)

[ringermaker.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm really thankful for that. Now I wake up every morning to the pretty blue sky! :D

XD Here~ Have some Ferrero Rondnoir~ (My current favourite choccy!)

[margi-lynn.livejournal.com]

♥♥♥

I don't have much to say, dearest! I loved it like always, but I am so intrigued. SO MUCH HAPPENED!

Just waiting to see what comes next :D

[batsutousai]

LOL. ^.~

[farawisa.livejournal.com]

uuuh i loved this? why the hell haven't i read it when it came out???? right, cause i was too busy with that language course to really read anything new. damn.

i soooooooooo loved the talk with death and your icon. they are both so amazing.

now i'm off to read on!

[batsutousai]

Aw, boo on language courses being distracting. ^.~ Glad you liked it when you got the chance to read it, though.

[farawisa.livejournal.com]

well, i knew that it would be hard, but they didn't put me into the beginners group, but into intermediate, because i already had romanian lessons at home. *cough* which were bullshit and nearly nonexistent *cough*
but what can i do? so the others were all much better than me and i had to work hard.