Marvel/HP: A Third Path to the Future

After staying in the bath until he was decidedly wrinkly, Harry got out then promptly collapsed onto the bed, sighing happily as the springs gave underneath him. He could have conjured his own bed of course while in the negative zone, but there he had to be on guard all the time. He had found, to his chagrin, that ward stones and rune-based shields did not block out all the enemies contained in the strange universe he found himself in, especially the ones that didn't actually think. Most wards were based on intent, and had never really been designed, not the ones he had learned about, to keep out wild animals, at least not wild animals that were below a certain size.

Some of the most dangerous things in the Negative Zone were small flying rodents that looked like a freaky mix of mouse and scorpion, simply because the poison they contained in their scorpion-like tails was poisonous to every other living thing. Harry had been stung once and had been sick for over three months, despite the immunity to most poisons he had developed after being bitten by a basilisk in his second year at Hogwarts.

Above him, Hedwig looked down fondly on her Harry, happy that he had once again found a place where she could stretch her wings. The place where they had been before this had bothered her senses so much she could barely fly, let alone hunt, and Harry was right, there was no food she could eat there. Their connection had sustained her for a time, but eventually it wouldn't have been enough, and his decision, as much as she was angered by it, had probably saved her.

Not that she was going to let up on him about it, of course. Not until he came up with the appropriate payment. She went from the bed posts to the window then, very carefully, opened the latch and flew off into the dark. She saw immediately they were in a city. And she gave the owl equivalent of a harrumph. She much preferred to hunt in woods or fields, but beggars could not be choosers.

Behind her Harry fell swiftly deep into REM sleep. But that night, his dreams were not his own.

OOOOOOO

Harry found himself standing in a large gallery filled with mist, yet he could make out what looked like statues of some kind through the mist. He cocked an eyebrow in thought, Okay, I haven't had a dream like this before.

Then he looked down at himself and noticed that he was fully clothed despite having gone to bed naked. Lucid dreaming, I believe is the phrase? Where you know you're dreaming and yet have a sense of self inside the dream? Never really studied dreams all that much, of course, most of my dreams were nightmares. Growing up with the Dursleys and with Dumbledore's idiocy will do that to one. Still, I guess I could just wander around and see what's here.

The first wax statue he came to came alive as he moved near it, shifting and moving into a specific shape rather than a formless blob. After a moment it stopped and he realized that the figure it had assumed was Neville Longbottom, one of his best friends and steadfast allies. He looked around at the other statues, which he couldn't quite make out through the fog. "I do hope this isn't some kind of gallery of past acquaintances. That would be rather depressing." He said it lightly, but his eyes were serious as he looked at Neville.

Anyone who had met Neville when he was a young boy would have been astonished at the man he had become in his fifteenth year. He had slimmed down and trimmed up, his shoulders were wide, and his whole body spoke of strength. His eyes were hard and brown in a face lined with lined with care, yet stern as a rock.

"What am I supposed to say to you, old friend?" Asked Harry softly, looking at Neville's face. "You stood up with me when nearly everyone else didn't. You stood shoulder to shoulder against Voldemort and everything that madman could throw at us, and, when you went down, you went down swinging. People questioned your courage, but I tell you now, I have never known a truer defender, a truer friend than you. Godric himself would've been proud of you, and I was proud to have been your friend."

Neville grinned at him and held up a thumbs up. Harry moved on.

The next figure was of Bellatrix Black, who glared hatefully as Harry approached. This time Harry stopped a little further away, well out of reach (caution was always a good thing when dealing with the insane) and stared at her. "Okay," he said aloud, "so this isn't going to just be my friends and dearly departed. Good, variety is good for the soul."

He stared at Bellatrix and said, "You were the first person I ever killed. I can't say murdered, of course, we were after all fighting at the time, but still, you are the first life I took, and that stuck with me for a while. I remember throwing up quite a bit afterward."

Bellatrix's lips curled at that admission, but her face mellowed as he went on. "You taught me more about fighting in those twenty minutes than I had learned from Sirius and all of our spars leading up to it. You are insane, a complete madwoman," he said blandly, and the figure scowled a little, "and your politics and beliefs were anathema to me. Yet, you were a true warrior, who never asked for quarter, and, for that alone, at least, I will salute you." Bellatrix glared at him but nodded her head in thanks for this sign of respect, and he moved on.

The next two statues were together and caused Harry to break out in something like a strangled laugh. "Daphne and Tracy," he said, his voice a little manic, "together, here, as in life." He then sobered as he looked at their faces which were both smiling brightly at him.

"I'm sorry." He said, and they frowned. "I'm sorry for leading you into that mess; I'm sorry for letting you fight with me; and, I'm sorry I failed to keep you alive. I've had years to get over the fact, and I know up here," he said, tapping his forehead, "that no one could've known that Voldemort would open the gates to Hell in that fight, but down here," he said, tapping at his chest over his heart, "it's a different story. You're my friends and I should've protected you better."

The two of them were glaring at him, and he shook his head. "I know what you would say if you could speak, 'It wasn't your fault, Harry', but that doesn't mean that I don't think it was."

"Although," he suddenly smirked at them, "that isn't really the memory I think of when I think of you these days. No, that would be the memory of me finding you two making out in the Charms classroom that one time without your tops on." They both blushed a little and he held up two thumbs in a salute.

"Still the hottest thing I've ever seen." They laughed, and he moved on.

Harry was surprised to find a statue of Remus Lupin, of all people, as the next in line. Harry stood for a moment, looking at him shaking his head. "I have no idea why you're here. You didn't teach me anything and you certainly weren't my friend. You're just this person who should've been watching out for me when I was younger and who didn't. You were once friends to my family, and you failed them miserably."

The werewolf tried to open his mouth, but no words came out, and Harry shook his head sharply. "You let that affliction of yours be a readymade excuse to cover your own laziness." He said coldly.

"You used it as an excuse for everything that was wrong in your life, and every time you didn't want to put in any effort. 'I can't keep a job I've just been given because I'm a werewolf.' or 'I can't be near my Godson because I'm a werewolf.' I have no idea how you died; I just know you did. And it would not surprise me in the slightest to find you died like you lived; a coward hiding from himself and the world around him." With that, he didn't even bother waiting for Remus to nod or do anything. He just moved off.

Next came the blonde beauty Narcissa Malfoy and Harry stopped, looking at her in surprise. "All right," he said softly. "Now I know it isn't just people who I know have died. Someone's been searching around in my memories. I mean, you were certainly alive and well when I went through the Veil."

Narcissa smirked at him and, unlike on many other faces who tried that look, on her it looked magnificent.

"The last I heard, you were still causing angst and anger in the pureblood community by being seen on topless beaches in Italy with several young mundane-born men." Narcissa didn't even blush; she simply smiled wider, and Harry shook his head. "Getting you away from your husband and son was a good deed I will never forget or regret."

"Although," he said lightly, "you know you were my first masturbation fantasy." Narcissa's eyes widened, and she looked at him in surprise.

"That's what happens when a MILF as gorgeous as you says to a young, impressionable boy, 'If there's anything I can do to repay you, anything at all, don't hesitate to call.' What did you expect me to do? I wish I had actually gotten up the courage to call you, but it was still too close to when Hermione…." He trailed off, but then shook himself, and smirked lopsidedly at her. "That would've felt wrong, but when I jerked to thinking of you, it felt so right." The MILF broke out laughing and waved him on.

His good humor lasted for the next two he saw, both girls who he had briefly gone out with and who he knew were still alive when he left. Angelina Johnson had taught him ways to use his Parseltongue that he would never have thought up on his own, and Lavender Brown had given him the most enthusiastic snog of his life.

But it evaporated when he came to the next figure. Albus Dumbledore stood before him in all his glittery splendor. But, just as in life, Harry saw beneath the splendor to the reality underneath. "Okay, I have no idea what the pattern is supposed to be here. I hope that whoever is doing this doesn't think I'd be happy to see you, of all people. Not after everything you allowed to happen to me and to others."

The old man looked at him unhappily and Harry shook his head. "You and your pureblood beliefs caused more trouble and long-term harm to the magical community than anything Riddle ever did. Then you got yourself, and more than two/thirds of your chicken club, killed trying to fight fairly, and with kid gloves, against an enemy who wouldn't know the words 'fair' or 'honorable' if you smacked him upside the head with a dictionary!"

"You were stuck in the past; your past beliefs, your past hopes, your past dreams, and your past glories. You refused to step into the present and do what needed to be done. Being a part of sending Riddle back every year to an orphanage where he was abused, and you knew it? Then letting his depredations continue when you could have stepped in and stopped it at any time? And, finally, you allowed what happened to Hermione to occur. Nothing you have ever done, no good you could ever do, would excuse that."

Harry shook his head. "There is a special place in Hell reserved for you, old man, and I hope you roast on the coals for all eternity."

The next person, however, put a smile back on his face. "Sirius!" he exclaimed, happily stepping forward and looking at the other man closely. He reached out, but his hand passed right through the man, and he sighed sadly. "I figured that. Well," he said softly, looking at his father figure, "you gave me something I didn't even know I needed, a male role model. You were crazy like a fox despite your dog form. You never looked down on me, or treated me as less than I was, or as a child. You treated me like a friend and a younger brother, and that was precisely what I needed. I wish I could've saved you, just like I wish I could've saved all my friends, but I know that you at least are in a better place. I hope you said hi to my parents for me, but I don't think I'm going to be joining you for a long time yet."

He smirked suddenly at the Marauder. "You all were right. I have my whole life ahead of me and a new world to spend it in. Besides, there are way too many pranks I want to do on people for me to die."

Sirius laughed silently and gave him a merry wave. Harry nodded and moved on.

The next figure, Harry was surprised to see, was a normal looking Tom Riddle. Not the pathetic rather horrible looking serpentine man he had been when last they clashed, but the younger, human version. Harry looked at him and shook his head. "I should hate you, but, as the war dragged on, I felt more pity for you than anything else, especially after I learned what your childhood was like. I looked at that and knew that I could've gone the same way all too easily. Then, you were so afraid of the ultimate reality, which no one can escape, and that must claim us all in the end, regardless of our station in life, that, to escape it, you split your soul."

He stared at the younger Riddle thoughtfully, then shook his head again. "I think you just lost something in that ritual. By the time I really started to fight you, you were this pathetic mad thing bent on destroying everything and everyone who stood against you. There were no more ideals; no more plans for the future or for the betterment of magic-kind. There was just your own power and trying desperately to live on past your time. Now, looking back on it, I just wonder how things could have been different if someone realized the road you were going down and helped you." Harry wearily just waved his hand and moved on leaving a very thoughtful looking Tom Riddle behind him.

The next statue he came to was the one that he feared, yet yearned to see the most, and he paused, drinking in the sight of her. "Hermione…" He whispered, and she looked at him, that bright happy grin he remembered so well on her face. He shook his head, laughing a little, but there were tears in his eyes. "Now I know this place isn't real, the real Hermione would've already launched herself at me in one of her patented Hermie Hugs."

Hermione laughed silently and nodded her head. Harry walked up to her, standing less than a foot away, staring at her. "What am I supposed to say to you?" he said softly. "My best friend, my first love? Would we have been together forever and been happily married ever after? Would we have found out after a few more months that we were better as best friends than as lovers? I don't know," he said, his voice scratchy, eyes glistening with emotion.

"But I would've loved to find out. I would've loved to find out many things," he said, smirking a little, "especially, whether or not your hair down there was as curly as your hair on your head." He said, wiggling his eyebrows dramatically.

The Hermione figure blushed rosily, but that was all.

Harry laughed a little, still staring at her, then said simply, his voice full of conviction, "I will make you proud of me." He stared around as all his friends had come forward, including more statues that he hadn't stopped by; all the people that he had cared for. He looked around them, and said, with a smile and tears in his eyes, "'Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends'. I keep part of all of you inside and I am proud … honored to have known all of you."

That said, he shook his head angrily, and called forth his magical power. His hands began to crackle with the Potter Lightning, a family class of magical spells that was incredibly devastating. "Enough!" he shouted. "This trip down memory lane was amusing at first, and then horrifying! Whoever you are, you had better have a damn good reason for this, and even if you do, if you are not powerful enough to give me pause, I will do all I can to destroy you and scatter your ashes across the dimensions!"

He concentrated further and brought his hands up, pulsing with magical energy. With a crackle and a pop, the entire vision faded to reveal a well-built, but incredibly ancient looking castle. And across from him stood someone in a cloak with a skull for her face and eyes that glowed with a blue so cold it hurt to look at them.

Harry stared at her for a long tense moment, then nodded, the tension leaving his body. "I guess you are powerful enough to give me pause. If this is about the so-called Hallows, you can take the stick and the ring with the Stone, though I would rather like to keep the Cloak. It's a family heirloom you know."

Death, or rather the anthropomorphic personification of death in this dimension, who had chosen to take a female form, stared at him. "YOU ARE NOT SHOCKED OR ANGRY? YOU WOULD GIVE UP THAT POWER?" She said, after a pause, her voice deep and cold, feminine, but coming from the end of long tube, or perhaps an empty sepulcher.

Harry shrugged. "Master of Death!" he laughed. "No one can 'master' death. It's just an ending. Dumbledore was right about that at least. Just the doorway to the next great adventure. And no, I don't care to keep them, if you want them back. But, as I said, I would like to keep the Cloak. And, as for being angry, what would anger serve? I can't fight you. I can feel your power and I know what you represent. Besides," he added thoughtfully, "I needed to say some things to them that I never had the chance to say, so, in that respect, the trip down memory lane was good for me."

Death stared at him. She had never come across a being like this. There was no fear his face, no fear in his entire being, yet he stood face to face with the ultimate reality. And there was no longer any anger in him either; he truly did believe what he said. Here, she realized, was a living being who she could deal with honestly, and not expect to have to deal with attempts at trickery or reneging on their deal.

"I CANNOT SIMPLY TAKE THEM." Death said, shaking her head. There were rules to follow when she dealt with the living, and simply reclaiming a portion of her alternate self's power was something she could not do. But talking was also something Death did not like to do much of at all. So she merely cocked her head to one side, indicating with her body language that she was asking Harry to speak.

Harry shrugged, conjuring a seat for himself, and sat down. "I don't want them, as I said. I don't think anyone should command death. It seems a horrible responsibility to give to anyone, and I wouldn't what want the job."

The two of them stared at one another for a moment, then Harry, remembering how the Hallows had been created in the first place, came up with an idea. "Could we perhaps make a trade? I'd rather like a new wand, I've sort of missed the things, though I, of course, don't want to regain the dependency on them that most of the wizards and witches in my own dimension had."

Death thought about it for a minute, then nodded. That would seem to be a fair trade, and she spoke once more. "A NEW WAND IN TRADE FOR THE DEATH STICK, AND THEN FUSED WITH YOUR BODY FOR THE RETURN OF THE STONE. AGREED?"

Had Death an actual human face, it would have been twisted into a grimace of contempt. Of the three Hallows that stone was the one that most horrified her. Death was an ending. It wasn't supposed to be a freaking window that people could look through with the right device, especially not when it caused the dead pain to be looked at like that by the living.

Harry nodded. "Agreed, how do we do this?"

Death raised a hand, and they suddenly found themselves in a massive forest. Harry looked around him and saw dozens, hundreds, thousands of tree types, and just knew that there was only one of each type. Knowing instinctively what Death wanted, Harry moved forward, placing his palm against each tree in turn, asking Death if she could describe the tree he eventually reacted to. He searched for what seemed like hours, yet none of the trees called to him.

Eventually he exited the forest and found himself, suddenly, staring at a tree whose sheer size his mind couldn't even grasp, let alone understand. The word massive seemed horribly inaccurate and far too small to describe it, it loomed like the size of a mountain, that largest mountain you could imagine.

Yet this one called out to him, and he gently reached out to tap a root, which was the only part of the tree he could reach. "This one." It sang to him, far more than his old wand ever had, far more than even the Death Stick.

"A PIECE OF WOOD FROM THE WORLD TREE, YGGDRASIL," Death announced. She was somewhat surprised by that, but set her surprise to one side, gesturing. At that gesture a stick fell from way, way above them to land in her palm. She clicked her bony fingers and the two now found themselves elsewhere in a strange white room, whose walls were made of tiny rectangles that shimmered like mirrors or glass. "YOUR NEW CORE WILL APPEAR HERE."

Harry nodded then gathered himself and sent out a massive burst of magic, as strong as he could, figuring that the more powerful it was, the more it would tell whatever cores were around about him. After a moment, a small crystal filled with a sort of glowing fire appeared in front of him, and he caught it before it could hit the ground. Death now looked a little shaken.

"PHOENIX FLAME HELD IN A SPLINTER OF THE M'KRAAN CRYSTAL," Death murmured. No wonder the mortal wants to get rid of the Death Stick, she thought. Everything he had picked was about life, and the defense of life, while the Death Stick was made to end it.

After that, she transported them back to her castle, and Death conjured up a table long enough for Harry to lie down on. With a series of gestures she indicated her intent, disdaining further verbosity.

Harry gulped a little but nodded and lay down. He could not stop himself, however, as her hands hovered above him. "You know, I've had a few doctor fantasies that…"

Without even thinking, Death smacked him upside the head, and he fell silent with a little grin on his face. Death shook her head, wondering where the heck that had come from, and then decided that she needed to get this young man out of her realm as swiftly as possible. He was life personified, chaotic, living, breathing life, and it was influencing even her.

It took her several minutes to fuse the pieces into his body. The process was slow and rather painful for Harry, watching the M'kraan Crystal disappear into his chest and the wood of the shaft, split in two, disappear into his arms. After what seemed an eternity, however, Death pulled back and nodded her head. "GIVE ME MY DUE."

With the human having his payment, Death tensed, waiting for the young man to try and escape her realm. Few mortals had ever gone through with their side of a bargain made with her in the past without being forced to.

But Harry surprised her once more by simply nodding and reaching into a pocket. He pulled out the ring with the Stone and tossed it to her almost negligently. He then tapped the ring that he already had on his finger, which suddenly transformed into the Death Stick.

He handed that across to her as well, smiling gently. "Now where's the exit and, don't take this poorly, but I hope it will be a long time before I see you again. I have a whole new world to explore," he said happily, his emerald eyes shining, "and a whole lot of dreams I need to achieve for the people I've left behind."

Death nodded and, with a wave, Harry was gone. She looked at the items in her hand and then slowly, methodically crushed them both into a fine powder and inhaled, taking their essence and power into herself, feeling the shard of energy merging with her own.

That done, she turned back to her work with the final thought, I wonder what will happen when that young man meets the one who is trying to woo me. The phrase 'Sparks will fly' will not just be a phrase anymore, ringing in her head.

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