Chapter Text
No matter what timelines they existed in, Death found that Harry James Potter and Tom Marvolo Riddle were always interconnected. It existed throughout their entire ancestral tree, stemming from Death’s first interaction with the Pervell brothers, to Albus Severus Potter and Delphini Riddle, the legacy left behind by the Dark Lord and the Boy-Who-Lived.
Death, as a concept, existed across all times and universes.
Death, the corporeal entity, could only exist in one place at one time. Death could move freely between timelines and universes, yet had chosen to take residence with Harry James Potter after he died, returned to the land of the living without the horcrux he’d been caring for since birth and killed his mortal enemy.
The first approach to any mortal that they would not reap immediately was always important- humans had a natural affinity to shun death, for obvious reasons.
So Death approached in a form that humans, wizards in particular, were often affiliated with: a black cat.
Much to Death’s surprise, Harry accepted his claim as Master of Death and went about his life…
…as much as he could.
Death witnessed the unintended consequences of removing a living horcrux from the host. Harry was alive, yet he was not living.
He lived as a shell for the first months after the Battle of Hogwarts. At first, all thought that it was the result of PTSD, to which Death agreed. Harry’s hands would shake as they ran through Death’s fur in the night, when their Master was too afraid of what sleep might show him. Death would purr, a strange sensation that required them to slip into the mindlessness of a cat to comfort their human.
Harry’s loss of self, as he no longer had an enemy to fight, put a burden on his relationship with Ginny Weasley. The young heroine had led a militia against the Death Eaters in Hogwarts and won. Riding high, she signed up for the Auror academy, following her twin brother’s path of not graduating.
Death observed their Master try to have a working relationship with Ginny, seeing as he attempted to pull his cheeks up to please her and Ginny calm her lusts for the hero.
Ginny suggested that Harry see a mind healer, to which Death thought was a good idea and gave their input as well.
And for a year, Death watched as Harry struggled to make his relationship work. He went to therapy, taking Death along as his ‘companion animal.’ After the first uncomfortable visits, attempting to find a therapist and then navigating that awkward introduction, Death witnessed Harry begin to recover.
And Death, for a moment, was hopeful that the missing shard in Harry’s soul would heal. That the walks in the morning to watch the sun rise, the afternoons spent in the park with Ginny, evenings learning how to use home spells- Death had a moment of hope that their Master would recover.
Death should have expected that once his Master found calm seas that a storm would approach. Ginny Weasley dropped the words: ‘can we talk’ and both Death and Harry knew what that meant. Death wasted no time hopping into their Master’s lap, purring immediately to settle him. Their Master’s hands were already quaking, taking to rest in Death’s dark fur to try and hide the nervous quake.
Ginny confessed that she was putting expectations on Harry that were unfair to him.
“Maybe at one time,” Harry said, once he found his voice, “we would have been two adventures.”
“Goodbye Harry,” Ginny said, bestowing one last kiss on his lips, numb and cold as she left.
Harry didn’t cry as he fell into bed that night, but Death stayed with him all the same.
Several years passed and many of them were spent with Harry remaining in Grimmauld Place, only going out to meet his mind healer or shop for any supplies he might need. Harry had his friends from Hogwarts, all moving on in their careers and relationships.
As Harry was left behind like a parasite without a host.
Spending so much time in the mortal realm, trying to ground their Master to reality, Death missed the rippling in time and space. Death missed the birth of Delphini Riddle as they were spending time with their Master, purring in the sun patches as Delphini shivered in the cold, in want of parents she could never have.
As Harry walked into a local pet store with Death in his hands, allowing the corporeal entity to pick out a collar and a name tag, Delphini was plotting how to steal a time turner to be reunited with her father. As the machine etched in the name Morti into a silver fish tag, Delphini was years in the future, sixteen years old, and breaking into the Ministry of Magic.
Harry and Morti both ate at the same table, Morti with a can of tuna and Harry with some General Tso’s chicken.
“Thank you for being with me, Morti,” Harry said, his attention on the cat as they enjoyed their canned delight. Morti purred as they felt a warm hand stroke along their spine, flicking their tail side to side to show pleasure.
“You have been my companion these past seven years,” Morti chewed on a particularly large piece of tuna, breaking it down to shreds with their tiny jaws and teeth. “I have not known friendship like this in a long time. I am grateful to have you as my Master.”
Death really didn’t need to eat, so they stopped and walked over to the other side of the table, taking a familiar seat on their Master’s lap, purring with contentment.
In such a state of contentment, the entity of Death, Morti, did not notice Delphini Riddle wearing the time turner and twisting it back with panicked hands and a heart yearning for her father, for the love of parents she never had.
Death did not see…
But Fate did…
And so, as Delphini Riddle twisted the time turner, Fate allowed for a spell to be cast right at the young witch’s heart, blowing time dust into her lungs and regressed her as much as she turned time.
Death noticed it the moment that the air around them shifted.
It was the merging of two universes folding over a period of time.
Immediately, Morti shed his cat form, extending into the eldritch monster, seven feet towering tall, dark and imposing cloak hiding nothing but darkness and bones. Reaching their presence out, Death could feel magic spinning a yarn that could only be attributed to Fate.
Death saw Harry had awoke, clutching his hands over his ears as he cried out in the bed.
“Morti!” Harry cried out, his voice hoarse with sleep, eyes tearing with pain as the air pressure continued to constrict around them.
“Hold on, Master!” Death told his human.
*
Harry's ears were ringing as he woke up. Before he tried to open his eyes, he felt the soft nuzzling of Morti on his cheeks, the familiar greeting exchanged every morning. Though Harry was in pain, he tried to smile, lifting a very tired hand up to pet the cat.
At first, their relationship was a bit turbulent. Harry felt he was rather accepting of being the Master of Death, but when the entity began to stick around when he was in a relationship with Ginny- he was naturally apprehensive.
Yet when Ginny asked about the black cat that had taken to following Harry around after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry found himself saying they were a package deal. Harry felt a little possessive of Death (Morti, to the wizards that asked their name), and could relate better to Tom Riddle’s relationship with Nagini.
“Master,” the purring voice of Morti echoed through his mind. “You really need to wake up.”
Harry hummed, his head pounding with a migraine.
He hated these mornings. These days were hard on his mental state. Harry would need to go through the list of essentials- bathing, taking his morning potions, eating and drinking, all while making sure that his hiding in the darkness was attributed to his migraine, not his depression.
A high pitched sound added to the pain in his head. Harry winced, attempting to bury himself deeper in the sheets.
“Five more minutes, Morti,” Harry pleaded, knowing that his familiar was helpful in keeping him sane.
The sound began to echo like a siren. Harry groaned in pain, covering his ear. He willed himself to open his eyes, to at least shut the alarm off.
“Oh shit!” he cursed.
Yeah.
Harry could see why Morti might want him to wake up.
And who knew adrenaline could break through a migraine.
There was a baby on the floor.
Like, an actual human baby.
And it was crying.
“Shit,” Harry said again, stumbling out of the bed. He slammed his knees to the floor, which only further startled the babe on the ground, the cries echoing around the room.
Harry crawled over to the baby, confused as the infant seemed to be clothed in garments beyond years. Harry swallowed a dry throat as he reached out to pick up the infant. The pants immediately slipped off the child, which had Harry swaddling the exposed skin with the blue shirt the baby wore.
“Hush,” Harry said, rocking on his hips on the floor. He looked around the room, finding that Morti was sitting in front of him, black paws neatly in a line as yellow eyes observed the small infant.
The infant’s wails tempered down to whimpers after a few minutes of being held by Harry. He alternated between the rocking and bouncing, unsure of who the movement was meant to be soothing. The baby, having let out such billowing wails, was hyperventilating, tiny lips quivering as they attempted to bring in air.
As if by instinct, Harry opened the shirt a little wider to allow the baby more physical space. He hushed the infant, rubbing two fingers over the center of the chest.
“I didn’t know babies could be so small,” Harry found himself saying, observing that the size of his two fingers seemed to be taking up the full expanse of the baby’s chest as tiny lungs began to breathe normally.
The infant’s eyes were a seaglass blue, rimmed red from her tears. Harry rolled up the sleeve of his nightshirt and removed the tears from her cheeks, then moving to wipe the snot from her nose.
“There we go,” he said, relieved to find the baby was no longer crying. Grimacing at the snot on his sleeve, Harry wandlessly summoned the Elder wand and removed the goop from his clothing.
Taking a look at the baby, Harry pointed his wand at the child.
And the baby tensed within his arms.
Harry closed his eyes and breathed as his therapist instructed when he grow angry, releasing the emotion since it was not the baby that brought it- but the wizards that must have pointed a wand to the child often enough to develop an instinctive reaction of fear.
When he opened his eyes, he smiled at the baby, hoping that it didn’t come off as aggressive, and went to resize the clothing on the child. The charcoal shirt that swam around the infant changed shape into a onesie wrapping.
Harry set the Elder wand on the floor, the baby in hand, and looked at his familiar.
“It’s Delphini Riddle,” Morti said.
Riddle.
Now there was a name that Harry would never forget.
It was a name that was always on his mind. From his youth and introduction to the wizarding world, the war he broke blood in, and the miserable reality that he existed in now.
If not for Morti, Harry Potter might have joined Tom Riddle in his own way.
Harry took a slow breath. He looked down at the baby in his arms. A little girl.
Looking closely, Harry couldn’t really make out any resemblance. She was a baby with chubby little cheeks, red eyes from crying yet blue that looked more familiar from Sirius Black than anyone he knew. His hand reached up to rub her scalp.
Delphini was still bald- though she had some peach fuzz sprouting from her head, she was simply a fleshy little baby.
Had Harry stumbled upon her in London, he would not have even thought of the child to be a Riddle.
“This is Tom Riddle’s daughter,” Harry concluded. He gave a weak laugh, bouncing her a little more.
Tom Marvolo Riddle was Harry Potter’s past, present, and future. When he was twelve, the boy tried to deny it. Now, it felt as if Harry was living as a shell of himself without Tom Riddle.
“Why do I get the feeling this is bringing me trouble?” Harry stroked along her cheek and was surprised when she turned her face towards his finger, managing to grab it around her gums.
Her small tongue pushed Harry’s finger up to the roof of her mouth and she attempted to suckle.
“And we are in the year 1930,” Morti added, their tail flicking, puffed up with anxiety.
Occasionally, Harry was asked to rate his stress on a scale of one to ten.
He could say his stress had reached a ten.
“1930?” Harry gasped. “How do I get back? What is she doing here? How did this happen?”
Harry watched as Morti got up from where they were sitting and with careful paws, walked over to where Delphini still had her mouth latched around Harry’s finger. Harry was too stunned to do anything about that, ignoring that for Morti walking on his knee to put a gentle paw on Delphini’s forehead.
It was actually kinda cute, a pure black with a single paw over a very tiny infant. Yellow eyes were gazing deeply into the blue ones, who was not deterred by the entity of Death in cat-form looking at her, continuing to suckle on the finger of the Master of Death.
“There is time dust within her lungs and blood that has yet to settle.” Morti’s ears flickered to the side, their tail whipping Harry’s nose unintentionally until the Master sneezed. “She was sixteen but the use of this time turner and misfired spell brought her to you,” Morti looked up at Harry. “And you back to Tom Marvolo Riddle.”