The Boy Who Kept Dying

Chapter 14 (Death's a Bit Busy...Call Back Later...)

A/N: Not my story! Original avalible on ao3

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Harry pushed into Death's office just a few days after he met with Snape, out of breath. "It took me forever to sneak away from Ron and Hermione," Harry gasped. He still hadn't told his friends anything more about Death than what he had at the welcoming feast. He loved his friends dearly but didn't think they could handle his relationship with the actual embodiment of death.

"What's so urgent?" Death asked, pushing the papers he had been marking aside.

Harry collapsed into the chair in front of the desk. "Dumbledore asked me to meet him in the entry hall tonight and to, in his words, 'bring my invisibility cloak.' He says he's found another Horcrux."

Death's face got dark and the shadows seemed to be wrapping themselves around him. "I know you don't want me to leave campus with him, but if he's found a Horcrux, then I think it's worth it," Harry continued. "I don't know what you want to do about the hallows. You said it didn't really mean anything if he got them, right?"

"That's right, they don't belong to him. That doesn't mean I want him to have all three though," Death glowered.

"Well? Can I go? Do I take my cloak?" Harry asked, confused.

Death just looked at Harry for a minute, trying to decide something. He nodded and then snapped his fingers. On the desk between them appeared Harry's invisibility cloak, a ring, and what could only be Dumbledore's wand.

"What...?" Harry started, but Death just waved his hand over the items and they seemed to melt together until they shrunk into a small, completely black stone that looked more black hole than actual stone. It had on it the etched symbol of a triangle bisected with a line and containing a circle. Death waved his hand one more time and the stone set itself into a silver ring with protection runes etched around the metal.

Death held the ring in the palm of his hand. "You, my love, are the true owner of the hallows," Death explained as he turned the ring over in his hand. "It took me a while to realize this as the implications of our relationship were beyond my understanding at the time. I'm not ready to take you from this world yet, and as much as you may say otherwise, I don't think you're ready to leave the land of the living."

Death was encouraged when Harry didn't contradict him. He placed the ring on the table between them. "This is yours when you are ready for it," Death said motioning to the ring. "The ring contains the power of all three hallows to use as you will. However, it is also the final piece of our bond. When I made the hallows originally, Fate told me that I would encounter them once again when I found the one who would make me whole, my soulmate. She said that when I found that person, the hallows would belong to them and they would rule the underworld by my side. You will become like me if you put this on. You will be neither alive nor dead and able to cross the realms. That being said, if you decide you never want it, that you want to live to 150 and have 30 grandkids, I'll rejoice with you in your happiness, but I will miss you dearly. This is beyond just your idea of a marriage as it is even more binding, so you need to think about it, and please, at least wait until you're 17 so your mum won't try to kill me even though I'm immortal."

Harry grinned at him. "So...you are asking me to marry you?"

"That's what you got from all that?" Death laughed, but it was cut off as Harry walked around the desk and kissed him so deeply, he could feel it in his soul. Death waved his hand, locking and warding his office.

Harry's hands tangled in Death's long, black locks, pulling his hair from the ponytail. Death pulled the younger man into his lap and ran his hands under Harry's shirt and over the scarred back of his love. "I love you," Death whispered as Harry started kissing down his jawline and neck.