It was my Willing Choice

Chapter XII: The Mother's Protection and the Father's Gift

Death knew that this procedure would be harrowing for both wizards to fully undergo; he also internally knew that both were powerful enough and willful enough to desire to survive it. Tom's body was practically bereft of reserve magic; yet he still gave magic off to supply the ritual with. His body also, technically, shouldn't have been able to withstand the strain of the intensity without some form of repercussions to it.

Yet, whilst the runes of the circle engraved to the space had drunk greedily of the reserves to his core; almost as if they were sentient and felt pure satisfaction and satiation to completely drain his reserve magic dry...they also seemed to use the excess to keep his body whole, which wasn't impossible to occur, but it was abnormal.

Death had only seen it occur maybe six times in all of his long eternal life.

Now, and now; the runes had moved on and were drinking upon his own core. It was dangerous to let this continue for too long; Death had to keep a very careful watch, as so not to allow him to truly perish for this.

And the dangerous part now; was that Tom had only managed to get through half of his vessels as of yet. The other half of them were barely even started and soon enough...they would be finding out if Tom's desire to live and to stay beside of Harry for their destiny was strong enough to willfully keep his body alive to finish.

Harry himself; he was the other problem, despite Death was not there to see to his body. Though his attendants were and would come to him if his heir turned to a need for him. His magic was getting worse by the hour despite the influx of new mana.

Mana given from the released vessels and turned to raw soul magic that Death used from his distance to the teenager to break and remove the tampered seals with. That he bent to his will to return Harry's core to how it should be with his new core and no binds.

But Death was enraged as it was; whomever had done the tampering...they had known what the hell they were doing. With each small piece he fixed; another larger piece became unstable, and he risked Harry to his own demise if he wasn't cautious.

Death swore to himself that if and when they both survived and recovered; he was going to find out which clan of vampires had parleyed with Albus and done this to his child. His precious shadow-child. And when he found out; he would gleefully hand over the information to both Harry and Tom in order for them to exact their punishments.

Then, when they died; either from them personally, or by whatever means they used...he would ensure their eternal punishments were agonizing for them. If he did it while this angry; he'd probably annihilate all vampires from the realm just for pure satisfaction.

But Death's eyes that were devoid of emotions; they showed his anger and concern in other ways. He couldn't see Harry right now, but he could always sense him. His heir's own soul was screaming out to him with pain that he wanted to stop feeling and hearing; Death didn't usually react to such emotions, and yet the spirit internally grimaced. Harry had always been special to him and to the Mother; to many others beings not of the mortal realm, and to let him die like this would be his own cease to existence.

The heir of the Serpent Lord was likely physically just as pained due to the connection and was why the rite was using the excess magic to keep his body whole. He theorized that due to Harry's pain; Tom's mind was split in attention. That he was having trouble focusing on the memories long enough to garner the remorse needed and to placate those he used the twisted magic upon. His body was already very pained, and he would likely be very sore once he woke up again...provided they both survived.

Hollow eyes dimmed further as he surveyed Tom; the darker wizard too...he also now felt the pain his mate was in despite his unconscious state and his own suffering. Death saw how his form arced and twisted while asleep. The runes barely being able to keep him held down because of Harry's magic infusing to him due to the bond.