It's All Just Temporary with a Bit of Necromancy

Chapter 40: Report

Report

The darkness of Death pulsed and Harry shivered against the familiar chill; the burning white pillars of flame provided the only light. "Speak your questions, Child."

Harry nodded and took a breath. "Is it – is it normal for Necromancers to not get sad over people dying? I mean, my family died and I...I still don't know how to feel."

"How is one supposed to feel?"

Harry sighed. Maybe, like with Marvolo, Death wasn't exactly the proper source for asking about reactions to death. Death was pretty biased, he supposed. "I don't know, sad? Upset?"

"You are my Child and so you are given an understanding of myself and my realm to a degree that no other holds. This provides different insight and understanding that humans do not and cannot maintain or comprehend."

It wasn't a great answer, but Harry didn't bother hoping for more. "I almost Claimed Dumbledore," he admitted quietly.

"This I know," Death replied. The layered voice sounding in his head had become so familiar to him in the past few months that Harry wondered how he hadn't always known it. "The Tainted Light will be mine soon but not now."

"Surprising," Harry commented with a frown. "I figured you'd be happy to take him whenever you could, so long as I met the timeline."

"His Life will be mine," Death repeated, the darkness pulsing calmly. "However, there are still things that need to be done."

"Will you tell me what those things are?"

"No."

Harry groaned softly. Of course not, because that would be too easy. "Right. Thanks."

"You are welcome."

Harry rolled his eyes. The darkness pulsed and flickered as if in amusement and Harry glared into the stretched shadows. "Right so there was a vote for the State of Emergency and I managed to convince people to hold off but my school vote was postponed too." Death remained silent, forming a humanoid shape and then dissolving in steady increments. Harry knew that Death didn't really care and that the actions of the everyday lives of people were of little consequence but Harry still couldn't help telling Death about what happened, almost involuntarily he felt compelled to talk to Death about Life. He wondered what it was he sought: approval? pride? Suggestions? Maybe he'd never know. "Well, the Wizengamot wishes for me to gain the alliance of the vampires and the Veela and the werewolves. And they want me to talk to the Dementors too."

"Something that I demanded of you for this new year anyway."

"Yeah. Isn't that great? For once all my jobs are in agreement with each other."

"Being my Child is not a job," Death said coldly and Harry shivered as the darkness pressed against him. "It is what you are."

"Right, yes, totally agree." The words tripped and stumbled as they fell from his mouth but the pressure eased and Harry sucked in a breath. "Yeah, I just meant it was nice that I could do some of your work openly."

"This is something my previous Children also mentioned," Death said, "that my work needed to be done in the shadows. So long as it is done, I care not for the methods."

Harry didn't feel like explaining the complexity of human politics to an eternal, non-corporeal being and so just nodded. And thought over what else he needed to talk to Death about, he felt like so much had happened in the past month. "So, Marvolo has Horcruxes, that is what you were wanting me to fix?"

"Yes, Child. Three have been returned."

"Which three?" Harry asked eagerly. "We had worked that out for ourselves but we couldn't determine what the third was. There was the ring and the diary, but what was the third?"