Chapter 32:
– Amara Black –
I learned several important things after accidentally eating part of Lord Voldemort's soul.
The first was that Lily Evans could scream at a pitch that would probably shatter glass if she put enough panic behind it.
The second was that Marlene McKinnon's instinctive response to existential terror was to threaten whatever caused it with violence, even if that thing was a disembodied fragment of the Dark Lord's soul that had already been swallowed.
The third was that Alice had apparently been saving an emergency stash of Honeydukes chocolate under her pillow for exactly this kind of crisis.
Honestly, of the three discoveries, the chocolate was the most useful.
It took nearly an hour to calm them down. Not because I had a great explanation. I absolutely did not.
My entire explanation basically amounted to, "Oops, I ate a Horcrux," followed by three blank stares, one strangled noise from Lily, and Marlene asking me what the fuck a Horcrux was.
That had led to me explaining, very badly, that it was a piece of someone's soul stored inside an object to avoid death.
That had led to Lily going very pale.
That had led to Alice whispering, "You ate someone's soul?"
Which had led to me rubbing both hands down my face and muttering, "Not the whole soul. Just a bit. A soul snack. Can we please focus?"
They had not focused.
They had panicked.
Lily had paced the dormitory in her nightdress, red hair loose around her shoulders, one hand pressed against her mouth as if she could physically hold in the next question. Alice had sat cross-legged on her bed with a chocolate frog half-unwrapped in one trembling hand, staring at me like I might cough up Voldemort's nose at any moment. Marlene had stood by the broken window with her wand out, glaring into the night as if she expected the Dark Lord to personally fly through the shattered frame and demand his missing soul fragment back.
For the record, I had no idea if Voldemort could sense what had happened.
None. Fucking zero. Maybe he felt an intense pain in his chest? Maybe he knew exactly where I was and was already sprinting toward Hogwarts in a black robe with murder in his eyes? Maybe Horcruxes did not work that way and he was currently asleep in whatever snake-themed villain lair he lived in?
I had no clue.
Unfortunately, "I have no clue" was not a reassuring sentence when three girls were staring at me like I had just licked a cursed bomb.
So I lied. Confidently. "Voldemort is not coming to Hogwarts tonight," I had told them.
Lily had frozen mid-pace. "How do you know that?"
"I just do." That was not even remotely true, but I said it with the kind of calm certainty Morgana used when telling people their bloodline was about to end. Sometimes confidence was just a socially acceptable form of lying.
Lily had looked at me for a long moment. She was scared. Of course she was scared. She had every right to be. Yesterday, her life had probably been normal in that bright, irritating Gryffindor way. Homework. Head Girl duties. James Potter being an overconfident ass somewhere in the background. Snape lurking like a tragic oil stain in the corner.
Then I had fallen naked through a hole in reality with horns, wings, a tail, and enough trauma to drown a small village.
Now Voldemort's soul fragment had smashed through their dormitory window and flown straight into my mouth like the universe was trying to win some cosmic prize for most fucked-up first impression.
Lily should have run screaming to Dumbledore.
She did not. None of them did.
Marlene eventually lowered her wand. Alice distributed chocolate like we were soldiers in a trench. Lily repaired the window with careful, shaking motions while pretending she was not still glancing at me every few seconds.
We ate sweets in our nightclothes, surrounded by broken glass, an empty candy wrapper graveyard, and the lingering awareness that I had somehow made Voldemort my enemy less than twenty-four hours after arriving in this parallel world.
It was almost impressive.
By the time we finally went to bed, the castle was quiet enough to hear the wind brushing against the repaired window. Lily's breathing evened out first, soft and steady from the bed beside mine. Alice followed not long after, one arm flung dramatically over her eyes like she had fainted in a Muggle theater production. Marlene stayed awake the longest, wand still under her pillow, lips moving silently like she was practicing hexes in case my soul snack came back for round two.
Eventually, even she drifted off.
I did not sleep well.
That was not surprising. I had been ripped out of my reality by Trigon, dropped into what I was pretty sure was "close" to a canon version of Harry Potter in the Marauders timeline—but not quite.
Still, exhaustion dragged me under at some point, and for a few precious hours, I dreamed of home.
Then I woke up before dawn and immediately hated everything.
I hated mornings.
There was something deeply unnatural about waking up before the sun. The sun itself had not arrived yet. Why the fuck was I expected to be conscious before a giant burning ball of gas managed it?
Unfortunately, I had business.
I needed answers.
What did "Master of Death compatibility confirmed" actually mean?
I dressed silently.
The Gryffindor uniform still fit me like it had been tailored by someone who actively hated breasts, hips, and the concept of breathing. The white shirt strained across my chest no matter how many buttons I fastened, the skirt sat higher on my thighs than the school rules probably allowed, and the red-and-gold tie made me feel like I was wearing enemy propaganda around my neck.
I considered shifting my appearance with Metamorphmagus magic. Just a little. Maybe dulling the curves. Softening the face. Making myself less noticeable.
The thought lasted approximately three seconds before my pride strangled it in an alley and left it for dead.
No. I was not hiding my body because a school full of teenagers might stare. I had spent 19 years being made ugly, small, and forgettable by someone else's magic. I was not doing their work for them just because Hogwarts had narrow corridors and too many hormonal idiots.
Still, I grabbed my robe and pulled it around myself. Not for modesty. For warmth. Scotland apparently believed early mornings were best served damp and cold, like the weather itself had crawled out of a grave.
I glanced toward the other beds.
Alice was snoring softly into her pillow. Marlene had one leg kicked free of the blankets, her wand still clutched in her hand even asleep. Lily lay curled on her side facing my bed, red hair spilling across her pillow in a soft, fiery mess.
She looked so young. That was stupid, because she was eighteen. An adult. But compared to the Lily Potter in my world, this Lily looked untouched by all the choices that would eventually turn her into a woman who watched her husband curse their daughter and did nothing.
This Lily had not abandoned me. This Lily had not written a fake apology letter to lure me home for sale. This Lily had not hugged me like a trap and dressed me in Potter colors. This Lily had held my hand yesterday when I looked like I might break.
And I fucking hated how much that mattered.
"Don't be stupid," I whispered to myself.
Lily shifted, making a soft, sleepy sound. "Mmm…"
I froze. I thought she had woken up. Then she only burrowed deeper into her pillow, lips parting on a quiet breath.
I let out the air I had been holding. Carefully, I crossed the room, eased the door open, and slipped out.
The Gryffindor common room was empty. The fire had burned low, leaving orange embers glowing beneath blackened wood. The armchairs sat abandoned, squashy and overstuffed, with a few forgotten textbooks stacked on one table beside an abandoned quill. Someone had left a half-finished essay on Transfiguration lying open beside a mug of cold tea.
It was painfully normal. That was the thing that kept catching me off guard. Hogwarts was not just Dumbledore and hidden ancient magic and a future war waiting to happen. It was also cold tea, messy homework, ugly curtains, snoring roommates, and a castle that creaked softly around sleeping students.
It was what I should have had. The thought hit like a thumb pressed into a bruise. I pushed it away and climbed through the portrait hole before nostalgia could turn into something worse.
The Fat Lady was asleep in her frame, mouth open, snoring with dramatic little whistles.
"How elegant," I muttered.
She snorted once and kept sleeping.
The castle seemed determined to make my dramatic secret exit as inconvenient as possible. One staircase shifted while I was halfway down it, carrying me toward a corridor lined with portraits of stern witches holding baskets of fruit. I had to double back through a tapestry passage that smelled like dust and old socks. At one point, a suit of armor turned its helmet toward me with a rusty squeal.
Screeeeech.
I pointed my wand at it. "Whatever weird shit you're about to do… No. Just no."
The helmet slowly turned back to face forward. It also looked like it was sulking just a little bit.
Eventually, I found the entrance hall. The massive doors were shut, but not sealed. A quiet unlocking charm clicked the latch open, and I slipped through into the cold morning.
I hissed through my teeth and pulled my robe tighter. "Scotland can go fuck itself. Why is it this bloody cold!?"
Ahead, dark and endless, waited the Forbidden Forest.
I chose the Forbidden Forest for a very simple reason.
If something insane happened when I united the three Deathly Hallows, I did not want it happening in the middle of Hogwarts.
In canon, nothing special had happened when Harry Potter held all three Hallows. He had owned the Elder Wand, carried the Resurrection Stone, and worn the Invisibility Cloak, and the universe had not cracked open to give him a prize.
Then again, canon Harry Potter never had a snarky cosmic System welded to his soul.
Canon Harry Potter also had not been a half-succubus dark witch from another universe.
Details mattered.
I crossed the damp grass toward the edge of the forest, my robe dragging cold moisture against my calves. The hem was already wet. My boots sank slightly into the soft ground with every step.
Squish. Squish. Squish.
"Lovely," I muttered. "Absolutely fucking lovely."
The Forbidden Forest loomed ahead, black branches clawing at the pale morning sky. Mist threaded between the trunks like ghostly fingers. Somewhere deep inside, something gave a low, mournful cry that echoed through the trees.
A normal Hogwarts student probably would have turned around.
I kept walking.
I walked until she found a small clearing surrounded by thick roots and bracken. The ground was uneven, carpeted in dead leaves and moss. A broken stump stood near the center, black with rot and age. Dawn had not reached this place yet, leaving everything drenched in blue-grey shadow.
Perfect. If reality decided to have a dramatic little breakdown, at least the witnesses would be trees, spiders, and whatever unfortunate creature was stupid enough to interrupt me.
My soul-bound wand appeared in my right hand with a familiar pulse of warmth. It was beautiful. It had always been beautiful, but it felt different now. Blacker than black, polished like volcanic glass, warm beneath my fingers despite the freezing air. The wand thrummed with her magic, dark fire, lust, death, and the screaming remnants of a demon lord's son sealed inside it.
Stick of Lust and Death.
Still a stupid fucking name.
But the power inside it was not stupid.
The System had claimed it counted as the Elder Wand now.
In my original universe, the so-called Elder Wand had never really belonged to Death. It had been Morgana's missing wand, stolen centuries ago and passed through enough violent hands for idiots to build a legend around it.
But apparently, the System had opinions. It had taken my soul-bound wand, fed it demon essence, tied it to death, lust, and my own magic, then stamped it with cosmic approval like some deranged artifact appraiser.
New Elder Wand acquired. Because why the fuck not?
Next came the ring.
I lifted my left hand and stared at the Gaunt ring resting in my palm. The stone set into it looked dark and unremarkable at first glance, but that was a lie.
The Resurrection Stone.
I slipped the ring onto my left hand.
Finally, the Cloak.
I hesitated. That annoyed me. I hated that I hesitated.
The Invisibility Cloak was useful. Incredibly useful. It was one of the Deathly Hallows. By every practical measure, I should have been delighted to own it.
Instead, the thought of using it regularly made my skin crawl.
Because it had been James Potter's. Because it had been James Junior's. Because in my world, that cloak had been treated like a precious family heirloom while I had been treated like an embarrassment to erase. The Potters had loved that scrap of enchanted fabric more than they had ever loved their daughter.
I knew it was irrational to hate an object for the family that had owned it.
I did not care. My hatred had never claimed to be fair.
Still, I reached into my inventory and pulled the Cloak free. It spilled over her arm like liquid night, impossibly soft and weightless. The fabric shimmered without reflecting light, a paradox my eyes did not enjoy trying to understand. It felt cold where it touched my skin, but not unpleasantly so. More like standing under moonlight.
I stared at it for a long moment. Then I grimaced. "Fine." I threw it over my shoulders.
The effect of equipping all three Hallows was immediate.
The world stopped. One heartbeat, the forest had been alive with distant rustles and faint morning birdsong. The next, everything froze.
A leaf hung motionless in midair, caught halfway through falling from a branch. Mist stopped curling between the trees and became a still. A droplet of water clung to the tip of a fern without falling. Even the cold seemed suspended, locked in place against my skin.
I don't know what I was expecting really, but I certainly wasn't expecting time to fucking stop!
My fingers tightened around my wand.
"Oh my gosh!" The voice came from behind me. "You did it, my mistress! You actually did it! I am so happy!"
I spun. My wand came up instantly, because that was what happened when strange women appeared behind me in time-stopped forests and called me her mistress.
The girl standing there did not look threatened.
She looked delighted.
She was beautiful in a strange, familiar, impossible way. Pale skin, wild black hair, and eyes so dark they seemed to drink in the frozen dawn. She wore a punk tank top that showed off her pale arms and a pair of tight leather pants tucked into heavy boots. A silver ankh gleamed at her throat.
She looked like a goth girl who had walked out of a concert, a nightmare, and a holy place all at the same time.
I knew her. The recognition sat behind my eyes like an itch I could not scratch. My mind reached for the answer and hit something smooth and invisible. A wall. A veil. A block so subtle I had never noticed it was there until now.
The girl clasped her hands in front of her chest, practically vibrating with joy. "Oh, you still look confused. Right. Sorry. That should be clearing up now. I had to hide myself from your conscious memory until the Hallows were united, because if certain people noticed you noticing me too early, things would have become very messy." She paused, wrinkling her nose. "Well. Messier. Your life is already a disaster, sweetie."
The block on my memories cracked. A headache bloomed behind my eyes. Then everything snapped into place.
The pale goth girl who had punched Mordred's soul out of my stomach…
This was Death. Death of the Endless.
Otherwise known as Didi.
The DC version of Death herself stood in front of me, smiling like she had been waiting forever for me.
I lowered her wand a fraction. Then raised it again because, no, absolutely not, being adorable did not make someone safe.
"You," I said slowly.
Didi beamed. "Me!"
"You are Death?"
"Yes!"
"You are Death?" I repeated, because apparently my brain had decided the first answer did not count.
"Yes!" Didi said again, even brighter than before.
I stared at her.
She stared back, smiling like an excited puppy who had just dragged a corpse onto the carpet and expected praise.
The forest remained frozen around us. The hanging leaf still did not fall. The mist still did not curl. The entire world had politely stopped existing in motion so I could have a private conversation with the anthropomorphic concept of everyone's eventual end.
Great. Wonderful. Very normal morning.
Didi stepped closer.
I immediately lifted my wand fully again, pointing the tip between her dark eyes.
She ignored it completely. She just ignored it with the absolute casual confidence of someone who knew exactly how pointless the threat was. Which, fair. I could curse a lot of things. I could burn wizards alive, tear through demons, boil blood, and apparently eat bits of souls when the mood struck.
But I had a sneaking suspicion that trying to hex Death herself would go about as well as trying to drown the ocean.
I sighed and lowered my wand. "Right. Sure. Why not? Come closer, ancient cosmic entity. What could possibly go wrong?"
Didi's smile somehow got bigger. Then she moved. One moment she stood a few feet away, and the next she was pressed against me in a full-body hug tight enough to knock the breath out of my lungs.
"Oof."
"Oh, mistress," she sighed happily, arms wrapped around my waist as if she had no intention of ever letting go. "I am so, so happy to finally hold you properly."
I went rigid. Not because the hug felt bad. That was the problem.
Didi was smaller than me, but her body was tight and warm and very real against mine, which was upsetting on several levels because the personification of Death should not have been warm. Her breasts pressed firmly against mine through the miserable Gryffindor shirt, smaller than mine but perky enough that my body noticed immediately.
Of course my body noticed. My succubus instincts did not care that the gorgeous goth girl currently hugging me was literally Death. If anything, they seemed to find that interesting.
Didi tucked her face against my shoulder and inhaled deeply.
I flushed from my cheeks all the way down my throat.
"Did you just smell me?"
"Yes," she murmured, voice muffled against my robe. "You smell like dark magic, fire, lust, stubbornness, and home."
"That is deeply weird."
"It is also true."
"Still weird."
She squeezed me tighter. "I have waited for you for literally forever."
A chill rolled through me. Literally forever. When Death said forever, she fucking meant forever.
"I was a bit freaked out that you used this universe's Resurrection Stone to complete the set," Didi continued rapidly. "But it is okay. I gave this universe's version of me the Resurrection Stone from our universe in exchange, so balance is maintained. Well, mostly maintained. Close enough that nobody important should complain. Voldemort lost a Horcrux over there too, by the way, so that was funny. Different Voldemort, obviously. Well, same soul shape, different timeline growth. You understand!"
I absolutely did not understand.
My face must have said that, because Didi pulled back just enough to look up at me, still keeping her arms locked around my waist. "I am talking too fast, aren't I?"
"Yes."
"Sorry. I am excited!"
"I can tell…"
"You completed the set. You became my mistress in full. I am allowed to say things now!"
Normally, I loved being hugged by beautiful women. I had a weakness for soft bodies, pretty faces, clingy affection, and goth girls. Didi checked an alarming number of boxes. The silver ankh at her neck rested against pale skin. Her black hair smelled faintly of rain and grave flowers. Her hands were spread over my lower back like they belonged there.
My body liked all of that. My survival instincts did not.
I planted my hands on her shoulders and pushed her gently but firmly away.
Didi pouted. It was unfairly cute. Didi allowed it, which probably said more about her than my strength. Her lower lip stuck out. "What is wrong?"
I stared at her. "What is wrong?" I echoed.
She nodded.
"You are Death. You hid your existence from my mind. You have been calling me mistress." I sucked in a breath. "So, yes, Didi. I am a little fucking confused."
She blinked at me. Then she nodded, expression turning solemn in a way that looked almost strange on her face. "You deserve answers."
"Great. Start with the obvious one. Was the System you?"
"Yes." No hesitation. Didi glanced down. "I could not directly interfere with your life," she explained. "Not without drawing attention from beings I very much did not want looking too closely at you. The Endless have rules. Annoying rules. Old rules. Also, your soul came from somewhere it was not supposed to come from, then settled into a world where your existence was already tangled in prophecy, sabotage, and bad writing choices."
I stared. "Bad writing choices?"
"You were abandoned in an orphanage because your parents believed an old man's prophecy and decided binding a baby was reasonable." Her smile sharpened for the first time, and something ancient flickered behind those black eyes. "Bad writing choices."
Fair. Very fair. "So you made the System," I asked her. I took a deep breath to settle myself.
Didi nodded. "I based it on memories from your past life. Games, stories, web novels, all those little structures your soul already understood. It gave me a way to help without looking like I was helping. A prompt here. A reward there. A gentle nudge when you needed one."
"A gentle nudge?" I asked flatly. "You turned me into a succubus."
Didi tilted her head. "No, sweetie. You were always going to awaken as something like that. Dumbledore's bindings twisted your inheritance and delayed it. I just helped untangle what had been done and made sure the awakening did not kill you!"
That took some of the anger out of me. "What about the rolls I got?"
"Rigged," she admitted cheerfully. "You were always going to get those traits as well!"
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Of course they were..."
"Not all of them. Some randomness remained. Randomness is important. Destiny becomes brittle without it." Didi's expression softened. "I did not make you angry, Amara. Your life did that. Your parents did that. Dumbledore did that. James Potter did that. The orphanage did that. The world did that." She stepped closer again, though this time she stopped before touching me. "I gave the rage shape, so you could hold it instead of drowning in it."
I did not know what to say to that. For several seconds, I listened to the sound of nothing.
No wind. No birds. No breathing except mine and hers.
Finally, I forced my voice to work. "And now?"
Didi's smile returned, smaller this time but no less bright. "Now you do not need the System anymore."
I blinked. Then my mouth opened wide and I shouted, "WHAT!?"
She winced at my reaction. "Do not panic."
What was she expecting me to do? "Do not say do not panic!? People only say that when there is an excellent reason to panic!!"
"You will not lose anything," Didi said quickly. She waved her hands nervously as if to reassure me. "I promise. Every ability, every spell, every perk, every piece of growth you earned or received will remain yours. If anything, they will become more natural. Less like borrowed structure. More like breathing."
I stared at her with my heart beating too hard in my chest. "You are taking it away?"
"I am retiring it," she said gently. "The System was a crutch for you. It was scaffolding really. You needed it when you were alone, wounded, starving, and trapped under bindings that had choked your magic since infancy. You needed it when you did not know what you were. You needed something to translate the impossible into terms your mind could accept." Her eyes shone. "But you are not that girl anymore." The words hit me somewhere soft. "You are Amara Black," Didi continued, voice warm and certain. "Succubus-witch. Dark phoenix bonded. Hallow bearer. Demon slayer. Soul eater. Lover. Monster. Survivor. Mine."
I swallowed. The last word curled around my spine. "What do you mean, yours?"
Didi's grin turned wicked.
I did not like that. Well. A shameful part of me liked it, but that part was not currently making decisions.
"You will understand after the evolution finishes," she said as if that was good enough of an explanation.
It was not. I stared at her. "The what?"
Didi smiled like she had been waiting for that exact question. "Evolution."
Then my magic exploded! I dropped to my knees so hard the impact should have hurt. It did not. I barely felt the ground. Every nerve in my body lit up at once as power surged through me like a storm trying to fit inside my skin.
"Haaah!" The sound tore out of my throat before I could stop it, half gasp, half cry.
My wand burned in my hand. The ring went ice-cold on my finger. The Cloak snapped around my shoulders like it had caught in a wind that did not exist.
I tried to breathe. Could not. Magic filled my lungs instead.
It was too much. Too thick. Too deep. It flooded through every channel inside me, every pathway carved open by rituals, sex, violence, blood, and survival. And beneath all of it came Death…
The Invisibility Cloak dissolved first.It sank into me. Through my robe. Through my skin. Through muscle and bone and magic.
I doubled over, fingers digging into the frozen moss. The Cloak poured into my soul.
Suddenly I understood hiding differently. The choice to be unseen by the world itself. I could turn invisible whenever I wanted. I could walk through walls or barriers as if I was a ghost.
Next came the Stone.
The Gaunt ring cracked. I watched, shaking, as black fractures spread across the metal. The Resurrection Stone pulsed once, twice, three times. Then it turned to ash. The ash sank into my left hand, burrowing through skin in dark veins that vanished before they reached my wrist.
I choked on a gasp. For one impossible second, I heard voices. Millions of them. Trillions of them. ALL of them! Whispers, sobs, laughter, prayers, curses, final breaths, last words, names called in desperation, songs sung at gravesides, children crying, old men sighing, warriors screaming, lovers saying goodbye.
I nearly broke under the weight of it.
Then Didi's hand touched my hair. "Easy," she whispered. "Not all of them. That's too much for you to handle. Just listen to my voice instead for now."
The voices softened.
The Stone settled inside me, and I understood that death was not a locked door. It was a threshold. A place from which things could be called, if I knew their name and paid the price.
Finally, my wand vanished. That scared me most. It disappeared from my right hand in a burst of black flame. I lunged for it on instinct, but my fingers closed on empty air.
"No!"
Pain lanced through my forearm. I hissed and grabbed my right arm as heat branded itself into my skin. Black lines spread over my forearm, twisting, curling, forming the tattoo shape of my wand in perfect detail. At the base, where the handle would have been, a tiny ankh formed in silver-black ink.
The tattoo pulsed. I felt the wand in me. Bound deeper than bone. Deeper than blood. I knew, without anyone explaining, that I could summon it with a thought. It would appear whenever I wanted, as solid and real as before.
But I also knew I no longer needed to draw it. Every spell I knew sat at the edge of my mind. Wandless. Wordless, if I wished. The wand had not left me. It had become an organ of my magic.
My breath came in ragged bursts. "Hah… haaah… fuck…" My body burned. My magic kept rising. It did not stop. That was when fear finally punched through the awe. "Didi," I gasped. "What the fuck is happening to me?"
Didi crouched in front of me, eyes shining with tears and joy.
"You are becoming what you were always meant to be."
"That is not an answer!"
"It is the only answer that matters right now…"
My wings burst free. Not the small, leathery black wings I had grown used to hiding. These tore from my back with a rush of shadow and silver fire, larger, darker, edged in faint starlight. I cried out as sensation flooded through them, sharp enough to blur the frozen forest around me. "Aaaaaaaah!" My tail lashed behind me, longer than before, the velvety black surface marked by faint silver patterns that shimmered and vanished when I tried to focus on them. My horns burned. I reached up with shaking fingers and felt them curve higher from my forehead, smooth ivory darkening at the tips into glossy black. "Fuck," I whispered.
Didi looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
Maybe to Death, I was.
I was still on my knees when the final surge hit. The System appeared in front of me one last time.
Its blue glow flickered then shifted. The window turned black. The text became silver.
System function complete.
All acquired abilities, perks, skills and drawbacks integrated.
Deathly Hallows assimilated.
Evolution successful.
Race updated.
New designation: Death-Touched Succubus Queen
Goodbye, Amara. It has been an honor helping you become yourself.
The screen dissolved into silver sparks.
For one tiny, stupid second, I felt sad. The System had been annoying. Poorly timed. It had interrupted orgasms, rewarded murder, and named my wand something unforgivable.
But it had been with me since the alley. Since the worst night of my life. Since the first moment I stopped being powerless. And now it was gone.
I swallowed hard.
Didi reached out and cupped my cheek. Her palm was soft. "I know," she said gently.
I glared at her because crying in front of Death felt like losing an argument with the universe. "I am not crying..."
Didi leaned forward and pressed her forehead to mine.
Time remained frozen. The forest remained silent. The world waited.
And I knelt there in the dead-still clearing, trembling with too much power, wearing Death under my skin.
"What happens now?" I whispered.
Didi smiled against my forehead. "Now," she said softly, "we talk about how to get you home..."
The conversation about getting me home lasted either three minutes or three eternities.
With time frozen, those were apparently the same thing.
Didi explained things in the same way she seemed to do everything else, which meant too quickly, with too much cheer, and while casually dropping information that made me want to sit down and scream into my hands for a while.
The short version was that I was not stuck here forever.
The slightly longer version was that Trigon's trap had not thrown me into the past of my own world. It had thrown me sideways, into a parallel magical reality that was close enough to Harry Potter canon for my Cursed Knowledge to be useful, but not close enough for me to trust every detail. The shape of history was similar. The people were similar. The magical laws, bloodlines, and hidden old powers were similar.
But similar was not identical.
Didi could not just snap her fingers and send me home, because apparently ripping someone across realities safely was much harder than punching a soul out of my stomach. There were rules. There were cosmic barriers and source walls. There were things outside universes that noticed tears if they stayed open too long.
She did not say what those things were.
I did not ask. I had been having such a good morning already. Why ruin it by learning the names of cosmic monsters that lived between realities and ate loose souls like popcorn?
No, thank you. Hard pass.
I would have to find my own way home, but there was one last "gift" she was able to give me to help. Something small enough that the hole it created when she brought it over should be too small for anything "big" to notice.
I had no idea how to process any of this. So I did what I always did when my life became too strange to handle. I shoved everything into the emotional box labeled 'Later' and started walking.
A couple minutes later, I was crossing the grounds back toward Hogwarts castle.
The sun had begun to rise properly, though Scotland seemed to resent the concept of warmth on principle. I was exhausted, hungry, overwhelmed, newly evolved, and apparently the Mistress of Death.
Also, a Succubus Queen. The pinnacle of all succubi, according to Didi. Stronger. More magically potent. More alluring. More resilient. More dangerous in general.
And more lustful.
Yay... Absolutely thrilled about that last bit…
Because what I really needed while stuck in a dorm room full of attractive eighteen-year-old witches was an even stronger libido. Perfect. Wonderful. Ten out of ten cosmic planning.
I was halfway across the final stretch of grass when something shifted warmly between my breasts.
A tiny head poked out from the opening of my shirt. "Chirp chirp!"
I looked down.
Nyx looked up. That's right, he was my final "gift." Didi was able to bring my familiar over to this universe! He was impossibly adorable. A little black bird with shadow-dark feathers, purple-black flame flickering at the tips of his tiny wings, and eyes like polished chips of absolute night. He had wedged himself into the safest, warmest place he could find, which apparently meant my cleavage.
Of course it did. "Comfy?" I asked.
"Chirp!"
"I will take that as a yes."
He nuzzled down shamelessly.
I sighed. "Men…"
Nyx chirped again, sounding offended.
I chuckled. "Fine. Birds..."
The massive front doors of Hogwarts came into view. I was just about to climb the steps when they opened so violently they nearly slammed against the stone walls.
Lily Evans came storming out. And I do mean storming. Her red hair was loose and messy, tumbling around her shoulders like she had shoved fingers through it while running. Her robes were askew, one sleeve slightly twisted, the collar crooked, the whole outfit giving the impression that she had thrown it on in a blind panic and sprinted straight from Gryffindor Tower.
She froze the second she saw me. Her green eyes went wide. Then her whole body sagged with relief. "Oh, thank Merlin," she breathed.
I stopped on the steps. Something in my chest did an annoying little twist.
Lily hurried down toward me with her robe fluttering around her legs. "We woke up and you were gone. Your bed was empty, and Marlene said your robe was missing, and Alice thought maybe You-Know-Who had somehow pulled you through the window, and I thought maybe you had run away, or something had happened, or you were hurt, or..." She stopped, pressing a hand to her chest as she caught her breath. "You are all right?"
Her concern still hit me weirdly. This Lily Evans was genuinely worried about me. Not as a trap. Not because she wanted something. Not because she planned to sell me to a wrinkled old wizard with a breeding contract.
She had woken up, noticed I was gone, and came looking. That was all.
"I am fine," I said, offering her a small smile. "I just went for a… walk."
Lily stared at me. Her eyes narrowed slightly in that clever way that told me she knew there was absolutely more to the story. Luckily, before she could ask about it, Nyx chose that exact moment to make his debut to someone else that wasn't me.
"Chirp chirp!" His tiny head popped fully out from between my breasts once again.
Lily made a sound I had never heard from her before. It was somewhere between a squeal, a gasp, and a kettle boiling over. "Eeeeeeeee!"
I blinked.
Lily clapped both hands over her mouth, and her green eyes went huge and sparkling. "Is that a phoenix?" She made grabby motions in its general direction as if she'd want nothing more than to immediately start petting it. "Oh my god," Lily whispered, stepping closer. "He is adorable."
I understood the feeling. My little guy was adorable.
Nyx puffed up immediately, preening under the attention.
Lily leaned forward, her messy red hair sliding over one shoulder. "But why are his feathers black? I have never heard of a black phoenix before."
"He is a dark phoenix," I said. "His name is Nyx. He is my familiar," I added. "He followed me to this timeline." That was less true, but not enough to qualify as a lie in my personal moral accounting system. Nyx was my familiar. He had followed me in a cosmic, Death-assisted, between-realities kind of way. Details.
Lily looked from Nyx to me and back again. Then her mouth fell open. "Phoenixes can travel through time?"
I hesitated. That was not the conclusion she was supposed to reach. Then again, from her perspective, I had appeared from another timeline or universe, and now my familiar had appeared too. Honestly, it was not a stupid guess.
"Some phoenixes can do many strange things," I said carefully.
Lily's eyes somehow got brighter. "Wow!"
Nyx puffed up even more, as if he had personally invented dimensional travel.
"You are going to become insufferable," I told him.
"Chirp!"
Lily smiled at that, but the expression softened quickly. She looked at me again, and the concern came back. "Amara," she said quietly. "Are you really all right?" The question landed too gently. "Yesterday was... a lot. More than a lot, actually. You fell into a different world, woke up in a hospital wing, threatened Professor Dumbledore, got sorted into a life you never had, then a cursed ring smashed through our window and you..." She paused, visibly trying not to say ate a soul because she had manners and trauma. "Handled it."
"That is one word for it."
"And I know I can be a bit much sometimes," Lily said, cheeks coloring faintly. "I basically dragged you around all day long…"
I gave her a small smirk. "You sure did."
Lily huffed a small laugh, but her gaze stayed fixed on me. "I just mean... if I overwhelmed you yesterday, I am sorry. I did not mean to push. I wanted you to feel welcome, but I know this cannot be easy." She swallowed.
My smile faded. Damn her and her perceptive eyes and her soft voice and her ability to say exactly the thing I did not want to hear. I lifted my hand before I could think better of it. My fingertips brushed her cheek.
Lily went very still. Her skin was warm from running and cold air. Not my mother's skin. Not Lily Potter's. Lily Evans. Eighteen years old. Kind. Frightened. Curious. Standing in front of me in messy robes because she had been worried I disappeared.
Her breath caught. Just a tiny sound. "Hh..." A delicate shiver moved through her. Her cheeks flushed pink, then deeper, almost matching her hair.
My succubus instincts noticed. They liked the way her pupils widened. They liked the way her lips parted. They liked the faint little tremble in her throat when my thumb moved, barely, along her cheekbone.
I kept my touch gentle. No Lewd Touch. Just my fingers against her skin. "Yesterday was nice," I said softly. "Strange. Overwhelming. Painful in places. But nice." I let my hand fall before I did something stupid. "I enjoyed it."
Lily stared at me for a second longer than strictly necessary. Then she smiled. It was bright enough to make the cold morning feel less hostile. "Good," she said. "I am glad." Her blush deepened immediately after, which made me curious.
Very curious.
Lily Evans looked like someone who had just had a thought she was not sure she was allowed to have.
I recognized that look.
I had caused that look in several people. "What?" I asked.
"It is just..." She glanced back at the castle, then down at her robes, then at me. "We both need to wash up before breakfast."
I raised an eyebrow. "And?"
"And it would be annoying to climb all the way back up to Gryffindor Tower, especially since we are already down here." She shifted her weight, fingers fussing with the edge of her sleeve. "The prefects' bathroom is much closer."
Oh, that blush is adorable…
Nyx looked between us. "Chirp?"
I mentally agreed with him.
Lily cleared her throat, very obviously trying to sound casual and failing in a way that made my insides warm. "I thought perhaps you could come with me. I can show you where it is." Her blush went nuclear. "I mean, there are privacy screens," she said quickly. "And the tub is enormous. It is practically a swimming pool. We would not have to... I mean, it is not improper if we are both girls, and we are roommates now, and honestly after everything last night, I thought maybe a proper bath would help." She was talking faster with every word. "But if that is strange, or if you would rather not, that is perfectly fine. I just thought it might be more comfortable than the dorm showers, and you looked cold, and I was worried, and now I am rambling."
"You are," I said.
Lily winced. "Sorry."
I should have said no. That would have been smart.
I had just evolved into a Death-Touched Succubus Queen, which apparently meant my lust was stronger than ever. Lily was beautiful, kind, flustered, eighteen, and wore the face of a woman who had hurt me beyond words in another life. That was a psychological minefield wrapped in red hair and soft green eyes.
Also, I had not taken a proper bath since being dropped into this reality. Gross.
Also, the thought of warm water sounded amazing.
Also, Lily's blush was doing things to me.
I smiled slowly.
Lily noticed and swallowed.
Nyx ducked his head back between my breasts like the cowardly little bird he was.
"All right," I said.
Lily blinked. "Really?"
"Really. Lead the way, Head Girl."
Her smile returned, shy and pleased and nervous all at once. "Okay," she said, turning toward the castle.
I followed her up the steps, very aware of the sway of her messy red hair, the curve of her body beneath hastily thrown robes, the sway of her hips and perky backside, and the tiny, dangerous thread of warmth uncurling low in my stomach.
Yay. I'm now more lustful. What a fucking gift…
XXX