HP: Monochrome

It was covered in ice.

Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as a bitter, arctic wind slapped against his face, bringing with it the sterile scent of winter. Everywhere he looked were cold, hateful stone peaks wreathed in mist and wrapped in ice and snow. A thick sheet of old ice blanketed the floor, with stalagmites rising like coffins of the dead on an apocalyptic night. The air itself blew with a maddened howl, like a feral beast let loose on the world itself.

"Where… where am I?"

Instinctively, he reached for his wand, but found nothing. He was wearing a T-shirt and pants, but there was still an odd feeling that he was forgetting something. Something important.

"Beautiful, is it not?"

Surprised, Harry spun around and faced a complete stranger. He would have mistaken the man for a wizened old grandfather, were he not entirely bereft of muscle. Instead, he looked like a wasted shell of a human, a charcoal sketch that an uncaring hand had smudged. Strange tattoos dotted his entire face, particularly his sunken eyelids, and his teeth were stained dark brown, turning his mouth into a living scrimshaw.

In fact, his entire body was adorned with either art or scars. A single robe hung over his shoulders to cover his form, and his emaciated limbs looked like they'd never have the strength to stand, let alone walk towards him.

But he could. And he did.

"I cannot die," the man genially replied, as if reading Harry's thoughts. "Even here, in the centre of its power, it cannot impose death upon me. Every breath is agony, but death… death is beyond me."

Harry couldn't tell whether the man was happy about his apparent immortality or cursing with every painful breath. He also wondered if the man knew it himself.

"Who are you?"

"A figment of the Time Before," the man softly answered. "And you have come to take my place."

Harry instinctively took a step back. "Take your place? I don't even know where we are."

The man only laughed in response. It was a grating sound, like nails on a chalkboard. "This place is a prison, child. Some call it Tartarus, while others fear it as Hel, the icy plains of nightmares. And you, I presume," he pointed a bony finger towards Harry, "are its newest custodian."

"I— I don't understand," Harry admitted, trying to parse through the strange old man's words. Did 'newest' mean there were others before him? "Custody of what?"

"Death," the man breathed, his voice filled with both hatred and reverence.

"What?" Harry frowned. "You mean like necromancy?"

The man's voice was colored with disgust as he slightly sneered. "What resides here has nothing to do with such parlour tricks, boy. This is the real thing. The End of all things. Knowledge. Power. Existence."

"That's… a nice opinion, I suppose," Harry hedged. The last thing he wanted was to get caught up in a discussion about the nature of power in a place he didn't recognize with a strange old man.

"More than that," the man coughed in that same grating tone. "It is a truth, one that reveals itself to those who seek it out?"

"A… truth?"

Something alien haunted the man's eerie gaze. "Shall I show you the start of the path?" His emaciated hands grabbed at Harry's wrist. It felt cold— he may as well have been touching a block of ice. "Death is a part of you, boy. It is a concept woven into the very fabric of your being. You are a collection of pieces, each of them succumbing to death and, in turn, being reborn."

Harry tried to snatch his hand away, but the stranger's vise-like grip would not budge. No matter how much he struggled, the man wouldn't let go. Instead, he continued to speak.

"Death adorns you even now. Your nails. Your hair. You tend and caress them like any other mortal. Your women decorate them, entice with them. Death is not a thing to be feared, boy. She is a lover who waits to take you into her loving arms. You can feel her if you know what her touch is like. Cold, slow, sweet."

A cold, tingling non-feeling glittered over his fingernails and his scalp. For a split second, Harry thought he felt pain, before realising it was an icy shiver from where that cold energy brushed near the blood pulsing beneath his skin. It was the places they met that felt uncomfortable.

Without the blood, the cold would have been a pure, endless sweetness. Somehow, he could feel it.

"Take a little death inside you, boy. And it shall lead you to more." The man gave him a toothy grin. "Open your mouth."

Harry didn't know what was happening. One moment, he was frantically clawing at the stranger's hold, and in the very next, he was prone on the ground, numbness spreading all throughout him. It wasn't merely physical, there was a heartless void to it. An empty, starless, frozen quality that raked at him— not just his body, but him —with a mindless hunger. Harry could feel as it sent tendrils of icy energy into him, slowing his heartbeat.

What am I doing?

Truly, why was he resisting this? It would just be so much easier to stop breathing altogether. Then, he could finally enjoy that eternal sweetness that grazed the hairs of his skin. He could— he could just—

Harry gasped aloud, inhaling deeply. "What the hell is happening to—"

But it was too late. Something alien and pungent and cold poured into him, freezing his body altogether. Hoarfrost began to expand across him, feeding on his warmth and gobbling it down until nothing but cold winter remained. Icicles began to slowly form on his hands and feet and he opened his mouth to scream, but what came out was a strange, maddening, beastly, familiar howl and—

Darkness.

Kreacher lived to serve the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

He'd been introduced to the family as part of the dowry when Lord Sirius Black II had married Lady Hesper Gamp, a Wiccan priestess from the illustrious Gamp family. Lady Hesper had always been a devout worshipper of the sanctity of Magic, and Kreacher was used to that.

Lord Sirius Black II, on the other hand, was different.

He was a killer.

To his family, he was a beloved father figure, adored and revered. But to the rest of the Wizarding World, he was a monster. A Guru of the Dark Arts, the man had superlative command over magic as black as his name.

And Kreacher was to be his shadow.

The darkness that loomed behind a Master of the Dark Arts.

Utterly loyal, absolutely obedient, an extension of his Master's own will. There was no one in the entire Black family more obedient to him or more trusted by him. A blood-soaked shadow who only existed to do things in the darkness, to keep his Master's hands free from the blood.

Espionage.

Kidnapping.

Poisoning.

Assassination.

There was nothing his Master could ask of him that would make Kreacher hesitate. Why should he? As far as Kreacher was concerned, Lord Sirius was his God, and anything he commanded was justified.

Then, sometime before the start of the twentieth century, his Master passed on.

Phineas Nigellus, brother to Master Sirius, eventually stepped up to take over the reins. Master Phineas was a true Black, but he didn't need Kreacher like Master Sirius. He needed a proper elf— a rag-wearing, towel-carrying, mind-numbed servant to carry out mundane wishes.

Kreacher had been replaced.

Soon enough, Master Arcturus, son of Master Sirius, came into power and took over as the next Lord of the family. Master Arcturus was conniving, talented, and absolutely ruthless with a wand, but he too was idealistic in his own way. He didn't crave for individual power, and instead helped Gellert Grindelwald, an aspiring Dark Lord, become the most feared man in Europe.

The generations that came afterwards twisted the House dogma to suit their own interpretations. Once a resounding belief about the sanctity of Magic itself, Toujours Pur became a statement that reflected blood purity and conservative wizarding traditions.

A good house elf always reflected the family it served.

And so, as the House of Black changed, so too did Kreacher.

Once a master of silence, Kreacher altered himself to fit the House's outlook. And that went on for the better part of the next century.

Then, Sirius Black III was born.

A child named after Kreacher's first Master.

A child Lord Arcturus named his Heir.

A child that bred True.

Kreacher had been ecstatic. He had dreamed of Master Sirius growing up to become the deadly monster that his great-grandfather was. Of providing his aid once more to his new Lord. Of becoming his shadow. Becoming the darkness that Master Sirius had once trained him to be.

But it was all for naught.

For young Master Sirius couldn't have been any more different if he tried.

Master Sirius played pranks. He spat in the face of his family's traditions— traditions Sirius Black II had started and Arcturus Sirius Black had enforced to greater degrees. He associated with mudbloods and halfbreeds and blood-traitors and did his best to shatter any hope Kreacher had of seeing his Lord return.

And for that, Kreacher hated him. He hated him with every fibre of his body. Hated that he had to serve this imposter that carried his Master's name. Hated that this juvenile man-child was his new Master. Hated that this Black Spot on his Master's name had brought a halfblood into the Family Home.

He wanted to kill the Potter brat. To stab his eyes with his nails and tear them to shreds. He wanted to commit such atrocities that anyone that glimpsed upon the brat's body would lose sound sleep for the rest of their miserable lives. He wanted to— wanted to—

Kreacher sighed.

It didn't matter what he wanted. He couldn't.

The filthy Half-blood was weak, impure, cursed with the taint of a mudblood witch. And despite that, the Master had welcomed him to Grimmauld Place. Master had willingly offered him shelter, called him his godson, provided him home and hearth here in the townhouse.

Kreacher lived to serve the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

So Kreacher had lurked in the shadows, waiting for Master to leave. As soon as the brat had been left alone, he informed his mistress. He understood that Master Sirius loved and cared for the boy, but the Potter boy was not blood. Mistress Walburga was. And Kreacher loyally served the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

The result of Mistress Walburga's encounter with the boy had been… messy.

Kreacher hadn't attacked the boy himself— he couldn't, but he didn't have to save him either. So Kreacher waited and watched. He stayed in the shadows of the townhouse, watching on as Mistress Walburga played with the half-blood. He had relished in the boy's pain when he cried out in agony, and had cursed when he narrowly escaped the mistress's clutches and apparated to the room with the strange cloak. Moments before his assured death, he had seen the boy drape it over himself and fall to the ground.

Kreacher snorted. What a stupid half-blood!

As if mere cloth would prevent the Mistress from killing him. The doxies would easily rend it apart before feasting on his blood like the disgusting pests they were.

Appearing next to the fallen wizard, Kreacher knelt down and tugged on the cloak of invisibility.

It didn't come off.

Instead, the strangest of things happened.

An icy-cold sensation erupted out of nowhere. Fearing the brat had performed some sort of desperate spell, Kreacher instantly staggered back a few steps, hands raised.

There was nothing.

The cloak slowly appeared into focus, its invisibility wearing off momentarily. Black and supple and covering the boy completely, the edges of the cloth felt harder, sharper, more real— so real that everything else in the room seemed blurry in comparison. Like reality was nothing more than an incomplete figment of his imagination.

And Kreacher knew what he was looking at.

The cloak had Reality woven into it, dark and fluid and twisting. Kreacher could feel the ambient energies of the House resonate with its Power, letting out a strong—

THRUM!

The Mistress's wraith stilled, and so too did the doxies, temporarily stunned into incapacitation.

For one impossibly long second, silence reigned. A moment of serene stillness…

THRUM! THRUM! THRUM!

Before a long, vengeful howl gutted the world and shattered the fragile foundations of reality. A deathly aura, an all-consuming feeling of overwhelming destructive force as unyielding as a mountain, descended upon the building. It wasn't a matter of strength or speed or reserves— it was the primal sensation of fear coursing through the veins of prey when cornered by a ferocious predator.

It was this feeling that told Kreacher he would be ripped apart, and there was nothing he could do about it.

And as much as he hated it, the coldness reminded him of the esoteric Greater Powers that Mistress Hesper used to worship with fervour.

Thick skeletal limbs, exuding fumes as dark as the blackest night, grabbed at the edges of Existence and pulled.

The head came first. It was a misshapen construct, obscured by strange lumpy outgrowths of scales and fur. Beneath its ghastly, grey eyes was a mouth too wide to be real, filled to the brim with serrated teeth too sharp and yellow to be from this earth. The Aberration let out a weird laugh— monstrous, deep, resounding with bloodstained mirth.

The body came next, a skeleton roughly humanoid in size and shape. Shadows substituted for muscle and fur, cloaking the Aberration in a supernatural darkness. Kreacher felt like a blind elf laying eyes on something less than nothing.

Every single doxy immediately went quiet.

And Kreacher felt afraid for his mistress.

The sheer wrongness exuded by the Aberration was a physical thing. It slithered up his arched spine and danced spiteful shivers across the back of his neck. Simply looking at this creature felt like drowning in wrath so thick, so palpable, that it would obliterate every single thing that stood before it out of sheer principle.

This was Death.

And he couldn't escape it.

His physical body remained unaffected, but everything that made Kreacher Kreacher slowly began to fade. His loyalty to the House of Black, his instinctual need to serve, even the little warmth that welled up inside him when others suffered…

All that remained was a single, unshakeable certainty.

Kreacher.

Will.

Die.

Kreacher could feel those words echoing in every single cell of his body. Two hundred years of service to a family of witches and wizards steeped in darkness, and Kreacher felt stained just by being in its presence. As if there was some hideous imprint upon him that could never be scrubbed away.

Just what was this half-blood?

The Aberration reared back, and from the inky blackness of its maw, it let out an ear-shattering howl.

Every window in the vicinity shattered from the sheer volume, its pieces ground into fine powder. Cracks appeared on the walls, and the ceiling split into falling chunks of plaster. The doxies nearest to it instantly exploded, painting the floor with hideous, gory shades of purple.

His eyes gazed upon Mistress Walburga. And for the first time, her wraith was no longer angry. Instead, a different emotion was etched deeply into the troubled lines of her gaunt face.

Fear, Kreacher recognized.

Fear of death. Fear of obliteration. Fear of seeing her vengeful desires being torn into nothingness.

It made no difference to him. Kreacher's sole purpose was to faithfully serve the House of Black. He would protect the mistress's wraith, even at the cost of his own life.

Shakily, he raised a finger against the Aberration.

THRUM! THRUM! THRUM THRUM THRUM!

Still cackling in a malevolent, twisted manner, it let out a third piercing howl, and a wave of something exploded within the building.

The last thing Kreacher heard was his mistress screaming, before he succumbed to darkness.

The moment he appeared in front of the townhouse, Sirius knew something was wrong.

A bitter chill sank into the depths of his bones the moment he apparated into the outer gardens of Grimmauld Place. It was the same eerie feeling he got the night he crossed the threshold of Godric's Hollow.

The night James and Lily died.

As the current Lord of House Black, the wards of Number 12, Grimmauld Place were solely his to command. He had control over whom the wards allowed entry, and who to strike back at with extreme prejudice.

But instead of the usual impression of wading through mud and filth, Sirius felt a wave of exhaustion hit him with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Had he been any weaker, he would have immediately collapsed from the backlash of such powerful wards. If he didn't know any better, he'd have assumed they were completely devoid of power, letting out a dying gasp as they left the property unprotected.

Luckily, he knew better. His connection to the wardstone painted a clearer image in his mind.

And it was a messy one.

"Harry?" he yelled, to no response. "HARRY?!"

Whatever took place within the bounds of the townhouse in his absence made the House itself react, and his limited knowledge of ancient manors told him it meant nothing good. A House was a family's seat of power, and for Noble Houses, that translated to a whole lot of ambient magic held in place for the sole purpose of protecting the edifice.

Something had happened, and it had probably urged the Townhouse to react.

Fearing the worst, Sirius whipped out his wand and blasted the front door straight off its hinges. Rushing inside, he was barely into the main atrium when a deafening crack startled him, followed by everything around him beginning to fall. Plaster, floorboards, furniture— everything in the outer hall began to tip over and crack and warp with an unearthly groan.

"KREACHER!" he tried. "COME HERE IMMEDIATELY YOU BLASTED ELF!"

Nothing.

Pointing his wand into the house, he tried a different tactic.

"Accio Harry Potter!"

Still nothing.

As a burgeoning fear settled into the centre of his chest, Sirius crouched and leapt as he frantically made his way through the thoroughly decimated house, howling in impotent rage as he felt the lack of power in the wards gnawing into his own reserves. The townhouse was built on the intersection of three leylines, but it required the magic of the Lord to keep them from collapsing in an event of complete exhaustion.

But that still didn't explain where Harry was, or what happened to him.

Dammit dammit dammit!

Why had he left his godson all alone in this damn house? Who knew what kinds of horrors Harry had to deal with while he was all alone here? First Godric's Hollow, and now here again! What the fuck kind of godfather was he if all he was good at was leaving his godson when he needed him most?!

Panting heavily, Sirius sped up the rickety old staircase and crossed through the main archway. As he turned the corner, nearly on his last legs, he stopped in front of the hallway. Right where he had last left his godson before meeting with the Malfoys.

Hundreds of doxies lay just outside Harry's room. Dead.

He rushed into the room, praying beyond all hopes that his godson was injured.

But a stark emptiness greeted him.

And Sirius froze.

Images of a wounded Harry Potter flitted through his mind. Blood was dripping from the boy's lips, glassy eyes staring back at him with apprehension, betrayal, and judgement.

You weren't there, the cold eyes spoke. You weren't there when I needed you! You left me alone! You left me to die in your home—

Shutting his eyes, Sirius felt his knees go weak as he cupped his head in his hands. The urge to scream and rage in denial at what might have happened nearly tore through his throat, but he latched onto the feeling and coldly choked it to death. Harry didn't need him wasting away in shock and terror. His godson needed him to do something— to do something—

He whipped out his wand again. A bright, silvery grim appeared in the dim light.

"G-go to Dumbledore," babbled, trying and failing to keep his voice from shaking. "Tell him to come to Grimmauld P-Place immediately!"

The patronus bowed, before vanishing through the wall.

"What do I do," he muttered, pacing back and forth. "What do I do, what do I— Accio Harry Potter! Accio Harry Potter! ACCIO HARRY POTTER!"

But still, nothing happened.

"KREACHER!" he bellowed. His eyes brimmed with tears and his hands shook. His entire body screamed for him to do something— anything —but nothing came to mind. It was blank, utterly devoid of ideas. But he had to do something. Or else Harry— Harry would—

Sirius stumbled forward, falling head-first onto the wooden floor as his legs hit something. Rubbing his head, he reached towards an object that wasn't there and felt a cloth— something thick and soft and—

His eyes widened.

"HARRY!"

Climbing to his knees like a man possessed, Sirius whirled around and pulled the cloak off of him and—

Robotically, Harry Potter opened a single, bruised eye.

"Si-Sirius?"

"Harry!" he rushed forward, cradling his godson's wounded form in his arms. Flicking his wand again, he cast another Patronus. "Go to St. Mungo's! Bring them here, now!"

As the patronus sped away, Sirius turned his distraught gaze back towards him. "Harry! Can you hear me? I'm here now!" He tore off Harry's shirt and found his entire chest littered with cuts and bruises. There was so much blood pooling underneath him, and his skin was darkening with a shade of blue—

Doxy venom, he immediately deduced. His godson's body may have been burning with fever, but at least he was alive.

"Don't you worry, Harry," he cried, a lump stuck in his throat. "You'll— you'll be right as rain in no time—"

"You know," his godson croaked, "you were right." He coughed out a glob of blood. "The Ministry wouldn't know if there was a war in here."

Sirius didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Shut up you—" he barked out a wheezing, teary chuckle. "Just hold on, help is—"

The words died in his throat as he felt his godson go limp in his arms.

And Harry Potter moved no more.