From Start To Finish

A/N: I own nothing but plot. So there!

Warnings: Language, violence, and MAN!SEX

Summary: AU. Har/Tsu. Immortal Master of Death Harry, now named Jayden, meets the magical, thriving world of Pandora. What's a mostly-insane magical-entity to do? SLASH.

R&R

Prologue:

Reentering the Human Populace

Pain.

It was something I'd long since become accustomed to. The sun against my skin, my eyes, after so long in confinement; it hurt, but it was a good hurt. It let me know that I was alive, though I was no longer certain if that was a good thing as of itself. I'd been locked in my dank, dark, and familiar little cell for over a thousand years, the men holding me told me when they'd finally, finally come to get me out of the hellhole that had once been the terrifying and horrible Azkaban. Now, it was barely a mound of rubble in the dirt.

They were Unspeakables, the Secret Service of the Wizarding World, which had long ago come out of the magical closet. They were also some of the last remaining Wizards left in the world, apparently, the others having long since been purged as the Purebloods had predicted. The Muggles fear, though, was not the original source of the eradication of Wizard-Kind. That's what dear Tommy-Boy-Snake-Face got wrong in all his lovely plans and predictions.

It was their thirst for long-life. The realization that Wizards couldn't get cancer, or AIDS, or an STD, or anything that caused death amongst the weak little Muggles. The fact that our males could carry children, though it was dangerous. And, most of all, they wanted the Magic, the power. It was, my escorts told me, their great grandparents very own Holocaust.

Children were taken from their non-magical parents and magical parents alike, to be shoved into government-approved "Camps", where the long-ago camps of Hitler were put to shame for sheer, inhumane torture of innocents. Grown Witches and Wizards were captured and experimented on, like animals. Forced to breed and watch their children be shipped off to a fate worst then the Kiss itself, had Dementors' not died out themselves a few hundred years after my imprisonment. Squibs were collected for testing, experimentation. Some of the results were…less then anything that even resembled human. Magical creatures were massacred for their various attributes, to be sold as delicacies or pets around the world. Some were interbred with normal animals, some spliced and melded through science, which could do things that even magic couldn't.

Monstrous things…

They talked to me as we walked across the gray desert that had once been the sea. They both wore masks, in order to breathe without being poisoned from the smog that was what was left of the air, in this area, at least. I sucked in each breath with relish, my lips blackened from a millennia of nothing but damp rot. It's not like it would hurt me, after all.

Nothing could kill the Master of Death.

I stared up at the sky, nearly black with the leavings of industries and disgusting waste that was what came from the Muggles precious technology. Every step made my soul cry out, as Mother Earth, the one from whom we all came, shivered and despaired and screamed beneath my feet, what was left of the mighty thing called magic writhed and roiled, uncontrolled, wild, and so, so weak. My own magic, the energy that is released with every end of life, the magic of Life, and of Death, was immense, and kept my body the sturdy twenty-two it had been when I'd first been imprisoned, accused of Black Magic and of being a Dark Lord.

Insanity had left me mute centuries ago.

"We're almost back to the car," Jacob Havord, the younger of the two, murmured. I tilted my head and stared at him, as I had been this entire time, my muscles unused to any kind of movement after so long. My magic whispered to me, about his life, about his eventual death, about everything he'd been through. It sang and crooned and whispered, my only companion in all the lonely, lonely years. Eric Carver, the other, shuddered, and I tilted my head at him, and again my magic whispered his secrets.

He would die sooner then his partner, that I was positive of. Unless, of course, he found his Soul Mate, which was highly unlikely, considering… Or, of course, if something intervened, which was not likely to happen, but then again, it was unlikely that any would come to remove me from my cell as well…

We came upon a car with strange, non-moving wheels, that was a bright, cobalt blue. I was pushed gently into the backseat, where I immediately laid down and cuddled into the soft leather, my overly sensitized skin all but climaxing in hedonistic delight. My escorts climbed into the front, and started driving, the low rumble absurdly loud after so long with only silence for true company. I faded out for a little while, soaking in the warmth of the leather, the rumble of the car, and the jerks of the car itself as it moved over uneven terrain. Havord and Carver spoke as they drove, and though I listened, I gave no indication that I cared. But, in my mind, where things were always happening, I paid very, very close attention.

The Muggles had started something called AVATAR, on a planet, a moon to be exact, which was six years from Earth, called Pandora. They spoke of seven-foot-tall beings that lived there, blue cat-people, savages, called the Na'vi. The People. Some were peaceful, some were not, but there was one thing that they all had in common.

They really didn't like the "Invasion" of their planet.

Havord and Carver were due, in three years, to get on a ship and journey out to Pandora, as scientists without AVATAR's, under the orders of a botanist Muggle named Grace Augustine, who was on her way there now and due to land within a month. They had been going to go with Havord's wife, Cynthia, but she had died along with the daughter she'd been giving birth to, a not-so-uncommon thing to happen, now-a-days. So, they'd dug through their ancestors and predecessor's files, dusty and disintegrating, and Carver had found a three-inch-full binder, hidden deep in the back of a molding cabinet, about one Harry James Potter.

It had been a long, long time since I'd been called that.

They told me how they'd read it, and saw how many notes had been taken about him. About his immortality. His ability to speak with snakes. His unusual amount of power, even after so many years incarcerated. It surprised me enough that I blinked for the first time in years, my lids and lashes scrapping uncomfortably against my dry eyeballs, clearing my vision a little as dust was forced from a place it had rested for decades.

I had been monitored by the Ministry, even while imprisoned. It just made me feel all sorts of important! …Note the sarcasm. Which, by the way, amused me as I had not believe I could be sarcastic about myself after not really thinking all that much for a while…

Anyways, they read my qualifications and, as the last of the Wizarding Secret Service and Unspeakables, decided, apparently, to bust me out, just so they could clean me up and take me with them to some far off planet, where strange monsters could eat me if I decided to run off.

I find them amusing. They remind me of two redheaded twins whose names I've long since forgotten… But that matters little, now. Everything matters so little, when their lives begin and end in a single blink of my own eyes. I shift my head, and the mass of my tangled, matted black hair, which had grown to nearly four-times my measly height of five-foot-five, fell forward to block my sight. I didn't move to move it, and realized, with bemusement, that about a foot of my heavy mane was outside, caught in the door.

"We'll be there in a few minutes," Carver announced, making my eyelids twitch at the sudden sound. I would need to reacquaint myself with the sounds of other humans; else I give away some part of my amusing comrade's little plans. Minutes passed in silence, awkward for them, but familiar for me. We came to a stop and I swayed upward creakily, waiting patiently as I peered through the thick, greasy, dirty clumps of my hair at the one-story building where the two Wizards lived. The houses next to it looked nearly deserted, and Carver pulled me out carefully, Havord reluctantly heaving my wild mass of hair to follow, grimacing at either the smell or the weight, I don't know.

We got inside, and the first thing they did was take me into the bathroom and run a bath, the water clean but reeking of chemicals to my ultra-sensitive nose. I know, though, that my face never twitched to show the disgust I felt, and I tugged my meager, moth-eaten rag from my hips, letting my curtain of hair hide my skeletal body easily, before stepping into the warm water.

My skin immediately screamed in pain, and I quickly stepped out, eyes tightening at my beet-red feet and ankles. Carver frowned when I showed him, and he fiddled with the water, emptying it most of the way before adding lots of cold water and very little warm. I gingerly stepped in again, and, in water that would have felt barely a degree above cold for a human, I found tolerable, if bizarrely slimy-feeling… Already, with only my feet, clouds of dirt and muck from a thousand and eight hundred, ninety-two years of living in the dirt were billowing around my ankles.

"Perhaps a shower would be best," Carver muttered; I once more stepped from the white tub, and waited with the patience of centuries as he fiddled with the water and sprayer until perfect, after draining the tub again. He gestured me in, and I obeyed silently, shuddering as the slimy-feel of the water licking down my skin disturbed me. He'd gotten it at exactly the right temperature, and I ignored the discomfort of the water in order to enjoy the pleasure of warmth again.

The water was black with filth in seconds, and I blinked in surprise for the second time, eyes no longer parched but almost too wet, when hands, gentle but firm, began to scrub at the layers of muck that coated me like a second skin. My hair was an almost unbearable weight before the tingle, and the near-painful feel, of another's magic whispered briefly, and the weight of my mane was gone. Curious, I lifted my hands and touched my hair, which now reached my shoulders. It was still horrendously matted, but… Better. Much, much better.

I turned my eyes on Carver, who was dumping the yards of what was my hair into a trash bag, grimacing. I touched his shoulder; he jumped, staring at me, wide-eyed. It was the first physical thing I'd done since meeting them…that I'd initiated, at least. I forced muscles that hadn't moved in centuries to move, and could almost hear the near-painful creak as my mouth turned slowly up, barely perceptible, but it was a smile. I nodded carefully at him, eyes landing on the hair and moving back. He smiled, getting it, though he looked uncomfortable.

"No problem," he muttered; I nodded again, and turned my face once more under the water. As he heaved my trash bag of hair out the bathroom door, I hesitantly began to scrub at myself, slowly, before my arms quickly tired. Carefully, I sank down to sit, Indian-style, in the tub, closing my eyes for the first time for more then a blink, and just felt.

The muscles in my legs, forced to work when they'd had no need before, loathed me at the moment. My arms, tired, pulsed with a soft ache, as did the cheek and jaw muscles I'd forced into moving just moment ago. The water was gray now, I noticed when I opened my eyes, and didn't feel quite so slimy as half of the dirt was washed away. Lifting my hand, I blinked, startled to find jagged talons at the ends of my fingers. I'd not noticed it before. It looked like my nails had grown as long as my hair, but had broken off. Carefully, I pushed one against the side of the tub, and watched it bend backwards with an unusual amount of flexibility, until snap! It broke of were skin and fingernail met.

No blood or pain followed, though the tip of my finger now bore no nail, the reddish, soft tissue exposed. In the next thirty seconds, I'd done the same for the rest of my fingers, as well as my toes, all of which had also grown grotesquely. And all with the same result. I carefully piled the nails together, and placed them in the nearby wastebasket, dripping water as I leaned out of the tub, before sitting back down. Carver entered moments later, with a soft-looking towel, which he sat on the counter before kneeling and silently beginning to scrub my hair, working carefully at the mats. As his hands massaged my scalp, I made a sound for the first time in over two thousand years.

I purred.

His hands hesitated, for a second, before continuing with more certainty then before, and I pressed into his hands and shut my eyes, blissfully content to let him wash my hair. I couldn't remember if I'd ever been taken care of like this, before my imprisonment. I didn't think so, though. Sometimes I got flashes of people or things from back then, but not many names or such at all.

Half an hour later, after he soaped my hair and body with a clinical, impersonal (amusing), precision, I was lifted from the water, now just cold, though crystal clear, and wrapped in the fluffy towel. I purred again, a rusty, hoarse sound, but I was trying, at least. He picked me up and carried me to a room where Havord waited with a pair of boxers, pants, and shirt. I refused the pants as shirt, for now.

They hurt against my skin, so unused to being trapped inside clothing after so long. I wore the boxers more out of courtesy then any want or embarrassment. I would wear a shirt and pants, even shoes, though they disgust me, when in public. I felt no such duty in the presence of these two men, which seemed to amuse them, though they also seemed to understand.

They carried me from the room when walking nearly had me falling to the floor, leg muscles cramping and twitching in denial of my wishes, and set me down again at the small wooden table, where a mild broth, cold, sat waiting for me, and where a much heartier meal awaited my two companions.

"We'll start teaching you everything you'll need to know after we send in the fake paperwork so you can commandeer Cynthia's ticket," Carver told me as I very carefully reached forward and wrapped my bony fingers awkwardly around the handle of my waiting spoon. It had been so long; I wondered, briefly, if I'd forgotten how to use one…

"You, unlike us, will be in the AVATAR program, so that you can move around the planet and such with much more freedom. You'll need to learn as much, if not more, then Cynthia knew, and log several hundred hours before they'll let you anywhere near the program. We have three years to acquaint you with the world…" He paused, frowning. "You need a name. Calling you Harry… It just doesn't seem right." I tilted my head slowly, more as if the muscles had simply gone slack, then nodded slightly to them.

"How about Jayden?" Havord asked, face a little solemn since the mention of his deceased wife. I tilted my head, thought about it idly, and then gave a minuscule nod.

It was better then Harry, anyways.

"Jayden Michael… What should he last name be?" Carver asked; Havord once more spoke up.

"Collins," he said softly. "It was Cynthia's maiden name. She had a distant cousin named Jayden, whose records got destroyed in a strange fire-related accident not ten years ago. Hundreds of people seemingly disappeared out of thin air. We can explain that he'd been in private care after a severe emotion breakdown when his children died in a car accident," he suggested; I felt my lids lower slightly, and then nodded my approval. Carver smiled slightly.

"Welcome to the family, then, Jayden Michael Collins." I felt my lips twitch, more of a spasm then anything close to a smile, and nodded once more. I could really begin to like these two…

If they didn't annoy me too much, that is.

PAGE BREAK! PAGE BREAK!

(.)_(.)

( *;* )

(U_U)

EVIL BUNNY PREVAILS!

PAGE BREAK!

The first thing I learned, was that living so long and forgetting most of my past, made remembering new information very easy. I soaked things up like a sponge. The Na'vi language was easiest, then there was the chemistry, biology, botany, sociology, psychology, psychiatry, trigonometry, geometry, calculus, and every other subject my two guardians could think of to shove down my throat. I re-learned to write, to speak, to be human and still I was off. Because a Master of Death is never truly a human. I was an entity, nearly a deity, and so could never be a human ever again.

But I could mimic them, at least, convincingly.

I logged seven hundred hours. I made "friends" with a slightly hyperactive scientist named Norm, who would travel with my two guardians and I when we headed for Pandora. I memorized and developed human habits, like breathing and blinking habitually, every couple of seconds, though not too often. I even practiced in the mirror until I was fairly certain I wouldn't frighten my fellows.

Finally, the time to leave arrived, and I found myself dressed in white slacks, a white, loose dress shirt, with my favorite side-bag (a tattered, ratty brown thing) slung across my chest to thump lightly against my hip. As my guardians headed towards our "bunkers" as they called them, I noticed a man in a wheelchair pushing himself in. He looked remarkably like a fellow scientist of mine, Tom Sully, whom, my magic had informed me, had died. Now, it licked along his skin when I asked it to, and whispered some of his secrets.

Ah.

So this was Tom's twin, Jake…

He had great and hard choices to make ahead of him. I'd make sure he made through them mostly in tact. Even if I got maimed in doing it, seeing as how I couldn't actually die. Humming softly, I handed my bag to Jacob, so he could have the attendant put it in my locker for when we arrived. I eyed the large ship as we made our way to our pods. Six years of nothing but sleeping here, no one to talk to…

I'd just have to focus on everything I'd learned in the last three years, and make sure it was all memorized.

As I lay in my pod, breathing in the medicine that had no affect on me, I wistfully wished I'd had the forethought of smuggling in a book. It was going to be a long six years… Well, if I didn't meditate, so I might as well start now.

Pandora, here I come.

R&R