Summary: In which Zoro is the Master of Death just like his father.
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HPxOP
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Dumbledore, even Dumbledore's immortal soul, did not understand death.
He accepted it better than most with his 'next great adventure' philosophy, but he did not understand it. No one could hope to understand.
However, Death understood people.
Appearing sometimes as a cute gothic girl, skeleton with a grin, or severe school teacher with flyaway hair, Death could stretch past mere concept and become.
Thus when a new master of death was crowned, Death made an attempt to understand the child.
He was young, so young even by his species standards, with a burning will to not only live, but succeed in the tasks set out before himself. Death approved.
When a fractured soul killed the boy king, Death crept close. He was finished with the task he had set out to do, yes, but his mind cried out for a chance to live in peace.
Death thought pity for him (lacking the correct organs to actually feel emotions) and decided to grant the boy's one selfish wish.
Humans like long sandy beaches, right? What better place for a peaceful vacation than a place with lots of those? Naturally the three badges of power (the stone, the cloak and the wand) would have to be transported along with the young master's body.
Death struggles to remember whether or not the wand is compatible with the magic of the other place, but decides it does not matter since it is the symbolism that makes the stick important.
It's new master now sent far away from his troubles, Death thinks contentment, and returns to its function.
Elsewhere Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived-and-Died-and-Lived-Again woke up on an abandoned island in the middle of the sea with only a cloak and a few shredded bits of clothing to cover his nudity.
Luckily the island had enough trees for Harry to lash together a raft. Unluckily, Harry had never in his life sailed on anything more than one of the Hogwarts boats and soon wished he had remained put on the sand.
The Elder Wand refused to work, despite how many spells the boy screamed at it, so he couldn't be sure he was even traveling in a straight line.
Harry was not sure whether it was the thirst or hunger that got to him first. All he knows is that one moment he is staring at the blurry horizon, and the next he is on some kind of ship's sick bay.
The crew all wear white uniforms of some military denomination Harry is not familiar with. They also speak in a fast language which he can only understand every tenth word.
Harry discovered that ships were not his cup of tea and kept a bucket by his side for when he couldn't run up to the deck to vomit.
The day after waking up he is interrogated. Through miming and badly drawn pictures he manages to communicate that he had been stranded on an island, though he could not explain how.
He must have appeared particularly unthreatening, because he was soon allowed to explore the ship under escort and was given some cloths to wear.
A week into his impromptu voyage, and Harry decided that he must be very far from home indeed. He had tried to sketch a map of England, then of all the continents he could remember from his days in primary school. The doctor had looked confused and brought out a map.
Harry at first took it eagerly, but soon grew dismayed. The earth was not that covered with water, and there was surely more than a ring of solid land on the globe!
They leave him on the next island they come to. Harry has never been so grateful to be back on dry land, and promises never to willingly venture back out to sea.
There is a fortified building with the same symbol as the ship that saved him painted on it. Later, Harry would learn that it was a marine outpost. Much later, he would learn that the only reason the captain of the ship that saved him let him go free was because he felt Harry could not cause too much trouble with marines so close by.
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Harry spent a day systematically going through all the shops, hotels, and bars trying to find employment.
He manages to mime his way into the back of a bar as a dish washer. Harry thinks he also got himself a room to sleep in for the night, but pointing and pictures can only communicate so far.
Language skills just jumped several places up on his priority list.
At least they didn't care if he ate the leftovers. While he could last a few days without food, Harry preferred not to, and until he managed to find a way back to England he was stuck in this strange place.
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Either there was an island wide sale on unnatural coloring dyes, or the people here had very strange hair colors.
Like the girl who had just walked in to sit at the bar, for example. The hair framing her delicate cheeks was a mossy green color.
Other patrons of the bar noticed more than her pretty face.
Harry swept used dishes from the counter into the cleaning bin and watched as a dirty sailor approached the woman. Though still unable to understand much of the language, Harry rolled his eyes at the obvious pickup lines.
The green haired woman sipped her alcohol, completely ignoring the other man. That is, until his hands began to wander.
Dishes shattered en-mass to the floor as the deceptively thin armed woman wrenched the bar top from its foundations and lifted it high over her head.
Harry blinked, hands still frozen mid cleaning. Yeah this place was definitely strange. Maybe there was something in the water.
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It was not love at first sight, however as the weeks went by Harry found himself watching the frighteningly strong woman whenever she entered the bar for a drink.
She ordered enough alcohol to put any reasonable sized male under the table, yet she somehow always managed to walk away under her own power. She never seemed inclined to talk with any other patrons (evidenced by the increasing number of broken chairs and tables), yet like clockwork could be found seated on her customary stool at the (newly repaired) counter.
Her presence might have been because there was only one bar in town, but Harry liked to imagine there was more to it that that.
Though still struggling with the language, he managed to piece together that the woman was some kind of former adventurer who lived as a hermit in a house on the other end of the island.
He sometimes saw her lifting anvils at the blacksmith or demolishing structures in the marine's shipyard, but he couldn't figure out what she actually did to earn the gold coins she used to pay for her drinks.
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Harry had never been outgoing around humans of the female persuasion, but when his co-workers saw him gazing longingly at the girl from behind the counter, they took it upon themselves to give him tips.
The tips were not always all that good, and Harry could not understand most of what they said, however (if only to get them to stop teasing him) the young man resolved to ask the green haired woman out on a date.
He was beyond surprised when she accepted.
They took a long walk on the beach, and he brought her some blue flowers. She single handedly brought down a wild boar that decided to chase them through the woods. He took special care to cook it properly over an open fire pit. It was delicious. All in all, not a bad first date.
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After a few months of delirious courtship, Harry found himself pulled by the arm to an official building. He stood awkwardly looking around the court house like structure as she filled out a stack of paper beside him.
"Sign," she says gruffly, shoving a pen under his nose.
"What?" Harry looks at the line she indicated. The strange writing blurred together under his gaze. The explanation she tried to give went way over his vocabulary level.
She sighed, brow furrowed for an incoming scowl. "Sign." She insisted.
Harry shrugged and scrawled his signature at the bottom of the form. "Good?"
She smiles breathtakingly, and clasps his face between her hands for a kiss. "Very good!"
Harry blinked dumbly for a few moments until he felt something cold slip onto his finger. He look at the silver ring uncomprehendingly. She giggles and points to the matching one on her own hand.
Realization dawns on him. Harry smacks his fist into his hand. "Oh, we're married now."
She chuckles at his English words.
The true weight of what had just happened smacks him with the weight of a Hungarian Horntail. "WHAT?"
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"Hari-kun!" A woman burst through the bar's front door oozing joy and excitement. "Hari-kun where are you?"
The man she sought popped his head from the kitchen. "Dear, for what reason are you here?"
She rushes to embrace him with her deceptively delicate arms, practically spinning them both around the establishment. Patrons used to this behavior made sure to pick up their plates and drinks as tables were knocked to the floor.
"You are a father!" She stopped spinning, cuddling her husband close.
He struggled to speak with the air being crushed from his lungs. "What does that mean? I am not to be having a father..."
She giggles. "No, you will be a father." She places his hand gently on her abdomen.
"Oh," comprehension breaks through the language barrier. Harry promptly passes out.
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The baby's hair is the same shade as Harry's eyes, while his eyes match Harry's hair. He takes more after his mother in looks, but the child's skin is pale and will burn easily in the harsh island sunlight, as Harry knows well from experience.
"You are going to be very tan unless you remain indoors. I know you won't of course," Harry whispers to the baby fondly in English. "But what is a little adventure to a Potter, eh?"
He will let his wife fill out the paperwork when she finishes recovering in the hospital; Harry still cannot write very well.
She gives the boy her family name, but asks her husband what his given name should be.
Harry has never been very creative with names. The only creature he had ever named had been Hedwig, and that name had been taken from a book.
He thought about naming the child after someone from his old home, but decided against it. While naming the boy 'Albus James Serious Severus' would be very touching, the gesture had no meaning here.
No, this boy needed a name that he could grow strong with. Harry strained his mind, recalling the names of heroes from his past.
Godrick...Merlin...Clark Kent...Robin Hood...Zorro...
"Huh," Harry chewed on the name. "Zorro."
"Zoro," his wife muses thoughtfully from her place on the hospital bed. Her accent changes the sound of the name slightly. "Does it have meaning?"
"It is a strong name." He tries to tell her the story of 'The Mask of Zorro' -a swordsman who fought against the world for his dreams and pride- but it becomes lost in translation. He slumps in defeat.
She laughs and pats his cheek. "Roronoa Zoro. It is a good name."
Harry smiles.
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"My ring, have you seen it dear?" Harry calls through the little cottage. He hears his wife's negative response as he continues to pull up the couch cushions.
Zoro gurgles from his mat on the floor, fist shoved happily in his mouth. Harry smiles and picks the boy up. "How is daddy's favorite baby?" he says in English.
His son wriggles, hand gumming his tiny fist.
The man chuckles. "Now what have you got there? Another toy from mummy?" He pulls his son's hand out of his mouth and feels his blood run cold.
Clutched in the baby's hand was a heavy gold ring with an ornate setting which, last time Harry had seen it, contained a small grey stone. Now the setting was empty.
"Zoro, did you eat the stone on daddy's ring?" The baby smiles happily at the attention, not understanding the weight behind the question.
Harry's wife does not understand why her husband insisted on calling for a doctor that evening, not why he insisted on changing the baby himself for the next week. She just shrugged and added it to the list of eccentricities possessed by the man she loved.
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Harry tugged the elder wand from his son's tiny hands, carefully checking his gum's for splinters.
No injuries were immediately present, and if anything in there was bothering the baby Zoro paid it no mind.
"Why do you feel compelled to put everything in your mouth?" He grumbled at his son.
"Ma," the baby said, hands stretched out for a toy.
Harry chuckled and walked to the cupboard for a teething ring. "It's a good thing magic doesn't work here; you could have jinxed your nose off!"
The stick lay innocently on the floor in several feathery splinters. Harry did not mind so much; it was just a piece of wood now.
Even if he tried to repair the wand, it would do no good: some of the pieces were missing.
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Harry stood at a cross roads his son clinging to his back like a monkey.
"Daddy, where are we?"
The man scratched his head. "Well, the person we asked for directions said...up? No, that can't be right...maybe it was North?"
The toddler kicked at his father's sides. "North, Up! Right, Left!" he chants.
Harry winces. "I hope you learn what those words mean from someone other than me, otherwise you will never know where you're going."
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The second to last time Zoro saw his mother was when the men in the white uniforms came knocking on their door.
He remembers seeing them outside the window of their little cottage in the woods, before she pulls him back and shuts the blinds.
"Zoro, go with your father," she tells him, picking up his then small toddler frame.
Father is waiting, a confused expression on his face. "Dear, what is happening?" He asks, as mother places Zoro into a sling on his back.
"You need to get off the island," she whispers as the banging intensifies. "There is a boat in the harbor. Go, I will meet you there."
Father's green eyes looked worried, but he nods his head. Making sure Zoro would not slip (Mother is the stronger of his two parents, but Father is faster) he sprints trough the trees.
There is an explosion of gunfire, but Father does not look back.
The dingy is there as promised, bobbing gently in the current at the base of low rocky outcropping. Father waits with his fingers clutched white knuckled around the helm, eyes scanning the trees.
There is a clang of steel, the smell of smoke, and Mother bursting from the foliage with a vicious snarl like a crazed dog. Her cloths were stained dark with what later Zoro would recognize as blood.
"Go!" she shouts, shoving her weight against the wooden stern. The rope holding the boat to shore snaps, sending the craft hurtling away with the current.
Zoro remembers Mother sailing their little family out to sea with practice ease. He recalls Father expressing concern over the spreading red marks over her stomach, but Mother waves him off.
Eventually land comes into sight along the horizon and she closes her eyes to rest.
She doesn't open them again.
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They burry her ashes on a hill. He visits her every day.
There is a school on the island in need of a janitor. Harry works there in exchange for a place to live.
When Zoro showed some talent with the blade while playing with some of the other students, owner of the school was kind enough to even let him learn swordsmanship free of cost.
Harry settles back into his new life and tries to understand how he went from a skinny eleven year old learning magic to a single parent working in a dojo. He does not let it bother him too much.
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"The boy just has the Savannah Cough. All the children get it around here, but it is harmless."
"Is there anything you can do?" the foreigner begs.
The doctor shakes his head. "It is best that he gets this young and develops and immunity to it. It can be dangerous if caught later in life. It has a tendency to develop into pneumonia in adults, but the symptoms in children are much more mild. He will just feel like he has a cold and a small cough for the next week or two. Just makes sure he gets plenty of rest."
The man nods and thanks the doctor fervently for his time.
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A wet cough shuddered through his weak frame as his lungs gasped for air through the liquid clogging them.
"Daddy," the green haired boy whimpered from his bedside.
Harry turned his head, a smile on his lips. "There there, no tears." He reaches out his unbloodied hand. The child clasps it tightly between his small palms, face scrunched up in agony. "You are already so strong," the man marvels, "and you will grow up to be even stronger."
"Daddy." Tears slip through the twisted mask.
"Hey, strong men don't cry!" The man cast about, before pulling something silky and smooth from his coat pocket. He pressed the cloth against his son's tears. "Here take this."
The child clutched the shred of cloak to his face.
"Take of that until I get well, it is very special. It belonged to my father and his father before him all the way beck to before our family began. It used to be much bigger, but time has a way of wearing things down."
The boy shook with suppressed sobs.
The door slid open, saving Harry from failing to further comfort his child.
"Hari-san," the dojo's owner said politely. Harry raised a hand weakly in greeting.
"Zoro, why don't you go play outside with Sensei's daughter?" He told his son. "We adults have a lot of stuff to talk about." He tried to pull his hand free.
"No," the boy growled, refusing to move an inch.
Harry's gaze turned sharp. "Zoro."
"No!" The grip tightened, grinding the bones in Harry's hand together. "You won't be here when I come back, like how mommy left!"
The child's voice pierced his father's heart worse than any disease. "Oh Zoro..." He wanted to embrace his son, but could not find the strength. "I'm not going anywhere just yet."
"Promise?"
"Have I ever lied to you?"
Reluctantly the child released his father's hand. Sparing a final distrustful gaze at the owner of the dojo, he walks outside.
"What was that language you were just speaking," he asks once the two men were alone.
"My native language," Harry replied, sinking back into the thin futon. "Sensei, I have little time left."
The man bowed his head. "Zoro will have a place in my school, as you wished."
"That's good," the man's breath leaves his lungs in a rattle as his eyes drift shut.
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Death waits patiently for the green eyed man to finish watching his funeral.
He sighs, looking at the green haired child, before turning away.
"So," he says conversationally to the grinning skeleton, "Where to next?"
Death fiddles with his scythe. "You are a highly irregular case, you understand, so there is no set precedence..."
The man laughs. "So I go nowhere?"
"Actually you can go anywhere, so trying to choose where to put you is a bit of a problem."
"Ah," the man nods. "Well, how about You take me to see my family, and we can go on from there."
"I understand that it is important to keep in touch with family. Unfortunately my granddaughter is less than pleased whenever I visit..."
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Part of the reason Zoro feels so strongly about Kuina's death is that, if he had been present when she fell he knew instinctively that she would still be alive.
It is this instinct which later allows him to shrug off life threatening wounds and lets him know when an enemy is truly down or just on the cusp of death.
Tied to a stake in the middle of a marine base with bullets flying at him, Zoro can practically taste the afterlife drawing him closer once more. In that moment, he does not know if he will have the strength to come back.
A boy with a straw hat leaps to take the bullets before they hit their mark, a wide grin on his face.
Zoro resigns himself to think of him as his captain.
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Normally when a soul passed on, they were content to commune with various friends and relatives who had gone on before. Sometimes they journeyed on to other places, and at other times they returned to the cycle of life.
Harry Potter, being the former master of death, still had certain privileges despite his own state of non-life. It complicated matters when Death found itself snuck up from behind by the green eyed man, who could unfailingly locate the personification no matter where it went.
"How is my son?" were the first words from the soul's lips whenever he crossed Death's path. "I know you've seen him."
The chosen personification of the moment would shrug (or grin enigmatically, or scowl, depending on what Death decided to look like that day). "Same old, same old."
Brushing with death on a daily basis or sending in new arrivals, the young swordsman was predictable as clockwork. Death might, if pestered politely, elaborate on the more interesting scenes surrounding the boy's life.
The man would grin at each gory tale. "That's my boy!" he would crow. "Gets his looks from his mother's side, but he's a Potter through and through!"
Death (when it possessed them) would roll its eyes and head back to work.
There were other powers given to the dead man as well.
"I know my son will be visiting this realm soon."
"He does not wish it to be his time yet."
The man shrugged. "Of course, but he will be coming closer than he ever has in the past. May I greet him by the gates before he is sent back?"
Death considered the request of its former master and relented.
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Darkness pressed against the backs of his retina, heavy like velvet. His lethargically he tried to sit up, but only managed to move himself over his crossed legs in a seated slump. He missed the comforting weight of his weapons at his side, but couldn't find the energy to stand and look for them.
"There you are Zoro," said a voice in a language the swordsman had not heard for almost fifteen years.
He opened his eyes. There stood a man with green eyes the same shade as his hair. Zoro knew the face, though he had not seen it since childhood. "My swords."
"They're back with your body, I assume."
"Ah." Zoro sighed, noticing the lack of pain in his limbs. "It is not my time yet, so why are you here?"
The dark haired figure sat beside him. "Am I not free to visit every once in a while?"
The swordsman closed his eyes. "You can come and go as you please."
A laugh. "Still so serious." The figure sat beside him. "You must have been doing something more dangerous than usual to end up here. I'm living to know, what was it?"
The green haired man shrugged. "Eh, nothing really. Where am I anyway?"
"That is an interesting question," the man mused. "Well, you're in a space between two moments and the grave."
"Stop talking in riddles."
Hands raised in a placating manner. "I'm not the best to explain all this, as I'm not quite sure myself. I've heard it described as a way station between worlds once, because what is death but a transition between places."
"I told you I'm not dead."
"Of course you're not. If there's one thing you inherited from me it is your stubbornness." The man sat down. "So have you figured out," he waved his hand around vaguely, "all this business yet?"
Zoro shrugged. "What's there to understand."
His father chuckled. "I would have told you about it, but I didn't think it would be passed on to you. I thought the title would die with me."
"It has been useful."
A laugh echoed across the empty space. "Oh yeah, you use the perks a lot more than I ever did! I think you are the only person qualified to be on a first name basis with Death."
"You mean the lady with the white hair or the skeleton?" He scratched his green hair. "I think I saw a mouse once as a kid, and then theres that smiling girl with the odd symbol at the corner of her eye."
"It's all the same thing. Something about anthropomorphic personifications, but I didn't pay much attention when it was explained to me."
"So, how do I get out of here?"
The dark haired man shrugged. "The same way you got in I imagine. Or you could always follow the music."
Zoro listened, and sure enough the faint strains of a piano and raucous singing wafted through the void.
Zoro stood up. "It's been fun old man, but I have to get back to my crew."
"Ah, ok. Just watch where you go, it's easy to get lost in these in between places."
"I don't get lost," the swordsman grumbled as he walked, "Other people just can't give directions properly."
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Zoro tossed and turned in his bed, unwinding the bandages around his chest with his struggles.
Perona wanted to bang on the wall to get him to shut up, but the castle was made of stone and she did not have the strength to make the effort worthwhile.
"Quiet! You're not cute at all!" she shouted.
The green haired man did not hear her, as he was currently very far away from the old haunted castle in the Muggy Kingdom.
Monkey D. Luffy screamed.
Thick chains tied him to a wooden table in a dark room. Outside the inhabitants of Level Five Point Five huddled, wondering if the strange boy would survive.
Death drew close, its form too large and frightening to comprehend. It was in the habit of visiting Impel Down regularly, but this case was different.
Someone stood in the way.
"Ah, my favorite living swordsman!" Death's cruel tone matched the form it wore for the occasion. "It's nice of you to visit, but I'm in the middle of a job at the moment..."
"No," Zoro told the void. "It is not his time to die."
Death hissed angrily, curling closer to the straw hat pirate's soul. "It is not your choice to say whether this boy lives or dies! His body is spent. I am taking him."
The swordsman grit his teeth. "No, you will not." His voice spoke with the finality of fact.
"Who are you to dare order me? You are only mortal."
The dark green cloth on the man's head fluttered in a nonexistent wind. His hands flexed over the hilts of three swords at his waist. "Leave this place."
"You would challenge death?" the specter laughed.
"That was not a challenge," there was a red gleam in the swordsman's eye. "It was an order."
Death flinched back. "As you wish," it hissed, "Master."
Zoro waited until the shadow had vanished, before allowing himself to wonder back to his sleeping body.
In the room, his captain writhed, but remained safe from the clutches of death...for now at least.
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The implication is that Zoro's mom got killed by the marines. Why? Well, we all have our suspicions. Was she a pirate? Did she punch a Celestial Dragon? An escaped slave? Only she knows, and if she told Harry he probably didn't understand her. Language barriers are annoying like that.
I got this idea because everyone is always talking about how Zoro should really be dead with all those wounds he accumulates, but somehow is still alive. If anyone is the Master of Death in the OP world, it is him.
Oh, and spoilers for the Impel Down arc at the end there.
And an explination about how Harry died: The scene before that was Zoro sick with an illness, that while harmless to kids is dangerous to adults. Think chickenpox- you want to get it as a kid so they don't get shingles as an adult. Harry gets it from Zoro and dies, because he is not native to the OP world and does not have the immunities to the diseases of the world.
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