“Harry Potter! You useless boy, come to the kitchen this instant!”

Harry Potter hurried back towards the kitchen as his Aunt Petunia started screaming at him. His clothes were old and tattered, hand me downs from his cousin Dudley. Dudley could do no wrong according to his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. Just yesterday, Dudley had shoved Harry hard into the wall as he barreled past him for breakfast.

Harry hadn’t been allowed to have dinner that night.

Aunt Petunia told him he should learn to not lie when he had told her about what Dudley had done. He knew instinctively she wouldn’t do anything to punish Dudley, but he felt the instinctive need to tell someone, just so he could feel that he had. He hadn’t expected to be punished for it. He had thought she would just be indifferent, that was all.

Harry’s stomach growled as he entered the kitchen. He wouldn’t be having dinner tonight either. He had already had lunch at school and that was enough according to Aunt Petunia. But he still had to help her cook and smell everything she was making, everything that he wouldn’t be able to eat himself.

Harry pushed up his thick glasses perched on his nose and brushed his thick unkempt black bangs of hair out of his face. He felt the lightning shaped scar there for an instant. All he had left of his parents after they died in a car crash when he was a baby. His bright green eyes were a contrast to the blues of his Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin. Sometimes he stared at them in the mirror to remind himself that he wasn’t like them. That the Dursleys weren’t his real family.

He saw that Aunt Petunia was cooking something in the oven and he carefully walked forward towards her while she had her back turned with the oven open in front of her.

“Aunt Petunia? What should I do?”

Aunt Petunia whirled around, a glass baking dish carried by the oven mitts covering her hands. Harry felt glass impact his chin and send him falling backwards to the hard tile floor below him. He had one last image of Aunt Petunia staring disdainfully down at him, the glass baking dish in her hands. Then the back of his head hit the hard tile floor and Harry Potter felt nothing more... His life snuffed out in a single instant like a strong wind blowing out a flickering flame on a candle.

Aunt Petunia looked down at the irritating boy laying sprawled on the floor. Honestly, the little freak had walked up right behind her before speaking. What else had he expected to happen, scaring her like that? Now he was playing all dramatic, laying there sprawled out on the floor to try to play on her sympathy. She felt a twinge of something in her, but quickly suppressed it. No, he was a freak. He was in the wrong, he should have known not to be near an open oven like that. And to not scare her.

“Honestly, boy. No need to be so dramatic. I don’t need you lazing about when you’re under my roof!” Petunia said. The boy didn’t move. She huffed, fine then. Two could play at that game.

“If the table isn’t set by the time I get back I will tell your uncle and he will give you a beating,” She declared, “Just got to let the food cool, then I’ll be right back. You’d better get a move on if you want to finish before I’m done fetching him and Dudley.”

Aunt Petunia stepped forward and took a step forward over the limp body of Harry Potter, not even sparing him another glance as she went to go upstairs to tell her husband and son that dinner was ready. What she would have seen if she had taken another glance behind her was the growing pool of bright red blood leaking from Harry Potter’s head. And that his chest was no longer moving in or out as those of living boys do.

Harry Potter was dead.

Harry Potter was dead and Aunt Petunia hadn’t even noticed, too busy considering how to punish him for his ‘mistake’.

— — —

Harry Potter opened his eyes and he was somewhere new. He lifted his hands and stared at them. They were completely covered in some form of blackish sticky mud. He reached out and started scraping his forearms to try to get it off, but no matter what he did it remained stuck, flowing and dripping like mud no matter what he did.

Giving it up, Harry sat up and looked around himself into his dreary surroundings. Was he dead? Was this hell? He looked around and saw the scraggly black bushes and crimson bloody skies. The ground around him was alternatively cracked dry dirt or fetid muddy swamp. There was no visible sun or moon in the sky, but everything was lit up with a soft diffuse red light. A dim, weak light making Harry’s whole surroundings feel like they were in the midst of an eternal twilight.

Harry blinked again and then suddenly reached up to his face. He wasn’t wearing glasses? But his vision was fine, better than it had ever been actually. He could see all his dreary surroundings with near perfect clarity, better than his vision even had been through his glasses.

After hearing that he had vision problems, the Dursleys had grudgingly given him the cheapest pair of glasses they could find from one of Uncle Vernon’s friends from work. They had never really worked right, but they at least let Harry see well enough to read and not have everything be the blurry mess that it usually was.

But even without glasses, his vision was nothing like that now. He could see everything with crystal clear clarity. Harry felt at his face with his hand and was confused to feel the sticky dripping mud there too. His skin was soft and slimy, and taking his hand off his face, he curiously reached out his arm and pushed a single finger hard into his forearm. Only to immediately panic as the digit pushed inside his arm, followed by the rest of his hand. He could feel his fingers moving in there where his bones should be!

With a gasp, Harry quickly pulled out his hand from his arm, and watched in horror as the hole in his arm quickly filled itself in with the sticky black mud flowing from around it. There was nothing at the bottom of the hole. Only more of the sticky black mud.

A wave of visceral disgust washed over Harry as he stared at the rapidly filling hole.

“Heeeeey! You the new guy?” A voice suddenly said to Harry’s left. He quickly looked at the figure made of the black mud standing there, staring at him. Its glowing eyes were a bright blue contrasting with the rest of its mud form. Harry could see its excitement as it skipped towards him. It has a mud splattered circlet on its head, reddish spikes sticking up all around its head from the circle. It looked like a crown, made of bone or some sort of ivory…

“H-Hello? Who are you? Where are we? Am I dead?” Harry asked as he made his way to his feet. He put his hand on his chest and pushed inwards and sure enough his hand sank inside and he could feel himself wiggle his fingers around where his heart should be. Harry removed his hand with a sucking wet sound and the gap began to fill back in with the mud as he watched. He wasn’t human… He was some sort of… mud person now. Just one big mass of mud that could somehow think. In this strange hellscape.

“Wow, great green eyes!” The stranger cheered, “So bright and pretty. Balthazar will love them. Okay, let’s go in order. I’m the king! King of this place! King… Eric. Yeah, I think that's it. It’s been so long since I’ve used it, haha. We’re in hell, no not the religious one. There’s no real name for it, but there’s demons and the red skies and stuff. So I figured that’s as good a name as any. Finally, yes you are very dead my friend! And now you’re here. This is your new life, best to get used to it. Now come with me, I’ll show you to the palace!”

The mud person in the crown suddenly did a little twirl in place and started shuffling side to side as Harry looked on. Harry watched the person, Eric, carefully.

“Uhm. What are you doing? Why are we mud creatures? Do we have any… clothes or something we should be wearing?”

“Clothes? We’ve got nothing to show, new guy. It’s mud all the way down. Girl? You seem like a guy. Could be wrong though, sorry if you’re a girl. As for what I’m doing? Dancing, my friend! What’s your name, anyway? When I get in the mood you just got to express yourself, you know? Listen to your inner music, tap your foot to your own beat! Hahaha, pow, pow! Watch this!”

Eric started doing cartwheels and jumping around erratically as Harry watched on in disbelief. What was happening right now?

Eric’s bright blue eyes fixed on him and he calmed down a little and stopped dancing, “Oh, but we should go to the tower. I’m not good at this explaining stuff. Balthazar will tell you it much better. He’s like this big butler demon, he helps me out all the time when I want to tell the demons what to do. What was your name? Are you a boy?”

“I’m, ah, Harry. Yeah, I’m a boy.”

“Great! Let’s go, Harry. We’re not hairy anymore, either of us hehehehe. C’mon, to the palace!”

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Eric turned around and started skipping away, humming a little tune to himself as he went. Harry looked around to the barren landscape around him and hesitated. Should he stay here and wait? Or go with the possibly insane boy skipping away to some sort of palace filled with demons?

Harry stared at his hand composed of the black mud. Eric had answers, and Harry didn’t want to be alone in this place… So with some reluctance, Harry started to jog to catch up with Eric who was moving fast even if he was skipping and humming a tune to himself as he did so.

— — —

Harry wasn’t sure how long he followed Eric. Several times they had stopped for ‘dance breaks’ for Eric to show off some of his moves to Harry. Harry thought it very strange, but didn’t dare say anything negative in case Eric decided to leave him behind. Harry had been forced to show off his own terrible dancing skills after Eric pressed him. Eric was disappointed, but cheered up a couple seconds later.

“Don’t worry,” He said, “You’ll have plenty of time to practice in this place.”

That wasn’t as reassuring as Harry thought Eric meant it to be.

Eventually the swampy area they had been in changed to a vast plain of cracked and dry dirt with not a single plant in sight. In the distance just visible in the dim light and crimson skies was a massive black tower, rising into the skies so high that Harry couldn’t see the top even from here. Like a giant spike connecting the earth and heavens.

Harry shook his head. That was a strange thought. Thinking of this place as hell might be getting to him. Eric’s constant talk of demons certainly wasn’t helping things much. And confirmation that he was dead and was now in this strange mud body instead.

They approached, Harry not having seen a single animal in the surroundings the whole time they had traveled.

“Eric, how do the demons live here? There’s no animals here at all. What do they do for food or water?”

“Food? Water?” Eric asked blankly, his blue eyes glazed over as if trying to remember something.

“Oh, yeah. I remember those,” He said, “Oh, they don’t need those things. They’re like us. Survive on the energy of the world or something. Balthazar will explain better. They all live in the big tower, that’s where the most energy is. Balthazar called this place a… pocket? Pocket realm? Yeah, that. The tower is what makes everything work, so there’s the most energy there for the demons and us to live off of.”

“I won’t have to eat food? Or drink?”

“Of course not! We’re made of mud, dummy!”

“Hey, uh. Eric. How old were you when, you know… you came here?”

Eric was silent for a few seconds, looking away so Harry couldn’t see his expressive blue eyes.

“A… A long time. I was seven when I got here,” Eric said in a serious tone, “I don’t know how long it’s been since then. What year is it?”

“1989. I’m nine now. Or I was…”

“Oh.”

They walked towards the tower, the mood suddenly low. Eric didn’t say anything more and Harry didn’t ask.

They finally reached the base of the tower, its surface raised into the sky like a giant black wall in front of them stretching in either direction for a long way. Eric raised his arm and the bone crown on his head flashed brightly. The doors to the tower swung open, what was formerly a smooth wall divoting inwards and shifting to reveal an obsidian door covered in intricate patterns like nothing Harry had ever seen.

Eric walked inside and Harry followed behind and the doors swung shut behind him. There was a single hallway leading to a circular platform in the center at the bottom of a massive dark shaft going upwards into the darkness. Eric stepped onto its center and the crown flashed again. The floor shuddered and Harry suddenly stumbled as the platform began flying upwards at high speeds.

All around the edges of the circular disk, dull red flames sprung into existence to light up the space as they raced upwards. Harry could hear the whistling and rushing of wind around them and felt his gut lurching even as the air seemed to hit an invisible dome of sorts around the top of the disk. Magic elevator. Harry stared dubiously at the floating flames that had appeared from nowhere. Well, he was a mud creature and in hell. And he was dead. Why couldn’t there be magic too?

“1870,” Eric suddenly said as the platform kept moving, his tone flat and detached, “That’s when I died. Sorry, I didn’t know it had been so long. Time moves weirdly here, Balthazar says. Maybe it’s only been a year or two since then for me. Maybe hundreds of years. No one knows.”

“How’d… how’d it happen? Your death?” Harry asked.

“Daddy was drunk. He thought that Mommy was cheating on him with our neighbor. When he started hitting Mommy, I yelled at him to stop. He started beating me. Then he stabbed Mommy then me with a knife after she tried to stop him from hitting me more... My blood was very red… I think Mommy was still alive when I finally died… What about you, how’d you die?”

“M…My Aunt hit me with a glass baking pan. I hit my head on the floor. I don’t know, it might have been an accident… I’m sorry about your Mom. About that.”

“It’s okay,” Eric said in that same flat voice, “It’s been a while. I’ll find out if your Aunt did it on purpose or not when I see her. Punish her if she did something wrong. That seems fair.”

“You will?” Harry asked in confusion, “How? Is there a way out of this place?”

Eric startled and stared at Harry for a long moment, “Yes. There is. Balthazar will tell you about it later. You can ask him all about it.”

“Is he at the top of wherever this lift goes?”

“Yes. There’s the main levels with all the demons and stuff. We’re skipping right to the top where Balthazar and the throne are with this elevator. He’s kinda the head demon in charge of all of the others.”

Harry was about to ask another question, but suddenly the platform began to slow down and the top of the dark shaft suddenly had a pinprick of light there. The platform slowed down even more until it slowly came to a stop, reaching the top of the shaft and becoming perfectly flush with the floor. Only a circular groove around the two of them proved that the elevator was there at all.

The room they were in was a large throne room made of obsidian and flecks of gold interspersed through the stone. Red cloth banners lined the walls between the elaborate Greek style pillars leading down the area leading up to the throne itself.

Next to the throne stood a hulking demon, just like Harry had imagined he would be. Large with big muscles, two sharp horns bursting from his forehead, two folded batlike wings sprouting from his back, and bright red skin. He was tall, at least six feet tall or more and his bright glowing orange eyes followed them as they walked towards him. Harry had seen his Uncle Vernon have crab once, the demon’s skin was almost the same shade of red as its shell had been.

Harry was surprised to see that the demon was wearing long black robes over itself all the way to his feet. He didn’t know why he was surprised, why wouldn’t a demon be dressed strangely? The demon smiled at the two of them, and Harry was surprised to see human teeth rather than the sharp fangs he had been expecting. As they got closer, the creature spoke.

“A newcomer? Hello, I am Balthazar. I see that our King has found you in no time at all.”

“Yeah!” Eric said proudly, “I found him easily. He was out by the swamps. We’re here to do the ceremony.”

Balthazar looked conflicted for a moment, before jerkily nodding and turning to Harry.

“New one. Are you ready to begin?”

“What ceremony? Eric, what are you talking about?” Harry asked as he turned to the boy.

“It’s just a little thing Balthazar likes to do for any new people. Isn’t that right, Balthazar?”

“Yes, King,” Balthazar said in a monotone.

Eric turned back to Harry, “I’ve been King for so long. I thought it might be fun to give you a try at it. Just sit on the throne and repeat after me. A little ceremony so Balthazar will feel it’s serious enough to listen to you for a while. Then you’ll be king of this place and Balthazar will show you around.”

Harry looked between the boy and the hulking demon, getting a weird feeling, “And I can give it back to you if it’s too much? I don’t want to be king, what if I mess something up?”

“You’ll be fiiine!” Eric said, “But sure. I’ll take the crown back after if you don’t want to do it. C’mon, it’ll be fun. You can ask Balthazar all sorts of questions and he’ll actually be able to answer and give all the fancy scholar answers and stuff.”

“Well…” Harry met Eric’s expectant blue eyes. It couldn’t hurt, could it? It might even be a little fun. Not like he had anything else to do in this place.

“Okay.”

— — —

Harry sat on the massive throne and felt an odd tingling sensation go through his body. So strange, it felt so familiar yet so strange at the same time.

“Harry James Potter? That’s your full name?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, repeat after me. Ready?”

“Ready.”

Balthazar stood to the side half shrouded in shadow as he looked at the scene. Harry thought he looked disapproving of the scene. Did he not approve of Harry? He had seemed pretty welcoming of him when he first walked in…

“I Harry James Potter, do hereby,” Eric said and Harry repeated after him.

“Accept this crown and all the responsibilities and duties it entails.”

Harry gave a strange look, but at Eric’s nod he shrugged and said the words.

“I swear on my honor that I shall defend my subjects and my kingdom to the utmost. To never abandon it in peace or war. To defend against intrusion, and to guard its secrets and magic against those who would seek to unrightfully claim them. And that if you leave this realm that you will keep its best interests in mind.”

Harry repeated it, shifting on the throne. The strange tingling feeling was growing stronger and stronger the longer Eric spoke.

“Okay and this is my part,” He said quickly before continuing, “I, Eric Smith, do hereby relinquish my crown to my successor, long may he reign. Let me return to the world of the living once more, so that I may herald the greatness of the new king to them.”

Harry tried to move, to ask a question, but the tingling was so strong now that he could barely think. He couldn’t speak, locked in place as Eric kept talking.

“And so on my magic I transfer the crown of the damned,” Eric said as he took the bone crown off his head and took a step forward to hover just in front of the paralyzed Harry.

“Onto the new king.”

Eric placed the bone crown onto Harry’s head and then in a bright flash of light the crown lit up brightly, putting the whole room in sharp relief.

Eric began flickering, fading away like a mirage.

“I’m sorry,” Eric said sadly as he began to fade away, “You’ll understand when it’s your time to choose. I’ll get revenge for your death.”