2Name of three
Harry remembered being born.
Not the way humans would think of.
They remembered when they were separated from death, given as prizes to the three brothers, the first true necromancers, the first to cross the Styx without dying.
Since life had begun to bleed into death, it was only natural a bit of death would bleed back into life.
So the three brothers took their treasures and returned to life, and when they did, oh, the hallows were nearly overwhelmed, what little sentience they retained from being part of death keeping them aware, adrift, of the sudden influx of life energy and movement.
They didn't like it.
They didn't like being lonely, either.
So they tried to return to the rest of death with the passing of the three brothers. Of course, cloak had had to go and get attached to it's brother, and death did not want to accept them again anyway, and would not until the last of the necromancers had passed, whereupon death would need to retreat further again from life, to keep the balance even. Only then could they go home.
And death had given a knowing smile and forbidden them from hunting down the rest of the death mages.
So, they had waited. (and waited, and waited, and wAiTEd)
Along the way, they had become a little bit fond of the human race.
Maybe.
Just a little bit.
Stone would never admit it, though.
Not even on pain of being made into another bit of horrendous jewellery. The Gaunts preferred precious Salazar's locket, anyway. Stone vaguely remembered him, he'd never used it.
Wand and cloak got all the adventures. Mostly wand, who had perhaps taken the long exile the worst, and was relying on the indirect method of removing all necromancers from the face of the earth.
Cloak, living up to it's name, was easily hidden away in the pocket of the Peverell heir, which had become the Potter heir at some point.
So, they were smug to admit they had a lot of life (death) experience between them, but even they couldn't really say what had happened for them to wind up in the place of little Harry James Potter, last of the Peverell line.
The Peverell name had been on the brink of extinction before, so that wasn't it.
Perhaps it still had something to do with bloodlines, though.
Lily Evans had had quite the death coloured eyes, cloak told them.
Any way they put it, their forms had been lost to them, but not their powers. Little Harry was now able to have a voice of their own, and they refused to squander this chance, no matter what the magic-less souls thought.
To be honest, the entire concept of not having magic was fairly novel, for everyone was equal in death, and all their owners throughout the millennium had been witches and wizards, with no exception.
Stone brought up the near squib who had owned it about half a human lifetime ago, but cloak noted that he had been able to use a wand, if barely, so that didn't count.
They had heard of them, yes, but there was a very big difference between hearing of something in passing, and being forced to live alongside it for a decade now.
They decided they didn't like them. Cloak called them muggles, but wand called them 'born of mud', like most of his previous owners had.
Cloak told wand to get with the times.
Wand conceded.
Stone didn't care what they called them, as long as they stopped trying to starve them.
They weren't going to return home until the rest of death let them back, but pain and weakness was also a new concept, and they liked it even less than the people forcing it on them.
They hated the lack of magic. Loathed it. Stone had been the closest to such a circumstance back with the Gaunts, but they had at least had a working knowledge of magic and spells. Here, there was nothing. Unicorns were the epitome of fantasy; mermaids were beautiful, golden haired singers; and dragons were slayed by knights in shining armour in fairy tales.
So the half giant with the bright soul, Hagrid, was greatly appreciated.
Not just because he was more then happy to (attempt to) turn Dudley into a pig.
When they were merely the hallows, and not anything with physical eyes, they had each travelled the length of Diagon Alley many times, and had watched it grow from a small line of family owned shops into the sprawling, hidden, fantastical place it was today.
They weren't expecting to be surprised.
To be fair, they'd hadn't had physical eyes then. Everything popped and whizzed and shifted, everything caught their eye and tried to hold it, and they missed the time they could take in everything at once.
Hagrid had laughed cheerily at their behaviour, and manhandled them carefully into Gringotts, the land of the goblins, none of whom had twigged that they were more than they looked, somehow.
Gold was shiny. Enough said.
Harry would never apologise for their behaviour.
(And perhaps cloak missed it's shimmering, silvery form just a bit.)
The train to Hogwarts (oh, the one Salazar–) (yes, stone, we've all been there)(my latest master is the headmaster) was loud, long, and full of humans trying to see 'the boy who lived!'.
Cloak was more than happy to dissuade them from that achievement.
Wand wanted to do something a little more.
They weren't eager to get off, but being seen was a requirement to get Sorted.
Wand faintly remembered enchanting the hat.
The hat settled on their head.
Hello?
Hello, Mr Potter?!
I can't seem to find you...
Look, the hat wants to find Harry!
Yes. I see.
Who are you? The hat stilled. Something was wrong, but he couldn't pinpoint it.
I told you he wouldn't remember you. A third voice joined the conversation, but the hat couldn't say how he knew. They all sounded identical, soft and raspy, like tattered silk.
Shut up, stone.
There are three of you? May I ask which one is Harry Potter? Warning bells rang in the back of the hat's mind.
You want to find Harry?
You'll have to look some place else, I'm afraid.
We are Harry.
I... must admit my confusion. If there are three of you, why can I not find anything? And why should I remember one of you? The bells rang louder.
Don't worry. It's before your time.
Older than you.
Much older.
But younger as well, I suppose.
Now is not the time for such philosophy, cloak.
That tells me nothing. Who are you? If he had proper eyes, he would have narrowed them.
Harry. The voices all spoke at once, lending a echoing thrum to the void of memory the hat hovered at the edge of. Its physical form shivered.
Then, may I see your memories?
That's a tall order, captain.
Cloak, please sound less like James Potter.
Just because your master always had him called up to his office...
Cloak, stone...
He had seen James Potter called up to the headmaster's office many times, the last time to drop off a cloak of liquid stars.
Wand.
Three items. The cloak of invisibility (Albus had always liked to talk to him and Fawkes about what he was doing), the elder wand (he had seen Albus when he made it back to the school after that legendary fight), and the stone of resurrection (he would be stupid not to recognise the stone Founder Slytherin used to wear, besides, so many students had been told it as a bed time story).
Merlin's beard, he was talking to the Deathly Hallows.
The millennia old hat nearly fainted.
Did I really enchant such a weak piece of fabric?
Wand, I think he thought us not sentient. Or in the body of a human.
Or together in said body.
What will happen when this body dies?
We've been over this.
We. Don't. Know.
Alright. The hat thought, ignoring the whispers beginning to break out in the great hall. Would – it's still my job to sort you, and, well – can I?
The last part came out in a squeak.
Would he survive having all our memories?
What would he gain from watching them? I was the only one with a degree of manoeuvrability in what I could do.
How about we give him a description of ourselves?
What would we say? Stone of resurrection, likes sitting there like a lump of rock, dislikes sitting there like a lump of rock, and my dream for the future is to be a lump of rock? Did I mention I'm a lump of rock?
…
Did you forget the part where we're sentient and no longer inanimate objects?
If we've got different personalities, how would we be sorted?
Seniority. One sniffed.
You are barely seconds older than me and stone.
How about we pick a house to go to?
I – it doesn't work that way...
It does when you're a trio of sentient artefacts of death, little one, now hush.
Slytherin.
Strength is not the same as ambition.
Ravenclaw.
I know more rituals, history and spells than the entire house ever will.
Gryffindor.
James Potter should have dissuaded you from that.
Hufflepuff?
They have a reputation for being useless, and none of us are that.
Hufflepuff is not weak! The hat snapped. The mutterings of the hall had increased, and some of the staff were looking faintly concerned. His mental form cringed as the three enormous, invisible presences focused on him.
We never said they were.
We said they have a reputation for it.
We have pride. Hufflepuff are the least connected with death.
Slytherin would go with our mortal colour scheme.
Gryffindor has sparkly gold. A voice countered.
Cloak, I hate shiny things.
You like tasteful shiny things.
Slytherin is associated with Death Eaters, wand. Surely you have more pride than that?
Besides, the leader of them is called Flight From Death.
I refuse to be connected to anything called such names!
You forgot!
None of us want to be connected to that.
I want to kill him.
You want to kill everything.
But someone's got to do it.
And it might as well be us.
We were the ones who originally sent his torn soul fleeing. One voice spat.
If not Slytherin, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, we will then go to Gryffindor, and return Voldemort's soul to death.
Perhaps that will allow us to go home?
But we do not know for sure.
The three invisible presences turned again to the small soul of the hat, who tried not to cringe under their formless weight.
Gryffindor is the house of the brave and noble. Do try not to harm them. Please.
We do not send those who disturb us to death.
We will try to keep the little souls alive.
Do not expect us to take things lying down, however.
I – thank you. Thank you, Deathly Hallows.
"Gryffindor!"
END.