Chapter Text
Chapter Thirty
Revelation
10 November 2004
L still loved the flashy, colourful building that stood out against the rainy Tokyo backdrop.
The massive amount of sweets and pastries made his mouth water just staring at it, and he absently ignored Harry’s amused huffing from beside him. The usual crowd was cramped in the place, enjoying their refuge from the pouring rain and the slight bite of chilled air. He could see the blonde cashier that worked mornings, Tanaka Aimi if he remembered correctly, and she looked happy and healthy. Maybe she had gotten over what had happened to her, or perhaps Kira had finally killed the man who had raped her (an American man named George Corazon—he had researched it). He couldn’t remember if this was true, because the Kira victims tended to run together in their gigantic numbers.
L and Harry bolted out of the taxi (which had been terrible to be in, but since they had blown up the Nissan President in the staged car accident, there was no other choice besides the tube, and that was...absolutely not) and made a dash to the front doors, naturally getting soaked on the way there. Once in the doors and standing in the line, L stared with exasperation at Harry, whose eyes were crinkling up in the corners as he shook his head like a dog, getting water everywhere. A few other bystanders laughed, covering their mouths to hide their smiles, although a few grumbled rather irritably. L ignored them as much as he could, since he was still wary of the crowd, and shuffled forward.
“Do you think we’ll ever come back here?” Harry asked rather absently in Italian, squinting behind his round glasses at all of the colourful, plastic light fixtures at stood out against the white ceiling.
“If we ever come back to Japan, then yes,” L said, eyes for once not focussed on all the sweets that were tempting him and instead on Harry. Those sweets and pastries were for eating and would never change—Harry, on the other hand, was a living, breathing piece of life, and L didn’t want to miss it.
Besides, if he turned away even for a moment, there was no telling what sort of trouble Harry would end up in.
“So what d’you wanna do first when we blow this joint?” Harry asked. He blinked, then took off his glasses and began rubbing them on the thick fabric of his red turtle-neck sweater to clean them, pushing his black jacket aside to do so. His black hair, brushing his shoulders now, glinted in the harsh glare of the fluorescent lighting above them, but the rest of his form was washed out due to the lack of sunshine flowing through the glass windows that dominated the front wall of Sato-Mari’s.
“We need to fly back to Winchester and set up a system where the children at the House can learn about your world if their chosen profession should be connected to that knowledge,” L said immediately.
Harry said lightly as if ignoring L’s statement, “I’m thinking a Quidditch match. The season this year is over in the professional circuit, but we could probably either set one up with a professional team or just go to Hogwarts to watch one. They should be starting their games about now. I’d prefer the former though, because I totally can’t play myself if it’s a bunch of kids. Man, we could get a tournament going with this huge mash-up of teams and private players. We could even give out a prize.”
While it would be interesting to see Harry fly with professional players in a game that L had only read about and seen moving pictures of... “I am not getting on a broomstick, Harry.”
Harry groaned dramatically. “But why?” he whined, sniffling in mock sorrow. “You’ll have control over the broom, and I’ll be there to protect you. Besides, I thought you liked riding broomsticks anyway.” Now his eyebrows were wiggling up and down, his grin downright devious.
L’s face felt hot, and he oh-so-wanted to throw his shoes at Harry’s wicked grin. Instead, he ignored the uncharacteristic blush that was surely on his cheeks, braced himself, and said in a forced dull monotone, “Well, since I’m not too fond of flying, I’d most likely just break the broomstick in half by accident than ride one with as much ease as you do.”
Harry cringed and L felt something akin to pride aimed at himself in his chest.
Before Harry could reply back, most likely with something as equally smothered in innuendo, L heard the blonde cashier say, “James-san! Ryuga-kun! It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen you in the shop—I was beginning to think that you had forgotten about me.”
“Of course not, sweetheart,” said Harry with a grin. “We’ve just been outrageously busy. How have you been?”
“Oh fairly good, actually. I’m going to be taking a week off to go visit family in Osaka, so you probably won’t see me around. I’m guessing the usual as well, right?”
Harry nodded and lied with convincing ease, “Ah, well, Ryuga and I are taking off as well, probably tomorrow.” His green eyes flickered at the lie, but Tanaka didn’t seem to notice, instead watching Harry dig in the back pocket of his trousers for his beat-up wallet (L had a sudden, insane urge to growl at her, but kept the impulse to himself). “We’re going to Scotland on business.”
“Aww, that’s too bad. Will you come back to stay?” the blonde asked, accepting the card that Harry handed her and swiping it. “Besides,” she added, giving L a smile, “you practically fund the store by yourself, Ryuga-san.”
“Naturally,” Harry said, grinning. He put the card back in his wallet and it disappeared into his pocket yet again, and continued, “Yeah, we’ll be back soon. This place is so amazing that I’ll probably get some of that ice cream and maybe some stuff for Ryuga if he’s nice.” The pointed look in L’s direction was clear and precise: I can’t believe you said you would break my manliness. “We’ll definitely be back, every day if possible.”
Yeah, you’ll be the one coming back, because as delicious as Sato-Mari’s food is, I’m still not Apparating out here just for a single meal. I’ll end up losing everything that hits my stomach the second it gets there, which completely defeats the purpose of eating the pastries and sweets in the first place. Yes, no thank you, I’ll pass.
The line’s grumbling began increasing, so Harry and Tanaka said their good-byes while L just blinked in her direction and took off towards the back. He grabbed the table that they had taken the first time they had ever eaten together, beside the open doorway to the bathroom, and took the seat in the corner so he could keep his eyes on the customers and the pedestrians that walked outside. Harry didn’t seem to mind, plopping down ungracefully in his chair with a nostalgic smile on his pale pink lips, and L found himself returning it. The world had gone by so fast since then, and so many things had happened. They were both a year older and had the identity of Kira in their heads and hearts, and they had each other.
L was getting mawkish. It was quite terrifying, really, considering he had once prided himself on being what the criminals had always called him through microphones and computer screens. He always had been a miserable, emotionless fuck and an unemotional bastard, and had once been comforted by the lack of change. Now, though...
L cocked his head, noted that it had stopped raining for the moment, and said, “I’m ready.”
Harry’s grin tampered off slightly, going into business-mode. He pulled the black leather bag off his shoulder and laid it on the table, leaving L to unbuckle it and set up. He immediately got to work on the white laptop, a custom Mac with the LINUX kernel (to put it in Matt’s words, “Microsoft software is for pussies, Macintosh is for weirdos with potential, UNIX is for people with no drive to have a challenge, and LINUX is for badasses”), concentrating solely on his goal.
He vaguely registered Harry leaving after a while and returning with a few bags in hand. L wasn’t sure where he put them, only that he left to return with the sweets that hadn’t been bagged, including the coffee. He placed them around L’s workspace, and even though L wasn’t taking up a lot of room, there still wasn’t enough table space left over for spare plates like usual. Back in the days when Harry and L hadn’t been as close, they had chosen a larger table that seated six closer to the front. Well, except for the first time they had joined each other for sweets, because said first time L had kept all of his sweets except for the cake in their bags, so there had been plenty of room.
Now L figured that since they had slept together and shared more germs than he normally would find agreeable, they could eat off each other’s plates (not that he was particularly pleased with that, but at least Harry wouldn’t eat much).
He absently plucked a truffle off one of the plates and popped it into his mouth, typing quickly with one hand. He manoeuvred his way through the Kira Investigation Headquarters’ systems, turning off all security manually. There was another presence on the server that kept trying to block his advances—a hundred per-cent chance that it’s Raito, because no one else that knows about these systems has enough computer skills and the will to attempt to stop me—but he bulldozed his way through there. After checking to see if the investigation team was all in the main terminal, he locked all of the doors in the terminal simultaneously so the team couldn’t get out unless they had the correct keycode (which Raito wouldn’t be able to hack fast enough to make a difference before the last leg of their plan was executed). Then all the data that had been recovered from Wammy’s deletion was yet again deleted from the servers, and then all microphones and video cameras went off-line except the perimeter lines.
By the time he was finished with that, he had already gone through two cups of coffee, ten truffles, a slice of cherry cake, and half a dozen anpan. Oh yes, and a cookie. He blinked a few times, his fingers still at the keyboard, and then powered the computer down, completely done.
Then as he popped a cherry in his mouth, he said, “Thank you for the coffee. It was quite good, sweetened to my liking. You’re getting quite good at that.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Well, I only poured half the sugar container in each of your two tiny cups, so I hope it was good. Jesus, L, sometimes I think you’re the mad one.”
“Perhaps we both have some say in that argument.”
“Bullshit!” Harry called, causing a few heads to turn at the loudness of it, and L tossed the cherry stem he had been sucking on at Harry’s head in retaliation.
Harry picked it up and glanced at the knot, a funny expression on his face. “Y’know, the first time you gave me one of these, I thought I was going to die. I think it was kinda obvious how I felt, and you still gave me a knotted cherry stem? I mean, considering everything, it was really evil, and I won’t believe you if you say that you had no idea what a knotted cherry stem meant.”
L did—is that even true, the idea that being able to knot a cherry stem with only a person’s tongue means that said person is a good kisser?—but he hadn’t meant for that message to be conveyed. It had been the first thing on hand that wasn’t edible, and had given it to him, distracted by the conversation of dates. L pondered on that, cocking his head and staring into Harry’s emerald eyes. He took another sip of his sweetened, rapidly cooling coffee absent-mindedly, barely registering the syrupy taste.
Well, might as well get this over with.
“Harry,” he said simply, and immediately the wizard’s face fell.
“But why?” Harry asked.
L tried to summon his thoughts up into a form that Harry could understand, watching the sky as it began to rain yet again, and eventually replied, “Yagami Raito deserves what you have arranged between the Ministries of Japan and Europe. He will be transported to Azkaban, and he will receive the Dementor’s Kiss. It is what he deserves, and that is what he is going to get. However, you are somewhat correct about Amane Misa. She is a naïve, manipulated young woman who is a victim of Raito’s insanity, but Amane is still a murderer. I cannot, in good conscience, let her walk free with her memories erased. If we let her go, then we have to let him go, because I’m sure he was manipulated by the power of the Death Note and the words of his shinigami himself. Kira’s original goal was something that I could relate to, because in the end Kira and I are more similar than people tend to realise. We both are using our respective skills to weed out criminals, and we both have put people to death, however indirectly I might have accomplished my own. I want a perfect world just like Kira did, because I know how terrible the world can be. His original goal was justice in a twisted, warped sense of the word, and essentially we strived for the same ending. We both want a world without fear, or crime, or malice.”
L took another sip of his lukewarm coffee, smacked his lips, and continued, “However, our solutions to this problem that distorts the world today are vastly different. Most of the people I apprehend are given life sentences. If the respective country themselves wants the death penalty, then there is virtually nothing that I can do about that. It is their decision, and within clarification of the law of justice, no matter how corrupt said justice systems are, I am content with knowing that their crimes were rewarded with whatever punishment they deserved.
“Kira, on the other hand, has single-handedly murdered hundreds of thousands of people on the face of this globe. He has killed innocents to keep his identity secret, including FBI agents and Wammy himself, for this end goal. He has been corrupted by the power, the potential of a perfect world via the Death Note, and that’s no different than Amane, Harry. She was corrupted by the idea of Kira’s justice after the man that murdered her parents was killed by Kira’s pen. She was corrupted by the simple and true fact that Raito is a manipulative, clever, attractive young man and she was so desperate to love someone.”
Harry, who was frowning heavily, said, “You are right about that regard. I’m sure Raito was screwed the second he opened that damned notebook. But I still think Misa’s circumstances are different than Raito’s. She killed people, yes, but—”
“Simply because someone told her to do it.”
“Because she felt indebted to him for what he had done for her!” Harry exclaimed. Several heads turned in their direction again, and Harry huffed, beckoning to the mostly-eaten sweets and pastries that littered the table. L nodded once, and Harry began packing up the food, boxing it up rapidly in his haste to leave the shop. L took it upon himself to repack the computer in its waterproof case and finish his coffee, shooting a glance in Tanaka’s direction. The young woman was glancing with worry in their direction, trying to take orders from curious customers.
Harry finished and strolled out the door, hailing a taxi. It took a few moments for it to arrive, and Harry muttered a few words to him through the cracked window before rushing back inside. He was dripping wet, his nose scrunched up as he looked himself over, and journeyed back to the table to grab the computer and two of the five bags. L followed with the remaining three, and Harry called out, “I’ll miss you Tanaka-san! Have fun on your trip!”
“Yes, good-bye,” L muttered in her direction, rolling one shoulder awkwardly.
“You too!” she shouted back. “Come back soon, both of you!”
Harry waved, and then they both bolted to the waiting taxi, curled over their bags as much as possible to keep the sweets from getting too wet. L almost thought about walking to the complex, since it wasn’t very far and rain wouldn’t kill him even though it was chilly, but he climbed into the cab anyway, cringing at the thought of all the germs. Harry followed him, shivering to himself, and L began moving the bags to the far corner, eventually curling up into Harry and sighing into Harry’s jacket. He felt Harry’s strong arms wrap around him, enveloping his body in a cocoon of warmth, and the detective closed his eyes, just breathing in Harry’s scent. Harry pulled out his wand stealthily, muttering the Muffliato charm under his breath, and the driver rubbed his ears once, clearly annoyed by the buzzing in his ears.
Since the driver was taken care of, he said softly, “Amane Misa will not be given the Kiss. She won’t be in Azkaban. Instead, she will go to a mental facility that is not of your world. I don’t want her to relinquish her hold on the Death Note, but I do want it taken away from her and burned. She needs to atone for what she has done, and stripping her of her memories will only ensure her confusion of why she is in a criminal mental facility in the first place.”
“No chance of freedom?” asked Harry, his voice causing his chest to vibrate pleasantly against L’s face.
“No,” he said, his tone giving no room for argument.
Harry sighed, a sound so deep that it was a wonder he didn’t run out of air and start choking. They were quiet for a long time, and then Harry said, “Fine. As long as I can visit her.”
“Agreed,” said L in a dull monotone. He didn’t understand why Harry liked Amane so much—she had her moments of sweetness, and she was beautiful indeed, but she usually grated on L’s nerves. He might’ve played the adoring fan in the beginning, and she really was talented in her profession, but she was still irritating.
Maybe it was the voice. Or perhaps the Raito/Kira complex. It was probably a mixture of both.
Harry waved his wand again with a soft mutter of the counter-curse and then said, “Alright, change of plans. We’re going to make a small detour...” He gave Misa’s address to the driver and then buried his fingers in L’s hair as the detective snuggled into his chest.
Then the phone rang.
Harry groaned and tried to manoeuvre as little as possible to dig the cell phone out of his pocket. He did a pretty good job at it, only jostling L a bit, and L closed his eyes, listening to Harry’s heartbeat and feeling the pleasant vibrations in his chest when he answered the phone in English.
“Heya Hermione. I bet you slept like the dead.”
From L’s position on Harry’s chest, he could hear Hermione’s British lilt come through the speakers, saying tiredly, “Yeah, I did, which means I’m still tired. You know how it is.”
Harry laughed, and L pressed a palm to his chest to feel the movements as he listened. Harry answered, “Hell yes, woman, do I know it.” They both laughed together before Harry continued, “So what’s up? It’s night-time there, crazy lady, so you must have a good reason.”
“Yeah...twenty-one o’clock to your thirteen o’clock; night-time indeed. Ah, and I do have a spectacularly good reason for interrupting your catch-the-bad-guy day. Is Ryuzaki listening?” L hummed loudly enough that Hermione said, “Alright then, so I have good news and bad news. Do you have a preference? I’m asking Ryuzaki because I’m still pissy at you for healing him before his time. No offence.”
“I don’t take offence,” said L, his voice slightly muffled from Harry’s lightly damp jacket.
“I think the proper answer is ‘none taken’ or something,” mentioned Harry.
“Bad news first,” said L.
“Alright, so apparently Umbridge had some pictures of you and Ryuzaki stashed with her. When she saw that the article had disappeared, she sent them to the Daily Prophet in retaliation.”
Harry hissed and L’s eyes snapped open.
“But before you guys get all worked up, the good news is that she didn’t know that the Ministry was intercepting all the mail because we were worried that just this would happen, so we caught the pictures before they could be seen by various reporters like Rita Skeeter herself. They’ve been seen by a few members of the Auror Department in the UK’s Ministry, so there is that.”
Harry immediately countered, “But you know she has copies, and I’ll bet my left eye that she’s planning on distributing them in mass quantities if the Daily Prophet doesn’t publish it then. The easiest way would’ve been through a paper article, but she’ll go door-to-door if she has to. Umbridge isn’t stupid—she knows that this guy’s important because she most definitely can’t find him on any Muggle records. Oh yeah, and the simple fact remains that I have done some crazy shit to keep him secret, so there’s a story there. She’ll make some wild conclusion in a way that only she can that he’s a criminal or something and that’s why he has no record. She will hand out the pictures to everyone she possibly can that will blow it out of proportion or will gossip about it.”
Hermione dead-panned, “No she won’t, because she was caught twenty minutes ago trying to do just that and is en-route to Azkaban.”
***
Ryuzaki stood next to Harry, and behind both of them stood three Aurors.
They had been tailing Harry and Ryuzaki since Harry’s journey to Japan’s Ministry (although they hadn’t known that Ryuzaki had followed Misa under the Invisibility Cloak), their magical signatures distracting and irksome to Harry, but now they were needed. Oddly enough it was easier to deal with them directly rather than know exactly where they were and yet not being able to just jinx them or give them the slip. It was almost like being tailed by reporters, which obviously wasn’t Harry’s favourite thing to live through.
Harry lifted a hand and knocked on Misa’s apartment door. He saw Ryuzaki shift beside him, and Harry reached out a hand to grasp Ryuzaki’s own, linking their fingers together. He could feel the Aurors’ eyes watching, but they had signed a confidentiality agreement in the sake that the entire ordeal would be Obliterated from their memories (god forbid the amount of money it had cost him to make that happen). Ryuzaki needed to be forgotten though, and as long as the Ministers of both the UK and Japan knew what had happened, then everything could stay confidential.
“I’m coming!” trilled Misa in Japanese from somewhere outside the door, her voice oddly hoarse. It was most likely because of her crying all night with the cameras to prove it, and when she opened the door, her face was clearly swollen from a hard night (she’d probably blame it on allergies or the sort if it had been anyone else at the door).
Her brown eyes went so wide that Harry thought they would fall from their sockets.
“Hello Misa-chan,” said Harry.
Her expression was so shocked, her entire world flipped upside down, that instead of keeping her thoughts to herself—she was smart enough to know that it was over—she just said in a small voice, “I...I...don’t...understand. Ryuzaki, James...you’re...supposed to be...”
“Can we come in, Misa-san?” asked Ryuzaki politely, but then ruined the façade by barging in, nearly knocking her off her feet. Harry reached out with his free hand, half distracted by the fact that Ryuzaki was dragging him along for the ride, and steadied her, grasping her own hand and guiding her to follow.
The three of them sat down on her couches while the three Aurors stood by the door, watching them wordlessly. Misa didn’t spare them a second glance, instead curling up on her loveseat, facing Harry and Ryuzaki on the sofa. Quietly, she said, “I mourned for both of you.”
Ryuzaki looked at his knees, bringing his free hand to his lips so he could chew on the pads of his fingers. Harry stroked Ryuzaki’s knuckles absently with his thumb, and said after a small pause, “Do you regret anything?”
The tears spilled over like waterfalls, but she said in a resolute tone, “No. I did what I did for my parents, for Raito-kun’s love, and for the good of this world. People died, and I killed them. I know that’s evil, but I did what I felt I had to do. I hated that Rem was put in the position to write both Watari’s name and Ryuzaki’s name in her Death Note, I hated that I had to write yours in my Death Note, and I hate that Raito and I have no chance of creating a perfect world because we’re caught now. But I don’t regret a single thing I’ve done. I honestly and truly don’t. I am happy that you are alive though. I think you should know that.”
“Watari’s gone. I couldn’t save him,” Harry told her, and Misa let out a sound that Harry could not identify. Ryuzaki’s hand clenched in Harry’s, so he held on tighter.
“I’m sorry, Ryuzaki. Can I ask how you did it though, how you saved Ryuzaki, how you didn’t die? I have the eyes, and I can see your true name even now. Ryuk is laughing at me and has laughed since the first moment he seen you, but he won’t tell my why.”
“Is Ryuk your shinigami?” demanded Ryuzaki.
“Yes,” Misa said. “I have a piece of the Death Note in my purse. If I could go get it...?”
Harry simply pulled out his wand and Summoned it. It flew across the room and Misa gasped loudly, her tears stopping in the wake of her shock, and Harry caught it easily. He dug around in her purse and pulled out the coarse pages that were shoved in a paperback novel, handing them to Ryuzaki before looking up.
He was a lot different than Rem had been. Honestly, Ryuk looked more like a rock star than anything, albeit with a mutated body of course. He towered over them with his unnaturally thin body, bones jutting out at awkward angles and wings extended to take up the entire living room beside the couch. Not only that, but while Rem had been nothing but earnest and soft-spoken, this Ryuk looked absolutely diabolical, as if filled with mischief and secrets.
“Greetings, Master of Death, the Wizard of the Chosen,” the shinigami greeted, his grating tone filled with laughter.
“Shove it,” said Harry with a frown.
“Oooh, you’re lucky I can’t kill you, or I would just out of spite. It would surely put you in your place now wouldn’t it? What if I was to take out my Death Note and write his name down again, in a way that you can’t save him from.”
Harry’s entire world froze, and he heard himself hiss, “You are not to write his name in your Death Note.”
That grotesque smile turned into a frown. “Whatever, but I’m not going to stay hooked onto this girl for the rest of her life in prison or some crap like that. Are you going to let her release ownership so I can go off somewhere else, like back to the shinigami realm?”
Harry started to open his mouth to answer in the negative, but Ryuzaki interjected, “If she was to release ownership of the Death Note, she would lose all of her memories. However, Raito received his memories back just by touching the Death Note before Higuchi died, so is it safe to assume that you could do the same with Amane?”
“No,” said Ryuk, eyes big and innocent.
“Tell us the truth, Ryuk,” grumbled Harry, irritated.
The shinigami rolled his eyes. “Yes, it can be done. Are you ordering me to do so with Misa, Master?” His tone was condescending, but Harry didn’t want to argue with him any longer than he had to. He still had to deal with Raito and the rest of the team.
“Yes,” Harry said simply, glaring at the shinigami.
“Fine, fine, whatever you say. This is boring...why can’t you take over ownership of the Death Note? Between you being a wizard and fucking the great detective L, you’d be unstoppable. It would be so interesting, and I bet you could just create apples out of thin air...”
“So you are the shinigami that likes apples, then,” Ryuzaki muttered under his breath.
“So you two are dating then?” asked Misa, a ghost of a smile creeping up on her sallow face.
“Hell no, you crazy mythical creature,” stated Harry with a no-nonsense tone.
There was a beat of silence after everyone had spoken at once, and then Harry said, “Apparently he is, yes we’re dating, and seriously Misa, please relinquish ownership.”
The almost unnoticeable smile on Misa’s lips faded, and she said, “Please tell Raito that I love him, even if he doesn’t love me back.” Harry’s heart broke, but he watched silently as she said, “I relinquish ownership of the Death Note.”
Her eyes glazed over as Ryuk cackled overhead, and he quickly disappeared into another room. Ryuzaki shifted beside Harry, watching the shinigami leave with wary eyes, but Harry turned his gaze away to Misa, who was blinking rapidly and wiping her eyes. She was frowning heavily, clearly confused on why her cheeks were wet (and why her head hurt and her face felt feverish, because that’s what a night of solid sobbing did to a body).
“James-kun? What’s going on?” she asked in her normal, high-pitched, chipper voice, glancing around and narrowing her eyes at Ryuzaki, then at the Aurors. “Misa thought Ryuzaki had been killed by Kira—did you and Raito-kun pull a fast one on Misa? And who are those creepy men in robes beside Misa’s door?”
Ryuzaki mumbled almost silently, “I hate how she speaks in third-person.”
Ryuk joined them as Harry was lying to Misa, telling her that Ryuzaki’s death had been a hoax and those were Ryuzaki’s new bodyguards (that was all she needed to know at that moment), and the shinigami’s playful voice said, “Oh yes, and I forgot to mention that if she touches the Death Note without it being owned by another human, she’ll be the automatic new owner.”
“Oh you lying piece of shit,” bellowed Harry, hopping to his feet and pointing his wand at Ryuk. “I might not be able to kill you or even hurt you, but I’ll sure as hell do my best trying.”
“Woah, what’s going on? Is James drunk?” asked Misa, alarmed.
“I was just going to say that you should accept ownership, Master,” Ryuk said, his grin widening. “You might be boring and won’t give me apples to eat, but you are the Master of Death, so you could order me to just go off back to the shinigami realm and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“What else are you keeping from us?” demanded Harry, his magic flaring and sparks coming out of his wand. Misa gasped again at the magic usage, and Harry could see the Aurors twitching at the knowledge that a Muggle was witnessing magic and they couldn’t do a thing about it.
“Well, except for the simple fact that I could disobey you at any time because you are not my King, absolutely nothing,” stated Ryuk, his tone serious for the first time since meeting him. Ryuk’s posture straightened, and he towered over them so highly that he shadowed the entire room. “I can’t kill you, and it’s not in my interests to kill your boy toy over there, because that’s just not entertaining. But you do not rule me, and you never will. You can’t control me any more than I can control you.” He cackled suddenly, causing Harry to jump against his will. “I will let you have ownership, and you can hold my spare Death Note.” He held it out with two fingers, almost identically to how Ryuzaki would’ve done, and continued, “You can touch Misa with it and give her back her memories, and then you can tell me to get lost. I might do it, and I might not.”
“I don’t wa—” started Harry.
“Do it,” interrupted Ryuzaki.
They stared at each other for a long moment, charcoal into emerald, before Ryuzaki said, “You’ll have ownership until you die. We’ll have the other notebook as well, the one that we’re holding at headquarters. That means no one else will have ownership of the two spare notebooks.”
“No more Kira,” said Harry, blinking.
There was a long moment of silence, Harry and Ryuzaki just staring endlessly at each other as they thought over those implications, before Misa finally said, “Notebook?”
It broke the spell of silence immediately. Harry lowered his wand and said, “Deal.”
“Fine, fine, I hear ya,” drawled the shinigami, and then the notebook fell to the ground. Misa and the Aurors inhaled audibly, the latter because Harry hadn’t used a spell to conjure a notebook, and even though they knew something out of this world was going on, it was still a brief shock to see spontaneous proof.
Harry picked up the Death Note.
“Congratulations!” exclaimed Ryuk with bravado. “You’re stuck with me until you kick it!”
Harry ignored the shinigami and handed the notebook to Misa, saying, “Yeah, a notebook. See? Look at it—it’s pretty weird. Came out of nowhere, didn’t it?”
She took it and shrieked.
Harry sighed, waited for her to calm down from the shock of sudden memories, and then crouched down, cradling her face in his large hands. He kissed her on the forehead, then hugged her tight, and promptly stood back up when her expression went from shocked to resigned and sad.
Then he said, “Amane Misa, you are under arrest for the murder of hundreds, if not thousands of people, including Quillish Wammy, and the attempted murders of the detective L and myself. There will be a cover-up declaring that when you found out that Yagami Raito, your boyfriend, was Kira and was arrested for his crimes, you went mad, and for that you will be in a mental health facility, to live out the remainder of your days in custody.”
Misa looked up and said, “I will kill myself in that facility before I live without Raito.”
Ryuzaki stood up and replied, “So be it.”
And Harry started to cry.
***
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“This’ll be the last time.”
“You know that’s a lie.”
“Yes, but it’s a white one.”
“...I’m ready.”
“Take a deep breath.”
Crack.
***
The two remaining Aurors conversed amongst themselves while L knelt at the bin.
He didn’t empty his stomach thankfully, but it took him a while before the nausea and light-headedness tapered off into something manageable. When his breathing settled down to a semblance of normality, he plopped down against the door, closing his eyes and just rested, his legs extended in front of him.
Harry crouched down and took off his shoes, throwing them absently behind him. When L’s toes were free of the loose, beat-up sneakers, he weakly pulled his knees to his chest, and Harry sort of...waddled closer. He wrapped his arms around L’s shins, laying his chin on L’s knees while he stared up at L with big green eyes. It was rather endearing, and L didn’t bother reigning in the small smile that curved his lips.
Amane had been Stunned and was being carefully watched by the youngest Auror. The other two were shuffling around behind them, muttering in Japanese about meaningless things, like how the price for sake had gone up and how broomstick models were getting outrageously fast. Even though L knew that they were still listening in and watching (even though all three of them were being Obliterated, so in the end what was the point?), it was rather obliging of them to attempt to give them a bit of privacy. Although, they were speaking in Italian, and L doubted they spoke it.
Ryuk was sitting on the table of the kitchen where they had Apparated to (as it was conveniently right next to the main terminal but still far enough away that the cracks of the Apparation wouldn’t be heard. Harry had told the shinigami that if he stayed out of the way for at least fifteen minutes, he could have every apple in the kitchen. Upon investigation, Ryuk had enthusiastically agreed, considering there was a bag of thirty apples in the pantry.
“Are you ready to do this?” asked Harry, a soft smile of his own causing his face to lighten up. His British accent was diluting the Italian words more-so than usual, but L ignored it.
“Of course. Now that Umbridge is taken care of and Amane has been put in a makeshift incarceration until we give the signal to transport her to the prearranged institution, all we have to do is arrest Raito and it’ll be over. Wammy will be avenged, and we’ll be able to disappear.”
“To fly broomsticks in England? Bow-chicka-wow-wow!”
L gave him a stare that made Harry snicker.
“We’re ready, sirs,” said the female Auror from behind them in Japanese, finally interrupting their conversation. Harry sighed, squeezing L’s shins before standing up and offering a hand. L took it, accepting the help up, and then touched Harry’s chest softly with his fingertips.
“Are you ready?” asked L in English.
In a terrible American surfer accent, he proclaimed, “Woah dude, I was born ready!”
L rolled his eyes and donned the Invisibility Cloak.
***
Harry’s heart was beating like a hammer.
There was an erratic mantra flying through his mind, and normally hearing almost over! in his head on exuberant repeat would’ve irritated him. However, he was practically bouncing with the excitement and anticipation, so he was taking some time to calm down before entering in the keycode. He was outside the main terminal’s main door, listening to the investigation team talk to Raito, who from what Harry could tell was trying to get through Ryuzaki’s security.
He inhaled, exhaled, and then (as Ryuzaki whispered it in his ear) entered in the keycode: 4826810937.
He heard the lock click open.
Even though his heart was in his throat and he just wanted to laugh until Ryuzaki kicked him, he adopted a look of nonchalance before throwing open the door.
The first thing that he saw was a jumble of code on the gigantic computer screen, because something like that was really hard to miss. He forced his eyes away from it—how in the world can anyone understand that crap? he thought, almost amused—and then looked down at the main chair, where Yagami Raito sat.
He couldn’t stop the grin at Raito’s perfectly blank expression.
“Hello you guys!” exclaimed Harry, not taking his eyes off Raito. “Sorry I’m late—afraid I got distracted by blowing up cars in my spare time.”
“You seem really excited, James-san,” mentioned Matsuda, smiling.
Aizawa, on the other hand, said in confusion, “Blowing up...wait, what?”
Harry forced the grin off his face but didn’t extinguish the mischievous expression. He lifted up his eyebrows and said innocently, “Well, I got bored yesterday, so I took a spontaneous drive instead of delivering the Death Note to the prison, and I just got this urge to fake my death. I don’t know, maybe I’m just mad as a hatter.” Harry fought the urge to ask the team, ‘Do you know why a raven’s like a writing desk?’ and instead said, “I just might be.”
“Well, to bring you down to our level, the building’s been hacked,” said Aizawa, always the buzzkill. “We’ve been locked in here without cameras or security, and all the data we’ve been trying to recover from Watari’s memory wipe is gone again. Raito’s going to have to start all over.”
Harry blinked and finally looked away from Raito to Aizawa, who was standing close to Soichiro and Mogi. “Oh, yeah, sorry. That was me. My bad.”
“Aww, I’ve needed to go to the bathroom for over an hour now! I can’t believe you locked us in!” complained Matsuda.
“Well, you can leave now. In fact, all of you can except for the two Yagamis. The two doors leading out of this room are now unlocked,” said Harry off-handedly, letting his eyes focus yet again on Raito. He still hadn’t moved, his caramel eyes neutral and his face smooth. He really was handsome in a boyish way, and Harry could see why Misa (and other girls and guys, most likely) would flock to him. He wasn’t Harry’s type, but he still was good-looking in his own right.
Aizawa frowned and started, “But why—”
“Get the hell out of here or I will throw you out myself,” interrupted Harry firmly. “And trust me, I will.”
Matsuda and Mogi left immediately, but Aizawa hesitated. Soichiro, who was watching Harry with a mixture of curiosity and concern, said, “Listen to what James says. I’m sure he has good reason for this.”
“Okay,” Aizawa said, drawing out the word, before he followed the others out.
When the magical sensors Harry had placed upon the exit doors alerted him to the fact that the doors were open, a good minute of pure silence later, Harry said, “Alright, I’ve been given permission to scare the fuck out of the both of you. May I introduce two Aurors from the Ministry of Magic and one gorgeous motherfucker named L.”
When Ryuzaki pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, Raito gasped so shrilly that it was like that whistle noise a bottle rocket made before exploding. Soichiro let out a cry of surprise himself, but it couldn’t measure to that sound of pure horror and disbelief that Raito made, maybe because Ryuzaki had appeared out of thin air but probably because Ryuzaki had died in Raito’s arms.
This was a scene that Harry would never forget.
“Hello Raito-kun, Yagami-san,” said Ryuzaki.
The two Aurors walked through the doors and immediately pulled out wands, muttering containment charms. When they were done, they separated—the man stood by the door that led to the stairs, which led to the kitchen, and the woman stood next to the door that led to the front of the complex. Well, at least they were covering all of their exits, even though it was relatively pointless considering the containment charms and the fact that they were wizards.
“You’re...dead...I...I watched you die!” Raito suddenly shrieked, jumping out of his chair. His expression was wild, dangerous even, and Harry pulled out his own wand. Soichiro, who appeared to be in shock over his son’s uncharacteristic behaviour (or maybe it was just Ryuzaki being alive) opened his mouth to speak but Ryuzaki beat him to it.
“I did die, Raito-kun. However...James is the Master of Death, you know, and not only that, but he uses magic. I died, because my name was written in the Death Note, but after I died, James saved me.” They had agreed to still use aliases, because even though Raito would be given the Kiss, Soichiro was still watching.
“That’s impossible!” Raito shouted.
“Oh bloody hell, do shut up,” grumbled Harry, waving his wand. Immediately, Raito was forced back into the chair, and red ropes were conjured out of nowhere to tie him securely to the seat. Soichiro was gaping, his eyes bulging behind his glasses and his face paling rapidly, and Harry walked to him and said softly, “I’m sorry, sir, but this needs to be done. Your son is not in possession of Ryuk’s Death Note, but he’s still dangerous, and he needs to be restrained.”
“I don’t understand...” said Soichiro, clearly overwhelmed, so Harry led him to the flat couch against the stairs leading to the exit.
Ryuzaki and Harry had agreed to use the potion that Harry had been approved to use instead of just showing the video. It was the only way to get a full confession out of him, to get the entire story from the true culprit’s lips. So, as Ryuzaki walked to Harry and stood shoulder-to-shoulder against him, Harry pulled out the vial of Veritaserum and then began to talk.
“I’m a wizard, as you’ve probably just realised. I’ve been helping as much as I could with this investigation. When Ryuzaki died, his contract was fulfilled, but there was no rule indicating that I couldn’t bring him back to life. With Muggle technology, Kira’s heart attacks have proven time and time again that the dead cannot be brought back, but with magic, I saved his life. So we decided to get really...enthusiastic about catching Kira.”
“Since James had finally enlightened me on what he was, we developed a plan to catch Kira once and for all,” filled in Ryuzaki.
“So since Ryuzaki still suspected that the thirteen-day rule was a fake—which was true and we have proof from the shinigami who did it, who is probably eating all of the apples in the kitchen at this very moment—we decided to kick Kira’s arse with a bit of magic to help us along.”
Ryuzaki interjected, “To go off-topic, Soichiro-san, you will have to sign a confidentiality agreement with the Japanese Ministry of Magic because you are witnessing an entire world that is kept hidden from the average population. Prepare yourself for that.”
Harry could tell that Ryuzaki was just as excited as he was, because Raito was tied to a chair and was going to be given Veritaserum, and there was literally nothing that could get in the way of this case. They were rushing through their words, practically overlapping each other, but it was okay, because excitement was normal and dear fuck, Ryuzaki looked absolutely stunning in the glare of the overhead lights, his eyes wide and filled with satisfaction and retribution.
“God, I love you,” said Harry in a daze, smiling a bit goofily.
Ryuzaki turned his head to stare up at Harry, blinking once before he whispered in Italian, “I love you.”
Harry laughed, perhaps a bit hysterically but definitely full of giddy excitement.
Ryuzaki raised a slender eyebrow, perhaps in amusement or maybe in exasperation, and then a small smile popped up on his lips. It was a shy smile, innocent in a way, and Harry’s heart fluttered.
The moment was soon interrupted by Soichiro. “Are you saying...?”
Harry shook himself out of his Ryuzaki-focussed bubble and said, “Well, how about we do this the interesting way.” He held up the vial of truth serum, sloshing the clear fluid around. “This is illegal to use without government permission, and Japan has graciously given me clearance. The two Aurors behind me are employed by the government, and are here to make sure that I don’t kill you or something, Raito.”
Harry grasped Ryuzaki’s hand with his spare, entwining their fingers together. As a unit, they advanced on Raito, standing in front of him with identical expressions of anticipation. Harry wanted to know every move that Raito had made to get to this very point almost as badly as Ryuzaki did, and they were finally making it a reality.
Harry said, “This is Veritaserum, the most powerful truth potion in the world, and one drop of it will force you to spill every secret we ask of you for twelve hours solid. Open up, Raito-kun; here comes the choo-choo train!”
***
In the end, it took both of the Aurors to hold Raito’s face still.
Harry dripped in a single measured drop into Raito’s mouth, and they all backed away instantly. Raito didn’t try to spit it out, although it wouldn’t have mattered, but L did feel marginally more content now that he wasn’t going to have to dodge saliva splatters while interrogating Raito.
If looks could kill, Harry and L would’ve both been dead.
“Have at it, my love,” said Harry.
Soichiro stepped up beside them, watching his son’s face with dread. He knew now, and even though there was a sliver of hope in his eyes (probably a meagre wish that somehow, against all odds, they were wrong), the dread nearly drowned it out.
“What is your name?” asked Ryuzaki.
Raito clearly made an effort to lie, to test the validity of Harry’s statement, because his eyes widened with panic as he realised he couldn’t. L’s own eyes widened with anticipation, watching him with his heart beating ungodly fast somewhere in his throat as his stomach erupted in jitters.
“Yagami Raito,” Raito bit out, his eyes glaring.
“When is your birthday?”
Raito made a sound almost like a growl in the back of his throat but answered, “...the twenty-eighth of February, 1986.”
“What’s your blood type?”
“A negative.”
God, this is brilliant. “Do you love Amane Misa?”
Raito’s expression was like the face of the devil, his handsome features twisted into ugliness. He bared his teeth, said “I hate you” under his breath (and that apparently was the truth, then), and then answered with clear reluctance, “No.”
L squeezed Harry’s fingers. This was it, the ending they were all waiting for. L inhaled and then held the breath there, thinking so rapidly that it hurt his head. It was over though.
He stood beside the man that he loved more than life itself. L’s entire body was filled with so much of it that he felt ready to burst, and it was growing increasingly hard to contain it. His life had been a shell of what he was now, because now he was complete. He was whole. He had met his match—not in a rival, but in a human being. His life had more meaning than just cases, heirs, and sweets, because now he had a new world to discover, a man to live the remainder of his life with.
His life didn’t make much logical sense any more, but he was standing next to the man he loved, and nothing short of death would be able to tear them apart. They were stuck together, for better or for worse.
His life had just begun.
So L lifted up Harry’s hand, kissed the back of it, and smelled the scent that was simply Harry, filled with so much love for a single man that it seemed unreal. Then said the three words that ended the case, avenged Quillish Wammy, and signalled the beginning of L Lawliet’s new, perfect life with Harry James Potter:
“Are you Kira?”
-End-
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