The roaring pound of his heart thumping fast paced against his ear drums nearly left him feeling deaf to the screaming cries of desperation that arose all around him.
Thick blankets of coiled fog cloaked Hogwarts' grounds with the stagnant spice of blood, muck, and grime that nearly engulfed his senses.
Goose bumps lined pale lithe limbs covered in dried bits of blood, and ripped clothing.
The thunking thud of his sneakers hitting the cobblestone of the once laughter filled halls of his youth, was the only thing keeping him from covering his ears to keep out the whispers as he stumbled down the hallways.
He scrambled past the huddled hunched over sobbing shadowed versions of his victimized peers, all of whom had the unfortunate privilege to survive while others had not.
And the bodies, so many bodies that he had already lost count; all of which were piled high on make shift cots lining the great hall's spacious floor.
A handful of first years, second years, third years, fourth and fifth, with a large portion of sixth and seventh.
So many candles had been blown out in one night.
The futures that would never be lived, the lives left behind that would be halved because of it.
The overwhelming guilt, readily swallowed him whole.
Wheezing breaths left his scabbed over chapped lips.
He was more than sure he'd broken a rib or two in the haste of battle.
But that much wasn't so important at the moment in his mind.
Escaping the morbid scenes around him was at the forefront of his mind.
He'd come to a decision and he wasn't going let himself chicken out of it.
Huffing puffs of choked air made their way out of his constricted lungs as he slowly but steadily climbed his way up the many steps of the Astronomy tower.
His glasses were cracked and sitting askew atop his nose nearly falling off the bridge of it by the time he mounted the very top step.
Icy bouts of air greeted him in a symphony of harsh gales of wind that just about toppled him backwards had he not gripped onto the doorway to steady himself.
Messy sweat and dirt caked tendrils of raven hair flew about his head as he squinted his dark rimmed emerald eyes at the sky overhead.
Smoke and fog interwove together bringing up a toxic witch's brew of thick gray clouds hanging lowly over the horizon.
The crimson and orange smatterings of dawn were just beginning to alight themselves over the tops of the trees by the time he stepped toward the very edge of the stone parapet.
Before he knew it, his body had maneuvered it's self up on top of the ledge.
The rubber soles of his shoes wobbled to and fro against the wind, as he clenched his eyes shut tightly.
The temperature suddenly dropped rapidly as the chill of someone's cold curled fingers wrapping around his upper arm caught him off guard.
"My, my young Master aren't we a bit too eager to meet little ole' me?" Whispered a silky yet playful tone of voice.
"Although I must say I am a tad flattered, that the heroic Harry Potter. The boy who conquered Lord Voldemort would kill himself in order to get me to grace him with my prescience. You didn't have to be so dramatic, all you had to do young master was summon me."
He fell backward against a broad sturdy chest, before looking up bleary eyed into the glowing gold eyes of what he could only guess was Death himself.
"Shall we get off the edge now young master?" Death spoke calmly in question a perfect eyebrow raised in question.
"Bu-but you're...not a skeleton..." He muttered intelligently.
A soft snort issued from Death, "Ah mortals...such vast imaginations in your pretty little skulls."
He patted Harry on the head with a black gloved hand before helping him down safely away from the edge.
Turning himself he stared openly in shock.
A man, mere man stood in front of him.
He wore his sable brown hair short, his skin so pale like moonlight that he almost seemed to glow in the dreariness of the foggy sunrise.
There was no rotting flesh hanging from his bones, not hint of skeletal physique.
Just normal, albeit very pale looking skin and a devilishly handsome face.
He looked no more than twenty-five, as if he had been permanently caught and trapped in the prime of his youth.
"You seem taken a back young Master." Death smiled pleasantly in a way that sent a wicked chill down his spine.
This man; no this being was still Death, whether he looked the part or not that didn't change said fact.
Nor did it lull him into a false sense of security.
He felt his magic flow out of him in a protective cautious manner.
Death merely tilted his head and smirked, his pale lips twitching upward ever so slightly in an amused fashion, "Now, now we'll have none of that young master, I'm not here to harm you. After all if I had I wouldn't have intervened in your little mission." He motioned his black gloved hand toward the edge.
"I am surprised mind, you I never took you to be suicidal but perhaps I was not looking after you properly enough." Death mused.
Standing up straighter he swallowed the lump in his throat, "Why are you here? I can't possibly have summoned you I'm not anything so special."
Shaking his head Death moved forward, seemingly gliding forward his footsteps making no sound on the stone floor.
Suddenly he was right in front of him, mere inches and breathes apart, "Oh, but Harry you are. More so than you will ever truly understand."
Wide eyed he lurched backwards his back scraping against the stone ledge he winced in pain at the jarring of his ribs, "...What do you mean? Just because I defeated Voldemort? That makes me special all of a sudden? It was prophesied by Professor Trelawny...not that I'd really take her word for it she's a bit off her nut." He babbled, rambling toward the end.
Chortling Death took a step back as if to give him space, "Ah yes poor Sybill, her gift is diluted at best but she got the job done I suppose." Shifting his stance a black gloved hand dipped into his black robed pocket.
"I do believe you misplaced something of great import." Pulling forth the Elder wand from his pocket Death held it out toward him almost mockingly, "Oh don't look so shocked young Master. You didn't think putting it in Albus's tomb would actually rid you of it did you?"
"Why do you keep calling me that?" Eying the wand warily all the while as he glared heatedly his emerald green eyes shrugging off some of their tiredness and trading it for anger, "I am not your master."
Death's smirk only widened as he re pocketed the wand for later distribution, "Believe you me, I wish you weren't. I don't much like being chained to the living let alone to a magi. Then again you come from a line of curious folk, and I never truly broke my fascination of you lot; Peverells that is."
"So, are you just going to jump off the Astronomy tower? Let us see how that goes, I always did love a good show of the morbid cracking of a hundred bones shattering all at once only to be pieced back together painfully slow."
A confused look must have passed over his face because Death sighed in exasperation, "You are immortal now young master Harry James Potter, and I dare say you aren't doing a very good job of entertaining me yet with your new bout of longevity. This depressing, down trodden broken and battered toy solider version of you is quite dreary."
Growling he pushed back away from the ledge and stalked forward on tired limbs that screamed for rest, "What would you have me do then? My friends, the only people who I've ever considered my family are all gone. Barely anyone I know is alive, the aftermath of this war has left us in shambles. I'm only seventeen years old, I'm not, I can't, I don't even know where to begin to fix this mess." He stumbled over his words as the fell from his mouth in a spew of hasty exhausted frustration the volume of his voice tapering off toward the end.
"Hmm...perhaps start at the beginning?" Death supplied helpfully.
His brow furrowed, "The beginning? What does that even mean?"
Snorting Death looked a bit annoyed now, "No one warned me that you would be a complete dullard. Perhaps I should rephrase? Why not go back and fix things before they even unfold? Go back to a time where the wizardly world was not under the iron clad fist of Lord Voldemort. Though I do warn you, if you do not change the right things everything will just simply happen again in the same way as before."
The implications of being able to time travel without a Time-Turner were almost mind boggling to him, "They would be alive?"
Death shrugged almost boredly, "I suppose that would be up to you now wouldn't it young master?"
"How do I even go about doing this? If time travel was so easily done wouldn't wizards have done it more often?" He questioned curiously.
"Outside of your silly little creation of Time-Turners, you magi have not fully grasped the concept properly enough. Time and space travel is very dangerous if you do not know what you are doing. For instance, if you change the wrong thing at the wrong moment the whole time stream could collapse or form a paradox." Smirked Death.
"So why tell me to do so if it's so dangerous? I could mess something major...what if I'm not born?" He shifted nervously licking his lips.
"Ah yes about that, you now exist outside of the normal time streams. You as a whole are different from every other magi in existence. You are not wholly human any longer, as the Master of Death you exist outside of normal specifications. If you change something directly rooted to your lineage you will not simply disappear from existence if that is what you are afraid of. You forgo the rules now in that case." Death smiled in an eerie way. "As for why I brought it up, well you could say I've been quite bored."
"So, what do you say young master? Do we have an accord? You get to change history, in exchange for my entertainment." Death's gold eyes glittered with cold glee.
He swallowed again and stepped forward toward Death and held out his hand, "Where do we begin?"
Clasping his black gloved hand into his master's smaller naked one he simply grinned as the magic around them sparked and crackled in agreement, "At the beginning of course, where it all started. Tom Riddle's seventh year of Hogwarts schooling."
Before he could react the floor fell out from under him and he was falling into an endless black abyss, the only thing visible were Death's glowing gold eyes from above, "Safe travels young master."
The last thing his mind registered is Death's laughter echoing in his ears before everything breaks at the seams and he is lost in the sea of it all.
