Howdy. To any returning readers of mine, I'm sorry I haven't been writing. Just haven't been able to manage it. This is another one of my seemingly futile attempts at keeping up my writing skills so that I might actually be able to manage, should I actually find the drive to tackle re-writing my old stuff so that I can stand to continue it.

This is posted on a fanfiction site. Disclaimers should, obviously, be superfluous and irrelevant.

Writing this partly because I just can't stomach all the stories where death, or fate, or some other deity just hands Harry some edge, or a second chance, simply out of the goodness of their hearts, or because they feel obligated to help enforce a prophecy they probably helped instigate in the first place. Just feels stupid to me. If anyone else wants to use this prologue as inspiration for their own sort of story, feel free. Kind of debating using a similar start for a time-travel fic now… choices. DX

EDIT: It's come to my attention that it might not be obvious, but Death's manner of speech is entirely deliberate on my part. Keep that in mind, and I'll elaborate in the footnotes.

The Boy Who Could Not Die

He felt cold.

Futilely trying once more to bundle further into what little passed for blankets and coverings in his little cupboard, there was little else on his mind besides how much he wished he could feel warm again.

The Dursleys were off on some holiday in a warmer clime than winter England, claiming they'd be back for Christmas. At this point, Harry wasn't sure how long they'd been gone. It took too much energy to think. Energy better spent wishing he were warm.

Finally, he drifted off to sleep.

His eyes snapped open, the change from one darkness to another indecipherable as he looked around, desperately trying to find some hint of where he was. He still felt cold, but it wasn't the limb-biting, hot needle cold that'd seeped up from the poor, cheaper insulation under the unlivable areas of the house. This was a primal chill that soaked deeper than bone. Honestly, now that he thought about it, he could barely feel his extremities at all. He spun, trying to see anything at all, swinging his arms about, stomping his feet into the soundless almost-solid beneath him. It took him a moment to realize what felt off. It was like he wasn't moving through air. Without resistance, his skin barely felt, and he desperately clung to himself just to feel anything at all. There was no sense of proper temperature in him, but he chalked that up to the cold in his haste to find that he could feel at all. He huddled himself down into the… ground? It didn't feel as hard as metal, but it wasn't right for wood or dirt, either.

Oh well, he'd figure out what it was as soon as he found some light. He glanced up again, and shrieked.

Hovering perfectly still ahead of him was an enormous red iris. The eye looked alien without any white, and any pupil was just as dark as the rest of the world surrounding them.

"you." The whispered voice boomed in his mind, instantly silencing him. He shuddered as he felt the word slowly cease rattling his bones. "you are the one who can kill me, through your inaction."

"I…" Harry started, trying desperately to reign in his terror. "I don't understand. Who are you? Where am I?" He plead, voice cracking with fear.

"i am the being your kind might refer to as 'death'." The whisper replied, its voice still crashing down around him like a mountain dropped from the sky. "this place is also 'death'. you are here because i killed you, and will not let you pass on."

"You killed me!?" Harry yelled, losing his tenuous grip on his fear. "I don't… why would you… how did…" his pleading quickly devolved into gibbering.

"silence." And with that one word, Harry and the world around him stilled once more. "you are dead because i prevented your power from saving you. you are here because i intend to send you back."

It took Harry what seemed an eternity to regain his voice. "You're sending me back?" He seemed to feel an affirmative notion from the abyss. "Why am I here? And what… power are you talking about?"

"you are the fated enemy of a man who could kill the world. he has taken steps to make himself undying, and it is a waste of my limited power over the material world to end his mortal body in repetition only to delay the inevitable." Most of that went right over Harry's eight year old mind, but the part about 'fated enemies' stuck. "your power is known to your kind as 'magic'. it sustains and empowers you beyond what is normally possible in the material plane. your power is insufficient to guarantee his destruction, and your free will enables you the choice of inaction. i intend to remedy this by removing it."

The terror was back, now. "You're taking away my free will?" He whimpered.

"your illusions of free will are not my concern. you still retain choice, and i cannot allow inaction." The voice paused, seemingly more for Harry's benefit, as if the statements were meant to calm the child. "to fight this man is to risk death. to run and hide is to flee an inevitable death. to choose to die instead of either will result in death. remove the option of death, and the only choices that remain are to fight and win, or fight and suffer death repeatedly until victory is achieved. i will remove your ability to die."

That actually put a small smile on the boy's face. "So I'll live forever?"

"you will be unable to die until the end of your natural lifespan, which I can extend considerably in the event that you fail." The smile faltered.

Harry curled in on himself for a moment, before he raised his head to once more meet the unblinking crimson stare. "Why does it have to be me? Why am I the one he's after?"

"the man has convinced himself that you are the greatest threat to his existence. he is not incorrect. you must destroy the anchors binding his soul to the material plane, and end him." Harry nodded, and with a start realized it was because he felt dizzy. "you will return to your body now."

"Wait!" Harry jumped to his feet, steadying himself through his lightheadedness. "Why? Why all this? Why do any of this?"

"humans are such frail, weak, transient things." Harry tried to blink the lights from his eyes. "your kind do not even know your greatest strength." He was sure now, there were dozens if not hundreds of red eyes just like the first all around him, simply deeper into the now lightening abyss. "you scream and tremble before nothing, and in doing so give it power. you give it thought, and voice, and mind, because you know it must be there. and when humanity dies, so too do their creations."

For a single, brief moment, Harry thought he saw white. He saw people. Saw them smiling, scowling, laughing… all of them watching him. The flicker was gone, and the haze kept growing, the spots blotting out the eyes.

"i refuse to die, harry james potter."

He sucked in a breath, tossing aside his meager coverings as he jerked upright. That dream was… was it even a dream? He could still remember it vividly, so unlike any dream before it. He huddled up, sniffling as he shivered. He just wanted to be warm.

And then he was.

He blinked, startled. Was this that power he was told about? He didn't understand, but…

Placing his hand upon the cupboard's door, he wished very dearly that he could leave, to eat and drink again. With a thump and a clack, the door slowly creaked open to reveal the lock sitting undone on the floor nearby. He'd done it!

The boy rushed from his den, eager to drink his fill and scrape together some meager meal from whatever might not be missed- perishables no doubt to go bad before the Dursleys returned if they hadn't already being the lion's share of his meal. He couldn't stop the tears that welled up.

He was alive! He had warmth and food and water. For the moment, that was all he needed.

He was alive.

Prologue End

Well, there's your prologue. Hope you liked it.

Just didn't sit well for me that so few of those stories where some higher power steps in ever have a real reason for them to do so besides 'oh we just felt so bad for you' or 'fate demands it' or some other bullshit where the powers at work don't get anything from it. Just shreds my suspension of disbelief.

So here you have eldritch metal death, who basically says 'if humans die, so do I, so fuck that' and makes it so Harry has to choose between winning and risking several hundred years of being repeatedly tortured to death.

All flowers and rainbows, my stories.

Anyway, hope you liked it, and if you want to use this fic as inspiration, feel free. I want to read more good fics as much as anyone here, and this seemed the best way to start that happening. Next chapter should see a return to my 'never post any chapter less than 4000 words long' rule, and cover pre-hogwarts. Then we get into the fun things.

EDIT: Promised elaboration. When writing this, I imagined Death enveloping Harry's soul, and whispering to try not to accidentally blow out the small, flickering candle that was Harry's soul. The lack of caps was intentional, it makes it seem alien, wrong, and also emphasizes that Death is trying not to enunciate or speak too loudly, which is often symbolized with capitalization. If small caps were an option, I'd use that.