Harry woke with a slow realization that he should be dead. The feeling of cold, hard stone against his back and the lack of pain gives him indication that maybe, possibly, he is still alive. The last thing he remembers is going to face Voldemort for the last time at the Battle for Hogwarts. He gets up to take a look around and only sees dense fog everywhere with visibility being a few meters in all directions. After pausing for what could be anywhere between one to ten minutes, Harry gets up and picks a random direction to walk off into.

He walks, and walks, and walks, and walks.

He does not know how long he has been walking for, but he does not stop.

And he continues to walk.

Eventually Harry walks into an area where his range of visibility expands and he spots a figure sitting down, hunched over, on a rock. The figure is dressed in a black, flowy robe with a hood worn which obscures their face. The figure looked every bit of the clichéd Death representation that he could imagine. For if Death ever appeared in front of him, this figure is what he would have imagined.

Harry approached the figure and when he was a few paces away from it the figure raised its head (well, if the slight movement of his hood was any indication) and seemed to look at him. The figure remained like that for a few moments before,

"Ah", was what Harry heard in a fairly raspy voice.

The figure then waved his arm in a dramatically slow fashion and slowly, but instantly at the same time, everywhere around them transformed from a weary, foggy, landscape to a weary, foggy, café. And there where the figure was sitting, there now was a simplistic wooden table, with wooden chairs, and glasses of water resting on the table.

The figure reached for a glass of water while removing his hood to reveal a decidedly male face with crow, unkempt, black hair and the appearance of a man in the prime of his life. But the feature that contrasted the most were the eyes he wore and how aged they looked. Incredibly green eyes that felt like they glowed in the dark.

Eyes just like Harry's. Minus the glowing part really.

The man took a long drink from the glass of water where the water did not seem to be decreasing at all, and what could only feel like eternity, placed the still filled glass back onto the table.

"Sorry about that, haven't had to greet someone in what feels like forever" the man said in a much less raspy voice and what more felt like an ethereal, aged voice now.

"Come, sit" he motions towards the other chair, and Harry could not help but notice the lack of scars on the back of his hands" "I'm sure you have questions."

Harry moved and seated himself in the chair and grabbed the glass the water for himself. He took a sip, then a drink, and then spilled some water onto himself when he realized the water level was not decreasing and he leveraged the cup too high.

Sputtering, Harry grabbed the towel that was not there before and began to dry himself off.

Quenched, and dry, Harry finally took another look at the man who looked like him, but was definitely not.

"Who, are you?" Harry slowly sends out.

The man's gaze seemed to glaze past Harry at that point and he opens his mouth, but no words come out, and he pauses for several moments.

He eventually returns to focus and closes his mouth before focusing back onto Harry.

"I guess you could call me Death."

No shit, Harry thought.

Harry takes a look around and notices that he cannot see the walls of this café, and in fact before he can see any walls only dense fog surrounds them.

"So I'm really dead then?"

Death only gives Harry an apologetic smile.

"I'm afraid so."

Feeling the weight of his words finally falling onto him, Harry crunches into himself and grabs onto his arms.

"But death doesn't really mean the same thing to us than everyone else."

Harry relaxes and slowly raises his head and looks at Death, eyes imploring him to continue.

"You can go back you know. You just have to choose."

And again Harry's gaze lowers from Death back onto the table and remains there for several moments.

"But what if I don't want to?" Harry quietly murmurs out.

"Then choose to move on, or don't. The choice is ultimately yours Harry."

Death's words linger in the air and Harry notices Death's gaze has moved to his far right and Harry follows it. Past the fog he sees his body in midst with a fight with Voldemort, instances before his death as a brightly coloured green spell is moments from hitting him. Harry shudders and quickly returns his gaze to Death only to notice that Death is now looking to his far left and looking over there he sees a woman with fiery red hair and green eyes smiling warmly at him while being hugged by a man with round glasses and brown hair. And they both smile at him with such lovingly care that Harry has to fight back his urge to run right at them right there.

"They wouldn't hate you, you know, for giving up and rejoining them. I can't say that they have always been looking over you, since the afterlife doesn't work like that, but you can rejoin them."

Harry tears his eyes away from his parents and looks at Death.

"Do I have to choose now?"

Death has a tender smile sprout from his face and he leans ever so slightly more forward so that Harry could hear more of what he is saying.

"Time doesn't work the way you would think here. We can choose when to appear and where to go and no one would be aware of our choices. If you chose to return you don't have to choose that moment, you can go back before you chose to face Voldemort, back to your fourth year and redo Hogwarts, you can even go to a different world where your parents are still alive."

The words froze Harry as he realized what Death was saying, but then the implications settled in.

"But they wouldn't be my parents would they?"

Death could only sadly smile and say

"Unfortunately no, your parents are over there" and Death points to his parents residing in the fog "But you could see what they could have been."

Death takes his teacup (and when did he do that?) and takes a quick sip before returning to Harry.

"And it would also mean leaving this world behind. For there are many, many different dimensions out there and being able to remember the minute differences enough to return to the exact same one is difficult even for me."

Harry glances between his left and right, seemingly weighing his choices.

And they wait.

Harry trying to figure out his best choices, while Death merely waits with the patience of someone doing it like he has been for the majority of his existence.

"Can you tell me a story?" Harry quietly asks, as the weight of the potential choices start breaking him.

Death's smile grows larger as he starts to rub his chin.

"A story you say?"

"Yeah, just something, anything really, to get my mind off this."

Death ponders a moment.

"How about a story about yourself?"

Death gives a wry chuckle.

"No, origin stories are such a bore and besides, spoilers would do you no good, Harry."

Harry could only furrow his eyebrows at that statement.

"Ah, yes. I know exactly the story I should start off with."

"Let me tell you about the sister you never had, or the girl you could have been."

"Let me tell you about the Girl-Who-Lived."