He stands over the bodies and is not sure if he regrets. And a woman walks into the room and he raises his wand again without a thought. The same green flashes a fourth time, flooding the room, but the figure remains upright, with no thud on the rich carpet to signal a fall.
She stands yet when the light abates, and Tom is wordless in horror and reverence and envy—she stands untouched. She is beautiful like he has never seen, unearthly, her hair black and her eyes as green as the death he has just set at her. He remembers a little of her face because it is a dream of his.
And she speaks, her voice soft and gentle as she stands above his father and grandparents. "Perhaps you should come with me," she says in a voice that is too understanding and gentle to be human, her eyes on his and her small white hand held out.
And Tom draws back away, for he fears Death enough to know her on sight—she wears as her face the dream of his mother, when he was young and had no truth to ruin her. She is beautiful weakness. Her eyes are as green as fresh grass in springtime, but he sees only the deadly green he deals. "Have you no regret then?" she asks sadly, her gaze turning down to the floor.
"I've killed before," he crows, "I feel nothing." He holds his head high and refuses to look down.
"An ordered death. You did not watch me take them, removed as you were, and you regretted for a moment, didn't you, if only for an instant."
"I do not regret. I am above such weakness."
Her eyes search his. "If you were," she begins calmly, "I would not be here. I cannot take by my own force. You regret, if only in the smallest part of you. Come with me now, I am not the monster you fear. I only fix what is broken, and you are missing pieces, Tom, and you will throw away more for your fear."
"I toss aside what is weak, it is not worthy of me." His grip on his wand tightens.
"All right then," she nods, her hair falling across her death-green eyes. "I shall come to you again—if not by your will, then by another's. There is no such thing as forever, Tom. I hope we shall be friends someday, I hope you will walk with me yet."
He turns from her and walks away.
"Are you here for him, then?" he scorns, insubstantial but not dead, she cannot have him, in the nursery of the Potters' cottage. The baby is squalling in the background and two bodies lay on the floor.
Death picks up the screaming child from the cot, cradling him into her silver-white robes until he falls back asleep. "I thought maybe you would come with me now," she replies, smiling down at the sleeping little boy.
"You cannot take me!" he cries in defiance, in triumph. "I've tethered myself down to this world, pulled myself away from your claws."
"Broken yourself again, Tom." He snarls at the name. "You can come with me still. You can be sorry, you can regret. You can choose."
"You can take that and leave."
"No, he'll stay for a while. He has a few things to do yet, and this life is not without its joys." She kisses the mark on his forehead and puts him back in the cots, and he begins to stir fretfully once out of her arms. "Maybe next time you'll be wiser." And she goes, and he leaves as well, unable to stay any longer in a room filled with his shameful failure.
He is in too many pieces at the end. She walks along the remaining illusion of Kings Cross to the maimed, ugly red infant crying pathetically underneath a bench. Even still, too fragmented to speak, he shrieks louder as he struggles away from her hands when she reaches to gather him up. But there is no escape from Death this time, he is laid low and there is no one to reach down so far for him but her.
She cradles him gently, smiling down at the wretch in her arms because he is as precious to her as any of the others she has carried on. And he stops screaming, soothed in the arms of the supposed nightmare—she is no nightmare, she is a warm and beautiful dream that one so unloved as he could never have imagined.
"See, there, I am not so terrifying. My, now, are you in pieces…let's go find some spares for you, shall we?" She cradles him on her shoulder like a beloved son and the station fades around her as she walks.