Death's Manager

Courtesy of SilverWolf7007

Chapter One – Milk

Or, Odd Mornings All Around

After waking up soaked in milk amid shouting, screaming, and possible murder, and then finding his dorm mates equally soaked, blaming each other and attempting said murder, Harry was willing to bet his Firebolt, Hedwig and his entire collection of Weasley jumpers that the day was only going to get weirder.

Slowly, he sat up and examined the surrounding chaos.

The entire dorm was saturated, and there was at least three centimetres of milk turning the floor into a miniature lake.

Dean was blaming Ron, whose face was even redder than his hair. Ron was adamant that he'd had nothing to do with it. Their shouting was somewhat distracted, as they were both also attempting to wring the milk out of their robes for the day.

Looking over to the other bickering pair, Harry recalled the threats of murder that had awoken him. It was not, as he'd first believed, Seamus trying to kill Neville. It was Neville, displaying uncharacteristic violence, who was alternately throttling and trying to smother a struggling Seamus.

It was time, Harry decided, to bring out his secret weapon. He stood up on his bed, took a deep breath, and yelled; "Do you lot want me to bring Hermione in here?"

The effect was instantaneous. All four boys froze, and the only sound left was the faint trickle of milk from Dean and Ron's robes into the mini lake.

Harry narrowed his eyes at his friends suspiciously. "What the hell is going on?" he demanded, stepping off his bed and into the milk. "Ew. Milk is evil," he declared.

Seamus, who agreed, just shrugged. "We actually don't have clue, Harry. I was just thinking, between the strangulation and the suffocation, that we ought to check and see if it's just the dorm or if the whole tower, or even the entire school, has been drenched."

"That's…actually a good plan," Ron admitted. "Anyone volunteering to investigate?"

Dean and Seamus exchanged wary glances. Neville rolled his eyes impatiently and spoke up at the same time as Harry.

"Gryffindors my – "

Ron cleared his throat and glared at them reprovingly, obviously channelling his girlfriend. "Right, Harry and Neville, you two go do that. We'll try to dry some clothes off while you're gone."

"Try a cleaning charm before a drying charm," Harry suggested as he followed Neville to the door.

The blond boy pulled it open, and the milk, which had risen another two centimetres, preceded them out the door. Harry took that to be a good sign and headed for the stairs, Neville on his heels.

As his feet left the wooden floorboards and hit the first carpeted step, Harry felt it squish under his feet, liquid squeezing between his toes. Feeling utterly disgusted, he continued downwards.

Once they arrived at the bottom of the stairs, their hopes were dashed. Hermione, Lavender and Parvati were sitting on a couch by the fireplace, each making sure to keep her feet on the damp couch and out of the knee high milk lake that their Common Room had been transformed into.

Harry and Neville braved the milk and perched on either arm of an armchair across from the girls.

"Good morning," Hermione greeted them. She was met with two stony glares.

"There is nothing, I repeat nothing, good about this morning, Hermione," Harry stated irritably. "Its covered in milk, its far too early, and – "

Neville and the girls never found out what the third thing Harry thought was wrong with the morning was, because at that moment a thick black fog surrounded him, and when it faded mere seconds later, he was gone.

There are many jobs more straining than being Death's Manger. For instance, there was being Death. There was also being Death's Manager's Assistant, Death's Manager's Fairy Godfather, and yes; there was even being the Tooth Fairy.

Actually, none of that was true, Tom reflected, glaring at the file currently sitting on his desk. As Death's Manager, he was the one who had to do the paperwork. He simply couldn't trust his assistant, Kyra, to do a thorough enough job. Death, on the opposite end, didn't do any paperwork other than signing a few forms. All he had to do was show up when people died.

As for Tom's Fairy Godfather…well, he didn't do anything much, these days. Tom was twenty years old, and therefore his legal guardian…didn't have legal say. But despite that, the man still hung around almost daily.

There was one other thing the Fairy Godfather did, and that was be a devoted boyfriend to his partner of almost a year, the Tooth Fairy.

Still glaring at the file, Tom sighed and thought wistfully of the year before. Eleven months ago his father, Death's previous Manager Luke, had been killed. Luke had, showing better judgement than anyone had given him credit for, named his son as his successor.

After a large amount of people running about (generally searching for Tom), he accepted the job. He had intended to whip Kyra and Death into shape, being that they'd been working under his father's disorganisation for twenty years.

It was a tough job. Kyra no longer spent office hours throwing paper balls into a bin on her desk, and Death no longer played Go Fish with his Manager or Solitaire with himself (mainly as Tom had had a burning for every deck of cards in the building).

Tom was still somewhat surprised that his Fairy Godfather and the Tooth Fairy were still a couple. They had hated each other until that day eleven months ago, when, after bonding over panic about Tom's whereabouts, the Fairy Godfather had asked her on a date.

The job wasn't really what was bothering Tom. Nor was it the unexpectedly empty office he was working in that morning. On the contrary, the quiet was a relief.

But Tom was, to put it simply, utterly bored.

When he was nine, he'd been kidnapped by the Tooth Fairy. It had been…an interesting experience, if nothing else, but it had resulted in his father's paranoia. He had been watched over by Luke, Kyra or his Fairy Godfather constantly until he was nineteen.

Then there was the excitement over the Manager's position. He had thought the tedium of constant surveillance was finally over, that his life was about to gain less boredom.

He had been very, very wrong.

Thankful that he'd given Kyra and Death the day off and that no one else had shown up, Tom gave up and placed the file back in the cabinet. He pulled open the draw marked 'P' and pulled out the one file in the entire office that still baffled him.

The file of Harry James Potter, born on the thirty-first of July 1981.

According to the file, the kid was supposed to be dead. Sixteen years ago, some mass murderer type wizard had tried to kill him and failed. But he wasn't supposed to have.

Tom wanted to put the whole fiasco down to his father's incompetence and leave it at that. But he had been able to work out the other problems. This one still defied solving.

The first instance, however, wasn't the last.

Harry James Potter was apparently the sort of kid who gets involved in numerous messes, because there were many, many possible deaths.

The most notable began when the boy was eleven, and was nearly killed by that same mass murderer guy who possessed some spineless idiot. When the boy was twelve, he had been bitten by a giant deadly snake. That was followed by a fall from his broom at an impossibly high position, the rebirth of that mass murderer, Voldie, several other encounters with him, several other encounters involving brooms…and several other less remarkable events, including a new addition – Harry had nearly drowned in milk just that morning.

Tom was stuck, but before he had the chance to really get into pondering the non-death of Harry James Potter, he was startled by the appearance of a large cloud of black fog.

Seconds later it cleared away, and Tom's jaw dropped in shock. Standing before him, wearing red pyjamas covered with glittery silver snakes and soaked with milk, was Harry James Potter himself.

I can honestly say I have no idea what I was thinking when I began this…nor do I have any idea why I've continued. But hey, it's so fun...

But as I've begun the fourth chapter, I decided it was about time I actually posted the damn thing, instead of allowing it to sit around and mope.

Ah well.

Please review!

S. Wolf