Disclaimer: Owning Harry Potter would make me a very rich man. Sadly I don't, however if JK wants to give me the rights…
Death, Sirius decided to himself, was a really dull place to be. There was no scenery, no jokes, no people, nothing. He leaned against the grey shroud that separated him from life.
"You don't have to stay here you know," a voice told him and without looking he knew precisely who it was.
"Go away Death, I told you before that I'm not interested in moving on," he said with annoyance. Death sighed.
"You cannot go back," he said woefully. "Lily and James are waiting for you."
"But I NEED to go back!" Sirius protested angrily and Death simply shook his head.
"Harry has survived this long without you. The world must survive without you and continue to turn. The dead and the living do not interact," Death said firmly. "Unless you know of a way back, you must accept that."
"You could take me there. Even as a ghost, I'd actually be able to do something!" he protested. Death shrugged.
"Ghost are not the souls of the departed. They are…" Death paused for a moment to think. "Psychic imprints of the once living. Echoes, not souls. When you are ready, call me and I will come."
"Yeah, when Hell freezes over," Sirius muttered.
"That's always possible," Death said almost amiably. "Besides, being a ghost is not for you. You would have hated it."
"What makes you so sure?" Sirius challenged. Death shrugged.
"I can see all possible endings, all possible outcomes. I have seen you live and die many times," Death replied. "I am not good or evil, I simply am."
"Nobody is neutral when there's evil," Sirius snapped angrily.
"But how do you define evil? Your enemies simply view you as weak and an evil that needs to be erased before it 'weakens' your world. Voldemort himself views the concepts as foolish," Death countered. "And you yourself are not completely innocent."
"What do you mean? I've fought against the Death Eaters, I escaped Azkaban to protect Harry, I stood UP for what was right!" Sirius protested. "But you, you hide behind your neutrality when you could do so much more! You are nothing but a faceless coward!"
"Perhaps you forget then?" Death countered and he waved his hand. Suddenly an image of a teenage Severus Snape appeared on the floor, being dangled upside-down. "You were happy to play the role of bully as a teenager."
"I was an idiot then," Sirius admitted and Death shook his head. The images changed once more, this time to a teenage Snape walking down a tunnel Sirius knew very well.
"Your little stunt with your friend almost killed him," Death continued mercilessly. "I have seen many outcomes of this event too and every time your friend Remus Lupin is killed like a dog. The Ministry is not kind to werewolves, many of them fight for Voldemort because the Ministry is little better."
"Remus deserves better. He deserves a life free of all the bigotry against his kind. He's funny and smart and-"
"And the only thing people see when they see him is a monster," Death finished. "And yet, there's no regret that you tried to send a teenage boy into my arms? To be infected with such a painful and lifelong condition? What makes you any better than the rest of your family?"
Sirius scowled. He was NOTHING like his family! Snape should have kept his exceptionally long nose out of their business and then Sirius probably wouldn't have told him about the Whomping Willow.
"He was curious like you. You were a mystery, an enigma and you were his enemy. He was determined to use any weapon he could to defeat you. Can you blame him?" Death said in a cold voice. "You and James and Peter just kept pushing and pushing. As your cousin Bellatrix keeps saying, 'you use any and all means necessary to defeat your enemies' And you were his enemy."
"The same argument goes the other way too," Sirius snapped. "Always poking his nose where it didn't belong, always so eager to dive into the Dark Arts and jo-"
"Join Voldemort? Yes, he made a choice based on what he believed was right," Death finished for him. "How can you claim that he's wrong? Wrong and right are dependent on your perspective."
"Perspective? Voldemort wants to commit genocide effectively!" Sirius protested angrily. "He wants to kill and dominate and enslave!"
"So have many of humanities dictators of the past. Such regimes come and go. Voldemort is merely the latest in a long line of such wizard tyrants and without exception they cause their own downfall," Death said without emotion. "So too will Voldemort in time. Besides," Death waved a hand and suddenly the image of a massive comet striking the Earth appeared. "All species go extinct, one way or another. Had KT not hit your planet and wiped out the dinosaurs, your species would never have existed.
"Then why not speed it up?" Sirius asked. "Help Voldemort reach his fall sooner? Surely that would save lives and work for you?" Sirius said and Death gave him a pointed stare.
"And what then? Where would I draw a line at my meddling, hmm?" he countered. "Would you have me act as judge, jury and executor? I am no God, I have no right to tell people how to live their lives."
"But you can see all outcomes, see what could help them achieve happiness!" Sirius protested and Death sighed. "Wouldn't that at least help the world become a better place?"
"What use is happiness if it is not achieved through hard work?" Death countered. "What value does a perfect world have without strife? I am not here to make your lives easier or harder. If humanity wants utopia, it must work for it. Otherwise, what is the point?"
"But a Utopia would mean that you'd have less work to do! Less people to kill!" Sirius argued.
"Kill!? Kill!?" Death sounded positively riled by his words. "I do not kill people. People kill people. Old age kills people. Disease kills people. I merely take over afterwards."
"Kill, kill, kill," Sirius chanted and Death shrugged.
"If you're trying to annoy me into helping you, the answer is still no," he said with barely a shrug. "But perhaps you could explain why you wish to deprive Lily and James of your company?"
"I made a promise to prot-"
"And you have done so to the best of your abilities," Death interrupted. "Now it's up to others to see it through."
"Done my bit? The war's only just started, I'm not finished until it's over!" Sirius protested. Death gave Sirius a long stare. Or at least as long a stare as a faceless being could.
"Your cousin Bellatrix would say the same thing if and when she dies," Death replied. "And so too did Molly's brothers when they were killed. As too did Thomas Defray, one of those nameless Death Eaters you killed during the first war. Why should I make an exception for you?"
"Because I'm Siriusly cool?" Sirius joked, but Death didn't really have a sense of humour and he simply folded his arms.
"Because if you don't, I'll continue hanging around here until you do?" he suggested and Death simply shrugged.
"That is your choice Mister Black," Death replied without so much as a twitch and he faded away leaving Sirus alone in the empty landscape once more.
"Next time, I'll be ready," Sirius muttered to himself. "Next time I'll have an argument so brilliant he'll LET me go back.
Death watched Sirius muttering away and stroked his none-existent beard.
"This could be very interesting," he muttered to himself as he drifted away.