Author's note: This is the chapter I've changed the most I incorporated HP characters in it and eventually will have a lot more, just bare with me. I just got to get all the intro stuff out of the way. K. Read another author's note at the bottom to clear some more stuff up.
This Story I think is going to be PG-13 I guess. Just to be on the safe side, mostly for language.
I CLEANED UP THE GRAMMATICAL AND TYPING ERRORS IN THIS CHAPTER. SORRY FOR THE INCOVIENCE.
Dead Like Me
"See all these scrolls," my new creepy co-worker Percy pointed to the endless rows of scrolls that were the Ministry's Records vault. He led me through to the back, me in my funeral robes and a shiny new pin that said 'Hello! I'm New, Ask me my Name'. As we went he continued to give me useless facts and other things I didn't really hear.
"…and this is 'The Pit'. Get acquainted with it, 'cause you're going to spend a lot of time here." There where tons of rolls of parchment disheveled all over the place some in boxes some just lying on the floor.
"Hey, don't I know you?" Percy said.
"Maybe, I don't know?"
"Yeah, you went to Hogwarts, a year younger than me, right? In Ravenclaw, correct? You must have known my girlfriend, Penelope."
"Uh huh…" I eyed him suspiciously. He went on talking to me like I was friend for a good five minutes, saying how it's (Hogwarts just for your information) has gone down hill, and some more stuff about the Headmaster, but of course I wasn't listening.
"Anyway, so your job, if you choose to accept it, is to sift through all these rolls and file them over there," he pointed to the infinite number of rows of scrolls we passed earlier, "Oh, and also you will be getting memos; you know those paper airplane things, asking for specific rolls. You get them and deliver them to the person, understand."
"Yeah, okay, whatever," I said distractedly, still looking at the mountains of scrolls. "Wait, aren't you going to help?" I asked as he walked away.
"No," he said indignantly, "I have far more important things to attend to. I am after all the court scribe and personal assistant to the Minister of Magic." He said puffing out his chest. All I did was look after him as he turned as walked away swiftly.
As the day progressed I suspected that Barbara Herbig, as in 'her big fat arse' was the devil, and this was hell. To spite the great hoofed one, I took every opportunity to shirk my duties. On my way back from one of those opportunities I got a stupid flying memo, oh how great, more work, what is this slave labor.
Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Stepping of the lift on the second level, with about ten large and heavy rolls of parchment in my hands (I didn't even bother with the magic to lighten them); I was bumped by a tall young wizard with dark messy hair with an older red-headed fellow hurrying off somewhere. I think he said sorry or something, who cares. I didn't really get a good look at him 'cause I dropped one roll and it fell through the grate of the Elevator. Shit.
So this is Auror Headquarters, it's a bit of a let down if you ask me. I guess I was expecting more, maybe some torture devices and bad wizards hanging from the walls. I just guess those people are down deeper in the depths of the Ministry, we can only hope.
"Just drop them there," some guy named Kingsley Slang-something-or-whatever said as I walked up to his desk.
"Hmm 'Kay." I placed them on his desk.
"Where are the other scrolls?" he asked looking through the rolls.
"What other scrolls?"
"The other ones I requested, the Black Flagged cases." He said emphasizing Black.
"Uh, looked for them, couldn't find them," I said very fast.
"Well, scrolls just don't up and dissapperate, now do they."
"They do if you drop then down an elevator shaft," I mumbled.
"Is that a joke?" he lifted an eyebrow.
"I don't know-yeah-maybe" I stammered. "Look can I go now."
"Well, which lift?"
"The metal one," I said sarcastically. He just looked at me and I just turned and walked away.
I was doomed to work in a lousy dead-end job for the rest of my life. I'm not being dramatic; it really will be the rest of my life, which only amounts for the next 30 minutes or so. Well back to the records room.
Will is filing never stop! I actually fell like I've been here for a year. Plus the wanker of a guy always looking at me, it's sick, honestly. Wherever I look he's always there.
"Just came back to check your work, How's it going?"
"Fine, I guess."
"Well it's your lunch hour; we'll see you back in 35."
"But if it's my lunch hour, why is it only 35 minutes?"
"Oh, a while ago they did a study, and it said that it only took 35 minutes to go out to lunch and eat it, so see you in 3-5." He said adjusting his glasses.
It was a beautiful mid-August day, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the NASA was de-orbiting parts of its space station. Evidently there was a miscalculation of the density of the ionosphere at the point of entry, or something like that. The whole thing was suppose to fall in the southern Atlantic Ocean in the Caribbean, I think, but a few pieces made it all the way to the UK, London to be exact, including the seat of a zero-g toilet. Bloody Americans. Bloody Americans.
"Excuse me, do you have the time," a passerby asked, he was an older black gentleman with a kind face.
"Yeah its 10 after 1," I said not really caring, all I was thinking I got 5 minutes to eat my stupid hotdog and 10 minutes to walk back to the Ministry. I decide to ditch the magical world and have a good old fashioned Muggle lunch. I hate lunch breaks, even though this was my first one, I still hate them. It's like tempting you with the end of the work day. But it's ruined 'cause you know you have to go back.
"Thank you," he said with a smile. As I passed him to get on my way, the addressed me again, "So what is your name?"
"What," I said nonchalantly, and then I realized I was still wearing the pin. I said with a small smile, "oh… Sam."
"Middle name?"
"Sod off, arse wipe" I said turning back to him.
"Does it start with an L?" huh was all a though looking at him, then with a smile he said, "you better hurry Sam, you're going to be late."
Huh… okay, man, the crackpots you met on the street.
They say your entire life flashes before your eyes before you die. Well that might be true if you terminally ill, or if your looking into the mouth of a dragon that's about to eat you, but if death sneaks up on you, the only thing you have time to think is… "Aw, Shit."
The next thing I knew I was standing 10 feet from where I was originally, and where I use to be standing, was a large crater with smoke coming out of it. Just then some guy runs through me. What! Runs through me, and I rematerialize again. I walked a little way towards the large crater and saw one of my shoes covered with blood…
"Hey dead girl!" I sort of heard through my freak out. That's Rube, he's undead.
They say there's like five psychological stages of death, apparently this applies when you're already dead.
One Denial…
"This isn't happening, this isn't real…"
"Yup, this is as real as it gets. You're dead." He said with a small smile.
"Bu--bu-but I-I didn't feel anything," tears coming to my eyes.
"That's because your soul was popped out before you died." Oh and that's Misty, she undead too. Even through my current situation I could tell that she was vapid and shallow. "We do it as a curtsey in violent deaths." She said in a prissy American accent.
"But-but I didn't want to die," still crying, how pathetic.
"Well no one really does, except suicides, and they can get messy." Rube said making a squished face.
Number two is anger…
"I'm only eighteen, I'm too young to die, I haven't done anything; this isn't fair!" Oh boo hoo hoo what an idiot. "I want my life back!" I stared to yell.
"Well, sweetoe, it's not like you were doing anthing with it anyways," Misty said with a shrug.
"So what are you sniff angels or something?"
"No, ha ha no miss, you know the upper management types, don't like getting their hands dirty. We are, in pleasant company 'soul catchers', but otherwise know as Grim Reapers." Uh...okay.
Three bargaining…
"Well can't you take someone else, an old person or something? Oh I saw some homeless person a little ways back, I won't tell, promise." It was worth a try.
They looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and said, "Okay."
"Really," my eyes widened.
"NO" she replied.
"ARRRRRHHHHHH! I want my life back!" I screamed, but to no avail.
Sigh and then there's Depression…
"This can't be happening," I said in a sad tone and a sigh, while I sat down on the low cement wall.
"I know what might cheer you up," Rube said sitting down next to me, "your autopsy."
There's something about seeing your body all empty and cold, or in bits and pieces in my case. Rube says, "It's like dropping a plate of warm Treacle Fudge on the dirt floor. As good as it might have been, you just don't want it any more.' It sounds a bit daft, but I sort of made me feel better.
"Why are they doing an autopsy?" I asked looking at the gurney at which my body laid.
"They still have to identify the body," Misty said.
"How hard can that be?"
"Well you were hit by an object traveling two hundred miles an hour, surface temperature exceeding 1500 degrees Fahrenheit, do the math."
I don't know what was more disturbing, me being dead, or the fact that the first guy to touch my naked body was a coroner.
"Well it's not like I'm not having just the grandest time, but shouldn't we be going?"
"What you got some place to be?"
"I don't know, should it?"
"Well, you have to stick around until your body has been laid to rest."
"In bloody mince meat in a bag, how much more rest do it need?" I said sarcastically.
"That's not important. What's important is that you say a proper goodbye to this life before you can go on to the next one."
"What, am I being reincarnated or something?" again with the sarcasm
He walked over to me and leaned down close to my face, "Don't be an ass."
Disclaimer: Same things apply, don't own anything.. All things you don't recognize from Dead like Me and Harry Potter series I guess are mine.
Author's Note: If some of you haven't guessed, the beginning of the story coincides with beginning of The Order of the Phoenix. But it probably not include much stuff from the book. I haven't written those parts yet. I'm open for criticism and helpful hints and thing you might like to see in the story.
Anything else … Oh! Please review and tell me what you think.
Next chapter: Sam's funeral and the Big Surprise.
Aurora Angel
