Loopholes
A/N: Thank you for your wonderful response.
Chapter 2
He was staring at vast abyss stretched before him. From here he could see birth and destruction of universes. Many parallel universes were existing simultaneously, multiple events were impacting humanity there ... changing these lives forever just by mere choices. It was all incomprehensible for anyone...but now he understood it.
Harry didn't know what to call this place..it was not King's cross station which he had visited during his brief stint with death. But it didn't matter as he could change it to anything. Currently it resembled deep forest...much like forbidden forest. Only difference was nothing alive here...including him. Being immortal is worse than death.
All scenarios in this place were illusions... changing on his whims.
Universes spread across him like large canvas of abstract painting. You needed to see carefully to recognise subtle changes... Its ever changing myriads of patterns... intermingling events. Past, present, future and time lost their meaning here... in this void.
Harry wondered why he was chosen for this...he was sure that he got trapped in this unwanted job due to some elaborated scheme of some greater being above. Harry never volunteered to become death...personification of one thing which creates terror in every living being. Because everyone has to die...It is cold and harsh truth.
It was irony that he, Harry Potter, who had bravely faced his death once upon a time, was now the death himself...irony indeed.
He was initially ecstatic when he had woken up here. He had thought that he finally broke the curse of being master of death... which was by the way surely misleading title... to lure fools like Tom. He grimaced as he remember those struggling days...struggling to break free...wishing to end that cycle anyhow, by any means.
What a fool he had been...thinking he had won.
Of course, the ultimate solution to end it was to become death himself. Now there was no master of death. That title ceased to exist the moment he became death. It was as if the title was made just for him so that he would accidentally entangle himself in this scheme.
Harry would not wish this fate on anybody... not even Voldemort.
Death...this phenomenon lost its edge here. Harry had thought he would become burdened with never ending guilt of being responsible for every death...his loved ones including.
'How wrong he had been...how can you become sad when simultaneously you can see them being born and die in parallel worlds. Death only bothered to mortals who are living in their little confined worlds.'
It was very easy to lost himself here...his very identity. He who was a human named as Harry Potter... once upon a time.
So obviously he clung to that last thread...his past which connected him to land of living. Harry would not let himself become some apathetic, cruel being. People always envisioned The Death like that.
Harry was the most unsuitable being to become death.
Fate must be regretting its decision now...Harry grinned impishly.
As a death Harry can take any form, he can travel anywhere...in any time. He had saved lives of good people numerous times. But the problem was that whenever he did something good for them in one reality... opposite happened in parallel realities. See...no guilty feeling that he was not doing his job properly...as it was being done automatically in some other parallel universe. Harry could have his satisfaction of saving people in this way...win win situation, really.
Alas! ...that was the only perk in this job. Well, It was also good that he didn't need to present everywhere every time... but when you were going to spend eternity, doing same thing... It became monotonous.
Harry had visited his family, his friends many times, in many realities. Especially in those initial days of being death. He had observed them in invisible form... He was glad to see the world where little Harry Potter actually lived happily with his parents and friends. It was good and all that but afterwards he lost his interest.
Then he had started interacting with people. Peoples in his past, his friends, some unknown interesting people who had caught his attention. He tried to help them in various forms. He gave many terminal patients peaceful death in their sleep... ending their misery. Harry liked to think he was a good death... If such thing was actually exists.
He had gradually accepted his current status and then that feeling of frustration, self pity and anger abated... Harry felt satisfaction that even as death he found way to help people.
He also had been meddling timelines. This part had come in his next stage of boredom... when interaction with people lost its appeal. Harry had deliberately changed outcomes of some very important events in various worlds. Of course all these changes were pretty good for them. He would never purposefully cause death and destruction.
In fact now he started to see it as game...game which you could play many times, in many ways because his playground was timeless.
Currently Harry was bored again and wanted to try something new. Ever since he had became death, he avoided one thing...interaction with one Tom Riddle... his nemesis.
In many timelines, Harry had killed Voldemort just because he could and it was the best course of action to save numerous lives... but now this idea formed in his mind... What if he paid surprise visit to little Tom... A visit by the one thing he feared the most.
'Hmm... this could be actually interesting', the death mused and grinned devilishly.
Tom threw a sharp looking stone at annoying ducks in the park. He hated these outings and these stupid children and these people and... and these stupid birds... and..
He picked up another stone and aimed at a particularly large duck in the corner.
"Ah.. ah, I would not be doing that if I were you", a sudden admonishing voice startled him.
He whirled around and startled again to see shocking emerald green eyes staring down at him in mild disapproval. That gaze was discerning... It made him slightly uncomfortable.
"Who are you? " Tom asked in arrogant tone, after few moments of speechless staring. He was little annoyed with himself for his earlier reaction... so he tried to correct his slip with his demeanour.
" Hello Tom, Don't you recognise me?" the man before him grinned mischievously.
Tom frowned at this stranger. He had not seen this peculiar man before and he had very good memory.
'So who is he and why he is speaking with him? ' Tom's frown deepened.
" I am Death ", the Man announced with patronising smile.
And Tom's eyebrow started twitching in annoyance.
A/N: I deliberately kept Harry's past vague because you will know about his story later. I hope it is not confusing.
R & R