There was no pain, there was no anger, there was no hate. He had done his job, done his part. He stood in a white room, embossed pearls on stone marking the outline of a pair of gates in front of him. He could see the villages beyond, a countryside stretching far away, birds flying high above. Free and forgiven. He smiled at them as they wheeled. He was at pea-
The gates burst open, a small, and rather stout, woman bustling outwards towards him, gesticulating wildly. "This simply won't do, won't do at all. I'm not having it."
"Do I know you?"
"I would bloody well hope not. Stay right there! You'll be going right back in just a jiffy." The woman started digging around in her pockets, emptying out a small mountain of sweet wrappers, small change and a small stone that Harry swore he had dropped in a forest not that many years ago, mounted on a tarnished gold ring.
Mouth opening and closing wildly, he pointed a finger, before finally managing to voice his outrage, "Hey! What is that doing here?"
Looking curiously at where he pointed, her eyes brightened. "There it is! Right then, off you go."
She tossed him the stone underhand and seeker instincts stepped in, his hand snatching it out of thin air.
He looked at it, looked at her smirking face, and felt the telltale pull behind his navel. Staring at the birds, still flying carelessly in the skies behind the gates, he uttered the only word that seemed to describe his thoughts.
"Fuck."
The pink clothed witch brushed blood off of her clothes, her wand silently removing the stains as her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. This was not her plan.
Suddenly, the body at the centre of the shocked ring twitched, silver light burning around its neck, a new head forming, showing an equally shocked Harry Potter.
"Er… this has never happened to me before. I don't really know what to say…" his voice trailed off as he stared at the witch in front of him, his eyes travelling between his wand and the woman uncertainly.
The Aurors let their wands fall slightly, eyeing each other up across the ring.
Umbridge stared for a second before raising her voice, "I said arrest this man! Arrest him!"
The man in question looked at the Aurors, who soundlessly shrugged in agreement with him. They didn't know either. Looking at the witch in pink again he looked down at his wand with the look of a man that didn't really know what to do.
Shrugging, he lifted it to his head and blew it off again.
The woman in white stared at the wizard in disbelief for a second. Her eyes calculating wildly, "Why have you come back?"
Harry looked incredulously at the woman. Who wouldn't want to come back?
A metaphorical lightbulb flickered on. She stormed past him, pulling at his arm, towards the edge of the white paving. "I mean, just look, look down at it. It's beautiful!"
Edging closer to the edge and peering over. Harry raised an eyebrow. It was night-time, and beneath black thunderclouds shuddered with unspent energy. "Don't look that nice to m-"
A warm hand touched his back gently, before tensing and shoving forwards.
Watching as the wizard soared like a stone towards the broiling muck beneath, she shouted after him, "And stay down there this time!"
As the surprised, and somewhat annoyed, Harry Potter burst back into the world of the living, barely seconds after he had decapitated himself for the second time, an equally surpised and equally annoyed pink toad halfbreed was getting progressively more red. "I DEMAND YOU ARREST HIM!"
Looking guiltilty around him at the smirking aurors, he waved his hand in the air, barely noticing as Umbridge's eyes widened, ducking everytime his wand was pointed anywhere near her.
"I swear I don't normally have these kinds of performance issues with my wand. It normally does exactly what I want it too."
One of the aurors smirked. Oh yes. She knew exactly what he meant. She used her wand to absently scratch her head through the purple streaks as she turned to pick up the menu that Aberforth had thoughtfully provided. It looked like they were going to be here for a long time.
A very, long time.
Chicken perhaps?
She idly cleaned her robes for the third time as the blood showered.
Beef. Definitely beef.
"Will you please stop blowing yourself up? Go on! Off with yourself!"
"STOP DOING THAT!"
Umbridge was, by this point, thoroughly covered in sticky blood, still completely incensed.
Somewhat apologetically, Harry got to his feet, picking up his wand again, and brushing off the dirt off of his robes for the fourth time. Eyeing the sky above somewhat dubiously he twirled the wand absent mindedly. Maybe he could try something else. A short incantation later, Fiendfyre blasted the ground around him as he burnt his body to ashes, ending forever his connec-
"You again? I don't want to see you for at least another fifteen years. Go on! Off with you!"
The original Aurors, by this point, had taken to sitting there and quietly betting amongst themselves how long it was before the Boy-Who-Lived-Too-Many-Times-To-Count would finally find a spell that would stop his somewhat miraculous returns to life.
After the forty third attempt, they had stopped counting and had just sat down to watch the frustrated wizard and petulant Minister have their somewhat one-sided argument. She would yell abuse at him, he would kill himself, ten seconds later he would return, as if nothing had happened, only for her abuse to start up all over again.
The roast pork, they had found, was particularly tasty, and with a few choice charms, they had managed to tone down the multiple suicide victim's repeated attempts. A ring of small rocks enchanted to soak up the blood, combined with a few charms to silence the screams, and they could kick back and relax.
It had been a very long standing attempt at arresting someone, and by now the Unspeakables and more reinforcements for the Aurors had turned up, along with at least three cameramen and several reporters.
Aberforth was making a killing.
Waving his wand idly at the pink-clothed bitch, who was by now the only person still doing anything but enjoying refreshments served by the somewhat bemused Aberforth, who loved the way that Umbridge would duck every time Harry's mouth opened, Harry finally addressed the crowd.
"Hi, uh, I'm having a few problems." The Dark Lord Hunter even had the good graces to look a little embarrassed. "My wand seems to… uh... yeah. Would someone mind helping me out?"
Eyeing each other up, the Aurors shrugged. Harry Potter was wanted dead or alive. Preferably dead. Then they wouldn't have to clean the high security dungeons out this week.
Seeing a chance, Mundungus Fletcher burst to the front and sidled through the auror lines, Sonorus charm already cast, "One galleon to kill the Boy-Who-Lives. Just one galleon to have your own chance at trying to end this poor man's life. Line up, line up, line up for this once in a lifetime opportunity to kill a great wizard!"
There was moment of silence, before a general rush towards the Aurors. Aberforth scratched his chin idly, before duplicating a few more menus. This was probably going to take a while.
Shrugging, the wizard turned to face the first volunteer, who started the proceedings with a fairly dark hex that exploded the body in its entirety.
There was a pause, some polite applause amid bated breath, and then a very harassed wizard popped back onto the ground as if nothing had happened.
Mundungus shrugged. More money for him. "NEXT!"
"Oh this is completely ridiculous." The heavenly presence turned around, looking for assistance. "Miranda! Get over here! He keeps on coming back."
"Avada Kedavara"
"Please would you stop sending me ba-"
"Bloody wizards!"
"Diffindo"
His head bounced merrily around the ground for a second…
"Hello? I'd like to die someti-"
..before promptly bouncing back onto his shoulders, just in time for the next wizard to step up and silently slash his wand, a purple hex ending his life again.
"I want to see my friends!"
The crowd had, by this time, got rather large. It had been three days now, without respite, and Mundungus' collection of Galleons had grown rather large.
With a grim frown, the first of the international tourists stepped up to the line.
There was, by this time, quite a crowd of them trying to push him back. They all agreed that it wasn't supposed to be this way. He had killed the darkest wizard of his age. He was supposed to have a long lasting life.
They were just making sure of it.
It took nearly a week before one of the Unspeakables made a polite suggestion and, after quietly dispersing the crowd of objectors with the promise that they would return the Wizard in immaculate condition if this didn't work (even if they had to kill him to make sure of his condition!) escorted the intensely annoyed Wizard to the chamber of Death.
"So I just have to walk through that veil right?"
"Yeah, basically." The Unspeakable shrugged, not really understanding quite what all the fuss was about, having spent the last ten years working on one of his projects without really paying attention to all the Dark Lord nonsense that some of his less dedicated co-workers had been going on about.
Glancing to either side of him at the rather bored Auror guards that had been assigned to him, he stepped forwards towards the veil, hearing whispers from the void beyond.
"Er, is it supposed to be talking?"
"Yup. That's normal"
"Is it supposed to be telling me that office hours don't include Saturdays?"
The eyes of the Auror guards met each other with the same wry amusement that they'd had for the last few days, in shifts, whenever something didn't quite work properly.
"Look, just jump through!" The Unspeakable rolled his eyes, he just wanted to get back to his runes. He thought he had a really interesting development in the Egyptian papyrus that he'd found at the bottom of the racks in the third warehouse.
Taking a deep breath, Harry ran forwards and dived through the veil.
"Oh, hey Harry!"
"Ginny!"
"Fancy seeing you here. Let me just get changed."
She ran rather quickly towards one of the doors, nearly managing to close it before a naked man fully opened it, giving him a view of what looked like sexy lingerie spread all over a very rumpled bedsheet.
"Neville?!"
"Er, hey Harry. This isn't what it looks like!"
Harry's mouth opened and closed, not entirely sure of what to say. Finding another man in your girlfriend's bedroom in the afterlife was not something that you were trained to deal with as part of your normal lessons at Hogwarts.
A distant rumble of the footsteps of hundreds of whiteclad attendants swept into thunder as they barrelled towards him.
"THERE HE IS!"
The Unspeakable had just about decided to leave the room and finish writing the series of translations that he had decided on when the Veil crackled with sparks and a wizard came flying out towards him, swearing violently about women wearing white robes and their increasingly annoying habit of refusing to accept him in the afterlife and muttering something about having to go and deal with a conniving cheating girlfriend and a womanising bastard of a wizard.
Without saying a word, one of the aurors tossed a bag of coins towards the other. Smirking, his partner tucked it away in an inside pocket before continuing their conversation about plans for the rapidly approaching Christmas celebrations.
It wasn't their business to interfere.
Storming to his feet, Harry Potter headed straight back towards the folds.
He flew through the air at three hundred miles an hour, the lack of any real air causing him to barely slow down, even as three of the white-robed women managed to grab hold of him as he burst through their defensive lines.
"Finally!"
Harry waved a hand casually, summoning the spells that had always worked for him, pushing them off of him firmly but gently. Even if they were trying to unkill him, it wasn't as if he needed to be overly harsh towards them. They were just trying to do their job.
Finally landing on his feet, he looked around for the nearest pub and started walking towards it, looking forwards to his first drink in over a year.
"HARRY POTTER! WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"
Eyeing his mother-in-law-to-be with a nervous gulp, he felt his motion stop as she grabbed his ear.
"You are to go back and live your life full of happiness! Go and enjoy it. You have another hundred years."
She started dragging him very quickly towards the rapidly approaching pearly gates.
"I adopted you into our family out of the kindness of my heart and the least that you can do is spend the good time to get to know at least two more women to give me some children to look down on in the afterlife!"
His heels flipped over his head as she chucked him out.
"Come on, please, help me somehow!"
The Unspeakables glanced at each other, looked back at the Wizard who had, so far, spent the last three weeks throwing himself in increasingly inventive ways towards the veil that had, so far, proved to be inescapable for all comers but the Dark Lord killer.
They weren't entirely sure what to do. The Minister had told them to make sure he didn't leave the Ministry alive, no matter what.
They weren't even allowed to string him up in the main lobby as a fundraiser for St Mungo's
One of the Senior Wizards finally stepped forwards. "There is an option."
"What is it?"
He glanced across at one of his colleagues somewhat nervously, not entirely sure if he should be sharing her research. One of them stepped up into his place, seamlessly taking over, "Many years ago, one of our most talented researchers, your own mother, developed a ritual that would send someone's soul back in time, binding them into the timeline at an earlier point. It was however, a terribly flawed spell."
Harry looked at the man, eyeing him up carefully. "What was wrong with it?"
"It had the unfortunate side-effect of killing the caster."
"Perfect! Teach me it!"
The Unspeakables grinned, the chance to explore an almost untested ritual something that they loved to do. Immediately arguments sprang up over the best way to do it. Was it sheeps blood or cows blood? Did it need to be from young animals, or did it need to have matured? Was it best to use black candles or white candles or magelights? Just what type of frog was it that the frogs legs had to come from?
Feeling rather ignored as they enthusiastically argued, pulling reference material from every desk – including a few that he swore weren't there a second ago - the Man-Who-Survived-Too-Many-Things went back to quietly trying to kill himself.