In which Lily develops a new and alarming past time, attempts to visit Death for Christmas, and meets a very peculiar man who lives inside her head.

It had been a two months when Lily began to grow impatient. Time was a funny thing, objectively she knew two months was barely a blink of an eye, but to a five year old two months was an eternity and a half. Whole wars and battles between herself and the bloated nemesis Dudders could be fought, won, and lost within the course two days, let alone two months. So while she knew that to an adult in another dimension two months was nothing to her it seemed as if an age had passed her by. It also didn't help that it had gone by exactly as she'd predicted, boringly.

She supposed the only thing that really was different was her gradual separation from the herd at school. The trouble was that she and other children were just a little bit different. It hadn't been so noticeable in the beginning, sure Lily could read large books with words but other than that she had assumed she was like most of the other students. However as school wore on she began to note some alarming differences that she had dismissed her first week or so.

The other students had an odd way of talking, slow and stuttering and with words that weren't quite right, but they were understandable if in a relatively simple manner. In general they couldn't read, couldn't even make out the letters on a page, Lily was very surprised by this as she couldn't recall a time when she couldn't make out words. What was really odd though was that they couldn't seem to understand a word she said. She tried, multiple times, especially in the beginning but there seemed to be a disconnect between them. Mostly they would stare at her and blink for a bit, as if in shock, before wandering off or saying she was silly. It had been very easy for Dudley Dursley to convince the class that she was a freak after hearing her talk.

Everything was deceptively normal, a Dursley forced normal that Lily had known for all of her existence. She had hoped that this year might prove different, it hadn't so far.

It was almost Christmas, the decorations were out, the cookies were being made and frosted in the kitchen and Lily was on her knees in the garden pulling out weeds. Now, why she was pulling out weeds when the weather report said it was going to snow the next day she didn't really know. The Dursleys liked to give her menial tasks, true drudgery, this meant vacuuming, cleaning windows, weeding, anything to that effect. Having nothing really needing to be done that day they had gone back to one of the old familiars. So here she was, in the middle of winter, weeding the garden when it was going to snow.

Across the street Mrs. Figg watched her, along with the herd of cats that occupied her house, so all in all it was about a dozen pairs of eyes stalking her movements. Lily raised a hand in a half wave causing the almost sheepish Mrs. Figg to look away and close the curtains. Ever since Lily had first met Death Mrs. Figg had gone slightly crazier than usual, or at least she stared at Lily a lot more and seemed a bit more fidgety. She also asked a lot more about the Dursleys whenever she babysat, and always with a particularly hard stare as if she was trying to see through something. Lily had no idea in particular what she was looking for but she hadn't seemed to have found it yet.

Cats and crazy neighbor-lady out of sight Lily was left staring at a row of identical white houses each one set on ignoring her and leaving her to weed-pulling suffering.

"This," Lily said to herself as she pulled out one of the infinite weeds, "is not acceptable."

She wasn't sure what was acceptable but it seemed like a proper thing to say. She had been hoping Mr. Death would come to her but it looked like he was being difficult and she'd have to go back to him. Good thing she knew the way.

Standing up with an air of determination Lily walked into the garage where she searched through whatever dangerous hardware Mr. Dursley kept there. One of the wonderful things, Lily thought to herself, about having an uncle in the drilling business was all the potentially lethal things he kept in the garage.

After much searching, discarding various drills, hammers, and other blunt metal objects she found quite a bit of rope. It would definitely do. Grinning to herself she returned inside the house and carefully snuck past the living room and up the stairs to where the attic (and the rafters) waited patiently.

After painstakingly setting up the rope (the ceiling was higher than she thought and it was very difficult to stand on ones toes and tie knots at the same time) she set about writing herself a short obituary. She hadn't bothered last time, but she figured she should jot something down just in case she couldn't come back after all.

"Lily Eleanor Lily Potter," She said as she wrote the words with the yellow crayon that had been hiding in her pocket. She examined the name, Lily twice, well that was getting a bit redundant. She crossed it out and began again, "Lily Eleanor Evan Potter,"

(She'd always liked the name Evans, and since Evans wouldn't really do as a middle name she figured she'd just make it Evan.)

"Daughter of Lily and James Potter, deceased via car wreck. Cousin of Dudley Dursley, apprentice in largeness to Vernon Dursley. Niece of Vernon and Petunia Dursley, who always were kind enough to remind her of the substantial debts she owes to the family. Beloved by Death and tolerated by crazy Mrs. Figg. Um… 1980-1985." Lily ended in a flourish and set the paper below the rope. Well, that was done. For some reason she felt there should have been more gravity with this situation but there really wasn't.

With that final thought she climbed onto a few precariously stacked boxes and put her head through the loop. With one final breath she stepped off the box and a few jerking motions later she was in a very familiar train station.

And there he was sitting by himself on a bench, eyes forward gazing at the empty station with an expression that could only be described as blank, his gloves taken off and laid across the bench next to him along with a dark scarf. He caught sight of her and his expression changed to one of complete surprise, he stood rather swiftly with a grace and speed that just didn't look right, and began walking toward her.

"Hi Mr. Death, it's me Lily!" She said as she ran towards him, "Remember we met a couple months ago, I fell out of a tree and broke my neck, and then we talked about space and stuff!"

Death reached her, put his hands on her shoulders, and with a worried expression began to examine her finally he said, "Lily, what are you doing here?"

Lily shrugged, "Well you never came to visit and it's almost Christmas and I was just going to be locked in the cupboard anyway so I decided to visit you and see how the train was doing. Anyone else come by?" Lily looked around eagerly for other people who might have somehow found their way to purgatory.

His mouth opened slightly as if to say something a bright spark of thought in his crow's eyes glittered but then his mouth closed with a sense of finality and the spark diminished as if ground out under his heel. When he did speak it was in a flat voice that spoke of the dark years between worlds and stars that burned out long before the universe lost their light, "I'm sorry, but you decided to visit? How exactly did you decide to visit Lily?"

Lily stared at him for a bit and tried to remember what she'd told him the last time, she decided to start from the beginning, "Well, my parents are dead right, you met them in the car. Anyway after they died I went to live with my uncle, aunt, and cousin and I think I might they might have owned the car or something because I have a ridiculous amount of debt that I can't seem to pay off. Anway, I was thinking of using the tree again but I figured I might land on my legs or something and that wouldn't work, and then I remembered that uncle Vernon works for Grunnings (it's a drilling company) and thus keeps a ridiculous amount of hardware in the garage. So I went digging for a bit, found some rope that was lying around, took it up to the attic and hung myself."

He looked in that moment, like a tragic idol, standing on a pedestal his people had built for him and looking down at the writhing masses below and seeing them as they truly were. His eyes had dimmed, an ancient sadness creeping through them, and he reached out for her slowly and pulled her into an embrace. "I am sorry, Lily."

She could never remember a time that she had been touched with affection, her earlier memories were blurred and vague but she could not remember a single instant. There was warmth in the darkened rainbow of his clothing, pressed in she could see the faded red in his jacket, and she wondered why he had allowed it to grow so black. She drew herself out of the hug with some awkwardness and looked around for a place to sit, she dragged Death over to an abandoned café and sat down with an expectant smile. He followed suit and sat down as well, his long legs bending quite dramatically, all while staring at her with that incomprehensible expression.

"So you never really did tell me about space." Lily began without transition, wanting to get to the important bits of the conversation.

"No, I suppose I didn't." Death said quietly his small, almost human, smile returned and his eyes regained their lightness and jeweled spark, "It was interesting, in its own way." He sighed, "Lily, I need you to understand something."

"Yes?" She asked looking at him expectantly.

"What you did today was not… You can't hang yourself, Lily."

"Well, I kind of did." Lily said in confusion, she was here after all so she clearly had the ability to hang herself. Her eyebrows raised in judgement as she wondered if Death had always had this problem finding the right words.

"No, I mean," Death paused before continuing, "You should not kill yourself, Lily." He sighed tapping his remarkably pale fingers together as he searched for more words, "I know that it is difficult, more than you can possibly imagine I know what life can be like. You have to remember though that it does get better, there is… light in the universe if one knows how to look."

Lily really wasn't sure where he was going with this so she decided to cut him off, "Okay, that's great. Light in the universe, awesome. Actually, speaking of life in the universe, how about the universe; is it as awesome and filled with space ships as I think it is?"

He stared at her stunned for a few moments his own branch of thought cut off by her statements before responding in a slightly dazed manner, "Well to answer your question, yes colonization had been going on for millennia by the time I left but… Lily, was Little Whinging that terrible?"

Lily blinked, "Terrible? Not really, pretty boring at times but it's okay. We made Christmas cards in class the other day, I made one for you, but then I forgot it. I'll bring it next time." Lily said with a wave of her hand.

"…Next time?!" Death spluttered nearly falling out of his seat in shock, "Lily, I, do you understand what you just did?"

"I came to visit for the hols, that's what people on television do anyways, and aunt Marge. I figured since it didn't look like you'd be visiting me that I'd come and visit you. Unless you are coming to visit, is uncle Vernon going to have a heart attack? The doctors are a little worried about his blood pressure."

"What, I, no, Lily!" Death said rather incoherently before gathering himself and beginning again in a slightly more agitated tone, "Lily, killing yourself is a very serious thing! Death is not to be taken lightly!"

"You do look fairly heavy." Lily noted, not uncle Vernon heavy or Dudley heavy but too heavy to throw or push.

"No, not death as in me, death as in the topic in general." Death said with dramatic hand gestures, "To even consider taking your life is not a game or a hobby or a whim, it is an irrevocable decision that cannot be taken back!" He looked at her and was apparently disappointed in her lack of understanding because he added, "We do not kill ourselves just so that we can visit strange men we meet in purgatory!"

Lily tapped her fingers together, thinking deep thoughts, before she said, "You're not really a stranger Mr. Death, I have met you twice after all. Besides even if I really am like, dead-dead, this time I think you're way more interesting than my actual relatives in fact… Are you my secret uncle?"

He seemed at a loss, his face regaining that expression he had worn just before her arrival. He stood slowly and made his way behind the empty counter, rummaging through some cupboards he eventually produced two cups and with it two bags of tea. Slowly he began the calming ritual of making tea in complete and utter silence leaving Lily staring at him blankly as she sat at the table. He returned with the tea in hands and sat down again placing one cup in front of her and leaving the other for himself.

"Lily," he said finally.

"Yes?"

He didn't say anything more, merely sat with one hand on the tea cup, waiting for it to darken. She looked at his hand and noticed the faded words, "I must not tell lies" etched in jagged painful handwriting.

Finally he spoke without any change of inflection or expression, "You wanted to hear about space?"

Not trusting herself to speak she nodded vigorously.

"I don't like using the word 'space', to describe it. The newer languages have much better words. Space does not capture the light and it also does not capture the void, it is both the heavens and the hells we imagined existed outside of our plane of existence…"

And so Death went on at length about the nature of his reality. In his dimension space travel had been underway even when he still had the impression that he was human, somewhat like Lily's, but not to the extent to be considered a viable long-term option. It wasn't until a few centuries had passed that colonization began to be possible, and half a century after that for a colonization program to begin. At first it started with Earth's own solar system but gradually as time wore on they extended onwards to find more earthlike planets. Eventually it came to the point where Death believed that no humans lived on Earth and that no one spoke the exact same languages that had been spoken there. He was vague on many of the details of events, and his own role in them, and gave all in all a very generalized outline of the history of his people.

He never did say why he left and somehow despite all her other social failings Lily knew that there were some questions you did not ask.

He did not bring up his disapproval of her visiting again and seemed to have pushed the topic beyond them, toward the train that still waited patiently for a rider.

Eventually though Lily figured she'd better get back to the Dursleys, or rather Death promptly reminded her that the Dursleys would be looking for her. Returning she found herself lying face down on the floor with a bloody nose and a frayed noose hanging around her neck.

With her first venture deemed a success Lily than began the questionable and somewhat dangerous activity of visiting Death every Sunday. She also planned on visiting him for Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year's but he didn't know that yet.

Whether Death approved of this venture or not was hard to say, whenever she arrived he'd get this strange look in his eyes, as if he'd lost and gained everything all at once but he never again tried to stop her from visiting. It was in his eyes though and the subdued gestures of his scarred hands, that same dull sadness he wore whenever he first saw her coming, disappointed and glad all in the same moment.

The rope worked pretty well for a while but after a few times of coming back still hanging and desperately trying to get down she'd decided that maybe it'd be better if she found some alternatives that didn't involve her accidentally dying twice. She seemed to regenerate every time she came back (her neck was never broken when she returned) but she wasn't sure how much she wanted to push her luck. Besides hammering or drilling oneself to death sounded a bit messy and she didn't think five year olds were allowed to buy firearms.

It was to be her third official visit that Lily discovered aunt Petunia's sleeping pills that were absolutely not under any circumstances to be mixed with the gin that was hiding in the top cupboard in the kitchen where Dudders and the freak supposedly couldn't reach it. No mess, regeneration should cover the poison, and not painful. It seemed perfect.

With flourish she produced a blank sheet of paper and quickly began writing both her obituary and her eulogy in slightly more visible red crayon. "Here lies Lily Eleanor Evan Potter, five years of age. She didn't really do much with her life, but damn did she weed that garden good. 1980-1985."

What no one had bothered to inform Lily was that death by sleeping pills was a rather iffy business. She had assumed that it would work somewhat similar to breaking one's neck or suffocation, that it would be over rather quickly and that she would be back before any real time had passed. She didn't realize that poisoning oneself was oftentimes a slower process and could take hours. With that in mind she didn't take into account that the Dursleys might actually require her presence while she was dead in the cupboard.

It was then, to aunt Petunia's great horror, that she discovered her five year old abused niece with an empty bottle of sleeping pills and a glass of gin lying unconscious in the cupboard beneath the stairs with what appeared to be a passive aggressive suicide note.

Lily was unaware of this as she was busy almost-dying but not-quite. She found herself not in the train station like she expected but rather somewhere else entirely. She wasn't sure what to make of her surroundings, they seemed somehow flexible, as if they might change at whim. At the moment she appeared to be in some sort of library, thick leather bound books surrounding her on all sides. The place had a gloomy sort of atmosphere, the lighting dark, the room small, only a few dying embers glowing in a fire place. In the center of the room rested two leather chairs, in one of them there was a young man.

He looked similar to Death but Lily could tell with only a passing glance that it wasn't him. Death was fluid, his expression changing from human to a crow's in only an instant; a mere word, a glance, a thought and his face would shift. Death was in the habit of acting human, he often forgot himself and played at being both human and not in the same moment. This man was different. This man had a quiet intensity about him, something drew the eye and demanded it stay there, it was both refined and raw in the same instant. He lounged in the chair, long legs slightly crossed, chin resting in thin fingers, dark hair curling away from his face, all while observing her silently with pale blue eyes.

Hesitantly she made her way over to the chair opposite his, watching as his eyes tracked her every movement, still his expression did not change but remained impassive, empty almost.

"So… You're not uncle Death." Lily observed after settling herself in the large chair.

This caused a somewhat surprised blink, he straightened slightly, his brows furrowed, and he began to get that expression that most adults got in Lily's presence. "No, I don't believe I am. Although some might argue otherwise, you must be Eleanor Potter."

Lily eyed him suspiciously, well, wasn't that interesting. He knew her old name, without even having to introduce herself, even Death had asked first although he might have done that just to be polite. "It's Lily, actually, but I suppose some might argue otherwise." She said repeating his words with that same mocking tone that the villain always used in his monologue, "And you are?"

He smiled, slowly, but it was not a smile at all. There was no happiness at all in it.

"No, I can see the scar, after all I remember putting it there. It was a nice try all the same, you do look remarkably like your mother, little girl." He said leaning back into the chair as if back in his element now that he had found his footing.

Lily pouted, well at least he was satisfied but she still had no idea where she was and she was late for her meeting with Death, "Not Lily Potter née Evans, Lily Eleanor Evan Potter, she's dead. Car wrecks do that to people."

"Car wrecks?" He asked abruptly the look of shock returning and throwing him off balance.

"Didn't you know?" Lily asked in confusion, "I mean I assume since you started with the whole, 'you must be Ellie' thing and the 'some people say I'm death' that you knew my parents are dead. By the way, are you really Death? Because you look nothing like uncle Death who I'm actually supposed to be meeting right now. Did you get bored of the train station?"

"Of course I know your parents are dead, who do you think killed them, little girl?" He asked in a raised voice, somehow making it sound not like a question.

"Another vehicle in an intersection." Lily stated with confidence, "This is old hat though, Mr. Pseudo Death, we've been through all this before."

Finally after a good moment of staring and prolonged silence the man said, "I believe, Miss Potter, that a reintroduction is in order. We've never spoken before, I suppose given the circumstances that you may refer to me as Lord Voldemort." His lips suddenly painted themselves into a charming smile and he reached out a hand in greeting toward her, "And you are?"

"Oh, well why didn't you just say so, Lord Voldemort? See, I'm actually looking for my uncle Death, we were supposed to meet today but I seem to have gotten lost somehow… Any idea where I am?"

"…You mean you don't know?" He asked somewhat drily.

"A library? A really dark scary library?" She asked.

There was another moment of silence where Lord (that must be his first name) seemed quite dumbfounded, finally he asked in an almost hesitant voice, "How old are you… Lily?"

"Five, you know it's funny, Death asked the same exact question when I met him." Lily observed, how about those coincidences, maybe he really was Pseudo Death after all.

"…Yes, and this you meeting Death business…" He said before trailing off and then he seemed to decide against finishing that sentence and went back to answering her previous question, "We're inside your mind."

"Inside my mind?"

"Yes," He said nodding absently as he thought over the information she had dumped on him, "Quite deep, almost at the bottom. One wonders how you managed to wander all the way down here." He looked at her expectantly then as if waiting for her to illuminate her own situation.

"…I got lost?" Lily guessed, she really had no idea, because she wasn't in the cupboard but she wasn't in the train station either. Speaking of which she hadn't really expected her brain to be so gloomy, or to have a man lounging in it, apparently weird shenanigans went on in her head when she wasn't looking.

"…No, that doesn't quite cover it. Tell me, Lily, are you ill?" The man asked his eyes sharpening themselves, he leaned in toward her as if to examine her more carefully.

"Not that I know of." Lily had never really been sick, as far as she could recall anyway, it seemed that illness avoided her as steadily as children on a playground. Bacteria and humans, it seemed they shared the same ineffable social criteria.

He continued regardless, "What were you doing, before you arrived here?"

Lily frowned thinking back on the day's events wondering what went wrong, "Well, it seemed pretty usual. I was woken up by aunt Petunia, I made breakfast for everyone…"

Here the man cut her off, "…You made breakfast?"

Lily blinked in confusion as she tried to grasp her thoughts, "Well, yeah, I mean somebody has to and it's what I'm paid for right? You can't expect Dudders to step near a stove; he'd burn down the house."

He said nothing for a moment, appearing stumped, which seemed to be an uncomfortable state of affairs for him before waving his hand, "Never mind, keep going."

"Right, well then it's Sunday, we used to go to church on Sundays, for a while at least. For the great charade, you know, but the Dursleys have grown out of it so we don't anymore. Not unless it's Christmas or Easter. Now Dudley just watches television in the living room, so I figured I had time to sneak into aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon's bathroom without getting caught. I did, so I got the sleeping medication, and I also grabbed some alcohol from the kitchen just to speed things along. Then I went back into the cupboard ate all the pills, had a lot of gin, and here I am."

He seemed to be without words. Finally he said, "You do realize that should have killed you."

"I know, that's why I'm so confused." Lily sighed, "That really should have worked so I don't know how I wound up in my brain of all places."

"You, you, were attempting suicide." He seemed somehow offended by this, as if it was a personal affront that she of all people should take this course of action. Then as an afterthought he added in a possibly more affronted tone, "And they left you with muggles?"

"I suppose, if you want to be blunt about it." Lily said with a shrug, "I think of it as visiting uncle Death for Christmas." She wasn't even going to respond to the second part as she had no idea what a muggle even was, it sounded like some toy that Dudley might receive later for Christmas, and that would thus be shoved in her face for bragging rights.

The man leaned back in his chair as if deep in his thought, his face closed off to her, the thoughts lurking behind that pale visage. Finally his words fell like stones in the silence between them, "I see, that is, I confess a more interesting tale than I expected."

His eyes locked with hers for a moment after he finished, trapped them there and demanded their attention, "We have met before, Lily. Do you remember?"

Lily looked at him again, reevaluating his status as a stranger. She had never seen him in her uncle's house. He did not seem the type to visit, no, he didn't seem the type to exist in Little Whinging. She could not picture him there, in that kitchen, listening to glorious tales of drills and Grunnings. She shook her head slightly with a small grimace, usually she was quite good at remembering things (particularly important things) and it bothered her that this man had slipped through the cracks of memory into the bottom of her mind.

"Ah, well, you were very young at the time." He said a smile like daggers on his lips, "Still, those are small details. Tell me a little about yourself Lily, why did you feel the need to visit uncle Death?"

"Well, it's Sunday, I visit uncle Death every Sunday."

This stopped him, "I'm sorry but you… attempt suicide every Sunday?"

"Oh no, not attempt, most times it works. I suppose you would say that most times I do commit suicide every Sunday." She smiled charmingly at him, he seemed a bit out of sorts with this information. "You see it's almost Christmas and he's the closest thing I have to a relative who isn't a Dursley and well, I think he's lonely too to tell the truth. Still, my life's boring, what about you? Is the bottom of my brain interesting, Mr. Voldemort?"

He said nothing instead focusing in on her eyes, the walls around them became transparent through them Lily could see the faint flickering of her own thoughts. Finally he said quietly almost as if in awe, "You aren't lying, you truly believe what you say."

"I don't, generally. It's in poor taste." The Dursleys did not tolerate lies any more than they tolerated freakishness, and even Death himself had a permanent reminder etched into his skin.

"How many times have you visited Death Lily?"

Lily tapped her fingers in thought as she recollected, "Well, I suppose four times that I actually remember… we don't talk much about the car crash but I suppose he could have met me there as well, I don't remember the accident much." Lily brushed the words off with a wave of her hand, "It's not really important though. My life is… boring."

He looked as if he was about to respond when suddenly glanced up, "I believe, Miss Potter, that you are being summoned."

He was right, the room was becoming less substantial, harder to focus on. She raised her eyebrows though, wondering who would bother. "Huh, I guess you're right."

"We'll talk later, tonight, when you're dreaming." He said standing from the chair and walking way from her following the path of the fading shrinking room as she found herself catapulted into consciousness.

"Hey wait!"

But he didn't and soon she found herself blearily opening her eyes to the sight of white, a dripping IV in her arm, and the steady rhythm of a heart monitor. There really was only one thing to say to summarize the situation,

"Oh, shit."

Author's Note: Because this story needed even more ridiculousness in the form of horcruxes, long live absurdity. I guess this might be called the Christmas episode if the next chapter isn't also going to be about the holidays, enjoy it? Anyway thank you everyone for reading and reviewing and mostly not giving up on this story because it involves a very precocious five year old at the moment. Reviews are appreciated if you're willing to leave some.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.