(A/N) Yay, the Cliffy ends!

One Reason to Live

Chapter 2

Voldemort did not like it when the boy got to his knees, raising his wand he was about to summon the death curse when the boy smiled at him, for the first time since Hogwarts Tom felt genuine fear, deciding to end it he raised his wand, "Avada Ked…"

Harry found himself standing in a black room; the only other occupant was a tall dark man staring down at him,

"Hello Harry Potter, I am death and I am here to make a deal with you."

Harry looked stunned, "What's the deal?"

"To the point, very much like your mother-"

"My mum?" Harry interrupted.

"Oh course, you idiot how do you think you survived your first Killing Curse? You mortals aren't stupid and proud enough to believe you're that powerful? Your mother is the first person in the last century to make a deal with me, you see, my deals are somewhat deadly. All she asked was for me to save your pitiful little life, I did and now the deal is over, I will not save you again, at least, don't without something in return. And as your body is about to be hit by the unstoppable death sentence, it seems, we might just have a deal."

"What do you want?" Harry asked nervously.

Death smiled, Harry shivered to see death smile was quit unnerving.

"I want Riddle's soul; I want his very essence to drag down with me into the deepest ring of hell for me and my demons to feast on his black heart for eternity."

Harry was repulsed by the look of malevolent glee on death's face, "Y-you want m-me to kill him?"

Death snapped out of his morbid imagination, angrily Death growled while pacing the room "It isn't that easy, he is almost immortal! You would have to change in ways you would never wish for; you human are far too weak to defeat him. I could give you power, but the choice is yours, do you want to become walking death to kill him, or do you want to die? I'll warn you to become death to Riddle you will take on all the dark shapes I have given the world of night; The Vampire, Werewolf, and Necromancer. All the darkness will run rampant in your body, but will not consume your soul and possibly if you're strong enough, you'll survive it. And don't worry you won't taint other's with your bite, unless you wish it." Death smiled sadistically

Harry stood pale, "W-why would you do all this, why do you want him dead so badly, if you are the one to have willingly unleash all that darkness into the world, aren't you happy with what he does?

Death shouted, his wicked sharp teeth barring, "He is trying to take control from me, trying to deny me his soul with immortality. I will not be leashed for him to chose who dies, that is my job! Besides, vampires and werewolves aren't evil, in fact why do people not enjoy my gifts? Vampires don't have to taint, and I give them the gift of near immortality! The werewolf can lock itself up on the full moons if it wishes, and does not have to bow down to the human limits!"

Harry had never seen it as that before, yes, they were jaded gifts, but not necessarily evil.

Death had calmed, " I'm Death, I rejoice in evil's death, their souls are left for me to devour for eternity. I kill those who are destined to die; Riddle kills those whom I have not chosen at that time. People like your father and mother, were killed by Riddle and not at their time, I would have taken them together when they were seventy-eight, but they do not come with me, I leave them at the gates of heaven, they did not contain evil that we so long for. But no more talk about such things, will you say yes, or die?"

Harry stood still, "One question, you said that I'd take your 'gifts', when I die, if I take them, would I go to heaven, or to hell?"

"It depends what you do with your gifts, like I said, the gifts aren't evil unless you make them so."

Harry stood, he should have been afraid, but he could only think about two things, Justice and Revenge.

Then Harry said the three words that he would come to regret many times later, "I'll do it!"

All Harry knew was pain it scorched through him, "God, that effing hurts!" the words didn't come out right and a very alien voice had spoken it, croaky like he had swallowed a brillow pad. Opening his eyes he saw Voldemort staring at him, reality crashed back around Harry's ears, he had just absorbed a Killing Curse into his own being, he had stuck a bargain with death.

Pulling all the magic out of all the trees and the world surrounding it, Harry threw a ball of intense magical force at the Deatheaters and Voldemort.

The Deatheaters that saw it coming and Voldemort apperated away, leaving the unconscious or dead bodies of the others that weren't as quick to leave and was struck by Harry's ball of earth magic.

Harry lie in his own blood laughing like a maniac, he had just survived the Killing Curse and had nothing to say beside 'God that effing hurt' to the most feared human on earth, the hilariousness of it hadn't evaded Harry. A few seconds later, Harry gratefully lost consciousness.

Consciousness had Harry in its grasps from which he was desperately fighting to escape, but finally he lost. His first thought was pain. This was becoming an all too often occurrence. Opening his eyes, Harry blinked a few times, the room was impeccable white, bright and clean, it was one of his favorite hang outs, the hospital! Looking around, Harry saw that he wasn't in the hospital wing, he was in a small white room of his own, sleepily Harry wondered if Hogwarts just went ahead and created him a room for him, right there in the hospital wing.

Looking around his room Harry noticed there were no mirrors around, and with one eye he saw a plaster cast on his left arm, suddenly remembering the painful curse that Voldemort had preformed on it. His right eye was bruised shut, and his throat was dry and painful from screaming in his torment, laying back Harry relaxed trying to float back into sleep. A little while later a nurse walked in,

"'Scuse me Miss, but am I at Hogwarts, or Mungo's?"

The nurse looked at him peculiarly and checked his chart, "You are in Pembrook County Red Cross, Mr.…."

Harry sat stunned; he was in a muggle hospital! "Um, Potter, Ms."

Her eyes got really big, "Harry Potter?"

"Are you a witch?" Harry asked excitedly.

The nurse looked offended, "No, I am not a witch, thank you. It's just you've been reported missing by a…Mr. Dursley? You've been reported as an alleged runaway, and have been for three days. Where were you?"

"I was at the Dursley's house when a gang of men in masks attacked me, and I woke up here!"

"Well then," said the Nurse, "I better make the call that you've been found, a lot of people have been looking for you." With that the pretty young nurse scurried out.

Thirty minutes later the Dursleys were wheeling Harry out of the Hospital, into their car and started back to Privet Drive. Harry couldn't figure out how, but somehow Uncle Vernon had convinced the staff at the hospital that Harry had an in home nurse to take care of him and they signed him out.

As they were riding in the car, a sudden reality smacked Harry like a brick to the head. Deatheaters attacked his home, they were also on the inside, so obviously it wasn't safe anymore, but they surely wouldn't have let the muggle Dursleys live! So who was he riding with?

As soon as the "Dursley's" stopped at a light just three blocks from the their house, Harry jumped out of the car running across people's yards and ducking behind houses, as he ran he could hear the muffled shouts of his chasers. Finally he made it to the Dursleys front yard, looking around he saw all his blood was cleaned of the grass, it had to be done my magic, muggles couldn't have got it off so perfectly. Searching for his wand on the ground, Harry hoped that those people hadn't found it. A few seconds later, he saw his wand, it had somehow found it's way under a bush, thank the Lord, grabbing it he ran into the house,

"Accio Invisibility Cloak, Accio Trunk, Accio Firebolt!" Harry shouted them in quick succession. Shrinking the trunk and turning it weightless in a matter of seconds, he wrapped his cloak around himself and his broom, silently he ran out the back door, he kicked off the ground shooting into the air, just as a livid Uncle Vernon and Petunia reached the back yard.

At first it was hard to fly with only one arm, but he managed. His whole body shook, he wasn't well enough to be doing this, but he would survive, he always did.

"Now just where the hell to go?" Harry thought, he wouldn't even consider Gimmauld Place, he was planning on not being locked up, Ron's and Hermione's houses were obviously ruled out because they were at Headquarters. Anywhere he went Dumbledore would track him down, and make him go back to headquarters, so now it was a game of keeping out of Dumbledore's clutches as well as Voldemort's. He had to keep moving, he was also on the run from the Ministry, and he was officially an outlaw for breaking the Underage Magic Law. So, where to go? Then a stroke of Brilliance struck, he would stay so close to Dumbledore that he would go undetected.

Grabbing his broomstick he changed direction for the Forbidden Forrest.

Harry touched down seven hours later by the Whopping Willow, still under his invisibility cloak; he snuck under the tree without its detection and poked the knot on the tree's trunk. Climbing down the long passage, Harry finally emerged into the Shrieking Shack. Harry enlarged his trunk again and placed it in the top of the moldy old closet that attached to the room that would serve for his bedroom. Putting his broom on top of his trunk, he covered the whole thing with his invisibility cloak.

With a flick of his wrist he made a rusty old bird cage and placed it next to one of the broken window panes, he knew that Hedgewig had been out hunting the night he fought for his life, and he also knew she would find him there at the Shrieking Shack, putting fresh food and water in her new old cage he went over to the bed. He repaired it, and finally had to create a new mattress and bedding, the ones already on the bed was harder than the floor and tattered to pieces. All in all it still looked uninhabited, which was what Harry was going for incase someone found the Shack, they wouldn't find him.

Tired from his long run from the world, Harry lie gently down on the bed and fell into his first night of unperturbed sleep since Sirius's death.