Harry The Reaper
Chapter 4
Dumbledore Demented
Previously on Harry the Reaper:
Harry never even had a chance to blink. The last thing Harry heard before his world went dark once more was a silent chorusing of the crowds:
"So it was decreed, so it was done.
"So it is decreed, his will be done.
"By the will of the Gods his will is one."
And now the continuation:
Dursley residence, Little Whinging, Surrey; shortly before Dumbledore's arrival
Several hours had come and gone since Harry was knocked out by an overdose of the councils powers and turned into an undead servant of the God Death, namely a Grim Reaper.
He was currently recovering from his ordeal, his 'upgraded' body slowly adapting to quite a few changes.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Chaos; the God of Disorder and Despair, was in the process of implementing some self-styled…'harmless' - for him that is- retribution in said new reaper's name. Anything to make the new reapers new life that little bit more bearable. After all, it would not do for a servant of the Death God to be mistreated. At least not if it could be avoided.
If this 'harmless' fun just happened to turn out to be a little...well...permanent, then that was simply bad luck.
Immediately, after the council had adjourned for the week - meetings, unless for special circumstances, were usually only held once a week in the afterlife, the rest of the days were free to do as however one pleased - Chaos had changed into one of his many human forms. That done he had traveled down to earth to do what he did best...
Cause some good old fashioned chaos!
Now, normally he would have simply sent one of his many minions to deal with the situation. After all, a simple 'mundane' family would usually hardly be worthy of his time. 'Usually' being the key word. That's what minions were for.
However, this time he had decided to take care of the matter personally. He wanted to make absolutely sure that nothing would go wrong.
What better way to ensure this, then to do it himself. Not that any mundane had ever or indeed would ever appreciate or thank him for the rare honour of being 'entertained' by himself personally. It was a sad fact in his profession, but alas, mortals were hard to please and usually quite thankless.
Oh well, it did not matter. As it was, divine intervention had a much larger chance of success than the mortal type and Chaos felt it was the least he could do for the poor orphan boy turned reaper. Not only as a reward for all the nice amount of disorder the lad had indirectly and unknowingly caused with his untimely death... but also because he felt it was simply the right thing to do.
It was after all...all for the greater good and if a certain manipulative old coot could use that phrase, then so could he.
When did the old coot know what was for the greater good anyway. In this case Chaos was sure it really was...just that...
'For the greater good.'
Besides...more disorder meant more work for Order. Disorder was good. Order was annoying. It meant he'd have to create more disorder, or else he wouldn't be doing his job. Order would have to to put his disorder back into order...where upon he could then create more disorder into Orders order. Always enjoyable. He really did love to disorganize Orders order and to bring disorder into Orders logical now disorganised order.
When Chaos had arrived at the Dursleys residence, he was therefore quite happy to see that not only did he find his newest victims, he was also pleasantly pleased - though not really surprised- to find that the dear family of four had recently been upgraded into an unhappy quintet of five. And while the fifth was not family, it did not matter.
All that mattered was that the self-acclaimed leader of the light himself…the 'I am the great future God of manipulations and deceit: Albus Fumblebumble of the Hogs Warts'... had arrived.
"Oh joy! This was going to be fun! fun! fun!" he said giddily as he rubbed his hands together with glee, his prankster self awakening as he sensed his prey. Very high prey indeed. Just the way he liked it. The perfect recipe for some good old divine chaos.
His only regret was that he had to keep it...tame.
No deaths allowed...
At least not by his hand...
Oh well...
Let the fun...begin.
Insuring that he was invisible, thoroughly silent and more importantly... immaterial - unless he willed it otherwise - he stepped through the solid door as if it wasn't even there, stopping just long enough to loosen a small bolt in the door. That done he skipped along the hall towards the dining room, knocking over a vase of roses as he skipped along all the while singing.
Ring-a-ring...oh look at all the roses,
A pocket full of posies,
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
*(((Crash)))*
...and we all fall down!
At that very moment
The Dursleys were in shock. There was no other word to describe it. The old mans arrival, Marge choking, then Rippers accident... add to that that the old fool Fumbledoor...or whatever he was called... had come for a visit and was demanding to know where their freak of a nephew was... well...
It was all simply too much for them to handle.
Currently the pale and shivering family of four were tied up listening to said old man, as he held a small bottle in his hand, all the while mumbling quietly to himself.
"Hmm, how many drops was I supposed to give a Muggle again?" Dumbledore asked himself as he held the bottle of the potent truth serum.
"You know, I'm not sure," he lied, meaning to frighten the Dursleys into submission.
"Wasn't there a rule that Muggles couldn't handle more than a few drops? Something to do with them… dying?…hmm..I think so. Maybe... Ah well, that's just too bad, sacrifices must be made, after all. I guess there is no time like the present to learn. All for the greater good, of course. Well…I do have four people to play around with after all, don't I? Yes…yes I think I do. It would have been five...but I'm afraid the pooch had other ideas, oh well."
"So, that means I can afford two..no three errors…isn't that great?" Dumbledore asked merrily, looking sharply at Dudley at the same time… and I think I'll ..Eeny, meeny, miny, moe...start... with... you," Dumbledore said pointing towards each Dursley before finally settling on Dudley.
Dudley went blind with fear as he heard what the old man was saying and it didn't take long for him to lose control over his bodily functions, much to his and his parents' dismayed shame, a certain God's glee and an old mans disgust.
Dumbledore grimaced as the tell-tale smell of lost bodily waste met his nose but managed to force on a pleasant smile.
"Now, now...I promise it won't hurt…much. Just two …or more drops…it's all very fast you see. I'm afraid I'm not exactly sure how many exactly I can give you, but I'm fairly sure…about let's say...fifty-fifty, perhaps even less, that it will be ok… I'm not sure...after all I've never done this before.'
"Of course…if you'd simply tell me what I want to know…we can simply skip this unfortunate cumbersome exercise and I'll be happily on my way …if not …well… let's just say…should I be wrong…which I remind you is quite likely, I'm afraid, well...I'll apologise now in advance for any unfortunate grievances which I will cause," Dumbledore said, forcing a grin onto his face as he saw the ever increasing fear in the Dursleys' eyes.
Dumbledore of course knew the right amount of drops to use, but the Dursleys didn't know that. Nor did they need to know that. It was all an act. With a swift movement he grabbed hold of Dudley, who immediately started screaming in compete panic. One quick silencing charm and he was silent.
"Now, now, there is really no need for that, my dear boy. We wouldn't want to cause you any more stress than necessary now, would we? Think of your poor voice. Besides, nobody can hear you now anyway…I made sure of that. Magic, you see is such a wonderful thing, people can be bent to your will in so many different ways, it can be such a wonderful past time…quite amusing actually. You have no idea just how many..."
"Ah, excuse me… I seem to be rambling on again and of course, you wouldn't know about that anyway…would you? Of course not, how silly of me to expect a silly little Muggle like you to understand the great actions of a God like me," said Dumbledore sweetly in a babyish mocking voice.
The Dursleys looked at him like he was mad. Chaos simply snorted at his blasphemy. 'As if he could ever become a God! ludicrous!'
Slowly Dumbledore held out the bottle of Veritaserum again.
"OK….OK…please stop!...I'll tell you everything! I'll do anything…" wailed Vernon. "Just please…I beg you, PLEASE!... Please leave us alone. Please!" he practically screeched in fear.
"Oh!…Really?" asked Dumbledore sweetly.
"YES…yes… damn it…Anything! Anything!…," wailed Vernon loudly, tears flowing freely from his face.
"Good boy…Now!…
Where is Harry Potter?"
Vernon gulped. "I…I…In…t...t...the…"
"Yesss!...I'm listening!"
"..the…c.c. ..b bb..oo.a…"
"Cupboard?" asked Dumbledore sweetly, clearly undisturbed by the man's claim.
Vernon only managed to nod fearfully. Beside him Petunia and Dudley, white-faced, did the same. Marge who had fainted was currently drooling on the carpet.
"Ah, well, let's have a look then, shall we?" said Dumbledore joyfully, reading the rest of the information he needed directly from Vernon's mind. It was more of a statement than a question anyway.
Invisible in a corner of the room, Chaos snorted. 'As if he didn't already know. Yes...quite a naughty fellow our little Dumb diddy Dorkins,'' he thought to himself before snapping his fingers, casting a divine spell on the cupboard, then smiling at what he knew was about to happen next he napped his fingers again. Suddenly he was relaxing on a armchair only he could see, a beautiful girl giving him a massage - again one only he could see -and finally a large box of popcorn in his hands.
Casually, as if he didn't have a care in the world, Dumbledore moved towards the alleged cupboard and tried to open it. However, it wouldn't budge. Dumbledore raised his eyebrows slightly then turned to face the Dursleys once more… "A Military style security lock. Impressive! If not a little excessive I might add…interesting! He gave Vernon a small nod. "You really must hate the lad," he said, smiling before turning back to face the door once more. He never noticed Vernon frown slightly, nor did he notice the sudden confused look on his face either.
Meanwhile back in Limbo Land, Death Reaper HQ, guest room.
Harry blinked and opened his eyes.
The first thing he realized was that he felt different…stronger, more alert… Reborn.
Wondering where he was, Harry blinked and looked around.
He seemed to be in another one of those spotlessly white rooms the beings in the afterlife were so fond of.
Why does everything have to be so white? he asked himself, bemused.
Almost as soon as those thoughts entered his head the room changed its colour and turned into a red and gold, just like in the Gryffindor common room.
Ok…now that's cool! thought Harry, surprised and impressed by the sudden change.
"Anything else I should know about?...Anything else you can do?" he asked the room in general.
As if the room had ears of its own, a tray of his favorite food, complete with a table and chair, appeared beside him.
"Hmm…interesting. Looks like even the dead have to eat…or should I say the undead have to eat?" asked Harry, speaking more to himself than to the room. Shrugging, sure that it wouldn't be poisoned, Harry sat down and began to dig in.
Come to think of it, being undead didn't really feel that much different, he thought as he grabbed a chicken leg. At least it looked like one.
Halfway through his meal, he heard a noise behind him and turned around to see what it could be.
It was a creature of a sort he had never seen before. To Harry it looked like a mixture between an elf, straight from a fairly tale he had once read, and something else he couldn't describe, like an evil fairy, only much... much larger.
Had Harry already been a wizard and a 7th year Hogwarts student, he might have recognized it as a Gremlin...a mutation between an ugly house-elf and a doxy, only seen in textbooks, under the section,'highly dangerous XXX rated creature and to be avoided at all costs'.
This fearsome critter however was known as a Graveling. Not to be mistaken with their mortal cousins; the Gremlins.
While Gremlins were well known as being highly destructive, on a scale no pixie could hope to achieve...and while they did cause injuries...frequently, they were rarely known for actually causing deaths.
Not so their vicious undead cousins; the Gravelings.
While a Gremlin, as a few unfortunate Unspeakables would be able to tell you, were well known for their destructive capabilities and their sly, clever, not to mention devious ways of causing said mayhem and destruction. Gravelings; the Gremlings undead cousins, were well known for putting people into graves. Hence their name.
Gravelings, as a rule, were feared even more than grims...or even dementors for that matter.
It is said...those who can see a graveling...are already dead... their bodies just didn't know it yet.
To see a graveling meant you were about to die. No ifs or buts. You were going to die.
Indeed...death always followed after a graveling's sighting...
Always!
In fact, for a time gremlins were so highly feared in fact that in the year 234 AM (After Merlin) the Ministry at the time had offered anybody a fortune of 10 Galleons for any gremlin, dead or alive…preferred dead. (In those days ten galleons would have been worth a large house)
Unfortunately..or maybe fortunately, no graveling was ever caught. Seeing as a graveling only appeared if you were about to die... it was no doubt a good thing.
Nowadays the only place you could find a gremlin would be under heavy lock, key, and ward in the depths of the Department of Mysteries and that under constant guard.
Had Harry known what it was, he would most likely have run away in terror. However, he did not. And so it was that he was looking at the creature and it was only a few meters away from him.
Deciding to act friendly, but none the less careful, thinking that, since he was dead nothing could happen to him; (a common misconception in the afterlife) Harry slowly moved towards the gremlin and slowly held out his hand to it.
He regretted it almost immediately. A short split second later his arm was torn off and in the gremlin's mouth.
Wide-eyed and screaming as if the hell hounds of Hades were after him, Harry sprang away as fast as his feet could take him and practically sprinted to the other end of the room.
"Holy shit!" he roared as he watched the Gremlin swallow his entire arm whole, in one bite.
For the first time, but not for the last, Harry was happy that he couldn't feel any pain.
Being dead he couldn't. Not anymore. Thank the heavens for that, he thought.
Freaked out by the sudden attack and the loss of his arm, he looked at the place where his arm used to be. Then the next thing he knew, he felt his arm slowly grow and reform back to what it was like moments before. "Oookaaay… now that's interesting," he said to himself, still shocked and highly unnerved, yet impressed, not to mention highly relieved.
Looking at his new arm, while at the same time glancing nervously at the Gremlin, who seemed extremely interested in him, he took another hurried step away.
Just then three more Gremlins appeared beside the first as if out of thin air. One second they weren't there, the next they seemed to phase in.
"Oh…oh my…no...oh mama...HELP!" Harry said as he watched the Gremlins circle around him like predators hunting their cornered prey.
"Er…Hi!" he said next, stupidly, sweat rolling down his face, not knowing what else to do. There seemed to be no where to run.
Then all four of them attacked.
"Oh Crap!...No..Get off me...HELP! NO!...SHIT! NOOOO!" he said as only a screwed person, who knew he was screwed could, just before multiple parts of his body were torn apart and scattered across the room. After that all went black once more.
Oh...did I mention Gravelings love to play with new Reapers?
No?
Well...now I did!
Back on earth, Police HQ, London central, a few minutes before Dumbledore arrival at the Dursleys
Chief Inspector David Gardener was not having a good day.
Nearly an hour ago he had received a call straight from the brass in Scotland yard and had been asked...more like ordered out of the warmth of his bed and the arms of his lady friend to go on an immediate emergency outing to some place called Privet Drive, in Little Whinging, which was somewhere in Surrey.
The Super independent he has spoken to, while apologetic for ordering him around on his day off, had told him it was a severe case of child abuse. One of the worst types and one which demanded nothing but the best to be sent. As such he was needed to take care of it.
Now, normally, a case of child abuse was nothing which would have required an Inspector, least of all a chief inspector to check it out... but for some reason the call had originated from high above (meaning a very high department in the government) and was a VIP operation. This made it important enough to send him and not just some other poor bloke.
Usually that wouldn't have annoyed David so much. Sometimes it simply was necessary to work long hours. And while it was irregular to send him, he wouldn't have minded...much. But today was not just any day. Today was his free day off, the first he had managed to get in several weeks and that made him very grumpy.
A child was being abused somewhere, something which he hated even more than nearly anything else, (David, for those who didn't know him, had been abused himself when he was younger and as such he really despised child abusers with a fiery passion) made him a very angry and uncomfortable person indeed.
Add to that that it had taken him days of hard work and even a few favours to get himself this evening off from his usually busy and overfilled time schedule (all due to the recent cuts in the police department...not to mention it was something allegedly only he could do) and to have been recalled to emergency duty, all while enjoying the second act of an extremely enjoyable experience, with somebody really special, only made it that much worse.
He hated being 'cock blocked'!
He would have his revenge!
Horrible thoughts of what he would do to the abusers if he…No!…not if he, but when he caught them, were racing through his mind as he signaled a few officers to follow him to their squad cars. He would never forgive the abusers for ruining this special day for him. They would rue the day they messed with Chief Inspector David Gardener, the toughest and most feared cop in the district.
With a grim expression on his face David coasted his car up towards Privet Drive, several sirens blazing through the night's wind as several squad cars followed closely behind.
Nobody noticed an ethereal being smile then disappear from a near by alley.
Back at the Dursleys, several long minutes after Dumbldore's entry, a few minutes before David's imminent arrival.
Dumbledore was red in the face and very annoyed.
For the past ten minutes he had been trying furiously to open the door of the cupboard, all with no success.
For some strange reason - to him - his unlocking charms had not worked on the lock (it had no key hole and the spells he knew were therefore useless on the lock)
He had finally managed to cut it off with an overpowered cutting charm from the elder wand, also known as the death stick.
On his 7th try.
Much to Dumbledores surprise the lock had survived a direct cut from a cutting curse from his normal wand.
Thinking it had been a fluke Dumbledore had tried cutting it again, with he same result.
He even tried vanishing the lock several times... with no luck.
It was only after a small tantrum after a failed septumsempra that he had taken out the elder wand and had blasted the lock with an overpowered advanced dark cutting curse that the lock finally fell apart.
Seeing as the elder wand had been created by Death, it was strong enough to destroy Chaos's lock.
Never once had Dumbledore thought about vanishing the door itself.
Giving a cry of victory, Dumbledore finally proceeded to open the door. Only to see a sight he did not want to see.
"DURSLEYYYYY!" roared Dumbledore, spit flying from his mouth, as he saw the stiff cold remains of the wizarding world's only supposed savior on the floor of the cupboard. It was clear the boy was long dead and that the Dursleys were the cause for it. Hearing him, the Dursleys squeaked in complete terror and frantically tried to break loose of their bindings with the intent to run.
"What have you done!" Dumbledore bellowed again, real solid rage evident in his eyes as he walked back into the room. His magic was pounding across the room in waves and his aura was alight.
Vernon whimpered as he saw the look of complete and utter rage in the old man's eyes and would have bolted had he not been tied up. Moving with steps which clearly showed his anger, Dumbledore walked up to Vernon and grabbed the man by his hair. With a sudden movement he pulled the man's face closer to his, until they were nearly touching.
Up until now Dumbledore had not believed Harry to actually have died. That notion was now gone. And to say that Dumbledore was furious wold have been a severe understatement. Mount Dumbledore was raging and ready to blow.
"I told you to abuse him, NOT TO KILL HIM, you imbecile," Dumbledore snarled angrily, giving the man a heart-wrenching deadly stare which caused Vernon to promptly follow in his son's footsteps and soil himself. Sickened by the man and the smell he was releasing, Dumbledore let go of him and let him fall to the ground with a wet sounding splat, leaving a stain where he landed.
"Disgusting!" said Dumbledore with aversion, looking at Vernon as if he were dirt on the ground before he turned and walked towards the door, his sole intention now set on leaving the house and to get away from these Muggles who called themselves civilized beings.
Already he was making making alternate plans. He would have to alert certain factions to the unfortunate demise of the boy and then find a different way to take care of his problems.
Chaos, who had been enjoying the show eating popcorn and enjoying a message from the beauty behind him, seeing that Dumbledore was leaving, took that moment to react. Making his voice sound as if it came from Vernon he said one word:
"Freak!"
Halfway to the door Dumbledore stopped in his tracks. Thinking Vernon had said that last word, he turned around, eyes blazing with even more fury. "You filthy, good for nothing Muggle…" Vernon, seeing what was about to happen, cried out in alarm.
"Wait, that wasn't me…it wasn't me….NOOOO!"
"CRUCIO!...Avada Kedavra!!"
In one swift moment, Dumbledore, having long forgotten that he was supposed to be a wise, kind old man, a benign leader, whom the world looked up to, and cast the strongest Crucio he knew, followed a second later by a the killing curse. Immediately Vernon dropped to the floor and started to scream in utter agony before he was quickly silenced forever a mere second later.
Horrified by her husband's demise, Petunia - with the unknown help of a certain god -miraculously suddenly found herself free from her bindings. In a sudden foolish courageous act, she grabbed a nearby vase and threw it at Dumbledore. To her great surprise she actually managed to score a lucky hit. The vase smashed against the old man's head and momentarily stunned him. Dumbledore, taken by surprise, dropped his wand and collapsed to the floor.
Now, at this moment, Petunia should have done the wise thing and grabbing anything else she could find - like anybody would do to a dangerous criminal who wanted to kill you and your family - should have 'finished' the man off while he was down. That would have been known as self defense while under fear of you life. However, instead of doing what would have been wise, instead she ran to her now dead husband. A mistake, as just moments later Dumbledore was back on his feet angrier than ever before.
Now sprouting a massive bruise on his head and a cut across his cheek, Dumbledore, who was now swearing like a sailor on a very bad day, lost no time in casting the next curse, another crucio. Petunia dropped like a log, screaming.
Dudley, who had until that moment been too afraid to act, took heart from seeing his mother knock the old man out before hand and promptly bit Dumbledore into the inner thighs with everything he had. This caused Dumbledore to howl in agony. Moments later Dudley was sprawling on the floor, sporting a red cheek and a split lip from where Dumbledore had backhanded him.
In all the commotion of the battle which took place inside the house, none of the four combatants noticed the arrival of a small heavily armed police task force, led by Chief Inspector Gardener. With a crash the door flew open and multiple heavily armed police officers stormed inside.
The first thing David saw as he entered the house was Dumbledore backhanding Dudley across the floor while also brandishing a stick in his other. The second was the body of a man who was obviously the boys father. That was all he needed to know. Not caring about why the man had done that in the first place, nor indeed anything else the man may have done, he advanced on the old man.
'Your ass is grass...and I'm the gardener,' Davis thought a grim look on his face.
A quick jab later David quickly grabbed the stick the old man and been waving around and snapped it, much to Dumbledore's utter horror.
A second jab into Dumbledores stomach saw the old man gasping for breath as he suddenly found it difficult to breath. After that Dumbledore soon found himself face down on the ground his nose in the floors dust.
As he pushed Dumbledore further into the ground, David began to handcuff the old man.
The last thing Dumbledore knew before unconsciousness claimed him was the policeman reciting him his rights.
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you...
Nobody ever noticed a laughing God, named Chaos, flash away.