To collect the souls of humans for a living sounds like a morbid job. Death disagrees. Or perhaps he sees morbidity in a different way to the mortal beings on Earth. Whichever way, it is his sole (hah hah) purpose to carry out his eternal career without flaw – the fact that he enjoys it is irrelevant.

Every soul on Earth whose body can no longer contain them (and has not been tied to Earth by the owner before their demise) is collected by Death. The ones that roll willingly into his hands irritate him, as they bested him. It's the ones he's had to hunt for years, decades, millennia, that he relishes snatching from the shells that are their lifeless bodies. Not eight decades ago he'd finally gotten his hands on the seventh fragment of the shredded remains of Tom Marvalo Riddle's soul, the notorious 'Lord Voldemort'. Flight of Death? Pfft! Tu rêves, maintenant tu es mort, mon Seigneur.

Yes, Death loves his job. However, he is only the deliverer. The minute the souls cradled in his arms leave the confines of Universe 896, they are passed through to the Main Office. He was an angel once; he knows the process as well as he does all the human languages. The souls are filtered into two piles: good, and bad.

Basic principal, really. The souls who've been primarily good in the duration of their lives get two options, a 'heavenly' afterlife, or a reincarnation into their universe (recycling of their souls, if you will) with no recollection of their previous lives. The bad souls, well, they don't get a choice, and where they go is not pretty. Personally Death thinks the folks living there are good company, but he's come to learn that humans don't find bone crushing, body twisting or eye popping funny.

Most of the angels sorting the souls are stuck up, prissy things that Death does his best to maintain as little communication with as possible. Some, however, intrigue him. They are a small group who frantically search for souls whose past actions leaves them in a sort of 'grey area' in regards to how they seemed to commit an equal amount of good and bad acts in one life. There are more of these Grey Souls than there are good or bad, in fact.

Most angels cast them into the bad pile without a single thought of it, but the small group of not-pretentious angels would list the names of the Grey Souls before putting them in a bad pile. One not stuck up angel named Argon had informed Death they were planning on requesting to the upper powers to create a 'middle zone' for the grey Souls.

Death doubted they would be successful, but he's polite enough to not have stated that.

Now, he's heading to the Main Office with a new batch of souls, none of which feared him, much to his disgruntlement.

The Main Office is a large block that nearly blends into the white void that surrounds it. One of the reasons he'd quit working here was the lack of decoration, and of colour; the soul collector before him had informed him that Universe 896 had so very much to see, and boy was he right. Colours, objects, shapes and patterns all merging together in an almost dizzying collaboration. It's beautiful.

Death walks through the solid white wall and gets a headache when he once more hears the repetitive thrum of angels bustling about, working as if they would be getting paid like humans do. Stuck up brats.

He places the souls on the receptionist's desk, who doesn't even spare him a glance, much to his relief. Small talk with the angels is a terrible fate to be bestowed upon him, or anyone, for that matter. Ready to return to Earth, Death almost basically races out of the Main Office – only to get stopped in his tracks by Argon.

"We've done it." Now that is interesting.

"May I ask what you said?"

"We did it illegally." These angels are much more fun, for sure. If they had been like that during his time, he might not have ever left this place.

"If they knew…"

"They won't. But we need your help." Death chuckles, a sound that can haunt humans indefinitely.

"Go on."

"We're dealing with Grey Souls that haven't had justice, taking them from the bad place," Argon nervously eyes the busy workers behind Death. "It's going to be difficult, but the demons never can resist good deals."

"Oh, I am intrigued," Death's fascinated about the lengths of which these angels are willing to disobey, well, just about everything.

"Let's just say there are some things an angel should never have to experience." Argon shudders, and Death finds himself rolling his eyes. Does he have eyes? Mirrors never reflect him. Must be a human habit. They are interesting creatures, much less irritating than angels.

"Where do I fit into this elaborate scheme of yours?" A list is in Argon's hands before the sentence finished.

"We have a team working on spotting all the Grey Souls they can," he says, placing the unremarkable looking parchment onto Death's open palms. "Your job is to collect them and bring them to our base instead of here while carrying out your usual task for the good and bad souls."

Interesting. How very interesting. Regarding the parchment, he looks up to see Argon look almost apprehensive. It was here he realizes he's pretty much able to squash their futile attempt at redeeming these humans with a simple 'no'. It's tempting, as he knows the outcome would be highly entertaining. They'd be making more deals with the demons and boy would it be hilarious to watch.

Except, he finds that throughout his career as soul collector, he had developed a sort of fondness for humans. Screwing over the rogue angels would be screwing over humans, too. In all honesty, he's curious to know the outcome of this little experiment.

So, he exits Main Office, leaving behind a relieved Argon.

The first name on the list of Grey Souls is 'Draco Malfoy'.