Chapter 2
Meeting Two Grim Reapers and Death

"YOU!" the man behind the desk yelled, at Harry.

Hermione walked into Gerhardus von Schiffer's office, behind Harry. Hermione was hugely unimpressed by what she saw.

To start with, Hermione lived by the adage, "A clean desk is the sign of an ordered mind." Hermione had a desk in her bedroom in Crawley; each night before she had gone to bed, everything on that desk had been put away where it was supposed to go.

In contrast, Gerhardus had what looked like sixty or seventy manila folders on his desk, in six stacks, plus another twenty or so manila folders dumped into an open wooden box. Honestly, the man had a filing cabinet—a wooden-walled filing cabinet that looked 1920s-ish—so why not use it?

Just as offensive to Hermione's sense of order: On the wall was a calendar, but this calendar had not been updated since April 1823!

On the opposite side of the room from where Harry and Hermione were entering, were two doors. One door was painted red; the floor in front of this door, and the doorjamb that surrounded the door, both were covered with black soot. The other door was painted pearlescent.

Hermione had no doubt in her mind, which door Harry soon would walk through.

Meanwhile, as Hermione was eyeing the room (and disapproving), a man with seventeenth-century clothing was yelling at Harry with a German accent. Harry had taken a seat on one side of a grey-metal desk; the man in period costume sat behind this desk.

So this is Gerhardus, Hermione thought. He acts like Professor Snape.

Under Gerhardus's angry verbal barrage, Harry was cringing. Here was another reason for Hermione to dislike Gerhardus.

"You failure! You loser! Are you a Dummkopf?" Gerhardus was yelling at Harry. "Your destiny is easy to understand: You slay the Dark Lord, you marry your soulmate—some Granger girl—and you live to be 184 years old. Instead, you keep dying! This sixth life, you let yourself die—and now you and I are in big trouble!"

Harry said, "Erm, I have a soulmate? And she's 'some Granger girl'?" Harry and Hermione exchanged looks.

Hermione asked Harry, "Did you know that you've lived before? Did you remember things to avoid, so you avoided them? You've never mentioned this."

Harry shook his head. "I didn't remember anything about any prior life till I came here."

Gerhardus snapped, "Of course you don't remember! I wiped your memory before I sent you back. Each of your past five lives, I wiped your memory of it before I sent you back."

"Why?" Hermione demanded.

" 'Why' what?" Gerhardus demanded back.

"Why didn't you let him keep his memories? It's stupid to erase all of Harry's hard-earned experience."

"I didn't let him keep his memories because I needed permission from higher-up for that," Gerhardus replied condescendingly, as if speaking to a dimwitted child.

"My mistake—you're not stupid, you're timid. Now explain how Harry and I could be soulmates, but I wound up in love with Ron Weasley and Harry dated Ginny Weasley."

Gerhardus glared at Hermione, then asked Harry, "Is she like this all the time?"

Hermione scowled. Gerhardus's attitude sounded way too similar to Mental, that one.

But meanwhile, Harry was saying angrily to Gerhardus, "Oi, the only reason I've lived this long is because of Hermione's excellent brain. Show her proper respect!"

Then Harry demanded, "Tell me how my soulmate is Hermione, but I fell in love with Ginny Weasley."

Gerhardus flipped through Harry's folder—spending less than fifteen seconds at the task. "I don't have time to find out who 'Ginny' is. But it says here that your relationship with Granger has been disrupted by means of mind-altering potions."

"Mr Potter, Miss Granger's relationship with you has been sabotaged just as much," said a woman's voice behind Harry and Hermione.

A woman was now walking into Gerhardus's office. She was in her thirties, with dark red hair like Susan Bones's hair, and a weak chin. She wore nineteenth-century clothes, and held a closed folder in her left hand.

The woman walked up to Hermione, her right hand out to shake. "I'm told you are Hermione Jean Granger. I'm Ada King, your Grim Reaper." The woman spoke with the Received Pronunciation accent of a BBC presenter.

Hermione blinked, because this was the first time a stranger ever had spoken Hermione's name properly, without Hermione needing to correct her. Then Hermione remembered something she had read in primary school.

As Hermione shook the offered hand, she asked, "Are you Augusta Ada King, née Byron, Countess of Lovelace?"

Now it was the woman who blinked. "You've heard of me? I died 127 years before you were born."

"You wrote an algorithm for calculating Bernoulli numbers!" Hermione said enthusiastically. "It was the world's first computer program, and you wrote it! And you are my Grim Reaper? This is brilliant."

Harry smiled at the newcomer. "I'll be honest: I've never heard of you. But if you're quite a smart woman, it's no surprise that Hermione has heard of you—at school, she was known as 'the brightest witch of her age.' "

Ada King laughed in delight. "This is why I'm Miss Granger's Grim Reaper—I asked Thanatos to assign to me all the girls and women who were so intelligent that other Grim Reapers cannot cope with them." Then she looked at Hermione with interest. "Only one human out of 6 042 is magical; so I've had only one other magical client before you. I am most delighted to work with you."

"This is all quite interesting," Gerhardus said sarcastically, "but we need to get back to what we were discussing before Mrs King interrupted. Namely, that Mr Potter here keeps failing to achieve his destiny."

Ada asked, "What do you mean, 'Keeps failing'? This implies continuous or repeated action."

Harry angrily explained to Hermione's Grim Reaper, "Supposedly this is the sixth time I've died. Gerhardus keeps sending my mind back in time to redo my life and to achieve my supposed destiny; but each time he sends me back, he wipes my memories. Then I blunder about like a drunk till I get killed again."

Hermione huffed. "Like I said before, Mr von Schiffer, that is just gormless. How do you expect Harry to achieve his destiny if everything he's learnt, you make him forget?"

Gerhardus snapped, "Nothing in the rules permits me to let Mr Potter keep his memories unless I get Thanatos's permission, and I won't bother him for that."

Now it was Harry who spoke angrily: "So because you're too timid to ask your boss for a signature, I had to suffer you yelling at me and calling me a failure, and Hermione heard you say this to me?"

Then Harry said to Hermione, "A minute ago, he told me my mind has been affected by potions. When I walked out to face Voldemort, I thought Ginny Weasley was the love of my life. But now? I think she's a nice kid, but way too obsessed with me. Now in this office, I'm wondering, how could I love Ginny any more than I could love Romilda Vane? Plus when you and I were dancing in the tent, and I wanted so badly to kiss you? I didn't, because I kept thinking, 'It would be disloyal to Ron.' The bell-end left us, three years after he publicly denounced me during the Triwizard, and I was still feeling loyalty to him? It's now obvious that I was potioned for two or three years before I died, but now the potions aren't working."

"Same here," Hermione said. She groaned as she covered his face with her hands. "Sixth year, Harry, honestly I was a hormonal fool. I'm so sorry."

"Potter!" Gerhardus snapped. "Stop with the chatter. You need to—"

"I don't need to do sod-all!" Harry yelled back. "I've got my parents waiting on the other side, and Sirius, and I've got Hermione right here—I'm looking forward to strumming a harp for centuries. And if this means Voldemort wins because I failed to achieve the destiny that you never let me remember, then that's on you, mate! You explain to whoever is in charge of destinies, why my destiny hasn't been fulfilled. I've done enough!"

"I can send you to hell if you don't cooperate," Gerhardus growled.

Ada sniffed haughtily. "Oh yes, Gerhardus, you can, but remember Rule 63 in the Handbook. Mr Potter will be in hell only till I talk to Thanatos and Thanatos gives new orders to the angels. Then guess who replaces Mr Potter in the Lake of Fire."

"Why are you pushing me to do this, anyway?" Harry asked Gerhardus.

Hermione said, "I smell a Dumbledore-ish plot."

Ada said, "I'm guessing that if Mr Potter keeps not fulfilling his destiny and keeps not fulfilling his destiny, Gerhardus might be sacked as his Grim Reaper. Or at the least, might be demoted."

Gerhardus glared at Ada but said nothing.

"Like I thought," Harry said to Gerhardus. "You don't give a rat's arse what Voldemort will do to Britain with me dead. You just want to keep being paid your nice salary."

Ada made the rocking-hand gesture.

"What I want to know, Gerhardus," Ada said, "is what all this talk of 'destiny' is about. Miss Granger doesn't have a destiny; none of my other clients ever had a destiny. Why do you say that Mr Potter has a destiny?"

Gerhardus paused, clearly groping for words. Then he glared at Ada and said, "I can't tell you. It's confidential."

Harry said, "I'm sure it has something to do with there being a prophecy about me."

Ada gasped. "Gerhardus! Since Mr Potter is the subject of a prophecy, how do you have his folder? You know that every client who hears a prophecy, or who is the subject of a prophecy, is supposed to be sent directly to Thanatos."

"It doesn't matter how I have his folder, Ada. The fact is, I do have his folder, I am who decides his Judgement, and Mr Potter needs to fulfill his destiny, or else he shall suffer the consequences."

Harry said to Hermione, "Gerhardus is definitely Dumbledore-ish. There are things he's not telling me, so that I'll be herded into making the 'right' decision."

Ada glared at Gerhardus. "No way shall I accept my client's heroic soulmate being sent to hell, else being sent back through time to relive a dangerous life but with his memories wiped. I am informing Thanatos about you."

So saying, Ada turned and hurried out of Gerhardus's office. Gerhardus tried to move the meeting forwards, but Harry and Hermione folded their arms and said little.

Two minutes after Ada left, a Being entered the room. Gerhardus was a Grim Reaper and Ada was a Grim Reaper, but this Being was the Grim Reaper—a walking adult-male skeleton who was wearing a cowled black robe.

Gerhardus's sneer changed to a look of panic.


The Grim Reaper—thankfully, not carrying a scythe—stepped into Gerhardus's office. Ada reentered Gerhardus's office behind the Grim Reaper.

The Grim Reaper walked close to Harry and Hermione. "I am Death, but I prefer the name Thanatos," the skeleton said, in a baritone voice. "Gerhardus von Schiffer and Ada King both work for me."

Then Thanatos held out a fleshless hand to Gerhardus. "Mrs King tells me you have the folder for Harry James Potter. Give it to me."

Gerhardus, clearly frightened now, closed Harry's folder and handed it to Thanatos. On the front of the folder, Hermione saw a large, royal-purple Π.

Thanatos said angrily, "This folder has been missing from my office since 1982. The capital-letter Pi means this client somehow is involved with a prophecy. Tell me why you took his folder."

Gerhardus replied nervously, "I thought if Potter achieved his destiny and I was his Grim Reaper when he did it, I'd earn a promotion. But Potter kept dying early, so I had to keep sending him back."

Hermione ranted, "Harry and I just learnt we've both been potioned by the Weasley family. I'm willing to bet that Harry was potioned in his previous lifetimes too. But Gerhardus here can't be bothered to let Harry keep his memories, so Harry has never known to look out for betraying redheads! Because Harry's memories are wiped, he never knows dangers to avoid. Now Mr von Schiffer says, 'You keep dying early, so I'm about to send you to hell.' " Hermione huffed.

"You stole from me, Gerhardus," said Thanatos. "Now I have two choices: to extend your penance by another few hundred years, or to pass a revised Judgement on you now. Unfortunately for you, I don't feel like showing you kindness."

Gerhardus's face was chalk-white as Thanatos called out "Giuseppe!"

A dark-skinned, black-haired (and white-robed and white-winged) angel flashed into the room. He looked strong enough that he could wrestle Hagrid and win.

"Antonia!" Thanatos called out. Light flashed and a white-robed, white-winged, brunette angel suddenly appeared in the room.

Hermione saw that Gerhardus was pale with fright.

Thanatos spoke German words to "Gerhardus Johannes von Schiffer" in a formal voice. Then Giuseppe the strong angel walked over to Gerhardus and picked him up off his chair, as easily as if Gerhardus were a baby.

Giuseppe carried Gerhardus over to the red door that was behind Gerhardus's desk. Gerhardus twisted and struggled to escape, but still he was held fast. Antonia opened the red door, then Giuseppe threw Gerhardus through the doorway, into the blackness beyond.

"NEI-EI-ei-nn!" Gerhardus yelled, as he fell out of sight.

Black smoke entered the room through the open red door, till Antonia shut this door.

Thanatos looked at Harry, and the voice of the Incarnation of Death now sounded friendly: "Mr Potter, I invite you to my office, to discuss all the things that you should have discussed with me, instead of with Mr von Schiffer. My deepest apologies for all the suffering he has put you through."

"Sure, no problem, sir, I'll talk with you. But I ask that Hermione and Mrs King be allowed to come with me. They've been quite helpful to me."

"An excellent idea, Mr Potter."


"Thank you, angels," Hermione heard Thanatos say. After two flashes of light, Antonia and Giuseppe were gone from Gerhardus's office.

Then the black-cowled skeleton led Harry, Hermione and Ada out of Gerhardus's office, along a corridor and to a bone-white-coloured door. Thanatos opened the door and walked through it.

On the corridor wall next to the door, Hermione noticed, were hundreds (thousands?) of words, going from ceiling to floor in tiny writing. The words were in every alphabet that Hermione had ever seen, including cuneiform, Oriental writing, Cyrillic writing, and many Roman-alphabet words. Amongst the words that Hermione did not know, and the words that she could not even read, she spotted the words Θάνατος, Mors, Mort, Muerte, Tod and Death.

The display of the many, many words for Death was fascinating, and Hermione wanted to study them. Harry murmured, "Maybe later, Hermione. He's waiting."

Hermione blinked. "Right. Of course." She, Harry and Ada walked into Thanatos's office.

Ada murmured, "I understand your interest, Miss Granger. The linguistics of that wall are fascinating."

In the gigantic room that Hermione found herself in, were thousands of filing cabinets. Those filing cabinets were being tended by Antonia, Giuseppe and other white-winged angels in white robes.

Near a corner of the room was a huge, wooden desk, into which were carved dancing skeletons. The top of this desk was clean—Hermione saw no papers and no folders, no pens, pencils or quills—except for two heads that faced in opposite directions, with the heads' braincases touching.

The back-to-back heads were a pair of skulls. The skull whose face that Hermione could see, had pink, healthy lips and flesh out to its (nonexistent) ears, all covering its face below the skull's nose-triangle.

Beyond the desk and the desk's two half-fleshed skulls, a large wood-and-steel scythe rested again the corner made by the back wall and the left-side wall. Near the scythe, the back wall's smoothness was interrupted by a wooden peg that was a bit more than a man's height above the ground. Next to the peg, a round, wooden shield, which was about two and a half feet in diameter, hung on the wall. A stubby bronze (not steel) sword also had been mounted on the wall. The shield had many gouges, and the edges of the sword had many nicks.

When Hermione stepped into the gigantic room, she saw that the skeleton-man had walked over to the peg on the wall; now he was removing his black cowled robe. As soon as his body no longer was covered by the black garment, flesh and different clothing appeared on the skeleton.

Hermione watched as a shaved-bald man in his forties, who was wearing brown-leather armour, hung Death's robe on the peg. Just as the sword on the wall was made of bronze, so the man's leather armour was held tightly in place by bronze (not steel) rings.

The man called out, "O Antonia-nib, something-something-something-something." The head on Thanatos's desk that was facing the visitors, magically translated those words as "Antonia, conjure two more chairs, please." The head spoke these English-language words with Thanatos's baritone voice.

On the client-side of Death's desk was a wooden chair; now two other wooden chairs flashed into existence, one chair on either side of the original chair. Thanatos gestured towards the three client-chairs—please have a seat.

Harry sat in the leftmost client-chair, Hermione sat next to Harry and Ada sat next to Hermione. Hermione noticed that Ada did not sit back in her chair, but sat on the front third of the seat—something that Hermione had read was done by British women of good breeding, back in the day.

Thanatos, still appearing as the shaved-bald man wearing brown-leather armour, sat down in his own chair. He then spoke in his language. The half-fleshed skull that faced Harry, Hermione and Ada said, in Thanatos's male voice, "Please give me time to become familiar with Mr Potter's file. Whilst I do so, you may talk quietly amongst yourselves."

So saying, Thanatos opened Harry's folder, as Antonia the angel walked over. Antonia waved a hand, and the pages of text in the folder changed from English to cuneiform.

Hermione took Harry's hand, as she began lecturing Ada about modern computer programming. Whilst Hermione and Ada talked, Harry fidgeted.

Eventually Thanatos nodded at Antonia, Antonia waved the pages in Harry's folder back to English-language text, then Thanatos closed the folder. Light flashed, and Antonia was gone.

Thanatos looked at Harry and Hermione with a serious expression.


Thanatos turned to look at Ada and asked, "Mrs King, can you tell me what Miss Granger's MPI, Merlin Power Index, is? I'm willing to bet that it has been reduced."

"I'm sorry, sir, but I know almost nothing about the magical parts of this folder." The skull that was facing Thanatos now spoke with Ada's voice, but spoke in a foreign language.

Thanatos replied to Ada (in translation), "Ask Miss Granger to help you. The information will be somewhere in the first six pages of her folder."

A minute later, Hermione snarled, "Harry, the average MPI for a wizard or witch who isn't a Squib, is 100. My MPI was 151—Outstanding-level—but then somehow my core was bound by 30 percent, giving me an MPI of only 106. Barely above average."

Harry scowled. "Someone didn't want Hermione Granger the Muggle-born humiliating the Purebloods when you sat your practical exams, not only your theory exams."

Thanatos said, "That 'someone' was Albus Dumbledore. He put several core-bindings on Mr Potter also, which lowered Mr Potter's MPI by 80 percent, leaving him with an MPI of only 203."

Harry nodded. "Thankfully, even with the bearded buffoon binding my core, I still could cast a Patronus that drove off a hundred Dementors."

Ada asked the teens, "What Mr Potter just said, it's unusual for you magicals?"

Hermione replied, "Not merely 'unusual,' it's completely unheard of."

Then Hermione turned to stare at Thanatos. "Harry's original MPI was 1015? That's Merlin-level!"

Thanatos replied, "Yes. Which creates a problem. Had you, Mr Potter, with your full magical power, faced Tom Riddle, with Miss Granger by your side and using her full magical power, the Dark Lord and his minions would have been blasted into red mist, and the prophecy would have been fulfilled to the good of mortals. But after Mr Dumbledore has worked his core-bindings and his potions, the prophecy is fulfilled, but with the Dark Lord alive and Mr Potter dead. Mr Dumbledore failed to understand the beginning words of the prophecy—with you dead, Mr Potter, nobody else can kill Mr Riddle. Now he is invincible."

Harry scowled. "The headmaster has doomed Magical Britain, you're saying. That, that"—he looked at Hermione and Ada, and changed what he intended to say—"that prat!"

Thanatos nodded. "That bearded wizard plotted your death, Mr Potter, before you were born. In your future, remember: Even when he is acting like the 'kindly grandfather,' he always is your enemy."

Thanatos said, "Back to the prophecy. Mr von Schiffer, for all his faults, had the right idea how to deal with the prophecy. With you dead, Mr Potter, the only way to fix the prophecy the way we want—with you and Miss Granger living long and happy lives together, and with Mr Riddle sitting in front of my desk quite soon—is for your mind to be sent back in time. But this time, Mr Potter, I promise that your mental time-travel will be done right."

Harry said, "Meaning, I have my full memories. Can you do something about the horcrux in my scar?"

Thanatos nodded. "Easily removed. And speaking of horcruxes, I'll make sure you 'remember' the Apparation coordinates for the Gaunt shack. That's where the Gaunt ring is—but watch out for its withering curse!"

Hermione bit her lip, then said, "Erm, sir, may I ask a question? I don't understand your planning about 'Let's send Harry's mind into the past.' I had a Time-Turner when I was thirteen; and as brilliant as having it was, it came with a huge drawback: I couldn't change what I knew had happened."

Ada shook her head. "Sorry, I cannot believe that. If I accept for the sake of argument that travel into the past is possible, then changing the past not only is possible, it is inevitable—the odds approach 100.000 percent when you spend more than a brief amount of time in the past."

Thanatos sighed. "The Fates really, really do not like the timestream to be rewritten. This is why Time-Turners have that limitation built in, and why only I, or someone Upstairs, may permit a time-traveller with full memories to go into the past. But now in May 1998, with Voldemort alive and invincible, both I and the Beings to whom I report, must think the unthinkable."

Hermione said, "The 'unthinkable' thing is to send Harry's mind into the past with full memories, am I correct?"

"You are," Thanatos said.

Hermione took a breath. "Sir, rather than I accepting Judgement and going on to my Reward, I ask that you also send my mind into the past with full memories, to the same day Harry goes. We just found out that Harry is my soulmate; and if he's going to put himself in danger again, I'd rather be with him than go to Heaven alone."

Harry said, "Not to mention, Hermione, the only reason I'd agree to go back is if you were with me. Otherwise, if you go to Heaven now, I'll let Voldy own Britain whilst I sit next to you and strum my harp."

Ada said, "May I ask you two about something my one previous magical client told me? She said that a magical child is not as powerful as that same person as an adult, am I right? That every magical person has something like a bottle for their magic, and in a child, the bottle is smaller?"

Hermione gasped. "Harry, she's right! If we travel back to fourth year or later, Voldemort will be too well set up; and if we go back to third year or younger, we'll be limited in how much magic we can do, even with all our core-bindings removed, because we'll have immature cores!"

"Bugger-all," Harry said. For once, Hermione did not correct his language.

"I see a solution to the problem," Ada said. "Correction: I see maybe a solution. Thanatos, instead of sending their minds back in time, you send them—their entire bodies as they are now—back in time, with each given a magical disguise so that nobody realises little Hermione Granger and little Harry Potter each have a years-older twin sibling."

Thanatos laughed. "If we're going to quit worrying about the timestream being changed, then 'Reach for the stars or slink away in shame,' as an old, old, old saying goes. I like your idea so much, Mrs King, I'm promoting you to Senior Grim Reaper."

Ada smiled. "I accept the promotion, thank you, so long as you still assign me the girls and women of genius." Ada smiled at Hermione.

Thanatos said, "Now before I send these two back in time, let's do some five-way planning. Antonia, please join us."

With a flash of light, the brunette angel suddenly was standing by Thanatos's desk.