A/n: :P Hey! This is my weirdest yet! And it's completely original! I think... I hopes y'all enjoy the insanity inspired by the almighty VACATION!!!!!!! *laughs* Just read!
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Harry Potter was your average wizard. Well, if you excluded the fact that he had killed the greatest Dark Wizard ever, that is. He was twenty-three years old, working for the Ministry of Magic, and living a perfectly normal (if not secluded) wizarding life. He had killed Lord Voldemort in his seventh year, had about a year in the spotlight and left back to the real world. That had left him hateful of the public and such, in other words, he didn't like people. Now that you have that background, let's start, shall we?
~* <--Beginning :)
Beep. Beep. Beep. Why wouldn't that dratted alarm clock shut up? Why did it have to be Monday? Why did he have to go to work at 7:30? Why did he wake up at 6:15? Harry pondered these thoughts as he rolled over and smacked the 'off' button on his alarm clock. Stupid mornings.
* <--New scene :)
"Morning Mr. Potter."
"Morning," Harry growled as he stalked past the cheerful secretary at the front desk. Stupid woman was too old to wear that much make-up.
"You have an interview with a young woman for the new position in about five minutes, a meeting with Cornelius Fudge in an hour, and I do believe that's it. Or, no, wait, I've your appointments mixed up, Fudge first, woman second."
"Right," he snapped, "thanks for the clarity Sydell." She grinned sheepishly under his icy gaze. He turned on his heel and left. He had to be on the tenth story and seated in ten minutes. Stupid morning.
*
"Ahhh, Mr.Potter." Fudge's voice had grown older, dryer sounding.
"Morning, Minister," Harry said respectfully, seating himself across from Fudge. The Minister appeared worried, Harry wondered why.
"Harry," he said slowly, "Harry, you've given the Ministry three years of service and they have been very productive, however, some problems have aroused lately."
"Yes?" Harry asked, trying desperately to sound polite. What was the old windbag getting at?
"Harry, you seem to be irritable lately. You have always seemed like an angry person. Along with other-er-reasons, you have been making most of our staff uncomfortable. We just can't have that. I'm forced to let you go."
Harry stared dumbly across the desk at the older man. He hadn't changed, he was still the same people-pleaser. No bother to the poor blokes he had to let go to keep the majority happy. Half of Harry was wanting to scream, yell and all around throw a fit. The other half needed to destroy something. He suppressed both sides, however, and forced a curt nod. "I understand, Minister."
"Perhaps in a few years, Mr. Potter."
"Yes, Minister." He pushed his chair back and stood up. " I suppose the woman I am to be interviewing is the girl taking over my job?"
"Yes, Mr. Potter." The Minister looked relieved. He didn't know about the plots of murder in Harry's head.
"I feel uncomfortable with that, would you kindly do it? I feel that you would be more qualified."
"All right, Mr.Potter. Good day."
"Good day, Minister." Harry pulled his wand out of his pocket and apparated.
*
Harry slammed the front door to his house. 'Good day, Mr. Potter.' That man had nerve. Everyone had nerve. Why didn't they leave him alone? Wasn't it bad enough his two best friends were dead? Everywhere he was in the public eye. Why couldn't people leave him alone? Suddenly a twisted solution came into his head.
Suicide.
It was simple, so brilliant. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before. He threw his coat aside and rushed to the bathroom. Where was the Tylenol? There, yes that was it. He poured half of the jar into his hand, about a hundred pills (it was a big jar, okay?). Slowly, almost enjoying it, he popped them into his mouth. One for Sydell, one for Fudge, one for Voldemort, one for Ron dying, one for Hermione dying, one for Dumbledore dying when he needed him most, the names and reasons kept coming. Slowly he started to feel ill, he didn't stop. Sight was becoming harder, he kept on it. He could hardly kneel anymore, only twenty to go. He shoved the whole handful into his mouth. There were too many, he started to choke. Lack of air, on top of drug overdose, started to take its toll. He blacked out.
*
"Comatose ... very lucky to be alive ... less than an inch from death ... very lucky indeed..."
The words moved slowly through Harry's brain. What had happened? Oh, yes, the pills, he remembered. Lucky to be alive? Had he survived? Comatose? He was in a coma?!
Knowing it would be useless, Harry tried to sit up. Then, much to his amazement, it worked. He opened his left eye very slowly, that worked too. What was going on? He looked back, there he was, laying there on the white linens, breathing slowly, otherwise motionless. But if he was down there, how could he be up here too?
Warily, as though afraid of what he might find, he lifted his hand close to his face and turned it over and over. It was semitransparent. He looked down at his clothes. They were the same as they had been when he had left to work this morning. What was going on?
"Finally, I thought you were just going to lay there for eternity." That voice was familiar. The owner of that voice could see him. Harry turned around to see who it was.
"Welcome to the joyous world of the Semi-Dead." The all-too familiar person said. It was Voldemort, though a little different than Harry had remembered him. This was more like to modernized Tom Riddle.
"What do you mean, Semi-Dead?" He asked.
"The Semi-Dead, you're not dead but you're not alive, ass. Now get moving, I only have until the apocalypse." He started to leave.
Harry knew he ought to be frightened, facing his worst enemy and all, but he was more interested in the matter at hand. "Where do you want me to go?"
"Australia," Voldemort said sarcastically. "The after-life, numb-skull. Are you completely ignorant to this whole business or something? Honestly, I actually had hope you knew something about this so I didn't have to waste time telling you about this." He glared poisonously at Harry. "You're the dumbest person I've ever known, with the possible exception of Crabbe and Goyle."
"Fine," Harry snapped, "you want me to go to the after-life, why should I? What are the consequences? You can't do anything to me. I could just stay here."
Voldemort shrugged. "You could do that, but it would be pretty miserable. You also have a choice. I'm not supposed to tell you, though." He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, lit it, and gave Harry a sidelong glance.
"I have choices. That's interesting, you didn't present them to me immediately."
"Like I said, I'm not supposed to tell you, only if you got difficult about the whole dying thing. You got difficult, I told you. You wanna do this easily, or do you want the bloody choices?"
Harry thought. he could save himself a lot of time and trouble without the choices and just go ahead and die, or he could hear the choices and run with that. He chose the latter. "Give me the choices, consequences, and benefits of each."
"Picky, are we?" Voldemort asked, grinning nastily. "All right, your first choice is to die. Only consequences there are the moaning, piteous souls mourning your death or the unfinished work you left behind. Benefits are that you see your precious friends and Mommy and Daddy again, not to mention knowing the future." He paused, took a long drag on the cigarette and continued.
"Other choice is to remain on Earth, unable to die unless in extreme magical circumstances. The benefits are obvious, and the only consequence is that I have to take another life in the place of yours," he glanced at Harry's face. "Only problem with that is, it has to be one of your friends, and by that I mean close friends."
"Why didn't you pick to stay on Earth?" Harry had to admit, knowing Voldemort, he was surprised that the old bloke had kicked the bucket at all.
"You get three chances, I used all three, after that the only choice you have is to die." He threw the burnt butt of the cigarette over his shoulder; it landed dangerously close to an oxygen tank. "You decided yet or what?"
Harry thought deeply. There had to be a loophole in this system somewhere, perhaps a way to get a better deal out of the whole business-if only he could find it.
"Hurry up, time's a-wastin'! We're burning daylight here, excetera, excetera."
Harry looked up. The voice was new, the grammar was different, and there was an American accent present. The owner was a man, no older than thirty. He had black hair (dyed blue at the ends), and purple eyes (forgive my crazed obsession with purple eyes, some mental disorders can't be helped Ü). He was wearing a tye-dyed shirt, dark blue jeans, and red canvas ankle-high sneakers. In short, he was quite odd-looking.
"Who in the world are you?"
"I am your advisor," he said. "Moldie-Voldie had an appointment with someone, had to run. I was gonna end up here anyway, I have a strange feeling about what choice you're gonna take. I shan't tell though, musn't influence the feeble thought process." He grinned, displaying rather sharper-than-normal incisors. "Name's Jake, no last name needed."
"You're weird." That was stupid, last thing he needed was a dead person mad at him, maybe he'd end up like that kid in The Sixth Sense, or something.
"Thank you." That was weird.
Harry thought hard, he shouldn't be worrying about the appearance of the rather odd person rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. Suddenly, it came to him. "Will I get to see Ron and Hermione first if I pick to stay alive?"
"Nope, only way you get to see your buddies again is if you die." He glanced at Harry's face. "What're you glaring about, I didn't make the rules! You want a personal conversation with God, I'm sure that can be arranged."
Harry sighed. Oh well, he'd lived for five years without the two of them, it couldn't get worse. And a second chance at life was very tempting... "I'll take it," he said with finality (is that a word? No? Well, it is now.).
"Which one? Or did I miss something?"
"Life, I'll take the second chance, I wish I had a second chance, whatever you want me to say."
"Is that your final answer?"
Harry squared his shoulders. "Yes."
"Who do you wanna knock off?"
"Er-" Harry hadn't exactly thought about that. He wasn't sure he had any "real" friends, Hermione and Ron had been the only two people he'd ever really been close to. He thought about it for a bit. It came to him: Seamus. He hated his job, his life, he had attempted suicide twice (he had told Harry all this in a surprising letter last month), he was perfect. "Seamus Finnigan."
"Okay, whatever you say. Now that that's all said and done, back to your body with you." He pulled a wand out of his pocket and muttered a string of charms and curses. Harry began to feel horribly sleepy. Jack's voice ended and right before passing into unconsciousness Harry heard him mutter; "Geeze, I'm glad I'm rid of that cursed thing..."
*
"Mr. Potter, Mr. Potter, are you alive, can you say something? Could you wake up, please?"
Harry opened his eyes groggily. All of these voices were making his head hurt, he wished they would stop. He felt awful; his head was sore, his fingers tingled unpleasantly, his mouth felt like the bloody Sahara, what was wrong with him?
"Mr. Potter, can you speak?"
"Yeah," he groaned, croakily. He wished he hadn't; his throat felt like there were razors stuck in it.
"Thank God, I thought you were having a seizure or something. You were covered in sweat, shaking and muttering about the Dark Lord and such...Never mind, what am I saying? I'll just get you worried. I guess since you're awake I'll go get the doctor to come and take a look at you."
The nurse was babbling her head off as she left the room, but Harry wasn't listening. She had said something...God, the Dark Lord, what was this? Voldemort and God, what could they possibly have anything to do with each other? Still thinking, he opened his eyes. His vision was foggy, but he looked around the room nonetheless. A blurry, tye-dyed figure stood in the corner of the room. It was as if a floodgate had burst open. Memories of his death and brush with the after-life poured into his skull.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded angrily.
"Er, well..." Jack sounded uncomfortable. "Let's just say that things didn't go exactly according to the plan."
"What'dyou mean, 'not exactly according to plan,' I thought you had it under control!"
"We did, kinda. Some complications aroused when we went to get Seamus, that's all."
"So why can I still see you? I thought you were going away!"
"No, you weren't going to be able to see me, that's the way it should be, but something happened with Seamus and it only half-worked."
"What happened with Seamus?"
"Well..." The blurred figure shifted from one foot to the other and back again. "You see, when Voldie went to get him-"
"Voldemort?! Why him?"
"He was the initial one to do that sort of stuff. Anyway, as it turns out, Seamus was at the point you were at. He was just about to pick death when Voldie showed up. The guy taking care of him happened to be your dad, and those two don't get along very well." Harry snorted. "They got into a Wizard's Duel and ended up blowing the room apart. Needless to say, your buddy died.
"The reason you're still alive is he wasn't officially 'dead' when you picked him, but the job only got done halfway."
"So what does that mean?" Harry asked, dreading the answer.
"You are officially the Living Dead."
Harry thought he was going to pass out. His vision began to swim in front of his eyes, and he automatically pulled his glasses onto his face. The room came into sharp focus, just as the doctor burst in the door.
"Mr. Potter! I'm so very glad to see you've awaken and are just fi-" The doctor stopped mid-sentence. His wire-framed glasses slid down his nose and his jaw dropped. What's his deal? Harry wondered. Jack was banging his head against the wall. "Evee," the doctor started again slowly, "Evee, did you by any chance check his monitors before you came to see me?"
"No sir, wh-" She too had peered up at the screens and stopped, her jaw dropping as well. Harry craned his neck around to get a look.
His jaw dropped. The heart monitor read 'zero,' the blood pressure read 'zero,' and the breath rate read 'zero.' By all of the monitors, he was dead.
"Let me find my stethoscope." The doctor was in shock. Harry was too, and after five minutes of questions, deep breaths, and little-squeezie-things-that-go-around-your-arm the doctor couldn't find any reason to explain Harry's-um, well, for lack of a better (or real) word-aliveness. All three of them were very nervous at this point.
"I'm going to go find a doctor to get a second opinion," the doctor said, rushing hurriedly out of the room. "Evee, would you like to come with me?"
"Yes, doctor," she said, hurrying out of the room at his heels. Harry saw them break into a run once they exited the room, he would've ran too.
"Time to go," Jack swooped over and grabbed his arm.
"Wait a second, what are you doing? I want to know if I'm dead or not! Why do I have to go?"
"Trust me, you're dead. Now get out of that bed, they'll be back any second." Jack was digging around in drawers, trying to find something. "D'you see where they put you're clothes, by any chance?"
"No, now why do we have to go? What's so important about this whole thing?"
Jack conjured a black cloak and a hat out of thin air and threw them at Harry. "Wear them. We have to go because you're dead and unless you want to be looked at the rest of your life by freaky science dudes and considered a freak of nature than we really must get a move on."
The scientist idea rapidly changed his mind about the second opinion and he jumped out of bed and pulled on the cloak and hat.
"If anyone asks you why you were back there," Jack said, pushing open the door (Harry was glad, he didn't really feel up to it) , just tell them your son died. Try to disguise your voice, too."
"All right," Harry said, pulling the hat down over his face and tightening the cloak around his hospital gown. He shuffled at a brisk pace into the hospital, making a beeline for the elevator.