Author's Note: Many depressing things have happened to me in the two weeks since I posted this, I'm sorry that this chapter is so horribly delayed. Meanwhile I have posted a hilarious and yet tragic story called "Letters", which I heavily recommend if you like Draco and enjoy seeing H/Hr appear in tales.

Chapter Two

Death leaned backwards in her seat and smiled demurely, " Once every few years – though a rather large span of time for you mortals – I am able to take human form and live among humans for a day."

Neville nodded absently, unsure of where Death was going with this.

" Obviously I had to see this wizard world for myself," Death grinned even wider, " And it was lovely. A man bought me a butter beer and then I went to Gringotts to see the fabled banking vaults. It was all so… so grand. Of course, it was before Voldemort had even existed, much before."

" What about my ancestors?" Neville wanted to know.

Death nodded, " Right, I'll try not to stray too much from the topic."

" Please do," Neville whispered hoarsely, his eyes widening as he thought about the possibilities of what his ancestors could have been up to.

" Would you mind if I put on your radio?" Death exclaimed suddenly, reaching out and twiddling the radio controls before Neville could even reply, " You have a Muggle radio here, even though you shouldn't. You're not Muggles. Why is it here?" Death stopped at a station as the hauntingly beautiful music of The Cure filled the room, ("into the sea, you and me…").

" My grandmother said she got it as a gift," Neville said impatiently, " Why are you stalling?"

Death stuck out her tongue playfully and said, " Alright, I'll talk. I can't possibly combat your negotiating skills."

Neville couldn't help but smile. He stood and began to prepare tea and Death talked.

" When I stayed for a day in the wizarding world I became acquainted with an ancestor of yours. A woman, in fact," Death smiled, " She was a gypsy woman, a fortune teller. Did you know that about your ancestors?"

" No," Neville admitted.

" While she was a gypsy, her spouse was a Longbottom though. So, actually, she was just married into your family line. However, she was a fortune teller," Death twirled out a pack of fortune telling cards as she spoke and then showed them to Neville, " She'd use cards like these, except not entirely as new-fashioned. They were rather pretty cards, she painted them herself and cut them out. Uneven edges, but beautiful cards, really."

Neville nodded her on.

" She wanted to predict my future," Death smiled devilishly, " And so I let her. And she told me that my whole entire life kept showing up as the death card, over and over, no matter how well she mixed the deck. It would always be that one card, the tall skeleton with a scythe."

" Makes sense," Neville murmured.

" I told her nothing, but she insisted on knowing my secrets," Death leaned back in the chair and glanced out the window at something in the distance, " Did they bury her out there? It would help if we went out to her grave."

" I don't know, there's graves out there of Longbottoms from even the 1600's," Neville admitted, " This house is a total relic."

" Let's step outside then," Death turned the radio off, " I will miss the music, but it will help to be at the grave."

" Alright," Neville led Death out of his house and back towards the graveyard. Death talked the whole time.

" The Gypsy woman and I talked for hours, about life, about our views on things. She told me about your family line. Then, suddenly, she told me she had lied in her fortune-telling work."

" Lied?" Neville wondered.

" Yes," Death looked at him, her eyes aflame with delight, " And so she decided fate, in a way, because she told a handsome young man he would marry her. And he felt it was his future, so he molded his life so that he did fall in love with the fortuneteller, believing that this was what fate intended. How ironic, that it was a human deciding their own fate after all, and a fortune teller, at that! Someone who believed that their future was set and decided in stone!"

" Oh," Neville's funny bone didn't exactly feel tickled by this. He felt his ears redden, though, "So she manipulated a Longbottom into wedding her?"

" If you want to see her as a villain, yes," Death twirled around and walked backwards, looking at him, her thin white arms swinging at her sides, " she did manipulate herself into a husband. After she confessed it to me, I knew that there was something gone wrong in this. She had bent fate, a human had bent fate on her own. Even small things like these could forever alter the fabric of time. The future was changed beyond repair."

Neville frowned, " So what does this mean?"

" Your family line had been changed entirely by accident through manipulation of fate," Death continued, seeing Neville's puzzlement, " And that means that the existence of all the children from that family afterward was also… false. Against what fate had planned."

" So my existence has no meaning?" Neville said finally.

" No," She said, " Everything has a meaning. It is simply a mistake."

" Oh. What does this all have to do with my grandmother?" Neville demanded.

" She knew," Death said, " She herself had dabbled with fortune telling. And she tried to read her fortune, and she saw that there was no future for her. It was blank. She was puzzled, so she read your fortune. Remember? You were seven."

" Yes," Neville said finally, " She told me that there was something wrong with the cards, that even though all the cards had pictures, she kept taking out a blank card whenever she wanted my future."

" That's because fate has not decided your family at all," Death said, " Your family has decided fate."

Neville blinked, " I get it now."

" But since your grandmother became aware of this all, she had become suspicious. She knew that there was an error in fate, that something had gone awry. She knew that somehow her ancestors had been able to formulate their own future, to make up their own fate."

" Doesn't this happen to others as well?" Neville demanded, " Why my family?"

" Because your grandmother figured it out," Death said, " And ever further, she had made contact with some of my siblings. And eventually with me," Death pointed out, " She became aware of the forces that ran and balanced the universe, and she realized that your family had somehow stepped outside that balance. It wouldn't have been a problem, but once she discovered it, she became intrigued as to whether she even existed. Whether the Longbottom family had, at some point, created a separate universe. Wherein they made a new world, a whole new future for the universe, just because they took something out of order and stopped the natural chain of events of fate from happening. She became too curious, she became too involved."

" I see," Neville said finally.

" She became so involved as to the point that she began talking to your parents about it. She tried to tell them but they became certain that your grandmother was crazy. Things were going awry, your family was beginning to fall apart. It had stapled fate together in a way that it worked to create this future, and now the future just didn't work. It had jammed in its own machinery," Death sighed thoughtfully, " Can you imagine how distressing it would be, to feel that your entire existence is simply a mistake? An error of fate?"

" Yes," Neville breathed out, " That's what I'm beginning to feel."

" Well, your grandmother's discoveries were putting a strain on all of us – my siblings and I. For you see, even mistakes in fate are intended by fate. Perhaps its hard to grasp how fate works, even I'm not quite sure. I do know, however, that Destiny knows much about it," Death took a deep breath and smiled, " My throat hurts. Ah, here we are, the grave of that one fate-bending gypsy."

Neville knelt beside it, " So my grandmother was straining fate, existence too far? She was making too much a dent in the universe because of her weighted theories?"

" Yes," Death said, " And I was forced to bend fate farther and to take her before it was time. Before, however, Delirium had to assure that your parents would not be able to carry on what your grandmother preached."

" They ended up in St. Mungo's…" Neville breathed, " I thought that was because of an Unforgivable curse…"

" Fate had to be adjusted so that someone was taken out of their place and used the Unforgivable curse on your parents. It was not meant to happen, but suddenly fate was being jerked around and readjusted, sewn and patched over itself," Death explained.

" So my family ended up making a great stir in the great cosmic lineup," Neville said, " And finally you were forced to take my grandmother."

" Yes," Death said, " But it was a grave mistake."

" Why?" Neville asked.

" Because your grandmother would have led to a very wonderful future for you," Death said, " I don't want to tell you what your fate is, but it is quite different without your grandmother. By taking your grandmother away, I have altered fate. I have not done my job. My job is to comply with fate and to take people when it is time. When it is a force… a force like Death, or Dream… altering fate… it's…" Death took a shuddering breath, " … almost unforgivably wrong. We then assume more control than we can handle. We then feel the power of altering the world. It… it's not good."

Neville nodded absently and brushed the dirt off the tombstone.

" So, I have come to you," Death smiled after saying this, her teeth shiny and white, " and I hope you will agree that fate should not be bent any farther. You now know about this, and you must now work with me to get your grandmother back. We cannot let fate be bent any further."

" How do we bring back the dead?" Neville asked, " This is all becoming so confusing."

" Just think of it this way. Fate can be altered so that the future is changed forever. Why can we not change fate so that the past is forever altered?" Death grinned wisely.

" How do we do that?" Neville asked.

" Time travel."

Author's Note: This is becoming complex! I hope this isn't too confusing. Not anymore confusing than some of the theories the real Sandman story presents the readers, anyway. Now Neville is faced with a choice – he can continue altering fate, living and never seeing the future he was meant to have; or he can adjust fate once and for all, go far back in time and fix it so that his grandmother is not taken before her time… and then somehow talk her into keeping her discoveries about fate silent. Which path will he choose? Review, and find out.