Chapter 2

"I-I'm sorry Harry, I didn't want this to happen. Avada Kedavra." Wormtail said softly.

The flash of green light mingled with the wards and struck Harry on his scar. A momentary burst of pain coursed through his body before his world turned black.

Harry James Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, was dead.

Harry awoke with a start on the floor. He jumped up ready for anything, taking in his surroundings. The room had a twisted sort of look to it, as if the room he was in was real but distorted by something. The whole surroundings had a murky deep blue, green and greyish tinge, except for the thing above him, which looked like a swirling vortex of light.

            "Harry Potter," a deep voice echoed rang out from everywhere, it had power and authority behind it giving the impression that he was not to be upset, "you are going to be the death of me..."

            Harry span around trying to see where the voice came from, "Who are you?"

            "I am Fate, and you have just caused me a massive paradoxical situation. Chaos! Where in blazes are you?"

            The vortex grew brighter for a moment before a female voice spoke much more jovially, "It's Harry Potter! I knew that he would prove me right!"

            "Yes I know-" Fate responded irritably

            "You are admitting that you got something wrong?"

            Harry was confused with their bickering… what the hell was he doing here? He remembered… Voldemort coming with his followers… creating a shield that let Wormtail enter the house… ordinary spells simply deflected off it… an unforgivable curse… the Avada Kedavra! It burst straight through and hit him… he was… dead? Harry carefully interrupted their bickering.

            "I am never wrong!" declared Fate hotly.

            "Excuse me?" Harry spoke tentatively.

            "But if you got it right in the first place this would never have happened." Chaos threw back completely ignoring Harry.

            "Excuse me?" Harry spoke a little louder, his temper rising like an annoyed dragon.

            "I did not get it wrong!" Fate was in defensive mode now, his voice rising.

            "Then why did this-" Chaos was getting into full swing now, until she was interrupted.

            "EXCUSE ME! WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT IN HEAVEN AND HELLS NAME IS GOING ON?"

            The two disembodied voices abruptly stopped, and then started sheepishly, "Sorry, I was just getting carried away there…" they both spoke at the same time before the vortex seemed to just glare at itself before Fate continued, "Ah yes, let me give you some background first. About two millennia ago, there was a massive army of dark wizards, and very few members of the light, so I introduced the Avada Kedavra to the light side to deal with them – execute them on the spot cleanly and it would always hit its target under most circumstances. That is why hardly anything blocks the spell, it was meant for execution.

"Of course in your case, love at its deepest did protect you, but that was not tapping into ordinary magic, but the power of love. Of course I said that if the curse hit the target they would die.

"However, and this is the tricky part now, I said that only Riddle could kill you, however Pettigrew cast the curse on you, and so therefore, with no blocks, no protection, or anything like that, It's caused me a problem. You see you have been killed, but you cannot be killed at the same time unless it's by Voldemort."

"Bloody hell, I can't even DIE normally! Why ME?" Harry asked, banging his head on the wall near him.

"Because every so often, a maniac like Riddle comes along and someone has to stop him. That person I decided a long time ago is you."

"Why though… out of all the billions of people out there, you choose me?"

"Simple, you were the only person after Dumbledore who was born a true leader against darkness. True leaders have always been separate from the rest of the world. Look at Dumbledore; do you see him with friends or on his own? Dumbledore is a true leader, just as you are."

"Gee, great, and just who asked for my opinion?"

"You cannot change who you are. Let me prove it to you. Would you take orders off Malfoy?"

"No way."

"Why?"

"Because he isn't a leader figure, he is just a power hungry figure."

"What makes a leader figure?"

"Someone who is more concerned about his followers than himself."

"See you have just hit the nail on the head. You care about the people who follow you and the innocents that get caught in the cross fire, as does Dumbledore. Riddle and his lackeys don't."

"But it drives me insane!"

"It drives Dumbledore insane too. There is a reason why he is fond of sweets; it was how he diverted most of his insanity to stay sane. Watch him as he gets more stressed, the more different sweets he'll try."

"Okay, so that explains why me, although I'm not happy about it, but if I'm not dead and I'm not alive, then what and where am I?"

"Right now, you are in the room of remembrance at Hogwarts."

"Say what? I don't remember such as room."

"It's beneath Hogwarts, basically a funeral room, and what is going on at the moment is your funeral. We are waiting for your cremation before you can do anything."

"I'm being burned? But why?"

"It's a Wizarding tradition that Chaos introduced ages ago, in case something like this every happened… Chaos, can you explain this one, I can't explain it as well as you can."

"Sure, okay Harry; there are two realms, the Realm of the Living, and the Realm of the Dead. There is a narrow line between them, and you are on that line. What you see is the Realm of the Living, but the Realm of the Dead is trying to twist and distort it to its own image."

"That explains a lot of why this looks the why it does."

"Right, but the twist is, in case a person died but could not die, we need the body burned so that you can recreate it and animate it."

"So I'll some back to life from the ashes?"

"No, you are still stuck here… In fact the only way that you can ever return to life is a final show down with Riddle – you have to absorb your own life force that is pumping through his veins for you to come back to life. Yes Harry, Riddle cannot have a complete life until he is completely rid of you and he can claim your life force as his own, and neither can you have a complete life until you have gotten back what Riddle stole from you. You are both incomplete, relying on each other now."

"Wait a minute, if I absorb my own life force back from Volde-"

"Call him Riddle, Voldemort does not exist."

"Okay, Riddle, then does that mean that he will actually die?"

"It does indeed, with no life force, there is no life, and his spirit will finally make the jump to the Realm of the Dead."

"Fate, you planned this didn't you? You said 'neither can live while the other survives' you destined this to happen didn't you?"

"Well, I didn't have exactly this in mind…" responded Fate sheepishly.

"For some unknown reason, I just don't believe you." Harry retorted.

"Okay, okay! I admit it; I had to give you a reason for not giving up."

"And that is… what?"

"If you want to live or die, you will have to battle Riddle."

"You've made my choice limited now haven't you? Was there any other thoughts other than forcing me to fight Riddle to actually bring me to this," Harry looked at his body, "pitiful existence. I would rather choose death!"

"The choice is not yours to make."

"I am destroyed!"

"You are reborn! Use your anger and hatred of Riddle and his lackeys and destroy them. Redeem yourself… or if you prefer, avenge yourself. Become my Angel of Death."

Harry liked the sound of this… get rid of Volde- no Riddle and the Death Eaters, and regain his life that was stolen from him. There had to be something… "What's the catch?"

"There is no catch, this is our last ditch attempt to wipe Riddle and the trouble he is causing off the map."

"Can I think about this? Or even better, can I talk to someone about this?"

"I can do better than that, you see, you are now part of both realms, yet you are anchored here, so you can visit both realms at any time you wish as long as you have the correct portal to go through. Your parents are waiting for you, as is Sirius Black. Before you can visit them, I must show what has happened since you passed away. Go through the entrance to your left."

Harry looked to his left and walked slowly towards the wall until he realised that because of the lighting here it was a tunnel, the ambient odd light confusing his sight. Going down the tunnel it twisted and turned going upwards all the time, Harry came across a room with a solid stone archway in the centre with two bright green symbols drawn into the floor on either side of the archway.

"This gate twists space and will lead you to other similar gates throughout the world, however you can only go you those places once visited, so you can visualise which gate you want to go through. There is just one default location that it will take you though by stepping through it, and that is the realm of the dead. However as you are anchored here, you are limited in the distance that you can travel from the gate. Go ahead travel through."

Harry stepped on one of the symbols and the gate activated, nervously, he hesitated going through, his own experience telling him that if this was going to be instant travel it was going to be horrible, just like the existing methods of wizarding travel. Harry closed his eyes and marched forward.