Death's Manager

Courtesy of SilverWolf7007

Chapter Eight – Beanbags

Or, Maternal Reprimands and Evil Plots Afoot

Both Tom and Salazar were still staring at Harry in utter shock and horror over seven minutes later.

Rolling his eyes, Harry decided he was probably in for an even longer wait and sat gracefully on the floor. Halfway there, however, a bright blue beanbag appeared, and he ended up seated on it quite comfortably.

Tom and Salazar blinked in shock, but neither reacted more than that – and neither spoke.

Sighing, Harry wandlessly conjured a nailfile and carefully removed all the rough edges he could see. Looking up once he finished that task, he sighed again as he saw that neither Tom nor Salazar were prepared to wake from their stupor.

Frowning thoughtfully, Harry held his hands out for inspection by the two. "So, what colour shall I paint them, do you think?"

He was not given an answer.

Ten minutes later, he was waving his hands about to dry the black nailpolish he had applied.

Salazar finally regained the powers of speech and thought, around the same time his knees weakened and he collapsed.

Thankfully, Harry had been expecting this and conjured the Slytherin founder a bright green beanbag to fall on.

Tom seemed to find this extremely funny, and began to laugh, slumping forward onto his desk for support.

Harry sighed yet again and cleared his throat.

Both of his companions looked at him.

"So, now you've both recovered, any thoughts on my plan?"

Salazar gulped. "It's, uh, very ambitious, isn't it?" he stated. "May I ask why you want to remove the current Headmaster of Hogwarts?"

Harry shrugged. "Ask away."

"And will you answer?" Salazar continued, rolling his eyes.

"Sure, why not?" Harry said. "I'm not going into it too deeply, but…he's a tyrant. We're not allowed to have lemon drops, because they're his sweet. Oh sure, he'll offer them to you in his office, but woe betide should you accept. He'll…glare, and…" Harry stopped, gulped and shuddered. "He Twinkles all the time! Plus, he's a manipulative old coot." He shrugged again. "Look, he annoys me, okay?"

Tom and Salazar exchanged one last glance. If the most powerful wizard in thousands of years wanted to overthrow his headmaster simply because the man annoyed him…well. Who were they to disagree?

Salazar sighed. "Sure, okay. Whatever. When do you want to get started on this map? And we'll probably need Godric, Rowena and Helga to help out."

Harry nodded. "That'd be great. And, well…" He looked to Tom. "How long do you reckon I'll be here?"

Tom shrugged. "I don't know. However long you need to be, I guess."

"All right then. In that case, give us a day or two to…play, and I'll get back to you."

"Cool."

Harry and Tom stared.

"What?" Salazar asked defensively. "I'm not allowed to pick up on slang words since being dead?"

Not long after, Salazar had left, promising to call a truce in his prank war with Godric and discuss the map of Hogwarts with his fellow Founders.

His departure left Harry lounging in his beanbag and Tom seated behind his desk, having found several folders there that he needed to deal with.

There was mostly silence, with the occasional annoyed muttering from Tom and random small bouts of humming from Harry.

Finally, Harry grew tired of this arrangement, and fixed it in the best way he could come up with on such short notice. He turned Tom's chair into a bright purple beanbag.

Yelping in surprise, Tom vanished from view. Harry waited several minutes, tapping his black fingernails in near silence on his own beanbag, checking his watch every few seconds.

Finally, Tom emerged, pulling his beanbag behind him until he was in front of his desk, where he dropped it before sitting back down on it.

"Comfortable?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow as the older man shifted restlessly.

"No," Tom grumbled. "I'm not sure I like this beanbag thing, Harry."

"Why not?" the teen asked innocently. "I'm sure that Kyra and Death will love coming to work and being able to seat themselves in such comfort and style."

Tom stilled, a devious smirk appearing on his face. "You know, I could learn to live with this. As long as you give me a chair to sit on when I'm working at my desk. And you can't just make it shorter, it has very full drawers," he warned.

Harry sighed. "Oh all right." Without even blinking, he conjured a neon pink swivel chair to sit behind the desk.

Taking a deep breath, Tom began to mutter to himself. "Death will find it annoying; I can't kill Harry. Death will find it annoying; I can't kill Harry. Death will find it annoying; I can't kill Harry. Death will find it annoying; I can't kill Harry…"

Deciding to take precautionary action against the murder of his own self, Harry quickly decided whom the next dead person he wanted to see was. "So, can we call in some more visitors?"

Startled (as per Harry's intention), Tom halted his mantra and looked at him. "I don't see why not. Who do you want me to call in this time?"

Harry jumped up out of his beanbag and began rifling through the drawers of the Filing Cabinet of the Dead, and then moved on to the other two cabinets, pulling out the occasional folder, checking it, and either replacing it or tossing it over the desk into Tom's lap.

Tom inspected what ended up being a total of six folders. "Uh, Harry, to sign these I need a – never mind," he finished, plucking his pen from midair where it had been hanging just above his face. "So, you want them all here at once, or what?"

"Yep."

"Isn't that…dangerous?"

"Yep."

"Is there going to be much discussion of overthrowing Dumbledore?"

"Yep."

"And redecorating?"

"Yep."

"And pranking?"

Harry smirked. "Oh yeah."

Tom returned the smirk as he began filling out the first summons. "In that case, let's get started."

It took Tom ten minutes to fill out all of the summons forms, and once he had finished he and Harry relaxed in their beanbags and waited.

The room was silent.

Tom jumped as a sudden rustling filled the room, but rolled his eyes at the six beanbags that had just appeared. "You really like beanbags, huh?"

"I really do," Harry agreed, examining his fingernails. "Oh…bollocks." He held out his hand, and the small bottle of black nailpolish appeared in it.

Leaning forward as Harry opened the bottle; Tom saw that the third fingernail of his right hand had become chipped.

The gentle jingling of bells and a sharp snapping sound drew Tom's attention away from Harry's small scale crisis to the couple now standing in the middle of the room.

He tried to stand, struggled for a minute, and managed to get to his feet. With a sheepish smile at the amused two, he held out his hand. "I'm Tom, Manager for Death. It's nice to meet you, Mr and Mrs Potter."

Both James and Lily shook Tom's hand, looking around the room curiously.

"I have to say, this isn't quite how I imagined Death's office," Lily said with a laugh. "The beanbags, especially, make this place…bright, I guess."

"Why thank you," emanated a voice from the floor. "I thought they were a nice touch myself. I'd stand up, but I don't want to ruin my nails again."

Lily looked down at the teen in the bright blue beanbag and couldn't help but smile. "Hello Harry."

He grinned up at her. "Hiya Mum. Want me to do your nails?"

As James and Tom watched in bemusement, Lily dropped down into the green beanbag that Salazar had vacated and held out her hands. "Oh yes please. But do you have any other colours?"

"Anything you like," Harry offered.

"How about a nice dark red, then?"

"Sure thing."

Three minutes and seven seconds later, James regained his wits. "Uh, Harry?"

"Yes Dad?" his son replied, not looking up.

"You seem to be taking this…calmly."

"Of course. I was expecting you, remember?"

"Well yes, but…oh, who cares?"

"Good question."

"Imp."

"Why thank you. Take a seat, old man."

James glared. "I'll have you know I was only a few years older than you when I died!" he exclaimed as he sat in the Gryffindor red beanbag beside his wife.

"I am quite aware of that," Harry murmured, concentrating on his mother's thumbnail. He hated doing thumbnails. Normally, he had Hermione do his.

Before anything more could be said, the telltale ringing of bells and snapping alerted them to the next arrival.

"I was wondering where you two got off to," Sirius announced. "And where are we?"

"I'm Tom, Manager for Death. Nice to finally meet you, Mr Black."

Sirius winced. "Don't call me Mr Black, I keep thinking you're talking to my penguin."

"Sit down before you fall down, Padfoot," Harry advised, finally finished with painting Lily's nails.

Harry's advice turned out to be moot, as the Animagus yelped in shock and fell into the closest (yellow) beanbag upon hearing his godson's voice.

"Harry?" he demanded in shock. "You're dead?"

"Of course not," Tom snorted. "He doesn't know how to die."

"In that case, I'm officially confused."

"Welcome to the club," James muttered.

Their conversation had covered the signalling of the fourth guest's arrival, and so Cedric had the chance to survey the situation that no one else had really had so far.

And despite what many people thought, not all Hufflepuffs were entirely dense and interested only in growing their own plants (of all kinds).

So of course, Cedric realised faster than anyone what was going on.

The attention he had payed to Harry's life after his own death and the friendship they had…sort of shared beforehand also factored in his realisation.

"So Harry," he began, announcing his presence as he sat in the pink beanbag beside the other teen. "Can I help with this rebellion in Hogwarts?"

Harry smirked. "Of course. I thought you might have an idea of what was going on."

"Oh? What made you think that?"

"Call it intuition," the boy said innocently.

Cedric snorted. "Let me guess, you just suddenly woke up this morning, nearly drowned, and thought, 'hey, I'm going to evict Dumbles and take over Hogwarts! I'll bet Cedric knows what's happening.' Am I right?"

Harry glared at him. "Shut up, you evil Hufflepuff fiend."

Maturely, Cedric poked his tongue out.

Showing equal maturity, Harry replied in kind.

Tom, having seated himself in his purple beanbag again, cleared his throat. "Might I suggest you clue the adults here in before you start wrestling all over the floor?"

"Suggest away," Harry told him, preparing to launch himself at the ex-Hufflepuff.

"Harry James Potter, don't you dare!"

"Meep," Harry replied to the maternal reprimand.

Cedric looked smug.

"Cedric Ian Diggory!"

"Meep."

Lily, now satisfied, smiled happily and settled back in her beanbag.

James and Sirius exchanged a wary glance.

Lily glared at them.

"Meep," came two quiet voices.

Tom carefully kept his expression neutral, especially when Lily looked his way.

Thankfully for everyone's nerves, the silence was shattered by bells and snapping, signalling the arrival of the last two members of the current group.

Harry grinned up at them both lazily. "Glad you gents could make it. Now, as I know that you're somehow involved in it all, care to tell me exactly why Hogwarts is filled with milk and I'm here?"

Sylvan and Damon shared a glance. "Oh shit," they muttered as one.

"Language!"

Oh, I like this chapter. I really, really do.

Kaaera – Glad you think so. And yeah I know the feeling; sometimes my mum does that too. Ah well. So it was explained okay? I wasn't too sure.

Machiavelli Jr – Very very well hidden. Thanks heaps, yep I'm a definite Pratchett fan, though I didn't realise it was so obvious…and nope, not kidding, Millie's a soft touch, honest!

DeppDRACOmaniac – Not at all, everyone ought to have fave owls. Hedwig's mine, though I kinda like Hermes as well. Poor poor lactose intolerant…on the other hand, this may cause an uprising on their part.

Howl – Bugger about the speaker thing being snapped. And not at all, I quite enjoyed reading that – especially as I was in my rather boring computing class at the time. Heh, glad you enjoyed, and that you like my Ginny. I hoped she'd go over well.

ISC – Oh dear…letting them out might help, yes. Although you might want to see if you can get someone else to do it for you so you don't get killed and all. Hope you enjoyed Harry's…Harryness.

Kail Ceannai – Thanks for all. And that's a good question, I wonder…but anyway, even if they don't say vanishing act, Ron could have always picked it up off 'Mione. And hm. I'm beginning to think that my Pratchett addiction is more influential to my writing than I thought…

Kurai Shinigami – Thanks! And who knows who else will show up, I'm sure that Lily and the rest of that lot up there wont be the only ones.

-KattyKoo- – Why thank you.

mlovektowsing – Yay, thanks. And I'm glad Ginny has been liked so well.

FreedomStar – Well I'm glad you did, and that you think so. Ta.

Next chapter, the kitchen is investigated and Albus Dumbledore does something immeasurably stupid.

Please review!

S. Wolf