"I feel… good... can't remember ever feeling like this. It's like drinking too much coffee with an extra-large dose of painkillers." Harry looked in marvel at his hands and arms, no longer stick-thin with the little amount of muscle he had acquired from quidditch over the years.

With an unconscious wave of his hand he conjured a mirror, to look at the rest of the changes he felt whilst absorbing the power of the Hallows. Channelling his inner Ron, he found the right words "What the bloody hell!"
He could swear he heard the grin in Deaths tone: "Surprised Harry? I told you, Death is a balance, all life's goal might be death, but death also begets life. Decay and growth. It's nature in its fundamentals. And so, in death you found the life that was taken from you, the … cosmetic… changes notwithstanding."

"Yeah… you don't say… I mean, I kind of understand the eyes" looking closely at his image in the mirror than back to the unnatural eye in the darkness, "but why the hell is my hair white, like Dumbledore's beard, 'because you're worth it', white?"
Instead of answering, Death showed him directly in his mind, how the cloak was fashioned from the hairs of the first thestral. The creature being one of the first creations that Death brought to the magical world. Invisible to those not marked by death, it sported a mane of purest white on its leathery skeleton head.

"It's still weird to see me like that… so Death, what can I do with the stuff?"

"First of all, that *sigh* 'stuff'… is now part of the magic, that is innate to your person. You are no longer 'Just Harry' as you would have it. You are still you, of course, but at the same time you can imagine it as me blood-adopting you. You might become invisible and -excuse the pun- silent as the grave. Your eyes are now able to see the fabric of magic and reality, albeit in a simplified form, as I have no wish to turn your brain to goob making you try to comprehend cosmic multidimensional forces. And no *a deeper sigh*, the wand will not turn you into a 'OP god of magic, that instakills all the noobs' Harry. The wand is or rather was part of my power of the cycle, of Samsara, given form. It gave your body a kind of rebirth, healing you and making you the best version of yourself. Your regeneration times will be significantly improved, your body being in tune with magic and the cycle allowing you to forgo sleep and nutrition if you need to or so desire. As for the *argh* 'epic magic skills', and I would really appreciate you taking this more seriously… don't say it!... you might find, that you will be quite adept at using the art you humans have dubbed necromancy… so droll…"

"So, it's all 'I absorb vast amounts of cosmic powers and all I got was this stumbling zombie army?" Harry asked, the Cheshire grin a growing fixture.

"No, once we are through with the 'crazy fast training montage' -that's been repeated in your about 72 times by now- you may raise an army of skeletons or equally take the lifeforce from your enemies and allies' flesh and give it form anew. What you are not allowed to do, as it defeats the whole purpose of the afterlife, is permanently pulling back departed souls or damaging souls like riddle did."

"Ghosts?" – "usable" – "Wraiths?" – "same difference" – "Dementors?" – "despite common misconceptions, not my servants or some such. But yes... since they're basically mutant Frankenwraiths they're as much fuel as any other rogue spirit" – "ok, one more… Inferi?" – "like dementors, they feed on souls, in their case to animate the dead body beyond its limits. That's why instead of those filthy things I recommend the usage of the lifeforce of the flesh to animate the skeleton. No souls are harmed in the process, in fact they leave the plane of existence faster that way. Your power over decay should break them down quite well and send the damaged souls into the Beyond."

"Thanks Death, may I meet my family now before we do the whole 'training montage' thing? And you still haven't explained how to get 'out of here' or addressed the whole Voldebaby thingy that's still dangling over there"

Once again Dumbledore's voice came to him "All in good time, Harry my boy"

"Could you please stop that? It was funny the first time, but I'm not exactly his biggest fan after finding out he practically engineered my martyr complex, and I absolute loathed being called anyone's 'boy'".

"Of course, my apologies. As for the 'Voldebaby, that's the amount of his soul you and your friends have already sent my way. The biggest part still remaining in his body, you have here about 28 % of a soul. I try to remain neutral, but as I said, the mutilation and damaging of souls is a disturbance to the balance of things and as such will be punished. At the moment this amalgam of his soul shards experiences every bit of pain he induced, directly and indirectly, to create his soul anchors. Which, as you know, includes the brutal murder of his father and grandparents, as well as the poison that killed Hepzibah Smith and the anguish it caused Hokey, her framed house elf."

"You know I pity him, but I can't say he doesn't deserve punishment after everything he has done."

"It is the problem of free will, on one hand we are dealt our cards by Fate and on the other it depends wholly on us how we will play them. As for your family, I have created a mnemonic password to take you to them, they are waiting for you, even if time moves different here, it still moves. I've taken it from Goethe, part of a poem called 'Hoffnung' – 'Hope', I found it to be fitting. Speak after me: 'Ein Flügelschlag - und hinter uns Äonen'. (A wingbeat – and behind us aeons)."

Harry did, with more or less broken german -but hey, it's the intend that counts-, and was promptly buried under a dogpile of happy faces, all wanting to hug him to death on the floor, of what looked like the Gryffindor common room. That is until one Lily Potter made it quite clear, under heavy use of her trademark Evans glare and two very enthusiastically employed elbows, who was going to greet Harry properly first. Whilst James and Sirius took a few steps back, holding their stomachs, Lily stood in front of him her hands on his shoulders, tears glistening in her eyes. "Hello my little angel".

"Hello mum." He closed the distance and pressed a soft kiss on her forehead, mirroring what had saved his life 16 years ago.

She took his hand and guided him to one of the sofas in front of the fireplace, while the two men, still recovering, took a seat in two armchairs facing them. "Hey there son" "Welcome Harry", they said at the same time, only to cast a mock glare at each other for having spoken at the same time.

"Hi d…Dad" Harry choked a bit, "Wotcha Padfoot".

"So then, Harry, first off don't worry about Dumbledore, the moment he arrived here your mother gave him quite the scare" his father supressed the chuckling coming up "currently he's in another part of the Beyond permanently having to deal with situations he has absolutely no control over, it's driving him quite mad. Your mother and Ariana, his sister, started it with berating him for his treatment of you, followed by them deciding what would be a fitting punishment for the old spider."

"Secondly" Sirius picked the sentence up like Gred and Forge did "nice one on offing Peter, he's with his own mother at the moment, and believe me… his mother's disappointment hits him harder than Voldys Cruciatus or a firm kick by Prongs could ever hope to achieve."

"What I believe these two Erumpents want to say" Lily interrupted "is that we're very happy that you've become such a fine young man, despite all attempts to make your live miserable". The genuine love he could see in their eyes made him blush a bit.

"We were on the edge of our seats a few times watching over you, whenever we felt you were in danger. And how you crumbled after Sirius joined us here… we feared it had broken you, but you still carried on. My brave boy as much a lion as you were a clever snake hiding your true thoughts from Dumbledore."

"How did you know mum?"

"We know how Petunia and Vernon 'raised' you. You would never trust an unknown adult with no personal connection to you. Especially someone who acts overly nice and familiar. Harry my boy, my ass!" - "Mum!"- "What? Who do you think you get your temper from?"

He looked over to his father. "Pfft. Don't look at James, he might have been a prankster and a bully to Severus, but his parents raised him to be a 'polite and upstanding young man' as your grandpa Fleamont put it."

"Okay mum I get it." He laughed.

The next few 'hours' were spent catching up, discussing his adventures, his friends, his hidden allies, the mess to which he would return after his 'still calling it an epic training montage'. The most embarrassing thing was to be given the Talk… but who else but Harry Potter could claim to have been given an explanation about human reproduction and love, that by the way turned his face redder than his mother's hair, by his dead family.

When their conversation finally turned to a lull, the happy quartet sipping on butterbeer, Harry had only one Question left for the moment. "So guys… wanna help me train with Uncle Morty?"