A heartfelt thank you to my first followers: Sentinel951, Morli84, sexy demon neko ciel, didile, Bigbaz, sourstrawberries, crazy dragon ninja, hitomi-tama, and Ybarra87. Also, to the first people to favorite this story, Little Green Faerie of Doom, Tired-Paws, LunarRoseFox, and The Ginnger Ninja. And another thanks to Sentinel951 and the guest (Hi, Ania!) for the reviews that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! I might be overreacting, but it's my first time and I couldn't stop smiling for around ten minutes after I got the notifications!

To Reithandina (another review, thank you!), yeah, something like that, but it might change as I continue writing. Like, I was thinking (and then forgot to put this in the original A/N) that if I want all the stuff that happens in the books to happen, then maybe I should condense it a bit if I want Harry and Peter to start out at age fourteen. So, I guess, here's a bit of an update: let's pretend he still goes to school at around age 10 and all the crazy from the books just happens in 4-ish years instead of 6-ish years. Oi vae, poor Harry never catches a break.

This story will (probably) get updated once or twice a week, I'll try to keep it to twice unless there's an unknown factor that pops up to ruin my schedule. Reviews will typically be responded to at the end, after the A/N, in the rest of the chapters. I'll try my best to answer and hold myself to these promises!

Sorry to keep you from reading!

Lucky

Chapter Two: Death Is Not A Man

He blinked. Once. Twice. He could hardly believe that he was blinking. He was supposed to be dead. That was the plan! He didn't think dead people could blink. Harry lifted his head from where it was cradled by his folded arms and hauled himself to his feet.

The landscape around him was white, pure and only white so that he couldn't even tell where the floor – because he had to be standing on something – ended and the walls began. Were there walls? He couldn't tell. A probing hand felt his glasses still perched on his nose, though brilliantly askew and hindered by a messy lock of raven hair dropping down in front of his eyes. Harry's sharp eyes caught the small movement from the corner of his vision and he watched with interest as the room, place, whatever he was in took shape, resembling a train station… King's Cross!

He barely caught half a second's view of the two figures in the station before it all began to fade to grey. However, they stood burned into his retinas. An image of his old, deceased headmaster, Dumbledore, and a small, slimy thing curled up in the corner. The Dumbledore… ghost, perhaps? … nodded only once before disappearing into the grey as it darkened from light to dark, from dark to black. And then Harry was still at King's Cross, but now everything was the deepest black he suspected he would ever see. It was like the white, so complete that he couldn't see if there were walls, where they began, if that was the sky or the roof. King's Cross station stood freely and void of life in the night-dark, save Harry himself, intent on making him feel as alone as possible.

But he was used to that.

And when a woman appeared from nowhere with nary the telltale crack of apparition? Well, even after all his years in the wizarding world, he wasn't used to that. So, he jumped and stumbled back, almost falling back onto his butt from tripping over his own feet. The woman watched with a small smile and an eyebrow quirked in amusement. She was in no hurry.

Harry took his own time to study her, the only other person here… if she was a person. He still wasn't sure if he was dead or not. This lady, though, could be. Her milk-white skin stood out in stark contrast to their surroundings and her paleness almost reminded him of Voldemort, but his was only sickly while hers was somehow natural over her body. Her hair hung short and black, cropped at chin length with triangular bangs, the same ebony color as the eyes that pierced him with a curious and somehow understanding gaze. The lady's somewhat curvy figure was highlighted by a short, black lace pencil dress, but the dark hooded cloak that billowed around her threw him off a bit. That and the fact that she was holding an upright silver scythe that was slightly taller than she was and glinted brightly with the connector chain on her cloak in the non-existent light. Which didn't make much sense.

"Hello, Harry James Potter," she greeted with a tilt of her head.

"Um, hey," he replied eloquently. "I- you already know my name. Are you Death?"

"Yes."

"Oh, uh… cool." Harry stared at her with wide eyes behind his round glasses for a few awkward moments. The now-dubbed Death looked right back at him, seeming to do her own once-over of the boy, before cracking a smile that completely discarded the previous tense atmosphere.

"Well, now that introductions are out of the way," Death began, waving a hand to the side, "would you like to sit down? You've had quite the… not day… life?" A light grey couch popped into existence to Harry's right, which the entity immediately plopped down on and patted the cushion beside her. "Don't be shy. Where's that Gryffindor courage?"

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously but shrugged and mumbled, "I was almost Slytherin, you know." Sitting down next to her, he allowed himself to relax a bit into the cushy seat, leaning his head back and up at the infinite black. The wizard sighed in a way that was far too old for his actual age. "So, I'm dead and you're Death. Did I at least drag Riddle down with me?"

She nodded sympathetically. "Yes, to it all. Tom Riddle, your Lord Voldemort, died exactly one second after you did. Impeccable timing, I must say."

"Thanks." It wasn't really surprising, the fact that he was dead. How else could he meet with Death? It was part of the plan, anyway. For Voldemort to die, he had to first. And not even because of the stupid prophecy, just because the idiot fooled around with the Dark Arts too much and accidently shoved a piece of his soul into Harry. Real Dark Lord material right here guys. "Why did you want to see me? Assuming you don't meet with every sad little boy that dies."

"No," the ethereal Death laughed. Death laughed. That was a weird notion. "You are special."

"Bloody brilliant," came the sarcastic response.

"Oh, not because of the whole 'Boy-Who-Lived' thing," she chuckled again, putting honest-to-Merlin air-quotes around his title. "Let me tell you, that was ridiculous. The fact that they believed a one-year-old human child to defeat Voldemort by himself? Preposterous."

"Thank you!" Harry exclaimed and threw his arms in the air. "Did no one remember it was my parents' spells and love, not me? But, truly, why am I here? Not that you aren't good company, ma'am, but I'm hoping this has nothing to do with your Hallows."

"Thank you, Harry," she sighed. "To put aside your worry, no, this is not about the Deathly Hallows. The 'Master of Death' mythos was just that, a myth. Though the cloak, stone, and wand did hold power, they were never the key. Simply legends spun by bragging Peverell's and eager wizards." The younger blew out a relieved breath, though not failing to notice how Death's age seemed to catch up with her with those words. They must have caused her a great deal of trouble and she'd probably seen much, seeing as Death was always there and always would be, from before the beginning to after the end.

"Did you want them back?"

"No, they were next to nothing."

"What do you mean?"

"The Invisibility Cloak was one of my old robes from when I was younger and more… mischievous. The Resurrection Stone used to be a way I could locate lost souls that were having a hard time getting to the Afterlife before I found out I didn't need a focus point. The Elder Wand was just a stick I used to annoy Fate with." Harry was having a hard time not picturing Death as one of the Marauders, or as a first-year Hogwarts student, though he was stuck on the idea of Death being younger, one that both confused him and made him wonder how Death's aging process worked. Despite popular opinion, he wasn't entirely clueless. When you lived with Hermione, you learned a thing or two about… well, everything.

"I'm not sure how that stick ended up working as a wand," she continued. "Maybe Fate hit it when she meant to hit me? I did used to annoy him quite a bit." He nodded absently, now quite sure Death would've been a good Marauder, and tried to digest the fact that Fate was apparently genderfluid. Sitting up from his lounging position and blinking a few times, his brain managed to fit it all in with his personal world of weird. It wasn't the most far-fetched thing. The three brothers had though Death was a man and he'd long since made his peace with the homosexual and transgender people at Hogwarts, who in turn helped him through a number of his own personal dilemmas. Including the time when he was having a sort of embarrassing existential crisis and found out he was bi. That was… interesting. He shook himself out of his thoughts with a twitch of his head and realized they'd been sitting in silence for more than a few seconds.

"Sorry," Harry apologized unnecessarily as Death waved it off. "We've gotten off topic."

"You are fine," she dismissed with a shining smile. "I rarely get anyone to talk to. I've enjoyed this." He blushed under the compliment before inquiring once again why she wished to see him. Death responded with a weary sigh. "I've seen much in my long life. Death is present everywhere, be it this world or another."

"There are other worlds?!" he interrupted excitedly before squeezing his lips back shut. "Sorry. Continue."

And Death did, in an amused tone. "I have seen much good and much bad, much joy and much suffering. And I have done my duty through it all. I have escorted the souls whose time it is to pass on to the Afterlife. But I only take the souls whose time it really is." She fixed him with those black orbs and for the first time, Harry could see how powerful this being truly was. How infinite Death was. "Harry Potter, it is not your time."

"Why?" The word was so small, so soft, that it was barely heard, even in the absolute silence the void-like area still held. He wanted to see his friends again. And he sure as heck didn't want to go back there, where all he would see was misplaced fame and credit, hate for things he didn't do, and reminders of his dead loved ones. The press was a fickle thing. Death placed a comforting hand on his back as he leaned forward on the edge of his cushion.

"It is not your time and I am sorry," she whispered to him. "I would not wish any of this on anyone. Know this. I am sorry. But there are rules even I must follow." Who knew Death could be so warm?

"Then it's not your fault."

She seemed to perk up a bit, if that was possible. "But you have a choice. That is why you are here." Harry remained in the same position, though he tilted his head curiously at the offer. "You can go back—" This elicited an almost inaudible groan from the Potter boy, which she smiled softly at. "—or you can go somewhere else."

His head whipped up like a shot. "What?"

"Another world," the woman told him calmly. "One without wizards, without magic. You would be… unique."

"Aren't I always." It was a resigned statement, not a question, but he said it with a smirk, his usual attitude coming back. For once, he was getting something he wanted. A fresh start. He could remember Luna's words to him: "Live a better life. For yourself." The smirk grew into a shaky smile at the thought of a new life, one with no prophecy, where he could choose for himself, where he might find happiness somehow. "Tell… tell me more about this new world."

"The world," Death said, slightly more professional now, informing him of another universe, "has its own problems."

"Everywhere has problems."

"True," she giggled and composed herself. "But this world's problems are… different. Not entirely unique, but they are different, and you may get involved. It is your choice. If you go, you could even choose to ignore those problems if you wish."

"Unlikely," Harry let out his own laugh. "I have a saving people thing."

They chuckled together. "That you do."

"I want to go," he decided, sitting up straight. "I want to start something new." Death stood elegantly and he with her, just realizing that her sickle had been standing upright on its own by the side of the couch the whole time. Oh.

"I will warn you. You will not have your wand and this world doesn't have the materials for a wand or potion-brewing."

Harry only smirked. "Wandless magic, then. How do you think I survived Horcrux hunting?" Death smiled, a big smile as the boy she'd watched grow up, the boy she'd seen crushed physically and emotionally by his world, returned in defiance of everything. She'd liked this boy since he had miraculously survived Voldemort's attack on his house. He was a survivor.

"Are you ready?"

"I'm ready." And then he knew darkness once more.

Be honest in the reviews. Tell me what you thought of my version of Death. I thought making her a girl would be entertaining, but I didn't really want her to be cold and distant… or too familiar. I'm not sure what I was going for other than a little mysterious and mostly just understanding/exasperated with the multiverse's collection of idiots. I think it went well… you tell me. And yeah, I changed it just a bit so that Harry does wandless magic. I'm lazy like that.

Lucky