It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.

-François Marie Arouet, Under the Pen Name "Voltaire"

Chapter One: Penitence

Everything was pitch black as if Harry had his eyes closed.

"What happened? Where am I?" he asked to no one in particular and he didn't expect an answer .

"You're dying..." a dull disembodied voice replied.

"What do you mean? Who are you? Speak to me!" Harry yelled, his heart was beating fast and he felt disturbingly vulnerable. Trying his best to understand his predicament, Harry could only have called out to the voice.

"If you open your eyes you will understand death by its visage."

What? He thought about it but didn't question it. Harry tried his best to open his eyes, but through all his effort he only managed seeing a streak of white light. Then a terrible feeling slapped him in the face and it hurt, really hurt: whenever he tried opening his eyes the pain would become unbearable, it was as if his eyes were stapled together.

"What's wrong with me!" He screamed to the voice, a lump formed in his throat and sobs had begun to arise in his gut from the pain growing in intensity.

"Trust me before you know it you'll forget the pain, however I need you to open your eyes before you do anything else."

Again Harry did not question it. Roaring, Harry forcibly opened his eyes to bright white lights as the pain had all but knocked him unconscious.

Harry quickly tried his best to look around but all he could see was the white light. Fatigued he closed them again, unknowingly falling to darkness.

Harry was sitting in a plush burgundy chair with a black book titled The Songstress in gold leaf on his lap. He opened the book.

Chapter One he read aloud, then continued.

Over the years I've grown accustomed to the irresponsibility of procrastination. Never in my life though would I have guessed I would take a liking to it. However, it was only after the realization of tomorrow did I start to to become paralyzingly infatuated with irony. Yesterday, I found myself hoping to find the love of my life happily laying next to me in bed, only to find that I had killed him the night before and sent a letter to the police telling the details of my crime in the moment of my insanity. Who would've guessed? Besides, I told myself what other reason to aspire...

"Interesting little book isn't it?" a soothing young voice called out.

Harry looked to the direction of the voice, putting the book on the chair as he stood up.

A man of about twenty was standing in front of him. The man's face was twenty but what was unusual about him was the wavy white hair that was carelessly made as if he had just gotten off a broom. He was tall too, about six foot two. Also unusual was his eyes, they were light gray, something Harry heard was a rarity. He was dressed in a ornate black hooded coat that fell to his knees.

"Where are we?" Harry asked him immediately.

The man walked ever closer to Harry, eyes carefully studying him.

"In you." He said simply.

"Me? I don't think I understand." Harry said truthfully, cautious of the man eyeballing him.

"We are in your mind, the center of your brain, the control room of your body." He said.

"Why are we here? And why are you here if this is my brain?"

"You're dead. Actually I think it's more accurate to say you died. And about me being in you, well let's just say I am but a person to help you become "undead.""

"So I truly did it? I really killed myself?" Harry asked unsurprisingly, which he thought was disconcerting.

"Yes, and you made quite the spectacle, do you know how hard it is to take the body of the deceased boy-who-lived in the middle of the Ministry of Magic?"

"I can only imagine." Harry said unenthusiastically, the realization he had had committed suicide was only beginning to dawn on him.

"Hard." The man said seriously, eyes unblinking.

Harry looked around, aside from the chair, himself and the man, Harry could only guess they were in some type of purgatory. A white room where there was an absence of dimensions and no latitude or longitude. He looked back at the man.

He broke the silence.

"My name is Lucifer. And I am planing on giving you a second chance."

"Lucifer?" Harry asked, a bit apprehensive by the name. "As in the devil: Satan, Lucifer?"

Lucifer chuckled. "I get that quite a lot. No, my name means Morning star, a star that's been confused for Venus, after the fallen king of Babylon and another for Syria, not the fallen angel: that is in the Bible."

"Well, don't I feel stupid." Harry relieved. "Still how do I know you're not really Satan? Trying to take my soul by a contract of some sort? I heard you say you wanted to bring me back, which would give me a second chance, and that's something I don't want."

"Not that kind of undead-bringing back thing. And the second chance thing is something you might want to hear. And there will be no contract involved. Just your consent."

Bemused by how he ignored Harry's first question he started again, "You didn't answer my question. How do I know?"

"You don't. However, if it calms you, I am made to always tell the truth."

Harry thought about it before deciding it sounded sketchy"I don't like it. You can forget giving me a second chance at my current life, it's a load of shite anyways."

Lucifer sighed.

"Well alright, I guess you can stay here reading that pleasant book of yours." He pointed to The Songstress. Harry looked at the book at revulsion, apparently Lucifer saw it and offered him a reprieve."Anyway, who said anything about second chances in your current life? Come, I think you should learn about the details."

A door materialized from above them and landed in front of Lucifer. He opened it and motioned Harry to enter. Before Harry could enter he felt a surge of warm wind hit his face something the white room of the purgatory was missing. He looked around.

The room was dark, the room also had a greatly heightened ceiling reaching double that of a storey, had a heavy atmosphere much like a humid cave. A desk was in the centre, facing a black cushioned chair.

Lucifer closed the door behind Harry. He took out his wand and waved two heavy looking curtains behind the desk letting in the light from purgatory. It was odd seeing nothing but white outside a window, it seemed almost unnatural Harry thought.

Lucifer sat behind the desk. He gestured Harry to sit. As he did so Lucifer motioned with his hand above the desk making files to appear on top. He grabbed a particular one the had a stamp labeled: DEALINGS.

Lucifer glanced over to Harry who felt uncomfortable, not because of Lucifer but because it felt like Harry was about to get some bad news.

"I have files that regard everything about your life, however there's so much that I had to make sud files for you, your friends, everybody." He opened the file and took out a photo. It was a magical mugshot of a man barely twenty. A piece of parchment that was stapled on the right corner of the picture read:

Name: Daregor, Nint

Occupation: DD

Status: Active

Situational Operation: Accomplice to Himpton for the Dealings of Hermione and Ronald Weasley.

POI: High

Lucifer gave another piece of parchment to Harry who took it and read it.

"This... what is this?" Harry asked, letting the surprise and anguish wash over him.

"This is the man who helped set out a deal to have your friends', notably your best friends, deaths. We managed to get one of the top conspirators responsible for the attack on the Weasley's house. Though why they wanted them dead and who originally wanted it done has not been figured. Even though I clearly know who did it."

Harry looked up at Lucifer. "Who? Who did this and why?" He demanded desperately.

Lucifer looked down at a file on top of the desk, he turned it around and pushed it towards him. The cover read: PLAGUE.

Harry gave Lucifer a questioned look, hoping for answers.

Lucifer stood and looked outwards towards purgatory. "His... its name is numerous. One of its more longer names is Qui equitat equum pallidum meaning He who rides the pale horse in the dead language,Yamaraj in another. But today we call him La Plagus."

"I don't care what the name is, all I want to know is who is he!"

"I empathize with you Harry but you got to understand that you're dead, partially because you killed yourself."

Harry immediately calmed when he saw Lucifer's stoic face and agreed with his reasoning.

Surprisingly he managed to avert his rage and asked a question. "Few questions first. Who is the guy and what do you mean by you haven't captured him? Are you an Auror or something? And what do you mean it was partially my fault when I killed myself? I'm pretty sure it was totally my fault."

"Amazing, in the seven years you've certainly outperform Harry." He paused for a moment. "Very well, for trying so hard to be calm I'll answer your questions fully. I'm a founder of a secret society called Legion that's under Vitae Councilium. An organisation built by an extinct race of powerful humans called Immortals. It was made before the Age of Man in response to the Gods, a despotic race of powerful wizard like people. Legion is a paramilitary unit that protects humanity, meaning muggles and wizards alike. I can tell you the details later because I think it'll take a few years to tell the tale. As for who Plagus is, well let's just say he ties in with the founding of Legion. It kills for no reason and its sole purpose in life is to corrupt the "souls" of everything on Earth. We don't know exactly the identity of the thing, but I'm assuming this parasite is using a host body, and even then it never does any job itself. And it is partially my fault because I was in charge I finding its dealings and to try to prevent them, only this time it was way ahead of me. By passing all my information agents and Legion members. Making it impossible for me to protect anyone, especially your friends. And alas, I believe it wanted you and everyone you know dead for this sole reason, it finds you as a threat, a threat that kills itself. Why and how you're connected with this is stupidly unimaginable."

Harry contemplated Plagus. An "it" that spreads around killing people to infect people's souls? Vitae Collusium or whatever it was called fighting it? Immortals? Lucifer's answers had left Harry in a state he would only rarely find himself with Hermione. A state of having gained more questions than answers. However being dead allowed him to digress fairly quickly.

"So Plagus is the one behind all my friends' murders?" He inquired.

"Yes." Lucifer stated plainly.

"And you have no way of knowing why?"

"Exactly right."

"Back to the bringing me back to life thing: how are you going to do it?"

Lucifer became serious, or at least more so as he answered, "Time machine. You're not going to be able to live in your current state, you've made sure to be thorough, however, I do know how to change that."

"So what are you going to use a time turner?"

"No, time turners can only bring you back a couple hours, days if you modify it. Even then it brings you back exactly how you are so you'll remain a puddle of muck. No what we're going to use is an invention of mine. It'll be able to transverse time and space in years. A lot more powerful than a turner. However there is a downside."

Harry braced for the bad news, apprehensive that it might include him in it.

"The machine is built for massive power influx, not accuracy."

"So?"

"So, the fact that my machine uses enough power to send you through years of the past means I can only estimate not pinpoint how far you'll go."

Harry wasn't so sure about this, he didn't want to end up surrounded by dinosaurs. Lucifer must have saw his doubt however as he made sure to reassure Harry.

"However, fear not. The machine can only go back two decades, to the time it was built since you can only go back in time when the machine actually exists."

That relieved some tension in Harry.

"But to more gruesome consequences-"

"There's more?" Harry interrupted.

"This machine acts like it breaks a lot of physics, something mother nature doesn't like. You see she's unpredictable sometimes. If you go back you not only go back to change the time line but you change your fate. Even more so though is that this machine doesn't do this. Think of it as if you're writing down your autobiography and then coming up to your death part, instead of erasing said death, you continue to write your history by saying you went back in time. This is a concept that is essential to your understanding of what we're doing here. Mother nature is going to pissed at you if you don't. She can turn you into a woman, give you teste cancer, or some of the kind. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded. Though he wasn't too sure about what he was really trying to say.

Lucifer looked at him, studying his expression.

"If you understand then I advise we start our training." Lucifer said absentmindedly going to the door.

"What training?"Harry asked, getting up and following Lucifer.

"We're in limbo Harry, This place will act as your playground, anything you want you get. Think of it as a dream."

"Yeah I was meaning to ask you, where exactly are we."

"When you attempted suicide and blew yourself up like you did Legion agents were quick to put you to sleep, I then made sure your heart and everything else essential for life was functioning. I entered your mind through Legimens, I met you in a dream world of your making, then I had you sleep in it, entering your dream. This makes sure I can talk to you for longer periods of time."

"How so?" Harry asked interested about this.

"Well, when you sleep you have a time dilation sort of effect, and when you sleep in dreams the dilation is increased. So a second in the real world is half a minute in your dream world, then perhaps in the next dream it'll be a minute for every second in the latter dream then maybe a minute and half the next and so forth so forth."

"How many times have I went to sleep then?"

"Enough." Lucifer said in a balmy voice.

"How long is training then?"

"I'll estimate around thirty years."

Harry may have heard the loudest silence ever. Followed by the largest brain fart he's ever heard.

"Thir... Thirt... Thirty y-y-years! You do realize that is a three with a zero next to it right?" Harry exclaimed in an almost condescending manner.

Lucifer nodded.

"I was hoping for longer but unfortunately we hit limbo sooner than I had hoped. Which means I will not be able to teach you a lot of the history of Vitae and the Immortals. I will however be able to teach you some philosophical aspects of life, defense, strategy, tactics, balancing, empowerment techniques, hand to hand combat, and I guess some other things would help as well..." Lucifer went on as if he was crossing things out off a list mentally.

Harry didn't know it but for the next thirty years the training he was about to endure was to make him become one of Britain's most learned wizard, all before he turned seventeen.

A/N I hope I'm going off to a good start? You should tell me :) click ze review but'un and win ze prize of ze lie' time, mah ever enduring love! You know you want it ;)

P.s. The next Chapters were inspired entirely by Agnostics Puppet. One of my few favorited authors here on FFN!

P.s.s. Excuse any of my spelling typos, I'm hoping to rewrite this story once I finish it. So don't hate on any missed wordings or the like.

Jaa nee!