AN: new chapter up, enjoy.

Chapter 51 - His Choice

"Choose your destiny."

Those words kept reverberating in his mind. He had never been given the chance to choose his destiny before. A prophecy had dictated the course of his first life and, in his second life, Death had reincarnated him without asking for his consent - Harry had not wanted to live a second time. Not in the beginning.

'How insignificant we, humans, are,' he thought. 'Millions of us die every year. Many of us don't even know if there is anything in the afterlife. We don't know where we come from and where we'll go after death. Our lives are fleeting, only an instant in the river of time.'

Death did not disturb him, nor did it try to rush him into making a decision. It glided around him soundlessly, patiently waiting for his answer.

'And, to top it all, we aren't unique even as individuals, are we? There is more than one Harry Potter. There is more than one Earth. There is more than one dimension, more than one Universe.'

Thinking of all those things, Harry could not help asking himself:

'Why?'

For what reason had someone like Death taken notice of someone like him? Because he was more powerful than most wizards alive in the present day? Surely, in the countless parallel universes in existence there had to be many other versions of Harry Potter that were even stronger than himself. Even in the history of wizardkind, there were many tales and legends of people who could do things much more impressive than him. People such as Merlin, Morgana, Circe... ...even some of the "gods" whose powers he was borrowing through his totems were said to have been such powerful individuals too. It was also believed that the Olympian and Asgardian gods from the Muggle myths had also been nothing more than wizards and witches as well.

Given that Death was not restricted by time and space, it could have chosen anyone else from any point in history.

'Why did Death choose me? Why is Death so adamant about making me their emissary?'

Death had given him a second chance at life and it had even bent the laws of nature by bringing a girl back in time solely for the sake of making him grow attached to his new life. Why go so far for someone like him, a mere human?

When he lifted his head, determination burned in his eyes.

"You want me to become your Emissary? I'm not opposed to that. However," Harry said, stressing on the last word, "I'd have to be insane to bind myself to you for eternity."

The temperature dropped sharply in his surroundings as Death's cold voice rasped next to his face:

"Are you trying to haggle with Death?"

Harry felt his heart sink. But then, the disembodied voice burst into laughter. That eerie cackle made his skin break into goosebumps.

"A mortal haggling with Death as if they were in a bazaar. How amusing! I have not laughed like that in forever."

Two ice-cold bony fingers grabbed his chin and Harry could not find the strength in himself to even attempt resisting.

"You are one little soul, from one little planet, from a tiny solar system, from a galaxy that's barely out of its diapers. One of the countless galaxies from one of the countless dimensions in existence. What makes you think you are qualified to stand and negotiate with me?"

Gritting his teeth for a moment, Harry steeled his resolve. The consequences of his gamble could go horribly wrong but if he had to suffer eternal damnation either way, at least he would do it on his own terms.

"You said it yourself. I'm just one insignificant human, from a tiny planet, from one of the countless alternate dimensions in existence. But out of all the wizards and witches that have existed or will exist from now on, out of all the living beings from the countless worlds out there, YOU chose ME. You invested in me. You gave me a second chance at life and even changed the fate of millions of people, simply because you wanted me. I am not insignificant. You chose me. Therefore, I have value. That is my qualification."

When the ice-cold bony fingers let go of his chin Harry felt relief wash over him.

"I was not wrong to choose you, Harry Potter," Death said and - was it only an illusion on Harry's part? - there was a tinge of admiration in his voice. "Tell me your conditions."

"I'll become your Emissary only one lifetime," Harry said and then he quickly added, afraid that Death would refuse him right away: "Trading a few dozen years in exchange for eternity isn't a fair deal, not at all. Even if I don't go back now and choose to pass on into the afterlife, I would still get to meet my loved ones after some time passed. I think one lifetime is fair. It's-"

"Three!" Death cut him off. "Most humans never get a second chance at life, much less a third chance like you. You owe me three lifetimes."

"...three, but this world is included in that number. After all, Voldemort is far from gone so I still have my work cut out for me," Harry said. He could have not hoped for a better result so he accepted the compromise. He did not dare to test his luck any further.

As Death did not reply right away, Harry was starting to get inwardly nervous. Had he pushed Death's limits too far?

"So be it. But I do have some conditions of my own too: you won't be able to leave a world until you accomplish my mission and restore the balance. Even if you are to die a thousand times in the process, I will bring you back every single time-"

"Sounds fair-" Harry began to say but Death was not done listing their conditions yet.

"-BUT! Every time you get killed and I have to bring you back, you will owe me another human's lifetime of service. A life for a life. These are my final terms. Non-negotiable. Take it or leave it."

Harry took in a deep breath before saying:

"I'll take it. I accept."

⁂

Filled with tension and afraid of eternal damnation, his conversation with Death had been a long one from his perspective. But when Harry regained consciousness, it was just in time to hear the familiar crack made by Apparition. Weakly opening his eyes, he found himself at the outskirts of a forest, lying on the dewy grass. It was night.

"We're almost there, 'ang on, 'Arry!" a voice came from his side. That sweet vocal timbre and the soft omission of the 'h' consonant in her words made her voice unmistakable.

"Fleur," he called out her name.

"Thank Merlin you're alright," she said as she knelt next to him to check his condition. "I saw you collapse and then the Aurors and Dumbledore were walking towards you and I didn't know what happened, I thought the worst, I was so scared for you and I-" she began to ramble but, he stood up (albeit with difficulty) and wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace.

"I'm alright. Everything is fine," he whispered as he buried his face into her hair and nuzzled her neck.

Relief flooded her at his words and, as the adrenaline started to leave her system, her entire body started to shake. Thinking back to the moment when she faced off against a furious Dumbledore and several dozens of Aurors and members of the Order of the Phoenix was making her tremble unconsciously.

"I'm glad I took you with me," Harry mumbled while rubbing her back comfortingly and caressing the back of her head gently. "You save my ass tonight. Again."

She chuckled involuntarily at his words and tightened her hold on him.

"Wasn't the knight supposed to save the damsel in distress? When was the script flipped like that?" she mumbled and Harry laughed.

Eventually, they broke their hug but Harry still kept her hand in his, his eye never leaving hers. To Fleur, it had looked like he had merely fallen unconscious. She had no idea how close it had been for them to never see each other again. She did not know that he had just had an encounter with one of the most powerful forces in the Universe or that he had technically died. In the end, he could not hold back his want for intimacy and embraced her again. Although he did not say anything, Fleur could feel his turbulent emotions. It took a long time before he finally let go of her.

"We should get back to 'ogwarts as quickly as possible," Fleur said after a while and stood up, also lifting him with her to stand too. "The 'ole country will be thrown into chaos tomorrow. We need to lay low for some time and not draw any sort of suspicion to us."

"Yeah."

As Fleur used her wand to cancel all the transfiguration charms that they had used to change their appearance, Harry watched in fascination how her short hair became longer than her waist and silvery-gold, her brown eyes turned into a baby blue, her lips became fuller and redder, her cheekbones and jawbone a bit more defined and her eyelashes longer and denser. He had gotten used to being together with someone as attractive as her but there were still times when her beauty took his breath away.

But when he leaned in to kiss her, her palm covered his mouth and she looked at him disgruntled.

"If you want to kiss me, you better change your face back first! No way I'll kiss you when you look like someone else!"

He let out a short awkward chuckle as he dispelled his disguise too. So absorbed he had been by her charm that he had forgotten that he too had been wearing the appearance of a different person. But he did not try to kiss her again after that. He felt weakened and he could barely stand. Leaning on Fleur's shoulder for support, the two of them slowly walked towards Hogsmeade. They were planning on using the secret passage that led to the mirror on the fourth-floor corridor to sneak back into the school.

⁂

As Fleur had predicted, the following day was pandemonium. Unlike the scene from the Forest of Dean during the Birmingham Hunt, this time around, it was impossible for the Ministry of Magic to conceal what had happened because there were simply too many people present at the scene. The first page of the Daily Prophet was covered by a large moving picture showing the scene where a tornado appeared out of nowhere, wrecking the Bones mansion and the Fiendfyre Curse that took the shape of an immense dragon. The second page was also covered by a photo of an invisible blade slicing the dragon of fire in half and parting the cloudy night sky in two like the Red Sea.

The author of the article went on to describe in great detail the clash between the mysterious assailant and the former lover of the Minister of Magic. At first, people had been inclined to believe that Amelia Bones had been the target of the attack but when the attacker did not even attempt to stop the Aurors from rescuing her, they understood that Amelia's lover than been the target all along.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't collect your totems too before we left. I could only take your wand. The situation was too dire, I wasn't sure we'd be able to escape at all," Fleur apologized when she saw the article mentioning the "mystical wooden poles covered in Ancient Runes" that the Aurors had retrieved from the crime scene.

"Don't worry. I can carve another set. It's not a big deal. The main totems are at the Blackthorn. The ones that I've been carrying on me are more like an antenna of sorts. These portable totems are easier to carve, I don't need to write the entire mythology of the gods on them," Harry said and patted her hand to reassure her.

"But what if they discover your identity? What if they find out the secret to your powers?" she asked worriedly.

Harry took a big bite out of a tart and chewed slowly, savouring the sweet taste.

"The funny part is that the more they know, the stronger my Shamanic magic becomes," Harry said with a grin before going taking another bite out of his apple tart. Seeing the look of doubt on her face, he explained: "You've ever wondered how my totems work? How do I get to cast such powerful magic by borrowing the power of the gods? Are gods even real? - Bella certainly seems to not believe they exist."

"I-... 'onestly 'ave no idea," Fleur admitted, realizing that she had never thought too deeply about Harry's Shamanism.

"To put it simply, it's make-believe."

"You're pulling my leg."

"I'm serious," Harry said and chuckled at her reaction. "Gods - the kind that you can read about in myths - well, they don't exist. But spirits are very much real and they can be very powerful. Remember when we were trying to find a way to get rid of the Jinx plaguing the DADA teaching position? Back then, Bella found a book at the Department of Mysteries that spoke about wizardkind's attempts at artificially creating Poltergeists."

"I remember, it was a failure, right? Poltergeists like Peeves couldn't be created artificially. They appear randomly in places filled with negative emotions and feelings. But what does that 'ave to do with your Shamanism?" she asked, not seeing the connection.

"The gods - the spirits - whose powers I'm borrowing through my totems have been born in a similar fashion. If the negative emotions and feelings of a few hundred students could give birth to a Poltergeist like Peeves, imagine what could the imagination, faith, and reverence of millions of people give birth to."

Fleur's eyes widened in surprise.

"One of the gods I'm worshipping had actually been a real person in the past. For example, Shango, the God of Thunder and Storm had been a real person a few thousand years ago, he is one of the ancestors of the Yoruba people from Nigeria, Africa. But people's faith, worship, imagination and belief in him even after he died gave birth to a spirit that took on his attributes and enhanced them. As their faith became stronger, so did the spirit's power too. Of course, there are also spirits that have been born purely out of people's imagination."

She did not know what to say to that. Modern magic scholars, contemporary spell-crafters, alchemy and charms masters adopted the theory that although magic seemed like a power devoid of logic and reason, it did have, in fact, its own set of rules, its own logic that it followed. As an aspiring Charms mistress, Fleur was very much aware of those theories and believed in them. What Harry was telling her now, however, subverted much of her belief and knowledge.

"The wizards and witches that had been born in Europe find it hard to believe in the existence of God or gods in the traditional sense of the word because they have seen first-hand the hypocrisy in the behaviour of the church and their acts of cruelty and greed in the past. There are even some wizards and witches that are still alive and have experienced the witch trials from two or three hundred years ago themselves... ...We live in an agnostic society. But it's different for other regions of the world. There are countries where the existence of gods and beings more powerful than people is common sense. It's not something up for debate, it's a natural part of their lives. If a couple hundred students' negative emotions could give birth to a Poltergeist like Peeves, it shouldn't be hard to imagine what could the unshakable belief of millions of people create over the course of millennia."

Seeing that she remained silent, Harry continued:

"That is to say, the more people acknowledge their existence, the more powerful these spirits become. The Unspeakables will have a field day studying my totems and the origin of my magic and I'm sure that many scholars are now engaged in a race to see who will publish the results of their research first. But in my eyes, what they're doing is no different than apostles preaching and spreading the name of their gods," he said with a grin.

"But if everyone can find out 'ow to become a Shaman like you, won't you lose your advantage?" Fleur asked after a while.

"Well, you know how to become a shaman: all it takes is to "make-believe". Can you do it? Can you believe with all your heart that they exist, that they are intelligent, that they have their own will and that they are their own person?"

"... I don't think I can," she conceded.

It was almost impossible for someone who had never believed in anything their entire life to suddenly start believing in the existence of some spirits worshipped by a bunch of people from halfway across the Globe, spirits to whom they could not relate, spirits that they were unfamiliar with.

"There you have it," Harry said smugly and then he continued wolfing down his breakfast. Probably because he had died last night, he felt ravenous. Being given yet another chance at life made him appreciate the small things even more than before.

"But 'ow did you become a Shaman? 'Ow can you believe in those spirits? You were born in Europe, just like me, no?"

Harry stopped eating for a moment and hummed in thought, choosing his words carefully before replying.

"When you're in the pit of despair, you'd do anything to escape. You'd do anything for salvation... or for revenge. Even striking a deal with the Devil wouldn't look like a bad idea at that moment. Those days... I'd rather not remember them. It was the darkest period of my life. The people I used to think of as my family had been murdered, my friends were dead too, and even my comrades-in-arms died during our 2nd war with Voldemort. I managed to kill him in the end but Kingsley, Flitwick, and McGonagall also died in the process. I was left handicapped too, Voldemort took my right arm from the shoulder. That's how I've become left-handed."

He made another pause appearing to be lost in thought.

"That's when I left the UK. There was nothing left for me to stay. I didn't have any family or friends left. I didn't have a home, I didn't have a lover. I was alone in the world. I had nothing to lose anymore so I started travelling the world, looking for Voldemort's shade - I knew he was not fully dead, I had seen his ghost rising from his dead body and escaping. My travels took me all over the world. Back then, vengeance was the only thing that kept me going. I lost count of how many dark wizards and witches I killed. I was the talk of the entire Wizarding World. People were looking at me as if I was the new Dumbledore. A more violent and cruel Dumbledore, obsessed with killing dark wizards. But eventually, I arrived in Nigeria. That's where I came in contact with the spirits for the first time. The rest is history."

"Aww, come on, don't stop now!" she whined and pulled at his sleeve. "I want to hear the rest! Or, better yet, why don't you show me your memories? What did you do after that? 'Ow was the final war against Voldemort? You said it was comparable to the war of Grindelwald from the '40s. I want to know more!"

"Nope!" he said and lightly flicked her on the forehead. Then, he changed the subject and said with a grin: "I can't wait to see Bella's face when we meet next. She was saying that Shamanism is a scam and that Shamans are just a bunch of useless charlatans cheating people of their money. I wanna see what is she gonna say now."