Green light fogged Harry's vision as for the first time since he could remember, there was no headache- there was no pain, there was just nothing. As the light dissipated from vision he found himself standing in a queue, startled by this perceived apparition Harry quickly looked around to take in his surroundings. He was near the front of the queue which he found quite fortunate as he could not see the back, he felt quite sorry for those behind him as he had seemingly jumped in front of them all.

"So as I was saying, I have to agree that is looks nothing like I was expecting", Harry look around wondering where the voice was coming from, A man who looked like he had be plucked out of warzone was stood behind him in the queue, he was speaking with an Southern American accent and was dressed head to toe in camouflaged clothes, he was clearly in the middle of rambling and his look as he was going on about his thoughts reminded Harry of Hermione, "I mean I was never religious so I wasn't expecting pearly gates and all but a registries office, makes me laugh how wrong they were".

He locked eyes with Harry as if he was expecting a response, but Harry just looked confused. "I'm sorry, do I know you?", Harry asked, slightly worried that he was insulting the gentleman, "Well I'd hope so, we've been chatting in this queue for what feels like months". This response startled Harry, he had no recollection of being in this queue for more than a minute and here was this man saying that he had been there for months? He felt even worse about the queue jumping now. "I'm sorry Sir, but I've only just got here", Harry was looking down at his toes, too embarrassed to look up and face the man, surely he was going to be angry. But to Harry's surprise the man spoke as if he was in awe, "Wow, you must be important".

Harry quickly looked up in surprise, he had always been called the Chosen One but here was someone who didn't even know his name, and hadn't taken a single look at his scar calling him important, "I'm nobody special"- a meek voice was all Harry could muster, he had too many thoughts flooding through his head to fully concentrate as the man went on another ramble, "I mean they mentioned this at the welcome video but of course you wouldn't have seen that, for them to put you this close to the front of the queue they must really want to speak to you".

Harry pondered over the American soldiers' words wondering what they could mean. He had no idea who was being referred to, and found it rather annoying that the soldiers' rants didn't have as much information in them as Hermione's did. But then again if this soldier had spent what he described as months talking to someone who wasn't actually there then Harry supposed that he wasn't the brightest. Harry had given up listening to the ramblings of the soldier as he was too engrossed with his own thoughts, although he was definitely giving the impression of someone who liked the sound of their own voice. Harry was still deep in his thoughts when he had reached the front of the queue. Only a couple of minutes, at least it felt like that, after first arriving. Harry quickly said goodbye to the Soldier mentally apologising that his conversation partner had only existed for minutes of his months-long journey.

Harry was ushered into a small office with paperwork scattered all over the desk, with a chair next to it looking strangely pristine in the mountains of files that covered the room. Harry walked towards the chair feeling enamoured and pulled in by its neatness before finally sitting down on it. Harry suddenly realised how rude he had been by sitting down in someone's office before being invited too but trying as hard as he liked he could not get out of the chair. Harry's mind entered a state of panic as he realised that he was completely trapped here, he saw the door at the back of the office open and closed his eyes ready to embrace his fate.

"YOU, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING" a deep baritone voice bellowed. Harry felt his stomach curl into a ball with nausea and he sputtered out "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to sit in the chair, I'm so sorry". "YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE FOR A LEAST ANOTHER" The voice paused "I'm sorry, were you just talking about the chair". A light chuckle filled the room which didn't reassure Harry as much as he would have liked but it filled him with enough confidence to slowly open his eyes. On the other side of the desk was a tall muscular man with long straight dark hair, Harry could see that he was softly smiling as he picked up some files. The man looked over to Harry with piercing blue eyes, "Listen boy, keep making me laugh like that and I might even forgive you for almost getting me fired". Harry was confused as whilst the Soldier in the queue had mentioned some things he still didn't understand where he was and why he was there. The tall man sat down at the desk opposite from Harry and his smile quickly disappeared. Once again Harry felt anxious and scared, this man had an aura around him that felt dangerous, although the bellowing shouting as he entered the room had definitely given Harry that impression. The man put his head down and started writing on some documents.

"Now, do you want to tell me what the hell you're doing back in my office again".

Harry spoke up about his confusions which were only compounding the longer he spent in this office,/

"I don't even know where I am, and what do you mean again".

"Then let me catch you up, Hello my name is Lister and I am your own personal Grim Reaper"

"I'M DEAD?" Harry quickly interrupted, leaving an awkward silence in the room as Lister slowly looked up from his paperwork. "Forgive my language but what the fuck did you think was going to happen when you walked into a fucking killing curse".

Harry's mind went back to the moment before he woke up in the queue, he hadn't given much thought into what had happened before he got here as he was more concerned about thinking about where he was, but as he pushed his memory further back he remembered walking into the forbidden forest and letting Voldermort hit him with the killing curse. Harry shrank into his chair having realised what he had done, Dumbledore had been right in Snape's memories, he was just a pig for slaughter.

"Now let me continue, My name is Lister, I'm your own personal Grim Reaper yada yada. This is the sixth time you have been in my office which as you can concur means the sixth time you have died. Now you're starting to wind me up now, I only recently got this promotion to private Reaper and when your case file came onto my desk I thought you would be an easy client to have. I mean fuck, you even had a prophecy that you would reach your destiny, but oh no you couldn't just succeed could you. You keep coming back to my desk time and time and time again and I keep having to send you back and I'm starting to have enough".

Harry felt guilty despite not knowing any of this. He went to speak but Lister continued "I mean I will admit that your destiny wasn't easy, I mean beating two dark lords and their philosophy can't be an easy task but you couldn't even defeat one of them and you let the other one become a martyr"

Panic flooded into Harry's mind as he finally spoke up "What do you mean two dark lords?". Harry had had enough trouble dealing with Voldermort and his horcruxes and clearly he had lost that battle, so the thought of having to deal with that all over again for a second time filled Harry with dread, maybe he was happy to be dead so it's no longer his responsibility. With the Horcrux in Harry's scar hopefully destroyed on Harry's death that left only the snake left before anyone could defeat Voldermort. Hopefully though the wizarding world will be able to deal with a second dark lord by the time they come around.

Lister spoke up again, "Riddle and Dumbledore"- Lister spoke in a way as if what he was saying was blatantly obvious. "Between them those two men have set back wizarding ways for years and they probably will never recover". Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing, how was Dumbledore a dark lord, Dumbledore was the leader of the light and the one person Voldemort was scared of. Riddle wasn't even scared of him, Harry thought, and he was the one prophesied to defeat him.

"But even if your task was difficult you were supposed to have completed it by your 18th birthday and lived a long happy life with your soul mate, don't have her name to hand but think it was some Granger girl or something like that"

Harry had been bombarded with revelations in this meeting but this was the one which shocked Harry the most. He naturally assumed that the Granger girl he was talking about had to be Hermione but that didn't make sense, he was dating Ginny and he was pretty sure that Hermione was dating Ron. Lister had mentioned that he had failed miserably on his destiny, was this just another example. Before that thought had even finished in his mind Lister continued to talk and confirmed Harry's doubts. "Although I'm not even able to blame you for fucking that part up, I never understand how those potions are legal". The last bit was muttered under his breath but Harry was still able to catch it. Then suddenly he had realised what he had thought not even two minutes before. When he was in the queue he wasn't thinking about where he had been, only where he was at the time. With one major exception, Hermione. Hermione was the only thing from before his death he had thought of naturally, everything else he had had to focus on. And potions, why had Lister mentioned potions, although based on the way he had muttered it Harry wasn't sure if he was supposed to have heard it.

Lister reached the end of his clearly practised speech, Harry had been here six times already, and asked if Harry had any question. Pointing out though that the only thing he can tell Harry about is his destiny and everything else Harry has to work out for himself. With this caveat on his questions it limited what Harry had to say, he had so many questions he wanted to ask, Why was Dumbledore considered a Dark Lord? If he and Hermione are soulmates then why were they with the Weasley's? But in the end there was only one question that Harry knew to ask, based on Lister's tone he assumed that he was being sent back to try over again but the one thing he needed to know was "What can we do different to make sure that this time doesn't end up the exact same way".

This question took Lister by surprise, even before he was a private Grim Reaper there had been very few people who had asked that question. And he was dealing with thousands in a day at that point, although they were much simpler cases than the one filling up his office. "How do you know you're going back, how do you know that we aren't just going to punish you for failure and get someone else to pick up the pieces"

"Because I've almost got you fired" Harry's response was calm and collected while Lister had been completely taken aback, a complete reversal of the dynamic they had shared for most of their conversation. "For it to be almost there clearly has to be more I can do which should I fail would get you fired, so I ask my question again- for both of our sakes, what can we do to ensure we reach our goal"

Lister stood up and slowly walked around the desk, the paperwork always moving out of his way so he never stood on it. He walked up to the door and slowly put the latch on ensuring privacy. "There is one thing we can try, something that I am certain will ensure you fulfil your destiny, which given the amount of external factors involved with your destiny I will take any help possible." Lister returned to the desk and perched on the edge of it, with the papers once again moving to avoid being sat on. "You are correct, you will be going back, but I'm going to send you back with complete memories of this conversation, and of your previous life. This goes against everything that I am supposed to do but this is your seventh attempt now and I am getting desperate".

Harry listened intensively, still not entirely sure of what he thought of Lister but if it meant that he had an extra chance of living a normal happy life then he was willing to give it a chance. Lister started to lay out the ground rules. "I am going to send you back to your eleventh birthday, I believe that was the one where you found out you were a wizard, at that point you will have every single one of your original memories. However I cannot risk you getting caught with alternative memories so every single year on your birthday the memories of those past twelve months from your original time will be taken away from you. This will happen every year until you are 18 when you hopefully will have finished your destiny and be ready to live a long and happy life with your soulmate. You get to complete your destiny, I don't get sacked and there is no evidence of any wrong doings from me. It sounds perfect in my mind."

Harry couldn't find any flaws in Lister's plans, although it would mean he would still have to pay attention in class as he wouldn't be able to remember the original class once he was past that year. Although Harry did wonder how much of this was for Harry to live a fulfilling and enjoyable life with Hermione, and how much was Lister just not wanting to get sacked. Although selfish actions have led to noble deeds in the past, Harry quickly asked Lister is there was any way to plan together what Harry needed to do but Lister shut it down quickly, as much as he needed Harry to be successful if Harry knew too many things that even older Harry hadn't know it could be dangerous for the both of them. However Lister did agree to give Harry perfect occlumency as whilst the memories would be deleted, he couldn't risk any Legilimens from finding out about the future. And considering both Dark Lords were some of the greatest legilimens of all time, he could do with the protection. The deletion of the memories was more for his sake as Grim Reapers can get through perfect Occlumens and he couldn't risk them being caught should Harry die before 18

In the end it was time for Harry to be sent back down to earth. Before Harry left Lister's office he had been quickly given a vial of potions with the label 'For Emergencies Only' and had to quickly pour it down his throat. A vile taste and texture left Harry spluttering as Lister led him through corridors of offices finally coming to a room which Harry recognised vividly. Harry remembered being what must be a replica of this room just two years prior deep in the depths of the Department of Mysteries, and just like in that room in the centre there was an arch with a veil floating down off of it. Harry concluded that they must be connected but wondered how someone from the D.O.M would have known about this room to replicate it. Especially considering how nervous Lister was about sending Harry back with his memories, it's not like someone would remember this room. When they reached the veil identical to the one Harry had seen Sirius fall through in that fatal battle, Lister turned around and to Harry's surprise bent down and hugged him. "There is a lot riding on this, don't fuck it up" and with what Harry could only assume is the closest to motivational a Grim Reaper could get, he felt himself pushed through the veil and back to the mortal plain.