Chapter Two

Harry finally stumbled into the station marked '786.' It didn't take him long to realize that it was the right one or maybe, the wrong one. He distinctly saw the weatherbeaten sign that proclaimed the number he was looking for, but before he could wonder why such an indoor sign would be so weatherbeaten the floor dropped out.

A short and screaming trip later, he landed in a pretty comfortable chair. It was enough to knock the breath out of him even with the Dumbledorian-level stuffing of the chair. Coincidentally, it also knocked the screaming out of him as well.

Harry looked around and decided that for office space in his limited experience, it was a bit dark. There were a few plants that Neville would probably either know the names of and how to use, or want to. He could see a window on one wall that was noticeably smaller than what the Headmaster had in his office. For that matter the office was not as cluttered. A rather dilapidated bookshelf stood across from the window and had a few books, some wooden carvings of what looked like bitten-into apples of various colors, photos of a family with a cute baby with the oddest blue and yellow blended irises, and some small, brightly painted signs on tiny wooden easels in languages he had no clue how to decipher.

Then he looked behind the beat-up desk, and gulped.

The woman seated behind the desk had a frown on her face that made Snape look giddier and more cheerful than a children's television show host. A random thought of Snape in a red sweater and singing a happy tune made him shiver. Some things were never to be contemplated.

"Yes, that's right. Shiver. I'm very displeased with you!" She had a sweet voice, but didn't sound anywhere close. To put it mildly, she sounded furious.

"Er… what? Why?"

"You've been back here too many times and I've had enough!"

To put it mildly, Harry was confused. He said the only thing he could in this situation.

"Er… what?"

"'Er what!' Is your record broken and the needle skipping again?"

"Er…" Harry quickly caught himself. He shot another glance at the picture of the kid and wondered if maybe there was some kind of post-partum thing going on. He'd overheard Hermione mention it to one of the other girls and wondered what it was. Harry looked at the woman's darkening face, and decided that maybe he shouldn't proceed with that line of inquiry.

"Well?"

"It's a deep subject," he said, before he could catch himself. The now-narrowing eyes told him that maybe shutting up was a good idea.

"I can see that this is going to be fun," she grumbled. "Button your lip right now and listen."

Since Harry could clearly see that the corners of the battered desk were starting to emit smoke – somehow – he did just that. She stared at him for several beats, quite intently.

"You are Harry James Potter, age seventeen. The son of James and Lily Potter."

He knew that already, but kept his lip buttoned. This wasn't Snape.

"You have died and returned to life multiple times."

"I've what?"

The eyes narrowed again, and Harry buttoned his lip.

"I said, you have died and returned to life multiple times."

Harry thought that was what the woman had said, but also decided that maybe this wasn't the best time to ask a question. Considering how the corners of the desk had been smoking for the last minute or so, it was probably wise to wait a bit. He didn't want to find out if whatever the stuffing this chair was stuffed with was flame-retardant or not.

The office got quiet and he could suddenly hear a ticking of some kind. Harry looked over to see one of the oddest clocks he'd ever seen, even at Hogwarts. It was a mostly round clock about three feet in diameter, with the numbers in the right places. The odd thing was that there were other numbers and some strange symbols stuffed in between the numbers one would expect to see on a clock. He looked at the hands of the clock and gasped. The hour hand was dripping dull blood and it looked a lot like… Harry gulped and turned a bit green.

"Is that…?!"

"Yes, it is. Freshly separated too. It had to be stretched out a fair bit to be long enough to actually be an hour hand. Considering the problems the former owner caused me, he's lucky I didn't decide to replace the minute and second hands, too."

She affixed a glare on Harry that spoke volumes. He shivered but had the oddest feeling that she was upset. Not the 'angry' kind of upset, but the 'sad' kind of upset. He forgot that observation quickly when she burst out into a rant.

"You've gotten me into an impossible situation! I was supposed to guide you throughout your life and because of this, I'm thisclose to being fired!" She held up a finger and thumb that Harry was sure a sheet of paper wouldn't fit between. If he was supposed to be dead and that meant she was probably dead, too, he could understand what her upset was for. There was one very uncomfortable interpretation to 'being fired' he could think of and 'being sacked' wasn't it.

No, the presence of a much more literal 'being fired' came to mind and it came uneasily. He could see a tremble in the corner of her lip as she spoke.

"You were supposed to live a long life after killing that… that…"

She stopped and took a wheezing breath, then continued. Harry sat in his chair, which was getting uncomfortable despite the stuffing.

"…That Riddle idiot and…" Harry had to lean back deeper into the cushions as the desk corners blazed up at the mention of the wizard's birth name.

"Wait, long life? How was I supposed to do that with what happened?"

She stared at him with her mouth agape.

"You were supposed to be Lord Potter and your best friend was supposed to have your back in every battle?"

"Ron? He would anyway. He was with me for a lot of that!" Harry didn't mention a few times, deciding that it wasn't important until he could find out more about what he was supposedly to have done that he didn't. Apparently dying was not all it was cracked up to be.

Thankfully, he didn't say that either, since something he'd said had made the corners flame up again. Harry was starting to wonder if he could ease the chair back without the woman noticing. From the way she was glaring at him now, that was a 'no.'

"Your best friend was intended to be Neville Longbottom. Growing up together and forging a bond that would hold in life and battles. Your childhood experiences were to bond you two together, both having lost your respective parents. Different ways, of course, but he didn't grow up with his any more than you grew up with yours."

The reminder didn't improve his mood, but he had to speak up.

"Wait, wait, wait… Ron is my best friend."

The corners flamed up at that statement and the hollow laugh that accompanied the flames creeped him out. It didn't help that he couldn't see the woman, who hadn't introduced herself, he'd just realized. He couldn't see her for the sheer light the flames put out. It wouldn't be until later that he hadn't felt much heat from them.

"Ron… the one that was victimized in his assignments, too. I can't tell you about his duties since I'm not assigned to his case, but I will tell you that he was supposed to have a different destiny that supported his strengths."

What, eating enough for three people? a corner of his mind piped up. There was a sound from across the desk that sounded suspiciously like a snort of amusement and Harry's eyes narrowed this time.

"Just who exactly are you?"

"Right – you don't remember." She muttered something under her breath about ripping something else off for messing up her work and his eyes went back to the clock as unwillingly as he'd ever thought he could have done anything. He didn't know what else could be ripped off but decided that he really, really didn't want to know.

"Harry, my name is Janet Ripperson. I'm the Grim Reaper's Assistant assigned to you."

She stabbed a finger at a nameplate on the desk that proclaimed 'Janet Ripperson, GRA' in glowing letters. Harry couldn't help but notice that the woman's fingernail polish glowed the same way. Same shade and all, but thankfully wasn't pink. She went on.

"It's my job to guide you throughout life, and…"

"Well, you've done a shit job of it, haven't you?"

This time, he could feel the heat. He looked up to see tears on her face along with the distress and distinctly heard the wheeze of air hissing from her chair's leather cushioning as she flopped into the chair. It didn't help his suddenly ashamed emotional state a single bit as Janet's face crumpled and she started to bawl. The flames on the desk corners hissed as they went out suddenly. It was probably a good thing as she put her head down and cried her eyes out.

||[-]||

Death muttered to himself, "Otiartes, you and I are going to have a very long talk and neither one of us will enjoy it."

He had been monitoring the conversation remotely from his office and Janet had been doing so well until Harry spouted off at her. He couldn't blame the boy, not really, and couldn't blame Janet either. She had been so looking forward to this and had taken time off while he was a baby, so that she would have plenty of working time to guide him. That thrice-damned fool had taken it away from her with all those retreads. Chronology would want sixteen different forms in octuplicate to send him all or most of the way back and even then, with those damned retreads, they would most likely deny it because of all the chronitronal energy that was now attached to his soul!

He looked up at the new addition to his far wall by the door, not realizing the workers outside his office could see easily it. The glass wall had become just another wall over the eons and it wasn't like he did anything salacious anyway. That was unless you counted the quadruple bourbons, and that was after a Really Bad Day. A triple-sized dart board hung there just a few feet from the door frame, since he really didn't have anywhere else to put it. The size was good for the partly serrated daggers that Death favored instead of darts. He had those, too, but he had found the kind that was around eighteen inches long.

Also found had been a portrait of Otiartes that had been taken during onboarding. It was relatively recent – or it appeared that way – and it had a prime view of Death's desk from near the door. This also meant that it shared a space co-located with the bullseye of the dartboard. There was a small dangling hook on a thin wire under the bottom edge of the dartboard's frame, which held extra portrait copies for replacing the first one in position over the bullseye. A small hole in the corner of the stack had been provided courtesy of Death's favorite hole-puncher (the one that shouted DOOM every time it was used,) and that hook was swaying back and forth every time the door opened or closed. The fact that there were a few extra unnecessary holes in the stack for the hook to fit through was beside the point.

Otiartes was going to relinquish his vacation time for the next century to Death, multiplied by the number of unnecessary retreads the Potter boy had to go through. Death had already looked it up. It was an older rule that was still in the operating procedures, too. Hadn't been used in a couple of millennia. That was going to be written up as malfeasance, thereby allowing it to be used. Luckily, the idiot had been hired after the new turpitude rules had been enacted and that made it unbreakable. Some other things, too, like loss of seniority and possibly transfer to another department.

Death thought for a moment and decided that he was also going to make Otiartes provide him with a new Festivus pole too. For damn sure he was going to have something to use it for this year. The old one hadn't been removed quite yet and considering what Janet had done with it, he didn't really want that one back.

||[-]||

Harry didn't have a clue what to do in this situation. All he could do was to sit there practically as petrified as if the friendly neighborhood basilisk had come calling. It took her a moment to calm down while Harry sat there and felt stupid. It wasn't like he had a strong filter on his mouth but considering where he was it was probably a good idea to install one, and quickly too. He looked at the name plaque again in a quick glance, and took in the name to confirm to himself what he'd heard earlier.

"Er… Mrs. Ripperton, I'm sorry for what I said. I let my frustration at this sudden situation guide my words, and I shouldn't have."

She peered at him for a moment and he felt a chill pass through him. It was almost Dementor-like in its quality, and he couldn't tell it if was something that she did or his own apprehension about the situation that he found himself in. Harry wasn't totally sure which he would have preferred, either. There weren't any assurances that an Expecto Patronum would work the way he expected.

As soon as that thought crossed his mind, he checked for his wand. A stab of dismay went through him as he realized that he didn't have it or his wand-holder.

She apparently didn't notice the check he did, so while it was a bit frenzied, it was hidden away from her. The woman behind the desk was emotional enough still that he got away with it.

Harry hoped. Greatly, in fact.

"Accepted," she mumbled just loud enough to hear. "I'm sorry for my outburst, too, but you see this whole situation isn't of my doing, either. When I last accessed your file, you were almost nine months old. That was the day that I went on annual leave for four weeks. During that four weeks, the person that handled your account…"

Here her eyes sparked at the mention of whoever handled his account sparked, and Harry could hear thunder in the distance. As they were inside an apparent building, it had to be something strong. He could also hear something that sounded like an electrical arc buzz and strike something, along with an agonized scream. There were distant shouts for help and Harry wondered if maybe he was in some danger.

He couldn't dispute the coincidence and tried not to think about it as she continued on.

"… didn't do a good job of it. From the monitoring daemons on your file – which he didn't bother to check – you have died and been sent back six times in a totally unnecessary process. After those four weeks of my leave, I was to come back and you were to have aged to a little over 20 months. At that point, I had intended…"

Another spark, another roll of thunder, another buzz, another scream. Harry was getting more worried, but she went on without indicating that she had noticed the disruption.

"… to start placing in your path the things that you were supposed to do."

"Things?" Harry asked. He was curious about whatever this was supposed to be and a good bit concerned. From what he was getting, his life wasn't supposed to start out the way it had.

"There was a list of things – a skein, if you will – that you were supposed to experience and accomplish. Well, you and the people around you, I suppose. That would be a better way to put it. I don't remember all of it, since your original file is being reconstructed from archives."

Here she muttered something that Harry could have sworn that it sounded like "Incompetent termite-eaten soft peckerwoods in Archives" but decided that maybe it would be a bad idea to ask her to repeat that, much less explain the comment. He did wish that he'd called Draco Malfoy that at least once.

There was a file folder on her desk that was clearly labeled, "Potter, Harry James." She did catch his attempt at unobtrusive glimpsing, and smiled sadly.

"This file is corrupted and it's here to keep it secure – and also where I can keep my eyes on it and hopefully prevent more damage. Once it gets reconstructed like it should be, this," she waved it around and Harry could see the glimmer of something following the path it took through the air like an afterimage. "This will disappear into Archives to be used as a teaching aid for what not to do. All your personally identifying information will be scrubbed out. Well," she grimaced, "as much as we can get out. Office gossip will keep a lot of the salient details alive. Some of the incorrect details, too."

He grimaced as well, since he was well aware of how gossip worked.

"So, it's locked down, meaning I can't open the folder until the work is completed without Death countersigning the request. He's already mad enough and I don't really want to bother him unless I really have to."

Harry could understand that. He blinked as something occurred to him.

"Wait, Death, you said? As in big bony guy with no sense of humor, wears a dark flappy cloak, carries a wicked sharp scythe and whacks people with it? That one?"

Janet started to answer. Instead, she quickly closed her mouth and sat back in her chair. Her eyes were still red from the sobbing earlier, but now there was a distinct appearance of amusement.

"Indeed, Mister Potter, although I prefer something else than the cloak for office work. Still, sometimes I have to go with tradition for some things."

The deep voice with a good bit of gravel came from behind him. Harry decided that this wasn't a good thing. It took a moment for him to lean around the back of the chair and look.

Death stood there, in a black suit with severe cuts to the tailoring. Harry could see that despite the description that he'd trotted out just a moment ago, the being that he was looking at was of average height, had sandy blond hair, and powerful hands. His eyes weren't blue or green or brown or anything like that. Instead, Harry could see that the irises were a crystallized red that glimmered in the light thrown off in the returning flames at the corner of the desk.

"Er…" Harry had absolutely no idea what to do in this situation and his habit of making on-the-fly plans didn't seem to have accounted for being in said situation. That habit was silent, having rolled over to show its metaphorical belly. Harry decided that it was maybe a good idea to do the same, except he was supposed to be a Gryffindor. Gryffindors charged ahead!

Death ignored the quandary Harry was currently in. He walked over to the desk and tapped a long, sharp fingernail on the file. It obediently opened up and displayed a stupendous number of flickering words as it flipped a huge quantity of pages. Each page had their own flickering to do and for a long moment, everyone could see that the file folder and its contents outshone the corner flames.

Death sighed. It sounded like a dry rattle to Harry, but he wasn't going to comment on that since he was sure he was in enough trouble as it was.

"I just came from Archives and judging from what we're seeing here with that folder, I lit a big enough fire under them to get them on the ball."

He looked at Harry. Janet stood up and waved him to her seat, but he demurred. He sat down at the side of the desk in a chair that Harry was sure wasn't there before.

"Janet was about to detail that 'skein' she mentioned." Harry saw her face go a little pink as she realized that if he heard that, he heard her evaluation of the Archive workers. He didn't mention it, however. "I'll go from memory of the things that I'm pretty sure I read."

Harry gulped when he saw a very stern look affixed to him, almost a glare.

"First, you were to have killed Voldemort." Death pronounced the name as if he was talking about something he'd scraped off the shiny black dress shoes he wore. "Tom Riddle is another matter, since if things had gone to plan you could have saved Riddle and banished Voldemort. However, due to some other constraints, you have to physically kill Voldemort."

"Saved…"

"Hold your questions until later. This is already a sensitive subject."

Right, Harry thought. Death doesn't suffer interruptions well and I may be skating on the edge as it is. From the nod he got from his Grim Reaper Assistant, that was exactly the case. He didn't want to think about the demonstration that she could very likely read his thoughts.

"Next. You were supposed to survive every battle with Voldemort and his Death Eaters. For reasons that I can't get into here – as neither of you are cleared for that information – Voldemort and the Death Eaters were cannon fodder in a wider conflict. The fact that there is a wider conflict is something that you cannot speak of."

Death speared Harry with another speaking glance and waited for him to gulp before continuing. "You were intended to live to 137 years old. Possibly more, but not a huge amount. There are estimates ranging up to another thirty years or so, but the 137 figure is a hard-coded minimum. Keep in mind that it doesn't discount doing stupid stuff like pulling a tiger's tail, BASE jumping without a parachute, or shopping at Walmart the day before Christmas."

Harry wondered why he would do such things to begin with, then wondered who had done that to give Death such examples to use.

"Also, the matter of your soulmate…"

"Ginny?"

Death and Janet both facepalmed simultaneously. The crack of palms meeting flesh made Harry jump and remember that Death had mentioned questions, or more precisely the lack of questions.

"No, stupid." Death mumbled something that sounded like a long-dead language. Janet apparently had no idea what her boss was saying to himself, and from the look on her face it was not the best of times to find out. "Some Granger girl. I forgot her name."

"Hermione?!"

Death snapped his fingers. "That's it! Yes, you were supposed to live your life with her and help her complete her own predestined tasks. Some of those I'm not familiar with, since they don't overlap with yours and I don't have her file with me anyway. Still, the synergy that the two of you would have produced would have allowed her to get an early start in your fifth year. That, and that odd elf. Not Dobby, the other one."

Harry started to say something, but quickly shut up when Death narrowed the gleaming eyes at him. He had been about to mention that there were many odd elves and some specificity would have been appreciated. Another thought crossed his mind and he looked over to see Janet crossing her finger over her throat in a cutting gesture.

Her eyes were narrowed too. Harry decided that maybe he could spend some time listening.

"I realize that you want to know about Ginny. I did look at her file, to see where it was supposed to overlap with yours. It didn't, not so much. I wondered about that after finding this massive mess and looked at the log for when you arrived. Guess what I found?"

"Er… I really have no idea."

"It turns out that you have the residue of certain potions influencing your decision-making. I can't go into specifics yet because of this being investigated."

Janet piped up. "We'll find out soon, since this is being done as a rush job and there's a fast-time audit being performed. We'll find out by the end of the day who did what."

Harry had no idea what to say about this. Death took advantage of the lull to continue.

"Now, you were not intended to be sent back in time to complete your duties. As it had been planned out, you would have had plenty of opportunity to do that during the course of one run even if you varied somewhat from the course. Variance happens to everyone, of course, so that's not a big deal. This is far from anything that fits the definition of 'variance.'"

The grumble was very evident in Death's voice. Janet jumped in to let Death cool down, since her boss was showing definite signs of blowing his top again.

"You see, Harry, we've found out that you've been in a variety of death-defying situations…" she gestured at her boss, "…er, not 'Death-defying,' you see. That's a totally different subject."

Harry was very sure it was, but said nothing as she continued.

"You've also been in those situations and 'failed to defy,' if I might coin a phrase. As a toddler, Petunia dropped you down the stairs by actual mistake when Dudley stomped on her foot. Both you and Dudley were electrocuted when his gang was chasing you at age ten. The troll ripped one leg and your genitals off, but you survived that until one day when Ron tripped and knocked you into some hidden Devil's Snare. There were three others and the Battle of Hogwarts now, but I don't think you want to hear them."

Aghast, Harry wondered what could have happened that she didn't want to mention them.

"Erm… okay?"

"I can see that you're surprised," observed Death. He seemed to have calmed somewhat, but the fire was still visible in his eyes. "For one, a lot of this on Earth was masterminded by someone playing chess," he mimed stroking a beard much longer than his own, "but was himself manipulated by someone here for their own ends. Politics," he sneered.

Harry was suddenly struck by the thought of Fudge working for Death and shivered at the thought.

"I can see that," he murmured weakly.

"By extension, many of the Weasley family were influenced to do certain things and take certain actions that no Weasley would ever do. For instance, you were philtered. Your feelings for Ginny Weasley were rearranged into something far different into what they should have been. Had things gone the way Destiny had wanted, you would have been considered a part of the Weasley family, but not an actual marriage-bonded part."

"Oh."

That was all Harry could say. He didn't know how long he had spent here, since time was so screwy here. Long enough for something to leach out of his system, maybe. There was a definite change in what his feelings were for Ginny, now that he'd thought of it.

He nodded at Death, saying nothing else and deciding to think about it when there was time. Death regarded him for a long moment, seeing that he wasn't going to say anything else.

"Now, there's another thing. Janet would have discussed this with you, but she wasn't aware of the things I came here to say."

Both Harry and Janet looked at the Specter in the sharp business suit.

"It seems that the shenanigans, to put it mildly, have affected the Weave. Things have to be done in a way that frankly I don't like one bit. If they aren't done, then there will be long lasting repercussions with you and everyone that were assigned a birth after you. The phrase would be cataclysmic in nature, and Nature would be affected to dangerous levels.

Both Janet and Harry could have sworn Death muttered "that fucker Otiartes" under his breath. Neither commented on this, since the flames in Death's eyes had jumped up. Harry being Harry, he had to comment on something anyway.

"'Done in a way,' sir?"

Death rattled out another sigh.

"Yes. In order to fix things, Dumbledore, Molly, Ron, and Ginny have to be left to act in the way that they were 'programmed,' to use a word. You won't be able to make any great changes in their actions, but have to wait for it to work through their systems. It might happen and it might well not happen."

"Oh. That's terrible!"

Death nodded. "Yes, and such is the way when somebody goes against the predetermination for their own gain. The ripple effects screw up many other things. We were able to prevent a nuclear exchange in 1986 by changing some events when a young Russian wizard had a fear-triggered accidental magic episode in a submarine missile tube. That was the limit of what we could do, and it would have been prevented had that young wizard have been allowed to study charms with your mother at an earlier time."

"Allowed?"

"Yes, but Dumbledore vetoed the idea. Under the influences that he was suffering, he had the idea that the Muggle political issues would have affected Lily Potter's Mastery study too much for the things he played around with as his chessboard. The young Russian wizard was a prodigy and would have benefitted from time spent with an older student, which at the time your mother was. Your Professor Flitwick was all for the idea, but… it was shelved."

Harry suddenly remembered something Death had said.

"Wait, you said make any great changes in their actions. How am I going to do that? I'm dead. I'm here now."

Had Harry been a little more cognizant of all the information that had been thrown at him after he'd just been killed by Voldemort, he would have figured it out.

"Well, you see, I have a surprise for you."

After a moment of explanation, there was a loud exclamation from Harry.

"I'm going to do WHAT?"

||[-]||

And what a surprise it had been. He'd been shuffled off to a bedroom for a nap afterward and now, Harry sat in a plush room waiting to be stuffed in some kind of machine and be sent back. He had asked when he would be, but was told that due to the situation and to preserve something called 'cronitronal continuity,' he couldn't be told.

Harry didn't like that at all, but figured it was his Potter Luck manifesting again. Even in the afterlife, it seemed.

It turned out that Death was going to override some things and allow him to have the advantage of some kind of technology. He wasn't very forthcoming with a description, except to say that it was only used in the most extreme of cases. Harry had already gathered that there was a good deal of things to have to fix, just from what the pair had told him.

Even with the overridden things Death was pushing through, he couldn't send Harry back as far as he wanted. This was because of something called 'a cronitronal leak to his temporal reading,' which made no sense to Harry but appeared to make plenty of sense to the other two. The fact that it seemed to be the source of a good deal of their anger kept Harry from asking questions about that.

It was because of that issue that he was going back with whatever the 'technology' Death wanted him to use. It wasn't called that exactly, since Death used the term 'Knowledge Grain.' How he was supposed to use it was information that he would gain later.

Or maybe the right term was 'earlier.' He was already getting a headache thinking about it, and he thought the afterlife kept such things from happening. Harry shook his head at the thought, and decided if he was going to do this, he was going to want every advantage he could get.

He took a sip of something that came out of a carafe that looked eight feet tall. It looked like a giant rocket but had all manner of blinking lights. There was no way to tell if the lights actually meant anything, however. There was no way to select anything, since aside from the lights there was nothing there but a simple spout.

A swallow and Harry found himself coughing up what had to be a lung. This stuff was terrible!

There had been a ton of paperwork, too. At least a ream of paper, maybe two. At least the afterlife didn't use Blood Quills. Harry had read all of it, snickering at the thought of a gobsmacked Hermione's reaction to the idea that he was actually reading something first.

He was allowed a few things, chief among those were his memories. Those were going back with him and Death was very sober in explaining that this was only possible through the manipulation of the vagaries of Soul Structures.

"As Hermione is your soulmate (and I can see that's an idea you're was still getting used to) she will have to be told everything you've learned here. Otherwise, there would be an imbalance in her own Soul Structure where it links to your Soul. Once the knowledge is imparted, it will act as a key for a passive shoring up of her Soul's framework."

"But will she believe it?"

Death didn't answer him, which didn't help.

There had been other things that he was going to get, but what those would be would be revealed when he met up with whoever it was supposed to be. Among all the other stuff, Harry wondered why this person couldn't do some of the work he was being handed. It didn't seem like a good question to ask Death, as while there was no visible evidence of a scythe that didn't mean there wasn't one handily available.

Harry thought some more about everything he'd learned and decided that he really didn't know what he was going to do. So, he decided next that he was going to do what he did best, make it up as he went along.

Things would work out.

Right?

Author's Note

There's a reason for the hard-timing Harry's getting! Of course, since this is me, it's simply not that easy, either.