2. Don't Pitch the Reaper (ONE-SHOT)
Summary for the Chapter: My answer to the famous Reptilia28 "Don't Fear the Reaper" Challenge.
"So, you have a harrowing supernatural challenge for me?"
Cronus forced his most winning, promotable smile. "Yes, sir, I do."
Senior Reaper Minos could read upside down, and he noticed the title on the front of his paperwork said: "Don't Fear the Reaper."
"What's it about?" Minos asked, not really showing any interest.
For some reason, Hecate had come along, but she was sitting away from them and looking as if she'd really rather be anywhere else. Not shocking.
Cronus had seen better days. Nowadays, he was in a slump, and if he didn't shape up, the word Minos had gotten from Thanatos was that he might be the backup oarsman for Charon pretty soon.
"You know Harry Potter?" Cronus asked.
"Died like thirteen times, skinny little kid, Oliver Twist with a scar?"
Kind of old hat, he mused. Still, popular with the broad Afterlife masses. It was no surprise Cronus would leverage his greatest remaining property.
"That's him," Cronus said, maintaining a smile and hoping he wasn't perspiring visibly.
"Anyway, he was supposed to kill Voldemort, marry his soulmate, some Granger girl ..." At that, Hecate sat straight up. Her eyes grew large and she shook her head furiously. "and live to be 200 years old and fix the wizarding world ..."
"I was there, Cronus, you pitched it to me. Afterlife public likes Potter versus Voldemort, bla bla bla ..." Minos interrupted. "Wait, doesn't he sort of ... die? A lot?"
"You know, Potter does die a lot, but that's got a lot of abandoned puppy appeal!" Cronus interjected. At that, Hecate mouthed "Puppy Appeal?" with an even bigger frown. "And the big Armageddon at that school of theirs, Hogsfeet ..." *Hogwarts* mouthed Hecate, but Cronus was on a roll. "gets us a lot of souls."
"Oh, I like souls," said Minos. It was true, at least the Potter kid got a lot of people killed around him. And their souls weren't all shattered and blotchy like the ones Voldemort sent their way.
"Anyway, for life number fourteen, I figured we really pull out all the stops."
"Oh?" said Minos. Maybe this was getting interesting.
"Yeah! The way I see it, we have Harry go back, not to his latest death, but back to the past!"
"Okay, but for rating purposes, the Furies are going to want to know if this is like that guy who drove a car into the past to jump his own mother ..."
"He didn't actually do that," Cronus said. "And when we finally figured out a time of death for him, we got a lot of Elegiac ballads in the Elysian Fields."
"Elegiac ballads are tight! I like those!" Minos said. "But when you say back to the past, this isn't going to be another he really has to go back to the future thing, because you lost that account to Thanatos' nephew, and ..."
"Anyway," Cronus said, "Please, don't get up in my grill about the Marty McFly account," he paused. "Because we really aren't going to be worrying about cosmic copyrights or eternal trademarks on this one. The original pitch was from an SDR fan named Reptilia 28, and I'm going to let him answer to the IP Furies."
"So, I take it he's part reptile, 28 years old?"
"No."
"Well, okay then. And Semi-divine Rowling ..."
"Has never heard of him," Cronus said, never losing his smile just like he learned in Titan Sales College. He blinked. "What was I talking about? Oh yeah, we send him back, but not vanilla Harry Potter. This jacksy one is there to try it on with all the birds and absolutely butler everyone!" he continued in a Brummie accent.
"Butler?" It sounded like a word that could change the rating of a whole event.
"Hand them their ass on a platter? Send a message? Thrash the living hell out of everyone?" Minos looked at him blankly. "It's British."
"I like British things!" Minos said. He wasn't as contemporary as he should be, but he smiled. "Will he take off his glasses? People like it when the mild-mannered kid takes off his glasses."
"Those glasses are coming off more often than Narcissa Malfoy's nightgown after a Halloween ball." Cronus ignored Hecate's glare. "Anyway, he's dead, right, and waiting in my office. He's confused, scared, traumatised."
"Pretty challenging to comfort a kid in that kind of setting," Minos mused.
Cronus blinked. Minos blinked. Hecate glared. It was going to be that sort of meeting. Even Cronus realised it. He realised what he was expected to say, but not this time.
"Oh, I'm not going to comfort him," Cronus explained. "I'm going to yell at him for like an hour. I'm going to take his file and fling the contents at him. I'm going to climb over my desk and throttle him. I'm going to shake him like a salt cellar and accuse him of letting Voldemort win and destroy the world. I'm going to remind him of all the people he let down thanks to his blind recklessness and incompetence."
"So, the doubly-orphaned abused child who's just been brutally murdered will be berated for an hour, further traumatising him?"
"That's what we're going with."
"Well, all right, then!"
"After that, I'll hint at all the interference the people he trusted made in his life, how he can't really trust anyone, make some vague reference to the goblins and his parents' will, that he has to fight smarter, not harder. You know, the usual."
"This is the boy you said had crippling trust issues?" Minos wondered.
"Yes?" said Cronus. "Oh. Whoops!"
"Whoopsie!" agreed Minos. "So, the Granger girl is his soul mate? What does that even mean?"
"Unclear.'
"Okay?" Minos said, uncertainly.
"Anyway, after we send him back to the past, he's going to befriend an eleven-year-old girl named Hermione Granger, and that'll basically fix most of the problems I didn't bother to think out."
"What a convenient child!"
"She is!"
"But what does she do, exactly?"
"She knows everything and comes up with the one spell Harry Potter needs to fix things, even though she won't think of it till he asks her."
"Oh, wowie wow wow!"
"Sir?"
"Eleven-year-old Hermione Granger is tight!"
The blink-off this time lasted a lot longer, and Hecate, after dropping her jaw, had clearly transferred her glare permanently to the Senior Reaper instead of the perspiring presenter. Too late, Minos remembered why Hecate was here - she was the Granger girl's reaper.
When he got his voice back, Minos muttered that "Those words weren't the ones I thought I was using." Even Cronus was alternating staring at him and looking away.
Then Minos remembered what he wanted to ask about. "The goblins, huh? You're going to be hinting about them to the Potter boy?"
"Yes, I put that right here in the treatment," Cronus said, putting his finger over a paragraph in the paperwork he was holding. "Page 1."
"You know I won't read that, right?" Minos pointed out.
"Well, it's right below the part where we get the souls," Cronus said, in a voice heavy with temptation.
"Souls! Those are the things I like!"
"Absolutely, sir!"
"Okay, the goblins, what's their story, then?"
"Well, they're there at Gringotts."
"Gringotts?"
"It's where the goblins are, sir."
"Fair enough. And what do the goblins do?"
"Well, they're present. Mostly at Gringott's"
"So you're going to mention them to Harry Potter before sending him back, for what reason?"
"I don't know!"
"All right!"
"Wait, it's so he can get his inheritances and have them heal him and tell him about his vaults."
"All that?"
"Yeah."
"And they'll do that .."
"Because."
"Sounds reasonable to me. I guess that might as well happen," Minos acknowledged without any enthusiasm. "Are they normally that helpful?"
"No, they normally mock and insult wizards, trick them out of their gold and threaten to revolt and start running amok in the shopping district."
"So they're nasty?"
"The worst."
"Well, okay, then."
"So, what are these inheritances and vaults about?"
"Well, he may be the heir to all these famous families and their fortunes, and the goblins can tell him, but he has to ask."
"So, you're going to tell him to ask them?"
"What?" Cronus exclaimed. "Why would I do that?"
"Why would you?" Minos agreed. "Souls, souls, souls ..." he muttered, chanting his calming mantra.
"And what do they have to heal him for?"
"A decade of starvation and abuse?" Cronus expressed it as a question.
Minos just looked at him.
"Oh, and the piece of a dead necromancer's soul that harms his magic and means he'll have to maybe die again to kill the bad wizard," Cronus continued, nonchalantly.
"There it is. There it is," said Minos, downcast.
"So, we're already berating him for dying so much," he continued, "even though we wipe his memory and send him back to the life-threatening situations every time? And we've been doing it since he was a small child?"
Cronus smiled. "Absolutely, sir. You really get it!"
"And now, we're not telling him how the goblins can help, we're not telling the Granger girl anything, and we're not even telling him he has a - wait, is that thing a Haircross?"
Both men swivelled to see Hecate mouthing "Horcrux," then went back to ignoring her.
"So, what are you going to tell him?"
"Not to trust most of his friends or practically any authority figures ... that there's a prophecy about him that will control most of his life, but not what it is. Probably about the Granger girl being his soulmate ..." Cronus answered.
"But not what that means?"
"Exactly."
"Because?"
"Reasons,"
Cronus replied.
"And that he has to be the one to defeat the super-powerful genius wizard who's been studying black magic and doing powerful rituals for forty years, but not how to do that,"
he added.
"And we're doing that so ..."
"So the events can happen!"
"Fair enough."
"So, will the teachers or the headmaster tell him anything?"
"Not a thing, sir. The ones that know anything either hate Harry Potter or have standing orders to never tell him anything or be even a bit helpful."
"Orders from the headmaster?"
"Yes, sir. He's also the head of the Wizard UN, their Chief Magistrate and a bunch of other things that mean he can do whatever he wants."
"So, why couldn't we at least give him a briefing on the things he didn't learn about this time?"
Cronus got visibly upset. "Look, sir, you're going to need to get all the way off my back about withholding information from Harry Potter that could save his life and prevent horrible tragedies. If we start worrying about everyone that does that, there won't be anyone left in the presentation, sir."
"Well, then, I guess I'll just get off that thing!" Minos said. He knew where Cronus' limits were, and it was clear he was edging towards that area.
Minos paused in thought for a long time. Hecate was still glaring at him, but he didn't get to be a senior reaper for nothing. "Anything else we'll tell him?"
"Well, we may be able to give him cryptic advice occasionally, but you know how scary we look on Earth, all skeleton-y with our scythes and so on, so I'm going to tell him, 'Harry, Don't Fear the Reaper!"
"Wait, that's the title of the proposal!"
"It is, sir!"
They both grinned excitedly. Hecate, however, looked nauseated at something.
"So, to sum up, you're going to make him sign a contract agreeing to be sent to Purgatory if he fails to kill the worst wizard in the world, sending him back with his memories but no additional advice, and meanwhile, the most powerful wizard in the world will be trying to stop him from surviving, cut off all communication with his friends, and make sure he's still abused at home and endangered at school. He has to not only win against all the odds, survive a Roman arena in his fourth year, try to save his friends and his falsely imprisoned father figure, win his soulmate, but also fix the wizarding world, which is currently a feudal hell-hole run by Nazis?"
"That's about it, sir. There's a lot of minor tasks, too, but that's a good start."
"Won't that be impossibly difficult?"
"Actually, it'll be super easy - barely an inconvenience," Cronus said, brightening.
"Oh, really?" Minos asked, astonished.
"Yes," said Cronus. "Just watch this!" With that, he recklessly produced a banana and tossed it to Hecate. She was so shocked that she caught it reflexively.
"Will you do the honours, Hecate? Give me the peel when you're done," Cronus said, firmly.
Hecate's glare this time made Cronus step back a few feet. Then, she tore off the peel. She grabbed the banana, twisted it, and bent it until it was almost severed. After that, she waved her hand over it. It blackened as banana-scented smoke poured off it. Soon, she was holding a banana peel full of ashes. She walked over to Cronus, blew the ash in his face and rested the peel on his nose.
Undaunted, Cronus tossed it over his shoulder.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore had secured his office against most threats. Even against Acromantulas chanting death curses in Mermish and Parseltongue. He'd even warded it against bears with stomach lasers. Unfortunately, he'd never considered a banana peel on the stairs leading down from the office.
It was an ignominious end, but his friend and trusted advisor Severus Snape didn't have time to worry about that. He shoved potions aside, spilling them all over the floor. He cast aguamenti on the resulting fires that weren't oil-based, and summoned the nightclothes of first-year Gryffindor girls to smother the ones that were. There it was. His top-secret vault. And the password was Voldemort's birthday. Every Death Eater had to use Voldemort's birthday, other Death Eaters would check on it, and Snape had never considered that very secure. Still, the contents, which right now included a big bag of galleons and a one-way portkey he'd gotten off his friend Gilderoy Lockhart, were there. Snape liked Lockhart because he kept threatening to apply for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And on that day, Snape had always told himself, even Dumbledore would have no choice but to give the job to Snape.
But that was then, and this was now. He kept a goose tethered in the little bathroom near the potions closets as an early warning system. He opened the door, and sure enough, a cauldron had spontaneously pulled the goose in, filled with water, and was now heating the poor thing to a boil.
For a moment as he activated the portkey, Snape wondered where the Lesser Antilles was, then he realised it wouldn't matter. Wherever you lost your Hogwarts breakfast on landing, the experience would be pretty much the same.
Most of the students agreed making Aberforth Dumbledore the new headmaster was an inspired choice: you didn't have to remember not to say "Headmaster Dumbledore" and everything was already labelled correctly.
Even Minerva McGonagall agreed, after she found him amenable to drinking as much as you could hold every day after your last class. In general, Hogwarts became a much more casual and less stressful place.
Care of Magical Creatures became a core requirement for all seven years. All classes had to involve goats in some way, which made History of Magic fun again.
The new Potions teacher, Mrs Zabini, was popular with the boys, but made a point of keeping the girls after class for "special" potion lessons. For some reason, that made some of the upper-year boys nervous, but most of the students shrugged their concerns off.
Not Harry Potter. he grabbed Hermione and dragged her to the Room of Requirement, telling her she didn't need any special potions to win his heart. Since she had just met him on the train and been sorted a couple of days ago, she was confused, but decided to roll with it. Suddenly, the Boy-Who-Lived snapped his fingers.
"I require a big sheet of paper showing I have a bunch of Lordships and repressed superpowers and a ritual knife where I can cut myself and I get all that," he said, decisively.
A window appeared in the Room and a Gringotts eagle flew in with the required documents.
Harry showed the document to Hermione. What she could read where the blood wasn't spattered on it made her eyes grow wide. Unconsciously, she shifted so she was nestled into the tousle-haired hero.
"Now I require something to make Voldemort show up so I can kill him," Harry continued, still using a firm voice.
Voldemort was so confused at being deposited in his own body at Hogwarts, he barely had time to raise his wand and say "Avada Kadavra" as Harry had his wand pointed at him and said "Lumos!"
He'd decided he shouldn't let Hermione in on the fact that he was from the future, and Lumos was the only spell they'd been taught, since it was their first day.
Predictably, the two wands locked and created a pretty cage of light. Hermione was tossed around a little, but since that simply made them snuggle more, she was okay with it.
Then Harry strode forward and faked a kick at Voldemort's goolies. Forgetting he didn't have any anymore, the Dark Lord fell for the feint. Harry's actual crane kick killed the Dark Lord, since the monster wasn't a trained martial artist. He was kicked in the face so hard that not only did all of his Horcruxes dissolve, not only did all of his Death Eaters die, but the Gaunt family was wiped out 200 years before Tom Riddle was born.
"We're only eleven years old, but yes! Yes, I'll marry you, Harry!" they heard a voice saying.
Minos was mentally counting souls, Cronus was beaming.
For some reason, Hecate, on the other hand, was draped over the end of the couch, in tears.
Women, mused Minos, were so emotional about the love story parts.
Reptilia28 Don't Fear the Reaper CHALLENGE:
*Harry is killed at 17 during a fight with Voldemort. He's sent to his Death's office (explained later) and finds out that this isn't the first time that this has happened.
*Harry's Death (who can have a human name) is mad at his arrival. Apparently, people dying before their time is a black mark on the various Deaths' records, and Harry is getting perilously close to getting this particular one fired.
*When Harry asks what was supposed to have happened, Death goes off on a rant saying how he was supposed to have killed Voldemort, found his soulmate ("Some Granger girl...") and lived to be a centennial age. But since Harry keeps getting into life-threatening situations for one reason or another, he keeps dying before that happens. Harry is surprised about the soulmate part.
*Death gives Harry a paper to sign that allows him to retain his memories (the previous times, he wasn't given this option for some reason). Harry is deposited to a previous time of the writer's choosing.
*Eventually, Harry gets it right. He kills Voldemort, gets the girl, and lives to a ripe old age of whatever. And Death doesn't get fired.
REQUIREMENTS:
*Harry had to have died at least three times before this one.
*The memory keeping contract must be included.
*Death must refer to Hermione as "some Granger girl" when Harry's soulmate turns up in his rant.
*Obviously, must be H/Hr.
* Have fun
OPTIONAL:
* Dumbledore's manipulations can be a factor in Harry's premature demises
Screen Rant's Pitch Meeting Web Series:
(YouTube) playlist?list=PL-PgETgAz5FGoatB9KQzbnpv0bgZqU2l
*Also a Birmingham accent is definitely closer to a flat "ass" than an RP or Estuary 'Ahse' or Irish 'Arse' which is why Minos' word is transcribed that way.
