DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER
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|PROLOGUE|
When he died, he hadn't expected anything.
As an atheist, he was skeptical of all religions and always assumed that when you died that was it. There would be no pearly white gates to walk through. No seventy-two virgins to pleasure. And definitely, no goat-legged sadist trying to sodomize you with a pitch-fork for not living a holy life dedicated to a church governed by a bunch of disgusting pedophiles.
He lay face down, listening to the silence.
He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not even sure he was there himself.
A long time later, or maybe not time all, it came to him that he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because he was lying, definitely lying, on some surface.
Almost as soon as he had reached this conclusion, he became conscious that he was naked. Convinced as he was of his total solitude, this did not concern him, but it did intrigue him slightly. He wondered whether, as he could feel, he would be able to see. In opening them, he discovered that he still had eyes.
He lay in a bright mist, though it was not like any mist he had ever experienced before. His surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapor; rather the cloudy vapor had not yet formed into surroundings. The floor on which he lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be.
He sat up. His body appeared unscathed. He stood up, looking around. The mist that surrounded him was starting to clear and he could finally see where he was.
Imagine the largest concert crowd you've ever seen, a football field packed with a million faces.
Now imagine a field a million times that big, packed with people, and imagine the electricity has gone out, and there is no noise, no light, no beach ball bouncing around over the crowd. Something tragic has happened backstage. Whispering masses of people are just milling around in the shadows, waiting for the concert that will never start.
If you can picture that, you have a pretty good idea of what the afterlife looked like. The black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. A warm, moist wind blew like the breath of a swamp. Black trees—grew in clumps here and there.
The cavern ceiling was so high above it might've been a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites, which glowed faint gray and looked wickedly pointed. He tried not to imagine they'd fall on him at any moment but dotted around the fields were several that had fallen and impaled themselves in the black grass.
I guess the dead don't have to worry about little hazards like being speared by stalactites the size of skyscrapers, he thought and he couldn't help but look for familiar faces among the spirits of Asphodel, but the dead were hard to look at. Their faces shimmered. They all looked slightly angry or confused. They would come up and speak, but their voices sounded like background chatter, white noise. Once they realized he couldn't understand them, they frowned and moved away.
For the first time, he wished he were clothed.
Barely had the wish formed in his head when clothes appeared a short distance away. He took them and pulled them on: They were soft, clean, and warm. It was amazing how they had appeared, just like that, the moment he had wanted them...
What is going on?
A soft jingling of bells resonated through the air, catching his attention. He looked around, searching for the source of the sound.
Suddenly, in front of him, suspended in mid-air was a shimmering screen that seemed to materialize out of thin air; no more than six inches from his face. He rubbed his eyes, blinking in disbelief as text appeared on the screen.
You are dead.
Your life on Earth has ended and you are now in the next phase of your existence in the universe.
Dead? He stared at the robe in disbelief. He was dead. Then did that mean he was in limbo? Where was he going to go? Heaven or...
Incorrect.
This is not the Heaven of Hell you were raised on.
"So, you can read my mind?" he nodded. That made sense. If he was in the afterlife, then the "person" controlling the screen in front of him must be some kind of God. "If I'm not in Heaven or Hell...then who was right?"
The Hindus were a little bit right. Muslim's a little bit. Jews. Christians. Buddhist.
Every religion guessed about five percent.
"So where am I?" he asked, and he wondered why he was so calm. Shouldn't he be freaking out? He was dead after all?
You are outside the Fields of Asphodel.
"Is this where I'm going to spend eternity?" he asked, watching the army of the dead shuffle along. This place might not be the Christian Hell, but it wasn't far off.
That is a possibility, but not the only one.
There are two others. The Fields of Punishment.
The mist around him cleared even more and to his left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path toward the Fields of Punishment, which glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and miles of barbed wire separating the different torture areas. Even from far away, he could see people being chased by massive dogs, burned at the stake, and forced to run naked through the barbed wire. And he saw worse tortures too—things he didn't want to describe.
Or Elysium.
To the right, was a small valley surrounded by walls—a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the afterlife. Beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history. Roman villas, medieval castles, and Victorian mansions. Silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns. The grass rippled in rainbow colors. He could hear laughter and smell barbecue cooking.
In the middle of the valley was a glistering blue lake, with three small islands like a tropical vacation resort.
He stared at the island in awe. "That's the kind of place I want to spend eternity."
The Isles of the Blest.
You cannot enter there yet. Only those who have chosen to Start A New Life three times, and three times achieved Elysium are allowed entrance.
"Start a new life?"
If you choose to be judged and are judged to have achieved Elysium you will be given the choice to enter Elysium or Start A New Life and try to achieve Elysium again. If you are judged and are judged to be placed in the Fields of Asphodel or the Fields of Punishment you will not be given the choice to Start A New Life.
Would you like to start a New Life?
He stared at the screen for a moment. It was startlingly to see his fate put so bluntly in words. He had died, and could still vividly remember that weightless, floating feeling as his body sailed through the windshield of his car. What a day to forget to put his seat belt on.
Then he looked back at the Fields of Punishment and Fields of Asphodel. He thought about how few people there were in Elysium, how tiny it was compared to them
Did he really want to risk it?
He hadn't lived a very long life, and he hadn't done anything he thought would get him into Elysium.
"Okay, fuck it," he scoffed, way past the point of panicking about his death. "Yeah, let's start a new life."
You have selected the New Life Option!
Continue by choosing your new world:
Naruto
Dragon Ball Z
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Avatar: The Legend of Korra
Solo Levelling
Attack on Titan
Harry Potter
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
High School of the Dead
Resident Evil
A Tale of Demons and Gods
He stared at his choices. They were all fictional worlds he knew a lot about.
Did that mean all these worlds always existed?
Frankly, all the choices were rather appealing, but some more than others. He was going to pass on Resident Evil and Attack on Titan for obvious reasons. Dragon Ball Z was very tempting, but the escalation for that world was insane and he had no idea what was going to happen if he chose it. Was he just going to get dropped into that world with the clothes on his back? Would he be reborn as an alien? Being reborn as a Namekian, a race with no females would just be horrible and he didn't want to live an entire life without sex.
His eyes focused on the Percy Jackson option. Depending on where he ended up, it would be possible to be gifted powers as a demi-god. And in general, it was probably the world with the best reward-to-risk ratio.
If he played my cards right, he could literally become immortal. Percy had turned the offer of godhood down, but that was because Seaweed Brain was a better person than him.
Dying sucked and if he could choose to never do it again, he would.
And sure, it'd probably be easier to become immortal in Dragon Ball Z thanks to the Dragon Balls, but there was one problem with that.
Zeno.
He still remembered what Whis said about the GOD of the Dragon Ball Z universe:
"Grand Zeno could annihilate anything he wishes in the blink of an eye regardless of size or complexity. Be it a single life form, a world, a galaxy, or an entire universe. If it ever struck his fancy, he could eliminate everything—all of reality as we know it."
He was going to pass on that, thank you very much.
Which also meant passing on Percy Jackson. He really didn't want to have to live his life worrying about if some God of god was just going to smite him because they were bored.
Harry Potter wouldn't be too bad. There were no angry gods in that universe. It wasn't a particularly high-level environment either. At least not compared to the other worlds like Naruto and Dragonball Z. And as long as he became friends with Harry and helped out when needed, he'd be set for life as a part of the Golden Trio.
Golden quartet actually, though that didn't have the same ring to it. So he might have to push Ron out.
"Harry Potter it is," he said before he could talk himself out of it.
As soon as the words left his mouth, the world spun. The afterlife vanished and he found himself back in the mortal world staring up at the sun.
He knew he was in the mortal world because he could feel pain.
The pain in his head was unlike any he had ever experienced before.
It was as if someone had taken a jackhammer to the back of his head and his brain had decided to pull a Grinch by growing three sizes too big, stretching his skull to the limit.
What happened? he wondered and tried to fight past the pain. He was on the ground, looking up at a strange car parked beside him. His vision was blurry, and his head was pounding so much that he could barely make sense of what was happening. He tried to push himself up, but his limbs felt weak and uncooperative.
It was then that he noticed his reflection staring back at him from the soapy window of the car. His skin was pallid, and his jet-black hair was untidy, but it was his eyes that puzzled him the most. They were no longer his own familiar common brown, but instead almond-shaped and startlingly green.
"Mr. Potter?" someone called out, their voice distant and muffled.
He blinked and waited for the face to change, but it never did. All he could see were the striking green eyes staring back at him. "Is that me?" he muttered in disbelief, blinking as black dots danced in front of him.
"Mr. Potter? Mr. Potter!" the voice called out again, this time more urgent. Someone began shaking him, their grip tight and insistent.
He blinked again, trying to make sense of the chaos around him. He found himself surrounded by a crowd of kids, all staring at him with wide-eyed curiosity and open-mouthed amazement. They looked at him as though he were some kind of exotic animal on display at the zoo.
Standing over him was an old woman with grizzled grey hair covered by a hairnet. He struggled to remember her name, his mind foggy and disoriented. But then it came to him, "Mrs. Figg" that was this lady's name. She used to watch him when his "family" went on Holiday.
Wait, that couldn't be right. He'd never met her before in his life!
"Harry?" Mrs. Figg asked, her voice soft and kind. "Are you alright?"
"I-I'm fine," he responded reflexively and tried to nod his head in response, but his neck felt stiff and unresponsive. He groaned in pain, clutching his head as another wave of pain washed over him and the sharp ache in his head had his eyes rolling. He felt like he was going to pass out.
"He doesn't look alright to me," one of the kids said.
"He's probably just faking it," another chimed in, their tone mocking and dismissive.
Mrs. Figg's concerned gaze never left Harry, her brow furrowing with worry. "You don't look okay," she said, her voice carrying genuine concern. Turning her attention towards the teenagers, she snapped, "Go fetch your mother, Mr. Dursely, or I'm phoning an ambulance."
The largest of the kids nodded, struggling to keep his trousers from slipping down his fat ass as he stumbled away.
Harry looked around and noticed that he was lying on his back in the driveway of a house that must have been part of a subdivision. The houses lined the street like replicas, copied and pasted one after another, devoid of any distinctiveness.
"Come on then," Mrs. Figg urged, extending a helping hand to lift him upright. "Let's get you away from this awful heat."
Struggling to find his balance, Harry stumbled up the driveway. A feverish heat washed over him, drenching his skin in sweat. And then, suddenly, the black dots from earlier were back and worse than ever. He saw more and more until everything faded into blackness.
The next few hours were nothing more than fragmented memories that came and went. He recalled being whisked away in an ambulance, the blaring siren amplifying the pounding ache in his head. A doctor's diagnosis revealing a trifecta of malnutrition, heatstroke, and a severe case of the flu. Bed rest was prescribed for a week, and Harry managed to grunt a feeble acknowledgment before blacking out again.
The memories continued—a mysterious figure lifting him, a face with a purplish hue that was more angry than concerned. The moment their eyes met, Harry sensed that this man cared little for his well-being. The man drove them away from the hospital and back to the suburban area where he had dragged Harry into a humble-looking home and locked him in a cupboard under the stairs.
The moment his head hit the flat pillow on the tiny cot, Harry's eyes shut for good and he began to sleep.
In his dreams, memory after memory played in his mind. They were like flickering images on a film reel. He could recall so many events that hadn't been a part of his life. Names and faces of people he'd never met.
A vivid flash of green light and an anguished scream as his mother was killed. Then, a frigid house with a family who loathed his existence, where he had spent ten wretched years as nothing but an indentured servant.
And then, like a lightning bolt, his own name struck him with a gasp.
Harry Potter.
With a jolt, he snapped awake, his breath catching in his chest.
As he bolted upright in bed, a resounding thud echoed through the cramped cupboard as his head made forceful contact with an immovable object.
"Fuck!" he cursed, flinching back and then toppling off balance, falling from his tiny cot and crashing onto the floor.
After a few moments of tenderly massaging the growing bruise on his head, the pain dulled enough for Harry to open his eyes. He blinked, taking in the room around him, his eyes immediately drawn to the book...that was levitating in midair!
What the fuck! Harry rubbed his eyes in disbelief. The book defied gravity, hovering as if supported by an invisible shelf. And around the book, more and more objects were being drawn weightlessly into the air.
A surge of panic overwhelmed him, causing his breathing to quicken, and his heart to race in his chest. He was horrified and he wanted everything to stop floating!
Then, in one thunderous crash, everything plummeted from out of the air, crashing down to the ground!
"Holy shit," he whispered.
A book had landed in his lap, bearing the scrawled name Harry J. Potter on its cover.
Frantically, he searched for any reflective surface—a mirror, a shard of glass—a spoon!
Harry seized the spoon lying on the floor and he held it up in front of him. And sure enough, a skinny little boy with dark hair, green eyes, and a lightning bolt-shaped scar was staring back at him.
He hadn't just started a new life in Harry Potter.
"I am Harry fucking Potter!"
The worst of all self-indulgences, the self-insert. This will be a side-project for blowing off steam and trying to get past my writer's block for the other Fics that I've stalled on!
I can, as always, be swayed by audience interest.
Thanks for reading!