So, here it is, the next chapter you've been waiting for (I hope!).
Chapter 2 - Discussing death with Death
'Harry Potter, seventeen!'
Harry got up with a start, and looked around. He couldn't remember where exactly the old man and Nora had gotten off to when they were called. He took a few steps forward and then felt a slightly alluring force draw him to the left. He followed it with a little trepidation, not knowing whether God would appear suddenly, greeting him warmly, or whether it would be the Devil who would put him to hard labour immediately.
He walked towards what seemed to be a thin veil of silvery-white mist and slowly stretched a hand to touch it. A tracing of a gold arch appeared out of nowhere, and extended to take the form of a door. Harry stared at it blankly for a couple of seconds, wondering whether he should knock first or just turn the knob and walk in.
'Don't stand there all day admiring my door boy, get in here!' a grumpy voice sounded out, startling Harry.
Harry turned the knob, opened the door and stepped in cautiously, his senses on wide alert.
'Don't be so tense boy, you're already dead, at least for the moment, so I can't harm you anyway,' the same voice said, and Harry abruptly turned towards the direction he had just come from.
There, instead of a door, was a big, heavy, furnished wooden table with a huge amount of papers scattered all over it. A bearded middle-aged man of average build was sitting in a chair right behind it, looking at Harry intently.
'So..um.. are you God or Fate or... whatever you call it?' Harry asked stupidly, knowing immediately when he said those words that heaven's first impression of him was not a great one.
The man, who had been looking at him all the while with an expressionless face, promptly burst out into loud guffaws. Clutching his stomach, he regarded Harry with tears of laughter in his eyes.
'I sit in an ordinary desk with a nearly broken chair, I'm unshaven and I call out names every twenty minutes. Do you really think I'm God?' the man asked sarcastically, yet there was no malice in his voice, only humour.
'No, I guess not,' Harry said embarrassedly, as the man gestured for him to take a seat in the chair opposite to him.
Harry sat down with a sigh, his eyes wandering over the stack of papers littering the table, wondering if any of them were death warrants that sent people here in the first place.
'So, you were hit by a Killing Curse, am I correct?' the man asked, his eyes skimming through one of the many bundles of papers.
'Yes,' Harry replied monotonously.
'Merlin's beard, you've got so many-'
'Steve! How many times do I have to tell you not to say that word! It's barely acceptable when our new clients say it, but you've been here for the last sixteen years, I think at least you should've grown out of saying it by now,' a cool, female voice interrupted him, although it was impossible to discern the direction it was coming from.
'Sorry Jenny,' the man said and mockingly added, 'You're not going to fire me for that, are you?'
'Nope, you won't be fired for that,' she said calmly. 'But that's because I have other uses for you,' she added.
Steve turned slightly red and muttered something incomprehensible.
'Gee, I didn't know people flirt in heaven too,' Harry thought, looking at the older man thoughtfully.
'Yes, things aren't as dry and boring as you probably expected them to be,' the man said, all traces of a blush gone from his face as he looked back at Harry, 'We're people too, people who can laugh, fight, talk etc. We just happen to be dead,' he finished.
'I wasn't judging you, I was just taken aback is all,' Harry said defensively. 'And do dead people sneak up on other people's thoughts and display them?' he added waspishly.
'Nope, that part isn't in the job description ; but you do to seem to wear your emotions on your sleeve, I can feel the radiation of your thoughts from over here,' the man said, not in the least perturbed by Harry's biting remark.
'Fine, I suck at Occlumency, so it's easy for you to read my thoughts, why don't you just-,' but he was interrupted by an even louder roar of laughter than the first one. The man banged the desk with his fists several times, unable to articulate a single word as he almost choked.
'Occlu-Occlu- Hahahahaha oh-' the man wheezed out, 'Mother of Mer-SORRY!' he immediately shouted out, to prevent Jenny from getting on his case again. He composed himself quickly and then waved his hand in a swish and flick motion, and a glass of red brandy appeared out of nowhere. He took a long sip from it, and sighed contentedly.
'This isn't a classroom, where your horrible excuse of a teacher looks deep into your eyes to get information from you. You're dead boy, this is limbo or heaven or hell or whatever the hell you want to call it ; this isn't some interrogation cell where your interrogators use Legilimency against you followed by a good round of pain.'
'Then how did you read my mind?' Harry asked obstinately,
'Never you mind. Now that's about enough of socialization for today. Let's get on with why you're here,' the man said, a ghost of a grin still remaining on his face.
'Well, that's pretty obvious isn't it? I'm dead and I've been-'
'Let me rephrase for you, young man, you really seem to need the use of exact words and a bit of spoon feeding to solve any puzzle given to you. You're already dead, or at least you seem so, and regarding you, as usual, the case is a little awkward,' Steve said.
'How so?' Harry asked, ignoring Steve's jibe.
'We're not sure if you're going to remain dead. In fact, we're pretty sure you're gonna' go back,' Steve told him.
'Why's that?' Harry asked in surprise, and added, 'And we means - you and..her?'
'Well, it's not in my place to tell you the mechanics of the whole thing, actually it wasn't even in my place to tell you that you'll probably be getting a second chance.. That's Jenny's job,' Steve replied, finishing his drink.
'Ookaay,' Harry responded slowly, 'So what are we sitting here for?'
'Well, as you've probably figured out I am the gatekeeper of Death, and I'm here to discuss your condition and history and then lead you to the appropriate place,' Steve said.
All kinds of questions were forming themselves rapidly in Harry's mind and he couldn't decide which one he should voice first. But then Steve interrupted him.
'Whoa-whoa, there's no satisfying your curiosity, is there?!' Steve exclaimed.
'You can choose not to read my mind without my permission,' Harry grumbled.
'As I said before, it's not your mind I'm reading, it's just the vibes you're sending out-'
'All right,all right, I got it, the vibes, the radiation. Now can you just answer my questions? What do I get a second chance for and why do I get it in the first place? What's Jenny's job in this limbo and what appropriate place are you taking me to? And what's wrong with my history? I'm a normal seventeen year old who just happened to get killed,' Harry said, firing out everything that came to his mind.
'I told you already, it's not in my place to answer all your questions. But here's what I can tell you. Your history is quite eventful, as are your brushes with death. We've actually seen your shadow and almost your whole body appear here before in the past, but then either you miraculously recovered or someone saved you in the nick of time.'
'How many times have I been here before?' Harry asked.
'Almost ten. Eight or nine depending on your viewpoint,' Steve replied. 'First time when you were eleven, you got into a fight with a teacher and you actually appeared here for a second, but then you somehow killed him just by touching him, and then he landed up here instead. Then exactly a year later, a big snake mauled you and we were pretty sure you would soon be meeting up with us, but then an unheard-of creature, probably the only one in existence, saved you by crying all over you. And then, barely six months later, you fell a hundred feet off a broomstick. You were hovering between here and there for a week, if I'm not mistaken. All the people who died all over the world in that interval had a real bad experience in this place because of you. Next, next, where is it?' Steve asked himself, his eyes perusing the bottom of one of the pages. He turned the page and continued.
'Okay, next was when you were almost fifteen. You shot a disarming spell, of all things, against a Killing Curse. For a couple of moments, your whole body had appeared here and you were looking around. But then you went back to where you were, and in your place, the ghosts of one Cedric Diggory, Bertha Jorkins and Lily and James Potter appeared here. That also scared the hell out of the two people who were here at the time, 'coz only solid, real bodies of people can turn up here. Nevertheless, you had a better record for the next two years. There was a time when you were nearing sixteen when we felt some foreign presence take over your body back on earth, while your soul made it over here. No one could see you, but we felt your presence as you were struggling to regain control over your mind. Again, you scared the poor people who were waiting here at the time. But you seemed to have gained some motivation from somewhere. You brought out some inner strength from Merl- god knows where and you fought him off. I must say, we really toasted you for that boy, we rarely see such courage and determination,' Steve said.
Harry didn't know what to say to that. Fortunately, Steve continued speaking.
'You can take that as a compliment, Mr. Potter, we rarely give them around here. So, moving on, your sixth year wasn't that bad per se. Oh,wait,wait you took a nasty one to your head again, which cracked your skull open. For normal people, that's fatal, but for you, it's routine.'
Harry grimaced as he remembered Cormac McLaggen's swipe at him. Steve continued.
'Then, the icing on the cake. Your would-be seventh year. First, you fought an aerial battle against your nemesis. We all thought he or his cronies would finally get you but then you produced the Aureus Flammare from your wand, something that Dumbledore could never do. Then, started the period of darkness. More and more half bloods and Muggle-borns were popping up over here. At around Christmas time, you decided to grace us again with your momentary presence. I think it was a snake again that did you in. But this time you were saved by your girlfri- uh- a f-friend of yours.'
'You're right Steve, Harry was pretty lucky that time to be saved by young Miss Granger,' a female voice spoke and Harry looked to the side. Steve immediately stood up in respect for his superior and tilted his head slightly forward in a bow. Jenny merely gestured for Steve to sit down and smilingly took a seat in an opulent armchair she had just conjured for herself.
'But of course, Hermione was always there for you, whenever you needed help, whenever you needed support, whenever you needed saving or even whenever you just needed a biff up the hooter. Pity you never realised that,' she said sadly.
'What?! Of course I do! You have no idea-how much-how much I...,' Harry started angrily but then broke off, unable to complete the sentence.
'What? How much you what? Ignored her presence? Mocked her ideas? Chose Ron over her a countless number of times?!!' she snarled, disgust and fury evident on her face as she folded her hands in front of her and crossed her legs.
'I...I..' Harry started weakly, but even what little argument he had died down in his throat, as deep down in his heart he knew that Jenny was right. Over the last seven years, although he called both Ron and Hermione his best friends, his subconscious always placed Ron as his dearest, irreplaceable best friend and brother, while Hermione was subtly shunted into the background.
'She thought the broomstick was from Black and she cared enough to act on it, even though she knew you would probably get angry! She believed you about you not entering your name in that stupid tournament when Ron wouldn't even give you a second look! She bore all your temper tantrums and moods even though it was driving her up the wall! And why did she do that? Because she was in love with you, that's why!! But what did she get in return? All she got was your irony, your ridicule, and also the pleasure of seeing you go out with other girls. That's why she gave up on you, that's why-'
'She didn't,' Harry interrupted coldly, looking Jenny in the eye.
'Pardon me?' Jenny asked, while Steve looked on.
'She never gave up on me completely,' Harry said frigidly. 'I was a fool all this time, but this year changed a lot of things. I know I'm in love with her too,' he said, his eyes reminiscent.
'But wasn't it a little too late for opening your eyes? You could've had years together, years of loving each other, of knowing each other.. When you finally did understand, by that time, both of you had already chosen your path with other people. Both of you with the Weasleys. Do you even have an inkling of an idea what Hermione was feeling, the emotional turmoil she was going through when she decided she would stay with you to hunt Horcruxes rather than go with Ron? She was in love with you till some time previously, she gave up on you because you didn't give her a single opportunity for her to prove that she could be a suitable romantic possibility. She decided to set her heart on Ron to avoid any pain or trouble, as Ron also was her best friend ; plus he had certainly fancied her for more than two years by that time. And when the time came for her to choose between the same, what did she do? She chose you. And what did you do? You threw a blanket over her and went to sleep.'
'HEY!' Harry protested loudly, 'I realised some time later what Hermione truly was to me, and I went to her. I understood, I came to know at that crucial time!'
'Let me put it this way. You stalled right, you didn't go to her immediately as you very well should have, right?' Jenny asked challengingly.
'Well, no,' Harry said, but before he could say anything else, Jenny interrupted him again.
'Why? What was the reason for the delay?' Jinny asked.
'Well, it was...well all I could picture at that moment was Ron's contemptuous expression ridiculing both of us, and well... I guess I just sort of hesitated,' he said.
'Of course, Ron is always the first one to enter your thoughts, isn't he? It's like a bloody default setting : First Ron, then if time permits, Hermione! Ron just commits the most heinous of betrayals, when your other best friend unselfishly chooses you even though it was nearly killing her to do so, and you think about Ron and his FUCKING OPINIONS!' Jenny slammed her hand on the table with her last words, spittle flying out of her mouth ; her expression going tremondously angry again.
'No taking the name of our founder, our God, no allusions to any religion in any topic, and no utterances that will bring His Holy Wrath on thee,' Steve said, grinning broadly. 'Appendix B, Subunit 21, Paragraph a,' he added, tilting his head to the side.
Jenny glowered at Steve for a moment, before turning back to Harry.
'I apologise for my uncalled-for display of anger, but you know as well as I do that what I said was nothing but the truth,' Jenny said formally.
'Th-That's ok,' Harry said absently, running his palms slowly over his cheeks, silently contemplating Jenny's previous words.
'Anyway, let's move on,' Jenny said composedly, not even a trace of her previous anger visible. 'When Lord Voldemort struck you down in the forest, the wand he used for the purpose recognised two souls in the target it was about to strike. One was your soul, as unblemished as it was the day you were born, for the most part anyway, and the other soul was-'
'Hang on,' Harry butted in, 'What do you mean, 'for the most part'?' he asked.
'Well, um, when you lose your v-virtuousness, the soul doesn't become tainted, but it.. it does lose that slight shadow of ultimate purity it always had,' she said as quickly as possible, while Steve had already starting cracking up in the background.
Harry turned beetroot red and hoped Jenny wasn't expecting an answer from him. Luckily, she wasn't.
'So, the other soul was that fraction of Lord Voldemort's, highly blackened and tainted. The wand recognised you as its rightful master and was reluctant on hitting you, but luckily for you, it recognised that bit of Voldemort's. Knowing that you were his mortal enemy, and the fact that you had its allegiance, it killed the fraction of the soul in you and left you wounded, rather than dead. It didn't like being used against you, it acted of its own accord, and the unforeseen result of that was its echo hitting Voldemort as well, rendering him unconscious for the exact same period of time that you were,' Jenny explained.
'So, if it did not like the idea of killing me, why did it do so in the Great Hall?' Harry asked, just barely understanding Jenny's complicated explanation.
'Unfortunately for you, that was different. You must remember, Harry, the wand does choose the wizard as you may no doubt have heard. But the thing is, the wizard chooses what the wand has to do. Muggles have no idea of the existence of magic, they see it as an inexplicable mystic force that only the Supreme Beings are capable of performing. But we know different. We know for a fact that magic is just another form of energy. You can't create energy nor can you destroy it. Magic comes internally from us, but we can't create it elsewhere, nor can we destroy it, once created. Of course, we can destroy it with magic, but it won't be extinguished on its own.
'So, when you were hit by magic in the forest, the green energy had to destroy or terminate something, anything. Combining this with the fact that you had a piece of Voldemort's soul lodged in you, it killed that part completely, hence satisfying the law of conservation. But in the Great Hall, Voldemort's Killing Curse had to kill something, so it did, and that's why you landed up here,' Jenny finished sombrely.
'But, if I was truly the Master of the Elder Wand, shouldn't it have hit me and Voldemort as well?' Harry asked.
'Astute, Harry,' Jenny replied, a slight smile slowly making its way onto her face, 'You're absolutely right. As a matter of fact, it did rebound on Voldemort, but didn't kill him.'
'So he's unconscious?' Harry asked disbelievingly.
'Yes, and this time it's different. In that timeframe, in that Great Hall, you are officially dead. But yet there is something hanging over everyone's head that has in important role to play in this equation. Do you know what that is?' Jenny asked.
'Hanging over someone's head, where have I heard that phrase before?' Harry thought to himself. 'Hanging over my head, big burden...the-'
'Prophecy!' he almost shouted out the last word, and then immediately groaned. The bloody prophecy again.
'Don't be so upset over that, Harry. This thing just might be able to save everything, might be able to save the world as you know it. Do you remember what exactly the Prophecy states?'
'Yes, I do. It's been forefront in my mind for two painful years. It says that one of us had to die at the hands of the other, for neither could live while the other survived,' Harry said, wondering where this was going.
'Yes, that's the essence of it. Voldemort is now in that Great Hall, unconscious. The prophecy chose the final meeting you just had with him as the end, the destiny of the both of you. It chose that moment as the moment where it had to be satisfied ; not the time when you met him as a baby, not the time you met him in the graveyard, not any of the other numerous encounters you had with him during your school years, but that moment. So, the echo of his Killing Curse struck him as well, leaving him frozen. But you haven't woken like you did in the forest, which means that even he can't come out of his current state,' Jenny said.
'Not that I'm complaining or anything, but why didn't it just kill me like it was supposed to? Why do I still have a second chance, in spite of being hit?' Harry asked.
'Fate. Yes, you probably should've figured out by now who controls the answers to the many questions of life, the topic of destiny and other consequential matters? It's Fate, Harry. He is the one who decides and controls your destiny, everyone else's destiny. He does it in a most peculiar, yet fulfilling way. I presume that you, being a master of all three of them, know the Tale of the Deathly Hallows?'
'Yes, I do,' Harry replied quickly, his interest in the topic waxing with every moment.
'Death interacted with the creators of the Deathly Hallows, but their destiny, their future was controlled by Fate. Fate allowed the third brother, your own ancestor, to live. Fate controlled the future of the Hallows even after the brothers died. The most controversial of them, as you know, was the Wand of Destiny. Like everything else on earth, he controlled its successive possessors. He made sure that it passed on into various unsuspecting, some innocent, some greedy hands. He ensured that it reached Gellert Grindelwald, then Albus Dumbledore, then young Mr. Malfoy, and finally you. You may think it coincidental, but you are the only person in history after the third brother to unite and wield all three Hallows at the same time. Fate chose it this way, he meant for it to happen this way and when he foretold the prophecy via your schoolteacher, he already knew the outcome. He decided that you would be the one, the Chosen One, not Neville Longbottom, he decided that after long toil, after lots of pain, you would be the winner. He made sure all three of the Hallows came to you so that Voldemort could be overthrown from his position of power. I cannot tell for sure though, whether he foresaw this complication, or whether he thought that you would kill Voldemort outright in the Great Hall,' Jenny said.
'Ookaay,' Harry said, stunned into silence, still eagerly waiting to hear how everything would be resolved.
'So, the fact that it was a Deathly Hallow that contributed to Voldemort's coma and your apparent demise, gives you another chance. A chance to make things right. Fate always controlled the Hallows, and now that is coming into play. His decision is overriding Voldemort's actions. If Voldemort had used anything else as a means of your destruction, say impaling you with the sword of Gryffindor, you would be dead, and catastrophically, Fate wouldn't be able to do anything further,' Jenny said.
'So I'm getting a chance, a fair chance to get everything straight,' Harry asked, needing another confirmation.
'Yes,' Jenny replied.
'So how does that work?' Harry asked, euphoria rising within him abruptly, unable to believe he had somehow lucked out again.
'You see, the prophecy chose that specific moment for its completion. Until then, both of you could be living and breathing at the same time. But, now if you go back to that timeline, Voldemort will become conscious again, which means that both of you are alive. That cannot happen under any circumstances,' Jenny said.
'So what happens?' Harry asked.
'You heard me clear. You will be unable to go back to that timeline,' Jenny hinted.
'So..um... you're sending me to a different world, no wait, scratch that, a different time, to..to...'
'That's right Harry, you'll be going back into a particular time in your life, from where hopefully you'll be able to complete the terms of the Prophecy.'
'Okay, that's great... so where-'
'But there are some things I have to tell you before that happens, Harry,' Jenny said.
'Okay, what are they?' Harry asked urgently, fervently wanting to bring an end to the conversation now that he had gotten all his questions cleared and that he knew what he was going to be doing.
'First of all, this time travelling you're going to be doing leaves the old, original frame active, yet untouched. So, think of it as a picture that a Muggle camera can take. It's inanimate, it doesn't move. The scene where Voldemort and you curse each other with all the defendants of the school and the Dark Army watching intently, that scene will now be photographed and preserved. It will not proceed just yet. However, in the new timeline, if you again die before Voldemort does, that path, all the sequence of events that lead to that will be obliterated, and this photograph will activate immediately. Voldemort strikes you down in the Great Hall and he lives, claiming all the three Hallows as his own. He lives and you die. You know what that means, right?' Jenny asked.
Gulping nervously, Harry nodded in affirmation.
'So this is your last chance, the world's last chance. Even Fate can't help you if you fall in the new timeline before Voldemort does.'
'What happens if I kill Voldemort in the new timeframe?' Harry asked.
'The converse,' was all Jenny said.
'So, that means...that means I live my life from there and all the horrors of the present timeline are wiped off the map?' Harry asked.
Jenny nodded.
'There is another thing. This turn of events may lead to another potential disaster. In the new timeline, at least till Voldemort's resurrection, which I'll advise you to leave unmodified till you've destroyed all the pieces, if there is any living being that continues to live even though he or she has died in the previous timeline, the consequences for you will be severe. You will survive for a maximum of two or three days from that point, after which you will succumb. And trust me, that will be a painful death. Oh yeah, if any one dies when he or she lived in the previous timeline, then the same thing will happen to you and the old photograph will activate immediately after your death. Am I clear?' Jenny asked sternly.
'Yes, all clear,' Harry replied.
'This is simply because the forking of the roads that we are creating, is a response to the question of your fate and Voldemort's as well. It's between you and him. No one else's mortality should be affected.'
'I understand,' Harry replied, getting up, knowing it was time.
'One last thing,' Jenny said, 'It's not exactly to do with this mission, but-'
'But what?' Harry asked.
'You always were a good friend to Hermione. But this time, please be her best friend first, please have her as your first priority, not anyone else?' she asked pleadingly.
'I...I don-' Harry started, but was cut off by Jenny.
'Just tell me something, okay? Just answer my question first,' Jenny said, and Harry wordlessly indicated for her to proceed.
'You remember when you were at your parent's graves?' Jenny asked.
Harry nodded again, unable to understand what Jenny was getting at.
'Voldemort had already taken over the Ministry, the entire country. You were in hiding, you were hurting over your parent's graves, you were hurting over betrayal, fear of defeat, you were miserable. You didn't have anything to hang onto, no one to restore your confidence in the Horcrux mission, to hold you and tell you that things would get better, no parents, no Weasleys, no Sirius, not even Dumbledore, no one in the world, except-'
'Hermione,' Harry groaned softly.
'Yes, Harry. Hermione. Hermione. No one else. For you, it was only Hermione at that time, as always. When will you understand, that's all you need in life, that Hermione is the one and only person that can complete you?' Jenny asked softly, looking despairingly at Harry, but she plowed on in spite of herself.
'When will you realise that she's all that you'll ever need, that she's all that you could ever possibly need in your life?' Jenny whispered, and even the normal, upbeat Steve looked pained. Harry couldn't breath, he felt as though someone had reached into him and grasped his heart, twisting it even tighter with every word that came out of Jenny's mouth. He brushed away an errant tear that he had fought furiously from rolling down and he agonisingly asked himself the same thing. Why had he not realised? He was friends with them, but he didn't absolutely need people like Ron, Ginny or anyone else , Hermione was someone he could absolutely not live without! She was his constant, his friend, his lover, his-
'Everything,' Jenny finished softly. 'Your everything. I'm glad you understood at last. There's nothing else to do here,' she whispered, getting up from her seat, wiping her eyes dry.
She walked towards Harry and held his hand. 'Come,' she stated and Harry said bye to Steve, who gave him a two-finger salute in return.
Feeling slightly better, Harry walked away, Jenny in tow.
Again, they walked through what a veil of silver mist, before Jenny stopped.
'Good luck, Harry. Be safe,' Jenny breathed, looking at Harry emotionally.
'I don't know what's going to happen now, I don't know what kind of events will unfold, but I promise you here, I swear on my blood that I will show Hermione what exactly she means to me. I will show her how much I value her, how much I love her. Things will change ; I swear it,' Harry snarled, his jaw set and his teeth clenched, a steely glint of determination in his eyes as he looked unflinchingly at Jenny, daring her to even think of contradicting him.
Jenny smiled at him for a second, hopeful, and then steered Harry towards what appeared to be the centre of the mysterious room.
'So where in time am I landing up?' Harry asked, his voice dulcet again.
'You'll find out in a minute,' Jenny said. 'All I can tell you is that you'll go back to the time when the first significant step had just been taken. A time when something big had just happened. You'll understand when you get there,' Jenny said, waving at him.
Harry's mind was now working overtime. When something big had just happened? What did that mean? Did that mean he was going back to Halloween night at Godric's Hollow, just after his parents got murdered?
He opened his mouth to communicate to Jenny, he signaled to her, he tried anything that would attract her attention, but he felt himself suffocating, he felt himself falling for some reason, and then there was only darkness.
AN - Aureus Flammare = Golden Flames in Latin
Big treat for anyone who can decipher Jenny's hint, and guess where Harry lands up. I also look forward to any feedback from you guys about my explanation for Harry's death, and whether you guys were able to spot any loopholes in the same area/
So, I hope all of you have a merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!!!
Cheers!