There's always a reason.

Summary: Where a 'Dementor' is what happens when (the Master of) Death tries to dump his work on some(thing)one else.

The Master of Death–or simply Death, as he'd come to call himself after so much time on the job (and seriously, the Hallows should come with some kind of warning label, something like 'WARNING: SHITTY JOB INCLUDED' or 'NOT RECOMMENDED TO NON-WORKAHOLIC PEOPLE WHO WANT ACTUAL VACATIONS')–considered himself a patient entity. Patience had been groomed into him from his human childhood, and he'd always prided himself in being naturally inclined towards patience, anyway. Said patience was also the trait in which he prided himself most, and which he considered had been essential to reunite the mythic Deathly Hallows.

Now, he was beginning to think he was too patient. And forgiving.

And maybe he should try to take over the world by now, because it was apparent that he was staying for a while, and what better leader to have than an immortal with powers over death and life?

Of course, said idle fantasy couldn't be fulfilled by a small but vital fact: Death was being worked to (heh) death.

He was always busy; always! There wasn't a single minute were he didn't feel the Pull telling him where his next job laid, the soul awaiting his approval in the form of a touch to drift into the Afterlife. Death was relieved he'd stopped needing sleep somewhere along the last fifty years (or was it a century already?), because otherwise he'd have gone through a meltdown quickly followed by the worst Plague imaginable long ago, that would've wiped out humanity back to a more sensible number.

Like 50.

Maybe 25.

(Not that he didn't fantasize about that from time to time as well... but the fact remained the same.)

Too much work. Too many humans that just wouldn't die en masse and avoid him Apparating from side to side of the world constantly. A really infuriating little detail no one had taken the moment to advertise, nooo. 'Power', they'd said instead. 'Fame and fortune' they'd said.

Death felt cheated, that's how he felt. And he'd been too damn patient with this problem.

No one cheated Death and got away with it. (No one did, after all, and Death was all too amused to go take those particular souls that tried anyway. Unfortunately, it didn't happen as often as one would think, or as often as Death could hope. His job was as dull as it got.)

So when his patience finally did snap, Death took it upon himself to fix this problem Elder Wand in hand and a, to outer eyes, pretty disturbing smile with just that touch of insanity in place. And since humans apparently were little more than annoyances he had to clean after incessantly (at first, he'd reserved that opinion for the muggles, whom he'd had to reap as well for some twisted sense of amusement of the universe, but with the years he'd changed his mind and realized that they all were worse than lice), he even used the inspiration that came from some of their beliefs and actual society.

Namely, he made himself some minions.

With cloaks.

And skeletal-like bodies.

And maybe even scythes.

(That last part was finally rejected at the last moment because finding so many scythes was a pain in the arse. And thank Himself he did it, considering what followed.)

If asked later, Death was on a roll when he called upon his powers for the creation of his new small army of Collectors, cloaked shadows and twisted features lying under the covered surface. Furthermore, he'd might or might not have confessed to using some real human bones lying around for his little burst of creation (he was in a cemetery at the time, after all. What better place to call for the Powers of Death?).

Of course, the universe was a cruel mistress, and Death quickly learned the drawbacks of his genius plan (just before he could go on his very much deserved vacation to some uninhabited forgotten isle, at that!).

Namely, the fact that, for all that his Collectors had the intelligence and loyalty of a dog (he wasn't sure how that happened, but he suspected some non-human bones mixing in the mess by accident), they apparently were stupid enough to be unable to discriminate between dead and alive people.

And Merlin, Death groaned loudly the first time an eager Collector brought him the soul of someone who, by all accounts, still had twenty years of life going on before it was time to pay them a visit.

(And honestly, Death had no problem with the coldness his Collectors released, but killing someone from frostbite in the middle of desert DURING THE DAY AND AT 114 ºF was not an acceptable job. Much less when the goddamned human was supposed to overthrow a regime or some such bullshit first (Fate hadn't been amused, and even less when she'd had to create a whole new species of magical creatures just to fix it. 'Geniuses' or not, Death hadn't been able to resist himself and had quickly negotiated the creatures' boundaries of their magic abilities regarding death–he'd left with a satisfied smirk knowing that his work wouldn't be screwed with by the revival or early death of some poor idiot, Fate's murderous glare notwithstanding. At least he'd let her do her thing and revive the kid first, sheesh!)

By the time he'd told his pets several times to only collect the souls of the dead bodies, and NO, KILLING THEM FIRST DIDN'T COUNT AS A 'GOOD JOB' YOU USELESS SACK OF BONES, Death realized he'd created idiots, demented idiots the lot of them. So, after happily renaming them with the title of Dementeds (how that later found its way to human ears and evolved into 'Dementors', Death would never know), he decided they needed someone constantly pulling from their chain to avoid any unpredicted deaths ruining his day and agenda, and with his near infinite patience got to do just that.

(When humans invented some weird spell to shoo his little spawns away he'd shouted in glee, which hadn't translated very well to the humans, if the instantaneous disappearance of the light-animal and slump of the humans had been something to go with. He'd then proceed to groan when his idiot minions tried to suck the soul out of the unconscious flea-bags.)

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Many centuries later, he would look one day at a calendar and realize just how much time he'd been doing this bullshit. He would then finally snap and throw the wand as far away as he could, put the stone in some godforsaken cave in the seaside, and send the cloak in a one-way trip to fuck-knows-where (he surely didn't check), before erasing himself from existence in a burst of mad cackling and a last cry of 'FUCK YOU' to the world.

And so, Death would finally return to the Circle of Rebirth with a last sigh of relief.

(Many years later, a young Harry Potter would briefly wonder about his sudden urge to curse up a storm when Dumbledore told him about the Deathly Hallows' existence.)

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(In another existence, Fate would be cackling herself to tears while grinning from ear to ear and gleefully shouting 'RETRIBUTION, FUCKER'.)