Before Harry could wake up, Dumbledore faded away and was replaced by this respectable man wearing a suit and smoking a cigar.

Perhaps its how surreal everything was – and Harry was pretty sure she was dead – that the first thing out of her mouth was, "Those things can kill you, you know?"

The man gave a rough chuckle, putting out the cigar with the tip of his finger and finally looking at her.

Harry's breath caught in her throat.

His face was perfectly ordinary, with a certain symmetry to his features that made him perfectly forgettable in an English crowd, if it weren't for his eyes. They were dark, and she would hesitate to call it black, because there was light in it, like a thousand stars shining through. If she stared hard enough, she would swear that she could see entire galaxies spinning in his irises.

She made herself blink before the staring could get too rude.

"There's a balance to these things," the man said, voice a rough gravel and incongruously sounding like smooth honey at the same time. It gave Harry a headache if she thought about it too long. "And Tom Riddle's actions were tipping the balance badly."

"A – a balance?" Harry stammered. She wasn't sure what to ask, afraid to offend this man, this deity. For who else could it be? His face blurred into a forgettable shape, except for his shining eyes.

He gestured, and the smoke from his cigar formed into a set of scales. "A balance. Too many souls shouldn't exist at the same time. Something must die for something to be alive. A balance. For a man to stay alive that long…"

He blew out smoke. He was no longer smoking or holding a cigar, but he blew out smoke and changed the set of scales into a cracking, imbalanced one. It looked on the verge of tipping over.

No one ever accused Harry of being stupid, just oblivious.

"Ah. So in killing Riddle, I restored the balance?" she asked.

He snorted, looking at her again. Harry made the conscious decision not to look higher than his shifting cheekbones.

"And destroying the philosophers stone," he admitted. "And these things makes you my champion, little Master."

Harry wanted to stand up and at the same time, she wanted to scramble away from the being in a hurry. She opened her mouth instead and she croaked out, "You're Death."

He tipped his bowler hat at her, the shape changing midway into something else before she made another decision just not to look at him.

"Collecting the Hallows did this conversation?" she managed.

He gave a laugh. "The Hallows were a distraction. No one ever really looks at the real moral of the story. The balance of it. That everyone dies in the end. They're too busy chasing those items of power to understand."

Ah. So that's why. Not to escape death but to understand it and embrace him with open arms like an old friend. Not to struggle, but to look him in the eye at the end, bravely and fearlessly.

And Harry had willingly walked to her death.

"If s-suicide is the only thing that can catch your attention," she stuttered over the word. "There'd be thousands of nutters that would be calling themselves Master of Death everywhere. What makes me different?"

"Well, you didn't make someone else run away from it, did you?" he asked.

"Are you talking about the Horcruxes?" she demanded, too confused to care about giving offense. "That wasn't all me, Ron and Hermione, heck even Crabbe helped to do it!"

"And they will all get their just rewards at their own ends," he agreed. "Well, except for Mr. Crabbe. He already had this conversation and he has already chosen his reward."

The very fact that the conversation was even happening to Harry…

"Ah. Am I dead?" she asked. She finally looked at him, and he tipped his ever-changing hat to her again. She quickly looked away.

"So will you choose your reward?" he asked. "You can have eternal peace and happiness with those waiting for you. Or you can choose for rebirth, the next great adventure. Or you can choose to go back."

Harry realized, listening to him, that this was her reward. The knowing. Because most people died not knowing what would happen next. Some people died not even having a choice to return.

"Would the war be alright, if I leave?" she asked after a moment.

"Would it affect your choice?" he asked, sounding curious.

After a quick yes, he handed her a mirror. "I'll be right beside you. I am patient. Time holds no meaning to me."

So Harry looked into the mirror and saw everything.

She saw Hagrid sobbing as he was forced to carry her lifeless body. She saw the people rallying, McGonagall tagging some people to form a ring around her, because there were too many people to kill for them to put her to the side for a moment, so the least they could do was defend her corpse.

Ron and Hermione, taking down Death Eaters without mercy. Ron, quiet and face wet with tears while Hermione screamed and raged her fury at everyone. The Weasleys, attacking as a group and being a veritable force of magic. Students, teachers, everyone.

"I can't watch this," she said, voice shaking as she looked at how they reacted. Looked at all the people she had touched while she was still alive and wanted to hyperventilate. "I can't. How could I do this to them?"

"The fact that you're asking me means that you don't understand yet," Death said. "You are loved, Harry. So loved."

The words were too much and Harry just broke.

Huge gasping sobs wrenched themselves from Harry, her chest heaving as she tried to stop them but she couldn't. All her life, she hadn't understood why. Why her mother threw herself in front of her, or why Ron looked at Sirius Black in the face and tried to stand with a broken leg. But looking at them, she was starting to.

The mirror slipped from Harry's grasp as she bawled like a baby beside Death, but it didn't shatter. It floated, right in front of her face as the war continued, and her friends won. Neville stabbed Voldemort in the stomach and then decapitated him for good measure with Gryffindor's sword.

"Do you understand?" he asked her.

Seamus, whom she'd experimented kissing with before they both realized that he was gay. Seamus, carrying her body tenderly to a bed and fixing her hair and weeping hard enough that he almost couldn't see.

"Yes, I see," she whispered, looking at Death and finally feeling no fear. Just acceptance. "I think I'm ready to go now."

He smiled at her. "It will be a great adventure worthy of you, little one."

Feeling brave in the absence of the fear and the sudden acceptance, Harry hugged Death.

"Thank you for making me understand," she said into his shoulder.

She smiled at him and she fell into his eyes of swirling galaxies.

.

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Perhaps, Harry mused thoughtfully as she looked at the large faces of her new parents, I should have asked Death for more details.

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Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and a Happy Birthday

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