I am appalled at the lack of reincarnation fics in this category. So here's my attempt to add to the fandom.

I don't own Danny Phantom or Harry Potter by the way

Immortality sucks. Anyone who says differently is either stupid or… no they're just stupid. Or my name isn't Danny Fenton.

There is nothing glamorous about staying the same while the world changes around you. There's nothing great about watching everyone you love and care about grow old and die while you stay stuck in some god-forsaken age- time-limbo that you can never escape. There is nothing funny about burying your children and grandchildren who lived to a ripe old age, but you know you have no business being at their funeral looking like their goddamn grandson yourself. There's nothing fantastic about slowly withdrawing from the world because you find there is nothing there for you anymore.

Maybe those who want immortality are the type of people who just think that having all the time in the world would be great. Sure you now have plenty of time to devote to your hobbies; I mean I went back and got my freaking PhD in Engineering, Chemistry, Astronomy (I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid after all) and Biology. At the same time though, all that extra time doesn't mean you're suddenly free from problems you had when you were mortal. You still need a job to pay your bills or you got no house. I mean yeah, technically I could acquire this money via my other special abilities if you wanna get technical, but no we're just talking about immortality alone here. And knowledge is surprisingly empty without something to apply it to.

Maybe you wanted to spend eternity finishing a goal, or maybe just doing something you loved. Good for you. Unfortunately you might find that goal you were working towards didn't take nearly as long as you thought, or maybe you just got sick of that thing you so dearly used to love, or even worse that thing you loved just doesn't need you anymore. Ouch…

Hell, maybe they're just afraid to die. That reason is also silly. I can assure people that they have nothing to worry about. Everyone totally has an immortal soul (which is the only thing that should be immortal) that goes on to another place. Be it the Ghost Zone for all of those with unfinished business or some other plane that my parents didn't build a portal to. Unless they're afraid of damnation or something in which case I admit that I have no advice on how to face that kind of afterlife. The Ghost Zone is considered limbo not hell.

Otherwise, there is no good reason I can think of for living forever.

So why do I seem to have such a hard time dying? Old age doesn't touch me; I haven't met a disease or infection my bizarre immune system couldn't annihilate within a week. I even gave myself AIDs and cancer (Don't ask about the cancer. It involved metric crap-ton of microwaves; let's leave it at that.). I walked into Frostbite's lab the month after and tests ran negative for both. The visit led to a strange set of questions from the white yeti king, which admittedly led to stranger answers and him humbly requesting that I seek some form of counseling, which I politely ignored. Death through injury is also out of the question thanks to my ghostly physiology, which is far more malleable and durable than I ever gave it credit for. Even weapons against ghosts couldn't truly end me as my human half would always anchor my ghost self and vice versa.

As it turns out, becoming a half human half-ghost hybrid has a disturbing long-term side effect. Apparently once I reached my physical peak of maturity my ghostly half went to town on my human half and changed it even more than it had already had been. According to Frostbite, who will always be more knowledgeable in ecto-biology than me, natural born ghosts, like Box Lunch (ew) and Winterchill (Frostbite's adorable kid), come out of ghost puberty (it's even worse than human puberty) into something called a final form. For them it's what they'll look like for the rest of their ghostly un-lives, unless they go through some significant power up later on. Apparently my ghost half recognized my human self's physical peak as the equivalent of a final form and stopped me from aging any further. Frostbite then explained how this was possible, in a long, long, long-winded lecture about genetics and the nature of ectoplasm that I had trouble wrapping my brain around even with those extra college degrees under my belt. It essentially summed up to "you can't die when you're already dead."

In short I'm not going to meet my family wherever the not-ghosts are.

Great.

Oh my god I am so bored.

I'm not even being dramatic. I've been around for three hundred and ten years. I have become so powerful that almost no ghost dares to fight me anymore. The most powerful enemies of my childhood are jokes to me now. I could take on Pariah without the suit now and come out on top. Even the Observants leave me alone and they bother EVERYONE. I guess that's a good thing.

I miss the challenge.

I can't even use these powers to protect the Earth like I use to anymore. I mean I could, but they don't really need me anymore. Human relations with the supernatural have never been better. I could go after the few bad seeds in both societies but, due to the power of friendship(hehe) society is more than capable of taking down non-human and normal criminals alike. Humans now have the technology and the allies to do it.

So, no more hero work for me. Crap.

Getting a normal job was also a bit of a dead-end. My reputation would follow me wherever I went. However unlike me in my teenage years, I was revered, to put it mildly. I got way more respect, leeway and favor from than I frankly deserved for someone's first day in office. I would be promoted to positions I hadn't had the experience for and everyone would always have the audacity to look shocked when I messed up, because apparently superheroes weren't suppose to do that. The real downer though, was the guilt of knowing that I knew at least three or four people who were passed over because of me, but they were probably more qualified than I ever was.

So I turned to books for a while. Yes I was desperate, shut up.

After a meeting with Ghost Writer that went something like this:

Danny: Hey writer can I use your Library?

Writer: Get the fuck out of my lair.

Danny: I'll let you use that reality-warping keyboard on me for your next story…

Writer: … No talking in the library.

I got lost in the world of words. Ghost Writer had everything in that Library, including books that the human world had thought were lost to time. There was knowledge that could have revolutionized the whole of mankind, which that greedy bastard had proceeded to hoard for himself. I may or may not have copied and leaked the pages of some texts to some influential historical societies in the land of the living. They would have appreciated it more than Writer did.

Even so, that got boring as well.

Nowadays I just hang out in my lair or waste time with other ghosts. Sometimes I ride with Johnny and Kitty on a bike we made together. Other times I do some community service to get Walker of my back. If I'm in the area I'll goof off with Frostbite and try to lure his royal furriness and guards into a snowball fight. You haven't had a real snowball fight until you've been part of a Far Frozen one. On special occasions I would fly up to Ghostly Rome where Pandora resides and take part in a series of games that they held in their Coliseum rip-off, only theirs was in much better shape than the original since they never took blocks from theirs for other building projects (also the no erosion thing). I visit the Dora Queendom from time to time too (formerly known as the principality of Aragon). It's one of the most technologically advanced cities in the Ghost Zone now; if Tucker had become a ghost I know he would have moved there and set up shop. Sometimes I just fly aimlessly through the Zone, because no matter how old I get, flying will always feel awesome.

Today I was currently lazily sitting upside down on my couch watching Netflix that I had Technus help me hook up on my holo-screen. TV's had been replaced over one hundred and fifty years ago; these babies were their latest successor. Netflix never seemed to die though. Huh.

So bored…

I hopped up off the couch and turned off the holo-screen before making my way to the door of my lair. I almost slammed the door open and leaped into the green swirling abyss that happened to be the Ghost Zone's atmosphere. The door slowly closed behind me in way that was reminiscent of all of those horror movies I loved to watch. I honestly wasn't sure if that was a Ghost Zone thing or a trait my lair picked up from me.

I needed some social interaction or something. Dwelling on eternity is not healthy. Speaking of eternity (Wait, didn't I just acknowledge doing that was bad?) I wonder how Clockwork is doing. He's been around for eons and he hasn't cracked yet. Maybe he has advice for me! It's definitely a better plan than doing meandering figure eights in the sky all day.

I change from aimlessly floating to speeding in the direction of a certain clock tower.

"I've been expecting you," of course you have…

Clockwork stood in the middle of the main viewing room of his tower, watching one of the many monitor screens with an impassive stare. He didn't even look up at me when I entered, but he greeted me nonetheless.

I took a glance at one of the holo-screens and winced at the image of my only living daughter doing paperwork on an oak desk in a rather fancy office. She had her mother's eyes and face, but my ghostly genes to keep her looking twenty-three forever.

"She's happy," the cloaked ghost offered.

"She was able to keep up in a changing world. Something her old man couldn't do," I replied.

"Morgan has always been a very adaptable woman," I puffed up a bit at the praise on my daughter's behalf.

"She gets it from Sam," I couldn't help but add.

"You're pretty flexible too you know," I couldn't stop the snort that escaped me. I raised an eyebrow at the timekeeper, watching as he switched from able-bodied adult to a hunched over old man.

"You've never been one to flatter with lies before," I grumbled bitterly. He knew why I came here. Like he always says "I know everything". If he was trying to make me feel better, this sure wasn't it.

"You're right, and I am not lying now. Perhaps you've just forgotten how good you used to be at keeping a secret identity?" The ancient ghost waved his staff and all the screens in the tower now displayed my fourteen year-old self doing all sorts of things for the sake of not getting hauled off to a government dissection table. Each screen showed a different scene; from a simple lie to a teacher, to pretending to dumpster dive to transform. Good times.

"Or have you forgotten how you acclimated from just protecting Amity Park to assisting on a more Global scale?" The screens changed again to familiar sights of my younger self, meeting with the leaders of the free world at that time to hammer out the details of just what I would and would not help with. Things like International war were a no-no, but natural disaster relief and rescue were A-ok. That and what I usually did of course. Several other screens depicted several leaders varying from foreign kings to American generals trying and failing to coerce me into acting as a weapon to keep for themselves.

"Maybe you need to be reminded of just how you reacted to finding out ghosts weren't the only thing that weren't just superstition?" Clockwork changed the screens again to my first encounter with a nāga* in India and how I managed to work out peaceful relations with a whole hidden village of them and a neighboring town of average humans. Another showed Tucker and Wulf getting friendly with a pack of Canadian werewolves. I couldn't repress my snicker at a screen revealing my wife Sam gathering a protest in England for vampire rights, with both human and vampire protesters.

The time ghost had now adopted his child form and gave me a buck tooth smirk that just screamed 'why do you even question me when I'm always right?'.

I wasn't convinced though. That smirk was impressive, but my pout was better.

"If I'm so darn flexible, then why can't I find a way to still help people like I used to?" I said maybe a bit too loud, "Why can't I still be useful without feeling outdated or like I'm just on some other level," I might have been yelling now, but at this point I was too frustrated to care.

The hooded specter dropped his smug face and directed his attention to the screens once again. With yet another wave of his staff the Holo-screens no longer showed my friends' and my accomplishments, but the Earth as it was today.

"The human world has adapted in a different path than you have, although it is undeniable that you were one of the key factors that set it on that path. The Earth is more peaceful than it's been in centuries and it has you to thank," He looked back to me, "from childhood you learned to be a hero and adapted to chaos, protecting others and constantly preparing yourself for the next danger. Now you feel like you're not needed anymore now that the world doesn't need to be constantly saved from out of control supernatural beings."

I sighed, "So I'll never be needed again is what you're saying?"

"No, just not for a very, very long time."

"You're not helping at all. You know that, right?" I felt compelled to make sure he knew that.

"I wouldn't say that just yet," said Clockwork. A small grin was tugging at his bucktooth lips; "You came here for guidance on what to do with your rather… unique case of immortality. I have one better, a suggestion if you will.

That got my attention. My whole body stood rigid, listening intently now for what the timekeeper had to say next.

"I see I don't need to ask if you're interested. Follow me then," He waved his arm backward, motioning for me to follow him, which I did. We floated through an archway and up a couple of flights of winding stairs. We didn't go all the way to the top, but stopped at what I guessed to be the seventh floor and entered another room through another archway.

This archway was different though. Unlike the plain one at the bottom of the stairwell leading to the viewing room, this one was thick, white and covered with silver etchings I could only describe as ancient.

The room itself looked like it rarely saw any visitors at all. It was round in shape and about twice the size of my childhood bedroom, except you know built entirely from ancient stone blocks. The ceiling was at least twice as high too. There were no windows either. Which was kind of strange considering that the buildings of the Ghost Zone could have windows anywhere in the building including the basement and still somehow get a view of the zone outside.

The stuff inside the room made it even weirder. At first glance it looked like a bunch of old junk. An old brass mirror sat on a small armoire with an open door that revealed mismatched old shoes, belts and hats. On a table there were forks, spoons, knives, plates, pots and pans from different sets that probably came from different eras. All were looking rather tarnished. Various old broomsticks, that looked like they'd make a bigger mess than they'd clean, were stacked haphazardly on the wall, which is a much neater fashion than a bunch of the other random trinkets that were strewn on two other old end tables in the room. The most prominent thing in the junk room, as I have now named it, was a very tall rectangular structure hiding under a sheet of cloth to protect it from dust that hardly exists in the ghost zone.

Normally I'd just write this off as Clockwork's junk room that he seriously needs to throw out, but this stuff was giving off weird vibes. Almost every single item in this room seemed to have an aura of its own ranging from a sugar-and-rainbows kind of harmless, to an I-will cut-you type of violent. It was almost disorienting.

"What is this place?" I finally ask. Clockwork didn't answer immediately. Instead he slowly floated over to the sheet-obscured item and pulled off the cloth covering.

What, the hell was that?

It looked like an archway ripped right out the Stone Henge that lead straight into the twilight zone if that clear, rippling energy that seemed to take up the entire entrance was anything to go by. Clockwork let me to gape at it for a moment or two longer before speaking up again.

"You know that the Ghost Zone is the home for all deceased with unresolved issues," I nodded. This was old news, "What you didn't know, however is that your home dimension is not the only one that uses the Ghost Zone," My eyebrows rose to my hairline. Well that was a heck of a shock.

"…How many other dimensions are there?"

"Too many to count, but only several connect to the Ghost Zone for their restless afterlife. This portal… this veil in particular," he waved his staff over to the Veil for emphasis, "leads to a world just barely attached. Very few restless souls from that world are actually capable of reaching the zone on their own and natural portals are nearly nonexistent."

"Then why would they use our zone if they can't get to it?" I asked, "Couldn't they use another dimension 'closer' to them for their ghosts?"

"Ours was the 'closest'," oh.

"The Veil you see before you is the work of ancient magic trying to understand and make contact with the other side."

I nodded, "So, it's basically like an ancient Fenton Ghost Portal, minus the science, and replace it with Merlin?"

"Basically. But, unlike your home dimension, which is practically on top of this one, contact with this other one is much harder to establish and preserve. Even so the connection is a bit strange for lack of better words," Clockwork gave me a piercing stare that left me unable to do anything, but listen to his next words; like they were about to decide my fate, "Those that go through this portal almost never come back and if they do then they have been changed in a way that can never be undone. That is the price of entering the Veil.

"However I can see the other side of the Veil just as well as I can see any world connected to this zone and it is filled with all of the things that you have been missing Mr. Phantom. There are people who need you, people who understand you and a place for you that there isn't here."

Huh… well that wasn't what I was thinking of when I came to visit today. I can't say I'm not just a little excited at what I think he was offering though. If I could help people, be useful, make a difference again, then this was too good to be true.

"What's this world like?" I asked. There was no way I was jumping into this blind like some dumb teenager. There had to be a catch.

"Very similar to your own home at some point in time," Well that both narrowed it down a lot and not at all. So the place this leads to is another Earth and not some other alien planet, but that still doesn't nail a time. He said that people would need me, so that means humans are around which leaves me tens of thousands of years to guess at. Unfortunately that wasn't making the offer much less appealing. Wow I was more bored than I thought. Wasn't the thought of a one way trip to a strange new place suppose to be, I don't know, more intimidating?

"Wouldn't this be meddling with another world's affairs? Don't the Observants get all pissy when you do that?" I asked, still not completely sold on this idea, but secretly considering it to be an awesome one.

"The Observants will always find something to worry about," the time ghost waved a dismissive glove, "whether it's me or something else that doesn't matter is pointless all the same, and nothing I can't handle," hard to argue with that logic, "this however, is not about them. It's about you.

"What I offer here is a chance that I give to only those who truly have nothing left to exist for here in your world," I inwardly cringed hearing those words said out loud for the first time. It hurt just as much as I though it would.

I had always tried to avoid thinking that very thought. I reminded myself of my daughter and other descendants that I stuck around for, but I lost contact with them long ago. Only Morgan visited me every now and again and I could tell that it was more out of familial responsibility than any real desire to catch up witch a father that hadn't changed in ages.

I tried to reflect on my friends in the Ghost Zone to prove Clockwork's statement wrong, but I found myself unable. I may have kept in much more contact with them than my family, but they did nothing to help push me forward or give me a purpose either. They simply distracted me from how very long forever seemed to be. They were an entertaining distraction, but a distraction all the same.

The air suddenly felt heavy and I couldn't float anymore. I slowly descended from my place in the air and landed on somewhat shaky legs. It was true; I didn't have a purpose anymore.

Clockwork put a gnarled hand on my shoulder and I gave a wane smile at the gesture. The spirit respectfully refrained from commenting anymore on the state of my current affairs that seemed to have all caught up to me in that moment. His hand gave a slight reassuring squeeze and he continued on with his proposal.

"It would be a chance to start anew. Where no one will have ever heard of Danny Phantom yet," He added.

And like that, I knew I was gonna walk through that portal. A blank slate, free of any reputation I had gathered in my life was never going to come by again. This was it. This was what I wanted.

My eyes stared at Clockwork then to the Veil. It didn't seem as ominous as it did before. In fact it might have been a bit welcoming. The rippling energies of the archway seemed to ease instead of discomfort. The stone archway itself didn't seem half as imposing as when I first laid eyes on it. I don't doubt that my new opinion of it was probably an effect of the ancient ghost's offer.

Even so, before I knew it or could even stop myself, I took a step forward and then another and yet another. The echo of my boots walking across the room were the only sounds in that clock tower as Clockwork impassively watched me make my way over to the ancient portal.

It seemed to call me now, in its own weird way. Maybe it knew that I wanted to use it and it was letting me know it was ok with it. I've dealt with enough magical junk before to know that they have a bizarre way of showing whether or not they approved of who was handling them. The Reality Gauntlet didn't approve of Freakshow and showed its displeasure through a strange makeover of the Trevi Fountain in Greece that changed to depict Freakshow in the center wearing nothing but his underwear and all the horsemen turning around to point and laugh at his misfortune. God I hope the Veil doesn't have a similar sense of humor.

The thought of an inter-dimensional portal pantsing me halted my little zombie walk. It was a good thing too, because I was just one step away from entering the Veil.

A last-minute thought occurred to me as I turned to Clockwork.

"Can you tell her what happened? That I'm ok? That I love her?" I didn't want my little girl to worry over nothing.

"The Veil must remain a secret," The master of time declared, "but I will tell her that you chose your fate and that you're no longer within her reach," a small smile found it's way to his the blue ghosts face, "the last part goes without saying, but I'll tell her anyway."

I gave a grin of my own in return, "So this is the last time I'll see you for a while, any advice before I go?"

"How do you know you'll be able to return at all?"

"Please, I'm the son of Jack and Maddie Fenton. They taught me everything they know about flipping nature the bird and doing the impossible," I gave a thumbs up.

"Perhaps…" the ghost remained neutral; careful not release any indications of the future he saw as easily as the here and now, "Know this then. It is wise to embrace change, but never let it sweep you away."

I nodded, even though both of us knew that I didn't understand the true depth of his advice at the moment, but I would remember it until the time came when it finally made sense, just like I did with the rest of his cryptic little words of wisdom.

With that I looked away from one of my closest friends for the last time and took one step forward.

And one step into the unknown.

*Naga are a mythical race of half snake people. Google them, they look awesome.

Anyway I hope you liked the first chapter. Don't worry too much about Danny being a god-mod-sue like he is now. The Veil has a way of bringing people down to size :D.