The Placer

They called him 'The Placer'.

Depictions of him hung in the corridors of Hogwarts, and St. Mungo's, and most Wizarding households at least owned a copy in miniature.

He took the form of a pack of tarot cards, and a beast with six arms and legs. But mostly, he was simply a man sitting in front of a chess table.

Although his common name was 'The Placer', he preferred his modern name. Plot.

His job was hard enough, to say the least. He had to be in several places simultaneously, from Azkaban to Godric's Hollow.

The chess board in front of Plot shook a little, and he turned to glare at the throngs of school children rushing past me. So inconsiderate. Did they know what he could do to them, with just a flick of his wrist?

Stick to the rules, Plot.

He rolled his eyes, bumping the knight across to the other side of the board. Fate was always an insufferable fool, the one that always hovered, making sure that he did his job by the rules.

Dragging the Queen two white spaces diagonally, he sighed, pulling his fingers through his silly white beard in exasperation. The painter of this picture clearly didn't know what he was doing. Giving him a goatee? There wasn't even a razor around to help him shave it off.

"Um, hello."

Plot raised an eyebrow, moving the Queen back again, and looking back up, glaring at the child who had paused to dally.

"What is it?" he grumbled, pulling my chair away from the chess board. "What do you want?"

The child regarded him with little less than blunt suspicion. Plot bristled, but a conversation - even with such a primitive child - would be refreshing.

"I heard you were 'The Placer'." the child began, the suspicion dripping from his words.

"I prefer Plot." Plot swung his right leg over his left, and nodded. "But yes, I am 'The Placer'. What do you want?"

"I'm Harry Potter." the child continued.

"Ah?" Plot already knew what Harry Potter was here for. He had moved the chess pieces that dictated his life thus far, after all. Fate had written it, and Plot had adapted it. "Is that so?"

Harry Potter shifted a little, running a hand through his hair. "They said you... Could, well,"

"Harry James Potter," Plot said, picking up the sheet bearing that name as a title. "I was told you would be coming for me soon."

"Who told you?" Harry Potter asked, his eyes widening.

Plot waved a hand. "Fate, naturally," he forced back a scoff. "Such an idiot sometimes, is Fate."

Plot, don't be so mean.

"And a bit of a wet blanket." Plot smirked.

"I wanted to ask you something," Harry Potter persisted.

Plot nodded vaguely, dragging his pinky down the page until he reached the date and the time he was looking for. He made a sound between growling and scoffing in the back of his throat when he read the questions he was about to be asked.

"Hardly original questions," Plot sighed. "I haven't had a good intellectual debate in centuries."

Harry Potter was shocked, just as it read on the paper Plot was holding. "How do you know what I'm going to ask?"

"As I said, hardly original," Plot looked back up at Harry Potter, and waited patiently. "Come on then. Hit me."

Harry Potter deliberated for a moment, before reluctantly continuing. "You dictated the events of the Second Wizarding War, didn't you?"

Plot spread his palms out, and shrugged. "Not me specifically," he corrected. "I'm given specific events that must happen and the rest is left up to me."

"Like what?" Harry asked curiously.

Plot tapped his fingers on his stupid beard - this conversation was perhaps a little more interesting than he had expected. "I decided that the Malfoy family were to have one child, a boy, but I was not allowed to choose whether Lucius Malfoy became a Death Eater or not."

"So nothing is done of free human will?" Harry pulled a face, obviously disgusted. "So there is no free will?"

"I had a coffee with Free Will this morning," Plot contemplated, tenting his fingers. "She'll be upset to know that you think he's not real."

"You're insane," Harry flinched, swallowing a looking at Plot with hatred in his eyes. "You mean my whole life is mapped out for me?"

"Partially," Plot groaned, sitting up a little straighter. "Come on then, get to the better questions."

Harry bit his tongue. "Okay," he said slowly, getting his breathing under control. "Okay... So, you can decide who lives and dies?"

Plot groaned again, shrugging once more. "It's obscenely complicated," he decided upon. "You're looking for someone to blame the deaths of Remus John Lupin, Nymphadora Andromeda Lupin and Frederick Gideon Weasley upon," Plot continued. "I had no involvement in their deaths."

Don't lie to yourself Plot.

"Maybe if you hadn't gone 'on holiday' then not so many lives would have fallen!" Plot hissed, throwing the paper to one side.

"So you did."

"Accidents happen," Plot shrugged again. "In that Battle I saved hundreds. The ones that died were the unavoidable casualties."

"And you can't bring them back?"

Plot ran his hand through his stupid beard again. Fate was ranting on in his head, which was giving him a sizeable headache. Harry Potter just wouldn't leave, and he had a relationship to break up.

"No, I can't," Plot spat. "Go and get on with your life Harry James Potter. Your life. There's nothing else written on your sheet."

"You mean-"

"I said, 'partially'," Plot rolled his eyes. "Remus John Lupin's paper only extended up to his tenth birthday. Nymphadora Lupin's paper was only a few paragraphs long. Free Will takes over after that."

Harry tried to take this in, and only succeeded in making his brain burn. He checked his watch, saw that he only had minutes left until he needed to meet Headmistress McGonagall, and sighed.

"But who are you?" he blurted out.

Plot closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair and absent-mindlessly moving the King. "I have many names," he suggested. "'The Placer', Plot, That-Odd-Guy-Who-Likes-Chess..."

Harry did not seem satisfied, so Plot sighed. "Geez, take a wild guess," he yawned. "I was a Wizard once you know."

"No way!" Harry's eyes widened. "Just... That's not..."

"Took you long enough," Plot smirked lazily, cracking open one eye. "Fate thought I was an important enough Wizard to be able to have a job in my afterlife."

"I thought you couldn't die?" Harry asked gingerly.

Plot huffed. "Those bloody folk tales," he uncrossed his legs and leant forward. "Always portraying me as some kind of immortal... Mind you, there's a pretty good television serial in a few years time."

Harry checked his watch again, his earlier aggravation forgotten. "I have to go, but I'll come back!" he said quickly, before running off.

"Take all the time you want!" Plot called after Harry, before pulling his chair back up to his chess table. He moved a couple of Pawns, and shifted a Bishop.

I thought you wanted to keep your Wizarding identity a secret Plot.

Plot fiddled with his goatee. "Fate," he said thoughtfully. "I need to be in Edinburgh."

I've sent Free Will. She was bored.

Plot raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. If he was being honest, he was looking forward to when Harry Potter came back.

No one had found out his true identity in centuries, and it promised to be quite the show.