Two. A tête-à-tête or two.

When Harry awoke, he became conscious of the fact that he was naked, missing his glasses, and face-down on a flat surface that was just there once again. His surroundings came into focus much faster than they had yesterday- was it really only yesterday that he had died for the first, or perhaps the second, time? A black pile of robes appeared just out of his reach. He pulled those on quickly and looked around. Again, the room looked very similar to King's Cross Station. To his left stood the barrier to the Hogwarts Express. Dumbledore was nowhere in sight. Neither was the sickly creature.

Harry placed a hand to the barrier and smiled when his hand slipped through. The rest of his body quickly followed his hand.

Once on the other side of the barrier, Harry paused to take in his surroundings. There was more color on this side. The Hogwarts Express waited, colors vibrant, steam pouring from underneath its belly. The sight comforted Harry. His heart fluttered in his chest at the magnificent locomotive.

Slowly, fearing the train would disappear if he moved too suddenly, Harry stepped toward the train. A movement to his right caught his attention and he turned, expecting the same gruesome creature as before.

Instead he found a woman, head bowed, sitting against the wall. She looked strongly of African descent with her dark brown hair and skin and traditional bright African garb- or, at least that was what Harry assumed. Her bare feet, just as bare as his, were planted firmly on the ground with her knees pulled up to her chest. Her long, thin arms tugged her legs closer and her forehead fell to her knees. Her short hair splayed out in all directions, like his, but with slightly more finesse. Sadness wafted from her body in thick waves. Harry's throat clenched painfully, but his breathing was not constricted.

Harry then belatedly realized that he had no need to breathe anymore.

Cursing his curiosity and hero complex, Harry tentatively moved toward the distraught woman. He really needed to find Snape and Death, and Fate to guide him, but his curiosity of the woman won the internal battle. When she did not look up he sat down to her left. He stared right at the train. What could he say to her?

"Hullo."

Harry wanted to kick himself.

"Hullo yourself."

Silence hung thick in the air.

"How'd you die?" he asked before he could stop his mouth. He really needed to work on his brain/mouth connection. "Not because of me, I hope..."

Harry turned to her and watched her lift her head. The woman's eyes were darker than her hair; they were an enthralling color, Harry decided. He could only stare as she gave him a sad smile.

"No, child," she replied, her voice sad and her smile turned bitter. Her accent was strange, one he had never heard before. "I died a long time ago, Harry James Potter. Long before you were ever born. I died merely from a disease they could not cure." She slid her gaze over to the vibrant train. "Brilliant, is it not?"

Steam poured from the train again, covering the platform in a white mist. Harry stared back at the train. "I suppose. But how do you know my name?"

The dark-skinned woman kept silent, staring straight ahead solemnly. She really had no need to answer his question. The answer would have been the same as that mysterious man's, and she knew that she did not need to reply. Who didn't know Harry Potter? It really was a stupid question. He berated himself and moved his gaze to his lap. Harry wasn't sure if he wanted the answer anymore.

"So... If you died a long time ago, why are you still here?"

Harry cursed his curiosity once again, and it surely would not be for the last time he did so, either.

The woman just chuckled at him, the noise low and comforting. "Ah, Harry James Potter. You silly, stupid boy. But you are just a boy, are you not? Pity, that. You would have made a fine young man. Tell me, who coaxed you into dying again?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"And why should I answer to a silly, stupid boy like you? Do not reply, 'because I am the Savior and I deserve to know'." She shot him a scathing look.

Harry shot an equally harsh look right back. "I don't understand why everyone thinks I like the fame. I didn't choose to be the Savior! I didn't choose to be the bloody Boy-Who-Bloody-Well-Lived! Just for one minute, I wish someone would not use that against me."

The woman tilted her head. Her dark eyes carefully studied him sadly. "No, of course not, Harry James Potter. Now, answer my question, and I may answer yours."

"Just some man who was in the Great Hall," Harry replied bluntly. He was hurt from her words. He was just Harry Potter; a man, damn it! He had killed! Blood was on his hands! He was a man... Wasn't he? Not some child to berate and belittle. "He said that I could bring Professor Snape back to life."

"Did he, now?" A dark chuckle danced through her lips. "Was he Death's Messenger?"

"He told me that he had made a contract with Death and worked for the Fates, if that helps at all."

The woman stilled, her dark eyes impossibly wide. "No," she whispered, her sad voice soft. "I cannot believe him." She ran a hand through her thick dark hair. "He actually did it."

"Did what?"

Harry watched the woman, confused. Did she know the man? How? Nothing made any sense anymore. Not that it did in the first place, or ever, Harry mused.

"Never you mind," she replied, turning her cheerless gaze back to the train. "You will find out all in due time, and not a moment sooner, child. Now, to answer your question..." The woman glanced briefly in his direction, but did not meet his stare. "I have been waiting. For whom, I do not remember. I have forgotten a lot of things, it seems."

"Even your name?"

"Even my name."

"That's terrible." Harry wanted to reach out to comfort her, but she seemed so beyond help, and he didn't know what to do...

"Not particularly, no." She sighed, the breath of released air empty yet filled with conflicting emotions. "I suppose that happens if you have been waiting as long as I have."

Harry did not hesitate this time to touch her elbow. "How long?"

"There is no time in death," was her blithe answer. "Harry James... Do you know that you cannot save a person once they Move On?"

Her question startled him. That stranger in the Great Hall told him that he could bring Severus Snape back, and now this woman was saying he couldn't. Really, he should have expected this; he really shouldn't be this surprised. Everything around him always turned complicated. Harry silently wondered if there was some higher form of being that purposefully made his life so difficult, just for their sick, twisted pleasure. It really would explain everything.

If only he knew.

"But that man said-"

"I know what he said," she snapped at him, tightly hugging her knees. Her dark eyes narrowed at the train before them. "I know what he said," she reiterated in a whisper. In an angry, low voice, she asked, "Do you just follow what everyone else says without question?"

Harry scowled down at her. "I asked him questions," he replied in defense. He paused, studying her angry expression. "You know him, don't you?"

"I do," she replied. After a thoughtful look, "I did."

"You are... angry with him?"

"Sometimes I wish I did not know him or even had never met him." Her dark eyes lowered to her bare toes. "Although he keeps me company while I wait."

"For the person who may have already gone?"

She shrugged her thin shoulders. "Perhaps. Keep in mind I do not remember for whom I am waiting. You do not wish to know why you cannot save your beloved professor?"

The sudden question made Harry stop to think of a proper response. He was silent for a long, pregnant moment. The words poured from his mouth on their own accord, and he was startled to realize they were true. "Sometimes, I really hate when people withhold information from me," he responded quietly, staring at his hands. The red was gone from his fingertips. He glanced at the back of his hand to see that the white, ugly scar I must not tell lies had disappeared. Again, he inspected the palms of his hands. The creases reminded him of how Professor Trelawney always predicted his death.

Did you foresee this as my end? Harry thought bitterly. You were right, for once; I died young.

The woman respectfully kept silent as he gathered his thoughts. With a shaky breath, Harry continued. "But sometimes, I don't really want to know. Not knowing would give me ignorance. As they say; ignorance is bliss." Harry gave a bitter laugh at his explanation. "People expected me to defeat Voldemort, but no one ever gave me any information. 'It's for your own safety, Harry'," he mocked, his eyes hard. "'It's to protect you, Harry'. How did they expect me to kill him if no one told me anything?"

The woman gave him a sympathetic pat on his shoulder. "Harry James, maybe they were just trying to show they cared."

"Yeah, because not telling me didn't kill anybody," Harry snapped sarcastically. "But that's not what makes me so angry. They expected me to grow up and be the adult while I was still a child, but they treated me like a child. I'm just... I don't understand, I guess." His words lost steam by the end of his heated speech.

She did not know what to say. When she did not speak, Harry continued. "I hate Fate, sometimes."

"I am sorry, Harry James Potter. I truly am." Her hand dropped from his shoulder as she closed her dark eyes. "Fate did only as she was asked. She hates to see children mistreated so, just as Death hates escorting babies and children to the afterlife." Here she paused, her head bowed as a tear slid down her dark cheek. "But that is why they were created and picked; they understand it so perfectly, the Fates. Almost too perfectly."

Harry wanted to ask what she meant, but a noise distracted him. A shrill whistle came from his left. Harry turned, surprised to see a neatly dressed man stepping off the train. He was dressed in a smart, white suit, his black hair slicked back to reveal dark eyes Harry could not tell the color of from this far away. His feet were bare and his toes wiggled in anticipation. He held a pocket watch in his hand as he checked the time. Harry thought the man looked rather strange and very unlike any conductor he had ever seen.

"The Escort has come to take you away, Harry James Potter," the woman intoned, glancing up with a glare at the other man. "Do you wish to leave for the afterworld, or will you instead save your precious Professor Severus Tobias Snape?"

Harry moved to stand, but stopped at a crouch. "If I choose not to save him?"

The woman gave him a steady, hard stare. "Then you committed suicide, and will be judged accordingly."

"You sure know a lot for not moving from here in so long."

She only hummed in reply.

"All aboard!" The deep, unsettling voice of the stranger- sounding distantly familiar to Harry- resonated through the otherwise empty station. "Mister Harry Potter?"

"That is you," said the woman unnecessarily.

"Sure is," was the distracted reply. There was not much else he could say, not that he knew what he wanted to say in the first place. Harry had so many questions for the strange woman beside him, but he had no idea where to start, much less how to word what he wanted to ask. He stayed crouched for several seconds, just staring at the white-clothed man. Should he get on the train, or should he find this spirit of his deceased professor?

Holding his head high, Harry stood proudly. He did not glance down at the dark-skinned woman as he said, "I came here to save him. Professor Snape deserves a chance at life."

"He has lived nearly forty years- twenty years more than you."

The sadness in her voice surprised Harry. He looked down to see her staring up at him with tear-filled eyes. A single tear escaped her dark eye and it slowly rolled down her smooth cheek. The entire picture fascinated Harry; how often would he see a spirit cry for another they knew nothing about? But he could do nothing for her. He needed to go find Snape before it was too late.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, stepping away from her. He hated to sound so insensitive, but he really needed to get going. He had spent too much time there already. "But I really need to go find him. You wouldn't happen to know where I should look first, do you? The man said Fate would guide me. Perhaps-"

"Do you trust me?"

"I- What?"

She repeated her question, staring at her toes all the while.

Harry sighed, clenching the fist his wand was usually in. He felt oddly naked without the stick. "Yes. I'll trust you."

"Then close your eyes," was the solemn command. Harry hesitated, looking sideways at her. She, however, did not look up at him. "Just do it; close your eyes." He did so, glancing only once about him. It was strange, just listening to her strongly accented voice without looking at her. "Imagine Severus Tobias Snape as he was when you knew him. Imagine him as the man you knew before he gave you his memories. Now... Erase that image and concentrate on what you know now. Focus on the similarities between you two and grasp it. Go on... Reach out and grab it."

Feeling rather silly, Harry reached out with a splayed hand. Somewhere to his right he felt a... string? His brow furrowed in confusion.

A soft, light hand touched his, making him wrap his fingers around the thread. "Keep your eyes closed and follow that connection."

Harry nodded, fumbling to get a better feeling for his surroundings. "What happens if I open my eyes?" He winced when she let loose a shrill laugh. "Stupid question, wasn't it?" The only response he received was a light chuckle. "Why can't you do this with the person you are looking for?"

There was a short pause. "I have... tried," she said hesitantly, pulling her hand away from his. "Remember: do not open your eyes."

"Alright. Well, thanks for your help."

"Good luck, Harry James Potter."

Harry paused and, keeping his eyes clenched shut, turned in her direction. "I really hope you find whoever it is your are waiting for."

"Me too, Harry James." She touched a dark hand to his head. "Me too."

The conductor came over to stand beside the woman as Harry left the platform. The deep red beam of magic disappeared seconds after the teen's hand moved forward as he walked blindly toward his goal. The two strangers were silent, watching the boy leave on his mission. Slowly, the scarlet and black train faded from view, the tracks and support columns quickly following. The steam disappeared in thin tendrils, spiraling up and out of view through the rapidly diminishing ceiling. The walls and floor were the last to disappear, and the two stood on the strange not-there-but-it-just-is surface.

The prim man continued to stare after Harry as he spoke to the woman, slipping into his casual familiarity with her easily. "That was some impressive magic, Miss Feta-chini."

"I hate it when you call me that," was her terse reply. She cut him off as he opened his mouth to retort back. "And I hate that name even more. Do not say it."

"But it is your name."

"Do not say it anyway." She watched him lean against the no-longer-there wall, hands deep in his pockets and shoulders hunched, from the corner of her dark eye. "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"You know what."

The man shrugged, closing his eyes and resting his head on the just there surface. "I was angry, I suppose. At both you and him," he clarified, feeling her confusion. "I was angry at you because you would not believe me. And Mr. Potter... He was here just before, but Mr. Dumbledore had to interfere before I could get to him. Mr. Potter is a fascinating creature. Although... Speaking of Albus... The Council wants him."

The woman, 'Miss Feta-chini', grimaced. "I hope you said no."

He scoffed, eyes still closed. "What do you take me for? I'm no imbecile; of course I protested. He has done enough meddling with others' lives whilst alive. I believe the Council is swayed enough to believe he has done enough interfering to last a few lifetimes." He fell silent, listening to his companion mutter to herself. If he was honest with himself, she never failed to provide amusement to him, though if he valued his position he would say nothing on the matter. "What are we going to do about Mr. Potter?"

She shrugged, wrapping her arms about herself. "Let us see if he learns anything from his newest adventure." She paused, still staring after the spot where Harry had disappeared. "Thade? Are we doing the right thing?"

"Of course we are, Feta." 'Thade' finally opened his eyes to reveal gleaming, deep red irises. He ran a pale, long hand through his dark hair, shaking it free to fall messily around his gaunt-like face. His white clothing shimmered and morphed into the white robes he preferred. Silver jewelry adorned his pale neck and thin wrists, and the tinkling at their feet signaled that the silver bands had appeared around his ankles as well. He was silent for a moment longer, looking off at the same point as his companion's. In the silence, he turned to her and swiped a thumb across her dark cheek, taking the salty water with it. "I promise I am just as upset as you are from this war. It was not your fault, you know."

"I could have-"

"You had your orders, and I had mine," Thade interrupted her, shoving his hand angrily back into his pocket. He slouched back against the not-there wall, looking at her through softly narrowed eyes. "We are already going against the Council for doing this."

"What they do not know cannot hurt them," she replied hesitantly, eyeing her pale co-conspirator.

He nodded, saying, "They will find out, anyway."

She sighed. "They always do." She paused slightly before asking, "What did you say to make Harry James Potter die to save a man he hardly knows?"

Again, he shrugged. "Mostly likely along the same lines you, yourself, said to Mr. Potter. He is not a hard boy to convince once his mind is half made up. Let us hope she will not meet him before it is time."

Feta slumped against the not-wall beside him, making a sound of one who has been utterly defeated. She wondered how she had created such a mess. "I forgot about her. You may have to distract her. She will ruin everything if we are not careful."

"Why me?"

"You were the one who told him-"

"But-" He fell silent when her glare turned to him. He sighed, pushing off the just-there surface with a shake of his head. "Alright. Fine, I will go distract her. You just do your," he paused to wave his hands wildly in front of him, "mumbo-jumbo stuff."

"How eloquent," she teased, straightening from the not-quite wall as well. "What the rest of the team would not give to see you so flustered like this. One might think you have-"

"Finish that if you want to die."

"Already dead, darling."

Oh, how he wanted to strangle the girl! Thade glared at her bright smile. On the inside, he congratulated himself on wiping the distressed look from her face. If there was one thing he wanted to do before he Moved On it was to make sure Feta could have something to keep her happy before she Moved On as well. He turned on his heal, pushing the thoughts away as a malicious grin grew over his gaunt-like face.

Three, two, one...

"And it is not 'mumbo-jumbo stuff'!" Feta cried out before he could disappear from view.

Although there was nothing to smell and he could not breathe, Thade drew in a deep breathe through his nose. Ah, the sweet smell of victory, he thought just as he disappeared.

A/N: It's too short. ): And looooong overdue. But Harry's real adventure starts in the next chapter with another new stranger.