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Harry Potter and the Incarnation of Death

Chapter One:

The light had been fighting a war, that was the problem. This wasn't war, it was a group of terrorists masquerading as one side of a war. Dumbledore had brainwashed generations of Wizards and Witches into being mindless pawns and when he sent them off to fight they didn't ask questions. Meanwhile Tom was fighting guerrilla style, 'Asymmetrical Warfare' Hermione had called it. But they had been too late with a change in tactics once Dumbledore was out of the picture.

Ginny died during his Seventh Year while the trio were out looking for Horcruxes. A freak accident in potions if Snape were to be believed; the fact that several Slytherins died along with her when the potions equivalent of chlorine gas filled the room covered nicely for the Potions Master, the fact that all but one of those students had refused to become Death Eaters only served to harden Harry's resolve to destroy Snape at the next opportunity.

Not that he was even sure he loved Ginny, but she was still a good friend and he was saddened by her passing. Luna had taken to sending Harry mail after that, he never did figure out how she was able to get the mail through Hermione's wards.

They had become pretty close in correspondence with Harry dropping mail at the nearest public owl box in disguise. Even if Hedwig had made it out with him he wouldn't have risked her or revealing his location. But while he found a lot about Luna that he liked, and would never forget her being there for him after Sirius died, she was a thousand miles away or more depending on the day and he had bigger things on his mind, besides...he couldn't justify any sort of relationship when he had to break up with Ginny...and she died without his being able to tell her...

Well tell her something...like... Tell her that he really liked her, maybe even could have loved her, and he didn't break up with her for any other reason than to protect her, and because he didn't think it was fair to her to fall in love with a condemned man. He told Luna all of this, and she seemed to understand that no matter what they might have between them, he couldn't commit to anything until the war was over.

There was never a single front to the "war" to be fought, the most important thing anyone could do was to find Tom's soul anchors and destroy them so that when he finally DID die, it would be for the last time. It was October when Harry heard the news that Luna had been pulled from school by her father only to die when their home was destroyed in a Death Eater raid against the Quibbler. The timing could have been better, as Ron left him alone with Hermione soon afterward.

Hermione was broken...having invested so much in Ron only to watch him walk away. Harry was still reeling from Ginny's death and now Luna's. Neither was in any shape to offer the other comfort...until one night they got to dancing to the Wizarding Wireless...and ended up in bed together. Afterward they had both cried themselves to sleep...curled up around each other, clinging to what seemed like the only thing they had left in the world.

Dumbledore died later that year when Snape turned on him and declared himself the new Headmaster, McGonagall had taken what was left of the Order into hiding, attempting to coordinate with the Ministry via Shacklebolt and Tonks. Shack died when the Ministry fell, Tonks got out but not fast enough to avoid losing a leg. The only time Harry had seen her before the end, she was joking about how all she needed now was to lose an eye and she could claim to be the second coming of Moody.

Once the Ministry fell the already asymmetrical war went even more lopsided, the sheep in the general public didn't seem to care any longer who was in charge as long as they weren't being threatened; if you being threatened for being against the new 'Minister Voldemort' then so be it. Liberty, what little there had been in Wizarding Britain, went down to the sound of shrugging shoulders and buttoned lips. This was the point when Hermione had taken a page out of Tom's own handbook and they had begun using terrorist tactics against the newly installed regime.

The problem was, Tom and the Death Eaters never knew how to actually run things once they took over. Their entire philosophy had been about fighting those in power, once they were in power they were little more than now-glorified thugs. So the light side terrorists would attack, and then the Death Eater terrorists masquerading as Aurors would attack, and everyone suffered.

Ron died before he could come to his senses; the Burrow went up in flames one night in December leaving Hermione and Harry as almost a default couple. It was not that they didn't love each other, that was the easy part. It was all the pain that they were both dealing with that kept them from being what they both felt was almost meant to be. That didn't keep them apart, they just knew it could never be 'perfect' for either of them again.

Neville of all people was the one to retrieve the Sword of Gryffindor from Snapes office, a copy of Dumbledores Will had appeared in the tent, though not the items they had been left after his death. Luna had mentioned the sword to Neville before leaving school, and he had retrieved it and handed it over to the Order once he had finally gathered the courage to leave school himself, regardless of the Snatchers. Luckily after a not-so-pleasant conversation with the Goblins all of the Horcruxes had been found including the Cup from the Lestrange Vault, in exchange for the return of the Sword and all Goblin-made items in Harry's vaults.

The Horcruxes died with the exception of Nagini...unfortunately Hermione had died along with the locket which fought back the hardest. It had shown them images of Ron chastising them for "happily buggering along on top of his grave." It was too much for her to handle and when she collapsed, the energy inside the locket consumed her in seconds leaving Harry in shock at the speed, and with righteous anger to fuel his strike, as he picked up the sword and cleaved 'Ron' in half down to the locket he was standing over.

The one thing none of them had taken into account, was how the collateral damage was being perceived by the Muggles.

The 'Statute of Secrecy' that the Purebloods were so on about was actually a law laid down by Queen Anne whom had overseen the separation of worlds at the same time that England and Scotland were officially brought together under one crown. The treaty which made the Magical World its own entity within Britain, also made them subject to the whim of the Crown. Should it be determined that the statute of secrecy was in danger of wide spread disclosure, the Crown would take those measures which were necessary to prevent it. Several attempts were made to reach Minister Voldemort, but after several agents and emissaries were found dead the message seemed clear.

So it was that as magical attacks were being noted on the evening news, Queen Elizabeth decided to take matters into her own hands. Tactical missile strikes in the "Vicinity of" Hogwarts Castle, Diagon Alley and every other magical area MI-6 could identify took out all of the major sites, including Malfoy Manor and several other nearby homes, discorporating Voldemort and leaving him with only one soul anchor left.

Harry.

This is how we find Harry on his knees in the ruins of the Great Hall at was was formerly Hogwarts Castle. With his wand pointed to his head and arguing with himself, or rather, with the remnants of Tom's shredded soul which were now attempting to take over his body for itself. It had been several days where a deeply depressed Harry, having lost everything and everyone, had contemplated suicide when Tom had shown up. And it was that event which finally firmed his conviction to go through with it.

He had decided on Hogwarts, since it was the one place that had ever felt like home to him, despite all the terrors he had undergone as a child, it was still preferable to living with the Dursleys. He had also decided that the Avada Kedavra would work just fine; it wouldn't have worked if it had just been him, and that was the reason he hadn't done it before now. He simply didn't hate himself enough for the curse to work, and therefore, he kept telling himself he didn't hate himself enough to end his pitiful life. But Voldemort taking up residence in his skull, well that was a different story all together. He had long been prepared to be the Martyr, the Weapon, he'd known for years that his destiny was probably to die taking Tom out with him, he just hadn't thought he'd be his own target.

So here he was, wand tip glowing green as it read the intent of his magic, pointed at his own temple just to the side of his infamous scar. Tom was screaming in his head to stop but Harry knew he could do this, just this one last thing and then he could rest. He began the incantation, "Avada..." just as he caught movement of a figure in long black robes and a white face from the corner of his eye.

He spun on his knee and pointed his wand at the figure as he cried out the rest of the curse, "Kedavra!"

Green light shot across the burnt stone that used to be the floor and the figure with the skull for a face looked surprised...if a skull can look surprised... as it held out its human hands in a vain attempt to ward off the death magic. As the figure fell Harry was already on his feet and had closed the distance to stand over the corpse.

That was when it got disturbing. Tom had actually shut up as he was looking on in interest and seemed to have enjoyed the rush of power from taking a human life, even if it was one of his own minions. It wasn't as if he hadn't killed a Death Eater or two in his lifetime anyway. But the sudden silence after days of torture was not the disturbing part.

"Bloody hell..." Harry whispered...having picked up Ron's bad language almost as an homage to him. Hermione had never once chastised him for it after Ron's death.

No the disturbing part was that it was not an Skull Mask like one would normally find a Death Eater wearing, if anything it appeared to be an honest to gods human skull. And the weapon which he had barely taken time to recognize before ending this man's life was a Scythe...surely this wasn't...

"Death, Thanatos, the Grim Reaper, he who holdeth the Bucket of Kicking?"

Harry spun once again with a curse ready on his lips, only to find a figure in white and blue robes with a rather oversized hour glass hovering over his right shoulder. The mans face seemed to be blurred for some reason but the voice...reminded him strangely of Sirius. "Who are you!" Harry shouted, having had just about enough of disturbing shite happening to him for one day.

"Oh please, would you put that thing away? Do you really think you could kill Time Itself...or rather Himself?"

"Time?" Harry asked as he felt a headache forming as memories of using Hermione's Time Turner and avoiding paradox swam to the surface.

"Chronos to be exact, and you and I are really really close in the future, so I can assure you, you did not kill me today."

Harry's bullshit filter finally pegged and he collapsed to his knee's with his wand at his side, Tom began ranting in his head once more and Harry screamed as loud as he could, "Would you just SHUT UP already?"

Strangely enough, the invading spirit shut up at precisely that moment, midway through a rant about how powerful killing had made Harry feel and how he should join the Dark Side and kill the odd man in front of them. Please, as if Harry had never seen Star Wars...actually he wondered if Tom had seen Star Wars...but that was completely off topic.

Looking up at the figure known as Chronos, Harry cleared his throat, "So um...what?"

The figure placed a hand over its obscured face and sighed while shaking its head. "Honestly, I thought this went better...alright!" He clapped his hands together and reached out to turn his hourglass. "I've stopped time for a moment so we can do this properly."

"Stopped time?"

"Yes, do try to keep up kiddo. Now I am Chronos, the Incarnation of Time; I have total authority over all things time, future and past, within my purview. That," he said pointing at the corpse, "Is someone who I am sure will be a dear friend of mine in the future...that is, in my future, but I'm getting off topic. That my dear boy, is the Incarnation of Death."

Harry closed his eyes and counted to ten then opened them to find the man still looking back at him. "Okay...so um...Incarnation?"

"Good question, who says you aren't smart eh? Incarnations are like offices that are filled by mortals, while you are an Incarnation you are effectively immortal however. And I guess you could say Incarnations are kind of like gods and in fact, have been mistaken for them at times."

"So you are the Incarnation of Time, and that is the Incarnation of Death."

The blurred face seemed to smile, "Correct."

"And while you hold the office you are effectively immortal?"

"Correct."

"And you can't be killed."

"Correct."

"Then how the bloody hell did I just KILL DEATH?" Harry screamed, he began to wonder if Tom's obvious madness were beginning to affect him.

The figure smacked the blur where his forehead would be, "Of course, sorry, there are rules for how the offices are transferred. Our friend here has to be killed by someone."

"But if he is immortal then how did I kill him?"

"Um..." Chronos got up and walked over to the corpse and rolled him over, "Forgive me Thanatos, you know I mean no disrespect...Ah!"

"Ah?"

"Ah ha!" Chronos said pointing at the dead mans hands, "He forgot to put on his gloves."

"Okay...so for the office of Death to change holders...Death basically has to screw up or want to die?"

The man put a finger on his blurry nose, "Got it in one."

Harry closed his eyes once more and counted to ten, marveling at the silence inside his own head, suddenly his eyes popped open. "Bloody Hell!"

"Ha Ha, I see you figured it out!"

"But what if I don't want to be some bloody Incarnation? Certainly not Death himself!"

"Well...I believe eventually another candidate will be chosen, but really it would be best if you would just put on the robe."

He recognized the tone in the Incarnations voice and grew very cautious, "Why..what do you mean for the best?"

"You see..Thanatos isn't called to pick up every death personally. There is an aura that sort of does most our work for us along with some minions in some cases...but I digress. Death only comes personally for those souls which are close to being in balance and cannot automatically go to heaven or hell."

"So..."

"So why don't you look in the pockets of his robe, there should be a set of stones, one white and one black."

Harry sighed deeply and began rummaging through the corpses pockets until he found what he was looking for. "These?"

"Those...now what you do is run them from the top of your head down to your toes..."

"Like this?" Having decided to leave his sanity wherever it had run off to for the moment, Harry stood and performed the action, watching as the stones grew brighter or darker with each passing.

"Exactly like that, now put the two together, they should form a sphere..." Harry did so, "Alright now hold them out in front of you and drop them.

Harry shrugged and did as he was told, only to be amazed that they stayed in place. Not nearly as amazed as a Muggle would be mind you, having seen things float of their own accord often including his broomstick. But still amazed, then the stones slowly began to sink toward the ground.

"What's happening? Is the charm failing?"

Chronos shook his head, "That isn't a charm, its one of the tools of your office."

"Deaths office, I haven't accepted yet."

"Fine! Anyway, as I told you, most souls are either light enough to float up to Heaven all by themselves or heavy enough with sin to sink down to Hell of their own accord. Souls that are in balance need Deaths personal examination. It looks like killing him may have slightly overbalanced you toward Hell"

His heart sank as he pondered the still slowly sinking stones, "So I'm going to Hell..." He heard himself capitalize the word now that it seemed to be much more real.

"Not necessarily. Your soul still seems to be in pretty good balance, and were I death I wouldn't send you to hell for having a slightly soiled soul. Nope you'd probably go to Purgatory for the next several hundred years."

"Several hundred years?"

"Give or take, it depends on the type and amount of sin on your soul. In any case, you get to work it off there working in administration or directly for one of the Incarnations if they want some help around the house or whatever."

Harry pondered this for a few moments, "So my choices are...go to Hell, or be stuck doing paperwork for a couple of centuries?"

"Or other things, some Incarnations like boys..."

"Fine I'll do it!" Harry said grudgingly as he began to strip the clothes off of the corpse.

"Excellent! Oh! Don't forget the watch too, that's one of my favorites of his toys, though I suppose I am biased."

"Biased?" Harry asked as he strapped the watch to his wrist.

"It lets you stop time for a while if you need to, I mean after all people are dying at the same time or within seconds of each other all over the world, you aren't Santa Clause after all!"

He paused as he put the cloak on over his clothes,"Wait! Santa is real?"

"What? Oh...no, not enough people worship or believe in him...at least not really or not long enough..."

"Huh?"

The man waived off the question, "Long story, I'll tell you some time I promise, but right now we really need to move this along."

Harry looked up from where he was putting the skeletal galoshes on over his boots. "But I thought you were Time, how can you be in a rush?"

The blur seemed to smile, "Time waits for no man Harry, least of all me. I'll be catching up on this once I put time back in motion for the rest of the Universe."

"I don't understand..."

"You don't have to, Time is my job, Death is your job. Oh! Don't forget the gloves!'

"Ah yeah..." Harry said sheepishly as he put the gloves on.

The gloves were almost unnoticeable, he could even feel things through them as if they weren't' there yet they made his hands looks exactly like bone. As he touched his fingertips together he shivered slightly as all he could feel was cold bone. "Now that is just creepy."

"The boots are the same way, you think that's creepy, try pulling your hood up."

Harry did as he was told and waited for a moment for something to happen, "I don't get it."

"Look at your predecessor."

Harry turned to look behind him and saw an ordinary human face where the mask had been before. He reached up and touched his cheek, only to pull his hand away in shock having felt both the bone of his apparent skull and the touch of deaths cold hand on his cheek. "No mask? Just the cloak huh? This is going to take some getting used to."

"I understand, I really do, every Incarnation has problems when they first come into their office, that's why there is a 30 day trial period where you get to learn without being penalized for it. If you don't think you can handle it, or we don't think you can handle it you are removed from office and allowed to go where your soul would take you."

"Wait, you mentioned penalties? What about when I die eventually because I got stupid?"

"All Incarnations souls are locked in state when they accept the office until the trial period is up. That way any mistakes you make wont count against you. Once you are accepted full time your slate is wiped clean and you get to start over again."

"But with the powers of a god." Harry said with a slight smile.

"Exactly! Alright, well you look like you are ready to go, so lets on with it shall we?"

"Wait what? Just like that?"

"Just as Time waits for no man, so too Death. You have to realize that many of the souls you are going to be taking are in great pain, and that pain cannot end until you take them. Also, you can't get too sentimental, if you refuse to take a soul you are going to be hearing from Fate, and let me tell you Fate's a Bitches when you get on her wrong sides."

"Huh?"

"Later Harry, later..." Chronos turned and put his fingers in his mouth to whistle long and loud. "Mortis, get your scraggly pale ass up here!"

Harry was momentarily stunned when a beautiful bone-white horse galloped through the ruins and up to Chronos, where he nuzzled the man's hand. "Yes I'm happy to see you too Mortis."

"Mortis?"

"Your trusty steed, Mortis this is Harry, Harry this is Mortis."

The horse looked confused for a moment as it looked back and forth between the two incarnations...before performing what could only be the horse version of a shrug and trotting over to Harry who bowed to the creature.

"Um...Harry what are you doing?" Chronos asked him.

Without taking his eyes off the ground Harry spoke softly, "Waiting for him to bow back."

Chronos snickered, "Um...why?"

Harry looked up and met the blurry eye of his new friend, "Isn't that how you get to know a horse?"

"He's not a Hippogryff Harry, he's just a really smart horse...thing."

"Horse-thing?" Harry asked, confused.

"Well..Mortis is...he's... Here watch." Chronos pushed a button on the saddle and where the horse was before was suddenly a gleaming white Cadillac.

"Whoah."

"Exactly...he's a horse...but he's other things too...to blend in better when your out on a pickup."

"Is this like transfiguration?"

"Not like your thinking Harry, but something like that."

"I'm never gonna understand this am I?"

"Maybe if you hold the office long enough... In any case, I'd prefer sitting passenger than riding behind you on the saddle anyway. Climb in!" With that Chronos climbed into the passenger seat.

Harry joined him in the drivers seat, "But I never learned how to drive!"

Chronos waved him off, "Don't worry about it, Mortis is just as smart as a car as he was a horse, he can take us wherever you want to go."

"Um..okay..."

Harry took a moment to look around the vehicle. It was top of the line everything and all bone white with black accents, in the center was what appeared to be a GPS unit with a Horse Head Logo spinning lazily around.

"Is there a button or something?"

"No no, just talk to him. He only looks like a car." He leaned forward a bit, "Mortis, lets head for the next appointment and I'll walk the rookie through it all."

The car surged forward and Harry screamed as they passed right through a fairly intact wall and out over the Black Lake. "A flying car?"

"Would you rather he were a helicopter? I'm sure there is a manual in here somewhere..."

"No! Flying car is fine this is just a bit too deja vu, plus it just isn't really very inconspicuous, is there an invisibility charm or something?"

Chronos relaxed back into his seat, "Ah, see, while going about our duties Incarnations are largely ignored by the mortals unless we directly interact with them or they're some sort of Seer."

"Like a Muggle repelling charm?"

"You know Harry, you are really going to have to let go of some of that magic stuff, the rules are different for Incarnations."

"Yes, but its best to go with what you know when you are faced with overwhelming information. Does it really hurt anybody for me to think of it as a charm rather than act like I understand something when I'm really completely oblivious?"

Chronos rubbed his head, "You are starting to remind me of my girlfriend, she has a way of confusing people with their own arguments..."

The screen flashed and beeped before showing a slowly growing satellite map of China and eventually Hong Kong. "Ah, we're almost there."

The car came to gliding stop at an intersection and Chronos got out quickly, Harry scrambled to follow. They walked up to what looked like a stop light and waited as hundreds of people gathered behind them and cars, buses and bicycles rushed past in the road. Not a single person seemed to notice either of them standing there.

"How do I know who I'm supposed to take?" Harry asked.

"You just do, you get the list of times and places, I'm sure you can get the name from Mortis if you asked ahead of time, but usually it is pretty apparent who you are here for."

Just then the light changed and the people surged around them and out into the intersection, Harry watched in horror as a Taxi careened around the corner and straight into the mass of people. He quickly looked away. "That's horrible! Why couldn't we stop it if we knew this was going to happen!"

Chronos looked sadly at the newly minted Incarnation of Death. "Harry, Death is a part of life and people are given free will to live their lives as they choose within certain limits. We cannot intervene in every mortals life and we cannot save everyone. Your job is not to decide who lives or dies, it is to make the process of dying as easy as possible a transition on your clients. Now look at your watch."

Harry looked at the ordinary chronograph watch.

"The button on the top lets you pause the timer...yes you see the timer hand right? Okay that timer tells you how long until your next appointment, the bottom chronograph is actually a compass which will point you in the right direction if you really can't find your client, and that middle stop watch? That's why I love that thing, the bottom button will actually pause time for a few minutes which is useful if your next appointment is in 7 minutes on the other side of the planet. Do you follow me?"

Harry tried to take it all in and nodded even though he wasn't entirely sure he got that. The watch began beeping in alarm and he noticed the timer gave him about a minute to find his client in the pile of bodies. He sighed and followed the compass directions through the corpses until he found a little girl with her head on wrong...her neck must have been broken. She was paralyzed but there were still tears running down her cheeks.

Crying himself now, Harry reached down and touched her cheek to wipe away the tears, instead his hand passed into her and he felt it catch on something silky. He pulled that out and the life left the little girls eyes as he found himself holding a wispy bit of material he assumed had to be a soul.

"A real shame that." Chronos said softly from over his shoulder.

Harry wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve, "I don't understand, why did a little girl need my intervention? Shouldn't her soul still be pure?"

Chronos nodded, "You would think so, but you are holding it, what do you see just by looking at it?"

Harry frowned as he examined it, "It's a uniform gray color...but I don't understand how she could have any sin on her soul?"

"Sin normally shows up as black spots on the soul Harry, the gray tells me it probably isn't her own sin that threw her off balance. Maybe her mother was raped and that is how she was conceived? We can't know without asking Fate, but she didn't have time to change her balance."

"The sins of the father or mother shouldn't be transferred to the child. That's just wrong!"

Chronos placed a hand on his shoulder, "I'm sorry Harry, that is the system we live under. You'll have to talk to the Big Woman if you think it should be changed."

"Big Woman?"

"God."

"Wait, God is a woman?" Harry asked in confusion.

"God's Incarnation is a woman, the office is still officially referred to as He or Him but that is mostly out of tradition. She doesn't seem to mind or she would have made sure to let them know by now. In any case Harry, I'm sure her soul will be recycled once you get her to purgatory."

Harry's watch beeped and he checked the timer to see that he now had 8 minutes to meet his next client. "I guess I don't have time to get emotionally involved...this is hard!"

"Not what you signed up for huh? Oh wait you didn't sign up for anything." Chronos said with a smile. "Now before I go, if you ever need me push both buttons at once, that causes a bit of a ripple in time and space and I'll come to you as soon as I can, sooner maybe since in reality I will know before you do that you are pushing them."

Harry had been examining the soul and looked up sharply at that, "Go? Wait a minute I'm not ready for this yet!"

Chronos was nowhere to be seen.