Updated: 18/12/23

Loosely based off of the Reptilia28 challenge "Don't fear the reaper"

Warnings: Cliches up the wazoo. Old Dumbledore with a control problem. Not a Hermione ship. Potions Weasley confined to his old life. Do not expect Harry to be perfect.

Guest reviews will be ignored.

~ HPDD ~

Voldemort had raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. Harry looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he could still stand, before he lost control, before he betrayed fear—

He saw the mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.

Harry frowned. Realizing that he felt a bit of a draft in places that he was rather sure he had covered just a moment ago, he worked through the sequence of events in the privacy of his thoughts, the battle had enjoined on the hogwarts grounds as the death eaters broke through the protective magics of the castle, the feral sounding howls of the darker beasts and cursed werewolves that had been assembled by the death eaters being met with spell fire and conjured projectiles from the students assembled at the ramparts of the castle, the lull as Voldemort called for his forces to regroup in the forest while he gave his mocking offer via the sonorous charm, and his own fool self deciding to listen.

All that and more fled through his mind as he took stock of his situation and found himself, sitting in an oddly comfortable chair. There was the ever so slight background hum of air being pushed through a vent somewhere. But he found himself uncaring of the lack of decent coverage, content to relax into the chair nobody, watching the dustmotes float by. In fact, he wasn't even that sure he was there himself.

His moment didn't last long, as he heard a door open and was quite suddenly fully awake in the present sense and aware of his exposed state, this awareness was followed by the sharp need to be covered, and he blinked as he found himself wearing a very comfortable tan robe.

Harry blinked a few times as he shifted in his seat and took in his surroundings with slightly more aplomb. The desk had piles of paper on it, and a pane of glass like material held at an angle by thick metal frame. It seemed an odd thing to be on a desk but there was a row of buttons on the desk in front of it.

Directly in front of him on the desk however was a small nameplate in a brass stand that read:

Morgan Danay
Death Resolutions Services

"Mister Potter," Morgan's voice was like a cold chill pushing aside the previous warmth of the room. She had grey eyes and dark hair pulled back in a bun that reminded him of Professor McGonagall. "Welcome to the afterlife."

"Huh?" Harry said.

"Is that your catchphrase?" Morgan asked. "Yes, you're dead. This is one minor area of the afterlife and you've been forwarded to my office."

"What? " Harry asked. "I thought... but the professor..." He trailed off noticing the little plaque sitting precariously on the front of the desk.

"What of him?" Morgan said.

"..." Harry paused, hand raised in protest, words failing to come to mind.

"What did you expect? The late Professor Dumbledore for all his wisdom, wasn't and still isn't omniscient. What did you think would happen if you willingly allowed a killing curse to hit you."

"You mean, I wasn't supposed to?" he trailed off.

"The creation of such a disgusting thing as a horcrux is not something that occurs by accident or through a series of unintended consequences of events, there are spells and things that have to be done before any particular piece of soul will work as a proper anchor," Morgan replied.

"So, about that death thing, what exactly am I doing here?" Harry asked.

"Wasting everyone's time, I suppose," Morgan muttered.

There was a brief moment of silence as Morgan sat down at the desk and tapped a key causing the glass rectangle on the desk to darken before displaying a boot animation, to be replaced a moment later by a logo of a crossed wand and scythe.

"I guess it just shows that even after all this advancement we just can't seem to get away from a loading screen, even in the afterlife." Morgan chuckled.

Harry just shrugged not knowing just what she was talking about.

"Ah here it is, your file," Morgan tapped a key and a moment later there was a stack of papers in the middle of her desk. "Let's see, my, we've had quite a few close calls over the past few years haven't we?" Morgan said.

"Ugh?" Harry said.

"Ouch, Mister Potter, your relatives did you no favors, twelve separate events where your previous case manager intervened before you got to the real dangers," Morgan winced.

"Hold a minute," Harry said.

"No no, no time, we've got to get through your record and see about your disposition," Morgan interrupted him. "Let's see first year, troll make harry puree? I see that rings a bell. What next, fluffy enjoys a plate of Harry tartare with a side of ground weasley, potter pancake during quidditch, hum, I see that's a common theme, you know what I don't really see any point in going over all this... history with you i'm sure you can see the common factors where you had a close enough call that, i believe the saying is, a higher power must've been watching over you."

Harry gave her an incredulous look.

"Ah yes, your luck is seriously out of whack because of how many times it had to be adjusted so that things would just about fall into your lap," Morgan said flipping through the file some more. "Take this one for instance, Dobby gives you the gillyweed to rescue your hostage during the triwizard tournament, the dosage is just right to give you the time necessary to not only complete the task, but to stick around and rescue someone else's hostage. My predecessor has a note here complaining about your hostage being Ron though," Morgan tutted.

"What about him?" Harry asked.

"Well, it seems she had a problem with him being... a jealous git? Huh, that's odd," Morgan said flipping through the document in front of her.

Harry laughed, "Wow, I can't believe his idea worked."

"What?" Morgan said.

"Ron's the strategist of the group, soon as we found out about the tournament we realized i'd likely be entered," Harry explained. "So we had this plan, you see, Ron would publicly break ties and use the distance to try and scout out what was going on. Not that the plan worked out all that well. But he did manage to come back with a depressingly long list of idiots. We never could quite figure out what the deal was with Dumbledore though."

"I see, that certainly sheds some light on the haphazard notes in your file. I'm curious now, though, my predecessor notes your soul mate as being, 'some granger girl', any thoughts?" Morgan asked.

Harry snorted, "not bloody likely, she's brilliant you know, but I spent ten years being ordered around by my oh so loving harpy of an aunt, Petunia. Marry Hermione? Maybe if circumstances had been different," Harry trailed off.

"There's a note about an interfering weasley and love potions," Morgan said.

Harry snorted again, "Yeah, and i've been on a broad spectrum neutralizer since middle of second year when one of the slytherins tried something after they discovered I was a parselmouth. Ginny was a convenient excuse to avoid the rest of the attempts."

Morgan laughed, "I see, well that brings us to the final points of this interview."

"Yes?" Harry asked.

"We aren't just about death reversals, but also managing events across several different facets of reality, and we've got a few options for you," Morgan said, as she returned the file to the empty spot on the desk and pressed a button causing the stack of paper to shimmer out of existence, to be replaced by a far smaller number of pages.

"Go on. It's not like I have anywhere else to be," Harry said.

"Option 1, go ahead and finish dying, move on to see your parents and let the world burn, option 2, take up an offer with us and transfer to another similar world where you'll take the place of an alternate version of yourself that recently kicked the bucket, option 3, go back and have that lovely conversation with your professor while he waffles about what death is before being pulled back to your body by the lingering effects of your mother's protection," Morgan paused for a moment.

"Wait, there are other versions of me that didn't survive the dursley's?" Harry asked. "You're not exactly selling that option, considering there's still the whole business with Voldemort still living back in my own world."

"Caught that did you? That's where option 4 comes in, we've got the ability to make a duplicate you down to the very last tendril of your soul, if you okay it, we'll let your soul carry on with option 3 forgetting about this place and everything we've talked about while an exact copy of you with everything up till this point, goes to the world mentioned in option 2. The process is so thorough we can't even tell the two souls apart once finished."

"Can I go with option 5, where the me that returns to finish voldemort remembers this?" Harry asked.

"Eh, sure why not," Morgan cheered.

"Right before we make a final call on this I've got to know, how closely will the events in this other version of my world match with what I remember?" Harry said.

"There will be some curveballs and differences, but for the most part the people closest to you will remain largely the same, Pettigrew is still an idiot, your godfather sirius is innocent but still imprisoned, and so on. There are a few secrets about your mother's side of the family but you'll have to discover them on your own."

"Alright, I'm willing to go along with this Option 5 it is," Harry said.

"I'm glad you're on board with this, by the way, you'll be arriving about a year before your hogwarts letter, at age ten." A hidden panel flipped open on the desk revealing a touch screen that she quickly tapped a command into. The room shifted, his vision blurred and he found himself in front of another desk, this one was piled with paperwork.

"Harry, welcome, welcome", the excitable man vigorously shook his hand, "I'm Daven Lester. Seeing how this is going to be an intervention that you've generously offered to help with we have a few extras that I'm authorized to provide." Daven winked.

"How's that?" Harry asked.

"Hmm? Oh, well, there's a few things, magical gifts, hints and tips, nullifying certain magics."

"Ah here it is!" Daven exclaimed finally pulling out a thin stack of papers. Daven pulled a fresh form from the stack and attached it to a clipboard. "Bureaucracy even the afterlife can't escape it." Dave halfheartedly chuckled before starting to fill out the form. "Classification: soul copy, destiny requirements: counter prophecy. Agreement to abide by the rules for temporal incursion and reversion, sign here that you consent to the procedure, Harry," Daven pushed the contract into Harry's hands.

"Okay," Harry signed the form and pushed it back.

"Right then, hold still and look into this head grabber here." Daven said pressing a button on the desk and pointing to something that melted in reverse out of the wall which readers will recognize as being similar to an Ancient Repository from the television show Stargate.

"Since this is an intervention where you'll be replacing your recently expired analogue, this will set you up with a few extra special mental defences. It's a bit more advanced than the brute-force method Snape attempted to teach you. Well, it'll be easier to figure out what I mean afterwards. Oh and don't mind the pounding headache it'll fade after a bit." Daven said as he pushed Harry the rest of the way to the head grabber.

The metal arms sprang forward reaching out to encapsulate his head within their embrace, molding snugly to his head. Daven smiled as the light within the machine flared around Harry's head from the opening.

After about a minute, Daven quickly stepped in to catch Harry as the machine released him and lead him back to the chair.

"Ugh, Did you catch the name of that hippogriff because it feels like one kicked me in the head. You weren't kidding about the headache." Harry complained rubbing his temples. "So what's this advanced version of occlumency supposed to do?"

"Once the headache settles down, your mind will be fully occluded, to those looking for your memories without your permission, it'll be as if you aren't there. You're now immune to most memory charms unless of course you explicitly allow it. Your memory is nearly perfect. I say nearly, because absolutely perfect memory is more curse than blessing, and we aim for not cursing our clients."

"Please note with the expiration of your analogue the connection between you and Mr. Riddle will have degraded past the point of usefulness."

"And the parseltongue?" Harry asked.

"Why ever would you lose that? Parseltongue is a purely bloodline ability, the genes responsible for it where carried by both of your parents and reactivated when combined in you. it's part of you now. Speaking of languages Harry, you should probably spend some time learning as many languages as you can. Never know if it'll be useful later in life." Daven told him.

"Now, unfortunately I can't directly give you your wand back, phoenix feather reacts badly to the energy here. But I do have this," Daven said tossing some sort of glove thing across the desk into his lap.

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"Well go on put it on," Daven said.

Harry shrugged and pulled the glove onto his right hand, there was a tingling sensation like that of touching a low current of less than 1 milliamp that lasted only for a moment until the glove seemed to melt into his skin leaving a faint impression of circuitry under his nails.

"It'll expand the connection between your soul and body genetics only do so much to give you magic, the rest of it is handled by your soul." Daven said with a grin.

"So I won't need to buy the wand from Ollivander?" Harry asked.

"No, you'll still buy the one at Ollivander's, the glove is only a booster to help you express magic without the precision of a focus. If you find the glove to be more of a hindrance than a help, just will it over to your other hand and you should feel the change in your magic as it moves."

"Final notes, it goes without saying, but don't talk about this place with the norms, not only would they not believe you but it's just asking for a padded room while people try to pump you for information on the future. Also, Morgan asked me to pass on the following hint: You need to ask for an inheritance test from the goblins, and pay attention to what shows up on your maternal line, it's probably a good idea to do so in both realities, but specifically in the new one," Daven clasped his hands giving a knowing smile at that last bit of information. He understood that it would do more than send the wizarding world upside-down. Truthfully as far as Daven was concerned the place needed upsetting. It wouldn't be enough in his opinion to simply turn wizarding Britain upside down. No It needed to be wrung out and hung out to dry.

"Any questions?"

"Yeah about this clone thing." Harry was starting to get over his shock at the whole thing. "Will that hurt?"

"You know how when kids visit the doctor for a vaccine shot? And the doctor says this won't hurt at all, well, It's nothing like that," Daven replied shiftily. "Oh would you look at the time. I've been reminded to tell you that the bits of soul are still in play, minus your scar. Oh and your dad, both versions, wanted me to tell you to prank the world. Have fun Harry!" Daven slammed his palm down on a large red button that had been hiding under a stack of papers.

The room shifted again and everything went black.

~ End of line ~

Omake:

Dumbledore walked into the spectral King's Cross station. He was sure he would get here after Harry but the boy was nowhere to be seen. He decided to take a seat on a nearby bench and wait for him hopefully he was just running late.

Maybe ten minutes, or perhaps an hour, or maybe it was an eternity later Dumbledore heard what sounded like a small child crying. Looking around worriedly as Harry still hadn't shown. Dumbledore noticed the mutilated childlike body underneath the bench he'd been sitting on.

'Oh dear' he thought, bending down to examine the pitiful thing.

Feeling both repulsed and drawn to the creature he reached a hand down to pick it up. For this miserable sight to be here that meant Dumbledore had somehow missed Harry. He briefly wondered how much time had passed as he had the sensation that he'd spent longer here than he though he had.

The ragged bundle reached up and seized the old man's extended hand latching onto the foolish wizard in a manner similar to what the old man had condemned Harry to the night he left him on the doorstep of Mrs. Dursley.

Alternative humorous ending to that omake:

The ragged bundle reached a scarred hand up and pulled Dumbledore's finger.

PHTTBHTTHHTHTBBBHTHTHBT Dumbledore farted.