The Boy Who Kept Dying

Chapter 1 (Death's bad day)

A/N: Not my story! Original avalible on ao3

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Death was not having a good day. He never really liked Halloween. Samhain had been a bit better, but Halloween was just too commercialized. Now, Day of the Dead, that he supported. He believed it was very respectful, and he made sure to attend celebrations every year. Halloween now, he just thought that was annoying. He'd become a caricature over the years. Then, on this already annoying day, he is pulled to the house of a young family, all murdered before their time. Murder irritated him more than anything else in his job. It was just disrespectful to him and threw nature out of balance. It made a mockery of the natural order of things by disregarding his List and when someone was scheduled to die.

What lead him to furious rage though was the "man" who committed this murder, if he could even be called a man. He was an abomination. Though his killing curse had rebounded onto himself, Death could not take his soul into the next realm. He had anchored his soul to the mortal realm through a vile twisting of dark magic, giving dark practitioners a bad name when they were already discriminated against. Death had seen this before, but he had hoped the knowledge had been lost over the years. It seemed he was wrong.

Death took the young father first. He was sad and afraid, but Death assured him that he would see his family soon. The young mother was next. She was more resigned than the father. She had died to save her son and didn't regret it for a moment; she only regretted that it hadn't worked. She pleaded with Death to not take her Harry. She wanted him to live and be happy. Death calmed her as much as he could, knowing that the baby would be joining her soon. He didn't have a soothing presence, but he tried his best for those who were crossing over.

He then sadly went back for the baby. He took the young child into his arms and carried him into what he called his waiting room. He had heard others refer to it as purgatory or even limbo. Currently, it looked like Kings Cross Station in London. He always liked to have travel-related locations to emulate; it gave him joy and much amusement for some reason. It had been a shipping port from New Zealand before Kings Cross, and it was O'Hare Airport in Chicago before then. He only used O'Hare for a couple of years though. For some reason, it tended to make the dead more anxious, go figure.

The baby had stopped crying when they crossed into the waiting room and was looking at Death with huge, green eyes. "E'wow. I A'wey," the baby said, pointing at himself with a teary smile. "Oo, you?"

Death smiled at him. He stopped himself, knowing this tended to freak people out when he smiled, but the baby amazed him by just smiling back broader. Now, Death didn't look terrifying in his current chosen form, he looked pretty good, if he could say so himself. He looked to be around his early 20s; with strong, masculine features; usually wore muggle clothes to put them at ease; had long-ish, jet-black hair that he always tied back; dark, obsidian eyes; he was taller than average at about 6'4;" and well-muscled. It wasn't his appearance, per se, that tended to put people on edge, but his general aura. His aura was...well...Death. Those who feared death would fear the manifestation of it. No one chatted with him, even children who didn't know what was going on were inherently afraid of him. Everyone either pleaded to go back or go on, which means they always went on. By the time you made it to the waiting room, there was no going back.

"Well, little one," Death smiled again happily since it didn't seem to terrify the boy. He sat on one of the benches, still holding the baby who he rearranged to make more comfortable on his lap. "I have been called by many names over the millennia. Death is the most straightforward. I've also been called Hades, Pluto, Dis Pater, Osiris, Yama, and many others. Can you pronounce any of those?"

The boy seemed to give it a lot of very serious thought. Which of the names could he pronounce? "Dis!" he said proudly, finding one he could easily say.

Death laughed. It was the first time he had laughed in the presence of a mortal and the mortal hadn't started crying. This strange mortal giggled as well to his surprise. "You may call me Dis then, little one," he said. Something about this child called to him. Something stirred in his heart when he looked into those green eyes. Maybe he would visit this child in the next realm. Yes, he would like that very much.

Then, the child hugged him and he thought he must have gone into shock or something. No one had ever hugged Death in his entire existence. "Oo my fwend meester Dis," Harry informed him as if it were an extremely important and very serious proclamation.

There were rules that Death followed that had been in place since the beginning of time, and as he hugged the small child back, he knew he was about to break all of them. The boy had been hit with the killing curse, he had made it to the waiting room, and he was supposed to go on. He was supposed to join his parents. Death realized though that this small, strange child fascinated him. He wanted to see this child grow up, develop into a mature person, have a family, and spread his joy within the world of the living. There wasn't enough joy in that world, and he wasn't about to take this bright light of joy out of it. He would later claim temporary insanity, but he knew, Fate wanted this child back in the world; he wanted this child back in the world of the living.

There was something he desperately needed to do before sending the child back though. Death placed his hand on Harry's forehead, over the lightning bolt cut there. He could feel a piece of the abomination there. He needed to remove the parasitic soul piece before returning the child so that it couldn't have a corrupting influence on the child's beautiful soul. He knew there would be residue left, a link to the abomination, but the child would at least be free from the evil soul, and the abomination couldn't use that soul-piece to remain anchored to the world. Death pulled his hand away dragging a dark wraith with it and pulling it from the child's body. He cast the soul piece away and under another of the benches. He would handle it later.

Harry's face screwed up in pain and a single tear ran down his cheek. "I'm so sorry, child," Death said, hugging him close, hurting himself at the pain he'd caused in his new friend. "I had to remove it though. You wouldn't want to keep it with you."

"Tank you," the boy sniffed in understanding beyond his years.

"Harry," Death said seriously as he held the child on his lap. "I'm taking you back to your world. I know you don't understand right now, but I want to see you live. I want you to be happy and grow old. I had better not see you again until you're 150 years old and have 30 grandchildren. Ok?"

"Kay," Harry smiled and nodded, not understanding.

"Now, you won't remember me," Death said and raised a hand as the small boy started to protest. "It's just the way things are, and I can't change it. Even though you won't remember me, I'll remember you, and I'll be watching out for you, ok?"

"Kay, Meester Dis," Harry smiled. "I 'member you though. I pwomise. You my fwend."

Death laughed and stood up to return his Harry to the mortal world. "Well, do try to remember, no returning here until you're at least 150."

Harry was not 150 the next time Death saw him. He was 3 years old.