Two for One

Chapter 1: Bored

When Harry first meets him, the entity has blond hair and looks like a man in his late thirties to mid-forties with no obvious sign of disease. Death doesn't wear a stereotypical robe either, in fact he dresses in a rather smart suit with polished leather shoes and a Rolex wrist watch. His face doesn't look terrifying at all, watching Harry's reaction with an apathetic, if not bored expression.

And what a reaction it is. Harry had just been poisoned at a private dinner party with friends and had woken up with the intimidating man looming over him.

The poor Chosen One promptly chucks a hissy fit because he killed Voldemort a little over a year ago and recognises King's Cross from his brief stint being dead.

It's explained that as soon as Harry had the wand's allegiance, the cloak's powers at hand and the snitch with the ring scoured away within, he became Master of Death, no matter that he didn't have all three items in skin contact.

Death reassures him in a drawl that as soon as some other creature gets all three, Harry is free from the title. Harry tries very hard not to break down in tears, thinking back to dropping the ring in the dirt and snapping the wand before tossing the pieces into the river.

Death laughs, the bastard.

Harry then asks if he can go back to life, because being Master over death should give him some perks, right?

That results in a firm no. Harry has a choice in moving elsewhere or dying. The wizard thinks that's a stupid ultimatum because if he can go somewhere else, why can't he just go back to England?

He sighs and picks France.

That isn't what Death means. The being means a different reality; like dimension, universe, whatever.

That makes even less sense to Harry. So Death can fuck around with dimensions but he can't put Harry's soul back into his damn body?

Harry is then informed that time moves differently and since it has been approximately three months since the poisoning, his body has already been burned. 'Cremated' being the word.

Harry has enough and tells Death to fuck off.

An hour later, when Harry stops screaming at Death whenever he comes too close, Death repeats his earlier question.

Somewhere else or death-death?

Harry choses complete death, and he's warned there is no afterlife. After a pointed look around, Death catches on and explains that because the wizard is technically Master he gets additional 'In-betweens', but there is no Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. When you die, you just die.

Harry cuts in with a stunned question about the origin of ghosts. Death tells him they're echoes and memories of people, much like portraits. So, after a long philosophical debate about death and to Death, Harry takes a moment to contemplate what he would like 'elsewhere' to be.

To be completely clear; it isn't a gift that Death is giving Harry, nor is it a right that he has as Master of Death.

No, this second chance is a punishment for Harry thinking that he can be happy and normal with the love of his life and surrounded by friends.

That's fine, though, it's perfectly fine.

Harry has always been the sacrifice. His destiny was to kill himself, no matter the fact that he was then revived. He walked to his death as an eighteen-year-old boy, fully conscious that this was the end for him, expecting to never see his friends again.

That kind of thing changed people.

Quite frankly, Harry stopped giving a fuck.

After everything was over, he decided that he did his duty, and now he got to do whatever he wanted and no one had any say in his decisions. There were trials for the Death Eaters of course and the public kept ambushing him as well as the Voldemort supporters still kicking.

Harry dealt with it calmly by locking himself away in a re-hidden Potter Cottage. Most of Harry's time was split between a Hermione-enforced education plan or spent wondering how he survived.

Not regarding the killing curse at the end there, since he could safely file away that under 'because magic', but regarding how fearsome Voldemort was. The man was fully immortal most of the time there, and from the brief flashes of Tom Riddle's childhood he had a huge amount of control over his magic and a deeply intelligent mind.

It begs the question; how the hell did Voldemort lose?

Not even just to Harry, but right at the start, before the prophecy, how was the man not even close to being ruler over wizarding Britain? With that much power at his fingers how could he not be more terrifying than Grindelwald?

Harry asked Hermione one quiet day and she explained how Dark Arts could twist a person, affect their mind as well as body and unmake them.

He thought it a disappointment, because quite frankly Tom Marvolo Riddle was both great and terrible, but what could this world be if he was simply great? What would have happened if all the dark witches and wizards were still just as prevalent in the history books but they strived to help instead of hinder?

Would Harry's parents still be alive? Would he have had a better life? How many people would be happier if such a change could occur?

Those questions were angsty little musings back when Harry was alive, just simple 'what-if's that stole his focus and directed his day dreaming. Nothing could be done, Harry knew, he was just lingering. He had a good life, there was no need to change things now and be greedy.

Well... except here's Harry with the multiverse at his feet, and there's Death with the sick sense of humour. It shouldn't take too long to convince the being to play along, right?

Death looks kind of bored anyway.