Death was missing. He had been for a few weeks. This was inconvenient to Harry for two reasons.
One, Harry now had twice as much work to do, as Death did quite a lot in the underworld. Instead of being able to sit in his office all day, he now had to go around making sure everything was running smoothly and checking in on various complaints that were made by some of the other spirits that worked under him. Paperwork was piling up like never before, and he didn’t know when he would next get the chance to tackle the piles.
The second reason was that souls were just kind of leaving the underworld. Like, they were just walking out.
What the fuck.
Harry had no idea how to even start fixing that problem, so he elected instead to go find Death himself and put the members of the previous search parties incharge of everything else (which probably wasn’t his best idea to date but he was tired, dammit. Running everything by himself wasn’t easy). Surely it wouldn’t take him that long to find the immortal being, right?
Wrong.
He was so incredibly wrong.
It took Harry an entire week to find him. The underworld had to have been in shambles at this point.
When Harry finally found him, it was in Alaska of all places. A.k.a, the most useless place on earth.
“Death,” Harry asked, appearing next to the being, “How did this happen?”
“Master, you have arrived.” Acknowledged Death. “Alcyoneus took me by surprise. The chains are enchanted so I am unable to escape. There was a prophecy and everything.”
“Romans or Greeks?” Harry asked, resigned.
“Both.” Stated Death. Harry made a face. “I am currently flickering between Mors and Thanatos. There is a group of demigods fighting Alcyoneus over there.” He pointed to the movement that Harry saw in the distance when he had arrived. Harry nodded.
“Do you know what the prophecy says?” Death shook his head.
“I am unaware.”
“Hm. I don’t care for prophecies much.”
“I know you don’t, Master.”
“I never have, really.”
“Of course, Master.”
“Fantastic, glad we’re on the same page.” Harry waved his hand and the chains vanished. As this happened, he saw the group of children (teenagers?) finished their battle and start walking back towards them. They look confused when they saw Harry next to Death, and placed their hands back on their weapons.
“Who are you and what do you want with Thanatos?” One of the teenagers asked, sword ready to be drawn.
“My name does not matter, and I have come to bring Thanatos back to the underworld.” The group of teenagers still looked tense at his words.
“Why should we let you take him? We don’t even know who you are.” Harry raised his eyebrow.
“Maybe because I got him out of his cursed chains? He is now free to go where he pleases. You should consider asking what he wants instead of getting defensive.” The kids looked a bit flustered at this but persisted.
“Uh, Lord Thanatos sir?” This time it was the timid girl who spoke. “Could we bring you back to camp to complete the quest and prophecy?”
“I am grateful that you came on this journey, however I have things I must do. I have been away from my duties for much too long for comfort.” The kids were frustrated now.
“You’re just going to leave us after we spent weeks on this quest? We almost died for you! And now you’re just going to-” The angry kid and the other two he had with him disappeared with a wave of Harry’s hand.
“Oops. My hand slipped.” He deadpanned. “They should be back at that camp of theirs though.”
“How gracious of you, Master.” Replied Death without missing a beat.
“Now,” Said Harry, gesturing for Death to follow him, “Allow me to catch you up on the last couple of weeks as we travel back. You have missed a lot.”
And if Harry convinced Death to take on the majority of the built up paperwork? Who was Death to complain? After all, Harry was the saviour of the day once again.