Redux

Harry saw the spell coming. He knew this was the end. He could only hope that Nagini was taken care of and Voldemort would be gone soon after him. His sacrifice would still save everyone he loved and cared for.

The spell hit.

The next thing Harry sees is Kings Cross Station. Dumbledore appears and before speaking, wraps the teenager in a warm hug.
“Harry, my boy, you were so brave. So much like your mother. Come, sit down with me, there is much to discuss”

 Dumbledore explains the Horcruxes, and Lily’s sacrifice, the connection between Harry and Tom. He points to a small infant-like creature under the bench across the tracks, explaining that it’s the piece of Tom’s soul from the Horcrux. He continues speaking for what seems like hours about what was going on behind the scenes. Harry noticed something was off in the explanation, but didn’t call the late Headmaster on it. Finally Dumbledore explains where they are at, The Crossroads. “The Crossroads are places people go when they die, but don’t have to stay that way. The Afterlife sends someone to help the person make the choice to stay dead or not. Harry, my boy, you have that choice now. You can take the next train to the Afterlife, or you can walk through that door,” he points off toward the front entrance to the station, “and finish what you started.”

 Harry thinks on his choice for a very short moment, and decides to go back, thinking that it would be hilarious to survive the killing curse twice. He lets Dumbledore hug him one more time and then walks out the doors into a blinding white light.

 He wakes up in the middle of falling over from the spell, though he feels like he only got hit by a very strong Stunner crossed with a Body Bind. He’s unable to catch himself while landing and hits the ground hard. Voldemort approaches his limp body, crouches down, and leans in really close.
He whispers in Harry’s ear, “I know you’re not dead Potter. I don’t understand how, but the light didn’t leave your eyes but for a blink. No matter, you will die, and I’m going to finish what I started. As the muggles say, ‘third time’s the charm’, or curse in this matter”. Voldemort stands back up and points the Elder Wand at Harry’s heart, “Avada Kedavra”, he incants, and Harry dies, again.

This time, when he wakes up, he’s sitting in an office chair, facing a small desk piled with file folders. The desk is in a half walled cubicle in what looks to be an infinitely large white office. Harry hears footsteps behind him and turns to see a figure dressed in a black cloak and robes approaching the desk.
“Ah, I can tell from your confusion that Riddle sent you here this time Mr. Potter. Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Alistair, and I am your assigned Reaper, part of your Celestial Team.” the figure explains, taking off his hood to reveal a tall, middle aged man. “Your whole Life’s memories will return momentarily, your soul remembers more than your body did. There will be a lot of them, though, as you’ve died so many times. In fact, each one of these files is a death, the red ones are times caused by others, blue for self inflicted, either intentional or accidental, and green for deaths out of anyone’s direct control.” He points to a sea of red folders, a countable 6 blue folders, and then to a slightly larger pile of green folders, before placing one more red one on the pile.

 Just then Harry’s memories return, every death, many in short order of each other when he was a child, when the Dursleys’ abuse got too bad.. There are plenty from Hogwarts ages as well, accidents, a couple times he’s crashed his broom, or got on the wrong side of a Creature in class. Plus the obvious times, interactions with Voldemort gone wrong, taking the curse for Sirius in the DoM (which incidentally, still pushed the man into the Veil, as that was when he was destined to die), even a few situations, he doesn’t remember from this last time through, which were, unsurprisingly, Dumbledore’s fault. His face screws up any time he gets one of those, which causes Alistair to chuckle.

 “Ah yes, when you’ve died before, we’ve sent you back to before the incident, up to a couple days, hence why you don’t remember, and made a slight change to the environment, or yourself, so it didn’t happen again. Mostly it ends up being seen as “accidental magic”, your Guardian placing shield charms, warming charms, summoning food in the middle of the night, and so on. Other times, your Muse gives you a mental nudge to change a choice you made that ended badly. It’s standard procedure for all Celestial Teams, Muggles don’t get the Charms, but they’ll get the nudges, or someone else will get nudged to help out. The whole Team works to keep you alive, so when you’ve died, the one responsible gets in trouble. Well, only after Magical Puberty, a little before 11, for Wix, or Magicals, or physical puberty for Mundanes, or Muggles. Before then, unless you’re destined to die young, you just get put back and your environment altered. And you’ve died a lot. Death himself and his sister Destiny have assigned you three different Muses already, and seven Guardians. If that blue pile had one more folder I’d have been sacked myself. This one only counts as red because you went back after the Crossroads, if you had come here from the station, it would have been blue, and you would be speaking to a different Reaper.” Alistair explained. Then he continued to rant.
“You weren’t supposed to sacrifice yourself in the forest, not quite like you did anyway. The Horcrux hasn’t been in your scar since the Basilisk when the phoenix healed you, thank your third Guardian for that, and the only thing that remained was a Legilimens link, and that couldn’t be broken because it had almost thirteen years to entangle itself in your mind. You were supposed to have gotten Death’s Wand before Riddle did, and he would have used Dumbledore’s original wand, as he was buried with both, and they look quite similar, with similar compositions. Having all three Gifts, or Hallows as the Wix have called them, you wouldn’t have even stumbled being hit with that Curse. Being the Master of the Hallows is the only reason you went to the Crossroads at all, and that creature that meddlesome fool called Riddle’s soul, wasn’t from from just your Horcrux, but all the Horcruxes that had been destroyed, the only thing missing was the snake, and Riddle’s remaining fragment. It is waiting for those remaining pieces at the Crossroads, but even when it’s whole again, it will not be the same when it gets to Riddle's Reaper as it was when it was created for Riddle.” Alistair takes a few slow breaths, and continues.  “The snake would have been neutralized sooner had things gone correctly, and you would have just had to kill Riddle, not even with a Killing Curse, any fatal injury would have worked, it just had to be you. Let's see if I can remember what Destiny had planned for you…
You would have won, the remaining followers would have surrendered, and Hogwarts would have been repaired and ready for the next school year by September. Your class would have joined the Seventh Years, you would have gotten Os on your NEWTs, and gone on to be Head Auror with a Mastery in DADA in record time. By then you would have had a falling out with your current romantic partner, Ms Weasley if I remember correctly, and gone on to marry your Soulmate, some Granger girl, – wait, hold on, I can’t remember the name now–” he shuffles through the paperwork to find a Gold folder and opens it. “Yes, Hermione, who also ends up leaving her own Weasley. You both would have lived to be bicentennial in age, surrounded by 7 generations of descendants. But that’s not possible now, I’d have to send you too far back for a simple alteration to work.” He continues pacing behind the desk, mumbling to himself, seemingly about how to fix the situation. Harry hears snippets of comments about the prophecy being filled anyway, things going smoother if Dumbledore had just followed the plan. At one point Alistair stops in his tracks and wonders aloud, “Maybe we can send him back to right after the Crossroads and distract Riddle so he doesn’t look Harry in the eyes…”, but then he shakes his head and just goes back to pacing and muttering.

 Harry stares, slack jawed, at the being in front of him, trying to take in all the information. When his brain catches up, he has one thing to say, “Hermione’s my soulmate?!”
 Alistair stops pacing, giving Harry a look as if to say, “we haven’t had this conversation yet?”, then nods. He places the Gold folder in Harry’s hands and tells him that it contains his destiny, and some Celestial Facts about him. Harry reads as Alistair explains. His basic destiny had four main points to fulfill; 1) fulfill the prophecy (only needs to gain the “power He knows not”; Vanquishing optional), 2) Pact Bond with at least three people, 3) find at least one Familiar, and 4) Seal the Soul Bond with Hermione Jean Granger. All the little details changed and evolved as Harry aged and events occurred, some being rewritten when Harry was sent back after certain deaths. As of his last death, Harry had fulfilled three of the four points; Bonding with Ron, Neville, Luna, Ginny and Hermione, He Had Hedwig as a Familiar, and the Power He Knows Not, well, that was the Hallows, Riddle only knew the Deathstick was powerful and passed by defeat, and didn’t even know his Ring Horcrux had the Resurrection Stone in it apparently.
The Celestial Facts was what surprised Harry. Destiny took pages and pages as the points were fulfilled, unfulfilled, refulfilled, and that was only the current life. The Facts only took one.

It looked something like this:

*****

Celestial Facts for Harry James Potter:

Child of Prophecy: Functionally Immortal, if killed by Environment, Self, or Others, with the exception of Tom Marvolo Riddle, Resend and Protect immediately, do not converse, or interact before Resending. All Celestial Teams must cooperate. Functional Immortality is Ended if Harry James Potter kills Tom Marvolo Riddle. The reverse holds true. (Interference due to Horcrux creation)

Pact Bonded (conditional): Can call on Bonded’s Magic, and Celestial Teams in times of great need. Instinctual and Intentional uses. Magic is more readily drawn upon when Bonded members are around, the effect is multiplied the more members are near. Emotions will bleed between Bonded if strong enough.

Soul Bonded: Unsealed: supernaturally drawn to Soulmate, stronger Magic when in proximity to Soulmate, unexplained jealousy even when not romantically involved with Soulmate. Sealed: Soulmates are Inseparable: neither will die without the other, even due to old age (drawback; if one is killed, the other dies as well), lifespan extended threefold, Magic strength doubled.

Family Gifts: Magic Gifts from the Bloodlines
Potter Luck: (From James Charlus Potter from Charlus Henry Potter) Good and Bad events will happen more often, and to larger extremes around any of the Potter Blood.
Black Madness: (From James Charlus Potter, from Dorea Maia Black) Extreme emotions, impulsiveness, and slow to accept outside reasoning.
Wild Magic: (From Lily Jasmine Evans) Magic hiding in Mundane blood (Magical lineage at least three generations removed), spells will frequently behave unusually, wandless and silent spells come easier, and the fresh blood allows for Rare Family Gifts (Parseltongue [Sayre/Slytherin Family]) Wild Magic will occur for three generations (Lily Jasmine Evans, Harry James Potter, and any of Harry’s children) but Family Gifts will remain in the blood

Celestial Gifts(conditional) Information as of last death: Wand Locations are at the Time of Allegiance

Familiars: Conditional on locating and bonding. Three are available, two have been found, one bonded. Familiars available; Snowy Owl: (Bonded), Boa constrictor: (Found, Released) Phoenix: (Not Found)

Compatible Wands: (Conditionally, there are seven compatible wands, three have Chosen)
Holly and Phoenix (Original Chosen Wand)
Hawthorn and Unicorn (Draco Lucius Malfoy’s OCW)
Death’s Wand, Elder and Thestral (Death’s Heirloom)

Death’s Gifts: Collected. Death’s Wand, Soul Stone, Invisibility Cloak. Harry James Potter is Master of Death.

*****

 Harry closed the folder, with a shocked look on his face, he could not believe some of the facts about himself and his family. Like, his mother being descended from Slytherin. Or his Grandmother being a Black. Sirius’ great-aunt if he remembered the tapestry correctly. And that last line…he was still shaking his head in incredulity when he looked up, and saw Alistair looking at the doorway behind him, appearing frightened. Harry followed his Reaper’s line of sight, and found himself looking into the black eyes of a very pale man.
 “Greetings Master Potter, I’m very glad to meet you, circumstances notwithstanding. I have many names, but most call me ‘Death’ in their language. I personally prefer Thanatos. Alistair here must’ve been waiting for you to finish reading your file before explaining to me why you are still in his office if you had gathered all of my Gifts. You were supposed to be led down to My Office, as soon as he read that you had them. Now if you please, would you both follow me there now?” Thanatos said, and took a heel-turn without waiting for Harry to stand up. “You can bring that Gold folder with you as well, if you’d like. I have my own with a lot more information in it.” He said as he started walking down the hallway outside of the cubicle.

 The walk felt like it went on forever, and very well might have. When they reached the office, which was opulent and colored black and red, Thanatos led the two of them to cushioned chairs in front of a very large desk which looked like it was carved out of obsidian. Harry sat on the left, while Alistair sat on the right. The cosmic entities locked eyes and made a few odd faces for a while. Thanatos came to himself first, and reminded Alistair there was a human soul in the room.
 “I apologize, we normally talk psychically to keep conversation private, we were arguing about his lax actions with my Master’s death. If you had come directly here, we would probably have been most of the way through a plan. Instead, Alisair here, dithered trying to come up with a plan by himself, like it was that basilisk incident. Now, I already had a few choices for you, but I would like your input, Master. We can send you to a few points in time, but they are going to be toward the beginning of your magical life. But no matter when you go, you can’t tell anyone.”
 “Anyone? What about Hermione? Or Ron?” Harry interjected.
 “You can tell your soulmate, but only if we bring her soul in and send her back with you, but you can’t tell Mr Weasley, there’s information I have that your folder doesn’t. Most of the Weasleys are good people, but your friend Ron and his mother, they are not. I can only tell you to go to Gringotts when you get back and take a Core Test. The goblins are great at finding hidden magics.”
 “Then yes, let's bring Hermione with me. How do we get her here? Wouldn’t she have to die? I don’t want her to die.”
 “Time moves differently here, so she could live for twenty years after you died and she could arrive here twenty minutes after you did. But, we don’t have to worry about that part, she followed you pretty quickly during that battle, catching another purple curse from that Dolohov fellow. I’ll send for her, she should be here shortly. Back to your choices of return points, I believe there are three good places. The first day you received your Hogwarts letter, the end of the Chamber of Secrets, so you’d have the Horcrux removed, and the moment your name comes out of the Goblet of Fire. You don’t have to choose right now.”

 “HARRY!”, a shrill voice calls from the door, and before he has time to react, Harry gets a face full of wild chestnut curls. Hermione holds on for dear life, or death, crying and trying to rant about how Voldemort made Hagrid carry Harry’s body, and show the assembled wix that The Boy Who Lived, lived no more, but he did mention that it took two AKs to do it. Neville had gotten Nagini as she followed Voldemort into the courtyard; he used Snape’s Sectumsempra, which was apparently enough, because the Sword didn’t appear to anyone that day. She mentioned that the Death Eaters called for a duel after that, well, the ones that remained, like the Inner Circle. Dolohov chose herself, Bellatrix chose Neville, Lucius abstained, he said he would have taken Snape, but he didn’t look like he wanted to fight at all.
Hiccupping, she continued. “There were 6 of us chosen, all of us from the DA, all of us knew that with Neville’s Curse, anyone could kill Ol’ Voldy. We shared a look as we took our positions in front of our opponents. They tried to make it like Lockart’s dueling club, they even had Flitwick officiate. We just all went at once, no barriers, no restrictions except no Unforgivables, Voldemort didn’t want it over that quickly. I wouldn’t be surprised if we all died right then, not one of us put up a shield. We all aimed at Voldemort as he stood behind the Death Eater line. We all threw Reductors, and willingly took whatever spell was thrown at us”. She took a deep breath. “I survived long enough to see what we got hit with, but I think I was the second to die. I wish I had gone first, losing you hurt, but Bella blew a hole in Neville’s chest with her own Reductor. I’m not even sure he was able to see the red cloud our spells turned Voldemort into. Dolohov used his signature purple flames”, Harry nodded to this, Thanatos said as much. “Greyback got Ron, Evanescoed his skin. I didn’t think that was possible, or that that monster was smart enough.”
 “Good riddance, but a horrible way to go. You are right, none of the six of you survived.” Thanatos interjected. At Hermione’s horrified face, He went over Ron and Molly’s treachery, without specifics. “The other three, Luna, Fiendfyre from Ms Carrow, Ginevra, Fiendfyre from Mr Carrow, both Carrows were summoned by Voldemort. And finally, Rudolphus Lestrange simply asked for a Half-Blood to duel, and Anthony Goldstein volunteered. He was killed with a cutting curse to the neck.”
 “Now that I’m caught up,” Harry replied, “can we please talk about the plans on sending us back?”
 “Us? Back?” Hermione questioned. “Is that why I was called here? Matilda just told me that I had almost fulfilled my destiny, and handed me a gold folder to give to ‘the boss’ and sent me down the hallway to look for a black door.”
 “Yes my dear, that is exactly why you were called here. Harry is my master, and you both need each other to fulfill your destinies. So we’re sending you back to somewhen early in his life so you can get your own, and the wixen world’s, happily ever after. I’ve given Harry three choices, his letter, the Chamber, and the Goblet, But I’m all ears if you have a better solution, or a preference for yourself.” Thanatos regarded the young woman with fondness. He grabbed the folder he was handed, and Harry’s,and looked through them quickly, grabbing two silver folders out of his desk. “Ah yes, here we are. Your souls’ full histories. Your gold folders have your current lives, what your bodies would remember as your lives. My silver ones have everything that happened. This includes some information that I can’t give you, like the details on the misbehaving Weasleys, and Albus’ meddling. Miss Granger, as you are Harry’s soulmate, you had a similar immortality clause to your soul’s journey. You could not die until Harry did, hence why you lasted to the duel. Your Celestial Team did a better job at keeping you alive, and you didn’t have Harry’s hard life, so I’m pleased to see you only had a few setbacks. I’m going to suggest, like I did to Harry, that you go to Gringotts and get a Core Test, and you specifically need a Genealogy test. Harry, you can get one as well, because of your mother, but it’s not necessary. Now, I’m going to let you talk amongst yourselves and think about when you’d like to go back, and what to do when you get there”.

 Harry and Hermione went and sat in a corner of the office where a small sofa had appeared. Hermione had asked for pen and paper to write down their plans, and Thanatos had handed her a modern clipboard with a fountain pen and some parchment.