the end is the beginning
Surrounded by the whiteness of the train station Harry sat in contemplation. Having died in the Battle of Hogwarts, did he go back or stay with parents he’d never known. When footsteps approached and neatly pressed pinstripe trousers complete with crisply ironed seam stood before him. Black leather shoes and charcoal grey socks that with his head down he found himself focusing on. A voice soft and unnerving coloured the whiteness around him.
‘And if there was a third option, Mr Potter?’
He looked up into black eyes, angular cheek bones in an androgynous face with short inky black hair that seemed to absorb light. Dressed in a three piece suit a silver watch chain caught the eye and completed the look of a man who’s age he would have been hard pressed to guess at.
‘A third option?’
‘Yes.’
Harry frowned. ‘I don’t know you.’
‘Ah but we have met before. You even hold a piece of my cloak in your possession Mr Potter, a certain family heirloom. Along with other trinkets of mine you managed to collect recently.’
‘Don’t follow.’
The well dressed man sighed. ‘You would if you’d grown up magical.’ He sat beside Harry. ‘There was a time when everyone knew who I was.’
‘If you wore the cloak.’ A soft feminine voice with a lilting Irish accent approached them. ‘And carried your knife it might be more obvious.’
‘It is a scythe and I try to be relevant, My Lady.’
Harry watched as the man beside him rose in a bow before the petite woman with long black hair and green eyes not unlike his own. She wore a long flowing dress that looked like the night sky and seemed to move without the need for wind.
‘Who are you?’
‘We are here to make you an offer, provide a third option to your choice between death and life. And he’s Death.’
‘Does that make you life?’ Harry snapped, it had been a long day.
She laughed. ‘No.’ She sat on a chair that hadn’t been there a moment ago. ‘I am something much bigger than life. I am Lady Magic, and I am. Not happy.’ She looked around. ‘This is rather bleak Mr Potter.’
‘I died. What where you expecting.’
‘Most go for something less austere than a white train station, more pastoral usually.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind. What’s my third choice?’
‘We send you back but a little further than just to when you died.’
‘Back? When and why?’
Death spoke. ‘You held the three hollows when you died Mr Potter.’
‘That was real?’
‘You went to school to learn magic, of course it was real.’
‘When would I go back to and you haven’t told me why.’
Her green eyes glowed. ‘The only thing that odious Riddle got right was how much of a waste of magical blood he is responsible for spilling. Each of my children that are lost, regardless of blood status or species, weakens magic.’
‘Weakens magic.’ Harry repeated.
‘There isn’t an endless pool of it Mr Potter. Like all natural resources there is a need to care for it or we will be lost.’
‘We’re running out of magic?’ If he didn’t know he was dead he’d be worried he was losing his mind. And wasn’t that an idea he never saw coming. He blamed his infamous Potter Luck.
‘Pure blood rhetoric has already weakened bloodlines.’ Death pointed out. ‘And your muggle born are actually the children of the children thrown away for not being magical.’
‘Well that will put the cat amongst the pigeons.’
‘Most witches and wizards had families that more resembled the size of the Weasley’s than that of Malfoy or Black, Mr Potter. Until they started marrying their cousins.’ Lady Magic sighed. ‘Time is against us but know this. If I could send you back further than your own timeline to save more of mine. I would. Even I have limits, magic is much diminished to what it once was.’ Her hair crackled with softly spoken anger that was echoed in glowing eyes.
‘So I can’t save my parents.’
‘No Mr Potter but you can save Edward Lupin’s. Your friend Fred, even the Creevy boy along with countless others who’s names are carved too soon in stone monuments and on grave markers.’
‘Will I remember?’
‘Be an exercise in futility not to but I would recommend writing things down when you get back.’
‘You haven’t said back to when.’
‘Oh, I think about the time your Hogwarts letter arrives should be about right. Give you time to work out what you need to change before school starts.’ She rose to her feet and placed a kiss on Harry’s forehead, on his scar. ‘I also suggest you speak with Gringotts about a healing. For a fee of course.’
‘If I don’t wait for Hagrid how will I get to Diagon Alley?’
‘The stranded witch or wizard doesn’t need a wand Mr Potter. Just legal currency, any, currency.’ She patted his arm. ‘Think about what you need to change. I know this is much to put upon you. You who have been the victim of a great many machinations, caught between two meddling fools. There is much that can be corrected.’
Harry nodded. ‘I don’t exactly have a choice.’
She shook her head. ‘No Mr Potter, you have a great many and none will think less of you if you do choose Death.’
‘But if I can save even one person there is not much to choose is there.’
‘No.’ She smiled. ‘There really isn’t.’
‘I have a question.’ He sighed. ‘I have lots of questions but why do you need to send me back, and I don’t mean about saving people.’
She exchanged a look with Death.
‘The memory of them is old and likely lost to all but a sensitive few but there are Eldritch Beings even we are accountable to.’
‘Even I need an agent Mr Potter.’