Harry Potter's eyes snapped open and he stared at the plain white ceiling above his head.
He blinked twice, quickly, and then stared at that ceiling some more.
Thousands of little bumps gave it a roughed up appearance. White crown molding edged the corners of the room, and light gray walls could be seen beneath that molding. The only thing that stopped this from looking just like his bedroom ceiling back on Privet Drive was the lack of any form of lighting or vents in the ceiling.
Instead, this ceiling glowed. It was a diffuse light. Subtle but omnipresent and with a slightly bluish tint.
But despite the glow it was fundamentally a plain ceiling.
Nothing of importance, and nothing of effect.
But it was a ceiling that he recognized. He had seen it before. Had been in this place, in this exact location and position, and staring up at this ceiling. He knew what it was. Knew what it meant.
It meant he had failed.
That he had died.
Again.
He blinked twice as memories slammed into him.
He knew his name and his history. It was all right there waiting for him. A litany of life experiences.
Finding out he was a wizard. Making friends. Making enemies. Laughing. Studying. Fighting. All those thousands of little experiences that added together to make a life.
But those were not the only memories that had slammed through his awareness. He had also gotten a list, a long list, of death experiences.
Everything from being beaten to death by an enraged Uncle Vernon, to the latest of having Umbridge of all people hit him with the killing curse. Apparently, he had made her even crazier on that last life than he had on the previous 124 that he remembered. Or the previous 726 that he had not remembered while alive, but remembered now that he was dead again.
In response to that thought, he cursed. A lot. Repeatedly. And loudly.
"You know," said a harsh voice, from somewhere off to his left. "It was bad enough that you kept dying when you didn't have your memories. But these past nineteen times we've let you keep them! Just how inept are you?"
Harry Potter shifted his head and glanced towards the voice. There sitting at a old-fashioned wooden desk, was what for all purposes was a man. He looked generic; as plain as his ceiling. There was nothing to distinguish him from any random guy on the street. He could have been a banker or an insurance salesman. He could have been any one of millions of people.
Of course, Harry knew better. Harry had met this man many times now. He knew his name was Jeffery Anders. He knew that he was at one time a banker of some sort in New York. Harry even knew that this guy had been placed into death's version of social services, because he had jumped out of a twentieth floor window on October 29th, 1929.
While he knew all these things, he really did not want to know any of them. He fervently wished that he had never met him. Did not actually want to meet him. Did not even really want to know him. After all, most people are never in a big hurry to meet their Grim Reaper.
Instead of responding to the man. Harry decided that cursing was a much more appropriate response.
"Enough!" Jeffery said harshly. Thus interrupting what was building up to be a quite impressive rant featuring concepts both profane and scatological. "And what are we supposed to do with you? Fate is in a right tizzy over your continued stupidity. I'm amazed at your sheer ability to die in so many unimpressive ways. How hard is this for you to understand and to do your job?"
Harry sat up, and glared at the man.
After all, what's the worst that could happen. He was already dead. Apparently for the eight hundred and fiftieth time.
He knew that he would not be judged just yet, because he had to get things "right" according to Fate. He was just going to be sent back in time. Or maybe shunted into a slightly divergent alternate reality. He remembered there being something of a debate on exactly what it was they were doing with him two or three hundred deaths ago.
"I blame the rules you all keep saddling me with. Sure I have my memories, but I can't do anything about anything. You want me to keep trying the same things over and over and over again. How many times do I have to let Hermione go to the ball with that Bulgarian jackass or let Ginny potion me up before you lot will realize that I'm kind of stuck. I have to let things play out according to what happened previously in order to make my memories still be useful. So, of course the same thing is going to happen again and again and again."
The man's face became harder. Stonier.
Harry ignored it, and kept on talking.
"Sometimes you lot tell me to confide in Dumbledore, and he turns out to be either evil or just senile. Other times you tell me that I have to finalize my soul-bond with Hermione, but I can't do it until we're living in that bloody, freezing tent in what's supposed to be my seventh year. And of course this last time, you tell me that Umbridge is unimportant and shouldn't be bothered over, and she actually manages to kill me! How embarrassing is that? I have to admit that Umbridge killed me! No one is going to let me live that down! I bet Hermione isn't even crying over my death. She's probably doesn't even want to admit that she knows me."
"Your deaths are not something to discuss or cheer about. The Powers That Be are not happy at your continual ability to die!"
Harry could not help the laughter that spilled out from him.
Jeffery just glared at him for the entire five minutes.
Finally, Harry looked at him. "You know, I'm done. What's the worst that happens if I don't go back?"
Jeffery shrugged his shoulders. "The end of everything."
Harry grimaced slightly, and glanced around, hoping for a window that he could stare out of, even though he was not expecting one to be there. There had never been a window in any of his past deaths. At least he had never remembered one before. "That doesn't sound too bad."
"I'm not talking about just the end of the Earth. I'm talking the end of everything. If Tom Riddle does not get to meet me, then our entire branch of reality will stop. That's why it's so important that you do not die."
Harry shrugged his shoulders again, as he focused on Jeffery. "And? At this point, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing."
Jeffery shook his head. "Well, it's a good thing that it's not up to you."
Harry bolted to his feet, horror finding its way onto his face. "No! I'm refusing to go."
Jeffery's smile was somewhat malicious. "It was never actually your choice. But, I think I'll wipe your memories, maybe a few lives without them will settle you back down. Never had to listen to your lip, or your cursing, when you didn't remember your previous lives. Bye now."
Before Harry could respond, a tunnel opened up beneath him. Thus, he did what anyone in that situation would do.
He screamed.
He screamed as he fell through the darkness. Screamed as the tunnel twisted around him, swirling him about. Screamed as the darkness closed in, capturing him. Screamed as the darkness tore at his sense of self, as it tried to pull out his memories.
He screamed.
A booming crash echoed around him. Through him. Shook him to his core. He could feel it as the sound of it twisted around him.
A second boom. This one squeezed at him. It reverberated in time with his own screams.
He screamed.
A third boom, and he realized that he was not falling any longer. That he had stopped, and he was once more laying on his back.
He opened his eyes, and found himself staring at a brown ceiling. Dark timbers, blackened by age, mold and the middle of the night, criss-crossed this ceiling. He blinked and shut his mouth, cutting off his screams.
Harry sat up, and looked around. To his right was an ugly couch, and his cousin, looking much younger than the last time Harry had seen him. The much larger boy was sitting up and staring straight ahead, his piggy eyes locked onto the door to the shack. A look of pure fright etched onto his face. Harry glanced to his left, and saw the last remnants of a fire in the fireplace, and a hearth made up entirely of dirty and dusty bricks.
Still screams seemed to be echoing through the room. Harry knew it was not him, so he glanced around and found his Aunt and Uncle in the doorway to the shack's only bedroom. It was his Uncle who was screaming; loud, crass, demands for answers from the door couple with threats to get whoever it was to go away.
A fourth boom, and the door fell inwards.
At that moment, lightning cracked outside. A bright flare of light which back lit the massive form that stood in the doorway. A gust of wind at that same moment spread droplets of rain throughout the room.
Then the lightning died to be replaced with thunder.
The figure moved further into the room, allowing the light from the dying fire to fall onto him. He was dressed in a coarse hunter's jacket. His hair and beard was black and wire-like. Wild. Unkempt. Beady black eyes flickered between everyone in the room.
Harry knew him: Rubeus Hagrid.
Harry could not help himself. His lips twisted into a grin. One that would have sent anyone who had known him in his previous life running.
After all, he remembered.
And he remembered without any of those pesky rules and handicaps that Jeffery kept placing on him in his previous lives. He was back here, on his birthday before his first year at Hogwarts, and he remembered. He remembered it all.
Every life. Every chance he had taken. Every success and failure. Every death.
He remembered everything.
Absently, he noted that Vernon had apparently made Hagrid mad by insulting Dumbledore. Not that Harry minded anyone insulting Dumbledore. After all, he had plans in that regard himself.
It was at that moment, that he felt something different. It started as a shaky thing in his stomach. One that spread. It escaped him as a small giggle for a moment. One he clasped his hand over his mouth to contain.
After all, the Dursleys had never liked anything that humored Harry.
But he could not keep it in. The giggle became a laugh.
And this was more along the lines of a mad, insane cackle than a normal laugh. It was the laugh heard from dime-store melodrama villains. One that would not have been out of place in any early Frankenstein movie had Harry ever seen one of those before.
A small part of him had seen that the Dursleys and Hagrid had stopped their conversation. He had heard the boom of the shotgun as Hagrid twisted its barrel up and towards the ceiling. He had even noticed that the conversations, or mutual screaming, had stopped as they all stared at him. And all of them had a sort of horrified confusion on their faces.
One Harry found even more hilarious.
Finally, his laughter settled down, and he grinned at them all. It was a dark grin. A grin that promised retribution and pain, and quite a bit of embarrassment for someone. A grin that Padfoot would be quite proud of seeing on his godson's face.
Another small chuckle escaped him as he rubbed his hands together and a single thought twisted its way through his mind. This is going to be fun.