"Prisoner number 6785," a bored sounding voice called out.
Harry's world was still dark. Tiny beams of light shone through the holes in the carrying box he'd been shoved into for transport to wherever the hell he now was.
"Experiment number 0034," the voice continued.
Light flooded Harry's world. The front of the box had been opened and Harry stepped out onto a wooden platform. Two men, perhaps the same two men from the prison, attached him to the platform with chains. In front of him, was a sight that made his underused eyes widen in shock.
"Modified version of the confundus charm, woven into the arch using Hypthorn's static enchantment protocol; dated the third of September, 2002, approved by the Chief Unspeakable."
It was the veil of death.
"Begin the transfer."
Without making a sound, the platform started moving towards the veil leaving Harry no possibility of escape… not that he wanted it.
'For neither can live while the other survives,' he mused, grinning manically. He was about to die, but he knew that what was going on here was something Voldemort certainly didn't know about, or authorise.
He was halfway to the veil now and suddenly terror flooded his mind, but the raw primal emotion wasn't his.
A loud crack sounded behind him and Voldemort's voice screamed "Accio Potter!" but the chains held him fast to the platform and before another word could be uttered he'd plunged through the archway and darkness took him.
...
"Good morning, Mister Potter." A four word sentence, male, in a voice of stone, empty caves, and deep gulps of fresh mountain air, conquered his head, and forced his focus.
"Ah, good morning?" Harry replied. He couldn't see his interlocutor. Darkness surrounded him. But his voice… speaking was amazingly easy, not what he'd expected after a decade of non-use. And his thinking… he could think! His mind was clear and fresh, thoughts flowing through it, crisp, like a mountain stream.
"Yes, it's amazing what having no body will do for you."
A pebble of a thought dropped into his consciousness. He'd just been pushed through the veil. He was dead.
"Yes," the voice said, "you are."
And this person?… thing?… could read minds, despite his near impenetrable occlumency shields, mindscape, and decoy memories.
"You may as well start speaking. Talking to myself still makes me feel a bit of a berk, even if I can read your thoughts. And we're not alone."
Harry finally replied again, "Err… who are 'we' exactly? And where are we? Are you Death?"
The darkness lifted to be replaced with a round room, lined with furs from floor to ceiling. An open fire crackled in the middle of the room, shields and weapons lined the walls, and, asleep in a corner, a mess of large wolves were piled on top of one another. On the opposite side of the small room to him, comfortable and relaxed in large wooden thrones, sat two people, a man and a woman.
The woman, clothed in an elegant white-laced dress, held a book.
The man, clothed in dark robes of the blackest black, held a scythe.
"I guess you are," he continued. These people seemed to really like their theatrics.
"Yes, I am," said the man, "and this lovely lady to my right is Fate," he motioned to the woman who inclined her head to Harry, "we have a bone to pick with you."
Harry was nonplussed. "Um… okay," he hesitated before continuing, but Death seemed personable enough, "does this bone have anything to do with the fact that I just died not at the hands of Voldemort despite what the prophecy says?" He tried to think ahead in the conversation. Why was he here?
Death smiled a smile made of solid oak. "No, that was merely a bit of conniving on our part to get you to us. If we hadn't have done that, you and Voldemort would have continued to live for another thousand years."
He blinked. "What?"
"I don't like things that are owed me being withheld, Mister Potter."
Harry's looked nonplussed. "But… It's not my fault if I was a damn horcrux!"
The lady, who'd up to this point been silent, now spoke in a voice as smooth and soft as the blond hair flowing down her shoulders.
"We know that, Mister Potter. We don't blame you for it. It is Riddle we hold responsible."
Harry settled down a bit.
She continued, "The prophecy wasn't carried out as intended. You were supposed to kill Riddle, and I don't mean in a thousand years."
Harry's shoulders slumped. "Pretty hard to do that when you've got demons from hell sucking out your thoughts every minute of the day," he mumbled.
"Yes," Fate stared down at the man standing before him, still all bones and rags, "you were never meant to go to that infernal place."
"So, where did it go wrong then? When I was sent to Azkaban?"
"No. That useless sack of wizard that called himself The-Boy-Who-Lived failed to do the job he took on."
"My brother?"
"Yes. Dumbledore declared him the Boy-Who-Lived when he was a baby, and the child made no effort to disavow others of that impression, even when it became apparent to him that it was you the prophecy referred to."
"He what? He knew!" Harry was shocked; his brother had never given any indication with his interactions with Voldemort that he knew.
"He did."
"When?"
"He first knew shortly before first coming to Hogwarts, when Dumbledore told him."
Harry stayed silent, anger and resentment boiling just under the surface. So, Dumbledore told John… That made sense. In the end, it always came back to Dumbledore. The games that man played with the lives of his followers sickened him. It says a lot about a man when someone like Voldemort enjoyed playing against him.
"Harry…" Fate stood, walked over to him and placed a calming hand on his shoulder. "Dumbledore deliberately choose John to be the Boy-Who-Lived, knowing full well it wasn't him and tried to keep you as weak as possible."
His eyes narrowed, and he looked up into Fate's ice blue eyes. "Why?"
Fate sighed. "Dumbledore saw the rise of two Dark Lords in his life, both of which he felt partly responsible for, and he was terrified to see another. When a prophecy spoke of a boy who was the Dark Lord's equal, who'd have a power the Dark Lord knew not, he tried to control events such that the prophecy child would not be a threat to the wizarding world as he saw it."
The resentment towards the twinkly-eyed headmaster seemed to double. His fists clenched and unclenched. He'd spent ten years in the worst hell on earth because some old bastard was afraid of something he might choose to do because he might have the power to do it. "So Dumbledore traded the possible rise of a Dark Lord for the certain success of an already established Dark Lord?"
Fate gave a weak smile. "It was never his plan for you to stay in Azkaban for as long as you did, but when he died before John Potter did, he was no longer able to manipulate events and your brother said nothing to anyone who might have been able to intervene, which moves us nicely onto why we are here."
Harry stood silent, seething, but expectant.
"We are now going to intervene."