Dropped In

It was an unusually dry and dreary day in Manchester. Having nothing else to do apart from the remote consultancy work he did for a few clients overseas, Harry usually spent the entire day stuck to his work desk, with a couple of breaks mixed in.

Rain was his constant companion in this place, so when he saw what a dry day it was, he thought about taking a short walk to the park at the end of the street. After all, why not?

If only he knew what a walk it was going to be...

XXXXX

Harry Jameson was the only son of Lydia and Jonathan Jameson, and he lived in a private, 1-BHK apartment in Manchester. He was your regular guy, nothing special to make him stand out in a crowd. He graduated a couple of years ago and had been doing freelance consulting since then, with a focus on finance. It was a tedious task but something he was genuinely interested in.

His social life had been pretty normal, like everything else about him. He had a few people to hang out with, none too close to call friends but enough to be acquaintances. He'd had two girlfriends in his entire life so far, and both times, they parted ways within a year. In both cases, it was mutually decided that he didn't deserve them. Story of his life, really.

Honestly, he found it all so tedious.

The only thing he spent his time on, other than his work, consisted of movies, TV shows, and anime. He was not very proud to admit it, but the latter always involved fan service in some manner. Whenever he was not working, he was watching one of the three.

He couldn't really explain his fascination with the genre of the works he liked to watch, which were mostly about an overpowered MC who obliterated his enemies and had a plethora of girls to fuck around with, but something about that certain type triggered something inside him. Often, as many other guys did as well, he found himself dreaming about being one of those dudes.

Sadly, that's where the veil between fantasy and reality ended.

XXXXX

Harry was walking down the lane toward that park when he heard someone call his name.

"Harry, is that you?"

He turned around and his eyes widened slightly. Sitting there at the table of a pavement café was his ex-girlfriend, Carol Jenkins. Garbed in a blue sundress that he faintly recalled giving her as a birthday present, Carol waved at him. Harry looked over and saw she had some dude in her company, who, he observed, didn't look too happy to see him. He scoffed internally.

With an inaudible sigh, he walked over to where she was sitting and waved a quick hello in greeting. No use creating a scene by ignoring her, right?

"Oh, it's been so long. How are you?" She remarked brightly.

'Wow, if I didn't know any better, I'd have believed for sure that she cared.'

He knew better than to speak that out loud, though.

"I'm good. Thanks. You?"

"Yeah, I'm doing great too! Just got a job at Deloitte. You know…"

"One of the Big 4, yeah, I know," he cut her off. He knew all about it, he was a finance guy, after all. Whatever people might say about those firms, he never had the urge to join a corporate job. Working for someone else just wasn't something he was good at. His two-year internship was enough to tell him that.

"Yeah. I'm really excited about it," Carol smiled.

Despite it having been over a year since their break-up, her voice still stirred something inside him. After all, how could it not? She was his first. As he looked at her, he couldn't lie to himself that he still found her very attractive.

"Uh Carol…"

She turned around to look at the guy with her and her eyes widened.

"Oh, I completely forgot. Harry, this is Charlie. He's the one who put in the reference for me. A real help, he's been," she gushed, and Harry internally grimaced. So… this was one of those things, was it? This dude was secretly interested in her and she found in him her entry ticket. Figures.

"That's really nice of him," Harry nodded at him, to which he simply gave a small smile. A fake one though, clearly.

"It was nothing. Carol's a very good friend. I'm glad I could help."

Now, he was no expert in human behaviour, but Harry could claim with absolute certainty that the word 'friend' came out of his mouth like a curse. He suppressed a chuckle.

"Trust me Charlie, you were very helpful," she smiled at him and put her hand on top of his, looking at him for a moment. The dude flushed as he looked at her hand on top of his, and Harry honestly felt slightly uncomfortable.

"So…" he began, and they turned to look at him, "I have some work, so I'll see you later?"

She nodded and Charlie smiled that fake smile at him.

With a wave, Harry turned around and grimaced before walking off. In the distance, he could hear them talking.

"Who was he exactly?"

"Oh, nobody of importance. Just some guy I knew."

He grit his teeth in rage as he walked off.

'Yeah, some guy I knew. More like the guy who took my virginity and who I professed my love to, then had a change of heart the very next month, and eventually blamed for the failed relationship because he was not good enough for me.'

Although it was a good thing that her true face was revealed before it was too late, Harry couldn't help but think how it would've been if things had been different.

It sucked, didn't it? When you put all the effort you could into something only for it to fail without any fault of yours? He might've been calm on the outside but inside, he was seething.

In his rage, he failed to pay attention to where he was going. As he was crossing the road, a sudden pain erupted on his right and he knew no more.

XXXXX

They say your entire life flashes before your eyes when you die. The moments when you felt the happiest, the moments when you felt the most depressed, and the moments which significantly impacted you, transforming you into the person you were. Nothing like that happened to him when he died. He was immersed in his rage in one moment, and BAM! Just like that.

But whatever the mortals inhabiting Earth would have told him about what comes after death paled in comparison to what he was seeing right in front of his eyes.

"Err… who are you?"

Harry was confused. A little girl was standing in front of him, looking barely six years old. He observed she was wearing a black dress and a pair of sandals, her dark eyes looking at him playfully as she shifted her weight simultaneously on each leg while clutching a plushie in her arms.

She giggled.

"I'm your old friend, silly," she giggled again, and he was even more confused.

"I don't remember seeing you in my life," Harry remarked, looking around the clearing he had found himself in. It was a vast grassy expanse with nothing in sight apart from a clear blue sky, the bright sun shining down and encompassing them in its luminous canopy. It felt oddly relaxing for some reason, now that he thought about it.

"Of course, you don't. You can't see me, after all," she giggled, mimicking John Cena and his "U can't see me" pose.

'I'm confused,' Harry thought.

"Yep. You said that already."

He gawked. Was this girl reading my mind somehow?

"Yep!" She chirped, and Harry blanched.

'I really died!'

His internal panic was suppressed when she bent down with laughter. He looked on with wide eyes as she tried to calm herself down.

"Took you long enough," she smiled as she walked forward. He looked at her.

She turned around and smiling at him, held her hand toward him.

"Come on," she nodded.

Curious, he held her hand, which was cold as fuck, and let her pull him forward.

They walked for a few minutes in silence until they reached a pond. The water looked so clean that Harry could see the shiny fishes swimming and the small pebbles that littered the bed.

"You ready?"

"Ready for what?" he asked, confused.

"To tally the accounts, what else?"

With a smile, she clicked her fingers and he looked on with surprise as the water shone a bright green.

XXXXX

He didn't know how long that took as he just stood there, looking on as his entire life played out right in front of his eyes. Every small event was broadcasted and he was surprised at how much he had forgotten already. He looked on as many not-so-proud moments of his life also played out, including his *cough* masturbation sessions. He was sorely tempted to shut this girl's eyes, but the moment he turned to look at her, he blanched. She looked at him with a wicked grin on her lips, and the look was entirely out of place on a little girl like her. The same happened when the pond showed him having sex with Carol, only twice, he knew, but it still counted. He was embarrassed beyond words.

The pond also showed the moments he had felt the most disappointed with, and it surely opened some old wounds. It kept showing everything that went wrong until it ended with how he died and his feelings at that moment.

"That really sucked, didn't it?"

Harry said nothing. His life was disappointing, at least in his eyes, and he was not happy about having the fact rubbed in his face. However, what could he do?

"You know where you are?"

"Some sort of afterlife, I guess," he shrugged.

"Close. You're in a place we call The Hanger."

Curious, he turned toward her to find she had sat down on a sofa and was gesturing for him to sit down next to her.

"The Hangar?" he asked, obliging her, and taking a seat.

"Yep. It's a place between life and death. To be more precise, it's a place where we decide what to do with a person who dies."

"Who are 'we'?" he asked, having a feeling already.

"You humans call them the higher beings. No, not gods. Higher beings. Beings that control different aspects of existence."

"And how many are there?" he asked, oddly interested.

"Well, there is Space, Power, Reality, Mind, Soul, Time, and me," she grinned.

"That sounds awfully similar to a movie franchise I know about," he muttered.

"Yep. MCU, right? I've seen those. Pretty accurate if I say so. But they missed me," she finished with a pout.

'Damn, she looked adorable.'

"And which one are you?"

That's all it took for her to grin, and Harry inadvertently shifted back slightly.

Still grinning, she held her hand, palm up, and he saw black shadows slowly forming on her palm until an oddly familiar stone was sitting quietly.

"That…"

"You might recognize this as the Resurrection Stone from Harry Potter, but it is actually something else. Behold, the Death Stone."

Gulping, he looked at her in an entirely new light.

"So that means… you…"

"Uh-huh. I'm Death," she grinned.

XXXXX

He didn't know how long they'd been sitting there in silence. The fact that he was sitting beside the actual entity known as Death was nothing short of mind-numbing, and that's exactly how he was feeling. Having lost all ability to form a coherent response, he simply stared back.

"Ugh, I hate when they do that," she muttered and delivered a loud smack to his cheek. Instantly, he came back to his senses and looked at her in shock.

"Now that you're back, let's get back to business," she began with all seriousness a 6-year-old could muster.

"Huh? Business?"

She looked at him and chuckled.

"Tell me, Harry. What do you think we, as in the higher beings, do?"

He pondered for a while as she patiently waited.

"Err… govern your uhm… departments to ensure everything works as it should?"

"Duh. Predictable answer. But what apart from that?"

Curious, he asked, "What then?"

She smiled.

"What you must understand is that our work is not hectic at all, we have Time, after all. And there lies the problem. Since we have Time, we have so much time that things get very very boring over here."

Initially surprised, he thought about it and it made sense.

"I think I get it," he began with a nod, and she looked at him, "I mean, if I had unlimited time and only work, I'd get bored too. That's why I watch movies, TV and anime. To keep myself entertained."

"Exactly!" She exclaimed, "we do the same, but we watch humans and their lives." She smiled widely.

"Wait what!?"

"Yep! We are assigned one human, and we watch his or her entire life. It gets boring sometimes, but it's pretty interesting overall. My latest subject was named Harry Jameson, that is, you."

He felt oddly violated right then if he was being honest. To know that someone was actually actively watching everything you do was disconcerting, to say the least. Still, he tried to formulate a response.

"Okay… and were you entertained watching my life?"

She made a face.

"What do you think? It lacked action, lacked adventure, lacked drama, lacked hotness, but overall, IT SUCKED!"

She shouted, and he toppled over. Bracing himself, Harry looked on as the little girl glared at him and he could do nothing but keep himself hidden.

"I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING SO MONOTONOUS IN MY LIFE! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!? YOU DIDN'T GO OUT, DIDN'T HAVE FUN, SPENT YOUR ENTIRE TIME WATCHING THOSE MOVIES AND SHOWS, AND HAD SEX ONLY TWICE IN TWENTY-TWO FUCKING YEARS! HOW. BORING. IS. THAT!?"

'Fuck, but I haven't been insulted this bad ever in my life.'

All he could do was sit there in utter bewilderment and look at her angry face.

Suddenly, she smiled.

"That's why I have come to personally greet you."

"You have?" he asked nervously. A lot of people might've called him a wimp for how he was acting all scared of a little girl, but he'd dare them to hold their shit in front of the literal Death incarnate when she's angry at them and then talk.

"Yeah. You see, I've wasted a lot of time on you, and over the years I've become somewhat invested in your life as well. You were dealt a very poor hand, I believe. You screwed up? It's fine. You can make up for it in the next one."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Harry was entirely lost at this point.

'Is she sending me back somehow?'

"I won't send you back. That's something I'd not dare. But there is surely something I can do."

"What?" he asked, slightly apprehensive.

"I'm glad you asked. I will give you a few options, and you have to choose one of them. Okay?"

Harry nodded.

"Alright then. Which do you like the most? MCU, Harry Potter or Game of Thrones?"

He thought for a second. He liked all three, but Harry Potter was the first work he'd read and watched, and that was where it all began, so the answer was obvious.

"I'm glad you think so. Since you've chosen Harry Potter, you'll be transported to that world." She finished smugly.

Harry's mouth dropped open.

'What the fuck is going on!? Is she for real!?'

"Totally real. You have bored me, the entity of Death, to death. Now you have to make up for it. I'll drop you into some interesting character's body in the Harry Potter universe and I'm sure you'll entertain me properly."

"You're sure, huh?" he managed to get out, still reeling from the revelation.

Even he wasn't sure.

'What could I, an awkward, regular run-of-the-mill guy, do in that world to entertain a divine being?'

"That's where I come in, Harry," she chirped.

"Could you stop reading my mind already!?" Harry shouted, before realizing who he was talking to and blanched.

"What I meant was… could you please not read my mind?" he reiterated sheepishly. She narrowed her eyes before grinning, and he felt a slight chill pass through him.

'Uh oh, what did I bring on myself now…'

"I'm going to ignore that. Consider it a favour and be more mindful of who you're talking to in the future," she stated sternly, and he could only nod.

"Now, to make sure you don't screw up again, I'll be tweaking around a bit. Don't worry, I'll not harm you, just patch some things up and trim around the edges so that you can entertain me properly."

'I have a bad feeling about this. I had a really bad feeling about this. But what could I even do?'

All he did was nod in resignation.

"Oh, don't worry, Harry. You'll have a lot of fun as well, that I can promise you. After all, the more fun you have, the more fun I'll have when I watch," she licked her lips seductively and grinned as she stood up to walk around.

"That action looks so wrong on a little girl's face," Harry muttered softly.

"Oh? You feel uncomfortable seeing me like this?" She asked with a malicious grin on her face.

His eyes widened.

"Oh no, that's not what I meant. I mean, are you always like this?" he gestured toward her child form, "Like a little girl? I mean, you don't talk like one though, which is totally understandable given who you are, and your expressions, they just look kinda weird on a young girl's face," Harry recalled her mentioning and watching him masturbating and having sex and the fact that a little girl was watching him do it made him very uncomfortable.

"Oh, you poor baby, you should've said so. I'd have assumed a different form when we were viewing those scenes. Is this okay now?" She smirked before she transformed right in front of his eyes.

Harry's jaw dropped. He could feel an instant tightening in his pants and try as he might, he couldn't take his eyes off her.

Where stood a little girl was now a young woman with raven hair cascading down the middle of her back. His eyes, however, were busy taking in her alluring figure. A perfect hourglass structure with large, round breasts and wide hips was encased in a thin black garment that looked to be painted on her curvy frame. Her skin was all ivory, shining in the sunlight, and his eyes traveled upward to take in her pouty lips that were pursed slightly, erotically beckoning him to rush forward and mash his against hers. Her face was fair and those dark eyes were framed with long eyelashes that gave her a hooded gaze, and he could feel himself drooling slightly.

'Jesus! I'd give anything up to make her mine!'

"Another area that I've got to work on, your self-control," she muttered, and that brought him out of his daze.

"I'm sorry!" Harry exclaimed, and she waved her hand away.

"I get it. Doesn't mean it's okay, but I get it," she remarked, and he looked at her once again.

'Damn, it's really hard not to stare. She's someone literally out of a wet dream. Even her voice oozed seduction.'

"Now, if you're done staring," she narrowed her eyes, "I can get to work. Please lie down," she smiled sweetly and he looked on in surprise as a bed materialized right in front of him. The surroundings changed and they found themselves in what looked like a bedroom and once again, his mind went down the gutter.

She giggled before grabbing his collar and bringing him close. "Now get ready. I'm going to fix you properly. When you wake, you'll find yourself in your new body. Go and have fun. Do whatever you want, I don't care. Just keep me entertained, and who knows, maybe I'll let you have what you want one day," she patted his cheek and with a fierce kiss on his lips that had him reeling, threw him down on the bed. The last thing Harry remembered was the feeling of her hands all over his body as he succumbed to darkness, his mind lost in her parting words and the fact that she'd just kissed him.

XXXXX

An equally beautiful blonde woman dressed in green arrived the moment Harry's soul left The Hangar. She looked on as the raven-haired beauty gazed after her entertainment and shook her head.

"Did you really have to do that? You know you'd have been assigned another one, right?"

Death turned around and smiled.

"Oh Rosie, I know, but I was really invested in his life. His previous one was very boring. At least this one wouldn't be. I've tweaked him in such a way that will ensure constant entertainment for both of us. And the extra incentive of having a go at this work of art is an added bonus, isn't it?" She giggled, posing sultrily.

"Thou really art a conniving bitch, Maria," Soul chuckled, as Death laughed.

"I really am, right?"

XXXXX

One moment earlier, he was feeling the hands of a sexy raven-haired woman all over his body, his lips tingling from her abrupt kiss, and suddenly, he found himself crouching behind a statue as a battle of epic proportions was going on right in front of him. The moment Harry opened his eyes, they widened as he took in the scene in front of him. Without a doubt, this was the battle between Dumbledore and Voldemort in the Order of the Phoenix. As he looked at his hands, he took in the faint mark of the words 'I must not tell lies' carved on the back of his hand. With shock, he realized that he was none other than Harry Bloody Potter.

Quickly, Harry turned around to look at the battle as various scenarios played out in his mind.

Now, that he found himself in this universe, he had a few choices to make. He could refrain from interfering with the timeline and let things play out the way they had. But where was the fun in that? No. Harry wanted something different. Something powerful. To be what he never was. To feel what he'd never felt. And the biggest tool was right there, in front of him. All he had to do was take it.

However, despite him wanting to be all strong, he couldn't afford enemies, not at the instant and not any more than he already had. So, he had to play it perfectly. His mind started working into overdrive, and he inadvertently thanked Death for doing whatever she had done to him. Harry already felt entirely different, and he found that he liked this new him much better.

'Don't mention it. And call me Maria,' he heard an alluring voice in his mind and internally grinned.

Dumbledore had just turned the sharp glass shards into grains, and Harry recalled with crystal clarity what had happened next. He got the perfect idea in an instant.

Dumbledore looked on in surprise as Voldemort vanished and his trail formed on the powdered glass scattered across the floor. Both their gazes followed the trail until Harry made his breath hitch and fell to his knees. The old wizard rushed forward in an instant.

He could hear Voldemort's voice in the back of his mind, whispering maliciously to strike the man down. Harry let him take control of his mouth to tell Dumbledore how it would be a mercy to kill him. And Harry let Voldemort control his wand arm to point the wand at Dumbledore with the intention to kill him. All the while, the old man looked on in sorrow and kept whispering the importance of friendship and love. Harry didn't pay it any mind. He had a much bigger objective right now, and he'd decided he was going to do it.

He heard Voldemort laughing like a maniac in the back of his mind and grinned internally.

'Oh boy, the moron had no idea what was going to happen.'

Dumbledore looked on as Harry raised his wand and pointed at him, his eyes glowing an eerie crimson and the tip glowing green. He still didn't do anything but point his wand slightly upward.

"AARRRGGHHHHH…. EXPELLIARMUS!" Harry shouted out, to the immense surprise of the aged headmaster and the resident noseless moron.

In an instant, a multitude of things happened. Unprepared, Dumbledore looked on in shock as the legendary Elder Wand tore itself out of his grasp and latched on to Harry's. Voldemort screamed in rage as he was forcefully expelled from his body. Meanwhile, Harry had no time to relish in the success of his little plan as pure agony washed through him, and he heard an oddly familiar voice screaming inside him as it died. The Horcrux, he realized in silent triumph and sent a mental thanks to Maria, as she'd asked him to call her.

Outwardly, he could do nothing but shudder in pain as he lay there on the hard floor, blearily looking up to see Voldemort saying whatever he had in the end as the ministry officials arrived. Dumbledore cradled Harry's head in his lap as his hand closed around the fist which held the Elder Wand, his eyes focused on it. Everything played out exactly as it had back in the Order of the Phoenix but with one massive change.

Internally, Harry rejoiced. The wand in his hand thrummed with power, and he could feel goosebumps rise on his skin. The Elder Wand, the Deathstick, was his now.

He had been a laid-back, ordinary young man in his previous life. Then he died and met the sexiest woman he'd ever seen in his life who granted him this boon. She improved him and all his attributes, changing his mentality and his overall personality, and as Harry squeezed the Elder Wand softly, he inwardly roared in triumph.

'There would be no rules now. I will take whatever I want, and there would be nothing to stop me.'

In a place beyond the reach of any mortal, a raven-haired beauty grinned. The show was on.

XXXXX

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