AN: this was betead by Philosophize check his stories out they are awesome.

Loosely based on Reptilla28 Don't fear the reaper challenge and One wizard too many.

Disclaimer: Not mine I am just playing in others people sandboxes.

"People tend to say that at the moment right before you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. You have a moment of perfect clarity, when your life was without any emotional strain or attachment. They say that in this moment, you will know what type of person you were and what type of life you have led and where you will be heading. Heh, I didn't have even the slightest idea that it was just a beginning for me…."

Chapter One

Currently

A dark-haired girl woke up in cold sweat from the weirdest dream she ever had. She felt that her internal creepy-meter just went and blew off its top. It wasn't the first time she woke up in an unfamiliar room. In fact, she was partly expecting, or to be more precise hoping, that she would wake up in an unfamiliar hospital room. This room though was vastly different from what she was expecting a proper hospital room to wake up in would be. There was no IV hooked on her arm. There were no monitoring machines present at all.

It was unsettling her even more.

She tried to look around, but her vision was slightly blurry.

"The hell! What happened to my sight? " Went through her head. She tried to collect her thoughts. "Okay be cool, everything's gonna be alright. There's a logical explanation for this, I hope." She told herself before making an attempt to remember what the hell happened to her.

Her last memory was of her ex-protégé Gabriel, who she was trying to capture for his terrorist activities. It ended with him pulling a gun on her at the moment she thought she had him. She remembered the pain as the bullet pierced her neck.

There was a blurry nightstand to her left, so she reached for it. On top, she found two things. One: a pointy stick that gave her a strange sense of warmth at a touch. Two: a pair of glasses, or at least that's what her fingertips told her. She gingerly took the glasses and wore them. The world became cleaner, sharper and less blurry.

Further left was a similar old-fashioned hospital bed, occupied by a brown-haired girl. The girl would be around fourteen years old, she guessed.

To her right was a red-haired boy, moaning and slightly snoring in his sleep.

She made a mistake, looked down and saw her body. She nearly screamed out loud at what she saw. This definitely didn't look anything like her body! "Fuck, Fuck and FUCK! What the hell? Did I smoke bad batch of weed? I wasn't some scrawny teenager last time I checked! I went through puberty years ago, thank you very much! Once was enough! This couldn't be real, 'cause if it was, then it's beyond trippy."

She felt that she was way beyond freaked and creeped out. She left her bed and almost immediately fell flat on her face. Her legs were far shorter than she was used to. With a silent curse, she picked herself up off the floor and looked over the remaining sleeping occupants of the infirmary.

She, as silently as she could manage, sneaked out the nearest door. She found out that it lead into a bathroom. She slowly walked in, closing the door quietly. She walked up to the sink and stared at her face in the mirror. Closing her eyes, she let the water run. She took a deep, calming breath and splashed ice-cold water on her face. It was a few seconds later before she opened her eyes to stare in her reflection again.

It was still the same. It was both hers and that of a stranger's. Memories that weren't her own surfaced suddenly out of nowhere, hitting her like a speeding semi slamming onto an elderly pedestrian. What really spooked her out was that she suddenly remembered the strangest conversation she had ever had.

She groaned out loud and said to herself, "Well fuck, it was real after all!"

Somewhere else, somewhat earlier

Somewhere on a higher plane, or to be more precise, in the Bureau of Premature Death Prevention sat a very unhappy grim reaper named Natasha Grimm (no relation to her boss). She was a senior reaper. She enjoyed her job most of the time. It was a challenging one, yes, but rewarding nonetheless.

Right now though, she was one unhappy reaper. No scratch that. She was beyond unhappy! That Potter girl had her soul sucked a few seconds ago. That was going to be a real problem for her.

She knew that the soul eaten by a dementor was forced to relive every bad thing that had happened in its life, regardless if the event was erased from the time-stream, or placed in the loop for an eternity.

After her two-minute rant on the unfairness of her life and a seriously unpleasant call to another department to fetch the Potter girl's soul from the dementors, she sat behind her desk. Not having anything better to do, she reviewed the girl's file. Truth to be told, she never read it properly and now she had this nagging feeling that she should know more about her errant client.

The Potter's case file was reassigned to her not even a year ago, and the only instance she had to deal with it was when the girl was slipped a dose of a badly brewed love potion. As she read the file now, she frowned more and more.

She knew the girl was dealt a bad hand by the fates, but she didn't know it was this bad! No, this went beyond the limits of her imagination and not in the good sense.

The girl wasn't even fourteen years old and she had nine previous unauthorized deaths.

"I should have paid more attention to her." She moaned bitterly, as she read all previous deaths and frowned some more. This wasn't right! No. This was bloody not right! The girl, according to the Fates' prophecy, was destined to defeat two dark lords; and if a miracle didn't happen now then it wasn't going to happen.

The girl was beaten to death twice. Once by her uncle when she was six. Again when she was eight years old. It was a concerted beating from her relatives. At age nine, she was raped by her drunken uncle and subsequently died from internal injuries.

There was a long note describing that time had to rewind and events had to be manipulated to prevent her uncle from doing the deed again.

Then during her first year at Hogwarts, she died twice. The first time, Dumbledore was too slow and she broke her neck after falling from her jinxed broom high up in the air at the Quidditch pitch. Second, she got eaten by Fluffy, because the three-headed dog didn't consider Hermione's music-box to be music.

During her second year, she got eaten by an acromantula and by a basilisk.

At this point Natasha briefly wondered if the girl had some kind of weird fetish for getting eaten, the pattern was quite disturbing.

This year, she died from a badly brewed dose of Amortentia, and then those bloody dementors happened.

She flipped to the girl's medical profile and cringed. Though there was a lot of evidence of severe maltreatment and abuse, most of it had been healed magically, leaving virtually no physical evidence.

What made her really wince was the sheer numbers of loyalty-, mind-controlling and love potions in her system. She has been obliviated multiple times and the sheer number of compulsion charms placed on her… It was a miracle that the girl wasn't a walking vegetable. Yet she was somehow managing to regain some of her free will and continuously managed to fight and break the magics on her.

Natasha shook her head and massaged her temples. She flipped onto the page that detailed the girl's assigned fate.

As she read, her mind whirled, "Oh brother, she has one dark lord to kill and to get rid of misguided light lord then drag the wizarding world to the 21st century! Suuure…no biggie! That could be done in a day's work!" She concluded bitterly to herself.

She turned to the pages that contained a predicted progression of the girl's life. She felt her blood turn cold.

The girl would manage to kill one dark lord and inadvertently cause the death of the second one, alright. However, she would succumb to the plans of the second; he would end up having the last laugh as all his plans for the girl herself would work out—she would be a sex toy completely stripped of free will. The girl would die shortly after her marriage. Her final death would push her true friends, who were trying to save her, into an open revolt. The revolution would end up shoving the wizarding world into the 21st century. Fulfilling her fate at last.

A horrifying outcome for the girl if anybody asked, Natasha's opinion.

Her phone rang and she hesitantly answered.

"Tasha, could I come down to your office?"

"Yes," she replied hesitantly "What's the matter?"

"Listen, it would be better, if I... if we talked in person. I would be there in a second okay? " said the voice wearily before the line went dead, not waiting for her reply.

Tasha frowned. That was Sidney Freedman. He worked at upper management in Soul Retrieval and he was handling the Potter's soul after its extraction from the dementors. He was also supposed to deal with the damage done to it.

He was a solid guy all around. He used to be a psychiatrist when he was still alive, and he was a good friend of hers.

Sid arrived mere seconds later. One look at him told her that he was the bearer of bad news.

"Sid, spill! What's the damage?"

He gestured with his hand conjuring a comfortable, overstuffed armchair for himself and got seated.

He let out a tired sigh and said, "The dementors did a real number on her. She re-lived all of her previous deaths and all of her bad experiences numerous times. She's beyond broken now. I have never seen anybody like that." He said sadly.

"I wanted to send her on, but I was blocked by the Fates telling me she has to fulfill her destiny. That too many lives depended on her or some other bullshit. Hell, one of them even had the balls to tell me that I should just erase the whole experience from her memory then send her back. That I had to be done with it. Even if I did that, she would still need a century's worth of therapy and loving care before she could return to a normal life and fulfil her fate! It pains me to say this, but I am at the wit's end!" He finished dejectedly.

Tasha stared at him, her mind processing what was said. She slumped in her chair, head in her hands and asked, "Where is she now?"

Sid looked at her sharply, "Still in my office. I managed to smuggle her parents there. They're trying to comfort her. But look, you can't send her back! I won't allow it!" He said looking at her stubbornly.

"Yeah I understand, but we would need to do something or they'd take this from us and still do what the Fates wanted!" Tasha said sadly as she got up and paced around the office.

Sidney remained seated, staring at wall thinking.

Their silence was interrupted when a bell rang, signalling that Natasha had a new case. A file materialized on her table in her Inbox tray.

Sidney, ever the gentleman, stood up and picked the file intending to hand it to Tasha when he noticed the note on the cover.

The note stated—'Debriefing of the soul and fate accomplished. Still has chances for life left. Needs consultation, if she's willing to continue with her life or wants to move on.'

"Could I?" Sidney asked.

"Knock yourself out!" Tasha growled, not even stopping in her pacing.

He opened the folder and looked on the soul's CV. His eyebrows shot upwards. "Tasha, where did you keep your Guide to realities?" He tried hard to conceal his growing excitement.

Tasha just waved her hand towards a bookcase. "Third shelf on the left." She said absentmindedly.

Sidney took the book from the shelf and sat at her desk. He furiously flipped the pages, searching for certain entries.

Tasha finally noticed that Sidney was sitting behind her table. The man was flipping through the book and occasionally looking between the Potter's file and the new case file.

She sat in Sidney's vacated chair and watched him work with growing interest. Suddenly a light bulb appeared and lit over his head. He casually reached up and switched the light off. He smiled at her, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. His eyes glinted too sinister for her tastes.

"Tasha, according to this book the wizarding world we are talking about is very backward. They're still in the Victorian era. Very focused in on itself. Blood status means everything to these people. Most of them disregard the mundane world and its progress. Am I right in this?"

Tasha frowned as she saw the light bulb. She was wondering what Sidney was up to. "Yes. Why?"

"I've had an idea. A nefarious idea! It probably would get us both fired! But if it works then it will rock the wizarding world upside down! It will leave no stone un-turned! He, he!" He said with a wide grin.

"Sidney, now you're scaring me. What're you up to?"

"Look, the kid's broken; and I don't think even the most extensive work from our side to repair her psyche would work on such short notice. Maybe after a century or two of rehabilitation would. But our standard procedure of wiping her memory clean, returning her to her time-stream and influencing the situation a little to prevent her death isn't very feasible here. "

"So?"

"I propose to make a copy of her memories, smuggle her to the other side and dump this soul instead," Sidney waved the new case file, "into her body and give the soul Potter's memories."

"Wouldn't the Fates notice?" asked Tasha.

He grinned, "No! She would have Potter's memories and body. Some cover-up from our side would need to be done of course, but we'd be drowning it all in paperwork. She practically would be Potter and after her life ends, we'd shuffle papers again and none would be the wiser!"

Tasha thought it sounded like a good idea to her. Not that they had any other better alternatives. She asked, "Okay, I'll bite. What made this new soul special, that you thought she would be able to handle Potter's fate and life?"

Sidney's grin became feral. "We would give them the hero they need; but not exactly the type of hero they want. Let me introduce you to Simulated Major Samantha "Sam" Mencner—42 years old. Born in Chicago, to Czech immigrants. Has a Bachelor's degree in Psychology. Joined the FBI right after university, after completing field training-with honors. She served three years in the FBI SWAT unit. Due to her performance, she was selected for HRT training. She completed it with flying colors. Soon selected as a team leader. Participated in joint exchange programs with the US Army's Combat Applications Group, otherwise known as 1st SFOD-D or Delta Force, and the British SAS. After two years of service with HRT, she was forced to resign due to the revelation of her sexual orientation. She then was recruited by Team Rainbow."

"That's interesting, but who or what's team rainbow?" said Tasha.

"Rainbows are…" Sidney trailed off a bit, thinking how to say it, "They're the international counter-terrorist black ops based in the UK. Widely considered the best of the best. She's a living legend among them. Known as Bishop a.k.a. Rainbow Five. She served part-time as a Rainbow Academy Recruit Instructor too. Got killed in action a few minutes ago by her own student after she found out that he was a terrorist mole. She destroyed his organization and tried to apprehend him alive. She was more or less successful in that."

He paused for a second.

"In other words, she's a bonafide badass. Tough as nails, clever, resourceful and ruthless when she needed to be. An expert shot. Proficient in armed and unarmed combat. Certified in every imaginable combat environment and method of deployment. She's not magical as her world generally lacks magic and was a bit ahead in the time-stream than that of the Potter girl. This could work to our advantage!" he postulated with an evil gleam in his eyes.

Natasha looked at him with admiration then frowned, "If we can manage to convince her to agree with us, what would happen again to the real Potter?"

"We'd sneak her over to the other side. I know a few people from my mortal life in there. People who could help her. With their combined help, and of course help from her parents too, she might get better in time." He finished as an after thought.

Natasha nodded. "Okay, let's do it! I really think it could blow up in our faces but as they say-no guts no glory! Go, get her memories!" Said Tasha as she leaned over and picked the earpiece from her phone.

"Central? I have one more soul down there. Some woman named Mesnser? Sorry, no idea how it's pronounced. Please send her to my office. I'd deal with her and my other charge right now." She looked at Sidney who was standing in the doorway giving her a thumbs-up before he turned and disappeared.

Moments later a woman appeared in the same doorway. She stood there with a slightly confused expression on her face. She was dressed in a camouflage army outfit. Not overly tall. Athletic-looking with hazel eyes, sharp features and short, light brown hair.

Natasha looked at her and asked, "Samantha Metser, I presume?"

"Mencer. But yes, that's me. Where am I and who're you?" said Sam curiously.

Sam's eyes darted around the room, looking for possible escape routes. She was a wary at the moment. No big surprise there! One moment, she was trying to reason with Gabe, who went for his gun. She shot him but he managed to shoot at her too. She was sure she felt the bullet hit her on the neck. The next second, she was sitting in a large waiting room filled with beings, both humans and not.

She started to suspect that she has just joined the bleedin' choir invisible.

A blue woman with two large tentacles coming out of her head was seated next to her. The woman told her she had to wait till her name was called. They talked for a short while. Sam gathered that the woman was some kind of an alien space-general or knight who got shot in the back by her own troops.

Once Sam heard her name called, she found herself unceremoniously dumped into an office as if by magic.

"I'm Natasha Grimm and I'm your personal Grim Reaper. Please be seated. We have a lot to discuss." said Natasha with a friendly smile.

Sam blinked as she sat and hesitantly said, "Soo…I'm dead, right?"

"Well… that's still to be determined. Look Sam…could I call you Sam?"

After getting a strange look and an affirmative nod, Natasha continued, "You can call me Tasha, if you wish. I'm going to be very frank with you. The situation you're in is a bit complicated and we have to solve it. We have several options to do it, but to maintain all the 'free will' aspect and as you have already fulfilled your destiny, you can choose from the options. Still with me?"

"Yes, I think so," replied Sam with a slight frown.

"Excellent!" Said Tasha. "Option one, there's still a chance you could survive-if we and by that I meant my department-manipulate the situation a little. Your mortal wound would be changed into a less perilous one if you wanted to return back to your mortal life. Option two, is to move on into another great adventure."

Tasha paused for a second before continuing; "The second was our option for someone in your situation. However, there's also a third one and I'd like you to consider it." She noticed that Sidney slipped back into the room unnoticed and was holding a large bottle of silvery liquid in his hand. He was still giving her a thumbs-up sign.

Sam looked at Tasha suspiciously. "Okayyy, I'll bite. From your tone, I guess the third's not something common or in accordance with the 'rules'? So, what's this third option?"

"Weeellll. As you guessed, the third's completely against "company" policies and we're offering this to you because we're desperate. We had no other options. If you decline, we won't hold it against you. "

Tasha started to explain the situation to Sam about the Potter girl, her life and situation, her fate and its probable outcome. How the girl's fate would probably be completed without any interference from them.

Tasha couldn't tell Sam who was gunning for Potter and wanted her dead. She left strong implications against the Hogwarts' Headmaster-that he didn't have the purest of intentions for the Potter girl. To sweeten the deal more, Tasha elaborated that Sam would not only gain a new chance at life but have magic too.

The Grim Reaper revealed more about the Potter's life and fate than she would have liked.

Finally after a while, Tasha managed to convince Sam to say yes to the third option. "Okay, so what would happen next?" asked Sam curiously after saying yes.

A man with curly black hair and a mustache materialized on Sam's left. He was holding a large manila folder under his left arm. A large bottle in his other hand. He gave Sam a sharp military salute, before dumping the papers in front of her.

"Well first as we're doing this completely illegally, we'll let you remember this conversation. Though you have to sign these non-disclosure forms." He opened the folder and pointed at the stack of documents inside. "It will prevent you from telling anyone. It will also prevent anyone from extracting the information from you. How it is done will be a different story, one which you will be briefed on later, so don't worry."

"Fine, I will hold you to that." Replied Sam as she read through the form and signed it.

The guy handed Sam the large bottle he was holding. "Drink this and hold tight. A small word of advice-go to Gringotts as soon as you can. They will provide you with significant help." He said with a smile.

Sam downed the bottle's contents with a single gulp.

Her world started to spin. Everything went black.

Tasha looked at Sidney after Sam disappeared. She pulled a big wad of paper from the side, handing one-half of it to him, "And now let's do the most entertaining part of our project! It's paperwork time!"

After a while, Sidney lifted his head from his stack of papers and asked, "Tasha, you've worked here for much longer than I have . Has any reaper ever meddled with the mortal world or any other reality so severely just like we did?"

Tasha stopped writing and looked at him seriously. "As a matter of fact, yes. Last time something like we did happen, the American colonies became independent in the majority of all the realities…"