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"Harry Potter," a guttural voice echoed around him.
Harry scanned the area, unimpressed. As a reluctant immortal who would be more than happy to finally kick the bucket, there was not much that could frighten him anymore.
"Yep. That's me," Harry replied. "Can we not play hide and seek? I'm really too old for that sort of thing."
The sepulchral voice chuckled and a wraith appeared before him, floating near the edge of the cliff Harry had been climbing for the past thirty minutes. The directions to this spot had been given to him by a drunk acquaintance from Asgard on the one condition he never breathed a word of it to anyone.
"As am I," the wraith said, pulling back his hood to reveal a face ugly enough to rival Voldemort's.
"Let's get down to business then," Harry replied, looking around for any sign of this mythical soul stone he had heard rumours of, but coming up short. "Do I really have to jump through hoops? I don't want to use the damn thing for evil, or good, for that matter. I just want to rid the world of my presence."
"Which may be for the better, or worse. I… sympathize with your situation, but truth be told, this stone will not help you."
"It's the soul stone," Harry argued, annoyed at being sent packing before he had even tried. "If that can't help my soul break free from the mortal plane, then what the bloody hell will? Because short of kissing a dementor, I can't think of any other sane solution I haven't tried before."
"You will never be able to reach the soul stone."
"Try me," Harry said. "I'm pretty good with my wand."
The wraith shook his head.
"To take the stone," he explained, pointing down the cliff. "You must sacrifice that which you love. A soul for a soul."
"Ah," Harry sighed, understanding just how impossible it was for him to jump through this particular hoop.
"You have been careful not to love another mortal for so long, they have all passed as we speak. But we both know that even if you loved someone, you would never sacrifice them, much less for your own gain."
"No way around that? Exceptions? Loopholes?"
A shadow of a smile actually graced the wraith's skeletal face, even though it did not improve it in any way.
"No," the wraith uttered with the kind of finality Harry was trying to achieve.
Defeated, his last hope for an escape from immortality dashed, Harry slumped, sat on the dusty ground, feet dangling over the edge of the cliff. Now what? He could just sit here for a while, he supposed. It was neither better nor worse than the myriad other planets he had visited, although he did not usually have company. He glanced behind him and sure enough, the wraith was still there, staring at him.
"You can go, I'm not keeping you," Harry said, motioning him away. "Vanish into thin air to jump scare the next idiot to walk up the hill for all I care."
"Tempting," the wraith replied with an edge of sarcasm that wasn't lost on him. "But I was actually thinking of giving you a piece of advice."
Harry raised an eyebrow, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Mysterious creepy beings did not simply give information without a hefty tag price.
"And what are your precious words of wisdom going to cost me exactly?"
"Hope."
"Hope?" Harry repeated with a frown of confusion. "That some kind of alien currency I haven't come across yet?"
The red skull rolled his eyeballs.
"For an immortal who has lived almost as long as myself, you sure are childish. What I mean by that, is that if you can escape your condition, maybe I too, one day, will escape mine."
"Oh. Hope. Got it. Alright, I'm listening."
"Return to Earth and seek the Sorcerer Supreme. They have the ability to separate the body from the soul. From there, it will be your resolve that will enable you to sever the tie from your soul to the mortal plane."
"Back home?" Harry asked. "You're telling me I scoured the universe for decades for nothing? The solution was right under my nose this whole time?"
The wraith shrugged its shoulders.
"The Sorcerer Supreme, eh?" Harry asked, just to make sure.
The wraith nodded and Harry stood, dusting off his trousers with a few pats before offering his hand to the other being.
"If I don't succeed, I'll return to kick your bony ass into next week."
"But if you do, there is hope yet for me to be free of this cursed duty one day. Farewell, Harry Potter," he added as they shook hands.
"And to you, my creepy red friend."
"Johann Schmidt," the wraith muttered, looking like he would be happy never to have to deal with him again, which might account for why he was basically helping Harry kill himself.
Turning on his heels, Harry began climbing back down to his spaceship, glancing around a few times to see the form of Johann-the-Wraith still hovering over his cliff, more lonely and miserable than even Harry had ever been. Maybe Harry should count his blessings, because even if he was immortal and kept losing everyone he ever loved to death, at least he wasn't tethered to a dusty old rock to guide idiots in search of a powerful pebble.
With that thought in mind, Harry set his course on good old Earth, as determined as ever to rid himself of his immortality, but, in the event he failed, Harry would make sure to send postcards to the lonely wraith while he wandered the universe for another solution, and maybe drop in now and then with a good bottle of firewhisky so they could get drunk and commiserate on their wretched souls.