Mal fell in step beside the other soul. It was the first time she'd even been allowed to see what was beyond that room, and she had to admit, she was slightly underwhelmed. All she saw were pale gray walls, with nameplates on them. Occasionally, there would be another opened door, and it would be a viewing room similar to her previous one.

She hadn't been sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn't this. As disappointed as she was, it made sense. There were billions of people on Earther, and if there was one room per soul, these long corridors with nothing but viewing rooms and nameplates indicating the soul within made sense.

A couple of names gave her pause because of their familiarity. Where had she heard the names Dean Thomas and Lisa Turpin before? It was on the tip of her tongue, and yet the answer eluded her.

Giving it up as a lost cause, she looked to the soul beside her. He was at least a head taller than her, with the unruliest black hair. When he briefly glanced her way, she noticed his deep green eyes.

Again, this struck a chord, and yet, she couldn't think of why.

After some time wondering how far they had left to go, she noticed that their hands were still linked. She wondered if he'd noticed if she should mention it.

For his part, Harry was very much aware of their still clasped hands. He kept waiting for her to drop his hand, but she never did. So he kept hold of her; he honestly did not want to let go. Fearing that if he did, she'd vanished.

He felt foolish about that, but not enough to release her hand.

It was probably for that reason he couldn't bring himself to open communication. However, it wasn't the only reason.

Harry knew that he was still blushing. He knew that Tarnok was teasing him by saying Mal should go back with him. It was the only logical option, as Mal would be further protected there. Because unlike with viewing rooms, which could be broken into if Gabriel overrode the angel's desire in the room, no one could get into Gabriel's office without his express permission. Or perhaps an act of God.

Still, there was no telling how long they'd be together; they had to start communication somewhere. Else they’d sit in awkward silence the entire time, and he wasn’t having any of that.

"You're awfully quiet." He commented, finally breaking the silence.

"Huh?" She looked up at him, confused.

"Quiet. You're awfully quiet. Something on your mind?" He stopped and gave her his full attention.

"Just," She paused before shaking her head, "lost in thought, I suppose."

"Should I be concerned?"

"I don't think so."

Her unsure tone did not inspire a lot of confidence.

Mal looked around; realizing they were at a dead-end, she looked back to Harry. "Um, where are we?"

"Gabriel's office is in there." He gestured toward the blank wall.

"But it's a wall."

"Very astute." He chuckled.

"Okay, he obviously has it sealed or warded, I guess is the right word. Probably so he could have privacy and to protect those within. Which is why Tarnok suggested here, so a furious, rejected Rida can't find me." She decided to ignore his mocking of her for the moment. She deserved it for such a bland comment, "Are we supposed to say a password or something? I don't suppose you know how to get in there, do you?"

"Sure, I do."

With that, he turned, and roundhouse kicked the wall, but instead of a massive hole in the wall, a large door banged open.

All she could do was stare wide-eyed—both shocked and mildly horrified.

He walked through the door but stopped when he realized she wasn't moving. He looked back at her, confused. "Something wrong?"

"Yea-nope." She squeaked.

"Then why aren't you coming in?"

She continued to stare at the doorway. "Gabriel's your guardian angel, right?"

"Yes." He affirmed, confused as to where this was going.

"Do you not like him or something?"

"I like him just fine. Why?"

She gestured to the door as she walked through. "That."

"Oh that," he said with a shrug. "The winged prick shouldn't have locked me out."

"I see. So the breaking in was out of annoyance and to make a point?"

"Pretty much."

"Do you behave so brashly all the time?" She asked as they watched the door closed on its own and turn back into a wall.

"Sometimes." He shrugged. "Depends on my mood and the situation at hand."

"Do me a favor, please?"

"If I can." He said as she turned to look at him.

"Warn me before you do something like that next time." She pleaded, wide-eyed and concerned.

He threw his head back and laughed. As he sobered, he nodded. "I'll do my best."

"Then that's all I can ask." She smiled.

Mal looked around the office briefly. Just enough to ascertain that was, in fact, what this room was. A desk, with chairs both behind and in front. A couch against the far wall. Bookshelves, with their namesakes, Knick-knacks, and pictures. The office was immaculately clean, as one would expect from someone so important.

Only there was one thing missing.

"So, where exactly is Gabriel?" She asked, turning back towards the other soul.

"As Tarnok said, in a meeting with Michael."

"Why?" She asked before she could stop herself.

"To renegotiate my contract."

She winced despite his calm tone, "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."

He shrugged. "It's the truth; why hide it?"

"Fair point." She nodded. "How long is he going to be?"

Again, he shrugged. "However long it takes."

"Well, then we might as well introduce ourselves officially."

He looked rather nervously at that, "Haven't we all ready?"

"No." She shook her head. "You might know my name, or, well, my nickname, but you've yet to say yours. And I can't very well keep thinking of you as "the other soul," or speaking to you without really addressing you." She took a deep breath and held out her hand, "Nice to meet you; I'm Mallory Grace Matthews. And who might you be?"

He winced and debated for a moment, "Alright, fair is fair." He heaved a sigh himself then took her hand, shaking it gently. "I'm Harry James Potter. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mallory."

"Mal." She said immediately. It had become automatic, an instinct even. Then the name he spoke hit home. "Wait, are you serious?"

He sighed again as he lifted the hair covering most of his forehead's right side, revealing the Boy-Who-Lived's iconic scar. "Yeah. Though no, that's my godfather, but yes, but I am that Harry Potter."

Mal froze as it all hit her at once.

The names on the walls, Harry's appearance. Why she recognized them and why they were familiar.

"I am such an idiot!" She yelled, balling her fists in her hair. "It was all there!"

Harry watched her with growing concern. "Uh, what?"

"The names! The names on the wall! At least the ones I managed to read during our power walk here! I knew them! I knew you! At least that you looked familiar! But the conclusion kept eluding me! God, I am so stupid!"

Realizing what she just said, she dropped to her knees and assumed the position for something she hadn't done in a long time. Prayer.

"Oh dear, sweet Lord, I am sorry, so sorry for taking your name in vain."

At first, he'd been worried; now, Harry could only watch amused.

Mal looked up at him with fear in her eyes. "I'm not going to be smitted? Smote? Am I?"

"No." He chuckled. Trying to keep the rest of his laughter contained.

"Oh, thank Heavens!" She sagged with relief. "Is that even where we are? Heaven? Furthermore, can you even be real? Can your whole magical world even exist when there are books and movie series about your world?"

As he thought about to answer, theories filled her mind.

"Was the whole thing created by the Wizarding World to eventually announce they are real?" She watched his expressions as her theories kept pouring out. "Is J.K. Rowling really a squib who wrote the books to make a profit off your life story in the muggle world where you couldn't punish her or the secret of the magical world would be exposed? Or was it Rita Skeeter who was banished from Wizarding Britain? Or made a squib and forced to flee? Writing those stories as an act of revenge!? Either of those would explain why you were oblivious to many things and why you ended up marrying the wrong woman! I'm sorry, but Ginny was all wrong for you."

Harry, remembering the life when he was married to Ginny, grimaced. "No arguments here."

If he'd stayed quiet, Mal might have kept blathering on. As it was, his response snapped her out of her manic state. Realizing she had been blurting out whatever theory popped into her head, her hands came flying up and clamping her mouth shut. What mortified her more was she'd essentially called him a dunce and told him that his wife was the wrong person for him.

"I am so sorry!" She said finally. "You don't have to answer all of my questions."

Harry, for his part, was greatly amused by Mal's blunder. "It's alright. As it is, I wish either of those theories were true. Maybe then my lives wouldn't have been as horrible as they were."

"Lives?" Mal looked at him curiously. "As in, more than one?"

He nodded. "I'd just finished my ninth pass shortly before your arrival here."

"Nine as well, huh?" She sighed.

He nodded again.

Before they could lapse back into silence, Mal looked at him apologetically. "I'm sorry to pry, but my mind's stuck on something. Why do you wish my theories were right?"

He wanted to tell her everything about him. It was an odd feeling.

"Tell you what," He said amicably. "I'll answer that question if you answer one of mine."

"Sounds fair." She nodded in agreement.

"Rida's punishments, what were they?"

He watched as the light left her expression, and she lowered her gaze to the floor. He felt himself grow cold with dread.

"It's not as bad as it could have been," She said softly. "She had wanted to whip me or some other aspect of Jesus's torture before his crucifixion."

Harry gulped, feeling as if he was going to be sick.

"In the end, all she could do was slap me about as you saw earlier."

He sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk and heaved a heavy sigh. "I'm so sorry you went through all of that."

She shrugged. "Mortal life was much worse."

He looked at her remorsefully as she sat down in the chair next to him. "That doesn't make it better. Mal, this place," He gestured around with his hand, "is about healing, purging the infections of mortal life, and then letting it all go."

"Infections?" She asked.

"What you think of as sins or negative deeds done while in mortal life." He explained as best he could. "Letting go of all of the bad, then moving onto the next life with a clear conscience."

"Does it really work that way?"

He sighed as his past lives ran through his mind, "Not always, no." He looked back at her, "Anyway, my point is that Rida was completely and totally in the wrong here. You did nothing wrong."

Mal nodded her understanding.

"And that brings us back to your questions." He said with a grin. Getting the feeling that she needed the change of topics as much as he did. "If I wish your theories were correct, yet you still know my story, how is that possible?"

She couldn't help but grin. "Well, I have another theory."

"I'm sure you do." He chuckled.

"Well, going with what I know, you were born on July 31st, 1980. That would make you 38 when I died in 2018. At that time in the canon version, you would have been happily married to Ginny and raising your three children." She giggled at his gag. "Judging from that response, it wasn't the happily ever after the canon verse made it out to be."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "I thought you had a theory."

"I'm getting there." She assured him. "Anyway, all that points to you being nine years my senior, but you look like you're in your mid-twenties at least. You also died before me, so that blows out the theory we were living the same life."

"How do you know that my youthful appearance isn't just the mechanics of this place?"

"Point, but that's not where I'm going with this. My theory isn’t even original. Fanfictions, other stories, even Dungeons, and Dragons touch upon this."

"And what would that be?"

"Tell me,” she grinned at him, "do you know about the Multiverse Theory?"

He cracked a smile but said nothing.

"So, if you're actually the Harry Potter, the real thing, and magic is real too; you obviously can't be from my world. Nothing that happened in the span of your life, particularly the events after Riddle's so-called resurrection, happened in my world. Clearly, your world and my world are different." She said, rather proud of herself, "So that's it. You're from another world. It's the only logical explanation, or as logical as one can be standing in Purgatory as a soul. There are many worlds out there, and people get glimpses of other worlds, and it comes out in their writing, artwork, and such because we're all connected. We might even have doppelgangers that we see life through their eyes from time to time. Or our soul remembers things from past lives."

He tapped his nose with a little grin. "Yup. It took me a bit longer to make the same realization, but then I didn't have a fictional character standing before me. That was also very informative; you must have thought about it a lot before coming here."

Mal looked at him, confused. "You mean, you haven't? You didn't even know about it?"

"I studied magic, not theoretical science." He retorted.

She couldn't help but laugh at the thought of Magical Britain's reaction to their precious Boy-Who-Lived quitting magic to study advanced muggle science.

"Arguably," She countered with a grin. "Magic and Science are very similar. Some magical properties, even rituals, aren't possible without some understanding of muggle science. Just like theoretical science couldn't be possible with a touch of magic. Isn't that one of the things the Department of Mysteries studies?"

He thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "It's possible, but I can't say for sure one way or the other."

"You mean you traveled through some of that department, but you never went back to learn more?" She asked, surprised. "The Veil of Death could have been a portal to another world, with Sirius alive and well on the other side. You never wondered about that possibility?"

"Okay, I see your point." He conceded. "But look at it from my perspective; one, that's where Sirius died. Two, where I learned the existence of that blasted prophecy. Three, I completely destroyed the Hall of Prophecies."

"That wasn't all your fault!" She defended adamantly.

Charmed more than he cared to admit aloud, he grinned at her. "Be that as it may, I was still instrumental in its destruction. And as the DOM's hiring process is by invitation, can you see them reaching out to me?"

She sighed in dismay, "No, I guess not." She bit her bottom lip and looked at him quizzically.

"What?" He huffed good-naturedly.

"I was just wondering if you were compelled never to go back there." She admitted.

He had to think about that for a moment. Why did he never go back? As a matter of fact, why didn't he ever hear from them? Surely, they had something or other to say about the whole mess.

"It's possible." He finally said.

Sensing that he wasn't ready to talk about what he just revealed with that answer, Mal decided to change the topics to something else she was eager to learn about.

"So, we're in Purgatory," at his nod that she was correct, she continued, "And there are multiple worlds, seeing as you and I are from different worlds, is proof of that."

"Where are you going with this?" He asked, concerned.

"Is there a Heaven and Hell?"

Realization dawning, he sighed with relief. This was a topic he was both comfortable with and able to answer questions for.

"Yes, actually. But it's more complicated than you'd think."

"Could you tell me?" She asked eagerly.

"I could, or if you prefer," he gestured to the bookshelves, "You could read those. That is everything you need to know about this place and more. It has the creation of the immortal and mortal plains, the History of the immortal plains, and the angel manuals. Their classes, rules, and guidelines."

Mal frowned at the books.

"Do you not like reading?" His opinion of her wavering slightly.

"Oh, I love to read." She insisted. "Matter of fact, that's pretty much where my spare time went in my last life."

His opinion of her swelled once more, and he promised himself that he would never doubt her again.

Still, there was something she'd left unsaid.

"But," he prompted.

"Well," she sighed, her cheeks flushing slightly. "I have two reasons in my head."

"Let's hear them."

"Well, my first reason is that I was raised that company was to be occupied by you. Conversed with and fed. I don't think I could sit and read comfortably, knowing you're here with nothing to do. It would feel like I was ignoring you."

"I can ease your mind with that one. You'd hardly be ignoring me if I was the one who pointed out the books and encouraged you to read them. I would likely take a nap or begin reading something myself."

He almost added that he would probably have spent most of the time watching her. He was ever so grateful that he managed to squash those words. He felt like a stalker, just thinking that.

"But, you said two reasons, so let's hear the second one."

"I want to keep talking with you." She said softly, her cheeks flushing brightly.

"I want to keep talking with you too." He admitted.

She smiled brightly at him, "So you read all of the books?"

"Twice over." He grinned.

"I wonder if Rida has read them." She said softly, looking back at the books.

Frustrated that the pathetic excuse of an angel was once again darkening his time with Mal, he groaned internally.

"No idea; why do you ask?"

"She was always in a rush to get me onto the next mortal life." Mal explained. "So I was always in the dark about everything. I asked to learn, to understand so that I might follow her orders easier, but she falls into that troupe that "lesser beings" don't need to know the truth or understand how everything works. And I was most certainly a lesser being. I was supposed to be a mindless pawn that obeyed her every order."

"I imagine that was Rida's goal from what little I've seen of her." He sighed as well. "Something I would know from personal experience."

"I'm so sorry that you went through all of that." Mal fought back the urge to hug him. He looked like he needed one at that moment.

“As am I that you suffered under Rida's "care." I assure you; Gabriel and the rest will be bending is over backward to make it up to you."

She shrugged, despite his assurances; she had trouble believing Harry on that matter. Perhaps it was her insecurities, or maybe it was her inner voice coming from experience causing her doubt. In any case, she would deal with that when it came up.

"Anyway," She finally said, "thank you for wasting time on me."

"I beg your pardon?" He asked, thoroughly confused.

"Isn't that what we're doing?" She asked in return. "Just wasting or killing time until Gabriel comes back?"

"My time is hardly wasted on you, Mal."

He had meant to be reassuring, but the adamance in his voice spoke volumes about what he was truly feeling and thinking. Both his and her cheeks flushed greatly.

"So, what do you want to know?" He asked hastily.

She grinned at him. "Everything you can tell me."

He thought about where to begin, then he remembered what Tarnok told him about her upbringing, and remembering the way Rida talked, he grinned darkly as he looked back at her. "How about we begin with the Almighty?"

Mal nodded eagerly. "I would love to know more about him."

"Her." Harry corrected.