Harry blinked his eyes in the sudden neon light and vivid colors. Then, he thought about it, and wondered why there was so much brightness. And was that plastic? What?
He remembered walking through an old wooden door with Sirius. But, instead of another cloudy room, he now seemed to be in ... Well, that was the entire problem.
He was waiting in a line. There was a counter with three people behind computers, and a glowing sign behind them with words, pictures, and prices of different foods. Beyond that were giant, metal machines and a few teenagers bustling amongst them grabbing things, and shouting at one another. The machines looked rather scary, actually. Against the wall, there were two windows with two more people standing in them, one next to a computer with a headset on, and the other next to a soda machine. To Harry�s immediate left, there was a little plastic display of cheap plastic toys for kids held by a strange, plastic clown. Outside there was a little plastic playground. The place smelled heavily of grease and oil. It almost seemed to be dripping of the stuff. Had petroleum taken over the Earth? Where on Earth was he, anyways? Scratch that. Was he still, in fact, on Earth? Wasn�t he supposed to have died?
Suddenly, it was his turn. The lady behind the computer asked, �What can I get for you?� and stared at him expectantly, waiting him for him to respond. When he said nothing, simply staring back at her, completely lost, she said, �Sir, are you going to order or not? There are other people too, you know.� Her voice was weird; it had an accent that he couldn�t recognize. It certainly could not have come from anywhere in England. It didn�t sound like any accent he had ever heard either, and he had heard quite a few throughout his travels while hiding from Riddle. Where could she be from? Actually, more importantly, where was he?
�Sir, you need to order or leave.� Her sharp words cut into his speculation.
�Ummm, I think I�ll just have a �� he searched the glowing menu for anything familiar behind her, �a hash brown, pancakes, and a small glass of orange juice.� Just as he finished saying that, the menu changed. The people behind him groaned, and half the line left. He couldn�t understand what had just happened. He had just ordered food; he had not insulted them, or said anything vulgar. But now that he was thinking about it, he realized his voice had the same accent as the lady. What was going on?
�Okay, that�ll be four-fifty,� she said.
By this point, Harry had figured out that he was in a Muggle restaurant. He reached into his jeans pocket, and pulled out his wallet. It looked different than what he remembered, but he did not stop to dither. There were more pressing problems on his mind at the moment. He pulled some bills out, and this time he stopped.
This was not money he had ever seen before. Where had it come from? He couldn�t wonder for long. The lady was waiting impatiently for the money. He hastily examined the numbers on the bills, and handed the lady a green bill that had the number five on it. She took it, put it in the cash register and handed him two silver coins back, as well as a receipt. He tried to figure out how to balance it and where to put everything, but it was too complicated. With a sigh, he shoved everything into one of his pockets. When he looked up, his food was sitting on a tray in front of him.
Cogitating how Muggles could make food so fast without magic, he grabbed the tray and carried it to a table in a corner, away from everyone else. What had happened? Where was he? He had chosen death. Why was he in some strange, English speaking, greasy, Muggle restaurant? Sirius�s words floated back to him�� I must warn you that Death is not what humans expect it to be.� Was this what Sirius had meant?
Realizing that his last meal had been some food in the Hog�s Head, he began eating. He examined his receipt, and found that the restaurant�s name was McDonalds. He made a mental note to not come back. He got to the bottom of the receipt, where the date and time were stamped. His blood ran cold, his pancake fell to the floor, and his body slumped back into the seat, shaking uncontrollably.
This said that it was 10:01 AM, July 31 2009! That couldn�t be right. That had to be a misprint. There was no other explanation. He could not have missed over a decade, could he? No, it was impossible. He had been absolutely absurd to even have considered such an idea. Hadn�t he?
Feeling around in his pockets, to make some sense of things, he found a set of keys. Finally something that sort of made sense; he was acting as a Muggle now. He needed to inconspicuously travel in the Muggle world. His wand was missing, but he figured he had probably just put it somewhere less noticeable. Since Mad-Eye Moody�s warning about the possibility of losing a buttock the summer before fifth year, Harry had made sure he kept his wand somewhere much safer. Moody. Godric, Harry missed him. All of a sudden Harry remembered another bit of Moody�s advice. �CONSTANT VIGILANCE!� He almost jumped at the mere memory of Moody shouting it. He hastily looked around for anything out of ordinary, but found nothing. Good old Moody - always looking out for Harry. He felt the tears begin to come to his eyes, so to distract himself he pulled out his wallet. He came across a hard plastic card with a picture and a name on it.
He looked at it, realizing that something was wrong. His name on the ID said Kyle Landry. Now, why wouldn�t he have used his real name? He moved on to the picture, and almost passed out again. Instead of messy, jet-black hair, emerald green eyes, glasses, and his famous lightning scar, he instead saw someone completely different: dirty blonde, slightly wavy hair, brown eyes, and just about the goofiest smile he had ever seen. Why would he have changed his appearance simply for a picture?
Reaching up, he felt for his glasses, and attempted to calm his hair out of habit, only to find the glasses gone and his hair already smoothed.
What had happened?
Life in Death by darkchocolatemntn
Chapter Notes: Sorry that it's taken me 10 months to finally get this up. I have absolutley horrendous grammar, and it got rejected about 15 times. I'm not even kidding. It might have been more. Anyways, thank you Apurva so much for being my first beta ever! Hope you guys like this chapter!
Chapter Endnotes: So, I hope you guys liked it. Unfortunately, I had plans to go much further with this, however, they were destroyed with my computer last year, so there won't be any more. Sorry! Thanks for reading! Still leave a review, and you will have my eternal love.