Disclaimer: Snape and his surroundings belong to JK Rowling. Death is the creation of Terry Pratchett.¹

All stories come to an end.

There is a theory that the multiverse is an infinite kaleidoscope of possibility, encompassing every outcome that ever was and ever will be.

So somewhere, buried in layers of dimensional complexity, this is what happened.

Then again, maybe it isn't.

**********

Severus Snape knew that this was probably it. In the back of his mind-which had more of a sense of Drama than the front of his mind really liked to admit-he thought of it as The End. Never mind the Fall of Voldemort or the Rise of Harry Potter, or even the wider philosophical canvas of the Triumph of Good over Evil-the only thing that really concerned him was, well, The End of Severus Snape.

It currently looked like The End was going to come in a small and somewhat malodorous hut in the heart of the Forbidden Forest.

In truth, his sense of Drama was offended by the location; Drama would have preferred to see the The End occupying front centre stage in the thick of a ferocious battle, screaming defiance at the World. However, Self-Preservation - which was still the majority shareholder in Snape's mind - suggested that the proposed ferocious battle, whilst satisfying Drama, would also raise the prospects of death from Probable to Inevitable, with a good chance of Painful and even a distant hint of Slow.

The End might well have been nigh, but Snape wasn't yet ready to stop banking on the gap between probable and inevitable.

He looked around the hut. It was about nine foot square with a beaten earth floor and scattered with a random assortment of items; wicker cages of various sizes; some long, wide leather straps; oddments of broken metalwork; a couple of jars, the glass too clouded to let him see what was in them; a stool and a metal bound box which could have been a trunk or a table or both. In one corner was a pile of rags.

He suspected that Hagrid had had something to do with it. The idiot half-giant was just the sort to think that a smelly hut furnished with items only one step removed from proto-compost was a desirable place to live. Not that he was going to take steps to confirm his theory, mind; partly because there was no telling what Hagrid might have left here for safe-keeping, and partly because he really didn't care.

He was only here because the Forbidden Forest seemed like the closest thing to a safe place available. Not safe in the sense of absence of danger, of course; safe in the sense of presenting significant danger to others. Anyone trying to follow him would have to first get past the denizens of the Forest, most of whom had not taken sides in the War, had not the slightest intention of doing so and, in fact, maintained a highly egalitarian hatred of humans of any complexion, be they Death Eater, Auror or Order of the Phoenix.

That laudable sense of equality did leave his own position looking a little precarious, though.

Hence the hut.

All he had to do was sit tight, and hope that, in all the confusion, no one noticed he was missing. He looked dubiously at the stool and decided against trying it. Wrapping his cloak around him, he sat down cross legged on the floor to wait.

The first thing he became aware of was the silence. It wasn't the stillness of a wood at night-not that the Forbidden Forest was that sort of wood anyway-nor was it the blessed peace of the Hogwarts dungeons during the school holidays. It was a thick, tangible silence, heavy and portentous. If was as if noise had been pushed out of the way to make room for it.

Snape didn't move. He re-ran the last few minutes in his head. Somewhere, the part of his brain that processed peripheral hearing, diffidently mentioned hoof beats, but it wasn't very certain. The rest of his brain thought that was unlikely, on the whole, unless it was a passing Thestral. He was sitting facing the door and no one had come through it. He hadn't heard the crack of Apparition, and there wasn't a fireplace. So there was no one in the room with him. Definitely not.

Without getting up, he slowly turned his head and looked over his right shoulder.

Behind him was a very tall, very thin figure, dressed in a cloak so black that it seemed to pull darkness from the surrounding air. He couldn't see the figure's face, but from the depths of its hood, there was a sudden flash of vivid blue, a coruscating flare of alchemical reaction.

Snape relaxed.

It wasn't Voldemort.

How bad could it be?

GOOD EVENING, said Death.

********

Death was a bit put out.

It was, to be fair, his first visit to the Roundworld, but he had hoped for a little more reaction to his presence. He didn't think of himself as possessing an overly large ego, considering his role in the smooth operation of Creation, but he did think that some degree of appropriate supernatural awe might have been called for.

The wizard in front of him appeared more shocked than awed. Actually, in truth, more startled that shocked. One might even have said confused.

"Who the bloody hell are you?"

Death would have blinked in surprise had it not been for the fact that his skull was somewhat deficient in the eyelid department. As it was, the twin blue suns of his eyes flickered a little. He pushed his hood back so the wizard could see his face fully.

The wizard just kept glaring at him suspiciously.

I AM DEATH, he intoned. Judicious use of a Dropping-Gravestones timbre often got the message across.

The wizard wrinkled his nose. There was a lot of it to wrinkle and it did not enhance his appearance. He got to his feet surprisingly quickly, pulled out a short stick and waved it in Death's general direction.

"Is this some kind of joke?" he demanded.

Death eyed the stick with interest.

I AM DEATH, he repeated, THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS. I COME TO THE HIGHEST AND THE LOWEST, THE RICH AND THE POOR, THE HONEST AND THE DISHONEST.

The stick didn't move.

"And what exactly are you doing here?"

Death paused.

In his time people had defied him, challenged him, fought him, fled from him, welcomed him, prayed for him, embraced him, attempted to cheat him and even, on occasion, flirted with him².

The point was, however, that they usually recognised him³.

He wondered what sort of a place the Roundworld could be that did not recognise Death. Even a visiting one.

I, he began again, carefully, AM DEATH. I USHER SOULS INTO THE NEXT WORLD. MORE SPECIFICALLY, YOURS.

"Mine?" said the wizard.

Death saw understanding begin to dawn in his eyes, although acceptance was clearly still well below the horizon. He went pale, albeit that he hadn't been looking very healthy to begin with⁴.

YOURS, he confirmed.

"Ah," said that wizard. He looked as if he was calculating something, possibly the distance to the door. "Were you planning to be doing this, ah, ushering, soon?"

Death reached into his cloak and pulled out a lifetimer. It was a black hourglass, with snakes coiling up the sides. The name Severus Snape was engraved on a small gold plate on the top. There was a an amount of sand left in the top bulb but not very much.

The wizard snorted.

"That's a timeturner," he said dismissively, "You can't frighten me with one of those."IT IS A LIFETIMER, said Death repressively. IT IS INTENDED TO INSPIRE NEITHER FEAR NOR REASSURANCE. IT JUST SHOWS WHAT IS.

"And that is?"

THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

Snape sneered. It seemed to be an expression he was used to, thought Death.

"It's a timeturner," he repeated. "When you turn it over, time is turned back, that's all. What kind of fool do you think I am?"

A HUMAN ONE, said Death and turned the lifetimer over.

The sand continued to run upwards into the bulb.

AND BY ALL MEANS RUN THROUGH THE DOOR. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ME. MANY HAVE TRIED AND ALL FAIL IN THE END.

The stick didn't waver, but Snape seemed less sure of himself.

"Just supposing for a moment that I accept what you tell me - why is there still sand left in the top of it, if I'm about to die?"

Death looked uncomfortable for a moment.

THIS IS MY FIRST VISIT TO THE ROUNDWORLD. I CAME EARLY. I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE NICE TO FIND OUT SOMETHING ABOUT THIS WORLD WHILST I'M HERE.

Snape looked outraged.

"You waltz in here, calmly announce that you're going to kill me and then expect me to sit down with you for a chat?"

I DO NOT KILL YOU, said Death stiffly, OTHERS WILL DO THAT. I MERELY ASSIST YOUR SOUL IN ITS PASSING.

He paused.

AND I DO NOT DANCE.

There was another pause.

WELL, NOT OFTEN. CERTAINLY NOT WITH YOU.

Something seemed to pass over Snape's face. He slowly lowered his wand.

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

Death thought. He had many questions about this world, but there was one thing that was intriguing him.

FOR A WIZARD YOU APPEAR TO HAVE AN EXTREMELY SMALL STAFF.

**********

Snape looked at the figure sitting on the stool in front of him.

It occurred to him that it was yet possible that he could talk his way out of this.

It was obvious that the seven foot skeleton was some creation of the Dark Lord sent after him-he rather doubted that the Order of the Phoenix had that sort of imagination. The lifetimer was clearly an enchanted timeturner of some sort. And as for the idea that this creature was-what did it call itself?-an Anthropomorphic Personification of an Archetypal Image only visible to witches, wizards and cats - well, that was plainly arrant nonsense.

It was odd that this thing-call it Death for want of a better name-hadn't killed him immediately, but it obviously had orders to wait until the sand in the hourglass had run out. He couldn't really see why this should be - unless it was to perhaps make him suffer.

He decided to ignore the disjointed screams of his hindbrain that there were eldritch forces at work here.

He decided to ignore the intermittently lucid shouts that there was no way that anything could have got into the hut without him being alerted to the fact.

He decided to ignore the really quite coherent comment that past experience suggested that when there was a gap between life and death, Voldemort tended to fill it with extreme pain rather than an interesting discussion of comparative socio-economics.

He decided to ignore the entirely logical proposition that, if Voldemort were to possess a terrifyingly powerful agent of destruction, able to track quarry to the ends of the Earth and beyond, able to materialise soundlessly through walls in the dead of night, that agent would be highly unlikely to arrive on a friendly horse named Binky.

The average conscious mind works hard to ignore or rationalise what it would prefer not to accept. Snape had devoted his life to improving and refining that natural aptitude.

His hindbrain didn't stand a chance.

"So," he said after a while, "if you usually work on a flat, disc-like world balanced on the back of four elephants standing on the back of a giant Star Turtle" - four elephants and a Star Turtle? - "what are you doing here?"

Death shifted awkwardly on the stool.

I WAS ASKED IF I COULD COME OVER AND LEND A HAND. YOUR LOCAL DEATH WAS EXPECTING A BIG EVENT INVOLVING WIZARDS AND I'VE HAD EXPERIENCE WITH WIZARDS. THEY CAN BE TRICKY. I GATHER THAT ON THE LAST OCCASION ONE MANAGED TO GET OFF ON A TECHNICALITY. IT WAS ALL VERY EMBARRASSING. He looked uncomfortable. THEY ALSO WANTED SOMEONE TO MOP UP THE STRAGGLERS.

Snape sniffed. He preferred to hang on to the idea that he was being pursued as a major threat by all sides, rather than being mopped up as a straggler.

AS I'D NEVER VISITED THE ROUNDWORLD BEFORE AND IT WAS A QUIET NIGHT, I AGREED.

Snape digested this. His hindbrain pointed out that Death sounded less and less like one of Voldemort's minions. His conscious mind beckoned his hindbrain over and hit it several times with a synaptic baseball bat.

"So," he said, consideringly, "according to you, I'm going to die?" That seemed like a safe bet. Everyone died eventually.

IT IS FATE.

"Hmm, possibly. And you're going to-what was it? Assist my soul?"

YES.

He smirked.

"Aren't you supposed to check first that I've got one?"

EVERYTHING HAS A LIFE ESSENCE. WHAT YOU CALL IT IS UP TO YOU.

"Well, aren't you supposed to find out whether I'm good or bad? Weigh me in the balance or something?"

WHY?

"So that you can tell me where you're going to take me. Or isn't there anything to take me to?"

DO YOU WANT THERE TO BE?

Snape was slightly thrown by this answer. He hadn't really given the Afterlife much thought. He had been too preoccupied with prolonging his Duringlife as much as possible. His father had once spoken vaguely of some generic Muggle belief about a heaven and a hell. He was sure that moral judgement came into it somewhere. He didn't remember his mother expressing a view.

"What does happen?" he said, before he could stop himself.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAPPEN?

What would he like to happen? What would be heaven?

Not being in this squalid little hut for a start. Not being pursued by anyone with a grudge. No teaching. Scratch that. No children at all. No one called Potter. Or Black. Or Malfoy. No demands on time or loyalty. Buying potions from a shop, ready made. Good hair. Money. Decent food. Decent wine. Decent women. Willing women. Any women. Learning to play the ukulele ...

Perhaps not the last one.

He shuddered. This was supposed to be about escape, not introspection.

"And you really aren't interested in finding out what sort of people you're dealing with?"

NO.

"I don't believe you."

He thought the skeleton sighed at that.

IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE, BUT IF IT WILL GET US THROUGH THIS - WHAT SORT OF PERSON WERE YOU IN LIFE?

Snape had to concede that Death did sound desperately disinterested in both the question and the answer.

He thought.

Now that the question had been asked it was actually quite difficult to answer.

"I don't know," he said after a moment. "First I was on one side, then I was on the other. Then I was on the second side pretending to be on the first side. Then I was on the first side pretending to be on the second side pretending to be on the first side. Then I was on the second side pretending to be on the first side pretending to be on the second side pretending to be on the first side. And after that I rather lost track."

I'M NOT SURPRISED.

"I expect you know how it is."

NO.

"So, does that make me good or bad?"

DO YOU REGARD YOURSELF AS GOOD OR BAD?

Snape thought again. He supposed he'd always acted in his own best interests. Mostly. Did that make him good or bad?

"Good," he said unhesitatingly.

THEN THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE.

Snape blinked. He could do that, having eyelids.

"Is that it?"

YOU WANT MORE?

"Well, I thought the pre-death interrogation would be more, well, searching."

NO.

There was another pause. They seemed to have run out of things to say. Death appeared to have exhausted his curiosity and Snape could outwait continental drift.

There was silence.

The sand continued to run upwards into the top bulb of Snape's lifetimer.

There was more silence.

Finally, Death reached into his robes.

This is it, thought Snape.

Death pulled out a pack of cards.

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO PLAY CRIPPLE MR ONION?

**********

Snape didn't.

It was clear to Death that he wasn't going to be able to learn quickly enough to make an interesting opponent. Eons of sharpening his skill in the weekly Onion School of the Apocalypse with Famine, War and Pestilence meant that Snape was very quickly down to the tune of 5 galleons, 8 sickles, 4 knuts, a penknife, a pocket handkerchief, a silver mistletoe knife, a piece of string, a handful of gillyweed, two bezoars and a small bag of cough drops.

Just getting to the Forbidden Forest had severely depleted Snape's ready supply of useful items.

Snape looked at him defiantly.

This was usually the moment, Death thought, when they offered some reckless all or nothing bet involving their soul.

"I don't have anything left," he said, "except my clothes." He smirked. "I can see that you already have a black robe. And I don't expect you need much else."

NO.

If the fabric of reality had permitted it to happen, Death would have given Snape eternal life rather than consider allowing him to bet his underwear.

"Oh, and my soul. I have that."

One of the things he found so endearing about people was their utter predictability.

YES.

"How about this? All or nothing. I bet my soul. If I win, you let me go; if you win, I'll go with you without a fuss." Snape looked smug.

Yes, completely predictable. They were always confident that it would come out right in the end.

I ACCEPT.

Death dealt the cards.

Five minutes later, Snape was staring at him somewhat nonplussed.

"I don't understand what just happened."

YOU LOST.

"I don't understand how."

WELL, THOSE THREE CARDS AND THESE THREE OTHER CARDS MEAN THAT I'VE GOT A TRIPLE ONION AND YOU'VE ONLY GOT A DOUBLE BAGEL, SO THAT GIVES ME THE WINNING HAND.

"But I was cheating."

YES.

"I suppose you'll tell me I can't cheat Death." The wizard's voice was heavy with sarcasm.

THE MENTAL TECHNIQUE YOU TRIED DOES NOT WORK ON ME. There was a pause. OR AGAINST ME. I DO NOT HAVE THAT SORT OF MIND. IT IS NOT ... LEGIBLE.

"I suppose you'll also tell me it's Fate."

THAT TOO. BUT MOSTLY IT'S BECAUSE I'M A MUCH BETTER PLAYER THAN YOU ARE.

There was another pause.

DO YOU KNOW ANY OTHER GAMES? said Death, feeling that he should at least try to be helpful.

Snape thought for a while.

"Truth or dare?" he suggested.

**********

He didn't know what had possessed him to suggest truth or dare, other than some vaguely remembered inspirational poster he'd once seen in a Muggle house that informed its readers that If You're Talking, You Ain't Dyin'.

Although that might not have been exactly what it said.

And Voldemort had frequently demonstrated that talking and dying could be done at once pretty effectively.

If he was honest, his knowledge of games-at least ones in which he was an equal participant rather than persecutor or persecutee-was somewhat limited.

He explained the rules and the skeleton appeared to understand them but it was rather hard to gauge the reaction of something that had no facial mobility, and little vocal range outside Sepulchral.

"Truth or dare?" he said and wondered which the skeleton would choose.

What would you ask Death? Come to that, what would you dare Death to do? On the one occasion that he'd played the game-a ghastly and never repeated visit to some cousins - he'd been about seven and the dares had been things like eating spiders and kissing Celia Prentiss. He didn't think that either of those would really meet the case here.

Death appeared to be weighing up his choices in the way that he didn't weigh souls.

TRUTH, he said.

"How did you get to be Death?" Snape asked. It was a naff question but he was quite interested in a bizarre detached kind of way.

I AM THE PROJECTION OF A COLLECTIVE FANTASY, DESIGNED TO ENABLE TO PEOPLE TO DEAL WITH THE CONCEPT OF NON-EXISTENCE.

"Why don't we have one here?"

YOU DO.

"You said that Death could be seen by wizards and witches, and I've never seen one here." And I've been around enough death to go to sleep counting Thestrals, he mentally added.

I CAN BE SEEN BY PEOPLE WHO ARE ABLE TO SEE THINGS THAT ARE REALLY THERE. PERHAPS ROUNDWORLD WIZARDS ARE MORE SKILLED IN THE ART OF AVOIDING WHAT THEY DO NOT WISH TO SEE.

That could easily be true, thought Snape sourly. Exhibit A: Cornelius Fudge, sprang to mind.

I DO NOT REMEMBER YOU TELLING ME THAT SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTIONS WERE ALLOWED IN THIS GAME.

Snape snorted.

"Your turn, then."

TRUTH OR DARE?

Did he want to share any information with Death? He didn't think so. He drew breath to speak and then paused. A more pressing question struck him. What would Death dare you to do? Again, eating spiders or kissing Celia Prentiss didn't seem likely.

"Truth," he said hastily.

WHAT IS THE CAPITAL OF THAILAND?

"Pardon?"

WHAT IS THE CAPITAL OF THAILAND?

"Bangkok, but that's not the point."

IT ISN'T? I THOUGHT THE IDEA WAS TO ASK A QUESTION TO WHICH YOU HAD TO GIVE A TRUTHFUL ANSWER.

"Well, yes, but it's not a general knowledge quiz."

Snape didn't quite know why he was saying this, given that answering questions on world geography was considerably preferable to questions on, say, his romantic history.

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO ASK?

"Well, the idea is that it's some personal question." He sighed, wondered at himself again, and continued doggedly. "Usually with some embarrassing connotations. Something that I would prefer not to tell you."

AH, I SEE. SO, DO YOU HAVE ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH EMBARRASSING CONNOTATIONS THAT YOU WOULD PREFER NOT TO TELL ME?

"Yes, of course I do."

I SEE. I BELIEVE IT IS YOUR TURN.

Snape blinked.

"But I didn't answer your question."

YES, YOU DID. YOU SAID THAT YOU HAD EMBARRASSING PERSONAL INFORMATION THAT YOU DID NOT WANT TO TELL ME. WAS THAT NOT TRUE?

Snape gave up. The last moments of his life were going more slowly than he had ever imagined they could, and, given that he had imagined them variously involving a combination of Unforgivables or a stay in Azkaban, that was saying something. Any interest he had in getting answers to metaphysical questions was declining in direct proportion to the likelihood of him discovering those answers for himself very shortly.

He revised his estimation of the sorts of likely tortures Voldemort would inflict between life and death. He hadn't ever suspected the Dark Lord of possessing that subtle a sense of humour. Perhaps he had acquired it through Potter's blood-although he wouldn't have credited the Boy Who Lived with that subtle a sense of humour either.

On the other hand it was still better than Crucio, even if it was only by a short head.

How did the end of my life come to this, he thought sourly. Playing a children's game with something that I'm not even certain that I believe truly exists.

"Truth or dare?" he asked wearily.

**********

It was an odd type of game, thought Death. First there were questions with answers. Then he had had to hop round the hut singing "Show me the way to Bes Pelargic". Then there were some more questions. Death preferred "truth"; he didn't think he'd truly got the hang of the idea of "dare" in this world. Nothing Snape suggested seemed to be very daring to him. Not "daring" in the sense that snowboarding on the leading edge of a powder snow avalanche in the high Ramtops was "daring". Or in the sense that walking into an Ankh-Morpork dwarf bar, putting a large bag of gold on a high shelf, and shouting "come and get it, lawn ornaments" was "daring"⁵.

Merely being asked to remove some heavy objects from the top of an unmarked box and then being asked to open it did not seem very fraught with danger to him. Even if the box had belonged to someone called Hagrid.

He did his best to think of similar things that the wizard could do, but even after he'd thought of something he had to admit that Morris Dances on the Discworld were much more "daring" as well⁶. Plus, Snape was an appalling dancer even by Roundworld standards.

Yes, "truth" seemed to be a much better choice. And the wizard had said something that had piqued his interest even more than the discovery that he had once had a very brief job as a relief sushi chef.

WHAT IS A MUGGLE?

Snape seemed surprised at the question.

"It's someone who doesn't have magical powers. Someone who isn't a witch or a wizard. Don't you have a word for those sorts of people?"

Death thought.

NORMAL, he ventured.

He thought of some of the wizards at the Unseen University.

SANE, he added.

He thought of some of the witches that he'd encountered.

SAFE, he clarified.

There was a noise outside. It sounded like a lot of people trying to move very quietly. There was a faint, low whinny from Binky. Death turned Snape's lifetimer back the right way up. The sand was nearly gone.

IT IS TIME, he said.

**********

Snape was almost glad when the moment came if for no other reason than the fact that he really didn't have another question ready for the skeleton, and his nerves weren't up to another xylophonic rendition of "Don't Cry for Me, Agatea"⁷.

He wondered how it would happen, and who would actually be responsible.

The door opened.

There was a flash, and everything went dark.

Peruvian Darkness Powder, he thought.

Bugger, he thought.

Bugger, because he wouldn't see who did it. And double bugger because, whichever side it was, the Powder could only have come via a Weasley.

Somehow the thought that a Weasley was responsible, even indirectly, for his death was actually worse than the dying itself.

There was a confusion of voices; some of them were familiar but he couldn't seem to hold onto thought and give it shape. There was a crash and another flash and a shimmer as if something had sliced through air itself and then the voices receded to linger on the edge of his hearing for a moment, muffled in cotton wool and distance.

Then there was silence.

Snape was lying on the floor. Nothing seemed to hurt very much, which was promising.

He opened one eye very carefully. The floor was packed earth, which was even more promising. He swivelled his open eye and saw the hem of a night black robe. On balance, that was pretty neutral.

Maybe he wasn't dead.

He opened his other eye and pushed himself to his knees.

He was at the edge of a plain. Red sand stretched into the distance as far as he could see. He squinted. On the horizon he could just make out something that looked like a solid line of red. He thought they might be houses.

On the other hand, maybe he was dead.

Death stood next to him holding a scythe, a haze of severed molecules misting the edge of the blade.

He was holding a black-framed hourglass. It was empty.

It wasn't over yet, though.

Snape patted his pockets. There had been one other thing that he hadn't put on the table during the game of Cripple Mr Onion. A small crystal potion bottle. His Potion of Last Resort. The one he had boasted about every year to every first year class. The one that could Put A Stopper In Death.

It wasn't there.

HAVE YOU LOST SOMETHING? asked Death.

"There was a bottle. A potion. One to counteract Death."

For the first time-well-ever, as far as he could recall, it didn't occur to him to lie. It was odd. It was also probably something to do with his present, hopefully temporary, state of not being quite alive.

AH, THAT ONE.

"You know about it?"

OF COURSE.

"Where is it?"

IT WAS NOT KILLED WITH YOU.

"I beg your pardon."

ONLY DEAD THINGS EXIST IN THIS PLACE. AND ME, OF COURSE.

Snape's conscious mind finally conceded the struggle to his hindbrain. The bottle was in the robe currently adorning his dead body back in wherever back there was. Whatever he was now, it clearly wasn't his dead body. And wherever he was now, it wasn't part of any objective reality.

Or maybe it was the most objective reality that there could possibly be.

Either way, he was potionless.

And dead.

And it looked like being permanent.

"Bugger," he said with feeling.

IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER THE POTION NEEDS TO BE TAKEN BEFORE DEATH TO BE EFFECTIVE.

It didn't.

"Bugger," he said again and wondered if coming back to haunt Lucius Malfoy was an option.

NO.

Snape looked critically at the red plain, dotted with rocks and the occasional scrubby tree. There were definitely houses on the horizon, he decided. And something that made him think of a tall chimney. Worse, it made him think of the one place that he'd vowed never to go back to in his life.

Of course. Where else would he have been sent?

"Typical," he said, resignedly.

IT IS?

"Oh yes. Tell, me, have you ever tried spending a wet Tuesday evening in February in Bradford?"

NO.

"Well, it's a lot like this. Only not as picturesque."

I SEE.

There was an awkward pause. Snape wasn't entirely certain how you went about saying farewell to an anthropomorphic personification.

He must definitely be dead, he thought. In life it wouldn't have bothered him in the slightest.

"Goodbye," he said.

GOODBYE. AND GOOD LUCK. I'VE ENJOYED OUR CHAT.

"I shouldn't worry," said Snape, "if this really is like Bradford, there'll be a chip shop just behind that rock over there and a pub a bit further along." He thought. "And several kebab vans. And some woman called Sharon throwing up into a litter bin."

AH. IT ALSO SOUNDS A LOT LIKE ANKH-MORPORK. EXCEPT FOR THE LITTER BINS. Death paused. I CANNOT STAY ANY LONGER. I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT WITH A BAR BRAWL IN THE MENDED DRUM.

Snape wondered if The Mended Drum was in Bradford. It did sound familiar. He had some vague idea that it might have been somewhere round the back of the cinema.

Meanwhile, the skeleton had vanished. Snape was alone.

So this was the next great adventure. It looked a lot like life to him. He'd always known Albus Dumbledore was barking mad.

It really was absolutely sodding typical, he thought again. Eternity didn't even have the decency to be different. The universe had no bloody standards at all. And what was worse, if he didn't concentrate he was going to go all wispy.

He was not a wispy person. He never had been in life and he was damned if he'd start after death.

Scowling, he pulled his robes around him, ignoring the trailing grey mist around his ankles, and stalked off towards the horizon.

**********

THE END

¹ Referring, of course, to the Discworld's favourite Anthropomorphic Personification and not to the inevitable fate of all living creatures which seems, on the evidence, to have been around for quite a while and can probably be regarded as being in the public domain.

² This often went better than might be thought. Whilst not a great conversationalist, Death was always on time, knew some good restaurants and could be trusted to be carrying enough money to pick up the bill. He also didn't get drunk, eye up other people, start fights, or talk about the painful break up with his ex. Even better, he liked cats. The problems tended to start at the end of the evening when datee went slightly further than he or she had intended on a first date, and ended up being escorted to the edge of the Plains of Eternity, rather then to their front door.

³Although just occasionally he had to explain himself to very young children who confused him with the Hogfather and were upset that he hadn't brought presents.

⁴ Health and personal hygiene in others tended to matter very little to Death. Apart from anything else he worked regularly with Pestilence.

⁵ "Daring" in this instance being characterised by the special case of "actively suicidal".

⁶ "Daring" in this instance being characterised by the special case of "carrying potentially catastrophic consequences for the space/time continuum".

⁷ His hindbrain had learned its lesson by now and wisely refrained from speculating on where exactly Death carried his xylophone.