Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.
<Fixing Harry>
Chapter 2
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Well, that was interesting.
I had my first interview with the Boy Who Lived today, although the title appears questionable just at the moment. Survived might be more like it. I wouldn't have actually thought they'd have let him out of St. Mungo's quite yet, but there you are. I've never much cared for hospitals either.
I've written up my official notes already and turned them in to Clement, but I realized fairly early on during our meeting that Potter was going to be a multiple notebook subject. Much like the less-than-ethical accountant, I have indeed been known to keep two sets of books.
So where should I begin?
The young man who made his way through the door couldn't have been any less what I expected. He's not terribly imposing at all - perhaps a head taller than I, rangy and thin. His hair is longish, quite dark and clearly not entirely under his control. He wore a white shirt and his Gryffindor tie with Muggle jeans under his school robes, reminding me he is only freshly out of Hogwarts. His proffered hand was somewhat hesitant but very polite; especially considering both hands and wrists are still wrapped in bandages that left only the fingers and thumbs free. I shook it, gingerly.
It's his eyes that betray the extent of his magic.
I'm willing to bet he's sick of people commenting on them by now. I knew his mother by sight; she was already in her seventh year and Head Girl by the time I entered Hogwarts. She had long ginger hair, and the green eyes we all envied so are even more distinctive with her son's darker, almost black locks. It's not just their color alone that makes them unusual; or you might take note of them and then forget as your acquaintance proceeded and your attention moved on to other things. They hint at tales you somehow know he would never willingly tell, too old and wise for such a young man. And yet they also seem slightly befuddled, as if they've been yanked back from sights unseen by the rest of us, momentarily lost in the world they find around them. The thing of it is you don't stop noticing them when you're with him. I'd wager even his friends from his first year at Hogwarts still do on a good few occasions. I can't quite put my finger on why yet, but I will. I may not be the Ministry's idea of a star employee, but I'm still pretty good at what I do. And they may not be spell damaged, but it's a fair wager he is. He's definitely got the feel.
The meeting room we were assigned had the usual well worn wooden table surrounded by the usual plain wooden chairs, undistinguished except for their sheer discomfort. I had placed my parchments and quills and the dregs of my coffee at one end and I noticed Mr. Potter look longingly at the other end before making his way to sit politely closer, cattycorner to me. He'd brought a Muggle bottle of water with him, and he set it down on the table. His Auror escort; a spotty young wizard no more than two or three years older than Potter himself, followed and plunked down in the chair his subject had so wistfully passed by. He eyed us both resentfully and began to play with his wand.
I absolutely despise wizards - or witches, for that matter - who play with their wands. They're not toys, after all. It's such a power play, conscious or not.
There was much I wanted to know about Potter. Asking the usual Ministry questions - information rendered redundant by the fact it was all already in the file between us that we both knew perfectly well I'd read - seemed almost an affront.
"Harry James Potter?" I began with a sigh, reaching for a fresh parchment and quill.
He nodded once, cleared his throat and said, "that's me."
"And your patronus would be…"
"A really stupid security question, because it's already been printed in the Daily Prophet?"
"Just answer the witch's question," said the Auror at the end of the table officiously.
I couldn't help a little grin at Potter's excellent point. "Can I quote you on that?"
He looked a bit spooked by my response, at least until he appeared to notice the lack of Ministry-issued annoyance on my part. "Erm, it's a stag, actually," he said then, playing along. Interesting.
We worked our way fairly quickly through the rest of the standard questions until we got to one of the last: "Do you have any current or outstanding warrants or limits on your wand?"
"Not that I know of last time I had it," was his answer.
Spotty the Auror snickered. He was starting to piss me off, that one. Exactly the reason I wanted out of the Ministry.
"Did you… was it destroyed when you… during the battle?" I asked curiously. Oh that was professionally done!
"D'you mean it's not in there?" he asked, eyes flicking toward his file. "Your lot made me turn it in, after the Order of Merlin… um, occurrence."
Bringing us nicely to the topic at hand. It annoyed me no end that no one had bothered to inform me about confiscating his wand. That was a rare move. It was an enormous thing to a Wizard, losing his wand; you might as well chop off their right arm if they're pureblooded. Which he wasn't, of course, but I couldn't help noting he didn't seem overly concerned for a half blood with an almost visible Death Eater target painted on his back. Either he had an unofficial replacement or he really was as powerful as they say.
The Order of Merlin occurrence he was referring to was the second noted catastrophic magical misfire in his file, but it seemed a reasonable enough place to start. The other was Mad Eye Moody's funeral, an event I was in no hurry to discuss.
"About that, the Order of Merlin incident. What exactly happened there?" I asked him, pretending to be enthralled with my note taking.
"What does your file say happened?" he countered.
"I can't actually tell you that," I admitted. Sheepishly. Stupid rules.
"It's about me, it's what I supposedly did, and you can't tell me what it says?" His eyes were challenging me then.
"Just answer the Witch's ques…"
"Listen, Leonard," Potter said suddenly, turning to Spotty, his annoyance finally more than he could apparently swallow.
Leonard? Leonard the Auror was even funnier than Spotty.
"I'm not your prisoner," Potter continued. "You're my escort. So why don't you just kindly shut the bloody hell up, as you have nothing official to say about any of this."
It seemed they might have been sharing a good amount of time together lately. Not particularly happily, either.
"I'm not your escort, I'm her protection. I'm here to make sure you don't have any more little magical "accidents."
"Which you, Leonard, could do exactly what about?" The Boy Who Lived asked in a voice that actually gave me the shivers. Leonard, as a complete bullhead, seemed curiously unaffected.
"As you were already informed, Potter, I have permission from Minister Scrimgeour's office to use the full range of allowable immobilization hexes up to and including…."
"Go on then. Try one."
Okay, now this was totally not going according to form any longer. "I really don't think that will be…" I started.
"Petrificus Totallus!" Leonard snapped, wand pointed and dead on.
Potter murmured something I didn't catch; but the shield he created generously included me. The Auror's petrificus crackled and was absorbed into the shield spell rather than careening dangerously off, as was more typical. It wasn't a true Dark Arts spell he used, but it was far from Ministry standard.
He brought down the shield with a small, almost negligible wave of his bandaged hand and turned earnestly toward me again. "I can't guarantee you I have total control of my magic, but I can promise you that I will do everything in my power to protect you from anything that might happen. Do we really need him?"
Wandless magic. SO cool! And he was entirely serious in his intent to protect me. Clearly these incidents had been weighing on him, and he had thought his options through in case they recurred. I needed to know more. Before my head exploded. Wow. He was the real deal.
"Tell you what, Mr…." I squinted at Spotty Leonard's badge, "Flargemore."
"Auror Flargemore!" he interjected.
"Auror Flargemore. Mr. Potter has just assured me of my safety, and as his Ministry-assigned Spell Damage Reversal Specialist I find that sufficient under the circumstances. So how about you wait right outside the door, and I'll let you know if I need you."
"You're joking, right?" Flargemore sputtered. "You're not concerned about…"
"Nope," I told him. "Just fine with it. Run along. Get yourself a cup of coffee or something. Oh, and put the wand away before you hurt someone, okay?"
I was pretty sure Potter cracked a grin at that; it was hard to tell because he took a big swig of water just then.
Auror Flargemore stood up and stretched to his full height, which was admittedly taller than either of us. His mouth opened and closed several times as he struggled with what to say, his outrage warring with the simple fact that I was well within my rights to ask him to leave. Aurors usually try not to get on the bad side of the Spell Reversal Department; they never know when they're going to need us. And whatever sort of envy-based emotion was driving his behavior toward Potter wasn't quite brave enough to survive their little standoff. In the end, he just stopped gulping like a guppie and left.
Potter might not have sighed in relief, but his spine unkinked noticeably.
"So tell me again, that file you have there is all about me, but you can't tell me what I've done to deserve being shadowed by the likes of Leonard 24/7," he said.
"Yes, it is. And no, I can't. Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. We could, however, play a little muggle game in which you tell me what you think it says and why you want to know, and I say "hot" or "cold." One thing your file does mention that I can tell you is that you were raised in a Muggle household. Do you know the game I mean?"
He actually goggled at me, mouth dropping open in surprise. He'd clearly been exposed to a healthy dose of Ministry Mind Set before and had no idea what to make of me.
"You do realize they've surely upped the standard listening charms for this interview," he said.
"My mother always said, 'don't say the spell if you can't take the… trouble.' I told him. "And I know a couple of good spells," I mouthed silently. I had already cast a couple to be honest. They cause a lot of white noise if certain conditions were met, but never kicked in otherwise. A fallback.
I cast a muffliato then, and grinned. "All off the record, now."
His eyes narrowed alarmingly. "Where did you learn that spell?"
"From my husband, actually. Why?"
"Who is your husband?"
The questions were quick, tense and full of an apprehension I could not place.
"Was. Almerick Hawktalon. He was an Auror. He died ten years ago."
"I'm sorry," he said, and I could tell he was. He still obviously had questions, but his own natural protectiveness about those he had lost prevented him from treading on mine. Just yet, anyway.
I pushed up my sleeves and held out both arms, the undersides turned up. He looked surprised, but he looked. This boy had no reason to trust anyone anymore.
"I see you are an imposter," he told me, straight faced. "You can't possible work here. Where's your mark?"
"How do you make a magical tattoo of a numb mind? The empty skull would get awfully close to the Death Eaters', and they don't seem to be the sort to take kindly to trademark infringement."
He looked at me a moment, torn, as if he wanted to tell me something but was uncertain if he should. The conflicting emotions that ran through him each seemed to have their moment; impatience, anger and mistrust warred with his own seemingly inherent mild nature and desire to please.
Not a natural poker player, this one.
He appeared to abruptly reach a decision and thrust out one hand onto the table, rapidly un-strapping the wrappings around it. The back of his hand was revealed; perfectly normal, if a little pale. Since he quite obviously wouldn't be going to the trouble to undo the bandages to show me that, I leaned forward to look closer. And there, in faint white scars against his skin were etched the words 'I must not tell lies.'
"That's my mark courtesy of the Ministry. And I find it just a bit ironic, considering they've never told me much else themselves. So I apologize in advance for being such an unwilling and unhelpful subject. It's not you I'm angry with and I'm sorry you've got stuck with me, because I'm afraid they're wasting your time with the whole Spell Reversal thing."
Okay… see, that was just wrong. He'd called it courtesy of the Ministry, but it had to have happened while he was at Hogwarts. A child, for Merlin's sake. I pulled out my wand without thinking, intent only a revealing what sort of spell had etched those words into his skin. He jerked back as surely as if I'd hexed him already and I reminded myself again that this was a Spontaneous Magic subject I was dealing with. Forgetting that had a way of getting you killed.
"I just wanted to know the spell," I said softly, as calmly as I could. "I'm sorry. I should have asked."
"It wasn't a spell, it was a cursed quill. She made me do lines with it for detention. It writes in blood, and scratches whatever you write into your own skin. If you have to do it often enough, it scars. She's an employee of the Ministry still. We were just kids, it was my fifth year. No one believed us that Voldemort was back. They just wanted to shut us up. It's one thing not to see the truth in front of you, it's something else altogether to try and silence it."
Too true, that.
"I meant I should have asked about using my wand. But I'm sorry for that as well. I suspect I know who you mean, and I remember what happened. You don't have to apologize to me for speaking out about what the Ministry did at Hogwarts that year. I've done my fair share of talking back here, not that anyone that matters ever really took in a word of it. I've never exactly been up for Employee of the Year."
I did the inexcusable, then. I touched a Spell Reversal Subject with something other than the tip of my wand. Highly unprofessional, but let's face it, the kid was apparently walking freely around Diagon Alley - as free as you can get with an Auror escort, anyway - so how dangerous could they really think he was? I took hold of his hand as gently as I could and turned it over, palm up.
I learned several important things about Harry Potter at that moment.
"Sorry," I told him lamely, thoroughly ashamed of myself.
"Likewise," he said, his head ducked over his hand, re-fastening the wrappings.
"You sure you still had a working wand after that?" I asked him.
"It wasn't mine that did it," he admitted, still not coming close to meeting my curious gaze. "That was… his. The core exploded when I tried to use it against him. Stupid, I know, but…" He shrugged.
The shrug was eloquent; he said much with the simple rise and fall of that shoulder. He'd done what he had to do to survive; tried things he'd known weren't likely to work. He'd been desperate then, if he'd had a plan it had fallen through and he'd grasped at magical straws. The very worst environment for spell damage; chaotic, often spontaneous magic was the worst sort to try and unravel.
"Here's a question."
Green eyes rose to mine then; he really did have an inborn desire to please.
"Do your healers use Dragon hide gloves?"
He smiled sheepishly, and actually nodded. "They did, anyway. They said it would wear off and it mostly has. It's way better than it was, at least. I was in an isolation ward for two weeks right after because it seemed to affect everyone else's magic, too. Ron, erm, my flat mate doesn't even notice it anymore."
Well. None of that made the Prophet, I assure you. The more interesting part is why that wasn't evident in his file, either. St. Mungo's had gone completely mum on that bit of it. Decent of them, really. Remarkably so. He clearly had friends there, whether he knew it or not.
"Here's another question. I know I'm full of them, but it is my job, after all. If you're dripping magic by the bucket load and you've got two magical burns that don't seem to be healing at all well as far as I can see, why do you think you're wasting my time? That's exactly what I'm meant to help you with."
"Is it?" he said, going quite still. "Really? Because unless I miss my guess the Ministry's got an altogether different motivation for our little chat."
He was, unfortunately, probably right. Why else would a low level spell hack like me - at least by their standards - be handed the case file for the Boy Who Took Out Voldemort? It didn't make sense at all.
"And I've a feeling," he mumbled into my silence, "they've chosen well. I've said too much already. Are we done?"
Not even close. It was time to choose my words carefully; something I'm hardly known for my ability to do.
"For today. I believe they've already considerately scheduled you a second session day after tomorrow. Same time, same place. I was thinking, though, that perhaps given your… situation, we might go for a little walk instead. I'm sure your healers are encouraging you to keep moving and from a Spell Damage Reversal perspective it would be most helpful for me to see you in another setting."
And I wouldn't have to cast the muffliato, which just added to the magical cacophony surrounding him already. He didn't really have a choice unless he was willing to take on Scrimgeour's direct orders, and I didn't get the sense that he was. Quite yet, anyway.
"Where?" he said resignedly. "I'm afraid it will be slow going for you."
"Meet me here. I'll have the paperwork all set for the change of venue and we can apparate directly."
He nodded once and rose from his chair. Despite other obviously lingering injuries - he did have a good bit of a limp still, for one, - he retained the fluid quality of movement that many Quidditch players have. Almerick had had it, and so I tend to notice. He tipped up his water and drained the last of the bottle, the pale column of his throat working as he swallowed, oddly vulnerable to my eyes. This boy, this young man really, you could hardly call him a boy any longer, had managed the nearly unthinkable. He had defeated a wizard entirely steeped in evil, not once, but twice before the age of twenty. He was as intensely Magical as anyone I had ever been in the presence of, and there was so much more about him I wanted to understand.
He smiled, though it failed to make its way anywhere near his eyes, and nodded politely once more before leaving. I thought he looked tired and… forlorn.
Wizards are hard on their heroes these days.
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A/N: I know that was heavy on Elspeth's reactions and light on the trio, but I had some things to set up. Fear not - the entire next chapter is all trio, all the time. Thanks for reading, and your reviews and comments to the first chapter were a HUGE encouragement - I hope I can live up them.
~ Lynney.