Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

Taking influences from CBS' Person of Interest but not being a crossover (no POI characters will feature and you do not have to have knowledge of the series at all to understand what's happening) Have You Ever Seen the Rain? is a Wrong Boy Who Lived fic that attempts to avoid most of the clichés in the genre, and even if some characters may seem like they are being bashed at first, they will all have various different arcs that will change and develop over the course of this fic.

Chapter One: The Department of Mysteries

Samuel Potter was not bored. He was given the highest duty that any Auror could possibly hope to want and he hadn't even finished Hogwarts yet. He was given the chance to walk inside the Department of Mysteries and guard its most sacred object. He was given the chance to do all of this at the age of fourteen, in the Summer before his fourth year. He checked his watch, one of the few muggle devices that he owned, wondering when his shift ended. He had to keep telling himself over and over again just how important his job was, how people would kill to sat where he sat… he was not bored.

His father had pulled a few strings to get him some valuable Auror experience and given his reputation as the Boy Who Lived, Samuel was allowed to walk straight in. Of course, he had to go through extremely rigorous tests to prove that he wasn't under the Imperious curse, but none of that was necessary. He'd thrown off the curse before in his third year when Peter Pettigrew had used it to try and get him to kill Dumbledore. He'd even fought a basilisk and won, and as far as he was aware, he was the only person to have ever done that and lived to tell the tale. The world was Samuel's to take and he had seized every opportunity that came his way. He was a proud Gryffindor, through and through and this was a brave, incredibly honourable task. If there was one thing he most certainly was not, it was bored.

Okay. Maybe only a little. He brought up his wand and began to move it through the air, with light trailing it like a firework on bonfire night. The Department of Mysteries was a very quiet place at the night shift, and everyone was home apart from him. Maybe he shouldn't have stayed up last night listening to old recordings of classic Quidditch matches with his best friend Ron Weasley, because not only was he bored, he had now started to yawn. No. He tried to imagine what would happen if his supervisor caught him dozed off, and there would be hell to pay. At least until his father arrived and smoothed things over.

He remained bored and disinterested in his current situation for a grand total of thirty-seven minutes and six seconds. And then he learned the old adage of 'being careful what you wish for', once again. He had wished for excitement, but not the kind of excitement that put him in a life or death situation. Just something interesting. "Who's there?" he said, hearing a noise just around the corner of a stack of shelves of forbidden artefacts. He brought his wand up, uttering "Lumos," quietly to bring light to a dark room.

There was predictably no response. If someone was there, and if someone had broken into the Department of Mysteries, after breaking past all its defences and the Ministry itself, they were not going to risk detection at the final stages. The whole idea of breaking into the Department of Mysteries was laughable in the first place, the only place more secure than the Department was probably Gringotts. Or maybe Azkaban. And of course, Hogwarts. But given Pettigrew's infiltration last year Samuel doubted that even Hogwarts was safe anymore, and if even Hogwarts wasn't safe anymore, that meant that these locations also risked being breached. After all, didn't someone try to steal the Philosopher's Stone in first year before it was moved from Gringotts to Hogwarts? That ruled Gringotts and Hogwarts off the list of safest places, and given Pettigrew's escape from Azkaban, that also ruled off Azkaban off that list. The Department of Mysteries was therefore the safest by default, and the only place that had not been broken into yet. And it would not be robbed under the watch of Samuel Potter.

He turned the corner and immediately found himself caught in the middle of a duel between two unknown figures on either side of the horizontal corridor at the end of the passageway. Different spells, he noticed a mixture of green and red, were being flung back and forth throughout the Department, and already he noticed that he was dealing with not one, but two intruders, who had decided to either turn on each other in their quest for… for whatever it was they were here for, or whether they were from two different parties that had tried to breach the Department at the same time. Dodging a spell that came his way from a masked figure who poked their head around the corner, Samuel quickly noticed that the other one, whoever he was, was not wearing a mask but instead some form of suit, like he had come dressed for a ball. It would be easy to identify him once they got a proper look on who he was, but getting a look at his face would be more difficult than ever, especially in the dark, and especially with all the spells flying.

"You know," said the masked man. "It would have been so much simpler if you had decided to take the day off for a change. My Master might have even thanked you for not interfering. But alas, here you are. And therefore, punishment must be employed."

He didn't recognise the voice of the masked man, it was disorientated and no doubt sounded different to what it normally did. He wasn't sure for a second whether the man was referring to him or the other intruder, but one thing was clear to Samuel, the Master part. He was a Death Eater, and therefore the enemy. 'I need to get out of here,' Samuel thought, as another flurry of spells were sent back and forth at each other, with the Death Eater gaining ground on the unknown figure, who responded for the first time, "I'm afraid taking a break wasn't an option. But you can tell your Master that I send my regards."

"I don't think he will take too kindly to you interfering again," said the man. "I cannot protect you forever."

"You're doing a great job of showing that."

"I am the only one who knows who you are," said the Death Eater. "However, if you interfere I cannot keep your identity secret from the Dark Lord much longer. He will demand to know."

"Well like I said," said the man in the suit. "You can send him my regards. And I hate to bother you, but it looks like we have company."

"I'm fully aware of that," said the Death Eater. "Did you think I was firing spells to my left for fun?"

"I must admit had my suspicions," admitted the man in the suit, throwing another spell. "You're not going to kill him, are you?"

"He's a witness," said the Death Eater. "There can be no witnesses. The Dark Lord was very clear."

"That also includes me, I guess."

"That would be correct," said The Death Eater. "Sorry, old friend. Are you sure I cannot talk you out of this?"

"I'm afraid that's impossible," said the man in the suit. "I can't let you kill the boy."

"You will have to choose," said the Death Eater, glancing across at another masked Death Eater that had appeared from nowhere at the end of the hallway, behind Samuel, fully cloaked and ready to fight. "Between the Boy and the Prize. You cannot stop two of us."

"I can try," said the man, and fired a spell towards the first Death Eater as the second one remained standing, silent, as if he was an observer of the conflict.

"Looks like even the great Man in the Suit can miss once in a while," the Death Eater said, having retreated back towards a bookshelf in full view of Samuel, who was currently hiding behind a chair, doing his best to keep an eye on both Death Eaters. He wondered again who the Man in the Suit was if he was here to protect both him and the artefact, or at least, if that was what he claimed.

The Man in the Suit didn't even look at the incident that he had just caused, as the bookshelf fell toppling over on his target, causing him to collapse beneath it. To Samuel it looked as though The Man in the Suit had known what was going to happen and had planned it, taking into account his surroundings in a way that Samuel had rarely seen used in battles between two magic users. He instantly recalled where he had heard the term Man in the Suit before, the Daily Prophet. Reporter Rita Skeeter had run a page on reported sightings, that he was some kind of vigilante who protected innocent people from targeted threats. He was only a ghost story of course, but Samuel had for the first time, seen him in action. And now he was approaching him, the Boy Who Lived wanted to get a good look at his face an determine who he was. But he couldn't. Everytime he tried to look at the man's face he ended up diverting his eyes away to the background, to a wall. "Why can't I look at you?" was the first thing he said, awkwardly, and knowing that it wasn't the best possible word choice.

"Magic," said the man, and Samuel grimaced, figuring a vague response was about what he could have expected. "Now come on. We have to get you out of here."

"But the artefact," protested Samuel.

"I'll deal with that later, they still have to break the protective charms around it," said the Man in the Suit, blasting a hole through the bookshelf next to him as the Death Eater who was still standing turned and ran to the right. He dragged Samuel through the new hole that he had formed.

"You can't do that! That belongs to the Department of Mysteries!"

"Standards at Hogwarts must have really slipped since my father's time," said the Man in the Suit, "Don't they teach the Reparo spell anymore?"

He didn't wait for Samuel to finish, but instead simply cast the spell and the bookshelves restored themselves. "Oh. Right. Sorry."

"Good, now this way," he said, blasting a couple more holes in the bookshelves as they headed away from the Death Eaters. Samuel kept glancing behind him as the man led the way, and he realised that the more he tried to look at the man, was just how young he was. He couldn't be more than nineteen or twenty, if in fact, he was a man at all. "We only have a couple more corridors to clear before we're out of the extraction zone, and then I'm going to get you to a safe house."

"Shouldn't we alert the Aurors?"

"No need, besides, I know who these guys are, they're good, and don't hold anything back."

"They were just trying to hold back against you," said Samuel as they blasted through another bookshelf. He winced as the young man blew it apart. "He even said. Who is he, that Death Eater, anyway? Do I know him?"

"You could say that, yeah," he said. "But I can't tell you who he is. Sorry."

"Assuming you're not going to tell me who you are, either."

"That would be a no," he said. "I mean, after all. I do kind of like the secret identity thing. Ever heard of Batman?"

"No."

"Can't say you would have," said the man. "You people don't tend to read comics that much. He's a vigilante who dresses up as a bat and saves people."

"Why would you dress up as a bat?"

"Oh, it's a long story," said the young man. "He was basically afraid of bats when he was a kid so he decided to make his enemies afraid of bats as well."

"So what were you afraid of when you were younger? Suits?"

He chuckled, and then noticing that they were outside the anti-apparition zone, grabbed Samuel and vanished from thin air with him. A few seconds later he and Samuel appeared again in a locked room, with several stored bookshelves stretching back into the darkness. It was a fairly dark room and both of their visions remained obscured from view, "Hold on," said Samuel, suddenly sounding worried. "I know this room."

"Yeah, you do. This is the public library of the Ministry of Magic. Abandoned at night, and not very popular in the day. This will be perfect for you," said the man. "They wouldn't dream of looking in here. Now. Stay where you are and whatever happens, don't leave this room. Give me five minutes and I'll have the artefact and we can be on our way."

"Um, okay. Right," Samuel said, glancing around the room as though he expected somebody else to be there, waiting for him. The man looked around as he did.

"What? You expecting someone to show up?"

"Not exactly, no," said Samuel.

"Okay. Right. You're scared. I get it," said the man. "Anyway. Like I said. I'll be right back."

Samuel nodded as the man vanished from view, taking his wand with him. Looking around the dark room he realised now that all he had to do was sit down and wait, and there was nothing else he could do but hope the man in the suit retrieved the artefact.

II.

The two Death Eaters approached the swirling ball of mystical energy. One instantly leapt forward to touch the artefact positioned on a high point on an altar overlooking the rest of the bookshelves in the room, and now the same one who had merely been an observer to the exchange between the Man in the Suit and the leader was blasted back across the hall, sliding down the steps as though struck by lightning. "Fool," said the leader, "You need to disable the wards first, Avery."

"Won't happen again, Snape," Avery said, fixing his mask and climbing to his feet. "I can't believe that was actually him! The Man in the Suit! I never had the chance to meet him before. I mean, I heard the stories, but I didn't think they were real. Anyway. How are we going to disable the wards on this thing?"

"This artefact is protected by more wards than your small, simple brain could possibly even begin to comprehend, Avery," said Snape, "But we are fortunate. We have a friend in the Department of Mysteries. I know exactly how to untangle these wards. Every last one."

"Right," said Avery, rubbing his hands together, full of anticipating. "Let's do this. Disable the wards."

Snape nodded, and with one simple swish of his wand, the magical blue and yellow lights around the artefact began to unravel, vanishing into the abyss, causing the artefact to lose the bright glow that he had been surrounding it, keeping it hovering a few centimetres above the table. It dropped calmly into Snape's gloved hand, as he began to touch one of the most powerful artefacts that wizarding kind had ever seen.

And then the rest of the lights in the room were extinguished, plunging everything into darkness. "What the hell," Avery was the first to speak after casting the Lumos spell, "Did we do that?"

"No," said Snape, drawing his own wand as a strange, unfamiliar sound began to echo throughout the room. "Be careful. We're not alone in here."

"What's that sound?" Avery glanced up at Snape. "I don't recognise it."

"Oh, that's a lovely song," said the disorientated voice that Avery recognised earlier. "It's music, Avery. Haven't you heard a song before?"

Avery fired a killing curse in the direction that the sound was coming from, but the spell merely bounced off the wall, shot up to the ceiling before coming crashing down on the bookshelf below. "Where the hell are you?"

"Here," said a voice from behind him, and Avery turned in surprise to find the man in the suit standing directly behind him. He fired one simple stunning spell, and it was enough to take out the Death Eater, taking him out of the game. "You know Severus. You really shouldn't stoop yourself to this level. Next time, I actually want more of a challenge."

"You'll get one after this," said Snape, re-holstering his wand and looking directly across through his mask at the Man in the Suit. He wasn't going to fight the attacker despite their pretence earlier, they were on the same team after all. Snape just had appearances to keep up. But now that Samuel Potter had been removed from the scene and Avery had been knocked out cold, all pretence was gone. "I wouldn't be surprised if he ordered every Death Eater who wasn't already busy to take you down."

"Let them try," said The Man in the Suit, a smile in his face.

"One of these days they will catch up to you," said Snape. "Even you can't run forever."

"I know. Thanks for disabling the anti-Apparition wards for me."

Snape nodded in response. "You don't have much time. The Aurors will have realised something is up. Are you going to take the artefact?"

"Yes," The Man in the Suit said, and after a quick wave of his wand, created an exact duplicate of the real prize, and threw it to Snape, who caught it in his left hand. "Here. It's a fake. That should be enough to convince Voldemort that they've hidden it somewhere else."

Snape took it, not objecting to the man's claims. "You know. As much as we both despise him, sometimes you really are your father's son."

"I guess nobody gets to decide who their parents are," said Harry Potter with a shrug, turning around and walking away. "Oh by the way, the band is the Men Without Hats. Y'know, if they ever want to stop the song playing. I've put it on loop. Catchy, no?"

Snape realised how unlikely it was for any wizard to have heard of an obscure muggle band, and as much as he hated to admit it, he found himself admiring Potter's countermeasure. He decided to leave the wizards to a song that he figured out was called Safety Dance, and vanished from view seconds after Potter himself, reluctantly forced to drag Avery along with him, all in the name of keeping up appearances as being a loyal follower of the Dark Lord. Before he left he of course remembered to do a Death Eater's duty and cast the Dark Mark in its place, reminding everyone that now that there was a break in to the Department of Mysteries, nowhere was safe anymore.

III.

Harry Potter smiled at a job well done and returned to the Ministry's Public Library, eager to get home. Activating his radio-link, another muggle invention that he had employed for communications-use, he said, "It's done. I have the artefact."

"Good to see you got out okay," said Remus Lupin, responding over the other end of the microphone. "I was worried for a second there, Harry. I thought your luck might have finally run up."

"Who, me? Never," said Harry with a smile on his face, turning around and realising that he had arrived slightly further down the corridor than intended, seeing that a confused Samuel Potter was sitting on a chair right next to the door, having noticed his arrival and had begun to climb to his feet and advance towards him. But at the same time more pressing matters caused Harry to divert his attention away from Samuel, or perhaps more accurately, whoever was currently disguised as Samuel, because the real Samuel Potter was currently lying facedown, unconscious, and bound and gagged, with blood pouring out from his face, and it was clear right from the start that he had been tortured. He cursed, and said, "I should have seen this coming."

"Yes, you should have," said the familiar, taunting and almost baby-like voice of Bellatrix Lestrange, her polyjuice potion having expired as she walked towards him, revealing her full face and body that was now in a clothes size far too small for her. "You know, you have to admit, he did at least put up a fight. Itty-bitty Potter. Too bad. Daddy shouldn't have let him out of his depth."

Harry felt the wand pressed into his back. "I'll be taking that," said Lestrange, grabbing the artefact from his left hand, and pocketing it herself. "And as for you… I don't suppose you would mind telling me who you are? I've always wanted to know. I never could quite see your face."

"There's a reason for that," Harry said. "Have you ever tried being an actress, by the way? That was actually a pretty good performance. You got The Boy Who Lived pretty much spot on."

"Thanks for the career advice," Lestrange said, and Harry could tell she was smiling. "I'll bear that in mind if my Master's dreams of world conquest don't work out as well as they intended. Which of course, now that we have the Spear of Destiny… they should work out just fine. I mean. Have you heard of anyone ever being stopped in possession of the Spear before?"

"I can think of a couple of people," said Harry. "If the rumours are true, Hitler for one."

"Who?" Lestrange said, raising an eyebrow behind Harry, not recognising the name. "Never mind. I have the Spear. I have everything that I need. I should just kill you both right now, but… where's the fun in that? The sheep they keep sending to stop me all end up dead. I want a real competition next time we meet, a real fight. You think you can deliver that?"

"You can count on it."

"Good," Lestrange said. "Oh, and he's fine, by the way. Potty. In case you were wondering. I guess I'll leave you to do the explaining when you wake up."

Harry tried to turn around with his wand but was unable to stop Lestrange from firing a simple stunner into his back, knocking him out cold and blasting him across the room in a crumpled heap. Lestrange gave a cackle as she walked away, taking a leftover black umbrella from the lost property basket near the exit of the Library as she did so and putting it above her head despite the fact that she was indoors and it wasn't raining at all. Picking up on a phrase that she had overheard at one of her last formal gatherings that she used to attend, Bellatrix sang as though it were a nursey rhyme as she departed, "Oh oh, oh ho, as the saying goes. Don't let it be forgot… that once there was a spot… for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot. Oh oh, oh, ho. As the saying goes. Don't let it be forgot… that once there was a spot… for one brief shining moment that was known as CAMELOT."

Anything that was left after the term Camelot was obscured by a never-ending onslaught of cackling laughter that could only come from someone who was well and truly insane.

IV.

It took Harry a grand total of twenty minutes to recover from the stunning spell and he came too, coughing and wheezing as though he had just recovered from a heart attack. He hurriedly activated his mic, and said, "Professor, we have a problem."

"I am fully aware of that. It looks like things as you would put it, have most certainly gone south."

"I don't need you to tell me that," said Harry, climbing to his feet. As he tried to stagger towards the door he felt himself blinded by a large burst of light cast in his direction from multiple forces, as he covered his eyes to mask the brightness, he said, "I might need a Plan B."

"DROP YOUR WAND AND SURRENDER!" James Potter addressed his son, pointing his wand at him as though he was as evil as Voldemort himself. "IN THE NAME OF THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC YOU ARE HEREBY PLACED UNDER ARREST!"

TO BE CONTINUED.

For clarification, Harry has just finished his fifth year and is about to start his sixth, putting him the same year as Diggory et al. More will be revealed as time progresses and I'll try to update every couple of weeks at the latest. Each chapter will be between 2,000 to 3,000 words and will incorporate elements like The Spear of Destiny and elements from various other mythologies, and although it will be set in the same year as the Triwizard Tournament there will be a lot more stuff going on behind the scenes as well. Harry's age in the first chapter is left deliberately vague as the Bellatrix!Samuel is trying to estimate how old he is, and in this he's someone who looks older than his years.

He's a bit more powerful than your average wizard, but as demonstrated by the fact that he got tricked by Bellatrix, he isn't completely all powerful.

For now, pairings are undecided but I'm likely to lean towards a Harry/Fleur or Harry/Tonks pairing if at all.