Disclaimer: I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.

Warnings: This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers.

Summary (Under the Sea): Never let it be said that Harry didn't at least try to follow Hermione's advice. Even when he's befriending a genius who broke into his library to fondle the books.

Series Note(s): This fic takes place within the continuum of The Quiet Calm. Specifically, it follows the oneshot The Universe Inside. While care has been taken so that this story can stand on its own, reading the preceding fics will increase one's understanding and enjoyment of things. Since this series is being written out of order, I recommend going by the series order given on my profile.

Episode Tag: Post-S01Ep01 (Extreme Aggressor); Pre-S01Ep02 (Compulsion)

Song Recommendation(s): "Faded" by Alan Walker

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Under the Sea
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"Under the bright but faded lights, you've set my heart on fire." – Alan Walker, Faded
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Harry had an armful of books when he spotted the young man wandering the aisles in the medieval literature section, his fingers tracing the spines. He sighed at himself. He must have forgotten to lock the doors after shooing the last student out for the night. It wasn't like him, but it had only been a week since he started here at Georgetown. It had been a bit of a hectic week. So losing track of something didn't surprise him.

What intrigued him about this was the idle wandering the man was doing, instead of directed desperation Harry commonly associated with a late night visit to the library. It echoed the reason why Harry had begun spending his spare time in the library at Cambridge. That the young man wore a short-sleeved button-up and pressed slacks, similar to Harry's own attire, only heightened the reminder. There was something about him that drew Harry in, dragging along the edge of his senses. Aware that people could easily pretend to be what they aren't, Harry made his way to the intruder.

"Can I help you? I mean, technically we're closed," Harry said once he was close enough, "but since hours are posted, I'm sure you knew that. So clearly you need something."

"No, sorry, I'm fine—" the man said as he turned. His expression shifted as he took in Harry, just in the tiny ways that Harry had always been good at noticing. Outwardly, the man's expression stayed neutral and calm, but to Harry, there was a tired wariness suddenly. Curiously, the man's body language remained casual even as it stilled into a tense expectation. Harry noticed that he didn't offer his hand, even before he should have picked up on Harry's armload of books. Wizard? Despite the lack of magic about him? Touch phobia was more likely, statistically speaking. Harry tilted his head slightly and allowed his eyebrow to twitch into a microexpression of his own. The man stammered onward as if in response to Harry's silent challenge. "Why would Dr. Ismail have you working after hours when you're new?"

"I guess she trusts me to know what I'm doing," Harry replied. It was true—most of the other librarians held only Masters in Library Science and student workers filled out the rest of the staff. Despite being new, his doctorate and time working at Cambridge gave him an edge once he had learned Georgetown's policies. He shifted the books slightly, allowing challenge to leak into his body language. "Do you normally break into academic libraries after hours to finger the medieval literature when unsettled or is this life of crime new?" The man's lips almost curled into a smirk, like he had a secret, even as his face took on bigger expressive traits of shock. Harry reassessed him, only to frown as he noted the too knobby wrists and the bags beneath his eyes. The urge to help the man rose up in Harry too fast and strong to be ignored, making Harry sigh again. Damn 'saving people' drive. "Well, this is nothing that won't keep overnight. I'm famished—and as you've noticed, new in town. Help me locate a good place to get takeaway and I'll buy your meal. Deal?"

"You'd trust a stranger? One that you have just discovered in the midst of a crime?"

"We're all strangers, and I am new to the country." Harry gave him a half-grin. "Besides, I already know you have the weirdest criminal interest I could think of, so that's enough to be going on with, don't you think?"

"I could be a serial killer." He sounded like he was trying to figure out a puzzle without all the pieces. Harry kept his body language open, letting the man examine him as Harry did the same. The books were heavy in his arms and Harry subtly pressed a Lightening Charm into the stack. The man twitched before frowning in confusion. If the man was sensitive to energy shifts but not truly magical, that could explain a lot of the bits that hadn't been making sense. Maybe Harry could get some of Luna's special meal-cookies into him? Luna's cookies were brilliant for people with energy sensitivity but who tended to skip meals. He pushed the silent inventory of his cupboards to the back of his mind.

"Of course," Harry agreed. He jerked his head towards the front of the library in lieu of trying to gesture while his arms were full. Without discussing it, they began to drift towards the front doors. "Breaking into libraries and fondling their books is such a common ruse. Oh, well, nothing for it, I guess. I request Indian as my last meal, if curry won't upset your ritual too much."

"You know criminal pathology." The man sounded less surprised than Harry was expecting and almost pleased with the discovery. His flippancy usually elicited either anger or annoyance, even among his admittedly small circle of friends. This spark of interest was new. Harry met the man's gaze briefly, mentally resorting the scraps of information he had been gathering and watching as he did the same. "You've had extensive combat training which included profiling. Police? No, military. Yet you are knowledgeable enough about the layout of a library that you recognized the sector I was in down to the era and type and Salwa trusts you enough that you're allowed to be here after hours, tidying up unsupervised."

"You haven't mentioned my age," Harry pointed out. The man blinked at him, as if it hadn't occurred to him to think about it. His nose wrinkled as he thought about it and he looked over Harry again. Harry made an impulsive decision as he bumped his shoulder against the other man's. "Do you play chess at all? I've left my normal opponent across the Pond, so I'm in the market for a new one. If you're interested at all, we can get that curry to go, retire back to my place, and play a game or two."

"Why are you doing this?" The man looked thoroughly confused, even as he was clearly trying to piece the answer together on his own. "You do not even know my name."

"I have it on good authority that food and games are proper ways to make new friends," Harry said with a shrug. He wasn't lying. Hermione had given him a long list of ways to make friends while lecturing him about staying out of trouble. There had been another lecture on not listening to Luna's advice when she had found out that the blonde would be helping him lay the wards of his new place. Considering that Luna's advice had consisted of the methods of scent marking available to humans, Harry agreed that Hermione's advice was probably better. "Besides, you look like you could do with a good meal and maybe a cuppa. A friend once told me that hot water solves every ill, if properly utilized."

"Just tea?"

"And curry—you Americans do have curry, don't you? It didn't seem like something I needed to verify before moving, but I'm starting to have my doubts now. Or is it the chess? Because I admit that I made a bit of an assumption. In my experience, people who fondle books tend to also play chess, even if it's just badly, and frankly, I'm dying for a game that isn't with a computer."

"I play," he replied cautiously. His face still showed his confusion. "You still haven't asked who I am."

"I figure you'll tell me when you're ready," Harry replied with another shrug. The books were starting to get heavy even with the charm. "Besides, names are oddly intimate things. Who's to say if this calls for them yet? For all you know, I am the one who broke in to inventory the books and lure unsuspecting book-fondlers to their very gruesome deaths after feeding them takeaway and tea. I could also be the last of the Time Lords about to whisk you away in my TARDIS for a grand adventure. I always did like celery."

"Are you always like this? Alternately serious and flippant?"

"Are you annoyed yet? Because it tends to annoy people," Harry said without explanation. The man shook his head.

"I'm used to it." He hesitated before blurting out a seemingly non sequitur. "Surrey?"

"Ah, yes," Harry acknowledged as they arrived in the area near the front desk. The man hesitated a step at Harry's answer to his half-question. Glancing at him, Harry noticed that he looked surprised before he noticed Harry looking at him and rearranged his expression to something more neutral. Feeling less certain, Harry continued in an even tone. "But I left when I was sixteen and haven't been back since. You'll hear a good deal of Cambridge as well. That's where I studied."

"Library Science?"

"Among other things," Harry deflected. He set the books on what was technically the main desk for all of the research librarians but was mostly his at the moment, since so many of the part-time librarians had taken the summer term off. The only concession he had made to Salwa's urging to make himself at home was a muggle-style picture of his godchildren, taken shortly before he had left Britain.

"The picture is yours," the other man declared after his eyes had swept over the desk. Harry got the impression that for all his fidgeting, he was not nervous exactly, just restlessly seeking something. Harry suspected that he had the same difficulties Harry did with keeping busy, but since Luna was the only other person Harry had ever met with that problem, Harry didn't know if it was just wishful thinking. There hadn't even been someone else in the behavioral program at Cambridge, where the noticing aspect would have been useful. "But the children aren't. Nieces and nephews?"

"Close," Harry replied. "They're my godchildren. I don't have any direct blood relatives." 'And the few I have don't acknowledge me anymore.' To distract himself from the dark reminder of the Dursleys, Harry focused on the photograph. It was taken in the backyard of the Burrow, and Harry had been extra vigilant in ensuring no gnome had managed to photobomb it. Seven-year-old Teddy had barely been convinced to keep his hair a natural shade. Instead the young metamorphmagus had adopted Harry's misbehaving waves and the almost golden hue of Remus' eyes when his wolf had risen to the surface. He was sticking his tongue out at the camera. Six-year-old Matilda was glaring at the camera, as all efforts to get her to smile after being told her favorite uncle was leaving had failed. She looked exactly like Ginny with that expression for all that she had Dean's features. In front of them, five-year-old Rose, already as bossy as Hermione, was making two-year-old Hugo wave at the camera as he grinned around the thumb in his mouth.

"It must have been hard to leave them."

"Harder than most people would imagine," Harry said. He turned towards the other man. Cocking his head to the side, Harry continued. "Also easier than most would understand. But I think you could do both."

They stared at each other in silent understanding. Harry had the irrational urge to dart forward and lick the other man's nose as Luna had said to do to anyone he found interesting. He shoved it away, knowing random thoughts like that tended to linger after spending time with Luna and were especially intrusive after sharing magic like they had when laying the wards.

"Spencer Reid," the man said, still without offering his hand. Instead, he rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand. With the way the gesture made his head tip forward, he looked like a scolded child. Harry was silently cursing the intuition of women, because Salwa was right about him having a lot in common with her former protégé. It should bother him more than it did that a stranger could see through him so easily when most of his closest friends couldn't.

"Harry Black," he replied in kind before gesturing towards the doors. "So curry and chess? I have some histories of the Merlin Ambrosius era you can poke at, if that will sweeten the deal."

"How long are you going to continue that joke?" Spencer turned his back as Harry relocked the doors after they exited, including setting the security alarm. Harry gave a small tisk at the tiny scuff mark left behind by someone picking the door's lock—and recently, too, by the shine of it. At least it confirmed that he hadn't actually forgotten to lock them before starting inventory.

"Depends," Harry answered. Spencer turned back to look at his expression. Harry gave him a grin. "How long are you going to listen to me make jokes that are in horrible taste and are more than a bit morbid? And more importantly, does the offer of food and tea affect that time?"

"Well, at least tonight," Spencer answered, "but I'll most likely kill you in the morning."

"Then let's go start a war with Guilder while we have a chance."

In the quiet spot within where he stored his greatest secrets, Harry knew that Spencer was going to be as important to him as the members of his closest circle of friends.

Hermione would be proud that he was already making friends.

Luna would probably be disappointed that he didn't lick him.