Scattering Shadows

Chapter Two

By: Saadie


A/N: Criminal Minds and Harry Potter is still not mine. And Harry officially makes his debut in this chapter, yay!


Harrison James Potter was in the midst of contemplating one of life's most troubling dilemmas when his cellphone went off. Cursing silently at the shrill echo of his phone ringing throughout the supermarket, he dropped both packages of chocolate chips into the cart to fish out his phone from his right pocket.

"Hello?"

"Harrison?" a vaguely familiar voice asked, "Hi, this is Jessica, Jack's aunt?"

"Oh hi Jessica! How're you?" Harrison answered her cheerfully; hopefully this wasn't bad news, the woman already looked so tired half the time.

"I've have a favour to ask you. I'm heading out of town for my friend's wedding this weekend but Jack's father is going to be away on business again. I was wondering if you could take him? Just for the weekend! I'll pay extra for overtime at the daycare."

Harrison smiled softly, half-heartedly browsing through shelves and trying his best to steer the shopping car with only one hand. "Of course Jack can stay over, we'll be happy to have him and Al will be ecstatic. And don't you dare try to pay for this Jessica! Why on earth would I charge anyone anything when my son's best friend sleeps over?"

He could hear Jessica's sigh of relief through the phone, "Oh, that's great, thank you so much Harrison! I'll call Aaron with the good news; he was so worried that no one would be able to watch Jack. Do you mind if I give him your contact information and address? If he gets back from the trip early, Aaron will be the one to pick Jack up."

"Of course, it's no problem at all Jessica. I'll just take Jack home with us tomorrow then?"

"Yes please, thank you so much for this again Harrison."

Harrison chuckled, "It's no problem at all Jessica. Jack's an angel and he's always welcomed over. Let me know if you need someone to watch him again in the future okay? I really don't mind at all."

"You're a saint, Harrison Potter you know that? Oh I've got to go now, I still have to pack and Jack has soccer after school today."

"I'm far from a saint, Jessica, and good luck with everything! I'll talk to you later then, bye."

She echoed the farewell and ended the call. With a sigh, Harrison slipped his cell back into his pocket coming to stare at the two packages of chocolate chips again. Should he take one back out or just leave it?

By the time he hit the check-out, both packages were still in the cart. He'd rather deal with hyper children than children complaining about that their promised cookies didn't have BOTH types of chocolate in them; if things got too bad, he'd just slip a calming potion into their juice again. Magic made everything so convenient sometimes.


Aaron was waiting for the jet to take off when his phone rang. Picking it up quickly, he glanced at the caller id before he snapped it open. "Jessica?"

"Yes it's me Aaron. And before you ask, yes, Harrison can take Jack for the weekend."

Aaron felt himself relaxing just a little from relief. He had been worried that there would be no one to watch Jack but his grandparents. Haley's parents loved Jack but hated Aaron and the last time they had watched the little boy, Jack had come home very upset, asking his daddy why grandpa and grandma said all those mean things about daddy. Aaron had been livid and informed them that until they could learn to watch their tongues around impressionable little boys they wouldn't be taking care of Jack again. Even Jessica had been noticeably upset with her parents when she found out; there were, after all, certain things you didn't speak of in front of five year olds. "Thank you, are you sure he's-"

"Harrison is a wonderful person and a great father and he would never hurt Jack or let any harm come to him," his former sister-in-law cut him off before he could finish his question, "In fact, he's already offered to watch Jack for us again if situations like this arise in the future. Now I'm going to send you Harrison's phone number and address. If you get back early, you can call and go pick up Jack, I already told him you might be the one to pick Jack up."

"Alright then, thank you Jessica. I'm sorry for the trouble."

"I'd do anything for Jack, Aaron. You know I love my nephew." She was silent for a moment before speaking briskly again, "Now I've got to finish packing and I still have to take Jack to soccer practice this afternoon so I'll speak to you later. Hopefully, you'll be back early; Jack's been looking forward to spending time with you. Goodbye Aaron."

"Goodbye Jessica, and thank you again."

Aaron looked up after ending his call to see his team staring at him. He had gotten a little better at sharing his personal life with his team over the years but he still met the questioning eyes with a raised eyebrow.

"Problems with Jessica? Jack?" offered Rossi.

Aaron shook his head, "No, possible crisis adverted. Garcia?"

The laptop screen flared to life, "Yes, oh highly esteemed leader?"

"Do you have the information I asked you to pull up on Harrison Potter?"

"Why you can bet your lovely-"

"Garcia," Aaron cut in.

"I mean, yes sir, of course I do. Let me just pull it up for you right now." They could hear faint rapid clicking in the background, "Harrison James Potter, born July 31st, 1980 to James Charlus Potter and Lillian Marie Potter née Evans. He was born in Godric's Hollow, Somerset, England; there are no hospital records, couple used a midwife. Parents killed by a terrorist at the age of one, oh the poor boy, custody was given to his maternal Aunt, Petunia Claire Dursley née Evans and her husband Vernon Paul Dursley. Attended a public school in Surrey until the age of eleven when he was transferred to the same private school in Scotland his parents attended. Graduated and then married his high-school sweetheart, Ginerva Tessa Weasley, a year later. Went into specialized police training for two years before dropping out and attending Harvard University for a double degree in Business and Childcare of all things, huh our boy's a weird one. He has three children, James Sirius Potter, aged nine, Albus Severus Potter, aged seven, and Lilly Luna Potter, aged five."

"Who the hell names the child Albus Severus?" came Morgan's incredulous tone.

"Morgan!" scoled J.J., hushing him even though he had asked the question that was on everyone's minds.

"Albus comes from Roman roots, meaning 'white' or 'bright' in Latin. Severus is also a Roman family name, meaning 'stern' in Latin. The name could be attributed to the parent's aspirations for their child, but judging from the names of the other children, James and Lilly for the deceased grandparents, the names could well be from other family members or friends that they wished to commemorate."

"Yeah, yeah, okay, I get that Reid, but couldn't they have found more, I dunno, normal relatives to remember? I mean, Albus Severus, common'! The kid's gonna get teased forever throughout his school years."

"Okay, focus guys, this is not the issue at hand here. Anything else noteworthy Garcia?"

"Well, our Mister Potter has separated, they've been divorced for three years now and Potter moved to the states with full custody of all his children following the divorce. He's been running a daycare in Virginia for just over two years now. Is he watching Jack for you, Hotch?"

"Yes, he is. Any criminal records Garcia?"

"None that I can find, which means, well, there are none because I can't find them, then they don't exists. Oh! Harrison's godfather was the mass murderer Sirius Orion Black the third, yeesh that's downright pretentious, who was convicted of murdering thirteen people, including his own best friend Peter Pettigrew in 1981 right after Harrison's parents were killed. He was believed to be part of the terrorist cell that killed his best friend's family. It says here that he escaped from a high-level containment facility in 1993 and was declared innocent post mortem in 1998 following the capture of Peter Pettigrew who confessed to the twelve other murders committed in 1981 and staging his own death to frame Black. Wow, someone should write a book about this, this kind of drama is un-real. Following his death, the government unsealed his will and he left everything he owned to his godson Harrison. Oh my! Hotch, did you know that your son is being babysat by British Royalty? Oh, my gosh, do you think he has Prince William's phone number? Do you think he knows the Queen?"

"What? Garcia, royalty?" exclaimed Prentiss as she traded bewildered glances with J.J. who looked equally as shocked.

"The system lists Harrison James Potter as the holder of two titles; Earl Potter of the Ancient and Noble house of Potter as is his birthright and Duke Black of the Ancient and Pure house of Black through his godfather who conferred the title to him from the grave."

"Well damn Hotch, you certainly don't do things by half," joked Morgan.

The team, led my Garcia, exploded into wild speculation of what the Potter household must be like. "Okay enough!" Aaron half-yelled, pitching his voice so that he could be heard over the chatter, "Focus on the case at hand, not my son's babysitter."

"Can we come with you to pick Jack up?" chimed Garcia.

"Enough Garcia, okay people what do we know about this killer so far?"

The group settled eventually and Hotch sighed internally, sometimes he felt as if Jack wasn't his only child with the way his team conducts themselves.

"Okay, the Unsub seems to be targeting people in their late teens and early twenties, they're not discriminant about the gender but all victims have been brunettes with a Hispanic background. Both males a similar in build and all victims resemble one another; they could pass as siblings. Perhaps surrogates for someone in the Unsub's life."

"Victims don't seem to have been moved; they may have been chased and hunted down until they were killed but the forest is not just a dump site, they were killed there," continued Morgan smoothly.

"The bodies were also found intact, as Reid pointed out earlier, even though there are chunks of the body that have been eaten, the entire skeletal structure was accounted for," added Prentiss.

"So the killer had to have been watching while whatever it was ate the body and stopped the beasts from carrying off parts of it? So the animals would have had to been trained," reasoned J.J.

"The victims were all just passing through; they were there at the park to just take some time off alone. Their campsites were found but there are no signs of a struggle although local authorities have reason to believe that there was someone else present at the scene," Reid frowned, "So the Unsub could potentially have posed as another camper. They would probably be in their twenties themselves, an age that the victims could relate to and feel comfortable enough with to interact with and invite back to their campsites."

Rossi peered at the photos again, "Given the level of violence exhibited, I'm more inclined to say our Unsub is likely to be male. Handsome and charming, the victims felt comfortable with him, he actively tries to befriend his victims before the attack, gets their guard down."

"If there are no more bodies found and this is a pattern, the Unsub is likely to have approached his next victim already. Samantha Camp was found yesterday that gives us potentially forty-two hours before the killer strikes again. Get some rest, we should be there in an hour. I want everyone rested and ready to go as soon as we hit ground. Let's make this a fast one guys."

Various affirmations sounded from around the plane before Morgan teasingly added, "And then we can all go home and visit Jack's royal babysitter, right Hotch?"

Aaron's lips twitched upwards minutely, "Rest, Morgan, we can speak of this when we return."

"Soooo~ that's a yes?" came Garcia's sing-song voice through the speakers.

Aaron responded by settling into his side of the couch and closing the laptop.


In his kitchen, Harrison Potter was forced to turn away from the cookie batter as he was overcome by a violent sneezing fit. Perhaps he'd better take a Pepper-Up before picking the kids up, just in case. Wouldn't want to pass anything on to them.


And here's chapter two! I have problems following deadlines I set myself; I planned to have this out yesterday. Thank you to everyone who took the time to review! I have never gotten as large of a response as this for any of my stories! I posted the first chapter, went to sleep and then woke up to find my inbox filled with 'follows' and 'favourites' as well as several of your lovely reviews. You all made my day several times over and I was so giddy I bounced around at work. With that in mind, I will try to get one last chapter out before school starts again and I'm swamped by readings, deadlines, and assignments alike. Not that I'm going to stop writing when school starts, but just a warning that updates become more sporadic once my profs decide to blindside us with tests.

A few of my friends whom I've shown this to have expressed their mirth at the idea of Harry running a daycare. I just think it's cute.

How was chapter two for everyone? If I made any mistakes, please don't hesitate to point it out to me. To everyone who reviewed as a guest, I'm sorry I wasn't able to respond to you but thank you for your reviews all the same. I hope to hear from you guys soon!

Show some love, hit review? (:

-Saadie

P.S. If anyone just wants to chat, feel free to PM me. I'm always up to make new friends (: