I do not own anything to do with Star Wars and Harry Potter, rights are currently held by Disney and Warner Bros respectively.
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Revelations
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John walked back to his house, head spinning. All that time that he and the Dursleys had lived… near each other, he had never suspected that they were secret child abusers.
They had seemed so normal. Almost unnaturally so, in fact.
"What's going on at the Dursleys?"
John looked up to see the love of his life standing at the top of the stairs.
"The Dursleys… were mistreating their nephew."
"Their nephew? That black-haired child that Petunia said was a no-good child of her disgraceful sister?"
"They were keeping him locked under the stairs." John said heavily. Intellectually, he knew that it hadn't been proven, but the sight of the dirty matress stuffed under the stairs weighed heavily on his heart. He and his wife had always wanted children, but an attack of the measles as a child had left him sterile, unable to ever have a child of his own flesh and blood. The longing had never really left them and knowing that an unwanted child had been so close, and that they'd never even suspected…
"Clarissa." He said. "If the police find him, do you think we could give him a home? Or maybe one for another child who has suffered."
Clarissa froze, then stared at him. John had been ambivalent about taking in a child for years, but now…
"What happened?" She asked, knowing instinctively that something had upset him, had torn away a scab that they had both thought long-healed.
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"Captain."
The captain walked to the front door, or where it had once stood, and looked at the edge of the hole.
"Any idea what caused this?"
"None, sir." Carlton replied. "Even Killer is stumped."
The captain whistled. Officer Kellan, known to many as Killer due to his pivotal role in a particularly nasty case in which only his unorthodox and borderline-illegal actions had saved the little girl, although the man who had taken her hostage had fallen to his death, was the expert on melee weapons, blades and modified tools, a legacy of his time in the army.
He was also the force's combat instructor and one of the nicest, gentlest men in the service, unless a child was in danger.
"Did he have any ideas?"
Carlton shrugged. "He said it looked like it had been done by something from the Flash Gordon films. Whatever was used sliced through the brick almost as if it wasn't there, but left tiny burn marks. He's considered writing to George Lucas to ask if he has any ideas."
The captain looked at the cut with a new appreciation. "So, no normal device could have done it, but a laser blade could?"
Carlton stared at him in shock.
"What? Lucas did a damned good job with those Flash Gordon films of his. My son wants me to take him to see the third one when it comes out. So, what do we know?"
Shaking his head slightly as he fought with the realisation that his captain enjoyed science fiction, Carlton let his professional reflexes take over.
"The door was cut away from the inside and pulled down, we aren't certain why, but Sarge thinks it was to get us here so that we could see what the Dursleys did. The kitchen door was closed but unlocked, the key on the inside. We don't know how the intruder got in and the fact that the cutting angles indicate that the stair cupboard was sliced open from inside is… confusing. If the weapon used had been outside, cutting around the padlock would have been faster and more logical.
"We have partial handprints, from the size we think that the intruder was female."
"Mrs Dursley's sister?" the captain asked and Carlton shook his head.
"No, sir. She's dead, as is the husband. James Potter and Lily Potter, nee Evans, both died on Halloween eight-one and are buried in Godric's Hollow. One son registered, Harry James Potter, who was born of July thirtieth, nineteen eighty. Cause of death, unknown."
The captain frowned in thought. "Get me full details on them, and I mean full! I want to know where they were born, to whom, where they went to school… something about this whole thing stinks, and I want to know what."
"Already checked, sir." Carlton said with a frown. "Not much on them, but they went to a private school in Scotland, we couldn't get the name or the location. For some reason, Petunia Dursley didn't, so it's possible that she felt left out and took it out on her nephew."
The Captain nodded thoughtfully. "How is the house to house going?"
"Not much more in the way of details, sir. Only rumour and fragments of information, but we do know that Vernon has an older sister named Marjorie, Timmons has already gone to see if she knows anything."
"And that woman is a monster." Timmons growled as she walked up to them. "Half a dozen dangerous dogs, she breeds them! Went on and on about how James Potter was a criminal who lived on benefits and how Lily Potter was a whore who sullied the reputation of her family and that their son was already a scumbag who needed a good thrashing. I called headquarters to check, and they have nothing on James and Lily Potter, no criminal records and no benefits records."
The Captain nodded again.
"Damn." Carlton mused. "What the hell is going on?"
Their attention was caught by a van pulling up, a van that wasn't a police van but had a very distinct livery on the side.
"Check your uniforms." The Captain nodded. "Looks like we're going on national television."
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Rita Skeeter, up-and-coming journalist, amazing beauty, insightful writer and (the last she admitted to herself in the quietest corner of her mind) unregistered Animagus, was sat in a pub enjoying a beer while half-listening to the television in the corner. Even after several years of exposure to the Muggle world, Rita was still awed by how much they managed to achieve without magic. The Wizarding World had the Wizarding Wireless, but it had nothing that could capture moving images and throw them across the country, let alone the world. The Muggles kept coming up with new things, new models of atomobles (or however they were pronounced), new devices meant to help clean the house instead of relying on household spells and house elves… Rita had invested in several devices for herself and discovered in the process that the old belief about magic and electricity not mixing was wrong. Curiosity had led her to research where the belief had sprung from and the only places where technology consistently failed was at Hogwarts and the lesser schools. It was while sneaking around at one of them that she had found the answer in the back-files, specialised wards against electrical devices created during a brief window when all the schools were led by pure-blood proponants who looked down on the Muggles and Muggle-born. The wards had been tied into the protections, then simply forgotten about, giving rise to the mistaken belief that the Muggle world and the Magical world simply couldn't mix.
Her self-congratulatory musing was cut short when a name sounded from the television and she leaned across the bar.
"Sorry, can you turn the news up a bit, please? And get me a pack of crisps?"
The bartender turned the volume up and Rita stared at the screen even as she absently placed a pound note on the bar.
"Keep the change." She muttered as her attention focused on the news story that would shake the wizarding world to its foundations.
"… taken from the house by an as-yet unknown person. Evidence left behind shows that Harry Potter went willingly and without hesitation. At this time, we are still searching for the Dursley family."
The scene cut back to the main studio where the newsreader looked directly at the camera, a somber expression on his face.
"The hidden secret of Privet Drive, a young boy, held prisoner in a small cupboard by a locally-known family and rescued by an unknown person. Noted child psychologist Frank Shields joins us in the studio with his opinion on this heartrending case. Mr Shields?"
"Thank you. On the surface, this case is terrible, a young boy abused by his aunt and uncle, an aunt and uncle who refuse to acknowledge him as proven by the fact that there was not a single photo in the house of him, but dozens of the other boy. Whoever took him has, as shown by the scraps of cloth left behind, made new clothes for him. This shows that although the rescuer may not have expected to find what she did…"
"She?" the newsreader asked and Shields nodded.
"A partial handprint was found, as were several footprints. From the their size and shape, as well as the sewing skill demonstrated, the mysterious intruder is almost certainly female. Finding the young Harry Potter may have triggered her maternal instincts and when she left, she took him with her.
"The police have examined the leftover clothing and scraps, they believe that from the patterns, the woman was probably Chinese or Japanese and an expert seamstress, probably with a background in clothesmaking. A friend of mine created some sketches of what the clothes probably look like, I have a picture here."
The picture of a young boy flashed up on the screen and Rita almost choked. Although not a proper set of robes, the outfit would have passed without comment on Diagon Alley! The rescuer was a witch!
"As for young Harry Potter's mental state, evidence suggests that when he came to stay at the Dursleys at little over a year old after the death of his parents, the Dursleys chose to place him in the cupboard under the stairs. From that point, he would have grown starved of attention and judging from the rumours about him that they spread, with no sense of self-worth. Given that, it is no surprise that he would head off with the first person to take an interest in his well-being. I can only hope that wherever he is, he is happy and that his rescuer continues to look out for him."
"Thank you, Mr Shield."
Rita pocketed the crisps and quickly downed the rest of her beer before striding out of the pub. She needed to do some serious research and seeing what was in the Muggle newspapers was a good start. Unlike the Wizarding newspapers, the Muggle Newspapers did their best to report the facts and keep speculation down to an absolute minimum. If the story was in the papers, then she would be able to gather almost as many details as if she was on the scene herself.
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Barnabus Cuffe leafed through the material that Rita had dumped on his desk, his alarm and excitement both growing by the second. After several moments, he sat back in his heavily-upholstered chair and stared at Rita.
"Alright, you're on the staff. Anyone who can bring me a story as shocking as a Crucio deserves to be on staff permanently. Now, how were you thinking of doing this? If we play up the Muggle angle, Millicent Bagnold's going to have our heads for trying to revive the Death Eaters."
Rita nodded. "I was thinking we should start with a quick reminder of the whole Boy-who-lived angle, then note that he vanished from the Wizarding World before revealing he was placed with his Muggles relatives. Throw in several Muggle quotes from… this paper, showing just how bad they were compared to normal Muggles and from there we can lead to questioning who put Harry there and why.
"I checked with Gringotts and the Potter's will was sealed by Albus Dumbledore. We can start a campaign to find out why the will was sealed, maybe even get it unsealed and publicly read, for it to have been sealed it must have been explosive and it'll give us more to work with.
"Then, we can start speculating about the witch who rescued Harry. The cupboard was cut open from the inside, I think it must have been accidental magic, showing that Harry's really powerful. The doorway reeks of a well-controlled cutting curse, but the amount of control needed to cut through almost but not quite all the way? We're talking the reincarnation of Morgana le Faie, but on the side of good.
"As for the headline, I was thinking The Boy Who Was Abused."
Barnabus leaned forwards, a predatory grin on his face.
"I like it!"
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The first clue that Vernon Dursley had that his perfectly normal life was collapsing was when he opened his morning newspaper and found himself looking straight at his own picture. For almost a minute, he stared in shock at the unexpected sight, then he carefully put down the paper and closed his eyes in thought.
Something had gone seriously wrong, and he was prepared to bet his pension that it was the Freak's fault.
Re-opening the paper and completely missing the sudden exit of the owner of the Bed & Breakfast they were staying at, Vernon read the story with a mounting sense of self-rightous anger. Someone had not just broken, but cut their way into his house, chopped open the stairs to get to the freak, cut up his best clothes and then run off, taking the damned freak of a nephew with… her? So he couldn't even force the Freak to work off the cost of repairs!
And the police had named him as a wanted man? How was he ever going to get his life back to normal after this? He'd thrash the Freak to within an inch of his… it's life for this… this insult!
"Vernon Dursley?"
Vernon looked up, ready to snap at whoever had the temerity to interrupt him, only for his red-mottled face to go white as he saw no less than four police officers had entered the room.
"Your presence is requested at the station, Mr Dursley. Yours as well, Mrs Dursley."
Vernon fought to get his thoughts under control.
It was all the Freak's fault, and one day, revenge would be his!
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"Charlus Winston, MI-thirteen." The nondescript man said, causing the officer behind the desk to look up in surprise. "Here about the Potter case, the parents were known persons of interest and valuable opratives before their untimely demise."
The officer nodded and picked up his phone, dialling a number and talking qietly but firmly into it. A couple of moments passed, then the captain appeared.
"Captain Theophilus Black. How can I help you?"
Winston looked at him curiously. "Black… Black… was your father…?"
"Marius Black. May I ask why?"
"Of course, but privately." Winston said. Captain Black frowned but led him to an interrogation room, closing the door behind them.
"Alright, what's so important about my father? And does it link to the Potter case?"
"Marius' father was Cygnus Black?"
"But he disowned him for some reason, yes." Theophilus almost snarled and Winston held up a hand in a calming gesture.
"I needed to know. Do you recognise what this represents?"
Theophilus stared at the stick in Winston's other hand. "That's… a wand?"
"So you know about magic, good. Your file will be updated to show you're now part of the Merlin Club, someone will visit later to explain the ramifications. Your grandfather was a powerful wizard, but your father Marius was born without magic and was cast out of the family. The Potters were also magical, which is why there are so few records of them, they were murdered in…"
"Eighty-one on Halloween." Black interrupted. "You said murdered, who was responsible?"
"The one known as the Dark Lord." Winston said, ignoring Black's snort at the pretentious title. "However, he himself was killed when he tried to use a killing curse on the young Harry Potter after killing James and Lily. Harry was placed in hiding to protect him from the Dark Lord's more… fanatical followers, something which has backfired enormously. The Wizengamot is… not happy that their greatest hero has vanished."
"The what?"
