Chapter Four
Interrogation 101
Updated 12/02/2011
"You know, love, we are alone in here. You can say 'piss' if you want to."
When Monroe awoke he found himself sitting in a small, nondescript room, his arms resting on the arms of the chair he was seated in. There was nothing else in the room but a large mirror on one wall, which Monroe immediately pegged as "two-way." There was no clock, no table, no other chairs, It was, he supposed, a typical interrogation room in a typical London police station, which he had fortunately never been in before (until now).
The first question Monroe planned for his would-be interrogators was, Why am I here? He'd tried to ask the two men who'd taken him in, but before he could get any answers out of them he was already here. Had he passed out, or had they done something like taser him? He couldn't remembering being hit with an electric shock, though.
Time passed, how much, Monroe couldn't say; his watch was no longer on his wrist. He'd tried to check his jacket pocket for his Record-A-Pen, but his arms were affixed to the chair, somehow, and he couldn't pull them loose. Whatever was going on here, he was just going to have to wait until they came to him.
Two large men entered the room, and Monroe sat up straight (at least, as much as he could, considering his arms were stuck to the chair), watching them warily. The larger of the pair had brown hair and seemed to wear a perpetual sneer on his face. The smaller man (though not smaller by much) had a crew cut and his dark hair looked coarse and bristly. He regarded Monroe with pinched expression, as if he would have preferred being in a badly maintained restroom rather than where he was. They were both dressed in black overcoats, shirts and pants with shiny black boots.
The larger of the two men seemed to be in charge. He positioned himself in front of Monroe while the other one stood off to one side, watching them. Both of them were regarding him with calculating looks. Monroe, for his part, could only stare impassively back at them until one of them decided to speak. It didn't take long.
"What," the big (okay, bigger) man, in a deep but surprisingly soft voice asked, "do you know about magic?"
"Magic?" Monroe gave him an inquiring, puzzled look. "What do you mean — like, 'Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out my hat?' magic, or what?"
The big man hesitated, confused. "Er — what?"
"Never saw that show?" Monroe wondered. "Maybe they never showed it here in England."
The two men looked at one another. "Never mind that," the big man said, irritably. "You know why you're here, doncha?"
"Not really," Monroe replied. "I just got out of an interview with Harry Potter-Evans-Verres and was on my way home to write it up, and you two came out of nowhere, knocked me out, and I woke up here. I'm still waiting to hear what you want."
"What we want," the other behemoth said, in a threatening tone. "Is for you to tell us what you an' Potter talked about."
"The S-Singularity," Monroe answered, hesitantly. He had a feeling these guys would have no idea what that was.
He was right. The two men looked at one another again. "Are we supposed to know what that is?" the smaller man asked.
"Nah," the bigger man said, dismissively. "Mr. Malfoy says it's some Muggle thing Potter's working on. He says it's not going to happen for a long time, if ever."
"How does Mr. Malfoy know that?" Monroe asked, wondering who this Malfoy character was.
"'Cause Mr. Malfoy's Head Auror an' he knows loads of stuff a stupid Muggle like you don't," the smaller man snarled.
"But I know what the Singularity is," Monroe replied, emboldened by their ignorance. "And apparently neither of you do. So both of you are more stupid than a Muggle." Whatever that was.
Both men stiffened. "This 'Singularity' nonsense is Muggle fairy tales!" the larger man snarled.
Monroe almost laughed. "It seems to me that you're just taking this Mr. Malfoy's word, and not trying to find out for yourself."
"It ain't our job to find out for ourselves!" the other man said. "It's our job to —"
"It's your job to do what you're told!" a new voice interjected. Both men looked around. Standing in the door was a tall, thin blond man, his hair flowing freely about his head. He had pale, sharp features, and was dressed similarly to the first two men. "I didn't tell you to question the detainee."
"We thought we'd warm him up for you, Boss," the smaller man muttered. "He doesn't want to talk —"
"Don't call me 'Boss,'" the blond snapped. "And of course he doesn't want to talk! Both of you —" he jerked a thumb at the door. "— get out. I'm going to talk to him alone. Go file your daily reports — it'll be time for us to go home soon."
Both of the behemoths nodded, looking cowed by this new man's presence, and quickly beat a path to the door. After they were gone, the blond man stood regarding Monroe for several minutes. Monroe tried to ignore it and wait him out, but the silence, after the badgering he'd endured from his previous interrrogators, was unnerving.
Finally the man spoke. "You are James Monroe, is that correct?"
"Yes," Monroe answered. "Are you going to tell me why I'm here?"
"Oh, I think you know why you're here," the blond man answered. "You were just conducting an interview with Harry Potter-Evans-Verres, were you not?"
"I was," Monroe agreed. Based on what the other two men had said, it seemed like they though he'd talked with Potter about something they weren't supposed to discuss. "We weren't supposed to discuss the Singularity?"
The man snorted derision. "We don't care about that, it's Mu — it's pseudoscientific claptrap."
"You mean 'Muggle' claptrap?" Monroe asked. "The other two guys used that word a lot."
The blond was silent for several moments. He appeared to be engaged in a silent debate with himself. "You don't need to worry about that," he said at last. "I just need to know what you and Potter talked about."
"The Singularity, like I said." Monroe was beginning to feel irritated; these men, whoever they were (because it was now clear they weren't the regular police) were clearly dismissive of the idea of the Singularity. Which was not an entirely new idea to Monroe — people dismissed the idea all the time, though less lately than they had in past years. "You may not like the idea but it's a lot more mainstream now than it was even five years ago."
"I doubt that Potter is really interested in it these days," the blond man retorted. "He's got more pressing concerns. It doesn't matter anyway —" he waved a hand dismissively. "Perhaps we should discuss the phrase that got you into the interview in the first place."
"What phrase is that?" Monroe looked puzzled. "'Mr. Potter, may I please have an interview?'"
"No." The blond looked annoyed. "Recognition code 927, I am a potato."
Monroe gave him a blank stare. "I've never heard that phrase before."
"Really?" The blond man wore a triumphant sneer. "How do you explain this, then?" He pointed to the mirror on the wall in front of them, and it shimmered, becoming a view screen. Onscreen was Monroe and the redhead he'd met outside Harry Potter's office, a Mrs. Thomas. As he watched, the woman was trying to steer him into leaving when he mentioned the line the blond man said he'd used.
"Well?" the blond man looked expectantly at him, when the image faded.
"That looked like me," Monroe admitted. "But I don't remember saying that."
The man was nodding slowly. "So…Obliviation, probably. Not that unexpected, really — he must have realized we were watching, dammit!"
"What's 'Obliviation'?" Monroe asked, apprehensive that it would be just what the word sounded like.
"Oh —" the blond man shrugged carelessly. "He made you forget some of your conversation with him. Perhaps most of it. I could test that, but it doesn't seem necessary."
"How would you test it?" Monroe asked. If Potter had made him forget things, he really wanted to find out what he'd forgotten, if possible.
The blond man gave him a calculating look. "I'd give you a few drops of Veritaserum," he said. "A few drops and you would truthfully tell everything you know about your conversation with Potter."
"I've never heard of this 'Veritaserum,'" Monroe said, slowly. "Obviously it's some kind of truth drug, but why would the British police use that kind of stuff? It sounds more like something MI5 would have. James Bond stuff."
"Police?" The blond man was giving him that calculating look again. "Oh, no…we're not the police, Mr. Monroe. We're the double secret police."
=ooo=
At that same time a few miles away, Harry Potter-Evans-Verres was sitting in the living room of his private residence reading today's copy of the Daily Prophet. Late afternoon was usually the first chance he got to read the wizarding newspaper, before Hermione got home and they either made dinner or went out to dine somewhere.
Harry's living room was similar to the same room in his parent's house — it was lined with bookshelves, upon which were thousands of books. Unlike his parents, however, these bookshelves held many more books than any normal bookshelf could — the result of Extension and Retrieval Charms that would allow stacks of books behind the rows showing to come forward for perusal and selection.
And those books, as numerous as they were (Harry would sometimes idly estimate to himself that his living room library contained almost 100,000 books, more than in the Hogwarts Library when he left the school) there were other libraries where he kept even more books, many of which would have most wizards gasping in surprise if they could read them. However, they were unreadable—a side-effect of a very old spell, the Interdict of Merlin, which made information about powerful spells written down by wizards unintelligible to anyone but the original author. Harry had been collecting books such as those from libraries and individual wizards across Britain for the past 20 years, beginning even before he left Hogwarts. One never knew when the Interdict might be lifted and those books could become readable by anyone.
For now, however, Harry had found an article about Hogwarts new Headmistress, Pomona Sprout, who was taking over for Minerva McGonagall, who had recently decided to retire after her 90th birthday. Headmistress Sprout had been approved by the governors of the school and today, August first, would be her official first day as Headmistress. She had announced at the ceremony that the position of Herbology Teacher had been accepted by Justin Finch-Fletchley.
Harry sighed softly to himself. It was a shame Neville wasn't around; he was a very good Herbology student — he would have made an excellent professor if he hadn't… well, there was no use dwelling on the past, Harry decided.
Harry heard the front door to their residence open. The "front door" actually led to a small waiting area containing a few chairs and access to an elevator that ran exclusively between the waiting room and the ground floor of the building, accessible to someone who could Apparate or Portkey into the room. And only Hermione (and a few others) knew the special unlocking spell that would open the door leading into their residence.
"I'm home!" Harry heard her call out a few seconds later. She walked into the living room, smiling as she saw him, and Harry put down the paper to return her greeting.
"Hello, love," he said. "Just now finishing work?"
"Yes," she nodded, sitting down in a nearby chair. "Very busy at work today," she sighed, sitting back wearily in the chair and closing her eyes. Once upon a time Hermione had rarely shown her tiredness to Harry; she tried to look tireless in front of him for much of the first year they knew one another, back at Hogwarts. Now, he hardly ever saw her when she wasn't tired or busy with work. It was a pretty sure bet she wouldn't be interested in making dinner for them tonight.
"Do you fancy dinner at Mary's Place tonight?" Harry asked, naming one of the finest restaurants in Diagon Alley. Without opening her eyes, Hermione shrugged slightly. "My treat," Harry added, and Hermione smiled without opening her eyes. It was something of a joke between them that whenever Hermione wanted to go to Mary's Place, Harry would suggest the Ministry should pick up the tab since she usually did nothing but discuss Ministry business while they were there.
Perhaps tonight would be different. Harry hoped so, because he didn't want to get into a discussion about what the "official Ministry position" on his interview with the Muggle journalist Monroe was. "Dean told me Ginny said she and her brother Ron saw you in Diagon Alley at lunch."
Hermione opened her eyes to look at him. "When did he tell you that?"
"Just before I left work earlier today. They were making plans to go to dinner and she mentioned it to him."
"How did your interview go?" she asked.
"Well enough," he said, his expression not changing beyond a slight shrug of his shoulders. "I suppose it'll keep up the Muggle interest in the Singularity."
"What did you think of your interviewer?" Hermione asked, closing her eyes once again. "Was he glad to finally get to see you?"
"Oh, I suppose," Harry replied. "Even though he burst into my office without knocking, trying to catch me off-guard."
"I'm not sure I could blame him," Hermione commented. "You've been giving him and that magazine of his the runaround for months now. Why did you give him that interview, Harry?" She looked over at him, her expression curious. "You've been telling me amount of exposure they could give you wasn't worth your while."
Harry was silent a moment. "Just — something he said," he replied, finally.
"What was that?" Hermione pressed. She already knew, of course, but she wanted to give her husband the chance to tell her by his own choice.
"He knew…the recognition code phrase I used as a kid," Harry said at last.
"Really?" Hermione feigned surprise, feeling slightly guilty for doing so. It was hard keeping secrets from her husband, but even he couldn't be privy to all the secrets the Ministry kept — especially ones that involved him. "Did you find out how he knew it?"
Harry wasn't looking at her. "Yeah, eventually," he muttered.
Hermione looked at him a long moment. "Are we going to need to reserve the 'Room' at Mary's Place tonight, to talk about it?"
"Why do you ask that?" Harry looked at her then, with the most innocent face. It was never a good sign, she knew, when he looked that innocent.
"I take it that's a yes," she shook her head wearily. "I'll make the reservation."
=ooo=
Mary's Place contained a special, separate dining area known as "Mary's Room." This room, as Harry had once been told, was used by two kinds of people: the first sort were engaged in illicit dalliances, and the second sort led interesting lives.
He and Hermione were now seated in that room, perusing their menus as the waitress, a young woman neither of them recognized, waited for them to make up their minds. Harry, who had already eaten filet mignon earlier that day, decided on roasted Diracawl breast in Dirigible Plum sauce, with Sopophorus potatoes au gratin and carrots. Hermione, after intense internal debate, settled on a vegetable lasagna and a salad. The young woman bowed respectfully and silently left the room, closing the door behind her.
Hermione took out her wand, pointing it to the bolt on the door, which slid into place with a metallic clack. She then spoke half a dozen wards, enough to sufficiently protect them from any scyring of the room by anyone capable of wizardry of lesser caliber than, say, Albus Dumbledore himself.
"So," she said, putting away her wand. "What went on between you and that journalist, James Monroe?"
"Mostly just that interview," Harry answered. "He didn't remember where he'd heard the recognition code."
"And you were satisfied with that?" Hermione asked, skeptically. She knew Harry better than that. "What would Dean say about it, if I asked him?"
"Dean doesn't know anything," Harry said, truthfully. "Ginny heard the guy say it, though, after she'd already Obliviated him when he broke into my office."
"Ginny Obliviated someone?" Hermione looked shocked.
"It was within Ministry guidelines," Harry said, in a placating manner. "He might have noticed that my office is… a bit too big for where it is on that floor."
"Never mind that, then," Hermione dismissed that issue. "Do you know that Monroe is still at the Ministry, even now, being questioned by Malfoy?"
Harry frowned. "It sounds like Malfoy's just trying to twist my tail. Monroe doesn't know anything."
"He wouldn't be there now if you hadn't made it look so suspicious in the first place," Hermione pointed out.
"Wait a minute," Harry was annoyed at her implication. "You're saying it's my fault Malfoy's treating him like crap? I can't control what Draco does!"
"You can control what you do, Harry!" Hermione argued. "Your interview should have taken an hour — Monroe was there for over three! Of course Draco's going to be suspicious!"
"I had him stay for lunch!" Harry protested. "What's wrong with lunch? Malfoy's just being vindictive!"
"Well, he's got reason to be, hasn't he?" Hermione said, wearily. "You and he haven't exactly been great friends since we all left Hogwarts."
"He went one way, I went another," Harry reminded her. "You know I wasn't going to let Lucius Malfoy decide what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I already had plans, Hermione!"
"I know that," she said, quietly. "They didn't seem to include me then, either."
"Now that's not fair," Harry warned her. "You — you had other priorities then, too. You were the one who said we were through."
"But I didn't really mean it." Hermione's voice was almost a whisper now. "I thought you'd get that. But I was wrong."
Harry's mouth twisted with frustration. "You went to university, too," he said, his voice lowering in response to hers. "It impressed the hell out of Scrimgeour when you came back, didn't it?"
"Yes," she nodded. "I wondered if it would go against me, spending four years in a Muggle college, but Scrimgeour liked my ideas. Not everyone did, though."
It was true. There were some at the Ministry who were not impressed with Muggle education, no matter how progressive its ideas, and Draco Malfoy, then an Auror, had said as much. It was debatable whether his remarks would have gotten him fired — being the son of Lord Malfoy, Draco getting sacked wasn't in the cards, even then. Lord Malfoy was still a force to be reckoned with, in the Wizengamot and in the Ministry itself. Ironically, however, it wasn't until Hermione herself became Minister that Draco was made Head Auror, under her administration.
There was silence for a time. Hermione fidgeted with a cloth napkin while Harry pretended to study the walls of Mary's Room in detail. At a sudden knock on the door Hermione jumped, then drew her wand and waved it at the door, opening the bolt and causing the door to swing open. The server, carrying their meals, appeared and quickly set them on the table, then bowed and departed. The bolt slammed shut again and wards were put up again, but neither of them spoke again for some time.
Finally Hermione looked at Harry. "So, what are you going to do about Mr. Monroe?" she asked, taking a bit of her salad.
It took Harry a while to answer — two mouthfuls of her lasagna, in fact. "Nothing, I think. If I try to intercede on his behalf it's going to look to Malfoy like I'm trying to hide something."
"And you aren't?" Hermione sounded extremely skeptical.
"I removed Monroe's memory about the recognition code," Harry admitted. "There's nothing else for him to talk about except the interview, and Draco thinks the Singularity is a Muggle pipe dream. He's probably scared Monroe learned something about the Wizarding world and is going to spill what he knows in that magazine he works for, or on the Web." Harry took a bite of his Diricawl breast. "This is very good, by the way. Do you want a bite?"
"Maybe later." Hermione had a worried expression on her face. "Harry. You may think Draco is out to get you, but he's not Head Auror because he's a vindictive ba- because he's vindictive. He's Head Auror because he knows how to anticipate problems and deal proactively with them. One of those problems is threats to the Secrecy Statutes. You know that —"
"Yes, I do," Harry agreed, cutting her off. He put down his fork. "Okay, look—I'll level with you. I did find out how Monroe knew the recognition code."
Hermione leaned forward, her vegetable lasagna forgotten. "How?"
Harry gave her a level look. "I used the Pensieve."
Hermione's head dropped. "Oh, Harry…" she said, into her lasagna.
"I had to know!" Harry exclaimed, almost pleadingly. "I haven't used that mnemonic since before I left Hogwarts!"
Hermione didn't answer right away. When she finally looked up, her expression was determined. "So," she said, with a brisk finality, "what are you going to do to help free Mr. Monroe, since you're the primary reason he's being held by the Aurors in the first place?"
"What do you want me to do?" Harry asked plaintively. "If I intervene on his behalf it's going to make Draco suspicious."
"He's already suspicious!" Hermione snapped. "But he may just think this is some way for you to take the — mickey — out of him."
Harry made a show of looking about the room for several moment. "You know, love, we are alone in here. You can say 'piss' if you want to."
Hermione ignored that comment. "Are you going to do something to help him, or am I going to have to do it?"
"That's not going to help at all," Harry pointed out. "Draco's going to think you're covering for me." Hermione made no response to this, either; she simply continued to stare sternly at him across the table.
Harry fidgeted unconsciously; he know that stare—it meant he wasn't talking his way out of this no matter how hard he tried.
"All right!" he said at last. "We'll stop by the Ministry on our way home; I'll convince Draco that Monroe really knows nothing."
"Because you Obliviated him," Hermione added, pointedly.
"He already knows that!" Harry said, curtly.
"And how do you know that?" Hermione challenged.
Harry cocked his head. "Because he has my office and waiting area under surveillance." Not to mention my private dining room, he didn't add aloud. It would be useful to keep that to himself, in case he wanted to pass some disinformation along to the Ministry snoops. Now, would his wife pretend she didn't know anything about the bugs he just mentioned?
Hermione stared at him for over a minute before she said. "How did you find that out?"
"I'm CEO of a global corporation," Harry replied, standing up, his Diricawl breast only half-finished. "I expect the competition to try and find out what I'm doing."
Hermione didn't look happy, though she stood as well, watching as Harry dropped a handful of Galleons on the ticket the server had left with their food. "The Ministry isn't your competition, Harry," she told him, a hint of sadness in her voice. "Don't make this about you and Draco and your — your pissing contest." She gave him a defiant look. "And don't make this about you and me — I'm not going to bail you out of this."
"I wouldn't expect you to," Harry said, levelly. "Draco is not going to be a problem."
=ooo=
Monroe was slumped forward in his chair, held up only by whatever held his arms to the armrests. His captor had been questioning him, seemingly for hours, for no reason Monroe could discern and seemingly no end in sight. How could he convince the man that he knew nothing about what Potter was doing?
"It would be a lot simpler," the blond-haired man. Malfoy, was saying. "If you would just activate whatever's going to restore your memory when you leave here. We're going to find out anyway, eventually."
"I still don't know what you're talking about," Monroe muttered wearily. "You're the one who's saying my memory was erased — I have to take your word for it! And I have to take your word that there's some way to get that memory back."
"Potter's tricky," Malfoy replied, ignoring Monroe's excuses. Potter would have given him false memories, memories layered in place of the ones he'd removed. "There are ways he could restore the memories he took from you without you ever knowing what you were carrying that would do that. We've examined everything you were carrying on you when you arrived; none of it is enchanted, or not so that we can detect, anyway. What were you going to do when you got home?"
Monroe blinked, trying to remember. "I was — going to check my Record-A-Pen for any saved audio."
"This?" Malfoy asked, holding up the pen-like object. "How?"
"Um…twist the clip, it will reveal some buttons that can be used to download the contents to a MP3 player."
"Do you have one of these 'MP3 players'?"
"In my…in my briefcase," Monroe said, trying to remember whether there really was one in there or not. He thought there was, but how could he know? What if Malfoy had already taken it? What if Potter had taken it? He had no idea who was trustworthy any more.
The blond man reached into a small pouch on his belt and muttered something Monroe couldn't hear. A moment later he began withdrawing his hand, and Monroe gaped as the pouch's lip suddenly began widening… as he watched, disbelieving, his entire briefcase came out of the pouch with an audible burp.
"What the hell?" Monroe gasped, though he felt too tired to shout as loudly as he wanted to. "How could —" He suddenly stopped as Malfoy drew a stick from another pocket with his free hand, waving it in front of himself. A small table appeared out of nowhere, and the man set Monroe's briefcase on top of it, then tapped it with his wand, causing the case to pop open.
Malfoy looked over the contents of the briefcase carefully. He finally picked up a small device the size of a lighter. "Is this it?" he asked.
Monroe nodded without saying anything. What could he say? Things had just leaped past strange into the surreal. The man held out the player toward him. "How does it work?" he asked.
"My arms…" Monroe began, but at that moment both of them suddenly came free. Monroe rubbed his forearms for a moment, then took the player from Malfoy.
"Have it play whatever's on it," Malfoy ordered.
"It's empty," Monroe said, glancing at the small display. "I haven't downloaded —"
"Just activate it," the blond man ordered, in a preemptive tone. Monroe obediently pushed the play button. There was a quick double beep indicating nothing was on the device. Monroe looked at his captor, shrugging to indicate he didn't know what else to do.
"Activate any hidden recordings on it," Malfoy told him.
"There aren't any," Monroe snapped, annoyed at the man's seeming paranoia. "It's just a plain old MP3 player, not some fancy James Bond device."
Malfoy started to speak again, but a tapping sound from behind the mirror diverted his attention. He looked back at the mirror, putting a hand to his ear.
"Hell," he muttered softly, then looked back at Monroe. "It seems someone's here to argue for your release." He waved the stick he carried at Monroe, whose arms were suddenly pulled back against the chair's armrests. "Sit tight."
"Like I have any choice," Monroe muttered, as the man left the room.
In the hallway outside the interrogation room were Harry and Hermione, with Crabbe and Goyle standing behind them, trying (and failing) to appear inconspicuous. Malfoy gave Potter and the Minister an expressionless look before asking of Potter, "Are you here to rescue your pet Muggle?"
"He's not my pet Muggle," Harry replied, his look equally expressionless. "But you're not going to get anything out of him."
"Oh?" Malfoy allowed himself a knowing sneer. "How do you know that?"
"Because there's nothing for him to tell you," Harry replied at once. "Remember, I spent over three hours with him earlier today."
"I'm quite aware of that," Malfoy retorted, with a short glance at Hermione, whose expression remained calm and aloof. "That's part of my problem, as you should well know."
"Yeah, I know," Harry grinned. "You probably think I planted some kind of knowledge time-bomb in his head," he pointed to his own temple for emphasis.
"Or something even more devious," Malfoy agreed, humorlessly. "There's very little I put past you these days, Potter."
"Would you two please stop this…pissing contest," Hermione finally spoke up. Both men looked at her. Behind her and Harry, Crabbe and Goyle gave each other small, knowing smiles. For a mudblood, this Minister could mix it up with Mr. Malfoy pretty good.
"Neither of you trust one another," Hermione went on. "We all know that. And neither of you are going admit you've gone too far in this — this fiasco of an interrogation. But both of you have; Draco, because there's no good reason to suspect this Monroe of knowing anything he shouldn't, and Harry, because he should never have let the man come under Ministry scrutiny in the first place.
"So I want you the two of you to get past this petty bickering amongst yourselves and solve the problem," Hermione declared, with finality.
Harry was giving her a look of mild amusement. "I thought you weren't going to intervene in my behalf," he commented.
"I haven't," Hermione retorted. "I'm intervening in Mr. Monroe's behalf. He's the one whose time you're wasting right now."
"As well as mine," Draco added, giving Harry a hard stare. "If all this is unnecessary and the Muggle really knows nothing. Which I doubt," he finished.
Harry folded his arms across his chest, saying nothing. It was hard to tell whether he was simply being stubborn or whether some deeper, more devious plot was being hatched within his brain.
"Alright," he said at last. "I'll tell you what I know. I found out where Monroe heard the recognition code phrase."
"Finally." Malfoy waited expectantly.
"He saw it written on a scrap of paper I left on the Ravenclaw table next to him at breakfast, my first day at Hogwarts."
"What?" Hermione and Draco both exclaimed at the same time. Behind them, even Crabbe and Goyle were jolted by this news. The Minister and the Head Auror glanced at one another, then Draco spoke.
"He's a Muggle, Harry! How could he possibly have been at Hogwarts? Did you know about this, Minister?"
Hermione shook her head. "He told me he found out, but not the details, until just now. Harry, what you're saying is impossible."
"I know that," Harry agreed, evenly. "But that's what I saw in the Pensieve."
"You used the Pensieve on him?" Draco practically shouted. "No wonder you Obliviated him!"
"I slipped a Hypnotic Potion into his food before I showed him anything magical," Harry replied. He had indeed done that, but the dosage was so small that the effects would have lasted only a minute or so — Harry had only wanted enough in the Muggle's system that it would register if checked for, giving him a valid reason for revealing magic to a Muggle. "It was supposed to last longer, but I must've miscalculated how much of it he ate. He woke up while we were still in the Pensieve, and I had to Obliviate him. Otherwise I would have just given him a post-hypnotic suggestion not to remember what he'd seen, and you'd have picked that up during your questioning." The handy thing about being a perfect Occlumens, Harry knew, was that even staring directly into Malfoy's eyes, he knew there was no way the Head Auror could tell he was lying. It was legal to reveal the existence of magic to a Muggle if he or she were already under the influence of a mind-altering potion or spell (or if they were a blood relative, in the case of Muggle-borns).
"I didn't detect that," Malfoy replied, not surprisingly, and Harry reflected that there was no way for him to be sure that Draco wasn't a perfect Occlumens as well — it was certainly something Lord Malfoy would have ordered his son to train for. On the other hand, Draco might have tested for it and gotten a false negative result. "I've been waiting for you to admit your reason for Obliviating him."
He was probably lying about that, Harry concluded. So — Draco was a perfect Occlumens as well. Another tidbit of information for him to file away about the Head Auror. Aloud, however, he said only, "What do you make of his memory of being at Hogwarts, then?"
Draco was silent for several seconds, contemplating. "It sounds like a false memory," he said at last. "I don't remember anyone there named James Monroe."
"Neither do I," Hermione chimed in. "But why would anyone put a false memory like that into a Muggle?"
"To send Harry a message," Draco suggested. That seemed pretty obvious. It was the kind of setup Draco himself would have concocted, if he were serious about getting Harry Potter into trouble — try to trip him up, get him to do something illegal so he could nail him. As it was, Harry was skirting the edges of legality with the Hypnotic Potion (if he'd actually used, it; Draco had lied about detecting it and Harry might have fallen for that, but it was unlikely). He didn't have enough to bring Harry before the Wizengamot for violating the Secrecy restrictions; you had to knowingly violate them, which Harry hadn't (if his story was true, and Draco couldn't disprove it at the moment, not without corroborating evidence from Monroe).
"What kind of message would that be?" Hermione wanted to know. She couldn't quite see into the more subtle moves some Dark wizards might try, things Harry and Draco were both well accustomed to, but it was obvious that anyone using a Muggle this way was up to no good.
"That things aren't as they appear," Harry said. "Monroe couldn't have been at Hogwarts, but his memories indicate he was, so someone is manipulating all of this." He did not look happy. Usually it was him manipulating things — he did not care to have someone trying to pull his strings.
"What do you want to do, then?" Draco asked, though he wasn't sure he was going to agree with Harry's answer.
"Let him go," Harry said. "Obliviate any memories he has of this place, place him in his home, asleep, and let him wake up normally tomorrow. Let him think he went to bed too tired to write anything yesterday."
"And how does that position us to find out what's really going on?" Draco asked, skeptically.
"If someone's pulling Monroe's strings, he'll show up again," Harry hypothesized. "And it's almost certain someone's manipulating him." And he was going to find out who that was, Harry promised himself.
Draco frowned. If Harry was right about this, it was a good way to shunt him and the Ministry out of the way while he interrogated Monroe about it at his leisure. On the other hand, the questioning of Monroe was going nowhere at the moment — if there was something he was hiding, it was hidden from Monroe as well, probably by whoever was manipulating him. He would have to be extra-vigilant about monitoring Potter's movements and contacts for the next few weeks.
"Very well," he said at last. He looked past Harry and Hermione to his two subordinates. "You two, get Monroe back to his apartment and remove his memories of being here in the Ministry or of anyone to do with it, including yourselves. Put him to sleep and leave no trace of yourselves in his apartment."
"Yes, Mr. Malfoy," Crabbe nodded, and they went into the room where Monroe was sitting, still fixed to his chair.
As they left, Harry muttered, "Good minions," under his breath, but still audible enough to be heard. Crabbe shot him a look, but Malfoy shook his head fractionally and the big man turned away with a grunt, saying nothing.
"You know," Draco said, almost conversationally, after they were gone. "Both Vincent and Gregory are fully qualified in their professions at the Ministry — you don't have to keep rubbing that in." Harry made no comment, simply holding up his hands in a gesture of no contest.
"Well, I'm going home," Draco added, when it was clear Hermione had nothing further to say. "Both of you have a good evening." He walked away from them.
A few moments later both Harry and Hermione turned and began walking toward the elevators that would take them to the Atrium and from there, a Floo trip back to their building. "Do you really think someone else is involved?" Hermione asked as they entered the elevator.
"I don't know," Harry answered honestly. "But I don't know anyone beside Draco who might have pulled this off, and I don't think he's the one this time." He paused for a moment, considering. "Maybe I should have a chat with my experts on impossible situations."
=ooo=
James Monroe awoke early the next morning, his thoughts fuzzy and confused. He was in his own bedroom, he could tell, but how he got home or what he did before going to sleep he had no idea. In fact, he could remember nothing that had happened after he walked out of the TBC building the day before.
Monroe sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. What did he remember from yesterday? It all seemed a jumble of disassociated memories; the only thing he could recall clearly was his interview with Harry Potter —
A clear thought suddenly burned in his brain, something he'd known before, but had somehow forgotten: Recognition code 927, I am a potato.
And with that, all of yesterday suddenly returned, unbidden, into his mind. Monroe stared upward, astonished, at the memories that suddenly filled his head. If only half of this wasn't just some dream or hallucination, then he was sitting on the biggest story of the century, or the millennium. Monroe grabbed a notepad and pencil off his nightstand and began furiously writing down what he recalled.