AN: This was a little rough to write I admit...trying to move the story along while getting the emotions across. Enjoy!
This was not going to be a good day. Harry had woken up, started cleaning and then cried when he met Talisha MacFarland in her morning mood without coffee and took a good while to calm down. Apparently Talisha had long midnight flight and got in earlier than Marina knew. When he finally did and Talisha had a cup of coffee, Marina began the lovely conversation with the old crone that Harry was going to be her son. Talisha was not impressed, because she knew the demands of working for the government and secret operations of the government. She was quick to ascertain Harry would need a lot of support that Marina may not be able to provide and did she mention, too young?
That quickly made Harry cry again since he thought Talisha had easily made Marina change her mind considering she was so quiet, especially when Talisha commented how strange it was for a kid to want to start cleaning so early. They both quickly found out how infuriated she was with Talisha and protective of Harry. She quickly reassured them both that she was perfectly capable of taking care of Harry, manage her job and love the boy very much since she was already in love with him. Marina may have mentioned that it was okay if Harry wanted to clean, but he need only clean when she asked and he could watch TV or take a bath in the mornings if he woke up before her again.
After that, they had breakfast while Talisha and Marina talked specifics and much to Marina's amusement, Talisha would not let Harry leave the table until he had a "full breakfast." Harry seemed to develop more of adoration for the woman as he was told to eat as much as he wanted and moved away from how scared he was when he met her that morning. Talisha even stated the boy had a good judge of character if he wasn't scared of her for making him cry. Harry had flushed and said that although he didn't want to leave, he knew Talisha liked Marina and was trying to make sure Marina was okay. There was still a healthy dose of respect for Talisha, but Talisha's general demeanour demanded that of the people she met.
When Marina met Talisha for the first time a year after working with Mycroft and commented on it, she said it was habit of the workplace and she could see Marina already developing it and not due to cold calculations for an operation like Talisha, but her candour about a lot of the context to those operations. Shortly thereafter Talisha found out Marina was fae and laughed hard when she said that made so much sense. She quickly demanded Mycroft send Marina to her whenever she was back in the country to live with, because there was a lot she could teach the young girl, much to the horror of Mycroft's security and intelligence network. Marina already had a reputation for being efficient and generally unnatural, especially when it was obvious she didn't get reprimanded or conveniently disappeared for being too familiar with Mycroft. Her learning from Talisha MacFarland, a legend in British intelligence? Mycroft's personnel were even more nervous to be around Marina in spite of her amiable and caring personality.
So at 8 am, when Marina walked in with a kid that quickly went to Mycroft's office, grabbed a book he wanted to finish and sat beside Mycroft's desk near his feet quietly, Mycroft's personnel didn't even bother to gossip. The implications were too scary to consider and they would lose their job quickly, since their role was to be the model of discretion. If they happened to make Marina's morning that little bit more difficult, because of the implications, then they just decidedly made her day worse. No one was willing to come to her desk to give her the briefings Mycroft needed and when they did, they stared at Harry. This made her mood a little foul, but none more so than how her meeting went with Petunia Dursley and the subsequent lunch she had.
Petunia came with only a few boxes and went to a private conference room with Marina to discuss the paperwork, necessary documents and familial health concerns, any information she could get about Harry from Petunia. It took an entire teapot before Petunia was open about their personal lives, what were the normal schedule and various technical things that would need to be taken care of within the next week. Petunia offered to take care of the matter of notifying the school for her since she was not legally able to yet, much to Petunia's amazement when she thought the woman was older. It took another pot with a pastry before Marina could get Petunia to talk about herself. Marina could see where the jealousy came from that Mycroft saw.
Sisters that loved each other very much and wanted to be together always, torn apart by supernatural means and the unintentional extra care their parents gave to the witch sister who also had the love of Petunia's own unrequited love. A boy they grew up with who was just as special as her sister. Something they could bond over, which they did and then the sister turned and loved another, never forgiving why the friend they grew up with became dark. Petunia knew why the friend, she understood, lived in fear of the implication of what was going on in her sister's world and with their childhood friend, but still bitterly supported them. Until their parents died as a consequence of their involvement in the war, then Petunia left without word, missed her sister's wedding and into the arms of Vernon Dursley who was the first person to see her before her sister, to love her and not love her sister. Things were great and he was great when she found out her sister died, until Harry was put on their doorstep. Then the very things Vernon hated or was scared of about the different world, he slowly became bitter and spiteful in his own way to Petunia and Harry that carried the unnatural genes. With finally saying it aloud, Petunia sobbed and Marina held her, knowing there was more to her story about her and Vernon with how heavy she was crying and shaking. Especially as Marina heard Petunia admit that she was not in a good marriage and slowly realized what was needed to be done. When she started to panic about even considering leaving her husband for the sake of her health and her son who could learn terrible habits from him and his sister, Marina quickly assured her it could be done, but would be difficult and handed her the card of a lawyer she dated three months prior that could help. She also gave the lawyer's brother's card who was a family therapist.
After that, things flowed smoothly although the information still aggravated Marina, but she was able to get a vile of blood from Petunia in case of necessary blood adoption rituals and a magical signed contract to handle the wizarding laws of adoption. When Petunia began to leave, she thanked Marina softly and was about to turn until she saw Harry in Mycroft's office. Noticing her staring, Marina called Harry over for a final goodbye.
Petunia squatted down, swallowed and looked at Harry for the first time in a few years with care and concern. She humbly said to him, "I hope you know this is good for you. She's magic, you're magic and I can't help you with that. Not when I need to help myself first. There may be a day when Dudley and I will visit you, Harry, and I hope that you will want to see us, but not until I can help myself, okay?" Harry nodded and told her he would like that. She grimaced, nodded to him too and maybe to herself that she was about to do something new and would never have thought of. So she hugged him goodbye and left quickly to start her new path, hopeful she would see her nephew again and actually be the loving aunt.
Marina sighed heavily before looking down at Harry and smiled. She was just about to ask about going to lunch when she saw Richards walk towards her with a very stern countenance. "I don't like that look Richards. Didn't you have recon on a temporary project?"
"I did…was that the wife of the target?"
"Yes," Marina told the gruff man roughly as he peered down at the vile of blood in her hand and Harry who was slightly hiding behind her leg as he held her hand. "What of it?"
"This is going to be a long and difficult conversation relating to the other project I was supposedly taken away from for just today."
Marina sighed before asking him to go get lunch and they would eat and talk in the conference room. Richards grumbled about unorthodox debriefs, but left nonetheless. She turned towards Harry, "I'm sorry, but I thought we could have lunch together, but this is work. You may have to eat at my desk, okay?"
"Nonsense," Mycroft interrupted before Harry could speak. "He is coming with me. I noticed he had a lot of questions about the book he started last night." As he made that statement, most of the personnel that walked by halted and shuttered at hearing that he had a previous encounter with the small child and that their earlier inaccurate assumptions may just be accurate. Rolling his eyes to Marina, who was very amused by their attitude at the implication of Mycroft and children, he spoke again but a little more loudly, "If he is to be your son, adopted or not, he is going to have to get use to how busy you are."
"How busy I am, is relative to your demands though, now isn't it," Marina teased. She noticed everyone started moving again, although still obviously nervous with how she could get away with teasing Mycroft. To them that was normal. She whispered to Mycroft, "You're catering to the masses, Mycroft. I never thought I would see the day."
"How could we even get any work done if they were so petrified by the mere horror of me reproducing? Of course, catering to their goldfish mentalities when they should know better was disappointing, but necessary."
"Hmmmm, I remember some of your comments about your brother and how obtuse he can be. Can we play this trick on him one day and see how far it goes?"
Mycroft quirked an eyebrow and turned to Harry, "I really do pity you. A fae mother may be more dangerous of a thought than if I was your father. Come, we are going to get you a new change of clothes and maybe something to eat while I answer your questions about that history book." Harry smiled, told him new clothes were not necessary, walked with Mycroft rambling about all the battles and the big words he didn't know and wanted to learn.
"You know that's not a no!" Marina told Mycroft's back as he continued to ignore her merriment. She knew he would also ignore Harry's comment about clothes and would probably ignore his comments about ordering something small for lunch if his attitude this morning at breakfast was any indication. Mycroft would most likely in his typical fashion of caring by ordering Harry to do as he says, like he did with Sherlock and apparently did since they were kids and their parents were unreliable for caring for them. Mycroft may be calculative and a robot, but he was also a little human and hated to see that if there were resources and the potential to take care of one's self or their children and did nothing.
Richards had returned right as the two left and he blatantly paused to stare as Mycroft and Harry left for lunch, his and Marina's dropping to the floor. "I hope you didn't buy soup or there's a mess in those bags," Marina called out to get his attention and to get him moving. Richards looked towards her aghast, quickly picked up the food and they headed towards the private conference room she was in earlier with Petunia.
"I seriously hoped he didn't consider that mad general's idea about recruiting – "
"That is my newly adopted son and they are probably going to a restaurant for Mr. Holmes to spy on some politician and teach my son new things I don't want him to learn. Not an early soldier recruitment program. You know, you're the first person to actually say something and probably the first to consider a different implication than the more sexually scandalous one."
Richards gave Marina a perturbed look, "Wait, gossiping is not supposed to be a thing here, isn't it? I'm not gossiping. I'm simply concerned about new mission agents, but what on this Earth could be scandalous compared to what I asked?"
"Mr. Holmes and I had a love child and we finally brought him to work," Marina said as she helped delve out the contents of their lunch. After separating and sitting down, Lee Richards laughed hard before responding to her.
"Either your prospective progeny would rule the world and I would be the first to bow to their superiority or you two would kill one another and I'm not even sure who would do so first," Richards told her cheekily. Marina smiled at the older agent that had a decent stint with the navy before working with Mycroft. He started with Mycroft from the beginning, knew the basics of his and Marina's situation having witnessed some of those pranks and was loyal for it. So his description was not far off the mark, Marina believed, but suddenly Richards became serious. "Now for this debrief, which I can't believe I'm eating through, but the information is important and I think you have to make the next move to get more. Dursely is involved with the money laundering scheme that some of the politicians are worried about and are having Mr. Holmes look into."
Marina sighed for the third time that day and had feeling it would not be her last, "What does the wife have to do with it?"
"It's how I found out about Vernon Dursely being a part of the scheme. He wasn't hiding his actions very well if anyone dared to look, which is why it only took me this morning to figure most of it out. Normal family, normal life, but he was the key to breaking into the information we needed about the scheme and it was through how he hid his wife's assets she gained from her parents and sister's death. As in there is documentation that he did not want his wife to know that she had any equity until his own death, which would be useless, because most of it has been donated." Marina's face became a little more severe at where this was leading. "It took me a bit to find more information about why he did this. I first thought that it was the background he came from, low-income with little prospects and little to show for any advancement, so a guy like that wants a security blanket. By why would a guy with no chance of advancing his position advance as far as he did. It takes more than determination to get through that many promotions in as many companies that Vernon Dursley has been through."
"You think he is a corporate spy or he has a sponsor for more nefarious means?"
"Dramatic, but yes. He does have a sponsor. A man by the name of Dean Rochester – "
"Fuck," Marina interrupted. "They are part of the same circle then. Rochester is a bodyguard for the Scottish ministers and he tried to ask me for a date last night before being interrupted. Mycroft was right. I am going to have to accept."
Richards grimaced in sympathy and amusement at her slip of Mycroft's forename before continuing, "Yeah, but with a sponsorship and good jobs, it doesn't explain the illegal holdings of a person's equity. Really, they may be married, but it's all in her name and there is legal documentation to say she can't know, making it more likely to be illegal. So I tried to dig a little deeper, because it might be important for this scheme that's going on and it gets dirty fast. All because the man Vernon Dursley doesn't know how to cover his tracks and leaving footprints to the other suspects very own trash. They are family. A cult family of only men in various positions from all walks of life. Really, there is no distinguishing factor to these individuals that connects them other than being male and they come at all ages. We can't even say that it was when most of the members were young and impressionable or at their lowest points in life, that's what I can't find out – "
"Let Mr. Holmes figure out why," Marina assured him. "Please, carry on. What's the purpose of the cult and why is my action need next?"
"The cult started over a decade ago and grew significantly within the course of a few years. Vernon Dursley was one of those first initiates. The cult believes that some dark power rose and was trying to destroy them. That it was more of a cause for the deaths that the Irish are blamed for. They believe in taking down anyone who is part of that power, even the ones who apparently stopped this dark power, because anyone having this supernatural power is unnatural and should be stopped before it overtakes the rest of humanity. So those like Dursley, who don't have a means or the capability to fight, launder money and protect those who do, like Rochester. They essentially sponsor one another and are a part of a circle of eight other members. Three non-actors and seven actors of justice to each circle, something about numbers and taking the extra step for added protection, all ranked within this cult in levels of success. Dursley and Rochester are in the top three circles of rank, because of seniority of membership from its members, Rochester and one of the other actors of the circle have a high mortality rate and Dursley is apparently good at what he does. Money launder from business, make it look like they expanded their profits and then leaves before they realize he had anything to do with it by putting blame and incriminating evidence on someone else in each company. Adding onto the fact he donated the hundreds of thousands of pounds his wife's equity is worth a year after her sister's death? They definitely are vying for top rank to move into position of control when the elders, the original founders, retire. Marina?"
Marina was cold and pale. Shocked, by the implications of what this meant. She heard whispers, knew the rumours, but thought these hunters were not as efficient as what has been seen by the conservative churches and temples of old. Hunters were naturally going to occur throughout history, an enemy that would have to be addressed as they came and went, but she didn't realize this small group of hunters would be so close to the child she just met. Clearing her throat, she motioned for Richards to continue.
He looked her over and almost subtly nodded to himself before asking, "There's something more to this story that you picked up and you won't share?"
"Yes," Marina muttered. "You answered about the purpose of the cult. Why are my actions necessary?"
Richards moved his jaw then continued, "Because the more opaque spiritual duty side of the cult is to be married and to bear a son and Dean Rochester has already picked you out as his intended."
Marina sighed, "I thought that was because he was trying to get information on Mr. Holmes."
"In a way he is. There seems to be correspondence, that not only has he had his eye on you for a while throughout these meetings between the ministers and Mr. Holmes; he respects your need for safety and how you practice similar skills that this cult learns which I find interesting. Something about changing your name all the time and your back is never to a window. He also wants to be hired by Mr. Holmes with you to back up his credentials, so that the cult can either get their hands on the information network he has or to convince him to be a part of it."
Marina quickly stood up and walked to the opposite side of the room obviously cursing, but in a language unfamiliar to Lee Richards. Putting a hand on her face, she took a deep breath before releasing it and turned towards Richards, hands by her side, the perfect picture of professionalism. Walking towards him, she began, "Ok. Okay, we will do what needs to be done. I will let Mr. Holmes know the particulars of this case and figure out how to carry the rest of mission. You will be notified when necessary, but continue to keep an eye on those within this cult which now includes Vernon Dursley. Please clean this up, leave a list of where I can expect to find Dean Rochester at this time on my desk and inform the other watchers of what we may need to look for now with this break in the case. I have to go get a date."
Richards nodded, patted her shoulder as she left the conference room. She grabbed her purse, went to the bathroom to freshen up for what she was about to do and left the building after grabbing the list on her desk. When she made it to the local café that Rochester frequented to get a tea, she found him, flirted and was able to get a date for later that night. He was a charming man, but throughout their conversation when he showed his interest in her adopting Harry, it made her realize how much of a hunter he was. The questions he asked, he definitely knew Harry was a son of wizarding parents and would try to stay with her to keep an eye on him. She had a feeling the factor that Richards couldn't figure out that bonded the people in the cult, were probably families and friends of victims of the wizarding war a few years back. A cult of people that came across magic and were scared or hurt by it. If this cult was similar to some other hunting organizations that were a little more discreet, informed and discriminate in who they killed, they would probably wait until Harry was eleven years old to make sure he really was a wizard or would not be. That made Marina remember the first day she met Harry and how he glided through the air or turning the sand green. Her heart jumped and raced. She was worried for this child she just met and was adopting, which is why she was so anxious at her desk until she saw both Mycroft and Harry walk through the door. When she saw them, she let out a sigh of relief.
Harry was happy, healthy and looked very handsome in his suit that almost matched Mycroft's. While she watched them come forward, she got a quick call that informed her Sherlock Holmes had returned to his house looking quite dirty and she thanked them for the update. Harry quickly came towards her around her desk, told her all the new words he learned from Mycroft in the history book about ancient nomadic Turkic tribes he gave him to read and how to notice people when they are happy or content and what the difference was. Marina gave a teasing look to Mycroft, but was thankful nonetheless for his impromptu lunch lesson, because whatever they said or did, it made Harry's disposition that little bit more confident and relaxed around her. She understood this was going to be a tough transition for him, especially when she didn't have a stable schedule to work with, but she was confident when she saw him. Harry would be okay and he was already strong before she met him, so as difficult as this would be, she had to believe he would be okay afterwards.
Marina kissed Harry's cheek and told him she was proud that he got three people right out of ten that Mycroft pointed out to analyze on the first try. Mycroft scoffed, Marina glared and then told Harry she needed to speak with Mycroft about work, but he could draw a picture in the conference room with the crayons she bought on the way back from the café and office printer paper. Happy, Harry gave her a hug and took the items away to do as she asked. Watching him, she then nodded as Mycroft led her to his office and she shut the door.
"Richards was successful in gathering intel."
"Apparently swift as well, because I gave him the whole day," Mycroft stated as he sat down in his chair.
"That's because the information is critical to another project of interest. One that required me to act sooner than intended to acquire a date from Mr. Rochester, which will commence tonight," Marina told him stiffly. Mycroft recognized her uncomfortable tone and asked her to proceed with what Richards told her in a more concise manner. As she spoke, she saw the wheels turning in his head and watched in amazement as he connected dots quicker than most individuals she came across in her life. Whatever he figured out, whatever he was planning, she quickly informed him that it could not be a long game before she took her own measures considering it was against her kind and her son. She would take measures without his consent if he did not handle this quickly by his terms. After his assurance that he would look into the necessary measures to quickly demobilize the cult, she told him she was taking the afternoon off due to Sherlock's arrival and her shift to watch him had to begin. Realizing she was already on a thin thread of control in her frustration, anger and worry, Mycroft let her leave without a word.
Harry at least said goodbye to him and thanked him for lunch.
This day was not turning out to be a good day. In an hour or two, she was going to have to face Sherlock Holmes and go on a date with a man that wanted to kill her son one day.
