MASTERMIND HUNTING, by Louis IX
Check first chapter for summary, disclaimer, and other warnings.

Chapter 7 – Clockworks and Sand
posted July 7th, 2005

They left in the morning, once again buying a large vehicle for a good price – a minibus, this time. On the way to Geneva, they discussed about the nosy agents and decided to do something to be less traceable. The first thing was their names. Except Mustafa, all of them were known by their name, and, if they were going to stay a long time, they had to change these. After a brainstorming pause over lunch, they renamed Petunia and Vernon as Grace and Benjamin Calder, James, Eva, and Maureen were going to be Jason, Emma, and Kathleen – respectively. Jorg and Ulrike chose George and Victoria Thomson. They even agreed to have Harry trifle with their minds a little so that they wouldn't call the wrong name at the wrong time. Of course, Harry assured them that he would still have their original names somewhere in his own mind. The other difficult decision had been about the family structure. If the spies were searching for a family with four kids their ages, they would be quick to find them despite their changed names. Petunia and Vernon, now answering to Grace and Benjamin, had reluctantly agreed to the fact that Harry wasn't going to bear their name, even if it wasn't Dursley anymore. He would be Harold Thomson, so as to still have a link between the two parts of the group.

On the way, too, Vernon gave Harry a letter, telling him that he had had to ask the postal services for it since he had left the large house a long time before. Harry looked at the writing and the stamp, and immediately understood why he received it. It was because he had asked for it. He opened it, and quickly read the message written in Arabic, to his father's astonishment. He nodded, and put the letter aside, intending to destroy it at the next opportunity – no need to start a fire in a moving vehicle, unless it's a funeral drakkar. Apparently, the scarred and bearded wizard who had ordered their death had been caught by his own killers, and was now pushing daisies, or whatever plants there are in deserts.

They arrived in Geneva on the 20th, in the morning. Once again, Harry got miscellaneous information from the locals' minds, such as the town map, and the places to visit. The first thing they had to do was finding a house, and they went to the first real estate agency to look for a house in a quiet neighbourhood. It had to be small and innocuous, while being large enough to host all of them. After all their adventures together, Petunia and Ulrike weren't ready to part ways just now, and it was easier for Harry to watch over one house rather than two. After a lot of candidates, they found the perfect one, in Lausanne Street – which coincidentally led to Lausanne – and asked to visit it.

Situated near the Parc Mon Repos, the house was looking over said park's greenery to Lake Geneva. It didn't have a garden but it had a direct access to the park, as well as a nice private terrace on the third floor, containing a small 10 feet by 20 swimming pool. With "only" six bedrooms and three bathrooms, it didn't have enough rooms for each of them, contrarily to their large house in China. However, used to their smaller house in Beausoleil, the Dursleys only needed three bedrooms for the six of them. The subterranean garage could hold three cars, or a large number of bicycles. Harry cautiously expanded his senses, and didn't find anything abnormal in the surroundings. All in all, it was perfect. And expensive. They started to discuss the price and eventually shook hands over an interesting 15 percent.

They then went to find a bank, where they asked for the manager in order to open several accounts. In the private office, Harry had no problem convincing the man of the identities of everyone present despite their papers stating otherwise, and four accounts were created: one for "Victoria", one for "Georges", one for Mustafa, and the last for "Grace" and "Benjamin". According to the plan, they then stored a part of Ulrike's remaining money on each of the accounts, the largest part being for the joint account. For each of the accounts, the manager set the authorized debit limit to a ridiculously large value. Six credit cards would also be sent to their address, so that Petunia and Vernon could both access their account, and Harry as well in case of problems. While giving out several booklets where were explained the means to access one's account, the manager had also confirmed that no foreign power could force the bank to forbid access to an account. Harry finally convinced the man that Vernon was having a well-paid job – something they would take care of later – and that buying a house worth a million Swiss francs wasn't going to be a problem. The bank manager complied and used his greenish computer screen to validate the mortgage, bypassing several security screens with the appropriate passwords. The printer nearby made some screeching noises, as if it was reluctant, and the bank check was given to Vernon to get the house. When they left the office, the manager had conveniently forgotten everything. And the real estate agent who received the check an hour later also forgot about them all after handing them the keys.

After unloading their scarce luggage from the van into their brand-new house and driving to the local mall, they split. Petunia and Ulrike went to select some paint and furniture, while Mustafa was leading the kids toward the games shop. Harry went with Vernon to buy another car, as well as several bicycles. Vernon chose a convertible Mercedes 560SL Roadster, and Harry, because of his guilty feeling of getting everything for free, didn't snatch the car from the manager's mind. Instead, he sat with Vernon and the man, and they discussed about prices and payment, finally agreeing on a 35 percent discount and an interest-free loan. Vernon was flabbergasted at the man's willingness about these figures, but he knew that Harry was able to do several interesting things, and that must be one of them. He didn't take the car yet, because he had to load the bikes in the van, drop them home, and come back later to get the others. During the man's trip, Harry went to see the ladies, and did with their purchases the same thing he did with Vernon's new car, arranging for a home delivery as well. After that, they recovered Mustafa, happily buying puppets for the girls and electronic games for James. They went to the food court next, where Jorg and James discussed about computers while the others merely rested their minds from the morning activities.

The day wasn't finished, though, as the afternoon saw the women buying everything they could think of in clothing, while Jorg and Mustafa went home to wait for their incoming furniture. During this, Vernon brought the kids to the local school. The Headmistress, a severe-looking old woman clad in grey, was curious about why they wanted to start the term now. Harry had to convince her magically because she wouldn't accept Vernon's stuttered excuses about stranded desert caravans – even if it was nothing but the truth. Once it was done, Vernon was handed a schedule of the school where their daily, weekly, and yearly program was presented, and the kids were dispatched in their class, the Headmistress introducing them to the other pupils. During the walk from one class to another, Harry got inside the stern woman's head and recuperated the school's plans. He didn't want to be lost on his first day.

That evening, Harry and the adults had a discussion about who was going to work, how, where, and for how much. Vernon, thanks to his experience with the nightclub – despite it being cut short because of his attack and subsequent wound – didn't need anything in particular, as long as it involved public relations. Petunia and Ulrike indicated that they preferred to take care of the large house, but that several activities could interest them. Namely, everything having to do with decoration and manual activities. Jorg could work with a computer, and Mustafa indicated he loved to take care of animals. In the following days, Harry helped each of them getting something to do: Vernon got a spot in their own bank; Jorg found a place as a programmer; Mustafa began to work for a horse centre nearby; and the women were included in the local circle of housewives interested in decoration.

After the hectic program of the first days, the group settled, and slowly entered a peaceful routine, only broken by the usual holidays. For Christmas, they all went to Sankt Moritz where they could learn how to ski on the mythic Winter Olympics tracks. Everyone loved it, especially the children, and they decided to schedule an encore for the next holiday period which was Easter. Because of their sudden interest in that sport, though, they also decided to spend most of their free time in between in the ski stations around Geneva. In the warmer days, they also used the Lake Geneva to practise water sports or to just have fun.

And they were really having fun. So much fun, in fact, that Harry got sloppy a few times, beginning to use his magic in public places. It was always discreet and not very visible, but he did it nonetheless.

And several persons noticed it.

During Easter vacation, a group of scientists from the CERN was having a seminary in Sankt Moritz, and two of them, accomplished physicians and talented skiers as well, noticed the speed of one of the skiers. The looked as the small body was going faster than the gentle slope allowed for someone of his bulk, and started to discuss it. The others in the group started to look as well, but the boy, perhaps sensing that he was observed, had returned to a normal speed, and the physicians finished their meal talking about another subject dear to them: quantum dynamics. The short exchange between the scientists hadn't been totally lost, though, as someone was dining near their table. Someone whose binoculars were never far from hand. Someone who had been put on forced vacation after agent Jones' impromptu departure. Someone whose real name was Carla Mohavez but who called herself Carlita. Someone, finally, who recognized Harry Dursley's features in the boy she caught in her binoculars.

She left the table suddenly, her meal hardly touched. Some things in life were more important than food.


A few weeks afterwards...

The commando looked around and at their leader. This time, their leader was a woman, and their target a boy sleeping in a house on the other side of Geneva's harbour. Despite the unusual mission, they had been told that the boy was dangerous, but that he was to be taken alive at all costs. Alive, but unconscious. They had also been told that some of them might turn traitorous suddenly, but that it was part of the mission to get them too. It had really been a weird briefing.

Now, though, they were waiting for the signal to launch the boat to full speed. When the radio came to life suddenly, they knew that the time had come. It was 3am, that April 21st, 1991.

After crossing the waters silently, the ship accosted the darkened park and the black-clad men disembarked, three of them getting their long-range rifles out of their case. All the commando's weapons were equipped with soporific ammunition and silencers. The three sharpshooters quickly strolled through the park to get into position, and the seven other members waited the required five minutes before launching forwards. Three of them took position around the house door while the other four used ninja-like equipment to climb the walls of the nearby houses, intending to enter the house by the terrace.

At the light signal from the boat, they all entered at the same time, as silently as possible, using gadgets that even professional burglars didn't have in their list to Father Christmas. Their intelligence had observed the household for days and they knew where their target was. The door was closed. One of them took hold of the handle and opened the door.

It creaked.

Someone woke up suddenly.

Pandemonium ensued.


Three hours later, back at the base...

"Congratulations, agent Mohavez!" the man's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Three of my best men out of service, one of them having even forgotten his own name! Can you explain, at least?" the Marines colonel wasn't happy. That CIA agent had used his men in an obviously badly prepared mission to retrieve what? A mere civilian boy?

"Sir, I'm not allowed to talk about it, sir." she said to the man.

The colonel huffed, and left the room.

Once alone, Carlita reflected about the mission. She, in turn, didn't care about the wounded men. The dangers had been clearly indicated in their briefing, and they had acted accordingly. The reports from them hadn't been clear, but she knew that the infamous boy had awoken at some point, and some of the men had targeted others, resulting in a quick fight. However, between the seven of them, two had had the presence of mind to disregard the brawl and fire hypodermic syringes to their target, and the boy was now slumped in the retraining bed, kept under the same soporific cocktail through perfusion.

He was going home. Her home.


In a place disconnected from the world...

"Uh oh. I'm screwed."

The sentence could have been from a cartoon character in a funny although deadly situation. In Harry's state, though, it wasn't funny. He remembered being shot at, the resulting sleepy sensation, and the subsequent escape to his mind to disconnect his body from his mind. He didn't want whatever by-product they had shot him with to impair his reasoning. He only left the heartbeat and breathing connections up. He couldn't escape his mind, though, because a part of his magic depended on his body and it was deeply asleep at that moment. Not having anything else to do, he explored his memories, and found several interesting things.

The first one concerned the memory block he had imported from the witch in Rome, labelled "Mind's active defences and survival." It was floating alone, not connected to anything yet, and surely contained interesting things. Browsing it, Harry learnt about the different techniques of the mind, unconsciously linking the new memory to his conscious mind. He also learnt that the witch was named Sarah and had learnt about all that in a special school for American witches: the Salem Institute.

Schools. Magical schools. The wizard in Luxor, Bill, had talked about them, too. Should he attend one? Bill had told him about 'the next year' when he had told him his age. Was eleven a special milestone for wizards? Was he going to find a school by himself or would someone like Professor Xavier find him first?

So many questions... nobody to ask them to...

A school friend had lent him several comics over the months, and Harry had thought their description of psychic powers were on par with what he was feeling. And he liked the concept of someone responsible, like the aforementioned professor, building a school for 'gifted' students – what an understatement! For the moment, thanks to his versatility, he now imagined himself like a smaller version of Jane Grey, the mutant with telepathy and telekinesis. But he knew he had other powers. Bored, he decided to go in his memories as far as he could, listing his powers and naming them in the process.

He could alter his physical appearance, as he had done in Zheng Zhou, As Sulaymaniyah, and Rome. He didn't know about limits for that one. He reflected about it, and thought that he could perhaps change his size and bulk also. He had remarked, though, that trying to do something really new with his magic didn't seem to work anymore. He could experiment and expand on existing talents, but he sensed he would have difficulties getting new ones. He remembered in the Hilton, when he had unsuccessfully wanted to become invisible. Perhaps his magic was stabilizing? Perhaps that was because of that milestone of eleven years approaching? Perhaps that was why the magical children couldn't be taught before? He shrugged the questions aside and continued his explorations.

He could also heal himself, provided he knew the structure of the injured part, like he had done with his knee. He instantly resolved to absorb a doctor's mind in the near future, in order to be able to heal quickly and efficiently the next time. Perhaps he could heal others, too? He remembered healing James' arm and supposed that he'd have to experiment...

In the list of powers he already had, came the very interesting ability to pass through walls. He remembered doing it in Beausoleil when he had found that he had been checked upon by secret service agents. That would be interesting when he would wake up. If he would wake up.

That was not all. There were others, but Harry suddenly stopped inventorying his powers, because he had reached a barrier. His mind was admirably sorted, and he was able to consciously access any part of it, and any memory, but he couldn't go as far as his very early childhood. He couldn't reach his first birthday, and had the uneasy feeling that it was linked with the dark shroud now safely ensconced in the stone turret flanking his castle-type mind defence.

Bored again, he checked his mind's connections with his body to see if it was able to wake up. Upon getting a negative answer, he sighed mentally, before parsing Sarah's memories of mind abilities, resolving to improve his defences some more.


A week later...

In the seventh underground level of the brand new Headquarters building of the Central Intelligence Agency, three persons were discussing quite heatedly.

"Well, I want to know what's wrong with him. It has been a week already, and I haven't seen a sign of wakefulness." said a thin man with a white lab coat. His age was reflected by a white hair and beard, and wire-framed spectacles rested at the end of his nose. His badge shown that he was named Philip Furnier, and that he was here as a doctor.

"What do you mean, "no sign"? Of course he's sleeping, with the dose of somniferous product we pump into his veins, he shouldn't wake for a long time. I'm more interested in his mind, though." said Carla Mohavez.

"You'll have to wait for a miracle for this to happen." answered the doctor coldly. "I recorded almost no activity, whatever the level tested. The only thing I get is a peak at beta level every now and then, but it shouldn't be possible! I mean, if the boy is asleep, he should broadcast alpha-theta or delta wavelengths, but on these spectrums, I get nothing. Clinically, he is in a deep coma."

"Furnier, you'll have to explain." said the third person there. Kevin "B.B." Lambert was a large man, whose demeanour indicated a martial arts addict, hence his nickname: "Black Belt". And he was the special agent in liaison with their project and the White House. As such, he was superior to whoever worked on this in the place.

The addressed doctor swallowed, before explaining the functioning of the human brain and the sleep cycles and patterns. He tried to keep his explanations and words as simple as possible, and succeeded somewhat. 'I should record that.' he thought. 'I never explained it so well.'

However, it still went over Kevin's head. The man, visibly not a science nerd, huffed at the wiry doctor and, turning suddenly, he left him and the woman. At the elevator's door, he turned and yelled that he needed a report on his desk by the end of the day.

"It's already after the end of the day." muttered Philip a short time afterwards, looking gloomily at the clock above the now-closed doors. "This boy isn't my only case, and if I continue to work overtime like this, I'll... I'll..."

He suddenly remembered the person in front of his and looked up, blushing. "Sorry, it wasn't meant to be said aloud."

She chuckled, though, but her gaze stayed serious. "In this case, you should watch your mouth. Especially in the new building. Now, I want to check if I understood everything from your handy explanation. The subject is in coma?"

"Yes. I'd say that if I hadn't monitored all his mind activity levels for so long. You see, the Beta level is associated to concentration, Delta to sleep, and Alpha and Theta are in between. Even in the deepest sleep we should still record some activity on Delta level. Only people in coma get the kind of graph the boy has. But the peaks in Beta, it's... it's almost like..." the doctor stopped, turning to look at the window behind which a boy was sleeping, monitors around his body and the needles secured to his arms, which were, like his legs, firmly attached to the bed. On his left arm, the soporific drug was delivered while on its right, it was a cocktail of nutrients.

"Yes?" asked Carlita. "It's almost like what?"

Philip said something, but she had to make him repeat, because it was so low she hadn't heard it first.

"It's as if he is out of his mind, only coming back in to check from time to time."


Another week later...

Agent Kevin Lambert was generally a happy man. He loved his job, especially when he was sent to the field. He loved his physical training and the reaction he got from the female population wherever he went. He loved his country, ready to defend it to the death. Even and especially if it involved some form of physical attack against a designated enemy.

However, he had been recently promoted and, something he hadn't thought about when he had accepted, is that it involved office work, something he disliked profoundly. He had been affected to a project he knew nothing about, with people who often used words with more than three syllables. The only thing interesting was that he was often talking with the President. Privately. Few persons could boast about having a little chit-chat with the Big Ole' One. He couldn't boast about it, though, as the whole project had been labelled Top Secret by the President himself. And, despite liking the fact that he was chatting with the White House current resident, he didn't like the content, as it was linked to his office job. He hid his reluctance well enough, though, and continued to work.

Today was one of those days where he would visit the Oval Office again. The conversation which took place, though, jarred the habits he had taken since starting with the boy, two weeks before. The President wanted to see the boy. Up and about. Alive and kicking. Awake.

Damn.

And that doctor who spoke those strange words! He had tried to read the first report he got from the thin and wiry old man, but had failed to understand the first three pages. He only rifled through them, now. But one thing was certain: the woman agent didn't want to stop the IV. She was afraid. He slammed the accelerator angrily, not heeding the fact that he was cutting through several incoming vehicles' way.

Afraid? Of a mere boy? He pictured the boy's face for a second, before chortling. How could one be afraid of such a weakling? He would show her! And then, he would bed her. He smirked. He was sure that the two of them were compatible for a little game between the sheets. A red traffic light allowed his mind to wander into the kind of thoughts which make a story rating soar.

Distracted by his thoughts, agent Lambert didn't see the quite large man in the car nearby point a stick at him and mutter a particular word, concentrate for a moment, and stowing the stick back in his Hawaiian shirt afterwards. When the light turned green, agent Lambert drove forward to enter the famous interstate 66, heading to his Headquarters, not realizing he was followed by a rather nondescript car driven by a curious man.


That afternoon...

Harry had been bored before, but now he was getting real difficult. He had visited every memory he had, sorting them into appropriate chunks. He had revisited his defences, turning his stone walls to white. He also had created creatures to roam around it. These creatures would never harm him, but any trespasser would have severe difficulties passing through. He didn't know how they were called, because Sarah's memories had been incomplete about the creatures' name, but they had contained a precise description of them, as well as a comment: 'too difficult to manage – will stay with the hounds.' All Harry knew was that these were four-legged winged reptilian creatures able to breathe fire. In the long time he had passed in his own mind, he had had enough time to create four of them, which were now roaming his domain. His mind.

Several times, he had checked on his body, but it was still out. He couldn't stay longer than a mere second, because the soporific product which was coursing through his veins was strong and he didn't want to be sleeping in a potentially dangerous environment.

After listing for the umpteenth time the things he'd like to do once out, he checked on his body again.

And got a surprise.

The soporific's potency was lowering!

In the safety of his own mind, he danced in joy, doing a few cartwheels in the process. After a few seconds, he stopped and reflected about his options. As soon as his body was alright, he would have to scan his surroundings, trying to find a secluded spot to regroup, and going through the walls toward that spot.

He checked his body more often now, and started to hear voices around it.

"...is waking..." said a feminine voice. It had a tad of uncertainty about it.

"...see that graph? He's..." said a high-pitched male voice. Harry didn't know why, but he imagined a bespectacled old man speaking. He christened him Mr Nerd.

"...know, I know. I'm still not sure it's a good..." answered the woman.

"...on't worry, sweetheart, it'll be fi..." another male voice, deeper and sounding confident, although Harry had an immediate dislike for it. Harry dubbed him Mr Spy.

Three persons. Two men, one woman.

"...ow about what he's able to do? He has..." said the woman.

"...ease stay quiet? I'm trying to underst..." that was Mr Nerd.

"...can it, old fellow. He wakes up, no strange..." Mr Spy answered.

"...give you 'old fellow!' Never before have I..." was Mr Nerd's indignant answer.

"...about him is so special? I don't understand." asked Mr Spy.

The woman answered. "You don't seem to understand anything about..."

Harry felt more and more alive. He was starting to hear complete sentences. In a moment, he would be able to...

Wait!

What's this stinging sensation on his neck?

His keepers were gentle enough to inform him about it, although they did so unknowingly.

"...don't think he's dangerous enough to have that syringe stuck in his neck, baby." said Mr Spy.

"Stop calling me baby or I'll have you for harassment. For your information, we needed ten fully trained Marines to get a hold on that boy. Five of them got several wounds, and one of them doesn't even remember his own name."

'Wow,' thought Harry, 'ten Marines? I didn't know they were that many.' he quieted his thoughts, though, because what she said after was of a vital interest for him.

"...and this syringe," the woman was saying, "contains a concentrate of the same soporific mixture we used on him already. Anything strange, and I inject it. I can't risk anyone's life, especially the President's."

'The President's?' reflected Harry. 'Which President? The President?' The woman's voice was vaguely familiar. He instinctively frowned.

"I think he's going to wake up soon." said Mr Nerd. "It had gone full-Beta for a few minutes."

"Harry?" asked the woman gently.

Ah! As if someone could be gentle while having a syringe ready to inject something into your bloodstream.

"Wake up!" said Mr Spy brusquely. Obviously, the man wasn't keen on children. Harry suspected that he would never have one.

He played along, and opened his eyes slightly. The light was so intense, though, that he closed them, hoarsely speaking. "Too... bright."

"That's why he's dangerous?" asked Mr Spy with a laughing undertone. "He's a gremlin?"

Harry frowned. He didn't know about the movie, and couldn't think about why the man had called him that way. The woman knew about it, though.

"Very funny." she said in a sarcastic voice. "Go fetch him two glasses of water instead of citing children movies, I think he's thirsty."

"Sure he won't transform? It's after midnight!" said Mr Spy in a mockingly alarmed tone, before fetching the required water.

While somebody – surely Mr Nerd – turned the projector away from his face, Harry felt the glass reach his lips and quickly drank it. He didn't know why the woman had asked for two glasses, but the answer came quickly. When the water reached his stomach, which had been empty for two weeks, the organ reacted quite violently and he retched, expulsing the water quite violently.

"Now, now." said the woman gently, offering him the second glass while putting the syringe back to its place after Harry's brusque movement. "Here's another. Should go better this time."

Harry drank again, unused to the metallic sensation in his mouth.

He felt better.

And ready to move.

Looking at the bottom of his glass, Harry remembered how he had moved from his house in Beausoleil to the agents' hideaway. The memory, painstakingly sorted for the occasion and cleaned of any external influence during his two weeks of isolation, allowed him to act immediately.

"Hey!" exclaimed Mr Nerd who was looking at the monitoring devices. "What's this curv..."

Too late. He 'switched reality'. He knew that was a lame terminology, but he didn't have anything else. One moment, he was lying on a quite hard bed with people around him. The next, everything around him went gaseous, and he knew he could move through the people, the walls, everything. He also knew that, whatever his physical state might be, he moved thanks to his mind. He could move really quickly in that way. Perhaps he could go real far.

He was still hearing his captors, although it was as if he was hearing them in a wind-beaten environment. The voices weren't distinct anymore, and some words were missing.

"What were... ing?"

"...graph went wide, before stoppin..."

"...put a tracker on him?"

"I didn't think he wou..."

Harry didn't understand everything, and decided to try something to solve that. As he didn't need to stay concentrate to stay in the gaseous 'parallel universe,' he supposed he could do something else while being there. He concentrated on the fuzzy contour he thought belonged to Mr Nerd and successfully entered the man's mind. Harry quieted his surprise and explored around. The man's memories confirmed his initial thought of him being a doctor. He was working for the CIA on sometimes dubious subjects. Like him. Harry didn't have time to explore much, as he was still hearing the desperate voices of the two other occupants, and he didn't know how long he could stay in that vaporous state.

He simply selected two memories, about Anatomy in general and about his own medical state, and copied them into his mind, before removing the man's memory of anything related to him. Switching to Carlita's mind, he learnt that his family and friends hadn't been moved from their location in Switzerland, but that a close guard was kept on their house. He repeated the process of erasing her memories of himself. After doing the same with Mr Spy, he learnt the maps of the two Headquarters buildings, the old and the new, as well as the White House's and several spots one could use to enter said buildings discreetly.

Trying to quench his burgeoning headache, Harry decided to quickly separate from his captors. Using his current shape and the abilities it offered, he passed through several walls and occupied rooms until he found a broomshed in which he could become tangible again. However, he quickly discovered that, despite his mind being in perfect condition, his body wasn't. He crumbled on the floor in an undignified heap, taking several brooms and buckets in the process.

The sound wasn't missed by several people in the nearby corridors, though, and Harry heard several footsteps nearing the cupboard. He focussed, and returned to his ethereal form, just as the door opened. The two employees who were facing him didn't see anything that a broom cupboard which content was disturbed, and came to the normal conclusion that someone must have stored them in an unbalanced way. They didn't see, or feel, the anguished boy staring back at them from his ghostly state, and closed the door.

Harry sighed. He would have to think of another way to get out of the building. He sat on a large overturned bucked to think, but didn't even start thinking. In his state, his rear had passed through the plastic object, and he was sitting on the cupboard floor. He contemplated this, and reflected about his state. He could pass through walls, why couldn't he pass through floors and ceilings? As soon as the thought hit him, he decided to try. Concentrating on levitating his ethereal form, he successfully lifted himself a foot from the floor, two feet, three...

Now that he knew he could fly, he accelerated, and shot through the seven floors in one go, not even registering their content. He found himself in the air, looking down at the smoky shape of the building he had been held into. Now that he was free, he thought about himself. His headache was growing, and his body was weak. He had to find a place to rest, at least temporarily. He knew that, once the newly-integrated memories would have had time to soak in, he would feel better. The aspirin would have made the pain bearable, though. He couldn't even disconnect that particular pain from his mind as he had done with his body, because it was linked to the mind itself.

Discerning an expanse of trees nearby, he went there, hid behind several ranks of them and under a bush or two, and returned to the real world. The sum of experiences he had got from the moment he had woken up was suddenly too much and, finally able to, he fell into unconsciousness.


Later...

Harry woke up in a bed, and turned around a few times before remembering the event before his slumber. How could he find himself in a bed? He jumped out of it, quite relieved by the lack of restraining measures.

As soon as he was upright, the door opened and a large man entered. He looked in his thirties, and was clad in a Hawaiian shirt showing a deep tan.

"Hi, dude." he said in a cheerful voice.

Harry looked at him in wonder, and the man shrugged. "What? It's all I get for my pain?" he asked, with laughter underlying his words.

"Who are you? And where I am?" asked Harry.

The man rolled his eyes. "Of course. The usual questions. 'Who are we, and where are we headed?'" He chuckled. "Forget I said this. I'm Josh, Harry, and we're in my apartment in College Park."

"College Park? You live in a college? And how do you know my name?"

"No, silly. College Park is a town north of Washington D.C. and is named that way because it hosts the University of Maryland's campus. I live here because I teach here. Sports. And as how I know your name... let's say I have my ways. But it's not what's important. Come on, I can talk over the breakfast I'm sure you are needing."

As if on cue, Harry's stomach growled. Blushing, the boy followed his rescuer into the lobby. And he got a surprise. He hadn't paid attention to the bedroom but, seeing the lobby and the adjoining kitchen, he wondered how a sport teacher could earn enough to own such a large place. Several large pictures hanged from the walls, most of them about islands, beaches, and high ocean waves. On the side, a large television was displaying the current news about the Bangladesh humanitarian operations, followed by a discussion about the upcoming speech of the Queen of England at the Congress.

However, even if the apartment was large, it was scattered with strange looking material and bizarrely-shaped planks. Or was it...? Humming, Josh prepared a large helping of fruits, milk, and cereals, and put everything on the table in front of Harry. While the boy ate slowly, to ease his stomach's work, the man explained more.

"I... got the info that you were detained, but I found you outside of the building, hidden in a patch of trees. Judging by your state, you mustn't have eaten in a long time. Were you mistreated?"

Harry stopped eating and seemed thoughtful. "No."

"What do you mean?"

"I was kept unconscious. They didn't want me to..." He stopped speaking and looked away for a second. He then shrugged, before returning to his meal. He was famished, after all.

The man looked at him in compassion, before heading to his own bedroom, closing the door. While he was eating, Harry heard the man speaking alone and suspected that he was on the phone. He didn't pay attention to the conversation until he caught a word which awoke his paranoid nature. He listened intently, but the man was already at the end of his conversation.

"-from those muggles."

"..."

"So, you agree?"

"..."

"Well, seeya then."

"..."

"Bye, babe."

And he hung up.

When the man returned to the lobby, holding a bag, he was surprised to see Harry completely still, looking straight at his eyes. He felt a swirl in his thoughts and involuntarily remembered his name, job, usual activities, and the reasons behind him taking the boy in, as well as the content of the phone call and the identity of the woman he had called. When the swirl stopped, both of them were in the same position, but Harry wasn't looking at him anymore, he was eating his cereals again. 'What happened?' the man thought, before shrugging, his good-natured self coming up again.

"I just called a friend." he said, while emptying the bag on the table in front of Harry.

"O'ay." mumbled Harry through his cereals. He swallowed his mouthful. "What is this?" he asked, pointing at the wildly coloured clothes on the table.

"Clothes, dude."

"I'd say! No, really."

"You ain't got a cloth, dude, so I picked my old ones. They'll fit you, I think."

"What's with the colours?"

Josh grinned. "That's Hawaiian, man. That's the uniform of us surfers." the man was doing a strange motion with his hand, and Harry didn't know what it was until he fetched the information from the man's mind – as well as the whole slab of memory related to surfing and another one related to their location. Now he understood the meaning of the paraphernalia scattered around the large apartment.

"Sweet!" he said, and immediately tried the shirt on.

While he was looking at himself in the mirror, Josh spoke again. "Harry, the friend I called... she'll be there soonly. We'll have a look around. You okay with that?"

"Hmmm hmmm." the boy nodded absently.

"Her name is Alison. Alison Potter."

Harry looked up sharply. He knew about her name from the man's memories, but, strangely, when he had pronounced the name, it acquired a particular substance. It called for something in him. He was curious, and asked the man to repeat the woman's name a few times. Curious, but not prying, the man did so while Harry went to his mind to check where the resonance was. To his dismay, it was in the separate turret hosting the dark shroud. He knew that something important was there, but he was still afraid of it. In no other mind had he witnessed such a strange occurrence. Not even in the other wizards. Not in Bill's, not in Sarah's, and not in Josh's. Yes, he knew that Josh was a wizard, and that was how he had gotten that large loft. Harry wasn't the only one to use his powers for comfort.

Thinking back to the shroud and its link to his inability to explore his memory before the tender age of one, he reflected that he would have to ask his parents about this. Perhaps they could explain about his early childhood. In the meantime...

He opened his eyes. To see Josh's worried face in front of his.

"Dude, are you okay? D'you need something?"

"Ah. Err... Yeah. I mean... No, I'm okay... Man." Harry answered.

"Great!" smiled the man, before going to serve himself a glass of Coke.

"Outrageous." said Harry under his breath.

"Whaddaya say?" asked Josh from the depth of his fridge.

"Nuthin'" answered Harry automatically. 'Why in the hell did I pick his language pack too?' he thought.


A short time later...

When the woman showed herself at the apartment door, Harry immediately liked her. Like Josh, she was easy-going and funny, and wore Hawaiian shirts too, although a dozen sizes smaller. He just browsed her mind quickly and noticed that she was a witch too. Unlike Josh, though, her mind defences seemed solid, and Harry didn't want to break through them as it would certainly raise her suspicion. Besides, she was a friend of his host. He quickly got out of her mind.

'Well... perhaps I'll get a bit of interesting information on the way.' he thought.

They quickly arrived in the mall, where Harry was surprised. He was surprised at the large choice of shops. He was surprised at the mall population and their attitude. And he was surprised that both Alison and Josh were allowing him to tag along, asking his advice in several of their purchases of the day. It was at that moment that Harry remembered that the university campus at College Park had been quite empty.

They were planning their vacation!

They paused around a drink, and Harry had insisted to get a tea despite Alison's warning. When he took the first sip, he understood her meaning and almost spitted it back into the paper cup. It wasn't tea, he thought, or hewasn't British. She smiled and gave him a banknote so that he could get himself a Coke instead. Once comfortably sipping the liquid, Harry decided to ask about the near future.

"Josh? Alison?"

"Yeah?" they both answered at the same time.

"Well... first, thank you for taking me in. It's really kind of you, and-"

"Please, Harry!" answered Josh. "Any dude would do the same for a dude like you."

"I thank you nonetheless. And thank you both, for being fun and easy-going. You accepted me and included me without question."

Both of them looked at him with wide eyes. "Same here, Harry." said Alison. "Anyone would have done the same."

"Okay. Now, what do you want to do?" he asked.

Josh smiled. "Well, continue shopping, and then get a bite and go back? Or the other way around: go back and then get a bite? Which do you prefer?"

"I meant later. I don't think you want me tagging along forever. Especially during your vacation. I'm sure you both share certain activities I'm not invited in." said Harry.

They both blushed, and he smirked. "I meant surfing!"

That elicited a round of laughter, and they slowly returned serious. "Well, that particular activity, you can go with us, Harry." said Josh.

He looked surprised. "You mean it? Where?"

"Not here, that's for sure!" said Alison, smirking.

Josh thought about it. "We have scheduled a two weeks vacation in the Samoa Islands. The weather will be perfect and the waves awesome!"

The man had a passionate glint in his eyes, which transmitted to Alison, and both began to describe their favourite sport with much gesticulation, to Harry's laughter. Their exuberance wasn't to the liking of a grumpy couple of overly large customers, though, and they complained to the fast food employees, who transmitted the protest to the agitated surfers. The three of them laughed, but left the premises all the same, followed by the satisfied gaze of the two sticklers. However, just as they were leaving, Harry turned back and noticed something else in the couple's eyes. Thinking about it on their way back, he was sure that it was jealousy.

Once back in Josh's flat, they slumped on the sofas around the den and laughed again.

"So." started Josh again. "You gonna join us, Harry?"

His good-natured smile faltered when Harry's expression darkened.

"I..." the boy swallowed. "Thank you. Both of you. But I can't go."

"Okay, dude. No sweat." said Josh. "You can, you can. You can't, you can't. I'm not prying."

"Thanks." said Harry. "I will return to my family, then. I guess they are going to be angsty that I left. It has been..." he looked at a tear-out calendar pinned near the door. "...two weeks already."

"Okay. You left your parents, explored the place, got caught by the big bad guys, escaped, I found you and you return to your parents." Josh summed up. "No sweat, I tell ya. You want me to drive you over there?"

Harry smirked. Not only the man was wrong in his assumption, but the thought of his used van driving to Switzerland was fun in itself.

"It's partly true." he said. "But you can't drive me there."

"How so?" asked Alison.

"They live in Switzerland."

If Harry had wanted a way to quiet them, he had found it. Both of them were looking at him with wide eyes.

"I can't really explain. I need to go there quickly, though, because the 'big bad guys' are keeping a watch on the house, and I don't know in how much time they'll realize my departure."

"Do you need help, Harry?" asked Alison, who seemed to have recovered faster than Josh.

Harry smiled. Help travelling? He had been doing that for a whole year already. "No, thank you."

"But... how are you going to buy a plane ticket to there?" asked Josh. "You didn't have anything on you when I picked you up."

Harry tensed. The man had asked the only question he couldn't find a way around. He frowned, trying to imagine a quick lie. "Well... I got an uncle not that far from here."

"Let us drive you there, then." said Josh.

"No!" said Harry, his eyes wide, before he closed them and huffed in frustration. Opening his eyes again, he saw that they were looking at him.

"You lied." said Alison.

He blushed, and wondered what to tell them. "Well... okay. I lied. The big bad guys kidnapped me from Switzerland because I got sloppy and used magic publicly."

He thought that, with them being wizard and witch, they would understand. However, they looked at him with eyes even wider than before, if that was possible.

"You... used magic... publicly?" asked Josh.

"What did you do?" inquired Alison.

"I don't remember exactly when. I think it was in that ski station and I was on a slight slope. I just pushed myself to go faster, but felt several people observing me and I stopped immediately." he stood up, and started pacing, not looking at them. "Some time afterwards, a commando barged in my home. I turned some of them away, but the others shot me with syringes nonetheless. I retreated to my mind, and awoke two weeks afterwards. After going to the 'gaseous reality,' I wiped their mind of my presence and escaped." He stopped for a second. "And you found me."

They looked completely gobsmacked. After a minute, Harry waved his hand in front of them. "Hello?"

Alison started, and looked up at him, frowning. "Harry... where is your wand?"

"My what?"

"Your wand. Every wizard needs one to do magic."

Josh nodded, producing one from his shirt sleeve. "And... how old are you?" he asked, pointing his wand at Harry, his move mirrored by Alison. They looked damn more serious than usual.

'Uh oh...' Harry thought. 'I sure opened my mouth there. Note to self: no talking about my abilities to wizards anymore.'

"I'm..." Harry stopped, seeming to count in his head, while actually concentrating on something else. A half-second afterwards, he disappeared, leaving two surprised wizards.

"Where is he?" asked Alison, casting several detection spells.

Josh looked at her in wonder. "Where is who?" he asked.

She looked at him in surprise, but understanding dawned quickly, despite a sudden pounding headache. "Damn, he wiped your mind already! Help me, Josh. He must be ar-" she stopped suddenly.

Josh looked at her. "He must be what? And who must be what, in fact?"

She looked back at him, trying to speak. After a moment, she shrugged. "I don't remember."

"That was unimportant, then." He smiled. "Since you're here, come here, sweetheart."

"Oh! You!" she purred. "My place or your place?"

"If you ask, I'd say your place. You have more toys."

They Apparated to her flat, and spent the next hour in a happiness-refilling activity, all thoughts of Harry gone from their mind.


After having made them forget about him – it took a longer time for the girl due to her defences –, Harry stayed in the gaseous dimension and reflected, ignoring the hushed words coming from the shapes in front of him.

He knew he was able to move quite fast in the reality he was in. As fast as he could think. Perhaps he could go directly home?

He stopped thinking about that, when he heard two pops, one after the other. In front of his eyes, the two magic users had transferred into the gaseous dimension as well, only to quickly travel in the same direction. Harry was fearful that they had overcome his memory change and were chasing him, but a detail made him think about something else. When they had appeared in the gaseous dimension, they were completely unmoving and had their eyes closed in concentration. He needed to know more about it, and started to move in the same direction. Luckily, they had moved in a straight line, and the smoke they had disturbed when moving that fast between the houses hadn't settled yet. Harry quickly found them engaged in an activity he knew he shouldn't witness, but he had an important goal in mind. He went to the man's mind and explored his recent memories, forcefully disregarding everything concerning Alison.

There! Josh had moved from his place to hers, using a special mean of transportation which wizards called Apparation. And they thought it was only a teleportation system, which moved them instantaneously. They also believed that it was restricted to the inside of a country.

Harry smiled as he extracted himself from the man's mind. And he blushed before leaving the room quickly. Shaking the suggestive images from his mind – even if they were smoky, he understood quite easily the global action which was taking place – he decided to put that long-distance Apparation theory to test.

Remembering the map of the world which hanged on the wall of his Geography class, and the county's local map from Josh's mind, he turned to the east, and pushed hard.

He stopped a few seconds later, just as he was on the verge of escaping the stratosphere and, after a moment of panic, remembered about the earth's shape. Whichever cardinal point you target, heading in a straight direction would inevitably send you in the air after a few miles – he was following a tangent, literally. He needed to go down, now, and aimed at the land mass further to the east.

After a few hops in the high layers of the atmosphere, he recognized the shape of Lake Geneva and rushed downwards. However, the fatigue of the numerous jumps was wearing him down, and he missed his target by a few miles, also going several dozens of yards too far. A hundred yards too far, exactly.

And, as he came from the air, he found himself underground. No light, no smell, no sound.

Wait... no sound? What was that humming?

No light? Why was he seeing two lines of sparks going right and left? Why was their light intensifying? And why were they getting closer to each other?

Sensing that something was amiss, he prepared himself for another jump, when everything went suddenly blindingly white.

And then black.


CERN, Large Electron-Positron Collider results building...

The two young scientists looked at the chart that had appeared on their computer screen.

"It's not possible." said the first, typing a sequence of keys which would refresh the data displayed. It didn't change. "Genevieve, are you sure your program works?"

"It should!" huffed the young woman. "I spent enough time on it."

"I know, I know... "it's your thesis project" and so on. But come here and have a look."

She looked at the screen, and repeated the man's words. "It's not possible."

"What do you think it is?"

She frowned. "I don't know, Jorg. It's the first time an experience yields so many particles. And yet..." she began typing on the keyboard frantically, manipulating the 3D-model in front of her.

"What do you think we should do? Call Ossman?" asked the man.

"Wait a second... it looks vaguely familiar." she said, continuing to type, rotating the displayed cloud of particles and zooming away, until she finally recognized its shape. She stopped typing and they both gasped in shock.

In front of them, vaguely distorted because the L3 particle detector wasn't made to catch that kind of picture, was a face, mouth wide open in a silent scream of pain.

"It's a joke." breathed the man. "It must be. I never saw such an experiment yield so many neutrinos before, and they... they can't assume a shape, can they?" He paused for a second, before asking "Do you think Tim has done something with your computer?"

"I don't know. His new tool has been sent to every NeXT workstation, so he might have had access to it."

"His 'web' thing will drive us all crazy. I think it's a joke. No collision can do that."

The woman nodded, before slowly pressing the sequence of keys which would destroy the data.


Somewhere else...

A rush of consciousness, like an ocean wave... Water... Pain... The wave withdraws.

Darkness again.

Dreams... Life... Stars... Death... Explosion... The birth of a universe... I saw it all.

Unconsciousness, again.

Memories... Flying... Missing... Tearing... Pain again.

Oblivion.

Blue light... Group... Friends... Swimming... Together... Caught... Floating... Air.

Peace.

Man.

Hey.

"...peace, man! Hey!" the burly man said to his colleague.

What. In. The. Hell.

"What in the hell?" his colleague answered.

The two fishermen emptied their nets and the bloodied... thing... which came out in the middle of the fishes made them pause, before looking at each other and running toward the radio. None of them had the least knowledge in anatomy, but the thing had very definite and very human features. The problem was they weren't in place you normally found them in humans. And the most frightening was that it moved. It was alive, although barely, in obvious need for medical attention.

Stop.

The boat stopped. The men on it stopped running. The birds around them stopped in mid-flight and the waves around them stopped rolling.

Pain. I hurt. I need to. Heal.

In the middle of the fishes, the bloodied thing started to move. It was a sight to behold, but no one was looking at that particular moment. Bones which were sticking from strange places cracked and reformed themselves in other places. Flesh disappeared from areas to grow on others.

The body finally looked human again. A young man.

What happened to me? A memory... Witnessing a little Big Bang... Pushed... Travelling across the world... Through it, in fact... Across magnetic fields... Lack of concentration... Limbs catching matter on the way... Another memory... Not my own... Apparation... Splinching... Was that it?

The healing process continued, and nerve endings connected to various body parts, making the limbs twitch. Matter which generally doesn't belong to the inside of a human body got expelled, and wounds closed. Burnt skin and torn hair grew back.

But eyes didn't.

It doesn't matter. I do see.

The young man didn't even find it strange that he was able to perfectly see around him despite his lack of visual organs. He was even able to feel the structure of things around him, such as the two men immobilized in their rush for the radio, and the fishes below the hull, stopped in their swimming.

He slowly pushed on his arms, and tentatively stood up. Balancing himself, he went to the boat's prow, and looked at the waves.

The flow of time around him slowly returned to normalcy, and his vision stretched at the same moment. Although he wasn't surprised – strangely, he felt that he wouldn't be surprised anymore – the young man was curious. His eyes were seeing the scene around him multiple times. It was as though he was looking through a kaleidoscope, but each of the scene copy was different. In one of them, the fishermen were plunging knives through him and throwing him overboard. In another, they were on their knees in front of him, worshipping him like a god. In another, they simply didn't find him again and returned to work. And he was seeing thousands of these, some clearer than others. And, as he was watching them, several of them disappeared while others were created. Continually.

What is the meaning of this?

He had the faint inkling that he was going to find out. And soon.

Hey. Chris. What. Do. You. Think. We. Should. Do.

"Hey, Chris! What do you think we should do?" said the first fisherman, returning from the radio.

I. Don't. Know. Tucker.

Stop invading my thoughts with your banter!

"I don't know, Tucker." answered Chris.

The. Hospital. Isn't. Crash.

Crash?

"The hospital isn't-"

Why are my kaleidoscopic visions all disappearing except one? One where...

CRASH!

...the ship wrecks?

The boat had brusquely stopped, and the two fishermen, after recovering their balance, looked around in fear.

"The reef!" said the fisherman named Tucker. "We didn't change our course!"

Alright. My kaleidoscopic visions return. In one, they both live, in another, they both die. Or I could repair the boat, but they would kill me because they fear me. I should let them die. Although...

The boat was slowly going down and the two men were running everywhere, trying to fetch the appropriate material for this kind of emergency. The problem was that their boss, who the boat belonged to, was kind of sloppy and hadn't provided a life-saving self-inflatable skiff.

Okay. I know. Letting people die is bad for my karma. They haven't killed me yet, so they are innocent in the present.

Err...

Since when did I talk like that?

The water was reaching the boat's edge and the men were still in its cabin, trying to dislodge the life-saving jackets from behind the propane bottle. To their dismay, they weren't self-inflatable, and one of the two was completely torn.

I need to think. Stop.

Once again, the time stopped.

These two shall live. Their boat... well, let's say that the owner was sloppy and the boat shall plunge. However, those two shan't have memories of me. Except as an already dead body. After all, they radioed the coastguards already, and it's not as if I can modify the mind of an unknown person hundreds of miles away, is it?

The young man levitated, and two immobilized men flew out of the almost submerged cabin and followed him into the air. After flying at high speed for a minute, the two men were deposited on the nearest shore. Thankfully for them, a road near the beach indicated that the island was inhabited. After changing their memory a bit, the young man left, walking southward on the beach. The fine and warm white sand under his feet was creating a world of sensations and he wanted to experience it.

And the time flew again.

To be continued in next chapter: Leaving for Parts Unknown...

As sand in clockwork, he has
Messed up with an experience.
The result's unknown but has
A familiar taste, I sense.