TITLE: "THE GUNMAN"

AUTHOR: sordid humor

CATEGORY: Adventure

SUB-CATEGORY: Humor; Romance; Drama

RATING: this episodebrought to you by the letter M: "M" is for morbid curiosity

DISCLAIMER:

I do not own them in a box,

I do not own them with a fox

I do not own them while I'm bowling

They all belong to J.K. Rowling

-lyrics from Politik by Coldplay

-George Lucas dreamed up Star Wars, not me

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

count: 6,000 running count:

Welcome to the beginning of Part II; the beginning of the end!

- - -

we demand an underground death cult

- a cult, underground, having something to do with death

we demand Finland

we demand Star Wars

we demand no making fun of Draco Malfoy—Lucius, fine; Draco, no!

we demand a drug dealer

- preferably ex-military but still militant

we demand an albino

we demand tampons

we demand there be prophecy, prophesy, and more prophecy

there must be telepathy

we demand Jaron

- not the first or the second or even the third!

we demand a fruitcake and a wife named Melissa in the same sentence

we demand the continuation of chapter 5's Christo-centric imagery

we demand Stalin

- or Lenin; either will do

(( Tony Blair for extra credit! ))

(( boy, I'm an industrious little bugger, aren't I? ))

PART II

CHAPTER VII:

IN MEDIAS RES.

("Into the middle of things")

Look at earth from outer space

everyone must find a place

Give me time and give me space

Give me real, don't give me fake

Give me strength, reserve, control,

give me heart and give me soul

Give me time give us a kiss

Tell me your own politik

Give me one, 'cause one is best

In confusion, confidence

Give me peace of mind and trust

Don't forget the rest of us

Give me strength, reserve, control,

give me heart and give me soul

Wounds that heal and cracks that fix

Tell me your own politik

And open up your eyes

Open up your eyes

Open up your eyes

Open up your eyes

This cannot be happening, not now, Minerva McGonagall thought to herself as she raced down the corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, gathering speed with every step. Only days ago, she would have thought herself too old to run at such a break-neck speed. But after running so much the last seventy two hours, the ever-quickening pace was almost normal. Almost.

She skidded to a stop before the stone gargoyle that guarded the passage way to the Headmaster's office: her office. She had been so preoccupied with the Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix that she had yet to enter the place since Dumbledore's passing. Catching her breath in pulls less ragged than she had first anticipated, she gave the statue her predecessor's password.

The stone gargoyle stared back at her, immobile.

"Toffee truffles," she repeated, articulating each syllable, unwilling to wait any longer than she had to. If the reports were true, she had absolutely no time to waste. The statue wasn't springing aside. It wasn't moving at all. "Toffee truffles!"

Nothing.

"Minerva! Minerva!" Professor Flitwick was sprinting outright down the corridor towards her, clutching his robes up around his knobbly knees as he ran.

"They've found him!" she called in disbelief, turning from the unresponsive gargoyle to face her colleague.

"Worse," he panted. "It's true! He's gone!"

"They lost him?"

"Sounds more like he gave them the slip, actually... I must say I'm not entirely surprised."

"He never did like being watched," McGonagall conceded, giving up on the idea of getting into her office entirely. She had bigger problems, now. "Tell me everything you've heard."

"Well, the Ministry managed to track him down in Godrick's Hollow, as you had thought, but somewhere between last night and this morning... he disappeared. He managed to disable our shields as well as the Ministry's: he'll be absolutely untraceable." Flitwick had a kind of gleam in his eye despite the weary expression worn into his features. It was almost as though--despite the danger--he secretly wanted Harry Potter to get away, to break free from the restraints of his past and soar into his destiny. Flitwick was mad.

"That can't be! I set some of those shields myself. There's no way Potter could disable any of them and not leave some sort of trace behind. He simply does not possess the knowledge! This is much worse than the Ministry could ever surmise."

"You don't think... You Know Who?" Flitwick covered his mouth with trembling fingers as though to stifle the fear escaping his lips.

"He Who Must Not Be Named... his Death Eaters... Dementors, Werewolves, Vampires! Any of them could have easily overcome the Ministry's 'defenses' in Godrick's Hollow. I knew we should have sent some of our own--"

"But who would we have sent?" Flitwick threw his hands hopelessly into the air, letting them flop down listlessly at his sides. "There's no one left, Minerva! And now Harry's gone!" The little man leaned against the stone wall in abject defeat; McGonagall sometimes forgot how much the man cared for Harry Potter--how much they all cared for the Boy Who Lived.

"We'll get him back. We'll find him," McGonagall reassured him, leaning against the wall herself. "We have to... before anyone else does..."

-

Sitting at her desk in her old office, Professor McGonagall was trying to put together the pieces of the currently dismembered state of things.

Harry Potter was missing. After everything that had been done to keep him safe, after all the precautions that had been taken, he was gone. There was no way that he had slipped out of Godrick's Hollow on his own. She had seen to it that he could hardly move without her knowledge. There was no way he had gone out on his own. She knew Harry Potter too well--the boy wouldn't leave without his friends. He wouldn't have struck out on his own. That only left the option that he had been taken.

There were so many things hunting him; she thought he had somehow always been aware of it, but she now wondered just how much he knew. It was rumored that He Who Must Not Be Named had recently struck a deal with a number of distinguished vampires, knowing that the lesser of their kind would follow where the powerful led. There had been seven suspected vampire killings in the last week, and she knew it was only the beginning. Though Harry didn't have the skill necessary to disarm her shields, it would be child's play to a vampire. The thought only made her worry more.

And who was after him now? The possibilities were astounding: vampires, Dementors, Death Eaters, giants, werewolves, Inferi... not to mention the countless Aurors and Ministry Officials who would be swarming around every dead-end lead in order to maintain appearances of accountability and effectiveness, leaving her and her fellow members of the Order of the Phoenix overwhelmed. They were so overburdened as it was that Kingsley Shackelbolt was using an illegal timeturner in order to play secretary to the muggle Prime Minister by day and guard a fallen member's widow and children by night. Nymphadora Tonks looked as though she hadn't slept since Harry Potter left Surrey. However were they going to find him?

She looked up from a stack of papers when Professor Flitwick burst into her office.

"Did you get the Headmaster's office open already?" she asked, a little surprised, laying her papers aside. Setting eyes on Professor Flitwick, she leapt out from behind her desk.

"Gawain Robards! He's dead!"

"What? How?"

"The Death Eaters set another bridge explosion, and this time they didn't just kill muggles! There were at least twenty Ministry officials on the bridge when it went!"

"And the Ministry is sure that Robards was killed?" McGonagall paced in front of her desk, thinking madly of what to do next.

"Yes. The muggles have already found his body." Flitwick paused. "Do you think this has something to do with Harry's disappearance?"

"If the Death Eaters have Potter, they would naturally want to prevent the Ministry from tracking them: murdering the Head of the Aurors Office would certainly complicate the Ministry's response. If He Who Must Not Be Named has Potter, the Ministry's certainly not going to save him."

As though the Ministry of Magic wasn't ineffective beforehand.

-

Lying in bed that night, Minerva McGonagall found herself utterly unable to sleep. Her mind kept running from one problem to the next: the Headmaster's office, Harry Potter's disappearance, Gawain Robards' death... DuMont...

Above all else, that particular problem had her baffled. It had been reported to the Order that a dangerous bounty hunter--whom she knew to be dead--had broken into Albus Dumbledore's vault at Gringotts, the key to which she had given to Harry Potter the very night the vault had been emptied.

How? The question ran through her mind over and over again like a child's train on a looped track. How had the man done it? How had he gotten the key to that vault? How had he even known about the vault? How had he come back from the dead? ...And where had he been all this time, if he had never been dead to begin with? And if he hadn't died, how had he ever escaped He Who Must Not Be Named?

How did a dead man manage to empty an unknown vault hidden in the depths of Gringotts Wizarding Bank?

And if DuMont was back from the dead, what did he want now?

She recalled in vivid detail a time shortly after He Who Must Not Be Named had come to power, a time in which untold numbers of witches and wizards around the world began to form covert organizations by which to combat He Who Must Not Be Named. It was during this time that the Order of the Phoenix had been founded, as had a number of other prominent groups... and the Order of the Phoenix could not have been the only one to survive. Minerva distinctly recalled a mercurial band of murderers and petty thieves who idolized a little known foreign assassin named DuMont; they believed that DuMont was the only person capable of destroying He Who Must Not Be Named. The group never achieved anything of consequence, and their idol, DuMont, never actually joined their ranks--but a number of similar groups had emerged, groups centered around any zealot with the ambition to take the stage. There had been too many of such groups to count during the time that He Who Must Not Be Named enacted his reign of terror. How many of those groups were still in existence, Minerva wondered. How many more could rise up in light of current events? How much damage could be inflicted by such men and their obsequious followers? How much of that damage would the Order of the Phoenix be able to withstand?

The Head of the Aurors Office was dead. Albus Dumbledore was dead. And Harry Potter--the Boy Who Lived--was missing.

The Order of the Phoenix was in tatters, shredded not only by the Death Eaters but by time. The members were getting older; they had families to worry about, jobs and lives. Some of the members were incredibly young--barely graduated from Hogwarts. There were fewer and fewer trained wizards to battle a threat that could end life itself.

Minerva felt so tired; she was the Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and she couldn't get into her own office...

But she had to keep going. Hogwarts would open in a few weeks. For some of those poor children, Hogwarts was the only place they could go--the only place where they would be safe.

-

-

-

Their black robes flapped in the wind; corpses lay scattered at their feet. An unusual, bitter cold lapped relentlessly upon their faces and hands as they watched their master approach. He stepped equally on bodies and dirt. Two of his men went out to meet him.

"He's not going to like this."

"That's why we're not telling him."

Lucius Malfoy stopped and turned to stare at his companion. Fenrir Greyback stared heavily back at him, unperturbed. Fog rolled between them.

"We're... not telling him?"

"No."

"Then what do we do with her?" Malfoy glanced back across the killing field to where she was being held by several of his comrades. The wind bit once more into his frame, throwing back the hood of his robes and exposing him more fully to its wrath.

"Bring her to me."

Both men jumped at the rasp of their master's voice born upon the fog and wind. Both men bent their heads as their master approached.

"But... she's mad!" In an instant, Malfoy fell to the ground with a scream.

"I will be the judge of that, Lucius," the Dark Lord smiled slightly. "Bring her to me."

Greyback lifted an arm, signaling the men to bring her forward. When she had been brought to the top of the hill, the Dark Lord ordered all but his best men away from him. Greyback remained along with Severus Snape, but Malfoy was taken away by his son.

"My Lord," she gasped, clutching the hem of his robes as though they were her only link to life and sanity. "I have seen him! DuMont! He's returned!"

Lord Voldemort peered calmly into the face of Bellatrix Lestrange for a few moments, taking her in as only he could. After those moments passed, he turned to face his men once more.

"And what do you have to say about this, Snape?" he asked calmly, a snake-like hiss on his lips.

"She's gone mad," Snape shrugged, looking down at Bellatrix. "I killed DuMont myself some nine years ago. He's dead: I swear to it." Snape began to probe into her mind, his eyes glazing over.

"I would never lie to you, my Lord!" Bellatrix pleaded from her place among the corpses. "I saw him! He was alive!"

"She does not lie," Voldemort hissed. His red eyes glowed as he continued to stare into her.

"I agree," Snape agreed. His brief exploration of her psyche had proved to him beyond any reasonable doubt that she had indeed seen DuMont back from the dead. "What now, my Lord?"

As Bellatrix was taken away by Wormtail and Malfoy's boy, Voldemort began to stroll the killing field, surveying the damages and observing his men. Snape and Greyback followed closely behind him, a few others trailing in their master's wake. The Dark Lord set a steady pace into the wind, walking languid and erect as his poltroons staggered in the growing storm. Several retreated down the hill to escape the wind's abrasions, but the Dark Lord appeared unaffected. He strolled in bilious reverie.

"If he is seen, he should be killed," Voldemort mused aloud, "but time should not be wasted chasing a man who will not be found until he desires it." Then Voldemort paused mid-step. His cloak was swept around him by a piercing wind that cut every man on the hilltop to the core. "Elias DuMont is for me."

-

-

-

The dusty sign on the shop door read "CLOSED." Moldy curtains were drawn tight across the windows. The hushed voices of those inside were nothing but an indescribable humm and buzz to the few who passed by. The official meeting had begun.

"You're saying he's back?" Lenin questioned--the man was a dead wringer for his muggle namesake, unbeknownst to him.

"Yes. I'm saying he's back," Aunders Kavall replied as calmly as he could, concealing his excitement until having successfully convinced the rest of Interficiere (To Kill) that he wasn't completely mad.

"You're completely mad!" Jennings--a portly and arrogant member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement--shouted at Kavall around the pipe incessantly clenched in his fatty jowls. He took a self-satisfied sip from his whiskey flask and gave Kavall a dirty look.

"Rubbish," interjected Bigard while scratching his rather large nose. The muggle detective by day--wizard assassin by night--could always be counted on to lend a note of logic to any discussion. Kavall was very thankful for Bigard's support at that moment.

"I agree," said Lenin's brother, Stalin, who looked nothing like his equally unfortunate namesake. Stalin more closely resembled an elderly Winston Churchill. He released a puff of cigar smoke before adding, "What reason would Aunders have to mislead us? Would he not also be misleading himself with such a belief?"

"I say we wait and see if he comes back," said Drake, the American. The dim light in the shop made his buzz cut hair and military dog-tags glisten, making him appear even more menacing than usual.

"I say we find him!" Jennings yelled, whiskey still in hand.

"I say we kill him." Fure--a convicted murderer long-escaped from Georgia--had been sitting quietly in a dark corner of the room, twisting one of his countless daggers between albino fingers. His red eyes glowed. "Ask questions later."

"How do we know this man isn't an impostor, eh?" asked Seväg Scrimgeour. He was an excellent bounty hunter with an impressive record and the curse of the current Minister of Magic for a cousin. His days of being well-paid were over, but he never let it effect his work... which was inherently superb, by Kavall's extensive observation.

"He said he has come to collect his daughter," Kavall said. There was a collective mumbling around the room. Lenin and Stalin had their heads together. Bigard had begun taking notes on a pad of paper. Fure had returned to toying with his throwing knives. Jennings and Drake still appeared skeptical.

"And you spoke with him?" Drake confirmed.

"At length," Kavall informed the group as the side conversations began to subside. "He was exactly as I remembered him." Kavall resumed his seat once more, hoping that he had been convincing enough, and that fate would take her proper course.

"So--believing this man to be DuMont--you gave him the book?" asked Makki, a handsome man in his twenties hailing from Finland. He had only become active in Interficiere after his mother's murder some seven or eight years ago. Since, the young Fin had become an invaluable contact for Kavall, as Makki had recently taken over his family's transport business... specializing in magical contraband. Makki was making them both exceedingly rich individuals.

"Of course he didn't!" Jennings introjected before Kavall could answer. "My old friend would never be so thick-headed, nor so rash!" Sometimes, Kavall wondered why he still considered the old Ministry bloke as remotely valuable. The man could be positively infuriating.

"But... you did?" Seväg deduced from Kavall's silence.

"What?" Lenin spluttered.

"Why?" Stalin demanded in equal shock.

"Well," Kavall sighed, "he seemed the sort of man who would kill me for sport, regardless of the book. He didn't seem to think the book was authentic to begin with."

"Sounds like DuMont," Bigard said soundly.

"DuMont, indeed," Fure agreed, his fiery red eyes locked on the dusty floor.

"So, what do we do now?" asked Sid. Seated in his usual place--atop the register table--the gangly teen had managed to string together his sentence for the day. Interficiere had welcomed the youngster after his parents' recent murders. It was a good day when Sid could raise his voice loud enough to be heard at a meeting. He tugged his wool cap down more firmly over his head before anyone could spot his ears turning pink.

"Wait for him to come back," Drake repeated, sighing as he gestured hopelessly. "There's no use chasing him when he doesn't want to be found." There was a general murmuring off ascent.

"Do you truly believe he'll be coming back, Kavall?" Lenin asked. "You already gave him the book..."

"And the book is why DuMont will come back!" Makki insisted to the older man. "So what if he didn't believe it's authenticity? Once he tries it for himself, he'll want to know if we can provide more!"

"Or he'll come back, kill us all and be done with it," Fure muttered, gesticulating sarcastically with his daggers.

"Why not take our chances?" Bigard offered. He had finished writing on his pad of paper and slipped it in his breast pocket. "Either way, we're dead."

"Right, then. I believe a vote is in order," Kavall proposed in his official capacity as spokesman for Interficiere. "All in favor of waiting for DuMont's return?" Going down the ranks, each man gave a nod of approval when his name was called. "It's unanimous: we wait for--"

"It's not unanimous: Fletcher's not here," Stalin reminded him.

"Oh yes, you're right," Kavall said. "He didn't send word to anyone that he would be late?" Kavall scanned the dim, smoky room. Most of the men shook their heads.

"Pray, remind me;" Jennings droned, "we keep him around because... ?" He puffed madly on his pipe.

"Kavall, what will you do when DuMont makes contact again?" Bigard inquired, diverting the group's attention back to more pressing matters of business than its absent members.

"I plan to invite him to our next meeting. I'll let all of you know when I see him next," Kavall said. At that, the men finally seemed calm. Their pieces of the puzzle were now all accounted for; they only needed DuMont to finish the picture: to save the world...

"And now, gentlemen," Bigard stood and announced, "my lovely wife Melissa has made us another fruitcake." And at once he produced the cake from midair with a flourish. The members of Interficiere approached immediately; Mrs. Bigard's cakes and cookies had become a regular tradition at these little get togethers. Poor Melissa Bigard thought her husband was attending a seminar for early retirement investment put on by his superiors at the detective department... poor Mrs. Bigard, indeed.

Just as the men were getting into the fruitcake and idle conversation, a series of grating and popping noises began issuing from the fireplace at the back of the shop. A moment later, one very haggard-looking Mundungus Fletcher came tumbling out onto the hearth. The men continued to eat cake and socialize, doing their best to ignore the little man who had just rolled into the room and was now brushing dirt and soot off himself. Kavall approached him.

"You're too late, Mundungus," he said. "The meeting's been over a full ten minutes, now." Mundungus merely coughed out a respectable amount of black powdery substance and headed for the fruitcake without a word.

-

-

-

But I assure you, he won't stand with any credibility anywhere.

Prime Minister Tony Blair smiled to himself and turned off the television. He had done it. Despite all odds, he was able to win back the trust of the voters with reforms in education, subsequently making any man to face him in debate into an absolute imbecile in the public eye. He had fought his way back to the top tooth and nail, and it felt absolutely grand. He was just about to pour himself a little brandy for the evening when there was a knock on his office door.

"Shackelbolt? Yes, come in," he said. Over the last few weeks, he had come to the conclusion that--despite what any man who came out of his fireplace had to say--Kingsley Shackelbolt was the best secretary a Prime Minister could ever ask for, end of discussion. The man got more done in one day than all of his predecessors put together. Blair was immensely pleased. Then Kingsly Shackelbolt informed him that Cornelius Fudge was waiting outside.

"Ahem," the grubby little portrait on the wall began portentously, "The Minister of Magic requests an audience with--"

"Let him in," Blair told his secretary, heading for the brandy once again. "Yes, yes! I heard you!" he grumbled at the portrait as he poured himself more than he had planned on a minute ago. "There's enough brandy here for all of us."

The subject of the portrait took his last comment as consent and waddled out of sight. Prime Minister Tony Blair took a fortifying sip before turning to greet Cornelius Fudge. He put on a smile.

"Mr. Fudge! Could I interest you in a glass of brandy, perhaps?"

"Thank you, no," Fudge responded, sounding out of breath. He collapsed in a chair before Blair's desk and removed his signature bowler hat, twisting and turning it in an agitated fashion. For a moment, Blair wondered what Fudge did with the hat when he wasn't about to announce terrible news.

"What seems to be the trouble, then?" Blair wondered in the back of his mind if all this was about that bridge explosion earlier in the day.

"Harry Potter is missing," Rufus Scrimgeour announced appearing from the hearth and dusting his wizards robes regally before seating himself beside Fudge in an equally majestic fashion.

"I'm sorry--who?" Blair had decided that he wasn't going to panic. Chances were there was absolutely nothing he could do about any of it, anyway.

"That's what I was here to explain," Fudge said. "You might recall my telling you about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"

"Ah, Lord Veldersomething-or-another," Blair nodded from the swiveling chair behind his desk. "Yes, I recall."

"Well, when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was believed dead some years ago, Harry Potter had been He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's last intended victim. But Potter wasn't killed, and he's become somewhat of a national hero," Fudge heaved a minute sigh, as though the whole thing was just a little too silly for his taste. "There's been talk of his being the Chosen One of prophecy, come to deliver us from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named..."

"And now he's missing?"

"Yes," Scrimgeour confirmed. "On an all together different note--by law--I'm required to inform you that seventeen muggles have been taken to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries to be treated for exposure to the Imperius Curse. We're investigating five other cases; you'll be notified should the Ministry see it fit to take any further action." The man was a drone, Blair thought idly. He wouldn't hold up very well in debate. "Good day." Scrimgeour got up to leave and Fudge began to do the same.

"Wait, I have a question," Blair said calmly, rising from his seat as well so as to prevent his magical guests from diving off into the fireplace without another word.

"And what is that, Minister?" Scrimgeour asked politely.

"The bridge explosion this morning--Albanian terrorists--that was you people?"

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, yes," Scrimgeour said.

"I'd heard Gawain Robards was killed in that." Fudge seemed unsure of his information; Blair took it as a sign that things were worse for the Other Ministry than either of the wizards lead on.

"Yes, he was."

"Who?" Blair couldn't help but ask.

"Gawain Robards, Head of the Auror Office," Scrimgeour informed.

"I'm terribly sorry," Blair shook his head a little, "office of what?"

"The Auror Office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," Fudge explained hurriedly. "Aurors... destroy dark wizards," he said simply in his rush. Blair had a sudden mental image of a hundred magic-wielding Darth Vaders converging on a lone Luke Skywalker, little glowing sword in hand.

"Dark wizards? Like Star Wars, and the dark side of the force?" Blair asked wildly.

But his question was asked in vain, as the two wizards from the light side had just gone out his fireplace in a show of sparks and howling green light.

-

-

-

"Ron, why is Hermione packing her trunk in such a rush?" Ginny asked, joining her brother at the Burrow's kitchen table. Ron--whose face was red and buried in his hands--thought it was very amiable of his sister to pretend she hadn't heard the screaming.

"Because she's going to Bulgaria," Ron answered, not taking his watery eyes off a particular knot in the wooden table. Staring made it easier for him to forget the lump in his throat.

"And why's that?" Ginny continued calmly, a gentle hand on Ron's shoulder.

"Because she thinks it's my fault Harry ran away..."

"Oh, Ron!" Ginny scoffed, "I'm sure Hermione doesn't feel that way." She tried to give a little laugh but found herself unable when Ron was clearly suffering so.

"Fine, then," Ron said savagely, "she thinks it's her fault that Harry ran away and she can't stand the sight of my face anymore!" He shot his sister a teary, wounded expression and sniffed. "Either way, she's just running away, too."

"Why don't you try and talk to her? I'm sure she doesn't really want to leave," Ginny suggested. Ron snorted loudly.

"Look, Ginny," Ron rounded on his sister, "it's real bloody nice of you to pretend you didn't hear us going at it a minute ago, but it's not helping any! She's made her decision, and I'm done with her!" He got up from the table and paced the room, fingers locked behind his neck with lanky elbows protruding.

"And when we all go back to Hogwarts in the fall... what will you do then?" Ginny sighed. "Ignore her?"

"I'm not going back." Ron gazed out the window above the kitchen sink, thinking deep thoughts about the future and the past.

"Good luck telling Mum and Dad," Ginny said, getting up and heading for the door.

"Telling me what?" Mrs. Weasley asked from the doorway with a load of laundry in her arms. "Hmm?"

"Nothing," Ron called from his place before the window, still lost in thought. He knew that Harry would be alright no matter where he was--Harry could always take care of himself. But why had he left without his best friends? Ron couldn't understand it. Why wouldn't his best mate want him around, especially when they needed each other the most? "Good luck, Harry," he whispered to the glass and the rare sunshine on the other side. "I dunno what you're doing now... but you're sure gonna need it."

-

-

-

She woke up the next morning and he was gone. Either that or he woke up the next morning and she was there. Or rather, she was in his head, holding him hostage. Perhaps it wasn't his head at all: perhaps it was he who had invaded hers.

Where am I going? he wondered.

--Shut up.

He tried to raise an eyebrow in confusion but found himself unable to control her eyebrows anymore. But I--

--No. Shut up.

He shut it. She was going straight for Platform 9 and 3/4.

Harry had taken a quick nap on the train ride back from Godrick's Hollow. When creepy smoking muggle had woken him up for the stop at King's Cross Station, he hadn't been himself anymore. She had been there. She smiled sweetly at smoking guy and thanked him for waking her. Harry was unnerved, but hadn't bothered to say anything to her about it. Maybe it was better to let her charm the guy--he could have been Ministry, anyway. She would therefore have fooled the Ministry, throwing them off his trail. Or her trail. He wasn't quite sure. He was still half asleep when she got off the train, wide awake.

It was very early on a weekday morning but witches and wizards were already up and about and getting to work. The platform wasn't very crowded and she could maneuver easily without calling attention to herself. She made her way over to the portion of the platform devoted to apparition departures and before he knew it, they were both inside the Leaky Cauldron. Her apparating skills were far beyond his own.

Harry spotted a comfortable looking chair hiding in the corner and longed to gaze longingly at it. He couldn't help but begin to ask if he might sit down?

--No. I said shut up.

Figures.

Blowing past Tom the bartender before he had a chance to notice her, she took Harry out into the dazzling sunlight of Diagon Alley in the morning.

-

Later that afternoon she was sitting in a muggle bakery having coffee and a danish, plenty of money in her pocket and a newspaper under her coffee cup. She had just sat down to read the newspaper when a young man in a wool cap approached her. He glanced around, jumpy. There were dark circles beneath his eyes and he seemed nervous, as though he rarely spoke to strange young women in bakeries. She recognized him from outside Gringotts, when she was exchanging for muggle currency. The young man tugged his hat down on his head with both hands before clearing his throat and leaning toward her.

"Uh, sorry to bother you," he mumbled. "I saw you back at the bank." He appeared to be acting against his nature by speaking to her, which made for a good sign. She nodded simply, accepting what he had said.

"Would you care to sit down?" she asked, indicating the seat on the other side of the table with an elegant gesture. Her movements were slow and planned, graceful as a swan or a ballerina. Her voice could be mesmerizing.

"Thanks," he returned, seating himself only to spring up a moment later in a hunched back position, offering her his hand across the smallish table. "Sid Spivery."

She took his hand in hers, smiling. "Harry."

"That's a very interesting name for a girl," Sid commented, crossing his long legs awkwardly under the tiny coffee table and gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the silly muggles passing by. She laughed easily, gently.

"Well, my father always wanted a boy; so when my mother named me Harriet he called me Harry," she explained. "Now everyone does." She took a sip of her coffee, more to warm her fingertips than to satisfy any thirst. Even with Harry's sweatshirt she was cold.

"I wouldn't have stopped you, except that you look like someone I know--or, someone my parents... knew..." Sid said plainly, still looking away from her uncomfortably. "You wouldn't be from outside London, would you?"

This was her moment. "As a matter of fact I am," she said after another sip of coffee. "I'm Austrian." Sid smiled, a big toothy grin that split his face and belied his age amid a face wearied of late.

"I've never been there myself, but I've been told it's rather beautiful," he commented, toying with a ripped end of her muggle newspaper. She knew what he was getting at now: he left it all too clear to her. "Especially the mountains to the west."

"Ah, but I would disagree," she quipped playfully, tearing a piece of her pastry and brandishing it at him. "My father is from the east and would have more than a few words on the subject." That was what he wanted. He could not turn to look at her now.

"And what," Sid bucked up his courage for his most important query, "what does your father think of this recent mess concerning the Ministry's... enemy number one?" He asked the question very quietly so as not to draw any undesirable muggle attention. She spotted his nonverbal spell from beneath the table. She smiled; a true smile.

"On that particular subject my father and I are of one mind," she said, pulling forward slightly to draw her coffee and his attention to herself. He leaned further toward her still, eyes glued to the slender fingers she wound about her cup. "Harry Potter has had many problems," she sighed, "most of which never happened."

And then Sid laughed.

And then there was a mighty explosion several miles away that rocked the entire city of London, muggle and wizarding alike.

-

Harriet stood in line at the muggle police station later that day. She stood in line with hundreds of other people at that particular station as thousands of people stood at countless other stations or glued to their televisions and radios. The muggles didn't know about Gawain Robards--they were blathering on about Albanian terrorists. The two women standing in line in front of her bickered over what would be attacked next: one said the food supply, another the educational system. Both blamed Prime Minister Tony Blair for their woes. Poor Prime Minister... personally, Harriet thought it would be most efficacious to go for the intricate and vital subway systems, were she a terrorist. Thankfully, she had more important things to do than bomb the London Underground--she had officers of the law to hoodwink: far more important as well as far more entertaining. Harry waited in anticipation. It was easier to keep his mind off things once Harriet showed him how to pick muggle's brains for useful pieces of news--much faster than reading the papers, she said. That's how she learned about tampons. Harry didn't want to recall the scene in the ladies room on the way to the police station. He'd blocked it out of his memory for all eternity. She had been intensely amused.

What are we going to say? Harry asked.

--Could you leave me alone, possibly? was her retort. I'm busy looking gorgeous and in distress.

Harry agreed. She'd broken one of his old quills and used it to pull her hair back away from her face to emphasize the round openness of her eyes. She'd ripped his sweatshirt and gotten dirt on the knees of his jeans and on her pretty hands. She looked as though she'd been in the explosion--

--Thanks. That's what I was going for. She was reading his mind again. He'd have to practice his Occlumency if he ever wanted a minute alone. --Good luck with that. Damn it!

There was a purposefully placed cut on her arm revealed by one of the torn patches on his sweatshirt: it was one of Harry's cuts from the night before that she had reopened with her wand--Sirius' wand that she had taken as her own. She had it hidden up his sleeve now, the handle tucked firmly under the band of Harry's watch, the pressure of which also kept the watch from slipping right off her tiny wrist. The entire time she waited in line, not once did she reach to secure it, not once did she move to touch it in the slightest bit. Harry wanted to reassure himself of its presence but could not--she wouldn't let him. They couldn't call special attention to themselves, she reminded him. Why didn't he go back to reading people's thoughts and leave her alone?

When she reached the front of the make-shift line designated for survivors and victim's families, she was confronted by a list of the dead scrolling across a television set. The list of names appeared endless: they ran from the top of the screen to the bottom in three columns; a constant succession, a reminder of the destructive power of Lord Voldemort.

--Shut up! she insisted. Can't you stop thinking about that bloke for all of a second? It's as though you're in love with him! She was mocking him.

I am not! He killed my parents! He's directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people! And he's going to kill me, too--

--Blah, blah, blah. She was scanning the lists of the dead and heard his whining as one hears elevator music. Yes, yes. Shut up, now.

Grrr... Harry fumed.

--Watch and learn, ass hole.

An officer waved her forward. Clutching Harry's sweatshirt about herself, she made her way to the officer's desk. The man didn't glance away from his computer monitor even as she approached. Harry thought the man should at least have the decency to look up. --Wait. Just wait.

She moved so quickly, so silently that the officer never knew she was coming until it was too late. She pulled her wand from up Harry's sleeve and whacked the computer with it--hard. She coughed to mask the thunk of wood meeting industrial plastic and her wand was safely stowed away by the time the officer had a chance to look up with a somewhat startled expression. Yeah, she's pretty. Quit staring, Harry thought.

--Thank you: you're distracting: shut up.

"How can I help you, miss?" the officer asked. She flashed him a worried, mournful yet acceptably flirtatious, anxious smile.

"My uncle was killed in the explosion," she explained in a panicked voice and the officer merely nodded. "I barely made it out in time, myself," as the officer could see and took detached notice of.

"Do you have identification?" While giving her the up-and-down the officer noted that something was wrong--she lacked a purse; and as all beautiful, sensible and fashionable women never leave the house without their purses, this lacking was a clear indication of a serious underlying problem. The officer actually bothered to look at her. Reading the man's sudden, rash and rather disturbing thoughts, Harry growled.

"No," she replied, clutching the neckline of Harry's torn sweatshirt and gazing vacantly across the busy room. "I must have lost my purse when..."

"I understand, miss." The officer typed garbage on his computer keyboard as he attempted to get a better look at her cleavage. Harry wished he could make a fist, or at least feel a vein pulsating in his neck; she said it was a silly urge that would pass more quickly if he would just leave her the fuck alone. "I'll see if I can look you up in the system through your uncle," the officer continued. He held down the backspace button for a short time before asking, "What's your uncle's name?"

She glanced at the scrolling list of names. "Foxworthy," she said. "Jaron Foxworthy." The officer typed, clicked, and waited.

"I have a J. Foxworthy here," he peered at the screen. "Originally from Staffordshire?"

"No," she answered. She had her cold fingers dug into Harry's pockets. "My Uncle was from Wolverhampton."

"Ah, yes. Here we are," the officer said at last. "Jaron A. Foxworthy of Wolverhampton." He glanced up at her again, not seeing the fear or the determination set in her face. "Death Certificates won't be available for a few days yet, but I can try and get you a replacement identification card."

"That would be lovely, thank you."

"Name?"

"Harriet Foxworthy." In a matter of fifteen minutes, she had identification for herself and her "cousin," Liam--who looked remarkably like Harry Potter except with shorter hair, blue eyes and no glasses--and the officer's telephone number.

--Now for lunch. I'm craving something salty...

-

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ADDITIONAL AUTHOR'S NOTE, BECAUSE ONE IS APPARENTLY NO LONER ENOUGH TO SLAKE MY LUST:

At least I've gone back and fixed all the paragraph breaks. You have to admit that I'e done SOMETHING... TT

Sorry my grammar's gone to pot: the master beta no longer speaks to me. Sorry my creativity's gone to pot: that's a long and convoluted story. I'll be grasping at threads as long as I can in the hopes of creating something possibly valid. For this moment let's just pretend that I'm a good writer...