AN: It was way, wayyyy too much fun to imagine this kind of stuff. It really appeals to the conspiracy theorist within, methinks. And I just gotta say, wow, it's chapter thirteen already and you guys are still sticking with this! I'm amazed by that and ridiculously thrilled by every little notification of reviews and alerts and favorites that float into my inbox, so thanks a million times to anyone out there making that happen. Oh yes, and I don't own this, none of this, I'm just playing in the sandbox here.
"Mind telling me where exactly we are?" asked Harry.
Dawson's eyes flicked sideways, as if determining whether or not he was worthy of an answer. "Washington, D.C. The nation's capital."
"Yes, I know that," said Harry, rolling his eyes. "Shocking as it may be for you to find out; I actually know how to read maps. I just thought you'd be somewhere around Central Intelligence Agency headquarters, seeing as you mentioned you were affiliated."
"We were centered at the original CIA headquarters until the late seventies," admitted Dawson grudgingly. "Until our head of department had a falling out with the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency."
"I was with the department at the time," said the grey-haired man conversationally. "I believe the day we laid the blueprints for new headquarters was the day our head turned the Director's desk into a warthog."
Neither Harry nor the other agent who had accompanied them blinked, but Puck wasn't able to repress a snort. Harry couldn't blame him. For a worldwide conspiracy, the Wizarding community could tend toward the ridiculous.
They continued marching along the dank, dark passage they'd Portkeyed into. The other two agents had branched off at a different passage with the bound and cuffed band of Death Eaters long ago. Harry looked up at a bit of mold that had attached itself to the low ceiling and the flickering bare fluorescent bulb. "You still haven't told me where we are."
"Underneath the White House," said the grey man. It occurred to Harry that the man hadn't told him his name. It also occurred to Harry that Dawson probably wasn't Dawson's name anyway, and he could spend his life trying and never find out the name of the grey haired man.
"Underneath?" Puck frowned.
"You think the White House is just the Oval Office and the pretty gardens?" asked Dawson. "Think again. There was already a quite impressive underground network under the House. We simply…extended it."
"Sweet." Puck looked up at the moldy ceiling with a new appreciation.
"Don't get used to it," snapped Dawson. "By this time tomorrow you'll remember neither the White House nor this conversation."
Harry had opened his mouth to snap back, but the grey man raised his hands. Both of them immediately fell silent. They had finally reached the end of the hallway. They stood in front of a nondescript black door that had clearly been recently repainted.
"I see that magic makes you talented at dramatic entrances," drawled Puck. Harry blinked. Puck was certainly taking this much better than he'd expected, and he hadn't even tagged along with Santana to that restaurant's bar. Although, to be fair, watching a living room get blown to pieces and then getting dragged into the U.S.A.'s Auror Department Headquarters deep underneath the basement of the White House had to be a pretty good wake-up call.
Dawson shook her head and her carefully slicked ponytail quivered. "That's because you were with us when you came down this hallway. If you had somehow managed to stumble your way in on your own? I trust that the flames that would have swooped down and incinerated your ridiculous Jersey Shore hairdo would have been adequately theatrical."
Kurt would have strong words if he ever saw this woman, Harry thought idly. In fact, he'd love to snap this woman's wand in half and lock her in a cage with Santana and Kurt. A highly trained Auror versus a pair of high school cheerleaders? Well, Kurt and Santana had been under Coach Sylvester's most distinguished tutelage. He'd put his money on the cheerleaders.
The grey man didn't dignify any of this with a reply. Instead, he pressed his palm to the door, which made a faint humming sound and then swung open to admit them.
"Had you tried that, there wouldn't have been enough ashes left of you to scatter at sea," said Dawson. She sounded far too cheerful.
"If this place somehow incinerates me, I swear to God I will hire someone to season your lunch with my ashes, and then I'll come back to haunt you every moment of every day," snapped Puck.
Dawson waved her hand dismissively. "I'll summon the Undead Council to put a ghostly restraining order on you."
Puck went purple and shut his mouth as he and Harry followed the grey-haired man in the door, and Dawson brought up the rear. Dawson's heels clicked audibly on surgically clean marble flooring. The room they stepped into was perfectly circular, with a vaulted glass-paneled ceiling. Harry could see a swirl of stars and scudding clouds through the glass. Puck's brows knit.
"Correct me if I heard wrong, but we're underneath the White House, correct? As in, underground?"
"Magic," Harry shrugged. "The Ministry back home is underground too, and they have windows."
"Nice to see that people put supernatural powers to good use, solving the world's problems and all."
"Oh, I don't know Puck; I think Rachel and Kurt would probably agree that lack of lighting in basements is a pressing issue."
"Would you shut up, both of you?" snapped Dawson.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to ease up my nerves in face of what may or may not be a permanent brain wipe for me. But clearly, my mental well being pales in the face of your peace of mind. So by all means, carry on," said Puck, his voice dripping with disdain. He'd clearly learned a thing or two from time spent around Quinn and Santana. Harry had to admire his gall. It was one thing to bitch at Quinn, it was entirely another to bitch at a woman with full command of magic.
They crossed the marble tiled room and entered yet another hallway that might have been a part of any other office block in the city. It was carpeted in that indistinct mix of grey-blue-brown-maroon native to office blocks and medical centers, white-walled and would have been extraordinarily ordinary, if it wasn't for the occasional fireplace set into the paneled walls where legions of other black-suited agents would pop up in sporadic bursts of green flame, and neat blue office memos constructed of pressed linen paper zipping around the air. At the end of the hall, they stopped again in front of door that was indistinguishable from any other door dotting the hallway save for a gold nameplate hammered into the door. Harry tried to read it, but the letters scattered and shifted before his eyes could focus and form a word of them.
A memo came zooming over and shuddered to a halt in front of the grey-haired man, who snatched it out of the air, unfolded it, and scanned it. He then tossed it over his shoulder, where it refolded itself and zoomed away again, straight into one of the fireplaces.
"Dawson, you're needed in level three at once."
Dawson frowned. "Level three? But Lee and Grant should have been more than enough to escort the hostiles."
"They were," said the grey-haired man. "But the body of a fifth was discovered, along with a witch who was on scene at the time."
Dawson said nothing, only took her orders and disappeared into the nearest fireplace. The unpleasant churning in Harry's stomach returned, along with the iron tang of blood and burning flesh singing the night air. Body. He had killed Greyback. Not that he was at all sorry that the world was rid of a murdering pedophilic werewolf, and he had a pretty strong self-defense argument on his own side, but still. It didn't make knowing that he'd killed someone any easier. Cho was in no danger, though. Or at least, she should be in no kind of trouble. As far as he knew she hadn't even had the time to fire off a curse.
The grey haired man ushered both he and Puck inside the office. It somehow didn't surprise Harry that the desk was crafted of brushed stainless steel and the rest of the room was almost completely bare. "Have a seat," said the grey haired man, flicking his wand casually as he settled into the imposing black leather seat behind the desk. A pair of old-fashioned wingback chairs materialized. Harry sat down but Puck remained standing, still wary. Harry gave him a little encouraging sort of nod and Puck sank into the chair, but remained perched close to the edge, chin jutting out.
The grey-haired man took a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose, and then placed his palms flat on the desk on top of the single sheet of legal sized paper laid in out between them. "So, Mr. Potter, do you think you can offer me any explanation as to why five British war criminals somehow made their way into Lima, Ohio, and why you were waiting for them there?"
Harry narrowed his eyes. "You know full well why they were there."
"That's as may be, but there's still no explanation concerning your own presence in a cow town in Ohio."
Puck looked as though he thought the man had a point.
Harry twisted his fingers, feeling the answer he was about to give might sound extraordinarily conceited. "You are aware that I am subject to…no small amount of attention from the media back home, right?" He could feel Puck's eyes on him, but he ignored it and stared straight ahead. He'd explain later, if they didn't turn his brains to mush.
"Can't say that's it's a situation I entirely empathize with, but yes, I am aware."
"The media attention was getting a bit…obstructive. I couldn't even get a bloody coffee without it being headlines the next day and I'm pretty sure I was getting four marriage proposals a day, not to mention the PR department at the Ministry wouldn't leave me the hell alone."
"So you ran away," said the grey man. His stare made Harry shift uncomfortably.
"I couldn't think of a way to deal with it at the time." Despite himself, he felt a blush creep up his neck.
"I see. And you brought an entourage of enemies along with you?"
"No. I don't find enemies. They find me."
"And how exactly did they find you?"
"It was really just Greyback, actually," said Harry. The man lifted an eyebrow. "Um…the fifth body that they sent your agent in to investigate. He was a rogue werewolf."
The man tilted his head, and Harry could hear the vertebrae in his neck ripple and pop. "He was here searching for victims in a quiet spot and he ran into you, was it? Classic hostile werewolf pattern."
Harry nodded. "He snagged a substitute position at the school I'd been attending."
Puck's eyes widened in realization. "The creepy ass history sub that you freaked out when you saw?"
"That would be the one."
"And you didn't seek to inform proper authorities? Greyback was a clear danger," said the grey-haired man.
"You think I didn't know that? I was backed into a corner. He had contacts, and if I threatened to turn him in or bring in reinforcements he'd level the school and murder the kids in the time it would take to get to him and bring him down."
"You may as well have informed us, seeing as you set him off anyway."
Harry pressed a finger to his temple, which was now throbbing. "Thanks for mentioning that, I hadn't noticed. I didn't actually do anything to set him off, for your information. An old friend who was present at the final battle happened to drop into town to visit some cousins. Greyback caught wind of her, assumed I had called her in as reinforcement, and attacked her."
"And that was how he died?"
"Yeah. He used the Dark Mark to set off the alert, though, so the others attacked my apartment, which is how he got dragged into this." Harry indicated Puck.
The man appraised Puck for a moment, before sighing and dropping his head into his hands. "Do you have any idea how much of a headache this is going to be? Cover up work on your apartment floor, investigation to confirm that you broke the Statute of Secrecy only on defensive grounds, on top of transporting apprehended Death Eaters back to Britain to stand trial for war crimes?"
It was Puck that spoke up this time. "You can't just try them here?"
The man's shoulders seemed to sag. "International protocol prohibits. I wish, though. Damn United Wizarding League. In my day, we could send 'em packing straight to Alcatraz."
"You could send them to Guantanamo instead," suggested Puck.
"I appreciate the thought, but the Wizengamot would have my head, and then the press would spin it into World War III."
Harry drummed his fingers on the red velour arm of the chair. "As exciting as this history lesson may be, I'd like to cut to the chase. What's going to happen to Puck?"
Puck froze, but Harry could see the tendons in his neck cord out.
"As Dawson has so enthusiastically informed you, were we to follow the textbook, we'd have to Obliviate him."
Puck seemed to have frozen up entirely and Harry opened his mouth immediately to protest.
"But," continued the man, holding up his hand to forestall any complaints. "That tends to apply in the event that the Muggle in question who has witnessed blatant acts of magic is not connected with any of the magic users."
"Meaning…"
"Mind wiping tends to be the protocol when the Muggle is an innocent bystander, has no long-term connections with anyone magical, and is therefore unlikely to suffer any adverse effects from an Obliviation. However, assuming the two of you are on more than an acquaintance basis, which, judging from his presence in your apartment-" grey man took a moment to give a pointed look to Puck-"and frequent shared references to other friends and events, is true, then Obliviation would not be standard operative procedure. Wiping all magical memory would involve not only wiping all memory of the incident, but wiping memories of Harry, which at this point are quite extensive. Removing more long-term memories carries a much higher risk of brain damage."
Harry was briefly reminded of Gilderoy Lockhart; handsome, vacant-eyed, and led around like a child on a leash by the healer at St. Mungo's.
"So all of this means that…I get to keep my memories?" asked Puck slowly, as if afraid that if his usual loud manner bled through, the grey man would revoke the offer and wipe his memories on the spot.
A beat's pause. And then-
"Yes."
Puck exhaled loudly and finally slumped back into his chair. Harry felt the nervous pit in his stomach dissolve at long last.
"But," continued the grey-haired man, "I trust you realize the gravity of the situation? You are not, under any circumstances, allowed to divulge either the existence of magic or what happened in that apartment. Do so, and you can kiss those memories, as well as Mr. Potter here goodbye."
"Yeah, I won't talk. I'm not complete fucking stupid." Puck chose to ignore the wording of the grey man's sentence, and so did Harry. They'd deal with that if the time ever came.
"I should've known," said Harry suddenly, slapping the arm of the chair with a little more vehemence than necessary.
The grey man raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?"
"Yeah, really. How in the hell else would people be able to start families with Muggles if Obliviation was a blanket rule? Merlin, it should've been obvious."
"So I just spent a good half hour freaking out over nothing?" said Puck, looking put out.
The grey haired man seemed amused for a change. "I don't know if one would call discovery of magic along with an entire underground network of government nothing."
Puck shrugged. "Weird shit happens all the time. Now I just have the explanation for it."
The grey-haired man observed him for a long moment. "If more people thought like you, I wouldn't have an office buried under the White House."
It was four in the morning when they left the headquarters of the American Auror department. Just because the situation concerning Puck's brain had been cleared up quickly didn't mean the other issues at hand tidied up after themselves. There was Greyback's still charred and smoking body, for starters, not to mention a very shell-shocked Cho Chang. Each one of them had been taken in for individual questioning, subjected to lie-detecting tests, and required to fill out a metric shitton of paperwork. There had been a couple of knotty issues concerning Harry and Cho's foreign citizenship status that kept them an hour longer than they should have been required to stay, but to his surprise, Dawson managed to smooth it over using a loophole found in one of her precious handbooks.
Harry could have kissed her on the spot when she found the solution. He'd been dead terrified of the British Ministry getting wind of his presence in America. As far as they all knew across the pond, he'd disappeared without a trace. Common consensus was that he was probably camped out in the attic at the Burrow unbeknownst to any of the Weasleys themselves and subsisting on scraps from their dining room table, according to Ron. He'd prefer that the presses continue to think that way. The last thing he wanted was Rita Skeeter descending upon Lima, Ohio. She'd probably form some sort of unholy union with Jacob Ben Israel and the New Direction's relationship roulette would hit headlines in pulpy gossip magazines across the Wizarding community, with Harry featured prominently and inaccurately.
The Obliviation Squad had already checked up on all the Muggles on his floor and set his apartment straight, but by unspoken agreement, when the grey-haired man offered Harry and Puck the Portkey back, they skipped his door and went straight down to the parking lot, piled into the car, and drove to the Puckerman residence.
Neither Sarah nor Mrs. Puckerman had bothered waiting for Puck. It was competition day, after all, and competition day entailed parties, and parties entailed not getting home until the wee hours of the morning. The apartment was dark and silent save for the sound of snores filtering from Sarah's room. Both Harry and Puck tiptoed into Puck's bedroom, and Puck eased the door closed as quietly as he could.
He flicked on the desk lamp rather than the main light fixture, and Harry sat down on the edge of Puck's bed, crossing his legs. Puck followed suit and they remained like that for a few minutes, just bathed in the dim yellow light of the lamp and relishing the silence. Harry hadn't realized how incredibly how incredibly tired he was until that moment. His muscles had been running on pure adrenalin, but his fight-or-flight instinct had finally shut down, leaving behind muscles that felt as if they'd been stretched out like taffy and left to hang.
"So," said Puck at last, breaking the silence. "Magic. That was it, this whole time?"
"Yep," said Harry. "I really wasn't lying when I said it was pretty much illegal for me to tell you anything."
Puck gave a short bark of laugh and fell back on the mattress, sprawling out. "Yeah, you're telling me. I honestly believed for a while back there that they were going wipe my memories and leave me shit for brains."
"I wouldn't put it past them, honestly."
"Not that Dawson person, anyway. Bitch would've given Sue Sylvester a run for her money."
"Sue Sylvester wouldn't wipe your brains, though. She'd want all your memories of suffering and pain and humiliation intact."
Puck laughed, but almost as soon as he did, his face took on an unusually sober expression and he quieted. "So. Let me get something straight here."
He was wearing an expression that Harry usually associated with Hermione Granger digging and probing for information, and he shifted uncomfortably.
"You said you were here in this shithole to escape…media attention?"
Harry rubbed his elbows. "Yeah. It was getting pretty awful." He thought of his final meeting with the public relations department and shuddered. Any longer in the place, and he might very well have snapped and damaged Sawyer permanently.
Puck blinked. "Okay. So you're some kind of mega celebrity wizard. What exactly are you famous for? And why would that involve convicts going after you?"
Well, shit. Sometimes he thought his life would be easier if his friends had shorter attention spans or a few brain cells less. "I…don't know how to talk about this."
"You're telling me it gets more classified than a worldwide conspiracy?"
"Yes…I mean, no. Shit. I don't know."
"You don't know what?"
"It's just…telling you about it would kind of entail my entire bloody life story." Something in Harry's stomach churned at the idea of talking about everything, about really stepping back and evaluating the miserable melodrama that his childhood looked like.
The line of Puck's mouth softened. "I don't mind hearing it."
And Harry could tell that he really didn't. After all, this was the guy who told him about everything, from his befuddled and wine-soaked mother to his own daughter, somewhere out there in the world with Rachel's biological mother, to his own unhappy childhood with his patchy and liquor-soaked father. "I'm just….I'm so tired right now, I don't know if I can talk about it. Can this wait until tomorrow morning?" He looked at the clock, and realized it had been morning for about four and a half hours already. "Or this afternoon? Or something? I'm not deflecting, honestly," he added, seeing the beginning of a frown sketch itself on Puck's face.
"I guess I could use some sleep too," Puck admitted. His eyelids began to flutter closed.
Sleep began to finally press down on Harry, and he too closed his eyes, not bothering to move from the mattress onto the floor. "I'm not running away this time," he mumbled more to himself than to Puck.
The mattress shook a bit as Puck laughed sleepily. "And I'll be right here when you wake up."
And if sometime between four thirty and daybreak they shifted closer and wound up tangled together in sleep, neither chose to mention it.
Well d'awwww. It really ended up cheesier than I meant it to.