Title: A Different Kind of Friendship (14/16)
Author: loonie_lupin (ff. net)/nilitara (livejournal)
Fandom: HP, CSI :NY

Characters/pairing : Harry Potter, Mac, slight cameo by Adam Ross
Rating: PG
Summary: Mac ponders what he has learnt after the killer has been arrested.
For: crossovers100
Prompt: 043. Square.
Disclaimer: The characters are the property of their respective creator. I own nothing.

043. Square.

Mac felt absolutely exhausted. As he resisted the temptation of leaning against the back of the elevator, he looked at his side, at Harry Potter, the young man who looked as tired as he felt. Mac couldn't help thinking that he, at least, didn't have a life changing revelation in the last few hours. It seemed that it made all the difference.

He still couldn't believe what he had learnt. When Harry had first begun to talk about magic, Mac had been not only disbelieving, but also pissed off at his time being wasted at such an important moment. He had been on the verge of giving the young man a piece of his mind, when he suddenly found his pen transformed in a mouse – a living mouse. He had fixed the small rodent, squeaking on his desk, with incredulity. He had had to fight the urge to pinch himself awake because there was no way this could be a trick.

He had had to sit down and, in an effort to keep his whole world from coming crashing down, he had decided to concentrate on the case and how it would be affected by this new revelation. Then, once he had solved that, he would think about the possible repercussion on his own life. So, he had asked Harry the most important question at the moment: "Who is Grindlewald?"

From then on, everything had gone very quickly.

First, he had told Adam to go home. There was nothing the scientist could do to help at the time and it would be better if he showed up at the office well-rested the morning after. Then, he had had Harry explain to him everything about Grindlewald, his goals, his losing against Dumbledore and his subsequent imprisonment in the jail he had himself created.

Mac had also taken all the evidence they had found on the crime scene, and the pictures, and had given them to Harry to examine. Normally, he would never had let someone outside the lab study such important pieces, but he was conscious he was in over his head and that Harry may see things that would make sense to him.

It hadn't taken Mac very long to realize Harry would make a damn good investigator, should he chose that path. Even if he was only a kid, he seemed to know a lot about what to look for and how to make connection that some people twice his age wouldn't be capable to discover. In that moment, Mac knew something had happened in Harry's life but it had not been the time to ask.

With both Harry and Mac working on the case, it had taken only a few hours before they were able to work out who had done the deeds and how. Normally, Mac always respected the chain of command, he would never act without following proper procedure but, that night, he had had no choice but act without alerting the rest of the team or even his superiors. After all, what could he have said to them?

That was when Harry had told him he could contact the right authority, the Ministry of Magic – and wasn't that a surprise to learn there was a whole government in parallel to the one he knew – and make sure Mac would be able to stay on the case until the killer had been arrested. When Mac had asked how he would be able to ensure that, he had only smiled enigmatically. Of course, he had wanted to know more, but he was pretty sure he already knew way more than he should.

While he hadn't taken an active part in the arrest – and how could he have when he didn't have the right weapon to handle the suspect, he had been involved into the weirdest capture he had ever had the pleasure to witness.

It had cemented in him the knowledge of a whole new world, a world he knew next to nothing about, with its own set of rules, of law, justice system and it was as complicated as the one he already knew.

However, in the end, even though he hadn't physically participated to the final capture, he was left exhausted, knowing that even with his new knowledge he was back to square one, as he knew he could never do anything in this world. Maybe he would have been better off not knowing anything, but there was no going back. Oh, he had been offered but he rather liked having his memories where they were. He just had to accept the truth and, maybe, he would have to get Harry to answer a few more questions, or a millions of them.

Of course, that would be once Harry had dealt with Adam, who looked quite mad at not having been kept informed of their little excursion, and once he, himself, had dealt with the rest of his coworkers whose gazes held interrogations he would never be able to answer.