Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

Chapter Thirty-Nine: We Could Be Heroes

I.

"And ladies and gentlemen, welcome today's 20 Questions, I'm your host, Ludo Bagman! You may remember me from such gameshows like Guess That Witch, Magicless, and Whose Wand is it Anyway?... tonight, I'm here with two guests, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, and we're here together to compete for a grand thousand dollars cash prize! Ladies and gentlemen, you know what that means!"

The crowd applauded, as Harry looked up, wondering what an Earth was going on. Where was he? Was this the reality that The Fisher King had meant? What was going on? He was on some kind of gameshow, sat across from a Draco Malfoy who he was somehow the same age, and in this reality, apparently wizards had television sets and everything. He recognised a couple of the audience members, Astoria Greengrass and her sister, Daphne Greengrass. "Now, let's run over the rules, quickly," Bagman said. "You have 20 questions. Get them all right, and then we bring out our mystery guest. But if you don't play your part…"

"Electrocution!" a roar went up from the crowd. Harry noticed where he was sat in one of the chairs, and realised that the whole floor had been wired to send channels of electricity from one side of the room to another. If he moved, Bagman would pull the button. There was no way this was real, he knew that from the first moment he set foot here. But then… why was he in the room at all?

"That's right. Lines are open now to make judgment calls about which round you think our competitors are going to go out on, remember, they have both done very well to get this far! I'm looking forward to taking your calls during the ad-breaks. And remember, one lucky caller could win a grand weekend getaway in France, Paris! The trip of a lifetime, brought to you live by The Daily Prophet. But now, without further ado, let's get on with the show… We have our first question lined up for you now, read to you by Hermione Granger. Hermione dear, would you like to tell us what it is?"

Hermione had appeared on the screen in front of Harry. He noticed that he seemed to spot Tom Riddle in the crowd and wondered if that Riddle was real or not, and realised that if it wasn't, it could have well been The Fisher King. However, he wasn't about to call him out now, no, he was smarter than that. Whatever game he would play, he would play it until the end, or until he found a way out. "Thank you, Ludo. My first question is… In What year did the Great Cornelius Fudge become Junior Minister of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophises? A) 1981, B) 1984, C) 1993 or D) 1801?"

Obvious, Harry realised that there were only two that it could possibly have been, 1981 and 1984, and he quickly ruled out 1984, replacing it with 1981. He scribbled it down on the piece of paper and turned it over to show Hermione. Draco did the same, at the same time, and eventually, the correct answer lit up on the screen where Hermione had been. It was The Year 1981. Both Harry and Draco had gotten it right, and the crowd burst into applause. 'Okay… I could get use to this,' Harry thought, but moments later, after blinking from a flashing camera light, he found himself in a completely new situation entirely.

II.

Harry found himself opening his eyes to a camera set. "Okay, Daniel, step forward please," announced a man zooming in on him with a camera. "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Scene 32, Take One. Harry is standing in front of the Dragon in First Round of the Triwizard Tournament. Lights, Camera, Action!"

'What the hell is this?' Harry didn't have to wait long to put the pieces together to work out that he was in some kind of universe where his life was being filmed for some sort of film. There were several people around the room where he was, which seemed to be covered in mostly greenscreen, aside from a few small rocks that were probably not even real rocks at his feet. He realised he was in the first task of the Triwizard tournament, and looked down at the floor briefly to see that there was a line directing him where he was meant to go. Harry hastily took two steps forward.

"And cut! No, no, no, Daniel, that's all wrong! You've got to step forward like you're in danger, like there's some sort of dragon!" the man said. "Look. I know it's a leap, but imagine that the camera up there is the dragon, and it's going to hurl fire at you any second now, you're going to jump forward and shout Accio Firebolt. After me, Accio Firebolt."

"Accio Firebolt."

"My boy, why do you say it like that? You've got your pronunciations all wrong. I want more emphasis on the cs. Say it after me. Accio Firebolt. With Agency."

"Accio Firebolt. With Agency."

"No, obviously without the With Agency part," the man said, sighing. "Let's try again. Screw it, we'll do it live. Come on, Daniel. You're better than this. What are you?"

"Better than this," Harry, who for some reason was being addressed as Daniel, whoever the hell that person was, but before he could continue his lines, he was pulled out of this reality again, and into another, different one entirely, by some unknown, mystical force, represented by whatever The Fisher King was.

III.

Low, probably anachronistic, contempered pop music played in the background, although Harry seemed to be the only person to hear it, as Harry found himself looking at the gates of the high school that he had just arrived at. Everyone around him seemed to be heading into the school despite not actually looking anything like teenagers, and indeed, he himself, was edging forward slowly. He was wearing an American baseball cap backwards over his head, had earphones and a device called an iPhone in his pocket, and began to wonder what the hell was going on. Had he just ended up on some kind of American young adult movie? Where all the teenagers seemed to be played by people who weren't teenagers at all, and all appeared – both the men and the women – to be hopelessly attractive? Harry noticed one of them step forward to greet him, a blonde-haired man with more muscles than sense. "Hey, you're the new kid, right? Harry Potter, was it?"

"Yeah, who are you?"

"Names Dray," he said. "Dray Malfoy. You play baseball?"

"No, football…" said Harry, not quite sure why he was wearing the cap.

"Oh, neat. Cowboys or Patriots?"

Harry rolled his eyes for a second. "Sorry. Soccer."

"Soccer? Hah. Oh my God, you're actually serious," Malfoy said. Harry was pretty sure that he was looking at Draco Malfoy, but not quite sure why anyone thought Dray would ever be a good name. "So, what house are you thinking you'll be sorted in? Slytherin or Gryffindor? Everyone knows they're only two that anyone cares about. And then just on cue, Malfoy burst into song. Harry put the conclusion into place seconds later when everybody else joined in around him, he hadn't just ended up in some American young adult movie or television series, he had ended up in to his horror, a musical. And as much as he liked musicals, it was one thing to watch one, but it was a completely different one to live in…

IV.

Thankfully, Harry did not have to live in the world of the musical for long. He found himself pulled away again at a lightning speed at a blink of an eye that took him to another dimension entirely, one different from the last.

It was a cold and stormy night. The rain pattered down amongst Harry's black trenchcoat that he was wearing, as he made his way through the sleazy atmosphere of New Orleans after dark. He had been called here to answer a summons, a summons from a friend whose friendship with him had almost lasted as old as his time on Earth. In his late forties, he pushed himself into the hotel where he was meeting Ron Weasley, only to find police at the scene. "What's wrong, Detective?" Harry couldn't help but ask, flashing the nearest beat cop a P.I. badge.

"Well, if it ain't the private dick himself, Harry Potter. Male, late forties, red-haired, deceased," whispered the Detective, using the slang term for P.I.'s. The man himself was a brazened, veteran Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had by now well depended on Harry's involvement to solve most of his cases. "He fell from the fourth floor. We're just clearing up his body now… it gave the receptionist quite a nasty surprise."

Red haired, late forties… Harry quickly put the pieces together. "That wouldn't happen to be Ron Weasley, would it? We were due to meet."

"I'm afraid so," said Shacklebolt. "Ronald Weasley, town drunk. I don't suppose you can disclose any information about why he wanted to meet with you at this hotel?"

"He wanted to tell me something about my parents' murder," said Harry. "Said it was urgent and that I had to come quickly. Do you think he was killed?"

"All the evidence points to a suicide," said Shacklebolt. "He wrote a letter apologising for the mess and he would have thrown himself out of the window but he couldn't remove the bars on the windows. Almost makes you feel sorry for the man if true. Got to love the extra detail on the forgery though. Means we're looking for someone who isn't very strong."

"Weasley could hit lows pretty often but he was always too proud to off himself," commented Harry, his thick Southern drawl sounding unnatural to him. "Do me a favour, Shack. Enquire at 43rd Street Avenue. The Pub, The Hanged Man? There's a contact of mine there. He's been following this particular murderer for a while…"

"This particular murder?"

"They call him Voldemort," said Harry, with a slick, southern drawl, informing him of his state that he heralded from in this universe was most likely south of the Mason-Dixon line.

"It means Flight from Death in French," said Shacklebolt. "Yeah, we've seen this old bastard before. He's a tough nut to crack, I'm not sure if it's one person though. Evidence suggests, could be more than one."

"No, Voldemort is just one person," said Harry, choosing not to point out that Flight from Death was not in fact a direct translation, but a bad one. It was actually Vol de la Morte, and even then, he was not a hundred per cent sure that was spot on. "But his Cult? They're the fanatics. If he wasn't directly here, it was one of them. Have you checked the area nearby for any graffiti?"

"Graffiti? Why would I do that?"

"Last four Voldemort murders," said Harry. "The Patil Twins, Old Man Fudge, and The German… all had the graffiti of the dark mark nearby the crime scene. It's they're sigil."

"Oh, and at the Givens murder…"

"The Givens murder was just a copycat," insisted Harry. "Trying to cover up his own wife's killing so he could make off with the money. The real killer so far has only murdered four people."

"Only…"

"Therein lies the problem. Four killers isn't enough to create a panic, not in New Orleans, someone's killed every other night here. But five? Five people means front page national news. The sort of exposure that they want. More followers."

"So if we stop him before he kills one more person," said Shacklebolt. "We stop the Cult."

"Precisely. Someday you'll actually deserve the title of Detective. It's a wonder how you got the job in the first place."

"You know with talk like that, it's a wonder that I don't just arrest you here and now and be done with it. You're technically breaking the law by being on this crime scene."

"But then, who'd catch your murderer?" Harry said, turning around, leaving Shacklebolt behind. He had seen all he had needed to see. Weasley was dead, and he knew who the next target was going to be. He was smart enough to put the pieces together, they were going after members of Dumbledore's Army, the underground club, the freedom fighting bunch of idealists named after a legendary general who had fought in the American Civil War for the Union, hailing from British territory.

"Wait, where are you going? Don't you want to look at the body!"

"I've seen all I need to see," said Harry.

Interestingly, this particular dream seemed to last a bit longer than the last one. It wasn't long before Harry found himself at the Leaky Cauldron, a haunt of his when he was in the area. The seedy pub was lit up dimly, and today, it had a singer at the front of the small stage, a young, singer with red hair who Harry did not know the name of. She reminded him of his mother, and was singing an old classic from the previous decade, the 1960s.

"The night we met I knew I needed you so,
And if I had the chance I'd never let you go,
So won't you say you love me,
I'll make you so proud of me.
We'll make 'em turn their heads every place we go…"

"Well if it ain't Harry Potter," the Southern drawl of Rosmerta, the regular bartender, greeted him. "How you doing, Harry? It's been a while. I was beginning to think you'd almost forgotten about me."

"Who's the girl?"

"Oh, she's new. Ginny Weasley…" said Rosmerta. The name rang a bell to Harry, almost breaking him out of the funk that he was in, like he'd heard it somewhere before. But the longer he was spending in New Orleans, the longer he was beginning to lose himself. "Why. You interested? She's available after if you want, I can get you a private dance."

"No thanks, she looks too much like my mom," said Harry, the American terminology feeling weird, but then he was American, after all, distinctively American. Why would the use of mom in place of mum feel weird? And just who was his mother anyway? Was it Lily Evans? Or somebody else? Memories from two different lives collided in one, and as this life had multiple decades on the last, things began to get more worrisome by the second. Rosmerta laughed, taking a puff of her cigar before offering one to Harry.

"What brings you back to New Orleans, Harry? Thought you were always more of a L.A. man. The City of Angels lost its charm? You elected?"

"No, but I got nominated real good," Harry said, smiling at the old exchange that they had when they had first met. Rosmerta had mistaken him for the young mayoral candidate Samuel Evans (a relation? He wasn't sure, two memories clashed), and as a big fan of The Magnificent Seven, he couldn't resist the opportunity to turn down a reference to the conversation between Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen when they first met. "How's business?"

"Crappy as ever. It's a miracle I'm still running," said Rosmerta, leaning over the bar. "Is this a business meeting… or can we go somewhere more personal?"

There were very few other people in the bar, and Harry realised just how quiet it was. Weasley was playing to an empty audience, but he supposed she didn't care, as long as in the end, she got paid. Weasley herself continued the song as they walked on by. If Harry didn't know better he would have said that she was a member of The Ronettes, her throwback fashion choices to the sixties made her stand out. Rosmerta snapped to one of the nearby bartenders, "Oi, you. Irish. Look after the bar while I'm gone. And you better not spill anything, you hear?"

"So won't you, please, be my be my baby,
Be my little. baby my one and only baby,
Say you'll be my darlin', be my be my baby,
Be my baby now, my one and only baby,
Wha-oh-oh-oh."

They found themselves in a small, red, VIP enclosure towards the back of the pub that rarely saw use. After a quick glance around the bar, Rosmerta closed the curtain behind them and sat down opposite the table. "Now we can talk business. What you buying?"

"Information. What's your price?"

"Three Galleons," said Rosmerta. Galleons was the currency used by anyone who was on the take, anyone who answered to anyone who was outside the law. It had since surpassed the usage of the U.S. dollar in some corners of America, where crime was at its highest, and had instantly became the tool of the trade for any man who wanted to make some real money. Harry sighed, and handed over the Galleons to Rosmerta. "Thank you kindly. Now, what do you want to know?"

"The location of Neville Longbottom. Rumours are he's next on You-Know-Who's Hit-list."

"Longbottom? You don't want to go anywhere near there," Rosmerta said with a scowl. "He's Malfoy's right-hand man now. Funny things happen since you've been gone. He switched. Or Malfoy switched. It's hard to tell, their methods were so similar."

"Interesting," said Harry. "But do you know where he's going to be?"

"Rumour has it he's going to the movies," said Rosmerta. "Brand new picture released tonight, premieres exclusively at the New Orleans Boulevard Cinema, the Theatre of Dreams. It's called The Philosopher's Stone, epic fantasy romp. Rumoured to be in Oscar contention, although my money's on The Godfather myself. That'll be hard to top."

"Good to know," said Harry. "Boulevard Cinema, huh? You wouldn't happen to have an invitation?"

"As it happens, I do," said Rosmerta. "But you need to look like Samuel Evans in order to get away with it. He's… otherwise occupied. His gambling debts, you see. I have procured his ticket, but you need a plus one, someone who can pass as his wife."

"That's a hard ask. Granger's one of a kind."

"Then allow me to introduce you to my Master of Disguise. Nymphadora Tonks," said Rosmerta, nodding to a nearby camera. The door opened, and in walked the woman known as Nymphadora Tonks, or, from Harry's viewpoint, she might as well have been Hermione Granger herself. "Very good, Tonks. This might be your best one yet."

"Thank you, Madame Rosmerta. As flattering as ever," said Tonks, with a smile. "So, is this the illustrative Harry Potter? I expected you'd be taller."

"And I expected you to look like Hermione Granger," said Harry, with a sarcastic quip that Tonks seemed to like. She knew he wasn't being serious. "Are we good?"

"We're good. The Taxi's going to be here in ten. I have arrangements to take care of, I'll meet you outside."

"Good," Harry said, sizing up Tonks for a second, before she left, stumbling over the step to the private room as she left. Harry followed suit, heading outside to catch some fresh air, bidding farewell to Rosmerta in preparation of the night ahead. However, before he could go any further, a vicious gut-punch brought him to his knees and he was knocked unconscious.

V.

Coming to with a blistering headache, Harry found himself bound in a chair in an empty warehouse where he was standing opposite from men in black masks, and hooded, paganistic costumes. Their leader was an albino, and the only one not wearing any masks at all. "So," Harry spat, coughing up blood. "You're the one they call Voldemort."

"That would be correct. And you are the Private Investigator they sent to take care of me? Oh, how very bold of you to think you could stop me," said Voldemort. "Now, Harry Potter. You are about to learn the hard way."

Harry couldn't help but get the feeling of deja-vu, like he'd faced Voldemort before somewhere. But such a feat was almost impossible, this was the first time he'd met the man, he'd recognise as someone as distinctive as Voldemort anywhere in public before. Unless…

Memories began to flood back to him, a wave of another life, where he was a boy wizard, a vigilante, overcame Harry the Private Investigator in a second. It gave Harry every instinct to smile, breaking free of the cuffs, using his initiative to prepare to take Voldemort down. Feeling in his pocket he found something that was not there before, something that he had never seen before yet felt oddly natural at the same time, something that he had known all his life. He knew this because he knew exactly what to do with it. Pointing it at the nearest Death Eater, he let the strange word fill from his mouth, "Stupefy!"

A red jolt of light was thrust from the stick, hitting the Death Eater in the chest. He slumped to the floor, which caused the others to pull out their guns, one by one, aiming it at Harry. Remembering what to do with this weapon, he created a smokescreen, dodging behind a cargo crate. But this did not stop the Death Eaters from unleashing hell with the guns on the crate, bullets bouncing off them. Glancing at the tracker he'd placed on himself after leaving the hotel, Harry began to think, 'Any time now, Shack…'

But before he would find the answer to whether his ploy had worked, he found himself blinking again, blinking as he had done before, on the movie set, in the high school, and in the game show. His memories had returned completely now, the story of Harry the Wizard, and now got the feeling that whatever The Fisher King wanted him for, he was about to find out the truth. And whatever the truth was, he was about to find it out at a funeral, in a torrent of rain, where a crowd of people were standing around a coffin on the middle of a hill.

"Welcome Harry," said The Fisher King, who had taken the form of Harper, Harry's younger sister, who stood behind him in the rain, wearing a purple hoodie and blue jeans. "I was beginning to worry when you weren't showing up. Did we have a bit too much fun in New Orleans?"

"I'll admit, it was something different," said Harry. He noticed that he was a teenager now, yet the shift from all of these different bodies came natural to him. "I did want to be a Private Investigator when I grew up. Was always a big fan of Raymond Chandler…"

"And yet, you became a vigilante."

"Well, Batman kind of won out in the end," said Harry with a shrug. "Besides, Private Investigators in the wizarding world don't exactly go down too well with the public."

"Neither do vigilantes."

"Point taken," said Harry. "Anyway, what's here? Why did you bring me here?"

"This is the centre of your realities," said The Fisher King. "This is for you, at least, the end of the line. The last one there, one of the darkest timelines out there. Trust me, this is one you don't want to be stuck in."

"Why? Whose funeral are we at?"

"Yours, Harry Potter," The Fisher King said, and Harry finally started to recognise some of the faces of those covered in black robes. That of his family. James and Lily Potter, and his young, baby brother, Sam, "Welcome to the world where you died and your brother lived on that fateful night, all those years ago."

To Be Continued…

I've always wanted to write a hard-boiled detective pulp fiction novel at some point so for a little test run/one-shot in this chapter sounded appropriate. This is essentially the final act now, with one more chapter after this followed by an epilogue, with the next chapter aiming to answer as many unanswered questions as possible that will not be tied up in the epilogue. For the first time since Chapter 10, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, I'm not using a song title for a Chapter, but rather a line from a song in the form of We Could Be Heroes, taken from Heroes by David Bowie. And I know that Rosmerta doesn't work at the Leaky Cauldron, but then again, the noir reality was an AU, so it wasn't always going to be a perfect replica of main events.

I imagine that the galleons in the noir AU are equivalent in value to the assassin coins used in the John Wick universe. There may not be any strict wizarding world as the Death Eaters are just normal thugs, and Harry was only able to get his wand back because he's Harry from another dimension where he has a wand. Another shoutout to The Magnificent Seven, too.

Fanfic Recommendation of the Chapter: Morta's Priest wrote a terrific crossover with The Marvel Universe, Wand and Shield. It plays out very well and if you're an Avengers fan I can't help but recommend it.

Film Recommendation of the Chapter: Raw, a French film that's part teenage coming of age movie, part cannibal movie, and it's one of my favourite films of the year so far. I highly recommend it and encourage you to check it out if you're a fan of smart 'horror' movies like this one.