Washington, DC in August is a very muggy and unpleasant place to be, as befits the fact that it was built atop hastily-cleared-and-filled coastal swampland. August 1995 was no different. As he sat in the Oval Office, President Clinton, reading through the folder his aides had put together on the Blake-Smiths' deaths, once again thanked the Lord he had been born in the age of air conditioning.
Bruce Blake and his bandmates had been killed, Bill Clinton mused as he ran his fingers through his graying hair, for no particular reason that he could see. Blake's father was a powerful man, and a powerful politician, but not the sort to inspire foreigners' rage the way a Jesse Helms or a Newt Gingrich might. Nor would an American terrorist, a Timothy-McVeigh-type, be likely to want to attack Senator Blake by killing his son. This just seemed to be the sort of shockingly random attack that sent chills up everyone's spines: random, and therefore unpredictable, unpreventable.
His thoughts were interrupted by the office intercom. "What is it, Betty?" he said. Betty Currie was his secretary, the first black lady -- not "woman", but "lady" -- ever to be secretary to a President of the United States of America, and had been with Clinton ever since he was Governor of Arkansas. "Is Newt still threatening to shut down the government?"
There was a chuckle at the other end. "Of course. Same old, same old. But this isn't about that. Dan Steele is here to see you."
The president's face grew grim. Dan Steele was the head of the Office of Non-Mundane Matters, one of the black-budget agencies he had laughed at -- that is, until he found out just why they were necessary, and why they had to stay black-budget. Steele was the only person outside of a Cabinet or family member that could demand, and get, instantaneous access to the Chief Executive. Something very bad must be up if Steele was involved. "Send him in, Betty," he said.
Dan Steele strode into the Oval Office, his legs all spindly. Steele was a tall man, but frail-looking; he topped the president by two inches, but weighed a good fifty pounds less. He glanced at both the Marine guard and the Secret Service men in the room, then held his hands up. "Mr. President, please order them to frisk me," he said in his Missouri accent undimmed by long years on the Potomac, "and then please send them out of the room."
Bill Clinton nodded; he had seen Steele do this six times before in the three years since he became president, and each time it signaled that Steele needed to talk to him about something that was beyond hot. "Go ahead, gentlemen. You know what to do."
They did indeed, and they did it with extreme thoroughness. Portable fluoroscopes, devices that sensed the presence of bomb parts, were passed over and around Steele's body. His jacket and shoes were removed, then returned to him once they were found to be empty of anything that could be used as a weapon. He was patted down from bald spot to big toe three successive times. Even the inside of his mouth was checked, to ensure that no weapons were hidden there.
Finally, satisfied that they were leaving the President alone in the presence of an unarmed man, the Marine guard and Secret Service agents left the Oval Office.
Steele sat down with an audible sigh of relief, gratefully accepting the scotch-and-soda the president had poured for him. He hated the friskings, but they were necessary if he wanted to speak with the president about above-top-secret matters. No one besides Bill Clinton could be allowed to hear what he was about to say in his briefings. No one.
"So what brings you here today, Dan?" said the President as he resumed his seat behind his desk. "And why do I suspect it has to do with the Blake-Smiths' deaths?"
Steele smiled thinly; he might not always agree with his politics, but Bill Clinton wasn't a Rhodes Scholar for nothing. "You are correct, sir."
The president matched Steele's thin smile with one of his own. "I thought as much. The killings don't make much sense in the normal scheme of things. But I take it they just might, in the abnormal scheme of things -- which is why you're here."
Steele would have laughed, if the circumstances weren't so grim. "Too bad you're pure Muggle, Mr. President," he said. "You could have made one hell of a wizard."
"Sometimes I wish I was a wizard, Dan," Bill Clinton said, sipping at his own drink, a Jack-Daniel's-and-Coke on the rocks. "I'd like to be able to wave a wand and make Ken Starr and Rupert Murdoch be transported in their underwear over to Queen Maud Land." His Arkansas accent, much like Steele's Show-Me-State accent, was twangy enough to make non-Southerners take him for a dumb hick; this was useful to both men, as they both found it convenient to be underestimated by their enemies. "So what's up? Death Eaters again? Somebody shoot off the Dark Mark in the sky after Blake and his band members were killed?"
Steele looked at the president with something approaching awe. "Are you sure you're not a wizard, Mr. President?"
Bill Clinton laughed out loud. "I wouldn't be fighting for my political life right now if I were, Dan. I just try to remember what you tell me when we have these little chats." He leaned back in his chair. "So what does the new guy over at M.O.M. -- Weasley, isn't it? -- have to say about this?"
"They're just as perplexed as we are, sir. They do have one fact that we didn't, however, and that's the knowledge that, although the killings were the work of Death Eaters, they were apparently done without Voldemort's say-so."
The president's eyes narrowed. "Really?"
"Really. Apparently, whenever Voldemort flies into a rage, it affects Harry Potter."
"Yes." Bill Clinton knew, from Dan Steele, all about The Boy Who Lived.
"And now, ever since Voldemort's return, Potter's been able to sense, not just Voldemort's anger, but the reasons for it." Steele shifted in the leather chair. "The night the Blake-Smiths were killed, Potter's scar began to hurt him, so badly that he fainted. It only hurts him when he's in Voldemort's presence, or if Voldemort is angry. Turns out that Potter was able to sense that Voldemort was toweringly hacked off over something his followers had done without his permission. Weasley put two and two together."
"Hmmmm." The president pondered for a moment. "Who do we have that we can send to England right now?"
"Our best man is Jack Crawford. You might remember him from his straight job as head of the FBI's Behavioral Science unit. He's been at loggerheads over there with Clint Pearsall and Paul Krendler and Louis Freeh; they're political ass-kissers and he got where he is on merit. Plus, he suspects that Krendler forced an agent named Clarice Starling out of the Bureau, and Starling was Crawford's favorite recruit. He'll be happy to find an excuse to get out of this snake pit for awhile."
The president pondered a moment. "Clarice Starling. She was the one who nailed Jame Gumb, right? With help from Dr. Lecter, before he escaped?"
"Yes, sir."
"She was a good person, Dan. Too bad we had to lose her." The president stood up. "Go do what you must and what you can, Dan. You have carte blanche. Give Jack my regards."
The two men shook hands.