Life regained its usual rhythm, after a fashion, in the days following the initial disruption caused by the murder of the Senator's son and his companions.
Dr. Reader and Lucy, alarmed at Harry's vulnerability to Voldemort-caused pain, took turns in aiding him in the construction of his own memory palace, in order to provide him a mental refuge while under attack. This was difficult, because, as they both found, Harry's mind was structured so that he could not be hypnotized under normal circumstances, and hypnosis was an important time-saving step in embedding the foundations of the memory palace deep in the psyche.
Finally, under the effects of the strongest hypnotic drugs available, Dr. Reader and Lucy were able to help Harry begin construction of his memory palace. To reassure Harry, and in case any malevolent entity might try to take advantage of Harry's hypnotized state, they insisted on having at least one of his wizarding-world friends present for each of these sessions: Dumbledore when they could get him; McGonagall, Ron, Neville or Hermione when they could not.
Sirius would gladly have been at Harry's side for these sessions, but he barely had time to recover from his semi-starvation before he was off on a mission for Dumbledore. He was around just long enough to meet Dr. Reader returning from St. Mungo's and discuss Harry's future with him. Lucy sent Sirius off with some vitamins and energy bars, and let him know that whenever he wanted, he could always find a warm bed and a hot, rat-free meal at Offhand Manor.
Reader and Stellanova's home, in fact, was becoming the de facto outpost of wizardry in the mundane world. It took no time at all for most of the Ministry members to receive their invitations to visit Offhand Manor, and in turn the doctor and Lucy spent a good deal of time in Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade and even Hogwarts, where they met with all of the faculty members.
Two weeks after his birthday, Harry was upstairs at his new computer, typing in draft form his History of Magic essay for Professor Binns -- he found that it was much easier to compose his essays on the PC first, before attempting to commit them to parchment -- when his daydreaming mind went back to that first meeting between his new guardians and the Hogwarts staff.
Professor McGonagall was no problem; she and Lucy found themselves to be kindred spirits, almost like sisters. McGonagall offered to personally tutor Lucy, and was particularly pleased to find that Lucy had an aptitude for transfiguration. And McGonagall found herself fascinated by Miss Stellanova's wardrobe; soon Lucy was dragging the blushing professor on trips to London and Paris so that Lucy, by way of compensating McGonagall for her tutoring, could fairly smother her in Givenchy.
With Dumbledore and McGonagall won over, the rest of the staff followed suit in short order. Professor Snape was, as would be expected, the last real holdout, but a private talk with Dr. Reader rendered him oddly docile, albeit still suspicious. Harry grinned to himself about that. Dr. Reader's total lack of fear must have put the wind up Snape, he thought; Snape's not used to people who don't hate or fear him, so it puts him off-balance.
Harry heard a series of light taps at the French windows. He turned around and, as expected, saw Hannah hovering outside, clutching a message. Hannah was Lucy's owl, a beautiful snowy one like Hedwig; as he had promised, Harry, using some of his Gringotts money, had bought Lucy her owl and wand and study-books.
Harry opened the French windows to let in Hannah. She fluttered in, hooted a greeting at Harry, then flew downstairs to find Lucy. He closed the windows again and went back to his essay:
"...Arthur the Angry's place in wizarding history was assured when, as a result of losing a chess match to Nigel Linde in 1398, he not only tipped over the chessboard and threw it on Nigel's hearth-fire, he set fire to his soon-to-be-ex-friend, his wife and their house and barn, throwing in their neighbors' barns and livestock for good measure. Only the quick application of Mass Flame Freezing Charms, followed by Mistress Linde's dumping the contents of a hog-trough on Arthur's head, prevented a disaster..."
Another series of taps sounded. This time, it was Hedwig herself, accompanied by Mischa, Dr. Reader's own snowy owl. Thoroughly modern Muggle that Reader was, he couldn't resist the romanticism of using owls as letter carriers; he had purchased Mischa in Diagon Alley, and was soon using her for all of his non-urgent wizard correspondence, though he had convinced Dumbledore and McGonagall to carry pagers and cellphones in case of emergencies.
Harry opened the windows once again. Mischa flew in first, dipped her head to Harry in acknowledgement, then flew on down the stairs. Hedwig lighted on the edge of Harry's desk and dropped off her letter, then gracefully floated over to his shoulder, nibbling playfully at his ear.
Harry reached for the letter and opened it neatly with the Spyderco Civilian Dr. Reader had given him for his birthday. It was a note from Dumbledore himself.
Dear Harry,
A Mr. Jack Crawford, of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (and, more importantly, of the US Office of Non-Mundane Matters, the American version of our own Ministry of Magic), will be coming to Offhand Manor shortly. He will be there to talk to you regarding your impressions of Voldemort's reaction to the actions of some of his followers on the night of July 31.
Lucy and Marcus may wish to discuss this further with you.
Very Truly Yours,
Albus Dumbledore
Harry re-read the letter slowly. Something must be up, he thought; it doesn't seem like he totally trusts this Mr. Crawford. Letter in hand, he started towards the door -- only to be met by Dr. Reader and Lucy, each of them holding a parchment letter.
"Harry," Lucy said quietly, "there's something we have to tell you."
"Is it about Mr. Crawford?" Harry asked, indicating the letter in his own hand.
"Yes." Lucy sat down on the edge of Harry's bed, while Dr. Reader pulled up one of Harry's chairs and sat in it. "You'd better sit down, Harry."
Something tingled in Harry's spine. "What is it? Is something wrong?"
Lucy laughed sheepishly. "Not really... it's just that I knew Jack Crawford a long time ago, under my real name."
Harry nodded; he assumed that both Reader and Lucy had changed their names in order to escape the past described in the now-burned dirt dossier of Uncle Vernon's.
Lucy continued speaking. "I used to work with Jack in the FBI. He liked me, but he didn't like Marcus here, because Marcus had done some pretty horrible things in his past."
"And I want to remind you, Harry," Dr. Reader smoothly cut in, "that my past is over and done with. Neither I nor Lucy would ever harm you in any way. Albus knows that, or else he would never have let you stay with us."
"Dumbledore knows all about your past?"
"Yes, he does, Harry," Lucy said gently. "And it's high time you learned, too. First off," she said, shifting on the bed to face him as he sat next to her, "I wasn't born in Kentucky, I was born in West Virginia. My real name is Clarice Starling."
"Clarice Starling?" The name struck a chord inside Harry; he delved into the library of his newly-built memory palace, and soon found the reason why. "You were the FBI trainee that stopped that serial killer, Jame Gumb. And you did it with the help of..." His voice faltered as he slowly turned towards the man he had known, up until now, as Dr. Marcus Reader.
"Yes, Harry." Dr. Reader's face was solemn, but not unkind. His eyes glowed bright red. "I'm Hannibal Lecter."