"And here is the sector for dangerous missions. It is where I work," Mike said. He was just showing Harry the CIA headquarters in London. Harry had just visited over fifty departments and wondered how Mike remembered the different sectors. As if reading his mind, Mike added, "Don't worry, you'll know the departments pretty well soon enough."
"Which department will I work in?" Harry asked.
"Oh we don't know that yet. You have to visit the boss. He'll assess your abilities and yada yada yada," Mike informed Harry.
"So when am I going to visit him?" Harry asked impatiently. They had been touring the place for over two hours. Mike looked at his watch.
"Whoops. You were supposed to meet him an hour ago. Guess I got carried away. Let's go." Mike said sheepishly.
"WHAATTT!!??" asked Harry.
Mike and Harry reached the boss's office. It kind of reminded Harry of Professor Albus Dumbledore's room back at Hogwarts. At the thought of Hogwarts and his friends, Harry felt tears well up in his eyes. Misreading Harry's expression as one of awe, for Harry's face was scrunched up trying not to cry, Mike said, "I know it is kind of weird. Our boss likes medieval stuff. You'll see that his office is decorated with all sorts of gargoyles and - uh - armor."
"Just like Hogwarts," Harry thought sadly.
Mike knocked on the door. From inside came a gruff, "Come in." Mike opened the door graciously and ushered Harry in. The room was cavernous and just like Mike said, it was definitely to a medieval theme. In the center of the room was a desk with a middle aged man sitting at it. He looked up from the piles of paperwork that he was working on and caught sight of Mike. The man glanced at the grandfather clock on the left-hand wall.
"You know," he said. "You were supposed to meet me an hour ago to discuss an important matter. You know I do not like to be kept waiting."
"Yes, I am very sorry. I got carried away with showing a probable candidate for the junior CIA our facilities. His name is Harry," Mike said quickly motioning Harry to step forward.
"You found a candidate?" the man asked, suddenly excited. "Good, good. Let's see then." The man started walking around and examining Harry just as Mike had done the previous night. "Yes," he finally said. "You do have good taste Mike. Very good taste."
Mike glowed proudly. "Thank you, sir," he yelled and saluted.
"You may leave now if you wish," the boss told Mike.
"If you will allow it, sir, I would like to stay," was Mike's reply
"Well," the boss stated indecisively. "Oh OK. It is you who recruited him anyway," the boss agreed
"Thank you, sir," Mike said immediately and saluted once more.
Harry was almost immediately lost in the conversation. He had never seen normal people act that way. All they said were "Yo. Hi. Howya doin?, etc., with a slightly politer person saying, "Hello."" He'd certainly never seen someone addressing someone as politely as 'sir'.
"Ummm, sir, what do you want to do?" asked Harry, mimicking Mike in the use of the word sir. While debating with himself on whether to salute or not, he was interrupted by the boss.
As if reading Harry's mind, the boss answered for him. "No, Harry. You do not need to salute. And no, I did not read your mind. Your facial expressions tell me a lot of things. When you are being trained for the CIA, you must be able to change your facial expression to what we call 'e-mode', short for expressionless mode, at will. You will also learn all different kinds of facial expressions and how to control them."
"Whoa," Harry murmered.
"So..." asked Mike when they got outside again. "How did you like it? I can not believe the boss sent you to our department. I guess it is because of this crazed maniac dude who keeps on sending green skulls into the sky everytime he kills."
Harry, who had been following Mike, stopped dead in his tracks. "A green skull in the sky?" asked Harry, dreading the answer.
"Yeah, why?" asked Mike, before reading the expression on Harry's face as a curious look instead of a scared look, for Mike still needed to work on recognizing the different facial expressions of people and continuing. "The skull is kind of cool-looking, but it is VERY scary. Has a snake coming out of its mouth."
At this, Harry's suspicions were confirmed. "How did you know these facts?" Harry asked eyes narrowed into slits.
"Well," said Mike, "we send people secretly. Not many outsiders know what the CIA truly knows."
"The CIA must know a lot then," Harry said relaxing. They did not know the true identity of the crazy person, Lord Voldemort.
"Yup," agreed Mike.
After that, it was mostly quiet. Harry followed Mike outside through the security doors and into the parking lot. Harry heard him mutter, "Now where did I park the car." Harry still haven't got over the fact that junior CIA agents were allowed to drive a car that made use of the advanced artificial intelligence that the Muggles have discovered in recent years.
Harry was jerked from his reverie when Mike suddenly exclaimed, "There it is. I knew it was there the whole time."
"Right," Harry said in a sarcastic tone, drawing the word out.
"Hey," Mike said, in a mock hurt tone. "I did."
Harry ignored him, for at that moment, a snake had slithered onto the grass by the curb. Suddenly feeling the urge to talk to a snake again, Harry forgot Mike's presence and bent down and stared at the snake straight in the eye. He heard it mutter, "Jeez, stupid animals. We humans have to avoid those stupid giants."
Harry was confused as to why the snake called itself a human and him an animal. Then it struck him. "Of course," he thought. "The snake thinks we are the animals." Harry whispered to the snake. "Hello," he hissed. "How are you doing?"
The snake looked up in surprise. Mike chuckled. "You asking how the snake is doing? You know it won't answer you. You like snakes?" he asked.
"How do you know how to speak our language?" questioned the snake.
"It talked, it talked!" Mike yelled waving frantically. "This isn't some sort of trick is it Harry?" he continued, only the sound that escaped him was a faint hiss.
Harry looked up at Mike aghast. "You are a Parseltongue also?" Harry asked, then clapped a hand to his mouth. He had just let out the word 'Parseltongue', a word clearly not to be used while talking to Muggles, although Harry had a suspicion that Mike wasn't entirely a Muggle.
"A what?" asked Mike puzzled and scared, though he tried to use his CIA training and keep his emotions shadowed. The snake was now staring at the two of them confused.
"Well, if you didn't want to talk, you just could have said so," the snake hissed angrily and turned on its heel, used figuratively here since snakes don't have heels, and slithered away in the opposite direction, probably to continue what it was doing before being interrupted by Harry and Mike.
"A what?" Mike asked again, still marveling over the fact that he could talk to and understand snake language. "You'd better explain," he said ominously with a fist held over his head to make sure Harry got the point.
Harry did get the point, and although the Dursleys' punches did not really hurt, Harry had good reason to believe that with Mike's CIA training, his punches would hurt, and hurt a lot. For, as Harry reasoned, "They must teach fighting somewhere in there."
"Ok, Ok, peace," Harry said nervously while taking a half step backwards. "I'll explain."
"Good," Mike said and unclenched and lowered his hand back down to his side. Harry sighed with relief.
"Well, you see..." Harry started and stopped. Mike waited impatiently, tapping his foot.
"Well? Are you going to tell me? Anyday now," he said, impatience clearly showing in his voice.
"I don't know where to start," Harry confessed quickly, trying not to get Mike too worked up."Ah," Mike stated. His deadly calm and cold voice sent shivers down Harry's back. "Well, start somewhere or I'll make you start somewhere!" Mike yelled. The sudden change in demeanor made Harry lose his balance and fall unceremoniously on the wet grass. He didn't know Mike could resemble Mrs. Weasley so much, but he didn't tell him that. Explaining this was hard enough. As if to prove his point, Mike raised his hand in a fist again. The look on his face clearly stated that he wanted answers, and he wanted them now.
Harry quickly had a mental debate. Should he tell Mike about his wizard powers? Harry made a decision. He would tell Mike about magic, after forcing Mike to promise not to tell anyone, of course. That would be easy enough, seeing how impatient Mike was. "Who knows," Harry thought. "Maybe Mike is related to the Grangers."
"OK. I'll tell you. Sit down. This is going to be a long story."
Well, that's the end of Chapter 4. I hope you liked it. Don't worry, this won't be all about Harry being a Muggle. This is going to turn out extrememly long. Please Read & Review (R&R).