Aiding the Lost
By AccioJosh
The small Boston suburb of New Liverpool wouldn't show up on any maps, nor would you see a sign for it on the Pike to let you know which exit to use. As a matter of fact, if you looked for it hard enough, you might be able to get an idea of where it was, but then you would notice that there seemed to be nothing but fields there, and you would suddenly remember something important and forget all about New Liverpool, or even a mention of it you had overheard on the T.
That's what wizarding towns were like, as a matter of fact; all of them.
It's believed that they're just stories by most muggles, because that's the easiest thing to believe. However, there are those few of us who know the truth, and even though we all can't go and publish international novels about our world, we know the truth of the stories as well as the author. We also know they aren't the only stories to be told.
For our particular story, we find ourselves over on this side of the Atlantic , working our way out from Boston toward the west – not too far, just a few towns over. That's right, just follow Route 20 a ways and there we are, right on the right here… Yes, just through the field and up this mountain. Ah, now you can see. New Liverpool . It looks just like something out of a 1950's magazine, doesn't it? Well, that's only because you're a muggle, so let me do this charm… Yes, that should be better. You see them now, don't you? Yes, I can tell by the look on your face. You really are seeing people riding on brooms, and over there is a Quodpot field, and watch out! Those pigeons are on business, and even though you can only think of owls, we don't have that luxury here in the States.
Well, since you can finally see it all, let me go ahead and show you what we came here for. Yes, you're right, we could have gone to visit Fitchburg to see the Finches play, but honestly Fitchburg isn't where the action is today. Harry Potter? I knew you'd bring him up at some point. No, that wasn't his 'real' name, of course, but then the things she describes didn't happen just as she says, so then I'd have to spend a whole day getting that story ready, and then you might—
Now see! It's near ten o'clock already! He'll be getting into bed now, and we might have missed it. You need to keep your questions—
There I go again.
Right, take my hand…
Here we are. This, my friend, is where our story begins; number thirty-eight Peasegood Road. Why yes, it is named after—Oh there you go again. Now be quiet, because you're about to see something important.
"I want you to read me the one about the muggles who ate the witch!"
"No, Nathan, that's too violent. You've had enough of that on t.v. If I had my way, I wouldn't let your mother even have the blasted thing, but then I never could deny her anything." He smiled warmly down to his son who was watching him with the expression of a child listening to something he doesn't quite understand – as if it's being filed away for a later interpretation. "Why don't I just read you the one about the goblin brothers who discovered a little muggle in their bed?"
"Richard, honey?" His wife's head popped around the door frame and washed a worried tension over him. "She's home."
His whole body went both rigid and numb at the same time, and the book in his hands felt like course sandpaper tearing at his skin. Clearing his throat and holding back the emotions now flooding his veins, Richard stood up and pat Nathan on the head. "We'll have to do a story tomorrow night, Naters. Mom and I have to talk to your sister."
As he watched his father smile faintly before closing the door, his hand glimpsing back inside to flick the power off, Nate wondered when he could get them to stop calling him 'Naters'. He was eight now, and he deserved to be called a grown-up name. He wasn't a little boy anymore. It was while he was thinking of this that he heard the floorboards creak outside his door, and wondered if his father had come back to read to him after all. With a bit of excitement, he turned to watch as the door swung open slowly. No one was there though.
Unconcerned, Nate turned over towards the window to watch the moon chase the trees' shadows on it for him. He loved watching as the leaves rustled and made that soothing 'shushing' sound. For a few minutes, his mind played with the idea of grabbing his sister's quodpot broom and flying up in the moonlight to wander the skies chasing leaves, but then another creak brought his sleepy thoughts back to full waking.
Slightly disgruntled, he turned to look around his room, but nothing seemed to be there. Reaching over and pulling the chain on his night-light, which he hadn't needed in years, he tried to double-check his assertion through the eerie red and gold light that flickered patterns onto the walls. Out of the corner of his eye, something seemed to flash passed, but he didn't notice.
Deciding he'd only dreamt it, he pulled the chain again and lay back to watch the tree dance again, his eyes still flashing with the red and gold of the night lamp. They became heavier and harder to control pretty quickly, and it wasn't long before his breathing settled down, his chest rising and falling steadily.
He was dreaming about that flight; the broom beneath his rump felt soft and cushioned, just like he'd read about in Quodpot In Time: A History. It had been his favorite book since his sister Chloe had joined the team at her high school.
Just as he was flying over a muggle town and igniting red sparks from his tail like he'd seen that team do when they went up to visit his Auntie in Saskatchewan, there was a really loud noise that seemed to be calling to him, and he looked down to see the ground was flying toward him fast. Jumping, he found himself back in bed and felt really cold, as if the winds of the night sky were still blowing around him. Nervous, he pulled the blankets back up to his chin and shivered, settling back into the warmth.
It didn't seem to get warmer, though.
His teeth began to chatter, and he almost missed it when it sounded again, but it was there; the floor board creaking.
Determined that something was there, he reached his hand out to pull the chain and began chattering more, the cold of the air so intense he thought his arm might freeze in place. Once the light was on, he pulled his hand back and looked around, and this time he wasn't disappointed.
"Alright ma'am, I understand. No, no, I'm absolutely sure there haven't been any sightings of dragons in these parts. Ma'am, please, you're holding up the line here." The duty officer looked as if he could use a good couple cups of coffee, and maybe a few laps in the pool from time to time, but Detective Benson nodded to him anyway. The dark-skinned man held up a hand to stop him, so he pulled out his badge. It wasn't as if he should think someone who worked the night-shift would recognize him. Hell, he doubted he'd recognize himself in the mirror right now. Who the fuck wanted to be awake at three in the morning on a Sunday?
The cop waved him on after a brief glimpse, the sounds of his assurances to the woman that dragons hadn't escaped fading into the background. It was eerie being at work outside of the day. It was quiet, and nearly dead. Reminded him of those movies where people should always go the other way so they don't end up dead, and no matter how much you yell at them to do it, they go the wrong way. Stupid muggles.
Settling into his desk, Jimmy picked up the pack of smokes, aimed his wand and inhaled. Now that would always help wake him up. Another flick of the wand and a steaming cup of coffee awaited him, followed indecently by the frown of the sheriff, who was the reason he'd come in this early in the first place.
"Benson, what the fuck took you so long? I called you nearly five minutes ago!"
"Sorry," he said, holding up his hands in surrender. "I had to try not to wake the wife."
"Yah, well, alright. You need to get in here though, we have a priority situation."
Jimmy had known Vanessa Carlton longer than he'd known most anyone in New Liverpool, and he knew it was hard to shake her up. She'd been through a lot, but she looked as if someone had woken the dead right before her eyes. Blood magic. Fuck, he needed to stop reading Malfoy. That guy was one fucked up freak.
Picking up his wand and stuffing it into his pocket, he grabbed the pack of smokes and coffee mug and followed her down the hall. He stopped himself from appreciating the view, which he'd had plenty of during their days, and found himself in the conference room, but they weren't alone.
The first thing that he noticed was the mayor and his wife sitting with their teen-aged daughter, all in their night clothes with blankets and drinking pepper-up potion. The next thing he noticed was that the boy, the one who he'd just seen on the news the other day in some press junket for the 'Re-Elect Mayor Richard Pinkett! A Family Wizard!' campaign, was not. Instantly his mind was working and the sleep he'd been enjoying less than ten minutes ago seemed like some faint memory from childhood.
"He was just… gone…" the mayor was saying nervously, sipping the potion one of the medi-witches kept pushing at him.
"I heard a 'pop'," the teen said, her face drawn and pale; drugs, he thought sadly and watched the potion turn her slightly green. 'X' or some other muggle thing, he concluded. They always reacted badly with potions.
"He couldn't have apparated, he's only eight," the mother said, her shell-shocked expression clearing a bit. "Do you think he might have taken Chloe's broom?"
"I would have seen him flying, and the window was latched." He wouldn't look up; blaming himself. Typical innocent family.
"Has he seen any strange people lately? Maybe someone at school, or at the playground?" They apparently hadn't heard him come in, because they all looked up at the sound of someone different. The mayor gave him a nod, but then seemed to cloud over in thought.
"I—I think one of his teacher said he was drawing pictures of goblins, but the nearest goblin colony is several hundred miles away; I don't think that's anything." Her voice was shaking; she could go at any moment.
"Which one of you spends the most time with him?" The mother looked up, her face slightly hurt to have to imply her husband wasn't the best one there was. A pang twitched in Jimmy's heart for a moment, but he suppressed it and went on. "Do any of your friends like to spend an odd amount of time with him?" She shook her head. "Any relatives who seem to be a little too close?" She shook her head again, but the mayor spoke.
"I wouldn't like to think you're implying anyone in our family would kidnap him." The tone was mildly threatening, but Jimmy grew up in Southie so instead of feeling frightened, he had to spend a few moments collecting his anger and pushing it back into the Irish closet.
"I'm just following the statistics, Mayor. Ninety percent of kidnapping cases in wizarding America are within the family."
"Detective?" It was Alice , the R.O., her voice was slightly nervous as she hid outside the room.
"Excuse me," Jimmy said over his shoulder, meeting Alice 's pale face out of view of the celebrity. "What is it, honey?"
She gave a slight frown, but said, "I just heard from Mike over in I.S.M. He says they picked up an unlicensed apparition right around the time little Nathan disappeared. They said the perp might have apparated outside the security net, but they have the state doing a trace."
"Excellent. Let me know when you hear more." She nodded and headed back to the radio room, leaving Jimmy with a lot to think about. Either the perp had figured out a way to apparate with a co-rider, or something had scared an eight year old boy so much that he would inadvertently perform a highly dangerous, complicated spell without a wand. Knowing this wasn't about to get easy, Jimmy took a long drag on his cigarette before returning to the conference room.
"Detective, it's been seven hours – please tell me you've found out something."
The mother was getting antsy and Jimmy hated weepy women. It was a reminder of things he'd rather not think about, so he gave her a quick excuse about checking again and disappeared to the break room. Seven hours; even he knew that was bad news. Never in the history of the American magical community had it taken longer than two hours to locate any missing child. Something was really off about this, and the bad feeling had grown to something the size of a quodpot field.
"Detective Benson?" It was Alice again, and this time she looked perplexed and not frustrated, and that made Jimmy's heart race. He merely nodded so she would go; words not wasted on him. "We, uh, found the boy."
"Where?"
"He's in England ."
" England ." It didn't seem like a word. He knew it meant something – no, somewhere, but in correlation with Nathan Pinkett the word just made no sense to him. Snapping himself back into gear, he shook his head and started again. "Is he at a police station?"
"Well, no. They don't really have police stations as it is, but he's at the Ministry for Magic in London with the Auror team."
"How did he—"
"We don't know. He's so scared that he won't speak and all they can get him to even do is drink water."
"Did he—"
"I don't know," she said abruptly. "I've already told the captain you were on your way. You've been authorized for personal portkey travel."
"Excellent." Without further words, she disappeared back to her cave and he turned to his locker to grab up his gear. Everything was always kept in a nice satchel; spare clothing, wand tuning kit, collapsible broom, camera, potions kit, spell-detection sensors and dark-arts detectors. Everything he could need on a long journey. With a quick look around, he grabbed up an empty paper coffee cup someone had gotten from Dunkin Donuts and forgotten to eviscerate and aimed his wand. "Portus," he said, then grabbed it and felt the familiar pulling sensation around his navel.
He found himself standing in the middle of a large, marble-lined room with several fire places and what looked like an oddly small elevator shaft. On the far end he could see a statue with a wizard, witch, goblin and house-elf all standing in mis-leadingly comfortable poses. Only the house elf seemed somewhat realistic, but having never met a goblin in person, it was hard for him to say if that's what they really looked like.
Walking towards the reception area, he found himself face to face with a wizard who looked like the typical English stereotype; crooked teeth, odd features and messed up hair but an expression like something had crawled in his ass and died. He wore a nametag claiming his name was 'Billus'.
"What can I do ya for?"
Jimmy blinked, odd thoughts of what that could mean crossing his expression and then collected himself. "My name's Detective James Benson, from New Liverpool, Massachusetts. I'm here about the boy; Nathan Pinkett."
Bilus gave him a shifty look over, even narrowing his eyes. "Bloody yanks," he muttered before rolling his eyes and droning out; "All guests to the Ministry for Magic are required to submit their wands for examination. Any wands found out of order are to be kept by the security Wizard – that'd be me – until such time as the guest leaves the ministry." Jimmy pulled his wand out of its holster and set it on the counter. The guard picked it up and gave it an odd look, as if he was expecting it to start shouting at him or something, and then placed it in a strange device that spewed out a little ticker of paper. "Fifteen inches, oak and … griffin-feather core?" He gave an eyebrow raise toward Jimmy, but continued without comment. "Been in use twenty-two years, six months and five days?"
"Yup."
"'Ere you are then." Bilus returned the wand and watched anxiously as Jimmy just stared at him, confused. "Well, why aren't you goin' then?"
"Well, I don't know where to go, do I?"
"Oi." Bilus's eyes rolled yet again as he pulled a mirror out of his pocket and said, "Victoria VanHeusen." Jimmy could just make out the reflective surface and watched as a woman's face appeared, looking as though she were using a similar device. She said something, but he couldn't quite hear her. "I got a bloke here says he's from New Liverpool and come for that boy you got there." She said something further, then disappeared from the mirror. "You go back there," he said, pointing toward the corridor behind him, "and on the right you'll find yourself some lifts. Get in 'em and go to level two. Go 'round the corner and through the doors. Victoria 'll meet you there."
Without further comment, the wizard turned back to the paper he'd been reading, on the front of which appeared a picture of a wizard in team robes flying across as another aimed a wand and flung a curse. Without waiting to see what would happen, or reading the headline, Jimmy made his way to the elevators and pressed the call button. Shaking is head slightly, he boarded, joining a stout woman wearing a peacock hat that was in full mating dance. She took up half the elevator already, but the hat only added to the picture and he suddenly wished it weren't rude to pull out a camera and take pictures of strangers.
The elevator announced, in a rather pleasant female voice, every floor they came upon. Some of the names seemed completely foreign to him, but he knew what they all were after a bit of thought. When he'd finally come to level two and worked his way to the 'Auror Headquarters' area, he found himself facing a very beautiful, dark-haired woman of about equal age to himself.
"Victoria VanHeusen," she said abruptly, extending a hand. He grasped it for the quick handshake she allowed, then followed when she turned wordlessly and headed off towards an unknown destination. Reminded slightly of certain chiefs of police, he let a small smile come forth and soon found himself face-to-face with little Nathan Pinkett.
"Hello Nathan," he said jovially, his smile plastered to his face. He could tell something had happened that had really freaked the little guy out because there was a lock of near-white hair in his little mop. "My name's Jimmy," he added, bending down to kneel in front of the kid. "We met at the police costume ball last year, if you remember. You were wearing a muggle costume; I think it was spider-man?"
Nathan looked up at him, his eyes full of something unreadable, and then he screamed at the top of his little lungs, which Jimmy had to admit were pretty powerful lungs.
"He's been catatonic since we found him," Vicky was saying. Jimmy had started referring to her as 'Vicky' in his head, and he had a feeling if he ever let it slip, she would hex him a set of brass balls a few sizes too large, but she just seemed like a 'Vicky' to him. "I had him checked out by a few medi-wizards, but no one can explain anything. The only thing they know is that he is very frightened."
"Well, that much is obvious," Jimmy said, his thoughts racing. "How did you find him?"
"The Improper Use of Magic office detected an underage, unauthorized apparation and sent an owl. When it came back—"
"An owl?"
"You don't use owls for communication?"
"No, we use pigeons and phones."
"Well, interesting that, but we use owls." She gave him a chastising look and continued, apparently quite unhappy at being interrupted. "When the owl came back with its letter unopened, an auror was dispatched to the scene to investigate. We found an unknown, un-chaperoned eight years old boy and took him in. When we cast an identity charm, we found he was from your country and contacted the local auror team."
"Police."
"Yes, well, however you call them, they contacted your office and here we are."
"Indeed. The major question of the year being how an eight year old boy could apparate wandless." They stood in silence for a while, both apparently chewing on that bit of information before Victoria shuffled slightly and seemed uncomfortable.
"There is some… talk…" Her whole attitude had changed, and she seemed genuinely nervous now, which was so opposite to all Jimmy had seen of her that he was caught off-guard and felt nervous himself. "A wizard is imitating that muggle book baddie Voldemort." The implications washed over him for a moment, his mind churning just a bit harder. "No one knows what he's calling himself, but he has started a band of evil-doers calling themselves Death Eaters. Just like in the book, he's on a muggle-killing spree."
"What would he want with a little American boy?"
"I…I'm not sure."
Jimmy had a feeling that wasn't the answer to their problem, but he did think it lay somewhere in England . Something in his gut told him that whatever had frightened Nathan to apparating here had followed him, and was now roaming the countryside free to harm innocent children as it pleased. Determined more than ever to find out what it was, Jimmy knew he had to get back to the boy and get him to talk.
"Do you guys keep a store of veritiserum around?"
"Of course, but we only use it in extreme situations. It's highly regulated and the punishments for misuse are very strict."
"Yes, but this situation may call for it. I don't want to see any children lost, and I have a feeling that Nathan was only lucky."
"I'llowl a medi-wizard."
As she walked off, he couldn't help but admire the skirt she was wearing, and especially the way it curved just so around her ass, allowing for a great mental picture of what she looked like naked. Trying to stop his hormones from taking over, he sat down at her desk and pulled out his cell phone. He noticed the signal was dead, so he walked over to a window and tried to see if he could manage one there, but nothing came of it.
"Muggle technology doesn't work around here," said a voice from behind him. It was a silky, very high-class sounding accent, and definitely male. Something about it seemed familiar, but when Jimmy turned he saw only a blond haired, blue-eyed guy of about twenty-four or so sitting behind a desk pushing paper.
"Don't you guys have any enhancement spells here?"
"No need. We rely on the normal ways of communication."
" Normal for you," Jimmy muttered, but the blond didn't seem to notice. "What do I have to do to contact my chief, then?"
"I'd suggest international post. It's near instantaneous; works like a portkey from what I hear."
"Right, well, where do I find it?"
"Down the hall, to the right."
"Thanks," he said over his shoulder, not hearing the response. He knew it was a bit rude, but the guy seemed to have an attitude problem and he wasn't in the mood for pompous Brits at the moment. This was all getting to be too strange, and something about this situation was nagging him like a memory just out of reach. This had happened before, but he just didn't know when or what, but he did know it wasn't going to be easy, and there were going to be deaths before it was over. That was enough to make him want to get back-up here asap.