Title: Murder by Magic
Author: Sara
Rating: PG-13 I suppose.
Pairings: Ginny/Draco, Ron/Hermione, Munch/Severus, Jack/Ed
Summary: What happens when a certain pair of homicide detectives catch a very unusual case?
A/N: This is a crossover between Law & Order and Harry Potter. Sorta strange, but hey.
"What?" Ed asked the M.E. incredulously. "How do you not know the cause of death?" he asked.
"It's the strangest thing, but this person, although dead, is otherwise healthy. He wasn't beaten, strangled, drowned, shot, stabbed, poisoned, or anything else I can think of. It looks like his organs just stopped working for no reason," Rodgers told him.
"So we have absolutely no idea how he died?" Lennie replied.
"That's about it. All I can tell you is that it wasn't anything natural, so he was murdered, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how," she said.
"Could it be a new poison that works through the system quickly?" Ed wondered.
"Doubtful. Even the poisons hardest to detect leave some sort of trace. With this guy," she gestured to the poor soul resting on the table, "there's nothing."
"All right, let's go work on figuring out who he is, Lennie." Ed sighed, and the two of them made their way out of the morgue.
XxXxX
"Nothing on his prints, dental records, and there are over 5,000 missing men who match his description," Ed summarized to his lieutenant.
"There has to be some way to narrow this down. And the M.E. still doesn't know what killed him?" she asked.
"She's still stumped, lieu, it's like this guy's organs all just decided to take a little rest at the exact same time. She hasn't found anything that caused it," Lennie told her. "I feel like I'm in an episode of the X-Files. When will Scully and Mulder be rushing in to take this away from us?"
Anita Van Buren gave him a look before replying, "Well, the best thing you can do for now is to go through those missing people. Maybe something will jump out at you."
"Or we'll just waste our time..." Lennie grumbled, but nonetheless sat down and started to sift through all the papers.
XxXxX
Meanwhile, far away, across an ocean and many other things, an old man with a very long, white beard sat in his very peculiar office in a very peculiar building. He wore purple robes and had a long, purple, pointed hat. On his very crooked nose - it had to have been broken at least twice - sat half moon spectacles. His deep blue eyes had a far away twinkle that indicated he was scheming - definitely not anything safe for those he considered his family and friends. This man's name was Albus Dumbledore. He was the brilliant Headmaster of a very different sort of a school... Hogwarts: a school for witchcraft and wizardry.
On his desk sat a crystal ball. Indeed, not one meant to show the future; it was merely a See-All, meant to show the present, and it had proven useful many times, one such time being now. He gazed into it, seeing the detectives in New York go through paper after paper trying to determine who their poor victim was. He smiled, knowing that the man's identity would not be in those papers, and then snapped his fingers. This would be a perfect time for some inter-world cooperation. No doubt Severus would call him a foolish, sentimental old Gryffindor, but he imagined a time, sometime in the future, when the Wizarding World and the Muggle Word at least intersected at some points. Perhaps it was asking too much, but it was definitely a nice thought.
Dumbledore stood up and headed over to his fire place. Grabbing his floo powder he decided to fire call six people: Severus Snape, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, and Draco Malfoy. After the six had situated themselves in his office, he began to speak. "It has come to my attention that former Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge was found dead this morning by the muggle authorities in New York city in Manhattan over in the United States. I've been watching them in my See-All and they have not been able to determine a cause of death, so it is very likely that he was killed with magic. Currently they are trying to figure out who he is - another impossible task, since Cornelius was not muggle born.
I need you to go get the two detectives working on this case, Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green, their Lieutenant, Anita Van Buren, and their prosecutors, Abbie Carmicheal and Jack McCoy, since they'll have heard of this man by now too, and bring them here. It is too risky to obliviate these people since they are law enforcers and have certain knowledge that we cannot risk deleting. Also, too many people know. So I see this as a fantastic time to finally get the Muggle and Wizarding Worlds cooperating."
Severus and Draco - the jaded Slytherins in the room - rolled their eyes at Dumbledore's last comment and how ridiculously Gryffindor it was. The rest of the group simply nodded and Ginny and Harry elbowed Draco and Severus in the ribs respectively.
"I'm sure that was necessary," Severus murmured sarcastically.
"Oh it was, no need to be a smart ass, Severus." Harry laughed.
Although at one time Severus Snape and Harry Potter could have claimed they hated each other and both had various moments where they would've cheerfully wrung the other's neck, the war and working so closely together had had an effect on them. They had come to respect each other and had eventually become good friends. Many people speculated that they were lovers, because Severus was gay, and Harry was bisexual, but they just did not have feelings for each other. Their relationship had turned very father/son, and Severus was in a long-term relationship (two years, currently). They didn't really pay any attention to the rumors though, because neither cared about what other people thought about them.
Now Draco had been a surprise. He had come crawling to Dumbledore, begging not to have to take the Dark Mark and follow in his father's footsteps. No one really knew for sure what had happened that night to have such an effect on the young man, but many people were grateful for it. And although it had taken awhile, eventually, the five students and their teacher had formed a close-knit group. Ron and Hermione had, as everyone predicted, started dating in seventh year and got married a year after they graduated (a year before the Dark Lord had been defeated for the second, and final time). But the surprise was Ginny and Draco, who had started dating shortly after Ron and Hermione had gotten married. They weren't married yet though, both wanting to take their time.
Now it was three years after the Dark Lord had been defeated. Harry had been an Auror for the two years after he graduated that Voldemort was still at large, but was now the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Ron and Ginny were still Aurors, Draco was teaching Arithmancy, and Hermione had taken over History of Magic after Professor Binns finally decided to retire.
The group of six made their way out of Dumbledore's office and decided on a course of action. "I guess the easiest thing would be to use a portkey," Harry rationalized. "It'd be a lot less draining than Apparating and we could just use our necklaces," he added, speaking of their necklaces that were emergency portkeys to Hogwarts. They had gotten them a year before Voldemort had been defeated and still wore them to this day, symbolizing that they were still friends.
"Ron, Draco, and I can go get the prosecutors - Abbie Carmicheal and Jack McCoy. You, Ginny, and Severus can go get the detectives and their lieutenant," Hermione said to Harry, who then nodded in agreement.
"All right, that works. Let's go." Harry smiled.
XxXxX
Ed Green and Lennie Briscoe sat at their desks still going over the missing person reports. Each of them had to have looked at about a hundred of them at least, and they were no closer to identifying the poor slob in the morgue. Lennie glanced up at the clock and as he did, he noticed three people enter the squad room. There was a middle aged gentleman who didn't look very happy accompanied by a young woman and a young man. The young woman had striking, long, red hair, and looked to be about twenty-one years old. She was shorter than both of the men, but only by a few inches. The young man was around the same age as she and had unruly black hair. Lennie could make out a lighting bolt shaped scar on his forehead and was puzzled, How do you get a scar like that? He wondered to himself. The older man also had black hair, but it was longer. He was about an inch taller than the younger man and had a frown that looked to be permanently etched on his face. The three strangers saw him watching them and walked up to him.
"Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green?" the young lady asked.
"Yes, why?" Lennie responded, the cop in him instantly suspicious. How did these three know who he was?
"Where is your lieutenant?" The young man asked.
"In her office... why?" Lennie saw that Ed was now suspicious as well.
"We'll explain everything soon," the young man replied. "Hey, Severus, go get the lieutenant, we'll be fine here."
The older man nodded and stalked off towards Van Buren's office. Lennie was about to protest when he felt the young man's hand on his shoulder and a sudden pulling sensation at his navel...
A few moments later, Lennie was sitting at a very large table in an extremely large room, looking at Ed who looked just as confused as he did. Is that candle... floating? He wondered and then blinked. My god, I must be hallucinating. Just two minutes ago he was sitting at his desk in the station, and now he was in some room in an unknown location. The X-Files is right...
Just then, the older man and his Lieutenant appeared right next to him. His eyes widened. Where had they come from? What the hell was going on? He decided to ask. "What is going on here?"
The young woman smiled at him sympathetically. "That was sorta mean, guys, we just came in out of nowhere and confused the hell out of them." The older man just smirked and the young man just shrugged his shoulders.
"What else could we have done, Ginny? They wouldn't have believed us if we tried to explain first," the young man replied.
"I know, Harry." She sighed. "But I think Severus enjoyed that too much."
"Well of course he did, he's just like that." Harry grinned. The man referred to as Severus just rolled his eyes.
"Contrary to popular belief, I do find other ways to amuse myself than by either scaring or confusing people," he drawled. "And you didn't answer the man's question."
Thank you, Lennie thought. "Oh, right, sorry." Ginny turned to Lennie. "We'll explain everything when the others get here. But I'm Ginny Weasley, this is Harry Potter, and this giant bat is Severus Snape."
"Thank you ever so much for the introduction," Severus replied dryly.
"No problem." Ginny grinned.
Suddenly, Lennie saw a flustered looking Jack McCoy and very confused Abbie Carmicheal appear before them, along with three others he didn't recognize.
"What took you three so long?" Ginny asked the one who's hair was as bright as hers. Lennie assumed they were related.
"Blame Draco," the red-headed man replied.
"It was hardly my fault. That building was big!" The one Lennie figured was Draco said.
The brown-haired young woman snorted. "Hogwarts has got to be at least ten times the size."
"Yes, well, I'm used to Hogwarts, aren't I?" Draco responded.
"Excuse me, " Jack spoke up irritably, "but what the hell is going on?"
"My thoughts exactly," Abbie added.
The red-headed man shook his head apologetically. "Sorry mate, we do owe you an explanation."
"Yes, we do. First let's get names out of the way. I am Hermione Granger," the brown-haired young woman replied, "this is Harry Potter, Severus Snape, Ginny Weasley, Ron Weasley, and Draco Malfoy," she finished.
"And we were asked by our ever-so-well-meaning-but-slightly-batty Headmaster to get you and bring you here." Draco rolled his eyes.
"Oh, shush, Draco." Ginny elbowed him the ribs. "Continue, Hermione."
"Thank you. Anyway, we were asked to contact you about this current case you were working on. The man you found in central park? No ID and no discernable cause of death?" Hermione said.
Lennie looked at her curiously, "What does this have to do with that case?"
"Well, you see... the man killed was named Cornelius Fudge. He was a wizard and he was killed with magic," Hermione told him.
"That's preposterous! Magic doesn't exist," Jack remarked.
Hermione rolled her eyes and placed her hands on her hips. Severus spoke up, "Look around you. This entire castle is magic. And if it doesn't exist, please, do explain how you got here." His tone was the same as if he was talking to a particularly dense first year. Jack didn't have an answer.
"Thank you, Severus," Hermione said. "This is why you could not find a cause of death. He was killed with a curse - Avada Kedavra. It is an Unforgivable Curse and there is no defense against it. Harry here is the only person to ever survive it."
"Gee, thanks for fitting that in there," Harry grumbled.
"Well it's true," she replied.
Lennie sat back, deep in thought. He felt as though his entire brain had been taken and shook for a good, solid ten minutes and then given back to him. Magic? Wizards? They don't pay me enough for this.
"So, where are we?" Ed asked.
"We're at Hogwarts, school of witchcraft and wizardry," Ron told him.
"You have a school?" Anita asked incredulously.
"Well of course we have a school. Young witches and wizards need to get their training somewhere, don't they?" Draco answered.
"I think we'd better give them some background, you guys, so they're not going into this blindly," Ginny spoke up.
"Yeah, that's a good idea. Let's tell them Harry's story," Hermione responded.
"Oh, god." Harry shook his head. "That is going to take forever."
"Let's just give them the Spark notes version," Hermione replied. Everyone but Harry looked at her oddly. "It's a Muggle thing. They serve as supplements and guides to books that they study in school. Basically, it just condenses them down so it's easier to understand," she explained.
"Oh, kind of like the summaris spell," Draco said.
"Yes, exactly," Hermione nodded. "Anyway, I'll start explaining, because there are a few Death Eaters out there still not captured that could be responsible for this."
"There are a lot of people out there who could be responsible for this," Severus replied. "Fudge was an imbecile."
"Yeah, that's true," Harry responded, "but I disliked him too and I wouldn't have killed him. You don't kill everyone who annoys you," he paused, "at least I hope you don't, Severus, 'cause there would be a lot of people no longer alive."
Severus just rolled his eyes, "We should let Hermione start telling your courageous story."
"Oh bother," Harry replied.
TBC
A/N: Had to fix it up a bit. I hadn't realized the scene dividers I was using (stars) weren't showing up. And, there were a few errors I wanted to fix.
