Chapter 8

Police Protection or Custody?

"…ink he's coming round" A voice Harry didn't recognise spoke from above him somewhere.

"Detective, this young gentleman has been through a great ordeal, I do not want you asking questions when he first wakes. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave" Another voice

Harry didn't recognise came from above him.

As Harry came round more and more, he could feel his body and the aches and pains came to him in full force. His head felt like a heard of hippogriffs had trampled over it, and the rest of his body didn't feel much better either.

Harry thought back over what he had just heard, and tried to piece together why he was where he was. Who ever was in the room has mentioned 'Detective' and 'questions' in the same sentence, which gave Harry a bad feeling. Harry thought back more, and the more he tried think, the less he could remember why he was here, and how he had gotten here. Harry shot up in a panic, which sent the machines surrounding him into an uproar of beeps.

Harry took in his surroundings as best he could without his glasses on, and he realised that, he was infact, in a Muggle hospital. He was hooked up to machines by wires that lead from his chest to the beeping machine next to his bed, and he had an IV in his hand. He looked round to find people coming through the door wearing white and navy blue.

"Its ok sweet heart, calm down, your safe" A nurse was saying to him, as other tried to push him back down to the pillows. Everything was blurry and it was making Harry's head hurt even more.

"Are my… glasses here?" He asked. His throat was hurting and he couldn't seem to keep his breath.

The nurse, who seemed to have managed to successfully have manoeuvred him back down into the pillows, smiled and said;

"There's no need to worry about your glasses dear, you wont need them"

He frowned at this and became impatient. Why wouldn't he need his glasses? If he didn't have them, then he was effectively blind. His frustration seemed to clear his head slightly, and he began to think harder. He changed what he was thinking from, how had he gotten here, to what did he need to do? There was something he needed to do, but he couldn't bring it to the forefront of his mind. What was it he needed to do? His thoughts then fled back to why couldn't he remember how he had come to be here? All he accomplished in doing was making himself feel worse.

The pain in his head grew, and from shooting up to fast, his body felt like it had had a fresh go at being battered. The people in the room silenced for a minute and Harry seemed to float out on the pain, his vision fogged even more and he felt himself go limp. As soon as it had happened, he pulled out of it and shot back up again. The noise in the room made his head hurt, too many people were talking at once, which lead to raised voices and more pain for Harry.

One voice above the rest came out clear.

"Son, your going to feel some liquid flow into your hand, then something else which will send it flushing through your body, ok. Its going to make you sleep for a while, ok?" Someone asked, then before he answered, they went ahead and did it anyway. Harry woke up slightly, why where they sending him back to sleep? He didn't want to sleep

"Hang on, I don't need to sleep. Please just hand me my glasses" He asked slightly panicked. He didn't like hospitals, not muggle ones any way. He much preferred healing by magic.

"You wont need them if you going to sleep" The nurse in blue said again.

"But I don't want to sleep" He told them , feeling more and more agitated and panicked.

As the drug started to take affect, Harry's panic flew into sheer terror. He knew he shouldn't be here, this wasn't where he belonged, he belonged in the wizarding world…at

Hogwarts…with…Dumbledore!

Harry tried more forcefully to get out of the bed, or at least make these people listen, but they were not interested in listening, they were more interested in how a teenage boy was managing to still be fighting against 4 fully grown adults, one of which was a police Detective.

"You don't…understand! I have… to speak… to Dumbledore!" Harry managed to get out finally.

But his victory was short lived. The drugs the muggle doctors had given him were taking a massive affect, and Harry was finding it harder and harder to fight against the doctors holding him down. Still trying to speak, he was just letting out disconnected words.

"Dumble… need…speak…shouldn't…wand…glasses…Vol"

And with his last thought staying on Voldemort, Harry slipped into a drug induced sleep.

The police man that was in the room at the time looked at the now sleeping child as the nurse flitted around the bed, straightening machines and side tables that had been knocked aside as they had tried to subdue the boy. This boy was supposed to be the one that was nearly killed outside Kings cross station about two weeks ago. He was also supposed to be a wizard.

"Jesus" The Detective muttered, as he sat outside the sleeping child's room, and waited for him to wake.

Harry began to stir again, this time there were no voices, the pain had died down a little, and he knew what he had to do; contact Dumbledore. Harry listened to the sounds of the room before he moved. If there was anyone in the room, he did not want them noticing he was awake and drugging him again, that he could do without.

When he had decided that he was alone, he cautiously opened his eyes and turned his head to the side. From what he could make out, there was a table next to the bed, with, to Harry's giant relief, his glasses resting on top. He reached out and took his glasses and put them on. He hated not to have his glasses on. Harry pulled himself into a sitting position, and looked round the room. He was alone in the room, which made Harry's heart skip with relief, and the curtains to the window and the one on the door were drawn, so that no one could see in. Another thing that gave Harry some relief.

"Now, how to get out of this" Harry whispered to himself.

He pulled his legs round to the side of the bed and dangled them over the side. He noticed the side table had a little cupboard in it. He opened it gingerly. His clothes were at the bottom, along with his trainers, but no wands. Harry's eyes widened. He hated being without his wand in the wizarding, let alone in the muggle world, especially while Voldemort was at his highest point of power.

He sighed forcefully and pulled his hands up to his face. As he pulled his left hand, he felt a sharp pain and noticed that he had the IV in his hand still.

"Bugger" He whispered forcefully.

The door opened, and Harry looked up to find a very shocked looking man in a suit, that Harry had never seen before, standing in the doorway.

Harry and he locked gazes, neither sure what to do. Lucky for Harry, the man shook himself and walked into the room. Harry leaned back as the man drew nearer the bed. This made Harry feel nervous.

"Have you just woken up" The man asked him. He had a deepish voice that didn't really match his face. He was a tall man, with brown longish hair. He couldn't have been older than 35, and he was quite built. All in all, the man was as normal looking as could be, and was most definitely a Muggle.

"Son? Are you ok?" He asked, standing at the side of Harry's bed, with his hands in his pockets.

Harry answered quickly. He wanted out of here, and he wanted to know where everyone was.

"I'm fine, and yes I've just woken up" His voice didn't come out nearly as strong as he would have liked, but at least he held the mans gaze.

The man nodded his head and walked over to one of the plastic chairs in the room then dragged it over next to Harry's bed and sat down. Harry was sitting on the bed with one leg tucked under the other, wearing a hospital gown, not one of his finest moment, but he was ready to jump off the bed if need be.

"Do you wind if I ask you a few questions?" The man asked. Harry shook his head.

"Good, well first, I'm Detective Sol, and you, if I'm not much mistaken, are Harry potter?"

Harry looked up at the mention of the word 'Detective', realising there had been a detective in the room when he had woken the first time. The bit that really shocked him was that he knew Harry's name.

Harry nodded in response,

"Well Harry, can you tell me what you remember?" The detective asked, taking out a little note pad and pen. He had started to write before Harry had even spoken.

Harry knew he had to be careful what to tell this man. Harry had never even been in close contact with a muggle police officer, due to the fact he had spent most of his teenage years away at Hogwarts. Finally he settled on playing thick.

"I can't remember that much to be honest, sir" Harry told him.

The officer smiled. "Call me Sol, Harry" Harry nodded in response.

"Well, can you tell me who Dumbledore is, Harry?"

Harry's heart sped up, and thanks to the heart monitor that he was attached to, Sol knew too. Harry looked at the monitor and willed it with blind hope to shut up, stop giving his shock at the Officer knowing who Dumbledore was. Sol had followed Harry's gaze to the heart monitor, but now his gaze was settled back on Harry.

"Come on, Harry, you can tell me. Is this person 'Dumbledore' threatening you? Is Dumbledore part of the people who attacked you? If you need help, we can help you" Sol finished off. The officer had his hands on Harry's bed, and he would not drop his gaze from Harry's.

"No that wasn't Dumbledore" Harry told him shortly, with out really answering the man questions at all.

Sol looked as if he was getting tired of Harry's forceful blindness to the matter at hand, but he decided to try one more question on the teenager.

"Where is your family Harry?" Sol asked, in a quite forced tone, that was meant to be none threatening.

"At home, I think" Harry didn't know why, but he didn't want to admit to this man where he lived.

Suddenly the man rose from his seat and walked to shut the door. This made Harry's heart speed up even more, and still attached to the heart machine, the man knew he was making Harry nervous. He turned round and looked at Harry and Harry half expected him to turn into a Death Eater there and then, but he didn't.

"I'm not here to hurt you, infact, I'm doing my best to try and keep you safe. We have police officers at the entrance to the ward and there is open sitting outside your door. I'm not your enemy Harry" The man finished off, giving Harry what he thought was meant to be innocent eyes.

Harry didn't say anything, he just sat and looked at the officer. He didn't know if he could trust the man at all, he had only just met him. What he did know was that he needed to get in contact with someone from the wizarding world.

The officer sighed.

"Well maybe you will explain these to me" And he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out

Harry's and his fathers and.

Perfect, Harry thought.

"You were holding these when I arrived outside your Aunt and Uncles house. Now, I have not been to the moon these past few weeks, I know what has been happening about 'wizards' and 'witches' being real, I know about the attack outside Kings Cross, I saw the damage and I saw the security footage. And I saw you on that security footage. It was you who these people giving interviews about a 'magical' world, have been describing, and last but not least, it was you and the same man on the Kings Cross footage who were fighting two nights ago. I'm no fool, now, Harry, what is going on?"

Harry just stared straight at the ceiling, not knowing what to say or do. Where the hell was

everyone? Where was Dumbledore? Were they just going to leave him here to make his own excuses? What was he going to say?

"I have all day, Harry" Detective Sol told him.

"There isn't much I can tell you" Harry said finally.

"Well what can you tell me?"

"Yes that was me outside Kings Cross, yes it was me they have been describing, and yes wizards and witches do exist" He finished.

Harry didn't want to say anything, but he didn't want to bring too much attention to himself. If they arrested him or anything like that, it would be all over the news. He couldn't afford to be publicised while alone in the muggle world, not with Voldemort after him.

Harry thought back to…when ever it was the fight had happened. What had they meant when they said 'when he gets what he wants from you' ? Bellatrix had taken joy in telling him he was going to get rest, the eternal kind Harry knew she meant, after Voldemort had gotten out of what he wanted. It had only just occurred to Harry that none of the Death Eaters or even Voldemort himself had sent a killing curse at Harry. What did they want from him then? Harry knew one things, he no more wanted to be in Voldemort's clutches than he wanted to die.

"Who was that…man then, Harry? The one who has now attacked you twice. Is that Dumbledore?" Sol asked.

Harry shook his head. "No that wasn't Dumbledore" Harry said, sounding tired and beaten.

"C'mon, Harry you called out this person's name earlier today. Who is Dumbledore?"

The door opened softly. "I am Dumbledore"