All I Crave is a Normal Life

by cazgirl

R for later chapters. (HarSev) Harry has defeated Voldemort at great personal loss and has fled the wizarding world. Circumstances force him to return and he must face all that he left behind, including his greatest enemy - and his greatest fear.

6. chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own the concept of Harry Potter or its characters, they belong to the talented Ms. Rowling. Only the plot is my own. 

Thank you to everybody who reviewed and provided me with an answer to my question. A big thank you to my beta reader ('editor-in-chief'). Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

*****

NB: I am planning to make this a lengthy-ish story. I've realised that it's chapter 6 and there hasn't been any slash. There will be slash eventually, but I really need to give Harry and Snape a reason to be slashy to each other and, well, they don't actually have a reason yet. They will though. And it'll be a good one. Believe me.

Also the action starts to pick up in this chapter and there will be more action in it from this point on. Much more. HEAPS more. Can't give any more away, sorry. J

CHAPTER 6

It had been about three and a half months since Harry had come to Hogwarts. He had found it quite easy to fall into a routine revolving around preparing his classes and his own private studies and amusements. The fact that he was so well preoccupied at the castle was helping Harry to cope with the loss of Greg immensely. He would still have moments where he thought he would drown in his pain, but these were becoming less frequent since he kept himself busy. His pain had settled into a heavy ache that he carried in his heart, but it no longer overwhelmed and threatened to incapacitate him.

He'd gone out for drinks with Tony, who seemed anxious to make sure that Harry was coping, at their favourite pub about a month ago.

"How're you doing?" asked Tony, seriously.

Harry paused before answering. "I think I'll get there, Tony."

"You'd better, because Greg would have a fit if you didn't."

Harry nodded into his drink. "Yeah, maybe." Tony was right. Greg had had an enormous love of life and a bright, fun loving spirit. He'd hate it if Harry could never pick himself back up again.

Tony ordered another drink and directed a searching look at Harry, who drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly before looking at Tony with such a piercing look of honesty and sadness that Tony felt it tug at his heart strings.

"At first, I felt like I couldn't breathe, and I thought I was going to lose my mind. Do you know what I mean?" Harry paused and looked at Tony. "I even had half a mind to join him."

"I wouldn't have let you, but go on." Tony said evenly, looking closely at Harry.

"But now I've taken some time away, and I'm keeping myself really busy. I mean, I'm always planning something or doing something and, just lately, I've found that sometimes hours have gone by where I haven't had the time to stop and think about Greg at all." Not surprising. Between planning lessons, teaching and being interrogated by half of the teaching staff it's a wonder I've got any time to myself at all, Harry qualified to himself.  "I mean, I can still feel him, if you know what I mean. But I haven't really stopped to think." Harry stopped to drink from his glass again. Tony stayed silent, allowing Harry to say what he needed to get off his chest without interruptions.  "A couple of times, something's happened and I've laughed, been a little bit happy, and then I remember Greg and I catch myself because I feel guilty for being happy when Greg… moved on… only about three and a half months ago."

"Why on earth should you feel guilty for being happy?" asked Tony. He needed to make sure Jason wouldn't drown in his grief, and his friend had just provided him with an opportunity to do it.

"Well, Greg meant more to me than that. It's an insult -"

"Jason. I'll admit that you never seemed so happy as when you and Greg were in the same room together, but let me ask you, was Greg the only thing that made you happy?"

"Well, no, but -"

"No buts. I know it's only been about fourteen weeks Jason. I'm not saying that you shouldn't still be feeling for Greg, but there's no reason to feel guilty about getting enjoyment from doing something that makes you happy. There is, however, every reason to feel guilty for letting Greg's memory drag you down to the point where you just don't want to be happy again. He wasn't about that. He loved you. He'd hate to think he was making you so unhappy."

"I guess – maybe you're right…"

"Of course I'm right. I'm always right." Tony replied, grinning broadly. Harry stifled a laugh. "So promise me that you'll go easy on yourself, o.k.," said Tony, more seriously.

Yeah, that'll be easy with everyone breathing down my neck at Hogwarts every time I turn the corner. "I'll try."

"You'd better, otherwise I'll have to – what was it Greg always threatened to do to you? Oh yeah – I'll have to find a way to -"

"-hurt me in ways that a man should never be hurt," finished Harry fondly. He turned to Tony and simply said "Thanks." No more words were necessary. Harry was a survivor. He'd survive this.

*****

He was eventually able to put aside his need for sleeping tablets and headache medication. He was honest enough with himself to be able to admit that they had been a crutch when his grief had initially threatened to overwhelm him, but he was beginning to cope on his own now, and he still enjoyed such things as visiting muggle London on some of his free weekends, like he was doing today. He'd sometimes indulge himself in a muggle shopping spree, splurging on muggle sweets and buying more exercise equipment for himself, but more often than not, he'd drop into his pharmacy and see how it was running. If Tony was the pharmacist on duty, he'd arrange to have lunch with his good friend.

It seemed that since he'd lost Greg, Harry was spending more time with Tony than he had in the past. Tony knew that his friend was reaching out for emotional support and stability and he had no objections to being there for him. They had been the closest of friends since the day they met in their first class together and he knew that his friend would do the same for him in a pinch.

"So this is some sort of 'alternative remedy' thing, is it?" asked Tony lightly, as he handed Harry a cup of tea and settled into a chair opposite him in the staff room at the back of Harry's pharmacy.

He had been spending many hours lately in his rooms researching potions and comparing his study of potions to the study of pharmacology. Though he'd been an excellent student of potions during his period of training, now that he had the advantage of having studied the muggle equivalent of pharmacology, he was able to understand potions in an entirely new way. Different avenues of research opened themselves up to him.  He tried to explain to Tony, in vague terms, what he'd been doing.

"Yeah, you could say that," answered Harry. Well to a muggle, you don't get much more 'alternative' than potions, do you? He justified to himself.

"Why are you even bothering tinkering around in that sort of stuff though? Herbal remedies and naturopathy have their place certainly, but medication is faster and more effective, Jason."

Herbal remedies and naturopathy. Yeah, right. Potions will be the new 'alternative remedy', my friend, at least if I have anything to do with it when I get back, Harry thought idly to himself. He had spent many evenings trying to think of a way he could conceivably stock potions in his pharmacy when he returned without raising undue suspicion. Some potions looked like herbal remedies and they would be inconspicuous on the shelves of his pharmacy, but some of the more potent ones that he wished to introduce to muggle London smoked from their vials and that could raise a few eyebrows. And so, he had come to realise that when he finished his year of teaching at Hogwarts, he didn't want to disappear from muggle London and leave behind everything he had worked for since the war ended. He turned his attention back to the conversation.

"But wouldn't it be great if we could make medications that were a bit easier on the body? Wouldn't it be great if, say, cancer patients could take the medication and not have to deal with all of the side effects?" asked Harry.

"It would be great, but it can't be done Jason. You know that as well as I do." He paused and narrowed his eyes at his friend, "You're not turning 'herbalist' on me are you, because you know I don't want to hear that sort of language, young man," countered Tony using a tone of voice that sounded oddly like their favourite university professor.

"No way.  We only do the hard drugs in this pharmacy," teased Harry.

"Damn straight!" Tony laughed and rang out his agreement. "Good thing we got that settled. For a minute I thought you were going soft!"

"I'm hurt!" exclaimed Harry in mock outrage. He paused. "But seriously, if we could control -"

"Tony, could you come here please. It's quite urgent. We've got a... um... situation," pleaded one of the pharmacy assistants. Tony looked apologetically at Jason.

"Sorry about this. Do you want to wait here or come back in a little while? Or, do you want to help me deal with this? After all, it's your pharmacy," offered Tony.

"That's alright, Tony. I'm on holiday, remember? I'll just wander around outside for a while. I haven't done all of my Christmas shopping anyway. I'll be back soon," said Harry good naturedly. Diffusing altercations between students was a good part of his job as a Hogwarts Professor, so he had no intention of voluntarily getting involved in any sort of dispute resolution on his day off.

Harry left the pharmacy, and looked up and down the street. What he saw made him stop dead in his tracks. On the footpath on the other side of the mall were Professors McGonagall, Snape, Weasley and Weasley, all dressed in muggle clothing – which, Harry thought, looked odd on Minerva and Severus. Severus was dressed in a grey long sleeved shirt and black trousers while Minerva was dressed in a peach coloured blouse and a black medium length skirt which sat just above her knees. Severus looked, well, almost normal. Harry had never seen him in any other colour than black, but he looked odd without his robes. Minerva just looked weird. He had only ever seen her in her full length black robes and her full length dresses and wizards robes. So that's what she looks like underneath her robes! Harry thought with cheeky amusement. He had seen Ron and Hermione in muggle attire many times when they were younger, so they didn't really look odd at all.

What on earth are they doing here?!  he thought, completely puzzled. I'll believe that Albus is a pin-up boy for Playgirl before I believe that they're all good friends and doing Christmas shopping in London, thought Harry in shock, as he ducked out of sight around a nearby corner and continued to watch them. He had removed his concealment charms so he had to be careful. After all, he couldn't very well allow them to see Harry Potter across the street, could he?

*****

"Oh stop muttering Severus," Minerva snapped irritably.

"We shouldn't need to keep doing this every weekend. I can understand that Albus was concerned about reports of an outbreak of violence around London, and I can understand that he suspected that it may have been more than just a surge of muggle violence. But we have already investigated the situation. And months later we are still investigating the situation for Albus. We could be doing other things. This is a waste of time," muttered Snape quietly to his companions.

"Albus is concerned because the violence is still continuing and the muggle police haven't been able to do anything about it. Albus thinks that they might be baffled because there's magic involved, which muggles won't account for. It can't hurt to keep an eye out. It is ultimately better to be safe than sorry, Severus," replied Minerva sagely.

"I never thought I'd ever say this," added Ron, "but I'm with Severus on this one. We've been at this just about every Saturday morning and afternoon, for months. Muggles have people to do this sort of thing for pity's sake. All the evidence that we've seen points to all the incidents being entirely muggle related. So why are we still here?" ended Ron, clearly annoyed.

"Ron, I agree with Minerva, we can't be too careful," said Hermione sternly.

"Yes we can," Ron muttered quietly enough so that his wife couldn't hear it.

Their attention was suddenly drawn to the small café a little further down the mall from where they were standing. People were running out of it in varying degrees of fright and distress. The four professors took advantage of the confusion to creep into the café and survey the scene before them. Several young men looked to be assaulting the staff of the café. They were yelling at the staff to move into one of the corners of the room threatening them with an assortment of weapons – knives, steel bars, cricket bats and the like. The scene was truly appalling.

The weaponry suggested to the four professors that this was an entirely muggle incident, and as such, there would be no need to risk using magic to diffuse the situation. And they would help, no questions asked, because none of them wanted to see anybody get hurt. Albus knew this and as such, he had provided them with muggle items to use in their efforts to contain any 'incidents' and to protect themselves, should they feel threatened and unable to rely on magic. But, he had warned them, in no uncertain terms, that they must not be discovered as wizards and witches. Magic was only to be used when faced with no other choice.

Having diffused several of these sorts of incidents in the time that they had spent patrolling this area, they were by now quite adept at this sort of thing. In all the confusion Ron and Hermione threw minature canisters of sleeping gas into the café, which Albus had provided for them in a situation arose which might be contained without the use of magic, while Minerva and Severus kept an eye on the crowd, ready to create a disturbance to draw the crowd's attention away from them should anyone spot what they were doing. Once this was done, they all ducked out to hide in the crowd. The people in the café were affected almost immediately and passed out. The people in the crowd outside could see the gas and were too scared to go in. It didn't take long for the police to arrive on the scene and take the perpetrators into custody. They were a little puzzled about the empty canisters of sleeping gas that they found in the café, but no one from the crowd could tell them how they came to be there.

They moved away from the café. "Don't say it, Severus."  Minerva sighed. The four professors continued patrolling their given area, feeling very irritable and frustrated and wishing that the day would hurry along.

*****

If the four professors had seen what Harry had seen, they wouldn't have let their guards down so quickly.

When the activity at the café had broken out, Harry had run further along the mall on his side of the street, to get a better look. From his position he could see people running out of the café, or being pushed out of it. But he also saw that something was happening in the narrow alley just a little further down. Someone was being pulled into the alley. Harry's battle trained responses took over. He thought he would have forgotten his training by now, since it had been so long since he'd had to rely on it, but it all came back to him. Outwardly, he appeared calm but inwardly, almost reflexively, his mind began to work very quickly and his body tensed for action.

He was fully trained to be able to take care of himself in battle without the use of his wand. He was skilled at several forms of hand to hand combat, and he was capable of performing wandless magic. However, he still debated with himself about whether he should go over there and put a stop to it. The voice of one of his old instructors rang in his head:

"Sometimes, just because you can do something, doesn't necessarily mean that you should. Kick your brain into gear before you kick your body into gear."

He considered the situation before him. In this case, there were too many people in the vicinity and he would draw too much attention to himself. The last thing he needed was to be arrested over a misunderstanding. In any case the police would be able to take care of the situation. While he was mentally debating the matter, he moved so he could get a better view of what was happening in the alley, and he saw now that two men were holding the young lad against the wall, and another man was pointing something at him. Harry reeled in shock when he recognised that it was a wand that was being pointed at the young man.

A wand?! What on earth is a wizard doing here? And what's he doing to that man? Harry had resolved to take matters into his hands at this point, determined to prevent the wizard from hurting the muggle. Many muggles had been killed and tortured for sport during the war by the dark wizards and this made Harry's blood boil.  All attention was drawn to the café, so he was able to create a concealment charm for himself without drawing suspicion.

Before he could move, Harry saw that the wizard had muttered a spell at the young lad, and the two men had released his arms. Bugger. I'm too late. If this bloody crowd wasn't here… Harry thought regretfully. If Harry was expecting the muggle to have been tortured or killed in that alley, he would have been mistaken. After he was hit with the spell, the victim didn't move. What on earth?  thought Harry, willing the young man to get himself clear of the men in the alley. But he didn't move. He just stood there, looking expectantly at the wizard, who pointed his wand at one of the sleeves of the victim's shirt and muttered a spell. What was that? Does he have a problem with his clothing? How finicky can you get?  The wizard then gave the victim a long steel bar and pointed for him to leave. The lad took it and ran toward the café. He pushed his way through the crowd and ran inside the café, swinging his weapon.  When Harry had turned his eyes back to the alley, the men were no longer there and it didn't look like he was in the immediate area. Unsure of what to do, he remained where he was and just kept an eye on the scene at the café.

A short time later, the police had arrived and taken the young men who had caused the incident into custody. They were seated in the back of the police wagon.

Harry shook his head to clear it. He needed to think about what he had just seen. He turned to make his way to a small café further up the mall, but out of the corner of his eye he saw that the wizard from the alley was standing at the back door of the police wagon. He had his wand pointed at the occupants in the back of the wagon. A moment later, a small flash of light was seen and the wizard ran up the street.

Harry had a bad feeling about all of this. Didn't anyone else see that? Is everyone blind? But no one was blind, their attention was simply still focused on the café. The owners were assuring everyone that everything would be ready for business in just a couple of hours and many people from the crowd were offering to help put the café back together.

He wandered over to another café further up the mall but didn't remove his concealment charms. Minerva, Severus, Ron and Hermione were still wandering around the mall and he didn't want them to recognise either Harry or Jason. He just needed to puzzle out what was happening. Ordering a cappuccino he settled down at one of the small tables to think. The whole thing reminded him of a cheesy show that he and Greg had gone to see at one of the local clubs, where a number of people had been led onto the stage and hypnotised,  and asked to perform a number of bizarre and ridiculously embarrassing tasks. He spooned some of the cappuccino froth into his mouth, but a moment later he choked on it - sending his spoon flying off the table - when he suddenly realised the significance of the similarity.

He smiled sheepishly at the waitress who immediately brought him over another spoon. There was a bit of fumbling between the two as they both reached for the spoon, then, noticing the other person, both retreated, then both reached in again, bumping heads and hands. Oh for the love of God, can't I go for one day without making a fool of myself? Blushing with embarrassment, he thanked the waitress and apologised for his clumsiness. She smiled and left him on his own.

Oh my God, thought Harry, he was casting the Imperius curse. Well, it looked like he was casting the Imperius. He furrowed his brow in concentration. So, if that's the case, were all the men who were causing trouble in the café under Imperius? Harry shook his head in an effort to clear it and sipped at his cappuccino. And to top it all off, the waitress now either thinks that I've got a thing for her, or that I'm certifiable, he mused to himself. 

Come on Potter, you used to do this sort of thing all the time. Right, suppose that it was the Imperius curse. It still doesn't explain why the wizard was paying attention to that guy's clothes, of all things. Had it gone out of style, or did he just not like the colour? Harry thought facetiously. And what are Minerva, Severus, Ron and Hermione doing here?

Harry sat for some time staring out of the window, turning the incident over in his mind, before he realised that he was supposed to meet up with Tony again. Harry quickly drained his cappuccino and paid for his drink before moving quickly to meet up with his friend.

*****

He'd removed his concealment charms before he reached the pharmacy. "Jason! Where were you? I half thought that you'd been caught in that trouble over at the café and ended up getting attacked or something," said Tony as he and Harry walked to the staff room.

"Gosh, I didn't know you cared," gushed Harry, poking fun at his good friend. "I wasn't involved, but I was further up the street watching it," he said more seriously.

"You picked a good time to be away from all of this Jason, because that sort of thing's been happening a lot around here lately," said Tony as he shook his head. Harry's eyes widened in concern for the safety of his friend. Tony saw this and quickly added, "Well, not all here necessarily, but all over town."

Harry made himself a cup of tea and sat down across the table from Tony. "Why? Is it a Christmas crime spree thing?" Harry blew on his tea.

"No. At least, no one seems to think so. The papers say that all of these people going around doing this sort of thing are part of a gang. They've all got some sort of gang symbol on their clothing somewhere," answered Tony, reaching for a biscuit.

"On their clothes? Don't gangs normally tattoo their symbols onto themselves?" asked Harry.

"Well, I don't know, but this gang tattoos its symbols onto its clothes- the back pockets of jeans baseball caps, shirt sleeves, backs of shirts - that sort of thing. Maybe this gang doesn't like pain. Tattoos really hurt Jason. I should know," offered Tony, puffing up his chest and remembering his own harrowing tattoo experience. Harry laughed along with Tony as he remembered this. Tony had wanted to tattoo his grandmother's name onto his arm in beautiful cursive script after she had died. Harry thought this was a lovely gesture and volunteered to go with Tony to get it done. He hadn't counted on the fact that Tony was an absolute whimp. He had fainted when the tattooist was only half way through the name, which was quite funny because his grandmother's name only had three letters. Her name was 'Amy'.

Could that be what the wizard was doing to the fellow in the alley when he pointed his wand at his shirt sleeve? Why would he go to all the trouble?  Harry was puzzled but outwardly appeared calm. He continued to sip his tea.

"The gangs have never really been this active before. Does anyone know what brought it on?"

"I agree. I don't remember them being a real threat to people who didn't go looking for them. I mean, not that I've ever gone looking for them. But now they're harassing shop owners, old ladies, no one's safe from them." Tony paused to sip his tea. "And, the papers have been saying that when they're taken in for questioning, they all swear black and blue that they don't remember what they did -"

"They don't remember anything?" asked Harry intently.

"No. Well that's what they say, but I mean, a lot of people say that to avoid confessing, right?"

"Yeah," agreed Harry weakly. Internally, his brain had kicked into overdrive, processing all of this information and adding it to the information he already had.

 After a pause, Harry asked with concern "But you've never been attacked, have you? I mean, they haven't hit here have they?" He cared about his friend and his staff and he didn't want them to get hurt.

"No. We've been lucky," Tony assured Harry.

"Good."

Harry had lunch with Tony at a small restaurant a few streets down. Before he returned to the school, he placed a few charms on his pharmacy that would alert him if it was ever under attack, making a few small gestures with his hand as we walked beside Tony.

*****

Once he returned to the castle and reached his rooms he placed a number of charms on the door, including a silencing charm, one to reflect spells cast at the door and, from force of old habits, a charm to let him know when people were approaching. He replaced the complicated locking spells that he had removed when he had unlocked his door. He kept them more or less permanently on his door to discourage people from magically unlocking his door and letting themselves into his rooms without his permission. Besides it being the height of rudeness, he couldn't, for obvious reasons, allow people to stumble upon certain things that were often kept out in plain sight in one or another of his rooms.

His eyes were a little sore, so he retrieved his glasses and went to the bathroom to remove his contact lenses. He then settled himself into his armchair to think back to what he'd seen. He was almost positive that he had seen a wizard cast the Imperius curse, which was illegal in the wizarding world and warranted a life sentence in Azkaban. But that was beside the point at the moment.

The people involved in the incident today had probably had their clothing modified to bear a gang symbol. If that was the case, it would, without a doubt, appear to the muggle world that a gang of young men were hell-bent on committing all sorts of crimes across London. What's more, Tony's information about how no one could remember what they had done when being questioned by the police made Harry suspect that they had had their memories of the event erased. It seemed obvious that the wizard must have obliviatedthe young men today when he cast a spell on them in the back of the police wagon. This would explain the dilemma the police seemed to be confronted with and it would also eliminate the possibility of the young men raising the wizarding community's suspicions that wizards were orchestrating these occurrences in the muggle world.

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he got up to make himself a coffee. He was getting a concentration headache and experience had taught him that coffee would help. Mind you, if I have much more coffee today I'm liable to be sent to the hospital wing with a caffeine overdose, he thought wryly to himself, as he brought his steaming mug over to his armchair and settled himself into it comfortably. He blew on his coffee and looked at the picture of himself and Greg which was proudly displayed on his mantelpiece. He smiled. Greg used to laugh good-naturedly at the number of concentration headaches that Harry seemed to have...

"I've heard that thinking can be painful for people who aren't used to doing it Jason, but you tend to take it to an extreme!"  he'd say and then he'd laugh, and Harry couldn't help but laugh too.

"You were always very good at riddles and puzzles, Greg," he said to the framed picture "but I think that this one would test even you." Harry observed to the picture. Harry felt safe displaying his photographs so openly because he knew that no body was going to be able to get circumvent all of the spells on his door.

In addition to this, the Headmaster customarily gave his professors the choice of either having the house elves clean their rooms or of cleaning it themselves. Some professors, like the Astronomy professor, who had complicated working models of the solar system and detailed and fragile charts scattered across her quarters, and Professor Snape, who had delicate vials and dangerous potions and substances strewn across his rooms, preferred that the house elves not tidy for them. Housekeeping spells were simple to perform and they sufficed to keep the occupant's rooms tidy. When faced with the option, Harry had chosen to clean his own rooms but in the weeks before he'd put the pictures up, he'd placed a spell on his rooms to let him know if anybody was in the rooms at any time, just to make sure that the house elves had remembered not to enter his rooms. He had never been alerted to anybody's presence in his rooms at any time, so he considered it safe to display his photographs.

Sighing, he returned to the problem at hand. The muggle papers have reported these incidents as part of a surge of gang violence. That's obviously not what it is. So, the motivation is clearly to mislead. But why? Harry sipped his coffee again and stared at the empty fire place in front of him. By all accounts it was all so strange. Leaning forward to sip his coffee again he forgot to remove the teaspoon first and poked himself in the glasses, driving that side of his glasses back into his face. Good Lord, I'm more of a danger to myself than Voldemort ever was. It's a good thing I was wearing glasses, how would I have explained that to Madam Pomfrey?

Harry laughed at himself. He had been trying to poke his eye out with a teaspoon ever since his instructor in tactics and strategy had introduced him to coffee during the early months of his grueling training. His trainer had often joked that Harry had chalked up more coffee related injuries than Voldemort related injuries during his first three months of training. After those three months, of course, he began his fieldwork, and that particular piece of lighthearted humour wasn't often heard. His trainer, a middle-aged man called David Weatherly was a highly skilled tactician. His strategies were always as water tight as anyone could make them, because he thought as far ahead as he could and tried to consider all possibilities and consequences. He had been a very good teacher and had drilled into Harry the lesson that a good strategy could save countless lives, which ultimately motivated him to think his plans though very carefully. He wished that his teacher were here. He'd be able to puzzle it out, or at the very least, between the two of them they would be able to come up with a working theory.

What if I was doing something that I wanted to keep a secret, and I was using the gang violence incidents to divert everyone's attention, like a front, or a cover? That was possible, and it certainly wouldn't be the first time this sort of thing had been done. What if I thought I could set the gang violence up so well that I could walk in and start committing my own crimes in the background of all of the confusion and panic? A very bad feeling was creeping into the pit of Harry's stomach. History had taught Harry that muggles had done this sort of thing plenty of times during both World Wars. He put his mug down on the table next to his armchair. What if I take this out of a purely muggle context? What if I was a wizard and walked into London and started committing my own crimes in and amongst the fuss that's already been created? No one would notice me. They wouldn't notice until it was too late. Harry chilled at the implications of that train of thought.

So, who one earth would, or could, do this? Harry stirred his coffee idly. The subtlety of the idea was reminiscent of the plans and schemes that Voldemort had implemented during those terrible years during the war. But Voldemort was dead. Mind you, Voldemort didn't have the monopoly on cunning and intelligence. Harry shook his head. He'd been out of contact with the wizarding world for about eight years, and he wasn't familiar enough with the people who were currently active in this world to even be able to guess who might be behind this chapter of activity. He needed information, but wasn't really in a position to be privy to information of such a sensitive nature.

Harry was interrupted by a knock on his door. Bugger. Who on earth could be calling so early?  His spells had alerted him to the approach of a single person, but he often ignored the warning because most people walked right past his door. He rarely had visitors. When he checked his watch he found, to his astonishment, that it was already a little after 4:00 in the afternoon. "I'm coming!" Harry yelled out as he went to the bathroom to put his concealing charms back in place and put his contacts in. He managed to poke himself in the eye about a half dozen times in his rush to put them in and he cursed on his way to answer the door. He checked the rooms to make sure that there was nothing suspicious out in plain sight and stopped when he saw the picture on the mantelpiece. As he always did when before he answered his door, he made a small gesture with his hand and used his magic to swap that picture with the one of Greg on his own, which was in his study. He couldn't leave a photograph showing Harry Potter in his lounge room, but a single photograph would look innocent enough. Satisfied that everything looked harmless enough, he opened the door.

Harry opened to door to find Ron standing in the door way looking tired and cranky. "Ron, come in." I see he made it back from London. thought Harry.

Ron was one of the only people who visited Jason in his rooms. Harry's lack of visitors didn't concern him. In fact, he preferred things that way. The teaching staff at Hogwarts had come to accept him as one of their own, even if they didn't completely trust him. However, Professor Snape and Harry avoided one another wherever possible. The other professors, while not exactly pleased with the hostility between them, were quite happy to settle for a lack of open hostility from them both.  To Harry's delight, the Professors Weasley had not only accepted him, but had also befriended him. When Ron had discovered that "Jason" shared his love of quidditch, he found himself receiving frequent invitations to watch quidditch matches with him. Hermione did not often watch the quidditch matches with the boys, but she had harboured a keen interest in learning about Defence Against The Dark Arts since her school days and enjoyed discussing various related subjects with "Jason".  She was also pleased to find that "Jason" shared her interest in potions and transfiguration and they spent endless hours talking about the latest developments in the fields.

The friendship that he was forming with Ron and Hermione eased some of the pain of loss inside him. It didn't, however, ease the guilt he felt about leaving them with no explanation that night so many years ago. He had considered, on a couple of occasions, telling them everything and revealing his identity to them. He couldn't bring himself to do it though. He knew, without question, that they would keep his secret if he asked them to; but he also knew that they would never let him return to the muggle world when the time came to leave again. And he still wanted to return to the muggle world. He couldn't live here, shrouded with concealment charms and surrounded by secrecy and suspicion for the rest of his life. The wizarding world had never understood him and it had not been kind to the boy-who-lived. He could be himself in many ways in the muggle world and he was afforded a freedom that he would never find in the wizarding realm. So he kept his secret, though it pained him to know that he would never share the camaraderie with them that he once had.

"Hi Jason, just thought I'd drop in. I've spent the day with cranky people and I thought I'd pop in to see a friendly face." Harry showed Ron into the lounge room and asked him to sit down. "Would you like some coffee?" asked Harry.

"Love some, thanks. Black with two please."

As Harry prepared the coffee for Ron – and the orange juice for himself, he felt he'd overdone it with the caffeine already today – he considered adding a drop of veritaserum to the coffee so he could finally get some concrete answers. He had a lot of questions that needed answering and he knew that Ron was in a position to be able to answer some of them. But he decided against it at the last minute. For some reason, he just couldn't bring himself to violate his friend's trust like that. Besides, veritaserum was faintly bitter and the taste may or may not be disguised by the coffee. Ron and Hermione had assisted the aurors during the war and they might have been trained to recognise the effects of veritaserum on the body and to recognise the faint tang it left in the mouth. Harry didn't know how good Ron was, because he was never permitted to see them from the time he was taken for training, so he didn't want to take his chances.

He brought the drinks over to the coffee table and invited Ron to help himself.

"What have you been doing with yourself all day?" asked Ron politely.

"Oh, nothing really. I caught up with a friend at lunch but that was about all," Harry replied. Ron had given him the perfect opening to fish for information and he sipped his coffee, carefully considering how he would approach his next line of questioning.

"How about you?" asked Harry.

"Nothing really. Just spent the day Christmas shopping with some friends. I think we might have spent too long in each other's company because everyone was a bit cranky by the end of it. It could have been the weather though, you never really know," answered Ron evasively, sipping his coffee. Harry looked carefully at his friend's face and his body language. He nearly laughed. Wow, Ron even managed to look half convincing that time. He could never lie before. Some things do change. He suddenly saddened at the thought of the circumstances that had forced his best friend to change in such a way.

"Yes, I haven't quite finished my Christmas shopping either. It's a good thing most of the students have gone home for the holidays and we don't have to teach for a while. I'll be able to get it done before too long." Harry paused and innocently added, "I managed to get a little bit done today actually, before I went to have lunch in London with one of my muggle friends."

"Oh, is he a pharmacologist too?" inquired Ron.

"Actually he is," Harry paused and added conversationally, "He was telling me that there was a big surge of crime around the area where he lived. Something about gang-related violence."

"Really," asked Ron, who tried to look for all the world as though he had no idea what Harry was talking about, but Harry knew Ron very well and could tell that he was nervous. Harry continued on mercilessly.

"Yes. He said that they don't seem to be targeting anyone in particular. The violence just seems to be random. He was really quite worried," Harry stated in a deceptively innocent tone. He sipped his juice and watched Ron carefully as listened to this news.

"Completely understandable, I'd be worried myself. Well, actually I wouldn't be worried, because I'm a wizard and I'd like to think I'd be able to deal with muggle offenders before they got one over me; but if I weren't a wizard, I'd be frightened, so it's completely understandable really." Harry observed Ron's babbling with silent humour.

"I know you teach muggle studies and you've mentioned that this keeps you in contact with muggles. Have you heard anything about this crime surge? I mean I told my friend that these things usually pass after a little while, but you wouldn't know whether it's likely to pass any time soon, or anything like that, would you?" asked Harry, perhaps going a little overboard with the innocent routine, but Ron didn't seem to notice.

"No. I've heard about the crime surge but nothing specific, sorry. But this does lead me to the second reason I came here today. I was wondering if you would be a guest speaker in my muggle studies class. I've never come across a pharmacologist before and I wanted to know how you'd feel about giving a guest lecture on muggle medications and pharmacology. Um, I know it means preparing an additional class and so I feel bad for asking, but I was really hoping you'd agree to do it. It'd be dead interesting." Ron asked hopefully. And Harry's chance to fish for information passed.

They talked about inconsequential things for a little while. Quidditch, Christmas, Hogwarts, anything and everything and nothing in particular. After about 40 minutes, Hermione knocked on Harry's door. She had come looking for Ron and she seemed quite cross, but she brightened when Harry opened the door.

"Come in Hermione. Ron's here too. We were just chatting. You're looking a bit knackered. Like some coffee?" offered Harry.

"Yes, please. White with one, thanks," Hermione called out as she took a seat by Ron. "Why did you leave early Ron? You were supposed to stay with us a little longer," hissed Hermione quietly after she had checked that Harry was in his kitchenette and wouldn't be able to hear them. What she didn't know was that Harry had extremely sharp hearing, and he had crept a bit closer to them in a bid to discern what they were saying.

"Ssh, Hermione. Jason's right there," Ron whispered, pointing in Harry's direction.

"He can't hear anything from where he is, and it's not as though I'm yelling this conversation about is it?" she hissed.

"Fine. I was cranky and tired and I'm sick to death of doing the same pointless thing week after week. We've checked it out. There's nothing there. So why are we still doing it? I'm not a bloody muggle policeman!" Ron said softly in frustration, his jaw clenching and unclenching.

"Because we volunteered to help Albus keep order. We were given our marching orders and we'll do it because we know that whatever Albus does, he does for good reasons," said Hermione in exasperation.

What does he suspect? Harry asked himself, as he appeared in the lounge room with a cup of coffee for Hermione.

"So how has your day been, Jason?" asked Hermione, blowing on her coffee.

Perfect. Now, I wonder if she'll give up anything. "Just fine, thanks Hermione. I was just telling Ron that I caught up with one of my muggle friends for lunch in London today." Harry paused to look at Hermione while pretending to sip from his fresh glass of orange juice. Hermione paused in her sipping but gave no other indication that she had been surprised.

"He was mentioning that there's quite a crime surge happening there right now. He's a little concerned. I told him that these things generally seem to pass though and that hopefully that would happen here. I asked him to look after himself though. I mean, you can't be too careful when you're dealing with these sorts of people, can you." Said Harry. 

"You're quite right, Jason. My parents have told me about the crime spree about London and I've told them to do the same thing. You know, no going out after dark, or on their own, keep their windows and doors locked at all times, that sort of thing. I hope it ends soon." Hermione paused to sip at her coffee. "The police will catch them though. I mean, it's been going on for a while, they'll be sure to have a few good leads and they'll sort it all out soon," said Hermione, perhaps a little too quickly.

"My friend told me that the papers keep saying the police are completely in the dark about this one and that everyone who's questioned over the incidents keeps denying that they know anything at all," said Harry. Hermione couldn't think of anything to say in reply, so Harry saved her the necessity. "But I'm sure that the police couldn't really tell the press if they did have any good leads, because they'd chase them off, wouldn't they?  I'm sure it'll be sorted out soon," said Harry amiably.

"Yes," agreed Hermione. She set her mug down and looked around the room. She had never actually been inside Harry's rooms before. She had been to his rooms to pass on messages about staff meetings and the like, but this was the first time she had been invited inside. She loved the blue décor. Blue was Hermione's favourite colour as well. Her eyes fell on the picture of Greg on the fireplace mantle. Hermione was curious but couldn't think of a polite way of asking who it was. Harry looked up from his drink to notice her looking at the picture.  He saved her the awkwardness of asking.

"Do you remember when I told you during the welcoming feast that someone close to me had passed away recently? That's him." Harry put his drink down and got up to bring the picture down so Hermione could have a closer look. Harry wouldn't have been able to do that a couple of months ago, but he found that he could do it now. Hermione took the picture and looked closely at it.

"He looks like a very nice man," she observed. "He's got very kind eyes."

Harry smiled fondly. He'd noticed the same thing the first time he met Greg, all those years ago. "He was a very nice man. He was very good-natured, and generous. And you're right. He was very, very kind."

"Was he a pharmacologist, like you?" asked Ron, who seemed to be fixated with the idea of all of Harry's acquaintances being pharmacologists.

Harry smiled and shook his head. "No, he was a chef. A really good one. He worked at this fancy restaurant in London and I met him the first time I went there to eat. The meal was great so I went in to complement the chef and that's how we met."

Hermione looked back to the picture. "He's really a very attractive man." she observed.

"Hermione! Geez, do you need me to leave the room so you can talk freely about this?" cried Ron, choking on his drink. Harry laughed first at the expression on Ron's face, and then at the expression on Hermione's. "Well he is," she said, without embarrassment. This picture was taken in France wasn't it? I went there on a holiday with my parents years ago, and I remember visiting the Arc de Triumph. I've got a photo somewhere with mum and dad standing in front of it, just like Greg is."

"Yes. We were in France about a year and a half ago on holiday. He had an uncle there so we stayed with him for about a month. It was great. Greg couldn't speak a word of French. Actually, I couldn't either for that matter, but he insisted on bringing his tourist English to French dictionary with him and having a crack at the language every chance he got. It got to be downright embarrassing being in public with him when he wanted to practice his French. One time, he was trying to ask directions from a young girl and he ended up actually saying something like 'You're bananas are splendid but I like your donkey better.' Something like that. He was completely without shame with things like that." Hermione and Ron were in gales of laughter and Harry smiled. He could feel his chest tightening and his eyes stinging but he knew he wouldn't be crying. It felt good to talk about Greg this way. He hadn't been able to talk about Greg like this very often.

"Was he a wizard?" asked Ron.

"No, he was a muggle. But he was really good at what he did." I'll say, he thought wickedly to himself.

"I didn't mean anything by it Jason, I was just curious." Harry waived away Ron's apology.

"You said that he died recently," said Hermione gently.

"Hermione!" hissed Ron. "Don't you think that was a little insensitive?"

"It's alright Ron. One day, about four months ago, he was making breakfast and we'd run out milk. He'd ducked out to get some milk from the shop on the corner and he told me he'd be back in about half an hour. He was the pedestrian victim of a hit and run accident. Someone drove into him and didn't even stop to see if he was alright." Harry swallowed, feeling the pain shifting about in his chest.

"I'm sorry. Your partner sounded like a wonderful man and I would have really liked to meet him," said Hermione soberly.

"Thank you. I'm sure he would have - did you call him my 'partner'?" asked Harry.

"Yes, wasn't he?"

"How did you know?"

"You mean he was?" asked Ron, incredulously.

"Oh Ron, keep up," Hermione chided. Turning to face Jason again she said, "It was just a lot of little things Jason. I mean, you've got a picture of him on your mantlepiece. Ron doesn't keep pictures of his male friends around the house, or our rooms, except for pictures of Harry. You went on holiday together and you lived together. I would have thought you were just roommates if you didn't mention any more than that you lived together but the picture and the holiday just suggested more to me. Was I wrong to say anything?" asked Hermione, suddenly conscious that she may have embarrassed Jason. "I didn't mean to embarrass you. I mean, I realise that it might be something you don't want to talk about."

"No, it's fine. Some people are a bit funny about my lifestyle preference is all and I'm usually pretty guarded about things like that. I'm glad you haven't run from the room, though Ron looks decidedly uncomfortable," observed Harry, with a grin to Hermione.

"Oh Ron, for pity's sake, Jason isn't interested in you like that."

"Um, I know, but, um, how can you tell Hermione?" Ron asked nervously, looking everywhere but at either of them and shifting about on his seat.

"Because he just lost his partner, and because he doesn't look at you the way I look at you, though right now I'm looking at you like I could hit you, you conceited ninny!" fumed Hermione.

"Sorry Jason, I just didn't know what to think for a minute. But of course, it's your lifestyle and your choice and doesn't matter to me whatsoever." With a small pause, he lifted his head and added magnanimously, "You'll still be getting invitations to see the quidditch matches with me."

"Gee, thanks Ron." Harry said dryly. Diplomacy never was your strong suit, was it Ron? From the look on Hermione's face, she was thinking the same thing.

The rest of the late afternoon passed in pleasant conversation and they spent so long talking, they were able to walk to the great hall for dinner together.

*****

On their way to dinner, the trio ran across two students, a Gryffindor and a Slytherin, who looked to be fighting and hexing one another. They were making no effort to be quiet and they were so pre-occupied with what they were doing that they didn't hear Harry, Ron and Hermione approach them from one end of the hallway, and Professor Snape approach them from the other end, which led off to the classrooms. The Potions Master was quick to put a stop to the fight.

"Expelliarmus!" he cried and he caught both of the students' wands as they flew to him. Both students looked up, genuinely startled at the fact that they were surrounded by so many professors.

"Mr. Brown. I have no patience for this sort of behaviour. Detention in my classroom at 8:00. Don't be late." he said venomously to the young Gryffindor student while the Slytherin student smirked gleefully.

"But, sir -" the student protested, but he was cut off.

"No buts. And don't let me catch you at this again. Now, isn't there somewhere you both should be?" he asked the two students, raising an eyebrow at them.  They both turned to hurry off to dinner, but Harry stopped them.

"Hang on. Come back here."  he said to both of the students, who turned and walked cautiously back to him. Professor Snape simply looked at Harry with raised eyebrows.

When the students were standing in front of their professor, Harry asked very seriously: "Was this a fight between Mr. Brown and Mr. Wallace, or was this a fight between a Gryffindor and a Slytherin?"

"Um…" stammered the Gryffindor.

"Well, you see professor," began the Slytherin by way of explanation, "Peter and I were just studying."

"Studying," Harry repeated, unconvinced.

"Yes, sir. You see, we were just revising some of the spells you taught us in class." the Slytherin replied, throwing an arm around the other student's shoulders and pulling him close to him in a comradely gesture, for effect.

"Really?" asked Harry, sarcastically.

"Of course sir," the young Slytherin replied, with a slightly overdone expression of earnestness. "You see, I respect all of my fellow students, regardless of what house they're in. I really believe that there's so much more to-"

"Yes, thank you Mr. Wallace. I've heard enough." He looked harshly at both of them. "You both know how I feel about this sort of mindless house prejudice. Since Professor Snape is your head of House, it wouldn't be fair to ask him to have to supervise a detention with you, so, Mr. Wallace, you'll see me in my classroom right after dinner this evening. You've obviously forgotten the material that I covered in your first lesson, so I think this evening I should give you another lecture and, just to make sure you remember it this time, I think you should write an essay on the material that I'll cover. Bring plenty of ink and parchment with you. Mr. Brown, " Harry said, turning to face the other student, "since you're already serving detention with Professor Snape, I won't need to see you about this.  I don't want to see you at this again." he said as he headed toward the Great Hall.

He had only taken a few steps when he turned around to face his students again. "Oh, incidentally Mr. Wallace, you have a lot of work to do if you want to be able to lie convincingly. You embellished your story way too much. It wasn't very believable to begin with but you should always keep a lie simple. You exaggerated your facial expressions and you need to learn to regulate the pitch of your voice as well. You shouldn't sound squeaky when you're trying to explain something." Harry mentioned off hand. "Now aren't you supposed to be at dinner?"

"Yes, sir," they both said as they hurried off to the Great Hall.

Harry turned to head off in the same direction but he was called back by Professor Snape.

"Professor Green," he began as he strode toward Harry, who was standing beside Ron and Hermione. "There was no need for you to interfere in this matter. I had the situation in hand."

Harry didn't flinch as the Professor approached him and he looked at him in surprise. "I don't think I was interfering, Professor."

"There was no need for you to call the students back once I had already diffused the situation," The Potions Master told Harry coldly and quietly.

"You didn't diffuse the situation at all, Professor, because you seemed to have missed the fact that two boys were involved in the fight, not just one. You see, you only gave the Gryffindor boy detention, when the Slytherin boy was as much involved as the other."

Professor Snape was taller than Harry, and looked coolly down his nose at him, eyes narrowed in disdain. "Do not undermine my authority before the students again, Professor Green."

Harry stepped forward and met his gaze. "Don't give me a reason to. You're a Hogwarts Professor. You're supposed to be above something as petty as school yard House rivalry."

The two professors looked at each other for some moments before Harry slowly turned around and made his way to the Great Hall. Ron and Hermione exchanged some quiet words with Professor Snape before following Harry to the Great Hall for dinner.

*****

That night as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about what happened at the mall earlier on in the day, he debated with himself over what to do about it. One part of him wanted nothing to do with it.

I'm not going to get involved! This year was supposed to be a year off for me to get myself together again. I'm here to teach. That's all.  He snorted. I'm not fooling anyone, I always get involved, whether I really want to or not. He knew that it would be selfish to do nothing when he was in a position to be able to help. But they don't need me anyway. It might all be nothing. They'll be able to handle it all without me. They've been fine so far. Sighing heavily reasoned to himself,  Who am I kidding? It all feels like it's leading up to something big. Harry furrowed his eyebrows and shifted onto his side. What if it is something big and they can't handle it? he thought.  I don't want anyone to get hurt, and I definitely don't want to let anyone die, he thought as his sense of responsibility kicked in. AAUUGGHH! he silently screamed as he turned over onto his stomach and punched his pillow. I haven't had to worry about things like that since I was 18. Damn it!

He turned over onto his other side. He ultimately decided to keep an eye on what was happening for a little while. This wouldn't be so difficult since he didn't have classes to teach for a few weeks. If he discovered anything that was very threatening, he would take the information to Albus and offer to help where he could. He didn't quite know how he was going to do that, but he'd figure something out. Having decided on a course of action, Harry tried to sleep.

*****

Harry had spent the next few days keeping an eye on things in muggle London, in the mall where his pharmacy was. He used concealment charms to use various disguises on each of these occasions so he could avoid being recognised by both the Hogwarts Professors who policing the area for Albus, and the people who worked at his pharmacy, when he happened by there. He was genuinely worried about his friends who worked in his pharmacy so he stationed himself close by, sometimes sitting in the café, sometimes, in the book store, sometimes, just sitting on a bench outside. He wanted to be sure they were safe. But he was also worried about the involvement of wizards in what appeared to be an entirely muggle affair.

He had noticed that different groups of Hogwarts professors patrolled the mall every day and was curious about their involvement in all of this, but concentrated on keeping his eyes open for signs of unrest.

He strongly suspected that the wizards were casting Imperius curses and Obliviate spells but his speculations rested on too many assumptions for him to be entirely certain, and experience had taught him that guesswork, regardless of how good it is, is still guesswork and it was always better to be sure about what you knew, or thought you knew. So, when he was finally able to take advantage of the opportunity to verify his speculations arose, he didn't hesitate. When an incident arose at one of the nearby sweet shops, Harry moved quickly toward the crowd and then quite deliberately walked past the small alley where he thought the wizards might have been hiding themselves.

He quite suddenly found himself being dragged into the alley and pinned by the arms with his back to the wall.  Harry could see that four men were in the alley with him. He was surprised to see that they were all death eaters – or former death eaters as it were. Messrs. Crabbe and Goyle, senior and junior were his captors. Goyle Senior performed the Imperius curse on Harry, and ordered him to run into the crowd that had gathered just a little further down from the alley, and beat the first old lady he could find with the cricket bat that Crabbe senior handed him. Harry idly wondered why he was being given such a childish and unimaginative task, but he reasoned to himself that the four of them had never been the brightest cards in the deck, before turning his attention back to the situation at hand.

He was able to throw off the Imperius curse easily, but he pretended to have fallen under its influence. He'd been able to throw the curse off since he was 15 so it required no great effort on his part. He had absolutely no intention of doing what they wanted him to do, so he waited patiently while Goyle Senior performed the spell that would create the symbol that supposedly belonged to some sort of gang. While he was doing this, Harry ran through his options on how to proceed at this point. He could take the wizards by surprise and either stun them with his magic or knock them unconscious with the cricket bat that he was holding. A very appealing idea, and it would be well deserved, thought Harry without amusement. Or, he could simply run out of the alley way and run past the crowd, without hurting anyone, until he found somewhere safe where he could create a different disguise for himself and no one would be the wiser.

He decided on the first course of action because, on the one hand, quite frankly, he really wanted to hit them. They were taking advantage of muggles and he could never tolerate that sort of behaviour. In addition to this, with any luck, someone would find their bodies and draw attention to them. If luck was shining his way, the Hogwarts Professors who were patrolling the area that day would gather around trying to find out what was happening and recognise the death eaters for who they were. That way, Albus would be informed and would take the appropriate steps. Harry wouldn't need to find a way to let Albus know, and Albus would be able to find out who was behind the orchestration of such a widespread crime spree. The perfect plan, thought Harry with satisfaction.

Did it ever occur to Harry that he might not be able to best four large men in a fight? Never. He had the element of surprise, and a large cricket bat. As it turned out, the fight was over pretty quickly. He managed to have the elder Goyle down with just one swipe of the bat to his head. Goyle had been concentrating on checking the symbol he had placed on the sleeve of Harry's shirt and never saw it coming. The other three, rather than kick into action immediately themselves, stared in surprise and shock at what had just happened. Harry's lightning fast reflexes and recovery time made easy work of them after that. Goyle Junior lunged at him, but Harry easily sidestepped the attack and punched him in the temple, knocking him out cold. At the same time, he blocked the punch that Crabbe junior aimed at his head with his bat and when the assailant cried out in pain, he grabbed his head and slammed it hard into the stone wall of the alley. Crabbe's eyes rolled up into his head and he slid down the wall. Crabbe senior had learned by now that this young man was someone to be reckoned with, and smartly drew his wand from his boot. Harry saw this and sent a kick to Crabbe Senior's head when it was at a convenient level as he bent down to draw his wand.  Idiots. That was just embarrassing. You're lucky I wasn't actually too serious about hurting you this time, rebuked Harry.

He removed the gang symbol from his shirt with a gesture of his hand. He didn't bother using his wand and ran out of the alley and tried to alert people to the men in the alley. This turned out to be quite difficult, as the crowd was primarily concerned with the elderly people who had been assaulted and lay on the ground with serious injuries. By the time he had convinced a police officer that he wasn't wasting his time and to look in the alley, the four men had disappeared. The policeman turned slowly to glare at Harry who coughed sheepishly.

"They were there, sir, I swear they were." Harry tried to explain.

"Uh huh. Right. Get out of here, I've got important things to do. People are injured over there. Did you think about that?" the officer growled at Harry.

"Sorry sir, they must have gotten up on their own." Harry said as he retreated from the scene. He ran up the mall and sat down on a bench. Bugger. Just once I'd like to have those sorts of things happen the way I want them to... at least I know it was the Imperius curse that they were using. So now I know for sure that the muggles are being set up…was it just a coincidence that death eaters are involved? I mean, are the death eaters rallying together again, or does someone just happen to have a few ex-death eaters working for them again? The ones who weren't killed or arrested had to go somewhere, right?

Harry massaged his temples. He had enough information to seriously consider taking the matter to Albus. The Headmaster had the contacts to be able to gather further information, and the intelligence and wisdom to be able to make sense of the matter where Harry couldn't. He also had information that Harry wasn't privy to and it might shed light on the situation. Harry knew he had no way of getting that information short of forcing it out of someone. He didn't have any of the professors' trust. Ron and Hermione might have befriended him, but they wouldn't trust him with information that Albus had instructed them to keep private. He was fairly certain that he didn't have Albus' trust. He had been too vague with him to be able to inspire confidence in himself. He had no idea that creating a distance between himself and the other professors would backfire on him like this, but he didn't regret his decision to do so.

He was certain that he couldn't just march into the Headmaster's office and declare what he saw. They had no reason to believe him. Besides, it would be difficult to explain how it is that he came to see something that his professors had missed on their daily patrols. Using his muggle friend as a source of information would be equally as unconvincing. His friend would have no reason to suspect that anything to do with the crime spree was anything other than a series of gang-related offences. And it would be difficult to explain how they came to recognise that a wizard was casting spells. Muggles would rationalise that sort of thing away as a hallucination of some sort unless they had some experience with the wizarding world themselves, and Harry's communications to the Headmaster suggested that he lived as a muggle in London, so his friend would have no reason to suspect that there are any such things as wizards.

Could I tell Ron and Hermione... maybe.  He decided he'd toss the problem over a little more when he was back at Hogwarts.

*****

Harry returned to Hogwarts in time for dinner. He ducked off to his rooms and splashed his face with cold water to clear his head before making his way to the Great Hall and taking a seat. Since most of the students had gone home for the Christmas holidays, only one staff table and one student table had been set up. The rest of the hall had been given over to breathtaking decorations that Albus and Professor Flitwick had seemingly charmed into existence overnight.

After greeting Ron and Hermione, Harry filled his plate and began eating. He had been debating whether to reveal his information for quite some time. He decided that he would test the waters and talk to Hermione and Ron. Just like in the old days, thought Harry wistfully.

"Hermione, Ron, I was wondering if I could have a word with you," whispered Harry.

"Of course. Is it important?" said Hermione in surprise.

"Yes. I was hoping I could speak to you after dinner."

"We're not going to be here after dinner. Ron's brother has been injured at work and we're going to spend a couple of days with his family while he's in hospital… it's not serious," hurried Hermione, who had seen Jason's eyes constrict with concern, "He handles and trains dragons you see, so it's a fairly high risk job. He'll be in the hospital under observation for the next couple of days. We want to see him before we see his family, so we're leaving after dinner," Hermione explained.

"Of course," said Harry. He'd just have to wait until they got back.

"But, if you're not doing anything right now, we can just duck out," offered Hermione. Jason didn't  really have an appetite anyway. He had too much to think about to worry about being hungry. In any case, he had a fully stocked kitchenette back in his suite of rooms, so he would be able to fix something up there. He nodded his agreement to Hermione and the three professors excused themselves from the table and made their way to Hermione's and Ron's rooms.

Their rooms were a little larger than Harry's and were decorated in various shades of blue, grey, cream and white. Their lounge room furniture was either cream or white and the effect was very 'country style' and very cosy. Ron made some tea, as Harry took a seat opposite Hermione. When Ron returned, he sat by Hermione and waited patiently for Harry to explain. He had decided to tell them what he had seen on the day that he saw Professors Snape, McGonagall and themselves in the mall. It took the better part of half an hour to explain and he was careful to only tell them exactly what he had seen, not what he thought it might mean. He wanted to appear as though he had just seen something suspicious and wanted to bring it to the attention of the right people.

"Are you sure it was a wizard?" asked Ron.

"Yes. He had his wand out."

"Why did you bring it to us?" asked Hermione. Harry had been waiting for this question.

"I didn't know who to see. I guess the Ministry would deal with this sort of thing, but I didn't know if I'd seen enough to alert the Ministry. I mean, it might all be nothing, right? I wouldn't want to waste their time. I thought I'd run it by someone first, to get an independent opinion. What do you think?" asked Harry.

"I don't think you should take it to the Ministry." Hermione said carefully. "They'll probably just brush it off. I mean, you're right. It might all be nothing, but it might be something. As you said, why would wizards be casting spells on people around muggle London?" She looked over at Harry who was still sipping his orange juice "Albus is an advisor to the Ministry. We should take the matter to him. He'll be able to alert the proper people."

"I'll let him know in the morning then," said Harry as he made to leave.

Ron and Hermione exchanged a quick glance, and Ron carefully said, "Maybe we should let him know now."

"You don't think it can wait?" Harry responded in mild surprise.

"It probably can, but you might need us to vouch for you. Um. Some of the professors…might no be inclined to…believe you, Jason…and since we won't be here in the morning... " explained Ron, a little embarrassed.

"I understand," said Harry, nonplussed. Ron led Hermione and Harry to the Headmaster's seat in the Great Hall. Professor Snape was seated at the end of the staff table when Harry had entered the hall earlier this evening. At the moment, he was seated by Albus. They were both leaning over a book and were deep in conversation. Ron excused himself and leaned in to whisper to Albus.

"My office I think. Shall we go?" he asked Ron, Hermione and Harry.

"Excuse me Headmaster. I shall, of course, take my leave as you have more pressing matters to attend to." Professor Snape sneered. Harry rolled his eyes. Albus mere said, "Actually Professor Snape, I was hoping you and Minerva would join us." The professor blinked twice, the only outward sign that he had been caught by surprise. He simply nodded to Albus and turned to speak to Minerva. If Harry didn't already know that Minerva and Professor Snape were part of Albus' circle of confidantes and had been diligently patrolling London in an effort to gather information such as Harry was about to pass on, he would have wondered why they had been invited to what was, essentially, a private gathering.

*****

The group seated themselves in the comfortable chairs that Albus drew for them and Harry explained to the headmaster what he had seen.

"Are you sure?" asked Albus when Harry had finished explaining.

Harry sighed.  "Yes. Albus I would gain nothing from fabricating this story." Ron's comment about the lack of trust that he had inspired from the other professors was still at the fore of his mind, so he assumed that Albus was questioning his honesty. 

"I apologise for implying that, but I was merely wondering whether you might have been mistaken," explained Albus.

"I don't think so, but then again, maybe I was. No one's perfect. But the whole thing is certainly very strange if you're suggesting that it wasn't a wizard in the alleyway. I mean, it'd be odd for a muggle to pull a stick out and start waving it around in that particular way, wouldn't it?" Harry replied. 

"How is it that you happened to see this when other people who were in the same area saw nothing?" asked Professor Snape, a hint of disbelief evident in his voice.

Harry knew that the professor was actually asking him to explain how he saw this when he, Minerva, Ron and Hermione had managed to miss it. With a perfectly straight face he looked at Professor Snape and replied, "I have no idea. I was on the other side of the street when this happened and I just sort of caught it on the edge of my vision." Professor Snape raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Harry looked at the Heamaster.  "I mean, I was thinking about going over there to help him because anything might have happened to him, but there were four big guys in the alley and I didn't think I'd be a match for them without my wand. I didn't want to reveal myself as a wizard so I was going to call someone over to help him but then I saw one of the guys draw his wand, so I couldn't really involve muggles after that. I think if I'd leapt into the middle of what they were doing at that stage something terrible might have happened to the guy. I didn't think I could help the situation any since it was so far gone so I just stayed out of it."

"That's fine, Jason. You needn't explain. No one is accusing you of anything," reassured Albus. I'll bet, thought Harry as he caught the look on Professor Snape's face. "Why did you decide to tell me about it?" asked Albus, curiously.

"I didn't know if what I had seen was something to be concerned about or not. I mean, seeing wizards in muggle London isn't really anything to unusual, but they looked like they were casting spells on people, probably muggles and that made me think about telling someone." Said Harry.

"Yes, but why me?"

"I actually told Ron and Hermione, just to see what someone else might have made of what I saw. I was playing with the idea of telling the Ministry of Magic and letting their authorities deal with it, but the Professors convinced me that, since you're an advisor to the Ministry, I should tell you first. They said that you'd be able to decide if it's information that's worth passing on. I wasn't expecting that so many people would need to know, though," said Harry.

"Severus and Minerva are my own advisors on matters of importance, and Mr. Weasley told me that you had something to tell me that might be important," replied Albus calmly.

"I see," nodded Harry. After an awkward silence, Albus thanked him for the information and politely suggested that he may want to return to his dinner or his rooms. Harry left quietly and made his way back to his rooms.

*****

Rather than head straight back to his rooms, Harry decided to grab something from one of the old storage cupboards hidden away in the castle. It contained items that were very rarely used anymore, but were held in case they could ever be considered useful again. The young professor had been shown this cupboard during his first few days here, and, seeing a few useful items he could use in his classes, had made a mental note to return when he had the leisure.

He wasn't really hungry and he couldn't think of anything that he really wanted to do right now. It had been a long day, and even though he was tired, it was still early. He'd noticed that there were a few old fashioned dark magic detectors that he wanted to pull out of the cupboard and have a close look at, but so far he hadn't had the time or the inclination to do so. With nothing pressing to attend to right at the minute, the idea of spending a few relaxing hours tinkering with a few dark arts mechanisms appealed to him. People rarely came into this part of the castle as it was mainly a storage area, and he became alert as he turned down one of the dusty corridors and heard what sounded like someone knocking or tapping on something further down the corridor.

He pulled his wand out of his robes and held it professionally low, his battle instincts taking over yet again. Swiftly and silently his lithe figure moved down the corridor to the source of the noise and was shocked to his core to find a student on the hard stone floor in the middle of what seemed to be a convulsion of some kind.

He rushed over to the young girl to see if he could help and checked her over. He wanted to take her to the hospital wing, but she was jerking too violently for him to be able to carry her, and all he could do was to turn her on her side and hold her head so that she didn't hurt herself any more by banging it against the stone. He stayed like this for a little while, and when her convulsions began to ease, he picked her up and carried her quickly to Poppy, who did nothing more than make a bed for her to lay in and stay by the side of the bed to watch as the young girl's body began to relax.

"Why aren't you doing anything, Poppy? Surely you have something in this wing that can help her?"

"Jason, do you know this young lady?"

"Theresa Chan? Fourth Year, Ravenclaw."

"Yes. Did you know that Theresa has epilepsy? She only has a very mild case of epilepsy and she says that she only experiences a very few seizures. She tells me that sometimes she goes for a period of years without experiencing a seizure, and sometimes she may have maybe one or two episodes a year. She says she can feel them coming on and she makes sure she lies down in bed when it happens. I have to admit I don't know much about this condition. It's usually controlled completely by a fairly common potion, so I have honestly, only ever seen a seizure once.

"Isn't the potion working, then?" 

"She's not taking the potion. In fact, she can't take it. Tonga tree roots are the primary ingredients in that potion and she's allergic to them. Since she has so few seizures anyway, she just goes without." Poppy stroked the young girl's head.

Harry absorbed the information and very carefully said, "Poppy, I found her on the ground in one of the corridors near the old storage cupboards. Would she have any business there?"

"No. Students generally aren't allowed into that part of the castle. Some of the things that are held in storage there are a little dangerous, particularly for students." The nurse said, frowning.

There was a short silence while the two adults tried to come to terms with the implications of the situation. Harry was the first to speak, and he spoke in slow, even tones,  "I know you said she only suffers a mild form, but are you sure she doesn't have more seizures than you know about? What I mean is, could she be hiding herself away while she has these seizures? Does she come to you with suspicious cuts or bruises?"

Poppy's eyes widened [suggest adding: as realisation dawned upon her] . "Oh good Lord. You may be right. But no one has ever found her before." She looked at the young girl in the hospital bed. "Why didn't she say anything?"

"I have no idea. Maybe, since she can't take the potion she didn't want to draw attention to herself. I imagine it would be fairly embarrassing to be caught in the middle of an episode."

His compassion for the young student overwhelmed him. "Have you tried giving her muggle medication to control the illness? I mean, I know they won't be 100% successful in preventing her seizures but they'll prevent the onset of most of them," explained Harry as he continued to look fixedly at his student.

"Albus has contacted muggle doctors and they've said that if she only has so few seizures, sometimes none for a period of years, that they would recommend not taking the preventative medication. As you said, they won't prevent all of the seizures and she could still end up experiencing as many seizures as she said she was already experiencing. Also, the medication is hard on the liver, and can lead to liver damage. Since Theresa's case was so mild, everyone agreed that it would be best for her not to risk damaging her liver for something that wouldn't make too much difference in the number of seizures she had.

"But it's clear now that she might not be telling the truth, so I think we should look into using the muggle preventatives in Theresa's case." Harry said thoughtfully.

Theresa stirred in the bed. The professor and the nurse watched as she slowly came around. Poppy explained to her that she had been found by Professor Green and had been taken to the hospital wing. Theresa started to cry, the combination of the pain, fatigue and embarrassment being too much for her. Poppy gently asked Theresa to explain how severe her condition was and was shocked to discover that Theresa often experienced episodes. She had been able to explain her absences from class by relying on the fact that she suffered from frequent and acute headaches, which was true, for which she was often seeing Poppy for headache potions. As there were so many corridors and corners in the castle to hide in, no one would find her when she disappeared, and with her observable headache complaint, no one would think to question her absences.

Harry told Theresa to rest a little more and he pulled Poppy aside.  "Do you know that I'm a pharmacologist, Poppy?"

"Yes, I was told."

"I've been given permission by the fraternity to conduct research and experiments, so I've got some ingredients in my room that I can mix together that she can take for now." That was a bald-faced lie, but he didn't want Poppy to be alarmed at the fact that he had muggle chemicals and medications in his room. It's half true.  I am doing research… "I'm not really supposed to mix medication for people without permission, strictly speaking,  but if you don't tell my fraternity, I won't. I'll just have to quickly look up a few of my books. Muggle medication and dosages are usually specific to the individual person, but I can make a general preventative medication that should help until she can see a muggle doctor who can advise her more specifically. I'll be back in about an hour," rushed Harry as he quickly stood and left the room. The only reason Harry had any ingredients in his rooms was because on each of his visits to his Pharmacy he stole a certain amount of ingredients to bring back to Hogwarts with him. As it was strictly for research, albeit private research, and as it was his pharmacy, he didn't feel too guilty.

Harry returned with a tiny container with about a week's worth of medication for Theresa. Normally, it would take more than an hour to prepare the ingredients and mix the medication, but he had no aversions to using his magic to accelerate the process. He gave the medicine to the young student who thanked him, through her embarrassment. Harry took a seat and spent some time explaining the medication to her. At the end of it all, she was so excited about the prospect of being able to take some sort of preventative for her illness that she forgot that he had exposed her carefully guarded secret, and the only thing she could say was,

"I'll bet it tastes just as bad as Madam Pomfrey's potions do."

Harry laughed. "I don't know. I've taken my share of potions and I have to say, they're just about on par level with the muggle medicines."

"Why do you take muggle medicines when you can take potions?" she asked Harry, curiously. Madam Pomfrey was also quite interested in the answer.

"I think that potions work better for some things but I think that medicines work better for others. In your case, they work better for you."

She smiled and took the medication which she would be taking for the rest of her life. Harry chatted to her about idle things, in an attempt to ease her discomfort. She was still embarrassed that her professor had found her.

"I'll let you rest. I'll be busy for a few days helping Albus get things ready for Christmas, but I'll talk to you at some stage soon about getting a proper prescription for the medicines, o.k. ?"

"Yes, sir. Um sir?" she eeked out as Harry was getting out of his seat. "Sir, could I ask a question?"

"Of course," answered Harry, sitting back down again.

"I don't know if now is the best time to ask, but since you're here anyway, um, I'm finding Defence Against The Dark Arts difficult. Really difficult. I've had a few absences, as you know, and I've fallen behind and I just don't think I can catch up and get the hang of it. I mean, I'm still having trouble with the shield spell you taught us and that was in week two! I was wondering whether you would mind - if you have the time, because I know you're busy and all- "

"I'm sure I can arrange some extra classes for you. If you're really keen to learn then I have no problem with it."

"Can we start during this school break?" she asked eagerly.

Harry pretended to think about this. "If you want."

"O.k. And sir, thank you again sir," thanked the young girl.

"You're welcome Miss Chan. Get some rest," said Harry gently before he left the wing.

"Are you leaving Jason?" asked Poppy.

"Yes. Theresa will need to sleep so I thought it best."

"Thank you again Jason. You don't know what it will mean to her.

"The medication is only a general medication for epilepsy, Poppy," Harry reminded the school nurse gently.

"Oh, but it will still be such an improvement for her. Wouldn't it be good if the medication were as effective as the potions, though?"

"Yes, it would," said Harry as he bid the nurse a good night. Actually it would be very good. I wonder what makes the potion so completely effective? And I wonder if the medicine could be altered to match the potion... Harry's train of thought occupied him for the rest of the night. He jotted some ideas down in a notebook in his study so he could start researching and investigating the matter as soon as he could.

*****

Severus and Minerva were patrolling the mall by themselves, two days before Christmas, as Ron and Hermione were away from Hogwarts.

"Do you really think it wise to rely implicitly on the information that Professor Green gave to us, Minerva?"

"He certainly seems to bother you, doesn't he?" Minerva observed.

"I am only suggesting that since he has made every effort to be secretive, that we should be careful."

"Severus, we all have reasons to be secretive. I can remember a time, when your entire way of life was one secret after another."  Professor Snape could think of no way to respond to that, so he walked in silence, hand close to his wand, eyes constantly sweeping the mall for signs of unrest. They roamed the mall for hours, glad but also frustrated that there had been no incidents during their shift. As they approached the end of their shift, a small group of men and women suddenly surrounded an elderly couple in the middle of the mall. One of the men grabbed the lady. He slapped her to the ground and snatched her hand bag, throwing it to one of the others in his group.  The elderly lady was trying to get up, but couldn't, and the young man kicked her in the ribs to keep her down on the ground. Several audible crack resonated around the small area. She cried out and tried to shield her injured side with her hands. One of the young women stepped forward and she hit her in the side of the head with the long wooden stick she was carrying. The elderly lady passed out.

The elderly gentleman was being restrained and was forced to helplessly watch his wife being beaten. Once she had passed out, the young woman who had knocked his wife out turned to him and swiftly hit him in the chest with the butt of her stick, winding him. He was unable to do anything but double over in pain and groan because his arms were still being restrained.

"Please, somebody help me." He cried. But nobody helped him. Nobody dared. The crowd around them were being held at bay by the other people in the group of assailants who were swinging their weapons threateningly, daring someone to come and help the couple. A few of the braver onlookers had tried to help, but they were attacked by some of the assailants, which deterred anyone else from trying the same thing.

One of the young men had aimed several powerful punches at the elderly gentleman's torso, face and head the elderly man could do nothing but stand weakly. His head lolled from side to side as he struggled to stay conscious, but he finally lost consciousness when the young man landed a brutal uppercut to his chin. He flew back into the people who were holding his arms, sending them all crashing to the ground. The young assailants picked themselves back up and dusted themselves off, but the elderly man stayed down on the ground.

The professors had not arrived in time to help the elderly couple, but they would not allow the assailants to attack anyone else. Since they could not use muggle methods to resolve the situation, they resorted to using their magic. Severus stood to one side of the crowd that had formed and surreptitiously stunned each and everyone of the attackers. This was no mean feat, as the crowd was quite thick with people and he had to make sure that he didn't accidentally hit the wrong person.

Minerva moved away from the crowd of people, who were now gasping and wondering why the assailants had just fainted for no apparent reason, and began to check the nearby alleyways. Her search was not in vain. She found three men, all holding wands gathered together in one of the alleyways. When they noticed that she was approaching them, one of them turned to the other two and said, in a near panic, "Shit! It's one of the professors. What's her name… McGonagall.".  There were a few muttered oaths and the group apparated away.

Professor McGonagall didn't know what to think. She returned to find Professor Snape now standing over some of the attackers, pretending to be checking their vital signs and making sure they were o.k. In reality, he was subtly reviving them and erasing their memories to prevent them from revealing the existence of the wizarding world to the muggle world. He was also casting simple pain relieving spells and simple healing spells to heal the worst of the elderly couple's injuries. Minerva helped him to complete the task, her lips pursed into a stern line in an attempt to control her anger at the brutality of the event, before the police arrived, and when they were done, they quickly returned to Hogwarts to give their report to Albus.

*****

"This means that Professor Green was right," observed Minerva.

"This certainly makes things a little more interesting, doesn't it?" Albus asked mildly. "All we can do is continue to watch the target areas. I will make inquiries of my own into this matter." He paused and said, almost to himself, "It would be helpful to be able to question one of these wizards, wouldn't it?"

"We would need to get close enough to them to question them, Albus, and they'll probably just apparate as soon as they see anyone approaching. And one of them recognised me as a Hogwarts Professor. They'll be on the look out for us now," Minerva reasoned.

The trio sat in silence. The two professors sipped their tea as they continued to think about the situation they faced, and the Headmaster stroked his beard and tried to make sense of it all.