---x---

Harry heaved a heavy sigh at the sight of the two teenagers staring at them from the other end of the alley. Great, two memories to modify. Just terrific. The boy looked vaguely familiar and Harry puzzled over it for a second before realizing it was the boy that Harry had knocked into at the airport during his search for McNair, the man laying unconscious at his feet. Wanting to get it over with a quickly as possible, Harry approached the couple carefully.

"Hullo," he greeted them calmly.

"Hi," the girl said slowly, her eyes narrowed shrewdly. Her mouth, which had been hanging open almost as much as her boyfriend's a moment ago, had closed and she looked as if she was thinking quickly. "You're some kind of wizard aren't you? And that was your wand?"

It was Harry's turn to stare calculatingly. The girl was smart. A little too smart for his liking. Perhaps honesty was the best move here. He needed to get their guard down so he could modify their memories. Less of a chance for mistakes resulting in total memory loss, a la Lockhart. "Yes, I am. And yes, it is."

The girl nodded, biting her lip. "This is insane. I don't know why I'm not checking myself into the nut house right now. But I believe you." She turned to her boyfriend. "How is that we're always in the middle of the weirdest situations?"

The boyfriend smiled nervously and answered, "It's the curse of Neptune. Or maybe just Lilly amusing herself."

The girl seemed to find the second suggestion funny and grinned. "Probably."

Harry's hand inched to his wand slowly, so as not to draw the couples' attention to it. The girl, however, must have been watching him out of the corner of her eye and had some sort of taser out in a flash. "Don't try it. I'm not afraid to use this."

Ron and Hermione started to rush forward, but Harry motioned for them to stay back. Obviously it would take a little more than usual to get this girl's memory modified. "What's your name?" Harry asked calmly, as though there wasn't a charged stun gun inches pointed at him.

"Veronica Mars," she answered tightly. "Yours?"

Thinking quickly, Harry said, "James Evans."

"Right and I'm Marilyn Monroe. I can tell you're lying. Especially since your little friend called you Harry a few seconds ago. What's your real name?"

Harry sighed. "Harry Potter…Are you gonna put that thing away?"

"Nope," Veronica told him, positioning herself so that Harry blocked her from his friends. "I've had a really bad year and getting attacked by a wizard isn't high on my list of priorities. I've got a bus crash to solve and a murderer to put behind bars first."

Harry glanced up and down the street and motioned for Veronica to step into the alley and out of view. After a moment of deliberation, she obeyed, beckoning her boyfriend to follow.

"Look, I'm not going to kill you," Harry explained. "You're just gonna have to trust me on that. I need to modify your memory is all. Muggles aren't allowed to know about magic."

"What are the chances this could go wrong?" Veronica asked. She couldn't afford to lose her memories of the past year. Not when Aaron Echolls's conviction depended on them.

"Um, well, I've only done it a few times. Okay, once," Harry admitted.

Veronica eyed him. "Why do I get the feeling you aren't so good at this?"

"'Cause he's not," his red-haired friend chimed in.

"Shush, Ron!" the girl admonished him.

"Yeah, shut up, mate. Lockhart was your fault," Harry pointed out. "Or, your wand's fault, anyway."

The boy – Ron – reddened, especially in the ears and looked away.

"Listen, Harry, I can't afford for anything to go wrong. I'm the main witness in the trial of my best friend's murderer. Duncan here is a minor witness, since he found her body, knows the murderer, and can bear witness to the authenticity of the tapes I found. She was his sister. Her murderer needs to go to jail, but if this spell or charm or whatever backfires, he could walk free. Please," she begged, "Just let me keep my memory. I promise I won't tell anyone. You can trust me. I don't have anyone to tell, even if I wanted to. My only friend besides Duncan is living in Chicago and avoiding my calls and emails. Oh, and my next closest thing to a friend is in coma and she hates me." Veronica sounded desperate but she didn't care. She was actually banking on it persuading Harry not to perform the spell or whatever it was he wanted to do.

Harry stared at the girl. Was it possible he had found the one person whose life was just as screwed up as his own?

"Harry," Hermione said from behind him. He knew without looking that she wanted him to take pity on the girl before him. Somehow, he trusted her and knew she would keep her word and not tell anyone about them and their magic.

"Yeah, all right," he told her.

She rewarded him with a relieved grin that seemed to light up the surrounding area. "Thank you." She grabbed her still stunned boyfriend's arm and made to leave, but Harry called her back.

"Wait." He was intrigued by this American girl. What could it hurt to just talk with her a bit, get to know more about her? After all, it might do him some good to talk to someone new, someone who knew what it was like to have a twisted, screwed up life.

Veronica turned warily.

"I haven't changed my mind," Harry assured. "I was just wondering if you'd care to join us for lunch."

Veronica raised her eyebrows. She glanced over at her boyfriend, who shrugged resignedly. "Sure, I guess," she agreed finally.

Harry smiled. For some reason, her agreement filled him such a strong, yet puzzling, sense of relief. He turned to Ron. "Would you take care of him?" He eyed McNair with undisguised distaste. "See that he gets to Tonks or Kingsley."

Ron nodded and reaching down, he grabbed McNair's hand (not without making a face at having to touch the "slimy git") and disappeared with a loud pop.

Veronica seemed startled, but managed to stifle a gasp. She stepped on her boyfriend's foot to keep him from doing the same.

"Shall we?" Hermione asked, stepping out of the shadows.

"We shall," Veronica replied. "Duncan and I were just heading to a little bistro down the street."

"Sounds good," Hermione said, sounding oddly cheerful. Harry could tell she was apprehensive about keeping this girl around and by the suspicious looks Veronica kept discreetly shooting Hermione, she knew it, too.

---x---

A/N: Updates will almost definitely not be this frequent most of the time. After I wrote chapter 1 and posted it on another site, I completely forgot to post it here and I didn't remember to put it here until I finished chapter 2 last night. I will update as frequently as possible, just not this quickly. Thanks for the reviews!