Hotch releases a low sigh. This was not a good case – the entire team, bar Morgan, were revisiting the paperwork. They released the profile to the Police two days ago, just after the last two victims had been found, but they were still working on narrowing it down. As the unsub livestreamed the captivity of the hostages along with their torture and later murder, Morgan and Garcia were going over the footage again to see if anything had been missed.
Hotch, Rossi, Prentiss and Reid were going over the paper evidence and to see if anything further could be added to the profile; Rossi and Prentiss were spitballing ideas on profiles, Reid was working on refining his geographic profile and Hotch was looking through the autopsy reports and forensic evidence to see if anything had been missed the first time around.
All the team knew what they had to do; wait for more victims and more evidence when they found their bodies and hope that would help but going by the current timeline, they would have another five days before then – which is, of course, when Morgan burst in, shoulders tense but a small grin tugging at his lips. For a moment, Hotch hoped he'd found something, only to wince when the words registered.
"Guys, guys – we got another live video."
"It's only been two days – the timeline's escalating," Reid announced with a frown but obediently put down his papers to follow Morgan into the conference room.
"Then why are you smiling?" Prentiss asked as the team slid into the conference room where a video was already up on screen. The woman was petite and thin, with dark hair (black or dark brown – the lighting was rather dim) and green eyes.
The grin on Morgan's lips widened.
"Because I don't think our unsub planned this very well – and he definitely didn't plan for her. And I'm not so sure she'll need us at all." The team exchanges a quizzical look at that remark, but Morgan ignores them and turns back to the phone Garcia is on. "Baby Girl, back to the beginning, please."
She blinked, mind hazy and thoughts fuzzy as Harriet tried to recollect herself. Where was she? Last she remembered… she'd been in the US, somewhere. She's travelled dimensions – not intentionally, of course, but in the usual fluke way which would have made Luna laugh hysterically and Hermione tear her hair out in frustration at how the impossible always seemed to be made possible solely around Harriet.
Nevertheless, she would like to maintain it wasn't her fault. Deciding to go on a world travel holiday had been a great idea; what hadn't been so great was Hermione handing her yet another book at the airport. This one didn't even focus on what 'Master of Death' meant; it had like one sentence in it about that. Naturally, it had to be the one sentence Harriet had scoffed at. 'What,' she'd said to herself, 'like all I'd need to say is 'I want to be in a new dimension' and it happens?'
Except, with her typical luck, that's precisely what happened, of course and her plane was sucked into a new world – but none of the other passengers made it. She didn't know if they remained in her old world or disintegrated or whatever else happened – all she knew was that the plane was empty of both pilots, crew and passengers and crashing to the ground.
Harriet has no idea how she survived – she was actually fairly certain that she hadn't, in fact, survived the crash, but she remembers stumbling out, glad that her trunk with most of her belongings is around her neck not burning up with the rest here on the ground. The recollection is a bit hazy – she doesn't know how she got away but the next time she's a bit more there, she's miles away from the plane crash. It's only when she rents a room at a local motel that she finds out she's still in the US but it's nearly a decade later than she thought it would be.
And now, while this is a fairly typical thing to occur in her world, she hadn't really expected it to happen here.
"Oh, you have to be frickin' kidding me!" groaned Harriet, throwing her head back exasperatedly when she realised her arms and ankles were tied. "I will kill Hermione when I get out of here. Go on a holiday, she said. That I'd be safer away from home. No more kidnappings, she said. Well, this will show her."
Harriet continued griping and mumbling, twisting her hands this way and that and finally resorting to magic to loosen the binds and slipping her wrists out.
"Ouch," she moaned, moving her shoulder experimentally, and rubbing at her wrists before bending down to untie her ankles.
Finally free of the chair, Harriet steps away, stretching herself before taking a look around.
"Alright, where are we this time?" It looked like a cellar, dark walls, minimal light, small windows which most adult women – Harriet excluded – probably couldn't fit through but which had bars across them. There were damp corners on the edges and the air smelled moist and mouldy.
"Lovely. Kidnapping 101. Lock the damsel in distress in your local slowly rotting wine cellar. They should start getting more imaginative at some point. I mean, after your third kidnapping or so it just gets embarrassing for the bad guys, am I right?" Harriet continued her litany of complaints without pause as she investigated further.
There was a small, darkened corner which was furthest from the light and hard to see into.
Out of all the things in the world she definitely hadn't been expecting to see a small child sitting inside a cage.
"Merlin's Bal-" she cut herself off, realising how young he was and fumbled. "Banana, I mean." She paused, frowning at herself. "Not that that's much better now that I think about it." Shaking her head slightly at her priorities, she focussed back on the child.
"Oh, hey, sweetheart," her voice dropped into her Teddy-voice automatically as she knelt down beside the cage. "What are you doing here?"
The child looked like it hadn't been in here that long – he was young, maybe four or so, and had clearly peed himself in the stress and there was dirt across his face from when he'd lain on the metal bars at some point.
Looking at the cage door and the lock on it, Harriet scowled slightly, eerily reminded of her second year.
"Well, sweetheart, we'll get you out of here in a jiffy. My relatives tried this on me too, you know. Lock me in my cupboard for days, well joke's on them. Once I was hungry enough after three days of no food and very little water, I figured out how to get out," she winked. "So when they tried these locks," she tapped the padlock, "when I was like twelve on the door and a catflap for food, well by then I'd gotten the hang of escaping."
The little boy giggled then slapped his hands over his mouth and looked at her hesitantly like she'd scold him for laughing. Harriet winked again.
"However, our kidnapper's an idiot. He definitely made this cage himself." She eyed the iron bars encircling the cage. "Alright sweetie, I am going to turn this thing on its side so I can get to the bottom, here," she tapped the wood the child was sitting on.
"I'll need you to slide down with me, gently, when I move it until you're sitting on the bars. That alright?"
"Yes," the child looked a bit more bright-eyed already, eyes alit with curiosity as he watched her grumble and struggle to heave the heavy cage up enough to tilt it over.
"Lucky us," she mumbled with another grin after she finished inspecting the bottom section.
"Alright kiddo," she said when she focussed back on the child. "Give me a second, I think I saw something in the corner over there and we'll have you out of here in a jiffy."
It was a small metallic slat she'd spotted earlier, probably broken off a tool. The only reason she'd even seen it in the limited lighting the hanging lamp provided was its reflectiveness.
"While this bit here is screwed in, that over here is just nailed down and with the right leverage, easy enough to get out of. Sorry, if I were a bit more of a typical girl – and considering all my prior hostage and kidnapping experience, I probably should have, but in my defense, so far no one ever used a padlock for me other than my darling relatives. Anyway – I really should start carrying some bobby pins or just a lock breaking kit with me at this point. I'll make a note for the future, but for now this is the better and easier method."
Well, easier, not easy, per se. Leveraging the distance to get the nails out was a bit time-consuming and then Harriet further spent time pulling the nails out so she could grab the kid and lift him out without causing further injury.
"Alright, sweetie, let me get you out of here."
The smell of pee was rather strong as he got closer, but Harriet had changed Teddy's diapers and maintained that nothing could get to her after that. Worse than the Malfoy's dungeons, Ron had joked and Harriet concurred.
"There, now we can move about and plan our daring escape." She winked at the kid but had another look around to see if there was a safe escape for the child.
The iron bars on the windows were unfortunately a bit further out of reach and if she truly was in a cellar, while a bombarda could loosen the attachment of the ironbars to the wall, it could also bring the house down around them – so, not ideal.
And that's how she noticed the reflective glass in the ceiling corner – a camera.
"Oh great," she groaned. "either that's a security cam with the creep watching," she stuck out her tongue in that direction, "or it's recording us. Neither sound good." Because it would preclude her using magic. In front of little kids it was easier to get away with such things because they were adorable and no one believed them – imaginary friends and belief in magic was practically expected of them. It did make things more tricky for her now though because if this was being recorded, she'd be the only magic user in this dimension and she had no intention of being caught up in government experimentation.
The light outside brightened and for the first time Harriet got a closer look at the floor of the place. Her eyes snapped to the child beside her – barefoot, she noted – and lifted him up quickly (he was already nearly as tall as her, she griped in her head) making sure to secure his face against her collarbone.
"Alright then, kid," she said with a forcibly cheerful tone, "keep your eyes closed for now, alright?"
She would have to make sure to clean his feet before he got a good look at them in daylight. While the dark stains had been previously visible, Harriet had dismissed them as water or mould stains. Only with the sunlight leaking in had she realised that they were rust brown – dried blood. Everywhere. That was not good – she wondered how many had already died in this place. But what she did know was that she didn't want the kid to notice what she had – she wasn't sure if he'd understand but if he did, or remembered and understood years down the line, she had no intention of him suffering that kind of trauma if she could help it.
"We're just going to play a little game, alright?"
The easiest entry and access point was still the stairs leading up and the door there. The light shining in only reaffirmed what she'd already guessed – they were down and past the iron bars over the windows was some other kind of wall.
Breathing in deeply, Harriet deliberately relaxed her body slightly as she stepped up the stairs. While they had caught her by surprise when they captured her from behind, this time wouldn't be so easy. And her magic would protect her, always, from a known threat. She'd protect the kid and worse comes to worst, she'd open up her trunk still on the necklace around her neck and use her wand. And she'd hide the kid under the invisibility cloak. Either way, they were getting out of here.
"Oh," she said softly when she was beside the door and unlatched the kid from around her neck, turning him around to face the door.
"Now see how this looks like stone around the door? Yeah, I went to a school in the Scottish highlands which was inside a castle. I know stone – that's not it. It's fake – which is good news for us. See, most people always reinforce the door," she told the child pointing at the hard iron door which was probably several inches thick. "but they forget a few things. One – the door is still installed and weak at the installation points and two – the plaster next to it can easily be broken. In our case, without tools, we'll break through the plaster. Good thing our hostage taker left the chair behind, isn't it?"
With a bright grin, Harriet left the kid on the top step and grabbed the chair. Breaking the wall next to the door down would be so much easier if she had more muscles – like Ron or Draco. Or hell, even Hermione had muscles from carrying books which weighed like a ton – each. Not Harriet; she'd somehow managed to retain her spindly noddle arms – good enough for chores around the house and absolutely useless for senseless acts of violence like breaking a wall. Especially after just returning from the end of the war and a year on the run, starving. There was no muscle whatsoever.
But luckily Harriet wasn't completely reliant on her physical strength – she could add magic to the mix. A small confringo – which, wandless, took around five tries – aided her enough to create a hole big enough for the kid.
"Alright, sweetie. I'm going to scout the location up ahead. You stay here for a second while I make sure it's safe."
The kid still looked wide-eyed with awe and nodded obediently, sticking his thumb into his mouth. The scourgify came out automatically and hopefully cleaned his sticky little hands. Harriet hid her grimace as she held onto the banister and leaned sideways, looking through the hole before crawling out.
The kidnapper must be truly and well away from the house if all this noise had yet to bring him running – the video must be recording only or something. Harriet still hadn't quite gotten used to the leap in technology, especially as she'd had very little to interact with since she grew up with the Dursleys and spent her teenage years at Hogwarts, well away from any technological advancements (or, really, advancements of any kind).
After a quick look around, a careful spell to reveal humans within, Harriet determined it safe enough and opened the door to let the kid out.
"Alright, now do you know the number for the Police here?"
She really hoped he did, because Harriet had no clue what the phone number of the US Police is. Or how to use the Internet and "Google" it.
"911," the kid told her firmly and she nodded, as if he'd gotten it right (she hoped he had) and dialled it.
"That's a first," Reid says, eyebrows high up and hidden beneath the gentle curls of his hair.
"But I think we really should look into the prior kidnappings," Rossi suggests with a frown.
"While there are statistics for repeat victimisations in cases such as rape and domestic violence, I have not heard of one for hostage taking or kidnappings," Reid agreed.
"And I think we should have a look into her family," Garcia argues, scowl audible even over the phone and the entire team agrees without hesitation. Child abuse cases were always difficult – even if the child had grown up, as this woman clearly had, and survived, none of them wanted to let the abusers slide underneath the radar and continue living their lives in peace when they had clearly harmed an innocent child.
"We got starvation, neglect, abuse, being locked into small spaces just to start with," Hotch lists off rapidly, eyes dark and lips pressed tightly together, his mind having catalogued each instance even as she used them as cavalier anecdotes to make the child laugh.
"She's British," Prentiss adds, "so we may need to pass this case over to them."
Morgan huffs, already frustrated with bureaucracy interfering with justice and Hotch knows that Garcia is likely already planning her own intervention of the more illegal and technological kind with her family once they find them. Reid isn't handling it much better, brows furrowed and the corners of his eyes tight, his mind undoubtedly rapidly assessing her chances of successful prosecution and best methods. Rossi is already checking his phone and conferring with Prentiss for the best contacts to talk to in order to ensure the case is heard and handled well.
He watches the door open and sees her lift the kid out of the basement – it's the last thing he sees before the door falls shut but he doesn't doubt that she would have made sure the unsub wasn't in the house before exposing the kid to any kind of danger like that.
It also means that they will not need to refine their profile or look out – the Police will likely receive a call at any moment from them to do their part of the rescue. Hotch slips out and lets his team keep planning their vengeance on behalf of the woman repeatedly kidnapped, apparently, to let the Police chief know what to expect at the scene.
The case is resolved quickly from there – at least the part of identifying the unsub, finding the trophies and handing him off to jail and the evidence to the prosecutor.
What isn't so easy is that the woman is apparently not an unknown in this world – her repeated kidnappings make a little more sense once Prentiss unearths that she's part of the Potter family, apparently a Lordship (Ladyship?) in England which she claimed about half a year ago after extensive DNA testing. Her prior history is so well hidden that neither Rossi nor Prentiss' contacts overseas can unearth – or divulge them. Even Garcia's discrete hacking has ended up with nothing. There's a few schools she could have been referring to in Scotland, but all of them deny having had the girl attend. They're at a standstill, for the moment, and will likely be unable to progress without Harriet Potter outright telling them.
Any ideas on pairing? Hotch? Morgan? Reid? Only intend on writing maybe one more chapter for this.