A Most Unusual Case
Chapter 1
Disclaimer: This work of fan-fiction is not intended for personal profit. All characters utilized herein which are not creations of myself belong to J. K. Rowling or Isaac Asimov.
For those familiar with the Robot Novels, this story takes place after The Naked Sun, but before The Robots of Dawn. Notes on terminology - "Medieval" era in the time of Elijah Baley refers to roughly the 20th century.
Elijah Baley hated airplanes.
He particularly hated this airplane. Nine hours cooped up in a tin can with barely an inch of metal between him and the Outside had rubbed his nerves raw. He had been just about to give up his white-knuckled attempt to retain his grip on himself, and order the steward-robot to give him a sedative that would knock him out, when he heard the most blessed thing in the entire world, even though it was spoken by a flat, efficient metallic voice through a speaker:
"This vehicle will be landing at London shortly. Please remain in your seat until we instruct you to debark."
Baley breathed a shaky sigh of relief and concentrated on the book-film he was desultorily attempting to read about Medieval Britain.
/\/\
Getting settled in was quite straightforward. After debarking, Baley went to the Out-of-City Visitors' Processing Center, and presented his Rating Card, designating him as New York City Plainclothesman Elijah Baley, class C-7, along with his transit tickets stating his assignment to the Metropolitan London Police on detached duty for a special case.
The severe-looking woman on the other side of the counter entered the particulars of his information in the practiced fingerprint-binary he recalled seeing the woman at the Section Kitchen use the one time he and Daneel Olivaw had had to dine away from his home Section. Shortly after his Transient's Passkey was available, entitling him to food privileges at the Vistor's Section Kitchen along with a functional one-room apartment and access to a private stall in the nearby Men's Personal.
Earth had become a homogeneous society to the point where the only major difference that marked off one region of the planet from another was the general distribution of skin color and perhaps some vanishing remnant of "local flavour" which amounted to useless trinkets in cheap souvenir shops, or ethnic foods on the rare times when the chemists and zymologists got creative enough to research long-forgotten foods.
So it was of no consequence to one Elijah Baley that the great City of London, roofed-over from the East End all the way out to a place like Surrey, looked and felt very much like New York City. Even the people in London had largely lost the famed "English accent"; everybody on Earth spoke an essentially homogenized Interstellar English.
It was, however, an amazing shock to a boy named Harry Potter.
/\/\
Harry had been having a bad day. He'd been hoping Rufus Scrimgeour would be a sight better than that idiot Fudge, when it turned out all he wanted was a poster boy for the War against Voldemort even after Dumbledore's death.
Then his relatives had to start in on him, again, about the inconvenience Vernon Dursley underwent in actually deigning to fetch Harry from King's Cross, even though Harry had heatedly explained at the dinner table that he would be gone inside of a month and they'd never have to see him again after that.
Dinner had thus proved to be a very tense adventure, broken when Harry grabbed his dinner plate and marched up to his bedroom, heedless of the insistence by his Aunt Petunia that he "return AT ONCE to the table and not leave dirty dishes lying about in the bedroom!"
Annoying woman, he thought.
After wolfing down the rest of his food and carelessly letting his plate clatter on the rickety desk set in one corner of the room, Harry flopped on the poor excuse for a bed his relatives had let him have, and wondered how in the blazes he would find any Horcruxes, or anything of that sort. The one Horcrux he thought he'd gotten due to hard work on Dumbledore's behalf had turned out to be a ruddy fake!
Disgusted, Harry lay back on his bed, heedless of the fact that a certain Lord Voldemort was busily engaged in a ritual to attempt a most vicious and underhanded trick on Harry Potter.
Unfortunately, Voldemort's attempt to use a Temporal Shifting spell, combined with a Lunar Phase potion, clashed with the protective wards on the Dursley residence, and instead of Harry being wrenched into a parallel universe, leaving Voldemort free to complete the job started by Severus Snape, he was instead tossed about three thousand years into the future.
As a result, Harry had a ghost of a chance to get back to when he came from… and Voldemort found, too late, that the magical ritual's clash with the protective wards had a slightly unfortunate side effect of disintegrating the flesh-and-blood body he inhabited. This staved off destruction of the wizarding world for a time, as Voldemort became, yet again, a disembodied spirit.
Death Eaters found it rather hard to be afraid of the Cruciatus Curse being cast by a spirit without a wand, and one Draco Malfoy seized the second chance he'd been given, went to Hermione Granger, and revealed all he knew of the Death Eaters' current strongholds.
But that story does not concern us overmuch; suffice it to say that without the Boy-Who-Lived immediately available, but also without a bodily-formed Lord Voldemort to tell his Death Eaters to terrorize the British populace, a stalemate was reached, until Voldemort himself became a long-forgotten memory, as the two remaining members of the Golden Trio managed to destroy all the remaining Horcruxes by the time Voldemort was sufficiently strong enough to try and regain a body; with only one-seventh of a soul, Voldemort could not reliably ensure his immortality, and in time, he did disappear.
Unfortunately, the Death Eaters were not immediately quelled upon the disastrous conclusion of the ritual, and the loss of the Chosen One hampered the effectiveness of the Order of the Phoenix. As a result far too many people died who would have lived had Harry been around, and the magical world of Britain stultified and degenerated past the point of any useful recognition.
/\/\
Elijah Baley was greeted in the Metropolitan Police office by an astonishingly red-haired Detective named Ronald Granger. The man was saying, "Unlike in New York, we don't use the civil-service classifications; you'll be given equal status to me, as a plain-clothes detective. We use the normal police ranks from Constable on up to Chief, and you probably still use them in New York."
Baley had fumbled in his pockets for his pipe, before remembering he'd quit smoking not long after he'd come back from Solaria. The rations were just getting too thin, and even at a C-7 rating, the writing was on the wall; Earth couldn't maintain the tobacco crop and sustain the health of a populace which was affected by the various ills tobacco tended to visit upon people. So at some point, Baley would have been forced to quit anyway; at least this way he could somewhat pretend he was doing this entirely of his own accord.
He dourly sighed and said, "We do use the same ranks in New York. But what I'm wondering about is why I've been called half-way across the planet when none of my superiors could tell me a thing. The last time this happened, I found myself on a space-ship headed for Solaria."
The other man nervously tittered and said, "Well, rest assured, Plainclothesman Baley, there'll be none of that here. However, the fact is we have a very unusual case, and… well, to be honest, you have kind of a reputation for making sense of unusual cases."
Baley grimaced as he remembered the sheer dumb luck that had gotten him noticed by practically all levels of the Earth governmental apparatus. Thanks to Julius Enderby's need for an old college buddy to hopefully manipulate during the investigation of a Spacer murder on Earth, the Solarians had gotten interested when they needed an Earthman to solve a baffling murder case; on that occasion, it had been a fortuitous coincidence. The man in charge of Security there had no doubt that the one suspect had done the crime (and in a way, Gladia Delmarre had committed murder; however, she had been under such severe stress that she did not recall the actual act, and in an Earth court, she likely would have been remanded for an indefinite period to a Mentological Facility), but he needed an Earthman to chase down a conspiracy on Solaria that could have resulted in Galactic war.
Both times, Baley had come up smelling like a rose, since he'd solved both cases and neatly wrapped things up for the authorities to handle. In particular, on Solaria, he'd defused a prickly political problem and helped get rid of an embarrassment to the Solarian officials, by pinning the blame on the instigator of the murder, Jothan Leebig, while arranging to have Gladia transported to Aurora, to make a new life under the protective wing of Dr. Han Fastolfe. Murderer and unwitting accomplice were thus both gone, and the Solarians could go on pretending they had a perfect society.
So, here he was, in London. He'd had a chance to shower and freshen up before tackling this case, so he at least was presentable and put forth a good, if generally dour, impression.
Baley said, "So, what's the case?"
Granger said, "Well, it's this. Follow me and I'll do the case summary."
The red-haired man plugged a cassette from the merc-pool file into a hand-held pad that was about the size of a standard sheet of paper. A person from Harry Potter's time might have called it an Etch-A-Sketch, but it was far more advanced than that.
In a monotone, Granger began reciting the particulars.
"At approximately 0900 two days ago, two of the Metropolitan officials stationed near Surrey reported seeing an unusual flash, followed by the appearance of a disoriented-looking teenager with black hair and striking green eyes. The boy was wearing clothing that seems to be completely different from any modern arrangement of such, and computer analysis of the fibers and so on reveal the use of materials that are crude synthetics compared to modern nano-construction methods. They do not appear to have been custom-sized to fit the wearer, and indeed seem to be a bit large for his frame.
"In addition, he wore old-style glasses—"
Baley broke in, remembering. "My old superior, Julius Enderby… he liked to wear them, too. You sure the kid isn't just a Medievalist? While they're unregistered, it's not illegal to be one if you're not actively plotting against the Government."
Granger went on, grinning. "Just wait, Baley. I'm getting to the good stuff. To give you a better idea of where the boy was found, you should know that the Surrey district of London is a large monolithic block of level upon level of residential sections. It's largely populated by people with some classification status, so they're not declassified laborers nor are they top-status officials. So even some things you or I might consider ordinary are a bit unusual in those districts.
"So, as I said, the boy is wearing clothes that are manufactured using methods that probably date back to Medieval times, wearing old glasses in the fashion of Medievalists. He was, as I said, quite disoriented and confused. He was clutching a piece of wood—"
"Real wood? As in, from an actual tree? Not the more usual yeast-derived petrochemical-based plastic synthetics?"
"I swear it, Baley. Honest wood. Anyway, the boy was quite defensive, clearly believing anyone to be a threat. Now, luckily, the Metro Official had the presence of mind to activate his Evidence Recorder, which contains a full audio and visual record of the incident."
Granger fell silent for a moment, and walked with Baley through the seemingly endless, impersonal corridors. He spotted a meeting room, snagged Baley's elbow, and swiftly shut the door behind the two of them. He quickly pushed some buttons on the wall panel after sticking his thumb on a featureless black plate, then turned back.
"Baley, what I'm about to say cannot go beyond you or me. So far, the only people who know what happened are the Metropolitan Police Officer, his partner, me, and now you. I've activated the anti-spybeam controls. Anyone trying to eavesdrop will get static. I have the record here. Watch."
Baley sat near the table, waiting in anticipation for the holographic record to play out.
The black-haired boy, clearly frightened and suspicious, was saying, "You bastards are from Voldemort, aren't you? This is a trick, damn it!"
With a start, Baley said, "Pause it!"
Granger said, "You noticed. That boy's accent is like nothing I've ever heard. It isn't Spacer and it sure isn't Earth. Mind, we can't actually ask a Spacer if he's one of them. They'd be insulted that Earthmen were deigning to communicate at all. Nonetheless we've got experts who were played just a small sample of that voice, no visual, and they agreed it wasn't Spacer."
Baley nodded to continue.
The boy's nostrils were flaring as his hand gripped a piece of wood. His image jiggled slightly as the policeman breathed (he had been wearing the Evidence Recorder at about chest level), while the policeman's partner attempted to get closer to the boy.
The other man said, "Calm down, okay? Just calm down. We're not going to hurt you."
"Easy for you to say, you bastard. You're not the one that just got Portkeyed, or forcibly Apparated, or… or something, from his bed to here! Now get out of my way or I'll take you down with me! Both of you!"
At that point, the other man seemed to make a decision, and removed what Baley knew was a neuronic whip from the holster.
Unbelievably, the boy's reflexes were much faster, and even before the man had finished drawing his whip, the boy yelled, "Stupefy! Obliviate!"
Two flashes of light came out of the piece of wood, striking the other man full-on in the chest. A split-second later, the hologram showed the barrel of a neuronic whip come into view, and the beam struck the boy. He fell to the ground, screaming.
At this point, it was a pure formality as the boy's piece of wood was confiscated, and he was handcuffed. The Evidence Recorder hologram died, and Baley turned to Granger.
He said, "I take it you're hushing this up because the boy's... whatever it is… is clearly a lethal weapon of some kind?"
"Not only that. Get this, Baley. When we managed to reawaken Officer Miles – the one you saw who went down – he remembered nothing about the incident. He swears he woke up that morning, and then the next thing he knew, he was waking up in the hospital. Also, the boy mumbled something unusual when Officer Travers took him to be processed. He said, 'where did you get a gun that can cast the Crushattus Curse?'"
Baley said, "I have no idea how to get a handle on this. What the hell is a Crushattus, and what is that piece of wood?"
Granger shook his head again. He said in an exasperated tone, "No idea, Baley. It's hollow, and has some kind of feather inside of it. No analysis we can come up with has brought any resolution to exactly how it has the properties it does. Just to see if I could do anything with it, I took the piece of wood, went into a private room, and tried yelling those things he said. Nothing came out of the wood. Just to see if I needed a human being, I even tried pointing it at Travers and I said, 'Stupefy', since it seemed reasonable that all it does is stun someone. The 'Obliviate' seems to do the memory erasure.
"Well, you can guess – nothing happened. You have to come see the boy, Baley. We need to get to the bottom of this. For the last couple of days we've had the boy in a secure isolation wing with strict instructions to all staff to not speak to him in any way. We've had him under surveillance, of course, but the tapes don't show much as far as him saying anything. He made one comment I find curious, though. He said to himself at one point, 'When did Death Eaters learn Muggle technology, and how come everything looks so advanced?'"
Baley found his curiosity piqued. He said, "That's it; I have to see this kid for myself."
"Well, if you can solve this, we'll recommend that you get a C-8 over in New York."
"Lead the way, Detective Granger."
/\/\
Elijah Baley looked at the holding cell the boy was in. Plain white walls, plain white ceilings. Soft indirect lighting. Force barrier behind the entry door. You needed an access code to open the door, then you had to enter another code to bring the barrier down.
The cell itself had a desk with two chairs, all made of plastic and molded into the floor to make it impossible to move them or use them to threaten anyone. The cot was similarly constructed.
Detective Granger had gone up to the surveillance room to watch from afar. He'd made it clear that this was Baley's show.
Standing before the twinkling force barrier, Baley regarded the black-haired boy. He was sleeping, but did not seem to be sleeping very restfully. He tossed and turned, muttering every now and then. Sighing, Baley entered the code to lower the force barrier. It was set to automatically come back on, and the only way to then get out was if you had the special police-issue neutralizer, which Baley made sure that he had on him, in a safe place.
After carefully sitting on the chair facing the bed, Baley said, "Kid, wake up."
The reaction was startling, if instantaneous. The boy snapped to full wakefulness in a split second, and with a sharp intake of breath, he swiftly looked around, then realized where he was, and glared at Baley.
He sneered (where does a boy learn to act like a hardened criminal, thought Baley) and said, "Oh, a new Death Eater, I see. Tell Voldemort he can sod off for all I care. I'm not telling you a fucking thing."
"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage. I don't even know your name. And who's Voldemort?"
Disbelief crossed the boy's face before his mask returned. Barking a laugh, he said, "Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. You actually think I'll fall for that stupid trick? What the hell are you keeping me here for, if not to eventually hand me over to your precious Dark Lord?"
In honest puzzlement, Baley said, "Why would I do that?"
"Why wouldn't you, indeed? Unless you're planning to keep me here for yourself so you can hog all the glory next Death Eater meeting. Show up old Severus Snape that way, eh? Tell that greasy bastard killing Dumbledore will be the least of his worries by the time I get out of here!"
Baley forced himself to remain calm as he said, "Let's start over, here. I'm Elijah Baley, Plainclothesman C-7, from New York City."
The boy seemed to wilt a bit as he said, "Shit. You've infiltrated the fucking Muggle police."
Baley ignored that, saying, "What's your name?"
"My name?" The boy guffawed. "Fuck me, you blokes really are thick, aren't you? You remember me, don't you? Bloody Boy-Who-Wouldn't-Die-to-Please-Voldemort, Harry James Potter!"
"That's your name, then?"
"Yes, that bloody well is my sodding name. My Mudblood mother was Lily Evans, and my Pureblood father was James Potter. Anything else you stupid bastards need clarified about me?"
Baley was stumped. How could he establish any level of trust with the boy when he was clearly paranoid and delusional? Nothing he said made any sense, damn it!
How the hell was he going to get it through to this kid that they just wanted to find out what he was doing in the Surrey district of London?
Author Notes:
I got this idea after re-reading the Robot Novels by Asimov. How would Elijah Baley, Earth detective, find a way to get through to Harry Potter? And if he believes the boy, how in the world would they send him back? It's also my first attempt at a crossover. Normally I object to them, but this plot bunny refused to let me go :)
