A Most Unusual Case
Chapter 2

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.


Elijah Baley decided to step out of the cell and gather his thoughts. He saw Detective Granger coming down the hall, and he said, "You got all that, right?"

"Sure did. Now that we have a name, we can cross-check his fingerprints and DNA. We tried before, but without his name the computer couldn't provide a match. Maybe we'll have better luck now."

Unfortunately for the pair, running the name Harry Potter and asking for a cross-check with provided samples of his fingerprints and a hair sample produced exactly zero results. Oh, there were plenty of Harry Potters in London and even some of the other large Cities scattered around what had once been Medieval Britain, but none had his fingerprints and exact DNA match. Even worldwide, absolutely nothing of any use came up.

A boy without a registered identity on Earth. A boy who waved a piece of wood and who could damage people with it, potentially lethally. A boy who insisted on uttering apparently paranoid comments regarding imagined events and people that had no bearing on the real world. By rights the Police should just dump him in a Mentological Facility and be done with it.

Just out of curiosity, the men ran the other names the Potter boy had mentioned – "Severus Snape" and "Voldemort". Understandably, the latter name revealed nothing. There were a few Snapes, but none named Severus. The photographs showed nothing that seemed to strike Baley or Granger as unusual, but on a hunch, Baley asked for reproductions of the pictures to be put on a holo-display cube.

They went back down to the cell, and before Granger could go up to the observation room to watch the cell, Baley said, "I want you to talk to him, too, just in case. He might be willing to open up to someone."

The other detective nodded, and the two of them entered the cell. It had been about an hour since Baley had left, and the boy hadn't changed position. However, what startled both men was when Harry looked up, then blinked, then yelped, "Ron? What are you doing here? Wait a minute – you look different, somehow."

Detective Granger looked at Harry and said, "Should I know you?"

Crestfallen, Harry slumped against the wall on his cot and said, "They got you too, didn't they?"

"You're… uh, Harry Potter, according to my colleague Detective Baley here. My name's Detective Ronald Granger, Plainclothesman for the Metropolitan London Police."

At that, the boy looked disbelievingly at the detective and whispered, "Granger? Oh Lord, this is fucked up. This is completely fucked up."

Baley broke in, saying, "Look. If you're settled down now, why don't you tell us who you are and how you came to be in Surrey, London, two days ago."

Harry said, "That was Little Whinging? What is going on here?"

Baley sighed. The boy was clearly still agitated, and he wasn't a trained psychologist. He said, "All right. First, what's this about my colleague Detective Granger here?"

Baley could see the boy's Adam's Apple move as he swallowed, hard, and spoke softly. "All right, I'll talk. I've got a friend, named Ron Weasley. Well, Ronald Weasley. He has blazing red hair, just like yours, and his girlfriend is Hermione Granger. You even look like him, a bit."

The two detectives raised eyebrows at each other, then Baley said, "All right. Now, back to you. Who are you?"

"My name is Harry James Potter. I don't know my rank or serial number, so I won't tell you that. I live in Little Whinging, Surrey, at Number Four, Privet Drive."

Baley nodded at the other detective, who clearly had gotten the notion to check things out. Before he could continue, Harry said, "What's going on? What's happening?"

"Detective Granger's going to check out that location you gave. Now, where do you attend school – if you do?"

"Hogwarts. It's a school up in Scotland."

Scotland, Scotland... why did that sound familiar?

Baley let the matter ride and kept talking.

"Does that have anything to do with how you pointed a piece of wood at a gentleman and stunned him, then wiped his memory? We tried a Psychic Probe, and couldn't get anything except a hazy recollection of being attacked by you."

"Yeah. You mean you don't know what a wand is, or... oh, shit!"

The boy's hand flew up to his mouth, and he then placed his head in his hands and said, "Fuck me. Why do I always open my fucking mouth before thinking? God, Snape would have a field day if he was watching this."

Baley, perplexed, said, "What's this all about?"

When no answer came, he said, firmly, "If you're a member of an unregistered organization devoted to overthrow of our Government, then you've already confessed to having access to unregistered weapons, and there's the charges we can use already, regarding attacking a police officer. You could spend quite a few years in the prison levels, you know."

Harry seemed shocked, then said, "What? We're not trying to overthrow bloody anybody except Voldemort, although kicking over the Ministry wouldn't be a bad idea right about now, what with that idiot Fudge and that opportunist Scrimgeour."

Sighing, Baley continued. "Never mind. Go on. You've already broken whatever secrecy you promised someone, so you may as well continue."

The green-eyed boy looked down at the floor, and mumbled, "I'm sorry about that. I honestly thought I was about to be attacked and taken to Voldemort. I was on my bed in my bedroom, when all of a sudden there was this immense flash of white light, and I was tumbling through this... tunnel? And then before I knew it, I landed in this corridor with numerous doors and locks. Your two blokes saw me, and managed to corner me pretty neatly. I tried stunning one then using a Memory Charm, hoping I could get away. Whatever your other bloke did, it felt like the Crushattus Curse."

Baley said, "Mind spelling that? What's a Memory Charm? What's a Crushattus Curse?"

Harry looked startled, and said, "Er.. well, it's C-r-u-c-i-a-t-u-s, and it's one of the three Unforgivable Curses. If you use one on someone else, you can get sent to Azkaban."

Elijah was having trouble keeping ahead of all this new jargon and information. Hopefully the psychology boys could make something of this kid's torrent of statements.

"Ok, hold on. So you thought the officer's neuronic whip was this... Curse?"

"Yeah. It hurts like hell, and I've been hit with it a few times. The other Unforgivables are the Imperius and the Killing Curses. Imperius lets you control someone else's mind, and the Killing Curse does... well, what it says."

"And Memory Charms?"

"What you'd expect. You use them to wipe out someone else's memory of a specific event, or if you have enough magical control, you can actually expunge quite a lot in the way of memories."

Baley, gobsmacked, said, "Hold on. Did you say magic?"

"Um, yeah. Look, bring me my wand. I promise I won't use it to try and kill you, or anything. It might not even work; there's a lot of electrical stuff in this area, it seems, and magic and electricity don't work well together."

Baley sat back, resting his head against the wall, trying to absorb what the boy was saying. If he hadn't seen that holographic record of the boy's attack, he would have put the whole thing down to an extremely complicated paranoid delusional complex in the boy, and suggested a transfer to the psychologists and mentologists. But he had seen it, and he was quite certain the boy's other statements had at least some kind of truth to them.

The question was, could he trust the kid? The boy had reacted violently when accosted, but if his words could be taken at face value, he could just as easily have killed Officer Miles, and if his reflexes had been any swifter, or if Travers had been a second slower on the draw, the second man might well have joined him.

He made a decision, and hoped he hadn't signed some death warrants. Upon stepping into the hallway, he saw Detective Granger returning. The red-haired man said in a low voice, "There's no address or location by the name of Privet Drive, let alone Number Four, in recent history. The last known use of that address before the Residential levels went in was at least a couple thousand years ago, and I only know this because I happened across some archival paperwork relating to compensation and expropriation for construction of the City."

Baley nodded, and said, "Bring the boy's piece of wood, would you? I'll personally guarantee his behavior."

Granger looked at him askance, and said, "Well, all right. It's your funeral, though, if he escapes because of this. You've seen what that kid can do."

Baley nodded, and said, "The boy admits he can kill someone with it. But without the neutralizer, he can't get through. Bring me the piece of wood, then you stay outside and manually operate the force barrier when I want to leave. I'll give you my neutralizer now. Keep your blaster ready."

Granger nodded, and pocketed Baley's neutralizer as he went back to the Evidence Storage Room to get Harry's wand. He returned shortly, handing it to Baley as he operated the controls to let Baley back into the cell.

Once inside and seated, Baley watched the boy carefully for any sign that he was about to attack. The plainclothesman said, "All right. I'm taking a risk here by bringing this to you. Detective Granger here tried to use this thing, and it didn't respond to him at all. I'm willing to bet if I try to use it, there won't be any effect at all."

The teenage captive nodded slowly. He said, "Can you put something small on the table?"

Baley took out a half-credit piece and plunked it on the plastic table, then carefully handed the wand to Harry. He said, "The boys ran every scan they could think of on that stick of wood. They were pushing to cut it open and take out the feather in it, but Detective Granger told them no."

Fearfully, Harry held his wand close up and examined it from all angles.

Reassuringly, Baley said, "They absolutely were not anywhere close to cutting it in any way. Without the Detective's express authorization, they wouldn't have done it. I take it that keeping the thing together is crucial?"

"Absolutely! If you cut a wand open it'd be like... I dunno, taking out the bullets from your gun, or something. Anyway, do you mind if I demonstrate with this?"

Baley moved into a corner, and said, "Detective Granger has my instruction to blast you if you try to escape. I don't even have the neutralizer to let me cross that force barrier, so don't think you can try anything funny."

Harry said, "I won't."

He pointed the wand at the half-credit piece, made a kind of curved movement upwards, then sharply flicked it about an inch downward, saying "Wingardium Leviosa."

And the half-credit piece lifted off the table.

A few seconds later, it clattered to the table, as Harry muttered, "Finite."

He turned the wand around, end for end, and plunked it on the table.

"There's my demonstration and show of good faith, gentlemen. I'm a wizard."


Author Notes:

So, another chapter. :) Unsure if this plot bunny has any long-term value, but it's an interesting exploration of Baley's interaction with a strange individual.