The young man knew who he was. He should not have known. This was disconcerting. His mind raced. He replayed the brief conversation last week. He knew he had given his name and given his profession, but never his rank. Was this a guess, an experienced veteran being able to tell who the sergeants were versus the officers? Or was he being collected against?
The two pints arrived and he took a sip of the cool bitter. The act of drinking was a natural pause in the conversation. It was a moment of normality. Across the table, the young man had closed his eyes and enjoyed the first two sips of the pint. He was relaxed and as he put the glass down, he smiled and mumbled.
"Muggles get that one right…"
"Muggles" That was a strange phrase. It rattled in Houlihan's head as he put his glass down. It was not a new phrase. He had heard it before. He just did not know when. It had to have been a while ago. He closed his eyes and opened up his memory palace. His mind took a brief walk down a hallway, a crystal palace of rooms and displays. Up the stairs he went and he opened a book - Fall 1982 - just after his Squadron had returned from the Falklands and a young man, slightly older than the almost brand new blade, had been attached to the Squadron for a mission to Beirut.
What was that boy's name -Drawlsey, no- Dawlish; almost completely forgettable except for how lucky he seemed to be. Within a week, no one played cards against him. He had managed to pull four consecutive gut shot straights to pocket over two hundred pounds of winnings. He had been with the team for six weeks and then he disappeared as soon as the mission was over. He was good; level headed in a firefight, accurate and amazingly lucky. An Druse militia had their position suppressed with RPGs and a heavy machine guns but somehow no one had been wounded and Dawlish had led the counter-attack that had re-opened the escape route to the sea. And then he disappeared and was never seen again. During the charge against the foxhole containing the heavy machine gun, the young sergeant had heard Dawlish curse or at least it sounded like a curse : "Muggles making things hard…." He, personally, was swearing in a way that would have made his pa, an old gunner from HMS Blake, proud while his ma would have been seeking out soap for his mouth.
"Harry, tell me, when was the first time you were in combat?"
"Why do you think I've been in combat?" Harry's eyes were steady but his words were quick and nervous.
"You're a veteran. The signs are clear. Your eyes never stop moving, you sat here tonight and you and your friends' favorite table at the Copper Cauldron has clear lines of sight to all doors while having some cover. Last week, when I heard a bang, you and all of your friends were getting ready for a fight. And then when the arse harassed your friend, you were decisive. Most young men your age, can I guess, 20 or 21, would have been performative in their threat displays. He was; he was merely trying to look big and scary. And then you declined to play that game with ruthless violence. You saw a threat and you saw a way to neutralize that threat. He expected words and puffery. You saw danger and a path out of that danger for you and your friends. That is a combat veteran who knows that there is no glory in violence, only a job to do and a mission to accomplish. "
Harry's face was blank as he listened. He wished Hermione was here to logically distract the sergeant or Ginny could squeeze his hand and give him confidence. Ron would have just ordered a few more beers and appetizers as food was almost never a bad idea. The beer was getting warm as he held the glass in his hand.
"Where would I have learned that, sergeant?" His voice was low, urgent and confident. "The UK has been at peace since 1991, and I was just getting ready for school, I think I had long division of fractions the day that the Gulf War started. There was the possibility of fighting in Serbia a few years ago, but where would I have learned to fight? "
""That son is why I've been watching you… you shouldn't know what you know."
"Ah, I am the man who never was there… what if I was seventy five and merely was a vampire who never aged?"
"Then your cover would be exceptional. The public records have you and Ms. Granger being born a few months apart. You went to a local school in Surrey until age 11 and then you just disappeared. Your bank records popped up on the grid again last year."
"So if I was a vampire, I could have the experience to build a good cover."
Harry's mind was whirring. The man in front of him could see that he was a black hole. The emptiness was the information.
"I can take you to the A&E as they have to have a few pints of Type A if that is more to your taste" Houlihan laughed at the idea that this young man with too many scars could be a vampire. That was merely fiction one read at the airport or in the field during a rainy exercise weekend.
"Nah… too coppery, don't like the taste of Type A. Now type B… that is the good stuff…. So what about your Sergeant Houlihan… what do you know about combat?"
"Too much to talk about in a pub. I know there is no glory. I know there is nothing to combat that the recruiters and the press want to highlight. I know I was scared shitless every time I was under fire, hoping that someone could not shoot straight and that the explosion would happen just a few feet too far away to keep me safe. I know what a small intestine feels like. I know the sound of life transitioning to death. I know the mission matters more than me, and I know that my wife fears my dreams almost as much as I do… I know boy, and I know you know that too."
Harry sat in silence. His glass was empty now and he had no memory of how that happened. Behind his eyes, he heard Hermione being tortured by Bellatrix, he felt Cedric's body slowing him down as he ran for the portkey in the graveyard. The lightweight coffin of Colin dug into his shoulder. Ginny's tears and shakes rattled his chest from her nightmares. Ron's scream as the locket resisted their attempts to destroy that fragment of the broken soul of a monster echoed in his head. The quiet of Kings' Cross the moment before Dumbledore arrived for their last conversation pushed Hermione and Ron's voices aside.
"Yeah, I know death, I know how a mission can overwhelm." His words were barely audible. His eyes were looking at a point just short of the center of the table. His neck was bent and his shoulders slumped.
"Harry, I know, boy, do I know…." Houlihan's hand reached across the table and grasped the forearm of his new comrade in arms. "I know, I know…."
They sat there quietly for a minute. The waitress ignored them as she knew she would be interfering. Little was said. Harry did not know what to say, he had knowingly been at war since he was eleven and had been fighting the Dark Arts since he could barely walk. This was his life, and it was what he knew. Houlihan said little either, as his words would not matter. He had found a comrade in arms. He had found another man who put mission above all else and had paid the price for daring to win.
"So where did you fight?"
"I can't tell you… bound by secrecy oaths… you?
"Same here on both counts."
"Another beer?" Houlihan raised his hand. The waitress quickly came by and exchanged the empty glasses for full ones. The two veterans clinked the glasses and started to talk and drink.
"How do you know so much about me?" Harry asked curiously.
"I was curious and I started to poke around. You are invisible. That is odd. I'm buried fairly well but my life still pops up frequently. I pay my bills, I owe taxes, I like the occasional pint. I use NHS services. My kids are in school. You've disappeared in 1991, and now I see only a sporadic wire into your bank account every few months for several thousand pounds. I could not find education records, I could not find employment records. You have an NHS card, but not an assigned doctor. You're almost invisible." The older man was still thinking as he was speaking. If Harry was older, in his thirties, he would have been thinking that he was a foreign operative, but there was no mentor, no ideological guidance counselor, nothing visible keeping him anchored to a foreign power.
"I'm merely discrete… what else would one expect to see?"
This was a major security threat. More and more of the Wizarding World was living on both sides of the border. It was no longer just Muggleborns and Halfbloods. Ron was trying his hardest to live with Hermione in a university student district. Luna was splitting her time between worlds as well. Even some of the Slytherins who had held their neutrality in the war were venturing outside of Diagon Alley or Kings Cross. Paperwork had always been a problem. Quick confounding charms and pointed obliviations had been sufficient before. Hermione had used the phrase "pragmatic invisibility" to describe how older Halfbloods had danced between worlds. Was that still possible in a Muggle world where everything was being connected and presence was detected far more frequently? A quick spell to insert a new line on a parish register would no longer be sufficient if that register was linked to a dozen different data tables that were validated and backed-up every night.
"A lot more. Even your friend Hermione has more bread crumbs. I can find her parents. I could not find yours beyond an obituary for both of them and a birth announcement for your mother. I only looked for a few hours this afternoon. But your friend also has tremendous gaps. And your lovers, they are utterly invisible until last year. "
Harry leaned forward. His hand gripped his wand.
"What do you know about Ginny?" He growled through his teeth, ready to pounce at once.
"Even less than I know about you. I know she has seen combat. I know that she is a leader. I know that she adores you. I know that she is on your motorcycle insurance and has a permit. And I know nothing else. Same with her brother…"
"How do you know…."
"Their hair, their noses, their annoyance at each other reminds me of the fights I had with my little sister. Either they are siblings or they are the best actors I've ever seen."
Harry relaxed a little. Houlihan noticed that he was under threat during his spiel. It was a very disciplined threat. A slight movement under the table, a muscle in Harry's neck not relaxing as it should, a narrowing of the eyes and a slight bobbing of the head. He was quite confident of his ability to go hand to hand against almost anyone in the world, and he was even more confident against Harry having seen his lack of training. Aggression could be deadly, but skilled aggression was guaranteed lethal. And then he relaxed as he saw Harry relax.
"We need to talk some more Sergeant Houlihan of the regiment and MI-5." Harry paused as he let go of his information. Houlihan barely reacted beyond taking another sip. His work at MI-5 was not a state secret but it was closely held. Almost everyone working there never talked about their jobs until Parliament requested information. Harry knew too much.
"I know you were the senior sergeant with the regiment. I know you've fought in the Falklands, Beirut, Pilsen, Gibraltar, Derry, Iraq, Kuwait, Mogadishu, Srebrenica, Sarajevo, Pristina, Port Said, and a dozen other places I can neither pronounce nor spell. I know you are thorough. I know that you visit your mates who have been wounded and discharged. I know you love your wife. I know you love your children. I know you have seen things that few others have seen and even fewer have survived. I know that. And I know that we need to talk, but not tonight, let's finish our beer and take a walk."
"Aye sir"
The two men drank.
