Harry woke up with a killing headache.
He put his hand on his head and groaned.
"Ah, you're finally awake."
Harry turned his head in the direction of the voice. When he saw the Mr. Evans' face, the headache only got worse and he hissed in pain.
"Wh-What happened?" he asked.
"What happened," Mr. Evans dryly answered, "is that I gave you one order and you disobeyed it. I wish I could ask you what on earth you were thinking but I think it's clear that you were not thinking in the first place."
Harry grimaced as he tried to remember what order he could have possibly ignored to make the man so unhappy.
Except he couldn't. No matter how hard he tried, his headache only got worse.
He knew he had left Madam Malkin's and entered the theatre but after that Harry was drawing a blank.
Mr. Evans gave a loud sigh. "Shortly before tonight representation I asked you to put the vanishing cabinet in the storage room, leave the theatre and go home," he began explaining. "What you did however is come back with the detective over there, something I definitely didn't want to happen."
It was only then Harry noticed the unconscious man sitting in an armchair on his left.
It didn't make sense, Harry couldn't help thinking. Going back and bringing a muggle to see Mr. Evans, which reason could drive him to do this?
Come to think of it, why would Mr. Evans ask him to put the vanishing cabinet before the show? Why would the man forgo his main magic trick and ask him to go home?
Harry hissed but tried to ignore the pain. Somehow it seemed important. He didn't know why but Harry got the feeling this was the key behind everything. Now, why would the man forgo the vanishing cabinet?
"Were there wizards in the audience?" he tried.
The man blinked.
"One," he finally answered. Seeing Harry looking at him he grimly smiled. "In case you meet him again his name is Brutus Greengrass. He and I have known each other for a long time but ever since he became an Auror he has become more troublesome. He came to cause troubles regarding my cabinet and, well, this," he said, pointing at the posters in the room. "I usually know how to handle him but the two of you clearly thought I needed some rescuing. It must be said," he dryly added, "this 'rescue attempt' was rather underwhelming. The inspector I can more or less forgive but why on earth would you reveal yourself like you did and attempt to duel him when you did not even have your wand?"
"You said I wouldn't need it!" Harry protested.
Mr. Evans scoffed. "Do not try to put your failings on me, young man. Why do you think you're here?"
Harry paused. "Why I'm here?"
"Yes, why are you here? If I'm asking you this question," he dryly told him, "it's probably because it's linked to what you've just said so think. Why are you here?"
Harry looked at the man's impassive face a moment. Finally he tiredly sighed and closed his eyes.
Why are you here? That was a question Harry had asked himself a few times. Why was he stuck in the past? Sometimes in his dreams between two screams he'd ask Professor Dumbledore this question. Why hadn't tried to stop this, or why hadn't he already saved him? Why was Harry still in the past?
And why hadn't Professor Dumbledore told him anything about what was going to happen?
But despite how much he'd scream and shatter everything in his dreams, Professor Dumbledore would never answer this particular question. And this definitely was not what Mr. Evans was referring to.
"An Auror was here, desperately wanting to charge somebody of breaking the statute of secrecy," the man repeated. "You tried to attack him so why on earth are you here?"
Harry opened his eyes and looked at the man. "I shouldn't be here," Harry slowly began. "I should- I should be in Azkaban."
Mr. Evans rolled his eyes. "Nobody goes to Azkaban for a breach in the statute of secrecy and even then you'd get a trial beforehand. Still, at minimum you'd see the door of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. You may not remember him, I can assure you Brutus would have loved dragging you there. So why didn't he?"
"I suppose it was because he couldn't," he carefully tried.
"Yes, obviously, but why?"
Harry thought about it. Suddenly remembering Mr. Evans's previous words he stilled and numbly looked at him.
"Because I didn't have my wand," he whispered.
"Meaning?"
"He assumed I was a muggle."
Mr. Evans grimly smiled. "What sort of wizard would be going anywhere without his wand? These wizards like to say there is some major difference between them and non-magical people, the only true thing separating the two on sight is the wand. Brutus checked for a wand but didn't find any and as a result was firmly convinced you were a muggle. And like the good detective you got the muggle treatment and only got your memories erased. That is why I ordered you to put your wand away. It the best course of action if wizards were to come here."
So that was what happened, Harry dimly thought. Harry couldn't remember anything because this Brutus Greengrass had erased his memories of the entire evening.
"Rushing in the room ready to fight an Auror however?" the man continued and crossed his arms. "It's the worst and thank Merlin you forgot you didn't have your wand or a headache would be the least of your problems. I told you to leave so why on earth didn't you?"
Harry didn't remember. But if he couldn't remember he had a pretty god idea what would have driven him to stay.
"I suppose we were worried about you."
The man paused a moment.
Finally he scoffed. "If you truly want to help, try to use your brain before doing something unbelievably stupid next time."
It was at this moment they heard a groan.
The inspector was waking up. "Wha- What happened?" the man weakly asked before putting a hand on his head.
He then frowned and touched his head again.
"Ah, inspector," Mr. Evans said, "are you feeling better? I must say, you gave Harry and me quite a fright there."
The magician then began to weave a story where the detective in trying to find how the vanishing cabinet worked had accidentally set off a booby trap.
Considering the detective's suspicious look, he wasn't quite buying it.
"Something happened, didn't it?"
Mr. Evans paused.
Before he could say anything however somebody outside the room screamed.
The detective immediately got up and left the room. "What's wrong?" he asked the woman in the corridor.
The woman was white as a sheet. "F-Fire!" she shouted. "I-In the-the storage room! There's smoke coming from the storage room!"
The man immediately turned to Mr. Evans and, voice firm, asked if there were anything in the storage room than could explode.
Mr. Evans grimaced. "Yes but I don't think-"
But the man was already leaving. "Tell everybody to leave the theater," he ordered before running to the storage room.
Mr. Evans cursed under his breath and ran after him, Harry following behind.
When they entered the storage room, Harry's heart stopped.
The vanishing cabinet was on fire.
The inspector loudly swore and ordered Mr. Evans to bring water while he'd try to contain the fire before it could spread out.
But Mr. Evans, face blank, told the man, "There's no point."
The muggle uncomprehendingly looked at him an instant.
He then shook his head and left the room, probably to bring water himself.
"Water does not do anything against this sort of magical fire," Mr. Evans explained as Harry was about to leave to lend the man a hand. "And if you go grab your wand, by the time you come back it'd be too late."
"We have to do something !" Harry shouted. "You can't just-"
The man shrugged. "Only a wizard can stop this fire."
"Then cast the counter-spell or-"
"I'm a magician, not a wizard."
Harry looked at him a second. He then left the room to grab his wand, hoping to prove the man wrong.
But no matter how fast he ran, when Harry came back to the storage room there was nothing left of the vanishing cabinet but ashes.
Something must have shown on their face when they came back because the first thing Mrs. Evans said was: "What happened?"
Mr. Evans, jaw tense, didn't answer.
That seemed to be enough. "Again?" she exclaimed. "What have they done now?"
"Burned down the vanishing cabinet," Harry dryly answered.
She opened her mouth in shock. After a moment she said, "It's got to stop, Patrick. You should- You should call the police and-"
"Problem is, he is the police." Eyes on the windows, he said, "And it'd cause us more problem than it has-"
"I don't care!" she exclaimed. "These- These people have no right to do this, none at all! How are we supposed to earn our keep if they keep destroying your props for your shows? What right do they have to keep making our life hell? For- For heaven sake, why do you still-?"
"I had everything under control," he tersely replied. "Everything! It's not my fault if that detective and that boy barged in and tried to fight Brutus!"
Mrs. Evans finally seemed to remember they were not alone and looked at Harry. "You tried to attack that wizard?"
"I told him to go home," Mr. Evans answered. "Somehow, he thought that meant he needed to barge in with Scotland Yard. So, naturally, Brutus panicked and felt he had no other choice to cover his mistake by burning my cabinet. If it wasn't for them, I'd still have it. I'm sure of it."
Mrs. Evans didn't say anything.
Mr. Evans opened the window when an owl began knocking with its beak.
"That one's for you," he told Harry after glancing at the envelope.
When Harry saw the seal of the Improper Use of Magic Office, he couldn't stop a scream of utter frustration.
He didn't even need to open it to know it would say than on the 20th of July 1897 somewhere around 10 o'clock pm they had records of magic being done in the theatre and that he was in their eyes responsible of it.
"I'm the one who got cursed! And he is the one who destroyed the vanishing cabinet!"
"Perhaps but if you tell them this, the Improper Use of Magic Office will check your story and start talking with the Auror Forces. And if the likes of Brutus were to realize that you are in fact a wizard you will be in a different sort of troubles."
Harry gritted his teeth.
He wanted to scream at the pure injustice of it, he wanted to go to the Ministry and outright burn down the Improper Use of Magic Office for all the troubles it had brought him. In that moment, Harry would rather face the entire Wizengamot for his 'crime' than paying for something he most certainly didn't do.
But Mr. Evans seemed to know what he was thinking for he said, "Do not tickle the sleeping dragon. Departments rarely talk with each other and it is rarely a good thing when they start being competent. You keep your mouth shut, this letter is all you're going to get. You try to fight back, you'll find soon enough they can cause you a lot of problems."
At these words, the scar on Harry's hand tingled, cruelly reminding him how true this was. And Professor Mesmer had made it more than clear Harry couldn't afford anybody at the Ministry to pay attention to him.
Harry Potter after all didn't exist yet.
Not even the realization this was technically his first offence was enough to calm him.
"So what now?" Mrs. Evans quietly asked her husband. "What do we do?"
"The show must go on," he said after a moment. "I'll just-" Mr. Evans sighed. "I'll think of something."
Harry hesitated. "Can't we just..."
He didn't know what he wanted to say. Buy another vanishing cabinet? Harry remembered seeing one at Borgin and Burkes but not only Harry didn't think it was already there he doubted any of them could afford one. Make one? Harry couldn't use magic in the first place. And Mr. Evans, Harry now knew, was a squib and couldn't charm any cabinet.
"Here's the thing," Mr. Evans told him, "I need a cabinet. And I need it now. With the inspector asking us to see him tomorrow and swearing he'd do everything to find the one responsible for the fire, I won't find the time to bring one for Monday. The real problem is not the cabinet in itself, it's time. More than Brutus, our real enemy is time."
He searched his pockets and retrieved his fob watch. After flicking the watch crystal he raised an eyebrow.
"But then again," he pensively said, "sometimes time is on our side."
"And it was you who had the key to the basement," the detective said. "The only key to the basement, correct?"
Harry shrugged. "I must have forgotten to lock the door."
The detective suspiciously looked at him.
For a reason Harry didn't quite understand, the man wasn't swallowing the accident explanation Harry and Mr. Evans had agreeed on and had decided to put his bushy mustache in the incident and treat it as arson. So here he was, the day after the fire asked to give his 'testimony' in Scotland Yard.
"And I… I tend to smoke there," he tried. "It must be because of that the cabinet caught fire."
The detective hummed. "That makes sense, I suppose." He sighed and from a breast pocket retrieved a metalic box and a lighter. After lighting a cigarette he started musing, "Of course that doesn't explain how a cabinet would burn down in less than ten minutes but that'd explain how the fire started. Also, one would think we'd have found a cigarette butt there."
Harry shrugged. "The entire cabinet burnt down, maybe the butt had the same fate."
"True."
Harry coughed.
The detective handed him the cigarette box. "Want one?"
"Oh no, I wouldn't-"
"I insist. You should take it."
Harry frowned. "I really-"
"Because if you don't, I'm probably going to assume you don't smoke so, really, it's in your interest to to take it if you want me to leave you alone."
After a moment of hesitation Harry took the cigarette and the lighter the man gave him.
He promptly coughed at the first breath.
The man crossed his arms, a self-satisfied smile on his face.
"Now, why would you try to try to take the blame? I hope you realize this isn't some little magic trick you're hiding here. The fire could have spread out and burnt down the entire theatre. With what I saw was also down there, it could have even exploded."
That was where the muggle was wrong. Not only was Harry literally trying to hide plain magic, the magical fire had been charmed to only burn the vanishing cabinet and would have never destroyed anything else.
The man sighed and leant on the table between them. "I know your lot wants to handle everything on your own," he quietly began, "but sometimes you need to ask for help. You lost a cabinet this time. Maybe you don't find it too bothersome because you just have to make a hole in another one but what is it going to be next time? Because, between you and me, this sort of situation can only escalate. That's why it needs to stop before it's too late."
Harry was still thinking about the detective's words when he left Scotland Yard.
He knew that technically Mr. Evans was the one in the wrong for threatening the statute of secrecy. But the way everything happened, it hadn't felt like some wizarding authority had come to confront Mr. Evans over the magician gig. It had more felt like some thug had decided to cause the squib troubles just because he could.
But then again, the ministry had often acted like a big bully so perhaps that was to be expected.
Walking in front of a broken cabinet left near the bins, Harry stopped walking and couldn't help thinking about the one that had vanished in smoke and how they needed to somehow have it replaced it before next week.
But where would they find one? Even if they did find one, could any of them afford it?"
Harry pensively looked at broken cabinet a moment before shaking his head and walking away.
"I suppose I could teach you the spell," Madam Malkin mused when Harry told her a client wanted a stain-proof charm to be put on her clothes for the third time that day. "It'd make us win valuable time."
"I can't use magic outside Hogwarts"
"Oh, you're not going to have any problem with the Improper Use of Magic Office if it's for work. There are exceptions in the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery after all. And it's not as if the Ministry is going to pick it up if you do magic in Diagon Alley."
Harry very slowly turned his head. " What? "
Apparently, the way the trace worked, it was utterly ineffective in Diagon Alley or in any wizarding place and any magic done in that place was quietly ignored by the Improper Use of Magic Office. That was apparently a well-known loophole many wizarding families used when they had children learning magic or wanting to have wizarding jobs during the holidays.
In a voice that wanted to stay calm Harry asked, "So if I do something here that's legal, but if I do the same thing outside Diagon Alley it's suddenly not?"
The witch nodded. "The Ministry's true goal is not to punish children from doing magic," she explained, "it's to protect the statute of secrecy. That's why they only bother paying attention to magical activity in muggle places. In practice, only muggleborns are concerned by the decree and wizarding families are rarely bothered when a child is found using magic. I suppose it's not very fair for muggleborns," she mused, "but that's just the way it is."
He had enough of this.
Mr. Evans raised his eyebrows when he saw Harry coming to the theater pushing a cabinet on a trolley.
"Well, would you look at that. I'm almost willing to forgive you for not coming to tonight's show."
Harry tried to catch his breath.
After hearing he could literally use magic in Madam Malkin's shop without being caught but would get accused of others using magic in the muggle world, the first thing Harry had thought was that he was done playing by the book. If he was going to be punished for something he didn't do anyway, then he had no reason to not exploit that loophole. As long as Harry was doing it in the magical street, he could do anything .
And if Harry wanted to fix a broken cabinet he's found on the street, then Harry was going to drag that bloody thing to Madam Malkin's and use magic to fix it there.
Mr. Evans put his hands in his pockets and leant against the wall behind him. "Not that I'm not happy to see you bringing me this but what are you going to do now?"
Harry hadn't thought that far ahead.
Mr. Evans shook his head. "Oh well, we'll talk about this after we bring this beauty in the storage room. Where did you find it by the way?"
Harry explained how he got it as the two of them pushed the cabinet. When Harry went to the part where Harry used the mending charm, the magician demanded if that was the only charm Harry had used.
Harry nodded. "I don't know how to charm the cabinet," Harry explained. "But maybe I can find a charm that-"
"And we started so well," the man regretted as they finally left the storage room. Opening the door to his room he told Harry, "Do you even realize how narrow-minded you are being?"
Harry frowned. "I don't understand."
He sighed as he closed the door behind him. "Of course you don't. You've been given a wand and you've been told you could do anything with it. But has it ever occurred to you that you using magic might be the wrong answer to your problems? That there may be another way? A better way?"
Seeing Harry's puzzled face, he gave him a small smile. "I told you yesterday Brutus didn't bring you to the Ministry of magic because he assumed you were a muggle. But have you ever wondered why he didn't bring me there?"
Harry's thoughts came to a sudden halt. "Why he didn't take you to the Minisry?" he numbly repeated.
Mr. Evans walked in the direction of a poster where Mr. Evans was drawn with a dove in each hand. Once he unpinned that particular poster Harry saw a safe on the wall.
"One reason naturally is that an Auror going to such lengths to arrest a poor man like me is like using the killing curse to get rid of a fly," he said as he began putting the combinataion. "Such matter should normally be handled by regular wizarding law enforcers and not the Auror force."
Opening the safe he retrieving several papers he put on the table.
"The other reason is that I've never broken the statute of secrecy in my entire life."
On the papers were drawn numerous plans for a vanishing cabinet.
"It took me three weeks to make the other one," the magician explained. "Considering I've never used anything magical to make it, wizards cannot do anything but let me use it for my shows. The second Brutus saw it was just a 'regular' cupboard, his hands were tied and he was the one threatening the statute of secrecy by attacking random muggles. That's why he burnt down my cabinet: to cover his arse."
Harry numbly looked at the drawings where he could see the trap door at the bottom of the cabinet and the hidden door behind the front.
The vanishing cabinet where one person would mysteriously vanish once they entered it, the doves coming from nowhere, the numerous objects the magician would pull out of his top hat… Harry had never thought much of it before, thinking the man had been hiding a wand in his sleeve. He had only chuckled at the detective trying to find out how it was done and giving them theories after theories, thinking how funny it was the see the muggle so completely fooled.
But now Harry could see he had been the one in the right and Harry was the one who got tricked.
"How could I not see it?" he whispered.
"Because you were so utterly convinced you knew how it was done you've never once bothered looking closer," Mr. Evans answered. "You've had many golden opportunities to just open the door and you've never taken any. You knew wizards could charm cabinets and entirely forgot there could just be another way. And when somebody who seemingly knows less that you handed you the answer on a silver platter, you ignored him. You didn't see because you were not looking."
Harry winced.
The magician checked his watch. "Now that you got us a cabinet, we just need to use the blueprints to make another 'vanishing cabinet'. I'll be busy this week so I'm afraid you'll have to do most of the work. Still, it should be doable to have it ready for Monday. You can see this as a way for you to pay me back for letting you stay home if you want. "
Harry numbly looked at the papers on the table.
He had thought the man to be fooling muggles. The truth was, Mr. Evans had somehow decided what he wanted in life was to give the middle finger to the entire wizarding world.
Harry finally grinned. "When do I start?"
