The Wizard of Gotham
by Skysaber

Chapter Six

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Special thanks to dogbertcarroll for an interesting scene!

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Beep

Hi Ms. Ivy, This is Harry. Selina was a bit frozen so I took her and Eddie to Bermuda. It didn't start out that way, but things kinda got messed up. Eddie showed me how to start a car when you lost your keys, so while we were looking for a way to lead the Bat Burglar away from the greenhouse I found this weird car nearby so I kinda borrowed it. It had these weird bat symbols all over it. Eddie was still woozy from where the Burglar had hit him so I had to drive, but I'm not too good at stopping so we were way, ways, away when he was able to show me how to stop. Then this big guy with a red cape and a S on his chest showed up. Did you know that if you concentrate really hard till your fist glows red you can hit a lot harder? Anyway, Eddie said it looks like the guy had a glass jaw with the way he fell down so fast and that we'd have to lie low for a while, so we went to the Riverside hideout and took the zucchini-boat, and, well, here we are! You can find us at Selina's place, as she says you know about her resort out here.

beep

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Batman was seated in the Batcave, scowling at his monitor, many things on his mind. One was finding out why the entire security suite on the Batmobile had shorted out, so that the replacement systems could not be circumvented the same way. Half the town must have seen the Riddler waving to them from the open window of the Batmobile, Catwoman beside him.

The other part of his mind was on an earlier confrontation.

Mingled with that was a feeling of gratification. His new ward, Dick Grayson, had been coming along surprisingly well. In spite of wanting to keep him out of his nighttime activities, Robin had become a valuable asset.

The Dark Knight noted that between the obvious cheer of the Boy Wonder contrasting to his own dark and intimidating style, his own effectiveness at dealing with the villains to crowd his city was increasing markedly.

That was what led to them investigating Poison Ivy's Greenhouse, as well as the scoop on this latest criminal mastermind.

Batman had been knocking Two-Face about in a rooftop battle, but a comment of Robin's actually got the criminal distracted during the fight. "So, you're new. Don't tell us Batsy here has gone and gotten his own henchkid." Then, back to facing his superior opponent, Two-Face had gone on to ask, "Please soothe our aching hearts by saying you knew you were the second to do this?"

"What do you mean?" The Bat had growled out, in perfect form.

Two-Face had flipped the coin. It came up unscarred, and the villain got chatty, "Oh, don't tell us you hadn't heard, oh specialist of Gotham lore. Is it actually our honor to tell you that Poison Ivy had a boy for a sidekick before you did? Well, we can see that it is. You know, we could feel two ways about that. On the one hand pleasure that we knew something you obviously didn't. On the other, terror, because now Ivy is going to kill us for ratting on her. We console ourselves with the delicious irony that you are the second to pick up a boy sidekick."

Two-Face stabilized as he stumbled back. "But let us be among the first to congratulate you on now becoming a pair of costumed crimefighters, a truly Dynamic Duo, if we say so ourselves, and wish you the best of luck, until we kill both of you, that is. However, we cannot afford to let this stand at one piece of information. No, that wouldn't do at all considering who we are. So, to commemorate this stellar occasion, allow us to give you both a little tip, oh protector of Gotham, for a new player has joined the ranks of this city's underworld elite. We wouldn't want to spoil the surprise by telling you his powers, but..." the coin was flipped, unscarred side up once more. "We will tell you this much, the newest villain to creep along this city's sick and disgusting underside calls himself The Headmaster. We'll let you figure out the rest from there."

Two-Face had then popped a two-colored smoke bomb and nearly gotten away, dodging down a laundry chute. If not for the even-number on the door he'd tried escaping through on the second floor, he would not be in Arkham now.

That was the way Batman fought, by outthinking his opponents as often as outfighting them.

But to do that, he needed information, and information on this Headmaster fellow was just not forthcoming, as yet. That could very well mean that he was new to the costumed crime scene. Nevertheless, Batman would keep his eyes open for clues as to this newcomer's behavior.

There would be patterns, there always were. Those would lead him to this villain, and then he'd get treated just like the rest.

The mention of Poison Ivy having a boy for a sidekick was disturbing him, however. Concerned that she was corrupting an innocent, naturally he'd gone to investigate, and seen a glimpse of the child before he'd vanished into the greenery. Not anyone, his own opponents or the common criminal on the street, had that well developed of a flight reflex, startled into full escape mode on the briefest glimpse of him.

It was disturbing, and hinted at something deeper.

Batman had followed, avoiding Ivan's corner of the greenhouse and using Batarangs and other tools to fight off the other green pests that accosted him during his pursuit.

He'd fought very few people who were that good at running and hiding, and partway into the chase the boy had disappeared entirely, most likely down a prepared escape chute. There hadn't been time to search for it, as he'd been forced to turn his attention away, as the Riddler was stealing the Batmobile.

So Batman was seated in the Batcave, scowling at his monitor, in particular staring at a surveillance photo of Poison Ivy going to a restaurant, out with her new protege at a meeting with other Rogues. It was useful to monitor such appearances, when they did them in public, as that gave him a useful measure of what alliances could be forming among his enemies. But nagging at the back of his mind was the boy's appearance. He knew that he bore a resemblance to someone he knew. But who?

His computer was already running comparisons, but he had already dismissed the quintessential Rogues of Gotham. A fact which annoyed him, and threw the potential net much wider. A search through the full criminal database could take hours, and time might be important.

He knew there was something he was missing. But what?

Alfred came down to set a plate with a sandwich on it by his employer's elbow, as always obtaining a discrete look at the screen as he did so. This time he stopped to remark on it. "A startling likeness, sir. That unruly black hair is a distinctive feature, bringing to mind another young boy I once knew. I would almost take it for one of your childhood photographs were it not for the company. I wonder, perhaps, should I be making discrete inquiries?"

"What are you saying, Alfred?" he growled out, refusing to admit surprise.

"Other women, entirely without super-powers, have been noted to ensnare a better man than they might otherwise have been able to obtain a match with by the simple expedient of bearing him a child, sir." Alfred calmly went about dusting the area around his plate. "And I note that Poison Ivy was among your first foes, making a play to take Bruce Wayne as her paramour to gain access to his fortune, as I recall. A specialist in hypnotism, and enticing men. You have spoken more than once of how irked you feel over your incomplete memories of that occasion."

Batman was too strong a man to stare, horrified, at his butler as the possible implications set in.

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Catwoman's cottage, actually her own private island (albeit a very small one) was not unknown to Pamela Isley, who grew her own Gourd Galleon to get there, using a new breed of female-looking plant people she had been working on previous to her last trip to Arkham to crew the three-masted vessel. If the Greenhouse had frozen, they would have been put off for years, if not forcing to her to start over entirely in search of a path to a viable strain.

So far they were very promising. She decided to call this new race Feraks.

"Oh, Pammy, what took you so long?" Catwoman, in a one-piece bathing suit, called out from a deck chair, waving a drink with a straw in it.

Pamela sauntered up to her friend, putting her purse down on a table, as she sat down, feeling chatty. "Oh, I was just kidnapped by some wizards who injected another lady's brain into my head."

"WHAT?!?!"

"You heard me. Nasty people tried to turn me into Two Face, and of course there was no way I was going to allow that to happen. So, before the pair of us got exhausted and passed out completely, merging with who-knows-what consequences or random effects, she and I sat down to negotiate what would remain of each of us in the new, dominant personality that formed out of us when we combined into a single person."

"And... how does that work exactly?" Selina put down her drink to peer at her friend over the tops of her sunglasses, noting some distinct changes to her appearance as she did so - all subtle things, like facial structure, were just a little off, making her look (to those that knew her) like a brand new person.

Lily Potter, though Selina had no way of knowing that.

"Oh, very simple, actually. It's all a dreamscape anyway, so we imagined up a nice lounge suite, suitably decorated with plants, of course, and we sat down to bargaining. She insisted on keeping her school years, and those were so massively useful that I had to agree. But then of course I wanted mine, and seeing as how much I knew that she didn't naturally she agreed. Then she learned that I had her son living with me, so she wanted to keep everything she had on his father, which I was not terribly comfortable with, let me tell you, but in exchange she let me keep my beloved plants, and there you go. I had to agree once she put it that way. We agreed to keep her family, as she loved them so very much and I honestly didn't care for mine. But in exchange I made her let me keep my life of crime, although to be honest I'm not all that interested in pursuing that career anymore. Dear little witch seems to have slipped in a certain amount of distaste for it. Oh, well, it's not like I'll hurt for money in any case. Well..." she got a playful grin, "Maybe I won't be giving it up all at once. There are one or two scores I'd still like to settle."

Catwoman was, for the moment, speechless.

Pamela shrugged. "Anyway, I can't recall all of our agreements, it seemed literally everything had to be hashed out, but I am glad to have her memories of family in here because we agreed that, since those nasty wizards were modifying me into her near clone anyway, that I may as well pretend to be her. And if it turns out that she's not dead, we are already agreed that I can pass as her twin sister. But it's not like there is a great chance of that happening. The man who was convinced I was this Lily had seemed quite certain she was dead."

"Uh huh," Selina stated, then playfully inquired, "And how many times has one of us been thought dead, only to turn up a few months later?"

"Oh dear." Pamela paled.

"Yes, dear. Quite."

"Well, I'd better look into it then. Pity, I was hoping to get some extra time for planting. This is sprouting season, you know. Now your turn, where is Harry?"

Selina didn't even spend a moment blinking as she assimilated and adapted to the fact that this wasn't a fellow villain asking about her sidekick sort of question, this was the voice of a mother inquiring about her son. She slid her glasses back on and leaned back with a smile. "Oh, he's inside. Eddie is teaching him how to mix drinks."

Pamela got up to go in. "Good, I'm going to go see him. Those people the Headmaster had him staying with were positively dreadful! But at least I got him to stop paying them support money - out of MY accounts! You and I are going to have a little talk later about how to get him back for that."

And with that, she skipped off to see her son.

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"Have you made any progress on your research of the young lad, sir?"

Lounging back in his chair, body seemingly at ease yet at odds with the fiercely determined set of his face, Batman answered, "Yes. The boy's most distinct features are some notable flaws in his backstory. His name is Harry Potter, left on the doorstep of a family in Surrey four years ago. The family, a Vernon Dursley, his wife Petunia Evans Dursley, and their son Dudley, were left with the tale that the boy was the offspring of Lily Evans, sister to Petunia, and a James Potter. However, I broke in to Poison Ivy's greenhouse again to do a search, and the identity of Lily Evans is one she has apparently been using for years. Her records for this were surprisingly complete. Also, this James Potter does not exist in any database I have been able to find. No records of any sort cover the person 'Lily Evans' supposedly married. There was no record of his birth, education, their marriage or even deaths, and the car crash in which this couple was supposed to have died never happened."

"Your conclusions, sir?" Alfred asked politely, and with strict formality.

Batman gave in to the urge to rub his eyes. "'Potter' is a fairly obvious alias for our vine-happy friend. Also, calling her alternate identity 'Lily' after her own middle name of Lillian, choosing a woman named Petunia for a sister, all plant centered names, even the address at which the surrogate family lived: Privet Drive, when privet is a kind of hedge, specifically a privacy hedge used to conceal. No, this goes so far beyond coincidence as to be unbelievable as anything but a setup. Poison Ivy might just as well have advertised that this was all arranged to create a false ID for herself - Which could be the case. Whenever one of the costumed criminals of Gotham goes to such lengths to make something obvious they want it to be found, and this has Poison Ivy's vine marks all over it."

Releasing a pent up breath at the admission he was about to make, Batman continued, "Then to name the boy Harry, an obvious reference to his most outstanding feature, aimed to draw my attention to the fact that his hair is identical to my father's and mine, a noted Wayne trait. His being left on a doorstep to highlight that he is not staying with his natural parents, and the fake story of those parents' deaths so obvious that you don't even need to be a detective to find holes in it, as that car accident never occurred. I have to conclude that she wanted me to find this, when she deemed the time was right. She didn't even bother to conceal it, only stashed it away in England so I wouldn't notice it at once, and even that might have reference to my time in college there, or to your presence, as she knows Bruce Wayne has an English butler. Every aspect of this has the same sort of identifying mark."

Said English butler waited in patient silence.

Batman was falling into a more sure rhythm as he stated off the noted facts of the case, "Once more, Vernon Dursley flew with his family to Gotham early this year to meet with me. If he hadn't been so obviously dishonest, a noted flaw in most villainous henchmen, I probably would have met his family as the deal went through and we signed the documents over lunch. Harry was dressed in rags, I have the surveillance tapes of the museum where they passed the time and it's almost comical how they exaggerated his poverty while the rest of the family was overfed and overdressed. Bruce Wayne is a noted philanthropist, it would have been impossible for the head of the Wayne Foundation not to notice or start inquiries into the mistreated boy. Then the rest of this story was made to be exposed."

A few keystrokes brought up a passenger list showing the Dursleys, but no Harry, whose ticket had been turned in for a refund, without being used. "As if this weren't enough. Harry failed to return to England with his family, who were arrested by the way, a common means of disposing of minions without paying them the promised end-of-assignment bonus, and rather substantial monthly deposits to the Dursley banks accounts have stopped now that they are no longer caring for the boy."

The Dark Knight of Gotham then brought up an image, taken through a roof at night, of a laughing Harry working alongside Poison Ivy in her greenhouse.
"Harry has since been staying with his mother in her Gotham Central Park address in an obviously affectionate relationship. What's more, he is a skilled gardener, extremely gifted for his age. Pamela Isley could not have made this 'hidden child' more obvious or easier to find. And from the Dursley episode it is apparent that she has already tried to bring it to my attention once."

Once more keystrokes changed the display, this one to a fancy restaurant where Pamela and Harry were eating while chatting away. "Her taking him out for daily meals, before her abduction by this latest villain interrupted the schedule, when Poison Ivy had typically dined alone could be categorized as a second attempt to gain Bruce Wayne's attention. Society has already noted the boy's vivid green eyes. Between that, and her maternal affection for him, the gossip columns are already convinced that Harry is her child. It's only a matter of time before speculation turns to who the father is, and the distinctive Wayne appearance will be noted."

Batman withdrew his hands from the keyboard to rub his tired eyes once more. "She's given herself a near-perfect setup for a paternity case to sue for ownership of the Wayne fortune once I pass on (something which I'm sure she feels she could arrange). The fact that Bruce Wayne is infamous as a ladies man and playboy only strengthens her position. And the whole thing fits her criminal behavior patterns perfectly, as she is growing new life as the central point in a scheme to bring herself both wealth and influence."

"And now, sir?" The statement of interest was still a formal one.

"I have a son, Alfred." Batman declared. "Now all I have to do is find a way to bring him home, and to find a way to do so without the demise of Bruce Wayne or giving Poison Ivy the keys to the Manor."

"Do you have a plan, sir?"

"I always have a plan, Alfred."

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Author's Notes:

Sounds like a strong case, doesn't it? It's only flaw is that it's WRONG!! But hey, even Batman isn't perfect.

He just tries harder than most.

Oh, and the red light around Harry's had was an accidental stunning spell. Superman is not immune to magic, one of his few vulnerabilities.