Chapter 5 – The Question
The light hurt Harry's eyes, which was surprising given that they were currently closed. He didn't want to open them because he believed that it would only make his head hurt worse. What was happening? He felt vaguely disjointed and unable to properly focus. Was there an accident? His mind eventually pieced together that an explosion had occurred. But what caused it?
"Voldemort!" Harry shouted as he sat up. "They must have somehow gotten through the defenses and captured me." Harry's thoughts raced. Opening his eyes he looked fitfully around his surroundings. Unfortunately without his glasses all he could make out was that he was in a stark white room with a machine to his immediate left beeping extremely fast rate. He felt an odd tugging sensation in his left arm and determined that there were some sorts of hoses connected to him. Reaching with his right arm he started checking for a night stand that might have his glasses on it. "I must be in some sort of muggle hospital." Harry apprehensively thought to himself. "Maybe there was some sort of accident and not an attack by Voldemort."
As Harry rocked his body to the left in order to grope for his glasses on that side, he heard a very calm, cultured voice say "Are you looking for these?" Though his vision was foggy he could distinctly see the form of a darkly dressed approaching him. Once this man was in arm's reach, he gently offered Harry what were quite possibly his glasses. Reaching out with his right hand he discovered that he was correct and swiftly put them on. He was greeted with the sight of an older man who reminded him of the former head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, Mr. Crouch, when he has seen him at the Quidditch finals. He was impeccably dressed in a business suit, with tightly combed hair. Although he didn't have a mustache, Harry sensed that Mr. Crouch and he could have been cut from the same cloth.
"Thank you" Harry managed to croak out. His throat was extremely dry and hurt. To his right the unfamiliar machine began to steadily decrease the rate of its beeping. Harry assumed that it must have been monitoring his heart rate since he was already feeling calmer.
"Oh no problem, would you care for a glass of water?" the man pleasantly asked.
Harry didn't want to use his voice again so he nodded his head.
The man reached to the side of Harry's bed and retrieved a brownish plastic pitcher. From it the man poured a small amount of water into a clear plastic cup and handed it to Harry. The water was very refreshing and Harry soon felt comfortable enough to use his voice again.
"What happened, where am I?" Harry asked disjointedly. His brain still felt foggy and he found it difficult to put together whole sentences.
"Both good questions, but I must insist that you first tell me how you are feeling. Do you hurt anywhere? Anything feel broken?" man asked in a cordial voice.
"No, I seem to be all in one piece." Harry said after scanning his arms and legs. He was sore, but nothing that was overly painful.
"How about your head, any pain?" The man asked.
Harry lightly massaged his temples and said, "Slight headache, I've experienced worse."
"Quite the trouper, I see. Good, very good. It seems my extreme rendition team performed their task admirably. I have to admit that I was concerned once the explosives went off and the lights went out. It is rather easy to lose control of a situation in the resulting confusion.", the man continued in his cordial tone.
The unfamiliar machine to Harry's right started beeping wildly as he abruptly realized that he was still in trouble and that this man was not some kindly doctor. "What? Wha… wha… what's going on? Who are you?" said Harry stammering. Instinctively, he searched the bedding around him for his wand, but found nothing.
"Again, the questions you pose are most reasonable given the situation. However the most pertinent one in this situation is not who am I, instead it is what are you, Mr. Potter?"
"I don't know what you mean! I was at home when we were attacked and that's all I know. Where's my Aunt? Is she ok?" Harry thoughts were erratic.
"It is commendable that you are concerned with your Aunt's welfare. Let me assure you she is well and unharmed. Now you do seem to have rather quick wits about you, hence I will cut to the chase as it were. The verbal technique you are attempting is called deflection and is statistically used most often in two circumstances: One, when an individual is guilty of an act; Two when an individual is attempting to delay. As to the first, you are a magic using being, given that my research demonstrates that individuals such as yourself exist as a genetic variation of humans, you cannot be guilty of it. No more than you could be guilty of being dark haired or thin. As to the second, I have no doubt that you have a goodly number of individuals searching for you using various magical techniques. Given that I have no ability to hinder this activity I wish to take full advantage of our limited time together." The man said in the same friendly tones.
"But who are you and what do you want of me?" asked Harry. The incessant beeping in the background slowed with his creeping belief that this man meant him no immediate harm. That and Harry found the thoughts of his friends looking for him comforting.
"Again, given our time constraints I would like to answer your question conceptually. Have you had much opportunity to watch much television, specifically crime dramas?"
"Ya, a few I guess, but what are you talking about?" Harry answered.
"That is a total of nine questions in fewer than five minutes, given the likelihood that you are still experiencing a mild state of shock, it indicates a rather inquisitive mind. But I digress, conceptually in this drama I am what is commonly referred to as the good cop. By using even vocal intonations, smiling, and offering small honest compliments, it is my intent to gain your trust. Unfortunately for every Ying there must be a Yang. If I may be so bold I will introduce my counterpart, bad cop." Stepping to one side, Harry could see another man entering into the room. Unlike the one before him who was rather smartly dressed, this one was in a military uniform. He approached Harry's bed with perfect thirty inch steps coming to a stop so fast there was a faint click of his heals. The soldier opened a folder with a precise flick of the wrist and began reading in clipped tones.
" Name: Harry James Potter, Birthday: 31 July 1980, No siblings. Mother: Lily (Evans) Potter, Died 31 Oct 1981, One sibling: Petunia Dursley, of #4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging. Father: James Potter, Died 31 Oct 1981, no further information. Known associates, Ronald Weasley, no further information. Hermionie Jane Granger, no Siblings, Birthday 19 Sept 1979. Parents: Fredrick Hermes Granger and Jane Elizibeth Granger of 7702 Westing Avenue Peterbourgh. Occpations: Dentist and Dentist"
"Oh I think that is quite enough bad cop. Our quick witted friend has already figured out that we are threatening his friends and their families. In case you are interested the list is actually quite extensive. Should we have sufficient time I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss the relevance of 'no further information' in our databases. It creates a very interesting and distinct pattern. But enough of shop talk." Smiling gently at the man in the military uniform, he wordless requested to be left alone with Harry again. Showing no emotion, the soldier did an incredible precise about face and marched from the room."
Once again alone, "Before continuing I have something of yours that you would probably like returned. May I approach you" the man asked
Warily, Harry nodded his head, signaling that it was ok.
After stepping to the side of the bed, Harry was completely surprised to see that the man had pulled a wand from his inside breast pocket. Instantly recognizing it Harry exclaimed "My wand!" He was further shocked when the man calmly handed it to him.
The man now stepped away from the bed allowing Harry every opportunity to cast a spell. Looking directly at Harry the man continued, "Now that I returned an item of extreme value to you, I ask for one small favor before you either magic yourself away or blow us all to smithereens. I have a single question that it is most perplexing to me, may I ask it?"
Feeling emboldened with his wand now in hand, Harry was confused and very, very curious. So he nodded his head once more in assent.
"Since I am no longer in a position of power, let me introduce myself as Dr. Millard Randels at your service. The question itself comes at the end of a rather lengthy discussion, so let me apologize up front for my unintentional loquaciousness. Not understanding magic or the magical community, what I have been able determine is that members have the ability to focus so called mystical energies through an apparatus called a wand in order to produce an extraordinarily wide variety of positive effects. By positive, I mean that there exists a direct relationship between intent and manifestation. The effects themselves, exceeding any possible naturalistic explanation, operate in direct opposition to the fundamental laws of the known universe. Now any first year debate student would counter that the laws we call fundamental are actually a subset of a larger set of laws that would account for all observed behaviors. Therefore our codification is overly simplistic and needs to be modified. Unfortunately, there exists a fallacy with this construct. Namely, all organic processes are subject to evolutionary pressures. It is an easy assertion that, evolutionarily speaking, you are a far fitter biological entity. Now before I ask my simple question do you understand what I have said so far?"
Harry hated feeling stupid, but there were too many foreign concepts for him to say yes. He desperately wanted to know way Dr. Randels had gone through so much just to ask a question. "I'm sorry, but no, I don't understand" said Harry.
"Thank you for you candidness. Let me rephrase. If we were on a deserted island, who do you think would have an easier time of it? It is my opinion that that it would be you. Imagine, a coconut suspended in a tree. You could magic it down. I would have to either climb the tree or create some sort of ballistic projectile to knock it down. If you wanted fire, you would just create it. I would have to rub two sticks together at a sufficient rate to cause the resulting friction to ignite the wood. When hungry, you could magic a diner in front of you. When tired you could magic a bed and shelter. If attacked by a wild animal you could magically defend yourself. In all these situations my level of effort would be tremendous, while yours would be insignificant."
Dr. Randels walked back and forth in front of Harry's professorially while explaining this. Keeping his arms tucked behind his back he continued with his explanation "Now imagine that we discovered a woman on this island. Being practical and in a survival situation, it is reasonable to assume that she would align herself with you. Extrapolating this scenario, it is therefore far more likely that any offspring produced by her would be of your linage not mine and so on if we continued to add magic using and none magic using people to our island. What I am referring to here is basic evolutionary theory. Meaning that those life forms that are best able to exploit their environment for resources are the most likely to survive. I do apologize, Mr. Potter, but out of personal curiosity I must asked one more question before my last. Does the magical community accept the tenets of the Theory of Evolution?"
Harry knew that Hagrid often practiced a form of animal husbandry. In fact, Hagrid had once bred a blast ended skoot illegally. But Harry had never heard any Theory of Evolution. All his classes indicated that except for development of new spells, the magical community was as it always had been. "No I've never heard of it, but I've never heard of a lot of things in our world." Harry offered. He had originally wanted to say that Hermione would probably know until the thought of her being captured and brought here, where ever here was, shocked Harry back to reality. Dr. Mills was dangerous and Harry had to be cautious.
"Hmmm how interesting. Before our time ends let me finish. If what I have said is true of magical people, then logically it would also be true of magical animals and plants. Magic should make it easier to survive and therefore magicial life will eventually beat out the non-magical varieties. This is my question to you then, why is the magical world getting smaller?"
Harry just stared at Dr. Randels. "Was he correct? Is he trying to trick me? What was this all about?" danced Harry's thoughts. "Didn't the giants and goblems once roam across most of Northern Europe? And I remember Professor Binns going on about how dragons were so numerous at one time they would blot out the sun during their yearly migrations. Migrations that, according to Charlie Weasley, haven't occurred in over a century. That and why is Hogsmeade the only fully wizarding community in Britain? I remember someone once telling me that Hogsmeade was founded by a Wizard fleeing muggles. Couldn't he have just blasted them?" Nothing made sense to him any longer, every impression screamed that Dr. Randels was right, we are shrinking. But how is that possible.
Intently watching the internal debate within Harry, Dr. Randels casually moved aside him and whispered into his ear, "We share the same enemy, Voldemort, please let me help."