DISCLAIMER: Neither the TV show 'NCIS' nor the 'Harry Potter' book series belong to me.
The house's boundaries were marked all around it by tall bush fences, on top of a cement wall. It had security cameras, the tapes of it already sent to the Yard. But he was pretty sure that that was a blind spot. There was a tree right at the corner of the dog house that provided a cover from everyone outside the safety of that 'hiding spot'. All of that, combined with the bush of the boundary, provided a covered space so tight and hidden that he knew he could be surprised if someone was in there.
Except there wasn't. Two square feet of space was all that constituted the little bubble of secrecy. The branches looked pushed back so that someone's head could fit there easily – though for a child, because he had to reduce his height to be able to be in there - and the ground was stepped on, so that the grass had almost completely vanished. And it was empty.
"Is it safe to go in there?" Marian asked in a whisper. He was surprised; her voice shook, but only just, and there were no other evidence of fear otherwise. She seemed to have exceptional control over her emotions. She could make a great cop someday.
He turned, bent under the branches to look at her on the outside of the little 'secret' and relaxed her with a reassuring smile. "Absolutely. You scared whoever was here away." He grinned as she joined him.
She giggled – more weakly than before, but looking perfectly composed. "I did not. There was no one here, was there?" She protested with a smile.
His grin broadened – he mock huffed. "Pfft, no one ever believes what I say. You ask Ziva if she trusts my mouth." He shook his head in mock sorrow, keeping his eyes open for any evidence.
It was June, so no footprints. He'd noticed on the way there – the grass and the summer ground underneath prevented them. He didn't notice anything else, but he needed to get out and call for someone to help him with processing the place.
Only one thing left. "You did say there was a way into the house through here?" He asked Mary, who was pulling absent-mindedly on some leafs from a nearby branch.
When he spoke, her full attention came back, however. She nodded, dropping her green achievements. "Yes. There." She pointed at the farthest corner of the hiding spot. Once he understood what he was looking at, he realized that it wasn't just the corner of the hiding spot; it was the corner of the whole house.
Crouching, he crossed the small distance to it. His hand reached out to touch the bush – pushing the tiny braches to one side, he saw what Mary meant; there was easily a foot wide way in.
He deduced that, upon the construction of the house, there'd been a non-corrected mistake. The bush plant encasing the house grew around a metal grate that was the actual fence. In that spot, the fence ended a foot from the wall of the neighbor's house, leaving a foot of space protected by a three-foot tall wall and an easily manipulated plant on top of it.
It was a perfect entrance point, and that's how she'd sneaked inside and found his team.
"I've used it before to get into the house." Mary piped up again from behind him. "I don't live very far, so I'd sneak in here and stay in this spot. Mum's never found out where I went, because grandma only found me once and she didn't tell her. She freaks, though, when I disappear." He had no possible answer to that.
So, instead, he urged her to leave, because he needed to, given that his back were since killing him.
Stretching after they'd both managed to weasel out of there again, he produced a cracking pop from somewhere behind him and groaned. He let his arms fall, and was following Mary back to the house when he heard someone calling her name.
"Marian!" The voice was calling from an upstairs level.
Mary's head snapped up, in the direction of the tall stairs he'd noticed earlier. With a sigh, she made her way there, and, after a brief hesitation, he decided he'd probably not be able to find his way back, so he followed her up the stone, outdoor stairs to the flock of people gathered there.
It was a sort of small patio – there was an outdoors, carved table surrounded by chairs and spider webs in the middle. Tony could see more grass beyond a small gate that led from the street to that space. A door to the kitchen was to his left. From what he'd gathered, this was the most used entrance. He guessed that the people there knew the owners - probably family, like Mary.
"Marian!" A woman immediately made her way to her child, and Tony recognized the stormy look on her face as one of an overbearing mother. "What were you thinking? I told you to stay put!"
The woman shared vague resemblances with her daughter, to which Tony figured that Mary had more of her father's features. She was pretty, and held herself with a posture that spoke of many a 'straighten up!' while growing up. Immediately, he understood Mary's behavior. The little girl was probably going through the same. He guessed that being rich had its downsides.
"Uh, excuse me, ma'am?" Tony called, stepping to Mary's side in her aid. "That was actually my fault." Offering her his most charming grin, Tony held out a hand. "I'm Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. Mary here" He winked at the little girl, who offered him a dimpled smile in return. "had some very important evidence to show us. She took me to-" He stopped abruptly at the wide-eyed, alarmed look on the little girl's face. "that evidence, and we only just came back." She offered him a small smile, bubbly again.
Flustered, the woman offered him a hesitant handshake. "I'm Marguerite Laurel, I'm the owners' daughter-in-law-" She hurriedly said. Then she began asking what she actually wanted to ask. "Uh, would you mind telling me- evidence? She didn't see– I mean, the body-" The woman bit her lip, glancing at her daughter with a jumpy expression.
Mary's grumpy look told him she didn't appreciate her mother thinking she wasn't capable of understanding what she was saying. Tony bit back a smile.
"No, of course not." He hurried to explain. "It was just something we needed to check out. Mary acted as my guide. She knows this house like the back of her hand, and I certainly don't. I'd be lost in there hadn't it been for her." Tony smiled a DiNozzo grin for as long as he felt Marguerite need to be reassured.
Calm again, the tension in her shoulders deflated, and she nodded with a tired smile. He could even see a reprimand brewing for wandering in store for the little girl, in Marguerite's eyes. Then she looked at her daughter properly and seemed startled to see the cap. "Marian, why don't you give Agent DiNozzo his hat back so he can get back to his job."
Reluctantly, Mary pulled the cap from her head, leaving her hair a complete mess and her mother looking at it with a look akin to horror. Chuckling, Tony took the cap from the little girl's hand and put it back on her head, enticing a grin from her. "Keep it. Maybe one day you'll be able to use it officially." Mary was positively beaming as he walked away, chattering animatedly as she prodded information from her livid mother about NCIS.
He managed to find his team quickly enough after that, since, after entering the kitchen, he'd walked through a door to his right – which was the general direction he assumed he needed to go – he found himself in the second hall Mary had lead him through. Meaning it was only a question of going to where he could see Ziva and McGee working through the glass doors to the first hall, and then the glass doors to the crime scene.
By now, he'd found three ways of going to the same place, so he was about ready to leave the head-ache inducing labyrinth.
He paused, however, when he heard raised voices from Ziva and Tim. He was not exactly yelling, but he wasn't whispering either, and he could see his face contracted in annoyance. Ziva's back were turned, so he couldn't see her expression. They hadn't seen him yet, so he hid behind the wall next to the glass doors, still hearing them perfectly.
"I'm just saying," McGee said tightly. "you looked, well-"
"What, McGee? I looked what?" Ooh, danger there, Probie. Careful how you answer that one.
"Jeez, Ziva!" The younger agent said exasperatedly. Tony could almost imagine him throwing his hands up. "I'm not accusing you of a capital offence, for God's sake! There's no need to look so- so- explosive!"
"What are you accusing me of, exactly, McGee?" Her voice reeked with boiling anger under a calm lid. Tony began to frown. What had McGee done, exactly?
"Nothing. It was just a comment! Jesus, forget I said a thing!"
"I will. And you better not say anything like that again." She snapped. They fell silent. Tony felt like that was his opportunity to enter, seeing as he was seemingly not going to get any information from their fight.
"Like what, Zee-vah?" Tony strolled into the living room, noting the lack of the body – Ducky must've already arrived and left - and that McGee had taken over the pictures when the senior agent had left.
To his utter shock, Ziva started. She didn't jump of course, but the blood swab in her hand almost had to be redone. His shock derived mostly of the fact that McGee hadn't jumped, which made Ziva's reaction even stranger.
"Nothing. McGee just said something irritatingly inaccurate." She snapped, standing up with as much dignity as she could and turning away from him, effectively cutting the conversation short.
McGee made his protest known by rolling his eyes with a noise from his throat that spoke annoyance, but didn't say anything to contradict her.
Tony shrugged. His curiosity was less important – at least at the moment – than his need to pacify his partner. "Well, McGee says stupid things all the time." He mock-reminded her. "That's hardly news, is it?"
His efforts were, in his opinion, well-rewarded by her small smile and McGee's defeated sigh. And all was well again.
"We are done here." Ziva announced, zipping up the last bag of evidence.
"Yep." McGee took his last picture, and turned off the camera.
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Has Gibbs been here yet?"
Ziva paused. "No." She sighed, turning back toward the room again. "We are not done yet."
"Nope." McGee agreed.
As if on cue, Gibbs entered the room. "What do we have?" Was the first thing out of his mouth.
Tony immediately jumped into action. "Single shot to the heart, Boss, most likely cause of death." He moved toward the mess. "Killer was standing about here," He positioned himself on the side of the table opposite from the body. "judging from the splatter and angle, and the velocity Ducky estimated. She had her back turned, maybe going to reach for something. But the door was still closed, so the bullet shattered the glass and a decorative plate here." He pointed at the affected area. "That's about it."
"Owners?" Was Gibbs' answer.
"As far as we could tell," Ziva took over, taking a step forward. "they had no connection to the victim, and they don't seem to know a thing. We don't know what she was doing here."
Gibbs crouched over the blood on the floor. "Do we have ID?"
"Yes, Petty Officer Lyla Lauren, twenty-six, on duty for three years. No relatives, single, no children." McGee rattled off from memory.
"Anything else?" Gibbs asked, satisfied with whatever he found on the floor.
"Uh, a possible entry point, I needed a kit to run it." Tony added. Gibbs turned to him with raised eyebrows, staring for about two seconds before Tony got a move on. "Going now, Boss!"
He grabbed Ziva, who looked surprised, and whatever he needed, and dragged her off through the same way the little girl had taken him before.
"McGee?" Gibbs prodded. It took the junior agent a while to realize that his boss wanted an explanation to Tony's take off just then.
"Uh, a girl got in here through the entrance Tony just mentioned. It's apparently hidden, so it hasn't been processed yet. Tony asked Marian – the girl – to lead him there, and he just came back."
Gibbs turned back to the doorway, making her way out of the division. "Pack up and get to the Navy Yard. I need everything you can get on Lauren." Gibbs paused at the doorway, and McGee heard the smirk in his voice, even though his back were turned. "And make sure you say no more comments on Ziva's soft spots." And he disappeared.
McGee blinked. His mind reminded him of the words that had suddenly turned Ziva into a screeching, bristling cat. You ever think about having one of your own? Possibly with Tony?
He'd been teasing, referring to the little girl and the look Ziva was giving both Marian and her partner. Obviously he had been way too bold, and regretted ever saying it as soon as Ziva got a word out.
He really shouldn't dwell on his boss' words. It usually led to places he didn't want to be in.
"Someone definitely came through there." Were DiNozzo's first words as he reentered the living room, sometime after, Ziva close behind. "Broken branches – recent. Mary wouldn't have broken them, the space's enough for her. But someone bigger would have."
McGee was almost ready to go back to the truck, and when his coworkers entered, he stood up, rubbing his forehead against the heat. "Anyone else know about it?"
"Her grandmother, but I doubt she's been doing some climbing lately." Tony's tone was not so much sarcastic as it was defensive. McGee glanced at him. Apparently he'd had some bonding time with 'Mary'. Huh. Obviously Ziva wasn't the only one with weak spots. "Where's Gibbs?" He changed the subject at McGee's look.
"Left. And we're supposed to follow, so help me with this, will you?" McGee gestured at the things on the floor.
Before Tony had time to give him a you-are-so-doing-that-on-your-own, sarcastic retort at that, though, three undisguised and very loud pops were heard from outside the division.
Immediately, the three agents' hands dropped to their guns. Quickly and effectively, they organized themselves in a formation, releasing the safety on the weapons, and McGee and Ziva stayed on either side of the door to the living room while Tony went through, clearing the hall before a sudden crash and muffled cursing sounded from the office to their right. Exchanging a look, the three agents followed the noise, positioning themselves in the same way as before in front of the door to the office.
Instead of going through immediately, though, they paused, straining their ears to pick up the poorly concealed whispering.
"I swear to God," A British voice, the one that seemed to make the better attempt at being inconspicuous, snapped quietly. "I am changing partners. Do you know the meaning of silent, Ron?!" He hissed, and the room fell quiet. Tony peeked through the crack that the door was opened, which allowed him to see three people inside.
They were searching, as fast and efficiently as they could, the entire room, trying hard to make their noise minimum. The first thing that caught his attention about them was their dressing code - they were all wearing robes. Real, actual robes, which covered them from their shoulders to their feet. One – male – was wearing a deep green one, glasses and unruly, jet-black hair. The red-haired one – also a male – was wearing a plain black one, which seemed the safest choice in the presence of his hair. Then there was the brown-haired girl, back turned as she rummaged through a drawer, who was wearing a dark red one.
They were young, he noticed, as soon as he was able to stop staring at their choice of outfit. Mid-twenties, at the most. And they were behaving nervously. Well, he would be too, if he'd broken into a crime scene. He thought he could safely assume that it had been Green Robes there berating the red-haired one, because, of the three, he seemed to be the only one worrying about glancing at the door from time to time.
"Harry," The red-haired whispered in annoyance. "It's a Muggle house. No one is going to come crashing through the door." What?
'Harry' tore his eyes from the door to glare at him. "Muggles have ears as good as you and me, mate. And, frankly, I'm rather sure that you've given them something to use them for, when you broke that jar." He pointed at a perfectly intact piece of porcelain that stood on a decorative table in the middle of the room. Tony blinked.
In an obvious attempt to cut their argument short, the other girl closed the drawer carefully and turned to the other two. "I still don't understand why I had to come, though, Harry."
That did it. 'Harry' and 'Ron' turned to her, looking mollified, and 'Harry' even managed a small grin. "Because it's been too long since the three of us – just the three of us – have been together to pull a stunt like this, Hermione! You can't say you haven't missed it." Ron said, and his voice was overbearingly cheerful.
'Hermione' rolled her eyes and picked another drawer to search through. Harry turned back to the closet he was pulling old, unused clothes and shaking them as if expecting something to drop out of them. Ron entered the bathroom, shrugging. "Fine. But you still didn't deny it." Were his last words before the doorway swallowed him.
And then sudden lights began zapping, as if laser beams, inside that same bathroom.
He assumed the other two would jump, yell, run, to see if their friend was okay. No, actually. Harry ignored it and Hermione rolled her eyebrows weakly, as if she was tired of doing it, and rubbed her forehead, as if she had a headache. "Ron, I told you already, there's no point in doing that. It's protected!" The exasperation in her voice was bordering painful, but the lights stopped.
A not-so-gentle nudge from Ziva reminded him that they had a job to do, and it wouldn't get done by itself while Tony stood there gaping. Shaking his head and deciding that he shouldn't try to think through what he'd heard and seen until the day he wanted a migraine, he kicked the door open, with the usual yell of 'NCIS! Hands above your head!" Ziva and McGee followed.
Harry immediately whirled around, hand flying downwards to the place where people usually kept a weapon, and Tony focused his gun on him. Hermione had raised her hands immediately, while Ron had scrambled into the room to find Ziva's eyes trained on him with a warning in her expression. One glance at his bushy-haired companion, however, and he mimicked her.
To Tony's surprise, Harry, after getting a good look of the three federal agents, immediately complied with his orders, hand leaving his hip and flying to the hair. The three allowed themselves to be cuffed and searched, and, before the MCRT had found anything on them, the only noise made was a comment from Hermione. "I remember now why I stopped pulling stunts with you two. They always end badly." She snapped at Ron.
Tony's lips quirked up at that, but then he pulled something from Harry's waistband and a look of confusion replaced the smile. The inspected the piece of wood in bewilderment. "Uh… Just out of curiosity, were you planning to poke me to death with this?" He asked the kid, who was uneasily looking from him to the stick and back again.
Harry rolled his eyes but didn't answer, so Tony shrugged and bagged it, noticing that Ziva and McGee had retrieved similar things from the other two. Ziva had her eyebrows raised, and McGee was staring at the one he'd taken from Ron with a look of pure concentration, as if he might be able to figure out its secrets with sheer will power. Hermione was frowning, as if she was able to conceal the worry in her expression by scrunching up her eyebrows hard enough, and Ron was visibly glaring. Tony slapped McGee's head to 'focus' him and he bagged the wooden piece, glowering back at the senior agent.
At that, Hermione tilted her head to one side, worry pushed away by sudden interest. "Hey, what you just did-" She addressed Tony, who looked at her with a charming smile. She was still a pretty woman after all. She seemed unfazed by it. "Does it work only on Agent…" She trailed off, now looking at McGee.
"McGee." He answered stiffly, cheeks gaining a reddened factor. Tony grinned – they were amusing, so he supposed the trip back wouldn't be so bad. "And no, it works better on Agent DiNozzo" His tone was mocking. "when it's our boss doing it."
"Very funny, McGee." Tony, who was no longer in favor of continuing the conversation, urged Harry to follow McGee and Ron, who were leaving the room. Neither Harry not Ron seemed amused by the path the conversation had taken either, glancing at Hermione apprehensively.
By then, however, Tony had reached the conclusion that the girl was trying to make them warm up to the trio and possibly ease them into a false sense of security, so he read their rights and encouraged them to keep quiet after that by keeping quiet himself. That was not an excuse to not to have McGee further talk about Gibbs' head slaps, of course, but rather following protocol like he was supposed to. Ziva and her smirk just didn't get that.