DISCLAIMER: Neither the TV show 'NCIS' nor the 'Harry Potter' book series belong to me.

The ride back to NCIS was, thankfully, a lot shorter than the one from. Once they got there and put the suspects in interrogation, they briefed Gibbs on what'd happened and then awaited orders. Which, surprisingly, took a while.

When he returned, he was accompanied by the Director, and his expression was beyond irritated. Tony managed to catch his last sentence before they entered the room and fell silent for the benefit of his three agents. "... wonder why I don't usually brief you immediately, Jen?" Gibbs' voice was snappish.

"Why are you all here?" Gibbs asked upon entrance, raising his eyebrows at the sight of Tony, McGee and Ziva in front of the interrogation window, staring through it at Harry on the other side. "Last I checked, we had three suspects."

Tony looked flustered. "Uh, yeah, Boss, but, you know, this one looks like the-" Gibbs was already leaving. "the leader."

"So you're sitting, staring at the one who's possibly the last person to give up anything, DiNozzo?" He vanished out the door before Tony opened his mouth to answer.

He turned to see Jenny staring at him with her lips quirked in amusement. "I just- I wasn't talking to him because he was the last person to give up anything. But I wanted to see what he did when no one was watch- It was Probie's idea." He changed his voice into a complacent, hurried tone at the last bit.

Ziva snorted, and McGee didn't even bother to protest, rendered to a frustrated grumble. Jenny rolled her eyes, and right at that moment Gibbs blew open the door to the interrogation room they were all staring at. He wasn't carrying a thing, which struck Tony as odd.

Gibbs sat in the chair in front of Harry, and the young man kept his eyes on him, but remained silent and expressionless.

"What's your name?" Was Gibbs' first question, leaning against his chair, fingers of both hands entwined on his lap.

Tony's eyebrows furrowed, and he exchanged a surprised glance with Ziva. "We haven't gotten a hit yet?"

McGee shook his head. "Foreigners. Taking longer than usual." He crossed his arms, looking slightly defensive at the attack on his equipment. He was spending too much time with Abby, which was just asking for her habits to rub off on him. Next he'd name his computer.

Harry, Tony noticed, had an excellent poker face, and seemed prepared to be interrogated. His features didn't change a fraction of a millimeter, and he said nothing. Bold, when you were being drilled by Gibbs.

"That's alright, Harry. It was a rhetorical question." Gibbs informed him smoothly. "Facial recognition is very handy."

Harry's lips quirked upwards. He seemed to find the situation amusing, and not at all unfamiliar. "Facial recognition on foreigners is a tad less, though, isn't it?" His voice carried, low and friendly, dangerously provocative to a person like Gibbs.

Gibbs tilted his head sideways with a smirk. "Yes, it certainly is. But, thankfully, your friends are in a room next to yours, and they were a little more willing to cooperate." Bluffing. They hadn't even spoken to them yet.

Harry's teasing smile became a full-blown grin. "That's about as likely as Agent DiNozzo suddenly deciding that your back is too lead-less." He gave an acknowledging smile at the glass, looking directly at Tony.

He had full trust in his colleagues, then. Great. That made this a lot more difficult.

Then he processed the sentence properly. "How does he know that? He's never even met Gibbs, and I've asked him one question. Which he didn't even bother to answer." Tony asked quietly.

It was supposed to be a rhetorical question, so he was surprised when Jenny answered. "He has met Gibbs."

The three of them turned to her. "What do you mean? Gibbs clearly does not know him." Ziva exclaimed, glancing at Tony for confirmation. He gave her a mystified look back, which seemed to reassure her, and she turned back to the Director.

"No, he doesn't." Was all she said. And then she quieted.

After a heart-beat of silence spent by the three agents staring at each other as if they had the answers, Tony turned to Jenny again, who was staring at Gibbs, who was staring thoughtfully at Harry, who was still looking amused and thoroughly relaxed. The director was pointedly informing Tony the conversation was over.

He didn't pick up on that very well. "Uh… Are you going to expla- You're not going to explain that." He understood at her glare. "Okay."

His last word was drowned out by Gibbs' voice finally breaking the silence. "Well, I wouldn't know. I can be harsh with him sometimes."

Tony preened, and Ziva chuckled. "I think you should wait until he comes out of there and finishes that thought, Tony." She teased. He narrowed his eyes at her playfully in a mock-crossed look, and she laughed louder, which made him crack a smile.

Gibbs spoke again, and they turned back to the glass, feeling the heat getting to them a little harder. "You sure you weren't a little too hard on them back at the house, there, Potter?" It was a subtle hint that maybe the other two hadn't kept as quiet as he was being – though Harry still looked as though he was sharply aware that the older man was still bluffing.

Tony started at that, and Ziva and McGee seemed surprised too. "His last name's Potter? How does Gibbs know that?"

Then he noticed that Jenny looked impassive, as if that wasn't unexpected. Before he could start with the questions again, Harry answered Gibbs with a relaxed smile. "You've spoken to your Director, then. Last time, it took you longer. You'd spoken with Ron before trying me."

What? "Director?" Tony's tone was no longer playful. This was starting to become worrying. "You know something." It wasn't a question. "I think both us and Gibbs need to know what."

His assumption that Gibbs didn't know what they were talking about either was based on the fact that he'd just slammed the door to the interrogation room and was already entering the viewing room. On the other side, Harry crossed his arms, leaning back with a smile.

"Well, Director?" Gibbs' voice was quiet and dangerous. "You gonna answer that?"

Jenny turned back to Gibbs and the words 'battle of wills' sprang to Tony's mind. The Director crossed her arms and Gibbs just stood there impatiently waiting, sure in his assumption that he was getting the information he wanted. Tony was actually as sure as his Boss was.

Jenny sighed and dropped her arms. "I hate doing this." She muttered, looking a lot less official.

"Doing what, Jen?" Gibbs asked, impatience sharpening his voice.

She looked at the four people, alone in the room. "Having to tell you this."

"Why would you hate telling us… what?" By now exasperation was filling even McGee's voice. Tony and Ziva kept quiet, knowing their boss needed no assistance in getting information out of the director.

Jenny pursed her lips, looking at Gibbs. "As the Director of a federal agency, I am read in on a number of things none of you are."

"Is that your way of saying it's classified?" Gibbs interrupted, pointedly staring at her in that familiar way of his.

"No." She dragged the word in a perfectly calm tone. "I wanted to tell you before you went in there, but you ignored me. I told you to gather everyone in my office."

Gibbs' expectant gaze prodded her to get on with it. She rolled her eyes, leaning against the glass and crossing her arms again. "You've met him-" she pointed her thumb backwards in the direction of the kid gazing into the ceiling with a vacant expression. "and Ron Weasley, who is the red-haired guy in the next room, before."

"I think I'd remember if I'd ever seen either of them before." Gibbs said after a few seconds of silence.

Her eyes met his for a second before turning away in discomfort. "You wouldn't. Your memories, along with Agents' DiNozzo and McGee and Officer David, have been erased of that occasion. Abby and Ducky's as well." The low pitch of her voice made her revelation sound even more ridiculous in the small, empty room.

"Hit your head, Jen?" Gibbs asked lightly. Jenny sent him an irritated glare, her arm twitching – whether to reach for a non-existent gun or to bite her nails Tony wasn't sure.

"No, Jethro, I haven't, thank you for your concern." Nasty. If they were starting to use sarcasm with each other in front of him, Ziva and McGee, the situation was really bad. Jenny's voice turned serious again. "I am telling the truth."

"That we were somehow brain-washed?" Tony asked quietly. The mood was suddenly frosty cold.

"No, DiNozzo, because I wouldn't have allowed that to happen." Gibbs' voice was matter-of-fact, but Tony recognized the fierceness underneath it as he burned a hole into the director. "I would like to know, however, why our Director seems under the conviction that we were."

"Because you were. And… I can't say you allowed it." Regret flashed across her face before a perfect mask of impassiveness appeared again. "But you had no choice; and you couldn't very well fight it anyway."

"Excuse me? Why not?" Gibbs' anger was igniting at her obviously truthful tone.

"Because you can't fight magic with bullets."

Well, no argument to that statement.

Gibbs just stared at her, seemingly at a loss of any other response. So Jenny continued her explanation, still not looking at any of them. "The gentlemen and woman you picked up at the crime scene are wizards. Very important ones, as a matter of fact, according to what I've been told. Additionally, you have about fifteen minutes before their friends" She said friends as a very distasteful word. "come get them and-" Her voice faltered for the first time, and she swallowed, eyes flying across the room. "erase your memories again." That said, she shut up and stared blankly at the wall in front of her.

Even Gibbs had trouble kicking into gear after that. His eyes never left her face, and a quick look around the room told him that neither had anyone else's. Ziva had her hand held up to the wall – weird, he'd never known the Israeli to need physical support – and McGee was just looking at everyone in wide-eyed shock.

So he left with one word. "DiNozzo." Tony immediately took off after him. He assumed the older man was just trying not to think about it too much.

"On your six, Boss." Was his hard-wired answer.

And they entered the interrogation room they'd been watching.

The moment Gibbs' behind hit the chair, he was asking a question. "What were you doing at my crime scene?" The door opened again, and Jenny entered. Gibbs didn't even look up.

Potter glanced at Jenny, who nodded. "I was picking up an artifact. I was supposed to be delivering it" He glanced at his watch. Tony must have been needing some serious sleep, because he could swear it was made of hovering little planets. "an hour ago, as a matter of fact."

Gibbs' eyebrow twitched. If he was letting it show in his features, he was really pissed. "Really? So you're a magic looter?"

Potter smiled without humor. "Funny, agent Gibbs." Gibbs seemed to decide to ignore the fact that he knew his name.

"So that artifact" He continued, standing up. "just happened to be sitting at a murder scene? That didn't make you slightly wary?"

"No."

"Why not?" Gibbs placed both hands on the table next to Potter, head turned to him.

Potter met his gaze unflinchingly, and something in his eyes made Tony expect him to say that his wariness of dead bodies had faded a long time ago. His answer, however, was different. "Because I inspected the scene earlier, and the murder was exclusively non-magical. So it had nothing to do with us. As far as I'm concerned, we would've gone our separate ways without having to cross paths again. If it weren't for you meddling kids, of course." Potter's lips twitched, and the carefree, non-death related humor was back to his eyes.

That made DiNozzo grin, and take that opportunity to introduce the good cop, bad cop attitude. "Hey, I can appreciate a good movie reference." Potter looked at him with an easy grin, but he could tell he was perfectly aware of his intentions. Tough guy to break. Even his body posture was mute. Like he'd been trained, somehow.

"Why that house?" Gibbs snapped, slamming a hand on the table to regain Potter's attention. To his credit, he didn't even flinch, calmly looking up to meet his eyes again.

"Because it's unsuspecting. It's sort of a safe-house."

"Safe-house?" Tony frowned, leaning against the wall. "So the owners-"

"Don't know a thing about me," He immediately interrupted. "or your murder, by the way." He added. "We were supposed to pick the thing up when they were on vacation, and the house was empty. It was just a random place that could be used for that. Our Ministry's been using that system for a while now."

"Yeah, well," Gibbs began, not attempting to conceal his sarcasm. "they returned from their vacation today to find a dead Petty Officer in their living room and three magicians trashing their office." Gibbs sat back down on the other side of the table.

"Wizards. And we didn't trash it. And they didn't find us. Your agents did." Potter blinked, as if the sudden urge for corrections was foreign to him. "Wow. Hermione's really getting to me."

Gibbs' glare shut him up. "If you were supposed to pick it up during their vacation, how come you arrived on the day they returned?"

He finally showed some actual emotion – he made a face. "That's hardly my fault, is it? The intel was faulty. Not really a first." He said, as if it was a constant annoyance.

"What intel? Given by whom?" Gibbs annoyance was starting to show in the form of a growl.

Potter smiled politely, but his eyes actually betrayed sympathy. "That would take more time to explain than the amount you still have with me."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes at him. Then he narrowed his eyes at the director. Then he narrowed his eyes at the glass, and Tony really hoped the two agents still behind it understood that he was telling them to go talk with the other two while they still could. Both Jenny and Potter agreed that they couldn't be able to talk to him for long, which meant she hadn't just hit her head extra-hard.

At least, in Gibbs' mind. Tony would never, ever say or think something like that.

Regardless of any of that, Gibbs apparently didn't want to waste his time with it, not at the time. He had no intention of turning over the suspects until he was done with them, of course, but he wanted to make sure he had as much information as he could before whoever it was arrived.

"Why did you say that the owners didn't know anything about the murder?" Gibbs continued, leaning over the table.

"Because I heard the murder. Saw a bloke leaving through the bushes at the northeast corner if the house." Potter said, shrugging.

Any semblance of trust Gibbs might've developed shattered at the harsh glare he gave the man. "Were you going to bother telling me that soon, Potter?"

"It won't matter. You won't remember, and any tapes there are of me will be modified." He warned, and his eyes fluttered to Jenny, before landing on Gibbs again. He offered an apologetic look. "I'm very sorry agent Gibbs. If it makes you feel any better, I'm sure the evidence you've got will be more than enough to solve the murder."

Gibbs ignored all of that. "What did you see?"

Potter sighed; he looked very reluctant as he started speaking. He'd been over the house as a scout under an 'Invisibility Cloak' – Gibbs had seemed ready to head-slap him at that – and had seen a woman and a man entering through the 'secret entrance'. He heard the shot not long afterwards.

Gibbs sent his team to run what Potter had said. Surprisingly, he was right – they really hadn't needed his statement. Abby's forensics, McGee's background checks and Ducky's findings were more than enough to close the case.

Apparently Lauren had had the same idea as Potter and his friends. Using the place as a safe-house, she was hiding in there because she'd found the entrance while running from her ex-husband – whom she'd filled a restraint order against. Abby had found blood on a broken branch at the place Mary had shown Tony, from a cut it'd made on that same ex. The marks on the bullet matched an unregistered – illegal – gun found at his apartment, and a shoe mark on the body was matched to the shoes he was still wearing when picked up. Tony figured that Lauren had been under the impression that she'd lost him, so she was admiring the things in the cabinet, hence her back being turned.

They hadn't needed Potter's matching description of him.

And Potter and his two friends stayed for a lot longer than predicted by both Jenny and them. Other than the occasional uneasy glance at the door, though, Potter still seemed completely relaxed. Not so much for the others. Granger was biting her lip, her eyes permanently glued to the glass, and Weasley was pacing around the room and looking annoyed.

Neither of the other two had had anything to add to Potter's testimony, except Granger, who told them she was Mrs. Weasley and not Ms. Granger anymore (which Gibbs had barked at McGee to add to what they knew about her). Once they'd been told that the MCRT had been somewhat read in – even if the team didn't buy a word of it – they'd shrugged and answered every question truthfully.

Eventually, Tony found himself alone with Ziva in the bullpen, throwing a pencil into the air and catching it when it came back down. His expression was thoughtful, and, somehow, he found himself with his eyes on his partner.

The rest of the precinct was unusually quiet, lacking the usual sounds of the bustling agents, consultants, analysts and specialists. It was almost as if the building was giving them a wide berth to process the weirdness going on around them. Or maybe it was just because it was past ten o'clock. Nobody on the team had wanted to leave and not know what was going on, exactly. It was all making less and less sense, which brought to his mind another weird thing he had, for his own sake, refused to think about.

He needed to tell someone what he saw in that office. The lights… Just so that he could be told he wasn't crazy. Because if Jenny wasn't just playing a really elaborate joke on them… The laser beams might have something to do with… magic.

Yeah, he really felt sane right then.

He frowned, staring at Ziva for a moment, wondering if she'd admit him into a mental facility. But he refused to let the promise of insanity prevent him from talking to her, and he pushed the hesitation away. He cleared his throat. Ziva looked up at him questioningly.

He stood up, made his way to his partner's desk, and leant against it. Pausing, he took in Ziva's raised eyebrows and decided to just talk before losing courage. "Uh… Ziva?" He began.

Ziva rolled her eyes, and replied patiently. "Yes, Tony?" She put down her pen, which she was actually using to do paperwork.

He paused again, and saw the flash of irritation behind her eyes. He hurriedly began speaking. "If I told you that- that I don't think the Director is gone off the deep end completely, and saw something at the house that corroborated what she said, would you tell me I'm crazy?"

Ziva gazed at him – to his surprise, she didn't seem to be questioning his sanity. She let hesitation color her features for a moment before speaking slowly. "I- No, I would not." She bit her lip. "You are talking about the strange lights in the bathroom of the office. Right?" Now she was looking at him as if she were expecting him to call her crazy.

His eyes widened comically. "Yes! I mean-" He spoke in a rush, apparently determined to get as much information available in the smallest amount of time possible. "You saw it too?"

She nodded slowly, not meeting his eyes. "You did not say anything, so I thought you had not seen anything either…" She tugged at her sleeve. "I don't think McGee saw a thing. My position allowed me to see it. I even checked the bathroom when you weren't looking at me – there was nothing out of the ordinary there."

Tony drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. "So… Either both us, Jenny, and the three trespassers we picked up are completely crazy with the same hallucination, or-" He trailed off.

"Jenny is telling the truth." Ziva finished, finally looking up to meet his eyes. She looked thankful and relieved that she wasn't out of her mind, apparently.

"Or you all did hit your heads." Gibbs appeared out of nowhere, making his way to his desk.

Tony glanced at his partner to see her already staring at him, in a silent urge for him to start talking to their boss. Sometimes he thought he needed to stop pointing out that he was senior agent – they were really taking advantage of that. Why couldn't Ziva be on the wrong end of Gibbs' wrath for once?

Yeah, sane.

He approached Gibbs' desk reluctantly, and waited in front of it until the man finally looked up in irritation. "Something on your mind, DiNozzo?" He asked, making sure his senior agent knew he was not to talk about what he was there to talk about.

He cleared his throat, trying to delay the inevitable as long as he could. "Uh… So, what did Jenn- Director Shepard say about the-" He glanced at Ziva for support - though why he did that was a subject he needn't focus on – and looked back at their boss with a nervous smile. "wizards?"

Gibbs gave him an unamused glare, unimpressed. "Potter, Weasley and Granger are still in interrogation. No one has come by to pick them up, and Director Shepard" He spared a sliver of his glare at the office upstairs. "has not said anything regarding the subject. I can hold them for forty-eight hours and I will." He turned back to Tony, narrowing his eyes. "That a problem, DiNozzo?"

He never had a chance to answer. A British voice did it for him, from the entrance of the bullpen. "Actually, yes, that would be a problem."

A heavily pregnant, heavily glaring red-haired woman was standing there, arms crossed over her protruding belly. Ziva immediately stood up, warily looking at Tony and Gibbs before approaching the woman. "Excuse me, I'm Officer Ziva David. May I ask what you are doing up here?" She asked politely, though with a hint of warning.

The woman didn't take her eyes off the male special agents. "My name is Ginny Potter. You're currently holding, for no reason, my husband, my brother and one of my best friends. And I was directed, by security downstairs, to Agent Gibbs." Her glower could almost match Gibbs'. "Which I assume is you." She gestured at the team leader.

Tony glanced at the boss. He wasn't glaring anymore, and he supposed that that was because Ginny looked ready to go into labor.

"I presume Mr. Potter is your husband." Gibbs stood up, making his way to her.

She scowled – the woman was angry. "Well, he's this way." He said, when it was obvious she wasn't going to answer. And Gibbs led her toward the interrogation rooms. But not before he couldn't send a glare in their general direction – which Tony interpreted as run her.

He added the name Ginny Potter nee Weasley – if Potter was her husband, then Weasley was her brother – to the list of people they were requesting information about. Which wasn't going so well, because they were having trouble finding activity on any of them.

There was a ding, and their flustered thoughts were drawn to the other side of the bullpen. "Ziva!" Ducky was making his way to them from the elevator, and the old man's usually kind expression was replaced by a look of anger and worry, which he wasn't succeeding in masking very well. "Tony!" And he was so flustered he'd used Tony's nickname. Bad. "Where is Gibbs?" He asked tightly. Gibbs' last name too. Danger.

"Uh, he just left with a suspect's wife to the interrogation room." Tony answered, pointing at the general area. "Why?"

Ducky glared at him – wow, he was really pissed. "Because, apparently, my memory has been modified, and I don't happen to like it! And I would like to know what is going on!"

Tony shrugged helplessly. "You're barking at the wrong tree, Ducky. I know as much as you do, and that Gibbs is under the impression that Jenny has had a bad concussion." Tony looked at the Director's office ponderingly. "Why don't you go talk to her? She seems to think that she knows what's going on."

Ducky followed Tony's gaze and nodded. "I will. But I think you should be warned – Abigail has heard what I've heard as well. And she is not happy." And he left, determined strides taking him in the direction Tony had been looking at.

Tony winced, and even Ziva grimaced. If Abby was coming up, and there was no Gibbs to both be on the receiving end of her wrath and placate her, the bullpen was a bad place for them to be.

On silent agreement, they'd taken off to the interrogation rooms again.