DISCLAIMER: Neither the TV show 'NCIS' nor the 'Harry Potter' book series belong to me.
The moment the door closed behind them the friendliness left the room. "Is now later?"
Harry grimaced. "I had a feeling the niceness was meant for your agent." The he sighed in mock-annoyance. "No one's ever nice to me willingly."
"You're not getting out of it by joking around." Gibbs informed him mildly.
"Worth a shot."
Hermione cautiously glanced around at everyone in the room – her gaze lingering on Jenny more than strictly necessary. "You do realize that anything we tell you, you'll forget, right?"
Gibbs' eyes flared. After what'd happened to Ziva, they wanted to pull a repeat performance? Hermione caught that and hurried along again. "I told you, it's not our choice! It's the law, agent Gibbs, which we are just as responsible for upholding as you are!"
Gibbs stayed silent, and his mind caught up with what she said. "You're police?" He asked, not without a certain amount of disbelief.
"Well, not her." Ron spoke up.
Harry nodded next to him. "But the two of us are." He pointed at Ron and himself. "Although, in the Wizarding World, we're called Aurors."
"Auras?" McGee questioned in bewilderment.
Hermione hid a smile. "Aurors. A-U-R-O-R-S." She explained, when her British accent held the confused expression McGee's face.
"Then there's the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I suppose they're like your LEO's." Harry explained further.
"So… You're elite." Gibbs stated.
Something about his tone must have made it clear to the wizards that Gibbs was not exactly praising them. "You know, no one appreciates sarcasm." Ron scolded.
Hermione rolled her eyes. Before she could say anything, however, Gibbs interrupted. "Are you going to start talking about Vold- whatever, or are we going to sit here all day?"
"Voldemort." Hermione corrected, her face betraying how unhappy she was with this particular subject.
Jenny frowned in confusion. "Vol de mort? As in, 'flight from death'?" She questioned.
"Something you don't know, Jen?" Gibbs asked mildly, looking overly pleased with that fact.
She shot him an irritated glare before turning her expectant gaze to Hermione again, whose lips were twitching at the exchange.
She sobered quickly enough, however, giving Harry, whose expression was impassive, an uneasy look. And, from that, Gibbs knew that she was taking over the answer to the question to save the man a lot of unneeded grief. "Well, to answer your question, Director Shepard, yes, as a matter of fact, Voldermort's name does mean that. But it is a single word." She hesitated, eyes darkening as if she were being brought back to memories she'd rather leave behind. "He was..." As she struggled for a word, Gibbs got the feeling that the young woman couldn't really come up with an appropriate one no matter how hard she tried. "arrogant. And self-centric. He thought he could evade death... Forever."
The looks on her and her friends' faces told him she wasn't just using a figure of speech. She literally meant forever. As in living permanently. The room was suddenly dead silent.
"And he very nearly succeeded, too. He..." Her voice faltered. "He did things..." She shook her head, and Gibbs' eyes fluttered to where Harry was now scratching what he realized was a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. He wondered how he'd gotten that. "Horrible, disgusting things, which allowed him to become immortal. I suppose you could compare him to Achilles. He was strong and powerful; but he had a weak spot so liable that it was of vital importance to protect it with an equally powerful force."
Hermione was a compelling story-teller - he could give her that. The whole room was silent - no one would interrupt, and Gibbs felt himself drawn to it, felt the importance of finding that spot, and to destroy it. Even though he'd never met this 'Flight from death' guy, or heard what he'd done.
"Unfortunately, there aren't many of those around - so his weak spot was unguarded enough for someone to destroy it."
Gibbs eyes flew from Hermione, to Ginny, to Ron, and to Harry. They wore unperturbed masks, even the two Weasleys, who he'd found to be very fiery and explosive. He didn't like that - he'd been a Marine, and he knew very well that the grimness in their expressions didn't belong in the minds of twenty-year-old kids.
"So you found it and did what had to be done." It wasn't a question, and it was directed at Harry.
He straightened at being addressed, but he didn't look defensive. So it seemed that whatever he'd done, it'd been more legal than letting him and his team keep their memories. Lucky him - apparently the big guys upstairs didn't prevent justice, where he came from. He guessed magical politics were better, after all, than regular ones.
"I didn't 'do what had to be done'." He answered, shrugging and looking a lot more tired than he should have. "I helped his death along, but, at the end of the day, he killed himself."
Gibbs raised his eyebrows. He didn't know whether to be amused at the way they were trying to delay actually saying something that mattered, or annoyed that they were taking so long to explain things thoroughly without prodding. Though maybe he was just used to his team's lack of need of any prompt that went further than their own names. "You shed the light on things and he came to his senses, was it?" He asked dryly, leaving no shadow of doubt that he wanted them to get on with it.
Harry scowled - gone was the relaxed, amused, easy-going guy that'd been hanging around since he'd displayed his annoyance toward his partner's noise. This one was just really pissed off. But that wasn't really a first for Gibbs, so he wasn't fazed. He did see, however, how Harry could be a formidable enemy.
"Do not joke about things like that. Voldemort was dangerous, and before we managed - with serious effort, I might add; and I can attest to that, since I was passed out for two whole days afterwards - in your terrifically phrased words, to bring him to his senses, a lot of people went down. Good people, with parents, siblings, children who waited for them to come back home. Who are still waiting, because they haven't returned yet." His eyes recoiled at something in his mind - Gibbs didn't have to go very far to wonder what. Ginny was rubbing her belly softly, and her eyes were red - pregnancy hormones, he guessed she'd say.
Ron and Hermione had their teeth clenched and were standing a lot closer to Harry than they'd been before. He'd take a wild guess and say they'd been the ones standing by his side throughout all the things he was describing.
"My own Godson- he lost both his parents the night he went down." Harry continued, and his voice was growing softer, lower, as if the mere mention of this subject was draining him. He crossed his arms in a sort of self-defensive mechanism. "He lives with his grandmother, who lost her husband in that war," It was the first time he'd used that word, and it startled Gibbs, who was liking this less by the minute. Harry was starting to speak as if in a trance, like he'd bottled up this for a long time, and it was all rushing out, all at once, and all of a sudden. "and, like I said, her daughter and son-in-law. Who also lost all his best friends during the course of Voldemort's rotten life. Among them, my Godfather - who lost his brother too - my parents - who were forced to go into hiding for at least a year before dying - and another man who was lost to the other side. I lost someone who would have been my brother-in-law. And make no mistake - just because they died, does not, under any circumstances, mean they were anywhere close to an age where it was even slightly acceptable to consider, by any code anywhere, for them to die."
Hermione's eyes were beginning to look like Ginny's, but Harry only had steel in his voice and face. "And many, many more people - too many for me to mention right now. Friends, family of friends - a five-year-old boy was bitten to death by a werewolf working for him." If the mood hadn't been so serious and depressing, Abby, who looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there - which was something rare for her - would have said something about the werewolves. "So, no. Voldemort had plenty of chances to see the light - I gave him plenty of chances to see the light, including just before it was all over - and he refused them all. We ended it." His voice was raw and defiant, as if he'd been speaking for years instead of a few minutes.
Gibbs really doubted the young man had meant to say all that, but he looked better now that he had. His eyes were conflicted, as if he couldn't quite decide what to do after that explosion, now that the instinct-driven rant was over. Gibbs believed him - that was his only comment to the speech, and one he wasn't about to repeat aloud.
The room was nearly completely silent. Gibbs could only hear Abby tearing up - the girl was far too emotional and happy for a Goth, and he wished she hadn't heard all that. McGee, livid enough as he was, looked unsure what to do with her crying figure, standing next to him. He patted her back, and Gibbs almost had to roll his eyes at that. She hadn't spoken much since they'd entered the office, and Gibbs needed to remember to speak to her. God knew McGee wouldn't.
And he needed to avoid thinking about a war having gone unnoticed by him in the lifetime of the four people in front of him - and also much younger than him. Go with the flow.
"Well," Ron began feebly, but still determined to break the dramatic mood that was clearly doing no good to anyone. "He's been practicing that speech in the mirror, so he appreciates all your appropriate reactions." Abby's sniffles were his answer.
"How old were you?" His unexpected question broke the silence that had settled and which didn't seem anywhere near going away.
Four startled looks were his answer. "What?"
"The four of you." He pointed at them. "How old were you, when this whole business happened?"
Now they understood, and they didn't like the question. They shared an unsettled look, and Harry forced a smile. "Which part of the business?"
Gibbs narrowed his eyes - this smelled like a trick question. They didn't want to answer, and that didn't sound good to him. "When this guy, Voldemort - I really don't like French names, or guys who use them - fell, how old were you?"
The relieved flash of emotion that ran through Harry's face told him he'd asked the right question - for the wizard, at least. Somehow, Gibbs knew he had fallen into the 'trick' part of the trick question.
"A legal adult." He replied smartly. "Already for a while."
"Funny." Gibbs growled. He got the feeling that Harry knew the grey-haired man found it anything but 'funny', but Gibbs had no clue what could possibly have alerted the wizard to that. "But that's not what I asked."
Harry offered him a disgruntled glance in response. "I know. But I don't want to answer that question."
"I know. But I want to receive an answer to that question."
Harry's face twitched - it could have been the possibility of a smile, or the young man preventing himself from sticking out his tongue at him. Then he shrugged and Gibbs knew he'd won. "Seventeen." He replied flippantly as if being that age and doing what he'd described was as normal as being a war veteran and doing what he'd described - which wasn't normal at all to begin with. Even Abby stopped crying to stare at him in shock.
Gibbs could have said a lot of things - really, a lot of things - to that statement, but he stuck with the easiest. "I thought you said legal adult."
"He did." Jenny spoke up. Though he didn't show it, Gibbs was startled. She'd been silent for so long, and the conversation had become so involving, that he'd nearly forgotten she was there. Which wasn't like him at all - he was usually pointedly aware of her presence, if she was near him. She was staring at him from behind her desk; expression unreadable and hands out of sight, but surely fiddling. "In the Wizarding World" Her gaze travelled to the four people he could count as directly involved with what she was saying in acknowledgement. "people reach majority at seventeen."
Gibbs raised his eyebrow at the kid, but didn't question her. "Legal, eighteen-year-old kids are rash enough at that age - which is why the booze and the car only become legal at twenty-one, which doesn't happen in England - and you reduced that time even more?" Harry shrugged.
"We're just cool that way." Ron was still working to warm the mood.
Hermione began speaking before they could do too much damage. "At any rate, we don't usually use cars and we have sobriety potions that're quick and easy to both make and take." She said casually.
"I'm sure Tony'll be asking you for that one." McGee muttered. The wizards looked more cheerful to see that someone was pulling out of the nasty tales enough to joke.
If only, you know, McGee were joking.
"Right, seventeen." Gibbs interrupted, pulling their minds back to the subject at hand. "And that was at the end of it all."
That had seemingly not occurred to McGee. The urge to bash Tony behind his back appeared to suddenly vanish from the junior agent's mind.
Gibbs thought that Harry might actually want to strangle him, from the looks he was receiving. Frustrated, the wizard looked at him resentfully. "Can't you just let it go?"
Gibbs ignored him - it was something he was good at. "How old were you when this war began?"
He could almost see him change tactics - his expression turned blank and he used the same tone he'd used when telling him he was a legal adult to deflect his question. "Not even born. We are from the last generation of wizards to fight him."
Gibbs was beyond irritated by now. "How old were you when you started fighting?"
Harry scrunched up his nose in a way that made it almost unbelievable that he'd given such a heart-breaking speech a few minutes previous. "I'm not going to lie." He began, crossing his arms. "And I can tell you won't give up. But I'm also not simply going to start spouting my life. I've already told you more than what I was keen on before. I'll answer your questions directly, but that's it." His voice was serious. Gibbs' 'interrogation' was bothering him, and the older man was actually pleased about that. Ever since the overly calm display a few hours earlier, he'd been dying to get under Harry's skin. "And if you're asking when the war started - which, whether the responsible adults believe in it or not - I was fighting in from the start, I was fourteen."
"I thought you said the war had started before you were born." Gibbs commented, falsely calm.
"Is that a question?" The kid was enthusiastically committed in pissing Gibbs off as much as he could. Gibbs glared at him until his resolve crumbled and he gave up, rolling his eyes. "The war took a... hiatus, of sorts, for thirteen years, when Voldemort was heavily set back. Before that, the First War, as it's called, lasted eleven years. After that, the Second War lasted three. And was twice as bloody, I should add."
Gibbs stared at Harry for a moment, trying to decipher from either his words, or his expression, or both. But he was too impassive, and his sentences too vague, so he reluctantly gave up. He took the bait. "Who set him back?"
"My mother." Was his prompt answer.
"Lilly Evans." Gibbs said, both as a reminder to himself and a prodding for him to continue.
Harry tilted his head, stuffing his confusion away from his face. "Potter, actually. She married my father and took his name."
Gibbs regarded him - well, he seemed convinced enough of that. "Who isn't on your birth certificate."
Understanding flared in his eyes. He nodded, as if something had just made sense. "He wouldn't be. He was born and raised in the magical world. Unless someone had introduced him to the Muggle one, like Ron and Ginny were," He gestured at the two red-hairs. "he wouldn't be in your records, and my mother couldn't have claimed to have married a non-existing guy. So he didn't show up in my birth certificate, and my mother kept her maiden name."
And Gibbs suddenly understood the strange records. He guessed the Weasleys, like Harry's dad, must have been completely covered by the magical community - no reason to become involved in the Muggle one. Possibly, when married to two people who did have ties to the non-magical world, they might have wanted to be more in it, so to speak, and hence the certificates. The other two had gaps - possibly when they went into the Wizarding World. Harry had been born there already as well, however - which explained why he'd only shown up when he was one, and his parents had died, leaving him to his Muggle relatives.
"The academic-year gap in your records - several years, too." Gibbs said suddenly, making the connection. "School?"
Harry smiled, looking impressed. "Very good - and yes." He didn't say anything else.
Gibbs kept his eyes on him - he knew that there was a lot that the guy hadn't told him, but he also knew that he wasn't going to sit and wait until he was done telling him his life story. Surprisingly, he had better things to do.
He also realized that he was adopting a colder, patronizing attitude Gibbs hadn't known in him beforehand. He was pulling back, becoming more defensive and cautious, and Gibbs could understand why, from the bed-time story he'd just depicted.
Jenny caught onto his thoughts quickly enough. "It's rather late." She announced, checking her wrist watch - if only for the others' benefit. "I don't think Agent Gibbs has any further intentions of keeping you here." The glare she gave him was uncalled for - despite his expression, he had no intention of contradicting her. "So I think you can go."
Hermione glanced at Harry, then at Jenny and finally at Gibbs. With a frown, she seemed edgy, and looked eager to avoid any gaze in the room. "Agent Gibbs, I-" She faltered, and, though addressing him, she wouldn't meet his eyes. "Usually, Obliviators - the wizards and witches responsible for dealing with the... memory issues brought up by your interaction with us - would have appeared and done their jobs already." She was briskly rushing through that sentence, leaving no room for them to process it quickly. "But, the Ministry was left vulnerable, and I assume they have deemed that task a secondary one - although why, I have no idea, since if it is not dealt with immediately, the information could spread like a viral video - so we're still here right now and your memories are still untouched."
Gibbs' impatience must've started to show on his face a little too clearly, because Hermione winced and hastened to keep going. "My point is: they will eventually come, whether you send us home or not." Now she did meet his eyes, and Gibbs noted that they held a true apology. "I'm sorry. I wasn't even supposed to allow your agents to go home - that'll give even more trouble for them, since they'll have to check everyone who came in contact with them." She didn't look very sorry about that.
"You tell them to check the nearest take-out, fast-food restaurant." He said with a frosty smile that made her flinch.
He had no intention what-so-ever to let anyone touch his memories. Or Tony's, or Ziva's, or McGee's, or Ducky's, and certainly not Abby's. And he usually made sure that statements like that came to fruition - if he wanted something, his best efforts were fairly enough to get it. His only problem was, however, that he knew himself very well, and he also knew that he would have had no intention of letting anyone touch his team's memories when it'd (apparently) happened for the first time, either.
Hermione rubbed her eyes tiredly, and Harry and Ron crossed their arms, undoubtedly trying not to do the same.
"We'll leave." Ron shrugged, losing the joking facade he'd been trying to keep up. "But Hermione's right."
And they made good on his words. With awkward goodbyes, they hurried out of the room, and someone made sure they were escorted out. They looked happy to be gone - that much he could tell - as if they couldn't wait to forget the MCRT as literately as the MCRT would likely forget them.
And the room fell into silence.