Quartermaster Continuum

Dui HbdH iuD's prompt : After the war, 18 yr old Harry Potter went to Eton, posing as a 16/17 yr old. _Years later, he emerged as "Quentin".
The stuff Q does seems to be magic, in how it all just... works. Maybe it is.
James Bond (based on Skyfall's Q) & Harry Potter

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."- Clarke's Three Laws (Third Law)

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

It's just as well he's called Q, for all that means Quartermaster – which is a part of his job – not his whole job, but the in-between bits between muggle and magical; it becomes his name, his identity. Even – no, especially as head of the Q Division. After all, M can't very well acknowledge a Quartermaster identified as an Unspeakable.

That, an Unspeakable, is what Harry Potter became and embraced. It defines him, and it took as much as it gave to the point that Harry doesn't really think of himself as Harry Potter, because sometimes he's Unspeakable Black, or Unspeakable Potter – or Evans, or Weasley – or – well – whatever name the Department of Mysteries needs him to take on any given day. It's simpler behind the walls of Q Division where he is Q.

One day – not long ago, Unspeakables gathered together and speak of the war of the Dark Lord and Harry Potter won and done – and he knows it – but one day there might be another war, and that too he knows – but this one, this one will be between muggle and magical and it's a war that they might not win. It's a war that he has to prevent at all costs.

The world, divided, is simply not ready to be made whole. That's what he's doing at MI6, preventing a war that must never be fought – preventing muggles from finding magic. It's gotten harder over the years, especially with magical wars. The Department of Mysteries found that there is a connection between magic and technology, that any wizard with powerful magic will have an equivalent ability with technology.

To test that theory Harry goes to Eton and finds that they are right, of course, and it's how he ends up here. If muggles know about magic, the first place they might make note of it is with their technology and it's his Unspeakable duty to ensure what is put online is not kept online when it concerns magic and wizards and witches.

If Q is very good at his job at Q Division – and he is, or he would not have been made a part of Q Branch which is the left hand to the right of the 00 Agents. Of which there is only ever five serving, and each is supposed to have a Q. As the rising star of Q Division, he got himself a 00 Agent, his agent is 007. Q still doesn't know what to think of him.

Here where he's surrounded by the humming of computers and the chill air that keeps them running, and it's like they are a part of him, every bit of data is like a instinct, every button a sense, every image a bit of his blood. It's powerful, and he doesn't know what to call it – technology – or magic? In the end, he does his job so it doesn't really matter what he calls what he feels, be it the senses of his body or of his machinery. It's peaceful, and busy, crazy confusing, but orderly - madness and methods.

"Q!" Bond greets him, and he gets the sense that his agent has been calling for him more than once. Q looks up at him, blinking behind glasses that make his bright green eyes a shade of dark brown. His hair is still disorderly and black, the Department of Mysteries for all it's power and secrets could in the end do as little to tame it as his aunt once had. Bond's eyes are blue and his hair is blond; simple and elegant. A solution to what the senses of machine and magic can't detect.

"007?" Q tilts his head in inquiry, raising dark brows. Despite the demanding greeting, James Bond's look turns sheepish and guilty.

There is still a lingering cloud of worry in his blue eyes that Q knows well. His agent is the kind to worry over what he won't ask, and Q never fears that there will be a day when 007 asks "how are you Q?". Not unless Q invites interaction beyond this, his job – his duty - and he never will make his work into something personal. As an Unspeakable it's unthinkable. And even if a Quartermaster could be forgiven such things, he's an Unspeakable first and foremost.

"There was a bit of a mishap." James Bond admits, and Q waits to see. James puts on his desk something mangled and metal and Q blinks at it without recognizing it. He presses his lips together into a firm line and squints and can sort of see an outline. It has less to do with what it look like what it was and more to do with what Q can remember giving his agent.

"I see." Q takes it up and cradles it as gently as he would something small and precious, he looks it over and knows it's useless. Yet he learns from it, he sort of sees what his agent doesn't say, how it all happened. How it must have happened.

"I trust your paper work is in order?" Q manages between bits of insight, weighing could and would haves.

"Yes, I…I think so." Bond swallows, Q never sees how his agent eyes his fingers, thin and long as they touch and probe and test, as if there might be life in what James Bond gave. As if it can be fixed.

James Bond sees it when another young (they all look so young) man of Q Branch or Q Division (Bond has yet to see what the difference is, but he's noticed that there is a difference in terms and seem to have a meaning to Q and these others) ambles up to his Q and flicks a look at Bond that's at once disdainful and amused. Bond thinks that Q isn't alone in his dislike for 00 Agents on the field. Bond has hoped that he's mended some of that rift between Q and him. For all that his Q is young, he's full of secrets and slips in not saying anything rather than in speaking.

The youth is sharp grey eyed and brown hair and puts a hand on Q like it belongs there. Bond feels a cold twisting in his gut and thinks maybe it is, after all, just him that Q is impersonal toward. Q's eyes catch those of the other young man, and he greets him with a half smile.

"I see you'll be working your magic late tonight, Quentin." James Bond resists clenching his teeth together or his hands, he'd wanted to find out Q's name on his own – wanted his quartermaster to give it to him. Q, though, doesn't look like a Quentin, and as Q seems unshaken by this other young man calling him out loud, the name might not really be his.
MI6 is funny about names. Q's are funnier.

"If he's Q, you must be R." James lets the youth see the sneer that curls his lip, and if Q Branch – Q Division, whichever, whatever has reason to be disdainful toward field agents, so much more is the gap between 00 Agents and Q intelligence. Grudges like this can only get agents killed.

"You were dismissed, weren't you?" R inquires tone curiously insulting. James would open his mouth, but Q gets there first. He might not have noticed Bond's watching him handle the bit of cell phone – equipped with tracking and an eye scan that would only let Bond use it - that had gotten crushed, cracked and drowned; but he notices what the effect of his 'name' on his 00 Agent.

"He wasn't, as a matter of fact – and 007 that is not my name. Quentin comes from the Roman Quintus; it means 'fifth' all Q's of Q Branch are called some variation of that by Q Division. There are only ever supposed to be five 007 agents, and we five Q's are called that after you. It's an honor, but not my name." Q's look is warm toward his 007 agent, and James Bond treasures that look. Young and secretive his Q might be, but he's not sullen toward Bond.

R sulks at what Q tells him, as if it was supposed to be a secret. It's the last time James Bond ever lays eyes on R; and a week or two later Q lets him know, as if off hand, that Q Division let go of 'R'. James Bond doesn't let Q know how he feels about it, but he's glad that Q got rid of someone for him, for the field agents, but mostly he's territorial and glad to see no one else in Q Division or Q Branch will ever touch his Q without now worrying about their jobs.

It's the same day that Q gives him the cell phone only he can use, with an eye scan that lets only James Bond use it, and it's built in tracking system.

"It looks the same." James eyes it, and is sure of that much.

"It is the same." Q gives him a puzzled look, as if of course it is supposed to be. James goes still, because he's taken technology from quartermasters and ruined it, and never has anyone ever bothered to fix what he's broken. It somehow means more now, than if it had meant something if Q got it new and tinkered with it.

"Well, I'll give R this much, he was right about your magic touch." Behind his glasses Q's brown eyes flash a vivid green, and he smiles and puts a finger to his lips.

James Bond wonders at it, but he never tells.

Bond isn't the sort to flinch from a mission; it is what comes after a mission that he sort of dreads. Yes, the worst part of Bond's job is coming home, job done. The job starts with Q, and it ends with Q. MI6 doesn't offer much down time, and James Bond is dreadfully grateful for it. He likes his life, its dull upper crust, posh and rustic when he gets out of the suit, out of London and out where no one can find him but those he sees coming - but his passion – what really he loves – is the job.

Except when it might not be so simple, and he buys his Q tickets to see the opening of a new exhibit at the National Gallery, two tickets on a whim – bought with his own money – and they aren't cheap, and the two of them go – and even if James Bond doesn't care for art, he cares for Q – and can especially keep all his secrets, whatever they might be and whenever Q lets him in. He is 007's Q. That means more than the job, in the end.