"So this is normal then?" Harry asked when he heard the engines spool up. The earlier chatter from the crew that had remained behind on the ship gave him an idea of what was going on.
"What U-Day?" Inara smiled while watching Harry work at the stove. In just the short time that he had been on Serenity, seeing him cook up a meal was quite an entertaining way to pass the time.
Harry nodded in response. "Captain, Zoe and Jayne going out and starting a bar fight over some war that ended years ago."
The companion chuckled at how simplified Harry made it seem, "Yeah it's not the first time Mal's just gone for a drink."
Inara had found that Harry was a lovely conversationalist. She found his accent endearing; it sounded a lot like some of the cockney she had heard from others but Harry's was less guttural and more refined. He was always witty and honest with his replies, up until you asked him about his past then things were harder to read. She could tell there was pain, lots of pain, so she didn't press. Companions were to provide comfort in all manners, not dig into someone's scarred past.
Also she loved his cooking. So when he set down a plate of food for her she eagerly dug into it. "Another wonderful dish Harry. If I don't do something soon, I'm going to be worried about my figure." Teasing the young man who blushed at the praise.
"I don't… you look great Inara," Harry muttered while rubbing the back of his head. "Doubt a little bit of uh… I'm just going to stop now."
Inara held back laughter at the teenager's attempt at flirting. It had a certain innocence to it that older gentlemen never had, somewhere that naivety was replaced by confidence or in many cases false bravado.
"I'll go see if Sleeping Beauty is awake, she's been out for quite a while and is probably going to be hungry, since I don't believe that she would have eaten anything while in cryo and has been drugged up by the doc the last couple of days." Harry said before plating up some food and heading to the infirmary.
"Hey doc," Harry announced himself so as not to startle the man who seemed busy with whatever he was doing. "Just thought your sister might like something to eat when she wakes up."
Simon turned towards the newly appointed cook and the plate of warm food he was holding. "Thanks, I'm not sure where her appetite will be once she awakens."
Harry smirked and looked to the sleeping River. "Probably somewhere between starving and wanting to vomit at the sight of food. There's never an inbetween with this kind of thing. But we all have to eat at some point."
"That we do." Simon sighed only to jump when his sister sat up screaming and flailing about.
Harry silently watched for a few minutes as Simon hurried to calm down his distraught sister. Once he could see that she was just looking around the room Harry stepped towards the girl who was maybe a year or so younger than him. "Hello there, my name is Harry Potter. I made you some food." Offering the plate to the girl who just stared at him. A strange pressure formed in the front of his head that he recognized and repelled, unknowingly causing another reaction.
River seemed to stand still before letting out a scream and hurling herself into a corner and whimpering. "River, River. What's wrong?" Simon asked with concern. Because while he had expected unease around strangers his sister had never been one to react so dramatically to new people before.
"She tried to read my mind," Harry muttered to himself. Before turning around at the sound of someone clearing their throat.
"Am I interrupting something? A family moment per say?" Mal chuckled, giving the sobbing girl a wide berth to clean the blood off his knuckles in the sink.
"Captain, after Simon's got River squared away I might have something about why she's so important." Harry whispered while keeping the girl in his line of sight.
"Already?" Simon glanced over his shoulder because in such a small room there wasn't much you wouldn't hear. This was a surprise to him that the young man who had made a vague promise had come up with information within his first time meeting River.
After everyone but River had come into the dining room for lunch and once they had all settled in Harry waited a moment before deciding to lay out what he suspected was going on. "Your sister's a mind reader," Harry flatly said to the girl's brother. "I think that's why she freaked out."
Confusion seemed to be the common consensus among the other passengers, which Harry felt was pretty understandable so he knew he'd have to try to explain things a bit better, but he was no Hermione who would probably be able to give every detail on the subject.
Harry nodded solemnly. "What your sister does is pick up the surface thoughts of everyone around her. That also might explain why she seemed so frazzled, it'd be like listening to a dozen conversations all at once all the time."
"Let's say, oh man," Simon sucked in a breath, and seemed to barely be suppressing laughter. "Let's pretend that I believe you and that my sister is a psychic. Why was that the first conclusion you came to?"
"Because she tried to read my mind and couldn't get in." Harry answered while tapping his head. "Where I'm from, the ability to read minds is not unheard of. You could be trained to do it." Snape had simply cast a spell on him, which meant anyone could if they bothered to learn it. "But what they also train you is how to keep people out of your head. And when someone tries to get in you feel it, it's like someone trying to press their thumb into your brain."
"So she tried to get inside your head and you stopped her?" Kaylee tilted her head curiously. So far it seemed to make sense since she hadn't really seen anything to the contrary. "Then why did she freak out?"
"She's probably just not used to anyone being able to do that, getting pushed out of someone's head can be disorienting, it also doesn't help she wasn't expecting it either." Harry answered based on his experience of being ejected from Snape's mind what seemed like a lifetime ago.
Finally Mal finished mulling over what Harry had said and let out a hearty chuckle. "Oh this is some great shit you're spitting here. Reading minds," Mal scoffed at the absurd concept. He waggled a finger towards Harry. "Kids these days with their overactive imagination."
Rolling his eyes in annoyance at being dismissed so offhandedly Harry looked to the rest of the crew. "I hope you all remember Dobson." It was unlikely that they would forget the fed who had been on board only a few days ago. "Then you should remember that I removed his memories, all of that falls under the same mind arts. Reading, rewriting, removing and repelling."
Seeing that no one was motioning to interrupt him he continued to speak while ignoring the captain's snickers. "So far it seems that River can only read but that's still useful on its own."
Wash slowly raised his hand because he was not one so quick to dismiss the strange claim after all the kid seemed to have a good head on his shoulders if he was a tad odd, but he wasn't really one to judge someone for their proclivities. "I'm a little unclear, could you explain a bit more about why that'd be useful?"
A smile graced Harry's face at seeing that not everyone was so quick to reject what he was telling them Harry went and answered the question. "First of all you have the obvious usage when it comes to creating a spy, you just need to get near someone and anything they're thinking of you'll know. Get them talking about something even if it's to avoid it and they'll have what you want to know at the forefront of their mind. That's just easy pickings for someone who no one can stop."
Harry scratched his chin to think of another less obvious usage of mind reading and came up with something he had done in his first few months in this new time period. "You could also use it to train the perfect asset. All you would need to do is get her near people with skills and get them thinking about those skills and she'll have them in her head."
Shepherd Book leaned back and let out an appreciative whistle. "Fuck." he gasped out because he could tell why the Alliance would want someone with that ability. There would be an unknown number of future highly skilled operatives if the young doctor had been right that there were more than just his sister at this facility, all fully capable of espionage and Lord knows what else.
"So the Alliance tried to make that little girl into some kind of super spy, jack of all trades then?" Zoe inquired as to what the meaning of Harry's explanation could mean. Even if Harry was wrong, It seemed fairly obvious that whatever the Alliance had really taken River for was anything but good though.
Harry shrugged because he honestly didn't know what the government might want River or those other kids for, he was just speculating on what River could be used for. "Could be or there could be another reason they so desperately want her back that they're not trying to go about this in a different way."
Jayne sat forward. "Can we go back to the part where you're also one of those mind reader types?" Wanting to explore more of what the kid had said offhandedly.
Screwing up his features as he tried to think of the best way to explain without revealing to the crew all of his abilities because the last time he'd done that, it had not gone well for Harry and he wouldn't have even said anything if he hadn't seen firsthand the fear and pain in River's eyes that he knew he couldn't ignore.
"Well I uh," he stammered a bit because he was trying to come up with ways to deflect suspicion off of him so that they didn't do something to him. "I'm not actually all that good at reading minds, but for people like me who could do that and similar things we were sent to a school. It's complicated and I'm pretty damn sure it and where your sister ended up are nothing alike. But what I'm better at is removing memories and keeping people out. Had to get really good at those," he said sadly over how many minds he had to wipe just to keep his cover since he arrived in this distant and bleak future.
It was painfully obvious to the rest of the crew that this line of questioning was making Harry uncomfortable and while some might be fine with squeezing for that information others were not. And those who didn't want to press Harry spoke up first. "It's alright Harry you've been such a great help already and you don't have to tell us anymore if you don't want to." Inara said, interrupting the young man. She smiled when she saw what must have been a lot of tension leave Harry's body.
"Yeah if you're right then you've already given me more in an hour than what I was able to find out in the years that River was gone," Simon chimed in, he was in agreement with the companion that Harry had done a lot of good that he would have only been able to slowly piece together and it would have likely taken a long time since mind reading was no where on the list of possibilities to investigate.
"I just wish I could do more, I'm not really qualified to teach Occlumency, uh the keeping people out thing I mentioned." Harry rubbed his arm nervously since now that the subject had been brought up he wasn't sure how to really walk away now, especially after seeing how much help this young girl needed.
Shepard Book hummed curiously at that statement. "Why would teaching her to block people out help?" He wanted to know more about these mental abilities and Harry seemed to be the only one who was coherent enough to explain it.
Harry cleared his throat and nodded. "Well if she's constantly reading the minds of everyone around her, teaching her how to block people out might help her get control so that she's not always doing it, which she shouldn't even really be doing anyway." After his lessons with Snape, Harry had wanted to know a bit more about legilimency and discovered that some people can do it naturally but from what he remembered they had to consciously do it, it was not something you just had going all the time.
Simon contemplated what Harry had just said for a moment, comparing it to what he had seen of River when he rescued her. "It could be something they did to her that's keeping this ability going all the time, they performed a lot of surgery on her spine and injected her with who knows how many chemicals something could have triggered in her that made her unable to turn off this ability of hers."
Harry simply tossed up his hands in defeat. "I wouldn't know, I'm not a doctor or a chemist, heck I barely know enough to explain this situation at all."
"Well that's more than any of us knew Harry," Zoe said to the young man, while she might not be fully onboard with the whole mind reading bit, she was not so ready to dismiss it after what he had done to the fed. It was just something else for her to think about and what it might mean.
Mal finally stood up from his seat. "Since I guess I'm the only sane person left on board, I'm going to quarantine myself in the cockpit. Zoe, Jayne, when you're done playing make believe with the kid we're heading to a skyplex to get a job from a man named Niska, he's got a bad reputation so I need you two to focus on the job." Male looked between his second in command and hired muscle to make sure they knew what was expected of them.
Being that Harry was only the cook he was not privy to the details of whatever accord had been struck between Captain Mal Reynolds and this Niska guy but he was smart enough to know that it was most definitely not above board. This was something Harry was perfectly fine with because he knew that the closer he got to the action the sooner and more likely it was that he would be discovered for what he was and some nights he still had nightmares about the last crew who learned about what he could do.
That also meant he got to spend more time in the company of the lovely Ms. Serra. Whenever he wasn't keeping the ship clean, a few charms here and there when no one was looking on the set in stains of various origins, he was cooking up in the galley kitchen. As he found out Inara quite liked the smells of whatever he was cooking so would sit at the table and read while making light conversation with him. Harry was only thankful that when he was at the stove and counter he was facing away from the very attractive woman because if she saw that some of her teasing comments caused his face to turn bright red he was sure she'd never stop.
However the companion was not the only one who occupied the table often as it seemed to be the go to place for anyone who was not currently busy. Sitting around the table were the other non crew members of Serenity. Each one was engrossed in their own reading material except for the young River Tam who was splayed out on the table looking bored out of her mind. Simon had asked if she was feeling better and after piecing together a mangled response he was able to determine that with fewer people around she wasn't as bombarded with thoughts as before, so in her own words "the girl was fine with the volume."
Jayne passing through the galley in a strange outfit garnered the attention of those sitting around the room. Despite not wanting to get involved Harry was curious to see what exactly called for the mercenary to be dressed the way he was. Turning the burners down low Harry followed Jayne to the cargo bay to see a hatch opened in the floor. "Oh please tell me you aren't going to do what I think you are going to do?" Harry groaned because this was surely not well thought out.
"If by that you mean jumping on a moving train then yeah, that's exactly what we're doing." Kaylee giggled at Harry's exasperated look.
"Now listen here boy, you go on back to that kitchen and have a meal ready for when this job is done, we ain't going to be too long," Jayne ordered the raven-haired young man while he put on his floppy hat.
"Since when are you in charge? Captain's not here and Zoe's with him." Harry questioned why he should listen to Jayne. He knew the chain of command when those two were on board, it was Mal's ship after all.
"Since I told you to shut up," Jayne glared.
Harry just shrugged with a smirk. "I figured if anyone was in charge it was the nice lady who is going to be the only thing between you safely landing on the train or the harness failing and you falling to your untimely demise."
It took Jayne a few seconds and he had to look down through the open hatch to realize that maybe being snippy wasn't the most appropriate thing to be at the moment. Before he could get in another word Harry raised his hands and sauntered away.
"I don't like him," Jayne spat out in frustration at how the twerp was able to get under his skin so easily.
Kaylee swatted Jayne's arm and strapped him into his harness nice and tight. "Course you do Jayne, yer just mad that he got one on you this time. And he's right it wouldn't kill you to be a bit nicer to people, after all, I could drop you." she shouted playfully, giving Jayne a light shove that made him flail about to keep his balance.
"S'not right though." The merc grumbled to the mechanic. "All these people on board. Captain's gotta have some kind of a plan to make money off this. We could hand over the doc and his cuckoo sister, and collect the bounty on them. Plus who knows what people'd pay for that little weirdo." Nudging his head up to where Harry had been before.
"Captain ain't gonna turn them over Jayne, so don't even think that," Kaylee said firmly.
"Just sayin'," Jayne shrugged. "Might need to think about the value each person brings to the table and what they might be worth leavin'."
Unbeknownst to the merc and mechanic, Harry hadn't walked too far away as he wanted to eavesdrop a bit after hearing Kaylee speak up in his defense. Hearing Jayne talk about turning him over had his heart pounding in his chest.
"You don't look so good there son," Shepherd Book said to Harry after seeing him return to the kitchen. There was distraught evident on his face despite the attempt to hide it.
"Nothing Shepherd, just gotta finish up the dinner you know," the young wizard chuckled nervously. Harry was hoping that topic of conversation would be dropped because the more people that thought about him in terms of profit was something he really didn't want. So vocalizing what he had overheard Jayne say would only earn him more trouble down the road.
It wasn't more than a few minutes later when shouting was heard from the hold and everyone hurried out of the galley to see what was happening.
"Hurry he's been shot," Kaylee waved to Simon who rushed over.
"Got shot in my gorram leg," Jayne shouted as he unhooked himself from the harness and limped away from the stolen cargo.
It didn't take much for the preacher and surgeon to get the mercenary into the medical bay. Leaving the cook standing with the mechanic. "What happened?" Harry questioned the only other person involved in the heist that was there to see what was going on.
"Don't know, Cap'n just said to get the goods out." Kaylee answered while securing the crates. "Something must have gone wrong."
Harry really didn't like that answer, because it didn't really say anything about the situation. Now that Kaylee finished getting everything put away he followed her into the medbay to check on Jayne who was swearing up a storm.
"What did I miss?" Kaylee asked Wash for an update.
"Jayne thinks we're going to leave Mal and my wife behind," Wash snorted in amusement.
"Why would we go and do something foolish like that?" Kaylee questioned that decision Jayne came up with all on his own.
"Because we have to finish the deal with Niska," Jayne hissed trying to put his foot down but the pain was too much for him, so he started to yell at Simon to get him some pain killers.
Shepherd Book had been standing quietly in the corner observing the situation when he spoke up about the name Jayne had said. "I do hope it's not Adelai Niska you are talking about?"
"Now hows a preacher know about a man like that?" Jayne retorted.
It seemed that Shepherd didn't seem to want to answer that question and just continued on with his own words. "As I see it, the deal was made with the captain. And if the captain isn't there to complete it, that could cause problems. Especially if Niska finds out that someone was in a position to tell the authorities who hired him. I think in this case we shouldn't be in a hurry to finish the job."
Jayne contemplated for a moment before grumbling about how everyone thought they were so smart. But that created another problem for them, they didn't hear anything from the captain or Zoe on what to do or how to get them out.
The recent issue that arose was that Jayne was not a patient man and not even ten minutes later was limping up to the cockpit to get the ship in the air. An argument broke out that didn't last long before Jayne passed out from the drugs Simon had given him, which helped ease some of the tension in the room. Cooler heads prevail and all that.
"Much as I hate to say it, Jayne's probably right." Wash sighed because he really did hate to say it. "Chances are they got pinched when they got off the train."
Kaylee bit her bottom lip. "But we can't just waltz in there and pull 'em out can we?"
Book looked over at Inara. "Someone respectable might be able to."
Harry didn't like the idea of sending Inara in but they couldn't really think of another way to get them out before someone else found the ship or discovered who the Captain and Zoe really were. So he was waiting with the rest of the ship's occupants for Inara's shuttle to return and visibly sighed in relief when she radioed in that she had the two with her safe and sound.
"A bit tense there young man?" Shepherd Book asked Harry.
Harry just wrung his hands. "Just nervous Shepherd. If this had gone wrong then Inara would have been stuck with them and the authorities would have been on high alert." If it required they send in more people to bust them out Harry wasn't sure he'd be able to help without revealing what he could do.
"So you were worried about us getting caught or… her getting caught," the elderly preacher smirked mischievously, seeing that Harry's cheeks turned a nice shade of pink when he implied that the concern was for the safety of the lady ambassador. "She is an attractive woman, there's no harm in it after all."
"That's not it, I mean she is. Bloody hell she's gorgeous," Harry chuckled while he saw that Mal and Zoe walked past him to the cockpit, if he had been paying more attention he would have noticed that they had both faltered for a moment before continuing onward. "But it's just, this could have gotten really ugly really fast."
Shepherd Book exhaled sharply. "And they still might," he said looking to the open bay where presumably Niska's men came walking in.
This was not a good sign Harry realized when the Captain and crew had a little face off with the other party. Knowing that things were going to go South real quick because only one person getting shot today wouldn't be enough Harry carefully moved around the upper railing to get in close.
Crow must have deemed the captain's words insufficient because the next moment saw a knife embedded in Mal's shoulder. Leaping into action Harry landed on the nearest guy who was aiming to shoot blindly into the cargo bay. The scuffle was short lived before enough lead had been exchanged to determine who would get to walk away and Harry was grateful to be on the winning side this time.
Finding out that Captain was returning the medicine made Harry feel good about the vessel he was on because it showed that at least they weren't going to take jobs that screwed over those who Fate already knocked down.