Harry Potter Mania

The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301

Part III - Chapter Thirty-Four

Even for a crisis day at MI-5, the atmosphere in the conference room was unusually tense. On the screen, the twenty-four hour news channel was showing pictures of the wreckage of the double-decker buses that had been bombed right in front of Buckingham Palace. Twenty people were dead and dozens more injured and Bentley was in a rare taking.

Harry had called in hours earlier with a tip from one of his wizard sources, a source Harry was sure was reliable but which Edgar thought was dodgy at best. It didn't help that the tip had come through Snape, whom Edgar had never liked. Harry had collected Carter and they had gone haring off to Glastonbury to investigate a possible Death Eater attack, or perhaps to find King Arthur's sword. In any event, they had found a dead body according to the local police, but they had failed to report in and the police had no clue were they had got to. Then the report had come in on the bus bombings and the internet had been full of rumors that the attacks had been the work of the Alliance.

Even that wouldn't have been so bad by itself if not for Brittany Halsey's sudden panic. She had been coordinating reports on the bombings, working in that calm, professional way she had that almost made one forget her extravagant beauty, when she had stopped dead sentence, her face going still, her widening eyes changing from puzzlement to anxiety to sheer fright.

Thinking she had seen a more disturbing threat in her reports, perhaps a possible additional and worse attack, Edgar had glanced at her laptop only to see the same thing that was on everyone else's. Nothing new or more terrifying than what they already knew.

"What is it?" Edgar asked quietly. He glanced at the others, hoping they wouldn't notice, as some instinct told him their troubles were far worse than they knew.

"Johnny," she said, "he's gone."

"What d'you mean, he's gone?" Edgar asked softer yet.

"Just that," she said. "He's gone completely, like he doesn't exist anymore. One minute he was there, and the next, not."

Edgar started to tell her, that's nonsense, just worry brought on by the bombings and his failure to report in, but then he remembered that the woman who behaved like a perfectly normal Muggle was a witch, or if not a witch, a magical creature, part-Veela, and who knew what powers she might possess along with her ability to enchant any man.

"I always know where he is," she said. Edgar could see she was trying to stay calm, but his skin tingled as something of her emotions converted into power, into the preliminary workings of magic.

He laid a hand on hers and said, "Steady, girl," as one might calm a panicking horse.

"I'm not crazy," she said coldly. Her first panic was gone. "You don't have to believe it, but it's true. I've always known where he was, since we were quite small. I know if he's well or ill. I'd know if he died."

She stopped there and bit her lip. A faint shudder rippled through her, just once. "He's not dead," she said, "just...gone...as if he'd never been."

"Do you know," she whispered then, "what magic could do that? Mask a person's essence so completely that it can't be felt?"

Edgar gawped at her a moment and said, "No! I've never heard of such a thing. But then, I've never heard of anyone being able to do what you say you can, know where another is, like that."

She looked at him then, and the look in her blue eyes was strange, as though she were reading the entirety of him just as anyone might read a book. "The People of the Forest have talents humans don't," Brittany said, "and the least of our talents is the ability to enchant men."

She sat back down then, and as though she had buried all bits of her magic, she ticked off what they, as any officer would when faced with a missing person. "One, he was here when Harry called. Two, he went off with Harry to Glastonbury to check out a possible Death Eater attack. Three, there haven't been any attacks in Glastonbury. Four, Johnny called in the local police when they found a dead body at the archaeological dig there. The officers talked to him and Harry, and the two of them then left saying they were going to take a look around. Five, the local police said they went off in the direction of the Tor. Six ... no one's seen them since, and now Johnny's gone altogether." She stared at Edgar and asked, "You don't suppose some of the stories about the Tor are true? Does it lead to the Underworld? Have they somehow slipped into some other realm?"

"I don't believe that," Edgar said firmly. "That's Muggle romance."

"Is it?" Brittany responded. "There're more things in the world, more magiks than you know Edgar Bones, wizard though you are."

Edgar nearly answered that he had some training at least, he'd passed his OWLs at Hogwarts, but a thought teased at him. Harry was involved, and when Harry Potter was involved, things happened that happened to nobody else. Thinking that, he answered, "He's with Harry. He'll be all right if he's with Harry."

The statement had an unfortunate effect, however. Instead of calming down, she had called Ginny Potter and Ginny Potter had arrived at the office within such a short space of time that he knew she had to have apparated inside and that she had by-passed security altogether. At least she wasn't wearing witch's robes, he thought.

"What are you doing here?" Bentley asked.

Ginny barely spared the Head a glance. Her eyes fixed on the screen, which showed scenes from the bombing: the twisted wreckage of the bus, the emergency teams carrying away the bloodied victims, and here and there, other bodies whose covered faces told a tale of sorrow that no happily ever after ending would ever ameliorate.

"Where is he?" she asked. "Is he one of those?" Her face was quite calm, as though a positive answer was fully expected. Edgar supposed she had grown used to the idea over the years that someday, somehow, Harry's luck would run out. Or perhaps she was calm because she could never bring herself to believe it.

"We don't know where he is," Brittany answered. "He went to Glastonbury with Johnny, and they're gone, disappeared without a trace." She hesitated, her blue eyes on Ginny's too calm face, waiting for the explosion of that famous Weasley temper, but none came. Her face tightened fractionally, a faint narrowing of the usually merry brown eyes as she caught each of them with a look that was more fearsome for its coldness than any fury might have been.

"Why there?" Ginny demanded.

"He had a tip something would happen," Edgar cut in. He tried to think of a way to get her out of there, but no useful ideas came to mind.

"From who?" she asked immediately.

Bentley stepped forward, probably to assert some control over the situation, but Edgar answered quickly, as he was certain Bentley did not really understand what a witch like Ginny Potter might do, especially under these circumstances.

"Snape gave him the tip," Edgar said grimly, "only it appears to have been a diversion." He gestured to the screen where one of the victims lay in an area sheltered from the public, but not from the Security Services team. The body was that of a large man, his eyes staring wide and fixed in death with the Alliance brand on his forehead.

"Goyle!" she said grimly. "They must have found out he was feeding Snape information. They would have killed him just for that alone."

"And just who was this Goyle?" Bentley cut in.

"Harry's source inside the Death Eaters and the Alliance," Edgar answered.

"That still doesn't answer where Harry is," Ginny said tensely, "or Carter or Sirius."

"Sirius?"

"He was with Harry at home today," Ginny replied, "and he's not now. He must have gone along with them. I can't imagine," she added, "how he managed to get Harry to take him along."

That bit of information worried Edgar even more. He could not help the feeling of icy suspicion working its way down his spine. Harry missing and with him the one person Harry would never think to distrust, the child of his household, the son of the Dark Lord.

Bentley clearly did not like that bit of information either. "How is it," he asked Ginny, "that you know so much about Harry's sources when you've been retired from the Job for years? He swore a secrecy oath, and you are no longer one of those who can receive this information."

"Just because I'm not working for you doesn't mean I do nothing at all," Ginny retorted. Her tone was still cool, but the snap in her voice and eyes augured serious trouble to come.

"And what is it you do, then," Bentley asked, "that gives you access to classified information?"

Ginny lifted her brows and said, "I run a network of wizards and witches for the Order of the Phoenix, Commander Bentley, and they provide all sorts of information about dark wizards including Death Eaters and Grindelwald's old followers. Some of it happens to coincide with your interests, but they're wizard problems first."

"Any security problem in this country is my bailiwick," Bentley said loudly. Edgar could see that he was starting to fire up. It was not that Bentley had any particular prejudices against the wizard community. Some of his best agents were wizards, Edgar thought dryly. No, the head simply didn't like being out of control or out of the loop, and not knowing things about dark wizards must frighten him as much as anything. The incipient conflict was quashed however by greater concerns as Brittany gasped and said, "He's back."

The two of them strolled into the conference room as if nothing at all had happened. Edgar noted that they both looked a bit worse for wear. Carter's suit was actually dirty and torn and looked as though he'd been rolling in it or sleeping in it. Harry's black dragon hide jacket was in one piece, but it too looked less than pristine and Harry's face and hands were far from clean. Edgar could have sworn that the faint smear high on his cheekbone might even have been dried blood. His bright green eyes were perfectly clear and calm, though, right up until the moment that they rested on his wife and from there swept on to take in the brutal scenes on the screen.

"What's happened?" he asked. His face drained of color as he asked, "James? Lily? Are they..."

"They're fine," Ginny replied, "it's you we were worried about. Disappearing without a word, going off to fight Death Eaters without any back-up, never a word until Brittany called me in a panic because he went off with you and neither one of you could be found, and Sirius gone off with you - he did, didn't? - coming here and seeing all those people dead and thinking you might be one of them, and Goyle dead, and he the one who passed on the information to you - "

Edgar was certain that she would have gone on in that deadly whisper that was worse than any shout except that Harry laid a hand on her shoulder and said, "So it was a diversion. Or were they running two operations at once and which was the diversion for the other?" He stared at the wreckage of the bus and Goyle's corpse. "Maybe the bus was the diversion for Glastonbury?" Pausing again, he shook his head and said, "Poor Goyle. The one time in his life he did anything good, he had to get killed for it, didn't he?"

"He was setting a trap for you," Ginny said. "Where were you? Why were you gone like that?"

Harry turned to Carter and exchanged a lightning quick glance with him.

"Glastonbury," Johnny said smoothly. "They murdered the poor archaeologist there, you know. We had to send for the local police."

"That was hours ago," Brittany said angrily. "You've been gone for hours. They told us they went looking for you and you were both gone, disappeared at the top of the Tor. What did you do, go inside the hill? Where did you go? You were gone as completely as if you had died, but I would have felt that if you had."

Carter gawped at her and then understanding showed in his lake blue eyes, eyes that were twin to those of his angry cousin. "I didn't think of it," he blurted. "It didn't occur to me you'd notice we were gone." He cut off the sentence quickly at another glance from Harry, but everyone there was now staring at the two of them, Edgar as much as any of them.

After the briefest pause, Harry said coolly, "it must be the Tor. It does have some kind of magic to it. Our mobiles weren't working very well."

He was very good, Edgar thought, but then he had a gift for acting when he really wanted to. Something, however, was off, he thought. He wasn't the only one to notice either as Ginny was staring at her husband suspiciously.

Bright afternoon sunlight shone through the conference room windows casting white glare on the large screen, exposing the fine glitter of dust motes in every bar of light and illumining the youthful face before him with the kind of light that Renaissance painters occasionally caught. It was, Edgar thought, looking at the face as one might a work of art, a rather beautiful face, finely sculpted, combining strength with delicacy, the cheekbones high, the nose straight, the brow broad, with the untidy black hair tumbling over it. It was to the brow that Edgar's attention went just then, rather than the bright green eyes, for in the indifferent illumination of the sunlight, the absolute lack of aging was highlighted. Not a line marred the youthful face though Edgar knew the man before him was well into his thirties. Not a single mark disturbed the unnatural glow of the boy and it was that that suddenly frightened him more than anything. Without thought, heedless of the fact that they were among Muggles, he drew his wand and held it steady. "Where is he?" Edgar asked, "where is the real Harry Potter?"

Ginny gasped and the others turned to stare from him to the boy. The one who looked to be Harry's twin stared at him too, looking for the first time that afternoon quite disconcerted.

"What are you saying?" he asked, and his puzzlement was so real, so perfect, that Edgar himself stared at him again and shook his head. Cutting off everyone else, he said harshly, "Look at him. It's one of the best disguises I've ever seen. Some kind of dark magic, I suppose, to get everything so exact." Turning to the double, he said, "Except you've forgotten one thing: the single most distinguishing characteristic about Harry Potter."

Instantly, Ginny drew her wand as well, and she held it steady, though the look in her eyes was one of terror and loss.

The green eyes widened at the sight of the second wand and the boy before them looked utterly lost. Then his expression firmed into one of perfect calm, neutral, unreadable, except for a certain tightness about the mouth and faint pinching about the nose, as though he could almost smell something bad.

"This is nonsense," Carter said abruptly. "I've been with him the whole time."

But from a corner of the conference room table, Bronztein read from his laptop screen, "Harry James Potter, born July 31, 1980. Distinguishing marks, one thin crooked scar on his forehead, in the shape of a lightning bolt."

"No scar," Edgar said coolly. "You forgot the scar."

One long fingered hand flew to the broad brow, exactly where the scar ought to be. "That's not possible," the boy responded. "Curse scars never go away." Edgar could only marvel at the perfection of the performance. No one could get it that right, the inflections just so, the husky sound of the voice in its astonishment.

"No, they don't," he agreed grimly.

"It must have been the Cup," Carter said suddenly. He too was staring at the boy, with wonder though, not with accusation. Doubling Edgar's anxiety, the response was a gesture, as though to shut Carter up. If it really was Carter, he thought grimly.

Edgar, however, wasn't having any of that. "What cup?" he asked. "Is that what you used to make the transformation, some magic cup that duplicates the person you want to impersonate? I've never heard of anything like it, but it seems to have a slight flaw, doesn't it?"

"I'm not impersonating anybody," the boy said angrily. He took a step forward as though to do something, but Ginny made a motion with her wand that stopped him cold. Distress darkened the clear green eyes at that and he said to her, peculiarly, "Too bad you never did teach me the counter-curse for the Bat Bogey Hex."

She flinched slightly, and doubt flashed over her face, then anger again. "Harry's scar is permanent. Nothing could take it away, not even Voldemort's death. Where is he?" The question, repeated with all the force of the woman's personality, made others, hardened veterans, flinch; but not the boy.

"Right here," he said softly. "Truly, it is me, Ginny."

From the table, Bronztein spoke again, so unexpectedly that they all jumped. "Other distinguishing marks," he said, "One horizontal scar on the front chest just between the fourth and fifth ribs. One identical parallel scar on the back." Bronztein stood and said, "Let's have a look see, then. Go on, take your jacket and shirt off. Or perhaps you've forgotten those as well?"

"I will not," the boy replied. Again Edgar marveled as the tone was so perfect in its offense, the mimicry so precise.

"You had better," Edgar said coldly, leveling his wand. "I will use it," he added, "and trust me, I know how as Harry taught me quite a bit himself." Carter moved again, and looked as though he would speak, but the Boy shrugged, one of those, oh, so irritating shrugs, and took off the Dragonhide jacket. Beneath the jacket, he wore and hand-knitted sweater with a golden lion on the front. The sweater wasn't what drew the eyes though; that was reserved for the leather sheathed sword that had been belted around the Boy's slim waist.

The light of challenge shone in the green eyes as he casually unbelted the sword and ran a hand along the sheath. What had looked like cracked, ancient leather appeared then like new, crimson, lustrous, and tooled with silver and gold. Quickly, before anyone could protest, he drew the sword, and Edgar had to suppress sheer terror. The hilt of the sword bore a golden lion and between the lion's paws was a heart shaped ruby, which shone brilliantly in the sun. The blade was silver and engraved on it was the Boy's name, Harry Potter, and below that, Gryffindor. Even as he drew it, he lit the sword and crimson-gold light formed a nimbus about the blade.

"Anyone else want to try it?" he asked. "Anyone else here want to try drawing the sword?"

"It could have been tampered with," Ginny said coolly. "You might even have made him remove the anti-theft protections. He would have, too, if you threatened someone he cared about."

With a breath, the Boy quenched the light of the blade and casually stuck it in the table, so that the hilt stood up. Carter actually laughed just a little at that. "Bloody idiot," he said.

"Well, how the devil am I supposed to prove I'm me?" the Boy asked with aggravation. "I can't believe it, anyway," he added. "Have you got a mirror? Is it really gone - the scar?"

"You are good," Edgar said admiringly. "Sweater off, then, like a good lad, and the shirt as well."

With a further shrug that stopped just short of fury, the Boy removed the sweater and any admiration Edgar felt disappeared. There was blood, he saw on the sweater and quite a bit of blood on the white oxford button down he'd worn beneath it. A flick of Ginny's wand brought the sweater soaring to her. Edgar thought with sudden worry that she would do something, something irreversible.

The shirt followed the sweater and Edgar cursed softly. The lean body was just as youthful as the face. Somehow, the Boy seemed more dangerous at that moment, unarmed and shirtless as he was. "No scars," Edgar said, and the answering look in the green eyes was one of denial. "I don't see how..." he said. "It's not possible."

"You drank from the cup, Harry," Carter said patiently. He was ignoring everyone else, and of all of the people in the room, he was the only one who appeared calm, unafraid, and entirely in control.

"What cup?" Edgar asked.

"Don't say anything," the Boy said harshly, but it clashed with Carter's answer, "We found it, you know. Arthur's sword."

"At Glastonbury?" Edgar asked in disbelief.

"No," the boy said, "and we're not telling anyone anything more about it."

"We have to, Harry," Carter said patiently. "If we don't, they'll never believe you're you."

Doubt about his conclusions surfaced, but not enough to make Edgar believe.

At Glastonbury?" Edgar asked in disbelief.

"No," the boy said, "and we're not telling anyone anything more about it."

"We have to, Harry," Carter said patiently. "If we don't, they'll never believe you're you."

Doubt about his conclusions surfaced, but not enough to make Edgar believe. "You'll have to do better than that," he said. "Whatever the stories are about Arthur's sword, they don't include the power to heal, especially not anything as permanent as those curse scars."

"The sword wasn't Arthur's only treasure," Carter answered.

"It doesn't matter," the boy who claimed to be Harry said. "You've said too much already, and even if you told the rest, they won't believe it." He ran a hand through his untidy hair impatiently, a habitual gesture of Harry's, Edgar noted. "I don't believe it myself," he added.

He reached for the shirt and then dropped it again at the sight of the blood on the sleeves.

"Whose blood is that?" Edgar demanded. Using a suspect's discomfort was always a sure way to get the truth from him.

"It's Harry's, of course," Carter said. Ginny paled as the boy swung around to face Carter. "that really helps," he said acidly. "Now you're scaring them all worse than before. They'll have us both in the lock-up if you don't shut up."

Carter, however, ignored him. "He did it himself, you know, gave his own blood so I could heal -"

"That's enough!"

Carter sighed at the other man's growl and did shut up then. Surprisingly, Ginny stared at the boy and said, "You could have put him under the Imperius curse to get him to defend you. You could have used some kind of metamorphmagic to make yourself look like Harry. But not many people would know Harry would do a thing like that. Tell me," she said intently, "tell me about this cup, and tell me something only I would know."

A tiny frown creased the young face, then the taut face softened, and the green eyes regarded the woman with relief. "The Goblet of Light," he said, "it has healing powers. It looked rather like the Goblet of Fire. But obviously…" He paused as if to collect his thoughts and continued, "I didn't realize it would do what it did. Not even Fawkes could ever heal my scar."

"I've never heard of any Goblet of Light," Edgar cut in reluctantly. He had begun to believe, wanted to believe, but he knew, he was certain, that nothing could have healed that lightning scar when the death of the monster who had made it had not.

"Yes, you have," Carter interrupted. He gave the boy with him an odd glance, almost awestruck, yet almost fearful at the same time, and added, "the Muggles call it the Holy Grail. According to the legends, it could heal any injury short of death itself."

Edgar actually laughed, the story was so absurd.

"I told you," the boy said, "they won't believe it, and they can't know any more."

At that, Bentley finally spoke again. "There's nothing we can't hear or know here. And if you are Potter, you ought to know that."

"Your pardon, sir," came the cool response, one much too cool for the terrible youthfulness of the boy there, but not too cool for the real Harry. "There are things that are too secret for non-wizards to know. It is enough that you know we found Arthur's sword and that we've hidden it so Hayden can never get his hands on it. As for the rest, that is - for now - silence."

Edgar stared again at that, but the boy ignored all the rest of them, plowed over the opening syllables of Bentley's startled retort, and said directly to Ginny, as though they were entirely alone, "When we were in the Chamber of Secrets, I was more afraid that you would die than I was of the Basilisk."

"You could have read about that," Edgar said. "It's in his biography."

Casting Edgar an annoyed glance, and taking advantage of the softening expression on Ginny's face, the boy stepped forward, ignoring her wand and said something into her ear. Then he stepped back, only half a step, and took the sweater from her nerveless fingers. "It's too bloody cold in here," he said as he drew the sweater with the lion back over his head. The lion, Edgar noted, yawned and stretched and settled into a curled up ball, sleeping.

"It's not proof," Edgar found himself saying. He wanted to believe, but the consequences were too grave if he was wrong.

As if Edgar's words had been a decision, Bentley gestured wordlessly to the other watching officers who had taken no part until then. Austin and Hawkins started forward, intending, no doubt, to secure the suspect. Carter stood up as did his cousin, and Edgar felt a brief frisson of terror; officers on the same team, it appeared, would fight each other. None of them moved further, though, as the young man moved first, drawing a wand from out of his boot.

"That's not a good idea," Edgar said loudly. He hoped that the sheer force of his tone would prevent the wizard from going any further.

Ignoring all the rest, the young man sought Edgar's eyes. "Seeing is believing," he responded. "What shall I show you, what would you see, that would make you believe I am who I say I am?"

Edgar considered and discarded various spells all in the space of a second and then discarded them all. If this were, by some miracle, the real Harry, he had no chance of getting one off. If the wizard were not, if he was actually a dark wizard posing as Harry, he had even less of a chance. As calmly as possible, he asked, "How could you show us anything? In what fashion..."

The only thing he could think of that might absolutely prove Harry's identity was the one thing none of them were capable of. In his mind, only if the youth before him survived the killing curse would he believe that the scar-less youth was actually Harry.

Instead of replying, he pointed his wand at a wide shallow bowl that sat in the center of the table, which, from time to time, was filled with fruit or packets of biscuits for the officers' use. The wooden bowl glowed with a silvery light and was transformed into a larger one, now appearing to be made of stone and bearing runes all along the lip of the bowl.

"What is that," Bones demanded, "what is it for? What can it prove?"

"That," he said, "is a Pensieve, and what it's for is a trip down Memory Lane." He grimaced slightly and added, "My memories, you see." The green eyes were full of the challenge, a dare, as he added, "Pick one, any one, that will prove to you what you need."

Edgar looked at the empty bowl in wonder. He had heard of such a thing, but never seen one before. The others all looked as uneasy as he felt, except for Ginny, who looked more worried then than she had since her sudden arrival.

"I don't know about this, Harry," she said. "Are you sure this is necessary? I believe you," she added fiercely. "They've got to believe you if I do."

Almost, Bones was ready to say, never mind, I believe, too, but as that green gaze swept around the room, he saw that the others were not sure at all, not Bentley, not MacCready, nor Bronztein. The missing scar decided him.

"Hope and faith are not enough," he said and Bentley nodded. "How many lives will be lost, if we're wrong?"

He faced Harry - he was almost sure it really was Harry - and Harry nodded his understanding. Bones hoped that this was not some greater trick, an impersonation so perfect it could not be detected. But, he thought, they always made mistakes. He would know, he thought, if this one made a mistake.

"I ought to ask you to show us the defeat of You Know Who at the Battle for Hogwarts," Bones said, and he did very nearly press for that when he saw the reaction in those green eyes. Denial, and something else, a shrinking, though the real Harry would have nothing to be ashamed of in that.

It was Ginny who said, "Don't ask for that!" and Bones was surprised when the other disagreed, with a faint firming of the mouth, a resolute set to the chin. "If that is what's needed," he said coolly.

Bones glanced at Bentley for guidance, but the Head said nothing. He supposed that he, like the other Muggles, was unsure that he wanted to see any more magic at all, at the same time that the thought of it fascinated him.

"Very well," Edgar said. "That may be too much to ask, even for this. I would settle for the time the previous year, when you fought You Know Who, but didn't kill him."

Ginny would have protested again, but she was forestalled by the lift of the wand - and Edgar did note that it looked like Harry's wand - to point at the scar-less forehead. Edgar was more surprised and almost undone when the boy said quietly, "Voldemort is dead, you know. You won't come to harm just by saying his name."

Edgar would have answered, but Harry, he was sure now it must be Harry, had drawn what looked like a misty strand of air out of his head. He drew another, and then another, and then one more, and then he stirred the strands of mist within the bowl with his wand.

"If you put your face right into the bowl," he said, "you will feel as though you were drawn right into these memories, you would experience them as if you were there. But," he continued, "there are too many of you. So instead, you will all see what happened, only more like you're watching something on the telly or in the movies."

With another stir, a cloud of mist rose from the bowl, and faces, figures appeared, as clear as the day the events had occurred. The memory, Edgar saw with a chill, began with an event that included himself, something for which he had his own set of unpleasant memories.

Inside a sporty silver car, Edgar sat at the wheel and beside him was Fay. The boy was behind him in the cramped back seat. The boy in the back seat did look almost exactly like the one standing in the conference room, except that the boy in the memory was a bit shorter and had yet to fill out. Unlike the one in the conference room, a jagged scar in the shape of a lightning bolt stood out clearly on his forehead.

Bones reached into the glove compartment and took out a gun and Fay pulled one out of her purse. They both quickly checked their weapons and then got out of the car, leaving Harry in the back seat.

"Don't get out of the car, whatever happens," Bones ordered. His voice echoed, like a bad recording.

The tall detective didn't wait for Harry to assent. He nodded to Fay and they stepped onto the sidewalk and were joined by Inspector Graves. The older man pointed to various windows up and down the street and then motioned the other two along.

In the car, Harry craned his neck to get a better view of the detectives as they approached the glass-fronted tavern. There were men coming out from an alley to the side of where the detectives were. There were more men coming out of the tavern itself. Two men, actually, and they were drawing wands.

Graves swung around and got off a shot at the men coming out the alley. The men scattered, and several shots came back from them. Bones and Fay had turned to send off a couple of shots of their own, and everybody was ignoring the two wizards, who had raised their wands to attack. The street was a jumble of movement as men shot their guns and ran simultaneously, and Graves went down all at once and lay still.

Harry flung himself out of the car and drew his wand, running toward the chaos.

Someone watching the memory muttered and then hushed.

The misty memory Edgar pointed the gun at the two wizards and sighted, but Harry raced in front of them, wand drawn and yelling out, "Expelliarmus!" A red light shot out of the boy's wand, and the one on the right was knocked over and his wand flew away in the air. The second one stared in astonishment and cursed. "Potter! I don't believe it!"

His expression hardened and he raised his wand again and started the words of the spell, but the boy reacted incredibly fast and threw himself to the side just as the green light came out, plowing a molten path in the street where it struck. The boy attacked again as he was coming out of the roll to his knees, crying "Stupefy!" and the second one was knocked out entirely. The first one was struggling to his knees and was reaching for his wand. Edgar yelled and sighted his gun at the reaching hand, but another distraction had arrived. One of the other thugs, a Muggle was approaching gun drawn and pointing at them all. And the gun was one of the biggest Edgar had ever seen, a sawed off shotgun, Edgar recalled.

The Edgar in the memory yelled again at the boy to clear away, but Harry turned and casually flicked his wand, and the gun floated out of the thug's grasp. The thug cursed and reached for it in the air, but another flick of the wand sent a sheet of fire at the thing in the air, and it began to melt in the air in front of them.

"That's fascinating," Bentley said, "but it doesn't look like what Bones asked for."

"That was the beginning of it," Harry answered. "We can skip the rest, if you'd rather."

"That was good enough for me," Edgar said. "I remember it well. Perfectly, in fact."

"I think not," Bentley cut in. "I want the whole of it, not just the tiny bit you think will persuade Bones."

"If you insist," Harry answered. Bones was beginning to wish he'd been less skeptical, or that he'd accused Harry out of the others' hearing. He had a feeling he really did not want to see the rest of it.

Harry stirred to mists in the bowl again and the thin boy ran after one of the wizards, chasing him down crowded streets, and into the The Leaky Cauldron, but too late. He dipped a hand in a pot of Floo Powder, stepped into the fireplace, and spun in a misty green fire until he slid out in heap right at Dumbledore's feet and into the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts.

"There's more there," Harry said, "but you want to see the part with the fight, so…" He stirred the mists in the bowl again and the clouds rose and shapes spun out again, in better detail than any movie or telly show. Fawkes gave a sudden trill from his perch. And Harry smiled at the phoenix. The bird flapped its wings and simultaneously, an elderly witch came running into one of the pictures on the wall. She was panting heavily and said in gasps, "Dumbledore. Go. Great Hall. Now!"

Harry jumped up, but the old wizard said, "You stay here."

Fawkes flew up and Dumbledore caught his tail. They disappeared in a golden flash.

Harry ran to the door after Dumbledore and turned the knob, but it was locked. The tall boy slammed his fist into the door, and then shook it as the door failed to give way.

"When is he going to stop treating me like a child?" he snarled at the pictures on the wall.

"More drama," a dry voice from a picture replied. "Do you never think? Does it not occur to you that he is trying to protect you? To keep you safe until you are truly ready?"

"Until I'm truly ready for what?" Harry asked coldly. Those watching could see the sudden fear on the thin boy's face as he asked, "Until I'm ready, to face Voldemort? To really fight him? Is that it?" Horror and rage raced across the tense countenance.

"He's here, now, isn't he?" the boy demanded. "But why don't I feel it then? I should feel it, if he's here. And Dumbledore's gone to fight him, to give me more time! When he knows I am the only one who can defeat Voldemort. I'm the only one who has half a chance. And he's gone to buy me time. So I can "be ready"!"

He all but shouted at the pictures, "I'm right! I know it! I'm right."

One of the pictures said severely, "You've got to learn to do as the Headmaster says. You just said so yourself."

"But this is different," Harry raged. "They'll kill him. It's Dumbledore they want. If they kill him, they think they can have it all."

He stared wildly at the portraits, as if seeking help, but half of them had fled from their frames. The dry voice spoke again. "Think! How will you fight him?"

Harry drew his wand and the portrait made a sound of disgust. "With that? The very wand that is the brother of his? Will you not have another failed match with that? You cannot defeat him with that, but he can kill you if you aren't ready."

Harry pounded his fist on the Headmaster's desk and said, "Then tell me! You were Headmaster. How am I to do it? If the prophecy is true, I should be able to. Or was that just a bunch of nonsense? More "drama"?"

The portraits had gone dumb as any Muggle painting and no one answered.

"Help me!" Harry demanded. "Tell me!"

No one, Edgar thought, had ever been so willing, so eager, to throw himself in the face of death. He looked at the man standing there watching the misty memory of himself, and he could have sworn that the man felt the same frustration as the youth in the mists.

There was no answer. The bright afternoon sun sparkled on all of Dumbledore's shiny magical devices and broke into prisms, rainbows through the glass of a great crystal ball sitting on the desk and off the glass case and silver sword with the red rubies lowing inside it. The Sword of Gryffindor.

Everyone watching there except for Harry stared from the sword in the misty memory to the one stuck into the conference room table.

The Harry in the memory tried to find a catch to the glass case, but there was none. He tapped it with his wand and said, "Alohomora," but it didn't open anymore than the door had. "Please," the boy said, "You've got to help me." Not a picture moved; not a voice answered.

"You are all dead," he finally snarled. "What's left of you? Just useless pictures with an illusion of life and wisdom. What do you know? You don't really remember anything. You don't really feel anything. You won't really care when Voldemort wins and burns this place down and your stupid pictures along with it."

"More drama," answered the cool emotionless voice of the portrait. The boy snarled at the portrait, an attitude they'd all seen in Harry at some time or another.

"It's not drama. This is Voldemort we're talking about. This is the one who's responsible for Sirius' death. This is the one who's responsible for ending your line, the great and noble House of Black. But what does that matter? It's just one more death and you can't grieve over it because you're really dead yourself. You're nothing. And if you're still something, somehow, then help me. If not for Dumbledore, then for the sake of your great-nephew, whose life was ruined by Voldemort. For your own sake, because He stole your future, and the future of your House. And everyone's future will be the same as Sirius'--just death."

Harry stood there waiting, and the expression in the misty green eyes was near to despair. Then a musical clink sounded. The glass case opened and the silver sword tipped forward and fell at the thin boy's feet. He seized the sword in his hand and the door to the office swung open before he had touched it.

When the boy raced down the stairs for the Great Hall there was not a one in the room whose heart did not race just as fast with terror for the brave boy running to face a for which fight he was not yet ready.

"I don't really think we need to see any more," Edgar said. There was a time he would have wanted to see this, but now he felt that the entirety of it was a kind of violation. No one, he thought, should see another's most terrible memories from the inside, simply upon demand.

Though his face reflected sympathy, Bentley said, "I'm afraid we do. It could be an illusion, cast to create sympathy."

"It's not," Edgar said. "I was there, in the first part. It happened, just as you saw it."

"Nevertheless," Bentley said.

Harry looked neither right, nor left. He gave the misty clouds in the basin one more stir and the images came forth again, images of the Great Hall at Hogwarts, seen from the railing above. This time, however, when Voldemort slashed forward with the great obsidian sword, his red eyes glowing with hatred, and Dumbledore barely dodged its deadly path, Harry turned away from the images in the mists and left the others to watch for themselves.

Where the sword's path went, green fire followed, melting the stone floor in a great swath. Dumbledore's spell struck the sword itself, but was deflected off of it, and the red light cracked one of the banisters of the Hall stairs. Voldemort cried out, "I've had enough of you, old man. But give me the Potter boy, and I'll let you live."

The boy Harry shouted defiantly, "Here I am, then. Come and get me!"

He leapt from the stair above, right through the place where a banister had crumbled and landed in front of Dumbledore, facing off with the monster and attacked with that cat-like grace they had all seen time and again on the practice floor When the swords met, a golden-red light glowed from the Sword of Gryffindor to challenge the green glow of Voldemort's black one. Harry thrust forward, and jumped back, parried and attacked, but always, Voldemort's hunched body moved as quick or quicker the watchers could practically feel the powerful sizzle of the green fire.

Voldemort closed in on the boy, and for a second, they were nearly chest to chest, and eye to eye, with their swords tangled against each other. The red eyes glowed, and with a smile of triumph, Voldemort said, "You have grown strong, boy. I can use your strength. I'll have your youth, your young strong body for my own, instead of this old carcass." And so saying he struck at Harry's mind, seizing the thought paths, and blanketing him in the deepest dark, in a small corner.

The watchers saw, in that moment, the green eyes of the boy in the mists turn red, and round pupils change to slits, like a cat's or a snake's.

The Great Hall vanished into a place where only darkness existed. Harry retreated behind a stone wall, and a tiny voice said, "NO!" He pushed the wall forward and forward and forward To the watchers, the darkness enveloped the two tangled fighters. The boy's body seemed to arc in pain and effort, and then the dark seemed to consume them both. Darkly, they saw the shadow of another boy being made fun of, "You've got no Mommy and Daddy didn't want you!" and the later more bitter remembrance of a handsome man saying, "I have no son."

The shadow of the monster rejected pity, rejected compassion and threw at the boy the pleasure and triumph it had felt when it killed. A face very like the boy's, but with hazel eyes and a longer nose fell to the pitiless green light and hazel eyes were vacant in death. A red-haired woman, hardly more than a girl, with brilliant green eyes, begged, "Not Harry! Please not Harry! Take me instead," but there was no mercy for her either.

Then the shadows cleared and the misty boy Harry gave one more mighty heave and threw the monster back bodily and the watchers knew, understood, that the boy had thrown the attacker from his mind as well as the green eyes were normal once more, though filled with horror and rage.

More furiously, now, the misty fighters struck at each other, and still the hunched form threw the dark sword's magic at the boy, with ever increasing strength. The boy deflected it again and again, matching blow for blow and fire for fire. Then the boy slipped slightly on a small crevice in the floor that had been carved there a moment before by the black sword's green fire. The monster's red eyes glowed with pleasure and Voldemort stepped forward to strike at the boy. Harry managed to right himself almost in time, so that instead of striking right through him, the black sword made only a smallest cut. A little, shallow indentation on his chest, just below his heart. Voldemort's arm was fully extended and his hunched body was stretched out as far as it could go without retreating again.

The watchers seeing the near miraculous escape sighed in unison, except for Ginny, who turned away then and took the hand of the man standing there, his untidy black head averted from the mists. "Is it over?" he whispered, and the woman replied softly, "Not yet."

In the mists, the boy Harry met the red eyes and smiled with what appeared to be relief. The expression on his face was quite strangely certain and peaceful, as he stepped forward instead of away and thrust his sword straight through the monster's black heart, and at the same time, his own forward movement forced the black sword through his own body as well. The red eyes flared with a look of infinite fury and surprise and then went dark, and when the two fell tangled together, either's sword still in either's body, the mists sank down back into the basin, the images of terror shimmering there, waiting to be called once again.

It was Carter who broke the stunned silence in the end. "I think that's enough for anyone," he said hoarsely. "They don't need to see any more, Harry."

Slowly, Harry turned to face them. His face was only a little pale, and his voice was nearly composed. "Sorry," he said. "I don't like that memory very much. It was the first time I really tried to kill him. It's not pleasant, that, learning that there's not that much to separate you from a villain like Voldemort."

"You were fighting a murderer, defending yourself, defending others," Edgar said. "It's not the same at all." Then it struck him, this was the real Harry, and what they had said earlier must be true. "You really found Arthur's sword, and the Grail?" he asked incredulously. But he knew it was true even as he asked, for what other magic in all the ages could have been powerful enough to heal a curse scar of the kind that had marked Harry Potter?

"They should be guarded," Bentley exclaimed, when Harry confirmed the incredible with a nod. "They should be in the Tower of London with the other crown jewels."

"The Tower of London? They'd be gone in a day if they were kept there," Harry replied dryly.

"Oh, come on," MacCready said, "the Tower has the best security system anywhere."

Harry exchanged and amused glance with his wife. "I could get in there and clean the place out without anyone knowing for hours," he replied. "Probably any witch or wizard could."

"You'd have to be invisible," Bentley scoffed, "and bypass guards, as well as all the sensors. And if you broke through the sensors, they'd set off alarms instantly."

The amusement showed only in Harry's eyes, which gleamed like a hunter's about to catch its prey in a particularly delicious trap, as he simply faded from view. Edgar would have suspected he had disapparated, were it not for Harry's voice, coming now from behind the Head. "Invisibility does have its advantages," he said, "although you do have to be sure not to run into anybody as you still remain quite solid."

All the Muggles in the room jumped when he reappeared on the other side of the room in the corner behind Bronztein. Bronztein actually ducked and closed his laptop, and Bentley looked seriously annoyed. He stopped being annoyed when all the lights went out. The building was utterly hushed as every sound of modern life was extinguished. It occurred to Edgar that most people simply did not realize how much noise was made by the various machines which regulated the comfort and the lives of the Muggles. The soft sigh of the heating system was gone. The low buzz of the computer monitors, the occasional crackle from a light bulb or two - all were silenced. And no alarm rang, though the Security Services system had to be down.

This time Harry did not smile as he said, "It wouldn't be all that hard to break in the Tower, and you can bet that Hayden or one of the Death Eaters would have the Sword out in short order."

"Put it back," Bentley said quietly. Edgar could see that he was more then angry. What Harry had done had frightened him witless.

With a shrug, Harry made an almost imperceptible movement with his wand and the lights came back on. The sound of men running in the corridor preceded the appearance of half a dozen officers, all armed and looking more than ready to shoot. "The whole system went down, sir," one of the officers said to Bentley. "We've got tech working on it now, trying to find out if it's been hit by a virus from outside. I don't see how it got through our firewalls, though."

Bentley did not answer instantly. He did not look at Harry either, though Edgar thought it might have crossed his mind momentarily to arrest Harry for what he'd done. Slowly, he said, "I doubt anything got through our firewalls. More, likely, the whole power grid went down for a minute. Too many people drawing too much all at once. I'll have to have a chat with the power company chaps."

The officer looked relieved and just a bit ashamed of his panic and he and the others strode off shaking their heads and talking in low voices.

"Was that necessary?" Bentley asked Potter.

Harry shrugged again. "I think I made my point."

"Well, why hasn't anyone made off with all the crown jewels before now?" MacCready asked humorously.

"It's just a lot of fancy jewelry," Harry said, "what's the point? It's not like you'd have much use out of a fancy crown. I mean, what would you do with it, wear it to a costume ball?"

"Only you, Harry, could run around with a sword full of priceless jewels that looks as though it should be in the Tower and dismiss a priceless fortune as if it were a bunch of junk," Carter commented. "In any case," he continued coolly, "Arthur's sword is so well hidden no one will ever get at it. That is the point, isn't it?"

"I don't see," Bronztein said suddenly from the corner, "why Arthur's sword was so important to them." his eyes were fixed on the Sword of Gryffindor, which still stood upright, sticking out of the table in all its glory. "Why not just get a sword like that," he asked. "If you want a magic weapon," he said softly.

"There are very few of those in the whole world," Edgar answered, "and if you want one, you have to get past the owner, not to mention any protections they've got on the sword."

Bronztein put out a hand as though he'd touch it, but Carter said hastily, "I wouldn't advise it. Ask Austin what that thing did to him when he tried to draw it without permission once."

Bronztein drew his hand back quickly and said, "But still, I don't see why Hayden wouldn't go for this one, for instance. It'd be a lot easier than trying to find a sword that's been lost for fifteen hundred years."

"This one wouldn't do," Harry replied. His was looking at Bronztein as though he'd never seen him before, though the look was then lost back in one of inscrutable serenity. "This one won't do," he repeated, "because what Hayden wants is to claim the crown. That's why he wants Arthur's sword. He wants the sword of the King." With satisfaction, he added, "That's one thing he won't get now. Not ever." With that, he reached out and drew his own sword back out and slid it back in its sheath. Drawing a hand down the length of it, Harry made the bright crimson leather look old and worn once more.

The satisfaction drained away again, though, when he looked back at the screen, where the scenes of the aftermath of the bombing continued to play out. "he's getting bolder," Harry said softly. "We'll have to move faster to try to find him and put him back away again."

"Will you kill him, then?" Bronztein asked, "like you did the Lord of Death?" Harry looked at him then as though he were the prey. "No," he said, after a breath. "Hayden will hang. He'll be tried and hung."

Edgar gaped at him a moment along with all the rest. He wanted to ask how he knew, so certain had been his statement, but he was afraid to know.

Harry turned as if to go, and then back, as perhaps another thought struck him. "We haven't forgotten Zoe, you know," he said to Bronztein. "She was your partner for a long time, wasn't she?"

Bronztein went very still, and then nodded. Edgar had a hard time interpreting the expression on his face. But then, the man had never been very expressive. It seemed he had let his computer do most of the talking, now he thought about it.

"The pub she went to, the night she was killed," Harry said, "did she go there often?"

Bronztein nodded again. His face was expressionless but Edgar thought his body had tensed up, though his hands on the closed laptop were motionless.

"She was more than your partner, wasn't she?" Harry asked.

Edgar wanted to tell him to stop. Everyone there had known that the two had been more than close and he was sure that Bronztein did not want pity from his colleagues as neither he nor Zoe had ever acknowledged their affair.

"So...erm...," Harry continued, "were you with her at the pub that night?"

"I don't think that's necessary," Bentley said, but he was cut off by Bronztein's reply. "I was," he said stiffly. "I left before she did. I had a headache and I wanted some Paracetamol. If I hadn't -" He trailed off and everyone looked away except Harry.

"I'm sorry," Harry said softly. "It must have been difficult. It's still hard, isn't it?" He looked at Bronztein a moment more, as though he were recording his face in his memory. Edgar shivered as he thought that this moment, every bit of it, was even now being recorded in the same sort of misty strands as those that still shimmered quiescently in the stone basin on the table. It struck him with some force that even for Muggles, the mind, the heart, the soul, and life itself were all magic of a kind, the most powerful magic.

It seemed as though Harry had almost the same thought, for he looked down to his own hands, and the long, slender fingers curled into fists and then uncurled, but slowly, as if with effort and deliberation. Then he drew his wand again and returned the strands of those nightmare memories from the basin to his head. Speaking generally, he said, "I've got to go. I've got a school to run tomorrow." And he left before anyone could question him further. Ginny caught up in two quick steps and took his hand as they went.

Bronztein stared after Harry and said in a shaky voice, "He's a kind of a monster, isn't he? He's not quite human. He's got all that power and - what if - what if he decided to use it against us? What do you suppose he really wants?"

"He's not a monster," Brittany replied vehemently. "It's just so typical; people think if you're different, you must be a threat. You must be dangerous. It's the kind of diseased thinking that's behind Hayden's whole propaganda. If you're not pure Anglo-Saxon, you must be deficient, you must be eliminated, or made subservient. as if there were anyone who was purely Anglo-Saxon anymore. A load of lying nonsense."

"You saw what he did," Bronztein answered. "He defeated the Lord of Death. He took down our whole security system with a single wave of his wand. He gave me the shivers, he did, looking at me with those unnatural green eyes, like he was seeing right through me, like he could read every thought and every feeling I had."

"He felt sorry for you," Edgar said coldly. "And you don't seem to get it, either. He defeated Riddle by being willing to give up his own life to do it. If all he wanted was power, he could have joined Riddle and they could have ruled the world between the two of them."

"No they wouldn't," Bronztein retorted. "Men like that are never willing to share power. There's always got to be one leader and only one. Otherwise they always end up fighting for the top."

"What you don't understand," Edgar said with exasperation, "is that Harry has no interest in being on top. He doesn't want power. He never even wanted to work for us. He was forced into it, blackmailed by the Prime Minister."

"Is that true?" Bentley asked. "Do you mean to say he's not loyal to us? He'd walk away from us if he could?"

"Harry would never do that," Carter said angrily. "You ought to be grateful to him for what he's done, not accusing him of disloyalty behind his back."

"How can you be so sure of him?" Bronztein asked softly.

Carter gave him a hard stare. His deep blue eyes were cold as stones and entirely lacking in the sympathy Harry had shown for the other man. "I'm as certain of his loyalty as I am of my own. No one is more loyal and dedicated than he is. If he wanted to desert us, he could have done it any time these past years. And who would have tried to stop him? Who could have?" Carter shook his head. "He might have been dragged in here by blackmail, but he's here still by choice."

"I do believe you're right about that," Bentley said slowly. "But I would like to know where you found Arthur's sword and the - and the Grail. And where did Harry really get all that blood on him?"

"We went to Glastonbury," Carter answered.

"You found it there?" Edgar asked. "Is that why the archaeologist was killed? Did Hayden actually get it and Harry took it away from him? Was that what the bombing was all about? Retaliation?"

"Not at all," Carter replied. "Hayden doesn't even know we found it. We never saw him or any of the Death Eaters. And if everyone here is quiet about it, they'll keep looking for it uselessly forever."

"What's hidden can be found," Bentley said skeptically. "If you could find it after all this time, what makes you think your hiding place will be more secure than the last. Especially with someone as obsessed as Eric Hayden is."

"I don't think you understand," Carter said gently. "Harry hid it using magic. Hayden could look for the next thousand years and he'd never find it. Just like nobody ever found it for the last fifteen hundred."

"Then how did you find it?" Edgar asked curiously.

Carter laughed. "We just looked in the last place it was known to have been seen."

"The last place Excalibur was known to have been seen," Bronztein said, "was when Bedivere threw the sword to the Lady of the Lake."

"There was no Lady of the Lake," Carter said kindly. "That's pure fantasy. "I'm talking history, not romance, not legend, not fantasy."

"Then the last place was in Arthur's own hands at the Battle of Camlann," Edgar cut in. A funny thought tickled the back of his head. What had Harry done then? Something outrageous and impossible, he thought.

"Precisely," Carter answered.

"But nobody knows where that was," Bronztein objected, "and it was over fifteen hundred years ago, as you just pointed out." Edgar suppressed amusement. The computer expert wanted a logical answer as badly as Edgar did himself. Then it struck him. There was only one logical answer and it was absolutely outrageous and terrifying.

"You went back," he blurted out without thinking. "That's what you did. You went back to the actual Battle." He stopped himself and said, "No. That's crazy. Not even Harry would try something like that."

"What are you implying, Bones?" Bentley asked. "Are you saying what I think you're saying? Are you saying you can go back in time?"

Edgar closed his mouth and wished he had never spoken. He wondered briefly whether he was going to have his wand snapped for letting out secrets to Muggles. Then he realized, probably not. The Ministry knew, after all, that Bentley and his people knew about magic.

"You can, can't you?" Bentley said with disbelief.

"You have to have a time turner," Edgar admitted. They're highly regulated and I've never heard of anyone going back that far. No wonder," he said to Carter, "Brittany lost track of you. You were outside of this time altogether for a bit."

"It was actually my idea," Carter said after a moment. "I just didn't realize that Harry actually knew how to do it, or that he had the means to. I just made a passing comment, that was how we would find it. If we just followed the normal missing persons protocol. Start with the place the person was last seen and go from there. And that's what we did. Only I don't think even Harry expected to end up right in the middle of the bloody Battle."

"You're joking," MacCready said suddenly. "This is a joke, right?" "No," Carter answered. The word dragged out of him, and almost against his will, it seemed, he added, "No one ever found the sword before because it was Harry who hid it, not some mythical Lady of the Lake. He hid the Sword and the Grail and whole Castle and everybody in it."

"Everybody in it?" Bentley asked. Edgar felt the hair on the back of his neck rise and chills tingled right down his spine.

"Everybody," Carter said. "Including the King." He smiled again, a rather ferocious smile and added, "If Hayden ever got through the enchantments to try to take the sword, he'd have to take it from King Arthur himself, and if you think Harry is terrifying, he's a lamb compared to Arthur."