Harry Potter drummed his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel of his squad car. He had been with the London Police Department for two years now, and was expecting a response to his application for the Prime Minister’s new Anti-Terrorism Force any day. Almost fifteen years had passed since an old farmer had discovered him lying in a wheat field. He had no memory of that, of course, but various doctors and nurses had explained his unique situation to him enough times that he knew all the stories by heart.
In many ways, his life had begun the day that the old farmer had found him. Harry’s primary doctor had almost immediately predicted a full - though painfully slow - recovery, and he had been right. Harry was now, for the most part, a normal thirty-three-year-old. His maturity was still lacking at times, due to the fact that he was emotionally only fifteen, but he had thankfully been able to pass both the psychological and academic exams necessary for joining the police force. For as long as he could remember, he had felt a need to make the world a safer place, so police work had always seemed the most natural career option for him. In addition, the fact that he had “grown up” in state-run group homes had helped him develop a network of shady connections that frequently came in handy during investigations.
“It’s about time, Jensen,” Harry grumbled as his partner, Mark Jensen, climbed into the passenger seat. “What took you so long? I thought you just had to grab this Miller bloke’s address.”
“I did,” Jensen replied, “but one of the secretaries sidetracked me.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “None of them are that pretty, Mark.”
“Ha ha, very funny. Just because you’re still a teenager doesn’t mean the rest of us walk around thinking with our hormones all the time. Anyway, she only stopped me because she wanted me to pass something along to you.”
Harry raised an eyebrow as he guided the car out into traffic. “Parts of my mind may be fifteen, Mark, but my body definitely isn’t, and the body’s where hormones come from - even I know that. What did she have for me?”
“A London address for a Mr. Dudley Dursley.”
Harry’s head whipped around. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, and watch where you’re going!”
Harry had to slam on the brakes to avoid ramming into the car in front of him.
“Keep driving like that and I’ll have to write you up,” Jensen joked.
Harry shrugged. “The judges all like me better than you. They’ll let me off.”
“There’s that teenage attitude again.”
They drove on in silence until they reached their destination and Harry pulled the squad car over to the curb. “This is it, right?” he asked.
“Looks like it,” Jensen confirmed. “Miller’s wanted for dealing drugs, but he’s got no history of violence, so it should just be a routine arrest.”
Harry nodded and they both got out of the car. As they approached the front door of the alleged drug house, Harry surreptitiously touched the polished stick that he always wore strapped to the inside of his left forearm, concealed by the sleeve of his shirt. It was his only link to his past life and he liked to keep it close to him, but that wasn’t the main reason he never let it out of his sight. The truth was that this simple stick seemed to give him almost supernatural power, and he had learned years ago that he could make strange things happen when he held it. He had never shared this with anyone, of course; Auntie Aggie had done a thorough job of making him terrified of mental hospitals, and he had no desire to give anyone an excuse to lock him away in one.
The first time Harry had held his polished stick, which he had soon begun referring to in his mind as his ‘magic wand,’ it had immediately felt warm in his hand. After more than a year of playing around with it, he had discovered that, if he concentrated hard enough, he could use it to make things move. As the years went by, he became more and more comfortable with his wand, and now he was even able to use it to deflect bullets when necessary - all while it was safely out of sight under the sleeve of his shirt.
They reached the front steps and Jensen knocked on the door. As they waited, Harry felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
“Something isn’t right here,” he whispered.
Jensen looked at him strangely. “You’re too tense, Potter. Lighten up a bit.” As he reached out to knock again, the flimsy front door exploded outward from a shotgun blast. Harry somehow managed to prevent any of the pellets from hitting either of them, and they charged into the house with their pistols drawn. Miller raced down the hallway, firing behind him, but Harry didn’t even bother trying to duck out of the way - he knew his magic wand would protect him. As he burst through the back door, he holstered his pistol as he saw Miller discard the shotgun and begin climbing the back fence. Harry aimed his hidden wand at the man, concentrating on making him slip and, just as he had expected, it worked. The large man fell to the ground in a heap. Harry was just tightening the handcuffs around Miller’s thick wrists when Jensen finally appeared behind him.
“You are one lucky-” he began.
“Let’s get him out of here,” Harry cut him off. Together they hauled their prisoner to his feet and dragged him back through the house and out to the squad car.
That evening, after filing a mountain of paperwork at the end of his shift, Harry didn’t return directly to his flat. Instead, he drove to the home of his cousin, Dudley Dursley. Fighting his nervousness, he wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers and rapped smartly on the door. A moment later, the door was opened by a hulking man with curly blond hair. He took one look at Harry and his eyes seemed to bulge out of his face. His gaze flicked to the scar on Harry’s forehead and then back to his face.
“Are you Dudley Dursley?” Harry asked politely. The blond man responded by punching him squarely in the jaw. Harry reeled, not having been prepared for the blow, and stars exploded in his vision. The man was shouting something, but Harry was too disoriented to understand the words. The door started to close, but he managed to block its progress with his foot as he regained his bearings.
Enraged, the blond man threw another punch, but this time Harry was ready for it. He dodged sideways, caught the arm, and twisted it behind the other man’s back, shoving him roughly against the wall.
“Are you Dudley Dursley?” Harry demanded not nearly so politely this time.
“You know I am,” the large man growled.
“Why did you attack me like that?” Harry pressed his cousin’s face harder into the wall.
“Because it’s your fault they’re dead!” Dudley shouted, struggling in vain to free himself.
Harry was taken aback, but did not loosen his grip. “My fault who’s dead, Dursley?” he demanded.
“Who else, you freak? My parents! They both just mysteriously dropped dead one day while I was away at university. The doctors said it was natural causes, but I know it was you. You and your crowd.”
Harry breathed a heavy sigh. The man’s parents had been dead for at least fifteen years, the doctors all agreed that they had died of natural causes, and still he insisted on blaming his long lost cousin. Harry felt a sudden surge of pity for him.
“I’ll tell you what,” Harry offered. “If you don’t attack me again, I’ll just go away, and I won’t even press charges for you punching me. Sound fair?”
Dudley didn’t answer, but Harry released him anyway, although he remained on his guard. As soon as he was free, Dudley wheeled around and threw a wild punch, which missed Harry by a good six inches. When he reared back to try again, he suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of Harry’s service pistol. He gulped audibly.
“Hands on your head,” Harry ordered. With no choice but to obey, Dudley complied. Harry positioned himself behind the larger man and fastened handcuffs rather tightly around his massive wrists, pinning his arms behind his back.
“W-what are you doing?” Dudley stammered, unable to keep the fear out of his voice.
“Arresting you for assaulting a police officer.”
“What? But I had no idea you were a police officer,” Dudley insisted.
“I’m in uniform, idiot,” Harry responded as he pulled the front door closed and escorted his cousin to the backseat of his squad car.
After depositing Dudley at the police station and filing even more paperwork, Harry finally returned to his flat. The first thing he did was check through his mail to make sure he hadn’t received a rejection letter from the Anti-Terrorism Force. His curiosity satisfied, he checked his voice mail and discovered that an interviewer from the Prime Minister’s office wanted to meet with him the following morning. Grinning to himself and fervently hoping for the best, he climbed into bed, anxiously anticipating his interview the following morning.
“Sit down, Potter, sit down,” said the interviewer as soon as Harry entered his large office. He was slightly overweight and balding, and had a large brass nameplate on his desk that read EVERETT MARTIN. Harry looked around the office as he sank into a straight-backed chair across the desk from Mr. Martin. It was almost completely decorated in black leather and mahogany; Harry immediately decided that the rich furnishings existed for the sole purpose of intimidating interviewees. Unfortunately, this realization did nothing to help calm his nerves.
“Good morning, sir,” Harry said after a long silence.
Martin shook his head. “No need for ‘sirs’ at the moment, Potter; this is just an informal interview. I was wondering if you’d answer a few questions for me.”
“Of course,” Harry answered at once.
“Your file says you’re thirty-three years old, is that correct?” he asked.
Harry nodded.
“Don’t look a day over twenty-five,” he muttered. This was perfectly true, although Harry thought that he would probably look closer to his own age if he still wore glasses. His vision had been corrected with laser surgery before he had joined the police force, however, and his youthful appearance had helped him to fit in with the other new recruits, most of whom were in their early twenties.
“I understand that you dropped out of the sky with the mind of an infant when you were nineteen years old. Any idea why that happened?”
Harry shook his head. “None, sir. The doctors that looked after me never seemed to find any satisfactory theories, either.”
“Yes,” Martin muttered to himself. He cleared his throat and said, “Your fellow police officers say you’re lucky. Why do you think that is?”
Harry chuckled in spite of his nerves. “Probably because I’ve been shot at more than anyone else in the department during the last two years, but nobody’s ever been able to hit me.”
Martin’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “Indeed. That is lucky. I have also heard that you wear a polished dowel strapped to the inside of your left forearm.”
Harry’s sharp intake of breath eliminated the necessity of asking if this was true.
“Why do you do that?” asked Mr. Martin.
“I- well, it’s sort of my good luck charm, really,” Harry explained. “I was holding onto it for dear life when that farmer found me in his wheat field, or so they tell me. It’s my only connection with my past.”
Martin pursed his lips and nodded slowly. Lowering his voice conspiratorially, he said, “Between you and me, Potter, if that’s where your luck comes from, you make sure to keep it on you at all times.”
Harry smiled with relief; he had half-expected the man to demand that he stop carrying his ‘magic wand,’ and that wasn’t something he was willing to do.
“I hear you also have a reputation for being able to spot things that others can’t,” Martin continued.
Harry nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “There have been plenty of times when I’ve spotted a person lurking in the shadows that my partner didn’t see. There was even one time, out on Grimmauld Place, when I was able to find an old house that my partner at the time still swears isn’t there.”
“Excellent,” said Mr. Martin. “I don’t mind telling you now, Potter, that I’ve already requested your transfer to our office, effective immediately.”
Harry grinned.
“I thought that might make you a little less nervous,” Martin said with a chuckle. “Your first assignment won’t be extremely large, of course, but I’ve selected it especially for you. You see, there has been a long series of unexplained incidents in a little village out in Devon. Nothing serious yet, mind, but we fear that it could escalate at any time. Up until now, everything’s been so minor that I wouldn’t normally look into it - public toilets exploding, spontaneous infestations of vermin, strange and unexplainable sightings, that sort of thing.”
“So why take an interest now?” Harry asked, wondering why an anti-terrorism office would be interested in what sounded like the antics of delinquent children.
“The Prime Minister paid a visit to this particular village about two weeks ago, and some... odd things happened.”
“Odd, sir? I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”
“He was walking down the street and his hair turned purple,” Martin whispered. “One second it was brown, and the next it was purple. Thankfully, they were able to keep it out of the papers. Anyway, his security people spotted a pair of teenagers who seemed to know what was going to happen in advance, but they disappeared before they could be brought in for questioning. The next day, the Prime Minister went to get in his car - he drives an antique Bentley, you know - and he found that the inner tubes had been removed from all four of his tires. Do you have any idea how much work that takes, Potter?”
“No sir, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“It takes hours. And the car wasn’t moved one inch. There were no fingerprints. But there was a witness who said he saw two teenagers running away from the scene late the previous night - a boy and a girl, matching the description we got from the P.M.’s security personnell. As I said, this could be nothing more than a couple of teenagers out to have a little fun, but there’s always a chance that it’s somebody with a grudge against the Prime Minister. If that’s the case, then they’re taunting us with their ability to get close enough to him to dye his hair or steal his inner tubes without being caught. Once they’re satisfied that we can’t catch them, they’ll attempt an assassination.”
“I see,” Harry muttered. Suddenly, exploding public toilets didn’t seem quite so mundane. If he was able to expose an assassination plot, that would easily cement his position on the new task force. “Out of curiosity, why was I hand-picked for this assignment?”
“Because you’ve got a reputation for being able to spot things that others can’t. Both times these teenagers were spotted, the witnesses claimed they just vanished into thin air. Obviously, that can’t be true, so maybe someone with your talents will be able to shed some light on the matter. The details are all in the file on your desk, which is out in the main office and has your name on it.”
“Who will I be working with on this case?” Harry asked.
Martin shook his head. “We’re not the police, Potter. This organization is only two months old, and we’re grossly understaffed for what the P.M. and Parliament want us to be doing. Until I tell you otherwise, you’ll be working alone. Contact the local police department if you need backup, and let us know if they give you any trouble.”
Harry understood this to be the end of the conversation and stood up to leave. His mind was reeling at what had just happened. He had just gotten the job he had been hoping for, and he was to start on his first case immediately - alone. “Thank you, sir,” he said as he shook Mr. Martin’s hand. “You won’t be disappointed.”
“I’m sure I won’t. Talk with Mary up at the reception desk. She’ll get you set up with identification, an expense account, and the rest of that rubbish. Welcome aboard.”
Harry left the large office and found his desk. It was in a cubicle, which Harry normally would have hated, but since he would be doing mostly field work, it didn’t seem to matter. He sank into his chair and began flipping through the file on his desk. He examined the artist’s sketches of the teenagers and read through the descriptions. Both had red hair and light eyes, and appeared to be about the same age. Based on the information before him, Harry guessed that they were probably siblings or, if not that, cousins.
He flipped a few more pages until he found the general case description. “Ottery St. Catchpole,” he muttered to himself as he read the name of the village he was assigned to visit.