Chapter One:
Everything Is Back To Normal

1/28/08
Monday
Las Vegas, Nevada
Crime Lab
9:00 PM (PST)

James Potter walked into work at the Las Vegas Crime Lab, right on time for his eleven o'clock shift. He liked to be a little early, just to prepare. And, having been gone for six months, he figured he should get organized and make sure no one had found his stash(es).

Having cured lycanthropy and killied the Dark Lord Voldemort, James decided to settle down back into his old routine. Gil Grissom, his boss, was standing at one of the secretary's desks and talking to a receptionist. He looked up when James entered, somewhat confused.

"I thought you were out for three more days?" Grissom asked. The young genius was sure the supervisor had marked his calender with red pen and bold letters declaring, 'INCOMING', on the day James was originally going to return.

James smiled and spread his arms out in front of himself, "Today must be your lucky day! No, seriously, I convinced them that I had to come back."

Grissom raised an eyebrow and picked up the file he had been holding. "What makes you think I want you back?" he asked, setting off toward his office.

"Hey now, whoa!" James called, following him. "Not nice. Definitely not nice. I am kind and sweet and charming. Who wouldn't want me?" he demanded.

"Me," Nick Stokes, Warrick Brown, and Greg Sanders chorused. James shot them a mock-hurt look and continued to follow Grissom. Once they were comfortably seated in his office, Grissom set the file on his desk and leaned back in his chair to look James over.

"Do you feel that you could fit in here again?" Grissom asked. He seemed a bit skeptical. "After all of that excitement?"

"You're worried about my mental state," stated James with a slight smirk. "You're worried that I've gone crazy. Well, fear not. I took my psych-eval last Friday, and they cleared me for work. I'll work here about forty hours a week, and in various other places around the country about another eighty hours a week."

Grissom gave him a long, penetrating stare. "That's five days of work a week. Literally five days. What do you plan to do with the extra 48 hours?" the man asked, only half-sarcastic.

James propped his feet on the supervisor's desk and thought for a moment. "Well, I am not currently going to school, I'm not working on any research, and Andron is catching up on his classes. He's spent the last week writing a textbook, the poor guy. He had to knock out a hundred pages a day."

The night shift supervisor looked around the room. "If only he could go back in time," he said.

"Your office is charmed; no one can hear us, I promise."

"Good. So, did he? Go back in time?"

"Of course," answered James with a smirk. "Still tough work though."

"I do not doubt it. So, How has everything gone since then?" asked Grissom.

James grimaced. "So, Drake's estate was ridiculous to close up. In our world, he is what you would call a Senator. Only, in my world, we put much more emphasis on family, heirs, and ancestors. I was named his heir, so I had to deal with everything. I'm just lucky I'm not in Britain; their seats are hereditary in their government. There is a seat for the House of Potter and the House of Dumbledore, both of which I'm in line to inherit. No fun. So, his estate was very clear. I got everything, which included his guns, his money, and his houses. We held a service for him. He was buried in the magical section of Arlington Cemetery, along with the other's who died that day."

"What about Andron's father?" Grissom asked, almost impulsively. "I mean, how is his family doing?"

"Lars was awarded a posthumous commission as a Colonel, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. He was also buried at Arlington." James rubbed his eyes and cracked his knuckles. "His family is… carrying on. None of them have gone off the deep end, so that is encouraging."

"Are you speaking to your family yet, James?"

"Ugh. Two days after I left, I sent Dumbledore a cell phone and my number. I, of course, included detailed instructions on how to use the phone. I just did not trust him to get it right. I told them that they could call me once a week. I have done my best to remain open minded toward them. I spent many years hating them, so trying to be nice is… trying. But they are somewhat nice, if I do not think of them as family."

"I see," said Grissom. He checked his clock and let out a surprised sound. "I was supposed to be at a crime scene twenty minutes ago. I'm surprised my phone didn't- oh, it did." Grissom looked confused as he looked at the missed calls on his phone.

Chuckling, James said, "Oops. Must have gotten a bit overzealous in my silencing. Hey, I'll go with you!"

James and Grissom traveled to the crime scene in silence. James read over the notes Grissom had taken when he first got the call. A boy of about nine had been murdered in his home while his parents were out at dinner. Slit throat, no visible signs of sexual assault.

He greeted Catherine and Nick at the crime scene, noting their somber countenances. Apparently the scene was gruesome. James put on his vest and latex gloves. The sight that greeted him in the kitchen was just as horrid as his colleague's expressions let on.

After his shift in the crime lab, during which nothing major happened with the case except evidence collection, James travelled to Manhattan to assist the Special Victims Unit.

1/29/2008
Tuesday
New York City, New York
Manhattan SVU
10:00AM local time (7:00AM PST)

James helped himself to coffee upon his arrival.

Elliot Stabler was sitting at his desk and barely noticed him as he filled out DD5's and what looked to be a use of force paper. Olivia Benson, Stabler's partner, breezed in with a chain brand coffee and a stack of papers. She looked a bit disheveled, but otherwise as pretty as usual. She sat down without noticing James. He resisted the urge to check himself for an invisibility charm.

John Munch and Fin Tutuola entered from another door and sat at their desks. "Oh, hey James!" Munch exclaimed, with a joyfulness that was simply odd from the usually dour, cynical man. However, Munch was a great source of entertainment in the form of odd conspiracy theories and flippant one-liners.

The other three detectives snapped around to look at him. "Hello, dears," James said with a small wave. He sipped the terrible coffee and dropped into an empty chair. "What's up today?"

"Stabler, Benson… Potter?" Captain Don Cragen said as he walked in, obviously surprised to see James. He shook his head and continued. "You three, rape homicide." He handed Elliot, who was closest to him, a small slip of paper with an address.

The three people loaded into a car. Elliot refused when James asked to drive. He was sure the older man was mumbling about 'crazy teenagers', 'not my car', and 'certifiably insane'.

During the drive, the two detectives explained to him what had happened to them in the previous two weeks. Apparently, somebody had stolen embryos from a sperm bank for some crazy reason or another. They had apprehended the perpetrator, but James missed the reason for the crime.

When they arrived at the scene, ADA Casey Novak, a tall redhead woman in her mid-thirties, was standing outside of the house, talking on a cell phone and tapping her foot. She looked a bit impatient. As soon as she saw them, Novak waved them over with a sharp gesture.

She explained to them that the woman that had been raped and murdered was a diplomat of some sort, but Washington DC was being secretive about what she actually did for the government. However, the SVU team was to give the case their utmost effort and attention. Munch and Fin were also called in to work with them. Even Captain Cragen had to make an appearance at the scene to appease the media.

The room was liberally splattered with blood, with smeared handprints all over the place. "This is a set up," James said the moment he saw the room. The other detectives and the Medical Examiner stared at him blankly. "It's too… contrived. Look at it! I think this might be more blood than the human body holds."

"I think he's right," ME Melinda Warner said. She pointed to the body. "Most of these wounds are obviously inflicted posthumously. I'll know more when I determine the cause of death. You can take her," she said to the two coroners waiting to take the body. The two men bent and lifted the body onto a gurney to wheel out. James' muscles contracted as he saw the woman's face; it was a high ranked member of the magical government. Last he had checked, her name was Annette Bennington, and she was a director of some agency that dealt with muggle relations.

Of course, last he had checked, the US had no less than 15 agencies at the Federal level to deal with muggle relations. There had been a movement in the late 60's to establish better relations with the muggle world. James figured it had been fueled by LSD and a common feeling of 'unity' and 'love'- probably fueled by LSD.

James shot Olivia Benson a look, which she picked up on, and she replied with a nod. The Detective had obviously put two and two together between the unknown career and James' odd look.

Stabler, apparently acting the quintessential man, did not notice. They processed the scene methodically. James felt for a residual magical energy in the room. Use of dark curses often left what muggles would call a 'bad feeling' or 'cold presence'. Wizards called it residual dark magic. Not quite a unique or creative name, but it served its purpose. No government was ever known for being creative in naming things. James was certain that there was an agency dedicated to coming up with boring, government-approved, politically correct hyphenatable and/or acronymizable names. In fact, that agency was probably named the Bureau Of Really Intellectually-deprived Names for the Government (BORING for short).

Drake had made James learn what various spells felt like before, during, and after use. That had mean that Drake had spent about a week casting spells, and asking James to describe what was going on. If one put forth the effort, they could sense the magic being called upon, released, and then feel it linger around.

He put that skill to use in that room. He could make out the cruciatus curse, and a few other low-end torture curses. As he moved around the table in the middle of the room, James could figure out that the castor had been by the window. It was a fairly muggle home, so there were no magical artifacts to be stumbled upon. The thought of Stabler running across a sneakoscope was hilarious, though. The neighborhood, however, was mixed muggle-magic. The lack of magical items was almost odd in that situation, where most muggle neighbors knew of magic.

The Killing Curse had come from different caster in a different place. The second door, the one that led to a hallway, was the place of origin. James stepped over a toppled chair and toward the door. Behind him, he heard Stabler whisper to Benson, "Has fruitcake gone nuttier?"

"Yes," declared James, "I am now fruit and nut cake. Same package, great new flavor!"

As soon as everyone was ready to head back, they piled into cars and returned to the stationhouse to go over the evidence and make calls to friends and relatives, to find who might have killed her.

Problem: Annette Bennington was a witch. Which meant that there was a high chance of her family also being magical, because that area of New York City had a high ratio of purebloods to muggleborns.

Not much of a problem, really, except that only forty-three percent of magical families had landline telephones, and just a few less had cellular phones. That made getting a hold of them difficult; it wasn't like they were listed in the phone book. James made some calls to a few contacts higher-up to get some numbers.

In an interrogation room later that day, James gathered Munch, Fin, Benson, Stabler, Cragen, and George Huang, a forensic psychiatrist and FBI Agent assigned to work with the SVU team, in the interrogation room. For added security, James added a silencing charm around the perimeter.

"So, dears, we have run into a bit of a problem that we should get out in the open right now. Our victim is Annette Bennington, who she is the director of a government agency. A magical government agency. In most cases, a muggle law enforcement agency would be visited by a magical agent, who would introduce themselves as a muggle detective or agent that had been assigned to work the case for one reason or another. However, I am here, so that is not necessary. Any detective that has run across magic in the course of their cases has had their memory of the entire case wiped."

"Wonderful!" Detective Benson said, rolling her eyes. "So, how many cases have we forgotten?"

James opened the file in front of him and counted. "Benson, seven. Stabler, four. Tutuola, four. Munch, ten. Cragen, sixteen. Huang, nine." Someone knocked on the door, and James waved his hand. When Munch turned to open the door, James said, "Don't bother. Whoever that was no longer remembers why they knocked, and they walked away."

"You really like messing up people's memories, don't you?" Stabler asked, folding his arms in front of him. He was leaned back against one of the concrete walls, staring at James.

"Yes," James said without remorse.

After their impromptu meeting, James walked out into bullpen and nearly ran into a poorly dressed man. The man was about to apologize, but then looked at James' face. "I found you!" he exclaimed. "My name is Robert Burns. May I speak to you, privately?" he asked, looking around.

James gave a slow nod and followed the man to the front steps of the precinct, doing his best to ignore the biting cold of the midwinter New York City weather. The man seemed incredibly nervous, and he fidgeted endlessly. "What did you need, my friend?" James asked.

"Listen, um, you're James Potter, right?" Robert asked. James nodded. "I, uh, heard you and your friend created a cure for lycanthropy?" James nearly took a step back. The man before him did not feel magical, nor did he have the noticeable feel of a werewolf. "No, I am a muggle," Robert rushed on. "My wife is muggleborn. And a werewolf. You were in a neighborhood earlier. My wife works… worked for Annette."

James nodded. "We did find a cure. We're currently refining it, to make it as useful as possible. Right now, a subject must endure both the potion and brain surgery, which comes with its own set of risks. We're working to eliminate the need for surgery."

Robert nodded, and stared off at traffic. He took a deep breath and said, "We both understand the risks of brain surgery. However… we're desperate here. I knew she was a werewolf before I married her, but it's destroying her. She thinks she's ruining my life. I would do anything to make her happy. We don't have a lot of money, but…

The man looked him in the eye for the first time. James shook his head.

"No, my friend. I would not charge anyone for this. Here," he said, writing a number on a piece of paper, "call my friend, Andron Schwartz, and he'll arrange an appointment for you."

The man looked like he had never gotten better news in his life. Which, he probably had not. After thanking James profusely, Robert nearly skipped away. James reentered the precinct and set to work on the Bennington case.

As he entered, he noticed that Stabler and Tutuola were glaring at each other. James did not even want to consider why they were mad at each other.

"I have made an awesome discovery!" James announced loudly, startling several of the people in he room. They turned to look at him, expecting great news. James took a deep breath and said, "If I retire at seventy, I get one hundred and twenty four percent of my retirement benefits from social security. Of course, since I might live to be-"

James ducked as Tutuola threw a stapler at him. "Shut up, Potter," the man said. James raised his hands in surrender and retreated to the autopsy room.

Melinda Warner, the Medical Examiner, was standing at a computer reading results of a test. She half-turned to nod to him as he walked in to the room. "She is not in any data base we have. I suppose we know why. I could not place a cause of death, but there are signs of extreme muscle damage. Do you know what might have caused this?" the very intelligent woman asked.

James looked at the body for a moment before he replied, "There is a curse that causes extreme, excruciating, debilitating pain. A common after-effect of the curse is muscle tremors. It is also not uncommon for people to pull muscles or tear tendons while under the curse. She was exposed to this curse for some time, most likely to gain information."

Melinda sighed and walked across the room to a microscope. Looking in, she asked, "When will people learn that torture is not a reliable way to get information?" James figured that the question was rhetorical, and remained silent. He sat on a rolling chair and toyed with a scalpel that rested on the tabletop next to him. "There was unidentifiable DNA found on the victim's shirt, from a dribble of saliva."

"He spit on her," James said in disgust. Some people were just sick.

Warner nodded. "But, if we find a suspect, I could match him to the DNA."

James walked down the hall toward the captain's office, but stopped when his phone rang. It was the ringtone he had assigned to his grandfather, Albus Dumbledore. Somewhat confused, James answered the phone, "Hello?"

"James," Dumbledore said, obviously relieved. "We have several people here that wish for you and Andron to provide the cure for them. When convenient, could you please return and handle your admirers?" the older man asked.

"Hardy. Har. Har. I'll be there in a few hours."

1/29/2008
Tuesday
Hogwarts
8:00PM local time (12PM PST)

Being sure to make arrangements with Andron and his colleagues, James apparated to Hogsmeade and made the long walk to the castle. Finding it mostly empty, James continued to the Headmaster's office. He walked in without knocking, which the older man seemed to have expected. He sat himself down in a chair across from the Headmaster and waited for the man to finish a letter.

Dumbledore looked up and said, "Ah, James, tea?" Without waiting for a reply, Dumbledore waved his hand, causing a tea mint green tea set to appear on his desk.

Deciding to assume the man had completely lost his mind, James raised an eyebrow. "Coffee," he answered. With a slight smile, Dumbledore waved his hand again.

It took a while for conversation to emerge. "I have had twenty-nine requests for your assistance just today," Dumbledore finally stated. He sighed heavily and set his teacup down. "You have become quite a popular lately. Now, what do you plan to do?"

"Well, Andy and I have a waiting list two months long. Sob stories get moved to the top of the list. Americans get priority," James said.

Dumbledore's face betrayed only a little of his surprise. "Why the priority for Americans? And what about sob stories?"

"I am in more of a hurry to cure mothers of six than a convicted felon. Children, as well, are moved up the list. American's first because I do not want to be running all over the world to perform brain surgeries. Hmm. Let me amend that. Anyone in America, first. If one of you redcoats want a cure, you will have to travel across the world."

Dumbledore flicked a piece of candy at him, huffing. The older man rolled his eyes and continued, "How many people have you agreed to cure?"

"Well, everyone that has asked thus far has received the potion. However, come the full moon, they will still psychologically become a werewolf, in that tumors will still grow on the amygdala. They will not physically change, though. Andy and I have yet to discover the catalyst for the physical change. And why, for that matter, the psychological change does not really take effect until the physical change. It is all very weird, and it defies all medical logic."

Dumbledore paused for a moment, leaned back in his chair, tapping his chin with a long finger. "I know you do not like the man, but please listen to this comparison. When my friend Nicolas was creating the philosopher's stone, every decision he made was against all known magical logic, He was cast out of the Alchemy Guild for his outlandish ideas. However, he persisted, and continued to ignore what was deemed logical. As he is still alive more than five hundred years later, I suppose he did something right," Dumbledore said. "What I am trying to say is this logic is only logical, because that is what has been tried before. Perhaps in a few hundred years, what you are discovering now will be logical, as opposed to illogical."

"Until then," James said, "I have no precedent to base my research. Until now, no person has attempted to mix muggle and magic theories and technologies to create this cure."

"I had thought I chose the right person for this. I had so many options, you know," the old man said with a smile. "You're not the only teenaged genius I know."

"Oh, really?" James asked, his eyebrow raised. He fought a smile for a few seconds. "We don't grow on trees, you know."

"Do not worry, kid, I know exactly where you came from. I changed your nappies," the Headmaster said. James rolled his eyes. They sat in silence for a few minutes. "Am I keeping you from work, James? I do not think I have ever seen you sit this long."

James shook his head. "I am slowing down," he replied. "I am not going to live to thirty if I continue on the way I was. Sitting is… nice," James said, grimacing. The lie tasted bad in his mouth.

Dumbledore actually laughed at that statement. "Sure it is. You are just as I was as a young man; intelligent, powerful, and restless. You wish to save the world, but you want it done tomorrow. Take your time, James. You have a long life ahead of you. More than enough time to do everything you wish to do."

James nodded, but sighed. "Right now, I am working on a few cases. In Vegas, a little boy was murdered in his home. In New York, Annette Bennington was raped and murdered in her home."

Dumbledore cocked his head to the side. "The Director of Muggle Education in the Magical World?" he asked.

"That's what it was!" James exclaimed. "Yes, her. How did you know that?"

"I like to keep abreast of foreign governments. I also believe she once filled in for a member of the International Confederation of Wizards."

"Anyway… with cases such as these, there is only so much time to catch a suspect before the trail goes cold. There is a rush. Always. You cannot ask for enough time when rapists and murderers are on the loose. It is constant. That is what I am used to."

Before Dumbledore could answer, James' phone rang. "James Potter," he answered. James put it on speakerphone so he could pour himself more coffee.

"James Potter, you do have a Top Secret security clearance, correct?" an unknown voice asked.

"I cannot give out that information without knowing who I am talking to," answered James.

"This is Michael Coal. I am with the Nellis Air Force Testing and Training Complex in southern Nevada. I have a project I am working on, and I could use your help."

As he always did, James interpreted 'Nellis Air Force Testing and Training Complex in southern Nevada' as Area 51. "I am listening."

"Have you heard of the Stargate, Mr. Potter?"