Chapter- 26 : Interrogation

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"Interview with Harry White, no middle name on Thursday July 1st, 1996," the grey-robed individual said in a heavily altered voice that completely obscured whether it belonged to a male or female.

Harry was seated in a small office on the other side of the desk from his interviewer. Besides the clipboard on which the individual was currently writing the desk was empty. Like the Unspeakable, the entire room was bare of anything recognisable. There were several cabinets and drawers, but everything was bland, closed and looked forbidding.

This morning he'd simply walked into the spinning round room with all the doors, clutching his letter and waited for the nausea to stop and for someone to come for him. It hadn't taken long until someone had come hurrying through the doors. Harry would have said he or she looked frazzled, except, well... he or she was wearing a formless grey cloak with a hood.

"You claim to be a dimensional traveller?"

"Yes. By the way, not to be offensive or anything, but are you a man or a woman?"

There was a beat of silence. "You may think of me as male."

The... man made a note of something and Harry got the distinct impression that if this was a test for something he would have just been failed.

"How did you come to arrive in this dimension?"

"I was... summoned."

"I see. When did the summoning occur?"

"Almost two weeks ago now."

The man tilted his head. "And how come you are only presenting yourself here now? Doing so is required by law."

"I didn't know I needed to," Harry protested. He didn't say that after he found out he had spent every waking moment before the deadline inventing a backstory and agonising over what to reveal.

"I see," the man said as his quill scratched on the parchment. Besides that and Harry's breathing it was completely silent in the room.

It made him nervous and he had to work hard not to fidget. Had they caught on already? Who knows what kind of magic the Unspeakables studied, maybe they didn't need like detectors to catch him out.

Fortunately the man changed topics. Harry inwardly thanked Merlin and Morgana even as he didn't let his relief show on his face.

"With regards to the summoning, describe your experience, please."

"Painful," he snarked, masking the awful memories that threatened to surge with dark wit.

A beat of silence. "Please elaborate."

Apparently the price of admission to the Unspeakables was one's sense of humour.

Harry shivered as he remembered the jump. "It hurt. I remember a crushing sensation and feeling like my skin was being sliced and sometimes ripped off."

"You were alive on arrival?"

This time it was Harry who remained silent for a bit out of incredulity. "I thought that would be obvious?"

"It is not."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I recall hitting a hard surface. That may or may not have been my arrival. I do know I was unconscious until I woke up under the care of a healer. At that point in time I was alive."

The questioning continued for more than an hour. This man was obviously some kind of scientist, asking about the mechanics and sensations. Harry dearly hoped he would not try to recreate whatever happened and tried to make his descriptions as vivid as possible, hoping to deter him. He wasn't having much luck.

Things didn't turn any less frustrating after, either as question after question was shot at him.

"Did you have fish in the sea?"

"Yes?"

"Did the platypus truly belong in your dimension?"

"I think so, though I never saw one."

"Was the number of spells cast by a wizard proportional to the amount of time he would sleep afterwards?"

"Um, what?"

On and on the questioning went until eventually, the topic turned to less academic details.

"Who participated in your summoning?"

And there it was. If the answer to this question was ever made public Voldemort would know his summoning had something to do with the war and Harry would forever have to look over his shoulder. Unfortunately he had mentioned Dumbledore to Madam Bones and he didn't know what information she might have passed on.

"Hasn't Madam Bones already told you that?" he asked with feigned nonchalance. Lying like a Slytherin was Plan A but he needed to know if that was still an option.

"She spoke with my colleague," came the utterly bland answer.

Damn. So much for Plan A.

Undoubtedly the pair would compare notes at some point and he didn't dare let himself be caught out in a lie lest they drag him back later and pump him full of Veritaserum. In that case even his fake identity would be revealed and there was no way he was opening that can of worms.

Well, if his answer was going to bite him in the arse later he would not go down alone. Time for Plan B.

"There were apparently a great many people involved; I don't know their names. I do know Albus Dumbledore led the effort."

"Interesting," the man remarked, sounding anything but. "Do you know what means were used?"

"Nothing but that it was a ritual. I don't know specifics."

Soon the questions turned more personal, date of birth, weight, next of kin; the kind of questions that would usually be asked using a standardized form were this not so rare an occurrence that such a form did not exist.

Answering felt a great deal like a test, one he had spent days studying for. Never was he so grateful at extensive revision, having spent hours and hours polishing his back story until it gleamed so brightly it was impossible to see the holes he couldn't cover through the glare.

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If you're eager to delve deeper into the story, consider joining my Patreon for exclusive content and early access to new chapters

50+Advanced Chapters there.

(P).(A).(T).(R).(E).(O).(N)

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