Hari's Madcap Multiverse

The school’s secretary walked into the classroom, made a beeline for Mrs. Harris, and whispered in her ear. Mrs. Harris looked up and caught Hari’s eye. Crap.

“Hari, please gather your things and go to the principal’s office.”

“Ooooooooooo,” the other students sang, laughing. How did all children know to make that sound when thinking another student was in trouble?

Hari hated being a kid again.

By the time she was twenty-one, she’d been severely disillusioned with the magical world. Death offered her a chance to go to a new reality, saying it had the possibility of being happier. She’d have family.

Hari stupidly jumped at the chance and woke up in a cupboard under the stairs as a ten year old. She was going to kill Death the next time she saw him.

In this reality, Hari was named Henrietta Martinez and lived in Texas. Her parents liked her about as much as the Dursleys. Hari was tired of being their house elf, and had spent the last few months thinking of escape.

Her parents had never picked her up from school during the day. Had something bad happened? Had they found out about her plan?

She recognized a man standing in front of the secretary’s desk.

Hari raised an eyebrow and said, “Hey Dr. Connor. What’s up?”

“Hari! Hi. So good to see you. I have a surprise for you at the lab.”

“A good surprise?”

Dr. Connor looked startled, then said, “I certainly hope so.”

“And you came to pick me up from school?”

Dr. Connor nodded, but fidgeted.

Hari’s eyes flicked to the secretary. The worst thing that could happen is if she decided to call Hari’s parents.

Hari shrugged. “Alright.”

Hari reassured herself that Dr. Connor was pretty harmless and she could do some wandless magic and run away if things turned bad.

They walked out of the school and into the back of a sedan that was illegally parked outside of the school’s entrance. Well, it’s not like anyone would arrest Dr. Connor. The FBI badge would discourage that. He got into the back seat with her. Hari looked at the driver.

“Hi?”

“Ah. This is Agent Allen. He’s going to drive us,” said Connor.

Agent Allen didn’t seem interested in conversation.

The silence stretched as Allen wove through traffic.

Connor fidgeted.

“You’re being weird,” said Hari.

Connor’s ears turned red. His smile looked more like a grimace.

Hari wasn’t filled with confidence.

She relaxed a little when they pulled up to the parking structure with an FBI sign. At least she hadn’t been kidnapped. In her last reality, she would have run screaming from a muggle police agency. She still probably should, but…it was part of her plan. Sort of. Not that her plans ever worked well.

Connor didn’t say anything as he ushered her into a room with two cozy couches and a few lounge chairs. And pillows. And no windows. Connor didn’t enter the room.

A tired-looking woman was sitting in one of the chairs.

“Oh. Hello, hun. I’m a child’s advocate. If you feel uncomfortable, hungry, thirsty, or anything like that, just let me know!” And she went back to reading something on her phone.

Hari wasn’t feeling great about this. She sat down on the couch closest to the door.

A man with salt and pepper hair and a gray suit walked in and sat down on the opposite sofa from Hari.

“Hello. I’m Supervisory Special Agent Tobias Fornell. You can call me Tobias or Toby if you’d like.”

“Hi.” Hari gave a little wave.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Hari shrugged. “Dr. Connor said he had a surprise for me in his lab. But he didn’t take me to his lab. I haven’t been in this part of the building before.”

Fornell nodded.

“How’d you meet Agent Connor?” Fornell asked. He looked harmless. Pleasant.

“He came to my school.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. He talked to us about forensics and how science is cool.”

Fornell smiled. “I have a daughter. She’s younger than you, but I hope she likes science.”

Hari gave a polite smile.

Fornell didn’t let the silence turn awkward. “And you stayed in contact with Dr. Connor after that visit?”

“Yeah. He’s great. He’s teaching me about searching DNA databases for an extra credit project.”

“You must be really smart.”

Hari shrugged. “Dr. Connor’s definitely got skills.”

“Your guardians must be really proud. I know I would be.”

Hari didn’t say anything.

“We’d like to tell them how impressed we are with your project,” said Fornell.

Yeah. That would go over like a lead balloon.

“Can you tell me your address?” wheedled Fornell.

Ugh.

Hari’s mind was whirling. Well, this wasn’t what she planned, but this was a chance. A chance to get out of her current hellhole.

Hari thought quietly for a minute, and Fornell didn’t press her. The child’s advocate shifted in her seat.

Hari sighed and pulled a piece of paper in front of her. Surprisingly, she only needed one sentence to get what she wanted.

“I swear that Henrietta Martinez will never have to return to her current guardians, and that I will find her a safe living situation.”

Hari added the date and a line for Fornell’s signature. After a few seconds, she added another line for the child’s advocate to sign as a witness.

She slid the paper to Fornell. Both of his eyebrows raised. With barely a pause, Fornell signed the paper.

Hari wasn’t convinced. “You can do that? You can make that happen?”

Fornell gave a small smile and nodded. “Yep.”

He pushed the paper toward the child advocate, who didn’t seem happy to be involved. Fornell glared at her until she signed the paper.

Hari snatched the paper back. “Can you take a picture of it and send a copy to her?” Hari tilted her head toward the child advocate, who still hadn’t said her name.

Fornell looked bemused as he tapped his phone’s screen and extracted the email address from the frosty advocate.

Then his attention turned back to Hari.

“Can you guess why we’re talking?”

Hari blinked. “Ummm. You don’t like my par…my guardians?”

Fornell tilted his head. “I don’t know who your guardians are.”

“Huh. Well… Did my DNA match someone in the database? Dr. Connor said it was a pleasant surprise, so I doubt I’m related to some serial killer you’re trying to find.”

Fornell laughed.

“You’re right. No serial killer. Why did you use your DNA in your project with Dr. Connor?”

Hari’s instinct was to lie or mislead. But…if he was really getting her a new home…

“I wanted to look for biological relatives.”

“You don’t think your parents or guardians are biologically related to you?”

“Well, I looked up some information on genetics. I don’t get a lot of it, obviously, but some stuff was easy. Pedro has a cleft chin, brown eyes, dark brown hair, tan skin, wavy hair. Sara has brown eyes with some lighter flecks, light brown hair, her hair’s curly, medium skin, dimples, a widow’s peak… They’re both fairly short. I’m tall for my age. My hair’s strawberry blonde and straight. I have blue eyes. I don’t have dimples, a widow’s peak, or curly hair… It’s pretty unlikely that they’re biologically my parents. If I could find relatives, maybe I could go live with them.”

“You don’t want to live with Pedro and Sara?”

Hari shook her head.

“What’s a normal day like with them?” Fornell’s voice was soft. Soothing.

Hari shrugged and looked at the couch. “I wake up. Cook everyone breakfast. Make Pedro’s lunch. Clean. Go to school. Come home. Do some chores. Cook dinner. Clean.”

Hari stopped talking. No more words wanted to come out of her mouth. She hated – absolutely hated – that she was in this position again. Some Chosen One she turned out to be. She was back to being a child who was treated like a combination of unwanted property and a slave.

She had magic. She could run away. But people would just bring her back home. Unsupervised eleven year olds stand out.

Fornell was talking, and Hari tried to drag her thoughts back to the present.

“What’s a conversation between Sara and you or Pedro and you like?”

Hari shrugged. She’d been doing that a lot. Grabbing a piece of paper and a pen, Hari sketched a blocky view of the staircase and its door. She pushed the drawing to Fornell.

“Thank you,” Fornell said. “Can you tell me where this is?”

Hari just stared at him.

Thank Merlin he wasn’t an idiot. “I promise,” Fornell vowed, “I promise you’ll never go back there.”

Hari used the slightest touch of Legilimency to verify he was telling the truth. Her chest tightened and she felt like hurling. Before thinking about it more, Hari wrote the address down. If the FBI made her go back there, she’d just disappear. Homelessness was better than whatever awaited her at home after Sara and Pedro found out she talked to cops.

“Thank you, Hari. I’ll be right back.”

Fornell left, but Hari wasn’t paying attention. She felt panicky.

After a few minutes, he came back in the room.

“As you guessed, your DNA test found a match in the database,” Fornell said.

“Not a serial killer?”

Fornell snorted. “Not a serial killer.”

Hari smoothed her palms on her pants and waited.

It was Fornell’s turn to look uncomfortable. “It was a perfect match.”

Hari frowned. “But that’s not possible!” she blurted.

Fornell raised an eyebrow.

“Well, it’s not. I’m the only one with my DNA. How can I be in the database?”

Fornell’s next sentence changed Hari’s life, every bit as much as Dumbledore had.

“Your DNA is a perfect match for Erin Gibbs, a one-year old who was kidnapped ten years ago.”

Hari heard the words, but her brain was having trouble processing them. Her thoughts felt staticky.

Time passed.

Eventually, Hari said, “Do I have family?”

“Yes. Your father never stopped looking for you.”

“Do you…do you think he’d want to…meet me?”

“Absolutely. I know he would. In fact–”

Hari cut him off. “You can’t tell him!”

Fornell frowned. “Why?”

“What if the test is wrong? You have to check it. You can’t give him false hope on this. It would be so cruel…”

Fornell held up his hands, palms out. “It’s already been checked.”

Hari took a slow, deep breath. After two incredibly shitty childhoods, she had a chance to have a real dad.

Unless…

“Is he…Is he like them? Pedro and Sara? Would he be…”

Fornell patted her hand. “He’s a good man. He’s nothing like them.”

Hari could tell that Fornell really believed that. She took a few more deep breaths.

“What about…other family? A mother? Grandparents?”

Fornell looked sad. “I believe you have two living grandparents – one on your mother’s side and one on your father’s side. I’m sorry, kid. Your mother and older sister were killed. They died in a car. Someone took you and your car seat. That’s the last we knew of you for ten years.”

Hari stood up and leaned her shoulder against a wall, face turned away from Fornell. She pressed a fist against her ribs. She felt oddly disconnected.

“It hurts,” she muttered. “My chest hurts. Why does it hurt? I don’t remember them. It shouldn’t hurt to hear they were…”

Hari’s vision blurred and she realized she was crying.

The door flew open. A tall man with piercing blue eyes was in front of her. Before Hari could move, he wrapped his arms around her in a hug. Hari pressed her face against his shirt. She was gasping. He smelled like wood and coffee and something else. Something soothing. Her body immediately responded without knowing why. She stopped crying.

“Hari,” she heard Fornell say. “This is Leroy Jethro Gibbs.”

“I’m your dad,” he whispered.

Two realities, two lives, and Hari had never felt anything better than that moment.

_______________________________________________________

Gibbs had no idea what this day had in store for him.

Early that morning Gibbs was at his desk, scowling at Kate’s antics, when the elevator dinged. He narrowed his eyes. Tobias Fornell, Federal pain in the ass, strode into the bullpen.

“I don’t have any case you could possibly be involved in, Tobias.”

Fornell didn’t even smile, which made Gibbs’ gut churn. Something was wrong.

“Come on, Gibbs. Let’s see your director.”

Gibbs stalked to the stairs. “Problem?” He whispered.

“In a minute.”

Gibbs was surprised that Cynthia ushered them into the director’s office immediately. He was even more surprised to see Ducky sitting at the conference table.

Director Morrow pointed Gibbs to the seat by Ducky. Everyone sat.

“Jethro,” said Tobias.

Gibbs’ chest constricted. There’s only one thing this could be about. He closed his eyes, preparing for the wild grief that was about to–

“Jethro, she’s alive. We found her. We found Erin. Or really, she found us.”

Gibbs gasped. Hope – painful, all-encompassing hope – sprang to life. He hadn’t dared feel any hope for so long. He couldn’t speak.

He snapped back to the present when he felt Ducky’s fingers pressing against the pulse in his wrist.

“Deep breaths, Jethro. That’s it.”

“Where?” demanded Jethro.

“Texas.”

The chair slammed into the wall as Gibbs stood up quickly.

“Jethro, we’re taking an FBI plane. It’s waiting for us. We’ll go there now.”

Tom Morrow broke in. “Don’t worry about work, Gibbs. I’m putting your team on cold cases for at least the next week. Check in with me. I’ll take care of everything here.”

Gibbs was out of the door before another word was spoken. Fornell had to jog a few steps to catch up.

“Boss?” Tony was worried.

Fornell sighed and gestured for Tony to stay at his desk. “Talk to Ducky and your Director, Dinozzo. It’ll be fine.”

On the airplane, Fornell showed Gibbs a picture of his daughter from FBI security footage.

“It’s her, Jethro. The lab double checked the DNA. It’s her. She’s alive. We’re getting her back. Today.”

_______________________________________________________

The rest of the day was surreal for Hari. Fornell escorted them to an office where a doctor gave her a physical and took pictures of some of her scars. Gibbs holding her hand was all that kept her from bolting.

Later, they were on a plane to Virginia. It was Hari’s first plane ride in two realities.

There was something so utterly soothing about Gibbs. She’d never felt so comfortable with another person. She fell asleep, leaning against his side with his arm wrapped around her.

Things were looking up.

_______________________________________________________

Pedro and Sara Martinez went to jail for a long time. The FBI was taking no shit in this case – a thorough investigation also sent away many of their friends for involvement in a drug cartel. Fornell became Uncle Toby. Tony became like an older brother. If McGee had been scared of a mean Gibbs, he was terrified of a happy Gibbs. Hari learned about woodworking, family, and what it was like to be truly happy, content, and loved. And Ari Haswari…well, he rued the day he tried to take young Hari Gibbs from the world. But that’s another story.