The Fears of Doctor Spencer Reid
The analysis machine was not the only thing to have broken; the camera in Harry’s cell refused to transmit anything other than loud static (despite two engineers attempting to fix it); the metal detectors found nothing on him (odd, considering they could see the metal clasp on his robe); his fingerprints seemed to have deleted themselves from the system and even his photo had come out blurry. Every staff member involved was at a loss for what could be causing the destruction, or how to solve it. The cause of the problem, one Harry Potter, had in fact been left alone for quite a long time now and he was getting rather restless. Unbeknownst to him, after being alerted to the issue with the analysis lab, the BAU team had then gone on to investigate, and then discover all of the other technical issues surrounding the man they had arrested. This, indirectly, led to Spencer Reid, the Technophobe of the BAU, getting rather bored, and deciding to sit in the viewing room and passively profile the man still restrained within. It was this innocuous decision that led to the worst time of Spencer’s life so far.
Harry sat, bored and half asleep, in an interrogation room, his rear end still positioned on the uncomfortable chair, his hands still cuffed to the table, when all of a sudden, his wife’s patronus passed through the wall and glared angrily at him. Harry sighed, it was not hard to guess what was coming…
“Harry James Potter! How dare you let yourself get arrested. James is crying for his daddy and I don’t know what to tell him. Luckily for you, Ron is coming to save your arse, whilst Neville catches a killer. We will be having words when you finally return. I love you Harry, even if you are a complete dunderhead!”
And with that, the shimmering horse disappeared, and Harry sighed once more, glad nobody had been around to witness such an overt display of magic.
The other side of the one way mirror, Spencer Reid stared in shock and horror. Surely this could not be true? A regular observation of a suspect, and then a silver hovering horse just appeared out of thin air. And then it began to speak to the suspect. Was Harry Potter being haunted by a ghostly horse? That would certainly explain the technology glitches, although how did the horse learn English and…. No, this is silly. Spencer began to pace up and down rapidly, his thoughts devolving before him. This was clearly a delusion, the start of a psychotic break? And he’d nearly believed it too! Ah. This would not do, not at all. Was he turning into his mother? Did he have schizophrenia? In his distress he began to list off all the risk factors for the disease, and then tick off the ones he had in his head:
- Aged in his mid to late twenties - Yes
- Close family member with the condition - Yes
- Stressful job - Yes
- Prior or current use of recreational drugs - Yes
- Abnormal brain size - Unknown
Spencer sat on the floor with horror as the reality of the situation hit him: He was in the early stages of schizophrenia, he would lose his job, his income, his independence. He would be forced to take a number of medications and ultimately, would end up committed to a facility, unable to do anything alone or be trusted with anything and ultimately, he would lose his friends too.
Spencer fought hard against the tears threatening to spill down his face, he had been getting calmer and calmer as he inched closer to thirty, and had become passified in the knowledge that he had reached the age of 27 with no hint of schizophrenic symptoms. Until today, when everything came all at once.
Doctor Spencer Reid was not an idiot - he had three PhDs for goodness’s sakes! This meant that he knew many things, and one of them would be obvious to any government employee: he needed to tell his boss. After all, what else could it be? He was experiencing hallucinations, even believing them and was he delusional? Quite possibly with the speed at which he believed he had seen a ghost. He was right, he needed to tell Hotch. Now. But he couldn’t. Everything he valued most dearly in his life (aside from his mother) revolved around this job, his friends, his joy, his passion, everything. The poor young man knew not what to do, it was like he suddenly couldn’t think. He needed to process his new self-diagnosis, but he didn’t get the chance, his team had come to join him.
“Alright down there Pretty Boy?” asked Morgen, after walking into the room to see his best friend sitting morosely on the hard floor.
“Fine, just tired” Spencer lied in response. Hotch fixed him with a glare that said “we’ll talk about this later” before addressing the room as a whole.
“Right team, I know we’re all confused about these… unexplainable events, but we cannot let on to Mr Potter in there. Garcia, what did you find on this Ginny woman”
“I’m sorry sir I couldn’t find anything on a wife of any kind. JJ mentioned something about a Ron - the best I can find is a Miss Ginevra Weasley, born August 11th 1981, with a brother named Ronald born March 1st 1980”
“Do you think these could be the people Mr Potter was talking about, Garcia?”
“I don’t know for sure sir, if Ronald was his school friend then the guy I have found would be the right age, but other than that there is nothing, other than they were born in Devon, England and seem to have five other siblings”
Hotch thought for a minute.
“Were these the only siblings that could go by Ron and Ginny living in England that are around the same age as our suspect, Garcia?”
“Yes, sir”
“In that case, we shall have to assume that they are the people we are looking for right now. I think that if everyone agrees, giving the lack of information on these persons of interest, that it is safe to say that they are likely to also be either the victims or perpetrators of crime”
Hotch glanced around at his team, and saw them all nodding back at him.
“Did you find anything on this Hermione?” asked JJ.
“That is where I had a little more luck, my sweets, Hermione is an unusual name to begin with, add in the assumption that she is UK born and raised, leaves with only three possibilities, and considering that two of these women are over the legal pension age, I think it is safe to assume that the woman we are looking for is one Hermione Jean Granger, born September 19th 1979, in Oxfordshire, England. She seems to have a lot more documentation here, medical and school records up until September of 1991, where exactly like our Mr Potter, this all stops, and there is no record of her existence after.”
The room was still in shocked silence, before Rossi broke the silence.
“Does anyone else have the idea that these people were shipped off to some secret organisation for an education in organised crime?”
There was a chorus of yeses and not a single no, so Emily took her chance to add.
“He mentioned something about a terrorist earlier, might that be relevant?”
“What if” began Morgan “He was part of the terrorist group, and not a victim?”
Hotch was silent for a minute, before speaking his demands.
“Garcia, go and research terrorist cells active in the UK in the 90s, the one that springs to mind is the IRA, but they rarely took hostages, Emily and Rossi, continue looking for Mr Potter’s partner, JJ and I will go back over evidence from the crime scenes, Morgan, you and Reid can interview Potter”.