Round Three
“What!?” spluttered Reid, trying (without much success) to keep the fear out of his voice.
“What’s wrong Reid?” asked Hotch seriously.
“Oh, nothing”
Hotch fixed him with a look.
“Guy’s just weird… He’s freaking me out a little” Spencer reasoned, to the suspicion of all of his colleagues. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Morgan gently tugged on his elbow and guided him towards the interrogation room.
“Come on Pretty Boy, we have a freaky guy to question”
Reid gulped inaudibly, and dutifully followed his friend through the door, towards a sickening period of anxiety.
The pair walked into the room and Spencer felt his heart flutter. Yes, he had schizophrenia (or at least he thought he did) but that had nothing to do with their suspect, he needn’t be afraid of him. Or the room. That isn’t where the horse came from. Or was it? Spencer shook his head in an attempt to clear the thoughts spinning around inside, and sat beside Derek, across from Harry. Derek Morgan, still adamant that Harry was a killer, began to question the man before him with no small amount of aggression.
“So Mr Potter, this terrorist group you mentioned to my colleagues, would you like to elaborate?”
“No thank you”
Morgan sighed
“That was rhetorical Mr Potter”
“There isn’t much to say, Agent”
Morgan sighed once more, and fought the urge to punch something, or someone. Spencer shuffled uncomfortably, which reminded Morgan that he was actually there.
“Mr Potter, you have met me already, this is SSA Doctor Spencer Reid…”
He pointed his gaze at Reid, who cleared his throat and began to do his job, hopefully without arousing suspicion from his colleagues.
“Mr Potter, you mentioned your wife and son, where are they now?”
“Uhm, at home as far as I’m aware”
“In England, the home address you gave?”
“Yes sir”
“How old is your son, sir?” interjected Morgan
“Is he safe?”
Harry was rather disgruntled, did they really think that he would harm his own son? Goodness, even if he were the UNSUB, it would not fit the MO at all!
“He is almost two, and when I left him he was fine, and I’m sure he still is, even if he does get a tad upset when I’m away”
“Does your wife know about your… activities here in the US?”
“Do you mean what I do for my job, Agent Morgan? Because yes, she absolutely does”
Harry was getting very riled up now, how dare they bring his family into this!?
“Do you mean your self appointed job as judge, jury and executioner?” pressed Morgan, taking advantage of Potter’s agitated state.
“For Merlin’s sake, I’m not the man you are looking for! Or his partner for that matter!”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Harry knew that he had made a mistake, and the agents knew it too. Spencer jumped in with the only logical question:
“How did you know we were looking for two men, Mr Potter?”
“Look, this isn’t what you think…”
“Isn’t it, Mr Potter?” interjected Morgan, rudely,
“Because it seems to me that you know unreleased details of our investigation”
“I told your Agent friend that I work for the British government, yes?”
“We have been unable to confirm this claim, but go on”
“Well, I’ve been working the same case as you”
The agents were briefly confused, this wasn’t the sort of lie they had expected him to come up with. Speaking over Morgan’s huff of “likely story”, Reid asked his own line of questions.
“Why would the British government send you over to investigate an American crime on American soil, Mr Potter?”
Harry sighed, and quickly decided on what to tell them, that would be close enough to the truth, but not true enough to break the ever-present statute of secrecy.
“We thought it was related to some terrorist activity from the nineties”
The BAU all silently cheered, this would tie him into the terrorist activity they suspected of him. You could tell from the man’s face that he wasn’t telling the complete truth, but it seemed to be based upon it. Was he telling the truth through the guise of law enforcement, instead of a criminal?
It was at this, very timely, not-at-all-perfect-plot-hole-of-a-coincidence, moment that Morgan’s phone rang. He answered it.
“Hey Baby-Girl…… I'm with him now….. MILLENIUM BRIDGE?.... Are you sure?..... Okay, I’ll ask….. Thanks beautiful”
Morgan turned to their suspect harshly.
“The only terrorist activity outside of Ireland in the 90s is as yet unsolved, what do you know about it?”
Harry smirked,
“Only unsolved by those without a high enough clearance”
“Which you have?”
“Absolutely, agent”
Morgan guffawed, he didn’t believe that claim for a second, honestly, the audacity of the man!
“So, you had high-level government security clearance when you were a teenager?” asked Reid, having done the maths and believing the words of the man before him even less than Morgan did, if that was at all possible.
“Well, not quite at that point in life, no” admitted Harry
“But I was there, and I hate to say I was rather… essential in the outcome”
“You actually admit you were there?” asked Morgan with raised eyebrows, surprised at the small amount of honesty coming from their unsub.
“What do you know about the bombing of the Millenium Bridge after its first construction on June 24th 1996?” asked Reid, correctly guessing what was relevant from the snippets he had heard from Morgan’s phone call.
“Ah” said Harry
“I read about it in the newspaper at the time, it was a bit of a pointless endeavour really - it hadn’t even officially opened yet”
“Thank you” said Reid, before exiting the room along with Morgan.
“He admitted it, he was there” said Rossi incredulously, as soon as the door shut behind his two colleagues.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions, that doesn’t prove anything” warned Hotch.
“Come on boss, you saw him in there, not at all bothered about such a massive terror attack - 17 construction workers were killed!” argued Morgan
“You have to admit it was a long time ago,” said Emily, walking back into the room.
“Did you two find anything on the partner?” asked Hotch
“No luck”
“Same with us” sighed Hotch, this case was turning out to be more difficult than any of them could have imagined.
Reid sighed dejectedly, he was having a long day, but he had been lucid since the… incident. With the typical timing of a story of this kind, that was when another incident decided to arise, for as the team turned towards Reid, the team member closest to the interview room door, Harry managed a wandless aloe hamora - third time lucky, wandless magic wasn’t his strongest, but it could generally prevail with a few small spells in a crisis. This would have been fine, had Spencer Reid not been fiddling with the door knob behind him.
The audible click of the door unlocking and opening slightly ajar caused the team to turn towards their youngest member.
“Reid” stated Hotch in alarm, the pieces of what he thought he had seen clicking together in his head.
“Did you just try to release Mr Potter?”.