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The Case of the CCTV
By Chromatix

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Category: Summer Challenge (2005-4)
Characters:None
Genres: General
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 10
Summary: ** Winner of Best Overall in the Summer Challenge **
Hermione and Ginny are out shopping - but even this normal activity won't keep them out of trouble.
Hitcount: Story Total: 4774







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The Case of the CCTV

"What do you think?" asked Ginny nervously, twirling in a new set of clothes she was trying on.

Hermione smiled. "I think they're lovely," she said. "I don't even think Ron will find anything to complain about. What does Harry think?"

Looking in the mirror, Ginny closed her eyes and pretended to think for a moment. A sly smile soon crept over her face, and she nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, I think he likes this, all right. I could feel his reaction, anyway!" She opened her eyes and giggled at the slightly scandalised look on her friend's face.

"I don't think I want to know exactly what kind of reaction he showed," said Hermione, shaking her head. "I get enough of that from Ron. Anyway, time for me to try something on."

"Okay. I've got to get some more personal bits now, so I'll be over there," replied Ginny, waving vaguely towards the lingerie department.

"Erm, fine," said Hermione, looking as though she really didn't want to see the results of that excursion.

"Oh, don't be silly," said Ginny. "It's only ordinary stuff I need."

*

Er ic Barnsley had been a store detective for many years, and dealt with many petty criminals in his time, but the scene he encountered today was completely out of his league. He'd been keeping an eye on a couple of teenaged girls as they apparently renewed their entire wardrobes, when a group of what appeared to be young men dressed in capes and hoods came out of nowhere - surely he wasn't that distracted by the fit young girls at his age? - and descended on the girl nearest the changing rooms.

Exactly what happened next wasn't entirely clear, but he vaguely remembered a lot of coloured jets of light, including some from the lingerie section, where the other girl was. Scant few seconds later, the attackers were nowhere to be seen - except for one, lying unnaturally still in the middle of a swathe of wrecked clothing racks. A red-haired girl - one of the shoppers - lay near the other edge.

Eric stared for a moment, then his training kicked in. He reached over and smacked a button on the wall beside him. Sirens blared, steel shutters rolled down over the store doorways. Ten minutes later, the police had arrived, then taken both the unconscious girl and the hooded man away - Eric's confused description of events being insufficient to rule out either as being party to the destruction.

As he returned to his office to file a report, he caught a glimpse of the bushy-haired girl looking carefully up at the CCTV cameras.

*

Many miles away, Harry Potter woke from a doze - he'd had an excellent dream earlier of Ginny looking very sexy in a new dress - to hear her voice calling him. Rolling up his sleeves, he checked the Dursleys' house for magical signatures, but found none. Puzzled, he closed his eyes again and concentrated on Ginny.

Harry? Harry!

What's wrong, Ginny?

I'm not sure where I am. We got attacked while shopping for Muggle clothes... and I think I got Stunned. I don't know where Hermione is, but this looks like a Muggle prison to me.

Harry took a quick look through Ginny's eyes, and what he saw did look a lot like prison cells he'd seen on Muggle TV programmes.

All right, Ginny. I'll come over and see what I can do about this. You'll be okay, I promise.

Thanks, Harry. I don't have my wand, otherwise I'd just unlock the doors.

Harry went downstairs to tell his aunt and uncle he'd be out for a while, but found a note on the table saying they'd gone out shopping, leaving him in Dudley's tender care. Since Dudley was most likely outside terrorising the neighbourhood again, Harry shrugged, focussed on Ginny's location, and Disapparated.

*

Inspector Jeremy Barnsley looked up sharply from his desk, with the strong suspicion he was being watched. To his surprise, there was a bespectacled young man with messy black hair gazing levelly back at him. Those idiots in Reception are supposed to warn me about visitors, he thought irritably. Especially when they're as dodgy-looking as this one.

'Dodgy' was one way to describe what this visitor was wearing. If his hair had been neon-coloured and spiked, he would easily have been described as a punk. He could plainly see a pair of leather bracelets, most of his clothes were made out of unidentifiable material - as a Metropolitan Police Inspector with plenty of experience, this troubled him slightly - and he was almost certain that his collar was, in some way, watching him just as keenly as the man himself. Then there was a sharp scar, half-hidden under that hair.

Inspector Barnsley pulled himself together. "What can I do for you, sir?"

"Have you got my girlfriend in there?" asked the visitor, gesturing towards the cell door beyond his desk. "Ginny Weasley."

Barnsley pulled out a ledger and scanned it briefly. "I don't see that name there," he said. "We have a couple of people in who we haven't identified yet, though."

"Small, red hair, freckles?" said the man keenly. "I got a message saying she was in here."

"Well, perhaps if you know her, you could help me decipher this report here," said Barnsley. "My brother's usually better than this at explaining matters, but I can't make head or tail of this one. Tell me your name, while you're about it, too."

Harry bent over the report, which seemed to be only one page of crabbed but closely-spaced handwriting, and frowned as he read the short, confused passage describing the incident. Most of the rest concerned what happened before and afterwards.

"The name's Potter," he said at length. "Harry Potter. I'm used to being recognised on sight, so excuse me for not introducing myself sooner."

"I can see why," said Barnsley, looking at Harry's clothes once more with minor distaste.

"Still... this report tallies with what I've been told," said Harry. "Which isn't much, I admit. This is Ginny," he pointed to one of the descriptions, "and that will be Hermione," he pointed to another. "As for this one, that's probably Draco Malfoy," he continued, tapping his finger on a third passage. "It's lucky nobody was more seriously hurt, if he was involved."

"But what actually happened?" said Barnsley exasperatedly. "Half the department got wrecked in that store, and all they can tell me is that a load of people - who seem to have disappeared without a trace, mark you - came in and there were a lot of flashing lights! How can I work out which of the people we have are responsible for that?"

Harry's eyes lingered on the last section of the report. I saw the bushy-haired girl looking at the security cameras as I left to write up. "Perhaps we'd better ask the cameras. Have you got the tapes?"

"Yes, standard procedure to collect those. Problem is, the machine's packed up, so they're about as much use as a three-legged Rottweiler."

Harry groaned. "Give them here, I might be able to do something about that."

"Now look here, I can't just give out important pieces of evidence to anyone who asks."

Harry looked at him sidelong, then waved his hand and caught the stack of tapes as they flew through the air towards him. Inspector Barnsley goggled at him.

"What you're about to see will challenge your ideas about the way this world works," said Harry seriously, "as what I just did demonstrates. But I must warn you that talking about it is restricted by something similar to the Official Secrets Act. Understood?"

"Er..."

"I'll take that as a yes," sighed Harry, twirling the tapes around in his hand. Bands of light appeared around them, holding them tightly together, then Harry waved his other hand at the walls of the Inmates Office... and they disappeared.

Inspector Barnsley gaped at the strange sight - for now he, the strange visitor, and his office furniture appeared to be floating near the ceiling of a large department store. This was CCTV as he'd never seen it before - the young man had apparently reconstructed the tapes into a full 3D scene, something which, as far as he'd known, the computer boffins were only just beginning to suggest might be possible. He glanced warily at the tapes still in Harry's hand, which were even still in their covers, then shook himself.

"Right. Fast-forward to 11:27, would you? That's just a bit before Eric says the attack would have started."

Harry flipped the tapes over, and the scene flickered for a moment. When it steadied again, the timestamp in the corner read 11:27.

"Right, very impressive," said Barnsley. "Let's just see what happens, shall we?"

"There's Ginny," said Harry. She was easy to spot, especially as she was just then showing off the dress from Harry's dream. "And that's Hermione with her."

"You said Ginny was your girlfriend, right?"

"Right. Hermione's another friend."

They watched Ginny disappear for a moment, then reappear in her normal clothes, leave the dress with Hermione, and wander over to the lingerie section. Hermione picked out her own choice, and disappeared into the changing rooms. After a moment, she came out again, looked at herself in a mirror, and then began talking to an assistant.

The next moment, there was a blur of activity. There were suddenly about half a dozen extra figures in the picture, and a blaze of light flickered back and forth between the dressing rooms and the lingerie section. In less than half a minute, the haze cleared to reveal a swathe of destruction and two figures lying on the ground - one with red hair, the other with white-blonde. Hermione got to her feet, helped the assistant she'd been talking to, and a pack of store detectives descended on the scene.

"That's enough," said Harry, flipping the tape over again and freezing the scene. "It looks like this report was remarkably accurate, if lacking in detail."

"Uh, right," said Inspector Barnsley, still looking mystified. "I'm still not clear on what happened, though. Where did all those extra figures come from, and why was there no trace of them afterwards?"

Harry silently rewound the tapes a short way, then stepped them slowly forward. It was now clear that the extra figures had, literally, appeared out of thin air, wearing long hooded cloaks. Then, as one, they raised what appeared to be weapons but didn't exactly look like guns or knives, and started firing those jets of light towards the dressing rooms - where Hermione and the assistant stood. Inspector Barnsley noted absently that the assistant had red hair, rather like the girl presently sleeping in his cells.

Hermione was seen to dive for the ground, bundling the assistant with her. Meanwhile, the real Ginny snatched out her own wand - Barnsley had taken a good look at this as it went into her effects locker - and started firing jets at the attackers herself. She'd taken out several before the leader had turned around to see her, and they fired simultaneously, disabling each other. The remaining two figures grabbed their nearest fallen comrades, reached inside their cloaks, and vanished once more. Only the leader remained, blonde hair spilling out of his hood.

"Does that answer your questions, Inspector?"

"Uh, yes, I suppose it does." Barnsley was clearly still rattled by the weird technology he'd seen in the past few minutes. "You said something about the Official Secrets Act - are you from MI5 or something?"

Harry scratched his head. "Not MI5, no." Harry frowned momentarily, remembering sneaked looks at Muggle movies. "She really is my girlfriend, you know - it's not an act."

"So, Mr. Smarty-Pants, if you love her so much, what's she thinking right now?"

"She's wondering why I haven't let her out yet. Perhaps I'd better rectify that before she loses her temper." Harry put the tapes down, leaving the vision on the walls, and twisted his fingers towards the cell block. There was a click. Twenty seconds later, a rather ruffled-looking Ginny stamped into the office. Harry re-locked the doors behind her.

"Took you long enough," she said. "At least I got to spit through Malfoy's peephole as I went past."

Barnsley put his head in his hands. He could feel a headache coming on, which the racket now coming from the reception desk wasn't improving.

"Excuse me, you can't go through there unless you have a visitation appointment!"

"Watch me," said an annoyed-sounding Hermione. A moment later, she burst into the office and stopped short. "Harry?"

"I've explained the situation to Inspector Barnsley here," he began.

"Ginny!" cried Hermione, ignoring Harry and crushing Ginny into a hug.

After a while, Harry cleared his throat and said mildly, "Hermione, that's my girlfriend you've got there, remember?"

"Oh, right, yes," stammered Hermione, releasing the younger girl. "Shall we go?"

"When I've got my stuff back," said Ginny, giving Barnsley a meaningful look.

Barnsley began to fiddle with his keys. Harry gave him a withering look.

"Just show me which locker it is, would you? I'd rather like to get home sometime today."

"That one," sighed the Inspector. Harry waved a hand at it, and it flew open, depositing it's contents neatly into Ginny's hands. Ginny grunted and pocketed her wand, moneybag, and various sundry items that Harry didn't properly identify, as he was too busy staring at her with a slightly silly smile.

"Right, done," she said smartly, snapping Harry out of his daze. "Let's go, Harry."

Harry grinned, and turned to the Inspector. "You might want these," he said, putting a small box on the desk. "They might help."

Barnsley peered at the box, which said Headache Pills on it in Gothic script, and little else. "Erm, yeah. Thanks."

"We won't be seeing you again, I hope," replied Harry, opening the office door. He followed Ginny and Hermione out, past the outraged squawks of the Reception desk.

*

Ins pector Barnsley looked warily at the odd little medicinal package, then slowly opened it and swallowed one of the pills. A minute later, his headache was gone, and he could only vaguely remember something being decidedly odd about those visitors he'd just had. Perhaps it had something to do with the way his office still seemed to float in the middle of a large department store, but he honestly couldn't remember...

Still, the girl had been innocent, hadn't she? The blonde-haired man - Malfoy? - had struck first... He could remember that much, for when the Special Branch came for the culprit.


Word count: 2433

A/N: Another ficlet in the Shadow of the Serpent universe. And another one that sounds "compressed" to my ears, due to lack of word count to fit this plot into.

Reviews 10
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