Chapter Text
The bullpen was unusually quiet.
Not silent—NCIS was never silent—but subdued in the way it became after too many hours without progress and too little sleep to sustain basic human kindness. Phones still rang intermittently from distant desks. Keyboards clattered in uneven bursts. Somewhere near the elevator, an agent swore at a printer with enough heartfelt venom to qualify as a personal betrayal. But the usual energy of the room—the overlapping conversations, the sarcasm, the constant motion—had dulled beneath the weight of a case that refused to break.
Twenty straight hours of dead ends had that effect on people.
The stale scent of burnt coffee lingered heavily in the air, blending with takeout containers, paper files, and exhaustion. Even the fluorescent lights overhead felt more aggressive than usual, casting everything in the bullpen in pale, unforgiving colour.
Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo spun lazily in his chair anyway, because if he stopped moving he might actually fall asleep.
He balanced a yellow pencil beneath his nose like tusks and lifted his chin with great dignity.
“Observe, McGeek,” he announced in the solemn tone of a wildlife documentary narrator. “The rare and majestic undercover walrus in its natural habitat. Notice the elegance. The raw power. The irresistible mating display.”
Across from him, Timothy McGee didn’t bother looking up from his computer screen. His fingers moved rapidly across the keyboard; eyes fixed on lines of data that had apparently become more compelling than acknowledging Tony’s existence.
“You know,” McGee said dryly, “most people get less weird from sleep deprivation.”
Tony scoffed immediately. “Most people lack imagination.”
McGee finally glanced up, expression flat with long-suffering patience. “You once tried to microwave a Pop-Tart with the foil still on it.”
Tony pointed at him defensively. “And yet I learned from the experience. That’s called growth.”
“That’s called an electrical fire.”
“It was a small electrical fire.”
McGee opened his mouth to continue the argument, but the bullpen elevator dinged softly before he could respond.
The atmosphere shifted instantly.
Tony straightened on reflex.
Years of working under Leroy Jethro Gibbs had conditioned every member of the team to recognize the subtle warning signs of approaching danger, and few things inspired primal survival instincts quite like Gibbs walking toward them with purpose.
Gibbs crossed the bullpen carrying a thick case file tucked beneath one arm, his expression carved from pure irritation. He moved with the same steady confidence he brought to crime scenes and interrogations alike, every step measured and deliberate.
Tony removed the pencil from beneath his nose before Gibbs could do it for him.
McGee minimized three separate windows on his monitor that were definitely not case-related.
Gibbs stopped beside Tony’s desk and dropped the file hard enough to make nearby coffee cups rattle.
“Conference room,” he said shortly. “Now.”
Tony blinked innocently. “Boss, before we begin, I’d just like it officially noted that the inflatable flamingo in Miami was integral to the undercover operation.”
Gibbs stared at him with profound disappointment.
“Move, DiNozzo.”
McGee immediately stood. “Oh, this is definitely bad.”
Tony rose more slowly, pointing after Gibbs as they followed him toward the conference room. “See that? Personal growth. Five years ago, he would’ve head-slapped me already.”
“He still might.”
“Fair.”
The conference room lights had been dimmed when they entered, the glow from the large monitor casting long shadows across the polished table. Director Vance stood near the screen with his hands folded behind his back, posture calm and unreadable as always.
Beside him stood a man Tony didn’t recognize.
At least—not consciously.
Something about him felt oddly familiar anyway.
The stranger looked to be around Tony’s age, maybe a little younger. Dark hair fell messily across his forehead despite what had clearly been an attempt to tame it earlier. Wire-rim glasses rested low on his nose. A thin scar disappeared partially beneath his fringe, pale against otherwise unremarkable skin.
He wore a navy suit that fit well enough but looked deeply uncomfortable on him, as though formal clothing represented a personal moral failing, he’d reluctantly accepted for diplomatic reasons.
But it was his eyes that caught Tony’s attention most.
Green.
Sharp, startling green.
Not soft or muted, but vivid enough to stand out beneath the sterile conference room lighting.
And exhausted.
Not physically tired—Tony knew physical exhaustion. This looked older than that somehow. Deeper. Like the kind of fatigue that settled permanently behind someone’s eyes and never entirely left.
The stranger stood the moment they entered.
“Agents Gibbs, DiNozzo, McGee,” Vance said evenly. “This is Harry Potter, liaison to the British Ministry.”
Tony stopped halfway into his chair.
For one brief second, his brain simply refused to process what Vance had said.
Harry Potter.
The name struck him with the strange force of distant memory—familiar in a way that made no immediate sense. Tony narrowed his eyes slightly at the man standing beside Vance, trying to place him. There was something irritatingly recognizable about his face, like someone from an old news story or a half-remembered documentary glimpsed at three in the morning during a stakeout.
Messy dark hair.
Glasses.
Scar near the forehead.
And then it clicked into place so suddenly Tony almost laughed.
“Oh, come on,” he breathed.
McGee looked over immediately. “What?”
Tony pointed across the conference room in dawning disbelief. “That’s why I know your face.”
Harry’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
The wary resignation of someone who had seen this exact moment happen hundreds of times before.
“You’re the kid from the papers,” Tony said.
McGee blinked. “What papers?”
“The British papers,” Tony clarified. “International papers. Come on, McGee, didn’t you ever go through a conspiracy phase in college?”
McGee looked personally offended. “I went through a college phase in college.”
Tony ignored him completely, still staring at Harry as more memories surfaced in scattered fragments.
Tabloid covers glimpsed in grocery store checkout lines.
Television specials half-watched in airport lounges.
News anchors talking in grave, fascinated voices about Britain’s “miracle survivor” and “the boy who lived through a terrorist attack.” There had been years of speculation surrounding him—public interest pieces, political commentary, endless media obsession that had somehow crossed the Atlantic despite Tony never caring much about international news.
And there had always been photographs.
Blurry.
Chaotic.
A too-thin teenager ducking his head outside a London courthouse while cameras flashed around him. A young man shielding his face from reporters as government officials escorted him through crowds. Headlines speculating wildly about trauma, heroism, security risks, psychological damage—dozens of experts discussing him like he was a phenomenon instead of a person.
Tony remembered rolling his eyes at most of it at the time.
Half the stories had sounded ridiculous even by cable news standards. Conspiracy theories. Rumours about secret organisations. Claims that the British government had hidden details surrounding the original attack for years.
Eventually Tony had mentally filed the entire thing away under international weirdness and moved on with his life.
Now that same awkward teenager was standing ten feet away in a navy suit, looking deeply uncomfortable about existing in public.
Tony leaned back slowly in his chair as the realization settled fully into place.
“Holy crap,” he muttered. “You’re that Harry Potter.”
Harry exhaled softly through his nose.
It wasn’t quite a sigh.
It sounded more like the quiet acceptance of an inevitable inconvenience.
“Yes,” he admitted.
McGee looked between them, still visibly lost. “I honestly still don’t understand who this is.”
Tony turned toward him in disbelief. “McGee. The British kid.”
“That narrows it down to literally millions of people.”
“The survivor,” Tony said impatiently, snapping his fingers as he tried to remember the details. “There was some huge attack when he was a baby, right? Terrorist bombing or assassination attempt or something? The story was everywhere for years.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Harry’s expression changed.
Not dramatically.
That was what made it noticeable.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t get angry. Didn’t visibly react at all.
Something simply…closed.
Like a door quietly locking behind his eyes.
The openness that had been there seconds earlier vanished beneath careful stillness so controlled it immediately drew Tony’s attention. Harry’s posture remained relaxed. His face remained neutral. But suddenly he looked distant in a way he hadn’t before, every emotion folding inward behind practiced restraint.
Tony felt the shift instantly.
And just as quickly realized he had stepped directly onto a conversational landmine.
The thing was, Tony knew people.
That was the part outsiders never understood about him. They saw the jokes first, the flirting, the movie references, the constant refusal to take anything seriously. But underneath all of that, Tony noticed things. Tiny things. Changes in posture. Hesitations in tone. The exact moment someone withdrew emotionally from a room.
Harry Potter had just done it with terrifying precision.
Which meant this wasn’t new.
This was reflex.
Years of reflex.
And suddenly all the exhaustion in Harry’s face made a different kind of sense to Tony.
Not physical exhaustion.
Not even emotional exhaustion, exactly.
Recognition exhaustion.
The fatigue of a man who had spent most of his life being looked at by strangers who believed they already knew him.
Tony wondered, abruptly and unpleasantly, how many conversations Harry had endured exactly like this one. How many rooms he’d walked into only to watch people stop seeing him and start seeing headlines instead.
Vance stepped in before the silence could stretch too long.
“Agent DiNozzo’s summary is…” He paused delicately. “Imprecise.”
“Thank you,” Harry murmured.
“But not entirely inaccurate,” Vance finished.
Harry’s mouth twitched faintly, though it lacked real amusement.
Tony rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly aware that for perhaps the first time in his career, his instincts for humour had failed him completely.
“Right,” he said awkwardly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make it weird.”
“It’s fine,” Harry said immediately.
Too immediately.
The response arrived with automatic smoothness, polished by repetition.
Like something he’d said a thousand times before to ease other people’s discomfort.
Tony studied him for a second longer.
Harry had already composed himself again, expression calm and professional, hands folded loosely behind his back as though the conversation hadn’t affected him at all.
But Tony didn’t miss the way his shoulders had tightened almost imperceptibly.
Or the way he no longer quite met anyone’s eyes.
And for reasons Tony couldn’t entirely explain yet, that bothered him far more than the story itself.
After a moment, Harry seemed to remember himself. He straightened slightly and extended his hand first toward Gibbs, then McGee, polite and composed despite the visible weariness lingering beneath his expression.
Then he reached Tony.
“Pleasure to meet you.”
Tony took his hand automatically—
—and felt something jolt sharply up his arm.
Warmth flashed unexpectedly beneath his skin, sudden and intense enough to make his breath catch for one disoriented second. It wasn’t static electricity. It didn’t sting or burn. It simply rushed through him all at once, sharp and strange and deeply wrong in a way he couldn’t explain.
Or maybe not wrong.
Powerful.
Alive.
The sensation vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, but it left Tony staring for half a heartbeat too long.
His smile faltered briefly.
Across from him, Harry’s expression shifted too.
Only for an instant.
Surprise flickered across his face before disappearing behind careful control, but Tony caught it. The widening of his eyes. The tiny stiffness in his shoulders. Whatever had just happened, Harry had felt it too.
Oh.
Interesting.
Neither of them acknowledged it.
Because they were professionals.
Or because discussing mysterious electric hand contact with an attractive British stranger in front of Gibbs felt medically inadvisable.
Tony recovered first.
“Anthony DiNozzo,” he said smoothly, slipping automatically back into charm like muscle memory. “And before you ask, yes, I am the fun one.”
The corner of Harry’s mouth twitched upward despite obvious efforts not to encourage him.
It changed his whole face.
The exhaustion didn’t disappear exactly, but something warmer surfaced briefly beneath it, softening the hard lines of tension around his eyes. For the first time since entering the room, he looked closer to his actual age.
Gibbs noticed.
Tony noticed Gibbs noticing.
This was already becoming dangerous territory.
Vance opened the case file resting on the conference table.
“Three days ago, a British diplomatic courier was found dead in Norfolk.”
Crime scene photographs appeared across the monitor behind him.
The victim looked strangely untouched at first glance. No visible injuries. No blood. No bruising. Just pale skin and lifeless eyes staring upward beneath harsh forensic lighting.
But the longer Tony looked, the more wrong the photographs felt.
The man’s expression was frozen in obvious terror.
Not pain.
Fear.
Raw enough that it lingered even after death.
McGee frowned immediately, attention sharpening as he studied the images. “Cause of death?”
“Inconclusive,” Vance replied. “Autopsy showed catastrophic internal organ damage without evidence of external trauma.”
A faint crease appeared between McGee’s eyebrows. “That’s not possible.”
Harry finally spoke again, voice quiet enough that the room instinctively stilled to listen.
“There was a cause.”
Tony leaned back in his chair. “Okay. Cool. Mysterious British answer. Very James Bond. Love the commitment to the genre.”
Harry ignored him with the exhausted patience of someone already accustomed to difficult coworkers.
“The courier was transporting artifacts stolen from a restricted archive in London.”
“Artifacts?” McGee repeated.
Tony spread his hands dramatically. “Haunted antiques. Excellent. We’re hunting evil furniture now.”
This time, Harry looked directly at him.
And the entire atmosphere of the room shifted.
His expression didn’t harden. If anything, it became calmer. More focused.
Which somehow felt worse.
“It killed two people in under forty-eight hours,” Harry said quietly.
No exaggeration.
No hesitation.
No room for scepticism whatsoever.
He believed every word completely.
The humour drained from Tony almost immediately.
Because suddenly this wasn’t an eccentric British intelligence case anymore.
And the exhaustion in Harry’s eyes made a little more sense.