Forever Knight [Harmione]

Chapter 15: Search

Harry pushed through the doors of the Hit Wizards morgue facility.  The facility was brightly lit, chasing away the darkness of night outside.  He had worked all day that day to procure the necessary permits and ID passes to get past these doors, but there was something to be said about being Harry Potter in a world where it meant something.  Though it had taken him hours to get the necessary signatures and recommendations, he had no doubt in his mind that he had still managed to cut through a sizable chunk of red tape. 

The witch behind the reception desk looked up from her The Good, the Bad and the Dead: Examining A Crime Corpse, by Hugh Dunnit.  She was dressed in eerily muggle-like scrubs and she wore glasses that were even uglier than Harry’s.  She looked to be in her late twenties and her short strawberry blonde hair was tied up with rubber bands in two stiff pig-tails. 

She rose from behind the counter to attend to Harry.  She had a big smile, as if it was a pleasant surprise to actually have someone walk into the room on their own two feet, instead of being rolled in horizontally. 

Parallel to his musings, she said, “Well, you’re not inferi, are you?”

That was one of the oddest questions Harry had ever heard.  “Er, no.” 

In retrospect, when one worked the night shift in a Hit Wizard morgue facility, it wasn’t such an odd question, after all. 

“Just checking!” she chimed, smiling pleasantly through her slightly buck teeth.  “You’re way past regular hours, you see.  A normal person would come here around fivish, sixish.  It’s past midnight, so you understand my concern.”

“Umm… yeah.”

“I’m Mary,” she said.  “Mary Lee.  Trust me when I say I’ve heard every conceivable joke there is about my name.  It’s worse for my brother.  His name’s Frank.”

“Frank… Frank Lee?” 

“Yes, as in, ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!’  He gets it every time from muggles.  With wizards, it’s just ‘Frank Lee, it’s nice to meet you,’ or ‘I’m not very keen about our new minister, to tell you, Frank Lee.’  Hardly anyone calls him just plain Frank.  They always have to stick his last name in.  They find it amusing.  At least my name doesn’t fit as easily into regular conversation.  The best anyone’s ever done is sing my name in song, as in ‘Merrily we roll along…’”

Harry could only stare at her as she chattered on incessantly.  He supposed she didn’t have that many people to talk to who could actually answer back.  The problem with dead, unanimated folk was that they were dreadfully boring.

“Now,” said Mary in a voice that woke Harry out of his stupor.  She produced a logbook and plopped it in front of Harry, pushing a pot of ink and quill nearer for him to use.  “Write your name and the purpose of your visit.  Identification would be nice, too.”

Purpose?  Stifling a sigh, he did as he was told, stating “Auror business” under purpose.  He took out his badge and laid it atop the logbook.

Mary glanced at the logbook and badge when he was done and arched an eyebrow.  “Harry Potter… bet you don’t get jokes with that name.”

He thought about Draco and the countless times Draco disparaged him.  Draco never said his name nicely, and sometimes Draco would turn it into “Potty” or “Potthead” or something else equally offensive, but he never directly made fun of the name name. He gave her a contrite smile.  “No.”

“Come along, then.”  She closed the logbook and tossed his badge back to him without ceremony.  “When people write ‘auror business’ like that, they usually want to see a body and be told all about it.  Am I right?”  She ducked out of the reception desk and beckoned for him to follow her through more double doors.