God Bless the Broken Road

They had started down the hill and almost reached the bottom when something in James's coat suddenly rang loudly. Automatically, James reached into a pocket and fished out a cell phone. "I can't believe this thing has service here," he muttered, flipping it open. "Potter here....Me either. What's up?...What? You're kidding....Okay, thanks for the heads-up. I'll keep an eye out." He snapped the phone closed and tucked it back into its pocket. "Sorry. Let's go."

"What was that about?" Remus asked as they continued towards the Burrow.

"One of my perps skipped town. Green thinks he might be heading out here. I said I'd keep my eye out for him...but why would he come here?"

The four finally walked through the front gate of the small house. A small smile played about the corners of Harry's mouth as he looked around. "I've always liked coming here. It's nice to feel normal for a change."

Remus squeezed Harry's shoulder gently. "Come on, folks." He led them up to the door and knocked three times.

"Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me..." James sang under his breath. Remus smiled faintly.

The door opened, exposing a pleasant, round, motherly woman with flaming red hair and warm brown eyes. "Oh, good, you're here! Hello, Remus...Hermione...Harry, dear. So nice to see you! And...oh, my goodness!"

The woman had seen James and seemed at a loss for words. James stepped forward. "Are you Molly Weasley?"

"Yes...I...who are you?"

James had his badge half out before he remembered he was not on a case and Molly was neither a witness nor a suspect. "James Potter, ma'am."

"No," Molly said with conviction. "You're dead."

James sighed and flipped open his badge. Molly studied it and frowned. "That's just a shield...and what does NYPD stand for?"

"New York Police Department...and I assure you, ma'am, I am who I say I am and I am not dead. I thought Harry was dead."

Molly looked helplessly at Remus, who sighed and spread his hands out. "I don't know...oh...James, what was Lily's mother's full name?"

"Catherine Michelle Sherman Evans," James answered instantly. "No, wait...Catherine was her stepmother. Her mother's full name was Elizabeth Margaret Russell Evans...er...oh, what was the family she married into next? Martin, that's it. She left Mark for Hal Martin."

Remus raised an eyebrow at Molly. "Besides the four of us and the Evans girls, only Morrie and Shannie knew that. And I can attest that Morrie is, in fact, actually dead...and Shannie is in Africa somewhere."

Molly sighed...then smiled. "Well, welcome aboard, James. Come in, come in...it's almost time for lunch...you two know where to put your things, and I'll figure out somewhere to put you two." This last was directed at James and Remus.

"Thank you, ma'am, I--" James was interrupted when his cell phone began to ring again. He sighed. "Pardon me a minute, would you?" He retreated a couple of steps and answered. "Potter." Suddenly his back straightened. "Yes, ma'am....Yes, ma'am....Right, I'll keep my eye out for him." He snapped off the phone and sighed.

Molly frowned. "What is that thing?"

"This? Cell phone. It's a portable telephone...they're standard issue for my job."

"What job do you have?"

"I'm a detective with the NYPD."

Remus shook his head. "Do you often get calls like that?"

"All the time, especially when I'm on a case. Actually, that was Van Buren, letting me know that they're still trying to locate that perp He's British-born, so they think he might be heading home.."

Molly looked confused, but simply ushered the two men inside. She walked over to a counter and rang a bell.

There was the sound of thundering from overhead; doors slammed and feet began running down the stairs. James leaned over to Remus and whispered, "If the Von Trapp family comes down those stairs, I'm going back to New York."

Remus laughed quietly. "There are seven, but only five of them are here, as far as I know. There's only one girl, and none of them sing."

James chuckled. A moment later, a young girl with flaming red hair and brown eyes, looking like a smaller, slimmer copy of Molly, entered the room with Hermione and stopped dead, staring at James in open astonishment in a way that would have seemed undoubtedly rude if James hadn't been used to stares like that. Usually they came from people who couldn't figure out where the mild-mannered man with the pleasant British accent had learned to be a hard-bitten New York cop with a gun. Ordinarily, those people also had done exactly what James had just accused them of and were wondering how the hell he knew.

He folded his arms across his chest and stared right back at the girl. "All right, young lady, what have you done?"

Molly frowned at him; Remus raised an eyebrow. The girl swallowed, clearly thinking that he, who was supposed to be dead, Knew It All. "I swear, all I was trying to do was open the window...I didn't mean to break it..."

"Do you want me to read you your Miranda rights?" James asked, a twinkle in his hazel eyes.

"My what?" The girl sounded confused.

Remus rolled his eyes. "At ease, Detective."

The girl looked suspicious--and scared. "Did you have anything you wanted to ask me...sir?"

James winked discreetly at Molly. "What's your name?"

"Ginny. Ginny Weasley...Mum, what's going on?"

"Just answer the detective's questions, dear," Molly said, playing along.

Ginny frowned, still suspiciously. "How do I know you're a detective?"

James shook his head as he fished out his badge and showed it to her. "For future reference...Ginny, was it? For future reference, if a cop or a detective ever does show up and start asking questions, don't even tell him--or her--your name until he or she has shown you the badge. Could be dangerous. And luckily for you, I'm not actually conducting an investigation. My name is James Potter."

Ginny now looked dreadfully confused and turned to her mother. "Mum? What is going on?"

Molly turned towards the table. "Lunch is, young lady, and those hands had better be clean."

James was introduced to the remaining Weasley children as they entered the kitchen. Bill and Charlie he knew; he had met them a few times when they were smaller. The twins seemed an interesting pair; James admitted to them that he had not heard of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, but that he did not often have time for the wizarding world anymore. They seemed to accept this.

The remaining boy at home at the time was Ron, obviously Harry's best friend. All the children seemed incredibly startled to see James, but none of them made much of a fuss.

James thought, looking around, that they had seen enough strange things in their lives that they didn't seem as fazed by a seemingly dead man in their midst, although he had wound up nicking his finger on a corner of his badge to prove to Charlie that he wasn't an Inferius. Bill's face was a mess of scars; Charlie had a burn on the side of his face; Ron's blue eyes were haunted, as though he had seen things no child should have to see.

Finally, Charlie looked directly at James. "What have you been doing the last few years, Mr. Potter?"

James caught the challenge in Charlie's voice and rose to meet it. "Just call me James. And I'm a detective with the NYPD."

Fred frowned. "What?"

"New York Police Department," James explained.

"In America?" Ron asked in amazement.

"That is, in fact, where New York is located, and like any good state police department the NYPD is in New York."

Ginny shook her head. "What do you do there?"

"As I said, I'm a detective. Mostly, that means I have to figure out who committed a crime. And when I find them, it's my job to arrest them and bring them in, then I turn them over for the D.A.'s office to prosecute."

"The who?"

"District Attorney. The head prosecutor in the state." Seeing the blank looks around the table, James elaborated. "I just bring them in. Once they've been arrested, they have to be tried by a judge and jury and found guilty, or else they get let free. Ed's told me about a few people they've had to let go through lack of evidence and...well, it isn't pretty."

"Who's Ed?" George asked curiously.

James half-smiled. "My partner. I--"

Again, the cell phone interrupted him. "Bloody hell, I'm going to turn this thing off," James muttered. "Excuse me a minute..." He stood up and moved to the side of the room, aware of the ten pairs of eyes watching him, then flipped open the phone. "Potter."

His expression changed as he listened. "You're kidding. You have got to be joking....You're what? Whose idea was that?" His eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "No, no, I haven't seen anything....Yes, I'll be there." He snapped the phone shut and swore under his breath.

"Something wrong?" Hermione ventured.

James shook his head. "I don't know. I had a perp skip town, and someone caught him with a plane ticket to England."

"Your what did what?"

James suppressed a sigh. "Perp is short for perpetrator--someone who's committed a crime. He skipped town--he left New York."

"If he's in jail--"

"That's just it. He wasn't. We hadn't managed to arrest him yet. Actually, when I left, we couldn't connect him to the crime, but I was pretty sure it was him. Really, he was Narcotics' domain...I left a tip on where to find him with Fontana...but they've connected this guy with a rash of murders. He skipped town before anyone could catch up to him, and it looks like he's heading here."

"Sorry, James, but that was all gobbledegook," Bill said, frowning slightly.

James took a deep breath. They're wizards...and they're British. Quit talking like you expect them to be streetwise New Yorkers, he scolded himself. Aloud he said, "Narcotics is one of the other precincts--departments--in the NYPD. They deal with drugs. Fontana--Joe Fontana--is one of the Narcotics detectives. Got it?"

"I think."

"Where do you work?" Ginny wanted to know.

James met her eyes. "Homicide."

The kitchen fell silent. Well, James sighed, at least they knew THAT word.