No Good Deed

Chapter 1

"He's still not talking."

"Can't you give him Veritaserum or something?" Harry clenched his jaws.

"Veritaserum is no use," Kingsley replied, shaking his head. "He's an Occlumens. He can evade the truth even under the influence of truth serums."

"How about the Imperius Curse?" Harry asked, keeping his voice down. "Or is that illegal?"

"It is illegal, even for an Auror." Kingsley released a soft chuckle. "I already tried it. He can throw it off."

"Well, bugger," Harry sighed, and glanced around the deserted Ministry corridor. "Now what?"

Kingsley shrugged. "It's his arse on the line, Harry. He goes up for trial, whether he talks or not."

"But he killed him," Harry said as though that explained his quest. It did to him, anyway. "I need to know why."

"We'd all like to know why, but if he's not talking there isn't much we can do for now." Kingsley frowned. "Nothing save for outright torture and I don't think we should ever stoop to that level."

Harry nodded his agreement, though the idea of beating the truth out of that bastard was tempting. "There must be a way to get inside his mind."

Those words hung heavily between them as they stayed silent for a moment. Harry stared at the Ministry crest on Kingsley's Auror robes and thought he was missing something quite obvious.

Of course!

"A Pensieve!" Harry said, and glanced around again to make sure no one had heard him. The corridor was still deserted and he continued in a whisper. "All we need is to take some of his memories, stuff them in a Pensieve, and we can see what really happened."

"Right. There's only one problem with that plan."

"What?"

"You can't forcibly take memories from someone," Kingsley said. "It's impossible. The moment you want to pull it out their head all the person has to do is think of something else and you'll end up with the wrong memory. You'd be emptying their entire mind before you'd get the correct one. I don't think there are enough Pensieves in the world to hold an entire mind."

Harry refused to let the defeat he felt direct his thoughts. "Then he has to give them up voluntarily."

Kingsley snorted. "Easier said than done in this case."

"Yeah, but still... " Harry worried his lip for a moment. "Let me talk to him."

"Why?"

"Maybe I can... convince him to give up some of his memories," Harry said.

Kingsley grinned. "More like harass him."

"Yeah, but it still might work. What other options do we have?"

"I see your point. All right, I'll give you half an hour." Kingsley held out his hand. "I'll need your wand."

Harry looked at him in disbelief.

"Standard safety procedure," Kingsley said. "Even we don't take our wands with us when interrogating a suspect one on one. That way we eliminate the chances of them taking our wands and escaping. If you want to be an Auror, Harry, you'd better get used to such things."