Chapter 19: Ripples
"YOU WHAT!?" McGonagall exclaims, standing from her seat before the headmaster's desk. "YOU CANNE FIND HIM? YOU WHO GAVE HIM TO THOSE. THOSE PEOPLE?!"
"Now please sit down Minerva, there's no need to-" Albus Dumbledore tries to say in his usual grandfatherly manner but is interrupted by the Scottish witch further.
"I cannot believe you have done this, Dumbledore! Why could you not let someone else take care of him? One of his parent's friends? We both know how Lily spoke of her sister, and yet you still placed him there..."
Snape who's sitting in an adjacent chair just scowls, "I do not believe it is anyone's fault that the boy has gone missing. Either he ran away as the fire started like the petulant coward his father was, or he perished alongside his relatives." he drawls.
"Do we even know if they are dead? You said they were only missing!" McGonagall asks.
Dumbledore shakes his head sadly, "After the Unspeakables investigated the home, they found ashes supposedly belonging to the Dursleys. I am, however, thankful that young Harry doesn't seem to have been included in their findings."
"So where is he then!?"
Dumbledore strokes his beard in a sagely fashion before answering, "I do not know. I fear one of the surviving Death Eaters may have been responsible for it, judging by the magic contained within the flames that engulfed the house." he looks to Snape, "Have you heard any word from them?"
Snape shakes his head, "Unfortunately not. While they do seem to be celebrating the news, none seem to have any idea of his status or location, though, many do seem eager to start looking, and now in the 'upstanding' manner that most have."
"Well, what do we do? The whole country is looking for him, every witch and wizard keeping an eye out for the boy, and yet we still haven't found him... Albus, you must have some way of divining his location, if not you then perhaps Trelawney?" McGonagall asks, disregarding her thoughts on their Divination Professor for now.
Dumbledore frowns and sadly shakes his head, "I have tried all methods at my disposal. Tracking the blood we stored, using his hairs, I even placed tracking charms on the boy before we left him for just such an occasion... But, something appears to have rendered all of those options useless.
His blood is no longer connected to him, and his hair acts as if it is a singular entity, not having originally been part of a whole... It confounds and worries me, I admit. As for Professor Trelawny, she seems to think that the boy is dead, his soul lost to us 'forevermore' as she says." he explains, only causing the Scottish witch to become more concerned.
"Why did we let this happen?... I would have gladly taken the boy in, raised him as my own." she wipes a stray tear from her face. "Forgive me, I need a moment." she says before leaving the room.
Snape scoffs as the door shuts behind her, "I find myself reconsidering my respect for the woman. Acting like a hysterical banshee is counter-productive to finding the boy. Not that I am eager to locate him."
"The crimes of the father are not the child's... You more than anyone should realise this, Severus." Dumbledore says before pulling out the latest copy of the Daily Prophet. "Boy-Who-Lived still MISSING?" he reads and deeply sighs.
Dumbledore had barely managed to divert the publics attention on Harry and the potential candidates willing and able to kidnap him. The public's opinion on Lucius Malfoy and other similar families had taken a drastic hit due to this, there had even been some requesting the Ministry to re-examine the 'Former' Deatheaters crimes.
Of course, this had been quickly slapped down as the old families still possessed power over the government, even if the people didn't realise it. Still, the unifying goal of finding the Boy-Who-Lived had actually been a boon to magical Britain as a whole.
They'd only begun to recover from the terrors of the last war, but now that seemed to be able to put their feelings of mistrust and anger to something productive.
Even the other European countries had joined the search, in some capacity at least. Most airports, ferry's and other entries into their countries were monitored more than before, all with pictures to properly identify Harry should he turn up.
Despite everything however, the thing that worried Dumbledore the most was the prophecy concerning Harry Potter. Voldemort was still alive, and yet Harry was missing... Could these events be what the prophecy spoke of? 'The power he knows not', perhaps there was some significance to those magically based flames? Perhaps Harry had left on his own...
These thoughts brought Dumbledore to an unlikely, yet frightening idea... What if Harry purposefully created the fire... After years of abuse and neglect, Dumbledore wasn't sure if the boy's mental health would be stable.
If the boy was left alone to grow, learn of magic and his power, he would likely be a threat as big as Voldemort. Had Dumbledore inadvertently created yet another dark lord?
Had his attempts to keep the boy weak and malleable backfired on him in catastrophic proportions? He hoped not, but he couldn't shake the niggling feeling in the back of his mind that everything was not as he thought.
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