Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. If I did, Hermione would kill me.
Chapter 1. Decision.
September 3, 1985.
'Strauss to HQ. Lead Teta-3 failed. Next report in 8 hours.'
A heavy-built man sitting behind an desk in a nondescript office somewhere in London sighed and put the paper with the most recent report in the red file before putting it into the lowest drawer of his desk. Those few people who knew his real name knew him as Vincent Hadrigan. Those few people were wrong - the last person who actually knew his real name died seven years ago.
He didn't like it, but such was the necessity of his job. He was a man who, according to official records, was never born, heading a MI5 department that did not officially exist, fighting an invisible war that nobody had the slightest clue about.
When your opponents are capable to turn invisible, teleport, read minds, alter and erase memories and extract any secrets with just a few drops of veritaserum, there's little choice but to resort to the most paranoid measures.
Because Vincent's department was unofficially known as the Coven, and their goal was to reestablish Crown's rule over the British Wizarding World.
Nobody in the MI5 knew about Coven's existence - not even the Director-General. Officially they were part of the archives department, and they actually did the job quite professionally as part of their cover. They also leaked funds from various departments and subdepartments of MI5 under various pretexts. Of course, those few people in other departments who were responsible for funding the Coven, were under the impression that the funding is used for undercover security operations. Which, in a way of speaking, was perfectly true.
Of course, it wasn't always like this. When the Coven was originally formed in 1937, both Director-General and the Prime Minister were perfectly aware of it's existence. In fact, it was by the order of Neville Chamberlain that the Coven was formed at all - with the original goal to establish observation and monitoring of the wizarding world and any events that might affect the non-magicals. This proved to be useful as the war with Grindewald started and the Coven was used to coordinate the military activity of magical and non-magical governments.
Printer on his desk screeched, printing another report.
'Oswald to HQ. Lead Beta-2 failed. Next report in 24 hours.'
Vincent moved the report to the same file and leaned back in his chair, thinking of the past.
However bad it sounds, but the years during the war with Grindewald were the best years for the Coven. They received manpower, funding, recognition, respect. Their names were known leaders of both magical and non-magical governments. Which proved to be their undoing.
Because after the war ended, the magicals decided that there's no need for so many muggles to be aware of the magical world. They didn't know everyone in the Coven, but they knew the leadership. And with imperius, legilimency, veritaserum and obliviation that was more than enough to uncover the entire structure. The Coven ceased to exist, all traces of their existence were removed from the leadership of the non-magical government, and all documents regarding their existence on the magical side were safely buried in the depths of the Department of Mysteries.
At least, that's what wizards thought. Reality was slightly different.
For Coven did prepare for the possibility of such a coup by the magical side. A couple of muggleborn wizards that they managed to recruit were a great help in this. They did not have any access to Family Magics, nor were they trained in the Mind Magics, but they at least knew enough about the existence and limitations of those magics to prepare a proper contingency plan.
So while Coven was greatly crippled, stripped of it's official funding and lost more than 90% of the personnel, it did survive. Ever since that time, it lived in the background of the non-magical government, carefully hiding from everyone - from wizards because they would gladly finish the job they started, from muggles because their memories could be read.
It took the Coven more than twenty years to recover - not completely, but enough to conduct meaningful operations in the Wizarding World once again. Structure of the Coven was now completely different from the 40'ies. Where once was a classic administrative hierarchy, was now a loosely connected network of small cells. Communication between cells was completely anonymous, and more often than not even members of the same cell did not know each other's real identities.
70'ies were the time when this structure took it's first test. Year's of Voldemort's war were great for recruitment, as plenty of muggleborns were disillusioned with the magical government and their complete indifference to muggleborn deaths at the hands of Death Eaters. So it is no surprise that some of the cells became compromised in the process.
Interestingly enough, all sides of the war - Voldemort, Dumbledore and the Ministry - had very similar and decidedly negative reactions to 'sneaking muggles'. Coven's network took some damage, but remained intact. They lost a number of cells, but obtained invaluable experience.
Still, this meant that ever since that time, an invisible war between the Coven and the Department of Mysteries never truly ceased. Unspeakables now knew that muggles still knew about them.
What Unspeakables did not know was that the Coven's goals were quite different now. What Coven was really interested now were the means to level the playing field. Coven was doing intensive research in the Mind Magics, as well as hunting for any information about Mind and Family magics that it could obtain from the Wizarding World.
Strangely enough, it was the research that provided the best results. Despite all their impressive abilities, wizards were very set in their old ways. Progress in the magical community did exist, but was extremely slow by the standards of the second half of XXth century. So when a team of young muggleborn researchers assembled by the Coven started their work on Mind Magics, they managed to produce some valuable results. The crown of their achievement so far was the combination of meditation, self-control and memory suppression excercises which allowed anyone to suppress certain memories and prevent them from being discovered by a surface legilimency scan. The beauty of the trick was that it was available even to muggles. Of course, lacking the magical protection of their thoughts, non-magicals were still vulnerable to dedicated legilimency attack, but such attacks were rare and usually not performed without a reason.
Magical operatives could of course additionally improve their defences, but that had to be done sparingly. Pureblood magical families protected their knowledge fiercely, so a muggleborn flaunting his Occlumentic shields would quickly found himself accused of stealing magical knowledge from "real" wizards, and legal protections for muggleborns were skimpier than swimsuits on French Riviera.
Still, this allowed the Coven to expand their operations in the Wizarding World, and even infiltrate several agents into various low-key positions in the Ministry of Magic.
Several restricted books that Coven operatives managed to appropriate from wizarding homes, using the ongoing terror warfare as their cover, did somewhat complement those achievements, though in Vincent's opinion, these results did not compensate for the people lost. But alas, he was not head of the Coven at that time.
'Gremlin to HQ. Lead Epsilon-3 failed. Next report in 12 hours.'
Destruction of Voldemort by Harry Potter in 1981 ended the war and chaos. Fortunately for Wizards and unfortunately for the Coven. It is always easier to work in a chaotic environment. Besides, both Dumbledore and the Department of Mysteries could now properly concentrate on elimination of the "muggle threat". Coven suffered several unnecessary losses before withdrawing once again into background and limiting the scale of it's activities. Once again Coven was on the defensive.
Except this time, the "defensive" was quite different. It was not the "defensive" of someone who was being beaten and barely clutching to life. It was the "defensive" of someone who might not be able to advance, but is holding his ground and accumulates strength and resources for a future comeback.
Which is why Vincent was so apprehensive. Because the operation that the Coven was currently performing went against everything ingrained into Coven's rules. Never in the last thirty years did Coven start an operation which required a coordinated action of more than half of it's cells. Never in the last thirty years so many cells were provided with a direct, even if temporary and anonymous, communication line to the very top. Never in the last thirty years was there a situation when a single mistake could expose most of the Coven to the Wizarding World.
Vincent was gambling. There was a possibility - a slight, highly uncertain possibility - that Albus Dumbledore did in fact hide Harry Potter somewhere in the muggle world. This would be a highly unorthodox move for a wizard, and most wizards were not known for highly unorthodox moves. But Albus Dumbledore was. And this created a potential opportunity for the Coven. An opportunity to find Harry Potter, contact him, and have a hand in his upbringing.
So, assuming that Harry Potter was hidden in the non-magical world, assuming that Dumbledore was hiding him primarily from Wizards and did not bother changing his name, assuming that Harry would go to a primary school this year, and finally assuming that the Coven manages to pull off a nation-wide search in secret from wizards - then they had a chance. A chance to get an influence agent in the highest echelons of Wizarding society. It would take a decade or two - but the breakthrough for the Coven would be enormous.
It was a gamble Vincent was ready to take.
-oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo-
Andrew Whitford was shuffling through the students files in the Litle Whinging Elementary School. He wasn't magical himself, but he was aware of the magical world and knew enough to understand the importance of the person he was looking for. For some reason or another, the Coven leadership assumed that Harry James Potter could actually be found in a non-magical school.
He wasn't stupid, and could reasonably guess that many other cells were currently scouring other schools, looking for whatever Harry Potters have started their school education this year. This was obviously a large-scale operation, and just like any large-scale operation, it was fraught with risk. Andrew felt some anticipation building in his chest. This was big. This probably meant that the Coven starts active operations again after the fallback in the early 80'ies.
To be frank, he hoped that his cell would not find Harry Potter. He knew the rules - if they would find the Boy-Who-Lived, they would have to immediately withdraw, and then in a few days another cell of completely unrelated people would arrive to the area to monitor the potential recruit, before being replaced with yet another cell who would finally be tasked with establishing actual contact. Andrew knew his cell was understaffed, so if somebody else would find Harry Potter, it was a decent chance that his cell would be chosen for the contact stage.
"Oh well", he thought, looking at the file in his hands with a boy's photo and name that matched the information perfectly. "You cannot get everything. At least we found him. Looks skinny though, after his father's photographs I would expect him to be healthier."
Spending some more time looking through the students files - this was required by his cover, as it wouldn't be good to draw anyone's attention to the fact that he left immediately after looking at Harry Potter's file - he thanked the school administrators and left the building. Looking like he didn't have a care in the world, he took his car and drove away, throwing quick glances around. He wasn't followed, as far as he could tell. With a silent nod of approval he confirmed that he couldn't see his 'guardian' either. He knew there currently was someone monitoring his progress, ready to report and start damage control in case he was discovered and apprehended by magicals, but whoever that person was, he was good.
Finally driving away from Little Whinging, he stopped the car at the side of the road, took his mobile phone and quickly sent a short SMS to a number that was given to him for this mission. The SMS would be successfully received, decoded, converted and even re-sent a couple more times using different mediums, until it would take it's final form of a sheet of white paper with several words on it, lying on the desk of a nondescript office in London.
'Alphard to HQ. Lead Omicron-2 confirmed.'
-oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo-
September 19, 1985.
It took more than two weeks for the Coven to investigate Little Whinging. Part of the reason was the unwritten rule that no cell had more than one magical operative. Magicals were considered too valuable to risk more than one of them in case the cell became compromised. However in this situation, when the area had to be scouted by several magicals with different specializations, this rule was a liability.
First operative to arrive to Little Whinging was codenamed "Centurion" who, as far as Vincent knew, was actually a muggleborn witch with a knack for warding and spell analysis. She agreed to join the Coven nine years ago after discovering that Hogwarts education was quite limited and sanitized, and even Restricted Section of Hogwarts Library only contained the most basic information on advanced subjects.
Alas, warding and curse breaking were among the most guarded Family secrets, and the knowledge in these areas that leaked into the public was minimal.
So with insufficient education, no means to improve her knowledge except by self-study and experimentation, and no means to sustain her self-study, she was quite peeved at the Wizarding World. She spent several years working random jobs both in the Wizarding and non-magical worlds, until she was finally recruited by the Coven, which had both the resources and desire to sponsor her warding research.
She didn't advance far, but she managed to develop several spells and tools for ward analysis.
Naturally, she was the first person sent to Little Whinging to determine what kind of trouble awaits other magic users there. The results of her analysis were discouraging and strange.
At no surprise to everyone, the entire town was covered by a number of detection and tracking wards. Some of them were directed inside, apparently to track the movements of some person or persons - Harry Potter most likely. Others were used to detect any magicals attempting to enter or leave the area. Centurion managed to infiltrate without tripping those and create a backdoor for other magical operatives, however leaving that backdoor in place was out of the question - sooner or later it would be detected. This meant that whatever magical operatives would infiltrate Little Whinging before the backdoor was closed, would have to remain there until further notice, as attempting to leave the wards would trip them all the same.
Even more nasty surprise was the magical detection wards. According to Centurion, these looked like normal Ministry wards at a casual glance, but were actually seriously modified. Thresholds for detection were lowered nearly to zero, so the wards would detect and report not only normal wand magic, but pretty much anything - unless the person doing the magic was properly keyed into the wards. Centurion found the necessary circuits, but did not dare to experiment with cheating them. What was even more interesting, the wards had two reporting links, one of which was carefully camouflaged, with something that Centurion guessed was a filtering contour between them. It seemed that the wards reported everything through their "unofficial" link, but only "approved" information would go to the ministry.
These wards were mostly concentrated around the school, town library, Dursleys' house and, strangely enough, around yet another house inhabited by an old cat-loving lady named Arabella Figg. Remaining area was covered as well, but not as thoroughly.
It didn't take long for Coven's Ministry moles to discover that Arabella Figg was, in fact, a squib. Careful analysis of non-magical archives unearthed some tampering - according to official papers, Arabella Figg lived in Little Whinging for the last thirty years, while search in the related archives quickly proved that the first mention of Arabella Figg as the resident of Little Whinging is only five years old, and before that her house was inhabited by a married couple named Collinsons.
Then there was an additional layer of wards: anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards, modified to the point of being barely recognizable, and a very powerful ward which left Centurion quite baffled. She managed to divine that the ward was intent-based, and guessed that it's probably one of block-anyone-wishing-me-harm type of wards, but it's exact nature and function was beyond her. Luckily, it did not seem to react to her, so could probably be ignored.
Finally, there was the Number 4 itself. Seeing as this was the area heavily monitored by magic detection wards, Centurion was quite restricted in her actions and had to limit herself to passive magical detectors, so all she could really tell is that the house itself was encased into yet another set of wards, and some of them were outright Dark. Another similar set of wards encased Arabella Figg's house, with the exception of Dark ones.
All things considered, Little Whinging was an extremely hostile terrain to magic users.
Next report on Vincent's table was from Greg, who was also magical, but with a specialization in healing and mental magics. He couldn't operate in Little Whinging, but he managed to track both elder Dursleys outside of the warded perimeter during one of their visits to London. According to his report, both Dursleys had a number of compulsion and behavior-limiting charms on them. Compulsions were designed to make them hate and despise Harry Potter, while behavior-limiters were apparently to prevent dealing him any serious harm.
Whoever had organized all this - and Vincent had a fairly good guess about 'who' - apparently wanted Harry Potter to grow lonely and abused, fully ignorant about magical world, but physically safe.
This was strange. Voldemort was destroyed, so what game Dumbledore was playing? If it was any other wizard, Vincent would suspect some foul play aimed at control of Potter's name and fortune. But this was Dumbledore, and Dumbledore did not play political games. Or rather, Vincent corrected himself, Dumbledore always considered political games as means to an end, unlike professional politicians like Fudge and Malfoy.
Whatever old man's game was, it had to be big.
Vincent tapped his fingers on the desk. He really didn't expect all this shit. Sure, removing the boy from the magical world to grow up far from his fame made perfect sense, but this was much more. And he didn't like the idea of entering the game he had not the slightest idea about.
One thing was clear - the Dumbledore's Game had to start either in 1991, with the boy return to the Wizarding World, or in 1997-98, after him reaching the age of majority and reclaiming his family seat on Wizengamot. He highly doubted it was the latter though. If Dumbledore wanted to train a Wizengamot Lord, there was no need to tamper this much with magical detection grid.
This really put a damper to his plans on raising the boy as an influence agent. With such an amount of preparation Dumbledore was bound to pay extremely close attention to Harry at Hogwarts. And he probably would not be happy at all if someone started interfering with his plans for the boy.
'Three times is the charm', Vincent decided resignedly. He had already taken great risks first by organizing the nation-wide search for Harry Potter, and then by sending his operatives to Little Whinging. After all, as the saying goes, in for a penny - in for a pound. Vincent might not be able to follow with his original plans for the Boy-Who-Lived but, he decided, he was sure as hell going to break Dumbledore's game.
Whatever it was.