Disclaimer: I can honestly say that after looking at my poor bank balance I do not own any of the characters that you see and recognise here from either Harry Potter or The Labyrinth, I am just having a little fun with them all

Chapter Two – The Search begins

Dumbledore was seated behind his desk, lost deep in his thoughts. He had just spent a frustrating hour at Privet Drive demanding to know what had happened to Harry Potter only to find that none of the inhabitants of No 4 Privet Drive had any memory of the young boy that had been living there for the past five years.

All he had found was a perfect crystal that the youngest Dursley claimed to have been given that day, a crystal that Dumbledore had been able to sense did not originate from the land naturally and had a faint race of an unknown magic to it. It was for this reason that he had used a small compulsion charm to get the boy to give it to him. And so the crystal now sat in the centre of his large desk as he contemplated where it could have come from and more importantly how was it connected to Harry Potter.

It was as he was lost in thought that an old memory re-surfaced.

He had been in his thirties and retrieving some money from his vault. He had returned from the wild ride on the carts and was passing through the large hall that led outside when he had seen a goblin emerge from one of the many doors that led to areas that were for bank employees only.

The goblin had swiftly moved from teller to teller, after each of his visits the teller would close their position and send any customer on their way. In five minutes all of the witches and wizards had been ushered from the building and the big doors had slammed shut. They had not opened until the next day, something the paper at the time had reported to be an occurrence that had not happened since the end of the last goblin war.

What had caught Dumbledore's eye had been the perfect crystal seen in the first goblins hand. A perfectly spherical crystal he would show briefly to all of the goblins as he made his way around them all, they in turn would look into it and react to whatever they could see in its depth.

Dumbledore, considered a prodigy of transfiguration and was quickly gaining a reputation as a genius even at his young age, had been able to sneak a glance at the crystal as the goblin walked past him across the hall to the opposite side to show to the tellers on that side, but to his eyes there was nothing in the crystal to see.

A perfect crystal! Exactly like the one sitting in the middle of his desk at that very moment.

He immediately rose and picked up the crystal, retrieved his outdoor cloak and made his way to the edge of the wards. A few minutes later and he was making his way through Diagon Alley and heading into Gringotts bank.

Upon entering the main hall that held all of the tellers, Dumbledore looked around and spotted an empty desk, walking up to it he ignored the 'closed' sign and with a benign smile said to the goblin sat working there, "I would like to speak to the supervisor of today's shift please." The goblin looked up from the ledger it was entering figures into and glared at him before gruffly answering him.

"Wait here." The goblin slipped from his stool to disappear amongst the busy goblins behind the desks it took a few minutes for the goblin to return, now being followed by a second goblin.

"You asked to see me?" He asked the tall elderly wizard, to which Dumbledore again gave the same benign smiled and said, "I was hoping you could help me with this." before placing the crystal in front of them on the counter.

They both glanced briefly down at the object on the desk only to freeze where they stood at the clear sense of power from the crystal, a power that only the goblins could sense that marked it as one of their King's crystals.

And they weren't the only ones, the teller on either side seemed to suddenly tense up and immediately turned to regard the crystal before turning to the tellers on either side of them and whisper something. Soon the whisper had circulated throughout the entire hall and was already starting to make its way through the doors.

The supervising goblin reached out as though to touch the crystal but stopped just short of doing so and pulled his arm back. He finally pulled his eyes away from the object and turned to his colleague to snap something in goblin, causing the first goblin to jump and start moving as he had been ordered.

The supervisor turned to Dumbledore and said, "If you will follow me." And with a snap of his fingers an opening appeared in the counter allowing Dumbledore to step through and follow the goblin through one of the many doors behind the desks.

Dumbledore was escorted to a plain looking reception room, which contained nothing but a table with two chairs, one on either side facing each other. There he was asked to sit before being left alone.

It was ten minutes later when the door opened and three goblins entered, two were dressed in what looked to be heavy armour and carried a large axe each, a second smaller one was strapped to their backs and two short daggers were at their sides. They took a position on either side of the door, clearly guards but whether for the third goblin or for the crystal Dumbledore was unsure.

The third goblin was dressed in what Dumbledore thought as simple clothing of goblin design, but clearly high quality; he also had to short daggers strapped this belt. He was carrying a small dark purple cushion that had a piece of lilac silk draped across it; a shape bulged in the centre that made it clear the crystal sphere was held underneath.

He placed the cushion on the table and slid the silk off the top to reveal as Dumbledore had suspected the Crystal in the centre; he then took the seat across from him before beginning.

"Good day headmaster I am Chairgoblin Golgribble and I would be most interested in hearing how you came to be in possession of this crystal. And I warn you your answer will be most critical to your safety within these walls at the present moment in time."

This shocked Dumbledore, he had expected another supervisor not the director of the bank to walk through the door, at least that now explained the guards, he had also never before heard of a goblin threatening a wizard so openly.

It was well known after all they could have no hope of winning a fight with a witch or wizard; it was why there were no goblin wars anymore, because they had interceded and put an end to them. Of course he was not to know that it was in fact the King who had put a true stop to the wars, due to being sick of the attention that the goblin feuds had drawn.

Pushing his shock to the side he managed to reply in an even tone "I found it in the possession of a young muggle child and sensing it to be magical in nature thought it wise to remove it from his presence. I was trying to ascertain where it had come from when I remembered seeing one exactly like it being handled by a goblin once within these walls a long time ago." He gave his usual grandfatherly smile that he always used when trying talking to those he believed to be weaker and below him, "Now I have a few…."

Golgribble interrupted him, "And the name of this muggle child?" Again Dumbledore could not help being shocked, how dare he be interrupted, even if he was the Chairgoblin of the bank he was still just a goblin, while he was not just a wizard but Albus Dumbledore!

But before he could say anything though, the door opened and another goblin entered carrying a second purple cushion and walked quickly to the Chairgoblin and placed the cushion on the table in front of him, where to Dumbledore's surprise he saw it held a second crystal, identical to the first one.

The new goblin stepped back from the table without saying word, while the Chairgoblin seemed to stare into the centre of the new crystal for a brief moment. To Dumbledore it seemed as if he went into trance for a moment before he blinked rapidly, then turned to the second goblin that had entered and began to snap orders out in goblin, once he was done the goblin left quickly clearly to carry out the orders he had just been given.

Dumbledore sat there wishing to ask what was going on, but something told him that his questions would not be answered. Of course this did not stop the polite look of curiosity on his face when the Chairgoblin turned back to him.

The goblin ignored his silent request before saying, "Now I believe you were about to inform me of the muggle child's name."

Dumbledore nodded slightly before saying, "Dudley Dursley. Now I have a few ques…" Golgribble tuned Dumbledore out as he fell into deep thought for a moment, trying to see if he had heard the name before. When no memory of the name arrived he returned his attention to the wizard before him and what he was saying. "…hat significance it has to you?"

He ignored the fact that the old wizard had obviously been asking some questions and stood, picking up the two cushions saying "I thank you for returning this to us. Now I must ask you to leave."

Dumbledore could not believe that he was being dismissed in this manner. He allowed some of his aura to show and in a stern tone that he would usually use on misbehaving students said "I'm sorry but I cannot do that. I must insist that you answer my questions? Especially concerning where the crystal came from?"

The goblin frowned at him and tersely replied, "They are goblin business and no concern to wizards."

The harsh tone of the goblin failed to disturb Dumbledore as he once again pressed for answers, "I must insist on an answer. Harry Potter was staying with Dudley Dursleys, they were cousins. Mr Potter has now gone missing and that crystal was the only trace of anything magical that I could discover. He is my responsibility and so as you can see I must insist that you tell me the significance of the crystal."

Golgribble's frown deepened, the Potter account was one of their larger accounts after the ancient vaults. If their King's crystal had indeed come from the where the young heir resided, and yet contained nothing about him, it answered at least how it had come to be in the hands of one that was not a goblin.

A wish had been made by this Dudley Dursley, but no run was completed if he still had the crystal and now he was told that Harry Potter was missing from the residence, this meant that he must now be in the Goblin Kingdom Underground. He couldn't help wondering if it was related to why the King had ordered the lockdown that was now in effect, and also helped explain why his Majesty had requested the Potter files to be sent to him.

Golgribble's continued silence had Dumbledore beginning to think that he would have to start using the pressure of his position as head of the Wizengamot to get the information he required when Golgribble finally spoke, "The crystals are a goblin matter and cannot be discussed with members of other races who do not already know what they are."

He saw the frown of displeasure starting to appear on Dumbledore's face and raised one claw to cut off any further comments the wizard would have made and continued, "However I will see if… my employer will grant you an audience in connection to the crystal you have stolen from Dudley Dursley"

He moved over to stand next to the guards by the door, and before Dumbledore could make any protest about the stolen comment said "Now if you will excuse me I have much to attend to. You will know if your request for information has been allowed." With that he walked out, quickly followed by the two guards.

Dumbledore found that he had no choice but to leave, although he could not believe that he had just been dismissed in such a manner, almost in the way he would dismiss Fudge or one of his students. He was quickly escorted back to the main hall by the same supervisor from before, a few steps out of the bank and he dis-apperated back to Hogwarts.

Over the next four days Dumbledore tried to do everything he could think of to try and locate Harry but nothing seemed to work. He had people out looking for him everywhere and had even pushed his own magic to its limits with the numerous location spell he had tried, each one more powerful and ancient in origin then the last.

xxxx

A/N OK wow is all I can say to the response the first chapter had. I wasn't too sure if many people read HPxL crossover fics but I can safely say that opinion has now changed.

I had decided that I wasn't going to post anymore until I had finished the first year completely but after the overwhelming (for me) response I thought I would at least post a few more chapters for now. Please be warned though I may stop posting after about chapter 5 or 6 and then wait until it is finished before posting the rest of this as I am uncomfortable posting fics that are not completed these days. Until then I will try and post a chapter a day.

Thank you all again

Keep writing and have fun

V.