Hi, I am back with the next chapter. Thanks for all the nice reviews you left.

As usual, I don't own Harry Potter or Detective Conan.

Happy Reading.

Developments From Six Months

It had been six months now and Harry and Shinichi had become best friends. They were equally smart and stunned the police with astonishing deductions whenever they got into a new case, which happened more often, than Harry liked. He had also tried to get Shinichi to be a bit more careful in persecuting criminals. The boy had a worse problem to ignore injustice than he did. And he wanted to shine. Wanted to be in the spotlight. Well, Harry could live with it, as long as Shinichi was careful and didn't jump into a case without precautions. Harry also enjoyed being able to show his true personality. He was ambitious and wanted to be the best. Here in Japan he could be. Sirius was fascinated by the changes Harry had gone through in the six months since they had arrived here. It suited his godson much better than the habit of holding back all the time.

Shinichi had introduced Harry to Professor Agasa, a big-bellied, man with a big bulb nose, who suffered from loss of his white hair on top of his head, he invented things that mostly blew up in his face if you believed Shinichi, who was an old friend of Shinichi's family, which was living in L.A. Harry wondered why they thought that it would be alright to leave their son behind, even if Shinichi was normally responsible enough to get by well. Except when he was in a case, but Harry couldn't really blame him. It was exciting and interesting to find all the clues and find the culprit. They were already famous with the police. Shinichi really liked his moniker 'The Holmes of the New Millennia'. Harry went by 'The Hawk'. He still had not figured out how the press got this moniker for him.

They said because he spotted tiny details that helped solving the case. Really. But it was difficult to argue with the press. Today he was accompanying Shinichi to buy some groceries. Strangely Shinichi was deep in thought.

"What's on your mind, Shinichi?" Harry asked.

"You know that Ran has this Karate championship coming up?" Shinichi said.

"Of course. She is talking about it nearly every lunch break and training like crazy to win it." Harry answered.

"Well, the thing is, I would like to do something for her if she wins. You know I like her. Like really like her. But I don't know what to do if she wins."

"Hm, difficult. I assume you want to take her on a date but not really spill the beans to her."

"You could say that." Shinichi admitted. "The thing is, I don't know her feelings. And I don't want to be embarrassed if she says no. She has too much blackmail material for that." He added mumbling.

Harry grinned. This was so typical for Shinichi. The guy was able to figure out the most complicated crimes but was unable to tell, that the girl he liked, probably loved, returned his feelings, even if the rest of the class had figured out that much easily. Harry decided to do this methodically.

"Okay, what kind of activities does Ran like?"

"Well, she hates ghosts. That much I do know. She likes entertainment. And she likes good food. But with her father being that bad of a detective she rarely gets to eat at restaurants."

"What do you think about inviting her to Tropical Land or Tropical Marine Land? There you can use the different rides, have fun and I know that they both have at least one really nice restaurant."

"You know, Harry, that's not a bad idea. I think I will do that. I will tell her, that if she wins the championship, that I will invite her to Tropical Land. Their restaurant is better than the one in Marine Land in my opinion." Shinichi agreed.

"And like the gentleman you are, you will pay for everything. With all the money your dad makes it won't be a problem for you. And when everything is perfectly romantic you confess your feelings for her, she confesses her feelings for you and you kiss her under the stars." Harry concluded, getting a nice reaction from Shinichi.

"WHAT? Harry, I can't do this. You are crazy!" Shinichi protested blushing madly.

"Oh am I? I know for sure, that you both like each other and a date is only over if you get a kiss from the girl. So don't chicken out. The whole class has seen what you are seemingly unable to realize. Ran likes you and wants to be your girlfriend."

"That's crazy, Harry. I can't just kiss her." Shinichi said while his face was taking a really interesting shade of red now.

"Why not?" Harry asked.

"I, I just can't. Damn you should have realized by now that Japanese mentality is different from European or American." Shinichi defended.

"You are just making up excuses and you know it." Harry said grinning.

"Who is making up excuses?" A female voice asked.

Shinichi and Harry turned and looked at Sonoko and Ran. While Harry liked teasing Shinichi, he would never embarrass him in front of Ran on purpose. That was not something best friends did. So he really needed a good excuse and fast.

"Shinichi here is. We have gotten this damn invitation for this boring meeting with one of the clients in the last case we solved. I think we have to go just to show our faces, he thinks we could use our time better and now we are arguing what is better and he is making up more excuses not to go because he wants to read that new mystery novel." Harry said.

Shinichi was really glad that Harry was that good at making up believable excuses on the fly.

"Hey, that novel is fantastic. You will agree with me when you have read it. I just started the first two chapters but it is …" Shinichi said before being interrupted by Sonoko.

"Really, do you have nothing else in that mind of yours? You could for example tell Ran that she has to slow down a bit in her training and take a day off. Really this championship is driving her crazy." Sonoko ranted.

Harry gave Shinichi a meaningful look. Shinichi gulped and nodded.

"Well, let's see. I know, Ran, if you win the tournament, I will take you out to Tropical Land and pay for everything, what do you say?" Shinichi said smiling.

"Really?" Ran said enthusiastically.

"Argh, I said making her see sense, not encouraging her to train even more just to go there with you." Sonoko ranted.

Shinichi ignored her.

"Yes, promise. But you have to take one day a week off to regenerate. Otherwise Sonoko is going to explode and we can't let that happen. Think alone the headlines that would cause 'Suzuki Heiress explodes because of Karate Freak'." Shinichi said grinning.

Sonoko tried to hit him, but Shinichi ducked.

"No chance, Sonoko. I am too fast for you." Shinichi said before running away, Sonoko hot on his heels.

"Get back here, Shinichi!" Sonoko shouted.

Harry and Ran shook their heads at this display.

Dumbledore was seething by now. Six damn months and no clue had come up where the damn brat could have vanished to. All investigations in China turned out to be dead ends. Didn't help at all that none of his order members was able to speak Chinese. He was the only one and too busy to travel around looking for the brat. If he left Great Britain Voldemort would run amok. And the Chinese Ministry had informed him in non-misunderstanding ways that they weren't obliged to help him find a teenager who was emancipated and could do whatever he wanted to do. He was not his guardian. He should leave the boy alone.

How did they dare to treat him, Albus Dumbledore, leader of the light like that? But his problem was he couldn't spare any resources on the hunt for the brat when Tom was wracking havoc in Britain and slowly but surely taking over control. How did he lose control like this? Where did he fail to notice what was going on? He had placed all his pawns in the right places. The boy had had an unhappy childhood like planned and was eager to learn magic and seeing him as a kind grandfather figure. Planting Weasley and Granger as spies by his side kept him under control without him being seen interfering with Harry's life in a direct way.

While Granger hadn't been his original pawn, she had been easily convinced after he had showed her the realities of the wizarding world on Britain. It was so easy to get the twelve year old girl under his control. He had called her to his office just after the Christmas break in her first year. As a muggleborn witch she needed a highly placed patron to ever achieve any standing in their society. With her brains she could be at the top and the girl was ambitious. Add a certain amount of knowledge she could gain and he had his second spy close to Harry Potter. It was perfect. Now he had Harry surrounded by two characteristically totally different people.

Ron Weasley, the lazy, jealous underachiever and Hermione Granger the ambitious but also jealous overachiever. Hermione's temper and bossiness also should have kept Harry in a mind-set to not try to find out too much about anything. After all, he had to balance the personalities of his two best friends. So he was kept an average student. He had considered helping the issue along with a mind block or a power block, but the reports from his two spies had him refrain from doing so as Harry was seemingly perfectly content to stay average.

Everything seemed to work perfectly. The boy was the picture perfect Gryffindor and stumbled through his little training courses over the years just like he had planned. There were never any signs that the boy was able to concoct a plan to escape his control. Or were they? The only thing he could think of was that his sorting had taken quite long. Had the hat considered putting the brat into Slytherin? No, impossible. But perhaps Ravenclaw? With his O.W.L. results it was probable. It was absolutely a possibility that he had argued against the Ravens to be with his new friend from the train and as he knew Weasley had painted Gryffindor in the best light.

When he had called a meeting of those included in the plan, their reactions had been interesting.

Flashback

Dumbledore sat in his chair behind his desk, Molly, Arthur, Ron and Ginny Weasley, and Hermione Granger sitting on the other side. The O.W.L. results had arrived just one and a half weeks earlier and by now Minerva had also found Harry Potter's withdrawal from Hogwarts. It was a catastrophe for his plans. He needed to know how his spies could have overlooked any signs that Harry was getting independent.

"I am sure you know why I have called you here?" He asked.

"To be honest, no, Professor." Hermione answered.

Dumbledore pondered the answer. Okay, she had been in the muggle world with her parents and hadn't known about the hunt for Harry yet. The Weasleys meanwhile were nodding.

"Miss Granger, I have called you all here to discuss what we can do concerning our escapee. Harry has vanished, never arrived at his relatives' house and then disappeared without a trace. We only found out one and a half weeks ago the day when the O.W.L. results were published."

"Where is the connection between the O.W.L. results and Harry disappearing, Professor?" She asked not getting the point.

"Perhaps this will help you understand." He took out the list with the overall standing of all students in their year and handed it over to her.

"WHAT?" She screeched, causing all the Weasleys to look at her. "That is absolutely impossible! He couldn't have beat me!" She protested.

Ron took the list from her hands and looked at it.

"No way, Harry is top student of our year? I was sure it had been you, Hermione." Ron said baffled.

"Yes, that is an important point which I wanted to have cleared up for me. You see, I was under the impression that Harry wouldn't have a chance to get the grades he needed to be emancipated. You know, two O's in core classes and three others with E's. He had twelve O's. Your reports stated he was only average, which was backed by the reports I had from the staff. While I expected a better result for the O.W.L.s after Minerva's report about his career advise, none of this should have been possible. The only class I expected him to excel in was Defence Against the Dark Arts. I need to know if there were ever any signs of him learning more than he should have.

"He had to find information about emancipation in the wizarding world to even consider the possibility. I have taken those books from the normal library and placed them in the restricted section in the summer after your first year. I didn't think about it in your first year and didn't expect Harry to even think about it then. But were there ever periods of time where he was unobserved that would have enabled him to find that out?" Dumbledore asked.

"Not after I joined Harry and Ron." Hermione answered quickly. "While we spent a lot of time in the library looking up Flamel, Harry never read books relating to other topics than his homework or our research."

"In the months before Halloween Harry was mostly in my company. He only was on his own perhaps three times for at most an hour or so. I couldn't just follow him everywhere then when I was already busy with other things, it would have looked strange to him. I sometimes played a game of chess, gobstones or exploding snap with Neville, Dean or Seamus. But Madam Pince would have noticed and told you if he had asked her for those books. And during that time magic was completely new for him, I don't think he would have gone to the section of law books on his own e even if he went to the library during those times."

"Okay, that is plausible. The chances he did so in the very beginning are small. Did Harry ever show signs of tiredness on some days? He could have read during the nights." Dumbledore asked.

"No, he never did. While he liked to sleep in on Saturdays that was the same with Neville and Seamus. And under the week he never stood out for it. The only chance he would have had to sleep were Binns' lessons and honestly, everybody except Hermione sleeps in them." Ron answered.

Dumbledore accepted the explanation, but was wondering if Harry didn't use the Friday nights to learn more. Now he regretted giving him back the Invisibility Cloak, but it had been necessary. The cloak only worked for his true owner and to push Harry to risk more and sneak out for the adventures he wanted him to have, he had needed it. Without it Harry would never have risked so much and wouldn't have gone through the training courses Dumbledore set up. But with the way he presented himself, he hadn't suspected that he could use it for more.

"What I would like to know, is there a chance that we can prevent him handing in his emancipation papers?" Hermione asked.

"No, he already did that, in China of all places." Arthur informed her.

He had been one of the Order members that had been sent out to look for Harry.

"Yes, and the papers were filed at the Ministry before they reached us here at Hogwarts. With the chaos there following the return of Voldemort, the twenty-four hours during which somebody could protest the emancipation becoming permanent passed unnoticed. There is no way Harry's emancipation could be undone except he would prove to not be suited to stand on his own legs. And face it, his O.W.L. results are exceptional and he is financially too well off to have any ministry but ours, with Cornelius at the top post that is, who is trying to cling to his office, doubting his readiness. And even Cornelius would hesitate to openly go against the so called 'Chosen One'." Dumbledore grumbled.

"Did you manage to find a trace where Harry could be?" Ron asked, mad that Harry had slipped away from the net.

His whole plans for financial unconcern depended on him pretending to be Harry's friend and meanwhile spy for Dumbledore. If Harry stayed away it was doubtful he would get as much money as before. And he didn't save much of the money he got over the years.

"No, the Chinese Ministry is extremely secretive and only told us that we should leave the boy alone, he was perfectly within his rights to get emancipated. He is an orphan, living with horrible muggles, so they fully support his decision. By now we are sure he only briefly stopped in China to submit his emancipation papers and get them confirmed, then he went somewhere else. We are checking the magical schools in America, Canada, Australia and the other countries where they have schools that have English as the main language." Dumbledore said.

"That makes sense. What I would like to know is, how did he manage to pass the O.W.L.s for Runes, Arithmancy and Muggle Studies? I know he never went to one of the classes, I would have noticed him. They also were at the same time as Divination and Care of Magical Creatures. He never read one of the books for the classes either. And from third year on we kept an even closer look at him. I practically never left his side in fourth year and I would have noticed if he had looked up anything like that for the Tournament." Hermione stated miffed.

"Did you ever borrow him your time-turner, Miss Granger?" Dumbledore wanted to know.

"No, I always kept it on my person, even when I was sleeping. Harry only learned of it at the end of the year when we did that rescue mission for Sirius. And afterwards I handed it back to Professor McGonagall. He couldn't have used it for himself." She answered.

"That really is curious." Molly admitted.

She really didn't like the fact that Harry had escaped. The next year would have been the time for Ginny to seduce Harry, if necessary with the help of love potions. Then they would have been one step closer to getting the Potter fortune; after Sirius' death even the Black fortune. But no, the boy had to flee the country. If she got him into her hands.

Dumbledore thought about it. Nothing indicated a way how Harry could have managed to ace his O.W.L.s and do three additional subjects without problem. While there were spells that could copy magical objects like time-turners, they weren't in the normal part of the library. And anybody looking in the restricted section would have been noticed, invisibility cloak or not. And they wouldn't have worked for more than a month. Without the original to copy repeatedly he couldn't have managed it.

"Don't the goblins know where he is?" Ginny asked.

"They do, but they refuse to tell me anything; Harry is one of their wealthiest customers after all. If he took away his business from them, they would lose too much money. And the goblins always refused to let me access Harry's account in the past, even if I had his key." Dumbledore answered.

"There are security precautions for the trust vaults at Gringotts. The owner of the vault can only withdraw a set amount of money in one go. I think it is about 200 galleons or so a month with an additional amount at the start of the school year to buy books, robes and so on, and keep some pocket money for the time at school. It is possible to agree on other amounts, but it has to be a parent or guardian of the child that does so." Arthur explained it.

"Correct. While I tried to be named Harry's guardian by the Wizengamot, it didn't work. I couldn't name a good enough reason when I didn't raise him myself. For me to become guardian of Harry, I would have had to unseal the Potter will, which would have meant that everybody would have known that Harry was never, under no circumstances, to be given to Petunia Dursley. I don't know what else might have been in there, but that one I knew about. The guardianship could be passed to Petunia because she was Lily's sister. If she was out, he would have gone to Sirius or Alice Longbottom."

"But both were out because of the things that happened immediately after the murder of James and Lily. Sirius went after Peter and could be thrown into Azkaban thanks to Barty Crouch and Alice and Frank were attacked by the Lestranges before they could file for guardianship. Any others that would have been named in the will were not known to others." Molly understood.

"Yes, and it wouldn't have been that hard to convince Frank and Alice that Harry had to stay with Petunia for security reasons. They were aurors and would have understood the importance of keeping Harry safe. They knew about the prophecy after all, at least the part that their son could also have been involved." Dumbledore explained.

He wouldn't tell anybody that he had leaked the location of the Longbottoms to the Death Eaters beforehand, it had been important to find the prophesied child after all.

"Do we have any possibilities to track Harry down with your instruments, Professor?" Hermione asked.

"No, after Harry had destroyed them, I really thought it would be easy to repair them and get them back to working, they lost the core ingredient, the blood I took from Harry when he was an infant. Somehow all stocks of blood, hair or other body parts of Harry disappeared from Hogwarts, Privet Drive and Grimmauld Place. He must have ordered a house elf or so to clean up thoroughly. Or found another way. I need a part of Harry to get them working again. I don't know how he could have known it though. The instruments are rare and are not mentioned in any books in the Hogwarts library."

"As you mentioned house elves, did you ask Dobby to help with the issue? He always knew how to find Harry." Hermione suggested.

"I tried, but he must have realized that it would not be to Harry's advantage and left Hogwarts. I don't know where he is now." Dumbledore said.

"Could Sirius have helped him with his studies and otherwise?" Ginny asked.

"Why do you think that?" Molly asked.

"Think about it. Sirius was the first-born son of the Blacks. He was trained in the pureblood ways in his childhood, even if he hated it. And the only times that Harry was not supervised all the time was during summer holidays. At Privet Drive, if he had got some books he had owl ordered beforehand, he could have used them to learn and Sirius could have put it in his letters. He was keyed into the wards to not make Harry suspicious why he didn't get mail from his godfather.

"Then when we stayed at Grimmauld Place, Sirius could have helped Harry learn what he didn't already understood in the subjects he did additionally. I know he took Ancient Runes at Hogwarts, because I once asked him about his electives. Sirius would also have known about the possibility of emancipation. I am sure he would have looked it up when he ran from his parents. And during that summer Harry was really angry with Ron and Hermione for keeping the communication embargo. It fits all. If Harry kept his abilities a secret to not upset Ron and Hermione and learned about the possibility of getting his emancipation it would work. I just don't know how he would have done all the work." Ginny said.

"The Room of Requirement probably." Hermione said. "Think about it, Dobby told him about the room that helped us learn undetected from Umbridge. It is possible that if you asked the room, you could get a place where time didn't matter. What if he got such a place? He could have learned without us ever noticing. The room gives you everything you ask for. You just have to be specific."

"Wouldn't we have noticed that?" Ron asked.

"Not if he did it when we were sleeping. He knew from Professor McGonagall that he needed the best marks possible for getting into the classes he needed for his N.E.W.T.s that would enable him to become an auror. Think about it. If he asked for a room where one hour passed outside but a month inside. He wouldn't be tired to make anybody suspect something, but still get much training time. I am sure if he snuck out regularly you would have noticed, but once or twice a month only for an hour and in the middle of the night or really early in the morning? Not that unbelievable." Hermione explained her idea.

Dumbledore pondered about that. He would test if the room really could do that.

"That could be an explanation. I just don't understand that he didn't tell anybody anything." Molly said.

"Perhaps the Dursleys did their job too well. Think about it. Children that grow up in abusive homes don't trust easily. We saw that in Harry that he didn't trust adults easily. He always confided in us. But if he was even more careful than that, we would have thought he told us everything but held back the really important things. And with Sirius, an experienced prankster, helping him after third year, he would have an idea what to look for. And Ron's escapade after his name came out of the goblet didn't really help our cause." Hermione suggested.

They all had to agree that was possibly the best explanation they would get. It didn't really matter now. Harry was gone and before they found him and put him under controlling charms nothing would help them.

Flashback end

How did they say, hindsight was twenty-twenty? But why didn't he show his talent before when he had been considered for Ravenclaw which made the most sense of all the other houses? If he could just ask the hat but he and lately Fawkes denied him their help. If Fawkes would help him he would have found the brat easily. Nobody could hide from a phoenix. But he didn't have the power to completely control such a strong magical creature. He could bind the phoenix to him but if he sent him away to look for Harry, Fawkes could break through the enchantment that bound him and leave for good. And he needed the bird to prove his siding with the light. It was just frustrating.

Sadly the world was a big place and without anything from Harry like blood or hair he wouldn't be able to find him magically. He could be anywhere now. The goblins were the only ones that knew where he was, but they were bound by treaty to keep the secrets of their customers. Nobody, not the Ministry, not the ICW or any other institution could force them to tell anything.

His best chance would be to continue placing outlooks in the English speaking countries as that would be where Harry would try to hide. He didn't speak any other languages and to completely disappear he would have to go to school somewhere until he was at least eighteen. None of the magical ways he knew about that Harry could have accessed enabled him to permanently learn another language. They only worked for a month at most.

That's that. I hope you liked it. Until next chapter.