Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Prized

Chapter Three - The Hunt for Harry

The minute Harry Potter left Privet Drive several instruments on the Headmaster's desk began to react. Albus considered them, then shrugged and grabbed his cloak. Harry often left Privet Drive during the summer, but those incidents didn't affect his instruments like this. The only time they'd ever responded in this way had been when Harry had run away just before his third year.

With everything that had gone wrong recently, the last thing he needed was to lose Harry.

Dumbledore left his office with a sigh, hoping that, however unlikely it might be, this matter would be quickly resolved so that he could return to his study of the curse on his arm.

ooOOooOOoo

Of course, Harry wasn't anywhere to be found on Privet Drive. Dumbledore had hoped that he would have at least stayed on the street, but he saw no sign of the boy. And the house, when he looked at it… the windows were all shattered from within the house. Had there been an attack?

Albus let out a small sigh and headed for the Dursley home. Harry had most likely lost his temper again, given than an attack on the house was highly unlikely. It wasn't as though anyone knew where it was, after all. Albus hadn't anticipated Harry exploding so badly, since he hadn't done so in years, but he supposed that he should have anticipated it. The boy had had an incredibly stressful fifth year, after all.

"Albus! We aren't taking him back!" Petunia shrieked as soon as she opened the door for him. "That freak ruined my house! He could have killed us!"

"I know," Albus said soothingly. "I'll get the house all fixed for you, and I'll take him in hand for the rest of the summer. I just need to come in and look around a bit, just to see if I can't figure out where he went."

Petunia reluctantly stepped aside and allowed him to enter. Not that it did any good going into the house. There was nothing to indicate where Harry might have gone, or even what he might be planning.

"What was the argument about?" he asked Petunia as he began repairing the house.

When she didn't answer, he paused in his work to look over at her. Her face was flushed, either with rage or embarrassment, or with both. He waited, eyebrows raising.

Finally, she shook her head. "It doesn't matter," she said dismissively. "The point is that we won't have him back in this house, Albus. I mean it, this time. No matter what Vernon did to the freak, he couldn't keep him in line this time!"

"Of course," Albus said agreeably. He could always come back later and change her mind about that, if he had to. Of course, the first and most important thing would be to find Harry, and he was still no closer to a clue than he had been.

Still, there were other places he could check. This was a problem, but it certainly wasn't the worst problem he'd ever faced.

ooOOooOOoo

Once he'd looked around a bit more, checking some of the more easily accessible places that Harry had been to such as the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley, he realized that there was a chance that this wouldn't be as easy as he'd anticipated. He couldn't do this alone. There were simply too many places the boy could have gone and Albus wouldn't be able to search them all by himself, not without Harry moving, anyway.

He didn't quite want to alert the Ministry, not yet. Scrimgeour was a very different beast from Cornelius, and Albus wasn't certain what he would do in a situation like this. There was also the chance that, if the Ministry got ahold of Harry first, they would seek to influence him in a negative way.

He could, however, use the Order. They would help him look, and gladly. But… perhaps they shouldn't be his first resort. He wanted to have more information for them before involving them with this mess. But where to go to get that information? If Harry had left in a fit of temper as both Petunia and the windows suggested, then he likely wouldn't have told either Ron or Hermione where he was going.

On the other hand, perhaps he'd confided in them with some sort of escape plan.

His frown growing more severe by the minute, Albus apparated away from Diagon Alley. The boy was far too much trouble, honestly. He was necessary, but perhaps there were ways he hadn't considered of permanently modifying his behavior...

ooOOooOOoo

Hermione was found, as usual, in the library near her house. Now that she was old enough, she spent her free time either volunteering there or simply haunting the stacks, expanding her knowledge of the mundane.

Albus had, in the past, had several meetings with her at this particular venue.

And so it was that he knew precisely where to find her among the books, in a quiet, out of the way back corner, head bowed over a large tome. She didn't notice him until he settled across from her, and then she only shifted one of her other books out of his way in an automatic gesture of courtesy.

"Miss Granger," he said gravely, and allowed himself a small smile when she jumped.

"Headmaster! I'm so sorry, I didn't realize it was you!" She immediately marked her place with a slip of scrap paper and closed the book. "How can I help you?"

"Harry's gone missing," Albus told her. "All signs point to his running away from Privet Drive, quite voluntarily."

Hermione let out an irritated tsk. "That boy," she said with a shake of her head. "I swear, Headmaster, he does these things on purpose."

"Sometimes I do wonder," Albus said with an agreeable nod. "Unfortunately, I have no idea where he's gotten to this time."

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "He hasn't gone to Diagon Alley?" she asked, her lips twisting into a frown.

"Nobody's seen him there," Albus answered. "And people invariably notice him. It would be almost impossible for him to have been there without somebody spotting him."

Hermione closed her eyes and was silent for several moments. Albus knew that, in these sorts of moments, Hermione was going over past interactions with Harry in her mind. He'd seen her do it during Harry's end of year evaluations, and so he was quiet and waited while she thought. Normally she came up with something useful, and he certainly hoped that would be the case this time as well.

When she finally opened her eyes, however, her frown was still there. "I'm very sorry, Headmaster," she said softly with a shake of her head.

Albus felt his heart sink. "You don't know anything," he guessed.

"Harry… you know that he won't talk much about his home life. We try, but he just shuts down on us. But the one thing that he has said is that he would love to spend an entire summer in Diagon Alley. If he isn't there, sir, then I have no idea where he is." She looked genuinely distressed as she added, "I'm terribly sorry for disappointing you."

Albus offered her a reassuring smile. "You could never be a disappointment, my dear girl." He stood then. "Though it's a bit of a long shot, I suppose that I'll try Ron next."

Hermione smiled hesitantly back at him. "Good luck, Headmaster. If there's anything else I can do, please don't hesitate to let me know."

"Of course, Miss Granger." He nodded to her, then turned and traced the familiar path out of the library. Ron was next, and that was sure to be an exhausting conversation.

ooOOooOOoo

Ron was a bit harder to find, but eventually Albus managed to track him down in the fields behind his house. He was sitting on a low stone wall on the side of a dirt road that likely led to nowhere, considering how overgrown it was.

Ron's eyes darted up to the Headmaster's face, then darted back down just as quickly. "Headmaster," he said in greeting.

"Harry's gone missing," Albus said bluntly.

Ron snorted. "Maybe he's finally on to you."

"You'd certainly better hope not. How will your family afford to send both you and Ginny to school without help?" Albus narrowed his eyes at the boy. Every year, Ron got more and more aggressive about this, and every year it grew harder to force him into line. One year, he feared that things would progress too far and he'd have to use other measures to keep Ron under control.

Ron's lip curled. "Fred and George graduated. My parents should be more than able to afford it now."

"Do you know where Harry might have gone?" Albus asked, ignoring what Ron was trying to say. He simply didn't have time to deal with a second rebellious teenager while the first was still missing.

"If I did, I wouldn't tell you," Ron said, scuffing his foot in the dirt of the overgrown road. "In case you missed it, I just quit."

Albus took a deep breath. "Ron," he began, holding onto his patience with all the strength he had. The boy was utterly infuriating! "Surely you realize how important it is that I keep an eye on Harry. He's terribly important, and will always be important whether your family needs this money or not. If you care about his safety at all-"

"I'll keep him far away from you," Ron said coldly. "I'm not stupid, Headmaster. You're getting him ready for something, and I doubt that something's any good. You've been training him to kill himself since he was just a baby."

"How could you say something like that?" Albus asked, projecting a scandalized tone into his voice. Inwardly, he seethed. How in the world had the boy figured it out? By all accounts, he was supposed to be the idiot of the group! Good at strategy, yes, but that was about it.

"With my mouth," Ron said, his lips quirking up. "Are we done, sir?"

"We are, I suppose." Albus toyed briefly with the idea of compelling Ron to behave, but… but Molly Weasley was far too observant for such a thing to work. Perhaps once he had Harry back, and once both of them were at Hogwarts, he could use the boy's well-being against Ron, if only so that Ron's sudden change of heart didn't give away Hermione's spying as well.

He just hoped that one of his many, many methods of control worked on the boy, or he would simply have to make him disappear.

ooOOooOOoo

In the end, Albus had no choice. Harry had been missing for several hours now, and the longer he waited, the less likely it was that he would be able to find the boy. And so, reluctantly, Albus called the Order to a meeting.

Once everyone had settled in, Albus cleared his throat. He said, "Harry Potter has gone missing from his home. There was no evidence of any kind of attack, but he must be found as soon as possible."

"Are you sure the boy isn't just sulking somewhere after a temper tantrum?" Severus asked, one eyebrow raised.

"I'm almost positive that's what happened," Albus said. "But we still need to find him, Severus. If Voldemort gets ahold of him…" Albus trailed off and shook his head.

"Where would he have gone?" Tonks asked, frowning. Her hair had turned a disgusting murky green. Albus supposed that it signified her confusion, or perhaps her concern.

"Harry doesn't know much about the wizarding world," Remus pointed out. "He'll probably end up at either Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade soon enough."

"Unless he tries to stay among Muggles," Moody said. "Potter's got a better understanding of the Muggle world than just about anybody else in the room. He could move in that world and we wouldn't have a chance of catching him."

"He could," Remus agreed, but he was frowning. "However, I don't think that he will. He loves the wizarding world far too much. He'll want to make his way back to it as soon as he can."

"I think you're right, Remus," Albus said into the silence that followed. "Severus, I want you to keep an eye on Diagon Alley. Minerva, Hogsmeade. Alastor, if you'd keep a partial eye on both for me, that would be wonderful. Tonks, Arthur, Kingsley, keep your ears open at the Ministry. See if anyone's heard anything. Remus, I'll ask you to keep an eye on Privet Drive. See if he returns there for any reason. Molly, keep an eye on your children. They're often his partners in crime, and he's very likely to contact one of them soon enough if he needs some kind of assistance."

He glanced around the room, seeing grave concern mingled with understanding on everyone's faces. "Any questions about your assignments?" When there were none, he nodded. "We'll find him soon enough. There's certainly no cause for any kind of alarm."

The meeting broke up after that as the members of the Order went to fulfil their various assignments. They would find Harry soon enough. Quite simply, they had to. It was far too late in the game between himself and Voldemort for Albus to lose control of Harry.

There was simply too much riding on the boy for him to walk away now.

ooOOooOOoo

But they didn't find him. A week passed, and Harry Potter was nowhere to be found. Albus had been forced to notify the Ministry officially, and their Aurors had joined in the hunt for Harry. And still, in spite of all the eyes searching for him, there was no sign of the boy anywhere.

Severus swore that the Dark Lord didn't have him, and Albus believed him, if only because he had no other choice. If Voldemort had Harry in his power, then everything was lost. Voldemort would have killed Harry as soon as he could have, and quite frankly, Harry had to still be alive. There was no other option.

The school year would be starting in a handful of weeks, which meant that both Minerva and Severus needed to begin preparations for their classes. As much as he hated to do it with the boy still out there, he had to pull the two of them off of the search.

Harry would come back to Hogwarts for the start of the school year. He didn't have anywhere else to go; he had to be tired of running. And Hogwarts was his home, the only one that Harry had ever had. Albus had made certain of that. Harry wouldn't be able to stay away from his only home, no matter how upset he was.

Albus would just have to have a conversation with the boy when he came back to Hogwarts. They simply couldn't have another incident like this one again, not with as close as they were to the end game.

Harry had to stay in his place. It would be an absolute disaster if the boy were to start doing something so ridiculous as developing a will of his own. Albus had worked long and hard to prevent any such thing from happening, and he'd be damned if the boy would undo all of his hard work.

A/N: Okay, everyone, I've had some snarky comments about how long it took me to update. One person I've messaged directly, but the other commented on Anon. I don't like to do this publicly, but here we go. Yes, it took me a very long time to update this story. Megan, your sarcasm only makes me want to stop writing this story again. You may not consider your words a flame, but the fact that you had to put that in there tells me that you know exactly how rude you're being. If my update speed is too slow for you, then feel free to walk away. You, the readers, are not entitled to my updates. You're not entitled to know what my real life has been like. No, Megan, you can't have an approximate length of the story. Go ahead and walk away, please. I don't want readers like you.

To everyone else, I would like you all to know how much I appreciate your kind words. I would like to be clear and say that I don't mind constructive criticism, but comments on the length of time between updates will never be acceptable. I don't owe anybody any explanations. I write for fun, and I make no money off of these endeavors. When it stops being fun, I tend to stop updating until I can find the fun again. Sometimes, as in the case of this fic, that takes a while. I won't apologize for it. I am who I am.