Chapter 8: Leads
Ron sat at Harry's desk pouring over the case file that Harry had been working on. He would have gone back to his own desk, but somehow, being here made it easier to focus. He rubbed his eyes wearily. It had been thirty-two hours since Harry had disappeared and they seemed to be making little headway at all. Davies and Hyde had reported back with a list of all known suspects who matched the description James had given and were now checking up on alibis for these men.
Ron hoped that this would yield results, but it really could be anyone. If this man was smart, he would have used Polyjuice Potion or some other means to disguise himself. Who knew if this was even a man at all.
The old witch in Leeds, it turned out, wasn't much help in Harry's case, but they guessed that if this man had escaped his captor, then it was possible that Harry was being held somewhere in the vicinity. As such, Ron, as acting head Auror, had dispatched a team of Aurors to search the area for signs of anything that could lead them to Harry. The Magical Law Enforcement Squad were canvassing the area, looking for anyone who might know anything else about the disappearance.
"Ron, come on, let's go home and get some rest." called a voice from the doorway to Harry's office.
Ron looked up at his wife, a concerned look on her face. "Hermione, please tell me you found something."
Her apologetic frown told him everything he needed to know, but she continued anyway. "I couldn't find anything in the Hogwarts records. I searched everywhere. I even asked some of the professors there to help me search. I showed the memory to them and the ghosts as well. I figured it couldn't hurt. The grey lady, Sir Nicholas and Minerva all agreed that he looked vaguely familiar and said they'd let us know right away if they remembered a name." She paused. "Ron come on, you're no help to Harry like this. You need to at least try for some sleep. Take a potion if you have to, but please, just take a second for yourself. The kids miss us."
With that Ron felt his eyes well up again. "What are we gonna tell them 'Mione?" He lay his head down on the desk and let out a heavy breath. She was beside him in a moment, crying harder than she had let herself since this whole fiasco had begun.
"I don't know." she sobbed. They curled up together in Harry's chair and held each other tightly.
It was several hours later that one of the apprentice Aurors barged in, waking them. "Mr. and Mrs. Weasley! We just got an owl from McGonagall! She's remembered who he is!" Ron and Hermione stood so quickly that the chair flew back into the wall with a resounding thud. Ron grabbed the note and scanned it quickly. "Byron Oaks. What do we know about him?" Hermione grabbed the note to read for herself.
"Not much, sir. We've got people doing a full background check. He attended Hogwarts from '81 to '88, we're still looking into what he did when he was there. We know he attended a wizarding orphanage from the summer of '81 until his graduation. St. Alderson's in Tinworth."
"Great work! I'm going to check out this orphanage, see where this kid came from. With any luck they'll have records that'll tell us where to start looking. Hermione, are you coming with me?" She nodded and they ran as fast as they could for the lifts.
