In the 16 years that she had been mother to one Ramona June, Sarah Dursley nee Kelly had seen many a frazzled look in response to something her eldest daughter had done. There was the elementary school librarian who had nearly cried during a parent teacher conference (Ramona rearranged all of the books according to how interesting she thought they were). There was a after-school baby sitter who had to inform the befuddled Dursley parents that Ramona was no longer welcome in her care-program due to a rather wild incident involving an iguana, 12 mice from the local school biology lab, and a can of blue paint. There were countless others of course, local shop owners and busboys, Catholic priests and Buddhist monks. Ramona had a habit of throwing people of all ages, occupations, and creeds off balance with her extensive intellect and perchance for causing trouble.

It was for this reason that Sarah Dursley reacted to her daughter's latest antics (and the subsequent look on one Ted Lupin's face) with humor instead of horror. It wasn't that the look of utter desolation on the young man's face was entertaining (indeed, Sarah's motherly instincts were telling her to wrap this boy up in her arms and offer him a glass of milk and a cookie). Instead Sarah's laughter stemmed from the earliest days of motherhood, when her own mother had offered her the most helpful advice that can ever be given to a young mom: "Learn to laugh over your troubles. Learn to find the funny because if you don't laugh you will cry, and crying is a sign of weakness. They can smell weakness."

By the look on Ted Lupin's face he was suffering the inability to find anything funny in his current situation. His eyes, wide as quarters and unblinking, were affixed on some un-seeable point in the distance and his shoes scuffed at the dirt and sparse grass of the Burrow drive. He looked, Sarah reflected, as though he'd just lost something quite important, like the president's pocket watch. Or an entire person.

Sarah shook off the metaphorical cobwebs in her mind and squared her shoulders. Now was the time to prioritize. While there was most likely nothing to be done about Ramona herself, there was a bit of a mess to clean up in the form of a young girl who had just unwittingly stumbled where she should not have.

"Katie, honey, how are you?" she smiled, opening her arms to embrace her daughter's closest friend. From the corner of her eye she could see Molly Weasley turning red as one of the smaller children explained what exactly was going on. Perhaps, Sarah reasoned, if she treated this whole incident as though it was no big deal everyone else would follow suit and she could panic later, in private, over her missing child.

"Fine, Aunt Sarah," Katie grinned, throwing her thin arms around the most motherly person she knew. It had been decided several summers ago that Katie was not allowed to call her Mrs. Dursley (because that was the name of the mother-in-law and, despite the fact that Petunia Dursley was a very dignified and… lovely person, Sarah had absolutely no desire to share a title with the woman who was oftentimes quite critical and occasionally did cringe-worthy things). It had also been discovered that summer that Katie was unable to address a grown-up by their first name. Through all of the holidays and vacations that Katie had spent with the Dursley family the titles of Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dudley had stuck.

Sarah kept an arm firmly around Katie as she steered them casually back towards the car and away from the house. No need for her to see anything she wasn't supposed to. "Katie, dear, as much as I love seeing you, you must understand that you can't stay here." She started cautiously, but apparently her speech was unnecessary.

"Oh I know. I'm on strict marching orders from Ramona not to set foot inside the house, and to take my leave ASAP. I was only here to give her a head start. Now that my job in this whole event is finished up I'm set to catch a ride to my Dad's house." Katie stated frankly, as though the things she were saying were commonplace.

Sarah nodded and took a deep breath. "And you understand that you can't talk to anyone else about this, right?"

"Of course," Sarah put on her best Motherly-order face, but found it to be unneeded. Katie looked back at her with complete honesty, "I'll never tell a soul. After all you've done for me it's the least I can do."

"Alright" Sarah nodded. "So can I get you a cab? Or take you to somewhere where you can get a cab?"

Katie shook her head, hiking her backpack over her shoulder, "It's nice of you to offer but my brother's coming to pick me up. I actually think I saw his car on our way in. Just at the bottom of the hill and around the bend." She smiled and hugged Sarah once more before walking back out to the road.

"I hope you realize that the next time I get both you and Ramona in the same room we will all be having a talk about how inappropriate and dangerous this harebrained scheme was."

"Yes Ma'am," Katie saluted.

"Text me once you get to the car, alright? And again once you get home. If you don't text when you get home I'll assume you've been kidnapped and I will tear the country apart looking for you. You do not want that." Sarah called after her. Katie nodded and smiled, waving goodbye to the kids in the yard.

"And one more thing!" Sarah shouted at the last minute, suddenly remembering to ask. "You said you came here to give my daughter a head start?"

"Yes!"

"A head start to what?"

"No idea!" Katie called back, now quite a ways down the road. "She promised to be back sometime in the next day or two though!"

"Do you know where she's gone?" Sarah yelled.

"Sorry Aunt Sarah! No idea!" Katie called one final time, and then she was gone, concealed by trees and dust.

Dagnabit thought Sarah.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Teddy was fairly sure that Dudley Dursley was going to kill him. At 6'5", and approximately 250 pounds of what appeared to be mostly muscle left over from his boxing and football days, Dudley Dursley was a giant of a man. He was a beast of a man. And Teddy had managed to misplace this enormously terrifying man's daughter in a city of just over 8 million people. Yes. Dudley Dursley was going to kill him.

Dudley was almost certain that he could make the boy piss himself. At three inches shorter and almost certainly more than 100 pounds lighter than himself, Teddy Lupin did not look like he regularly got into fights. In fact, the boy had an all around clean, unthreatening look to him. He also looked like he was very close to pants-pissingly terrified territory. Dudley almost wanted to do it, just to set some type of don't-lose-teenage-girls-in-a-crowded-city example for the 19 year-old, but he simply couldn't follow through. Also, his wife of 15 years was giving him the don't-you-dare-make-this-poor-boy-wet-himself-he-is-a-victim-in-this look, which Dudley had to admit was valid. Ted Lupin was more than likely just a tragic bystander in a master plan orchestrated by Ramona for yet undiscovered purposes.

At the kitchen table Harry Potter reflected on the fact that he had no idea what had happened, what was happening, and what was about to take place. In truth, he had a sneaking suspicion that if Molly hadn't placed a firecall to the Auror office requesting his presence in her kitchen, he wouldn't be here at all. He probably wouldn't have even been informed of anything going amiss with Teddy's afternoon retrieval task (which Harry found in-and-of-itself to be weird, seeing as there was a whole entire person missing).

As he watched Dudley and his wife have a silent conversation over everybody else's heads, Harry Potter also came to the conclusion that he had no idea what standard operations were for the Dursley family.

Outside, the three youngest Dursley children were running around and screaming with his own children (something about "catch the plimpie") as though it worried them not a whit that their older sister was missing in a foreign country. Inside, the two Dursley parents were participating in an increasingly heated yet silent conversation that Harry could only surmise was focused on how to best show their displeasure with Teddy. All in all the family was a mystery.

"Ahem." Dudley cleared his throat, and Teddy flinched. Harry grimaced, gearing up for what he assumed would be the most deserved and yet still painful verbal lashing of the century. From her perch against the kitchen sink, Sarah rolled her eyes so hard they seemed about to pop out. Boys.

"Ahem" Dudley cleared his throat again, and then continued, "Ted. Son. I am very sorry that this happened to you." From her spot the sink Sarah nodded emphatically. "We, Sarah and I, understand that this… incident was in no way your fault—"

"You must understand we had no idea that this was going to happen," Sarah interrupted. "Had we known, we never would have sent you to get her."

Dudley nodded and cracked his knuckles distractedly, causing Teddy to jump. "The thing to understand about Ramona is that she's got… well. She's very stubborn. And not… rash but—"

"—It's not that she doesn't think about the consequences of her actions, it's just that she doesn't always consider collateral damage." Sarah attempted to explain.

"The point is, she's pulled stunts like this before. There's nothing that you could have done to stop her." Dudley Dursley smiled in what he hoped was a kind manner.

Teddy appeared to be incapable of speech. Harry knew the feeling. Where was the parental worry, the panic that he had seen on the faces of other families with missing loved ones? Where were the irrational demands to find the people responsible for kidnap, to hold someone accountable, to find the unfindable? What was wrong with these people?

"Dudley, Sarah, I swear to you that I will find your daughter." Harry heard himself saying, "I'll get a couple of my Aurors on it immediately and we'll have her found in no time." He wondered briefly if this is what constituted the misappropriation of office manpower and supplies that the M.O.M. had just sent out a memo on. He decided that he really didn't care. "We will bring her home." He said firmly.

For a moment the kitchen was silent as Dudley and Sarah Dursley exchanged long, silent looks. And then Dudley spoke, haltingly, to the cousin that he had so tormented as a child, who was now offering to break government rules in order to return his missing daughter. "Honestly, Harry, I don't think that there's much to be done at this point. And—" he held his hand up to stop the Auror's indignent stirring, "I don't think there's much cause for alarm. If I know my daughter, and I ought to by now, she's simply exploring the city. Taking in new sights and smells and tastes. Ramona is an adventurer, that's just the way she is. If she said she'll be back in a couple days, then she will be." Dudley said with conviction. He hoped to god he was right.