In a dark mysterious castle somewhere the author won't tell you more about
Can I point out that this is the most cliché-est castle ever?
(now's really not a good time, tom)
Harry trudges down the corridor, torch held high in one sweaty palm, when it suddenly terminates in a winding staircase. Tom climbs the uneven stairs beside him, ghostly-pale (and really, very bored) in the corner of Harry's eye.
We were in the dungeons.
Now we're going up a mysterious staircase.
All alone in a dark, stone castle.
On a moonlit night.
Really, Harry, all this story needs now is...
The staircase ends in a massive vaulted arch, opening into an enormous glass-panelled solar, entirely at odds with the medieval castle. A man, tall and cloaked in a sweeping black robe stands at one end, facing away from Harry. His silhouette is dark against the silverbright mountains beyond him.
...is Dracula.
Ah damn. I should've kept my damn mouth shut, shouldn't I?
(probably, yeah.)
Meanwhile at Privet Drive
It's late in the evening, the sky washed with dull orange and bruise-purple.
Two people sit in a car, an older scruffy man, and what one might presume is his daughter. They're parked near Number Two in a battered Citrön, tinted windows shielding them from the curious onlookers in the quiet cul-de-sac.
"Are you seein' this, kid?"
"Off the charts, absolutely." The 'kid' in question nods her head, her eyes glued to a scrap of parchment she holds in her hand, on which letters and numbers and runes whiz by. She frowns heavily at the paper, as though it has done her personal injury. "Do we inform Father?"
"Inform him what? Oh Daddy-" his voice turning high-pitched and mocking, "Daddy, the numbers are all wonky. What should you poor, helpless princess do now?"
"Oh be quiet. Look, you see this radius?" she asks, impatiently, pointing to a squiggle on the parchment, which is finally resting on an incomprehensible series of characters. (It seems to make perfect sense to her.)
"Yeah?"
"It's the blast radius. Look around you," she says, waving haphazardly at the quiet, British neighbourhood. A bird chirps somewhere. "Do you see anything that suggests this kind of explosive magic?"
"Christ on a candlestick. This place ought to be vaporized."
"Exactly, Forty-Seven. Thank you. Which means-"
"Protections. Shit. Heavy-duty shielding, yeah? Grade B10 stuff. B11, even, maybe."
"Exactly. I'm thinking A1 actually. Maybe A2." She looks at him, the serious concern on her young face much better suited to someone a decade older. "And get this- Right after the explosion, if I'm not wrong, there was a series of apparitions. It's hard to make them out, the explosion left so much noise, and I'm still getting feedback from the mess it made, but-" She makes a series of decisive taps against the parchment and then- "Ah! Yes, here, one apparated in and two apparated out."
"Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"Yeah." Her eyes are grim. "Whichever poor muggleborn kid did this, someone detected it before us. Someone came here before us. Someone took him - or her - before us."
"Someone was waiting for this, you mean. Someone was keeping an eye out for this kid."
"Yes."
"Well. Shit."
In the drafty castle, a few thousand miles away, a man in a dark cloak turns to a small, scared and stupidly brave boy. He is lit in stark relief , against a backdrop of glass wall and soaring mountains. He smiles, close-lipped, and says, "Hello, Harry Potter. Did you not like your accommodations?"