Yes, I know it's been long, and I sincerely apologize, but this is a slow story. Again, I apologize.
Sadly, I've been having major troubles with the site I used to watch SPN, and someone suggested another, which worked for about one episode. I've finally found a solution, but here is an original chapter.
A little clarification on the former chapter:
Bobby's contact is American, so even though he knew about Harry, he's never been to Diagon Alley or to Platform 9 ¾, which is why he couldn't help with finding Harry. I guess it was a bit confusing, sorry.
"It's been a year."
Sam looked up at his brother, scowling as he observed him. Dean was sitting on his bed, cleaning his weapons, frowning deeply. He looked so focused that Sam almost thought he'd imagined Dean talking. Almost, had it not been for those exact words. The younger brother didn't need to ask what had been a year of course. He knew. It had been exactly a year since their father died and they had chased Harry out. A whole year plagued with guilt for the both of them.
"Bobby promised to call as soon as he knew more," Sam told his older brother.
Dean stopped what he was doing to glare at Sam instead.
"And when's that, huh?" he growled.
"Harry begged us not to make him go back, and now he's back! The kid was terrified of that place, and he regularly helped us face off against all kinds of monsters!"
The oldest of the two hunters sighed and buried his face in his hands.
"What if we gotten him killed?" he asked muffled.
"Harry is strong, and if his stories are real, he survived a lot more," Sam soothed.
"We'll find him in time, don't worry, Dean."
Dean looked at Sam and nodded reluctantly. Sam sighed. He could see from Dean's scowl that he didn't really believe his younger brother, but Sam couldn't fault him for that. He didn't even believe his own words, so why should Dean?
Suddenly, Sam's phone rang. The youngest Winchester picked it up and raised a brow as he saw who was calling him.
"It's Bobby," he told Dean.
"Put him on speaker," his brother demanded immediately.
Sam nodded in agreement and pressed the button to pick up.
"Bobby?" he asked in greeting.
"My contact just got back to me," the gruff voice of the veteran hunter said.
"He was able to find some British Wizarding Ministry official and weasel Harry's address out of him."
"You found him?" Dean asked hopeful.
"It aint that easy," Bobby sighed.
"Word is, the kid's been missing for a couple months now."
Dean cursed loudly and slammed his fist in the wall, scowling angrily. Sam frowned as well. This was their fault. If only they had given Harry a chance to explain, if they had believed him when he told them it wasn't him. Now, the kid was even missing in England.
"Can we at least visit his family or something?" Sam asked hopeful.
"Maybe we can figure out where he's gone. We can help him!"
"I got the address they used to live at till early this summer," Bobby replied.
"But apparently, his relatives all took off one day, leaving Harry on his own."
"Then we check out that place!" Dean said resolutely.
"There might be some clues left," Sam agreed nodding.
"We'll meet you at the airport, Bobby."
. . . . .
The neighborhood looked as apple pie as a neighborhood could be. Every single house was exactly the same, with a nice, well-cared for garden in the front and neatly painted front doors and mailboxes. Most of them where either white of light blue, but some 'more daring' families had painted them red or even green. Dean hated it.
"Here it is, Privet Drive number 4," Sam sighed pointing at the house with the brown door.
Dean glared at the door before stopping the rented car and walking up to the porch. He rang the doorbell while Sam slowly followed after him. As they had expected, no one answered the door. Dean looked around himself and took out his Lockpick set from the inside pocket of his jacket.
"The neighbor's watching us," Sam hissed, motioning towards the house next door with a nod of his head.
Dean glanced over, seeing the old lady staring at them through the window. She was holding a cat, and Dean could see two other felines sitting on the windowsill. He smiled and waved at her, to which the woman replied by shutting her drapes. She had the only uncared for garden and the paint of her door and windows were chipping off.
"She won't know we don't actually have a key," Dean said shrugging as he tried the door.
To his surprise, he found it unlocked and he gave a soft chuckle.
"Looks like I won't need this anyway," he said grinning, pocketing his lock pick set again.
Sam rolled his eyes and pushed past Dean into the dark hall. They slowly moved in further into the house, looking at the pictures of an obese boy standing between an even fatter man and a horse-faced woman who looked almost anorexic and had a very long neck.
"Must be the relatives," Sam muttered.
"If I had to live with people like that in a house like this, I'd run away too," Dean muttered scowling.
"Or maybe he took off because a maniacal serial killer was targeting him," Sam shot back.
"I guess it could be both," Dean replied smirking.
Sam rolled her eyes and walked up the stairs to see if anyone was there while Dean checked out the first floor. There were four doors upstairs. The first two leading to the master bedroom and another pretty large bedroom with several old, broken toys laying around.
The next door Sam checked was the bathroom, which was empty and meticulously cleaned, though at this point it had collected some dust from disuse. The last door had, to Sam's surprise, about six padlocks, all currently unlocked. Slowly, scared to find what he thought he'd find, Sam pushed open the door. The sight of the small, creaky bed with a scratchy blanket, chipping paint, moldy wooden floorboards and an old desk and closet made his heart sink in his chest.
Slowly, he walked inside and looked around. Nothing spoke of any personality of the person who'd occupied this place. It smelt inside, and when Sam took a closer look at the desk, he could see why. Bird poop and old feathers, all around a very neat circle. Sam guessed that was where Hedwig's cage had been. A quick peek in the closet only showed a few extra sets of oversized shirts and too big, worn jeans together with holey socks and an five homemade sweaters that looked to be the only proper pieces clothing in there hadn't it been for the fact that all of them were too small. The biggest only barely, but the smallest was that for an elementary school kid.
"Sam!"
The brunette left the room with a sad sigh and walked back downstairs where his brother was waiting for him. Dean was scowling deeply and if Sam didn't know his brother better, he'd say he looked worried and disturbed.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked.
Instead of replying, Dean opened the small door of the cupboard under the stairs and nodded inside. Curious, Sam peeked in, his eyes widening when he saw the sleeping cot lying innocently in the far back of the small space.
"You don't think he used to sleep in here, right?" Dean asked lowly.
"If he did, he hasn't in a while. I found his bedroom upstairs," Sam replied.
"Six extra locks and signs where bars used to stand in front of the window."
Dean cursed and drug his hands through his hair.
"If I find those relatives of his, I'll fucking kill them!"
"You and I both," a tired male voice spoke up behind them.
The Winchesters turned around quickly, their guns cocked and aimed at the chest of the ragged-looking man standing near the front door. Dirty blond hair fall in front of his eyes as dull, sunken amber eyes with large bags underneath stared at the duo curiously.
"You're the Winchester brothers, right? Harry told me about you," he said.
"Yeah… Are you Remus? The guy that send him to the States?" Sam replied.
"I am. And I guess that since you two are here, that means you've realized your mistake I hope?"
The brothers nodded with guilty expressions, making Remus smile.
"He said you'd come around," the man mumbled smiling.
"Harry always has a lot of trust in people. It's one of his best qualities."
"Is he alright? Can we see him?" Dean asked softly.
"I'm afraid not," Remus sighed, going back to looking very tired and sad.
"We… were attacked by Death Eaters a few weeks ago. Harry and two of his friends escaped and disappeared. He's being hunted down now, marked as undesirable no 1."
"Those Death Eaters are the followers of that Vol-" Dean started, but was cut off as Remus darted forward and pressed a hand over his mouth.
"Don't say his name," the wizard demanded frantically.
"Harry said a lot of you were scared of his name. Why's that?" Sam asked confused.
"Usually, it's superstition," Remus replied, taking his hands back and wiping them on his jacket with a disgusted frown.
"However, You-Know-Who has put a taboo spell on his own name."
"A what?" Dean asked dumbly.
"A taboo spell. Thanks to that, he'll know when someone speaks his name and he can send out Death eaters or snatchers to arrest whoever spoke it."
"Talk about paranoid," Dean muttered.
Sam scowled. They were getting far off topic, and he didn't like it. They were here for Harry, not talk about some insane killer that seemed to be taking over Wizarding Britain.
"Where is Harry? What's he doing?" he wanted to know.
"He's looking for a way to defeat You-Know-Who," Remus replied.
"I don't know where he is. I doubt anyone does. A lot has changed around here since you last saw Harry. Dumbledore is dead, and we are at a full blown war. Death Eaters have already taken control of the Ministry and You-Know-Who is hunting and killing muggles left and right."
"There needs to be something we can do to help," Sam said resolutely.
"I don't think there is," Remus sighed, shaking his head sadly.
"This is a war between wizards. No matter the guns you carry, you'll always be at a strong disadvantage. You-Know-Who has a lot of dark creatures backing him, a lot of those you probably won't even know exist."
"Try us," Dean challenged.
"Trolls and Giants have already made their alliances clear and in favor of the Dark Lord, as have most werewolves. The Centaurs and Vampires chose to stay neutral," Remus said calmly.
"One of our people works with Dragons in Romania, he said even there Death Eaters are trying to recruit dragon trainers in hopes to get a few dragons on their side as well."
"Dragons?!" Dean sputtered shocked.
"Like I said, you won't be of much help," Remus said.
"I know you two want to find Harry, but right now, if he's found, it will be his death."
"We can't go back home like this!" Sam exclaimed.
"At least… if you see him, at least tell him we're sorry."
Remus smiled gently at them.
"He already knows you are, but when I do, I will," he replied.
"Which reminds me. He told me to give you a message."
The Winchester brothers perked up at that and looked at the wizard expectantly.
"He wants you to know that he'll fulfill his destiny, and after, he'll come back to you."
"Come back to us? After what we said to him?" Dean asked shocked.
"The kid can do better than us. He deserves that normal live he wants."
"He said you might say something like that," Remus chuckled.
"But to Harry, a normal live is one with a family. He has me and his friends, but he says he only ever felt like he belonged with Sirius. Until he met you two. He hopes that you two feel the same, he sees both of you as the family he never had."
Remus probably couldn't have said anything that could have shocked and flattered the brothers more than that. They hadn't expected Harry to think so fondly of them. It was probably the first time anyone ever did, now that they thought about it.
"He also wanted me to tell you that he has a 'saving people thing' and he prefers to do that the same way you do instead of having to work for a corrupt government."
"We'll be waiting for him to come back, then," Sam said smiling.
"Tell the kid he better shapes up. We won't go easy on him when he comes back," Dean added.
Remus chuckled and nodded in agreement. He tipped his head at the hunter duo and started walking back out of the house. Before he was able to leave, Sam had stepped forward and grabbed his arm.
"When we found out Harry was gone, it looked like there was a struggle," Sam said.
"We were scared the Death Eaters had gotten to him, but if it was the Order, what did they do to him?"
"I don't know," Remus replied, smiling bitterly.
"They intercepted Hedwig before she could reach me and send Moody and a few others to retrieve him. Since they figured out I was the one to send him to America, they didn't let me near him. In fact, I hadn't seen him until a few weeks back when we came to pick him up here. He refused to talk about it, but his friends said that the first two months of school after he was returned, he was very quiet and jumpy. He even flinched back from touch. They thought it was something that happened in America, but when I asked about it, he said it wasn't."
"Moody," Dean growled angrily.
"I'll remember that name."
"That will only be useful if you plan on visiting Hell," Remus deadpanned.
"He died when the Death Eaters ambushed us when we took Harry away from this place. So did Hedwig. Harry was inconsolable for a long while."
That left the Winchesters quiet again. The bird had grown on both of them during the time they'd traveled together, and while Dean had always been angry with the bird whenever it sat on top of his car, he really liked the feathery companion of their charge a lot.
"I suggest the both of you leave here soon," Remus told them as he wrapped his jacket closer around himself and stepped out the house.
"I sincerely doubt that I'm the only one keeping an eye on this place and I don't think the Death Eaters or the Order will be as hospitable."
"Let them fucking try," Dean growled darkly, but Sam grabbed his shoulder and started steering him outside.
"We're leaving already," he said.
"Take care of Harry, alright Remus?"
"Until my very last breath," Remus promised before he popped away.
Dean shook his head and walked back to the Impala, his brother right behind him.
"Let's go back to the airport," Sam said.
"There isn't anything we can do here."
"Great. Flying again," Dean grumbled.
I've been thinking on ships for this story, and I'm still going back and forth between none, Dean/Harry, or Dean/Harry/Sam. So let me know what you guys think! You can also suggest other ships if you want.