Disclaimer:

The Harry Potter universe was created by J K Rowling and therefore all credit should be given to her.

Also it might be wise to say that:

Harry Potter, names, characters and related indicia are

Copyright and trademark Warner Bros., 2000™

Please read my A/N at the end of the chapter

Hope you'll enjoy the chapter…


— CHAPTER FOUR —

Panic?

It was early in the morning when Mundungus Fletcher went up to the Dursleys house, this was a job that he both enjoyed and hated, of course he knew how important Potter was to the world and so he took it as a honour to be chosen as one of the few to protect him, on the other hand he hated the thought of babysitting Harry, Dumbledore had taken so many precautions to make Harry safe that he even doubted the devil could reach him.

It was at 7 am when Mundungus stepped up to the Dursleys kitchendoor, the neighbours couldn't see him of course because of the Fidelius charm, but he knew the Dursleys still hated the thought of someone 'not normal' to disgrace their beautiful house and somewhere he respected that, they themselves had to go through a lot too just to keep Harry safe, after all it wasn't easy living a whole summer in isolation.

He knocked on the window and waited for them to open the door. The first thing he noticed when Petunia opened the door was the self satisfied smirk she carried, it was actually a bit scary to see a face like that smirking at him at it gave him an uneasy feeling in the stomach.

"When are you going to remove this curse from our house?", at first he didn't know what she was talking about, they certainly hadn't placed any curses on their household, and then he understood that they saw the Fidelius charm as a curse, it didn't amaze him much actually considering they practically lived in denial of magic.

"When Harry is safely some other place of course, I thought Professor Dumbledore had already explained that to you" answering a bit befuddled, they hadn't asked such questions before and he was certain that they had already been explained the whole situation.

"Then please hurry, he isn't here anymore so we don't have to hide" The words hit him as a hammer would hit an anvil, confused at the strange behaviour of Petunia he just looked bewildered at her until Vernon showed up behind her to explain the situation.

"He has left us, and good riddance for that, he was getting on my nerves such a lazy boy shouldn't even get to sleep under my roof.

He wasn't in the house this morning when we wanted to wake him up, I guess he heard we wanted him to do some chores and left out of fear of a little manual labour. Bah! I'm just happy we won't have him around us pestering us and leeching on our savings anymore"

It took Mundungus about half a minute before the words sank in and he understood the situation, and after that he realised that he had just stood there gaping at the two adults of the house who actually didn't think the least about it, 'they really ought to be worried', was his second thought, his third was to search the house for the young celebrity.

He had been searching for an hour and given up, he needed someone with a bit more expertise at this, so he took out the mirror of the order and shouted Alastor Moody.

"What now Mundungus, can't you see what time it is, you know I value my sleep when I can get it." It was the rough voice of the old auror which cut through his bones, yes he knew Alastor treasured his sleep, after all he was one of the few who knew what it was like not to get any for, several days but it wasn't important at this moment, he needed a special eye for this task.

"Alastor I need your help at the Potter house, I have a problem and I would appreciate the help of you and your eye"

He didn't get an answer from the ex-auror, he knew when a situation was critical, and Potters safety was a top-priority fact that no one could ignore. Even though no one knew the true reason for this except Dumbledore, but he had said it was a secret he wouldn't talk about.

It couldn't have been more than five minutes before Alastor arrived, Mundungus was well aware of the fact that the Dursleys despised him he was what they saw as the epitome of 'weirdness', but in this case he couldn't have cared less about their opinion.

"he has disappeared, I need you to search the house again while I contact Dumbledore" he quickly explained to Alastor, while he looked back to the mirror and whispering the headmasters name.

"I think you'd like to know that Harry has disappeared, I have Moody searching the house an extra time for him this instances" it didn't take long before the kind face of the headmaster turned into a serious posture, worry clearly showing in them, everyone of the adults knew that the old headmaster had a soft spot for the boy, and right now it was particularly clear.

*          *          *          *          *          *

They where assembled in number twelve Grimmauld place. They all knew why and because of this almost every happy expression had been removed from their now worn features. No traces were found of Harry Potter the only thing ever showing that he had been there were some of his possessions of which the teachers already knew.

At first everyone had blamed Mundungus Fletcher because he was supposed to keep the watch the night Harry had disappeared. They all knew that he didn't take it all that serious and often went off if he there was a good bargain in sight, but he had clearly stated that he had been on his post, wide awake, all the night.

Serverus Snape had also stated that The Dark Lord hadn't said anything about Potter as of yet, and even though Snape wasn't the most trusted of his followers he was sure that he would have told everyone of it, if nothing else then to get respect and probably humiliate Harry and the followers of the light.

What bothered people the most was that it had been confirmed that some of the boys items where missing, the most important thing was the brother wand of Voldemorts, but right now it seemed as though he had run away from his home, although no one really could think of the reason for this.

Even the Dursleys had been interrogated thoroughly, they had even used Veritaserum on Vernon because some obscure rumour had reached Molly Weasley that he had been abusing Harry. Of course all test results showed negative and the Dursleys true to their word didn't know what had become of their young saviour.

It was at this very meeting that those who didn't knew, of the unexpected disaster, where told. It had also just been decided that some selected people would go out on a recon mission to find Harry Potter, among these people were Alastor Moody, Remus Lupin, Bill Weasley and Fleur Delaceur, All were chosen because of their special skills which might be a valuable attribute to their mission.

Alastor Moody was an excellent auror and with his special eye they wouldn't miss Harry even if he were under his invisibility cloak.

Remus Lupin because of his association with Harry, he was the last of the marauders and knew how Harry would be thinking as he had been his professor and good friend, and he was quite capable at duelling if it should come to this.

Bill Weasley was chosen because of his skills and experience as a curse breaker, not because they thought they would need it, but as they all thought, it was best to be prepared.

Fleur Delacour was chosen because of her persuasive skills, which they figured would make it a bit easier to extract information from the male suspects, she was also chosen because she refused to let Bill, her boyfriend, leave without her.

The newly formed group made their way out of Grimmauld place number twelve under the stares of everyone, the rest of the order would be hearing from them through their special mirrors and they had agreed that they should report back every day so they wouldn't suddenly be lost.

*          *          *          *          *          *

Among other things in the meeting, it had been decided that they wouldn't announce Harry's disappearance to the public, they didn't need to cause any panic by stating that the only one who had ever 'defeated' Lord Voldemort had disappeared.

Of everyone in the order it was Molly Weasley who took Harrys disappearance the hardest, she had been crying openly when she had heard of it, and she was seen sniffling and trying to stifle her sobs throughout the entire meeting, Remus actually took it quite well considering it was the child and godson of his two best friends.

Molly Weasley had asked Dumbledore for permission to tell her four remaining children about Harry and also his other best friend Hermione Granger. So far Bill, Charlie and Percy Weasly knew about Harry as they were all in The Order of The Phoenix. But Dumbledore had refused her to speak of Harry's situation to anyone outside the order.

*          *          *          *          *          *

The Dark Lord was furious, and they knew it, Serverus was watching the scene from behind his mask with a feeling etching to satisfaction, he had ordered an attack on private drive number four, after some trick of his had failed , he had been making a lot of research to see how the protection around the house had worked, it had taken him along time to make all the preparations for that attack, first he had found out that the original protection on Potter's house didn't count for him, when he had used Potters blood to come back he had also taken away Dumbledores original protection spell.

After all that research he had been disappointed when he found out Potter had went into hiding as his parents had at that time. It had taken him a long time to first find out that the secret keeper was the last of the Hogwarts group, Remus Lupin, after that it had taken even longer to get the proper Polyjuice potion with the hair from a trusted friend of his, he had finally gotten it all, but when he had penetrated all the defences and found out Potter had disappeared he went into an unimaginable rage, when he had arrived and called the meeting, his deatheaters started feeling his anger in the form of pain, no one went by unpunished, even Serverus had experienced it and he was one of those who were good at deceiving The Dark Lord to not think it was his fault.

*          *          *          *          *          *

   The-Boy-Who-Disappeared

Today it was confirmed by Cornelius Fudge that the household of Harry Potter has indeed been attacked, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself was the one who attacked his nemesis.

Minister Fudge states that the house was completely destroyed when the aurors arrived at the scene with the dark mark hanging over it.

"Nothing about Mr. Potter has been confirmed yet, though our aurors were able to retrieve the bodies of Mr. Potter's relatives, they haven't found anything of Mr. Potter yet, it seems that either he has used underage magic, but it haven't been detected, or his body might have been burned into ashes this is a possibility our top unspeakables are currently researching that possibility. If it's none of the other possibilities then Harry Potter wasn't even in the house when You Know Who arrived, but this isn't very convincing as Harry had gotten strict orders from both me and his headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, to stay at his house at it was the safest place at this time."

This was the statement from the current minister of magic Cornelius fudge.

After this incident there has been many interesting rumours going around in the wizarding world, one of the most popular is that Harry has in some unknown way learned the mythical art of Wandless Magic, and so he could apparate out of his house without the ministry picking up any underage magic.

What we must all ask ourselves is, will we be able to withstand He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's forces now that our saviour has finally disappeared?

Dary Malen

Chief Director

The Daily Prophet

 The wizarding world was going wild, no one had seen or heard from Harry Potter for over a month, and the school year was about to soon to start, rumours were now an everyday thing, some people stated that they had seen Harry stroll down Diagonalley with You Know Who, others claimed that he had 'obviously' been abducted by aliens so that they could gain his strong magical talents.

In direct contrast to almost the entire wizarding world, Hermione Granger and Ron Wesley, had not started talking about Harry to anyone who would listen, no, they had withdrawn into them selves, only talking to each other about Harry, and not talking much to anyone except their closest relatives.

The two out of three were rarely, if ever, seen smiling after the article in The Daily Prophet. They completely ignored any reporter who approached them with questions about their lost 'leader of the group'. If they had to be honest with themselves, they, at some point, blamed Dumbledore for not letting Molly tell them about it, they could see his reasons and knew that he was probably right in his decision, but that didn't make the pain go away, the pain of finding out that one out of your two best friends was missing, or probably dead.

Ron and Hermione had been close ever since that day they had discovered Harry was missing, they weren't really a couple and everyone knew that, but as there was no third wheel they had to stick together to deal with it all and unconsciously they both knew that. It would be hell on Hogwarts without Harry, the Sytherins would practically have free reign on the school, especially Draco Malfoy, that boy would be having a field trip with this news, and in his case the hunting season for Gryffindors especially Ron and Hermione had just begun.

When school finally started there had still not been any news about Harry Potter, but all the fuss was starting to calm down, which Ron and Hermione were very thankful for.

When they finally arrived at Kings Cross station the mood was sombre, although the crows had calmed down about everything, every student at the station except the first years had known Harry, and they hated the idea about him not being there, after all it seemed like some of the magic in Hogwarts would disappear along with Harry. Yes they were in for quite a year this time.

*          *          *          A/N     *          *          *

There you are, my third chapter, hope you enjoyed it.

Don't forget to review. Reviews are after all the best motivation for authors to go on.

Yes as I said in the previous chapter this is short compared to the others, half length…

I won't be able to post the next chapter until after easter as I will be away from any internet connection the entire week, but I hope to post as soon as I get home (Sunday)

Thanks to:

Mikito

Gaul1

Romm

For reviewing, have a nice day…