Chapter Four: Lemon Drop?
- - - - - - - - - Meanwhile, in Scotland - - - - - - - - - -
The proprietor of the small candy shop in Dalwhinnie, Scotland (Mr. Barclay Carson) stared warily at the old man who was standing in a shady corner at the back of the shop, scrutinizing the new shipment of lemon drops. They'd just ordered a new brand of the small hard candies, with some sort of new coating, more lemony evidently. Mr. Carson didn't really see what the old man saw in the sweets, but he infallibly showed up at the shop bi-monthly to replenish his supply.
"Will that be all for you today Mr. Dumbledore?" He asked as Dumbledore came up to the counter with an entire case of the little citrus candies.
"Oh yes, thank you Mr. Carson, this will be quite enough for some time." Dumbledore replied, rather distractedly, as Mr. Carson rang up his order and accepted the £50.00 for the candies.
Something wasn't right, he could feel it in his bones, but he didn't know what it was. He had that sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach. The one that you get when you're beyond nervous, or really scared; and his skin felt hot and cold at the same time, a prickling feeling creeping up his neck. He quickly took his box of candies and rushed out of the shop, eager to return to Hogwarts so that he could figure out what was wrong.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
As a precaution, Dumbledore had several devices in his office that conveyed the state of certain people, and things, so that he would know if they were in danger. He had a clock like the one in the Weasley house, with the names of all the Hogwarts staff on it, a little silver bunny rabbit trinket that would come alive and hop across his desk if there were an uncontrollable fire in any of the school bathrooms (oddly enough, the rabbit had never hopped across his desk), and he had several small glowing orbs, to monitor the life forces of people important to him in one way or another. The orbs would glow a gentle gold while the person they were keyed to was alive, and would flash red if the person were dying, before going out completely at the time of death, which would be inscribed onto the orb, along with cause of death, beneath the name of the person whose life force it was monitoring.
Unfortunately, as it turns out, Dumbledore failed to notice in his nervous frenzy that one of the orbs he had resting on his mantelpiece had gone out, and now had the words "2:45 pm GMT, murder by way of impalement" inscribed beneath the name 'Harry James Potter'. Of course, had he noticed this small fact, he would still not have been able to do anything about the untimely death of his favorite student, so perhaps it is just as well that he did not discover the occurrence until 6 o'clock that evening, after spending the day worrying and rummaging through his desk and an empty bureau in an abandoned classroom on the 5th floor.
- - - - 17 August, 6:45 pm - - - -
The door creaked as it was opened by an invisible hand; the house silent, but for the sounds of shuffling and clothing rustling as people entered the kitchen.
"Where is everyone?" One voice came ghosting out of the darkness, identified, as Sirius Black dropped his invisibility spell and glanced over his shoulder at his companions, now also visible, all looking around the house in search of signs of life.
The house appeared to have been ransacked; furniture overturned, items strewn across counter tops and floor. Either someone had left in a hurry, or there had been some type of altercation. "Remus, go and check the upper rooms, Sirius search the main floor, and I'll scan for signs of foreign magic."
They quickly complied to Albus' commands, the kitchen door swinging in their wake. Remus, hurrying up the stairs, noticed immediately that all of the bedrooms had been practically turned upside down, except for the smallest, which was pristine as it could possibly be considering the meager furnishings. After concluding that there was no one on the second floor, he descended the stairwell to share his findings, but his attention was caught in the front hall by a shrill beeping sound coming from a small box-like contraption sitting on a table. Inspecting the box, which was placed next to something he recognized as a muggle fellytone, he noticed that there was a small blinking "2" on the front.
"Albus, would you come in here for a moment please?" Remus' voice caught Sirius' attention as well and brought both men to his side. "What do you think it means?"
"It appears to be an answer machine."
Both Sirius and Remus looked up at Albus, confused. They had very little idea about anything muggle.
"It is a fascinating invention. Apparently, it answers the fellytone when the muggles are not at home, and keeps the messages for them."
"Well, how do we make it reveal it's secret?"
"Perhaps this button that says 'Play'?"
Having said this, Remus proceeded to depress said button. Message 1 was some person called Julia who wanted Mrs. Dursley to ring her back at her soonest convenience, but message 2 proved to be far more interesting to the three men. The thick and frantic voice of Vernon Dursley filled the hall after the mechanic voice of the answer machine woman announced the time, 3:57 pm.
"Petunia, the boy is dead in the back garden. Don't go out there. Go to Marge's and don't try to find me; you won't see me again. I love you, tell Dudley I am proud of him. I didn't mean to do it, I swear it, I never wanted to kill anyone. Pack your things and you and Dudley get away. The boy's freak friends will be coming to check on him eventually, but you shouldn't be punished for my sins. I'm sorry for leaving you like this but I can't go on. I never really wanted him dead I swear. Goodbye Petunia..."
The last think they heard was a loud bang, and something heavy falling to the floor, then silence.
There were several moments during which the three wizards stood completely still, shocked into inaction at what they had just learned. They had of course been hoping that Dumbledore's little orb had simply malfunctioned, but Vernon Dursley, Harry's own uncle, had murdered him and then killed himself. It was another loud beep from the answering machine that jarred them back to reality. Sirius took a great shuddering breath, and with a hollow look in his eyes, strode quickly out into the back garden of Number 4, Albus and Remus trailing slowly behind him.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Whipping his head back and forth, gazing into ever corner of the garden, Sirius could feel his panic grow with every passing second.
"Where is he Albus!? Where is my godson? Oh Merlin, Harry where are you?"
Albus and Remus, by this time, had also searched the garden for Harry's body and found nothing. A whispered 'lumos' lit the area enough though, for all of them to finally see the only evidence that remained to testify to the violent act that had occurred there that day. A glistening trail of red on the side of the garden shed, congealed on the jagged steel pipe, and spattered across the white petals of the iceberg roses that Harry had been planting that afternoon. The morbid beauty of the contrast striking Remus for a moment, before his grief began to overtake him.
"There are traces of a great magic here," Albus' voice broke the silence that permeated the night, "This is where he died, but something happened shortly after the time of death. His corpse was taken by some magical force, but it is nothing I've ever come across before. The magic is so pure..." He trailed off into a thoughtful silence, plans already forming in his mind as to where he would start his research. An explanation had to be found.
"So that's it then?" Sirius spoke up, sounding angry and stricken. "He's just dead and gone and that's it? NO! He can't be dead! He's too young. He has so much life to live still! Nooo... we have to find him, he's alive, he's just a baby still!" He broke down completely after that, sobbing and swaying back and forth as Remus pulled him into his arms, too stunned to truly comfort.
Albus quickly regained his composure and called Sirius and Remus' attention back to himself. "Come gentlemen. We must act quickly. The circumstances here are very suspicious, and will be treated as such. We will go immediately to question Mrs. Dursley, she may have noticed something out of the ordinary this summer. Do not speak of this to anyone. No one can know about this until we have learned more about what has occurred."
"What do you mean Albus?" People will eventually find out that he's dead. We can't just hide it, and it's not like he's going to pop back to life just because we didn't tell anyone! His friends will figure out that something is wrong and start poking around, and then we'll have a lot of questions to answer! We can't just ignore it and hope it will go away!"
"No Sirius, I don't think that's what he meant." Remus, ever the voice of reason, continued with the thought, "Albus said that the magical traces were pure, so his body wasn't stolen by Death Eaters, and bodies don't just disappear, so where is it? We need to speak to Petunia to see if Harry was displaying any odd behavior this summer, that might have something to do with his disappearance. We'll keep it quiet for awhile, incase something important is discovered. We can't just tell the public that the Boy-Who-Lived is dead and we don't know how or where his body is! It's for the best Sirius, just until we have researched all possibilities."
"Fine. I can see that, but what about Ron and Hermione? They are both too nosey for their own good."
"I don't think that will be a problem. I've noticed that young Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger have taken a rather accelerated interest in one another over the past few weeks. In fact, I don't think they've even written to Harry in at least two weeks. We shouldn't have to worry about them for at least a week, maybe two."
"Right, well that's good for us but someone really should talk to them about ignoring Harry." Sirius grumbled, wiping a few stray tears off his face. "Well let's go talk to Lily's sister then. There's no time to waste."