Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. There is also an animal death, blood, animal cruelty, and unlawful captivity of a human child. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: This is for Day One of Whumptober, and turned out both longer and darker than I was originally thinking it would. I'm so behind. This is only the second day I've managed to finish and we're already a week in.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 15); MC4A (Year 4); Whumptober 2021
Individual Challenges: Hufflepuff MC; Magical MC (Y); Magical MC (Y); Magical MC (Y); LEO MC; LEO MC; Tiny Terror; Hold the Mayo; Ethnic & Present; Rian-Russo Inversion; Rian-Russo Inversion; Short Jog; Bucket Listing (Y); Old Shoes (Y); Lunar Era
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 15 – Assignment 07
Subject (Task No.): Folklore (Task#3: Write about recovering something that was lost.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: 365 [173](Amelia Bones)
Other Challenges: Whumptober [D01] (All Trussed Up & Still Nowhere to Go; Barbed Wire; Bound)
Other MC4A Challenges: FaB [4A](Bandage); Set [3B](Trapped); Chim [Loride] (Emerald); Fire [x3](Companions; Little Rascals; No Mayo Here); Garden [Whump Fest B (Bondage; Blood; Barbed Wire)]; Hang [Phrase 02] (n/a)
Representation(s): Desi Harry Potter; BAMF Amelia Bones
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Bad Beans; Forked Path; Sitting Hummingbird; Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp; Persistence Still; White Dress; Middle Name; Unwanted Advice; Lovely Coconuts; Muck & Slime; Rock of Ages); Chorus (Endless Wonder; Bee Haven; Machismo; Peddling Pots; Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade; Larger than Life; Abandoned Ship; In the Trench; Surprise!; Turtle-Duck)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: Mea (Ennui; Rampant); War (Ennui; Sanctuary; Orator); O3 (Orator; Ox); SN (Rail; Intercept)
Word Count: 1799 words

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What Was Found
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Aurors with the British Ministry of Magic raided the facility alongside agents from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. The investigation leading up to the raid had been a long one. The majority of it had actually been trying to liaison with muggle law enforcement departments, a task that kept needing to be restarted due to the frequent blunders that ended up necessitating memory alterations in the muggles involved. A lot of the purebloods who made up either department just did not care about minding what they said around the muggles they needed for the investigation.

But when the potential cost was the very Statute of Secrecy that formed the basis of their society, Amelia couldn't help her annoyance with the whole lot of the hidebound fools. Muggles had managed to get their hands on several specimens of a few different species of magical creatures. To make matters even worse, more than a few of them were considered dark as well as dangerous.

Hence why the Auror Department specifically was involved instead of just the standard Department of Magical Law Enforcement or leaving it the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to bumble their way through with minimal help from the Muggle Liaison Office. But the last thing that anyone needed was an entire flock of fwoopers loose in the middle of London.

After a very tedious six months, they had located the place where the specimens were being held. It was a plain gray brick building surrounded by a tall fence topped with coils of barbed wire. Even in the heat of the summer, it had a cold feeling to it. The whole place made Amelia feel as if it should be covered in icy slush. Despite being surrounded by other buildings, the place seemed isolated.

At that point, it took only a week to coordinate the things necessary to raid the facility. Amelia was actually thankful that it was happening in late June rather than taking another month and interfering with the preparation for Susan's first year at Hogwarts. Even if it did mean that the raid was taking place shortly after the new minister (a nervous man with the unfortunate name of Fudge) had been elected, at least it would be over and the paperwork dealt with before the Hogwarts letters went out and Diagon Alley became busier than a lice-infested cypress tree when the sap was running.

The raid itself went off without any kind of issue. All of the expected muggles were easily subdued and handed over to the Oblivators to have their memories collected and then wiped. The magical creatures were unusually well secure. More worryingly, a few of the enclosures had wards on them that had been anchored in place with runic arrays.

Some idiot accidentally let loose the runespoor that the muggles had gotten from somewhere. It was a very chaotic fifteen minutes before they managed to catch up with the snake at the end of long hall. By that point it had managed to injure itself to the point that there was no saving it. Biting off a head always made such a mess, but biting off two was usually fatal.

Even as Amelia and an agent from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures approached, the poor thing kept weakly throwing itself at the door at the very end of the hall. Specifically, it was focusing on a sliding door along the base of the door that was perfectly sized so that something like a lunch tray could be slid through. There was a similarly sized window at face height. The glass had been reinforced with thin wires, as if whoever designed the door expected that the glass might become cracked despite its thickness.

Amelia frowned when she spotted the repeated runes along the lintel of the door. Even in the brightness of the florescent lights overhead, the runes were glowing bright enough to be notable. That was a sign of something straining against the wards anchored to them. If there had been any doubt before of the muggles having magical help, this definitely destroyed it.

The runespoor gave a final blow against the sliding door along with a long hiss before stilling completely.

Carefully dodging the puddle of blood spreading from the corpse, Amelia approached the door with her wand out. Whatever was in the room had to be large as well as powerful. Why else would it not be in the large rooms that had held the cages of magical creatures? The sliding door at the bottom also indicated that opening the full door was enough of a problem that meals had to be carefully delivered.

She looked through the window but from her angle, all she could see was a metal bed with a thin mattress that had been bolted both to the wall and to the floor. A metal chain had been attached to the arching end of the bed frame, but the other end of it dangled over the edge and had been pulled into the shadows pooling in the corner beyond it. There was something ominous about how dark the room was compared to the brightness of the rest of the facility.

Amelia shivered as something like dread trickled down her spine.

Tapping her wand to the doorknob, she was almost surprised to hear the distinctive click of it unlocking. The knowledge that it had only been locked manually despite the impressive warding did nothing to comfort her. Why ward a powerful creature but only do the bare minimum to lock it up?

"Are you sure we shouldn't wait for backup?" the agent asked nervously. He had his wand pointed at the door but it was shaking enough that Amelia knew she wouldn't be able to count on him actually hitting anything if it was needed. How had he even gotten assigned to this mission? "It might get loose! We don't even know what it might be!"

"We still need to check," Amelia insisted. She hadn't gotten to the position of Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement by being a Nervous Nelly about things. She took reasonable precautions, of course, especially on high risk missions like this one, but she didn't let fear dictate her decisions.

Carefully, she pulled the door open, gently sliding the dead runespoor with it. Light from the corridor spilled to the room and illuminated a large swathe. The chain connected to the bed twitched before returning to complete stillness. Steeling her nerves and holding her wand at the ready, she entered the room. The agent stayed out in the hall.

"Hello?" Amelia called as she moved deeper into the room. "Is anyone there?"

A hissing sound came from the shadowy corner. The hairs on the back of her neck raised up as the magic in the room seemed to flex. Like a mouse in the sight of a cobra, she froze in place. Her heart raced in her chest. Maybe the cowardly agent had a point about waiting for backup.

"I didn't understand that," she said as calmly as possible after a moment had passed. She had had a lot of practice over the years masking her real emotions, and it was coming in handy now. Of course, if this was a magical creature, it most likely wouldn't be able to understand her. Only a few magical creatures could understand human speech; even fewer could return it in any sense of the term. "Will you come out where I can see you?"

"You're not a doctor," came a raspy voice from the corner beyond the bed. If she squinted her eyes, she could see eyes watching her from the patch of darkness. "You're not an intern either."

Taking a leap of faith, Amelia lit her wand and held it up high enough to reveal the crouching form of some kind of humanoid. Whatever it was hissed again as it flinched away from the light. One bony hand came up to shield its gaunt face before she could make note of any features beyond the distinctive lack of pointed ear. So not a house elf then. The chain attached to the creature with a thick manacle around its ankle. The manacle reflected the light from her wand without any dullness that would indicate padding to cushion the delicate ankle it wrapped around. There were raised scars covering what skin she see. They stood out in vivid paleness against the brown skin.

Slowly, the figure lowered their very human hand. Emerald eyes stared at her from a gaunt but still familiar-looking face. In the center of the forehead above those unnaturally green eyes was a raised scar shaped like a lightning bolt. Amelia nearly dropped her wand as she recognized who she had just found. A million questions flew through her mind like a swarm of bats.

Dumbledore had assured the entire world that Harry Potter was safe. Dumbledore had claimed that he was securely hidden away. Either Dumbledore had left the boy somewhere and never checked on him as a magical guardian should have, or Dumbledore was involved in this whole place. Amelia wasn't certain which she felt was worse.

"Director Bones," the agent called from outside the room, "are you alright? Did the creature attack you?"

At the question, the boy flinched deeper into the shadows. He might have tried disappearing completely if it wasn't for the chain bound around his ankle. Amelia felt a wave of nausea go through her. She knew the boy's age as well as anyone in the wixen UK did. He wouldn't even be eleven for a little over a month. This place was not even fit for the animals they had found, let alone a human child.

"I'm—" She swallowed hard against the bile threatening to choke her. "I'm not injured. It's not a creature."

"What is it then?" the agent demanded, much braver than he had been even moments prior. Amelia couldn't help but feel a bit bitter about that. "Is it a plant? That's a different department!"

"It's a boy," Amelia said tonelessly. Her gaze was locked on the trembling child who was still curled into as tight a ball as he could manage. "It's Harry Potter."

"Inconceivable," he snapped as he charged into the room. He halted as soon as he got a good look at the boy. He yelped like he had been hit by a Stinging Hex. "That's the Boy-Who-Lived! Was he even missing?"

"Evidently," Amelia replied.

"When was he lost?"

"Not important right now," Amelia dismissed as she decided that she could not bear to see a child chained to anything a moment longer. "What is important now is that he's been found."