Chapter 4

Another Mess I've Created

Evan Harrington knew his way around the muggle world better than a typical pure-blood wizard. Of course, elite pure bloods would not consider Evan one of them, even though one could argue that he met the technical definition, the child of a witch and wizard. Both of his parents were half bloods, however, diminishing the purity of his blood to those that cared about such things. Evan, on the other hand, enjoyed having muggle relatives on both sides of the family. To his benefit, he developed close relationships with his muggle cousins, visiting them often in his childhood. sometimes spending as long as a month living with them.

He knew how to take a train, and having run into dead ends with his other inquiries, he returned to the Little Whinging depot. Days earlier, he discreetly questioned two employees, hoping against hope that they may remember seeing a boy meeting Potter's description. Evan had developed special skill in suggestive spells, which generally worked wonders on unsuspecting muggles. As usual, the two female employees spoke openly in response to Evan's questions, but as expected, they retained no memory of a boy resembling Potter. They dealt with hundred of passengers each day, and quite reasonably they could not remember each one.

The auror returned to the station with the intention to board the train for London in order to gauge the amount of time involved and the stations in which Harry may have disembarked. Mostly Evan hoped that something would turn up, that luck would smile on him. He stepped to the ticket window and purchased a one-way passage to London. The employee punched various buttons, took Evan's money, and a ticket emerged from a slot in the counter. Like magic, Evan chuckled to himself.

A thought occurred to him. Certainly the train company had to keep a record of the tickets sold. The employee grabbed the ticket, tore off a stub, and placed it in a small basket to the side. The basket contained a pile of similar stubs. Evan opened his eyes wide as he realized the significance of this procedure.

Casually he asked the employee, "What do you do with all those ticket stubs? There must be thousands of them." Silently, he cast a suggestive spell, which served to encourage the employee to answer openly.

"Oh yes," she responded happily, "We organize them by date and time, bind them with bands, and then place them in envelopes. Keep them in the back room over there. Every couple of weeks, someone from London collects them. We're just a small station, not as modern as the stations in London or the big cities. They do everything by computers, don't you know. We're still in the stone ages here in Little Whinging."

Evan thanked the woman and felt a rush of energy though his veins. After days of frustration, he finally found a lead. Changing his plans, Evan wandered away from the small ticket booth and stepped into the men's room. Seeing nobody, he quickly donned his invisibility cloak and returned to the station, moving carefully to the back door of the small building.

"Alohomora," he whispered, and after the lock clicked, he quietly opened the door and slipped inside. From his location, he could see the back of the woman at the counter, and to his right the door to the back room. He quietly opened the door after placing a silencing spell on it in case it might squeak. All standard procedure.

The small windowless storage room contained only a small table and two filing cabinets. Evan opened various drawers, finding some of them empty and other containing envelopes. Quickly he determined that the envelopes contained the ticket stubs, each labeled by date.

"Please still be here!" he whispered to himself, hoping that the main office had not already collected the envelope from the day Harry escaped. He sighed with relief when he found the correct one and slipped it into his pocket, stealthily making his way out.

Rushing back to his office at the Ministry, Evan spread the tickets out. Fortunately for him, each stub contained the time of day, the destination, and whether it was a one-way or return ticket. He concentrated on the tickets from 7:30 pm to 10:00 pm, the time in which Harry must have arrived at the station.

What would I do in Potter's position? he asked himself. Quickly he determined that he would probably buy a one-way ticket. Of course a more seasoned criminal might know better, but Potter was not a criminal but merely a boy, not yet seventeen years of age. Evan pulled out the one-way tickets, finding only half a dozen from that time period. Five of them listed London as their destination. The sixth listed Liverpool.

xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx

About two dozen death eaters lined the sofas and walls of the sitting room of Sarazen Manor, their dark countenances clashing with the relative brightness of the room. Some of them had to conjure chairs, the more talented among them creating comfortably padded armchairs while others could only manage stiff wooden seats. They had just finished their suppers when unexpectedly called to the sitting room by Peter Pettigrew, on the orders of the dark lord.

The fire in the fireplace blazed, and the death eaters found the room almost stifling, but they knew of their leader's need for warmth. They spoke little to each other, all anxious to receive direction from the great one himself, whom they seemed to see less frequently in recent weeks.

Peter led the way, opening the door from a side room and holding it while Lord Voldemort awkwardly shuffled through. The slits of his eyes shone more brightly than previously, and it seemed that the master had regained some of his energy. He flicked his wand at his leather armchair, which of course had been left unoccupied, and turned it to face his small force. The room fell silent.

"You are restless," he began abruptly, "You wish to take action. I understand your impatience, and soon you shall have your wish. After the unfortunate events of Hogwarts, I have had to rethink my strategy. We are a small group; we cannot act rashly, for we cannot afford great losses, not until our numbers increase." The soft hissing of his voice caused the skin to crawl on even the most hardened death eater.

"The death of the muggle-loving fool ruined my carefully laid plans," Voldemort continued from his chair, eyeing those responsible malevolently, "Yet I cannot deny that his absence does open possibilities that before did not exist. The public has calmed since his death and their temporary bravado is fading. Soon they will succumb to our will."

The gathered death eaters murmured their approval, thankful that finally their leader had regained his energy. They had been chomping at the bit for weeks.

"Remember our ultimate goal! Not evil, not pleasure, not revenge. Our goal is power. Through power we can mold the world to our liking, ridding it of the unworthy. Power is gained through respect, and respect is gained through fear. Wizards and witches will learn to fear Lord Voldemort again!"

Cheers of evil glee filled the chamber as his followers loudly voiced their desire to start. Perhaps Voldemort desired power, but they would enjoy their evil, pleasure and revenge along the way.

With a casual lifting of his hand, the room silenced, and Voldemort continued in the same controlled hiss, "We must remain patient, however. Our numbers are small, as I have refrained from recruitment. My previous plans did not require it, but soon we shall need a larger force. Do not expect the Ministry to lie down. Scrimgeour can be a ruthless man, one of his many admirable qualities; in fact he would have been an excellent death eater. He will be a more formidable opponent than past Ministers."

Voldemort's audience gazed silently at his critique of the Minister of Magic, surprised at their leader's words of praise for Rufus Scrimgeour. The old Voldemort NEVER praised anyone but himself, yet he implicitly had recognized the talents of Albus Dumbledore and explicitly lauded their primary enemy.

"We have much to do," Voldemort continued, apparently not noticing the confusion on their faces, "Some of my orders will be readily understood; others will make little sense to you. Rest assured, however, that Lord Voldemort knows what he is doing. I demand and expect unwavering obedience." He paused dramatically, surveying the entire room.

"DO I HAVE IT?"

"YES, MY LORD," shouted the death eaters, who all stood and bowed to their leader. Minutes later, however, their expressions of confusion returned as they left the sitting room.

xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx

"This is the Cavern Club where the Beatles first played when they were barely older than we are," Melissa Montgomery explained to Harry, who must have wondered why they bothered walking to such an ordinary looking building. She explained that the club had been torn down only to be rebuilt on the same site years later. Frankly, Harry did not care a whit about the Beatles or the Cavern Club, even though he found posters and likenesses of the Fab Four everywhere he looked. Liverpool certainly showed its pride for its favorite sons.

Yet Harry paid great attention to every word Melissa spoke over the several hours they spent walking around the Waterfront and other sections of Liverpool. He saw more examples of this type of architecture and that, none of which interested Harry in the least. In fact the most interesting architecture that Harry viewed were Melissa's two legs emerging from her short denim skirt, a view Harry found delightfully distracting. The two teenagers managed to fill an entire afternoon and half of the evening passing the time, and Harry could not believe that they had spent ten hours together when they realized the hour and Melissa's need to return home.

They had already finished their evening meal at a favorite restaurant of Melissa which overlooked the Mersey, and Harry enjoyed learning more about her life in Liverpool. A perfectly normal muggle life, filled with school, friendships, conflicts and dreams. Melissa tried to draw Harry out too, but he managed to answer all of her questions about his life with ambiguous generalities and modified versions of events at Hogwarts. At one point during their conversation, Melissa reached her hand out to Harry, who accepted it into his own. They continued to hold hands for a good hour.

All through the day, Harry's nerves flared. He really liked Melissa. He REALLY liked her, and he knew that he could not allow this to proceed. She had no idea. How could he possibly consider involving her in the mess that his life had become? He had to end this today.

But he REALLY liked her. And he felt sure that she liked him too. Now they were holding hands.

Across the restaurant table, Melissa studied the tension in Harry's face and sensed his nerves, feeling it through the skin of his hand. She felt nervous herself, for she definitely felt an attraction to this boy, a boy like none she had ever known before. He seemed so gentle, yet she could feel an aggression emanating from him, just below the surface. Just a little dangerous but definitely enticing. There was more to Harry Potter than met the eye, and she wanted to discover it. Yet he fended off all of her attempts to learn more about him.

"I had a wonderful day, Harry. Too bad it has to end so quickly." She smiled and moved her head so that her long brown hair shimmered in the soft lighting of the restaurant. Harry thought he had never seen anything more beautiful in his life. She squeezed his hand in hers, and his stomach churned. His brain instructed his hand to release hers, but his hand steadfastly disobeyed the order.

"You're right. This is the most fun I've had in longer than you can imagine. I can't thank you enough for showing me around." He desperately wanted to ask if they could meet again, but he remained silent. Melissa instinctively understood, but would not leave it at that.

"You're going to be in Liverpool a few more days, right? Why don't we get together again tomorrow? You could meet some of my friends." Melissa smiled nervously. Never had she acted in such a forward manner with a boy. In fact, though talkative and friendly, she had always acted shyly around the opposite sex. She carefully studied Harry's reaction. His face tensed and his eyes widened in sadness.

"I don't know if that's a good idea, Melissa," he forced himself to answer, though he could manage little more than a whisper, "I mean I'd love to. I really like you, but . . . we're just going to make it harder. I have to leave soon, and . . . ." He could not figure out how to finish the thought and looked out over the darkening Mersey. Melissa stared at him for several seconds.

"You're not telling me something, aren't you?" she reasoned, "You've run away from home, haven't you? You're in trouble somehow." Throughout the day, Melissa suspected as much from Harry's reluctance to answer her questions, but now she sensed the truth of her intuition. Her voice did not contain any element of accusation, only a desire to know Harry better.

"I guess you can say that," Harry ambiguously agreed, "I wish I could explain it all to you, but I can't. Let's just say that my life is extremely complicated right now. I can't . . . I can't allow myself to start liking a girl, and . . . I think that's what's happening to me right now." He turned his head a few degrees to the left and looked down at the empty glass in front of him. "It wouldn't be fair to you, Melissa. I shouldn't have gone with you today. It's too dangerous, but I just couldn't help it. You're a really nice girl. I wish. . ."

He could not finish the sentence as his throat seized up, preventing speech for a few moments. Melissa's eyes glistened with unshed tears, and the brick in Harry's stomach grew larger. Why did everything he touch turn to mud? Why could he not do at least one normal thing in his life, such as meeting a nice girl and actually going out with her? Maybe even becoming her boyfriend? Instead he worried that any girl he befriended would be used as bait by Lord Voldemort, to be tortured and killed by him and his followers. He worried terribly for Ginny and Hermione, already well known as his closest female friends. Nothing could be done to change that, but at least he could protect Melissa Montgomery. He had to remain strong.

Melissa's eyes watered when she listened to Harry's quavering voice, and she did not want to accept that this relationship would end before it even started. In her short life, she had enjoyed little luck with boys, and now that she found one that she actually liked, the door was about to slam in her face. She reached her other hand across the table, and like a magnet Harry's free hand wrapped around hers, despite his best effort not to. It felt wonderfully soft and warm.

"I thought maybe we could have something, Harry," she cried softly, "but I'm not going to beg. If you can't, then you can't. I'm just so sorry . . ." Tears prevented further words.

"I'm so sorry too, Melissa. If things were different, I'd love to keep seeing you," Harry whispered as their hands remained firmly entwined, and he realized that tears silently streaked down his cheeks as well. Another mess I've created, he thought. "My life is just all screwed up at the moment." They stared silently into each other's watery eyes.

He had no idea that Auror Evan Harrington stood not even ten feet away from him under his invisibility cloak, listening to every word of the heartbreaking conversation. A jaded auror he may have been, but he could not prevent a pang of sadness for the boy. Evan never had a way with women, and the few relationships in his life ended badly. It seemed Harry suffered from the same malady.

Evan arrived in Liverpool that morning, roaming the city in hopes that he might spy his quarry. Having followed Potter for several days in Little Whinging, he knew his manner of walking and his messy black hair. Finally after roaming most of day, he glimpsed that messy head of hair from a distance. He managed to keep track of it, and finally neared the boy, who walked casually through the city with an extremely pretty young girl. With so many muggles about, Evan dared not take any action yet. He decided to track Harry patiently until he returned to his room. The muggle girl seemed nice enough. No reason to mix her up in this mess.

The two sad teenagers reluctantly departed the restaurant and walked as slowly as they could to the bus stop where Melissa would board the bus back to her home. Harry felt like his head had been placed in a guillotine and that the blade would drop any second. He wanted to hold her hand, but instead forced both of his into his pockets, because he knew that his will already wavered. Before meeting Melissa, his loneliness had been bearable, but now the thought of returning alone to his hotel room sucked the air out of him. Melissa seemed to think similar thoughts, and the two walked silently.

Evan Harrington followed about a block behind them, now visible since he had to take off the invisibility cloak among so many people on the streets. Still, he did not worry that Potter would notice him. The boy seemed to have other problems on his mind. Poor bloke.

Finally at the bus stop, the two teens faced each other, and for the first and only time embraced, each crying freely but silently. They held each other for a couple of minutes, awaiting the bus. When finally they heard it approaching, the two teens pulled apart slightly, staring into each other's eyes one last time. Harry wanted to kiss her, but knew that doing so might open Pandora's Box. When the door of the bus opened, Melissa boarded without speaking, for which Harry gave thanks, since he could not have uttered a word through his choked throat. She turned and waved. Harry returned the wave, and then the bus rolled away.

Harry stared vacantly at the rear of the bus until he could not longer track it, and he turned to look in the opposite direction. He had no desire to return to his hotel room, and seeing an empty bench near the bus stop, he sat down heavily. For half an hour he blankly watched cars and busses speed by and pedestrians move up and down the busy avenue.

I did the right thing, he argued to himself. It would have only become harder had he seen her again. Accept it. I can never have a girlfriend, not until it's over. Not until the prophecy is fulfilled, one way or the other. Once again, it all came down to Voldemort, horcruxes, the prophecy. He laughed harshly to himself when he realized that in reality, his situation had not changed a bit in the last two days. Meeting Melissa Montgomery did not have anything to do with all of that.

So why do I feel so much worse now than I did before I met her?

Eventually he stood, stretched his back, and slowly inched his way back to his room, his legs feeling like tree trunks and his stomach a vacuum. Absorbed in his sadness and self-pity, he never noticed the man following a block behind him.

xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx

"Harrington left London. We don't know where yet, but we're trying to find out," Arthur Weasley whispered anxiously to Kingsley Shacklebolt in a busy hall at the Ministry of Magic where both worked. Though an auror, Kingsley's known connections with Albus Dumbledore had placed him on the black list in Rufus Scrimgeour's administration, which removed him from his post with the muggle Prime Minister, and instead sentenced the auror mostly to routine desk work.

Kingsley glanced in both directions before responding, "I'll see what I can find out. It's hard now. Nobody wants to talk to me anymore. They treat me like I'm a virus."

"See what you can do, Kingsley," Arthur requested, "If Harrington finds Harry first, it could be a disaster. I'll see what I can dig up." The two men parted before their conversation would draw attention.

Arthur returned to his small office, where he handled more and more mundane matters. Clearly he had ended up on the same list as Shacklebolt, since Arthur also never hid his close relationship with Dumbledore. They needed a new source within the Ministry, someone close to the highest levels, or at least someone high up in the defense ministry where they could keep track of auror activity.

He crushed a sheet of parchment with his hand and threw it into the trash, frustration getting the better of him. Dumbledore's death hit everyone hard, but especially Arthur, upon whom the leadership of the Order of the Phoenix fell, by nearly unanimous consent. Yet he felt so inferior. How could anyone replace Albus Dumbledore? Even with the help of Minerva and Remus, Arthur felt that he could never succeed. He wished that he could resign, but that option did not exist. One way or the other, he was in charge.

And then he had Harry Potter to complicate matters further. For one thing, he loved the boy, almost as much as his own sons, and Molly and he suffered for his safety. They also knew that in some way, Harry would be the key to defeating He Who Must Not Be Named. Dumbledore made it clear to them in virtually all of their secret meetings, emphasizing that Harry must be protected, at least until he reached the age of majority, age 17. Only a week away, and now the Order had lost him.

Once again, he muttered to himself, "We have to find Harry before Harrington does." Unfortunately, he did not like the Order's chances.