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Albus was faced with something of a conundrum. On the one hand, he needed to know what had caused Petunia to go to prison. On the other hand, he needed to find Harry Potter.
The two weren't mutually exclusive but finding Petunia wouldn't tell him what had happened to Harry. If the muggle government had taken Petunia to jail then it stood to reason that either Vernon had gone to jail too, or he was raising both Harry and Dudley somewhere. Even if the thought of Vernon pulling Harry out of school was even more baffling than the idea of Petunia doing it.
No, while he was curious about Petunia, it was Vernon he had to find.
Mercifully the first step to finding Vernon could give him some insight into what had happened with Petunia, after all surely the police would have a recent address on record along with her police report.
So he contacted Alastor. The man would be discreet and he had contacts in the muggle police department, as all Aurors and Hitwizards did.
After stressing the urgency of the situation Alastor agreed to put off yelling at Albus about losing Harry until after they had found the boy. It only took an hour and a half for Alastor to get the report and according to him most of that was spent printing the frankly massive report.
It wasn't anything good, that was to be sure.
It was only his great experience that saved Albus from swearing. Alastor read the report along with him using his special eye to see through the page and halfway through the man snorted. "You picked some real winners to raise The Boy Who Lived."
Albus nodded mechanically still shocked at the depravity that had gone on unnoticed in the house until a substitute teacher finally got someone to look in on them.
Finally, he finished the report, feeling rather sick.
"Well looks like you'll have to check in with child services, see where they sent the boy and if they even have records of it. Who knows who might have caught wind of things and used it to their advantage."
Albus swallowed thickly then jumped when Alastor slammed his hand on his desk, sending several scrolls rolling off of it. "Get a hold of yourself man! The boy needs you!"
Albus took a deep breath and nodded to himself, "You're right, of course."
He had no one in the child services department who would be discrete so he would have to visit himself.
The office, when he and Alastor arrived, was dark and it only took a tap of the wand to open the door. A more complex spell was aimed at the alarm by Alastor and Albus murmured his thanks.
It took longer than either Albus or Alastor would like to admit to navigate their filing system.
All members of the government were required to keep up to date on Muggle Studies courses offered at the Ministry. Still, it was different to navigate an unknown computer system than it was to spend one day at a computer lab learning how the mouse and keyboard worked and what the internet was. Alastor had more experience but that didn't mean he had enough experience.
"Those- those bastards!" The Prime Minister exclaimed staring at the screen.
All government buildings now had an extra feature built into their security systems that would activate and notify the Prime Minister's office if any magic was performed on the security system. He may have been called paranoid when he first insisted on it but it had been proven that a lot of magicals broke into a lot of government buildings. God knew how many liberties they took with the general populace.
They didn't send anyone out to confront the magicals, because any magical could take ten nonmagicals easily, even with guns, and any casualties that resulted would likely result in a magical war which wasn't what they wanted right now. Well, technically speaking it wasn't on the agenda at all though that didn't mean they weren't preparing for the possibility.
So instead the Prime Minister got to watch a video of the surveillance system as two unknown and rather eccentric individuals went through their computer system.
"Get me IT right damn now, I need to know exactly what they're doing!"
He had the unhappy feeling that this had to do with Harry Potter. The Future Boy had managed to catch some wizarding ailment on his first day in the magical world. Thus far their scans showed him as having no illness, magical or otherwise, whatsoever. However, he had to agree that if they'd made him go to the hospital wing for two months straight the boy was obviously ill.
Much as he didn't want to do so he was likely going to have to authorize him to go to the magical hospital for treatment.
It left a bad taste in his mouth.
While Harry was semi-used to being somewhat famous, or at least well known, hiding from the general public was a new experience for him.
They bundled him in a generic black Ford Escort wearing generic black robes with a blond wig covered by a generic pointy black hat. He also had makeup and contacts on to further hide his identity.
He was escorted by Jennifer and Terrance, both also in black robes, blond wigs, pointy black hats, makeup, and contacts, and Terrance was wearing fake glasses. They looked like nothing more than a blond, blue-eyed happy family. Except for visiting a hidden hospital.
It turned out that there was nothing wrong with him. Nothing at all.
After explaining the situation to the Healer several more Healers were brought in, including one he'd seen before.
Healer Tonks sighed in aggravation as she recast the spells she had already cast, and a few she hadn't, then said, "I already told the Headmaster, there's nothing wrong with Mr. Potter. No curses, no illnesses. He certainly went through a hard time in his early years, but he's fully recovered from that."
Jennifer frowned, "Then why is he testing him so often? He's been to the Hospital Wing every day for two months."
Healer Tonks sighed again, "He told me this in confidence, but since you're his parents I can tell you. Apparently, he's worried about his scar. Worried that it's infected him somehow. I'm an expert in Dark Magic Healing and while I can tell you that there's something there, I can also reassure you that it's completely contained, and with a simple ritual it can be removed."
Said ritual was scheduled for a week and a half from then on the night of the new moon and the 'family' went on their way.
Albus found himself enormously frustrated.
He'd eventually found the file for Dudley Dursley and found him to be living with his Aunt on a farm somewhere.
There was no record of Harry Potter's location.
"I told you," Alastor grunted, "Someone heard about what happened and took advantage of the fact that no one was watching him and snuck away into the night."
Albus hung his head in shame. He should have been watching but he'd been so caught up in the power of love that it hadn't even occurred to him to put safeguards in place.
It had just been so neat. Everything was tied up in a little bow. Lily had sacrificed herself generating a shield around Harry that was made of the power of love. Only the power of love would save him from Voldemort in the future. The power he knew not.
The problem was that Petunia didn't love him, he doubted that the wards had even lasted very long under her hateful assault.
Now someone had him.
Someone unknown.
Someone who had nefarious plans in place.
Someone the hat had tried to warn him about but that he'd misunderstood.
Perhaps now it was finally time to hear what the hat had to say.
With Alastor and Minerva at his side, his right and left-hand men, he questioned the hat.
"I only hear bits and pieces, you understand. But I heard enough to understand that whoever it is, they're serious."
"Get to the point," Minerva snapped, still angry after reading the files Alastor had gotten for them.
The hat sighed, "Some muggles have him. I think. They're trying to find a way to bring down the magical world."
"Muggles," Alastor scoffed.
The hat glared at him, "Muggles are, and always have been, a threat. They've already discovered much from him."
"How much?" Albus asked, feeling rather old.
"I don't know how to understand the things he saw as advancements, but he seemed to think that they'd advanced by several decades in a short time." With that, the hat went silent.
"You don't really think the muggles are a threat, Albus?"
Albus sighed, "They've already figured out where Hogwarts is, even if they can't see it. And now some other things are making sense."
"The Biggest Ravenclaw," Alastor mocked, "They were gathering information, using the boy."
"Well, what can we do? How can we stop them?" Minerva asked.
"We don't let the boy come back!" Alastor exclaimed. "That's what we do!"
"Harry Potter's vital to the fight against Voldemort," Albus argued. "No, what we've got to do is get him away from the muggles."