Chapter 3; The Horrors of Knickerbockers. (Among many a terrifying revelation which leads to Dawlish hating everyone.)
Once the freaks took the boy and left, Petunia and Vernon stared blankly at each other.
"This can not end well." Petunia finally muttered as she sighed and relaxed back into the couch. Vernon nodded his head in agreement.
"Look at the bright side Pet, at least it isn't us he'll be cross. Besides we won't see the boy until summer starts, right?" Petunia cheered up slightly.
"Yes, yes, that's true." She almost felt sorry for the freaks, almost. Viewing the broken door lock she cursed and gave her husband a look.
"The door was unlocked! Do you see what type of idiots these freaks are? I swear if that boy comes back and start busting down doors willy nilly I'm going to absolutely kill them!" Petunia huffed then stalked into the kitchen to angrily start dinner.
As soon as the group apparated into a side street in Diagon Alley, Dawlish released the full bodybind he threw at Harry. Sputtering indignantly the boy backed away from him, before finally kicking him in the shin.
"What the hell was that?" Harry shrieked. Dawlish ignored the little twerp as he hopped around clutching his throbbing leg. Not one to appreciate being brushed off Harry turned to the nearest man and repeated the abuse to this person and his question. At this point both Dawlish and senior Auror Wilson were in pain (the boy must have insanely strong calf muscles, because the pain he inflicted on the two grown men was of ridiculous proportions) and the rest of them were slowly edging away from the eleven year old, just in-case he went kick happy.
Harry was not enthused with this group of child-buyers. Pivoting on his heel he started to march away from them into the alley, but not before stomping rather harshly on Williamson's foot on the way past.
"He's getting away!" Dawlish yelled angrily at the others as the boy's head disappeared into the bustling crowd. The Aurors mumbled something along the lines of not wanting to be his next victim. Dawlish wanted to punch his own head in frustration.
"Imbeciles! I work with imbeciles!" He yanked his hair brutally as he howled in despair. People started giving them frightened and worried looks.
"Sir? You're...ah...you're scaring the civilians." Whittier tried to calm the man down. Dawlish instead started to scream as loud as he could, which was causing passerby's to start to panic. Settling down to chocked gasps Dawlish let go of his hair. His face settled into a determined mask.
"I'll start searching, he couldn't have gotten far. The rest of you split up and keep a look out for Potter. Bridgehall, yes you..do you see anyone else here with the name Bridgehall? Never mind, you go and alert the minister that Potter got away." Everyone seemed to agree with the plan except Bridgehall (the rest were just glad it wasn't them delivering the message).
Harry was currently in front of the Quidditch Supply Store standing a little ways off to the side of a large group of children and teens who's faces were pressed up against the glass. Glaring at their heads in disdain he decided that it would be for the best if he found out exactly where he was before he could find a way back to the Dursleys'.
"You there, pauper children." Harry declared them (for that was obviously what they were, because who else would wear clothes that look like they'd fit right in if they were currently in the 1900's?). A few of the younger ones glanced over at him to glare. One with sandy colored hair meandered closer.
"Name's Duncan, Duncan Inglebee, I'll have you know. I'm a beater on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, ain't no pauper." He looked not much older than Harry, so in turn he was not impressed.
"Right, I beat you are a beater." He leered causing Inglebee to bristle at the innuendo. "Besides, aren't you wearing knickerbockers?" Harry continued on. Inglebees' eyes narrowed, then he paused to look down at his pants, which were indeed knickerbockers. Coming up blank with insults to throw back, the boy took to glaring between Harry and his own pants. Harry rolled his eyes.
"Never mind that, s'not important. What is important is the question of where we are right now." When the boy (pauper) just stood there, Harry started to contemplate the pro's and con's of murdering him in plain daylight, and if he could get away with it.
"Well? You daft or something?" He finally snapped out. Perhaps it was a bad idea to insult a Ravenclaws' intelligence, too bad Harry didn't know (or didn't care).
"Of course not you little twerp! If you can't tell that you're in Diagon Alley then maybe you're the one who is in fact stupid." With that said the boy whipped around and stalked off. Harry muttered nasty things that may or may not have included the boys knickers riding up too high. Glancing around he noticed one of the cross-dressers from Privet Drive run by him without even looking at him.
"Guess it's time to keep moving." Harry wandered further down the street.
Severus Snape knew that today would turn out horrid. He just never would've guessed that Dumbledore and the Minister would be losing their shit over the boy wonder getting lost. And the frightened Auror standing in the corner wasn't helping them calm down, not at all.
"You should've known something like this would happen." He snarked out, unable to resist to take a jab at Dumbledore. Severus knew this child wasn't like James Potter, not at all, he was worse. And this was their savior? Pshaw, they were doomed. Truly they were.
Instead of taking credit for the demon spawn, Dumbledore does what he always does, place blame elsewhere and rounded on the Auror. "Why didn't anyone stop him? What if he gets abducted or even worse, killed!" Bridgehall looked ashen before a look of terror crossed his face.
"I'm pretty sure he can handle anything that comes his way...well until we find him o'course." He nodded to himself. Words eluded Snape for a moment before he reminded himself that this was an Auror speaking, then it all made perfect sense of how a fully grown man could decide that a mere child could look after themselves without trouble coming (And considering this particular child, it was bound to be heaps of trouble).
"It shouldn't matter if he can handle Death Eaters or otherwise, the point of the matter is that he is loose in Diagon Alley!" Dumbledore thundered at the man.
"What I'm concerned about is exactly how he escaped." Snape gave a pointed look to the others. The Minister and Headmaster stopped and chewed on that thought for a moment before looking expectantly at Bridgehall.
"Well...the thing is...uh, it's all Dawlishs' fault really! And um...he kicks really hard?" As he cowered under the stares, Bridgehall wondered why he even became an Auror in the first place (He actually wanted to work at Honeydukes when he graduated, but no, he chose to be terrorized by powerful wizards and witches daily).
"Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop?" Harry found himself questioning what kind of arse backwards place he was kidnapped to. Shrugging he decided to take a gander around and see if there was any less weird stores were around. There! Aha! Harry scurried across the street to an ice cream parlour, dodging people who were hurrying by. Making it to the counter in one piece he grabbed a seat and started reading all the flavors.
"You ready to order?" A kind looking oldish man asked him. And since he didn't look like he wanted to buy Harry or inturn sell him, Harry found himself smiling at the worker.
"Just about, do you have any chocolate?" The man laughed.
"Boy, you're at Florean Fortescue's! We have every flavor ever invented, and a few that haven't even been though of yet." He proclaimed. Harry chose to ignore questioning him about that last part and instead ordered a scoop.
"That'll be a three knuts." The man told him as he went to get the order. Shocked Harry could only stare blankly in front of him feelings of dread going down his spine. Of course there'd be no normal people around, of course he just had to stumble upon a society of perverts. He heatedly started spouting out words without even trying to stop himself.
"But I only have two! Should've known you'd want my nuts too. What's with you people? Buyers and sellers is what you all are. Buyers and sellers! I'll tell you one thing though, you'll never buy me! I'd rather--" Harry started in on a good rant but was stopped by ice cream being shoved into his mouth. The ice cream slave was backing away slowly.
"Never mind, never mind, it's on the house then. Enjoy...and please never come back here." With that said he made a hasty retreat into the backroom.
Grabbing the cup Harry scowled around the spoon stuck in his mouth and left the store. Spying a group of people walking into the strangest looking doors (Obviously the people were insane here, they made the doors look like actual fireplaces!) Harry hoped that maybe one of them lead to civilization. Remembering the look on the lead child retrievers face Harry chuckled to himself as he stepped into the green lights (Which also strangely looked like flames.) then he was suddenly being spun away. Harry definitely had a bad feeling about this.
Alton Wilson finally snapped after searching for four hours straight. There were seriously not that many places the kid could be hiding, well unless someone let him back into London, Wilson chose to completely ignore that scenario for the time being. Cursing up a storm he stopped as an idea struck him.
"Accio Harry Potter." He whispered, hoping to Merlin this would work. He felt the spell working before white lights sputtered out of his wand and it died out. Thus he continued cursing.
"What the hell?" Harry turned around quickly to see who grabbed his arm. But of course no one was there.
"Maybe I've finally lost it?" He questioned himself before shaking his head. "Nah, that's just what they want me to think." Glancing around the room he was flung into (By yet another fire place door) Harry was rather relieved that it looked almost like a normal living room. Seeing a window he rushed over.
"Yes! Now where am I now?" Flinging open the curtains he stopped and wanted to cry. More weird child-buyers were walking along the street. He was getting rather good at spotting their kind, well actually it wasn't very hard he had to admit, with their funny dresses and carrying of sticks.
"For the love of--" He then began to beat his head against the window.
"There's been an alert coming from Mad Eye Moodys' floo." The heavily bandaged head Auror Savage reported from her doorway. Amelia Bones didn't look up from the papers she was signing and beckoned him into the room. The bandaged head turned into a bandaged body as he carefully made his way across to stand infront of her desk. Finally at the last piece of parchment Director Boned put the stopper in the ink case and looked up, only to do a double take.
"What in Merlin's beard happened to you?" She knew Savage hadn't been on any dangerous missions lately. Savage himself was looking everywhere but at the Head of his department while fidgeting nervously.
"I sorta had an accident on the lift." He murmured out of the side of his mouth before peering suspiciously around her office and casting detection spells under his breath.
"Accident?" Oddly enough, Amelia got the cold feeling of dread going down her spine as she watched the Auror.
"Well I was just excited about actually meeting the Boy-Who-Lived...and Dawlish wasn't happy about me being happy because quite frankly I believe that Dawlish isn't Dawlish at all. The real Dawlish perished in a fire, doesn't matter when or where the fire was, and his body is now possessed by a demon who was biding it's time until unleashing it's wrath and fury all over us and destroying the Magical World as we know it!" As he rambled on Amelia could only watch in horrified fascination as the man carried out a tale that turned into the real Dawlish fighting to come back to reclaim his body and the demon and him fighting for control.
She quickly wrote a memo that was to be sent to wherever Moody was at this moment in time (Merlin knew the man moved frequently enough as it is). Folding it up she changed the color of the parchment red and sent the thing whizzing out of her office. Taking a look up she saw Savage was still spewing out this tale, except now he was starting to foam at the mouth as his non bandaged arm was flailing all over.
She sighed and put her head in her hands.
Dawlish just finished interrogating the latest person who had the misfortune of crossing his path. A large portion of the Aurors supposedly searching for Harry Potter decided instead to watch Dawlish as he frightened the people out school shopping. The scary part was watching as Dawlishs' face lit up with unholy glee as each person ran off scared out of their wits or crying (A lot of the times it was both at once).
Well they were watching until the Minister and Albus Dumbledore himself saddled up next to them and proceeded to also enjoy this fine sight. After watching for a short period of time the two unlikely allies herded the Aurors into a nearby side street.
"We have found him, so no need to fret any longer." Fudge said with relish. The men shoulders visibly sagged in relief. Albus started to comb his fingers through his beard in delight as he eye twinkled at the group.
"How'd you catch him?" Williamson volunteered to ask the first question after the silence began to get awkward and they all just stood there staring at each other.
"Oh ho! Quite the question there chap." Fudge winked at them and then started to play with the cuffs of his robes. Then he stared at them, and they stared back, and it got awkward again quickly.
"If it is indeed 'quite the question' then maybe you should answer it within the next year." Albus mumbled to himself as he replaced his fingers with his wand in his beard. Well he though he mumbled it to himself, when in reality it came out as more of a yelled whisper. Fudge went red as he started to sputter before regaining control of his body.
"Of course, of course. Well we all must have our secret ways, hmm?" This caused dubious looks to go around. Finally having enough just standing around doing nothing Albus sighed and yelled whispered at them again.
"He flooed straight into the Atrium not even half an hour ago" Straightening his body he spoke regularly. "Well I really must be going, you know lots of important things to get ready for the school year. Thank you again Minister, and please do not hesitate to ask for assistance in anything us at Hogwarts can help the Ministry with." Striding out of the side street he passed by Dawlish quickly and practically ran to the nearest floo on the street. Smiling at the group he cast a Sonorus and called out to Dawlish catching his and everybody else on the street's attention.
"Auror John Dawlish, distress no longer. It seems our missing boy has wandered his way into the Ministry building. We've taken the liberty of setting him up at your desk. So you are free to collect him. Also I'll be glad to see a fine upstanding citizen and Ministry employee as yourself volunteer to bodyguard said boy coming this school year. Any questions can be directed to the Minister who is currently trying to slip away into the crowd behind you." And with that the Headmaster quickly made his own getaway.
Dawlish flung around and hungrily searched for a lime green bowler hat. Once spotted, Dawlish began screaming at Fudge about nonsense words like 'vacation' and 'not dealing with snot nosed kids'.
"I hate that man." Fudge whimpered to himself after realizing Dumbledore wasn't coming back to rescue him.