Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, and Arthur A. Levine Books. Inuyasha is the property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakuken, and Viz Media. I am not them, and as such make no money from this venture.
Special thanks to Magician Girl Mirani, who's kicked me into gear.
It wasn't until the middle of the next week that anyone in the magical community raised the alarm that Harry Potter no longer lived at Number 4 Privet Drive. The Dursley's neighbors had been placated with the introduction of a rumor that one of the boy's father's relatives had stepped forward to claim him. It was implied that the tall, impeccably British man was strict and much more financially able to care for the troublesome child, despite his lack of wife. A less substantiated story circulated that, in apology for leaving the poor Dursleys with Harry for so long without support, the man had set up a trust for young Dudley to help pay the lad's way through school, provided he kept his grades up and stayed out of trouble.
Still, Arabella Figg was generally out of the loop on the Little Whinging rumor mill so, by the time she got around to asking where the lad had got off to, Harry had been in London for almost ten days. As fast as she could manage without attracting undue attention, she hurried home and locked the doors. Shuffling into her bedroom, the squib tugged the curtains closed after a nervous look around and fished a small hand mirror out from the bottom drawer of her dresser. Sinking into her rocking chair, she let out a shaky breath and murmured, "Alastor."
The mirror fogged and cleared again, showing not a reflection of her pale face but that of a dark and dirty corner with peeling paint and stained floorboards. A rough male voice muttered from somewhere behind it. "Who's that then?"
"It's Arabella," she replied, voice high and tight. "Alastor, one of my kittens has run away. The little black one with such pretty eyes." The emergency code felt heavy on her lips, "Will you please help me find it?"
There was a shuffling from the other side, then a gruff, "I'll be right there," and the connection cut.
ooo
Alastor Moody appeared soundlessly in the shielded apparation point on the edge of the neighborhood park. He stepped swiftly to the side, as much in case someone else wished to come through as precaution against a potential attack. Assuring himself that no such thing was incoming, he straightened the cuffs of his suit coat so as to not interfere with his wand holster and conjured an understatedly elegant cane. Contrary to popular wizarding belief, the grizzled and over-paranoid Auror - nicknamed Mad-Eye for the heavily charmed glass orb that replaced one he'd lost in a duel when he was much younger - was much better at blending in with Muggles than most of his colleagues gave him credit for. Giving a last check to the patch that currently concealed his magical eye and that the glamour over his peg leg was secure, Alastor set off down Magnolia Road towards Mrs. Figg's tidy little house.
To his quiet approval, Arabella didn't let him in until she'd confirmed his identity through a combination of the property wards Albus had set up, a foe glass, some discreet sniffs from her kneazle cross-breeds, and several coded questions through the door. To the gossip-mongers of Little Whinging, it appeared that the batty spinster in their midst was suddenly much more interesting than they'd previously thought. The housewives were divided over whether she simply had a smart-looking relative paying an unexpected visit or if she'd acquired a gentleman caller, but in the end it wouldn't matter. Paranoid as he was, there was no way any of the muggle residents of the cookie-cutter subdivision were able to spy on them once the door closed behind him.
She set them up with tea in her little study at the back of the house. There were no windows in the tiny room that was probably originally meant to be for storage or laundry, but that only meant it was the perfect place for meetings like this. Alastor paced off the perimeter, setting extra silencing charms and other wards while Arabella arranged the china service on the single table. When the tea was poured and Moody satisfied with the level of privacy, they settled themselves in the two high-back chairs and began to go over the rumors that Mrs. Figg had collected from the neighbors.
"I warned Albus for years," she murmured quietly into her cup when she was done, trying not to cry. "Every time I watched the poor boy for them I tried to get as much food into him as I could. It wasn't hard to see how skinny he was and the bruises they gave him under the ragged old clothes they made him wear, and now... Now he's finally run away."
"Might be a truth in those rumors, though," he comforted roughly. "I'll go have a chat with Petunia tomorrow after her husband's gone to work and we can see where to go from here."
He paused to let Arabella refill their tea before asking, "You haven't informed Dumbledore yet, have you?"
She shook her head. "If I only had rumors to give him, he'd tell me I'm worrying too much and that poor Harry is safe and they've just kept him inside the last few weeks or some such rot."
Moody nodded. "Best to have concrete facts first. The old boy can be surprisingly blind when he wants to be."
They finished the pot in silent contemplation after that and finally Mrs. Figg slipped off to bed. Moody followed shortly, taking time to clean the china they'd used and set up a few monitoring charms and extra wards before he forced himself into sleep. The matter of young Potter's disappearance would hold until morning, and he'd need a good night's rest if he was going to deal with the the boy's unpleasant aunt.
ooo
Petunia Dursley was by no means a stupid woman. She knew the moment she'd heard about Mrs. Figg's mysterious gentleman caller that they had finally heard about her nephew going missing and were coming to investigate. She was up early with nerves, packing a lunch for Vernon and sending Dudley off to play with his friends as soon as he was done with his breakfast. She set the letter her husband had been given on the table in the front hallway so she could hopefully just give it to whoever showed up and shoo them away before anyone got a good look at them.
Petunia was therefore mildly surprised to open her front door when the bell rang at ten sharp to find a well-dressed gentleman waiting patiently on her stoop. She had admittedly expected someone dressed in a horrid parody of decent clothing, as had happened whenever someone had stopped by during the summers to talk to Lily or their parents. She almost thought he was normal, but then he introduced himself and asked about her nephew and she was hard pressed not to grimace outright. Taking a discreet look around the neighborhood to see who was watching, she allowed him in with a fixed smile on her face and mechanically offered him tea. Best to at least look the part for that busybody across the street. When they had settled in the parlour with her third-best china and the tea she kept reserved for people she wasn't too fond of, she huffed impatiently and shot him a glare.
"Well? What do you want?"
The man watched calmly her with his single eye - and wasn't that just disturbing? It was probably too much to hope that he'd lost the other doing something worthwhile like regular folk - and waited until she was about to snap at him again before he replied. "Where is Harry Potter?"
"Gone," she declared triumphantly.
"Gone where?" he pressed, beginning to look irritated.
Good. They deserved to be the ones inconvenienced for a change. "I don't know and I don't care. The ungrateful brat ran away when we were in London for Dudley's birthday and we haven't seen him since. Good riddance, too."
"And the rumors about a relative of his taking him away from your tender care?"
Petunia sniffed disdainfully at the accusation. Standing stiffly, she retrieved the envelope from the hall and practically threw it across the low table. "That man told my Vernon to give this to whoever came looking for the boy."
The gentleman eyed the thick parchment warily and tugged on a pair of gloves from his pocket before he picked it up. When he turned it over to inspect the wax seal on the back, she practically hissed. "Don't open it here! Just take it and go. We don't want anything to do with your kind and the sooner you're gone with it the sooner we can forget what a pain these last four years have been."
He raised an eyebrow and stared her down for a moment, but gathered his cane and let her show him out with another false smile on her face. She forced herself not to slam the door after him, watching through the peephole until he turned off their front path and disappeared from her sight. Once she'd cleaned up their untouched tea - ungrateful lot, all of them - she allowed herself to collapse in the chair in Vernon's study with a tumbler of his brandy and a genuine smile. Finally, her family was free to have the normal life they craved.
ooo
Only partially due to Mrs. Dursley's asking and the rest attributed to his famous paranoia, Alastor declined to open the letter until he was safely back within his own home. He ran it through as many spell and poison detectors as he could think of before gently easing the wax seal from its place and slipping the heavy parchment out of the envelope. The handwriting was broad-stroked but elegant, and the whole thing was lightly perfumed with a sickly sweet smell he couldn't quite identify.
Albus Dumbledore,
I commend you on retrieving this missive from the Dursleys. Perhaps you are not as hopeless as I had been led to believe. However, Harry Potter is no longer any of your concern. The young boy you left to fend for himself has done just that. He is now a ward of the House of the West and will be provided for as an honoured child under the protection of the Inu no Taishō.
If you still find the need to contact him before he is scheduled to begin at your school, a letter can be sent to the offices of Savace, Otomi, and Parinata at the address provided below. Any attempts to contact the House of the West outside of official channels will be ignored.
Inu no Taishō
The Crescent Moon
Lord of the House of the West
Below this was a seal consisting of a hexagon of red ink with the image of a stylised five-petal flower removed from its center. At the very bottom of the page was an address for a building in one of the Muggle sections of Palermo, Italy. A quick consultation of an enchanted map revealed it to be fairly close to the southern entrance of the Viale del Mago, but the chances of Harry having been taken by a wizarding family were greatly reduced.
Meticulously, he duplicated the entire document by hand and filed his copy away. When he was done, Moody sighed heavily and refolded the letter. Gently heating the back of the wax on the envelope with his wand, the old Auror re-sealed the parchment inside before putting it in his pocket. Albus may be the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, but this information was invaluable. If the Headmaster refused to follow up on Potter's whereabouts or was rebuffed in the attempt, the he wouldn't be the only one with the means to try.
Changing his clothing back into the robes he was more commonly seen in and removing the glamours on his eye and leg, Alastor made his way outside his wards and apparated to the edge of Hogsmeade. Ignoring any curious bystanders, he ducked around the edge of town and began the long trek up the path towards the gates of Hogwarts.
ooo
Albus Dumbledore had been having a relatively standard Thursday afternoon before the house elf popped into his office to notify him of Moody's arrival. Sighing, he set aside his end-of-the-year paperwork and thanked the little elf. "Show him in, would you Liddy? Please bring up some tea for us as well."
The elf nodded and popped away, and soon Albus heard the distinctive thud-step of Alastor's peg leg on the stairs. Waving the door open with his wand, he nodded to the ex-Auror and offered him a seat. Moody waited until Liddy had delivered the tea and left again before pulling out his wand and casting several silencing and misdirection charms to deafen the portraits and prevent them from lip-reading. When he was finished, he conjured his own plush wingback and sank heavily into it.
The Headmaster watched in mild concern, but let him finish before he questioned it. "What's this about, Alastor?"
His friend sighed uncharacteristically and tossed a sealed envelope onto the desk. "We have a problem, Albus."
Dumbledore glanced down to see his name written in neat script on the front of the heavy parchment. Moody waved his hand dismissively between them as he explained. "I've already run that thing through as many checks as I can and it comes up clean except for that smell."
"What's the problem?" the older man asked as he flipped the envelope over to inspect the seal.
Moody leaned forward, agitation clear. "The problem is that Harry Potter is missing from Privet Drive and, beyond the fact that those Muggles lost him somewhere in London, that," he gestured to the letter impatiently, "is the only lead we have."
Blue eyes widening in alarm, Albus barely took note of the hexagon and flower pressed into the wax before he broke it open and extracted the single page within. Reading it twice over, he passed the missive to his guest and hastily opened a drawer in his desk. Withdrawing a small wooden box, he barely noticed Alastor watching him in favour of the letter as he opened the lid with a growing sense of dread. There, nestled in soft silk, was a silver-wrought canary lying ominously still. Replacing the box in his desk, the aged wizard closed his eyes and sighed.
"I'll put the word out, then. We'll need a full meeting of the Order as soon as possible. Hopefully tonight. Anything we can find about this Lord and that office will be invaluable."
"Where are we meeting?" Moody growled back. "Can't be sure Grimmauld is secure, what with Black in Azkaban."
Albus nodded. "Minerva's private chambers are both free of portraits and connected to the Floo. Perhaps the Weasleys would allow us to funnel people through the Burrow. I'll call Molly once Minerva's given her opinion. Liddy!"
The elf popped in beside his desk again and Dumbledore turned to her with a calm smile. "Please ask Professor McGonagall to come to my office, it's quite important."
Liddy nodded and disappeared again, leaving the two friends to sit in silence until the summoned Transfiguration professor swept in not five minutes later with a concerned look on her face.
ooo
Minerva McGonagall had been mildly exasperated when the Headmaster's elf popped in less than two weeks after the end of school staff meetings were finally over with. Really, she had plenty of her own paperwork to deal with and had been looking forward to a quiet evening with the latest journals and an excellent bottle of scotch she'd been given by her eldest nephew. When Liddy had said the meeting was important, the Scotswoman had scoffed a little in her head. Albus' ideas of important didn't always match up to the rest of the world's, but she had set aside her work and prepared to meet with him. An idea struck her and, before Liddy could disappear again, Minerva had asked if there was anyone else in the office. If this was another petty complaint of Severus'... well, he'd feel her claws for interrupting a perfectly peaceful afternoon.
The house elf's reply of "Master Auror Maddy-Eyes" however, confused and worried her. She span out theories in her head, each wilder than the last, as she swept through hallways and hidden passages towards her superior's office. The gargoyle sprang before she could give the password and she darted up the spiral staircase as quick as her dignity allowed. Stepping into the office, she found her questions stalled when Albus waved her towards one of the plush chairs and poured her a cup of tea. As soon as she was seated, Moody passed her a letter.
"Albus..!" she exclaimed when she'd read it through several times to ensure she wasn't simply imagining its contents.
The old wizard nodded solemnly. "Alastor interviewed the Dursleys just this morning. Would you allow us to use your quarters for an Order meeting tonight? We need to determine what's to be done as soon as we can, and Hogwarts is the safest place available on short notice."
"Of course!" she agreed, passing the letter back to him and standing. "I'll gather Severus and clean the place up a bit before everyone gets in. I assume you wish to use my fireplace?"
"It would be for the best," Dumbledore sighed, rising as well. "I believe Alastor would like to accompany you as well, to ensure security."
Nodding curtly, Minerva swept from the office briskly, confident that the retired Auror would follow at his own pace.
ooo
The meeting was all but a disaster, Sturgis grumbled as he waited in Minerva's parlour for the Floo to be free. Snape had taken the threat seriously, surprisingly enough, despite his usual rants on Potter and how the child was likely being spoiled rotten. However, he had subsequently ignored any attempts to figure out what had set him so on edge. His old schoolmate had swept right back out of the office, a copy of the letter crumpled in his hand, almost as soon as it'd been given to him. Sturgis had shared a commiserating glance with Remus but as the evening wore on he wasn't sure that Severus hadn't had the right idea escaping while he could.
The remaining Order members had talked long into the night, raiding not only the school library, but also Albus and Minerva's private ones for any mention of the mysterious Lord or his seal and titles. The closest they'd come was a brief aside in an obscure self-transfiguration text Professor McGonagall had found years before in a used bookshop somewhere in Hong Kong.
"The most skilled practitioners," it had said once they'd translated it from the original Chinese, "are contracted exclusively to the Dragon and Phoenix Thrones, though several have allied themselves to the Chrysanthemum line in recent times. Most notable of these is the House of the Crescent Moon, when they merged with the House of the West for political reasons at the end of the Han Dynasty."
"Old money," Elphias had muttered, packing his pipe with a little more force than necessary. "Older than most anything you'll find in England, to be sure."
"They'll be covered by the pureblood laws too," Arthur sighed. "And there's not much you can do to get around a declaration of protection under those."
"With good reason!" Emmeline exclaimed. "But they must have secured young Harry's approval somehow, or the contract wouldn't have taken."
"And that," Albus finished, "is what we must determine. Anything we can gain from the goblins or the Ministry about this agreement is vital. If the boy was coerced, which surely he must have been to leave the protection of his relatives, we should be able to break this alliance and return him to safety."
There had been a few skeptical looks around the table at that, but overall they were agreed. As the Headmaster bent to open the Floo's outgoing connection to the Hog's Head once Arthur had gone through so as not to wake his young children (and further upset Molly, who'd had to stay home to watch them), Sturgis saw a significant glance pass between Remus and Minerva. Moody's behavior as he stood to leave - clapping the werewolf on the shoulder - was suspicious as well. He could have sworn the ex-Auror had slipped a note to the younger Gryffindor on the way by. Rubbing his tired eyes, the blond put it out of his mind. Even in a group such as theirs, subplots were de rigueur and nothing to be concerned about. Finally his turn was up and Sturgis slipped into the Floo network, grateful that he'd be able to salvage at least a few hours of sleep before he was needed at work the next morning.
