For disclaimer and author notes please see chapter 1.
Additional AN: As I map out the plot ahead, I sometimes need to go back and change something in an earlier chapter to fix the plot hole. So far, I've not had to do that to the chapters already uploaded, but there's no guarantee that'll remain so as I progress. Having said that, review comments noting plot holes are welcome and I thank you in advance.
1986-01-02 10:00 UTC, Flint "Manor"
Shortly after breakfast, Malfoy had had an urgent floo call from Flint. Apparently his son was missing, probably since some time the previous day. Malfoy decided to pay a visit to the Flints.
He didn't really care about the missing boy; Flint was, in Malfoy's mind anyway, just another minion, to be ordered around to do his bidding, and to be cannon-fodder if things ever came to such a pass. However, minions do not remain minions unless they feel the notional master will help them when they need it.
He had, accordingly, gone to Flint's place (though it was not a hovel, he would not dignify it by adding the word "Manor", despite Flint calling it so). He quickly determined that there was, again, only house-elf magic, and no other sign of any wizard magic, so the boy must have left on his own. Still, they called the Flint elf (they had only one), and questioned him, though nothing useful came of it.
Malfoy then attempted to convince Marius and his wife that their son may have gone out for something and forgotten to tell them, and he (Malfoy) was pretty sure the young lad would be home soon.
"What would you have done if Draco went missing for a whole day, Lucius", asked Flint.
"Well, Draco is a lot younger so that would be a concern. But if it happened, I would probably suspect the mudblood prisoner first; after all, my elves are loyal to me, and the wards would not allow anything else. The only hostile magic even remotely possible must, therefore, come from the mudblood prisoner. Accidental magic can do things that intentional magic cannot, even in someone as weak as a mudblood must be."
"Well that is indeed a thought. Could her accidental magic, because I wanted to play with her yesterday, have caused this?"
"At this distance? Impossible. Absurd, quite absurd, really. Even accidental magic has its limits, you know!"
Having long exhausted his stock of fake sympathy for a minion and the minion's family, Malfoy decided to use this topic as an excuse to leave the Flint house. "But if it will help you, let us go and interrogate the girl; maybe she will tell us something, or we find a magical trace of some kind". Yes, Flint would be with him too, but in your own home, you can get rid of visitors after some time and be free of these obligations.
And so they both came to Malfoy Manor, and went straight to the dungeons.
1986-01-02 11:30 UTC, Malfoy Manor
The girl was slumped in the same position they had left her yesterday, or at least so it seemed. Malfoy ran a scan, but did not detect anything more than was seen yesterday. No elf magic, nor wizard magic of any kind, had been used lately.
Meanwhile, Flint's concern for his son was slowly turning into anger against the weakest target in range. When Malfoy's scan told him there was no sign of anything, his disappointment at another dead-end caused him to lose control, and he decided to check for himself the truth of what Malfoy said.
Unfortunately, Flint being Flint, he only knew one way. "Crucio", he cried, shocking the girl from a fitful sleep straight to screaming. "You bitch, I know you did something - nothing else is remotely possible. What did you do?"
Flint did not know it, but he had blown the one chance he had of finding his son. The transfiguration was holding, but the imperio had worn off, and if he had but woken the "girl" up normally and asked, "she" would have told him the truth. But his temper (aided by his innate cruelty), was extracting a price from him.
Sadly, it was extracting a bigger price from his son. The poor "girl" was horrified, and was screaming herself raw, while trying to say something that her physical pain appeared to be preventing. After a minute or so, Flint stopped. The girl was retching from the pain, and desperately trying to say something but clearly unable to.
Flint didn't care. He seemed to be in the grip of some madness, and lifted his wand again. "Mudblood bitch", he roared. "Redu-"
"Expelliarmus", Malfoy was furious. "You forget your place, Flint! I have already told you I do not want the girl harmed in any way, yet I was willing to let you crucio her. I will not allow you to physically deform her!" Clearly, Malfoy had his priorities straight, the sick bastard.
"Dobby", called Malfoy. Hobby popped in and did his bowing and answering act. While doing that, he glanced sideways at the girl, and realised that, although the transfiguration was permanent (until cancelled anyway), the imperio appeared to have worn off. It was only the crucio that was preventing her from talking.
This was a very delicate situation. If Marcus recovered his throat enough to speak, he would reveal himself as Flint's son, and Hobby didn't want to lose this prisoner yet - they had not yet learned their lesson!
He quickly silenced the girl with elf-magic, while at the same time cleaning the girl's vomit from the floor. Malfoy would detect elf-magic, but could clearly see one instance of it and would not think there were two spells used.
"Dobby, has she given any trouble since yesterday?", asked Malfoy.
"She be giving no troubles master! She be sleeping or crying. She also be eating but very little, master".
Flint clearly wanted to rant some more, but kept his mouth shut. In the back of his mind he knew it was utterly impossible for this girl to have caused his son's disappearance in any way, but his temper was well-known.
Hobby stayed back until the two death-eaters had left, then reapplied the imperius to Marcus and left. He was not going to worry too much about this particular boy. He would not have even a first chance to do what he had done in his previous life.
1986-01-02 14:00 UTC, location unknown
Hobby jumped to Nick and Penny's house, and spent the next couple of hours learning a few important, "building-block" spells for both warding and monitoring, as well as a simple, one-way portkey creation spell.
Building-block spells were easy and fast to learn, and could be layered together with similar spells to make something more complex. The downside was that it took more time to create this structure than it would take if you knew a specific spell, but for warding and monitoring, Hobby could afford the time required; he did not anticipate needing to do them in a hurry.
At the end of the session, Nick told him to feel free to come back if he needed more help. Hobby was very grateful. He thanked the couple profusely, but he had a very important question to ask them.
"May I also come back once in a while even if I don't need anything? I didn't realise how lonely I would be when I chose to come back like this. I am pretty sure you two will be the only people in the world who will ever know who I am and what my history is; I do not intend even Harry, Hermione, and Sirius to know that. They will live their lives without knowing I was behind the scenes, without knowing I was Harry in my previous life. This will also protect them if my identity ever comes out (God forbid!), because they will be able to answer completely truthfully that they had no clue.
And I don't think this will change, ever. Well, unless Hermione manages to free all the elves and make the ministry accept them as equal I suppose", he smiled sadly.
Penny walked up to him, leaned down, and gave him a hug, nearly causing Hobby to start crying again. She said, "I was going to ask you to do that anyway Hobby. You said you do not know what the future holds for you? Well, once you have completed your mission, you are welcome to come and live with us. We could certainly use the company. The Chinese have a curse that is worded to sound like a blessing: may you live in interesting times. You are a unique individual who appears to have had more than his share of interesting times, and you're welcome to settle down with us for a more boring life if you wish!"
Hobby beamed at them tearfully - this was far, far, more than he had expected; he was being treated like a member of their family, a long-lost son perhaps! He thanked them again, and popped away. Suddenly, his second life was turning out much better than he had dared to hope. What a stroke of luck it was, thinking of these two to help him!
1986-01-09 06:00 UTC, Gringotts, London
Flint was desperate. It had now been eight days since his son had disappeared. Eight days during which the aurors were contacted, and failed to find him, warding and magical signature tracing specialists had been called in, and also failed, and even the underage magic detection net had been tuned to find one specific signature, and had also failed.
His last hope, and how he hated the thought, was to ask the goblins for help. They would definitely know if he was alive or dead, because of their role in inheritance management for the wizarding world. And so he found himself here today, at least superficially trying to be polite.
"I would like to discuss a matter of personal importance to me", he said to the goblin behind the counter, once he reached the head of the queue.
"What is this matter?", sneered the goblin.
"My son is missing. Has been missing for eight days, and I am not even sure if he is alive or dead."
The goblin gestured to another, and signed to Flint to follow him. Goblins were not known for being chatty anyway, and the usual meaningless pleasantries that humans engaged in, were considered not just meaningless but also a huge waste of time and test of patience.
Flint walked behind the goblin, following him into a small meeting room. He was then left there, presumably for someone else.
Sure enough, a short while later, another goblin, a bit older, a bit wealthier (or at least with a lot more "gleam" in his clothes) walked in and sat down. He pulled out and opened a register, and spent some seconds reading it.
"What do you want to know?", he asked.
"My son has been missing for eight days, and I am not even sure if he is alive or dead", said Flint in an uncharacteristically quiet voice.
"Unless the boy is actually dead and we have a will to execute, we have no interest in the matter."
"He does not have a will. Is there no way of finding out if he is alive or dead, well or in pain, or where he is?"
"We can tell you if he is alive or dead. We can also give you a life-stone that will grow dark if he is dead, so you will know immediately, but it will cost you. It can be worn as a ring so you have ready access to it at every moment. The other questions are beyond our ken".
"I will pay. How much?"
The goblin named some figure and Flint agreed. After deducting the amount from Flint's account, he opened the register again and peered at it more closely. He then said, "your boy is alive. That much we are sure of. However, he appears to be in great pain; some enemy of yours must have gotten hold of him. It would be wise of you to check all your enemies' strongholds for such prisoners. Meanwhile, here is the ring. As you can see, the stone is glowing; if it goes dark, the boy is dead."
Then, with a completely straight face, he added, "And do not forget that some 'friends' might not actually be. I understand your comrades were always competing with each other to be 'top', whether it was at school or in your meetings".
It seemed the goblins were not above sowing a bit of discord among wizards, because there really was no way of detecting pain in any way. And the crack about 'friends' was just that - a lucky shot that, knowing the death-eaters, did indeed have a slight ring of truth!
Meanwhile, Hobby had placed a monitoring charm on Flint's person, to warn him of his movements. Having detected that Flint was now in Gringotts, he waited till Flint left Gringotts, popped to him invisibly, then forcibly popped him to a wooded area somewhere near Hogwarts, though Flint was not to know that.
He made sure he was invisible, then spoke in an adult, wizard voice, "Do you realise that some 'pure blood' wizards and witches - the more pretty and handsome ones - consider your son, with his teeth the way they are, to be below their own children in purity?"
"WHAT? That's outrageous; we have been pure-blooded for more than 15 generations!"
"Nevertheless, that is what they believe. After all, once you go down the path of 'pure', why stop at blood? Bad teeth might indicate some other problem just as well as bad blood, and it is a lot more visible too!" Hobby was trying very very hard not to laugh at this completely impromptu crap he was spouting. I wish I could tell Hermione about this incident; she'd get a kick out of it! In all our years in the wizarding world, we never saw a single sign of there being someone equivalent to a dentist!
"Who are you and why are you telling me this?"
"My name is not relevant, but you may call me the Phantom. Just know that I too have friends with bad teeth, and I rail at this injustice". Here, Hobby had to pause and stifle laughter. For some reason he thought of Luna's father's ideas about the Rotfang Conspiracy!
"Now, you will not be able to find out where your son is, but if you tell me the names of all your so-called friends who have dungeons and keep them stocked with prisoners, I will soon fish him out for you".
"What guarantee do I have that you will do that?"
"None. You are right. I am sorry to have troubled you. I am sure you can apparate home. Goodbye", said Hobby.
"WAIT! I'll tell you their names. How do I find you again?"
"You never find the Phantom, he finds you. The names please..."
"Avery, Macnair, Nott, Rowle, and Yaxley".
I wonder why Flint did not name Malfoy. Oh well, all to the good. "Thank you. If your son is with one of them, I will find him", and he disappeared.