Flashback to Severus Snape
"Alastor, you are really beginning to lose the plot, aren't you? We probably would not be facing this pathetic situation if it wasn't for your incompetence with keeping tabs on him. Now, tell me, what makes Potter so special he thinks he can just gallivant off round the world, whilst…" Snape sneered before being cut off harshly with a "SILENCE YOU GREASY HAIRED RAT!" from Moody. Everyone else, apart from Molly and Dumbledore clapped, even Professor McGonagall! Snape was just about to retort when his Dark Mark started burning intensely like he had burnt himself on a stove. He pointed to his arm, looked at Dumbledore who gave him a nod, then he left the house to apparate to where Voldemort was located. Voldemort obviously had something to say about Harry's unexpected disappearance.
After letting himself out of the front door, he turned on the spot at the doorstep, reappearing seconds later on a beaten countryside lane with bushes at least twice as tall as he was either sides of him. He jumped aside suddenly as a pair of headlights belonging to a car dazzled him and a car went past in the opposite direction to which he would be walking to the Riddle Manor. Once the car had disappeared, it was almost pitch black with only a partial moon visible in the sky, causing him to cast a Lumos spell to help light the path for himself.
Now he was away from the rest of the Order, he couldn't help but feel a slight bit peeved over the fact that he should have been working on his latest potion project right this moment. But of course, thanks to a certain someone showing his James Potter side, his already stretched schedule was being burdened further by a wild goose chase and the wrath of a Dark Lord. At least the rest of the Order don't have the Dark Lord to answer to on a whim. Come to think of it, about the running away, perhaps even James wouldn't have been so reckless, the younger Potter boy had sunken to a new low, lower than James, he must admit. What would Lily's reaction have been to this sheer tomfoolery?
He paused momentarily with a bitter taste in the back of his throat at the thought of Lily and remembered the dream he had last weekend where she was not only still alive, but himself was her true lover instead of James.
Shaking his head furiously, he continued his long walk towards the mansion Voldemort was located in, in wait of his arrival. It would not do for him to see his dreams of being with Lily, that would earn him ridicule from not only the Dark Lord himself (as well as possible torture), but ridicule he would never be able to live down for the rest of his forsaken life from his fellow Death Eaters. He momentarily shuddered at the thought of Lucius Malfoy's reaction to his admittedly childish fantasy of a dream or if Bellatrix ever somehow got wind of it, despite her sentence at Azkaban.
Before he knew it, the familiar sight of the gates of the driveway leading up to Malfoy Manor was facing him. The wrought iron of the gate featured elaborate snake patterns, of which spanned the length of the gates, seemingly preventing any attempt at the gates being opened. One of the snakes came to life, hissing at the sight of Snape's arrival at the gate. "Sssstate your businessssss". "It is I, Severus Snape, I have been summoned by none other than the Dark Lord himself", replied Snape curtly. "Enter", the iron wrought snake hissed, as it and the other snake slowly moved to allow the opening of the gate, an eerie creaking sound following. As soon as Snape was on the other side of the gates, the gates suddenly slammed shut, and the sound of creaking from the wrought iron snakes moving back into position could be heard. He then took a deep breath, then made his way, somewhat reluctantly up the driveway.
After what felt like an eternity, with his legs feeling like concrete weights as he walked, he reached the huge front doors, which opened unexpectedly as if they had been expecting his arrival. He entered the dark marble hallway in a valiant fashion and headed for the door to the right of the giant staircase, he didn't even have to touch that door either, it opened instantaneously for him.
The corridor was long and narrow, oak cladded with a smooth, shiny floor, and with various doors at either side, (which he was sorely tempted to explore what lied beyond each of those doors, but he thought better of it) and like the walk up to the front door, the walk up this corridor felt like an eternity. Snape could already hear the voice of his master and presumably those of the others in attendance the moment he stepped into the corridor. Eventually, he found himself at the end of this corridor and like the previous two doors that opened for him without his intervention, opened for him, albeit somewhat more slowly that the other two did for him. Snape took the deepest breath he possibly could before entering the room.
The room was long and rectangular, with a mirror at one end and a fireplace at the other, and the side walls lined with various dubious looking portraits. A large chandelier hung from the center of the room. At the fireplace end of the long, rectangle shaped table sat the Dark Lord himself and on his shoulder, (Snape could see from the missing finger on his paw), Wormtail in his rat animagus form. At one side of the table sat Lucius, Narcissa and to Snape's slight surprise, Draco. Also sat on the Malfoy's side was the werewolf Fenir Greyback, Macnair and Rabastan Lestrange. On the other side sat Yaxely, Nott, Alecto, Rowle and Rookwood, plus three others Snape didn't recognize, but he presumed to be new recruits to the Dark Lord's inner circle. Everyone, including the Dark Lord himself immediately ceased their seemingly heated discussion together at the sight of Snape's appearance in the doorway and those not facing the doorway turned to face him.
"Ah Severus, so glad you could join us, come and take a seat, we kept it warm for you", the Dark Lord called out in his bone chilling voice, gesturing to an empty seat between Narcissa Malfoy and Macnair and everyone laughed at Snape at the 'we kept it warm for you' remark. He took his seat promptly, and once the laughing died down, the Dark Lord ordered Wormtail to fetch Snape something to drink, Wormtail leapt off his shoulder, transforming back into his human form as he did so, and left the way Snape entered.
"Severus, I called upon you tonight, because something has been troubling me in the past hours. For you see, I no longer feel connected to Harry Potter, sometime in the morning, I felt like the inside of my mind had been slashed with a sword, now I no longer feel connected to the boy. Surely Severus, you have some sort of idea as to what the boy might have been up to for this to have happened?" Everyone in the room now had their eyes fixed on Snape. He took another long, deep breath, he needed to brace himself, the Dark Lord would be expecting a very satisfactory explanation and telling him that Harry had seemingly 'done a runner' as so to speak obviously wasn't going to cut it. But what other explanation could he provide if he didn't even know of Harry's motives for his disappearance in the first place? If only he had more time to piece together possible reasons as to why, maybe he would have been better prepared for an explanation to the Dark Lord that wouldn't result in his inevitable torture. That boat had sailed now though…
"My Lord, with all due respect, I have not the faintest idea as to why this 'disconnection' as you say occurred, Harry did not even turn up at Hogwarts this school year, he was last seen at King's Cross station, and his fellow students are to have reported to have not seen a trace of him on the Express to Hogwarts. Rest assured, Dumbledore intends to locate him and return him by all force necessary to Hogwarts, as do I, but most of the other Order members are surprisingly uncooperative in these search efforts. We have no lead on his whereabouts, or if he is even still in the UK, I wouldn't put it past him to flee the country, considering the people he met during last year's TriWizard tournament."
The Dark Lord barred his teeth angrily at Snape, "And pray, do tell Severus, is it beyond your intelligence to think to check for any trail left behind by any of his activities such as financial dealings with Gringotts?" "Believe me my Lord, if it was that easy, I would have attempted to do so, straight after Dumbledore alerted me to the boy's absence, but I would have encountered at least two stumbling blocks, the first being I am not particularly in favor with the goblins ever since I joined your side, funnily enough, the Malfoy's need not worry about the goblins despite their allegiance with you, they've practically got them in their pockets with their insubordinate amounts of wealth I could only dream of. Secondly, my usual methods of extracting information from people such as confundus charms and my truth potions in order to gain a lead on Harry would earn me an excruciating punishment no human on earth could match, not to mention that goblins are immune to most of said methods, how would I serve you then if I am forever trapped in a goblin's punishment?". As soon as Snape finished what he said, he immediately regretted it, as the Dark Lord raised his wand and Snape gritted his teeth, bracing himself for the inevitable torture.
"CRUCIO!" roared the Dark Lord, and although Snape was used to the torture from his master, on this occasion, it was pain beyond his worst nightmares. The Dark Lord, still holding up the spell to ensure that Snape would suffer as long as possible, he spat "And WHY did it not occur to you to at the very least more closely monitor the boy, or better yet, why were the so called 'wards' set up by Dumbledore not strengthened so that his escape from your lot is either impossible or at the very least makes him easy to trace to his precise whereabouts? He should at the very least have alerted someone the moment he made his escape with the Trace on him, not even requiring Dumbledore's intervention. But, it seems as though through your unexplainable sheer incompetency l, the boy has you outsmarted! Well and truly pathetic wouldn't we all agree?" he asked to the others, followed by a mixture of jeering and laughing, (except from Draco, who sat quietly, but looked rather green all of a sudden) whilst Snape continued to wither in agony, yet managed to stay silent, his tongue was bleeding profusely, as he was biting on his tongue to avoid giving the Dark Lord the satisfaction of his intense suffering.
The laughing and jeering, however, came to an abrupt stop when Draco said unexpectedly "I have some information". Hitting him around the head as he spoke, Lucius drawled smoothly, "Now Draco, what have I told you about speaking out of turn?" "Come now, Lucius, if the boy has some information, who are we to deprive him of the opportunity to speak?" admonished the Dark Lord softly.
All eyes were now on Draco, except for Snape, who was still in too much agony. "When we were at King's Cross, I noticed that Potter was acting completely out of character, he seemed extremely zoned out from mudblood Granger and the blood traitor Weasley. Unbeknownst to Potter, I have known for at least a year that he is in possession of an invisibility cloak and I saw him use it, and although he couldn't be seen be most people, I caught a glimpse of a part of his body not covered by the cloak, no doubt down to his hastiness to escape, and that meant I traced his movement to a train which was said to be departing for the city of Kingston Upon Hull. I didn't report this at the time, because, as far as I am aware, I am not at all personally responsible for Potter".
Lucius gave Draco a calculating look, but this was interrupted by the Dark Lord's sudden remark on the boy's information. "Well done my dear boy, I think a congratulations is in order, you bested someone much older and seemingly wiser than you", everyone apart from Snape clapped at Draco. "As for you Severus, how does it feel to be bested by a young boy?" The clapping turned to jeering and laughter. "Now we have got clarity on the trail of Potter, you have got ZERO excuse to mess up a second time, fail me again, and this torture will pale insignificantly in comparison to what I could really do to you! You are free to go." He hissed, releasing the Crucio and Snape slowly exited the room, then ran down the corridor, and didn't stop until he was well clear of the mansion and back on the roadside near his apparation point. At this point, he emptied the contents of his stomach into a nearby bush, the Crucio torture tonight had taken its toll.
Once he had arrived in Grimmauld Place again, before he opened the front door to number 13, he thought for a moment as to whether or not he should inform Dumbledore of the lead to Harry's possible whereabouts and who was the source of the information. He decided against it until at least tomorrow, he thought he would be better to give such information when he was in the right frame of mind after recovering from tonight's ordeal with the Dark Lord.
After entering the kitchen, Sirius was acting like a spoilt school child by ordering out people from the meeting he didn't think were worthy of staying. When Sirius yelled at him to leave as well, he thought better than to argue, he was in no mood whatsoever to do so, besides, it was Sirius's house after all, and despite what Dumbledore or anyone else might say, he had a right to choose his guests.
After returning to his quarters in the Hogwarts dungeons, he fell asleep almost the instant he was in bed, and found himself in a dream where Lily was alive and well and his lover, but then he face melted and was replaced with the Dark Lord's face, and he was subjected to another Crucio torture session, then he woke up, sweating and shivering violently, he didn't sleep for the rest of the night.
It was almost 5:30 in the morning and Snape, after a very long thought after his twisted dream about Lily, decided that he would not be telling Dumbledore any of the information he heard from Draco for the following reasons, firstly, how can you trust information from a teenager, despite how close he was to Draco, he still had certain reservations about him. If Harry had really gone to a random city like Hull, he doubted it was his father's arrogance showing all over again, he actually had a sudden epiphany that Harry might just want to start from the beginning in a new surroundings, but he needed to make it his mission to find out the exact reasons as to why he chose a questionable location. He wondered if only he had treated Harry with a bit more dignity, would it have influenced his decision to start afresh elsewhere. Secondly, if Sirius found out, his reckless behavior could see him unintentionally or otherwise expose himself in trying to reconnect with Harry in his new surroundings, and were he to be apprehended in a strange new place, Harry might have his competency in danger awareness questioned for supposedly running off with an alleged mass murderer to somewhere he has no streetwise sense about. As much as he found the boy arrogant, it would not do for him to lose his freedoms in a worse way than an Azkaban sentence.
He felt a longing sense of affection for the boy all of a sudden. If he needed to ask Dumbledore for sick leave, he would use it to find the boy, but Dumbledore was a notoriously difficult person to hide an operation in bringing the boy to safety on his own back, he was too much on the radar, so to speak. The preparation would be grueling.