Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore had plans. He had plans upon plans upon plans. His plans had plans. He hadn't gotten his not one, not two, but three important positions by not being able to plan or manipulate things to his advantage. He had always been a planner, worst case planner, best case planner, what if planner. He had also always been a fantastic chess player (master really), and everyone did say that life was just a giant chess board. He had taken these words to heart and had begun to implement them in earnest, learning how the chess pieces (people) surrounding his life moved (their strengths), how they could not move (their weaknesses), and what would kill them (their failures). Like with everything that he took part in, he quickly mastered the game and was able to run circles around everyone in it, except for Gellert and Tom but well, they weren't really part of the chess pieces were they? They too were chess masters, running their own games, but not as good as him, he had been able to persevere over them after all, his plans had come to fruition while theirs had failed. (He quite diligently decided to forget the fact that what had happened with Gellert was a stroke of luck and with Tom was a stroke of fate, he believed it to be because of his multilayered plans.) And all his plans had been running smoothly.

Until now.

As he sat in his huge cavernous office, with stacks upon stacks of parchments and leads scattered about his desk he wondered how he ended up here. He supposed it began a week ago in Surrey. His eyes closed in frustration as he recalled what he now recognised was his last normal predictable floo call with Arabella .

"Oh he's been helping his neighbour with some stuff, she's pregnant you know? And it truly is a terrible time for a woman to strain her body. Why I remember when-"

"Yes yes Arabella dear." He hurried her through her reminiscing, he had no wish to listen to her lament or recall or comment on pregnancies. He wondered about the new players which were the neighbours and whether he needed to intervene in it, but it seemed as if Harry was keeping busy with his regular chores just in a different location.

"So Harry is alright, there haven't been any…unsavoury characters around?" He had been keeping the fact that Sirius was innocent even from his trusted ex-Order of Phoenix, he didn't need people trying to help Sirius get in contact with Harry due to some misplaced guilt. He liked his pieces where they were right now.

"Oh no no. The poor child spends his day helping sort out that woman's house, truly I do not understand why they moved now? They should have waited until after the child had been born. It is so stressful for the mother did I tell you Albus-"

"Yes you did my dear, well as long as Harry is safe and keeping busy everything is alright." He stressed on the keeping busy part. He needed her to just know if Harry's home life was progressing as he had envisioned it to without any interruptions from Sirius or Remus or anyone else.

He hoped these new muggles wouldn't start to take too much notice of Harry's behaviour or relationship with his family. No, why would muggles be bothered about a 'troubled' child. Convincing himself that it would be fine he paid his platitudes to Arabella and had cut the floo connection.

He should have gone to check on Harry right then, or sent someone, or should have checked into those muggles sooner. That very evening he had gotten frantic calls and messages from Arabella saying that the bobbies were there and the muggle woman and Harry were missing. He had nearly cursed out loud and had apparated immediately to the vicinity.

All he had gotten out of his snooping was that the couple had been someone rich and Harry had been kidnapped along with the woman for money while he had been helping her do something in the house. His relatives on the other hand were heard saying that Harry had probably planned the whole thing, Merlin they were exhausting, he had nearly cursed them himself when they began spreading terrible falsehoods about such an earnest good boy.

This was a problem he had not envisioned. He cursed himself for his shortsightedness, he had envisioned problems in the magical world, kidnappings in the magical world, not in the muggle one. This was too much, too vast, too many unpredictables, he had no way to control the situations and predict a favourable outcome. He wondered how the wards had allowed someone unsavoury who meant to harm Harry close to him. But then again, the kidnappers didn't want to harm Harry, they wanted to harm the lady so they must have bypassed the wards.

At the start he had expected it would be just a matter of an advanced tracking spell or a blood based one if it proved too vague and Harry would be back safe and sound. He had a tiny tiny vial of Harry's blood from when he was a baby.

But that, that was before he had found out that the muggles weren't really muggles at all. They had hid their tracks really well, but once he had gained access to the property he had immediately recognised the magic in the house. That had made his mind blank completely for a while. Any ways to try to pinpoint the husband had failed, he had vanished completely into thin air, and the Dursleys had never even seen him, only Petunia and Dudley had seen the lady and even the image he had gotten from their memories didn't help him in any way. Neither did they're ardent belief that of course it was 'that boy's' fault and that he had 'kidnapped' that woman.

Who were they? Why did they do this? What did they hope to gain from it? Was Harry alive? He glanced at the instrument tracking Harry's lifeforce and saw that it was in perfect condition, the only assurance he had that Harry was alive and was not being tortured.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly as he went over the parchments he had gotten recently, hoping to maybe find some clue he had missed previously.

"Please my boy, be okay, the world needs you."

The silent prayer released into the air, carried the tension and worry of a world leader hoping to end the dark shadow looming over those he was responsible for.

The same boy for whose safety he was praying, was at that moment ensconced in a secluded wizarding village set in a time bubble, hidden behind slowly melting snow caps and huge pine trees. He was snuggled into a huge settee set in front of a window, covered with warm blankets, a content smile on his face as for the first time in his life he felt safe surrounded by family.