Disclaimer: JKRowling owns Harry potter.

I can't remember the last time I saw my son. I tell myself that there's a war on, that I have more important things to worry about than my wayward son, but I don't. It's almost all I can think about. The guilt of not knowing is practically eating me alive.

I promised myself right from the very moment Dumbledore announced Charlie the 'Boy-Who-Lived' that I would always treat my sons fairly, that I would never value one over the other. But it hasn't really worked out like that has it? Somewhere along the way I got sidetracked, I lost my way. I'm so far off the proverbial path I don't even know which way to go, I don't know where to look, I don't have any idea where he could be.

I started off okay, brilliant even. The twins weren't the best of friends, but they were close. I closed them off from the magical society but still taught them about magic. They both had muggle friends but the only person that they could talk to about magic that was their age was each other. I thought their relationship would last, stand the test of time, brothers in arms. I should've known better. Things don't always work out like that, look at me and petunia, we were once so close and now she loathes my very existence.

It's Hogwarts that made it worse I think. When they were being reintroduced back into the wizarding world everyone went crazy for Charlie, the 'Boy-Who-Lived'. Harry didn't want to go to Hogwarts. He wanted people to be his friend because they liked him, not because they liked his brother. I remember James throwing a fit of epic proportions. He refused straight away, he couldn't see the problem "you'll make your own friends Harry, it's alright that you didn't save the world, nobody blames you we love both just as much." I knew then that even though James wasn't trying to be mean, he sounded condescending, like Charlie was better. 'We don't blame you' as if there was something Harry failed at.

I understood though. I supported him when he showed James the acceptance letter from Durmstrang. I hadn't known he'd gone behind our backs. I know why he did it though, and maybe if I was in his situation I would have done the same. James had a hard enough time accepting that Harry didn't want to Hogwarts, never mind that he wanted to attend Durmstrang, well know for it's dark arts. I'm sure that if Harry had told James about his plans before getting an acceptance letter, James would have stopped him from writing any sort of letter at all. No body could could really accept his reasons except for me, and in the end it was me that managed to persuade a very reluctant James to allow Harry to attend. I'm glad I did.

James seems worried about Harry, but not worried enough. Not like a father should be I think. He should be tossing and turning in his sleep with worry just like I am. He should come home late from work tired and exhausted and not wanting to look at me for fear of my disappointment that he hasn't found any leads, or any useful ones at least. He should want to find Harry as badly as I do. I know it would be different if it was Charlie. If he even goes missing for a few hours James calls a huge search party involving at least five aurors and the majority of the order.

I can't help but feel a sliver of resentment worm it way in to my heart. It coils around me like a snake and squeezes. I feel angry, frustrated. I'm angry at my husband because he doesn't seem to try, he doesn't seem to want to remember he has two sons, he seems content with forgetting that I gave birth to twins, everyone does. Even me.

Everyone; James, Charlie, Dumbledore, even sensible logical Remus doesn't seem to bothered, "you know Harry Lilly, he's always been independent, he'll come back." Most of all though I'm angry at myself, how could I not notice, I'm his mother for Morgana's sake! I should know these things. I was supposed to protect him.

I realise I can't remember things about him anymore, what his voice sounds like or sometimes his face. It usually happens when I'm dreaming. There's James and Charlie and Remus and Sirius and then there's this figure standing nearby, always on the outside looking in. His face is always smudged, a blur of indistinguishable features. By the time I realise this is Harry he's usually disappeared and I wake up panicked and gasping. I rush to the mantel where his picture is held and just drink in his image. I clutch the photo to my chest, just to assure myself that he's real, that he exists.

I want to hold him in my arms like I did when he was a baby and then later on when he was a young boy. I would sit in the library on the huge cushioned window seat with him for hours on end, his head in my lap as I stroked his hair and read to him. It was always his favourite place in the house. He was always such a smart child, always wanting to know more.

Sometimes I go to his room and bury my face in his pillows. Even though the houselves have washed and changed them many times since he last slept in them, I like to imagine that his scent still clings to the sheets.

He'd be twenty now, not a little boy anymore, only just a bit younger than I was when he was conceived. He could be married I think suddenly. I was at that age, I'd even had my first anniversary. Charlie hasn't even had his first kiss yet. If he had, I would know. James likes to brag about 'his boy' I think with a slight bitterness. But Harry though, Harry is well past the stage of a first kiss I muse. I hadn't meant to snoop in his room but I'd been cleaning up and stumbled across it, a stash of playwizards, muggle condoms and the magical version of the karma sutra. The writing may have been in german but the moving pictures gave it away. My little boy grew up and I missed it.

Harry could have his own family by now and I linger on that thought wistfully. I want to know what happened to him, what he's doing, if he's okay. I always knew that Charlie wanted to be an auror. He likes being the hero too much, too jumped up on stories James used tell him as a child. He wants to be just like his father, and he is in most respects, just as arrogant as James was at his age, just as stubborn and prejudiced. Harry though, never said and I can't remember ever asking. This thought brings on another round of tears. I remember even strangers asking me when I was a child what I wanted to be when I grew up. How can I not have asked my son, not even once?

The growing tensions of war make me nervous that I'll never see him again. Sometimes when I'm in a particularly dark mood I entertain the idea that he might already be dead. It breaks my heart. The war at the moment is all guerrilla warfare. Kidnappings and raids, people can't deny that there's a silent war going on in wizarding Britain. It's only a matter of time before it becomes outright warfare with battles on the streets. It'll only take a spark, things are wound so tightly.

It's been like this for a while, ever since the triwizard tournament when Charlie was in his sixth year. It took a long while for people to accept the truth, when the violence in the newspapers became too hard to ignore. They went from slandering Charlie at every chance them could get to nodding their heads in respect as he passed. People don't want to state sides out loud. The people who do never speak again. The light side has the silent support of the population but nothing more. I want to think that they're cowards, but I remember wanting the same. After the twins were born I'd begged James to move country's, to get away from it all. He'd said no, so we'd stayed.

I tried to put up missing posters in the shops, the shop keepers were all happy to help until they learnt it had nothing to do with Charlie. They were still polite, wanting me to put in a good word for them to Charlie, but they wouldn't let me hang them up in the windows. They said they'd keep a look out for him, but I really doubt they will. It angers me that they only care about Charlie and not Harry, but really I've only got myself to blame. If I'd have cared about Harry as much as Charlie I wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

Would I?

This is a mulitichapter story. Updates will be every couple of days. Thanks for reading.