Chapter 9
"He's what?"
Buffy's voice was extremely calm—too calm, as far as Molly was concerned, and she looked at the girl suspiciously. So did Hermione and Ron.
"He's missing," Dumbledore repeated. "He was last seen—going to bed, isn't that right Molly?"
Molly nodded, still eyeing Buffy suspiciously.
Buffy glanced around, relaxing somewhat. "You had, what, at least 3 fully trained wizards here?"
"Yes…" Lupin said, not sure he understood where she was going.
"And four wizards in training."
She got several nods.
"And you really think he somehow got captured without alerting the entire house to it?" Buffy glanced around. "I guess wizard kids don't make it a habit to sneak out of the house? I mean, would this evil shopping cart guy—"
"Voldemort," Dumbledore murmured.
"—be brazen enough to try and kidnap him here without, like, killing everyone in the house? 'Cause in my experience, evil dudes don't care about collateral damage."
"Harry wouldn't sneak out," Ron protested.
Hermione, Lupin and Dumbledore all looked at him, and he realized what he had said.
"Er…that is, not without good reason."
The looks got more pointed.
"I mean—he, uh, he would've at least let me know!" Ron insisted. "Probably…"
"Not if he wanted to be alone," Buffy pointed out. "Does he have anywhere he would go?"
Everyone shook their heads.
"Okay, so he's possibly out for a walk? That makes more sense than he was captured," Buffy pointed out.
Ron suddenly turned and raced up the stairs without saying anything, to return a minute later and announce, "His Firebolt's gone."
Buffy blinked. "His—his what? Is he, like, the son of Zeus now? 'Cause that would be—"
"It's his broom," Dumbledore said, giving Buffy a slightly reproving look for her levity. Even if Harry has not been kidnapped, and when first hearing about his disappearance he had doubted even then that he had, in fact, been kidnapped, this was still a serious matter—he could still run into Death Eaters. Buffy should certainly know this.
"Oh…wait—y'all fly brooms?" Buffy asked, her eyes going wide. "That is so cool!"
Lupin exchanged glances with Molly and Arthur, all three clearly wondering how a girl this scattered had managed to save the world.
Giles cleared his throat, catching the looks passed among the wizards, and said quietly, "Buffy, perhaps we could get back to the issue…?"
Buffy glanced at him, then back at the wizards. "If nobody knows where he's gone, maybe you wizard type people should fly around and see if you can find him while Giles and I, I dunno, drive? Or something? No one has any ideas whatsoever about where he might have gone?"
Everyone looked at each other, shaking heads.
"No family in the area?"
"Only the Dursleys," Ron muttered. "He wouldn't go back to them."
Buffy rolled her eyes in agreement. "No other family? Gees, am I it? Wow…no other friends? What about this Sirius guy you were talking about when we walked in earlier? Would he go to him?"
There was a sudden silence. Buffy eyed the group studiously for a moment then said, quietly, "Oh."
Dumbledore nodded grimly. "Sirius died at the end of last year, fighting the Death Eaters."
Buffy winced. "Ouch. I put my foot in that one—I'm sorry guys. They were close?"
"Very," Dumbledore agreed.
Buffy nodded, thinking. "Could he be at his grave?"
"Doesn't have one," Ron mumbled.
Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Oh. Okay—anywhere else you can think of that's connected to Sirius?"
"Grimmauld Place," Hermione offered. "If—he can get in. I'm not sure how that works."
Dumbledore gave Hermione a swift look, then nodded. "I will go and see if he is there."
"I'm coming," Buffy said.
"You are not," Dumbledore said firmly.
Buffy stared at him, surprised. "Why not?"
"Grimmauld Place is a secret, I'm afraid, and not one that is revealed lightly," Dumbledore said seriously. "I apologize if you feel affronted, but it is currently too important that the number of people who know of it remain limited."
Buffy scrutinized Dumbledore for several seconds before she nodded. "Fair enough. You go see if he's there and we'll stay here and see if we can come up with any other ideas in case he's not there."
Dumbledore nodded and vanished with a soft pop and a whoosh of air filling up the space he left.
Buffy gave the spot the old wizard had just vacated a long, studying look before she turned to the rest of the occupants of the room. "Any other ideas of where he might have gone?"
--
--
Dumbledore appeared on the street in front of Number 12 Grimmauld Place with a soft whoosh of air and a quiet pop that only someone listening for it would hear. Someone, it turned out, was listening for it, and Harry turned to look at Dumbledore. Neither spoke nor moved for a moment, then Harry turned to stare at the house again, saying, "They sent you to fetch me back?"
"In a manner of speaking," Dumbledore agreed. "It's dangerous for you out here."
Harry shot him a scathing glance. "More dangerous than with the Weasleys?"
"Well, yes," Dumbledore said. "For one, the odds are better than you alone out here."
He joined in Harry standing in front of the house. "What drove you to seek this place out?"
"Like you don't know," Harry muttered.
"I don't," Dumbledore said mildly. "I have my speculations, but I'm not a mind reader Harry."
Harry made a sound that could have almost been a snort of disbelief, then was silent for a few moments before saying, "This is Sirius's house. How can you let it go to someone who doesn't even know about it? Know him? I thought you said he was the last of the Blacks."
"He is," Dumbledore replied quietly. "Sirius was the last of the Blacks. But you should know that family trees are tricky. The house has been passed on to Sirius' nearest relative."
"It's not Tonks?" Harry asked.
"Apparently not. The one who it has passed on to would be able to give orders to Kreacher, and she can't." He considered this for a moment, then amended it. "Well, she can, but he doesn't listen."
"Funny," Harry said dully.
"It thought so." Dumbledore rested a light hand on Harry's shoulder. "Harry, when we find the person, we will ask them if they would sell it to the Order. Hopefully they'll have no interest in it and agree."
"So who is it?" Harry asked.
"The granddaughter of Sirius' uncle. His daughter was a squib, and by all accounts so was the granddaughter, as she was never enlightened as to her heritage. The daughter felt ostracized by her family, for good reason, and left for America when she was 17. After that the trail is cold and we have as yet been unable to locate her. Until we do, Grimmauld Place will remain empty."
"Maybe it should stay empty," Harry murmured.
Dumbledore cast Harry a considering glance. "Perhaps it should. Now—are you ready to return to the Burrow? The Weasleys, Hermione, and your sister are extremely worried about you."
"My sister," Harry said softly. "Professor, is she really?"
"Remus believes her, as do I," Dumbledore pointed out.
"She's a Slayer," Harry said, "How can that be safe?"
"I expect she's not safe for demons," Dumbledore said with a half smile. "However, it's entirely possible that the Ministry of Magic got the wrong information about Slayers. After all, they had wrong information about you, didn't they?"
Harry reluctantly agreed. He still didn't like the idea of having a sister right after Sirius…well, if she had showed up a year or two earlier he probably would have been ecstatic. But now…it almost felt like he was replacing Sirius with her.
"She won't replace him, Harry," Dumbledore pointed out, having a good idea of what Harry was thinking. "However, look at it this way—the protection I invoked when having you live with your aunt works just as well with her as it does with your aunt."
Harry perked up. "Really?"
Dumbledore dipped his head in acknowledgement. "The only requirement is that you consider the home of your mother's blood to be your home, so yes I think she would count."
"Cool…"
--
--
"Er…he could've gone to the Leaky Cauldron?" Hermione offered. "Or Diagon Alley?"
"Hogwarts," Ron volunteered.
"Oh, don't be silly Ron," Hermione said. "That's miles from here."
"What's Hogwarts?" Buffy asked.
"Our school," Hermione replied.
"Oh." Buffy looked at Molly, Arthur, and Lupin. "You three have any ideas?"
They all shook their heads. Buffy nodded. "Great. Hermione, right? Where's this Cauldron place?"
"The Leaky Cauldron? It's in London."
"Which is?"
Hermione gave her a strange look. "The capital of England?"
Buffy sighed, rolling her eyes. "Despite all accounts, I did pass geography. I meant, where is it in relation to here."
"Oh. Um…" Hermione looked at the Weasleys to help her out on this one.
"It's not too far," Arthur said cautiously, unwilling to give her too much information.
Buffy gave everyone a level look and said, "You still don't trust me. That's fine. We'll work on that later. But my little brother's out there somewhere with evil wizards running amuck, and I'd rather them not find him, because then I'd have to fight them and we all know violence isn't the answer, right?"
Giles snorted softly.
"So can we at least momentarily get over the whole 'Buffy's evil' thing and figure out where Harry could be if he's not at Grimm's Palace?"
"Grimmauld Place," Hermione said, but very softly.
"That place."
"And if he is there?" Molly demanded. "Why don't we wait for Albus to come back before we start gallivanting off in search of other places he could be."
Buffy replied, "It's best to figure out several options before the first one fails." She considered that for a moment then added, "Otherwise you wind up in a potentially dangerous situation sometimes."
Lupin nodded. "She's right. So—if he's not at Grimmauld Place, we check the Leaky Cauldron, I suppose."
"Am I allowed there?" Buffy asked, only mildly sarcastically.
Lupin nodded. "I suppose, since technically you are a witch, even if you are a squib."
"Huh?"
"A—" Hermione started.
"Oh wait, I know that one. Sorry, three a.m.…yeah, that's me. Okay, so when Dumbledore gets back, if he doesn't have Harry we try out this Cauldron that needs some plumbing."
Hermione couldn't help a tiny smile.
"If he does have Harry, we get to royally chew him out about taking off like that with dark wizards on the loose. Sound like a plan?" Buffy asked brightly.
"No," Harry said grumpily as he walked in the door, followed by Dumbledore. "It doesn't."
"Harry!"
"Are you all right?"
"Why'd you take off, mate?"
"What on Earth were you thinking?"
By the time everyone had finished either demanding to know why he had vanished or asking if he was all right, five minutes had passed and Harry was still waiting for Buffy to jump in.
He directed a pointed look in her direction, asking, "Aren't you going to, what was it, royally chew me out?"
Buffy shrugged. "I'll leave that for the people who know you better. Mrs. Weasley seems like she would have some practice with six boys."
Harry nodded, not saying anything.
Buffy tilted her head, eyeing him. "Would you like me to chew your butt off? Because I've had my fair share of practice y'know."
"No, thanks," Harry said hastily. "I'll pass."
"That's what I thought." Buffy smiled tiredly. "Now, promise you won't go flying off again tonight and me'n Giles'll get out of your hair."
"I promise," Harry said.
Buffy nodded and glanced at Giles. "Ready?"
"Ready," he agreed. "Er—Mr. Dumbledore?"
"Hmm? Oh—of course. The portkey you used to get here should take you back," Dumbledore said.
Buffy nodded, she and Giles said her good-byes to everyone, and they portkeyed back to the hotel.
-
-
A/N: Thank you WhiteWolf 3--I'd completely not noticed.