Disclaimer: Negotiations are at a standstill and may pick up again soon if the laughter over my intents to own either Harry Potter of Transformers was anything to go by. I expect a call any day now, but until then I still own nothing.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was deeply troubled. A state that logically wouldn't be seen as anything out of the ordinary when one recalls the various positions and thus troubles he had to oversee and fix each day. However, none of his many political positions were the cause of this odd and deep worry. No, what was troubling his mind and causing him to stare out into the sky in his office at Hogwarts was the feeling that he had made a Grave Miscalculation in regards to his decision to leave Harry Potter isolated and alone in the muggle world. At first it was to make certain that the boy was kept away from the machinations and politics that those like the Malfoy family would have used to groom or slay the child.

Safety had been the first reason, but he had also saw opportunity with it as well. Just like muggleborns the boy would be clueless and could be in awe and wonder of the Magical World when the time came for him to be brought back into it. A normal child full of curiosity and wonder for magic, not jaded and dismissive of the potential such could have in changing his world. Also like many muggleborns Harry would have looked towards his teaching staff and himself to help guide and protect them from this new way of life, allowing him to put the boy on the right path to wishing to protect his new home and champion those who would.

Yet it had all gone wrong and he had not been aware of how wrong until it was too late to fix it.

Seven years of believing all was well in the house of Petunia Dursley and instead young Harry had been with an unknown influence that shaped him in such a way as to be the worst thing to be in the mind of the Headmaster. A cynical neutral did not play well into his hopes and ambitions for the child. A small part of him would have even preferred the child to have gone Dark, as at least then he could rally those of the Light to him to stop Harry from becoming the next Dark Lord. Instead he had the sort of child that would grow up wary and suspicious of him if he tried too hard to make him follow a set path, a child that would grow up into a man that would rather observe and not get involved in conflict unless it was of a personal nature.

And even that avenue of manipulation wasn't really all that prevalent to finding a common ground in which to entice the child to follow his lead, as the only child that the boy talked to on any sort of regular basis was young Mr. Longbottom. Whose grandmother would smell a set up a mile away if Albus had attempted anything in regards to her grandson. A double blow really considering the boy was content to prune flowers and repot bushes then sniff around the third floor corridor. Add the disaster that had been Ms. Granger's attempts to become friends with young Harry and it became even more of a dismal prospect that the boy would not be sociable enough to make his generation look to him for leadership when he was older.

There was also the worrying thoughts of the trial upon the third floor that Harry was still showing no interest in. If the boy did not learn about the stone and figure out who may be after it, the less likely the boy would be to protect it and thus see for himself that Voldermort was still alive and a threat to the world. Events that needed to occur else the boy not believe him later on when the prophecy needed to be given over and the implications of dying for the cause were given as well.

First though he needed to find out who it was that young Harry was living with and see just how much there was left to salvage from that guardian.

It was almost as if they had never left, then again the two humans that Swindle had adopted years before Red Alert had been fished out of a river were used to their precious fluff balls sporadic times of being anywhere near the shop. A favor for both sides since it meant the two Cybertronians never had to worry about suddenly needing to find a new home, though there already were plans for such in the making considering Swindle was about to have been around a wee bit too long to be normal for a mundane feline.

He figured this time next year Swindle would be moving them to another home.

A theory that was the reason he was perched on the head of a very oddly formed helmet of a suit of armor as Swindle seemed to be moving and consolidating everything of worth, that wouldn't be missed, into piles for transferring. Confusion warring with suspicion when the only answer he had gotten was along the lines of tour guide, tracking devices, and Wreckers mixed in with incomprehensible mumbling that had been positively fur rising in what it implied.

He was going to be left with a babysitter again, all while Swindle hid in some hidey hole because he made Ultra Magnus suspicious again.

A small part of his mind attempted to bring guilt into this, considering he was the one that Hot Rod had first found and thus brought attention to them at Hogwarts; it was easily pushed aside like he had learned to do from Swindle as he despaired. Despair until his mind hit the panic button when a very serious question entered his mind. All while he frantically tried to recall just who was in England right now that wouldn't turn Swindle over to Ultra Magnus the moment he came to drop him off. It was a very short list considering the bulk of the Decepticons were scattered over mainland Europe and Asia for the most part, and most of the Autobots tended to hang around the Colonies when they weren't roaming about to make certain no one got power hungry and tried to conquer the known world, or such. Red Alert never really did pay much attention to those lectures when someone tried to explain what it was the faction his morals and less aggressive attitude came from actually did in the grand scheme of things.

That worry only increasing more so when Swindle, finally satisfied with his squirrel before winter routine, said it was time to go. The trip to Heathrow airport had been mostly uneventful, after Red Alert attempted fleeing for his sanity and life a few times before Swindle finally lost amusement in his escape attempts and kept a paw on his back to keep him still on the bus. Though Red Alert was a bit sheepish when he found himself being deposited into the hands of one of the few humans that knew about them, while blue eyes of Bumblebee looked down at him in amusement from the shoulders of his human Sam Witwicky.

He would take the twitchy human and the overprotective autobot playing tourists in London any day. Especially as a better fate to be had, then possibly being trapped in the same room as Vortex again for any length of time.

Red Alert sometimes wondered, deep in his own mind, if Swindle actually acknowledged that half of his former teammates were psychotic and not the best sort of mechs to leave a sparkling with.

It had been an odd winter break for the staff and students that had remained within the stone walls of Hogwarts. As every person could attest to at one time or another seeing a glimpse of wild animals that were not native to the magical or mundane area. Animals that were easily identified, but yet none could accurately confirm such. The patterns and grouping sometimes seen of the eclectic group of animals would sometimes use was mind boggling and caused not a few to headaches due to logic breaches. The Weasley twins even going so far as to believe that they saw a group having a round table discussion out on the Quidditch pitch before scattering when they had stumbled on them.

If the magical humans had been a bit more suspicious and paranoid they would have notice that it wasn't just outside that the odd animals were roaming about. Something that would have caused no amount of alarm and heart palpitations amongst a few of them before jumping to some off the wall conclusion of the animals being Evil and Dark and infiltrating the school for nefarious reasons.

Of course infiltrating was one of the reasons, just not for any purpose other then observation and possible rescuing of young idiots that would tempt fate on the third floor corridor.

Springer also was hoping to catch some idiot human in the act of attempted theft.

Babble Hour:

Next time will be Interlude: Factions

Transformers and canon Humans named in this chapter:

Bumblebee: Bayverse personality/coloration. A scout and general recon sort. Loyal and easily likable, with a steadfast loyalty to Optimus Prime who can also turn a blind eye if something is being done that isn't too illegal if its for a good enough reason. In honor of petformers he's a ragamuffin cat.

Samuel J. Witwicky: One of the few humans that wasn't fooled by the glamour/camoflauge inherent of all Cybertronians and thus able to go 'wait, what?' when seeing metal and fleshed animals of odd colors roaming about. He's usually in the company of Bumblebee, though others have been known to be given a place to stay if they show up at the Witwicky home. He's currently 16 in this story.

Megatron: A mixture of his various incarnations and timelines for personality with Bayverse coloration. Leader of the Decepticons, arrogant, and a mite bit cruel in some things. Though lacking the need to conquer the known universe and destroy all organic life…at least to everyone's knowledge. He showed up last chapter but I stupidly forgot to mention him. Might be why I suffered such a large bout of writers block.