Drarry One Shots

The Red Queen

A/N I swore I'd never do this but I am offering a completely different ending to JKR's canon after the events of year six at Hogwarts. I usually try to generally stick to canon events even if the players are different beneath the surface but not here. This story is once more chess-themed and about Harry being a survivor...

***

Five days before Harry Potter's seventeenth birthday, he went missing under the noses of Alastor Moody and Remus Lupin. Not the 'quiet stroll in a bid to escape the constant watch by the Order of the Phoenix' kind-of-missing or 'temporarily nipped down the shops' kind-of-missing. It was the 'vanished without a trace' kind-of-missing: the 'completely and utterly disappeared to no one knows where or how' kind-of-missing.

The Order were thrown into panic. Well, not at first. At first, they didn't realise because, in a replay of events, Moody and Remus had accompanied Harry to the park that morning because he needed to get out of the house for a while. They had talked in detail about Moody's plan for transferring Harry to the Weasleys via a safe house. It was a rather complex sort of plan and Harry was overtly unhappy about it, convinced they were putting too many lives at stake and that it would be simpler just to side-along Apparate him directly to The Burrow rather than all this faffing around with Polyjuice Potion and Portkeys.

But Moody was Moody and he was overtly paranoid and equally as determined. He'd taken over since the Order's beloved and benevolent leader had been killed by Snape and that meant no one had a say in his convoluted and dangerous plan, especially not the sixteen-year-old Chosen One, given he was still considered a child. Besides, the Polyjuice Potion had been brewed in preparation.

After attending the park playground for a while, they walked back to No 4 Privet Drive together and Moody and Remus watched Harry go into the house via the front door. They even saw him in his bedroom, moving about, sorting out his belongings and deciding the things he was going to take with him and what he was going to leave behind. He had told them that was what he planned to do with the rest of his day. When he was no longer in view, they assumed he was reading or getting his lunch or some such activity. It was a good six hours later when they heard Vernon Dursley hollering for Harry to cook the family their dinner. Remus pursed his lips; he had long suspected Harry lived in an abusive household and it was confirmed when they heard Vernon shout that he would whip Harry's arse raw if he didn't get down those stairs now.

Moody stormed in, shouting and generally scaring the living crap out of everyone with his scowling, and his swivelling magical eye, and his staff and wooden leg, both of which he stomped on the floor at regular intervals. Meanwhile, Remus sprinted up the stairs to find Harry's room empty. Utterly empty. It was as if he'd never existed. Not even a feather from Hedwig's back could be found. Alastor Moody assumed Harry had been kidnapped in a replay of the end of the Triwizard Tournament. He suspected that a Portkey had suddenly activated, though why all Harry's belongings had gone too was a mystery. Moody's magical eye immediately swivelled in the direction of the Dursleys. They were the primary suspects.

An emergency meeting was called at the Order's headquarters despite the risk that Snape might have divulged the location now he'd exposed where his true loyalties lay. However, when they all arrived at Grimmauld Place, it was to find no one could gain entry. The house had been locked up and the Wards had been changed. No one took ownership of the changes—there was more disarray. The meeting was eventually moved to The Burrow after muggles started to stare at the strange assortment of people in the middle of the square having a massive argument with each other. Especially when Moody and Arthur nearly came to physical blows—that could have been quite severe, especially as Remus was quite certain that Arthur always carried An Encyclopaedia of Mushrooms about his person.