Chapter 43- For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The Census Library and Archive is a cluttered and rather nondescript office located deep within the Ministry of Magic. The witches and wizards employed there keep track of Britain's comparatively small magical population by maintaining records on wizarding births and deaths, witches and wizards immigrating into or out of Britain, and muggleborn children who have received and accepted invitations to study magic.

When a new member of wizarding society is made known to the Ministry of Magic a folder is created for them by the Census Librarians, and charmed to automatically update itself regarding matters of public record.

The file is started with a general information form which includes normal census data (name, address, legal guardian (if any) marital status, etc.) This form is typically completed and submitted with birth certificates, immigration papers, or muggleborns' letters of invitation/acceptance, and acts rather like a listing in a muggle telephone directory.

In early November 1981, the wizarding world as a collective whole was still reeling over the events of Halloween night.

While most magical folk were giddily celebrating their newfound freedom, select members of the Order of the Phoenix were in a mad scramble discussing wards, researching charms, and trying to decide how to best protect the tiny tousle-haired baby who was already being hailed as "The Boy Who Lived." They had to act, and act quickly.

While Harry Potter spent a few days under observation to make sure he hadn't suffered any lasting effects from his recent ordeal, his future had been decided. The Dark Lord had been driven from his body, and he seemed to be gone for good, but his followers were still on the loose and could pose a threat to the boy's safety.

By the time he'd been released with an astonishingly clean bill of health, a plan of action had been agreed upon, his guardians had been selected and an unprecedented amount of defensive magic had been put into place.

The Ministry ordered his records sealed, of course, for privacy and security reasons, but before the locking charm was cast, a lock of jet-black hair, bound by a strand of unicorn mane was slipped in. In so doing, Harry's file could be spelled to "watch" him, rather like an alarm system, and given a certain set of rules and parameters. If Harry was away from the main house for example, and his guardians did not know where he was, an alarm would sound, and a team of Aurors would be dispatched to find out what the matter was. If the Dursleys died, or the Blood Protection charm that Dumbledore cast was broken for any reason, then a more powerful fail-safe mechanism would be activated.

To their credit, the Ministry initially did a very good job of guarding Harry's file. The problem was how the charms themselves were set. Harry was a bright and curious child, and tended to "escape" at any given opportunity. More than once a squad of Aurors had apparated in, ready to leap to his defense, only to find the "victim" had merely wandered into the next-door neighbor's garden.

If they noticed Harry's reluctance to return to number four, or Petunia Dursley's tight-lipped glare when they arrived at her door, they chalked it up to simple exasperation. Judging by how often his folder rang, they imagined she fetched him back at least twice as often as they did.

Something had to be done, so a request had been submitted to have the charms modified. Unfortunately, unsealing Harry's folder or changing the magic on it required the permission of the minster himself, and the concurrence of the senior members of the Wizengamot, so help had not been quick in coming.

In desperation, a librarian had finally employed a stopgap measure. After Harry's folder had alerted twenty times in the past week alone, a silencing charm had been cast. The librarian responsible, had only intended to leave it until close of business, but had gotten busy and forgotten. By the time the charms specialist came to investigate the matter, there didn't seem to be a problem to fix. So while Harry lived on Privet Drive, his folder shrilled to no avail:

When his arm was broken.

When Dudley and his gang bullied and punched him.

When the Dursleys withheld food and locked him away, first in the cupboard, then in Dudley's second bedroom.

And when the Weasley brothers essentially "kidnapped" him the summer before his second year.

Nothing, however, had been severe enough, or had lasted long enough to fully activate the failsafe mechanism, and trigger the defensive spells designed to hide young Harry Potter should the unthinkable happen...

...until now.

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Saturday, July 22, 1995

(...Mr. Weasley, please tell everyone at the Burrow 'hi' for me. Professors, Mrs. Figg, Sirius, Remus have a good evening.)

Harry Potter scrawled his hasty farewell, threw his quill down in agitation, then stood and quite deliberately turned his back on the parchment on his desk. He couldn't deal with this. Not right now. He was confused and angry, and yes dammit, hurt! The need to distance himself-to just get away-was nearly overwhelming.

Feeling anxious he began to pace, trying to work off some nervous energy and corral his whirling thoughts. He hadn't been completely truthful to Sirius and the others just now. His impendent departure had just been a convenient excuse to cut the conversation short. Janet would be by soon, but he didn't have to dash out the door this split second.

Good thing, too, Harry thought ruefully, glimpsing himself in the mirror and wincing at his own soot-smeared and slightly wild-eyed appearance. He wasn't fit company for anyone at the moment, and it wasn't just because he needed to clean up. Janet might rethink the whole business and refuse to leave Kitty and Becky in his care if he met her in this state!

Yeah, and wouldn't that be ruddy brilliant, the teen thought with a resentful snort. Someone else in my life who thinks I'm useless and helpless and-

(Harry? HARRY!)

Sirius... Harry stopped his restless pacing and sighed when he spotted his godfather's last attempt to gain his attention on what was left of his stack of enchanted parchment. He lightly touched the letters on the page, then scanned the pieces scattered on the desk feeling strangely divided. On one hand he was angry, and his pride was still smarting from the whole row. Sirius' scolding comments, even written, hurt like no dressing-down from the Dursleys ever had...

(How did you get into this mess?)

(You should have contacted someone at once!)

(I thought you were smarter than this!)

On the other hand, he was feeling ashamed and a little afraid. Sirius' good opinion was important to him, he realized, as was Remus' and Mr. Weasley's and Professor Dumbledore's. Had he managed to alienate the lot of them just now? Harry looked up and blinked his stinging eyes rapidly, before squeezing them tightly shut. No! He would not disgrace himself by crying on top of everything else! He thought not seeing the pages might help, but it didn't work. He could still remember what they said.

(Does Big bloody Ben have to fall on that thick head of yours?)

(This is a dangerous time for you! You need to be protected!)

(EXACTLY WHO IS THE GUARDIAN HERE?!)

More than once in the last few moments, Harry had been profoundly grateful that he hadn't been having this conversation in person. He opened his eyes, and scowled at sheets of parchment that formed an out-of-order, one-sided transcript on his desk. If they had gone at it much longer, he probably would've written "Shove off!" or something equally witty. He didn't imagine that would have gone over very well.

(Where have you been?)

(What the hell are you doing at this time of night?!)

(Stop messing around and tell us where you are!)

Harry made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and wiped his hands down his face. Logically, he knew he shouldn't have cut them off the way he had, and furthermore, he reckoned he should probably pick up his quill, and apologize, but hang it all! It had been getting harder and harder to keep his responses civil. What about 'I am fine' was so hard to understand, anyway?

(This is a dangerous time for you!)

(You need to be protected!)

Shaking his head in annoyance, Harry leveled a glare at the parchment on the desk that should have incinerated it on the spot, before stalking into the bathroom to tidy up. Why were they all so upset anyway? Maybe he hadn't been able to follow Dumbledore's instructions to the letter, but he'd done the best he could, and he had kept his promise! Surely he should get a little credit for that! The way they were carrying on, anyone would think he'd been deliberately and willfully disobedient!

Without waiting for the water to warm, Harry caught a double-handful and splashed his face then shoved his head under the tap, and reached for the soap. What do they want from me anyway? he fumed indignantly. Hadn't he proven himself by now? If he could survive Voldemort, a Basilisk, Professor Snape's Potions Class, and a huge crowd of Dementors, why did they think he couldn't handle himself now?

Irritated all over again, Harry rinsed off and snatched a towel off the shelf. His first night back from Hogwarts was something he avoided thinking about if he could. He'd been such a wreck, it was difficult to remember anyway. Besides being mentally and physically exhausted, he'd been soaked, half sick, and suffering from a mild case of shock.

Harry sighed again as he discarded his sooty clothes and pulled on some fresh ones. He was out of the way...safely tucked away for the summer. Wasn't that what they wanted? Diagon Alley, Privet Drive, what did it matter? He'd stayed at the Leaky Cauldron summer before Third Year, when they'd thought a mad killer was after him! What was different now?

Coming to the Alley wasn't anything he'd planned, or an action he could explain. It had just seemed to be the right thing to do at the time. Things had just worked out. When Tom had given him the means to support himself, the situation had lost a lot of its urgency. Once the crisis was over it hadn't seemed worth mentioning. The Order surely had more important matters to deal with than pointless might-have-beens.

Besides which, once he'd had time to catch his breath, his recent abandonment had slapped him in the face again. It might be a childish stance to take, but Harry found he wasn't keen on announcing he'd been tossed aside like a bit of old rubbish, and wanted to keep this fact to himself as long as possible. He'd immediately be in the wrong, of course. He imagined Dumbledore and the others would shake their heads and tut disapprovingly, and say 'What did you do this time, Harry?'

And if the Daily Prophet caught wind of it...

Harry flopped on the bed with a shudder, as sensationalized headlines danced in his head. With his luck, they'd make the Dursleys sound like bloody heroes for having had "the courage to reclaim their lives" or some such rot. MUGGLE RELATIVES OF THE BOY WHO LIVED REVEAL ALL! Oooooh, yes. The Dursleys wouldn't hesitate to burn him in effigy, and the Prophet would be so busy counting their Galleons, they probably wouldn't be bothered with petty details, like, say, abandonment being illegal.

Rolling over onto his back, Harry stretched his arms and flexed his shoulders, trying to work out the knots of tension in his neck and upper back. Well, at least one good thing had come from this mess. The whole scenario was so completely incomprehensible, he was still having trouble getting his mind around it, but if Dumbledore was correct, at least he knew where his relatives were now.

Bloody hell! Harry thought weakly, as he rubbed his eyes, and mentally revised a few theories he had with regard to his family's whereabouts. As far as he knew, his aunt and uncle had never even considered visiting Australia, and now they were living there? That bit of information had seemed so wildly out of character, so patently absurd, it had left him...well, stunned, really. Moreover, it certainly didn't tally with what he'd learned upon opening the box from Mrs. Figg's house!

And what a merry mess that has been, Harry thought, tossing an amused glance at the innocent-looking container by the dresser. The box had proved to be a bigger challenge than one might expect. There was no rhyme or reason to the jumbled mess inside, and to further confuse matters, Mrs. Figg must have cast enlarging and lightening charms on it.

Harry grinned, recalling how he had stumbled onto that bit of information. It had been the first night he'd worked with the box, back when he'd reckoned he'd have it unpacked and sorted in an hour-two at most. He'd reached in with both arms, intending to scoop everything out at once, and had sunk himself waist-deep in the stupid thing. He'd been so intent on finding the bottom of the box, he hadn't noticed it sizing itself to accommodate him. He was lucky he hadn't toppled in completely.

Because of the charms, it was impossible to tell just by looking how much the box contained. The contents were scattered and varied and spanned ten years or more. He'd removed at least three times more than the box should have been able to hold, and there was still more to go! At this rate it was going to take the rest of the holiday just to decide what to keep, and what could be safely binned. He'd found legal records, photos, items from his muggle school, every Hogwarts letter that had ever been sent to Privet Drive, and loads of random rubbish: notes, lists, calendars, and such.

Oddly enough, it had been those pieces of scrap paper that had given him insight as to what the Dursleys had been planning, and where they might have gone. Harry snorted and rolled his eyes, visualizing all the notes and lists he'd unearthed. His aunt's obsessive planning had actually been useful for once.

One calendar, for example, showed that Aunt Petunia had originally had his entire holiday pretty well planned out. She'd typed up a schedule on the computer, methodically listing what needed to be done and when, and by whom. Dudley, of course, had not been required to do anything, but Harry had been expected to pitch in and assist with minor repairs, and packing and inventorying boxes. This information suggested that they'd originally intended to leave much closer to the end of summer.

Another paper that was particularly telling seemed to have been a brainstorming aid. From it, Harry learned that Uncle Vernon had been offered a new position at work-one that would require relocation. Aunt Petunia was fond of using comparison lists to sort through facts and make decisions. She and Vernon both must have taken this turn of events very seriously, because the page held several:

Accepting New Position vs. Retaining Current Position

Moving vs. Not Moving

Staying in Britain vs. Traveling Abroad

Dudley Staying at Smeltings vs. Dudley attending a Foreign School...

Harry had actually taken the time to read that one. His own name (shockingly) had been listed, along with Dudley's, as part of yet another list. Aunt Petunia had jotted down several ideas for both boys' care during school holidays should Vernon accept an assignment outside of Britain. He rolled his eyes and snorted recalling his aunt's notation: Have the boy contact those red-haired louts... then grew thoughtful once again, struggling with the inconsistency. They'd evidently spared him one or two small thoughts, at least in the early stages of their planning. What had changed?

Australia he hadn't seen coming. That had literally popped up out of nowhere. Harry frowned slightly as he tried to recall. There had been a list of cities they were considering, but if he wasn't mistaken, all the foreign locations had been situated on the Western half of the Mediterranean Sea. This actually made a certain amount of sense since his aunt and uncle had always fancied a vacation home in Majorca. Harry had assumed they'd moved to one of the places on the list, either in Britain or abroad, and had left it at that. They didn't seem to be anywhere near London, so he hadn't bothered verifying his theory.

The little gold clock on his night stand chimed, breaking his train of thought. Almost time to go, it read. Harry sat up and took a deep breath, then paused for a second, assessing his own mood. He felt a little better now. A little more centered at least. He could probably get through the evening without biting anyone's head off at any rate.

He made sure Hedwig's feeding dishes were full and the window was open, checked his appearance in the mirror, then turned back to the desk. Hesitantly he walked over to it, half expecting there to be another two or three scolding notes waiting for him, but there were none. Harry bit his lower lip when he saw this, unsure if it was a good sign or not. Sighing, he let his eyes slide over the pages again.

Professor Dumbledore: (Harry, we know you aren't in Australia with the Dursleys. Tell me where you are, and I'll have you brought to Hogwarts until all this can be sorted out.)

Mr. Weasley: (If you agree to stay in the house, you can come to the Burrow straightaway!)

And Professor Dumbledore again: (Perhaps you misunderstood, Harry. I am afraid this is not a request.)

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