Thursday morning Harry walked into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to find the whole department in an uproar. On Mary Lou's desk and the desks of her two helpers were piles of parchment and papers. Paper airplanes were circling her desk. Telephones were ringing. Mary Lou and her helpers had just arrived, and were looking in dismay at the mess.
"Help," Mary Lou told Harry. "It looks like these are all people who may have some idea where Cleo and Scorpius are." Harry just shook his head, he knew most of the people who had responded were just after the reward, but he was sure, there were a few who genuinely wanted to help find the pair.
Just then Cho Chang spotted Harry. She pointed to his office with an urgency that indicated that this may be the first thing he needed to attend to. "Contact Hermione, Mary Lou," Harry told his long suffering Administrative Assistant. "She may be able to help organize this mess. I need to speak with Cho."
Harry went into his office with Cho, closed the door and darkened the windows, checked for Rita Skeeter and made sure that the Muffalto spell was working on the door. He sat down at his desk, and Cho stood by the door across the desk from Harry.
"I am working tonight, starting in the evening and not leaving until tomorrow morning," Cho started. "Sometimes during the night I am going to be meeting with Willimena Van Lente."
"I would guess that I don't want to know any more about what will happen, Cho," Harry replied, holding up his hand to stop her speaking.
"I understand," Cho replied, nodding her agreement.
Harry and Cho left Harry's office, and Cho immediately left.
Hermione was staring at the piles of documents, a pile that seemed to grow with a new document every minute or two. Hermione finally conjured up a large open file. In front of the file she had a section that said, 'Everything except documents concerning the kidnapping.' About two dozen documents went into that section, almost all from overnight. She then set up sections for England and for outside of England, and then proceeded to further divide the file.
Harry shook his head at the amount of paperwork the DMLE generated as plenty of new documents, many not concerning the kidnapping, started to come in.
"I would expect that there are many Magi worldwide that want to collect the reward," Mary Lou observed. "How do we even begin to sort through this?"
Hermione looked at Harry, exasperation and frustration expressed in the way she glared at him. He motioned for her to come into his office, and again closed the door and darkened the windows.
"This cannot continue!" Hermione all but yelled. "You cannot keep Scorpius and Cleopatra hidden for another week!" Harry was glad there was a silencing charm on his office.
"Willimena Van Lente is going to be here meeting with Cho sometime tonight," Harry told Hermione. "She didn't say why, and I didn't ask, but I am assuming that a pair of our problems will not be at the ministry tomorrow morning."
"I will spend today trying to sort out this mess, then," Hermione replied. "I can make it clear that Scorpius is Rose's boyfriend, and I'm rather frantic to have him rescued. You come up with something."
The two longtime friends left Harry's office. By this time Arthur Weasley and Dennis Creevey were looking at the gradually expanding file.
"Dad, Dennis, I would suggest that you try and take care of the urgent matters that have nothing to do with the kidnapping," Harry announced. "Hermione and I have consulted, and she is going to spend today helping the Auror Department that is free to see what if anything we can find out from these leads. If the DMLE can spare any help it would be appreciated."
"I can get a little help from some of the other departments as well," Hermione volunteered. "I would guess that we could dismiss over ninety percent of these by just a quick read, but someone has to read each one."
"I have something I have to do right now," Harry told the group, "but I will be back within the hour."
Harry left for Grimmauld Place. The children were eating breakfast in the dining room, so Scorpius and Cleo were not in the lower level where they might be spotted. "Do you have the clothes you were wearing when you were abducted?" Harry wondered.
Scorpius and Cleo nodded.
"Please come back with those clothes on," Harry told the pair. A short time later they were back.
Scorpius was wearing a long sleeve dress shirt, light green in a shade that could have been reflective of Slytherin colors, with a tie that was obviously a Slytherin tie, silver and green, with small snake figures. He wore dark trousers and black dress loafers over Slytherin themed socks.
Cleo was wearing a white long sleeved dress, rather form fitting, with a full skirt. She wore what looked like ballet slippers over white socks.
Harry looked at the two. "Can you Apparate, Cleo?" He asked.
"Sure, where do you want me to go?" Cleo asked.
"Can you take Scorpius, side along?" Harry persisted.
"I don't think that will be a problem," Cleo confirmed. Harry sighed in relief. Cleo's Apparition was different from normal Apparition and was impossible to track, so no one could trace them back to where they had been hiding out for the past few days.
"I need you to escape tomorrow morning," Harry let the two know. "Thank you for changing your clothes. I wanted to know what you were wearing so I could see if we could do something to make people think that it was hard for you to escape. I want to have the sleeve on your clothes indicate that escaping from the handcuffs was difficult, at least."
"I think I can inflict burn marks on their arms and sleeves," Albus volunteered. "It will hurt, I am afraid, but it should be very realistic. I want to make it look like we had to burn through the handcuffs instead of unlocking them."
"You need to do something like that, Al," Scorpius replied.
"You ought to be filthy, looking real rough," Rose suggested.
"I know a place on the banks of The River Otter where we could roll in the mud, walk through brambles, and really tear up our clothes and skin," Cleo thought. "We are probably going to ruin these clothes, though."
"Figure it out," Harry told the four. "Where would you go if you could escape?"
"Grimmauld Place," Cleo replied. "In the garden area where there would be people out to see us?"
"Figure it out," Harry nodded, knowing they would spend the rest of the day planning.
Harry went back to the Ministry.
*
Ginny Potter appeared at the New Burrow with Minerva, having come through the magical Closet.
"Hello, Ginny, Minerva," Molly greeted the two with her usual hug.
"I need to go to The Daily Prophet, Mum," Ginny announced. "The Prophet is deluged with people with leads on the whereabouts of Scorpius and Cleo, or with questions. The editor has called for Cindy and I to both help."
"I will take care of Minerva," Molly replied.
"Bye mum," Minerva waved. "Grandmum and I will play and learn. I will play with the babies too. I'm a good helper."
Victoire was just walking into the kitchen, and she confirmed, "Minerva really is a good helper. She is helping to teach Maria."
*
"Kingsley is in conference room 'C,' Harry," Mary Lou announced as Harry walked back into the chaotic Auror Department. "You might want to poke your head into the room and greet him."
Harry went into the conference room. Kingsley Shacklebolt and two other Magi were reading messages that had come in on parchment, paper, and had been transcribed from Floo Calls and other means.
"I'm trying to deal with the international messages, Harry," Kingsley replied. "Most of them are junk, but official offers of help need to be handled with more delicacy."
"I will leave you to it, then," Harry replied, relieved that he wouldn't have to deal with those as well. "Al Van Lente and I talked briefly last night, so the International Aurors have been officially notified of the situation."
Harry went out to where Hermione was still trying to manage the file, trying to better sort out the messages that were still coming in.
"We are sending out Aurors or other DMLE officers out to investigate the more promising leads," Dennis told Harry, "but we have not found out anything even remotely promising."
Harry nodded. He was hoping that one of these leads might help them find out where the children were first taken, the dimly lit room, but doubted that these leads would help them.
*
Ginny and Cindy walked into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement just after lunch. "We need information for tomorrow's Daily Prophet," Cindy told Harry.
Harry brought the two over to where Hermione was still trying to sort out the leads that were continuing to come in. There were three lower level Magi from the Department reading the messages. About one in four was given to Hermione, who read it and passed it on. Several DMLE officers were further investigating some of the messages. Most of them, on further investigation, could be dismissed without further ado. Other messages were being passed on to Kingsley, mostly having to do with foreign connections. Several Magi from the International Aurors Association were assisting Kingsley.
Ginny and Cindy gathered a number of stories about what was going on. Before they left Harry and Kingsley announced, "Search operations will mostly cease at seven tonight, and start again at seven tomorrow. We are keeping a small staff on hand to follow up on any urgent leads."
Harry stayed until Cho showed up, and then left. He did not want to be at the Ministry when the two Magi who had kidnapped Cleo and Scorpius were taken to wherever they were going to be taken.
*
Albus examined the pair of handcuffs intently, eventually figuring out how to quickly open them, even without having his wand in his hand. He was able to teach Cleo as well. He then worked on a spell that would prevent anyone other than the wands owner from removing a wand from its wand pocket, and taught it to Cleo, Rose and Scorpius.
Albus then examined the material the handcuffs were made of. They were made of a rather common steel alloy. He wondered what it would take to burn through the alloy, and eventually asked one of the Elves to get him a small sample of the alloy from Potter, Weasley and Dursley. He used his wand as a torch, and burned through the alloy, noting as he did how much heat it generated.
Albus figured that if he had used his wand to burn through a handcuff attached to a person it would cause second or third degree burns, and catch the sleeves of both Scorpius's shirt and Cleo's dress on fire. It was nothing they could not recover from, with a minimum of scarring, but it would be very painful.
"I think we need to do this," Scorpius remarked when Albus showed him what he was doing. "We don't have to tell anyone what we did, but making it look like we burned the handcuffs off should confuse Jezebel."
"I can burn both of you, but then you need to put your arms right in water to keep the burns from getting worse," Albus explained. "Then you should be real rough looking."
"I would think the burns would make us look rather rough," Scorpius thought.
"There is a place on the bank of the Otter River, near the New Burrow, where we could wade into the river, and then climb out into some brambles that will tear our clothes," Cleo suggested. "I could Apparate Scorpius and me somewhere after that."
Albus found a map of the New Burrow property, and they planned where they would go to get dirty, burned, go through the brambles, and then Apparate somewhere. Then they asked Ginny where they should Apparate to.
"We want to Apparate to someplace where we are very visible," Scorpius suggested.
"Can you Apparate to the garden area behind Twelve Grimmauld Place?" Ginny wondered. "I know Harry has Muggle security cameras recording what goes on in the gardens behind the houses. I can ask Sue Shook to meet me there about eight, so she can accompany me to the Ministry and The Daily Prophet. I can also ask her to please have her camera with her. I will ask Cindy and Henry Hudson to meet us at eight as well.
"If you suddenly appear there I am sure there will be quite a fuss, with Elves and Magi appearing in the garden area trying to find out what is going on."
"That should work," Albus replied. "You need to get them to St. Mungo's As Soon As Possible. I am afraid that they will have very real, very painful burns."
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Ginny wondered, looking concerned.
"I don't know any other way to make their escape seem realistic enough to fool Jezebel," Albus replied.
"We need to do it this way, Aunt Ginny," Scorpius confirmed.
"From all I know, they are very bad people," Cleo added. "We need to make our escape realistic."
*
Late Wednesday night Narcissa and Draco tried to contact Lilith or someone on the island, to indicate that they were frantically searching for Scorpius and Cleopatra. Draco seemed to be able to send an owl to some mailbox and receive a rather prompt answer.
A wizard they did not know asked for a Floo call. Narcissa and Draco waited at the Floo, as the wizard stuck his head through the Floo, looking both terrified and mad. "We don't have them," he said. "Jezebel is furious, and we are all trying to find them as well."
"What about the two that kidnapped Scorpius and Cleo?" Narcissa asked the wizard.
The wizard shook his head, but refused to say any more, as he left.
2022