Playing Dress-up ~Tomarry~

Chapter 30 ✅

"Where is he?" The dark man's voice growled down the long table that sat twelve out of the thirteen inner circle death eaters. "Theodorus, tell me everything you know!"

The elder-looking man sat forward in his seat, his head cowed under his lord's mere presence and anger. "My lord. I have asked Theodore to write to me on any news he gets on Potter, however, no one has said anything."

The dark lord's face wrinkled up into what looked to be a snarl, "Pathetic." He turned to his next victim. "Lucius!"

The blond man, usually quite proud and prepared, flinched and cowed. "My lord. I have come to believe that Potter's muggles may have gotten into some legal trouble. They have been arrested and put in prison."

The dark lord could feel himself getting ticked off. "I already know that! Unless you can give me any proper information then do shut up." The snake-faced man hissed.

Lucius gave an inaudible gulp but continued. "The muggles were charged and sentenced for child abuse."

At this the dark lord stopped pacing up and down the sides of the table, turning his full attention to the blond. An eyebrow raised. "Muggle social services then..." Tom was angry with himself, he knew something had happened the last time he and Harry had cuddled, he was hissing in pain every so often. It would explain so much, but then not enough either. "Fucking hell. Social services, Potter wouldn't have let them get to him unless it was that bad."

At this point, all of the death eaters were listening in on the conversation that their lord seemed to be having with himself. Quite curious as to how the dark lord knew of the Muggle care system or questioning what it was.

The dark lord turned to face the table with a determined look on his face. "Lucius, I want to know the name of each children's foster home, group homes. Potter is most likely to be there. Barty, Rodolphus, Rabastian. I want you to look through the care homes that Lucius finds in muggle London. It is most likely that he will have stayed in this area. The rest of you will wait until I have further orders for you."

The death eaters nodded, "I want to talk to Barty. The rest of you may go." The scuffling of the chairs along the stone floor was loud but soon enough it was all gone at the only people left in the room were Barty and the dark lord.

After minutes of tense silence, Barty opened his mouth only to close it again.. and open it, trying to find the right words. "Do you think h..."

"No. He's not dead." Tom had certainty in his voice, if only he was as confident in that statement as he sounded.

"Social Services. What are they?" Barty sounded generally confused and curious. It fuelled Tom with anger. Many of his followers didn't have the best childhoods - much like his, filled with abuse and walking on eggshells around their parents or caregivers.

"Social Services, are a muggle group. They take children away from parents or their guardians for many reasons like abuse, negligence, and generally mistreatment or failure to provide for their children. The children are placed in a group or foster care home where they will wait until someone adopts them. Many children over the age of seven are never taken and grow up in the system before they are forced out into the big, bad world all by themselves with little to no funds to support themselves."

Barty stayed silent for a couple of moments. "That's harsh, does it happen often?"

Tom didn't answer. Barty could dictate that answer for himself.

"I'll go, help the blond Barbie." Barty bowed and left closing the dark doors behind him. Tom was still staring off out the window and into the distance of the dark night.

——

Dumbledore looked at all the faces around him, they ranged from teachers to parents and recently past students that had left school. They were all here, sitting in Dumbledore's office concerned over one thing. Harry Potter.

Most of the people there were Order of the Phoenix members and they were there to discuss the matter of Harry Potter's missing status.

It had been only three days since the fifth year disappeared. Of course, Dumbledore and select members had known that he'd been missing a couple of weeks before the start of the school year but they weren't going to let anything go that was that sensitive.

The grim look that was placed over the old man's face spoke the worst of his fears and the more people talked about how he might have managed to go missing. He had heard that the Dursley's were being put on trial and apparently they had been sentenced, but for what reason, he did not know. The only thing he was sure of was that Harry Potter was missing and so was his chance of losing the war, and he had too many old plans that had taken years and years to form to let any of them go to waste.

"Welcome to this meeting, as I am sure you are aware of why we're here tonight, so I will just skip straight to the point. Does anyone have any information on where Harry Potter might be?"

No one answered.

"Well then, does anyone know anything about the trial? It is imperative that we find young Harry as quickly as possible?" Dumbledore tried to keep his tone hopeful and the sparkle in his eye. He needed to know anything so he could find the missing saviour before Tom caught on to where he might be.

"It was a closed trial. No one except the Jury, Judge and any other participants would know." It was a voice from someone towards the back. A muggleborn called Mary Timson.

Dumbledore knew he wasn't going to get anywhere other than the information that he already knew these meetings really were just a waste of time.

Snape, however, had plenty of good information on the progress that the old coot had made on tracking down the missing Potter boy. At least they would have some more time so they were not tripping over their own feet trying to find him.

~1085
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A/n- Who actually reads this? I just want to know. If you read it please comment something like 'Hi' or something.

Love you all
~SandefurdaSlytherin