The Cupboard Series 3: Potter Haven

Chapter 21

"Auror Dawlish is here to see you, Sir."

Minister Fudge looked up from the report that he was trying to digest. It was a long, rambling thing outlining the outrageous steps that the American Ministry of Magic had taken to ensure that what the British called creatures – werewolves, centaurs, dwarves and the like – were given the same rights as the common witch or wizard. Buried amongst his intelligence officer's report were useful nuggets of information that he was sure that Delores could use to stop any similar inroads being made here. But it definitely made for incredibly dry reading.

"Send him right in, Melissa," Fudge smiled, pushing the report aside to a later time – like one evening when he was finding it hard to sleep.

John Dawlish strode into the room, barely acknowledging the Minister's secretary with a nod. The instant that the door was closed he took out his wand and, after the nod of agreement from the Minister, applied a number of silencing and privacy wards to the door.

"Welcome back to England," Cornelius began, indicating that the other man should take a seat across from his desk.

"Thank you, Minister. It's good to be home," Dawlish replied.

"I take it you have a report? Good. Any success?" Cornelius asked, the eager hope evident in his voice.

"I'm sorry, Minister, but no."

Fudge sank back in his chair. "Give me your report, then."

"Daniels, Higginson and I started our search in Mauritius," Dawlish began. "There's only a small magical population on the island and almost all of them are involved in running the Diricawl Preserve. They've got the area completely warded with only one way in and every magical has to register before they're allowed to even step foot in the Preserve.

"We asked them about Potter and even showed his photo but no one there had ever seen anyone like that entering the Preserve. We even managed to convince them to let us look at their log books. There were only nine magicals who entered the Preserve in the past six months and none of them were teenaged, let alone from Britain."

"Maybe Potter visited a different Preserve," Fudge suggested.

"We thought of that and asked them where else we could find some diricawls," Dawlish replied.

"Good. And?"

Dawlish shook his head. "According to them, there aren't any other Preserves anywhere in the world. In fact, as far as they knew, the only diricawls in existence are on Mauritius."

"Damn," Fudge swore. "So if Potter had been there, then he obviously used something like polyjuice to hide under. What about North America."

"Sorry, Minister, but that was a wash, too," Dawlish said. "We went to the United States but apparently there are dozens of places where jackalopes can be found, and most of them are in the wild. And apparently, they've spread to both Canada and down into Mexico as well."

"So assuming Potter's travelling abroad, we've got no idea where he is?" Fudge clarified.

Dawlish nodded. "I had Stevenson check the records for International Portkey Departures but he came up empty. We can only assume that Potter's travelling muggle-style."

"Well, it was a long shot," Fudge sighed. "All we had to go on was what young Draco saw from Potter's friends and what he told Lucius. Speaking of which, it'll be the holidays soon, make sure that you keep tabs on those friends of his."

"We'll check the tracking charms as they get off the train and renew them if we have to" Dawlish stated. "Don't worry, Minister, those kids aren't going anywhere without us knowing about it."