Nobody was quite sure when Harry Potter disappeared, let alone Harry Potter himself. It would have been hard to tell, anyway, even with prior warning as not many people saw Harry on a day-to-day basis. The Dursleys liked it that way, thank you very much – just one less reminder that anything less than normal existed in their little world.

Harry, who had never considered himself normal, but not that unusual either, wasn't quite sure when he disappeared either. It was something of a continuity break for him: one second, he was staring at his Uncle, waiting for a punishment; the next, the world was as black as the insides of his eyelids and he was falling.

Perhaps it took even longer for anyone to realize that Harry Potter was missing because the Dursleys didn't bother reporting it. He ran away, obviously, Vernon Dursley rationalized. Nobody needed to know he did it in that freak way. Only after Dudley returned to school – alone – that anyone else in the world realized that the little Potter boy was gone. And, after reporting it to the police, not many seemed to care.

Old Mrs Figg got ill one day, before the news was reported, and passed away in her sleep. Her body was shipped off to somewhere-odd in Scotland, where she had a small, quiet funeral. Nobody stood watch at Privet Drive on that slow week when the news broke: little seven-year-old Harry Potter was missing.

Nobody at all.

When Harry awoke, he was drifting through an ocean of power. Glowing tendrils of every color woven in incredible, oft-changing designs that he was sure would have given him a headache in some previous life. He opened his mouth to say something – what, he didn't know – and found that he didn't have a mouth. He blinked in surprise, only to find that he didn't have eyes. Or hands to run through his non-existent hair, or feet to shuffle nervously on the non-existent ground. He simply was.

It was all mildly confusing. He had the strange feeling that if he were anywhere else, he'd be scared out of his wits.

But you're not, came a sudden reply. Not in words, but in images to his mind, the sudden knowledge that this was what the other meant to communicate, but couldn't in the conventional manner. A vague feeling of comfort accompanied it, along with some form of laughter.

Harry panicked mildly. Where was he? Where was this? Where was his body?

And the answers came back in the same laughing nonverbal manner. You are nowhere and everywhere. Nothing exists here but patterns and the energy that makes them. You are a pattern, your body is no more.

But where am I? What is this place?

This... is Magic.

Who are you?

The answer was confusing. A mix of everything/Time/Fate/magic/Merlin and others that he couldn't quite decipher. But he did catch one...

Merlin?

A laugh – a human sounding laugh, not the ticklish giggle from before. A different voice replied, but in the same manner. Ah, I wondered if you would catch that.

Another laugh. Yes, I am that Merlin, came the answer to his unspoken question. Do you know why you are here?

A negative. Look around you, Merlin said. What do you see?

I don't know.

That, he replied, sounding annoyingly full of himself, is Magic.

That's magic?

No, not magic – Magic. What you see here defines what the wizards do out there. Do you see this spell? Suddenly, a red swirl floated before Harry's consciousness.

What is it?

That is a spell, Merlin replied. Incantation is 'stupefy' – reach out to it and tell me what it does.

Harry reached out and hovered his consciousness about the swirl. What he got was a confusing welter of images and sensations – a stick moving with a jabbing motion, a bead of red light moving along its length, a multitude of shouted Stupefy!s, the magic moving from the wand, through the air, until it reached its target, finding its mind and pressing down –

You saw it, didn't you? Merlin asked excitedly. You saw the spell, the intent, the results, yes? You saw them cast the spell, saw the intent, the effects. Did you see the victim loose consciousness?

It was incredible how much he could see from simply hovering near a spell. Such a wealth of information, and such a multitude of spells for him to learn about. What if he were to touch one, just one--?

No! shouted Merlin, but the image/thought that came across was more like halt/danger/warning/nononono--

Harry touched the spell, and the world went dark, and then light, and then –

And then Harry was elsewhere, curled about a small, circular, cramped area, a small, tubular area, sharing the space with a multitude of agitated, sparkling, red energy, and he knew –

There was a roar of noise, an indescribably pressure, and suddenly Harry was a part of the spell, forced from the wizard's wand, flying through the air. His vision was full of glittering red as it rearranged itself into the swirling, spectacular knot he had first seen...

And then they hit their target and he was in their mind. And he/they pressed down and the mind went Blink! and the spell went out –

And Merlin said dryly, Oh, you're back.

It had been the most exhilarating thing that Harry had ever felt, and at the same time, the most surreal experience ever. And it had happened so quickly...

Yes, yes, Merlin interrupted impatiently. I get the picture. You're very odd, you know, Harry Potter. You're not quite human anymore.

Not a human? What was he then?

You're a part of Magic, Merlin said. You're a pattern. And you just absorbed the Stupefy spell. I suppose that if you ever get back to your own body, you'll be immune. Look at yourself.

Harry looked about at Magic and then forced himself to focus inwardly, where he assumed he would be in the general flow. He gasped in wonder. He was a glowing white-hot curly-cue of energy, rather fixed in its composition, not morphing about as other threads around him were. At one end, he saw the familiar knot of the stupefy, made of the same white as the rest of him.

But what was he?

I suppose you're an Avatar, Merlin replied to his thought. It's an old form of magic, sometimes passed through family lines. Once in their life-time, a wizard can summon an avatar of some sort – an Avatar of Vengeance, an Aegis Avatar... Magic takes form to do the wizard's bidding if their cause is just. I believe you're an Avatar now, though whose I cannot say.

That was odd, Harry thought. To be alive, yet not alive. To exist only for another, another who he did not even know.

It's better not to dwell on it, Merlin added. Would you like to learn another spell? That blue one over there is used to fight boggarts. It's called Riddikulus. Why don't you see what you can sense from it?

After many spells, Harry finally found one that was not a piece of instantaneous magic. The Stupefy spell dissipated immediately after stunning the opponent. This particular piece of magic, a silencing ward with the incantation silencio, lasted as long as the caster had the will and the energy to sustain it.

Harry had seen flashes of the outside world with the help of the instantaneous spells, but they were only flashes, confusing visions of something that he never had time enough to understand. He was so curious about this world that was so much like, and yet unlike, the world he had left behind. He didn't particularly care about what had happened to the Dursleys or his classmates at primary. This adventure was new and exciting and infinitely more worthwhile.

Remembering Merlin's ceaseless warnings of hover-before-touching, Harry first absorbed all of the information he could from the spell before taking a breath and touching it.

Like all the times before, he was in a wand once more, surrounded by the round wood and the calm, red-violet energy. This time, he did not hear the incantation, but rather simply knew it – the caster must have incanted it mentally – and then the pressure came and he floated out with the rest of the spell.

Unlike the stupefy spell, which was a shaped, directed charge, the silencio spell was a ward and was meant to encompass a large area. Surrounded by energy, he felt himself stretching and stretching and...

And then it was still and he felt as though he were a giant cottonball. He was inside an office, a large, circular office, with portraits hanging from the walls outside of the spell. Within the spell were five people. An old man with long silver hair and spectacles sat behind the desk. Before him sat two women and two men: a tall greasy man with a hooked nose; a midget with large side-burns; a plump, jolly-looking woman with dirt under her fingernails and smudged across her cheek; and a stern-faced woman with a bun.

"Do we know where he is?" the midget asked in a squeaky voice. "You've said for years that you'd hidden him among the muggles, Headmaster – surely he's there now?"

The old man, the Headmaster, sighed, "I'm afraid, Filius, that something has gone wrong. He is no longer with his relatives."

The tall one leaned forward, dark eyes gleaming, and began, "Was it--"

The Headmaster interrupted him before he could finish. "No, Severus. As far as I could gather from the minds of the muggles, Harry simply disappeared."

Harry. They're talking about me, Harry realized with a start. But why?

"They will panic, you know," the one called Severus replied after a moment of silence. "As soon as the papers hear wind they'll be no end to it. The public will lose their faith in you, Headmaster, and Fudge–"

The others seemed to wince collectively.

"Fudge will have a field day," finished the jolly-looking woman morosely. "Oh dear."

The Headmaster sighed. "Our main priority," he began, "is to make sure that the Boy-Who-Lived is safe. It is too late to enroll him at Hogwarts, so we must do our utmost to ensure that he is not in danger."

He closed his eyes and leaned back slightly in his chair. Harry was struck by just how old the Headmaster really was.

"Professor McGonagal," he began. The stern lady sat up straighter in her chair, though such a thing seemed to be hard to do for one who was sitting so primly in the first place. "I know you have contacts with other magical schools. Inquire discreetly at Durmstang and Beauxbatons, as well as any other school you might know of."

The stern witch nodded, stood, and left the ward and presumably the room. Next the Headmaster turned to the plump witch. "Professor Sprout, you have many connections with old families and ministry workers. Please exploit these connections and learn what you will. I am still not sure that Cornelius has not secreted Harry away in some 'secure' location to mold him to his whims."

After she too left, the Headmaster turned to the short man, who he identified as "Professor Flitwick." He was instructed to ask among the various masters of magical trade to see if any of them had taken Harry as an apprentice.

And then there was only the greasy one left. The Headmaster looked him in the eye. "Professor Snape, you know I do not wish to call on this debt, but I need you to ask discreetly amongst your former colleagues to see if Harry has, perhaps, fallen into their hands."

Professor Snape, for his part, looked rather waxy and pale. He nodded stiffly before rising and leaving as well. The Headmaster had turned his attention back to his desk by this point, and Harry was almost positive that he had not seen the tall man's hands shaking as he left the room.

The Headmaster sighed and then canceled the spell with a wave of his hand.

Harry blinked – or rather, his consciousness blinked out of existence and reappeared within Magic. He looked around at the comforting swirls of energy and was confused.

Wards are wonderful ways of learning new information, Merlin piped up cheerfully. But they have the annoying habit of only allowing us to hear parts of the whole. Would you like to learn more about what you just learned?

An orange spell zoomed up in front of Harry's consciousness. Harry considered it, never having experienced an orange spell before.

This is a permanent spell, so you must leave before it fully takes hold. You'll know when, Merlin explained. It's a complicated spell, usually chanted onto an object and then applied. It is used by printers to quickly aggregate stories...

Harry touched the spell and was gone.

This time, he felt like a filter, almost, moving information through himself and onto the paper. Perhaps it was because he was attached to some form of a roller, and the paper below him was newsprint.

"The Boy-Who-Lived disappeared from the home of his muggle relationships approximately five years ago," reports senior ministry official Keegan Reeves. "His aunt and uncle believed that he had simply run away, and reported his disappearance to the muggle law enforcement. The muggles were unable to find him."

It took four years for the Wizarding World to become aware of the disappearance of their young hero. Four years of desperate waiting for Harry Potter to receive his Hogwarts acceptance letter and return to the Wizarding World. And then, suddenly, there was no Harry Potter.

How could a young celebrity like Harry disappear completely without anyone realizing it? This reporter isn't so sure that it was such a surprise. After some investigation, this reporter was able to discern that it was through the machinations of Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore that young Harry was even left with his muggle relations in the first place rather than a proper Wizarding family. Surely Dumbledore, who many herald as one of the greatest wizards of our age, would have checked up on Harry, and would have known within a short period of time that he was missing."

Harry pulled back and wished to return to Magic, to Merlin. He blinked and was there. He had a question that he desperately wanted answered.

Why did they call me the Boy-Who-Lived?

A dark wizard named Tom Riddle killed your parents using the Killing Curse, Merlin told him. A vivid, angry, green snarl of a spell floated up before them. Your parents both died, but your mother sacrificed herself and used a blood spell to save your life. When the Killing Curse hit you, it rebounded and vaporized its caster. You were left with a scar on your forehead, and Riddle was left without a body.

Harry considered this. It made much more sense, what with what he'd learned lately, than the story Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had told him about the car crash. There was one more thing that bothered him --

Five years?

Time flies differently when you're a spell, Merlin replied. In the meantime, why don't you try some of the pensieve spells? You can learn more about the past that way.