Chapter 3: Seeing Things

As soon as the tug of the portkey disappeared from behind Harry's navel, his hand immediately snapped to his pocket where he had his wand before he looked around to determine where he had landed.

"Welcome to Milan," came a voice from behind him, "Can I have your documentation and baggage please?"

Harry lowered his hand as he turned around to look at the burly silver robed man who had spoken.

"Hello," he instinctively blurted out, surveying his surroundings. He was in a small wooden room with a fireplace and no windows. The single door out of the place had a padlock on it. The man who had spoken was standing behind a desk, waiting for his response. A large tapestry bearing the coat of arms of the Polizia di Stato di Magia hung on the wall behind him.

The man frowned, "Do hurry up young man."

Harry nodded, wondering how he was going to get out of this situation, when he looked down at his hand. The broken quill that Scamander had given him was no longer there.

Instead, he was holding a leather booklet.

The man had waited enough. He leant over, picked the booklet out of Harry's hands and started looking over it, stamping several pages and asking questions as he did so.

"First trip to Italy Mr. Buckbeaks?"

"Yes."

"Do you have any baggage?"

"I do actually," Harry said, unshrinking his trunk and handing it to the customs officer, who did not open it, instead pulling out something looking like a golden ticket dispenser and running it over the trunk.

The dispenser gave a shrill 'choo choo' and let out a puff of putrid green smoke, which apparently satisfied the officer.

"What is your purpose for this trip?"

"I'm here for an internship job. I'll be doing some sightseeing too if time allows."

"And where will you be staying?" he finally asked, shrinking Harry's trunk and handing it back with the booklet.

"I don't really know right now. Probably a hotel. I want to see the sights here before I leave," Harry honestly answered.

"Thank you for your cooperation," the man said as he waved a wand to unlock the padlock on the door. "Have a good stay."

Harry thanked the man, exchanged some galleons for some Italian Gulden before quickly heading out of the room and into the street outside.

The street was lined on both sides by buildings, shops and restaurants with outdoor tables. Above the buildings, the sky was turning a bright red and the sun was starting to set. Harry frowned. Scamander had said that he would make arrangements for his stay, but he hadn't given him any clue about how.

Just that second, the Communication Mirror in Harry's pocket started heating up painfully. Wincing, Harry dug into his pocket, pulling out the mirror to look at it. As soon as his fingers touched it, the mirror's temperature fell back to normal.

Seeing Scamander's face in it, Harry quickly ducked into a nearby alleyway to get away from the muggles on the street and asked, "You forgot to tell me anything about my lodgings Mr. Scamander."

"I know," the elderly man sheepishly said, "That is why I called. Night is falling, so if you can get to a couple of kilometers south-west from the Customs office you are in then you'll find the holiday villa of a British friend of mine. He is there in Italy for vacation right now, and if you mention my name he'll let you stay in his house tonight. Just be careful going in. He is obsessed with booby-trapping his property."

Harry nodded, "Alright then. Do you have a specific address?"

Scamander nodded, "Give me a second."

Scamander quickly called out the address to Harry, who noted it down and put the Mirror back into his pocket before pulling out one of the Allspeak potions he had brought and chugging it down.

He had no wish to be stuck in a foreign country with no idea about the language.

Suddenly, he felt a wall of dizziness slam into him, making him reach for the nearby wall for support. When he finally regained his balance and looked up, his mouth fell open. All the shop signs, which had previously been in Italian, now appeared English to him. The hubbub of previously incomprehensible chitter chatter that was coming from the passing people now made sense to his ears.

Walking out into the street, Harry started heading vaguely northwards, wondrously noting how the passing people seemed to be speaking in Italian and their mouths moved as if they were, yet it all sounded English to him.

The street he was in soon ended as it met a road, where Harry decided to call for a cabbie. A minute later, a bright yellow taxicab pulled over, and a minute of haggling over the fare later, he was off heading towards the Navigli District.

Soon, the architecture outside changed from a vaguely uniform coloured and sized buildings and gave way to houses of bright red and yellow with sloping tiled roofs. The streets became less crowded, and grocery stores and souvenir shops replaced the restaurants and cafes. The attire of the people roaming the streets changed too, turning less formal.

Harry watched all that and more with fascinated eyes, taking in all the differences and similarities that this place had with UK.

Fifteen minutes later, he got out of the cab in front of a derelict looking house. The roof looked half caved in, the walls were filled with overgrowth, and the iron gate rusted. A half broken wooden sign was nailed into the wall near the gate with the words 'Shiba Villa' written on it.

"Are you sure this is the place you were looking for?" the cabbie asked.

"This is the address that I was given," Harry replied hesitantly.

The cabbie shrugged. "Suit yourself then," he said, before driving away.

Harry stood there for a minute, wondering what to do, before he decided to screw it and stepped forward to push the iron gate open.

As soon as his hands touched the cold iron, the house in front of him transformed.

Gone was the derelict looking house, instead having been replaced with a quaint two storied villa with a garden in front of it. The most peculiar thing about the entire house was the life-sized statue of a dog that stood right in between the path leading up to the front door.

'The rundown house was an illusion to keep muggles away,' Harry realised before pushing open the gate and stepping inside gingerly. No alarms went off, no secret protective magic struck him with lightning, and the statue of the dog didn't come to life and eat him up.

Scamander's warning about traps rung in his ear, but as he made his past the statue with 'Shiba Inu, Mightiest of Dogs,' written on the base of it, nothing happened. It was as if whatever traps guarded the house were dropped down.

Almost as if the owner of the house was expecting someone.

Harry stepped onto the front porch and reached for the knocker on the door, when suddenly, the door sprang open all by itself, revealing the spacious foyer with a balcony looking over the entire room. The waning evening light filtered gently through the long arching windows, and the entire room was lit up with candles floating throughout the headspace.

Jaw hanging open with awe, Harry walked in.

BANG!

The door behind him slammed shut, snapping Harry out of his tizzy. Pulling out his wand, he swung around in panic, pushing the door handle in vain.

"Alohamora! Reducto! Bombarda!"

None of the spells did anything. Gritting his teeth, he swivelled back around to face the insides of this house . . . trap . . . he had entered. His eyes swept around the room once, then twice, first checking to see if anyone was there and then plotting out whatever routes of escape he had.

The fireplace looked functional with its burning fire, but there was no floo powder. The other doors leading out of the room were closed as well. The only viable method seemed to be the windows, whose glass he could smash and get out.

But before he could even move from where he was standing, soft jazzy music started playing.

"Darling when you maaaake me smile . . ." the voice of the woman sang, "I will give you what you neeeeeeed . . . tonight . . ."

One of the doors leading further into the house from the foyer opened with a soft creak, and a familiar old man stepped out, holding a rose in one hand and a case of chocolate in the other. A sultry smile sat on the face of the old man, looking more out of place than Hippogriff at a Dursley tea party.

And he was butt naked. There was that too.

It took Harry a few torturous seconds to place why the man looked familiar to him.

It was Elphias Doge. Member of the Order of the Phoenix, part of the group that had come to escort him to Grimmauld Place last year, and one of the last fucking people Harry was hoping to encounter, both in general and in nude.

Harry froze up and waited with bated breath for him to realise who he was, but Doge advanced slowly with an awkward saunter, apparently not recognising him at all.

"My my . . ." he said huskily, "Aren't you quite the pretty young lady . . . I hope you can take it in the arse. They don't call me Elphias Doggy for nothing."

As soon as Harry heard that horrendously sexual pun, he realised a few things about himself.

He realised that he did not like naked old men.

He realised that he was an utter and complete idiot for not finding a hotel or pitching a tent somewhere else.

And he realised that that could take having his summer trips and plans being ruined, but he wasn't about to stay quiet as an old man tried to bugger him.

"Mr. Doge," he said, mustering as much confidence as he could when faced with a nude 100 year old man with his wrinkly prune of a penis hanging out, "I'd really appreciate it if you'd put on some clothes."

Doge stopped short, before frowning in his general direction, "Forgive my poor eyesight dear; I don't have my glasses on me; but do you have some throat deformities? You don't sound very much like a girl now do you?"

He hadn't recognised his voice! The Confundus ring was working! Spirits lightened a slight bit despite the sight in front of him, Harry replied, "I'm not a girl. I think there has been a . . ." He gulped down the bile threatening to rise up his throat, "A misunderstanding here. I am an intern for NS Veterinarium. Mr. Scamander sent me. He said you'd let me stay for the night."

Doge squinted at him for a moment before waving his hand. A long furry coat flew out of the door he had entered from and into his hand. He quickly threw it on, before pulling out a pair of glasses from the pocket and putting them on.

"Oh dear," he muttered, staring at Harry with wide eyes.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

The slamming on the door from which Harry had entered the house startled both the people in the room.

"Oi!" the shrill voice of a girl came through, "Open up! I'm here from Madam Moo's Escort house! My agent told me you'd pay extra if I'd let you fuck me in the ass!"

After putting on some more clothes and sending off the escort with promises to send over a compensation payment, Elphias Doge had proceeded to repeatedly and sincerely apologize to Harry. He hadn't been expecting a guest and had been planning to have a productive night of . . . escorting . . . with the escort he had requested for. But then Harry had arrived, and the entire thing had gone tits up.

The man's poor eyesight had done no favours to the entire situation.

"I cannot apologize enough young man. I can't eve-"

"It's alright Mr. Doge," Harry said, finally feeling a bit of pity for the old man, "It's not your fault. Let's just both forget that . . . it . . . ever happened."

Doge nodded, putting down his teacup onto the table in between the armchairs they were sitting on, "Quite right, quite right. That's very big of you to say that. Let bygones be bygones as the wise would put it. And don't worry about where you will stay while you are in Milan. Stay here for as long as you need to."

"Thank you," Harry replied, keeping his eyes fixed on the man's receded hairline. It would be while before he could look Elphias Doge in the eyes and not get mind-numbing vomit-inducing flashbacks to . . . that sight.

"You're welcome. Though you never really told me your name did you?"

Harry was about to reply with 'Dobby Buckbeaks' before he suddenly realised that it wasn't a name he could use. Both Dobby and Buckbeak were names familiar to too many people in the Order, and if Elphias Doge even mentioned the name in a meeting or something then he'd be entirely outed.

"Er . . . Rando," Harry blurted out.

"Rando?"

"Yeah. Its a mononym. Like Cher."

"Very well then Rando. Let me go and prepare the guest room fo- Ow!"

Doge flinched, before grimacing and dipping his hand into a pocket and pulling out a silver medallion the size of Harry's fist, which he peered at for a minute.

Harry tried, unsuccessfully, to peek at what was written on it, guessing that it was similar to the Galleons that he and Dumbledore's Army had used throughout the last year. From the large and obvious phoenix engraved on the back of it, it was fairly obvious which group it belonged to.

"Excuse me," Doge said after he finished peering at the medallion and stuffed it back into his pocket, before hurrying over to the fireplace on the other side of the room where he started a floo call, knelt down, and started talking.

Harry couldn't hear anything from the other side, but the snippets of Doge's replies that did float through to his ears were enough to let Harry know what was going on.

"What'd you mean Harry is missing! . . . The station! He didn't even get to his relative's house? . . . Order meeting? I'm in Italy right now Albus . . . Fine then."

Doge rose from his knees and turned to Harry, who had fixed an expression of polite curiosity on his face. "I'm afraid something urgent has come up young lad. I have to leave for now and I probably won't be back until late night. Do you reckon you will be able to get settled in on your own?"

"It's fine Mr. Doge," Harry assured. "I can manage just fine."

"Good lad," Doge said with a smile, before waving his wand at him, "There you go. I added you to the Protection charms and wards. Guest Room is upstairs third to the right. I'll be off then."

And with that, he stepped into the fire and enunciated the floo address. Harry could only faintly hear the 'Number Twelve Grimmauld Place' before the old man was gone in a flash of green fire.

A wide grin split Harry's face as soon as Doge disappeared.

He was going to be sleeping at the home of one of Dumbledore's closest friends while he rallied the Order to find him.

Sirius would have appreciated the irony in this more than anybody else.

Soon he made his way upstairs and into the third room on the right, not daring to try and enter any of the other rooms lest Scamander's warning about there being an abundance of traps here prove true.

Setting Butpleg, who had managed to sleep through the entire thing, down on a pillow, Harry quickly changed his clothes and pulled the Magical Atlas for the Magical Wanderer out of his rucksack and flipped it open to Italy.

Italy is a country with 20 regions, each with its own dialects, traditions, architecture and glorious food. Then there are the country's incomparable artistic treasures, which amount to more than the rest of the world put together. A major attraction in Italy is known to be the food, and that holds especially true for Mago District, which is Milan's Wizarding District as well as Italy's Magical Capital. Master Chefs from all over the world come here to show off their skills in the famous Cook-Offs which happen there every single evening. Other than the food, Milan also boasts of a collection of magical art that is unrivalled around the world. One can go there to have a chat with Da Vinci or Dante, should the portraits be feeling up for it. For lovers of magical creatures, the area around Lake Como is a must visit, since it is known to be one of the most populated magical creature reserves in the world.

NOTE: The Italian Government has a strict policy against magic affecting the mind. Visitors are warned not to use the British Unforgivable Curse'Imperio' as well as curses affecting the mind, including the British 'Obliviate' and the Italian 'Erudivioto'.

"Mago District," Harry muttered to himself as he closed the book. Now he knew where he was going to have his breakfast before heading to Lake Como or a nearby village tomorrow.

With good food and anticipation for new adventures on his mind, Harry drifted off to sleep.

Elphias Doge walked out of the fireplace in Grimmauld place before hastily making his way down the hallway to the kitchen, where the members of the Order of the Phoenix had already gathered for their meeting.

"You're late Elphias," Dumbledore said.

"I had to cater to a guest. My apologies for keeping everyone waiting," Elphias said as he quickly found a seat and sat down.

With a nod towards him, Dumbledore stood up and began to speak, "As I'm sure all of you already know, as of this evening I have confirmed that Harry Potter is missing, and that is why this meeting has been called."

The people in the room shared worried looks, and the pink haired Nymphadora Tonks asked, "Was it the Death Eaters?"

Dumbledore shook his head, "I have reasons to believe that he left of his own will. Whether he did so out of frustration or due to some other reasons I do not know, but what is important to remember is that we need to find him. With Voldemort's complete return, now is the most dangerous time for Harry to be out there alone without protection."

"Kingsley, Nymphadora, Alastor," he said, turning to where the group of Law Enforcement personnel were sitting, "I want you to reach out to your contacts. Be subtle about it. This is very important information, and it must not get out. Harry's life is in danger, and it is best to maintain the illusion that he is safe and within our reach so that Voldemort does not actively start hunting him."

They nodded in agreement, and Dumbledore turned to the rest of the room, "Those of you with Muggle family, research a way of finding people in the Muggle world. Those of you with jobs in the Ministry, keep an ear out, but stick to the previous orders. We cannot have everyone distracted from our main goal, which is to counter Voldemort's influence in the Ministry. After some more investigation, I will designate a team dedicated to finding Harry-."

A quiet but sharp voice interrupted Dumbledore, "You should be doing the exact opposite."

Tens of heads turned as one to look at the dark robed man with wide eyes, for it was Severus Snape who had spoken. It took a second for everyone to register what he was saying.

Arthur Weasley was the first one to speak out, "What do you mean Severus?"

Snape levelled a flat stare at him, "Exactly what you think I mean. The Headmaster shouldn't be focusing resources on hiding this from Voldemort or trying to locate Potter. He should be doing the opposite."

There was a beat of silence, and then the entire room exploded with loud noises of protests.

"Silence!" Dumbledore called over the din, and the sounds came to a sudden halt. He turned to look at Snape, "Explain yourself Severus. Why do you think so?"

"The Dark Lord's obsession on Potter is the reason why he has not turned this into an all out war as soon as he was revived. Throughout the last year, he has kept his focus on Potter, which has managed to indirectly save hundreds of lives. If we manage to divert his attention towards Potter being missing, he will devote everything he has to it. Countless other lives might be saved. We could get more time to rally our forces."

"The Death Eater isn't wrong," Much to everyone's surprise, it was Moody who spoke, "If Voldemort sends his followers after Harry, we could use false leads to lure them into traps, or even send them on wild goose chases. We could use it to destroy the entire organisation bit by bit. Potter might just have given us a way to end the war before it even begins."

"No!" Molly Weasley said firmly, "Absolutely not! Turning him into a target to further our cause isn't acceptable."

"Learn to think woman!" Snape snarked, "One life as a cost for hundreds is more than worth it. Besides, Potter is already a target."

"He isn't being hunted!"

"He looks pretty hunted to me."

"Why you-"

"ENOUGH!" Dumbledore said strictly, "It's clear that spirits are running high today. Severus's plan has merits, but we need to consider it's ramifications with clear heads before we make a decision about it. We are going to adjourn today and meet again tomorrow morning to come to a final decision."

Do you know where the 'Rando' name is a reference to?

Bit of a less eventful chapter, but in the next chapter Harry buys a camera, has a Cook-Off with a famous chef, and sets off to Lake Como.

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