The-Cold-War-Initiation (I) [Chapter 188]

~~Ossuary, England~~ (December 20th, 1994)

Amelia Bones glared at the parchment on her table with pure hatred… Thankfully, she didn’t have the power to burn stuff with her glare or her glare would have already burned a hole through the wall after burning through the paper… It has been more than three weeks since she received the list from Harry, but she was yet to make any headway in her path of revenge.

The Ministry has declared Harry Potter a wanted criminal with a bounty of 100,000 Galleon on top of his head, but he needed to be caught alive. The DMLE was currently looking for him and the Malfoys, but they have yet to make any progress in that regard and to be honest, she wasn’t expecting much in the first place as wherever the boy was, he was hiding under the Fidelius Charm.

According to Saul, it was impossible to bypass the Fidelius Charm and there was only one way to get around the Fidelius Charm. They needed to learn the Secret, which was kind of unlikely since the Secret Keeper would need to give away the Secret willingly. Saul theorized that it might be possible to break the Fidelius Charm, but he wasn’t sure as it was never tried…

If the Secret Keeper was killed, then all the people who knew the Secret would become Secret Keepers and to completely break the Fidelius Charm, you would need to kill all the Secret Keepers before they could reveal the Secret to anyone else…

Well, in other words, it was simply impossible for them to break the Fidelius Charm as they were extremely against killing anyone in the first place. Amelia glared at the parchment on her desk some more before gulping down a significant quantity of alcohol from the firewhiskey bottle in her hand. She was trying to get sloshed since she woke up in the middle of the night, but it wasn’t working, obviously.

When she received the list from Harry she knew that she wouldn’t be able to do anything in an official capacity as except for two people, everyone else on the list were so-called upstanding citizens of their community… To be honest, it made her blood boil in anger, but she was quite aware of her limits. So, she had been trying to investigate them subtly, but once again, it wasn’t working out for her.

All of their businesses were clean, and if there was something fishy going on, then her Aurors would need to go deep undercover to find anything. Her Aurors weren’t equipped for that and Nymphadora could probably do it, but she was way too valuable and soft to get involved with undercover work… Amelia had done some undercover work herself during the last War and it was anything but pretty.

Then there was the glaring fact… Even if she did find some evidence against them, what was she supposed to do after that? Yes, she could arrest them, but they would walk free. At most, they would have to pay a hefty fine, but a hefty fine would mean nothing if they could walk free and if she managed to get them sentenced by some miracle, their sentence won’t be long.

After all, Amelia couldn’t get them punished for any of the crimes they have committed during the War. All of their crimes were pardoned by the Bagnold administration as they were poor Imperius victims… It was nothing but Hippogriff dung, but if she wanted to convict the people on the list for the crimes of killing her brother and his wife, then she needed to prove that the Imperius defense was nothing but an excuse before anything else.

Now, proving the Imperius Defense to be nothing but hogwash was a completely different matter…

Though she was still trying to get some dirt on them as it was the only way she knew, but then she had to go and have a nightmare… A nightmare where her brother and her sister-in-law were giving her disappointed looks while screaming at her for not being able to get them the justice they deserve… This wasn’t the first time she had this nightmare, but this was definitely the first time when the nightmare was so intense.

She woke up, sweating and panting, her whole body drenched in a thin sheen of sweat… Sleep refused to come after that. So, she simply climbed out of the bed and after putting on a robe as she wasn’t wearing anything on her body… One of the perks of being completely alone in the house. Right now, she might be in her forties, but for a Witch, she was in her prime… Though unfortunately for any suitable prospects, she didn’t have any interest in romantic relationships.

Since her mind kept playing back the scenes from the nightmare, she decided to get sloshed, in the hope of forgetting the nightmare she saw… ‘You can have your revenge if you don’t play by the rules’ Her own voice… A traitorous voice, which sounded like her own voice whispered inside her mind, but Amelia quickly shook her head and dismissed the idea. She wouldn't take the law into her own hands!

‘We shall see…’ The same traitorous voice trailed off in a challenging tone and Amelia knew that it was going to be an uphill battle for her…

<Line Break>

~~Nott Manor~~

“You are late” Voldemort stated coldly as he stared at the gathered group in front of him, but unlike his Death Eaters, the group didn’t look concerned in the slightest. It infuriated Voldemort to no end, but he knew that it wasn’t the time to lose his temper… He needed them right now, so he decided to look past their audacity and arrogance for the time being.

“Something came up back in the Coven and we had to deal with it before we could leave” The supposed leader of the group answered, but it was clearly a made-up excuse.

“It is alright” Voldemort decided to drop the issue. Now that they were here, he would use them as best he could… There were quite a few things he could already think about at the top of his hand, so he decided to start from there… According to Lucius, the brat had somehow managed to cast Fidelius Charm on his manor. Voldemort knew exactly how powerful a person needed to be to cast the Fidelius Charm on a small shack and the brat managed to cast it on the whole Manor.

How did the brat manage to do that? He wasn’t sure… Though it was an obvious sign that the boy was extremely powerful, still he should have failed… Even Voldemort wasn’t confident enough to try something like that as people have died trying to cast Fidelius Charm. Once again, Voldemort found himself wondering if the Prophecy was empowering the boy…

“I have heard that you Vampires have a very good hunting squad?” Voldemort asked as he looked down at the group from his throne. The leader of the group pointed at the female Vampire, who had scoffed at his words when he went to meet Kraven in Budapest.

“This is Selene, she is the best Death Dealer we have” The leader revealed and to be honest, Voldemort wasn’t sure if he believed those words, but he decided to go along with it, for now…

“Who am I hunting?” The woman asked in an indifferent tone and with a flick of his Wand, Voldemort created a hologram of Harry. The woman stared at the hologram for a few seconds before looking up at Voldemort. “He is a boy” The woman declared blandly.

“So, what? Are you not capable enough to hunt a boy?” Voldemort asked her in a mocking tone. Selene the Vampire immediately turned toward their leader, who gave her an unimpressed look.

“He gave you the target, so I don’t see a problem” The leader declared and the woman bared her fangs at him, but moments later, she turned around on her heel and started to leave with four more Vampires following her out of the room. “And about the things you promised?” The leader asked.

“The rest of you are free to hunt and turn, but for the time being, keep everything under wraps… I have already arranged a place you can use to keep the newborns” Voldemort explained before he stood up from his throne. The War was kicked off prematurely and he wasn’t pleased with that. If the Ministry and Dumbledore made a move then he would need to make a move too. He couldn’t sit back and enjoy the show.

He would need to take advantage of their every move or he would fall back in the War… He was planning to consolidate his forces before making a move, but it was no longer possible. The Vampires wanted to hunt and turn, which could be used to his advantage as he could use them as his attack dogs. Yes, Vampires weren’t that dangerous, but in numbers, they could be a serious threat.

That is why he had sent a message to Fenrir and told him to hurry as he couldn’t wait eight months for them to arrive…

The lead Vampire smiled wickedly at that. “Ohh… I love the sound of that. I am sure that Kraven will be pleased” The Vampire leading the group revealed his fangs and the rest of the Vampires who were left behind followed his example…