For a week, he went to ground, and took meticulous care to make sure not even the creepy vassals of Voldemort could sense him. From his recce in the magical alleys, pubs and villages, he had inferred that not only his endeavor of kidnapping Dolohov was successful, but headmaster had also succeeded in hiding him under heavy wards. And Voldemort was furious at the sudden disappearance of one of his elites.
Up till now, no one of the dark sect was the wiser to consider ambush a serious possibility, they were arrogant like that. But Harry knew that one more ambush and Voldemort would reach the conclusion that someone was hunting his elites and they would possibly go to the ground too.
And before that happened, he needed to find the hidden headquarters of Voldemort and find a way to get into them. Thus, making break-in the headquarters his next major goal, he utilized the week to further learn and practice magicks; he also furthered his knowledge of muggle spyware equipment.
Stievnkz also helped him by providing him with necessary potions, as well as gold and other things from his vaults unofficially.
Although he was somewhat confident that dark could be defeated, as his head had all the knowledge he gained from fusion with Voldemort's mind. But he was alone against the whole army at the moment. No matter how much he trusted light sect with delicate war information or dark sect prisoners; his fragile self wasn't something he was willing to entrust with them just yet.
They needed to remain unaware of his survival till he could provide them with concrete proof of his innocence-and that might never happen- until then he would not put himself in the position to again bear the accusations, angry glances, muttered hateful words and worst of all the feeling of being alone among the crowds.
He was more than fine at the moment, he had his mum's portrait and a securely protected little cottage; he could spend rest of his life just like that. Seven hellish years in earth's own hell had run havoc on his emotional health. His social skills had become stunted. Despite Stievnkz and Lily believing him innocent, the mere thought of their hidden distrust kept him awake for whole night. He had spent many such nights.
They were the only beings-except one other soul, but he wouldn't think about that just now-that had believed his word and didn't find him repulsive. He had found himself frozen with utter fright many a times when he had to suddenly interact with the portrait or the goblin.
It wasn't far-fetched either as he had spent seven years without any human contact, except a lone person who he still struggled to decipher the true identity of.
He had become quite proficient in meditation and occlumency in past four months. That allowed him to direct some of his efforts towards achieving his animagus form. Owing to his father and his friends being animagi, he had obsessed over theory part of animagi before his imprisonment, and despite knowing theory by heart, he had not been able to achieve his form while in Azkaban.
It was still a long way for him to go. Alongside the magicks of occlumency and animagus, Lily had taken to teach him all the useful charms that she knew, and owing to her position as an unspeakable and an order member, her knowledge was proving to be very helpful and important for the direction the war has taken.
As he finished learning yet another fascinating chain of charms, he pondered his next steps carefully. Time was of essence, he couldn't afford to waste time by taking too long to plan. Neither could he jump head-first into things without planning properly.
His icy blue gaze was fixed on the thin face of the silver blond haired man who shivered at the phantom whispers that echoed into the night around them. They were standing in the middle of the park, the old rusty chains of the swings groaned as the wind rustled past them. The wind also blew his long cape-like robe that was unnerving the man who stood just across from him.
"My gadgets?" His voice was modified, and sounded deeper and heavier.
The man gave a jerky nod and walked towards the single SUV parked outside the iron gates of the park. The man motioned him to follow him. He tilted his neck and surveyed his surroundings. They were alone, the few handy charms he had placed around the park showed him that. He took brisk steps to follow the man who was almost to the gates of the park.
"Here are all the things that you asked for." As Harry reached near him the man said nervously and gestured towards the back seat of the SUV that was buried under various large and small boxes that hosted the muggle electronics.
He nodded and scanned the boxes with a sweeping gaze, he could see all his desired gadgets.
"How will you take them from here?" The man asked.
He smirked. "That's my problem now."
The man shrugged his shoulders, and opened the door of the car. He started to move them out of the car, and placing them on the floor beside the car. In a few minutes all the boxes were moved out of the car and the man looked at him expectedly.
He reached deep into his pocket and his hand emerged out bringing with it a small piece of glittering gold, it was the size of the galleon but a little bit more thicker.
The man's eyes grew wide and he looked at Harry incredulously.
"Take it." Harry prompted him as he moved his hand towards the man. The man picked up the gold biscuit from his palm with trembling fingers and inclined his head at Harry in a silent thank you.
Harry chuckled and placed his right arm on the shoulders of the man in the form of the half hug . "You thought I wasn't going to pay you." He guessed.
"You seemed dangerous..., mysterious." The man said, his voice still held the bafflement he had felt and he clutched the coin tightly in his hands.
Harry smiled. It was time to go, but before that he had to cover his tracks. He tightened his arm around the shoulders in a friendly gesture, and removed his wand from the hostler. He carefully brought it up and pointed it at the muggle man who had been so helpful.
"Imperio." He whispered.
Immediately the man's eyes glazed over and he sagged into Harry.
"You will walk a round of the boundary of the park, and when you'll come back you'll forget me, you'll forget that you ran an errand for me, you'll forget the past two days." His voice was soft albeit commanding. "You will only remember going to a bank and exchanging your money for gold."
The man nodded automatically and Harry removed his hand from around the man's shoulders.
" Go. "He nudged the man into the opposite direction of the car.
The blonde haired man started walking without any hesitation or looking back. Harry stood there watching till he turned the corner, and then he sprang into action. With a few practiced swishes of his wand, all the packages were shrunken and feather light. He picked them up and put them in the pocket securely.
He then covered himself with the invisibility cloak, and melted into the shadows. He canceled all the spells he had placed around the park. The area looked deserted and depressing. He looked around one more time and then apparated. He didn't wait for the man. But he was sure that when he would reach his car in seven minutes, he wouldn't remember running an errand for a strange boy who looked more like vampires than actual vampires themselves did.
The atrium of level one of the ministry of magic was immersed in deep dyed darkness, but his eyes were adjusted to the dark as he had been hiding in the shadows for the past five hours.
He looked at his small wrist watch and sighed annoyingly. He had taken care of all the security guards but one was yet to be found, and Harry didn't have much time. It was only a few hours in dawn and he needed to install his cameras in all important places and get out of there before the sun rises, but the incompetent foul was making his plans go down the drain. He snarled as his watch struck two. He glared at the fireplace on the left side of the atrium that was the official entrance to the ministry of magic.
As another half an hour passed, he tightened his invisibility cloak around himself. It seemed he had to take the risk. He emerged out of the shadows. He slowly looked around and found his way towards the row of the red oak wood doors that gleamed even without the light. He carefully read the plaques on the doors that contained the name and occupation of the official. These were the offices of highest ranking ministry officials.
Sliding a thin wire out of his pocket he set on unlocking the door to the office of the senior undersecretary to the minister of magic. For a few minutes, he fumbled with the wire, trying to unlock the door in the muggle way. If he succeeded in that, magical lock wouldn't be much difficult to bypass.
He worked silently and diligently for next six minutes.
Click click click
The three clicks echoed into the silence around him and the door opened. He shook his head at the absurdity of the situation. Did they really left those offices without protection? He asked himself.
'No.' He thought with alarm. Tom Riddle didn't trust his minions, Harry wouldn't believe for a second that he would trust those who were only sympathizers without the mark.
Looking around carefully, he stepped inside the room that was as dark as the atrium. Everything appeared still and silent. He shivered, the feeling of caution gripped him. He flicked his wrist and the wand fell into his hand. He waved it in a strange fashion around the room. It was a detection charm that was taught to him by his mother. He waited as the magic swirled around the room and highlighted the areas which were set up with traps, alarms or hexes.
He laughed in appreciation as almost all the desks, shelves, and drawers were highlighted in a matter of seconds.
The room was warded and heavily at that. It was only the door that was left non-warded. A cynical way to inveigle the intruder into false sense of security. But it didn't hinder him, his goal was something else, something big.
He turned on his heels to find the appropriate location for his cameras. The front wall of the room was decorated with awards and certificates of many of the senior undersecretaries that had used this office over the years. He smirked it was the perfect place.
He pulled out two small, coined shaped cameras from his pocket. They had an inbuilt powerful voice recorder as well as the highest pixels he could find. The cameras were also magic tolerant as they were designed to work in high electromagnetic fields and magic was almost same as those. Furthermore, they were connected to internet and uploaded the videos on his cloud at the end of each day. He could also view live if he wanted.
He hid the cameras in crooks of those awards and certificates so that they weren't easily seen but they recorded everything perfectly.
The rest of the hours he spent going from office to office and floor to floor, planting cameras and recorders in hidden nooks and crannies.
When the sun was just peeking from behind the thick blankets of clouds he completed the last but not the least part of his mission. He planted the small Wi-Fi device plugged into a perpetual system that gained energy from the environment to operate the plugged in Wi-Fi onto the fifth floor of the ten floored building of the ministry of magic. Having completed his mission, he carefully walked out of the ministry without having used even a speck of the magic.
His spies were ready to help him win the war, and none of the wizards was wise enough to think they could be defeated by small pathetic muggle gadgets. He smirked as he apparated.
"Albus! How is this possible?" Minerva's voice was perplexed as she blinked and took in the scene in front of her once more. Everything remained as it were.
Dolohov's unconscious body was slumped in the seat as blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. He had resisted every single method of their interrogation. In the two weeks, they had him, they hadn't been able to pry out of him anything. The failure of every other method had made them set their hopes onto the veritaserum, but they had been thwarted today as the death eater had only laughed mockingly and spit at their faces. The truth serum had no affect on him.
"How is he resisting it?" It was a question each one of them were asking. It shouldn't have been possible, but somehow it were. Before all the mess with Fred Weasley's murder, no death eater had been immune to the serum and after his death this was a rare occurrence where order had gotten their hands on one.
"Through his dark mark." Albus answered softly, tracing the mark with his wand, trying to unveil its mystery, but the protections onto it remained steadfast as the snake hissed menacingly and gleamed red eyes in victory at the helpless protectors of light.
"This is not the only thing he is immune to." Somewhat demure voice of Sirius Black whispered.
"What do you mean, Sirius?" It was Remus Lupin.
"He doesn't react to pain. It is as if his body doesn't understand pain anymore." Sirius Black continued.
"Or if pain is channeled from his body onto something or someone else." Charlie Weasley finished for him.
"Would you care to explain how you came across these findings, boys?" Molly Weasley asked angrily.
"We experimented." George voice was laced with steely defiance. "Its due to all your goody rules that we have come to this point." He continued ignoring the angry eyes of his mother.
"It is NOT goody rules as you say, George. It is violation of human rights to inflict pain during investigations. If we start doing what those death eater do, what would it be that we'll fight for? Molly Weasley thundered.
" Yeah go on, apply those pathetic rules and lose this war or get someone else killed." George Weasley screamed before leaving the room in a fit of anger.
"We are starting to understand now, headmaster what you were seeing all along." Bill Weasley broke the pregnant silence, his eyes held desperation and helplessness.
Hermione Granger nodded as she tore her gaze away from the half filled vial of the veritaserum and the death eater.
"People are becoming restless and scared, Bill. Ever since Professor Snape had been taken George is falling more and more into depression." She breathed with difficulty.
"Yeah Hermione, I have noticed that too. I didn't know his sessions with Snape were that much helpful." Ronald put in as he gazed at the door behind which George had disappeared.
"I wish I could help him. Albus, even mind healers can't do much more for him." Molly Weasley wept as she too looked desperately at the closed door.
Harry shivered as the smoky purple lighting touched the greenish-black water of the Black lake. It was the same lake that Voldemort had frequented in his visions. He huddled under his invisibility cloak as the sheer dread chilled his spine.
The slimy touch of the black magic was covering the whole area, and he tightened his own greyish magic to protect against the increasing whispers of the malicious magic.
Extending his magical senses, he stood up and walked towards the lake as he had seen Voldemort doing. The false horcrux was still implanted into the bowl of potion placed on the stony pillar floating in the middle of the lake. Ignoring the boat that was chained to the edge. He made a small cut on the palm of his hand and seven drops fall into the stream of water. He then closed his eyes and pictured a snake in his mind. Feeling the subtle change in thrum of his tongue, he started speaking
'come to me, come to me
born from blood of mine
separated from soul of mine
come to me, come to me'
As he continued to hiss the mantra, the magical sphere rose from the lake and flew towards him. As the sphere left the water, the presence of malicious entity increased around him. He could feel it oppressing him and whispering to him.
He had taken a great risk here. He didn't let himself think of what would have happened if the water had rejected his blood, but then again he had relied on arrogance of dark lord who had used his very blood in his resurrection, thus giving him the same status as he himself had.
The dark lord will mark him as his equal. Recited his mind and he shook his head; he was once again left dazed by the deepest secrets of universe of which one was magic.
He pulled out the container that Stievnkz had given him and forced the sphere into it. The oppressive whispers diminished somewhat, but he could still feel their presence at the back of his mind.
As he left the lake and cave behind, he couldn't help but feel apprehensive. This was the only horcrux that was this easy to get. Having discovered it on Umbridge, Voldemort hadn't lost a second before slaughtering the witch and claiming it again. While returning it, he had discovered the betrayal of Regulus Black, but this more sane and more dangerous Dark Lord had smirked and hid the locket into the same place, whilst using the betrayal as a decoy.
It had only been his luck that while receding into his mind to escape the most disastrous effects of dementors, the rage of Voldemort at Regulus's defection had pulled him more firmly into the mind of his opponent that he had viewed the entire horcrux-hiding escapade of Voldemort.
Tying the pouch containing the container of horcrux to his belt, Harry apparated, feeling hopeful at being one step closer to the demise of great lord Voldemort.
To be continued….