Chap. 36: Voldemort, Portkeys, Harry, Austria, St. Mungo's, Rabbastan, and Giant problems.
On the night of November 15th, Voldemort picked up an old boot, which was an illegal portkey, and triggered it, arriving in the wizarding quarter of Vienna, Austria. From there, he would make his way to Dürnstein, but not before calling upon one of Gregorovitch's employees to find his exact location. He, of course, had murdered the witch and her children that morning, since dead people are the only ones that can keep a secret.
Next, Voldemort found himself on the street of Hauptstraße, and at a hidden doorway across from the Dürnsteinerhof pub. The arched doorway seemed to be sealed off unless one was a magical, and if so, one walked into a narrow alley containing only twelve magical shops; six on either side. As he was standing in the narrow street before the pub, he heard loud music coming from within where someone was slightly holding the door ajar, and it made him clench his teeth and gag at what the song was saying. Potter was the only thing running through his mind.
.
.
Now I've never been the one to play it safe.
I might play a little dirty some day.
And I'm following fate, they say I'm the Chosen One.
Well, I know what it takes to be a king,
Be the song everybody wanna sing,
Bring harmony, and be the Chosen One!
.
Ain't nothing gonna stop this...
Ain't nothing gonna stop this fire!
.
I was born to be, making history,
Something greater, something higher,
Ain't nothing gonna stop this fire!
It's plain reality, I was born to be,
Something greater, something higher,
Ain't nothing gonna stop this fire!
.
Ain't nothing gonna stop this, this fire, this fire...
Ain't nothing gonna stop this, this fire, this fire...
.
.
"Chosen One," Voldemort scoffed and turned toward the stuccoed-over arched doorway.
Voldemort, now sneering with his hood up, made his way to shop number thirteen after stepping through the hidden portal, where he banged on the door with his fist, but there was no answer. Here, he sneered and withdrew Bellatrix's wand from his robes, who was now dying for all he cared, though she was a good lieutenant and an easy fuck. However, before he aimed the wand at the door, he looked down and saw a white bit of paper, he thought, sticking out from underneath the door, and it was a bit dirty so it had been there for a while, but he summoned it to him and looked it over.
What Voldemort found was Harry's business card from the Ministry of Magic, and if he had hair, he would be pulling it out from its roots at the moment as he seethed. The young man seemed to always be one step ahead of him, so he had made it to Gregorovitch first. This, then, led to him wondering what Potter had found, and it explained why the old wandmaker had fled without telling his workers where. It was a wasted trip, he thought, but his next visit might be productive, as he was heading to Nurmengard prison, and he was going to visit Grindelwald.
It was now Saturday the 16th, at 5:00 PM, and Harry found himself sitting with several mercs at the Hogshead after escorting Daphne back to Hogwarts. He could tell that a huge drunk was coming for him as he spoke with the mercs about what to do next.
"Ready for another rum on the rocks, Potter?" Mercy said, who was a huge barrel-chested and tattooed blond man, with a Mohawk haircut that had just held up his huge ringed fist for Harry to fist bump with a laugh.
"Yeah, sure, why not?" Harry said with a toothy smile, who was already feeling the effects of the alcohol as he bumped the man's fist across the table. He noticed that Mercy's knuckles were tattooed, where the right hand said "WHOP," and the left, "BANG!"
"Abe," Mercy shouted, "bring us all a round, eh? Ministry's paying!"
Aberforth scowled at this, but they had put a lot of gold in his till since they had been "visiting" Hogsmeade on their "vacation." Now, seeing them with Harry, he knew the score. These men were working for the young lad and Scrimgeour. It was what his brother should have done the first time to take out the trash.
9:00 PM at the Ministry of Magic:
"Just like Lord Potter thought he would do," William Berrycloth said from the Portkey Office of the Department of Magical Transportation, "we picked up his illegal portkey from Wiltshire, and it ended in Vienna. Notify Minister Scrimgeour and Lord Potter, and let them know."
Sally Barbrow, a secretary in the office, nodded quickly and began penning two letters to be sent by owl ASAP.
They had been monitoring a large map of Britain twenty-four hours a day since Harry and Rufus ordered it.
Harry awoke the next morning to a pecking on his bedroom window, which he quickly crawled out of bed to open. As the owl flew in and lighted on the footboard of the bed, Harry noted that it was now 5:00 AM, and the air rushing inside was cold. He also had a bad hangover, he noticed, and he needed a hangover potion from the bath cabinet.
"Shite," Harry muttered as he rubbed his eyes, and relieved the owl of its message. Next, he fished around in his dirty robes and found an owl treat that he kept handy for Hedwig. Once the owl had it in its beak, it flew back out the window as Harry opened the letter after quickly closing the window.
"So, Tom's in Austria," Harry muttered. "Time for Operation No Mercy."
Here, Harry made his way to the bath and showered for the day. He'd head into the ministry early, and then go visit some of the other mercs stationed about the hidden magical quarters found in the largest British cities like Manchester. It would be a busy day, and he knew it. Mercy had given him the names of the team leaders, and where they could be found.
"Good morning, Master, what can Kreacher be bringing him for breakfast?"
"A good full English, Kreacher," Harry replied as he sat at the breakfast table, "but bring me a strong cup of coffee before that."
In about two minutes, Kreacher sat down a strong cup of instant coffee that he kept on hand, and he opened his palm to take a half of a tablet with it. It was a half of one of the Hydrocodone pills that he had saved back from New Orleans, and that should kill out his headache before he left.
Within thirty minutes, Harry was eating his breakfast, and by seven o'clock, he stepped out of the front door of Black Manor, walked over to their private apparation and portkey spot, and disapparated.
Voldemort found himself standing outside Burg Vichtenstein, which was in the Sow Forest above the Danube valley. Vichtenstein Castle was built in approximately 1100 by the Counts of Formbach before being passed to the Hallgraves of Wasserburg, and at the end of WWII, the castle was used as a refugee camp, but was now privately owned and not open to the public, despite having been restored. It was, after all, where Grindelwald was living through the war, and it was owned by an Austrian wizard.
It was now two days later after he had started his trip, at midnight that Sunday, as Voldemort made his way along the narrow road just above the castle, which wound its way along a forested hilltop toward a hidden prison that was built in the late thirties by the Nazis on top of the peak. There, he knew that he would find Grindelwald at the top of the high-security tower, and in the prison that he had built for magical dissidents, himself.
Voldemort silently walked along the wooded ridge a good piece, until he noticed a guard shack and gate, with an ICW sign that said: "Halt!" Here, he turned into a black mist, took to the air, and made his way toward the tower, where he would slip in under a door, and visit Dumbledore's old friend. If anyone knew about the wand, according to Ollivander, it was him.
Also, as he had walked, he wondered how close Potter was to Garrick Ollivander and Florean Fortescue. With Ollivander, it didn't seem to be too close, but with Fortescue, he had seen glimpses of Potter sitting outside his establishment, and the man was giving him free ice creams in his memories. Could Fortescue have told Potter about the Hallows, and forewarned him about what could come? What about Dumbledore, for that matter, who had been in search of them for years, along with Grindelwald and many others? However, according to Ollivander, Gregorovitch had once owned the Elder Wand, so, Potter may well know, and if he did, would he beat him to it? He could not allow that and would have to keep up his search and find it, before returning to his loyal Death Eaters to restart his campaign.
Hippocrates Smethwyck was standing outside Augustus Rookwood's room, and under his voice, he was speaking with Healer Pye.
"That's the third one in a day," Smethwyck said. "Somebody has beaten them near to death, as he had multiple contusions, broken bones, and bruised organs. Every bone in his right hand was shattered, and the man that brought him in from the Houndstooth Pub in Manchester said that he had been 'trying to recruit,' when a handful of Yankee wizards proceeded to stomp the life out of him while calling him a nonce."
"Who were the other two?" Pye asked.
"Rondal Travers and Grayson Gibbons," replied Smethwyck. "We'll have to report this to the Aurors like the other two."
"Like they care," Augustus Pye stated. "Every one of these men had the Dark Mark, and their days are numbered. Rondal is Torquil Travers's son, a right nasty piece of work he was. Now, all we can do is patch them up enough to meet a Dementor, if there are any available or the Veil in the DOM.
"Scrimgeour, it's rumored, is even considering constructing a gallows in Diagon Alley, and bringing back public hanging."
"What's Potter have to say?" Smethwyck wondered.
"Somebody said that when asked, he just gave them a cold and uncaring stare," Pye remarked. "Can't say that I blame the young Lord with what they did to his family. He has a wife to think of now, too, and he will protect her."
"This is going to turn very bad," Smethwyck said, "isn't it?"
"Dark days are ahead of us, Hippocrates, so you must brace for it," Pye said. "They're saying that Lord Potter is the 'Chosen One,' according to a prophecy, so, we can only hope that he finishes He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as quickly as possible."
Rabastan Lestrange was in Bellatrix's room at Malfoy Manor, and she didn't look well, at all, where there was a foul and fishy smell in the air, which almost made him gag.
When Bellatrix moaned out with her head tossing from side to side, she demanded another pain potion, which Rabastan fed her. Snape, along with a healer that they had brought there that was favorable to them, said that she didn't have much longer to live; maybe a week.
If things kept going downhill as they were, then he was thinking of doing a runner to France after burying Bellatrix in the family cemetery. There, they had some gold and other items buried in a rucksack, each, in case they had to flee. After digging the rucksacks up, he'd roll Bellatrix into the hole, cover her up, and make his way to where he could apparate across the channel. He had, after all, seen the Prophet showing Potter with all the wild magic dancing around him as he easily bested his brother. He had only seen something like that in books, and it was about war mages and sorcerers drawing upon the surrounding ambient wild magic who were ready to kill. Potter was dangerous, as he had never seen that occur from his Lord before.
There was also his ruthless wife, who, it seemed, didn't mind cursing first and asking questions later. It wouldn't do to be hit in the back by one of her spells if this was the outcome. Plus, they all noticed, the ministry didn't raise one eyebrow about what occurred. They were all marked, and he knew it.
Harry was sitting on his broom and looking at a large, partly-rounded, giant boulder of granite resting on a tripod of timbers about twenty feet in the air. The stone was 22" x 24" x 33", and was supposedly the same size, and of the same spell resistance as a grown giant's head.
"All right, Potter," Head Auror Robards said, "let's see what you've got!"
"Show 'im, Potter," Moody growled out, as Harry shot off on his broom, did a barrel roll, and aimed the Mayhaw wand at the stone where he cast the strongest Bombarda Maxima that he could.
The huge red bolt of magic soared from his wand lightning fast as Harry pulled up on his broom, and shot off like a cork into the sky. When the spell hit the large granite boulder, it blew apart into a thousand pieces, and the Aurors, who were standing a good fifty yards away, had to shield themselves from the flying debris of the explosion.
"Well," Moody said as he looked over at a gaping Robards, "ya said ya had a problem with Giants, didn' ya?"
"Not anymore," Robards said as he walked off shaking his head.
A/N: More drama and intrigue, and more to come. Thanks for the reviews!