The-Cold-War-Initiated (II) [Chapter 189]

~~Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire~~ (December 23rd, 1994)

Narcissa’s hands trembled as she started to read the letter… This wasn’t the first letter she received from her son, but this could very well be the last. Apparently, the Auror guards in the school were keeping a close eye on him, but that wasn’t all, they weren’t going to let him leave the school during the Christmas holidays as the Aurors didn’t think it was safe for him to return to his own home.

The Aurors were also trying to put a lot of pressure on Draco, wanting to see if he knew where his parents lived, but the problem was that he didn’t remember anything himself. It was getting harder for him to maintain any sort of communication with her with each passing day as the Aurors were putting more and more pressure on him to gather any sort of clue or information.

After Severus ran afoul of Harry, Septima Vector became the temporary Head of the House, but she wasn’t capable enough to handle the Slytherin House. Severus ran the Slytherin House with an iron fist and thanks to his reputation, none of the students tried anything funny, but Septima wasn’t a fighter, nor did she have any scary reputation to back her. She was only managing somehow because the Aurors were running around the school.

Also thanks to the Aurors, Draco no longer had to deal with harassment and the Hexes in the hallways, but at the same time, he was getting sidelined by the Slytherin House. He didn’t have any friends, nor did he have anyone to talk with… Narcissa could feel his pain and anguish through his words. She could understand what he was going through and as a mother, she couldn’t see his pain.

With a determined look on her face, she stood up with the letter in her hand and decided to find Harry. She wanted to blame him as if it wasn’t for him then their lives wouldn’t have taken the hard turn, but a part of her knew that he wasn’t to blame… At least not completely. They could have ended up in a much worse situation thanks to her foolish spouse.

The Dark Lord was back and if it wasn’t for Harry then the monster would have been camping in their manor and she wasn’t delusional enough to think that the Dark Lord would have left her son alone… He would have sunk his claws in Draco and then his fate would have been quite horrible. Narcissa knew very well that the Dark Lord wasn’t the person he led the Purebloods to believe. He was just a monster…

So, in a lot of ways, being under Harry’s control was much better than being under the Dark Lord’s thumb… At least, Harry didn’t treat anyone as his servants. Narcissa arrived outside his room and knocked on the door. She heard his voice from the inside and after taking a deep breath she entered the room. Harry was sitting cross-legged on the floor and his posture made her wonder what he was doing.

“Good morning, Narcissa” Harry greeted her as he stood up and with a flick of his finger, summoned a chair for her from the corner of the room. Instead of summoning a chair, Harry simply Conjured a chair for himself and sat down. “So, what’s up?” Harry asked as he glanced toward the letter in her hand.

“Good morning, Harry. The letter came in this morning” Narcissa revealed before handing the letter to Harry. He accepted the letter and only a few seconds later, he turned back to Narcissa.

“So, how can I help?” Harry asked even though he probably already knew the answer. “If you want, I can help you rescue him from tyrannical Aurors” Harry added with a chuckle.

“Yes, that would help” Narcissa immediately admitted without missing a beat.

“I think they will probably move him in a day or two, so I think I will deal with it tonight” Harry rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He knew this was going to happen eventually as the Aurors would become desperate with each passing day since he never stopped cutting a part of Severus Snape and then Portalling the said to Dumbledore’s office. To be honest, the whole thing was completely hilarious to him.

Albus was also getting rather desperate and Harry deduced that he was also putting a lot of pressure on the Ministry and the DMLE. Then he was probably trying to locate them on his own too as Severus Snape was extremely valuable to him…

“Thank you” Narcissa thanked Harry with a genuine smile on her face. “By the way, will it be possible for him to get admitted to Ilvermorny after the Christmas holidays?” Narcissa asked and Harry raised his brows at her.

“Why Ilvermorny, why not home-school him?” Harry asked curiously. He knew that Narcissa didn’t have any ulterior motives, otherwise, the Mark on her arm would have notified him of her betrayal.

Narcissa slumped down in her seat… “I want to. I want to home-school him. It would have been safer for him that way, but I want him to have friends of his own age” Narcissa revealed with a tired look on her face. Yes, Harry already knew that. He had read the letter too, but he still couldn’t understand why Draco was bitching about it. He didn’t have any friends of his age except for Brittany and he was completely alright.

|Draco is a sissy. Don’t pay him too much mind| Lily commented off-handedly and Harry seemed to agree with her on that and decided to drop the matter.

“What about Durmstrang instead?” Harry suggested.

“No! He will be in even more danger if I send him there” Narcissa immediately refused the suggestion.

“If you are worried about Karkaroff, then you don’t need to. He will stop being a problem after tonight” Harry spoke like he was talking about the weather.

“You are planning to kidnap Igor Karkaroff from Hogwarts with all the security?” Narcissa asked just to make sure and after getting a serious nod from Harry, she wasn’t able to stop herself from laughing mirthlessly. “If it was anyone else then I would have laughed at them” Narcissa groaned before she ended up rubbing her temple.

“You still laughed” Harry pointed out blandly, but Narcissa seemed to ignore his words.

“...If Karkaroff is no longer at Durmstrang then I don’t have any problems” Narcissa answered after pondering for a bit. Draco would fit nicely in Durmstrang as Durmstrang only accepts Pureblood students. Yes, there are a few exceptions here and there, but all of those exceptions are high-profile Half Bloods or somehow related to the Professors. Harry would have probably been accepted too…

“Well, there is no need to hurry. Before deciding anything you should talk with Draco and see what he wants” Harry pointed out and Narcissa nodded her head in understanding. After thanking Harry for the second time, Narcissa bid him farewell and left the room…

~~Timeskip~~ (A few hours later)

Harry was working on some Spell formulas when someone knocked on the door. “Enter” Harry called out and moments later, Katerina walked inside the room with a proud look on her face. He was so engrossed in his notes that Harry never noticed their arrival, but he didn’t keep track of every single one of his followers as that would be way too hectic even for him.

“When did you return?” Harry asked as he closed his notebook.

“Only a few minutes ago and I decided to give you the report before anything else” Katerina explained with a grin and Harry simply gestured her to continue. “Well, I have good news and bad news for you” The woman revealed before she lost her smile. “The good news is, Rubek is under our control, but the bad news is, Rubek is so isolated that there are no supply routes around Rubek. We will have to set them on our own if we want to set up a base” Katerina finished with a sigh.

After hearing her words, Harry seemed to rub his chin with a thoughtful look on his face. The reason why he chose Rubek in the first place was because he wanted to keep his main base hidden from the rest of the world, so setting up supply chains around Rubke would be kind of counterproductive… Though he couldn’t ignore the issue. After all, even if they could farm food on the island, they would still need the supply chains for everything else.

“What about Svalbard?” Harry asked. He wanted to know if Svalbard was connected through supply chains and if it was, then they could get their stuff from Svalbard.

“Not exactly, They bring in everything from Norway” Katerina answered and Harry nodded his head in understanding. Svalbard or Norway, it didn’t make much difference to him. They could get their stuff from Norway, but buying in bulk would most definitely get the attention of various Government organizations around the world, but to be honest, he wasn’t worried about them as he was planning to cast Fidelius Charm on Rubek.

There were two major factors he needed to keep in mind before casting the Fidelius Charm… First of all, he needed to be careful about the size of the place. Most of the people already knew about this. Secondly, the number of people aware of that particular place also factored into the Spell. If a few people knew about a place then Harry would have to spend a comparatively low amount of Magic to cast the Spell and with how isolated Rubek was, he was certain that not many people knew about the place.

“We will deal with it when the time comes… Take a break, you have done well” Harry praised her and the woman smiled at him brightly before leaving the room…