Making-Moves (VII) [Chapter 176]

“How does this even work?” Brittany asked in complete awe as she marveled at the Sigil of the Lost on her arm. She didn’t even think twice before allowing him to brand her with the Sigil of the Lost, she trusted him that much. Harry told her everything the Sigil could do and to be honest, she was beyond impressed.

“It is kind of hard to explain in words, so I will show you my notes the next time you visit me” Harry answered with a smile. He was glad that Brittany was still the same. She was never good with people, that was why she didn’t have many friends, to begin with, but was never bothered by the fact as she spent almost all of her time with books.

“I will hold you on to that” Brittany agreed tersely as she nodded her head.

“Then I have this mirror for you” Harry said before handing over a two-way mirror to her. With the notes in his possession, it only took him a couple of hours to crack the code. He Enchanted a couple of mirrors and connected them to the pre-existing network as he didn’t need to create another network for the time being.

“What am I going to do with this? I don’t believe I am that vain…” Brittany asked with a confused look on her face.

“It is not a normal mirror, my dear” Harry chuckled softly. “This is a two-way mirror. While holding this mirror, call my name” Harry said while he pulled out his own two-way mirror from his robes. Brittany gave him a septic look before saying his name and she was completely taken aback when the surface of the mirror rippled and Harry’s face appeared on her mirror.

Harry turned his mirror toward Brittany to show her face in his mirror. “With this, we will be able to talk with each other face to face without any sort of delay” Harry explained with a grin as he already knew how Brittany was going to react to the mirror, and he wasn’t disappointed when she took a deep breath before shooting off questions at him.

“Woah! Woah! Woah! Calm down, girl… He can’t answer all of that” Jacklyn decided to interrupt Brittany before she could go off on a tangent. Brittany blushed brightly in embarrassment when she finally realized that she was ranting off like a nerd. “You have a pair of iron lungs on you” Jacklyn whistled, looking impressed and her comment made Brittany blush even more.

“Well, here you go” Harry said before passing her a small notebook containing everything about two-way mirrors. “You can always help me with the production of two-way mirrors as I will need them pretty soon” Harry added. He knew that Brittany felt bad for not being able to help him by being there with him, but now, she could help him without getting involved in the upcoming War directly.

Meanwhile, Brittany was already scouring through the notebook, but all of a sudden, she frowned and turned toward Harry. “Why are there blanks?” Brittany asked with a frown while she showed off the notebook to Harry.

“I have left those places blank for future improvements. Right now, the two-way mirror might seem extremely useful, but it has a lot of unused potential” Harry explained and Brittany nodded her head in understanding before she once again started to skim through the notebook.

To be honest, Harry was impressed with the two-way mirror, but what impressed him, even more, was the untapped potential of the two-way mirror. He could have modified the mirror or added a lot more functionality to the mirror, but right now, all of that would have been redundant. Though there was something he had to improve before handing over the mirror to Brittany. He had to improve the range of the mirror so that she could talk with him from here without any connectivity issues.

“What about my parents?” Brittany all of a sudden stopped skimming through the notebook and asked Harry in a low tone.

“I am not planning to tell them anything about me, but I will be secretly upgrading the Wards at your house before returning to Britain” Harry answered and Brittany pulled him into a hug with a big smile on her face.

“Oh! Oh! Group hug!!” Jacklyn exclaimed from the side and pulled the two of them into her arms.

“Thank you, Harry” Brittany mumbled in a low tone.

“What are friends for?” Harry asked with a grin as the three of them continued to share a group hug…

~~Nott Manor~~

Voldemort strutted down the hall like he owned the place… Both of his meetings were fruitful so he was in a somewhat pleasant mood, but then all of a sudden his mood soured when Nott Sr. interrupted him with a letter in his hand.

“My Lord, this came for you when you were away” Nott Sr. revealed as he extended the letter toward Voldemort.

Voldemort read the sender’s name and flared his nostrils. Yes, his pleasant mood was definitely soured. He snatched the letter from Nott Sr.’s hand before dismissing the man with a wave of his hand. Voldemort resumed making his way toward his throne room and started to wonder what the traitor wanted from him. If the man was planning to beg then that was not going to work.

Voldemort entered his throne room and locked the room from inside before opening the letter while making his way toward his throne. Voldemort was so attuned to Magic that he would have noticed any Curse or Traps in the letter, so he wasn’t worried about that. Voldemort raised his non-existent eyebrows as he started to read the letter and he was so surprised by the contents of the letter that he even stopped walking.

According to the letter, Harry Potter was much stronger than anyone believed him to be and he also somehow managed to remove the Dark Mark. Voldemort pondered the contents of the letter and he had to admit, he never considered the prospect of another Parselmouth and if the boy was truly a Prselmouth then he could remove the Dark Mark.

That wasn’t all, apparently, Gellert Grindelwald and his followers who recently escaped from Nurmengard were also working for the boy… How was that even possible? He was able to learn quite a few shocking things from the letter, and all of them were quite unbelievable, but Voldemort couldn’t bring himself to dismiss the contents of the letter. He started to wonder if it was the Prophecy acting up.

Lucius might have exaggerated quite a few things, but a part of him believed the man. Voldemort had underestimated the boy and his Mudblood mother once and he had paid the price for that. He won’t be repeating the mistake again… He looked away from the letter and started to scowl. There were so many questions, but he had no answers and that vexed him quite a bit.

‘It is most important that I acquire the Prophecy as soon as I can’ Voldemort decided, but once again, he found himself in a conundrum as he realized that he didn't know much about the Department of Mysteries and the only one who could provide him such information was rotting in Azkaban. He realized that he might need to change his plans, but before that, he needed to confirm how much of the contents of the letter were true before modifying his plans.

He stared at the letter and burned it with his Magic before making up his mind to meet the boy. The Malfoys used to host Yule Balls every year and he started to wonder if they are going to host one this year too…

~~Malfoy Manor~~

Gellert, Narcissa, and Sirius finally finished telling Tonks that Harry wasn’t working for Gellert, nor was he forcing Harry to work for him, instead, it was kind of the opposite. Though none of them went into too much detail as they didn’t know how much Harry wanted to be revealed about himself to someone who wasn’t a part of the Lost Garden. Then there was always a chance that Harry might simply Obliviate her before sending her off.

Meanwhile, Tonks.exe has stopped working and she simply stared at the trio with a dumb look on her face. Tonks wasn’t as dumb as people liked to think, but by no means, she was the sharpest tool in the shed. So, it was kind of obvious that her brain stopped working after learning something her brain simply couldn’t comprehend. After almost a minute, her brain was finally working again, but for a moment she wondered if everything was a dream.

Though her hopes were immediately crushed when she found herself sharing snacks with Gellert Fucking Grindelwald. The man was extremely charismatic and she had seen no signs of him being the monster she had been told, but she wasn’t planning to drop her guard anytime soon… Sirius was there, but she wasn’t sure if he could protect her in case Grindelwald decided to kill her. The man was still feared around the whole world for a reason.

“What are you going to do to me?” Tonks asked worriedly as the Wand slipped into her hand. She wasn’t sure if the others noticed her actions or not, but they didn’t seem to show any reaction. They had revealed quite a bit of information to her, so she started to wonder if she was going to make it out of this place or if they were going to Obliviate her into a drooling mess.

“Well, that is up to him to decide” Gellert answered dismissively while staring at something behind her.

Tonks shivered as she realized that someone was standing behind her. She slowly turned around, only to find Harry standing there with an amused look on his face… “Hello, Tonks. It looks like you have missed me…” Harry greeted her with a grin and poor Tonks.exe couldn’t handle the shock and simply passed out…