The-First-Task (II) [Chapter 168]

~~Quidditch Pitch, Hogwarts~~

|Cooperation…| Harry muttered internally with a smirk on his face as he returned to the Quidditch Pitch, instead of visiting a restroom after leaving the classroom. Honestly, he was a bit disappointed that the impromptu meeting ate up all of his time, but he couldn’t complain much as he finally managed to learn quite a bit about the third Faction.

“You are back!” Jacklyn exclaimed excitedly, expecting an exciting story and she wasn’t disappointed when Harry promised to tell her everything afterward.

Meanwhile, Bagman finally announced Viktor Krum’s name and the Bulgarian Seeker was supposed to face a Chinese Fireball. Instead of trying to distract the Dragon by some other means, Viktor simply attacked the Dragon with the Conjunctivitis Curse. It worked like a Charm and the Dragon was blinded. He used that chance to steal the golden egg from the nest but the Dragon ended up crushing some of her real eggs in the confusion.

“That’s so horrible” Narcissa mumbled dispassionately when she noticed that the people around her were cheering at that.

“Well, that is the Wizarding World for you…” Harry answered with a shrug. He had seen Wizards kill Magical Beasts for even lesser reasons and Viktor Krum was participating in the Triwizard Tournament for Eternal Glory.

After a few more minutes, the Dragon handlers were finally able to subdue the dismayed Chinese Fireball before removing the Dragon from the arena. Then all three of the Champions were summoned to the arena so the judges could give them the scores… Viktor Krum and Cedric Diggory tied for first place with an equal score while Fleur Delacour was the last with the lowest score as she received a zero from Dolores Umbridge.

“That pink toad is biased” Jacklyn stated with a frown but she still accepted her loss.

“I have met her a few times during Ministry Balls and she is a highly unpleasant woman” Narcissa revealed with a sniff as she gave Dolores Umbridge a disgusted look from the corner of her eyes.

“Ah… Well. That’s a wrap for today, I suppose” Harry stood up while somewhat bored.

“Can we get ice cream on the way back?” Jacklyn asked in a hopeful tone.

“Sure” Harry agreed without much thinking as they started to leave the Quidditch Pitch. He was half expecting Albus to confront him, but the man was clearly busy with the Tournament duties…

<Line Break>

~~Nott Manor~~

“Speak” Voldemort ordered in a low tone and the man kneeling in front of him finally started to speak. He would have preferred to stay in the Malfoy Manor, but Lucius was no longer answering his summons. Voldemort couldn’t even sense the man through the Mark, which could only mean two things. Either Lucius was dead, which wasn’t probable as the man was still alive, or he no longer carried the Dark Mark, which was also improbable as only he could remove the Dark Mark from a person.

It was the same with Barty… Voldemort couldn’t sense the man through the Dark Mark, but he was almost certain that Barty was well and truly dead…

“My Lord, the Potter boy was there with that barbarian whore and wife of that traitorous bastard” Nott Sr. revealed and Voldemort simply hummed thoughtfully.

“What about the traitor himself?” Voldemort asked coldly. He had asked his followers to kidnap the man if possible, but Lucius was nowhere to be seen, so it was quite clear that his followers had failed to carry out the task. If it was anyone else besides Lucius, then Voldemort would have stayed his hand for the time being, but Lucius had one of his Horcruxes in his possession, so he couldn’t leave the man to his own devices.

Nott Sr. whimpered a bit before he finally started to speak. "My Lord, he was sticking close to the Minister, we weren’t able to make a move” Nott Sr. stuttered out. A small part of Voldemort wanted to Curse the spineless moron, but the rest of him knew that it would be useless to punish Nott Sr. at this moment. Lucius was obviously not a fool, and that was exactly why Voldemort wanted him to be dealt with as soon as he could.

Lucius was also harboring Harry Potter in his home… Voldemort couldn’t help but wonder if Lucius was planning to use Harry Potter to beat him… He decided to ponder that sometime later…

“What about Karkaroff?” Voldemort asked smoothly. Karkaroff was another such traitor and the man needed to be dealt with. He needed to make an example of Karkaroff to dissuade anyone else planning to betray him, but Voldemort couldn’t act openly as he wasn’t planning to reveal his return to the Wizarding World anytime soon.

Right now, he was consolidating his power base as all of his creature followers were scattered far and wide. The Dementors were back in Azkaban, and while it would be the easiest to convince them to join him, he decided to keep them for the last… The Werewolf packs were scattered across Europe and America. He needed to send an envoy to each one of them to get the news of his return delivered to them which was going to take quite some time.

Then it was the same for the Vampire Covens… He would need to send an envoy to meet them too, but he didn’t have envoys to send in the first place. Only Mulciber could deal with the Werewolves and the Vampires, and if he remembered correctly, he needed to promise something really good to get both the Werewolves and the Vampires to work for him as Vampires and Werewolves were like oil and water.

Then there were the Giants… He decided to leave the Giants for later as it was really hard to manage them and Mucliber could manage them…

“My Lord, my son told me that Karkaroff is extremely spooked. He no longer eats meals with the others in the Great Hall and he is never seen anywhere in the halls. For the past couple of weeks, he had been living inside the Durmstrang ship” Nott Sr. revealed.

Severus had also told him the same story… “Leave” Voldemort snapped and Nott Sr. practically scampered out of the room. After Nott Sr. was gone, Voldemort started to ponder what to do next… Before attacking Harry Potter, he wanted to learn the rest of the Prophecy as he wanted to avoid another humiliation at all costs…