I Really Hate Terrorists
Disclaimer: These characters are the property of J.K Rowling and WB. No copyright infringement is intended.
"Speech"
'Thoughts'
Chapter 9
Harry had been at Grimmauld for two days and he had been scheming for most of it. He had made Sirius and Remus swear secrecy oaths with dire penalties but they weren't loyalty oaths. Loyalty oaths were a thing in his new life but they didnt work like he thought, turns out that short of slave brands or prisoner brands used in other countries they only stopped someone from causing harm to another. Basically it was just a quick knockout switch for when the parameters of the oath are broken. Totally worthless and no one in their right mind would agree to be branded like cattle, except the Death Eaters but they were the exception.
He and his house elf special forces along with Walburga had been meeting in secret to discuss their options. Walburga was an unusual choice for his war council but the woman was a child of the Black family and they excelled in scheming and vengeance. Harry had explained the current situation and had given his ideas of how to tackle the problem. Walburga had approved of his ideas but she helped by poking holes in his strategy and helping with solving said holes.
Harry looked around the room and saw the eager faces of his fanatical house elves and the stony gaze of Walburga Black. He took a sip from the glass of water he had set in front of him and gathered his thoughts. Harry started the brief.
"We are gathered to go over our options in this war. Our current intel shows that the enemy leadership will be gathered in one place on the 30th of the month which is 3 days from now. We have to come up with a plan within the next few hours, get staged and practice our approaches, then enact the plan. We need to sow chaos and discord between our enemies and get them to distrust each other so they wont get a chance to consolidate their power.
We can use this meeting to our advantage and if all goes to plan, we will cause a break in trust within our enemy's ranks and take some suspicion from our faction in this war. My current idea is to capture one of the attendees, someone who has a history of opposing Malfoy, the current head of his faction and imperious him to attack the group. If it succeeds we will pin our past actions on a group of Death Eaters which will cause them to focus on internal power struggles and will give us enough time to come up with better strategies and opportunities to take them out one by one. This plan would have the added bonus of decreasing the fighting strength of our opponents due to the casualties of the infighting. There are obvious holes in the plan but I bring it to this war council to discuss ways of mitigating failure of the plan and to hear any suggestions."
Kreacher and Dobby were a little out of their depth as far as planning complicated operations but would chip in some good ideas from time to time. Walburga was the main sounding board Harry used. She was a ruthless, petty and vindictive woman inlife and in death she had become worse. In any other universe her portrait would mostly spit toxic vitriol upon the tenants of the House of Black but not in this universe. She had found out that due to her insistence, her favorite son was pushed into the arms of a fraud who only wanted power and gleefully sacrificed anyone to get which in this case had been her son.
"As we have discussed before the premise of the operation is good; putting into action will be much more difficult. The first piece of the puzzle we must solve is finding the perfect scapegoat. We need someone up in the ranks but not too high to be too obvious or too low to make apparent they are the patsy. From the list of people that we received, I would say that our best bet boils down to two choices, either Theodore Nott Sr or Ichabod Selwyn. Both men are fairly wealthy, have strong pureblood upbringings and both covet Lucius Malfoy's power and wealth. There have always been whispers of the shadow games they would play to one up each other but those games came to a close when that wretched son of a squib and muggle chose Lucius as his right hand man.
Theodore Nott Sr is quite an unsavory man, he is brusque and hot tempered, but he is also quite cunning and underhanded. He has not been charged with the many crimes he has been accused of because he is quite good at getting away with it. Ichabod on the other hand is a soft spoken and conniving man. He has always been looked down upon due to his soft spoken and submissive persona. It is all an act of course but because of the man's abysmal charisma very few would follow his lead. He has obtained power by his wit and cutthroat business acumen.
Both men would make great candidates for our plans but they would also be quite difficult to get to. The choice is yours young man."
Harry had been taking notes on his parchment. "Thank you for the information madame, it is very useful intel. Now we just need to figure out who to choose and how we will approach them?"
"Why not just use both of them?" The question came from the corner of the room, Dobby and Kreacher had both pulled out their personal bowie Knives and had pooped next to the source of the question.
Harry looked over to the corner and saw both Sirius and Remus frozen in fear as the elves held their blades to very critical areas such as the liver and the femoral artery.
Harry smirked at the men, "You know, if you want to sneak up on someone, you should really make sure that you cast, scent masking, sound proofing and disillusionment charms. Yeah, you cast the sound proofing and disillusionment charms but I could smell your after shave. By the way, you need to ease up on it. You have the most cloying aftershave ever." Harry had noticed that the men had been curious as to what Harry was thinking about for the last two days but he had figured out their plan because they had whispered it out in the hall before he decided to show himself. He knew they were following because all though they were silent and invisible, they bumped into all sorts of things in the halls and Sirius' aftershave was quite offensive.
The two men were staring wide eyed at the pre-teen who had just critiqued their stalking skills and were also frozen in fear. Dobby had the tip of his blade pressed against Remus' liver and Kreacher Held the tip of his blade on Sirius' inner thigh on top of the femoral artery. Sirius wasn't thinking about the artery; he was more concerned by the fact that the blade was so close to his twig and berries. The sadistic grin on Kreacher's face was not reassuring him at all.
"Stand down, we don't need to kill them for entering our secret meeting...yet" Harry ordered his elves with a smirk.
The elves popped back to their seats silently as if nothing had ever happened. Remus and Sirius were both quite disturbed by the little creatures. Harry knew that the small shock his boys gave the two older wizards would help deflect their attention at his demeanor and come up with that S class b.s. 'Time to put my Bullshitting skills to use.'
"Gentlemen take a seat, before we proceed, I will catch you up on how this war council came to be and why I do not seem like the Harry Potter everyone expected. I have told Madame Black and Kreacher part of the story but I will tell the whole sordid tale now. During my first year at Hogwarts, we had an unexpected guest professor for DADA. While professor Quirrel was indeed our professor he was but one half of the whole. The stupid man had willingly allowed the shade of Voldemort to possess him so that he could have access to Hogwarts.
You see Dumbledore in his infinite wisdom decided to hide the Philosopher's Stone in Hogwarts after having let 'slip' that Nicholas Flamel had entrusted him with it. You may or may not have read in the Daily Prophet that There was a break in last year. That Was Quirrel's attempt to obtain it from the bank. Hagrid had picked it up on the day I was first introduced to the wizarding world. I had been curious about the secretive package that Hagrid had boasted about having been tasked to obtain by Dumbledore but quickly forgot about it due to the excitement of learning of the Wizarding world.
On the day of the sorting dumbledore had made a very suspicious announcement to the school about staying away from the third floor classroom unless we wanted to die a horrible death. Of course everyone thought it was just the profesor being his eccentric self but little did we know that he had actually hidden the stone in that room. My year was fairly normal, well as normal as it can be for someone who is considered a celebrity without knowing the reason why. The year progressed and towards the end of the year it all changed.
My friends and I had discovered that the stone was in the room and we were under the impression that Snape was trying to obtain it for Voldemort. I admit not a very big leap in logic considering the man is an asshole and had bullied me for my resemblance to a father I had never met. My friends and I were unfortunately wrong. We had previously made it into that room and found that a cerberus was guarding a trap door in that room. We had become curious and had asked Hagrid about it and he let it slip. From there we researched and that led us to the fateful night that Dumbledore was called away from the school.
We had figured that since the strongest protector of the school was gone that Snape would make his move that night, we told professor Mcgonagall but she blew us off. So much for being able to tell your head of house anything. We decided to steal the stone first and hide it until Dumbledore returned. We entered the room, put the cerberus to sleep and faced the 'security measures' that the professors had implemented. The measures were a joke if three first yeast could make it past them relatively unscathed. Ron had been hurt so I had asked Hermione to take him back and get a teacher. I went to the final chamber and was captured by Quirrell. He had me at his mercy but he could not get past the final measure which was an enchanted mirror which showed your heart's desire.
Quirrell was stuck and then he took off his turban and I came face to face with my parent's killer. He had a disgusting face on the back of the professor's head. They forced me to get the stone from the mirror which somehow had ended up in my pocket. When Quirrell was given the order to kill me I fought for my life. I scratched at his face and it burned him. I was later told that my mother had placed a strong enchantment which protected me from Voldemort's touch. The professor turned to ash before my eyes and then it happened. The shade of Voldemort flew out of the dying man and attempted to possess me. What neither of us knew at the time was that Voldemort having been greatly weakened by my attack and back in a ghostly form would cause him to fail in his attempt to possess me.
When he attempted to possess me, we had a mental battle and he lost. What neither of us knew at the time was that when he left my body we had both gained something from each other. I would not find out until later since the attack had knocked me unconscious. While I was in and out of consciousness, memories came to me. The memories were not mine but of someone else. A man by the name of Tom Marvolo Riddle AKA Voldemort.
The memories were broken but I was able to learn a few things such as the reason for Voldemort's continued existence. He had made seven horcruxes. Horcruxes are items imbued with a piece of a Wizard's soul. What I had learned was that Voldemort had unwittingly made me the seventh horcrux which was why I had that cursed scar for most of my life but when he attempted to possess me he had taken that small sliver of soul with him and I kept some of his memories. I awoke clear headed for the first time ever and had the maturity of a grown man instead of the 11 year old I once was.
With all this new found knowledge I snuck to the Goblins and had them help me heal and get my parents affairs in order. During that time of rehabilitation I discovered that I knew what and where the other soul pieces were. I even knew that Voldemort had learned of Regulus' betrayal; he did not get the chance to have his revenge on Regulus because he died before he could. He knew that the Locket was here and that it would be safe.
I knew that the war wasn't over but had just reached a stalemate and decided to end it once and for all. Normally I would have notified the authorities or Dumbledore but with Voldemort's memories and my experience in the wizarding world thus far I knew that the information would be leaked and that his followers would use that as a call to arms and expedite his return so I decided to gather allies in the house of Black which thanks to Sirius, I was the heir to. I called Kreacher and he brought me here to meet Madame Black. I told her part of the story and she agreed to ally with me and I destroyed the first soul piece with a basilisk venom imbued sword.
From there I focused on training myself in both magic and muggle self defense and Kreacher and I spent the summer gathering soul pieces. We met Dobby not long after and he told us of a plot on my life at Hogwarts this year. With my knowledge I was able to figure out it had to be Malfoy. We took the soul piece he had planted in the Weasley girls books and destroyed it and I told Dobby how to free himself from Malfoy; and when I went back to hogwarts we destroyed another.
We then spied on the 'imperioused' Death Eaters and found out of a plot to free the prisoners of Azkaban. We struck and I called upon a mercenary by the name of Jason Thorne. He infiltrated the prison and killed all of Voldemort's followers. He tipped me off that Walden Macnair and Fenrir Greyback were meeting and Kreacher and I spied on them but we unfortunately had to kill them. We were able to get intel on the remaining Death eaters planning a meeting where they would discuss the recent deaths of their compatriots and are planning a way to not only take some of the heat off the mysterious third faction that is taking out the Death Eaters but also sow dissension in the ranks and that's when you came in."
Harry finished his tale and drank his glass of water, Walburga and Kreacher knew that he had lied about some of it but they understood that that two men would be reluctant to help a boy who had callously killed and interrogated Death Eaters. There are a lot of holes there but hopefully the sheer shock value of the story will distract them and they will overlook them. Walburga and Kreacher now have more background as to how I knew what I did when I first met them and now have a plausible reason for my need for revenge. 'Come on Bullshitting skill dont fail me now.'
---
Sirius and Remus were glad they had been sitting down, they had noticed that Harry had been distracted since moving in and had decided to spy on him to see what had made him so out of sorts. Other than their initial meeting with the boy, he had been like any other 12 year old but they noticed that stare every once in a while when Harry let that mask slip. It was a very familiar stare that both men were familiar with. It was the same stare they had during the war. They decided to spy on him and maybe prank him but they had not been prepared to walk into a war council. The things they spoke about and the way Harry portrayed himself was not of a little boy but a soldier. Sirius thought it could have all been some sort of joke with a boy, some elves and a portrait but once he had heard their topic of discussion the mirth left him.
They had heard the plan and it greatly disturbed them that a boy was basically planning an assasination of some of the most prominent and powerful figures in wizarding Britain. Sirius could not help himself any longer and spoke, "Why not just use both of them?" The reaction from the elves had almost scared the piss out of the two men. They would never admit it but the fact that diminutive creatures could have killed them before they could have reacted was a horrifying thought. House elves should never be thought of as miniature assassins.
After that scare it was humiliating to think that a 12 year old boy had known that he was being stalked. They had years of knowledge and experience but he made them seem like firsties attempting to prank Dumbledore himself. The story that followed had been what truly horrified the men and would cause numerous sleepless nights. Harry had a piece of his parent's killer in his head for most of his life and to not only find that out but to then be struck with countless memories from the psychopath explained so much. The boy had many reasons to break down and give up but instead he steeled himself and fought his own personal war to free himself from a horrid fate. Remus was greatly ashamed. His best friend's child had a far worse life than him and he had come out stronger while he had crumbled and given in. Lycanthropy seemed almost trivial in comparison.
Sirius had received the answers he was looking for but it only led to more questions but he would have them answered tonight.
"Harry, is that why you don't trust Dumbledore, I mean beside him leaving you with those animals?"
Harry scoffed, "Dumbledore is either inept or corrupt. The reason he was called away from the meeting we had was because the goblins had discovered he had been embezzling money from my trust to pay the Dursleys. Not to mention the discrepancies in his role as headmaster. He knows everything that happens in that castle but he didn't know about Quirrell? Or how about the security measures that had been in place, why were they only at a level that a first year could bypass them? He is the supposed greatest wizard of his age. How did he not realize what that curse scar was or why didn't he take me to a wizarding hospital after I had been retrieved from my parent's home? How did he know that my parents were dead and had the forethought to send Hagrid to pick me up before anyone did? Lastly, how did he know what happened that night with me surviving the killing curse?
Out of the four people in the cottage that night only two survived and I was a baby and Voldemort had fled. These are all questions that dont shine a very flattering light on the greatest light wizard of our age. Not to mention that he has Snape, an outright sorry excuse for a teacher known for bias and for verbally assaulting students as part of his staff. Why did he not get you a trial or have you questioned for information on your compatriots if he thought you had betrayed my parents in his role as Chief Warlock? All of those things cause me to not trust him. If his actions dont make him senile and inept then they make him out to be an enemy. Don't doubt for a moment that his actions can be seen as enemy action if looked at from a certain perspective.
Harry's answer had left Sirius speechless. Remus was openly shocked when he heard the argument put into that perspective.
Harry turned to Remus and asked a question that would solidify the man's loyalty. "You are a werewolf, I figured it out when Sirius called you Mooney and you seemed to be under the weather after the full moon. Yet you are the only werewolf to have ever attended hogwarts? Why is that? Are you from a noble house? Did he do it out of the kindness of his heart? If he did, why are you the only werewolf to have attended. I'm sure there are numerous wizarding children with your affliction and yet he never deemed them special enough to have them attend? You feel indebted to him don't you? I wonder, has he ever manipulated you into doing things for him just because he plays off that sense of indebtedness? Food for thought. Well this wasn't a very productive meeting but I think we should all reconvene in the morning. It will give us time to process all this new information."
Remus was reeling from the boy's questions and Sirius was pondering the whole of his and Remus' lives to try and figure out if the choices he and his friends had made were theirs or if someone had been manipulating them from the shadows. They never even notice when the boy left the room or when the elves had popped away.
"He is an intelligent boy, isn't he?" Walburga asked her son.
Sirius snapped his eyes to the portrait of his mother.
"You and I may never have or will see, eye to eye Sirius, but on this you will not disobey me, protect that boy. He is everything an heir of Black should be. He makes ancestors of both Black and Potter proud. You may have disappointed me but you have redeemed yourself in appointing that boy your heir. He is the future of our family. You will do everything in your power to help him. It is time you quit being the rebel and finally do your duty not only as the head of his house or as his Lord but as his Godfather Sirius. You have failed him already, do not squander your second chance because he like the Blacks before him, does not suffer fools… for long."
Sirius Black had been living through each and every heartbreak and mistake of his life while in the tender mercies of the Dementors for over a decade. This had caused him to lose that fire and will to live. Now as he looked into the eyes of his mother's portrait The fire had returned into his grey orbs and he gave his response, "I will walk through hell for that boy, mother. It is time for me to grow up and help my Godson with his quest and he will succeed and anyone in our way will be destroyed."
Walburga stared into her son's eyes and was finally able to see the man she had wanted him to become, one who put his family above all. She gave him a small smile, "Welcome home, my son. You and your friend should get some rest you both have been through a lot tonight." The curtains on her portrait closed soon after.
Sirius turned to his friend, grey eyes met golden. "We can't fail him again, Mooney. Never again."
Remus had processed the information he had received and met the eyes of his friend, "Never again, Padfoot. Come on, Let's get some rest, tomorrow we go to war for our pup."
---
Harry woke up at his usual time of 4 in the morning. He dressed himself and made his way into the basement to get a work out in as well as get some spell casting practice. He realized that although he now had access to magic he fell back on mundane means to initiate attacks. He knew it was to his detriment but he was going to fix that now that he had two adult wizards with the knowledge and battle experience. As he practiced his few spells he would think about his current predicament. He needed to get to at least one of those Death Eaters to make his plan work.
He had taken a small break to get a drink and noticed both Remus and Sirius watching him from outside the practice area.
"Good morning gentleman, have you decided on your next course of action?"
Sirius looked at Remus and received a nod. "Good morning pup, we have decided to help you. We wouldn't be able to look your parents in the eye in the afterlife if we didn't. So have you thought about what you are going to do?"
Harry nodded, "Yes, I have decided that we need at least one of those two men so we can end this and thought of the perfect excuse to have them come out of their hidey holes. Sirius you need to take up the Lordship of house Black. When you do you will be able to call in the debt of those two men. You can meet with them in Gringotts. We will take them when they leave the bank. Once we have them we can take them to a remote place to put them under our control. The only sticking point that I can foresee being a problem is that one or both of you will have to put them under the imperius or dose them with some sort of potion that will last long enough for them to go to that meeting." 'Admittedly that's not the only sticking point but that it is the biggest. I can work out a plan for the extraction of a high value target but there are still many annoying tricks that wizards have that I may have not foreseen.'
Sirius and Remus both paled a bit from the blunt answer they received from their ward. They both knew it was a war but it still didn't make it any easier to have to come to terms with the fact that they would be getting their hands dirty to end it and get their pup out clean. Sirius and Remus came to the same conclusion almost simultaneously. "Yeah pup, we know and are prepared for it. Remus and I will stop by Gringotts today to take care of it."
Harry noticed that the two men had decided to go all in. "Very well gentleman, I will prepare a note for the goblins asking for untraceable wands to be provided for you. My team and I will have the task of preparing the grabs."
The two adults wanted to protest but noticed that stubborn look in their ward's eyes that was a reminder of his mother.
"Alright pup, but Remus will be with you just in case." Sirius stated in finality.
Harry realized they wouldn't budge on that so he acquiesced
---
Harry, his elves and Remus had planned the extraction of the targets under the watchful eye of Walburga and had finally come up with a plan. It was twofold, they would create a distraction in Hogsmeade which would hopefully draw out the attention of the aurors and they would strike in the alley to get their targets.
It seemed like a reckless plan to so openly kidnap someone but they had received word from Sirius that Selwyn was out of the country and was not expected back until the new year. It had disappointed Sirius and Remus but Harry had only smiled.
---Flashback---
"So Selwyn is out of the country? Has that been confirmed? How long will he be gone?" Harry had eagerly asked.
"Yes, He is in Germany celebrating Yule and New Years with his wife's family. According to the goblins and a few independent information brokers he attends every year and does not return until the second week of January. Why do you ask and why do you look so excited? This is a big problem." Sirius had asked.
Before Harry could answer his Godfather's questions, Walburga started to cackle.
"Oh my son, you truly have so much to learn. The young master has already figured it out. This is much better than our original plan."
Of all those present in the "war room" only Walburga and Harry were smiling and laughing. This had the effect of disturbing the two men and confusing the two elves.
Harry composed himself and smiled, "Sirius what would happen if an attack happened at the meeting and one of its members was absent? A member that was known to have less than amicable relationships with the head of the group? A member that could be considered both a rival in business and power to some if not most of the attendees of said meeting?"
Sirius and Remus became wide eyed, "It would cast suspicion on the attendees not at the meeting and would garner even more suspicion on someone that was already chafing at the leadership."
---Flashback end---
Harry was more than happy with altering the plans, especially because even if it was figured out that Nott Sr had been under imperius the blame would go to his ready made patsy and not some mysterious third faction.
The preparations were made and the distraction had been decided upon already. It pained Harry a little to have to part with the Shrieking Shack because it was a great point of egress to the castle but he would have to make due with the other entrances to the village. He and Remus had set up the shack to explode and would cast the dark mark upon its destruction. It was the perfect place for a distraction since no one would be in the building and it was far enough away from the village that collateral would be at a minimum.
The two had set the timer on the spelled explosive they had created and apperated as soon as possible. The truly wonderful thing was that the explosive was based on erumpant solution so it would muddy the waters magically so no one would be able to track their magical signatures.
Remus and Harry appeared in the staging ground of their extraction, an abandoned apartment above an old building that was owned by Harry. He had the goblins evict all the squatters and had them set up temporary wards to keep them out for at least 48 hours.
---
Remus and Harry were dressed in robes common among the residents of Knockturn alley and were loitering around. Harry had Kreacher take some hair from Mundungus Fletcher for a polyjuice potion. He had told Remus and Sirius it was what Kreacher had taken from a random stranger not knowing that Harry had done it on purpose to cast suspicion on the old thief. He was going to be interrogated under veritaserum so he was bound to go to jail either way for any of his crimes but he would be cleared of the kidnapping if they were seen.
Harry had to disguise himself a little more because he was constantly being questioned by associates of Mundungus on what he was doing. It was just after sundown that they spotted Nott Sr walk out of the bank livid as could be. He must have just found out that he had to pay the House of black for the loans that had been made in their name years prior. They watched him as he made his way to a well known Knockturn pub.
As Nott Sr passed a darkened alley, he was hit with a muddy ball. Nott Sr was beyond livid at this point and turned and pursued the child that had hit him with the ball. He followed the running child further into the dead end alley.
"Nowhere to run insect! I will teach you a lesson about flinging filth on your betters." The hooded child shivered in fear. That just made Nott Sr more eager for the screams of his victim.
Nott had not noticed that on the roofs of the surrounding buildings two cloaked figures had him in their crosshairs. They waited for Nott to start casting a spell.
"You will learn your place filth! Cru..."
Nott never got to finish his spell because he was hit with two overpowered stunners. His body fell face first into a muddy puddle. Remus and Harry jumped down from their spots and the shivering child removed his hood to reveal Dobby. Dobby ran to the downed man and quickly cast some magic to strip him of everything he wore before popping away with the clothing and items on Nott. He quickly popped back and took a hold of Nott Sr and pooped away.
Remus and Harry apperated to their Black site before anyone could be the wiser.