Death-Eater-Hunting (I) [Chapter 303]

~~January 8th, 1995~~

It had been a week since Harry returned from Vegas and since then everything had been lackluster, at least for him. The ICW was already bearing down on Amelia for the mess Voldemort made in London with his Dementors, but before the ICW could sanction anything, Rachel managed to handle the matter from her side.

It was later declared that a terrorist organization released an experimental drug in the streets of Muggle London as an act of terrorism, killing hundreds of people before the authorities could act. The Muggles decided to accept the explanation and later the incident became known as one of the worst chemical warfare attacks.

The Muggles were obviously vying for the blood of the non-existent enemy, which seemed to placate the ICW and they backed out after annoying Amelia for a couple of days… Harry had to admit, Rachel was really good at her job. He had no idea how she was handling the Queen, but he didn’t care.

He had other important things to deal with, like scouting the Gringott branches… All the stolen Ministry gold was being kept in the Gringotts branch of San Luis, Argentina. Attacking the Gringotts branch would mean an Act of War, but Harry wasn’t worried about that.

He was worried about the fact that the Goblins might decide to collapse their caves when they realized that they couldn’t win or fend off the attack… After all, the Goblins were petty enough to do something like that…

That wasn’t all though… Harry had also been scouting the Diagon Alley Gringotts branch. The Goblins were going to seize their accounts, but Harry wanted to know if they were going to keep their vaults locked in here or transfer them somewhere else. Harry had managed to locate all the relevant vaults with the help of Invisibility Cloak, so if they didn’t transfer the contents of the vaults to some other location, it was going to be easy as fuck to reclaim them.

However, there was a chance that they might transfer the contents to some other branch… If that happened, then reclaiming the contents of the vaults would become a lot more annoying and time-consuming, but Harry was nothing if not determined. The Goblins were going to fork up the contents of their vaults one way or another, Harry was going to see to that.

“Master Harry, Madame Bonesy be here to meet you!” Alef popped inside the room and declared. Harry stopped looking at the maps and looked up at the elf.

“Send her in and bring us some refreshments” Harry ordered and after giving him a bow, the diminutive creature disappeared with a pop. Even though Amelia claimed that she was never a politician or a Ministry material, she was doing quite well for herself.

The Ministry was low on funds, but the woman had already started on the repairs of Diagon Alley just to keep the facade that the Ministry was still standing strong… It was the job of politicians to lie and Amelia was doing pretty well in that department… Harry had to admit that he was impressed when Amelia didn’t allow the ICW cronies to run roughshod over her administration.

Within a minute, Amelia strode into the room, looking frustrated and angry. “Hello, Amelia, you look beautiful as ever” Harry greeted the woman, looking up.

The woman froze for a moment at his unexpected compliment, but she quickly shrugged it off before giving Harry a nasty look. “Flattery is not going to work, Potter!” Amelia growled as she arrived in front of Harry, and slammed down her hands on the table and continued to glare at him. “Why wasn’t I told that Connie came to you on behalf of the Ministry?” Amelia asked with a low growl.

Instead of getting angry, Harry simply smiled at her, which seemed to only raise her temper. “Well, you found it yourself, didn’t you?” Harry asked softly. Amelia was about to open her mouth to say something else, but Harry spoke up before that. “And it would have been better if you still didn’t know. You would have been able to act ignorant when the ICW questioned you” Harry explained calmly.

Amelia didn’t have a retort for that, but she still wasn’t happy after all Connie was her friend. “Still, you should have informed me!” However, Amelia still decided to insist.

“Well…” Harry trailed off with a thoughtful look on his face, wondering how to deal with the woman and his mom chose this exact moment to give him some of her wisdom.

|Discipline her! Remind her of her place, son! How dare she question you!| Lily fumed, however, Harry decided to ignore her suggestion. Sometimes, being heavy-handed was well and good, but sometimes, a lighter touch was needed. Harry decided that he needed to deal with Amelia with a lighter hand. He didn’t want to grow the seed of resentment inside her.

He wasn’t worried about retaliation or betrayal, but he would prefer to avoid any retaliation or betrayal from his own followers. Amelia was a member of the Lost Garden even though her membership was forced, so Harry was going to treat her as one of his own… Harry was sure that Amelia would come to love being a part of Lost Garden, eventually.

“You have to remember that I don’t work for you, it is the other way around~” Harry reminded her in a sing-song voice and Amelia seemed to pale slightly at his reminder. “However, don’t worry… I am not angry or anything. Connie is your friend, a close friend, so I can understand that you are worried, but just like I said, it would have been better if you remained ignorant of the deal” Harry slowly explained.

“Have a seat” Harry finally offered when Alef returned with some snacks and disappeared with a pop after giving him a respectful bow. Amelia gave him a wary look, realizing that she shouldn’t have charged here, screaming at him, but she still sat down, starting to feel somewhat nervous.

“Well, whatever, it is a moot point now that you know. You simply have to act like you didn’t know anything or I could Obliviate you” Harry offered and Amelia immediately shook her head, looking alarmed. Harry shrugged, accepting her choice. “As for Connie, yes the ICW is going to come down on her like a ton of bricks, but don’t worry, I was already planning to save her” Harry continued to speak.

Amelia didn’t say anything for the next few moments. “Why? Why are you being so nice to me?” Amelia asked with an unsure frown.

“Regardless of your beliefs, I am not a monster Amelia… I am no Voldemort no matter what the others think. You are a member of Lost Garden, which means you are one of us and unlike Voldemort, I treat my own nicely” Harry answered with a charming smile on his face. Amelia didn’t know what to say.

“Additionally, Connie is going to be a nice addition to Lost Garden. Her investigative skills are really valuable” Harry pointed out. He decided to throw out one of his real reasons. Amelia was not a naive teenager… She knew if anything was too good to be true, then it usually was. So, if Harry came out as too good, then she would start suspecting that he was up to something.

Amelia frowned at his reason, but after a moment, she gave him an accepting nod. “Alright” Amelia relented and picked up a cracker from the plate.

“Now that we are on the same page, there is something else I wanted to discuss with you” Harry spoke up, earning a curious look from her. “I think it’s about time I started to hunt down the Death Eaters” Harry declared with a wide grin as pushed a list toward her. “In order, of course” Harry added, just before Amelia grabbed the list.

Amelia took a look at the first name on the list and the blood froze in her veins… ‘Malcolm Avery’ was one of the people involved in the deaths of her brother and her sister-in-law…