19 Years

Chapter 21: Norway

Chapter 21: Norway

Ron, Kingsley and Harry apparated back to the headquarters at the ministry where they met with Seamus and the gruff head auror from earlier, Sandy Maccabie.

"I've sent three teams on ahead," Sandy explained, "One to Oslo, to speak to the Norwegian Ministry, one to Bergen where we have contacts, and the last one has gone to the wizard who spotted them who is in Goteburg in Sweden at the moment."

"And where are we going?" Asked Harry, impatient to be off.

"I will be joining you to Trollesund in the north of Norway," said the rough old man who reminded Harry very much of old Mad Eye in appearance, "That's where the Lestrange brothers were spotted and it is where we will pick up the trail; our Norwegian contact says they are still in the area. We'll probably be waiting around for a while for further info to be gathered so be prepared for a long wait."

Ron nodded and turned to Kingsley, "Are you sure the Ministry can cope without you?"

"Yes," said Kingsley, "I've issued a notice to the Daily Prophet that I am in poor health and that for the next few weeks Arthur will be my stand-in. It seemed right to keep this out of the press as long as possible, both for the mission's success and to prevent your families being hassled too much."

"Thanks," said Harry gratefully before turning to the old auror, "I may not be trained but I am sure as hell that I can be useful here."

"Good then," said Sandy, "Just keep your magic under control; I don't want you killing anyone unless absolutely necessary."

Harry raised his eyebrows but said nothing as Seamus coughed and said, "Kit room?"

"Certainly!" Replied Sandy jovially and led them into a large adjoining room filled with supplies.

Ron took Harry to the side and pulled a small package from his cloak, "I didn't think you'd want to go back to the house so I took the invisibility cloak when we were over there."

Harry smiled and thanked Ron before turning to the rows upon rows of kit that they might need for any expedition.

"It's very cold up there so make sure you take warm clothing," ordered the auror, "We'll need two tents, ropes, food," he continued as Ron, Harry, Seamus and Kingsley pulled items from shelves, including dozens of bags of shrunken food, "Cooking stoves, deception cloaks, darkness powder, dark magic detectors, decent boots, polyjuice potion, basic healing supplies, muggle bandages, muggle money, muggle identity documents..." the list went on and on and contained such odd items as muggle portable telephones, which would be useful as owls would take too long, and long johns as it would be so cold.

Finally they had a sizeable pile heaped in the middle of the floor and they pulled rucksacks and sleeping bags from hooks on the ceiling. On the outside they looked like regular British army issue rucksacks but their interiors were vast and they could fit everything into two of them easily, but split them into five anyway to ease the weight.

"Right," said Maccabie, "Let me make a few calls to check on the other teams and see what we know already," He pulled a large plastic brick like thing from this pocket and began to tap large numbered buttons, "Useful invention these," he sighed as he lifted the thing to his ear, "Muggles have had telephones for years now but these mobile ones are very recent and terribly useful."

They all looked on as the boss made a few calls, not as intrigued by the phone as they might have been; after all Kingsley, Seamus and Ron were working in the ministry and Harry had been flitting in and out of the muggle world for his whole life.

Sandy returned to the group after several moments, "Right," he said sternly, "We've had two sightings reported to our contact in Trollesund and it looks like Rodolphus is still there. Our man out there is a Norwegian playing the part of a Voldemort sympathiser -"