Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 119: A Terrifying Discovery
Voldemort kept his wand aimed at Harry while the others made their way into the room.
"What is all this?" McGonagall looked as confused as the others.
There were all sorts of strange metallic machines scattered across the room.
"Is he really alone? How can that be?" Shacklebolt asked with suspicion.
Harry had always been extremely cautious and never left himself too exposed.
"I can assure you that I am the only one in this cabin," Harry responded with a wide smile.
No one really believed those words.
Voldemort clenched his teeth while wondering if this was some new way to mock him. "Then die already!"
The Dark Lord was about to fire a curse at Harry when several of the screens behind him started to change and, instead of just numbers and letters, they displayed aerial views of large cities around the world.
There were names at the top of each of the displays: New York, California, Shanghai, Istanbul, São Paulo, Tokyo…
"What is all this? What are those for?" Sirius wondered.
"I was about to explain it, but…" Harry pointed at Voldemort. "If the grumpy guy wants to kill me already, then you will die without knowing what happened to you."
"You monster… what did you do?!" Sirius's tone was cold as he glared at Harry. Whatever feeling he had in the past for his godson was now long gone. He no longer saw the creature sitting across from him as the son of James Potter.
Tonks gasped. "Don't tell me… did you make more of those circles in those cities like the one in London?"
Harry's grin became more twisted. "London?... oh, right! Did you like what I did with it? It's beautiful, right?"
"If you don't shoot this monster, then I will!" Shacklebolt walked to the front. "Avada Ked—"
"Wait!" McGonagall stopped him from finishing the chant.
"Let me go, Minerva!" the Minister shouted.
"We need to know what he has done! What if the same thing happens in all those cities?" She pointed at the screens.
This made him hesitate.
"You think he is going to tell the truth?" Hagrid frowned, keeping an eye on Harry the whole time. "We can't trust anything he says."
Harry let out a loud gasp. "That is so hurtful, Hagrid. I thought we were friends."
"Shut up! Stop pretending to be Harry Potter! We all know what you are… monster." Hagrid gritted his teeth.
"I suppose that to you…I am a monster. But I can promise you that my words are very much the truth. I have no reason to lie." Harry told him.
"Then, tell us what you are plotting," Sirius said. "Make one right thing before we put you down."
"Even my beloved godfather is saying those awful things…" Harry's eyes moved to Hermione, who was standing behind McGonagall. "Look who is here. The traitor is back."
Hermione trembled. "I'm not a traitor…"
McGonagall moved to cover the girl. "You leave her out of this. She has suffered enough!"
They then heard more of those loud clicking noises coming from the machines in the room.
"What are those things for?" Shacklebolt asked.
Harry raised an eyebrow to showcase his disappointment. "You wizards are really something. How can you live in this world and know so little about it?" He pointed at the machines. "Those are computers. Military-grade ones."
"Computers? That's one of those Muggle computers. I have seen them before." Wormtail commented. He had spent many years roaming around the Muggle world after all.
"So that's why!" Tonks exclaimed. "That's why you removed all the wards."
"What do you mean?" Voldemort asked.
"Magic interferes with electrical machines." It was Hermione who offered an explanation. "Magical wards would break any electronics… I once read a book about it."
"Brilliant as usual, Hermione." Harry gave her a compliment, but the girl did not look too happy to hear it from him.
"Okay, so you have a big computer. What for?" Sirius asked.
"I'm losing my patience here…" Voldemort groaned.
"I was about to explain it," Harry said before turning back to his desk and tapping on a keyboard.
The screens changed again and showed the letters and numbers from before. "Can you take a guess of what these are?"
"Let me see." Hermione moved from behind McGonagall and approached the screens so she could read them better.
"Hermione…" McGonagall called with concern in her tone.
"I'll be fine." Hermione tried to sound reassuring despite being terrified of getting so close to Harry. But she also knew that she was the only one with any experience in Muggle tech.
She immediately began to read what those screens were saying.
At first, it didn't make much sense, but she noticed that everything was arranged in tables.
There were names on the left, followed by several numbers, and there were also letters at the top to indicate what those digits were depicting.
"Those are… places." She recognized the names of several important cities from several countries. Most of them seemed to be from either the United States or Russia. But there were also quite a few Chinese ones.
The numbers were moving from one column to the next very quickly. The word 'Heads' was displayed on the top, as well as the words 'Armed' and 'Disarmed'. Most of the numbers were moving from the 'Armed' column to a different one on the right that had no name on it.
Hermione was getting a terrible feeling while reading this, even though she still could not figure out what it was. This was until she found some letters at the bottom of one of the screens.
"AFGSC…" She recognized that acronym from a documentary she saw with her family at the start of the summer.
"What is that?" Sirius asked.
"Did you figure something out?" McGonagall glanced at the girl and became concerned when she saw her face turn pale.
"These are computers from the Air Force Global Strike Command," Hermione said out loud, and then understood what all those numbers were indicating. "They are nuclear bombs."