Standard disclaimer: Of course I don't own any of this; I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox!
1915
"That's one of ours. A Vickers," she said. Orange eyes tracked the plane as it crawled lazily across the sky, from where several young witches and wizards lay on the green lawn on a still-warm September afternoon.
"How can you tell, Ro?" asked Estrella McMillian, her best friend.
"It's in how the wings are shaped. See how the angle..." she started, but the lazy, sneering voice of Darren Belchers cut her off.
"Why do you care?"
Rolanda sat up fast, her eyes like spears driving into Darren. She didn't say anything, just reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a piece or paper. Not parchment. She thrust it at Darren.
"Is this the letter you got this morning at breakfast? Ok. 'Dearest Rolanda," read Darren aloud, eyes flicking across the paper. "'We knew you'd want to know as soon as possible. Your brother Roger has enlisted. He says he can't stand the thought of another English woman killed in her bed by those 'wretched Huns,' as he calls them. We've heard that zeppelins have been sighted over Scotland. We know you say that you're in the safest place in the Empire, but please be careful.'"
Rolanda snatched the paper back. "Now you see why I care? You pure-bloods may not have family to worry about, but some of us do." She flopped down again and resumed her lookout.
"Sorry, Ro," said Darren, his voice smaller now. "I didn't know."
"Now you do."
"What's a zep... uh... zeplin?" asked Estrella.
"It's a big air ship thing. The Germans are using them to drop bombs," said Rolanda.
"Wow. I thought they just had those 'ear-o-planes'."
"Aeroplanes," corrected Rolanda, still scanning the sky.
1916
Rolanda crumpled the letter from her mother and tried not to meet eyes with anyone at her table. Food was being flung, and her friends laughed, unaware of her distress.
Conscription. All three of her remaining brothers were on their way to war. To the trenches. To go bleed out for some stupid, meaningless muggle idiocy, while she hid here in the safety of Hogwarts, among wizards and witches who didn't understand what was going on, and didn't care. What were muggles to them, anyway? Muggles were as good dead as alive to them.
Rolanda cursed her luck, not for the first time. But even if she hadn't been born a witch, she would be watching them leave. Women didn't go to war.
She scowled, and shoved away from the table. To hell with classes. She summoned her broom and dashed to the quidditch pitch. On a broom, she could forget. She dove and rolled and zoomed for the next hour.
The detention later for skipping classes was worth it.
1917
Rolanda, already dressed for bed, re-read the letter she'd receive that morning from Aliester, her middle brother.
Dear Ro: Another day, another trench. Actually, same trench. Still in Ypres. We sit at the bottom of our trench and smoke coffin nails and stare at mud. It's been raining for weeks. I can't remember a time when I wasn't soaked in mud. Last month, I had a chance to go to see the Lille Gate, to the south. It was built in the 1380s! I don't know if it will survive this war. - A
Poor Al, she thought. If anyone hated to stand still and be bored, it was him.
As she was thinking about Al in his horrible muddy, rainy trench, Professor Dibbuns, the Head of Ravenclaw, sent for her.
"Miss Hooch, the Headmaster and I need to speak with you," he said in the Common Room, and she'd thrown on her dressing gown and followed him, confused.
As they approached the Headmaster's office, her stomach roiled. She hadn't done anything wrong. She hadn't! Had she?
In the office, Headmaster Black was engaged in a discussion via floo, and barely took note of them as they entered and sat on the green brocade couch.
"... think we could also use a much more modern book on magical beasts."
"Excellent idea, Headmaster," said the witch's head, poking out of the fire. "Any thoughts on who we should commission?"
"Scamander, uhm... what is his name?" He snapped his fingers. "Newton Scamander. Try him first. Highest marks in Care of Magical Creatures Hogwarts has ever seen!"
Rolanda's head of house cleared his throat, and the Headmaster flicked his eyes toward them.
"Augusta, I'm sorry, I have some student business to attend to," he said heavily.
"Of course, Phineas. A pleasure as always." the witch's head withdrew into the flames and was gone.
The Headmaster turned back to face them, and Rolanda couldn't recognize the look on his face. He picked up a piece of paper from his desk and looked at it, but did not look at her.
"Miss Hooch, your parents sent this to me today. I'm very sorry to inform you that your brother has been killed in the fighting in Belgium," he spoke, somewhat disinterested.
Cold. Cold. White lights in her head.
"What? Which one? What?" Her voice rose an octave.
The Headmaster looked helplessly at her Head of House, and shoved the paper at him. Rolanda could see the markings at the top, in neat muggle machine print. "Army Form B 104-" she read. Professor Dibbuns looked at it, and shook his head sadly.
"Rolanda, I'm so sorry." he said. He looked genuinely sorry, not like the Headmaster, who was regarding them both coolly. "Walter was your brother?"
Oh, no. Walter, her closest brother and the next youngest, only 3 years older than herself. The floor folded itself up from under her; her stomach caved through her feet into the dungeons. She let out a little moan.
"Professor, if you and the uhm, muggle-born there don't mind?" said the Headmaster flatly. He still wouldn't meet her eyes.
"He hates muggles," thought Rolanda. "He doesn't care." Stifling a scream, she snatched the telegram from the professor, and ran from the office.
She could hear Professor Dibbuns calling to her, but she didn't care. She caught up her nightgowns and ran. Rage welled up inside her. Rage at the Germans for making plans to take over Europe. Rage at the bigot in the Headmaster's office, at all of the Wizarding world for not caring about the fates of muggles. It fueled her run; she was halfway out to the lake in moments.
"Accio broom!" she screamed as she ran, and her Silver Arrow shot from the quidditch shed and into her hand. She leaped on it, and was off the ground in a flash.
At first, she was just flying. Flying, and sobbing great hot tears. She couldn't see where she was going. She didn't care.
Kicking higher and screaming in fury, she drove the broom out toward the coast. Then, she just flew, lost in sorrow, tears leaking down her face.
After a time, she became aware of another noise, a muggle sound, chugging and low. Rolanda was instantly alert, tears drying, and she crouched low on her broom, looking around. It was dark, but she could see a luminous glow approaching her.
"Merlin's gnarled beard!" she shrieked. It was a German Albatros, and it was coming straight at her.
Rolanda dove and rolled out of the way, spiraling down about 75 feet, hoping against all hope that the pilot hadn't seen her. She pulled up and hovered, watching the aeroplane.
There was a bastard enemy in that the aeroplane.
And that the aeroplane was a flying fire trap. She knew that the the aeroplanes were constructed of wood and wire, with canvas stretched over the frames, designed to be light-weight. The canvas was stiffened with highly flammable potions... no, chemicals, they were called!
The the aeroplane was speeding past. What looked like a lazy pace from the ground was actually a speedy one from up close like this. She needed to act fast.
Rolanda took aim with her wand and shouted "Confringo," flicking a great glob of fire at the the aeroplane.
The fire took the the machine in one wing, instantly causing it to swerve and lose altitude. Flames spread quickly across its fabric skin. She leaned forward, flying upwards, directly at the cockpit, and zoomed across the opening, kicking the panicking pilot directly in the face as she did.
"That's for Walter!" she screamed. She doubted he could hear her or understand, but she didn't care.
As she banked, coming around to watch the the aeroplane on its fiery tumble, something like a bludger slammed past her, almost knocking her off her broom. The bludger-thing arced up and over her head, coming almost to a stop and then headed back down toward her.
A bloody anti-aircraft shell. Someone must have seen the fire and guessed it was a the aeroplane. Waste of good ammunition, she thought; once that airplane started burning, it was going down.
But the shell was not heading toward the the aeroplane. It was coming straight at her.
In later years, she's call it the Silver Arrow Crab Shot. It was always an impressive move: the underhand backwards loop, some shuffling in the air to catch a bludger on the side of a foot, and then a sideways loop, using the reverse momentum to shoot said bludger at the opponent.
Impressive though it was, quidditch pitch tomfoolery was nothing compared to knocking 13-pound armed anti-aircraft shell into a burning the aeroplane moving 100 miles an hour.
When the adrenaline wore off, she knew it still wasn't enough. Her heart ached for Walter, for her parents' loss, for her own. Back at Hogwarts ("Detention and 100 points from Ravenclaw for leaving grounds," snapped the Headmaster. "200 points to Ravenclaw for taking down an ENEMY AEROPLANE," replied Professor Dibbuns. "And may I remind you, Headmaster, that as her Head of House, I get to assign her detention?"), she cried herself to sleep for a week. But she felt good, too. She'd gotten that Hun - that's what Roger called them in his letters - back.
In the months following her completion at Hogwarts, she took the skies nightly. Always careful not the be seen, she'd taken down a fair few enemy aeroplanes, usually without any help. If the pilots saw her - and a few did - they took their shock at seeing a woman on a broom with them to their fiery graves.
***
1918
"The Minister will see you now," said the young wizard at the desk. Rolanda stood up and smoothed her robes, shivering a little. The late November air was chilly, even inside the Ministry of Magic.
Inside the office, she was shocked to see that Aureus Berksqwat, the Minister of Magic, was not alone. A muggle man, looking more than a little ill at ease, sat in an overstuffed chair, holding his hat in both hands. The muggle man was thinning on top, and had a bristle-brush mustache, and despite his nervousness, he smiled at her when she walked in.
"Miss Hooch, please come in, please come in!" said Berksqwat, a little hysterically. "Prime Minister," he said to the man, "This is the Rolanda Hooch. Miss Hooch, I am please to introduce you to David Lloyd George. He is the, ah, the Prime Minister. The muggle Prime Minister." Rolanda stifled a giggle at his three first names.
"Miss Hooch," said George, his Welsh accent noticeable. "I was most impressed to learn of your record over the last few months."
Rolanda looked between the two men. "My record?"
"I understand you are credited for bringing down eleven planes, all on your own, in the past 4 months since you left school?"
"Twelve, sir. There was one in 1917," she said. "But for the first one, I supposed I did have an anti-aircraft shell for help." She hesitated, looking at Berksqwat. "Am I in trouble?"
"No, no!" said the Prime Minister, overly hearty. "Twelve, then. We don't keep careful count. Not like the Germans do." He smiled and stepped forward, then looked doubtful about approaching a clearly dangerous witch. "Aureus?" he said. "Would you do the honors?"
Berksqwat took a piece of metal from George and stepped up to Rolanda. "Given the nature of your actions, of course you cannot be honored openly, but the Prime Minister appreciates your efforts on the behalf of the British Empire. In the, er, Royal Fair Orse, a pilot who takes down several enemy, ah, sparrowlanes is called a, uhm, Flaying Mace." As the Prime Minister chuckled over Berksqwat's difficulty with simple muggle words, the Minister of Magic reached up and pinned a medal on her robes, above her left breast.
Rolanda had been smiling since armistice had been declared but now, she felt her face break into an even wider grin.
A flying Ace. She was a flying Ace.
FIN
Notes:
Inspired by Madam Hooch's (canon) declaration, "I haven't been this annoyed since my broom was singed by overzealous anti-aircraft during the Great War!" Note that the "Great War" was what we now call World War I; it wouldn't get that second name until another, even bigger war, was fought. I bet Madam Hooch took part in that, too.
All dates are based on real time lines: zeppelin raids in 1915; conscription in 1916. Similarly, other details are as based on real information as I could find. For example, German planes toward the end of the war used a phosphorescent paint that helped their pilots identify each other and avoid shooting the wrong people, hence the plane's glow. The Allies tried, in vain, to recreate this paint. Huns and coffin nails and "drawing crabs" are legitimate First World War slang. Even the telegram form number is based on an authentic cavalry "we regret to inform you" notice. This is also compliant with canonical evidence of Madam Hooch's birth, Hogwarts attendance, and experiences, although I've taken liberties with her friends, House, blood status, and family.
The title is based on the WWI trench song about light shells, "Hush, here comes a Whizzbang," which was recorded in What a Lovely War: British Soldiers' Songs from the Boer War to the Present Day. The lyrics are recorded as follows:
Hush, here comes a Whizzbang.
Hush, here comes a Whizzbang.
Now you soldiermen get down those stairs,
Down in your dugouts and say your prayers.
Hush, here comes a Whizzbang,
And it's making right for you.
And you'll see all the wonders of No-Man's-Land,
If a Whizzbang, hits you.