Three Feathers from the Horse of Gunn

Lady Owl

This story is inspired by a short wikipedia article on a factual Anglo-Canadian World War 1 aviator named Henry Cope Evans. No insult whatsoever is intended to Veterans, the memory of Henry Cope Evans, or any of his family or friends. Sincere apologies for any inaccuracies. Any suggestions for improvement – for the sake of accuracy or memory – will be attended as soon as possible. (Other comments are, of course, also welcome.)

Standard disclaimer applies.

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With every breathe he took, he could feel the pus leaking into his lungs. His body trying, desperately to heal the burnt flesh. And every breathe brought more of the fire into his body. Literally, the air stoking the burning flame within his lungs. Through his bleeding nose, and the pain in his shredded throat-lining.

He wouldn't open his eyes. "Protect your eyes!" he remembered from training. He tried to protect them, keeping them closed, and hoping that the crying and the swelling would rinse out the poison.

In training, the Sergeant would yell "Gas! Gas!" and he and his platoon would pull their masks on over their faces. He'd gotten pretty fast at it. But the warning came too late, this time. He hadn't recognized the voice that yelled the warning- the gurgling, bubbling, bloody yell. He wondered if the Sergeant was dead. Maybe, been replaced.

He stretched his hands out in front of him. Still the muddy wall. "Stay low!" And, he did so, despite knowing that the gas would sink, and avoiding bullets meant that he was laying himself into a puddle of the gas that burnt his eyes, ears, throat and lungs.

He couldn't help breathing again – that noxious toxin - though he almost wished he could. To get this fire to stop, it might be worth never breathing again.

But, he knew that wouldn't be true.

"Careful, man. I've got you" he heard, as hands grabbed his shoulders, and pulled him onto a stretcher.

With his eyes closed, and his body bouncing along, away from the support of that muddy, bloody wall, it felt as though he were drowning in more than just his lungs.

The cries came from all around. Yells for a medic, or a mother, or just a hope. And he thought bitterly, "you fools, keep your mouth's shut. You'll only breathe death in faster."

But, he kept his eyes closed, and his mouth closed, and – by that Lady – he wished he could keep his nose closed too.

But it wasn't time for him to die. He knew that very well.

After all, he hadn't seen Her again. And, She'd said it, in her raven's voice: "You will see me thrice, Harry, son of James... This is the first time."

And, there were no ravens here. Not like there had been, the one time – so far – that he'd seen Her.

He felt the stretcher lift, and slide onto some surface. He put his hand down, hoping to get some idea of where he'd been put. But, the surface was as muddy and bloody as anything out here.

He thanked his stars that he wasn't at risk for disease or infection. Not like his mate, Stokey Jones – and where had that name come from, he wondered again – who'd caught gangrene on his toes, but couldn't be sent home. Because every man was Needed. "Canada's New Army Needs Men Like You!" And, there weren't nearly enough subscribers.

No, he hadn't joined because of Canada's Need. If anything, he was English, and got ribbed by his pals for it.

He wondered again whether he'd have joined the Dragoons if he didn't have someone watching him.

"My sisters and I shall watch you. And measure your courage, your deeds, and the flash of your eyes in Skögul's-stormblast. So that I may better judge you when next we meet."

He briefly imagined Her flying through the sky above this miserable, wet, muddy, bloody field. She with her pale skin, and clean, golden hair. And her white winged horse.

Before this gas attack, he'd have given (almost) anything for a shave. Now, he didn't even want to touch his face, for the blistering on his skin.

He wondered if She thought this battle was glorious. Did the skalds only care about war waged for honor and justice, or also for the useless splash of shrapnel-torn stomachs into the trenches that might as well be self-dug mass burial sites?

He wondered again whether he could trust Her. Trust his memory of Her. Had he actually seen Her, there in the glade? And Her words, in the sharp bird's voice, were those hallucinations? Was it right that he was now more afraid of pain, than of death – simply, now, because he'd only seen Her once, of the three times She'd promised?

But, he was here. Wasn't he? This mud and blood; these screams, and the shattering of shells; this fire in his lungs – this wasn't hallucination. And, his younger life – Hogwarts, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Voldemort – that hadn't felt like hallucination either. And, he didn't know how he could have travelled from 1998 to 1898 without Her.

Magic. Hooah. What is it good for?

Apparently, time-travel and mundane disease-resistance. Sometimes, he dated himself. His pals laughed, and pretended he was original. Because, after-all, "it's always fair weather when good fellows get together..."

He really thought that the propaganda board back in Ottawa had too much time on their hands. But, it's not like he'd signed up because of the posters. He had remembered, after-all, his primary school lessons on the Great Bloodbath.

And, he remembered the British casualties at Doorkop, the general confusion at Zand River, and the feel of being outnumbered at Leliefontein.

So, he'd stood in line in Valcartier, and signed up. Not "pour defendre le precieux joyau de la liberté" but to ensure that She saw his bravery and remembered his valor. Just as he'd signed up for Otter's 2nd Battalion in 1899, only a year after his arrival in the past.

They were stripping him of his uniform now. And he could hear the squeaky rumbling of the shower being extended towards him.

They'd ask him to open his eyes soon. To wash them out. He worried that he was safe from death – for the moment – only to be permanently blinded. He didn't remember if there was a cure – whether medical or magical – for gas blindness.

When She'd spoken, had She meant that he would be useful to Her somehow? If so, would he still be fit for it if he were blind? Or was She just an uncaring arbiter of courage, watching the pain and suffering of soldiers? A purely mechanical sorting machine separating, according to legend, the brave from the chaff, and then sorting again the brave between the generally good for the summer-lands, and the exceptional for Valhalla.

He wished that he'd asked someone, back while he was still at Hogwarts, about the after-life. About wizarding religion. They certainly seemed to follow the conventional Anglican set of holidays, but did that mean that they trusted in the Anglican beliefs?

If they called out to Merlin, rather than God, was that because they believed in a more pagan after-life?

He wished that She'd given him the time to ask questions. He would have – still would, in fact – like to know what the terms of Her deal were. For what exactly would She be watching him? If he passed, then what? Would he join the warriors waiting for Ragnarök? Would She send him spinning to another time of war, death, pain, and mustard-gas? If he didn't pass – then what?

What sort of semi-deity just drops off Her hero (or prospective hero?) in such a place, without defining his goals other than "courage, deeds, and flashing eyes?" Dumbledore may have been a manipulative dinosaur, but at least then there had been a Point.

She hadn't even given him Her name. If it wouldn't have felt disrespectful towards the Lady, he might have chosen a name for her off of the list given in the Edda. But he couldn't help the feeling that She would have known; and the feeling that – despite the in-explicitness of either the challenge or the goal – he wanted to come out of this on top.

At least, he could assume Her name wasn't Skögul. Unless she had a sense of humor that hadn't shone otherwise on her stern face.

Maybe she hadn't had time to give more than the brief three-phrase introduction. There were many soldiers then, and many now. Maybe she couldn't be bothered. Or, it'd been a bad day? He certainly hadn't been the only one killed that day.

Maybe every other hero had known what the deal was the moment they'd seen Her, and She'd thought that explanations were superfluous. But he'd had to piece even Her basic identity together at the library from the clues: tall, Scandinavian-looking, dressed in armor, ravens, holding the tether of a white horse, and her three lines. Valkyrie.

He wasn't sure that She – or Her sisters – could truly be classed as Deities. They seemed rather hands-off in the proper British-Agnostic fashion. And yet, he'd found himself referring to her the way most of his buddies now referred to God. Though, mostly, not out loud.

Here was the hot shower. How long had it been since he'd last had a hot shower? He wasn't sure which color nostalgia was painting the Horcrux-hunt that the trenches reminded him of that camping trip. Another "bonding experience" with hungry, temperamental people – that he otherwise liked, to be honest – in miserable weather, while scared for his life. Brilliant.

The call came again "Gas!" and the medic pushed his head, still-wet, into the gas-mask. No time for niceties here. The mask rubbed over the blisters on his face, and he passed out.

He woke in the hospital.

"Trooper Evans, 1st Canadian?"

He'd lived under the name Henry Evans for long enough that this greeting didn't startle him anymore.

It had been a shock, when he'd woken up the first time in Canada. (Frankly, he was still uncertain why She had dropped him off in Canada, after her short introduction. In fact, why had She sent him back in time in the first place?) Still under the pressure of his Boy-Who-Lived title, he'd introduced himself as Harry Evans. Not exactly a lie.

Somehow, everyone seemed to look at this nice young man, and assume that he was giving the name "Harry" to be informal. Polite, so to say. Friendly. Adapting well to the Canadian spirit. And it became the general consensus that "Harry" must be the nick-name form of his true name, which was maybe-probably "Henry."

He had spent the first dazed year wandering east from Ottawa, trying to decide what to do with himself that could possibly show "Courage, Deeds, and Flashing Eyes!" while allowing himself time to recover from the post-traumatic-stress of the Avada Kedavra. He eventually settled into a job in a fruit orchard south of Calgary, Alberta, inventing his history whenever asked.

He tried to keep the story as close as possible to his own – mostly for ease of memory – and so "developed" a widowed-mother (named "Alice", after his godmother) living in a small town in the Surrey region, and an English boarding school history. When the enlistment call for the Boer War had gone up, he'd signed up to "Support British Freedom, Justice, and Civilization" for the sake of boredom and that Lady. During that time, his anachronistic joke of "We'll manage, sir. 'Cope' is my middle name" was – in fact – taken quite literally.

He served his year, then returned to his job in the fruit orchard.

"Yes, sir?"

"At ease, Trooper... The staff and I were discussing, and we feel that you may be better of service to King and Country – ahem, particularly after your injury – in the Royal Flying Corps. And, we'd like to offer you a commission as Sergeant."

"Thank you, sir. I accept."

"Then, we'll make the arrangements for you to be sent back to 'Jolly Old England' for observer training, eh."

He reported to the RFC St. Olmer headquarters with weak lungs. The examiner told him not to worry, because the cold, dry air would be good for him. Harry bit his tongue not to ask when England had become particularly dry.

He completed his observer training. After a dutiful month as an observer, he remarked to his superior that he thought he might make a good pilot himself. They happily promoted him to 2nd Lieutenant and sent him to Oxford for Military Aeronautics School.

It had been a while since Harry had last sat in real lectures. There seemed to be an enormous amount to memorize (navigation, wireless telegraphy, as well as the mechanics and repair of various components – including the linen aircraft wings and machines for which a standard aircraft wouldn't carry replacement parts, like the Lewis gun – and officer etiquette).

Luckily for him, he made a friend: Hugh McCutcheon. They were assigned to the same provisional "squadron," and sat down next to each other during the first day of class.

"How's the suicide club treating you?"

"Compared to the trenches, can't complain. You?"

"Just new here. I'm hoping it's not too brutal. Say, you a Canuck?" he asked, pointing to the uniform.

"No, an English boy. Served with the 1st Canadian, and lived near Calgary for 15 years. Harry Evans"

"Hi. Hugh McCutcheon. From BC."

"Pleasure."

They toured the pubs on their weekends, grumbled together about their dual training flights in the Shorthorn ("that awkward crate!"), and both pretended they weren't nervous the day that they were ("surprise!") suddenly asked to take their first solo flights. Luckily, neither was severely injured during the crashes that were practically expected during training, and they both finished their 20 hours of solo flight training at the same time.

Harry had been an observer, so his time piloting wasn't the first time he'd been in the air since Hogwarts. But, it was the first time controlling his airborne motion in those 18 years that he'd been in the past.

He'd missed it. And the short initial solo training flights – little more than a take-off and landing, in perfectly still air – only whet his memory of the absolute freedom he remembered on the Firebolt. Still, it was something. The three-dimensionality, the view, the wind in his face, even the aircraft shuddering as it approached stall – it made his heart sore, and he felt wilder and lighter than he had since his childhood. If the cold and dry didn't itself cure his throat and lungs – then the laughter in his heart at trying dips, spins, and flips certainly did.

Sometimes he wished that he could accelerate until the ground blurred below him, and the clouds blurred above him. He wished he could fly into the sunset, and then off into space, leaving questions of "why" firmly behind him. He wouldn't mind if the feeling of duty stayed behind as well.

As a child, he'd imagined that should he survive the war with Voldemort, he'd feel free. Free to try anything he wished, without pressure or that nagging echo of fear sitting in the bottom of his stomach.

Somehow it hadn't happened that way. Even in the inter-war period – after his return from the Boer war, and before he'd even had an idea that the Great War might arise – when he wasn't constrained by much of anything except his appreciation for cherries, he'd still felt that strange nervousness. It swooped in when nothing much was happening, coloring the times that should have been peaceful. It was almost like a dull toothache, but concentrated about halfway between the bottom of his stomach and his testicles.

It made him want to hide himself away. So he did. The fear was relieved by being outside, walking between his beloved trees.

And, the fear could be over-ruled by having some pressing thing to do - some greater anxiety, or deadline. From that, the harvest season became his favorite time of the year. Even the fear of war pushed down this small, niggling, persistent fear.

He wasn't sure if the sour weight of fear was still present in his gut because of the Lady's interest in him, so that his body knew there would be another terrifying challenge ahead of him. He was half-afraid that the fear didn't have a reason. That it was there because he'd been afraid while growing up, and so had permanently etched itself into his body. Or because he had some sort of acid-releasing parasite growing in his intestines. What if he never escaped it, no matter how old or wise he became? What if this fear was still eating at him when he was 150 or 200? As a wizard, this seemed like a reasonable fear.

What he did know was that something about flight relieved the fear. Maybe it was the added stress of being inhumanely far above ground, not connected to anything truly stable. Or maybe his subconscious forgave his petty human flaws in the face of the great wide open.

When he graduated from the MF.11 to the Airco DH.2s he began playing spotting and swooping games while flying. Aerodynamic stability still imposed some restrictions, but he could again consign himself to the air currents.

He remembered the tranquil periods of quidditch matches more than the wild maneuvers while chasing a snitch. The lazy time of observation and bobbing in the gusts while waiting for the snitch to appear. It was these periods of playful calm that he tried to reproduce in his DH.2s.

Flight in a biplane was to flight on a broom what Harry imagined broom flight was to the true limitless and open flight of a bird. But, by this same ratio, biplane flight was better than the next closest pursuit he'd yet found: horse-back riding.

When he was deemed service qualified, he and McCutcheon were assigned – by luck, together – to the 24th squadron, flying above the German front with the British fourth army.

He proved successful at aerial combat, downing five enemy planes – four together in one day – before he and McCutcheon flew a morning raid in September.

It was still early morning, when the anti-aircraft guns ripped open the wings of his DH.2s. There was a thin line of cloud off in the horizon. The sky was that pale almost-white that would deepen to parrot blue in a few hours. The air smelled cool, and sharp.

His destroyed wings generated no more lift than did his hat.

Harry tugged his wand out from his boots, hastily casting "reparo," but his aim was off due to the aircraft's spiralling, and the lines of the biplane had tangled around his arm.

McCutcheon had already crashed. He could see the outlines of McCutcheon's aircraft, lying just before a field fence, with a blackened out cockpit. As he fell, he surveyed the ground for movement. Maybe, by patching together McCutcheon's wing fabric and his fuselage, the two of them could repair one plane, and head home.

Harry throttled up his engine to full speed, hoping to increase the lift generated by the remaining wing segments. He tried to steer. But, his control surfaces were caught in the turbulence behind the flapping wing panels, and were ineffective. The aircraft wouldn't pull out of its spiral.

He was low now. Close enough to see the birds. There were ravens, there. And he wasn't sure whether that was normal for this time and area, or whether the birds had been sent for him. No use being fatalistic.

He throttled down, hoping to minimize his crash-speed. His forward speed reduced, and the aircraft hit the ground.

When he woke, oddly, the aircraft had been removed. The field was peace itself, with poppies and corn-flowers growing near the side of McCutcheon's fence. The air was still again, with a light breeze.

He pulled himself standing, then looked around.

For a moment, his breathe caught in his throat. Then, he bowed low before that Lady. She sat calmly on Her white-winged horse, and Her scale-mail reflected the pale morning sky. She wore a helmet this time, with a nose bridge. From between the three strips of mirrored iron, he could see amber eyes. They stood out brightly, like the eyes of the raven that perched on Her shoulder.

She pointed her spear Her spear towards him, then spoke with the rasp of a raven.

"This is our second meet, Harry, son of James.

"The ravens tell me of your valor, and I will offer you a choice.

"Will you continue or pass to the summer-lands?"

"Lady, continue to what?" he asked. But she did not reply. He thought about asking further, but it didn't seem like she was likely to answer those questions either.

"I'll continue, then. Please."

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References:

wikipedia (Henry Evans (RFC officer), Valkyrie, Second Boer War)

canadiangreatwarproject searches / soldierDetail . asp ? Id = 98024

firstworldwar posters / canada . htm

Fitzgerald, Gerard J. Chemical Warefare and Medical Response During World War I, Am J Public Health. 2008 April; 98(4): 611–625.

theaerodrome forum / aviation-personnel / 23225-rfc-pilot-training . html

theaerodrome aces / england / evans2 . php