Authors note
(No Slash yet, set during Harry's 6th year, All copyright belongs to its appropriate copyright holders, I own nothing)
Deep breath
Breathe deep, keep calm.
All dials green, fuel good, engine good, lights on, RPM good.
I try and quiet my heart, which is turning over and over in my chest, rattling out the beat of a machine gun.
I reassure myself by checking the dials once more.
Everything is good, nothing is amiss.
I breathe in deep, looking down the runway, a long black strip of tarmac extending far into the sunset, which drenches the world in crimson.
I'm about to embark on the last flight of the day, flying from the newly constructed airbase on the outskirts of some scummy little village called Ottery St Catchpole
I snort with derision at the name, but then I return to buisness.
It's not like I haven't done this before, I've flown the Vigilant T1 several times, and I've soloed it a few times as well.
I'm an old hand at this game.
For those of you who are foreign and/or don't know about the ATC and you're reading this, I will briefly touch on what my organization, the Air Training Corps does... we're affiliated closely with the Royal Air Force and sometimes they let us fly planes and gliders
In this case, I am flying a Vigilant T1 motor glider, and as I've got my Gliding qualification, I'm allowed to take an aircraft up with no one in the cockpit with me.
That's right, they let me fly £100,000 worth of aircraft on my own.
At Sixteen years old.
For Free.
Anyway, back to the story.
I breathe in, and then begin the takeoff procedures, slowly removing the parking brakes and running the throttle up to 100%.
The aircraft surges forward, powered by it's Grob 2500E1 four cylinder engine.
I continue applying appropriate amounts of rudder until at last I feel the aircraft surge beneath me as it begins to take off and climb.
I smile quietly as I continue to climb, watching the speedo rest at 55 kts as I climb
at 700 feet, the carb heat comes out and at 800 feet I level out.
I smile as the aircraft leaves the circuit
I have up to an hour to fly around as I like...
Life is good...
I try not to worry about external issues.
Corporal Reuben wanted a word with me when I came back down, about the two little bumps on my head.
I contemplate telling him to get lost, after all, those bumps aren't any of his business.
They're why my beret has a different shape, and they're the cause of other issues besides that.
But those issues aren't any of your business either.
I fly around slowly, moving the aircraft round, looking out for other planes but mostly just enjoying flying at 800 feet above the little village of Ottery St Catchpole.
I look down at the patchwork of green and brown and yellow fields stretching into oblivion all around me, tiny silver beetles running along grey tracks in the ground.
I wonder about buzzing low over the roads, but decide against it.
Low flying complaints look bad on my record, and I've heard all about the ATC aircraft crashes recently.
For this flight at least, I'm going to play it by the book.
Rudolphus Lestrange looks up slowly, seeing a muggle aircraft high above his head and he smiles slowly, watching it, like a spider watches a fly…
he's stood beneath a tree on the edge of a field, its branches shadowing him and obscuring him from view, and the only person accompanying him is Bellatrix Lestrange.
This is the closest they can come to the Burrow, where it is rumoured Harry Potter is hiding.
"The Dark Lord told us to cause chaos" he mutters and Lestrange smiles
"The loss of one of their little mudblood children would upset them so, especially in such traumatic circumstances" she says with an insane smile, and Rudolphus nods with a smile, drawing a wand from his voluminous sleeves, he points it at the plane in the sky.
I continue to fly, blissfully ignorant of what's about to happen, my mind on the fuel gauge which is telling me I have 45 minutes flying time left...
suddenly I feel the hairs on the back of my neck pricking up and I feel the buffet of an approaching stall and I quickly drop the nose as standard.
A jet of crimson light suddenly whooshes over my head and I swear, my heart jolting in my stomach.
what in the name of all that's holy was that?
My mind quickly flips into military gear
Firework
I look around quickly, trying to find the launch site so that I can get away from it.
Rudolphus swears as he watches the curse miss the aircraft which seemed to nose down at just the right moment, Bellatrix snarls
"I'll do it!" she snaps and fires another bolt of red light.
I see the bolt of light heading for my plane and I swear again, quickly pulling away so that it misses me and I let loose a string of the worst words I know, then I regain my senses
"Control, this is XJ 42 I am being engaged by ground to air fire over!"
The response from control doesn't fill me with hope...
"XJ 42 this is control, return to base over" the voice of my tower controller says sharply and I know I'm not being belived.
I fumble with the helmet cam I'm wearing and focus it on where that last jet of red light came from, just as another red jet comes up at me, and I barely manage to avoid it, then suddenly a flurry of red light comes shooting up at me and just as I evade one, I hear a loud BANG and feel the left wing drop sharply
"Control I've been hit over, repeat XJ 42 has been hit in the left wing!"
I feel the aircraft start to go into a spin and I frantically try and reverse it, wishing someone was in the cockpit with me.
I've never learned how to recover from a spin.
Harry Potter is sat outside with his friends Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasely on the top of a hill at the back of Ron's garden, they've been practicing Quidditch and they've been enjoying themselves enormously.
Now they're just relaxing until Mrs Weasley calls them for dinner.
Hermione sees it first.
The bolt of red light shooting skywards.
She points and the others sit up
"What was that?" she asks, panicked.
"Dunno" Ron says "whatever it was, it missed, could just be the Twins messing around"
Harry nods
"Probably" he agrees, lying down
Hermione however is not so sure and she watches.
The sudden BANG pumping through her veins however persuades the others that it's more than just someone messing around
they can hear the growl of an engine, a strange, sick sounding engine approaching quickly...
Hermione breathes in
"that's an aero engine" she says quickly, fear colouring her voice "and it's damaged"
"And it's heading this way" Harry shouts and he starts to run down the hill, fear giving him new-found strength, at his back is Ron, Hermione and Ginny following close behind...
I see the field before me, a downwards slope that looks like it will have to do, and at 200 feet I'm too low to use my 'chute.
I try and get the aircraft out of the spin, and barely manage it, just managing to get the aircraft into the straight and nearly level, then I see another bolt of red light flashing towards me...
I know I won't miss this without dropping into an irreversible spin.
I close my eyes, awaiting the inevitable.
The last thought that crosses my mind is so absurd I have to laugh, the safety video they showed us before flying, about what to do to jump out of the aircraft and a key phrase reverberates in my brain...
"For the purposes of this demonstration, the aircraft will be in straight and level attitude"
Yeah right... since when does one need to bail out of an aircraft at the straight and level attitude?
(That's the first chapter peeps, please rate and review, haven't done this before)