The shuttle grew quiet in the absence of the officer's voice. Most of the other children in the immediate rows, those who had quietly cheered while Malcolm assaulted Harry, now looked anywhere but at the boy himself.

When it seemed like enough time had passed for the message to sink in, the man in charge spoke up again.

"Huh," he said derogatorily. "I suppose a few of you have two braincells to rub together inside of those thick-looking skulls after-all. So let this be an early lesson that you would have had to face as soon as we docked with the school anyway, boys and girls - the Fleet is above any old earth-based stigmas you may have clung to until this point, be they nation, race, or blood-status. Only the best will survive to man our ships and give the orders that will make or break the human race one day, and if you aren't among the best than you're little better than the worst and we will ice you at a moment's notice. Understand?"

Barely a single voice piped up in response.

"I asked if you understand, children. Don't tell me you've all gone mute - you were so willing to endorse a doomed endeavor and now you can't even determine when its appropriate to shout, so we may as well not have spent the fuel to come down here in the first place. Understand?"

Everyone met that with "Yes, sir!" and most were half-choked, half-furious, or all-but-deadened with humiliation and regret.

The Fleet officer examined them one more time with a scathing scowl, lingering just a moment longer on Harry then the others. Then he turned around, snagged a side-rail, and threw himself in one smooth leap toward the vacant seat at the very front of the rows. It was built specifically large enough to house a full-grown man, and he barely had enough time to strap himself in before the shuttle began to rumble.

Taking their cues from him, the passengers scrambled to fit the three-tiered belts into the respective latches in time. One secured over each of the shoulders and the third across the stomach, respectively, and Harry had to undo the last so he could fit the first two into place correctly.

His fingers shook as the rumbling redoubled, and again, shaking the whole aisle and rattling the bones in Harry's body against each other terribly. His stomach knotted up and he very nearly vomited - but the sick-up got caught in his gut on the way and was slammed back down again by a sudden, unrelenting weight driving back and down upon his body.

Panic flooded through him as he shoved the third belt in place just before his hands were flung back and driven into his chest just beneath his throat.

This was not like the horrifying weight that Apparition had been, which was everywhere at once and crushing inward. Having experienced that situation a few times already barely prepared him for this; his eyeballs were and nose were flattening, his lungs labored to inhale after he exhaled, and his skin seemed to be stretching and thinning. It was wholly different from being squeezed into a ball by the hand of gravity, for he seemed to be caught beneath an insurmountable anvil instead.

Others were taking it even less favorably than he was, however; the officer's verbal sparring had battered their defenses far enough that they crumbled beneath this onslaught. Pained gasps filled the back of the shuttle. Rasping. Desperate and short-lived wails as they expelled all the air in their lungs and abruptly blacked-out.

It was a small and never-ending minute before the vibrations fell away and the anvil lifted away. Harry fell limply against his harnesses and swallowed in a blissfully full breath. He closed his eyes for the remainder of the flight, but he could not sleep even if he had wanted to.


Docking with the School took only a little time. Enough for Harry to finish recovering from the abuses of gravity and breaking through the stratosphere and exosphere.

The Fleet officer unhooked his own belts and swung feet-first toward the ceiling while the final alignments were coming together, then, seemingly at ease by his disorientation. And thanks to the lack of gravity while they were still disconnected, he held there without the slightest trouble.

"I suppose this is as good a time as any to discuss the notions of earth-based gravity and why it is utterly illogical to sustain that sense of direction out here," the officer began to stride over the seats and children filling them, matching each set of eyes as he passed, pausing to check the pulse of those who were unconscious and making a brief note on the pad around his left wrist.

The next-nearest child beside Harry leaned away and began to wretch at the latest violation of all they had known; and like a set of dominoes, a chain reaction filled the rest of the shuttle as a wave of inexplicable nausea passed in the wake of the man. Having already endured enough gut trauma recently, Harry felt surprisingly at ease watching the unnatural act.

"As many of you are aware, we are now in zero-gee. Most of the Battle School does retain a slight gee to it to keep us all from floating away into ceilings and walls, except for the battle rooms. It is hardly my place to spoil that particular surprise. However, there are many sections, corridors and more, that have both an up and down orientation available at once, if not one that is side to side. It will not be uncommon for you to pass your peers and seniors in this way, and classes are organized rather, shall we say, haphazardly."

Again, the officer kept his gaze on Harry for just a moment longer, idly examining him, and then he was passing to the next row. Those who were still dry-heaving were ignored except for the disdain directed at them in expression.

"It is my responsibility to remind you that in such low-threshold gee's, physical melee and sparring is strictly prohibited. It would not do to throw your opponent onto a spiked chandelier and then try to claim ignorance, after all."

Having reached the end of the shuttle, the officer launched himself down the regular aisle and caught himself with one hand on the first row of seats, swinging back around to land on his feet easily, and he paused before entering the door ahead to give his final words.

"In short, children, the next decade and change of your lives, provided you last that long, will be spent learning spacial warfare in all of its many diverse ways. And wouldn't you know it, but I expect the wizard is going to be the only one here not to disappoint us." He smiled and added, "Good luck, boy. Do your duty well."

Young as he was, Harry finally realized this man was no better than the wizard that had collected him from his aunt and uncle's home. He had not gained any favors despite all of the officer's words - the death-glare directed upon him from every direction he could see confirmed that. They hated him more hotly now than when Malcolm had been cheered on.

Even Dudley had not wanted him dead; those nearest, he could see, would have loved nothing more than to strangle him if they could have gotten away with it. But Malcolm's situation was just as well etched into their minds as it was his own. He was safe so long as he was in the shuttle. After that... he hoped he could find somewhere safer, where other Fleet officers' would be present, or perhaps the other children he had seen with the wizard. They wouldn't hate him if they were also like him, would they?

A last and ominous shudder rippled through the shuttle from tail-tip to nose. And like a switch flipped on, the faintest pressure pushed him down into his seat again.

Then the door at the the back of the shuttle swung open, and with a wave of invisible power, every belt holding them in clicked loose and nestled out of the way in the edges of the seats. Harry blinked down at them, then up again when a soft set of footsteps echoed along the aisle. They stopped just past the door, but he was still focused on the seat belts, realizing it was more magic. A second short burst that he was barely aware of passed through him and startled him to perfect alertness.

A woman's voice, slightly high-pitched and unhappy, issued orders. "Those of you just awoken, follow Officer Filch to the medical bay to review your status. The rest, follow me."

Harry scrambled out of his seat. He caught sight of a tall, long-black-haired woman in the same kind of strange white robes as the wizard who collected him just before she passed through the doorway. Without hesitation he hastened after her - even if he hadn't been worried about the other children, he did not want to fall behind.

At the doorway a long metallic rectangle served as the docking tunnel. The woman had not waited, but was still striding toward the hatch at the far end.


A/N: No, this isn't the full chapter. Much like with Curse of Hamunaptra, I'm posting what I have available so far to remind my readers that, yes, I am still working on this. I'll edit with the full chapter when I have it finished. That said, for a sample of spoiler-y goodness on what is to come in several chapters, see another snippet at Chapter 32 of An assortment of Oneshots and other ideas.