North Osea

The two F/A-27 Ravenclaws burst through the cloud base and up in to the marble blue sky, their pulse detonation engines roaring loudly with the throttles open for everything they were worth. Hermione kept her position tightly behind her flight lead, 1st Lieutenant Neville Longbottom, who was now her superior officer. Although a reasonably competent pilot he was considered to be one of the weakest at Hierlark. Hermione on the other hand was a superb pilot whom flying had come as easy as breathing.

Passing through thirty five thousand feet Longbottom inverted his aircraft and pulled back on the stick before righting the aircraft to settle in at thirty five and a half thousand feet. Hermione followed him through the maneuver so finely that it was as though their two aircraft were physically linked together. Hermione was still struggling to adjust to having Longbottom as her flight lead since just over a month ago it was the other way round. Although the UPEO had covered up her unauthorised action she did not go unpunished. She had been stripped of rank and had lost qualification as a flight leader. It was the only way that Colonel Black would allow her to remain on his squadron - the famous 'Wizards'. The name 'Wizard' was inherited from a notorious Osean Air Force unit that had fought during the Belkan War before defecting to the terrorist organisation A World With No Boundaries. They were defeated by the near mythical 'Demon Lord' but were resurrected when the New United Nations founded the Universal Peace Enforcement Organisation or UPEO to police the growing number of corporatocracies and terrorist movements that were springing up across the globe.

Hermione settled in for yet another routine patrol along the coast. Sitting in her cockpit she looked out of the bulbous canopy that offered excellent visibility when in close quarters combat with another aircraft. With Longbottom leading this patrol there was little for her to do except monitor her own systems and sensors but before long the tedium of doing this so many times began to sink in and her mind wandered. Since Ron's death her enthusiasm for her job had diminished. There was once a time when she would relish the opportunity to take a combat aircraft and soar in to the heavens to greet the sun every morning but now its passion had died when Ron's aircraft was shot out of the sky.

As she looked across to the east to see the sun rising up over the horizon a voice from her past echoed in her mind...

Three Years Earlier

"I will never get tired of that view," said Ron Weasley in the front cockpit of the two seat F-16XA Sakerfalcon, an extreme development of the F-16 based on the experimental F-16XL. Hermione, sitting in the instructor's seat located behind Ron's, smiled slyly under her oxygen mask at the innocence in Ron's voice. How could anyone ever tire of it? she thought to herself secretly.

"Ok Lieutenant that's enough of the sight seeing!" said Hermione over the intercom. "This is a training flight and it's best you concentrate. Don't forget I am grading your performance throughout the flight."

"Of course...Sir!" replied Weasley in a mocking tone. Although Ron had teased her about her recent promotion to section leader he never challenged her authority. He had too much respect for her than that. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had gone through their UPEO training together at the Academy in North Point and as such had developed a close friendship. Secretly, both of them believed that there might be something more to it than that but both were afraid to admit it. For Hermione, she had tried to hide her feelings behind her professional doctrine but as she sat in the rear cockpit looking forward at the back of Ron's helmet she wondered what thoughts were going through his head right now. Were they the same as hers perhaps? "So, shall I proceed to the range then?"

"At your discretion if you please," replied Hermione. Suddenly Hermione felt her body thrown to the side as Ron deliberately threw the F-16XA into a high speed half roll before pulling back on the stick. The F-16XA responded by pointing it's nose towards the ground and began a rapid descent reminiscent of a home sick anvil. After dropping to below five thousand feet Ron pulled the nose up sharply as the aircraft thundered into the snow capped North Osean mountain range. Hermione felt the G-forces pushing up against her body as the mountains began to pass on either side of the aircraft at high speed.

Keeping the speed up Ron rolled to the left and kept the aircraft hugging the terrain as tightly as he could without too much risk to themselves. The enormous wing of the F-16XA buffeted in the thick turbulent air blowing across the mountains and made for an uncomfortable ride. Continuing onward, a mountain appeared in front of them and Ron eased the stick back to raise the nose. The mountain passed underneath them to reveal a deep valley below and he rolled the aircraft yet again and dived deep in to the valley before levelling off. As the aircraft violently cut through the air a pair of long white vortices streamed from the wingtips drawing white lines in the sky.

Ron was in his element flying the aircraft. Although she had noted one or two sloppy mistakes throughout the flight she didn't have the heart to emphasise them. She knew this was unfair since if it was anyone else she probably would have but she just couldn't bring herself to cut him down like that. It was a painful truth that her feelings for him were tainting her professionalism. He must be something special...

Present Day

"He was something special!" she murmured to herself as she brought her thoughts back to the present. "He really was." Peering through the canopy once more she settled on the unfortunate truth that the view that she thought she could never tire of now only served as a reminder for what she had lost.