11 January 1999
"Noah had the right idea: one male, one female, and that's it," Harry said to Ginny, who rewarded him with a lovely smirk.
The work of petrifying the animals they were loading aboard the Hedwig never seemed to end, and his new basilisk Sally was being a temperamental diva. She was constantly complaining in Parseltongue that Scotland was too cold and that Harry wasn't letting her eat enough. Nevertheless, Hermione insisted that if they were going to avoid inbreeding they needed a least a five-hundred breeding pairs of each mammal and bird. A snake or a turtle or a fish comes out of its egg ready to face the world, but mammals and birds need to be nurtured by their parents for a certain length of time. This complication meant they had to first find, then buy or steal, and finally petrify nearly a thousand:
Dogs (a few Border Collies and German Shepherds, but mostly mutts), owls (the starship was named after one), cats (Crookshanks insisted), mice (for the owls and cats to eat), sheep (wool), pigs (bacon), cows (ice cream), goats (a sorry-we-put-you-in-a-coma gift for Aberforth), chickens (according to Parvati wishbones are used extensively in Higher Divination), geese (mattresses and pillows), ducks (Peking duck was Harry's favorite Chinese dish... after Cho Chang), deer (Harry's Patronus), foxes (Ginny's Patronus, plus they made lovely fur coats), rabbits (Luna's Patronus), badgers (the Hufflepuffs insisted... all of them), eagles and ravens (the Ravenclaws wanted both), (Harry drew the line at lions, because dealing with a thousand hungry lions would be insane), (no bears or wolves for the same reason), anteaters (Pomona and Neville insisted on taking ants and termites so they needed anteaters), bats (Insect Eaters), woodpeckers (Insect Eaters), nightingales (Insect Eaters), (they were taking eggs from many smaller reptiles, but Neville insisted that you could never have too many Insect Eaters), turkeys (for the few American wizards still left alive), bison (according to Hermione the Native Americans used them for everything...they were like the Swiss Army Knives of the animal kingdom), squirrels (cute), small Asian elephants (Harry was a big fan of Babar, although they just fit through the airlock), mongooses (they needed Rikki-Tikki-Tavi to counter the many snakes they were taking), camels (they might be traveling to Arrakis), penguins (they might be traveling to Hoth), and horses.
The Centaurs insisted on the horses even though they were already taking a large herd of unicorns, and Harry was in no position to argue with them. Without their help, shepherding all these various animals would have been impossible. The Merpeople were also a great help. Apparently they could magically travel throughout the oceans of the world, although they refused to tell outsiders how this process worked. They manage to collect several hundred pilot and minke whales (despite being whales they were easy to fit through the airlock), dolphins, seals, and sea otters (Hermione's Patronus, although Harry wasn't quite sure how the Merpeople knew that).
Then there were the magical creatures. Horace Slughorn claimed they needed every single beast and creature in existence for future potion ingredients, but Harry refuse to change his mind about the dragons and other beasts. They were simply too dangerous. A single Nundu could easily kill everyone on the Hedwig if it came out of stasis at the wrong time. Finding the other, less violent creatures went well thanks to the long experience of merchants like the Patil family. In turns out the much of the magical economy revolved around either hunting down or raising these poor animals for sale. They were essential for making potions, and potions were essential for just about everything in the magical world.
The whole process took an extraordinary amount of time, effort, and money. Since the greenhouses were self-staining and the Hedwig was almost complete, they had plenty of time on their hands. After being cooped-up in the tunnels for months on end, there were hundreds of wizards and witches eager to capture the animals they needed. The must have robbed every zoo and pet store in Western Europe, but thankfully the muggles never caught on to what they were doing.
Money wasn't a problem anymore thanks to Nicolas Flamel. The alchemist had used the gold from the Philosopher's Stone to build a vast fortune over the centuries, and he didn't plan on leaving anything behind here on Earth for his muggle bankers. This meant that they simply bought many of the animals they needed. There was a large international black market for exotic animals, and criminals were more than happy to take gold bullion as payment. They also bought livestock from more respectable sources. Many of their prized cows and horses had price tags of over ten thousand pounds each, and some were even more expensive than that. Several of the new heifers cost a hundred thousand pounds, while a dozen of the new stallions cost over a million.
"If you want true quality, you have to pay for it," Flamel explained.
Buying food was also easier than stealing it. They quickly arrange for new contracts with the world's largest food service companies: Sysco, Sodexo, and Britain's own Compass Group. These companies delivered huge amounts of food to empty warehouses throughout Europe, and from there the supplies were shipped back to the Forbidden Forest via portkeys. Harry had been worried about the possibility of more ambushes, but since they used the muggle banking system for all the contracts they managed to get away with it.
Their new ally made two other vital contributions to the Hedwig. Flamel's collection of magical books was twice the size of the fabled Hogwarts library, and his collection of muggle books was even larger. He also had a vast number of magical devices. Sneakoscopes, Omnioculars, several antennas for broadcasting the Wizarding Wireless, Remembralls, a dozen Pensieves... the list went on and on. Over the centuries Flamel even purchased copies of important artifacts like the Mirror of Erised and the Goblet of Fire. Magical technology was primitive when compared to what the muggles had developed, but they had made some progress in the right direction.
"Captain Potter, it's time for our staff meeting," Luna said as Harry placed Sally back in her heavily warded cage. The basilisk's work would be done in a day or two if everything went according to schedule. Knock on wood.
"Ginny, stay here and make sure no one slacks off."
"Don't worry. I'll put the stick about and make them jump."
Harry thought his girlfriend was so sexy when she said things like that. "Lead the way Chief Engineer Lovegood."
The gangplank to Hedwig's airlock was filled with a constant stream of two-way traffic, which was separated by two large water pipes. Out of necessity everyone was helping out with the loading process. The house-elves were levitating boxes of food, the Centaurs were carrying the smaller petrified animals on their backs, and teams of wizards handled the larger animals with their wands. Using apparition and portkeys would have been much easier, but Hermione was nervous about their effect on the long-term stability of the Expansion Charm. As a result everything had to be loaded manually, and the endless work went on day and night.
Harry paused just before they entered the Sphere, which was the nickname Dean had given the massive new room at the center of the Hedwig. It wasn't really a perfect sphere. The Merpeople needed a place to live, so off to one side of the airlock there was a kilometer-wide, ten-meter deep indentation which they were filling with saltwater. The Black Lake was connected to the North Sea by a number of underground passages, so there was an endless supply available. The second pipe contained freshwater they were storing in separate holding tanks. This water came from the same mountain spring that had supplied Hogwarts for the past thousand years.
"Are you absolutely sure all this extra weight won't prevent the Hedwig from getting off the ground?" Harry asked.
"We have been over this before," Luna reminded him. "Once an object enters the pocket universe you created its mass effectively disappears from our universe. That is why Hermione was able to carry her Mokeskin pouch for several months last year without breaking her back."
"Alright, if you say so."
Entering the Sphere—or the pocket universe, or whatever you wanted to call it—was tricky even for a veteran Quidditch player. Once the gangplank ended gravity suddenly flipped by ninety degrees, and you either fell up or down on to the rough floor of the Sphere. Even though Harry had created the bloody thing, the sight of it stilled filled him with awe. Thanks to the light from the sun crystals you could see the gray floor slope up in every direction. It looked like a giant bowl that kept rising higher and higher until it turned into a giant dome that reached three kilometers into the air.
Many people were already complaining about vertigo, and it was easy to understand why. Off to one side was what everyone was calling the New Lake. Your brain keep insisting that the water was going to start flowing down the side of the bowl and drown everyone. Even worse were was the sight of the animals sitting up on the "roof" the Sphere. The had tons of floor space, but they also had tens of thousands of animals to pack. Since everyone was going to be living in a makeshift city of tents near the airlock, placing all the smelly animals up on the "roof" would make living conditions more bearable. There were already thousands of Neville's plants scattered around the Sphere, and hopefully that would help people adjust to their new homes.
It was a very short walk to the Command Center, which was just a large non-magical tent with a couple of old tables inside. Harry saw that everyone was present, so he immediately started the meeting.
"Listen up, the Hedwig is going to launch in less than a week. Want I want from each of your departments is a "GO" or a "NO-GO". Please be honest, since this is a matter of life or death for all of us."
"Thanks for that reminder, Scarhead," Malfoy sneered.
"Shut up Ferret Boy," George snapped.
Harry decided to make Horace go first since his personal assistant was such an obnoxious wanker. "Life Support?"
"The oxygen and carbon dioxide levels are fine, but as I've told you before heat is going to be a problem," Slughorn replied. "The sun crystals are constantly producing heat, and the walls of the Sphere act as a perfect form of insulation. All that excess heat has nowhere to go, and after a few months it could become quite uncomfortable in here."
"If we had more time we could build a system of radiators on the outside of the Hedwig to circulate and cool the air," Luna suggested.
"But we don't have any more time," Harry said in a tired voice. "Horace, your concerns have been noted. Hermione was already drawn-up a schedule for monitoring and controlling the Sphere's temperature with Cooling Charms. Other than that, do we have a GO or a NO-GO for Life Support?"
Slughorn looked at him like he had two heads. "A GO... I believe?"
"Food and Water Supply?"
Neville glanced down at several pieces of parchment before answering. "According to the house-elves we have enough muggle food to last for about eighteen months. If new crops here on the Hedwig survive we should be able to stretch that to about three years. After that we will start running low on the essential nutrients the plants need in order to thrive."
"What about water?"
"I know no one wants to drink recycled urine, but according to Madam Pomfrey it's perfectly safe once we've distilled it. If things get dire we could always start removing the salt from the saltwater in New Lake, but..."
"...that would mean getting rid of all the wretched Merpeople," Malfoy added. "That's an excellent suggestion Longbottom."
"Shut up Ferret Boy," Neville snapped. "As I was saying, water shouldn't be a problem. Food and Water Supply is a GO for around three years. I think."
That was more than enough for Harry. If they didn't find their new home in a few months, they weren't going to find it at all. "Booster Brooms?"
"GO," Rolanda Hooch answered without any hesitation. In truth they had no idea if the massive brooms were going to work as plan, but if they didn't the Hedwig would just plunge to Earth, and they would all die. So at this point there wasn't really any sense in worrying about it.
"Hull Integrity?"
"The radiation shielding will be put in place once we've reached zero gravity," Luna said. "We are waiting on the last field test for Hull Integrity, but for now my department is a tentative GO."
"Magical Emitters?"
"My emitters work perfectly," Mr Ollivander replied with indifference, but then the strange wizard was indifferent to everything but his beloved wands. "However I have no idea if they will serve the purpose you wish them to."
"I will take that as a GO," Harry muttered. "Navigation?"
Aurora Sinistra gave him a lovely smile. Of all the people here in the tunnels the Astronomy Professor was by far the most excited about their voyage to another world. For a professional astronomer it was the opportunity of a lifetime. The outer hull of the Hedwig was covered with telescopes and other bizarre instruments she would use in order to judge their location and rate of speed.
"All I ask for is a round ship, and a star to steer her by."
"I asked for a GO or a NO-GO,Aurora. Not muggle poetry."
"Mr Potter, you have no soul."
"Yes, I know. Voldemort ate it."
"Fine, be that way. Navigation is a GO."
"Infirmary?"
Madame Pomfrey gave him a disturbing frown. Of all the people here in the tunnels the healer was by far the least excited about their voyage to another world. A new world meant the possibility of new diseases. Diseases she would have no idea how to treat. One day she explained to Harry how the introduction of the Smallpox virus had killed over ninety percent of the indigenous population in North and South American during the sixteenth century. That bit of history was still giving him awful nightmares.
"I'm afraid there are more than a few pregnancies to report, but that's to be expected. We have a full supply of medical potions in storage, and I've taken on several promising apprentices. The Infirmary is as ready as it will ever be, so I guess we are a GO."
Harry saved the worst for last, but he had to know. "Floo Bomb?"
George had his feet up on the table, and he seemed perfectly at peace with himself. "The Floo Bomb is a GO."
"Has anyone come up with a new method for controlling it remotely?"
"No. We've only manufactured enough Floo Powder for one attempt, which means we can't afford to screw it up," George explained. "If this crazy idea is going to work there has to be a wizard inside the Bomb itself, and that wizard is going to be me."
17 January 1999
As soon as Harry learned about the young prisoners being held on Ascension Island he realized they needed intelligence. That was almost impossible though since the island was located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean thousands of miles from both South America and Africa. So he had no choice but to politely ask the Merpeople for help.
To his amazement they knew the island's exact location, and they could travel there using their mysterious magical whirlpools. Their warriors quickly placed dozens of enchanted mirrors all along the coastline of the island, which was only about thirty kilometers in total. Harry had a feeling that the Ministry of Magic had badly misjudged the Merpeople and the Centaurs. Both species were every bit as intelligent as wizards, if not more so.
Bill and Fleur volunteered to study the surveillance footage from the enchanted mirrors. According to them Ascension Island was a very small place and mostly devoid of vegetation. There was only a few hills, so it was easy to see everything that was going on. Fleur soon discovered that the prisoners were indeed being held on the island, in an old hangar next to the small airport located along the southern coast.
"When you think about it, this island is an ideal place for a magical prison," Bill explained. "It's so isolated that even the most powerful wizard would have trouble reaching the mainland of Africa using apparition. And if anyone approaches by broom or magic carpet they would be easy to detect and shoot down down with one of those bloody muggle missiles. There are also rune stones along the perimeter of the island, so portkeys are useless at the moment. In many ways it reminds me of Azkaban."
"Then an underwater approach is our only real option."
"Not necessarily. I bet they have one of those metal submersibles off the coast, waiting for any would-be trespassers," Bill added. Thanks to his career as a curse-breaker he had more experience dealing with muggles than your typical pureblood.
"You are a real bundle of sunshine today Weasley," Harry muttered. "Muggle sonar is design to find submarines and surface ships, not Merpeople and foolish wizards hopped-up on Gillyweed."
Fleur was sure that there were magical prisoners on the island, but none of them knew how many or in what medical condition they would be in. The few they had seen with the mirrors were all unconscious and being carried on stretchers. To bring them back to the Forbidden Forest would require hundreds of portkeys, which Filius had spent the past week making.
But unfortunately the wards would have to come down first before they could use those portkeys. The muggles didn't really understand the rune stones they were using, so they only needed to destroy a few of them for the plan to work. All they had to do was get pass several hundred soldiers who were waiting to kill anyone with a wand. Harry was pondering this slight tactical problem when he was approached by an unlikely duo: Minerva McGonagall and Rita Skeeter.
"The muggles will be expecting a frontal attack, not a stray house cat or a beetle flying along the beach," Minerva explained as the three of them studied a transfigured map of the island. The witch had decades of experience, and she had already come up with several excellent ideas for the mission.
"Not to be rude Miss Skeeter, but you've never struck me as the heroic type," Harry said. "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"
"I was less than a block away from Diagon Alley when it was bombed by the muggles," Rita explained. "I know what they are capable of, and I'm positive that if we leave these children behind they will be murdered. Besides, it's not like I'll have to do any fighting myself. We'll just sneak past the muggles, smash a few of these rune stones, and the rest is up to you."
"Well, I do plan on bringing some help this time," Harry said as he continued to study the map. "Everything of value is now packed aboard the Hedwig... expect for these prisoners. We'll leave once the two of you are properly dressed."
That night while Harry was assembled his team on the edge of the Black Lake, the Hedwig was getting its first bath. Flooding the launch bay with water has one of Luna's more interesting ideas, since it solved two problems at once. First of all it allowed them to check for any possible air leaks. Once the starship was submerged the Chief Engineer had fifty witches check over every square millimeter of the interior, looking for any signs of water. In the end they found three leaks. They were tiny, but in outer space they could have caused a catastrophic failure. Once the repairs were complete they moved on to the second problem: the stone ceiling above the Hedwig. Fifty wizards using Gillyweed were sent out to cut a hole for the starship to pass through. They had saved this job for last both for security reasons, and because removing the stone debris was easier once they were underwater.
Harry enjoyed watching the large bubbles caused by all this work, but after a few minutes he turned to face the four members of his team. Like him were all wearing wetsuits and the latest muggle rebreathers, which were another gift from Nicolas Flamel. They couldn't afford to use the Bubble-Headed Charm tonight—not when they might need their wands for other, more violent purposes. Gillyweed was also out of the question because they couldn't afford to waste an hour waiting for the effects of the magical plant to wear off.
"Mr Potter, are you sure the Merpeople can do what they promised?" Minerva asked. "Albus dealt with them for many decades, yet he never once heard them mention any sort of underwater transportation system. Magical or otherwise."
"For Merlin's sake, stop being such a wet blanket," Rita hissed. "We are about to experience a new form of magic no witch or wizard has even seen of before. You can at least pretend to be excited."
"I agree," Filius added. "This is going to be great fun."
"Spoken like a former dueling champion," Rolanda muttered.
"Let's go over the plan one more time," Harry suggested. "The Merpeople claim we will arrived less than a kilometer away from Ascension Island. Minerva, are you positive that you and Rita can change into your Animagus forms while wearing those wetsuits and rebreathers?"
Instead of answering this insulting question, the former Professor of Transfiguration effortlessly changed into a cat. Rita was too busy adjusting her wetsuit to make a similar effort. It pained Harry to admit it, but she still had a nice figure for a witch in her forties.
"Once you have destroyed several of the rune stones the rest of us will apparate directly into the hanger and deal with any guards," Harry continued. "We will then distribute the portkeys as quickly as possible, and pray that none of the muggle soldiers hear us."
Before anyone could point out the many flaws in his plan, three of the Merpeople emerged from the Black Lake. Two were young warriors, while the third was a much older male carrying a large metal trident. Once they were all in the water the older merman began to move his trident in a circular motion. A flat whirlpool soon emerged. It had a very well-defined edge and didn't seem to be disturbing the water around it. After a few minutes the two warriors swam directly into this whirlpool and vanished.
Harry thought it sort of looked like the Floo, but when he entered the whirlpool it felt even worse than apparition. His entire body was squeezed into a thinnest of tubes before being violently ejected out the other side. It took him a few moments to regain his bearings, but when he did he found that the water here was much warmer. Instead of waiting for the others to emerge he swam up to the surface to take a look around. It was difficult to see in the dim moonlight, but he could just make out the rough outline of an island in the distance. After a few seconds he was dragged back under by one of the warriors.
It turns out that everyone made it through unharmed. Minerva and Rita gave them a final thumbs-up as the two warriors grabbed them from behind and began swimming towards the island at a rapid pace. The next half-hour was both boring and exhausting. There was nothing for them do but tread water until Minerva and Rita either brought down the wards or were killed in the attempt.
After thirty minutes Harry felt it: the large field of magic which had been protecting the island was gone. Filius and Rolanda immediately apparated and he was only seconds behind them. The inside of the hangar was a bizarre sight: it was completely full of metal bunk beds, and each one held two unconscious prisoners with IVs attached to their arms. Even without a wand a young wizard could be dangerous, so the muggles must have kept their prisoners sedated during the past few months.
Harry ripped off his mask and looked around for any guards. Filius had already killed five of them, while Rolanda had taken care of three more. They had no time to waste, so Harry reached into his Mokeskin pouch and took out a handful of marbles. Each one was a portkey, and as he placed them on the children they began to disappear in a flash of light.
The two Animagi soon joined them. "None of the muggle soldiers saw us, but there is a large patrol headed in this direction," Minerva said.
"We are almost done," Filius told her.
After five minutes of frantic work the hangar was empty, and they all activated their own portkeys. When the arrived in the long waterproof tunnel leading to the Hedwig they found Madame Pomfrey covered in blood as she ran from patient to patient. Harry watched in horrified fascination as she placed her wand over a girl's head and cast some obscure spell. A blood-soaked piece of metal suddenly appeared as the young girl started convulsing. Before he could ask what was going on Hermione pulled him aside.
"The muggles placed small radio transmitters inside the bodies of their prisoners. Each one is located in a different place, so removing them is very difficult and time-consuming. We are destroying them once they are out, but if the muggle are able to detect any of them they'll know exactly where we are."
"Will the ambient magic in the Forbidden Forest block the radio signals?" Harry asked.
"Perhaps, but there is no way to be sure," Hermione replied.
"Bloody hell, this was Colonel Poshepny's plan all along. Let us free the prisoners, use the transmitters to discover the location of our hidden sanctuaries, and then send in the military to finish us off. The bastard has been dead for weeks, but he can still out-think and out-fight me."
"Calm down. Madam Pomfrey will be done soon, the three Merpeople are already on board the Hedwig, and according to Luna all systems are a GO. Besides, we don't even know if the muggles received any of the radio signals."
"Given our rotten luck I have no doubt they're coming," Harry said as he removed his heavy rebreather and handed it to a waiting house-elf. "Now it's a race. Can we reach the safety of outer space in time, or will the muggles find us first and destroy the Hedwig?"
