Chapter 34 Dragons!
Harry stared at the map. Dragons. A lot of them. They were scattered all across the map, some in groups of up to half a dozen, some singly. There didn't seem to be any sort of pattern. The dragons were shown as neat small icons that showed the breed, gender, and a date. The one nearest them had a flag that said, "Ironbelly, Male, 20 Jan 1976." One and all they were homing toward the nodes of the Portkey ward and the wizards there. That was the nature of dragons. They preferred to prey on magical creatures, but they'd eat anything. Fried.
Harry gritted his teeth and thought quickly. There was a plan for that, but it would be a drop of water on FiendFyre for this.
We thought we had planned for every eventuality. He thought grimly. He bit his lip, and forced himself to think clearly. When all plans fail, the Force Commander makes a new plan.
He looked again at the map. There were a lot of dragons on it, scattered all across the width of a continent. As he watched, new ones popped up on the map. The CMAF patrols couldn't fight so many dragons. Every wizard in the Force would be none too many.
Every wizard in the Force it would have to be. The Canadians had dragonhide armour, training, experience. The other wizards had wands and brooms. No one had imagined this. The one card they had was the Map, thanks to the Archmage. It was a good one. If you knew exactly where the Snitch was from the toss of the Quaffle, it was a short Quidditch game. Of course, these Snitches had teeth. There were a Hell of a lot of them, too.
He put his wand on the voice rune. "All stations, this is Warlock. We are under massive dragon attack. Here's how we're going to do this. All wizards will form into teams, with Canadians as team captains. We'll tell you where the dragons are. Hunt them and kill them. Work as a team and don't give them a chance. This isn't sport, this is survival. We win, or we die. Now grab your brooms and hit the sky. Warlock done."
Harry looked around. People were filtering into the room. In Canada as in Hogwarts the rumour mill operated at the speed of magic. One of them caught his eye, a scarred old man in faded red leathers with a prosthetic arm and leg. He reminded Harry of Mad-Eye Moody.
"Who are you?" Harry said. His first idea had been to try to run this himself. He had changed his mind. He didn't have the experience for this. He was going to have to draw on the experience of others, and this man had a long lifetime of it. That was written all over him.
"Hardass, Warlock. They don't let me fly any more. I still can." Just like Mad-Eye, all right. Moody's idea of retirement had been the Order of the Phoenix.
"Your luck is out today, too." Harry said. "Sit yourself down. Your callsign is Seeing Eye. You watch the Map, you call the plays. Put teams on dragons and make sure dragons don't sneak up on teams. Your word is my order. Make it happen."
"There's an Ironbelly inbound on us." Hardass pointed on the map.
"I've got that." Harry said. "Ready!" His MacLaughin came to his hand and he mounted as he went through the door.
"Dragonshit." Hardass said, then sat down and hit the voice rune. "All stations, this is Seeing Eye. Warlock is aloft. Firewhiskey, Champagne, form on Warlock. Ironbelly male inbound, Warlock's twelve o'clock high."
He kept on talking. The only saving grace here was the limits on broomstick speeds and dragon speeds. A MacLaughin topped out at 200 mph, faster than a Firebolt thanks to a charm like a muggle windshield. A dragon did about that well in a dive, half that in level flight.
Harry caught a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. Two Canadian dragon hunters dropped down to fly formation on either side of him. Form into teams, he'd said. Good. One of them cast a spell on himself, then pointed ahead and up. Harry looked in the direction he had pointed and saw a small speck in the sky. Right, the Supersensory spell. Its use was banned in Quidditch, but as he'd just finished pointing out to all and sundry, this wasn't Quidditch.
The speck grew larger quickly. It was an Ironbelly, all right. Big, grey scales and menacing looking. He glanced over at the two dragon hunters on either side of him, but they seemed content to follow his lead. Harry wondered if this was some sort of test. Probably. No doubt there was some complex sophisticated Canadian tactic that allowed you to reliably take out a dragon without being fried to a crisp in your own lard. Dragon hunters discussed tactics and kills the way Quidditch players talked about plays and goals. Harry was going to make a close pass and hit the damned thing as hard as he could. He drew the Elder Wand and held it straight ahead like a knight's lance.
Dragons were tough. Always before he had been concerned to limit and control the immense power of the Wand and its ability to draw on the even vaster power of the Crown. Now there were no more limits. He summoned all of that power and forced his will upon it, calling it to action.
For the first time since it had come into his possession he felt the Wand awaken fully and knew its savage merciless nature as a weapon of war. It reared against him like a restive warhorse and he exerted his will to control it. Strength it demanded of its Master, and it cared for nothing else. If he fell to another then it would serve him as being the stronger.
Such ruthlessness was not in Merlin's nature, and now he knew that Merlin had not crafted it. He had taken it from the dead hand of his most implacable and most powerful enemy.
Wait for it. Battle is coming. He thought sternly.
There wasn't much time for subtlety here, but he could make life a little harder for the damned thing. As he'd learned during the Tri-Wizard Tournament, dragons were fast but he was faster. The dragon's menacing shape grew larger with incredible speed, and Harry could see the triangular grey head and its smouldering red eyes turn to bear on him. He climbed just a touch and saw the dragon's head follow the movement. It would breathe flame any moment.
Now! He dove and then pulled up and saw the head of the dragon huge in front of him. The flare of dragon fire reached out toward him and he felt the searing heat as he flashed through the edge of the fire bloom. "DIFFINDO MAXIMA!"
Champagne and Firewhisky exchanged glances as they closed in on the dragon. Warlock had stones, you had to give the kid that, but it was going to be up to them to make the kill. There were few vulnerable points on a dragon, and the ones on the head were the smallest and hardest to hit. Nobody was that good his first time out.
Dragons were tough. They were physically tough and magically very tough. That dictated everything about the training and tactics of dragon hunting. Punching through the thick tough magic resistant hide of a dragon took the best spell you had, usually Diffindo or Reducto, compressed down as tight as you could do it. You might get a hole as big as your fist at best. To actually do enough damage to cripple or kill it you had to put that hole into a vital spot. Killing and Imperius Curses didn't work. No one knew why, and wizards had died finding that out. Cruciatus just annoyed them. Invisibility was no help, either.
Eyes were good if you could hit them without getting fried. The hunter's triangle at the base of the back of the skull had the spinal cord and vital arteries, but it was small and elusive, though a certain kill if you could hit it. The main wing joints had much thinner hide over them and nerves and arteries running along them. They were the easiest targets, but not a certain kill. A crippled dragon went into a glide and couldn't maneuver, so it was a much easier target for a second pass.
Firewhisky made the plan with the language of signs that dragon hunters had used before voice communications. Firewhisky would curve up to the left and come down on the dragon, aiming for the vulnerable target of the main wing joint. Champagne would curve down and to the right and come up from underneath, going for the wing joint on that side. Standard two man tactics. Best shot at the wing joint depended on where the wings were in their stroke. One of them would get a good shot, made easier by the fact that the dragon would be focused on Warlock.
Firewhisky called the play with a slashing gesture and they curved off from Warlock to commence the manoeuvre, losing sight of the dragon and relying on training and experience to bring them into position for a good cast. Firewhisky came down on the target ready to cast. It wasn't there. He searched around and saw ... the Ironbelly's head and half its body go one way and the rest of its body the other as it fell to Earth.
Potter had also looped around after his pass. By the habit of training Firewhisky and Champagne formed up in a tight element of two and headed over to form up on him. Firewhisky said automatically, "Seeing Eye, Firewhisky. Ironbelly is down. Warlock's kill."
The two of them shared a Can you believe that? look. They had been briefed that the Warlock was the most powerful wizard in the world. Seeing that in front of your eyes was something else again. They swooped in to join Potter.
"You cut that a bit close, Warlock." Firewhisky said, seeing scorch marks on the hem of his woollen robes.
"Yeah." Potter replied. "Big bastard."
"Warlock, Seeing Eye, flight of three dragons at your nine o'clock high." Came over the wireless. Harry looked up to his right and cast Supersensory Ocularis. The three specks in the sky, tiny against the towering clouds, leaped out at him. Not Ironbellies, this time, but Chinese Fireballs. There was a big one in the centre.
"We have business." Harry said, pointed, and Warlock flight curved off in a climbing turn.
"Female and two young adults." Firewhisky shouted over the rush of wind. "Female's the alpha. Fireballs have a longer fire range. Watch for that."
"Got it." Harry said. "I'll take the alpha."
The Sorcier Supréme looked at the dead body of the Russian in the corner with the expression of a woman making a note to reprove her butler for sloppiness. The rest of her Household Wizards had stormed into the room and stood in a ring around her with their wands drawn. Their normal expression of languid detachment was notably absent.
She listened to Potter on the wireless and nodded curtly. "The new Warlock shows promise. En avant, mes enfants."
She strode toward the main door with the wizards of her Household around her. Sheret called his broom to him and followed. He came up to her as she stopped, scanning the pale blue Arctic sky.
"Sorcier, honour demands that I protect you." Sheret protested, scanning the sky for threats.
"And that is best done aloft, Sheret." She replied evenly. "Go. Do what you must."
He nodded, mounted his broom and was gone.
"It would appear that these salaud have forgotten the might of France." She snapped, turning to the wizards and witches of her Household. "Should you see something suitable as a reminder, call it to your vieux Grandmére's attention. Now go, my children. Uphold the honour of France."
The scions of the oldest wizarding families in France seized their brooms and mounted them, mounting to the sky as fast as a MacLaughlin could take them. They formed up on the muggle-born son of a farmer and the half-blood daughter of a dragonhide tanner.
"Thunderbird flight, Seeing Eye. Dragon close, your six o'clock." crackled over the wireless.
Shit, shit, dragon shit. Thunderbird thought. "Break, break, break!" She shouted, hoping that these elegant aristocrats could figure out the first lesson in Tactics 101. The flight scattered as a gout of flame blasted past them. Thunderbird pulled through a hard loop and looked down from above the formation.
Shit. Thunderbird thought again. One of the flight was spiralling down, smoke streaming from his broom and robes. "Seeing Eye, Thunderbird. Man down!"
There was a plan for that, if the Frenchman whose name she didn't even know was still alive and could make a survivable landing. If there was anyone left to carry out that plan … the fight was on and there was no time for ifs.
One of the other Frenchmen came around in a hard turn and flashed past the dragon with his wand out. If he cast or hit anything Thunderbird didn't see it. Well, at least the survivors had the sense to reform on the flight lead.
Well, they have some skills. Thunderbird thought, grudgingly. The Frenchmen had fallen into formation on her with the precision of a World Cup Quidditch team. That didn't make teaching tactics in the saddle much easier.
"All right, people." Thunderbird shouted over the wind rush. "Payback time. You have to hit them in the right spot on the pass."
"That one is done, Thunderbird." The French witch on her left said grimly. "Small enough vengeance for my cousin, the Vicomte d'Orleans."
"Pretty flying doesn't do it." Thunderbird snapped. "You never touched it."
"I marked it for future attention, Thunderbird." She replied. "Watch."
Thunderbird's head snapped around as she heard a rising roar approaching from behind her. A long spear of flame, with eyes and a raptor's cruel beak, was homing on the dragon like a snake on a field mouse. It struck with deadly precision, wrapping the dragon in coils of flame.
"Le Feu d'Enfer." The French witch replied, watching the cremation of the dragon in the coils of flame with cold satisfaction. "You would say FiendFyre."
"Impossible." Thunderbird said. "No one can control FiendFyre like that. Most wizards can't control it at all."
"Tell that to Grandmére, Thunderbird. Then Apparate. She is not in a mood." Was the dry reply.
Thunderbird looked at the flaming bones of the dragon as they fell away toward the Earth.
Note to self. Be polite to the Sorcier Supréme. She thought. Aloud she said, "Good to know. I'll take your word for it. Any other tips?"
"Stay clear while Le Feu d'Enfer is feeding. It's hungry." Was the cool reply.
Thunderbird factored that into her tactical plan. It wasn't the whole answer, but it was going to be a help. Putting FiendFyre into the middle of a furball would get people killed, and they'd - she had lost one man already.
"All right, people. Singletons we mark and leave for the Sorcier. Multiples we do old school. Take your best spell and narrow it as tight as you can. The wing joint is your best shot. Go for an eye if you're feeling lucky. Watch where the head is looking. There are a lot of dragons out there. People are relying on us. Don't get careless."
The wireless crackled on all their brooms. "Thunderbird flight, this is Seeing Eye. Flight of five, your seven o'clock high."
Thunderbird looked around at her new flight. She saw the predatory smiles and the expectancy in the body language. Well, these elegantly dressed and made up French aristocrats had one essential requirement to be dragon hunters. They were one and all dragonshit crazy.
Who knows? She thought as she led her flight in a climbing turn. We might even win this thing.