Author's Notes:

This shout-out for stories by other writers, goes to the slew of stories by DeadlandMarshall with "Vengeance? No, Avenger"" (story 11515212).

As usual, Ms Rowling maintains total control over her characters and the Harry Potter epic, and I am writing within the context of the Fifth Year (second half of 1995 through first half of 1996 - Order of Phoenix through Half-Blood Prince). Of course, we've gone off of the Canon Highway long, long ago (about 33 chapters to be exact…..)

Feel free to post reviews and commentaries, but I insist that you login and post it under your real account name. Guest or anonymous reviews are subject to being designated troll-bait and will be moderated to death.

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(Meaning of the above: Kilroy was here)

Great Hall, Sunday, December 10th at 8:00 AM

Harry, Dudley, the Ladies Potter and Fate Testarossa were sitting at the Gryffindor table with their friends when there was a massive FRAAAAAPPPP! From the Head Table followed by Professor Trelawney's scream and shout "Fred! George! Weasley Twins! You are going to die this day! This is not a predication but a dead certainty!"

Harry wiped his mouth with the napkin and placed it down, then stood and excused himself as he stepped back over the bench and then walked up to the Head Table, where Sybil Trelawney was struggling to pull herself up of her chair, accompanied by gasping and low-keyed frapping sounds from under her.

Harry sketched a bow to the other residents of the Head Table, and then leaned across the table in front of Sybil.

"Professor Trelawney. The Weasley Twins did this at my behest, and you will remain stuck there until I have had my say."

Trelawney froze and then stared up into Harry's face. "No, I will NOT. You cannot make me say that terrible thing that the Fates have saddled me with!"

Harry sharply nodded. "Then you will be sitting there until hell freezes over or you give up the prophesy that Death says you have been given. How did my Dad put Death's words to me: 'tell Trelawney to pull her finger out of her quim and speak the words as they are vital and to set history on the right path'? How about it, come with me to the Solar and speak the words. Are they that bad?"

Trelawney had tears running down her face as she shook her head rapidly back and forth . "They are! They burn within me but are not in the right form of a prophesy! They sound more like a children's rhyme. They use muggle words! They are not obscure and with multiple meanings! They break every rule that I've taught! How can I call myself a seer and speak such words? Besides, you are missing the Soldiers Two, the Commander and the Dirty One. They aren't here tod…. NO! NO! NO! I will not say more about them! Woe is me! The end is near and I cannot speak!"

Trelawney slumped, and then looked past Harry at the doors to the Great Hall. "They come! They cannot be here but they come!"

Colonel Hereford Dursley and his adjutant, Sergeant Angus McAuslan, came around the doors into the Great Hall and stopped. "I'm sorry, but did we interrupt something? We need to talk to Dursley for a few minutes and then we'll be on our way."

Harry, taking note of the expression of dread on Professor Trelawney's face and her trying to simultaneously slump in the chair and also to get out of the chair, resulting in yet another FRAAAAPPPPP! To echo through the room. "No, not at all, gentlemen. Professor Trelawney was just predicting your arrival and I'd like you to join us in the Solar for an important meeting that probably does involve you. I'll make sure that Dobby and Winki have breakfast ready for you if you haven't had breakfast. Coming, Professor?" He reached out his hand and gently pulled her out of the chair, and brought her around the end of the table and then down the Hall to the doors, collecting everyone along the way.

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The Solar, Sunday, December 10th at 8:15 AM

Everyone else except for Professor Trelawney, was seated on chairs or sofas, with cups of tea, coffee or goblets of pumpkin juice, and most had knees supporting small plates of breakfast items of pastries. Professor Trelawney was staring at Harry with a look of dread.

Harry looked over at Trelawney and waved his hand towards the open space in front of everyone. "Sybil. The floor is yours. As much as you dread it, you really have to speak the prophesy. No one is going to laugh at you."

Trelawney put down the full plate that she was holding on a convenient side table, to have the plate disappear with house-elf speed, as she crept into the place that Harry had indicated, Stopping, she took a deep breath and froze into a hunched attitude as the words came out in a harsh whisper.

Barns and wall is. Barns and wall is.

Not the skipping barrel but Ten Ton Tess, four in all,

Lead by the ones from before, the Six Hundred and Seventeen,

Against the Dark Lord and his minions in the sheep pasture above

While the students and allies defend from below.

Thump, thump, thumpety-thump

The earth quakes and shudders, all slides into the loch to its finish.

Remember barns and wall is. And Ten Ton Tess.

Sybil Trelawney slowly collapsed into a seated position on the floor, her feet splayed either side of her bum, while tears rolled down her cheeks. Harry reached down and pulled Trelawney to her feet and guided her to a chair and got her seated. Minerva showed up with a cup of tea and Minerva with some sweet rolls. Sybil started shaking and barely managed take a large swig of her tea and to shake her had at the offer of the plate. Taking another swig of her tea, she whispered at no one in particular, "Did anyone mange to write down the prophesy? I'd rather not wait for the Hall of Mysteries to send me notification of it. They probably don't have a card large enough to hold everyone's initials."

Several hands and notepads went into the air. Sergeant McAuslan stared at his notepad and scratched his head. "I can see why you were so worried about this. Definitely does not match any prophesy that I've heard of or seen. Rather, it looks like a shopping list coupled with instructions of where to go. Something like my wife's notes to me about getting some shopping at some new store. Staring at his notes, he started and slowly read his writings to himself, his lips moving with the words. Then he started to laugh, laughing to the point where he was gasping and trying not to laugh harder.

Colonel Dursley nudged his sergeant, who looked at him and then pushed his notes over, and managed to speak through his chortles. "Sir, read this phonetically and think bombers. I'm sorry, Miz Trelawney, I'm not laughing at you but at what you just said. Death gave us his marching orders, and anyone familiar with the British muggle military would get smacked if they couldn't get it. Right sir?"

Colonel Dursley's eyebrows climbed up his forehead and he started to snicker. Dudley leaned over and started reading over the Colonel's shoulder, then whispered 'Dam busters'."

Sergeant McAuslan pointed at Dudley. "See? He gets it! Here, I'll explain it. 'barns and walls is'. Could you have heard it as 'Barnes Wallis'? He's an engineer who worked on bombs during the Second World War, what you call Grindenwald's War. He designed three bombs, a skipping barrel-shaped bomb that was used to break dams in Germany, and then two regular bombs, one at five tons weight and the other at ten tons, Tall Boy and Grand Slam, with the latter being nick-named 'Ten Ton Tess", and which were called 'earthquake bombs' which was how they worked. Only one bomber squadron, the 617th, dropped any of them. The squadron still exists, out at Lossiemouth, but now they fly Tornados which unfortunately couldn't fly with a single ten ton bomb, let alone the four that Death has assigned us. However, the effect of dropping four such bombs in that sheep pasture in quick succession would probably shake the entire meadow loose, and coupled with the underground springs up there, the whole thing would slide into the Loch, taking everything in the meadow along for the ride."

Taking a deep breath, he stood and then walked out where Trelawney had recently presented her prophesy. "Look, I can see that the magical are looking at me as if I'd stripped my gears. Today, among other things is an open house at RAF Lossiemouth, and we can get a small group of you unto the base as visitors. My brother's a munitions technician and I think that I can convince him to give you all a walk around in the squadron museum and explain everything. We might be able to get to talk to the Squadron Commander, who will have been cleared on the Statute of Secrecy, and we can see if his interpretation of Miz Trelawney's prophesy matches ours."

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Squadron Commander's Office, RAF Lossiemouth,

Sunday, December 10th at 3:45PM

Wing Commander Dugmore stared at the piece of parchment in front of him and then looked at the small group of civilians plus one of his best munitions technicians , an Army Colonel and Sergeant crammed into his office.

"You know that the Tonka can't carry anywhere that load?"

Harry leaned forward. "Sergeant McAuslan covered that but there's nothing that says that it has to be your airplanes, only that 617 is to lead the way."

"Your interpretation and one that makes a lot of sense. You know that I'm going to have to pass this up the chain of command and get their approval. Do you have any idea when this 'Dark Lord' will be putting in an appearance?"

Minerva chimed in. "The most logical date would be the last day of classes. We're having a combination reunion, school tour for parents and family, and a concert with an overnight stay before everyone heads home. The aurors and our agent inside his camp think that he'll strike around sunrise."

Just at that moment, a very large prop plane taxied past the windows and swung into the parking tarmac outside the building, and revved its engines before starting shut-down procedures. The Wing commander turned around and took a quick look and turned back.

"I think that I may have an idea. That plane, the Hercules, can easily carry a Grand Slam, but there's no way of accurately bombing a target."

"Ah, sir," went Munitions Technician McAuslan (call me Jeremy). "We may not have to worry about that. There's a GBU package for 2000-pounder bombs. I wonder if can be adapted. We've got a vendor support team training us. We should be able to do a general question and see if they've considered what's needed for a much larger bomb. Then we have to mount the GBU package unto a Grand Slam…."

The Wing Commander smiled. "So we have that covered, but where are we going to get at least a half-dozen when the only existing copies are in museums, let alone ones filled with explosives and fusing?"

Minerva raised her hand. "You've got two of the brightest witches in Britain here, who can transfigure piles of scrap metal into copies. We just need an original to scry and then we can start making copies. It'll be easier if we had actual bomb casings to use rather than just scrap cars."

Sergeant McAuslan looked over. "What about the interaction of magic with electronics?"

Minerva thought about it. "Jeremy, just how sensitive is the fusing mechanism that they'd have back then with a big magic field?"

Jeremy looked up in the air. "If you use a focused field, and concentrate on doing a slow transformation to keep the power levels down…. Possible, but you'd have to practice using a stack of old vacuum tube radios from the Forties. Anything with transistors, they'd just go pfftg and let all the magic smoke out at any strength field. However, we don't have to worry about fusing because we'd use modern fuses and explosives and they'd be loaded later. What you'd have to concentrate on is changing the fins to the clips needed for attaching the GBU controls."

The Wing Commander took some notes. "Looks like we have a starting point. If Colonel Dursley and I can take this up to the Minister of Defense and get authorization, we can get started. Lady Potter, uh, Lady Minerva, can you scry an actual Grand Slam Casing and then use it later, or do the two have to be side-by-side for you to make a copy?"

Minerva closed her eyes, and her hands went through wand swoops . Then she reached into her purse and looked at one of her vials, and nodded. "One vial per bomb, two minutes per vial. The vials are good for two weeks. I'm assuming that we'll be making a midnight visit to some museum, slip in, scry and depart without making a fuss?"

Wing Commander Dugmore snickered and made more notes. "With official permission, we'll pay an off-hours research visit and give you time to do a good and proper scrying as you call it. Now, we also have to arrange for four Hercules aircraft to be seconded to the squadron, a stack of GBU packs, and MOAB pallets and extraction parachutes, convince at least four of our pilots to actually train up to fly the Hercules, figure out how to defend Hogwarts and ensure the Dark Lord and his minions wind up in the sheep pasture long enough for the planes to arrive and the bombs to drop, and have at least four people with laser designators painting the Dark Lord on the assumption that at least one bomb does hit dead center. Colonel Dursley, I'm going to assume that you'll be training the Hogwarts students as well as arranging for additional support from Army unit. What would they be facing besides wizards?"

"Probably giants, acromantuas and possibly werewolves and vampires," went Minerva. "The Order of the Phoenix did track what Mouldy Shorts has been up to lately."

The Wing Commander looked around. "This is going to sound crazy, but what is going to keep 'Mouldy Shorts' as you called him from finding out about the prophesy and simply avoiding the sheep pasture and Hogwarts as a whole. Speaking of which, you all seem to have a handle for when all this is going to go down?"

Minerva flipped open her pocket calendar and sighed, "July 1st. We have our traditional Leaving Feast on the 30th and the new School Concert, with everyone returning on the Hogwarts Special, or rather three Specials to take everyone home, something like 5000 people with students, alumni and families."

Dugmore nodded and made some notes. "Okay, short timeline. What about operational security? That is, keeping Mouldy Shorts from finding what's here?"

Harry lifted his hand. "Unbreakable Vow, with me and the Ladies Potter as the Secret Keepers, and then we did it with ourselves to make sure that everyone in the room with Trelawney took the oath and we destroyed all of the extra copies."

Dugmore nodded. "How about others finding out and then passing it along?"

Harry looked at Minerva who nodded, and spoke up. "Two: Delores Umbridge, who is the Ministry-appointed High Inquisitor, not a Death Eater but definitely not one to keep secrets. The other is staff: Severus Snape. He's a Death Eater and has a history with Harry Potter's mother. He's been playing both sides of the fence. He seems to be leaning towards supporting us but…"

Harry spoke up. "He bears the Dark Mark, which Mouldy Shorts uses to call them. It also may be a means of sending messages and maybe tracking them, but we don't know. He's also an accomplished Legilmens, which means that he can read surface thoughts."

"If they can't be trusted then they have to be removed, one way or the other," Colonel Dursley spoke. "I don't mean killing them, but putting them somewhere where they can't get in touch with the Ministry or the Dark Lord and his followers, who could be anywhere or everywhere. I've seen reports of Death Eaters being seen in Canada, the United States and Australia, usually followed by an ex-pat British wizard being found dead."

Minazuki looked over at Fate Testarossa. "Fate, I've heard weird things about you, Fate. But that's also true about most Magic Girls in Minato, and especially about all the demons that show up. Is there something in that that could be used/"

Fate blushed, nodded and started twiddling her fingers. "I really can't talk about it. I've taken something like the Unbreakable Vow. However, it may be a solution. I'll need to contact my adopted mother and ask her if I can talk about it. Sorry but even saying what I said is really pushing it for me."

Harry nodded. "Talk to her and see what can be arranged. If something can be done, it'll be my responsibility."

Dudley stuck up his hand. "Can we do something like The Man Who Never Was but in reverse? I mean to make Mouldy Shorts and the Death Eaters think that Snape is dead and we get Snape to take an Unbreakable Vow or obliviate him and then ship him off somewhere he can't be found?"

Harry, the Wing Commander and Colonel Dursley all nodded. Harry spoke first. "I guess that we'll have to see what Fate can do first, and then adjust our plans accordingly."

The Wing commander tapped the papers on his desk. "I'd like you for bringing this to my attention. I think that we have enough to get started. The first starting point will be bringing this to the attention of the Ministry of Defense, which actually supposedly owns the Ministry of Magic and taking it from there. If Colonel Dursley or I have any information or questions, we'll be in touch."

As they stood and exited the office, Wing Commander turned to his adjutant sitting outside. Sergeant Jeffries, could you call the Ministry of Defense and set up an immediate appointment with the Minister for me, Colonel Dursley, Sergeant and Munitions Technician McAuslan, and yourself as well. Official Secrets Act level plus the codeword that you'll have to mention is 'prophesy'.