Chapter 35: Preparation.
"How are you so good with runes?" Hermione asks whilst we are eating ice-cream.
"I think it's similar to how Harry understands parseltongue." I say.
"I hear it as English." He chimes in.
"I merely read the runes as English." I explain. "Writing them comes easily, well I have to put a lot into the writing part, but once I know what I want them to do it's just a matter of carving them into whatever I'm doing." I scratch my pointed ears, They don't like the weather in London. "We should be getting back, people will wonder where we were." They all grab onto me as Freya takes us back.
"I'll go stay in my cave now. I'll be down for the next task." Sirius hugs Harry and runs off as a dog.
"Would you mind filling me in as to why we had ice-cream with Sirius Black just then?" I ask Harry. "Clearly I've missed something here."
The two of them go on to explain what happened in their third year and about his godfather.
Over the next month, Hermione began to brew polyjuice potion inside the abandoned girls toilet. I debated asking Tonks if it would work, but I figured this was more fun. Viktor and Fleur came with us to the lake in the middle of January, when the potion was done.
"I made a cauldron full of this stuff, so we have enough to practice." Hermione says, pulling out several bottles.
"Right, Who wants to test it first?" I look around. Harry agrees to go first. "Ok, let's get morphing."
To make sure that Harry and the others don't lose balance, I need to make the body a perfect replica Harry takes off his shirt so I can get the body right.
"I'd throw some muscles on, but it'd make your balance go off." I say, taking a hair off my Harry clone's head. Gills and webbing where needed.
"Bottoms up." He says as he drinks the potion. The effect isn't spectacular because it's not changing his height or face.
"Might want to get into the water before the gills grow in." I suggest. I change back into myself, it's weird only having one heart after so long.
"I can breath." Harry says whilst submerged to his chin in the lake.
I morph into Viktor and he takes to the webbed hands and feet very well.
Fleur has loved wearing the necklace. Having no allure is wonderful apparently.
"Sorry if I don't do your beauty justice." I grin as I begin morphing. "I'm sure I'll get the soft bits right." She laughs at this. Hermione just shakes her head and smiles.
She wades into the water, looking unsure of herself. Veela are fire birds really, water isn't good for them.
"Not going to join them?" Hermione asks me once they begin to swim about.
"Nah, I've got a new project." I pull on a pair of runed gloves and swap my boots for some rune filled shoes. Hermione sees the runes.
"What do they do?" She takes a step back.
Whilst Hermione was brewing the past month, I've been working on these beauties. They emit a soundless, invisible and odourless thrust of magic. Think of a wizard Ironman.
"I've not even tested them yet." I grin at her. "If I fly into the sun, tell Freya to come and get me."
I activate the boots and gloves, they throw me 10 feet into the air quickly before I shut them off.
"Shit." I manage to say before I hit the ground. Hermione starts giggling. "Maybe a bit less power this time." I say, pushing myself off the ground.
"Just a touch." She says smugly.
The second flight is a lot more controlled. Balancing proves to be easier that I thought, I did start to write systems to auto-correct if I overdo one side or the other, they work OK, I wouldn't trust them much higher than a few feet currently, only a prototype. Suddenly a wave of dizziness hits me, that means low battery. I black out as I hit the floor.
"Zack!" I hear a female voice before being slapped.
"Eer. I was asleep." I mumble. Evidently drawing power straight from my core isn't a good idea.
"You vere flying vith no broom." Viktor says. He looks at Harry. "He vas flying vith no broom." He looks at the others. "You can't fly vith no broom."
"Nobody until him." Harry says with a grin.
"Well." I say. "I'm not a very good battery apparently." I push myself onto my elbows. "Maybe Albus could give them a whirl." I laugh at the thought. I could try and figure out a formula to use a form of alchemy to power the flight. The philosophers stone is a cheat in alchemy. Anything you do with it negates any need for equivalencey. It's a powerhouse. The perfect battery if I could get one. "So the polyjuice forms were ok?"
"Yup, It'll last long enough for us to save whoever gets taken." Harry says. "As long as we wait in the water for it to wear off, gills in open air hurt a fair bit." I rubs his neck.
"I'd prefer if you didn't mention my flying prototype's to anyone. They're not ready for the public to see yet." They all nod in acceptance.
We head back to our respective rooms in the castle, I try and think of where to get enough power to fly from.
"No fire to fuel it." I say to Freya once we're in my room.
"You could probably draw it from me." She says.
"It'd force your burning day." I shake my head. "Not worth it."
"The propulsion works OK in short burst." She says. "Like casting a spell."
I sit against one of my walls and begin bouncing a ball from my hand to the other wall.
"Gravity?" I suggest.
"Does it cause enough kinetic energy to move you? Or is it even harnessable?"
"Gravity is pretty weak. I could counteract the entire Earth gravity with a small magnet over a paperclip." I sigh in frustration. "Ideally this ball throwing would be sparking some idea." I say whilst throwing the ball.
"Well look at what's at play." Freya suggests. "You start the cycle by throwing the ball, turning the power of your arm into kinetic energy on the ball. It expends some of it's energy into the wall as it hits at and uses it potential energy to bounce back."
"I could try and levitate a huge section of water, that'd cause gravity to pull down on it a lot. Oh, that's gold." I sit forward. "Lift up a huge part of the water, transferring the gravitational pull into energy and channelling it right back into me." I head to my desk to start calculations. "It looks like I'd have a more than enough to continuously lift the water, which would cause more power to be used to keep it up. The perfect loop, It even has a surplus of energy each second."
"So you could use that surplus to power the propulsion." Freya finishes for me.
"Exactly!" I let out a whoop of excitement. "Of course this is only a temporary measure. Situational power, like the dragonfire shield." I draw up some more charts. "Whilst I'm flying just above the surface I can get the gloves and boots to make a trick attempt at lifting water beneath the surface, thus keeping a constant flow of power available."
"So you're going to fly across the lake, dunk underwater to save your hostage and fly back like a superhero?" Freya says dryly.
"I'll hang about to make sure the others get to their hostages of course, but that's the general idea."
"You've got a month to break several laws of physics and thermodynamics."
I wave her off. "It'll be easy. I've almost managed to get the buttons working on the input module of fluxline. I will be able to actively see the alchemy at work." I sit at my desk looking over the formulas. "Looks like the water motion energy will work perfectly, I'll add the energy draw to the gloves and boots when I get up. Maybe I should make a whole set of clothing to add them to, more space to work with." I down sleep potion.
The second task is approaching quickly, I worked out the kinks in the flight power transfer and it works over water now. I ended up going to Diagon Alley and getting a waistcoat to inscribe the runes onto, I only used up a little space on the back for the water power transfer. I'd like to add other ways of getting power using the waistcoat as the power part. The gloves and boots are just addons to it. The best part is that I can keep the waistcoat on under my clothes, so I can simply put the gloves on for support now that I use my boots as the thrusters.
One day before breakfast I exited the portrait after Luna. Some girls began walking towards her, clearly not meaning well, I got there first.
"Bit of bad luck in the first task, eh?" I say to her.
She looks at me strangely.
"Not a single crumpled-horn in sight." I sigh dramatically. "The dragon was a bit of a let down really."
She smiles at me.
"You were most entertaining." She says. "A dragon is not a good partner when trying to be funny, but you did an admirable job."
"The crowd certainly enjoyed themselves." I smile. They must have thought I was mad. We arrive at the Great Hall.
"Thank you for the escort." She says. "Those girls are not the most pleasant of people."
"Escort?" I ask her. "I'd be delighted if you would join us for breakfast."
She smiles and skips beside me to the table. She sits down beside Fleur.
"Mornin'" I say. "I'm sure you've all come across Luna at come point." Luna doesn't acknowledge her name and starts to eat various fruits, occasionally looking at Fleur. "Why the allure today?" I ask her.
Hermione answers. "One of the upper year Gryffindor boys, Sam something, claimed he could fight off the allure."
"Ah, so you took the necklace off?" I grin at Fleur.
"'E fell over after a second." She says sweetly.
"Got a plan for the task?" I ask Harry.
"Smash and grab." He grins.
A week later we are lined up in front of the lake. Ludo Bagman is shouting to the crowds about the task and the hostages. Large screens appear above us, showing the feed from a camera in side the lake near the hostages.
"Using ingenious methods, we will be able to watch the champions at work inside the lake!" He shouts.
Viktor's hostage is the Beauxbatons girl this time as Hermione is Harry's. Gabrielle is there for Fleur and they somehow managed to subdue Tonks to put her under for me.
"Reckon they will be ok if we don't make it?" Harry says to me.
I nod. "Dumbledore wouldn't allow harm to befall innocents. Well except maybe you." I grin at him. I wave Viktor and Fleur over. "Remember, polyjuice potion only lasts an hour. So surface before it runs out." I look up at the judges. "They'll probably let a champion die if they want."
"On the sound of the cannon, you maybe enter the lake." Bagman shouts. This is going to be good.
The cannon fires and the other drink their potion and wade into the lake.
"The Hogwarts champion has yet to move towards the lake!" He shouts to the crowds.
I look around at the stands whilst pulling on my gloves. The camera has a good shot of me. I grin at them as walk out towards the lake. I place my hand on the surface of the water and huge ripples begin to form, the power starts.
"In the immortal words of Johnny Storm, Flame on!" I say as float into the air, the crowds cheer as I burst away across the rippling lake.
A/N: Sorry if the science doesn't make sense, I thought i'd spare you all my attempt at measuring magic. Second task is next chapter. Enjoy.