Harry Potter and the Physical Adept
Chapter 7: Mayhem Rook, Pixie Wildfire and Pilgrim Overdrive
Harry kept sneaking glances at Neville's face as they walked through the High Street; by his own admittance, this was only Longbottom's second time venturing beyond the magical world, his only previous experience being the meeting at the Soykaf Source, and the Gryffindor boy clung tightly to the arm of the brown-haired Gryffindor girl walking next to him, the knuckles of his fingers white from just how hard he was holding on to her.
"What's that?" asked the Gryffindor boy for the fifth time in as many minutes, as they walked past a lingerie shop.
Faye saw the direction the chubby boy was pointing and her cheeks flushed, hurrying along without answering Neville's question.
Karen, who was accompanying them on her day off, was not too embarrassed to answer.
"That is a négligée," she told the chubby boy.
"What's a négligée do?" Neville asked.
"It something a lady wears for her lover, to show him she loves him."
Suddenly, the Gryffindor boy's face turned bright red.
It was at that time that the group reached their destination: Tandy.
The electronics shop was a whole new wonderland for the boy who had practically never left the comfort of the magical world before, and he fed a nonstop stream of questions to the girl he was clinging on to; for her part, Fay did her best to entertain Neville's questions, but without much knowledge of consumer electronics herself, her answers were general at best.
Knowing what he was looking for, Harry went directly to the nearest sales clerk, a gangly young man who could not have been far out of his teenage years, letting his companions wander around the shop as he went about making his purchase.
"I'm looking to purchase a set of portable two-way radios," Harry told the clerk.
The young man eyed the boy for a moment, then pointed dismissively towards one of the aisles. "Toy walkie talkies are over there."
"That's not what I'm looking for," growled the Boy-Who-Lived. "I need something capable of operating on at least three separate channels, with a range of at least a mile. A long battery life is preferable, and the set needs to have at least eight radios, though twelve would be ideal."
"Kid, you couldn't afford something like that, so stop wasting my time." the clerk said.
The Hermetic mage considered the clerk for a moment, then decided it was the clerk's loss and went looking for another one. After a few minutes, he found another sales clerk, a woman who looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties.
"Hi! How can I help you?" she asked brightly as Harry approached her.
"I'm looking to buy a set of portable two-way radios with a range of at least a mile that operate on at least three separate. A long battery life would be ideal," said the boy. "Do you have anything like that in stock?"
"Certainly," said the salesperson with a smile. "If you'll come this way, I can show you to them."
Following the clerk down the aisle, Harry finally found himself staring at a variety of products and suddenly found himself at a loss; though he had done some research on two-way radios before going to Tandy, the ranges of choices left him without a clear idea of which he wanted to purchase.
Seeing the indecision of the boy's face, the clerk asked, "What do you need them for?"
"My friends and I are going on a school trip at a pretty big castle for the next two weeks," Harry lied to the clerk. "Since we're probably going to go exploring a lot, I thought it'd be nice to have a way to keep in touch while we're all over the castle, in case one of us finds something cool we could show each other."
"How about these?" suggested the clerk, taking a large box off the shelf to show the boy. "It's a set of twenty, comes pre-programmed with sixteen channels, and has a range of up to three miles. They also come with a push-to-talk feature, so you're not always broadcasting the sound around you. The battery life is only eight to twelve hours, but they come with enough charging bases that you can charge them all at the same time, and they come pre-charged, so you can start using them right out of the box if you need to."
"I'll take them," Harry said.
"Are you sure?" asked the clerk. "They're quite expensive."
Harry gave the woman a glance that spoke volumes, and she hurried to the counter to ring up the purchase.
~ooOoo~
The jeweler's was two shops down the High Street from Tandy, and was the second stop on the trip, a necessary stop due to Neville lacking a single pence in his name.
The shop's proprietor, a rotund man with greying hair and a thin nose, was closely examining the gold piece Neville had shown him with a jeweler's loupe, turning it over repeatedly in hand as he did so, before finally setting it down on the glass counter.
"I'll pay fifty pounds for the coin," said the jeweler, his thin and nasally. "Fifty each, if you have more."
Neville looked to Fay for help, and she started to speak, but Harry interrupted.
"Fifty?" scoffed the Hufflepuff. "I can get more than four times that on the black market."
"Then go to the black market," the jeweler.
Harry was about to argue when, on the edge of his hearing, he heard the entry alert chime, and was suddenly driven to full alertness by Liv's voice.
"Contact!"
Instinctively, Harry spun in the direction of the door, his training taking over as he reached into his haversack and drew the submachine gun he kept there; in tight quarters, the MP5 was his best option, certainly a better choice than his assault rifle or shotgun, the latter being a poor choice in a storefront of any kind, and one full of glass cases in particular. Unfolding the stock with his left hand while the other brought it up so he was looking down the red dot sight in one smooth motion, the Boy-Who-Live spotted two men wearing balaclavas and track suits, carrying handguns and duffel bags, clearly robbers if he had ever seen any.
Seeing the two children with firearms pointed at them, ready to fire, the would-be robbers stopped dead in their tracks.
"Kid, put that thing down before you hurt somebody," said one of the robbers patronizingly to Liv, extending a hand out as though to try to calm her down.
The dragon didn't answer in words; instead, there was the sound of her pistol's action cycling, and the robber cried out in pain, crumpling as hot lead perforated his left knee.
"That's kind of the point," said the dragon-in-girl's-form over the curses of the fallen robber.
"Nuh-uh," said Harry, as other robber started to pivot towards Liv, finger audibly tightening on the trigger. "Put down the gun, slowly, or I'll put two in your chest and one in your head."
"Jesus," said the still-standing robber raising both hands to show he was surrendering. Carefully, he lowered his weapon to the floor, setting it down lightly.
"Now slide it over to me with your foot," said the Hermetic mage, and the robber complied. "Now, your wallet."
"What?" asked the robber, clearly surprised.
"Your wallet," Harry reiterated, growling from the back of his throat as he stepped forward aggressively.
"Alright, alright!" said the man, reaching into his pocket and taking out a worn billfold, which he tossed to the boy.
Harry caught it with one hand, flipping it open without moving the muzzle of his submachine gun away from the man. "Kyle Jenkins," he said, using his thumb to pull the man's identification card from the clear sleeve it was in before throwing just the wallet back to him. "I'm keeping this," the Boy-Who-Lived told the would-be robber, before adding, "I know where you live."
"You, you're going to take your friend, and you're going to leave," Liv said to the robber she hadn't shot. "You can take him to casualty, a veterinarian, a street doc… I don't care. But you didn't try to rob this place today, and we've never, ever met. Clear?"
"Crystal," agreed the robber.
After the unharmed robber helped his kneecapped friend out of the jeweler's and into a waiting white panel van that quickly drove off, Harry and Liv stowed their firearms before taking possession of the ones the robbers left behind.
The entire incident took less than five minutes to resolve.
Turning back towards the jeweler, who had spent the entirety of the attempted robbery hiding behind the counter, Harry rapped lightly on the glass. "You were saying?"
"I'll give you one hundred fifty pounds for each coin," said the jeweler. At the sharp look the Hufflepuff gave him, he winced and amended his statement. "One seventy-five; look, you might have stopped a robbery, but I still need to turn a profit."
The Boy-Who-Lived nodded at Neville, who reached into the pouch around his neck and retrieved a fistful of gold pieces, setting them down on glass, where they clattered to a rest.
As the jeweler counted the coins and then bills onto the counter, Harry watched him like a hawk, making sure the Gryffindor was not cheated.
Once the transaction was successfully completed, Harry leaned heavily on the counter, and the jeweler swallowed hard.
"We were never here, you never did business with us," he said, and the jeweler nodded rapidly.
As they stepped out of the store, Harry found himself nodding in time with his own whistling of "Back in Black" to himself.
It was going to be one of those days.
~ooOoo~
"You have a gun!"
Harry had avoided Hermione as best as he could for the last hour, using small talk and careful body positioning to force her to stew in her questions and thoughts, but now they were in a Booker Wholesale parking lot, and he couldn't really avoid her any more.
"You have a gun!" the Ravenclaw reiterated. "And you threatened somebody with it! That's against the law!"
"What's the problem here?" Harry asked. "It's not the first time you've seen me break the law, and you've seen me do far worse."
The bushy-haired girl considered the sentiment for a moment, then sighed. "How did you even manage to get your hands on guns?" she asked.
"Smuggled them in from the States," Harry said nonchalantly.
"You make breaking the law sound so easy."
"It was incredibly easy," the Hufflepuff said. "Just stuck them in my bag, put all that under a coat, and walked it right through customs."
"That is… ludicrously simple," Fay said.
"Oh, I know," Harry agreed. "That's why I suggest to Pace she start a side business as an international courier."
"You didn't," said the Ravenclaw, looking mortified.
"I certainly did. I even suggested she ask Jason for introductions if she needs them."
By now, Harry had finished taking apart the box and packaging; once he shared a look with the dragon, Liv grabbed the cardboard, Styrofoam and plastic and ambled off, returning a moment later after disposing of the packaging in a wheelie bin.
Quickly, he handed off two-way radios to his companions and stowed the rest in his haversack, then pressed the push-to-talk button on the one in his hand, speaking into it. "Radio check."
"Radio check," echoed the radios in his companions hands.
"All right, that's good," Harry said. Holding up the device, he moved his thumb over the button that activated its transmit function. "This is the push-to-talk button," he explained. "Press it before speaking into your walkie talkie, or you won't transmit your message."
"Basic keywords you'll need to know: 'This is', 'over', 'out', 'roger', 'wilco', 'say again', 'read back', 'correction' and 'radio check'
"'This is' is used to identify the caller; it is always used after the receiver has been named. So, if I was calling Hermione, for example, I'd say, 'Hermione, this is Harry', not 'this is Harry, calling Hermione' or 'Harry to Hermione' or any other variation.
"'Over' means 'this is the end of the transmission, and response is required'. This differs from 'out', which means 'this is the end of the transmission, and no response is needed'.
"'Roger' means 'I received your last transmission', and can also mean 'yes'.
"'Wilco' means 'will comply'; if you respond with 'wilco', 'roger' is unnecessary.
"'Say again' is used to ask for clarification of the previous transmission; 'read back' is for the speaker to ask the receiver to repeat the transmission's content back for clarity.
"'Correction' is used to fix a mistake in a transmission, and 'radio check' is used to check radio strength and readability; a scale of one to five is used in response, 'one' for bad and unreadable, 'two' for readable now and then, 'three' for readable with difficulty, 'four' for readable, and 'five' for perfectly readable."
As the three other children attempted the digest the information, Karen nudged Harry with an elbow. "I think they need an example," she said.
"That's fair," the Hufflepuff agreed.
"I've decided on my call sign," Liv announced suddenly.
"Yeah? What is it?"
"Mayhem Rook."
"I like it," said Harry, before raising up one hand with fore and middle fingers extended, waving them around in a circle.
Liv stepped back, nodding, before raising the two-way radio towards her mouth.
*beep*
"Whiplash Hunter, this is Mayhem Rook. Radio check, over."
*beep*
"Mayhem Rook, this is Whiplash Hunter. I read you five by five, over."
*beep*
"Whiplash Hunter: roger. Out."
*beep*
"Mayhem Rook, this is Whiplash; I need you to park bike in fog, over."
*beep*
"Whiplash? Rook. Say again? Over."
*beep*
"Rook: bark like a dog. Over."
*beep*
"Whiplash Hunter: Wilco. Woof. Out."
A moment of silence followed as the Boy-Who-Lived and the dragon both looked at their companions, who stared at them with looks of surprise on their face.
Hermione spoke first. "You two have done this before," she said.
"Yes, at camp," Harry said.
"What's a call sign?" Fay asked.
"A call sign is a unique designator for identification purposes," Liv said.
"In our case, we're also using them to anonymize our identities, so if somebody is listening in, it doesn't easily give away who we are," Harry added.
"Don't you think that's a little much?" asked the Ravenclaw.
"You remember what happened during the incident with the Stone?" growled the Hermetic mage, his expression grim. "I don't think that's an isolated incident."
"I don't have a call sign yet," Hermione said.
"Actually, you do," Harry said. "It's your street name."
"Wells Danger?"
"Exactly."
"What about us?" Neville asked, meaning the two Gryffindors.
Harry considered the two for a moment. "Longbottom, you're Pilgrim Overdrive," he said. "Dunbar…"
"I want to be Liquid Wildfire," interjected the Gryffindor girl.
"How about Pixie Wildfire?" Harry suggested.
"Why not Liquid Wildfire?"
"Your call sign is also your street name," Harry explained. "If you ever want to give somebody a name to call you by without giving them your actual name, you can give them your street name. Note that each street name is at least two words; this is so either can part of your street name can be used to identify you in the middle of a sentence, like, 'Why don't you go out and see if you can't find something to get you Whiplash'. However, at least part of your street name needs to be able to pass as a plausible given name, surname or nickname.
"Besides all that, 'Fay' sounds like 'fae', another term for 'fairy', which a pixie is a type of."
"I could see why Liquid Wildfire wouldn't be a plausible name," Fay said. "I'll be Pixie Wildfire, then."
"All right, then," said the Hufflepuff.
"This would make me Princess Marilyn," Karen said conspiratorially, and the Hermetic mage nodded. "So, why are we here?"
"We're getting ingredients," Harry explained. "We're going to try making some recipes I gathered from staff working at Jade Garden."
"What are we getting?" Neville asked.
"Baker's chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, couverture chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate chips, cocoa powder, all purpose flour, bread flour, granulated sugar, confectioner's sugar, light and dark brown sugar, maple sugar, nutella, walnuts, coconut milk, coconut extract, shredded coconut, espresso powder, baking soda, baking powder, yeast, unflavored gelatin, whole milk, sweetened condensed milk, buttermilk, unsalted butter, cream cheese, mascarpone, shortening, vegetable oil, nonstick spray, heavy cream, cream of tartar, vanilla extract, vanilla bean, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, star anise, clove, szechuan peppercorns, fennel seed, amaretto liqueur, bourbon, rum, sea salt, mint, carrots, apples, applesauce, oranges, lemons, limes, strawberries, watermelon, pineapple, disposable vinyl gloves, bleach, and paper towels," Harry said, checking a list he pulled out of his pocket.
"What are you, starting a bakery?" Karen asked.
"Something like that," said the Boy-Who-Lived with a shrug. "Or rather, Pilgrim will be."
"Pilgrim?" Neville asked.
"That's you," Fay said. "You're Pilgrim Overdrive."
"You're going to just start calling us by our street names, aren't you?" Hermione said. "You already call me 'Danger', and you just called Neville 'Pilgrim'."
"Guilty as charged," Harry said.
"Who does that make me, then?" Fay asked.
"You'd be Wildfire," said the Hufflepuff without even pausing.
"Not Pixie?"
"No, you're more of a Wildfire: fiery, unpredictable, dangerous, and a little bit wild and free."
"I like it."
"Then why am I Pilgrim?"
"You're still looking for something to give your life meaning."
"And I'm Danger because it rhymes with Granger."
"Sometimes, that's all it takes."
He didn't want to tell her it was also because she sometimes had the demeanor of a damsel in distress when situations got tough, because he imagined she would not react well to that, and he felt no need to antagonize his best friend.
Karen, who had been taking notes on the items Harry had listed, interrupted the banter.
"This is a lot of things," said the actress.
"That's why we have the radios," Harry said. "We're splitting up into two groups. Karen, you take Pilgrim and Wildfire; Liv and Danger, you're with me."
"Why does she get to be 'Liv'?" Fay asked.
"Her name's only one syllable."
"So's mine."
"We're not so close that I call you by name," Harry pointed out.
"We could be," the Gryffindor girl countered.
"Would you rather I called you 'Fay' instead of 'Wildfire'?"
There was a pregnant pause as Fay considered the question before responding. "Honestly, 'Wildfire' is a really cool nickname," she admitted. "And even 'Pixie' is kind of cool, like a nickname that's based my actual name, without an obvious one."
"I thought so too," Harry said.
"What if we can't find the things on the list?" Hermione asked.
"This is the wholesale market restaurants who don't get their ingredients delivered go to shop at," said the Hufflepuff. "If the ingredients can't be found here, they probably can't be purchased legally in Britain."
"Even if you get all these ingredients, where are you going to cook them?"
"I'll go to a Nesbits for the equipment," Harry said.
"You'll go where?" Karen asked.
"Nesbits," the Boy-Who-Lived repeated. "They specialize in restaurant equipment."
"You seem to know a lot about what it takes to start a restaurant," Hermione said. "How?"
"I asked Chef, and he asked a few of his British colleagues," Harry said. "Now, let's get started."
Author's Notes: I felt that, for Neville, who grew up in the magical world, the normal would be just as incredible and amazing as the magical world was to Karen during her first visit to Diagon, particularly when experiencing a High Street for the first time.
Combined with a small detail from Hermetic Arts, I'm certain attentive readers can probably guess a future development involving Neville.
For my non-British readers, Tandy is the UK equivalent to Radio Shack. To those who don't know what that is, it's a consumer electronics and parts supplier.
There are so many shitty people working in customer service, particularly in sales.
Liv is starting to show Harry's influence, particularly his disregard for human life beyond those of him and his. That needs to change.
Negotiation only really works when the other party realizes they don't have many, if any, options. This applies to small scale things like haggling, as well as large-scale things like world affairs. Let's just say I don't believe in diplomacy that isn't backed with bringing the other side to the table because they realize you're capable of completely wiping them out.
Coercion with the threat of violence is against the law. Another thing to Harry's rap sheet, if you're keeping track.
In a place as large as Hogwarts castle, it only makes sense that Harry would want to be able to communicate with his people at all times, instead of arranging meetings the day before, hence the use of the two-way radios. It also was a way to introduce additional nicknames Harry will start calling his people in the future, as well as the use of procedural words to readers who aren't familiar with them and their use over radios, so this ended up as a bit of an educational and transitional chapter.
Once again, many, many thanks to my long-suffering editor, Romantically Distant, for all their hard work. And now you've read this chapter, feel free to leave a review or just PM me.