Chapter 16: The South American Mission

Harry in his fit of creativity looked over his notebook and implemented every single idea he had considered, during the week of unusual clarity in France. It was now the morning of the 17th and Harry had made enough modifications to the rifles, armour and StarFury. He had even taken the thing for a small cruise and had let off the throttle because he wasn't brave enough to open up the entire engine.

No, Hermione would have to do that.

Harry had managed to put a much smaller reactor on the Star Fury. Instead of containing the waste products from the plasma decomposition, he had piped it into his jet engines. Now the subatomic soup of tau particles was being accelerated down the afterburner with superconducting magnetic fields.

The power-to-weight ratio on the engines had almost tripled.

Harry began to suspect that whatever other particles were given off from the Fiendfyre were unusually heavy. Harry was quite aware something far more complex than standard plasma was being produced. His investigations had shown him a set of exotic particles that did not seem to exist within the standard atomic model. For now, he would use the energy from the reaction to charge the power crystals, until he could figure out the scientific mechanisms. Serendipity had always been a cornerstone of discovery. Whether magical or mundane, sometimes accidents were beneficial. After exhausting the exotic waste products down the improvised plasma afterburner, Harry had received a second bonus feature for free. The increased magical power generation also allowed them to top up to make small jumps if they could fly for long and fast enough.

When Sirius had heard Harry cackling like a mad, evil donkey in the dead of the night, he knew that some type of impossible thing had been accomplished. He decided to reserve judgement until he saw the gunship in action. Truthfully, he was proud because he had a genuine mad scientist for a godson.

Harry was happy that he had left many small compartments and pipe routing areas in the initial design. Timilf had teleported over and wielded the new pieces together. She had also helped with a flexible muscle-weave polymer harness for Grace. After all, she needed to be safely put away for high-g burns.

"Good as new. Good luck with your mission! Tell us how it performs, won't you?"

"Oh, I will tell all of you everything Timilf. I appreciate your best wishes. Honestly, it t is the worst kind we are going to be dealing with?" Harry replied as the Goblin nodded.

The welding had been necessary - Harry had swapped out the metal compressors and had added in a full rotor, stator and wind vane package that consisted purely of energy summoned constructs. The summoned fields were then rotated via a complex switching array. They used far less energy than the superconducting motors, as they required no bearings and had very little inertia. Harry was now easily at a compression ratio of about sixty, which outstripped modern Turbofan engines. He could even tune the turbine blade profiles while it was in operation.

Finally were the equipment enclosures, creature comforts and the extras. There were now two secured armour racks, with enough guns, grenades, and spare armour pieces. A small, well-stocked workbench was present if they needed to make any repairs. Creature comforts included a small but well-ventilated toilet, a compact refrigerator and a hot plate system for heating meals.

Harry had even completed the final harnesses for the bain-to-ship interface, but he had not checked them over. The main system had been installed during the manufacture of the gunship, but the final interface from the port on their armour to the aircraft's "nervous system" had been left incomplete. Harry made copies of the interfaces of the muscle weave project and adapted them appropriately. He snapped them in – later on they would be tested. Remus hardly got any sleep, but he did not mind – not after the wolfish man held the upgraded weapons and fired off a couple of shots. Harry had made several prototypes and now there were discarded materials and empty coffee cups all over the workshop. However, the strappingly tall man liked the new war gear.

"Well, I don't want to ever be on the other end of this rifle. It is properly ferocious now!" Remus laughed.

"Oh, I want it to hurt those Death Eaters in a couple of years. I am going to fry their fucking skulls!" Harry replied.

The guns had been reworked with power crystals. The new bullpup design featured the emitters in the stock of the rifle. The energy travelled down a barrel where the "energy bolt" would gain even more kinetic energy as it was accelerated like a coil gun with superconducting fields. The feature was similar to the plasma afterburner - the only difference was that the constraining field squeezed the marker thick energy beam down a millimeter wide magnetic tunnel. Now the rifles had a small but noticeable kick on the highest setting. The plasma projectile was hot enough to liquefy metal plates and was heavy enough to deliver a large amount of kinetic energy on impact. The upgrades allowed penetration through medium amounts of cover.

It was essentially Hello there, Fuck you! in a nice package.

The shields and the muscle weave were returned for the higher energy source, and many new body plates merely floated above the hyper-conducting tabs in the muscle weave, instead of being directly attached. Now they were covered in overlapping, thick titanium, and the weight penalty was minimal. He had also installed an external spinal interface port at the base of the neck backplate. As soon as they verified that the other components of the ship were working, they would attempt some controlled flying via that method. For now, standard flight and weapon targeting via control sticks and buttons was the safer option.

The final weapon had been the easiest and the deadliest – a project which had been discussed already. Harry had prototyped a small set of polymer cones that stuck themselves to wands, before delivering a small, explosive charge with a microgram quantity of Semtex. The plastic explosive had been salvaged from the captured weapons from Cassius Manor. Other pieces of the weapon had come from small modules of other boring projects. It had been the easiest weapon to develop with the rune reflection system. The cones had been programmed to ignore Harry and Hermione's wands. Only two thousand of them had been manufactured and placed in an unassuming hard shell case.

Harry was looking over the entire affair and was quite pleased. He hoped to have the "one-up" on Hermione. As soon as he thought about her, she buzzed him on his comm device.

"Coming over in ten, bighead."

"Noted, biggerhead!" Harry replied as Hermione chuckled.

It was a pretty good comeback, as far as she was concerned. If Harry was flexing his funny bone he was happy and settled.

Hermione then apparated in, and she had the biggest smile on her face as she hugged Harry.

"Well look at you, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Let me guess, you had to tinker with the thing, didn't you?"

"I have been caught. But you first? I am seeing a lot of dentist grade perfect teeth in that smile." Harry quipped.

"I have two projects to talk about. So the first one.

I think I have a treatment ready for Frank and Alice. Not a total cure but a massive improvement that will help them get out of their vegetative state. Your mum signed off on it, this morning. We spoke to Augusta and she is arranging for the procedure to be carried out in the workshop. Gris and the gang are coming too. They will be home on the 22nd. We will begin the procedure at nighttime and work until we are finished."

"That is the greatest achievement for the year, even if it partially works. Are the risks high?" Harry asked.

"No, the treatments are being done sequentially. If there is any problem the runic array does not execute. So that is the first thing. Your mom will be using all her unique spells, and we will be mind linked courtesy of you."

"And the other thing?"

"I have made an augument that borrows minor features from dragons in general. I managed to extract it from some dragon blood. It is a temporary enhancement that will allow us to get more oxygen in the blood and it promotes better air exchange on the lung surface. It is safe, I ran with it for the whole of yesterday morning. It was really for me to compensate for my small lungs, but you can use it when you need it."

"Well damn woman. You are on a roll. Downsides?"

"When the arguments are switched off the hunger comes in a couple of hours, and you will want to eat a damned horse. I could not get the conjured tissue to just disappear. I got the body to handle it safely. The broken down tissue passes out you know where. We need evanesco emitters to deal with that business in the loo. Basically, it is horrifically putrid. A very….shitty…situation. So, what did you do?"

"I added something akin to a coilgun to all our weapons. We are using staged magically enhanced superconducting fields to accelerate the energy bolt. Microcontroller and optical sensors for the trigger mechanism. On the full power setting, the rifle kicks and…."

Harry spent the next half hour going through every modification, including a test run of the "wand shunts." Hermione then took the StarFury for a short spin and approved of the enhanced thrust.

"Damn the thing hauls ass. This is almost going to be unfair for the opposition?" asked Hermione.

"We might be under machine-gun fire. We are dealing with a drug cartel. We could be looking at claymores, tripwires, boogie traps, and all kinds of foul things. We make no assumptions. I would love it if we can bust in and go through with the speed and power we possess. It is their terrain, and they know it better than us."

"True. Time to sneak around then. Nice and easy," Hermione replied.

"Correct. We will pick them off, one by one. Just to be safe, the shields have been upgraded and can take the hits from an LMG because of the new power crystals. However, they do collapse eventually after maybe five shots. I reworked the entire weave too – but I want you to check the runes. The muscle weave should be even more responsive. I also forged plenty more armour pieces to completely overlap. We will be properly protected, if we lose the stealth mode or if we need to go loud."

"The coffee bottle must be empty? What else did you do?" Hermione joked.

"Now, the armour pieces float like our wing on the Thunderbolt. They suspend themselves and only use the body as a reference point. Feels like you have on nothing because you don't. The mechanical load does not transfer to you."

"Damn you were busy. But no weight on the armour? That is a blessing for me. So…what now Harry?"

"We eat properly, take a sleeping draught and let the French send the drone via portkey to the place where the last team started from. Then Invictus can fly around for now under cloak and recon. And then, we deal with whatever is in the forest."


It was the 19th of December.

Harry and Hermione had woken up early and performed their ablutions. Then, came a decently sized breakfast.

Now it was time to don the new armour.

The pair slipped into their signature speedo onesies. Then they jumped into the muscle weave as the runic array fused the opening shut. The spinal interfaces were activated and the power crystals began to dump large amounts of energy into the weave. After testing the weave and making sure that it was well synced, they slipped in their main torso pieces. Then merely a flick on the wrist of the suit runes attracted all the auxiliary titanium plates in the correct places.

The swords, knives, pistols, shotguns and assault rifles were placed in the gun racks and locked into place. Other necessary mission equipment had been securely put away into magnetic cabinets. Sirius had packed their "fridge" with a large number of meals that they could warm over the hotplate. Molly was aware of the mission and had insisted that they carry enough, for their stakeout. Realistically, it was enough food to feed a small army.

The Starfury was being fuelled by Remus and unfortunately, William Granger had appeared in the hanger out of nowhere, as his training as a soldier took over. He could tell that they were probably trying to prank him before they left. Even though he had discovered the object, he honestly still felt surprised.

"Ah dammit, why are you so alert? I was going to get a one-up on you, this morning."

"Try again, daughter. I was a soldier long before you and Harry. You guys built this recently? It is fantastic! How are those pieces floating? And how fast?"

"Superconducting fields are holding the pieces together. Er…I made Mach 1.8 a couple of days ago, but we have done some upgrades. She is being tested today, but she should be fairly reliable. Total Radar, IR and visible light cloaking."

William smiled as he asked, "So technically you built a true stealth fighter? No visual, or radar presence. No infrared either?"

"Correct. I did that piece of magic and I am proud of it! We got the piece of magic from a drumkit. Look it was weird how it happened, but we were happy. We even have full shields too, and the jump drive is supposed to also work. But we will test the other systems first?" Hermione explained. Harry then stuck his head out of the reactor bay and began to laugh.

"Haha! We have been caught. We will give you a tour and a ride when we get back. Uncle William, don't tell mom. I just want her to faint when she hears I have been building spaceships, heh."

"My lips are sealed. Let me get over to the operations centre and I will get set up. But I am proud. I do want to see how it will perform. The shape is unusual, but then some of it is magical so….surprise me then? " William replied.

"Tank is full?" Remus replied.

"Thanks, Moony!" Harry replied as the tall man gave him a thumbs up. Remus was quite proud - Harry and Hermione reminded him of their many stakeouts in the early days of the Order of the Phoenix. William reiterated the suggested method for dealing with jungle warfare, as he was intimately familiar with it:

"A word of warning – this is not open ground. You will work quietly and evaluate the situation as necessary. I am aware that you can charge in and probably shrug off bullets. That doesn't allow you to capture information. Establish what is there in the environment. Sealth is your friend. Stay invisible and silenced. Are the both of you clear on this?" asked William.

"We are, dad. No lone wolf shit and no geronimo tactics." Hermione answered as Harry nodded. Suddenly everyone, except for the Greengrass and the Davis families popped in with Sirius. Ginny, Astoria and Arthur were also absent, as they were at the office today. There was a sudden set of 'oohs' and 'aahs' as they looked at the futuristic looking bomber.

"Well Hermione, no more secrets. Now the cat is out of the bag!" Harry replied.

"Pretty much. Well, that is one prank down the drain!" Hermione replied sadly.

"We can still get our mums with it?" Harry asked.

Harry and Hermione were hugged, kissed and given best wishes by everyone. Harry's grandfather and grandmother were particularly happy to see him and Hermione, as they had been busy enough. Tomorrow was the public launch of the kitchen, and there was enough work to go around. Molly had also expressed her sentiments, as she kissed Hermione's and Harry's foreheads.

"Please be safe. I would like to see both of you in one piece. And then I will feed you when you arrive home looking all peaky," Molly commented.

"Thanks, Aunty Molly. We should be fine. We plan well enough and we have huge cannons. We are both coming home to eat everything in sight!" Hermione replied, with s small grin on her face.

Augusta was only too proud, as she expressed her sentiments.

"Good luck both of you. I hope one day Neville will be competent to fight along with you and Hermione. It is a tradition that a Potter has a Longbottom by his side and vice versa. One day he will wear armour and he will walk off into battle."

"I know. But If I could avoid it all, I would. The three of them are brave and they would not hesitate to join us. I would prefer if a single hair on their head was not harmed. But I know my godbrother the other two. They will demand that they fight when they are ready."

"Then prepare them well Harry, and trust them to support you. I will be staying, as I think it is good to understand how military operations work. These things will become routine when the time arrives." Augusta replied. Ved looked off at his grandson and his granddaughter and held their hands before he recited any number of small prayers for their protection. Amba caressed both of their faces and said very solemnly:

"I am demanding that both of you come home to us."

Sirius and Remus were the last two people, after everybody was done with ogling and the sentiments.

"I don't think you should not go with the blessings of those who love you. So here we are. I will stay tuned in as I take care of the other things for the product launch, and Remus will look over you and Hermione. And Harry, you better believe that James and Lilly are looking on. And I don't think they could be more proud or ask any more of both of you. And let the ancestors look over you too." Sirius replied.

There were solemn hugs before Harry mentally summoned Grace as they walked into the aircraft and the hatch closed.

"Alright, this stupid harness is to protect you from high G-forces. Let me help you strap in." Harry told Grace, over the mind link.

"If I don't strap in, I suppose will bounce around like a tennis ball?" Grace asked.

"Yes, you will. Wait a moment, Hermione doesn't know you can talk…"

"No big deal, fill her on the holiday and the other things while we are on the way you silly monkey! You need to talk to people a bit more. No, talking to me doesn't count, you primate."

Harry just shook his head. Grace was indeed a little "Roast Lord".

"Priming the turbines. Shields are on, bottom flaps are open. Gramps, do we have a location from the drone?" Hermione asked.

"We do. Sending to your HUD. We haven't encountered any hostiles. Continuing recon for now."

"Alright, as soon as we get over the ocean, then we will open her up," Hermione replied.

"Oh, by the way, Hermione, Grace can talk via my mind link," Harry explained.

"What?" she replied before she felt herself being pulled into Harry's mind, as she engaged the autopilot.

"Alright, Gramps fly her out. Harry has much to tell me" Hermione replied.

"And I have a lot to tell you too frizzly head!" Grace replied cheekily.

"Easy now, you look like a turkey in tin foil in the back there!" Hermione joked.

"Excellent! Harry was so slow to retaliate with enough fire. The best he could do was…was that you?"

"He is not too good with social skills, and that is coming from me of all people?" Hermione mentally giggled.

Harry realised that now he had another female to give him sassy comments. Hermione and Grace would probably take turns to harass him to kingdom come. That was somehow welcome and also a new inconvenience he would have to deal with, now.


As Harry explained to Hermione the amazing time he had in France, he also explained his decision – he was going to tell all who were involved, the truth. He was going to tell all of his 'students' that the most recent Dark Lord was hiding under the comical looking turban of Professor Quirinus Quirrell.

The other pieces of lord Voldemort had been stuck in items and hardly had personalities when you handled them with Titanium gloves. But to think that he was conscious and he was capable of speaking? And he had posessed someone? Hermione understood Harry's feelings – the threat was now a physical person, albeit in a corrupted form.

Remus, William, Agusta and Sirius stared at each other, as Invictus played back the recording. As they heard the cold high pitched whispering of the Dark Lord, the four adults considered that carrying the knowledge of such things, was a hard burden. Harry's sudden holiday made sense. However, Harry's perspective made everyone feel rather better, as he chatted with Hermione.

"Look – we can get worried about it or we can do something about it. He has no idea I am alive. He has no idea I can listen to him. No, we have the advantage. We will deal with this, one fight at a time, like we always do.

And if we involve people, they will all contribute parts of the solution. I am not Dumbledore, and I am not keeping secrets with the people I care about."

"I say that is the best perspective that we can take. I am glad you spoke to your mother." Hermione replied

"Common sense finally prevailed," Grace interjected, mentally.

"Oh, I wish I could mind-meld with you. I am going to practice. That way we can have secret conversations! Conversations that leave Harry out!" Hermione replied.

"We can practice how to roast Harry like a chicken in the oven!" Grace commented.

"That would be great. Brace yourself, both of you. I am going to open up the engine." Hermione replied. Harry buckled himself in, and Grace shifted around before the jacket began to gently squeeze her body.

"Raising the speed slowly. Lessening the climb, to keep the G-forces to the minimum. 300….500…700..1,000…1300…..1700…."

Hermione continued to gently raise the throttle.

"2000….2300….2500….2660…2750….Harry, have we topped out?" Hermione asked.

"No, the plasma afterburners are not running. The extra speed is from the turbine optimisations. Starting the reactor. Please keep us as level as possible.

Reactor primed. Plasma injection in 3..2..1!" Harry replied.

The waste products from the stellarator shaped forcefield emptied into the engines. Suddenly a fiery blue glow exited the floating engines. As the reaction became stable, a huge acceleration occurred and Grace was glad that the soft padding had absorbed the force. For all of them, it felt like a ton of bricks were on their chest.

"2700….3200…3500…3700…4100…4400…..4550 kph" Hermione voiced, as the G-forces seemed to mellow out. They were still there, but it was not that bad. She sustained the speed for about ten seconds and found that Grace seemed uncomfortable. Hermione then cut to about 1500 kph, very gradually.

"We should be at our location in six hours. I am not flying with this stress on our bodies. Grace, sorry about that!" Hermione replied.

"Hey, that was wild! I am going to have to figure out how to get faster. Besides the discomfort, pretty fun! Harry get me out of this, I am sore around my chest area?" Grace complained. Harry then released Grace from her harness and then began to rub her chest.

"We need to find a way to suppress the g-forces. The performance was excellent, but we can't take that much pressure. Still, congratulations! We made Mach 3.6 for about 10 seconds. Those plasma afterburners are something else."

"I do my best work before the mission?" Harry replied.

"The shields helped with the temperature. Everything is nominal, no damage." Hermione explained as she checked the runes and the other avionics.

"Thanks, Mione. I am initiating a purge of the reactor core, as we don't need to go fast and we are fully charged up!"


Remus and William sat down quietly as they observed the performance of the "aircraft." After looking at his daughter hold 2,800 mph for ten seconds, William observed as they slowed down. Augusta was smiling, as she realised that their creation was fearsome and it would provide them with a much needed advantage. William was pretty pleased - his daughter had just outstripped SR-71 and every other known fighter jet, like a piece of cake. Sirius who saw the concern on their faces came over and asked:

"Anything wrong?"

"They just did 2800 mph for about ten seconds. They had to break off because their bodies could not handle the forces. When I say 2800 mph, I also mean 4500 kph, in metric?" Remus explained.

"Both of them are damned maniacs!" Sirius replied.

"I do want to see if they can fix this acceleration problem. If they can fix this, they are only going to get faster." Remus replied.

Whenever Harry and Hermione wanted to snack or use the washroom, they would often slow down to manageable speeds. Sometimes they would take a walk. When they were finished, they strapped in and resumed flying at a much faster speed. There had been no missiles or anything that suggested that they were being chased. However, had anything breached the proximity bubble the aircraft would apparate out via the transporter. Many hours later they were already on the edge of the rainforest and they began to survey the area carefully, with their thermal vision via the various camera pods on the ship's hull.

There was nothing.

At that point, Luis and the French Minister were given an audio link into the operation, as Hermione looked for a good place to land. She set down on a small clearing that possessed a stream. Harry then programmed his portable transporter with emergency coordinates. The pair prepared the armour pieces that they had removed for flying, along with the weapons and equipment. They began their journey into the rainforest, fully cloaked.

"Video feed coming online. There. Luis, you got us?" asked Harry.

"Loud and clear," Luis replied as he looked at the multiple supersized data slates that had been designed for him, at the Minister's office.

"Alright Hermione, let us get an idea of the perimeter, how much and where these morons are" Harry explained as he engaged the mind link. While they could not see each other, they could sense each other and see through each other's eyes. Flying with the jetpack under the cloak, was not a problem, with theassistance of the HUD and the wapoints. Grace had been ordered to scout in a different direction, under the cloak that was provided by her harness.

"Engaging the visor!" Hermione said, under her silenced helmet as she switched on the augment.

Under the infrared vision, there was nothing in the area, except small animals. They continued to fly very slowly, with just enough thrust to stay afloat. Five minutes later, they began to notice small red outlines, that were well hidden under a lot of branches and debris.

"Grace, find me," Harry whispered. The bird apparated in under the invisibility field and the silencing charm before she quickly perched on a high branch. Harry engaged his Mage sight and saw a small pulsing field that almost look liked a magical radar.

"Hermione, they have something that can detect magic. Now it makes sense. Looks like some type of small handheld object. It produces a spinning magical field, which is brilliant but also….problematic. Magical radar? It seems that the items have a large radius.

The first line of defence is just taking orders from people who have the artefacts, and they are a bit further down. "

"We need to lure one of them away. Bait him. Then use the opening to punch through." replied William.

"Gramps, give me control of the combat drone. I have an idea," replied Hermione.

Harry had gently crouched down and had waited as the man had edged in, nearer and nearer. Invictus had used the drone to make it seem like a possible intruder was out there, as some magic was bled off via the parabolic antenna. When the man had gotten close enough, Harry had flipped his visor up and waited for the man's head to poke into his invisibility field. Harry had then brought down his entire mental ability on the man, as he instructed the man via compulsion (Hermione had translated, as she was excellent with Spanish) to act and report that everything was normal. Harry then penetrated his mind and tore out all the secret locations of all the scouts who were buried in the forest. Names, positions, weapons, patrol routes, landmarks and even memories of the jungle….

Harry tore it all out mercilessly, as the man began to bleed from his nose and his eyes. He was screaming but he had been willed to keep his mouth closed.

Several small groups were guarding different parts of the forest. They possessed only AK-47s and they had four magazines of ammunition each.

They were cannon fodder.

There were at least thirty of them in this sector, and they reported to their superiors every twenty minutes. Hermione then captured man's whisper into a runic array, and now she could assume his identity on the radio.

"What about him?" asked Hermione.

"All of them are involved in child prostitution. And knowingly," Harry answered. Hermione's forearm gauntlet flared into existence and she cut his head off, as his body fell into pieces behind the rocks where Harry had shredded his brain.

"Grace I have a dead body. Transport it far away, please?" Harry asked.

She apparated the entire corpse, as she deposited the body and head into a small river that she had found, at least three kilometers away. Hermione took the man's place as she sent reports to the other men, which failed to arouse any suspicion from the others. Over the next hour, Harry and Hemione withdrew from the area as they planned on how to force all the men towards an open area, that would act as a kill box. From listening to the updates on his radio, and with some recon work via the drones and Grace's video feed, they had a good enough idea as to where the thirty men were located.

"Right Mione, we will start putting down the Cryo rounds from here. I will overcharge the shots. Then we will use the incendiary mode on them…" Harry replied as he held on to the cannon controls. Hermione then took the ship into the air and began scouting quietly to confirm their plan.


It was in the dead of night, that the attacks came. And they came en masse.

Harry flooded the area with the cryo bolts to lure them out. As the men returned fire, both of them engaged the visor argument. Hermione examined the Protean charmed cameras which directly fed into her HUD. On the other hand, Harry viewed the forest through the lens arrangement of the various gimballed guns and the main cannon. The cool night allowed the men's heat signature and the muzzle fire to paint them as easy targets. Harry's and Hermione's House magic helped them to aim the guns with enough accuracy. Joysticks and buttons were toggled, as the men below randomly shot at the empty night sky.

A faint buzzing could be felt at the base of Harry's neck. Suddenly Hermione's magic began to make sense of all muscle groups within the ship, through the spinal interface. She felt like she had more control and she could toggle every part of the aircraft independently. Instead of blending the inputs, she could selectively tilt particular parts of the gunship and run the engines at different speeds. The link to Harry's brain became clearer, and she let off of the joysticks. Harry began to feel different – almost as if his magic was lightning fast and he could shuffle everything quickly enough, instead of switching from one cannon to another. Harry felt like he had thirteen arms and he was playing a large drumkit, where he could just delegate a specific piece to each limb.

"Er…..what is going on?" Harry asked.

"I don't know. I can feel the ship…like I know where to do..what? And I am not using the sticks anymore? "

"And I can toggle every gun - they type of spell, the spread and the direction with a lot of speed. Your kind of speed?"

As they chatted, people were being dropped dead, below them.

"Did you test the spinal interface, Harry?"

"No Mione, just left it connected passively? It is working nicely though. I am really…surprised?"

Amoment of clarity made the unusual phenomenon sensible, as their house magic mingled.

The Peverell Battle Magic was combining multiple sources of information and the Granger magic was providing the processing speed and control. As their magic mixed, it recognised the gunship as a conduit – the gunship was something that had been made from their hands, and it felt comfortable. The network of gold and copper nano-threads had become a distributed magical core, and their neural patterns had been imprinted into the system.

Both of them realised that when an object was crafted with House magic, it left a minuscule trace. And that trace that was left behind, allowed the object to identify its owners and to perform as expected. The original intent of the magic travelled on in created artefacts.

As the spinal interface became dominant, even their communication occurred through the ship's interface. Hermione began to roll, yaw and pitch the gunship as she expertly avoided the occasional R.P.G. Harry was now blazing every single gun with perfect control over its position, the type of spell, and the firing characteristics. As Harry needed to reposition, he nudged Hermione who instantly gave him what he needed. William who looking on at the camera feed from the fighter, then switched to an external drone to get a bird's eye view of the situation. As Remus, William and Augusta looked on, it seemed as if fire and ice had been summoned down from the heavens to deal justice on the unrighteous.

While the pair were pretty happy about their unexpected surprise, below the tall trees in the dark, it was a different story. On the ground, many men were flash frozen. Those who were not frozen often lost a hand or a leg to Fiendfyre bolts. Entire volleys of Bombardas were spat out as every gun emplacement was put to use. With no sound and no visual frame of reference, the men were now out of ammo and they began to run for their lives. Soon enough, the men were all dead, and Harry exited the fighter via jetpack. He carefully examined the environment with his mage sight, as he combined it with the visor augment.

There were no warm bodies anywhere.

The French Minister and Luis who were watching on from the various helmet feeds had not seen the entire fighter. But they were able to ascertain that they possessed some type of flying artefact that was equipped with guns.

"Mon Dieu Luis! Not even an entire five battalions of legionnaires could cause that time of damage! And I thought the kidnapping was the full extent of their capability?" the French Minister of Magic explained.

"As I said Guillaume, highly effective. Both of them are very mild until they are on the battlefield. You want them dead? You send Harry and Hermione."

"The terrorist Voldemort was responsible for killing the previous Alpha kill-team. The I.C.W was never able to field a set of Hit-Wizards after that, especially for high-risk situations. I think we might have our replacements. When the mission is done, I will decide."

"Very well. But I know you well enough Guillaume. You have already made up your mind."

"I suppose so Luis….the night is still young. Let us see what happens."

While this conversation occurred, Invictus had taken control of the gunship. Hermione was jetting down to meet the ground. They were about to evaluate the carnage, they had caused.

Augusta had decided to stay for the night, as she got comfortable in the chair. William and Remus continually surveyed the situation via the night vision cameras.

Harry picked up a man on the periphery of his vision, who was injured and was limping out of the area. The straggler was not part of the original engagement. The gunfire had caused him to skirt close by, and he had received injuries. Harry charged in close to the man before stunning him and apparating back to the area. He immediately checked him over with his eyes and saw that he had nothing on him that was a possible threat, except a single wand. Then he was handcuffed with a titanium bracelet. Hermione had done a quick body count and concluded that there were sixty confirmed kills. It seemed that other men from the nearby areas had come to reinforce the initial group. She took video recordings of the faces before she collected the artefacts and quickly examined them.

"These look either Aztec or Mayan. They are some type of radar. Extremely brilliant, but inconvenient for us. Far better range than our sensors. The items seemed to be all linked to each other too?"

"Remember we have the wand shunts, Mione? It won't matter if they know we are coming if their wands don't work. They don't know that we can become invisible either?"

"Oh….right. Let us go back to the ship, and we can see if we can jury rig this device into our systems. I wish we had our tools here."

"We do have a small workbench. I had installed it for ship repairs or emergency modifications. That was a recent modification. We have enough bits and bobs and we can get what we need this guy." Harry replied.

"Now I am happy you went to compulsively wrench on the thing last minute, Harry." Hermione laughed.


Hermione was able to interface the odd looking obelisk device into their onboard sensor array, as they bypassed the small inset ruby and jacked into a spare power crystal. She also executed a rune readout on the device and found a set of equivalent runes and arithmantic equations that would offer the same functionality.

"Anything interesting?" Harry asked.

"Runic alphabet. Non-Western. We don't have enough information to know how it works, but I know what I can do to acquire this feature for us. Because all of the items are linked, I can remotely cripple the rest of them. Then, we will have the only working radar."

"Permanently?" Harry asked.

"Of course not. Temporarily. We will collect all the artefacts and send them to the Brazillian government. I just want the functionality out of it, I am not going to destroy somebody's cultural heritage. The existence of this positively old thing implies that the indigenous magicals of this area were giant nerds!"

"I know right? That was a concern that I had. This thing looks almost like a modern radar. The spinning gem is brilliant. Goes to show ancient people had just as much complexity to their thoughts."

"I am using the main structure of the rune algorithm but I am going to add the heartbeat sensor into the projected magic. So hypothetically, we should be getting both detection methods, at once." Hermione replied.

Hermione and Harry used a fair number of their spare project pieces to advance the design. Now a spare power crystal rod was the centrepiece of the rotating assembly, and it whirled around at ten thousand rotations per minute, instead of the sixty of the original device. Hermione had crippled the protean charm by injecting a "finite" spell into the runic array, and over the captured radio, there was a panic as all of the artefacts had stopped working. With another hour of work, they managed to build a new device and extend its functionality. Harry was happy that he had brought some billet alloy along, as he quickly forged an external enclosure in the forcefield forge, and attached the item at the bottom of the gunship, to an extra superconducting pad.

"Alright powering up….and….there! Harry, can you take a little sprint so I can test how you look on it? Just to verify the functionality?" Hermione asked.

Harry was puzzled when had to fly to get to the edge of the radar blip for at least three minutes. Upon returning to the ship, Hermione asked, "How far did you go out?"

"About five kilometres. I ran the jetpack pretty hard at about one hundred kph. Wait, it works from that far?"

"The joke is that I only have the thing powered at twenty five per cent. The extra juice is helping it perform better too."

"As the joke goes, more powah is more better-rer. You can tell the rest of them are quaking in their boots. Let us see what this moron knows and then we can decide on what we will do." Harry replied as he prepared to interrogate the man.

"Dad?" Hermione called, over the communicators.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"We have a twenty kilometre heartbeat and magic sensor. Not saying we won't be careful but we have some room to breathe. We improvised it from an artefact that we found on the field. We will be able to map the area before we engage them."

"I suppose we British people invented Radar, so congratulations?" William smiled.


The long haired scruffy man awoke to find a pair of green glowing eyes looking at him. Harry entered his mind and pulled out every single memory systematically. He also took notes and questioned the man, in a very detailed manner. His brain aided by the mind arts quickly categorised everything he needed. As the man struggled and screamed under the silencing charm, in this memory was the rape of one of the young girls, who was a hostage. Harry then shot the man and burnt his body with an incendiary grenade, within the cloaking field of the fighter.

"These guys aren't the whole operation. This is international. The men are from all over the world, no locals. The "leader" and his "guards" generally spend his time with the young women hostages. Sounds familiar?" asked Harry.

"We could burn everything down, but then we won't get to the bottom of it?" Hermione wondered.

"I know. Look we cannot stop terrible things in our world. That is the job of the police and governments. What we can do is tag the weapons and drugs with locators, kill the men who are in our way and then rescue the women. We gather the information from the tacker, and we pass that off to the relevant authorities. We cannot interfere with mundane law enforcement.

However, the magicals are our business. We will handle them personally."

William at the ops control agreed with the decision. There was a small smile from Augusta and Remus who acknowledged that this decision was the best balance of both worlds. The three adults continued to listen to the conversation within the gunship.

"Guess it isn't a perfect world, eh Harry? We do what we can do?"

"Exactly. The problem now is that we have hostages. The objective was to kill everything in sight. Hmm…" Harry wondered before he connected to Luis, after deliberating about the best course of action.

"Luis, you there?" Harry asked.

"Sorry, Mr Peverell. Antione is here. Luis is off the clock until the morning."

"Hey! Just Harry is fine. How have you been? How has the gun and the shields been holding up?"

"Not too bad. Saved my life many times, as we have been taking on far more dangerous operations and we can deal with far larger groups of people. That has been rewarding."

"Good to hear. We have a problem – the original objective was to demolish everything. We have hostages. Most likely battered and sexually abused women and children. We need an international portkey to get them out. Our transporters cannot handle that many people."

"Let me get the Minister, he just stepped out for a moment," Antione replied. After a small chat and some explanations, the mission objectives were changed to reflect the new considerations.

"Antione and the rest of Luis' men will be waiting at the deployment site, fully armed to pick up hostages." the Minster replied.

"I think that location has been compromised. I have a better idea. Get a portkey to a small village. Somewhere a bit further off. Come with a modified cell phone and send us a GPS pin. We will transport the women to that location. After we get the women out, we are killing everything in sight, if we can manage the rescue first."

"Very well. We will make arrangements. Best of luck." Antione replied.

Harry and Hermione had taken the fighter into the air just above the canopy in hover mode and had set the gunship down on a rocky outcropping. They had left the stealth system on as they used the washroom, ate something took a small nap. When Harry awoke a couple of hours later, Hermione was already talking to her father.

"There was no convenience when we went on missions. We used to wipe our asses with our socks. You guys are getting coffee and hot meals in the middle of the forest, with a toilet. I am jealous much!" William joked.

"Glad we are magicals. But we still need a normie like you to run the op, so there is that. You will get your own quarters on the battleship, not to worry. Harry is up." Hermione replied. Harry then gulped down some coffee and began to stretch and warm up his body as William explained the course of action:

"The plan is to use the enhanced sensor package and fly around slowly. We should be able to see how the troops are grouped, and how they are spread out. We will go low and slow. I will look at the sensor feed, and we will decide on what to do."

As Hermione skirted around the area, Harry continued to use the zoom function and looked at his display in the co-pilot seat. As the feed came in, Augusta after her nightly rest, came into the workshop with a cup of tea. Sirius was also sitting next to Remus, and the group were eating breakfast off a tray as they looked on. After a slow one hour flyby, a radius of fifty kilometres was covered. William gave his analysis of what he had seen from the new 'radar package'.

"It seems that you have thinned out at least one third of their forces. It looks like one hundred and thirty men are left. They have consolidated around the main encampment. We have a total of twenty three people in a shipping container, and it is locked." William continued. Harry suddenly seemed to be thinking about something rather contemplatively.

"Harry?" Hermione asked.

"We need to establish that they aren't any magical traps. I should go in and see that there isn't anything funny. We should not assume we can apparate in – the place could have anti-apparition wards. Or some type of new magic we have never seen. We can build a bubble shield and deploy the shield over the container. As long as the container is safe, we go to town on those jackasses. I should be able to see explosives, guns, claymores, mines and anything else with my eyes."

"Good. Do a sweep of the camp and see if any of the women or children are out of the container." William instructed. Harry thought about what had occurred earlier with the ship interface and then decided to try an experiment. He initiated a mind-link with Grace and explained:

"Hey commander skycat supreme, I am going to tie our spinal implants together with a protean charm. Both of us will be bidirectional. I would rather not take that risk with Hermione, yet. It seems to work well only within the ship. Let us see what will happen. We are already linked, just looking to…enhance it."

Grace nodded, as she waited on the link to occur. Harry then intent modified the Protean charm to work just the same way it had worked earlier and hoped that his suspicion was correct. As he cast the spell, suddenly Harry felt a strong link as familiar magic flooded into his system. Now the upkeep for the connection was just a sliver and it was not as intense.

"Knock knock?" Harry asked in his mind.

"Loud and clear you monkey," Grace replied jokingly.

"Let us go down there and do some recon. Hermione will build the bubble shield" Harry replied.

Harry and Grace flew down completely cloaked. Now he could feel as Grace utilized his mage sight. Grace could also feel Harry's instincts - as she followed him, she knew exactly where he was positioned. Harry understood how Grace flew, and Grace appreciated how a human body felt as he made small adjustments.

"Oh, this is amazing. Are you feeling any mental upkeep?" asked Grace.

"Yes, but it is far less. This I can sustain for far longer. Did you twitch my back?"

"Yes, you will get better balance. I will teach you my flying tricks and you feed me chips." the bird replied.

Now they were on the ground and they were hidden behind some trees. While they were already invisible, Harry always preferred to have cover in front of him. After a careful inspection of the immediate environment, he concluded, "No explosives, no enchantments. No traps. The area has anti-apparition wards. Test if you can apparate through them Grace?"

ZAP!

"No problem for me. Let me fly around the camp, I will show you what I see?" the blue avian replied.

About half an hour later, Grace had established that only two women were out of the containers. It had been mentally scarring to see the degrading actions that they were forced to participate in, but Harry would not move until he was sure that the safety of everyone was ensured.

"Mione, we are good so far. You done with the bubble shield?"

"Yes. I tested it too. The plan?"

"We have two kills to make first. Then we want those women on the ship. We will lock out the controls and let Invictus keep them there. Then we murder the lot of them, tag the drugs and the weapons and see where they go. Then we can carry the women home, with nobody to harass us. So the opposite of the original plan." Harry suggested.

"Under cloak Harry?" Hermione asked.

"No, let them see their deaths. They deserve to feel despair. The type of despair these women have felt. And yes, how could I forget? The wand shunts. This is our first field test. If this works, this will be one of the most exploitative weapons we have ever built. It is showtime…."

"Locking controls out. Engaging stationary hover mode." Invictus responded. Hermione closed the small workbench and loaded fresh magazines into her weapons. Then she opened the back hatch and slowly glided down. Now the bubble shield was planted and primed. She then snuck away to find herself in a small, hastily constructed hut. Harry engaged the mind link and Hermione immediately felt the difference.

"Harry, why do Grace and you feel like one person?"

"He decided to not link us by the hips, but to make us sublime, by the spine!" Grace replied, with full cheek-in-tongue. Hermione was happy that her voice was silenced as she laughed in the helmet.

"How?"

"Jury-rigged the protean. Made it like the ship connection? Look I don't want to risk anything new with you. Grace and I should be good. We are already linked very intimately. We can try this later" Harry replied as Hermione sneaked around the corner and took a look at her prey. She casually mentioned:

"Oh look he is zipping up his pants. It would be a shame if…."

Hermione then busted into the room, and cast body binds on both the man and the woman, before silencing them. While the man was locked in place, Hermione flicked out her gauntlet blade and started at the man's crotch before working her way upward to the skull. The man then collapsed into two halves, and the woman was positively afraid. His organs were half cauterised and half raw as his guts spilt out unto the floor.

Harry who had seen the whole thing from Hermione's eyes commented, "Oh look, the opposite direction to the troll then? Impressive!" and there were many grins at Operations back home. Remus and Augusta were smiling at William, who realised that Harry would never stop with his sass, with people who were close to him. Hermione was now preparing the woman for transport.

Now Harry was slowly moving towards his target. He snuck into the room and had dealt with the situation similarly. Harry had cast silencing charms, followed by body bind charms. Then Harry withdrew his sword and cleaved the man in half, from his chest to his hip. After the man had disassembled himself into two big chunks of meat via gravity, Harry cancelled the body bind on the woman and thanked God and Lady Magic that she had only been forced to take off any of her clothes yet. His cloak was now off and he put the sword away and held out his hand. The woman who had suffered greatly hugged Harry so quickly, that even he was surprised. Harry made a shushing motion on his helmet and the woman understood that she was to stay quiet.

"Grace? Sitrep?" Harry asked.

"Just transported Hermione's person, coming for you now!" she replied as she prepared to transport Harry. Now the real fun would occur, as they prepares to deal with the encampment.


Hermione had given the severely bruised woman her clothes. The woman quickly got dressed and was now looking at Hermione's body armour. She understood that she was being rescued. As Hermione outstretched her hand she took it, with a hopeful look as tears dripped down her blackened face. She seemed to be at ease, perhaps because a woman like herself was a rescuer.

"Gracie, transport for two!" Hermione requested.

Now she and the woman were in the StarFury, and the young woman was already confused. Experiencing apparition via a phoenix and then getting placed inside a strange looking gunship was already disconcerting. The woman was now looking down at the entire settlement, and Hermione then queried in Spanish:

"You speak Spanish? Or Portuguese?"

"Spanish?" the woman answered demurely, as it seemed her spirit and her will had been drained out of her.

ZAP!

Now the first woman had confirmation that these people were magical like her, and their rescuers had a bird that could bypass the wards. That alone was incredulous, and suddenly she began to hope that all of the battered women and children had a chance. She observed the female and male armoured figures. The other rescue was her friend - both of them had gotten to know each other if only to cope with the circumstances in the container. Hermione continued, through the distorted vocoded voice:

"Good. My friend and I are here to rescue everybody. You say put, and we are going to deal with the scum down there. Everybody is going home. We promise."

The other woman was jabbering so quickly and latched on to Harry so tightly, that he gently had to nudge himself away. He patted her shoulder and she suddenly became quiet.

"Do you speak Spanish too?" asked Hermione.

"Yes?"

"Does the word magic mean anything to both of you?" Hermione continued.

Both of the rescued women nodded.

"Good. We are magicals just like you. Please sit down, don't touch anything and you will be fine." Hermione replied.

"But there are one hundred men down there! How will you fight them all?" the other woman asked. Harry who was linked to Hermione understood what the woman was asking in Spanish, and laughed.

"See for yourself. I think we have far more firepower in any case." Hermione replied as both of the women were left confused. They decided that they would look at the aerial view of the place, from inside of this 'thing'.


"Grace? Let us deal with them" Harry replied as the phoenix apparated Harry and Hermione into the edge of the camp.

"They have assault rifles, not taking any chances with you. Yes, I know you have shields but don't chance it. Sit this one out. Feed us the images as you survey the battlefield. Stay in the trees and hit them."

"Gotcha!" Grace replied as she took a hidden position on a far-off tree, and sharpened her eyesight.

"As soon as we deploy the wand shunts, the bubble shield does up. Cranking steel in…..3…..2…..1" Harry announced, as the wand shunts began to fly out of the open carry case. As the small objects flew around the camp, they destroyed every wand to wooden smithereens. Eighty of the shunts had left the case under the auto-tracking charm, and Harry reasoned that the other men were non-magicals or magicals that did not have their wands. The men began to fire off their guns in the air as if they were expecting an aerial attack. Some of them took shots at the bubble shield, but the device was being powered by ten power crystals. They would need at least a couple of RPGs to make a scratch.

While all of the men were distracted, the pair went to work. Harry and Hermione switched on the dragon lung augment as they started the attack with the short-range apparition method, within the ward.

Harry had withdrawn his sword, and he began to charge into bodies as they splattered. With Grace linked to his mind, she flew from tree to tree and summoned lightning bolts, and pitched them across the area with Guerilla tactics. Harry shaped the deadly electricity, as he added his own power and redirected it to electrocute many targets. He deliberately forked the lightning as wide as possible, and he often went for their eyes to blind them. Hermione with her shotgun, ran at inhuman speeds after she blasted cones of incendiary bolts into people's heads. Other times she flipped, and while she was mid-air, she extended her gauntlet blades to full length as she dismembered bodies. With the lung augment and the muscle weave assisting her, she could make short sprints at seventy kilometres per hour.

Facing her was like dealing with a speeding car. A speeding car with a dangerous plasma shotgun and a plasma blade.

Harry was now pulling guns out of the hands of the men. Then, he chained his hand-to-hand training with his agility as he put the full force of his strength into his blows. There were many squelching and cracking noises that were heard as the men died like rats. Other times he struck with his feet with enough force to break spinal columns. With the enhanced speed and strength from the weave, Harry could easily deal with two men in under a second. The returned muscle weave and the in-built knuckle duster inspired studs on his gloves were bloody, as they delivered severe blunt force trauma. Of the men who survived the initial punch, most of them were in too much pain to produce an effective counterattack.

Hermione felt her magic humming, acted upon instinct and summoned a large stream of water. Then she unleashed her ferocity into the water, as it suddenly became steam. She then directed the superhot steam over the remaining men, as they clutched their faces and screamed in pain. Suddenly most of the gunfire died out. The men were now sporting third-degree burns. Hermione summoned her wand, and then cast a powerful incendio. Now their flesh was being burnt additionally, by raging fire.

Harry stomped on the ground as he felt the magic running in his legs. A small shockwave occurred and the last four men were lifted into the air. He charged in and made one long arcing slash with his blade. The men were now bisected and were properly dead.

The whole battle had lasted only ninety seconds, and they were unscratched. They had collected many bullets, but these had merely bounced off the shields. As they both examined the power indicators, they realised that they had depleted most of the ten power crystals, to dispel the armor piercing 7.62mm ammunition. That meant that they had used seven hundred of the old power cells worth of magical energy to stay safe. Harry considered that they had gotten away, redesigns would be necessary.

"Excellent job both of you. Tag the drugs and the weapons, and let us see what we can do to get the women out of here. No life signs in the area." William replied as he looked at the uplink from the Thunderbolt. Harry placed polymer tagging spray on the items and then Hermione deactivated the bubble shield.

"Invictus bring the ship in and activate the electromagnet, along with the wench," Harry commanded.

The women who were on board the ship had been looking on – they wondered how their saviours would fare. Of course, they had changed their mind, as soon as the fighting had started. While they had been far away, it was not hard to guess where the water, fire and lightning had come from – and the fireworks display from the guns and the bright blue slashing blades had been a good indicator of who had more weapons. Both of the women, who were magicals had never seen this type of fighting. According to them, wands were needed for spells. And magicals didn't have guns?

As the ramp opened, the two women walked out and were greeted by the young man. He walked over to the container and took his sword out, as he slashed the locks and latches on the container. Then he clenched his fist and opened the doors, by wandlessly pulling the iron door off and tossing it far away. Hermione then yelled, through the vocoder in perfect Spanish:

"You are safe, you can come out. They are all dead."

For the two women who were looking at the environment, there was so much carnage. It was impossible to believe that two people were responsible. Bodies were charred, smoking, and possessed any number of holes. In other cases, they were dismembered or had been splattered into random organs. And all of it had happened in less than three minutes.

Harry and Hermione had not cut the video feed. Luis had arrived and he had sat silently as the French Minister of Magic had turned his face away. The killing had been too gruesome, but Luis sat transfixed as he saw the almost fluid communication and the chaining of different spells to work together.

"Minister?" asked Harry, as the women and children were now looking around at the entire environment in awe. The Thunderbolt was surprising – the Wizarding world still prefered carriages that flew in the air, often drawn by flying magical creatures. It looked alien and menacing. The French Minister of Magic now understood why the boy and the girl carried titles. No – they were deserving of it.

"Artificer Lord Peverell, Priestess Lady Granger, I cannot say that I managed to look at everything. I am queasy with blood. But I do congratulate you on a job well done."

"Thank you. We aren't done yet, When the women are safely in I.C.W custody, we can rest." Harry replied. There were small tears in William's and Remus' eyes as all the women were now hugging Harry and Hermione. Invictus continued to monitor the radar, but there was nobody present.

Hermione explained, "We will use our ship to carry this container to a village. From there you will be transported to France to receive medical treatment. Do we have any non-magicals here?"

Not a single indication was shown from the crowd, which worried Harry even more – it appeared that the Wizards were no different to Muggles after all. Hermione then took the eight youngest children and carried them into the Starfury as she strapped them up, after giving them something to eat and cleaning the sweat and grime off with some spells. Then she sat into the pilot's seat, and she started the magically enhanced electric generator. Multiple electromagnetic pads on the bottom of the aircraft were attached to the top of the container frame. As she levitated the entire container, Harry withdrew all the kevlar straps and strapped the container to the gunship, for a second layer of security.

"Oi Moony, thanks for insisting that I put multiple wenches and straps. I am getting good coverage." Harry mentioned.

"Thank you. Those spots, I chose them very carefully. Still, use a plasma torch and put some temporary welds. My concern is if you can lift that much weight?" Remus asked.

"We should be able to – Hermione is working on a small lightning array. But I think we will still be stressing the engines and the frame. Let us hope that we are really good engineers now?" Harry wondered.

"I am sure you will do fine, you build everything for the apocalypse? And I think Hermione can fly anything." Remus laughed.

As Harry ushered the others into the container, he used a small plasma torch from the workbench to temporarily weld the container to his ship. As the hot steel flowed into the alloy puddle, Harry used his house magic to ensure that the weld was secure. He ensured that the molecules were fairly interwoven into each other - they would hold. After he was finished, he now put away his torch and took out his wand.

"Hermione, run the reactor hot and don't be shy. We are lifting eight thousand pounds, even with the help from your rune array. We need all the trust we can get. We don't have enough energy to apparate all of them or to use the jump drive with the additional weight penalty. The container is thirty per cent heavier than the ship, so we are just going to fly and hope we make it to the exfil. We need to get the gunship home in one piece."

"I can't believe I am saying this…..I am glad you made the modifications. We need a bigger ship!" Hermione replied.

"Trust me, I am already thinking about it. Double the size?" Harry joked as he stood at the mouth of the container. As the reactor started and the turbines whirled, Harry merely cast his invisibility spell and he covered the footprint entire container while he stood in the entrance and ensured that everything was alright. As the Fiendfyre began to cackle, suddenly the ship slowly lifted with the container attached to it.

"Take it nice and slow. How far?" Harry asked.

"Three hundred kilometres to go. I hope we have enough fuel to get home?" Hermione asked.

"If we are low on fuel that is okay. We just need to charge the jump drive, and we can skip some small distances to save fuel. We will be fine." Harry replied.

Hermione then gingerly proceeded to fly at the waypoint, as she observed the fuel usage. As she levelled out, she managed to get up to 150kph and she ensured that the container was as level as possible for the next two hours. Harry who had packed everything in the onboard fridge into a bag, encouraged the women and children to share the food among themselves. While it was approaching noon, it was still dark in England, which was five hours behind. If they managed everything, they would arrive home in time for lunch. Harry was content as he looked at the women in the container, during the journey.

"Harry? Am I rattling everyone to death down there? We are almost there. I have to deaccelerate?" Hermione explained.

"Great flying, hardly any chop. The woman and children aren't the least bit concerned. I am glad we had food onboard. They haven't had much to eat in a long time. Thank God I learnt mum's spells. Managed several small fixes before we lifted off."

"Aww thanks, you say the nicest things. I am putting them down a little way from the coordinates. I guess even Aunty Molly and Grandma contributed greatly to our success, by ensuring that we had enough food to feed a small army. I think we did well today."

"You certainly did daughter. Just get home safely in that contraption, and we can call it a day," William replied as Hermione called the Aurors on her cellphone.

"Antoine?"

"Hermione, Luis here. My whole squad is here too." Luis replied.

"We are landing in five minutes. See you in a bit." Hermione replied.

Luis was soon greeted by Harry and Hermione, as they emerged from a small track, with all the women and children in tow. Luis as presented a handshake, but Harry and Hermione hugged him and he laughed.

"There are in your hands now," Hermione stated.

"This is a victory for us. We have been after this group for many years. Nobody could survive the jungle?" Luis explained."

"We managed. But then we had magical guns, swords and a huge floating cannon?" Harry laughed.

"Were you injured?" one of the men in Luis' squad asked.

"No Jacques, not a scratch. But had we designed our armour differently we could have taken some bullets. We got lucky, somewhat. We will have to patch the issues." Hermione replied. Antione and the other shook Harry and Hermione's hands, as the women and children prepared for portkey transportation.

"Any chance we might get to see your flying machine?" asked Luis.

"Sure. What about the portkey time?" Hermione asked.

"I came later via separate portkey. The men can go back with me. The women will be admitted to the French Auror office. Your mother will have a look at them."

"Harry, I will stay here with them until they leave. Carry them, it is only a three minute walk." Hermione insisted via the helmet comms. Three minutes later, Luis and his group were now looking at the fearsome machine and the container that had already been detached, upon landing. As the men looked at the machine and explored the interior, Harry thought about what he had experienced merely thirty minutes ago.


The ship had landed some distance from the designated spot. As the people emptied the container, Harry cut the welds. Hermione checked the women over and gave them enough Medi-spray for the cuts and bruises.

"There, all good. I am not a healer but you will not be in physical pain." Hermione comforted the women, in Spanish. Many of the women were crying and Hermione began to sob silently in her helmet. Many of the children hugged Hermione by her knees, and she decided that maybe it was not a bad thing to let them see her face.

"Harry I am taking off my helmet, and consequences be damned. They want a piece of us, let them come and find us." Hermione replied before she took off her helmet slowly.

She then said, "Hello, my name is Jean von Neuman" in English, before she repeated herself in Spanish slowly. Harry landed on the ground, took off his helmet and with a lopsided grin said, "Hadrian Singh." Many hugged the teenagers, and they were surprised at the age of their rescuers. Hermione and Harry had received many polite kisses on the cheeks, and many affectionate hugs. The pair found themselves crying too. These women and children had experienced things that would haunt them for the rest of their life.

"Alright, we have the French Aurors waiting for you….not to worry you will be safe. Please follow me" Hermione answered in a hoarse voice, as she and Harry considered that the real world was a dark place if you were forced to look at what was usually ignored.


"You built this?" Luis asked.

"The Goblins helped with the casting and other bits. Hermione and I did so much work on this. It performed admirably. We didn't plan to lift 3600 kg, but we managed."

"Do we get a ride sometime Harry?" Antione joked.

"Certainly not today. We don't have enough fuel for a comfortable ride. We will be going home at breakneck speed, as that is where the engines are the most efficient, and our bodies will be under a lot of stress. The acceleration feels like a person standing on your chest. This is not a broom."

"How fast is it?" Luis asked.

"About 4500 kph" Harry answered.

"I change my mind. Keep me far away from that thing." Antione answered as he smiled a little bit. Harry considered the speed of the return journey and thought about what would be comfortable for Grace.

"Luis, I need a favour. Carry Grace with you, she can't withstand the speed."

"Will do. Let us get back. I hope that perhaps before the new year starts, we will meet for a debrief?"

"Give us some days to recover. We will come to France, before the new year." Harry replied.

Luis and his team of three walked back to the portkey point to find that the women had already been successfully transported, and Grace merely hopped on Luis' shoulder and gave him an affectionate rub.

"And you Grace? Fantastic job on the field! When we get back to France, we will get a nice snack for you"

"Ewe!" she replied. She was a big fan of the Potions Guild cafeteria, and she was going to insist on having a piece of the Classic Parisian Jambon-Beurre Sandwich that she and Harry loved so much. Hermione then cloaked and used her jetpack to get back to the landing site, where she found Harry tweaking the reactor. He was taking all the safeties off.

"So, what are we doing?" asked Hermione.

"We are going to run the reactor extra hot, and we are filled up, we will jump 200 km forward. This will empty most of the energy in the bank, but we should be completely recharged in ten minutes with reactor safeties off. We will dump the extra energy into charging the crystal array.

We are stronger than other people and we can set the muscle weave to squeeze those legs. It will be damned painful, as we are going to be under double the stress of normal fighter jet pilots. Your lung augments might honestly keep us alive." Harry replied.

"So, we are going all Geronimo then?"

"Yep?"

"Hold on to your sanity spider monkey!" Hermione giggled, as Harry realised that she was anxious to put the gunship through its paces even with the possible threat of injury due to sustained g-forces. Five minutes later after Hermione took off, Harry had opened up the reactor and was pushing extra plasma into the afterburner. They were lucky as the cabin had been pressurised and they did not need masks.

"4500…4600….4700….4800…..4900….5000…."

Hermione did her best to keep the fighter level as possible. With the gradual climbs, along with the adjustments to the muscle weave, Harry found the g-forces to be acceptable enough. Of course, what that meant was that he and Hermione were in screaming pain, and they wanted to get home quickly. And yet the adrenaline from the high-speed flying kept them hyper-alert. The house magic that was being shared over the ship systems also helped them to cope.

"Priming for jump….3..2..1" Hermione announced.

ZAP!

The gunship materialised and Hermione checked the instruments.

"We okay?" Harry asked.

"So far yes. We did two hundred kilometres easily. Let us see if anything happens over the next ten minutes until we are topped off for the next jump."


Ninety minutes later, Hermione was approaching the Peverell mansion with only five per cent fuel in the tank. Invictus opened the hangar well in advance, as Hermione then slowed down and Harry purged the reactor. The hot plasma was vented out of the reactor core, and to the back of the ship. Hermione then gently brought the fighter in, as the landing gear extended and the ship was gently put down. The late afternoon sun cast shadows over the walls and the fighter looked like it had gone to hell and back – Hermione had only left the shields activated on the windshield, to reduce energy consumption and there were scratches and other scuff marks from the speed that they had experienced. The turbines were also smoking – The Protego shields in the turbines could only endure so much heat and the emitter cores were almost completely toasted.

As the thud was heard from the gunship settling down on the landing gear, Harry commented, "Damn woman, you can fly. How much fuel we got?"

"Last one per cent. I am glad you ran the reactor hot. I would argue you are the best engineer a person can ask for. Let us go and see the damage. We scuffed her up, really bad…."

"We did. But we survived. Although…can we really walk that far?" Harry asked.

"Actually…nah. We might have to get help to get upstairs. But that was my best flight. I know this gunship like the back of my hand now?" Hermione replied. As the ramp lowered, Harry and Hermione were holding on to each other. They were limping, and they were walking down the ramp in only their muscle weaves. They were greeted by Augusta, Remus, Sirius and William.

"A job well done both of you. We were worried about if you would get home, but you managed. Come both of you hug me, " William answered, with relief colouring his voice. Remus and Sirius were now looking at the paint job which had been demolished and the smoke that was coming out of the engines.

"Thanks, dad. It was challenging. I had to fly fast. We made Mach 4 and it was like having a person standing on our chest. We need a break. If we didn't have magic, we would have died. You should continue to hold me, I think I cant…..move?"

Remus and Sirius had to help Harry and Hermione get their muscle weaves off, as they were tired. Sirius made a call, and food was certainly on the way for their evening meal.

"Relax, we will take care of you," Remus replied, as he and Sirius dragged both of them off to their bedrooms, as they were allowed to sleep off their pain.

"They look terrible," Augusta remarked after both men had returned.

"Flying for so long under such strain is taxing. It can cause blackouts. They managed because of the combination of magic and their ability to get extra oxygen into their system. Then their cardiovascular fitness and muscular strength are off the charts. Other people would have died." William answered.

"Oh, dear. Both of them are tough as nails, aren't they?" Augusta asked. William nodded as he closed the folder on the operations desk.

"Tipsy? Kreacher? Bootsy?" Sirius called and the three elves apparated in.

"Harry and Hermione were successful. The augments that they use puts them in caloric defecit – help Amba and Molly with getting their favourites." Sirius instructed.


Harry and Hermione got six hours of sleep and it was now seven o clock. The sun was already down. Harry got in the shower and took all the grime off himself, while Tipsy changed the sheets and removed any sweat from the mattress cover. His muscles felt a little sore, but it was not too bad. When he was finished, he buzzed Hermione over his comms device.

"Mione?"

"Here. I woke up about twenty minutes ago. I have some clothes on. Never have I appreciated a shower so much."

"Same here. Still feeling a tinge of the pain?"

"Yes, but it is alright."

"Good. My stomach is annoying me. It feels like a pit down there. Now we are paying the price for predator vision and all that extra oxygen we got in our bloodstream. Your augments kept us alive and safe!"

"Thanks. You really did a job on those turbines Harry. I want cheesecake, ice cream and everything else. Everything."

"Tell Sirius, let him dig in the deep freeze. We can get somebody to buy cheesecake from that nifty bakery close to St Gregory?"

Hermione pinged Sirius.

"This is the pilot on the line. I want dessert! Take everything out. Send someone for the cheesecake from that place close to our school?" Hermione laughed.

"Anything for the Priestess!" Sirius yelled.


"Hello Cyrus and Ophelia, I know we haven't spoken much," Sirius answered sometime later after Harry and Hermione were seated at the table.

"That is alright. Peverell manor is very busy these days? Are they up to mischief?" Cyrus wondered.

"Partially. Harry and Hermione were deployed to South America two days ago. Successful mission. They returned this afternoon."

"Congratulations. What was the mission? Are you allowed to say?" Ophelia asked.

"I definitely can. The French Minister of Magic reached out to Harry and Hermione to eliminate a notorious cartel, that operates in the South American rainforest. Muggle Weapons, Drugs, Narcotics, Child Prostitution, Human Trafficking, Chattel Market? Every kind of scum under the sun…"

"Why did the French Minister of magic request them specifically?" Cyrus asked.

"Their objective was not a rescue. They were contracted under a Kill Team licence because for years they lost Aurors in there. Harry and Hermione had to be very careful and pick them off, one by one. Both of them made many advancements to their weapons, and they barely managed to get home."

"Barely get home? Were any of them injured? Was it too much for Grace? I didn't know she could go that far?" asked Ophelia.

"They did not use Grace. They had too many weapons and gear to carry. Remember the frame that you saw? They made a lot of improvements from the last prototype you saw, and they finished it. It got scuffed up bad, and that is a first. Harry and Hermione generally build things for the apocalypse, and the thing barely survived." Sirius answered.

"How far did they fly?" Cyrus asked.

"They flew 5200 miles, and they did it at 3100 mph. Their bodies were under a lot of stress and they almost ran out of JP-7. The combat was fine, but they had to rush home. They didn't want to leave the thing in the open without fuel. So Hermione flew them home at top speed where it would function the most efficiently." Sirius answered.

"Good grief! That is why both of them went missing. I suppose he built something fantastic? 3100 mph?" Cyrus asked.

"He did. You can see it for Christmas Eve dinner."

"Were they hurt otherwise?" asked Ophelia.

"Besides the stress from flying, no. Somebody in South America is having a bad day, however. The death toll was approximately one hundred and ninety. There were also a large group of women, teenagers and children. At least twenty three I think. All female and they were for a chattel market. There were assaulted, raped and abused. I don't think I have to say any more. They were all rescued."

"May Lady Magic have mercy on their souls," Cyrus replied, as Ophelia covered her mouth.

"The reason why I called, is that believe it or not – You, Reginald and Arthur contributed greatly to the effort. Harry spent every last waking moment making advancements on the armour, and the guns, and he even rebuilt a lot of the ship. Hermione spent most of the time developing a new combat augmentation, and I can't say what that is, because I don't understand it much. All I know is that it borrows features from a dragon lung to make them breathe more intensely under demanding conditions.

They managed to even lift about give or take 8000 pounds. The people were being stored in a shipping container. Hermione airlifted the entire thing about 180 miles with the ship. They had to push the thing beyond the safe operating limits. But yes – every minute that they spent on their projects allowed them to succeed. I want to thank you for helping to bring my godson and goddaughter home."

"You are welcome, Sirius. Do you think Harry will want to talk about his mission? Or is it much too soon? You and I know that he has a tight upper lip." Ophelia asked.

"I don't know. I will ask. There is a chance he might prefer to give you the memory. I know how stubborn he is - he and Hermione are just children and their souls will feel heavy. We will keep in touch. Pass the news on to Reginald, Augusta will talk to Arthur." Sirus explained.


Meanwhile, another conversation was occurring between the Longbottom Matriarch and the trio who were at Hogwarts. She was walking into the kitchen to have dinner with Harry and Hermione. There was a small celebration planned, and Amba and Ved had been worried about their grandchildren. When they were finally in their beds before their nap, both of them in the kitchen exhaled the breath that they had been holding.

"Grandson?" Augusta asked.

"Gran?"

"I have some good and bad news."

"Hello Gran" Luna replied.

"Hello too!" Ronald replied.

"Excellent you three. So, Harry and Hermione were missing these past few days because they were deployed to South America to deal with a vile group of people. The preparation for his mission was the most taxing thing they had ever done.

An entirely new class of advancements were created. They worked tirelessly and they won the day. They saved twenty three souls who were part of a Chattel market. Drugs, Narcotics and everything unholy were on display. You understand how terrible these monsters were?"

"Were they injured?" asked Neville.

"Slightly, but not from the main fight. The transportation was rough. You will hear soon enough. I thought you should know because if there ever two people that needed a laugh this Yuletide, it was them."

"If we bring Tracey, it should be fine!" Ronald laughed.

"Ronald let us truly hope so. I am happy that Daphne and Tracey are joining our little corner." Augusta replied as she considered that Harry and Hermione were already prepping to see if they could assist her son and her daughter-in-law.


At the Delacour residence, Luis was sharing the news with Clementine.

"Mother?"

"Was the mission successful Luis?"

"Yes. I have confirmation that they are safely home and about to have dinner."

"Tell me more…."

"No injuries, everybody came out alive. They flattened the place. Their abilities have advanced. But I do want to tell you about their new aircraft. They travelled by themselves and…"

By the time Luis had finished showing her the memories in the Pensieve, a small sad smile graced the old woman's face.

"They give so much of themselves, for that which is right. I think we should be honoured that we know such people. Now I understand why he spent time at the Cottage. I will give Hermione a key too."

"Oui, I think they will need it more than everybody else."

"What were the Minister's comments?"

"The French Minister is aware of the political problems that will arrive in England. He has scrubbed every mention of their names and business records, and those who know of him via government channels will be sworn to secrecy by tomorrow morning. They have been all expunged. They have been designated as the Alpha Kill Team and the Minister would like him to undertake missions through magical Europe."

"The team is being reactivated then?" Clementine asked.

"Correct. They like their predecessors will be sent to put down insurrections and terrorist attacks when Aurors cannot do the job. I understand William has many successful hostage rescue operations under his belt. The Minister had requested his file from British Mundane authorities. He still attends occasional drills as part of the S.A.S reserves. We have some unrest between Bulgaria and Romania, and the insurgency is getting worse. For now, the I.C.W has chosen not to get involved because we had nobody to send. That might change if agreements cannot be made. There is a Black Hand cell that is operating across the border, and they are asking for protection fees from the locals."

"Dumbledore is a problem, as a chief figure in the I.C.W. How do we avoid his involvement?" Clementine asked.

"He won't be a problem. After the last Wizarding war, England resigned from the Council, because they did not want to make the financial payments. Now, our Minister will have direct control of the team, as we make the largest donations. And we don't have to spend much. The agreement is that Harry and Hermione get the spoils, particularly concerning any captured mundane weapons and explosives. They are unlikely to be interested in combat pay. The Minister was shocked when I told him that Hermione just wants access to our books, and Harry just wants a little getaway in the countryside, possibly might want to purchase a piece of land?"

"Very well. I will speak to Fleur as I would like Harry and Hemione to teach her advanced magic. William's expertise is an ideal resource to utilize. He understands how to fight - he is mundane but possesses a magical savant for a daughter. And perhaps we can tap some of the local mundane French talents. We have many military specialists in the mundane world. I am sure somebody from GIGN has a daughter or son at Beauxbatons."

"Harry and Hermione built an item that can destroy only specific wands. Almost like bees…they fly around and attach themselves to the wand before they explode. After the men were stripped of their wands, and the weapons were pulled out of their hands, it was a bloodbath. They have agreed to personally give me small sets of the items for dangerous operations."

Clementine paused.

"Mon Dieu! That is…fantastic! But what do you expect? They are thinkers!" Clementine replied as she realised that it was a simple and elegant solution to deal with large numbers of wizards.


As many conversations about Harry and Hermione's deeds were discussed by other parties, both of them tucked into their favourites at Peverell manor. The people who were assembled at the table did not ask any questions. For all the physique that the teenagers possessed when they were finished a small punch in the abdominal area could be seen on both of them.

"Thanks, everybody. We needed that. There are some things that we used, that give us advantages in battle but they cost us a lot of energy. After terrible missions like this, we will usually eat this much." Hermione replied as she spooned large amounts of cheesecake into her mouth.

"This is the first time nothing goes into the fridge! That is a new thing for me!" Amba replied as she hugged Harry and Hermione.

"Hey those extra meals you and aunty Molly packed, made it to those folks who were in bad condition. And before we gave them what was onboard, we didn't have to worry about being hungry. That was good." Harry commented.

"Very Good. Hermione? Any more dessert?" Amba asked.

"Oh, I am fine. If you call eating two cheesecakes by yourself….fine?" she replied as everyone laughed.

"Alright, you guys can scatter, this was nice. So happy to hear that the public is raving about the kitchen. We have preparations to make for the 22nd. It is a big day. And yes, we are going to rebuild the ship. We need something a bit bigger. We barely made it home in this thing." Harry insisted.

There was some more laughter, as the plates were cleared from the table and Harry and Hermione left to relax. Harry spent the rest of the night speaking to Lorna and Priya collectively as he recounted the mission and the problems they had faced. He explained that while the mission had been mostly okay, and an implement that he had designed had not managed with the unexpected demands.

"You will have to build another one, won't you? Whatever it is?" Priya asked.

"Mom, you will see for yourself.….it is a surprise!" Harry replied.