Chapter 2: On the Fly

Harry headed down the corridor of the Atlantean barracks that he and the other Guardians had taken up residency. Since the Guardians were an international agency it was decided that their headquarters couldn't be in any one nation. So the not-so-lost city of Atlantis provided perfect location that was secret, hidden from muggles and unclaimed by any one country.

"Cornish Pixie," Harry muttered to the door to the Redhawk squadron's wing of the building. The door swung open and he headed past the common to the meeting room. He entered the room to find that he was the last to arrive. Collins sat at the head of the table, and nodded to Harry as he took his seat between Ginny and Ryu.

"Now that you're all here." Collins grunted as he took a massive puff off the cigar in his mouth. "We can begin. Mr. Weasley, if you would."

"Righto." Ron said getting to his feet. "Well the boys and I down in R&D have come up with something." He picked up a long thin case and banged it onto the table. "That I think you guys are going to like." The case clicked open and a sleek, midnight black broom floated serenely out of the case and hovered a few inches above the table. The assembled witches and wizards oohed and ahhed appreciatively, if not a little sarcastically.

"Allow me to introduce you to the Guardian's new steed, the T-117 Tempest, perfectly balanced and aerodynamically honed to perfection. Zip to eighty in ten seconds."

"Vhat's the big deal?" Viktor scoffed. "My Hurricane can do the same thing." The hooked nosed Bulgarian was eyeing the shadow-colored broom with more than a little skepticism.

"That's all well and good, Mister Krum." Ron smirked. "But can your Hurricane match a top speed of two-hundred and fifty miles an hour?" Ron was now struggling to suppress the grin he had at the sight of the thirteen slack-jawed faces around him.

"Are you crazy?" Harry cried. "Nobody can survive speeds like that on a broom."

"Oh come on Harry, give your old mate a little more credit than that. Once the broom reaches any speed above ninety-five miles an hour a built in Protego shield charm activates, protecting the rider from any extreme wind velocity."

Now he had them impressed. "Also." The redhead continued, "The black diamond polish renders it nearly unbreakable."

"Nearly?" Procyon wondered, an eyebrow cocked quizzically.

"Well, one never knows." Ron muttered with a shrug. He grasped the broom in his hand and with a twist of the handle, pulled the brush into the broomstick and collapsed it down to a foot long. "For easy transportation." He explained.

"Ron, I daresay I think you have a winner here." Tonks said, shaking her shaggy ocean blue hair out of her eyes.

"Ah but you haven't seen the best part yet."

" Zhere's more?" Fleur blinked and leaned forward expectantly.

"Oh you'd better believe it." Ginny muttered with a roll of her eyes. "He wouldn't shut up about this part."

Choosing to ignore his sister, Ron instead took the collapsed broom in one hand and pointed it straight at Harry. He grinned at the look on his best friend's face then, "Accio glasses!" The glasses zipped right off Harry's face and into Ron's outstretched hands. And if the Guardians thought they'd been surprised before. It was nothing on how they were feeling now.

"You... turned that broom into a wand?" Asher was absolutely bugged eyed. Ron was almost intolerably smug with himself. After all, this had been his project. He was very pleased to have it all gone so well.

"It wasn't easy, but we've been working with some of the finest wand making families in the world; Ollivander, Gregorovitch, Romanoff, Periwinkle... I'm particularly proud of the core." He handed Harry his glasses back.

"Why?" Ami asked the hundred-dollar question. "What did you use?"

"Well, in order to create a wand this big it took some pretty powerful stuff. No ordinary Phoenix feather would do it, you know?" Harry thought that he probably wouldn't consider a phoenix ordinary by any means, but he kept this to himself.

"So we had to use something extraordinary. Like the tail feather of a Golden Phoenix, the feathers of a Nimbus Pegasus, the hair of a Black Unicorn and the heartstrings of a Tiamat Dragon."

Jack clutched at his chest dramatically. "Hang on a bit mate, I don't think my heart can take so many shocks at once."

"Where on Earth did you find such rare creatures?" Kara asked "Especially a Tiamat, I heard they live miles underground."

"It wasn't easy, but without the combined resources of several Ministries, it could have been a lot harder. The point is, we did find them and now we have a fairly good breeding stock to keep us supplied in order to make more of these brooms."

"Wait a minute." Harry interjected as a thought occurred to him. "No ordinary wood can hold that kind of magic, it would've exploded. What exactly are these brooms made out of?"

"Oh, nothing special," Ron said coolly, "Just an Archavia tree."

At this Jack clutched at his chest and dramatically fell out of his chair. Collins stood up and glanced down at the Aussie. "That's enough now, mister Randall."

"Where did you find a Life Tree?" John asked his murky white eyes wide.

"We've been growing several of them nearby, and watered by a Magic Font no less." They were all struck dumb, the sheer magical power represented in that broom was ... staggering.

Harry asked what they were all thinking, "So, when do we get to take them out for a spin?"

Collins got to his feet, the smoke from his cigar wreathing his face. "Precisely what I was thinking, Potter." He swept out of the room and the rest were left to follow in his wake. He led the Redhawk squadron into a massive room which, once the lights had been lit, was revealed to be an indoor Quidditch pitch.

"Excellent!" Harry grinned at Ron.

"One of the best ways to get used to a new broom, Quidditch." Collins puffed "However, since this is an Auror facility, we have to make things rough on you."

Harry cocked an eyebrow, how could Quidditch possibly be any more rough? It must've been something because Collins actually grinned, a little evilly if Harry wasn't mistaken.

Ron walked over to a large locker and threw the door open, instantly thirteen of the new Tempest brooms came flying out of it and floated over to the group, each one stopping in front of one of them. Ron already had his in his hands.

"They've each been keyed for one of you and will only work for you. Eventually everyone in the project will have one of these brooms, just in case we need to escape the island quickly, but since they were my design-" Ron puffed his chest out proudly. "We get the first batch of them."

Harry reached out and took hold of the broom. It was absolutely flawless in design, well, as far as he could tell anyway. He let go of the broom and it floated horizontally about two feet of the ground, a perfect height to mount.

"All right. You all know how Quidditch is played, but suffice it to say, Auror quidditch is just a little different. We've devised new rules to challenge each and every position. He gave his wand a little wave and a quidditch ball crate appeared out of thin air. He kicked the top open and they could all see the quaffle and the snitch and three bludgers.

... Wait a minute. "Why are there three bludgers?" Jack wondered eyeing the three black spheres straining to escape their harnesses.

"Makes the game more interesting." Collins said with a wink. "But first, let's get you into teams." He reached into the case and withdrew four Beater bats. "Hmm... Tonks, Black you'll be beaters for team One." He tossed them each a bat. "Ryu and Jack team two." The Aussie caught his bat with a grin, and Ryu did the same without a word, of course that's because he did everything without a word.

"Ginny, John and Kara, Chasers, team one. Ramirez, Ami and Fleur, chasers for team two."

"Ron and Michael, you play Keeper, and that leaves Viktor and Harry to play seeker."

"Well there's a bloody surprise." Ron muttered to Ginny out of the corner of his mouth.

"Wait a minute jefe." Javier shook his head. "What's up with these teams?"

"Whatever do you mean Ramirez?" Collins asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"Well, what is this? Britain and the U.S against the rest of the world?"

"Isn't it always that way?" Jack said with a laugh. "Who cares? Let's play."

"You mentioned some rule changes?" Tonks prompted, in the hopes of getting on with the exercise.

"Oh not really rule changes per se', we've just added a few extra elements."

"You mean besides the extra bludger." Black muttered.

"Precisely." Collins said with a smirk. He pointed his wand at the six goalposts, immediately the goal hoops began to slide up and down on their posts.

"Oh that's just bloody fantastic." Ron muttered. "As if three hoops wasn't enough to watch."

"Welcome to the Auror Corps mate." Harry grinned at his friend. "If things are tough, we make `em harder for the fun of it."

"Brilliant Harry." Ron said sarcastically.

Collins continued with his speech while he took the quaffle out of the box and tossed it lightly to John. "Hang on to that for a second would ya?"

"Erm," John looked warily at his C.O. "...Okay."

"Now the Quaffle, well let's just say that if you don't pass it in five seconds-" John suddenly let out a cry of pain and dropped the ball, they all could see his hands smoking slightly. "-It'll electrify itself. This in no way means that you have to pass, you could hang on to the ball and deal with the voltage. This is known as `Riding the Lightning.'"

"That's twisted." Ginny said, wide eyed.

"That's the point, luv." Jack said with a wicked grin as he threw his arm around Ginny's shoulder. "But I suppose it's not too late for you to back out if you're scared."

Ginny turned on him eyes flashing. "Who you calling scared, kangaroo rustler?"

Jack held up his hands. "All I was saying is Quidditch isn't a sport for a Florence Nightingale."

Ron was about to give him a piece of his mind. When Harry and John pulled him back. "Hang on a second, you won't want to miss this." John muttered in his ear.

"Oh really?" Ginny glared as she whipped out her wand "Nox Occulis!" A jet of purple light shot out of Ginny's wand and straight into Jack's eyes.

"Bloody Hell!" Jack shouted. "I can't see! What'd you do that for?"

"So you couldn't see me do this!" And Ginny struck.

Javier winced. "Ooh, damn! Right in the cahones."

"Finite Incantatem." Ginny muttered, and Jack could see again... if his eyes weren't screwed shut in pain.

Ron smirked in a bemused sort of way. "That'll teach him to test her temper."

"No doubt." John agreed. "That's one hell of a sister you got there."

"Right, not that that wasn't extremely amusing, but let's all give Jack a chance to fish around his ribcage for his er... pride, shall we? Besides this is important." Collins once again reached into his case and removed what looked like two bludgers made of amethyst with glowing red cores. "These are called Stingers, and they may look like a couple of fancy bludgers but trust me, these things are far more annoying.

Like Bludgers, these things fly around the field, attacking players indiscriminately, and like Bludgers the beaters can smack these things around. However, and this is the fun part, these suckers can cast magic spells."

"What?!" Fleur snapped. "Isn't zat a little dangerous?"

"Well, they're not able to cast anything major. Mostly just schoolyard curses. However their major annoyance lies in their ability to reflect and absorb magic nearby them."

"And finally, to royally screw the Seekers...?" John prompted, because he knew that was what was next.

"And for the seekers, we've got a surprise." Collins said as though he hadn't heard John, and reached into the case, behind the bludgers and took out what looked like three golden marbles, each the size of a walnut, and each with a pair of gossamer wings. "Gentlemen," He said to Viktor and Harry, "Could you tell me what these are?"

"They are Golden Snitches, obviously." Krum said with a scowl.

"No, this one is a Snitch." He held one of them in his left hand. "These," He rolled the other two in his palm until their undersides were showing, where they could see that each had a small red dot. "Are called Sneaks. And they're absolutely worthless if you catch them."

"So all that glitters is not gold. Got that Harry?" Kara said with a nudge. Harry grinned.

"Got it. Let's play."

Next thing any of them knew the doors leading into the stands burst open and all the rest of the Squadrons in Guardian packed into the stands until they had a full house.

"Whoa whoa, whoa." Asher looked around in a panic. "What's this?"

"A bit of an exhibition. To show off the broom's capabilities. Now, if you guys don't mind, I'll be up in the announcer's booth." He turned to go, but then turned back.

"I almost forgot." He waved his wand and The Brits and Yanks were dressed in Quidditch robes of red and blue and the Internationals in green and yellow.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN" Collins' magically enhanced voice rang out through the stadium. "WELCOME TO TODAY'S MATCH-UP. IN THE BLUE AND RED WE HAVE, REPRESENTING BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES, WEASLEY, BLACK, TONKS, SCREIBB, SCREIBB, WEASLEY AND POTTER!" Harry and his team mounted their brooms and lifted into the air where they began to circle the pitch.

"AND REPRESENTING THE REST OF THE WORLD IN THE GREEN AND YELLOW: ASHER, RAMIREZ, RANDALL, DELACOUR, MIAZUKI, QUING-LONG AND KRUM!" Those dressed in green and yellow soared into the air to join the other team as they zipped around the pitch for a moment before both teams took up starting positions.

In a second the Quaffle was launched into the air and the other eight balls flew into the air and began to soar around the pitch, the Sneaks and Snitch were soon lost to sight. Meanwhile Ginny had swooped down and snatched the Quaffle and began zooming down the pitch toward the opposing goals, mentally ticking off the seconds in her head. As soon as she got to four she chucked the Quaffle in a sideways pass to John, who caught it and pulled his broom into a vertical ascension. He looked back to see that Ramirez was following him in the climb, so John threw the Quaffle over his shoulder, it dropped straight down past a surprised Javier and right into the hands of Kara who'd been waiting to shoot it straight past Asher and into the goal.

"AND THE SCREIBBS PULL OFF A PERFECTLY EXECUTED `STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN' PLAY TO PUT THE RED TEAM IN AN EARLY LEAD OF TEN-NOTHING."

Fleur took possession of the Quaffle and led the attack towards the Red goal, Procyon immediately pelted a bludger in her direction, which she pulled into a barrel roll to avoid, but unfortunately this caused her to drop the Quaffle. She was swearing heavily in French as Ginny swooped in and snatched the ball a few millimeters from the ground.

Jack flew up next to Ramirez as the two of them sped after Ginny to try and retake the Quaffle, "Watch out for that Ginny." Jack shouted over the sound of the wind in their ears. "She's one crazy Sheila!"

"Ah you're just mad because she re-arranged your family jewels" Ramirez laughed as he sped ahead and pulled up alongside Ginny, reaching out and attempting to wrench the Quaffle from her grasp, Ginny wasn't making it easy and soon the found themselves in a high-speed mid-air tug-o-war. Unfortunately neither of them were paying attention to the time and next thing either of them knew sparks and lightning were dancing up their arms.

"AND THERE GOES THE LIGHTNING!" Collins voice rang out from the announcer's booth as his unending color commentary continued. "CAN THESE TWO CHASERS MANAGE TO RIDE THE LIGHTNING LONG ENOUGH TO TAKE THE QUAFFLE?"

That particular decision was taken out of their hands by Tonks, who aimed a perfect bludger strike at the pair of them that expertly knocked the Quaffle out of their hands and towards the Red goal. Fortunately Ron was quick and managed to catch the ball before an embarrassing score had been made.

"You couldn't have launched it in the OTHER DIRECTION?" He shouted as Tonks flew by.

"Sorry Ron!" She shouted back. There was a collective gasp as both teams' seekers suddenly took a steep dive towards the ground... at opposite ends of the field. Harry squinted against the wind and focused on the glint of gold that was directly in front of him. He stretched out his left hand while keeping his right gripped tightly on his broomstick. "Just... a little... further." His teeth gritted and ...There! His fingers closed around the pesky little golden ball. He took a glance at it though and immediately threw it away in disgust. "Damn bloody Sneaks!" He grunted, he was mollified slightly buy the fact that Krum had had the same luck he had. He looked, if it were possible, even more disgruntled than Harry was.

Meanwhile Fleur was once again attempting to get a drop on Ron for a score. It looked for a moment like she was just going for a straight shot on him, which Ron was more than ready for. Ron didn't realize that the hoops had moved behind him, so he was totally unprepared for Fleur to toss the Quaffle up to Ramirez who put a scoring shot into one of the side hoops. Tying the score up at ten apiece.

Kara took the Quaffle for the red team and led the charge towards the hoops on the other end. Jack, obviously hoping to catch her unawares pelted the Bludger straight at the back of her head. It looked like he might succeed too, but at the last second a Shield charm formed a protective bubble around her and the Bludger bounced off harmlessly.

Unfortunately the Stinger that Ryu sent after it stripped away he shield, and a second Bludger hit it's mark and struck Kara in the small of her back. She bit her lip in pain, but managed to keep hold of the Quaffle and keep flying. She also noticed Fleur, Ami and Javier were keeping a close tail on her, so she Quickly passed it to John who was coming towards her, and kept flying in the opposite direction.

"What the...?" Ramirez pulled his broom into a tight turn as he suddenly realized the Quaffle was heading the other way. Just as soon as the three Chaser's had turned around, the saw Ginny coming back towards them, and now she had the Quaffle.

"WOW! IT LOOKS LIKE THE RED TEAM IS PULLING A LITTLE THREE-CARD MONTE DOWN ON THE PITCH, THE GREEN CHASERS HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON."

The red chasers were nothing more than a blur as they passed the quaffle between them and the green team was hard pressed to discern exactly where it was now. The three chasers were bearing down on the goal-posts, Asher was circling the three rings nervously as he had no idea where the ball was nor which hoop it was going to attempt to pass through. He had only seconds to decide.

Suddenly he saw John cock his arm back for a throw. John had only just gotten his throw off before all three bludgers came pelting at them, one a piece. It was too late though; John had gotten his shot off just in the nick of time. The shot looked like it had gone wild for a second, then Asher watched with mouth agape as another scarlet clad uniform swooped in from behind the goalposts, grabbed the Quaffle and dunked it into the left hoop.

"I DON'T BELIEVE THIS!" Collins was positively jumping from excitement. "THE RED SEEKER HAS JUST SCORED A GOAL! THAT'S RIGHT, HARRY POTTER HAS JUST SCORED TEN POINTS FOR THE RED TEAM. I'VE NEVER SEEN THAT HAPPEN BEFORE!"

John flew up besides Asher and shot him a grin. "In Three-Card Monte, you always look for the fourth card." And then he sped off to rejoin the game.

"AMI MIAZUKI TAKES THE QUAFFLE FOR THE GREEN TEAM. AND LOOK AT HER FLY! I HAVEN'T SEEN FLYING LIKE THAT SINCE IRELAND'S KELLY MORAN BACK IN `94" Ami's flying style could almost be described as ... near suicidal. She kept the Quaffle clutched close to her, and every time her five seconds were up, she would toss the Quaffle into the air briefly and catch it. There was always no one near her to pass too, indeed none of the other chasers on her team were insane enough to try and keep up with her as it was. She pulled her broom up and up, until she was soaring near the roof of the stadium.

She stopped there for an instant, glancing around for an instant, she maneuvered her body until she was standing on the broom, then pulled into a steep dive that was worthy of a seeker. So there she was, standing upright on a diving broom, looking very much like a muggle snowboarder. As she reentered normal playing height she started dodging and weaving between the other players and bludgers, but she wasn't getting any nearer to the goal. It was almost like she was looking for something.

Ami saw a bludger flying at her out of the corner of her eye. She waited until the absolute last second, and then leaped off her broom and over the bludger. She easily regained her standing position on her broom as it passed.

It seemed after that that she had found what she'd been looking for, she turned and began zooming straight towards a Stinger. She lined the point of her broomstick perfectly with the blue-purple orb.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" She shouted and a pure white ball of light shot out of her broomstick and straight at the Stinger The Stinger sensing magic nearing it, put up a protective red barrier which reflected the spell right back at Ami.

Ami smiled as if that was exactly what she'd wanted to happen. Before the spell could hit her she tucked the quaffle, which was just starting to shoot off sparks, between her knees, and grabbed the hem of her robes in both her hands. The spell hit and she went flying up, up, up, off her broom, after she had reached a considerable height, gravity took over and she began to fall back towards earth, her long hair streaming out behind her like a midnight banner. She spread her arms wide and the cloak of her robes became like a makeshift parachute. She was able to control her descent slightly and, much to Ron's dismay, she was heading straight for the Red goals.

Ron debated with himself for a moment. Then decided that ten points was not worth getting bowled over by a human missle. He dove out of the way as Ami shot towards him, arms outstretched, holding a sparkling Quaffle between them. As soon as she drew level with the goal, she threw the ball into the hoop, grabbed onto to the hoop itself with both hands. Her momentum swung her up and back through the hoop, at which point she grabbed onto the pole and slid on it back down to the ground. Her broom flew down to meet her, at which point she calmly remounted, normally this time.

"Great." John muttered out of the corner of his mouth to his wife. "We've got an adrenaline junkie in our squad."

"You gotta admit though," Kara replied, with a mischievous grin. "That was really cool."

"I REALLY HOPE NONE OF YOU BLINKED DURING THAT BECAUSE YOU WILL NEVER SEE A MOVE LIKE THAT AGAIN!" Collin's magically amplified voice rang out through the stadium. "THE SCORE HAS NOW BEEN TIED ONCE AGAIN AT TWENTY POINTS A PIECE."

The use of Ami's levitating charm seemed to remind them all that their brooms also functioned as wands. Soon there were all sorts of spells flying around the field left and right.

"Accio Quaffle!" John cried effectively stealing the ball away from Fleur which was then blasted out of his hands by Javier's Impedimenta spell.

"AND THIS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IS WHY WANDS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN REGULATION QUIDDITCH MATCHES. I'D ALSO LIKE TO REMIND THE PLAYERS THAT IF THEY DO ANYTHING STUPID, THEY WILL NOT LIKE THE CONSEQUENCES."

John flashed a grin. "YES JOHN, I'M ESPECIALLY TALKING TO YOU."

Harry was still flying above the game looking for the Snitch. Every time he'd seen even a glimpse of it, it had flown away too fast or, it had been one of those blasted Sneaks. But this time he'd spotted all three of the tricky little blighters, the only problem now was deciding which of them was the real Snitch.

"That one Harry!" John shouted pointing at one of the little golden balls. Harry, having nothing else to go on, and slightly relieved at having the problem taken out of his hands, sped off towards it. Krum wasn't about to let him have it so easily however, and dove after him.

Harry was soaring a few meters above the Snitch and was just to dive down and grab it when he heard Krum's voice bellow from somewhere behind him, "Expelliarmus!" And the next thing Harry knew he was falling in mid-air as his broom suddenly got jerked out from under him. He fell for a moment, before he regained his wits and transformed. Then he flapped his wings once and continued to dive after the Snitch. In a few seconds he was able to stretch out his talons and grasp the golden ball firmly in one claw.

You see, a few years after Harry had graduated from Hogwarts he decided to carry on what he considered a family tradition and became an Animagus, (although he broke tradition slightly and actually registered with the Ministry. ...It would've looked bad on his Auror record otherwise.) Now he was winging his way down to the ground of the pitch in the form of a Peregrine Falcon, with the snitch in one talon, he saw the rest of the squadron waiting for him, now that the game was over.

He circled the group and Ron grinned up at him. "Good catch Harry. Probably your best yet."

Harry let out a loud screech and dropped the now docile snitch into Collins' hands as he was putting all the balls away. People were starting to clear out of the stadium, now that the game had been finished.

"Well done all of you." Collins said as he puffed on a new cigar. Harry circled once and then transformed back into himself, landing rather ungracefully back on the ground. Ginny helped him to his feet with wry smile and a roll of the eyes.

"Now then, get yourselves cleaned up and report to the meeting room in half an hour." Collins grunted again as smoke wreathed his head. "Dismissed."

Ginny gave Harry's side a nudge as the group headed back to the Redhawk's quarters. "That was a nice catch there, Fledge."

Harry grinned at her. "Well, thank you very much." Someone said the password and all fourteen of them tromped into the commons and then off to their personal quarters to get changed.

A half an hour later they were all sitting in the meeting room waiting for Collin's to begin. He took another puff on his cigar, cleared his throat and looked each of them in the eye before beginning.

"Right, here's how it's going to work. We don't expect you to spend the rest of your lives here in Atlantis, of course. So tomorrow you will be allowed to return home. However, Each squadron will be required to spend one week here on base each month, in fact at any given time there will be three squadrons on duty. The other commanders and I have worked out a schedule for the next month which will be owled to you all soon. Now, since obviously you cannot Apparate or Disapparate from Atlantis, we've created special Portkeys for you all to use." He withdrew a number chains, each with a small pendant hanging from it, in the shape of a hawk gripping a sword and passed them out to each of them. "They can be activated at any time, but only by a member of Guardian. If you are needed to report to the base it will grow warm for a moment, and you will have approximately three minutes to activate the Portkey before it activates itself.

"Now I have a few other things to issue you all. The first thing is your mission kits. They are a little more advanced than the kits you received from your country divisions. They contain the following items." He read off a list as Ron handed the kits out.

"Each of you has an invisibility cloak, a magical lock picker, magical flight goggles, a time turner, an endless rope and an extendable ear, which were invented by Mr. Weasley's brothers I believe. Included also are a number of potions, including three doses of Veritaserum, Polyjuice and several sense enhancing drafts. Jack since you're the team's Legillimens, yours also contains a portable Pensieve to record the thoughts you see in others' heads. This is just a basic over view of what are in these kits, other items maybe added later as circumstances require. However, that is not necessary at this time. Dismissed.