All characters are either © JK Rowling/Bloomsbury publishing or © Hideo Koijima/Konami/KCE Japan. I do not own either the PotterVerse or the MetalGearVerse.
Any characters created by the author are © the author. Please note that the timeline has been adjusted by about 15 years or so to account for the events played out in MGS: Sons Of Liberty. Inspired in part by Ruskbyte's brilliant story Backwards Compatible. Enjoy!
Metal Gear Potter Chapter 2: Introductions, Preparations
It was a night fit for evil, a night upon which no sane man would risk setting foot outside his warm house, if indeed he was lucky enough to possess such a place.
Aberforth Dumbledore, however, was not. He was currently sitting on a crate inside a freezing, smelly hut surrounded by mothballs and various bits of muggle gardening kit. The two tiny, filthy plastic windows offered a view of not very much at all, save a sodden and thoroughly pummelled field. Rain was seeping through the cracks in the badly tarred roof, plopping onto his head in a great glob once in a while. Six and a half feet tall, with a beard not quite matching the fullness of his brother's, he wore the resigned look of the perpetually bored. He'd been waiting for an hour. It felt like six days.
Cursing for the hundredth time that night his total inability to perform any sort of magic whilst in this god-forsaken shed, he adjusted his horrible plastic mac, checked the oil in his rusty lamp and shifted on the ancient, splintery crate. It was marked "Fertiliser" and smelt it. Hopefully his guest would hurry up. Any longer and he'd start rotting along with the rest of the mouldy old kit in here. Kicking a clod of earth that had survived the last cleanout – whenever that had been – he looked it over for the sixtee – no, seventeenth time that night.
Lawnmower. Pruning shears. Barbeque. Rake. A thin fencing stake with an incredibly naff carving of a robin on the top. He glared resentfully at the figure. In his current state of mind-numbing boredom he was prepared to swear that the vile thing was glaring back. God he was bored.
He'd just started counting the number of badly-set planks in the wall when the door suddenly swung open, instantly turning the already cold and damp hut into a freezing, soaking and very private hell. The door shut again with a creak. There was the sound of someone sitting down on another of the rickety old crates, one apparently on the other side of the room.
"Took you long enough" he muttered to no one in particular.
There was silence. Aberforth continued to look opposite him into apparently thin air.
The thin air spoke, a gruff American voice.
"Kept you waiting, huh?"
Aberforth sighed in resignation. "I suppose you were delayed?"
"A little beauty sleep never hurt anyone." The disembodied voice betrayed no emotion save possibly a hint of black humour.
"Oh dear. How many?"
"Just two. I tagged them straight to the Ministry. Someone will doubtless be coping with a couple of very confused and sleepy Eaters soon".
"Any others?"
"I swept the area. There was nothing else there."
"Oh, good. Just a regular patrol then. Would you mind deactivating that thing? I'm getting a headache. Not everyone is comfortable taking to empty space you know."
With that, there was a noise that could have possibly been described at "bleep!" going through a broken synthesizer backwards. Upon the crate appeared a man wearing a navy combat suit of sorts with a blue bandanna tied around his head. His hair was four to five inches long, a dull brown. The face was finely chiselled, the eyes brown and piercing. His body was lean and apparently muscled but not overly tall. A pistol was strapped to his side in a simple holster. Against all the odds – and here Aberforth looked out of the window – yes, still pissing down outside - somehow he had managed to stay dry. Remarkable.
Aberforth cleared his throat. "You're the one my brother asked for help?"
The man nodded. "We'd better make some space," he commented. "You know better than me how inaccurate this system is."
Aberforth nodded and kicked the shears to one side. He took out a classical-looking watch and studied it intently, for a moment looking exactly like a decade-younger version of his brother instead of a decade-younger, washed-out one.
"Three, two, one..."
There was a flash of blue between them as a giant metal paperclip dropped out of the air. It hit the shears with a clang. Aberforth's eyes went wide with shock. Another flash in exactly the same place a moment later deposited a pen onto the floor, quickly followed by - flash! - a teddy bear - flash! - a magnifying glass – flash! flash! flash! a doorknob, a packet of cigarettes and what appeared to be a packet of lemon drops.
The air stilled, twisted, flashed once more and, with a noise a bit like "spoing! gone very badly wrong, forcefully ejected a mass of tiny, multicoloured ball bearings. They rocketed around the place, bouncing off the walls and floor. One ricocheted off Aberforth's long nose. The effect on the man opposite him was remarkable. He froze, unmoving, until with a final tinkle, the chaos ceased. His face relaxed from a rictus of horror to a look of utter relief.
"Damn", he breathed.
"What? It all came through, didn't it?" Aberforth was puzzled.
"That last lot was the grenades."
Aberforth froze. "You asked Albus to transfigure grenades? You asked him to portkey transfigured grenades? You asked him to portkey transfigured grenades in mid-air into a shed in the middle of nowhere containing his own dear brother and he accepted?!"
"Last time I checked, ball bearings don't explode".
"That's not the point!" Aberforth glared at the man. "Do you have any idea how unstable transfigured explosives are? They could have transformed back and we could have been blown to bits!"
The man glared. "It was the only way to get them here without them being detected – by my people or yours. You know how tight the gun laws in this country are, right? And I doubt that the Ministry would find Albus's possession of these things" he indicated the items on the ground "very amusing."
"You don't even know what they are yet."
Aberforth gave up. "No but I can guess. And we really should get out of here before I catch something." Now that his...guest...had removed any prying eyes in the vicinity he was no longer bound by the "no magic" rule. It wasn't as if Riddle's lot would come to investigate. Maybe they'd miss two of their number in the morning, but not until then, certainly. He quickly summoned the ball bearings and the other items into the pockets of his mac. The man rose to his feet, reaching for the door. Aberforth took a ping pong ball out of another pocket.
"We'll take this. It's faster." He peered out of the window. "And drier, too."
The man nodded once and reached out a finger. They vanished in a blue flash.
---------------------------------------------------
Albus Dumbledore was worried. He paced his tower-top room in frustration, the small silver engines ticking and whirring industriously around him. The wards had been modified, everything was in order, and yet they were late. Had they run into something unexpected? Or worse, had he sent Aberforth and their ally into a trap? No... that was impossible. He knew that both of them were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, each in his own special way.
No. He just had to ask.
"Falmore? Are you awake?"
A portrait of a calm-looking, blue-suit clad man looked his way. "As always, Albus."
"I fear the worst. The meeting may have been compromised."
"There is always that possibility. Do not worry. He's the very best there is. Both of them together are indeed a force not to be lightly reckoned with, and your brother, while he may be a little... eccentric, knows exactly how this kind of thing goes. They will be here soon."
"Your words comfort me as always." But Albus would not rest until they had arrived.
He felt the tingle before he saw the flash. Both men landed in the centre of the room, Aberforth wavering a little on his feet and the other man stumbling slightly. He was glad to see that both were unmarked and unharmed.
"Excellent. I trust that there was no problem?" Thank Merlin for that.
"Nothing that couldn't be taken care of. You might want to check tomorrow's Prophet though. The Ministry had a couple of special deliveries tonight." Aberforth, though tired from hours of boredom, actually smiled at his own joke. The three of them settled into chairs as Albus floated a tea-tray over.
"The items arrived on time?"
"About that, Albus. How many times have I told you that it is unwise to interfere with Muggle explosives? You know the risks, for pity's sake... oh never mind. Here they are." He turned out his pockets onto the table in the centre of the room. "You really should have at least put the bearings in a jar or something, even if an unbreakable charm would have had no effect at all. I had to summon them from all over that blasted hut."
Albus's eyes twinkled. "I had to recover and transfigure them from the... ah – cache quite suddenly. Bringing them here would have been risky at best. The Ministry tends to turn a blind eye towards any visitors I may have, but the sudden appearance of muggle weapons at Hogwarts without their destined user would have caused far too many complications." He turned towards the man sitting in the armchair. He was alert yet relaxed. "Shall we?" Albus asked.
He nodded "Do the smallest ones first. I don't want to give your brother a heart attack. I've seen too many of those."
Albus drew his wand and tapped one of the blue ball bearings. A canister appeared in its place, the words "Property of HM Army" stencilled in white along one side.
"Hmm, blue for the electric ones, if I remember what we said correctly?" From across the room, a nod. Aberforth looked on, intrigued despite himself.
Another tap, this time on a shiny metal bearing, produced another canister. "Stun?" Nod.
Tap. Something the size and shape of a small pineapple appeared. "Red for explosives?" Nod.
"I will move these somewhere more secure and detransfigure them later. What's next?"
"Pen" It became a sword, unornamented, plain and ever so slightly curved. It looked... modern, somehow.
"Doorknob". Albus tapped it and, like snakes freed from a hole, streams of metal began to flow across the table, eventually coagulating to form what Aberforth recognised as gun belts. How much damage was this man planning on inflicting?
"Paperclip." It became an assault rifle complete with silencer, a high-powered one as far as Aberforth could tell. Good God...
"We can leave the lemon drops and cigs. You only filled them with replenishing potion anyway, didn't you?" Albus nodded.
"In that case... teddy bear". Something about the way he said it caused Aberforth to tense up.
The table suddenly groaned as the cute fluffy bear turned into a portable missile launcher, barrel pointed straight towards him. He yelped involuntarily. "How much more of this kind of stuff did you bring?!"
"Just this" The man indicated the magnifying glass. Now truly afraid that his brother had indeed hired a maniac, Aberforth moved his chair backwards as much as possible.
The glass turned into a small light grey rectangle the size of a box of matches. It sat there innocuously on the table. It didn't seem dangerous at all.
"What's that?"
Albus moved his chair to one side of the office and handed the rectangle to the man, who hooked it into his clothes at the waist and then moved into a more open space. "This is what will win us the war," he said with a smile.
I can't possibly have heard that right, thought Aberforth. "What's so special about it?"
"I think a brief demonstration is in order. A simple stunner, don't you think?" Albus's eyes were twinkling like mad.
He's up to something... but what? His eyes opened wide as Albus muttered "Stupefy" under his breath and sent a red jet towards the standing man. He was perfectly calm. He didn't move.
He didn't need to. Thinking very hard about it afterwards (and telling his logical brain to shut up while he digested the seemingly impossible), Aberforth was eventually prepared to swear blind that he'd seen two things. One, that the hex had been aimed straight and true at the man's chest and that said man had not budged an inch. And Two, that the hex had somehow gone around him and buried itself in the wall behind.
"That's... not possible. You didn't even dodge! How....?" He was speechless. He'd only ever heard rumours of such a device, even in the Muggle world. It was taken about as seriously as Fwooper teeth. Which meant that the man currently standing before him had to be... Oh, no. It can't be! A dawning comprehension flooded his mind as he raced back over the rumours of certain events from a year ago. Sword... Camouflage... Deflector... so they were true... and somehow, it works here too...
Albus Dumbledore stood firmly between the two men and addressed each of them in turn. "You already know my brother. Aberforth, I'd like you to meet the man they call Solid Snake."