Catcher

A/N; I know a lot about ships and weapons the Navy uses, but very little about British Army so I apologise for the mistakes that I know will be in this chapter. If anyone more knowledgeable about the subject reads this then please send me an email or review to tell me how to correct them. Thanks

Chapter 23; The Danus I

Every Magical Being within a hundred miles felt the surge of Magic and felt the cry of fury that Matt released as his hand had gone to his Staff. On the Burning Wind there was total chaos. Matt was trying to recover from the pull of his bond. He knew it was trying to take some of his own life force in order to stabilise Harry and he willingly gave it across.

As he sat on the floor with Harry's head on his lap he let the medics tend to the wound. It didn't look easy, the knives that the Elves carried were serrated along one edge and Ron had pulled it out just after stabbing it in causing more damage than a normal knife would have.

Captain Pelaty was beside himself with anger. "Drop the lines for the next students. Put these ones in the brig and take the new ones there as soon as they are on deck." He yelled at the Ships Crew. Only a couple of the students tried to resist and were knocked out with a baton.

He turned to look at the blood covered scene, two bodies and his Lord cradling the head of their leader. He looked at a deck hand. "Take the assassins body below," he then grabbed the communication stone, "Avrilon this is Burning Wind, Over!"

A few seconds later a voice came back, the words just audible over the sounds of gunfire. "This is Avrilon, Over!"

"Be advised, command has fallen to myself…Captain Pelaty, please acknowledge, over!"

"Understood, what happened?"

"One of the students attempted to assassinate Our Lord Catcher, and as such neither Lord is capable of taking command at this time. Dip your colours for the time being! What is happening over there?"

Hogwarts Outer Wall

Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagle watched in curiosity as the Avrilon did another quick turn as it reached one end of its patrol route and started heading away, it was then that they saw that the Ensign flying of its Stern, a gold star in a blue background, was dipped so that it flew only three quarters of its usual height.

"Albus, why do you think they have done that?" Minerva asked.

"As far as I know it is a Muggle Tradition, it must have come from the Elves if they are doing it," He answered pondering the implications, "It is done if someone of importance has died, for them to have done it know means that someone they think is important is dead or severely wounded. One of their Lords I would assume."

"You don't think Harry is hurt do you?" She sounded extremely worried, "How? We can see the Danus, who else could hurt him so?"

"I fear that it is one of us, my dear Minerva, I can think of no other. I would know if Tom had returned."

Before either could say more they heard the sounds of Explosions and turned to the inferno of flames that had erupted around the end of the path in front of them.

"At least the Elves are still willing to fight for us." Albus said trying to keep the emotion from his voice.

Apache 181

The radio crackled in his ear, easy audible over the gunfire trying to block the target as he hovered hidden and silent, his Apache Helicopter upgraded with silent rotors and engine, easily one of the most dangerous weapons in modern warfare.

"181! Engage target from maximum range! Full arsenal! Out"

Major Tom Dale pulled up on the Rotor controls as the voice cut out, he had his orders. His Apache leapt up over the rise in the hills and he hesitated for only a second so his radar could sort out the new targets and discard the friendlies.

On his Heads-Up-Display one red triangle stood barely moving contrasted by the many green circles that marked the infantry trying to slow the progress of this man. He saw through his screen the weapons shots as they had barely more effect than slowing the target as he built a wall of light to deflect the small lead bullets.

His hesitation over he fired his weapons, he did as orders said and fired his whole stock of ten Hellfires off of his rack. His Apache shuddered as the missile launched.

Once he knew all the rockets were launched he banked hard to the left and towards the Castle so that his target couldn't work out his position and send anything back at him. He loved his Apache and had no wish to lose it or his life.

Meanwhile on the path the Infantry fell back as they heard the order in their ears and grinned as they saw the pairs of Hellfires coming towards their target. Each lifted slightly so they had higher elevation that made them impossible to dodge as they hit the ground at the Danus's feet. It was taken completely off guard by the attack, concentrating too hard on the hundreds of bullets aimed at it. The first two missiles became fireballs on his shield blasting it to oblivion. The next pair he just managed to dodge by leaping to the side, being caught by the edge of the explosion. And for what seemed like an eternity to the Infantry an inferno raged in front of them as missile upon missile flew into shields and some diverted to the forest.

The men winced as five of their comrades were blown out of their temporary foxhole by a diverted Hellfire.

The inferno raged for a few more seconds before it died out, and smoke filled their senses. A radio next to the commander crackled into life.

"Alpha Company, radio still shows an enemy target, do you have a visual? Over."

The commanding officer peered into the smoke and dirt and tried to see.

"Negative, we cant see anything. Request permission to fall back out of this smoke!" The Captain replied.

"Fall back to Castle Gates!" There was a brief pause. "181, cover infantry in fall back!"

They heard a distant "Roger, Out!" but they were already moving.

Avrilon

Captain Gullen turned to his Executive officer as he saw the infantry pull out.

"Ready the Artillery!" His artillery was ten specially designed cannons down the centre of his ship under the deck that could fire three times the distance of any long range cannon. Five seconds after his order he could here the ports opening on the deck, they slide back to allow the barrels of the ten cannons to be raised so they protruded from the deck. Each was almost ten inches wide and could fire explosive cannon balls.

He turned to the Helmsman, "Change course and settle in cannon range of the Castle Gate."

He turned to the fighting, he could station by the gate so that his normal cannons could fire down the path whilst his Artillery could strike presently.

"Midships Battery ready Sir!" He heard the cry of his gunner.

He could see the Helicopter firing now into the cloud of smoke. He had talked to the Military General of the muggles and new of its Radar. Its guns not slowed or ineffective in the smoke as his own are. The machine gun blaring as it fired at an unseen target. It was evident that the shots hit their target as a silver light glowed fiercely from the smoke.

He turned to his Gunner, "Aim where the path exits the smoke and await my orders!"

He saw the guns alter slightly before turning to the communications device and tapped it once.

"General Granger, this is the Avrilon, we will open fire as soon as the target is sighted." He waited for the acknowledgement before turning back to the smoke. He only had to wait ten second before he knew that the target was only a few steps from the edge of the smoke.

Apache 181

Tom Dale could not see his target but the red triangle on his display showed that his radar did and he fired thousands of uranium tipped rounds at the target. In utter disbelief that his beliefs were torn apart. In a muggle war there was very few things on land that would stand a chance against his Apache and if it was properly equipped he could even take down a plane.

But this single man was still moving, if only a few inches at a time, under a rain of bullets when only a few of the shots could explode a fully armoured tank.

"181, bewared of friendly artillery fire inbound on bearing 030, out!"

He swivelled his Apache forty-five degrees to the left so that his gun fire didn't stop and looked out of the side window. He saw the ship just as the radar 'saw' it and labelled it red. It didn't have clearance as far as his Apache knew. He flipped on his radar control screen and quickly 'safetied' out this new threat so that he didn't shot it. As he watched he saw the deck of the ship cloud over in white smoke.

He remembered the old shows at ruined forts and recognised it as cannon fire. He looked at where his HUD still showed his target to be and was the first person to see the Danus after his Hellfire strike.

He heard the whine of cannon fire and wrenched backwards on the stick as he took his finger off the trigger. His Apache roared backwards away from the track of the artillery. And he watched in satisfaction as he saw the Danus thrown to the side as the explosions of ten cannon balls went off around its feet.

The radar showed the Danus stopped moving again in the new cloud of quickly dispersing smoke. He decided to be the eyes of the task force and clicked on his microphone.

"Target is not moving, repeat target is not moving! Over."

"Roger 181, maintain position."

Oh, how he hated that order. Sit and get shot at it meant. He saw the triangle move again and radioed in that it was on the move at the same time as opening fire with shot ten shot blasts to conserve his ammunition.

By the time he had shot a fifth time the Danus was out of the smoke, a circle flashed to his left on his HUD to warn him of artillery fire and his slight glance to check he was clear was all the Danus needed to recover from the onslaught of bullets. Tom Dale looked back at his target to see it unmoving and looking straight at him, he shivered at the enraged look in the man's face. The Danus raised his hand out towards the Apache and Tom saw a ripple in the air.

"Damn!" Tom swore as he jerked his stick towards him and to the right as well as hitting his hand against the rotor controls.

The Apache leapt to his command and shot upwards as the engine roared, powering over the silencers, and also spun to the right and backwards. He jerked the stick to the left to regain control and eased off the power as he spun his airship back to face the enemy.

In the confusion that had occurred the Danus had taken its chance. It had spun invisibility over itself and was lost to the radar systems.

"Target lost, I repeat target lost, switching to infrared camera." He said down the radio as he backed off from where he thought the target was. He heard another set of roars and realised his evasive manoeuvre had put him in the firing line. He abandoned finding the target and spun up and over the path to get clear of the blasts.

He had always prided himself over his quick eye and he just noticed the slight ripple in the air before his helicopter smacked upwards and it was impacted from below. He easily got control over it again as he thanks the Wizards that had coated the bottom of his Apache with spell to stop small attack but knew if he was hit again he might not be so lucky. He could see that his engine temperature had risen slightly but not enough to warrant abandoning his job.

He turned the aircraft to the left as the artillery struck the ground where the Danus should be, and switched to infrared camera and was rewarded by a figure of red and orange dead ahead, twenty metre further along the path then where the artillery was striking.

He decided he needed to inform the ship.

"Avrilon, this is Apache 181, drop forty and fire!" It was a few seconds before the artillery fired again and as it hit he changed his position so that he was constantly forty or so metres in front and to the side of the Danus, and fired a series of bursts from the cannon blind. His shots were less effective as they didn't have the radar to ensure that they hit but the tracers in with the rounds showed the Avrilon where the Danus was.

"181, this is field control, continue present actions but do not go within one hundred metres of the Castle Wall. Beware of low cannon fire in one hundred metres and Magical ordinance soon after that."

"Roger will pull out and take position on the targets nine in seven hundred metres. Out."

Hogwarts Outer Wall

Albus could see the Muggle Helicopter throwing its rounds at the ground, kicking up plumps of dirt and sand. And the almost ineffective artillery hitting the ground almost eight hundred metres away from them. The Aurors where now in place along the walls along with most of the Muggle Infantry spaced within them. Another few hundred metres was all that the Danus had to move before they could fire on it.

"Minerva, close the Gate!" All of the Infantry that were coming inside were now inside and those remaining outside could be seen heading in.

Minerva pushed a protruding Hogwarts crest into the Battlements and they heard the portcullises and the three gates slam shut. To get through he would have to take down one wooden door, then two iron portcullises with an iron door in the middle before another wooden door. All enchanted to be almost indestructible.

He could hear a few Aurors around him marvelling at the flying machines effectiveness. They had first been surprised when it had suddenly appeared and fired it's weapons before disappearing before they hit and then with the fact it could move with more agility then anything they had ever seen. A surprise to them when their training in Muggle warfare that they had received in the Auror Academy showed the Muggle Military to be ineffective and slow, showing pictures of tanks and slow aircraft.

The Danus was no in range of the Avrilon's normal cannons and twenty shots were fired at maximum range. Albus realised that although the ship was fast and could strike at long distances it was severely outclassed in close combat when it had to resort to normal weapons. It's artillery died off quickly after the Danus moved closer as the creature was to close.

But still with no visible marker it was hard to see what they were shooting at and it was ineffective. Albus himself had tried to disband the creature's invisibility but had come up with nothing that worked. Even a beacon was ineffective. If it got into close range it would be able to do devastation without it being seen.

That's when he saw the Army start to liven up. He heard the orders to fire and watched in amazement, and gasps form the Aurors as six lances of smoke launched from the ground at the front of the lines of Muggles below them.

The Danus was unsurprised though it seemed as the six rockets veered off course seconds after being launched. They seemed to go off course but then changed direction as they started to hurtle towards their target once more. Two crashed into a bright blue shield and two more onto a smaller shield of silver. The last two were only stopped close in but did a good thing regardless.

The invisibility dropped for a couple of seconds as the Danus lost control of himself and they could see him fly backwards onto the floor before he stood and step forwards into invisibility.

"They are Dragon Anti-tank Missiles." Said an Infantry man beside them, "Though not usually used on people they are directed by the firer so can be redirected at any time."

"Excellent." He remarked before returning to the fight in front of them.

He saw the Missiles shot a few more times but each time they fired the teams fell back to stay over the minimum range. It was just as a cry went up that the Danus was too close that a great roar of thunder went off. The ground that the Apache was still marking as where the Danus was turned into chaos as it was covered in explosions. People looked at the Avrilon to find out how it had fired so many cannons all of a sudden and were confused.

"It's the Burning Wind!" A cry went up from the very right group of the Aurors on the wall. Almost every turned to see the Burning Wind settled into the water, its shape blurred by white smoke from her forty-five cannons on her port side. She was halfway through a turn and within seconds they were looking at her starboard side. Many of Aurors on the right flank were forced to cover their ears as the sound of forty-five 18lb culverines firing.

They all looked forwards at the Danus to see that the cloud of dust was kicked up again before it had even settled. But eventually the explosions stopped at the dust clear. Almost three hundred metres away there was a single man crouched on the ground in obvious pain, unable to raise his invisibility again. The might of the Muggle and Elven armies combined had just about managed to bring this creature to its knees.

But to their horror it stood again. Albus sighed, he knew that Harry must have been the one wounded. The Burning Wind, like the Avrilon, had it's Ensign dipped. He only hoped that they could wage this war long enough to get Harry back on his feet.

Albus decided it was time to take this Battle onto a new front. It was time to turn this into a Magical fight. A four way war if you wanted, Albus had to chuckle earning himself a few looks, this really was going to be a war for the record books. The might of three worlds against one man and the person with a copy of Harry Potter's magic was winning.

He watched as another two broadsides erupted on the ground closer this time as the two Elven ships fired and thought. He closed his eyes and concentrated.

Every magical person felt it, a wash of magic and the dirt instantly settled. They could see the man for a second before a broadside hit it. A moment later and the dirt settled not to rise again. At last the Infantry and Aurors could fire. Their target finally visible without the invisibility and dirt to cover it.

A/N; So…what do you think? Next chapter will be all about the Magical part of the battle.

Thanks to; Obsessed-reader, Megumi Muse, Uten, Silver Slytherin, moodyboy66, and ThrainTalonwater.

Uten; Nope, Ron is just dead, I was trying to find a way to make it so that people didn't think he was coming back like Voldemort did and that he wasn't going to healed at the beginning of the next chapter like so many people do. Also I am not too sure about setting Harry up…I am not too good at doing relationships, I'm more of a slash person though. I wouldn't know the first place to start on writing sappy stuff!