Ch. 9 — The Conscience of the King
The Goblins sent another owl — this time they had discovered a ring. It had belonged to the Gaunt family, but the last of them had died in 1981, and the ring now rightfully belonged to Harry, they said, by right of conquest. Without mentioning a name, specifically, he thought they knew the objects they searched for were Voldemort's. Remembering what Tom had said in the Chamber, Harry knew this was Voldemort's family ring, which he told to Hermione.
"A personal item," she said, "Just like the diary."
It joined the other one in another silver box in a magically hidden compartment on the ship. And the Goblins said they had leads on two more.
"He must have made seven," Hemione said bleakly. "We have two, you destroyed one, and they have one. That's four. Counting himself that makes five. And the Goblins have general locations on two more." She looked up at Harry.
"We should destroy the ones we've found, so far," Harry firmly said. "We don't want him to somehow find them and get them back."
She nodded. "Well, the Goblins sent us our portion of the renderings, so we've got plenty of venom." She sighed, staring at the two boxes. "It seems such a shame to destroy the founder's items, though." Then her brow furrowed in thought. "What if," she mused, "we used the replicator first?" She started to get excited. "It wouldn't affect the spells on the originals." She looked at Harry eagerly. "But we'd have identical replicas that not even the founders would have been able to tell apart from the originals." Her expression dropped. "Apart from their spells, that is."
Harry couldn't help but grin. "An excellent thought!" Naturally, Hermione would want to save the precious artefacts. "We can just say the spells must have worn off so many years after their creation."
It didn't take long to suit actions to words. After duplicating them, and remembering Tom's spirit in the Chamber of Secrets, Harry enlisted Lee's help and had a small robot built. From a safe distance — several miles — they watched as the robot opened the lids on the silver boxes and poured a tiny quantity of venom on each item.
Naturally, that had been on one of Jupiter's moons, in a heated building they had quickly built. After all, they didn't want the venom to freeze solid before it even reached the two items!
Astonishingly, while the stone's setting for the Gaunts' ring, and the entirety of Helga's cup, were dissolved, the stone itself came out unscathed. Harry dropped it in his trunk, in a small silver box, for study at a later time. The original two silver boxes had holes dissolved through their bottoms, so they were tossed into the recycle supply room that the conjurator checked for raw materials first.
The goblet duplicate, with a note that it belonged to the Smith family, was placed in his trunk for safekeeping. The duplicated Gaunt ring he dropped beside it.
The goblet, and locket when the Goblins returned it, would be given to the Smiths, the owners that Riddle had stolen the items from, when the war was over. That way their sudden appearance wouldn't reveal to Voldemort that they had been recovered. Including Godric's sword in the Headmaster's Office, they had now located three of the four lost Founders' items.
██:::::██:::::██
On February First, Saturday, Cho took the ship out of Jupiter's orbit and they moved to Uranus instead. She exchanged their view of the great gas giant's impressive red-and-orange clouds that covered the planet's surface for the soothing blue visage of Uranus. Even with the sun being so much farther away than before, the ice giant still glowed against the blackness of space, and it made a visual that was in no way less impressive than those they'd seen before.
They could only stare in stunned surprise at the thirteen rings that encircled the planet.
"But Professor Aurora said there were five rings, not thirteen" Ron exclaimed. "Did you know it had more rings?" he said to Hermione. Hermione nodded. "The latest muggle astronomers said they had found six more. And that there are several fragments of rings." She pointed, "Look, there? Do you see the thin line there?"
The idea of going to Uranus was that they could stay there much more easily than they could at Jupiter — the atmospheric drag was less, and their orbital speed made it even more manageable. In addition, they could mine Uranus' various moons for many of the materials they needed. If necessary, they could move back to the asteroid belt for the harder to find elements. The Kuiper Belt, slightly beyond Neptune, was comprised primarily of ices and a few rock asteroids. But, in any case, at Uranus, they could concentrate less on the matter of getting helium-three, and more on what to do with the material they did get.
February was dismal, and Valentine's Day was only interesting because of the mysterious letter Hermione received, and the results it engendered. That was when Harry discovered that she hadn't been concentrating solely on the ship and school work.
"Listen, Harry," she said, looking up at him with narrowed eyes. "This is really important . . . we need to be at the Three Broomsticks at lunch."
He shrugged, "Sure, why not?" and rubbed his aching scar again. That Luna Lovegood accompanied them to Hogsmeade was unexpected. But not nearly as unexpected as the surprise that awaited him in the pub.
Rita Skeeter, the ex-journalist from The Daily Prophet and one of Hermione's least favourite people in the world was waiting for them.
They exchanged "pleasantries" and ordered lunch.
It was a rather rocky conversation, at first, as Rita and Hermione traded insults, threats, and dire promises, while nibbling at their food. What cinched the deal, however, was the small gold block, about a quarter of what they usually used, that Hermione set on the table — wrapped discretely, of course. After a brief look under the wrapping, Rita assured them that they had her complete cooperation. She promised a completely fair and impartial article on whatever it was Hermione wanted. To Rita's surprise, Hermione instructed Harry once more to tell the story about the end of the Triwizard Tournament's Third Task, and his ordeal in the graveyard.
It wasn't an easy story to tell, what with how Rita interrupted him with questions every step of the way, but he managed to do it.
The story was going to be printed in The Quibbler, the wizarding world's equivalent of a conspiracy and bizarre stories newspaper. So bizarre, that even wizards looked askance at the articles. That the paper was owned by Luna Lovegood's father explained her presence at the table.
Later, on the way back to the castle, Hermione explained. "Look, Captain, if you're going to be fighting a war, you need as many people as possible backing you or you'll fail. That's a simple fact. Right now, Voldemort has an advantage over you, the Ministry is ignoring him and his in favour of portraying you as an unstable, lying fraud. They're using the Daily Prophet to keep people focused on your supposed problems rather than admit the truth. Which would bring them a hail storm of criticism on their inaction."
Harry sighed. He didn't like it, but it was the truth. He just wished he could keep better control of his temper. And that his scar didn't ache so much.
They lapsed into thought as they slowly walked back to the castle.
When they were almost at Hogwarts' gates, she said, "You know, we could have Rita write the truth about Sirius' situation. And, although it makes me cringe, we have the gold to out-bribe anyone who might object to a fair trial."
Harry stared at her. He had never thought of that. They had a virtually unlimited amount of gold, why not use that to get Sirius free? He started walking faster.
"It's a pity," Luna said dreamily, "That we can't just show the Ministry his memories of what happened." She shook her head sadly. "The weetimorousmice would never believe it though."
The other two just stared at her. "Brilliant!" Harry said, finally. "That's brilliant!"
As soon as they were secluded in his room in Hogwarts, Harry used the mirror to contact Sirius and explain their plan. "Susan says her aunt is as honest as a summer day is long. I can have Susan give her the memory vials, and then we see what she says."
Sirius looked doubtful.
Harry shrugged. "What have we got to lose?"
Dobby delivered the memory vials that evening, which they duplicated for Rita, and then passed them on Susan.
"It'll be a couple of days before she answers," Susan said. "She'll want to check Ministry files and such to see if there is anything that contradicts what the memories show."
Harry's story came out a week later. The next day Seamus, who had been ardently ignoring Harry apologized for his actions. As a result, things in general became less hostile in the dorm and Common rooms. Not that Harry spent that much time in his dorm, preferring that others know where he was to throw off Pink Toad from noticing that crew members were conspicuously missing.
But any decrease in tensions was welcome.
Oddly, Draco was seen, twice, headed for the seventh floor at night during his patrols as a Prefect. Apparently, he had heard of the Room of Requirement and was trying to find it. This was upsetting on several levels.
The twins reinforced their spells after his second attempt to include forgetting for a few days whatever it was that had attracted his attention. It wasn't perfect, but it prevented him from remembering why he wanted to go to the seventh floor for about a week at a time.
Regrettably, Department Head Madam Bones sent an owl-mail to Harry. She indicated that while the memories were very interesting, she was very sorry to say they were not considered adequate proof. Considering how dementors affected prisoners' memories, Sirius' detractors would say they were dreams and hallucinations.
To which Harry responded by writing and asking, "Would a vow against his life and magic that he has never been, is not, and never will be, a Death Eater or Voldemort supporter; that he was not the secret-keeper, did not lead Voldemort nor any of his forces to the Potter's house that Halloween night, and that he had not had time to send any spells at Peter Pettigrew when he confronted him in the muggle neighbourhood fourteen years ago, be sufficient? And that myself, Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Professor Remus Lupin saw Peter Pettigrew alive two years ago in the Shrieking Shack? Not to mention my memories of Voldemort's resurrection at the hand, literally, of Peter Pettigrew last summer." He made sure to include memories from the four of them backing up his claims with the letter.
Two weeks later, the second week of March, Pink Toad sacked Professor Trelawney. Dumbledore immediately replaced her with the centaur, Firenze.
Whatever boost Harry's popularity had gained from article in The Quibbler, seemed to have dissipated by that time, at least according to the letters to the editor in the Daily Prophet.
The following week came Rita's article about the life and times of Sirius Black, the illegally imprisoned head of the infamous house of Black. A Head of House left to rot there by his so-called friend, the Headmaster. And when he finally did escape, Minister Fudge illegally issued a Kill/Kiss on Sight in order to protect the Minister's reputation. Only the Wizengamot can issue such an order, and they hadn't. They also hadn't objected! Were they, too, on the fix to extinguish the Black Family? And if they were, as it appeared, who was next on their hit-list?
The Quibbler had another sell-out issue that required multiple reprintings.
Rita even received a portion of the profits, which was more than she would have earned at the Daily Prophet for a similar article — not that she needed any additional money considering the second small gold block Hermione had tendered to her.
And that story was like kicking a hornet's nest. The letters to the Editor of all newsparchments sky-rocketed.
Several D.A. members had overheard other students airing their fears about failing in D.A.D.A., and seemed to support Harry against the Pink Toad, the week after the article came out.
Harry held an emergency meeting of the D.A. the next night and held a vote. The decision came out to be fairly reasonable. If they were willing to sign the contract, and vow to keep the ship secret until it became general knowledge of the wizarding public, no one would object to the new members.
As a result, Fay Dunbar, a pure-blood; Lilly Moon, a muggle-born; Sally-Anne Perks, a muggle-born; Eleanor Branstone, a muggle-born; and Megan Jones, a muggle-born, all joined Dumbledore's Army — and the D.S.S. Requirement.
The group was beginning to grow.
And now that they had added their first new members, Harry knew that there would be more in the coming months before summer hols.
And then Rita released a second article with the details she had withheld from the first article. Followed, a week later, with how the Minister had imprisoned another innocent in Azkaban three years before, merely to be seen as doing something. She used the Ministry's own records to back up her story of the Minister breaking the Ministry's laws.
The fourth article was about Minister's handling of Barty Crouch, Junior. The public finding out that he had been Kissed without an investigation into his escape or a chance to determine who had helped him, and why he was at Hogwarts, left the Minister in a very bad situation.
Was he a tyrant in the making? One bent on the destruction of their society of law? Or was he a secret supporter of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?
Especially because the Minister didn't have the power to issue a Kiss order, on-the-spot and without a trial.
Fudge was not having a good month.
The galleons Sirius was withdrawing from his vault for bribes kept the pressure on the Minister until a trial was reluctantly scheduled.
Even the big reserves in the Black vault were "Sirius-ly dented," as the former convict liked to joke. It helped that at the trial the impartial jury — mostly the general public — were convinced of the man's innocence. The Wizengamot members, however, were the actual arbitrators in the trial. They were anything but impartial.
A big help was another article Rita penned. She pointed out that if Sirius' treatment was sanctioned by the Wizengamot, then Minister Fudge, or any future Minister of Magic, could arrest and send to Azkaban any pure-blood heir, for any reason, and the pure-bloods couldn't prevent it.
But, by the end of March, it appeared that Sirius would be an exonerated wizard, and the Ministry would repay what he had spent in bribes, and then some, as reparations for failing to serve justice in the first place.
██:::::██:::::██
At Hogwarts, however, March slowly trundled onwards, and the conditions continued as they had in the previous weeks. The Pink Toad tried to catch the D.A., but could never seem to make any progress. Which only frustrated her more. Plus, Fudge's difficulties at the Ministry weren't helping her mood.
She took out her frustrations on the students, who tried as best they could to escape notice. She especially picked on Harry, subtracting points and assigning detentions almost non-stop. He suffered quietly, figuring that when he was with her, she wasn't harassing anyone else, especially his crew.
Draco occasionally tried to wander around the seventh floor.
Most of the D.A. members seemed to consider themselves crew and had moved onto the ship, leaving only duplicated items, and the twins' special sleeping-person-simulator, behind in their dorm rooms to maintain the appearance that they were actually sleeping there. Most of the elves were outraged at the way the students were being treated. They turned a blind eye towards the students' evasion activities each night and in the mornings. Dobby and Winky helped out by actively concealing any evidence to their absence from the dorms.
Harry couldn't blame the students who did that. Only on the ship could he get a peaceful night's sleep. A headache potion at lunch made the rest of the day bearable. It was a pity he couldn't spend the weekends on the ship. He needed to remain in the castle to distract Pink Toad.
"At this rate, we're all going to fail our O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s," Hermione commented, the first day of Easter Hols, April tenth. She was showing-off a battery she deemed good-enough for all their mobile energy needs. It was about the size of a small person's thumb and could store enough energy to power a medium-sized city for a week — or one of their personal invisibility cloaks for about a month. It was an incredible achievement, but Hermione was nothing, if not thorough.
"Will we?" Harry asked, eyeing the battery warily. He had no idea what had gone into its creation but he was sure, if Hermione had made it, he could probably destroy a small city with one, not just power it. Or maybe a big one. It was rather terrifying, actually.
"Well, lots of us are skipping classes, you know," Hermione said conversationally. "I'm one of the few . . .," she gave Ron, who was reading the latest issue of Quidditch times with his feet up on a console, an exasperated look. ". . . doing our homework. You are too, Harry. Thank you for that," she gave him a quick smile.
"The funny thing is, though," she said, "you don't need to actually learn anything to graduate from Hogwarts. You can fail every single class, and they won't toss you out. You still graduate. It'll just make your life very difficult later to never have passed any of your classes. Or it would, if . . . well." She looked around the Bridge.
It still had the best view in all the ship, and most of the crew spent their time on it when they weren't otherwise involved in something.
"If what?" Harry asked, and handed the battery-prototype back to her.
"If the ship didn't exist." Hermione shrugged and gave him a steady look. "Tell me, Captain, what do you want to be when you . . . grow up?" She gestured with her arms lifting something.
Harry paused at that and then frowned. "Oh," he said, looking around the bridge. She was right. In the wizarding world he couldn't be in public without a pure-blood or half-blood sneering at him, another half-blood adoring him, or a muggle-born asking for an autograph. Getting a job would be next to impossible. The pure-blood businesses would black-ball him. Which would mean working in the shops. Hiring would be based solely on his status as the Boy-Who-Lived, a token job so they could brag they had hired him. Then they would secretly crow about how his notoriety helped their business' bottom-line.
The same would be true of any job he got with a Quidditch team. They wouldn't be hiring him for his talent at seeking, although that would be a nice bonus, but for his recognition value as the most famous person in the wizarding world. Every game would be packed with fans watching Harry instead of the team. If he joined the Chudley Cannons, they'd fill their stadium every game, even if they didn't win a single one of them every season.
He didn't have the skills or knowledge to get a job in the muggle world.
And that last was true for the crew, too.
For them, like him, now, the wizarding world was all there was. If the pure-bloods had their way, the half-bloods and muggle-borns would remain on the outskirts of society. They would barely eke out a living, forbidden from the good jobs that did exist simply because of their blood status. Skill and knowledge meant little to nothing, really, in that situation. It would be like being a certified heart-surgeon, and only being able to get a job as cook in the cafeteria, while the drooling class-idiot became the head of the hospital simply because of his last name.
"Trust me, it's the same for a lot of us here," Hermione said and looked around. "I could really see myself working here for the rest of my life. There is just so much to learn and things we can do. And nobody on Earth even suspects the possibilities." She glanced at Harry and turned to her console. "It's sort of up to you whether or not it will work, though."
██:::::██:::::██
The Goblins notified them that Sunday, the second week of April, that they had information for them. It wasn't difficult to get Sirius to agree to take them to Gringotts. The Headmaster's opinion on the matter was ignored by them all, although they did have both Remus and Tonks as escorts — they were all glamoured, just like the last time.
Sirius and the Headmaster had had a bit of a falling out. The Headmaster had counselled against having the trial, and then tried to get Sirius to remain at Grimmauld Place instead of attending, arguing that he would be able to garner a not-guilty verdict for Sirius without Sirius having to endanger himself. After the verdict of innocent, and the announcement of reparations, Sirius had started thinking about his relationship with the Headmaster.
Why," Sirius asked Harry, "in twelve years, hadn't Dumbledore visited me?" He was pacing angrily in the kitchen after breakfast. "Why was it that Death Eaters with branded arms were given trials, but I was not? Where was that 'second chance' that Dumbledore likes to talk about when discussing Death Eaters, for me?" He kicked a chair and it skidded across the floor. "And then, after my escape and everything that happened in your third year, Harry, why didn't the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot try to secure me a trial? Yes, it would have been tricky, but as Hermione has shown, a liberal application of press coverage and bribery would have worked. And, Merlin knows, the Blacks had enough gold to throw around."
Sirius no longer trusted Albus to do what was right for Sirius, or, by extension, Harry.
So it was, that they made their way into a meeting with the Goblins. Sirius met with his own Goblin Black House accountant, and Harry and Hermione met with Sharpnose.
"There are three more that we have detected," Sharpnose said as soon as they entered his office.
Hermione gasped. "There are seven pieces!?" she said.
The Goblin ignored her outburst.
"We have located one in what seems to be an unplottable location, and cannot get to it," he said as they sat in the two chairs in front of his desk. "Although it does sometimes move from that location. We think it is the original wizard, but we do not have a way of confirming the identity."
"The other we require your assistance to acquire: it is at Hogwarts."
They stared at him slack-jawed.
"We would prefer to use the same wizard as we did last time to enter the school. Please notify us when you have made the arrangements."
They hesitantly nodded.
He grinned, showing many sharp teeth. "You will be happy to hear that the owner of the vault with the item in it was most displeased when we informed her that a penalty had been imposed on her vault for improper storage of a dangerous item. We did not tell her of the disposition of the item. She has been forbidden from entering her vault for a period of one year — all deposits and withdrawals will have to be in the main lobby, for a small fee, of course."
Harry slowly nodded as he glanced at Hermione, who was staring back at him. Now they knew why Draco had been haunting the seventh floor. Tom Riddle had hidden something there!
The Goblin's eyes twinkled, disturbingly like their Headmaster's as he reminisced. "She was most wroth when she discovered she had lost half the value of her vault in galleons as the penalty. She screamed in frustration and rage most satisfactorily." He sighed a moment later, and said in a disappointed tone, "Unfortunately, while she grabbed her wand, she did not cast any curses." He shook his head sadly.
Harry made a mental note not to piss-off the Goblins, if he could avoid it.
The second week of the hols Hermione handed over another gold bar in exchange for a cursed diadem.
Lee had them laughing, later, as he described watching the Goblins walk into a corridor and then back out a few moments later, completely convinced they had walked in a straight line.
He had had to lead the Goblins to the Room of Requirement, and the Room of Hidden Things, once he realized that that must be where the item they wanted was.
After getting everyone off the ship and hidden down a side corridor, first.
One gold bar later, after Harry had confirmed the diadem was, indeed, an artefact created by Voldemort, it was in a silver box and given a basilisk venom bath while its replica was stored with the cup.
Which, if they were lucky, meant there were only two more of the vile things left to locate.
The Goblins said they would only tell him the location of the last item after verifying that the other one was the wizard-creator.
██:::::██:::::██
While Hermione moved on to work with Lee on the matter of changing the Requirement from rocket-fuel to nuclear power — they now had collected more helium-three than they, strictly speaking, needed. It was about a hundred times more than was available on the entirety of Earth — others grabbed her battery design and ran with it. So, by the time Easter Hols were over, George and Fred had managed to produce a prototype of their spacesuit.
"It wasn't really the spacesuit that was the problem," George admitted. "The ship has dozens of patterns of working spacesuits, depending on the work the aliens needed to do while wearing them. But it was . . . well, this one is more functional for our needs."
They insisted that the only way to show him a prototype was to make one specifically for him. The process — now that they had a pattern ready — was simple, but thoroughly embarrassing. It required a number of body scans that had to be done naked; and they had a full set of specific poses for him to adopt to ensure that the suit would fit and function with his body's available range of mobility.
He was soo glad Hermione, or any other girl, wasn't around, but he did hear one of the twins murmur, "He didn't get those scars from Quidditch." The twin just hummed as Harry blushed. To his relief, they didn't pursue the matter
Conjuration took place mere seconds after the last pose.
"You're kidding me," Harry said, at the first sight of the finished spacesuit. "That's not a spacesuit," he said disparagingly. "That's a wetsuit." He held it up by the shoulders and gave them a look of disbelief. "The only way you could make this more revealing would be to spray-paint it on me!" he declared.
"The wonders of nanoengineering," Lee said, and grinned. "Pull it on, Captain."
With some private — and probably plainly obvious — embarrassment, Harry pulled the suit on as the three tricksters watched attentively. The suit was completely white without visible seams, except one in the front that ran from the side of the throat along the shoulder, dipped underneath the arm-pit and down to the waist. It made it easy to pull the thing on, and the thing was so form-fitting that honestly, Harry almost felt naked wearing it. Rather than separate boots, the feet were fully enclosed in integrated socks, and they fit like, well, socks.
It was all very strange.
"I. Look. Ridiculous," Harry murmured. The side opening had sealed itself shut with some other wonder of nanoengineering, apparently. He wiggled his fingers in the perfectly fitting gloves, and then ran his hand over his neck and the underside of his chin. The neck-line of the suit came up to his ears and wrapped itself tight around the underside of his skull and jaw. It was just . . . weird how well it fit. "How is this supposed to be a spacesuit?" he protested. "I have clothes thicker than this!" He looked at them exasperated. "How is this supposed to protect me from anything?"
"Like I said, nanoengineering," Lee grinned.
"It's actually made of layers," Fred explained. "And it's pretty much nanomachinery all throughout."
"The bottom layers absorb your sweat, dead skin cells, extruded oils, and so forth, and channel them into appropriate containers," said George.
"The next set of layers regulates temperature and cools you down so you don't fry and heat you up if you're cold.
"The third set of layers are the counter-pressure layers so you don't explode in a vacuum." George made a grimace.
"Then comes the central-core set which is nanoscopic machine-muscle all through-out and gives the rest of the suit its form, flexibility, and rigidity.
"The next set of layers, the outer layers, protect you from space — radiation and whatnot."
Harry stared at the three. "Nanomachinery?" he asked slowly.
"The reason muggle spacesuits are so bulky is because, first, they tend to use gas to pressurise the suits, which makes them like big balloons and very awkward to move in.
"You get very tired, very fast, we've read." George said.
"We do that with counter pressure," Fred continued, "which makes a skin tight suit not just one you can easily move in, but an actual necessity.
"And second, the muggle suits can't do things as efficiently as this suit can. They use water tubes to cool down the person in the suit, you know." George shook his head disapprovingly.
"Huh," Harry answered. "So . . .. Is there a helmet?"
"Yes, but you'll need to take off your glasses for this bit."
Harry pursed his lips. As far as he was concerned, that was a major problem,
Naturally, it didn't look anything like an astronaut's helmet. It didn't look like a motorcycle helmet. It didn't look like anyone's definition of a helmet. The twin placed what looked like a question-mark shaped wide strip of plastic against the back and top of Harry's head. It stretched from the back of one ear to the other. Almost immediately, plates automatically extended down and from the sides of it and attached themselves over Harry's forehead and the ears. Then the visor more or less materialised, and formed the rest of the helmet. There was a single solid piece of . . . something in front of Harry's face, and his head was entirely encased.
"Oh, this is very cool," Harry said, tapping the visor, gently at first. The helmet constricted neither his head's movement nor his field of vision. "Or it would be if I could see anything." He frowned unhappily. "Can't I wear my glasses with this?" he whinged.
"You don't need to," Fred said, scanning Harry's glasses with the conjurator table. Then he placed the control stone right in front of Harry's face.
A moment later, the visor, whatever it was made of, shifted. Suddenly, Harry could see as clear as he could with glasses.
"Okay. Now, I'm impressed," he said, wide-eyed as he looked at the much clearer world around him.
"The visor is made of nanomachinery, too," George said, grinning like a lunatic.
"They're stored in the helmet base and form into a grid when the helmet is activated," said his brother.
"They're polycrystalline in structure and so small you can't see them.
"They're basically glass machines," Fred giggled delightedly.
"And since they're machines, we can program things like, well, prescriptions into them."
"So, your helmet has built in eye-glasses in it," Fred said, and grinned widely. "It also reacts to things like sunlight, and will darken to protect your vision from dangerous levels of energy, like X-rays, and whatnot in space."
"And on Earth, too.
"Alright," Harry said, looking around. Everything was so much brighter and clearer, the lines so much sharper. "I still feel butt-naked here, but all right. How am I breathing though? Or hearing you?"
"Right now? You're breathing the ship's air," said Fred.
"We haven't hooked in the life support system yet," George said and conjured up a new machine — a round white disc, about the size of his hand — with fingers spread.
"That gives you about twenty hours of air, about a year's of battery power, and everything else you need," Fred said as George placed the thing on Harry's back. Harry heard a faint hiss, as it sealed itself to the suit.
The suit reacted immediately. It felt even tighter and more form fitting than before, as well as a bit stiffer, but not that much more. Harry felt a bit cooler; he hadn't realized he had started to feel warm. Not overly so or uncomfortable, but noticeable, nonetheless.
"It includes waste disposal," Fred said, helpfully.
"I don't suggest pissing yourself, but if you need to, the suit can take care of it," George added.
"Nice to know," Harry said dryly, and grimaced. He held out his arms, and then looked down to examine himself. He blushed. These would be the only spacesuits where it would be required that all crew members wear trousers or skirts and, for the girls, a shirt over them. No wizard, or witch, would object to that requirement, Harry knew. Except maybe Luna. Who knew what her reaction would be?
"So, right now, I'm living on the suit's life support?"
"Yep," George nodded.
"And I could hop out of the spaceship if I wanted to?" Harry specified. "And I'd survive?"
"I wouldn't suggest it before we figure out how you can actually move out there," Fred said.
"Hop out now and you might end up just flying off into space," Lee said.
"Hermione's hoverboard is probably our best bet for moving around in space," George added, "and she hasn't finished it yet."
"But yeah, aside from that little issue, you could survive in space right now." Fred nodded.
"Still, the suit isn't finished yet," Lee cautioned.
"We're hoping to add some sort of display onto the helmet which will inform you on the suit's condition and stuff," Fred added.
"And after that, armour," concluded George.
"Armour?" Harry asked.
"We're going to add armoured plates onto it," Fred nodded.
"Which will snap onto the suit like the command stones do," George explained.
"We're still working on them," put in Lee.
"But this is the basic idea — we'll be working up from this and adding features."
"Hmm, well, it seems functional," Harry said, squeezing his fists open and shut. "Does it have to be white, though?"
"Well, it doesn't have to be. Muggles use white suits because white absorbs the least amount of light, so the suits don't heat as much," Lee said. "We have much more efficient cooling and shielding, so . . . it could be any colour you wanted it to be, really."
"We can make your suit Gryffindor red, if you want?" George suggested with a grin.
"Everyone can have their suit in house colours if they want it." Fred matched his grin.
"Hm. Maybe," Harry said, wiggling his fingers. "So, can I use my wand with this?"
"Yep, same as any other wizard wearing gloves. We did during the tests." Fred said
Harry pulled his wand out of his pile of clothes. "Sweet," he murmured, levitating his now rather old-fashioned feeling glasses. "Make it so that I can actually use a loo in this and I might start wearing this thing regularly. Oh, and add the possibility to take off the hands and feet sections, like gloves." He deliberately did not look at them. "And maybe a way for the helmet not to be so obvious when we're not using it?"
The twins exchanged looks. Unspoken were his detentions and that Pink Toad would immediately notice if she couldn't see the blood and the scar re-forming. Which would mean not wearing the suit most of the time in school, otherwise.
"You got it, Captain," George said solemnly.
"Oh, and if you can manage it, could you make the visible portions," he touched his chin, neck, and hands, "match the wearers skin colour, it would make them a lot less noticeable."
Regretfully, Harry had to take the suit off and return to using his glasses.
≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ██:::::██:::::██