Preparations:
Over the next couple of days, things fell into a routine. Remus found himself the following Saturday, at the Singh residence. There, he had an opportunity to meet Harry's extended family. He enjoyed the night very much as it felt nice not to be judged for being a werewolf. The dinner also reminded him of times he had spent at Potter Manor, and these were easily his most cherished memories. He felt content, and it had been a long time that he had been fussed over. Remus could distinctly remember Charlus rubbing his back as a boy and telling him that Lady Hecate would see that all was well.
He understood that while Priya's parents were Muggles or mundanes as Harry preferred to call them, they were distinctly proud of their identity and their culture. Muggles could be wildly different depending on their heritage, and it seemed that magical England had not gotten the memo. Amba to a great extent seemed to possess great wisdom in her eyes. She could have easily been mistaken for the Matroness of a great house. Her poise was effortless and her cooking was as good as Harry had promised.
"I can't really be trusted to be objective. I have the best grandma. End of story!" Harry had laughed at the dinner table. And naturally, a titanic pinch cheeks followed the boy and Hermione.
Remus also found it touching when Ved had held Harry's hand early into the dinner, and told him that the jewellery looked good on his wrist. He quickly concluded that the pure silver bracelet had been given to him as a gift. He had wondered if Harry had purchased the piece of jewellery, and this helped to clarify how important his nephew was to this group of people.
Remus found the "Tales of Harry and Hermione" to be fairly entertaining. It seemed that everyone was quite aware of the projects that they undertook. This piece of storytelling was a summarised report on the mischief that the pair enojoyed in 'their sparetime'. Remus had indicated his supervision of the experimentation time, as he wanted to endure that a third person was present, in case of any accidents.
All the adult women in the room voiced "Thank you" in perfect synchronisation. All four of them.
"So, what have both of them done as of recently?" asked Lorna.
"Harry has been quiet. Hermione has been giving Harry competition. We have a new healing spray that makes Wound Cleaning potion look like a joke. We have to certify it, but I hope that you Ms Singh will look at it." Remus replied, as he and William lied, so they could be involved in the prank. After all the Plasma rifle was 'Top secret'.
"So, Hermione giving us girls some representation? Excellent. Make Harry work for it. Send some of your new potion to me sometime. As for you Harry, promise me you won't blow up the moon sweetie?" asked Priya rather sweetly.
"I promise I won't blow up the moon only because I plan to get there. Hermione is pilot material. We have a lot of ideas. I wonder if Grace with an external magical power source could reach that far, especially when she gets older?" asked Harry.
"Maybe, Grace can be our Nav Computer for our shuttle. Think the Protego protects against solar radiation? A Lunar base would be nice you know. I wonder if magic works in space?" questioned Hermione.
Priya in the space of five minutes was quite regretful that she made that comment. Everyone observed as both seemed to work up a reasonable plan as to how to get there. The men soon found themselves laughing. If there was a Wizard and Witch who could go to the moon, it could be them.
William then interjected:
"As a former military man, I have to say my daughter, a pilot? You have no idea how that warms my heart. Sign me up for free rides when you build the shuttle or whatever."
"It is coming for sure. An atmospheric prototype bomber is under consideration. We will see."
"What about your normal studies, Harry?" Priya asked.
"I have my eye on Imperial College. I think Hermione might decide on there too, but she had Cambridge and Oxford under consideration."
All the adults smiled. Harry and Hermione were not forgetting their formal education. As the dinner progressed, Remus found himself observing everyone. Remus found Lorna to be truly a sly woman - she seemed to be very knowledgeable about politics and Wizarding Law. Harry had a snake in her corner and she was easily one of the most dangerous Slytherins ever. Based on her accounts of her time at Hogwarts, she had out-manoeuvred a lot of darker families, that were known to be principally conniving.
He also suspected that Harry had told Priya and Lorna the finer details about his Lycanthropy, but they did not seem too bothered. Remus was quite pleased to try on the Medi-Bracelet that Priya had offered. He was informed that a full diagnostic would be available in a day. The threat of injury during experiments, was not truly an issue for Harry and Hermione. As long as Grace was present, they could always obtain immediate medical treatment. As the dinner came to an end, the Grangers dispersed to their house and he concluded that he truly had a pack to protect.
If anyone dared to harm a single hair on anybody's head, he would tear their necks out. The wolf in him roared in contentment.
The following Monday evening arrived and once again Remus found himself discussing future plans with Harry and Hermione.
"Well Uncle Moony, you are now familiar with Star Wars, what do you think about how the Jedi fight?"
"I have to say the muggles are rather creative. I have a feeling you are hoping to bring some of those ideas to life?"
"Well for combat my House Magic is best accessed when I reach maturity. My house magic already allows me some of those abilities when it comes to strength and speed. Let me show you something…"
Harry lifted a screwdriver about fifty millimetres in the air but with a lot of effort. The screwdriver then floated almost as if it was under a weightless Wingardium Leviosa. He moved it around, before lowering and standing it on the back end. Then, he made pulling and pushing motions that demonstrated that he had a ridiculous control of wandless magic, for a child.
Invictus who had noticed the spectacle commented:
"Excellent grandson. I was never that powerful at your age. Both of you keep practising. Keep pushing. Hermione, please remember your magical development is quite excellent Harry is a bit of an extreme case. Near death experiences should not have to wake up a person's magic."
Hermione nodded gravely
"I can remember at the age of thirty years moving a feather. I only ever managed to pick up watering cans at the height of my magical power, and that was when I was approaching one hundred and eighty years old. However, being able to cast a Finite wandlessly? That alone can make you very dangerous."
Remus was utterly surprised that Harry could do wandless magic at his age. Dumbledore was known for only being able to close doors and for grabbing books.
"Shall we call you Master Jedi Harry?" said Hermione, giggling.
"Haha! I wish. Maybe one day. The levitation of the aluminium bb is helping a lot. Are you practising it too Mione?"
"I am. I can get the ball to jiggle and lift a millimetre off the plate. That leaves me tired for a hour before I recharge. The exercise and the occlumency are helping."
Invictus nodded.
''Excellent granddaughter you make me proud. Generally, at eleven to twelve years the first magical growth spurt hits like a truck. You will notice most first years will struggle with magic. Also, everyone has a unique brand of magic. The Warlock brand of magic is best for powerful strikes, heavy force application with a good balance of agility."
"Maybe my magic is for speed? I can cast far faster than Harry?" Hermione asked.
"I believe so. When you step into your magic fully, you will be a walking hurricane. And that should be encouraged. You just wait until your first magical growth spurt hits you."
Harry who was drinking some orange juice, then put the cup down and continued:
"So yes, Uncle Moony, continuing from the comments about unusual things, I also have a rather crazy set of ideas that mum and Hermione might have to help me with."
"Which is?" Hermione inquired.
"I think that perhaps I need to tap into the stem cells in my bone marrow and grow a much denser network of neurons and probably put some magical conductors in there. Like a magical amplifier. Having a wand built into my arm could be useful. It sounds dangerous and invasive, but Wizards already perform partial animal Transfigurations and in the case of dad and Sirius – total Animagus transformations. Pretty sure it will be painful and dangerous but no risk no reward. I am sure your brand of magic will help with that Mione."
Remus raised his eye. It made perfect sense.
"That is a nice idea Harry, but we have to be careful. We will have to find a way to deliver the materials harmlessly. You don't want to know what bone marrow needles look like and we might even need access to a surgeon."
"I believe it is worth the risk grandchildren. The information that was built in the Death Stick is in those trunks over there. I appreciate that you are careful Hermione. You will keep an eye on Harry."
"So Harry, what else is on the impossible list. Humour me." Remus asked.
"I was thinking if we could develop a new type of Occlumency that resembles Battle Meditation in Star Wars. We join our minds and can utilise sensory information. Imagine us knowing the location of other enemies while we are fighting. Or tossing weapons to each other and catching them in mid-air? Even if we could get mental communication going alone that would be an amazing achievement. Imagine a squad of four of us - You, me, Hermione and Sirius all working together like a pack of wolves.
We would be the opposite of the Death Eaters. Strength in unity and strength in family."
Remus smiled and Invictus vocalised a husky grating laugh.
Harry continued:
"As for this evening, I want to build some invisibility bracelets. I promised Grace a harness, and I do think it is time to sort it out. I think particularly for the women in our family, it could be highly useful. Especially for Hermione's subway trips or Mom or Lorna going invisible if they are in trouble."
"What are we using for the control? Mechanical contact?" asked Hermione.
"Mechanical, we want simplicity and coverage for the back of the person too. What about integrated shields? Then the invisibility covers the shield. That way they can't see the haze of the shield being sustained. That way accidental spell fire does make the Protego spell flare and give away the location of the person."
"That would be a rather easy project, that uses established pieces from many projects. We could do that in an hour or so. By the way, Uncle Moony do you know any spots in Hogwarts that nobody visits? We want to leave a powerpack there to passively soak up magical energy."
Remus laughed.
"Dumbledore planted a tree called the Whomping Willow so I could have my werewolf transformations away from Hogwarts. There is a little house called the Shrieking Shack – you take the tunnel and you walk a bit of a distance. The house was built by Hogwarts, and it is on the edge of Hogsmeade. I would love to carry both of you some time. If your devices are to be charged, yes they could be left there."
"Did Peter Pettigrew know about this location?"
"He did actually."
"We can use the location for now. I am not using any places that could be possibly compromised, for long term operations. Until I see Pettigrew's corpse, I am not convinced he is dead. Rats tend to escape traps regularly. For temporary use, I plan to put a big steel door with biometric security. I want to see alohomora work with electromagnetically activated locks."
"You are aware that we are technically planning to become squatters on Hogwarts land Harry?" Hermione joked.
"We can give the school a healthy donation each year through a shell company Moine. That should do, I think. Onwards to the usual things."
Harry continued with his usual workflow – copper coils for the collector and the output coils, Copper sleeves, some of Grace's old feathers and burning spells into wand cores. Harry within half-hour had a working prototype for the shield. However, he was not happy with the Protego because under the force of a Sledgehammer the Protego collapsed.
"Harry, are you aware that Protego was never designed to take blunt impacts from a huge hammer like that?" questioned Remus. "What you have here is rather excellent?"
"Haha. Keep dreaming uncle. Time for some intent and linguistic modification"
Before the night was over, with some help from Hermione, Harry had modified the standard Protego spell to something rather long but effective. It was even selectively permeable to air, which allowed it to move with an air pocket or to passively use the air that was already in the environment. "Protego Continebat Cylindri Spirabilis" had done the job wonderfully as Harry imagined the Sentinel shield, he had summoned in his mind against the piece of the Dark Lord's soul splinter. When the shield was summoned, it was almost like thick frosted glass and full of large hexagon patterns. Harry had imagined in his mind a strong highly visible shield that would take both kinetic and magical punishment. Remus was surprised as he tested the shield by shooting off some of his most powerful stunners. Hermione then joined in and began to fire off everything she could muster.
The shield refused to collapse. Then Harry encouraged Remus to probe the shield strength with a sledgehammer.
Remus could not get the shield to buckle, even with the enthusiastic swings of the sledgehammer. He made sure to aim way above Harry's head. Remus was quite aware that he was strong, and all he was rewarded with was a muted gong. Harry continued to point the wand in random directions, but this did not affect the shield's location. Harry wondered if his inherent unconscious assumptions and ideas had created the shield in such a manner.
"Today another win for science fiction!" Harry thought to himself. Invictus who had been quietly watching the ongoing fiasco began to laugh.
"What is the expression. Right – Those morons in magical England are fucked. Totally Fucked."
They all laughed. Harry then continued:
"Right Mione and Moony, so now that we have that sorted out let me test one of my theories. Remus you are going to reproduce the spell. No scientific background, no idea what the haphazard Google translated Latin means, no intent modification and no wand movements. Let me walk through the pronunciation."
Harry spent the next five minutes schooling Remus through the pronunciation. Remus then attempted the spell.
Nothing.
"Keep trying. I want to see if Magic will make it available to everyone and if it will be of the same potency. Don't stop. High intensity casting. Continuous attempts."
Eventually, after about twenty minutes and approximately four hundred tries, Remus was red as a tomato and panting for breath, but he produced the spell. Harry then probed the strength with stunners and then the hammer. It seemed to be a little behind the original spell.
"So see Moony, Magic can draw upon the collective knowledge of mankind. Glad you pushed through the continuous casting. It is demanding. How do you feel?"
"To quote Sirius, tired as a dog. I felt myself being pushed. I think I am going to continue to learn to recast my spells with that type of intensity. It breaks you into familiarity."
"That is why Hermione and I can cast most seventh-year spells already."
Remus nodded as Harry then programmed the spell into a copper assembly. He charged a powercell and tested the assembly. The jury rigged Velcro assembly worked exactly as expected. But the assembly was quickly getting warm. Hermione noticed the frown.
"Problems bighead?"
"Sure Priestess, it feels toasty. Maybe I should make a pocket for a slice of toast."
"True multitasking Harry, I like it. Do you need a butter applicator too? I only deal with Italian Herb Butter."
"Moony let me teach you another one. This is courtesy of Gramps. I am going to intent modify the size of an invisibility spell to cover the shield. Let us see, tying up the core to the programming wand, yes, alright….Lumen Inflectitur Sinum Faciunt!"
Remus observed Harry as he disappeared. There was a small distortion in the air but whatever this spell was, it was far superior to the disillusionment spell. Harry assembled the rest of the parts and minutes later, he had a gauntlet that offered him a fair amount of protection. He observed the time on his smartphone.
"Remus, let us go to the gym at your place. Nice easy place to do some testing. Walk with the sledgehammer."
Everybody held hands as Grace apparated them to Remus' apartment. They entered the gym room, which was full of equipment which was still unused. Harry then stood against the wall and powered up only the shield.
"Alright guys, let loose. Aim over my head. If we damage the wall, we can use Reparo. This room is supposed to be charm resistant anyway."
As Hermione and Remus took turns pounding the shield into submission, the shield continued to display predictable behaviour. The gauntlet became toasty, and Harry could see the supercapacitor was draining quickly. Harry then signalled them to stop as he charged the power cell, and they began again. This time after switching on the shields, he then switched on the invisibility soon afterwards. The exercise was then concluded after the power cell ran out of energy. Remus and Hermione had not managed to see anything that had indicated that he had taken spellfire. A person could easily take a lot of damage if hidden, and nobody would be none the wiser.
"Alright Moony and Mione, let us call that a night. So, in conclusion. I will have to make this arm-sized to have enough juice for extended use. We will need some substantial cooling. But yes, a great project for tonight. I think I will need some target practice with the rifle. Let us close off for today."
"Alright, I am out then. Hug Uncle Remus. Whootsy. Home time."
Hermione then disappeared.
Harry gave his affectionate goodbyes and then apparated home with Grace.
For the rest of the week, Harry worked on refining his design and adding the necessary cooling. He also played around with fine-tuning the resonance of the spell and fabricating a much bigger power cell to cope with the increased energy demands. He also managed to squeeze out much more strength from the kinetic dampening. He had dipped into his monthly pay and had machined vambraces created. Some of the notable features included enhanced passive air cooling via very thin fins. Also, a set of magnetic clips along with some pockets were cut into the material for future accessories. Hidden away was a small fan for extenuating circumstances, should things get very hot.
Harry had built six pieces built to this specification. The first three required the user to flip the correct switch. For the remaining three gauntlets he also implemented a left forefinger sleeve that was magically conductive. This allowed him to selectively activate either the invisibility or the shield by sliding his thumb on his curled left forefinger. The plan was for Remus, Hermione and himself could utilise the selective switching if necessary. Firing spells under invisibility was already a gamechanger. Harry demoed the "K-Barrier" at the Singh household, Friday evening. To say that Priya and Lorna were impressed was an understatement. Even Ved seem fascinated as he poked the forcefield with his fingers.
"Well Grandson, that feels solid. Guess I will be safe from earthquakes too?" he joked. Amba laughed as she affectionately hit her husband with the newspaper.
"Pri, looks like he and Mione are going to the moon, and nobody can stop them. Not bad for a week's work at all. Keep up the good work. I have my retainer exams soon. This would have been handy in the last war. We learnt how to dodge spellfire while on the run in Hogsmeade. This is worth its weight in gold." Lorna replied. Truthfully, Lorna and Priya felt a certain peace of mind, when they received their devices. Now, they would never be vulnerable, as long as they possessed the item.
As the next few days passed, Harry decided that he at least wanted a pistol as a light weapon to carry on his person. Harry then drank extra coffee, killed his kidneys a little more but essentially had an excellent sidearm, after much work. Coming in at exactly the size of a Smith and Wesson Magnum 500, his pistol featured an all solid copper body cut with a series of cooling fins. The handle also featured a new optimisation that he had made to his supercapacitors – a microscopic lithium lattice that when embedded in the Graphene layers had added roughly 30 per cent more energy storage capacity. The barrel was where he had executed an unusual design choice. Harry had created a rotating barrel assembly that possessed two emitters. Either one could be magnetically locked into place. Harry has settled for tuning the first wand emitter with a long-range, resonant Stupefy spell and another with a resonant Bombarda Maximus. The goal was simple. He wanted enough power to stun morons and occasionally blow up the environment.
Harry had spent almost five thousand pounds on all the machining and the failed prototypes. He eventually argued to himself it was worth the risk. He could not do business if he was dead, and trouble tended to find him. After some initial testing, he made four more guns along with custom-designed magnetic holsters that could be strapped to a person's legs. The gun attached to his leg brace with a satisfying clunk.
"Just in case." He told himself.
He laughed at the text that had been engraved very lightly via his transfiguration (which incidentally had gotten better with the fine control exercises he had been doing) before he filled it in, with black wax.
PEVERELL INDUSTRIES:
Type XI Pulse Pistol
Rest in Pieces, Jackasses.
SN: [15092009-001]
Harry packed away two of them away as gifts in padded hard cases. One was for William Granger and one for King Ragnok. The others were for Remus and Hermione respectively. Invictus who had supervised this secret project was impressed. Harry had chosen to let off some choice shots in Hermione's backyard way past the wall and well into beyond the trees in the wee hours of the morning. With the integrated blue laser sight, Harry already had a fair amount of accuracy.