Running before walking:
Christmas and the new year came quietly. After the charged conversation on the 22nd of December, by the 25th it was back to the dinners and the relaxation. Harry had gotten a signal generator and Hermione had gotten a basic chromatography setup. All the other gifts were in one way or the other sentimental. However, Harry did supply the men with quality German tools and Hermione had given assorted household appliances that were useful. Which woman did not want a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer?
Harry had finally gotten the elves to accept uniforms and their general health was improving. He had figured out how to colour the energy by linking his 'elf-cradle' to the Peverell wardstone. Now the energy produced by his generators was coloured with his gratitude and essence, through the house magic.
On the last day of the old year, Harry sat down at a little garden that he personally maintained at Peverell Manor. He began to commit ideas to his notebook - he considered how he could help his godbrother, Neville Longbottom. The information that he had uncovered, indicated that his parents were alive, but they were essentially vegetables. He suspected that the nerve endings had been forced to trigger randomly. Harry's personal experience of his consciousness retreating into his mind under pain made him wonder if Alice and Frank were perfectly conscious and trapped. Perhaps the unique brand of Occlumency that Harry was hoping to develop would create an entirely new set of tools to aid him.
For the rest of the week well into the new year, Harry worked on designing the potion production line. Hermione had been contacted by the French Ministry of Magic via email, as arrangements were made for Harry to supply all the equipment and the other necessary components for the potion production. The French had decided to use an old building that was not magical and this would allow Harry to use standard power plugs. By the end of the week, the French Ministry had the requisition list. The brewing would be done automatically via electronics. Harry and Hermione were pretty excited as they had sized the production line to employ at least 60 people.
The calls and the intermittent chats continued every day. Fleur adored the camera on her smartphone as she documented unique potion ingredients (which Hermione was interested in) and a lot of the magical creatures which existed in France. Many of the abandoned hallways on Beauxbatons were frequented by Matagots and Harry and Hermione met Armand, Fleur's favourite cat.
Harry decided to call Clementine to discuss the cost of the bracelets – Harry had only worked in a small free for his expertise. Most of the expense came from the machine shop costs. Clementine was only too happy to pay whatever he had asked, and she found his prices rather competitive.
Harry, who wanted to hit two birds with one stone, made a list of all the equipment that Clementine would need if to explore technological solutions for printing and art. He supplied her with a list of all the items and she indicated that she would have all the items ready for him. Saturday afternoon during the second week of January, a simple question was posed to William by Harry:
"Hey Uncle William, how do you feel about a trip to France? We are going to deliver some devices and set up a small office space. Delacour residence. You off from work for tomorrow afternoon?"
"Well as I am off the clock, sure. Tomorrow afternoon? I can do that."
"Yeah. No fuss this time, no fancy robes or masks and whatnot. But walk with your gun. We will be apparating directly to France. Grace has sorted out the problem. No more disorientation."
"I hope you develop an independent teleporter. I would love to go to French Bistros regularly. Or other places."
"I will put it on the list. That I think is something I also want for myself too. That is a tactical advantage that we need."
Harry had arranged with Grace to carry William. Harry was pretty sure based on the finetuning he had done, he could reach the outside gate of Delacour mansion, with Hermione in tow. While Hermione had learnt to apparate quickly enough with Harry's optimisations, she could only manage only local apparition within England. It was still an unprecedented amount of mobility. Most adult wizards struggled with cross-country apparition.
She managed to apparate about two hundred kilometres to a Fish and Chip shop that had won the National Awards, only to realise that she was drained. Whootsy had to bring her back. She reasoned that perhaps a one hundred kilometre range inclusive of the return trip was her effective distance.
But hey, she had managed a fantastic Fish and Chips at least.
Saturday afternoon after they were ready, the apparition began out of the Granger living room. Upon arrival, Grace nuzzled Harry after she realised that Harry had done quite an impressive distance by himself. She was quite proud of her partner-of-heart.
"Well, any chop? Or you alright dad?" asked Hermione.
"I could get accustomed to this. If you learn the language well enough, you owe me a couple of dates in the countryside indeed. Quality father and daughter time."
"You bet, Dad. It makes me proud that I can foot the bill?"
Harry and everyone else laughed. After a short walk into the property, Harry found Clementine, Fleur and Gabrielle waiting for them.
Fleur and Gabrielle were quite aware that Harry had refined the device. They had gained an appreciation for how non-magical manufacturing worked as they often looked back at the CNC machining and other video clips that had been sent. After the traditional French greeting was observed, Clementine commented:
"Hello Harry and Hermione, it is good to see both of you once again. I must compliment how quickly both of you work. I suppose you like the hustle and bustle. As you can see my granddaughters are very excited. Ah, you must be Dr Granger? I can see the look on your face! Such serious eyes!"
"A pleasure to meet you. I would like to see what are the things that this bunch get up to." William replied with a small laugh.
"Only admirable things! Come Fleur and Gabrielle, it seems Harry is ready for both of you!" the woman replied.
"Well Fleur and Gabrielle, I tested them, and these are far more efficient. You will find as the bars on the powerpack fill up, you can swap them into the generator. I have a newer generator coming soon, just shuffling so many things. Well, here it goes."
Clementine smiled. She knew he was busy planning to break into Azkaban.
Harry presented Gabrielle and Fleur with their bracelets. Harry then explained (with help from Clementine) the operation of the device. The drainage of the Aura could be adjusted and for now, both of them would have to use a person who was usually affected by the allure as a calibration tool to set the drain speed. He selected an initial setting based on what he could see with his Mage sight. After the aura damping had been set up, Clementine led the entire group to the outhouse as they apparated to the new office space. They arrived without fuss as Grace made her way to Fleur's shoulder. Naturally, Grace would not deny herself her cuddle session.
The new office space was full of boxes. Harry had specified almost everything under the sun, within reason. Harry and Hermione began to calculate where everything could be placed, and William made himself useful by bringing some of the heavier objects. While Fleur and Gabrielle marvelled at how high quality the bracelets looked, the pair unboxed everything. As the evening progressed and the office space was set up, the pair laughed the evening away as they introduced Clementine to Internet Memes, Star Wars and all other types of media and animations that would be considered irrelevant to other wizards, but very relevant to Clementine's curiosity. After all, she wanted to find out the things that inspired Harry, and he had not disappointed with his explanations. Fleur and Gabrielle waved when the pair were ready to depart. They both understood the message - it was a simple and gracious thank you from their French Friends.
Harry apparated Hermione while Grace brought William back to the living room.
"Well, that is pretty amazing. I was in France ten seconds ago. Too bad your world comes full of other unusual terrifying things. I hope I don't ever run into a Dragon or a Dementor" commented William.
"Trust me dad, most wizards don't want a run-in with a dragon. But if I know Harry, he might try to fight one."
"From what Lorna told me in passing, both of you are far ahead of magical children your age. That makes me feel proud." William replied.
Sunday morning, Harry went to Church and relaxed as he enjoyed the service. He allowed the music to fill his ears and he listened closely to the sermon. By the time lunchtime had arrived, Harry was home and wondering how to go about the next phase of armour development.
While he was away on the previous day, the rest of his parts had arrived. Harry had opted for a stainless steel skeleton for his Armor. The pieces included solid articulated braces that ran from his hips to his soles. They featured axial bearings at the knee joint and then a carbon fibre tub had been bolted to a tapered aluminium back piece. This back piece had been machined with two small thruster vents and the rest of the structure possessed many watertight pockets and covers. In another box, was an entire harness that had been custom designed by an American rock climbing company. Harry then trial fitted the exoskeleton brace on himself and began to slowly fasten all the straps. As Harry ensured that the entire assembly was to his liking, he decided to test the charcoal thrusters, before he utilised the aerogel.
Harry transplanted the internals of his previous prototype, then poked his wand into the intake and cancelled all the spells with a powerful finite. He prepared to reapply all of his mother's custom spells in succession.
"Right so Velocitas Tempestas for the thruster, Aquila Mens Agilitas for the control system, Cogitavi Supernatet for the auto-flotation, Potentia Copia for the power store, Lungere ac Disponere to join all the systems.
Hmmm I wonder if…"
Harry decided to install one of his bigger, fully charged power cells into the backpack. This would ensure that the thrusters could use as much power as they needed. Harry then read the footnote that his mother had left in the margin.
Reminder: Make sure the broom is lying flat and the broom handle is pointing to your right when you apply the control system spell. Orientation Matters.
"Hmm….maybe I just need to make the thruster perpendicular to this direction? Hmm…." he wondered to himself. He carefully reoriented the backpack in the direction where his body would be in line with the thrust. He then applied each spell, while thinking about how he expected the backpack to fly. He considered that a small test around the neighbourhood, with his invisibility to be acceptable, now that the charms were done. A fall from about ten meters could hardly emulate the ridiculous amount of energy the shield had taken when he had smashed into the wall. He added extra power packs to his shield vambrace and told Invictus that they were going for a 'top-secret' test flight of the bare exoskeleton.
"Well grandson, let us see. I am pretty excited. Am I going around your neck?"
"Nah built a harness for my chest that fits your frame, look here."
"Oh well, put me in?"
Harry attached Invictus and then closed the door to the null-box, before locking it.
"Alright gramps we are invisible. So..floating..now.."
Harry suddenly found himself floating about one metre off the ground. He then willed the thruster to crawl at a snail's pace, by controlling his back. He spent the next hour, practising to move around, by twitching his back. He also explored descending controllably and cutting the thrust to land on his feet. He was surprised at how natural the jetpack felt. There was no panic, no feeling of being unbalanced and there was just something that made his magic and his reflexes feel comfortable and at home. He soon found himself jumping and landing on the roof in a controllable manner.
"Grace?" Harry yelled.
Grace apparated and then alighted on the ground as she could not land on Harry's shoulder. She watched on as her wizard slowly floated between the wall and an air-conditioning unit that prevented prying eyes from observing his experiment. Grace concluded that Harry seemed to be rather at ease, being in the air.
"Can you apparate us to a place where nobody will notice? I don't mind flying next to you. Keep in mind I will be invisible, but I will be close enough for you to hear me. I did promise you we would go flying. Gramps is here too."
Harry then landed on his feet and Grace flew over and apparated Harry to a beautiful beach that seemed to be free of people. The sunset was glorious and there were a lot of open grassy areas. Strangely, it was all deserted. Harry took out his phone and used Google maps. They were in Cornwall and it was one of those well secluded little havens, that met the sea. Grace wasted no time getting up into the air. Harry then hit the invisibility and jumped into the air and began willing the thruster to slowly increase in speed. Harry soon found himself flying an easy 80 kph next to Grace.
"Hey Gracie, right next to you, not to worry!"
Grace increased her speed and began to bank and turn as Harry followed. They then flew over the grasslands before flying vertically upwards. Now Harry was looking down on the area and he could see a large portion of the sea. It was probably five hundred metres in the air and he felt chilly. He did manage to warm himself with his magic and decided that some type of flight suit would be necessary. As he floated, he gingerly took his phone out and carefully filmed the sunset, without twitching his back too much. After he had gotten enough footage, he put the phone away safely in his pocket and zipped it shut. Grace began to glide downwards, as she accelerated towards the ground. Harry then called upon his magic and began to sharpen his reflexes.
Suddenly it was like another world had opened up to him. He suddenly began to feel his muscles and understood which areas he could hold tense and in which way to spread out his limbs. Harry was now flying neck to neck at Grace's top speed of approximately 200 kph. Harry was struggling to keep his eyes open, but he managed. He took a small orbit of the entire area and then slowed down and take some spectacular shots of the night sky before landing on the beach.
Grace alighted on his shoulder and nuzzled him affectionately. She was very pleased that she had company for her evening stretch. He decided next time he was bringing his helmet when he took the jetpack for a spin. Harry also considered he needed some type of navigation interface if he didn't wish to fly blind. He explained to Grace that he wanted to try something new – he wanted to apparate while being suspended mid-air, with the target being five meters above the null-box. Grace immediately apparated out and Harry thought about exactly where he wanted to reappear.
Harry found himself floating right above the null box, cloaked and under hover mode. This confirmed that apparition could link any two points in space if you had a device to take care of keeping you suspended.
Harry sent the pictures to Hermione with a cheeky remark, "Guess who can fly now?"
Hermione replied, "For keeping the wall fiasco and this other secret of yours, I will require a lunch of my choice."
"Deal. Don't tell mum." Harry replied as he gave into Hermione's takeout bribery.
Harry decided that he would remove the charcoal thrusters, install the aerogel pieces and design some type of interface that could point him in the necessary directions. Maybe some type of haptic interface instead of something optical would be appropriate as he could not deal with advanced optical systems yet.