Say hello to the Drone:
Sirius Black sat in his cell, and sincerely wished that his day could conceivably different. It always began with the Dementors who brought his first meal. He had long gotten accustomed to the cloaked fiends, stripping the taste of the food. It continuously felt like chewing on nothing of substance. A small latrine was present in a little alcove, hidden from direct sight. Occasionally, Sirius had a shower when he felt like it – the "restroom" had another alcove that summoned cold freezing water from the ocean. His eight-inch window, which was a temporary luxury seemed to overlook an endless sea. Little did Sirius know that James and Lilly would often check on him and his condition saddened them greatly. Both of them anxiously observed the surgical operation being carried out at Peverell Manor, as they hoped that everything would be successful. James looked upon Sirius in his cell as he explained that Prongslet was on his way, and that all he had to do was hold on a little bit longer.
Sirius after having his morning breakfast looked dolefully at the Sea. He liked it when he got to spend time in this particular cell – he would be soon rotated to another cell that had absolutely no windows. This was the only jail cell of the other five on his floor, that possessed a window. The other four cells were just pits of darkness, and the sensory deprivation could often drive a person mad. He was often reminded of his dear cousin Bellatrix was on the first level, at the bottom entrance. As he looked through the small window, he examined the small graveyard that was a part of the small island and he often wondered if he should give in and join the worms in the ground. The only thought that kept him going was a unknown truth.
He had not betrayed Lilly and James.
He remembered how Pettigrew had finally shown his true colours when he destroyed a muggle gas line in their last confrontation. He had killed twelve people, and Sirius was sure that there was not an inch of remorse. As he gazed out of the window, he wondered if he might see a bird over the ocean, at least. No animals or even insects lived in Azkaban. Not even an ant – the dark magic of the place was more than enough to kill small animals. Sirius wondered about Harry as he was quite aware that his godson could be in trouble if he was living at the dingy house that Lilly had shown him so many years ago. The Dursleys were terrible. He often wondered about Moony too – he missed Moony more than anything, as he was his only remaining friend.
Or were they still friends? He wondered.
Sirius observed the small three metre ledge that was present outside his window and quickly felt defeated as the Dementor patrolled for the umpteenth time. There would be another Dementor circling outside his window in fifteen minutes.
"Can't even get a good view. Gah. I am going to kill you Pettigrew, you tossing rat!"
Meanwhile, Invictus had taken the drone up to a comfortable two hundred meters into the air. With the control systems and camera feed being relayed via the magically linked mirrors, the delay was nonexistent. Hermione had insisted that a telephoto lens along with an enclosed magically linked mirror would be able to work as an improvised high zoom camera. At the manor, webcams were placed in front of the receiving mirror, so that Invictus could manage all the video feeds via software inside his portrait. Hermione continued to use the height advantage as she looked around, and toggled the servos.
"Mione, ready?" asked Harry.
"I think so. We are 120km into the bubble. Nothing yet. I will keep looking. You sure about the location?"
"Well, I am thinking that magic generally works symmetrically. We have the plotted points for the enchantment, so we will do the logical thing and go to approximately the centre of the dome. We still have one hundred and fifty kilometres from the edge of the bubble to the hypothetical centre."
Harry looked at Invictus.
"Keep on the heading. Full speed at 280kph. Let us see what happens in twenty minutes."
Twenty minutes later, Harry had been right and his intuition had paid off. He was currently observing an approximately seventy metre tall building. There were approximately nine windows and they seemed to be spaced six meters apart. The entire journey had taken forty seven minutes and the A.I. autopilot had only needed minor correction. Harry was aware that the worst offenders would be at the bottom - Bellatrix Lestrange and Rudolphus Lestrange.
He specifically planned to leave that lot for Neville, although he was tempted to kill them. No, they would eventually recruit others like themselves when they were freed. Harry would then descend on all of them, and kill the hidden collaborators.
The green-eyed boy thought about the checklist they had compiled. Now to deal with the issues, one at a time. This was the moment of truth – if the Dementor test failed, they would have to scrap the mission. Or perhaps they could execute the mission and hope to merely drive the Dementors back, or settle for a stealth operation that could be carried out under the invisibility cloak. However, the preferred method was to create a spectacle and permanently destroy the foul creatures.
"Moony, I think we have Azkaban. Smack in the middle. You will have to identify him as we check those windows. Get the mirror and earbuds ready. Let us see if Azkaban is going to drain the energy from the power cells."
Harry monitored the magical power levels from the console as photosensors had been fitted to the pigment markers on the power cells. The drain was there, but Harry had improved the power cells by some nanoscale sandwiching of the materials. He had power to spare. Remus nodded as he excitedly sat down, and his pulse went up. Harry noticed that he seemed rather uneasy.
"Something wrong Moony?" asked Harry.
"You seem rather casual, considering you are looking upon one of the biggest secrets of the magical world. This, I can't believe we are looking at Azkaban from the comfort of this house!" replied Remus.
"Well remember I had some advantages. I have a pretty bright phoenix. I have no idea how she understands this much English."
"Ewe - ewe" chirped Grace in the background.
"Yes, thanks, I will keep the bacon strips coming. Also Moony, being 'muggle' is the exploit. We took half a year to build this thing. It better had and work after all the sobbing we did. Most importantly, I have the support of my family. All of you. Essentially, Harry succeeds with fat loads of help, just like most people?"
Remus nodded. Harry was quite modest and he was right. The idea of a Wizard being mundane educated to his level of proficiency? Most would consider it preposterous.
"Quite humble of you Harry, always the gentleman," replied Remus.
"Hermione's A.I. navigation code is the magic sauce here. We can do long stretches on autopilot. The virtual targeting reticule and the gyroscopic correction for the gun are pretty handy too. That is all on the Storm-Priestess"
"Aww too kind Harry, but you are a fairly excellent wrench monkey yourself. You forgot you did all the engineering? You cried many times and you cut your fingers too. If it wasn't for the Medi-Spray you would have a fantastic collection of scars," Hermione commented as she smiled.
"And don't forget our fantastic pilot and data logging expert, the one and only Grandpa Invictus Peverell the 2nd. The coolest portrait in the entire magical world."
"Well, I get to see outside. It might be a window, but I am flying something. Not bad at all for the twenty-first century. I just need a pair of those Horatio styled sunglasses now."
Invictus loved CSI: Miami.
Remus looked on and smiled at all the banter. Harry was Lilly's boy truly. Approaching eleven years old and planning prison breakouts with his friend, while eating a sandwich in the comfort of his home. The best that he and the Marauders had done at eleven years old was to levitate dung bombs into Filch's office.
"So that is what a Dementor looks like. I don't feel scared looking at them, but I suppose the experience is different in person. I have read the accounts. I understand they are terrifying."
"They seem to patrol around the tower. It seems there is a ledge that surrounds every level. The gate to the bottom floor is locked. They don't have many visitors." commented Remus. Invictus had taken over the controls in full manual mode. He continued to make small adjustments as he dealt with the weather.
"Getting a lot of chop with the wind, but I am still okay. We are still cloaked, let us see where we can go next….."
The drone continued to orbit the building which seemed to be fifteen meters long on every side. The place was truly small in comparison to any standard prisons that existed in the mundane world. Invictus slowly made a pass starting from the bottom as he observed that all the cells were empty. That was until he arrived at the topmost cell and found a gaunt, miserable and defeated looking man, as he observed the sea.
"Moony – is that – him?" Harry said hoarsely, not being able to process that a man could look that thin and emaciated.
"It is. He is so thin and his face is almost approaching a skull. Azkaban has not been kind to my old friend." Remus replied with a tear in his eye.
"Not to worry. He will receive the package soon. Mione, let us take this apart."
Over the next thirty minutes, Harry and Hermione slowly made notes about what they observed while the drone held position. So far, the Dementors circled all the ledges present in the tower, every fifteen minutes.
"I think Sirius will have to give us the information. I think he knows something is here, he is staring at us." Hermione commented.
"Well, time to knock the front door down. Uncloak let him see us," replied Harry.
Sirius had gazed out the window for the last half hour as the Dementor on the ledge outside the window was preparing to come around again. For some odd reason, he felt he was being watched, but he wasn't sure how that could be possible. There seemed to be this buzzing sound that came from outside but all he could see was a little shimmer.
"Well, the madness is setting in, I guess?" Sirius complained to himself.
Sirius was surprised when a strange floating device suddenly disillusioned itself. Something had been there! As Sirius looked at the strange contraption, he realised that this thing had to be muggle! Somebody was watching and Sirius had been so lonely, that he did not care if it was a possible aggressor. He had spent a short time in the muggle world and he could remember when Lilly had shown him a helicopter. This thing looked like a tiny helicopter? It however, seemed much more sophisticated. There seemed to be a lot of cameras and other dangerous looking artefacts. There was a long pointed object and it seemed to look like a cannon?
Where they were here to kill him? Maybe it was better this way.
He watched on, almost hoping his doom would come. He was tired of it. All of it. Sirius Black wanted out.
Harry put his hands over his eyes as he began to tear up – He felt like the cupboard all over again. Hermione understanding how Harry felt, slowly rubbed his back as he looked at Sirius on the screen. Harry swallowed down his tears and Hermione began aiming the gun as the black figure began to float into the firing range of the "Fiendfyre Beam weapon" and the "Fiendfyre Micro-Shotgun."
Sirius observed closely as something from the Muggle device began aiming at him. Sirius gulped. He decided that if this was the end maybe, it would not be so bad. There was a red beam of light that seemed to initially point to him.
But…the beam of light seemed to target some location that was part of the wall? Why would the thing be aiming for…..
Sirius realised that this device was aiming at a Dementor. Sirius stuck out as much as his face as the opening would allow and observed as the Dementor who could barely sense anything, slowly approach the path of the beam. That was when he heard a muted buzzing noise.
"zzzzZZ - Psssshh "
Sirius watched as some type of spell was now cutting the Dementor into pieces. The electric blue beam glowed menacingly, and there was something that was characteristically different about it – it seemed to be powerful and very accurate. It almost looked….muggle? The Dementor on the other hand was shrieking for its life.
"ReeeeeEEEEEEEEEeeeeee!"
Flames began to slowly cackle as the embers began to eat away the cloak. The spellfire was relentless. Sirius looked on, as he realised that he was looking at a magical gun.
ZAP- ZAP- ZAP- ZAP- ZAP- ZAP- ZAP- ZAP- ZAP-ZAP.
The Dementor became solid and collapsed. Now the firing pattern had changed. There were small angry bee sized fragments that seemed to swarm the hooded figure in a cone of absolute fury. Now the Dementor was shrieking in pain. Suddenly the feeling of the environment changed – now it seemed less dreary. Almost as if the other Dementors were trying to clear the area. Sirius observed as the creature crawled slowly with inky green-black blood littering the ledge. He then heard the weapon charging again.
"zzzzZZ - Psssshh "
He observed as a consistent beam of blue light erupted again from the 'cannon', and it continued to burn the Dementor. The creature crawled towards the ledge, trying to avoid the beam. As it let off a final scream, it went limp and stopped moving.
Somebody had done the impossible and had killed a Dementor.
Sirius gulped as the artefact took an interest in him and slowly moved towards him, with the targeting beam of light now off. As the artefact came closer, he closely observed the object. It seemed to possess the spinny bits that "aeroplanes" possessed but there were four of them? Perhaps this was an advancement? There were no wings and it seemed to be made of steel. To his surprise, a robotic voice spoke to him.
"Take the package from the pocket. Put on the bracelet and read the instructions. If you comply who knows? Maybe you might get a hot meal for lunch and dinner."
Sirius who had not had a warm meal in almost ten years of imprisonment could not be bothered to wonder who, what, where or why…a hot meal for following instructions?
Sure.
A small pocket opened and Sirius grasped the bracelet and put it on, and then took the envelope. The pocket closed automatically and the artefact slowly glided away. As Sirius opened the envelope and it crinkled about, he began to hear faint screeching. The thing was attacking the other Dementors. Upon opening the envelope, he read the note as the ink appeared:
Messers. Padfoot,
Purveyor of many a witch's decency, Scallywag Supreme and Dubious Delinquent Dogfather extraordinaire:
We welcome you to the reformation of the Marauders. P.P. has been excommunicated for his traitorous deeds. We are aware of your innocence. This is why the band is on your wrist – it will drain your magical core and it will not allow the dementors to sense your happiness. They will however sense your heartbeat and conclude that you are alive, and your magic has left you.
Good. We want them fooled.
The other band is a Portkey. We are hoping that it can bring you home, but we suspect that Azkaban Wards have blocked every form of Magical transportation. If you are not with us my lunchtime, the portkey has not worked and we will have to come to get you ourselves.
Coming to your rescue is none other than good ole Moony and three new additions to the team. These include GIP-II, Teethsie and none other than Prongslet himself. Find attached a silencing device and enhanced version of a communication device that you should be familiar with. The small device fits in your ear.
Place the silencing device on your throat and press the red button. It will allow you to speak freely as it silences your voice to external parties. If Dementors arrive, deactivate the device. The device has stored magical energy and you don't want the power to run out.
You know how the Dementors are rather…..sucky
When you are finished, get rid of this note by tapping the "Delete" button.
Teethsie, Prongslet, GIP-II and Moony.
Mischief Managed.
Sirius was so flabbergasted by the text as it appeared on the note, that he went over it again. Moony and…Harry? Who else would call him a 'Dogfather'? And he was aware that he was an animagus? The two most important people in the world to him were planning his rescue? He had never met Prongslet and here he was planning to get him out?
Sirius wondered if he had been kissed already.
As he began to slowly process the contents of the note, he followed the instructions and took the mirror out. He observed the earbud and reasoned maybe the 'hole bit' had to be inserted into his ear, as he remembered Lilly's earphones. He also placed the silencing device on his throat and observed that it stuck on automatically. He fixed the earbud in his ear and whispered a hoarse "Hello? Moony?"
Moony then replied through the earpiece on his end, "Tell me something that only Padfoot and Moony knows."
"Er, I once rubbed one off in Flich's broom cupboard to a sexy picture a Slytherin witch had sent to me. I proceeded to finely polish all his broom handles with the finest man juice in the land of England. 1997. It was glorious. James had to use the same broom the next day for detention. I told him nothing. If he is up there in the Veil right now, congrats to myself. I got one on you in the afterlife. Because I am so Sirius about being…Sirius."
James and Lilly who had been observing the breakout efforts began to laugh. Immaterial James Potter stared at his hands and yelled "Yuck." Lilly giggled until she cried, as she had always warned people to scourgify all surfaces before touching them.
Harry and Hermione sniggered and Moony began to laugh. Remus then switched on the mirror, and Sirius seemed relieved but surprised to see the new Remus Lupin.
"Hello Padfoot. You look like shit. But it is good to hear your voice." Remus replied.
"Is it you Padfoot? I wonder if I have been kissed already. I saw a Dementor die and now you are making me believe I have a chance out of here. I have learned….not to hope. Are you real?"
"Well Sirius, the operation is being run by our youngest cub and his friend here. Look at the mirror and gaze upon your saviours."
Sirius was surprised to see Remus looking so….healthy. His face was full, and his jawlines were sharp. His irises glowed. His hair was short and his beard was thick and full. He also looked physically fit. His shoulders looked wider than he remembered, and his arms seemed bigger.
"Who is the bird? You look way too good to be single," asked Sirius.
"No bird. We have been busy working on getting you and I got some time to work on myself. Who do you think built the drone? Our very own Prongslet and Teethsie!"
"He built a what? Wait…..he built a dementor killing artefact?"
"We have a lot of stories for you. But how about you meet our two ringleaders?"
Sirius then looked on as the mirror was placed a distance away and Sirius saw his godson and a pretty but serious looking witch next to him. In the background was a majestic painting and it seemed like he was flying the device? A grim older man with a goatee was in the picture frame, and he reminded Sirius of Charlus. His voice went hoarse. He had always wondered who would take care of Harry. However, it looked like he was doing a good job by himself.
"Commander Padfood Supreme, allow me to introduce myself. I am your Prongslet indeed. The baby that you held in your arms many years ago. I can remember all of it and no, I don't want your advice on how to be a womaniser. I have better hobbies – the kind you are benefiting from right now."
Sirius gulped. It seemed as if Harry had the 'one-up' on him. Did his godson just inadvertently call him a no-good womaniser? Gah, this was Lilly all over again. He certainly had Lilly's eyes, but something seemed different about them. He examined the artefacts in the background. His godson almost seemed like one of those James Bond spy types in the movie he had seen, a very long time ago. Harry then continued as he tilted the mirror somewhat.
"In the back we have the primary cause of my independence. Let us say that GIP-II is the reason why I am the Lord of another house, besides the one that should be obvious. And we have my dearest sister, the trigger witch and daughter of two dentists, Teethsie."
Sirius looked at the girl and saw her smiling, after she gave a polite wave.
"Ah hello there, I am Harry's friend. I am taking care of Dementor number five right about now. We will leave the rest to patrol the unsavoury folks below." the girl replied.
"Reeeeeee – REEEEEEEE – Reeeeeee"
Sirius heard the last Dementor was punished by whatever artefact they had at their disposal. Sirius observed as she deftly controlled the stick looking thing. Brown curly hair, brown eyes and a graceful, aristocratic face - she was quite beautiful. More importantly, he noticed that both she and Harry were wearing blue. Evidently, his godson and his friend were self-proclaimed Ravenclaws? Perhaps they had silently worked a very long time towards everything that was unfolding. He noted that Harry was supposed to be approaching ten but he seemed to be almost thirteen? He also looked very strong for his age. Harry continued after Sirius observed him:
"Naturally sharing this information about us is risky, but I hope that you will feel a bit better. I know what it feels like to be broken and you need an emotional pick me up. Understand that Dementors are involved and we can't make a mistake. You will have to provide information about how Azkaban operates. Since Dementors can drain magic, the things I have supplied you with won't work forever. If you get a week, we would be lucky. We have to work quickly."
"You are just like your father. I can see your mother's eyes from over here. You did all of this for me, Harry? How can you kill a Dementor? They are unkillable."
"Sure, I did all of this for you. You should have paid more attention to my mother's research. Remus will give you most of the story – although if you want to talk to me too, I will be here. Now that we have confirmation that we can kill Dementors, we are confirmed for a rescue operation. Remus get him up to scratch, as Hermione and I are going to work towards getting your armour fully assembled."
Remus then took the mirror and began to speak to Sirius.
"Did he just say armour?" asked Sirius.
"He did. Tell you what Padfoot. We have a tradition. I will have to 'regale you of the tales of the Storm Lord and the Storm Priestess' eventually. But let us talk about Azkaban first. We will be flying approximately one hundred and thirty miles over the ocean. If we don't have the correct information we will die. Let us start with…"
Lilly and James held each other's hand and they looked on. Harry and Hermione began assembling the final parts of Remus' armour, his upgraded pistol, and Harry's combi-rifle. Albus Dumbledore, who had been silently looking for the "Children of the Storm" was going to find himself astounded at the capability of these unknown wizards.