Disclaimer - I own nothing you recognise.

Written for Quidditch League, Semi Finals.

Harpies, Captain.

Prompt: [Space Western]

Word Count: 1944

Onward We Go

"Mundungus, you're a crank," Harry said, leading him from the Aurora by the shackles around his wrists. "But you really need to get better at stealing, or at least at hiding."

Mundungus snorted. "Youses just too good for me, Harry."

"You're a charmer, Dung. Go on, in you go."

Mundungus went into the cell without complaint, and Harry locked the cell door, slapping his hand against the metal bars before he walked away.

"Where d'ya find him this time?" Robards asked, when Harry stopped by his office to drop in his report.

"Islegrande."

"All the way out there? He made it further than he usually does."

Harry nodded with a grin. "I know, but he'll never make it out of the galaxy, and he'll have to if he wants to be where we can't catch him."

Robards returned his grin. "Well done, Potter. I'm sure we'll have another case for you soon."

"Aye aye."

…

Harry hadn't set out to be a ranger. He'd only ever dreamed of being an Auror, keeping his feet cleanly on the ground of Earth.

That had lasted all of six months past gaining his qualifications. His trainers had poked and prodded and cajoled until he'd agreed to take a mission off planet, and Harry had never looked back since.

His team were fantastic, albeit a slightly odd group, and they'd quickly made a name for themselves in all the nine realms—even those that they'd never personally visited.

If the Aurora came for you, you knew you were done for.

That didn't stop his shock when Kingsley, his boss's boss, came to him with a personal mission; one that, even from the brief description he'd been given, sounded perhaps a little impossible.

"Why me?" Harry asked, leaning back in the soft Captain seat of the Aurora spacecraft. "I don't understand why you think I'm the best one for the job."

Kingsley snorted. "You're the most reckless leader of all of my teams, Harry. The one to jump in first, the one to take chances."

"You normally threaten to write me up for that," Harry pointed out, wrinkling his nose.

"I do. For this mission, however, I believe those traits are exactly the ones we're going to need to pull this off. Are you in?"

"Of course I am. When do we leave?"

Kingsley arched an eyebrow. "Your team won't be joining you for this, Harry."

Harry frowned. "No dice, I'm afraid. I do it with them, or I don't do it at all."

"We can assemble a team of elite rangers for you to—"

"I have a team of elite rangers," Harry interrupted, eyes flashing angrily. "Do you know how many times they've saved my ass, Kingsley? I'm not going without them, and if you need me like you say you do, then you'll allow it."

"Harry… we're trying to make this as easy, and with as little danger, as possible."

"You want to send me out to find six objects, all of which are under protection of the nastiest kind, with a team who don't know my methods rather than the team that I've worked successfully with for almost ten years? Make it make sense, Kingsley."

Kingsley eyed him for a moment before he relented with a soft sigh. "Alright, Harry. Your team can go with you. Just… take care, okay?"

Harry's lips tilted up. "I always do. It's the other side that mess up my plans."

…

The Aurora came to life under Harry's fingertips, engines flaring, lights bright, heaters blaring.

He looked behind him to make sure his team were all fastened in before he let her go, unleashing her power as they sped up, up, and up, through the atmosphere and out into the endless blackness of the universe.

"Let me get this straight," Hermione said, unclipping her belt as soon as they were stable. "We're to collect these… Horcruxes? And then take them back to Earth so that they can be used to draw Voldemort there?"

Harry nodded. "Yep."

"That sounds like a hideous plan," Hermione said flatly. "Why are we drawing the monster who literally wants to destroy whole planets to the planet we call home?"

Snorting, Harry said, "Kingsley said that if we have the Horcruxes, taking Voldemort out will be easy. Not sure how much I believe that, but… it's worth a try, right?"

"Sounds like a bit of a disaster to me, Mate," Ron said, shaking his head. "How hard is it going to be to get these Horcruxes?"

"Extremely," Harry replied. "Kingsley said that they needed someone who was 'reckless and took risks', which doesn't fill me with any kind of confidence that this mission is going to go well."

"Good lord," Neville said, rubbing a hand over his face. "I'm surprised he trusts us to do it. Aren't we normally relegated to catching the thieves and bail jumpers?"

Laughing, Harry set the Aurora to autopilot and stood up, stretching luxuriously. Looking around at his team, he twisted his lips. "He wanted to give me an elite team, you know? I fought for you to come with me, but if any of you don't want to do this, you don't have to. It's going to be more dangerous than anything we've done before, and there's more at stake this time than any precious gem or trinket we've been sent after."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "As if there's any doubt that we're with you. Idiot. Now, show me the files you have."

Harry pointed a small remote at a screen and waved his hand towards it. "We're going after this first. A tiny gold cup. The Elves of Reinhart are protecting it, and… they're not the most friendly bunch despite their tiny stature."

Ron stared at the picture for a moment before he grinned. "Better put our protective guards on before we disembark for this one, mates. They look like they'll bite out kneecaps, given the chance."

Snorting, Harry shook his head. And Kingsley thought an 'elite' team would have been better for this mission.

…

They'd had a plan. They'd had a well thought out plan that had gone to hell in a handbasket in the space of five minutes.

Of course.

"Forget the knee guards," Ron muttered, shooting at one of the elves. "We should have brought crotch guards. That little shit just tried to bite my—"

"Ronald!" Hermione scolded, working on a shield from her handheld computer.

Before Ron could protest, she had the shield bubble up and around them. Neville and Luna were both panting, but grinning, uninjured. Harry was cursing softly, placing a healing gel on his wrist, where sharp teeth had sunken into his flesh, and Ron was glaring out at the elves, who were trying to penetrate their bubble.

"Should have gone with invisibility," Hermione commented to Harry, who rolled his eyes.

"We only have enough powder for two uses, Hermione. Do you really want to use it this early in the mission?"

"I mean, if it stops Ron's privates getting bitten off, I'm all for it," she replied with a wry smirk.

Harry snorted. "The bubble is fine, at least for now. Stability?"

"Eighty-eight percent and holding," Hermione said, glancing down at her screen.

"Alright, good. Nev?"

Neville gave a thumbs up, pulling his sleep sap from his bag. "I'm ready. Gonna need a spray bottle—thank you, Luna—and a small hole in the bubble."

Hermione nodded, pressing a few more buttons. She gestured him close to her, and after a moment, the nozzle of the spray bottle sank through the bubble to the outside. Neville sprayed his sap until the last of the Elves was down and Harry smiled.

"Good job, guys."

…

"That was fun," Ron said, lying down across two seats as Harry lifted the Aurora from Reinhart, the jets firing out and setting the few Elves that had woken up enough to chase them with black smoke.

"You have a strange idea of fun," Luna said, leaning back in her own seat with a small smile on her face.

"Do we really have to return to Earth with each Horcrux, Harry?" Hermione asked, looking over the files again. "We're about a day away from Helengale, and that's where this diadem thing is. It'd make more sense to go and get that one before returning to Earth, wouldn't it?"

Harry pursed his lips. She was right, and it would knock a few days off their mission, but… "That would mean someone staying on deck to protect the one we already have. Is it worth the risk?"

"Aren't you the reckless one?" Ron asked, eyebrows raised.

"Nah, I just take the blame for you lot," Harry replied easily. "I'm perfectly professional."

"I'm impressed you managed to say that with a straight face," Neville commented. "You're getting better at lying. You didn't even blush this time."

"Why did I demand you guys come with me again?"

Turning back to his panels, Harry reprogrammed Aurora's course for Helengale. Kingsley did say he wanted reckless, right?

…

"You're never allowed to suggest a change of course ever again," Ron said to Hermione, pushing her out of the way of a flaming arrow. "And these horse people need to settle down!"

"Centaurions, Ron," Hermione corrected, pushing her hair from her face. "And they've been told to protect—"

"We get told to do things all the time and we're happy to ignore it!" Ron interrupted.

"Luna?" Harry asked, interrupting his arguing best friends. "Any luck?"

"Almost," she promised, fiddling with a gold ornate necklace hanging around her neck. A few moments later, she made a noise of triumph, and after taking a deep breath, she started to sing.

It wasn't a language Harry had ever heard, but her necklace glowed faintly, proving that it was working. Slowly, the flaming arrows stopped coming their way, and Harry watched as the Centaurions seemed to fall into a trance, all of them turning towards Luna, who slowly walked away from the team, drawing their attention.

"Hermione?"

Hermione looked at him, and Harry smiled. "Now it's time for the invisibility powder."

…

Kingsley reprimanded them for going off script, but he accepted the Horcruxes with delicate awe, storing them in pre-prepared containers.

"You should all take a few days before you go back out there," he said, looking back at Harry.

Harry wrinkled his nose. "We're fine. I'd rather get this done, if it's all the same to you, Kingsley. I miss chasing down Mundungus."

Kingsley laughed. "Of course you do."

"He tells the best stories when we catch him," Harry shrugged, unrepentant. "And honestly, this adventurer life just isn't as much fun as thieves and bail jumpers. And the planets we're going to aren't even half as welcoming as our usual haunts."

"If you don't want to continue, I'll understand."

Harry huffed. "We've never left a job half done before, I don't intend to start now. But, if it's all the same to you, we'd rather get it over with."

Kingsley nodded. "By all means."

With a tight smile, Harry turned away, meeting his team in the hallway. "Onward we go?"

They all nodded, standing up. "Onward we go."

Harry followed his team through the doors and back to their safe haven on the Aurora. He didn't know what other dangers this mission would bring, but he was determined to see it through—and he was determined that his team would make it through to the end too.

Whatever it brought, they'd face it together, and one day, they'd be back to chasing Mundungus across the galaxy, laughing at his stories when they inevitably caught up with him.