Title: Code of the Griffin
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: Nothing Specific, general for first few books.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own Hermione, or Luna, or Ginny, or Cho, or... I would buy them all but I am broke.
Summary: From a war ravaged future, someone is sent back in time to change the course of the war.
A/N: The comment has been made that because Hermione is a Duchess she should be referred to as 'Your Grace' not 'Lady'. She is only a Duchess in the Muggle world, as far as the Wizarding world is concerned she is Ruling Lady of the House of Gryffindor.
A/N 2: TsukiyoTenshi, The Grangers were dentists. They took up dentistry after the both 'retired' when Jane was pregnant with Hermione, and it was something they learnt when they both went undercover to dentistry school, which is where they met. Also the anniversary reference related to the memory, three weeks after the funeral was the anniversary.
Four Squads of Order Troopers stood at attention, along with three two trooper Sniper Teams. Hermione and Harry stood out in front to the troops. Three of the squads were armed with assault rifles, mostly M16's with a smattering of P90's, with several troopers equipped with under-barrel shotguns or grenade launchers. The squads were lead by Sergeants Neville Longbottom, Kate West and George Weasley. The Fourth squad, lead by Sergeant Fred Weasley was a heavy weapons squad, consisting of two Light Machine Gun teams, including Fred, two Mortar teams and one Heavy Machine Gun team. The Sniper teams included the Luna Lovegood and Michelle Waters team and the Li and Larks team.
Standing opposite stood two Platoons of SAS troopers, lead by Major Granger and containing Sergeant Waters, Michelle's father. Hermione, Harry and Luna stepped forward and were met by Major Granger, a Captain and the two Platoon Lieutenants.
"Grand Marshall, may I introduce Captain White and Lieutenants Marks and Green." Peter Granger said to his daughter.
"Captain. Lieutenants." Hermione replied. "This is Sergeant Potter, my Second in Command, and Sergeant Lovegood, head of our Sniper division."
The officers nodded to Hermione and her Non-Com's.
"I am wondering, um… Grand Marshall, why you have only brought four squads?" Lieutenant Green asked.
"Lieutenant, The Order is only about one year old." Hermione explained. "Most of our officers are still in School and we only have Six squads of line troopers and five sniper teams. The rest we left behind to defend our School, which has seen more attacks than some warzones. Frankly, with everything that is happening at the moment you are lucky that we are here at all, and if my Great Grand Aunt had not asked, we would not be here at all."
"Who is your Great Grand Aunt?" White asked.
"That would be Her Majesty the Queen." Major Granger replied.
While the SAS officer's were in shock and muttering to each other, Luna whispered something to Hermione causing the brown haired girl to smile.
"Major." Hermione said. "Are you aware you have at least six of our kind in your ranks?"
"No." Peter replied to his daughter as the other SAS officers fell silent. "How can you tell?"
"Experience." Hermione responded. "And having a Sniper who sees Auras helps as well."
"Luna, go tap them." Hermione said, before facing the SAS troopers and raising her voice. "If the Sergeant taps you, take one step forward."
Luna walked slowly up and down the SAS lines, several Squads she walked past then began tapping a trooper here, another there. One squad had three tapped. In the end at total of seven troopers had been tapped before Luna returned to the officers gathering.
"Tapped troopers, Front and Centre." Peter Granger called.
The seven troopers moved up and formed into a line in front of the officers.
"Present Wands." Hermione ordered.
The Troopers looked at each other but none presented a Wand.
"Do I need to Accio?" Hermione threatened.
Two of the troopers pulled out wands, one from his sleave and the other from inside his pants along the seam of his right leg. After a few seconds the other five also pulled wands out from a variety of hiding places. Luna had a slight smile gracing her face.
Four things happened in very quick succession. First the flash-bangs simply appeared and immediately detonated. Second and third things happened at the same time, being the window breaks and two teams of two appearing crouched in the south-west and south-east corners of the room that opened fire in a deadly cross fire. The last, coming at the same time as the two apperating teams opened fire, was the hale of fire coming in from the broken windows.
In the space of two seconds the room went from being secured in the hands of the SAS to being secured in the hands of the Order with all of the SAS troopers 'dead'.
"Alright, exercise over." Hermione called from outside where she had been observing with Harry and the two SAS Lieutenants.
All of the 'dead' SAS soldiers stood up, bemoaning at the paintball marks on their BDU's. Neville stood and held out his mechanical left arm to help up his partner who had apperated into the South-East corner. He noticed a small circle of paint on his partner's arm.
"Boss. Taylor got hit in arm. Non-fatal." Neville called out.
"Rodger, Sergeant." Hermione replied. "Everyone outside for de-brief."
Neville slapped Taylor on the back, with his normal right arm, as they started out of the room.
"Sergeant?" one of the SAS soldiers said. "May I ask how you lost your arm?"
Taylor and the other two Order troopers, both from Neville's squad, stopped and glared at the SAS soldier, until Neville waved them on, with his Mechanical arm, as he kept walking where they were joined by the rest of Neville's squad, who had been firing in through the windows.
"It's fine guys. Recently we had a major sporting event that was attack. Total anarchy." Neville began, noticing that all of the SAS, including the officers waiting for the debrief, were listening. "The Grand Marshall and a fire team were defending the only extraction point. My team was moving in to support but we got pinned down by a group in cover. Two of us tried flanking, but my partner got hit in her shoulder. I managed to take out the pinning group with a grenade but caught a blasting hex in the arm. Hit me in the bicep. The boss got me this replacement. Still get pain in the missing limb occasionally."
"Form up." Lieutenant Marks ordered, before handing over the debrief to Hermione.
"Firstly, the defensive formation used, against a normal opponent, would have been effective." Hermione began. "Unfortunately against any kind of magical opponent it is full of holes. What we did today is a worst case scenario. To my knowledge there are only two forces that are capable of this kind of assault. The Order and the force that took Sergeant Longbottom's arm. Most Wizarding forces will either all apperated into the middle of the room shooting curses in every direction, or will apperated outside and send a barrage through the windows. The more competent ones will apperated in and out to avoid return fire."
Hermione then outlined the details of the order's assault and alterations to the SAS's defence that would defend not only against the more traditional style of Wizarding assault but also a chance against the Order's technique. When the debrief was finished the soldiers and troopers dispersed. Harry and Hermione began to walk back to their billets in the Visiting Officers quarters, Harry only scoring Officer's Quarters as he was the Order forces' XO as he was still an NCO.
"So where did you learn those tactics? Or did you just come up with them?" Harry asked as they walked, once they were alone.
"Oh I pioneered them, but not just now." Hermione replied. "The assault we perfected during the Mangath Expansion into the Empire of the Eastern Reach. A lot of worlds had dark influences, others just hated everyone else. Plus there were a lot of raiders and pirates. Works just as well on a spaceship as on a room."
"And the defensive formation?"
"That was about sixty years later. It was a ground war and the opponent had learnt to emulate our attacks and we were suffering as much as they were from the assaults. So we learnt the hard way how to counter it. Tried hundreds of countering tactics I had been considering since I came up with the Assault tactic till we found one that worked."
"So was this on Mangath? Or one of the worlds in the Eastern Reach?" Harry asked.
"No. It was one of our allies. A beautiful planet, until the war tore it up. Snow capped mountains that stretched to the horizon covered in deep red grass. A burnt orange sky, with a second sun that made everything shine. Forests covering hectares that glowed because the leaves were made of silver. Then it was burning, broken and churned to mud." There was a profound sadness in Hermione's voice.
Harry was silent for a few minutes before something occurred to him.
"That sounds familiar." Harry said. "I have heard a description like that before."
"Yes, I know. That's why when the planet was colonised it was called Gallifrey."
"Where there any…?" Harry asked eagerly.
His Cousin had loved that show.
"No. No Time Lords." Hermione replied with a smile.
"Do you need a break? And here I thought you were supposed to be a big, strong Quiddich star." Susan Bones teased, slowing her pace.
"No. I can run as far as you can." Victor Krum replied, panting slightly.
"Oh come on. It's only another three miles." Susan said with a grin.
Krum groaned. Susan and Victor were both dressed in running gear and were on the far side of the Black Lake to the castle, their running gear stained with sweat which made Sergeant Bone's tank top cling to her body in a way that was not unnoticed by the Tri-Wizard champion.
"You better keep up." Susan warned, picking the pace back up. "Or I might decide that all those girls literally throwing themselves at you are no longer a security threat."
"I can keep up. Don't worry." Victor said, then more quietly to himself, "I must keep up."
In the first forty-eight hours after being declared a champion, before Susan ordered the Order security detail to prevent large groups of teenage girls forming around the Bulgarian Champion, he had suffered seven ripped shirts, two ripped pants and, in the final incident, a number of bruises, a sprained wrist and a dislocated shoulder. It had taken a flash-bang and some well placed stunners to immobilise the pack of rabid fan-girls long enough to extract Victor and get him out of the area.
Susan chuckles to herself as she runs at an easy pace, for the Order member, while Victor struggles behind her, almost too focused on keeping up to notice the fine female posterior in tight pants in front of him…. Almost.
TBC….