Balanced easily on the pitching deck of HMS Glorious was a man, tall, lithe with a mop of jet black hair. Spoken of in the same hushed awe as names such as Woolf Barnato, Benjafield or Birkin, the Bentley Boys. The same breath as aviators such as John Alcock and Arthur Brown, who flew across the Atlantic non-stop in a 1919, or Schneider trophy seaplane pilot Orlebar, or even aircraft design geniuses Reginald Mitchell, Geoffrey de Havilland and Tommy Sopwith.

He was a mystery to the public. Appearing out of obscurity in 1925, he'd taken up rather public habits. Racing a series of three Supermarine seaplanes, a handful of de Havilland DH.88 Comets, he'd achieved considerable success alongside fellow racers, elevating Britain to a highly respectable position within the constant competition of speed and pioneering of the air.

But he hadn't limited himself to that. Rumours of a garage with half-a-dozen Bentleys, a handful of Rolls-Royces, an Alfa Romeo 8C, Bugattis, luxury German Audis, Mercedes-Benzes and Maybachs were afloat in high society. He did nothing to deny them and frequently campaigned the more powerful cars in races.

Hadrian Potter. He was a quiet person, given to enjoying his privacy, as well as being one of the most skilled pilots amongst the British people. During the 1930s, he'd been taken on tours of aircraft factories around the world, and thanks to that and an eidetic memory, the Air Ministry had access to the plans for dozens of German aircraft types. They really had thought that Britain would be happy with them campaigning across Europe like a demented Atilla the Hun. As if.

'It had been a full twenty years since he'd last really known peace.' was running through Harry's mind at the moment that the ship's siren began to wail.

He'd done his 'duty' to the wizarding world. He'd killed Voldemort within an hour of his resurrection during the late summer term of 1990, and made sure it was permanent. To make it even more permanent, he made sure to drain him and every one of his minions of their magic. That had been a bit of a headache, absorbing that much. And for some reason, he'd stopped ageing about seven years later, three weeks after he'd received a gift of a stone on a ring and a wand from his old headmaster.

However, before that event, he'd gone straight to Thames House and MI5. It hadn't been hard to work out that the Security Service had known about the wizarding world from the ULTRA decoding of Axis transmissions. They'd happily taken him on and he'd served in the SAS for twenty years, seeing combat in Desert Storm, Bosnia, Kosovo, Desert Fox, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq another time.

But a few weeks after he retired after twenty years' service, Draco Malfoy had tracked him down and engaged in a running duel with him. It resulted in the remaining Malfoy being thrashed, but in the process, a Timeturner that said ferret was carrying had exploded, casting them both eighty-five years in the past. Remarkably accepting of his new state, Harry had quickly finished off the annoyance, dealt with Tom Riddle junior pre-emptively with an impotence hex on his father and then got on with doing his own thing.

After spending a while as a reclusive playboy, racing driver and pilot, he'd signed up for the RAF and put in three months as an instructor on the Hurricane before being posted to RAF Digby where the first combat of 46 Squadron occurred. In a single fight with himself coming in high and two other pilots going in low to form a pincer movement, Harry had become an ace, shooting down five twin-engined Heinkel float-planes. The other two had accounted for a pair each.

October 1939

"Rapier, this is Digger Controller, ten plus bandits bearing zero-two-zero, angels zero-three, distance about five miles." came the voice of the controller, a slight public school drawl typical of RAF controllers.

"Digger, I copy." Harry responded, glancing to the two Hurricanes off his port wing. Squadron Leader Phil Barwell had given him command of this patrol, while Pilot Officer Plummer was flying number three. "Rapier flight, climb to angels zero-four, make visual contact and attack from each side. I will come in from above."

"Roger boss." was the reply from Plummer.

"Wilco." said Barwell, not commenting unfavourably on his plan.

Opening the throttle from a comfortable cruise to full military power, he eased the Hurricane's nose up. The two-blade de Havilland propeller crippled the fighter's performance, at least compared to what it could be. However, a climb to three-thousand feet after a five-hundred foot shipping-protection patrol wasn't hard.

"Tally-ho, bandits bearing three-forty, twelve twin-engined aircraft, about five-hundred feet below." reported Plummer a few long moments later.

"Break left and descend, Phil, take the closest side, Plummer, go to the far side." barked Harry after a second.

They pulled up while turning onto their wing-tips. Barwell dived down first, Harry second while Plummer kept arcing over before descending several hundred yards on the far side of the formation. Flicking off the safety catch for his eight .303 Browning M1919s, he eyed the fast-approaching specks, their green camouflage contrasting against the grey-blue of the sea. Thin fuselage, long cockpit canopy, glazed nose and floats under each of the radial engines. Heinkel 115 float-planes, an aircraft he'd actually flown. They were slow and not particularly manoeuvrable.

Simultaneously, from three directions, the Heinkels were under attack. Harry saw Plummer rake the cockpit of one of the aircraft, it fell away in a fatal dive into the sea. Barwell put a burst straight into the petrol tank and his aircraft blew up spectacularly. It was his performance that was the best. He fired a short burst into the fuselage just ahead of the tail of his target, tearing it off and, as the gun camera watched, it plunged into the sea.

He followed this up with a second short burst into the wing of a second, just outboard of the float. With the massive drag of the engine and the float, along with its struts, the float-plane tumbled into the sea. Coming out below the formation, Harry slammed the stick back into his stomach and came out upside-down facing the remaining eight Heinkels as they turned away to their starboard. Barwell had done the same and they shared a kill as their guns tore into the first aircraft.

So far, Harry had fired for three seconds, expending about fifty-five bullets from each gun, or a total of four-hundred and forty of the bullets in total. Standing on his rudder pedal, he slid the aircraft to port, straight onto the tail of another of the float-planes. It didn't take even a second to remove said tail from the Heinkel, it was horribly fragile.

Releasing the rudder pedal, he flipped onto the starboard wing-tip and pulled back as the Heinkels continued banking to head back to base. With a few degrees of deflection, he squeezed the gun button and raked his fourth kill with bullets. It plunged towards the sea, an inferno trailing behind it. Not even releasing the button, he let the bullets fall into the aircraft immediately beside where his fourth kill had been.

Evidently there were some significant munitions on board as the Heinkel blew up with a shockwave which dislocated something in his engine as the smell of glycol filled the cockpit and the temperature gauge began to rise alarmingly. He was turning towards a sixth when they finally got their fingers in and opened fire. Jinking away from the streams of tracer, Harry saw the temperature continue to rise terrifyingly.

"I've got problems, returning to base." he stated over the radio.

Probably out of some sense of comradeship, and the knowledge that the North Sea was a cold place, the other two stuck close to him the whole way, even though they probably could have wiped the rest of the Heinkels off the face of the Earth without too much trouble.

"FORTY-SIX SQUADRON RAPIER AND SABRE FLIGHTS, ENGINES RUNNING!" rang out a voice from the speakers all over the superstructure of HMS Glorious which was cruising up the Ofotfjord at thirty knots.

Aircrew dashed from the former battlecruiser turned aircraft carrier and leapt onto the wings of their aircraft. At a slightly more sedate pace, Harry strapped an extra belt around his waist, carrying a pair of Ginunting, Filipino short swords, and a Colt M1911 he'd bought on a visit to America.

Climbing up onto the wing, he strapped on his parachute and stepped into the cockpit, feet on the seat before, holding onto the edge of the forward canopy, sliding himself into place. He turned on the electrics, checked the battery had sufficient power, made sure the radiator flap was open.

Then going down to his left side, Harry tested for full and free movement from the elevator and rudder trims before setting the former to neutral and the latter fully right to counter the takeoff torque of the propeller. Quickly locking the friction nut on the throttle, he tested for full and free movement from the RPM control and selected for the engine to draw fuel from the reserve fuel tank.

After setting the supercharger, he checked that the magnetos were off, the pressure heater was off and the lights were off, checked the setting of the G meter was at 'zero', checked the generator failure light and then checked that he had two green indications for the undercarriage, down and locked. The radio was at the right frequency as proved by the short, sharp barks of conversation he could hear through his helmet.

Flight instruments, check and set. Engine instruments, check and set. Fuel pressure lights for main tanks and reserve tanks working. Fuel gauge for each tank checked. Harry pumped down the flaps for a moment and brought them back up, killing a bit of hydraulic pressure. The brakes were on.

He primed the engine several times before pressing the starter, watching as three propeller blades passed his windscreen before roaring into life, spitting smoke and small flames from the exhausts.

"Potter, you copy?" asked Squadron Leader Cross, the CO of 46 Squadron.

"Loud and clear boss." he replied, a slight shake of his head as he thought of the one-time Parachute Regiment Colonel who had served his entire career reduced to a Flying Officer of the Royal Air Force.

"We're heading up to Skanland with your flight and mine to see about suitability for the rest of the squadron." Cross continued over the radio.

"Roger." Harry replied before switching to speak to his flight; "Bill, Jake, we're flying to Skanland. Takeoff and rendezvous at angels zero-five, two miles bearing three-five zero."

"Copy."

"Wilco." came the replies of his wingmen.

They were a mere two miles from the temporary airfield at Skanland, sat in the mouth of the Ofotfjord as all six aircraft launched from the pitching deck of Glorious. The flight to Skanland was uneventful, but as Harry, Bill, Jake and Henry, one of Cross's wingmen flew in a finger-four formation to cover the other two landing, they watched as two Hurricanes dug their undercarriage into the wet ground, ripped them off and pitched nose-first into the ground.

"Oh dear, it appears the CO has crashed." Harry commented.

"Why did I leave my camera on the ship?" grumbled Bill.

Harry reached into a stowing position in the cockpit of his Hawker Hurricane and pulled out a map, quickly scanning it for a diversionary airfield, because Glorious wasn't large enough to land their aircraft on, Skanland wasn't usable and anything around Narvik was in the hands of opposing forces.

"Divert to Bardufoss, steer bearing zero-five-three, about fifty miles." he instructed.

Bollocks.

Evening, 27th May 1940

"Nice job Bing." Harry commented, stepping up onto the wing of Cross's Hurricane as it taxied up at Bardufoss the next day, a new propeller attached, but some noticeable reminders of his 'incident' present. "You didn't even manage a minor ground-loop this time."

"Shove off." he grunted, shutting down his engine and smacking the release on his harness.

"Anyway, I've got a rodeo sortie planned for the dusk hours, two flights heading towards Narvik to reconnoitre enemy forces and cause as much trouble." added Harry before stepping down from the wing. He fully intended to get a bite to eat before flying, it wouldn't be anything too heavy though.

About an hour later, he was strapped into his Hurricane, with Bill and Jake in their own aircraft. Using a rather shorter series of checks given the fact that the aircraft had been running earlier that day, Harry went through them quickly. Brakes, trim, flaps, contacts, hydraulic pressure, petrol, undercarriage and radiator. Then again, the Merlin roared into life, the airscrew passing his windscreen a couple of times before the engine caught.

Soon they were in the air, or more specifically, a couple of hundred feet in the air, skimming the rocks of the spectacularly beautiful mountains lining Norway's fjords. However, they didn't have time to marvel as the three three simultaneously spotted a convoy on the road on the side of the fjord they were following, covered by a single Fieseler Storch, a small high-winged aircraft capable of taking off and landing on tiny areas, but also incredibly slow.

"I'll take the Storch and the lead vehicle, Bill, fall back and hit the rear of the convoy. Jake, take centre." Harry ordered brusquely as they closed in.

The three aircraft separated, Harry levelling out before diving down at a steep angle while the other two headed in at shallower angles. Closing to within a hundred yards, where the Fiesler ceased looking like some strange insect, he flicked off the safety switch and pressed the gun button, firing for just a single second. Despite having his guns synchronised to two-hundred yards, the one-second burst was devastating.

First, his burst tore into the cockpit, certainly killing anyone within. Then, with the glass around it, the frame of the cockpit ceiling, including the wing spars, crumpled. The wings folded upwards before shearing off, taking the struts and the undercarriage legs with them. On their way off, one of the wings hit the tail, removing both the fin and the planes and wrapping themselves around the fuselage.

Then the whole pathetic bundle tumbled to the earth and blew up as it hit the first truck in the convoy it had been flying over. As it seemed he didn't need to bother with the first truck. Instead, Harry steepened his dive into an almost vertical one and flipped over, finishing a half-roll. He let fly and flew the length of the convoy, spraying it with machine-gun fire. He felt blast after blast rock the aircraft as his bullets ripped into the soft-covered trucks, some blowing up with munitions on board, some simply catching fire as his fire sought out their fuel tanks.

"Rapier one, two, climb and break to port and starboard! Biplanes half-a-mile rear." Harry calmly rattled off as he spotted three silhouettes coming down towards the Hurricanes which were flying toward him.

He quickly identified the single-engined biplanes as Arado AR 68s, with a streamlined shape, independent spatted undercarriage and a large intake well back under the engines and swept, staggered wings. Closing a bit over seven hundred yards in a few seconds, Harry let off a two-second burst at about a hundred yards before slamming the stick into his stomach.

The biplane looked like it imploded just before the massive engine in front of him obscured his vision. Climbing like a homesick angel, Harry gained several thousand feet before standing on the rudder bar. Close to the stall, the Hurricane essentially fell over and dived back toward the earth, its pilot quickly feathering the propeller.

Too late. The other two had climbed a thousand feet before parting, diving in opposite directions down the valley walls and caught the remaining two biplanes from each side and they were now splattered across the valley. Harry kept his neck on a swivel, looking for any more aircraft.

"Rapier flight, climb to angels zero-three and resume formation." Harry ordered, pulling out of the dive and climbing back up to just below the cloud base.

"Rapier one, coming up on your starboard side." replied Bill, the most experienced one of the two.

"Did you see that boss, I got one!" exclaimed Jake.

"Good lad, now shut your trap and close up." barked back Harry with no real venom.

"Got us some more custom, two-o'clock, low. Train." Bill stated a few minutes later.

Harry waggled his wings to get a good look. They were in a fairly good position.

"Turn and descend to port, Bill, follow me, Jake, rear." he ordered.

The Hurricanes began their diving turn, going to port. Emerging three-hundred and sixty degrees, as well as two-and-a-half thousand feet later, Harry pushed the nose down, onto a nice straight stretch of railway line. At a hundred feet off the deck, he checked his mirror. His wingmen had both followed with a distance of a thousand yards between them. They were doing a hundred-and-seventy-five knots or about two-hundred miles-per-hour, meaning that each of them were ten seconds behind the person in front.

As the locomotive came around a bend in front of him, Harry was bracketed with black bursts from several twenty-millimetre Flakvierling batteries on the train, each carrying a four-barrel anti-aircraft platform. Not friendly then. Fighting the Hurricane to counter the blast from the exploding shells, he brought the Hurricane even lower. Fifty feet or less.

Harry opened fire as soon as the engine steamed right into the centre of his reflector gun-sight about five-hundred yards away and continued firing, standing on the rudder pedal to skid the tail to port and the nose in to starboard, raking the train. The quad .303 Browning M1919 light aircraft machine-guns in each wing spewed bullets at an incredible rate, puncturing through the boiler of the engine and taking huge chunks of the internal tubing with it to create immense shrapnel damage on the exit. Then the wooden carriages came into the line of fire, spikes of wood flying everywhere in conjunction with the bullets themselves.

Pulling back on the stick, he turned onto the starboard wing-tip and pulled away. The entire attack had taken just a few seconds. He circled at two-thousand feet as, at ten second intervals, Bill and Jake dived down and had a go at the train, eventually leaving it steaming, burning and derailed, the boiler riddled like a sieve and the carriages a charnel house. Somehow their air-to-air fighting felt so much cleaner.

"Climb to angels zero-three and resume formation. Tell me if you see anything else worth blowing up, but otherwise we're heading back home." Harry called over the radio.

"Any joy?" asked the Sergeant Armourer, a gruff Scot, as he climbed up on the wing of Harry's Hurricane outside the dispersal at Bardufoss.

"The boys each got an Arado biplane, I got one as well as a Fieseler Storch." Harry replied, pulling off his helmet and unclipping his parachute; "We strafed a road convoy and took out a train, had a close run-in with the train's flak but I don't think there's much damage."

"There better not be." was the response.