Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Stargate or any other franchise which may enter into this fanfiction story. I don't profit from them, and they belong to JKR and MGM respectively.
A/N: Again, thank you to 'phoenix catcher' for permission to borrow, I highly recommend his story 'Cast between Worlds' if you haven't already found it. Also, thank you to everyone who favourited, reviewed or followed this story in the last couple of days. I swear I think I got more alerts from this story in the first twenty minutes or so than I have for both my other stories combined. It's very encouraging for a newbie though, so thanks. However, more reviews please! Thank you to those who've already done so. It's extremely helpful to know what others are thinking about my writing style and the plot (or plot holes) of the story itself - they guide and shape the future development of the story, so if you think I need to include something, or remove it, review! If I was writing this solely for my own entertainment, I wouldn't bother to publish it. This is for you folks as well.
Reply to Elspeth (10/12/2012): You're right, it's kind of weak. However, although I did think of the Horcrux idea, Dumbledore hasn't found the rest of them yet, so using that as an excuse even in vague terms would get Voldemort's guard up and he would take steps to protect the rest. Also, I was kind of rushing it out. I want to write Stargate, not HP (sorry HP fans, I can't really put Teyla in an HP story, so I need to get Harry to Atlantis pronto, since that's when the 'ship will begin.) Also, please turn on your PM, so that I won't have to take up other people's time as they read this note.
A/N 2: I do however want to emphasise this is an AU fic. Harry Potter is not the primary story universe; Stargate is (or rather will be as soon as I get to it), despite the fact that Harry is the main character. Post book 5, things have happened differently (such as the fact Dumbledore never told Harry the prophecy, as he was unconscious and the Horcrux was already gone), although the general shape of the HP plot remains the same for simplicity's sake – although Dumbledore has survived to the end this time. I don't want to clutter the narrative up by including minor stuff you can probably fill in for yourself the way you want it to happen. It's been a while since I actually read the HP books, and although I must have trawled through dozens if not hundreds of HP stories on this site in the past year or so (I read very fast – a welcome by-product of masses of research for my degree), I can't remember all the canon details.
This author's note is now 500 words long; I'd better get on with it so here's the chapter. Unfortunately it's basically all exposition of Harry life for two years after Hogwarts – the action will start soon, don't worry, and please just wade through it if it's boring – or be a sport and leave a review, so I can improve it!
Chapter 2 – Storm's Coming
"If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm."
Frank Lane
Two Years Later – April 29th, 1998.
The weather around Dover was unpleasant to say the least. High winds battered the lines of trees around the campus of the Duke of York's Military School. In his upstairs room in Allenbrooke Boarding House, Harry stood looking out at the turbulent evening, his eyes completely black, staring off into the distance in a thousand yard stare across the fields of the flat Kentish landscape.
After being expelled from Hogwarts in June 1996, the portkey had unceremoniously face-planted him into the office of one Jeremy Wilson. Wilson was, theoretically the liaison between the magical and non-magical worlds, and was supposed to aid magical persons in the transition between the two. However, in the eyes of the Ministry, his appointment had essentially been a token gesture, a part of Arthur Weasley's Muggle Protection Act of a few years before – Wilson was a squib, which clearly indicated exactly how important the traditionalist, conservative ministry viewed the position. However, Wilson was no idiot, and had made a life for himself outside the magical world as a Royal Navy officer before being wounded and medically discharged. Disturbed at the direction he saw the magical world taking, he volunteered for the Ministry post mostly at the behest of the non-magical Security Service, more commonly known as MI-5, who wanted as much information on the Wizarding Britain as possible.
Harry had been spirited away for a week-long debriefing by the Security Service, who, he was very surprised to learn, had been aware of the magical population since the Second World War. Although any witnesses to the various magical battles fought between Grindelwald's followers and the Allied wizards had been swiftly obliviated, general references to such events had appeared in ultra-high level, and supposedly encrypted transmissions sent between members of the German High Command, with whom Grindelwald was coordinating, or controlling depending which history you read. The Enigma machine, which the Germans believed essentially unbreakable, had in fact been decrypted and their innermost secrets read. These vague allusions to a second, hidden society living in secret in several other European countries such as occupied France had alarmed the paranoid wartime authorities who, after carefully, and secretly investigating, discovered their own fairly rapidly. The then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill had already known (as the Ministry of Magic had deigned to contact him when he took office concerning its existence,) but he had been prevented from mentioning it to any who did not already know about magic. Since he no longer had to break that prohibition, as his security chiefs had found out for themselves, he chose instead to set up an independent security department to monitor the Wizards during and after the war.
Section M, as it was known to its members, was a small team which had initially not had much priority and had therefore lacked detailed information concerning wizards. When however Voldemort went on his first reign of murder and terror in the late 1970s, with non-magical citizens being murdered mysteriously (to the regular authorities, anyway) left, right and centre, it became clear that there was a very real threat in the magical world, inside Britain's own borders that might very well cross over into the normal one. Although they had been unprepared and unable to act openly in the first war, the lessons learned meant that the Section was reorganised, given more authority and, where possible took steps to provide a final line of defence should the Ministry of Magic fail.
They seized on Harry as a source of valuable information on the current state of the Wizarding world. Developments in modern technology (and the complete failure of the magical world to understand or find counters to those developments) meant that satellites and reconnaissance aircraft had been able to get images, albeit slightly distorted, of the various magic enclaves such as Diagon Alley and even thermal images of Hogwarts itself (which was still a ruin to normal cameras), so they were aware of the general shape and layout of Wizarding Britain. Wilson had given them some access to political information, as had reading the various news sources, books and a number of carefully cultivated informants. However, to get a first person account from an individual who had previously been close to the heart of the fight was a critical event for them. After four days of exhaustive but friendly questioning on anything and everything they could think of, along with promises of assistance to set up his new life from MI-5, Jeremy Wilson and Harry got down to beginning his assimilation into the Muggle world.
First, Jeremy (or Jerry as he preferred,) had made sure he was declared Harry's legal guardian. This had proven to be easier than anyone had thought, as the Vernon and Petunia Dursley had never bothered to file the proper paperwork after Harry had been left on their doorstep by Dumbledore in 1981; this meant that Harry's legal status was in a kind of limbo in the muggle world. The Ministry of Magic was also apparently very eager to sweep the fact that the 'Boy-Who-Lived' was now without magic under the rug, so they had no objection to a squib that was also a minor ministry official taking guardianship of him. Since his parents had died without leaving any specific direction on his guardianship, (which was what had allowed Albus 'Supreme Mugwump' Dumbledore to place Harry with the Dursleys in the first place), this combination of limbo and apathy had enabled Jerry to gain guardianship in both worlds, and authority over access to Harry's vaults on his behalf, thereby frustrating the attempts of Dumbledore to continue his own illegal 'guardianship' for that very same reason, although the old man had tried to be subtle about it.
Potter family inheritance law had not denied Harry his inheritance, a fact which had rather surprised both of them somewhat after Jerry had informed him of the family's extremely ancient, noble pureblood status – both of them had expected at least a minimum of the usual pureblood bigotry, despite the Potter's solidly light-sided reputation. The Goblins had also assisted with the plan to thwart Dumbledore, as they were keen to one-up the Ministry, by whom they had been treated in law as 'magical creatures' rather than as actual people for generations. At Harry's request they had liquidated the Potter fortune's gold and wizarding investments and moved it all into an institution which represented them in the non-magical world. Coutts & Co., one of the oldest banks in the world, and based on The Strand in London was the Goblin's front into the mundane world, and the infinitely more extensive and complex muggle world financial markets actually netted the canny magical bankers the majority of their total profits – not that they would ever mention that little tip-bit to the Ministry. As it was now in a muggle bank he wouldn't be able to inherit until he was eighteen, instead of the seventeen years old Wizards used as their age of majority, but that was fine with Harry. As it was, he now had several hundred million pounds waiting for him to turn eighteen, and although that was a very welcome safety net, he didn't intend to spend anything more than he needed, which wasn't much. The rest would be invested on his behalf by the Goblins, who he trusted to be honest when that much money was involved.
While Jerry was regaining control over his finances, Harry was five years behind on a normal education. Wilson, with the added weight of the Security Service who were feeling generous after the windfall of information Harry had just provided, was able to arrange a crash course not only in Muggle life, but in all three sciences, English literature, advanced level mathematics and the basics of a couple of foreign languages, Spanish and French. The importance of the work was not lost on Harry, who quickly discovered that if he put his mind to it, and didn't shirk like he had so often at Hogwarts, he was a very quick learner. Eighteen rather brutal months later, Harry had rapidly caught up with his age group, and had specialised somewhat in maths and sciences. Deciding that if he couldn't fly brooms, he could still fly aircraft, Harry had set his sights on the Royal Air Force as his chosen career early in the catch-up process. He had already aced the flying aptitude tests and thoroughly enjoyed the half-dozen familiarisation flights that the Security Service had been able to wrangle for him as a favour for letting them trawl through letters from his friends as more potential sources of information. He was also top of his class in glider training, which had only cemented his ambitions. Fortunately, his vision had improved inexplicably while he'd been unconscious after the Ministry battle, and his scar, while still present also seemed less pronounced, and hadn't once caused him pain since that day either. He still had no specific explanation either of those things, but his vision was now better than 20/20; lucky for him, as he knew the RAF would never let him fly if he'd still had glasses. In the meantime he'd decided not to mention it, just in case.
Of his friends at Hogwarts, Hermione was the most thorough in her relaying of news. She had responded to his request to stay informed by writing pages and pages of information, roughly every fortnight: part of the intel MI-5 had so coveted. Neville, Luna and Ginny, amongst others also all corresponded with him, albeit on a far less regular basis. The latter had initially tried to apologise for her older brother's actions, but even if Harry had not directly experienced them, the betrayal still hurt. He replied bluntly to say that it wasn't her apology he was seeking, and that he wouldn't accept it from Ron anyway – they were done.
The door opening behind him didn't startle him, but his eyes reverted from infinite black to emerald green as he blinked, before turning around. "Hey, Hetty."
Henrietta Kirkland stood leaning on the door frame The medium height, auburn haired girl was an Army cadet at the tri-service Ministry of Defence school, and was their year-group's Senior Under Officer, or SUO. She was also Harry's best friend at the school, and had helped him through plenty of rough patches during his time there, putting up with his often rather brooding presence, dark moods and occasional bouts of depression with relentless cheerfulness.
"The Colonel wants to see you, he's in his office. Also, please can you please stop disrupting the sports? It's difficult enough to run a school-wide tennis competition even without gale-force winds blowing the balls out of the court."
"Sorry. Just a minute. And they weren't gale force, just...close." Harry's eyes turned black for a few seconds, no iris or whites visible, as he reached out with his senses and increased the barometric pressure around the school, before fading back to normal. "It'll die out on it's own in the next twenty minutes."
The violent removal of his magic had changed something within Harry. Over the six months or so after being expelled, he'd slowly gained control over a new, completely unique set of powers that apparently had nothing to do with magic. The genetic quirk that had made him a wizard apparently gave him access to different abilities if that power was absent. Harry's new talents enabled him to alter atmospheric pressure, temperature, moisture content and electrical charge through as yet unknown means; basically, weather manipulation, allowing him control over some truly awe-inspiring storms and lightning strikes, although he couldn't yet significantly influence large, naturally occurring weather formations. This rather useful set of powers also apparently had some link to his emotions, and the bouts of depression that he had suffered, especially at the start had resulted in the Dover area having some of the worst few years of weather that any local could remember.
Section M had exercised considerable restraint in investigating the parameters and source of this power, believing (probably correctly) that if they couldn't even begin to explain where magic came from then they wouldn't have much luck with Harry's even more unusual abilities. They chose instead to forego scientific investigation in the interest of maintaining security. Once he expressed an interest in the Air Force, the Section had brought his ambitions, and potential abilities, to the attention of the very highest echelons of the RAF and MoD, most of whom were also already in the know about the magical world, in case the whole situation went FUBAR (1) too quickly to give them the background information: something which it obviously had the potential to do now that Voldemort was back. Once they got over the general disbelief, the various Air Marshalls were keen, to say the least, on the idea of having someone as potentially powerful as Harry in the service.
At the school, Hetty and the headmaster Colonel Sunderland were the only ones in the know for obvious reasons– the colonel because MI-5 and the Air Force brass had pointedly explained Harry's potential value as a member of the military, and therefore that , and Hetty because she was just plain smart. Back when Harry had started, she'd made a few unknowingly ill-advised remarks that had prompted rather severe emotional reactions from him that caused static charges and obvious rumbles of thunder. The word 'freak' had used in most of those instances, although not in relation to Harry, and the years of emotional neglect and physical abuse from the Dursley's had made it a trigger word. He'd managed to train himself out of it, however, with Hetty's help. She'd confronted him, although not aggressively, and straight out asked him what exactly was different about him.
Unwilling to sacrifice their nascent friendship, Harry had at first avoided the question, before calling Wilson as his de facto guardian and persuading him to let Harry tell her. Once persuaded, Jeremy had come to the school personally with an MI-5 officer to help prove it – and to get her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. With the secrets out of the way, Hetty had become his rock in a still-unfamiliar world. She had taught him meditation to help concentration and control his powers; it had been a part of her martial arts training from her father Daniel – a former Army physical training and combat instructor – who had included Harry in that training when he came to stay with them for long periods over the holidays. Pushing himself to the limit, given his already time-consuming academic catch-up programme, Harry had managed to get up to a reasonably proficient level in the two-handed fighting style Eskrima.
Saying goodbye to Hetty, Harry made his way outside and across to the main building where Colonel Sunderland's office was located. He knocked, and entered at a muffled "Come in," from inside, where the Colonel was sitting behind his desk. Sunderland looked up at Harry, caught his eye and meaningfully glanced out the window, before raising his eyebrow.
"It'll blow over shortly sir, or so I'm told." Harry dead-panned, and the room's other occupant snorted.
"Yes, I'm sure you would know, Harry." Henry Pearce was a bulky, older man with rapidly receding hair, sitting on the couch against the wall to the right. "After all, your weather prediction talents border on the ... magical, don't they now." Pearce was the head of Section D, the Security Service's counter-terrorism department, and the man in charge of its subdivision Section M. He was a very 'hand-on' kind of commander, and as such he'd been very much involved with Harry's initial debriefing at Thames House (2), personally sitting in on several of the sessions and still occasionally called for clarifications or to ask more questions.
"Again, so they tell me sir." Witty repartee complete, Harry turned to the Headmaster. "Colonel, the SUO said you wanted to see me?"
"Chief Pearce does. This conversation is apparently need-to-know – and I don't – so I'm going to take a walk." Sunderland stood up and moved to leave. "Harry, good luck with whatever it turns out to be; Henry, don't steal my cigars when you leave. I know your tricks, spook."
Pearce didn't deign to respond to that, just smirked and nodded goodbye as the Colonel left. With the door shut, he turned to Harry.
"It's starting. Voldemort's begun massing forces near Hogwarts, about twenty five kilometres into the Forbidden Forest, which is actually in the Grampian Mountains. They're magically concealed, but still relatively visible on thermal and satellite cameras. Phoenix drone overflights put the numbers at several thousand, including a number of giants and possibly a dragon, but that's only an estimate. Our estimate is that we've got about twenty-four to forty-eight hours before he attacks the castle, so we're moving some military assets to provide assistance in addition to the plan we've already worked out. Major Cooper and his squadron are already gearing up, and I've got a helicopter down at Dover ferry port waiting to take us to Hereford."
"Understood. You still want me to fry him?"
Pearce winced. "I wouldn't put it like that."
"Of course not. You still think I'm your best shot at getting through to Voldemort, since you can't be sure a bullet will get through his shields."
"Indeed. And yes, that is still the plan. The Royal Artillery will have a full regiment of howitzers to provide fire support. Only the battery and regimental commanders are briefed in on magic though, so the rest of them have been told it's a live fire exercise. Since they're shooting at targets well over the horizon, it shouldn't be a problem."
"Right. I'll go grab my kit and meet you out front, sir."
Exiting the office, Harry jogged back to Allenbrooke House and upstairs to his room. From under the bed he slid a grab-bag, a small carrying case containing his combat uniform and a Browning Hi-Power 9mm side arm with two spare clips. The British military was not in the habit of issuing guns to teenage cadets, but again MI-5 had intervened, pointing out that Harry was still under threat but without a wand, and so another exception had been made, albeit extremely grudgingly and on the condition that Harry both trained on it at least weekly and re-qualified every three months – that amount of practice, combined with the very quick reaction times and high level of hand-eye coordination that had made him the youngest Quidditch seeker in a century had ensured that he was by now a very good pistol shot.
A short car ride with Pearce took them to a deserted area behind a warehouse in Dover harbour, where an executive helicopter was waiting, engines already spinning up. Just over an hour later, they were touching down at an airstrip a few miles from Credenhill Barracks, the home of Her Majesty's 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, the original modern Special Forces unit and the template for dozens of similar organisations around the world.
D Squadron, 22 SAS was the unit that had been briefed and trained to fight against the Death Eaters. Divided into four sixteen-man troops, commanded by a major and four captains as troop commanders. Harry and Jeremy Wilson had been a part of their briefing, and Harry had trained with them a handful of times because he was the one non-magical person with the 'punch' to fight on an even footing at close quarters with wizards. The hardened SAS soldiers, almost all veterans of some particularly brutal conflicts in the Falklands, the Gulf War and the Balkans had at first been extremely sceptical of the tactical value of a sixteen-going-on-seventeen Air Force cadet. However, after Harry pretty much demolished their shooting range with a lightning strike when demonstrating his abilities they got over their cynicism and got used to the idea that this 'teenager' could blast them with hundreds of thousands of volts of natural electricity. Several of them had taken the time to help him with his marksmanship and martial arts practice, teaching him all the 'dirty fighting' tricks that Daniel Kirkland didn't, as he was more of a straight-laced competition fighter, who didn't have to use his skills to survive on missions.
Waiting for them was a tall, rangy man dressed in British Army DPM camouflage with a Major's crown insignia on his rank tab, wearing a sand-coloured beret with an SAS cap badge – a winged dagger with the motto 'Who Dares Wins' inscribed beneath (3). Major Cooper, commander of Sabre Squadron Delta, or D Squadron was a legend even in the SAS, having served in the Regiment for close on twenty years, nearly his entire career. He'd even refused promotion several times simply because he didn't want to give up being a field soldier. To his credit, he'd barely even blinked when MI-5 had strolled in through the door with this perfectly normal looking teenager in tow, and told him he'd be in charge of putting down an army of murderous domestic pseudo-neo-Nazi terrorists, armed with abilities told of in fairy tales – and that the 'teenager' could throw around similar, although apparently different supernatural powers and would be along for the ride.
"Evening sir, evening Harry; we're about ready to move out, so let's go."
Pearce nodded at him, then turned to Harry. "I'm heading back to London, to brief the Prime Minister on the response plan. Good luck and good hunting, kid."
"Thank you, sir." Pearce nodded again, and walked back to the helicopter idling on the pad.
"Okay, Major, where're we going?" Cooper turned away and waved for Harry to follow him as he answered.
"We're moving to a staging area at Aberdeen Airport. It's the closest place that we can park the helicopters for more than a few hours that also has fuel resupply without anyone asking too many awkward questions. If anyone asks, it's a training exercise. Hercules C-130 is waiting, so let's go."
May 1st 1998, Forward Staging Area - Aberdeen Airport, Hangar Three.
Almost forty-eight hours later, Harry was both bored and extremely anxious. A normal person would have been fidgeting; Harry was stock still, meditating, as he focused on not causing thunderstorms and random lightning strikes, which wasn't exactly a problem normal people had to deal with.
The shout of "Gear up, we've got the call!" from Sergeant Major McDiarmid was an extremely welcome relief. Harry sprang up from his cross-legged position and loaded up with an MP5 sub-machine gun and combat webbing over medium-grade body armour. Around him, a few SAS troopers loaded up with heavy-calibre sniper rifles and plenty of spare ammo in small patrol backpacks Only five soldiers and Harry were left, as they would be inserted by helicopter: two sniper-spotter teams and Sergeant Major McDiarmid, who was to be Harry's designated bodyguard. As the most critical but also the least trained member of the squadron he'd need all the help he could get to stay alive. The six of them would be deposited on the 'Dark Tower,' formerly used as a prison and the only one with a flat open roof as opposed to a steeply angled tile one, and Harry and his watchful protector would make their way down through the castle out into the fight directly, while the shooters would have a clear line of sight to the Forbidden Forest and the bridge that led towards the Castle from it.
Major Cooper had felt that although the Special Forces' helicopters (a pair of Aerospatiale Gazelle light helicopters and a flight of four AgustaWestland A109-A combination transport/gunships that had been 'appropriated' – a polite word for 'stolen' – from the Argentines in the Falklands) had been modified and hardened against the electronic-magnetic interference of Hogwart's wards and magical field, it was too much to risk inserting his entire force onto a single tower. It would take too long for every single helicopter to land and unload one at a time, and the tower might be sealed from the inside by enemy forces, trapping them in a very confined space. Thus he had opted to airlift only a small fraction of his force while deploying the rest via Land Rovers.
The rest of the squadron was already in a concealed position near Hogwarts, and would time their arrival to be a few minutes after Harry had landed. They would not approach the main castle, as they were at a distinct disadvantage fighting experienced magical duellists at close quarters, and Cooper had again decided to play to the Army's strengths and utilise as much long-range firepower as he could. Following that logic, they had all been issued with either L118A 'Arctic Warfare' 7.62mm sniper rifles, MILAN guided missile launchers, 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMGs) and tripod-mounted 50-cal M2 heavy machine guns. They would take position at the West Tower, a building perched on a rocky outcrop some considerable distance outside the castle wall. From there, they had a gap of several hundred metres between them and the closest enemy forces, and the outcrop and attached tower would give the marksmen, gunners and missileers a high vantage point to lay down a horrific volume of concentrated fire. The snipers would pick off enemy leaders and other critical targets when identified; the heavy gunners would suppress and fix groups of enemies in place, and the MILAN operators would steer fragmentation warheads into those pinned enemy formations.
If that wasn't enough, Cooper had an EMP hardened radio to contact a regiment of AS-90 heavy howitzers twenty kilometres away; eighteen guns that could lay down huge amounts of high explosive shells when required. That was a last resort however – the government didn't want to show even the light-sided wizards just how much firepower those 'useless Muggles' could call upon unless absolutely necessary. A tracked Rapier anti-air missile vehicle would follow at the back of the vehicle column to deal with the potential threat of the dragon that the UAVs had seen.
The helicopter flight was only about twenty minutes. As they flew, with the two Gazelles in the lead flanked by the four A109's, Harry started altering the local atmospheric conditions. He wasn't whipping up a thunderstorm yet, as the helicopters would need to get in and out first, but he created the conditions for one and rode the edge, increasing air temperature near the ground and a cold front from the north. As they touched down, he would rapidly force the warm air up through the cold, creating an extremely concentrated, towering cumulus cloud filled with ice crystals. Then, he would electrically charge both those crystals, positive at the top of the cloud, negative at the bottom. This would give him pretty much on-call lightning strikes, as he could instantaneously charge a target with positive ions, and since opposites attract, nature would do the rest. It would take about fifteen minutes to lift the warm air up and kick-start the 'mature stage' of the storm, but the ionisation of the cloud was instantaneous and repeatable. The result would be an extremely localised, extremely violent thunderstorm that would take several hours to dissipate if he didn't keep it going. It had taken a lot of time to learn to multi-task controlling the storm while remaining aware of the situation around him, but he still missed things – which was why the extremely lethal Sergeant Major McDiarmid would be watching his back.
Storms aside, they still had the problem that they couldn't see Hogwarts. Harry had innocently asked Hermione in a letter over a year before if he would be able to see the true Hogwarts ever again – she of course had headed off to the Library to research it, and had returned with the answer that if he got close enough, just touching it would reveal it to him. During their planning, Harry and Cooper had used descriptions of the dimensions of the Castle from 'Hogwarts: A History' to get a three-dimensional model of the towers and buildings. The solution they came up with was simple and effective, but would remain untested until it had to actually work.
As they approached Hogwarts, the sun had just fallen. Harry could see multi-coloured flickers of light as the pitifully outnumbered forces of 'the Light,' engaged the Death Eaters coming out of the Forbidden Forest to the south – that part was not hidden by the wards like the castle was. They were clearly losing – they were already retreating, although it was barely controlled and more of a rout than a tactical retreat. In the middle distance, the Land Rovers of Cooper's convoy had blasted through the Castle's wrought-iron outer gate at high speed and were pulling off the track leading to the Castle, still concealed from both sides as they pulled up behind the West Tower outcrop and began unloading the heavy weapons components.
Hogwarts still looked like a ruin. Harry felt a moment of intense sadness as he looked at the crumbling façade – even if this worked, he'd never be able to return, either to the castle or to magic. He shook the feeling off as the Gazelle flared out, still apparently a long way above the ruin.
This was the idea they had come up with. Even though concealed, the castle was still there. A helo that flew too low would slam into an invisible, unyielding wall of stone. Therefore, the pilots had studied the three-dimensional model of the Castle that had been created. They used altitude and GPS instruments only, coming to a hover precisely about ten metres above where the flat-topped Dark Tower should be. Harry and McDiarmid, on opposite sides of the helicopter, cracked a half-dozen chemical lightsticks each, and scattered them in a fan-shaped arc below them.
It worked. Although some of the cyalume lights had continued to fall to the ground almost thirty metres lower, some appeared to float in mid-air ten metres down from the helicopter. Relaying instructions on the intercom, Harry guided the small helicopter in lower, throwing out more lightsticks in an effort to better define the target area. When he judged that he had a clear idea of the tower's dimensions and wasn't about to go tumbling off the edge, he slid the headset off and flipped a salute to McDiarmid, before throwing himself out the door.
Harry had guided the helo in as close as he dared, but he still fell two or three metres, tucking into a parachutists roll to lessen the impact. It still hurt, but he hadn't broken, sprained or twisted anything. As his boots hit the invisible stone, Hogwarts would have appeared before him in a kind of blink-and-you miss it moment. Unfortunately, he was too busy sprawling on the slick granite to really appreciate it, even if he was thankful for not falling to his death. Staggering to his feet in the down-wash of the helicopter, Harry popped flares, laying them on the parapet around the edge of the roof, allowing the pilots to accurately define where to position the side doors so the snipers and McDiarmid could offload in a safer manner. After the Sergeant Major hit the roof, he handed Harry his MP5, which he'd left behind so as to be able to roll properly. Finding the heavy wooden door to the roof locked, and too solid to kick in, the SAS officer opted to rig a small breaching charge on the lock, the sharp crack of the explosion lost in the roar of the helicopter blades overhead. Taking one last look around, McDiarmid pronounced in a bored tone, "Interesting place, this," before entering the spiral staircase. Despite his nervousness, Harry grinned. That was about as close as the dour Scottish soldier was ever going to get to expressing jaw-dropping wonder.
By the time the two of them had worked their way down through the castle to the Entrance hall, the gunships had completed their strafing run, flying in a tight column of four down the length of the Dark force's line, firing their entire loadout of rocket and machine gun ammunition before bugging out to the south after the Gazelles so that Harry could 'bring the storm.'
"Bet those helo's were an unpleasant surprise." McDiarmid smirked. Harry could only agree. The vast majority of the two magical factions probably had no earthly idea what had just attacked them; a sad comment on the regressive isolationism the wizards had practice for so long, however strong their reasons. The strafing run meant that Cooper and D Squadron would commence firing shortly – it was intended mostly as a distraction as they finished setting up, get the wizards looking to the skies before the real sledgehammer hit them from the flank.
The Great Hall, which Harry could see into from his position at the bottom of the stairs had been turned into a battlefield hospital, with Ministry medical staff tending to the fallen. There were too many; some casualties were laid out in the Entrance Hall, and Poppy Pomfrey was flitting between them. She caught sight of Harry as she stood up from over one of the stretchers, and her surprised expression would have been comical in any other situation. She barely even noticed the fully tooled-up soldier behind him.
She spluttered incoherently, which too would have been an amusing departure from her usual unflappable attitude had it not been for the dead and dying around them. "Harry ... Mr Potter ... what on earth ... where ... how ..."
Harry interrupted as he continued past. "Doesn't matter right now, ma'am. Just keep them alive."
She snapped back to her usual professional mien and got right on it as Harry, shadowed by the watchful McDiarmid jogged out of the main entrance into a passable imitation of Hell.
AHHHH – cliffhanger, sort of. I just wanted to get the update out, since some of you were begging so nicely (cue evil laugh). I'll write the rest of the battle for you in the next few days, never fear.
A/N 3 – as you can probably tell, I'm a big fan of military fiction. Sorry if all the jargon is putting you off – just wiki it if it doesn't make sense, or leave a comment if you think it's too much. As I stressed at the start, this story is primarily a military story. There's going to be a lot of this kind of thing.
A/N 4 – I've also taken some serious liberties with the meteorology of storms. Don't believe a word I write about that, just roll with it. It sort of works. If you squint real hard at the Wiki page.
TRIVIA! Or the footnotes, for all the technical bits
FUBAR = F***** up beyond all recall – military slang for everything going to hell in a hand-basket.
Thames House is the headquarters of the Security Service, as opposed to Vauxhall Cross, which is the HQ of the Secret Intelligence Service, more commonly known as MI-6. For those that like useless info, SIS HQ is also known as 'Legoland' and 'Babylon-on-Thames' for its distinctive (*cough* downright odd *cough*) architecture.
The famous SAS badge isn't actually a winged dagger (shock horror, do I hear from all you military buffs out there). Designed in 1941 by Bob Tait, one of the regiment's founding members, it's actually a downward pointing Excalibur (yes, King Arthur's sword) wreathed in flames, on a Crusader Shield. No one knows exactly when that particular misconception of the winged dagger started, but it's become deeply embedded in pop culture, so I'll call it that.