Metal Gear Potter

Chapter 3

The year passed rather peacefully, even though Snake would put the blonde boy in the hospital wing again and again. The annoying child was too proud to say that he had been beaten up by Harry, and while Draco avoided him, Snake would injure him whenever he insulted anyone. Petty? Perhaps, but Snake was trying to teach a hard lesson to an idiot.

He studied the mind arts intently, trying to learn how to protect his most important secret: his true name. Solid Snake, a warrior honed by "Big Boss" himself. He was the son of the legendary mercenary and he had a reputation to live up to. Protecting his mind was just one aspect of that.

The only things that altered the year was his research into the Cerberus, a three headed dog that was put to sleep by music and the other traps, a plant that was weak to fire, a key that could be summoned by overwhelming the anti summon charms, a giant chess board that was rather…easy to defeat, a troll that was easily outsmarted, and a simple logic test.

However, it merely led to a mirror. Easy enough to disregard. However, Snake hated surprises since they killed men more often than not.

While Snake did have to deal with surviving when the Defense Professor tried to kill him he managed to gain control back of his broom by willing magic to counter the threat against him. It gave him enough time to grab the snitch, and then make a dive landing on the ground. He did notice that his hated potions professor tried to assist, but ultimately failed. However, Snake didn't care about that, he was however curious why the man tried to save him. Yet, it wasn't as if he could walk up and ask him: "Why did you save me?", so instead Snake left that for a later date and began teaching Hermione the basics of self Defense.

"Okay, so if I get attacked where should I strike?" She asked curiously.

"If they are unguarded you could go for a groin shot. This is very effective, and devastating. However, odds are that they will protect their groin and eyes first. Therefore, strike at the knee. A strong enough stomp or kick to the inside or outside of the knee will leave them seeing stars. Plus, it's hard to walk on a severely damaged knee, if not impossible. If you do enough damage to the joints, they won't be nearly as much of a threat." Harry explained.

Hermione blinked.

"The knee?" She asked curiously.

Harry nodded.

"When you're in a fight, you need to end it as soon as you can. You need to use whatever means to end the fight, otherwise someone you love or yourself could get hurt." Harry warned.

Hermione frowned thoughtfully.

"So I need to end the fight quickly? What about doing things ethically?"

Harry frowned. This was a sore topic, and one that he himself struggled with.

"The longer the fight goes on, the more dangerous it becomes. For yourself, and any people nearby. It's essential to end it as fast as possible. There's only one dirty trick: the one the enemy uses. Fighting is only used as the last resort, and so…Don't hesitate, end the fight immediately."

Hermione nodded seriously.

"Now, show me what you've learned!" Harry yelled as he rushed her.

Harry threw a hefty punch at her face; intentionally opened up to counter attack. She saw the opening to which she dropped under his fist and then rammed her shoulder into his side. A second later she knocked him back, and across the room with a mighty shove.

An instant later she ran up beside him and attempted a stomp on his chest; just as he had taught her.

Harry however, used his forearm to strike her shin and knock her off balance, and more importantly, allowed him to roll up to a kneeling position where he rushed her.

Hermione, barely rolled out of Harry's way. However, a leg sweep from the 'retreating' boy led to Hermione being knocked off her feet again.

A second later Harry's foot gently pressed down on Hermione's chest, just exactly where he had told her to strike to stop an opponent (instead of his much more lethal head stomp).

"Not bad." Harry grinned at Hermione as he lifted her back to her feet.

"You beat me in about a minute."

Harry nodded.

"I'm also considered a black belt." Harry replied tersely.

He was slowly opening up to the girl, she had proven exceptionally loyal, and she was his first true…friend.

"You never mentioned that." She said accusingly.

Harry shrugged.

"You never asked."

Hermione blinked in surprise.

"Anyway, you're getting pretty good." Harry admitted.

With that the eleven, nearly twelve year old girl smiled brilliantly and the two friends made their way back up to Gryffindor's dorms.

The weeks passed on in a similar vein until Halloween.

The two children were in their charms class with the loud mouth boy named "Ron Weasley" and he was doing his absolute best to make the feather float.

Finally, Hermione took pity on him and showed him the proper way of doing it. Ron however, merely glared at Hermione furiously and she backed off.

It didn't seem like a big issue to Snake until after the class.

"It's no wonder no one can stand her. She's a know-it-all snob." Ron declared angrily to his snickering housemates.

Hermione's eyes filled with tears and before Snake could stop her she rushed away.

Snake spun to face Ronald Weasley.

"What's it to you? Hermione is my friend, and a great person." Snake snarled.

Ron sneered at Snake. The expression was about as effective as a baby rabbit's eyes.

"What? The secretive boy-who-lived finally speaks to us lower beings?" Ron spat.

"That's right. Lower beings." Snake agreed with a snarl before he continued. "It takes a real scumbag to insult a person who's just trying to help." Snake's head then snapped over to the audience that had snickered in agreement.

"And it takes a weakling who has no sense of decency to laugh over it." Snake added to their crowd's shame.

Snake then turned back to Ron.

"You've insulted my friend Weasley. You have made an enemy of me as of this day." Snake said before turning his back on the red haired kid and only a step later dodged Ron's fist.

With the momentum of his dodge Snake whipped around and smashed the Gryffindor in the stomach with a vicious blow.

Ron let out a gurgled moan as he collapsed.

"A word of advice. Don't try that again." Snake said before he turned to chase after Hermione again.

Snake had to search rather determinedly, and only after overhearing a couple girls gossip about how Hermione was heard sobbing in the girl's bathroom did Snake find out where she was. Instantly, Snake rushed to the room and knocked.

Since no girl responded Snake entered; feeling incredibly embarrassed.

"Hermione?" Harry called.

"Harry? W-what are you doing here?" Hermione sobbed.

"I was looking for you. After all, you're my friend and I won't abandon you." Harry promised.

At that the stall door opened up and Hermione; her face stained with tears propelled herself into his arms sobbing.

"Oh Harry." She cried as Harry rubbed her back gently.

"It's okay." Harry assured.

My father would be cheering my name right now… "Go David! Yeah!"

Harry thought to himself as he held Hermione in a comforting embrace. Eventually, Hermione's tears receded and they readied themselves to head down to the Halloween feast.

That's when Snake noticed that something was wrong.

A putrid scent filled the air, and fearing the worst Snake pushed Hermione into an empty stall.

"Stay here and don't get up." Snake warned before he shut the stall door, and entered the hall. A massive troll was in the hallway, and for a second it didn't notice him, however, it wasn't very long before it began to amble towards Solid Snake.

"Dammit!" Snake swore as he drew his slightly modified M9 Beretta.

The Beretta was equipped with a laser pointer for accuracy and a silencer mounted on its end. Snake only hoped that it would have enough power to punch through that thing's skull.

At that Snake fired a round in between its eyes.

An odd and muffled sound whispered through the hallway as the silenced 9 MM round struck the troll. Unfortunately, the troll's hide was thick enough that the bullet merely broke the skin of the ugly beast.

"Eye shot only huh?" Snake muttered as he ducked under the troll's club.

"Damn." Snake swore as the troll deflected the second round with its massive club.

A moment passed before Snake jumped over another swing of the bat, and as he descended he fired one round, this one at the troll's left eye. The bullet penetrated its flesh and with a moan the massive beast crumpled.

"I don't want to fight another one of those with just this thing." Snake muttered before picking up the three spent rounds.

Leaving evidence of his kill would have been reckless. Once that was taken care of Snake went back to Hermione.

"It's okay now. It was a Troll. Although we better leave now." Harry explained.

Hermione nodded wordlessly.

The two kids left quickly and before the teachers arrived they had already entered Gryffindor tower.

On their way back Hermione asked Harry a question he had been hoping to avoid.

"How did you stop that troll?" Hermione asked.

"Err…I…Uh…I don't want to talk about it right now please. We all have our unique traits. Mine just let me stop the troll. Please don't tell anyone that I did though."

"Why not?" Hermione demanded.

"Because I don't trust them, the Headmaster, or his lackeys, let alone the incompetent potions and defense professors."

Hermione blinked and asked her next, obvious question.

"What do you mean?"

Harry stopped and faced her with a raised eyebrow.

"It takes a skilled man to know how to brew potions perhaps, but it takes a great man to teach them. Snape is a skilled man, a brilliant potioneer, but he's garbage at teaching, and don't even get me started on Quirrel." Harry shuddered.

"Quirrel?" Hermione asked as they sat down in their respective comfortable seats.

"Yeah, he seems okay, if incompetent. However, there's something…sinister about him. I don't trust him. At all."

Hermione looked at him curiously but could tell that Harry had nothing more to say and so the subject was dropped.

While the two children enjoyed visiting each other the Professors were gathered around the dead troll.

After several diagnostic charms cast by Dumbledore he turned to the group.

"The troll died because of a physical discharge of metal to the eye. It penetrated the eye and drove its way into the brain. The troll died instantly. I am uncertain as to what could have caused this occurrence." Dumbledore announced.

Flitwick spoke.

"Perhaps it's a modified javelin hurl curse?"

Snape shook his head.

"It'd take a full size javelin to kill the troll. Besides, the velocity of the javelin hurl curse lessens the smaller it gets."

"How large was the entry point?" McGonagall asked.

"Not very large at all, a few millimeters across and around is all."

"That kind of entry wound is very strange." Professor Sprout admitted.

"A famous investigator once said something that might fit here well." Professor Vector said.**

"What's that?"

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully.

"In that case, we should place every method of death known to us on the table and eliminate the impossible. What's left should be the correct answer. No matter what it might be." Dumbledore agreed.

They turned towards each other.

"Of course it cannot be an ethereal attack seeing how it left metallic remnant in the corpse." The Ancient Runes professor commented.

Dumbledore agreed.

"The javelin hurl curse wouldn't work here either since its velocity would reduce in conjunction to its size."

"Maybe…maybe someone banished a needle into its eye?" McGonagall suggested.

"The metal fragment's too wide." Dumbledore shook his head.

"Perhaps, it wasn't a magical method?" Vector suggested.

"What do you mean?" Snape asked in interest.

"It could be a muggle device. They're known for violence and killing."

Dumbledore's eyes widened in shock.

"Of course! That's it. It's a muggle device indeed. I think this might have been the work of something called a gen….Wait, that's not it."

Dumbledore had to think long and hard, what was the thing that muggles killed each other with? It must have been…

"A gun. A firearm." Dumbledore said firmly.

"A gun? A muggle wand did this?" McGonnagal said in shock.

Dumbledore nodded.

Vector nodded in agreement.

"A gun fires a 'bullet' by hitting the back of the round to ignite the gunpowder, propelling the round out of the barrel at incredible speeds. Once it hits its target it continues to travel until its velocity is eliminated. I would assume that it was a handgun that killed the troll."

"A handgun?" Professor Sprout asked.

Dumbledore nodded.

"A small concealable weapon that doesn't have the power of a larger 'gun' but is still able to do a solid job…as was just proven here."

The pureblooded teachers shuddered. A muggle weapon with the power to kill a fully grown mountain troll. The muggles were indeed getting more dangerous. It was proving problematic. In particular since the muggle world's influence was growing. Somehow, it had even reached Hogwarts, and that was truly bad.

Intervention was required.

*Author's note: The M9 Beretta was chosen as the pistol of choice for the US military in 1980. Snake modified it to also have the laser pointer like the SOCOM has on MGS. The M9 is a rather nice pistol if I do say so myself, (even though it does have some faults) and it's proven itself time and time again for the military and police forces. It has several variations but… Its design has been tried and proven.

** Sherlock Holmes, who else? :)