Five Months
As winter looses its bitterness and the year slowly slides into spring, Harry and Fortuna begin manoeuvre practice in formation.
It is not easy to find them a suitable place in any of the traditional tactics: they do not fit in the usual categories very well.
Combat dragons are supposed to fly in formations, some as large as ten dragons, and some as small as three; the usual way is to centre them around the dragons with peculiar abilities, like the acid-spitting Longwings or the ponderous Regal Coppers, letting smaller dragons accompany and support them, for reinforcement and protection. All very well in theory, but Fortuna isn't much suited to either role.
She isn't anywhere near as big enough to be a formation leader, nor does she have any special ability, yet her personality and flight style make her too independent to be effective in a support role; she's far too good a flier to be constrained in a marginal role, yet she doesn't have the raw power for heavy combat. She's... different.
Harry's provenance from outside the Aerial Corps, his lack of pre-formed ideas about what a dragon is and isn't supposed to do, exacerbate the situation. She's rebellious and opinionated and unusual and he likes her all the more for it. He doesn't see any problem with it, but most other aviators do and it causes a lot of strife (awfully worsened by Harry's obvious reluctance towards fighting, which they won't forgive, he knows: he himself wouldn't have condoned it, during the war back home).
Formation flying is an amazing exercise of precision and control. When performed right, it is a graceful and apparently effortless dance that can turn deadly in the blink of an eye: but to get to that point, it takes hours upon hours of gruelling practice. Quidditch has given Harry some experience in flying in a group, but this is completely different. It does not help that the two of them love to fly dangerously, and find the contained manoeuvres of formation flying stifling and boring.
Training becomes even worse when they have to include people shooting rifles from Fortuna's back and belly-netting. They have less and less time for anything other than collapsing in exhaustion at the end of the day.
Fortuna hates it. He has to coax her into it every morning and the officers assigned to them all agree: it is a chore and a half.
For several weeks, their training master, the venerable Celeritas, shifts them around in different roles, different positions, trying out different options, experimenting with different combinations.
It does not endear them to their fellow aviators, who are shuffled around in an attempt to figure out the best way to exploit Fortuna's peculiarity: some resent being held back from front-line posts, some find it dull to try minimal variations of the same manoeuvres over and over, some still haven't forgiven Harry for 'stealing' a dragon for himself.
That's only the start of their trouble putting together an air crew. Many refuse to fly with them again after being put through one of Fortuna's more inspired flight patterns. Others are less than thrilled at Harry and Fortuna's inability to stick to well-known manoeuvres, which makes flying with them even more hazardous. But what is the fun in never trying anything new, wonders Harry?
He flat out refuses to "tell his bloody dragon to calm down" as they demand. He loves the way she flies. If they can't cope with it, tough.
All the permutations Celeritas comes up with don't change a simple fact, however. In the end, Harry and Fortuna work best alone.
Harry might be used to being part of the Quidditch team, but really, when it comes right down to it, the Seeker is a loner. Looking for the Snitch is a solitary endeavour, it just happens to take place amidst the exciting chaos of a Quidditch match.
Fortuna for her part is self-sufficient and rather proud: she thinks the other dragons hold her back and would much prefer not to be saddled with them, or with a whining crew for that matter. Very few of the aviators assigned to her encounter her favour.
In their defence, the two of them do not shy from any task that might be asked of them, even when doing it on their own puts them in danger.
Captain Moreton, who is more or less in charge of the Covert these days, admits that there is some usefulness in a middleweight acting like a scout, being fast enough to dart around an area and get an idea of its features while at the same time being capable of withstanding a possible attack, rather than having to rely on stealth or escape. Since they show a talent for that kind of task, Celeritas, too, relents a little.
When he and Fortuna are alone, Harry has no qualms using magic openly – he's sworn his dragon to secrecy with great pomp and drama; she's delighted to share such a secret with her captain and often, when there is no one around, looks at him beseechingly, like a huge puppy, begging to see more magic.
He knows a number of useful little spells to make scouting missions a success, from disillusionment to soundproofing and from sight-enhancing to scanning spells (though warming and rain-repelling charms don't go amiss either: scouting would be a miserable job without them).
His skill in the field buys them a chance to fly solo more often than a middleweight should, even though there isn't much to scout so up north, except for the purpose of practice.
They're still required to learn how to work with a crew and with other dragons, however, keeping their place and following orders; Celeritas is adamant about that – it is implied that they will be deployed in a formation once their training is complete, regardless of their preference. But in the meanwhile, they're allowed to play scouts, much to their delight.
By the time June rolls around in a blaze of sun-drenched days, they're well-known for their prickliness (Fortuna has rejected more than one hopeful officer and Harry has turned down a few more) and recklessness (their flying stunts are the source of more than one charge of madness) but also for their courage and dedication.
Fortuna's training focuses on her agility and fluidity in the air, and on working in tandem with the shooters she's supposed to carry, mostly. Harry has a few more things to learn, of which the one he hates the most is fencing.
Waving a sword around is all well and good – who wouldn't want to do it – but the fact is, his trainers have all started off as children and he has no hope of ever getting to their level: all he does is increase his collection of bruises, racking up quite a number of whacked shins, tired limbs and aching sides; (as for his battered pride, best not to even mention it).
It would be hard enough to learn to fence on the ground, he thinks, but he is expected to do it atop a dragon. His dragon, specifically, the one who can easily go over thirty-two miles per hour but likes to try for faster, and make all sorts of twists and turns while at it! With wind rushing at him from everywhere, powerful muscles shifting under his feet, and people doing their damn best to unbalance and skewer him!
"You need to learn, Captain!" protests Joseph Barton, who's been appointed as his first lieutenant when a delighted Trenholme was assigned an egg, looking scandalized by his grumbling. "What if we're boarded? Mark my word, as soon as we're in a battle, we'll find ourselves pushing boarders back with our blades and don't think the riflemen and bombers will stop their fighting to oblige you!"
If it ever comes to that, he's going to whip out his wand and throw Stunners around like a madman, Harry vows.
Barton, a tall, steady fellow, slightly older than him and quite sociable once you get past his instinctive shyness, is Harry's self-elected conscience; he makes a point of reminding him of what he needs to train for, making sure he's on time for everything he needs to do, earnestly advocating the necessity of war, even teaching him about etiquette and the like.
"We in the Corps don't much care for all the formalities," the lieutenant tells him reassuringly, while at the same time, straightening his uniform, brushing him down briskly and gazing askance at his unmanageable hair. "Starch and neck cloths and whatnot, it's all a lot of nonsense. But the reputation of aviators is bad enough as it is: it's best to endure these tedious stuff than make a spectacle of ourselves in public."
Harry's odd use of language, too, is continually corrected, or at the very least, mercilessly mocked by Berriman, their confirmed second lieutenant, who laughs merrily whenever he glowers at her.
Ron finds his disgruntlement hilarious. Unlike his friends, the red-head is quite at ease with all the little pleasantries of this time. The right turns of phrases come easily to him, while Harry is still embarrassed whenever he has to fit pray tells and indeeds and I should thinks in his sentences.
"I feel like bloody Snape," he complains under his breath. "Only I can't quite manage the same level of sarcasm."
"It is the mode of the society we keep," says Ron, amused, and somehow, it doesn't sound at all pretentious when he says it. Harry shoots him a dirty look.
"Listen to you, all polite and refined," says Hermione affectionately. She's really quite impressed by how impeccable Ron's manners can be: she wouldn't have expected it of him.
"Always this tone of surprise," complains Ron good-naturedly. Then he tells them, with a shrug: "It's just like visiting Aunt Muriel, really. Mum made sure we knew all the right things to say and do and normally it's just a boring bother, but around here it's kind of a big deal and so..."
Harry wishes he had the same nonchalance, but he forgets his manners more often than not and then gets nagged or mocked by his lieutenants for it.
"You don't want to be thought uncouth, do you?" scolds Barton, disapprovingly. "It'd reflect badly on Fortuna, too, and on all of us!"
Harry wishes he could disagree. Politeness is one thing – he never liked coarse language, and anyway, he would likely hear McGonagall hissing at him in his mind if he started cursing like a sailor; but who cares about all this formality in speech?
And don't get him started on the current fashion. Between neck cloths chocking him and breeches getting tangled on him, he has come to rather despise it all. On the other hand, his beautiful green coat is awesome. As comfortable as a robe, impervious to any rain or snow or whatever the sky wants to throw at him, comfortably warm even without charms, swishing in a way that makes him feel taller. Yes, he likes it more than he admits.
Adjustment problems aside, however, things are going well. Harry rather hopes this state of things will last indefinitely.
He thinks about the war a lot more than his friends. To Ron and Hermione, it is distant, worrisome but remote; to him, it is the topic of every other sentence.
His fellow aviators talk of it all the time. If they aren't despairing about the reports of French victory after French victory, they are bragging about the British triumphs of the previous autumn, at Trafalgar, where Admiral Nelson was wounded (now that is a name even Harry has heard before) and at Dover, where a daring attempt at invasion has been prevented by the awe-inspiring actions of Captain Lawrence and his Temeraire.
The Divine Wind is on everybody's lips and Fortuna is fascinated with the tales of the Chinese Celestial that somehow found himself in the British Aviation. Harry suspects she's developing a bit of a crush on a dragon she's never even met (the famous Temeraire and his Captain are travelling to China, apparently). He wisely keeps his counsel on the matter. Girls will be girls, he sighs to himself; even girls with wings.
News from the continent is often bleak – the war is growing worse and the French are collecting successes. To Harry, who feels rather detached from it all, the cacophony of fighting echoed from the battlefields is almost a source of embarrassment: tales of defeats in Prussia and Poland and Russia keeps coming in and everybody is reacting with rage or dismay; he alone has trouble caring.
Europe is falling to Napoleon's armies piece by piece, but to him, it is more history than reality.
He cannot avoid the vivid descriptions of what is presumably awaiting them at the end of their training period, however. Mess hall times if nothing else ensure he hears his share of battle accounts.
He finds himself wondering what it would be like, a fight between a dragon and a ship, or a skirmish with a patrolling formation; whether he could cope with a true battle in mid-flight; what he might do if Fortuna was ever injured.
His dragon doesn't share his concerns. She's eager for battle – something he blames the older dragons for. Her blood-thirst, regularly fanned by the other dragons, is a little frightening to him.
He does not know what he shall do when they demand he and Fortuna be deployed.
Training usually takes a couple of years and he is clinging to the respite this gives him, but he fears that the spreading war will demand their presence on the front lines sooner than he's comfortable with.
He entertains idle thoughts of simply running and wonders if Fortuna will let him. He thinks of resigning himself to the fighting and wonders if he'll find it in himself to do so. It would be the only way to secure their position in this world and the truth is, he's rather committed himself to it: he is a captain in the Aerial Corps – there's no going around that.
He also cannot deny how much the Aviation is helping him and Fortuna, nor how at ease his dragon is here, despite her standoffish and somewhat solitary nature. He doesn't want to fight in this war, but everybody else seems to want him to (except Ron and Hermione, of course) and he feels conflicted about the whole thing.
He wonders how long he'll have before having to make a choice.
The war isn't his only worry, however.
There's Hermione, who's feeling better at last, but has launched herself in a monumental endeavour (seriously, teaching dragons to read? Only Hermione!). There's his crew, two of whom have a problem with alcohol he needs to address; there's the dreadful temper of the leader of his riflemen, Wedge, who's an irritating bully Harry wishes he could get rid of. There's little Hadrian Donnel, the youngest of his runners – he's just turned nine – who's been left an orphan during the latest battle, his mother and her Longwing having both been killed, and for whom Harry feels responsible.
Hermione tells him he's taking too much upon himself and berates him for it, but Ron, at least, understands. He's a captain: who else should look after his men?
Fortuna is his main concern, however.
He frets about her health and well-being constantly, especially when odd rumours of a dangerous cold crippling dragons start circulating; and then there is the emotional side of things.
She is ridiculously jealous of his attention: she has taken to spurn Ron because Harry makes it a point to spend sometime with him almost every day. She's not happy he and Hermione are in on the secret of magic, either, but grudgingly respects the witch who is teaching her so many interesting things; Ron has no such claim to her regard.
Thankfully, the redhead takes it in stride. "With seven of us, Mum didn't always have time for everybody... you learn to get over your jealousy eventually. She'll do the same, don't worry," he says consolingly.
Harry still wishes he could reassure her. Ron is his best friend, his brother-in-arms, his most trusted confidant; but Fortuna is- Fortuna.
Their bond is unshakable; surely she knows that? She must be entering puberty or something, however, because she has bouts of insecurity that leave him sweating: each of them will do anything – anything at all – to prevent the other from coming to harm, but emotional crisis make Harry feel out of his depth.
Also, she can be horribly girly.
Like that matter with the goggles. Harry can only shake his head when thinking of it.
His goggles are an essential part of his life these days. There is no question of going without: the winds would make it impossible to keep his eyes open and dry them out something awful, leaving him blind; he needs his prescription glasses however and the usual Impervius spell he used during Quidditch matches, while useful, doesn't guarantee that he won't lose them in mid-flight, nor that they'll survive amidst bombs and musket bullets.
After trying everything he and his friends can think of to make it easier to see while in flight, he resorts to magic to substitute the lenses of his own glasses into his flying goggles. He toys with the idea of getting goggles with specially made lenses – a friend of Ron's comes from a family of lens-makers and they would do it for a reasonable price – but in the end, magic is just easier. It means, however, that he has to keep his goggles on most of the time even when he's on the ground.
He takes some flak for it, but shrugs it off.
Fortuna, however, loves the goggles and starts making noises about having a pair for herself. But red! She really likes the colour red.
Harry, being Harry, indulges her and winces to the subsequent squeals. Who would have ever thought he'd come to see a huge, vigorous, belligerent dragon squealing like a little girl over a pair of huge, red goggles!
Though she quickly grows tired of the nuisance having her eyes covered is (dragons don't need protection from the winds), while it lasts it is just about the cutest thing ever.