"Alright everyone, this is what you have trained for!" Harry shouts as the assembled volunteers stand in a massive hanger. "Today we shall defeat Tom Riddle once and for all!"
As the majority of the students run to their aircraft the core group of DA members walk to Harry.
"You said you had a surprise for us?" Neville asks.
"Of course, new aircraft." Harry says, leading them to several large boxes.
"So we don't have to fly in those Fairey Swordfish Ms anymore?" Ginny asks enthusiastically.
"What's wrong with the Swordfish? It's a perfectly good aircraft." Hermione says.
"It's slow." Ginny answers.
"Calm down, or I'll put you in the Mk 1." Harry interrupts, preventing a common argument from starting again. Ever since Hermione designed the first mass produced magical aircraft, people had complained about it's speed, but it was extremely durable and very stable in the air.
"Fine." Ginny mutters.
"Now that that's taken care of." Harry begins, waving his wand to vanish the boxes. "Behold the majesty of the JU-87 M!"
In front of them were six gull winged single engined monoplanes, compared to the biplanes that everyone else had to fly, these look sleek and modern, but to the few that had seen modern jet fighters they were still archaic propeller aircraft.
"Whoa, nice." Ginny says.
"Only one wing? Is it safe?" Neville asks.
"Of course it is. Now, come on, let's give you guys a quick tour." Hermione says hurrying toward the new aircraft. She didn't really like the design, since it was foreign, but she admitted it was a step up from her Swordfish and the British never did design the best dive bombers.
"Alright, the first thing I should show you guys is the siren." Harry says pointing to a tiny propeller attached to a cylindrical tube, "At diving speeds this spins fast enough to create terrifying noise that will bring terror to anyone on the ground."
"Tell them about something important!" Hermione shouts.
"Fine." Harry grumbles, "here are the bomb hooks, we've got several sets of darkness powder bombs and of course the Erumpent horns."
"They thought those Stukas looked impressive. Wait until they see this." Harry says as he walks into the secret room for the command aircraft.
"To be honest only the purebloods and those who haven't left the wizarding world were impressed." Hermione says as she prepares a special enlarged version of the Mauraders map.
"Still, it is technically over forty years of advancement in the normal world from the Mk. 1 to the Stuka Ms." Harry rebukes, as he helps Hermione into the large craft where crew members Dobby and Winky were already preparing the armament.
"Are you sure you can fly this alone?" Hermione asks. "We can always call Luna to be your co-pilot."
"I'll be fine, the controls are boosted by magic, and the magic engines don't need as much attention as the normal equivalents." Harry replies as he starts the engines.
"Death eaters are beginning to enter through the front gate, I'm signalling everyone to begin taking off." Hermione says as she begins fiddling with the magic radio.
"Alright, when everyone is clear, open the bay doors and we'll take off as well." Harry says as he finishes his pre-flight checklist.
Ginny was excited for the coming battle, it would be her first chance to strike at the death eater menace.
"Neville, do you have a visual on the command aircraft?" Ginny radios.
"Negative, all other wings are circling the rendezvous point with us, but no command aircraft." Neville returns.
"Roger." Ginny radios before a shadow passes over her and her squadron's aircraft.
"Is that a flying house?" Ron radios as he stares at the twin engined monoplane above him. The boat-like fuselage hung below a massive rectangular wing with two massive engines.
"No it's a Catalina flying boat." Hermione radios, looking through one of the bubble-like windows near the tale of the giant aircraft.
"It's huge!" Neville radios.
"Quiet down everyone." Ginny radios.
"All squads report in." Hermione radios.
"Phoenix, reporting in." Ginny radios.
"Fox, reporting in." Angelina radios.
"Raven, reporting in." Cho radios.
After the other squadrons were accounted for the air group set a course for Hogwarts main gate.
"Phoenix will attack the center, while Fox attacks the south and Raven the north, all other squads remain at altitude and watch for secondary targets. Fox, once you've dropped your on air patrol, all other squads retreat to rearm." Hermione instructs as the death eaters enter visual range.
"Alright, I'm hitting the music!" Harry shouts, and soon the trill of a violin fills the air, followed by a flourish of horns.
"Ride of the Valkyries!? Seriously Harry!?" Hermione shouts over the music.
"We may not have helicopters, but I feel we have the perfect opportunity for an Apocalypse Now tribute!" Harry shouts, making Hermione regret letting her father show him that movie.
The death eaters could only stare in terror as horns from the heavens preceded a terrifying screech followed by darkness and explosions. Soon the silent shock was replaced by screams of terror as death eaters were sent flying by the explosions and others scrambled in the dark as the inner circle shouted at their men and tried to organize a response.
"Get on brooms you morons!" Lucius Malfoy was heard shouting.
"Dragon squad, hit those giants!" Hermione shouted though her radio as the Catalina began making a slow circle high above the battlefield with the armed squads circling below them.
Soon several death eaters managed to take to the air, but a vengeful Katie jumped them while they were still low and slow and took several out with some well placed spellfire, her gunner managed to take another out as she pulled up.
"If we can keep them low, and if they don't have Firebolts the Swordfish should be able to handle them." Hermione comments as she sends another squad to attack a group of death eaters.
"We can take them easily." Ginny radios irritably from her JU-87 M.
"You also have the largest payload and fastest rearm time, We can't pull you out of strike duty unless absolutely necessary." Hermione replies.
The battle dragged on as the enemies numbers were substantial and the arrival of the acromantulas was taking squads away from the main fight.
'I'm bored.' Harry thought as he slowly circled the battlefield.
"I can't shake him!" a pilot shouts over the radio as his plane is bombarded by spells from three tailing death eaters.
Noting Harry's silence, Hermione races to the cockpit. "Harry No!" Hermione shouts as she recognizes the look in his eyes.
"Harry Yes!" Harry shouts back as he rolls into a dive and races toward the struggling pilot.
Goyle Sr. had been waiting for this day for a long time. To finally show his master his true strength on the field of battle. Too bad it had all gone wrong right from the start, the upstarts had attacked from the sky like cowards, murdering good men. But now he had a chance to even the score. Two of his personally trained snatchers joined him in cursing this upstart out of the sky.
Suddenly a shadow covered the group, and Goyle looked to see what was attacking them.
"Scramble!" he shouted, diving away from the monstrosity racing toward him, but his allies were too slow and they broke on the bow of a truly massive flying thing.
The last thing Goyle ever saw was a bright red light flying from the front window.
Harry cackles with glee as he sends waves of stunning spells at unsuspecting death eater flyers as Dobby begins throwing potions of all types out the side bubbles.
"HARRY POTTER!" Hermione screams as she scrambles under her planning table and holds on for dear life, "This is not a fighter craft! Get us back in position this instant! None of the squads can see the map like I can! Death eaters might make it to the school!"
This calmed Harry down rather quickly, and after one last circle he ascended gently back to position.
"You saw the commander!" Angelina radios to her squad mates, "We can do better! Form up on me for a fly by!"
The squadron of Swordfish perform an aggressive pass over a group of death eaters racing to the castle. The pilots fire stunners, since they didn't want to blast their own propellers off, and their gunner and navigator send down some explosions as the planes pass.
"Looks like we sent them running for the forest!" Angenlina's navigator cheers.
"Good work, let's circle back and look for some enemy fliers." Angelina radio's.
"Harry! Raven squadron has spotted Riddle just outside the main gate!" Hermione shouts.
"Alright, descending to attack altitude." Harry replies and the uncomfortable feeling of a fast descent hits Hermione's stomach.
"Dobby, Winky prepare the package." Hermione says as she rushes to the bombardier's position.
"Alright Hermione, I am ready to drop." Harry says after Hermione gets into position.
"Dobby, is the package ready?" Hermione asks.
"Ready!" Dobby calls.
"I see him Harry, move a bit to the left." Hermione calls, squinting out the bombers window.
"I see him too!" Harry shouts nervously.
"Alright, drop in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... DROP!" Hermione shouts as the snake-like man enters her crosshair.
"Loose!" Harry shouts as everyone is slammed into the floor of the plane as he pulls up hard. For a long few seconds all anyone could hear was the creaking of the stressed airplane and the whoosh of the propellers before an earth shattering kaboom lifts the entire plane and a terrifying mushroom cloud covers the last known position of the Dark Lord. It had been the largest Erumpent horn ever collected, Seamus was crying with joy from the gunners seat of Ron's Stuka.
"So. is he dead?" Ron radios.
"Why don't you take a look? Then everyone can bomb what's left of the crater to be sure." Hermione orders.
"Shouldn't have opened your mouth." Ginny taunts.
Sure enough as the smoke cleared, the remains of the dark lord were visible. Which was soon rectified by the generous application of bombardment spells and flame.
"Well, all that's left is a victory lap I think." Harry says after the last plane was satisfied with the desecration of Tom Riddle's body.
Nigel Westwood was taking his latest student out for some late evening flying when he noticed the strangest thing he'd ever seen in the air, except for the blasted biplane in London of course.
"Nigel, is that a flying boat in formation with biplanes and stukas?" his student asks.
"Those biplanes are Swordfish! Heroes of the war! That flying boat is a Consolidated Catalina, another heroic aircraft. And yes I see them." Nigel says proudly.
"What should we do?" the student asks.
"Salute them and continue on course." Nigel answers.
"Of course sir." the student responds.
"Alright everyone, we're in position. Release your flags!" Harry radios as the formation returns to Hogsmead
Soon all the people in the town were treated to a formation of aircraft pulling British, English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish flags, along with red, yellow and blue flags with lions, badgers and ravens. All to the ear splitting sound of Rule Britannia.
Poor Nigel really didn't know what to think of it.
AN: and that's the end. I wanted this in the story, but it would take more set up than its worth to properly explain, and chapter 2 kind of wrote itself a conclusion anyway. So just enjoy the thought of death eaters running from obsolete aircraft (I know you wanted fighters, but I wouldn't live up to my name if I gave you that). Nigel is an OC btw, sounded like a proper British pilots name. And yes, I'm sure that formation made the news and Hermione was grounded ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) again.