Chapter 8: The Cave and The Suit

Department of Applied Magic and Sciences

"Environmental procedures, defence projects, consumer products. All prototypes; none in production. On any level whatsoever," Mr. Fox explained as he turned on his swivel chair to face Harry in the underground, dark facility of Applied Magic and Sciences.

Harry, stupefied, asked, "None?"

A bit amused, Fox got up from his chair, asking, "What did they tell you this place was?"

Harry replied, "They didn't tell me anything."

Fox moved closer to the pillar closest to his desk and proceeded to light up the facility as he said, "Lucius told me exactly what it was when he sent me down here."

Staring for a fraction of a second, he continued, "Dead end."

A bittersweet smile on his face he explained, "Place to keep me from causing the board any more trouble."

He gestured for Harry to follow him, saying, "Come on."

The Armani three-piece suit looked far out of place in the dusty, dungeon-like facility as Harry walked alongside Mr. Fox on the impromptu tour.

"You were on the board?"

"When your grandfather and father ran things."

Harry turned to him as they strolled, "You knew my father?"

"Oh, yeah. I helped him build the floop devices, teleporter capsule and the train."

"Ahh, here we are," gesturing to a trunk set on one of the many tables on the floor."

"Kevlar utility harness," showing Harry a utility belt.

"Gas-powered, magnetic grapple gun. The 350-pound test monofilament," Mr. Fox moved to another side of the floor as he continued whilst Harry was left a bit behind, pensive as he felt the equipment that he had just been shown before joining Mr. Fox moving towards one of the drawers in the facility.

"Wonderful project, your dad's train. Though between the two of us, your mother more than had a hand behind it as well. Brilliant woman, she was," said Mr. Fox with a lot of pride and wistfulness.

"The train was routed right into Marauder Enterprises Tower, along with the water and power utilities. Kind of made Marauder's Tower the unofficial centre of Diagon Alley and the Magic community here in Britain. Of course, Lucius let it all go to rot. Here we are," continued Mr. Fox as they finally arrived at the chest of drawers he wanted.

Opening it, they were greeted with an advanced exoskeleton suit, "Nomex survival suit for advanced infantry. Kevlar biweave, reinforced joints."

Running his hands along the dark suit, Harry asked, "Tear-resistant?"

"This sucker will stop a knife and even cutting charms"

"Bullet-proof?"

"Anything but a killing curse and really obscure charms"

Bamboozled and failing to understand, Harry asked, "Why didn't they put it into production?"

"The government didn't their soldiers were worth 300 grand."

"Hmm… and the DMLE?"

"As much as Amelia would love to get her hands on something like this, Fudge and the rest of the Lords of the Wizengamot can never provide funding."

"Yes, probably."

Turning his keen eye to face Harry, Fox asked, "So, what's your interest in it, Mr. Potter?"

A slight chuckle escaped his lips as he rubbed the back of his neck, "I want to borrow it."

Continuing, Harry said, "For a variety of sports, I'd like to try."

Raising an eyebrow at Harry, Fox sceptically asked, "Sports?"

"Yeah, you know Cave diving here and there, Pegasi flying. That sort of stuff."

Taking his glasses from the breast pocket of his navy coat and wearing them, Lucius asked, "You expecting to run into much gunfire and spellfire in these caves and the sky?"

"Look, I'd rather Lord Malfoy didn't know about me borrowing–"

"– Mr. Potter. The way I see it, all this stuff is yours anyway."

A staccato sound of the hammer meeting the edges of the cave could be faintly heard over the cascading waterfall that lay inside the cave underneath Potter Manor. Harry could be seen 'flying' as he continued to install the lighting of the cave.

"Okay. Give it a try."

Richard lit the side of the cave that had the lights and it brought light in the darkness of the cavern.

"Charming"

Lowering Harry slowly to guide the levitation rune he'd applied on his sharp spiked boots; whilst simultaneously, a flutter of wings could be heard from above as the bats fled to darker sides.

"Well… at least you'll have company," said Richard, an amused smile on his face.

"This must be the lowest foundation of the southeast wing," continued Richard as Harry looked around the cave that was deceptively big on the inside.

From his position, Harry could see the rail track that used to be there; nodding his head slightly to the side they crossed the small stream of water that ran on the ground, heading for higher ground.

Despite the closed space the air felt light and tasted crisp clear, with the water – clear as cellophane – surging and plunging through the rocks.

"During the witch hunts, your ancestors were involved in the underground railroad, managing to fool the muggle royalty of their normality, however, built their own railroad here: secretly transporting wizards and witches in danger across the country to safer havens. And I suspect these caverns came in handy."

They walked to a stop at one of the earliest trials of the elevator. A hoist. Harry went up to it and could see that his ancestors were really ahead of their time, looking up he could see it went up to the main house. He speculated on how it worked and continued glancing around. At last, Harry could see runes whose intentions were to lift the hoist up and down but needed the magic of the user to work. However, the hoist had been updated and could also work by muggle means, he wondered why but didn't ponder too much into it.

"All well I assume, Master Harry?"

"Yeah Richard, let's get the suit. I want to try it out."

Donned in the grey exoskeleton suit, Harry ambled down the familiar rocky path in the cave. An unusual humming sound vibrated in the air. It sounded like a swarm of bees. Then the buzzing transferred to the rocks beneath his feet. He could feel it travel through his body and felt a tingle that ran up to his fingertips. Finally, rounding the corner and the source of the sound revealed itself. At this distance, it looked like silver tear tracks on the wrinkled face of the edge of the cavern. It was tiered and plunged into the depths of a paradise-blue pool. As Harry began edged closer, the noise of the cataract increased. It was growling and rumbling. Then it foamed into a lather at the base. The waterfall seemed to fuse itself into distinct threads of watery fabric as he approached. It was as if a loom of liquid silver was pouring down the rocks. The sound was cacophonous now.

Harry walked along the edge of the rocks, heading towards the waterfall. The sounds rose to a crescendo. Now at the waterfall, Harry brought his hand forward and felt the never-ending water, he could feel the water edge towards his body as if attracted like opposite ends of a magnet.

"Richard! Come up here!" shouted Harry over the deafening sounds of the waterfall.

"I can see everything all right from down here, sir, thank you very much."

A chuckle was the only reply as Harry continued enjoying the joys of the waterfall.

Richard leaned on the doorway of the basement as he gazed intently at Harry as he worked on painting the suit black.

"Sure, you don't need any help, sir?"

Immediately the hissing sound that had been dominating the room stopped as Harry quickly swivelled to see Richard looking at him, amusement clear in his eye.

"No, I think I can handle this."

"Come Master Harry… there's something I want you to see."

Harry followed as soon as Richard left the room.

He came upon his study, full of papers all over the desk and tables. Harry quickly understood that they were the designs for his pseudo helmet.

"We ordered the main part of this cowl from Singapore," said Richard as he pointed to the final design of the cowl.

"Via a dummy cooperation?"

"Indeed. And then, quite separately we place an order to a Chinese company for these," said Richard as he pointed at horns of the cowl.

"They'll have to be large orders to avoid suspicion," continued Richard as he looked back at Harry.

"How large?"

"Say uhm… 10,000."

Harry immediately whirled to look at Richard with raised eyebrows.

In retaliation, Richard simply raised a single eyebrow.

"Well… at least we'll have spares," said Harry with a sigh of resignation.

"Yes."

A10riddick: Firstly, thank you for all the reviews. They're really encouraging. Sorry that my updates are not frequent. At the moment I'm in school but i will try to add more chapters now during the holidays. In terms of the pairing, I haven't quite decided. I'm leaning towards Hermione, but I am open to suggestions. I intend to portray a few of the characters differently.

rebecca-in-blue: It's listed as a crossover as I am heavily borrowing from Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, namely Batman Begins for now. Once the story sets really into motion you will understand what I mean.

Thank you for the favorites and the follows. They're what pushed me. Also please leave reviews, I'd love to hear what you think of the stories so far. With that all said and done, Merry Christmas and I wish you all a very Happy New Year. To those that don't celebrate X-mas, I simply wish you Happy Holidays this festive season.