Chapter 13:

The Iron Beast Part 3

March fourteenth brought with it a fresh sprinkling of snow, possibly the last of winter before spring came into full swing. And yet the four young marauders were marching through the thick blanket of frost and speckled winds into the forbidden forest. Not only were they going into the Forbidden forest on a frozen, late winter night, but they were going in armed with skis, grapplehook and not much else.

"But really, 'arry, are you certain you cannot veezit ma familie at all this summer?" Fleur pleaded again.

Harry sighed. She kept begging him to come to France at least once. that he was the first boyfriend she ever had that could keep his brain working around Veela and she'd never been able to get a boy home before. But Harry knew he couldn't. The Dursleys would never allow him. But so far, he managed to keep the conversation steered away from his embarrassing family life.

"Can you not even join us for Bastille Day?" She pleaded. "We can pay for your entire family to come."

"Ha! Yeah Harry, don't you want to go to frog land and celebrate an angry mob breaking Marque De Sade out of prison?" Cedric jeered.

Fleur turned beet red at the name and made a sour face Harry had never seen on her before.

"First of all, François wasn't in that prison!" Fleur corrected. "He was released weeks before!"

"Who's Frankoi?" Harry asked.

"NOBODY!" Fleur yelled, a little too forcefully.

"Just some guy kicked out of the French government for being, and I quote, too moderate." Viktor explained. (A/N-1)

Cedric made a sound as if he had just spat out water. Harry was sure there must be a reason that combination of words was funny, but for the life of him he didn't know why.

"I'll bring that up anytime a Frenchie tries to criticize British politics." Cedric jokes. "I'm not taking advice on politics from a nation that kicked Marque De Sade out for being too moderate. That would kinda be like if Jimmy Saville was in parliament and we impeached him for being too chaste."

"Who's Jimmy Saville?" Fleur asked.

"NOBODY!" Harry and Cedric yelled, a bit too forcefully.

Hermione and Poliakoff followed the fresh trail of poorly covered-up footprints. The Durmstrang boy was excellent at the disillusionment charm, and she was even better with the warming charm, so it was a relaxing trip. Tracking the recent traces of a snow sifting charm that had been sloppily used to mix the footprints up.

They must not have been expecting a tail. Or else had become so overconfident in their reign of terror against Hogwarts that they were becoming lazy. Well that dumb luck of theirs was at an end.

Through thick underbrush, snow-blanketed meadows and a creek they followed the quartet until they reached a landscape of utter devastation.

"Whoa. Somebody had a monster truck rally." Hermione joked.

"Monster... truck?" Poliakoff repeated. "I vager it does not resemble vhat I am imagining in my head?"

Hermione giggled at the poor pureblood. Yes, she imagined a wizard with little knowledge of the wizarding world would conjure rather fascinating images in their head trying to fathom what a monster truck might be.

"Are you imagining semitrucks with heavy plating, tank cannons, and decorated with metallurgic art on their hoods to resemble dragons and chimeras?" She asked.

"Da." He said.

"Then you would wager correctly." Hermione consoled. "It is nothing like that."

They walked on through the valley of shattered and weirdly splinched trees, rocks and a few very unfortunate animals turned into roadkill. The tire tracks, on closer inspection, were far too small for a monster truck. Had they crossed beyond where the forbidden forest transitioned into the Scottish countryside and found the local dirt bike and quad mudding rally location?

No. The tracks all went in the same direction. As if many cars stampeded through... wait, no. They were all the same tracks. Exactly the same tracks, as if somebody copy and pasted them in different places or made a giant stamp to resemble tire tracks and slammed it into the earth repeatedly. One car did all of this. Passing through different spaces all at once. Ah.

"The knight bus engine." Poliakoff exclaimed the same conclusion running through her mind.

"So? What? Somebody stole the engine and put it into another vehicle just to joyride in the wilderness?" She asked.

"Somebody? Or some group." Poliakoff asked.

Oh. Yeah, that made sense. But why? Wait, never mind. Marauders.

They continued following the trail for a few more minutes, following the tire tracks and carnage and only occasionally checking for the sloppy snow sifting charm covering up the footsteps.

"Vait." Poliakoff finally whispered.

She stopped at his command and heard him rifle through his cloak. She saw a bright metallic pair of omnioculars and remembered that she had brought her own. Retrieving them she brought them up to her eyes and pointed them to where his was pointing.

There was nobody there, but there was a bush surrounded by footprints. Footprints that were actively disappearing as the snow containing them churned to cover them. They'd finally caught up to the equally disillusioned marauders.

"Okay, so, you're sure the equipment is up to the task?" Harry clarified as he picked the grappling hook and length of rope up to examine them.

"Oui." Said Fleur. "Ze rope and grapple are all enchanted against being affected by spatial magic, or as enchanted against zem as I could manage."

Wasn't exactly something you could special order without raising red flags. Fleur undid their disillusionment charms and they all huddle in the small clearing between the recently greening bushes. Fleur shivered horribly but, quickly rubbing her hands together, she summoned a pitiful but delightfully warm ball off Veela flame between her palms. They all huddled closer to her.

"I am getting better at zis." She said. "Not charring my hands anymore. Won't have to wear ridiculous gloves to hide the mangled claws."

Indeed. She'd been wearing mittens less and less often. And soon enough it would be warm enough in Scottland that it would be decidedly odd for her to wear hand warmers of any kind.

"How much time do we have until Firenze said the Anglia would tear through here?" Harry asked.

"He said it usually came out around seven." Viktor told him. "And that they would funnel it back down towards this position by seven thirty. It is now six fifty-two."

"Great." Said Harry. "That gives me forty-five minutes before I have to leave my girlfriends warmth for the job at hand."

At the phrase "girlfriend's warmth" his elders all made suggestive eyebrow movements. Fleur most aggressively.

"Yeah. Haha. Anyways, are you sure I'll be able to carry the rope and hook as VoulgeNeb?" He asked.

"Sure." Said Cedric without any elaboration.

"Sure?" Harry asked, hoping for said elaboration.

"Sure." The trio around him said with matching shrugs.

"It's only, like, five pounds." Cedric explained.

"Dude! I weigh five pounds!" Harry countered. "And can barely fly in a straight line as it is!"

"I mean, can ve cast a vieghtless charm on it?" Viktor asked. "Or vould that interfere with the enchantments?"

"Should be fine." Fleur said with another cutesy shrug.

"Should be?"

"Sure."

Harry groaned, but Cedric cast a weightless charm on the rope and grappling hook all the same.

"And what about the skis?" Harry asked. "I only have two talons. How am I supposed to carry those?"

"Vell, we figured you vould summon them straight to your feet." Viktor said

Harry looked at him like he had one too many concussions.

"What in the world made you think I could summon two skis directly to my feet?" He asked.

"Well, we saw how well you summoned and mounted a flying broom and figured you were a master of the spell." Cedric said.

"That maneuver took WEEKS of practice!" Harry exclaimed. "Don't you think you should have run that buy me? Maybe spent a few days seeing if I could pull it off?"

"Zey 'ave sticking charms on zem." Fleur said. "You just 'ave to get them to your feet and zey'll stay zere!"

"I am leaving now with the rope." Harry said with a glare. "At least transfigure the skis into a snowboard or something? that I could probably pull off without practice."

"Sure." Said Cedric with an infuriating grin.

Harry stood up, stepped away from the delightful warmth of Veela fire and threw his arms out wide. Holding back any sound of pain he began his unaided transformation. The feathers came first as his own faced morphed like that of an enraged Veela. Then his like shrunk and towards the ground he went. His chest grew as the breastbone came in, immediately larger than that of any bird until he finished his transformation. He would shrink further, inwards this time, as his arms twisted uncomfortably into the right angle and skin expanded until they became wings. A few more moments of shrinking and minor tweaks of the magic molding his body and presto! VolgeNeb was unleashed upon the Forbidden Forest.

He'd even managed to transform his clothes with him. That's what Remus had them working on now. But damn was it cold. Although, he didn't feel as cold as he would if he was starkers in human form. Birds having a higher body temperature than humans and nice coat of feathers. Still, chilly. At least there wasn't much wind.

He hopped across the snow back towards his trio of watchers, stretched out to enjoy some heat and a nice kiss on his brow from Fleur, then grasped the bundle of now lighter rope in his talons. Taking a moment to appreciate the Veela fire one last time he took flight, ascending as straight up into the air as he could manage in a corkscrew motion, dodging branches and a rather annoyed bowtruckle, until he leveled off above the treeline. A single moment was all it took to spot the highest tree near the clearing and a few moments later saw VoulgeNeb perched on top of it.

He let the length of rope fall onto the branch beside him and there he sat, shivering, for several minutes. He remained vigilant, turning his head on an access to catch any signs of the catastrophic destruction of the forest around him that would signify the arrival of his quarry. He nearly had a heart attack when a bird larger than him plopped down on the branch right next to him without so much as a sound.

Hedwig stared at him confusedly as he nearly fell off of the branch and flapped around like a seizure patient to remain balanced. Sure must be nice to be able to fly in such absolute silence that even rabbits can't hear you. When he finally caught his balance Hedwig scooched closer until her larger breast nearly completely enveloped him. Then she purred in that way owls do.

Yup. This was nice. Nice as nice as bundling up with his girlfriend, but his familiar flying all the way from the owlery sensing he was cold just to mother him? That was pretty damn nice.

A sound like a thunder clap echoed through the valley loud enough that every other bird, insect, pixie, doxxie and several swarms of billywigs took to the sky. Hedwig remained by his side. PaddleCul watched and waited, then he saw it. A towering pillar of transparent ribbons crawling down the mountain to the north. The trees which obscured its origin jumped, glitched, into each other and each time they cracked like thunder and exploded into splinters and rubble where they met earth or stone.

He saw Viktor on his broom shoot into the sky where he'd left the rest of his team, presumably with PaddleCul in his pocket as per their plan. Harry took to the sky after him with Hedwig following suit. He knew this because he had to fly back to his perch and retrieve the grappling hook and rope.

The Ford Anglia carved its path of destruction down the mountainside towards their position, as Firenze had promised, and Harry followed Viktor and PaddlueCul to where they planned to enact the first ambush against it. Viktor hovered above the small clearing in the trees that sheltered Mosag and her loyal children. Harry flew in and took a perch on the end of his broom, letting go of the rope just before so Viktor could snatch it out of the air as Hedwig circled overhead.

They looked down and saw Mosag had been working overtime to create a net of webs that filled the entire clearing. Several of the wild goblins were still navigating between the sticky webs planting stones they enchanted to stall spatial jumping. But their time was up.

Viktor brought two fingers up to his mouth and made a loud whistle. The tribe beneath them reacted instantly, fleeing to the winds and disappearing into the wild. The rest was up to them.

"Get ready VolgeNeb." Viktor yelled.

VoulgeNeb nodded and readied to takeoff as the pillars of spatial perversion grew nearer and as Viktor floated away to get some space. He could almost hear the countdown in his head as he spread his wings and readied to fly as it grew nearer and nearer. Finally, it came crashing into the clearing and Mosag's trap.

"Now!" Viktor yelled.

VoulgeNeb took off in flight just as the waves of spatial distortion dissipated. The trap was sprung and he had a few moments to do his job before the wardstones broke. This may come as a surprise, but wizard corporation engineered space altering engines of unknown make and method beats rocks roughly enchanted by savage goblins any day of the week.

He prepared his talons to snatch the rope out of the air as soon as it came into his vision, and sure enough Viktor pulled off a perfect throw and he followed it up with a perfect catch. Into a tail dive he went, angling his body to let gravity draw him to the earth like a blitz bomb. Down and down he went, through a wall of branches and pine needles. The moment he caught a flash of bright blue he threw his wingso ut and pulled up into a flat glide, letting go of the grapple to fall to the earth and keeping the rope grasped tightly in his talons.

It went taught and yanked him out of his flight to draw him through the air as if he were a fish on a line. Bullseye!

He transformed back into Harry and, drawing his wand before his newly added weight could bring him to the ground, cast his spell and prayed.

"Accio snowboard!" he yelled before table his boots with the wand and focusing on directing the incoming board to his feet.

Fleur had also come through, as not even a second later the plank of wood came whizzing past the Ford Anglia and to his feet. The sticking charms Fleur masterfully reapplied did the rest and when he touched down onto the icy ground it was with proper means of sliding along without ruining his perfectly good shoes or breaking his perfectly good legs.

Radio static erupted from the vehicle in front of him. With it came a voice.

"I've... got... aaaaa TIGER BY THE TAIL, IT'S PLAIN TO SEE!"

The acoustic guitars flared over the radio along with Buck Owens sultry southern accent just as the loud shattering of stone rang out indicating his time was up. Lo and behold, those tall tendrils of distorted, glasslike space returned and with it the world became mayhem again. Trees, bushes and rocks on both sides of him folded inwards like a shuffling deck of cards and he had to loosen his grip on the rope to slide back out of the distortion field.

"I won't be much when you get through with me"

Viktor had been waiting for him on his broom and reached out to hand Harry PaddleCul. Harry kept hold of the rope with one hand and snatched up the littel platipus with the other before pocketing him. Then back into the distortion field. With him holding the rope and PaddleCul in his hoodie both were protected from the space alterations, but not the solid oak and pine trees.

Wand out and swinging he threw blasting curse after blasting curse at every trunk or boulder that came his way. With Viktor behind him doing the same from a safe distance Harry reeled himself in. He wrapped the rope around the arm he had it fully grasped with, using a motion similar to trying to rap a water hose one-handed. doing this he made good progress. The really hard part was managing this while keeping his balance on the snowboard.

"Well, I'm losing weight and turnin' mighty pale"

Foot by agonizing foot Harry advanced towards the ford until he was close enough to touch the back bumper. His left arm was by now covered in friction burne from the rope, but he gritted his teeth through the pain and, using is free hand, withdrew his fellow Marauder from his pocket.

"GO!" He commanded, kneeling awkwardly to place PaddleCul into the tailpipe.

He felt the rodent's, sorry, monotreme's weight leave his freed hand and immediately used it to grasped onto the nearest crevice between the boot and the rear windshield.

"Looks like I've got a tiger by the tail!"

The chorus ended and Harry continued his crawl towards the driver's seat.

Paddlecul crawled through the metal smog soot covered pipes as fast as he could squeeze his fat little body through.

practicing in a literal hamster cage wasn't quite the same level of claustrophobia. Plastic, transparent pipes were much more pleasant to crawl through in a dimply lit room compared to pitch black, steel and carbon cave of similar size. He already felt the need for a two hour long shower, but thanked any god listening for the inactivity of the Ford Anglia's engine. The Iron Beast was moving through the sole power of the Knight Bus engine who somebody - Probably but not provably them - had put into it. So no exhaust or sound. Else he'd be truly fucked.

Thankfully, no carbon monoxide dominant exhaust nor high volume vibration came through the tailpipe to horrifically kill him and so he continued his crawl through the exhaust pipe into the muffler. He passed the Helmotz resonator - again, sound waves would have killed him if the engine was still working - and into the third chamber of the muffler.

Finally! A wide-open space where he could stretch his limbs. Still pitch black, but at least he had room to remove his - admittedly - adorable backpack and take out the device within. A drill. It was almost mistakeable for a wine bottle opener at the tip but that was only the tip. The remainder was a classic drill.

His front paws, though webbed, were near enough to human hands that he could manipulate the contraption easily enough into position and press the rune on the side to activate it. and into the ceiling it tore. The metal parted into ribbons of silver as easily as wood and soon he would through the top of the muffler and working into the cabin.

It was mere seconds later that the classic "Pop!" sound of a drill passing through the last of an obstruction and into thin air. He removed it and crawled through the hole, singing his fur on the edges of the gab, still hot from the friction, and into the back cabin of the Ford.

Now the real work began.

Notes:

I wrote another 2500 words for this chapter. Over a thousand of that was just the outline that later got replaced by the finished product. Another thousand was an aside I wrote outline all of the past generations of Marauders, their forms, their inventions and their fates. Yup. I got sidetracked. I'll publish that as it's own chapter soon when I finished it. And the rest was the remaining two scenes that I'll fold into the next chapter, the fourth and final chapter devoted to the iron beast. Then comes the path towards the third task.

(A/N-1) : Allow me to introduce you to my new favorite YouTube personality. Flappr. Imagine an old man Snape if he had the voice of Droopy the Dog and cussed like a Deadwood character. And instead of potions he taught history and was twenty times as sarcastic. Now imagine he explained historical events in as grumpy, caustic and comedic of a way as possible in an old American professor accent, but he records it on ancient tape so it sounds staticky, and you have meme visuals on the screen as he speaks. It's FUCKING hilarious. And very informative. I daresay, impeccably researched.

This joke I shamelessly stole from his video "French Revolution - Good thing? Bad Thing?" And I highly recommend it.

I do not recommend listening to it while in the middle of a cross country road trip as I almost crashed two different times from laughing my ass off listening to it.

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