"Did they say when you can leave?" Harry asked.
"Now, if Arya pleases," Cin's voice came from the office. "Return if your fatigue abruptly worsens or you cannot keep food down. Else, sunlight and exercise will do more than laying in bed."
Harry grinned. Arya rolled up her scroll and drew the curtains to change out of the fuzzy gown the healers had given her.
She emerged looking healthy and radiant. Harry had never seen this side of her, unburdened by sickness and torture. She was breathtaking. Harry had to work to stamp out his romantic attraction before it dug into his mind.
They wandered out of the hospital wing. Majaia nodded her head to them as they passed.
"Are you excited to go home?" Harry asked.
Arya's good mood soured a bit. "Mother and I are not on the best of terms. I thought I would accompany you, if you still have the room?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Of course I do. The guest bedroom isn't going anywhere." He steadfastly ignored the flutter in his chest at the prospect.
Upon breathing in the fresh air outside of Tialdari Hall, Arya's good cheer returned and they walked to the Crags of Tel'naer chatting about Ellesmera.
"Majaia told me you seemed uninterested in Ellesmera," Arya remarked.
Harry shrugged, trying to keep the sappiness out of his voice. "It felt wrong to see the place with a stranger when everything I'd heard about it came from you."
Arya smiled. "Are you interested now?"
Now it was Harry's turn to see his mood soured. "Not especially. Not as long as I'm stuck here."
Arya was quiet for a moment. "It won't be forever."
They looked out over the Crags. Arya seemed to be looking for someone that wasn't there. Oromis was barely visible down by the table. She had to see him, who else did she expect? Her mother, maybe?
"Does this mean we leave Eragon hanging out to dry?" Harry wondered with a hint of bitterness. There was an answer from Arya he absolutely did not want to hear.
"I am still the ambassador for my people," Arya reminded him. "Sooner or later I will resume my duties." Harry's heart clenched. Of course Arya could still leave. She was an elf, she had proven herself capable of keeping big secrets. Harry was the only one who had to stay behind.
"-but I am not leaving without you."
Harry breathed a surreptitious sigh of relief.
Arya gave Harry's workshop a strange look. It was very out of place amidst the gorgeous wilderness of the Crags. "I made a lot of breakthroughs," Harry said excitedly, hauling up the garage door. "Some incredible stuff, really. You've got to see it."
Arya clearly did see it, she had been struck still by the sight of the gleaming aluminum craft sitting in the middle of the expanded garage. Its propellers were color-changed with red and gold stripes, the nose cone had a swirl painted over it.
"I had to expand the space in here," Harry ducked inside and pulled on the cord that shuttered the magic lights in the ceiling. "Especially once I put up the arc furnace and got on with building the frame. Then I built the steel rollers and the coke oven, so I just moved all the metallurgy stuff over to that wall. I only needed a couple panes of glass for the windows, so I just begged those off Majaia who found some for me. If I build anything bigger, I'll probably put one up, it shouldn't be too hard. The molten tin annealing bath will probably be a pain though. Don't touch any of the black or yellow cables, they've got– um, lightning in them."
Harry glanced back at Arya, still dumbstruck by the sight of the craft at the front. A name had been painted over the body. Grasshopper.
A grin crept over his face. "It's all ready. I was waiting for you to take it for a test flight."
That broke the spell. Conflicting emotions grappled on Arya's face, longing and caution. "Is it safe?" she asked. Her tone said she was willing to accept anything above a 'maybe.'
"Quite," Harry assured. "I put in a lot of safety features, and I managed to test the most important one by ramming it into a wall. The momentum arrest charm makes it totally safe. You don't feel a thing."
Arya glanced past the plane. Harry saw her eyes fall on the massive generators in the back, the huge ovens and furnaces and beds wired up to them.
"You've been busy," she managed.
Harry's nervous energy faded as she brought him back down to earth. "Yeah, well, I've been bored," he shrugged. "It's like being told I can't leave has made me want to get out of here a hundred times more. Whenever I get antsy I join Oromis for his yoga, work on the plane, or practice my magic."
He blew over the top of his palm. Silver mist streamed from his lips, rolling off his palm and coalescing into a tiny white dragonfly patronus. He had Morgan to thank for that trick, connecting the way dementors sucked souls out through the mouth, the idea of the breath of life, and the way the patronus was a reflection of the spirit to tie everything together and tell that story, blowing life into the spirit of the patronus with nothing but his will and a bit of magic.
He was getting better at that. Storytelling. Neil had been right to suggest he work on his magic. If the spells he learned were not going to cut it, he'd just make his own new ones. Harry took it as a personal challenge now that Brom wasn't around to push him to avoid using his wand as a crutch. Since it didn't work as well for him, Harry had been trying to reduce his reliance on it anyways.
He'd invented a spell that allowed him to turn the six-storey precipitation tank for the alumina crystals into a normal sized tank by encouraging the seed crystals to grow. He tied the alumina seeds into the idea of real seeds growing, attracting alumina out of the solution, and growing bigger. He made one that perfectly distributed the carbon gas through the electric arc furnace to make perfect uniform batches of steel every time, building off the idea of even distribution and the way gasses spread to fill their containers.
While the Grasshopper was a simple plane only really magical for its safety features and engineless propeller, Harry was saving quite a few innovations for the next plane. He'd worked with Morgan's asphyxiation curse to lay the groundwork for a theoretically zero-friction plane that could shatter speed records, and he had ideas for incorporating gubraithian fire into a fuelless turbofan engine.
He'd mastered a fair few healing spells, though he couldn't be sure how well until he came across some injuries to help with. And whenever he ran up against something he didn't know, Harry reached for the resurrection stone to interview someone who did.
"I've been working," Harry finally said. "I think I'd love it here if it weren't for my friends out in Alagaesia in danger while I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs. I want to get back out into the world."
Arya's attention was drawn back to the Grasshopper. "I can't solve that problem now, but I can ride in your plane.
Who could turn down such an attractive offer?
Activating the hover charm, Harry pushed the plane out of the garage on a cushion of magic. He got in and gestured for Arya to follow before shutting the doors and engaging the clutch between the enchanted flywheel and the propeller. It spun to life, a faded red and gold circle that began tugging the plane forwards (silenced, naturally).
No runway, not even a level stretch of ground and it felt like driving on fresh asphalt. Arya clutched her seat, grinning madly as they built up speed across the open field before the crags. Harry pulled back on the yoke and they were really, properly airborne.
"It works!" he cackled gleefully.
"What do you mean, it works?" Arya demanded. "You didn't know?!"
"Knowing and doing? Totally different things," Harry grinned. "Suck it, Alagaesia. World's first manmade flight. Jumping straight past lighter than air."
Harry had to focus on the controls for a minute. It was his first time flying. Even if he knew how the controls worked, figuring out their responsiveness took some experimenting, during which they lurched through the sky.
"Bit new to this," Harry winced as the craft hit a squall, jerking its passengers around. "Sorry."
"First time?" Arya giggled.
"Yeah," Harry admitted. "I'm trying to be gentle. You too?"
Arya peered out the window. "Oh yes," she breathed. "And it's good."
Harry's heart skipped a beat. Dirty jokes from a sick female friend felt very different to dirty jokes from a gorgeous woman next to him on a romantic first flight.
The trees shrank below them. When Harry finally mastered the controls and leveled off high over Ellesmera, peace fell over the cabin. They cruised due north as the sun shone to the east, a glaring ball of yellow in the azure sky.
Harry prodded at the dashboard to test a couple of features now that they were in flight. It certainly seemed like the invisibility switch worked. Arya was staring out the window at the trees sliding by languidly like miniature toys.
"If you maintain this speed and heading, we will cross the barrier and fall from the sky before long," Arya warned.
Grumpily, Harry turned west and began circling back. "We wouldn't," Harry grumbled. "This flies on physics. Floating off the ground for takeoff/landing is magic, and the propeller is driven by magic, but it can still stay airborne like your glider."
Arya leaned against her window and turned away from him. He couldn't read her expression.
"We could leave," Harry suggested.
"You left your tent down there," Arya said into the glass.
"I could summon it from here." Probably.
"My mother forbade you," Arya pointed out, muffled.
"Something tells me you're a rebellious child."
Arya snorted. Harry felt his heart beat faster. The cockpit was cramped, she was close enough for him to smell the scent of crushed pine needles. Harry pushed away those thoughts. Arya was a friend.
"What then?" she wondered. "Fly where?"
Harry adjusted in his seat. "To Eragon, I guess. He might still be at Morzan's castle. That's where he was headed when we split up, anyways. What were you planning on doing before you got captured?"
Arya let out a gusty sigh. "Finding Brom, who I sent the egg to, failing that I'd have come back here or gone to the Varden, whichever was closer."
Harry prodded the yoke with a finger, keeping the plane in a gentle curve to the left. "The Varden?"
Arya shifted to glance at him. "I thought you didn't want to commit to this war?"
Harry yawned. "I've been enlightened. Galbatorix isn't going to leave me alone to do whatever I want. I can run from the war – and I don't think you'd come with me – or I can fight to get Galbatorix out of here and be free to, I dunno, make a school of magic in my castle."
"My duties are here," Arya agreed. "I cannot forsake them."
Harry banked further left until they were headed due south. "So, Varden?"
Arya rolled her eyes. Harry wondered if she'd picked up the mannerism from him. If so, he was proud to have taught bad manners to a princess. "Not right now. Why so hasty?"
Harry pushed himself up in his seat and began navigating back towards the Crags. "Oromis is probably going to snitch about my cool new airplane to your mum, who is going to try to confiscate it or make me swear not to use it to escape."
"I think that's unlikely," Arya disagreed. Harry raised a brow. "You have proven you are capable of escaping her order to stay put. That you had every opportunity and chose to heed her anyways is likely to make her trust that you'll stay. At least for now."
Harry turned off the invisibility switch and came in for a landing on the field. Just in case Oromis decided to take a walk in the middle of the field, it'd be rude to mow him down without warning. The aerobrake on the plane was just a momentum arrest charm with a graduated effect that let Harry slowly bleed off momentum, pulling the throttle further and further back. He felt the levitation and cushioning charms soften the initial touchdown (if it could be called that when no part of the plane actually touched the grass) before the cushioning charms smoothed out and the plane felt like running on asphalt again. Harry pulled back the throttle the rest of the way and brought the craft to a halt.
For a first flight, everything had been flawless. Harry taxied to the garage with bursts of the propeller and hopped out, making note to add a low gear ratio to the next model for proper taxiing. Arya got out the other side. Harry pushed it back into the garage and let it rest on its stilts, the hover charms shutting down.
"That went well, didn't it?" Harry stretched, cracking his back.
Arya seemed jolted back into remembering just how astonishing Harry's accomplishment was. "And you said these are hardly the greatest of your world's planes."
"According to my, er, sources, these cost about as much as a very nice car," Harry agreed. "The big ones are hundreds of millions of pounds. Dollars. They don't weigh that much. I don't intend to make a 747, but a middle sized jet doesn't seem impossible. And it'd be big enough for more than just one passenger."
Arya and Oromis exchanged the elves' ritualistic greeting. They sat around Oromis's little table outside. Harry brought some chocolate and a bunch of fruit to the table, bananas and mangoes he thought the elves might not have otherwise.
Since Oromis prepared their meals most days, it felt like the least he could do was bring some produce when it was effortless for Harry to make, and Harry knew firsthand that Oromis put real effort into working his gardens.
"You are feeling better, I hope?" Oromis said.
"Much," Arya thanked him.
"I am glad to hear it. Stories of your courage and fortitude have already spread." Oromis cut off a portion of seed cake. "I am surprised you are not with your mother."
"She visited me extensively during my convalescence," Arya said with only a hint of annoyance. "I was glad of her presence, but I saw much less of Harry, who is ultimately responsible for my rescue."
Oromis nodded to Harry. "You have been busy. I saw your airplane take flight today. A historical moment, if the news does not travel far."
"The first of many, hopefully," Harry agreed. "The ones of my world seated hundreds. Some were armed, all of them are faster than this. The Grasshopper was just my proof of concept."
"You will build more planes then?" Oromis inquired.
"At least one more," Harry decided. "For now. I can expand the space inside the passenger area, but the Grasshopper is too small for people to walk in and out. Something a little bit bigger and it could be used for troop mobilization or supply running. Brom, Eragon and I were going to escort Jeod's ships that were ultimately going to end up in Surda and then headed to the Varden, because the Empire had been hitting his ships. Nothing is going to stop a supply run by plane."
"You are committing to the Varden then?" Oromis asked. "Or is this a business opportunity?"
Harry huffed. "Magic can rip gold out of the ground. I don't need to earn money. I thought about it and yeah, the best way forward is to help the Varden. I haven't committed to fighting, but I know I can help in other ways."
"I appreciate it, and I am sure the Varden will as well."
After lunch, Arya joined him for a more comprehensive tour of his workshop and the projects he'd finished. Aluminum ingots continued to pile up at the end of the automated production line, and it didn't take more than a couple batches in the arc furnace to have plenty of steel to work with.
So much of it came back to the generator, Harry was unsurprised when Arya asked him about it.
"It makes electricity," he explained. "Like lightning. It flows along metal in an attempt to 'ground' itself, or equalize the imbalance in energy between the source and the average charge of the rest of the world. You can channel it easily across long distances with metal wires, and it can be made to do work. You can run it through copper coils with high resistance and the coils will heat up. You can let it arc between electrodes to create even higher temperatures. You can make it drive motors to turn wheels or propellers. It's a way to move power around and use it to do work. It's everywhere in the muggle world. Everybody's houses are connected directly to the electrical grid of their city or town, and they use it to do everything from light up their houses at night to running automatic clothes washing machines."
Arya peered at the metal box, through the glass at the spinning flywheel. "Are you using magic to drive it?"
Harry nodded. "I'm sure there's a way to induce a current with magic, but this works without my input. I just enchanted the wheel to spin. Muggles have whole power plants for this. They burn coal or oil or natural gas or uranium to boil steam, and then they run that steam through a turbine to get the spinning they need to run an alternator and produce electricity."
"What does it run in here?" Arya asked.
Harry grinned. "The lights are magic, but the machines are not. The Heroult process requires extremely high amperage to electrolyze aluminum. That was the reason I built it. Once I had electricity, the arc furnace was simple to put up for making steel."
Arya moved to the counter to examine the sheets of graph paper Harry was working on, plans for a proper plane. "I'm finally starting to understand what you mean when you tell me about your world," she admitted softly. "You're using magic out of convenience. With something to spin that flywheel – be it a waterwheel or a turnstile – this would work without magic. What usually turns propellers? Steam turbines would be too heavy."
"Petrol engines," Harry answered. "Petrol is a refinement of crude oil, a sort of black liquid, it might seep out of the ground…?"
Arya nodded.
"Petrol is like taking all the best burning stuff and distilling it out of the tarry mixture. It burns fast and it has an extremely high energy density. A gram of it can put out way more calories than a gram of wood or coal. Engines have nozzles that spray a tiny bit of petrol mist into a piston cylinder, then an electrical spark plug sparks the mixture and the aerosolized petrol makes a tiny explosion. It pushes the piston up. That piston is linked to a crankshaft, the up and down motion gets converted into rotation."
Harry rubbed his forehead. "I don't need to bother with them; magic lets me skip straight to the rotation."
Arya touched the Grasshopper's propeller, feeling the magically perfectly smooth aluminum beneath her fingers. "I get it," she murmured. "With cheap, mass produced steel and engines, planes large enough to split the cost between many passengers–" she cut herself off, looking to Harry.
"This is normal where you come from, isn't it? People without magic, ordinary folk, farmers, they fly to cross vast distances."
Harry nodded.
Arya sat back, dizzied by the enormous revelation of just what a planet might look like when flight was commonplace. Harry conjured another stool and sat with her. "You promised me you'd teach me how to make fairths, remember?"
The elf nodded.
"Well if I can figure it out, I don't need to describe it to you. I can show you."
Her eyes lit up. "It's a simple spell, the incantation boils down to 'imprint the image in my mind on this surface,' but the real skill is in focusing your mind on an accurate image. In the Ancient Language–"
Harry forestalled her, pulling out a sheet of paper. "I've been getting good at this. Hang on." he focused on an image he'd never forget, a memory so radiant it would be etched into his brain for as long as he lived, even if that was thousands of years.
Tell a story, he reminded himself. Window to the past? No, Harry didn't want the spell restricted to memories. He wanted to be able to take pictures, too. Capturing an image wasn't about time–
Maybe about snatching a single instant from time and pressing it into the paper?
Maybe, but then Harry was sure he could never get the image to move.
What was the essence of what he was trying to do? Record, display, bring back to life–
Replicate. He was trying to copy the image of his focus onto the page. 'Duplicate' was a good starting point, but truncating the word led to duplicity, which had the wrong meaning entirely. 'Gemini' was a much better root for copying. What was he duplicating? Light? That was a photograph, maybe it would work, but Harry wanted more than that.
He scribbled ideas and root words on the back of the paper with a pencil he didn't even notice he conjured wandlessly between his fingers. Geminiphotus? Too wordy. He was after capturing an experience. He wanted to copy down sensory memories.
Harry's excitement grew as the scope of his spell did. Why stop at a visual recording? Memory could encompass more than just sight.
He found flaw in the idea of memory, memory wasn't quite right. That implied recording only the past. Thought was even further off the mark. Sense was what he wanted.
"Gem- geminisensus, geminio?" he muttered under his breath. Would geminio work with the right intent?
Maybe, but he wanted this spell to stand on its own. Geminisensus was five syllables. It was wordy, but what the hell? Harry realized the incantation had no allowance for recording. Geminisensus could just as easily describe a sensory link spell that let someone feel the same things another was feeling. But more would be too wordy. Harry would guide the rest of the spell with his intent.
He didn't just want the spell to take all the data from his mind, he wanted the reproduction to be perfect. Harry knew his memory was not perfect, it would be missing loads of details. He added that desire to his slowly forming spell. Accuracy.
The details coalesced in his mind. Harry put the tip of the Elder Wand to the paper and forced everything through his arm and onto the page. "Geminisensus," he cast.
Colors bloomed across the paper, dark navies and purples, floating specks of orange and scattered reflections on choppy water, dark grey stone, mossy green caves. Harry didn't let the spell end when the image was finished, he kept pushing. Come alive, he urged it. What it was really like, to live it.
He pushed that desire through the Elder Wand, insisting that the spell do that as well, tying it back to the purpose of the spell, to accurately portray what Harry experienced in the moment he'd captured.
Arya watched enraptured as the paper darkened. It was far beyond the material limitations of the flimsy, transparent material to host such perfectly dark colors. Before her very eyes, the choppy waves of the Black Lake came to life, the lanterns swaying above their boats as the mossy cave retreated behind. She gasped in awe as Hogwarts, the real Hogwarts came into view atop the cliffside, braziers burning and windows lit in anticipation of a new school year.
Harry checked to make absolutely sure he was happy with the spell before releasing the magic. He touched the image and suddenly, his body seemed transported into the moment. He felt the cool September lakefront air wash over his skin, heard the nervous chattering of the first years around him, Hagrid's commanding voice in front, and the sound of water against wooden hulls. He smelled the damp air and the musk of the vines draped over the cave behind.
Beaming, Harry pushed it over to Arya. It had come out more perfectly than he could've hoped.
Nervous, Arya put out a finger and touched the corner of the image. She marveled, an awed smile stretched across her face.
"How–?" Arya turned to Harry, mouth wide open.
"Magic," Harry grinned.
"This looks a bit like your castle?"
"What I was trying to recreate," Harry admitted. "Pales in comparison, doesn't it?"
He could see that Arya agreed. It hardly hurt his feelings to hear he hadn't managed to recreate the most wonderful piece of architecture ever created.
"That is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Harry said proudly.
"It's amazing," Arya murmured. "This is amazing. A more perfect way to record things has never been invented."
Harry reached for another sheet of paper and searched for another vivid memory, one Arya might appreciate. He put his wand to the paper again and repeated the incantation. "Geminisensus."
It took much less effort to get the spell to do what he wanted. It was like Harry's first casting had worn a groove of sorts into the fabric of magic itself, and now Harry was simply following the crease again, letting his first attempt guide his second.
The scene bloomed across the paper, a captured moment in time, an experience Harry wanted to share. He was hanging backwards on his broom, hurtling inches from Saphira as they played a strange sort of draconic Quidditch over the pitch outside his castle. Saphira, Eragon, and himself all had fierce competitive grins on their faces, the snitch mere feet away from being caught. As he touched it, Harry felt the wind in his hair, the adrenaline racing beneath his skin, and heard his own raucous taunts as he snagged the snitch in their neck-and-neck race.
Arya took the new image eagerly, watching Saphira's powerful, graceful flip in pursuit of the little golden ball.
"I always wondered what she'd look like when she hatched," Arya said, green eyes roving over the majestic blue creature dancing in the air. "This is wondrous." Her smile never dimmed, softly awed and a bit proud.
"Show me more," Arya insisted, suddenly eager. She carefully stacked the first two images (images? Pictures? Memories? Imprints.) and slid him another sheet. "Something from your world."
A video, as seen on the telly, then. A metal spire, supported by scaffolding. Cape Canaveral. Over the speakers, the rippling, roaring noise of a rocket launch as a plume of orange fire struggled to lift the great metal tower aloft, smoke billowing around the launchpad. Slowly ascending, cameras panning to follow as it picked up speed, soon vanishing in the sky at the end of a streak of smoke.
Arya took the imprint greedily.
Harry made another, this time of a YouTube video. Grainy footage of a man in a bulky white suit with a golden visor, stepping onto a white, cratered tundra with a black sky at the horizon.
One small step for man,
One giant leap, for mankind.
Arya was dumbfounded. The emotion looked wrong on her. She was usually so composed, the lack of pretense, the absence of any attempt to seem poised, it drove home for Harry how unbelievable that moment was. "Your people really did it," she whispered.
"Show me planes," she suddenly demanded.
Harry showed her planes. He'd never been to an airport, but he'd seen them soaring overhead. One of that, one of Harry seeing pictures in a library book.
"Show me your cities," Arya demanded.
Harry showed her London. He made several, one of him walking between the rows of midrise buildings near Charing Cross, one of him looking up at the skyscrapers downtown, and one of the historical Downing Street and its old stone architecture.
"Where did you live?"
Harry made several imprints. One of Privet Drive's second bedroom, another of the Gryffindor dorm, one of the common room, a few of Grimmauld Place, before and after Kreacher had actually tried to clean it up, one of the Burrow from the outside, one from the inside. And another of Hogwarts, looking up the grand staircase by the library.
He preempted her by making a few he thought were important. He made a couple for Diagon Alley, the campgrounds outside of the Quidditch World Cup, the stadium itself, Hogsmeade, the Three Broomsticks, the Ministry Atrium, a quick highlight reel of the Wizarding World.
He gave her some more recent ones. Brom telling stories as the sun set in Carvahall, Harry sitting among a crowd by the bonfire, listening raptly to him describe the Fall of the Dragon Riders. One of Carvahall covered in snow from far away, chimneys issuing wisps of smoke. Teirm as Harry saw it when they'd been first walking up to the gate, Teirm's docks, and the endless expanse of ocean.
He added one that resonated personally with him, the moment of loneliness he felt as he flew high above the world, so high the sky had begun to darken, just him on his broomstick miles above the Spine, touching the edge of the void.
Later, Arya was lounging on the couch in the living room in the tent reading Domina Abr Wyrda and making faces, scribbling notes on a piece of paper with a ballpoint pen. She wore muggle clothes. It was jarring how out-of-place fleece pajama pants and a tank top looked on the immortal, beautiful elf, let alone with a clipboard. Harry brought out hot chocolate.
"Loathe as I am to admit it, Galbatorix may have had the right idea burning Heslant."
She scribbled another note, the motion of her pen coming across as angry.
Harry glanced at the sheet of notes. It looked like a bunch of spiky doodles. "Is that the written Ancient Language?" Harry asked. Oromis made vaguely similar shapes, though he used a quill and ink.
"Liduen Kvaedhí." Arya scowled and crossed out a symbol, redrawing it carefully. "It was designed for calligraphy, not charcoal. One day I shall release a second edition of Heslant's book, one which does not feature fabrications and daydreams in place of elven history."
"We should warn Eragon," Harry muttered. "He's learning how to read with this book."
Harry hesitated. He sat across from her and palmed the Elder Wand, twirling it between his fingers. He'd been meaning to ask, but there hadn't been a good time sine Gil'ead. He handed the wand to Arya.
The elf blinked, taken aback. "What is the meaning of this?"
"That was a lot of words when you only needed the first one," Harry rolled his eyes. Arya mimicked him, exaggeratedly tipping her eyes back to her skull.
"Wot?" Arya did a serviceable imitation of a British accent.
"It's not been working right," Harry admitted. Arya glanced down at the wand.
"How do you want me to help? I know nothing of your magic."
"Just…give it a wave," Harry said. He watched closely as she picked up the wooden stick, turning it over in his hand.
"You don't need this to do magic," she remarked.
"No, but it's a hell of a lot easier," Harry snorted. "Just humor me. I'm testing a theory."
Dubious, Arya held the wand up hesitantly, then waved it like a kid with a bubble wand. Miniature golden fireworks shot forth, a fanfare playing that sounded familiar to the one in his memory of bonding with it himself.
Harry's reaction was a mess of conflicting emotions. "You're a witch." And also the master of the Elder Wand.
"Expecto Patronum," Arya intoned, waving the Elder Wand again. A mote of golden light zipped out and spiraled into nothingness, leaving a little trail behind it that faded away.
That wasn't supposed to happen. The implications of the Elder Wand's reaction set in. "Lumos is the incantation to make a light at the tip of your wand," Harry told her. "The Patronus is seriously difficult."
"Lumos," Arya shrugged. Nothing happened. She tried again, waving the wand. Intermittent sparks popped out.
"Why?" Harry muttered under his breath. "Maybe you're not a witch. But you have its allegiance. Try wingardium leviosa."
Arya repeated the syllables exactly as he had, but nothing levitated, no matter how she flicked and swished.
Too bad Ollivander's not dead, Harry thought uncharitably. He needed an expert.
"It's not working," Arya observed.
"I guess not. But you undoubtedly have its allegiance." Harry rubbed his brow.
"Can I give it back?" Arya wondered.
Harry wasn't sure. "You can try. Er, say something formal about it, that you're giving the Elder Wand back to me."
"I, Arya Drottningu, do give the Elder Wand to Harry Evans." Arya handed over the wand. Harry waved it and was disappointed by the lack of fanfare.
"Try Harry Potter," he suggested. Arya obliged, but nothing changed.
Harry sighed. "I'll figure something out."
"Why do I have the, um, Elder Wand's allegiance?" Arya asked.
Harry thought back to that moment in Gil'ead. "Durza won it for a couple days when he captured me," he remembered. "When you beat him in a fight, you won it off him. You win the Elder Wand by defeating its previous wielder. I got it from, er, Draco Malfoy I think. He got it from Dumbledore, who got it from Grindelwald, blah blah blah, all the way back to the dawn of time. Something like that, I reckon."
"So to win back its allegiance, you must defeat me in a fight?" Arya wondered. A hint of a smirk played about the corner of her lips.
"Yeah. Or kill you, I suppose."
"I'd prefer not," Arya said politely. "Are you any good at swordplay?"
Harry blew his bangs off his forehead. "Eragon's better, but I'm not a total novice. I have no doubt you're impossibly better than me at it, and you're also way stronger and faster."
Arya shrugged. "Whatever works. Must it be a genuine fight, where you and I fight our hardest?"
"It's about defeat," Harry reckoned. "The legend says the first time the Elder Wand changed hands was when Antioch bragged about his unbeatable wand and some guy slit his throat in the night and nicked it off him. As far as I understand it, the wand hates consent. Dumbledore planned to break its power by dying a prearranged death at the hands of someone who was only doing as Dumbledore asked. A mercy killing. Dumbledore's plans don't always work out, but he's usually right about all his guesses. I suppose I could try to ambush and disarm you."
Arya tilted her head. She extended the wand to hand to Harry, but he refused. "Hold onto it. Either I'll find a way to win it back, or I'll start getting used to going without it."
Harry went to bed after that. He cast a paranoid set of privacy charms on his door, produced the resurrection stone and turned it thrice. "Gregorovitch," he breathed.
The balkan wandmaker materialized. "Straight out of a children's book," the man shook his head. He looked much younger and healthier than Harry had last seen him through Voldemort's eyes. "Why have you called me, boy-who-lived?"
Harry crossed his arms. "I have some questions."
Gregorovitch gestured for him to continue.
"Can a muggle use a wand?"
"No."
"I mean at all," Harry pressed. "If a muggle waved a wand–"
"Ah," Gregorovitch realized. "Yes. Whatever magical reagent is in a wand's core, it is still magical, even if it is a muggle waving it about like a club. Kick a venomous tentacula and you will be bitten. Wave a phoenix feather about and you will get sparks. Or something."
"Can a muggle win a wand's allegiance?"
Gregorovitch raised an eyebrow. "What kind of wizard are you to be defeated by a muggle?"
"Can it happen?" Harry insisted, annoyed.
Gregorovitch shrugged. "Probably. I have not heard of a wizard terrible enough to see it happen. Kurwa. Please do not tell me you lost the Elder Wand to a muggle."
Harry's cheeks burned. Gregorovitch put his palm to his forehead. "Kurwa. Kurwa, you did."
The next morning, Oromis gave them strange looks. It was not difficult to piece together the implications of two people sleeping in the same tent, especially when Oromis did not know there was an entire apartment hidden inside.
Harry put the notion out of his mind. Arya had shown no interest in him in that way; Harry would not be the first one to make a move. He had no intention of straining their friendship by admitting a crush. That was all it was, really. He fancied her a bit, but he could put it out of his mind.
Oromis invited the both of them to join him for yoga. Arya was already familiar with the Rimgar. Though Harry had not been doing it long, he'd grown comfortable with the baby version Oromis had taught him. He enjoyed going through the motions. It got him awake and alert for the day, and left him feeling limber and pleasantly stretched.
After that, they scryed. Oromis set out a bowl for himself and murmured "Draumr kopa" over it every few minutes, flying across Alagaesia with the simple spell, keeping tabs on the Empire.
Harry did the same, and so did Arya. It felt like a knitting circle or something, the three of them helping to cover each other's gaps. Arya had been to Surda and the Beors much more extensively than Oromis and generally had better coverage of southern Alagaesia. Oromis had been to all of the Empire's cities, and had seen the Spine nearly in its entirety.
Harry was the wildcard. It was unpredictable what he could scry or not. He never needed to have been somewhere before to scry it, but he couldn't peer into anywhere people didn't want him to see. He couldn't scry 'the Varden' and get anything. He could scry Uru'baen despite never visiting, but only the city proper. He could see the citadel from the outside, but nothing let him peek inside.
The strategy then, was for Harry to look around broadly and see what he couldn't see, then to have Oromis or Arya scry that themselves, depending on who had the coverage to see it.
After that, Arya helped Harry work on his projects while Oromis wrote letters and reports. Having her in the workshop meant he couldn't have Neil or Hèroult or whoever with him to advise and check his work. What he did get was a second pair of hands.
As fast as magic let Harry build things, progress meant a lot of things to build. The task for that day was glass, which mostly involved an oven and Arya asking around for wherever the elves who worked with glass got their limestone and soda ash from. Magic let Harry anneal the glass with controlled heating and cooling charms while the glass levitated in its shape, rather than requiring a molten tin annealing trough, along with further shaping afterwards. By dinner, the windshield and passenger windows were all complete and the rest of the evening was given over to batches of rolled steel.
Harry used the same oven and an extra pane of glass to make a bunch of mirrors for scrying. That was as simple as using the reductor charm to produce incredibly fine aluminum powder for vapor deposition in a vacuum chamber, which was as simple as an airtight box and a vanishing charm.
#
"You made these last night?" Oromis turned over the mirror, impressed. It was just a square piece of glass with another sheet stuck on top to protect the aluminum reflective layer from oxidation. Harry hadn't bothered with a frame or anything beyond cutting the large sheet into four for their morning scrying.
"We were already making glass," Harry said. "I wanted to try out vapor deposition. It's just aluminum powder in a vacuum chamber with a sheet of glass. It sort of fogs over with shininess."
Oromis thanked him.
That morning, they focused on the Spine. Harry wanted to find Eragon and Brom, or at least evidence of their passing, but something was inhibiting his ability to scry regions of the mountain range. He could see Morzan's castle just fine, and see the signs it was inhabited. But further east towards the backbone of the mountain range, large swaths of land were blurred out altogether.
"Can you see anything east of Kuasta?" Harry checked.
Arya frowned. "I've never been out that way. Oromis?"
The Rider murmured over his mirror. Harry showed Oromis his own mirror.
"I recognize the mountains," Oromis agreed. He scried again for the blurred scene on Harry's mirror specifically. The image was unremarkable. Nobody in sight, no sign of anything remarkable.
"Nothing," Arya said.
"Then why is it blocked from my scrying?" Harry mused.
Oromis and Arya exchanged a glance.
"I'll get this to Lord Dathedr," Arya volunteered.
"It's warded," Harry realized. "That's why you can't see it. I can't see it because they're hiding." He looked to Arya, then at Oromis.
"We could fly over."
"In the Grasshopper?" Arya was halfway out of her seat already. "You said it was slow. We're probably two, two and a half thousand miles from the Spine."
"2.5k divided by 150 miles an hour, that's what, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen hours?" Harry reasoned. "Hardly outrageous."
"Not round trip," Arya pointed out. "Either I'd have to fly us back or we'd have to camp for a night. How long until the big plane is done, and how much faster will it be?"
Harry took stock of what was left to do. "The airframe isn't even finished, we still have to fuse on the chassis, I haven't started on the engines, uh, a week at least? If we really get down to business, I reckon we could have it in the air in a week. We have to cut the steel into the cross sections for the airframe, fuse the webbing on, bolt the aluminum chassis to the frame, finish the frame of the wings and add the aluminum skin, make the engines from scratch– sorry, scratch that, decide what engines I want to use, figure out how to make them, make them, install them, enchant the whole thing, then it'd be airworthy."
He paused.
"Maybe two weeks."
Oromis watched in bemusement. "You are still forbidden from leaving," he reminded Harry.
Harry waved it off. "We'd come right back. With a fast plane, we'd leave in the morning and be back before dinner."
"Make your case before Queen Islanzadi," Oromis said, shrugging as if to distance himself from the decision.
"It's better to ask forgiveness than permission," Harry said sagely. "She can find out when we return with critical intel. That'll soften the blow."
"That would be treason," Oromis pointed out reasonably.
"I'm not one of her subjects," Harry disagreed. "Treason implies disobeying your sovereign, not any random one. Maybe Arya's committing treason, but doesn't she technically do that every time she argues with her mum? There must be some kind of clause in the divine right of Kings that allows that."
Oromis's lips quirked. "I leave it up to your judgement then, and remind you that disobeying Queen Islanzadi may lead to further sanctions. She has not made you swear not to leave without her permission. Flaunting means and motive may change her mind."
He steepled his fingers. "The other option is this; Arya delivers the message to Lord Dathedr that there is almost certainly something secret in the mountains east of Kuasta. He and his spellcasters work to pierce whatever wards protect whatever is there, and we find out soon enough anyways what's being hidden."
Harry sat back and blew his bangs off his forehead. "What if we continue working on the big plane, and if Dathedr hasn't managed to figure out what's over there by the time it's done, we take an extended test flight and find out. You can come too, we won't even have to land. Surely you've been feeling as cooped up as I am in Ellesmera for the past century."
Oromis smiled wryly. "Finish your plane. We may make arrangements when the time for decision is nearer."
That was the best answer Harry thought he'd get, and much better than he had hoped for.
"I want to know what the fuel is actually doing to make the jet engine work," Harry insisted. Finding time alone to speak with Neil was tricky. Arya seemed to be avoiding her mother, which meant she was spending as much of her time as possible with Harry on the Crags of Tel'naer. "You said heat tolerance and air compression on the intake dictates fuel efficiency. Is heat alone enough for a turbine to work? Or do I need the expanding gasses from burning fuel?"
"It's both," Neil said. "I'm not an engineer, you'll get better answers from someone who worked on engines specifically, but you can think of it from a thermodynamic perspective, or a kinetic perspective. Heat plays some part; hot gasses expand, increase the exhaust pressure, and push faster and harder on the engine. But when the air is heated, the engine is wasting energy dumping hot air into the sky where it dissipates into the atmosphere instead of fast air that pushes your craft harder. Were you hoping heat played a larger part?"
Harry scowled in disappointment. "Yes. Gubraithian fire is insanely hot. I hoped to be able to just put a ring of it in the combustion chamber and ignore fuel altogether. It'd heat up the air, the hot air would expand, leave the engine, and push the jet."
Neil shook his head. "You used it for candles, that's nowhere near hot enough. Turbines can kill people hundreds of feet behind them with burns alone. You might ask an expert on electric planes about this. As I understand it, even they do not intend to simply use heating coils in a turbofan engine. They heat the air to a plasma and use microwaves to direct and accelerate it. Prohibitive electricity cost aside, the thrust to weight ratio of electric plasma jet engines is poor. With your magic, you want something where efficiency doesn't matter, and where you can just dump more and more energy into the system to get more performance."
Harry coughed a little, smiling. "That would be nice."
Neil hummed. "Is stealth important to you? I honestly think your best bet may be rocket engines. If you can make fuel from nothing, nothing is stopping you from flying everywhere at a continuous burn."
"A little bit," Harry admitted. "I don't know if I can silence the exhaust plumes or render them invisible, nevermind the vapor trail. Everybody would notice me flying overhead."
Neil rubbed his chin. "Vapor trails are unrelated to engine type. They're caused by cold, humid air weather conditions meeting hot exhaust. Turbofans, turbojets, turboprops, they will all leave contrails in the right conditions. About the only method of propulsion that won't leave contrails is a propeller. Rocket engine exhaust is mostly water vapor too. I should remind you that if you intend to keep your craft quiet, you cannot go supersonic anyways. Turbofans are your best bet for a spy plane. Quiet, efficient, powerful, simple enough."
"Can it go supersonic?"
Neil shrugged. "Why bother? There is nothing this world can throw at you that will catch a plane going six hundred miles per hour. Dragons have a hard upper limit of a hundred, a hundred and fifty miles an hour in level flight."
"Impatience," Harry muttered. "Fun?"
Neil laughed. "Make another jet. A proper, supersonic one. I'll show you how. The body of this thing isn't designed for supersonic flight, either. The wings are way too wide. With that one, you can use rocket engines. And if you want to travel quicker, teleport."
"Fuel is required?" Harry checked.
"Basically," Neil confirmed.
Harry could just conjure it, but that meant pollution. Unless he could find a way to time-delay vanishing the fumes, or make the conjuration temporary? Just long enough to make it out of the engine.
He thanked Neil. "Oh, and before you go, if I'm going to need fuel, who should I ask about making some?"
Neil blew out through his lips and glanced up. "A chemist? I know as much as any military pilot. If you want orbital mechanics, conditions on the moon and environmental challenges in space, I can help. But if you want the really crazy guys who flew as test pilots, try, uh, Chuck Yeager. And Michael Collins, he didn't get to put footprints on the moon, but he flew the command module. Wait, never mind. He's not dead yet. Chuck died recently, this year I think. He's probably up to date. I'll see if I can speak with him."
Bizarrely, Harry was suddenly curious in a way he hadn't been before. "What's it like? Up there."
Neil smiled and tapped the side of his nose. "It's impossible to put into words. An experience beyond anything else."
He hadn't specified which of the two places he was talking about.
"Then why do you keep leaving it to teach some uneducated wizard basic aeronautics?" Harry had to ask.
Neil shrugged. "I appreciate the chance at adventure. The afterlife's not going anywhere. I know where I'm going back to."
AN: How canon is Fantastic Beasts considered? Jacob is able to get effects out of waving a wand, even though he's a muggle. One might assume the magical reagent in a wand has enough of its own magic to sparkle without a witch or wizard holding the handle. One might also expect that even if someone could not use the Elder Wand, they would still be capable of holding its allegiance. The Deathstick doesn't strike me as picky.
Also, this chapter was finished about 5 minutes after the last one was posted. As I post this, chapter 40 is done. I don't understand how authors have these 'buffers' they always talk about. I hate sitting on chapters, I want to get them out there and get that sweet sweet feedback. So here's an unexpected Tuesday upload. Basically, I've finally reached a point where I can see through the sprint to the end of the first book at least (in broad strokes) and I'm also at the point where I get to write the bits of this story I really enjoy, so you might get more than one chapter per week once or twice in the foreseeable future. Hoping to finish the first book by Christmas.