All timelines are moved up ten years except the Dirty Harry films.

Harry Callahan Sr. is about thirty-thirty five when he adopts Harry

Nicholas Flamel looks like Ramirez.

Harry jr. has Ramirez's katana.

Inspector Henry Callahan, nickname 'Dirty Harry' had been injured by a shotgun blast fired by a small game bird hunting shotgun. Having been temporarily placed on medical leave from the San Francisco Police Department, he took a brief job with Smith and Wesson, having an extensive firearms knowledge.

During a two week stay in Britain at the Headquarters of a drill production company in 1991, Callahan made a discovery which would change the very fabric of the future, had one tiny piece of led not damaged a muscle to the extent it would need several months before he could work as an officer regularly involved in fire-fights.

Sat around the varnished wooden bar of an English pub, three men were sat. One was a massive walrus-like man with heavy features, a small moustache and a large pint of bear in one hand and a second spread down the front of his fake designer jacket. The second was a completely normal, suited, bespectacled businessman clad in a dark blue blazer, slacks and a white shirt and red tie.

The third man was a tall man with prematurely greying hair and with hawk-like eyes, which flitted across the room, set in chiselled features. He was clad in a grey sports jacket, slacks, shirt and tie which looked somewhat smart and casual, defying the appearance of a powerful, alert man with the eyes of a person who had seen too much death, too much conflict.

Suddenly, the second man's brick-like telephone began to ring quietly in his briefcase. Hefting said briefcase onto the bar, he quickly released the latches and pulled out the device. A few moments later and he was slamming the case shut and dashing for the door.

"Callahan, Dursley, my wife has had an accident, broken leg apparently she slipped on the stairs. Callahan, you may need to get Dursley back, he'll be in no condition to drive, No.4 Privet Drive. I'll see you tomorrow if I'm not in the hospital!" the man said quickly before slipping out of the door.

Half an hour later and the near-drunk walrus was dumped in the front passenger seat of the Jaguar XJS which the American Embassy had provided. Callahan hadn't drunk anything alcoholic, as he never wanted to be position where his senses were dulled by something he ingested.

A brief glance at a map and a ten minute drive through the evening darkness of England, tinted orange by the bright lamps which lit the road and Callahan's Jaguar was parked outside the incredibly normal house on Privet Drive.

Having slid out of the car, Callahan supported Dursley into the house, having quickly removed the keys from the enormous man's pocket. Just as he was leaving, Harry heard a sound he disliked. The traumatised crying of a child. Too often when in hospitals or at funerals, the sound of a lone child's mourning could be heard.

Frowning slightly, the American followed the sounds to a small, triangular door set into the wall of the staircase. A single sharp blow smashed the loose bolt from the door, allowing it to swing open. Within was the small form of a child, no more than a toddler.

Harry's hand twitched toward the place where his revolver usually sat before he remembered that it had been left at the American Embassy. Abuse cases always got to him. It was then that his own eyes were caught in the soul-searching emerald gaze of the child, at that moment he chose that he would raise this child himself. This was what his deceased wife would have wanted.

After nearly two days of continuous negotiation, paper signing and red tape, the child, coincidentally also named Harry, was placed in his care with joint British-American citizenship. It was around two years later the unusual pair had an even more unusual visitor.

Harry Callahan JR and his father were sat at the dinner table, the latter idly cleaning the gleaming black barrel of his Smith and Wesson revolver with a fine pipe brush when the doorbell rang. Not expecting a visitor, the elder Callahan quickly placed half a dozen snub nosed rounds into the cylinder and snapped it back into the frame of the gun.

Sliding out of his seat, Sr. hid the gun behind his back as he opened the door. Stood on the doorstep was a middle aged woman in a plain grey suit.

"Good evening sir, I am Professor Blackwood of the San Francisco Academy of the Ancient Arts, do you mind if I speak with you briefly?" she asked.

Surveying the woman for a moment, Harry failed to find any form of subterfuge in her body language and nodded his acquiescence, leading the woman into the sitting room of his apartment, discretely uncocking and holstering the pistol as he did so. Once the pair were sat, she asked;

"About your son, has anything occurred with him which you would describe as unusual, such as moving objects remotely?"

"I guess, one occasion, Hadrian fried the television somehow, it had woken him up, making him irritable. Then he has managed to perform some form of teleportation to get on top of the cupboard and raid the cookie jar, then he's unlocked doors, safes and on one occasion blasted someone through a window. I've been trying to help him cultivate these powers but since I don't seem to have them, it's difficult..." Harry replied.

"My! Very few would be capable of such by this age. To be blunt, your son is a wizard. For several hundred years, the magical world has hidden itself from the non-magicals for fear of persecution. The Academy usually begins teaching magical children to control their powers from the age of eight and they join the academy aged ten, though we make contact with the parents around the age of four." Professor Blackwood said.

"Where is this Academy, what are the costs and also, do you have magical doctors, there is something... just off... about little Hadrian." asked Harry.

"Mister Callahan, the Academy is hidden from most eyes but is located on the inner peninsula of Drake's Bay, Northwest of here. We have a large amount of funding from the US Ministry of Magic and as such, our pupils only need pay for equipment which can be bought from the magical district. I'll send a healer to you tomorrow afternoon at the same time to look over your son, and also take you to the magical district to buy whatever you need for him." replied the Professor.

Three days later and the powerfully built policeman could be seen emerging from the St. Francis' Magical Hospital with a raven-haired boy in his arms. He'd barely slept for two days as his beloved adopted son had been undergoing major healing. During the time spent at the minimal mercies of the Dursley Family, Harry had several bones broken and not properly repaired, still had some form of concussion which caused intermittent migraines and limited his brainpower.

Worst was the scar, the lightning bolt scar. Now it was just a thin white line across the child's forehead instead of the angry red colour it had been. Apparently the scar had also halved Hadrian's brainpower and reduced his magic to around ten percent of its proper level. Not that the ten percent wasn't higher than most grown wizard's power according to a specialist.

Harry had over a decades pay sat in his bank account, having little to nothing worth spending it on, and decided at that moment, he would do anything for his child to be raised properly. He hired a woman called Hestia Jones who was on leave from Britain to the St. Francis' Hospital, an expert in magical control to help tutor and nurture Hadrian.

Over the next four years, with periodic visits from teachers at the Academy and the care and encouragement of his Dad and Aunt Hestia, Hadrian flourished. He had been judged ready for using a wand at the age of seven and had spent the past year learning magic at a level that most Hogwarts students would learn at fourth year level.

Hadrian had never been told about verbal magic, he'd always used intent to power his spells or would sometimes simply channel intent and magic together to create an effect, not using any spell. After they'd moved to a moderately sized townhouse on the edge of the Golden Gate park, he'd also been introduced to the shooting range that Callahan Sr. had set up in the spacious basement. A .38 special Ruger Redhawk had father and son on the firing range for an hour a day. Shortly before his seventh birthday, Sr. found one of the downsides of a very intelligent son.

"Dad, when are you going to get round to asking Aunt Hestia out?" Harry jr. asked innocently.

The tea which had formerly been in the elder Harry's mouth was now splattered across one of the walls of the kitchen.

"What! I-I err. Why do you ask?" he stammered, blushing like a teenager.

He simply cringed under the withering glance those emerald eyes gave him for a few moments;

"Oh for heaven's sake dad, Hestia has been living with us for near two and a half years, you fancy her and the back of one of her notebooks are such writings as 'Mrs Hestia Callahan, Mrs Callahan, Mrs Harry Callahan, Hestia and Harry'. I think that constitutes enough grounds for me to get the pair of you together." Harry jr. replied sarcastically.

A week later and the cold, stone-faced Inspector had finally come out of his shell and Harry now had both a mother and a father to care for him as Harry Sr. had finally fallen for the beautiful, chocolate-haired Hestia and asked her out.

Unfortunately, Harry's pre-Academy years were not completely perfect. His father's position in the San Francisco Police Department had landed him with many enemies. Hestia was constantly patching Sr. up after gunfights. However, just days before his tenth birthday, Harry was windsurfing with another family including a fellow witch when they were attacked.

He was clutching onto the rig of his surfboard, running across the bay level with Annabella when the sound of jetski engines approached them. A single gunshot cracked across the bay, the small spout emerging from the water as it hit. Gesticulating wildly to Annabella instructed her to immediately peel off and head back to the rest of her family. At this point he reached into the watertight holster with his short-barrelled Ruger Redhawk and pulled it out, cocking back the hammer before returning the shot which missed by a small margin.

Recognising the revolver Harry had just pulled out, Annabella peeled off and skimmed across the water, heading for the shoreline as another bullet hummed through the air at them. Pulling the board across in attempt to turn and lead the shooters away from her, Harry found himself cut off by the pair of jetskis. The glint of a gun barrel was unmistakable as Harry flexed himself in his wetsuit. They were in for one hell of a chase.

Swerving around the pier of a bridge, Harry watched, satisfied, as a jetski slid across the structure with a nasty scraping sound. A vicious crack sounded as a bullet slammed into the water just in front of his board, prompting Harry to twist round and change directions suddenly. A burst of magic into one of the pursuing jetskis fried the electrics. Unfortunately, the machine still ran and he was still being chased.

Once again he changed directions suddenly, this time racing at right-angles to the jetskis before gently squeezing the trigger once before pulling it much more firmly a second time. Two shots echoed across the water, the first slamming into the torso of the pursuant and the second into the front of the jetski, wreaking havoc with the control systems as it ricocheted around. 'One jetski and its driver down' Harry though viciously.

Harry changed direction again as a pistol-shot whined through the air before hitting the water with a deafening crack! Balancing and steering with nothing more than his feet, he fired several shots back at the jetski, each one missing by the barest distance. Instinctively steering out of the path of a bullet, he quickly pulled out the cylinder and dropped in the four rounds he could easily grab from the holster and snapped the cylinder back into place.

Cocking the Redhawk again, Harry grinned malevolently and reversed directions again before turning ninety degrees and taking off across the bay, firing another shot at the jetski. He now had only three rounds loaded and couldn't easily reach to the rest of the .38s in the holster.

Two shots zipped past him, one barely skimming off his wetsuit and the second drawing a long, bloody scar across his cheek. Cocking the revolver, Harry twisted around at the waist and fired a shot before quickly following with two more with the double-action.

All three hit the man on the jetski as he lined up to take another shot at the kid that they'd been chasing. He was flung off the jetski as the three rounds slammed into his torso. Finally relaxing slightly, Harry took the opportunity to extract a handful of rounds from a near-inaccessible part of his pocket which contained the holster. He managed to extract two rounds which were quickly loaded into the pistol after he ejected the empty cartridges into the water.

Just as the Redhawk was about to be replaced in its holster when he heard the noise of a third jetski and a powerful speedboat. The jetski raced out from behind a pier, coming close behind him as bullets hit the water around him. Harry expended the final two rounds he had available, one hitting the jetski and doing little damage and the other skimming past the driver's head and hitting the water.

It was just then that the recognisable sound of a .44 round echoed across the water as six rounds slammed into the jetski and its driver. Behind the wheel of the powerboat was Annabella's father with his own father lowering a gleaming black revolver. Clutching the rail of the boat was Annabella, her face white with fright. Heeling about, Harry caught a rope thrown from the boat and pulled himself toward it. The rig and board were quickly disassembled and he clambered onto the back of the boat, blood running down his face and his hair soaked with seawater.

"Dad, thank god. Twelve rounds expended, I think I got four hits on the pursuers and two hits on their jetskis and six rounds missed." Harry gasped as he staggered into a seat in the cockpit, the pistol dropping onto the deck from his nerveless fingers; "I-I killed someone..." he moaned quietly.

Sr. came over and picked up the revolver, pocketing it before looking straight into his adopted son's eyes.

"You killed two people. Neither deserved any more than that. They both attempted to murder two ten year olds in cold blood. I couldn't be more proud of you kiddo, you fought back and won, despite being outnumbered by trained men with more powerful guns and bigger magazines." he reassured him softly.

At that moment Annabella rushed over, having been restrained momentarily by her father, allowing the Callahan father and son a moment. She wrapped her arms around Harry, burying her head in his shoulder as she allowed her own tears to run. After a few moments of Harry simply stroking Annabella's damp hair in an attempt to comfort her, she sniffled slightly before saying ashamedly;

"I'm sorry Harry, I just left you to them, I was so scared for you."

"Hey hey 'belle, there was nothing you could have done without become a target. I was their target and I didn't want you hurt. Don't ever blame yourself, I chose to draw them away as otherwise you might simply have been gunned down for nothing more than getting in the way." Harry said softly.

Annabella Beaumont and her family from that day on became inseparable with the Callahan family, often sharing trips out during the summer, looking after the other's child when they wanted to go out for a 'parent's night out' or one of the numerous occasions when Harry Sr. came back injured. Two weeks later, they were in the Sunburst Magical District of San Francisco, shopping for supplied for the Academy of the Ancient Arts.

All around the young muggleborn witch and her best friend were bright lights and comfortable chaos. Having been given sufficient American Currency, which apparently was the standard currency for the American Magical population, their first stop on their shopping trip was Augustus Maxwell's Wands.

Walking in, they found themselves on the far side of a waist-height dividing wall from an incredible part workshop part laboratory.

"Ah, what can I do for you children?" asked the elderly man, continuing before either could reply; "Your first wands I assume, well come through!"

Leading the children through a half-door into the workshop, he opened two cupboards, one on each wall. Both the cupboards and their doors were lined with either plain lengths of wood or clear glass boiling tubes containing hundreds of different substances, all completely unrecognisable.

"Simply run your hands along each rack and remove those substances and lengths of wood and place them on my workbench." instructed the wandcrafter.

A few minutes later and Harry had three wand blanks, one of ebony, one of yew and one of elder, with the cores of a dragon's heartstring and a Veela's hair with the first blank. The second blank was accompanied by Dementor's cloth and Grim's fang while the final wand blank was accompanied by ground Phoenix feather and Griffin's fur.

"My my young sir, I usually make two wands for new customers, three is incredibly unusual. The contents are even more so." commented the wandcrafter.

Annabella followed his example, ending up with wand blanks of apple, cherry and laurel with cores of metamorphmagus' hair and Chimera fur for the first wand, Manticore fang and Unicorn hair for the second and Pegasus' hair with Thunderbird feather for the final wand.

Finally, they each selected three gems, Harry picking three slightly green-tinged gems which were labelled as Serpentine Diamonds. Annabella's were a blue-tinged red labelled as Dragon's Diamond.

"Again, three wands, this is a record and I have only once or twice before used focus stones. Usually the three-wand students come once every two years, not two to one year!" exclaimed the wandcrafter; "Now if you continue with your shopping, the wands should be ready in around two hours."

Those two hours were spent circling the central market of the magical district. Annabella and Harry ended up with a dragonhide vest and a pair of dragonhide boots each, a library trunk, which they shared, for their extensive collection of books which Annabella purchased, racing round the various bookshops like a hummingbird, leaving a bemused Harry behind her, acting as caddy.

In the pet shop, Harry was instantly drawn to a massive, shed-sized cage which contained a rust coloured raptor. A golden eagle. He gazed straight into its eyes for a minute when the shopkeeper came up behind him.

"That's young Cassius, he's a beauty but will never let anyone near him save to feed him."

Ten minutes later and the raven-haired young man emerged, his arm around Annabella and the enormous raptor stood on his shoulder, rifling through his hair with his viciously hooked beak.

By the end of their first year at the San Francisco Academy of Magic, both Harry and Annabella had completed the first year courses in transfiguration, charms, combat magic, elemental combat magic, arithmancy, runic magic, warding, potions, healing, physics and biology.

He quickly mastered every healing spell he was taught and could easily perform the most complicated of the without using a wand and could easily combine potions and non-magical healing methods into his medical portfolio, even sometimes venturing into ritualistic healing.

Harry was also a natural at combat-orientated magic, easily besting every student in the first three years of the school. Having been taught unarmed combat and kendo for several years by various tutors, he had a good build and a natural affinity for fighting.

The annual junior duelling tournament, which comprised of the first through to fourth year classes, was a difficult challenge for the two, though it culminated in Annabella being taken out in the quarter-finals while Harry fought his way into the finals.

Watkins had been a minimal challenge, he was a good dueller but tended to massively overpower his spells. The result was Harry simply swaying out of the way of any spells for nearly a quarter of an hour before launching anything more than a nuisance curse. He launched a powerful blasting curse into Watkins' shield, blasting it apart and sending him stumbling backward before hitting him with two stunning spells.

Now, he was stood opposite Stevens, a heavily built fourth year who had ended every duel he had participated in with completely unnecessary brutality, including breaking one of Annabella's ribs with a heavy bludgeoning hex. 'Oh he was going down, humiliated and in pain' Harry thought.

'Nobody hurts my Annabella! Wait, my Annabella?'

The moment that the duel began, he ripped a board out of the piste and banished it at him, following it with a chain of stunning and banishing spells. The plank was turned into splinters and a shield absorbed most of his spells, save for a banishing hex which clipped Stevens' shoulder, sending him spinning down the piste.

When his opponent rose, Harry summoned the hundreds of splinters from the obliterated wooden board and quickly transfigured them into gleaming silver needles which hurtled toward Stevens, powered by a gust of wind and a banishing charm. As they were thrown every which way by a blasting curse, Harry transfigured another wooden board into a massive archery target behind Stevens and then applied a powerful sticking charm to it.

A series of spell-chains backed his opponent into the archery target, firmly sticking him to it. However, hidden in his spell-chains were a series of transfiguration spells, which hit the archery target and would only be triggered by Stevens touching them. The moment that the fourth year was backed into the target, he was flipped upside down, his clothes turned into a clown's costume.

Any further humiliation Harry had planned was put on hold as he saw a five second countdown until the duel went to him, so he simply used an Incendio charm to light the costume on fire and a bludgeoning hex to the ribs in revenge for the unnecessary brutality that had been displayed in all his duels. Especially with his Annabella.

He vaulted off the piste, his wand sliding into the black dragonhide holster beneath the jacket he was wearing. Most of the school was watching as a first year, a not quite eleven year old, humiliated the favourite for the junior tournament.

Just outside the doors of the duelling hall was Annabella, still clad in her duelling jacket, joggers and trainers.

"I got him for hurting you Anna." Harry said.

She dashed over and wrapped her arms around his torso as his own went around her shoulders. Suddenly she leaned up slightly and pressed her lips against his. A moment of kissing later and Harry held her at arms length;

"Annabella Beaumont, will you do me the honour of being my girlfriend?"

From that moment on, the already inseparable pair became even closer, to the extent where during their third year when they began learning the offensive side of the mind arts, having already mastered occlumency, they each allowed the other to enter the deepest recesses of each other's minds. This utmost trust caused a slight bond between the two, Annabella's magic began to grow to match Harry's incredible power and they could each sense the other's emotions and location.

Each year, the duo rose through the ranks of the junior tournament so that in their fourth year, every time since their first year, the couple were the ones facing off in the final. Unfortunately for Annabella, Harry's well-honed reflexes and martial arts lessons since he was seven ended up with him winning every final, despite her best efforts.

By all accounts, the couple were a pair of incredible prodigies, with Harry and Annabella learning to drive in two days at a deserted racetrack accompanied by their parents and a tent. Harry had been given a $15,000 trust fund by his father, and at the age of eight, began a pattern of aggressive investment under the name Cassius Konrad, making immense amounts of money. Not that melting down British gold Galleons and selling the ingots for massively more than the dollar-pound-galleon exchange rate was cheating.

During his off-time, Harry had taken to magically enhancing non-magical items and weapons, to the extent where he had a Smith and Wesson Model 500 with expansion charms on the cylinder, allowing him to fire .50 BMG rounds. Another of his inventions was a runic pendant which reduced physical damage to the wearer by nearly seventy percent.

Today was his fifteenth birthday. As they used to not know when his birthday was, it was always held on the day that Harry Sr. had rescued Harry Jr. from the Dursley family. It had been thirteen years since that cold winter's night of '91 when the not-quite two year old was taken from his cupboard in a house in southern England, Harry mused from where he was sat on the veranda looking out onto the garden of the Callahan's almost palatial house.

Annabella sauntered out, sliding the door closed as she walked over. Since the time when the two not-quite ten year olds had first met, they had both grown into themselves, both physically and mentally.

Near ten years of martial arts and kendo on Harry's part had left him a lithe figure, despite still being very thin, there was no doubting the strength hidden in his body. Annabella was similarly built, having taken up martial arts with Harry since she turned ten. A sheet of golden hair was carelessly thrown over her shoulders framed a heart-shaped face and sapphire eyes.

The deckchair creaked ominously as Annabella settled on his lap.

"Happy birthday love." she whispered contentedly as she lay back, resting her head right under his chin.

Harry simply wrapped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head before lying back and closing his eyes. Ten minutes later and their peace was broken as a car roared up the drive, the sound of gravel being spat everywhere echoing off the house. Instantly, Harry was alert, a Smith and Wesson Model 29 liberated from his father's gun cabinet in one hand, the other still wrapped around Annabella.

He relaxed when the distinctive face of his father hove into view behind the wheel of a Ford Mustang. Pulling up next to the veranda, Harry Sr. leapt out and called;

"Kiddo, happy birthday, '67 Shelby Cobra GT500 and she's all yours!"

Harry gaped for a full minute at the gleaming black car until he noticed a gleaming key and a small wallet flying through the air to him. Quickly catching them, he pocketed the key before looking into the wallet.

"Full driving license dad?" he asked incredulously.

"Yep, the gnomes were most helpful in providing that. Now get lost, I don't want to see you or Annabella until this evening!"

Laughing happily, Harry wrapped his arms around his adoptive father and vaulted over the railing of the veranda and quickly slid into the driver's seat. Just as the engine bellowed into life, Harry Sr. caught Annabella's elbow and whispered to her;

"Don't tell him yet but I may have had the car upgraded to over five hundred horsepower and will easily do 150..."

Annabella grinned mischievously before jumping into the passenger seat and departing in a spray of gravel and the incredible roar of the Mustang's engine.

Hestia Callahan walked out onto the veranda and wrapped her arms around Harry's neck and rested her chin on his head as they watched their adopted son and his girlfriend depart.

"It's been so long since I first joined this family but it seems to have passed so quickly." she commented; "I just hope he likes the Thunderstreak broom I got for him, you may have gone a bit overboard on him love."

"He's our son Hestia sweetheart, it's our job to spoil him. I remember when I first met him over in England, some bastard had him locked in a cupboard, now look at him, a confident, skilled young man with his entire life ahead of him." Harry commented as the last roar of the Mustang echoed.

The country roads north of San Francisco reverberated to the savage roar of a seven litre engine for the rest of that evening as Harry put the car through its paces. Harry was on a bit of a high for the next two days as he and Annabella alternated between driving around the city and the land surrounding it and flying on Harry's Thunderstreak broom which could easily outrun the Firebolt which most of the local Quidditch teams used.

Four days after Harry's birthday later the two Callahan males were sat in the main study, both incredibly serious, tired looking and stressed, the confidence and happiness of their previous days evaporated like water in a kettle. The elder was grey with tiredness while the younger simply looked frustrated, though slight black bags adorned his eyes.

"For heavens sake, I need specifics, we've got at least two kidnappings and I want to know what is going on and what can be done about it without risking their lives!" said the younger, clearly irritated.

"Fine kiddo. We have until tomorrow morning to put together a million dollars ransom for three children who have been kidnapped including the Mayor's niece." sighed Harry Sr; "It's now six o'clock and we have to pay up by eight o'clock tomorrow and there is a threat of further kidnapping tonight."

"Details fossil, time, location, who was with them?" barked Harry Jr.

"Location was the always around the Sundown Club, time was between 22:00 and 01:00. Each time they had left their friends while somewhat inebriated. Traces of chloroform have been found around the kidnapping location."

"Excellent, we have a start. Trichloromethane will usually be only supplied to laboratories and chemical companies, it would be nice to trace it but there are too many points where someone could get hold of it. I'VE GOT IT! We're going to headquarters!"

Harry raced down the stairs and was just putting a notice-me-not charm on his new .44 Magnum Ruger Redhawk as Sr. followed him, holding a stick-on flashing police light. Sr. followed his son as he raced out to the Mustang and jumped into the driver's seat. The car was already in motion as the passenger door snapped shut as Sr. slid in.

The elder quickly activated the police light as his son seemed intent on ignoring traffic laws as they roared across the city. Ten minutes later and the Mustang screeched to a halt outside the Police Department HQ.

An hour of wheedling, ranting, negotiation and acidic, sarcastic humour later and despite his father's reluctance, Harry Jr. had managed to get himself a reserve commission as an Inspector and qualification for the use of his .44 Ruger Redhawk.

Walking into the canteen, Harry quickly liberated a bottle of cheap whisky and ran a gulp around his mouth before spitting the foul blend over his shirt. Four hours later, a black haired teenager staggered out of the Sundown Club, stinking of cheap whisky and staggering slightly.

Harry smirked inside as he heard someone trying to sneak up behind him. As a chloroform soaked rag was pressed against his mouth and nose, his last thought before succumbing to the darkness was 'Check, punk'.

Sometime later, he awoke to concrete walls and minimal light from a perspex covered hole in the roof of the room. Harry and three other children, two female and one male were handcuffed to rings set into the wall. A small bit of wandless magic released him from the handcuffs.

Rifling through his pockets, he found that the half empty miniature whisky bottle, the twenty bill and pack of cigarettes which he had carried to look like a clubbing teenager had all been removed. However, the cold metal of his revolver was still sat on his leg under a notice-me-not charm. Harry dropped the charm and rolled up the leg of his jeans, removing the revolver and the short leather strap from his lower leg.

By this point, the other prisoners were slowly coming to as the rattle of his handcuffs hitting the wall and the noise of him raking through his pockets and getting his revolver awoke them. Unfortunately, one couldn't resist letting out a slight scream before he could muffle her.

"WHAT'S THAT NOISE BRATS!" bellowed a male voice as footsteps came closer to the metal door.

Just as the kidnapper stepped in, Harry raised his Ruger and commented;

"Checkmate, punk!"

The kidnapper pulled a black handgun from his belt in time to be sent flying as two shots hit him in the heart. Harry quickly released the other prisoners and gestured for them to follow him. They emerged from the staircase to the pre-dawn light of a street he recognised. Just on the other side of the block under another notice-me-not charm was his Mustang.

"Stay here!" he hissed; "I'm getting transport."

Making sure none of the other captives left, he pocketed the revolver and raced through an alley between buildings and emerged on the other side of the block. It took him twenty seconds to get to the Mustang and even less to start it up and get on the move.

He screeched to a halt next to the group who were huddled together where he'd left them and threw open the passenger door.

"Get in, your families will want to see you!" Harry barked.

Despite the cramped cabin of the fastback Mustang with four people, they all managed to fit in by the time that Harry pulled away from the kerb. A short drive later and they arrived outside the Police Department HQ where Harry pulled out his wallet with identification to the secretary before striding straight into the Chief's Office.

"Looks like you won't need to pay that ransom Chief."

"Who are you?" frowned the Chief.

"Harry Callahan, Jr. Also, if you want to know, the kidnapper is dead as a dodo." Harry replied before stalking out of the office and back to his Mustang. The clear night-time roads of San Francisco as he raced across the city, heading to the Golden Gate Park and his home.

Despite a stern dressing down from both his father and his mother and a crying session from Annabella upon his loud and exuberant arrival back at the Callahan house, Harry continued over the next few weeks to work with the SFPD, utilising his magical talents for concealment and extracting information from suspects with legilimency. In the middle of August however, a strange pair of visitors arrived.

Having been out for an evening's date with Annabella, Harry was driving them back to the house. As he sped up the drive, spitting gravel everywhere, he spotted two figures walking up the drive. Knowing that they weren't expecting visitors, he sped up, racing through the gates and swerving to a halt next to the veranda.

Both Harry Sr. and Hestia were sat on the veranda, the former breaking his rule about drinking as he had a glass of Scottish Scotch whisky in one hand.

"Hey kiddo, how did your trip go!" called out Harry Sr.

"Excellent dad!" exclaimed the younger Harry.

Annabella blushed slightly as she held out a hand with a ring with a single large ruby surrounded by diamonds set on it.

"Congratulations you two!" Hestia cried out happily; "I presume that no problems occurred today..?"

"I may have got involved in a gunfight when the jewellery store was being robbed as I left to pick up Anna." Harry admitted.

"Great! What's the body count this time? I know that between you and your father you have a kill count higher than the four horsemen and your average European Dark Lord combined but I still maintain that you should let someone else take over..." moaned Hestia.

"No kills today mum, though I did incapacitate three and set the escape car on fire..." Harry replied as he pulled a gleaming .44 Ruger Redhawk from the holster inside his tweed jacket and placed it on the table.

At this point, the two figures who had walked up the drive revealed themselves, having been under disillusionment charms. The first was a tall, dark-skinned man, with a huge gold hoop through one ear while the second was the serene countenance of Albus Dumbledore. Harry swore silently to himself before putting on an exaggerated American accent;

"Hey pop! Doesn't that guy just look like the Supreme Manipulator Dumbledore!" he called excitedly, enjoying the aghast look on the dark-skinned man's face and the slight twitch of Dumbledore's left eyebrow.

"Indeed he does son." replied Harry Sr. "Inspector Harry Callahan, San Francisco Police Department, what can I help you gentlemen with?"

"I am Chief Warlock for Great Britain, Albus Dumbledore!" announced the bearded man, receiving nothing more than a blank stare from the elder Harry and a raised eyebrow from the younger as he cleaned the barrel of his pistol with a length of pipe-cleaner, having collapsed in a deckchair.

"And the reason for being visited by a politician from a backwards European nation?" the Harry jr. asked, setting the pistol down on the coffee table next to him and extracting a second, gleaming black gun from inside his jacket.

"Young man, I hope you realise that Britain is the best magical society in the world!" exclaimed Dumbledore.

"At the San Francisco Academy, we learn warding, physics, biology, Occlumency, Legilimency, combat magic and elemental magic amongst the normal courses. Do any of the British schools do that?" asked Annabella; "Also, why is it that the Potions Master of Hogwarts is international laughing stock and responsible for the fact that in Britain, you have less healers and Aurors than we have in this city?"

At that moment, Cassius swooped out of the sky. The huge raptor landed on the veranda railing, a piece of paper folded in his beak.

Callahan-

Death Eaters sighted, Golden Gate Park - CAUTION.

S. Broadstairs

SF DMLE

Moments later, Harry Sr.'s radio buzzed into life;

"Inspector 71, Control reporting multiple deaths in GG park. Cause unknown!" barked the radio.

"Control this is Inspector 71, I'll be over in ten." Harry Sr. replied.

The younger Harry swung around, already loading each of his revolvers and glaring at the two men.

"You've either given away our location or have been tracked!" he spat, passing a revolver to each of the women before vaulting over the railing to his father's patrol car. In the boot was the automatic M14 EBR which was used for medium to long range engagements.

A green light shot overhead as he dived behind the car, already slotting a magazine into the gun. Flipping up the covers on each end of the Aimpoint sight, he peered around the car to see a group of black-robed individuals randomly casting curses toward the house, despite the heavy wards on the building itself, preventing any damage.

Harry rolled out from behind the car and fired a burst of bullets down the drive before diving back behind the car. Several reports sounded from behind him as the three shooters on the veranda returned fire at the attackers.

Despite a twenty-man attacking force, they were quickly put down as two revolvers, a battle rifle and Harry Sr.'s Remington 700 fired repeatedly. As Harry Jr. fired bursts of bullets from around the patrol car, Sr. quickly and accurately picked off those hanging behind their comrades who were quickly brought down by a combination of handgun fire and M14 shots.

"QUICKLY! Get all evidence of magic gone! Wands, Portkeys etc, vanish the lot!" Harry ordered as he slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle; "This is damage limitation, the bodies from the park will have been retrieved already, it is too late to obliviate anyone! If necessary, Fiendfyre the bodies and completely remove evidence of their having been here. I'm on perimeter."

He leapt into the Mustang and skidded off down the drive. Near the bottom, Harry found another black-robed terrorist running from the car. Pulling it around into a slight drift on the gravel, he fired two shots from the open window, intent on incapacitating. The first shot blasted the terrorist's leg out from under him and the second slammed into his shoulder, sending him spinning into the gravel.

Harry simply levitated the terrorist onto the roof and used a sticking charm before skidding round and roaring back up the drive, swerving around a bend lined with thick leylandii shrubs. He pulled up to a stop next to the veranda, cancelling the sticking spell on his prisoner and sending him flying to a halt as the Mustang ground to a sudden stop.

He leapt out of the car, throwing his rifle to Sr. as he converged with him. Ripping off the mask, he was confronted with the much-aged face of the man who had betrayed his parents. One of the upsides AND downsides of being a Master Occlumens was complete and perfect recall, including the most painful and most happy moments of life. Before him was Peter Pettigrew, unconscious from blood loss.

As his son's eyes glowed an eerie green and he grabbed for his rifle, Harry Sr. wrapped a firm arm around his son's front and held him back until Annabella ran over and wrapped her arms around him. Suddenly, the black aura and the killing curse green eyes receded to his normal features.

"What is it kiddo?" asked Harry Sr. softly.

"This piece of filth is the reason that my biological parents are dead!" Harry Jr. spat hatefully, still twitching toward his empty gun-holsters, forgetting the wands on his forearms.

Just then Dumbledore and Shacklebolt came out from behind the shed, Shacklebolt shaking slightly and Dumbledore frowning.

"Who is that?" asked the Head Auror.

"That, Auror Shacklebolt, is Peter Pettigrew, also known as Wormtail and is the reason my biological parents are dead. If you want to interrogate him, get on with it, I have an awfully big reason to kill the scum." Harry spat, still glaring hatefully at the unconscious Pettigrew.

Half an hour later and a vial of veritaserum had Shacklebolt and Dumbledore persuaded that Pettigrew was in front of him, as the British Government failed to believe anything but Sirius Black being the Potters' betrayer. Dumbledore then approached Harry Jr. as the American Aurors tidied up the body-littered drive.

"Harry my boy! I would like you to return home!" he began.

"Supreme Manipulator Dumbledore, first, I am to you either Mr. Callahan or Reserve Inspector Callahan. Secondly, where do you think I am, this has been my home for most of my life." Harry replied coldly as he retrieved one of his revolvers and began spinning it in one hand as he wrapped the opposite arm around his fiancée.

"My apologies Mr. Callahan, however, your home is in England!" replied Dumbledore, once again ignoring the insulting title.

"Actually Chief Weasel, I haven't been in England since I was about one-and-a-half years old, this is my home, I have been living and learning in this city. Also, why would I desert the top American school for one as backwards as Hogwarts, desert my fiancée, my mother, my father and my friends?" Harry asked; "Really, would I trade my home for a war-torn country where most students can't cast a stunning spell by their third year."

"Mr. Callahan, the wizard who killed your parents and failed to kill you has managed to create himself a homunculus form and according to a prophecy, no one but you can defeat him." Dumbledore continued.

"Then why didn't you simply send me a letter or a communication through our Department of Mysteries' research division with a copy of the prophecy, Grand Simian instead of bringing yourself and your pet Auror across the Atlantic with your pet terrorists?" Harry asked, once again insulting the two politicians.

"It wouldn't be safe Mr. Callahan." Dumbledore informed him; "However, my instructions stand, as your magical guardian, you will return to England!"

"Should I return to England my dear Supreme Mugwart, it shall be of my own free will. In the magical world, my father emancipated me thus leaving the decisions in that legal environment at my feet." Harry riposted.

Just as he finished saying that, he felt a feather-light touch on his mental barriers, perusing them for any cracks. Harry quickly manufactured a buckled, rusted and collapsing archway through the spherical shield around his mindscape and allowed Dumbledore to slip through.

Immediately, he was mauled by a pair of Whomping Willows which stood sentinel around his mindscape. Though it took a minute to extract himself from the aggressive trees, Dumbledore advanced into Harry's mind, being sucked into the maze created out of leylandii.

Slowly advancing through it, Dumbledore found himself assaulted by increasingly dark and vicious creatures and being fed the memory of being hit by a killing curse at random intervals as Devil's Snare and Venomous Tentacula lashed out from the hedges. Though it was a long and painful experience, he resolutely made his way out of the maze as Harry watched from his control centre, deliberately not overly harming him.

Eventually, Dumbledore negotiated the military-grade assault course, complete with crocodiles, which sat on the other side of the maze. It opened up onto a sandy beach with a single rowing boat lying on the sand. Harry grinned. The rowing boat was the method of getting to the fleet several miles out in his mindscape.

Circling a nuclear-powered supercarrier were dozens of ships. Enormous submarines, grey painted frigates, destroyers and a swarm of smaller vessels and much larger guided missile cruisers swarmed the sea around the floating island.

The entire setup was misleading, the aircraft carrier simply looked like the central part of his mind when in face the setup was effectively Harry's play-pond, a means to mislead, delay and destroy attacking forces. Simply flicking the switch on his mental control panel and one of his amphibious assault ships opened the enormous doors in the stern and released the kraken.

Dumbledore was sent stumbling backwards as Harry's remote-operated kraken threw Dumbledore out of his mind by forcibly grabbing the rowing dingy with its passenger and smashing it against a nearby submarine as one would an egg on the edge of a bowl before submerging what was left.

"Chief Wanker Dumbledore, you have no idea how close you came to me simply shredding your mind and turning you into a blended cabbage. You wouldn't be much use for the war with your mind turned into a meaningless gloop." Harry spat, narrowing his eyes at Dumbledore and finally ceasing to twirl his revolver, lowering it and conspicuously cocking back the hammer; "I will discuss the possibility of my visiting Britain in the next little while with our diplomats and you will cease trying to remove me from my one and only family and my one and only home."

Luckily, that was the last they saw of Dumbledore for that winter. That was not to say that the entire holiday was normal. During a police auction, a black haired woman dressed in a business suit purchased a Cessna Citation which had been seized.

"Citation business jet, built '84, low hours flight, top condition, recently restored on commission by drug smugglers and seized before any shipments were made. Bidding?"

At the end of the auction, Harry had purchased a few component parts for motor cars which he wanted to fiddle with and possibly attach to his Mustang. He was so engrossed in his book on runic enchantments, (made to look like a biology textbook), that he didn't notice Annabella slip away during the auction.

It wasn't until he heard the auctioneer call out that he realised she was missing;

"SOLD! Bidder 629, Miss Eleanor Konrad for $500,000!"

Then it twigged. Ellen Konrad was a fake name that Annabella utilised for her investment portfolio and melting down of British Galleons into gold ingots business. He simply went into his mindscape and facepalmed. Evidently she had learning to fly planned for the next few weeks before the new academic year.

Over the next few days, despite being repeatedly chastised by her future parents-in-law and her own parents, Annabella dragged Harry out to his car and onto the half-an-hour drive to the Half Moon Bay Airport to fiddle with their aircraft. The first act was the simplest and most time consuming. Scribing lightening runes all over the aircraft but ensuring perfect balance.

After that, they put undetectable expansion charms onto the fuel tanks. After a week of hard toil, they had completed the project. The aircraft could probably fly around the world without stopping for fuel, had remote-activated runic boosters for speed, allowing it to hit the sound barrier. The last job was scribing strengthening runes everywhere, a job which took many hours of work under the tarpaulin shed they had erected around the aircraft.

Inside, they sectioned off the two seats, one one each side and erected interior walls around it before once again applying massive space expansion charms. One side had a full kitchen and sitting room while the other was composed of bedroom and bathrooms. Because of the nature of creating a pocket dimension with the space expansion charm, it didn't add any weight or upset the balance of the aircraft. All that was needed were repelling wards as it would take a lot of effort to explain how Harry and Annabella fitted a palatial home into the back of a light aircraft.

Harry decided that the aircraft failed to be cool enough and painted it entirely black except the registration which was white and a blood-red flash down each side and placed a reflector gun sight onto the dashboard of the aircraft. He then painted flames onto the engine nacelles, beginning about half-way down and burning right down to the end of the exhausts and painted a shark's mouth, teeth and eyes onto the nose. Then he applied permanent cooling enchantments all over the body of the aircraft so it wouldn't heat up and expand massively when going at high speed.

Meanwhile, at the same airport, under heavy glamour charms and with the use of a liberated Timeturner, the duo learnt to fly as Cassius and Eleanor Konrad. As with much else, they took to it like ducks to water and within a month of using Portkeys from the San Francisco Academy and abuse of their Timeturner, Annabella and Harry both gained their pilot's licenses and type-rating for the aircraft.

Just a few weeks later, they were both incredibly glad of this when they were sitting in the clubhouse when a paramedic rushed in;

The couple had driven down to the airfield for further flying practice and general relaxation in the mid-late evening, when few people would be about the airfield. They'd just parked up the Mustang in the car park and walked into the clubhouse when a paramedic rushed in;

"I need someone to fly to Las Vegas North identifier LAS. We've got to get a rare blood type and Vegas is the only place it is in stock!" yelled the paramedic.

When utter silence followed by a few mumbled apologies was all that happened, Harry and Annabella exchanged a glance and nodded to each other.

"We'll do it!" they said in unison.

"Bella, file a flight plan, I'll get on the radio. Paramedic, can you have the blood transport on the stand as we land?" said Harry.

"I'll get on the phone to Vegas;" replied the paramedic; "They should be at the airport by the time you land."

"Are you accompanying us?" asked Annabella.

"I guess I should." the paramedic answered.

Harry lead him out to the Mustang as Annabella went into the clubhouse office to file a flight plan. Once the paramedic was in, he gunned the Mustang and hurtled down the perimeter track in a cloud of tire-smoke. He pulled up next to the hanger where the Cessna Citation was parked and leapt out of the car, followed by the paramedic.

As the paramedic got in, Harry performed a walk-around inspection before jumping into the cockpit. He'd just completed the cockpit inspection when Annabella climbed in and slid into the co-pilot's seat.

Just minutes later and the engines whined into life and after a brief conversation with the control tower, they were taxiing out onto the runway. Two minutes later and the glossy black jet rose into the air with engines running at full capacity and slight boost.

Within an hour, the aircraft was at Las Vegas and, after a ten-minute turnaround, they took to the air once again. The flight back was just as swift and they landed at the airfield where a their cargo was unloaded and on its way to the hospital.

As they watched the ambulance hurtle away, siren screaming and lights flashing in the dusky light, Annabella wrapped her arms around Harry and put her chin on his shoulder;

"Hopefully that was a life saved love." commented Harry as he gazed after the retreating ambulance.

"I hope so." agreed Annabella; "Now you're going to lock up the aircraft and come to bed."

Fifteen minutes later and the aircraft was closed up, all of the systems winding down as Harry made his way into the expanded space that housed their living quarters, switching out his flying clothes for a simple t-shirt and shorts before slipping into bed and pulling his fiancée up against his chest, wrapping his arms around her torso, barely noticing she was wearing nothing but a bra and knickers.

When Easter came around, Harry and Annabella were to be found on the lawn in front of the Callahan household, dressed in the traditional kendo robes. Steel blurred through the air as the two danced around one-another, their magically-blunted katanas clashing together.

Harry had slammed one foot into Anna's stomach as a gigantic black dog crept out of the bushes. His momentary distraction was his undoing as she came up in a blur of steel and flesh. Desperately blocking the blows, Harry found himself lying back down on the grass, his sword lying discarded several feet away. A flash of metal and his fiancée's sword was embedded in the grass a foot from his head.

"You win my Anna." Harry groaned; "This time."

"Of course I do!" replied Annabella impishly as she straddled him, massaging his chest beneath his robes.

Harry pulled her down into a searing kiss before replying with a wink;

"This time only kitten."

He rolled her over, recapturing her lips. For a minute they rolled around happily before Anna transformed into a massive white Bengal tiger. Harry grinned maniacally and transformed into a gunmetal-grey tiger with midnight black stripes. A moment later and the two dashed around the gardens at incredible speeds and amused themselves by stalking the dog who had decided to join the fun.

Eventually, the two lay down side-by-side on the grass. As Harry looked over at his fiancée happily, he noted how beautiful she looked with a light flush adorning her cheeks.

"It's nice just being a couple for once." Harry commented before remembering the latest duelling tournament; "No worrying about going flying between cities, not having to get into gunfights. No duelling tournaments either..."

"You're just sore that I was awarded more points for refinement in duelling than you, Mr. Surgical-bludgeoning-hex." she replied good-naturedly.

"At least I didn't use a cooking charm on my opponent's nose!" Harry countered.

"And I didn't surgically bludgeon my opponent into submission. Repeatedly." Anna riposted.

Just then, a dull roar echoed down the drive and a minute later, a gleaming black '73 Corvette Stingray Coupé rolled down the drive. When it shuddered into silence, Harry Sr. leapt out, followed by his wife of over half a decade. Hestia Callahan was a beautiful woman with a willowy figure and warm brown hair running halfway down her back, just to the top of her green backless dress which barely reached from her lower back to halfway between her waist and her knees. A few potions had done miracles for the elder Callahan, healing many of his old wounds and rebuilding some of his skin.

"Hey matadors!" he called out happily, seeing his adopted son lying on the grass with his fiancée lying on top of him, their swords abandoned a few feet away.

"Evening dad." replied the two teens in unison before Harry enquired; "Good date?"

"Yep, Elgar's Crown of India was on at the Opera House. Thanks for arranging that kiddo. You have no idea how difficult it is to get tickets for that place." Sr. said.

"Actually, we managed to fly an organ transplant, for the concert administrator's assistant, across several States in record time and got the tickets in gratitude and you two haven't had a proper day off in ages. Anyway, Elgar isn't my thing." Harry replied; "I prefer Johannes Sebastian Bach."

"How come your old man hasn't even seen this aircraft of yours yet?" pouted Harry Sr., receiving a slap on the back of his head from Hestia.

"Been busy between an active love life, doing Organ Transplant runs and school. Anyway, we encountered a British wizard recently who was boasting about his broom doing a hundred and fifty miles an hour. I replied that our broom could do easily five hundred without boost." Annabella answered.

"What kind of broom does that speed?" asked a new voice, causing Hestia's wand to appear and both Callahan males to draw their revolvers.

Where the dog had been lying was now a wizard with a slight goatee and pale skin, grey eyes and shoulder length dark brown hair.

"British... Pureblood am I right?" Harry asked, seeing as the wizard held his hands open in a gesture of peace as he stood up.

"Pretty much, though I was disowned by my family for not being a blood purist. Sirius Black at your service. Otherwise known as Padfoot."

"SIRIUS ORION BLACK!" screeched Hestia.

"You know each other?" asked Harry Sr. with a raised eyebrow.

"I'd say so. I went to school in the same year as Mr. Black. I owe him one for the last time we met at a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix when he decided that I needed to spend a day transfigured into a parrot!" Hestia said calmly, fingering her wand.

Harry began happily humming the Imperial March from Star Wars as Hestia advanced on Sirius, wand drawn. In a moment, the British wizard was turned canary-yellow all over, his hair became an afro while his clothes became a one-piece baby suit. Harry waved his hand slightly and turned his black afro pink for extra amusement.

"Not fair!" complained Sirius.

"Having come home from a rather nice date with my husband to find Mr. Casanova-of-Hogwarts himself hanging around my adopted son and his fiancée, I feel that is fair..." Hestia commented acidly.

"Hestia Jones?" he asked suddenly, not having recognised her.

"Hestia Callahan actually." she replied; "If you're here on Dumbledore's orders to try and take away Harry, take your wand, stick it up your ass and cast Fiendfyre."

Sirius winced briefly before responding; "No, I have no intention of removing Harry from here. I simply wanted to see how my godson was after over a decade away. It lifts a burden from my heart to see that he has a loving family..." inserting charming smile here; "and of course a rather beautiful fiancée."

Without bothering to remove Annabella from his lap, Harry wandlessly summoned one of their katanas, brandishing it mock-threateningly as he informed Sirius;

"Stop hitting on my fiancée before one or other of us castrate you with our swords."

"Ooh! You going to back that threat up pup?" bantered Sirius.

"It should be cub given his Animagus form." stated Annabella.

"And if you want to know, Anna and I are the top duellists at the San Fran Academy of Magic with Masteries in Combat Magic and are working towards mundane Doctorates in Quantum Physics in our spare time along with Masteries in spell creation, runes and warding." Harry commented.

"Whew! Do you know what spare time is kiddo?" asked Sirius.

"Kinda... We were practicing legilimency against each other and formed a mental connection. It's only gotten stronger since so we pretty much share every bit of knowledge. I got the Mastery in Combat Magic and am working toward the Doctorate while Anna and I are sharing the other three. Problems with being a prodigy."

As he had a grudge against the British Magical Population for his incarceration in Azkaban without trial, Sirius was perfectly happy to take up residence in one of the spare bedrooms of the Callahan home. Despite his annoying pranks, womanising tendencies and awful sense of humour, Sirius quickly became a 'favourite uncle' to the couple and an irritating brother to Hestia and Harry Sr., who found it in himself to turn his newly-found acerbic wit on Sirius at every opportunity.

Sirius would often join the family when they went out windsurfing and clubbing. Harry and Annabella had developed a potion based on skele-gro which was injected into the bloodstream and would slowly dissolve and regrow the bones around the injection point. Along with some nutritional potions and metabolic stimulants, the bone-regeneration potion meant that Sirius' weak frame was now much healthier and no longer looked like a scarecrow. Not that the Potions Masters Guild of the United States offering them a Mastery should their bone-regeneration potion work was a particularly big incentive.

Between the couple, over that Easter Holiday, they made some outstanding breakthroughs in their research. Harry created a set of aviator sunglasses which had a head-up-display projected onto the insides of them. In fact, he didn't look through the glasses but through a constant recording of the outside world. Magic meant there was no delay in the recording and it could easily track locations of shooters, obstacles, hidden people, apply night vision, thermal vision, zoom and lock onto a heat signature.

They also had a warning system which would create a flashing red triangle at the side of the glasses closest to anyone making an aggressive move toward him. This was linked into another of their inventions, the runic legilimancer cube which was held in an expanded space in the frame of the glasses and would activate the warning if someone had malintent toward the wearer of said glasses.

Annabella had finally finished her project which was a time dilation ward. The time changes were channelled through several runes to different locations where time would be accelerated, thus slowing the time progression within the ward. It had taken over two years to complete the project as it required creating an entirely new rune and developing a rune cluster to power and configure the ward. However, after much testing, they found their time dilation worked as two mice, one inside the time-slowing part of the field lived for around four times longer as the second which died twice as quickly as was normal.

Harry had spent some time messing around with his mind arts when he found that he could simply look at a page in a book and his mind would automatically record it and process it. He also found it easy to constantly maintain a banishing charm, a summoning charm and a levitation charm wandlessly, a feat which effectively gave him a set of invisible arms active within a five metre radius of himself.

He'd also not ceased working with the San Francisco Police Department, a fact which annoyed the other officers immensely as both Inspector Harry Callahan's exploited the fact they had the same name and rank to cause annoyance.

Harry was cruising through San Francisco in his Mustang with Sirius in the passenger seat.

"Callahan!" called the Chief over the radio.

"Yes Chief?" replied both Callahan's over their radios.

"Junior." he grouched.

"Yes Chief." Harry jr. replied.

"CSI want you up at the desert track where that racer playboy was killed a few days ago. Press is everywhere expecting a CS re-creation and though they have one racer, their other driver is out of commission. Get up there now!" barked the Chief.

"Wilco!" Harry called cheerfully; "Tell CSI that the British Earl of Blackmore is my co-driver."

"What was that about kiddo?" enquired Sirius.

"Basically, some rich kid died in a car race on a dirt track in the desert. Crime Scene Investigation want me to take part in re-creating the scene. Otherwise known as an excuse for me thrashing them in a race." Harry answered as he stuck a pair of blue lights to the dashboard and activated a third next to the rear window along with those on the dash.

With lights blaring, Harry donned his special sunglasses and pulled out of the traffic before flooring the accelerator, heading out of the city.

"Good day San Francisco! Today, CBS San Francisco is observing our Police Department's Crime Scene Investigation Team recreating the death scene of well known playboy and racer Frankie Blue. In a Pontiac Firebird is CSI Inspector Jordan Roberts while our second driver and car has yet to arrive. Inspector Sandra Newbury is here to speak with us, Sandra, what can you tell us about the death of Blue?" declared the interviewer.

"Thanks Bob, Blue's Firebird was found burnt out in the desert around three-quarters of the way up the track which is dirt, gravel and sand, stretching around forty miles. Right now, we are simply re-creating the scene to find out if we want to look for foul play." replied the middle-aged police-woman.

"Who is driving the second vehicle in the race and when can we expect their arrival?" asked the interviewer.

"I've not been told yet, just that a reserve Inspector has agreed to assist us and that he has his own motorcar." answered Newbury.

As the interviewer was about to ask another question, a black car appeared in a massive dust cloud as it came over the small peak behind them. As it neared the camera crew and the police marquee, the car pulled into a drift and skidded to a halt.

"Morning all!" called a cheerful voice from the dirt-streaked Mustang.

"Ah." commented Newbury.

"Can you elaborate on that comment Inspector Newbury?" the interviewer enquired.

"That is the infamous Callahan Jr. His father is a veteran of our force, he attends an invitation-only academy on the coast north of the city, recently gained a Doctorate in Quantum Physics, has Master's Degrees in Human Biology and Genetics, Medicine and Applied Mathematics. He was responsible for the resolution of the Christmas Kidnapping spree. He's fifteen, meaning a lot of paperwork to get him correctly licensed, though he is an exceptional officer and we only bring him in on the biggest cases. He dislikes fame, likes sarcasm, classical music, martial arts and atypical comments just to see people's reactions." Newbury answered; "I've also seen him walking round with a Golden Eagle perched on his shoulder."

"Who is his co-driver?"

"I'm unsure." Newbury replied, glancing toward the Mustang before her lapel radio buzzed into life;

"Can we get on with this." grouched Harry over the radio; "I was touring the city with my godfather and I got pulled up here by the chief."

"Callahan, this is Newbury, who's the passenger?" enquired the Inspector, bringing the microphone of her radio to her mouth.

"The Earl of Blackmore. My godfather Lord Sirius Black. English Peerage." Harry replied in short irritable bursts.

Ignoring the press, Harry contained the irritation bubbling within him at being pulled off spending a nice day showing Sirius around San Francisco. Pulling up next to the red Pontiac Firebird, he leaned back and awaited the press to get on with their thing and allow him to do what his job required.

Eventually, a CSI clambered into the sports car next to them and Harry rolled up the windows using the switch-activated levitation charms on the panes.

"Really, I'm racing against a kid who shouldn't even have a license." came a communication over the radio.

"Really, I'm racing against a CSI who doesn't know when to not open his mouth and stuff his hoof in it." Harry replied sarcastically.

"Don't worry kid, I'll go easy on you." the CSI declared.

"Do worry. I won't." answered Harry irritably.

A minute later and the chequered flag waved and Harry slowly pulled away from the line, tailgating the Firebird. It only took thirty seconds for him to grow tired of this. With his aviators constantly evaluating the terrain and sending updates to his HUD, Harry pulled out and roared past the Pontiac.

Already sweating as he wrestled the car round a sharp bend in the dirt track, Harry thanked the heavens for magical gyroscopic stabilisation. The camera he'd allowed the CSI and press to mount on the front was probably full of sand or sanded down. Prodding a button on the centre console, he activated a disk with Dvorak's New World Symphony and sat back, allowing instinct to take over the driving.

"Radar Gun 1 failed to get a reading on Callahan but Roberts' car just went past at a hundred and five miles per hour." announced one of the CSI to the CBS San Francisco reporter.

A moment later;

"Radar Gun 2 got a reading! Callahan just went past at a hundred and sixty seven miles per hour. Holy - he's a maniac!"

As the car topped out at around a hundred and seventy, Harry reached down for another switch. Pulling down a silvery metal latch, he lifted up a sprung red plastic cover and pushed down the old-fashioned toggle-switch.

When this switch was activated, dozens of runes activated, some creating a magical field around the car which channelled the air, increasing the aerodynamic efficiency of the car. Others stabilised the actual body of the car while even more increased the grip of the tyres and activated a drive-shaft between the rear and front axles, allowing the car to have four-wheel drive.

Sitting up slightly more, Harry focused on the track ahead and slowly but steadily accelerated.

"Roberts just went past Radar Gun 2 at one-twenty." announced the CSI crouched over his laptop.

"Callahan just triggered Radar Gun 5 at one-eighty-five," he reported moments later.

"People of America, this is Blackmore, Harry forgot to mention he has made some upgrades and modifications to his car so it is a mite faster than it was originally." Sirius called over the radio sat on the folding table in the marquee.

Barely twenty minutes later and the filth-stained Mustang pulled up at the Marquee, having completed the vaguely-circular track, averaging a hundred and twenty miles an hour.

"You're back already?" gaped a CSI with a cameraman behind him as the windows rolled down.

"No, I went to the trouble of buying an identical Mustang and hiring two doppelgängers." Harry replied sarcastically; "I'm heading back to the city now, if you need me, do not hesitate to call someone else."

Gunning the engine several times, he roared down another track, heading for the nearest road.

"And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the wonderfully cheerful, friendly, outgoing Doctor Harry Callahan Jr." announced the grimacing CSI to the camera as it tracked the dust-cloud of Harry's Mustang.

By the time that Harry and Annabella had returned to the Academy, they'd absorbed the contents of the U.S Constitution and the many laws instituted since and were well on their way to receiving degrees in Jurisprudence and law. Their upgraded Timeturner allowed them to go back in increments of days then weeks up to a total of seven weeks and seven days.

After Harry's brief foray onto the San Francisco news, he had become somewhat well-known, something which caused him immense irritation. Dozens of colleges and universities offered him and Annabella places on their courses. Of course, having extracted a secrecy oath from Headmistress Johnson on the subject of their Timeturner, the couple accepted an accelerated course in U.S Law and Law of the United Kingdom while they both took Magical Law of the United States and United Kingdom along with ICW Law at the Academy.

With what they had learnt of the Potter family from Sirius, Annabella began to slowly take control of the British Magical Economy. Apparently, the Potter's were a middle-ranking family of magical nobility with little money and a great history. With Cassius and Eleanor Konrad's fortune made through years of investment and trading in gold (taken from melted down British Galleons) on her side, as the better monetary manipulator of the couple, Annabella was steadily taking over the businesses of Magical Britain. Any shop or business they owned a majority of displayed the image of a Golden Eagle bearing a lightning bolt.

When the Summer came around, they took their exams and gained Master's degrees in Jurisprudence, U.S Law and U.K Law along with Masteries in Magical Law of the U.S, Magical Law of the U.K and ICW Law before taking the 'Bar' exams for California. Such was the use of time-dilation and their modified Timeturner that Harry and Annabella were able to increase their studying massively and gain extra qualifications.

Taking exams was easy when they could simply download the minds of the greatest masters in their fields, though they had to be able to understand and assimilate the knowledge they gained. For the most-part, they didn't bother taking the courses but simply took the exams.

With the extra job as top-price Barristers, the couple won, between them, thirty-eight cases just against the American Mundane Government that they signed a multi-million dollar contract to not target the Government. With the massive income, they reduced their fees and began working for the common people who couldn't afford the exorbitant costs of a normal Barrister. Not that Harry and Annabella ceased being vicious wielders of the law.

Gaining a gunshot wound during the summer, his health-insurance company pulled his insurance, claiming that he had a 'pre-existing condition'. Though he could have easily paid for the care, Annabella and Harry took their case to the courts, Harry suing with Annabella as his Barrister. Within a few days, the company had been soundly laughed out of the court and paid compensation to Harry. Not that it stopped him from changing insurance company.

Unfortunately, all good things came to an end when Dumbledore returned;

Having spent a day out windsurfing with Annabella, Sirius and Alexandra, Sirius' muggleborn girlfriend, they drove back to the Callahan home, Sirius following Harry's Mustang in his own car, a '69 Pontiac GTO 'The Judge' model, each with his respective other half as passengers.

Crime was down massively as Harry and another wizard called Nick Pyre who was also a Reserve Inspector had gone on something of a crackdown. Together, they'd hunt down drug smugglers, cartel leaders and bring them in, reducing the amount of drugs on the street and violence around the city.

As they drove up the drive of the Callahan home, Harry's upgraded HUD aviators locked onto several heat sources. Stood close together were Harry Callahan Sr. and Hestia Callahan. To one side was Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall. Harry picked up the portable radio to which Sirius had the other half and commented;

"Dumbledore and someone called McGonagall straight ahead."

"Shite!" swore Sirius in return.

The two cars pulled up on the gravel next to the veranda in a cacophony of American V8 noise. Harry slid elegantly out of his car, wearing dark blue trousers, blazer, a sky-blue shirt and a forest-green tie. Metamorphing his hair to a mere two inches, Harry looked like the epitome of professionalism. It was an image he cultivated when in public, both to create an image and also for the time when he'd completely destroy that image by doing something idiotic.

When Annabella slid her arm through Harry's elbow, dressed in a skin-tight emerald green dress which barely reached her elbows or knees, Sirius had to admit to having a bit of jealousy for Harry, young, intelligent, confident with the skills to back that confidence and a beautiful woman on his arm with all those qualities.

"Mugwump Dumbledore, what an... unexpected... visitation." Harry commented coldly, having lost his already minimal respect for the man upon looking closer at how much the man manipulated the British Magical Sheep.

"Ah yes Harry. I was just discussing your return to Britain with your adoptive parents." he said condescendingly.

Harry glared at the man and tried to resist the temptation to set fire to him. With something like Fiendfyre. A quick scan with his glasses revealed tracking charms, confounding charms, obliviation and compulsion charms on both of them. Ignoring the old man, he turned to his parents and drew a wand, casting a universal charm cancelling spell of his own design which took too much power for most to use.

"And why should I return to Britain?" Harry asked with a subzero tone.

"Because I believe your godfather is filing for magical guardianship of you which will supersede any muggle guardianship." answered Dumbledore in an irritatingly condescending voice.

"Are you filing for guardianship Sirius?" Harry called, turning to the second car, just as a MUCH younger looking Sirius stepped around the bonnet, a beautiful woman of around thirty with waist-length golden-orange hair and wearing a blue dress not unlike Annabella's.

"I'm afraid not Harry. You'll have to stay in the wonderful, woman-saturated San Francisco, racking up more qualifications. What have you got so far?"

"Actually Sirius, both Harry and I have doctorates in Quantum Physics, Master's degrees in Human Biology and Genetics, Medicine, Applied Mathematics, Jurisprudence, U.S Law and U.K Law along with Masteries in Combat Magic, Runic Magic, ICW Law, U.S Magical Law, U.K Magical Law, Warding, Healing and Potions." Annabella replied.

"Anyway, back on topic, why should we return to Britain?" Harry enquired; "And also, I don't remember being on first-name terms with you, Supreme Mugwump."

"Mr. Callahan, I'm Minerva McGonagall, coincidentally your godmother;" the woman introduced herself, sending acidic looks at Sirius and Dumbledore; "And I have no intention of trying to kidnap you from a happy home, however nice it would be to get to know you."

"Ah, I believe I saw an article of yours in Transfiguration Today." Harry replied smoothly, brushing his lips across McGonagall's knuckles.

"I didn't realise you cared less about transfiguration?" Sirius said.

"For the most-part, I couldn't care less. However, I have written a couple of their articles on combat transfiguration under the pen name 'Cassius Konrad'. I don't see the point of turning goblets into ferrets or any of that, but it is very useful for combat." Harry replied.

"My! James would have been proud, your articles are amongst the most revered in the British Magical Community. One thing, how do you use combat transfiguration at the very same time as you are firing curses?" she asked.

"I often fight with two wands or one wand and a sword though I could probably use a pistol and a wand. It requires a lot of mental focus to do, something I have spent a lot of time cultivating. My favourite spell combination is a spell-whip from one wand and using the other to transfigure. I can channel virtually any spell through a spell-whip and I can defend myself and attack with the other wand." Harry replied.

"If you can perform what you say, that is Mastery level, though I suspect your disdain for non-combat transfiguration would prevent you succeeding at getting a full transfiguration Mastery. Shame;" McGonagall commented; "Anyway, as my manipulative colleague was failing to say, Lord Voldemort, the person who killed your biological parents, his soul somehow survived and some time ago, we received evidence of a homunculus ritual. Even more recently, he kidnapped a senior Auror and used his blood in a resurrection ritual. Luckily the Auror escaped and brought the report to us."

As Harry noticed the look on Dumbledore's face at the word 'soul', he upped the frequency of the runic legilimancer in his aviators and directed it at the old man. A few seconds later and a few images and words scrolled down the HUD.

'Horcruxes' 'Split his soul' 'Founder's items' 'Slytherin' 'Power of seven'

"Hmm... Interesting, if I know much of Tom Riddle, he had an obsession with the Hogwarts Founders and in particular his ancestor Salazar Slytherin. And if he needed trinkets to ensure his immortality it would be items which were formerly owned by said Founders." Harry commented; "Also, he had a weird obsession with numbers of power, especially seven."

Watching Dumbledore's mind and face simply confirmed his suspicions.

"Harry, I know where Salazar Slytherin's locket is. I touched it before coming here and it suddenly made me irrationally angry. The thing was saturated in Dark Magic so I just left it where it was under a Fidelius." Sirius interjected; "If you are talking about what I think, then I'd say we need to kill him, after one death from age with those abominations, he'll mutate into a Lich."

"If we were to visit Britain, where would we stay?" Annabella asked.

"I think Potter Manor and Potter Castle at Corbenic are still intact, though neither have been inhabited since old Lord Charlus Potter died. They will probably need expensive renovations which I'm not sure the Potter's can afford though..." Sirius mused.

"Sirius, you have no idea how much Annabella and I are making do you?" Harry asked.

"We got a multi-million dollar contract with the Government to stop fighting legal cases against them. Then there's our investments and the gold company." Annabella added; "Then there are all the legal cases we are still doing along with Harry's pay and bonuses for his work for the Police Department. Overall, we're probably well off enough."

"I probably make ten-thousand British Galleons a fortnight." Harry said, sitting on the cooling bonnet of his car and wrapping an arm around his fiancée; "So were we to return, we have somewhere to stay, we've got cash, otherwise, frankly, if I'm to assist in your operations, I need some form of legitimacy, like over here, I am an Inspector for San Francisco Police. I don't want to be arrested for fighting against your terrorists. Come back when you've sorted things like that out."

Harry quickly put an anti-apparition jinx on McGonagall and watched as Dumbledore vanished with a soft pop.

"I thought it would be nice to meet my godmother properly instead of discussing educational subjects." he explained when she fixed him with a vicious glare which softened into a rare smile upon his explanation.

McGonagall stayed for the entire day and promised to communicate with them in the future. It turned out that the dour Scot had a vicious sense of humour and a rather excellent collection of humiliating stories about Sirius to share with them. She was immensely proud of her godson's achievements, especially that of his engagement. After she left at the end of the day, the entire family including Sirius' girlfriend sat down at the table for a family meeting.

"Now, Sirius, Harry, would you like to explain what made you change directions so swiftly on returning to Britain?" asked Harry Sr.

Harry removed his aviator sunglasses from within a pocket and put them on the table.

"This little device is my upgraded tactical glasses. They basically feed me a recording of the world around me and contain a head-up-display which includes a runic device which scans the minds of those around me. At low frequency, it simply goes for emotion so as to alert me if someone is going to attack me. I turned up the frequency and used it on Dumbledore and found on the forefront of his mind the subject of Horcruxes. Devices which contain split parts of the soul." Harry explained

"As for my comment about Liches, they are monsters created from those who die naturally with split souls. Liches are responsible for amongst other events, the sinking of Atlantis, Krakatoa and the Tunguska Event." Sirius added; "The thing is, to split the soul is an abomination against nature. It corrupts and twists whatever humanity was there formerly."

"What say you?" asked Harry, looking to the women in the room.

"I've got a fair majority of the British Magical Economy under our control already." Annabella said; "Where you go, I go."

"Though I've not been to Britain, I'd be interested to see the country of your birth." added Alex, leaning her head on Sirius' shoulder and lovingly kissing him.

"You two aren't my own children, but you're as near as could be." Hestia said, shrugging slightly; "Up to the old man."

"I'm not old!" protested the elder Harry; "Why not, I'm due a bit of holiday time or I could just take a diplomatic transfer."

"If we're to do this, I'm cooking up some new tricks." Annabella commented.

"Hell yes!" exclaimed Harry, leaning back in his chair; "Mind defenders, explosives, perception slowing modification to the glasses, more explosives, enhanced firearms, even more explosives, Runic life-force draining devices, runic bombs, firebombs..."

The the couple laughed maniacally before Harry switched them both into white lab-coats and headed for their space-expanded laboratory which was under a Fidelius charm in the basement.

"Sirius, send a missive to Nick Pyre with Cassius, ask him to come over. He's something of an alchemist and has taught Harry and I quite a bit." Annabella called before disappearing after her fiancée.

Half an hour later and Nick arrived. He was a stockily built man with salt and pepper hair tied back in a short ponytail, a very slight goatee. All in all, he looked much like Ramirez from the Highlander movie they'd been watching just a few days ago.

"You're heading back to Britain I hear?" he asked as Harry pumped fluid between two test tubes.

"Apparently so. Frankly I couldn't give a monkey's except the possibility of our inaction creating a Lich." Harry replied.

"I had my suspicions as to how Riddle survived." he commented as he grabbed a lab coat off the back of the door.

"Oh, and how exactly did you come of such Dark knowledge?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I believe it is time, oh young ones, that I reveal my true identity. Lord Nicholas Flamel, Master Alchemist at your service." Nick said with a slight bow.

Harry and Annabella both gaped at him as if he was crazy.

"Oh for heaven's sake. I, the person known as Nick Pyre swear on my magic that I have been known as Nicholas Flamel for parts of my life and created what I believe to be the first Philosopher's Stone. So Mote it be. Lumos! As you can see I still have my magic so I didn't lie. Now can we get over the hero-worship and get back to making explosives!" he said, the last sentence said with childlike glee.

Annabella was the first to recover, raising an eyebrow and asking;

"It does explain some things you've said or done over the last few years since you moved over here. I must ask though, how much have you 'Ellen' been trying to influence us?"

"Plenty, myself and Perenelle have been trying to get you to use your potential, something you've done very well at. I've met prodigies and prodigies. My last student, he wasn't even my apprentice, Albus Dumbledore was arrogant, prideful and assumed he knew best. I managed to stomp much of that out of him, but after the Grindelwald duel, he became worse. You two had neither, you've studied and worked, gaining knowledge and respect. Mine included. You have each other to keep yourselves grounded. I've often just pointed you in a direction and allowed you to progress. Apart from some minor battlefield alchemy, we have taught you very little." he replied, busying himself with several tubes of ground magnesium.

"Elaborate please." Harry added.

"I made offhand comments about Occlumency, you pursued it on your own, I've commented on books, you've studied them. I, personally, have not taught you much but allowed you to use your potential to an extent I am unsure you could have done without Perenelle and I. Prodigies left to their own devices can go places. With subtle influence, a friendly ear, a sounding board for ideas, said prodigies can go so much further. Also, you have to admit, Perenelle's meals are to die for." Nicholas answered.

"Why didn't you tell us who you were before?" Annabella asked.

"Oh, the temptation has been there. I didn't want your minds raided and someone finding out who and where I was, I also didn't want you used to get to me. There have however been many occasions, often when you make breakthroughs when Perenelle and I would have loved to declare you both our apprentices. Even without our influence, you'd have gone far, I'd never have thought of your investments, primarily because I don't worry about money. I'd also have never thought of the aircraft you two own." added Nicholas.

Harry set aside his hydrochloric acid-zinc mixture and allowed it to continue producing hydrogen and walked over to his workbench. Just then, he had a lightbulb moment and quickly grabbed one of his engraving tools along with two blocks of marble, one of around an inch square and a second double the side. With his hand a blur, he scribed rune after rune into the larger block, followed by two runes on the smaller block, the first was a transmitting rune with a counterpart on the larger block and the second was an activation rune.

"Firing range! Now!" Harry ordered.

Obediently, they all followed Harry out to the firing range outside the Fidelius.

"Nick, on the switch for the containment ward, the anti-magic ward and the fire suppression ward." Harry ordered sharply; "Bella, when I say fire, trigger the activation and Nick, put down the containment ward."

He stepped up to the hatch which looked down the range and gently threw the larger block down the range.

"FIRE!" he barked.

Immediately, a silvery translucent shield appeared over the rectangular room just moments before a fire blossomed. Orange-tinged white flames licked all around the range in a massive inferno. Even through the containment shields, the immense heat could be felt, despite their medical face masks and lab goggles.

After a few minutes, Harry ordered;

"Close it down!"

Nicholas flicked the old-fashioned toggle-switches which Harry was so very fond of and over the next half a minute, the flames burnt themselves out with no magic to fuel them.

"What the heck was that?" asked Annabella after a minute.

"First step in my self-contained remote Gubraithian firebomb. Deactivate it will you love." Harry replied.

"It probably won't permanently kill him but it would certainly inconvenience the Dark Lord. I'm thinking a conjured owl and a massively overpowered post-owl enchantment. Together, we can probably overpower any anti-owl enchantments he's got up. If we put a timed concealed anti-magic field on it, it'll conceal any active magic in the runes. We drop the anti-magic and detonate." Harry commented as he wandlessly summoned his firebomb.

For over an hour, Harry continued scribing runes on blocks of marble until he was satisfied with the result and called them back out to the firing range. Instead of a simple marble block as a trigger, he had a line of toggle-switches attached to a cuboid of marble, the last switch under a red plastic cover.

"Interesting, magic-concealing ward on. Fifteen metre radius containment field off. Fifteen metre radius fire-suppression field off. Fifteen metre radius anti-magic ward off. Power up off. Portkey Activate. Detonate." read Nicholas after relieving Harry of the detonator.

Harry glared at him and relieved him of the device;

"The magic-concealment is to prevent it being noticed as anything more than a block of marble. The containment field both contains and intensifies the flames within the fifteen metre radius of the field. Fire suppression is to turn out the flames in the fifteen metre radius. Anti-magic is just to suppress the flames. Power up is to draw magic from the surroundings. If it is off, then it relies on whatever magic is already charged. If it is on, the flames can burn forever. The Portkey returns the bomb to its control centre and can only activate with detonate off and fire suppression on. Detonate is self explanatory." he explained.

Annabella grabbed the new cube which had three red stripes around it and looked at Harry questioningly.

"I put three red stripes around it because that thing has the capability to destroy a good bit of this city. It just requires enough magical power, something there is around here because of some inter-crossing ley lines." Harry added; "Now throw it."

With a good flick of the wrist, she hurled the small device down the range to where Harry had put a throne made from concrete carbide bricks and put a cloaked scarecrow on it. The torso of said scarecrow had been filled with cheap meat taken from the laboratory fridge.

"Concealment off! Containment on! Power up on! DETONATE!" Harry barked as he flicked each switch necessary.

The same flames exploded from the small marble block, this time being contained and therefore concentrated. Harry watched grimly for a minute before returning to his control cube.

"Fire suppression on! Anti-magic on! Power up off! Detonate off!" he called out in order of each switch he flicked.

It took a few seconds for the wards to flash into being before Harry turned off the containment field and triggered the Portkey. In a blue flash, the block of marble appeared in the slot carved into the control cube for it to rest. Looking down the range, he was unsurprised to see the blocks of concrete reduced to blackened dust and nothing left at all of the meat-bag scarecrow.

"I think it would be wise to keep that under Fidelius for now." Nicholas advised; "A Lich may have destroyed Atlantis, but with objects like that, it wouldn't take much effort to sink Alcatraz."

"Agreed. I'm trying to work on a cheap, fast-burn explosive which can be forced into cubes." moaned Annabella, massaging her temples.

"Have you considered magically compressing old fashioned gunpowder. It went out of fashion because it wasn't as slow-burning as cordite which meant increased pressure if cordite was used in cartridges. Old fashioned black powder should do it. You're going to want 75% potassium nitrate, 15% fine-ground willow charcoal and 10% sulphur." Harry commented, automatically listing the amounts of each substance."

"How do you know the quantities so well that you list them automatically?" enquired Nicholas.

Harry muttered something unintelligible which Annabella helpfully interpreted, gaining a baleful glare from her fiancée;

"He's been playing with explosives since he was five."

"Oh?" asked Nicholas with a raised eyebrow.

"I may or may not have spent most of my pocket money when I was little buying ingredients for a bomb. Unfortunately, the one time I actually managed to make four proper bombs when I was eight, the FBI stole them. Other than that I have just ended up detonating it before completion." Harry muttered; "Still, it made me some good contacts when they came every few weeks to steal my explosives."

"Instead now, they phone him up and ask him if he's been making any explosives recently to which he replies; 'Not where you can find them and confiscate them'. Truly inspiring trust in the nasty bomb-stealers eh?" Annabella added.

"Hey, at least I'm not a pyromaniac!" he protested indignantly.

"I got over that phase years ago when we learnt Fiendfyre. There aren't many fire spells stronger that that so I gave up on that obsession. Anyway, I'm pretty sure pyromania also counts explosives." riposted Annabella.

"Bella, shame on you, there's always a stronger spell, even if you have to create it. I'm working on a blowtorch curse which should be interesting." Harry commented; "Now all of you shut up, I'm trying to create an entirely new rune here and it is bloody irritating me."

"Not that you're making the most noise." coughed Nicholas.

After much swearing in Arabic and spending all night in the laboratory with Nick and Annabella, Harry finally emerged with a way to project the view from the aviator sunglasses to the mind and a slowed rate, effectively slowing the perception of time at changeable rates. This was one of the options on the bottom of the glasses' HUD which could be triggered by a combination of mental command and eye movement. Harry spent around an hour and came out with a dozen pairs of the glasses and a smug smile as the pair he wore morphed from form to form, including lab goggles, flying goggles, a monocle and even a Scuba mask.

However, that wasn't the biggest project. The biggest project had been creating a device which allowed him release pulses of magic at heat signatures which could change the frequency of the pulse's magical signature, effectively creating an automatically reactive semi-automatic multi-spell weapon which he quickly copied and connected to a TV screen and controller from a flight simulator which allowed some control. Attached to a runic legilimancer, it would scan the target and relay the results to the screen or in a different mode, automatically to the firing device.

With thermal vision, night vision and a guidance system attached to the device and working through the TV, Harry could quickly change magical frequency and therefore spells, scanning and reacting to targets. Obliviating conjured animals to make them believe they had committed murders allowed him to calibrate the device to target people who had committed different acts with different spells and power levels.

All of Harry's fully developed devices were controlled from a silvery briefcase with several enchantments protecting it. Inside, on the top row was the Gubraithian Firebomb control cube with an added slider, counting from one to ten for each of the ten bombs he'd created. Underneath were the bombs themselves. Then below that were his Mind Defender pendants, broom-mounted reflector gunsight and broom-mounted gouging curse firing device. In the bottom, set back into a space expansion charm was the television for his Automatically Reactive Semi-Automatic Multi-Spell Firing Device with the device itself stuck to another shelf in the briefcase.

Each and every shelf was under a separate Fidelius Charm, especially the one which contained his favourite bombs. The first of which was his set of three Ghetto Blasters, three former radio/tape/CD players which were full of explosives and required a specific series of buttons to be pressed to activate the detonator and the rotating volume control set the timer of up to twenty-four hours. Then there were three Time Bombs, three plain briefcases, each containing a self-contained Timeturner and a time-delay detonator along with a large amount of explosives.

Behind curtains were further shrunken screens, each with a small joystick below them, the screens displaying an video relayed from his remote control toy cars. Of course, said toy cars were laden with explosives.

Every device he created beyond prototype stage held a Portkey which shortly before activation released a pulse of magic with the frequency tuned to disrupt anti-Portkey wards. It meant that even if his devices were stolen or captured, they could be reclaimed.

Striding out of the his personal laboratory which was under a separate Fidelius from the other lab, Harry made quite a sight, with ink covering his latex-gloved hands, what looked like the remains of a gunpowder explosion covering his face except for where he had formerly been wearing lab goggles and a medical face-mask. His lab coat was coated in the same grey-black substance except where there were several streaks of what appeared to be blood across it.

In one hand was a finely crafted katana with an ivory dragon's head carved at the end of the grip and blood dripping down the blade while in his other hand was a steaming Thermos flask of coffee. Very strong, black coffee. His seventh of the morning. Out on the firing range, he found Nicholas and Annabella examining a set of bagpipes.

"May I ask the reason you are so engrossed in a set of bagpipes?" Harry enquired.

"You just did." Annabella deadpanned.

Harry simply twirled his sword threateningly, displaying the blood running down the blade;

"The coffee hasn't taken effect yet." he growled.

Knowing how Harry got without his coffee boost, she hastily answered his enquiry;

"The chanter or for the less educated, the bit you blow into, contains a .22 Long Rifle single-shot firing mechanism and barrel. The first of the pipes contains a semi-automatic 7.62 by 51 mm NATO firing mechanism. The second contains a selective fire semi/automatic 5.56 by 45 mm STANAG NATO firing mechanism. Finally, the last pipe contains a heat-resistant barrel and chamber for one of our fire crystals and the rune for triggering said crystals. They all have a place for a clip-on tactical rail or scope clamps. The sporran which is a traditional accoutrement of the Highland Outfit contains a translocation enchantment feeding the rounds into the weapons, carrying ultra-high-velocity .22 along with standard rounds for the others. I believe it has a total capacity of 500 rounds .22, 1000 rounds of 5.56 and 800 rounds of 7.62."

Harry picked up the bagpipes and settled them comfortably in his arm. Selecting the 5.56 barrel, he watched, amazed as a slight tingle of magic occurred and the trigger became visible along with a small lever.

"Keyed to you, me and Nick." she stated.

Harry walked down the range as it magically created his favourite meatbag targets. Still drinking from his coffee, he paused to laugh maniacally as he sprayed the assault rifle and light machine gun rounds at his targets from the weapon, held in the crook of his arm. Add the fact that his blood-stained katana was sat, naked, in the white belt holding his lab coat closed like a dressing-gown, he probably looked like a maniac.

Switching over to the flame-thrower, he fired several high-velocity bursts of extremely concentrated fire toward targets before returning to automatic fire of 5.56 rounds. Thanking the heaven's for recoil cancelling runes, he continued massacring the targets with merciless brutality.

After a short while of gunfire interspersed with maniacal laughter, he returned the weapon and the sporran to the visibly worried looking Annabella and asked them if they had any more tricks. Nicholas responded by pulling the stereotypical explosives briefcase out of nowhere (presumably a space expansion charmed pocket) and dumped it on the desk looking down the range and opened it up. Inside were numerous unidentifiable substances which he ignored, pulling level after level down until he came to a compartment full of batteries.

"Okay, you may be wondering what some of these are. The 9 volt batteries are shrapnel grenades, the type-D batteries are incendiary grenades, type-C are simple explosive grenades, AA release a poisonous gas which takes ten minutes to kill, five minutes to incapacitate and Triple A batteries are flashbangs. LR44 batteries you press against a lock and tap with either a wand or something with a magical current and it sticks itself to the surface before it translocates acid into the lock, sends a cutting spell into whatever it is pressed against before exploding. All detonate by double pressing the circular contact and all have ten second fuses."

He proceeded to demonstrate each battery on a conjured animal. The shrapnel grenade was vicious while the explosive ones simply obliterated anything within ten feet. The poison gas was nasty as it wasn't a particularly nice way to die, but were they to be involved in a war, it was necessary.

"Then, I have the cup of plenty." added Annabella, holding out a chalice.

Harry examined it for a moment, looking for anything that would explode, burst into flames or shoot bullets. Huffing in annoyance, she snatched it back and poured some of his coffee into it, ignoring his protests. Pulling out her own stereotypical briefcase, she flicked a toggle-switch before conjuring a rabbit and forcibly pouring the coffee down its throat. Within a minute, the rabbit had simply died.

"The cup injects a non-magical poison from a pocket dimension in the base of the chalice when activated from my switch. The poison is colourless, tasteless and causes organ failure." she explained, seeing Harry was twirling his sword and glaring at where his coffee had been.

Nodding in acknowledgement, Harry retrieved his own briefcase and opened it up, removing a conjured owl from a Fidelius-charmed drawer. Flicking a switch animated it and it was quickly sent off down the range. He flicked the switch for the containment wards on the wall before returning to his briefcase and flicking the switch. Instantly, almost the entire firing range was encompassed by a fireball as the owl detonated.

"I call it the ow..." he commented, sipping at a newly summoned cup of coffee as he gazed after the ex-owl; "It is a simple implant which should work with most animals and a post-owl enchantment, animal tracks target, reaching target, animal goes BOOM!"

Going through several layers of his briefcase, Harry came to a pocket dimension containing several instruments. The first was a recorder. Simply flicking it through the air and a slightly curved blade, shorter than his katana, appeared and another wave vanished it, returning it to a recorder. Then came a trumpet which sprayed 9mm rounds downrange like a sub-machine gun and finally a trombone which contained both a .338 Lapua Magnum sniper rifle and a magically adjusting rocket launcher in the bell part.

"Isn't that awesome. Long range sniper, anti-armour rocket launcher and close quarters automatic weapon!" he exclaimed happily; "And of course, for my lady..."

Turning back to his briefcase, Harry withdrew a purse and a ring;

"The purse is contains a semi-automatic .40 Smith and Wesson pistol, the clasp on the top acts as iron sights. Once again using translocation enchantments, it has a hundred round magazine. You just simply throw the rounds into the purse. Then the ring, the ring when activates attempts to inject anyone in contact with it save for the wearer with a nasty poison which only takes effect around fifteen hours later." he announced; "I've got a set of each for Hestia and Alex."

"This should be fun." Annabella commented.

"Frankly, save for a few things which took most of the night, this stuff is unnecessary, but it's fun inventing things. Now I need another coffee." Harry commented, closing up his briefcase, shrinking it and pocketing it.

"By the way, you're not wearing your glasses..." Annabella asked.

"I modified them to be able to change form, they can even become contact lenses as I'm wearing them now." he answered before heading upstairs, still coated in a mixture of gunpowder, blood and several unidentified substances, sword hanging from the fabric belt of his lab coat, face mask around his neck and lab goggles over his hair above his forehead.

"You've been making bombs again haven't you Harry?" enquired Harry Sr. from the table where he was drinking his own coffee.

Harry jr. simply grunted an affirmative and liberated the cup of coffee from the table and drained it, heading for the bathroom for a long shower to clean the muck off himself.

"He's been doing it since he was six. Only succeeded when he was eight but the FBI took his bombs." he commented on seeing Alexandra entering the room with a quizzical look on her face; "Unfortunately he and Annabella put their lab under a Fidelius charm a few years ago and neither will own up to who is the Secret Keeper so I can't keep tabs on what they mess about with down there. All I know is about a year ago they put a Thompson Sub-machine gun inside a violin and spent a while on the range machine-gunning the targets with said violin."

"What about the tie which tried to garrotte anyone who wore it?" asked Annabella as she appeared from the stairs to the basement.

"You haven't still got that?" asked Harry Sr. as he suddenly paled.

"Of course we do." she replied sweetly; "We keep it in one of the experimental-breeding pet tank along with the fire-breathing squirrel. We could breed a few more if you want."

"How many laws are you breaking down there?" enquired Alex.

"Enough that I could prosecute myself for a fair bit." answered Annabella before heading upstairs, intent on joining her fiancée in the shower.

After two weeks of preparation including the purchase and modification of two brand new red Ferrari F430 coupés, a midnight blue Aston Martin Vanquish S and a black Dodge Viper and the family was ready for the trip to Britain. Nicholas had acquired the cars for them, the Vanquish for Harry and Annabella, the Viper for Harry Sr. and Hestia, and a Ferrari each for Sirius with Alex and himself with Perenelle before putting Harry's Magical Car Upgrade System on each, giving them each a top speed of around two hundred and forty miles per hour on boost.

With each person outfitted with a selection of weaponry concealed from any mundane search methods, they took off from the airfield in Harry and Annabella's Cessna Citation. Shortly afterward, they radioed in to report that they were landing at a farm strip before the couple in the cockpit activated the radar-concealment enchantments and eased the aircraft through the sound barrier.

A few hours later and they landed at a small airfield with a grass runway, reporting that they'd flown from a grass airstrip in the grounds of one of the Flamel's estates in Britain, bypassing any customs security. Having parked up and closed up the aircraft, they all apparated to near the showroom in London and quickly picked up the cars. They were only a few minutes from the once elegant street known as Grimmauld Place, now a scruffy neighbourhood of 18th century houses.

Gathering at the joint between 11 and 13 Grimmauld Place, Sirius whispered;

"This'll irritate Dumbledore as he's using my family home as a base, but as Lord Black, I have total control over all wards including his Fidelius. He may be Secret Keeper but I can still share the Secret. The Black Family Townhouse is at 12, Grimmauld Place, London."

The moment that he stepped into the boundaries of the Fidelius, Harry switched his business suit out for a black turtleneck, elastic-y slacks which allowed him lots of room for movement and his combat boots. Drawing his sheathed katana out of his pocket, he placed in into a purpose-built loop on his belt on the opposite side from his holstered revolver.

Sirius walked up to the front door and placed the Lord Black's ring on it and simply said;

"Open to the Black of Blackmore!"

When inside, Harry whistled loudly;

"Bit of a dump Sirius."

At that moment, the curtains on a portrait swung open, screaming;

"Filthy brats, stains of dishonour, mudbloods, animals in the House of Black!"

Harry moved with precision and practice, his sword clearing its sheath, slicing from left to right in an upward cut which severed the painting in half before moving to the far side of the painting and descending again from the top left to the bottom right, slashing through it again as the blade descended in a cut from high above his right shoulder until the dragon's head pommel was resting on his upper right leg, blade horizontal. The sword scored deeply into the wall, slashing through the painting like it was paper, digging two deep diagonal channels into the wall.

Not trusting anything in the house as the entire building stank of dark magic, Harry proceeded further in with Sirius and Annabella. Passing a troll's leg umbrella stand, Annabella slashed her wand through the air and obliterated the leg, conveniently removing the tripping hex and fracturing hex on said leg.

"Lovely woman was my mother. Shame her portrait met such an... unfortunate... end." Sirius commented softly.

A few more enchantments were disabled as their modified glasses, which they were all wearing as contact lenses, picked up on the magic. Apart from a very weak organ decaying curse on a piece of silver, no particularly harmful magic was to be found. It was only a short walk to the kitchen at the back of the house. Sirius quickly ascertained that they were in time for an Order meeting and gestured for them to wait behind him before he gained a slight smirk on his face which didn't bode well for those inside.

Kicking wide the door, he walked in with Alex on his arm and called out;

"May I introduce my charming girlfriend, Alexandra. Don't worry about her surname, hopefully we'll be changing that soon."

Harry facepalmed.

"My adopted brother and sister, Harry and Hestia Callahan!"

Harry Sr. and Hestia walked in, arms intertwined.

"Us next." Harry jr. whispered, exchanging an exasperated glance with Perenelle at Sirius' theatrics and eyeing Nicholas' outfit which comprised of a loose leather jacket over a green polo-shirt, jeans and riding boots with a Blucher sabre hung on his hip

"Their adopted son and his fiancée, Harry Callahan jr. and Annabella Beaumont." Sirius called out.

Harry wrapped his left arm around Annabella's upper torso as her right arm went around his waist. He hadn't bothered to sheath his sword so it was hanging tip down in his right hand. They stepped in, catching the eye of everyone in the room, of whom he recognised three, McGonagall, Dumbledore and Shacklebolt.

"And one of our neighbours from San Francisco... also Harry and Annabella's Mentors." Sirius finished.

Perenelle fixed him with a glare which promised much, much pain in the future as she and Nicholas stepped in. Dumbledore gaped upon seeing his former mentor.

"Albus?" enquired one of the Order members, a dour looking man with a hooked nose and greasy hair.

"I was moderately well known a few years ago." Nicholas commented.

"It was the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and well you know it Nicholas!" snapped Perenelle, slapping him around the back of the head, the slight smirk and mischievous twinkle in her eyes belying the venom in her voice.

Harry by this time had set down his briefcase on a dresser, putting his sword down beside it. When someone reached out to touch it, he deflected their hand;

"Don't touch, it's got a blood ward, some nasty curses and is imbued with Basilisk venom, Manticore Venom, Dementor's blood and Nundu's breath amongst other substances." Harry warned them; "By the way Nick, you never told me how you got some of those."

"Oh, I told the Goblins I could pay them in gold to get those substances or I could turn every brick in Diagon Alley into gold with the stone. I nearly incited a rebellion, good times eh?" Nicholas replied.

Harry had turned back to his briefcase and had pulled out a screen and a keyboard. The image on the screen was orbiting a large manor house high on a hill. Harry's hands were skidding across the keyboard at a furious rate until he finally looked satisfied and flicked a switch before pulling out a row of switches on a rectangular block of marble.

The entire room was watching in silence as the image dived through a window and swooped down to a figure in dark robes sat on a throne in a dark room.

"Concealment off! Containment on! Power up on! Detonate weapon 1! Detonate Weapon 2!" he listed quickly as he flicked switch after switch.

Moments later, the screen went completely white. It took around five seconds before the greasy-haired hook-nosed Order member clutched at his left forearm and collapsed.

"Interesting." Harry noted; "That's unexpected."

"You didn't?" asked Annabella disbelievingly as she gazed at the white screen.

"I did." Harry replied contemplatively; "I'm tempted to let it burn for a little while."

"For those unknowing of us, could you inform us what just happened?" growled a one-eyed Auror with a second, fake eye.

"Master Auror Moody is it?" Harry enquired; "I believe you were judging at the European Duelling Competition last year. I was competing under the name Cassius Konrad."

"I was there. Unusual duelling technique if you are really Konrad."

"I think while there I said to you and one of the other judges, a German Auror, 'To live by wand and sword or sit by while others do so is for me, an easy choice.' and you made a rather rude reply about 'idealistic brats' which the German took offence at." Harry replied with a smirk.

"Hmmph. It is you Konrad. But you still haven't answered my question."

"Oh, my apologies. I may have obliterated your resident Dark Lord. He'll probably get a new body or possess some weak-minded Death Eater soon but I've probably destroyed his wand, which after using it between '38 and '81, no other will work anywhere near as well." Harry responded before turning back to his screen.

"Fire suppression on! Anti-magic on! Power up off! Detonate off!" he listed, flicking the switches again before activating the Portkey and waiting for moments before the small block of marble reappeared in its slot.

"For any blowing up or barbecuing of Dark Lords, please simply send a missive to Callahan's Pyrotechnics." Harry commented absentmindedly as he closed up his briefcase.

"Sirius, we need to go to Gringotts, I'll contact you if we have any problems." Annabella said as Harry walked out having wandlessly shrunk his briefcase.

It was a short drive through the London traffic to get them to the Leaky Cauldron where Harry completely changed his appearance so as not to be a James Potter replica and attract masses of attention. They quickly walked down the alley and made their way into Gringotts, where Harry dropped his disguise and walked up to the nearest goblin;

"Master Goblin, I would like to request an Inheritance Test for my fiancée and I wish to lay claim to Headship of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Potter as per the End of Line Act in the Rite of Inheritance of The Sacred Ten." Harry asked in perfect Gobbledygook.

Within an hour, Harry and Annabella were in possession of the rings of their respective families. The Beaumont family, surprisingly, was related to the Most Noble and Ancient House of Beaumont, the last descendants of Sir Lancelot, through Sir Galahad and to Godric Gryffindor before the central line squibbed out in the 17th Century, leaving the line in the United States who squibbed out in the 19th Century, the family to which Annabella was born.

The Most Noble and Ancient Houses were believed to have been titled thus by Merlin upon the fall of Camelot. The descendants of ten knights who had served Arthur were given these titles in the hope that they would guard and govern Britain.

After a short wait as some goblins went down to their respective family vaults, Harry and Annabella were given their family Grimoires and legal documents. In a moment of silence in Ragnok's office, the couple signed an ironclad betrothal contract between the Most Noble and Ancient House of Potter and the Most Noble and Ancient House of Beaumont, with Annabella as Regent Beaumont (due to the patriarchal nature of British Magical Nobility) and Harry as Lord Potter. With that done, nobody could attempt to split them up, even for the 'Greater Good' or because a British Pureblood was better than a 'Muggleborn from the Colonies'.

According to the first page of the Potter Grimoire that the Potter's were the descendants of King Pellinore and his son, Sir Percival. His suspicion was that Tristan de Lyons descendants were the Flamel line as Nicholas held the title of Lord of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Flamel. It was fairly well known that the Black family bore the line of Sir Palamedes the Saracen.

With that, they already had four of the Sacred Ten in bonds of family and tutelage, something Harry sought to cultivate as such an alliance could help drag the British Magical Community kicking and screaming into the end of the 20th Century.

When Harry and Annabella arrived back at the car, they found the radio buzzing loudly.

"Yes?" asked Annabella.

"I've got you Slytherin's locket." Sirius answered; "Dumbledore is demanding you explain what you did and frankly, he's irritating me."

"I'll come over." Harry sighed as Annabella handed him the radio.

A few minutes of driving through London and they were once again parked outside Number 12, Grimmauld Place. As Harry turned off the engine, he reached into the glove-box and withdrew a hand-held radio which he quickly clipped onto his belt having tuned it to a set frequency before climbing out. Once inside the wardline, Harry dropped the illusion on him, returning to the same appearance as he'd been wearing when they came earlier.

Trooping back into the house, Harry returned to his place by the dresser in the kitchen before addressing the Order of the Phoenix.

"If you want an explanation of some of my devices, you'll need a muggleborn or muggle-raised person with an ounce of brain to interpret. I'm a Quantum Physicist as well as a Barrister and a Warlock and not used to dumbing things down for people."

Ignoring them for a minute as he saw an opportunity for a mind-boggling lecture, Harry conjured a whiteboard and stuck it to the dresser as Annabella conjured a white lab coat over his clothes, forcing him to cut a hole in the side for the handle of his katana.

After conjuring a red marker pen, Harry began rapidly scrawling across the board, creating a representation of a molecule of an unknown substance. Beneath it, he wrote;

Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine

RDX

On a second board, Annabella was skimming her own marker pen across it, leaving a trail of numbers and letters in a series of immensely complicated equations. As Harry turned back to the Order, he saw a girl of around his own age with bushy, brunette hair who he faintly recognised.

"Professor, you wanted me?" she asked.

"Yes Miss Granger, our new allies here asked for a muggleborn or muggle-raised person to interpret their explanations." Dumbledore informed her with a grandfatherly twinkle which had Harry wanting to butcher him.

'Granger... Granger;' Harry mused as he doodled in the bottom corner of his whiteboard; "Did I encounter you at the Quantum Physics Symposium in Paris during August of last year?" he enquired.

"Yes I was, how did you know?" she asked, puzzled.

"Just thought I encountered you there. I gave a lecture on Neutrino Particle Acceleration on the second day of the Symposium." Harry replied as they shook hands; "Dr. Harry Callahan."

"Ah, I remember now. You made a bit of an uproar with those who didn't expect a teenager to kick their beliefs out of the window." she exclaimed.

"Yes, anyway, the Fried Turkey Order here need you to interpret for them as they won't understand anything I am about to discuss on my favourite subject. Explosives." he stated with a maniacal grin.

What followed was a half-an-hour diatribe on the subjects of explosives and spell creation which ended with Harry throwing his pen at the wall and walking out, ranting;

"LOOK! IT'S BLOODY SIMPLE! I'VE EVEN BROKEN IT DOWN TO VIRTUALLY THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR! DO I NEED TO BREAK EACH BLOODY ATOM DOWN TO ITS INDIVIDUAL PROTONS, ELECTRONS AND NEUTRONS? I'VE BEEN BUILDING BOMBS SINCE I WAS SIX!"

Harry was unused to trying to communicate a point over to anyone with anything less than University level study of his subjects so a group of wizards who believed that muggles were amusing animals at best or, at worst vermin, managed to irritate him no end. Even though he'd been able to bug Albus Dumbledore seventeen different ways. And putting a magical speaker in the kitchen tuned to broadcast from one channel of his radio.

Ten minutes later as Annabella drove their Aston Martin out of the city, heading south toward Corbenic, the magical town owned by the Potter Family with their seat, the fortress of Potter Castle set above it, Harry heard an interesting report from his one active listening bug.

"Everyone except the inner circle dismissed!" came Dumbledore's voice.

"Those two are an incredible asset to be fielded against the Death Eaters." commented an Order member a minute later.

"Indeed, we simply need to control them. I simply need a method..." mused Dumbledore; "Molly, young Ginevra isn't betrothed is she? The Potter family has only a moderate amount of money but quite a lot of land. It's a simple matter of a love potion and a fertility potion and according to one of the old laws he'll have to marry her."

"Excellent idea headmaster. I'll get to work on it."

"LEAVE JAMES AND LILY'S BOY OUT OF YOUR SCHEMES OLD MAN!" roared another voice.

"Can't you see this is for the Greater Good!?" exclaimed Dumbledore.

"Albus, I don't see how manipulating him will work." came a deep baritone; "I may have loathed James Potter, but his son is nothing like him but also has the skill to back his confidence."

Harry pressed down on a button on his radio and called out in a sepulchre voice;

"You truly didn't think I had safeguards in place for such a situation. I'm bound to an ironclad marriage contract to the Most Noble and Ancient House of Beaumont. Coincidentally, the contract was signed by me, today. Thank-you Mr. Shout-y man for standing up for me, also Mr. Baritone, I virtually never knew my biological father so I can't be anything like him. But thanks anyway." he said; "Old man, we all know you are a manipulative old goat, but myself and my fiancée are high level lawyers in U.S and U.K law, both Magical and Mundane. We won't hesitate to manipulate back. Like I'll stick a hand-blender through your ear and manipulate your brains to scrambled mush."

Pausing for dramatic effect, Harry continued;

"Doctors Bombclaws and Whitepaws signing off."

The last thing that was transmitted before Harry released the button was a bout of maniacal laughter which had the most steadfast men shivering as if someone had walked over their graves.

"Mr. Immortal Alchemist concurs with Doctors Bombclaws and Whitepaws and orders arrogant old git to keep his crooked nose out of other people's love lives." Nicholas added as all the other radios had access to the same frequency.

"Mr. Padfoot agrees that arrogant old git should get a love life of his own before he tries managing others. Perhaps a stress-relieving shag would stop his obsessive need to control." Sirius said, adding his tuppence worth.

"Mrs. Padfoot wonders if arrogant old git is just an aged bachelor or a closet gay." Alex commented.

"Mrs. Five-shots-or-six would like to inform the Marauding Yanks that according to the School Rumour Network, arrogant old git had a thing going with Gellert Grindelwald before he went bat-shit-crazy." stated Hestia.

The same voice which had roared at Dumbledore was to be heard a moment later;

"Mr. Moony intends to enquire how Mr. Padfoot got a Mrs. Padfoot, the fleabag."

Harry picked up his radio and replied;

"Doc. Bombclaws will not confirm that he was responsible for getting Mr. and Mrs. Padfoot drunk and that Mrs. Padfoot stayed the night at Mr. Padfoot's and never really left."

"Doc. Whitepaws adds that using vodka of that strength was a cheap trick but that also being a metamorphmagus is useful for purchasing illegal alcohol." Annabella added, snatching the radio from him.

"Doc. Bombclaws concurs but believes that the vodka was a necessary aspect of said relationship. He also would like to add that during his lecture, one of his gadgets downloaded arrogant old git's mind for further perusal." Harry commented into the radio cheerfully.

"Mrs. Immortal Alchemist believes that between sixty-five and seventy-five percent of Albus Dumbledore's brain is filled with lemon drops." Perenelle said sarcastically.

"Mr. Immortal Alchemist comments that Dr. Bombclaws will need repeated obliviation if arrogant old git is anything like he remembers him." Nicholas added.

"Mr. Five-shots-or-six believes if arrogant old punk believes that he can control Dr. Bombclaws, he ought to know that the good Doctors have the abilities to turn Britain into an apocalyptic wasteland if they get irritated." Harry Sr. drawled into his radio.

"Doc. Bombclaws would like to mention that he has enough devices by now to destroy Britain with several methods several times over but will refrain from doing so as he doesn't like pollution." commented Harry; "However, compromising his morning twenty mugs of coffee may cause deployment of his personal collection of Weapons of Mass Destruction."

"Doc. Whitepaws concurs that anything bad can and will happen with out Doc. Bombclaws' morning gallon of coffee." added Annabella.

"Mr. Moony would like to add that Doc. Bombclaws' biological father was the same." commented one of those still at Grimmauld Place.

"Mrs. Immortal Alchemist wishes to enquire as to why we are all referring to ourselves in the third person as it is childish and pointless. If slightly amusing." Perenelle's voice enquired over the radio.

"Doc. Bombclaws believes that it is a good way of unsettling those who believe themselves our allies and our enemies. I'm just looking forward to when arrogant old git tries to disable my broadcasting enchantment at The House of Black. He'll try and find a counter which won't work because I invented the spell and then he'll try and overpower it with raw magic. The problem there is I naturally was about as powerful as him until I absorbed the magic of several very powerful artefacts." Harry replied.

"Mr. Padfoot would like to ask how in the hell Doc. Bombclaws managed to do so?" asked Sirius.

"Doc. Bombclaws was fiddling with one of his inventions which was meant to suck the magic out of dark and cursed objects and cleanse the magic into neutral magic while concentrating the darkness onto an object which I would destroy with Fiendfyre. The problem was I put several cursed objects in without bothering to have an outlet for the cleansed magic so it went into me." Harry answered; "And no, I'm not ever going to do that again as it destabilized my core and nearly killed both me and Annabella which would have resulted in an explosion big enough to obliterate a good bit of San Francisco."

"Doc. Whitepaws adds that one of the artefacts was the anchor stone for an Aztec blood-sacrifice ward which had been powered by thousands of sacrifices. Also, Doc. Bombclaws shares both mind and magical core with Doc. Whitepaws and can thereby claim to be the only man to understand the female mind." commented Annabella.

Harry had no come-back comment and so he just sat back, sipping at his coffee as they drove south, enjoying the banter mainly going between Sirius and Moony at Grimmauld Place. What was interesting to note was that while he usually was a very steady driver, Annabella's driving was distinctly aggressive and sharp, contrasting with his own smooth and steady driving, though neither could claim to drive faster than the other.

What significantly amused Harry was his fiancée's invective filled diatribe at the motorist who raced out of a turning in front of them before crawling at minimal speeds for miles until she raced past them. With directions from a self-updating map in the Potter Grimoire, it took little over two hours to reach Corbenic.

The town of Corbenic was a sprawling magical village, spread in a fan out from the Castle sat high on the hill above. The innermost sections included a small market street surrounded by houses built from honey-coloured stone. The outermost parts of the village included several farms which grew or bred both magical and mundane fauna and livestock.

The outer gates of the castle estate swung open automatically as they drew up to them and remained open until Annabella drove further up toward the curtain walls after the other three cars had come through the gateway. The outer walls were just a simple stone brick construction encircling the estate while the castle itself was a monolithic construction with crenellated walls, a double-D shaped gatehouse on the one of the shorter walls of the rectangular curtain walls.

Though it was all right angles, the castle looked remarkably like the Crusader Fortress of Krak des Chevaliers in Syria.

"FBI won't steal my bombs here!" Harry muttered happily, though he was actually thinking about all the space for illicit activities with his fiancée that could occur with no one around to catch them.

With a final growl, Annabella cut the engine and rolled the Aston to a halt, shortly followed by the other three cars. Glancing at Harry Sr.'s Dodge Viper as they walked the remaining distance to the castle, she commented to Harry;

"I think your father is in a 'who has a more masculine car' mood."

"Couldn't agree more. We need to dig out an underground laboratory, put in a car ramp then some carbon fibre molds. I'm thinking duck-tail wing or maybe something bigger... Ram air scoops on bonnet and roof... Carbon fibre diffuser, cut back the exhausts and remove anything between the engine and the exit of the exhausts, we can just put cleansing runes on it." Harry replied.

"Hmm... Chin spoiler, paint the brake callipers a bright colour, paint the wheels black, what about a supercharger or two? Then we need technology to make it cooler. Also lots of military-grade instruments. Altimeters, compasses, artificial horizon. Thermal imaging cameras, night vision, radar." she agreed; "Replace the old exhaust pipes with one of our fire-crystal projection devices?"

"Nice idea, but we're here to piss off Dumb-as-a-door and kill Voldemort, not break the traffic laws." Harry added; "But a low powered fire rune on the real exhausts, have them come out behind our doors, that would be cool. On the down-change, a flash of fire or a blue glow at high acceleration."

As they approached the gatehouse, crossing the dry ditch of the moat on the great drawbridge, Harry held up his hand, Potter ring first and concentrated on the image of the gates opening and portcullis receding into the gatehouse above the arch. With a furious rattling, the steel portcullis was pulled up, allowing them entrance as the great gates swung back, hitting the walls of the arch with a loud thunder.

"Note Annabella, we need to completely obliterate the wards, create new wardstones, rune-scribe them, re-ward the entire estate. Frankly I'd be happiest if we simply wrote our own wards and apply them to our own ward-schemes." Harry said, frowning as he slowly unravelled each layer of the wards with his tactical contact lenses.

"Your right;" she replied after a moment of contemplation; "We'll need firstly to put up a time-dilation, we can just put the sped-up side above the castle. Get the master wardstone rewritten. Then I was thinking a single magic ward and tie as many enchantments into it as possible for a short-term fix so we have some defences before we totally replace the old wards."

"Indeed, eventually we ought to re-ward the town as well but for the moment, the castle will do. I've got enough ward-stones pre-charged and several uncharged that I can simply drain the old wards into the uncharged stones until they die. Frankly the old wards are inefficient, are draining power and not charging enough and are weak in nature. I mean nothing lethal?" Harry exclaimed.

"Harry, you realise the Most Noble and Ancient House of Potter have some of the strongest wards in existence?" enquired Sirius cautiously.

"To be crude, they're shit." Harry replied bluntly; "Anna, you wrote the ward-scheme for our lab, want to inform Sirius what it consists of?"

"Yep, behind the double Fidelius and the blood wards, we have wards which Harry and I developed. The first is a Dementor ward, then a decapitation ward, followed by a disintegration ward. That is the first layer, then the second fires ribbon cutting spells, disembowelling curses and has another disintegration ward. The third layer fires some of the nastier but non-environmentally damaging Greater Elemental curses and then bone-exploding curses followed by disintegrators. The fourth layer contains all of them then the fifth layer floods the entire lab with Fiendfyre. It's a self-destruct basically." she replied happily.

"Aren't some of those a bit... dark?" asked Sirius hesitantly.

Harry threw him an 'are you stupid or something?' look before conjuring a cute puppy and a rock.

"Sirius, I will now use some neutral magic which the Ministry approves of." he announced.

Harry then applied the levitation charm to the rock and beat the puppy to death with it. Conjuring a second cute puppy and a vicious looking fox, he then hit the fox with a dark cutting curse.

"Now, I just beat cute puppy no.1 to death with a levitation charm then saved cute puppy no.2 from a gruesome death at the paws of foxy with a dark cutting curse. Which was evil?" he asked, bludgeoning cute puppy no.2 to death on the ground with a levitation charm before vanishing the three dead conjured animals.

Walking off without acknowledging any response, Harry and Annabella parted company, she to set up a time-dilation ward while he set them up with a temporary laboratory.

A week of time passed within the time-dilation and Harry finally had a full ward-scheme set up and ready for activation. Neither he nor Annabella had slept much and it showed. Both were pale, grey bags under their eyes and the Potter Elves were constantly being sent out to buy more coffee.

However, with the help of one of Harry's computer programs, the entire ward-scheme had been arithmetically laid out and they had then used a laser cutter under the control of Harry's favourite laptop to carve the runes into the various wardstones. Finally, after a period of near three days of shifts of casting, the wards were ready to be activated.

In the central ward room were panels of switches to activate or deactivate every enchantment in the wards, then there were different modes, from 'open house' to 'defence' and finally to 'siege level war wards'. There was also a three-dimensional model of the entire estate showing the location of every man and woman, and which allowed specific spells to be targeted at the estate. It was useful for dropping wide-area effect battle magic from within the safety of the keep.

Now, with the entire family watching, Harry, dressed in his finest battlerobes, stepped forward and accepted a long, thin-bladed stiletto from Nicholas. Turning to the central wardstone, a waist-height block of black granite with a bowl-like depression in the top, carved all over with runes, Harry sliced the palm of his hand and allowed a flow of blood to fall into the bowl, chanting in one of the dead magical languages of Egypt.

At the same moment, Sirius emptied a space-expanded sack of heavily cursed items into their magic-draining device which cleansed the magic after draining it from the objects. The magic was channelled into the master wardstone as Harry's blood poured into the bowl, causing the black granite to glow with a slight luminescence. The vaulted room, no, even the castle itself suddenly felt more alive than ever before.

Sirius then took the old wardstones and put them into the magic-draining device which sucked the magic charged over a millennium and pushed it into the master wardstone. The entire family bathed in the raw magic circling the room, the arcane magic which swirled around them, creating an experience few had ever or would ever feel as Potter Castle became the most fortified building in the world.

Harry and Annabella had spent hundreds of hours at the laptop re-writing the arithmantic equations and rune clusters for hundreds of wards. They completely re-wrote wards from the most well-known anti-pest to the most esoteric, ancient and forgotten wards, some taken from the minds of goblins and some from human ward masters. Libraries across the world, from Japan, China, Egypt, Constantinople and Rome had been raided for knowledge by the two teens with their Timeturners and the mental bond they shared.

Finally after around a minute of continuous blood-loss and chanting, Harry's blood was simply absorbed by the wardstone, leaving the bowl dry. Harry hand time to apply a healing charm before he collapsed in a limp heap on the floor.

Harry awoke to the sound of his own voice making some incredibly unprintable comments in Arabic, his standard language for swearing his head off without getting caught since he was eight. After running out of air and taking a deep breath to continue his invective filled diatribe, a soft pair of lips descended on his own.

Instinctively wrapping an arm around the back of his companion's head, Harry gently ran his hand through Annabella's silky hair as his tongue passionately probed the velvety depths of her mouth while his other hand rested on her hip where she was draped across him. As they broke their lips from one another, Harry whispered;

"Morning Anna love. I need a coffee then a bath. Then another coffee or ten."

A look of mock irritation adorned Annabella's face at his comment;

"So, you have a beautiful woman draped over you and all you can think of is coffee?" she replied in mock-anger.

Harry grinned and rotated himself out of the bed, arms holding Annabella bridal style. Walking them both into the bathroom, he put her back on her feet as he wandlessly summoned his wand from wherever it had been and used a battle spell to fill the massive pool-like bath in one go before applying a heating charm and dumping almost all of a bottle of magical bubble-bath into it.

Turning back to her, Harry wrapped his arms around Annabella and drew her into a heated kiss and discretely banishing both their dressing-gowns and undergarments to the bedroom before dropping his wand and simply falling backward into the pool, still with his arms wrapped around her.

What ensued was hours of madness including numerous water fights, both using wands and simply splashing each other. Eventually, the couple emerged from their suite which Annabella had heavily warded in such a way that a simple counter could open it. Unfortunately, the creators of both the wards, the ward-scheme and the counter weren't giving it out. The only other method of entry was besieging the suite, something that would probably take a long time and eventually end fatally.

"How long have I been out Anna?" asked Harry.

"About an hour and forty minutes real time." she replied.

"So the equivalent of three and a half days in dilation?" Harry said after a quick mental calculation.

"Yup. Now, you mister, are going to sit down and have a proper meal. Also, we had the Ministry knocking on the wards but nobody save yourself can get within forty feet of the other side of the wards yet. You have yet to key us in to bypass them." Annabella ordered as she led him down to the Great Hall.

They arrived just in time for lunch which Harry dug into with gusto, not bothering to reply to any of the questions aimed at him except for mental prods to Annabella and death-glares to everyone else. Propping up the Potter Family Grimoire, he was amused to note in multiple sections that it referred to the family being cursed with 'luck'.

Apparently, one of the ancient deities was supposed to have cursed the Potter line with luck, neither good nor bad. The bad luck would set up horrible situations and then the good luck would conspire to pull a miraculous escape from the situation. The last few entries into the spellbook section were most interesting, Lily Potter evidently was a sadistic maniac with the curses she had added, including three castration curses, one by simply cutting off that organ, the second by incinerating it and the third by exploding the organ. Making a mental note to never share that particular page with any female member of his family, Harry returned to gorging himself on the bountiful feast produced by the Potter Elves.

When Harry finally got round to summoning the control book for the wards, he disabled the anti-owl ward and then keyed all of the family into the wards, allowing them to come and go as they wished. Moments later, an owl flew in, directed to him.

Vanishing the ribbon tying it to the owl, Harry grabbed the letter as it fell through the air and slit it open by simply morphing on fingernail to be an inch long and serrated. Inside was a demand to allow the Ministry access to his estate, something he took all of nowhere-near a second to decide on a negative response.

Conjuring a piece of paper and summoning his fountain pen, Harry began writing;

Dear Minister Fudge.

I thank you for directing your kind request to me on the subject of access to my estate. After much deliberation and contemplation followed by an examination and evaluation of the political results and ramifications of any decision I may make and have decided that it would be unwise for me to grant such a permission at this time. However, if you wish to continue attempting to gain access, I will be next considering requests in two decades' time.

The answer is no.

Harry Callahan-Potter, Lord of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Potter

Reserve Inspector, San Francisco Police Department.

Doctorate of Quantum Physics, UC Berkeley, MSc x3, LL.M x3.

Barrister at Law for California

Magical Master of Combat Magic, Runic Magic,

ICW Law, U.S Magical Law, U.K Magical Law,

Warding, Healing and Potions

Sending a mental prod down the bond to his familiar, Harry only had to wait a handful of seconds until the massive raptor soared into the Great Hall before spreading his wings into a parachute and floating down, his massive talons gripping the arm of Harry's throne-like chair.

Throwing a massive lump of venison into the air, he watched, amused, as the giant eagle half-hopped into the air to grab the meat which promptly vanished into the viciously hooked beak. Folding his missive into an envelope by pulling all the corners together, Harry stuck them together with a very weak sticking charm and held it out, allowing Cassius to grab it in his beak before flying out, leaving a massive downdraught in his wake.

"That'll firmly put the gigantic Golden Eagle among the pigeons." Harry muttered.

A flick of his hand summoned his laptop, catching it as it sailed through the air towards him. Quickly unfolding it, Harry's hands skidded across the keyboard, typing at an incredible rate. Suddenly, he halted and after putting a wandless cushioning charm on the table, began ritually bashing his head against it.

Annabella slapped him across the back of the head and snatched the laptop, perching it on her lap as she propped her feet up on the table.

"Prodigal Super-lawyers Seen in London. Daily Tory-graph evidently saw us. Nick, did you file all the paperwork in the mundane world?" she stated.

"Yes, all completely legal." replied Nick.

"Thank god, it's much harder operating in both worlds at once than most would think." Annabella sighed.

"Now that we're over here, what's the plan?" enquired Sirius.

"Anna and I are going to work on the triple-Ls, Lab, Longbottoms and Lycanthropy." Harry answered.

"You don't do things by halves do you kids? You know that the best healers have been trying their best for the Longbottoms and nobody has ever cured lycanthropy." said Sirius.

Harry's reaction to his scepticism was simply a rude gesture with one hand while Annabella's much more effective response was the vibrating blade of a stiletto buried an inch into the table by Sirius' right hand, flung from across the hall at the head table.

Though the time-dilation ward wouldn't work in combination with the new defences on Potter Castle, Harry and Annabella soon had their laboratory set up. It was probably due to the speed of the excavation of the area where they built the lab. Extensive use of their own blasting curses against the rock made Harry a lot happier.

With a mundane forge, workshop and laboratory dug out, they had the elves go out into the muggle world under Polyjuice potion to acquire all the fittings and machinery they needed. For around a week, Harry and Annabella vanished completely, coming out seven days later with their Aston Martin done up for racing, a top speed of over two hundred and twenty likely.

Though the results weren't visible, they had also done theoretical investigations on the ideas of curing the Longbottoms and preventing werewolves from transforming.

Early in the morning (or normal working hours for those not on holiday), some days after the laboratory excavation had begun, the residents of Potter Castle were awakened to the sound of maniacal laughter followed by the screaming howl of a modified Aston Martin V12. Sirius who had been in the Great Hall raced across the courtyard to the gatehouse of the castle in time to see Harry spraying mud everywhere as he drifted the car down toward the estate border, short jets of fire crackling from exhaust pipes mounted on the sides.

"Gah! And when I believe those two have pulled all their tricks out, they go and create another!" he exclaimed.

With the Potter and Beaumont coats of arms emblazoned on the doors, gleaming blue-black paint, matt-black wheels with silver on the insides of the spokes, smoked windows and lights along with large spoilers, splitters and diffusers moulded from carbon fibre, the Aston struck a quite intimidating image as Harry drove south with Annabella, heading for a day on the coast.

Despite the fact they'd been eating, working and occasionally sleeping in the lab for seven days running, the two were still as energised as ever. Within a short while, they were cruising along the misty promenade at Brighton before pulling into a parking spot outside a café and climbing out.

Harry was still clad in a pair of combat boots, jeans and a white lab jacket with gunpowder stains up the sleeves which caught several people's eyes as they walked into the café, Annabella also wearing combat boots, jeans and a cream turtleneck.

Upon ordering their breakfasts, a Full English for Harry and a light French pastry meal for Annabella, they were approached by a woman wearing a business skirt.

"My apologies, I don't suppose you are the American Lawyers Beaumont and Callahan?" she asked.

Harry's head simply dropped into his arms, earning a death-glare from Annabella before she responded;

"Indeed, I'm Annabella Beaumont and this is my insufferable associate and loving fiancée Harry Callahan."

"Anna, Don't you mean incredible, not insufferable?" asked Harry as he raised his head and an eyebrow; "May I remind you who managed to stop you from blowing yourself up with the super-acid experiment at Easter?"

"Is that any way to talk to the woman who manages your investment portfolio?" replied Annabella sweetly.

"You got me there!" Harry said with a grin.

"Err, yeah." stuttered the woman; "I was going to ask on behalf of the Sussex Express about you two and your reasons for visiting England."

"Acquisition of familial estates." Harry replied.

"Harry was born to a British family and has claimed the familial estates. Otherwise, we needed a holiday and his godfather Lord Blackmore offered us a place to stay." Annabella elaborated.

"We've been rather swamped with work, both of us have studied and worked with the law, I'm something of an expert in temporal dynamics for which I got my doctorate. Anna's doctorate is in chemistry, expertise being in messing with highly dangerous substances, especially acids and explosives." Harry added.

"He could get a doctorate in chemistry for blowing things up since back home he was making bombs since the age of six." Annabella commented waspishly.

"I just have a natural disposition for exploding things!" Harry protested with a grin.

"All boys have a natural disposition for destruction." deadpanned Annabella.

"Back on subject, my Lord the Earl of Blackmore invited us to join him on the Black Estate until our own were sorted as the Potter Estate has been held in stasis since the murder of my biological parents. My adoptive father, Inspector Harry Callahan of the San Francisco Police Department agreed and thus my fiancée and I found ourselves on this side of the Atlantic. We've also got the company of old family associates and friends Nicholas and Perenelle who are accompanying us during our stay. No, I don't know how long we'll stay but thus far, it has been most enjoyable." said Harry as he turned to the bemused journalist.

"He's right, the basis of our holiday is settling familial estates and taking some time away from the hectic hustle and bustle of San Fran. Old family friends over here wanted to meet us, we decided to come and see Britain and take some time out." Annabella confirmed.

"If you'd mind, I left the castle without bothering to eat this morning." Harry prodded the reporter as their meals came.

Two weeks later, Harry drifted into consciousness in his bed, feeling the lack of warmth provided by his fiancée's presence. Annabella had been very active with a secret project that she had no intention of explaining according to her comments about it. Unfortunately, with her Fidelius charms, he had no likelihood of finding out without her permission. He had some suspicions as she'd had both of them take lessons on various jet aircraft before getting type-ratings on several ex-Royal Air Force subsonic fast jets.

He'd just switched into a black fleece over a t-shirt and jeans and was heading down toward the kitchens and a cup of coffee when Annabella raced out of one of several entrances to their laboratory and grabbed him. Sirius stuck his head out of the door as Harry was protesting his kidnapping, receiving an underpowered stunning spell for his trouble.

Surrendering himself to the wants of his slightly crazed, sleep-deprived fiancée, Harry allowed himself to be dragged down to the lab and watched, bemused, as Annabella rifled through the chaos in her end of things, finally extracting the journal of Fidelius keys.

Quickly numbing a finger, she prodded it with a knife, releasing a drop of blood onto the journal and then healing it. Walking over, Annabella flipped over a number of pages before handing it to Harry who read and absorbed the information;

Translocation Door Code Eagle 3 is in Potter Laboratory room #2.

Assuming that was what she wanted, Harry walked out of that lab and went into the next one which was simply empty save for a several nondescript doors set into the walls. He strode through the door labelled Eagle 3 and found himself in the blister hanger they had erected. The immense space they had around the Citation had disappeared, now the light jet was tucked into one end while roughly in the middle was an aged looking aircraft he recognised as a Hawker Hunter gunnery trainer.

The final new object was sat on trestles and spread around the entire space, a single seat, single engine jet which took five minutes of examination to identify as a Folland Gnat. Turning back to Annabella with a raised eyebrow, Harry waited for an explanation as she looked on with a smug expression as if waiting for him to prostrate himself before her immense intellect.

"I'm guessing you have a reason to have custody of two outdated fighter aircraft, one of which is spread around the entire hanger and the other looks rather tired?" Harry asked after a moment; "And that the one spread around the hanger requires the pilot to be under five foot six."

"Well, the Hunter was because I wanted something to do aerobatics in and it comes with two seats, pylons for iron bombs or rockets, both of which we can make. Reacquiring cannon shouldn't be to hard though. The Gnat I want to modify a lot and possibly do some record-breaking in." Annabella replied as if he were stupid.

Harry just nodded, appreciating that the man in a relationship had almost no say. They spent the rest of the day and into the mid-evening stripping the panels off the Hunter, vanishing all the paint, cleaning them, repairing them, adding magical varnishes and scribing them with runes for lightness, unbreakable and cooling.

By the end of the day, the panels were neatly stacked to one side, the aircraft reduced to a skeleton, its jet still in place and the numerous cables and wires for avionics. It would take several weeks, but Harry intended to upgrade the radar systems with magical versions while Annabella worked over the engine.

Two weeks later, the airfield, clubhouse and the many people around were able to hear the whine of a high-performance jet coming to life. Apart from a large lorry delivering an unknown load some weeks before, there were no known reasons for such.

That was when a black Aston Martin rolled out of a blister hanger, playing chase car off one wing tip of a gleaming black Hawker Hunter, a flash of red down each side, a small civilian registration on the lower tail, RAF markings and the words 'The Lawyer' emblazoned on the nose along with the coats of arms of the Potter and Beaumont families.

'Getting all the certificates isn't all that bad for a wizard.' mused Harry, looking through the sun visor of his helmet.

While he and Annabella usually flew their Citation in normal clothes, they were both wearing flying boots, one-piece suits and helmets.

Harry was flying in the left-hand seat of the Hunter with Annabella to his right as they slowly taxied onto the runway. A swift burst of conversation with Air Traffic Control both for the airfield and the nearest large airport and the rejuvenated fighter rolled forward, Hestia in their Aston soon giving up playing chase car as Harry eased the jet to full takeoff power.

Once at some height, still continuing straight from the runway, Harry rolled the aircraft over once, returning it to the correct way up before doing a six-point hesitation roll and breaking away, running south for the channel.

An hour was spent with the two in moderate quiet playing around with the limits of what you could do with the Hunter. They raced out into the Atlantic, stretching the top speed without magical boost before circling back. Harry would often drag the old fighter into vertical climbs and allowing it to stall before pitching it back down, sometimes putting the Hunter into a spin and finally pulling out of it with a burst of power some numerous feet below the apex of the manoeuvre.

Finally, with Harry once more at the controls after a period of aerobatics at Annabella's well-practised hands, he brought the aircraft for a full-bore low level run across the airfield, one wing low, exhibiting the belly of the fighter to the occupied side of the airfield. Then, he came up several miles beyond the runway, rolling the aircraft over once before circling around then gently bringing the fighter down on the tarmac and releasing the braking parachute.

As the Hunter finally began to wind down and the canopy opened after Harry parked up next to their temporary hanger, he ripped the oxygen mask off his face and unsuccessfully tried to wipe the maniacal grin off his face. While the Citation was a nice aircraft to fly, the old fighter was in a different league for fun. Especially since he'd noticed the family's cars all parked up around the clubhouse as Harry had piloted the Hunter past at low level and high speed.

Harry disconnected himself from the cockpit through the several cables, tubes and harnesses before shuffling up until he was stood. With as much elegance as he could muster, he stepped over the side, gripping the edge of the cockpit and dropped lightly onto the tarmac.

Annabella had given him a condescending look as she simply climbed down the retractable ladder. Moments later, Sirius with Alex and Harry Sr. with Hestia raced up in their respective cars. Harry and Annabella pulled off their flying helmets, exposing very tousled hair and no little perspiration, but both of them were grinning widely.

"Heck that was fun!" exclaimed Harry, wrapping an arm round Annabella; "You may be totally mad buying random old aircraft Anna, but do I regret it? Heck no!"

"Love, do you regret anything I do?" asked Annabella with a raised eyebrow.

"Nope. Not really." Harry replied, leaning over and kissing her briefly; "Even in flying boots, an RAF surplus flying suit and looking a bit dishevelled, you're still beautiful." he whispered.

"Hate to interrupt anything lovebirds;" taunted Sirius; "But two things, Dumb-as-a-door wants us at Hogwarts this evening and also the airfield manager was rather interested in your aircraft for some reason."

"Sirius, you should do a bit of research, this was a front-line fighter for several decades and served for several more as a trainer. They're both rare, expensive to buy, expensive to maintain, expensive to run but also awesome to fly." Annabella replied with a faint smirk; "Anyway, if Dumbles wants us, who are we to refuse. Harry, mind starting her back up?"

"Why not, I'm sure he won't mind us producing sonic booms around the castle for a while." Harry said before turning thoughtful; "We could even put a display on for them. It's about four hundred miles as the crow flies."

"Now now children." tutted Hestia with fake motherly disapproval.

Harry grinned and walked into hanger, emerging a few minutes later with an old Land Rover to tow the Hunter in.

'Life's good. If a bit weird for someone my age.'

The couple walked into Hogwarts, both still dressed in their khaki flying suits and boots, Harry having added his katana to his left hip and Annabella wearing a .45 semi-automatic pistol strapped to her right thigh which was partially covered by the lab coat she'd pulled on.

Harry was furiously sketching and calculating on a clipboard, not even bothering to look where was going as he used constant legilimency probes to guide his progress. Annabella was looking over his arm and occasionally making comments as they walked into the Great Hall.

Finally, he looked up to the head table where a visibly irritated Dumbledore was stood;

"Evening Dumbles. You asked for us?" Harry commented blandly, returning his attention to his clipboard.

"Yes." he nearly growled; "I'd like to introduce assistant professors Potter and Beaumont who will be staying with us for the foreseeable future."

"Well, in your opinion." replied Harry; "Anyway, who said we were teachers. I don't teach people who have anything less than a Mastery or a Master's Degree in the subject I'm teaching. Anyone here got a Master's in quantum physics or temporal dynamics?"

"Hey Harry, all the kiddies are here." said Annabella with a judicial prod to the ribs, getting Harry's momentary attention as his eyes narrowed, focusing on the benches full of uniformed students.

"Great, just what I need. Time to get a coffee." Harry growled before twisting on the spot and vanishing with a light pop, seemingly apparating away when he was in fact dropping a noise charm and an invisibility enchantment on himself.

Annabella quickly did the same and they exchanged mental smirks as out-roar reigned, with many shouting;

"You can't apparate in Hogwarts!"

The couple smirked slightly before slipping out of the hall and walking, arm in arm, to the edge of the wards before disapparating back to Potter Castle.