This was more like it, by Prospero's Highly Embroidered Sunday Pants! Harry liked his job a lot, and he loved his family to distraction, but this...!

  Nienna flashed a grin over her shoulder, and leaned into her broom to exact the last bit of speed and performance. On a straightaway run, of course, Harry would have left her in the dust. This, however, was the young Chaser's ideal playing field. It was all Harry could do to maintain station, following as she directed her, (almost literal), Comet.

  She gained just a little when she barrel-rolled between the legs of a man stepping up onto a parapet. Her lithe build and low profile kept her from brushing either his legs or the ground. Harry was forced to roll up to miss the same person and regain his position on Nienna's left rear quarter. He had to expose himself to enemy fire, though, to accomplish this. No one was able to take advantage of his brief exposure, but Harry still dinged himself points for even offering the chance.

  Approaching the area where the encircling trees thinned out, Nienna veered off into the woods. There was, luckily, not as much need to remain low to the ground. Luckily, because they now had to avoid low shrubs, medium-sized saplings, and the very occasional high wild grapevine. Hogwarts was quite far north for them to be anything more than an nuisance.

  Nienna spotted what was apparently a reference point to her, and dived at it, only to pull straight up and rocket through the thin canopy. Harry lost a little ground emulating her move, but once he was ascending, the Firebolt surged under him. He spotted her still climbing. Like him, she was literally standing on her foot pegs, broomstick pulled in against her erect body, face turned up into the cloudy threatening night.

  Harry was gaining on her, but not as fast as he should. She's upgraded to birch twigs, was his surprised thought. This girl takes her broom seriously!

  As he finally caught her, just below the cloud canopy, she slowed, settled back into a seated position, and leveled out. She gave the Auror hand signs for Slowly, and Maintain Closer Station. She did them a little clumsily, but they were perfectly understandable.

  A small, tawny owl swooped down out of the overcast, circling Nienna's head close enough to brush her cheek with the tips of her flight feathers. The owl then curved back up into the cloud, obviously leading them.

  Harry prepared to cast Lumens, but, to his amazement, discovered it was not needed. The SpectreSpecs showed his companions clearly, and the clouds even had enough magic to faintly show their billows and currents. Off in the middle distance, a lightning strike made the glow flush slightly brighter.

  Right behind and beside Nienna, he was easily able to see the the signs for Dead Slow and Silence! That last held the modifier for extreme emphasis. The tawny owl had landed on the front end of Nienna's broomstick, and was giving directions by turning its head. Harry noted through the Specs that the owl's magical glow was especially concentrated in its eyes and ears.

  As they crept through the luminescence of the clouds, Harry began to see, some distance away, a glow that was both the colour of magic and non-magical at the same time. He deduced that this was somebody or something producing visible light by some magical means.

  The owl stopped guiding them, standing on one foot to give modified Auror signs for Rally Point and Enemy in Sight with the claws of the other. Well trained, he thought, impressed. Well trained, indeed. The owl fluttered up to alight on Nienna's shoulder. Harry noted that the epaulets on her robes were modified to give the owl a good place to grip.

  Three figures on broomsticks materialized from the gloom around them. One appeared from under a Demiguise cloak, the others dismissing spells. One of them, Demelza, he thought, held a finger to her lips.

  Harry nodded, then Silently cast a Muffliato strong enough to cover the five of them. Well, six, including the owl.

  "That will hold us," he said aloud. "Close in. Report."

  Demelza did so, being the person designated by Harry to form this group.

  "I tapped Leechstrom and Eddings, along with Proudfoot and Grant here, and we set up a patrol, Nienna was doing a circuit among us to maintain communications security. She came to me with the message that Louie here, (she used her chin to indicate Grant), had detected something in the clouds through his SpectreSpecs. He believed it warranted investigation. Nienna confirmed that she had sensed something too, not seen like Grant, but felt."

  "I accompanied Nienna back to Grant's patrol area. Once there, I, well, "saw" it as well, for lack of a better word. Grant and I determined to investigate. We left Nienna covering Grant's area, but took Ath?na with us."

  Harry looked at the owl. "Good to meet you, Ath?na." The owl fluffed its feathers in response.

  Demelza went on. "We approached cautiously, and got close enough to make out the lights and some vague shapes. As we went nearer, we started feeling an unnerving level of disquiet and backed off."

  "Like you were smothering?" Harry asked. "Like something was missing, that you couldn't live without?" Demelza and Louie nodded.

  Demelza said, "I sensed it would have been much worse without our protection spells." She nodded at the owl. "Ath?na indicated that she wanted to see if she could scout a little farther in. I let her, after cautioning her to flee at the first sign of trouble." Nienna lifted her right hand to stroke the owl on her left shoulder. Harry doubted she was even aware of the action.

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  "Ath?na flew off, circling around the light source, so she would not be approaching from the direction where we were set up. I was able to roughly track her position..."

  "Your aura power?" Harry asked.

  She nodded. "Ath?na's Mother and I are bonded. That makes it easier to detect her child at a distance. She got much closer than we were able, but something happened. She disappeared from my aura sense."

  "We heard a panicked hooting and calling. I recognized her call, but it faded, going away from us."

  "I decided we should wait a bit longer before kicking the Panic Spider. In about five minutes, Ath?na flew back, all aflutter, and dived into my robes to hide. It took a while to calm her."

  Ath?na pressed herself into Nianna's neck. "You're a brave girl," Nianna said soothingly.

  Demezla nodded, and continued. "I can not say exactly what happened. But my suspicion is that Ath?na... lost herself." She and the owl both shivered. "I think she lost her magic, her memories, and for just a moment she was a wild animal facing something outside her experience. And she fled."

  Nienna was close to tears, but suppressing them like the adult she wanted to be. "I'm glad she came back to herself. I would be lost..." Her voice choked off.

  "That was when you sent for me?" Harry asked briskly, drawing eyes to himself.

  Demelza and Louie nodded again.

  Demelza said, "I dispatched Ath?na with a note to my daughter, instructing her to find Proudfoot, and have Ath?na lead him to us. Meanwhile Nienna would find you and return." Her eyes narrowed, looking at her daughter. "Which she did very quickly, now I think on it. You weren't..."

  "Bit of luck, that," Harry said hurriedly. "I was doing a circuit of the defenses, and your daughter found me just as she came out of the woods." Demelza narrowed her eyes at him as well, but let it pass.

  Harry metaphorically wiped off a bit of mental sweat. Come to that, Demelza was a good friend of Ginny's. A little plausible deniability, he thought. That's all I'm asking for. Nienna was doing her part, looking a little puzzled, as the butter continued refusing to melt in her mouth. Teen girls. Lily. I am so...

  ***

  Harry nodded as the debrief wound up.

  "Summarising," he said. "At closest approach, we are able to make out 20 spherical light sources, surrounding a dark shape we can't really make out. We suspect it to be a dodecahedron, from the position of the lights around it. We also suspect, but have not been able to confirm, the presence of at least one witch or wizard protecting and/or maintaining the spells that keep this formation in place. The inimical field the anomaly or anomalies produce keep us from approaching to any closer than fifty meters." Harry had paused the debrief to try it himself. Without Gubraithian Fire to bolster the protection of the spells, there came a point he just couldn't force himself to pass.

  Think, think, think, Harry thought. We need an edge. Something to shake up the status quo. Put the enemy on the back foot, at least long enough to cover an assault. Come to think of it, that was what his Aurors down on the ground needed as well. If this was one of those war documentaries Dudley talked about, ad nauseum, they could just call in fire support...

  Fire support.

  It fell into place. "Nienna, do you have a watch?"

  The girl shook her head. "My seventeenth birthday isn't for another year and a half."

  "Take mine." Harry handed over Fabian Prewett's battered old timepiece. "It should be synchronised with your mother's watch. In fact, everybody's watches should be synchronised, but don't take that for granted. Everybody check to be sure." When this was done, Harry continued.

  "Nienna, you go back to the place we told Hagrid to head for. Pulse your wandlight thrice, pause, then twice. Repeat that every few minutes until he finds you. Make sure his watch is synchronised as well. He's hard on his toys!" Harry grinned to emphasise he was joking. Even though he was not. "Here is the crucial thing. Tell him he needs to find the highest safe place where he can see the whole battlefield. Once he is there, he will drop the protections around him, and let the Gubraithian Fire show. The purpose of this is two-fold. One, we up here and the Auror teams below need a distraction, which I am sure the Fire will provide in this magical desert. Two, and this is not a certainty, I am hoping the Fire will counteract the anomaly's interference, allowing us to do an assault as well."

  Harry frowned. "Hagrid will have to set the time of our assaults, based on his estimate of how long it will take him to get to a suitable place." He blew out a breath that puffed his cheeks out.

  Coming to a decision, he said, "Proudfoot, Grant, you are going as well. Gather in Leechstrom and Eddings, too. While Nienna is conferring with Hagrid, you four coordinate to split up the three Section Leaders and the Command Staff between you. Once Nienna gives you the GO time, you each report to one of those to brief them in. Again, make sure their watches are still synchronised. In addition, they are to reduce Perimeter Guards to a bare minimum, just enough to bring a warning if it all goes sideways. Section Leaders are to infiltrate their commands to just inside the inner treeline, and await Hagrid's signal. Emphasize that strongly. They are not to take part in the current exchange. That would waste the shock factor of their numbers joining the actual assault."

  Harry stopped to take a deep breath and consider his plan. "Nienna, once you have given them the time, get back here and let Auror Robins and I know, as fast as you can... safely!" he added the last word in a rush, as Demelza's eyes crinkled toward a frown.

  He hastily went on, "Proudfoot, you know our people the best. After you do your briefing, find us four more people for this assault element. I would prefer good fliers who are also good fighters. I will settle for good fighters who probably won't fall off their brooms."

  Proudfoot gave as much of a smile as his stoic face ever showed. He had barely escaped being tarred with the same brush as many of those who had stuck by the Ministry, back during the darkest days of the War. He had worked long and hard since to prove that he was exactly what he always had been; a consummate Auror, with no time for politics or prejudice. He was one of the Aurors that Harry depended on the most.

  "If there are no questions?" Harry raised an inquiring eyebrow. No one spoke.

  "Ath?na, are you up to guiding people in and out? I don't know how many trips you will have to make."

  Ath?na straightened proudly on Nienna's shoulder, but she still looked a little shaky to Harry. His memory kicked him in the brainstem.

  "Here, this will perk you up." He pulled a small tin from his dimensional pocket and shook three Owl-Nuts into his hand. He gave one directly to Ath?na, and the others to Nienna to hold.

  Ath?na froze as the flavor hit her palate. Her head rotated independently until she was staring at Nienna accusingly.

  "Hey!" Nienna said, holding up an open hand. "He's the Head Auror! Of course he has better Owl-Nuts!"

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