FicWad

AN: Yes, we're getting to the HP bits of this here... yes, it's a drabble, and I've warned you of this before now. The saga of the Black Talons has been kicking me in the head for ten years, but yet only a few scenes are really fleshed out. Yes, it's going to be fairly short, if you ignore the universe's background expository. As always, reviews are welcome, and if you have more to say, email me.

The Talons followed Harry through the door of Grimmauld Place in a single-file line, each one with a hand on the shoulder of the one ahead. Since Harry wasn't the Secret Keeper for this house, it was the only way they could come up with to get everyone into a house that only one of them could see.
The old oak door gave out a bloodcurdling screech as it opened. Harry winced, but it seemed the portrait of Sirius' mother hadn't heard it. As everyone gathered in the foyer, he drew his wand and very deliberately cast a silencing charm on the old bat. Raising his visor with his left hand, he grinned.
"Of course, I'm gonna have to do something permanent about her later." Harry shrugged, "but until then, this will do. Now, according to Aunt Urd, there's an Order meeting going on right now."
Michael grinned, "Yup. Wanna go crash a party?"
Harry's answering smile was a little on the evil side. "You know it." He paused and drew himself up to his full height. "Commander!"
Michael snapped to attention. "Sir?"
Hary's smirk was downright malicious now. "Blow the door," he commanded.
Michael nodded, turned, and gestured to Pinter. Carlie nodded and walked down the hall to the kitchen door, the rest of the Talons falling in behind. She removed a small roll of det-tape from a pouch, and began running a ribbon of explosive along the hinge side of the door. Once she was done, she placed a small ball of plastic explosive over the latch, set blasting caps in place, and moved five feet back along the hall. She held the detonator above her head, and everyone moved back against the wall. Pinter glanced over at Harry, who nodded.
"Fire in the hole!" she yelled, and clicked the detonator three times.

*

Albus Dumbledore was tired, and it showed. His normally spry look was gone, and in it's place he seemed to be carrying every one of his hundred and fifty-six years heavily.
"Alright, let's get down to business. Harry Potter has been missing for two weeks now. Has anyone seen or heard anything from him? Miss Granger?"
"No, Headmaster. He hasn't been in contact with me. Oh, I hope he's alright," the young witch sighed. "I tried to send him an owl yesterday, but after I tied the letter to it's leg, it just circled my room looking confused, and then landed on my chair and held out it's leg for the letter to be removed."
Dumbledore closed his eyes and ran a hand down his face. "Very well. Mr. Weasley, Miss Weasley?" he asked.
"Nothing, Headmaster," replied Ron.
Ginny just shook her head.
Dumbledore nodded. "Remus has already confirmed to me that he's had no communication with Harry. Severus? Has the Dark Lord found him?"
Snape sneered, "No, Headmaster, the Dark Lord doesn't even seem to know that Potter is missing. Although why we're spending so much effort on that arrogant brat is beyon-"
Snape's tirade was suddenly cut off by the kitchen door exploding. In their panic, most of the Order members dove to the floor. Snape started to draw his wand, but a loud bang and a sudden burning sensation in his shoulder spun him around and dropped him to his knees. As the smoke cleared, he looked up to see nine figures in black and grey... "armor, that must be armor," he thought, "but it's the most outlandish armor I've ever heard of."
Moody had been leaning against the wall right next to the kitchen door when it blew, and was thrown to the floor. Before he could right himself and draw his wand, a heavy booted foot was placed none-too-gently on his wrist. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," said a heavily modulated voice. With the ringing in his ears, and the modulation, he wasn't even sure whether the voice was male or female.
The rest of the Order looked up and saw a variety of weapons pointed in their general direction. At least, the muggle-born and those familiar with the muggle world recognised them as weapons. The rest had to clue themselves in by posture and body language.
The figure in the middle holstered it's weapon and reached up to remove it's helmet.
"Snivellus! Sup, bitch!" Harry said cheerfully. "Oh, are you bleeding?" he tisked sarcastically, "You should have that looked at, you know. I'm sure no one here would be overjoyed if you bled to death."
Michael turned to look at Sarah. "Has Harry been listening to my Eazy-E albums again?"
Sarah nodded. "Looks that way."
"Harry!" Hermione squeed. "Where have you been? Did you shoot Professor Snape? How dare you call him a bitch? Who are these people? Well, I'm waiting!"
Harry chuckled. "Good to see you too, Hermione."
As Harry smiled, Hermione launched herself at him like a bushy-haired missle. Harry's seeker reflexes kicked in and he caught and spun her before she flew face-first into his breastplate. "Careful, 'Mione. This armor's a little too hard to hug like that. Don't want you getting hurt."
Hermione blushed as he set her back on her feet. "It's good to see you, Harry. I... er, we were worried about you," she stammered.
Harry's smile grew, and he moved his left hand off Hermione's hip and waved to the figures behind him. The eight other people dressed as Harry was in black armor with grey accents relaxed with the sound of holstering weapons. Harry put his hand back on Hermione's hip. "I've missed you too, Hermione. It's good to see you. For a while, I didn't think that I would."
"What do you mean, Harry?" asked Dumbledore.
The smile on Harry's face fled in an instant, replaced with a cold, hard expression. Without turning, he said, "Was I talking to you? If I want you to say something, Dumbles, I'll write it down for you to repeat back to me."
"HARRY! How dare you speak to the Headmaster like that!" screeched Hermione.
"Trust me, Hermione, when you hear about what's happened, you'll want to take the old bastard apart, too." replied Harry. He turned and pulled a chair over to the table. He looked the chair over carefully, trying to decide if it would hold a hundred fifty pounds of Harry and three hundred pounds of armor. He shook his head slightly, pulled his wand out, and waved it at the chair. It almost visibly stiffened. He smiled slightly and sat down, tossing his helmet casually on the table in front of him.
Hermione turned and saw the tall man with the goatee watching Harry, with a small smile of pride on his face. As Harry sat and leaned back, obviously relaxing, his eyes narrowed. "Potter!" he barked. Harry immediately jumped to his feet. "Sir!" he bellowed.
"Potter, tell me you did not just holster your weapon without taking care of it?" he asked in a tone of low menace.
Harry blushed, and gulped. "Oh shit. Sorry sir!" he said, removing his pistol from it's holster low on his right thigh. He set the weapon on the table in front of him, pulled a small case from his belt, and sat back down. He quickly ejected the magazine and cleared the chamber, catching the ejected round before it hit the table.
As the rest of the Order started to get to their feet and return to the table, they noticed Dumbledore looking around like someone had just kicked his puppy. He quickly schooled his expression, however, and turned again to Harry.
"I'm afraid, Mister Potter, that I must know where you have been for these last two weeks." he said with all the authority he could muster.
Harry smiled brightly. "Oh, why didn't you say so? In that case, no."
Dumbledore blinked twice. "Excuse me?"
Harry's smile fell away, replaced with a mask of steely determination. "I said 'no'. You are nothing more than the headmaster of a school that I may or may not be returning to next year. You don't have the right, or quite frankly, the necessity, to know where I am when school is out."
Dumbledore sighed again, giving the impression of a grandfather who is disappointed in his favorite grandson. "I'm afraid I must insist, Harry. It's for your own good."
Harry just stared at Dumbledore for a long moment. "My own good? I see. Just like it was for my own good that you left me in an abusive household for FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS? Or like it was for my own good that you got every last bit of family that I've ever had KILLED?. No. No, I don't think so. I think you can take your 'for your own good' and shove it straight up your ass until you can taste it."
Molly Weasley jumped up from the table. "Harry! How dare you speak to the Headmaster like that. He deserves your respect, not this... this... filth."
Harry glared at the plump woman. "Oh, sit down and listen for a change, you might learn something. Until then, don't speak of what you don't know."
As Mrs. Weasley was gasping in shock that a child would dare speak to her like that, Ron jumped up, leading with his fist. "Do not tell my mum to shut up, Potter."
Harry slid out of his chair, caught Ron's fist in one hand, sidestepped neatly, and jerked the arm up and around behind his head, elbow pointed at the ceiling. He gave the wrist a few experimental tugs to make sure he had Ron's full attention. "That," he said, "was a remarkably bad idea. Now, when I think you've calmed down, I'll let you go."
Ron tried to throw his left elbow around to catch Harry in the gut. He quickly learned that it's not a good idea to attack someone in armor barehanded. BONG! "Yeouch!" he cried.
Harry smirked. "Moron."
Dumbledore cleared his throat. "If you will release Mister Weasley, I would like to know why you think I got your parents killed."
Harry shoved Ron into a chair with a pointed finger and a stern command to "Stay!". He turned to fully face Dumbledore. "Isn't it obvious, Headmaster? You didn't kill Tom Riddle when you had the chance, therefore you are directly responsible for every single person he's killed."
Albus turned pale. "You would have had me kill a child?"
Harry nodded. "You're damned right. Better an "accident" befall one nasty little twelve-year-old, rather than five thousand people die by his hand or at the hands of his servants. Personally, I think that it would be quite an easy choice."
"But Harry, I didn't know what he would become."
"Bull. Shit. The way you use legimency on everybody and their duck, I highly doubt that. No, I believe you knew exactly what he was, and had a pretty good idea of what he would become. You chose not to do anything about it. That makes you culpable."
Fred and George turned to the armored figures who were still standing and watching these exchanges with small smirks, or in the tall black man's case, an enormous smile.
"Oi! Who are-"
"you people who seem to have-"
"given our ickle Harrykins-"
"a solid steel spine?"
Michael chuckled. "Do you two practice that? Nevermind, not important right now. I'm Commander Michael Wolff, and we are the 1st Black Talons, Strike/Recon. This is Lieutenant Juno Vesping, Leftenant Boyden Wallis, Lieutenant Carlie Pinter, Sergeant Antione Maillaux, Sous-caporal Morgausa Temple, Chief Sarah Lawson, and Ensign Nabiki Tendo. Our relationship with Mister Potter is... complex. We extracted him from his Uncle's house just over two weeks ago. What happened after that is a rather long story."
Hermione looked up. "Why did you take Harry from the Dursleys?"
Michael's eyes hardened. "Because I was not about to leave a young man there to die."
Dumbledore looked up. "What do you mean?"
Michael looked over at Harry and made a small gesture with his left hand. Harry sighed. "He means that Vernon was about forty-five seconds from killing me when they kicked in the door. What you have to understand is that all three of the Dursleys are nothing more than playground bullies. They will attack anyone they think is weaker than them, and bow and scrape for anyone stronger." Harry tapped his chin.
"Not unlike Death Eaters, now that I think about it. But anyway. Grunnings, the company Vernon worked for, had some financial troubles and he ended up losing his job. Well, when you add that to the friendly warning some of the Order members took it upon themselves to give him at the start of the summer... Let's just say that he didn't take it well. After the first time he lost it and beat me, he figured that this vaunted Order wasn't going to do anything about that warning, and it was open season on Harry again. Well, the day he lost his job, he came home piss drunk. I didn't realize exactly how wrong things were until I saw the rifle. He burst into my room and took a shot at me. Caught me right below the ribs." Harry put two fingers on his left side, just below the ribcage. "I rolled off my bed and jumped out the window as he was lining up for a second shot. Broke both my legs and my left arm, but better than getting shot again. Juno heard the shot and saw the window break, and the Talons were there to protect me when Vernon finally got his fat ass outside. Michael told him to drop his weapon, and he refused. So endeth Vernon Dursley. He shan't be missed."
Michael looked up. "After we killed Vernon, we took Harry to our ship. Good thing we did, too. He was on the verge of bleeding to death."
Hermione's eyes narrowed. "Ship?" she asked. "What do you mean 'ship'?"
Michael smiled with possessive pride. "She's the HTAS-01 Pandemonium. She's got twelve twenty-inch railguns, a hundred fifty-six point defense turrets, eighteen missile launchers, will carry up to five thousand passengers, and needs a crew of a hundred. She's got an integral spacefold drive, and in a flat sprint can manage 0.82C for about an hour. Add to that hangar space for two full squadrons of space superiority fighters, plus berthing for ten dropships, and she's one of the nastiest ships in the galaxy. She's got the speed and size of a corvette with the armor and firepower of a destroyer. Twenty million tons of sheer attitude, and she's all mine."
Harry chuckled. "Don't mind him. He gets like that when he talks about his ship. Don't get me wrong, though. She's a good ship. Hell, she's been home for the last year."
Michael frowned at Harry. "Um, Harry? Temporal fold, remember? You've only been gone two weeks."
"Heh, yeah, I forgot."
As they were speaking, Harry finished cleaning and oiling his pistol, and began to put the pieces back together. Only Remus and Hermione took any notice of what his hands were doing, and they were both quite amazed that he was doing it all automatically, without looking.
"So, long story short, Dumbles, I've hired the Talons for the duration of this little war, and we're going to start doing what you should have been doing for the last thirty years."
"What's that, Mister Potter?"
Harry jacked a single shell into the chamber of his gun, set the safety, and smoothly seated a full clip in the handle. "I would think that would be obvious, even to someone of your modest mental gifts. We're going to kill Death Eaters. And I'm going to start with this one."
Harry flicked the safety off, and then quite calmly shot Severus Snape in the head. He ejected the clip, added a loose round from his pocket to bring it back to full, and seated it with a firm slap. "Just to warn you, Albie, and any of the rest of your little fried chicken club here, the same thing will happen to the next person to attempt legimency on me. That son of a bitch has been mind raping me since my first year at Hogwarts. When the Talons were putting me back together after Vernon bought it, they discovered physical damage to my brain, consistent with the wounds of psychic assault. That fucker laying there bleeding on my floor burned my brain. So, the next time I hear you tell me to trust someone because 'they've earned your trust, but you can't tell me why', I'm going to cut off your hand. Do. I. Make. Myself. Clear?"