Chapter Text
CH1: Wings over Godric’s Hollow
Summary: The Sirens watch the Harry Potter movies and decide they can do better. Step one: introduce Voldemort to carrier aviation courtesy of the Gray Ghost in 1981.
Warning: this fic was beta and proofreading-assisted using AI, all ideas are my own, and I didn’t tell the bot to write me a story X. Full explanation in A/N
“Avada Kedavra!” yelled the man with no nose as the screen faded to green.
“That outcome is unacceptable,” said Observer, her tentacles curling instinctively around her rigging.
“This is not the projected end state,” said Compiler. She had opened up a window full of data and was scrolling through it at a frantic pace. “Why are the variables collapsing? Intervention is required.”
“This outcome won’t generate the desired data,” said Tester.
“Wow,” said Purifier, taking her focus away from the screen, “you know it's just a movie, right? Have none of you read the books?”
It had been her idea for movie night, which had turned into movie weekend, and was now causing her fellow Sirens to lose it over what was not even the end of the movie.
This could get fun.
“You can prevent this, can’t you?” demanded Observer, her eyes no longer fixed on the screen, but rather Tester’s displays.
“This is not over,” declared Neville on screen.
Hey, had someone hit the skip button on the remote? That was the part that explained that no, Harry was not dead- not that anyone was paying attention.
“Variable change is required to correct the data,” said Tester as she tapped away on her interface frantically. Timelines and data streams merged and spun off into wild patterns.
As the on-screen Harry rolled out of Hagrid’s arms, very much alive, the timeline reset to 1981.
“Hey, didn't JK publish the books in 1997?” Asked Purifier, trying to work out how the timelines worked, then decided she didn’t care. “Guess it’s 1981… and there are shipgirls in Harry Potter now. Best. Movie night, EVER!”
0o0o0o0o0
West Country, Royal Navy territory - 31 October 1981, 19:56
A flight of F4F Wildcats from VF-6 and SBD Dauntlesses from VB-6 droned overhead.
“Ground, still no sign of Siren activity, over,” reported the woman riding atop the lead aircraft, her grey hair flowing behind her.
“Copy that, Enterprise, it's gone from our radar scope as well. RTB? Over,” came the ground controller.
“Confirm RTB, out,” said Enterprise. This was a fool's errand if she had ever seen one. Sirens did not appear over land, yet some radar operator had spotted something over West Country. Being the closest Azur Lane ship, she had been vectored in. Guess if she hurried, she could make it to the Halloween party in Portsmouth.
Huh? A green light -powerful- flared from below, from a small village. Enterprise dropped her altitude and started circling. Maybe there was something out here after all.
She saw a woman running, clutching something, just outside the village, roughly where she had seen the green light.
A flash of green lightning, and the woman crumpled to the ground in a way that Enterprise had seen too many times- dead.
She spotted the shooter, only about 30 feet away under a hooded robe, moving towards the woman they had just killed.
Enterprise pitched her F4F over and dove as the rest of her flight kept their altitude. Unknown siren type; she needed data.
Enterprise levelled out her F4F at hedge-top level, then leapt clear, landing between the fallen woman and her killer. This close, she could see the man's face, although “man” was stretching it as he looked more serpentine than human. Did Sirens have a male type?
“Stop!” she ordered. Not sure if she was looking at a Siren or she had just stepped in on a murder.
She had landed in a small garden. Behind the man, she could see a house; in the doorway lay a body, male, lifeless.
“Out of the way, foolish girl. You know nothing about this,” snarled the man. Behind her, she could hear crying, a child? Was that what the woman was carrying? If this got violent, then a HE shell would kill the child; but 20mm might not do the job against a Siren.
In response, Enterprise raised her longbow, “I will not ask again; stand down,” she ordered, but before she could pull back the string, the man raised a stick at her.
“Avada Kedavra!”
She flinched as her F4F interposed itself between her and the green lightning. The F4F died with no fanfare, no telltale that it had been hit. The engine cut out, and the stick went dead as the instruments went dark. At such a low altitude, there was no recovery. It ploughed into the house, AvGas and ammunition cooking off, turning the structure into an inferno in moments.
Through the smoke and fire, she let her arrow loose at the Siren contact. At her command, energy turned to solid matter, and her arrow changed to an AAVT Mk.31 shell. The Mk.31 exploded in front of the target, the man, in an angry puff of black smoke. The smoke was a Prelude to the real damage: that came in the form of high-velocity shrapnel designed to turn a Zero into kindling. The man, the fence, the wall, and a greenhouse, simply vanished under the torrent of metal.
“Control, be advised: was engaged by 1 times unknown hostile, not Siren. Have two Category three (fatalities) civilians and-” she walked over to the child and picked him up, a boy, maybe about 1 year old. “One mostly uninjured child, but needs medevac, I am one F4F down, will need fire service, over.”
The controller took their time coming back. “Copy your last, location?”
Enterprise looked around, getting her bearings as she did some dead reckoning with her last known position. “Just north of Godric's Hollow, a little house outside the village,” she said.
“Understood, will call local emergency services, stand by,” said the controller.
She waited what felt like an eternity before the controller came back. “Fire rescue is five mikes out; ambulance, however, is 30 mikes.”
Thirty minutes, unacceptable.
“Negative, will medevac myself, have Portsmouth ready to receive casualty, out,” said Enterprise as she started running. A F4F detached itself from the formation overhead and swooped down. She timed her leap perfectly, landing on the Wildcat’s wing, her boots on the “NO STEP” markings, the boy safe in her arms.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Hagrid apparated to Godric’s Hollow, but he knew he were too late — could see all the flashing lights from Muggle fire engines and them police cars, and a great big column o’ smoke and fire punchin’ up into the night sky.
A Muggle in one o’ dark uniform, funny lookin’ hat - the closest thing they had to an Auror—stopped him as he got near. A blaze it was. Didn’ know a house could burn like that, despite everythin’ He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named ever done.
“Sir, you’ll need to go back the way you came. There’s been an incident, it's not safe,” the Muggle said, walkin’ toward him. Behind her, Hagrid saw two bodies beneath tarps, their cloaks just peekin’ out. One had unmistakable red hair spillin’ out. The other bigger, had a Muggle placein’ some glasses next to it.
“Please don’t look, sir, it gets worse,” said the woman, little thing, white as a sheet.
He caught a glimpse of somethin’, another Muggle had pulled a third tarp off a body, was lookin’ for somethin’, in what was left of it. Pale skin stretched tight over sharp, unnatural features, his eyes staring into nothing; so many victims… A face he’d been told about, but never wanted to see.
The Muggle woman stepped in front o’ him as if to block his view, but she was a tiny thing, barely came up to his chest even with her funny hat.
“Was there a child?” he asked, barely breathin’, not daring to hope.
“A child?” the woman echoed, “We were not told of-” she was starin’ at, a chalk drawing depicting a woman red hair, a man with glasses, and between them a child. Recognition hit, and her eyes went wide.
“Richard, check for a child!” yelled the woman, loud as a mandrake.
“What?” yelled the man, Richard.
A fire engine thundered past, the Muggle woman, ran after it, talkn’ to the Muggles who leapt out.
Hagrid couldn’ watch; he’d arrived too late, and now James, Lily and Harry - gone. The Muggles would have found a child by now if he’d been there. He watched as a fireman smashed what was left o’ a window out so another could get in, only for the flames to push’em back.
Hagrid turned back to the road as he heard a motorcycle. Sirius, he’d know what to do.
“Lily and James?” asked Sirius, cuttin’ the engine.
“I… I were too late. They’re dead,” said Hagrid, pointing to the tarps. Could feel tears rollin’ down his face.
“And Harry?” demanded Sirius. The Muggle woman was off searching under bushes and callin’ out for a child.
“The Muggles didn’ know there was a child… he can't…. He can’t be alive in that,“ Hagrid choked, as somethin’ exploded.
The firefighters were temporarily pushed back but rallied fast, before one shouted, “It's coming down!” The firefighters ran back behind their vehicle.
“Dumbledore sent you?” asked Sirius quietly.
“Yes.. he said if anythin’ happened to James and Lily, take Harry to him,” said Hagrid.
“Take my bike, tell Dumbledore what happened, I won't be needing it,” said Sirius. He turned away, he spotted the 3rd tarp, “got the bastard at least,” he muttered then he apparated.
Hagrid stiffly got on the motorcycle, turnin’ it ‘round, sped off into the night as the roof collapsed. Dumbledore would know what to do.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
HMNB Portsmouth, Royal Navy territory - 31 October 1981, 20:28
Belfast saw, to her relief, a flight of F4F Wildcats fly overhead. The flight was one F4F down, as per the report- the lead ship at that.
The new lead aircraft broke off from the formation for a low pass over Royal Hospital Haslar. As the rest of the craft dissolved into blue light, Enterprise leapt from her Wildcat and landed on the path leading to the hospital.
A doctor and a nurse were standing by and rushed past Belfast to tend to the child. As they rushed back into the hospital with a very unhappy child, Enterprise tried to follow them.
“Let the doctors take care of this, Miss Enterprise,” Belfast said, stopping her. “Besides, the commander has requested a debrief as soon as you arrive.”
Enterprise nodded and turned back to the water. Belfast was used to Enterprise's pace and kept up with her as she passed HMS Alliance. Both shipgirls leapt into the water and glided over Portsmouth Harbour towards the military docks, passing the hulls of historic ships and their friends. Berths were full tonight due to the Halloween party that both were now missing. A shame, as the costume she had found for Miss Enterprise was very fetching.
Enterprise was the first to reach land. She let her rigging unfurl; the Wisdom Cubes that made it up flew outward over the harbour as 32,000 tons of steel and hope took shape - CV-6, USS Enterprise. The sound of water being displaced was more felt than heard; thankfully, the locals were used to a warship simply appearing in the night.
Belfast released her rigging, her more modest 14,900 tons settling into the harbour alongside her sisters, Sheffield and Glasgow. She needed to see what those two had come up with.
The guards on duty saluted as they approached Semaphore Tower and opened the door without checking IDs. Either the guards recognised them, or forgot that three months ago, a little girl from the Sakura empire had walked straight into the mess hall, grabbed as many cookies as she could and promptly went on a sugar rush rampage around the commander's office. No one intervened as everyone thought this was just normal destroyer behaviour, not a random lost child. This had only ended when the parents had reported the child missing, and said child had been roped into her own rescue.
The outer office was as she had left it, no new paperwork had arrived in the last half hour since she had left for Haslar, and the flask of coffee was right where she had left it.
Belfast offered the flask to Enterprise, and for once, she turned down the black vial liquid and instead opened the door to the commander's office.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
HMNB Portsmouth, Royal Navy Territory – 31 October 1981, 20:43
The Commander leaned back and rubbed his eyes. He had been looking forward to tonight's Halloween party. Enterprise had escorted a convoy carrying some massive surprise that was supposed to be the highlight of the evening. The entire affair had been organised by Queen Elizabeth, who had arranged a reciprocal gift for the Eagle Union.
Now he was definitely not attending.
The paperwork alone would keep him occupied well into the early hours of the morning, and the JAG officers were not going to thank him for it.
The Commander pulled a Dictaphone from one of the desk drawers. After making certain he wasn't about to record over anything important—or discover that one of the girls had left another silly message on the tape—he pressed the record and play buttons simultaneously and began.
"This is the Commander of Azur Lane. The date is 31 October 1981. The time is 2043 hours. This is a recorded debriefing of USS Enterprise, hull number CV-6, concerning the incident earlier this evening at Godric's Hollow. Present at this debrief are myself and HMS Belfast, pennant number C35, acting as secretary and witness. Enterprise, for the record, state your name and designation." Said the Commander precisely.
Enterprise sat at attention. She understood that the informal discussion was over.
"USS Enterprise, CV-6. Yorktown-class aircraft carrier of the Eagle Union, currently assigned to Azur Lane." Confirmed Enterprise.
"So in your opinion, was the contact you encountered at Godric's Hollow a Siren?" asked the Commander.
"Negative, sir. The contact was human, or human-adjacent," reported Enterprise.
The Commander wanted to swear. Shipgirls were not police, judge, jury, or executioner; they were the manifested spirits of warships taking human form, but with the abilities and personalities of the hulls they were created from. Shipgirls were humanity's best defence against Sirens or other shipgirls capable of obliterating fleets of human-crewed warships. Azur Lane was an organisation whose sole purpose was to fight Sirens and bring together shipgirls from all nations under one banner, even if that was a very loose and often dysfunctional alliance.
And in his best shipgirl's own words, she had just killed a human. Not without cause, but legally and politically, this was going to be one hell of a mess.
"Did you witness a hostile act by the unknown?" asked the Commander. He was railroading at this point, but he wanted the record to be clear.
"Yes, sir. I witnessed them killing an unarmed civilian," replied Enterprise.
Not the answer he was going for. Despite the tragedy of the loss of a young couple tonight, leaving behind an orphan, he needed a direct threat to Enterprise—one believed to be credible enough that he could take it to the UN with confidence.
"Did you attempt to force the unknown into surrender?" asked the Commander. Realising too late that "force" was too strong a word, he decided not to rewind the tape and attempt a better phrasing. JAG would consider that worse than leaving it in.
"I demanded the unknown surrender, but he did not comply," answered Enterprise.
Not the best way of describing what was turning out to be a human with unknown powers. Whilst Shipgirls had the same legal rights as a human under the UN Charter on Human Rights, that did not mean they could put a gun in your face and tell you what to do.
"What action did the unknown take to indicate they were not complying?" asked the Commander, hoping Enterprise's answer would be sufficient to drag them both out of the hole.
"They opened fire with an unknown green-energy weapon," said Enterprise.
"Was this the same weapon used against the civilian?" asked the Commander.
"Yes." Said Enterprise, she did not feel the need to elaborate.
"What was the effect of this weapon?" asked the Commander.
"It destroyed one of my F4Fs," replied Enterprise.
"How did it achieve this?" asked the Commander.
"Control of all flight surfaces and instrumentation was lost after being struck. This caused the F4F to crash." Said Enterprise
This was going to make for an interesting Combat Aircraft Loss Report. Hopefully, he could deal with that in the morning. For now, it appeared there had been no direct casualties among Azur Lane personnel.
"Why did he fire upon the F4F?" asked the Commander, already knowing the answer.
"The unknown did not fire upon the F4F. His target was me. The F4F intercepted the attack intended for myself," stated Enterprise.
"What was your response?" asked the Commander.
"I fired an AAVT Mk.31 shell at the unknown hostile," said Enterprise matter-of-factly.
It was not lost on the Commander that she had used the term "hostile" for the first time.
"Why did you fire an anti-aircraft shell at the unknown?" asked the Commander.
At this point he was unsure himself. Enterprise carried a number of HE and a limited number of AP rounds for her main batteries, but as a carrier her first response to a hostile surface target should have been her squadrons of SBDs and TBDs, along with a swarm of angry F4Fs to clear the skies.
"I believed that at the time I may have been engaging a new Siren-type unit. With the power demonstrated, I needed to use my main battery, as per carrier doctrine when fighting at close range. I used an AAVT Mk.31 shell because its fragmentation pattern was more directional and presented less risk to nearby civilians than a standard high-explosive round."
"So there were civilians still in the area that you were protecting?" asked the Commander.
"Yes, sir. A baby. I am unsure of the age, perhaps around one year old. I was hoping you would know more about the baby," said Enterprise.
Strange. She knew better than to ask questions during a debriefing. For her to ask one about a non-combat-related matter was unheard of.
"At this time, I am unsure of the identity of the child, the two reported fatalities at the scene prior to your intervention, or the identity of the unknown hostile. Could you describe the two deceased civilians and the infant?" asked the Commander.
"There were two deceased adults. One male was in the doorway and had been killed prior to my arrival. The second, female, was killed just as I arrived on the scene. She had been fleeing with the baby when she was killed. The baby is male, mostly unharmed, but I brought him to Royal Hospital Haslar for examination." Said Enterprise.
"Can you describe the unknown hostile?" asked the Commander.
"The unknown hostile was wearing robes. His face was more serpentine than human, but was still clearly human. The weapon he wielded looked almost like a stick, about fourteen inches long, perhaps slightly longer. It was tapered with a handle."
"Did you recover the weapon?" asked the Commander
"No. I believed it was destroyed during the engagement." Said Enterprise. Damn that would have been an important find, he would have to see if a fragment could be recovered to study.
“Did the contact display any Siren traits? Hull manifestation? Mechanical structures? Energy patterns?" asked the Commander.
“No, sir,” said Enterprise
“In your opinion, do you still believe this was a Siren?” asked the Commander.
“Based on the lack of rigging, an unknown energy weapon, and the damage suffered by my 5”/38 fire, I would now classified it as unknown hostile ‘human-adjacent’ but I cannot rule out Siren interference without further investigation,” reported Enterprise
“Do you believe your use of force was justified?” asked the commander
“Yes, sir,” replied Enterprise.
“Do you believe your actions was in defence of others?” asked the commander
“Yes, sir,” replied Enterprise.
“Is there any additional information you wish to add?”
“No sir,” said Enterprise.
“Very well, the time is 2102 hours, This concludes the debriefing.” Said the commander, reaching over and hitting stop on the Dictaphone.
Everyone was silent for a few moments, partly decompressing, partly making sure the recording had stopped and what they said next was not on the record.
“Sir, do we know the identities of anyone involved?” asked Enterprise. That was the 2nd time she had asked about the humans at the scene. That was odd behaviour; maybe she was tired, or shaken by the knowledge she had killed a human.
“Other than yourself, not at this time. Local police are involved; I will be asking the Royal Navy to bury any press trying to report on this. The UN will need to be briefed, but I am certain that they will agree with your actions, as will the president and the Joint Chiefs. You did good tonight; let me handle the rest.” Said the commander
“Thank you, sir.” Said Enterprise.
“Now, sir, if you don’t mind, Miss Enterprise should get some rest,” said Belfast speaking up for the first time. Belfast knew better than to say anything during the debrief; she was a witness, not a participant, but the commander knew better than to get in Belfast's way when it came to taking care of Enterprise.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Royal Hospital Haslar, Royal Navy territory - 31 October 1981, 23:48
The boy slept soundly in the adult-sized bed. The nurse had given him something to help him rest. Clutched in his arms was a stuffed toy unicorn that looked as if it were being squeezed flat. She would have to let Unicorn know that U-chan was safe.
“Social services will come tomorrow to collect him,” Belfast said, standing next to Enterprise with her hands folded neatly before her.
Enterprise looked away from the boy, not letting on that she had been too preoccupied to notice Belfast’s approach.
“He's safe, thanks to you, Miss Enterprise,” said Belfast softly, watching the boy.
Enterprise nodded, looking back at the boy. U-chan had wormed its way out of his grasp and was settling beside him, only to be scooped up once more as the boy shifted in his sleep.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
“Variables stabilising,” Tester said, her tone was so level that it screamed satisfaction.
“It worked,” confirmed Observer.
“Affirmative. According to my data, Harry Potter will live,” Compiler said.
“The solution was simple,” Observer exhaled, tension easing from her rigging. “Have Enterprise kill Voldemort?”
Purifier raised a hand. A crudely drawn scar glowed on her forehead, complete with a badly sketched arrow pointing at it. “Horcruxes?” she asked sweetly.
“Relevant data appears in movies six and seven. We will address that variable when it manifests,” Said Tester, not even looking away from her screen.
Purifier stared at her. Then laughed at a joke that only she knew.
“And like that, you missed so much. So what now, the Dursleys?” asked Purifier
“No, we have seen those variables; we do not need to repeat them,” said Tester.
“So how do we remove the Dursleys?” Observer asked.
Purifier’s grin went sharp. “Easy. Send Warspite. Or I go myself.” A portal flickered into existence, opening onto Privet Drive. “Personally, I’d enjoy—”
“Unnecessary,” Compiler cut in.
The portal snapped shut.
“I have already ensured that Dumbledore cannot locate Harry,” Compiler continued. “For ten years, at minimum.”
“How?” asked Purifier.
“Misfiled data,” Tester said. “Lots of it.”
“So that’s why it’s a Saturday? I thought you lot just can't read a calendar,” said Purifier.
A/N just about the AI thing. I am severely dyslexic; I have yet to physically read a book because I simply can't; I listen to audiobooks or use a TTS, and have done so for the last 35 years. This means grammar, spelling and sentence structure are foreign concepts to me. AI like ChatGPT are large language models that look at sentences and then find the next word. They are not good at writing a story from scratch and frequently get things wrong when asked for information or to add 2 numbers together. If this bothers you, I understand. AI slop is a problem; there are ethical considerations due to how much water and power AI data centres use. Not to mention where that training data came from. All I will say is, if this bothers you, thank you for reading this far, I understand your point, but please see things from mine. I cannot physically spell-check every second word or make them make grammatical sense without a bot; I have tried.