Title: Of Eagle and Lion

Author: Knife Hand

Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated

Spoilers: None.

Rating: R

Disclaimer: I do not own Hermione, or Luna, or Ginny, or Cho, or... I would buy them all but I am broke.

Summary: In an act of desperation, a young Harry Potter's magic goes wild and gives him something that will change everything.

A/N: I have had a few questions in Reviews that I think need clarification. Firstly I was asked why I specified a Space Marine Flamer, 'isn't a flamer a flamer?' The answer to this is no, a flamer is not a flamer. An Imperial Guard Flamer is a bulky weapon with two backpack mounted fuel tanks attached to the nozzle by a tube, very much like the US World War 2 Flamers. A Space Marine Flamer is a single, self contained weapon, where the fuel is fed from a canister which screws into the bottom of the weapon, much like the Flamer units that Ripley uses in Aliens.

The second major question asked is why everyone is so ready to follow Harry in the battle against the Trolls. Simple answer, Magicals are Sheep. Dumbledore let Harry take command as 1) it freed the teachers to search the Castle; 2) it made him look like he cared about the students and 3) Harry's suggestion made sense. All the students followed because he was giving orders and they inferred he had authority from Dumbledore.

Harry sat watching a pickup match of Football on the lawn in front of the Castle. Professor Vector, who was a closet Manchester United fan, was refereeing the game and had conjured the goals and stands. Hermione was sitting next to Harry, her eyes had dark bags from lack of sleep and she leaned against him tiredly.

The teams on the makeshift pitch were not based on House affiliation, with only Slytherin not being represented. There were a number of other students, both Muggle-Born or Half Blood fans of the game or Pureblood friends of players or spectators, who had come to check out the game. Harry cheered as Katie Bell managed to slip past Shamus Finnegan and score a goal.

"So… why did we not do anything about Professor Quirrell?" Hermione asked. "We know he faked the faint and probably let in the Trolls."

"We know on the faint." Harry replied. "We can't prove that he let in the Trolls. I assume he was after whatever is being hidden on the Third Floor, but again no proof. Without proof we can not expect any of the Professors to act, even if they would be willing to act."

"I still have nightmares about the attack." Hermione admitted quietly after a few minutes.

"I'm not surprised." Harry replied. "Many Guardsmen have had nightmares after their first engagement, and that is after rigorous training. You were not trained, but you did very well. Better than some Guardsmen in the first action."

"But did they have to die?" Hermione pleaded.

"Shield of the Imperium, Hammer of the Emperor." Harry replied.

Hermione gave him a curious look, trying to figure out what that meant in relation to her question.

"The Imperial Guard's unofficial motto. To protect the people and eliminate those who threaten them." Harry explained.

On the pitch, Professor Vector blew the full time whistle and the two teams began shaking hands. Hermione contemplated Harry's words, and could see his point. It was not about killing the Trolls, it was about protecting the students.

"So… what was the official one?" she asked.

Katie finished shaking hands with the last of the opposition and then, in grand teenage sporting tradition, had a bucket of ice cold water upended over her head as Captain of the winning team.

"Depends on the Regiment. The 122nd's was 'To be a bulwark against Chaos'." Harry replied with a shrug.

Harry and Hermione stood and walked down off the stands to meet up with Katie, who was busy drying her wet hair with a towel. The trio headed back up into the Castle.

November faded into December and the Castle was still recovering from the shock of Halloween. The new format of the Quidditch Cup was helping to keep everyone distracted. Gryffindor was of course dominating the junior league, with four of their players being from the old Quidditch team. The Weasley Twins were still the primary choice for Beaters, with Angelina and Alicia being the preferred starting Chasers, alongside Katie Bell. There were another eight players on the Junior team. It had turned out that Fred Weasley was a decent Keeper and George could do quite well as a Chaser, with Alicia showing some skill as a Seeker. Harry, despite some aptitude for flying was not on the team, being a First Year, and had no intention of joining the team the following year, his Imperial Guard training giving him different priorities. In the Senior league, Gryffindor was not doing so well with only Oliver Wood having experience playing, but fortunately all of the other teams also had their existing teams split. Wood was able to pull together an alright team that managed to win some of its matches. But luckily the new format Quidditch Cup was derived from the combination of both leagues.

There had also been another manner for students to deal with the events of Halloween. Harry now had almost twenty new recruits for the First Hogwarts Imperial Guard Regiment. The recruits notably included Katie, Hermione, Alicia, The Weasley Twins and Cedric Diggory. Harry accepted any student willing as a recruit, with the condition that they were required to follow military discipline and attendance at the schedule Guard worship sessions in the chapel was mandatory. He would not insist that they convert, but it was highly recommended and if they were not worshiping then they were doing homework. For the time being, he had not even really started them on Imperial Guard training, but had them improving their fitness levels with lots of cardiovascular training.

Hermione had become obsessed with why the Imperial weapons still worked despite the heavy magic that surrounded Hogwarts that should have shorted them out. Once Harry described how he acquired the weapons, Hermione determined that since they had been made by Magic, then a magical field would not short them out. With that figured out, she set her mind, with Harry's assistance, to recreating the effect and creating new weapons through magic. By the time Christmas came around, Hermione had already tried and ruled out some form of permanent conjuration. The conjured Lasguns did not work and disintegrated within a few minutes. It seemed as if Harry's initial magical outburst was a fluke, but Hermione was determined not to give up.

The party was not your typical Christmas affair. It was being held at the home of Katie Bell's parents and all of the attendees had one thing in common, they were all Imperials. There were a few Hogwarts Imperials, including Hermione and Katie Bell, but the majority were the Surrey Imperials, a group that Katie also belonged to. There had been a few additions to the Surrey Imperials since Harry had left for Hogwarts, most notably Katie's parents and a few other relatives of the original Imperial converts.

One of these relatives had taken special notice of they way Harry, Hermione and Katie stood as a group. When he noticed they were free, he approached the trio.

"Sergeant Potter." The man said. "My name is Sergeant Peter Stephens, Second Division, Prince of Wales's Royal Regiment. And First Wessex Imperial Guard Regiment."

"Welcome to the Guard, Sergeant Stephens." Harry replied. "So how many Guard are there in her Majesty's Army?"

"So far, ten." Peter replied. "My sister, Katherine and her friend Jennifer Jones, exposed me and Jonathan, Jennifer's brother, to the Imperial faith when we came home of leave. Jonathan wanted to be here today but he could not get leave."

At that point Confessor Mary Saxon called everyone to the table and performed a benediction in High Gothic before everyone started in on lunch. As this was not a Christmas celebration there was no exchange of gifts but rather a rededication of their faith to the Emperor and the Imperial Saints. It was only after the Surrey Imperials had left that the only present was presented. It was given by Katie and her parents to Harry, and it consisted of a Snowy Owl that he called Hedwig.

"If you want to send any letters to the others then you can use Hedwig to send them here and we will pass them along. We also let the others know to deliver any letters to us that they want to pass to you or Katie, or Hermione." Misses Bell said.

After a round of farewell hugs and handshakes, Hermione and Harry both said goodbye and went their own way.

Harry entered the Dursley household, holding Hedwig in a cage and found the floor in the living room scattered with wrapping paper. Dudley's birthday and Christmas Day were the only times Petunia had ever allowed a mess in the almost sterile cleanliness of number four. This year, Harry noticed, the mess was smaller than it had been in previous years, as were both his Uncle and Cousin.

It seemed that at Smeltings, Dudley had finally found a productive way to exercise his violent tendencies in the school Boxing club. With a physical activity that actually appealed to him, Dudley had for the first time realised how unfit he really was and, with the help of both his Boxing Coach and the school dietician, had dropped the excess weight and was now a competitive boxer in his weight class. This had actually had a positive effect on his grades, which had been borderline at the beginning of the year when he was told he would be dropped from the Boxing team if he did not improve, and he discovered brains he never knew he had. He was not a Rhodes Scholar or anything but he was in the top 30 percent of his class.

For Vernon, the change had begun due to a heart attack at work. Ironically he had collapsed during a training seminar on stress management in the workplace. Given that for the two months before the attack Vernon had been working six or seven fourteen hour days a week, Grunnings accepted the Workers Compensation claim without argument and covered the medical expenses related to his recovery. Thanks to the quick thinking of young PA who was in the meeting, the heart attack was not a severe as it could have been. At the time of the attack the doctors had insisted on a carefully monitored diet combined with a supervised physiotherapy and exercise program, which Vernon was following enthusiastically, having not felt so well since he was a teen. He was still recuperating but the experience had given him a new insight as to how to treat people.

The young PA had come to see him in the hospital, concerned over his health, and he had asked her if she enjoyed being a PA or aspired to a different position. She admitted that she did not like being a PA, especially having been told that is was 'a proper job for a cute young thing'. He had winced internally at that comment, something he had though before. She admitted that she had studied Health and Safety at University because she had lost her father in a preventable industrial accident during High School. After hearing this, Vernon had pulled a number of strings at Grunnings and had gotten her an internship with the OH&S department, in which she was doing extremely well according to the latest reports he had gotten from her new boss.

As Harry went up to his room he heard what most people would consider normal sounds from the house. There was the sound of heavy breathing and leather on leather coming from the garage as Dudley was working a punching bag. At the top of the stairs the door to the master bedroom was open but the door to the ensuite bathroom was closed with the sound of a running shower behind it. On the dresser was a delicate silver chain with a silver Aquila pendant that belonged to his Aunt, not that his Uncle or Cousin knew what the two headed bird really symbolised. Harry already knew about his Aunt's conversion, which had happened during the two months Vernon had been working so hard prior to his Heart Attack, her having a hard time with the house being empty most of the time with the boys at boarding school and Vernon at work so much. Her prayers to the Emperor had gotten her through his hospitalisation and then, to her thinking, the Emperor had granted a long held secret wish of hers. On the evening of the day Harry had returned from Hogwarts for the break, Petunia had announced that she was pregnant.

A giggle came through the ensuite door and Harry shuddered, not wanting to think what his Aunt and Uncle were doing in there. He entered his room and set Hedwig's cage down on the side table and opened the cage door. The beautiful Snowy Owl swept out of the cage and settled down on the headboard of his bed, just watching him.

"What do you think, girl?" he asked, getting a bark in response. "Yeah. But wait until you see Hogwarts."

Harry fell asleep, watched over by an avian with as much loyalty and as fierce a heart as any Imperial Guardsman.

TBC….

AN: So there we have it, Harry finally got Hedwig. I'm sure some of you will ask why now and not at the beginning of the year. The simple answer is there was no logical reason for him to buy an Owl at the beginning of the year. He had no intention to send any letters to the Dursleys and he had no way of sending any post directly to the Surrey Imperials without violating the Statute of Secrecy or any way to get his letters into the Muggle post system. He now does.

Also to the best of my research, not being English or in the English Army, the Prince of Wales's Royal Regiment is the Regiment that any recruits from the Surrey area would be assigned to. If that is not correct then I apologise but that's what I found. The First Wessex Imperial Guard Regiment is just what the Imperials of the Prince of Wales's Royal Regiment call themselves in private.