the marriage stone (Discontinued)

Chapter 10 - Swords and Arrows

Remus merely smiled at Harry and watched Sirius with a look of amused indulgence in his warm eyes. Snape just watched in stony silence, and Harry found himself actually surprised that the Potions Master hadn't left at the first opportunity. Madame Pomfrey entered, shoeing them away from his bedside. She checked him over swiftly, pronounced his wounds as healing nicely, and then went off to find him some breakfast while the three men returned to his side, settling back down in chairs around his bed. Again Harry was surprised that Snape chose to remain in the company of the two Marauders.

"I spoke with the Auror in charge of the investigation in Hogsmeade," Remus informed Harry after they had settled back down. "Apparently those Death Eaters were attempting to purchase a rather large quantity of weapons from a store owner. There have been other such purchases in other cities all over England."

Harry frowned at that, understanding the implications. Voldemort was amassing his army - and arming them for battle apparently. But the Muggle side of Harry was baffled by the details. "Why crossbows and swords?" he asked in confusion. "Wouldn't machine guns be a lot more practical? Seems to me a M16 could do a hell of lot more damage than a crossbow."

"Muggle weapons?" Remus shook his head. "They're really not that useful against wizards, Harry."

Sirius nodded in agreement. "I'm not certain what an M16 is, but I'm assuming it's a gun of some sort. And they all require some form of gunpowder to work - there are a dozen different spells that can render gunpowder useless."

He hadn't thought of that - but he supposed without the gunpowder the guns wouldn't be able to fire. "But then why not just put spells on the guns to protect them from those spells?"

"It wouldn't make much of a difference, Mr. Potter," Snape told him. "Even if the guns did fire, it's quite easy to shield against the bullets. Even the Muggles can build body armor that deflects bullets. It's easy enough for a wizard to do the same thing."

"Then put spells on the bullets to penetrate the shields," Harry insisted.

"Putting a protective spell on an object and putting a spell on an object to make it do something specific are two very different things," Remus replied. "The first is common magic, easily done. The second however is not common - you are in essence creating a magical artifact. And while not impossible to do, it is difficult, and it requires a stable structure."

"Stable structure?" Harry frowned, glancing back and forth curiously between the three men. Wasn't every day he got a lesson in weapons design, particularly not from this unlikely trio.

"A sword does not change its shape or structure when it is used," Snape explained. "Neither does an arrow. A bullet on the other hand changes drastically. It is superheated by the initial explosion of gunpowder, and it becomes flattened or misshapen on impact. It doesn't retain any sort of stable structure, so it can't hold a spell. The same goes for Muggle explosive devices."

"Then Voldemort will use swords and arrows?" Harry asked. He had always assumed that the Wizarding World kept themselves hidden from the Muggle World out of fear - that if it came right down to a fight, Muggle technology would overwhelm the Wizarding World. But if what he was understanding was right, that was not the case at all. Perhaps it was the Muggle World they protected by staying hidden?

"But who even knows how to use a sword nowadays?" Harry asked. In culture and fashion the Wizarding World reminded him of something out of the middle ages, but he had yet to see any sort of sword fighting. So far the Death Eaters had relied entirely on magic and their wands to fight their battles. The two arrows he'd been shot with had been his first exposure to such an attack.

"If I remember correctly, Severus is an excellent swordsman," Remus remarked mildly. "And Sirius wasn't so bad a long time ago."

Harry's eyes widened in surprise, and he glanced between Snape and Sirius in confusion, wondering if Remus was joking. Snape's features were unreadable as usual, but Sirius had an odd twisted smile on his lips.