Tyrant Rising

Chapter 1: The Approaching Swarm (Part 3)

Twenty-Three Years Later,

Poole, England,

Sol System

Hermione Granger sighed, trying fruitlessly to rub the exhaustion from her eyes as she struggled to focus on the intricate mechanism laying on the table in front of her. The mechanism was surrounded by pieces of carefully crafted goblin-steel and vine-wood that had previously been one of the Granger Mk. 4s she had finally finished designing three months earlier. Her own, as it happened.

Although a great improvement over the Mk. 3s, they were far less likely to explode when overcharged for one, the Mk. 4s were still far from the ace-in-the-hole she had hoped they would be when she had first started tinkering in technomancy a decade earlier. A soft scoff from the sofa next to her broke her from her concentration, glancing over, she saw Ginny Weasley rolling her bright-brown eyes.

"Ron may be a prat, but he's right about you needing to take a break sometimes, Hermione." The redhead informed the bushy-haired brunette matter-of-factly as she pointedly put her booted feet up on the table, obscuring Hermione's view of the mechanism she had been tinkering with. "Isn't it amazing enough that you managed to make a Muggle goon fire magic bullets? Why do you have to keep working yourself into the ground trying to make it better? Take a minute to rest and recognise what you've already achieved before you get back to working on improving it, girl."

Hermione huffed irritatedly, which she knew Ginny would recognise as her being reluctant to concede a valid point, "The mechanism for carving the runes into the bullets is still too slow and delicate, if you pump more than a Bombarda's worth of magic into it while you're charging them the damn things are still more-than-half likely to overload, even if they won't explode anymore. And the bolt is still susceptible to jamming if dirt, blood, or anything else gets into the firing mechanism." She ran a hand through her already wild mane of brown hair as she listed the faults with her creation, although she was surprised she ran out of issues to catalogue so quickly. "Also, they're guns not goons, Ginny." Despite having used the devices for years now, some of the purebloods still struggled with the proper name for the machines, referring to them simply as 'metal-wands.'

"Goons guns, what's the difference?" Ginny waved off Hermione's correction with an impatient movement of her hand, nearly spilling her butterbeer. "That's not the important thing, anyway, what's important is that you took a hundred-year-old Muggle weapon and turned it into the first mechanical magical weapon in history. Something the Death Eaters still haven't managed to copy I might add," Ginny nudged Hermione affectionately as the girl struggled to contain her smirk at the reminder. "So what if they're not perfect? They work, that's what matters." Ginny finished her short speech with the warm smile that had always brightened Hermione's day back in Hogwarts.

"It was quite a challenge managing to convert the Lee Enfield," Hermione admitted.

"Exactly! And you've improved the Grangers so much since your first model! So, take a break and crack open some Firewhiskey with your girl so we can get that stick out of your rather fine arse for once." Hermione couldn't help grinning at Ginny's words, even as she swatted at the redhead's shoulder for her crass remark.

"Orrrr we could watch the latest news about the Jormungandr Nebula and not wake up hungover for duty tomorrow?" Hermione countered, getting an exaggerated groan from the other woman, even as she reached for the TV remote.

"Fine," Ginny sighed, blowing out her cheeks comically and allowing herself to fall back into the plush cushions of the sofa. "I still don't understand what's so interesting about a cloud of gas in space."