Me and Lys little excursion into the normal world was mostly painless. I had to fix her wardrobe before we could go since she showed up in a poor excuse for a clown suit. Really it was eye-watering. Not even Arthur Weasely would have put something like that on and thought it was something that people actually would wear. It was like Hawaii had thrown up a set of clothes.
Lys had gotten really defensive when I'd pointed that out to her in my customary way. By bluntly pointing out that she looked like an arts and crafts project had exploded all over her. After some needling, I'd found out that it had been her father that had given her… this experiment in trying to break reality by bad taste. He was also the one with the house-elf blood. This made perfect sense as house-elves had no taste. Lys didn't appreciate it when I shared that insight either. I thought her rabbit punching me in the kidney was uncalled for though.
I was still nice enough to give her a simple jeans and blouse combo, before leaving the Cauldron for the for the busteling streets of London. She still got stared at of course; there just wasn't anyone around with her kind of build in the normal world, so she stuck out like a sore thumb. Not that she noticed. She was way too busy gaping at the sights around her. If I hadn't already known that this was her first excursion out into the... normal world... then her shameless amazed gaping at the sight of London would have told me that in no uncertain terms. I found it a bit charming, seeing this place through her eyes. I just saw a city that was just a tad bit more modern than what the wizarding world was currently at. In my eyes 1970's London was not quite the city it would become in a few years.
Still, it was funny and kinda endearing seeing her experiencing a whole new world for the first time. Her first exposure to cars had been an eye-opener and she'd machine-gunned me with questions as to how they worked. I'd explained it as far as I was able but had to eventually promise her to take her to a bookstore so she could pick up some books on basic mechanics and engeneering, which mollified her for the moment. She'd also started to ask me about electricity, which had someway segwayed into the topic of computers, which she seemed to find fascinating.
My first stop had actually not been London proper, but Dublin where we went in search of the IRA. We hit a bit of a snag early on though as we found that the organization had apparently recently splintered, with one faction, called Provisional IRA having broken off the main body due to differences of opinions about something or another. It was those people I needed to get my claws into because they were the ones blowing shit up. That meant heading up to Northern Ireland and Belfast where most of them were located presently.
Getting to them hadn't been easy though, these guys did not like the Brittish, and while I wasn't, I had been there long enough to start to sound like them. So I had to make use of some not so ethical magic to loosen tongues and grease the wheels. Eventually, I was able to find one of the local leaders, one Dáithí Ó Conaill. From him, I got the name of people who could make bombs, fertilizer bombs specifically. It took a bit of time to locate them as well, but one I did I got my hands on the recipe for the garden variety fertilizer bomb, pun intended. I was surprised by how easy it would be to make. Not that I was complaining. With a bit of magical assistance, I'd be able to make something useful in no time.
After that, I'd spent my time visiting various hardware stores, grocery stores and a trip to the local garden center and a quick stop at a drugstore for some over the counter stuff. And then it was off to the bookstore to pick up some books for Lys, which turned out to be far more book then I'd bargained for. Not only did she want books on the basic mechanics of cars, but also books on metallurgy once she found out that the muggles had created some truly impressive compounds of their own. She also had me picking up a couple of books of basic chemistry for some reason. She also picked up a book on computers, such as they were right now. Nothing really technical since the field was in its infancy still, but it was the best the store had so it would have had to do. Lys had been amazed at the thought of an actual thinking machine. I'd have to show her my cellphone at some point and see if I could really blow her mind out of hte top of her head.
After that, it was back to Hogwarts to make some prototypes with Lys fucking off for parts unknown.
I wouldn't be able to make all of the shells I had planned, for now anyway. I hadn't been able to get my hands on any liquid hydrogen, or any equivalent. And as I shopped around it became readily apparent that if I wanted any super cool stuff I would have to make some myself. I had no idea how to do that. So no insta-freeze shell for Drew at the moment. Likewise, I didn't have any with a gas loadout, mostly because I didn't want to accidentally kill someone, or myself if the wind shifted.
That would be unfortunate.
Still, I was able to make three shells each for every other type; Explosive, Water, Lightning, Lava and Boulder. I did make a try for a freezing one as well. But I found that the freezing charm just didn't act fast enough on its own to have any chance to do what I wanted it to. Not with the amount of water I had to use.
Once done me and my partner in crime left Hogwarts again. Our destination was the other side of the Forbidden Forest; far enough away from Hogwarts and any other inhabited place that we could make some noise without attracting any undue attention to ourselves.
Seeing as I was going to be testing ammunition I felt it was just appropriate to do it properly, so I'd set up a small table with the cartridges resting on it in neat little lines. I wished I had more guns to test as well, to complete the look, and I did have an idea for another type of gun that I could make, possibly, now that my skill in enchanting was a bit firmer thanks to Rowena. But that was for later.
"Alrighty!" I said and picked up the gun and looked it over. Enchanting the Caster had been pretty easy. Just let the basic principles of electromagnetism guide me when I put the required charms on the two "accelerators" as I called them, two serrated looking rings placed about a decimeter apart from each other along the barrel of the Caster. When activated they would spin and generate a rather intense directed magnetic field inside the barrel. They would also glow a bit, but that was only cosmetic. I'd added a slightly modified banishing charm to give the shell that initial push to get it up to speed before he magnetic fields did their thing. And of course, a cushioning charm to take care of the recoil. I liked my hand, and my arm, not to mention my shoulder and my ribcage to remain intact. Having then not end up on the other side of the moors was something I was pretty keen on. I was still using 'em.
Even so, I'd remote activated it the first time I'd tested it, just to be sure that it worked properly. A good thing too as the caster had broken the framework I'd placed it in. The cushioning charm needed to be reinforced since the gun apparently packed more of a punch then I'd have expected. It'd taken me five additional tries before I'd managed to get all things settled. In the end, I'd been forced to lower the intensity of the charms on the accelerators slightly to get it entirely recoilless. I had every intention of going back to it later to fine-tune it some more, but for now, it worked well enough to test fire my new ammunition.
"Number One shell; Explosive. First test." I said formally holding up the shell, which I'd etched the runic number of one on the face of before I loaded it into the chamber and snapped the gun closed and taking aim. My target was a huge three along the forest line about two hundred meters away. I lined up the sights and took aim.
"Fire in the hole!"
I pulled the trigger, the accelerators revved and gloved and there was a brief flash from the muzzle and a shower of woodshipping's as the shell hit the tree I was aiming for.
No explosion.
"Huh." I scratched at my sparse beard, it was little more than stubble at this point. It was likely more than a year before I could cultivate a proper goatee without it being too thin and wispy. Until then I would keep myself mostly clean-shaven.
"You made a mistake, can't say I'm suprised." Lys stated unnecessarily.
I ignored her with practiced ease."It should have worked."
"I didn't though." She told me smugly.
I grunted as I started to walk towards the three where the bullet was. It was a large thick oak, likely ancient, going by its size. Which was why I'd picked it. A big and easy to hit target. It wasn't the side of a barn, but it was close enough for me.
I was about halfway to it when it detonated.
The blast was strong enough to knock me off my feet and onto my ass, I think my head must have hit a stone or something because I think I blacked out for a moment and my head hurt like a son of a bitch. Felt like a giant had given me a friendly slap in the whole body. I didn't even feel when I landed. My ears were ringing and all I could see were flashes of light. Lys didn't help matters when she reached me and rather roughly got me up in a sitting position. What if I had a broken back? Okay, so that might have been on the far side of possible, but it could have happened!
"Are you alright!" She asked me.
"I just got blown up, what do you think!?" I complained.
"That you're complaining, so you're probably fine. You're not bleeding at least." Was her unsympathetic answer. "You feel like anything is broken?"
Oh god, that would be awful. I quickly wiggled my arms and legs, followed by my hands and feet. I rotated my neck carefully. While there were some twinges of pain as I did so nothing seemed to indicate that anything was broken, just a bit tenderized. "I don't think so."
"What the hell happened?" she asked me.
"I dunno, some sort of delayed reaction. I'll have to test another one to know for sure. Help me up." I told her.
"Your gonna do that now, are you nuts?" Lys exclaimed incredulously.
"No, we'll do it tomorrow. Right now the only thing I'm gonna do is to take a bath, get something to eat and then go to sleep. Hopefully, that will take care of most of the aches."
"Maybe you should…"
Knowing where she was headed I cut her off at the pass. "I'll go tomorrow if anything comes up."
Lys grunted. "Alright. Can you stand on your own?"
I tested my legs and was gratified that I felt fairly steady despite the circumstances. "Yeah, I'll manage. Help me get this together and we'll head back to Hogwarts."
"Right."