Harry's Summer Vacation

One of the waiters whispered to Hammond, which lit up the man's face as he stood, saying, "Well. They're here."

Hammond escorted the five out, back into the central chamber of the building as he said, "You five will have a spot of the company out in the park, get to spend a little time with our target audience!"

Charlie's eyebrows shot up as he smiled at the two children running up, shouting, "Grandpa!"

Ignoring the interaction, Charlie did note that Alan was looking on the verge of a panic attack.  On the 'street', a pair of electric jeeps with clear roofs pulled up.  Charlie was amused by Alan trying to duck the two kids, but he managed to get into the rear jeep that held his fellow scientists.  Charlie just got into the jeep with the kids and Gennaro.

The ride began, and Tim looked Charlie over.  "So, what do you know about dinosaurs?"

"S- Not much," Charlie replied, inwardly cringing at having to censor his speech in front of children.  "I mostly work with endangered reptiles in Eastern Europe."

"So why are you here if not for the dinosaurs?" Lex asked curiously.

"A friend of my little brother asked me to," Charlie admitted.  "I'm here as a wildlife preserve expert, so this really is my field, just not like Doctors Sattler and Grant."

"So you don't know why or how they went extinct?" Tim asked, a bit of joy rising in his voice.

"Nope," Charlie admitted with a grin, identifying the boy's tone.  "My house was full of fantasy creatures rather than dinosaurs.  Unicorns, dragons, and the like."

"Well, let me tell you about it..."

Twenty minutes later, Charlie was in the middle of being quite impressed that Tim could remember details from dissertations that were on a level that most people would have difficulty comprehending.  "Birds?  Maybe, I don't know.  Diamond dust blotting out the sun?  Probably not, more likely just a lot of dirt getting thrown into the sky.  All that takes a while to come down, yeah?"

Finally, the jeeps came to a stop, as a voice said, "If you look to the right, you'll see a herd of the first dinosaurs on our tour, called Dilophosaurus..  One of the earliest carnivores, we now know Dilophosaurus is actually poisonous spitting its venom at its prey, causing blindness and paralysis, allowing the carnivore to eat at its leisure.  This makes Dilophosaurus a beautiful but deadly addition to Jurassic Park."

Charlie, Gennaro, and both kids peered out, but all they could see was the shrubbery.  "Maybe they're shy," Charlie offered.

The jeeps started again, this time pulling up to what they were told was the Tyrannosaurus Rex paddock.  There was no sign of the ten-meter tall (according to Tim) lizard.

The voice that had announced the boat in the lab came on.  "We'll try to tempt the Rex now.  Keep watching the fence."

Inside the paddock, a cage raised up, bringing a goat with it. The goat was tethered to a post by a chained leash, before the cage retracted, leaving it exposed on the surface.
Lex blinked, then gasped.  "What's gonna happen to the goat?  He's going to eat the goat?!"

"Excellent," Tim muttered with a grin.

Gennaro's gaze never left the goat as he calmly asked, "What's the matter, kid?  You never had lamb chops?"

"I happen to be a vegetarian."

"No big lizard," Charlie commented after several minutes.  "Predators don't want to be fed, they want to hunt.  And if the size ratio is right, theb Rex should be at least equal in reasoning to a bright dog."

"What do you mean?" Lex asked.

"I'm not sure what m-scientists call it, but there's an equation that dictates brain capacity versus body size," Charlie began to gently lecture.  "The bigger the animal, the bigger the brain, yeah?  So a regular dog has a smallish brain, a whale has a brain weighing five or six kilograms, and a human's is about two to three kilograms.  Biggun like the Rex is going to be a few kilos, no matter what; gotta have that, all things given."

"What things?" Gennaro asked curiously.

"Less oxygen, for starters," Charly began, his voice and accent relaxing.  "When that bugger ran about, Earth had higher oxygen levels; s'why the critters got so big then.  Then there's all the mass the brain's controlling.  Tail, possibly enhanced senses, God know what's all going on inside a bugger that big, right?"

"The scientists would know," Lex commented, still looking at the goat.

"Dunno 'bout all that," Charlie replied with a shrug.  "But if they're putting modern frog bits in something from that far back, there's bound to be off bits.  And I doubt your granddad will let anyone go through the notes."

Several minutes passed before the jeeps began moving again.  Almost ten minutes later, Charlie spotted Alan getting out of the rear jeep, followed by Ellie.  The pair walked into the grassland, as he spotted Ian smiling and throwing his hands up.

The jeeps came to a stop, and everyone got out, following the two doctors.  Tim kept trying to strike up a conversation with Alan, whereas Charlie had to catch Lex to keep her from hitting the ground face first.

And then Charlie blinked.  Over there, on the ground, lay a bulky dinosaur with forward facing horns.  Ellie and Alan were almost hovering over it in awe as a park employee told them that the triceratops was safe, tranquilized but sick.

Mostly ignoring the others, Charlie began his own examination.  Dilated eyes (insofar as he could tell), labored breathing (might be the tranquilizer), and a trace of discolored foam at the corner of the mouth.  He caught that it happened every six weeks or so, and that the dinosaurs apparently didn't eat the East Indies Lilac berries.  As Ellie went off to examine the dung pile, Charlie pulled out a (muggle) broad-spectrum kit.  Scooping a bit of the foam into a vial, he added the reagent and waited.

Ellie came back, commenting, "There's no trace of lilac berries in the feces.  That's so odd, though," she commented as she paced.  "All right, she's suffering from Melia toxicity... every six weeks..."

"Any signs she's been throwing up?" Charlie asked the attendant.

"Not that we've been able to tell," the man admitted.

"I'm looking here, and there are molars," Charlie began, peeling back the read lip a little.  "Do these have a gizzard?"

"No, multiple stomachs.  Like a cow or horse."

"Probably naturally gassy," Ellie observed, one hand on her chin.

Charlie rechecked his vial, saying, "I'm seeing some sort of toxic reaction with the mouth foam, but I'd need more data.  I don't know anything 'bout the girl's biology, but I'd bet she's been eating something and tossing it up away from the dung piles.  Like a horse, y'know?  But I'd wager whatever it is she's eating takes time to get ripe, she strips it off, lather, rinse repeat.  

"That's a good point," the now identified Doctor Harding stated.  "We hadn't considered it, but it's certainly an option."

Ellie paused at Gennaro's comment that they all needed to get back to the jeeps.  "Oh.  You know if it's alright I'd like to stay with Doctor Harding and finish up with the Trike. If you know..."

"I'd like to as well," Charlie cut in.  "I want to see if I'm right."

"Sure," Harding nodded.  "I'm in a gas-powered jeep.  I can drop them off at the Visitor's Center before I make the boat with the others.

Ellie smiled, turning back to Alan.  "Great.  Then I'll catch up with you if you want to go on."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I want to stay with her a little longer," Ellie smiled at him, patting the trike on the horn.

While everyone's backs were turned, Charlie's wand slipped out as he cast a silent diagnostic spell.  As his wand slid back up his sleeve, he frowned at the garbled results that he would have to take the time to sift through later.

He didn't see Ian's smirk behind him as he did this.

Two hours later, the jeep arrived back at the Visitor's Center, disgorging Ellie and Charlie as they dashed inside under heavy rain.  Laughing at each other in the lights of the big room, they sluiced off as Muldoon came out.

"Having fun in the rain, are we?" the man asked.

"Warm rain is novel," Charlie admitted with a chuckle.  

"Alan and I mostly work in arid regions," Ellie commented with a smile.  "A little rain is good for the soul."

"Well, come on, you two.  I'll get you to the command center.  We're having a bit of an issue."

A few minutes later, Charlie saw Hammond with a black American man at a computer.  As he walked up, he overheard the man saying, "The 'keycheck space -o' 'keychecks off' 'safety space -o'.  He turned the safety systems off.  He doesn't want anybody to see what he's about to do.  Now, look at this next entry, it's the kicker: 'Whte_rbt.obj'  Whatever it did, it did it all.  But with the keychecks off, the computer didn't file the keystrokes.  So the only way to find them now is to go through the computer's lines of code, one by one."

"How many lines of code are there?" Ellie asked.

"About two million," Arnold replied, shaking his head.

"Two million?" she asked in horror.

"Yeah."

Hammond turned to Muldoon.  "Robert. I wonder if perhaps you would be good enough to take a gas jeep and bring back my grandchildren."

"Sure," he gently replied.

"I'm going with him," Ellie nearly snarled out.

"We both are," Charlie grumbled out, popping his neck as he mentally readied himself.

Twenty minutes later, Muldoon was going as fast as he dared on the mud-slick road.  Ellie was in the back seat as Charlie leaned over.  "You know."

"I do," Muldoon replied, his focus on the road.  "Only one sort of preserve could be in Romania.  Same kind that was near mine in Kenya."

"So we're good?"

"We are," Muldoon smirked back as Charlie's wand smoothly slid out of his wrist holster.  The man smoothly pulled the jeep up to the T-Rex paddock, and Charlie could see only one of the passenger jeeps there.  Along with broken electrical cables.

Leaping out, Charlie activated his hat.  A pair of lenses slid out of the brim over his eyes, and he activated the night vision function.  Instantly, the darkness faded, allowing Charlie to make out the massive footprint, as well as the marks in the mud of something massive being pushed over the edge of the paddock.  Leaning over, he didn't see the second jeep.

Swearing, he cast several spells.  To his eyes, Muldoon and Ellie instantly lit up in the Life Sense spell, before there was another hit down the way.

A roar filled the night, spooking Ellie and Muldoon.  Ellie  spoke first.  "I think it's ahead of us."

"It could be anywhere," Muldoon commented.  "With the fences down, it can wander in and out of any paddock it likes."

"I have a live one," Charlie spoke up, hauling debris off of a groaning Ian Malcolm.  "Oh, he's good.  He got the tourniquet on even with a broken leg."

Malcolm, slowly coming to, weakly snarked out, "Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend."

The roar of the T-Rex echoed through the jungle, much closer than the previous roar.

"Can we chance moving him?" Ellie asked in a rush.

"Please, chance it," Ian moaned out.

Sighing, Charlie whipped his wand around, gently picking Ian up with mystic force before guiding him to the back of the jeep.

"Heh.  Knew it," Ian commented with a grin.  "Knew what you were in the lab.  It was the watch.  I'm a squib."

"Got it.  Muldoon knows as well."

"I don't think that she knows though," came the return comment.

"Well, I'm not getting eaten by anything less than a dragon to preserve the Statute," Charlie snapped, securing the chaotician in the back seat.  

"Ellie, come on!" Muldoon shouted, even as the woman peered over the edge of the paddock.

Ellie shouted,"The other car!"  

She and Muldoon descended along the shattered cabling, leaving Charlie and Ian with the jeep.  Ian felt it first, through his broken leg.  Charlie felt it seconds later, being far more attuned than the average person to a large, heavy body stomping along.

"Bloody hell," Charlie muttered.  "It's coming, and they're on Search and Rescue."

"In her defense," Ian lightly mumbled, "I do believe that she and Doctor Grant are an item."

"D'you think anybody'd mind if I stretched a bit?"

"Dunno.  But I can't imagine that cloned dinosaurs would be cheap, y'know?"

Charlie peeked his head over the edge of the paddock, shouting, "Oi!  Get up here, you lot!  We got incoming!"  Waving his wand again, he transfigured a staircase out of concrete so that they could make the climb faster before hopping up next to Ian.

As the pair ascended, the trees parted before the massive lizard, her head swiveling to gaze in the darkness, her nostrils twitching for a scent.

"Bloody hell," Chalie repeated himself.  "I'll distract it, you get those two to drive out.  I'll catch up, mate."

"Wait, what're you doing?" Ian demanded, struggling to sit up.

"Little secret, mate," Charlie said with a smirk.  "This is not the first giant lizard I've had to deal with."  

Charlie stepped up, casting a few spells with his wand as Ellie and Robert finally cleared the ridge of the paddock.  A fast set of spells, and the Rex didn't notice them dashing towards the jeep as Charlie himself adjusted the wind just a bit.  Ian stared as the Rex stopped, instantly focused exclusively on Charlie as Robert and Ellie jumped into the jeep, starting it.

Charlie smirked, knowing that the wind would carry his extremely adulterated scent directly to the massive creature.  The scent of an apex predator.  Snuffling, the Rex saw the little human that smelled of Dangerous Creature.  Her mouth opened as she roared a challenge at the pink, fleshy thing.

Now, if the author might have a moment of comment.  While Harry Potter is considered to be one of the more powerful wizards of his era, he and Charlie Weasely are markedly different in certain fundamental ways.

First, Charlie is fully grown, and in excellent physical condition.  Second, Charlie has had a full Hogwarts education, followed by an official Mastery in Care of Magical Creatures.  Third, Charlie is, above all else, a specialized magical.

Charlie opened his own mouth, his vocal cords already mystically enhanced as he returned with the bellow of a Ukranian Ironbelly defending his territory.

The Rex charged, lunging at the human.  His own reflexes, sharpened by Quidditch, honed by fire breathers, allowed him to duck forward between it's legs.  Catching himself at her hips, Charlie ran up the tail (thanks to a Stickyfoot charm), and bombarded her skull with stunners.

It actually took three of Charlie's Dragon-Grade stunner to drop her.  As she slid to the muddy ground, he rode her down, lightly stepping off the now unconscious beast as he pulled his broom out of his pouch.  He unshrank it, and then took off, taking note of the tropical storm's winds.

Ten minutes later, he was standing just inside the door to the Visitor's Center as the jeep pulled up.  Ellie and Muldoon helped Ian out of the jeep and up the stairs, with Ian muttering about how the building needed to conform to being able to account for disabled people.

Charlie stepped out, swept Ian up in a bridal carry, and let Muldoon lead them inside.  Ellie gave Ian a shot of morphine from the kit, and wandered off to find Hammond as Muldoon and Charlie sat with him for a moment.

"Heh.  Spotted it, sure," Ian commented drunkenly.  "A wizard, just what we needed.  So who sent you, hmm?"

"A friend of my little brother, Harry Potter," Charlie admitted, rolling his shoulders; they'd been cramping a bit from no stretching; he had been using a professional quality broom.  "Hammond approached his banker, Harry got curious, and since I have experience with dangerous creatures, I got the offer."

"What kind of creatures?" Ian asked incredulously.

"Dragons," Muldoon added to the conversation, already loading a heavy, lever-action rifle.  "There's only one kind of animal sanctuary in Romania, and that's for dragons.  In Kenya, our neighboring sanctuary held nundu.  Don't ask me how they kept the damn things in."

"And you're a squib, huh?" Charlie asked.  

"Oh yeah," Ian moaned out, his eyes rolling a but under the painkiller.  "Old magic family in the States.  American rules allowed me to test in non-wanded subjects.  I have Masteries in Arithmancy, Runes, and Magical History."

Several hours later, in the Control Room, there was an air of tension as Hammond had just made a rather bold suggestion.

Arnold frowned at his employer.  "No, no, no, that's crazy.  You're out of your mind.  He's absolutely out of his mind."

"Well, wait a minute," Ellie interrupted.  "What exactly does this mean?"

Hammond started with, "We're talking about a calculated risk, my dear, which is about the only option left to us.  We will never find the command that Nedry used.  He's covered his tracks far too well.  I think it's obvious now he's not coming back. So, shutting down the system--"

Arnold interrupted. "I won't do it.  You'll have to get somebody else, because I will not."

Hammond frowned, his face firming in determination.  "Shutting down the system is the only way to wipe out everything that he did.  Now, as I understand it, all the systems will then come back on in their original start-up mode, correct?"

Arnold sighed, rolling his eyes.  "Theoretically, yes, but we've never shut down the entire system before.  It may not come back on at all."

"Would we get back the phones?" Ellie asked.

"Yes, again, in theory."

"What about the lysine contingency?" Muldoon asked.  "We could put that into effect."

"What's that?" Ellie asked in confusion.

"That is absolutely out of the question," Hammond replied shortly.

Arnold explained, "The lysine contingency's intended to prevent the spread of the animals in case they ever get off the island.  Dr. Wu inserted a gene that creates a single faulty enzyme in protein metabolism.  The animals can't manufacture the amino acid lysine.  Unless they're completely supplied with lysine by us, they slip into a coma and die."

"PEOPLE. ARE. DYING!!!" Hammond stated forcefully

Arnold just looked up at him.

More calmly, Hammond asked, "Will you please shut down the system?"

Arnold finally got up, fishing out a set of keys.  He unlocked and opened a switchboard.  As he switched the numbered switches off, the monitors in the room went dark. He then flipped the main switch, and the entire room went black.

"Hold onto your butts."

Arnold flipped the main switch back to on. The room was still dark.

"Um..." Arnold commented with considerable verbal skill

"This says 'System Ready'," Charlie added, pointing at a monitor.

Arnold smiled, breathing heavily in relief.  "It's okay.  Look, see that?  Look!  It's on.  It worked."

"Wait a minute," Ian interrupted.  "What do you mean, 'it worked'?  Everything's still off!"

"Maybe the shutdown tripped the circuit breakers," Arnold admitted.  "All we have to do is turn those back on, reboot a few systems - phones, security doors, and half a dozen others - but, it worked.  System's ready."

"Where are the breakers?" Muldoon asked, shouldering his rifle.

"Maintenance shed.  Other end of the compound.  Three minutes, and I can have power back on in the entire park."

Hammond spoke up with, "Now, just to be safe, I want everyone in the emergency bunker until Mr. Arnold comes back and the computer's back on its feet again."

"Better idea," Charlie interrupted, standing up.  "I grab a radio and go out there.  Arnold's best being here, where the systems control is.  If someone can walk me through it, I've got a better chance to get the lights back on with the wildlife out there."

"He's right," Muldoon admitted, tossing Charlie a shotgun.  "Me and him, we know what we're doing out there.  Anyone else is just gonna get chomped on.  Give us the radios and let us handle things.  After all, the raptor paddock isn't far from here."

A few minutes later, the two men were headed out, lightly jogging towards the maintenance shed in the morning sunlight.

Muldoon groaned, seeing the gaping hole in the raptor confinement.  "The shutdown must have turned off all the fences.  Damn it, even Nedry knew better than to mess with the raptor fences.  Come on, this way."

The pair moved smoothly into the jungle. Shortly, the entrance to the Maintenance Shed came into view.

"I can see the shed from here," Charlie commented.  "Think we can make it if we run?"

"No.  We're being hunted.  I can tell."

"Bugger," Charlie muttered.  "Plan?"

"From the bushes straight ahead.  It's all right.  It'll be me they're after first.  Known quantity and all that."

"Dammit, I don't like this.  Here," Charlie said, digging into his pocket to hand Muldoon a generic zippo.  "Open, spark, throw.  Twenty meters away, minimum.  Don't ask me what it's supposed to be, but according to my people, it bloody works.  Take no chances, mate."

Muldoon nodded, taking the lighter.  "Run towards the shed.  I've got her."

Charlie didn't hesitate as he took off at a full run.  Slipping through the door, he slammed it behind him, magically adjusting the lock so that only a human could work the knob.

"Mr. Arnold?" Charlie called out to no response.  "Mr. Arnold!?  Bugger.  John, I'm in," he called into the radio.

"All right, now, in front of you, you'll see a stairway going down.  Go down it."

"Okay, going down the stairs."

"After about 20 or 30 feet, you'll come to a T-Junction.  Take a left."

Several minutes passed (with Ian taking the radio from Hammond to deliver concise directions) before Charlie stopped.  "Fuck.  Door was open when I got here.  I'm not alone, and the blasted thing can't get out."

Still he continued until he found the box marked High Voltage.  Hammond led him through working the primer charge to restart the entire system.  Once he pushed the green button, everything began switching itself on.  Then he began switching on the individual park systems, swearing that this mess really needed to be centralized.  Finally, the lights in the maintenance shed began switching on.

"Mr. Hammond, I do believe we're in business," Charlie radio'd out, wand at the ready.

From behind him, a raptor lunged at him from behind a wall of piping, snapping and snarling.  Charlie merely raised an eyebrow before severing it's head with a cutting charm normally reserved for trimming molting scales off of a Norwegian Ridgeback.  Grabbing the head (and then adding a lightening charm), he made his way back out of the shed.

Once outside, he saw Muldoon, his back to the door, and a rather large swath of the local jungle had been... removed.

"What happened?" Charlie asked, velociraptor head still in hand.

"I got two more," Muldoon stated, his rifle still at the ready.  "Not sure where the others went.  And you-  Ah.  Well, that makes three out of five.  Dunno where you got that lighter from, but it turned a bit over forty meters of jungle into nothing."

"Bloody hell," Charlie breathed, looking at the now completely cleared section of jungle.  "Well, power's back on, so let's get back, yeah?"

A few minutes later, they crested a low hillock to see a familiar figure looking around.

"Alan?" Charlie called out.  "Where are the kids?"

"They're inside," came the reply.  "I need to see about getting Tim a doctor.  What happened to you two?" he asked, seeing Charlie covered in blood and the edges of Muldoon's clothing slightly singed.

"Raptors," Muldoon replied.  "He got one, I got two.  Leaves two more wandering about."

The three dashed back into the Visitor's Center, with Charlie calling to Ellie over the radio about the possible raptors.

A few minutes later, Muldoon was signalling to Charlie towards a set of doors.  Charlie cast another spell, and four signatures, two human and two not, could be sensed.  Frowning at the Gryffindorness he was about to pull off, he magically tore off the door, rolled inside, and stood up as a raptor leaped at him, feet first.

Charlie ducked backwards, his wand disgorging a nasty curse that one of his compatriots who'd graduated Durmstrang had taught him.  Instantly, the man-sized carnivore dropped, flopping about in a seizure even as Charlie rolled.  The second raptor popped it's head up, only to receive a shotgun slug in the eye from Muldoon.  It dropped as well, squealing as it died of traumatic brain injury.

"Kids!" Alan called out.  "Are you in here?"  All three smiled as Lex and Tim ran out to latch onto Alan.  As the trio walked out, Charlie got up, and then dismembered both of the dinosaurs with spells.

Ten minutes later, everyone was in a jeep heading to the helipad, Charlie having already placed his trophy head under stasis and dropped into his moke-skin pouch.