Author: SportsNightLover
Title: Harry Potter and his Trusted Followers
Summary: Post HBP. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and others search for the horcruxes. They skip their last year at Hogwarts, so that they can find and destroy all of Voldemort's horcruxes.
Disclaimer: The characters are not, and were never, mine.
Not knowing where to go, Harry had a good suggestion, which they followed. They disapparated to Hogsmeade, where they found two rooms to stay in, and talked about what to do next. They decided to go to Godric's Hollow and then chase down the horcruxes. Fred, George, and Ginny wanted to know all that they needed to know about the horcruxes and Riddle's past, because they were not allowed in on the secrets last year. Before Harry answered, he had an idea. He told them that, since there were already six of them, why not add more, and make better protection for themselves. They all seemed to agree with the plan, and Harry said that they should track down other DA members. They knew that Neville and Luna would join easily, but they still wanted all twenty eight of the original members, or at least minus Marietta, who betrayed them already. They decided to wait the remainder of the summer and go back to school and ask the rest of the members.
Over the summer, though, they bought advanced spell books at Flourish and Blott's, and other stores, to study from. They used Harry's money and started trying to learn defensive and attacking spells. They each took one defensive and one offensive book for every couple of days. They studied day and well into the night, having nothing else to do. Hermione memorized the spells and hand motions almost immediately, but had a little trouble actually performing more difficult spells and curses. Ron was completely helpless. Ginny seemed to do well with hexes and jinxes, but still was not improving as well as Harry hoped she would. The twins put all their energies into learning the curses, and therefore were delighted to find that a few seemed to work. Harry was learning at top speed with the offensive spells, but stumbled with the defensive maneuvers. They also added a few charms in case a few were likely to help. Harry also knew that they had to teach the other loyal DA members, and hoped that he would be able to do well at teaching again. Harry moved to another level of offensive spells, but had to stop and learn to use it nonverbally, because that is what the spells called for. He soon was forced to learn full incantations to help increase his magical arsenal, and even a few that healed wounds, for they did not have a personal healer.
Harry and Ron broke off from the other four one day, to take their apparition tests. This was Ron's second time, and he was very nervous that he was going to fail again. Harry still was thinking about the spells that he just learned, so he was not nervous. They both passed, Ron barely, and now had a license.
Harry arrived hours early to platform nine and three quarters so that he could persuade a few students before they were reminded of the safety and greatness of Hogwarts. Fortunately, he had the rest of the group with him to help in any way. Hermione held out the list of members and was ready to check off any who agreed to join them in their highly dangerous quest. The first few to come across the barrier were Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who were not in the DA, so Harry just let them pass. Next was Neville with his grandma, trying to get there early to get a good seat. Harry decided to ask him right in front of his grandma, hoping that she would encourage that he do something like this to represent his name. He was right to do this, because she insisted that she buy any materials needed to help Neville help them. Neville was pleased to be asked and answered with the same enthusiasm as his grandmother.
"Of course I will help!" he said sounding really excited. "I will also try and get others to come, too."
In no time at all, they were joined by Luna, Dean, Seamus, Lavender, the Patil sisters, who had a long argument with their parents about it, the Creevey brothers, who happily joined just to see Harry in action, Ernie Macmillian, Justin Flinch-Fletchey, Hannah Abbott, Michael Corner and his two friends, and to Harry's surprise, Zacharias Smith. Ten minutes before the train was supposed to leave, Harry's heart dropped at the next DA pair that came through the gates. Cho Chang and Marietta walked through and pushed their way to the train. Harry tried to pretend not to notice, but Hermione made him go and ask her. He walked over to her and Marietta and said:
"Hey Cho."
"Oh, hey Harry," she answered, though not meeting his eyes. "How are you?"
"Fine. I need to ask you something," he looked over his shoulder to make sure that they were out of earshot. "The DA is starting again, would you like to join?"
"Er…ok."
"Great, but the thing is that it isn't just practice anymore."
"What," she asked completely confused.
"Well, er… the thing is… we are testing out our spells in real life, against real enchantments."
"Will we be facing Death Eaters and You-Know-Who?" she asked, white-faced.
"In the end, but first just spells and obstacles that Voldemort placed himself."
"Who else is helping?" she now looked really scared.
"Everyone else accepted, even the most unlikely people. Look," he pointed to where the rest of the DA stood watching them from a way off.
"I dunno Harry… is Marietta invited?"
"No!"
"What?"
"After what happened last time, I would never allow her to help, even if she was on my side."
"Don't you think you are being a little harsh?"
"No. Are you joining, alone, or not?"
After about two minutes of thinking, it seemed like years, she finally answered very slowly.
"What would we do, exactly?"
"First, we would learn higher lever spells, as high as we can learn, and then find and destroy Voldemort's horcruxes."
"What are horcruxes?"
"They are very powerful and very dangerous Dark magic, which Voldemort contains many of. If we destroy them, we will be that much closer to killing Voldemort. I will explain the rest to the whole group when everyone accepted."
"It seems very important that you do that."
"We need as much help as we can get. Please"
"Oh all right. But I might stop at any moment."
"Great. Let's go and tell everyone."
Everyone was happy that they were now facing the darkest evil in the world and that they were with at least twenty other people doing the same, and with the same lack of experience. Fred and George got Lee Jordan to come with them and they took a lot of their own useful inventions. They gave out shield hats and cloaks and gloves, and brought along a lot of distracting toys and darkness powder. Harry also received three new recruits to the DA. After asking his beaters, Peakes and Cootes, they were almost pushed into his leadership form their parents. He was overheard by Cormac Mclaggen, who said that he would help out. Unable to refuse when offered assistance, he said that he could join, but was not glad about it. Amazingly, Harry tracked down Alicia Spinnet, Katie Bell, and Angelina Johnson. They agreed to help, especially because of what happened to Katie with the necklace the previous year. His total number of members was brought to 30.
Harry, and the ones who knew about it, went to the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix and were glad to see that Lupin answered the door. Harry told him of his plan and his group of trusted supporters. He asked if there was any way to alert the Order if they came across any Death Eaters, because they would surely want to help take them to prison. Lupin decided that his communicating coins would be fine, and received a few for the Order. Now that the Order was there for back-up, Harry felt a little safer.
After returning to Hogsmeade, and renting a lot more rooms, they all gathered in Harry's room to learn what they needed to learn. He told them everything that he thought he should tell, and everything that they would need to know. After hours of explanation and answering questions, someone asked where they would be practicing.
"Leave that to me," Harry replied, not knowing where all of them would fit, and be able to practice dangerous spells.
As soon, as they all went back to their rooms, Harry, Ron, and Hermione went for a walk to talk about where there is excessive space.
"I was thinking that we could do in our own rooms, Harry," Ron suggested.
"No, Harry needs to help them, and see how they are doing," Hermione said. "Maybe we could work in the cave where Sirius used to live."
"That is a good idea, Hermione… yeah, we will work there. You two go tell everyone, while I check out the space," Harry answered, wondering how he missed that before.
He walked to the cave and saw that it would be perfect for practicing, and it even had room to store books or any other materials. He found his new training area.
