A/N: First off, I would like to thank a few of my more critical reviewers for having pointed things out that inspired a bit of change in the story. First off, in light of HugeHarryPotterFan's observation that it would be too risky for Harry to send out an owl giving away his location, the note to the D.A. from last chapter has been revised. I'm currently kicking myself for having written it that way in the first place. And "TheUnknown4's" comments helped to inspire Harry's decision to be more vague than he (and I) had previously planned while talking to Luna and Neville by pointing out reasons why Harry should limit the number of people he tells. I find it flows better this way anyway. Thus, thanks to all of my reviewers, including the critical ones, and I hope this helps to prove that I really do mean it when I say I'm trying to make this story a good and believable one. Also, Old-Crow asked how I got my dates for when Voldemort and McGonagall attended Hogwarts. I got my information at the Harry Potter Lexicon, www dot hp-lexicon dot org. Anyway, enjoy this chapter, please.

Chapter 7

Grindelwald's Defeat

For the next several days, Harry did what he could to stop thinking about the journal. He had enough else to concentrate on, as it was. First off, he had a D.A. club to figure out how to run.

It looked like a decent number of the club were coming back. Justin Finch-Fletchley, for one, was coming back. As was Hannah Abbot. The Creevey brothers were staying home, though, which somewhat upset Harry. Even if they were rather annoying sometimes, they were really loyal, and at least had their hearts in the right place. But their muggle parents had heard bits and pieces of the events that were going on at Hogwarts that year (apparently, the Ministry had felt it to be its duty to keep the parents of muggle-borns at Hogwarts informed of events in the Wizarding world), just enough, apparently, to decide that it was an unfit place for their children to attend school. Harry hoped that whenever the war was resolved, they would be able to come back to Hogwarts like the Patils were planning to.

Lavender planned to come back to the club as well, a revelation that Ron had not been overly thrilled about. She had at least been civil in her letter, though. Apparently, the fact that she was now dating Dean allowed her to put Ron behind her. At least that was how Harry had read the message, "And tell Ron that, you know, I hope it won't be awkward for him to see me there. 'Cause I think he's an all right guy, most days."

"Eloquent, that one," Ron joked, when Harry showed him what his previous girlfriend had wrote.

Zacharias Smith would not be returning either, although Harry hadn't been able to get himself too worked up over that revelation. In fact, he hadn't even heard it from Smith himself, but instead from Anthony Goldstein, who had been another member of the original D.A. Apparently he was still in sporadic communication with Smith, and informed Harry that he wouldn't be attending school instead of actually forwarding the letter to Smith. Harry found the move to be a wise one, as he reckoned Smith may not have forwarded the letter. Anthony Goldstein, on the other hand was returning to school, and would continue with the D.A.

Another problem Harry was trying to work out was exactly what he was going to tell Neville and Luna when he met with them at Weasleys' Wizards Wheezes later that month. He figured he was at least going to have to tell them that he was off on a mission to try to thwart Voldemort, but he wasn't too sure whether he should tell him about the Horcruxes, and if so, how much he should tell them. He strongly believed that they were trustworthy, but if they did end up getting captured, then they could be forced to reveal more than they wanted to against their will. Of course, if Luna or Neville were to get captured, then Harry reckoned he would have bigger problems than whether Voldemort knew that Harry knew about the Horcruxes. Still, it might be best if they didn't know any of the specifics. For instance, it was conceivable that if Voldemort knew that Harry knew that Nagini and Hufflepuff's cup were Horcruxes, he might at least go about making the Horcruxes harder to find. So, maybe he would just tell Neville and Luna that there were some things that he needed to look for in order to beat Voldemort.

Harry tried running this plan by Ron, but he wasn't much help. Harry had the feeling that Ron probably would have agreed with most anything Harry said so as to avoid an argument. As soon as Ginny got home after a week of taking her O.W.L.'s, Harry asked her her opinion as well. That is to say, he consulted her right after he was done assuring her that he was sure she must have done a great job on her O.W.L.'s. She seemed to think that Harry's planned explanation for Luna and Neville seemed reasonable.

But Harry still felt that he needed Hermione's assessment before he made his plans final. It wasn't that he felt he wasn't an effective leader on his own or anything, but he still valued Hermione's opinion. She was, after all, the cleverest student in all of Hogwarts, and had been with him from the beginning.

She got back to the Burrow on a Friday, on the day before they were set to go to Diagon Alley. After exchanging formal greetings in front of the rest of the Weasleys at the dinner table, Hermione, Harry, Ginny, and Ron went off to Ginny's room to have one of their increasingly popular four-person conferences.

"So, did you get any leads while I was gone?" asked Hermione, as soon as the door was shut. She had been kept in the dark about anything regarding the Horcruxes or the D.A. while she was at her parents house because it wasn't worth risking the message being intercepted.

"No. That Rowena woman really doesn't seem all that eager to help us out. Besides, she seems to be such a show-off know it all that if she did know something about the Horcruxes, I don't much see her keeping it to herself," said Harry.

Hermione looked for a second as if she was considering being offended by the reference to a show-off know it all, but decided against it. "You're sure you got all the information out of it that you can?"

"Well... no," admitted Harry. "But I can't really think of how to convince her to help either. So I've been giving that a rest and thinking more about the D.A. I've been doing loads of research on defensive spells and stuff, and I was thinking of distributing some spells to each Neville, Luna, and Ginny to have them teach the rest of us. My main issue right now is how much we really ought to tell them. I've been having some doubts about whether I should tell them all about the Horcruxes. I think that maybe if I'm just vague about where it is that the three of us will be going, that might be best."

"That's probably not a bad idea," agreed Hermione. "Especially as Professor Dumbledore himself limited the number of people he told, so it seems that it would be best for you to do the same. And there were certainly a lot of people that Dumbledore thought he could trust that he didn't tell about this. Like Snape. And it's good he didn't."

"You're not suggesting that Neville or Luna might be a traitor, are you?" asked Ginny.

"Of course not," said Hermione. "I'm just saying that there were things that even Dumbledore couldn't foresee, and so he was wise to be cautious. And we should follow that example."

"Motion seconded," said Ron, grinning.

And so the stage was set for the next day's meeting with the other leaders for the upcoming year of the D.A.

Harry woke up in a fairly good mood, and ate breakfast in a more cheerful manner than he normally would have done. He was rather looking forward to seeing Luna and Neville, not to mention the Weasley twins, who were always good for a laugh, at least.

Still, something happened during breakfast that morning that rather caught him off his guard. An official looking owl came through the window. Ginny had been looking up to the window out of habit (she had had a tense time waiting for her O.W.L. results during the past couple weeks) but by the time the owl had gotten there, she remembered that she had already gotten her O.W.L. results. The results, incidentally were good enough to allow her to continue in Herbology, Potions, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Transfiguration, which was good because not only would it allow her to get a good general education (considering that she was not yet entirely sure what she wanted to do after Hogwarts), but it would also mean she could use Hermione's old notes to help her study, since Hermione seemed to save all the notes she had ever taken.

It turned out that the official looking owl had a letter for Harry instead. It bore the Hogwarts' Crest and when opened read as follows,

"The Late Headmaster's portrait has cordially reminded me (several times today, actually) that you still have not seen the other memory which he left to you. He's quite insistent that it's rather important and should be shown to you at your earliest possible convenience, preferably this weekend. If you could just pop into my fire to let me know when you'll be coming, that would be helpful so that I can de-activate the nastier security precautions to allow you to enter safely.

Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Headmistress, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Harry promptly asked Mrs. Weasley if he could use some Floo Powder, and stuck his head into the fire, assuming that McGonagall would be up and in her office, in spite of the earliness of the hour, considering that she had not specified a more appropriate time in her letter.

It turned out that Harry was correct in assuming that the Headmistress would be present, but she was apparently not in a very talkative mood, as she simply nodded and said, "Yes, that will do," when he informed her that he would have to put the meeting off until the next day considering that he was going to Diagon Alley that day.

Unsure of what else to say, Harry simply said, "Right then, well... I'll just go do that then, shall I?" and pulled his head back out of the fire. Harry reckoned that the tension surrounding her new position as Headmistress must be giving McGonagall a lot of stress to make her that laconic. He cringed slightly at the thought of Transfiguration lessons with the woman, which were set to start in less than two weeks.

Six hours later, after Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, along with their Order chaperones, had hit all the necessary spots in Diagon Alley, they made their way to the twins' shop to meet with Luna and Neville.

When Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny entered into the twins' shop at about ten 'til three that afternoon, they were greeted by Fred and George themselves.

"How much of a hurry are you in?" asked Fred, no sooner than they had let themselves through the door. Harry had, of course, requested their permission to hold the meeting there, so Fred knew that Harry had an appointment.

"Not too much," said Harry after glancing at his watch. "Why, what's up?"

"Well..." said George, as he and Fred approached the group to a distance at which none of the other customers could catch what they were saying, "we've got a new product we thought you might want to... er... sample."

Harry surveyed their faces and noticed a pair of malicious grins with which he found himself not entirely comfortable. "This isn't another line of skiving snackboxes or something, is it?"

"Of course not," said Fred, allowing his grin to widen. "We've got paid employees to test that kind of thing on."

"With their expressed consent, of course," George hastened to add, after catching a rather nasty glance from Hermione.

"Of course," agreed Fred. "But anyway... here it is." He surprised Harry by pulling from the pocket of his robes something that looked like a muggle lighter.

"You see... what this does is... you point it at something," said George, pointing the end of the object which contained a button toward a package of ton tongue toffees.

"Then you click it," explained Fred, as George clicked the object, "and the object becomes invisible." He grinned with pride as the package of toffees did indeed become invisible.

"You click the button a second time to make the thing visible again, so you can only use it for one object at a time. And of course, the object never really vanishes, it'll still be there if a person touches it, but it's still worth a few laughs, you know? We call it an 'enshrouder' by the way. We figured that since you're going back to school with dear old Filch this year, we'd give you the prototype so, that you can mess with him and... anyone else you like really," said George, handing the enshrouder to Harry, after having first clicked its button to allow the package of toffees to reappear.

"But especially Filch," specified Fred.

"Not that we hold a grudge or anything. We're far too mature for grudges," said George.

"It just strikes us," clarified Fred, "that even though we're currently in a large-scale war with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named at the moment, doesn't mean we should forget the small-scale villains of our world."

"'Course, without him, we never would have found the Marauders' Map," conceded George.

"Ah, the good old days," said Fred with a reminiscent smile.

Harry, meanwhile, was pointing the enshrouder half-heartedly in various directions trying to decide what he would test it out on first. When he happened to point it toward Ginny, George spoke up again, "Oh, and we probably ought to tell you that it tends to work best on smaller objects. For instance, it won't work on people."

"But it does tend to make their clothes disappear," said Fred, with a grin. Then, he made quite an effort to straighten his face into a more serious expression with which to look at Hermione when he said, "Although that is in no way the kind of behavior we would endorse."

"But seriously," said George, thoughtfully, "no pointing it at our sister, mate."

"Oh, right," said Harry, his face reddening slightly as he shoved the enshrouder in his pocket for safe-keeping.

At that moment, Neville walked into the shop, followed by his grandmother, who looked decidedly out of place surrounded by joke equipment. However, she made an ardent attempt to browse the items on sale as her grandson made his way over to Harry and the others. Apparently, Neville had already told his grandmother that he was there to discuss matters which could only be discussed in private with Harry Potter. No doubt, his grandmother had been pleased enough with the prospect of Neville meeting on any kind of important business at all that she had swallowed any complaints that she might have had about waiting for him.

Luna floated in a few moments later, and Fred and George led them back to the storage room.

"Not exactly a conference room," said Fred.

"But you know, our main investor seemed to think that jokes were more important than conferences, so what can you do?" asked George, with a grin at Harry.

With that, Fred and George exited the room, Fred calling, "We'll make sure to keep our staff busy out here, nobody will be back here to bother you."

Hermione quickly put up an Imperturbable Charm on the door to prevent eavesdroppers as Harry wondered whether it was paranoia or wise caution that would prompt fear of eavesdroppers at a joke shop.

Harry surveyed the group before speaking, conscious, as he always was when he was in a formal leadership position, of the habit of everyone's eyes to focus on him. He shook this self-conscious feeling off fairly quickly though. After all, it wasn't as if people's eyes didn't tend to gravitate toward him even when he wasn't trying to lead them.

Hermione, Ron, and Ginny were sitting comfortably on some boxes. Confident that they had probably heard everything Harry was going to say already anyhow, they were mostly there as a formality. Neville, however, looked fairly excited to be included in the meeting in the first place. Luna looked as if she was not entirely aware of her surroundings at all.

"So, er... As you all know, I've been asked to continue Dumbledore's Army this term. However, I've got some other pressing matters that I will need to attend to next school year as well, including a search for certain objects which I need to find before I can face Voldemort." Harry had perfectly crafted this statement to be as ambiguous as possible. He hadn't actually lied, but had still managed to make it sound more as if he was trying to find weapons to fight with rather than to destroy Voldemort's defense strategy, which was much closer to the truth. When faced with this tantalizing tidbit, Neville gaped a bit, almost falling off the edge of the box he was sitting on. Even Luna looked mildly interested.

"Hermione and Ron will probably be coming with me on my searches, so I'm going to need some people to lead the D.A. if I ever happen to be absent during a meeting, or... or an emergency like we had at the end of last term. Everybody in this room performed spectacularly that night, and you've proven yourself capable of handling anything the Death-Eaters can throw at you." Harry found his voice rising a bit, quite independently of his own will-power.

"Also, it wouldn't be fair to the D.A. to only have me teach them. If we combine our resources and time, we can come up with far better meetings than I could do on my own. So, Ginny, Neville, and Luna, in addition to filling in as the leadership of the club when Ron, Hermione, and I are gone, you'd also help lead the group while I'm there. You can also help out with publicity and stuff like that, to replenish the numbers of the club now that fewer people will be attending the school this year, not to mention the numbers we've lost to natural graduation. I think Ernie MacMillan was right two years ago when he said that learning Defense Against the Dark Arts is the most important thing we can do at school, and I can't think of any people better than the three of you to help teach it," Harry concluded. "So, now that you know the details, are you still in?"

Neville nodded fiercely, and Luna nodded in a more calm manner, while Ginny simply gave a half-nod which was unnecessary as Harry had already known her answer.

"All right. Unfortunately, then, the first thing I'm going to have to do is give you a bit of homework. Why don't each of you pick one defensive spell that we haven't yet covered in the meetings that you think you could learn and teach to the rest of the group? Then, at the first couple meetings, that's how we'll start things off. Sound good?" asked Harry.

"Sure," said Neville quickly.

"Works for me," said Luna quietly.

"Sure, whatever," said Ginny in a mock passive-agressive tone. She was able to keep a straight face for a good two seconds before breaking out into a grin.

"Harry, I know we're not, like, official generals or whatever..." started Hermione. "But do you reckon Ron and I should look up spells too?"

"Well, I kinda thought that once we got back to school, you might be more occupied in using the Hogwarts Library to try to do research on the stuff we're searching for, but if you think you'll have time, feel free," responded Harry.

"I'm sure we can make some time," said Hermione.

"Sure thing, mate," agreed Ron with a grin.

The next day, early in the afternoon, Harry found himself facing McGonagall at her desk, upon which Dumbledore's Pensieve sat once again.

Before putting Dumbledore's memory into the Pensieve, McGonagall surveyed Harry across the desk. She had a tired look on her face that somehow reminded Harry of Dumbledore.

"Have you put any thought into how you're going to run Dumbledore's Army this year, then?" asked McGonagall.

"Yes, in fact, I met with Neville and Luna yesterday. They and Ginny have each agreed to be sort of stand-in leaders for when Hermione, Ron, and me are away searching for the Horcruxes, and to help research spells and stuff while we're busy doing research," said Harry.

"Very good. And has Rowena's journal been much help in that search?" asked McGonagall.

"Not so much as I had hoped, no. She's a very hard person to get along with," said Harry.

"She was worse in person," replied McGonagall. "I remember in my Fifth year, being a prefect and trying to keep her from mouthing off to me. Thought she was so clever, that one. Of course, I never expected her journal to be a cure-all solution, and I'd be surprised if she knows much more than we do. Of course, I couldn't get her to give me a straight answer on that, when I was looking at the journal... She'd just keep asking me if I really thought that I, being a Gryffindor, had figured out more than she, a Ravenclaw. But frankly, I'm surprised that she was even able to find one Horcrux, so I wouldn't put too much hope in finding out much more from her. Still, if you continue to find yourself at a dead-end, you've got one source that you can always go back to, in whatever doses you can handle her."

Harry smiled at his Headmistress, vaguely amused to recognize in her voice the irritation that had reigned within himself during his brief encounters with Rowena.

"At any rate," said McGonagall, frowning slightly, "why don't we let you see this memory so that you may be on your way?"

"All right," agreed Harry as McGonagall took a phial full of Dumbledore's memories from the cupboard and poured it into the Pensieve.

"Now, the letter with my instructions on it mentioned that this was actually a string of memories, so you may be in there for awhile," warned McGonagall.

"Okay, said Harry, as he tipped himself once more into Dumbledore's pensieve.

He found the old man sitting once again at his desk.

"Ah, Harry, back again," said Dumbledore, with a small smile. "Ironically, I actually recorded this memory before recording my final message to you, so for me, you'd actually be back a first time. But, be that as it may, I have something rather important to show you. I have no idea at present how far along you will be on the quest for the Horcruxes when you view this memory, but I hope that you will have, at most, three left to find, as the locket will hopefully be destroyed later on tonight. It may seem like the final Horcruxes will take forever to find, but you have Professor McGonagall there to help you, as well as Ron and Hermione, so I'm sure you will find them somehow. Your resourcefulness has not stopped amazing me yet. With this in mind, we would do well to look forward to a time when you have destroyed all of the Horcruxes and find yourself ready to seek battle with a fully mortal Voldemort. I am not sure that you will be fully prepared to use Unforgivable Curses at that time, and I am also not entirely sure that I would want you to be, considering the types of emotions required to cast such spells, and the emotional scarring that can go along with them. With this in mind, I would like to show you another option, although I would never presume to deny you of your right to deal with your parents' murderer in whatever way you see fit. What you are about to see is my battle with the Dark Wizard Grindelwald back in 1945. You will probably not understand all of what you see at first glance, but I am about to create another memory in which I shall explain it to you. So, I'll see you in a bit. Or, you'll see me, at any rate."

Dumbledore's office dissolved around him, and momentarily, Harry found himself in the midst of a battle. He heard the sounds of screaming, of walls cracking, and of curses being mumbled before he was able to place where he was or what was going on.

He realized that he was indoors, and as he looked around some more, he realized that he was in the Atrium to the Ministry of Magic. The Fountain of the Magical Brethren had not yet been installed, but Harry still recognized the area due to the magical elevators lining its sides and its high ceiling.

At the moment, no less than a hundred wizards and witches were crammed into the space. Harry searched around for one he could recongized, and found himself unable to do so until his eyes fell on Albus Dumbledore.

Dumbledore and his opponent were standing toward the center of the room about five paces from each other. Everyone else was scattered around, though everyone seemed to maintain a respectful distance from Dumbledore and the man who Harry was now sure was Grindelwald, although he had never seen a picture of the man.

Grindelwald looked to be about 50, and had long black hair which was showing signs of graying. He was clothed in robes of black and red. He was moving his wand quickly through the air, no doubt making the appropriate movements to go along with spells which he was performing non-verbally. Periodically, jets of light would fly out of his wand.

Dumbledore, however, seemed to be defending himself quite capably, swishing his own wand back and force as well, also not needing to say his spells out loud. Harry was reminded of the time just over a year ago when he had seen Dumbledore do battle with Voldemort in this very room. However, Harry noted, Grindewald was not quite as skilled as Voldemort, while Dumbledore, if anything, was even more skillful than he would be when he faced Voldemort. Perhaps age had affected the great wizard after all.

While the people around the atrium dueled, and screamed, and fought, and died, leaving their surviving opponent to find another enemy, Grindewald and Dumbledore remained locked in their bitter struggle, each seeming to have an answer to the other's spell until Dumbledore finally spoke a spell out loud.

"Pathei Emou," said Dumbledore in a strong voice which seemed to carry throughout the hall.

The spell, which was a beam of gold-white light, hit Grindewald, but seemed to have no physical effect. He stood still for a moment, gazing at Dumbledore, but his wand had stopped moving. Slowly, his wand armed dropped. He fell to his knees, the battle still raging around him. Dumbledore, with a look of grim satisfaction, lowered his own wand as the Dark Wizard Grindewald let out a wail. Slowly, one by one, the supporters of Grindewald throughout the Atrium lowered their wands in confusion, shocked by the behavior of their leader. Those fighting on Dumbledore's side began to cast stunning spells on their disheartened enemies. The battle had been won. But Harry had no idea how.

The battle dissolved around him, and he found himself once more in Dumbledore's office.

"What happened there?" asked Harry, forgetting for an instant that Dumbledore could not hear him.

"An odd spell, that one," commented Dumbledore airily. "You see, what it does is, it allows the caster to force an emotional memory on their opponent. The memory involved is on a different level than one that can be stored in a Pensieve, though. You see, a memory stored in a Pensieve is objective, anyone can look at it, and they see it from a third person perspective, much as you are doing now. But if you use the spell that you just saw me use, you make the person live the memory, just as you did, full of emotions. Grindelwald, like Voldemort, was sadly deficient in the ability to love. It was his greatest weakness, but in some ways, his greatest strength. He was able to kill anyone he wanted without any thought of the love that others could feel for the person he was killing. So what I did was, I forced a memory upon him of how I felt for the woman I had once loved.

"In that instant, he understood for the first time in his life the beauty of love; quite against his own will, of course. And a sorcerer finds it impossible to properly perform dark magic while overcome with the emotion of love. Of course, this does not mean that all Death Eaters have never loved, it simply means that they are able to force the emotion out of their mind for long enough to perform their dark magic. But with Grindelwald, I had forced the emotion upon him, bringing it to the forefront of his mind. He lost the will to fight, and beside that, he was tormented psychologically by the concept of love. It went against everything he had done in the past several years. I am not sure what made him wail as if in pain during the memory that you just saw. It could have been guilt for all the atrocities he had committed, or it could have been immense hatred and disgust for the emotion that he was being forced to feel. Either way, he was taken out of the battle on a psychological level, and so he and all of his closest supporters were rounded up. He was administered the Dementor's Kiss less than a week later. You know how I feel about that form of punishment, but although I attempted to plead for imprisonment for the man, his case was lost once the effects of the spell wore off and he started spouting off about how much he hated everyone and how he would kill us all if given half the chance.

"In case you were wondering, by the way, about the woman who I loved, she was a woman who I had known when I was much younger, in my thirties. We had fallen in love, and we had gotten married, but unfortunately, she was fated to die young. And yet my love for her had been so strong that I was able to call up a memory during which it had been particularly strong, and use that to defeat Grindelwald. I believe that such a spell may work for you as well, given Voldemort's usual reaction when forced to feel love, so I would ask you at least to have McGonagall teach you the spell or have someone else teach you. That way, you can use it if you see fit. And now, once again, Harry, I must bid you farewell." Dumbledore smiled serenely and then he waved at Harry as the memory dissolved around him and Harry found himself back in the Headmaster's office of the present day, finding himself once again emerging from Dumbledore's pensieve with tears welling up in his eyes.

A/N: All right, so there's that. Next chapter we should finally see the trio (and assorted other characters...) back at Hogwarts. Admittedly, some of the stuff in this chapter was just there because it had to be mentioned, but there were bits that I liked, at least. And I'm hoping that I pulled off the Grindelwald-battle/spell thing all right, so if you're trying to think of something to comment on in a review, I'd love to know your opinion about that. The inspiration for the spell, incidentally, comes partially from a quote I've heard that says something to the extent of that if each man knew the pain in each others' past, they'd be unwilling to cause each other more pain. If anyone knows the quote that I'm talking about, and could remind me who said it, or a more exact wording, that'd be appreciated too. But otherwise, a review about the chapter in general would be great. As always, positive or negative reviews are welcome. And thanks for reading!