Disclaimer: If, after twenty five chapters, you have yet to realize that I do not own Harry Potter, then, as my father is fond of telling me: there's help for people like you.
Chapter 25 – Training
"My slippery friend, I was wondering if you would return or not," a cold voice said.
"My Lord, you know that I will always return to you," he answered, kneeling before the Dark Lord Voldemort.
"Indeed," the Dark Lord sneered. "And what news might you have in regards to Potter and his little friends?"
The Death Eater took in a deep breath, knowing that revealing any bad news would result in a very unsavoury reaction towards him.
"My Lord, Potter has enlisted the help of the Blood Traitor Weasleys save Percy, the French Veela from the TriWizard Tournament and her family, and Rita Skeeter from the Daily Prophet to report accurately for them. The Lady Zabini and her daughter could be converted to our side; however, her loyalties lie with her son, and his with Potter. My wife and son are proving more difficult to turn than I had hoped, as both have bonded with Potter and the rest of the Black family."
His Lord gave a thoughtful look. "Indeed? Would you be able to tell me where Potter's home is?"
He swallowed heavily, hoping that this news would not anger his Lord. "No, my Lord, it is under the Fidelius." At Voldemort's disappointed glare, he added, "However, my Lord, I could conceal a tracking device and lead a regiment of those loyal to you - Death Eaters, giants, werewolves, vampires, Dementors, and the like. Or, perhaps, I could kidnap the Greengrass heiress, and use her against Potter."
The Dark Lord observed his shadowed follower, and steepled his fingers under his chin. It almost resembled the deceased Albus Dumbledore's frequent action – not that he would ever tell his Master that.
"Very well, my most loyal of servants. We shall have to plan everything out well, if we make any mistakes, your position will be revealed. Until then, return to your station. I will call for you once I have the details finalized."
"Of course, my Lord." Recognizing a dismissal, he began to leave, only for his Lord to hold him back.
"On second thought, at what time does their training usually end?"
"Around four thirty, my Lord. Might I inquire as to your plans?"
"Of course, my loyal servant. We will attack the heart of Wizarding Britain at four, and I wish for you to be present. I trust that you will be there, but refrain from being caught? I doubt that they would be so likely to accept your 'Imperius excuse' a second time."
"Of course, my Lord." Certain that this was a true dismissal, he hurried to his feet and left, sparing a sneer at Severus Snape, who was likely there to give the Dark Lord a new report on the Original Order, or perhaps the goings on at Hogwarts.
As he wove his way through Nott Manor, approaching the limits to the wards that surrounded the property, he mulled over the disappointment that was his son, as well as his failures to turn his son's friend, Harry Potter, to the Dark side.
When, at the end of his son's second year, the boy had come to him and told him that he had befriended Harry Potter, of all people, he had been understandably skeptical. That had changed when Draco, his son, had invited his former rival to their home for part of the summer, and Harry had accepted.
Their friendship had been decidedly odd, as their families were from completely different extremes of the Magical spectrum. He had been very surprised that they had become friends at all, and he felt himself partly to blame. If he had had a firmer hand in Draco's upbringing, instead of allowing Narcissa free reign, perhaps his heir would have shared his Lord's opinion on Mudbloods and such filth; unfortunately, hindsight oft showed him errors that he could not fix. Thus, his son was much more willing to befriend a half blood from a Light family than he should have been.
Naturally, having someone with as much political clout as the Boy-Who-Lived and heir to the Potter estate as guest, Lucius had attempted to ingratiate himself with the boy, and had even tried to change his views on topics regarding blood purity and types of Magic.
That too had backfired; though the young Potter had begun to practise shadier types of Magic, his attempts to make the boy see that his friends, the Mudblood and the blood traitor, were the wrong sort to befriend fell on deaf ears. Indeed, that only served to estrange the boy from him, although he was glad that he had convinced him that he had been under the Imperius.
Had Potter been more sensible – or perhaps thought about it more recently – he would surely have wondered why an adult Wizard would so freely tell a stranger such private information. Nonetheless, he had believed Lucius' lies of being forced into participation of Death Eater raids.
While it was easy to portray a false front towards Potter and even Draco, it became complicated when Narcissa became suspicious. His wife had never quite believed his tales of being under the Imperius, even though he took great care to hide his cloak and mask from her. By Merlin, he had even obtained the Dark Lord's permission to not be Marked, so that Narcissa and the government never had any proof of his wilful involvement.
Unfortunately, between Narcissa's involvement in Draco's upbringing and his friendship with Harry, Draco had changed. While he was not about to go around hugging Muggles, he also was not as viciously against them as he had originally been.
Lucius Malfoy turned on his heel as he left the wards, appearing back in front of Malfoy Manor, the cultivated lawns and peacocks greeting him. Though he hoped that he would not have to kill his son in the dead of the night, he also knew that if his Lord requested the death of either his son or his wife, he would do so.
After all, sacrifices had to be made for the greater good.
"Congratulations," Sirius said, observing the eight teens that lay on the wooden floor panting, drenched in their own sweat. By some strange coincidence, Hannah had managed to fall directly on top of Blaise, at which Harry rolled his eyes.
Sirius was simply smirking at them, hands behind his back. Continuing his congratulatory speech, he said, "You have officially become fit enough, in my opinion, to start learning advanced Magic, as well as duelling techniques."
They were in an abandoned warehouse in Birmingham; at least, that was what it looked like from the outside. Within, it had been expanded into a massive training ground, complete with a running track, a weight room, and a large, empty space with mattresses covering the ground, clearly meant for when they started to use actual magic.
As tired as they were, neither Harry nor the rest of his 'Inner Circle' heard a door behind them opening. They did, however, hear a clunking noise like wood against wood approaching them, but they had no time to react as four jets of red light came at them from each side; their front and back. Harry was unable to avoid it, and the next thing he knew was darkness.
Harry rubbed his eye wearily as he came to. It took him a moment to remember where he was: he had just been attacked in their warehouse/training grounds. "What happened?" he groaned; his eyes roamed around to see that his friends were in a similar state, though they all seemed healthy and in one piece.
"You got knocked out," Sirius answered, crouching in front of them. "In a real life situation, you'd all be dead right about now. Anyone want to guess what you did wrong?"
Harry saw Daphne's eyes flit around, until they paused on a figure half shrouded in darkness. Her eyes narrowed as the figure stepped into the light, his wooden leg dragging against the ground. "We weren't vigilant," she offered, still staring at the man, whom only she and Harry had noticed.
Sirius nodded as the man stopped behind Draco, before he shouted, "Constant vigilance!" Draco whirled around, emitting a rather feminine squeal as he came face to face with the scarred, distorted visage of Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody.
"Hold on a second," Blaise complained. "You guys surprised us. How were we supposed to know that there would be two of you?"
He got a Stinging Hex to his chest for his troubles, as Moody glared at him. "Foolish boy! You think that your enemies would give you a heads up before they attacked? Do you? Do you think they would rattle off their numbers and positions to you? Of course not! This is war, and in war, you have to constantly be vigilant!"
Blaise had to bite back the urge to remark that Moody's 'constant vigilance' had done him a lot of good when Barty Crouch Jr. had attacked him.
"What are you doing here, Professor Moody?" Neville asked politely but tiredly.
"I don't reckon I was ever much of a Professor for you; just call me Alastor, or Mad-Eye. That's what most call me, anyways," he said, giving a surprisingly genuine smile to him. "And to answer your question: I'm here to train you."
That was all of the warning he had before Moody fired off another Stunner; this time, Tracey shielded it even as Neville sent a Full-Body Binding Jinx in response, which the wizened Auror merely batted away.
"Do I have a sign on me that says: 'Warning: fragile' on it?" he asked rhetorically. "Sending something a little stronger than 'Petrificus Totalus' at me, will you?"
Neville's response was a Bludgeoning Hex at Moody's torso, which was shielded easily, before Moody Stunned Tracey, whose shield had been only covering Neville. A moment later, Neville was bound by a simple Incarcerous, leaving Moody to dance away from the Bone-Breaker that had been heading his way.
Sirius stared at the other six teenagers with a bemused look. "What are you all doing? Get off your arses!" With that, Sirius and Alastor spent the next ten minutes toying with the Order of the Phoebe, before they dispatched the tired students.
"That was, quite simply, pathetic," Sirius said after Enervating the last teen, who happened to be Harry. "We will continue pitting the eight of you against the two of us every day until you can defeat us. Then, we will increase our forces to make it eight against four."
Harry groaned, trying not to flush in embarrassment after that rather humbling defeat. "Who will you be adding first?"
Sirius shrugged. "Whoever we think of first, I guess. Probably Bella and Amy Bones, though."
Susan shuddered at the thought of combat with her Aunty, while Harry replied, "I thought you would have tried to avoid Amelia for a while."
The fugitive Lord Black winced, "I figure it's sort of like Muggles with Band-Aids: if I get rid of the problem quickly and confront it, it may be slightly less painful on my part. Now then," he changed the subject, Summoning a table for them to sit at. "Anyone want to point out their mistakes?"
Draco slammed his head into the table. "We were god-awful as a team, especially considering all of our teamwork exercises in the Room of Requirement."
Sirius nodded, though he said nothing. Neville assumed that this meant that he was expecting more answers, so he offered, "We barely moved. Instead of dodging some of the spells, we remained stationary, so it was just a matter of time until our shields buckled."
When Sirius still remained silent, Hannah added, "We were seriously under-employing our spells. While you two were using just about everything short of Dark Magic, we stayed with Jinxes and moderate Hexes and Curses."
Sirius finally spoke up, "Correct, to all of you. The teamwork was okay, but instead of only shielding oneself, you should have had two on each side to defend while the others attack, and you could easily have switched that up. Also, without dodging, you had to rely frequently on your shields, which limited your chances to go on the offensive. Finally, as Moody said: do we look like we'll break if you hit us with something too hard? If we were Death Eaters, would you have Stunned us? Of course not, because they could easily rejoin the battlefield if their allies Enervated them."
Sirius rubbed his hands together eagerly, and continued, "Now off to strategies!" Tracey's groan went unheard, as the dog animagus went on, "There are a lot of different types of duellers. There are those like Minnie McGonagall, or for a more contemporary example, Remus or Andi, who Transfigure objects. This could be used to defend against a spell or a surprise offensive manoeuvre. The drawback of this is that you could end up wasting energy Transfiguring a piece of rubble into a lion while the enemy has fired off several spells.
"Then there is the Charms Master, like Filius Flitwick, or Narcissa: they'll use the environment to their advantage. This can mean anything, from Animating rubble to attack their foes to making vines restrain them. The only problem is that you have to constantly fuel your Charmed object with Magic, or it will simply stop.
"There are those that like to use both methods: Charms and Transfiguration. The best example of this would be Albus, though as you saw today, Mad-Eye does so as well. They could Transfigure something into, let's say, a toy soldier, and Animate it to attack. The disadvantage is that it requires a lot of power to keep the Magic going as well as the actual Transfiguration, so many don't bother trying it.
"A less common but still effective type is the Pranksters - at least, that's what I call them. They're the people who range from Fred, George and me, who like to use funny spells for surprising effects, to Pettigrew and Prewitt, who don't have enough power to pull off the other types. These guys like to use spells such as the Slug Expeller or Tickler to distract their opponents. When they are down, they finish it off quickly. My personal favourite is the Stubber, a spell that I created. It's based off the Stunner, but it causes the victim to have serious pain in the big toe of their favoured foot. I can show it to you guys, sometime. The drawback is, obviously, that they're generally weak spells. If you know how to Counter them, then they can be dispatched of easily.
"Personally, I prefer to use a combination of Pranking Spells and Charms, because they tend to have similar motions." Alastor cleared his throat as he began to veer off of topic.
"Indeed, my friend, you are correct!" Sirius cried, before stealing Harry's wristwatch and Transfiguring it into a goblet; he then filled it with an Aguamenti. "Sorry, I was really thirsty," he apologized, returning the watch to his glaring godson after drinking it in one swig.
"Anyways, where were we? Oh, right: the final type is Bella or Voldemort. They go all out with power, using everything in their arsenal. These are generally the toughest to fight, because they'll just decimate your shields with raw power before taking you out. Does anybody want to venture a guess as to the drawback of this?"
Susan answered tentatively, "I reckon that if they're really powerful, they might get a bit confident in their abilities."
"That's correct, missy," Mad-Eye grunted. "A lot of fully grown Wizards would have guessed that it would be the drain on their Magic – however, a lot of these have more than enough Magic to spare. Hopefully, by the end of the summer, you will know what category you belong to. There are others, of course, that are less common, and then there are those like Tonks, who use everything. She's pretty adaptable; basically just going with the flow."
As Sirius went to dismiss them early as it was clear that they were too exhausted to learn any more, the door swung open once again, though this time, everyone heard it. They turned around to see Severus Snape walking towards them quickly. "What is it, Snivellus?" Sirius mocked.
"There is an attack on Diagon Alley, you flea bitten mongrel," Snape spat out, onyx eyes glaring at Sirius'.
As the New Order moved to get up, Sirius held up a hand. "Where do you think you're going? The Alley is dangerous, and-"
"Exactly, Sirius: it's dangerous, and the Weasley twins are down there. The Old Order is in shambles, and Aurors are always slow to report. We can't leave this to the mindless sheep that makes up so much of our population!" Harry argued.
Sirius grimaced, but could not find any fault in that argument. Harry stood up slowly, the rest of the New Order following suit. "I guess I'll see you on the other side, Sirius," he said to his godfather, who clasped his hand and pulled him into a manly hug.
"Still never actually fighting, Snivellus?" he snarled at Snape, who had stayed behind as Moody and the Order of the Phoebe left.
"One could say the same to you, Black," the greasy haired Potions Master retorted.
"I'm a bloody fugitive!" Sirius defended. "If I go out there, I'm facing a war on two fronts: on one side, your Death Eating friends aren't my biggest fans, and on the other side, the Aurors will kill me the moment they see me!"
"And the moment I step into the fray next to Potter, my 'Death Eating friends', as you so crudely say it, will know which way my loyalties lie, and the Order's best spy is gone."
"Don't worry, Snivellus, no one will cry over your death. Besides, the Order is in shambles."
"Please Black; don't act like I'm stupid. I know that you and those eight are forming your own little organization. You might be surprised by how much information I could provide you with."
"Such as?"
"That battle going on at Diagon Alley? It hadn't started when I got here. I gave them a chance to limit the casualties; hopefully the Dark Lord will assume that they were just there on coincidence."
Sirius paused at that efficiency. "Why are you here, Snape?"
Snape sat down heavily at the table. "I don't think Potter or his friends should come to Hogwarts this year."
His old Hogwarts nemesis stared at him with a shocked expression. "Excuse me?"
"Unless your time in Azkaban has affected your hearing, you heard me correctly: I recommend that Potter and his friends do not attend Hogwarts this year," he repeated, smirking at his counterpart's fish out of water look.
"And what, pray tell Snivellus, makes you think that that is an even somewhat plausible course of action?"
Severus glared at the bane of his existence. "Oh, I don't know ... maybe the fact that I am the school's Headmaster now?"
Sirius reverted back to his previous expression. "W-what? What happened to Minnie?"
"Nothing," Severus said simply. "The Dark Lord wished to make Hogwarts his: I told Minerva that and that he would dispose of her to make me Headmaster. Oddly enough, she quickly resigned, going back to her station as Transfiguration Professor."
"Why are you telling me this Sniv-Severus?"
"Because, while I may not like your godson, neither do I wish for my own godson to have to deal with the 'tender mercies' of our new Defence and Muggles Studies Professors: Alecto and Amycus Carrow."
Sirius presented him with a gob smacked expression. "Those two fiends? Working at Hogwarts?"
"Indeed," Severus nodded. "Now do you understand why they should stay away from Hogwarts this year? Perhaps train further until they stand a chance against the Dark Lord?"
Sirius nodded unhappily, hating to have to agree with his long-time nemesis. "I will talk to Harry and the others, to gauge their reactions. Hopefully, they will see reason."
Standing up, Severus walked to the door, but paused before leaving. "By the way, apologize to Potter and Ms. Bones for me, will you?"
The request took Sirius aback – why would Snape, whose goal in life seemed to make Harry's own miserable, want to apologize to him? "What for?"
"The Dark Lord wished for me to change the Head Boy and Girl to two of his own: Lily Moon and Ron Prewitt." Severus chuckled inwardly at the gaping expression on Sirius' face, and muttered, "Mangy mutt," before closing the door behind him.
The Order of the Phoebe's Inner Circle jogged to the edge of the wards. They each pulled hooded cloaks on, with a Full Moon on the back, under which a broom hovered – an homage to Luna and Katie. They also withdrew their wands, before Apparating to Diagon Alley, prepared for battle.
Thus, they were quite surprised when they were greeted by a fairly busy – considering that a war was going on – Alley. "What's going on?" Neville asked, pulling Tracey into a shadow.
The others quickly joined them, not wanting to draw attention to themselves. "Sev's outdone himself this time," Draco whispered, pointing at the corner of Knockturn Alley, where they could see somewhere between a dozen and a score of cloaked figures standing. "He gave us enough of a heads up that they haven't even attacked yet."
Harry stared at the Wizards and, presumably, Witches for a moment. "They must be waiting for some sort of a signal," he muttered. Looking around quickly, he noticed Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes only a few shops away. After casting a Disillusionment spell on himself, he hurried to the store, the other seven and Moody following his shadow.
"Fred, George!" he said after weaving around shelves full of odd merchandise.
The twins looked around, searching for the voice. "Who is it?" one asked.
"Your silent partner," Harry whispered back. "There will likely be an attack on the Alley within a few minutes. Can you get these people out of here, or to a safe place?"
The twin who had spoken nodded, "Of course. Old Snakeface had already been back when we started this up, so we have cellars sort of like the one in Honeyduke's, which leads into Muggle London close to the Leaky Cauldron."
Without waiting for a response, the other twin raised a wand to his throat, which the New Order took as a sign to get out to avoid the stampede. "Sonorus. People of Magical Britain! An anonymous tip has been given that there may be an attack on the Alley. Please stay calm, and follow my almost-as-good-looking-as-me twin brother."
Naturally, the Magicals within the building immediately started acting like chickens with their heads cut off. Somehow, Gred and Forge managed to herd them into their cellar, just as an explosion racked Diagon Alley.
The New Order quickly dropped their disillusioning charms, and stepped out of the store, Mad-Eye brandishing his wand.
Harry and Draco both stopped dead in their tracks for different reasons – Harry, because one of the twenty or so Death Eaters milling around, causing confusion and killing innocents had a silver hand.
"Pettigrew's mine," he quickly snarled at the group. "If engaged, try not to kill him, as he is the key to Sirius' freedom."
Draco, on the other hand was staring, slack-jawed, at a Death Eater whose platinum blonde hair was remarkably familiar.
"Dad?"
A/N: A bit of a filler chapter, but the next will have more action. Please review to let me know what you thought, or if you have any suggestions (unless the suggestion is ridiculous, like for Harry to have a harem with Daphne, Hannah's French twin, Gabrielle Delacour, and a resurrected Luna or something like that).
Betrayal: I bet no one saw Lucius' betrayal coming ... I certainly didn't! It just sort of happened.
Next Chapter: Stay tuned for the Battle of Diagon Alley! And possibly an amusing scene, but I thought of it at one in the morning, so it may not be too funny. Actually, how about whoever has my favourite review for this chapter in the next 24 hours (since I generally don't start a new chapter for a day) will get a PM from me pitching the idea, and they can help me decide whether or not to use it. Just as a bit of motivation to review.