Chapter 52: The Coalition
Happy Wednesday morning everyone, you get a surprise chapter! This is a bit shorter than usual, but it kind of had to end where it did. (You'll see.) Hopefully the next one will come up soon and might be quite a bit longer to make up for it.
Thank you so much to everyone for your amazing reviews, support for my academic adventures, and overall awesomeness. I'm trying to get this completed over the summer, but I won't sacrifice quality for speed and these characters really have minds of their own so I can't ever truly predict what they'll do. Anyway, on with the show, so to speak. And a special welcome to LFA, who left me happy reviews on more than half of the existing chapters while binging the story over the last week or so. *curtsies*
After a month of group training sessions, the ad hoc groups into which they had initially been sorted began to run together. While seeing a sweat-drenched Molly Weasley shooting dirty looks at Moody while attempting to catch her breath sprawled on the training room floor had been amusing, more so for the other Weasleys of the group, some of whom (Arthur) hid it better than others (Fred and George), it had a leavening effect on the collective mood of the order members to see everyone beginning to come together as an equally-matched force.
As the sessions progressed, those in the "conditioning" group regained the fighting stamina they'd had at the peak of the first war. While previously a sweaty mess of limbs and scowls, Poppy Pomfrey and Molly Weasley seemed to bond over some shared spirit of a perpetual caregiver that unleashed both of their inner 'mamma bears' into a truly alarming duo. As had been the case with the discovery of Neville's shielding ability in the early days of the DA, it seemed their powers were unlocked when defending others, especially the younger members of the group. During one multi-pair dueling session Molly and Poppy had been dueling each other next to an in-progress duel between Ginny and Kingsley. Kingsley got off a good stinging hex just at the right moment, catching Ginny in the left shoulder and causing her to squeal in pain, and, without communicating it to each other, both elder women immediately abandoned their duel and shot spells at Kingsley. Later, after Kingsley had been rennervated, he had a hard time explaining to the group just what it felt like to be hit with a freezing spell of that magnitude at the exact same time as he was hit with that strong of a burning hex. After that, Molly and Poppy seemed to prowl the room as a pair as often as could be managed.
Those who had been in the "remedial spellwork" group, mainly younger DA members, had all made frighteningly quick progress and were now dueling at the level that was expected of most incoming auror candidates. After Neville had, albeit accidentally, shot off his first wandless shield spell, there was a murmur between the teachers in the room that if a student as previously hesitant and accident-prone as Neville could master wandless magic in such a short time, after the war they would definitely need to incorporate that level of rigorous training into the Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum.
However, it was the "advanced dueling" group that made Hermione's heart swell with pride. Fred and George Weasley seemed to have picked up fairly quickly on the closeness between Harry and Draco. Whether they knew it was of a romantic nature was still undetermined but they were uniquely qualified to recognize a symbiotic relationship when they saw one. They had dubbed Draco "the long-lost, blond Weasley" and took every opportunity to refer to him as 'little brother', ruffle his hair affectionately, or generally take the mickey out of him at any available opportunity. In exchange, Draco began letting them in on some of the spells (of borderline acceptability to the purely light category of spells) he had been taught growing up in the shadow of Lucius Malfoy. During one duel Fred hit Lupin with a spell that made him stun himself with his own wand. The spell Fred used looked mostly like a confundus charm but close enough to a certain unforgivable to raise more than one eyebrow. Fred and George laughed amongst themselves, but moments later, after the attention had gone off them, they both could be seen giving affectionate hair ruffles to a certain smirking slytherin.
Much to Albus' great, twinkling pleasure and Hermione's maternal pride, Harry had grown into his leadership role quite seamlessly. The DA members were used to looking up to him, but, upon the integration of the DA with the Order, Harry had taken in stride his role as a man, a warrior, and a peer of people who had been in the first war. Though he never made Sirius' mistake of calling Harry by his father's name, anyone who had seen the Marauders in action could see the friendship between the two had progressed to that of equals and of friends.
There were only a few bumps in the road as the DA, the Order, the recruited members of the Hogwarts staff, and the few Slytherins that fit quite obviously into none of these categories. Narcissa was the most obvious target for potential issues, she had after all spent over two decades married to Voldemort's lieutenant and the monster was currently living in her house. However, her physical transition back to Narcissa Black along with her willing participation in the veritaserum questioning session seemed to have allayed most people's fears about her loyalty.
What ice wasn't broken by these two features was quickly smashed by the witch's quick wit, biting sarcasm, and almost immediate friendships forged with many key figures on the side of the light. She and Minerva seemed to gravitate towards each other in duels in the same way Poppy and Molly seemed to pair up. Together their lightning-quick reflexes coupled with a vast knowledge of spellwork and a rather alarming lack of anything resembling mercy or pity for their opponents to make them a very formidable team indeed. On breaks, she could often be found with the Weasley twins, either aiding them in tormenting Draco, though in a much more understated and tongue in cheek way, or speaking very softly as the two waited silently on her every word, an act which would have alerted anyone who had ever known the twins that they were up to no good even without the presence of the twins' delightedly mischievous grins as they listened to the Slytherin matriarch. It was actually Hermione and Narcissa who displayed the greatest degree of friendship. It was a Slytherin friendship to be sure, consisting mostly of knowledgeable looks, winks, and subtle gestures across the room, but the casually dropped comment here or there displayed just how much time the two were spending together outside the training sessions and behind closed doors.
Draco had initially been given a bit of a rough hard time by some of the less-forgiving DA members, especially those whom he had previously spent a great deal of time mocking, but it was so overwhelmingly obvious that he not only had the trust of Dumbledore, but the trust, friendship, and protection of Harry and Hermione as well that most were smart enough to bury whatever hatchets needed burying and accept him as an ally. However, after spending more than an hour with the 'real' Draco, as Harry referred to the way Draco acted when outside the gaze of the other Slytherin students, it was pretty obvious to everyone that he was a very different person than the pompous ferret they had known for the last six years.
It was unfortunately Pansy who dealt with the most antagonistic behavior from the other students. She didn't have Narcissa's physical changes or veritaserum to vouch for her change of heart, nor did she have the clear change in personality that belied Draco's shift in loyalties. While she had no love lost for the Dark Lord or the family that sold her off to be a child bride, her personality remained that of the same snarky, quiet, and judgemental girl she had always been. While this snark was no longer directed towards the other members of the DA, it did little to ingratiate them to her presence either. She mainly got by in the same manner she had escaped her family's ire for so many years, by staying in the back of rooms, hiding in crowds, and making herself as invisible as she could without disillusioning herself. This mostly worked for her, but on one occasion backfired quite noticeably with some amusing results.
During the cool down session one day Dean, Seamus, and Ron had been joking around over some stretches. Dean made a less-than-gentlemanly comment about the reasons for which a female would choose to join the Death Eaters, when Seamus responded through a chuckle that someone should ask Parkinson. Before Seamus had been able to finish uttering the punctuation at the end of his offensive comment, he was on his back with Ron Weasley kneeling on his chest, forearm pressed across his windpipe, and wand pressed between his eyes.
"Do. Not. Talk. That. Way. About. My. Pansy." Ron uttered each word with a quiet and deadly calm that was even more terrifying coming from a Weasley much more known for red-faced fits of blustering anger and ranting.
"What the hell, mate?" Seamus choked out, wiggling in a vain attempt to escape. Ron's grip didn't shift or loosen in the slightest as he stared directly into the Irishman's now-watering eyes.
"She has been through more in the last month than you'll experience in your whole life and she has handled it without once stooping to the disgusting level you just reached. If you could see half of the strength and honor and goodness she has you would love her just as much as I do." Ron finished resolutely, not realizing what he had said until the sound of a familiar throat being cleared behind him made him scramble off Seamus' chest and onto his feet.
"Love me?" A very amused looking Pansy Parkinson was inspecting the redhead with a glint of a smile in her eyes.
"Erm, yeah," Ron shuffled his feet and blushed to match his hair as his brain finally caught up with what his mouth had done. "Is that a problem?" He asked timidly.
Pansy broke into the first real smile any of the DA members had ever seen as she shook her head silently, beaming at Ron. After a few shared seconds of ear to ear smiles Pansy seemed to remember her surroundings and leaned her torso to the side to peer around Ron to the still-prone Seamus.
"You okay down there, Finnegan?" she asked in honest concern.
The Irishman shook his head as if to clear it and smiled goodnaturedly, "I'll be alright. I'm sorry for what I said. I obviously didn't know what I was talking about," he glanced at Ron, "Remind me not to mess with your bloke anytime soon, eh?"
The huge smile returned to Pansy's face as she shook her head almost disbelievingly at Ron. Ron still hadn't stopped smiling by the time Dean had finished helping Seamus up. He offered Pansy his arm as they went to leave the room at the end of the night.
She took his arm and gave him another warm smile before resting her head on his shoulder as they walked.
"Me too, by the way."
Ron still hadn't stopped smiling when they arrived at training in Severus' gym the next morning.
Draco couldn't have been less excited to be back at his childhood home. However, nostalgia tends to take the backseat when one is kneeling on a cold stone floor kissing the robes of a homicidal maniac. He would normally have had a half dozen sarcastic comments about the snake-faced madman above him, but on this occasion Draco was too deep in his occlumency shields to allow even the faintest tinges of humor to distract him from his mission.
After the appropriate length of time, Draco lifted himself from his bow and looked directly into the red eyes that still haunted his nightmares.
"It's almost ready, my Lord. I still have to do some testing to ensure our brothers will have a safe journey, but I should have it ready by the end of the year."
A cold, high-pitched voice bathed over Draco like a bucket of icy water, nothing but his lifelong training in control as the Malfoy heir kept him from shivering.
"Excellent work, Draco. You may just redeem the Malfoy family yet. Lucius, begin preparing with our brothers. It is almost time."
