Previously on Defiance...

"I don't find any problems with this." Katie Bell remarked, surprising everyone else. "What?" she defended, finding so many stares at her, "it isn't as if Harry is asking us to be his slaves or anything? He is simply acting out of self-preservation. Very Slytherin, Harry." She taunted with an easy grin. Harry nodded back.

"Take your time and let me know," Harry announced. "After all, it is not me who is in need of DADA training." With that Parthian shot, he turned towards the boy's dormitory and strode towards it. "Good night, Gryffindors."

The entire group sat stumped at the change of situation.

"Well at least he agreed to teach." Ron pointed out intelligently.

By the time, it was dinner, the previous night, the news that Harry Potter had consented to teach DADA to the students had spread like wildfire. Along with that, the other part of the news had travelled throughout the student population, even faster than the original news. Different people took the fact about Harry Potter seeking a détente with everyone wanting to learn from him in different ways. Some of the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors took it as an indication about him going dark, and saw the détente as Potter's way of cutting out all possible confrontation. Some Slytherins, especially the triumvirate thought that it was a very Slytherin behavior demonstrated by the boy-who-lived. Ravenclaws, like the intellectuals they were, took it upon themselves to study all about the détente oath and the stipulations and the loopholes in said oath. Professor Mcgonagall chose to raise her eyebrows in surprise at Potter's behavior, Snape sneered and called it as his arrogance showing, Dumbledore decided to demonstrate disappointment (no surprises there), while Flitwick and Sprout took it in good sport. Dolores Umbridge, who was still spending time in the school Hospital wing, sneered and snarled at the news. It was a pity that she had broken her arm in the duel; else, a letter would have reached Cornelius Fudge by this time, something along the lines of 'Dumbledore is making Potter build his army, and cutting out future confrontations by using oaths.'

Daphne personally took the entire thing with a scowl. She had to undergo so much to get Potter to even agree to teach her. She conveniently ignored the fact that she had not asked him directly and had resorted to clandestine activities and Potter had led her through a proverbial goose-chase. Now Potter was offering his tutoring to anyone and everyone who could raise a wand and utter an oath of détente towards him. It drove her crazy.

I swear Potter will be the death of me.

She took out the piece of vellum and an ever-filling quill from within her robes, and making sure to cast a privacy ward all around her, she began to write on it.

Meet me on sixth floor. 8 p.m. sharp. Don't be late.

G.

Putting the vellum away, she wiped off the proverbial dust off her robes as she looked around the Hall. Potter was sitting at the Gryffindor table, tasting treacle tart slowly. At least the boy had better table manners than the Weasley brood alongside whom he spent most of his time. Then again, that was past—she corrected herself. The latest fact about Potter was that no one knew where he spent his time. He would magically appear for classes and meals, then vanish for the rest of the day, only to reappear at night when it was time for bed in the Gryffindor dorms. Either Potter was trying to build up some kind of mystery about him, or it was something... else.

Finishing her dinner, she stepped out from the Slytherin table along with her friend Tracey to walk towards the dungeons. She was barely halfway when she felt the vellum vibrate inside her robes. Seeing her stop suddenly, Tracey looked at her in confusion. "Something wrong?"

Daphne glanced at her and swiftly replied, "No, I need to visit the library. Just remembered something."

Tracey sighed. "And here was me, thinking that you were having a secret affair, and were going off for a quick shag." She let out a long-suffering sigh. "A girl can only hope."

Daphne looked at her with an unbelievable expression for a moment, before Tracey muttered, "Fine, you go. I will return to the dorms alone." So saying, she took off towards the Slytherin dorms, leaving Daphne alone to herself. Quickly, Daphne hid behind a pillar and cast a notice-me-not charm on herself. Getting the vellum out, she saw that her tutor had indeed sent a message.

I thought you had a secret room ready for intimacy.

Never mind.

P.

Daphne rolled her eyes. Whether it was Potter's attempt at flirting or he was just being himself, she could not guess. Disillusioning and silencing herself, she quickly strode towards the sixth-floor corridor.

Daphne reached the sixth floor and just as expected, there was no one. Not one single person. Knowing that Potter might be present and disillusioned, she quickly leveled her wand at the corridor and whispered, "Homenum revelio maxima." A wave of aquiline blue radiated out of her wand, expanding into the entire corridor.

Nothing.

Daphne felt elated. Potter had not yet shown up. She checked the time.

8:10 P.M.

She quickly cast an alert ward as she dropped down to the edge of the left wall and sat down on the floor. She wondered if she could at least blame Potter for arriving late (after all, she had been the one to arrive early) and whether that would give her a decent start into her negotiations. Silently, she began wondering what Potter might be able to teach her. She would have loved to learn wandless magic, if she had the ability, but that was beside the point. Potter had yet to prove that he was decent at teaching (perhaps it had been a little too early for her). She hoped that the entire dealing would at least turn out something productive at the end.

"You sure believe in the fashionably late style, don't you?"

Daphne yelled out in a most unladylike fashion, jumping away from the wall. The sudden shock had broken her control and the disillusionment charm faded. Looking back, she found Harry Potter standing behind her, smirking at her form. Quietly, she picked herself up from the ground and stood up; trying to maintain whatever remained of her dignity. Potter was still holding that blasted smirk on his face.

"Where were you? I didn't see you come in." She asked. Privately, she wondered why the trigger ward hadn't responded when Potter entered the sixth floor. After all, she was the one to arrive first.

"Me? I was here since eight. I saw you enter the corridor five minutes late, quite unexpected of you, really," he shook his head in a disappointed manner, though Daphne could see it that clearly he was mocking her, "-and then you cast off the disillusionment charm and set up the ward- Speaking of wards, you do know quite a lot on the subject. I wonder how, since wards are taught in sixth year Runes and Arithmancy."

Daphne stared at him.

"What?" Potter asked, curious.

"It is not possible that you entered before me. I checked the entire corridor." She refuted.

"Well, maybe you didn't check well enough..." He replied evasively. "Enough of that, you mentioned that you have a secret room for training. What are we doing here then?"

Daphne bit her lip, observing that for a moment, Potter's eyes paused at her lips. So, he wasn't that immune to her charms, she mused. She felt a little jig inside her heart, finally getting a reaction from the boy. "I have a secret room, but before I show it to you, I need to know if you are actually decent at teaching me. I mean, our entire dealings have rested on the assumption that you can actually teach decently. I wish to acquire some proof before I reveal my secret room to you."

Bait.

Potter raised his eyebrows. "I like it. A challenge it is, then. Well then Greengrass, I suppose we should train in my own room then." He paused, "though I am afraid it is hidden as well. I am sure you understand."

Daphne nodded.

"Very well, come with me." And with that, Potter faded from view. It was different from the usual disillusionment; rather it was as if he was there one second, and the next moment he was not. It was completely abrupt, unlike the gradual fading caused by the disillusionment charm.

Strange.

"Where to, Potter?"

"Seventh floor." Replied a disembodied voice, one she knew very well.

The Gryffindor and the Slytherin stood on the seventh floor, staring hard at the wall in front of them. Daphne tried to detect any concealment charms, but found nothing.

"Now?"

Suddenly, Potter drew close to her, very close, enough that she could feel his breath. Her fingers entwined around her wand, only for her to remember that they had a détente. Cursing herself, she allowed him to draw closer until he was just next to her ear.

"The room of Requirement is located on the seventh floor in Hogwarts, right opposite that tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by trolls."

Daphne widened her eyes, as she understood what Potter had just done. He had told her a secret, a Fidelius secret. Merlin! He had his own private room protected by a Fidelius of all things. How on earth had Potter even successfully done that spell? She watched, as the plain corridor suddenly seemed to expand and form the tapestry of Barnabas the barmy, and could see that a portion of the wall on the opposite side had expanded as well.

Wow.

Her respect for Potter's skills grew exponentially. A Fidelius! Merlin! A Fidelius was something that could be attempted only by the strongest of wizards. Her father could not even do one. Besides, the spell required a powerful intent, enough to distort reality itself. The intent to hide something must be so great that it would be able to bend reality just to make the concealment possible. That was exactly why the Fidelius was one of the most difficult spells known to wizard kind.

"How- how?" she stuttered.

"How what?" Potter asked, trying to be deliberately infuriating.

"How by Morgana's laces could you perform a Fidelius of all things?"

Potter looked confused. "I assure you, I did it using my wand."

Daphne withheld an extremely powerful urge to punch him in the face. The shock vanishing on spot, it was replaced with a sneer as she stared at the wall in front of them. "Tell me Potter, did you waste your spell to hide a wall?"

"No."

"I am not really seeing anything here." She snapped.

"Of course, you don't."

Daphne tapped the ground with her foot, trying to control her irritation. "Well?"

Potter seemed to have no intention to reply anything. He only shifted and walked in front of the wall from left to right, and then back and then again. Daphne wondered if all the magic he was learning had turned him barmy. Perhaps it was the presence of Albus Dumbledore during the summer, in which case, he was positively barmy and needed to see a mind healer soon.

Potter had walked across the wall three times, and then he walked back to where she stood as he faced the blank wall. Then, he hissed something aloud. It was scary, listening to him hissing to the wall. Daphne assumed it was some kind of password as a giant door materialized in the wall in front of them. Opening the door, he stepped inside, ignoring the look of wonder on her face. Then, he looked back at her and asked, "Coming?"

It was a humongous, spacious room, lit with flickering torches- similar to the ones, which illuminated the dungeons. The walls were lined with wooden bookcases, and instead of chairs, there were large silk cushions on the floor. A set of shelves at the far end of the room carried a range of instruments such as Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors, and a large Foe-Glass just like the one Moody had in his office, the previous year. Daphne looked around wide-eyes as if she were a kid in a candy store. Her eyes stared at the shelves holding books in them. She strode ahead and running a finger along the spines of the large leather-bound tomes. "A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions... The Dark Arts Outsmarted... Self-Defensive Spell work... wow..." She looked around at Harry, her face glowing. The presence of hundreds of defensive books had finally convinced her that her choosing to deal with Potter was right. "Potter, this is wonderful, there's everything we need here. What is this place?"

Potter smirked. She could have sworn that for a moment, there was something like nostalgia in his eyes, but he shook it off very quickly. "Glad you liked it."

"What is this place?" she whispered reverently.

"This," he extended his arms in a showman fashion, "is the Room of Requirement. This is the only room in entire Hogwarts that has the capability to become whatever one wants it to be."

Daphne narrowed her eyes. "Whatever I wish it to be?"

"Yes."

Not wanting to take Potter by his word, Daphne closed her eyes and thought hard. Then, she opened her eyes. To her greatest surprise, she was standing in the balcony of her own home. It was just... surreal.

"Wow..." she whispered reverently.

"First day of training, and you show me your home? You sure work fast, Greengrass."

Daphne blushed in embarrassment, but did not change the scenery. She strode ahead and touched the vase on one corner. It seemed perfectly real. "This... This cannot be real. This vase was procured using a specific type of volcanic soil. Yet, the texture feels the same."

"This Room was once known as the Room of Illusions. The moment you enter this place, it casts an illusion on you, allowing you to be able to shift the scenery to whatever you want, wherever you want. Anything you find here is temporary, and cannot be taken out, with some exceptions of course."

"Like?" Daphne asked inquisitively.

"Like those things that are actually real. The books for instance, are simply summoned from the Library, especially from the restricted section, but I assume you knew that already." Daphne nodded in answer. Potter continued. "Things left behind by other users of this room are other examples of things you can take out from here."

"And you cast a Fidelius over this... this amazing masterpiece?"

"Of course," Potter shrugged. "I now have the best room in Hogwarts all to myself. However, now I have to share it with you. On second thought, the idea scares me." He put on a face of mock horror and Daphne almost giggled before she controlled herself. She was Daphne Greengrass, and had an ironclad control over her expressions and emotions. She couldn't giggle.

"Let's get down to what we came for. DADA tutoring."

Daphne nodded, mentally wishing for a chair. Instantly, a comfortable-looking chair materialized on the ground. She sat on it, and found it surprisingly comfortable. She looked up and found Potter smirking at her.

"You done?"

Daphne blushed, and nodded. "Very well." He took out his wand, and not for the first time, Daphne marveled at the beautiful wand he held. It was jet black, with alternate lines of gray drawn on it. The hilt was elaborately carved out of ivory and had a thestral on it. Tapering on one end, the wand looked more like a dagger than a wand.

"That's a different wand. I have never seen one like that." She could not help herself.

"Yes, it is very special. It has been in my family for several generations." Potter spoke reverentially about his wand, caressing its body with his fingers. Almost as if in response, the wand shot out several sparks of gray from its tip.

"What happened to your... you know... your own wand?" She prodded, quickly realizing that it had been a personal question. Potter looked up at her. "It turned to dust." He replied simply.

"Oh." She did not know what to say to that. Wondering what might have happened that could have caused his wand to turn to dust, she looked at him and gestured to continue.

"Right. Let us begin with a duel shall we? I need to know where you stand, and how much hard work you need to do." Potter replied.

Finally. Here was a chance to finally show Potter that she wasn't someone to be played with. Momentarily, she allowed her to bask in the thought of having Potter at wand tip. The feeling was great. She stood opposite him, moving behind by a few feet to secure a reasonable distance between them. The room all around them faded as it shimmered to reform back into a standard dueling compound.

"Rules?" Potter offered.

"Non-lethal."

He shrugged. Daphne trained her wand like a sword towards him, taking small steps sideways and making sure that her body was ready to dodge at a moment's notice. She wiggled a bit, ignoring the grin on Potter's face as she nodded.

"Good show, Greengrass, now. Let's duel."

Instantly, she yelled, "Stupefy!" as a ray of crimson shot out of her wand towards him. Potter simply cast a Duro charm on his left fist, converting it into stone as he pounded the stunning spell with his stoned fist. The spell deflected away and hit the ground. Daphne gazed at him open-mouthed, only to shriek in surprise as a bluish spell almost grazed her shoulder.

"First rule of fighting: Always keep your opponent distracted." Potter proclaimed before he grinned and sent a quick succession of normal hexes. Nothing fancy. Just the regular banishing hex, coupled with some Incendio and occasionally, a cutting hex towards her torso. However, that wasn't the important part. The important part was that the shielding movements for the cutting hex was completely opposite to the one for protecting against the Incendio and banishing hex. He quickly alternated between the two spells making Daphne hastily try to procure a shield, or dodge to avoid getting hurt. Finally, a stray banishing hex passed through her shields and hit her in the right leg, making her fall on the floor.

"Second Rule: Always attack. The moment you decide to defend, you lose half the battle. Keep on attacking, and you have a chance. You can be creative, dominating and confident. Defend and you are reduced to the mercy of the opponent."

Daphne grit her teeth. A part of her could not help but feel exhilarated at the way Potter was teaching her. It was fun and exciting- she had to accept it. Perhaps the deal was not that bad after all. An idea came to her mind. She almost let the grin show.

"Help me up." She returned, extending her hand upward from her fallen position towards Potter who stood in front of her. Potter extended his hand and held hers, pulling her up, when she suddenly jerked back and pulled him on top of her. In that tiny moment, she spun and landed on top of him, her wand trained at his neck.

"How is this for keeping an opponent distracted?" She was panting heavily. Her eyes spotted Potter staring at her incredibly kissable lips from up close. A part of her could not help but feel proud of the accomplishment.

"Very well done, Greengrass." Potter replied, "However-" Daphne could feel something poking into her abdomen. "-never believe you have won until you have the enemy dead or incapacitated." Something slammed into her, throwing her away on the ground, as Potter stood up, training her wand at her fallen form. "You never know what tricks the opponent might just have under his sleeve."

Daphne grit her teeth...

"And here endeth the lesson."

After almost an hour of tedious practice, Daphne retired for the night. She wished him good night (which was perhaps the only sincere thing she might have said during the entire period) and ushered herself out of the room. Disillusioning herself, she walked all the way back to the dungeons. She never noticed the pair of eyes spotting her as she entered the Slytherin dorms.

Harry saw Greengrass close the door and felt her cross the alert ward, signifying that she had indeed crossed the corridor. Wishing the door to close, he closed his eyes and felt the magicks surrounding him shift. The last one month had been rather progressive, as far as his personal training had been concerned. The schedule he had prepared and followed with Sirius at the Black manor had continued in Hogwarts, only that the amazing Room of Requirement had replaced the Black library. He opened his eyes and found that the room had shifted into his favorite training ground with six dummies ready to fire at him. For a moment, he wondered if he should have, had come clean completely with Sirius about the changes that had come in him in the summer. Perhaps he should have...

Nah...

His wand in one hand, and a ball of pure magic in other, he stood calmly, waiting for the dummies to attack. The dummies seemed to sense him ready and quickly shifted off on six different sides as they began the attack.

Six different stunners flew out from the six wands towards him in the center, only for Harry to wandlessly levitate himself upwards for a moment. It was something he had been working on since he had started training with Sirius. Now, he could easily levitate himself from one place to another, and even fly to a considerable amount, although the task consumed huge amounts of raw power.

Standing in the air above the dummies, he sent multiple bursts of magic from his left hand while throwing powerful reductor curses from the wand. The dummies moved away, as he jumped down on the ground, rolling to escape another spell fire as he trained his wand at the new attacker and hissed in Parseltongue.

"Ossis Fragmen."

The entire dummy cracked under the force of the spell and shattered while two more dummies quickly reformed in its place. This was his training program, The moment he would destroy one dummy, two more would form in its place and the process would continue until he had finally incapacitated (and not destroyed) them, or was himself rendered unconscious. It was a crazy plan, and understandably, Sirius Black did not know anything about this at all.

Four other dummies leapt towards him, raining down severing hexes and bludgeoners at him, only to have him raise a powerful shield to block them as he rolled and cast a tiny banishing charm on himself, throwing himself out of the range of the attacks. Stabilizing his feet, he raised both hands and whispered in Parseltongue.

"Malleus pugno."

A huge shaft of air slammed against the four dummies and threw them against the wall. Any more power and Harry was sure that the dummies would have been pulverized. Quickly, he cast petrifaction hexes, incapacitating them for good. There was a good reason for using Parseltongue. It achieved multiple ends. For one, Parseltongue being a magical language, empowered spells to at least twice the standard power. Secondly, since there was only one Parselmouth in Britain at the moment, casting spells in Parseltongue had the benefit that he could overpower spells and yet no one would understand what spell he was casting. Thirdly, since familiarity was the cornerstone of magical mastery, regular and prolonged use of Parseltongue made it more natural to him and he was being able to consciously shift to Parseltongue without bothering to conjure a snake. The Parseltongue spells he had acquired from the treatises in the Chamber of Secrets as well as from the Black library simply sweetened the deal.

Four done. Four left.

He grinned. The four dummies let out a roar and sprung upon him, firing severing hexes at his torso. Harry jumped and spun in the air, his wand automatically spinning back into the holster as he gathered two pulsing balls of raw magic before hurling them towards the two dummies, pulverizing them to dust. He saw the other two dummies jump towards him as well as the four newer dummies materialize and fire blasting curses towards him. He dodged and weaved through the curses, in a way that would have shocked professional duelists, as he cast powerful impedimenta charms on all of them, binding them with a final wide-area petrifaction hex. He landed on the ground, his feet completely in coordination with the dummies falling on the ground with a resounding thud.

Harry let out a deep breath. A month ago, he would have questioned himself to death how he had done what he had just performed, but now- it was normal. He was used to the fact that for some reason, he had access to a treasure trove of ancient knowledge in battle magics, and that the knowledge was hidden somewhere in the depths of his mind. He had assumed that during his fight with Voldemort, something similar must have happened in the battlefield, though why he did not remember the Fidelius was still uncertain to him. After all, whenever he received some new information, he would retain it. Ever since he had taken up the wand and started his personal training with Sirius, his physical and mental abilities had sharpened significantly. He would be able to take on a death eater any time now, or at least that was the idea. Sirius was still working on that subject but Harry was optimistic. After all, in order to protect himself and his family, he needed to be powerful and importantly, test his strengths. Now and then, he would get access to some of the ancient magical knowledge, mostly during conditions of life and death. That was the major reason why he had formulated such intensive training. The more he trained, the more he found himself in dangerous situations, the more access he got to privileged magical education, and the more it would propel him to place himself in harder battles and life-threatening situations. It was one vicious cycle. One that was very Gryffindorish in nature, but it offered great results.

His mind went back to the wardstone chamber at Black Manor. Precisely, the portrait of his doppelganger- or should he say, the horse of death. For some reason, the nightmares that had been troubling him had died the moment he had taken up his new wand. Ever since then, he would have normal sleep with occasional dreams about thestrals, and on some particular occasions, about his doppelganger- a Harry Potter with stormy gray eyes.

Speaking of thestrals, it was time to work on the other part of his training- one that Sirius had begun, but Harry had taken over once he had returned to Hogwarts. The Animagus transformation. It had been nearly two months since he had begun the training and had acquired great breakthroughs so far. He could shift into his form but it was not as smooth as he had seen Sirius transform. Sirius could jump up, transform into Padfoot, and shift back before his feet reached the ground. Harry still took around five seconds to properly transform into his form and an equal amount of time to transform back- something he was working on wholeheartedly.

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he willed his features to change. He could observe his skin change and become more taut and hairy, felt his limbs lengthen and extend into long hooves as his backbone lurched backward and curved while a long appendage extended out of his posterior. His cheekbones lengthened as his eyes changed and then he felt two extra appendages shoot out of his forelimbs and expand into large, bat-like wings. Where he was, now stood a reptilian, dragonish creature, around seven feet tall with even wider wings. His entire body was hairy and covered with dark hairs, with the only familiar thing being the bright-greenish hue inside the pupil-less eyes.

A thestral. And Mcgonagall had told them that transformation into magical creatures was impossible. Bollocks.

Being a thestral had its advantages. They were physically as powerful as a hippogriff and could fly at great speeds. It wasn't comparable to flying on a Firebolt but the sensation was better than riding a broom. The creatures were similar to demiguises in the manner that they could choose to disillusion themselves upon wish, and were fundamentally invisible to those who had seen death. It would have been rather difficult for him to transform into one had he not seen death himself. Sirius would perhaps have found it to be a great prank.

Sirius had christened his animagus form as Shadow, quite appropriate given how Harry had become quite accomplished at staying out of people's notices and his animagus form shared similar characteristics. Harry let out a neigh and then transformed back.

Three seconds.

Damn, still need to work on the timing.