Chapter 63

Reyna

As Harry, Ron, Jason and even Nico were working with the Slytherin kids, beginning with Draco and the youngest ones known to not have Death Eaters for parents, I asked Snape, Lupin, Sirius, Neville, Alice and Frank Longbottom join me to discuss training the Fifth Cohort, and the rest of the Half Bloods ultimately in magic. Neville, Hazel, Frank and myself would teach integrated combat. Since Molly Weasley was back teaching Defense against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts, and Slughorn teaching potions, I had Snape full time with Lupin, Sirius and the Longbottoms part time. Well, Neville's father was pretty much full time too. He and his wife kept an eye on Neville much like Molly watched over Ginny and, to a lesser extent, the boys. Mr and Mrs Longbottom had not mentioned Neville and I living together but I knew that conversation was coming. They liked me though so I hoped it would be a pleasant chat. The great thing about having five adult magicians available was that I could take the initiative in planning the magical educations of both New Rome and Camp Half Blood. I had spoken to Hazel and Annabeth about this, with Hazel thinking it was outside her domain as far as the quest went, and Annabeth thinking it was great but given that the Greeks didn't have a government in the same sense the Romans do she could only speak for Athena's cabin. It was decided that we should go ahead and plan it but the final approval would be Chiron's and that we should get input from Dumbledore as the resident expert in magical education.

"Hey guys, thanks for coming" I said to the group one evening a couple weeks or so before the wedding, well early afternoon in New Rome. Frank was overseeing field drills with the cohorts and Percy happened to be talking with the Fifth that, trying to bolster their morale as they struggled with training. We sipped coffee over looking it all and the sight of Snape scared the hell out of all passers by. He just had that effect.

"This is a little outside the quest, but derivative of it, so if you like I can ask Hazel to join us. I speak for Rome though, and probably Camp Half Blood will want to talk with you guys as well. What I'm thinking is this. We need to begin training the rest of the Half Bloods, Roman and Greek, in magic. You six, are the best available instructors. Two of you have experience in the class room and all of you have experience in combat. And of course I may be biased, but one of you is probably the most powerful spell caster alive today. How would you feel about forming a committee up to develop the curriculum, both to catch the current Romans and Greeks up magically while we train the magicians in combat, and to lay the ground work for Romans and Greeks to learn on their own moving forward?"

"Will your gods approve it?" Lupin asked.

"We think so. You know there is to be a reckoning, and we believe it will be the day of the wedding as that is the equinox and the gods can gather at that time. It is possible they may assign this task to us, and if so, I want to be ready. In all candor, I am not sure I will run for Praetor again. This would be a great legacy for me."

"What?" Neville asked, clearly shocked by this development.

"Well, I can start college next year, and I want to focus on... well, other aspects of my life. In my term we have defeated the giants, the titans and Gaea, and restored the legion's honor. We have built what I hope is a lasting peace with the Greeks, and the Brits, and have not only defeated Voldemort but raised a self sustaining defense force for the magicians of Europe. I have had a wonderful career. I'm not saying I won't run, I have some people I want to consult further with, one guy in particular, but if I didn't, well, the Legion is in good hands with Frank and I would push hard for Hazel to take my place. With three successful quests she would be far and away the most qualified."

"I won't start college for another year, if ever." Neville sighed.

"I'm pretty sure your adoptive father could put in a good word for you with Trivia and you could start at New Roman whenever you wished. That way I would have you here to teach magic to the legion." I smiled.

"How soon would you want to begin training?" Snape asked, changing the subject thankfully.

"Hermione, Ginny, Harry and Ron are teaching three cabins at Half Blood now, so anytime is fine, and I can have the engineers get you a classroom built in a few days."

"We would need two plans wouldn't we? One for the full time people and another for the seasonal ones, right?" Sirius asked.

"Yes, I would think so."

"Why don't we take a few days and we'll see what we can come up with." Alice said to everyone's agreement. "Then we present it to Chiron for Camp Half Blood and uh, who for Camp Jupiter?"

"Me. Well, Frank, the Senate, and myself. But get it to me and I will do all I can to get it passed. Candidly your son hurt the Senate's pride so much over the break they are anxious to begin so that Rome does not fall behind the Greeks and Brits in ability."

Three days later we had both a classroom and a plan approved by both Chiron and the Senate.

Snape really took to the inherent discipline of the Roman way and enjoyed teaching Defense against the Dark Arts and jinxes, while Neville, Alice, Frank and Lupin taught charms, curses, transfiguration, hexs, healing and protective enchantments as well as the other facets of spell casting. We put off herbology, Arithmacy, Scrying, Prophecy, Transfiguration and other similar subjects until they had the basics down in the more combative areas. Snape was of course disappointed that he couldn't teach potions yet, especially since they had effected the outcome of the war so greatly, but it was also delayed until they had a basic grip on spell casting. Ollivander had spent a day fitting them with wands, as he had the Hecate, Athena and Aphrodite cabins at Half Blood. It took Hazel a walk around the Hogwarts grounds to pay him, and although most of us were quite willing to chip in to pay for the basic instructional supplies she declared that unnecessary.

Classes were conducted at the new building just at the edge of the practice field that ultimately would hold five classrooms. It was with pride I reported to the Seven that my Roman architects and engineers built it in only a few days. The Greeks were still trying to decide if they needed actual classrooms.

The first day of instruction only a few were able to lift a feather but within a week all were casting basic hexs and charms, and regularly shooting sparks at each other. The sparks were disruptive to class until Professor Longbottom lowered a window, looked out across the field at a castle being built for the weekly games and blew up a wall an announcing they wouldn't be able to do magic at the level needed for war until they "stop zapping each other in the ass." This was followed by a request from the engineers and architects for Neville to stop blowing up things faster than they could build them, and Neville using a repario charm from the same distance to rebuild the castle wall. He sucked at flirting but my boyfriend was so kick ass it didn't matter.

A couple of days before the wedding pretty much everything shut down. The Fifth was excused from war games in order to prep, although that was a bit too kind as they really had no prep to do. I just didn't want any of them injured the night before and showing up all bandaged. On the boyfriend front, things were a little more challenging.

After the third or fourth night of Neville tossing and turning I thought I should be a good girlfriend and find out what was wrong.

"Nothing, just having trouble getting to sleep."

"Yes, I can see that. Anything bothering you?"

"No, not really... well, yeah, but I feel dumb mentioning"

"We can talk about anything Neville, I think we're past the point of being able to hide our feelings anymore than we can hide our freckles." I giggled.

"I'm worried about us, about what comes next if you retire and"

"I've told you! And I'll tell you again, yes I should have talked to you before I brought it up in front of everyone, I'm sorry, but it just occurred to me that morning that I might not need to pad my resume. And, and.. no matter what, there was going to be a Reyna and Neville. I've waited too long to find you. I don't ever want to be apart. That's why, well it would be easier to be in New Rome if I wasn't Praetor. I don't know what I'm going to do, but you're the other half of whatever it is. Got it? Now, anything else bugging my bae?"

"Its just... well, everyone keeps telling me how bad ass I am, and Ooooowie! Most powerful spell caster ever! Blah blah blah, the second and third years stare at me like a freak or something, but at the battle, all I really did was kill a snake. I mean, when we flew over in formation I did some damage and took out some guys, but really, I killed a snake. That's it. And I got the Order of Merlin for it. If that wasn't hyperbolic enough, people keep telling me how brave I am. The quibbler the other day called us out saying we were the bravest wizards since the purge of the Knights Templar and that it was reported I was the bravest of them all. Bullshit, I killed a snake. That's all! Harry had the courage to freakin' die! I killed a snake."

"No. You were part of a plan, developed some by Annabeth and myself but mostly Frank and"

"All I really did was kill a snake Reyna, and I didn't even use magic for that. I didn't even use combat training, I just wacked it with a sword. Anyone could do that! Frank, and you, and Harry and Percy and Ginny, oh and, Leo, you all were the heros. I just killed a snake."

"Yes, a snake no one else could kill despite what you think, remember? We all tried before. You were given the sword of Griffindor, no one else. You were the one that had to kill it, no one else could. You killed a snake that spelled the end of Voldemort and the war. We all contributed. You can't name a one of us that we could have gotten by without. We all played our part, yes, your part was flying, shooting that stun from hell jinx of yours, and killing a snake. Oh, and I saw it. You picked up Voldemort when the best magicians in the world were hitting him with spells that should have held him pinned in position, and moved him for the easy kill by Harry. You inspired the rest of the Brits by being the first to break through in both power and blade skill. Don't you dare tell me you didn't do anything."

By now I was straddling him. I wasn't mad but I could sense his frustration or feeling that he was being recognized for something he shouldn't be. That was crap. I hate recognition too, so often it is BS, but Neville and the rest of DA1 deserved all the praise they got, and then some.

"I, okay, I did my part. We all did, from Harry on down to the archers on the wall. Why isn't everyone getting called out for it?"

"To an extent they are. We praise everyone in class, and this group at Hogwarts will have a lifetime of swagger just for being there."

"Yeah, okay, but still, it doesn't take a lot of courage to kill a snake."

I thought about how to answer this to put an end to it, and only came up with one way.

"Neville before we left for the UK, the gods, probably Hecate but I truly don't know which, gave us some info on the people we would meet and the situation at Hogwarts, the Ministry and the Death Eaters. I think Dumbledore put it together, but again, which god told him to or got him some of the information, I don't know. Some of them were very thick. Hermione's had a list of every book she had ever checked out of the library for instance. Your's had three pages. Just three, and when I read them I knew you were the bravest soul I would ever meet. When we were on the train everyone was waiting to meet Harry. I was waiting to meet you. There was just something about what was in those three pages that told me you were special."

"What did it say?" He asked finally, after a long silence.

"Well, the first page was about how you stood up to Harry, Ron and Hermione in first year when they snuck out to ultimately kill Quirrel and the part of Voldemort possessing him and how as a result you won the House Cup for Gryffindor. The second was a blurb by Lupin about how when you faced a bloggart it revealed that your ultimate fear, the thing that kept you awake at night, more than your parents being tortured, or facing Voldemort or his Death Eaters, or even death itself, was Professor Snape. The last was your attendance record and grade sheet, showing you never missed class in all your years, and excelled at potions and herbology."

"Oh, so you thought it was funny that I was terrified of Snape instead of something more, what, evil?"

"No, and don't snap at me. I can turn you into a hamster. No, those three pages told me you were braver than anyone I'd met. It doesn't matter what a person's deepest fear is, there are lots of reasons for it. Annabeth hates spiders, Percy the water lord is terrified of drowning. And being shot out of the sky by Zeus. Frank is terrified of fire, Leo of.. well, something really weird I'm sure, its Leo ya know, probably, what? Bagels? I'm terrified of some ghosts even though I can kill any of them with my sword. It doesn't matter what your fear is, or how terrified you are. It matters what you do about it. And it takes a lot of courage to stand up to your friends, just as Dumbledore told you when you won the House Cup first year, but the really telling thing to me was this. The bloggart can only reveal your greatest fear. It doesn't know how to do anything else, it doesn't have a lower setting and it doesn't care what your fear is. Whatever it turns into, that's what you're most afraid of. Your greatest fear was Snape. And you dealt with it by every day waking up, taking a shower and heading out the door to face him, for six years, without ever missing the opportunity to face him, never calling in sick, never laying out, and while you were there, excelling in his class. That is courage. I couldn't do that. I don't know anyone who could do that, face their darkest emotion, every day, in and out, over and over again. No one could do that without breaking or just giving up. No one but you. So don't give me that 'I'm not really courageous' bullshit mister. I don't want to hear it. I know the truth about you. Your problem is that you have conquered all your fears, Snape is an okay guy, and he will always treat you as an equal now, so now you have to either accept that you are courageous, or find a new fear. If you can't do the former, I suggest that you should become very afraid of a girlfriend that can turn you into a hamster." I grinned in the dim light as I leaned forward to kiss the idiot. I think he got the message, at least he slept through the night and woke up as happy smiling Neville again.

Just in time for the final fitting, the rehearsal and dinner, and of course, the wedding.