After the incident at Halloween, Lord Potter remembered that he had been neglecting his training, despite his promise to his godfather, Lord Black. Harry knew he needed to remedy this. But first of all he needed to find somewhere suitable to train. Harry decided to consult the map. Careful study of the map lead the boy to notice a room on the seventh floor that he'd never been in or even remembered seeing the door for.
"Friends, do you remember seeing this room before?" Harry's friends gathered around the map and looked at where the boy was pointing. None of them recognised the room shown on the map as being on the seventh floor.
"Shall we go and see if we can find it?" Harry asked rhetorically. The five friends rose from their seats and casually made their way over to the portrait hole. Harry had been taught, back in Narnia, that when spying and sneaking around, you were less likely to be caught if you acted naturally than if you acted shifty. When the group reached the common room entrance, Harry cast a spell that Lady Viola had taught him. The spell caused light to go through Harry and his friends rather than reflect off them and rendered them near enough invisible.
Once the spell had been cast, the group headed off to explore. They made it to the seventh floor without incident, although Mrs Norris nearly sounded the alarm. Luckily a mouse squeaked around the corner and distracted the annoying cat.
When they reached the seventh floor corridor where the map showed the room to be they found a bare stretch of wall. Frustrated, Harry began to pace back and forth along the corridor, thinking of his need to find a training space. As he turned to pace the corridor for a fourth time, Hermione let out a gasp.
"Harry look!" The black haired boy turned to look where Hermione was pointing. A door had appeared opposite the tapestry of a wizard trying to teach trolls to ballet dance. Harry grinned. His friends matched the expression as they, by mutual and unspoken consent, followed Harry into the room that had just appeared.
It was the perfect training space. Practice dummies were dotted about the room with plenty of space around them for Harry to move. Each dummy held a different weapon; sword, mace, stave, etc. One dummy even held a wand.
"Lion's Mane!" exclaimed Harry. "This room is perfect! Thank you Aslan."
"Who's Aslan?" asked Draco.
"Aslan is the Great King of Narnia," replied Harry already warming up to begin training.
"But I thought you said the kings of Narnia were called Peter and Edmund?" retorted Neville.
"Yes but Aslan was the one who made them kings," Harry attempted to explain. His friends watched as Harry worked his way through a series of training exercises.
"I wish we knew how to do that," commented Ron as he watched his friend battle a dummy.
One of the dummies turned to face the group who were watching.
"We can teach you," it spoke in a robot like voice. There is an armoury behind that other door." Draco had a look and gasped at the variety of available weapons in the vault. Each of Harry's friends chose a weapon and began to learn to use them.
Every night after that the group of five snuck up to the secret room on the seventh floor and trained in sword craft and other weaponry techniques. As all five were staying at Hogwarts for the Christmas holidays, they spent most of the break in the room. This was when Harry started martial arts training for his friends.
When they woke on Christmas morning, each of the boys had a large pile of presents waiting at the end of their beds. They picked them up and carried them down to the common room where Hermione and the other Weasleys were waiting, each with their own piles of presents beside them. The group had the common room to themselves as every other Gryffindor had gone home for Christmas.
House elves had delivered breakfast to the common room this morning and the group sent the entire morning eating the food and opening presents.
Mrs Weasley had made everyone a knitted jumper with the first letter of their name on and some fudge. Alice Longbottom, who was a famed author in the Wizarding World, had given them signed copies of her not yet released new novel. The Grangers had sent everyone a selection of muggle sweets, knowing from Hermione that most wizards had never tried these sorts of things.
Narcissa Black was an artist and had turned a photo of the group that Draco had sent her into a painting and had given a copy to each of them.
From Harry's friends in Narnia came a selection of musical instruments that were unlike any in this world. Harry promised to teach his friends to play them.
One of the presents on Harry's pile was a mystery as none as the group recognised the writing that had addressed it and there was no signature. The note said the sender was returning something that had belonged to James Potter. When Harry opened the simple brown paper parcel a silvery something fell out.
"That's an invisibility cloak," said Ron, Draco, Neville and Percy at the same time.
"By the Lion," murmured Harry, feeling emotional as memories of Sirius telling him stories of pranks involving this cloak flooded his mind.
Fred suggested they go outside and have a snowball fight. Harry was grateful for the distraction.
That night, as the group headed towards the seventh floor training room an open doorway caught Hermione's eye. She turned her head to look and saw an ornate mirror in an abandoned classroom.
Her friends turned to see what had caught her attention. They went into the classroom and looked at the mirror.
There was writing around the edge of the mirror but no one could work it out. Even Harry didn't recognise the language.
"Wait a minute," said Neville suddenly as they were just about to leave. "This is a mirror."
"Well duh," replied Ron.
"What if it's mirror writing?" suggested Neville, matching Ron's tone.
"Of course!" cried Hermione and pulled a piece of parchment out of her bag. Quickly she wrote down the letters in reverse order.
"I show not your face but your heart's desire."
