(A/N): Welcome back everyone! Hope you had a good week! I am so ready for the weekend- I've been working hard on a new chapter of Blood in the Water, which is actually what inspired this story xD

Thanks to HellsBells, trinastar818, carolinamaiah, AnnoyingGrizzly, and Guests for reviewing! You all are rockstars and I appreciate every single one of you for taking the time to let me know that you're enjoying this story. You all deserve all the hugs!

There's a lot of fighting/training scenes in this chapter, so hopefully I managed to do a good job explaining what's going on. If you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know!

Gratitude to Catzandbookz8 for pre-reading this!

Thanks for reading! Enjoy!

Hermione hesitated at the edge of clearing where Slade's plane lay, wondering if she was supposed to go inside and let Slade know she was there. She wasn't wearing Harry's cloak, and she honestly didn't want to pull it out just to go grab Slade since she'd then have to leave it out the entire time they were training. But Hermione had just seen Oliver walking into the cabin so it wasn't as though she could go striding in there as-is. In hindsight, she and Slade should have tried to arrange an actual time to meet rather than just planning for her to show up.

As she was deliberating, Slade stepped outside in full tactical gear, including his bulletproof vest, several handguns, and multiple knives strapped to his legs. The only things missing were his swords. He looked straight at where she was lurking and, after giving the rest of the clearing a quick scan, headed towards her.

"No cloak?" he questioned, jerking his head to the side to indicate that she should follow him in that direction.

"I only use the cloak when I need to be invisible for substantial amounts of time," she told him, easily keeping up with his brisk pace. "I figured today wouldn't be the day we started working on how to take someone down when you're invisible without being notice."

Slade snorted. "I honestly don't know how I would teach that. I think that'd be easier if the cloak had sleeves though."

"I've had the same thought more times than I can count," Hermione muttered. If it wasn't for the fact that it was on old, one-of-a-kind magical artifact, she may have tried to create some sort of sleeves for the thing just so that her arms could still be covered while moving them. "How's your arm?"

"Better. Not sure if it's thanks to your potions or to the herbs Oliver found, but the infection cleared right up."

Glancing at where she knew the wound lay beneath the sleeve of Slade's camouflaged jacket, Hermione commented, "I hope you're able to fight one-handed because you shouldn't be doing too much with your left arm. Honestly, you're lucky that the bullet just tore through the muscles and didn't lodge itself in your humerus."

He rolled his eyes. "Not my first bullet wound, girl. But I'm surprised that, with all the potions you somehow have access to, you don't have anything that could heal my arm up."

"Oh, I do," she told him lightly, smirking. "But I didn't want to make Oliver suspicious. The kid's stupid, not blind- even he might notice if a bullet wound magically disappeared."

They stepped out into a small clearing and Slade led her into the center of it. "What, you thought I wouldn't be able to come up with a convincing enough lie?"

Pulling her hands out of her pockets, Hermione stretched her arms above her head. "Beyond trying to convince him that there was never a bullet wound and you had no idea what he was talking about, I'm not sure what kind of lie you could have told him. And if I had thought you would go that route, I would absolutely have healed the wound and then stayed to see how that mind game played out."

Slade laughed loudly. "You've got a bit of a dark streak in you, don't you? I like it."

"I'm thrilled to know that I meet your approval," Hermione retorted, wrinkling her nose.

"You know, it's probably not a smart idea to backtalk an instructor," Slade warned, though there was a lightness to his features that told her he didn't mind.

She huffed, smiling brightly. "I suppose you are my instructor right now, aren't you? Reminds of me of my school days. Should I be calling you 'Sir'?"

His expression shifted into something darker and he smirked. "That'd be short for 'Professor', right? Does that mean I should be referring to you as 'Miss Granger'?"

"You make it sound like we're about to start role-playing instead of begin training," she responded without thinking. A heartbeat later, her face turned bright red as Slade began laughing again.

"Well, if that's what you were wanting, I'm more than happy to oblige," he told her.

Hermione glared at him, doing her best to seem unphased. "Let's just stick to training," she snapped and, when she spotted the look in Slade's eyes hastily added, "Combat training."

He was still smiling too widely but, thankfully, decided to let it go. "You have any experience fighting hand-to-hand?"

"Besides some self-defense lessons, no," she shrugged, frowning.

"Wonderful," he told her flatly, finally turning serious. Shifting his stance so that it was opened and relax, Slade ordered, "Try and hit me."

She blinked at him. "That's not logical. You have a clear advantage over me- why would I try and attack you first and risk you taking me down immediately instead of waiting for you to come to me?"

Staring at her with a blank expression, he asked, "Why would I attack you first?"

"If this was a real fight, you probably wouldn't be attacking me at all," Hermione said. "I'm smaller than you, seemingly weaker, and a woman. Your strong, manly self would likely assume I wasn't a threat, which would cause you to approach me with your guard down, providing me with the opportunity to strike with a greater chance of success."

Hermione couldn't be sure, but she thought that Slade both did and didn't appreciate her line of thinking. "Do you really think you won't find yourself in a situation where you'll need to strike first?"

"I think that if I try to hit you, you're going to take advantage of my extended arm to get me on my back."

It was a sign of how focused Slade was on the task before him that he didn't take such an obvious opening, despite it coming so soon after her first remark.

"Well, girl, you won't know until you try, will you?"

She sighed. Taking a moment to center herself, Hermione slowly took a few steps closer to Slade and waited a moment before quickly striking out at his injured arm. As she'd predicted, she was on her back a handful of seconds later with a knife at her throat and she didn't even know how he'd done it since his movements were so quick.

Once Hermione got her breath back, she couldn't help the laughter that spilled out her.

Even with all her battle instincts, she hadn't been able to spot Slade's movements.

Slade stared at her with furrowed brows and she reached out to grab the wrist of the hand holding the knife against her skin.

"Again," she demanded, still smiling widely.

He scanned her face for a moment longer before grinning, retracting the knife and straightening up. Holding out a hand and pulling her up, he told her, "That's the spirit."

Hermione stepped back, bouncing slightly on her toes, before repeating her same attack, this time focusing more on Slade's movements than her own. It only took two more times for Hermione to figure out what he'd done, mostly because he'd slowed his response down considerably so she had an easier time following along.

It was so simple. He'd taken her extended arm and pulled up and to the side, spinning her around and making her lose her footing enough that he was able to pull her feet out from under her and force her onto her back.

Once he was sure she had it, Slade allowed her the chance to try it on him. Since he was taller than her, he'd shown her how to adjust the move to compensate for the height difference. Instead of staying still and pulling as he had, Hermione had to grip his wrist, push upwards, and then step under his arm while twisting and yanking it back with her. That caused Slade to stumble and turn with his arm in order to ease the pressure and gave her the chance to sweep his feet out from under him.

"That attack won't work if they're anticipating it," he warned her after she'd knocked him down for the third time and was hovering over him with her hand pressed against his throat in lieu of a knife. "You'll also need to strike quickly. If you hesitate, it'll be easy for them to overpower you like this."

Slade quickly flipped them over, using his larger body to press hers into the ground and pinning her hands beside her head.

"That makes sense," Hermione responded, trying to keep her voice even. "Don't suppose there's a way to escape from a hold like this, is there?"

He shook his head, releasing her and hopping to his feet. "You have to hope that they slip up and give you enough leeway that you can break their hold on your wrists and then push them far enough away with your knees to slide yourself away. I've seen that headbutting them usually works best in that situation, but I've never had to do it before."

"Of course you haven't," she grumbled, laying there for a moment before climbing back onto her feet.

"Your size is both an asset and a liability," he advised. "It all just depends on how you use it."

"Sort of like your scarf," she flippantly responded, nodding at the plaid cloth tucked into the top of his uniform. "It keeps your neck warm, but I have to imagine it would also be easy to use it to strangle you if I were able to get a good grip on it."

He snorted. "You've got a long way to go before you'll be strong enough to strangle anyone, girl."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Do you think I'll get there before or after you learn to call me by my name?"

He grinned wolfishly. "Don't worry, Hermione," he rasped, his rough, gravelly voice an octave deeper. "Doubt I could forget your name even if I tried."

She tried to keep the sadness off her face as she told him, "I wouldn't be so sure of that, if I were you."

Slade's eyes narrowed, but all he said was, "Alright, let's try another move."

Pulling a gun out of a holster on his back, Slade held it out to her. "Point this at my face," he ordered.

Her eyes widened as she looked between Slade and the gun. "… I'd really rather not if it's all the same to you."

"You wanted to learn how to defend yourself," he reminded her flatly. "Disarming an opponent is part of that."

"I get that," she snapped, folding her arms across her chest and shoving her fingers beneath her arms to try and warm them up. "But I was taught that I shouldn't point a gun at anything or anyone that I didn't want to kill. I don't want to kill you, Slade, and accidents happen."

His eyes softened. "Believe me, girl, I'm not looking to die any time soon." Pulling it back towards him, Slade removed the magazine and showed her that it had no bullets in it. "The gun's not loaded. We're just using it for demonstration purposes, and I want you to get used to the feel and shape of it."

This time when Slade held the gun out towards her, Hermione took it, curling her fingers around the grip. "I'm assuming that means that target practice will be on the list of things we'll be doing in the near future?"

"Possibly, but probably not. I only have a finite number of bullets so, if we want to do that, you'll have to lift some off of Fyers."

Hermione nodded. "I had already thought you'd want me to do that, so I added bullets to my list."

Adjusting her stance, Hermione lifted the gun and pointed it at Slade. He grabbed her wrist with both hands and yanked her forward so that her arm was trapped beneath one of his, his free hand yanking the gun from her grip. Slade released her arm and kept turning so that they were now standing back-to-back and elbowed her hard in the side before then linking an arm through hers and yanking her off her feet, rolling her over his arm and tossing her face-first into the ground.

She could do nothing but lay there for a handful of seconds, desperately trying to remember how to breath normally. Pushing herself up on her knees, Hermione looked up to see Slade pointing the gun at her. Slowly lowering it, he commented, "Not sure how well this move will work since I don't know much about wands, but it'll at least allow you to disarm Dolohov and buy you enough time to kill him with one of your own weapons if you can't take him out with his own."

Climbing to her feet, Hermione pointed out, "That move used both hands, and I thought we agreed you wouldn't do anything to strain your injury."

"I know my limits better than you," he retorted. "Besides, I don't really need to use a lot of force to take you down, do I?"

"That's harsh but fair," she grumbled. "Will I have to adjust this move as well, or will my height not factor in here?"

"If you do it right, then it'll be fine." Slade held the gun out to her again.

Sighing, Hermione took it and pointed it at him again. And, once again, she ended up on the ground. Experiencing the move in action was helpful, but she knew she was going to be incredibly sore the next day.

The third time though, Hermione decided to try something different. Every time Slade pulled her up to toss her onto the ground, she couldn't help being reminded of the weightless feeling she'd sometimes had during the gymnastics lessons that she'd taken when she was younger. She'd done it up until she'd left for Hogwarts, and it was the one thing she hadn't liked about joining the magical world.

This attempt could backfire horribly- she knew that. She knew she was taking yet-another unnecessary risk. At the same time, Hermione didn't think it was as much of a risk as it might have been. Her smaller height and weight would benefit her since the amount of force Slade used when throwing her was the same as what he'd use on a larger person, meaning she was lifted higher off the ground than she technically needed to be. The only issue may be with his grip on her arm but if she shifted enough then perhaps…

When Slade's elbow locked around her arm and he started to lift her off her feet, Hermione abruptly shifted her body so that her front was facing him instead of her back and moved so that she was gripping Slade's arm instead of him holding onto hers. By that point, Slade had already started to lift her up and Hermione went with the motion, throwing her legs in the air and summersaulting over his arm and landing on her feet in front of him in a low crouch. Without thinking, she pulled her arm back and tried to hit him right between the legs.

Tried being the operative word there. Between one second and the next, Slade had grabbed her wrist before she could hit him and yanked her upright and around, taking hold of her other hand and trapping both of her wrists in one large hand behind her back while his now-free hand came up to wrap around her neck and pull her back tightly against his chest.

Hermione froze, senses going haywire. She'd been moved so quickly that she felt almost lightheaded, and the heat coming off of Slade against her back made her shiver as a gust of ice-cold wind blew against her front. The hand on her throat wasn't constricting or even all that tight, but it was just firm enough to cause her heart to skip a beat.

"Only a few self-defense lessons?" Slade murmured into her ear, and Hermione shuddered, turning bright red as she realized that Slade was close enough to have felt it.

Licking her lips, Hermione whispered, "I took gymnastics when I was younger. I figured that it couldn't hurt to try something new while you were throwing me around."

Slade chuckled, releasing her wrists and allowing his hand to fall from her throat. "That move and the way you held my gun… You've been holding out on me, girl."

After taking a few stumbling steps away, Hermione carefully turned to face Slade, her eyes focused on anything other than his face. "Only how much of an idiot I am." At the questioning noise he made, she confessed, "My father was military, and my mother was jumped when she was a teen. My parents wanted me to learn how to some kind of martial arts when I was younger, but I refused to do it, hence the self-defense lessons as a bare-minimum compromise. But those were more focused on getting away from an attacker, not taking them down. I wasn't interested in more than that though and, once I learned about magic, I convinced my parents that I didn't need to take any more lessons. Even once Dolohov started hunting me, I didn't consider that muggle fighting techniques might be useful because I was sure that he just wanted me dead and he would never get physically close enough for me to take him out."

Hermione let out a bitter laugh. "Realizing what an idiot you are- one of the greatest benefits of hindsight. To be honest though, even if I had decided that I wanted to learn how to fight before now, I wouldn't have been able to. Towards the end there I wasn't allowed to go anywhere in the magical world without an escort, let alone go out into the non-magical world."

He didn't say anything for a beat before asking, "What did you parents think about what was going on?"

"Dolohov killed them. He said they were too much of a distraction."

And oh gods, it had been years since they died and the pain of it still made Hermione want to fall to her knees and scream because knowing that life wasn't fair didn't change the fact that she would have sold her soul if only it could be.

Ron had callously remarked to Harry that, even with muggle fighting skills, they hadn't stood a chance, not knowing that Hermione was in earshot. She didn't even know how he knew about that, because the only people she'd talked about her parents with were Harry and Ginny. Hermione had nearly clawed his eyes out with her bare hands, and it had taken both Bill and Harry to hold her back. But that had left no one free to stop Ginny from taking her brother to task.

Slade sighed. "Attachments are distractions, and distractions cloud your judgement and are what are going to get you killed." It sounded rote, as though it was something he had heard before and now repeated over and over to himself. That lack of emotions is what kept Hermione from lashing out because she was almost positive he was directing that statement at himself, not her.

"Believe me," Hermione sneered, still not meeting his gaze. "Dolohov was very thorough in teaching me that lesson."

He stiffened. "No, Hermione, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

She waved him off. "It's fine. I know you were saying that to yourself, not to me. I don't know about you but being alone for so long here has made me more prone to speaking my thoughts aloud just to hear another voice."

The corner of his lips tilted upwards. "That's a habit that'll get you into trouble once you get home."

Once you get home. "Do you really believe it?" she asked abruptly. "That'll we'll all make it off this island one day?"

He sighed. "There's no point in continuing to fight if you think there's no reason to. I have no intention of dying on the godforsaken island, do you?"

Hermione bit the inside of her lip. "All I'm focused on is surviving," she said. "I want to survive Dolohov. But I'm a realist, Slade, and I know that killing Dolohov won't necessarily provide me a way off Lian Yu."

"You'll have a wand again," he pointed out. "You'll be able to undo Dolohov's wards."

She shook her head. "There's no guarantee that Dolohov's wand will cooperate enough for me to do magic as delicate as unravelling wards. Every wand is different, and some work better than others. Outside of my wand, I've only handled two others that worked well enough with my magic that I could do complex spells with them. That's not the case for every witch or wizard, but it is for me."

Harry and Draco's wands were the only ones she'd ever used that came even close to responding properly to her magic. Hermione wasn't sure if it had to do with her magic only responding to wands used by those with sympathetic magics, or if there was just some kind of block in her mind and magic from being forced to use Bellatrix's wand for a time. She'd hated it down to her very core and had resented how much of a struggle it was to cast anything, so her mind may have created some psychological block that kept her from being able to use any wand besides hers and Harry's now.

"That why you don't have a backup wand?" Slade asked. When Hermione just stared at him, he continued, "I doubt you were able to make all those potions you gave me here on the island, and you certainly didn't find that cloak just lying around. You prepared for the possibility that Dolohov was going to take you, but you didn't prepare for the possibility that you were going to lose your wand. It didn't make much sense to me until now."

Hermione released a huff of laughter. "There are laws restricting everyone from purchasing more than one wand since the art of wandmaking is known to only a few, which means stock is limited. If you need to purchase a second one, you have to prove that your first was broken beyond repair. There is a sort of black market for wands, but it's impossible to find a compatible wand that way."

He grimaced. "Makes me glad I don't have magic; I don't have to worry about 'compatibility' when it comes to my weapons."

Wrinkling her nose, Hermione said, "It probably helps that you're basically a walking, talking weapon yourself, doesn't it?"

Slade smiled widely, but then changed the subject. "Improvising and thinking on your feet are important in a fight. You've got good instincts. Don't try and get too fancy while you're fighting though; clean, quick, simple movements will do you more good in the long run."

She nodded. "Is it my turn to take you down? Or do you think I haven't learned my lesson yet?"

Raising the gun and pointing it at her head, Slade smirked. "After this, I'll show you a few more moves before we start actually sparring."

The moment Slade stated they were done for the day, Hermione collapsed onto the ground, desperately gasping for air.

Everything hurt. She had gone in expecting that, at the very least, her torso would likely be sore simply because she'd likely be hitting the ground a lot. And she had- Hermione felt like she had spent half of their session either blinking up at the cloudy sky or inhaling dirt. But she hadn't expected for her arms and legs to feel like they were the consistency of cooked noodles, or for her lungs to burn so badly that it felt like her throat was also being singed.

She heard the crunch of grass as Slade walked over to her, and then one of his boots was poking lightly into her side. "Not bad, girl," he told her, and she resented him with every fiber of her being because he didn't even sound slightly out of breath. Meanwhile, she was audibly wheezing. "You did better than I expected."

"You're an awful human being," she groaned, flopping over to look up at him. "So pretty, but so mean."

"Pretty?" he repeated, seeming both amused and outraged. "That's the first time anyone's ever called me that."

Still panting, Hermione confessed, "I'm hoping your masculinity is fragile enough that my words will wound you to your very core. Is it working?"

He laughed loudly, kneeling down on the ground next to her. "Sorry to disappoint but my masculinity is as solid as ever."

Hermione made a face but didn't respond, trying and failing to concentrate on evening out her breathing and lowering her heartbeat.

Slade rolled his eyes and then reached out to gently pull her upright. "The more you think about your breathing the longer it's going to take for it to return to normal. Just focus on doing some light stretches and you'll be fine." He stretched out her legs for her and then pulled on her shoulder until she leaned down as far as she could and rested her fingers on her toes.

"All the stretches in the world aren't going to keep me from feeling sore tomorrow," she grumbled, sighing at the pleasantly familiar pull on the muscles in her back and arms.

"Didn't say it would. But if you don't stretch and hydrate, you probably won't even be able to walk normally tomorrow."

Slowly rolling upwards, Hermione pulled one leg up and twisted her torso to the side, resting her arm above the opposite knee. "I suppose you'll have an easier time pummeling me then."

Glancing to the side, she smiled slightly at the sight of him also stretching. "Wait until we start sparring with bamboo sticks," he warned, catching her eye. "Getting hit by one will make you miss these first few lessons."

Shifting to stretch out her other side, she said, "That fact that I know you could be so much harsher than you are right now is the only reason I'm not challenging that statement."

"Are you accusing me of not giving it my all, girl?" She could hear his smile.

"No, I'm saying that there's a difference between training-Slade and vicious-Slade and I'm fine with training-Slade for the moment."

Easing out of the stretch, Hermione groaned before heaving herself to her feet. At least Slade was right- her breathing had finally returned to normal. Setting her feet a little wider than shoulder-width apart, Hermione slowly bent over until her palms were resting in the grass.

"If you stay as stubborn as you were today through the rest of your training, I may just be able to make a soldier out of you," Slade told her.

"I'm already a soldier, Slade," she retorted, sweeping over to grab her left ankle with both hands. "Just one that had very inconsistent training."

She could feel his eyes burning into her side. "A warrior then," he murmured. "If you can survive me, and if you can get your hands on your wand, you'll be unstoppable."

"Arrogant," Hermione chided softly, centering herself before twisting to the right. "There's no such thing as 'unstoppable'. The moment you settle is the moment you fall."

Slade hummed. "That's true, but you also can't go through life believing you're never good enough. And from what I've seen, I don't think you know how to find the line between those two thoughts."

Hermione stiffened automatically and then winced. Going tense while trying to stretch was not a good idea. "I don't think you know me well enough to say that, Slade."

"Maybe not," he agreed lightly. "But I'm usually a pretty good judge of character."

Straightening up, Hermione turned to meet Slade's even gaze. A small part of her wanted to lash out and remind him that he'd apparently misjudged both Oliver and his former partner Billy to some degree, but she knew she couldn't. Not because she still needed his help, but because what he was saying wasn't necessarily wrong.

"And what have you learned of mine?" she questioned.

Tilting his head slightly to the side, he slowly answered, "You're a fighter, and regardless of any claims you might have made about slitting your own throat before you'd let Dolohov get you, I highly doubt you would have done it if things had turned out differently. You don't have the stomach to plan out a suicide."

"That's only if I had thought of it as suicide," Hermione retorted. "My thinking in regard to that wasn't just about making sure I didn't end up right back in Dolohov's hands- though that was a perk. What I wanted was to ensure that, if I can't win, he'll still lose."

"And is every situation win or lose for you?"

Placing her hands on her hips, she asked, "I don't know, is every situation for you life or death? If you're about to start trying to discuss the oh-so-fascinating topic that is the shades of grey, save your breath. I feel no need to begin a debate about what is essentially my way of life, and I doubt you do either."

He shrugged. "Fair enough. But, just so we're clear, I prefer to live as much in the black-and-white as I can. I like having lines that shouldn't be crossed."

Hermione's lips twitched. "And do you think most people have the same lines that you do? Or are your standards more flexible than theirs?"

"Guess you'll have to find out," Slade told her, stepping away. "We'll meet back her tomorrow, two hours after sunrise."

"Wait," she called, just as he turned away. "We need to establish some sort of verification system."

Slade pausing, turning back to frown at her. "Why? You think there's another magical person on the island?"

"No, but I also don't know when Dolohov will return. If he thinks I've been interacting with you or anyone else for that matter, he may start… toying with us, for lack of a better phrase. It's not outside the realm of possibility for him to use magic to look like one of us and see how the other reacts. If we establish some sort of code, then we can make sure from here on out that the person we're talking to is actually who we think it is."

"What kind of code?" he sighed. "And how often do you think we should change it?"

"Well, once we spend more time together, we can just ask about things we've previously said or done as a test. For now, I suppose we just go Fyers route and use quotes."

He nodded, grimacing. "Fine. What's that one from yesterday? 'Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier'?"

"'I have seen far worse than this'," Hermione finished. "That'll work."

"Lovely." Slade turned around and strode back in the direction of his camp. "Until tomorrow."

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