NOTICE: If you read Chapter 13 on July 15th read it again before reading
this, I've changed it a bit.
Chapter 14
2 seventh years, 4 sixth years, 4 fifth years, 5 fourth years, 3 third years. Not a bad team, Harry mused as he looked over the list, noting that he had both the McKinnion twins and Stilgar in his army. However he did have Neville, and Clarissa, and Dennis Creevy.all of which were known for being klutzy, forgetful, and in Dennis's case easily over excited to the point of hysteria. Oh well, at least they were an enthusiastic lot. He'd have to start from scratch in training them, just the basics, and work them hard at it. Drill, drill, drill. Of course, there was a way around that.
Harry put all his things away; he gave his army a half hour to get their stuff sorted out then went back into their barracks. They were all sitting on their beds talking, the curtain between the girls and boys rooms pushed back to everyone could talk. They all fell silent as he came in.
"Now that you've all settled in. Classes have been rescheduled; we'll all get our new schedules tomorrow. Classes are organized by year. I've arranged for us to have our practices every day from 5:30 a.m. to 6:45, which then leaves you 45 minutes afterward before breakfast. On Saturday it's from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m." He listened to the complaints at the times.
"Come on, why so early?"
"Hey people, Bat army has practice from 4:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And Mouse army has that early practice on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday." There was a long pause. "And you don't want to practice right before class or right after, or just before a meal. This way you'll have time to shower and gather your books for classes after practice." There were nods all around.
"Secondly, we no longer have houses, so forget it, but we do have our mascot, the wolf. Each army is required to wear an mage of their mascot on upper arms of their robes." He handed out small pieces of black cloth, each with a 2 inch by 3-inch wolf on it in grays with the words 'Wolf Army' in silver. "Just press these to the arms of your robes." They did so, the wolves appeared in the correct places on their robes, the black cloth vanished.
Harry also had the two wolves, one on each sleeve, but he also had a badge, which read, Wolf Army Commander and had their wolf on it.
"Now I'm required to turn in a general progress report on how I think the army is doing every month, I also have to turn in a small report on each of you as an individual, so please no messing around. If you feel like playing pranks on the other armies tell everyone first and we'll all decide on it." He stopped to let them catch up.
"All the armies have been scheduled to fight against one another, but this doesn't mean we should be enemies, remember that. We won't know when our battles are or who our opponents are until the day of the battle. We won't have any battles for at least three weeks, so we have three weeks to train and create some strategies, then we can expect a battle a week. We have the rest of the day off so we should all try and finish our homework. I've signed us up for a practice this afternoon at 4:00 so get done by then if possible." Harry went back into his room, leaving the door open, he could hear them talking and getting out their work. Each of them had been given a lap desk to work on and in each of the barracks, boys and girls, there was an oval table with six stools around it.
*** "I live solely to serve my Lord, the Dark King, to my death and beyond." The kneeling death eater whispered through gritted teeth as Voldemort burned the dark mark into her arm.
"Good, good," Voldemort hissed, the death eater screamed as the mark melted into her flesh, smoking. Voldemort pressing a finger to the mark, finally the screaming death eater stopped, she'd passed out. Voldemort tapped a finger to the mark, "enervate," the new death eater stirred and blinked twice, then kissed the hem of his robes and went into a place in the circle. Another death eater came forwards and knelt at Voldemort's feet, holding out his left arm which Voldemort took and slowly began to trace the mark onto with one finger as the soon-to-be death eater recited the oath. Swirling dark mists enveloped him and the circle of waiting death eaters vanished.
A new image took form, again the circle of cement cells, eight in all, in a circle. Death eaters sitting on top of them all around. Voldemort in his throne atop one of the cells, his newest death eaters sitting amongst the rest. Two of the cells door opened, two young boys of about eleven came out, they each held a short spear in one hand and were dressed only in deer skin pants and vests, one of them had a nasty scar down his arm, from a previous fight no doubt. They saluted the death eaters and bowed to Voldemort before circling warily.
When the scene finally faded, when one of them dropped over dead with the other's spear through his stomach, dark mists closed in, then everything became a blaze of copper, silver, and turquoise, the three colors running together in spirals and sign everywhere. And Harry heard a voice speaking, a sit finished he felt a tremendous bolt of pain across his scar and woke with a gasp, blood running down his face.
"Oh my god! Harry!" Harry looked around, Stilgar, Neville, and a fifth year named Roald were standing at the door, he sat up and grabbed his wand, conjuring up bandages to wrap around hiss car, before hopping out of bed and going into the bathroom to wash the blood off his face.
"It's okay guys, that just happens sometimes." He said, trying to reassure them.
"It's certainly not okay." Neville replied, most of the army was in his room when he emerged from the bathroom, wrapping a bandage around the still bleeding scar.
"Did I say anything?" Harry asked curiously.
"Yeah, you screamed twice, that's what woke us, we came in here and saw your scar bleeding.you were twitching, then you calmed and started talking, only from far away, then you screamed again and woke up." Stilgar said.
"Do you remember what I said?" Stilgar thought for a moment.
"Yes I do remember.
Truth is a song, oft lying unsung, Some mother bird, protecting her young, Those who lay down their lives for friends, The echo rolls onward, it seldom ends.
That was all." he finished, Harry nodded calmly and wrote it down, thanked them, and told them to get back to bed. He however did not sleep, but spent the rest of the night looking over the two prophecy's he had made carefully.
***
"Balance Neville!" The clumsy boy nearly toppled over with shock as Harry shouted from behind him. Harry had his entire team up on balance beams, really thin ones. It had been nearly a week and he hadn't started working on any fighting yet, if they were going to fight he wanted them to be good. And for that they needed reflexes and balance.
At the end of the practice the Wolves left to shower before breakfast, some of them muttering rebelliously about the endless balancing exercises and reflex exercises Harry had been putting them through. Harry however was noticing definite improvement, no one in his army tripped over anything anymore, he'd threatened to make those who tripped the most clean the bathrooms. They never dropped anything from clumsiness, and if someone else dropped something they were quick at catching it. All of them could walk on a thin wobbly strip of wood about an inch wide, so regular balance beams were no problem. He'd made them spend four practices catching cats. He'd created a maze throughout the gym and caught two dozen alley cats and set them loose in it. They had to catch all of them wandlessly; many of them still bore the scratch marks.
And they hadn't practiced a single spell, the other armies spent hours and hours working with magic, the Wolf army hadn't spent a minute on it. All of them could do a good stunning spell, and all of them could disarm an opponent. With just those and the speed and reflexes they had been developing Harry was sure that they could take on any of the other teams.
"Alright everyone, I know you've all been very unhappy with our first week of practice." There was a loud rumble of agreement. "On Monday we'll be starting with spells, and you'll see that there is a very good reason I've been making you practice balance and reflexes. Even with just stunning and disarming spells this army could take on any of the others and stand an excellent chance of beating them. Or are you scared to fight them?" This last was slightly contemptuous.
"We're not afraid!" Janice McKinnion shouted. Harry nodded approvingly.
"Fear cuts deeper than swords, we do not fear." He said simply, and waited for someone to voice what was really bugging them.
"But we don't want to lose." Neville murmured.
"A fighter who fears losing has already lost. Monday we will start on battle tactics and dueling, until then, follow what I've taught you, let nothing faze you or surprise you, watch, listen, and be wary. A true fighter sees with all his senses, watch the other armies, are they quick? Well balanced? Alert? Keep to the shadows and watch the others. Wolves are the ones who watch form the forests and do not make their presence known until they attack. We are the ones whom others see only from the corner of their eyes, and they look we are gone. Swift as a deer, quick as a snake-" The others started repeating the words he had taught them to live by, the words that had become their mantra.
"-Calm as still water, light on our feet as a feather upon the air, amorphous as shadows in candlelight, silent and unseen as the stalking wolf." Harry nodded in approval as they ended the chant, 18 pairs of eyes watched him silently, he had drilled those words into them over the past week, he'd enchanted them so that all during the night their only thoughts were those words repeating over and over in their minds. He'd enchanted their dreams so that all they saw were swift silent forms of wolves, a pack on the run. Of course none of them knew he caused this.
He was pleased with their improvement, even as they watched the rest of the school and him, he watched them. They had learned well, they never wasted a movement, graceful and quick, they worked hard and helped each other. He had watched them slowly develop their own hierarchy in the army, and it was this natural hierarchy that he would base his battle plans on.
"Well done for today people, now lets go to breakfast." They all leaped up and filed out, slipping effortlessly into the shadows as they joined the crowd heading for the great hall. The other armies might march down in style, or shamble along sleepily, but the wolf army flitted about the shadows noting everything that went on around them.
The great hall had been changed, there was a table for each army and then a large separate table for the commanders. The teachers still sat at their table. Harry went over to the large circular commander's table, it was just below the staff table. Behind it were 28 rectangular tables where the armies ate. The commanders had better full backed chairs, but their armies sat on benches, the commanders also had their own lounge and bathroom (formerly the prefect's bathroom)
"Hey Harry, how's everything in Wolf Army?" Ira asked him, Harry smiled and sat down beside her, he had timed his arrival to that he was last, he looked around and noted that all the others seemed to be watching him.
"Very well thanks, we'll start our dueling training on Monday, they're all excited." The other 27 commanders stared. The Wolf army hadn't started their dueling training yet?
"What on earth have you been doing for a week then?" Draco asked suspiciously.
"Learning to follow orders and how to balance on a balance beam. I've got some of the worst klutzes in the school in my army." There were chuckles all about, but Harry could tell that all were storing that away, the Wolf army would only have had two weeks actual practice when the first battles came. Dinner continued, Harry acted annoyed that his army would only have two weeks dueling practice, but not quite too annoyed. By the time the meal ended he was sure he had them all fooled into thinking that the Wolves would be easy to beat.
But they sure as hell were not going to be easy! He sent out people on spy duty, to watch the other team's practices. There was a secret passage that led behind one wall of the gym, and in it Harry had put well-hidden spy holes. The gym was nearly two stories high, and the spy holes were about sixteen feet off the ground, so no one should notice them. Harry himself had created the passageway, it was little more than a crawl space, three feet high and three feet wide. Everyone took a turn, normally two people watching each practice, and he'd managed to create a sort of competition, see who could remember the best details. He had him or her record every word spoken by the other team, by magic, and each person would record the practice visually. Harry wrote down summaries of each and every practice and asked those who had been watching for their report/analysis of the other army when they came back from each spying mission, with this he could track the other armies progress.
***
"Okay dear, done, you're still going to have a slight limp, but that's the best I can do." Madam Pomfrey told Harry as he woke. She had been trying to correct the limp he had been left with after his fight with the elementals last year. Harry nodded and stood, testing his battered left leg gingerly. He walked around the hospital wing once.
"Thanks madam Pomfrey." He said with a smile, it was much better, still a noticeable limp, but nothing that would really slow him down. Harry checked his watch, great if he hurried he'd get to the last half hour of practice.
On the way down to the gym he met up with Draco. The other was just coming out of the commander's lounge and nearly bumped into Harry.
"Oh hi Harry, how's the leg?"
"Much better, but I'll still limp when I walk."
"Sorry, McGonagal was just announcing the first battles, they'll be this Sunday." Harry frowned a little, pretending to be worried.
"Finally.how's your army doing?" he asked, his voice just a tiny bit strain and with just a slight touch of nervousness.
"Very well, I'm confident we'll do fine, we've got some great duelers." Draco smirked, Harry nodded, perhaps just a little too sharply, and cleared his throat.
"Ahem, well uh good luck in your battle." He walked off, behind him Draco grinned, so wolf army wasn't ready to fight yet were they? The other commanders who had been listening form inside the lounge all traded looks of slight relief, they knew Harry had a bad army, so that was one army they had a good shot of beating.
None of them would have been nearly so pleased had they seen the grin that broke out on Harry's face as soon as the gym doors shut behind him. Inside his eighteen fighters, in two groups of five and two groups of four, were practicing.
They had been told that the battle room would be filled to the ceiling with ladders, stairways, platforms, rooms with trap doors, walls every which way, or maybe it would be empty. Currently they were practicing as if it were filled with things. Following a battle plan Harry had built the groups carefully moved about, ten of them were the 'bad guys' while the other two groups, both of four, tried to get them all. Finally they finished and Harry called everyone back to the open area of the gym.
"Okay troops, you were looking good out there. We just need to practice turning corners." He set up a large open maze, but made sure that it had plenty of corners.
"Alright, squads A, you've got the far right corner, the red one, enter there and try to get to the blue corner. B you start at blue, try to get to the yellow corner, C you start at yellow, try to get to the green corner, D you'll start at green, try to get to red. Mark you uniforms so you know your squad members. Take out anyone who isn't in your squad, I'll join the B squad."
Ten minutes later all the squads except for B were stunned, not one of Harry's squad was stunned. By the end of practice he'd led each squad in turn, showing the squad leaders what to do. He then sent them all out there again, since tow of the squads had five he took those two extra people with him, the three of them managed to defeat the rest of the army. Then they tried a few formation attacks, just for fun, as Harry said. He left the gym, highly pleased with his army. Under Harry's careful training they had become excellent fighters. Each squad was a tightly knit unit loyal to their squad leader, and all of them utterly in awe of Harry and completely loyal to him, he had no worries of any of them trading the armies secrets away.
*** Six people suddenly appeared inside Stonehenge.
"Are you sure this is it?" Fred Weasely asked the young man beside him. The other looked about, emerald eyes missing nothing.
"The phoenix's can sense the sources of magic Fred. If they say this is it, then it is." He turned to three phoenixes that were perched atop a rock. "This is it then Zarith?" The phoenix in the middle, slightly smaller and younger looking than the other two, nodded its head and gave a small trill in reply.
By evening the SPD team had dug into the ground until they hit a stone wall, digging around the realized that the stone must be the chamber. Harry, doing a careful examination of the stone, was not surprised to find that it was the exact same type of rock that the other skull had been housed in.
"Everyone you had best leave, I'll go in and get the skull and pedestal, then you can come back and copy the chamber walls, and remove the bodies." Harry said, staring at the rock, the SPD team apparated away. Harry, rather than blowing a hole in the wall, melted a doorway into it. He was almost through when he heard the pops that announced someone apparating nearby. He whirled and ducked; pulling out his wand he set up a shield before hurled stunning spells at the ten masked figures about him. Caught by surprise them threw a variety of curses at him, namely the unforgivables. Harry vanished in a flash of lightning. The light blinded the death eaters momentarily and the crash deafened them. They did not here or see Harry immediately reappear behind a stone.
They approached the chamber cautiously down the short passage, no sooner had they reached the door then spells hit them from behind. Six of them went down, stunned, another was hit with a contorting curse and another disarmed.
Outside Harry caught the wand and attacked again, lightning leaped form his finger tips into the short tunnel followed by a stunning spell and two body binds. He slowly entered, wand out, then stood, all ten were laying on the ground, Harry sighed and shook his head. Wondering they'd realize that he was saving their lives. The skull would have killed them if they had entered the chamber. He teleported them back to the Fortress.
Sirius? . Sirius?
Harry?
I was just attacked by death eaters, but they didn't know how to duel, I'm teleporting them to the Fortress grounds.
Alright, be careful with that skull.
I will. Harry sent the message then continued melting through the chamber wall. Finally he removed the section of rock he had melted out, allowing the air that had been in there for centuries and centuries to escape before he entered. He ducked his head and stepped through the stone wall, he straightened slowly and allowed his eyes to become accustomed to the light, what he saw made him gasp with shock.
Haha cliffie! Please review!
Chapter 14
2 seventh years, 4 sixth years, 4 fifth years, 5 fourth years, 3 third years. Not a bad team, Harry mused as he looked over the list, noting that he had both the McKinnion twins and Stilgar in his army. However he did have Neville, and Clarissa, and Dennis Creevy.all of which were known for being klutzy, forgetful, and in Dennis's case easily over excited to the point of hysteria. Oh well, at least they were an enthusiastic lot. He'd have to start from scratch in training them, just the basics, and work them hard at it. Drill, drill, drill. Of course, there was a way around that.
Harry put all his things away; he gave his army a half hour to get their stuff sorted out then went back into their barracks. They were all sitting on their beds talking, the curtain between the girls and boys rooms pushed back to everyone could talk. They all fell silent as he came in.
"Now that you've all settled in. Classes have been rescheduled; we'll all get our new schedules tomorrow. Classes are organized by year. I've arranged for us to have our practices every day from 5:30 a.m. to 6:45, which then leaves you 45 minutes afterward before breakfast. On Saturday it's from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m." He listened to the complaints at the times.
"Come on, why so early?"
"Hey people, Bat army has practice from 4:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And Mouse army has that early practice on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday." There was a long pause. "And you don't want to practice right before class or right after, or just before a meal. This way you'll have time to shower and gather your books for classes after practice." There were nods all around.
"Secondly, we no longer have houses, so forget it, but we do have our mascot, the wolf. Each army is required to wear an mage of their mascot on upper arms of their robes." He handed out small pieces of black cloth, each with a 2 inch by 3-inch wolf on it in grays with the words 'Wolf Army' in silver. "Just press these to the arms of your robes." They did so, the wolves appeared in the correct places on their robes, the black cloth vanished.
Harry also had the two wolves, one on each sleeve, but he also had a badge, which read, Wolf Army Commander and had their wolf on it.
"Now I'm required to turn in a general progress report on how I think the army is doing every month, I also have to turn in a small report on each of you as an individual, so please no messing around. If you feel like playing pranks on the other armies tell everyone first and we'll all decide on it." He stopped to let them catch up.
"All the armies have been scheduled to fight against one another, but this doesn't mean we should be enemies, remember that. We won't know when our battles are or who our opponents are until the day of the battle. We won't have any battles for at least three weeks, so we have three weeks to train and create some strategies, then we can expect a battle a week. We have the rest of the day off so we should all try and finish our homework. I've signed us up for a practice this afternoon at 4:00 so get done by then if possible." Harry went back into his room, leaving the door open, he could hear them talking and getting out their work. Each of them had been given a lap desk to work on and in each of the barracks, boys and girls, there was an oval table with six stools around it.
*** "I live solely to serve my Lord, the Dark King, to my death and beyond." The kneeling death eater whispered through gritted teeth as Voldemort burned the dark mark into her arm.
"Good, good," Voldemort hissed, the death eater screamed as the mark melted into her flesh, smoking. Voldemort pressing a finger to the mark, finally the screaming death eater stopped, she'd passed out. Voldemort tapped a finger to the mark, "enervate," the new death eater stirred and blinked twice, then kissed the hem of his robes and went into a place in the circle. Another death eater came forwards and knelt at Voldemort's feet, holding out his left arm which Voldemort took and slowly began to trace the mark onto with one finger as the soon-to-be death eater recited the oath. Swirling dark mists enveloped him and the circle of waiting death eaters vanished.
A new image took form, again the circle of cement cells, eight in all, in a circle. Death eaters sitting on top of them all around. Voldemort in his throne atop one of the cells, his newest death eaters sitting amongst the rest. Two of the cells door opened, two young boys of about eleven came out, they each held a short spear in one hand and were dressed only in deer skin pants and vests, one of them had a nasty scar down his arm, from a previous fight no doubt. They saluted the death eaters and bowed to Voldemort before circling warily.
When the scene finally faded, when one of them dropped over dead with the other's spear through his stomach, dark mists closed in, then everything became a blaze of copper, silver, and turquoise, the three colors running together in spirals and sign everywhere. And Harry heard a voice speaking, a sit finished he felt a tremendous bolt of pain across his scar and woke with a gasp, blood running down his face.
"Oh my god! Harry!" Harry looked around, Stilgar, Neville, and a fifth year named Roald were standing at the door, he sat up and grabbed his wand, conjuring up bandages to wrap around hiss car, before hopping out of bed and going into the bathroom to wash the blood off his face.
"It's okay guys, that just happens sometimes." He said, trying to reassure them.
"It's certainly not okay." Neville replied, most of the army was in his room when he emerged from the bathroom, wrapping a bandage around the still bleeding scar.
"Did I say anything?" Harry asked curiously.
"Yeah, you screamed twice, that's what woke us, we came in here and saw your scar bleeding.you were twitching, then you calmed and started talking, only from far away, then you screamed again and woke up." Stilgar said.
"Do you remember what I said?" Stilgar thought for a moment.
"Yes I do remember.
Truth is a song, oft lying unsung, Some mother bird, protecting her young, Those who lay down their lives for friends, The echo rolls onward, it seldom ends.
That was all." he finished, Harry nodded calmly and wrote it down, thanked them, and told them to get back to bed. He however did not sleep, but spent the rest of the night looking over the two prophecy's he had made carefully.
***
"Balance Neville!" The clumsy boy nearly toppled over with shock as Harry shouted from behind him. Harry had his entire team up on balance beams, really thin ones. It had been nearly a week and he hadn't started working on any fighting yet, if they were going to fight he wanted them to be good. And for that they needed reflexes and balance.
At the end of the practice the Wolves left to shower before breakfast, some of them muttering rebelliously about the endless balancing exercises and reflex exercises Harry had been putting them through. Harry however was noticing definite improvement, no one in his army tripped over anything anymore, he'd threatened to make those who tripped the most clean the bathrooms. They never dropped anything from clumsiness, and if someone else dropped something they were quick at catching it. All of them could walk on a thin wobbly strip of wood about an inch wide, so regular balance beams were no problem. He'd made them spend four practices catching cats. He'd created a maze throughout the gym and caught two dozen alley cats and set them loose in it. They had to catch all of them wandlessly; many of them still bore the scratch marks.
And they hadn't practiced a single spell, the other armies spent hours and hours working with magic, the Wolf army hadn't spent a minute on it. All of them could do a good stunning spell, and all of them could disarm an opponent. With just those and the speed and reflexes they had been developing Harry was sure that they could take on any of the other teams.
"Alright everyone, I know you've all been very unhappy with our first week of practice." There was a loud rumble of agreement. "On Monday we'll be starting with spells, and you'll see that there is a very good reason I've been making you practice balance and reflexes. Even with just stunning and disarming spells this army could take on any of the others and stand an excellent chance of beating them. Or are you scared to fight them?" This last was slightly contemptuous.
"We're not afraid!" Janice McKinnion shouted. Harry nodded approvingly.
"Fear cuts deeper than swords, we do not fear." He said simply, and waited for someone to voice what was really bugging them.
"But we don't want to lose." Neville murmured.
"A fighter who fears losing has already lost. Monday we will start on battle tactics and dueling, until then, follow what I've taught you, let nothing faze you or surprise you, watch, listen, and be wary. A true fighter sees with all his senses, watch the other armies, are they quick? Well balanced? Alert? Keep to the shadows and watch the others. Wolves are the ones who watch form the forests and do not make their presence known until they attack. We are the ones whom others see only from the corner of their eyes, and they look we are gone. Swift as a deer, quick as a snake-" The others started repeating the words he had taught them to live by, the words that had become their mantra.
"-Calm as still water, light on our feet as a feather upon the air, amorphous as shadows in candlelight, silent and unseen as the stalking wolf." Harry nodded in approval as they ended the chant, 18 pairs of eyes watched him silently, he had drilled those words into them over the past week, he'd enchanted them so that all during the night their only thoughts were those words repeating over and over in their minds. He'd enchanted their dreams so that all they saw were swift silent forms of wolves, a pack on the run. Of course none of them knew he caused this.
He was pleased with their improvement, even as they watched the rest of the school and him, he watched them. They had learned well, they never wasted a movement, graceful and quick, they worked hard and helped each other. He had watched them slowly develop their own hierarchy in the army, and it was this natural hierarchy that he would base his battle plans on.
"Well done for today people, now lets go to breakfast." They all leaped up and filed out, slipping effortlessly into the shadows as they joined the crowd heading for the great hall. The other armies might march down in style, or shamble along sleepily, but the wolf army flitted about the shadows noting everything that went on around them.
The great hall had been changed, there was a table for each army and then a large separate table for the commanders. The teachers still sat at their table. Harry went over to the large circular commander's table, it was just below the staff table. Behind it were 28 rectangular tables where the armies ate. The commanders had better full backed chairs, but their armies sat on benches, the commanders also had their own lounge and bathroom (formerly the prefect's bathroom)
"Hey Harry, how's everything in Wolf Army?" Ira asked him, Harry smiled and sat down beside her, he had timed his arrival to that he was last, he looked around and noted that all the others seemed to be watching him.
"Very well thanks, we'll start our dueling training on Monday, they're all excited." The other 27 commanders stared. The Wolf army hadn't started their dueling training yet?
"What on earth have you been doing for a week then?" Draco asked suspiciously.
"Learning to follow orders and how to balance on a balance beam. I've got some of the worst klutzes in the school in my army." There were chuckles all about, but Harry could tell that all were storing that away, the Wolf army would only have had two weeks actual practice when the first battles came. Dinner continued, Harry acted annoyed that his army would only have two weeks dueling practice, but not quite too annoyed. By the time the meal ended he was sure he had them all fooled into thinking that the Wolves would be easy to beat.
But they sure as hell were not going to be easy! He sent out people on spy duty, to watch the other team's practices. There was a secret passage that led behind one wall of the gym, and in it Harry had put well-hidden spy holes. The gym was nearly two stories high, and the spy holes were about sixteen feet off the ground, so no one should notice them. Harry himself had created the passageway, it was little more than a crawl space, three feet high and three feet wide. Everyone took a turn, normally two people watching each practice, and he'd managed to create a sort of competition, see who could remember the best details. He had him or her record every word spoken by the other team, by magic, and each person would record the practice visually. Harry wrote down summaries of each and every practice and asked those who had been watching for their report/analysis of the other army when they came back from each spying mission, with this he could track the other armies progress.
***
"Okay dear, done, you're still going to have a slight limp, but that's the best I can do." Madam Pomfrey told Harry as he woke. She had been trying to correct the limp he had been left with after his fight with the elementals last year. Harry nodded and stood, testing his battered left leg gingerly. He walked around the hospital wing once.
"Thanks madam Pomfrey." He said with a smile, it was much better, still a noticeable limp, but nothing that would really slow him down. Harry checked his watch, great if he hurried he'd get to the last half hour of practice.
On the way down to the gym he met up with Draco. The other was just coming out of the commander's lounge and nearly bumped into Harry.
"Oh hi Harry, how's the leg?"
"Much better, but I'll still limp when I walk."
"Sorry, McGonagal was just announcing the first battles, they'll be this Sunday." Harry frowned a little, pretending to be worried.
"Finally.how's your army doing?" he asked, his voice just a tiny bit strain and with just a slight touch of nervousness.
"Very well, I'm confident we'll do fine, we've got some great duelers." Draco smirked, Harry nodded, perhaps just a little too sharply, and cleared his throat.
"Ahem, well uh good luck in your battle." He walked off, behind him Draco grinned, so wolf army wasn't ready to fight yet were they? The other commanders who had been listening form inside the lounge all traded looks of slight relief, they knew Harry had a bad army, so that was one army they had a good shot of beating.
None of them would have been nearly so pleased had they seen the grin that broke out on Harry's face as soon as the gym doors shut behind him. Inside his eighteen fighters, in two groups of five and two groups of four, were practicing.
They had been told that the battle room would be filled to the ceiling with ladders, stairways, platforms, rooms with trap doors, walls every which way, or maybe it would be empty. Currently they were practicing as if it were filled with things. Following a battle plan Harry had built the groups carefully moved about, ten of them were the 'bad guys' while the other two groups, both of four, tried to get them all. Finally they finished and Harry called everyone back to the open area of the gym.
"Okay troops, you were looking good out there. We just need to practice turning corners." He set up a large open maze, but made sure that it had plenty of corners.
"Alright, squads A, you've got the far right corner, the red one, enter there and try to get to the blue corner. B you start at blue, try to get to the yellow corner, C you start at yellow, try to get to the green corner, D you'll start at green, try to get to red. Mark you uniforms so you know your squad members. Take out anyone who isn't in your squad, I'll join the B squad."
Ten minutes later all the squads except for B were stunned, not one of Harry's squad was stunned. By the end of practice he'd led each squad in turn, showing the squad leaders what to do. He then sent them all out there again, since tow of the squads had five he took those two extra people with him, the three of them managed to defeat the rest of the army. Then they tried a few formation attacks, just for fun, as Harry said. He left the gym, highly pleased with his army. Under Harry's careful training they had become excellent fighters. Each squad was a tightly knit unit loyal to their squad leader, and all of them utterly in awe of Harry and completely loyal to him, he had no worries of any of them trading the armies secrets away.
*** Six people suddenly appeared inside Stonehenge.
"Are you sure this is it?" Fred Weasely asked the young man beside him. The other looked about, emerald eyes missing nothing.
"The phoenix's can sense the sources of magic Fred. If they say this is it, then it is." He turned to three phoenixes that were perched atop a rock. "This is it then Zarith?" The phoenix in the middle, slightly smaller and younger looking than the other two, nodded its head and gave a small trill in reply.
By evening the SPD team had dug into the ground until they hit a stone wall, digging around the realized that the stone must be the chamber. Harry, doing a careful examination of the stone, was not surprised to find that it was the exact same type of rock that the other skull had been housed in.
"Everyone you had best leave, I'll go in and get the skull and pedestal, then you can come back and copy the chamber walls, and remove the bodies." Harry said, staring at the rock, the SPD team apparated away. Harry, rather than blowing a hole in the wall, melted a doorway into it. He was almost through when he heard the pops that announced someone apparating nearby. He whirled and ducked; pulling out his wand he set up a shield before hurled stunning spells at the ten masked figures about him. Caught by surprise them threw a variety of curses at him, namely the unforgivables. Harry vanished in a flash of lightning. The light blinded the death eaters momentarily and the crash deafened them. They did not here or see Harry immediately reappear behind a stone.
They approached the chamber cautiously down the short passage, no sooner had they reached the door then spells hit them from behind. Six of them went down, stunned, another was hit with a contorting curse and another disarmed.
Outside Harry caught the wand and attacked again, lightning leaped form his finger tips into the short tunnel followed by a stunning spell and two body binds. He slowly entered, wand out, then stood, all ten were laying on the ground, Harry sighed and shook his head. Wondering they'd realize that he was saving their lives. The skull would have killed them if they had entered the chamber. He teleported them back to the Fortress.
Sirius? . Sirius?
Harry?
I was just attacked by death eaters, but they didn't know how to duel, I'm teleporting them to the Fortress grounds.
Alright, be careful with that skull.
I will. Harry sent the message then continued melting through the chamber wall. Finally he removed the section of rock he had melted out, allowing the air that had been in there for centuries and centuries to escape before he entered. He ducked his head and stepped through the stone wall, he straightened slowly and allowed his eyes to become accustomed to the light, what he saw made him gasp with shock.
Haha cliffie! Please review!