(A/N: Well I'm back to finish this story. Here are three new chapters for those of you who have waited this long for an update. Hope you like them enough to leave a review!)
5:45AM Monday 4th January
"Harry! Harry, wake up" Ron shook his best friend.
"Mmmph! Go away!" Harry mumbled from under the pillow he had pulled over his head. It was the morning of the first day back at Hogwarts after the Christmas holidays and the students were rising before the start of their training. Some were having a harder time of readjusting than others.
"Oh no you don't Potter, you got me into this physical training at 6.00AM malarkey, so you are not going back to sleep. WAKE UP!" Ron yelled at Harry.
Harry sat up; eyes still closed and in a very grumpy voice replied, "Some friend you are!" He began to slowly fall sideways back onto his bed but never hit as Ron grabbed him and with Neville's help dragged Harry to his feet. Ron gave Neville the nod and together they walked the still half asleep boy to the bathroom.
A scream rent the air through the entire Gryffindor Tower. Down in the crowded common room Seamus smiled and said to those around him. "Ah! The commander seems to be awake at last." They all laughed, as they knew the drill. At least once a week some of them were needed to help Ron drag his friend from his bed and to the shower. An ice cold shower was the fastest way to wake Harry up. Although you had to be careful, as Harry did not, at first, appreciate it one little bit. Their commander was definitely not a morning person. They all still had a few minutes to go before their early morning run began. For now, the obstacle course was unusable under several feet of snow. So it was once around the frozen lake, then back inside the castle for the rest of the physical training. But they couldn't leave without their commander.
Minutes later Harry walked down the stairs and into the common room. Passing Ron and Neville, he muttered "Bastards!" but they knew this was just his normal morning ritual after a cold shower awakening. "Who are you all waiting for? Lets GO!" Harry yelled to the whole common room and the students poured out of the portrait hole behind Harry to join the other houses students who would also be on their way out.
An hour later the last of the students made it into the Room of Requirement, which was now a large gym where their winter training was conducted. The students were use to their routine and carried it out even if Professor Bond was strangely absent this morning. Stretches, weights, exercise machines were all employed. The students had never been fitter. A fact that had not been lost on their families when they were home during the holidays! They had marvelled at their sons' and daughters' robust appearances and graceful movements.
Professor Bond walked into the gym and called for everyone's attention.
"Good Morning!" Professor Bond yelled, "I hope you all enjoyed the holidays! There will be no formal lessons today. Instead after breakfast, you will all be called one at a time to be debriefed on any events that you witnessed during the holidays. This is normal procedure after any action. It helps us capitalise on our successes and learn from our mistakes. The debriefings will be held in the charms classroom. Neville you will be up first. Harry you should be there too."
An excited chatter went through the gym as Professor Bond left.
"You know what this means?" Harry said to his friends around him.
"No! What?" Ron replied.
"You could have let me sleep in this morning!" Harry replied smirking like Draco. He had apparently picked up some bad habits over the holidays.
Ron looked at Seamus, Dean and Neville and they knew instinctively what to do. Together they grabbed Harry and began to carry him to the gyms change room and showers. Harry had another date with the cold-water tap!
"Mutiny! That what this is!" he yelled kicking and struggling to the rest of the halls amusement.
Breakfast was a lively affair even given the usual training diet. The Great Hall was a sea of blue uniforms except for a sullen half of the Slytherin table and the staff table.
"Mail's here" Seamus yelled as the owls descended with envelops and packages tied to their feet. A strange decrepit old eagle owl landed in front of Harry. Harry was surprised when it waited for him to remove a white envelop from its foot. It was addressed to him. "I never get mail!" he said.
He carefully opened the envelop just in case, you never knew! But it was harmless.
Harry's eyebrows shot up as he began to read.
"Who's it from, Harry?" Ron asked as he chewed his sliced fruit and yoghurt.
Harry however didn't reply. He was still reading the letter and seemed to be oblivious to the rest of the world. When he was done he carefully folded the letter and placed it back into the envelope it had came in. He placed the envelop into his pocket. The whole time he did this, his face bore a very puzzled look.
"Earth to Harry! Hello oh great commander of the army of light!" Ron was trying to get his attention and when he finally received the slightly annoyed glance from Harry he asked again, "Who's it from?"
Harry regarded his friend for a moment before he replied, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you!" Ron was about to press him further when Harry continued, "Well, we had better get to this debriefing Neville." And Harry swept from the table and out of the Great Hall with Neville hurrying to catch up. Ron shrugged and made a mental note to ask Harry about the letter later.
Harry and Neville knocked on the door to the Charms classroom and received a "Come in" from inside. Entering they discovered a table had been set up at the head of the classroom. At it sat the Headmaster, Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, Professor Bond, Arthur Weasley, and a tall man in Auror robes. To the side of the classroom two other people sat, Miss Moneypenny and a man Harry thought looked very familiar but couldn't place at the moment.
"Harry, I want to introduce you to Charlie Banks, Chief Auror. Charlie this is Harry Potter. Neville I believe you already know." Dumbledore said.
"It's a great pleasure to meet you at last, Harry." The chief Auror said as he shook Harry's hand. "Neville has told me a great deal about you."
"Sit here next to me Harry. As Commander you need to be on this panel and hear all the occurrences firsthand." Dumbledore told Harry indicating a seat between himself and the Chief Auror. "Miss Moneypenny and the Quartermaster are sitting in so they can report back any relevant points to their department."
"Now Neville why don't you start by telling us in detail about the attack in Diagon Alley and your actions there." Dumbledore told a nervous looking Neville.
Neville began to relate his tale of that day in Diagon Alley. He was interrupted many times with questions about details on every point. Harry looked on as his friend, obviously very nervous about having to speak in front of so many people, managed to do a good job of describing what had happened in Diagon Alley that day. He had just reached the part where the death eater's were about to throw their potions.
"Well, I ummm… I knew if they did, it would be bad so I… ummm I went out and I kind of.. ummm stopped them…" Neville stammered out.
"And how exactly did you do that Neville?" Dumbledore asked with his eyes twinkling.
"I just kind of made their potions blow up" Neville shrugged as he replied to the headmaster.
"Blow up! Blow up, Longbottom! I might have known. Well at least you have learnt something in my potions classes." Snape spat shaking his head. "Pity it wasn't what I was trying to teach you."
"I've been curious about this point too." The Chief Auror said. "Exactly what did you do?"
"He did what he has been doing in my classes for four years!" Snape complained, "There isn't a potion or caldron in this world that is safe from Longbottom."
"Severus, please!" Dumbledore said, "Let Neville answer the chief Aurors questions."
"Well, Seamus calls it my Wave of Chaos. I just sort of reach down and throw out all this… this… well emotion out of me. It's hard to describe really. Potions just explode when it hits them. I never considered it magic until Harry said it was after I made the lunch explode in the Great Hall earlier this year."
"But how did you know it would work when you stepped out from cover to face the deatheaters?" The Chief Auror asked.
"I didn't, I really thought I was going to die but I had to try something. If they had thrown those potions it would have been disastrous." Neville replied.
"Spoken like a true Gryffindor!" Dumbledore said. Neville blushed but Harry could tell Neville was most flattered by this praise. Harry knew that his friend had always harboured the belief that he wasn't really brave enough to really be in Gryffindor. Now there could be no doubt.
Neville continued his tale of the fight with the three Deatheaters and their defeat. "So when the remaining Death Eaters retreated to Knockturn Alley, I knew we had to go after them before they disappeared or got reinforcements. I got Seamus to secure the battle area with the younger troops and Dean Thomas and I led the assault groups of older troops into position. Everyone got their comlinks on and that's when I heard Stallion call from inside Knockturn Alley…"
"I'm sorry what are comlinks and who is Stallion?" Professor Snape asked puzzled by the last sentence of Neville's tale.
"Perhaps I could answer that Headmaster." Professor Bond cut in. "I gave the students some muggle technology that I thought might prove useful." Professor Bond removed one of the comlinks from his own robes. "The comlinks are small personal radio systems. With them the troops can talk to each other securely regardless of their location. The troops use military radio procedures when they do so. They refer to each other by codename and Stallion is Mr. Zambini's codename. It is derived from "The Italian Stallion" a character in a muggle movie. Each of the students has their own codename and they have even come up with codenames for the staff too. Yours is Santa, Headmaster."
"Well, I wonder how they came up with that?" Dumbledore asked as he stroked his long white beard. "Ho Ho Ho!" Everyone burst out laughing at this with the exception of Snape.
"Your codename Professor," James Bond continued with a wry smile on his face, "is The Count!"
"The Count!" Snape replied in surprise.
"Perhaps it refers to your regal manner." James said.
Harry and Neville were however having a hard time keeping straight faces. Snape looked somewhat flattered by the codename not realising its true origin. Dean Thomas had suggested it, as he was muggle born. As a child he had watched a lot of the television show Sesame Street and one of the puppet characters was the Count. A vampire with the manic behaviour of counting everything he came in contact in. Dean said it fitted Snape's obsession with taking points of Gryffindor. He had even done an impression of "The Count as Snape dressed in a long black cape. "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10… 10 points from Gryffindor!!! Ha! Ha! Ha!" The muggle borns had laughed riotously, the wizard borns were for the most puzzled but accepted the name.
" Well that being all well and good, except I thought, Headmaster, that muggle technology would not work in magical areas such as Diagon Alley?" Snape pointed out.
"That is because the comlinks are not wholly muggle in nature. If I may explain?" The Quartermaster interrupted and with a nod from the headmaster, he continued. "I designed the units that Professor Bond gave to the students. Normal radio waves would indeed be interfered with in magical areas. But these units have certain modifications of my own invention. A mix of both worlds, if you will. Magical carrier waves and muggle technology digital processors specially shielded from outside magic by an electromagnetic field of a certain frequency spread. You see most people don't realise that magic is simply a spectrum that exists diametrically opposite the electromagnetic spectrum. By matching the fields together I can stop one interacting with the other. And these techniques can be applied to almost anything from either world." The Quartermaster looked pleased as punch with himself.
"Thank you for clearing that point up. This sounds very interesting but I believe we should continue to hear the rest of Neville's report first." The headmaster said nodding to the quartermaster. "Please continue Neville."
"Well, the Aurors showed up then and we all moved together into Knockturn Alley on Stallions signal and took down the rest of the deatheaters. When it was over we went back to Diagon Alley and that's all there was too it." Neville shrugged as if he had just finished describing a day out shopping.
"All there was too it, I think not Mr Longbottom." The Chief Auror chipped in. "You do realise what you did? You not only recognised what was about to happen but you got the other members of the forces of light organised to fight the first ever battle waged against the deatheaters successfully. And if that was not enough, you then performed an act of bravery by stopping the potion throwers and fighting hand to hand with the chief deatheater. Blood hell boy, if I wasn't sure that idiot Fudge would block it, I'd put your name in for an Order of Merlin, First Class myself. You earned it ten times over!"
Neville was bright red as he sat there listening to the Chief Auror's praise. Harry grinned happily at his friend. There would be no doubt in anyone's mind now that Neville Longbottom was a true Gryffindor.
And so the morning wore on. Blue uniformed troops one by one sat in the seat in front of the panel and went over their part in the battle of Diagon Alley. All earned praise for their action to some degree. Seamus and Dean Thomas were singled out for their support of Neville in the hand-to-hand fighting.
"Well we weren't bloody well going to leave him out there alone with three of the bastards!" Seamus had commented, earning himself a nod from Dumbledore and a rebuke from McGonagall for language.
Finally the last student had finished and left the room and discussions turned to the general nature of the engagement.
"If young Neville hadn't acted as he had, I shudder to think what might have happened." The Chief Auror said.
"Yes, we were lucky but we can not rely on just luck in the battle against Voldemort." Dumbledore said.
"We won't have too." Harry said suddenly. "If you will allow me Headmaster," he continued as he waved his wand. A bound report appeared in front of each of them. It was entitled "The Dark Lord's Strategy and Planned Attacks"
As everyone leafed through the report, Harry carried on in a business like manner. "The extracts in the report are from Voldemort's journal written in his own hand. I have a full copy if you wish to read it later and full scale images of the included campaign maps."
Most of the people were too shocked for words; only Dumbledore sat there with an amused look on his face and a twinkle in his eyes as he regarded Harry Potter. Here was the intelligence coup of all time, a complete record of the enemy's upcoming strategy. No one missed the implication of having this document meant to the forces of light. They sat there staring dumbfounded at the Boy-Who-Lived as he calmly continued. "If you check Appendix A, you will find a register of Deatheaters that has quiet a few surprises in it. I'll need your help in formulating the best counter strategy for this. It is going to be an immensely complex task."
The Chief Auror finally broke the silence after Harry had finished talking. "Bloody Hell!"
Harry idly wondered why The Chief Auror didn't get a warning about his language from McGonagall.
"YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED!" Professor Bond yelled. He had pulled Harry aside from the others just outside the charms classroom and waited till they were alone. In front of him stood Harry Potter. A dark and angry Harry Potter.
"I wasn't though…" Harry said back a bit louder than he meant to.
"By some miracle! What were you thinking! Walking into the enemies' very midst without any real plan or escape route. If they had found you out…" Professor Bond snapped back.
"But they didn't find out. And besides, you're a great one to talk, you have done this sort of thing loads of times according to Valentin." Harry argued in return.
"Valentin exaggerated!" Professor Bond lied. "Besides I was not the commander of the entire army. I was only one agent. If I had been captured or killed it wouldn't have meant losing the entire war. You are different. Don't look at me like that. You know you are, like it or not. You can't afford to take chances with your life. We need a live commander!"
"A live commander isn't going to help if we don't know what Voldemort is planning. We were blind to his real intentions. And the only one who could have done this is me. So I took the chance and now we have what we need." Harry replied forcefully.
"Well, what's done is done." Professor Bond sighed finally. "But next time ask first…. What am I saying? There isn't going to be a next time!"
"Wanna bet?" Harry laughed as he turned to go out into the grounds for some fresh air. James couldn't help thinking that this was some sort of karmic pay back directed squarely at him. He did not like it one little bit! He hurried after Harry shaking his head in frustration.
Harry stood at the entrance looking out over the grounds. He saw two people approaching.
"It can't be!" He said to himself and then yelled "Professor!" as he ran towards the two struggling towards the castle.