Chapter Three

'Hello Ms. Granger,' said a voice off to Hermione's left.

Jumping at the sound of the voice Hermione snapped off several curt questions, "Who exactly are you and how do you know who I am?" The realizing what she was in asked, in a slightly less hostile manner, "And exactly how are you able to use these muggle aircraft in the vicinity of Hogwarts?"

'Patience, Ms. Granger, it will all be explained in time,' the voice paused, giving Hermione time to see that the voice was coming from a figure crouching down to her left, 'Whiskey, Hotel Golf is en route to base, keep things under wraps until I signal, roger that?'

'Kilo, this is Whiskey, roger that Delta is en route to base also, along with PFC Delta Oscar.'

'Copy that Whiskey, be seein' ya.'

'Roger that, Whiskey out.'

The figure turned to face Hermione, a small sliver of red light shone across part of his face, revealing practically nothing about this figure. 'Ms. Granger, I'm sorry about the scare that any of this may have given you, but with the recent events as of last year it was necessary. I can't tell you anything right now, well… at least not until we land, which should only be a few more minutes.'

Hermione not knowing how to respond nodded her head and turned to stare out of the open side doors on the helicopter, watching the trees of the Dark Forest blaze by. She knew that she should be frightened but for some reason wasn't. Instead she felt somewhat exhilarated, or maybe that was just the adrenaline rush, she didn't know. Off in the distance specks of light became visible and were growing steadily brighter. It wasn't long before she could make out the large white H's and the many moving figures running about. And the sound of diesel engines idling. Before Hermione knew it the helicopter was hovering over one of the H's and was descending on top of it. The helicopter touched down without so much as a bump, and before Hermione could make the attempt to get out herself the figure jumped out of the Blackhawk, turned around and extended his hand to assist her out of the helicopter. Wanting to be back on solid ground she grabbed the outstretched hand and planted her feet solidly on the ground.

'Follow me, please,' said the figure releasing her hand, and began to walk away from the helicopter. Hermione turned to follow him. As she walked behind the figure she deduced that she had been taken to some kind of military installation, more noticeably an American military installation. The two had been walking for a few minutes when they came upon a large flagpole, which was illuminated by several lights. Fluttering in the wind were three large flags. The top most flag was the American Flag, just below it was another flag that Hermione hadn't seen before, and the final flag was a red flag that bore the Hogwarts Crest, and in shimmering gold letters were the words "Dumbledore's Army" written just above the crest.

Continuing on past the flagpole a familiar shape came into view, walking along side someone she didn't know, the light from the pole flickered onto the tiny form of a House-elf with a pencil like long nose, and great green tennis ball sized eyes.

"Dobby! What are you doing here?" It was the second time this night that the house-elf had appeared unexpectedly. However, this time Dobby was different. Sitting on Dobby's head was a helmet that was the same as the ones that she had seen on the soldiers, he was also wearing the same type of clothes, and had on combat boots. But most noticeable was that resting in his hands was a rifle that was the exact same as the rifle that the soldiers carried except that it had been shrunken to fit his arm length. Dobby's face no longer had the same exuberant expression on his face, but instead wore one of fierce determination. As a whole the house-elf had been transformed from his usually comical self to being down outright scary looking. Dobby fell into step with Hermione without saying a word. In front of them another had joined walking alongside the figure that was already in front of her.

Minutes later the group reached their destination, a large olive drab tent. The figure pulled a flap to the side and motioned for Hermione to enter first. Stepping through the flap she found herself standing on a blue carpeted floor, in the middle of the room was a large polished oak desk, which held surprisingly little stuff on the top. Though directly in the middle of the desk was a plaque that bore the inscription:

Major General Kitoriav Lightningstrider

Sitting directly behind the desk and to Hermione's right was another, more heavily cluttered desk, which held a computer, and a light tan fedora. Between the two desks was a large leatherback chair. In front of the oak desk were four other chairs, though not as big as the one behind the desks. To the left of the desk hung what looked to be like quidditch robes, hanging above an olive drab footlocker. Behind Hermione she heard footsteps coming from the outside. Turning her head she saw for the first time in full light what both of the figures looked like. Quickly looking over the first figure who stepped through into the tent she spotted the words "Lightningstrider" in somewhat faded black letters above the right breast pocket on his woodland patterned camouflage tunic. Kitoriav Lightningstrider was slightly taller than Hermione (who was about five foot five inches), had very closely cropped hair, Hermione guess no more than a quarter of an inch on the top, his face was somewhat tanned and gaunt with a stern rigid look, somewhat offset by his eyes. Hie eyes were dark brown, practically black, and could probably fill several novels worth of stories.

The second figure's name or at least last name was Dekker. Dekker was much taller than either Kitoriav or Hermione. Dekker and Kitoriav shared the same haircut, but his face was less tanned than Kitoriav's and his face resembled that of a skull with skin stretched over it. Dekker's eyes were a cold and merciless yellow, and had an almost insane look to them. Dobby however, looked the same as he did a few minutes ago, except a much less intimidating character compared to Dekker.

Kitoriav walked past Hermione to stand behind the large oak desk, and motioned for them all to sit down. Hermione sat down in the chair farthest to the right (to her relief Dobby took the chair directly to her left), while Dekker moved to stand just behind Kitoriav. Kitoriav pulled the large leather chair up behind him and sat down.

'I expect that you know my name already, but for the sake of formality I shall introduce myself. My name, as you can see, is Major General Kitoriav Lightningstider. And this is Sergeant Major Dekker, and Dekker is not his last name. Now I expect that you have surveyed the entire tent, and might be wondering about the quidditch robes over there. Well I will go ahead and tell you about that before we get on to business. Not long before y'all first set foot inside of Hogwarts I was the captain of an International Quidditch team, known as the Carolina Spiders. Our colors were of course black and gold. I met Dekker whilst I was still at the Carolina Wizarding school. Dekker was an exchange student from Germany, and we've known each other ever since. I don't know if you followed quidditch much but the Carolina Spiders won the Quidditch World Cup eight years ago, I don't remember who we played against, but it was a close game. Anyways, enough with the quidditch history, the team no longer officially exists since we disbanded it to help Dumbledore fight against Voldemort (Hermione made extra careful not flinch at the name), and we've been doing our job ever since then.

After our good friend Harry took down Voldemort, I returned to the States, and enlisted in the military there for four years. Though, my thoughts of reenlisting were shot down when Dumbledore told me about Voldemort returning, I sent off owls to get everyone back together we were reforming and that he was back. And we were once again back on the job.

Which brings me to what we actually do. Now the two of us are just two of the seven Spider Quidditch players, the other five are off doing other jobs. Anyway, our job is to make sure that you three are always safe. Though we've always been lurking out of sight and in much smaller numbers. However, due to last years events and the full return of Voldemort we've been operating in full force. You didn't know it, but the second y'all arrived at Kings Cross we had two Blackhawks covering the train all the way to the Hogsmeade station, and even then we still had a few hovering near by, plus troops on the ground.'

Suddenly many things were beginning to click into place, as to certain events in the past. But one thing kept coming up. "Exactly how are you managing to fly those muggle helicopters around and on top of Hogwarts? It says in Hogwarts, A History that muggle substitutes for magic wouldn't work."

'Ah, yes. Well you see Dumbledore knew a thing or two and put some kind of charm on all of our equipment that allows us to work, but also to repel unfriendly spells. Plus it certainly keeps our rifles clean and in perfect condition. Since we've been forced into full alert we figured we'd need some kind of name, so we decided to give Fudge a few dozen heart attacks if he ever found out about us and we decided on the name "Dumbledore's Army", hence the flag. And I doubt you know what the second flag on the flag pole was, am I correct?'

Hermione nodded her head in agreement.

'Well a long time ago thirteen Southern States, back in '61 (1861) decided they'd had enough of Northern oppression so they seceded from the Union, this sparked our Second War of Independence, also known as the War of Northern Aggression. My home state of North Carolina was one of the states that left the Union to form the Confederate States of America. That flag was the flag that was flown from '61 to '65 and some folk still fly it with pride and remember General Lee's words at the battle of Gettysburg that there will be another day. Bah… I've started rambling again, sorry. Hopefully that explains the flag to you,' Hermione nodded her head in agreement. 'Now I expect that you'll probably tell most of this to Harry, and Ron when you get back but these next few things that I'm going to tell you must not be told to anyone, at least not yet.

With all of the things going on this year there might be certain circumstances in which you'll need a quick extract from, or need some extra firepower, or maybe just a quick transport. And you'll need a means to contact us quickly, from your exact location. So I want you to take these two things.' Kitoriav produced a small round disk and a flat object covered in brown wrapping paper and handed them to Dekker. Dekker then proceeded to walk around the oak table and handed them to Hermione with the utmost look of mistrust, and loathing humanly possible and then some. Hermione took the two objects and, in a shaky voice that was higher than normal, "Thanks."

Dekker gave a slight nod and returned to his original position. Kitoriav waited a couple of seconds before continuing, 'Now the round disk is an emergency beacon, if you get into any kind of trouble that you don't think that y'all can handle don't think twice press the button and we'll roll up in full force. Now it'll take a bit for us to get to your location, so Private First Class Dobby here is the highest-ranking House-elf in Dumbledore's Army. He commands a special squad of freed House-elves that will be the first on the scene; they'll hold the perimeter until we arrive. Now should a situation arise where Pfc. Dobby can't get there then we'll try and get there as fast as possible. Once we arrive on the scene we'll secure the perimeter and then get you and who ever you're with the feth out of there. Now the other package is a two-way mirror, needless to say I stole the idea from Sirius and I want updates on the goings on at school, especially Umbridge. Now I've done practically all the talking here, do you have any questions?'

Hermione nodded and asked, "Why is it that you're only explaining this to me and not Ron and Harry, or the both of us together?"

Kitoriav thought on this for a moment and the said, 'Well, for a number of reasons. A few I'm not at liberty to say and another I won't reveal right now. Harry has enough trouble to deal with right now, especially in the area of anger management… though completely understandable after last year, but still the constant venting on whoever is closest certainly was a big turn-off. Ron? Well… I don't know why we chose you instead of Ron, I guess we just liked you better.'

His response gave Hermione a start "Just liked you better", what did that mean? Hermione put that out of her mind for a few and then asked, "How many are in Dumbledore's Army?"

'Well as far as ground personnel goes about two hundred infantry, a company of tanks, and plenty of helicopters. Though I don't know the exact number of support personnel and support vehicles.'

Hermione wasn't sure how much damage a tank could do, but based on what happened in the common room was proof enough to her as to the destructive capabilities of these soldiers, even though she didn't see what happened in the common room. And to think that all because someone "just liked her better" she had an almost immeasurable amount of firepower backing her every move and decision. The possibilities were endless. Though most of these thoughts were quickly crushed underfoot when Hermione began thinking what would happen if Umbridge found out and alerted Fudge. While Hermione was deep in thought on this Kitoriav looked down at his watch and exclaimed, 'Yikes! Hermione, you don't mind us calling you Hermione do you? It'll certainly make things easier for us should an emergency arise,' Hermione nodded yes, 'Okay well it was nice meeting you in person but we need to get you and Dobby back to Hogwarts right now.'

Kitoriav stood up and said something to Dekker who left the tent at a run. 'Oh, Hermione one last thing,' Kitoriav handed her a small box. Hermione opened it and saw two black bars connected to each other.

Kitoriav snapped to attention, followed by Dobby, and saluted, 'Welcome to Dumbledore's Army Captain Granger.' Not knowing how to respond Hermione did her best to imitate what Kitoriav had just done.

'Oh and you can just refer to me as "Kit" because I can understand how difficult it can be to say "Kitoriav". You'll receive your BDUs, boots, and other such uniforms later this week. But for right now we gotta get you back to school.'

The trio set off at a run to the nearest Blackhawk that was already ready to fly. Dobby had barely gotten into the helicopter when the side doors were slammed shut and the Blackhawk was speeding off towards Hogwarts.

Twenty minutes later Hermione was standing just inside the window when Kit called out to her, 'Hey, Hermione!'

Hermione turned around and yelled back, "Yes, what is it?"

'I want you to think on this, what will you do when wands fail you?' Kit had barely gotten the words out when the Blackhawk once again left Hogwarts to return to base.

What will you do when wands fail you? The question reverberated around in Hermione's head all the way to her bed, on which she collapsed asleep before she was halfway through the fall with only one thing on her mind.

What will you do when wands fail you?