A/N: Thank you to all those that have been reviewing. I'm open to suggestions to the story so please R/R. Thank you to Rivenn for doing the beta work on this chapter.

Disclaimer: I wish I could be as good as JK Rowling but I'm not. This is her stuff and not to mention the influence that this story took from various fanfics.

Chapter 36
Patriots vs. DA

The Order of the Phoenix hasn't been able to operate like it was prior to when Harry discovered that the Order was spying on him with his best friends. Most of them were still loyal to Dumbledore and this group saw him as a means to an end. If all they had to do was sacrifice Harry to end this war and finish off Voldemort once and for all, then it was worth the sacrifice. Others like Remus and Tonks were adamantly against using Harry like a tool but couldn't express their opinions many times because they were now excluded from the high priority meetings. There was one person that was on the ropes and had serious doubts was McGonagall. After her talk with Harry during detention, she voiced her concerns to Dumbledore but Dumbledore placated her telling her that there was more to the story than she knew. McGonagall reluctantly dropped her protest because of her trust in Dumbledore but wondered what it was that she was missing. In reality, if McGonagall knew the whole truth then she would be outraged at Dumbledore.

While Harry was busy with the Patriots and the Alliance, the DA under Hermione and Ron were busy training to catch up to the Patriots. The DA was learning new spells and defense techniques at an accelerated rate because of the support from the Order. The Order had assigned a few of its members like Mad Eye to help train the group. The DA's secondary objective is now protecting Hogwarts. Its primary objective is to spy and to contain Harry should the situation arise. What the DA didn't know during this time was that the house elves at Hogwarts were spying on the DA in return for Harry. Harry knew all of their plans. What the Order didn't know was that the unknown listening device set in Dumbledore's office was actually from Harry. He placed it there as a decoy should Dumbledore ever discover it but Dumbledore only realized that it was there when Harry showed everybody. Harry did this to distract the Order and take the focus off of him for a little while. He didn't even use the listening device and if Dumbledore managed to track down where the listening device was transmitting to then he would realize that it was sending the messages back to where Dumbledore hid the Sorcerer's Stone during Harry's first year.

Dumbledore called for a meeting at Grimmauld Place of all Order members that were on his side. During the meeting, there was a house elf hidden and silently listened to the on goings of the meeting so he could report back to Harry. When everybody was gathered, Dumbledore said "Thank you all for coming. We have urgent business to discuss as you all know from what happened this morning." He turned to Snape and asked "Severus, do you have any news to report of Voldemort?"

Snape said "This morning while the Alliance was meeting, the Dark Lord called for a meeting of all Death eaters. He informed us that the house elves that were executed belonged to Potter and was spying for him. If this is true, then there is no telling how much Potter knows about everything that the Dark Lord has planned so far. The Dark Lord has ordered the sweeping of his compound for all listening devices and stepped up his search for any moles as a result of those elves being discovered."

Dumbledore nodded and said "Thank you Severus. Mr. Potter has failed to inform the Order of his spy network and we have to wonder how extensive this network really is, that is why all the people present at this meeting are the ones that aligned themselves with me and not Mr. Potter. He has also either purposely or inadvertently let us know of the extent of the Alliance's military strength. I believe that there is more that he is not telling us about but for now the numbers that we do have make them just as strong as Voldemort in military power. It is more important now that we find a way to place him under our control and control his strike teams. He has also stated that he will assist the goblins in the defense of Gringott's should it be necessary and we must find a way to keep him from getting there."

Vance said "Albus, if we can keep him from assisting the goblins after he stated that he was going to help them than it would make him less credible in the eyes of the goblins. It might just be enough for us to get the support we need to take control of the Alliance and Potter at the same time."

McGonagall interjected "That would be good for the Order but will it be good for the cause and for Mr. Potter. He is the leader of the Alliance of Magic and attempting a coup could break everything off to where we were prior to the Alliance with each group fighting for themselves."

Dumbledore said "That will just be a risk that we will have to take. As you all know, Mr. Potter is the most important piece in the puzzle to defeating Voldemort and we need to control that piece as much as possible."

McGonagall replied "This isn't right. Mr. Potter went from a person when he was born to a tool in your plans Albus. Now he is reduced to a piece in a puzzle. You can't treat a person like that. If you continue to do this then you can count on Mr. Potter retaliating even more against the Order."

Dumbledore replied "You are losing sight of the big picture Minerva. Mr. Potter must be controlled for his own good and for the good of the wizarding world. He can send the Alliance to attack us at any moment and we would probably not survive the fight if we had to deal with both the Alliance and Voldemort."

McGonagall heatedly said "I can't believe that you're equating Potter with Voldemort. You are making him seem like the next Dark Lord."

Dumbledore calmly replied "That is exactly what I am doing. Voldemort is a dangerous opponent as we all can see from what he has been doing. I believe that Mr. Potter will be of greater threat than Voldemort should he go dark. He has the loyalty of many of the more influential magical communities in England and his popularity grows with every passing day. Power can corrupt and I don't believe that Mr. Potter can with stand the pressure that comes with being a leader much longer before he is corrupted by it. Today could be the first steps of his corruption, just look at what he asked Arthur to do. He asks the Ministry to allow him to execute people."

McGonagall replied "In that respect, I agree with Potter. We should leave our options open and some Death eaters are better off dead then kept in prison, like Lestrange. I don't think that he is capable of being corrupt. You have sent him to live in a family of hate and he grew up most of his life knowing only neglect yet he stills shows compassion to those who are hurt and offer his assistance to those that need help."

Dumbledore said "We have discussed the matter of Mr. Potter's living arrangements already. It was for his safety and to make it easier for us to keep an eye on him."

McGonagall heatedly said "Yes we have discussed Potter's living situations many time and I still hold my objection to you always sending him back there. At least now he has a place to go and you can not force him to move back with the Dursley's."

Dumbledore sighed then said "That brings up another point that we must talk about. We have to find a way to get him to return to the Dursley's for the summer again but that is for another time. We have more pressing matters at this time. We need to discuss how to contain Mr. Potter and stop him from joining the fight at Gringott's."

Vance interjected "How is the progress with the DA? If they are strong enough then we can send them on Potter and that should distract him long enough and maybe even beat him and his group."

Dumbledore replied "The word so far is that the DA is progressing very well. The group is extremely proficient in their spell work and their abilities are showing in their class work. They have been doing very well but the question is the strength of the Patriots."

One of the Aurors that helps train the DA said "The DA is trained by experienced Aurors while the Patriots are trained by Potter. Plus the DA has been running multiple practice sessions a week. There is no way that they could be beyond the abilities of the DA. As far as I can tell, the Patriots outnumber us but not by much unless there is something big that we don't know about because when Harry had the students choose their loyalty he had them choose between you, the Ministry, and him. Unless the Ministry received close to no supporters then we should be able to take Potter."

Dumbledore nodded and said "Alright, I expect the Death eaters to attack soon because they won't last long without their money to finance their cause. Get the DA assembled and ready to fight by tomorrow night. I'll call for a faculty meeting at that time so most of the professors will be out of the way and put some privacy spells up so that nobody will be able to contact us during that time period. The DA will have one hour to contain the Patriots."

McGonagall was outraged and exclaimed "You all can't be serious about having the students fight with each other. The DA was meant to protect not go picking fights and Potter has not failed to live up to any of his promises or potential. I'm warning you all, if you send the DA into a fight with the Patriots then you will have the entire student population split into a civil war."

Dumbledore replied calmly "This is the best we can come up to contain Mr. Potter. It is more important to have Mr. Potter safe and contained then to have him dead. If he dies then our cause is lost from the beginning."

McGonagall shook her head and said "Albus, you know that I am loyal to you but I object to what you are doing here. I will not say anything to anyone about your plans here but I will have no part of this. Good day." McGonagall left Grimmauld Place and headed back to Hogwarts.

The meeting continued after she left, on strategies for the DA to take on Harry. When the meeting was over, Harry's house elf spy returned to Hogwarts to deliver the warning and the Order's plan to use the DA. The house elf also informed Harry about how McGonagall stood up for him. Harry was mad when he heard the news and immediately called for the Patriots to assemble to develop a counter attack but more specifically a trap to teach the DA a lesson. Since the DA was not a secret group, all of its members were known and their lesson plan was known to the rest of the school. What the Order and the DA didn't know was that the Patriots was at least one year ahead in their dueling abilities because of Harry's use of transfiguration in their training.

The next day during dinner, Dumbledore stood up and said "I need to call a special meeting of the faculty in my office after dinner. All detentions will be rescheduled tomorrow by your heads of house."

That was the cue for everybody to get ready for the fireworks to start. Harry knew all of their plans so he decided to use Dumbledore's cues to alert his team of what was going on. The DA were all wearing their uniforms because it helped in protecting you during a duel but the uniforms were charmed to look like the regular Hogwarts robes. The charm was set to wear off about half an hour after dinner ended. When Dumbledore finished his speech, the students took that as the command that dinner was over also. Everybody left the Great Hall but the Patriots went to hide around the castle to disillusion themselves and returned to the Great Hall and took up their positions around the Hall. The Gryffindor members of the Patriots accompanied Harry to Gryffindor Tower and waited there for a message that was supposed to arrive from Dumbledore requesting his assistance in the Great Hall.

The group was in the common room for fifteen minutes before the message arrived. Normally, Harry would question why Dumbledore was asking him to meet in the Great Hall considering that Dumbledore was holding a meeting in his office. Hermione and Ron also received a set of rebuttal statements in the event that Harry should question the message but Harry decided to play along and not question the letter and act like he just forgot that the faculty was meeting in Dumbledore's office.

The DA was set to follow two minutes after Harry left and ambush him while he was in the Great Hall. They also expected to fight against Ginny and Kayla because the two were always with Harry but the DA was counting on the fact that the rest of the Patriots will not know about the attack until it was too late. Harry made his way down to the Great Hall and the trio did some quick transfiguration and illusion work to set the environment up in favor of the Patriots.

Almost immediately after Harry, Ginny, and Kayla finished setting up their trap, the DA showed up dressed in an altered uniform of the Order. The uniforms did not carry the markings of the Order but was the same outfit none the less. The trio walked up to Hermione and Harry knowingly asked "Did Dumbledore call you down here also?"

Hermione replied "Harry, the DA is here to help secure you and keep you from entering into a fight when the Death eaters decide to attack Gringott's."

Harry, Ginny, and Kayla pulled out their wands and slowly backed away from the DA. This resulted in the DA pulling out their wands and pointing it at Harry and slowly following Harry further into the center of the Great Hall.

Ron said "Harry, we know that you're good at dueling but you can't expect to take the entire DA on. We outnumber you ten to one. Lower your wand and swear that you will not go help the goblins fight."

Harry shook his head and taunted "I admit that Ginny, Kayla, and I will probably have a difficult time taking on the entire DA but you all know that I like challenges. After all, I don't expect you to last very long in a duel, considering your training is no where near what the three of us have gone through."

Ron heatedly replied "This is your last warning; if you all don't lower your wands then we will have to teach you a lesson."

Ginny angrily said "You would actually help in the attack of your own sister."

Ron replied "We won't have to do anything if you just surrender. I don't want to attack the three of you but I will if it is what I have to do to make sure that you three are safe."

Kayla spat "Since when do you care about our safety. You're nothing more than Dumbledore's laky sent here to do his dirty work."

During this entire time, a Patriot slipped behind the DA and got ready to close the doors to the Great Hall. The DA was still being sucked into the center of the Great Hall and was bunched up with each other which left them fairly defenseless against the attack that was going to happen. The doors to the Great Hall slammed closed which startled the DA. The DA was tense as it is at the prospect of having to fight against Harry, Ginny, and Kayla so a few of them inadvertently fired off a few stunning spells at the trio.

This resulted in Ginny and Kayla stepping forward to summon shielding charms around the three of them. Harry pulled out a thin strip of white paper with Chinese characters on it and used the trick that Kayla had taught him. Harry's shield shot around to protect the trio as more and more spells were shot at them. Ginny gave the rest of the Patriots the signal with a shot of white mist coming from her wand making a misty cloud behind Harry's shield.

The Patriots dropped their disillusionment charms and the illusions that were in the Great Hall. The Patriots were standing on two sides of the Great Hall where the two center long table would usually be. The long tables were transfigured into four feet tall white stone walls that ran the length of the Great Hall.

Quickly after dropping the disillusionment charms, the Patriots were keeping their eyes closed as the first spell they shot together was the 'lumos' spell to generate an extremely bright light that temporarily blinded the DA. The DA was shooting stunning spells around aimlessly in fear of getting hit while the Patriots were shooting carefully aimed bludgeoning spells from behind the protection of the stone walls. The Patriots wanted to teach the DA not to ambush one of their own and especially not their leader.

The fight didn't last more than five minutes because the DA was unorganized, over confident, and confused when the fighting started. When Harry called for a cease fire, every member of the DA was on the ground nursing at least one broken bone. Most of them were nursing multiple wounds. The lucky ones were the ones with a broken leg because when their leg broke they fell to the ground and weren't hit by more bludgeoning spells. The DA was on the ground moaning and many of them were bleeding due to broken head wounds or bones that broke the skin.

The Patriots levitated the fallen DA members and took them to the hospital wing while the rest of them cleaned up the Great Hall. When everything was done, every bed in the hospital wing was taken up along with a few conjured cots. The Great Hall looked like nothing has happened in it since dinner that evening and most of the Patriots went back to their dormitories to rest. Harry, Ginny, and Kayla were the only three Patriots up because they were waiting for the Order's response in particular Dumbledore's response.

Harry took a note from Ron and delivered it to Dumbledore by the designated house elf. Ron's letter was a message written by Dumbledore that said Ron was to have a house elf deliver when the fighting was over and that everything was taken care of. There were two letters, one that said that Harry peacefully surrendered and the other one was Harry was defeated and is in the hospital wing. Harry sent the message while in the hospital wing.

While all of this was going on, in Dumbledore's office, the faculty and staff were just finished assembling. Dumbledore said "I must apologize because I asked you all here under false pretense. The real reason why all of you are here is because the DA has been sent to handle a situation with Mr. Potter."

Remus jumped up and heatedly asked "What situation with Harry?"

Dumbledore said "As many of you know, Harry has already expressed his opinion where he is going to be when the fight at Gringott's takes place. The Order has decided that we can not allow him to help the goblins so the DA was dispatched to convince him not to leave Hogwarts."

Remus angrily asked "When did the Order decide this? What is the DA supposed to do?"

Dumbledore calmly replied "The Order had a meeting yesterday. I did not need all of the Order members present just a few advisors so that is why the entire Order was not called to a meeting."

Tonks spat "Of course, the only Order members that would be there are the ones that will follow you around blindly. I'm more than sure that Harry will teach the DA a lesson." Remus and Tonks got up to leave.

Dumbledore waved his hands and the door to his office closed. Dumbledore said "I'm sorry but I can not let you go warn Mr. Potter. As far as I can tell the situation between Mr. Potter and the DA is underway. A message will be delivered to us if we were successful or not."

Remus exclaimed "I hope that Harry teaches your little Army a lesson. You still did not answer my question. What is the DA ordered to do?"

Dumbledore replied "They are instructed to ask Harry to surrender and if he does not surrender then they are to use what ever force necessary to get him to listen to them even if it lands him in the hospital wing."

Remus' eyes went wide and yelled "How dare you do that to another student! Open that door now!"

Snape said "There's nothing you can do about it Lupin. It is probably going to end up in an ambush of about ten to one so the fight should probably end quickly."

Remus and Tonks pulled out their wands and fired different spells at the door in an attempt to open it but they were not successful. Shortly after Snape's comment a house elf popped into the office and handed Dumbledore a letter. Dumbledore sighed then said, "It appears that the conflict is over and Mr. Potter is in the hospital wing."

Dumbledore waved his hand and the door opened up. Remus was about to yell at Dumbledore but was grabbed by Tonks and the two of them sped off to the Hospital Wing. The rest of the staff quickly followed with Snape hiding his smile or in his case a smirk at best thinking about Harry being in the hospital wing at the hands of those that he once trained.

When they made it to the hospital wing, it was not the scene that they expected. The group expected a single occupied bed with Harry in it and probably Ginny and Kayla at his side but what they saw was like a military field hospital after a battle. Many of the students were still moaning as Madame Pomfrey ran from student to student and still didn't get a chance to see all the students yet.

When Madame Pomfrey saw the professors she was yelling at them to help her and care for the critically wounded first. Professor Flitwick, McGonagall, Snape, and Sprout went to tend the critically wounded students while Remus and Tonks went to search if Harry was there. Dumbledore went searching for either Ron or Hermione to find out what happened. The rest of the professors were not proficient in healing charms so they took care of the less severe cases.

Dumbledore found Hermione and Ron lying in two beds next to each other in the back of the infirmary. Dumbledore asked "Ms. Granger, Mr. Weasley, what happened?"

Hermione responded "It was an ambush sir. We walked right into a trap. It was like Harry knew what was going to happen."

Ron exclaimed "Potter's a little cheater. He can't fight us straight up so he decided to ambush us."

Hermione was going to respond to Ron's remarks about how they were trying to ambush Harry but Dumbledore stopped her by raising his hand and asking "Tell me what happened."

Hermione told Dumbledore exactly what happened and the confused state that the DA was fighting in. Even she didn't realize that she was surrounded until it was too late. Hermione had a broken wand arm and a two broken ribs which took her down. Ron had two broken ribs, a broken wand arm, and a broken leg. After talking to a few more people, Dumbledore realized that the Patriots were fighting with precision and that most of the DA was nursing broken wand arms. The few that didn't have broken wand arms are believed to have fallen early in the battle and either fainted or knocked out when they were hit with spells.

Dumbledore was not happy at how everything was turning out. He saw about thirty of his students injured and none of Harry's group was present. Dumbledore also knew that Harry must have had a spy in the Order's inner circle or had some method to listen in on their meetings. Dumbledore started to make plans to move the Order's headquarters to another location but he didn't know where. The only place possible was the Burrow but that would be too obvious.

Dumbledore assembled most of the Order along with those that worked at Hogwarts in his office. A message was sent to Harry to come to his office. Harry, Ginny, and Kayla were whistling as they made their way to the Headmaster's office and decided that they were going to do whatever they can to aggravate the old man and all of his followers who were present.

This time, the trio was greeted at the steps to the Headmaster's office by Remus and Tonks. Harry smiled at the two of them and said "It's a nice night tonight isn't it Moony. How are you tonight Tonks?"

Remus and Tonks were furious with Dumbledore but when Harry showed up smiling Remus and Tonks got a little suspicious. Remus asked "What's wrong with you Harry? You act like nothing happened tonight."

Harry replied "I just did some house cleaning tonight that's all. You know, sometimes I can see why the house elves like to clean so much."

Remus and Tonks smiled at the subtle message. Ginny mockingly said "We shouldn't keep our beloved Headmaster waiting. We wouldn't want to lose points like last time especially since the house cup is on the line."

The group smiled at each other and made their way up to the Headmaster's office. They were greeted by a somber Dumbledore, an indifferent McGonagall although it seemed like she was proud, an outraged Snape, and upset Order members. Tonks, Remus, Harry, Ginny, and Kayla sat as far away from everybody else as possible all of which were wearing large broad smiles.

Dumbledore said "Mr. Potter was sending all of those students to the Hospital Wing really necessary?"

Harry replied "It's not my fault that they're in the Hospital Wing. They need to pay more attention to their surroundings." He turned to Ginny and asked, "What are those words that we were supposed to live by?"

Ginny was acting like she was thinking for a while then looked at Mad Eye when she said "Constant Vigilance!"

Moody smirked and nodded his agreement. Moody was disappointed that so many students were in the hospital wing but was pleased that Harry had lead his group in a successful attack. Moody was sympathetic towards Harry but didn't voice his opinion openly. He decided to sit back and just watch the show between Harry and Dumbledore instead.

Dumbledore sighed and asked "Why did you send the DA to the hospital wing?"

Harry decided to attack the Auror's that were training the DA and replied "Professor, you should really figure out a way to teach that group better. If I didn't know better it would seem like a group of students teaching each other. Maybe you should bring in Aurors to teach them. But then it could be embarrassing to have students trained by Aurors and have them lose to a group of self training students."

Dumbledore asked "Mr. Potter, why did you have to hurt the students that badly?"

Ginny responded for Harry. She said "The DA was ordered by the Order of the Phoenix to ambush Harry and to take out the Patriots should it become necessary. We, the Patriots, take threats to our members seriously and will defend each other at all costs. The DA was taught a lesson tonight that they will never be comparable to the Patriots even with their incompetent training from Ministry Aurors. The Order seems to like to underestimate Harry and yet, he probably faced Voldemort and Death eaters more than most of the Order itself."

Snape angrily said "You will treat the Headmaster with respect."

Harry said in a cold calm voice "Don't ever talk to Ginny like that again. If you do then we'll just have to remind you and your minions about our little detention session won't we. This time we won't play as nice. Don't you dare try to cross us with your self righteous prejudicial behavior. This goes for both the Order and the DA."

Snape paled at the thought of having to go through another week of humiliation and was about to retort but Dumbledore cut him off by saying "Mr. Potter, it does not help your cause by threatening the Order and the DA. We must work together."

Harry turned his cold calm voice to Dumbledore and said "I agree we should work together. That is why you were allowed into the Alliance of Magic as advisors but you all were the ones that provoked this attack. I will hold back or at least try to hold back the Alliance from retaliating against the Order and the DA for attacking Alliance members but the next time this happens, I will stand by and watch them tear this place apart."

Most of the people in the room gasped at what Harry just said. Everybody in the room knew that what happened tonight were Harry and the Patriots defending each other. They were just divided on whether the defense and attack was justified on all parties involved. Harry stood up and as a result Kayla, Ginny, Remus, and Tonks also stood up. Harry said "You are all warned. We defended ourselves tonight and your pathetic army couldn't stop us. Next time we won't be so merciful and you all know that what happened tonight was no accident. Now, I believe that it is late so we will take our leave."

The group made their way out of the office. As they left, Remus and Tonks gave each other a look and said together "We quit the Order of the Phoenix." They didn't want to quit working at Hogwarts because they wanted to be near Harry. The people left in the Headmasters office sighed as they all knew that they lost once again and now the price will be extremely high if they dare try to do it again.

A/N: Thank you to all those that review. Well, now to address some of your concerns or questions. The progress of Harry and Ginny's relationship is a subtle one at this point that is a bit difficult to pick up. They are getting closer as they spend most of their time together but don't anticipate them to have sex in this story. Sorry for those that want this to happen, but in the scheme of things, their relationship is fairly new but the first steps to get to sex is cuddling together in bed. Which they are way past that point to half way to all out sex just for those who are curious. I also know the flow in the story is not as it used to be because I'm not having as much time to write the chapters due to school and the amount of planning for these chapters. I will try to work on it but I can't promise anything.