Chapter Four

When Harry woke up the next morning he did his usual routine. Salazar appeared in the kitchen frame while Harry was eating breakfast. "Dumbledore is at Headquarters," the founder said, "he wants to know if you would allow the Weasleys, Grangers, and Neville Longbottom to stay there for the rest of the summer; along with two houseelves: Dobby and Winky."

Harry smiled, "Yeah, that's no problem. There's room enough. Are the portraits working alright?"

Salazar nodded, "Very well." With that he disappeared, most likely to relay Harry's response to Dumbledore. Once he finished eating, Harry teleported to Headquarters and managed to arrive just as the others were getting there. Dobby slammed into his legs with a hug, and smiled up at Harry with watery eyes. Harry laughed and greeted Winky. She looked better, having changed into clean clothing and she curtsied to Harry politely.

"Hiya Harry!" Neville called, "Long time no see!"

Harry chuckled, "Tell me about it. Has everything been alright?"

He nodded. "Gran decided to travel for the summer, but I didn't want to, so she called Dumbledore and he said you might let me stay at your place. It's really big here."

Harry shrugged, "I just found out about it the first day of break."

"Ah, well, do you mind if I go unpack?"

"Sure, I hope you like your stay." Harry left to find Ron and Hermione. Ginny steered him to the third floor, which was where his two friends were. "Hey guys." He greeted.

"Hey mate." Ron replied.

"Hi Harry," Hermione said.

"Any plans for the summer?" he asked.

"Not really," answered Ron, "Besides homework; I don't think I have anything else to do."

"Maybe we could do practical studies." Hermione suggested, "Like practice defense."

"Like we did with the DA?" Harry asked.

"Somewhat. But I was thinking more along the lines of practicing for real-case scenarios. Maybe Professor Lupin will help."

Harry nodded. "Let's go ask him, we can get Neville to do it with us if he wants to." So the three of them left, found Neville, who agreed to the idea, and traveled down to the main room and found Remus and told him their idea.

Remus scratched his chin thoughtfully. "It's a good idea, I'm sure I could plan something. Meet me in the dueling room on the third floor in half an hour, sound good?"

"Yup," replied Harry, "See you there." Remus then left and they spent the empty time playing chess, gobstones, and exploding snap. Once the time was up, they went ot the dueling room Remus mentioned. There, they found Tonk, Mad-Eye, and Sirius waiting. "Remus'll be right back." Sirius told them with a grin. "We're going to be helping you guys train." At that moment, they heard another voice out in the hall.

"For Merlin's sake Remus, I don't' have time for this," Splikvin said exasperatedly.

"You aren't doing anything else," Remus said.

"Yes I am! I'm working on a potion that-"

"Does not require your attention for another three hours," Snape finished as the three of them walked in. As Splikvin opened her mouth, he spoke again in a bored voice. "And the batch of burn-revention potion needs to cool, as does the dreamless sleep potion; the confusion cure and truth serum both need to settle."

She scowled. "You're mocking me."

"Not at all; merely repeating what you told me."

Splikvin rolled her eyes and saw that the others were watching her amusedly. "I thought the school year was over," she grumbled.

"Yes, but you're still needed to teach," Remus replied cheerfully, "both of you are. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville want to branch out in their defense and offense abilities, and asked for additional training."

"Then why us?" Snape growled, "You have three others here already."

"Oh come on Snapes," Sirius drawled. "You two knew more curses than our defense teacher in our first year at Hogwarts; remember? You proved it too." Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth in shock, drawing their attention.

"We were given permission, Ms. Granger," Splikvin told her dryly, "Just like you were in your final exam."

"Yeah, but she didn't knock you out for over a week," Tonks commented cheerfully; Hermione gasped causing the two to roll their eyes.

"There were two of us," Splikvin retorted.

"Why you two became potions teachers is beyond me," Moody said gruffly, "Could've made a fair pair of aurors." They snorted.

"Not likely." Snape replied.

"Enough chat, let's start already!" Sirius exclaimed.

"Good idea," Remus agreed. "We'll start off by finding out what you already know. To do that, we'll have a series of mini-duels with each of you."

"Us—against each of you?" Neville asked, paling somewhat.

Remus nodded. "Don't worry, you'll be fine and we'll duel fairly." He glanced at the two former Slytherins, who didn't respond. "Who wants to go first?"

"I'll go." Harry volunteered, noticing his friends' discomfort.

"Alright, you'll duel each of us one at a time in a regular duel. However, anything you can do, do; alright?" Harry nodded. "Good, I'll face you first."

So Harry and Remus went onto the dueling platform and bowed to each other. On the count of three, they began. Harry started out with a few stunners of various difficulties, wanting to see how Remus would react. His guardian mainly stuck to defense, so Harry decided to take advantage of that. After blocking a full-body bind, Harry quietly shot a reflector shield on the ceiling. Once Remus fired off a hex, Harry fired a stunner at the ceiling, pretending that his aim had been thrown off by the oncoming curse. His stunner rebounded and hit Remus on his shoulder. Harry picked up Remus' wand, then freed him. "Well done Harry," Remus said while his friends clapped. "Sirius, your turn."

Padfoot grinned as Harry faced him. Once again, they started on the count of three. The duel was a lot like the previous one, but Sirius attacked more often than Remus had, and he had more power behind his spells, while Remus had been quick and accurate. Harry could tell that his godfather was holding back, and defeated him by hitting Sirius with a stinging hex followed by a full-body bind. "Good job Tallon," Padfoot said, and Tonks came up.

As clumsy as she was in everyday life, Tonks was more than good, she was hard. She never let her guard down and tricked Harry more than once into thinking he had the upper hand. After ten minutes she had him stunned then he faced off with Moody.

Apparently, paranoia had served Mad-Eye well, because nothing Harry did phased the retired auror. Moody never used anything outside stunners and disarming spells, but all of them packed quite a punch and Harry found himself dodging more than magically blocking them. Once Moody released him from an arm-striking stunner, Harry found himself facing Snape. They bowed to each other and then began.

Snape was unbelievably quick and didn't stick to stunners alone. A barrage of stinging hexes, jelly-legs curses, body-binds, and freexing curses met Harry. He was limited to defense because of how annoyingly fast Snape fired. Harry could have sworn Snape was enjoying this as he hit Harry with a rather sharp stinging hex. After landing only two stinging hexes of his own on Snape, Harry was blown backwards by expelliarmus.

He rose to his feet and found his own wand pointed at him. He acknowledged Snape's win with a nod, and then the potions master gave Harry's wand back to him. With a small smirk, Snape left the platform, allowing Splikvin to come up.

Harry got the crick out of his neck then they bowed and began. He shot out multiple stunners, which Splikvin sidestepped and ducked with ease. She kept her wand at her side, never raising it to block even Harry's Parsloz curses. Frustrated, Harry kept his face blank and put more power behind his spells. Between the short second of two spells, Splikvin whipped her wand in Harry's direction as she whispered in Parsletongue, "Expelliarmus."

The curse hit Harry like a sledgehammer in his gut. He clutched his wand as he was blown off the platform and slammed into the wall. He felt the cushioning charm someone had placed on the wall take affect as he halted. Coughing, Harry was helped to his feet by Sirius. "You acted too hastily," Splikvin told him, then got off the platform as well.

Hermione went up next and managed to beat Remus and Tonks using several Transfiguration spells. However, she lost quickly to the others. Ron ended up doing the same, but he used his animagus forms to his advantage. Harry'd smiled when Ron pinned Moony as a crocodile. Neville was victorious against Remus, Sirius and Tonks, and lasted a while against Moody, but lost his nerve against Splikvin and Snape.

"I think that's enough for today," Remus said, "We'll work on your technique for most of the time, then perhaps move on to teaching you to use your gifts to your advantage, and the other idea you mentioned. Sound good?"

"Yes Professor," Neville answered.

Remus smiled, "I recon you four are going to need something for headaches, and Harry something for you back."

Ron, feeling his head throb, grumbled, "How'd you know?"

Sirius grinned, "We've all dueled each other before. Trust me, I know what you're feeling like." Splikvin and Moody chuckled.

Coming Up:

Shadow Hold's Residents

The Mark

Then:

First Order Meeting

IcyTears: I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean by 'joining'.