'Umm...Harry?' It was Nicholas Ancheslon, the first of the Slytherins Harry had spoke up for last year. He was hovering nervously alongside the Gryffindor table.

'Yeah?' Harry asked curiously.

'Can I ask you something?'

'Sure,' he replied easily.

Nicholas was bouncing on the balls of his feet. 'Umm…'

Harry watched him compassionately. 'Do you want to go out?'

'I'm fine, it's…'

'Let's go out.'

Harry walked out with the younger boy following. Neither noticed the heads turned curiously to watch them, but Harry felt Draco in the back of his mind.

They sat on the first step of the marble staircase. 'So?' Harry asked. 'What did you want to ask me?'

Michael was more confident now. 'I want to join the DA.'

'What?' Harry asked incredulously.

'I want to join the DA,' he repeated.

'Why?'

'Because you were right but you need more Slytherins.'

'You're too young. You're only in second year!'

'Dennis Creevy's in it. You started two years ago. He was only in second year then, right?'

'You'd be the youngest there. We have third years, but no second years now.'

'I don't mind.'

'You won't be able to do all the spells.'

'I'm pretty good. But even if that's right, I don't mind.'

Harry sighed. 'You know Draco Malfoy?'

The boy laughed, 'You think?'

Harry blinked.

'Of course I know Draco Malfoy,' Nicholas amended.

'We're meeting tonight. He'll bring you in.'

'Don't you need to tell him that?'

'He knows already.'

Harry entered the room of requirement. 'Can everyone come out a minute? I need to try something.' They followed him out.

'What is it?' Ron asked.

'I want to try something different,' Harry answered. He walked up and down outside the room, concentrating hard.

Crossing his fingers, he opened the door. As they walked in, the people around him gasped. The 'room' no longer looked like one. It looked like a wood. They could barely see the far side, or either end. When he lead them to the right, they could see a wall, about six foot high, set out from the room's real wall. It looked like a miniature version of Hogwarts outer walls.

'What did you do?' Hermione asked.

'Tried something different,' he replied.

'Not funny,' she said, frowning. 'Seriously.'

'I am serious,' he replied with a slight smile. 'We've been practicing two-on-two. I want to do it for real.'

Hermione looked puzzled. 'What do you mean?'

'The war's going to end here, you know that?'

'I know that it might.'

'I want us to be ready.' He turned to face everyone properly. 'Okay, two teams. Ron's leading the group defending the wall. I'm leading the attack from the other side. Go in the twos you've been training in. As close to an age balance as you can make it.'

They dispersed roughly into halves, whispering excitedly the whole time.

Ron looked at the group he had gathered. He had Luna and Neville, Daphne and Zacharias, Susan and Lisa, Hannah and Lavender, Michael and Ernie, and groups of the younger ones. 'We have more.'

Harry had Blaise and Ginny, Seamus and Justin, Dean and Padma, Parvati and Anthony, Nott and Terry and similar numbers of the lower forms. 'Yeah... Umm… Nicholas?' He smiled at the tiny Slytherin. 'Can you and Dennis come over here?'

They walked over to Harry's side. He raised his voice. 'Obviously nothing life-threatening. Try not to use a serious hex when a stunning spell will do. If someone gets badly hurt – red sparks. Anyone who does this when it isn't serious will wish it had been. If someone hits you and you could have been killed or incapacitated, lie down and don't cast anything else. First team to get every member of the other team, or make them surrender, wins. Everyone clear?'

They nodded assent.

'Okay then, we're going to the far side of the trees, you lot defend the wall. You have fifteen minutes before we move. Remember you can use the galleons to talk to Ron or me. Good luck.'

Harry led his group away. When they had reached the far side of the room, through the trees, he stopped.

'Do you have a plan of attack,' Draco asked.

'I was hoping you might help with that,' Harry replied, grinning.

Draco sighed. 'You know, one would imagine that one of the perks of having a relationship with you would be not to be ordered around.'

'And you'd imagine that one of the perks of having a relationship with you would be not to have to come up with plans of attack. One of us is clearly going to be disappointed,' Harry quipped back.

'I do hate to disappoint,' Draco muttered. 'Ron's going to put people on the edge of the wall, and probably a few in front of it. He'll be on it so he can see what's going on, so Hermione will be there too. They might set some traps in front of the wall. He's going to be prepared for us to attack the front, so that won't work. If we could get past them on the sides though, they probably won't have a lot of defenses once you get over the wall.

'Distraction then?' Harry asked. 'Send a big group into the middle, then a few down each side?' Draco nodded. 'So who goes down the sides? You and me?'

Draco stared at him. 'You don't think he's going to wonder where we are if we're not leading?'

'Okay, not us,' Harry corrected. 'Blaise? You and Ginny take the left flank?'

'Yes, sir,' Blaise drawled back sardonically.

'Oh give over, will you?' Harry answered, smirking. 'Seamus and Justin, you two take the right?'

'Sure, Harry.'

'Okay then. It's nearly time. Everyone else, through the middle of the trees. One person attack, the other one shield, like we practiced. And look out for traps. You four,' he turned to Blaise and the others, 'wait a minute or two, and be as quiet as possible. Everybody know what they're doing? Okay, first group follow me and Draco. Good luck, and be careful.'

'You're wrong,' Draco whispered, as they made their way through the trees, 'you are a leader.'

'No I'm not,' Harry said. 'You made the plan - all I did was tell them to do it.'

'And they did it. That's the hard part. If I had told them, they would have checked with you first.'

'They haven't known you very long.'

'That has nothing to do with it.' They spoke even more quietly as they reached the edges of the trees. 'Harry?' Draco asked as calmly as possible. 'Why did you make a river?'

Harry was puzzled himself. 'I'm not totally sure. I was thinking about what the school wall looks like.'

'We don't have a river.'

'We have a lake.'

'Well then tell me, you didn't imagine any giant squid, right?'

'Let's hope not,' Harry answered nonchalantly. 'Okay, everyone spread out a bit. Remember to keep an eye out for any traps, and be as distracting as possible. We don't want them to realize we're not all here. Go!'

Harry's teammade their way quickly across the open area, dispersing across it. Dean yanked Padma back, who promptly squealed, and glared at him. He aimed his wand at a suspiciously innocent looking rock which exploded loudly. Holding the galleon in his pocket, he spoke to Harry, looking pointedly at Padma, 'Harry, there's a rock here that blew up…'

'Trap?'

'Yeah.'

'Good thing we did spell detection last week then.'

'Honestly, man, it just looked weird.'

'…Okay. Good thing whoever it is can't make real-looking rocks then.'

'Exploding rock,' Harry explained to Draco.

Draco laughed. 'Probably Daphne. That girl really likes pyrotechnics. I think she has anger issues.'

They were approaching the river. Harry waved his wand around the area, producing a silver haze over the edge of the river. He called out quickly, 'Watch out for the…' There was a splash and a yell. '…weeds.'

'Longbottom?'

'I'd bet on it. He was really excited about learning offensive magic in Herbology a couple of months ago.'

'So what do we do?'

Harry pointed his wand at the trees behind them. Three uprooted themselves, flew across to the river and bridged it.

'Show-off.'

'Ron?' Hermione asked. His eyes were flickering across the battlefield, holding everyone's positions in his head in a way she couldn't understand.

'Give me a minute. Something isn't right.'

'Harry? Stop a minute.' There were small floating lights over the water on the far side. 'Please tell me you didn't put hinkypunks in the river. Did you just want them to win, is that it?'

'I didn't do that!' he exclaimed in annoyance. 'They're transfigured.'

'How do you know?'

'Do you feel yourself being lured into danger?'

'I think it's the light that does that…'

'It isn't just the light. Otherwise you have the problem of the wizard asking "why is there a house in the middle of the river?" Professor Lupin explained it. Test it if you don't believe me.'

Draco aimed his wand at the creature, which turned into a beetle and flew off.

'See?'

'A little grace would be nice. That was Hermione, right?'

'I think so.' They finished crossing the river. 'Okay.' He spoke to his team again. 'Is everyone across?'

'Parvati got hit by a stunning spell,' Anthony replied.

'Elenor got hit by one of the rocks,' Orla Quirke said nervously.

Everyone else called in.

'Okay then…' a stunning spell flew by Harry's head. … 'we should probably attack them back…'

'Really?'

'Draco!'

'Sorry…'

'What are they doing?'

'What do you mean?' Hermione asked Ron. She called up another barrier to deflect a long range attempt from Draco.

'Attacking the middle in one group.'

'It's not one group. It's lots of small groups.'

'Too closely packed together. He's trying to distract us.'

'Ron, I love Harry, but he's hardly a master tactician. This is the first time he's done anything like this.'

'I didn't mean Harry.' Ron grabbed the galleon which now swung around his neck like Harry's. He called to the group on the left edge of the wall. 'Susan? Ignore the middle Watch the flank.'

'All right, Ron,' she said.

'Hannah and Lavender are on the other side, right?' There was a yell from the right hand side.

'Sorry, Ron'

'Sorry for what?'

Hermione wheeled round from the battle. 'Ron!'

Blaise and Ginny had crept up behind them. Hermione and Ron were faster.

'Expelliarmus!'

'Stupefy!'

They were dispatched quickly. But Ron got no response from either Lavender or Hannah, so he assumed they were stunned and not allowed to answer.

'Should I go down there?' Hermione asked.

'Uh… No, wait. He won't have anyone else there. It's the other side we should worry about. Susan?' he called. 'Was there anyone on your side?'

'Seamus and Justin. We got them though.'

'Great!' he answered. He spoke to Hermione again. 'Okay, I'm pretty sure that's all of them but Harry and Draco, and maybe Nott. Luna and Neville, and Daphne and Zacharias got most of the ones on the ground.'

'Who do we have left?'

'Susan and Lavender. Daphne.'

'Ron?' Daphne called in his head. 'I think someone got past me.'

A spell hit Hermione. It was a mild stupefy, and barely grazed her, but following the rules, she dropped to the ground.

Ron shot a spell at Draco, the perpetrator. The blond glared at him before lowering himself gracefully to the stone floor.

Susan had left Lavender and come to help Ron. Her Stupefy missed Harry, but was a distraction. Ron took the opportunity. 'Expelliarmus!' Disarming him was easier than it should have been.

Harry held his hands up. 'You win.'

Ron grinned. 'Guys?' he mind-called. 'My team won.'

There were cheers from around the wall. Harry's team called insults at them, but they just whooped louder.

Harry checked that everyone was okay before he left. He enervated Dennis Creevy, checking against the list in his head of the DA members. That seemed to be everyone.

Draco came up beside him. 'That spell wouldn't have taken you out.'

'And yours would have had you?'

He ignored Harry, 'Not only should you not have been disarmed, but you know enough wandless magic to still have won.'

'I know,' Harry answered briefly.

'So why? I know it's not because you're not competitive.

'Because,' he sighed, 'I needed the castle side to do it, at least this time.'

'Why?'

'They need to believe we can win the war.'

AN: Battle scenes not so much my forte, I know. I spent a profitable afternoon in the law library drawing out a battle plan for that, so I hope you all appreciate my effort!

Thanks to Cithara, HecateDeMort (the logo was one of the few things I did like in that chapter) and Love Alchemist for kind reviews!