You should all be VERY grateful for this chapter! Not only am I leaving for California tomorrow at 6am, but I got 4 hours sleep last night, I have a lousy cold and therefore no sense of taste or smell, probably from living minus a roof. And yet I'm updating!

The two teachers stared out of the window for approximately twelve seconds before snapping into action. Ginny delved into the desk and started handing out portkeys disguised as the school crest with instruction leaflets, and Harry began barking out orders.

"Potter! Evans! Go to all the first to third year classes and take those students to the Room of Requirement. Stay there unless your better judgment tells you not to. You know what the password is, and if someone doesn't give it, stun first and ask questions later. Go."

Trying desperately to remain calm, the two Head Students rushed from the room. Harry turned to face the rest of the class.

"DA?"

Roughly twenty students raised their hands.

"Stay here. The rest of you will be guarding the Room of Requirement. As I said to Potter and Evans, stun first, tie up, snap their wands in two and then ask the questions."

He strode to the fireplace and threw a fistful of glittering powder into the flames.

"Sonurus!"

He pointed his wand at his throat and then called into the fire;

"This is Professor Harry Potter. The castle is under siege, repeat, the castle is under siege. DA members, report to the Entrance Hall, and the rest of you will be told what to do by your teachers. Please try not to panic. This is not some stupid drill."

He turned back to face his students, who appeared to be superglued to their seats.

"Why are you still here? Go!"

The non-DA members left their bags, quills and parchment and scrambled from the room. The DA stood, alert and attentive, waiting in terror for reassuring instructions. Harry looked at them all briefly, as if trying to memorize their faces, and then said, his voice low and tight,

"Entrance Hall. Now."

Sirius felt a knot of fear convulse in his chest. Potter clearly knew the attack was coming, so surely he must have a plan? Sirius always felt infinitely safer with the man, but one look into those green eyes told him something he didn't want to know.

His teacher was afraid.

It wasn't full out terror, as Sirius felt, but the fear was still there, pushed back to make room for level headedness.

The way he strode ahead, his fists clenched, his eyes fixed in front of him, reminded him of the battle at Hogesmeade. Ginny had a glint of steely determination, and her body was taut with alertness. Her fingers strayed lovingly over the hilt of the sword strapped round her waist, and when Sirius looked closely, he realized that she had weapons concealed all over her. The blade of a knife glinted from the cuff of her jeans, a small crossbow sticking out of her bag, two tiny daggers strapped to her belt, her sword, and her wand. Sirius had little doubt that there were plenty more, and he wouldn't be surprised if Harry had more still somewhere on him. Ever muscle was coiled with tension, and it was only a mater of time before it snapped. Sirius dared to speak to Potter's back.

"Professor?"

Harry swung round, his reflexes even faster than usual,

"Yes, Sirius?"

The seventeen year old was slightly taken aback at the use of his first name, but he asked, "Do you know what's going to happen?"

Harry's eyes darted all over the boys face, praying that he didn't mean what he thought he did. When he saw nothing but fear and determination on the young boy's face, he relaxed.

"Yes, Sirius. I know that we're going to do what's right."

Without another word, he turned on his heel and continued along the corridor.

They had reached the Entrance Hall, and the floating candlelight illuminated the mass of pale, frightened faces, upturned to the staircase from which teachers and students descended. Harry looked wordlessly at the expressions of fear, hoping for some words of comfort, of sustenance. For a second, his eyes grew wide and terrified, but he set his jaw and swallowed.

"This is what we've been preparing for, guys," he told them, "This is the bit where we pray that the good guys really do always win. This is the bit where we decide whether evil prevails, and if we're going to let it. Are we?"

The answer came, soft but sure, a murmur of hope,

"No."

"Are we going to lie down and let an evil bastard slaughter innocent kids?"

Harry's voice was now barely a whisper, but, like that first night at the feast, everyone heard it. Once again, the reply resonated,

"No."

Harry gave a slight smile.

"Then let's get out there and kick some black robed arse."

His hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his wand loosely held in his hand, he walked to the great oaken doors.

"We're using strategy C, the one we practiced. Got it?"

A universal nod.

"Good. Go get 'em."

Lifting his hand, he made a slight gesture, and the doors slowly creaked open.

What was outside appeared to be a sea of black intersperses with circles of white, the trademark black robes and masks of Death Eaters. At the front stood a much younger Lucius Malfoy, Rosier and Roldolphus Lestrange.

Moving as one, Harry and Ginny raised their wands. Seconds later, two hundred-odd wands went up behind them. Sirius ran through the strategy again and again in his head.

Pick a target, stun, disarm, duck, shield.

He singled out his target, a short man with greasy blonde hair falling around his mask.

Stun, disarm, duck, shield… Wait for the signal

Malfoy's lip curled.

"Congratulations… Potter, isn't it? An army of children."

WAIT! WAIT FOR THE SIGNAL!

Harry replied in a spot on imitation of his drawl.

"Congratulations, Lucy. An army of cowards."

He dropped the drawl,

"Oh, and my friends call me Harry. You, however, are not my friend, so Potter is fine."

Lucius raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, we have a comedian, do we? Well, that should make dealing with the filth you have within your walls even more amusing."

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"I'm bored already. Stupefy."

He didn't even raise his wand; the man simply fell, his limp head hitting the stone steps with an unpleasant crack. Harry twitched his fingers, and ropes of convulsing silver snaked their way around his still form. Harry yawned.

"Well, that wasn't too difficult."

The Death Eaters were looking at Harry with uncertain expressions on their faces. Had the man really just brought their leader down with a flick of his hand? None of them wanted to think what would happen if any of them dared to call Malfoy Lucy.

Ginny stepped forward, her wand still outstretched. Her shoes made rapping sounds on the stone floor, which cut through the anticipating silence. She turned to address Lestrange.

"Hey, dude."

That was the signal the DA had been waiting for. As one, the army of students yelled, "Stupefy!"

A wave of Death Eaters fell to the floor. Those who stood behind them had not seen the action, and heard nothing, thanks to a well placed silencing charm on the doorway. It appeared that their elite had simply fallen.

"Expelliarmus!"

Over one hundred wands flew up into the air, landing with clatters behind the rows of students. But the Death Eaters had realized the plan. A flurry of hexes, jinxes and more than a few Unforgivables arched through the air.

Duck!

Sirius braced himself, acting a split second before a jet of orange light hit him, crouching almost flat on the polished marble floor.

Shield!

The shields only withstood a few moments, for the wave of Death Eaters began pouring through the gates, and from then on, the orders were simply; 'Stay alive.'

What had been organized attack had turned into fierce, one on one combat. Ginny thanked her hours of training. A huge man, who she decided was definitely some relation to Goyle, blundered into her, as though trying to crush the petite woman with his sheer bulk. He gave a great grunt of agony as she slashed his arm with her dagger. Not too deep, she hated killing. But enough to hurt him.

Badly, she thought with a grim smile as she watched him blunder in agony, clutching his arm with his hand. Ginny didn't bother to stay and watch. She thrust her elbow sharply behind her as a heavy set man tried to take her by surprise. He gasped, clutching his stomach, kneeling on the floor.

Resisting the urge to kick him, knowing that it would do nothing but vent her feelings, she ducked a Cruciatus curse, stunned its caster, and let the old battle calm take over her. The calm that slowed time, allowing her to duck whatever was thrown at her, that let her think of the spell to use, to block whatever couldn't be dodged.

She could see Harry dueling fiercely with Rosier. Harry caught her eye for just a second, and then, moving quicker than Ginny thought possible, he stunned and bound Rosier, summoning the man's wand to him. A Death Eater was unlucky enough to cross his path at that particular moment.

Harry broke the wand over the man's head, both knocking him out and snapping the wand.

As he'd done in Hogsmeade, he raised his arm before him and swung it round, adversaries crumpling to the floor all about him.

But it hardly put a dent into their vast numbers. They'd estimated roughly five hundred, but it seemed more like two thousand. The black robed figures continued to pour through the doors, and although the students were holding their own, it was only a matter of time before they flagged against such vast numbers. Harry knew that. Wordlessly, he cast the sonurus charm on himself.

"PLAN B!" he bellowed, the code they'd derived for 'retreat.' The students immediately began to pull back to the main stairwell. He could see Ginny struggling her way through the hordes of enemies.

"What now?"

Harry shrugged, disarming an impending Eater in the process.

"Now? We improvise."

§

Lily was growing desperate. She and James had been sitting in the Room of Requirement for the best part of an hour now, and it was driving her crazy. She could hear the battle going on below, the shouts, the cries, and the occasional high pitched scream. She gripped James's hand tightly.

"What should we do? I don't know what my judgment is right now, so how the hell am I supposed to know if it's better or not?"

James shrugged, his shoulders tense. A first year let out a small sob.

The younger students were all huddled in groups of four or five, silent and shaking, apart from the occasional whisper or noise. Lily felt herself shaking as she stood up.

"I'm going to scout around."

James was standing beside her in an instant, his hazel eyes dark with worry.

"What?"

Lily forced the tremble out of her voice,

"To see if it's safe to move them further away from the fighting. If we stay here, we don't know if the Death Eaters are likely to get near enough to… harm us."

She couldn't bring herself to say the word kill.

James looked into her eyes, and he too was shaking. He took hers shoulders and kissed her, very gently. Then, steadying his voice to resolution, he said firmly, "Go. If you're not back in five minutes, I'll… wait."

He dug in his pocket and handed her a small, cracked mirror.

"Take this. Say my name to it and we can talk, like a fellytone or whatever it is."

Lily didn't bother to correct him, but nodded and, taking a deep breath, walked out of the door, her wand drawn.

She was running, low and fast, as they'd been taught in the DA, along the corridor, when her eyes caught a black shape hunched on the floor. Gripping her wand more firmly in her hand, she approached the figure.

A pale face was hiding behind a curtain of dark, greasy hair.

"Severus?" Lily whispered tentatively. Snape did not reply. His eyes were opened wide and he was breathing deeply, as if he'd just seen something incredible.

"Severus?" Lily repeated. Her turned his face toward her, and in his black eyes, Lily could see a slightly manical gleam. Lily stepped back, and Snape gave her a strange smile, before standing abruptly and running down the corridor. Lily shuddered, what she'd seen in those eyes frightened her, and she realized with a start how little she trusted Severus Snape.

K, kinda a cliffy. Won't be updating for roughly three weeks, and will look forward to reading your comments when I get back. Can't wait to go, has been heavy, vertical raining all day, and there's about a foot of water in the paddling pool.

Could not BELIEVe how many people didn't know the definition of crikey. I cant give you a meaning but I can give youu synonyms: blimey, whoa, cor, wow etc.

Review Repsonses

Shire Cat: I emailed you about this, so no point in responding again, no hard feelings etc.

Marideth: Wasn't it?

Bobkat2007: Sry I didn't email u this 4 beta-ing, Kat. I wanted to get it posted before I go away.

Hplovesme: your favourite MOVIE?

Allison Carroll: yea, well, there were some problems with my beta

Jason: You're a TEACHER? backs away looking frightened. Thanx 4 the imagination comment tho, v. nice of u 2 say so.

Hypa4eva: we're traveling round. LA, san fran, napa, some national park I can't remember the name of, carmel, everywhere (or so it seems!)

Me-obviously: I know, but it seems so far fetched that it's unlikely they'd work out the truth, n'est ce pas?

PsychicLunar: Masterpiece? Uh, I don't know about that…

C y'all in 3 weeks!

Missy Mee