Hey! me again! I just wanted to thank all my readers for waiting for this chapter, and to warn you that though this only took a day, the rest might take a lot longer because of some added tests on top of all my projects! I will try to keep updating at least weekly, as i have said before. and i really am trying to make the chapters longer, but i think that i do better at lots of shorter chapters, like in Forgetting Ginny Weasley (raemie, that storie rocks!),instead of a few REALLY long ones! hehe

Well, enjoy!

Old Friends and Training

When Harry woke up, he was surprised to find himself in the empty Common Room. Blinking groggily, he reached for his glasses, which he had set on the table, and realized that Namiko was probably already awake.

Harry sighed and looked out the window. The sun was high in the sky; it was around noon, by Harry's reckoning. Harry was surprised; he had been more tired than he thought.

So they were finally back. Back to Hogwarts, Dumbledore, war, and most importantly Voldemort. In Japan it had been so easy to forget his worries. No one there knew of Voldemort except those select few who were friends with Dumbledore.

Harry sighed and walked over to the fireplace. He walked over to the fire and stared into its depths. They were lucky that it was summer right now, so no students would be around.

He sighed once again and stood up, as Ron, Hermione, Draco, Ginny and Namiko walked in. Ginny giggled and said, "Well, sleeping beauty is finally awake. Namiko looked at Harry with an amused expression on her face.

She smirked. "Well, not even back for a day, and you're already getting talked down by a girl." She wagged a finger at him, then giggled.

Harry just grumbled and looked away. "Anyway," Ginny began, "we really came here to tell you that lunch is almost over, so if you want to eat…" She trailed off as Harry said a word she didn't recognize rather vehemently, and Namiko laughed.

Harry shot out of the Common Room and into the Great Hall, with a group off laughing teens trailing behind him. As he entered the room, Dumbledore stood up, smiling.

"Ahh, Harry, so pleased you could join us!" Snape snickered. Harry shot him a mild glare and stalked to the Gryffindor table, where he sat down. Food instantly appeared in front of him.

Dumbledore continued, "We-that is, the staff- decided it would be best if you met our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher." He gestured at a woman with long, dark black hair pulled up in a high ponytail, with bangs that hung in front of her startling sapphire eyes. She was a beautiful woman, blessed with a curvy body and an angled face, like an elf. Dark blue-black eyes stared at Harry, as if evaluating his appearance.

"I am pleased to introduce you to my old friend and colleague, Sagara Amaya ( A/N: couldn't think of a last name…. so I… borrowed one of watsuki).

Namiko's eyes widened at the name, and she sprinted across the room, and stopped in front of the professor. She studied the older woman intensely for a second, as Professor Sagara calmly stared back. Finally, Namiko took a deep breath, and yelled in a booming voice, "WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS! LEAVING WITHOUT TELLIING OTOU-SAN OR ME!"

Ginny, Draco, Ron, Hermione, and all the other teachers(with the exception of Dumbledore) gaped openly at the petite girl who was now scolding the older woman in Japanese. Harry's eyes widened momentarily, but after a certain phrase, he burst out laughing. Draco just barely managed to hear the words, "Just like the Rooster-head!" being choked out, before gales of laughter once again dominated.

As Harry ate his lunch, Namiko suddenly got up from where she was sitting, and smiled at everyone as they all looked at her in confusion. She merely said, "I need to be somewhere right now. Ja ne.."

She walked away, and Harry shrugged and continued eating. After lunch, Ginny, Draco, Hermione, Ron, and Harry all walked up to the Gryffindor Common Room. Dropping into chairs by the fireplace, they spent quite a while just talking. Talking about where Harry had been, what he had done, the news of Voldemort, how the Light was faring, and other nonsense things.

After they had exhausted the topics of discussion, Hermione pulled out a book and began to read. Ron and Harry decided on a game of chess(Ron won, obviously), and Ginny and Draco started playing exploding snap.

After a while Harry noticed something that seemed to disturb him.

"Hey, where's Namiko?" Harry asked as he played wizard's chess with Ron for the fifth time, and lost badly. "I remember her at lunch, then she said she had to leave..." he trailed off, and looked at the wall, thinking.

Ginny made a distracted shrug, her focus more on her game of exploding snap with Draco. Ron just shrugged, and continued to work out his strategy to beat Harry. Hermione however, lifted her head out of her book and looked thoughtful.

"I remember her saying that the whole morning was wasted and that she needed to...blow off some steam?" Hermione's voice was quizzical at the end. Harry's eyes widened as he realized where she was. He nodded his thanks and got up.

"I'm going to go get her now," he announced. "If any of you want to come, you can." With that, he walked away. The four teensstill in the room exchanged a look, then hurried after Harry to see what was going on with Namiko.

Harry exited Hogwarts and led them to the school grounds. Walking toward a dense pack of trees, he confidently stepped into the darrk forest. Ron looked uncomfortable, but walked in anyway, a step behind Draco and Ginny. Hermione stopped short.

"Ron! Ginny, Draco, you can't go in there!" she cried. "It's the Forbidden Forest! It's loaded with tons of dangerous creatures!" Now, she had Harry's attention, too.

"Come on!" Harry said. "The forest isn't that bad once you get to know the animals! Besides, if you want to see nasty, you need to go the forest off the edge of Meiji!" He beckoned to them with one hand. "You're safe with me! Come on!"

They reluctantly followed the dark-haired teen into the dark forest and deep into its shadowy paths. As Harry led them deeper and deeper into the darkness, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny started to get a bit fidgety. Draco stared resolutely ahead, though his step was a bit unsure.

Finally, they arrived in a bright clearing in the middle of the forest. As they looked around for the source of the light, they saw Namiko, with her katana out, practicing her swordsmanship. Above her was a ball of golden light that lit up the clearing like the sun. Harry grinned and Namiko as she lowered her sword after a particularly complex sequence of attacks.

Namiko grinned back. "Care to join me?" she asked in a relaxed tone. "It gets quite boring by myself. No one to test against, if you get my meaning." Harry smirked, and got into ready stance in the middled of the clearing. Namiko nodded approvingly and got into the same one.

Minutes passed, as the two combatants circled each other, looking for flaws in their stances. Suddenly they flew at each other.

Harry's black sword clashed against Namiko's beautiful white one. A metallic sound rang through the air as the young woman and man struck at each other again and again.

The battle was long and it was a beautiful sight to see. Harry and Namiko battled each other with practiced grace, though everyone there could easily see that Namiko could beat Harry easily. She just played with him so he could learn more. And by the frustrated look on Harry's face, he knew it.

Finally Namiko executed a complicated move, and jumped over his head, hovering a good ten feet in the air before doing two front flips and landing with her back facing Harry's. Twisting around with inhuman speed, she flicked her white blade up to Harry's unprotected neck.

"Dead," she pronounced quietly. Harry stood there, breathing hard for a few moments. He was drenched with sweat and he panted heavily. They had been sparing for more than half and hour now, and he was tired. Then Namiko lowered her sword and turned her back on him, walking away while sheathing her sword.

A ripple of air was seen going toward her, and she casually leaned to one side to avoid it. It raced through the air, and hit the tree beyond her, creating a resounding crack as it split.

She turned around. Harry was standing there, palm raised, with a teasing smile on his face. "Care to duel?" he asked easily, as he lowered his hand. Namiko grinned evilly.

"Sure…" she whispered slyly. Without warning, a bolt of pale blue lightning raced through the air toward Harry. His eyes widened momentarily, then he retaliated with a hard-packed clump of dirt, which absorbed the lightning, and blew apart. As the dust cleared, Harry fired a long rope of fire at Namiko. Namiko doused it with a jet of ice-cold water, and it froze, and fell to the ground with a hard thump.

They continued like this for a few minutes, controlling water, air, earth, ice, fire, and lightning in ways that Ron, Hermione, Draco, and Ginny had never even dared to dream possible. Fire that only burned certain things, and passed through others like a ghost. Ice that twisted and turned, and attacked something over and over again, like a wolf. Earth that sprouted tentacles that slapped at anything that it deemed an enemy, which happened to be Namiko.

They stared in awe as their friends hacked away at each other with powerful elemental attacks that only grew in strength and complexity.

Suddenly, Namiko seemed to reach deep inside of herself, and a dark wave of overpowering night flooded the clearing, extinguishing the ball of light. Everything went pitch black, so that almost everyone their was groping around like blind people.

The darkness retreated sharply as a blast of green fire chased it away. It cleared to show Harry on the ground with Namiko's palm pressed flat agaist his chest. Harry himself was the wielder of the green fire; it was flickering on his upraised palm.

He let it disappear as Namiko pushed harder. Sighing, he lowered his hands in surrender. Namiko to lowered her hands and straightened up, offering a hand to Harry. He took it and pulled himself up, before giving her a quick peck on the cheek.

The sound of applause rang through the clearing. Namiko and Harry turned in surprise to find that they had gathered an audience during the session. Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Bill and Charlie (who had just arrived at Hogwarts to find them all rushing toward the forest), the Weasley twins (who were grinning fit to split there face open), Remus, Tonks, and Mad-eye, along with Ron, Hermione, Draco and Ginny.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled madly as he waved them over. Everyone else simply looked stunned. Never before had they seen a magical or physical display such as that! (A/N that's right, they arrived during the swords duel) The enormity of their power had just struck the onlookers, and they were shocked.

Ron, being Ron, was sputtering incoherently. Finally, he managed, "What-when-where-" He finally just settled for the easiest one and uttered, "How?"

Harry answered quietly. "Like I told you before, I've been training…." Namiko nodded.

Then Ron faced her. "And you! That was amazing! Where did you learn to move that fast? Or to do all those cool moves! We were only under the dark blanket for less then a second, but you had already traveled halfway across the clearing to Harry!"

Namiko blushed and said, "I have…had…a good teacher……" not even Ron missed the sad look in her eye. He nodded, and fell silent.

An uncomfortable silence followed until Dumbledore said gently, "Why don't we all go inside? Its been almost two hours since lunch, and there is going to be an Order meeting in the Great Hall in about 30 minutes…." He left that hanging, and turning, beckoned for them to follow him. He led the group out of the forest and disappeared.

Harry looked at Namiko in amusement for a second, before kissing her gently on the lips. She smiled sweetly, and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder. Harry settled an arm on her shoulders and they walked out from the leafy ceiling.

Reviews!

Kei Ikari: Yes i can! Thank you so much!

Beth5572: Thank you!

flower123: I know school is very hectic! But now i'm back! bit delayed though...still

momocolady: Thanks!

luvbooks: i'm glad that people like it! thanks! i'm also glad that other people like books alot too!

xcb: thanks!

SpellMasters: Thanks alot! i will try, k!

If i missed any please feel free to tell me, and i will reply to them next chapter!

iceprincess