Author: SportsNightLover
Title: Harry Potter and his Trusted Followers
Summary: Post HBP. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and others search for the horcruxes. They skip their last year at Hogwarts, so that they can find and destroy all of Voldemort's horcruxes.
Disclaimer: The characters are not, and were never, mine.
"I don't think we are getting anywhere," Harry said to Ron and Hermione after their 5th meeting.
"How do you figure? Everyone is well past the level we would be in for our 7th year," Ron pointed out.
"Everyone except you is. Anyway, it is really easy."
"Easy for you," Hermione corrected. "I think we are doing fine, anymore work and you will overworking us. And besides, it has only been a week."
"Still, I wanted to move faster," Harry said as he merely flicked his wand and all the spell books and practice materials soar into a neat pile. "There are loads of simple, verbal, spells that they don't know."
"Don't rush them."
"I need to. Only you and Neville are improving like I hoped."
"You expect too much," said Ron, a little scared of Harry's reaction. Hermione nodded.
"I need to. It is Voldemort we are up against. I don't want anyone getting hurt if I can help it."
"Would you please not say that name?" Ron said. Changing subjects and puffing out his chest, "How do you think the rest of us are doing?"
"You need private lessons, mate… hey that is a good idea. Why don't I give extra lessons to everyone? One day is one person, and the next is another."
"You know, that may be a good idea. Yes, I think that will work," Hermione said trying to imagine a negative result. "How will you decide who goes first and so on?"
"Whoever is worst that day will go to the top of my list. Ron, since you are always worst, let's starts now."
"Ok. What first?" Ron asked looking slightly more cheerful after learning that he would study privately with Harry.
After a few one-on-one lessons with Ron, Harry realized he made a good decision and learned how differently to teach. Ron improved a little from the extra attention and caught up to where he should have been in the beginning, but was still behind. Dean, Seamus, and the other Gryffindors paid more attention to Harry, and benefited more. Once, everyone had at least one alone time with Harry, he started to develop an idea. He knew that some were better in some areas and others were better in a different area. He decided to use that to his advantage.
"Listen up everybody. I am going to split you into three different groups and I will tell you what to do later," Harry told everyone after thinking up a strategy of attack the previous night.
Harry decided that he should make Dumbledore's Army into a real army. He already had a training area, enough people to make three divisions of ten, and was already planning on acting like an army. All that he was doing was making it organized. He made three attack teams: the first as the primary attack and the first ones into the area where fighting would occur. The ones in this group had to be the best in his army with a lot of courage and reflexes. When given the signal, blue sparks, the second force would join them and help to complete the given objective, or help fight off Death Eaters. When not helping, they would be patrolling around exits and making sure no Death Eaters escape, or join the fight. This team would consist of soldiers with the ability to pull off nonverbal spells, so that they could, at first, join undetected. If they need even more help, the last ten soldiers would come to the rescue when given their signal, green sparks. They would be with the second team out guarding the entrances. They would be the worst in the army, but be able to react fast to anyone unwelcome that fires at them. If red sparks are given, that means anyone left should help, but be careful because the first groups were outmatched.
He, Harry, would be commander of the army, and captain of the first attack. Hermione would be captain of the second, and Ron captaining the third. In case anything happened, he used Ginny as his own back-up, Fred as Hermione's, and George as Ron's.
When everyone was sorted into three different groups, he told them the plan, which shocked Ron and Hermione that he didn't ask them first. After addressing the whole army, he went to each group and told them the spells, that he thought they should know best and the ones that would be useful. Instead of using just individual practices, he did team practices, and left his captains in charge of the other divisions, with frequent reports. He also did individual practices, but less than before.
He placed under his own personal command, Ginny, because she was his second in command, Neville, because he could trust him and rely on him, Dean and Seamus, because they were best friends and might help each other and who had known Harry for seven years, Zacharias Smith, who he wanted to keep a close watch over, Katie, Angelina, and Alicia, because they were older and had seven years of Hogwarts under them, and Mclaggen, who he could not leave to the others.
Under Hermione's command was Fred, her second in command, Lavender, who could not be near Ron, Ernie Macmillian, Justin Flinch-Fletchey, Hannah Abbott, who were older than some, but Harry didn't want under his own control, Luna, who he knew could get along with Hermione, and would be good to help in the second wave, the Patil sisters, who couldn't be with Harry or Ron after the Yule Ball, and Lee Jordan, who he hoped would be as good as the twins he always hung out with.
With Ron was George, his second in command, but much better older brother, the Creevey brothers, with little experience, and as far away from Harry as possible, Michael Corner and his friends, who Harry didn't get a good impression of two years ago, his two beaters, who were very young and inexperienced, and Cho Chang, who could not be with Harry or even close to Hermione.
The reports came back confirming his decisions of where everyone should be and that they should work on their own strengths. They worked well together and were able to learn quicker with only a third of the work to learn. The last group learned least, only there as a last resort, the second learned a lot, being as a direct help, and the first group learned most and more difficult spells because they were the first to a new place. Harry was far better than anyone else in advanced curses, but Hermione knew a lot of charms that she taught to everyone, including other divisions. Ron brought nothing as a help, but tried to learn with Harry just as much as teaching his squad. Neville knew a lot about Herbology, which would help when he got in, so that everyone was warned about dangerous plants.
Harry spent all his free time thinking about the other horcruxes and R.A.B. He often relived the memories he saw in the Pensieve hoping that he would think of somewhere that Voldemort would hide a horcrux, like the cave. He knew that the snake was always with him, so he would have to eliminate it last, when near Voldemort. The cup, he had no idea where it could be, the locket was with R.A.B., who he did not know, and the relic from either Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, he did not know what, where, or even how Voldemort found it. He was glad that two were already destroyed, because he couldn't imagine going after six.