Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for the plot and anything you don't recognise.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel.
Chapter twenty one: Preparations.
Harry lay on the grass with Cho next to him. She was currently propped up on her elbow tracing circles on his stomach. He half smiled when he realised that the circles were gradually getting lower.
"Cho."
"Yes?"
"You do know where we are, right?" Cho rolled her eyes.
"On the Quidditch pitch, at six thirty in the morning when no one else is up or even awake." So she knew where this was going as well.
"Right in the open." Cho ignored that, leaned over and kissed him. He automatically put an arm around him and kissed her back. She was just about to deepen the kiss when he pulled back.
"Oh no, don't think you'll get round me that way!" She pouted at him prettily, "Or that way!" He warned amusedly. She swiped at his arm.
"Damn you for being so noble!"
"Or you could kiss me because that's one of things you love about me?" Harry said hopefully.
"No. If I don't get what I want then you don't get what you want." She said firmly, crossing her arms and turning away. Harry gave her the puppy dog eyes and grinned when he saw he resolve quickly melt.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down so she was lying on top of him. He kissed her softy.
"Ah, but this is what you want."
"And don't you forget it." She murmured as she leaned in to kiss him again. He ran a finger down her spine and felt her shiver in his arms.
Suddenly he pulled back. He knew that he had to tell her now or he never would. He sat up and she sat up as well looking at him worriedly.
"Cho.' She could hear the anxiety and tension in his voice and guessed what this was about. She pressed a finger to his lips.
"Shh. I know. I already know. McGonagall told me after she came and got you. She figured that you would not like to have to tell me yourself." He buried his head into her breast. She held it there and stroked his hair. As he choked down a sob.
"I don't know if I can do this, Cho. I'm really scared."
"Shh, I know, I am too. But what's more important is that I know you can do it."
"I can't!" He really was scared; the fear in his voice was bordering panic.
"You can, I know you can. Everyone knows you can. Do you really think that we are all wrong? We know you can and we love you. I love you. Don't ever forget that Harry, no matter how dark it seems. I won't let you fall. I will always be behind you to catch you. I love you. You won't fail, I know you won't. You're too strong to. You're my Harry, and I know my Harry and I know he won't fail." She was whispering the words into his hair fiercely, pouring every ounce of love she held for him into each word, tears running down her cheeks and into his hair. She held him tight. Trying to pour every bit of her love and strength into him when he needed her.
Eventually his sobs quietened and she just held him and rocked him slightly. A little while later she realised that his breathing had become even and that he was asleep. She looked down and laughed slightly, at the sight of his head pressed against her breast.
"Well," she told the sleeping Harry, "you always did like it down there. I can't say I'm sorry though."
Too comfortable to move she just sat there and rocked Harry, the normally strong, fearless, guarded Harry, who hid his emotions so carefully behind an expressionless mask, who sat there, all vulnerable, like a frightened three year old, scared of the thunder.
…………
For an hour Cho sat there holding Harry, not moving except to rock him gently. Eventually Harry woke up. He rubbed his face against Cho's breast, making her laugh. He blinked a couple of times to wake up and then laughed as well when he saw where his head had been.
"Nicest place I've ever woken up in." Cho grinned at him.
"So you've decided to wake up, then."
"How long was I asleep for?"
"I don't know. Maybe an hour." Harry shook his head and rubbed his eyes.
"Do you want some breakfast?" Cho nodded. Harry stood up and held his hand out to her. She took it and they walked towards the Great Hall.
"What have you got planned for today then?" Cho asked him as they entered the Entrance Hall. Harry shrugged slightly.
"I'll probably end up working with the Guardians. The DA are fine, they don't need any extra training in particular. I might do some more closer to the time. A couple of exercises to keep them on their toes." Cho nodded then pouted at him.
"And where does the kissing Cho time come into all that?"
"Whenever you want, my love."
"Good answer."
They walked towards the Great Hall. Only a couple of other students were up, most of them bleary eyed and barely awake. A couple of Guardians were stationed outside the Great Hall, leaning against the wall.
They straightened up and came to attention, looking ashamed and apologetic when they saw Harry approach. He waved off the apologetic look.
"Relax, boys, it's too bloody early for formalities." They grinned at him and relaxed. Harry continued, "I need one of you to find Arias, Calartius, Mathana, Mantela and Lavinio for me. Tell them to come to the Great Hall to get orders for today." One of the Guardians saluted and ran off. Harry turned to the remaining three.
"How long have you been on duty for?"
"About two hours, sir."
How long are you meant be on duty for?"
"Four hours, sir."
"Alright, go get some breakfast." They grinned at him.
"Cheers, sir."
"No problem. But if you're not back here in an hour there'll be trouble, understand?" They nodded. "Good. Enjoy it." They nodded at him again.
"Don't worry, sir, we'll be back in an hour." Harry nodded and they saluted, he returned it and then walked away.
When they were out of earshot Cho turned to him.
"You see, that's why we all follow you, that's one of the reasons you're such a good leader. Because you respond to your men, you treat them well but you lay down the rules as well." Harry shook his head.
"Typical Ravenclaw. Has to analyse everything." She smacked him on the arm.
"I'm right though, aren't I?" Harry looked thoughtful.
"I don't know, I've never thought about it. I suppose you might be, though." Cho kissed him.
"Ah, my love, how clueless you are!" Harry looked at her surprised.
"Clueless?"
"You have absolutely no idea what effect you have on people, do you?" Harry looked faintly surprised and then thought about it.
"I just do what needs to be done and people follow; I don't demand that they follow me."
"Harry, don't sound so defensive! It's a good thing. You inspire bravery and confidence in others."
"Oh." Harry did not know how to reply. Cho laughed and kissed him lightly.
"Don't worry, my love, just keep doing what you have been doing." Harry pushed open the doors to the Great Hall and walked inside. He turned to Cho,
"Breakfast with me?" She nodded and followed him over to the Gryffindor table. She sat down next to him and reached for the toast. They spent an enjoyable few minutes eating and talking before the doors to the Great Hall swung open again and the five Guardian lieutenants walked in.
"Excellent." Said Harry, as he stood up. Conversation stopped when people caught sight of the five black-robed Guardians. They caught sight of Harry and walked over to him. As they approached they saluted and Harry returned it, at this there was an audible intake of breath from the rest of the students. Harry ignored this and waved for the Guardians to have a seat opposite. When they had done so Harry took out his wand and cast a silencing charm around them.
"First off, thank you all for coming and at such short notice as well."
"No problem, sir." Answered Danny.
"Ok, I just wanted to outline the plan for today. I trust Dumbledore has alerted you to the current situation?" They shook their heads. Harry cursed inwardly. Of course he won't have, they were Harry's men, it was his responsibility. "Fair enough. In short the Unspeakables have found a way to get the wards back up and, as a result Voldemort will be running out of time, therefore he will attack in a couple of weeks." The Guardians nodded. "From now on, until he attacks and starting today we will be training. Seeing as we don't have long as seeing as we need to be the best it's going to be brutal." They nodded again.
"Very well, sir, when do you want the men assembled?" Samia asked. Harry looked at his watch.
"Half an hour. Everyone assembled at the Quidditch pitch."
"No problem, sir. It will be done." Ricardo grinned at him.
"Thank you. See you in half an hour. Oh, and if there is one man missing, there will be hell to pay. We haven't got the time to mess around." Harry offered a salute, a clear sign that they were dismissed. They returned the salute and walked out of the Great Hall. Harry brought down the silencing charm and, ignoring the curious looks of the other students, turned to Cho.
"Well, that's that sorted. Now all I need to do is get the DA together and then we can begin."
"Do you want me to go and get those that I can?" Harry shook his head.
"Don't worry about it. Most of them are early risers and I can easily send people back to get those who aren't." Cho took a sausage from Harry' plate and began to nibble on it absently.
"What can you teach people that have already been taught as Aurors?"
"To fight in a large group." Cho shrugged.
"Fair enough." She glanced over to the door. "Hey, here comes some of the DA now." Harry looked over. Sure enough several members, at least one from each house in the DA, had walked into the Great Hall. Harry waved them over. When they had gathered around him he told them to go and get every other DA member of the DA in their house and meet him in the Entrance Hall.
Twenty five minutes later he was stood in the Entrance Hall with every member of the DA. He took a step back to address them.
"Right. You know how I hate to twist the truth and to gloss over certain aspects of it to make it seem less horrible so I will put this in plain English. The Unspeakables have found a way to get the wards back up. This means that there will be one final attack from Voldemort to get my blood. The final battle is almost upon us." The reaction from the DA was similar to Ron, Hermione and Ginny's reaction. There were exclamations of horror which were then followed by looks of determination. Harry grinned at them, "What I want to do now is to go out and make the Guardians as good as you are. So come on. Let's go show them how to fight." There was a burst of laughter before they filed out of the doors after Harry.
"They seem confident." Hermione noted to Harry, as she, Ron, Ginny and Cho walked next to him.
"They will do. They have reason to be. For one they are veterans of other battles, so they think they know what's coming. For another thing they're good and they know it."
"Think they know?" Questioned Ginny. Harry shrugged.
"This is it. This is the final battle. The finale. Everything hangs on this. This is the decider; there will be no quarter from either side, or restraint. It is going to be much bigger and much more brutal." Ron shrugged.
"We're still going to kick their asses." He said casually. Harry laughed.
"I hope so, mate. Because if we don't then I'm dead." Ron looked at Harry sideways.
"Yeah, that's why were going to kick their asses."
They approached the Quidditch pitch to see the Guardians formed up and waiting. Harry signalled for Ron to form the DA up opposite them. They five Guardian lieutenants walked over to him.
"All present and ready." Athena said after throwing up a salute.
"Excellent well done. To start with we'll start with a fight. Two teams, no leaders." Titus Calartius looked surprised at this.
"No leaders, sir?"
"No leaders, Titus. One of the first lessons the DA learnt was how to fight without a leader, how to make their own decisions. A leader won't always be present, so an army needs to be able to fight on its own. So the first lesson the Guardians will learn is how to fight on their own. A leader is always better, he can direct troops and inspire bravery and courage, an army will always fight better with a leader, but the best armies will always be able to fight well without one." Titus nodded.
"Split them up, stunners and shield charms only for now." The five Guardian lieutenants turned and split the Guardians into two teams and got them facing opposite each other. Harry turned and waved the DA out of the way before walking over to the Guardians.
"Right. Stunners and shield charms only. The team that loses all its men first loses. Let's see what you can do. Work as a team." Harry took a couple of steps back and nodded to Danny Arias. Arias turned and shouted an order. The spells flew.
It quickly became apparent that although the Guardians had stopped trying to engage one another in duels and to an extent were working as a team, they still didn't operate on the level of the DA, who worked on what seemed to be a telepathic level to those who were not aware of the rigorous training and the battles they had been involved in that honed their skills.
Harry took another couple of steps back to scrutinise them more effectively. One side were working better as a team, thinking more of the people around them and covering them with shield charms as well as themselves. As a result they had lost comparatively fewer men.
Cho walked over to Harry and stood in front of him. He wrapped his arms around and he pulled her close. She tilted her head to the side as she looked at the Guardians.
"They're not as effective as we are."
"No. But then again they have had less practice than the DA. They haven't had the battle experience either." As Harry spoke he became aware of the fact that Cho was wriggling against him, trying to provoke a response. He smiled slightly and kept his face impassive.
Eventually the DA and the five Guardian lieutenants became aware of what was going on and began to chuckle. Especially when Cho became frustrated by the lack of response from him and began rubbing herself against him more seductively.
After a while, with no response from Harry, who remained impassive throughout, she threw subtlety to the winds, put her hand behind her and between their bodies and slid it downwards. That got the reaction and the DA and the Guardian lieutenants burst out laughing. Harry jumped backwards looking like he was unsure whether to be amused or horrified. He shook his head.
"You win, my love." Cho looked at him smugly.
"As always. Just goes to show that you can't resist me."
"Would I want to?" She poked her tongue out at him but looked pleased nonetheless.
Harry looked up and saw that the team that had been doing better in the beginning had won, but with less than a dozen still remaining. Harry shook his head. A twenty percent survival rate was simply not good enough. The whole thing lasted less than seven minutes.
Harry walked forward unimpressed. He didn't like mincing his words so he didn't intend to do it here.
"Alright," He said when everyone had been revived. "That was not good enough. Not even close. In fact, that was plain bloody awful. Seven minutes and one squad is completely eradicated and eighty percent of the other is. This means that seven minutes into a battle eighty percent of you will be dead or wounded. Not good enough. A twenty percent survival rate will not do. So we do it again. This time you will bloody think about what you are doing. I promised that I would make you the best and I bloody will do. Why? Because you are Guardians and therefore you have to be the best. I know you can be so bloody prove it." They looked ashamed with themselves but heartened by Harry's closing words. They split into two teams again and Harry stepped between them.
"Now think about this. The best way to win is to fight a one unit, as if you were one person. So, those who are good with shields to the front, those who are good with offensive spells behind them and the marksmen on the flanks, but behind the shields. Go." They moved into position. "Good. Those with shields concentrate only on shields and protecting those behind you, those doing offensive spells, a constant barrage, don't let up, you won't have to because you don't have to worry about defending yourselves. Marksmen, in the actual battle use only deadly spells. Slasio's to the throat, that sort of thing, but pick your targets, one spell, one kill alright? Good. Now try it."
Harry stepped back again and gave the order to continue. This time it was much better, both sides worked as one. Even after twenty minutes only two or three people had fallen, and that was usually due to a lucky spell that just happened to pass through once one shield charm had dissipated and another was being brought up.
Harry walked over to the DA and the Guardian lieutenants.
"See. I knew they could do it." The Guardian lieutenants were looking surprised.
"I've never seen them work so hard!" exclaimed Athena.
"Whatever you said, sir, it certainly did the trick." Said Ricardo.
"I just told them that it wasn't good enough, told them that they had to be the best and told them how to do it properly."
"They must have a lot of respect for you as a leader, sir." Said Samia. Harry did not know how to respond to that so he stayed silent. Ron and Hermione walked over to him.
"They're getting better, mate, still a couple of tricks you could teach them. Overlap their shield charms for one, stop so many lucky spells getting through." Ron said.
"I know. But I won't be teaching them that. I've got other things I need to do. I'll get some of the DA to teach them, I'll oversee the whole thing though, and I'll help wherever it's needed."
"Fair enough." Said Hermione. She looked sideways at Harry and lowered her voice. "Will they ever be as good as the DA?"
Harry shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. The DA is such a small group that we have to be able to fight effectively as a unit or we would be overwhelmed in battle. Besides, because we are such a small group it is much easier to work together."
After forty five minutes and still only a few casualties Harry called a halt and walked over to them.
"Excellent. Much better. Well done. I told you that I would make you the best and you are! So well done, I'm proud of you." They all grinned at him, pleased. "Now, you've mastered the basics wonderfully, but there are still a couple of tricks you can learn to give the Death Eaters a nasty surprise. I'll get the members of the DA, especially those who specialise in a certain aspect to teach you. Don't be afraid to learn from children. I'll bet that if I got the DA members to fight individual duels with you then it would be you that came away bloody and beaten." The Guardians grinned again, they didn't doubt it, having fought the DA once before. Harry turned to them again.
"Parvati Patil will work with the marksman. Don't underestimate her just because she is exceedingly pretty, and seemingly innocent. This girl can put a slashing curse through your throat at four hundred paces." That brought whistles of appreciation and impressed looks from the Guardians. Parvati blushed at the praise.
"You're better than me though, Harry." Harry grinned at her.
"Yes, but I can't be everywhere at once, and you're almost as good as me. My best is only four fifty paces." Harry turned to the Guardians again. "Cho Chang will work with those doing shields along with four other DA. Once again, don't underestimate her. If any one of you can put a spell through one of her better shield charms I will give you a hundred galleons. Ron will work with the Lieutenants on leadership and tactics and the rest of the DA, particularly Hermione will work with those on offensive spells. You are damn good as it is, and by the end of the day I will make you into a force to be reckoned with. A force that can withstand a thousand Death Eaters. A force that can destroy Voldemort's army. A force that will guard the Wizarding world." There was a loud cheer before the DA and the Guardians eagerly went to their tasks. Harry grinned and turned away and nodded.
A force that would guard the Wizarding world.
A/N VERY, VERY IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ.
This is a very important A/N so please just bare with me.
First of all, half term is in two days so I will not be able to write anything for a week or so, next update will be Monday the sixth of June. I'm really sorry about this and thank you for your patience.
Secondly, I have now entered my GCSE period, I have already had three Spanish exams and an English exam and the main bulk is yet to come, for the next month updates will be difficult to predict when, but they will come! Messages will be regularly posted in my bio and I will tell you when to expect the next update at the end of each chapter. Please do not think that I am abandoning this fic for the next month, quite the opposite, updates will be regular but they will not follow a fixed pattern, one update might be two days after and one might be a week. I cannot tell. I only ask for your patience while I get through a very difficult and very important stage of my life. Thank you very much.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter and thanks to all my reviewers.
Dark Phoenix Mortal – Thanks for the review. Blood and guts will come soon, my friend!
Colm - Thanks for the review. You were one step ahead of me!
Goddess Usagi - Thanks for the review. No need to be so critical of yourself! Glad you like the fillers, they're difficult to write though…I don't enjoy writing chapters that just contain mundane things that need to be said. Oh well, they're over now!
FSI - Thanks for the review.
Hockeyman - Thanks for the review. After this fic I am going to do a Harry/Ginny called "When Dreams Come True" There will be no nice Malfoy, Snape, no slash, no evil Harry nor will it be too muggley. If you want anymore information about it let me know in a review. Look forward to seeing you there after the trilogy has ended, my friend!
Dragon Sword Master - Thanks for the review. Hope there was enough H/C in this chapter. The reason we haven't seen Harry train in a while is because there simply hasn't been enough time for it to happen recently, now that the trilogy is ending I have to close the insignificant plotlines and that it taking up a lot of time and chapters. But we will see Harry training again soon, I can promise you that.
Keep reading and reviewing 'cos I'll keep writing.
Fireboy.