Not Alone
The November sun shone blindingly bright in the winter's sky, but it didn't quite manage to warm up the cool air of the 7th floor corridor, where Harry climbed to following a rarely used ramp of stairs, only to stop cold at the sight that greeted him. Not far from the tapestry of a wizard trying to teach ballet to a bunh of trolls in pink tutus, there was a familiar bunch of wizards and witches.
Walking up to them, as they stood in front of the Room of Requirement's entrance, the Chosen One blinked owlishly at the group of students that had basically ambushed him.
The usually deserted 7th floor corridor that he had to cross to reach the Room of Requirement was now almost walled off by those wizards and witches that had gone with him the night at the ministry.
A stern-faced Neville held himself with his back straight and a stern expression of his usually meek visage. Ginny was glaring, fists closed on her hips, while Ron gave off the feeling that he would have preferred being somewhere else, and smiled sheepishly when Harry's green eyes landed on him. Luna was... well, Luna: her too-big eyes roamed freely upon the area, not really giving anything away about her thoughts, while Hermione, the clear ring-leader, stood in front.
Harry sighed, guessing what the imminent conversation was going to be centered on: "What's this about?"
With a sniff, Hermione stepped forward: "This is an intervention, Harry!"
What? Before he could truly unpack whatever the bookworm meant by that, Neville stepped up, as serious as he had been when he declared that their group was meant to be about something truly important, and that they would join him in his ill-fated quest to the Ministry. "Why haven't you called a meeting of the D.A. yet? We've been waiting, you know."
Longbottom flashed his charmed galleon, quickly mimicked by the rest of the group, sans Luna, who was busy staring wonderingly at a speck of apparently nothing that buzzed just in front of her nose.
"Snape is good at D.A.D.A..." immediately, the Chosen One tried to deflect, swallowing down the irritation that came with having his training routine interrupted by the well-meaning students that didn't seem to grasp exactly what he needed to do.
"You dropped quidditch Harry!" Ginny stomped her left foot on the cold stones of the corridor, unimpressed: "And we hardly learn with that git as we did with you!"
"You've been off on your own since we reached the castle, mate." Ron was only happy to exploit the opening given by the others, even if he didn't lose his sheepish smile and his shoulders seemed to roll into a 'what can you do?' motion, "We're kind of worried, you know?"
Unimpressed, Harry rose a single, taunting eyebrow: "And by that, you mean that Hermione was worried and dragged you all here, or am I reading this wrong?"
The witch in question blushed at being called out, but she jutted out her chin, refusing to back down: "Well, I'm right anyway, and you know it! We get that you have to prepare for the war, Harry, but what will you end up fighting for if you stop having anything you care about in your life? You're being..."
"An over-protective, self-centered prat." Ginevra Weasley had never been one for smooth-talking, and she crossed her arms as if the matter was already settled, satisfied that everything was going to happen as she had decided, uncaring of the fact that the Chosen One had hardly uttered a single word since the impromptu ambush had been set off: "We're all going to fight him, so we might as well train together."
"I do miss the D.A." Luna's almost ethereal voice fluttered to Harry's ears before he could retort in any meaningful manner, and for once, her eyes were on his while she talked. Something in them was able to shut him up where Hermione had been unable to.
"We want to be able to have your back, Harry." Neville stepped to the front, fully leaving the 'cover' given by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the other students, "So we decided that we're resuming the D.A."
"I don't have the time..."
The objection was stalled by Ron, of all people, who now was frowning, the easygoing attitude slowly fading back, letting space for something a bit more forceful: "You did it last year, for a lot more people: you only have D.A.D.A., Charms, and Transfiguration, and it'd be only us, you know? I reckon it'd be less time consuming..."
Harry crossed his arms, standing his ground as the mere truth of the matter rose to his lips: "It's not about the bloody time!" his green eyes blazed with certainty. "You have no idea how it is..."
"We were with you at the ministry!" Ginny jumped forward, almost getting close enough to strangle the Chosen One, "We..."
"And look how well it turned out!" Harry matched her tone, his fists clenching over his arms as if he was physically restraining himself from lashing out: "It's a miracle none of you died! We had the enormous advantage of them not wishing to fight us seriously because of the prophecy, and they still got us all, didn't they? We barely made it out alive!"
"Mate, we'll just have to do better..."
"With the same dedication that you put into Occlumency?" Harry's head turned fully towards Ron, who had the decency of blushing at the reprimand. The Chosen One took a deep breath, using his extensive practice of the just-mentioned Mind Art to smother his rightful rage, only to resume talking with a calmer tone that seemed to swallow the 'Occlu-what?' questions that had arisen in the minds of the other wizards and witches present.
"I don't begrudge you the Quidditch, the choice to follow your interests, and the rest." his arms unfurled, and Harry let them fall limply to his sides as he shrugged, sighing once more as the rage that never truly left him evaporated: "If I could, I'd do the same. But that's the point, isn't it? I don't get to choose: Voldemort will just keep coming..."
"Because of course he'll leave us alone, won't he?" Ginny was hardly a witch to concede any space to the self-sacrificing moron that was now trying to push everyone away: "It's just like last Christmas, isn't it? You tried to pull this identical crap last year too! Well, surprise, it didn't make sense then, and it doesn't make sense now!"
"Even if You-Know-Who was the type to leave us alone, Harry, do you really think we would leave him just do as he pleases?" Neville interceded calmly, bravely putting one hand on Ginny's left shoulder to pull her back, only for her to turn to briefly glare at the older wizard: "We're either blood-traitors or muggleborns here."
"You said that we have a choice, Harry." Luna's ethereal voice made once more it apparition on the scene as she hovered about, her feet not making a sound as she took a step to the side, only to slide back and then forward: "And we made our decision."
"Don't I get a say in this?" despite himself, beneath the irritation and frustration summoned by being stopped, Harry felt an angle of his lips twitch uprwards. It was somewhat amusing to see the ragtag group that he had almost gotten killed at the Ministry scrounge up enough determination to impose themselves this way.
And just like that, the spark of amusement was gone: "I almost got you all killed, and I did get Sirius killed." The wave of guilt and grief came up as always, but the Gryffindor wizard weathered it stoically, the cold, unforgiving hate that had dictated Bellatrix's death grounding him in the present.
"You're not alone, Harry." Hermione took several steps forward until he could see in her brown eyes the same naked concern and grief she had shown him at Ollivander's, "Even if you'd like to be, we're not letting you go, got it?"
And despite everything, while the weight of all the things that loomed above the Chosen One hadn't changed, he felt more capable of standing tall despite it all. With a final, deep breath, his green eyes met the gaze of every single one of the wizards and witches that had come to confront him, silently challenging them to back down one last time.
However, none of them wavered, and even as he shook his head, Harry accepted their determination, their dedication, and walked towards the entrance of the Room of Requirement: "Well, we'd better get started."
Reaching the enchanted wall, however, an idea sprang to mind, and the Chosen One almost grinned to himself. Instead of the usual thing, he asked for something a tad bit different: I need a place where they can understand what they're getting into. I need a place where they can understand what they're getting into. I need a place where they can understand what they're getting into.
As the secret door appeared and quietly opened itself, Harry couldn't help but to throw a challenging glance above his shoulder: "Last chance to back off people, if you enter, I'm hammering you into shape, happy or not with your decision."
He strolled into the room without listening to the offended huffs of Ginny and Hermione, ignoring the challenging chuckle of Neville along with Ron's groan, and consciously choosing to not pay attention to the oddly haunting tune that Luna choose to hum to herself.
The sight that welcomed his eyes, however, cut off whatever amusement he might have felt. It erased whatever levity his somewhat impulsive choice had been able to summon, and it instead stoked the half-slumbering fire of rage that always seemed to burn in his bones since the night at the Ministry.
He strolled over the destroyed tiles and scorch burns that the Room had been able to summon from his memory, his nose taking in the air heavy with acidic smoke and the tingly presence of restless ozone tickling his skin. Broken gravestones stood amidst burning-out fires of statues he had never observed in person, while some sort of damp mist hovered just above his ankles, ripping and moving independently from the slow wind that dragged itself as if tired across the expanse in front of him. The sky was a black front of clouds heavy with rain, while the horizon was swallowed by the mists.
His steps didn't echo as he walked over the black tiles of the ministry, they didn't slip as he crossed the stretched of overgrown weeds, and in his mind, Harry was already cursing the brilliant idea he had in asking something new of the Room of Requirement.
The soft gasps and shivers following him were confirmation enough: that place was creepy.
Summoned out of a mixture of his nightmares and his memories of both the graveyard where Voldemort returned to life and the battle-razed halls of the Ministry, the Room had gone above and beyond what he could have imagined, and if the sight of what he had asked for didn't submerge him completely in his own rage, he would have felt wonder at the abilities of the enchanted place.
After a few more seconds, the doors that had let them all in closed with a final thud, foreboding in its deep tune. "What is this place?" finally, Hermione's question managed to rouse the Chosen One from his almost unnatural stillness, summoning instead a distant sense of cruel amusement in him as he turned to regard those fools that had apparently decided to force their way into his routine.
"This," the wand that had once belonged to Bellatrix slid in his wand as he turned with a grandiose gesture of his open arms, "is where I get you all to understand what you asked for."
Recognizing something just a bit more sinister than usual in his friend's coldly mischievous expression, the Gryffindor bookworm snapped up her wand first: "Protego!"
Harry's silent bludgeoning hex crashed against the suddenly raised shield, and the five students guilty of forcing themselves in his well established routine were suddenly under assault.
"Bloody he..." a snake-like whip grabbed Ron by his left ankle, and he was flung sideways in his sister, who cursed loudly even as the breath left her lungs. An 'Impedimenta' impacted the Weasleys, who kept moving as if trapped in a particularly dense honey, blocked in a tangle of limbs without having a single chance to strike back before Harry focused on the others.
While Neville scrambled for his wand, Luna surprised everyone by casting an 'Expelliarmus', only for the red jet to be nimbly dodged by the Chosen One, who followed up with a barrage of silent charms and hexes that unfurled as if water drops from an infinite river, sending ripples across the air and whizzing through the mist before impacting relentlessly against Neville and Luna, who were disarmed in quick order just as Hermione dealt with a summoned snake that hadn't been there an instant before.
The reptile vanished, revealing the unmistakable red light of the Disarming Charm less than a foot from her chest.
In less than a minute Harry had finished up those that had managed to not fall immediately under his surprise attack thanks to sheer speed and the undeniable advantage given by his silent casting.
When he stopped, the Chosen One's expression was carefully blank, even if his blazing green eyes gave away the rage fuelling his focus, breathing more power in his spells as his wand bit the reins, pulling for something more, for something better.
"You're good, we get it." Neville gasped after a while, tied up against a gravestone not unlike Harry had been at Voldemort's resurrection, "Can you get to the teaching part now?"
A couple of heartbeats passed during which Harry didn't seem to hear the words of the other wizard, only for the walnut and dragon heartstring wand in the hand of the Chosen One to twitch sideways, undoing the results of his spells one after the other.
Once everyone regained their bearings, Ginny was the first one to round back on Harry: "What was that supposed to be, exactly!?"
"That," Harry dispassionately cool eyes met hers without hesitation or remorse, "was the beginning. You can learn spells as well as I do in your own free time, besides a pointer here and there, I'll just try to force you to learn to fight. I can't spare the time for actual lessons."
With his face still oddly blank, the Chosen One raised a hand, forestalling any objection: "This is as much as I'm willing to give: take it or leave it."
AN
Again, a short chapter, but I persist in my intention of focusing only on the divergent points until the story becomes unrecognizable from canon. Besides, it never really went down well how Neville, who had a whole 'I'll avenge my parents' moment in 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix', simply vanished in the sixth book.
Some Bigger changes will come upon us soon, and from there it will be stuff I haven't seen just yet, at least not in this manner: I hope everyone is entertained.
Some already wrote about how 'the lone wolf' Harry is the way to go, but even if we keep to canon, I feel like I'd be doing a disservice to Hermione and Ron, who do tend to be concerned for their friend, at least from time to time.
Let me know what you think!