Critical mass

With the ends of the books tied up and the responsibility of swelling the ranks delegated, the next week looks much calmer, so today, Monday, taking advantage of the fact that I can't go to bed early because I have a night session with Lauren, I'm going to signal to Cecile to meet us in the music classroom, Sev thought.

This way I can tell the Gryffs how things are going without revealing that Lily and I project to each other, so they'll be ready too. And by the way I'll give her the potions for her and Remus.

They demanded 'Classroom for Complete Study of Solfeo and Piano', and once inside, Sev told Cecile the date and the strategy to follow.

"Whoa, Sev…" she replied, very astonished. "You're going to be the Commander of an army at Hogwarts."

"I hope so. Let's see if it comes out."

"I think there are at least two Gryffs who will join you."

"Oh really?" he asked.

"Yeah. Frank Longbottom and his girlfriend, sixth-years."

"I don't know them."

"But I do, they are excellent fighters," she said. "They are looking forward to finishing school to fight, and they are above the nonsense of the enemy Houses. They also think that we should all unite as soon as possible against Voldemort."

"Have you read them?"

"No, I have spoken with them, we already had some confidence. They are a very nice and discreet couple."

"Wow, Cecile, that's great, thank you very much."

"Of course, I had to find more people to protect Lily just in case."

"Of course… What a great team we make."

"Do you want me to tell them? They are reliable," Cecile proposed.

Ugh… unknown lions, Sev thought. "No, wait until we uncover ourselves, let's see what they do, they must consider me a mortal enemy. I prefer to be the one to speak directly to them if they join. If they don't, tell them that Lily may be in some danger for having been my friend in the past, and have them throw you a line."

"Okay, Sev. I'm sure they'll understand, they'll do it, and be totally discreet. They also noticed how you were harassed by our year-mates and how Potter pestered Lily at all hours."

Sure, the secrets of Gryff House.Perhaps we will be freed from the 'help' of Potter and Black. "You can tell to Lily and Remus."

"Of course, so they already know that we have more support," she agreed. "Shall we go with the class? Have you done anything this week?"

"Yeah. I have come on all the breaks after lunch."

"Wow… Then show me what you've advanced."

Sev did.

"Wow, a lot," Cecile said. "I already told you, it's going to be fine for you. I'm going to find you an easy method and we'll start with the solfeo reading, I'll explain. Today the class will be almost all theory."

Cecile explained the rhythm and how to read the treble clef. "The right hand. The left goes in another key, bass clef."

"Booah… two at the same time?"

"Well yes. The piano is the most difficult instrument."

"What nonsense. What a desire to complicate life," Sev complained.

"Well, do know that there are seven keys, one for each note. You're only going to have to learn two."

They spent a whole hour on it.

"And now to enjoy a little. I'll play for you something." Cecile searched through the more advanced sheet music and played a Chopin prelude.

"Wow… even better than last week," Sev said.

"And finally, a surprise. As I knew that this was not going to appear in the Room, I have asked my Mum for it by owl."

"What?"

Cecile took a thin book out of her backpack. She put it on the piano stand and found a page. She started playing.

Taradará… tan tara dán…

Tan taradará… tan tara dán…

Tan taradará… tan tara dán…

Taradará… tan tara dán…

"It's 'Wish you were here'," Sev said, excited.

"Sing, Sev."

Tan taradará

"So… so you think you can tell…"

When they finished, they hugged each other, long, long. They had both just discovered how exciting it is to make music with another person that you are very close to.

"I'm going to take a notebook with staves and I'm going to simplify it for you so that you can play it in the treble clef, so that you can do it before the end of the year, you can sing and play at the same time," Cecile explained. "As soon as I have it, I'll come over here to leave it to you. I'll put it on the piano stand, so you can start as soon as possible."

Yeah… before I say goodbye to Lauren in the summer. "Thank you very much, Cecile."

"You have less than fifteen days left to get out of the fishbowl, Sev."

Lauren have more than two years.

That night they met.

"Today you have escaped again," she told him.

"I don't like being controlled, Lauren."

"I know, but don't take a risk."

"It's not that bad, the Gryffs cover me. And I assure you that it's worth it, you'll see."

"Okay, I trust you, you are the security specialist," she admitted. "Tell me the news."

Sev told her about the training and assembly on Sunday.

"Wow, I see that you are making decisions by yourself, and very accurate ones," Lauren valued. "It's worth taking a certain risk with the Raves and the seventh-years. Total, it will only be a week before everything is discovered. You're doing very well, the malefics don't suspect a thing. Avery has spread the word about the letter Malfoy sent him about you, and now everyone, including the sixth and seventh-years, considers you a future high command, they even think that you will lead skirmishes while you are still at school and that Voldemort will make you his lieutenant, his second in battle, on a par with Bellatrix, above Malfoy."

"Wow…!"

"What I told you, decisive in the war, on one side or the other. What a relief that you chose well."

"They will go for me," he feared.

"Not at school, they are not prepared."

"But maybe at home."

"Have you given your address to some malefic?" she asked.

"I haven't. Only you, Lily and Jack."

"We all occlude. And Lily hers?"

"As far as I know, Cecile and Remus," he replied.

"Warn everyone that they must occlude that too, I will take care of checking it, and make sure that she has not done it to anyone else, in that case, they will have to be Obliviated. Let Jack do it and I'll check it out. If that doesn't work, you'll have to spend the summer in a safe place, at Jack's house. Or teach him to cast a Fidelius on yours."

"He offered it to me as soon as he met me."

"Well, don't worry about that for now," Lauren reassured him. "Tomorrow ask Lily and stay calm, there is plenty of time to solve it at school. Give me a hug and we'll leave it for today. I have left you to the drag, but I had to warn you. Try not to think about it and sleep well."

They gave each other a long, long hug. But despite that, Sev slept terrible that night. Real fear and nightmares. Bellatrix chasing us all the way to Cokeworth to eliminate us…

At breakfast he explained everything to Lily, and he also told her that Remus and Cecile should burn all the envelopes with her address on them when they got home if they had kept them. She confirmed that she had never corresponded with anyone else and he asked her to keep practicing Occlumency and told her that on Wednesday Lauren was going to read the three of them in Potions to make sure they were doing it right, but not to tell them anything, to pretend that she was checking it.

"What a mess, Sev. We are not going to be calm at home," Lily said.

"You can be if you forget about me."

"That never, first dying."

On Wednesday in Potions, Lauren read the Gryffs and checked that they correctly occluded Lily's address. And in Arithmancy class, Sev told Anthony that Jack had to occlude his address. He told him immediately, and after lunch, Jack and Lauren did their best to meet closely in the Common Room of the dungeons, and for the first time in almost a year, they looked into each other's eyes again. She entered his mind for the first and only time, and he knew she was doing it.

It only took her a few seconds to check that he occluded Sev's address and she looked away from him, Jack knew that she had only searched for that, without trying to find out anything else. In any case, he already occluded everything related to her continuously, so he took advantage of those brief seconds to express to her with his gaze what he felt.

Sev, meanwhile, was trying for the first time on the piano 'Wish you were here', already calm because the Gryffs occluded well. And in Transfiguration Lauren confirmed that Jack did too. All in order... at last.

When Sev arrived last at the training room on Saturday, he found that everyone had come, all the NEWT Defense Sly and Rave students. He did not know how to contain his astonishment and joy. I'm not going to be able to learn their names, he was thinking as Lorenz introduced him to the Raves and Valerie to the Slys. They all gave him firm shakes and smiled at him.

Booah… luckily we found the Room and we can use it. They had not started training yet, because the first thing they had to do was the assembly. They sat in a circle on the floor, Sev flanked by his four commanders.

He quickly counted how many there were and remembered the numbers. Twenty-four, we double the malefic Slys.Nine from seventh-year, eleven from sixth and four from fifth, fifteen Slys and nine Raves, pity for the five eagles from fifth-year that are preparing the OWL, we would be more balanced, but surely they will join in the Great Hall.Twenty-nine, critical mass.

He began by telling everyone the strategy of the breakout and the training. The only objection that some put to him was that he was going to put himself in danger exposing himself in this way with the prominence that he was going to acquire.

"I'm sure that Dumbledore will propose some solution to us at school, and maybe it won't even be necessary, it seems to me that we will expel all the Slys," Sev replied.

"Have you thought that it could also be camouflaged ones in the other Houses?" asked a seventh-year Sly boy.

(Of course I know. I have to ask Lauren who they are, they would stab mein the back to curry favor with Voldemort.) "Yes, and I'm willing to take the risk that this entails. Your safety is more important to me than mine, which is why the first thing we have done today has been this assembly, so that whoever decides to do so can back down."

They were all silent for a few seconds. A seventh-year Rave girl spoke. "If we are willing to take a risk in war as Aurors, we are also willing to do it here, for something as important as training future combatants well."

Those eagles with clear ideas. They all were nodding.

"Absolutely right," said a seventh-year Rave boy. "We have had to learn on our own. It is incredible that a Dueling Chair has not been created at Hogwarts in the situation in which we find ourselves."

And brilliant. That's what I want, one more thing to ask of Dumbledore. Combining the Houses is wonderful, the school would be a much better place if we were all mixed together, communicating our qualities to each other, as Lily and I have managed to do.

"Does it seem wrong to the seventh-years that we command people from lower years?" Sev asked.

"Not me," said a Sly girl. "We have less than two months of school left, it's you who should be in charge for next year."

Politics, cunning Sly. The rest of the seventh-years were nodding.

"Besides, you have had the initiative," said the same Rave girl who had spoken before. "It corresponds to you by right."

"That is," said another Rave boy. "You are already doing enough, the Slys, giving outposts to the Raves.

Politics.

"And what about dividing us by years?" Sev asked.

"Perfect," said a seventh-year Sly girl. "With equal levels and creating ties between both Houses." They all were nodding.

Sev thought, Lauren is a wonder.How she would be enjoying being here right now. "Very well, then we all agree, let's organize today's training. We'll split up by years now, Jack taking sixth and Genevre and I taking seventh. The remaining three from fifth as always, Anthony against Heather and Fiona."

"Do you want us to invite the fifth-year Raves who are preparing the OWL for the afternoon?" Lorenz asked.

Genevre and Lorenz know their entire House.But at lunch there is no time for them to explain everything well.It is time to propose training tomorrow. Sev asked everyone, "Would you be willing to train tomorrow too?"

A wave of yes, of course and sure. They are excited.

"Leave it for tomorrow then, Lorenz, so we can explain everything calmly," Sev proposed.

"It's alright Prince."

He truststhe Sly cunning.How well we complement each other. "Let's get to it, then?"

A wave of let's go and everyone jumping up. They are dying to train.

They organized as he had told them. He and Genevre paired off the nine seventh-years and a sixth-year who joined them to make their group even, five from each House, so they combined five on five.

"Without disarming, legal, non-verbal and if possible without Protegos," Sev said. "Use them only as a last resort."

They both stayed watching each couple. Sev was explaining to her, "The Protegos are a way to check which of them is weaker, who uses them the most."

"Sure."

But in five minutes no one did.

"These are excellent. Since they don't use Protegos, you have to look at the number of times they are hexed by each other." They did it for another five minutes.

"Do you got it?" he asked her.

"I do. There are three very even couples, but two others not so much."

"Okay, then swap them, put the two best together."

Genevre stopped the fight of those four and exchanged them.

"Well, that's it. That easy," Sev said.

"Oh…"

"Let's take a look at Jack's group, they are odd."

Jack wasn't fighting. "What's up, Jack?"

"I tried to make a trio between the two worst and the best, but they beat him and it was unbalanced, so I stayed on the sidelines waiting for you," his friend replied.

"Great, that way we make a threesome." Sev against his two sixth and seventh year commanders.

They continued until lunchtime and he was the last to arrive at the Great Hall.

He projected to Lauren, "Smooth sailing."

"All in order. I'll leave you, I'm talking to Lily."

She must be getting off steam from the morning that the triplet has put her through, ugh… Sev thought.

After ten minutes, Lily projected to him, "What's up my love?"

"We have all the Sly and Rave warriors of the sixth and seventh years, we are already twenty-four older."

"Wooow... twice as many as the malefics."

"Well yes. And tomorrow the five Raves who are preparing the Defense OWL will come," he informed her.

"Twenty nine!"

"We are going to make it, Lily. We are going to expel the bad guys."

"And all thanks to you. You are one in a million."

"And what about you? Have you had much trouble with Potter and company?"

"Not so much. As it was a fine day, we took them for a walk, and I haven't separated from Cecile," she replied.

So poor Remus has had to put up with them. And they have the whole afternoon ahead of them and also tomorrow, Sev thought. "Propose them to practice Duel, so they also prepare to protect you, but you three hide how much you know."

"And where do we do it, Sev?"

"In any empty classroom far from the seventh and third floors, that Remus proposes, they know the whole castle. Make a trio Remus and you both girls, and Black against Potter."

"And Pettigrew?" Lily asked.

"Let he rat look and learn something." Arranging the training of my enemies as well.

"Okay, we'll do it like that."

"Hold on at a low level until they run out, so they won't be tempted to leave the house until dinner and they will leave you calmer," he suggested.

"You are an ace for strategies, Sev."

It's my turn. "Tomorrow do the same. Walking in the morning and Duel in the afternoon."

"Are you going to train tomorrow too?"

"Yes, I told you before, the fifth-year Raves will come. They are all excited," he replied.

"That's good, Sev. You are quite a leader. I love you."

"And I you too princess."

"Talk to Lauren for a while and tell her," Lily said.

"Okay."

Sev projected to Lauren, "Hey precious, what's up?"

"You tell me."

Sev told her everything.

"Wooow... it's going to be historical," she said.

"Now I think so too."

"Think big, Severus."

"Thanks to you."

"One week, one week, within a week we will be celebrating it."

"Of course," he agreed.

"Keep talking to Lily."

"Okay. Don't spend the afternoon reading, study."

"Yes…"

They continued training in the afternoon. Sev proposed to Genevre and Jack that they combine the pairs in a different way and then she joined the sixth-years, so they were already even. The two little ones together as always, and Sev stayed with his three classmates. He proposed the three of them against him but they beat him, and they ended up fighting in a square, all against all, having a great time.

After the afternoon break, he took the little one to a corner and they both sat on a cushion. He explained to him what they were going to do the following week and that he would not be able to participate.

"My, Sev... what a pity," Ariel told him.

"Yeah, honey. But the bad guys can't find out how good you are, we won't accept anyone from third-year. We will be together in the afternoon if it is safe, and from next year you will be able to join. You will be able to see us from the table and how we train by the Lake, but don't be separated from your friends from your year."

"Sure, Sev. It will make me very excited as well."

Ugh...he's almost crying, Sev realized. "Hug me, come on. It's good news, in a week we can finally be together."

The next day the five fifth-year Raves joined. The assembly that he held with them and Deborah while the others were already training was also perfect.

They told him, "It's sure the Hufflepuffs will join. If they dare with Defense, they will also do it for this, and they need it a lot for the OWLs, more than we do."

Well thought.

He helped Deborah organize practice for the fifth-years. He supervised the other two groups, even in sixth-year and odd in seventh-year. Genevre had joined with the worst of them to fight the best, but they beat him, they were off balance.

Sev told her, "Rearrange the pairs. The best two against the two of us."

"Great, Prince."

They fought two against two. Between him and the Rave girl they outranked the best seventh-years Rave and Sly.

"Wooow…" they were told between spells. "What a good homegrown…"

In the afternoon they finished earlier, everyone had to do their homework for the week. They proposed, "Do we also train on Friday after school?"

"Better not. We must be rested for the next day and not risk being caught just a day before," Sev replied.

He stayed with Ariel and Jack for a while. The three brothers in arms and hearts talked and said goodbye until the following Saturday at quarter past nine in the morning. Nine fifteen on the fifteenth.I already have a second lucky number, Sev thought.

Finally Sev was left alone in the empty room. Ugh… I'm exhausted but it was worth it.Twenty-nine, critical mass, and well-trained commanders.Maybe I should help Lorenz with the fourth years joining us, I should have taught him too.Well, I can't be in everything at once.

I am going to take this week of absolute rest and I am going to start right away. I already did all the homework on Friday afternoon to pass it on to Lauren and Anthony. If I weren't so physically exhausted, I would take a walk in the Room forest, but I can go inside and sit by the pond for a while.

He did it. I'm missing Lily a lot. Ugh... I've never taken her to the Forest pond.I have to do it as soon as it is safe, or at least to this one.

When he relaxed and recovered a bit, he came back out and demanded the piano classroom. There's still a while left until dinner, I'll study a little tomorrow morning in the Common Room. Today I'm going to sleep like a log right after dinner.

Cecile had written down, under each note or chord, the fingering he should use. He practiced each hand separately, insisting more on the left, which was where the chords and basses went during the intro melody and the bridge, and going to just basses during the lyrics of the song, where the chords went to the right.

I think I will achieve it between now and the end of the term. If I can't sing it at the same time, let Lauren do it, she knows it too. It will be top exciting, gasoline for the whole summer.