FicWad

Saturday, February 15, 1997

The rest of the year passed by, with school and training and teaching the D.A. Christmas break came and Harry joined the Weasleys and Hermione at Grimmauld Place. At first it was painful being stuck in a house that reminded him so vividly of Sirius, for all that his godfather hated the place. And indeed, up until he returned to Hogwarts, little things would unexpectedly remind him of the man, both good memories and bad.

Despite this he was glad he decided to go. It was nice to catch up with Remus. The man clearly missed his friend dearly, but to Harry's surprise a certain Metamorphmagus seemed set on making sure the old wolf didn't wallow. When he first outright asked Tonks if he and Remus were dating, she'd flushed bright red with hair to match and denied his suspicions.

To his delight, he managed to trump Tonks in almost all of their flirting matches during the holiday, by simply turning his comments onto the topic of her and Remus (though of course Bill was often around to tease and embarrass him extra to make up for it). Privately he wished her luck in her wooing of the werewolf. He didn't think the feelings were one sided; he'd noticed the way Remus's eyes seemed to drift to her more often than not.

Before too long it was back to Hogwarts and the now usual routine. Harry's training was going very well, his abilities growing in leaps and bounds. He was also quite pleased with the progress of his D.A. students. Although none of them had been in real combat recently, he felt confident that if necessary, they would prove to be more than capable of defending themselves and others.

This belief was put to the test in February during the Valentine's Hogsmeade weekend. Harry and his friends had agreed to go together, none having a romantic other (Ginny had split amicably from Dean and was single once more). They were all bar one waiting near the Hogwarts front doors, ignoring the suspicious glares of Filch.

"I wonder what's taking Neville so long," Harry wondered aloud.

"Yeah, I want to go to Honeydukes before all the good stuff's taken," groused Ron.

"He won't be long," Ginny said with a grin and a knowing tone.

Before Harry could question her about it, their missing member appeared. But to Harry's surprise he wasn't alone. He was walking down the staircase side by side with Lavender Brown. The pair were chatting, seemingly caught up in their conversation, and as Lavender let out a laugh Harry reflected that it was the happiest he'd seen her since Parvati had left Hogwarts.

"Oh, hi guys," Neville said as they reached the group. "Sorry I'm late. I invited Lavender along with us. I hope that's okay."

"I can meet up with someone else if it's a problem," the curly blonde haired witch said nervously.

"Don't be silly," Hermione immediately assured her. "You're more than welcome."

Hermione had an expression of understanding and Luna was staring between the pair with a dreamy smile.

"Unless you and Neville wanted to go alone," Ginny said cheekily causing boy in question to blush.

"Come on," Ron huffed, annoyed at the delays. "Let's go."

It wasn't till an hour later, as the group wandered down the main street of Hogsmeade, that Harry finally realised what his three female friends had already understood. The way Neville and Lavender always walked so close together, that they bent their heads towards one another to speak, the way that Neville occasionally reverted to his old shy self, and the fact that Lavender looked happier than she had been for a long while. It was all fairly obvious now that he thought about it. As Ginny engaged Lavender in a talk about hair charms, Luna adding odd comments here and there, whilst Hermione rolled her eyes and turned her attention to Ron, Harry lagged behind a little to talk to Neville.

"I didn't know you and Lavender were dating," he said quietly, and the other boy promptly blushed bright red and began shaking his head.

"I- wha- I mean, no!" he yelled then quietened when the others looked back at them."We aren't dating," the flustered boy denied. "We're just friends."

Harry was sceptical but didn't press. Perhaps he was mistaken. He wasn't really very perceptive about these sorts of things. Still, it was a surprise even to know the pair were friends, though their interaction all day had certainly spoke of a familiarity.

"When did that happen?" he asked, referring to the friendship.

"After what happened with the Patil's. Lavender just really needed someone to talk to, and I'm a good listener. And since we seemed to get along well, we just kept meeting up together."

Before the conversation could go any further there was a chorus of popping noises and then screams. Harry's eyes widened in alarm. Death Eaters were attacking Hogsmeade.

Immediately, Harry went for his wand, Neville copying his actions. He quickly raised a shield as a jet of grey light headed toward them, recognising it as a bone breaking curse. Unfortunately the curse gave time for three masked attackers to convene on their position and they were separated from Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna and Lavender who hurried ahead to defend a group of elderly wizards who were walking by up near the owl office.

"It's Potter," one of the three attackers crowed. "Oh, the praise we'll get from the master for taking you down."

And then the battle was on. It was three on two, but the Death Eaters weren't the most highly trained. The two boys cursed and shielded and dived and dodged. Harry, the strongest offensively, had soon brought down one of the masked men with a Reducto. Neville meanwhile, a solid defensive dueller, focussed on defending the pair of them, leaving Harry free to attack. In this the Death Eaters'seemingly limited repertoire proved advantageous. At first Harry, with his extra training, was the only one of the pair to know which shields blocked which curses. Neville paid close attention to his castings however, and was soon blocking most every curse that came their way. Just then a fleeing villager bumped into the remaining two enemies. The distraction was just what was needed and Neville and Harry cast simultaneous Stunners, bringing them down.

"Lavender and the others," Neville huffed. "We need to make sure they're alright."

They hurried down the street, taking down a lone Death Eater as they went. They also ran into Susan Bones and Justin Finch-Fletchley as they ran, who joined their numbers. Finally as they neared Honeydukes they heard familiar voices crying out spells.

"They're pinned down inside Honeydukes," Harry said.

There were no less than seven Death Eaters attacking the building and those trapped within. As one sent a curse which ripped through the front of the shop, they all winced.

"We need to take them out and defend the store."

"There's something I can do," Neville said, a look of determination overcoming his face. "You three attack them from behind. I need the distraction."

"But Neville, it's too-"

"Lavender's in there," he hissed.

Then, before they could object further, he edged forward toward the storefront. He didn't look set to stop either, and Harry knew he needed to get that distraction going before Neville tried whatever he planned without waiting for them to do their part.

"Come on guys," he addressed Susan and Justin. "Get ready. I have a spell in mind. It should give us a few seconds of open fire."

The three rounded behind the Death Eaters and without pausing to second-guess himself, Harry stepped forward and raised his wand.

"Micosono!" he yelled, knowing silent casting wouldn't be powerful enough for this spell.

The Flashbang Jinx exploded at the seven Death Eaters, blinding and deafening them, and they all cringed visibly, crying out in pain. Even as he, Susan and Justin began flinging jinxes, hexes and curses at the disabled attackers, he could see Neville beyond them, running toward Honeydukes.

"Is he mad?" Justin yelled from beside him. "What's he think he's doing?"

Harry was of the same opinion. The young wizard had put himself clear in the open, and the effects of the Flashbang Jinx would wear off at any moment. In fact... the Death Eaters began to regain control of their senses and started defending themselves. Harry prayed that the three of them could draw their attention for long enough, but it was not to be. One of the masked attackers suddenly spotted Neville and spun around.

"Avada Kedavra!" they cried.

Everything seemed to go in slow motion. Harry's heart skipped a beat and he heard a scream. Lavender, he realised peripherally; his friends were peering through the windows, no doubt having wondered why the barrage had stopped. But he paid that fact little notice, because a familiar jet of green light was careening towards Neville.

Rather than duck or dodge, as he prayed he would, Harry watched as Neville did something entirely expected. He whirled to face the oncoming curse, bracing his wand forward.

"Fossa Obex!" Neville bellowed.

One second the young wizard was just standing there, the curse approaching, and the next there was a great ripping sound and earth was flying. The Trench Shield! Neville Longbottom had just cast the Trench Shield a very advanced and powerful spell which quite literally tore a trench into the earth. Harry gaped for a moment, rather impressed, before mentally smacking himself for getting distracted and resuming the fight.

Dodging a Crucio and casting back a Finger Breaking Hex, he realised just what Neville's plan had been. With the way the Trench Shield piled dirt up high on the front side, it shielded Honeydukes from attack. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna and Lavender, along with two other D.A. members who had been in the store (Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein), appeared to have taken advantage of that fact to sneak out of the store, because the next thing Harry knew they were popping up behind the wall, casting spells at their attackers before ducking back behind cover.

Before too long the group of Death Eaters had only two still standing. Two jets of light from off to the left caught them by surprise and both went down. Harry spun in that direction and was relieved to see a pair of wizards wearing the trademark red uniform of the Aurors. Reinforcements had arrived.

Death Eaters neutralised, the pair continued up the street, no doubt to search out further attackers. From what Harry could see however, the fighting was pretty much over.

As those that had been caught in Honeydukes clambered over and around the trench, a voice called out to him.

"Potter!" it said, and he spun to see Moody and Tonks approaching

"Wotcher Harry," Tonks greeted, staring wide eyed at the hole in the earth."Merlin's frilly white knickers, is that what I think it is?"

"It's a Trench Shield," Moody said, looking appreciatively at the results of the spell."I'd say it was your work Potter, but you don't looked drained enough to have cast that little number."

"It was Neville." He pointed to his friend as he spoke. The tired looking boy was fussing over a cut on Lavender's cheek.

"It was just from the glass window shattering," she said, though she clung to his arm.

"Longbottom?" Moody asked, drawing Neville's attention. "Alice and Frank's boy?"

"Er, yes sir," the boy in question replied, and Moody gave him an assessing look.

"That was a heavy bit of spell work you did. Ever consider becoming an Auror?"

Neville was flustered and flattered by the undeniably impressed tone of the ex-Auror's voice. He deserved the praise though; the young wizard had really come into his own compared to his formerly fumbling attitude.

Beside Neville, Lavender had a slight rosiness to her cheeks as she looked up at her friend. Admiration was in her gaze and a proud smile on her face. To himself, Harry reflected that even if the relationship between the two was merely friendship before today, if Lavender had her way it would be more than that soon enough.

After checking to make sure his friends were all fine and well (the only injuries, through fortune, were those caused by flying debris) Harry looked around seeing that D.A. members up and down the street were converging on their position, wands still drawn and speaking about how they'd fought and defended Hogsmeade and it's inhabitants. He felt a swell of pride at their efforts. They'd been learning so well and at this, the first test of their skills, they'd excelled.

As he looked around again, Harry spotted something strange and realised that Neville and Lavender weren't the only couple in the making today. He watched subtly as Ron stood before Hermione, gripping her upper arms and looking her over worriedly.

"I'm fine Ron, really," she tried to reassure him.

"That nasty orange hex only missed you by a hair, Mione."

She nodded grimly."Organ Liquefaction Curse. You could tell by the sickly orange colouring and the sparks of yellow," she lectured but Ron wasn't listening, having paled at her first words.

"Organ... liquefaction..." he muttered. "You could have died. Could have died and I'd never've..."

"Ron?" She leaned closer to him, concern painted on her features. "Are you okay?"

The next thing anyone knew Ron's face had taken on a strange expression and he leaned forward, pressing his lips to hers. There was a moment when Hermione seemingly didn't know how to respond. Ron started to draw back though, and she burst into action, pulling him back in, and then the two were kissing like their lives depended on it.

It was wolf whistling and cheering that broke the moment. The pair broke apart to see that everyone had turned to watch the scene. Hermione hid her face in Ron's chest, whilst the freckled boy turned an unflattering shade of red.

"Good job big brother," Ginny called, grinning widely.

"Oh, yes," Luna said, a romantic smile on her face as she looked at the couple. "It was far past time that you two stopped acting like fools and admitted you fancy the pants off one another."

There was much agreement from the crowd, to the pair's further embarrassment. Despite that though they had smiles on their faces. Until that is they turned to Harry, as if to gauge his reaction. That was understandable; they'd been very much a trio up till now, even with Neville, Ginny and Luna recently added to their group. Harry couldn't bring himself to be anything other than pleased for them however, and grinned.

"Like Luna said, it's about time," he told them and they broke into smiles once more.

..ooOOoo..

It wasn't till the next day later that the final reports came in. The Death Eater attack on Hogsmeade had done considerable property damage. Despite all being in the thick of the battle, none of Harry's students perished, though several were injured. And, thanks to their efforts, the overall death toll amounted to only two students and seven villagers. Any deaths were terrible news of course, but everyone knew that it could have been far worse.

..ooOOoo..

Friday, April 11, 1997

Two months later, Harry stood in the Room of Requirement, panting from exertion but feeling much calmed from before. A lot of the tension he had been carrying had drained away.

When first he had appeared in the classroom for their usual pre- training get together, Harry had been terse and tense. Bill had calmly set about extracting an explanation to his behaviour and Harry soon explained that the increase of attacks with Voldemort personally present had him worried and angry.

"Right," Bill nodded, grabbing his hand and dragging him from the room. "Come on."

The redhead ignored his objections and questions, leading him toward the Room of Requirement. Harry had stood bemused as his friend paced before the wall three times till a door appeared.

"After you," he gestured, and Harry stepped inside.

The room that greeted him was nothing like he might have expected. One wall was lined with glasses, crockery and porcelain knickknacks of all types. On the opposite side of the room hung bats in various shapes and sizes; cricket bats, baseball bats, lengths of pipe and all sorts. In the centre of the room was a stand of some sort, and then, directly across from the door, there was a long blank stretch of stone wall.

"What are we doing here?" he asked Bill.

"Stress relief," the man replied succinctly, before explaining. "You need to get rid of all that tension before you explode. And I figure this is the safest way to do it."

"I still don't understand."

"Smashing stuff, Harry. Grab something breakable and start chucking it at the wall. Or if you want, set it on the stand, grab a bat and take a swing."

Harry stood there, feeling uncertain.

"Um, isn't this a bit dangerous?"

"Not at all." Bill shook his head. "I was very specific about the wards I'required'. No one's going to get hurt from this."

After some prodding, Harry finally gave in. Feeling foolish he picked up a large dinner plate then reared back and hurled it at the wall. As it smashed into little pieces, he stood in shock. Merlin but that had felt good. The next thing he knew, he was grabbing crockery left right and centre. Chucking it at the wall or else setting it on the stand and trying out the bats. As he reigned down destruction, Bill encouraged him to say what he was thinking and feeling and soon he was yelling and swearing about how mad Voldemort made him, and how sick and twisted he was, and how he just wanted it to be over.

"And how the hell," he screamed, "am I supposed to defeat him with love! Huh? Can you tell me that Dumbledore? But nooo, he's all eye-twinkly and, 'the answer will come, my boy'. That's no bloody help!"

Eventually he'd run out of things to break and now he was stood panting. A bat hung from one hand and he was a little surprised when Bill approached him. He'd just gone a bit barmy and he was sure his eyes were still rather wild, but the man just slung an arm around his shoulders, casual as you please. Harry dropped the bat, leaning into his side.

"Feel better?"

And suddenly he was laughing, a little bit hysterically and with a wide grin on his face. Bill smiled down at him and nodded, leading him from the room. He stood propped up against the corridor wall as the redhead paced, requesting a new room, and afew seconds later he was led into their usual training room, only instead of two beanbags against the wall there was one large one. Bill immediately dropped into it tugging him down beside him. He ended up pressed close to the man and curled into his side, still laughing a little.

"See?" The older wizard nudged him. "You just needed to let it all out. That was good, right?"

"Yeah." He nodded, laughter finally tapering off. "More than a little mad probably, but yeah, it was good. I feel a lot better," he said then looked up teasingly at his friend. "So Doctor Weasley, was that a medically approved therapy?"

"Doctor? Oh, you mean a Muggle Healer. Well yes, most certainly. 'Smashing stuff' is a magically proven effective method of stress relief," he said pompously and Harry snorted.

"You're so full of it." Then he sighed. "Some of the things I said though."

"Don't worry, I've heard worse language. And I promise not to tell mum. She'd wash your mouth out with a soap spell."

He winced. "Er, thanks. But that's not what I meant." Then he explained, "I was talking about what I said about Dumbledore and the 'power of love' thing. I didn't really realise till I started raving, but I think that's what's been bothering me the most. It's not like I can love Voldemort to death."

"Funny that, at work I've been de- cursing this old spell book, and cataloguing spells found in it. One of them was called 'Love's Gift' or maybe 'Love's Power'. The translation is a bit sketchy."

Harry straightened up suddenly, looking at Bill with eager eyes.

"A spell called'Love's Power'? Bill, what if that's what I've been looking for?"

At his reaction, the eldest Weasley son paused, looking hesitant. His words had obviously been meant as no more that a passing comment. He'd plainly not expected Harry to latch onto it like that. And indeed, the younger wizard was latching on, a look of desperate hope on his face.

"Look Harry, don't get your hopes up," he cautioned. "It's an old spell and it needs a lot of work. We don't even really knew what it does." He paused then and adopted a teasing air. "Honestly, 'Love's Power'? It could be an'adult spell', if you know what I mean."

But Harry was not to be dissuaded, and didn't even blush, let alone get distracted.

"Bill, please. I don't have any other leads. Can we at least try?"

He sighed."Alright, fine. I'll see what I can do, and bring the info tomorrow. Can you meet me here at about eleven o'clock?"

"No problem." He nodded rapidly. "I'll be there. Thank you Bill."

..ooOOoo..

Tuesday, May 6, 1997

Bill turned up the next day, as promised, and they began working on the spell. It was not an easy task by any means, and they started meeting every Saturday and Tuesday, in addition to their usual Friday meetings, in order to work on it more, though progress was minimal. It wasn't till early May that Bill finally put his foot down.

"Urg," the redhead groaned, throwing down his quill.

"Bill?" Harry asked pleadingly.

He knew that this seemed to be going nowhere, but he needed the other man's encouragement to keep him going. That was not to be however.

"This is pointless Harry. We're getting nowhere, and you're stretched way to thin."

"No, I'm fine!" he tried to defend.

"No, you're not. You have school work, homework, Quidditch, combat training with Moody and Tonks, Medimagic training with Vance, warding training with me, planning lessons and teaching the D.A., and now this as well. It's too much."

Harry sighed."I've go to try. And what little we've managed so far seems promising."

"Look Harry, I'm not suggesting we abandon it altogether, I'm just saying that maybe this is too big a job for the two of us."

"What are you suggesting then?"

"I think we should bring this to the Order. Their whole purpose is to combat You- Know-Who and his forces, and if this spell could help you bring him down... well I think they'd be willing to work on it."

But Harry was far less certain. He was sure the Order would be a big help, but the fact of the matter was that he didn't know them all well enough to know if they were trustworthy. And that was to say nothing of...

"Snape," he said with distaste.

"Snape?"

"Yeah, I don't trust him." He shook his head decisively. "No, we can't take this spell to the Order."

"But-"

"I have another idea though," he interrupted and Bill gestured that he continue. "We take it to the D.A. instead."

It seemed like the perfect solution to him, but Bill was unsure.

"Harry, they're just students. I'm not sure if that's best."

Harry, defensive of what he felt were 'his people' immediately disagreed.

"I really think they could make some progress on it. There's some brilliantly intelligent witches and wizards in the group. Hermione of course, and Luna, and Susan Bones and Anthony Goldstein. That's not to mention the twins."

"Fred and George?" Bill asked, surprised.

"Yeah."

"But they left school. What are they doing in the group?"

"They mentioned over Christmas that they missed the D.A. and wished they could brush up on their defence skills. I mentioned it to Moody, he vetted them, and they were happy to be joining back up. They come to school every Sunday for the class."

..ooOOoo..

Eventually, with a little more convincing, Harry managed to get Bill to agree to at least let the D.A. give the spell a try. When the project was explained to them, and he confessed that he thought it would help him defeat Voldemort (strangely, no one was surprised at his implied assertion that he intended to be the one to take the Dark Lord down), the entire D.A. proved quite enthusiastic. They were all determined to help, and before he and Bill knew it, the students had agreed to devote themselves to the spell research, not a single one grumbling about the fact that it would eat into their free time.