Percy's P.O.V. a couple of months later

"It would be rude to not go." Artemis said while sipping her butter bear.

"Well, it's rude for them to set this on our date." I said, taking a sip from my own drink.

"C'mon. I wanna see what 'secret' meeting Hermione and Ron has been planning for the whole week." 

"Fine, lead the way." I said standing up. 

We had been sitting in the three broomsticks. Hermione had asked us, to come to Hogs head in absolute secrecy, because she was planning something with Ron and Harry. 

We left the Three broomsticks and walked towards Hogs head. When we reached there, almost half the store was filled with Hogwarts students. Many people whom I knew and a couple of unknown faces were sitting in a circle with Harry, Hermione and Ron at the center. 

Artemis and I walked over towards the front of the group. Beside us were Luna, Ginny, Neville, Fred, George and couple others. 

Hermione looked at Ron, urging him to speak up. Ron shrugged back at Hermione as if indicating 'your-plan-you-start'. Hermione gave Ron an evil look and stood up. 

"Uh- Good after noon, everyone." Hermione started. "Now that most of you are here, uh- Ron has something to say." 

I smiled inwardly. Ron glared at Hermione, who smirked and sat down. Harry was quietly watching the interaction between them. 

"Well, as you can all see, our new defense against dark arts teacher is absolutely horrible. And if we continue like this, we are as good as dead by the end of this year. Because believe it or not, you-know-who is back." Ron said. 

A lot of voices started all around in the pub. Many did not believe that Voldy was back, while quite a few believed that he was back. 

"SHUT UP!" Hermione shouted at the top of her voice, immediately calming the whole pub. 

"Look, he- Voldemort" Hermione herself shuddered at spelling out the name. "- He's really back. Harry here saw that he has returned. Just ask him if you want to know." 

Hermione pushed Harry under the spotlight. Harry was sitting on a stool, with his head low, hearing to the conversation. At the sudden change of spotlight, he looked up and noticed everyone staring at him, including us. 

After a moment of internal debate, Harry stood up. 

"Is he really back?" Someone asked Harry. Harry looked at the crowd in the eye, and nodded. 

"Yes." He said, and there was silence, as if the word was a huge load, being put on the shoulders of the students. 

"What proof did you have?" Someone else asked after a couple of seconds. 

"I. SAW. VOLDEMORT. RETURN!" Harry said angry at them who still did not believe him. "He rose back, and killed Peter Johnson. How else do you think he died? Don't believe for one moment that shit that the ministry cooked up! Accident? What? Before Peter died, he actually helped me survive. He was a far better duelist that I was. He managed to take down both his and my monsters! He couldn't have just died in the maze. He was murdered by Voldemort, and Diana here knows it too! Don't believe me, ask her." 

Harry said angrily. 

Suddenly the whole attention of the crowd focused on Artemis. 

"Yes. Yes, Voldemort is back." Artemis confirmed. "No one has really asked me of my opinion much, and while people have been picking on Harry for saying that Voldemort is back, but he isn't the only one who saw him there. I was there too, before I miraculously died for a short amount of time. I knew someone fired the killing curse at me and Peter. It's not like someone would just kill me without any reason. And it could have been Voldemort only." 

Artemis left out a whole load of details, but that's the cover story we were going on with for the last year and this. 

"Right, so now that we all get that Voldemort is back, it's upon us to do something. The ministry is going to stay adamant on the fact that Harry is lying. They are not going to be of any help. And if Voldemort is suddenly to attack Hogwarts tomorrow, there would be no one to protect it. There would be no one to protect you. So it's time we took ourselves one stop forwards, and took that burden upon ourselves. That's why, we, that is to say, me, Ron and Harry have decided to form an army and train ourselves to defend ourselves against Voldemort and his death eaters. We just need someone to teach us." Hermione spoke. 

"But who will be teaching us?" Someone asked from the crowd. Everyone asked the same question. 

"Well, it's not like we could have Lupin, the only decent DADA teacher we have had till date, because sneaking him in and out of school would be hard. That's why we have another alternative." Ron said. 

"Harry." Hermione added. 

Time skip to 9 days later:

"So, this is the room of requirement?" I voiced my thoughts. Around us was a vast room, filled with practice dummies, first aid kits, and other stuff we could use in our classes. 

"Its pretty useful. I guess. Suppose in case of a war at Hogwarts, the weak and young could hide here for a long time. . . ." Artemis kept on saying. I looked around. About 25 students were gathered here to be trained by Harry. 

Harry was standing a few feet away looking at everyone nervously. I could literally feel the nervous energy radiating off him. I mean, it was expected though. It's not like he had a lot of a experience teaching students of his own age complex magic. 

Fred and George decided to help Harry a bit, and shouted out a loud 'Gather around, kids'. Everybody stopped whatever they were doing and came to Harry. 

Harry, who was nervously twirling his wand in his hand, started speaking. 

"So, uh- Complex magic. You should know that, this branch of magic is extremely hard to perform and equally vital for survival. 

Fighting here, is not like fighting out there. Out there, you don't get an extra second of thought. Out in the real world, one moment, you will looking at the face of the enemies, knowing that they will be doing their best to kill you, and it's just one person who can come out of that place in a proper condition or let's just say, alive and sane.

It's a do or die at that moment. If you think another moment about what spell will you be using right then, it's your death right in front of you. That's why it needs to be instinct for you. You need to have it in - uh, what muggle's call muscle memory." 

Everyone listened silently, without interrupting Harry. Harry continued. "I am going to keep it easy for today. All you have to do is select a partner, and you will have to duel until one of you surrenders. Please, no maiming, killing or injuring anyone seriously."  

Everyone seemed excited at the prospect of a 1v1 duel. Even I was excited at that. I turned to look at Artemis, to partner up with her, but Harry got me before I got Artemis. 

"Uh- Newt, do you mind helping me demonstrate?" Harry asked politely. I looked at Artemis who shrugged.

"Alright." I said. I decided to go very very easy on him. Only members of the Order knew that I was a strong as hell wizard. Other students as Hogwarts had very little or no idea about who I was. 

Harry and I faced each other, with our wands drawn. 

"Alright, rule number 1. Forget whatever Lockhart taught you 4 years back. You do NOT bow before your enemy in a duel. That gets you killed immediately." Harry said. "Just begin with the spells straight away."

"Rictumsempra." Harry said as a jet of red light left his wand. 

"Contego." I spelled back. A gray aura covered me, providing me immunity against the spell, and the next 18 offensive spells that would be casted against me. I invented that spell. 

Harry and everyone looked amazed as the gray aura just absorbed the tinkling spell, Harry had cast. 

"C'mon, you can do better that this." I said loudly enough for Harry to hear. 

He immediately put himself in an offensive position and casted offensive spells one after next. I deflected each and everyone of them. 

"Petrificus Totalus!" I spelled Harry and turned him into a stone, while he was casting another offensive spells. 

"C'mon, this is boring. I'm joining in." Artemis said going over to Harry's side. I looked at Artemis with eyes that said 'Betrayal!' mockingly. 

Artemis smirked and casted a dozen of spell all at me right at once, after turning Harry back from a stone, who joined in with equal vigor. 

Oh this was going to be so interesting. 

3rd person P.O.V.:

Everyone there watched in awe as Harry and Diana dueled against Newt. There were curses, hexes, jinxes flying all over the air within the next 2 minutes. After just about 4 minutes of Diana and Harry firing offensive curses at Newt, who was holding his ground without breaking a sweat, Harry collapsed at a 'Stupefy' spell fired by Newt. 

Newt and Diana were left fighting. Both of them were looking at each other, scanning each other completely from the toe to the top hair. It was as if two wild beasts were staring at each other during a cease fire, wondering which one would be the first to attack. 

Diana twirled her wand in the air, and casted spells at Newt. The spells that she casted wasn't totally recognizable. Newt fired blue jets of spells at Diana, who dodged the spell with grace. Newt blocked the spells from Diana with equal ease and glamor. 

Both of them twirled in the air, with different colors of jets flying out of each other's wands. It seemed that both of them were dancing. It was completely a dance, magnificent, glamorous, and graceful. And a flirtatious dance, too. 

The duel lasted for 15 minutes more, which seemed like less than 2 minutes to the audience, who were watching with rapt attention. The skills with which the two of them dueled seemed beyond comprehendible by ordinary wizards. 

After the duel, with the results inconclusive as Newt was soaring 7 feet above the sky with extremely pointed nails right below, and Diana trapped against a wall with green vines trapping her feet, and hands. Both of them kept their wand trained on each other. 

It seemed like a cease fire between the two of them, as they panted for their breaths. 

"Alright, you two. That's a tie! Please, Diana, lower Newt, AFTER removing the nails, and Newt free Diana from her bonds. And please, let's have the others duel now too." Harry said. He had smartly moved away from the duel between Newt and Diana, when he fell back. He had realized that this duel would be far too risky for him to participate in. 

Diana and Newt did as instructed by Harry. 

"People, please get your partner and start dueling. Preferably for a shorter duration." Harry instructed, moving his attention away from the couple. Everyone did as told. 

But unseen to all of them was that Newt and Diana had left the scene, and had gone somewhere else. 

They had sneaked behind into another section of the Room of requirement. And as soon as they were out of sight, they had started making out passionately. 

"That was pretty hot." Diana muttered into Newt's ears. 

"Yes, and I really look forwards to our midnight duel today. Maybe tonight, we could do wands instead of our other weapons." Newt said, while kissing Diana. 

Well, apparently, Diana and Newt, often had midnight duels, usually every night unless they had homework or stuff like that. 

Although, both of them said that it was because they needed practice, it was more of an excuse to fall asleep together when they were tired from dueling and later wake up in one another's arms. 

"Well, as long as we don't bring down the castle of Hogwarts in one night, we can have another rematch." Diana responded. 

"I'll try my best not to. Although it is really hard, considering the last time. . . " Percy said, his eyes gleaming at the memory of 1 month ago, when due to their battles, which was going a bit more powerful, Hogwarts was just about one move away from being blown up for existence. 

And that's enough Pertemis fluff for one night. Damn, I just realized that this is more intimate that anything I've ever written so far. So, I'm keeping it slow.
That's all. 

Meet you in the next chapter. 

~PerseusJSonOfSea~

2144 words.