Author Note: I have just come back from the dead. I have been vacationing on the other side, where the little old ladies and men in white coats dragged me to silence me for ever on the vast secrets my mind hold on this story. Nah, I did not think anyone would believe that but I had to try. I had half of this chapter sitting on my computer since I last posted, and I just kinda lost all my enthusiasm for it. I kept telling myself I will do it tomorrow, but as we all know that go on forever. It had gotten to the point that I had no intention what so ever of ever picking this story up again, when at a loss for something else to read,I reread the Calm before the Storm. Now, I am back. Sorry for falling off the planet like that, I will not say it will not happen again, especially as I am in the middle of my last year at school.

"I don't want to cause a lot of injuries unnecessarily. All those who don't like visiting the doctor should retreat now."
Kenshin, RUROUNI KENSHIN

"With two thousand years of examples behind us we have no excuse, when fighting, for not fighting well." T. E. Lawrence

Chapter 4- Not Just A Celebrity.

(Dream)

That night Harry sat in the wooden chair on the side of the huge room. The chair had not been made for comfort, as this was a room made for anything but comfort. There was a running track around the edge of the room, that Harry had been forced to jog so many times, while dodging hexes. There were the stretching mats for warming up and cooling off, near the middle of the room, next to the square of carpet that had served as a learning ground for street fighting a couple of weeks ago.

Harry moved on his wooden seat, feeling restless and worried. Worried because when he woke up tomorrow, he would be facing Moody's idea of an 'test'. Restless because ever since Harry had told the man during the warm up stretch about what was happening tomorrow, he had been pacing to and from ever since. The good part was that it made the man forget about the all so 'important' sword skills he needed to learn. The unfortunate side to it was that it had left Harry to sit in the uncomfortable wooden chair on the side of the room to take a rest, but Harry was feeling too restless for it to be any good.

Watching his nameless instructor pace, Harry couldn't help but think about the large number of things he didn't know about his teacher. Moody would disown having ever taught him, if he ever found out about the fact that he couldn't help but trust someone he knew nothing about. He did not even know where here was, for Merlin's sake! Though sometimes it reminded Harry vaguely of the room of requirement, the way it changed to suit its users needs.

Suddenly the man stopped his pacing and walked back till he was standing in fount of Harry.

"So," said the man, "Moody has planned something for tomorrow and you don't know what it is, but you do know it going to be sadistic and make the rest look like a picnic."

The man sat down in the chair that just appeared out of nowhere next to Harry's, and leaned forward, putting his head in his hands.

"Jezz, and I thought I was working you hard. I surprised you haven't kneeled over yet, between Moody, Tonks, and myself."

"Well, it kinda helps that I can't even remember this when I'm awake." said Harry, with just a trace of reproach in his tone.

"I am really sorry about all this secrecy from conscious self, but until you know?" he said shrugging his shoulders. "That is just the way thinks are going to have to be. Beside any skills you learn here, you're able to use in the real world. Like the sword and street fighting. Though I recommend you stick to the street fighting, you still a bit of a danger with that sword."

Harry blushed, while he had improved since he had started, if it weren't for the fact that somehow you couldn't be hurt here, besides being badly bruised once he woke up. Harry would have lost a grand total of about roughly five arms give or take a few, his head three times, and his right legs once. The embarrassing part being that it wasn't always by his opponent.

"Well, you've just not a natural at the sword," explained the man, "Neither am I at that, I prefer a nice close dagger, and hey, my wife beats me every time at the sword, even though I started training before her. Now she is a natural at it."

"You have a wife?" asked Harry.

"Yeah." said the man, "It shocks me too sometimes, and she is as beautiful, as she is wise. So I have absolutely no idea why she married me." Looking more human then Harry had ever seen before. "So any special women in your life?"

"Nah, beside, I don't want to risk it. I mean, anyone near me ends up dead."

You'll learn, thought the man. She's going to knock the stuffing out of you.

"Anyway, don't forget to use everything you have, and goodness sake don't just rely on your wand, that's where so many wizards and witches go wrong. Work the street fighting in to your offence and defense," said the man, "and most important of all, don't lose your head."

"I won't." said Harry simply

"I know." said the man just as simply. Then rubbing his hands together, he stood up. "Now we have wasted half our time chit chatting, we can start on the fun stuff. We are going to start a new sword drill."

Harry groaned loudly.

"Hey, just because I was the same as you are now once, doesn't mean I'm going to go easy on you. For a person who doesn't naturally take to the sword they have two options."

"Not learn the sword?" Harry suggestedhopefully.

"If you want to get yourself killed? Yeah, go ahead. Option two is, that they work harder, they sweat longer, and they master it. I know you are capable of doing what I did, and become almost unbeatable at the sword."

"Expect for your wife." Inserted Harry cheekily.

"Well, she loves me too much to do too much damage," said the man smiling. "Look, Harry. I know with practice and time you could beat me. Unless you want to prove Snape has been right all along, and that you are nothing but a celebrity."

Harry didn't say anything, and then he slowly stood up and summoned his sword off the wall on the other end of the room.

"I'm not just a celebrity."

"I know." said the man, summering his own sword off the wall. "Okay, it's parry, block….."

Needless to say, Harry picked up the new drill in record time.

Not soon after the two hour drill practice, the man sent Harry back to sleep the rest of the hours till morning, knowing he would need the advantage of a restful nights sleep behind him for tomorrow.

He then sat down on the chair on the side of the room, just drinking in the solitude and stillness. Till a pop disturbed him, and caused him to glare up at the intruder, his glare softened though when he caught sight of his wife.

"Hey, beautiful," said the man, as the room created a chair next to him.

'Hey, handsome," she smiled, as she sat next to him. "I don't see…….your student. Why did you send him back so early? I was looking forward to meeting him tonight."

"You'll see him in a couple of days, the Moody thing is tomorrow." He answered simply.

"That means we only have a couple of more days up here before we can go down," she said smiling.

"Yeah, and I still can't believe he that stupid about woman!" Exclaimed the man. "I mean he still thinks that it's dangerous to get too close to someone else!"

"Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black, I tend to remember a certain someone…." said the woman, but she never finished as the man kissed her and by instinct she kissed back. When ever he kissed her it was like the whole world would disappear, leaving only them. Damn him, looking at the smug look on his face when they drew back from lack of oxygen. He knew she couldn't think when he was doing that!

"If you think you can shut me up with a kiss, then…" she said as angrily.

"Then what?" The man said, now grinning, knowing that she wasn't nearly as angry as she seemed.

"Then you aresmarter then I think you are." she said, drawing closer and kissing him again.

"I don't know if I've just been insulted or complimented."

"Your not meant to, Honey." She said helpfully, patting his hand. "Merlin! You don't know how I've missed this!"

"Missed what?"

"Just talking like this, it's just that whenever we stay at your mother's place……you know she has eyes everywhere. It's just good to know that here, it's just us."

"Yeah I agree, but since we still have another couple of days till then, and my mother isn't expecting as back for at least a couple of hours, and we have this room all to our selves…."

"Sir! Are you suggesting, what I think your suggesting?"

"And if I am, Fair Lady?" Asked the man cheekily.

She looked at him, then leaned over till she was almost in his lap and whispered in his ear.

"I knew there had to be a reason, I keep marrying you."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Harry woke that morning to the sound of an alarm that sounded to Harry like the magical equivalent of a security alarm. Harry jumped out of bed, and run to the door where a parchment had been slipped under the door.

Harry went to pick it up when suddenly the parchment floated up till it was level with his eyes. Harry narrowed them suspiciously, and then slowly reached out his left arm and touched it, and almost immediately recalled his arm. The parchment was folding itself, and if Harry hadn't already known it wasn't a howler (the absence of smoke and screaming ruled that out), that is exactly what he would have sworn it was. By that time it had folded itself in to the origami shape of a mouth, and Harry put his hands over his ears when…..

"Potter!" Moody harsh voice projecting out of the folded parchment. "You did think to check this for hex's, and curses before you touched it? No, of course you didn't that would be using too much of what little common sense you have. Why in my day, that was the first thing they would teach us…."

"Right after the lesson on 'Not Losing Your Buttock'" projected Tonk's cheerful voice. "Relax, Moody, it's not like you actually hexed it. Beside he probably just woke up and doesn't need you yelling."

"Gotta by careful otherwise you end up dead." Moody said gruffly, causing Harry to smile slightly. "Now Potter, here is the situation as it stands, Hogwarts has been invaded by Death Eaters, they have captured the majority of staff, and students in the great hall. There is an unknown amount of Death Eaters stationed out in the castle and grounds. The mission objective is to release the captives in the Great Hall, and to stun and capture as many Death Eaters as you can along the way."

"I wouldn't worry too much Harry. It will just be us, even though the black robes are going to completely clash will my orange and pink hairstyle. I'm thinking of changing it to a Curella Devil kind of style, go with the whole black and white theme……"

"Tonks! This is not a time to talk about hair! This is serious. Good luck, Potter. You are going to need it."

"But hair is serious…….."

Harry watched as the piece of parchment having finished what it had to say, screwed itself up in to a ball and disappeared as it was burnt in a flame of fire and smoke.

Harry finally emerged from his room, half an hour later, in his new dragon hide dueling cloak that Tonks and Moody had insisted he buy as it was capable of repealing most hexes, and curses. As long as, of course, that it hit the cloak and not the wearer. Something Harry had been as unfortunate to discover during one of his lessons with Moody a week ago, and being Moody had been entirely unmerciful. Refusing to take the cheering charm off him ("teach you to be more careful, boy"), and therefore resulting in Harry laughing in Snape face for no reason.

Under his new dueling cloak, Harry wore the oldest Dudley seconds he had that still fit, so he had the optimal range of movement. Something told him he was going to need every advantage he could get.

……advantage….

Harry could have kicked himself, how could he have forgotten. The Marauders Map was exactly what he needed. He would know where everyone before running in to them. Why on earth didn't he think of it before? Running back in to his room, Harry pushed open the truck and dug though the side pockets, finding his invisibility cloak, his photo album and a spare bit of parchment.

Grinning with success of his search, Harry put always the photo album and flipped the invisibility cloak on (even though it was absolutely unless against Moody and Dumbledore), and put the map in his dragon hide cloak pocket.

He was ready. Now the only question was…..

Were they ready for him?

Harry wasn't going to give them a chance to find out, he moved quickly down the twisting hallways and stairways. At least there was one advantage to having the Castle invading his mind, there was no waiting for staircase to move were you wanted them to. Unless of course you had pissed the Castle off, something Harry was rather skilled at. Luckily today that was not a problem, so it seemed with no time at all Harry had reached the Gryffindor portrait entrance.

Harry, without having glanced at the map had found two of the so called Death Eater's guarding the entrance to the common room. It hadn't been that large a jump in logic, with a limited number of 'Death Eaters' and a huge castle, with thousands of hiding places, secret passageways and classrooms. It had made sense to place them at exits and entrances, to the houses, and the castle itself.

The only question was what was he going to do now he had found them?

He just knew he needed to think of something fast before they realized he was there. Should he just use the element of surprise and just jump out and stun them, but that wouldn't work very well with two of them, but if he was invisible?

Harry put the coat over him completely and under his breath performed a sticking charm. It wouldn't do, to lose the clock before he was ready.

"Stupefy. Stupefy" whispered Harry in quick succession. However it was not quick enough, while the first fell to the floor, the other had had time to jump out of the way before it hit.

The fake Death Eater now had the wand up and was searching for him, without stopping to think Harry moved somehow mysterious knowing exactly what to do. In less then five seconds later, both fake Death Eaters were down and tied up. Moody had said to capture them didn't he?

Harry grinned; this was going to be fun.

A/N

It is short I know but seeing as it has been so long since I updated I thought I might as well post it. It had not been beta read though I looked over it quickly myself before I posted it with the spell check. But as we all know spell check can only work so well..