A large force concentrating fire on a small force could deplete that force rapidly without taking much damage in return. If twenty soldiers faced ten soldiers, twenty sleep spells would be aimed at the ten soldiers with only ten sleep spells going the other way, so unless every one of those first sleep spells hit its target, the smaller force would lose more people than they could manage to take down with them.
Then Harry realized.
It was going to be a long year in Defense class.
"All right," Harry said loudly, so the army could hear. "We'll wait until the Red Wing reports in, and then we'll go cloud up some Sunshine."
Draco listened to the flyers' reports with his face calm, all his shock concealed inside. What could Granger
Then Draco realized.
One of Sunshine's two forces would change direction, and both would converge on... who?
Neville Longbottom marched through the forest toward the approaching Sunny force, occasionally glancing up at the sky for broomsticks. Beside him marched his squad comrades, Melvin Coote and Lavender Brown of Gryffindor, and Allen Flint of Slytherin. Allen Flint was their Squad Suggester, though Harry had first said to Neville, in private, that the position was his if he wanted it.
Harry had said quite a lot of things to Neville in private, starting with "You know, Neville, if you want to become as awesome as the imaginary Neville who lives in your head but isn't allowed to do anything because you're scared, then you really should sign up for Professor Quirrell's armies."
Neville was now
And Harry's promise had come true, this
But being part of an
Something strange was stirring inside Neville, as he marched through the forest alongside his comrades, upon their uniforms an insignia of fingers poised to snap.
He was allowed to walk if he wanted to, but he just felt like marching.
Beside him, Melvin and Lavender and Allen all seemed to feel like marching too.
And Neville softly began to sing the Song of Chaos.
The tune was what a Muggle would have identified as John Williams's Imperial March, also known as "Darth Vader's Theme"; and the words Harry had added were easy to remember.
By the second line the others had joined in, and soon you could hear the same soft chant coming from nearby parts of the forest.
And Neville marched alongside his fellow Chaos Legionnaires,
strange feelings stirring in his heart,
imagination becoming reality,
as from his lips poured a fearful song of doom.
Harry stared at the bodies scattered across the forest. Something inside him felt a bit queasy, and he had to remind himself hard that they were only sleeping. There were girls among the fallen, and that made it a lot worse somehow, and he would have to be careful never to mention that in front of Hermione or the Aurors would find his remains stuffed into a
Half of Sunshine army hadn't put up much of a fight against all of Chaos. The nine ground soldiers had run in screaming inarticulately with Simple Shields raised, circular screens to protect their faces and chests. But you couldn't fire and hold the shield at the same time, and Harry's soldiers had simply aimed for the legs. All but one of the Sunnies had fallen over as soon as the cries of "
Hermione wasn't among the fallen. Draco must have gotten her and that was making Harry feel
"All right," Harry said, raising his voice. "Let's everyone be clear on one thing, that wasn't a real fight. That was General Granger making a mistake in her first battle. Today's actual fight is with Dragon Army and it's not going to be anything like this. It's going to be a lot more fun. Let's move out."
A broomstick fell out of the sky, approaching terrifyingly fast, and spun on its end and decelerated so hard you could almost hear the air screaming in protest, and came to a halt directly beside Draco.
It wasn't dangerous showing-off. Gregory Goyle simply
"Potter's coming," Gregory said with no trace of his usual fake drawl. "They've still got all four of their brooms, you want me to take them out?"
