isclaimer: I do not own anything related to the books and movies of Harry Potter they are property of J K Rowling. This is merely a fan having fun with the world she has created.

Chapter 2: Is there hope?

Harry lay on his bed in bliss. Dinner had been a wonderful and calming affair. Good company was rare to come by, which only made him cherish it more. Tonks had just left and he was eager to get started on occlumency, there was two hours left till it was a reasonable time to get some sleep. The first step to occlumency: creating one's mindscape. Harry had many familiar places, which one did he find peace at? 'I wonder if it's the Weasley's home, dinner with the twins is always fun. Hmm... Maybe it's at Hogwarts! Wait... what part of Hogwarts. Ah yes! The great hall, being sorted in the Gryffindor house like my parents, following in their footsteps. Oh... but there was the whole stupid Goblet of Fire incident, darn defence professors and their unhealthy obsession with my demise,' He grumbled internally. 'I suppose that rules out the great hall, Ron'll be upset,' he chuckled lightly thinking of Ron's fanatic worship of anything that is food. 'I guess the library could work, then again knowing my luck Madam Pince will appear along with it. Yep, I don't think so. Et voilà. The Gryffindor common room, perfect.'

'Time to put these meditation techniques to use, who'd have thought focusing on your breathing could be so useful, definitely beats counting sheep.' He mused. It was twenty minutes into 'clearing his mind' that Harry begun the process. Small strands of his magic trickled out from his core and through the emptiness. Gently he reached out with his mind, willing it to accept his magic. The effect was instantaneous, a fuzzy warm blanket enveloped him, the feeling was natural, it simply felt right. Slowly but surely the darkness behind his closed eyes begun to take shape, the pitch-black darkness lightening to a shining silver as it came to life. The 2d silver background becoming more complex as it switched to 3D, a very familiar common room being created from scratch. Harry stood there gobsmacked. What was once pure darkness was now him stood atop the ground of the common room. The floor shook and groaned, splitting open in a room looking shape. Walls shot up out of the ground, levelling out equally before the tops of the walls shot across to make the roof. Various furniture popped into existence.

'I need to sit down.' mused Harry as he fell into the chair that appeared under him. 'That's better... wait... How the? Yep. Totally popped a chair into existence under me. This is going to take a while to get used to. Hmm, so, the book said that once the mindscape was completed memories would appear here. Something doesn't feel right. Always thought this place could do with more couches to be honest, I mean could it hurt to have a few book cases? Maybe a desk or two?' As he was pacing during his rant, he was oblivious to the various changes the room was undertaking. 'I mean would it hurt to have some comfortable chairs?' An urge to look up made him pause mid stride. 'Well I guess that takes care of that.' He chuckled in incredulity at it all. He continued playing around with the room until he could feel his mind fully accept the mindscape. The walls shone a deep-sea blue as memories burst through the walls, the room was littered with them, covering every inch of every surface. This would be the difficult and time-consuming part; Harry would need to view and sort through each and every memory in order to create some structure. Taking a moment to look out the door noticed a dense emerald fog; this must be his natural defences.

It was ninety minutes after discovering his mindscape that Harry came out, deciding to start on the memories tomorrow. This was sure to be a taxing ordeal, there were years' worth and he really wasn't looking forward to reliving it.

Even with the meditation, the night was not pleasant. Nightmares plagued any moment he managed to sleep, on top of that these moments were short and far between. Restless and beaten down, the gravity of the situation he was in was truly weighing him down. 'So much to do, so little time.' He thought. If there was a word or a combination of words to describe how uphill this battle was, he could not find it. Harry always knew that his life or lack of would depend on Voldemort. However, to have it written in stone and guaranteed there were only one way this would end, this was frightening. Was he afraid of death? He didn't think so. Even if he did, he would sacrifice his death in a heartbeat if it meant saving innocent lives. But to be the answer to Voldemort's reign? A gifted 16-year-old student for sure, if Harry was honest with himself, but him or Voldemort? The greatest dark lord in history, one of the greatest wizards of all time, a man with decades of experience and knowledge, a man who was considered to be a prodigy even as a child? Harry was stumped. Why was he of all people the prophesised one, surely it should be Dumbledore? The one man who could beat him, the only man he feared, the only man other than Harry to battle him and live. These thoughts plagued his mind, he was at a loss for what to do.

He did little this day, occlumency helped alleviate some of the emotions but the weight of the world still bore him down. It was 6pm when Tonks apparated into the room.

"Wotcher Har... Harry what's wrong?" Harry's was slumped against the frame of his bed, his posture the epitome of a man who'd beaten down. His face showing signs of fatigue, bruise like bags under his eyes, his flat green eyes showing no signs of life. Tonks' presence lost all humour, becoming tense and wary.

"There's just so much to do, Tonks, so much. But there's no time. The truth of it is, I'm always going to be at the heart of this war. He won't stop until I'm dead. Sure, the headmaster does his best, the order does their best, but even then, he manages to get to me. I should be afraid but I'm not. I know I don't stand a chance against him. One of the strongest wizards of all time with decades of experience and knowledge. I'm so outclassed here; I need help and a lot of it. I don't know what to do Tonks." He let about a breath of frustration, his eyes projecting his frustration, resignation and sadness. It took a few minutes for Tonks to respond, what could she say? Deny the truth? Lie to him and tell him everything will be fine? Her hands were tied with how much she could help him right now.

"We will always help you, myself, Sirius, Dumbledore, your friends, the order, everyone one of us will be fighting by your side. There's not a whole lot I can do right now or that I can think of doing at the moment. But there's an order meeting in two days, I'd like to take you there after that ends. We can talk to both Sirius and Dumbledore." She told him firmly. Surely there was something they could do? She thought. A little glimmer of hope bled into his eyes.

"That's a good idea, we really need to talk, I just feel so useless."

The arrival of a majestic onyx eagle cut off any further conversation. Swooping in through the open bedroom windows and landing on the foot of his bid, an elegant envelope attached to one of its legs. Both of them were taken back by the beauty of such an eagle, even more curious as to who the letter was from. Swiftly relieving the eagle of its burden, Harry offered the bird some treats before it took flight. Turning over the Envelope he caught sight of the ornate looking imprint on the wax seal. Gringotts. With a shrug to Tonks he decided to open it up.

Dear Harry James Potter,

Gringotts would like to see you at your earliest convenience. I, the Potters account manager Master Ripclaw have matters of great important to discuss. I would like to stress the urgency of the importance of this meeting.

Ripclaw,

Account manager of the Potter vaults, Gringotts London

"Holy smokes," he whispered. "Read this Tonks." He said handing the letter over. "I have vaults? As in multiple vaults? And there's something of great importance to discuss."

"Yeah, older families tend to have multiple vaults. I know the black family had numerous as they created trust vaults for the children. I would imagine your original vault to be a trust vault. So, what are you going to do?" she inquired.

"If we can, I'd like to make a trip tomorrow, do you think you'd be able to take me in the morning?" He was sixteen now, a year off his majority, he wondered what was so urgent that he'd need to visit them as soon as possible.

"Yeah, be ready for 10 am and we'll make our way there, it'll have to be a little later than I like but that's the best I can do."

"Okay, that works." He nodded. She took a moment to look him over again before speaking again.

"So, how's the occlumency practice coming along, any luck with finding your mindscape?" she asked. Last night's success brought a pained smile to his face.

"Yeah, turns out my mindscape is the Gryffindor common room, I had to make a few alterations but my memories transferred there when I was done." He replied.

"That's awesome. You don't look too happy though, what's troubling you?" He sighed in frustration before answering her.

"There's just so many awful memories, that I don't want to see again. I'll have to relive them and I don't think I can do it." He answered truthfully.

"I think I could help you out with some of them. The second book I gave you, legiilimancy, that covers the sister art of occlumency. It essentially allows you to enter another person's mind, occlumency can be used to block this. However, I'd like to enter your mind, typically people would use this to read your memories, instead you could bring me into your mindscape. If you're comfortable with it, I could help you with the memories. We can keep the memories light for now and ease our way into the tougher ones in the future. You don't need to show me anything you're uncomfortable with." she proposed.

"Okay, that would help a lot. How do we start? He questioned.

"To start, you'll need to focus on your occlumency and get into your mindscape. Then you'll need to focus on your mental shields, try to get a feel for them, you should feel a change when I try to enter your mind. You should be able to feel my presence, this'll be the same for any other attack, you'll feel a foreign magic in your shields. Once you feel my magic, you need to allow me in." She told him as she took a seat on the bed with him, both of them getting comfortable to clear their minds.

It took Harry five minutes to get back into his mindscape, a fair bit faster than the last time but still not as fast as he would like. Taking a moment to step out of the Common room, he was surprised to find himself in a place that wasn't the halls of the Hogwarts. The lone room was surrounded by the emerald fog. He focused on the feeling of the fog, allowing himself to soak in it, to get consumed by it, finally beginning to merge with it. From then on, it was easy to separate his magic and Tonks', he extended his magic out to reach out to her. Pulling her past the mist and into the common room. Once inside her magic took form and instead of a strand of magic, a gorgeous excitable pink haired Auror stood in its place.

"Okay, you've got complete control here. You can store them in any way that works for you. A good way would be to break the memories down to people. Perhaps have it separated by people, yourself included. Then you can break it down further, into smaller sections to help you navigate through them. You can also implant false memories, locations that when looked through they would see false memories you've conjured."

"I see. I'll do that, perhaps I'll give people their own bookcase. Maybe I'll try creating faux bookcases in front of the real ones." He mused. Stepping forward and removing the walls behind the current ones and creating additional ones to be hidden behind them. Thick stone walls separating the real ones from the fake. "Maybe pulling the false books in a combination to access the real ones?" He went back to setting up hidden compartments. "I suppose this will have to do for now."

"Excellent, now let's get to the fun stuff! We can start on your dates lover boy, how about ours first." Tonks wagged her eyebrows at him. Even though they were in his mind, he couldn't stop the impressive blush that covered his face.

"Uh, our dates?" He all but spluttered. Gulping audibly at the look on her face, it was positively predatory. He'd rarely ever felt self-conscious, years in the lime light had taken care of that problem. However, Tonks was so forward that she had him blushing like a school girl.

"Yeah stud. A handsome young man like yourself, so innocent. Ripe for the picking, mhmm." She provocatively bit her lower lip. He could only watch in fascination, barely staying upright as his knees felt weak. She was playing him like a symphony and he was trapped. Trapped like the fly caught in a web. He took a deep breath before letting out a shaky one.

"Ha-ha, real funny. You know, one of these days I'm going to get you back." He playfully challenged.

"Uh huh. Is that so? Well I'm looking forward to it." She teased, letting out a hearty laugh. "I guess we could start with some fond memories of Hogwarts and go from there."

As Harry sifted through the many memories, he caught glimpses of what they were about. In turn getting a feel for where he could find specific ones. After digging around for a few minutes, he managed to find a memory of the first time he laid eyes upon Hogwarts castle.

As he thought on it, the room around him started to spin and swirl, changing into that exact memory. Ancient wooden boats creaking under the weight of the light first years, it wasn't a positive sign. The mesmerizing sky was brought to life with the radiant starlight; the moon stood tall and proud free from any burdens, twinkling brightly creating a picturesque back drop for the nonpareil castle. 'Could have sworn the moon was twinkling like the headmaster, is that where he gets it from?' He shook his head free of the thoughts and focused on the image. The harsh wind ran free over the black lake, hitting the students with its bitterly cold touch. The thin inexpensive school robes doing nothing to stop the chilling wind. There in the midst of the many first years sat Harry. Extremely pale and thin, his clothes hanging off his small frame. Large round glasses covering comically large eyes, as he sat wide-eyed at the fairy tale scenery. His eyes shining bright with pure joy, uncontainable excitement and unrestrained wonder.

"Oh my gods!" Yelled Tonks running over to sit by young Harry. "So cute, those glasses are adorable." Harry chuckled as she attempted to pull on his cheeks. Trying to fight back the embarrassment but watching on fondly. Recalling simpler and happier times. A genuine smile on his face as he watched his younger self and friends. "You know Harry, I did wonder what took the hat so long to choose a house for you." Tonks' question broke his reverie.

"I never realised it took so long. I guess we were having a conversation. The hat told me that I embody each of the houses very strongly and ultimately wanted to put me in Slytherin. I had to plead for Gryffindor to be put there." She merely raised an eyebrow in response.

"My my mister Potter. Ambitious and cunning, should I be worried?" She teased. A mischievous smirk broke out across his face.

The rest of the night was spent going through the highlights of his first year. They both watched in fascination. Surprised by his younger self's flying ability during his first quidditch match. Surprised at the lengths the trio had to go to in order to stop Quirrell. For Harry, he got to see things from a different perspective, hindsight made everything feel more reckless than it already was. They even managed to spot a 7th year Tonks in the background to Harry's great surprise. How did he not notice the trade mark pink? Quicker than he would have liked, Harry was back in the real world nodding off in preparation for the meeting tomorrow.

A/N: Shorter chapter here, it just felt like a good place to stop. Hopefully future ones will be much longer. I'd also like to say that some inconsequential things may need to be fully expanded upon for now but i'll avoid repeating stuff over and over. So, we can hopefully get new and exciting content. This starting phase is going to be dull and a bit boring, hopefully I can open up the story soon and start doing some exciting content.

Another note, i still plan to make their relationship take a while to even begin. Tonks will be confident and flirty by nature. They'll tease and flirt with each other but neither will take it seriously.

Please review, any constructive advice would be very much appreciated, Thank you.