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Of course as always, I do not own either Bleach or Harry Potter.

||Characters are speaking Japanese||

Chapter 36

They arrived downstairs for breakfast at the same time as the post owls on Monday; when the first owl landed in front of Harry, he was certain it was a mistake, and that the owl was related to Ron's.

"Who are you looking for?" he asked, removing his orange juice from danger. He was surprised to see the name on the envelope was his own. Puzzled, but before he could take the letter, another seven owls landed in front of him, making a fuss.

"What the hell?" Ichigo snatched his breakfast out of the way of danger as Hermione pulled a screech owl out of the feathery mass.

"Open this first – I think I know what it means!" she handed him a cylinder, which contained a tightly rolled copy of the Quibbler. There, on the front cover, was a picture of Harry himself, with the headline: HARRY POTTER SPEAKS OUT AT LAST: THE TRUTH ABOUT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN.

Luna wandered over. "Do you like it? I do," she said, squeezing in between Fred and Ron. "It came out yesterday, and I asked Dad to send you a copy. All these…" she indicated the growing number of owls jostling for position, "are probably letters from readers."

"I thought so," Hermione said eagerly, "Harry, can we…"

"Help yourself!" he urged, feeling overwhelmed by the mass of owls that was growing by leaps and bounds. Everyone started ripping open envelopes; there would be no breakfast for anyone until they got the owls out of there, and more were arriving by the minute.

"This bloke thinks you're off your rocker…" Ron said, "Ah well…"

"Same here," Ichigo tossed it over to Uryu, who had joined them when he saw what was going on, and was trying to make some semblance of order out of the growing mass of parchment.

"This one says you should try a good course of shock spells at St. Mungo's…" Hermione glowered at it, disappointed.

"This one is okay, she believes you!" Rukia said, waving it at Harry.

"So does this one!" Harry scanned through a long letter.

"Here's one who's of two minds," said Fred, "You don't sound like a mad person, but he doesn't want to believe He's back… sheesh, why'd he even bother writing..."

"Here's another you've convinced!" Ginny waved another one.

"And here's another!" Tatsuki added it to the pile.

Momo started collecting the good ones, while Uryu took the 'bad' ones. Mizuiro collected the ones that waffled.

"Here's another that thinks you were treated unfairly by the Daily Prophet," Karin handed hers over.

"Here's another that thinks you're barking," Toshiro shook his head.

"Here's one who believes you – and she put in a photo too – oh, wow…hey, can I keep this?"

"What is going on here?" a girly sweet voice simpered. Dumbridge was standing behind Fred and Luna, her eyes bulging. The entire hall was watching them, wide-eyed. "What have you got all these letters for?"

"Is getting mail a crime now?" Fred asked, "I didn't notice a new educational decree go up..."

"Be careful, or I shall have to give you detention," she said, "Well, Potter?"

"People wrote to me because of an interview I gave - about what happened last June."

"An interview?" her voice grew higher and thinner than before. "What – do you mean? What kind of an interview?"

"A reporter asked me questions, and I answered them," Harry replied, doing his best not to grin at her. "Here," he threw the copy of the Quibbler at her, and her face turned an ugly, splotchy red and violet as she looked at it.

Ichigo wanted to laugh at the sight of her; she truly resembled a speckled toad with that expression. He had to turn away or he would have burst into laughter outright. He noticed several others had done the same thing.

"When did you do this?"

"Last Hogsmeade weekend."

"There will be no more Hogsmeade visits for you, Mr. Potter," she snapped, in a voice that was barely a whisper. "How dare…how could…I have tried… 50 points from Gryffindor, and another week's detention."

No one in Gryffindor minded losing points; the sight and what followed more than made up for it, Neville whispered to Harry in Charms. The next so-called educational decree was posted before mid-morning had passed: "Any student found in possession of the magazine The Quibbler will be expelled."

This had Hermione beaming with pleasure.

"Why are you so happy?" Ron asked.

"Because nothing is more guaranteed to make every single person in this school read that magazine," she smirked happily. "When something is forbidden, everyone wants to do it." And she was right: by the end of the day, even though no one saw a single copy, everyone was quoting the article to each other. Queued up outside class, over lunch, in the back of lessons, and in the loos – the interview was the only thing anyone talked about. All of Harry's friends were bombarded with questions about the article.

Dumbridge stalked the school, searching for copies, but the students were too smart for her. Pages were blank or bewitched to look like something else; teachers couldn't respond because of an earlier decree, but they found a myriad of other ways to express themselves: twenty points for passing a watering can in Herbology; a box of squeaky sugar mice handed to Harry discreetly in the hallway; a tearfully pronounced prophecy from Professor Trelawney that he would live to a ripe old age and have twelve children.

"I pity his wife if that's true," Momo said softly to Mizuiro, "I wouldn't want to have twelve children!" and considering that she could spread her childbearing out over centuries, and not just years, that was saying something.

And then there was Cho – she caught up to him on his way to class, and told him she was sorry… and Seamus sent a copy of it off to his mum, and he now believed Harry and had apologized, making the Gryffindor dorm a peaceful place once again.

And then there were the Slytherins. Their reaction was beautiful. Ichigo and the others took to watching his back again, but as Hermione said, they couldn't contradict him – or risk being expelled because it would mean they had read it. Best of all, Luna told him her father had to reprint: no issue had ever sold out faster. So people were reading it – a lot of people. Hermione was so happy she walked around all day with a smile on her face.

The secret was out – Old Moldy was back. And all it took, Ichigo prodded him, was Harry finally coming clean about what had happened. It had been Ichigo and Uryu's suggestion, back after their first detention, that they find a different, smaller, paper and that Harry talk to them and tell his story; but Harry hadn't been ready to talk about it at that point in time. Harry finally had to admit that the pair had been right all along.

That night, Harry dreamed. Before he went to bed, his scar had ached, as had his whole head, and he had felt ill…

"You are sure of your facts, Rookwood?"

"Yes, My Lord, yes… I used to work in the department…"

"Avery told me Bode would be able to remove it."

"He could never have taken it. That may be why he fought so hard against the Imperius Curse that Malfoy put on him – he knew this."

"Stand up."

Rookwood was a pockmarked man, and stooped; he stared at the speaker, terrified.

"You have done well to tell me this. It seems I have wasted months on a fruitless scheme. You have my gratitude Rookwood."

"My Lord, yes My Lord."

"I shall need all the help and information you can give me."

"Of course My Lord, anything!"

"You may go. But send Avery in to me."

Rookwood scurried away. The speaker turned to look in the mirror…

"Nooooooooo!"

Harry started flailing about, and became entangled in the hangings.

"Harry, stop! We can't get you out! Stop!"

Harry stared up at Ron in the moonlight, gasping, his hand pressed to his head.

"What is it?" Ron asked as he pulled Harry to his feet, and Ichigo untangled the covers. They both looked like they'd been getting ready for bed: Ron had one arm in his robe, and Ichigo only had bottoms on. His chest was bare, and Harry could plainly see the scars Ron had told him about. "Was someone else attacked? Dad? Was it the snake?"

"No, everyone's fine –" Harry gasped, "Except for Avery…" Harry rambled on about what he saw.

"What are you talking about?" Ichigo asked, "Did you see – Old Moldy?"

"I was Old Moldy," Harry shuddered at the memory. "He was with Rookwood – one of the escapees. He had just told Moldy that Bode couldn't have done it."

"Done what?"

"Remove something…and Bode knew it, that's why he fought it…he was under the Imperius Curse…"

"Bode was that guy that was killed – the Unspeakable?" Ichigo asked softly, his mind racing. Rookwood… Rookwood…something about him and Bode… damn it, why couldn't he remember?

It was Hermione who put it all together the next day.

"So that's why they killed Bode," she said, as they stood in a sheltered corner of the courtyard. "He tried to steal whatever it is, and whatever protective spells are on it, did something to him. He was getting better, and whatever it was also lifted the Imperius Curse. So once he recovered he'd be able to reveal what was up. And it would be easy for someone like Malfoy to curse him, wouldn't it? After all, he's never out of the Ministry…"

"He was certainly hanging around the day of my hearing," Harry said. "Wait a minute…." He stared at them. "He was in the corridor near the Department of Mysteries that day! Your dad thought he was probably trying to sneak down to my hearing…"

"Sturgis Podmore!" Hermione suddenly exclaimed loudly, slapping her hand to her forehead as if she'd had a sudden revelation.

"Sorry?" Ichigo looked at Hermione puzzled. That was a new name to him.

"Sturgis Podmore was arrested for trying to get through a door. I'll bet anything that Malfoy got him too, on the day you saw him there. He had Moody's invisibility cloak – what if he was standing guard, Malfoy heard him move, or even just guessed he was there, and then cast the Imperius Curse, just on the chance he might hit someone? But when he tried to get through the door, he got caught?

"But now this Rookwood gent's told him how to do it properly," Ichigo mused thoughtfully, nodding. "So they won't need to be doing it the old way anymore."

"It did sound that way," Harry nodded, "He used to work there - Rookwood. Maybe they'll have him do it?"

"Hm. Maybe." Hermione mused. Then she looked sternly at Harry. "But you should not have seen this, Harry. Not at all."

"What?"

"Occlumency. You're supposed to be learning it. It's supposed to block this out," she said firmly. "You ought to put a bit more effort into it."

Harry winced. He was not managing to learn it; in fact, he usually ended up on his hands and knees, weak and trembling, in Snape's office.

The way he was now.

"You do remember why we are here, don't you, Potter?" Snape asked him, his voice low and dangerous. "You do remember why I am giving up my evenings to this tedious job?"

"Yes sir," Harry said stiffly. Snape insisted on being called 'Sir.' Not even Professor – 'Sir.'

"Then remind me, Potter."

"So I can learn Occlumency, sir."

"Correct, Potter. And as dim as you are –" Harry glared at a bottled specimen in the office, thoroughly hating the Potions Master and wondering how Ichigo managed to get along with him, "I would have thought that after two months even you would have made some kind of progress. Now, explain that last memory. The one with the man kneeling… what was it?"

"Just – a dream that I had. Sir."

"A dream?" Snape glared at him. "And how many other - dreams - have you had?"

"Just that one," Harry lied.

"Hm." Snape stared at him, his dark eyes narrowed slightly as if he did not believe him. "Perhaps you like dreaming about the Dark Lord? They make you feel – special?"

"No, they don't!" Harry shot back, his fingers clenched around his wand. He hated having his head ache, his scar ache, feeling ill… "I hate them – they hurt, they make me ill…"

"Good, because you are not special Potter," the potions master said coldly, "It is not up to you to find out what He says to his Death Eaters."

"No – that's your job, isn't it? Sir."

They stared at each other and Harry for a moment thought he had said too much. But there was grim satisfaction in Snape's voice when he finally answered.

"Yes, Potter, that is my job. Now if you would prepare yourself –" he raised his wand. "One – two – three – Legilimens!"

For a brief moment, Harry saw what looked like hundreds of Dementors swooping down on him, coming closer…and closer… as he screwed up his face in concentration… but he could see Snape through the Dementors, growing clearer… muttering under his breath… getting more distinct, and the Dementors growing fainter… he raised his own wand, he had to do something, anything, to stop it...

"Protego!"

Snape staggered back, his wand flying back and away from Harry; and then Harry's mind was filled with memories that were not his own – a man with a nose like the Potions Master, shouting at a woman who was cowering away from him, while a small, dark haired boy – with the same nose – sat crying in a corner; a greasy haired teenager who was probably the same boy, sitting alone in a room, shooting at flies with a wand; a pretty girl, who looked like his mother – who was his mother Lily, Harry recognized her from the photos Ichigo had given him – laughed at the same boy as he tried to mount a recalcitrant broomstick…

"ENOUGH!"

Harry felt as though he had been kicked in the chest; he staggered back, hit the shelves behind him, and heard something crack. Snape was shaking and white faced. Harry's robes were wet from whatever he had broken when he fell against it.

"Reparo!" Snape muttered, repairing the jar. "Well, that was most certainly an improvement," he muttered. He straightened himself out, trying to look as if he were not composing himself. "I don't remember telling you to use a Shield Charm, however effective it may have been…"

Harry just stood there; he felt that anything he could say would be the wrong thing, especially since he had just somehow broken into Snape's own memories, and seen scenes from his childhood. What else could they have been?

"Let's try again, shall we?" he said, staring down at Harry with cold dark eyes.

Harry shuddered. He had a horrid feeling Snape was about to make him pay for what he had just inadvertently seen. He did not have time to prepare himself before the count of three; he was unable to clear his mind, and the moment Snape cried "Legilimens!" Harry was hurtling along the familiar corridor in the Department of Mysteries, towards that door he had been seeing for so long. Past blank stone walls, past torches… in a moment he was going to collide with it, because it never opened…

But it did! He hurtled through it, into a black walled, black floored circular room, with doors all around him, one of them was the right one, but which? Which door?

"POTTER!"

Harry opened his eyes at Snape's bellow. He was on the floor again, oh joy; panting heavily as if he had indeed flown at high speed.

"Explain yourself!" the professor appeared to be furious with him.

"I…dunno what happened…" Harry replied truthfully, struggling to stand up. He had a painful lump on the back of his head, from hitting it on the floor when he fell. "I've never seen that before – well, I told you I've seen the door in a dream, but I mean I've never seen what's on the other side…"

"You are not working hard enough!" if anything that caused Snape to get even angrier if that was possible. "You are lazy, sloppy, and it is a small wonder that the Dark Lord…"

Snape's rant was cut off by a woman's scream from somewhere outside the room. His head jerked up in the direction of the scream.

"What…"

He and Harry stared at each other as they listened to what appeared to be a muffled commotion coming from the entrance hall. Snape's frown grew fiercer.

"Did you see anything unusual on your way down here, Potter?" he asked. Harry shook his head, baffled. He had no idea what it could be. The woman screamed again. Snape strode to his office door, wand at the ready, and out of the room. Harry hesitated for only a brief moment before he ran after him.

The screams were coming from the entrance hall, as they had thought, and by the time Harry reached it, it was packed. Students had come flooding out of the Great Hall, where dinner was still being served, and others were crammed onto the staircases. Harry pushed through a crowd of Slytherins and saw that they had formed a ring, some of them looking shocked, others frightened. He saw Ichigo and Rukia, standing next to Momo and Toshiro, and he made his way over to them, as they were the only friends he could see. The four appeared to be angry more than anything else. Not far away stood Professor McGonagall and she looked as though she were going to be ill.

Professor Trelawney stood in the middle of the hall, her wand in one hand, an empty sherry bottle in the other, with her hair sticking up every which way like Ichigo's (except his was neater), her glasses perched lopsidedly on her face, shawls and scarves trailing along behind her. Not far away two large trunks lay haphazardly on the ground, as if they had been thrown down the stairs without a care as to whether they would break or not. She was staring, apparently terrified, at something – or someone.

"NO!" she screamed again, "NO! This cannot be happening! I refuse to accept it!"

"You mean you didn't see it coming?" said a high girlish voice, which sounded rather amused. Leaning forward, Harry was just able to see Professor Umbridge standing there. "Are your powers of prophecy so pathetic that you were unable to predict your own sacking?"

"You can't!" Trelawney howled, "This is my home! Sixteen years!"

"It was your home," Professor Umbridge corrected, and Harry was sickened by the look of enjoyment on her toad-like face. "At least it was until the Minister signed the order for your dismissal. Now hurry up and remove yourself; you are nothing more than an embarrassment to this school."

Several students, among them Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, were crying silently, and then Professor McGonagall broke away from the spectators, marched up to Trelawney, and was patting her firmly on the back, while handing her a large handkerchief.

"Hush, hush, now Sibyll … go ahead, blow your nose, now… it's not as bad as you think… you are not going to have to leave Hogwarts…"

"Oh really, Professor?" Dumbridge stared at McGonagall with ill-intent, "And that would be on whose authority?"

"That would be mine, Dolores."

"Yours, Professor Dumbledore?" Dumbridge gave an unpleasant laugh. "I'm afraid you may misunderstand the situation…"

"Oh, I understand the situation perfectly well, Dolores. As High Inquisitor you have every right to dismiss my teachers on whatever trumped up grounds you wish to dismiss them on. The right to dismiss them from the castle, however, still resides with the Head Master, and it is my wish that Professor Trelawney continue to live at Hogwarts." He turned to Professor McGonagall. "Would you please escort Sibyll back upstairs?"

"Of course," Professor McGonagall nodded, a look of satisfaction on her face. "Come on dear, up you get…"

Professors Sprout and Flitwick both hurried out of the crowd to assist her; all three of them glared at Dumbridge before leading Sibyll Trelawney back up the stairs to her rooms.

Dumbridge stared at Dumbledore, who was still staring benignly at her, the expression on his face never changing.

"And what," she said in a whisper that everyone was able to hear, "are you going to do with her once I find a new Divination teacher who needs her rooms?"

"Oh, that won't be a problem, Dolores; I've already found one. And he would rather have lodgings on the ground floor."

"You –" her voice rose to a high pitched squeak that hurt their ears. "You found? Might I remind you, Dumbledore, that under Ed-"

"Educational Decree Twenty-two: the Ministry has the right to appoint a suitable candidate if – and only if – the Head Master is unable to find one," Dumbledore never lost his pleasant tone. "I know all of your decrees by heart, Dolores. And I am happy to say that in this case, I have found a replacement. Rather quickly too, I might add," He smiled benignly at her. "May I introduce you?"

Dumbledore turned back toward the doors through which he had recently stepped, and through which they now heard – hooves? A shocked murmur raced around the hall when their new Professor had fully revealed himself to them. It was a face Harry had seen once before; (AN) what he didn't know was that the four people next to him recognized what he was, as well. He sensed Ichigo restraining a laugh, and wondered why.

"This is Firenze," Dumbledore said in a pleasant voice to the dumbstruck Umbridge as she stared at the centaur, "I think you'll find him suitable."

Author's Notes

As told in the Sorcerer's Stone (or the Philosopher's Stone… depending on what country you are in…)