Harry distractedly walked the hallways without paying attention to where he was going. He had just trashed Dumbledore's office an hour or so ago and his world had been turned upside down by the prophecy. By the time he realized where he was, he was standing outside the Room of Requirement. He walked three times not knowing what he wanted and entered the Room. He was greeted with a comfortable chair and a roaring fireplace. He sank into the chair and stared into the crackling fire.

Sirius was dead. And he had come to the Ministry because Harry was stupid enough to walk into a trap in the middle of the damn Ministry of Magic. That thought sent a pang through his heart. He fingered his wand and rolled it between his fingers as he gazed at it. A part of him was tempted to just toss it into the fire and leave the magical world for good. A wry grin spread across his face at that. He could never walk away. That's not who he was. Too many people depended on him to kill Voldemort. Too many innocents would be in harm's way if he walked away. Hermione was right. He had a saving people thing.

Harry sighed. Even if the prophecy did not exist, he would not have, could not have left the magical world. He loved magic too much. He had seen behind the curtain and witnessed the beauty of magic. He could not live without it. But without Sirius, he was alone in the world again. An orphan, unwanted and unloved.

"Expecto Patronum" he muttered.

Prongs burst forth in a flood of white light and cantered around the room looking for adversaries to fight. After finding none, he cantered over to Harry. Harry felt the joy and happiness radiating from the spectral animal. This was magic at its most beautiful. The pure magic radiating from the spell flooded Harry and he felt tears streaming down his face. The animal seemed to stare into his soul and slowly lowered its head. Harry involuntarily bowed back. With a swipe of his wand, he dispelled the spell.

Suddenly without the presence of the spell, the loss and guilt of Sirius's death returned with a vengeance. Harry felt so guilty it was physically causing him pain. In a rash thought, he decided to exhaust himself so he could pass out and not feel anymore. If he was to pass out, he would not suffer the pain he was feeling. Instead of just happy and positive emotions, Harry poured any and every bit of emotion he could find into the spell. He poured pulled emotions from every memory he could remember and roared "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

Prongs reappeared, but this time, instead of a pearly white appearance, the stag was turquoise in color and had magenta stripes along its body and it looked almost solid. Just like last time, the stag charged around the room before turning towards Harry who had dropped to his knees in exhaustion. However, this time, Prongs lowered his head and charged at Harry. Harry had his eyes closed and did not see Prongs charge at him but opened his eyes when his scar suddenly began hurting.

Harry's eyes widened in shock but Prongs had already reached him and Harry's head seemed to split apart in two as he screamed in pain. His voice seemed to double up on itself until a separate unholy voice rose higher than his and his scar burst open and black and yellow putrid smoke started pouring out of it. Prongs was still there and continued shoving the smoke away from Harry until the smoky tendrils let go of the scar and disappeared with a shrill screech but some of the yellow smoke stayed behind. Prongs stamped his front hoof authoritatively and turned towards Harry who had passed out from the pain. Blood leaked from the scar onto the floor slowly as Prongs seemed to dissolve and seep back into Harry. He seemed to shudder a little but did not stir for the rest of the night.

Harry woke up the next morning in incredible pain. His head felt like Buckbeak had decided to dance on his unruly mop with steel-toed boots. Every time his heartbeat, he could feel it in his skull as well as his eyelids. He instinctively brought up his occlumency shields before the headache subsided a little before he froze.

What Occlumency shields?

Snape never taught him how to raise Occlumency shields. The greasy bat never gave any instructions apart from 'Clear your mind'. And yet, Harry somehow knew Snape was trying to teach Harry the Muller method of Occlumency whereas he preferred the Hernandez method with a Pasternak layering. And yet, Harry had no idea what any of those methods meant. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and decided to not think about what was happening. He needed to check on his friends first and clean up the blood on his face.

Suddenly his green eyes flew open as his thoughts raced. He desperately wished for a mirror and the room provided one for him. Harry stared at his reflection and he was amazed to see his scar look like an open wound. He touched it and there was a pain similar to one he expected from a normal wound but not the characteristic throbbing he had lived with all his life. He couldn't help but let out a laugh at that but regretted it after his head throbbed in protest.

Harry decided to heal the scar himself with 'Episky' and ended up botching the job a little but the wound did close itself slowly. However, the iconic scar now seemed a tad bit more prominent but at the same time, less inflamed and vibrant. Harry could also tell his magic felt different. He was heading to the Dursleys soon and he had all of Summer to figure out what all had changed.