Harry Potter and the Path of War

by Anduril666

A year has passed since the Dark Lord's return, and the wizarding world is living in fear. The war that began over 15 years ago is picking up pace again, and Harry must come to terms with both the war and the prophecy before he can end it.

10. Chapter Ten: Confessions

Harry Potter and the Path of War

Chapter Ten: Confessions:

Pain.

That was Harry's first and foremost feeling, as he regained consciousness and slowly opened his eyes from the floor of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. It took him a few seconds to remember exactly why he was laying on the floor of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, feeling as if he'd been run over repeatedly by the Knight Bus, but as the cut on his arm blossomed with fresh pain and he looked down at it with wide eyes, he remembered fully his destructive duel with Vanya.

Vanya.

Hitting his head and falling to the floor, unmoving.

Shit!

Harry pulled himself to his feet quickly, crying out at the pain it caused, and quickly looked around the classroom to find where Vanya had fallen.

He found him at the side of the classroom, lying on the floor next to the wooden chairs and tables where Harry remembered he had seen him fall. Now however several chairs had fallen on him, three on his legs and two on his chest and neck, and a toppled table laying next to him looking as if it had only narrowly missed his head. He was still not moving.

Harry raced over to him immediately and kicked away the chairs covering his body, sending them flying into different directions around the classroom, and pressed the side of his head to his professor's chest. After a second the sound and vibration of Vanya's beating heart against his head filled him with relief and he raised his head, wiping his sweating forehead on his arm as he reached for his wand.

Except his wand was not there, and Harry growled in frustration and turned around to look for it. He found Vanya's wand first, near to a small pool of blood which Harry assumed was his, and shrugged; it would work just as well for the spell he needed to use.

Racing back to Vanya, Harry held the wand in his hand as steadily as he could considering the pain he was in, and pointed it at his professor's chest.

"Enervate," he said.

Vanya's eyes snapped open immediately, and, seeing Harry leaning over him with his wand pointed at his chest, grabbed him by the throat with his right hand.

Harry ripped his hand away in a flash and grabbed Vanya's throat with his hand, pinning him to the ground and pointing the wand in his other hand firmly between his professor's eyes. Vanya held his hands up in a sign of surrender straight away.

"No attack intended there, Mr Potter," he said raspily, finding it hard to talk with Harry's hand pressed tightly against his throat. "That's just my instinctive reaction to being Enervated. It's got me out of many troublesome spots in the past, let me tell you."

Harry showed no reaction to his words, and Vanya sighed, or at least attempted to sigh.

"Mr Potter, the duel is over. You have won. Now release me."

Harry pulled his arm away slowly from Vanya's throat, not being able to keep it there much longer anyway as the pain from his forearm cut began to make his arm shake. Vanya sat up slowly, gripping his shoulder and gritting his teeth against the pain as he did so. Harry watched him carefully, his wand still pointed at him even if he wasn't holding him down anymore. Vanya saw this as he grimaced and gripped his shoulder, and smirked at Harry's alert profile.

"You can put that wand down now," he said, nodding at him as he continued to grip his shoulder tightly. "I have already told you; you have won. The duel is over."

"This might be a trick," Harry said quietly, determined not to lose his concentration by talking to Vanya. "You tried to attack me as soon as I revived you, but I pushed you away before you could try anything else; how do I know that you're not just saying this now as a diversion?"

Vanya stopped rubbing his shoulder momentarily and stared hard at Harry, a searching expression on his face. Harry looked back emotionlessly, and kept Vanya's own wand raised against him and the first syllable of the stunning spell ready on his tongue. They stared at eachother for a long time before Vanya stirred first and spoke.

"You don't," he said at length, removing his gaze from Harry's and sitting up straighter. Harry followed his movements with his wand. "Of course you don't, you can't know, whether I'm saying all this as a diversion. But I am a man of my word, Mr Potter, and when I say you have beaten me, I mean what I say; you have nothing more to fear from me. Besides, if I actually did want to attack you, I could have done it at any point in this little conversation of ours. Observe."

Vanya's right arm rose upwards suddenly, and the next thing Harry knew he had a wand pointed between his eyes. He stared down the length of it and into Vanya's hard eyes in shock.

"How the hell did you do that?" he asked him incredulously, who nodded at the wand in Harry's hand in reply.

"Put that down and I'll show you," he requested. Harry made no move to do so.

"You first," he said firmly, and Vanya smirked at him.

"Smart move," he said, and lowered his wand and tossed it to the side of the classroom, out of his reach. Harry, accepting finally that Vanya was telling the truth, did likewise, tossing Vanya's first wand to the other side of the classroom. Vanya looked up at him again, a strange expression on his face.

"You're a very suspicious young man, aren't you Mr Potter? Quite a paranoid person for your age."

"It's better to be suspcious than dead," Harry responded quickly, and Vanya looked at him sharply for a moment, the long ugly scar that ran from his left eye to the middle of his chin rippling as his face muscles went taut. He nodded approvingly.

"Indeed it is, Mr Potter, indeed it is. . .still. . ."

His voice trailed off into silence, and he gripped his shoulder suddenly in obvious pain, his breath coming out in a series of pain-filled hisses. Noticing that Harry had seen him do this, Vanya smiled grimly at him and nodded down to his shoulder.

"You've broken the bone," he said, gripping it tightly again as Harry felt a slight pang of guilt. Vanya continued. "What spell did you use? The Adflicto Curse?"

Harry shook his head. "No, I used the Striking Spell. The Everbero Curse?"

Vanya stared at him in apparent shock and raised his eyebrows, looking quite taken aback. He quickly found his composure however.

"I have never known a sixteen-year-old be able to break a bone with a simple Striking Spell before," he said quietly, giving Harry a calculating and searching look that made Harry snort in anger. He glared at his professor, who seemed to sense his anger and lowered his gaze quickly to his wounded arm, and nodded at it.

"That needs cleaning up," he said. "You've lost a lot of blood, you'll need a Blood Replenshing Potion as well as some Healing work. Nothing too serious though. Oh, and I think you should consider a drying charm as well."

Harry looked down; he had forgotten that he was still soaking wet from Vanya's water spell, with his now water-heavy clothes clinging tightly to his skin. Shivering slightly, he looked down at the deep gash on his arm and grimaced; the cut ran from just above his hand to a few inches below his elbow, and the area around the cut was covered with crusty dry blood that had soaked into his skin, the only dry part of his skin that he could feel. He looked down again at Vanya, still on the floor, who was now slowly rotating his injured shoulder while looking up at him. Harry shrugged.

"I've had worse," he said to him, and Vanya raised his eyebrows, although he did not ask Harry the question he was obviously thinking. Instead he attempted to stand up, and when he staggered and fell back to the floor Harry extended his unijured left arm to him and pulled him with a great effort to his feet, making them both stumble slightly.

"Thank you," he said to Harry as he stood up straight again, and held out his hand. Harry went to shake it, but Vanya just smirked at him.

"We'll save the honourable conductions for later, Mr Potter. Accio Wands," he said, and his own two wands along with Harry's flew from separate ends of the classroom and into his outstretched hand. He handed Harry his wand back immediately, and then gestured for Harry to follow him to the side of the room to a large wooden cabinet that stretched all the way to the ceiling. Harry followed him slowly, as Vanya was holding his injured shoulder and hissing in pain with every step he took, probably from the pressure his footsteps were putting on his shoulder. Harry did not feel guilty about the damage he'd done to his professor's shoulder; after all, he'd done much worse to Kingsley and Remus over the summer, and Vanya had used a Severing Spell on him, so, in Harry's opinion, he deserved everything he got.

Vanya muttered some words to the large cabinet as Harry approached and it's oak door sprung open to reveal a giant storeroom of potions, and the Auror began to rummage around the middle shelves for something. Harry applied a drying charm to himself as Vanya did this, and felt the benefit immediately. "I'm thankful this thing escaped harm," Vanya muttered to the inside of the cabinet as he rummaged in it, "it'd cost more than I'm worth to replace it. Ah, here we go."

Vanya took his head out of the cabinet and straightened up, now holding a small teaspoon and a glass jar labelled 'BR Potion,' which simply looked like a glass jar full of blood. The warmth Harry had felt from the drying charm abruptly vanished and his stomach churned, as it had done every time he'd needed to take the potion in the summer. Setting it down on the table next to the large cabinet, Vanya pulled off the lid of the Blood Replenishing Potion one-handed and dipped the teaspoon into it, which he then handed to Harry.

"Straight down," he said, and Harry complied immediately, ignoring the taste of the potion and swallowing it down quickly. Vanya snatched the teaspoon back as soon as Harry had poured the potion into his mouth, and filled it with potion again before handing it back to Harry.

"Got to get three spoonfuls down really quickly," he said, snatching the spoon back again as Harry swallowed another mouthful of the blood-red potion. After he'd taken another one and Vanya had put the potion back in the cabinet, he began to feel the familiar sensation in his arm, where he knew the cut was. He gasped when he looked down at it, as the dry blood around the cut was bubbling, and fresh blood was pouring out of his arm; the potion never failed to shock him, despite the many times he had had it over the last six weeks.

"Sano," Vanya said from next to him suddenly, pointing his wand at the cut, and Harry watched in fascination, just as he had done two days ago on the Hogwarts Express, as the skin pulled itself back together, to leave only a crooked white line across his forearm. He looked at Vanya.

"Cheers," he said, and twisted his arm around for a few seconds. It felt okay, just a bit stiff, but he reckoned that'd wear off after a while. He nodded at Vanya's shoulder.

"I reckon that's worse than my cut," he said, and Vanya chuckled darkly and shook his head.

"Like you said Mr Potter; 'I've had worse'."

Harry grinned at Vanya, who was now undoing the top buttons of his robes. When he had undone them halfway down his chest he slowly slid them off his left shoulder, revealing beaten purple and blue skin and a number of lines under his skin that looked like veins, but were too numerous to actually be veins. Harry breathed in sharply at the sight of his shoulder.

"These are fracture marks," Vanya said to him, tracing lightly the thin lines under his skin. "You've practically shattered my shoulder, and you only used a Striking Spell to do it. I still can't quite believe that's what you used," he said, shaking his head slowly and staring at Harry. Harry said nothing, and avoided his professor's gaze, looking instead at the man's destroyed shoulder.

"I need you to help me here," Vanya said suddenly, making Harry jump, and he looked Vanya in the face.

"What do you need me to do?" Harry said, and Vanya frowned grimly.

"I need you to help me up to the Hospital Wing. I'm not going to be able to sort this shoulder out by myself, and I don't think you'll be able to heal it, will you?"

"I can numb it for a while and bandage it up until we get to the Hospital Wing," Harry offered, and Vanya raised his eyebrows, looking suprised at Harry's words. He nodded at Harry.

"Just bandage it up, the numbing might disturb the fracture marks, and they look bad enough already."

Harry nodded, and pointed his wand down at just above his own hand. "Fascia," he said, concentrating hard, and a bandage materialised out of thin air and dropped into his hand. He then moved towards Vanya and begin wrapping the bandage around his shoulder and under his arm, who did not wince as he applied it.

"You continue to impress me Mr Potter," Vanya said, as Harry wrapped the bandage around the fracture marks on the top of his back. "You can outduel a Dark Arts professor in less than ten minutes, you can destroy a man's shoulder with a simple striking spell, and you can conjure bandages out of thin air all before you're even seventeen. I can see I've got a very good student here."

Harry did not answer him, but just snorted and carried on bandaging up his professor's fractured shoulder. He caught a glimpse of Vanya's face as he did so; he was staring at him strangely.

"Have you nothing to say to that Mr Potter?" he questioned, sounding slightly taken aback. "I praise you in such a way as that, and all you can do is snort?"

Harry finished bandaging Vanya's shoulder before speaking, tying the bandage together with a rough knot and stepping back from him to look him in the face.

"Well do you really think I want to be able to do these things?" he said hotly. "Think about the reason why I can do these things, and then consider how much your 'praise' is worth," he said bluntly, not in the mood at all for a conversation about how amazing his abilities are. Vanya seemed unmoved by his bluntness, but instead just stared at Harry for a minute before speaking again.

"You are right Mr Potter," Vanya said, his gaze not moving from Harry's face. "I suppose you would rather not have these abilities, considering the reasons why you have them. But you do have them Mr Potter, and there is a reason why you have them; I hope you have by now understood and accepted that."

"Yes I've accepted that," Harry said testily, getting angrier and angrier with Vanya by the minute. "Are you just going to be another one who lectures me about how I must accept and understand the position that I'm in? I've already accepted it, I don't need anyone to bloody well tell me to accept it for Merlin's sake!"

"I never meant to belittle you Mr Potter," Vanya responded immediately. "Indeed, I believed that you already had accepted the position that you were in; I was just clarifying this belief in my own mind."

Harry did not respond, and after a minute or so of silence between the two of them Vanya spoke again.

"I will not make you perform to the best of your ability in class in the future Mr Potter," he said, and Harry looked up from the broken table he had been idly staring at and into Vanya's scarred face. "I will leave the extent to which you perform to the best of your abilities up to you; but only at one condition."

"What condition is that then?" asked Harry immediately.

"That once a week we meet in this room to Duel," Vanya said.

"You want to Duel with me once a week?" Harry said, and Vanya nodded. "Why?"

"So we can learn from eachother," Vanya responded, to Harry's puzzlement. Vanya buttoned up his robes and stood up straight to look Harry in the eye. "Allow me to make something plain, Mr Potter; I do not consider you one of my students. I have too much respect for you for that. Now this respect does not stem from ridiculous articles in The Daily Prophet and The Quibbler that cite how much of a 'hero'you are, nor from the fact that you somehow defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named when you were a year old, but from my experiences and observations of you as a person. Of course in other ways you are still simply a sixteen year old boy and student, who has much to learn and is in no ways a grown man, but those areas are not my concern. The respect I have for you stems from the way in which you conduct yourself, both in your life with the burden that you carry, and with your fighting skills, two areas in which I do believe you to be a grown man, despite the fact that I have only been on speaking terms with you for two days thus far. The way you fought me in our Duel showed me in particular your combat maturity, and I believe I can learn a lot from you. I also believe you could learn a lot from me. I feel that you and I together would be able to develop our individual combat skills if given the chance, and these proposed Duels of mine, I feel, are the very chances that we need. So, do you agree to my proposition?"

Harry did not answer Vanya straight away, but instead leaned on the wooden bench beside the potions cabinet and looked away from him to the door. Some of Vanya's words had struck him deeply; his belief that he, a fully-trained Auror, could learn something from him, a sixteen-year old boy; the fact that he had completely disregarded both everything that had been written about him, and all the 'heroic' acts he had done, and yet still respected him as a person, and not as some sort of superhero; and the fact that he had admitted that he was still just a normal sixteen year old boy in other ways. No one else, Harry felt, had ever summed him up in such a way before, and he felt somehow strengthened by Vanya's assessment of him. He turned back to him, straightened up fully from the bench, and looked the Auror in the face.

"I agree."

Vanya nodded, and extended his hand towards Harry's. Harry grasped his hand tightly and shook it.

"A good Duel today Mr Potter," was all Vanya said, and Harry nodded at him in agreement.

"A good Duel."

After Harry had helped Vanya up to the Hospital Wing and helped him convince Madam Pomfrey that the professor's shoulder injury had been caused by a fall down the marble stairs in the Entrance Hall (she actually seemed to think that it was Harry who had caused it for a second), Harry went straight to the library to carry on researching for his Spell Construction lesson with Dumbledore, ignoring the weariness his body felt. He found the library empty apart from two Ravenclaws he recognised from the year below in a corner talking furiously about a Charms project, and he settled down at his usual table in a dark corner to find the last book he'd been reading, Secteral Spell Creation, sitting closed where he'd left it earlier that day. After finding where he'd read to last time and reading a further two pages Harry slammed the book shut in anger, not being able to understand any of the Spell Construction terminology in the book, and sat with his head in his hands in frustration.

How the hell am I ever going to create this spell if I can't even read a damn book on the subject? he thought in despair, feeling his head spin and his stomach churn. I can't even understand the words, how am I ever going to put it into practice and create a spell. . .

You're starting too high, a different voice said. You can't just expect to read the advanced stuff and be able to do it. You've got to start with the basics.

But I need to learn it as quick as I can! Harry argued. The longer I take with this, the more people who are going to die!

Well the quickest way you're going to learn is from the start, the irritating voice argued back, you'll just be going round in circles trying to start at such an advanced level. You can't learn this in a day, you need to get a grip of the basics first.

Harry sighed and nodded reluctantly his agreement with the damn voice, and put Secteral Spell Creation back in the bookshelf that he'd arranged to be only Spell Construction books. Deciding it'd be best then to read his Spell Construction textbook cover-to-cover first, to understand the basics, he began to search for it on his specialised Spell Construction shelf, where he knew he'd seen it.

As he searched for the book, Harry thought about the Spell Construction lesson he had had with Nate the day before. Nate's explanation of the 'Five Aspects' that they'd all need to understand in order to begin creating spells seemed a good place to start after reading his textbook in understanding the basics of Spell Construction, Harry decided; he'd read the entire textbook tonight, and then find a book tomorrow that went over all the aspects briefly, so that he could have a rough understanding of them by the time he had his lesson with Dumbledore.

Come to think of it, I don't even know when that lesson is, Harry realised suddenly, and contemplated using his new ring to contact Dumbledore to ask him, and then started, as he remembered that he'd promised to contact Kingsley after his Duel with Vanya to tell him how it'd gone. After finding the textbook (typically on the far right of the shelf considering he'd started looking on the far left) and putting it on his table ready to read, Harry left the library and turned sideways into a shadowy corridor that he knew was never used, put up a silencing charm around himself, brought his silver ring on his right hand up to his mouth and whispered, "Narro Kingsley Shacklebolt."

As before there was silence for a few seconds before Harry heard the Auror's voice in his ear, but then he heard him just as he had done so before.

"Hello again Harry," Kingsley's measured voice said to him in his ear. "It's been an hour since you Called me last; have you and Professor Vanya been Duelling all this time?"

"Hello again Sir. And no we haven't been Duelling all this time, it's just that I, er, forgot I was supposed to Call you," Harry said sheepishly.

"That's quite all right Harry," said Kingsley, sounding amused again as he done earlier. "So then, how did it go? Who won?"

"I did, Sir."

"You did? Congratulations Harry!" Kingsley said, sounding quite suprised. "I knew you could beat him if you put your mind to it, but I must admit I didn't think you'd be able to achieve it in your first Duel with him."

"That's alright," Harry replied, "I'm still really suprised I managed it myself."

"So, did he use the fighting style I said he would?" Kingsley asked, and Harry nodded, before realising that Kingsley couldn't actually see him nodding.

"Uh, yeah, he did," he said out loud, feeling like an idiot, "it was very fast, I could barely keep up a lot of the time. He hit me with a fast stream curse and a severing spell, but I got him in the shoulder with a striking spell early on, and I think that slowed him down a lot." He didn't mention the fact that he'd fractured Vanya's shoulder in several places with the striking spell; he didn't want more compliments.

"Yes, the severing spell is a particular favourite of Mahan's," Kingsley said, sounding disapproving. "So, how did you manage to get the better of him in the end?"

"Well to tell you the truth, I reckon it was just luck," Harry said sheepishly. "I was running out of strategies to use against him, and when he destroyed my shield with a shield shattering spell this idea came into my head, that if I hit him with a shield shattering spell and another spell straight after, the shield shattering spell would get rid of the shield, and the second spell would hit him before he had time to dodge it. So I fired a few spells at him and the next time he put up a shield I did that, and I hit him with a disarming charm which pushed him backwards into some chairs and knocked him unconscious."

There was silence for a while in Harry's ear, and again Harry tapped his ear as if it was broken. At length Kingsley spoke again.

"Well first of all Harry, I don't think you can call you beating him 'luck'," Kingsley said, his voice going stern. "To be able to get into a position to put your plan into action you must have had to dodge a lot of spells, and did you in any way lure him into putting up a shield?"

"Well I was hoping that he'd use the fast stream curse so I could put a crudesco charm on the water to turn it into ice, which I hoped would make him put up a shield. . ." Harry said, remembering sidestepping the water and pointing his wand at it immediately. . .

"And did he do that?" Kingsley asked suddenly, and Harry realised that he'd just trailed off from speaking. He shook his head and continued.

"Er, yeah he did," he said quickly. "I shot three curses at him, all of which he dodged, and then he fired off the fast stream curse. I sidestepped it quickly and turned it into ice, and he put up a shield to avoid all the flying ice, which is when I shot the two spells at him that shattered his shield and knocked him unconscious. And then I. .well, I'd, uh, won by that point."

"Yes Harry, I gathered," Kingsley said, sounding merry at Harry's over-excitement in describing his and Vanya's Duel. "Well Harry, I can't see in any way how you winning against Mahan was luck; admittedly you took a few knocks yourself, but you hit him with a striking spell in the shoulder, and you dodged a fast stream curse quick enough to hit it itself with a curse, which is a remarkable feat; it shows those impossibly fast reflexes or yours. Oh yes, I remember them all right."

Harry laughed, remembering all the times he'd dodged Kingsley's fastest curses in their summer lessons, and heard Kingsley laugh as well. "Furthermore Harry," Kingsley's voice suddenly came back, "your strategy was spot on for Mehan's style and for his preferred spells, and the fact that you formulated it mid-Duel, something we both know you had trouble with in your lessons with Nate in the summer, shows a remarkable development in your Duelling Thinking. So don't ever think you beat him by luck, Harry; it was nothing but. Congratulations. I'd shake your hand if I could, but you'll have to settle for verbal praise for the minute. Do you want me to inform Alastor of your victory?"

Harry laughed. "Yeah, go on then, I'm sure he'll just have something negative to say though," he said, remembering the number of times Moody had told him he was doing well over the entire summer; zero.

Kingsley laughed as well. "Yes, I'm sure you're right Harry," he said, sounding merry again, "although deep down you know he's proud of you."

Harry laughed again, and said, "well I'd better go Sir, thanks for the congratulations and all that."

"No problem Harry. And, on a more serious note, thank you again for what you did for me on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. I don't know how I'll ever be able to repay you Harry."

It took Harry a while to figure out what Kingsley was actually talking about, but after a few moments thinking he remembered; he had deflected a Cruciatus Curse, fired by Voldemort himself, away from Kingsley, and then brought Voldemort's attention on to himself, undoubtedly saving Kingsley's life in the process; he could see why Kingsley felt such a strong debt towards him.

"That's alright Kingsley," he said, "just make sure you call Voldemort by his real name and we're even."

"That's not enough to repay a Wizard's Debt Harry," Kingsley said, and his voice sounded very emotional now. "The only thing I can think of to repay this Debt to you is to pledge my undying support and loyalty to you in your fight against He-Who-Must-Not. .sorry, Vol. .Volde. . Voldemort. I offer you my loyalty Harry; please accept it."

"Don't offer your loyalty to me in particular Kingsley," Harry said, "but offer it instead to the fight against Voldemort in general. Offering your loyalty to me will mean nothing if I die. Offer your undying loyalty and support to the fight against Voldemort, as long as it continues, and I'll consider the Wizard's Debt repaid."

Kingsley was silent again for a minute, and Harry waited patiently for his response. When it came, Kingsley sounded very calm.

"Very well Harry; I pledge my loyalty to the fight against Voldemort, as long as it may continue."

Harry nodded, and this time did not care that Kingsley could not see him. "Thank you Kingsley; I consider the Debt repaid, so long as you stick to your word."

"I will Harry, I will. I'll speak to you again soon."

Harry felt a strange sensation in his ear suddenly, and realised that Kingsley had probably ended their call. He lowered the ring from his mouth, sighed deeply, and moved out of the shadowy corridor he had been standing in and went back into the library.

"Harry! Harry! Wake up!"

Someone was shaking him, he could feel them. . .

"Come on Harry mate, it's too late to be messing about in this damn library. ."

In the library? What the hell am I doing here?

"Please wake up Harry, we've been really worried about you. ."

Harry opened his eyes slowly and pulled up his head and body, feeling something sticky on his face as he did so. He peeled it off his skin lightly, and looking down at what it was realised it was the pages of a book. Rubbing his eyes and sitting up straight, he realised he was indeed in the library, and that it was completely dark save for a lamp held by a large freckled hand above his head.. Looking over his shoulder, he found Ron and Hermione standing over him, Ron holding the lighted lamp, looking both worried and tired. Hermione was holding Harry's Invisibility Cloak in one hand and the Marauder's Map in the other. I must have fallen asleep while I was reading that book, Harry realised. He turned round fully to Ron and Hermione, who stepped backwards to give him some room.

"What time is it?" he asked them.

"Half past eleven, although it probably feels later to you than what it is," Hermione answered him.

"Yeah, I'm suprised you haven't been caught in here tonight Harry, what with the way you were snoring," said Ron, and Harry smiled.

"But what are you doing in the library anyway Harry?" said Hermione anxiously, and somewhat suspiciously. "Did you have your Duel with professor Vanya?"

"Of course I did!" Harry said, stung at this remark. "What, you think I chickened out of it and hid in the library instead?"

"No, that's not what I said," Hermione said patiently, "I was just wondering if it had been cancelled and you'd decided to get some homework done. Anyway, did you have your Duel with professor Vanya?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, I did."

"So how did it go?" Ron broke in excitedly as Hermione opened her mouth to speak. "Did he beat you? You look knackered."

Harry shook his head. "Nah, I won," he said, and Ron grinned and Hermione's eyes went wide.

"Good one mate!" Ron said, slapping Harry on the back and shaking his head. "I still can't quite believe it really. I mean I'm not saying I don't believe you, because you know of course I do believe you, but it's just that, you know, it's hard to get your head round. . I mean Shacklebolt and Vanya are Aurors for Merlin's sake! So then, how did you beat him tonight?"

"Yes Harry, how did you beat him?" interjected Hermione, her usual bright look of curiousity shining in her eyes, and Harry sighed and relayed the story of the Duel again, but in more detail than he had done with Kingsley, and with occasional interruptions by Ron and Hermione. Ron whooped loudly when Harry told them about hitting Vanya with the striking spell, Hermione gasped when he revealed that Vanya had transfigured a table into a snarling boarhound, the two of them winced collectively when he showed them the scar on his forearm from Vanya's severing spell and told them in detail what he had done to Vanya's shoulder, and were both ecstatic at Harry's sidestepping of the fast stream spell and turning it into ice.

When he was done relaying the Duel, Ron whistled loudly. "Unbelievable mate, unbelievable. When did you say we're going to start up the DA again? I want to learn some of this stuff!"

Harry laughed. "Not tonight at any rate. Come on, let's get back to the Common Room before we get caught here."

Ron nodded his agreement, checking the Marauder's Map and still grinning at Harry's victory, but Hermione did not move. "Not yet," she said, and Harry and Ron looked at her in suprise.

"What do you mean 'not yet'?" Ron questioned, turning to her. "We woke up sleepyhead here and made sure he's alright, what's left to do?"

Hermione did not answer Ron; instead she reached past Harry and picked up the Spell Construction textbook he'd been reading, and turned to him with a questioning look in her eyes. Harry sighed.

"Since when have you been this committed to your schoolwork Harry?" she said softly, making Harry look up at her in suprise at her tone. "And what's this sudden interest in Spell Construction?"

Harry avoided her eyes. "I just feel like a fresh start, all right? My O.W.L grades were terrible, and I don't want to do that badly again on my N.E.W.T.s. What's the big deal?"

"The 'big deal,'" Hermione said, "is when you only take an interest in one subject, namely Spell Construction. Why the sudden interest Harry?"

"I'm not just concentrating on Spell Construction," Harry said, trying to sound convincing, "it's just that Spell Construction's easily the most difficult subject I'm doing this year, and so I want to get my head round it quickly so I can do well in it in my N.E.W.T.s. Honestly Hermione, I thought you'd be happy that I was working so hard."

"Well under normal circumstances I would be happy that you were working harder," Hermione said to him, before turning back to Harry. "It's just that, well me and Ron have been talking, and we want to know; is there anything wrong Harry?"

"She means is there anything specifically wrong mate," Ron said. "I mean we all know that there's a lot of crap you have to deal with all the time, but what we wanted to know is is there anything bothering you lately? You've seemed so. .I don't know, just different lately, like you're not all there. . ."

Ron trailed off, making strange motions with his hands and looking like he was thinking hard of something to say. Hermione sighed and shook her head at him.

"I think what Ron is trying to say is that you've been very distant lately Harry," (at this Ron pointed at Hermione with a triumphant look on his face and said, "that's it! That's the word I was looking for!"), "and that we're both really worried about you. You've changed so much since we last saw you, you seem so older and grimmer, but more than anything you just seem distant, like you're keeping a lot of things secret from the two of us. So are you?"

Harry sighed inwardly, feeling a slight pain in his chest. He had planned on telling Ron and Hermione about the Lionheart myth and his conversation with Arganual, but he knew he was too tired to have that conversation right then and there. But nevertheless the compulsion he felt to confide in his two best friends about everything he was feeling, just as he used to do with them, was very strong, almost irrestibly so, but he knew, deep down, that he couldn't tell them everything, no matter how much he wanted. Trying to hold down his emotions, he attempted to buy himself time by asking the two of them a question.

"How have I changed then?"

"Well, to start with you're not a midget anymore," Ron said mock-thoughtfully, tapping his chin and making Harry smile. "Let's see, what else. . .you're not as skinny anymore, actually look well-fed for once. . .you're a lot more pale than usual . . ."

"Oh Ron stop being so trivial," Hermione said impatiently to him, and turned to Harry. "You've changed in many ways, Harry. There's been this dramatic improvement in your Duelling, your physical appearance like Ron said has changed considerably, and you're a lot more serious than you used to be. The way you threatened Malfoy on Monday and the way you punched him on the train on was a lot different to how you used to deal with him; it was scary just how serious you were. You just seem to be so much older than you were before the summer, like everything's suddenly a lot more serious. I'm not saying it wasn't before, I'm just saying that you as a person seem to be taking everything a lot more seriously than you used to, like a lot has happened over the summer to make you this way. It's been hard for me and Ron to adapt to, and we're worried about you. So we want to know; what is it that's happened over the summer to change you so much?"

Harry looked into Hermione's concerned face and saw how worried she was, and turned away from her to Ron, who looked exactly the same. Sighing deeply, he turned away from the two of them and stared at one of the library windows, and at the leafless branches rustiling gently against the windowpane. Staring idly at this, he contemplated what really had changed him so much over the summer; his coming to terms with both Sirius' death and the prophecy; the vision of Voldemort torturing Ron and Hermione, and Voldemort's attempt in the vision to make him kill himself; Remus's hard-hitting words that when Voldemort was returned to full health, most likely around September, the real war would begin, words which had motivated him to push himself to his limit all summer, and then his consequental thoughts on seeing Voldemort at Platform Nine and Three Quarters that the second war had began; his acceptance, both by Dumbledore's words early in the summer and by his own thoughts on Platform Nine and Three Quarters, that he would have to one day become a murderer, whether he liked it or not, and that he would have to defeat Voldemort alone; his vow to himself the day after Voldemort's vision that he would win this war, no matter what it took, a vow that he had taken very seriously; the ten-hour-a-day training lessons every day of the week that had given him a lasting feeling of urgency and seriousness in the fight against Voldemort; the attack on him and Remus by the Death Eaters in Wisteria Walk, and the young dark-haired woman Auror who had told him after the attack that he gave people hope; the constant worrying about Voldemort and how powerful he and his Death Eaters were getting, particuarly after the Wisteria Walk attack; the unbearable knowledge, pressure and responsibility of the Line of the Protectors revealation from Dumbledore, that had more than anything else made him realise the extent to which his life was already planned out in battles and violence for him, no matter what he did to prevent it; the Death Eater attack on Platform Nine and Three Quarters, and the massacre there of seventeen students and eleven parents, all the names of which Harry knew he would never forget; and, finally, the revealation from Arganual the Chief Thestral that he was Lionheart, the High Protector and Guardian of the Great Forest, that led him to breakdown momentarily in the Forest. Harry sighed deeply, and put his head in his hands; yes, there had definitely been a lot to change him this summer.

"Harry?"

Harry started, and looked up. He'd forgotten that he was in the library with Ron and Hermione, and that they were still waiting for his answer. Looking up at their worried faces, Harry decided that he couldn't, no matter how bad he felt, push all his emotions on to the two of them; they were too good his friends to do that to. So, instead, Harry decided to only tell them part of the reasons why he had changed so much over the summer.

"Harry?" Hermione said again, putting a hand on his arm. Harry fought down the emotion striving to get out, and the impulse to break down and tell his best friends everything, and maintained a level voice as he spoke.

"A few things have happened that have made me change so much," he said to the two of them, who looked both relieved and wary that he was finally talking. "Firstly, you know, I had to accept Sirius' death, and that has taken a lot out of me. Secondly, those lessons I was having everyday made everything feel a lot more serious than it usually feels here at school. And thirdly, everything that happened on Platform Nine and Three Quarter's yesterday, with so many people dying, has changed me, and made things seem more serious to me. And by the way, the reason I gave for being in the library tonight is the real reason why I'm here. Oh, and I probably seem so much older Hermione because I've been hanging around with adults every single day of the summer, with only adults to talk to all summer. I'll probably get younger again once I've been around you two for a bit longer," he said, attempting to crack a joke and smiling.

Ron and Hermione smiled softly back at him, both looking uncomfortable and guilty in the aftermath of Harry's words, and looked down at the floor. Harry, sensing their guilt, jumped up from his seat, making them start and look at him in suprise.

"There's no need to feel guilty you two," he said, "you had every right to ask me what's bothering me, and what's changed me so much. But I'm fine now, I promise you. And if I'm not fine in the future, at least I know I've always got you two worrying about me, eh?"

The two of them chuckled quietly at his words, and Harry, sensing he hadn't fully cheered them up yet, snatched the Invisibility Cloak out of Ron's hand and pretended to examine it.

"Hmm, I'm not sure this is going to fit all of us anymore. . .lucky your old friend Harry knows an Invisibility Spell for himself isn't it?"

Ron laughed, and patted him on the back and grinned at him. "The boy wonder does it again!"

Harry grinned back at Ron, understanding the meaning that his pat on the back had, and then turned to Hermione. "Come on then Hermione; aren't you going to ask me when I learnt it, and what type of spell it is blah blah blah?"

Hermione tried to frown at Harry, but ended up laughing wetly and then launching herself at him and sobbing into his shoulder. Harry put his arms around her and held her tight, not for once feeling uncomfortable in Hermione's embrace, but concentrating solely on making her feel better. Ron hesitantly rubbed her back to calm her down at the same time.

After a while Hermione pulled back from Harry, and wiped her tears with her hand. Ron, evidently trying to lighten the mood, pulled the Marauder's Map up with a flourish and set it down on the table, looking round at the two of them.

"Well then, let's see what good ol' Filchy and his cat are up to at the moment shall we?" he said, and the three of them smiled and looked down at the Map. Filch and Mrs Norris, it transpired, were on the other side of the castle, and the coast was perfectly clear for the three of them to get back to Gryffindor Tower.

The three of them did not speak to eachother as they made their way back to Gryffindor House, each being preoccupied with their own thoughts, and when they made it back safely to a deserted Common Room and they were all visible again, Hermione voiced what both she and Ron were thinking.

"I'm glad you're ok Harry," she said, and Ron nodded vigorously in agreement. "If you ever need us to talk to, you know we're here."

Harry smiled and nodded at her, and she smiled back at him and Ron before bidding them both goodnight and ascending the stairs to her dormitory. Harry followed suit with Ron up to their own dormitory, knowing that he would be taking Hermione up on her word of her and Ron being there to talk to the next day; he was going to need all the help he could get with leading and protecting every animal in that damn forest.

"Good morning," professor Vanya said to his sixth year Defence Against the Dark Arts class on Wednesday morning, as they all walked sleepily into the DADA classroom for their first lesson of the day. As he entered the room with Ron and Hermione after breakfast in the Great Hall, Harry noticed that the classroom was already set up as it had been in their last lesson on Monday, and in the same way as it had been the previous night; ready for Duelling. It had also been enlarged very considerably, so that six or seven Duels could take place at the same time very easily; Harry wondered why Vanya hadn't enlarged the classroom for their Duel the night before; it would have saved a lot of things from being broken.

Having said that however, Harry also noticed a complete absence of anything that suggested a destructive Duel had occured in the classroom only twelve or so hours ago; the blackboard (which Harry had broken in two during his Duel with Vanya with a deflected spell) was sitting on the back wall in pristine condition; there was no sign of the wooden table that Vanya had ducked behind and Harry had set on fire; all the tables and chairs that the two of them had knocked flying had been reassembled; and the large blood-stain on the floor that had been caused by Harry's forearm cut had evidently been washed off. Harry looked at Vanya as the class filed in, who nodded at him. Harry nodded back, and Vanya smirked and turned to the rest of the class.

"Please line yourselves up at the back of the room," Vanya requested, and the class looked nervously around at eachother and hesitantly moved backwards. Vanya smirked again.

"Well I did tell you all that you would be Duelling today," he said to the class from his position at the front of the classroom, as everyone lined up against the back wall. "But don't worry; in case none of you have remembered, may I remind you all that you won't be Duelling me again today."

Many sighs of relief were heard, the most loudest being from Seamus Finnigan and Justin Finch-Fletchley, but Harry was gratified to see many faces also looking quite dissappointed at this revealation, some of these faces being Ron's, Hermione's, Neville's, and Dean Thomas'. He turned back to Vanya, who was talking again.

". . .will Duel every other student besides themselves at least once. When everyone has achieved this we will stop Duelling, and you will all write me a detailed analysis of your performance in these Duels, i.e. what parts of your Duelling skills you could improve on, which ways you felt you performed well, and so on. On the bottom of the blackboard there is a tally chart for each of you, where you will find every other students' name in the class under your own; please mark these names off accordingly as you Duel eachother.

"Please choose between yourselves who you will Duel first. You may begin."

And suddenly the classroom was a scene of chaos, as some people chose their partners and attempted to Duel eachother before everyone else had finished, resulting in a few odd curses on the wrong people. Eventually Vanya was forced to enlarge the classroom even more, and to teach them all how to put shields around eachother so that they could only hit eachother with spells, and no one else.

For Harry the Duelling lesson was boring. Knowing that Vanya had said he could hold back he did try to hold back a lot of the time, but no matter how slowly and poorly he performed in the Duels, it always seemed to still be faster than whoever it was he was Duelling. Hermione was an exception to this, clearly trying as hard as she could against him, and Harry was forced to actually try his best at times to dodge some of her spells, which she reeled off very quickly. Ron didn't put up much of a fight really, having looked quite scared of Duelling him Harry had thought to his irritation, and most other people seemed to bring the same mindset to a Duel with Harry.

Half an hour later and Harry only had two people left to Duel; Neville and Malfoy. He smirked in anticipation; Malfoy isn't going to know what hit him, he thought to himself. There's no way I'm holding back in that Duel; he'll be down in ten seconds flat.

And as he began to plan how he would Duel against Malfoy, he suddenly found himself face to face with a sweaty and nervous-looking Neville Longbottom, who was looking at him with a half-anticipatory, half-dreading expression on his face. Harry smiled at Neville, which seemed to just make him more nervous.

"Ready to Duel me Neville?" Harry asked, and Neville nodded immediately, taking a deep breath and withdrawing his wand. The two of them put the shields over eachother, so that their spells would only hit eachother and no one else, and then walked towards eachother with their wands drawn.

"You can do the count Neville," Harry offered, knowing full well the person who did the count had a slight advantage over the Duellist who was waiting for the count. "I've done it for most of my Duels today."

Neville nodded, no longer looking nervous but instead looking very focused. He and Harry bowed to eachother, with Neville actually taking his eyes off Harry as he did so, and the two of them turned around and took five paces back from eachother, making them ten feet apart. Harry turned to face Neville and raised his wand high above his shoulder, and saw Neville across from him doing the same. Seeing that Harry was ready, Neville began the countdown.

"One . . . two . . . three. . .Expelliarmus!"

"Protego!" Harry cried at the same time, and Neville's disarming charm bounced off Harry's shield harmlessly. Harry opted for the strategy to Duel Neville that he had done for everyone else in the class; to circle him until they attacked him, so that he could make the Duel last longer and not end up bored while he was waiting for everyone else to finish. He did this now, but to his suprise Neville wouldn't circle him back; he just tried to attack him again.

"Stupefy!"

Harry sidestepped the spell, and tried to lure Neville into circling him again; but Neville was having none of it.

"Diffindo!"

Harry again sidestepped the spell, and pointed his wand deliberately slowly at Neville.

"Vapulus!"

Neville dodged the spell easily, and Harry remembered how well he'd done at dodging Vanya's spells on Monday. Well then, he thought, as he blocked with his wand another disarming charm from Neville, lets see how well he does blocking my spells. He raised his wand.

"Durus Pulsus!"

Neville turned sideways to block the spell, and Harry knew that that was a mistake; he could have simply sent a quick spell straight away and Neville would have no room at all to manuevoure. But he gave Neville a little space, and allowed him to come back round before sending another spell at him.

"Prosterno!"

Neville sidestepped this one, not turning sideways himself this time, and sent a quick disarming charm at Harry who blocked it with his wand and sent it back to Neville, who put up a quick shield to block the deflected spell. Harry attempted to lure Neville yet again into circling him, but Neville was again having none of it; he seemed very focused now, his face completely clear of emotion as he stared at Harry across the floor, a more concentrated expression on his face than Harry had ever seen on him. He raised his wand.

"Percutio!"

Harry sidestepped the spell and raised his wand to counter-attack, but before he could. . .

"Expelliarmus!"

Neville sent another quick disarming charm at Harry, who barely dodged it by jumping sideways. He raised his wand again to attack, but still Neville ferociously attacked.

"Stupefy! Diffindo!"

"Protego!"

Harry's shield blocked the two spells, and as the second blocked spell was speeding back towards Neville Harry raised his wand.

"Expelliarmus!"

Neville ducked his own blocked spell as it sped back to him, but evidently did not see Harry's disarming charm come after it, which consequentially hit him hard in the chest, making him stagger backwards and fall on to the floor, and for his wand to fly out of his hand and into Harry's. Harry walked towards Neville immediately and pulled him up, grinnning at him, wishing to congratulate him straight away on how well he had done.

"Neville that was excellent!" he said, and Neville's eyes lit up.

"Really?" he said, and Harry nodded straight away.

"Definitely," he said firmly. "Best Duel of the day for me so far. When did you learn to Duel like that?"

Neville looked at the floor, looking embarassed. "Well all I did over the summer was read Duelling books really," he said to the floor. "I haven't really got the natural talent, so I was trying to learn it out of books."

Harry was puzzled at why this would embarass Neville. "Well what's wrong with that?" he asked, and Neville shrugged his shoulders, still looking at the floor. Harry decided that he'd give him some news that would probably make him feel better.

"Well you won't have to keep learning how to Duel out of books for much longer," he whispered to Neville, who lifted his head up now to look at him. "I'm starting the DA up again soon."

Neville's eyes lit up, and he opened his mouth to speak, but. . .

"Keep it quiet for now though," Harry said quickly. "I don't want anything to ruin the DA this year, I want to make sure everything's completely secure when it gets started up again. I just thought you'd like to know."

Neville nodded furiously, and Harry handed him his wand back and held out his hand. Neville shook it without hesitation.

"As I had said before Neville; excellent Duel, best Duel of the day for me so far. Well done!"

He grinned at Neville, who grinned back at him before walking towards Ron, who was re-awakening Terry Boot from a stunning spell. As Harry watched him and chuckled to himself, Draco Malfoy's unwelcome face appeared in front of him. Harry looked down at him and felt his head begin to throb with hatred, but fought down his emotion and simply stared at him; Malfoy would not make him lose control of himself this time, Harry vowed.

Malfoy had now withdrawn his wand, and was twirling it between his fingers in front of Harry's face.

"Ready to lose Potter?" Malfoy drawled, and Harry laughed openly at him, which Harry could see by his reaction made Malfoy furious.

"Don't make me laugh," he said quietly, and Malfoy smirked at him, as if he knew something Harry didn't. Harry doubted he actually did know anything.

"Ready then?" Malfoy asked, his face very focused like Neville's, but Harry just smirked at him.

"Now now Malfoy, what's the rush? Aren't you forgetting the little matter of shields? In your rush to lose against me you seem to have forgotten about that."

Malfoy said nothing, but merely quickly put his shield around him to ensure that his spells would only hit Harry. Harry smirked at him again, and quickly went about putting up his own shield.

"Durus Pulsus!"

Suddenly a blue spell hit Harry in his stomach, making him gasp in pain and nearly double over. Looking up, he saw Malfoy with his wand pointed at him sneering. He quickly stood up straight and raised his own wand, forgetting the pain in his stomach, but Malfoy had already sent off a stunning spell. Harry blocked it quickly and raised his wand.

"Vapulus!"

Malfoy deflected the spell with his wand and sent it back at Harry, who ducked it and sent a disarming charm back at him. Malfoy barely dodged it, and Harry quickly pointed his wand at him again.

"Durus Pulsus!"

The spell hit Malfoy in the middle of his chest and sent him flying backwards four or five feet on to the floor, where he lay gasping for air and coughing loudly, his wand rolling out of his hand. The class suddenly went silent as people stopped their Duels and stared at either Harry, standing still with his wand still pointed where Malfoy had stood, or at Malfoy, on the floor panting loudly. Seamus and Ron could be heard in the silence laughing at Malfoy, and Hermione looked like she was trying to look disapproving, but the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth gave her away. Vanya looked around at them all.

"Excellent application of the Durus Curse, Mr Potter," he said. "Ten points to Gryffindor."

Seamus cheered at this, and the class slowly went back to their Duels, some giving Harry approving looks and comments. Harry waited until everyone else's attention was back on their own Duels before advancing on Malfoy. He offered Malfoy his hand to pull him up as he approached him, but Malfoy batted it away in disgust, his coughing fit now under control, which had left him with a bright red face from his lack of breath. Harry shrugged at Malfoy batting his hand away, and looked down at him.

"Suit yourself."

And with that Harry strided swiftly away from him to the back of the room, where he watched Ron, Hermione and Neville in their Duels until everyone had finished Duelling eachother, which only took another fifteen minutes. He did not see Herrmione smile proudly at him as he turned his back on Malfoy.

The rest of the class went pretty quickly for Harry; he got a few pats on the back and fleeting 'congratulations' for knocking Malfoy flying, and the work was exactly what he'd had to do in his lessons with Kingsley and Moody in the summer, i.e. finding his weak spots and thinking about how they could be overcome, and so before he knew it the lesson was over and he was on the way to Spell Construction, being congratulated by everyone (especially Ron, who was still laughing about Malfoy's puffed-up purple face and coughing fit with Seamus and Dean) yet again for, as Seamus put it, "giving that blonde ponce a bloody well-needed kick up the arse."

Spell Construction with Nate was not as exciting as Defence Against the Dark Arts had been; they spent the double lesson researching famous Spell Constructers of the past, and Harry was stuck with some boring warlock named Wendiloa Wicklestickwho had created the first gas-generated spell or something like that. Harry scribbled a few notes down about the man and his methods and spent the rest of the lesson finishing reading his Spell Construction textbook, finishing it twenty minutes before the end of the double lesson. He breathed a sigh of relief when Nate said that they had to continue their research on their designated Spell Constructers as homework rather than give it in that lesson; he had only done eleven lines.

When the bell went and the school was pouring into the Great Hall for lunch, Harry pulled Ron and Hermione aside from the crowd and into a small alcove in the Entrance Hall.

"I need to talk to you."

For the last twenty minutes of his Spell Construction lesson, Harry had been brooding over when to tell Ron and Hermione about his trip to the Forest on Monday night. After lots of debating and indecisions in his mind he had decided that he would tell them after the lesson; it would be lunchtime then, and Ron and him had no more lessons that day. He was dreading telling them, but he figured it'd be better to do it sooner rather than later; after all, he was going to get the most of their help before his meeting in the Forest on Sunday, he had to tell them as soon as possible.

Hermione looked suprised and curious; Ron, however, looked dissappointed.

"Well is it really important?" he whinged, holding his stomach and looking in longing into the Great Hall. "It's just that it's lunchtime now, and I'm really hungry. . ."

"Oh for crying out loud Ron, can you stop thinking about your food for two seconds?" Hermione said impatiently, and Ron turned on her.

"Oh what, because I want something to eat at lunchtime, when people are supposed to eat, all I do is think about food? Is that it? Well excuse me if I want. . ."

"Don't start you two," Harry said, intervening in their growing argument. "Ron just go and grab some bacon or whatever and meet me out here in a minute. Hermione you'd better get some lunch as well."

"Well hang on, don't you want anything?" Ron said, already starting to walk into the Great Hall. Harry shook his head.

"Nah, I'm not hungry," he said casually, feeling his stomach rumble as he said so. Not that I'm going to be able to eat after telling these two this anyway.

Hermione shot a worried look at him as she followed him into the Great Hall, and Harry tried to give her a reassuring smile that he was fine; it did not seem to work. While the two of them were gone, a group of third-years came in through the front doors into the Entrance Hall, leaving the door open behind them. Wanting some fresh air to calm his nerves a bit, Harry walked towards the door and looked out over the Hogwarts lawn, seeing it was a perfect blue, clear end-of-summer day. Breathing in the fresh cool air deeply, Harry decided that he'd tell Ron and Hermione about the Lionheart myth outside, where at least he'd have some fresh air and some room to breathe if he felt that feeling of pressure he'd began to get frequently when thinking about such things as the Line of the Protectors, the prophecy and the Forest inside, particuarly when he was in bed at night.

"Ready then Harry?"

Harry turned; Ron and Hermione were standing behind him holding some burgers and toast in white serviettes. Hermione handed him a burger and some toast as the two of them approached him at the front doors.

"We got you some food just in case. Ron's idea, of course."

Ron, who had his mouth stuffed with chips, gave Harry a thumbs up and made some weird noises in his throat that vaguely sounded like he was trying to speak. Hermione gave him a disgusted look, and muttered, "honestly," to herself. Harry smiled at them both, and motioned for them to follow him outside, where he settled on a small verge overlooking the lake. Before sitting down, he sealed the area around them off with a silencing charm. After he had done that Harry sat down on the edge of the grass verge with a sigh, his feet dangling a few feet away from the water. Ron and Hermione sat down on either side of him. Ron had already finished all his food, and he and Hermione turned to Harry, giving him their full attention.

"So what did you want to talk to us about Harry?" said Hermione, looked at him anxiously. "Is it serious?"

"Yeah Harry, what's up? Feeling bad for kicking Malfoy's arse earlier? Nothing to feel sorry about mate, the twat deserved it," Ron said, trying to lighten the mood in response to the look on Harry's face. Harry did not answer, Hermione put her hand lightly on his arm.

"What is it Harry?" she asked gently, looking at him seriously. Ron, realising at last that what Harry was going to say was important, also looked at him in a serious and grim way, bracing himself for whatever Harry said.

Harry sighed, and looked out over the great lake, sparkling with the midday sun, and where, in the middle of the lake, the Giant Squid was floating peacefully, large ripples floating away from it as it slowly moved it's large tentacles lazily across the water. Across from it stood the Forbidden Forest, looking dark and shadowy even in the middle of a sunny day. Harry felt his heart began thump wildly in his chest as he stared at it.

High Protector and Guardian of the Great Forest. . .

"Harry?" Hermione said incertainly next to him, and Harry started, looking down at her in suprise; he had forgotten that he wasn't alone.

"You alright mate?" said Ron from his other side, a look of concern on his face. "You look really pale."

Harry laughed weakly. "As pale as Snape according to Fred and George," he said, giving them the two of them a small smile, to which they responded with confused looks. Harry shook his head; this was getting him nowhere.

"Look, you know when I went to Hagrid's last night?" he said to the two of them, and they both said yes, they remembered. "Well he took me into the Forest to see this Thestral who apparently wanted to see me. His name was Arganual, who I had this big chat with. Anyway, apparently my. . ."

"Hold on Harry, hold on," said Ron, interrupting him. "You're saying you had a chat with a Thestral?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, and. . ."

"Like a proper conversation?"

"Yes!" snapped Harry, sick of being interrupted. "They speak Parseltongue."

"Ohhh. . ." said Ron, his expression of utter bewilderment turning to one of realisation and understanding. Hermione on the other side of him lit up, her eyes shining with that thirst-for-knowledge look she had so much of the time, and which usually meant a lot of questions for some unfortunate soul. This time however she held her tongue, and kept any questions she might have had for Harry under wraps, allowing Harry to continue talking.

"Yes, they speak Parseltongue," he repeated, "and I had a conversation with one of them. His name was Argnaual, and he said he was Chief of his Race." He saw Hermione nod out of the corner of his eye, and turned to her.

"Was this Thestral, this 'Arganual,' really old?" she asked, and Harry stared at her in astonishment.

"Yeah, he was, I. . .how the hell did you know that?" Looking round, he could see Ron staring at her in astonishment as well.

Hermione sighed wearily. "Couldn't you two do some homework for at least once in your life?" she said bossily. "If you'd have done the research on Thestrals that Hagrid set us last year, you'd know that the Thestrals always have a Chief, and that he's almost always really really old, the oldest of the herd most of the time, what with them thinking that. . ."

"Anyway Harry," said Ron loudly and pointedly, drowning out Hermione's facts about Thestrals (Hermione reluctantly shut her mouth and glared at Ron), "what did this Thestral say to you?"

"Er, what did it say to me?" he said, his heart suddenly thumping wildly again. Ron nodded, and he and Hermione both looked at him expectantly. Harry sighed, took a very deep breath, and told them in a rush.

"He said that I'm Lionheart, the 'High Protector and Guardian of the Great Forest'," he said, his words coming out emotionless and in a rush. Ron and Hermione stared at him, their eyes wide with shock and confusion.

"I'm sorry?" said Hermione quietly, her voice shaking. "You're the 'Guardian of the Great Forest'? Well what does that mean? Do they mean the Forbidden Forest? And what on earth does 'Lionheart' mean? What do you mean you are this 'Lionheart'?"

Harry sighed again, and stared at the clear lake below his dangling feet, seeing his troubled face staring back at him. He turned his eyes away from it, and glided his sight across the lake to the shadowy forest opposite him.

"There is a tale," Harry began, keeping his eyes fixed on the Forest as his voice shook as he repeated Arganual's words, "that is told to all the creatures of the Forbidden Forest from the day of their birth, that talks of a man named Lionheart. This man, apparently, is the 'High Protector and Guardian of the Great Forest', and is the man who will lead the creatures of the 'Great Forest,' meaning obviously the Hogwarts Forbidden Forest, into a great battle one day, this day being 'When the time comes.' Anyway, according to Arganual, this 'Chief of the Thestrals,' this man is me."

Harry could feel Ron and Hermione's eyes on his face, but he kept his gaze firmly on the Forest opposite him. After a lengthly silence, in which not even the chirping of birds could be heard, Ron spoke, his voice shaking nearly as much as Harry's had been."

"Bloody hell. . ." he breathed, shaking his head. "But. . .but what does it all actually mean?" he said weakly. The 'High Protector and Guardian of the Great Forest?' What does that actually mean?"

"What it means," said Harry, his voice bitter, "is that I've got even more people, sorry, creatures, depending on me, more things for me to be responsible for and to protect, and even more people and creatures who think I'm sort sort of fucking God. So that's what all this shit means," he said, his voice hard. He kept his eyes firmly on the Forest, refusing to let himself break down in front of his friends as he felt the almost-physical weight of pressure and responsibility on his shoulders yet again.

After a while he felt something soft on his hand, and upon looking down, saw that Hermione had reached for his hand, and was grasping it tightly in hers. Harry tensed, not used to this kind of contact from anyone.

"Just relax Harry," she said quietly, squeezing his hand reassuringly. He looked over her head at Ron, ready to share the alarmed looks they gave eachother when Hermione did strange things like this, but to his suprise Ron just clapped him on the shoulder and stared across the lake at the Forest, leaving his hand supportively on Harry's shoulder. Harry looked across the lake as well, and saw Hermione do the same.

As he sat there, overlooking the diamond-strewn, sparkling blue lake with the two people he cared most about in the entire world, and with the silent reassurance that they had given him through both their looks and their physical contact that they were here for him no matter what happened, Harry, for the first time in a very long time, truly relaxed, revelling in the comfort of his two best friends on either side of him, and, for once, looked across at the Great Forest opposite him completely unflinchingly, feeling that he could take anything that Voldemort, the Forbidden Forest, Dumbledore and the rest of the world threw at him, so long as he had his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, by his side.

After a few minutes Harry's feelings of elation and relaxation passed, and he began to feel uncomfortable with Hermione's warm hand on his, and with Ron's hand on his shoulder. He stood up quickly, so quickly he startled Ron and Hermione and nearly slipped off the edge of the grass verge they were all on the edge of. They both looked at him in suprise.

"Alright Harry?" said Ron, getting to his feet as well, Hermione doing the same on his other side. Harry nodded, and mentally berated himself for relaxing, and thus losing focus on what he was supposed to be doing. He turned to them both.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, running a hand through his hair and still irritated with himself, although he could not deny that relaxing had done him the world of good. He felt a lot looser, and a lot more carefree, even though he wasn't carefree, not by a long shot. . .he shook his head.

"Look," he said, mentally berating himself again for losing focus, "now that you know about the whole Lionheart thing, I need your help with it."

Hermione's expression of suprise at Harry's abrupt motion of standing-up turned, predictably, to one of interest and eagerness, and her face lit up as it did when faced with a challenge. Similarly, an expression of fierce determination crossed Ron's face.

"Just tell us what to do," he said firmly, and Hermione nodded in agreement. Harry smiled at them.

"Thanks. Ok, well you know I said that it's going to be me who leads all the creatures of the Forest into battle?" Ron and Hermione nodded. "Well if I have to do that, I'm going to have to train them up a bit first aren't I? I mean I know they're animals, sharp claws and sharp teeth and all that, but if they're going to be up against Voldemort's Death Eaters, and probably some of Voldemort's creatures like trolls and giants as well, they're going to have to be properly trained up; you know, learn how to defend themselves as well as attack, how to manevoure in a battle situation, how to sense and dodge spells, how to work as a team, you know, things like that. And they're going to have to be properly organised as well; I can't just lead them charging in as one giant force, without any structure, they'd get destroyed in seconds. So I'm going to need them organised into groups, so I can actually plan how to command them in the battle; you know, formations, when and where I should send certain groups in, when I should call them back, things like that.

"Anyway, I thought that you two," he said, nodding at Ron and Hermione, "could help me with all this. Ron, I reckon that you in particular can help with the organisation and the strategy aspects of all this. I mean I know this is a bit different from chess but you're an excellent chess player, and chess is a game of strategy and formation, so it stands to reason that you'd be good at creating strategies and formations, and organising different forces to work together to win. And Hermione, I need you in particular to do a lot of research for me, as you're easily the most effective researcher out of us three; I need you to research and find out about the different types of animals that live in the Forest, so I know how to deal with them, and in what ways I could possibly train them. You could probably get a lot of this stuff from Hagrid."

Harry stopped there to catch his breath, and looked at Ron's gobsmacked face. Hermione also looked rather suprised.

"What?" he said to them.

"Well you only found out about all this stuff on Monday night didn't you?" Ron asked, and Harry nodded. "Well, it seems very bloody well thought you know, considering you only found out about it less than two days ago! I mean you've already got all these plans about organisation, and battle tactics, and training them. . .it just sounds so. . .complex already, considering you only found out on Monday? It's weird. . .when did you come up with all this?"

Harry smiled humourlessly. "I went down to the common room after you two were asleep on Monday night, and wrote all these plans down. Didn't get to bed till half three. And these plans aren't all complex already Ron, they're just vague ideas that I thought you two could help me with. They're just ideas at the moment, not real plans, not yet anyway. So, do you two think you can do what I've asked of you?"

"Of course Harry," Hermione said immediately, and Ron nodded his agreement as well. "But I need a bit more information from you before I can do my part. Hagrid can't know about every single race in that Forest. Couldn't you find out any more information from this Arganual?"

"Oh!" Harry cried, slapping his head. "I forgot about that for the minute. Hermione, forget about researching what animals may live in the Forest; I'll know of every single one on Sunday."

"On Sunday?" Ron and Hermione said at the time. "Why, what's happening on Sunday?" Ron asked.

"Arganual's called a 'Meeting of the Forest,' for all the creatures in the Forest to see me, and I said to do it this Sunday; easiest day to do it on I reckon." He shrugged. Ron and Hermione still looked perplexed.

"And what exactly is a 'Meeting of the Forest,' Harry?" asked Hermione.

"Apparently it's a meeting of all the races of the Forest," Harry said. "The creatures of the Forest, usually the Centaurs or the Thestrals, call them when there's an issue that affects all the creatures of the Forest, like an outside threat or something. Arganual said that each race would have representatives there to speak for their race as a whole."

"Like a council," Ron concluded, to both Harry and Hermione's suprise. Harry nodded at him.

"Er, yeah, like a council. Anyway, this Meeting is where all the races will 'debate my claim as Lionheart,' even though I didn't make any damn claim to start with. But yeah, they all want to see me, and I'll probably have to answer a load of stupid questions about how much of a 'hero' I am." Harry stopped talking suddenly, and grinned at Ron and Hermione. "I've got to act like a real hero as well."

"Of course," said Hermione, realisation dawning on her face. "All these creatures will have grown up knowing your story; they're going to be expecting some sort of mythical prince or something, or some giant warrior, or at least expecting someone. . .well, no offence, but someone different to you."

Harry laughed bitterly, and shook his head. "It's like being an eleven year old again," he muttered. "You know, when I first came to Hogwarts, and everyone expected me to be this legendary great warrior hero or something, even though I was only eleven? And all they got in the end was me. . .how dissappointing eh? And I'm not sure wild creatures who live in the Forest are going to be so understanding as human beings are. . ."

Ron swallowed, and Hermione looked quite anxious. "Oh don't worry," Harry said quickly to reassure them. "None of them will hurt me, not if they know that there's even the tiniest amount of proof that I am Lionheart, I don't think any of them would risk hurting me if they know that."

"Do you have to go by yourself?" Hermione asked suddenly, looking worried about him.

Harry thought about it. "I think it'd be better if I did go by myself, yeah. Arganual's told me that I have to act as commanding and authortarian as possible, and I'll feel like an idiot doing that if you two are around, no offence."

Ron held up his hands. "None taken mate, none taken. So, when do you want to get started on these plans? Tonight?"

"Well tonight's fine, so long as it's alright with Hermione." Harry looked at her, and she bit her lip for a few seconds, which Harry and Ron both knew meant that she was either worried or thinking hard, before seemingly coming to her senses and shaking her head violently for a few seconds. She looked up at Harry.

"Yes, tonight's fine Harry, homework can wait," she said firmly. "What do you need exactly? Shall we just organise these plans into a coherent programme first?"

"Well I need to outline my plans at this Meeting on Sunday," he said, "so I just need some, well, outlines really, some solid guidelines that'll be detailed enough to convince them all that I know what I'm talking about." Hermione nodded.

"We should easily be able to do that by Sunday, what with three of us working on this. I think the best thing to do would be for me to write up all these plans in a speech for you Harry, that you can say at the Meeting. As long as you memorise this speech and address the animals with it confidentally and powerfully, they'll undoubtedly believe you."

Harry nodded. "Er, yeah, that sounds perfect Hermione, thanks. Ron? Does this all seem okay to you?" he asked his tall friend.

Ron nodded, and took a deep breath. "Yeah yeah, it all seems fine," he said, running a hand through his hair. "I'm just still trying to get my head around all this."

Harry laughed. "You're not the only one mate," he said, and then turned to the two of them. "But I just want you both to know, you know, that having you two helping me while I do this means a lot to me, and, you know. . .thanks."

"No problem mate," said Ron, clapping him on the shoulder, and Hermione said, "we know you'd do the same for us."

Harry smiled at the two of them, and said, "come on, let's get back to the castle; Hermione, haven't you got a lesson this afternoon?"

Hermione gasped and looked at her wrist suddenly, before looking up at the two of them horror-struck.

"Oh my god, I'm fifteen minutes late for Arithmacy!" she said, before turning and beginning to run back up the lawn towards the castle, her giant bag of books smashing against her back as she ran.

Harry and Ron laughed. "Some things never change, do they mate?" he said, grinning at him, before running off to catch up with Hermione. Harry smiled at him, and took one last look at the Forest across the lake, no longer shadowy but bathed in gold light by the afternoon sunlight, before turning to catch up with his two best friends.

"Seriously Harry, I don't know what you think you're playing at."

Harry looked down at Ron, sitting on the floor of the Gryffindor Common Room and looking up at him with what seemed to be an expression of disgust. "I mean, what's with all this 'I have to go to the library and do some research' rubbish? Since when have you been that bothered about bloody schoolwork?"

Harry sighed. He and Ron had just said goodbye to Hermione as she left for her arithmacy class, and he had told Ron he was going to the library to do some more research for Spell Construction. He shrugged his shoulders at him.

"I just want to make a decent start this year, alright? I thought I explained this last night?" he said, growing tired with having to justify himself to Ron just for going to the library, as if that were an horrific act of criminality. "What's the big deal?"

"Because it's just not you!" Ron burst out. "We've been at Hogwarts five years now, don't you think it's a bit late for a fresh start? We've only got two years left!"

"Of course it's not too late," Harry shot back. "We're only starting our NEWT courses this year, there's plenty of time to. . ."

"Merlin, you sound like Hermione," Ron muttered under his breath, interrurpting him mid-sentence, and Harry sighed. He walked back down the steps until he was on the step above Ron, making them the same height. He looked Ron in the eye.

"Look," he said to Ron quietly, "do you really think I care about the actual grades? Of course I don't care about the grades. Why would I, considering what else is going on? That's the reason I'm trying to make a 'fresh start' this year. I mean, look at everything Hermione knows, and how many times what she knows has got us out of trouble; don't you think it'd be useful to have that kind of knowledge? I've stumbled through five years of having Voldemort after me by running away and being lucky, and I'm sick to death of it. It's time I finally got a grip, don't you think?"

"Yeah I suppose," Ron mumbled, "it's just hard to get grips with, that's all. You know, all these sudden changes with you."

"I'm still the same person Ron," Harry said, feeling a bit hurt by Ron's words. "I'm just trying to do the best I can, alright?"

"Yeah I know," Ron sighed, looking Harry in the eye. "Come on then, let's get to the damn library."

"You're coming as well?" Harry said in suprise, and Ron nodded.

"Well I'll have to won't I? It's either that or a midnight stroll with Hermione tonight to come wake you up, and quite frankly I can't be bothered doing all that again." He grinned at Harry, who grinned back at him.

"Thanks Ron," he said to Ron's back, as he was already climbing the stairs to the library. He looked back briefly at Harry's words.

"Anytime mate, anytime."

In the end the two of them spent over five hours in the library, joined by a suprised Hermione at four o'clock when her Arithmacy class finished. In his Spell Construction research (Harry had decided to leave the Meeting of the Forest plans to the night after, when he didn't need to prepare for a Spell Construction lesson) Harry managed to read the rest of his textbook that he had fallen asleep the night before reading, and then read a book, as he had hoped to do, that outlined roughly the 'Five Aspects' that Nate had stressed were so important to the study of Spell Construction. When Ron and Hermione succeeded in dragging him down to the Great Hall for dinner he was accosted by Professor McGonagall, who told him quietly as she passed that his meeting with Dumbledore was at half past eight, and to not be late. Harry had told Ron and Hermione that the meeting was to organise his security for future Hogsmeade visits, and they seemed to have believed him.

Ron, to both his and Harry's suprise, had actually seemed to enjoy being in the library with Harry that night. After he'd finished his homework Harry had lent him Practical Defensive Magic and it's Use Against the Dark Arts, the set of books that Sirius and Remus had got for him the previous Christmas, which Ron spent hours pouring over, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was in the library and was in fact studying, something he'd always been strictly against. Hermione too seemed equally shocked at this new development, and spent much of their time in the library that night shaking her head in disbelief at Ron.

By eight o'clock Harry was beginning to feel distinctly nervous, although also filled with determination for what he knew he needed to do. As he had been reading the Spell Construction books he had found himself constantly blocking from his mind the reason why he was reading them, and the consequences of what would happen the longer he took to understand Spell Construction and create the spell that would destroy Voldemort. He felt that, although he had known about The Line of Protectors since the end of summer, the full impact of it was only now hitting him. He had a real focus now; he knew what he needed to do, and knew now how his final Duel with Voldemort had to end. The Prophecy had confirmed to him that he was the only one who could defeat Voldemort, and now Dumbledore and The Line of Protectors were going to give him the means by which to do so. No one could say that he was too young anymore, and that he should leave fighting Voldemort to the 'grown-ups' in the Order of the Phoenix; it was he who had to defeat Voldemort, not them, and so how could he leave the fighting and the decision-making to them? It was his fight, not theirs. And, of course, if they. . .

"Harry!"

Harry started, and looked up. Ron and Hermione were staring at him, Ron waving his hand in front of Harry's face, and as he looked up Ron gave an over-exaggerated sigh of relief.

"Finally!" he said dramatically. "Don't take too long waking up from your day-dream Harry mate. You alright?"

Harry smiled blearily. "Yeah I'm fine," he said, shaking his head. "What time is it?"

"Quarter past eight," Hermione said. "You've got that meeting with Professor Dumbledore at half past, so we thought we should make sure you knew what the time is."

"And make sure that you were actually awake so you could go to it," Ron interjected, and Harry smiled at the two of them.

"Thanks," he said, and began clearing up his books. "Suppose I should get going then. Are you two staying here?"

"Staying here? No bloody way are we staying here! We've been here since two o' clock!" Ron said, and Hermione glared at him.

"But I thought you said you were enjoying looking through those Defence books?" Harry said to Ron, puzzled, and Ron waved his hand dismissively at him.

"Nah I am, they're great, cheers for lending them to me, but I can read through these in the Common Room, where there's nice comfy sofas, not hard wooden chairs, and where we're not surrounded by dusty bookshelves and a squeaky librarian. Come to think of it, why have we been in this library so long? Why couldn't you have done your work in the Common Room?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know, I could of I suppose. I just thought. . ."

"Anyway," Hermione interrupted, making Harry and Ron start, "you need to get going Harry. We'll take your stuff back to Gryffindor Tower with us."

"Thanks," said Harry to her, handing her his bag, while Ron still seemed to be thinking about exactly why they'd spent five hours in the library. He put the books he'd read that afternoon back on his Spell Construction shelf, and stood up.

"I'll see you two later then, yeah? Thanks for staying with me today."

"That's alright mate, we love hanging out in the library, haven't you noticed?"

Harry made a face at Ron, said goodbye to the two of them and made his way up to Dumbledore's office.

As he walked the familiar corridors he started to feel nervous again, although he knew he wasn't completely ill-prepared for the lesson. He felt that he now had a decent-enough understanding of the basics of Spell Construction to be able to make a decent start, although he reckoned Dumbledore would probably see it differently. Still, he had to try.

Before he knew it he was standing in front of the familiar ugly stone gargoyle that marked the entrance to Dumbledore's office. He felt the familar feeling of panic of not knowing the password until remembering that, for once, he actually did know the password.

"Pumpkin Juice!" he said clearly, and the gargoyle jumped aside as the wall behind it split in two, and Harry walked forward and on to the spiral staircase, which transported him slowly upwards to Dumbledore's tower office. He hesitantly knocked the large griffon-shaped brass knocker when he reached the top.

"Come in," Dumbledore's voice called from behind the thick oak door, and Harry opened the door and entered Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore himself was sitting behind his desk writing what seemed to be a letter, and looked up and smiled as he saw Harry.

"Ah Harry," he said, smiling. "Welcome. Please bear with me, I'll be with you in two seconds."

"That's fine, Sir."

As he waited Harry looked around the office, noticing, to his suprise, that not a single one of the occupants of the magical paintings on the walls was present in their paintings; the paintings were all simply backgrounds, cosy sitting rooms and sprawling landscapes. As he continued to look around, he suddenly felt a familar, comforting warmth on his right shoulder. Turning his head, he smiled at what he saw.

"Hello Fawkes," he said, stroking the Phoenix's head, and Fawkes squawed softly, pushing the side of his face into Harry's hand. He was in full bloom today, his red and gold feathers shining magnificently in the dying sunlight from the window behind Dumbledore, and seemed larger than Harry remembered him. As Harry continued to stroke him and Fawkes rubbed his face against his hand he felt his shoulders loosen involuntarily, and began to relax immensely, the anguish of the last week vanishing from memory for a few, blissful seconds. He gasped at the feeling.

This moment of complete relaxation was abruptly destroyed by a whistling noise made by Dumbledore that cut through Harry's mind, making all his present problems and difficulties flood back to his consciousness. As he remembered exactly why he was there, Harry shook his head and focused his mind on Spell Construction and The Line of the Protectors, refusing to let his moment of relaxation distract him from doing what he knew he had to do. Fawkes pushed down on his shoulder gently and flew to Dumbledore, who quickly attatched a letter to his talon and whispered something to him. Fawkes cooed softly, and dissappeared in a burst of flame.

"Sorry about that Harry," Dumbledore said now, standing up and advancing from behind his desk. "Urgent letter, couldn't wait. I'm sure you understand."

"Uh, of course," said Harry hesitantly, wondering if he was meant to know something secret here, but then shook his head again, realising he didn't actually care. He looked Dumbledore in the eye. "So, can we start now then?"

"First I need to know how much research you've done," Dumbledore said quickly, "we can't very well do anything if you don't understand it, can we?"

"I've read my textbook front-to-back, and I've read a book on the Five Aspects, so I know quite a bit about them. I've read some parts of other books as well, like Secteral Spell Creation, and a bit on the philsophy of Spell Construction."

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows, looking pleasantly suprised, but also concerned. "That's very impressive Harry, considering your other commitments. But you can't let this consume your life, Harry. I know how important it is, but you can't be neglecting everything else just to concentrate on this."

"I'm not," Harry insisted, thinking bitterly how hard that would be to do even if we wanted to only concentrate on creating the Spell. "I'm not letting it consume my life Sir, so don't worry. I've just been staying up a bit later than usual. Besides, we haven't been set that much homework this week."

"Just remember my advice Harry," said Dumbledore, clearly not believing him. "Do not let it consume you. Are we agreed?"

Harry sighed. "Yes Sir, I'll try my best."

"And that's all I'll ask for," Dumbledore said, gesturing for Harry to sit down on the chair in front of his desk, while he himself turned and sat again in the grand chair behind his desk. He steepled his long gnarled fingers together and surveyed Harry over the top of them, looking him in the eye. Harry looked back.

"Where do you think we should start, Harry?" he said, and Harry thought for a second.

"Well I want to get right into it, you know, to start creating spells, but from what Nate, sorry, from what Professor Thorlaug said, it's take almost a year to get to that level. Actually Sir, how long do you think it's going to take me individually to get to that level? You know, considering I'm having these lessons with you and doing so much research?"

Dumbledore did not answer him immediately, but looked him in the eyes, seemingly thinking hard. After a few moments he spoke.

"Have you spoke to Mr Gonzales yet about some sort of extra help for you in Spell Construction?" he said, and Harry shook his head.

"No, not yet. I'm not sure if I want to, you know, because this is so important to keep you secret. Dumbledore nodded.

"Nevertheless I think you would benefit from personal tutorials in Spell Construction by Mr Gonzales," he went on. "He is highly skilled in the subject, and I feel it would be very beneficial to you to be taught personally by him, without the distraction of your classmates. I will work the means to ensure that he does not think any of this is out of the normal. That way you will get your tutorials and our secret will be safe."

Harry nodded, not feeling inclined to ask how he was going to 'work the means' to make that possible. Dumbledore spoke again.

"In response to your question, I believe that with your personal tutorials with Mr Gonzales, your lessons with me, and your own research, you should reach the level of beginning to create spells by around February or March of next year."

Harry's heart sank. "That long?" he said in despair. "Five or six months? But how many people will Voldemort have killed by that point? How much. . ."

"Do not think of that," Dumbledore said firmly, his voice hard, making Harry look at him in suprise. "Do not think of it in that context Harry. All that will achieve is self-destruction."

"But how can I not?" Harry replied. "It's up to me to get this spell created, the longer I take the more people who'll die. . "

"It is not up to you Harry, it is up to us," said Dumbledore in the same hard tone, "and it is not going to be created in a matter of weeks or months. You must accept that. If you don't accept that then you will be thinking about the wrong things in our lessons together, and will, although it sounds extreme, suffer a mental breakdown. I speak from experience."

Harry looked up sharply and into Dumbledore's hard eyes, opening his mouth in disbelief. "You. .you mean you. . .you had a mental breakdown when you were doing this?"

"Yes," Dumbledore said, keeping his eyes on Harry's. "I concentrated on the wrong things exactly the same way you are doing, but unfortunately my tutor did not realise the extent to which these thoughts were consuming me. Luckily you and I have a much closer relationship than that, and I am not going to let you make the same mistakes I did."

Harry looked at Dumbledore in wonder, feeling a horrible feeling in his chest and stomach as he saw Dumbledore, for the first time in his life, as an old man, weary and worn, rather than a superman who could solve everything. He had felt a similar feeling last year, what with Dumbledore being forced out by Fudge and Umbridge, but never at such a personal and dramatic level as he did now. He suddenly felt a somewhat-protective instinct over his professor, and nodded at him, determined not to let him down.

"Understood Sir. I'll try to block those thoughts out, you have my word. Now, can we start now?"

Dumbledore chuckled, taking his spectacles off and rubbing his eyes. "Very well then Harry, let us begin. But first you need to answer my previous question; Where do you think we should start?"

"Well creating any kind of spell at all is out of the question at the moment isn't it?" Dumbledore nodded. "Well then I suppose we should do some more work on the Five Aspects, shouldn't we?"

"That is what I propose Harry, yes," Dumbledore said, nodding. "Here is what we will do; there are Five Aspects that you need to understand extensively; the Language Aspect, the Element Aspect, the Signature Aspect, the Atmosphere Aspect, and the Magical Aspect. As the Magical Aspect and the Signature Aspect are the Aspects better taught by a teacher who knows the student well personally, I will assume the responsibility of teaching you those two Aspects. I will instruct Mr Gonzales to tutor you in the Element Aspect and the Atmosphere Aspect in your personal tutorials together. As for the Language Aspect, you will be learning that momentarily in your normal Spell Construction lessons anyway, although I advise you to get to grips with this Aspect in your own personal research as quickly as you can, and to make this your primary focus for the next month or so, as it is the building block upon which all the other Aspects are built upon. Does this all sound satisfactory to you Harry?"

"It all sounds fine Sir, except for the Language Aspect. If, like you said, that that Aspect is the one that you need to help you learn the other Aspects, shouldn't I concentrate on that one before doing any of the others? If I did that one with you, Nate in our private lessons and in class, and in my research, how long would it take me to get to grips with it then?"

"I cannot give you an estimate Harry," Dumbledore said, "I do not yet know how well you will adapt to the study of Spell Construction. But I see your point Harry, and I will trust your instincts. Very well; we will concentrate primarily on the Language Aspect of Spell Construction for the present. Now, how much Latin do you know?"

Harry spent the rest of the lesson learning the basic grammar of Latin and the Latin joining words needed to create incantations for spells in Latin, with the promise that in his lesson next Wednesday he would learn the basic grammar and joining words of Gaelic, followed by the basic grammar of Finish the week after that. Nate, he was told, would deal with how, when and why different languages were needed for certain spells, and that while Dumbledore would deal with teaching him the theory of the Language Aspect, Nate would teach him the application of it.

After they had finished their lesson Dumbledore made them both a cup of tea and asked Harry about his first few days back at Hogwarts. He seemed to know all about his Duel with Vanya already, and congratulated him on winning it before Harry had even mentioned it. Harry went through the last few days of school with Dumbledore, discussing his Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons with Vanya and the terms of his participation in Snape's NEWT Potions class, before Dumbledore mentioned something that made Harry froze.

"So Harry, did Hagrid explain what he wished to speak to you about on Monday night?"

Harry froze, but showed no outward trace of his shock. "Uh, yes, he did Sir. . ." he said slowly, wondering how much Dumbledore knew. "Why?"

"I know all about it already Harry, Fawkes informed me a week ago. He corresponds regularly with many of the creatures of the Forest, particuarly the Unicorns." Harry nodded, but said nothing. "I am sorry about the pressure this puts you under, particuarly with everything else you are having to cope with at the moment, but I am afraid it cannot be helped. So, how do you feel about it?"

"Well how do you think I feel?" Harry said sharply. "It's just one more thing for me to deal with, isn't it? Might as well get used to it, I'm just waiting for the next revelation now that tells me how special I am. I suppose I'm the Heir of Gryffindor as well am I? Destined to battle and defeat Voldemort, the Heir of Slytherin?"

"No Harry, you are not the Heir of Gryffindor," Dumbledore said quietly, shaking his head. "The Gryffindor line was ended when the last childless heir fell in a lake in Dartmoor whilst fishing in 1573. Not exactly the noble end you were expecting I expect?"

"Not really," said Harry sarcastically.

"So Harry, you did not answer my question; how do you feel about all this?"

Harry sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his right hand. "I really don't want to talk about it Sir," he said quietly, and saw out of the corner of his eye Dumbledore bow his head.

"Very well," said Dumbledore, "I will respect your wishes for now. However, there is something important I should mention to you about it, and something that I think will make you feel less alone with this new revelation.

"And what's that then?"

"Do you remember the three members of the Order you met in this office on Sunday night.

Harry nodded. "Fiona Trout, Roderick Bodmin and Lilian Birch," he recited, and Dumbledore nodded. Harry gave him a puzzling glance. "Well what about them? I thought they were here to monitor Hogwarts security?"

"They are," Dumbledore said, "and do you not think this comes under that category?"

Harry nodded. "I suppose so."

"Well as I said on Sunday night to you all, you will be working on a project together. This project will be training the animals of the Forest for battle."

Harry's mouth dropped open, feeling a strange feeling of relief course through him. "So I'm going to have some help doing this?" he asked Dumbledore, who raised his eyebrows.

"Well of course you are, Harry. It would be impossible for you to attempt this entirely on your own."

"Well I do have some plans worked out already. And Ron and Hermione know as well," Harry said, feeling belittled by Dumbledore's words, and determined to show that he didn't need to rely on the Order to help him in this, although he was grateful for their help. "Hermione's going to help me with research; find out about the different types of animals in the Forest, how they behave, what their strengths and weaknesses would be in a combat situation, that kind of thing. And Ron's going to help me with strategy and tactics, how to position and group the animals, teach them strategies and movements, flanking, that kind of thing. I want them involved as well."

"Of course," Dumbledore said, looking impressed at Harry's words. "It seems that you have already given this much thought Harry. I am impressed. Have you organised a Meeting of the Forest with the Thestrals and the other creatures?"

"Er, yeah, I have," said Harry slowly, amazed at how much Dumbledore knew. "It's this Sunday."

Dumbledore nodded. "And have you given this much thought yet?"

Harry shook his head. "Me, Ron and Hermione are going to work on it tomorrow. Hermione's going to write me a speech to address the creatures with, that will make me sound, you know, 'strong and powerful.'"

Dumbledore smiled. "I'm sure it will not be that hard a job," he said, his eyes twinkling. He reached down into a drawer of his desk and withdrew a small folded piece of parchment, and handed it to Harry. Harry took it and stared at Dumbledore questioningly.

"This should assist Miss Granger immensely with her speech-writing for you Harry. I can't imagine she'd just want to use this one by itself. Be careful it does not fall into the wrong hands. I advise a secrecy spell."

Harry nodded in agreement, and, placing the folded piece of parchment down on the desk, he pointed his wand at it and said, "dissimulo." The parchment glowed blue for a second before returning to it's normal colour. Harry pocketed the parchment.

"Now, where was I. . ." said Dumbledore, trailing off for a second. "Ah that's right, the training of the animals. Now, I think I should leave the actual detail of this plan to Mrs Trout, Mr Bodmin and Miss Birch to explain to you. They asked me to tell you to contact Mr Bodmin at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon, using the communication device that your ring provides. They said that they would arrange a time then to meet you so that the four of you can talk this through. Well, the six of you now I suppose."

Harry nodded at Dumbledore, but said nothing.

"Of course Sir."

"Excellent," said Dumbledore, standing up and waving his hand, his and Harry's spent cups of tea vanishing away. "I believe that that concludes our meeting for today. I hope this was beneficial to you Harry, I'll see you again next Wednesday."

Harry nodded, and turned to leave, but as he grasped the door handle a voice called out for him from behind him.

"Remember what I told you Harry," Dumbledore said now, both a clear warning and a clear threat in his voice as he spoke. "Don't let Voldemort and what he is doing at the moment consume your life. Do you understand?"

Harry opened his mouth to argue back against this, but found that he couldn't. Sighing, he said the only truthful thing he felt he could say at that given moment.

"I'll try my best."

Harry returned to the suprisingly-empty Gryffindor Common Room eventually at quarter past ten, finding Ron spawled out in his usual armchair still pouring through Practical Defensive Magic and it's Use Against the Dark Arts, with Hermione sat at a table next to him surrounded by books, ink and parchment, presumably doing some sort of homework. Harry made for them as he stumbled through the portrait hole.

"Alright mate?" Ron said as Harry walked over to them. "Meeting go alright?"

"Yeah fine," Harry said dismissively, attempting to keep his voice casual. "You know, the usual. Invisible guards and all that."

"Mmm. ." Ron said in reply, engrossed in his book again, making Harry shake his head.

"Seriously Ron, I don't think I've ever seen you that obsessed by a book before," Harry teased, and Ron looked up in suprise.

"Well have you actually read this book Harry?" he said, nonplussed at Harry's comment. "It's excellent! Some of the curses they've got, I can't wait to learn them, you'll have to teach me some. Come to think of it," he said, looking around and lowering his voice, "when are we gonna start up the DA again? People keep asking me about it."

Harry mused, "I'm not too sure yet, I haven't really thought about it. I still want some sort of security guarantee on the DA this year. Like Hermione put on the DA member list last year, but more secure, because, you know, that didn't stop Edgecombe telling people about us did it?"

"No, it didn't," said Hermione suddenly from her table, making Ron and Hermione spin around, "and I've been looking for something better, but it's taking a while to find the right one. Give me a week and I'll have it done."

Harry, not expecting this, thought the best thing to do here would be to just agree, so he nodded and said, "right, okay, good."

"In the meantime," Hermione continued, holding up a ink-dotted piece of parchment, "I've got about a quarter of this speech written, but it's really difficult. Do you want to read it so far?"

"Er, nah wait until it's finished, then I'll read it. Oh yeah, that reminds me." He motioned for Ron and Hermione to get closer to him, which they did, and then he told them, "Dumbledore knows about all of this. The Lionheart stuff. Fawkes told him, he speaks to the animals in there sometimes."

Ron and Hermione gave him suprised looks. "Well is he still going to let you train them?" Hermione asked, and Harry stared at her.

"What do you mean 'let' me train them? He doesn't have a choice, I'm going to do it anyway!"

"Well what is he going to do then, now that he knows that you're doing this?" Ron said.

"Well there's three members of" (Harry looked around again, and lowered his voice even more) "the Order that I met on Sunday night; Fiona Trout, Roderick Bodmin, and Lilian Birch. Dumbledore said that there going to help me train the animals."

"Well that's good!" said Hermione. "Are they still going to. . ."

"But what about us?" interrupted Ron, earning him a glare from Hermione. "I thought you said me and Hermione were going to help you with all this, with the training of the animals and the research and the strategy and stuff?"

"You are going to help me," Harry said firmly to Ron, "I've already told Dumbledore that I want you both involved in this, and he's agreed."

"So what exactly are these three other people going to do?" interrupted Hermione.

"I don't know yet," said Harry, "I've got to. .send them an owl tomorrow lunchtime and tell them when I want a meeting with them, which you two will also be at, and then we can sort out each person's role then."

Ron nodded, and Hermione followed suit. "fair enough," Ron said, followed by Hermione saying, "that all sounds fine to me."

Harry nodded. "Right. Good. Oh yeah, anyway, Dumbledore gave me this." He pulled out the folded piece of parchment that Dumbledore had given him earlier that night, and held it up in front of Ron and Hermione. "He said it would you with the speech."

Hermione's eyes quickly gained that hungry-for-knowledge look, and she held out her hand for the parchment, but Harry pulled it back and set it down on the table.

"Hold on," he said, withdrawing his wand, "it's got a secrecy spell on it. Finite Incantatem!"

The piece of parchment glowed blue again as it had done in Dumbledore's office, and then quickly returned to it's original colour. Harry handed the parchment to Hermione, who unfolded it quickly and began perusing it's contents. After a minute she stopped reading, looking puzzled, and looked up at Harry with a questioning look on her face.

"It's an entire speech on the same thing," she said, and Harry rememebered what Dumbledore had said, and nodded.

"Well that makes sense. When he gave it to me he said, 'I can't imagine she'd just want to use this one by itself,' so he must have thought that you'd prefer to right your own one, but this one could help you doing that, you know, you can take chunks out of it and stuff."

"Why can't you just use that one?" Ron said. "If Dumbledore wrote it, what's the point in trying to write one even better?"

Hermione didn't answer; she was now reading the alternative speech, and frowning.

"No Ron, Harry's right," she said, her eyes still scanning the parchment. "I think I could write a slightly better speech than this, although a lot of it is good. It's just the language in this one seems too elitist, and arrogant, arrogant past the extent to which you should be talking about yourself at this Meeting."

"Er, okay," said Harry, suprised by Hermione's words. "You've really put a lot of effort into this haven't you? Thank you."

"It's perfectly fine Harry," Hermione said, her eyes still on the parchment, "I know you'd have done it for me."

"Well yeah of course I would, except for the fact that I can't write a speech," he said.

"Oh you know what I mean," she said impatiently, still reading Dumbledore's prescribed speech.

"Mmmm. . ." Harry said in reply, sitting down in the armchair next to Ron, revelling in it's comfort and it's warmth. He turned to Ron.

"I'll get started on the DA plans tomorrow, alright? You know, where it's going to be held, when it's going to be held, and all that. . . I'm not sure I want it in the Room of Requirement this year though. I want somewhere more secure."

"What's wrong with the Room of Requirement?" Ron said questioningly. "Why's that not secure enough?"

"Well say someone, like Malfoy, suspects that the DA's being held in there at a certain time, yeah? Well all he'd need to do to get to us would be to just tell the room that he requires to see us, and then he'd be able to see us, and we'd be blown; he'd know all the member's names, he could pass these names on to Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and things could get much much worse. Do you see what I mean?"

"Yeah yeah, I get it," said Ron, scratching his chin and evidently thinking hard. "Unless we could somehow make the Room of Requirement only obey us. . .think that would work Hermione?"

Hermione did not look up but went still, and it was clear that she was no longer reading the parchment. After a minute she looked up at Harry and Ron.

"It actually might do," she said, thinking, "but don't get your hopes up. This is Hogwarts remember, it's not going to be easy to charm a powerful magical object such as the Room of Requirement into obeying only your will. But with the right kind of spells, it could work. . ."

"Maybe I could ask Dumbledore about it," Harry offered, looking around once more to check no one was listening to them, "I'm sure he'd be happy to help."

"No not yet, don't let any teachers know about this until it's completely organised," said Hermione. "We don't want to provide a chance for someone to shut this down, or to reveal it because, like you said Harry, the DA should remain secret."

"Oh come off it Hermione, it's not like Dumbledore doesn't know everything we do anyway," Ron said, looking at her as if she was stupid, "I'm sure he knew all last year that the DA was going on, and I bet. . ."

"So what about when we're actually going to have the sessions?" said Harry, cutting off Ron to stop another fight between Ron and Hermione escalating to a shouting match. "How are we going to announce them? Shall we use the coins again?"

"I'm not sure," said Hermione, biting her lip. "When we put a security charm on everyone who's in the DA not to tell anyone else, the coins could still be used as a loophole against that charm; they could simply give the coins to someone outside the DA, and then technically they wouldn't be telling anyone. Or people could simply lose them, and I'm sure someone would figure out eventually why the numbers on the coin kept changing."

"Maybe we should just tell everyone in person about when the next meeting is," said Ron. "We could arrange it into a system, so there's not just a couple of us chasing every DA member around Hogwarts. Every DA member could have one other member to tell each, and we could start it off at different points, so say Harry could tell one seventh year who'd get it around every DA member in their year, I could tell one sixth year who could get it around our year, Hermione could tell one fifth year who could get it around their year, and then do the same for whatever years are coming as well. How does that sound? What? What are you staring at?"

Harry was staring at Ron open-mouthed in shock and suprise, and, judging by what he could see out of the corner of his eye, Hermione was doing the same.

"What?" said Ron irratingly, his ears going red, and Harry thought he'd better say something before Ron lost it.

"Um, yeah that sounds good Ron," he said, "in fact it sounds great. Did you just come up with that on the spot?"

"Er, yeah I did," said Ron, obviously having calmed down considerably already. "Why? Did it sound alright?"

"It sounds perfect," said Hermione, smiling at Ron, who went red-eared in what Harry suspected was not a show of anger.

"Er, thanks. . ." he said uncertainly, looking at Hermione for a second before staring down at the floor. Harry fought back a laugh, and ended up yawning loudly instead.

"Tired Harry?" said a relieved-looking Ron, his ears quickly turning back to their normal colour as he looked at Harry. "You should get to bed mate."

"Ron's right Harry, you should get some sleep," said Hermione, looking anxiously at him. "How much sleep did you get last night?"

Harry quickly counted. "About four hours," he said sheepishly, and Hermione crossed her arms and tried her best to look stern, but she could not wipe the concern from her face.

"Four hours?" she said, her face now plastered with concern. Ron too looked slightly anxious. "But you went to bed at the same time as me and Ron, at about midnight!"

"Well I. . .I couldn't sleep, so I went down to the Common Room to do some re. . .Vanya's homework," he said, thinking he was beginning to over-do it on the Spell Construction research front. "I only stayed up until two, but then I had to go jogging at six o'clock, didn't I?"

"You didn't have to go jogging at six in the morning," Ron said, looking utterly exasperated. "If you were a normal person you'd have stayed in bed until seven, like the rest of us."

"Well then I'm not normal then am I?" he snapped back at Ron, who looked taken aback at his sudden outburst. Harry sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his right hand, and looked up at Ron.

"Look, I'm just tired okay? I think I'm going to have an early night," he said, and dragged himself with all his will from the comfy armchair he'd been practically laying down in since he'd entered the Common Room. Hermione patted him on the arm as he stood up and regained his balance.

"Night Harry. I'll have this done for you by the morning."

"Don't stay up too late doing it," Harry warned, and Hermione snorted.

"Oh you're one to talk," she said, making him laugh.

"Yeah you're right. But still, not too late. Night Hermione. Night Ron."

"See you mate."

Harry ascended the stairs to the sixth year boy's dormitory slowly, knowing he'd probably trip up if he went any faster, his eyes drooping even as he walked. He couldn't understand why he was so tired; he'd been doing much harder work than this during the summer, ten hours of intense, energy-draining, magical training to be exact, so why were simple school days knackering him out so much?

After what seemed like hours he finally made it to his dormitory, pushing open the door to find it empty. Looking at his watch and seeing it was only ten o' clock, he wasn't suprised.

As he was about to get ready for bed, Harry felt a sudden chill draft wrap around him and, turning around, saw that the large dormitory window that overlooked the Hogwart's grounds was wide open, letting in the chill September wind of the Scottish highlands. Harry walked over to it to shut it.

As he leant precariously out of the window to grab it and pull it shut, the large thick shadow surrounding the Hogwart's grounds that he knew was going to affect his life so much caught his eye; the Forbidden Forest.

Forgetting about shutting the window, Harry climbed back fully into the dormitory and leant against the wall next to the window, giving him a perfect view of the black forest surrounding him outside, and sighed heavily, banging his head on the stone wall behind him in despair. Bringing his head back down, he stared down at the shadowy forest with his heart beating fast and his head pounding, a thousand thoughts and emotions corsing through him as he did so.

This was how Ron found him two hours later, still staring down at the Forbidden Forest in the freezing dormitory, not moving an inch.