"So, Harry," said Dumbledore from behind his usual half-moon spectacles with that blue twinkle in his eyes. Harry noticed that it was a considerably smaller twinkle than he had seen on other occasion. Maybe Harry hadn't realized that they were twinkling at the same brightness as always because he hadn't looked at them for almost a year? This thought rekindled some anger in Harry that he had thought to be gone. He looked at Dumbledore and then guiltily remembered that he, Harry, had busted up this office just a couple of months ago, but Dumbledore had no trace of emotion on his old, serene face. Then again, he rarely ever did. "I suspect that you are curious as to why I have called you here, am I right?"
Harry nodded his head and said, "Yes, professor. And I also want you to know that I am sorry for the way that I acted last time I was in your office." But deep down, probably where that annoying voice was located, Harry wondered if he really were sorry about breaking this man's things. But Harry shooed these thoughts away and said," Sir, I also want you to know that I am sorry for the way I acted last year about being angry because I felt left out. I was being a huge git, but I think I've come to my senses. I realize that it was all for my own good."
"That is all very well, Harry; but I have called you here for a different reason." After getting a questioning look from Harry Dumbledore continued to say," I feel that it would be in your best interest to study Occlumency again."
Harry immediately protested by saying," But professor, Snape would kill me if I showed up for a lesson! Did he tell you what happened?"
"No, Harry, he didn't. I don't need to know, but I still wish for you to continue your studies. There are other ways that Voldemort can fool you through your mind; he may not use an image of something next time. So you will be pleased to hear that you shall be studying with me."
Harry looked visibly happier, but then his face fell as he said," But aren't you worried about Voldemort using me to get to you?"
"To some extent, yes, Harry, I am; but I also think that Voldemort has realized that we have realized that he might be using you to spy. What I am more concerned with is him learning the prophecy through you. That is not what we want right now."

Harry thought about this for a moment. In his mind he knew that there was really no objection to continuing his lessons to becoming an occlumens. But what if Dumbledore really was the killer? Harry couldn't object because then Dumbledore would know that Harry was onto him; that is if there was anything to be onto...
"Professor, can I ask you something?"
"We've done this before, but yes, you may ask me another thing."
"If I have to kill Voldemort or Voldemort has to kill me, wouldn't that imply that one would have to sneak up on the other and kill him by surprise?"
"I'm afraid that I don't understand, Harry," said Dumbledore.
"Well, back in my fourth year when I was fighting Voldemort, our wands did that priori incantatem thing or something. We can't fight head to head because our wands won't let us. That means that this won't end in a duel; it'll have to be a sneak attack or an attack without wands."
"Ahhh, I see the dilemma now," said Dumbledore." You are correct Harry, this will not be as simple as it seems."

Dumbledore then sank back into his chair, obviously deep in thought. He looked up at Harry and looked a little surprised to see Harry still in his office (some of the strange behavior?). Then Dumbledore said, "Harry, I bid you goodnight. Our lessons will be every Thursday at seven o clock sharp."

Then he bid Harry goodnight again and just as Harry was about to travel down the spiral staircase he remembered something that he had wanted to ask. He practically ran to the office door and knocked. After a moment of silence he heard Dumbledore get up and start walking ever so slowly towards the door. Sometimes Harry wondered if this slowness was intentional just to aggravate people. Harry knew for a fact that he could move much faster. He had seen him in his battle against Voldemort just last June. When Dumbledore finally opened the door and looked at Harry (Harry was almost as tall as him now), he asked,
"Did you forget something, Harry?"

"Well, sort of," said Harry. "I wanted to know if you knew why the sorting hat addressed me personally tonight at the feast. Nearly-Headless Nick said he'd heard of it happening quite a long time ago, but he couldn't remember who. I was also wondering if you knew who this mysterious Half Blood Prince is, and how he might help me."
"Very wise questions you ask me," said Dumbledore," I was wondering when you would ask and was kind of surprised when you hadn't asked before you left. As for the answers to your questions I will tell you to my best ability, as long as I haven't forgotten something in my old age.
"It all started when I was at Hogwarts a long time ago; when I was in school just like you," Harry didn't want to think about how long ago it was when Dumbledore was in Hogwarts," In my fourth year the sorting hat named someone by the name of Graham Allan Grindelwald as the Half Blood Prince. His task was to establish equality among all of the pure-bloods, half- bloods, and those who were Muggle-born in the wizarding community. He was chosen because he himself was from a great line of pure-blood wizards who were known to be kind to those wizards who were not of pure-blood. Eventually the Grindelwald family was known as the Half Blood Family because of their efforts to join together the wizarding community. Some say that they even had plans to make peace with the Muggle community, but no one knows that for certain."
"Why not, sir?" asked Harry, eager to learn more. He was sure that he recognized the name Grindelwald from somewhere.
"You see, there were always pure-blood families who hated the idea of associating with what they considered lesser people, or wizards that were not of pure-blood. Therefore they decided to kill most of Grindelwald's family in an effort to stop their progress. This made Graham go under much stress. After some years of harassment from the rest of the Community he eventually cracked under the pressure. Some say he went mad, others say he just didn't want to go on trying to succeed at a fruitless effort any longer. To me, it was all the same because he became a Dark Wizard in the end. As you may recall from my chocolate frog card, I was the one to defeat him in the end. Grindelwald is gone, but there are still others that are for unity in the wizarding community, though few they may be.
"So you see, the sorting hat's song confused me because I know for a fact that the Half Blood Prince, or Grindelwald if you like, is gone. I don't see how he would be able to "aid you in your plight" when he is gone. I am assuming that your plight is that which the prophecy states, the one between you and Voldemort. Anyway, I am glad to have helped you, Harry. Now, you should go off to bed; it is getting late and you gave class tomorrow!"

Harry said thank you and good night once more. He was halfway down the revolving staircase when he considered going back up to tell Dumbledore about the killer's letter. Then Harry decided that he had bothered Dumbledore enough for one evening and wandered off to bed with sleep already trying to gum his eyes shut. Harry wondered what time it was for he had forgotten his watch. He knew that it must be fairly late, at least past curfew, for there was not a soul in sight as Harry walked back to the Gryffindor Tower. As Harry was longing so much for his four poster bed he couldn't help but think of what Dumbledore had told him. Harry was slightly worried about the fact that a known dead guy was supposed to be helping him to fight against Voldemort. But then Harry worried about how Dumbledore affirmed one of Harry's fears: Voldemort was not going to be finished off in a head to head duel. There was a bright side, though. This meant that as long as Harry was able to react quickly enough, he would be able to say a counter spell to Voldemort and trigger the priori thingy again. That way he wouldn't die in a duel either.

But this left Harry to other thoughts. If only Voldemort could kill him, then did that mean that Harry could not be killed by a Death Eater or some other cause of death? Could he try to hang himself, but live anyway because of the prophecy? Harry wasn't too eager to find out if this were true or not. He then thought of another part of the hat's song: The little orb wasn't true; there is a definite winner... Was the hat referring to the prophecy? He must be because Harry could not think of any other explanation for this statement. So the prophecy was wrong? It wasn't a question of who would win between Harry and Voldemort: that had apparently already been decided. But by whom? Trelawney was wrong? Well, Harry wasn't too shocked by that...
"Are you coming in or not?"

Harry was startled severely by this question until he looked up to find that his feet had led him to Gryffindor Tower without his help. Harry had been so last in thought that he had not noticed that he had arrived at the tower.
"I'm sorry...I didn't catch that," was all that Harry could manage.

"I want to know if you're coming in, because if you are then hurry up; I'm tired," said the portrait of the Fat Lady in a rather grumpy tone. Harry was about to say that he was going in and that she could cool it until he realized that he had no idea what the password was. His detour with Dumbledore had caused to miss the prefects telling everyone what the new password was.
"Well?" she asked.

Harry was spared the effort of pleading entrance without a password (which he knew he would never get when he thought of poor Neville that one time...), when the portrait swung forward and Hermione poked her head out to greet him.
"Hey!" she said.
"Hello," said Harry in a very tired tone of voice.
"Come in," said Hermione," We've been waiting for you."
Harry could only assume that she meant her and Ron when he heard a great "Hrmpf" from behind him.
"Oh, sorry," said Harry to the portrait. She gave him a nasty glare and swung shut so fast that Harry had to jump into the common room so as not to have his leg caught by her. This caused Harry to knock down a very surprised Hermione and land right on top of her.
"Well, I had no idea that you'd be that happy to see me," said Hermione mischievously.
Harry began blushing when Ron said," Come on you two, can't you do that somewhere else?"

Harry and Hermione quickly got to their feet and went to join Ron by the fireside.
"So Harry, what did Dumbledore want?" asked Hermione.
"Oh, not much," Harry lied. He was really tired and just wanted to turn in for the night. But right away he could tell that Hermione knew that he was lying and wanted to know what had happened.
"OK, so it wasn't nothing," said Harry," Dumbledore just wanted me to know that I'll be continuing Occlumency lessons, but this time with him, not Snape." Well, he was giving them at least half of the truth, right? They didn't need to know everything...at least not yet. He would tell them another time. Besides, Ron hadn't even heard about the prophecy yet and it would take too much time to explain that to him and then tell them what had been said. Harry looked at Ron and saw that he was tired, too.
"What, Snape doesn't want to do it, Harry?" asked Ron.
"Yeah, something like that," he said. Ron and Hermione still didn't know about what he had seen in the pensieve that day in Snape's office that head caused him to stop giving Harry lessons. He wasn't sure if either of them knew what a pensieve was. Well, he knew that Hermione would know; she seemed to know everything sometimes, but Harry liked that. Ron would most definitely not know what one was unless he had somehow heard about them in passing at one time or other.
"Well, did Dumbledore say anything about the sorting hat's song?" asked Hermione. Harry knew that one of them was bound to ask this question. Harry was honestly not up to telling them about it right then.
"Well," said Harry," Yes, but can we talk about this tomorrow or something? I'm literally falling asleep on my feet here."

Hermione looked at Harry with an expression that obviously said that she didn't want to wait for tomorrow to come. She had to agree when she saw the desperate look in Harry's eyes and the fact that Ron had fallen asleep. She figured it best wait until the morning. But she wasn't going to let Harry off too easy because she said,
"Well, can I at least know if he said anything about the prophecy?"
Harry thought for a moment. Then he said," Yes. But don't force it out of me now, I really am too tired. I might mix up some fact or other at this rate because of my sleepiness. You wouldn't want that, would you?"
"No," said Hermione. She moved closer to Harry as she said her next bit," I wouldn't want that at all." With that Hermione locked her lips with Harry's as she pulled him into a hug. As they finished kissing she whispered in Harry's ear," Good night. I love you."
"I love you, too," said Harry, and he knew that he was blushing. It was a good thing that Hermione hadn't kissed him in public. Once the school knew that they were going out, the whole entire wizarding community would know, and next thing he knew, a picture of Hermione and him (which he would have no idea how it was taken) in which they were kissing would be plastered on the front cover of the Daily Prophet across the country. He didn't want that for Hermione. He wanted to keep their relationship secret until Hermione said that she was ready for the publicity.

Then Harry woke Ron up and they dragged themselves up to the boys' dormitory. When they arrived all of the other boys were already sleeping and Neville's bed smelled suspiciously like stink-sap. Harry and Ron undressed themselves and crawled into their four-poster beds. Harry fell sleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow (he truly was tired). The next morning when Harry's dazed mind awoke the first thing he heard was,
"Mondays. I just hate Mondays," said by the voice in his head.
Harry couldn't have agreed with the voice more.