A/N: So, here we've got a rather long chapter, which starts out light and hopefully amusing, and then turns somewhat more serious toward the end. Hopefully, you will find it worth the read. Also, I've decided to start responding individually to reviewers, so here's responses to everyone who reviewed chapter 19:

waterboy453: I'm glad you like it and I hope this chapter meets your expectations.

Mr.Hifey: I'm glad you like my character development. Also, you'll find that this chapter includes something that might be interpreted as a sign of Harry's potential strength as a wizard. Hope this qualifies as something along the lines of what you're looking for.

Old-Crow: What can I say, I pride myself on my italic placement. And to respond to something you said in your review of chapter 18, I find that the capture of any major death-eaters would best be placed somewhat closer to the resolution, otherwise the capacity for action is reduced, if the antagonists are dwindling.

Chapter 20

An Unwelcome Dream

For a moment, it looked as if Ron was going to deny that he had any feelings for Hermione. He opened his mouth and tried to speak. Unfortunately, all that came out were some sputtering noises. He closed his mouth, paused for a moment, and then opened his mouth to try again. "I-I-I don't fancy Hermione!" he stuttered unconvincingly. "Why would you say that?"

"Oh, come on. After how jealous you were over her when you thought she was going with Krum? Could you be any more transparent?" asked Harry.

"No!" Ron sputtered. Then, he realized what he had said. "I meant, no, I don't like her. Not that I couldn't be any more transparent."

Harry considered him in silence for a moment. Ron was blushing profusely. "Well, it's nice to see how bad of a liar you are. Means I'll never have to worry about not being able to trust you," Harry grinned.

Ron opened and closed his mouth two more times. Then he shut it again, and blinked slowly, seeming to consider the situation. "If I told you that I like her, you wouldn't tell her would you? Not that I'm admitting anything, mind you," he added hastily.

"Of course not," Harry said. "I would never tell Hermione that you like her." No, he thought, that was Ginny's job, which she was probably conducting at that very moment.

"Fine," said Ron reluctantly, after a moment of further consideration. "Fine. I fancy Hermione. Nobody else knows, do they?"

Harry had to fight back laughter as he responded, as seriously as he could, "No, of course not. But you're going to tell Hermione, right?"

"What?" Ron sputtered again. He seemed to be doing this a lot lately, and Harry wondered whether it was really the best habit to be picking up. His facial expression suggested that he had never heard a less intelligent idea in his life. "Why would I want to do that?"

"Well, she likes you too, of course," said Harry, in a slightly exasperated voice.

"Are you mad? What gives you that idea?" asked Ron, apparently just as exasperated as Harry.

"Well, she told Ginny, for one," said Harry. He rather hoped that this would settle the matter, as he wasn't entirely sure that he would be able to come up with a "for two" in a reasonable amount of time.

Ron scoffed. "Seriously, if that's the best argument you can come up with, this whole idea's complete rubbish," said Ron. "Ginny'd just love to have me make a fool out of myself in front of Hermione."

"Oh, no she wouldn't," said Harry, surprised. "She's your sister!"

"That's exactly why she'd want to set me up. I know you've never actually experienced sibling rivalry, but this is a classic example," argued Ron.

"Oh, come on. She's my girlfriend, I'd know if she were trying to set you up!" countered Harry.

"Look, you're a nice couple and all, but I don't think the fact that you've been dating her for five months means you know her better than I do. She's my sister, as you so recently pointed out," said Ron. "Now let's go get some lunch."

"Whatever," said Harry defeatedly. There was really only so much that he could do, and it strongly appeared as if he had already done it. They dressed quickly, and made their way down the steps. When they made it to the common room, they found Ginny and Hermione already waiting for them. Harry hoped that Ginny had had better luck with Hermione than he had had with Ron.

Ron looked at Hermione in a rather awkward fashion as he entered the room. Next, he eyed Ginny suspiciously. Then Ginny said something which helped absolutely not at all to allay his suspicion. "Well, Harry and I will be going to eat awhile then. Ron, I believe Hermione has something that she wants to tell you." With that, Ginny led Harry through the portrait hole.

"So, she's going to ask him then?" asked Harry, relieved, as they walked down the hall. "I didn't have much luck with him. Although I did get him to admit that he liked her, and I was kind of surprised that he'd even admit that."

"Yeah, I think she'll be asking him. Pity he won't do it, though. That'll be quite a blow to his masculine pride, that will," said Ginny, grinning. Apparently she found it quite amusing that Ron's masculine pride would be hurt. Perhaps Ron wasn't completely off about the whole sibling rivalry thing, Harry reflected, as they made it to the Great Hall.

The couple was already seated, and had begun to eat their meal when, five minutes later, Ron and Hermione made it into the room. Ron was blushing slightly, and Hermione seemed to be struggling to keep from smirking. And they were holding hands. Harry had to exercise quite a bit of will power to not tell Ron, "I told you so."

After Ginny forced Hermione and Ron to recount word for word their conversation after she and Harry had left the room, she laughed, and said, "So you did make her ask you in the end after all, eh, Ron?"

Ron blushed some more, but still managed a smile, "Yeah, well, the important part is that she did it, right? I'm going with Hermione Granger... I'm not picky about how it happened.

The rest of the day was one of the most pleasant that Harry had ever had at Hogwarts. For awhile, the four talked and laughed about how dumb it was that Hermione and Ron had not noticed each other's feelings sooner. Then, Ron and Hermione went off for a nice private walk around the newly snow-covered grounds, which was convenient because it gave Ginny and Harry some time alone as well. After dinner, the group played a few rounds of exploding snap and talked about the prospect of having a double date the next time there was a Hogsmeade weekend. Then, they went to bed. As Harry drifted off to sleep, he made a mental effort to store the memory of this day for the next time the presence of dementors should require him to produce a Patronus. But thoughts of dementors seemed strangely out of place as Harry was feeling such a warm, and happy feeling in his chest. Unfortunately, this warm feeling would not make it through until the morning.

He woke up only three hours later, immediately aware that the dream he had just woken up from had not been a dream at all, but rather another instance of him sharing a brain with Voldemort. However, Harry doubted that Voldemort had wanted him to see this particular vision, as it did not involve anyone he cared about being hurt. The only person that was being tortured during this vision was Wormtail, which Harry simply couldn't get too worked up about considering that he himself had been contemplating doing the same thing only weeks before. From what Harry could gather from the conversation between Voldemort and Wormtail, Wormtail had only that night worked up the courage to return to Voldemort after slipping up and letting Colin go free. But after he had performed the Cruciatus curse on Wormtail for a painfully long amount of time, Voldemort announced that Wormtail would still be allowed to participate in the plan that Voldemort had just recently thought up to get Harry cornered once again. Unfortunately, Harry never got to learn what the plan was, as the connection was broken at that moment. Harry strongly suspected that Voldemort had somehow felt him in his mind at just the moment when potentially helpful details of the plan were about to be revealed.

When Harry awoke, his scar hurt. He figured that the encounter between himself and Voldemort had been completely accidental, but knew that he would still have to inform Dumbledore of the matter. As he knew there was no way he'd be getting back to sleep that night, he almost considered going to see Dumbledore right then, before remembering that even the headmaster would be asleep at this time of night.

So he decided to let his visit wait for another four hours, until seven o' clock the next morning, at which point he slipped out of the common room without waking Ron. As he made his way to Dumbledore's office, he was just wondering what the new password to the headmaster's quarters might be when he saw Dumbledore himself coming down a perpindicular corridor toward him, apparently making his way back from breakfast in the Great Hall.

When Harry explained to Dumbledore that the two of them needed to talk, Dumbledore led the way on the remainder of the journey to his office.

"What is it, Harry?" asked Dumbledore once they were both seated.

Harry quickly explained the dream to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore nodded. "I was wondering whether something like this would happen again. I think you made yourself more vulnerable to it when you attempted you read Malfoy's mind last month. Once you allow your psyche to get out of your own brain, it's sometimes hard to reel it back in. Speaking at your attempt to read Malfoy's mind, by the way, I seem to recall you trying to tell me that Malfoy seemed to look toward the Gryffindor table when you asked him where Wormtail was?"

Harry thought back, and then mentally kicked himself. "That's right! He looked right at the part of the table where Colin was sitting! I can't believe I didn't realize it then! With the way Colin's been acting... And his wand was even being less than cooperative with him in Dueling Club."

"Yes, well, you were not the only one who was fooled by the ruse," stated Dumbledore sadly. "But the fact that Malfoy looked at Colin meant that you were much more successful in your attempt to read his mind than I had realized. And I think that means that you may have a talent for mind-reading. I think, if you're up to it, we ought to start you back up on Occlumency immediately, and then begin to train you in Legilemancy. Of course, you won't be able to ready Voldemort's mind. He'd almost certainly notice if you intentionally attempted to break into his mind. But with quite a bit of training, you may eventually be able to infiltrate the minds of some of his more trusted servants."

Harry considered this offer for a moment. Of course, he knew he should do this if it could translate into any potential advantage in the war, but he was still skeptical about one thing, "Professor... who would be teaching me?"

Dumbledore considered this for a moment. "Well, as Voldemort has not attempted to come into your mind since June, as I suspected he would not, I see no reason for him to start now. He is aware that you now know he might try to trick you, and will probably be reluctant to waste his effort on attempting a ruse that will not work. Legilemancy is a very exhausting process, especially when done wandless, as it would have to be from such a distance. He also does not seem to believe you to know any information worth him getting, so I don't think that he would have any reason to discover it if I am the one teaching you. Besides which, it seems that our friend Professor Snape has already failed once in attempting to teach you. It should not have been too hard for him to do so, given the innate skill you seem to be exhibiting in the field. Perhaps it is time to throw caution into the wind and simply hope that we will get you to the point that you would be able to block Voldemort from your mind before he might attempt to read it. As it is currently the holidays, we should be able to get rather far with your training before lessons start again. That is, if you're up to it."

Harry nodded somewhat excitedly. Rather more excitedly than one might think him capable, as it was still just after seven in the morning and he had only gotten three hours of sleep the previous night. But he couldn't help being excited, as it seemed that now, with Dumbledore helping him, he may actually be on the brink of learning Occlumency, and then perhaps, if he was as talented as Dumbledore seemed to expect, Legilimancy as well.

A/N: Well, there it is. Thanks for reading to this point, I know that this whole story's getting somewhat lengthy by this point. Let me know which bits, if any, you like, and which bits you think ought to be deleted. Perhaps I'll agree and actually delete them or modify them. By the way, I'd just like to use this opportunity to point out that I am now working on a parody as well, under the title "Harry Potter and co Write Fanfiction." You can find it on my author's page, and I think it's rather amusing so far. Hopefully you'll find it worth a look.