7. Questions

A couple of days later when the Gryffindor sixth years were walking across the entry hall to lunch, Harry had finally made up his mind to ask Hermione. He just had to know if he was going daft, making up idiotic things, or if there might be a basis to his ruminations. The events of the last Potions lesson had somewhat reinforced his conviction that there was something to his idea. What Dumbledore had told Harry about Snape managing to intimidate and dissemble effortlessly, even with his have-been Death Eater friends, only made the thought more plausible. But Harry felt he could not begin to fathom what kind of heart and mind it would take to carry out such a thing.

This decision finally reminded him, making him feel a bit guilty because of his carelessness about his own idea of having the Headmaster talk to Hermione about strategy. He'd been meaning to tell her right away, but had forgotten, and somehow, something always got in the way when he did remember. So, now it would be …

"Oh by the way, Hermione – Dumbledore wants to see you: I forgot to tell you over and again! He expects to meet you sometime this week in the afternoon or before dinner if you find the time – as soon as possible, but the date doesn't matter..."

Unless one counted the issue at hand as urgent.

Hermione looked at him with curiosity.

"You forgot…? And it is not pressing, but…?"

"If you can't manage today, tomorrow or one of the next days would be fine, it seems..."

Harry refused to venture any further information, or to admit that he'd forgotten for days. There were other things on his mind, after all.

Now he was going bonkers, or was he? He simply had to ask.

Hermione was about to enter the Great Hall.

"Hmm... Hermione, a sec? Another thing..."

"Sure, Harry?"

"I hope this won't sound too stupid, but I don't know who else to ask about it. Not Dumbledore... See, those rumours about Snape badly wanting to teach Defence against the Dark Arts... There might be something to that, but not what we thought..."

Harry faltered. The immediate attention Hermione showed at his words did not help. This was not easy to think, and less easy to speak still, but he composed himself.

"Erh, Hermione – would you say it makes sense to consider Snape's Potions lessons a kind of Defence against the Dark Arts lessons, fully-grown, too, and not a substitute at all? He's been doing these things, accepting Slytherin attacks, forestalling ours, and probably guiding them, and for years, as you said..."

Ron gasped, staring at him like he'd gone mad, which was just what he'd expected.

Hermione stopped dead and fully turned toward him, staring, rendered speechless for a moment. She was obviously thunderstruck.

Ron started to speak: "Now, Harry, I know you didn't contract a bludger last training session! I wonder what has…"

When he saw their friend's concentrated look, he stopped mid-sentence.

After some seconds, Hermione said:

"Harry... I think... I think you've got it! This is... all the pieces fall into place... Just leave me... You go on... I have to go to the library and think that over... If someone asks for me, I am ill or something..."

She spoke very fast and in an unusually high pitch. Her excitement was obvious, and her last words were hardly audible because she had turned and hurried off toward the Library already, completely submerged in her thoughts, lunch forgotten.

Harry looked after her, slightly befuddled, but relieved that he seemed to have hit a switch somewhere, instead of being scolded for being mental.

"Don't forget to go see Dumbledore!" he shouted after her, thinking that she might need a reminder later on anyway, considering how she tended to forget the hours when she was with the books.

Harry could not begin to imagine what she might want to look up concerning Defence against the Dark Arts, but then she probably just wanted a quiet place to think things over.

"I think we should meet in the Room of Requirement when she tells us what Dumbledore said, it's safer there..."

Ron shook his head at his friend in disbelief of the things he'd just heard, but said: "If you say so, Harry... but this really is wild! I do want to hear the rest of it though!"

What Dumbledore had told him in their last meeting had finally instilled in Harry a sense of urgency concerning the need to take up Occlumency lessons again.

That evening, he and Ron were waiting up in the common room for Hermione to return from the meeting with the Headmaster. They had abandoned Wizard Chess after Harry found that he was unable to concentrate at all.

He said: "I will ask him, soon."

Ron, who'd been daydreaming about Quidditch and dinner, started at his friend's voice, and said: "Ask whom? About what?"

"Me... Snape… Occlumency… remember? I told you some time ago that Dumbledore wants me to take it up again, and just said…"

"YOU WILL WHAT...?" gasped Ron, dropping the textbook that had been on his lap when he jumped up. "You… WILL ASK SNAPE TO TEACH YOU OCCLUMENCY AGAIN!"

"Hey, don't shout, you moron! So you didn't listen…"

Luckily, the common room was empty, it being rather late already. They were waiting for Hermione to return and had had it to themselves for some time now, but Harry for one had become nervous that the walls might have ears. The experience with Rita Skeeter's animagus form had made a deep impression on him that kept coming back. And: Constant Vigilance!

"Sorry", whispered Ron.

Feeling that his friend had calmed down somewhat, Harry continued. "Yes, I will ask him, but careful, with an apology thrown in, of course – I wouldn't for my life want to have him angry and hateful of me again, and he's practically thrown me out of his rooms last time!"

" Apolo --- Last time…? You – you mean to say you tried before! You – YOU APOLOGIZED TO THE GREASY GIT! What on earth for! And that thing you asked Hermione about…Harry, you MUST be mad!"

"Shhh... Er – yes, I did..."

Ron looked as if he'd been betrayed personally, and Harry would have laughed at him, but right now, he could only hope that his best friend would not fall back into his segregative and insulted childish attitude, that sulky mood he'd displayed occasionally in earlier years whenever Harry had done things he just had to do whether he himself had liked them or not, by that once more leaving him quite alone to deal with the hardship that was sure to come along – or, worse, even adding the burden of loss to that by this behaviour.

"Merlin, Ron, I don't like it anymore than you do, but I just have to… remember how Vol… how You-Know-Who baited me to come to the Ministry of Magic? It could happen again! The Headmaster says that there is no-one else who could teach me, not even himself, and I believe him! And I did trespass on Snape's privacy when I... I watched his memories last year. They were not of the happy sort."

"You never tell us..."

"Ron, you can't seriously expect me to share another person's memories that I've come by in a way that I'm not proud of at all, and have been punished for!"

Ron turned away, angered.

"Please.. Ron... don't leave me alone with all this... Not again… You are my best friend..."

Harry felt his heart drop.

Ron moved on, still insulted, but suddenly remembered the damage his sulking had done some years before when Harry really could not tell him what he had to bear. He blushed, turned, walked toward his friend, and said: "No, Harry, I will not. Not this time, and never again, I won't. I promise! I am sorry... But this is not easy for me either, not having you tell me what you are facing… You are my best friend too, remember? And… I say, Snape of all people! Just give me some time to digest this… please."

Harry was feeling very much relieved. He gave Ron a lopsided grin, and said: "You don't have to take the lessons, do you, so come off it!"

Not yet you have, he added in his mind, wondering where all this would take them.

Not much later, Hermione finally came back, quite out of breath.

"Lucky that I'm a Prefect now! Filch caught me right in front of the library, and had to let me go..."

Ron smiled at the thought.

"What did Dumbledore tell you?"

"Dumbledore... right, the Headmaster! I almost forgot at first, then went to see him after dinner, but he had no time then, and asked me to try again tomorrow afternoon. So I returned to the library. You know how Miss Pince does not mind having me around at all hours, so I forgot about the time completely... Sorry, guys!"

She smiled at them.

"We could have gone to bed early, you know," Ron said crossly.

"Come on, as if you had!" Hermione smiled, her good mood apparently indelible. "I am really tired now though... Is there anything important that I should know about? Else I'll go to sleep, if you don't mind."

When the boys shook their heads, slightly exasperated, she said "G'night!" and went up to the girl's dormitory, not waiting for a reply.

Ron and Harry looked after her. Both boys wondered when Hermione Granger had started to take things that seemed important so easy. But they considered that to be just as well, and went to bed too.