Disclaimer: I told you all before, I don't own anything related to the Harry Potter franchise nor am I making any money off of this fic.

AN: I want to point out that some of the creatures I mention I found under Asher Haakon's Spells Creatures.

Chapter 6:

Learning to Live

Harry awoke the next morning with a new sense of purpose. He grinned as he felt the pendant around his neck. 'My ticket to a good summer.' He thought. He looked at himself in the mirror, noticing, as he did every day, the terrible state of his muggle clothes. 'First things first, some basic transfiguration.' Pointing his wand at his clothes, he shrunk them so that they fit properly and changed the color from a dull, filthy gray to a solid, dark black. He smiled at his appearance. It wasn't perfect, but he could work on that later. It was better than what he had before. He cast a few cleaning charms on himself before heading down for breakfast, wand safely in his pocket.

As he entered the kitchen, he had to hold back a laugh as everyone stopped talking. His Aunt Petunia seemed to focus on making breakfast while Dudley gave him a glare that clearly said that Harry was in trouble. What was most amusing was his Uncle Vernon, who was busy staring at the morning paper, his face starting to turn a lovely shade of red. Harry sat down and began to eat, waiting for the inevitable outburst.

He was not disappointed.

"What was the meaning of all that freaky business last night!" Vernon yelled out. "What if the neighbors saw them! They already think we're odd enough because of your ragged appearance, we don't need you to make it worse!" Harry considered pointing out that it was Vernon's fault, since he was the one that gave him only rags and he was the one who spread the rumor of his going to St. Brutus. But he held his tongue, as he was sure his uncle would learn to do after today.

"And another thing! If I have to come in to your room and tell you to shut that ruddy bird up one more time..." Vernon Dursley was startled as he found that noise could no longer come out of his mouth. His bright red face drained of color amazingly quickly when saw that his nephew, who was still eating with his left hand, had his wand pointed at him. It was Dudley who broke the silence.

"Y-you can't use your thing here! You'll get expelled!" Harry snickered, then chuckled, then just let out a full, barking laugh. It took him a full minute to calm down before he was able to properly respond.

"Dudley, you just don't understand. I'm too damn important to the wizarding world for them to punish me over something like this. Besides, I've found a way around that pesky law." Vernon, being the pinnacle of human intellect that he was, decided that if he could not show his displeasure towards the boy verbally, then perhaps it was time to put him in his place physically. Pushing himself away from the table, the whale of a man stood up and tried to look imposing. Harry saw him clench his fists. 'This is too good! Time to put them all in their place!' Harry turned in his seat to watch his uncle. He pulled his fist back and was swinging it towards Harry.

"Protego"

Vernon let out a yelp of pain as his fist impacted on Harry's shield and stopped. Harry let out a laugh as his uncle fell back, cradling his hand. Vernon had apparently gone into his 'scared animal' mode and was attacking what he saw as a threat. Unfortunately for him, Harry was very familiar with uncle Vernon's facial features. If Snape thought Harry wore his emotions for all to see, then Vernon's emotions were like a giant flashing neon sign. Before the oaf could get back up, Harry hit him with a body-bind hex. Dudley, being even more incompetent that his father, thought he should defend his dad. Apparently his boxing at school had given him some confidence, though obviously it did nothing for his common sense.

"Stupefy"

The house seemed to shake as Dudley went crashing to the floor on his back. By now Harry was smiling, and feeling very pleased with himself. He then turned to his Aunt Petunia.

"Do I need to hex you too, or can I leave you alone?" It was almost sad looking at the woman. She was pale and trembling. 'My god, I haven't even hurt anyone and she looks like her husband was just killed! Stupid muggles.'

"N-no. W-will they be okay?"

"They're fine. In fact, dear old Uncle Vernon can actually see and hear us. Of course, Dudley is out for now, but unless he hurt himself when he fell, which is a distinct possibility given his size, he should be back to his normal charming self when he awakes." Harry then stepped over the prone form of Vernon and looked into the mans beet red face.

"Now listen carefully Uncle Vernon. While I am aware that you were told to treat me well over the holiday, though I do not doubt you might actually think that their warning is a bluff, being the arrogant, overbearing sack of flesh that you are. I am telling you right now Uncle, their threat is real, and so is mine. If you give me any crap while I am here, I won't bother telling the Order. I will deal with you myself. Is that understood?" Vernon just stared at him.

"Right, you can't move. How about this. Blink once for no, blink three time to indicate that yes, you do understand." It looked like Vernon was having a great internal struggle. Part of him wanted to throttle his nephew for attacking him, while the other part of him was, at this moment, scared shitless of the boy. As much as he wanted to lash out, he was beginning to realize it might not be productive to his health to try and harm the stupid little freak. He blinked three times.

"Now see Uncle, it wasn't that hard. You know, it's a pity you never considered the positive possibilities of having a wizard in your home." Harry smirked when his uncle flinched at the word wizard. "Did you know there are charms to make things unbreakable, charms to repair objects with the wave of a wand? No, I doubt you have any idea how useful it can be. But you have had your chance." He pointed his wand at Vernon. "Remember this Uncle Vernon, I am here because I am required to stay here, not because I enjoy your company. You stay out of my way, I won't harm you. I will not be your servant any longer. Perhaps it is time that your whale of a son learns some responsibility. Now, I am going to let you go. I have your word, well your blink anyway, that you will leave me alone. Just remember that if you step out of line, you will find yourself in a far worse situation." With that said, Harry lifted the body-bind from his uncle.

The large man hauled himself off of the ground and glared at his nephew. Harry just idly twirled his wand as if daring the man to try something. He just huffed and stormed out of the kitchen. Soon the sound of the front door opening reached his ears. His uncle bellowed something about going to work (even though it was Saturday) and slammed the door, rattling the pictures on the walls. Harry stood there, enjoying the silence for a few moments before sitting down to finish his breakfast.

He spent the next few minutes finishing up his eggs and toast before he noticed that his aunt was staring at him. He tried to ignore her as he grabbed the morning paper from where his uncle had been sitting. After skimming it and finding nothing that would indicate another attack by Voldemort, he set the paper down, only to find his Aunt still staring at him. He was getting frustrated.

"What, Aunt Petunia?" He let his annoyance show, causing the woman to flinch. She merely pointed to Dudley.

"Fine." He walked over to the unconscious form of his cousin and cast the ennervate spell on him. Dudley's eyes snapped open, only to find himself looking up at his visibly annoyed cousin.

"Harry?"

"Yes, Dudley."

"How did you do that?" Dudley was impressed, as much as he hated to admit it. Whatever his cousin had done had knocked him out a lot harder than any of his opponents in boxing.

"Its magic, Dud. That's what I do."

"What, go around knocking people out?" At this Harry's annoyance turned to humor.

"Pretty much, Dud, it's like my job." Feeling particularly generous in his new mood, Harry held out his hand to help Dudley get up. The large boy eyed him warily before taking the offered assistance. Harry was so focused on Dudley that he did not see his aunt's expression go from fear to surprise. Not that he would have blamed her if he had, as he had gone from threatening to hex them all to actually being courteous.

"Well, now that that business is taken care of, I have things to do. If you will excuse me, Aunt Petunia, Dudley." With a slight nod of his head to each person, Harry waltzed out of the kitchen, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips.

The first thing he wanted to do was sort through his books and get everything prepared for his studying. He had decided that his workweek would begin on Monday and end on Saturday night. Every Sunday morning, he would use his Time-Turner and go back six days to Monday morning. That way, he would have Sunday afternoon to relax. It also helped to prevent overlap between Harrys from different weeks. He had already decided that he would exist as five people at once. He would go through the week normally, but he would use the time turner to go back to the beginning of the week. He would then repeat this cycle another three times. On his fifth time repeating the week, he would continue all the way through Sunday and move on to the next week.

'Lets see, the first thing I'm going to need to do is figure out what I am going to learn.' It didn't take him long to figure that Occlumency would have to be the first subject. The mental discipline that was learned through Occlumency was necessary for both Legilmency and quite a few of the higher level magics he intended to learn.

The one book that really interested him was The Skills and Tactics of the Benandanti. He had picked it up at the nameless shop in Knockturn Alley and it described the history of the Benandanti and how they went after Dark Wizards. The Benandanti were a group of wizards and witches who proceeded the Aurors and most of wizarding society. They had developed various types of mental defenses and legilmency attacks to combat Dark Wizards. There were ways to not only block outside intrusion, but also internal signals like pain.

He decided that for the first week, he would spend his time focusing on Occlumency, reviewing his old texts, and going through his tome on rituals. His goal was to be on his way to completing one of the ritual magics by the end of his fourth week. His second week would be devoted to perfecting his Occlumency (hopefully) and starting on Legilmency. He would also begin going through the more basic texts on Charms, Defense against the Dark Arts, and Transfiguration. He felt it prudent not to start on the big stuff until he had both the basics down and his mental shields ready. Third and fourth week would be roughly the same- getting all the basics down that would be needed for the high level stuff. He hoped to be prepping for a ritual or two as well. If everything went to plan, by the fifth repetition, he would be performing an enhancing ritual, and could start on the good stuff, such as the advanced Dark Arts, neutral combat magics, and controlled accidental magic, also known to the layman as wandless magic.

Harry had stumbled across the concept of controlled wandless magic quite by accident. He had skimmed one of his texts, Magical Theory for the Practical Sorcerer, when he had come across the idea of wandless spell casting. Wandless magic was simply controlling the accidental magic that youth had a tendency of doing. The argument was that if young wizarding children, who had significantly less internal magic than an adult wizard, could create amazing magical effects by sheer willpower, why couldn't a fully grown wizard? It was done with Apparating and animagus transformations, could it then be applied to more common uses? It was all a matter of being able to control your power, emotions, etc, etc, etc. Of course it was all theory and not really practiced, as wands were, after all, so much simpler, but Harry could see some definite advantages to it. He could also see where the skills he would need for Occlumency could come in handy in figuring out the wandless stuff.

In the end, the schedule Harry made for the first week looked something like this:

Week 1: Monday through Thursday

7Am- Wake up, shower, eat.

8Am- Work on Occlumency

11Am- Review old School Texts

3Pm- break for an hour

4Pm- Work on Occlumency

6Pm- Dinner

6:30Pm- Review old texts

8Pm- Read book on Rituals

10Pm- Sleep

With his schedule organized for the first cycle of training, he felt he should take stock of himself physically.

Harry was surprised to find that he wasn't too terribly out of shape. Years of labor for the Dursley's had allowed him to build up a bit of muscle. He was hardly an athlete, at least in Muggle terms, but he was not weak either. His reflexes were good, as he had learned both in Quidditch and his encounters with Voldemort. The meals at Hogwarts made sure he wasn't totally thin. His height was average, perhaps a little short, but nothing too significant. All in all, he considered himself quite average in appearance and stature, if not a little pale. His hair was still as messy as ever, and, as a mirror once told him, it was a lost cause. Satisfied with what he saw, he decided that he would focus purely on his magical development.

With his schedule figured out, he grabbed Path to Power: Rituals and began flipping through the summaries of the different rituals. He had actually found two of them right away that he wanted to get done, so he browsed the procedure and took notes on the rare and exotic ingredients that would be needed. He glanced up at the clock and saw that it was almost mid-day.

He came out of his tent and was heading down for lunch when there was a knocking at the door. Being the closest, Harry answered it.

"Remus! What a surprise! Come in." He gestured for Remus to enter.

"Are you sure, Harry? I don't want to cause trouble with the Muggles."

"Don't worry Remus, we came to an understanding this morning. By the way Remus, just so I know that it's you and not some Death Eater assasin, who do I currently have a crush on?"

"I don't know Harry."

"Really? I could have sworn I told you!" He looked at Remus accusingly and raised his wand.

"Really Harry, you never said anything to me!" Remus was starting looking a little panicked. Harry lowered his wand.

"Congratulations Remus, you passed. Now, come in and have a seat."

Still seeing the slight nervousness in the man as he glanced around the unnaturally clean home, Harry caved in. "If it will make you feel better, we can take a walk. There is a nice park a few blocks away." Remus merely nodded and the two headed back outside..

The day was pretty much the same as the past two weeks. Hot. Before they headed out, Harry discreetly cast a cooling charm on his clothes. Together, he and Remus set off for the park. After about a block or so of walking, Remus began to talk.

"I want to know how you're holding up, Harry. I know Albus said you were fine, but I thought you may be a bit more forthcoming with me."

"As hard as it may be Remus, I am fine, for the most part. The person I am concerned about is you."

"Me?"

"Yes, Remus, you. This is the second time you lost your best friend. I knew Sirius for a few years, you knew him since school. I know it is hard on you because it is hard on me."

"Yes Harry, it's hard. But you need to deal with it too, and I want you to know that I am here for you." By now they had reached the park. They found an empty bench under a tree. Harry said nothing but gestured for Remus to take a seat. They sat there for a few minutes, watching kids play in the park.

"Remus, what do you know of the prophecy?" If the question caught the man off guard, he didn't show it.

"Pretty much what everyone else knows, and that is all I need to know. Why?"

"I know all of it Remus, and I'll tell you the same thing I told Dumbledore. I have a fate, Remus, and it is between me and Voldemort. He knows it, I know it, and Dumbledore knows it. Voldemort will not wait for me to get out of Hogwarts before he comes after me. I need to do whatever I can to defeat him, now. I can not afford the time to grieve, I have too much to do, too much to accomplish in such a short amount of time. The sooner I stop him, the better it is for everyone. And I will stop him Remus, whatever the cost." Remus was looking at Harry with something akin to horror, a look which Harry would had to have been blind not to notice. "I take it you don't agree completely, Remus."

"Harry, first of all, you can't suppress your emotions, you need to deal with it. If you don't, you might end up just like Voldemort himself! Another thing, Harry, I want Voldemort gone, I really do, but I am not willing to sacrifice you for it. You have heard the muggle phrase about 'those who fight demons should take care not to become one'?"

"It's not your choice, it is mine. And as for that 'gazing too long into the abyss' stuff, I am willing to take the chance. I know now that should I become evil I have no hope of completing my fate, so I can assure you that I will be most careful."

"I know, but your parents and Sirius would kill me if I didn't make an effort to keep you inline. Lord knows you get in enough trouble as it is. Besides, a lot of people care for you, Harry. And I am not just talking about the Weasleys, Harry, there are people in the Order, hell, in the entire wizarding world who are quite fond of you."

"I know Remus, and, for the most part, I care for them too. That is why I am willing to take the risks I deem necessary."

A small, sad smile graced Harry's lips as he said this. Remus, noticing a slight change in Harry's demeanor, decided to change the course of the conversation. "So, what do you plan on doing for the rest of your summer?"

"Studying, training, that sort of thing. By the way Remus, if I gave you a list of supplies, do you think you can pick them up for me? I will, of course, cover the costs as they are not cheap." Harry was currently thinking about the book on rituals and some of the more unique components.

"Sure, Harry, I can do that. What do you need?"

"Well, I left the list back at home, but there are a few things that would be helpful. Lets see... some of the things were Werewolf hair, tears of a phoenix, the fur of a Shadowcat, and Liensie wings. Um, there was more… Oh! Right, I also need ground vampire fang and some blood from Tonks." Remus just stared at him in shock.

"Is that all Harry? While I'm at it, perhaps you would like a basilisk eye and a phoenix egg?" Harry hit the man playfully in the shoulder.

"Don't get smart with me, Remus. Talk to Dumbledore and Fawkes about the tears, you are a werewolf, so that shouldn't be a problem." Suddenly Harry's face brightened as a thought struck him. "Ask Fletcher! He probably knows a whole lot of disreputable people who can get me what I need!" Remus was watching him warily.

"What do you need these for Harry?" Harry quickly adopted an innocent expression.

"Oh, just some experiments. Don't worry, Dumbledore has approved." Well, half-truths couldn't hurt. "Oh, and if you can get them relatively quickly, that would be a big help."

"Dumbledore approved experiments using Tonk's blood?" Remus gave Harry a piercing look. "I find that hard to believe."

"What can I say, he's a bit off his rocker. Besides Remus, you know I won't do anything terrible. I merely need it for its, um, metamorphic properties."

"Look Harry, I will try to get the other things, but I can't make any promises. Especially from Tonks. You may not be aware of this Harry, but most wizards aren't willing to give anyone their blood, what with all the dark magic that can be used with it."

"Fine, I will talk to Ms. Tonks myself then," Harry said calmly.

"Huh, you're in for an uphill battle there. You might need to use a bit of alcohol to get her to agree." Remus glanced at his watch. "Look, my watch shift is over. Do you mind if I visit during my next shift?"

"Sure Remus, stop by anytime." Together they walked back to the Dursley's.

"Remus, try not to be too hard on yourself, you know Sirius wouldn't want that," Harry said after they had arrived. This brought a chuckle to the man.

"Here I am, trying to help you, and I'm the one who gets advice! I will try though. Take care, Harry." With that, he apparated away. Smiling, Harry went inside. Remus had been a nice distraction, but tomorrow it would be time to get to work.

R-o-t-G-L-

Harry groaned as the bright morning sunlight streamed between his curtains and onto his face. Grimacing at the bright light, Harry turned his head away and opened his eyes, only to be greeted by two large, blurry ones.

"What the hell!" Harry threw himself off of the other side of the bed and grabbed his wand from his desk. He stood up, his wand pointing at the gray blob with one hand while his other hand searched for his glasses.

"Dobby is so sorry, Harry Potter sir! Dobby does not mean to scare Mr. Potter sir. Harry Potter is a great wizard and Dobby should not be scaring him!" The small creature immediately began to slam his head against the wall.

"Dobby, stop!" Dobby continued to beat himself. Harry was getting frustrated.

"Accio glasses!" His glasses flew to his hand. Once he got them on, he jumped over his bed and grabbed Dobby by the neck, pulling him away from the wall.

"Dobby, as long as you are working here, I absolutely forbid you from punishing yourself. Is that clear?"

"Yes Harry Potter sir." Harry smiled at the short creature, making Dobby brighten up.

"Okay, Dobby. I need you to swear that you won't tell anyone else what I do here, is that understood?"

"Yes Harry Potter sir! Dobby is a good house elf and won't share his master's secrets!"

"I'm not your master Dobby. I would like to be your friend."

"Yes Harry Potter sir." Harry just rolled his eyes. 'There are some things you just can't change.' Then another thought struck him. 'Dear god, Hermione can not know I have a house elf!'

"Err, Dobby?'

"Yes Harry Potter sir?"

"Who knows you're here?"

"His Professorship Dumbledore sir, and Winky."

"Good, lets keep it that way, shall we?" Dobby merely nodded. "So, how is Winky anyway?"

"Oh, she much better, sir! His Professorship Dumbly-dore moved Winky to Black House. She much happier there than at Hogwarts!"

"That's good to hear. What happened to Kreacher?"

"Oh, Kreacher was a bad elf. When he heard that Master Potter and Mr. Lupin own Black house, he went and cut off his own head!" Harry grinned at this news. 'Good riddance to that traitor. Now if only Wormtail would do that...' Shaking his head out of these thoughts, he showed Dobby the tent and explained to him what had to be done. The evening progressed smoothly, with both himself and Dobby cleaning and rearranging the rooms in his tent for his plans. They cleared out the storage room that was in the last compartment of his trunk. Handing his copy of The Path to Power: Rituals to Dobby, he asked the small elf to turn the room into the necessary ritual chamber that was described in detail in the large tome.

It was not until almost eleven o'clock that night that they had everything ready for the week ahead. The chamber, which originally had rough, stone walls, was now smooth and glittering brightly. Dobby had polished the stone (which took up most of the time, even with Harry helping) and had set up four braziers, one in each corner. Dobby had also gone so far as to carve the focusing rune into the floor. The room was ready for use as soon as Harry was ready to use it. Well, almost. Harry still had to perform a spell on the rune to attune it to himself, but he figured that could wait until he was ready. Feeling too tired to read that night, Harry fell asleep on the bed of his room in Privet Drive.

He awoke to the blaring alarm clock that Dobby had apparently set after Harry had gone to bed. He groaned as he rolled over and looked at the time. It was 7:30. 'Damn.' It would be only an hour until his duplicates would arrive. Dragging himself out of bed Harry stumbled to the shower. After cleaning himself, he put on one of his new pairs of everyday work robes, a dark blue set, and headed into the tent to await the others. He did not have to wait long. At exactly 8:30, four other Harrys seemed to materialize in the sitting room of the tent.

They all looked at each other for a moment, the four new comers with different grins on their faces. They each smiled at each other, as if they had done the same inside joke. Had he thought about it, he would have realized just how strange it was to be looking at perfect duplicates of himself. However, their stupid grinning was making Harry annoyed.

"Just what do you find so humorous?" Ironically all five of them spoke at the same time. Harry just glared at them as they broke out in laughter.

"Real mature, guys." He gave them a few minutes to calm down before continuing, deciding to ignore their silliness and get onto more serious topics. "So, getting down to business, everything run okay?" One of the duplicates spoke up.

"Well we are here, aren't we?" Seeing that Harry was not amused, the duplicate continued on more seriously. Sort of. "Damn, we really need to learn how to lighten up. Anyway, the setup we planned works pretty well. Dumbledore was a genius to recommend Dobby, by the way."

"So, in other words, we probably won't see much of each other except dinner times, right?"

"Yes", they all chorused together before breaking out again in laughter. Just shaking his head in disbelief, Harry walked to his room in the tent to begin studying.

He had been reading the book on the Benandanti for only two hours and he felt he knew more about Occlumency than what Snape had ever taught him. The Benandanti book seemed to cover everything, from basic mind-clearing techniques to advanced defensive skills such as trapping a persons in one's mind. There was also a section about the practical applications of Occlumency. Apparently, the mental discipline one learned to be a successful Occlumens were useful in a variety of other applications, not just mental shielding. If mastered, it would help the Occlumens focus better and retain information better, since he would have more discipline and control of his mind.

Making a snap decision, Harry chose to forsake his other studies and spend the rest of the day going through the one book and trying out the exercises outlined in the book. He became so engrossed in the text that he skipped lunch and had to be dragged to dinner by Dobby. As he sat down at the table that the house elf had set up, he immediately began to tuck in, missing the grins from the others. It wasn't until someone cleared their throat that he bothered to look up.

"What?"

"Oh, just wanted to know how your day was." Harry then noticed that, once again, they had that knowing smile. 'Might as well play along, though they already know that I will, so maybe I shouldn't, but then they might know that also. Ah, hell.' Forgetting that circular line of reasoning, he spoke.

"Well, as I am sure you already know, I have spent the day reading The Skills and Tactics of the Benandanti. Anyway, I actually found it interesting. Amazingly, I think I might actually have a basic idea on how to clear my mind."

"Really?" It was one of the other Harry's that spoke up.

"Yes, really." He sneered. "By the way, maybe you guys should wear name tags or something, so I know what rotation you guys are from. I mean, it's such a hassle trying to keep track of all of you." Another one responded.

"Well, normally we do, but being the first day for you, we thought we would make things just a bit more confusing for you. " Harry just glared at them. "Fine! I suppose we had our fun." With that, they pulled out simple paper squares with the numbers two through five written on them. Quiet grumbles about 'fun-killing Potter' were heard throughout the room as they pinned them to their robes.

"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" Harry said smugly, only to be on the receiving end of four identical glares.

"Well, now that you have effectively killed our fun," it was #5 who spoke up, "I was wondering if you wanted to try some of the things you learned today?"

"Are you kidding? I only read about them!"

"Please, you know more just from just reading today than Snape ever taught you!" Harry still looked a little incredulous. "Come on, Harry, you'll only learn through experience. Besides, I am here to help. I've been doing it for almost five weeks already, plus Legilmency. Besides, I don't even have a vendetta against you!"

"Alright! Well practice after were done eating." #5 nodded and they all went back to eating. Dinner seemed to end far too quickly for Harry and he soon found himself in the bedroom of his trunk.

"Now Harry," #5 spoke as they seated themselves on chairs he conjured, "remember what you learned today about clearing your mind. While it is possible to do when you're in a relaxed, comfortable state, odds are you will either be distracted or feeling strong emotion when you are attacked. The trick is to have control of your emotions and focus both thought and emotion, to control them. Not only will this allow you to use both Occlumency and other mental defenses, but, as you guessed earlier, it helps a lot with trying to do wandless magic. Watch." With that, #5 merely raised his hand and a candle on the other side of the room came to life. "Right now I can only do minor stuff like that without too much concentration, but I figure we give it another full rotation and I'll have it down." Harry just looked at him in amazement. "Right, well, I'll give you a moment to gather your thoughts, then we'll continue." Harry just nodded and got ready.

"Okay, go ahead," Harry said after a few moments. #5 nodded and pointed his wand at Harry.

"Legilmens!" Harry was bombarded with memories. Recalling what he heard earlier, Harry tried to concentrate on a single idea, or thought. He could feel #5 trying to bring up memories of the incident at the Department of Mysteries, specifically Sirius going through the veil. Focusing as hard as he could, Harry brought up the idea of a sort of wall, blocking not #5's intrusion, but the memory he was trying to surface. Once this happened, #5 stopped.

"Very good, Harry. That was great for just beginning. Later we can work on a more permanent defense. Visualization and suppression, like what you just did, is best when you are caught unaware. If you happen to have nightmares, either Voldemort induced or not, you can use that technique to stop them." Harry just nodded excitedly, in a state of excitement at actually getting feedback and being successful. #5 continued to speak after giving Harry a few moments to compose himself. "This time, instead of letting me sift through your memories, try to focus on something more practical, like me. Focus on attacking me back, whether mentally or with your wand. The idea is that if you focus enough, you can block outside intrusion. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I think so. I do have one question though."

"Shoot."

"Your attack didn't seem as, I don't know, as powerful, as Snapes. Why is that?" This brought a chuckle from #5.

"Well, as much as I would like to say that I went easy on you, the truth is that I have only been practicing Legilmency for about three weeks, where as Snape is almost a master. There is also the fact that Snape is dark wizard and tends to put a bit of hate into his spells. Now when dealing with mental magic like this, it makes the spell a bit more painful. Now keeping that in mind, I think we will be able to accomplish enough on our own, but once we get back to Hogwarts, we will probably need Snape to continue lessons."

"Snape? Why Snape?" Harry was shocked that he would recommend continuing lessons with that man.

"Well, by then we will actually have a pretty good base and we will be getting lessons from Dumbledore so its not like we will be under-trained. However, I think we need Snape because of his strength in this skill and his aggression and hatred of us. I figure that he will be better able to simulate the kind of attack Voldemort might make against us and thus help us out in the long run." Harry tipped his head in understanding. "Good. You ready?" Harry grinned.

"Do your worst." With that said, #5 attacked.

They practiced well into the night, not stopping until Harry could not only throw #5 out, but also almost stopped him before he got in. The decided to call it a night and #5 went back into the tent while Harry stayed in the bedroom of #4. Since Dumbledore had undoubtedly not informed the order that Harry had procured a tent with a much larger bedroom than the one in #4, it was decided earlier that the first Harry of the rotation would stay in the house proper. This was just so that he may be available should someone from the Order come to visit. Harry smiled as he fell asleep. He had accomplished a lot today, far more than he thought possible. Tomorrow he would start on spell work and experiment with his new sword. 'This duplicate Harry thing just might work out after all.'