Starting Point

Harry left the cab that had taken him from outside of King's Cross to Grimmauld Place number 10 and dragged the trunk behind himself as he walked to his real destination. He had been lucky to have enough muggle money for the road, but it wasn't like he had planned for it.

Simply, once he had arrived at the Platform 9 and 3/4, he realized that there was absolutely no reason to subject himself to another minute under the care of his relatives: amidst families reuniting with each other, both magical and not, the absence of Sirius had hit once more like a gaping hole in his chest, stealing his breath.

Harry had pretended that everything was alright with the same ease he used to before he knew of the existence of magic: and his friends, those mad, mad friends that had accompanied him to his ill-fated adventure at the Ministry, didn't suspect a thing. The Order, which no doubt was going to go on a tizzy once they realized he wasn't at number 4 Privet Drive, had nevertheless expected him to be responsible enough to go with his relatives, as he had always done.

Harry dragged his trunks up to the steps that led to the door of number 12 and rested his hand on the pommel of the door, briefly stunned by the enormity of what he was going to do: the previous summer he had been forced into the Dursley's care, and for reasons that Dumbledore explained when they no longer mattered too. Apparently, after being rebuffed by whatever was left of his mother's love, or Harry's own capacity for 'love', Voldemort would apply himself extensively to avoid the meanest contact with the Chosen One's mind.

Once more, sheer dumb luck kept him safe. Harry apparently didn't even need to study Occlumency, because Riddle would make the work for him. Only that it won't be so easy.

Harry refused to be armed only by his proverbial luck: Sirius was proof enough that it wouldn't always be enough: and Voldemort was hardly the only legilimens that he was going to meet, wasn't he? The Chosen One had made his decision when he had walked back and forth in front of the Room of Requirement: I need a place where I can learn as fast as possible all that I need to successfully join the war effort.

He had tried to be as specific as possible in his request, knowing that he didn't have much time before he'd be forced to a summer without magic, and even with the new development of his choice of a residence, he could hardly train his spellcasting.

Yet, Occlumency had been listed as one of the fundamental skills for any fighter to have, and so he'd practice. His knuckles turned white because of the strength he was holding the pommel with: flashes of Snape's 'lessons' flashed through his mind's eye before he crushed those thoughts. His incompetence had cost him Sirius: it couldn't be allowed to happen again. At least I'll have something useful to do during the summer.

With a deep breath, he forced himself to open the door, and he walked inside, moving as quietly as he could in the dusty corridor. Entering Grimmauld Place gave Harry a strange feeling: on one hand, the absence of Siruis, and the eerie quiet of the empty house, was as heavy as a lead cloak over his shoulders, on the other, it felt as if he had taken his first step in the right direction.

No longer he'd be bumbling around, relying on luck to survive. No: he'd do everything he could, everything he had to, to end Voldemort and his Death Eaters. A flash of chilling green occupied his thoughts for a moment, and his heart soared once more with triumph at the memory of Bellatrix's fall in the Ministry.

Harry sighed as he trudged forward, already grimacing at the thought of having to carry his trunk on upstairs, when the unthinkable happened: with an earth-shattering *crack*, Kreacher appeared in front of him.

"Filthy Half Blood master enters the Home of the Blacks, oh, my poor mistress, if only she..."

But none of the words registered in Harry's ears, he could only listen to a dull roar that seemed to shake him from the inside, while he recalled Dumbledore's words with stunning clarity. This was the House Elf that so eagerly had betrayed his master, this was the wretched being that cost him serious. And the Headmaster had confessed that Kreacher had been happy in telling him about the betrayal: that he had laughed, because he didn't have to punish himself when he lied to Harry about Sirius' whereabouts.

"You." Harry's cold tone cut the mumbling of the House Elf short, and he could be heard despite his quiet voice, which was easily covered by the howling and snarling of Wlaburga's portrait, awakened because of Kreacher's loud appearance.

The Chosen One found himself holding Bellatrix's wand, no, his wand, and pointing it at the House Elf in front of him. A meaningless traitor that had caused so much sorrow only because of spite, and no matter how much Dumbledore wanted everyone to work in jolly cooperation: treating the Elf kindly wouldn't have saved Sirius, how could it?

"You lied, and deliberately contributed to causing the death of Sirius!" Harry's shout shook the dingy corridor, drowning the snarling portrait of Walburga under a fraction of the wizard's grief. His rage, which had been asleep until that moment, roared to the forefront of his mind, and he noticed that a cold green light was already coalescing on the tip of his wand: a length of wood that was positively thrumming with joy at the prospect of violence.

A part of him was startled at the ease with which he summoned the deadly intent: he remembered the lesson clearer than ever now: it was etched in every crease of his soul. You have to mean it. And Harry did. At this point, the House Elf was a liability if not an outright threat: "Give me a single reason why I shouldn't kill you right now for what you did!"

A grimace painted itself on the terrified face of the wretched creature, and his mouth moved as if compelled: "Traitor master left everything to the filthy Half-Blood master."

The croak reached Harry's ears while he was still considering the benefits of killing Kreacher, and it took several seconds for the meaning to reach him beyond the roaring wall of his hate.

The wizard blinked, and the green light faded from the tip of his wand as he lowered it: "Sirius... he left everything to me?"

"Unworthy Half Blood master is hard of ears too, oh, my poor mistress, if she could see..."

"Enough." Harry snapped, a frown appearing on his features as he observed how the Elf's mouth closed without his conscious input, "Silence the portrait."

With a snap of his finger and with an even more pronounced grimace on his face, the curtains hanging on the frame of Walburga snapped closed, and silence once more reigned in the house. The silence seemed to dry the wizard of his rage. It receded like a wave, leaving him exhausted, but with the promise of an unpredictable return at any moment.

After a second of silence, Harry tried to organize his thoughts. He hardly wanted to spend the rest of his summer controlling Kreacher, and that meant giving him orders to prevent him from once more betraying the Order, unless...

"I forbid you from lying to me." he stated clearly, "I forbid you from creatively reinterpreting any of my orders." his green eyes narrowed when the Elf spent a few seconds staring in the void before his shoulders slumped. And then Harry asked: "Do you have to keep following your previous orders?"

At Kreacher's hesitant nod, the Chosen One could already feel the beginning of a headache mounting between his temples. He couldn't really trust him, could he? Then again, how difficult could it be to give adequate orders to a House Elf? He almost wanted to laugh: he simply had to think of everything he was or wasn't allowed to do in his younger years at the Dursley's. How insane is it that they proved useful for the first time in their lives now that I the intention of never seeing them again?

"You will never leave this house. You will never communicate in any way to anyone," Harry shot a brief glance at the temporarily quiet portrait on the wall, "or to anything, but me, unless I explicitly tell you otherwise."

"You will complete your tasks with the utmost care, and never in any way harm or damage anyone or anything in this house unless explicitly told otherwise." his green eyes kept Kreacher pinned where he was until he nodded, the defeated slump of his shoulder making Harry take a deep breath of relief: "Bring my trunk in the room where I slept the previous summer, clean the room properly, and prepare a bed for me."

It shouldn't be that bad, since it was used at Christmas too. The wizard thought as he walked to the end of the corridor and into the kitchen where he opened the fridge and take out a butterbeer. As he was closing it, he froze: on a nearby shelf, there was a half-empty bottle of Firewhiskey, and several small tumblers upside down to avoid the dust.

It wasn't that he was particularly curious, he liked butterbeer just fine, and he had never felt the need to try something stronger. No, what stopped him was a simple thought: what would Sirius do?

Harry put back the butterbeer and took a couple of glasses, filling both before sitting at the table. In the dimly lit room, he could almost pretend that it was one of the night that he spent here at the previous Christmas, just after Arthur's return from St. Mungo, or better yet, one of the last nights of the last summer, when the worst worry was the hearing at the Ministry.

He sat in the dark, and without really thinking about it, he downed his tumbler.

He immediately began to cough up tongues of flame, and if his cheeks gleamed with tear tracks at the light of the small bursts of fire, well, it wasn't like there was anyone there to point it out.

The room was dingy in the way that only old places left to themselves could be, from the tapestries to the dark wood of the furniture, from the polished black tiles of the floor to the unlit fireplace, it was like a shadow shaped into some sort of mostly empty box.

The only speck of color was a snowy owl perched on the back of the only chair of the small study: it rested with its eyes closed, almost keeping vigil over the wizard who was breathing quietly, his eyes cast in shadows. Harry had, like his pretty owl, decided to remain still with his eyes closed, albeit for a different reason.

In the small study he had occupied to work through what he could for the summer, he had spent the few days since his arrival trying to accomplish the impossible task of disciplining his mind. What little instruction Snape had given him kept eluding him, and yet, he had persisted: emptying his mind of every thought as much as he could, day after day, until he realized he as thinking about something, and he had to begin anew.

Yet, far from the bustle of the castle, secluded from the raging war, without Snape's toxic presence, and safe from Voldemort's mind attacks, for a few moments, he sort of fell into a state in which minutes couldn't be distinguished from seconds, and slowly, he realized that he could think under the layer of not-thought that he felt was what Snape had forcefully and fruitlessly tried to impart on him.

And in those states of unwilling thoughts, he had found himself thinking through the last, mad years of his life. Since his arrival at Hogwarts, he had been exposed to dangers beyond anything that a kid should be facing. Not only that, but he had been kept in the dark. Why? Because Dumbledore had apparently grown to care for him, which translated in not stopping any of those dangers from attempting on his life, but in merely denying him any answer, or counsel that would prepare him to handle the next unavoidable peril.

There were some things that didn't truly make sense, even considering what Dumbledore had said: at least in his third year, why had it been Hermione and Harry to travel back in time, instead of the headmaster? It had been pure luck, and some time paradox-related madness involved, that somehow allowed him to cast a Patronus powerful enough to repel more than a hundred Dementors.

And fo all that Hermione told him that Dumbledore thought that only a very powerful wizard could cast it, Harry had hardly seen confirmation of that fact. He had been pretty useless when it came to fighting Voldemort, hadn't he? And, in hindsight, it was laughable how his so-called mercy had managed to backfire so spectacularly.

Yes, Harry's own mercy had left Pettigrew run free, and that cost his godfather his deserved freedom. That mercy had indirectly brought about Voldemort regaining a body. Now not only had he led his friends into a danger beyond their ability to face, but he had done so because he hadn't bothered learning Occlumency. Such a simple task he had deemed beneath himself, and that had caused Sirius to come to bail him out of danger.

And then to die.

An impossible weight settled over Harry's shoulders while a steel clamp seemed to squeeze his own heart. Again.

He had lost him again. The hope that he had barely managed to gleam at the end of his third year fully vanished that night, all because of Bellatrix. Harry had been a child, one whose ignorance and sheer lack of skill had been more damning for those that opposed Voldemort than his own prophecy-borne enemy.

How ironic was to realize how little at fault Bellatrix had been! This was war, would Harry do anything less but kill the enemy? The night that cost Sirius his life proved that he was the same as his enemies. Worse, even: they're competent at least.

The faint groaning of wood made Harry open his eyes and direct his gaze towards the door of the empty study, where Kreacher had walked in, his head bowed: "Master, there is the filthy..."

"You will always refer to any person in this house properly with Mister, Miss, Missus, and their surname." Harry's order cut him short, just in time for a familiar white beard to poke from behind the corner.

"Harry," Dumbledore spoke with relief clear in his tone, "you've been reckless, coming here without informing anyone."

"Would have I been allowed to come here had I told anyone of it?" the much younger wizard shook his head as he rose from his seat, "It doesn't matter anyway."

He turned towards the House Elf: "Make us some tea, if you would, Kreacher."

"As the Master commands." the servant bowed deeply and disappeared with a loud *pop* that made Hedwig cackle in irritation, puffing up her feathers and glaring briefly at the Headmaster as if he was the cause of her interrupted nap.

"Perhaps." the Headmaster's voice was thoughtful as he carefully observed the Chosen One, "In any case, I'll escort you back to your relatives, even if I must stress that I expect greater discernment from you in the future."

"No." the young Gryffindor's voice was steely as he crossed his arms and raised his head minutely, almost jutting out his chin: "I won't go back."

Dumbledore frowned lightly while he took a step forward, looking at the shorter wizard with a deep sadness in his eyes: "Harry, I've told you about this, you're safe with your relatives..."

"I think that the Dementors last summer proved otherwise, Professor." Harry tried desperately to not let his emotion rise to the forefront of his mind: it wasn't like he truly feared the headmaster taking a peek into his head, merely, after days spent only with the company of Hedwig and the much less welcome one of Kreacher, his constant attempts had almost grown into a habit.

"I just want to keep you safe, Harry." the ancient wizard sighed, but while his voice didn't waver, his eyes seemed two pools of ever-growing grief.

Keeping a conscious distance between his thoughts and his actions, Harry felt himself produce a mockery of a smile: "Am I not safe in a house under a Fidelius of which you are the Secret Keeper?"

"Harry, the protection your mother bestowed upon you protected them as well as you." Dumbledore's voice came tiredly then, even as he kept his hands folded over his impressive beard.

For a moment, the always sleeping rage inside the Chosen One perked up: "Then they'll be as prepared for the magical world as they made me while I was in their care, won't they?"

Dumbledore's eyes turned darker with disappointment as he allowed himself a sigh. Sensing however that such a topic wouldn't be conducive to the conversation, he tried another way: "Moving them to safety were you to not renew the protection to the place you call home would take resources and people that we can't spare at the moment."

Harry's face blanked instead, and the only sign of life on it were his green eyes, which studied the Headmaster with a neutrality that had never belonged to the young wizard's thoughts when it came to topics related to the much older wizard: "If that is the issue, Kreacher informed me that I inherited everything from Sirius, and I guess that he would have loved spending Black money to protect muggles, it would be enough to make Walburga roll in her grave."

"Ah, I had wondered about that." the ancient wizard hummed thoughtfully: "I see that you've already taken to giving him orders."

"Given how not giving him precise commands turned out last time, I'm trying to keep him busy."

Refusing to be diverted from his self-appointed task, the Headmaster resumed his usual tone. Full of expectations, and expecting compliance: "Most in the Orders are busy with their tasks, we can hardly afford to keep someone with you full time."

"Like you did with Arabella Figg?" Harry rose an unimpressed eyebrow: "I don't see how keeping a faulty guard on me at all times like last year would be more difficult here than in Surrey."

Before the Headmaster could reply, the younger wizard added: "And living here, I could even be blessed by a conversation that isn't made of insults. Or any conversation at all, I suppose."

Dumbledore flinched as if he had been struck, the reminder of the disastrous consequences of Harry's treatment of the previous summer had managed to quiet him when nothing else had. He sighed one last time, and he seemed to deflate with the weight of that action: "I must ask, given the fact that Grimmauld Place belongs to you know, if the Order of the Phoenix can keep using the building as Headquarters."

"Of course..."

Harry was stopped in his answer by a raised hand: "If you are to live here, you are to not eavesdrop on the meetings."

The younger Gryffindor felt the odd urge to laugh: had the whole conversation been some tractive? Was the Headmaster accepting as payment for Harry's choice of residence the permission to use that same place as HQ? Still, it hardly made sense, did it? Especially given the revelation of their last meeting. "Why though? You told me that Voldemort wouldn't use our connection anymore..."

"But in the Order students aren't allowed, nevermind underage dropouts." a familiar twinkle made its way into the Headmaster's eyes then: "I implore you not to follow the improbable path of Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley, as it would make difficult to complete what we have to during the incoming academic year."

"Which is?"

"It can wait until September." Dumbledore's voice had regained some of his usual cheerfulness, before giving him a penetrating glance, "For the time being, continuing your Occlumency practice would be useful indeed. Did you find any particular snag that I'd be able to help you with?"

Kreacher chose that moment to appear once more in the room, with steaming tea ready to be consumed.

The headmaster conjured himself a chiffon armchair on the other side of the desk where Harry had been sitting before, and with a brief jab of his wand, flames began to dance in the fireplace, only for the few lamps of the room to lit up, turning the previously dingy room in a surprisingly cozy place.

Feeling some enthusiasm because of the small success he had been able to obtain by keeping his head and talking logically to Dumbledore, the much younger wizard sat at his place, and started to ask to the professor the few problems he had encountered thus far in keeping the mindset necessary for Occlumency.

AN

Hello everyone! It's been a while for this story, but it is still in its infancy, and not really a priority for now, the plot hasn't managed to snatch me quite yet.

Anyway, this should be the last chapter with little to no interaction among characters: I wanted to jump straight to Slughorn, but I needed to put some basis for bigger changes down the line.

Opinions, hopes?

As always, let me know!