Chapter 7

Back to classes

Monday

9am

Defense Against the Dark Arts

The whole way to defense, Hermione complained about her schedule, just as she had at breakfast once she stopped fussing over Harry. He almost wished she would go back to telling him how awful he looked. Almost. "I just don't understand why I'm in only seven classes. And only four of them are NEWTs. I went to Professor Flitwick before breakfast and he refused to put me in Ancient Runes or Arithmancy."

"Look at it this way, it leaves you more time to do research for our project." Ron said. Harry stifled his smile. Ron knew her well enough to get her off one tangent and on to another. Unfortunately, Neville didn't take the side trip.

"You know, I don't like my schedule either, I'm not in Herbology but I am in NEWT Transfiguration. McGonagall wouldn't let me in the sixth year class because I didn't have a high enough OWL."

"We can study together, Neville. I missed most of my sixth year being a captive in Draco's basement and all." They all quieted their complaining and looked a Luna. She didn't seemed upset by discussing her kidnapping but honestly with Luna it was hard to tell.

"That's great." Hermione said unsurely, "But I still don't understand why I'm only taking four NEWTs. I'm going to the headmaster about this."

Harry thought his schedule was crap too but he really didn't feel like arguing about it. He had already spent most of breakfast comparing timetables with his five friends. Like the others, he had NEWT level Defense, Transfiguration, and Charms. Most of them had NEWT potions though Hannah and Neville had been put in the fifth year OWL class. The main surprise came in that they were all signed up for one third year intro course. Harry and Hannah would be taking ancient runes. Neville, Luna, and Ron were taking Muggle Studies. And the biggest cause for complaint, Hermione was taking divination.

In addition, they all were signed up for two classes not offered in thier own time; healing, which they would go to straight after defense, and one where the only professor listed was the headmaster. "You can see him tonight as he is teaching the Theory of Magic Class we have after dinner."

"Theory of Magic. Oh I can't wait. "

"Yeah. So what do you think the chances are that the Defense Professor tries to kill me?"

"Don't worry, mate. We got your back. Who is the defense teacher anyway?"

"You never listen. Dumbledore stated at the welcoming feast that Professor Prewitt would be here today but couldn't make it for the feast."

"Prewitt? I would have noticed if he said Prewitt as my mom was one."

"That would be so funny. Your mom teaching defense. 'Then you grab the frying pan and whack him in the head." Harry made the whacking motion with his bag and the others laughed.

"Hey!" Ron protested, slugging Harry in the shoulder.

"Come on, Ron. I'm just playing. You know I love her and she would make a great defense teacher. Remember her wailing on the bitch during the battle."

The room was about half filled when the six of them entered but they were able to get seats together toward the back. Harry sat next to Luna and only tinged a little when his ribs hurt as he bent over to get his book out of his bag.

Malfoy entered with the Marauders. He was laughing at something. Harry wanted to whack him over the head.

"What's wrong?" Luna asked.

"Malfoy's up to something."

"What makes you say that?"

"He is being way too chummy with the Gryffindors."

Luna made a very noncommittal sound and Harry took his eyes off Malfoy to look at her. She looked as whimsical as ever, drawing rainbows on her parchment. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"I just think he is making the best of the situation. Draco is good at that. It doesn't necessarily mean he is evil."

Harry looked back at Draco in time to see him shoot a hex at a Hufflepuff girl sitting in front. She turned back around Harry saw her eyebrows growing down to her nose already. The Marauders plus interloper laughed. "Yeah, not evil at all."

The door to the office opened and two red headed twins came bounding into the room. Harry felt the tears prickle his eyes and looked to Ron. He was in much worse shape. He had grabbed Hermione's hand and was obviously squeezing too hard by the look on her face.

"Good Morning everyone, I'm Fabian Prewitt."

"And I'm Gideon Prewitt."

"As there are two of us,"

"and we are way too young to be professors,"

"You can call us by our first names."

"If you can tell which is which." They both laughed. No one in the class did. Except Ron and his laugh was just a little too chocked up in unshed tears. Ron was apparently having as much trouble as Harry was in getting the sight of Fred lying dead in the Great Hall out of his head. The twin speak was not helping at all.

Fabian sat down on the teachers' desk and Gideon stood sort of bouncing on his toes. Gideon went on talking, "This class is going to be different than your previous courses in defense."

"Yeah, as in we actually know what we are talking about."

"Fabe, you shouldn't put down the past professors."

"As we've been taught by some of those professors, I feel confident in putting them down."

"Anyway, as I was saying. Fabian and I attended Hogwarts, as some of you might remember."

"Best beaters Gryffindor ever had."

"Thanks Black. We graduated five years ago. We then became aurors. We decided to take a sabbatical this year to teach as a favor to Professor Dumbledore."

"He only wanted me but this guy just invited himself along."

"Hush you prat. Now you may have noticed that Defense was only on your time table twice a week. On Monday's and Wednesday's we will all meet up here for Lectures or tests and stuff."

"We are really glad for our seven transfer students as it brought class enrollment up to twenty-four. We are going to split the class in to four groups of six. You will meet in your groups with us twice a week. Once with me, Once with Gideon."

"Do we get to pick our own groups?" Someone asked.

"Absolutely not."

"We will pick the groups based on three things. First, when your time tables are open to allow time for a two hour block. As you can imagine, your practical groups may be after dinner."

"Another factor will be your score on these tests."

A collective groan resonated through the room. What kind of sicko gave a test on the first day? "Don't be like that. You guys are going to love this. The third factor is your practical ability."

Gideon walked to the back of the classroom where all the shelves and pictures had been moved off the wall. "This is a training exercise that they use in the Auror's Academy. As you are taking your test, we will call you up alphabetically. You put the tip of your wand in this blue circle and state your name, year, and house."

"Does everyone in here know how to cast a stunner?"

Nods and words of assent. "Great. The incantation is Stupefy. Just in case."

Gideon put his wand tip on the blue dot. Said his name followed by professor. Then stepped back. "Start."

A large black dot appeared. He shot it with a stunner. It faded and came back in a different spot. "The longer you play, the harder it gets. If you play long enough, different colored dots appear and if you hit one that isn't black, Game over. If the dot appears and then disappears before you stun it, Game over." Gideon purposely didn't fire and the dot faded. A bell sounded and instead of a dot, a number appeared. Two.

"The game measures three separate areas. The strength of your spells. Strong is better than weak."

"Though weak is better than missing the target at all. So the game measures accuracy. How many of your spells hit the dot."

"Lastly, it measures speed. How long the dot is visible before you stun it. In a fight, speed is imperative."

Fabian passed out the tests. Gideon went back up front for the roster. "Hannah Abbott, you're with me."

Like everyone else in the class, Harry was only partial focused on the test in front of him. Even Hermione kept stealing glances to the back of the room to see how the trainer was going. Every time the bell rang, every head would turn. Hannah scored a twenty six. She was doing well until the dot started to move.

Avery was next and he looked smug at his 46. Until the Blacks went. Narcissa was amazing. Harry looked over to Draco who looked gobsmacked at his mother sending off stunner after stunner. Not only did her dot move. But the colored dots came up as well. She ended up with a 72. Sirius did well also but didn't beat her with a 67.

The written test was tedious. It started with things they were supposed to learn as first years, all the way through their owls. Harry just half heartily filled in the answers. He glanced over to Hermione who looked like she was writing a novel.

The next half dozen or so on the game were uninspiring. Including Barty Couch Jr and both the Carrow twins. None of them scored over a thirty. When the name Celeste Dumbledore was called, Harry whipped around to look at the Ravenclaw girl.

"Isn't she beautiful?" Luna whispered to him.

Harry took a good look at her. Long blonde hair, big blue eyes. "She kinda looks like you. So yes, she's very pretty."

"She's my mom."

"You're a Dumbledore?"

"Aberforth is my great grandfather."

"I didn't know that." Celeste had finished her turn with a 45 and next up was Lily Evans. "There's my mom."

"She's very pretty, also. She kind of looks like Ginny."

"I know. It sort of freaks me out truth be told." His mother did ok with a 42. Hermione was then up and Harry loved how serious she was going up there. Narcissa still held the highest and Harry could practically hear Hermione's thought process. Have to be the best. Have to be the best. She only got a sixty.

Alice Greengrass, a hufflepuff, was called next. This time it was Neville watching with teary eyes. She did look familiar, had pretty eyes and a round face. Then Harry remembered where he had seen her before. In the old picture Sirius had showed him of the original order of the phoenix. She had been standing next to Frank Longbottom. She did well beating Hermione by one point.

Neville was called next and Harry grabbed his sleeve as he went past, "You alright?"

"Yeah, I just.. well you know."

"I do." Harry nodded then let Neville go to have his turn on the trainer.

Harry looked over his test and figured he had done as well as he was going to. Some of the curses on the last page Harry new were well above NEWT level. He almost didn't fill in the answers but then figured what the heck. He knew for a fact neither of the Prewitts were death eaters. It wouldn't hurt anything if they knew he wasn't as helpless as his small frame made him look.

Neville finally finished with a sixty five and most the class gave a little cheer. By this time no one was working on the test except Hermione.

"Luna Lovegood." Luna smiled at Harry in that serene way of hers before taking her turn. She did great with a seventy. Remus got a 55 and MacNair only got 52. Then it was Malfoy's turn.

He swaggered to the back and took a dueling stance like they had learned during their second year. Harry wasn't really impressed considering he knew Draco was a crap dueler. He hit a red dot as soon as it popped up and his turn ended with a 35. He looked pissed as he walked back to his seat.

Pettigrew tripped and fell over his own feet missing the wall entirely. His stunner hit the chandelier and wax from the candles rained down on the class. Harry was called as he made his way to the back he stopped next to Malfoy.

"Don't feel bad, Malfoy. If the game had been about cursing the little dots while their backs were turned, you would have come out on top."

Ron laughed and Harry felt better than he had since coming to this hell. Getting one over on Malfoy was always a treat. He keyed his name, year, and house into the game, he even managed not to chock on the word Slytherin. It started out so slow it was almost boring. Harry imagined Snape's and MacNair's faces on the dots and put as much power into it as he could. The dot started to move around the wall and things got tricky.

His sore ribs wouldn't allow him too much range of motion but he blocked the pain and worked through. Then is started throwing in the colors. After fighting death eaters all the time, picking out the black in a sea of color wasn't really all that difficult. It was when there were multiple black dots that he tripped up. The bell sounded, 96, and he turned back expecting a little cheer but there was silence.

Gideon cleared his throat, "you were favoring your right. You need to work that kink out. In a real fight, your opponent would have picked up on that and used it against you."

"I don't usually, my ribs are hurt."

Fabian moved forward and pointed his wand at Harry. Harry couldn't help the flinch. Fabian noticed, "I'm just going to do a quick field diagnostic." One spell later and he was shaking his head. "You have three broken ribs. Go to the hospital wing."

"It's not that big a deal. I have Healing after this. I'll get Madam Pomfrey to look at them then."

"What kind of masochist are you walking around with broken bones?"
The people who knew him burst out laughing. The rest of the class still looked a little awed. Harry moved back to his seat and James Potter came forward.

"Harry, we've only been here two days, how did you manage to get yourself hurt already?"

"Pure talent." Harry replied though he couldn't help looking over to where MacNair and Snape sat with their heads together. They looked worried as they looked back to him. Good, maybe they will be sufficiently scared and leave him the hell alone. Probably not.

James scored a seventy five, then some gryffindor girl named Trowler did only slightly better than Pettigrew. Ron was up last. Harry admitted that he did look impressive. He was well over six and half feet tall, long dark red hair like Bill. But he was also broad and muscled like Charlie. No one would ever look at Ron and think he looked delicate and pretty. Harry really hated being so small. He was a great dueler as well scoring a 77.

Gideon walked over and tapped the blue dot with his wand, "Seventh Years." Then he tapped the parchment in his hand. He glanced over before handing it over to Fabian. "Ok, everyone. Pass your tests forward."

"We are very impressed with all your scores. Honestly, we didn't expect anyone to actually score above a seventy, which is the minimum requirement for the Auror Academy. To pass the academy and become an Auror, you have to get a 100."

"For the rest of the year, you can come in here to try and up your score any time after dinner and before curfew. Now, as all the student fifth year and above need time to improve, you can only use the trainer twice a week."

"Every Monday at the end of class, the top five students will be announced. The class rankings will be posted on the wall out side."

"For today, drum roll please... first place, awarded 25 points to Slytherin, even with three broken ribs, is Harry potter. Second place, awarded twenty points to Hufflepuff, Ron Weasley. Third Place and fifteen points to Gryffindor, James Potter. Fourth Place and ten points to Slytherin, Narcissa Black. Fifth Place and five points to Hufflepuff, Luna Lovegood."

Gideon moved toward the door and Fabien continued to address the class. "You will receive your group assignments tomorrow morning during mail call. For the first group, think of your favorite defensive charm to discuss with the group. Also bring an example of one thing you would like to learn before the end of the year."

"And for those of you who don't think four times a week is enough, we will be at the Quidditch pitch every morning at 5:30 am for Physical Exercise."Gideon had come back in. "We can't require you to attend the Physical Training. But you can't be a world class dueler if your body isn't up for the strain."

"Till next time. Dismissed."

11am

Healing

"I don't understand how I got ninth." Hermione complained on the walk up to the hospital wing.

"It's just like I've been telling you since fifth year. You over think it." Harry said.

"I wish we had something like that in the DA. It might have prepared us more for the battle. Maybe so many of us wouldn't have died. " Neville said.

"Maybe we can discover how it works and make one for when we get back."

"I'll ask them." Ron said. "I would love to talk to them some. I've been feeling a little homesick."

They were the first ones to arrive at the hospital wing. "Madam Pomfrey, my ribs are hurt, would you fix them please."

She did the diagnostic and just shook her head. "This injury is over twelve hours old. You should have come here immediately."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. Today was going to be all theory but since you presented the option, the class has someone to practice on."

"Oh come on Madam Pomfrey, I promise I'll come right away next time." At least this Madam Pomfrey didn't know him well enough to know that was a complete lie.

"Sit on the bed Mr. Potter. I'll heal it after the rest of the class gets here."

The class was very small. Other than the seven of them, only six other people were in the class including Snape and Remus. As if five years of potions wasn't bad enough, Harry hated that it seemed as if Snape was going to be in all his classes.

Good to her word, Madam Pomfrey started the class off with a lecture about the same diagnostic charm that Fabian had used on him. Then she let everyone else in the class practice on him. Draco, Hannah, Snape, Hermione and Remus were the only ones to come up with the right diagnosis. At the end of class, Madam Pomfrey demonstrated the bone healing charm and made him drink a shot of skele-gro, which she made a point of saying wouldn't have been necessary had he come to her right after the injury happened.

Noon

Lunch

Harry wanted to follow his friends to a table but Hermione reminded them of what McGonagall had said at breakfast and suggested they go to their assigned tables. Harry went and sat next to Narcissa. She turned up her nose in that smell-something-kind-of-funny way that Harry remembered Mrs. Malfoy often did.

"Are you mad at me now?"

"Why would I be mad at you? It's not like I dragged your ass off the cold stone floor and took care of you. Only to have you snub me at breakfast and then sit next to a Hufflepuff during defense."

"I sat with my friends. I don't care what house they are in. I'm sitting next to you now and I want you to know that I really do appreciate all the help you have given me."

She looked at him a little funny but also gave him a smile. Regulus sat down on his other side. "Have you guys had defense yet? That was the best class ever."

"We had it this morning. Did you guys use the trainer?"

"Yep. I scored a 56. We only got through half the class but so far, I'm in the lead."

"That's great Regi." Harry noticed MacNair and Snape listening to their conversation and by the evil look on Narcissa's face, she noticed them too. "I was fourth in our class. Harry was first he scored a 96."

"Holy Merlin, the professors said we need to get our score to seventy by the end of the year. Though I guess I'm not surprised you did so well considering the way you wiped the floor with the other seventh years last night."

MacNair and Snape both looked like they ate something bad. Harry just heaped food on his plate and let Regulus's chatter surround him.

2pm

Ancient Runes

After Lunch, Harry had shook off Regulus and ran back to the Suite for his Afternoon books. Ron and Neville met up there with him and he showed them the trick he had learned that morning about putting his wand on the picture frame to hear what was going on in the common rooms. This time they were watching Ravenclaw as Hermione was talking to Celeste. The discussion was hilarious as Hermione was complaining about having to go to Divination next and Celeste was debunking her every doubt. Harry could really see the resemblance to Luna in Celeste refusing to even acknowledge Hermione's skepticism.

When the two left Ravenclaw tower the three boys realized they needed to get to their first afternoon class as well. Neville and Ron both were signed up for muggle studies and Harry wished he could go with them just to see what the two would think of a toaster.

Harry wasn't sure what to make of his ancient runes class. He would have felt like an idiot if it wasn't for the fact that most the kids in the class were of a height with him. He and Hannah sat in the back. The third year Gryffindors and Slytherins looked at them like they were crazy for sitting together.

Harry asked her something he had been wondering all morning, "Abbotts are pureblood, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Is your mother here. I mean we all have parents here, except Ron, but he has uncles. And expect Hermione but her parents are muggles."

"My mom was a muggle."

"I didn't know that."

"That's why they killed her. They would have killed my dad too, but he wasn't home when they showed up."

"I'm sorry. So when did your dad graduate?"

"He was in the same class as Ron's parents. I do have some of my Abbott cousins in Hufflepuff here but they are so young now. I haven't even talked to them."

The professor entered and Harry got out his book to try and learn something new. It was interesting and Harry wished he had taken this class in his third year rather than divination. At the end of class he packed up to head to his next class.

"You're not with us now are you?"

"Nope," Hannah replied. "I was never able to understand potions with the teacher we had. I'm glad they put me in the OWL class here not the NEWT."

"So what do you have now?"

"Nothing. I think I'm going to go back to the Founder's Suite and hang out till dinner. Send Neville my way if you see him."

"Sure. Though he will probably make it there on his own. I can't wait till we have time to investigate the place thoroughly."

3pm

Potions

Harry decided the only thing worse than having Snape as a potions teacher was having him as a potions partner. The man was a git.

"Just because you are good at waving wand, doesn't mean you have a brain. You stir Murlap Essence clockwise. It's a simple potion."

Harry wanted to take the Murlap Essence and shove it up Snape's extremely large nose. Though he did have to admit that their potion was a brighter yellow than anyone around him.

Slughorn was still Slughorn. He gushed over Lily and several other students before assigning them partners and telling them that today they would be required to create three potions for the hospital wing, murlap essence, basic pain reliever, and pepper up.

They weren't even halfway through the first potion and Harry wanted to hurl.

"Go get peppermint out of the storage cabinet."

"I thought we already discussed you giving me orders."

Snape said nothing but went to get the peppermint himself. Narcissa smiled at him, "You can be taught."

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"You beat him in the duel last night. Now he has to defer to you."

"That could come in handy." Harry said though honestly he didn't know what he would do with it. For now he just watched as Snape made all three potions with no input from him at all. Harry watched as Snape madeseveral notations in his book. Snape may be crap but Harry had no problem learning from the Half-Blood Prince. "Let me copy your notes."

"Excuse me?"

"Your notes. Let me copy them."

"Why you arrogant..."

"Severus, I believe Harry asked you if he could see your notes."

Snape pushed the book at Harry and didn't say anything else. Malfoy was passing by and must have seen the wink Narcissa gave him as he leaned down to whisper in his ear.

"Potter, quit flirting with my mother."

"Or what?"

"Or, I will get James into so much trouble, Lily will never even look at him." Malfoy continued walking.

"Look Harry," Narcissa said drawing his attention back to her, "Pain Reliever. It's yellow, not blue."

"That's because the formula Slughorn follows is antiquated." Now Snape looked at him, "How did you know that the premium pain reliever is blue?"

"I guess I'm not such a dunderhead after all." Though he was glad that Narcissa and Regulus hadn't been trying to poison his this morning.

6 pm

Dinner.

As Harry sat out by the lake during his free period after potions, he remembered a story Sirius told him that long ago Christmas they actually spent together. There was a reason love potions were banned from Hogwarts and it all had to do with a prank the Marauder's pulled their seventh year on their first day of classes. Sirius talked about it because it was the last school wide prank they pulled. As it was, James almost lost his headboy badge over it.

Narcissa was entering the hall when Harry caught up with her, "Cissy, wait. Where's Regulus?"

She glanced into the hall, "He's sitting down."

"Go get him and both of you need to come with me."

"Why?"

"Consider this pay back for you helping me out last night. I over heard those four Gryffindor's talking about something that was going on at dinner tonight."

"Right, be right back."

Regulus looked confused but followed her out of the hall. From what Harry knew of the Slytherin mentorship, he pretty much had to do what she said whether he wanted to or not. "What's going on?" He asked when the two of them joined him in the entryway.

"Did you eat or drink anything?"

"No, the food hadn't been served yet."

"Good, I heard the seventh year Gryffindor's talking about a prank."

"My brother is such an ass. Are we going to warn the rest of the house?"

"No, we are going to go to the kitchen to grab a quick bite and then come back in about twenty minutes to catch the show."

They both looked weary about the plan but followed him nonetheless. Twenty minutes later they walked into the great hall. Nothing was going on. Harry would have thought he remembered wrong but one look at the Gryffindor table convinced him something was up. James and Sirius looked too pleased. Peter kept glancing at his watch then the Slytherin table. The commotion started slowly.

A third year Slytherin yelled across the table, "Don't eat that carrot. Please, don't hurt my love."

"That Sheppard's pie is mine. I love Sheppard's pie. I'm going to write home to father tonight telling him I'm going to marry my Sheppard's pie."

MacNair was snogging a chicken leg and the boy Carrow was standing up shoving mashed potatoes down his pants. Up and down the table, the Slytherins were declaring love to whatever they had been holding in their hands when the potion kicked in.

8 pm

The Theory of Magic

Harry was still laughing as he made his way to Theory.

"It's good to hear you laugh," Hermione noted from behind him. "I honestly don't remember the last time I heard you laugh like that."

"I guess there hasn't been much to laugh over lately."

"Though that wasn't very nice."

"Oh come on, It was already starting to wear off before dinner was even over." Ron said.

He entered the usually empty classroom just down the hall from Dumbledore's Gargoyle. He took a seat in the middle, Ron sat to his right and Hermione to his left. Hannah, Neville, and Luna sat in front of them. Malfoy entered and took a seat in the back corner as far from them as he could reach.

Four other students took seats up front. Severus Snape, still clutching a dinner roll in his hand, sat next to Narcissa Mal.. Black. Lily sat over by Neville who was going shades of red staring at the Hufflepuff girl, Alice Greengrass. Harry wasn't surprised at all when Celeste Dumbledore entered.

Dumbledore entered the room and asked them all to stand. He vanished all the desks and conjured puffs. "What are you waiting for? Take a seat."

"Professor Dumbledore, I'm not sure what I'm doing here. I didn't sign up for this course." Narcissa said taking the puff next to Harry. Hermione looked put out for a moment then moved over to sit next to Ron.

"I know. You were chosen. This castle is an amazing piece of life, work and history. It told me that the twelve of you would be in this class. And I haven't taught my own class in many years. I'm looking forward to imparting some of my knowledge to you."

"I don't know if I can handle another class," Celeste said. "I don't want to take away from study time for my NEWTs."

"Celeste, this class, if anything, will make studying easier. Now we will be discussing many things this year. Some of them will be things you find easily done. Some maybe things that your friend can do easily but you can't do at all. If you can't do something, it in no way means you are a bad wizard. That would be like saying a painter is less of an artist than a singer. We all have gifts. Do you follow?"

There were nods all around so Dumbledore continued with his lecture, "Some things will discuss this year are the theory of concepts that if you study for fifteen years you might be able to do." The class must have looked a little confused as he clarified, "Like wandless magic. Almost anyone can do it. But it takes study and dedication."

"You're going to teach us to do magic without a wand?" Snape sounded incredulous.

"No, I'm going to teach you how to do it. Doing it, is left entirely to you. But first we are going to practice clearing your mind and organizing your thoughts. With a well organized mind, you can accomplish great things. Remember every book you ever read, ever lecture you ever heard."

Hermione was practically vibrating with excitement and Harry was glad that Ron was sitting between them. "This process is very individualized. It involves visualizing a construct. It can be anything you hold dear. If I were talking to Madam Pince, her construct would probably be the library, Hagrid might be the forest, and Professor Slughorn might see a potions cupboard. I visualize my childhood home. The construct you use needs to be something you are comfortable thinking about in great detail. The better detailed your construct is, the easier it will be for you to store and retrieve your memories. For the sake of example, I will use Hogwarts. You all had defense this morning, you would focus on that memory, wrap it up in say a book and put it on the shelf in the defense classroom in your mind. Though when you do this on your own, I strongly recommend you do not use Hogwarts."

"Why?" Hannah asked, "It seems exactly what you are talking about. Somewhere we are familiar and comfortable with."

"Exactly, you all are familiar with it. So if someone broke into your mind looking for a memory, provided they also attended Hogwarts, they would know their way around. There is only one other living person who knows their way around my childhood home and I trust him not to try and break into my mind." Dumbledore smiled at Celeste and gave her a wink.

"So this is like Occlumency?" Harry asked.

"No. This is organizing your thought so that you can access your own memories more easily. Occlumency is about setting up barriers in your mind so that a Legilimence can't access those memories. If your construct was hogwarts, the barriers would be like wards. There is a difference."

"Are you going to teach us to access other people's memories?" Snape asked.

"Of course not. Occlumency and Legilimency are auror level skills. This class is about Theory."

"So theoretically," Harry continued, "could you teach someone Occlumency without teaching them to build this construct thing?"

"I am not following what you mean."

"OK, theoretically. There is this person who has a mental connection with another person. That other person abuses that connection to send bad dreams and pain to our theory guy. So our theory guy is told Occlumency will block the connection."

"Sounds quite plausible. Though such mental connections to the level you are discussing are so rare as to be nonexistent."

"That's a theory for another class. Anyway, our theory guy is sent to someone to learn Occlumency. The only direction our theoretical person is given is 'clear your mind.' with never any clue how to actually do that. Then the teacher rips into his memories and expects the theory guy to kick him out."

The entire room was quite waiting for the Headmaster to answer. Though the five non time travelers had no idea how far from theory Harry's scenario was, they all looked worried at the lack of twinkling eyes that the Headmaster usually showed. "Mr. Potter. What you are describing would not teach someone how to block a connection. In truth, that kind of ... violation, would blow the connection wide open."

The windows started to rattle. Snape gasped and looked more scared than Harry had ever seen him. "Calm down, Harry."

He shook off the hand Hermione had put on his arm and stood. He gathered his books and left the room. He was surprised it was Luna that followed him out. She fell in step next to him but didn't talk. He made to go left but she steered him right toward the great hall.

They entered the small closet in the entrance way leading to the Founder's Suite. He moved to sit on the couch but she took his hand and pulled him toward the door to the room of requirement.

"What are we doing, Luna?"

She paced a few steps before smiling up at him and opening the door. It looked like a china shop. Delicate little plates and glasses lined shelves. "Therapy." She picked up a glass and held it up for Harry to see. Snape's face was printed on the outside. She tossed it across the room where it made a very satisfying crash.

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

A/N - I know this was extremely long. But it was one of those things that kind of wrote itself. I almost put it into two separate posts but oh well. I got this done early. But I still have time set aside to write this weekend, so the next post will be up Next Monday.

I don't know how to thank you enough for the reviews. I think that is what got me so motivated to write this today instead of Saturday.