AN: I do not own Harry Potter, Belongs to JK Rowling.

AN: I realise I've been quiet for a while, but if you look back, 'ive been making some slight rewrites to the fic. Please read, it makes things much better. I had some personal issues.. still issues, but regardless, i'm back and enjoy the latest chapter.

Enjoy, rate and review!

Chapter Seven: Books and Shields

It hadn't taken Harry long to get to the grand hall. And it seemed like it only took a few seconds due to the thoughts running through his head.

Unfortunately checking the time, by use of the tempus charm, a spell which caused numbers signifying the time to spurt out of the end of one's wand tip, he found he still had about an hour and 27 minutes before potions ended and lunch would begin.

The first day back, classes were many and numerous. Weeks following wouldn't follow the same schedule. So hopefully the same day next week, Harry wouldn't be as busy and have more free time. Though with his intent never to return to potions again, he would have even more free time than his fellow students.

With his free time, and his stomach growling, he sat himself down in the same seat he'd taken before his trip to the headmasters' office. Lifting his bag with his books in, he started searching for his transfiguration book, but picked out a book he didn't remember buying during his diagon alley trip.

Pulling the dark, dust covered book out of his bag, he wiped it down with the sleeve of his coat and blinked in confusion. "ADVANCED POTION-MAKING By Tiberius Borage"

"but I didn't buy a potions book." He boy said to himself out loud.

Shaking his head, Harry was unsure of what to do. He didn't buy it, and certainly didn't pack it in his things. As far as Harry was concerned it had appeared out of nowhere. Knowing that for an hour at least, no one would be strolling into the room for their meal, gave Harry the security of knowing he wouldn't be interrupted.

Closing his eyes, he concentrated on what his Occlumency books called, his inner mind, and upon opening his eyelids, was sat at a plush armchair in a library centred room.

From everything he read over the summer about the defensive mind arts, he kept coming across the same thing, a central nexus of the information that he possessed, even if he'd only seen something once, with proper maintenance, it was supposed to be a simple and easy way of recalling anything. After a couple of hard meditation sessions and visualising the nexus of his knowledge as a 'physical room', he'd found himself in the seat he was in then.

With something he could associate with physically, he could really get to work. After he'd mastered being able to enter and leave the room at will, he'd moved onto the next phase of organising everything into a system. Despite what Hermione used to say during their many study sessions, mainly revolving around his lack of intelligence. The fact of the matter was, he was very smart. He simply lacked motivation for the non practical magic's.

When he'd lost Sirius, needless to say, the motivation was there in abundance. For a long time during the summer, he felt that if he'd been more studious, if he'd mastered Occlumency, then his godfather would still be alive. It took even longer for him to drill into his own head that it wasn't his fault.

Snape wasn't teaching him Occlumency, he was simply taking his opportunity to mentally torture the Potter heir. And Dumbledore did nothing about it. Yet another thing, he blamed on Dumbledore.

Shaking his head mentally, at the lost track of thought, he walked over to a green velvet covered mahogany desk to the side of the room. The desk holding various sheets and parchments. The sheets and parchments being memories and thoughts, scrolls that held moving pictures to go along with them. It didn't take him long to organise them in order of when they happed and then slowly added mental labels to everything, detailing the gist of what they covered.

Once he had organised everything, surprisingly more than he thought would be there for only four hours, he unrolled one scroll in particular, the moment he opened it, the room shooting by like a blur till it settled on the scene from earlier in the potions lab. Watching himself in third person calmly dress down the greasy git brought a smile to the young Gryffindor. Snape had far more coming to him along the way, but seeing a good verbal beat down was just what Harry needed to cheer himself up. Finishing the memory upon having made his way out the room, he realised what had happened.

He'd accidently picked up the potions book that had been left on his desk. Despite not intending to take the class, he decided to keep the book. Even if he didn't use it, it would certainly piss a certain black haired teacher off to no end. And Dumbledores manipulations into allowing Harry into the class could be used for his advantage. Obviously the old man wanted it known that Harry was in potions class for some reason.

Despite his Hogwarts and Voldemort issues he needed to take care of, he had originally been aiming to become an Auror. An ambition that was wiped away when he found out he'd required a NEWT level potions pass. With Snape having declared on multiple occasions that anything less than an exceeds expectations or outstanding in their owls, would prohibit anyone from taking the newt level course. Dumb-old-dork had circumvented that. Meaning that, he could read the book, whilst never attending a lesson, which no matter the circumstances; Dumbledore seemed to be adamant he be seen to be a part of. He could take his NEWT's at the ministry when Fudge is kicked out of office and get his results without ever having to be in a Snape room again.

Dumbledores manipulations being used to Harry's advantage. He was so glad that he had taken to thinking things through. He'd been such a foolishly brave Gryffindor before. He was adamant to be better.

Shaking his head, to yet again break his train of thought, which had taken to wondering lately, he placed the scrolls, parchments and sheets into the correct slots of his library, his own form of dewey decimal filing system at work. Something that he figured might slow down any mind intruders down. The Potter heir then concentrated on placing titanium bricks down along the foundation he'd laid down after his first two shields were up.

His first shield was the hardwood and stone panels that made up the walls, ceilings and floors of his mental construct. The outside of his room being covered in sharpened sticks for impalement. The second shield being a deep moat with Gwyndolows and Crocodiles in it. His wall he was currently in the process of building would hopefully end up as a 9 foot titanium brick wall. The height working in two ways. If someone entered his mind they'd have to take on a physical body of sorts. As physical as a mental attacker could be at least. And have to either try and knock the wall down, which being made of his mental titanium should withstand a bit of battery. Or resort to climbing over, thereby falling into the moat or jumping over to land on the first defence of death by impalement.

As far as Harry was concerned. He was going to try and defend from so many different angles, he'd be safe to counterattack and either take some information for himself, or simply break the entire connection in the first place.

Was a work in progress of course, but after a mental alarm signifying the passing of an hour and ten minutes, Harry mentally wiped his brow of sweat and returned to the real world to do the same. Just in time for the first sets of students who must have gotten let out early.

Looking at the book in front of him, the black haired sixth year packed it away and waited for the house elves to make the lunch appear.

His attention taken by the feast that appeared in front of him. He failed to realise a blonde haired female and a blonde haired male having been sat two tables behind him from about 30 minutes into his occulamancy session.

The two in Slytherin colours looking at each other and whispering, "Must be soon. He's already started to notice."

"I'm aware of that D, but not yet. Soon though, soon we'll approach him."

AN: I realise it's short, one of the shortest, but I've been revising, and I had to do something to get back into the roll of it, deal with it or dont read.