This is your next chapter. I am putting it up as jerk tax, for not updating it like I said I would. Now I have to go do rewrites on 27. As always, a review would make me warm and fuzzy.

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Chapter 26 - What's Not Happening?

Harry walked back to the Gryffindor common room more relaxed than he had been in ages. For one, he knew Malfoy wouldn't be lurking around corners or hiding behind any statues, waiting to get the drop on him. In fact, the Slytherin was very likely still a pigment-impaired vermin, scurrying by busts of barmy wizards as Pansy Parkinson whined and shrieked. Harry took some satisfaction from that thought, and he was having very little problem imagining it.

The cards in his pocket had been silenced by the blast, but were gradually picking up in intensity. Harry took them from his pocket; he had no intention of finding out how a binding potion would affect a wizarding card.

"What was that?" Toothill asked shrewdly.

"Nothing. I had a slight…mishap, is all."

"Mishap my eye, boy. I know a blasting curse when I hear one. Seems to me we're lucky we aren't bits on a wall, somewhere." Harry didn't have an answer to that, but he was in a hurry anyway; he wanted to make sure Parvati was okay. Something scuffling behind him made him whip around, pulling his wand; but there was nothing.

"My goodness," Toothill said. "That wasn't bad for a school lad. You have potential boy!" Harry stuffed the cards rudely into a side pocket--the one with Hermione's Vial, in fact--when he got an idea. He whipped the Time In a Bottle from his slacks, nearly fumbling it to the ground, only to see a miniature Draco turn into a rat. He was too late…if he had remembered the vial and run straight off, he may have been able to convince someone that Malfoy was up to no good, once and for all, but not now.

However, there was something...in the very corner of the bottle was a short, fat pedestal upon which rested a reclining Lethargus the Lazy, who had perfected summoning charms mostly because he didn't want to be bothered to get up for anything. Behind Lethargus, there was a shadow across back of the pillar, where someone may have been crouching. Harry stopped walking and squinted at it, but aside from some silly shoes couldn't see more. He meandered slowly towards the hospital wing, watching the bottle closely, but the smudge never re-appeared in his delayed walk through the halls as it replayed silently through the bottle.

"You've just missed her, Potter," Madam Pomfrey declared. "But knowing that she has been hanging around with you doesn't surprise me. I never saw the girl once until she got mixed up with you."

"Tell me about it," Harry muttered. Like he needed to be reminded that he was bad for her health! Harry almost sprinted back to the common room, but when he got there, he saw that Parvati was sound asleep on his favorite chair. That was just as well, since he was certainly okay with her not seeing what had transpired in her absence. She'd never leave him alone ever again.

The first thing he did was to try to bottle the remaining potion. Only time would tell if it had been ruined by the curse. When he was done pouring the concoction from the ruined flask, Harry went to the Lavatory, to get the potion cleaned off his shirt.

"Merlin's nose-hair, what happened to you, Potter?" Seamus was cleaning up and was staring at the stain on Harry's shirt. Harry was feebly dabbling at it with some intentions of being able to use the shirt again.

"Uh, oh! That's potion, mate! Yeah, I had a bit of a mishap, really," Harry said sheepishly.

"A bit of a mishap? I'd say so. You sure you aren't cut?"

"Nah. It's all potion." Harry tapped his shirt to make a point, but also to surreptitiously check for new holes in his body. He had been pretty distracted at the time…he could have been bleeding through half the castle and not noticed it. Nothing on his chest seemed to gush when he poked it.

"Are you sure you're okay, Potter? Me mum says even if a curse scratches you it could get pretty nasty," Seamus paused. "But I guess you know more about that than me."

It took Harry a second to figure out was Seamus was talking about, then he nodded and absently rubbed at his scar. Finnegan simply looked down and shook his head, muttering to himself. Seamus probably took a longer shower than was strictly necessary just to see that when Harry rinsed his chest off, there were no great gashes across his chest. There actually were some small cuts, but they were from where the metal of the burst flask had dug into his skin.

When he was done with his shower, Harry crept back into his room and then paused. He'd been lax lately, but it was actually not beyond Malfoy to slip him a new robe and then destroy his old one, just to force Harry into using the new one. He checked the wards on his bureau, which were still intact. Since they hadn't gone off, he had to assume that the only beings that had gone near his belongings were the house elves, who had been allowed through the wards, or Connor, who somehow didn't trigger them. Still, better safe than sorry. Harry took the extra time to wave his wand over things to trigger the faint blue circles that marked his belongings.

When he returned to the common room, Parvati was sitting curled in a chair, with the heavy black journal on her lap. Her gold flecked hair was in a long braid over one shoulder and she looked very, very pretty. She looked better, but he decided not to wake her up, and instead made do with another chair, a dilapidated, squishy affair a bit back from the fireplace. His chest was a little numb, but that was to be expected…after all it was as if someone had slapped him across the chest with a board. It wasn't hard to breathe, like it had been after his trip into the lake. Across the room, Connor was staring at him.

"What?" snapped Harry, irately. The adrenaline was wearing off and he was starting to grow sleepy and sore.

Connor shrugged. "You were just moving little slow. You didn't hurt yourself on the bike, did you?" Hermione's timing couldn't have been worse, and she walked in the portrait hole just in time to shriek.

"I knew you'd hut yourself on that deathtrap! I should have put a stop to that when you two rode to Hogsmeade!" She pounded on Ron's chest, who was simply standing behind her. Ron began to protest but Harry cut him off.

"I didn't do anything on that motor bike! And would you shut up! You're going to wake up Parvati!"

"Did you fall off your motorbike?" whispered a sleepy voice. Parvati's eyes were very big and very shiny, and single strands of her long hair were floating beside the braid.

"No!" Harry burst. Eight eyes stared back at him. "I got my foot caught walking up the stairs, if you must know. There! Now is everyone happy?"

"No need to yell, mate," Ron said shrugging. "We just worried, that's all."

"Well don't!" Harry snapped.

"Lighten up!" Ron threw his hands in the air. Harry found himself standing before he knew it. Before he had wanted nothing more than to sit next to Parvati for a while, but now he didn't want to deal with people…not necessarily Parvati…he could handle her, but Ron and Hermione and Connor could sod off. Harry stomped up the stairs and slipped beneath his covers, still in his cloths.

He must have needed the sleep, because he didn't wake up until his normal time the next morning, at least fourteen hours of uninterrupted sleep later. He didn't have any dreams, or if he had any, he didn't remember them. By the time he arrived at the potions dungeon, he was over the flash of anger that he had felt towards Hermione and Connor even though it was probably best that they didn't try to talk to him. Draco wasn't even in class, which made Harry a little nervous. He had learned that Malfoy was aggravatingly capable of causing trouble, especially if the vermin had been given time to prepare. He may have skipped just to set another trap or find a good spot for an ambush. When class what over, he made his way slowly to the door, letting everyone out-distance him. He was thinking about how nice it would be to ride his motorbike and absently getting ready to whip on the invisibility cloak. As he stepped from the dim classroom into the dimmer hall, he slipped the cloak over his head. He loitered about, now safely hidden from view, thinking about Malfoy the white rat and their dual in the hallway.

"Not so fast," an oily voice murmured. Harry sopped and began to turn, grasping for the cloak with is free hand and excuses with his mind. Before he could speak a shadowy figure detached its own bulk from the penumbra of the hallway. "Colier," Snape uttered coldly.

"I didn't know it was illegal to stand in a hallway," Connor said defiantly.

"It is illegal for you to stand in this hallway. Move." He stared at Connor with bottomless black pools for eyes. Connor didn't speak, and Harry was petrified in place for the moment. "Such arrogance…You wish to attack a student in my hallway?"

"Like it matters what I want to do. There aren't any students here, are there? Anyway, it's not like it's illegal to daydream…or is it in this hallway."

Snape continued to stare. Harry had seen that stare each week for the whole year, and he knew that unless Connor was very talented, all the American's secrets were about to go up in smoke. "If you have a problem with Potter, I would suggest you get over it. Potter is insufferable but better wizards than you have tried to harm him and failed. Much better wizards." Snape kept staring for a while and then extended one black-clad arm. Connor didn't have to be told twice. He didn't act afraid, but he did leave with all haste. Harry followed him.

As soon as they rounded the corner, Harry jabbed Conner in the back with his wand. Conner halted so suddenly that Harry bumped into him. He turned surprisingly quickly, as Harry was pulling the cloak from over his head.

"What the…" the American started.

"So what's the deal? You want to hurt a student? Potter?" Harry jabbed Connor with his wand.

"What are you talking about?" Connor started to take a step forward but stopped after another jab, and upon noticing that Harry's wand-tip was glowing softly. It was an ominous red, and faint tendrils of black smoke trailed through the air. "Look, I don't know what you heard, but I was waiting for Malfoy. He wasn't here today. It was Snape who was talking about you. I thought you hated him."

"That doesn't mean I don't trust him," Harry said, to his deep chagrin. He held Connor at wand-point for several minutes, until finally Connor spoke.

"Look, either you trust me, or you don't," Connor said at last, holding out his open hands. "Between you and Malfoy, I think it would be obvious which one I want." Finally. Harry lowered his wand. He was confused and a little angry. What right did this outsider have to involve himself in their lives? He'd invited it, but now he just wished Connor would go back to America.

"Well, let's get going then," Harry said. "We have a hard transfiguration today." Something about Connor really felt wrong, but it was something indeterminate…he acted like one of Harry's friends, but Harry wasn't so sure; it felt almost as if the American was just biding his time.

***

Harry wasn't lying; transfiguration was set to be very tough. They were very, very close to full-body transfiguration. During many of their other lessons, McGonagall would have them turning buttons into beetles, pillows into pigs, or some other such things. Full body transfiguration was different. It was much less of a disciplined piece of work and more unlocking one's body so that it could take another form. The body had a natural affinity that the magic was meant to encourage, and the other part of the transfiguration was to maintain the shape once it had been achieved.

Harry had known for weeks that he would be some sort of bird. He had grown a beak, feathers, and even had his eyes turn a brilliant gold. Ron had grown paws, Parvati was obviously some sort of green-eyed cat, and Connor was even more successful at this than anything he'd tried yet. He actually had quite a bit of fur and a definite feline cant to his eyes…another cat of some kind.

"Feeling better?" Ron said, clapping Harry on the back.

"Huh?"

"From your fall…the trick step. Do you feel better?"

"Uh, sure, I guess." In truth, Harry had already forgotten about the argument from the night before, for the most part. He had a good feeling about today, and it was only made better by the fact that Draco Malfoy was skipping this class as well. The mood in the room was always lighter when there was no one to make rude jokes about what people transfigured into.

Hermione was naturally the first to manage anything. She was some kind of furry rodent…larger than an otter or beaver, but honestly Harry was a bit hazy on mammals larger than a collie dog, so he wasn't sure. Speaking of dogs, Ron was well on his way to managing some kind of large dog; perhaps a deerhound or wolfhound. Of course, since the size was about the last thing to get right, he may have been working towards some sort of terrier just as well.

"Excuse me…professor?" McGonagall looked up. The professor was mildly mollified that so many people seemed to be taking well to this particular project. It couldn't have hurt the room was minus one Malfoy. Draco pushed her to her limits.

"Yes, Miss Brown?" she said kindly.

"What's to keep us from turning into a mouse and just…staying that way? I mean, mightn't we forget that we are people?" If she'd have asked Harry that, he could have answered her, as dealing with the Weasley twins and Operation Ferret, as well as his potions assignment had taught him a little something about it.

"We are naturally people," Harry said. "Our bodies want to be people, and give the option, that's always what they will be. The hard part isn't changing into a mouse anyhow, it's staying a mouse."

Professor McGonagall looked at him with something similar to pride. "Very good Potter! Two points to Gryffindor! The truth is some wizards--especially ones like me, who can turn into something for a long time--actually will go feral. That is one reason the Ministry keeps such tight tabs on animagi. They actually do check in from time to time to ensure that I haven't just vanished with a ball of yarn."

With a pop, Harry finally felt his body release as he shifted into a small falcon. Hermione, who was resting after several successful transformations clapped her hands giddily and held out one arm. The room had a pool for those people who looked to be some sort of aquatic animal, like Lavender Brown, who appeared to want to change into a sea-horse, and Harry lazily dragged his talons through the water as he soared over and settled onto Hermione's outstretched arm. It took a bit of shifting around for him to find a position where he didn't feel as though he was ripping the skin off her. The talons were definitely going to take some getting used to. Harry momentarily busied himself with daydreams of becoming an animagus and not having to worry about concentrating on maintaining the form he was in. He couldn't do it for too long because he had to really concentrate on staying a bird. It was exhilarating to fly as an actual bird, and he wanted nothing more than to take to the skies as a falcon, but self transfiguration for non-animagi was notoriously unreliable, and he'd already had one fall too many for his tastes. Hermione was stroking his head, and it felt odd. He wanted to bite her, way back in his head.

"There are tiny rings around your eyes!" Hermione exclaimed, intently scrutinizing Harry's head. His unwavering golden eyes shone as he glanced around. Things looked incredibly odd…while he could focus on individual things, nothing was out of focus…Hermione was clear, and so was Dean Thomas behind her.

Harry could no longer stand it, and he flapped clumsily to the ground just as he shifted back into his familiar old featherless body. Hermione was clapping for him as Ron looked on with pride all over his face, as well as red whiskers. Parvati had a big smile, and she was brushing out her long hair.

Harry realized that she must have changed at about the same time he did, and awkwardly delivered a congratulatory hug, while checking to see what had happened in the bottle in his pocket. It was hard to tell, but Parvati certainly hadn't turned into a cat, which he assumed at first, though Harry couldn't tell what she had been. Something long bodied and standing upright was all he got a glimpse of; the bottle was just too small to see more. The hug got a lot of looks and snickers.

"If it doesn't bother me, don't let it get to you," Parvati whispered.

"It doesn't bother you? Not even a little?" Harry whispered back?

"Not even a little," She answered. That made Harry feel as if she was too good for him, and he hugged her again, a good deal less awkwardly, until McGonagall cleared her throat noisily. Harry and Parvati pulled apart reluctantly.

***

Everyone felt good about the day. Whether it was that things were coming together nicely or that without Malfoy, things were a good deal more relaxed. Connor kept to himself so much that people had largely forgotten about him, even the witches that had originally followed him around had even given him up for a lost cause after seeing how seriously he was involved with Natalie. After he and Dean came to terms, the aggravation of having him around had gone down considerably, and most people viewed him as little more than a nuisance with a funny accent.

Harry, on the other hand, regarded him as something more than a nuisance. He slipped the Marauders' Map into one of Hermione's magical condensing books; one with his class texts, and every chance he got over the next day and a half, he checked it for Connor's dot. It was no surprise that his dot vanished at times, to re-appear moments, minutes, or even hours later. In Temporalism, he asked Professor Walken if something they could learn in that class would hide a person from magical tracking.

"Well, I suppose a Spatium Sinus charm would hide you, so long as it lasts. Actually, that's speculation. You still exist in a definite plot-able spot; so long as it's plotted in at least three dimensions, one being time of course." Walken leaned against his desk, twirling his wand. He absentmindedly toyed with a pot of time sensitive paint, which would be use to test their wand sleeves, when finished, to indicate whether time was passing on the inside of the leather sheath.

"What about the step?" Harry asked.

"No," Walken replied with certainty this time. "The Spatium Tornare will make them very, very, very momentarily appear to vanish in an indicated spot three dimensionally, but they would appear almost instantaneously at a nearby designated point; three dimensionally. I suppose four-dimensionally really, since the step doesn't amount to a massive leap in time."

Ron, who had been watching this exchange curiously, chimed in. "Almost like a knight on the chessboard, I bet."

Walken tapped the tip of his nose with his wand. "Two points to Gryffindor! Outstanding, Mr. Weasley. I do believe you've a mind for this!" Ron beamed proudly, but not as proudly as Hermione. They were used to asking such random questions at random times in Temporalism, so they simply turned back to wand sleeves, and painting dowels with the time sensitive paint in order to test them. Harry had chosen a dark red leather for his, and though it was a simple leather tube, it felt as though it was something more.

He'd asked Flitwick the same question before charms, earlier that day.

"Tracking, such as wards, Mr. Potter?" If it helped Flitwick to think this was all related to his work with wards, that was all for the better. Anyway, Connor showed that he could avoid the wards as well, so it was in part true.

"Yes," Harry said.

Professor Flitwick hopped onto his tall chair with wonderful agility.

"A ward is a funny thing. The ones you and Mr. Weasley performed, quite masterfully I might add, detect magical imbalances. Not only would they determine whether a witch or wizard was lurking about; they would additionally be triggered by an appreciable expenditure of energy. What does that mean to your answer, Mr. Potter?"

"Well," Harry started, and paused to think. "That means if you never cast a spell, and if you were a Muggle, you wouldn't set off wards."

"Almost right," said Flitwick, raising a long and thin finger. "I said your wards; and you wouldn't have to be a Muggle, since to truly achieve the sensitivity to track a Muggle with a ward you would have to create something quite...formidable. I imagine a squib would present your particular wards with some problems, though." The difference was negligible to Harry. He'd seen Connor use magic, and the only squib in Hogwarts that he could think of was Filch. Something told him Filch's dislike of him was more of a matter of principle.

After Temporalism, Harry was left with Kinsley's response with which to find something useful. He wanted to ask Dumbledore, but involving the headmaster seemed risky.

Anyway, Parvati was waiting for him in the common room, and he could just get some time with her before he had to run to the Defense against the Dark Arts classroom to meet with Kingsley Shaklebolt. Harry had a feeling that this was the sort of thing the auror might know. He did resolve to scan his auror's texts as well, though they were low on theory.

"So Harry," Lavender said silkily. "Have you decided if...I'm the one yet?"

"What?" He was at a loss. Parvati was rolling her eyes and staring at a small cedar box, which was filled with clay balls. He knew them very well; they were what Hermione had created to test her ability with recreating his mother's pendant. He didn't think that was related to whatever it was Lavender was on about.

"Wait now," said Ron, suddenly paying more attention to Harry and less to the seventh year boys he was bilking at the chessboard. Next to him was a small box of Chocolate Frogs, neatly categorized with small tags identifying the wizard or witch hiding within. Neville was standing with a stupid smile on his face, probably struggling as Harry was to remember what Lavender could be talking about. Lavender looked around the common room, flashing the look that other Gryffindors sometimes reserved for her and Parvati. Mind your own business, it said. "The You-Know-What. With Neville."

"I think she means the prophesy," Neville finally said, after several long moments of silence. Harry was a little proud of Neville for actually figuring it out first. With his fellow sixth-year's notoriously spotty memory, that was an encouraging sign.

"You told her about the prophesy?" Hermione asked in the silence, with an incredulous tone. Harry couldn't have asked for a better endorsement. It was only made better by the fact that Hermione was not in on the joke, but she had of course been in the fiasco with the ministry. That took Harry's mind to Sirius, and it was almost as if a door had been suddenly slammed on his happiness. He wanted to lash out in anger and frustration, but even now he knew that he couldn't do that; that it wouldn't be fair to anyone in the common room. With a bit of a jolt, he realized that everyone in the room was staring at him. Parvati's exasperated smile was even starting to slip. He had to act fast.

Harry forced on a grin he didn't feel; one as big as he could imagine. He knew it looked goofy, and that was the point. Across the room, Ron actually resumed grinning and nodded a little. He was now in on the joke. Hermione still looked gob-smacked. "It might be about her, I had to," Harry said, looking back and forth from Hermione to Ron.

"All the same mate, you can't tell her 'till you know it's her. You can't be driving folks batty," Ron remarked. Neville nodded, and rested a hand on Lavender's shoulder.

"That would hurt my feelings," he said, solemnly.

Lavender rose, grabbing Neville by the fingers. "Come on Nev! I hate you, Harry Potter!" Lavender stomped out, making rather a spectacular show of it. After she left Parvati followed her, but she was laughing on the way out. Nearly everyone in the common room was as well, which was nice, because it was just enough to keep Harry from crying now that he was thinking about Sirius.

"I have to go talk to Professor Shacklebolt about next week's D.A. lesson. You guys stay right. And uh, tell Lavender she's still my favorite fifth year named after a color." Natalie MacDonald snickered at that, and only Hermione looked a little lost. It was a sight to relish; Harry figured he would never see it again.

Kingsley was sitting at his overloaded desk, shuffling parchment into the top two drawers. He looked up upon Harry's entry. "Well, hello Mister Potter."

Harry nodded. He was going to ask about ways to cheat magical tracking, but first, he needed a little of something else. "It was you that tracked Sirius, right?"

Professor Shacklebolt rubbed his shiny bald head. "In fact I was the agent in charge," he answered slowly.

"When he first got out-"

"Escaped, Mister Potter."

"Er...yeah. When he first escaped, before you knew he didn't...do what he said he did...you were in charge of finding him?" He was very close to breaking down now.

"I tracked him the entire time, before and after. He was the only man I never captured or brought to justice, and I would have, if I'd have had longer. If we had switched to misinforming the ministry even a week later I'd have had him too." Harry detected the resentment in his voice even though he was struggling desperately to keep a straight face.

"So, it would be fair to say that you knew him very well? I mean you've told me that you have to know someone to do...what you do."

"I have, and you do. I can say with impunity that I knew him as well as anyone."

"As well as Lupin?"

Kingsley very deliberately set down everything he was holding, and leaned forward. He fixed his dark eyes on Harry. "What is this, Harry?"

"I just want to know a little about him. I mean, I know how he hated to sit in that house. I know how he hated his family. I know that he sometimes confused me with my father. I know what other people told me about him and my dad, and Lupin, and Pettigrew."

"He did hate his family, but for him it was hard to separate the people from what they stood for. As for the rest, you have to understand that he spent a decade and a half in Azkaban. I know that Black may not have seemed so to you, but I assure you he was quite damaged. He was not the same man your father knew."

"Can you tell me a little about him?" asked Harry, pleadingly.

"It's not all pretty," Kingsley said. "Are you sure?"

"I don't care if it's all pretty. I know there are...things...you know." Kingsley walked around his desk, and leaned on it while Harry sat before him. For well over an hour, Kingsley told him about his Godfather, about how Sirius had honed his self preservation to an art, about how he was even then somewhat reckless and would often take the gambler's chance. He told about how, in hindsight, it was plain that Sirius was working his way to Harry, but only after he had first been tracked to the area of the Burrow. He learned about the history of the Black family, and why Sirius hated them so much. By the time Kingsley glanced back at his desk, Harry no longer felt like crying, instead exchanging it for a hollow sort of emptiness deep inside. He would never get to learn this sort of thing from Sirius...it would be the unbiased, sterilized, outsider's view of his Godfather's life.

"Well, Harry, tarry any longer and you'll miss your meal. Look, I don't know him in the same way as his friends, but I did know him. I don't know what else I can tell you, but if you ask I will answer, if I know it." Harry nodded, and the professor shook his hand and ushered him out. It didn't occur to Harry until half-way through his meal that he had forgotten to ask the Auror about evading magical tracking. Parvati had sat next to Lavender, who was still giving him the evil eye, so he ended up sandwiched by Weasleys. Ron sitting next to him was a given, but Ginny was there because it had been Dean, and she forced him to move over. Thirsty for any attention from her, Dean did it. That left Harry in an awkward spot; since she had already drank out of his goblet at least twice. The last thing he needed was a row with Dean.

Occlumency with Snape in the dungeon came all too soon. When he slumped into the straight-backed wooden chair, which was not comfortable no matter how one shifted, Snape glared balefully at him. There was a bluish ball glowing softly in the back corner. It was about the size of a Muggle football, and it drew his eyes to it. Snape wasted no time in placing a ridiculous-looking contraption on the table.

"Anyone who has had the misfortune to attempt to instruct you will find it painfully obvious that you are incapable of doing two things at once. Today, we are going to remedy that."

Harry nodded. He was considering asking Snape about the magical tracking. He hated Snape, and there was no guarantee that the shadowy git would answer, but according to the memory he had seen when he had inadvertently entered Snape's head last year, the Potions master probably knew as much about the Dark Arts as anyone in Hogwarts. Snape noticed Harry wasn't paying attention and shoved the funny contraption he had been carrying into Harry's hands.

"Remember what I told you, Potter; five points from Gryffindor. You will save your questions until such a time as I might answer them."

Harry looked at the thing in his hands. It looked like a bow, only it had half a dozen strings on it. It was obviously some kind of musical instrument.

"You are going to practice that until you can play in and hold as reasonable conversation as is possible at once." Snape paused. "Though reasonable in your place is relative. I am certain that I could find a more fulfilling conversation with a baboon."

Harry experimentally plucked a string. It didn't sound tinny or simple. It sounded, if anything, like a fully over-driven guitar, minus the volume. "I don't know how to work this," he said, hesitantly.

"Four year old wizards have been known to master this instrument, Potter. I'm sure you can ascertain the essentials."

Harry plucked the same string again, but got a different note. The buzzing hum of the harp, or whatever it was, reminded him of a swarm of surging insects. It was a neat sound, but a little unpleasant in a disconcerning way. Harry looked at Snape, but not before thinking of every irrelevant football score he ever knew. The potions master scowled even more, if that was possible.

"You may ask me your question now, Potter." So much for getting better.

"It's not really about this," he began.

"When is it ever?" Snape asked rhetorically.

Harry had to take a second to think...phrasing this next part could be disastrous. "Did Headmaster Dumbledore tell you that we had placed some wards around my bed?"

"He mentioned it. Continue."

"Is there a way to defeat those with a potion?"

"Let me...get this straight, shall we? You want me, an instructor saddled with the responsibility of keeping your over-developed ego in check, to tell you, a notorious and ignominious rule flaunter, how to avoid a ward? Not. Likely. Potter." Snape had leaned closer with every word.

"It's not that! I mean, I put them there! It's just that, well, I've seen people go through them without setting them off." Harry suddenly got the sinking feeling that he had said something he shouldn't have.

"I see two possibilities here, Potter. Ther first, and most likely, is that you are an incompetent twit. Your wards are failing to trigger because they are faulty wards. The second is that some of your fellow Gryffindors have found a way to traverse wards without triggering them. Let me assure you, that is surely a dark art, Potter." Harry didn't know what to say, so he remained silent.

"Whomever this...miscreant is...whosoever they may be, it would serve them well to remember that hiding from a Legimens will take more that standing around a corner or cowering under an invisibility cloak," Snape emphasized that last part unnecessarily. "Even those who wish to remain out of sight cannot hide their thoughts. Even if they could, the mere thought betrays the troublemaker...even if they were skilled in occlumency a true legimens can hear that their thoughts are there." Harry knew Snape was emphasizing that last part just for him. He was basically saying Harry could never hide from him. He also knew that there were times that Snape didn't catch him, so that wasn't totally right. Harry also made another connection, one that he dared not entertain until this was all over.

"Drink." Snape pointed at the cup, signifying that the conversation was over. An hour later, Harry walked from the dungeon with a splitting headache and few new ideas on how the American was avoiding both the map, and his wards.

As he walked into the dormitory, Dean looked up from his bed, where he was arguing with Seamus. Neville and Connor were gone, but Ron had followed him up the stairs. "You've got a chansonarc," Ron exclaimed. "Do you play?"

"A what?" Harry said, dazedly.

"A chansonarc," Dean said. "Give." He tucked the chansonarc under his left arm, and immediately broke into a blistering solo which sounded vaguely familiar. Harry wasn't sure, but he was pretty sure when you played a guitar, you had to move your hand to different spots with the left to get different notes, and you strummed it with your right. The way Dean was playing, he was tapping the strings with both hands, and even though he was using his right hand, he wasn't strumming with either. "Four-year-olds have mastered this," Snape had remarked. Harry doubted that, especially after a fast slide down the strings. Dean wound up what he was doing and flipped the chansonarc casually and handed it to Harry.

"Nice," Ron said, nodding approvingly.

"You're going to help me with this then, I take it?" Harry asked.

"Why would anyone make you learn that?" Dean asked, instead.

"Don't even ask," Harry said, peering down at the moonlit lawn below.

"Well...I can teach you this Harry, but you have to promise me one thing." Dean rose even taller, and widened his eyes as far as they'd go. He looked a little less than sane. "You have to rip the house down! You have to tear it up! You have to burn it all, and then you have to put it back together again!" He ignited Harry's trainers, in the spirit of things. Harry scrambled, trying to extinguish his suddenly flaming feet.

"What the..." Ron started, but Dean was on a roll. Behind him, Seamus was laughing.

"You have to be my Rock and Roller! You are my out-of-controller!" Harry, who had peeled off his trainers, and was willing to agree to anything if would make Dean go away. Dean's eyes had now widened to the point that his irises were now entirely visible. "You have to torch the world!" Dean screamed. "Only then will you be worthy!"

Ron drenched Harry's trainers with a a gasp that might have been a laugh. That wasn't enough to quell Dean.

"Then, and only then will you be able to grasp the power you are dealing with. If you can play one of these, you will have your pick of any bird, anywhere. You must show me that you take this seriously, Mister Potter."

Harry spent the rest of the night in his boxers, wearing the boots the Weasley twins had given him, because Dean insisted that in made him look like a "real rocker". The next day Harry found that his trainers were not even wearable. He knew the Dursleys were going to pitch an absolute fit about that, but he had tried to repair them, and only succeeded in knocking some of the ash off them. Sometimes things were just too far gone. At least he had his dress shoes, if he thought he could stand wearing them that long, or, he supposed, the boots that George and Fred had given him, if he could stand to wear them when he wasn't rocking.

Harry was ready for Defense class on Monday. He had written ASK SHACKLEBOT in flashing green letters on his notes, so he wouldn't forget today. DADA had recently been focusing on how to recognize the vestiges of recently performed dark magic, so he was even somewhat on topic. Shaklebolt was just finishing up a bit on prior incantato when Harry raised his hand. First he had to get it back from Parvati, which she was not willing to do, and when she finally did let go he saw that she had somehow drawn fine lines up and down the back of his hand, as if he had a tattoo. She had done this before, mostly because she had not been amused to discover that Umbridge had forcer Harry to write lines with a quill which had actually inscribed them into Harry's skin. She seemed to be a little compulsive about covering the white scars. Kingsley glanced at Harry's intricately drawn-upon limb for a second before he acknowledged Harry. "Mister Potter?" he rumbled.

"Can dark magic conceal itself completely?"

"Didn't we just spend the last half hour discussing that, Potter?" Draco snidely drawled. "Perhaps you should put your wand to something useful and dig the wax out of your ears."

"Malfoy," Kingsley warned. "I do have to wonder how you mean that, Mister Potter, as we have discussed it quite thoroughly."

Harry sighed inwardly. He wished he'd remembered to ask this on Friday. "What I mean is...say you have a simple ward," Professor Shacklebolt nodded and Parvati wrote something on the top of his notes. "Now say someone tries to walk through it, or cast a spell when they ought not to, or something like that. Can they hide it from the ward, or charm, or whatever it is?"

"Not for the most part," Professor Shacklebolt said, pacing back and forth. "You see, a ward is, for the most part, a passive bit of magic that waits for and active magic to trigger it. Wards can be destroyed, no question about that, but avoiding them is a bit like lighting a candle to help you hide in the dark. The darkness is just the absence of light, just like what keeps a ward in a state of stasis--that is, untriggered--is the absence of magic.

"Does that make sense?" It did not, but Hermione nodded, and if she understood it, she could explain it to Harry later. He nodded too. Connor was looking blankly at his hands, and most of the other students had been talked into a coma by now. Prior Incantato wasn't a spell that most sixth years went gaga over. Harry looked down at his notes, to what Parvati had written.

There are no simple wards. Ah well...just one more thing that proved he was a real wizard, even if he didn't always think like one. After class, Ron, Hermione, Parvati, and Harry were walking out together. He got the feeling that they were his honor guard, but Malfoy seemed distinctly uninterested in continuing with their dual. In fact, he was out of the room by the time that Harry was up and had had Parvati's and his bags. A soft voice at the door stopped him dead in his tracks.

"All this talk about tracking charms and someone may think you are up to something...sneaky." Harry and his friends spun to see Nott, who was idly glancing at Harry's feet. "Nice boots, by the way." Ron had more or less developed a grudging sort of respect for Nott, from Temporalism. He even nodded

"Uh...thanks. I'm just trying to sort out a bit of trouble I'm having with charms."

"Charms," Nott replied. "Right. Well, I don't know if this will help you sort out your charms, but if it was me, I would think it much easier to avoid the protective charms than to figure out how to beat them."

Harry nodded absently, and even Ron looked shocked. It was amazing to receive advice from a Slytherin, but it was hopeless advice just the same. Connor wasn't simply avoiding the map, or the wards Harry and Ron had worked so diligently to place, just by walking around them.

Harry even went so far as to ask his Wizarding Cards. There wasn't a wizard or witch who specialized in wards, so far as he knew, but even the miniature Dumbledore was at a loss. He would just have to mirror Lupin and bother him...maybe there was something in Sirius's library.