Harry and the rest of his friends were having an informal meeting in the common room, and when he thought about, he guessed the Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaws were doing the same; he could only imagine what was going on in the dungeons. Malfoy and the other Slytherins were released after being informed that nothing they did under the previous rules would be counted as long as they did not violate any more rules, which were reset. Most likely, they were going to be preoccupied with revenge, but they were the least of his concerns. Without Umbridge, they could not do anything that would not get them expelled, and he was really beyond caring who won the House Cup at the moment.

"Do you think anyone's ever asked how he came back from the dead yet?" Ron asked, seeming a bit surprised how far the discussion had gone. He looked around. "I mean, we never heard all that much with the Extendable Ears."

"That's probably exactly what happened," he said. They had always wanted to know what was going on, and the Order of the Phoenix seemed to have no desire to let them in on it. "I'll bet they were all asking the right questions."

"Hey, mate, just because they were right about the visions doesn't mean it was all bad. I mean, my dad wouldn't be alive if you'd managed to block it all out day one- and Snape wasn't making it easy on you."

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "I don't like saying it, but I really was trying. I just... I don't know; it's like nothing I've ever studied before. I can't make sense of what he's telling me."

"What is he telling you?" Hermione asked.

"Well, he said there's a long way and a hard way. I can either read a ton, and it takes years, or he can repeatedly assault my mind until I somehow learn to defend myself."

"Harry, there's no way that has a good result." He was inclined to believe her because he hated Snape and his attempts at teaching Occlumency were getting frustrating, but simultaneously he felt like she might just be saying that out of a preference for reading, the more the better.

"I don't know," he said. "That's the thing; I really don't know anything about it. Maybe Dumbledore told him to get it done quickly and he made sure to pick the hardest way or something."

"Well the reason I say that is because I've only looked into it a little myself, but apparently that's how dark wizards learn it," she said.

"What part of that surprises you?" he asked, throwing his hands up. "He's a dark wizard. He's always wanted to teach Defense, so he can teach the dark arts."

"Maybe it's the only way he knows how to teach you," Hermione said. "I can't help but think that you might gain something from reading about it, though, so maybe it's not the only way you can learn. If you read a book about it, you might understand more of what he's doing and what you need to be doing."

The compromise approach was looking interesting, if difficult, because it was starting to seem like his only option at the moment. After the most recent incident, there was no way he was not going to be ordered to study Occlumency more. Since when, though, had he thought of it as getting orders? Was the organization not just a club for concerned parents and teachers? Was that why none of the kids had taken it seriously when they were ordered not to listen in on the meetings?

"Maybe," he said. "I really wish we'd overheard those discussions, because I'd like to know how Voldemort came back from the dead if I'm supposed to defeat him, but now I can see why they kept me in the dark. If my mind isn't secure, there's no telling me anything." He shook his head, thinking back to the times when his present company had sent him letters saying they could not tell him what was going on, nor could they tell him why, probably because even if Dumbledore was only worried that a connection between him and the enemy could be exploited, it was too risky to let him know. Most likely, he told Ron and Hermione the bare minimum, because nothing he told them was truly safe.

"So, you're going back to learning from Snape?" Ron asked

"If he survives this trip to the Department..." Harry started back.

"You have to," Hermione insisted. "Even if you learn something about Occlumency in the meantime, you'll still have to practice, and no one other than Professor Snape is going to be ruthless enough to test your abilities. I know I just said that the brute force method is how dark wizards learn, but maybe that's what he thinks would be most effective against Voldemort... my point is that we can trust him, because he practically saved the day, getting everyone in the Order to go to London."

There was no immediate response, perhaps because it was hard to go against what she was saying, but at the moment, they had nothing they could do to go along with the plan. He felt the same sense of helplessness as when they decided not to go to London, instead helping with everything that was happening at the school, still not certain that he was achieving anything. The students seemed like they hated Umbridge when she was around, but it was not as if they were all going to start cheering when they heard she was dead and there was going to be a whole investigation. He shook his head. There was nothing more that he could do on that front right away, not until he was called in as a witness. What he wanted more was to hear about what had happened in the Department, but there was no way he was going to hear anything good until the Order considered his mind secure.

"Let's just get to work, then," he muttered, going through his schoolbag as if there was going to be anything helpful in there. His Ordinary Wizarding Levels were already out of the way, and he had nothing else to study for the rest of the year, and he would be damned if he did not get working on it sooner rather than later. "The Defense text is going to be useless, but I might be able to get an older book, something that was in use last year-"

"I would look for a specialized resource," Hermione suggested. "Occlumency does normally fall squarely into the realm of defense and little else that is taught here, but I never read about it until you told me that you were being forced to learn it, and I always read ahead in our textbooks. If they didn't cover it in the fourth year book, when our exam was set by a Death Eater, they're most likely not going to cover it in a later year's book."

"There are different authors for all these books," Harry said. "It's not like we get the whole curriculum tailored for us. You haven't even read the seventh year books." He would not venture so confidently that she had not read the sixth year books.

"Mate, we're only going to find the books in the library anyway," Ron said after a moment. "If they don't have a book on Occlumency, maybe then we can look for a more general book on it."

While he had been hoping to get a resource recommended by an older student or someone else who had read up on the matter already, he supposed his friends were both right. Had he asked older students if they knew anything before, perhaps they could have helped him. Did he just have no interest in learning how to shield his mind before? Was he really that convinced that he could use it to his own advantage?

"Harry?" It was Hermione's voice.

"Sorry. Yeah, we'll go in the morning when they let us out of here. I don't think anyone is going to care if we skip a few classes; we can just say we had other responsibilities and McGonagall will cover for us."

"That's about a quarter past not happening, mate," Ron said. "She's even stricter about the rules than present company."

"She knows as well as present company how necessary is," she said, prickling a little. "-but will most likely insist that if we want to study, we can do it when we don't have class. She can't afford to bend the rules for a favorite student, or else everyone will wonder why, first of all, and then-"

"Then we'll take the point losses," Harry said. "If this somehow turns out to all be simple stuff and it doesn't take all that long to study it, then fine, I'll only study it whenever I have a break. Otherwise, I'm not fussing over end of the year classes."

It was clear enough that his word was final, at least as it pertained to himself and his own actions. The others could go to all the classes if they wanted, but if he wanted to even start helping the Order, he had to make up for lost time. He was hoping that something of what Snape had done or said would click after reading from a more objective resource. He could see why someone who had no idea what was going on might think that his least favorite teacher harassing him and mocking him would motivate him to do better, but he found that it was completely unhelpful for him. In the DA, he preferred to teach people by positive reinforcement, if he only picked up that term from Hermione mentioning it once in passing.

"Maybe it would help if everyone learned it," Ron said after a moment. "It's going to be hard, but-"

"We would also need to have someone learn how to use Legilimency in order to make any progress. I guess I've got some experience going into Voldemort's head." All of a sudden, it appealed to him again. If for no other reason than to justify the decision to listen in before, the field of study was looking more attractive. With a shield charm, he had managed to reverse the spell that Snape used, allowing him to however briefly, see inside the head of the caster. The problem with that approach was that it would only work in close range, and only when he was awake, which was why he had not suggested using shield charms for the foreseeable future.

"That may help with the theoretical understanding... and it may be better to practice with someone else, so you can learn to defend against different approaches," Hermione reasoned, though she seemed reluctant to reach that conclusion, as if there was something especially dangerous about learning some strange field of study, or worse, agreeing with Harry when he was talking about doing something they had not been instructed to do. He disregarded the thought, though; he had only just decided that she was not the same as she was a long time ago in that she could be persuaded to break rules.

There was nothing further they could do for the night, so they agreed to split up and go to bed, getting an early start the next morning. Most likely, they were not going to be told when Snape was going to be back, even if he was still willing to teach 'Remedial Potions', so they really had no choice but to work together on it, and it did make sense for the others to try and learn Occlumency as well; that was the whole concept of the DA, as long as that lasted. It was not as if they needed to fear wasting time just because no dark wizard had ever attempted to get into their heads before.

When at last they went up to their dormitories, a backward glance made it look like Hermione, Parvati, and the Chasers had become more popular among the Gryffindor girls who had not joined the DA, or at least they were asking questions. He could be bothered by the fact that they could just as easily ask him, but he supposed he did not make himself the most available, only ever hanging out with the two friends who had stayed with him, who knew him for what he really was. What was he, though, if not the fated hero who would defeat Voldemort once more? It seemed like the worst ironic twist ever divined that the people who knew nothing about him ended up being right in that he was special, and that his glory was not all in the past.

"I really wish I could feel as special as I'm supposed to be," he muttered to no one in particular as he trudged upstairs, the others having gone ahead of him. As he went himself, he realized something he had been forgetting, that he would be going to sleep again, and the enemy was still out there. Could he really afford to lose consciousness again? Would it be better the following night? Would the Order not have told him if he had other options? They certainly seemed to know he was more vulnerable in a resting state.

Whatever the truth of the matter was, unfortunately, he was too tired to do anything else but sleep after he prepared himself for bed. His last few thoughts for the night took him back to the time that he narrowly escaped Voldemort in the graveyard, when he had been given a potion for a dreamless sleep as a measure of pure kindness by Madam Pomfrey. He wished he could have another, but perhaps that would have been suggested before if it was really a viable plan.

"Harry Potter."

All he could see around him was black smoke. He was not in the Department again, he was somewhere else, but the smoke obscured his vision.

"Do not think that you have seen through my deception. All around you, there were others waiting to sacrifice themselves for you. My own servants tell me that they acted without your knowledge, and this very night, some of them lie dead already. It has impressed me, the way that so many will die for a fledgling wizard of substandard skill, how from your very birth you have deceived what seems the entire world into believing you have such value. Those I have killed are far braver and of greater skill than your own, and yet in fear you hide behind them, waiting for me to kill them first."

He woke up in the middle of the night to look around and see nothing. It was disturbing in itself, but what was stranger was that Voldemort seemed to be trying to communicate with him directly, rather than through visions? Would listening to his voice make him fearful? He could hardly believe he was not throwing himself out of bed to run to McGonagall with the information, or rather, to demand answers about what he had heard, because it was so unreliable. The enemy had said quite a lot, but he and his friends had only just discussed how they had no reason to believe him. When he thought back to the words, it seemed more obvious than with any of the visions that he was trying to get a reaction out of Harry.

When he woke up in the morning, he realized the fact that he was waiting on news from the mission still, even as he was hastily getting ready and setting off for the library, and he thought back to the dream. It was only a moment before he fought down the idea of going to the Headmistress. She was not going to learn anything valuable from anything he said, and she already knew that his head was as permeable as a sponge, which was what he had to fix. Even if he had a long way to go, there was no better time to start.

"I'll get the book that mentioned it before," Hermione suggested. "It was only an overview, but if there really isn't anything else-"

"Thanks," he said, turning to Ron straight after her. "Madam Pince probably doesn't want any Weasleys anywhere near her. I need you to see if there's anyone listening in."

"Good thinking," Ron said after a moment. "Fred and George are pretty sure she doesn't care for Gryffindors in general after them. I'll see if there are any of the Inquisitorial Squad around."

It was not as if they were doing anything that Voldemort would not suspect, but he did not like the idea of his personal enemies hanging around and eavesdropping. Most likely, they wanted to see if he or his friends would reveal anything about the case of Umbridge, or what the Order was doing in the Department, but that was if they knew anything. He could never be quite sure how much Malfoy's father let him in on the specifics, because he seemed like a mostly useless bully who got by on family name more than talent; he had never won so much as a Quidditch game by himself. It was a wonder why anyone would trust him with anything important, and perhaps the last year had made him see that.

They were assembled again in minutes, their separate ventures having gone well so far. It was uncommon for students to try to learn Occlumency and there were no resources written with the Hogwarts curriculum in mind, but the most approachable text was Clouding the Mind for Clods and Mods by Isaac Harrison, apparently a prodigy from a muggle family who went on to a few other countries decades ago, only to be snubbed there too. He found that the book was off to a good start, explaining things in ways that made sense to him, but it was only the first chapter, so it was hard to say when it was going to overwhelm him with what seemed like the inherent incomprehensibility of the subject matter. More than once, he had thought that Snape was just sabotaging him, but since he had no idea of what he was learning, he had no suggestions for how to improve the lessons, and he had basically written it off as impossible.

"Harry, I think we might have read enough for now," Hermione said, rubbing her head. "I estimate that if we spend the rest of our spare time on this, we should finish it in the last few days of the term without a problem. I cannot, and I do not know of anything that can, guarantee you will learn to shield your mind in this time, but if we just disappear then it will be obvious what we are doing before long."

"Mate, I know you said last night that you'd be fine skipping class on your own, and it's not like I wouldn't take an excuse to skip class, but if we're not with you, the Slytherins could outnumber you easily, and even if they're all shite at basic spells, numbers basically win every time."

"What we're saying is that whatever you decide to do, we'll support you, because your safety comes first no matter what. I just don't think it's a good idea to skip class and take ourselves away from the teachers."

"Fine," he said. Last night, they had told Ron, but not the others, about the prophecy about him. They knew that Marietta Edgecombe was the traitor, and no one else had turned on them, but they were dealing with something bigger than rule-breaking. He had raised the question about the enemy getting the prophecy out of his head now that he knew about it, but they decided it was irrelevant; Voldemort evidently knew enough about the prophecy to determine that he had to kill Harry, something he had been trying to do for five years running.

"Fine, what?"

"I'll go to class. I'm reading this in Binns's lectures, though." He shook his head. Out of everything he had studied, it seemed the least likely that he would learn anything worthwhile from history, at least as it pertained to his current situation, but he was sure he would find himself studying it soon enough if for some reason it came down to them to defend the centaurs. "Umbridge is gone. We're starting the DA again."

"That's a good idea," Hermione said. "We may need everyone's help now more than ever."

"We're the ones who need to help them," Ron said. "We'll start the new section with mind magic, and we'll all learn it together."

It was true that the practice he had with instructing others went a long way in making sure his skills stayed sharp, and he learned more than enough that he had never known before. The prophecy might well say that he was supposed to defeat Voldemort, but even if that meant he had to do so by himself, there were countless other targets to kill, and precious few from the older generation was at all interested in helping him fight; the authorities were ignoring the problem, most everyone else agreed, and for help, they were down to a concerned parents' club. Though Dumbledore took the blame for him when Umbridge brought him in, he was not entirely sure the Order supported his efforts, but at the same time he had reason enough to carry on with it.

They went to breakfast and then to class, only to get stopped by a trio of red-robed Aurors. Fortunately, one of them was Tonks.

"Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. We'll need you to come with us."

"Get everyone together, Ron," he muttered. "Don't let anyone figure out what you're doing."

"Got it, Mate."

He was off before the officials could say anything to him and it seemed they decided not to press the issue. Looking back at his other friend, it seemed they shared the same unease, because even with a trusted ally there, they really had no idea how the interview was going to go. It was not as if she enjoyed a senior position.

"I don't mind answering questions right here," he said.

"Perhaps you don't, but let's get out of the way of the passing students, shall we?"

"Excellent suggestion, Robards."

Out of all the plans he had made for the coming days, and all the ways in which he would spend his time, the prospect of getting dragged out of class and questioned had not come up. They knew it was going to have to happen, but somehow it had slipped their minds, or maybe Hermione remembered and was too polite to say anything. Either way, it would have made no difference if he had stayed inside the library all morning; they would have found him anyway.

"Excuse me, are you questioning us as suspects?" she asked as they walked to an empty classroom. "If you are, I should think we have the right to-"

"We haven't decided whether you are suspects or not," Tonks said, her usual cheer absent from her voice. "As far as we know, though, you two are the only people apart from the centaurs who can tell us what happened. Let's start from the beginning, shall we?"