Harry was not quite able to explain the ominous feeling he had about the session of Occlumency training he was about to undergo. Was it the way Snape was polite? Usually, he did not seem to care if anyone else was around, though when talking directly to adults he was more respectful than he was with students, though his general demeanor and personality were never impacted. The two of them went up to a room directly below the attic, where he had no wish to return after cleaning doxies out of there.

"In this lesson you will employ no foolish tricks or diversions. I shall not pretend not to see through them if you do. Resist my invasion every step of the way."

Following the simple order, he went ahead and guessed that running out of the room or casting a shield charm would defeat the purpose of the lesson. He felt what he could only imagine to be a wave of mental energy coming toward his mind, and he strengthened his shield, focusing everything he had. Perhaps Hermione was not as good as his current teacher, but she had not been slacking. The pressure was intense, and after a moment it was all he could do to keep his opponent from getting inside, at which point he was distracted by a leg-locker.

It was not a particularly dangerous curse, not unless the target found himself on a staircase at Hogwarts, but it was distracting; he had not expected his guide to use such a blatant means of getting inside his head. He did his very best to resist, but he could feel the pressure breaking his defenses. All at once, he was standing before Snape in his memories again, and it was all he could do to try to throw him out like all the times before, but the Potions master proceeded, not as if entirely unimpeded, perhaps, but still going nonetheless. His memories slowly shifted as he applied every single thing he knew about Occlumency, from books and from experience, and it was still not enough. The session ended shortly after that.

"This is the conclusion of our lesson."

"That wasn't a lesson, sir," he said. It was hard to try to be respectful and get his point across at the same time. "That was just a trial-"

"If you learned nothing, Potter, that much is on you."

"Are you saying that I just have to try harder? Where am I supposed to find more- whatever it is that I need to push you out? What's mental strength in the first place?"

"Strength of will grows with practice," the teacher said, perhaps rewarding him for asking the right questions. In direct contrast to how he had been in class every year that Harry had the misfortune of sharing the experience, he seemed like he was basically being fair, and trying to teach his student. Was it just because he was under orders or did he fear the consequences of Lord Voldemort gaining access just as much?

"That's what it is?" he asked. "If it is, that's the very first I'm hearing of it. Why didn't you tell me before, sir?"

"You would never have understood at the time," Snape explained. "I doubt you understand even now. If you've been practicing, it has only been against someone with no intention to go through your memories. I have no doubt that I have superior skill, but it is not, fundamentally, a question of skill. You are training with some absolute dunderhead that has an entirely fanciful idea that this is like fencing or something of that nature. Perhaps you never would have known this in your determination to never study, like your wastrel of a father, but Occlumency training is traditionally only conducted by bitter enemies, and for good reason." He turned to go.

"Sir, is it dark magic?"

He stopped at the doorway, not entirely turning around. Harry had gained a vague sense from previous sessions, and he had already just tested it, that he could get a straight answer if he asked the right question, or just one that interested the teacher.

"Not entirely. There are books on the subject, but simply reading them will not make you an expert, or even a competent pretender. They will only give you a place to start, a place to build a foundation of understanding. Strength of will does not depend on your intellectual understanding of the practice. I had heard, Potter, that you stood out among your classmates for your ability to resist the Imperius Curse."

"Where did you hear that?" he asked. He had not thought it was common for teachers to discuss the performance of the students at the High Table at mealtimes, especially when the ability demonstrated in one class was mostly unrelated to the ability demonstrated in some other class. "Wait... you heard it at a meeting of Death Eaters, didn't you?"

"Precisely. Crouch was interested in your potential. He had hoped that you would fall for the Dark Lord's trap, but it seems you demonstrated enough willingness to try to shut him out that he no longer expects anything of you. Recently he floated the names of several other students we could in some way shanghai into killing you, but the Lord Voldemort shot him down. As long as he does not know the full nature of the prophecy, he has some reason to try to keep you alive."

In the handful of sentences that had been related, Harry learned a goldmine of information about the workings of the enemy, but most importantly that Snape was demonstrating a rare degree of trust in him to get better at Occlumency so that he would be able to keep these secrets. It was nothing, of course, that the dark wizard did not know already, but the fact that his double agent had told him it all would be questionable. If in the next few nights Voldemort managed to breach his mind, the spy would have a hard time explaining himself. Had Snape insisted on teaching him because it would be his own head on the chopping block if something failed? Had it just been because he believed the theory that the discipline should be taught by an enemy?

The most chilling part about it that occurred to him only as the Potions master left him alone in the room was that the Death Eaters had been talking about his classmates like they were pieces to be used. He could practically hear them say that they could use someone like Cho Chang, someone close enough to him without being completely committed to not betraying him. Having never had anything against her, particularly, or even people like Dean and Seamus, who were also part of the Defense Association, he had never thought it would be dangerous to even associate with them. Beyond the point of being able to trust the people around him not to harm him, could he even expect them to not be instruments of the dark wizard who had killed his parents? How close had he come to being the same? If it was true what everyone said and Voldemort would have no reason not to kill him after he found out the true nature of the prophecy?

"Even that bit of information would just... it would be a disaster if anyone knew..." No one was around him; he could not have said why he was saying it aloud. He stood up, realizing he had been thrown to the floor in the effort of trying to keep the Legilimens out of his mind, or perhaps he had just lost control of his legs. Having not commented on it to insult him, perhaps by that he was expressing approval, as strange as it was. If he wanted that, though, if he wanted effort, were there not easier ways? Was it so hard to simply be fair and reasonable in class, so that he would think there was some point to investing time in it?

The idea presumed that Snape wanted him to succeed despite his personal disdain for him and his father, which made sense from a strategic perspective. He doubted, though, that he could get Hermione to hate him if he was reading it correctly and that was desired for the sake of his practice. More specifically, it was doubtful he could bring himself to start abusing her without telling her why, which would, of course, spoil it. How else could he get her to legitimately test him in their practice, though? Could he tempt her with some secret that was not real, daring her to try to pry it out of his head?

"They're already keeping something from me," he muttered to himself as he walked out. He had no interest in listening further into the Order's meeting, or what remained of it, not when their plans had nothing to do with his own. Did it count as speaking out of resentment when he was just stating a fact? If it did, who could blame him for resenting his friends for keeping something from him? Was it any different from the last summer when they were under instruction from Dumbledore to keep their letters free of any meaningful detail because the post was compromised, if what was truly compromised was his own mind? Could he help it? Could he be blamed for not being able to help it?

He apparated back to the Longbottom residence after a few failed attempts, none of which terribly mattered to him; he knew why he was off his game. They needed to branch out and have other bases around the country, as they had discussed, but it was going to be hard finding anything like what they already had; they were genuinely spoiled. Some had been learning survival skills and they could probably feed the group if it came to that, but setting up a decent base of operations was still going to be difficult and time-consuming. They were going to have to move quickly. It was better to leave before they had an idea that the enemy knew about them than after.

"Harry?" Terry asked as soon as he was in sight. It seemed he had taken to levitating a chair.

"You should really be letting yourself heal."

"It's not a problem. The others sent me back here so that they could break down without me." He squinted. "So, you are... back already?"

"We were never going to learn the kinds of things we wanted to learn at that meeting," he said, shaking his head. "After that, it seems like Snape wanted a short session."

"If I may speak freely, I find it rather fortunate that you manage to shelve your pride to work with him for the greater good. I would not suppose he was your favorite teacher." He did not quite have Ernie's way with words, but he knew when to be careful and diplomatic. "If no one else has expressed gratitude for your having made this a priority-"

"-then they didn't think it was necessary, because it's nothing more than my obligation," he said. "Might as well get the planning phase out of the way. The rest of us are out breaking down at the Lovegood residence, but soon enough we'll have to break down here. Everything we've done here, we'll have to undo it. We're decent enough now to where we can survive out there without Lady Longbottom's help, and we've called enough attention to ourselves to where we've got no other choice."

"That may well be the correct move. I only regret that I am not able to offer more help in this regard. Academics and Philosophy are more my strong suits. Even if I were to conduct original research I would find that less troubling than arranging the logistics of a relocation."

Harry was aware of how difficult magical research was even with established disciplines, and not under any impression that Terry was exaggerating. He would have liked to come up with something to ask him to search out, something to give them a massive advantage down the road, but the only thought that occurred to him took things in an entirely different direction. He summoned the book, known only as the Phoenix Script, and set it down on the table between them.

"If you're interested in Philosophy, look over this whilst you're healing up. I'll be honest, I can't make heads or tails of it." The other young wizard looked up at him. "It's important. This is what Dumbledore used as a guide... for everything."

"I admit I still find it strange to think of his trusting some other resource, and yet, I could never say that he failed to be humble and interested in what he could learn. He was not nearly as proud as he had right to be." He frowned again, taking up the book. "I should not speak of him in past tense."

"I'm glad it interests you. I'll be honest, I didn't read all that much of it. I just couldn't justify spending time on it when there was so much else to do."

"Thank you," he said. Why was he being thanked for handing out a responsibility? "This is truly a breath of fresh air for me."

He supposed it took all kinds and returned to his work, making a checklist of things they needed to do to get out of Lady Longbottom's hair and ensure that there would be nothing that could be traced back to them left behind, again feeling like some kind of organizer. It was not as if he had expected to spend the lion's share of the time leading a charge, and he knew there would be work, he just had never expected so much of it to feel like school. The others started to trickle in and he handed out orders based on what needed to be done first, and, knowing what was coming, everyone got to work. The base they had used so far had been incredibly helpful in terms of getting them to a level where they no longer needed it, but they all knew that a day was coming when they could no longer stay there; it was too easy for the enemy to target.

"This means disappearing off the map," he had said to the group at an earlier meeting. "Once we take this step, we can't go back. Get every resource we might need."

"What about recruitment?" Ernie had said. "What opportunities will living in the woods afford?"

"We can't make ourselves easy for the enemy to find," Ginny said. "It's shite that we can't pick up anyone else at this point, but for this stage, there's nothing we can do."

"I wouldn't say nothing," Hermione said. "It's just going to require a multi-layered approach. We need to divert some of our forces to London or Hogsmeade where we keep an ear to the ground, looking for malcontents. We need people who can do things for us without knowing too much about us, and in large population centers, we can expect to find at least a few."

"We'll just need some black cloaks, I suppose," Ernie said, throwing up his hands. It was hard to tell if he was being entirely sarcastic, or if he genuinely thought that Ministry personnel might well ignore them if they were presumed to be Death Eaters. As of late, the current policy was still to pretend that Voldemort had not returned, meaning there was a lot that the dark wizards could do under the current government; taking action against those recruiting servants of the Dark Lord would be a confession that they were not just talking idly. It was not that no one had ever died for nothing, but there was really no way that they would use their no longer living leader as a rallying point, not when their whole argument for siding with him had been his power.

He knew little about the ideology that motivated the enemy, but it seemed safe to assume it was more complicated and persuasive than what Malfoy relayed in the form of insults. At the same time, he did not think they would gain much by learning it; the time for argument had passed. Would it matter, though, when they were trying to recruit people? Would they just abandon their cover as those who were not supposed to exist?

"Hi, Harry," Luna's voice said, returning him to the present. "I just want to say thank you for going so far to save my father. I know he can be difficult."

"Well, er, any time," he said. It seemed inappropriate to say that it was not just a favor, and it was, in fact, an act of perfect necessity to their cause, especially when she knew that. Why then, was she thanking him? Was she just being nice?

"I've been thinking about something," he said, looking around to see if anyone would catch him just talking when there was work to be done. "I need someone to help me monitor how... well, how everyone's getting on. I don't think there's any chance of someone betraying us, but if I didn't do the kinds of things leaders normally do to make sure that people don't betray them, it won't turn out well. Does that make sense?"

"It makes perfect sense," she said. "I would also very much like it if you did not turn into an absolute despot when we were all thinking that we were going to be working together." He blinked and remembered that she was not necessarily accusing him of anything. The weirdest part about talking to her was all the little life lessons about conversational implication she had apparently missed, not the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. Was he picking the worst person for the job?

"I know it's a lot to ask of you, but I don't exactly know everyone and... as I'm finding out more and more that everyone's so complicated, I can't even do this sort of thing on my own."

"I don't know about that. Sometimes it's good to give someone else a task just because that person might learn something. I'll do my best with it."

"Thanks," he said. Already, he was thinking about the next engagement, which would happen soon enough, but for the moment he just wanted to make sure that they did more than put Terry's leg back in place. It was not as if he had the luxury of making sure everyone was going to be okay in the long term, but as he watched Luna go over and have a chat with Hannah, it seemed like something was getting accomplished.

Elsewhere, Michael was turning out to be a real work horse, with an impressive command of an array of convenient spells for covering their tracks. When asked, he just said that he saw it coming that they would be leaving. Had the training exercises made them all think more about stealth and limiting the information the enemy had? Was there something else going on? He wondered how much it could be called a venture that he had planned out himself, and how much of it was something that everyone else had always wanted to do, or at least felt the need to do. No one really wanted to fight if there was a genuine risk involved, but it was probably hard to sit around doing nothing, even for those who had excuses lined up.

"Hey, Harry?" He turned around to see Hermione.

"Yeah?"

"I just wanted to say I think it's a good idea to give Luna something like that to do," she said. "I may have been too hard on you before. I'm just worried about Ron. I think if we lose someone, it's not going to be some kind of convenient rallying point where we all come out stronger on the other side."

"I know. I agree with you. We just don't have any other choice." He frowned a little, not looking at her. "It's really frustrating. We haven't even lost anyone yet and it's like we've already got the ghost haunting our group."

"I'm not saying that I'll give up if we lose someone," she said after a moment. "Even if it's just the two of us, I'll keep fighting. Have you thought about what victory means, and when we can dissolve the group?"

"I can't believe you'd put those two sentences together," he said. "This is why I haven't really thought about winning, I've just been trying to keep us from losing."

"Well, think of everyone else. Unless we win, the only way everyone else has of leaving us is death."

"Then we'll come up with something," he said after thinking about it.