Ron was taking a turn to be annoyed about the fact that the centaurs were having to be relocated again. For the most part, they were on board with it, and because no one at the Ministry would see it coming, there was a chance the school could be saved, but it would not be without effort. Harry could sympathize. In between everything else they had to do, relocating the centaurs was not a welcome task.

"You can apparate, now, though, right?" Hermione asked. The three of them were on their way outside to set up for the meeting. Without exception, the members of their resistance force would be using the floo, from different places. Augusta Longbottom asked only that they did not track anything in through the back porch; it was hard to see grass stains on oxidized copper at her age.

"Yes, it's been a whole week of nothing but that and I can apparate. I can't defend my mind properly, I have no idea what's going on in the world, I have to learn Side-Along so that I can take every single centaur, one by one- out of the Forbidden Forest, but I can apparate."

"At least everyone's making progress," Ron muttered. "I just can't wrap my head around- what the hell is it- force multipliers. It's a lot more complicated than chess. Can't even get Michael to play against me most of the time."

"I see that you two are getting along now."

"He's not so bad. I don't see why not."

"Didn't he only join the DA so that he could hang out with Ginny?" Hermione asked. "I would have thought you would be enemies for life."

"Well, he moved on when she decided she didn't like him anymore." He stopped in place. "You realize I only had to test him because he was dating my sister, right? You were the one who told us that was why he joined."

"I had to suspect him if I thought his interests were mercenary. For the record, there were worse reasons for joining than because a friend joined, and those were all on full display. Also for the record, I can only... express pleasant surprise over the fact that he's stayed with us, as I had every reason to suspect he would have left when we said we were going to get more serious."

"Think he's got his eyes on someone else?" Ron asked.

"Maybe Luna," Harry said. "If she's fine with it, and he still gets his work done, I don't care."

Neville was already outside, and with his help, it only took a few minutes to raise the obstacles out of the ground. He had started using a rather ingenious plant charm that took different forms depending on some context that ultimately escaped him. It would not work on magical plants, but it was useful for setting up a sort of obstacle course that allowed several of their members to run through it at the same time. They had practiced aiming from long range on a clear field, but they needed to be able to replicate both urban and natural settings.

Luna was the first to arrive. Michael did not manage to apparate there, nor did he make the top of the class in Occlumency, but both of those could have been supposed. There was no telling why he had picked those two things on which to focus when the rest of the group was going to work on it. The dark magic group was growing, as some had expected, with Ginny leading the charge. Was she only faking her ability to maintain control of herself? Was that even possible? What possible benefit was there in it?

He took her aside at the beginning before she could get started with Terry, Hannah, and Blaise, saying that he only needed a word with her.

"I'm not trying to stop you, I just want to understand," he said after they were out of earshot. "I would have thought that you would want to be as far away from dark magic as possible." She frowned.

"I know. I did." She stepped closer. "There was a problem, though. It didn't leave me."

"You weren't still-"

"No, nothing like that. It wasn't like Tom Riddle was still communicating with me. It was just that the more I tried to forget about it, the more I remembered it. To protect me from harassment, my story was never leaked to the rest of the school." Harry remembered that part, though if he was being honest at the time, he had other things on his mind. All that came to the surface was McGonagall talking at him, telling him to hold off on the specifics if anyone asked.

"They couldn't explain your disappearing act, though."

"People figured it out. They didn't figure out anywhere close to the whole story, but they figured out enough for them to know to avoid me. It wasn't anything like what Luna had. I didn't really know what was going on at first."

If his frown gave it away, he would say that he did not care if someone noticed or not. Basilisks were not exactly common knowledge, but came up in the course work for sixth and seventh years. The only reason he and his friends solved the mystery before anyone else was because of the insurmountable advantages of being friends with the victim and perpetrator, and his being a Parselmouth. If enough of the details were leaked, eventually the cleverer students would put together at least part of what happened, and probably decide, consciously or otherwise, on something that sounded polite and diplomatic, like 'giving the poor girl who might well have been at the center of everything a little space'.

"It chose you, then," he said.

"I'm not the only one. Harry, I know you don't want to be like him. Professor Dumbledore told me that you sounded frightened when you related to him that the memory of Tom Riddle said that you were like him."

Usually one to keep things close to his chest, he was shocked to hear it. Though it was not as if he had asked the Headmaster to hold onto that piece of information, he had never thought that such a personal secret would be revealed, and apparently only to console a crying girl caught up in the middle of some twisted game beyond her control. Was he aware that the diary was a Horcrux? If he was, he had to realize that there was more than one. As hard as he and his friends had tried to figure it out, they could not so much as guess how many others there were.

"I... I didn't know."

"You didn't really even look at me at that age," she said. It was not an accusation; it was just a fact. "That was probably part of why no one suspected me of anything." She looked around. "I have to get back to the others."

There were still questions, but he was fine with letting her get back to work if that was what she wanted, as his central question had an answer. Had she picked up some unshakeable to determination to fight against Voldemort, no matter what form he took when next he reared his ugly head? In those days, she had been obsessed with him, as she had reminded him. Did she want him to feel guilty about ignoring her?

"No, she's at least reasonable," he muttered to himself as he went over to the obstacles that he and his friends had set up. While some of the others were practicing the mind arts, he was getting ready for a round against Ron, Hermione, and Luna, with Ernie and Susan in his own corner. As much as he wanted to focus on the exercise, he could not get Ginny out of his head. Why would Dumbledore have thought to console her by assuring that he, the kid who dragged her out of there, was nothing like Riddle?

"Ron and Hermione are both good," he muttered in response to Susan's half-heard question. "Luna's getting better. I'm hoping this builds her confidence rather than goes against it."

"You don't know?" Ernie asked, seeming surprised. "You would recommend this for her without knowing whether-"

"There isn't much of a choice. We all have to know how to fight." The Hufflepuffs he was addressing were not themselves slouches. When asked to specialize, they split up into diagnostic charms and wards of protection, and insisted on practicing frequently, especially against other members.

At the sight of green sparks going up, some homage to the Triwizard Tournament, the three of them rushed forward, taking positions behind the hastily grown trees. While they were to focus on their combat skills, there was no explicit rule against setting the obstacles on fire or transfiguring them. Also, to simulate the killing curse, there was a rule that they were not allowed to block stunners. There was no point in using another spell to replace them, since they had no expectation that the enemy would ever want them alive, and in the event that they did, they would be as good as dead.

Having had a hand in constructing the field, Harry knew that the wider opening between one side and the other was on his own left, meaning his opponents, at least those he knew the longest, would have the sense to come through that way, given that most people seemed to carry their wands in their right hand; at any stage of passing through the trees, they would be able to use them for cover without burning time on a shield charm. The best way he could respond was by quickly moving through the right opening, getting behind them, but to do that, they would have to be quiet at the same time. He knew, of course, of Disillusionment Charms and Muffling Charms, but according to Ron, commanders sometimes avoided those in unit tactics because of the risk of hitting one's own men. That left them with a distraction.

Quickly informing his own side of the plan, they used a blasting hex on the other side of the field as they ran, hitting a branch first, and then a trunk with a second. There was no specific narrative they were trying to trick Hermione into thinking, they only wanted her to hesitate for a moment. She had gained in confidence in herself, as had Luna, but both of them would be well advised to listen to their teammate when he ignored the explosions on instinct.

"Confringo!" It was a third explosion, more powerful, and closer to their position than before. He managed to hit Hermione with a stunner, but she had already used Legilimency in a desperate bid to test his mental shields when it was the last thing on his mind. Despite being unconscious herself, she almost immediately blinded him by forcing him to focus on keeping her out, and at some point he was knocked out in the process. With no idea how the battle was going, he was just lying there, as if in a shared dream, with the mental connection already established.

"Are you there?" her voice asked.

"Where else would I be?"

They could not see each other, but each felt the other's presence.

"I'm honestly somewhat surprised this even works. I've been meaning to try it for a while now..."

"You just couldn't think of how to ask me if I wanted to go to sleep together?"

It was strange to hear her laughing in his mind.

"I'm sure they'll wake us up soon. Let me be the first to say that I'm glad you're not a real opponent of mine."

"I wouldn't want to go up against you either."

A moment later, they were awake and looking around. It turned out that the last wand standing was Luna, though she did not reserve much credit for herself. Was it fair, or just her lack of confidence talking? Either way, he had no real desire to hear what had happened. To improve his own chances, he had his answer, and that was to work on his Occlumency. His mental connection with the enemy was a weakness that Voldemort would exploit without hesitating. For a while, he had been hoping he could turn it into a strength, an inside look into what the other side was doing, but if he had kept going down that path, he would have died.

"What's next?" Susan asked as soon as she was revived.

"Well, someone had the brilliant idea of making Daphne help with the centaurs, so she's not here today," Ron muttered. "That means we're down one practicing Legilimens. It doesn't make sense to have all of us switch to mind arts drills, so we'll switch off against Ginny's group. Someone get Neville over here; he doesn't need to be reading when we're all here."

Study was easily the least favorite method of learning for more than one of their members, but they all had to admit that it was not a huge waste of time, and it was not for nothing that Hogwarts had built a curriculum around it. O.W.L standards that were enforced by the Ministry were low, and it was a breeze for every single member of the DA to get an O in most things that were being tested; their standard for a shield charm was just that it had to be functional. He turned to his two teammates as the other team lined up to go against a team of four.

"Both of you wanted to learn various charms, right?" he asked.

"There were other things I wanted to learn on top of that, but yes. I have been working on my magical abilities."

"Soft skills are important too," Susan said. "I think that you're leaning into your skills in a way that will make you even better. For my part, I've been working on advanced shields and protective charms. I think our unit lacks defense, if I may speak plainly."

"You can," Harry said. He had intended to get them all disciplined, but he had not really made an effort to make them speak more formally. Did the respect just come naturally at some point? Was it that they were afraid for their lives, knowing that desertion would cost them just as much? "I wanted to see how far you've come on shielding. We've come up with a competitive model for training ourselves and each other. Your defense is going to make us work harder against our enemies. If we attack you, can you hold out against us?"

"I can try."

"That's a good answer."

As described, they both came at her at once. The witch reacted quickly and raised a shield, blocking both of the spells they cast. He went ahead and supposed that they were not testing her on her ability to survive killing curses and other dark magic, because the point was to test her shields. It would probably sound clever for him to hit her with something unrelated and then tell her she should have seen it coming anyway, but it would not be terribly helpful. He tried something he had seen some of the others do and summoned a rock to heave at her, but the shields blocked that as well. It seemed like she had left herself plenty of space to dodge if necessary, but everything they tried, at least so far, was not working.

The way to get past a shield was not to throw more spells at it, to try to overpower it. For the most part, even basic shields could block most anything; that was why they had been researched the most and they were taught to kids, protecting them from most kinds of attacks, light spells and physical objects. The way to get past a shield was to use something to which the shield did not apply. Harry was not exactly sure how a killing curse worked, but he was reasonably certain that was why it went through as if the shield was not there.

He tried casting an blasting hex right at the opponent's feet, but it seemed like her shields were round and went into the ground beneath her; a far cry from the basic shields they learned early on. With her eyes still closed and her focus still on putting down more shields, she was probably getting harder to beat as it went. The problem, at some level, was the magic traveling from him to the target; as long as there was a way that could be said to be happening, there was a theoretical way of blocking it. He tried to levitate the earth under Susan's feet, but the shields were not cutting into it; they seemed to allow it to pass through.

"Herbivicus," he incanted, using the charm Neville had shown them. Ernie had mostly given up trying to get to the target; there was an air about him that suggested he thought it was pointless, and it was, as long as it could not block the killing curse and she would have to use a physical shield for that. He was sure she was working on that as well, but as long as they were not testing her on things other than dark magic, as well as testing their own resourcefulness, it would not come into play. As the strange plant twisted into shape from the ground under Susan's shield, she took notice of it, but was not quite sure what to do; it was only intersecting with her shield. Going by intuition rather than proper magical theory, he split it in its growing trunk with a vertical severing charm, and then loosed a stunner through the hole.

They woke her up moments later and it seemed she was none too confused about what had gotten her. Apparently, she was surprised as they were that the trick would work. Silently, he chalked it up to a sign of the times, representative of the nature of their struggle. Though Hermione had said that they would have to be inventive at times, they were not going to have the time frame to advance magical theory before they needed to fight the enemy. That meant doing everything with conventional weapons, spells that had already been formulated long since. The upside was that they were reliable and easily studied; the downside was that the enemy had access to all of that and more. With everything they had time to learn, they would have to use something unexpected, precisely as he had just done.

"Do you know any foreign shields?" Ernie asked Susan. "I've heard that in Ecuador, they can even block sounds, though I don't see why you would not want to know what spells your opponent is using."

Harry had tossed around the idea that the edge they needed could be across a simple body of water, but he could not make himself believe that foreign magic would be easy to learn, and if there were especially basic spells somewhere, he would not be able to do terribly much with them. It would probably not contain anything that had no counter domestically, even if no one recognized the incantation, and if that was all he wanted, it was just as well to take a leaf out of Blaise's book and learn to cast everything silently. He thought back to an earlier conversation.

"Do you have anything against people like Hermione?" he had asked between drills.

"You'll have to be more specific," the Slytherin said, smirking. "No, I'm only joking. I have an idea why you ask, so I can assume that you mean her blood, or the lack thereof. Out of that context, though, I find her exceedingly annoying, and if the rest of them were like her, I could almost see where Malfoy gets it."

It was like he was allergic to saying anything directly. As easy as it was to discern what he was implying, it was annoying. If he seriously intended to deny what he was saying later, he was wasting his time; you could either speak clearly enough to be understood, or you could do something else, preferably shut up. Though Harry had not always felt as brave as everyone said he was, there were times when he was clearly reminded that he had been sorted correctly. It was one of those choices that was not really a choice, and a paradox that was not really a paradox. How long had it taken him to figure out that because of who he was, he chose Gryffindor?

"As long as we understand each other," he had said, ending things.