In short order, the entirety of the DA was lined up for a test. There was no more time to hide or destroy evidence, but if they were right in their approach, then there would be no more evidence to hide. Fortunately, no one complained about how relevant what they were doing was to their greater purpose, or any of its objectives, but Harry already knew that some of them probably thought that in secret, and just did not want to be the first to be seen objecting. No matter who turned out to be guilty, if anyone, there was going to be resentment. They had not been able to come up with a list of suspects from the very beginning, and for that reason, they were having to treat everyone as a suspect. One such example was presently being handled by their resident Legilimens.

"Okay, I'm sorry, and generally speaking I like to think that we're all the same, but if we're going to go through everyone's brains, why are we not starting with the boys?" Ginny asked. "Why do Harry and Ron get a pass because they're personal friends of yours and not- Hermione, haven't we been through a lot together?" The tough, objective facade was fading.

"I'm really sorry about this, but the evidence so far has been inconclusive. So far, we haven't been able to cross anyone off the list. The reason Luna and these two are on this side of the interrogation is not because of rank or because of my personal feelings. I simply would not have been able to carry out the investigation, even thus far, by myself. I thought it would be inappropriate for me to search the boys' tent, for example."

"What are you going to do if it's one of them?"

"Well, it had to be one of us, so if I do not find my suspect in you, then I will clear you, and you will be my assistant for the time being. When I have any two, then Harry and Ron will enter the list of suspects. If I do not find our perpetrator, that will mean that I have either failed to see through someone's Occlumency, or I have sabotaged our investigation. If I fail, I am prepared for whatever punishment the group decides."

Everyone seemed to realize the awful responsibility that the witch going through their heads had laid upon herself. None of them had been asked to lower their shields; if anything she needed the practice and it was pointless to ask people to do that. Even if they wanted to cooperate with the investigation, each one had some secret, and with her very best effort, she would see those secrets. Perhaps that was why she volunteered to accept any punishment- she was not even slightly exaggerating with that; he could tell by her voice that if they decided to kill her, she would accept it. If after having learned all of their secrets, she was still not able to point to a culprit and restore some amount of trust, then the very least she could do was take them to the grave. Staring at her as she locked eyes with one of her best friends, he wished he could have put together what she intended to do sooner. Even if they had to try something stupid like trying to scare it out of the culprit by acting like they knew everything, he would rather have had that.

In a way, however, it all made sense. The culprit, whoever he was, had to know he was facing death, or some other extreme punishment. There was no way he would ever regain the trust of the group, except possibly by being subject to regular searches of his mind. The leader of the interrogation, as a result, had to be completely committed to ferreting all secrets out of the heads of her targets. It was as if the whole thing was contrived to give him his wish, that she would go harder on him, but of course that was only because she was going hard on everyone. Was that why she had been so hesitant before? Was it just that she did not want to treat him any differently than any other member, or did she not want to know his secrets? Did she fear the kind of relationship they would have if she tried her hardest and won?

If so, what reason did she have to be so confident in her skills?

As she broke away from Ginny, both of them seemed to have a hard time fighting down the emotional response. With the expected absence of a pronouncement of guilt, it was revealed, by logical inference, that she had just gone through countless thoughts of someone innocent. She moved onto Neville. If there had been some who objected to her first suspect just because she was a witch, it was like there were more who were objecting to his being a suspect just because he seemed so innocent. Daphne was looking in the other direction entirely.

"I won't hide anything."

"I want you to do your best, actually," Hermione said.

"If I may say something while you work," Terry said, stepping forward. Harry gave him a nod. "This same fate awaits each one of us if the perpetrator does not confess. If you did not care what happened to Parkinson, because she was an enemy, see what you have done to Ginny, and see what you now do to Neville, because of your cowardice and dishonesty. Perhaps you did not think that we would care. I do not see how, because when we confronted our enemies, we explained that we did not see the world as they did. We did not put our conflict at the center of the moral universe. Perhaps, though, you did not think that there would be any punishment. For that much, our group should admit some amount of responsibility. We thought that as long as we were all friends together, we would not need rules, and we would not need a way of enforcing them. We never specified what the punishment would be. If you step forward now, I would like to be able to promise you that it will be considerably lighter."

"You may promise that," Hermione said, drawing away from her target after a moment. She said she needed to do a full dive, but it was possible it would not take the same amount of time for everyone. "I should think that part of the punishment would be a full dive, or rather, that would just be the conclusion of the investigation, but I should think that something less than execution would be appropriate if we had a confession that spares us further trouble."

"Execution?" Neville asked.

"I said something less than that."

"Either way, you can't presume that... be honest, you've seen everything, do you really believe I'm any better?"

"It's not about that," Harry said. "It's about presenting a danger to others. We have to draw the line somewhere."

No one said anything immediately after that, and he was relieved that no objections to his argument came, but also there were no confessions. Everyone looked at least some measure angrier, and yet they were looking around, not knowing at whom to direct their anger. With nothing to stop her, the Legilimens moved onto Luna, and they were all in for another pointless wait.

"I remind you of the futility of your resistance," Terry said. "Ginny, in all of our tests of Occlumency, has consistently performed well, whether assailed by Daphne or by Hermione. In this interrogation, she was asked to put up the best possible fight, and she was not able to frustrate the purpose of the investigation. I say this not as a point against her-"

"We get it," Blaise said. "We all know." He looked uncomfortable, but everyone was. Was that why he made no attempt to hide it, when normally it would be second nature?

"Well, 's not that we don't appreciate it, because it might've worked, but I reckon we're only going to find out the hard way now," Ron said. Most likely, he was right. They had tried to avoid giving the perpetrator no way out other than trying to somehow trick the Legilimens, but it seemed like he thought that was his best chance still. When Luna was finished, she ran off and no one followed her. Harry was next, after all.

"I would have liked to think that no one would think it was you," the voice said. They were somewhere in Hogwarts; it was hard to tell what corridor of what floor. "I have the same amount of faith in you."

"Do you?" he asked. They were at the zoo where the Dursleys took him a long time ago. "You don't think I might be hiding something in revenge?"

"Harry, you're not even using Occlumency right now."

"Oh, well, if that's such a problem-"

The scene shifted around him too quickly for either of them to follow. If his friend was annoyed at all, she quickly reminded herself that he was only doing what he was asked, and she could only respond by upping her own game. She saw flashes of scenes around him and he wondered if she thought that he really was hiding something from her. Would she have let it go if she knew how she would have to find out? Had she ever let anything go as long as he had known her?

It was after a long effort that she decided she was not able to learn anything from him. His Occlumency had decidedly improved and he was surprised that the leader of the interrogation was not too put out by that fact. If anything, she looked impressed. Was it just a higher priority that his brain remain secure than anything else?

"What do I tell the others?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I didn't think that far ahead. Just move on without saying anything. It's not like anyone thought I did it."

"I suppose."

He was back in the real world, entirely. Defending against Hermione's full effort had been a challenge and he felt like he learned something from it. With a last sidelong look in his direction, though, he realized something else. She had not obtained the certainty she wanted, and unless she got even better at Legilimency, she never would. Once a relationship between any two people had reached a point where they had to look through each other's heads, that was it.

"Wait," he said before she started with Daphne. "What if she only forgot a segment of time and that's why it looked like someone used a Memory Charm on her?"

"Harry, it occurred to me that this whole exercise will divide our group, perhaps irreparably. I haven't even thought about what I might say if we find our culprit halfway through and the first half demands that the second half suffer the interrogation anyway."

"I don't see why not," Michael said, interjecting. "If no one can so much as touch our sacred prisoner, and our brains are just available for examining, then at least everyone should know what that's like- including her."

It was not exactly a confession, but it was clear he would not have spoken if his annoyance with the whole situation had not reached a boiling point. He was arguably right that Legilimency was horribly invasive; Snape certainly made no effort to keep from looking at his secrets. The only effective way to limit the search, as he understood it, was time, but even that was not terribly effective; memories were all connected, and not necessarily in chronological order. It was a bold statement to say that it was worse than getting felt up or stripped naked when one had not experienced those things before, but Harry was finding it hard to argue against the point. If it was true, was it worth it to treat everyone much worse than the victim had been treated just to find out who did it? Thus far, they had all gone along with it, but many of them only because they did not want to be seen as suspicious, or for the sake of fairness.

"Are you trying to force us into a zero sum-" Daphne started, suddenly angry.

"That's enough," Harry said. "I've been cleared. I think it's fair for me to say that there's a point where the fix is worse than the problem. Many of us were thinking that already, but we didn't say anything for fear of being suspected. If we'd recognized a right not to be mentally invaded then we would not have been able to even start with this, and we'd have never found out what happened." He looked around, noting the grateful look on the young wizard who might have thought he was defending him.

"So... we should all think about whether or not we'd rather have that right?" Ron asked. "I mean... I guess we could still stop. So far, Hermione's only looked through the heads of people she already knew well..."

"If we have the right to not have our heads examined, then doesn't that mean someone else has the right to do whatever he wants to us?" Hannah asked.

"No. It just means that if we investigate another claim, we won't be able to use Legilimency to investigate it. If that means that we don't find the next person who does something, then that's what we chose." He looked back to those whose minds had been read already, and though they looked worse for wear, he doubted any of their hearts were so tiny they could insist that everyone else be subject to the same treatment just to share in sympathy.

"Before we call for a vote," Michael started, rousing some from their thoughts. "Would the right not to get mentally invaded apply to enemies as well? Would it apply to captives?" Harry looked to Hermione and then back.

"No. Earlier, we rather thoroughly looked through Parkinson's mind. At the time, no right had been proposed, and it was just the only way to progress things." He thought for a moment, and a moment longer about how to phrase what he thought. "Many of you don't know this, but muggle doctors can't tell always straight away what's wrong with someone. I don't think it's unfair for them to strip the patient naked and find out. If they're really trying to help, and the patient is not responsive, then that's fair. We were trying to help the captive when we used Legilimency on her."

"You still don't think it should be a right, though."

"We've tortured people already, mate," Ron said. His tone was anything but friendly. "We have to get information out of our enemies to win, and it's only fair. We've discussed the appropriate way to escalate."

"That's true," Hermione said after a moment. "Before, I was not trying to pry that much in the captive's mind, and as soon as I saw that she had some memories erased, I backed out. If it's true that she was spotted away from the tree at a different time, though, then there would be reason to go through her earlier memories. The only reason I have not done so is because I thought she had suffered enough."

"Even if we don't find anything, it can't be any worse than what you did to us," Ginny said. She looked around. "I'm not so far gone that I want everyone to have their memories searched just because mine were. Besides, you already knew most of what's in there."

As the leader of the interrogation went back over to the captive, it occurred to him that Ron was right about how it was fortunate that they had started, perhaps by sheer coincidence, with those Hermione already knew well. Daphne seemed to be holding out hope that she could escape by the skin of her teeth and Michael was ignoring the stares he was getting. Luna had not returned.

"What do we do if we don't find anything?" Neville asked. "What if it was one of us?"

"It's good that no one's... being spiteful, I guess," he said. "It might be more fair to have the right not to have our minds read only go through after this investigation is over, though."

"Is that how it's going to have to work? I never thought that we'd have to have rules and rights. I thought we could get by all being friends. I mean, I knew we were going to have to recruit, but..."

"It's been a... well, it's been a whole process," he said. There was so much he had learned from everyone and and everything. It was strange to think that only a year ago, he was still snapping at people out of anger, and frequently. He would like to think, of course, that he just decided at some point to behave in a much better way, but the truth was that he did not have much of a choice. There was no way he could have been a leader to the group without growing up.

"I'm sorry everyone," Hermione said after a moment.

"Did you find something?"

"More than enough to know that she had a hand in this," she said, sighing. "I know that she learned the Memory Charm, and that's too much of a coincidence to just dismiss, but it doesn't prove that she just used it on herself. If she did, she erased her memory of having done so. We also don't know that she had anything to do with the physical evidence that we found."

"If she knew that and concealed it from us, then we have more evidence against her than anyone else," Ron said. His words were met with moderate agreement. "I'm starting to think we might have been wrong about how she couldn't have wiped her own memory. If it's in her own head, maybe she wouldn't even need a wand."

"That wouldn't explain the rest of the evidence," Harry said.

"Well, no, but it could also be unrelated."

"I don't think that's very likely." He looked back at the captive. "In any event, even if she did use a Memory Charm on herself, I don't know how she would have been spotted away from her tree without help." He shook his head. "I didn't know how to think about this case, but at one point I thought it was a partnership that just came to an end at some point."

"How d'you reckon?"

"Basically, she wants to get out, or she wants her wand back, or something else, and she gets someone else to go along with it. She could have offered favors to someone who was watching her."

"Wouldn't that mean betraying the group?"

"Not if it was just to let her have a chance to walk around or something." He thought a moment. "If he was just being humane towards her, then it wouldn't count as betraying us."

"That means we need to go back through," Ron said. "We need to find out whoever did it."

"Might not have done it just to exercise his authority."

They shared their thoughts with Hermione and she turned back to the crowd, offering help if anyone thought that his or her memory had been altered. It was certainly nicer than threatening punishment for anyone holding anything back, and even someone honest might wonder what his or her secret might have to do with the wishes of the witch or wizard behind the whole thing. It was therefore something of a surprise when Michael stepped forward. There were even those who called out that he had to be lying, or that his confession was false. If, though, he intended to lie, he was making entirely the wrong choice by putting himself forward for scrutiny. The entire group was no less shocked when they found out there was a hole in his memory, but they quickly realized that an observational chuckle came from the captive of all people. All eyes were on her, and there were demands to interrogate her more thoroughly before Harry had to regain control of the situation.

Out of all the ways the investigation could have ended, he had not thought that he was looking at one of them.