Finally the next update is here. As I said I am extremely busy in the next two months, so updates would be irregular. But I would try my best to post ASAP. Please read this chapter and review how do you feel about it.

"Legilimens!" roared Harry pointing his wand to the person infront of him. Memories started turning infront of him like a video playlist. A small blonde girl probably 9 years old fighting with her little sister over her spilt ice-cream... A nervous 11 year old girl sitting in the great hall with sorting hat on her head... The same blond girl, though now older, sneaking ice-cream cream from Hogwarts kitchen sometime near midnight...

Harry skimmed through the memories like he was flipping some pages of a book easily. He was getting bored as this was their usual routine in mind control class. Just then, he saw a particular new memory that made him curious. Hazel eyes looked at emerald eyes and there was desire in both of the pairs. Slowly the owners of the eyes inched their faces towards each other and their lips met...

Harry stopped legilimency on realizing what he just saw. A heavily panting Daphne Greengrass was sitting on the chair, looking at him with a heavy blush.

"What was that?" asked Harry while controlling his own blush.

"It was a dream you bloody idiot! A normal dream of a normal teenage girl" replied Daphne while not meeting his eyes.

Harry sniggered at her, though it turned to coughing when he saw Daphne look up at him with a death glare.

"Why did you stop Harry? And why are you both red like tomatoes?" asked Professor Greengrass rubbing his forehead while recovering from the effect of Legilimency that Harry performed on him just before he did the same on his daughter. Though he was able to eventually block Harry from his thoughts using his experience at Occlumency, it was incredibly difficult and by the time he achieved it, Harry had probably read half of his mind. He was surprised and proud as a teacher to see how fast Harry learned mind control and now he exceeded his own capabilities in this difficult branch of magic.

"Nothing!" replied both teens in unison, causing him to jump a little.

"Harry m'boy I think this is enough for now. You are more than ready to take exam for this subject and excel in it" said the professor while placing hands on his shoulders. Initially this subject started theoretically, but since last few weeks they have been doing practicals where professor and two pupils would try to penetrate each other's minds while the victim would try to resist with all their strength. Though Daphne was still learning, Harry had become considerably strong at mind control.

"Thank you so much professor! It wouldn't have been possible without your excellent teaching" beamed Harry.

"Now you both can go" said the professor, dismissing the class.

"Not yet!" they both turned to see Daphne on her feet, pointing her wand at Harry and looking furious.

Harry didn't even have the time to think before he was bombarded with the spell "Legilimens". Harry found his vision going blank before feeling as if someone was trying very hard to penetrate his mind. He smirked internally at his ability to block Daphne so easily, but his happiness was only short-lived as Daphne used all her strength to get access into his mind.

He was on his knees infront of a girl, whose face was not visible as he was looking at her feet while saying the three magical words. 'I love you!' said Harry before starting to raise his head to look up from her legs, to her waist... ' NO! I can't let anyone see this' thought Harry as he fought with all his strength and forced Daphne out of his mind.

"Hey, you never let me see that memory completely!" yelled a frustrated Daphne as Harry regained consciousness. Harry never let anyone get past this point in his mind, even when he was inexperienced at Occlumency. He couldn't reveal his secret love for his bushy haired friend to anyone, even if through this particular memory which was his dream.

"Excellent Harry! You were able to block my daughter even without knowing that she was gonna attack your mind" exclaimed professor Greengrass jovially.

"No sir, it's still not excellent yet. Daphne is not a skilled Legilimen to really judge if my performance was good or not" said Harry, at which Daphne stomped her feet even more furiously and rushed out of the classroom with a scowl on her face.

Both men chuckled at this. "Harry, I don't know why you underestimate your achievements. You have done many great things in your life even before joining here. Even now, you are at the end of the first iteration just 5 months into your training. This is just remarkable. You need to learn to acknowledge your talent m'boy!" said professor Greengrass patting Harry on his shoulder.

I don't care what I achieved professor, I just know that I couldn't win her heart and it is the deal breaker for me... thought Harry sadly and took his leave.

Harry found Daphne waiting for him outside classroom, though on seeing him she turned her face away in mock glare.

He chuckled to himself at her antics and said "Come on Daphne... I didn't intend to see your private dreams" and burst out with laughter unable to control himself anymore.

Though Daphne was angry on him, she was nonetheless happy on seeing him laugh, which he did for the first time since she met him here. It reminded her so much of Hogwarts days when he used to have this carefree laughter. 'Even You-know-who was alive those days but he used to be happy. I wonder what changed now that he is hardly happy anymore even after saving the world from him' she thought while looking at him.

She noticed with concern that though he had become muscular due to his martial arts classes, he looked leaner than ever which she attributed to his irregular eating. She also saw dark circles under his eyes which was probably due to his lack of sleep.

Noticing her gaze on him, Harry quickly composed himself from his laughter, wore a usual stoic expression on his face in just a moment and questioned her by raising his eyebrows.

Daphne was stunned with this sudden change of expression. 'So Harry is wearing a mask of expression all the time. I shall make sure to get to the bottom of this' she resolved and turned away from him in mock anger.

"Still, you shouldn't have seen it. It was private", said Daphne while staring away from him.

"Sorry for that once again. Just tell me what should I do to apologize" said Harry in a pleading tone.

"Ok, so your punishment would be that you will join me, Iva and Sam for lunch today. No excuses this time" she said while turning to him with a grin.

Harry sighed, and started walking with her towards cafeteria. "So Harry, you were saying that your skills are still not excellent in mind control. What do you define as excellent then?" asked Daphne.

"Hmm... I would say I am excellent when I become better than Voldemort and Professor Snape at legilimency and occlumency respectively" replied Harry thinking intently.

"So you are saying that You-know-who was the best at legilimency. How do you know that?" asked Daphne cautiously.

"Yes he was the best. Even better than Professor Dumbledore himself, who was the second best. I know this because..." Harry stammered when he realized that he was revealing too much information. He quickly made a comeback "...because Voldemort had penetrated my mind with great ease. If not for my grief due to loss of someone dear to me during that time, I don't know what would have happened" said Harry recounting the time when Voldemort possessed him in the ministry of magic.

He was saved from further questions as they reached the cafe. They spotted Sam and Ivanka at a table and moved to sit with them. Sam suddenly pinched himself hard and screamed at which the other three people jumped.

"Sam, are you mad! Why did you shout like that suddenly?" snapped Ivanka.

"Sorry Iva, I was just pinching myself to check if this was a dream where Harry Potter has come with us somewhere outside the class for first time" said Sam that had Harry rolling his eyes.

"Hmm you are right though. How come you are here Harry?" asked Ivanka while pinching her own cheek lightly to check if she too was dreaming.

Daphne was laughing at their responses and replied with a side glance at Harry "Don't worry guys, Harry is alright. Circumstances happened to bring him here".

Just as Harry was about to retort, a mail in shape of paper airplane landed on their table. He opened the mail to read it:

Mr Harry Potter,

As per your wish, your exams for first iteration are to be conducted tomorrow. The time table for each examination is attached to the back of the mail. Prepare well and reach the venue on time.

Examination Department

Auror Office

"Wow Harry, you are already ready to give your first examinations. It has been just 5 months that we started our auror training. I am sure you will break Moody' record" said Sam while patting on Harry's back.

"As much as it is a wonderful thing, but have you seen your state Harry? You barely look alive anymore. Why are you stressing yourself so much?" said Ivanka with furrowed eyebrows and a concerned tone.

"She is right. You will drive yourself mad soon if this keeps on going. Please don't be so hard on yourself Harry" said Daphne while keeping her hand on his to try convincing him.

I can't. None of you understand my feelings, thought Harry but chose to remain silent to avoid further conversation on this.

18 months later

Harry was lying on his back and looking at the slightly red sky. It was about sunset time. On his left, there was a steep cliff and to his right there was a magnificent flower valley. He was currently in Romania on an auror mission with his team. Though the mission was over and his team were back in Britain, he stayed back asking for one day leave. His team leader was surprised on Harry asking for leave and granted an immediate one, as Harry never had taken even a single day off in past 23 months of his association with Auror office.

Harry had to take off today because it was necessary to think about his life. And there is no better place than this one to do that. I like this place, it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, Harry thought while taking in the scene around. He used to come here for a few months while he was studying Dragons in the magical creatures subject.

As Harry admired the surroundings, he started to think about past 23 months and his life overall. First he started listing out his achievements. He finished auror training in just 1 year 2 months, which was a new record for anyone till now. Not only that, he achieved highest grades in every subject and had been awarded excellent trainee auror award. After that he has worked as a full time auror for 9 months and participated in many important missions, earning reputation as the most skilled auror of recent times through his battling skills and fast thinking.

Harry sighed. 'People only see this, they don't see the cost of this. Everyone thinks it is a blessing to be The boy who lived. Only I know what a torture my life has been' thought Harry.

Harry had not even one hour of free time since he started his training. When he was not studying during his training days and not on duty nowadays, he would study out of syllabus stuff, especially dark magic.

He often blamed himself for taking too much time to defeat Voldemort. 'If I had focused more in my classes, many innocent people could have been saved. But not anymore. I won't do the same mistake again. This time not only will I excel in my classes, I would surpass the enemy in their own game' he would think usually.

Harry's theory was that he would learn dark magic himself so that he knows the enemies well and use the same dark magic to rid the country of dark wizards.

He has succeeded so far though. If Voldemort was alive today, Harry would probably be the second most powerful dark wizard in Britain after Riddle himself, and overall third most powerful wizard after Dumbledore and Tom Riddle. He has become so potent in dark arts that he is now even capable of unsupported flight that only Riddle and Snape were able to do (though he hasn't mastered it as he had to keep wand pointing at his forehead to fly like that).

No, Harry never did evil stuff like making horcruxes. He didn't intend to use dark magic for personal gain, but he treaded Severus Snape's path of treating it as a wonderful art.

But only Harry knows how hard he had to work to become this capable. Dark magic is something you cannot learn totally from books. So Harry had to disguise himself as a new person every weekend and travel across the world to meet dark wizards to learn practical stuff not found in any book. Some practices like necromancy still disgusted him, but he explored all kinds of stuff to completely understand the mentality of a dark arts practitioner.

This would sometimes prove to be blessing as he happened to run across petty death eaters occasionally, whom he used to track down and hand over to Azkaban straight away. But so far there hasn't been any big success that he hoped for so desperately: all major death eaters who escaped before Voldemort fell, including Bellatrix are still on the run.

He sometimes used to find the silence from death eaters to be unnerving, as if something big is about to happen. There has been no major incident or sightings of escaped death eaters since Victory day: yes, that's the name given to the day Voldemort was defeated.

Last year's Victory day was a grand celebration in the wizarding world and led by the ministry itself. A memorial for the people who died in Battle of Hogwarts was to be erected at Hogwarts, and Harry was supposed to be the chief guest of the occasion.

Harry refused to attend the event and used a mission to Argentina as an escape. Unfortunately Hermione and Ron were not fortunate enough and had to save ministry's face by being guest of honours of the event and perform the roles that Harry was supposed to be, while struggling to answer reporters who were querying about Harry Potter's whereabouts and reason for his absence. 'Hermione and Ron are going to kill me for leaving them to reporters alone' thought a chuckling Harry.

Harry's logic was that victory was far from achieved. Only the leader was defeated, danger in the form of escaped death eaters was still there, though currently dormant. He also thought that real credit should go to Dumbledore and others who sacrificed their lives, not to Harry, as Dumbledore was the guiding light of the plan for Riddle's fall.

The last thing Harry Potter wanted to do was attend a public event and take credit for something that's not even his work. 'If something, I should be blamed for keeping my work unfinished by not disbanding Riddle's organization completely'.

Though the most important reason of Harry's absence was that he didn't want to meet his friends and acquaintances, especially Hermione. The very reason Harry started distancing himself from them all was that he won't be able to bear seeing Hermione with Ron or anyone else.

Even staying away from her was difficult: he missed her terribly everyday. Harry started reminiscing his happy moments with Hermione: saving her from troll in their first year... learning correct pronunciation of Wingardium Leviosa (he smiled at the memory of a cute 11 year old Hermione Granger teaching them the spell)... Hermione putting time turner around his neck (he blushed like tomato at that memory. He never told anyone but it took a lot of self control to not kiss Hermione right there)... saving Buckbeak together and riding on it to save Sirius... Hermione's continued support to Harry when everyone including Ron was against him before the first task of Triwizard tournament (that was the time when he felt he can even go against the world if only she was with him)... her kissing on his cheek at the end of that year (though the kiss was purely innocent, it held a special place in his heart)... Hermione breaking rules and even going against Umbridge just to come with him to the ministry (he never thought Hermione would do something like that... it showed the strength of their friendship).

Harry sighed 'Why can't be things so simple like they used to be'. His smile was then wiped out at other memories of Hermione flooding his brain: Hermione being hit by a curse cast by Dolohov in the ministry and being tortured by Bellatrix at Malfoy manor. Those incidents still gave him terrible nightmares.

More pressing issue at hands though is his current relationship matrix with people. His steps to distance himself from others so that they can live a normal life has lead to deterioration of his relations with everyone, including with his new friends Daphne, Sam and Ivanka.

During initial months, he had to be careful as old acquaintances like those from Weasley family, Lupin, Hagrid, McGonagall and Hermione used to drop by Grimmauld Place to meet him. He had carefully avoided meeting anyone and this led to decrement of efforts from their side. Though Ron tried for some more time, he also seemed to have given up. Even his new friends have stopped going out of their way to approach him when he moved to second iteration of training, because of lack of initiatives from Harry's side. Though Daphne among them tried more just like Ron, she also gave up finally.

So his relations with everyone are now at a formal pen pal stage, where they would send each other formal wishes and presents on occasions. 'They all must be thinking I am arrogant after defeating Voldemort and have dumped them now as their help is not needed anymore. Good, this makes things more easier for me. I am doing this for the greater good', Harry would often think on those lines and derive masochistic pleasure from these thoughts.

Still, his great efforts were being fought vehemently by none other than the stubborn Hermione Granger. He thought never being at home when she came would stop her. He thought giving just short and crisp replies to her letters would discourage her from pursuing him.

But he was wrong. She would come to find him more often. Her frequency of letters would increase. She even tried to contact him through Tonks who was also working as auror. As a result, he had to change his team from Tonks' team to avoid her.

Finally Hermione came to the ministry itself three months ago to confront him and he had just a narrow escape from her. That was the final nail in coffin when Harry understood that she is more stubborn than him.

He fled from Britain (symbolically) and has been working on foreign missions since then by specially requesting Kingsley not to call him back to the country. It has been three months since he went back to his home and has since participated in missions in Romania, Australia, Brazil, Japan and many more countries.

'Looks like I will never be able to go back again. I think I will grow old just like this and then die somewhere and no one will even attend my funeral as I have no friends anymore. No worries, this is all for greater good' thought Harry as he again started getting masochistic thoughts.

Suddenly Harry turned his head and looked at the cliff on his left side and an absurd thought crossed his mind 'I wonder what will happen if I jump into this cliff right now. I am pretty useless currently to anyone so I think nothing in the world would change'.

As if reading his dangerous thoughts, a scarlet bird materialized right there and landed on his leg, staring at his green eyes with it's blue ones. Immediately soothing energy started to seep through his body which though isn't enough to mend his scarred heart and haywire brain completely, calmed his thoughts for the moment acting as a pain relief balm.

Harry sat upright with the bird still on his knees and started stroking his feathers lovingly. "Thank you Scarl. Don't worry, I will not depart from this world till death eaters as an organization is not disbanded completely. But this time I have to do it alone without all my friends. They deserve to live a normal life after all the troubles they faced due to me in last 8 years".

His pet phoenix looked at him with it's piercing blue eyes as if understanding his words. It reminded him so much of Dumbledore... that's the reason he was so interested in this phoenix. He still remembered the day when he and Scarl met...

20 months ago

Harry was currently in a forest of Vietnam as part of magical creatures practicals. They were given a task to find as many magical creatures as possible in the forest and write what they found about them practically (not bookish knowledge). They were supposed to be doing this in groups of two and he was currently walking with Ivanka for last 4 hours in the forest.

Harry yawned "I am getting bored. This forest is very boring, till now we only found small creatures like some magical porcupines and tortoises. I would have liked to see something interesting like a dragon".

Ivanka giggled "Oh Harry, Dragons don't live here in tropical areas. They are found in areas with a cold climate like Europe where they can hibernate in winters".

Harry rolled his eyes "I know. I am just saying if we could find something interesting like dra..." his words were left unfinished as he saw something which he didn't expect to.

Ivanka turned towards his gaze and found a scarlet phoenix sitting on the branch of a tree, sleeping. Her student instinct kicked in and she started scribbling notes about it's features.

"Merlin's cauldron it's a phoenix!" Harry exclaimed. "I didn't know they could be found here. In my entire life even after visiting many remote areas and forests I never saw one in the wild" he said.

"Yeah they are pretty rare" said Ivanka looking at the bird with admiration.

Disturbed by their talking noises, the phoenix woke up and looked at them with a death glare.

Ivanka started backing off. She called to Harry "Harry, get back from there. Wild phoenixes are extremely dangerous and territorial. It won't be happy with us disturbing it's sleep".

But Harry was transfixed at his place and instead looking into the bird's eyes. The phoenix in turn gazed at him and then began the battle of eyes.

Phoenixes cannot be domesticated through fighting or show of power. In fact, they rarely want to be domesticated. But if they find someone who they perceive as extremely loyal and capable of being their master, they would examine the person's soul before making their decision.

Harry and the bird stood for what seemed to be hours staring at each other, atleast that's what an outsider would think. But they were communicating through eyes, scanning each other's souls. Finally the phoenix in question took a flight and landed on Harry's outstretched arm, accepting him as his master.

"Wow Harry, I can't believe you got a pet phoenix. I also got this all on my notes. We are going to get top marks in this practical class" beamed Ivanka.

Harry smiled at Ivanka before turning to his new pet and stroking his feathers gently. "Welcome my friend, Scarl" he said to the bird.

Harry was broken out of his reverie when something landed on his other leg. He saw his pet Owl Onyx holding a letter with it's beak and throwing him a mutinous look saying she's not happy that he forgot her.

Harry chuckled "Don't worry dear, I haven't forgotten you. You both birds are my only family in this world" he said, removing the letter from her beak and giving both the birds some treats that he kept in his robes.

The letter was from Kingsley. He opened it to read and suddenly his already ruined world came down crashing:

Harry,

You were in a mission in Romania, so we didn't inform you earlier. Hogsmead and Hogwarts were attacked by a massive force of death eaters two days ago. Though there were some casualties and injuries, auror department quickly brought the situation under control. You would have been informed through auror department itself later, but I thought you'd like to know this news before that.

Kingsley

The letter slipped from Harry's trembling hands as he barely whispered "Hermione".