KEYNOTE: Ancient Runes is just reading an ancient wizard language according to Pottermore though it is in symbols 'Runes' as JKR uses them are just words like ancient Egyptian, the symbols have no power themselves. JKR's Arithmancy is numerology that can predict the future. For my purposes, Arithmancy Astrology can show the past and future in universal patterns while Arithmancy Charms can make wards by the structure of patterns.

(The best examples I can give you are Islamic Mosque ceilings such as Nasir Al-Mulk Mosque, Shiraz, Iran or Shah Mosque, Isfahan, Iran which I strongly suggest you look up because they are beautiful.)

Students will trace out the mathematical structures and then by using charms to activate them will create wards. Math as beauty :D

Chapter 6 - Even the Slytherins

"Come on, Hermione, it is a great idea," Harry implored.

It was your brilliant idea, he thought.

"Alright but if we get in trouble…"

"Hermione," Harry moaned, "this is worth the trouble. Besides I am not doing this for myself, I already know everything I can teach."

The prospect of Harry knowing more than her hit a sore spot that Harry had been digging at in basically every class excluding History of Magic. Harry thought it kinda funny that as a would-be seventh year, he was barely keeping even with Hermione. Yet he was a little sad that she was upset with him, or not so much upset, as hurt. Being the best at nearly everything, especially compared to Ron and Harry, had become her identity.

It was depressing because he knew she was so much more than that.

"We will have to find a way to communicate the time and date in secret. I did look up club rules at Hogwarts and there is nothing against this but if Umbridge gets a whiff of it-"

"She will shut us down," Harry said.

Ron had been pretty quiet for the week and had yet to speak through this conversation, arms crossed and moping. But he couldn't help but mutter then, "I can't believe you invited Malfoy."

Harry sighed and looked out the window, the sun was peeking out from the clouds.

"Ron, are you planning to try out for Keeper now that Wood graduated?" Harry asked, switching topics.

Ron's cheeks immediately tinged pink and he looked extremely self-conscious as he asked, "Maybe, I mean do you think it is a good idea? I thought- you know, with the new broom I got- I just thought-"

"Do you want to go practice?" Harry asked.

Ron perked up then, "Yeah that would be great!" All ills between them were momentarily forgotten, Ron dashed up the steps to get their brooms.

Harry turned to Hermione, "We also need to ensure a way that there are no snitches."

Hermione nodded. "Where are we going to meet?"

He wondered if the Slytherins would sign it. To him it didn't really matter, if the Slytherins weren't with them on this, it was going to fail anyway.

"I know a place in the castle but I think we ought to meet in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom for the first meeting."

Hermione nodded again, "I'll get the word out. Harry, Ron has a point about the Slytherins, we can't trust them."

Harry stood and gave her a weak smile, "Hermione, what reason have we given them to be worthy of their trust? It goes both ways, you know. You can't be respected if you never show respect."

She arched a brow, "Have you forgotten what they've said about me? About you?"

"We aren't going to change their minds by making ourselves their enemies. I'm not saying we let them hurt us, but we can avoid giving them for an OWLs study group."

"And if being the bigger person gets you expelled, then what?"

"Then you and Ron can say I told you so when I am packing up my stuff."

Doing the right thing, for the greater good, had gotten him killed and sent back in time, what was a little expulsion compared to that?

Ron came stomping down the stairs at a run, "Harry, I brought your Firebolt, let's go!"

With one last meaningful look to Hermione to confirm he was serious about this, Harry took his broom and followed Ron down to the Quidditch pitch.

oOo

There was no more talk about the DADA club as they pelted the quaffle at Ron. Harry remembered how bad Ron's practice had gone and did not hold back to give him a better chance at being comfortable.

At first, Ron seemed disheartened as Harry scored goal after goal, but then Ron blocked a few, then a few more, and that seemed to boost his confidence even higher. They ended the night on a good note with Ron saving three goals in a row.

As they walked back to the castle, the light of dusk seeping behind the mountains rapidly, Ron asked, "Do you think I have a chance at being Keeper?"

"I do, but-"

"But what?" Ron asked nervously.

"But you have to keep your cool. Once you missed one you got so upset you would miss another three right after it," Harry explained. "You have to get a thicker skin, even Wood missed sometimes."

Ron's ears had turned bright red but he nodded, "Yeah, alright."

"We can keep practising until tryouts," Harry consoled.

Ron gave him a small smile. They had been distant lately but they could always count on Quidditch to bring them back together.

They chatted about the subject, past games, what a loon Wood was as a captain, and about their new captain who Harry tried not to give future information about.

In the common room, Harry saw Ginny and got an idea.

"Hey, Ginny!" Harry called, dragging Ron to her.

Ginny looked up from the book she had been reading with a bemused expression. She was seated by the fire, the firelight making her hair glow. "Hi Harry, Ron, what's up?"

"Ron is trying out for Keeper this year and since you want to be a Chaser I thought it might be fun to practice together," Harry said grinning.

Both Ron and Ginny gaped at him.

"But-how- how did-" Ginny stuttered. "How did you know I wanted to be a chaser?"

Harry didn't realize his mistake until Ron said with a laugh, "Ginny doesn't play Quidditch, Harry, whatever gave you that crazy idea."

Harry saw Ginny's expression and took two quick steps back, holding up his hands, "I thought all the Weasleys but Percy played."

"Well, Ginny doesn't," Ron chuckled.

"Don't talk for me," Ginny snapped.

"Well, you don't," he said.

"Well, yes, I do," she said, standing and throwing her book on the seat behind her. She put her hands on her hips. "I've been going out at night to the shed for years, especially when all of you were at school."

Fred and George had heard most of the conversation and had sidled up to them.

"We should have known, Fred," George said.

Fred nodded sagely, "Indeed, George, oh little sister-"

"-was never-"

"-the angel."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Ron asked.

"Because you never included me," Ginny shot back.

"Why tell Harry?" he said, narrowing his eyes.

"I didn't!" she exclaimed.

"So how did you-"

"Know?" the twins asked.

"I guessed?" Harry covered awkwardly, fighting hard to make it sound like a statement and failing.

"But you said she was trying out for Chaser-"

Harry cut him off, "Chaser and Keeper are the only two options on the team currently. Sorry for starting a family feud or whatever, but I am going to bed." He turned to go up the steps.

Ginny caught his hand, "Thanks, Harry, for including me."

For a moment Harry just stared into her warm eyes, he remembered being in love with her, remembered kissing her and his heart as he re-realized that she remembered none of that.

That hurt.

Cho had been his first crush but Ginny had been his first… and she didn't even remember. He wasn't her ex-boyfriend, he was her never-boyfriend.

He pulled his hand gently from hers, his cheeks a bit flushed, "Anytime, Ginny." He turned and all but ran up the steps. He collapsed on his bed, the weight of all the secrets he was keeping crushing him down.

oOo

"Oooooooohhhh," Moaning Myrtle crooned as her bathroom filled with students on a cloudy Sunday morning.

Everyone from the first DA club was there along with the entire fourth and fifth year Slytherin students, with the addition of Astoria and the exclusion of Crabbe and Goyle. The Gryffindors seemed upset but neither the Hufflepuffs nor the Ravenclaws seemed that bothered, though Harry caught a few of them rolling their eyes at the posturing around the room. Unbeknownst to Ron and Hermione, Harry had cast a muffliato on the door so no one outside could hear. He wasn't ignorant of the paintings they all passed to get here but the paintings didn't work for Umbridge.

"Alright," Harry began, everyone fell quiet. "I think we are all here. For the fifth and seventh years, you are here to pass your exams, for everyone else, I'll assume you are here to learn to defend yourselves. We are going to begin with simple spells for the first few club meetings, and then work our way up to more complicated spells. As everyone likely has a mixed level of skills, considering both our ages and our teachers over the years."

Zacharias Smith was a poop again.

Oddly, it was Draco who silenced him, "Oh would you shut up, no one forced you to be here."

Smith crossed his arms, "Who forced you to come?"

"We were invited," Astoria chirped.

"As if Potter would invite the Slytherins to anything. He hates you all," Smith said disdainfully.

"I don't hate them," Harry said through gritted teeth. "And I did, in fact, invite them."

"Against his better judgment," Ron said under his breath.

Harry shoved him, nearly pushing him into the sink.

Harry turned back to the crowd, "Everyone deserves to learn self defense even the Slytherins."

"But why?" Smith asked.

"Because I was almost sorted into Slytherin and I would hate to be treated the way people treat them," he said.

The room was dead silent for all of ten seconds before Cho's friend said, "You have a change of heart and we all have to go along with it, is that what this is? Why are they really here?"

Harry frowned, "I thought it was only Slytherins and Gryffindors that distrusted each other to extremes."

Pansy laughed, "We get along better with the other houses but we don't really fit in with the rest. Which, I suppose would make sense for why you are secretly one of us, considering you're the most popular person in the school with only two friends."

"He has more than two friends," Fred interjected.

Smith spoke again, "So why be here then? We all thought you hated Potter."

"We are here because it is important," Daphne Greengrass said, voice glacial. "Everyone knows he's the best at DADA. The Dark Lord, Basilisks, Dementors, dragons, merpeople, and whatever in the world he faced in the last task that caused him to walk around like he was half dead. I want to pass my exams and I am not going to die because I didn't learn the basics in school."

"She's right," Luna said. "Harry's wiser than he looks. He can teach us loads."

Millicent raised her hand.

"Millicent Bulstrode," Harry acknowledged while calling on her, noting that she had grown into her androgynous features since he last paid her any attention at some point in the second year.

"Millie," she corrected, "And where was the Chamber of Secrets?"

Harry pointed toward the sink Ron was sitting next to. "The faucet with the snake on it. You just say open in parseltongue and the whole thing turns into a slide that drops you into the pipes. I considered having the meeting down there, however, with the tunnel caved in there it's no longer safe. Besides there are a ton of rat bones. And because I know everyone is curious, beyond the cave in, there is another door, also opened by parseltongue, then a bunch of statues of Salazar and a huge dead rotting snake. Really unpleasant smell," Harry concluded.

They all stared at him.

"You should have been in Slytherin," Pansy said, eyeing Harry appraisingly.

He shrugged, "I killed the Basilisk with Godric's sword."

"Slytherin's monster comes out through the girl's bathroom?" Theodore Nott asked, a hint of disgust in his voice.

"That's how I died!" Moaning Myrtle gushed, swirling in the air above their heads.

"Speaking of outrageous things you've done," Blaise Zabini began. "Can you explain why you've ended up in the hospital wing every year?"

Harry sighed, it was natural for them to be curious, besides, it wasn't like he had to tell them about the Department of Mysteries or robbing Gringotts while impersonating a Death Eater.

"I don't think I can remember every time, but starting in the first year, Hermione and I snuck a baby dragon off the astrology tower to Charlie Weasley who works at a dragon reserve. Draco caught us and landed us all in detention. Hagrid took the three of us into the Forbidden Forest to discover what was killing unicorns to drink their blood."

Several gasps.

"Where Draco and I ran into Voldemort's shade drinking unicorn blood. Honestly, that would have been the ideal place to kill me but Voldemort is incompetent when it comes to me. Almost as incompetent as Quirrel."

"What does Quirrel have to do with any of this?" Daphne asked.

Harry went on, "And– oh, I forgot about the troll. Ron took it out with a Wingardium Leviosa and club above it's head saving Hermione and I from becoming gelatine.. but we were suspicious about the troll all year and the door Dumbledore told us not to open. When we figured out it was the philosophy stone they were hiding, we decided the madman drinking unicorn blood would also want the stone. The professors didn't listen to us and Dumbledore was out so the three of us decided to go for the stone ourselves."

"That's incredibly stupid," someone said and Harry merely nodded as he rattled on.

"Looking back I'm pretty sure it was either a trap designed to stall anyone getting in or a test that Dumbledore set up for the three of us."

"Why would he do that?" Draco asked.

"Albus Dumbledore thinks it's my destiny to defeat the Dark Lord."

"You're a kid," George pointed out.

Harry shrugged, "Tell that to the stupid prophecy that got both my parents and Neville's targeted because we had the unparalleled honour of being born in the last month of summer. Now, where was I, oh yes, Ron nearly died, there was only enough potion to get me through walking through fire, to the last test where I met Professor Quirrel."

"Seriously?" Theodore asked.

"He had Voldemort on the back of his head and because I got the stone in my hand and Quirrell was a particularly dim person, he tried to wrestle it away from me, instead, I don't know, stunning me or cursing me. Which is when the three of us discovered that my mother's blood ward protects me from Voldemort, mostly. My skin burned his skin and I held onto Quirrel's face until the professor died and Voldemort's shade escaped to find somewhere else to hide."

Dead silence.

Harry repressed a smile, "So my first year ended with me in the hospital wing and no one caring I murdered a professor. Second year was more dramatic because the basilisk was potentially a bigger problem. Everyone called me insane for hearing voices in the walls, or as Hermione later learned, the pipes. Another shade possessed Ginny, Hagrid told Ron and I to ask the man eater spiders in the Forbidden Forest to help, which the sort of did before deciding they wanted to eat us instead, and thanks to an animated car we survived, yeah."

Ron shuddered.

"What about the bludger?" Alicia asked. "And what about the time you almost fell off your broom the first year?"

"First year was Quirrell failing to murder a first year, second year was Dobby, Malfoy's house elf trying to convince me to leave Hogwarts and not get eaten by a basilisk. Which, of course, became my soul focus. You all know who got prettified, Ginny got kidnapped, Ron and I abducted Lockhart to help us save Ginny at wand point. We had him go down the sink-slide first which was only useful thing he did. Lockhart used Ron's wand to oblivate us and possibly leave us for dead. Which is what he did to all the adventurers he self-inserted into his books by the way."

"Wait! He was a serial killer!?" Tracy Davis asked.

Hermione flushed when Harry looked to her.

She shrugged, "He didn't kill people but he maybe, I guess, sort of lobotomized people, like he did to himself with Ron's broken wand, but presumably not as badly because he would have gotten caught."

Harry opened his hands in a gesture of take it or leave it, "Anyway, met junior Voldemort, Tom Marvolo Riddle ghost, ambitious half-blood with delusions of grandeur who presumably killed more than just Myrtle before he turned seventeen. That shade I managed to kill–"

"How many shades does he have?" Ginny asked.

"Not as many anymore," Harry said with a smile. "I got that one at least. Third year my godfather was hunting Ron's rat who was actually an animagus form of Peter Pettigrew the secret keeper for my parents and the rat bastard who stole their wands the night Voldemort attacked us. We should have let Hermione's cat eat him but instead I got freakishly good at using a Patronus Charm, and Hermione and I illegally helped my godfather Sirius Black and one of Hagrid's hippogriff's escape false justice."

Luna clapped.

Harry bowed.

"Fourth year," he went on. "Barty Crouch Jr. who was using polyjuice and his general madness to masquerade as Professor Moody, put my name in the Goblet of Fire. Afterwards, I got a wee-bit toasted by a Horntail that broke its chains, nearly drowned in the lake because I wouldn't put it past this school to 'accidentally' drown the tributes, and then the fun final task where Barty crucioed Fleur Delacour by imperioing Viktor Krum to ensure I got to the cup first. I told Cedric the cup was a trap, he didn't believe me so I proved it by springing the trap and Pettigrew had me at wand point with a demented baby-shade of Voldemort. Luckily for me, Voldemort was in no shape to duel and Pettigrew isn't that scary of an opponent and he ran away. Thus the tale how my friends and I mostly survived the last four years."

Silence.

They all stared at him.

Clearly they had questions, but it seemed to be sinking in that while they were all complaining about his fame and the drama that had surrounded him, he'd also been flirting with death since the moment he stepped foot back into the wizarding world.

Hermione cleared her throat, "So, unless anyone has any further protests about Harry's experience to teach practical Defense Against the Dark Arts, I'll need you to sign here if you would like to attend club meetings so we know how many people to prepare for."

The meeting ended after that. Harry told them to meet him on the seventh floor and Hermione ensured everyone signed their names on the list.

By some miracle, no one but Myrtle overheard them.

oOo

AN: Thoughts, tufted-titmouses, or reactions, pretty please?