Harry was sneaking at night, hidden by his invisibility cloak. Just today he was released from the hospital bed, yet tomorrow he already needs to head home. He just had one goal today - scout restricted section for anything on Occlumency - he did not want the headmaster to just accidentally send him back in time… again…
Harry was unsure, but thinking about it - the first trip back might have been triggered by Dubledore, of course after Voldemort's return he might have been paranoid and seen all his memories… including the moment he saw himself across the lake - maybe that was the case? He could not be too sure about the mechanics that kept sending back in time, but the last few repeats did teach him that telling the headmaster does cause time travel to happen.
Deep in though Harry almost forgot to step over the disappearing step on the staircase, then continued on, he checked Marauder's map, and luckily the library was empty, no obstacles in sight - the professors were in their rooms or offices,most of the students in the dorms, with the exception of a dozen or so couples doing who knows what in various abandoned classrooms, heck one couple of students were somehow in a broom closet even. Harry blushed at his rising thoughts and focused back on checking the map.
Glancing more he saw that perfects were not patrolling the corridors, well except some Ravenclaw walking across the seventh floor. Filch was at his office of all places, even though he usually patrolled the hallways around this time.
'Of course, no point in giving detention when students are leaving tomorrow… Though he should still patrol - I can see twins in the kitchen doing 'something' - A memory of leaving a feast flashed in his mind, ah I should only eat what they eat tomorrow, I don't remember which food will contain their prank…'
Harry was lost in thoughts as he strolled into restricted section, knowing no one was anywhere near made things simpler, he cast a quick *lumos* and looked around at book titles.
He remembered seeing something about mind arts last time - it was on a shelf just above the screaming book he picked, when he was looking for Flamel a few years ago…
'Ah. There it is' - Harry exhaled his breath as he took the book out of shelf, though he still glanced at other book titles just in case, but he could not see anything else about defending the mind on the books which he could understand and see the titles of - restricted section had most books written in some sort of runes which the boy assumed was runic language.
Fingers crossed, hoping for no screams this time, he opened the book - luckily nothing happened as simple english text greeted his eyes - glancing over outline it seemed to be a book mainly for Aurors to learn how to protect the mind, probably promising candidates were allowed to read this while in Hogwarts, maybe in sixth or seventh years?
'The same years they teach patronus charm, which you can do already' - the random thought encouraged Harry to continue - looking over the outline it seemed he needed to learn meditation and enter his mindscape first, which, according to the book, took months, up to a year for truly untalented folks.
Feeling all fired up Harry glanced upon other sections - basic mind defences was the next chapter after meditation, also quite short in length.
He initially thought about stealing the book - but every student knew that library books had some sort of tracking charms on them and he did not want any more attention to himself. He also considered the option of just reading the whole night, then getting caught and Dumbledore would probably trigger the time loop for him again… but reliving that day with dementors again seemed more painful than just copying the text.
Sighting, Harry put his parchment pile and ink on nearby table, put his wand in gap in wood as a makeshift 'lamp' and started copying the text, he managed to get twenty-five pages down - as his hand already screamed in pain - fearing getting repeated stress injury or worse, carpal tunnel syndrome, Harry reluctantly put down his tools and cleaned up his temporary work place, putting the book and chair back to where he found them.
Twenty-five pages might not seem like much but it actually covered a whole meditation chapter and two thirds of basic defences. It would hopefully be enough to learn this summer, if not he always had other books to read - perhaps even revise previous years material as seemingly he was stuck in some sort of time loop issue and he would need a lot of knowledge to even attempt to understand what went wrong and how to fix it.
A quick tempus charm later Harry saw it was already a couple of hours past midnight and he started heading back to the dorms. Back to his room he sneaked back to his bed - which was quite easy as Ron's snoring masked his stepping sound quite well. Near his bed he quickly stashed the map, the cloak and all copied papers to his trunk while yawning, and then, with a smile on his face, went to sleep.
The sleep did not last too long - at least in Harry's opinion as he heard loud noises and bird chirping quite soon - at least it felt like that, he clearly lacked sleep tonight.
"Harry, Harry! Wake up! We will miss breakfast at this rate!"
Harry was almost thrown out of bed as Ron shook him strongly, then sleepily he tried opening his eyes. - "Morning Ron"
"Morning, now hurry up! Or there won't be any pancake syrup left! It's pancakes today!"
Harry grumbled, but complied, he should eat a lot today - it's not like he would have much to eat for the rest of summer… Damned Dursleys.
They were almost late to the feast, but fortunately Harry found entrances to some secret shortcuts with the help of Marauder's map and they could skip a few floors in some magical way. Those shortcuts always amazed Harry on possibilities of magic - he just went through some seemingly abandoned classroom, climbed in a broom closet, and somehow appeared in another broom closet in an identical classroom, exactly three floors below. 'Well three is a magical number', chuckled Harry as Ron was still agape, looking like an idiot by the time they entered the great hall which was almost full already.
Harry first exchanged greetings with his friends as he sat near Hermione, while Ron instantly sat and started shovelling food into his mouth, drinking pancake syrup as water - his friends' eating habits always disturbed him somehow, which was weird as he lived with two pigs on summers, how could Ron have worse manners than animals greatly confused him.
Harry was starving, he almost started eating, but he noticed sheepy looks Fred and George seemed to have as they ate their pancakes with sour cream and pumpkin jam.
'Weird, they usually prefer using syrup, what changed?' - Harry thought as he picked up a bottle of syrup, though stopped before pouring as he saw twins looking at him in amusement. - ' Ah, right, last night I saw them in the kitchen… '
"Ron, want some more syrup?" - Harry dodged the bullet as he also saw Ron glancing at him as if he stole his chess set.
"Sure, thank you mate" - thanked Ron, mout still full of pancakes, how he even spoke coherently was another mystery, Harry just smiled and winked at twins, who first looked surprised that he caught on, then winked back, meanwhile Ron just uncorked the syrup… and started drinking straight from the bottle.
Harry did not need to wait for long - midway headmaster's speech a lot of students faces started morphin into canaries and then making weird noises while in shock - as the hall descended to chaos laughter quickly followed, started by none other by headmaster Dumbledore who just cast some sort of spell to investigate the cause of this transformation on Trelawney - other teachers seemingly knew something was off with the syrup and did not eat any or perhaps they did not eat syrups in general.
After laughter started dying off, Dumbledore just resumed his speech as usual -
"So as I was saying, congratulations to Gryfindor for winning the house cup, again! - cheers followed from three tables, mostly coming from Gryffindor, but not a single student from Slytherin applauded. "Now do not worry about this harmless prank, quite beautifully done by the way, no house points will be deducted or awarded as the cup was awarded at yesterday's dinner and this is the end of the year, though who knows who pulled this off?" - while saying so he glanced at twins with a twinkle in his eyes - "Do not worry, this transformation is completely harmless and will pass itself soon" - he glanced along all tables, while finally stopping his gaze on Ron - "though I must say, some of you who simply ate… unhealthy amounts of syrup could stay stuck like this for a while… until the end of train ride I would say. Now enough laughing and move out! Seventh year, do not forget you can apply for a mastery in your chosen subject if you wish to study more, good luck in looking for jobs and for the rest of you - I am awaiting you back next year for another exciting school year!"
Laughter still followed as the students applauded the speech and went to the carriages to get to the train station, along the way there was a flash of light as Colin took a photo of Harry with Ron sitting on his shoulder, who unfortunately was still stuck as a bird, while other students already transformed back. Harry was surprised seeing the horse-like beasts pulling the carriages, but made no comment as his friends were in no position for him to inquire whether they saw it too - Ron could not speak yet, and Hermione was giving Ron a lecture on healthy eating and how pancake syrup would ruin your teeth in such a tone that Harry just did not want to butt in this conversation.
The ride back in Hogwarts Express' was quite entertaining for Harry as he discussed books and magic with Hermione - she remembered her promise and lended him some of her 'light-reading' books she bought, then even suggested a lot of interesting books he could buy or order to read using owl-buy, also promising to send some more magic books and even some books about learning written by muggles as soon as she got home.. Ron transformed back to his human form only near the end of the ride, he was a bit furious, but not about the transformation - living under the roof with twins he knew how to appreciate a good prank, no he was angry for missing out of some breakfast time as he could not eat well while transformed, he tried but food was… kind of tasteless. Harry and Hermione just laughed as his antics and Harry ordered half the cart of wizard snacks again.
They spent the rest of the ride happily chatting and did not notice the time as the small mountain of snacks disappeared and eventually the train stopped at the final stop and Harry bade his farewells, then travelled back with Vernon to Pevet Drive. His uncle did not chat and pretended he did not exist as usual - which was better than calling him a freak and badmouthing the whole wizarding world.
According to Harry's memories this summer would not be too bad - after a few months with the Dursleys which would be…. Quite bearable this year, well according to his memories he will go to see the World Quidditch Cup… where the riot would probably happen… again.
Harry considered warning people about the riot, but alas, how could he explain such knowledge? It's not like anyone died during the event so he probably should not care too much about it.
Still feeling some tiredness from travel, Harry picked up his transcribed book and started reading the meditation chapter - of course he already read this while transcribing it, but there's a difference between just copying the words and actually comprehending and understanding their meaning.
Somehow this summer seemed more cheerful - rather than fearing his relatives he could just avoid them, knowing based on his memories they wont do any abusing this year, well perhaps starve him a bit, he was quite cheerful for an opportunity to just sit back and relax, he did have quite an eventful last few days, and then focus more on improving himself, rather than wasting time as he did the previous summer at Dursleys..
Still he had so much to learn, so much to read it was a long summer ahead.