Unfortunately Harry could not say he was very gifted with meditation - it took him the whole month just to finish what was outlined in the first dozen pages - clearing the mind and accessing the mindscape. Besides that he was not doing much else - just eating and reading other books of course, as trying to meditate the whole day just seemed impossible and was surprisingly very tiring.

Actually just based on his transcribed pages he could not even clear his mind well enough - wizards were not the best teachers it seemed. But having nothing better to do, Harry just sneaked to the local library with an invisibility cloak to 'borrow' some books on meditation - which somehow seemed better, heck they even were easier to read.

And after just a couple of those books he could now clear his mind in like a minute or so - the only requirement being that he was in peace and quiet.

After reaching this state, entering the mindscape was quite easy - just imagining a place inside yourself and yourself entering in - which he somehow succeeded in just a few tries.

Now it was a harder part of organising the mind which the book did indicate was optional, but seeing as the benefits were increased learning speed by having a way better memory, he knew he could not just pass this up. The book recommended imagining a library and sorting all the books, but seeing thousands of book shelves, all in disorder discouraged Harry a lot, it was definitely not the easy way to do it.

Thinking that muggle meditation techniques were better, he focuses on muggles once again, sure books were good and all, but would it not be better if rather than some huge library he was in a small cosy room with a computer where he could just let the machine sort out his memories?

His mindscape instantly switched to reflect his vision, yet Harry was disappointed - apparently it was feastable, but you actually needed to understand how computers work - the ones in Harry's mindscape were just… empty boxes. Not like he knew much about them - they were just mentioned with pictures in some elementary muggle school book.

Reluctantly Harry morphed his mindscape back to a library and started organising the books. After starting it was not as hard as it seemed - the point of it was to separate useful memories from insignificant, for example he could just put all those years of Dursley abuse to the side and not worry about it. Yet finding the rare books of him actually reading school books or a nice memory of his flying experience - those he put to the front of the library, in separate shelves.

With his mind somewhat organised, Harry could review his memories in his mindscape - somehow just by reading the books he could re-experience them - and as he was already in his mind he could better recall them, it was not perfect-recall but quite an improvement of his usual learning abilities.

And so another week passed and as expected the time to travel to watch the triwizard cup has arrived. Harry did not choose to mention anything about the riot to anyone, and just enjoined the tournament - again. With a game as chaotic as Quiditch, even watching the same game… again was a new experience - rather than focusing on one ball then another, he could focus on what other players were doing.

The rest of events went as usual, just with Harry spending most of his free time trying to build his basic mind defences - which he could not successfully do fully as he did not copy the full book chapter. Though he did manage to etch a few runes around his important bookshelves which according to the book were wards which would let him know when someone would try to read his mind.

He was worried the day he was once again back at the school as he accidentally caught the headmaster's gaze during the opening feast, yet he did not feel a thing - his defences were untouched and time moved on. He was relieved at that and sneaked away that very night to finish reading the book on mind defence - he could not take any chances this will repeat, especially once his name appeared from the goblet, he somehow just knew headmaster would take a peek inside his head then.

Building mind defences was not very hard - but as he had no one to practise with he did not know how good his defence would be. Unfortunately the book did mention that practice is necessary for actually improving at this occlumency thing and then simply went to basics of legilimency, which Harry read just in case - knowing how mind attacks happened would increase his chances of defending against it were his thoughts.

As the first week was nearing the end he finally had his first potions lesson - double potions even as he grimaced and sat in the classroom he felt Snape`s gaze on him and glanced back.

Then he felt it. His runes were triggered - the greasy bat was attacking his mind. He tried looking away in shock but as if by magic his gaze was locked with Snape who now had a more serious look in his face as he noticed the boy somehow knew occlumency. Still as an expert leggilmens Snape just broke through and started searching his mind.

It might seem looking over thousands of books would take ages - but Snape could somehow focus only on important ones - it's as if he already read most of the books inside and just went for the new ones.

And as Harry clutched his head in pain, receiving concerned gazes from his close friends, it happened again. The reset as Harry now called it. And more headaches later he was back at the moment it all began - across the lake, looking at his patronus scaring the dementors away.

As his mood was very low from all the time travel dizziness and horrible headache caused by potions professor, not all dementors flew away - some came back to him. Hermione tried moving them away, but even she could not cast a powerful enough patronus at the time, with white mist from her wand she could only keep a few away from herself, and Harry… Harry was once again surrounded by dementors - like what Happened at the lake shore and as the dementor leaned in for a kiss - no one saved him this time.

Harry shuddered from cold as all good emotions disappeared from his mind replaced by painful memories. And oh boy he did have a lot of pain inside him - 10 years of Duddle abuse, accusations of his classmates from random things like being the heir of Slytherin, being a fame chaser who put his name in the goblet of fire, the killer of Cedric Diggory…

Then he thought he died - but then he heard the now familiar click as the time rewinded back. Then he heard it again and again. Countless times as he sat there lost in his negative thoughts. Eventually he got kind of apathetic to it all as his eyes finally snapped open with some fire in them. He saw dementors coming for him, then stopping as if hesitating..

Harry just shrugged, then tried to find a happy memory for his patronus - it did not take long, now basically any memory of not being kissed by dementors is an amazing memory, so Harry just picked randomly - the one where he ate rock cakes with Hagrid was happy enough he decided.

Dementors seemingly froze in mid-air as if doubting something as light blue light shone from Harry's eyes as he calmly said - expecto patronum.

The usual stag did not appear - perhaps Harry's experience just now changed his patronus form, as a thestral showed up instead. It roared as if it was a dragon and started running towards the dementors. They somehow got scared and tried running away but thestral showed no mercy - its speed was even faster than the firebolt as it passed through dementors… and they just disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a horrible screech and even that was fading away.

As he woke up in the hospital once again and met the Headmaster's gaze he wanted to cry as his mind defences got triggered. The Headmaster meanwhile was calling him Tom for some reason and just… destroying his pitiful defences. As annoying as that was, Harry now had a… practice partner as the book mentioned and to survive for tomorrow he had to defend his mind successfully.

Albus Dumbledory was shocked - the ministry just called in and apparently the boy who lived managed to destroy not one, not two but all dementors they had sent - he had never heard of such occurrences using the patronus spell, heck even his phoenix with his happiest memory could barely destroy one before fading away and only managing to scare others away on subsequent summons for the day.

Unless… He painfully remembered a fact, the boy was tainted by Riddle, he could potentially influence him, even control him if needed. He must make sure it did not happen yet and if it did… He might need to put him down, he already knew Tom's secret of surviving death - he could eventually track down his soul parts and get rid of him… Yet the public opinion on him if he were to put young Harry down…

Headmasters internal monologue continued as he worriedly glanced at now awake young Harry. As their eyes met he sent his mental probe. And then shook his head as it failed. He could list on one hand the people who managed to resist his wandless probe - his teacher Flamel and his wife, Severus who was a natural occlumens and finally… Tom Riddle.

Feeling the worst he flicked his wrist as The Elder Wand flicked to his arm near instantly, while Harry… Perhaps Tom looked at him confusedly. Before the boy could react he sent a wandless gravity charm which would prevent him from picking the wand and softly muttered - Leggilmens!

This time it was a success - he was inside and based on the amount of books he saw he was right. Young Harry was supposed to be a 13 years old boy, with a few thousands of books for his memories, yet what he saw was millions of books all around… He was too late it seemed. Still he just wanted to know if the boy was still there… somewhere, perhaps there was a way of saving him… If not the greater good would take priority…

He sent his strongest mental punch to the closest bookshelf wanting to subdue the boy and was shocked once again… It was not destroyed, heck not even damaged. His strongest mental attack which could even shatter Severus occlumency defences, which managed to crack Grindelwalds defence allowing him to win The Elder Wand, and last time he saw Tom it worked on him too.

Albus could not understand what was happening. Especially why Tom was not counter-attacking, he was more gifted leggilmens anyway, that was his usual tactic - clashing mental probes as part of defence. He tried all the tactics he knew - and even new ones he invented on the spot to breach the defences inside - it failed, all failed, even the rarely known trick of digging under the bookshelves which usually allowed to read some memories on lower shelves unnoticed….

Then it happened - somehow the defences shone with light and attacked - he could tell it was no legilimency as his own defences were not even touched, yet his mental form was ushered out of the mind as he saw Harry calmly laying in his bed… No being crushed to the bed as his gravity spell still worked, but the boy had a smirk on his face.

"I can finally keep my privacy, can you stop trying to read other sensitive thoughts, headmaster?"

Dumbledore was lost for words, though in the end, while he could not breach the mind, he could still subdue the boy - his gravity magic was still holding him in place. He pointed his wand once again and muttered with resolution - Imperius.

"Now tell me Tom, did you fully possess him, is he still there somewhere?"

Instead of a mindless reply he expected all he heard was laughter as his brows furrowed. He tried focusing on his link with an imperius spell - which should appear as soon as it hit the subject and was shocked once again. It was not there. His hands shaking he tried a few more times, this time focusing on the link with all his magic power and strengthening it with all his might, then finally repeated the question once again.

The boy just laughed again, then finally spoke up mid-laughter - "I did not expect you to resort to unforgivable spells of all things… But I could shrug off this level of imperius even 10 or so years ago, never mind now. Tell me headmaster, do you enjoy intruding in other people's privacy?"

Albus just frowned and as his gravity spell was wearing off he just mindlessly summoned Harry's bed near him and forces him to swallow a lemon drop from his pocket, not the usual yellow one which was graced with calming draught and one drop of truth serum, but a green one, a crystalized form of veritaserum in fact. He was still wondering how the ministry fools disallowed owning of liquid truth serum, but apparently solid or gas forms were fine. Fools a lot of them.

As Harry's eyes dimmed the questioning followed and the headmaster learned all about it. He was shocked by the time loop thing, too shocked even, he thought the boy was resisting veritaserum, he knew its resistance could be acquired as he himself was eating lemon drops with it until eventually his body gained resistance to the potion. He feared the boy was making stuff up. He needed to see his memories. He shoved a few more green lemon drops down Harry's mouth and asked how his defences actually worked. As Harry explained his intriguing mind defence system his eyes gleamed as more plans of bypassing came up. Soon he was back in the boy's mind and decided to start by verifying the time loop thingy - that was the most suspicious part of it. Browsing he quickly found it he was shocked seeing a lot of clocks appear as the boy was kissed by a dementor… Then again… and… again…He realised his thoughts… were… slowing… do…w…n.

Harry sat near the lake and cursed. 10 years, 10 freaking years of practising occlumency and only now he could keep headmaster off. Only for him to cheat and use brute force to access his mind again. Sensing his despair dementors neared to consume his soul, but he just casually waved his arm, not even bothering to pick up his wand as a beautiful thestral appeared and started vanishing his foes, then he waved his hand and thestral stopped - somehow it understood his masters intention of just scaring others away.

The boy understood that battling Dumbledore was impossible - he only knew spells up to fourth year which was just not enough to battle the headmaster, even having them all mastered wand-lessly did not help, Albus was just a beast when it came to magic, he tried for quite a few restarts, and yet, he lost in like… 1 minute. Only surviving a minute based on previous fights and remembering what exactly his spells would do.

The same could be said about learning new things - he always appeared dead tired, passing out nearly in the same time it took to reach the hospital wing, so the only sources of knowledge were Hermione… and headmaster which he saw as soon as he awoke.

He already learned all his friend knew, but the suspicious headmaster would never teach him, and breaking his mind defences was impossible - the only book he read on mind attack just gave some basics for defenceless foes, not nearly enough for breaking one of the best mages alive mind fortress.

He needed another way…. To survive even a day more and he had just the idea… He grinned as he organised his plans, it would take quite a few restarts to execute, but it would potentially work.