Chapter 79, everybody! Sorry for falling off the face of the earth for about a month, life happened.

Harry not being kept in the dark as much and having an actual support group really makes a difference compared to canon. Also Snips recommends Occulmency, great for keeping out pesky dark wizards, but I'm gonna have to reread the book again because I'm almost certain that Hermione would have the subject memorized the moment she learned about it.

In other news, Lee Jordan read the reviews and Harry accidentally started a fad. And any excuse to write Dumbledore is a good excuse—he's quoting an old Lipton tea commercial with the white tea.

Spicyanimechick, thanks for the review! Thanks! :D

Missy96, thanks for the review! Lupin suspects, he shared his suspicions with Sirius back in Chapter 54. Sirius, meantime, likes Snips too much to accuse him of that identity.

Harry Potter © 1997 J.K. Rowling

Now that Harry knew that Voldemort wanted through the door and to whatever was behind it, Harry had grown to dread going to sleep and seeing it again. Whatever was behind there was enough to kill for, and Harry didn't want to see another attack, feel like he was the one that was doing it.

Unfortunately, this was also affecting his ability to get a decent night's sleep.

"You look dreadful, Harry," Hermione pointed out finally.

"I feel dreadful," Harry agreed, listlessly flipping through his potions book. "Think Madame Pomfrey would prescribe me a dreamless sleep draught if I asked?"

"Pretty certain there's complications to continued dosage," she said, looking at the empty seat across from them; the Weasleys had been allowed home for the day, as Mr. Weasley was being let out of the hospital.

"I'm willing to look it up and find out."

Hence why Harry was in the library later, scanning for the potions textbooks. "Help me look?" he asked Snips.

Snips nipped his ear and pointed down an aisle.

"This doesn't look like potions books," Harry observed; he followed Snips directions at the familiar's insistence until Snips let out a little squeak and jumped onto a book, hanging from its spine as he usually did to inform Harry to pick that one particularly.

Harry tugged it off the shelf, examined the cover as Snips returned to his shoulder.

"Occulmency?" Harry read. "What is that?"

Snips reached down and pulled the cover open.

"Right," Harry muttered, taking the book over to a quiet corner of the library.

Within a few minutes of reading, Harry thought he might have a general idea of what it was.

"Shielding my mind from others? Mind reading?" Harry asked, looking at Snips, perched on the arm of the chair. "Why would I want to read this?"

Snips growled at his tone before reaching up and gently patting Harry's scar.

It took Harry a few moments to register what he was saying.

"If I learn this—then I can keep Voldemort out?" Harry asked; Snips nodded affirmative. "That's great! Although I do wonder what the big deal about that door is—OW! Okay, okay, I'll start reading…."

As he expected, bringing the book to Hermione later had her blazing through it, which helped him with digesting the general gist of the topic; that, basically, he cleared his mind of useful thoughts and instead brought in clutter that he didn't mind being peered at, at least during the starting levels.

Ron nodded with interest when he came back and they explained it all to him.

"Not that I don't appreciate you saving Dad, but you look like how I feel, mate," Ron told him. "How long does this take to kick in?"

"Longer than a day," Harry admitted. "But I need Moldy-Voldy to stop bugging me so I'm rested for our OWLs." Indeed, the teachers' lectures on the importance of their OWLs had put the ones at the start of the year to shame—Harry was pretty certain that when he finally succeeded in getting Voldemort out of his head, the hall dream would be immediately replaced by nightmares about hearing how he had failed all his OWLs and ended up flunking clean out of the wizarding world as a whole, something he was sure would have pleased Umbridge to no end.

Speaking of Umbridge, she had picked up on her vile behavior, having apparently rested up over the holidays and coming back with vigor. She had succeeded in sacking Trelawney, was summarily thwarted in kicking her out of the castle by McGonagall and then thwarted in replacing her by Dumbledore. In other news, Divination was now taught on the ground floor by Firenze the centaur.

"How'd that go?" Harry asked Ron at lunch after his first Divination class with Firenze.

"Weird," Ron decided after a moment of contemplative chewing. "Dumbledore made the room look like it was in the forbidden forest, and we did stargazing and burning herbs and at the end of the day what I can honestly say I got out of it was being told it wasn't definite and that even centaurs took years to make educated guesses that didn't always pan out. So...end result is I suddenly feel a lot better about that class."

"It does sound a lot more interesting," Harry said, prompting a glare from Snips.

"Yeah—did hang back after class to ask him about recurring dreams with doors—yeah I know we know but I thought I could ease into getting a guess as to how many of those actually saw something dreams we'd have to deal with."

"And?" Harry prompted.

"And he seemed more interested in telling me to tell Hagrid that the attempt isn't working."

Harry blinked at that. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know, he wouldn't give me clarification," Ron said. "Maybe it's like a centaur thing. Maybe it's forest code or something and Hagrid will understand it. Hopefully it's not about his job."

Indeed, now that Umbridge had knocked Trelawney out of the running she was bent upon doing the same to Hagrid, who had been reduced to focusing on nice, safe creatures like flobberworms to keep them from trying to bite Umbridge, since she had driven just about everything else to distraction. Nifflers and bowtruckles and kneazles all scratched her, and the demiguise Hagrid had produced for one class to teach them about where invisibility cloaks came from ended up spending most of the class invisible so as to not deal with Umbridge. And then biting her while invisible.

Honestly, at this point Harry was certain that the only thing keeping the flobberworms from biting Umbridge was the general apathy that defined a flobberworm, and the class had been taking bets on when loathing for her would overcome that for the worms. In the meantime, he and Ron were having a hard time getting Firenze's message to him, mostly because even trying to visit for tea was dicey—most times Hagrid wasn't home, apparently off in the forbidden forest according to Malfoy ("Probably hiding from the hag" was his guess), and when he was Umbridge would find some excuse to intercept them and dock points for some inane thing, even going so far as to make a new educational decree so they couldn't even talk to the teachers outside of class (although that had been fun to turn around on her).

As it was, the boys had been driven to pretending to lose one of their books and doubling back to give Hagrid Firenze's message.

"Firenze is a good egg, but I'm fine," Hagrid assured them. "Really," he added at their skeptical looks—mostly because anymore he looked like he lost a boxing match with a troll and was showing no signs of improvement. "Jus' a personal project I've been working on."

"Yeah but what is it?" Ron asked. "'The attempt isn't working' is honestly the only straightforward thing Firenze has said in these classes—"

"Umbridge," Harry warned, having been keeping an eye out for her.

"Are you sure you haven't seen my book, Hagrid? I was pretty sure I had it here last."

"Can't say I have, Ron," Hagrid said, quickly cottoning on. "Might find it while I'm cleaning up—yeh sure onna yer classmates didn't pick it up by mistake? Yeh remembered ta put yer name in it, right?"

"In permanent ink," Ron said. "Mistakes were made."

In other news, meetings of the Hippogriff Appreciation Club were going well, with everyone having notable improvement. Even Crabbe and Goyle, whom Ron had been certain would be the worst, were doing well and were actually at risk of passing their Defense OWL.

Not that they singularly focused on Defense in these meetings—sometimes they'd cover one of the other classes, mostly to support the argument of being entirely centric on Hippogriffs, hence learning the Disillusionment charm and a few others that would improve a Hippogriff's comfort, or listening to Neville's lecture on which plants, both magical and non, should be kept out of a Hippogriff paddock, or Harry covering which potions used Hippogriff feathers or trimmings. Malfoy had even, at one point, succeeded in sneaking Buckbeak all the way to the Room of Requirement so they could cover proper etiquette—Buckbeak, at least, seemed quite pleased with these developments, and spent most of that session preening.

In the meantime, Lee Jordan had suggested changing it from a club to a group, and thus changing the initials from HAC to HAG as a jab at Umbridge. Fred and George and Fergus had all cottoned on to this, and Harry was pretty sure that the group as a whole would eventually concede, if only to keep from bringing it up at the beginning of every meeting.

In all, things were going quite well, and Harry was having to fight down the feelings of suspicion at that, the sensation that the other shoe was about to drop. He had had hopes that Occulmency would have helped, was continuing to be disappointed in that endeavor despite Snips doing his best to help. Meditating like Muggles did only went so far when his mind was buzzing with lesson plans and Quidditch plays and the various things he needed to know to pass his OWLs, although he did accidentally start a yoga fad and then unofficial club at Hogwarts—apparently Umbridge wouldn't sign off on something so very Muggle.

"From what I've been reading, it's not something everyone is able to do," Hermione said, reading over the extra books she had gotten on the topic.

"Like Divination?" Harry asked, unable to resist the jab and already resigning himself to getting nailed with a hex. Judging by the long beat Hermione took, glaring over her book at him, she was heavily weighing the merits of doing so.

Fortunately, her better nature won out. "Maybe you're approaching it wrong," she said, putting her book down. "Maybe you need to picture someplace where you're at ease. Like—when I try it, I picture myself in the library."

"How do you know if you're doing it right?" Harry asked. "You don't have Moldy-Voldy's broadcasts bleeding in every night."

"I don't know," she admitted. "I suppose we could have Snips try—he seems knowledgeable on the subject, but it makes me wonder how he knows."

That was probably a good question—Harry had just chalked it up to being another facet of Snips, was honestly just happy that he wasn't chewing on his wing anymore. Look at Snips, who narrowed his eyes at Harry—

"Ow."

"What happened?" Fred asked, walking by with George.

"Snips can bite telepathically now," Harry reported, rubbing his ear.

"Now this is a problematic development," George decided.

"Where have you two been?" Hermione asked.

"Elsewhere," Fred reported.

"No psychic bites," George said, pointing at Snips.

"Also the Quidditch pitch," Fred continued. "Angelina's still down there with Ron, says she's going to make a decent Keeper out of him even if it kills her."

"Haven't you been working with Ron?" Hermione asked, looking at Harry.

"Trelawney might have accurately predicted my death," Harry sighed, leaning on an elbow. "Ron's good, it's just his nerves that eat at him."

"Maybe we should get Ron to try Occulmency."

"Or the yoga," George said. "By the way, next meeting is in Classroom Eleven, Firenze agreed to let us meet there and promised to show us some new positions."

"Hopefully they aren't dependent upon having four legs," Fred said.

Harry attended the next Yoga meeting, if only to see the inside of Classroom Eleven. Firenze asked him to deliver the same message to Hagrid, wouldn't give him any more elaboration than he had Ron, which left another thing buzzing around his head.

It eventually got to the point that Harry decided to try Hermione's library idea, picturing himself snatching at his flying thoughts, stuffing them into books, and then shoving the books onto the shelves. It didn't really help with the dreams, but at the very least it helped him to drop off to sleep faster.

"Please tell me there's a learning curve and I'm just on the starting slope," Harry said to Snips the next morning, irritated at yet another dream about the hall and the door.

Snips shrugged, narrowed his eyes at Harry as he had been the past several mornings—Harry was beginning to anticipate these moments, managed to shove several mental books at him and reduced the psychic bite to little more than a nip.

"Better?" Harry asked him, prompting a nod. So perhaps there was a curve.

Really, on average things were going quite well until Umbridge and her Inquisitorial Squad crashed the next HAG meeting (Lee, Fergus, Fred and George had finally succeeded).

At best, Harry had gotten a small window of warning—Malfoy had been wrangled by Umbridge along with the rest of the Inquisitorial Squad, which had involved several members of HAG, but had been able to send Dobby ahead to warn them of what was coming. That had enabled them to shoo several members out a back way that the room provided, although that still left several fifth and seventh-years behind, as they figured they were the ones who could best justify their presence, and a few others who refused to leave them to their fates. As it were, they were all trussed up and taken to the headmaster's office, where a very bemused Dumbledore took his suddenly-full office in stride.

"Alas, I wasn't expecting this much company in so short a time," he said, flicking his wand and summoning several dozen cups. "Tea?"

"Now is not the time for tea," Umbridge said.

"I'm aware that we usually set aside a specific time for tea, but I must admit that I enjoy any excuse to try new blends. Incidentally you must try this one—it's called white tea, it uses baby tea leaves instead of the full-grown ones and has a delightful flavor."

"Headmaster," Umbridge said, all sickeningly sweet. "I'm sure you don't see any issue with students conducting sedition, but the Ministry treats it very seriously."

"Ah, so is this what everyone's been getting up to in their spare time? I'm afraid you'll have to start from the top, I've been a tad busy to be keeping up with the school gossip."

Umbridge narrowed her eyes at him, evidently annoyed by his calm demeanor—launched into a whole tirade that painted Harry and company as coming up slightly shorter than Death Eaters, but not by much. Honestly, Harry was actually pretty impressed by how much she was getting worked up by this, watched along with the rest as she finished, heaving.

Dumbledore looked everyone over, shuffled through the papers she had thrown at him during her tirade, looked back up at her. "And?"

"And what?" she demanded.

"Ah, perhaps that senility everyone accuses me of has finally kicked in; I don't see the problem with this, Dolores."

"The children are meeting in secret and practicing magic without supervision!" she snapped. "This clearly breaks several educational decrees—"

"According to this syllabus the only spells that wouldn't be on the school curriculum is...I'm not quite sure what a bat-bogey hex is."

"That one's mine," Ginny said. "People generally are too distracted by it to do anything else."

"I see. These are also listed as being used purely in a defensive manner and to tend to Hippogriffs—I see the Disillusionment charm is covered too, that's crucial for Hippogriff management. And Scourgify, can't forget that one."

"You're missing the point, Dumbledore," Umbridge said waspishly.

"I'm glad we agree. Perhaps you could explain the points you're trying to make and we'll see if they line up with the evidence before us."

"The students made a club without approval—"

"Actually that's wrong," Draco said, stepping out from behind Harry and handing Umbridge a scroll. "You approved it before the Christmas holiday."

"What?" she asked, suddenly reminding Harry of that Frogger game Dudley had played.

"I came to you with the concept...November? October?" Draco asked Hermione, who nodded. "I came to you with the concept and you approved it. I think it was shortly after you formed the Inquisitorial Squad."

"Which means that first point is done and over with," Ross said.

"And technically practicing magic without teacher supervision isn't against school rules," Hermione said. "Students practice in empty classrooms all the time. The only requirement is that a prefect is present, and Ron and I were at every meeting."

"Parading around in disguise," Umbridge hissed.

"There's no rule against dressing in other house colors," Fred pointed out.

"And Weasley products aren't banned yet," George added.

"'Yet'?" Dumbledore echoed, firmly amused.

"We have hopes, professor."

"And when you banned school clubs and such I came to you about the Hippogriff Appreciation Club and you re-approved it," Draco pointed out. "Something about me putting in a good word with father for you. Not that he'd ever give you the time of day—your position is tempting to him but you're still a half-blood."

"Granted we did change the name recently," Lee Jordan admitted. "But that was only in the last meeting so we hadn't gotten around to submitting it for your approval."

"Thus far everything seems to be aboveboard," Dumbledore observed. "Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see anything worth punishing students over."

"What—they—they're engaging in sedition!" Umbridge railed. "They're raising an army!"

"I see. Is this true?" Dumbledore asked the rest of them, looking over his half-moon glasses at them.

"An army of Hippogriff appreciators?" Goyle offered from the back.

"I wasn't aware we were engaging in sedition," Fred said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"We missed a golden opportunity," George said, shaking his head.

"I blame our NEWTs."

"I do too."

"At best I thought we were engaging in teenage rebellion," Ron said. "We were rebelling against the usual impression of teenagers by being studious and succeeding in our classes."

"That was the problem," Ross told him. "It was a double-subversion and ended up working against us."

"Enough," Umbridge hissed, apparently dangerously close to a coronary—looked up when the door opened, everyone turning to see a big black man come in.

"I was told you'd be up here," he said, apparently not sure how to take the general state of the room.

"Ah, right on time," Umbridge said, rounding on Dumbledore triumphantly. "Mr. Shacklebolt here will bring you in."

"What for?" Harry asked.

"I don't have to inform you, Potter."

"Do I get to know?" Dumbledore asked mildly.

"We can start with allowing students to engage in sedition; the full list is too long to recount here."

"I see," Dumbledore said; looked at Shacklebolt. "I hope you understand that, as I have been watching quite a few American crime dramas as of late, my expectations are high."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Headmaster," Shacklebolt said, before turning to Umbridge. "Dolores Umbridge, you're the one I'm here to arrest."

Harry was pretty certain even all of Dumbledore's odd little whirring devices had stopped at that one.

"I beg your pardon?" Umbridge asked, gobsmacked.

"I don't think I stuttered," Shacklebolt said, grinning. "You're under arrest for fraud, for abuse of power, for endangering minors, and a few others in a very long list that I'm sure Mrs. Agusta Longbottom at least would love to read out for you. Now please come along—she's getting ready to read Minister Fudge the riot act and I really don't want to miss that."

"Now wait a minute—you can't do this—" Umbridge started—didn't finish, Shacklebolt had her bound and silenced with a flick of his wand and was already floating her to the fireplace.

"I've been wanting to do that for years," he told them, smiling broadly. "And sorry for not marching her through the front door, but like I said, I don't want to miss Fudge getting the riot act. It's okay if I use your floo, Headmaster?"

"By all means," Dumbledore said, nodding. "And if you happen to have someone you can spare for the Defense role, please let me know."

"Sorry, Headmaster, everyone's too busy getting good seats for this." Tossed a handful of floo powder into the fireplace, waved goodbye as he dragged a furious mute Umbridge into the flames.

"Well I suppose that's that. Now, as for the rest of you," Dumbledore said, turning to them. "As I understand it from the general explanation I received, you've taken it upon yourselves to study for Defense and teach your fellows. Would you consider doing that on a more grandiose scale?"

"You mean take it on the road?" Ron asked.

"Perhaps not that far. I'm sure you've all noticed we're now out a Defense professor again. A pity, too—usually they last until finals," Dumbledore said. "But back to brass tacks—perhaps organizing study groups, supervised by teachers and headed by upperclassmen, could get us around this pesky issue until we find another Defense professor. Although I must say, I'm surprised I managed to find someone worse than Professor Lockhart."

Ron snorted at that, didn't stop when Hermione whacked him on the arm.