Harry's defense lessons were not as full of duelling and learning new hexes as he'd thought they would be. He supposed it made sense that a crafty, survivalist Slytherin like Snape would put more emphasis on strategy and analysis. They had spent some time on fighting styles, where he was beginning to learn that battle was a kind of dance. The person who knew the steps best would win. Not only were there different variations to each kind of dance, but there were also different genres of song. Maybe Harry's fighting was like bagpipe music: up-front, loud, strong, but also nimble enough for grace notes and quick shields. He was more about dodging and creative solutions than aggressive shows of power, though. A hip-hop routine, like on Dudley's music videos he watched when Aunt Petunia was out…? Alright, maybe he was taking the metaphor too far.

"Are you more ballet or salsa, sir?"

"What in Circe's name are you dithering on about?"

Harry hid a smile. "Oh, nothing."

"As I was saying, one important element of knowing how to duel is having the wisdom and foresight to know when not to."

"Right, you mean run away like a coward."

"Reckless Gryffindors! If a troll came after a first year, would you expect the child to just blast it to pieces?"

Harry opened his mouth to make a smart reply about his first year encounter with a troll when Snape saw the gleam in his eye and changed tactics.

"How about a team of Death Eaters, hm? Would it be better for a first year to fight or flee?"

Harry sighed. "Obviously it'd be better for the firstie to leave."

"What about you?"

"If a Death Eater got into the school, I wouldn't just duck behind a tapestry and let them wander through the halls looking for kids to terrorize."

Snape's mouth tightened, as if he found this answer unsatisfactory, but he knew better than to hope he might have a chance of changing Harry's mind. Instead, he leaned forward. "Alright, imagine you are in the woods. There are no consequences to running, except perhaps to your red and gold-tinted pride. The Death Eater chasing you is bigger, faster, stronger, and will take you directly to the Dark Lord. Your choice of action?"

"Try to escape," Harry admitted grudgingly.

"I believe we discussed your action plan of escape from Umbridge in a previous lesson. Did you complete it?"

Harry winced. He had been working on it before the big fight with the Slytherin prefects, and hadn't ever picked it back up again. A thought then occurred to him. "Wait, we tried to avoid a confrontation with Malfoy and his Squad!"

"So you did."

He tried not to let his face too obviously show his internal thought of see, I pay attention. Snape snorted and he knew he'd failed.

"Since you did not finish your assignment, work it out aloud for me instead. If Umbridge were to come after you in the castle and you had to escape, what would you do?"

"She's sick now, so she can't."

Snape sighed. "What would you do if she were not sick?"

Harry smirked. "Sneeze on her."

He received a scowl for his efforts. "Do try to take this seriously. Your life may very well be on the line."

Trying his best to dampen his currently excellent mood (he was still riding on the high of getting to live with Snape for the summer confirmed), Harry forced himself to think the matter through. "Well, I would try to hide somewhere she wouldn't look for me. Maybe the Room of Requirement, or the abandoned third floor corridor, since she can't track me with the pendant on."

"Not the third floor corridor. Draco Malfoy and the rest of the Inquisitorial Squad will have told her you tried to go there last time; she will think to check."

"Oh, yeah. Er, maybe I could try to sneak into the shrieking shack."

"The shrieking shack is off of school grounds, so anyone can apparate in or out. Pettigrew knows of its location and significance, and thus so too does the Dark Lord."

"...not the shrieking shack then, got it. There's a bunch of nooks and crannies around the castle I could duck into in a pinch, I guess."

"What kept you out of her reach before she fell ill, Harry."

Snape was trying to lead him somewhere.

"Er, McGonagall… oh! The other professors! Yeah, besides hiding somewhere, I could try to find another professor who doesn't like her." He frowned at the thought. Handing his problems over to an adult when he couldn't handle them had never been something he'd been able to do before, and the thought of it rarely occurred to him even now that he had Snape and others. He'd been let down too many times.

"I would be more than happy to fend her off," Snape said, settling further into his chair with a peculiar look on his face. Harry suspected that this had more to do with the thought of spiting Umbridge than specifically helping him. He rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, but what if you're not around and I can't find you?"

"You may come in here." He gestured to the private quarters they were in.

"If you're not in your office, I won't be able to get in through the hidden passage because your door's locked."

"The portrait entrance from the hallway is not."

"Doesn't that need a password?"

A slow nod. "It does." Snape looked at him closely, as if assessing him. After a long moment, one in which Harry caught himself holding his breath, he leaned forward. "If you are to be staying with me over the summers, then I see no reason for you to not have access to these quarters. Do not," he added at the big grin that began spreading across Harry's face, "abuse this trust I am putting in you. I believe you know what is and is not acceptable-"

"I won't! Thanks-" he physically cut off an enthusiastic Dad, not sure how well it'd be received. He had only used it aloud once since the village, hidden behind the guise of sarcasm. Snape hadn't been annoyed then, but he didn't want to scare off the emotionally skittish man either.

Snape gave him an odd look at the awkward end of his sentence, then shook his head. "The password is 'Razumihin'."

"Huh?"

Snape sounded it out phonetically ("Raz-oo-me-khin") for him, having Harry repeat the strange word back until he had it right. There was a kind of catch on the beginning of the last syllable that was hard for him to get his tongue around.

"What language is that?"

"Russian. It is the name of a character from a novel."

"Oh. Is it a wizarding book?"

"No," Snape said shortly, then changed the subject. "Get out your text. I want to go over alliances and internal conflict within the Death Eaters' ranks."

Harry pulled out How To Kill Your Death Eater, which he'd gotten back from Hermione after she magically copied it. He flipped to the first page on a list of numbers handed to him and tried his best to focus on what the man was saying. Inside, a mooncalf was dancing with joy in the glow of knowing he was important to someone, but he couldn't afford that distraction right now. At the moment, it was time to learn how to survive long enough to enjoy that feeling for a while to come.

And Harry hoped it would be a while, because he was starting to believe that this was something that might actually last. One last thought crossed his mind before he turned his full attention to what Snape was saying about the weird sexual tension between Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort and how the Lestrange brothers reacted to it.

Is this what it feels like to not be an orphan anymore?

When Harry came down for his Occlumency lesson almost a week later, he couldn't help but grin as he said the strange password and watched the portrait swing silently open. The novelty of it was still fresh. He was about to call out to Snape with some nonsense about how his detentions for the fight were almost done when he heard voices. His steps immediately slowed and softened as he crept closer upon recognising Dumbledore's voice.

"...see what is next."

The portrait was in full view of Snape's little sitting area, and no one was sitting there. If they had been, they would have noticed him immediately and the game would have been up. A glance to the kitchen showed it, too, was empty.

"And if the consequences are beyond our control? If the damage is permanent?" that was definitely Snape. His voice was tight, strained.

The passage to Snape's office was open. Harry slunk towards it and pressed against the wall beside the opening on this side. The voices became more distinct, and he knew he had figured right.

"Then we will move on from there."

Snape gave no response to this. Harry frowned, trying to puzzle out what they were talking about.

"Severus, the world does not fall on your shoulders."

A long pause. "No. Only the most important parts."

"You do not give yourself enough credit."

"I will take as much credit as I deserve."

"Severus…"

"Headmaster, I have a lesson with Harry tonight. This would be best discussed at the Order meeting this weekend."

Dumbledore (he assumed) sighed. Harry imagined the sorrowful look those bright blue eyes were likely casting Snape's way. He imagined too the way Snape would pretend he didn't see them and pull his usual stoicism around him like a shield. Harry had learned how to work past that mask of indifference, but Snape still retreated behind it when he felt uncomfortable.

A door closed in the office, probably Dumbledore leaving. A quiet sigh came from the remaining occupant before footsteps started down the passageway. Harry hurriedly tossed himself into the nearest chair, trying to look nonchalant. It worked about as well as a fever reducer on hypothermia.

"How much did you hear?"

Harry looked over to see Snape's black eyes staring at him levelly. He showed no surprise at seeing him there.

"Not enough to understand what's going on," Harry admitted, kicking off his shoes so he could throw his legs over the armrest.

"Excellent, as it is not your business."

"It sounds like it's got something to do with the war. What are you guys doing? You said there was an Order meeting?"

"There are always Order meetings. That does not mean we are doing anything," Snape said grumpily, rolling his eyes to see that Harry was in his spot. He grabbed a half-empty mug of tea from the table nearby and lowered himself into the armchair across from him.

"You mean you're doing nothing?"

"Feels that way," Snape muttered, taking a sip from the mug before grimacing. He flicked his wand at it and steam began wisping gently up from its contents. He took another sip, the hard line of his lowered brows casting the planes of his face into sharp relief.

Harry started connecting the dots. "Is that what you were talking about, then? You're frustrated that nothing's being done?"

"You are not here to discuss the Order's inability to anticipate the Dark Lord's next move. I–"

"You feel bad that you're not spying anymore, don't you!"

Snape scowled at him. "Do not psychoanalyze me, Potter, you will not like what you find."

Sometimes he forgot how prickly Snape could be. "Sorry. I just think that I'd rather have you alive and helping us out in the open than dead from trying to do it in the dark." The expression Snape's face made at this had him smiling slightly. "That's all."

"That's all," Snape echoed in disbelief. He stared at Harry for another moment longer before shaking his head slightly. "I wish to discuss your mind maze."

"Oh? What about it?" Over the weeks, Harry and Snape had worked on Harry's control of his mind maze. He had learned how to manifest himself in the maze as well, appearing beside Snape as they walked through the corridors and rooms of his mind together. They had practiced his strategies of manipulating an intruder by having Harry literally lead Snape through its confines to areas he thought would force the man to withdraw. Soon, they would practice with Harry not visually manifesting and simply nudging him along.

"While this has not been the intended purpose of our lessons, a potential advantage has occured to me regarding your mind maze. We were able to converse when you envisioned yourself as present. As that conversation only occurred within our minds, no one outside of the connection could hear us. Appearing in your maze along with a Legilimens may be a way for you to hold secure, private discussions with any Legillimens."

"There aren't many of those, though, right? Just you, Dumble–"

"Professor Du–"

"–dore, and Riddle."

"Bellatrix Lestrange has rudimentary skills as well, although her madness and impatience prevent her from gaining the finesse to do anything but rip thoughts and memories out of people's heads and causing irreparable damage in the process."

"Oh, great, 'cause I'd love to have a heart-to-heart with her," Harry said sardonically. "But I get what you're saying. That could be useful."

"If you do not wish to allow someone else direct entrance into your mind for a surface conversation such as I am proposing, it may be prudent to create an empty room for the purpose. Think of such a place as an entrance hall to the castle of your mind. Anyone coming inside must pass through to get further access."

"How would I make an empty room, though? Isn't everything in my maze supposed to be constructed out of memories?"

"Occlumency, at its core, is a magical art regarding the understanding and utilization of one's own mind. Memories are a vital part of that skill. They are searched for by intruders, the most necessary things to protect, and more concrete than other aspects of the mind. As they are the most dependendable and long-lasting elements of the mental landscape, it is more effective and stable to use them in the construction of shields, mind mazes, and other Occlumency methods. They do not exist alone, however. Emotions, feelings, thoughts; all of these are also a part of the mind. Theoretically, you could bring an entrance room into being with the mental thought or intent of its existence."

Harry was beginning to get a headache from following that logic. It was an approach to Occlumency that they had never discussed or read about before. "Theoretically? You mean it's never actually been done before? Isn't that, like, experimental magic?"

"All magic is experimental until it is understood."

Harry stared at the man in front of him, one who he sometimes thought was a bit of a genius. "You should write a book or something about all the stuff you've discovered about Occlumency. Seriously. All these other books you've shown me are old and just give descriptions of the types. You could, I don't know, make Occlumency approachable for people and modernize the subject."

Snape's eyebrow went up in skepticism, but Harry noticed a gleam in the man's dark eyes. "I doubt there would be much interest in such a work. Few people seek to learn such an esoteric art these days."

"There's still swots like you out there who like to read about 'esoteric arts' out of academic interest or whatever."

Snape's other eyebrow shot up at the insult. "Speaking to a professor in such a manner is unacceptable behaviour. You have become too comfortable around me."

"Yup," Harry said, popping the "p". "But I mean it. What if, a hundred years from now, someone else has to defeat a dark lord and needs these skills?"

"Hopefully, you will still be around to pass them down."

"Just make it my problem, huh?" Harry smiled, although he was touched at the sentiment.

"Certainly," Snape responded similarly. "You have been enough of a problem to last me a lifetime."

"That's me," he said chipperly, "a problem and a half."

"The Dark Lord is worth at least two, however, so you cancel one another out."

"You think he's worth more than me!"

"Allowances must be made for age and opportunity."

"You have a point there." Harry clapped his hands. "Right, so, entryway. How do I do it?"

"As it is a working theory, we will have to adapt on the go."

Harry grinned. "Adapting? Our specialty."

Snape smirked slightly in reply. Harry was relieved to see that he had been able to improve the man's earlier gloom. He definitely needed Snape, but every once in a while, moments like this would make him suspect that Snape needed him too.

A/N: Hey everyone, I thought I'd do a little assessment of where we're at and where this fic is headed. As you may have noticed, a chapter count estimate has been added. We are reaching the end of The Learning Curve. While a lot of recent stuff has been filler-esque with minor plot development (and there's nothing wrong with that; the day-to-day mundane does a better job of showing gradual and realistic character/relationship development than anything else), more has been developing than you may realise. Soon we'll reach the climax of this story. Then we move into its sequel. Yes, more is coming. There will be five total fics for the It Takes a Village series. There's three main, long-form fics (one, three, and five) with two short stories to bridge them together (two and four). The series really is one big storyline, with smaller arcs within. The dividing factor that separates the five out is tone, setting, and genre. I've done this for multiple reasons, including re-reading purposes and approachability. Overall, big plans are in place!

As we continue on, all I can say is to pay attention to the details so you don't miss anything. I love a good complex plot, which has caused this series to morph into a monster tapestry with about fourteen different plot threads (many of which are hidden to you at the moment, dear readers). Hell for me to manage in the plotting stage, but hopefully engaging for you all to read!