When Patterns Are Broken

"Cho couldn't keep her eyes off you."

The fire snapped, and a charry log fell with a thump. Hermione's charmed knitting needles repetitively, arrythymically clacked and churned out scarves and hats. Harry shifted in his seat. It was almost too squishy, he kept sinking into it.

"So?" Harry asked, reading through one of Ron's essays, his quill dripping with red ink.

"Ginny told me she broke up with Cedric," Ron said, looking up from another of his assignments.

"I'm not sure what this has to do with me," Harry said, correcting Ron's grammar with a vicious slash.

"I think she likes you," Hermione said. The parti-color knitwear was looking less lumpy. Harry was sure the house-elves incinerated it.

"Again, what does that have to do with me?" Harry asked. "I don't know her from Eve."

"Is that another one of your weird muggle sayings?"

"I've never heard it."

Harry shook his head and finished his corrections. Ron was evidently serious about being an auror and needed to bring his grades up. Hermione could only carry him so far. Harry didn't want to make a habit of correcting Ron's work—he already had too many demands on his time—so he begged off and went to their dormitory.

Once safely ensconced in his bed, he called Sirius.

"Did something happen?" Sirius asked, giving him a shrewd look. "You had Hogsmeade this weekend, right?"

Harry explained the defense group they were organizing and his role in it. Now that there was some distance between him and that initial meeting, he started to feel overwhelmed. He'd have to plan what to teach and how to teach it. They were a medley group from different years. He'd also have to be careful about what not to teach. Harry didn't abide by what he felt was the false dichotomy of normal and dark magic. He doubted the group would feel the same if he showed them how to disintegrate bones and pulp organs. He'd have to teach defense: shields, silencing, restraints, evasion, healing.

"Something else happened," Sirius said after Harry finished discussing his concerns. "I remember someone being obnoxiously happy when they heard their boyfriend got his Hogsmeade form signed…"

"He's not my—" Harry snapped his mouth shut.

They stared at each other for a moment.

"Ha! I knew it!"

Harry stood before the Gryffindor bulletin board and read Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four, disbanding all student organizations pending permission from Umbridge. It was the Monday morning after their Hog’s Head meeting. 

“This isn’t a coincidence,” Harry said, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Zacharias Smith!” Ron exclaimed. “Or Michael Corner, he had a shifty look…”

“I don’t think anyone is able to tell.”

“We need to tell Hermione,” Ron said. He tried running up to the girls’ dormitories, but an ear-piercing alarm went off and the stairs turned into a slide. Hermione slid down shortly after, and they showed her the posting. 

“Someone must have blabbed,” Ron said.

“They can’t have done,” Hermione said. “I jinxed the paper.”

They went down to breakfast and people from the meeting tried to approach them, only to be frantically waved off by Hermione. 

“We need a way to communicate,” Harry said. “We could use the Protean Charm on some trinkets.”

“I’ve read about that,” Hermione said. “I’ll look into it.”

Angelina ran into the Great Hall, looking desperate. “She’s included quidditch too! You lot need to stop losing your tempers on her.” 

“We’ll behave,” Harry said, feeling a headache coming on. He swirled the dregs of his tea and let it drain. He frowned into the cup. It looked like a wing. 

During History of Magic, Hedwig crashed into the window. Harry leapt out of his seat and hurried over. She was barely clinging onto the ledge, and there was something wrong with her wing. 

She hopped inside, moving awkwardly. Harry pulled out his wand and cast an owl-sized ferula, binding her wing tightly. She let out a hoot of relief, and he carefully picked her up. 

Binns hadn’t noticed anything, so Harry grabbed his things and left, hurrying to the staff room. He tuned out the two gargoyles heckling him and knocked. 

“Potter? Did you get another detention?”

“No, someone’s attacked Hedwig. I’m looking for Professor Grubbly-Plank.”

“Injured owl?”

Grubbly-Plank, who had been smoking a pipe and reading the Daily Prophet, came over to examine Hedwig. 

“She does look like she’s been attacked. Can’t think what would have done it, though…”

“She doesn’t have any blood on her beak or talons,” Harry said. “If it was another animal she would have fought back.”

“Do you know how far this owl’s traveled, Potter?” McGonagall asked. 

Harry shook his head. “She wasn’t on delivery. I sent her on holiday. She flew back here, so her injury must be recent.”

Grubbly-Plank had a monocle out and was looking at Hedwig's wing. “Good temporary measure. I’ll have to set and rebind it. She’ll be flying fit in a few days.”

“Thank you, professor.”

As Harry turned to leave, McGonagall stopped him. “Bear in mind channels of communication in and out of Hogwarts may be watched.”

Harry held back a smirk. He’d been disguising Hedwig since third year. “I’ll spread the word.”

Harry made his way to Potions and found Hermione and Ron waiting for him. 

“Is Hedwig okay?” Hermione asked. 

“She will be in a few days. I think it was spell damage.”

“Where had she been, anyway? She didn’t have a letter.”

“Touring Scotland, I imagine.”

In front of Snape’s classroom they found Malfoy waving the Slytherin quidditch team’s signed permission form. 

“...She knows my father, he’s always in and out of the Ministry…they’ve been looking for an excuse to sack Arthur Weasley for years…it’s only a matter of time until Potter’s carted off to St. Mungo’s, they’ve got a special ward for people whose brains have been addled by spell damage.”

Malfoy made a horribly offensive face while Parkinson, Crabbe, and Goyle laughed cruelly. 

Harry grabbed Neville before he could throw himself at Malfoy. Neville would bear the brunt of whatever trouble they got into, however much Harry wanted to let him have at it. 

“Hey, Malfoy,” Harry said, once Ron got hold of Neville. 

Harry could see Theo watching him with concern. 

“What is it, Potty?”

“I saw your dad crawling in the dirt to kiss Voldemort’s robes,” Harry said coldly. “Your mum really married down, didn’t she? What was his role again? Lead muggle torturer? Is that because he’s too pathetic a wizard to hold up against someone with actual skill?”

Malfoy’s face had turned an alarming shade of red. “At least my parents are still alive!”

“My parents gave their lives for me,” Harry snapped. “Yours gave their lives to grovel at the feet of a halfblood orphan who was taken down by a muggleborn and a baby. You’d piss yourself if you saw what he looked like now!”

The dungeon door opened and Snape stood looking down at all of them. “Ten points from Gryffindor. Release Longbottom or it will be detention.”

Neville gave Harry a hard look, then stormed out of the dungeon. Harry didn’t blame him. 

After clapping at Fred and George fountaining vomit for fun and profit, Harry retreated to his dormitory to talk to Sirius.

"Dung spotted your club at the Hog's Head," Sirius said right off the bat.

"It's Hermione's club," Harry corrected. "I told her it wasn't a good idea to meet there. We were too conspicuous, and no one put up silencing charms. Why was he there?"

"Following you. If I had known, I would have warned you."

"I assumed Dumbledore would find out, and Umbridge as well," Harry said. "Do you know if he spotted Theo?"

"Not that I've been told," Sirius said. "It wouldn't hurt to be more cautious."

"I'm going to suggest we meet either in a dungeon room we enchant the shit out of, or our common room. I don't want to give up the Room of Requirement, and no one will suspect a group of people outside of Slytherin in the dungeon. I can share some hidden passageways that lead down there."

"There's a roomy secret passageway on the fourth floor," Sirius said. "There might be enough room to practice jinxes there."

"Fred and George told me it's blocked off, so we'd need to clear it out. A cave in, I think."

"Well, you've got magic."

"Reinforce the walls, vanish the blockage?"

"Check the library for construction spell books. Or maybe ask the house-elves to help clear it out."

Harry nodded, writing down his ideas. "We should rotate locations too, and change the days we meet. Establishing a pattern would be inimical to our aims."

"And what are those aims?" Sirius asked, amused.

"Some want to pass N.E.W.T.s or O.W.L.s," Harry said. "Some believe the threat of Voldemort. I think Hermione's one Umbridge class away from calling us Dumbledore Youth."

Sirius winced. "Poor taste, kid, but I get it."

Harry took in the dark gray sky, waiting for the clouds to break. Angelina had gotten the team approved and they needed to practice. Well, some of them. He sat on his broom, seeing no point in trudging through the mud when he could fly. 

He flew around lazily as it started to rain. Light was fleeing the world, and after an hour Angelina finally gave up trying to practice. Harry drifted to the changing rooms, where Fred and George were suffering the side effects of their Fever Fudge, having sat on their blisters for over an hour. 

Harry was patting his hair dry when he had a sudden, blinding pain in his head. He closed his eyes against the pain, not wanting to give anything away. He sat down hard on a bench and leaned back.

"What's up?" Ron asked, looking concerned.

"Just thinking about an arithmancy project," Harry said, thinking instead about what had made Voldemort angry. Something wasn't being done fast enough. What was it? The Department of Mysteries? And how did Harry know? It was worse than the visions he had while he slept. He was awake, he was feeling his feelings, thinking his thoughts. Harry had never heard of anything like this in magic. And it was tempting too. Tempting to learn what he could, to use it against him. But what if it went both ways?

With that chilling thought, Harry instantly occluded. The anger that had been clawing at his throat disappeared, and all he had was a lingering headache.

"Better you than me," Ron said, turning to finish getting dressed.

When the team returned to Gryffindor Tower, Harry left Ron with Hermione in the common room and went to his dormitory alone. He dug through his trunk to find one of the headache reducing potions he had brewed. For a moment, the familiar vial made Harry feel homesick, and he sat heavily on his bed. He needed to organize his thoughts.

Harry found a piece of paper and a pen. He dredged up everything Voldemort had said in the graveyard, every time his scar hurt, the differences before and after Harry's blood had been used.

Voldemort wanted immortality.

Voldemort did something that prevented him from dying.

Something prevented Harry from dying, likely his mother's sacrifice, or some combination of magics.

The above resulted in his scar, and a connection to Voldemort.

His scar hurt when Voldemort was nearby.

His scar hurt when Voldemort touched him.

His scar hurt when he had a vision of Voldemort.

His scar hurt when Voldemort experienced heightened emotion.

Occlumency ameliorated this connection with Voldemort.

Dumbledore restricted Harry's access to information.

Dumbledore avoided speaking to Harry.

Dumbledore avoided eye contact with Harry.

Harry sat back and stared at his list. 

The conclusion was clear. 

Dumbledore believed Voldemort had some access to Harry's mind as well. Harry had to assume the connection was reciprocal. Voldemort was both a skilled legilimens and occlumens. Harry had to also assume Voldemort was aware of the connection and would seek to manipulate it.

Most damning of all, Dumbledore knew, had known for a while, and hadn't told Harry a single thing about it. Why?

Harry held his list in his fingers, concentrating until it caught on fire. He flicked the ashes away and grabbed his journal. 

Harry woke up to Dobby poking his face, which was an improvement on being sat on.

“Dobby has your owl, sir!”

“Hoo.”

“Thanks?”

Harry put his glasses on and checked his watch. It was the middle of the night. He looked at Dobby, who had grown several feet. 

“Are those the hats Hermione’s been knitting?”

“Hoo.”

Hedwig was perched at the very top. Her balance was impeccable. 

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” he said with a smile. She fluttered down and landed on his head. “Why do you have so many hats? And scarves?”

“Dobby is the only one who will clean Gryffindor Tower!”

“I thought something like this might happen. Would any of the house-elves who refuse to clean be willing to speak with Hermione? Or would you please explain it to her?”

Dobby nodded eagerly, and the hats swayed. Dobby’s expression grew somber.

“Harry Potter doesn’t seem happy. Dobby heard him muttering in his sleep.”

“I have nightmares,” Harry said. He was too tired to determine whether Dobby had dismantled his spells or if they didn’t affect house-elves at all. Harry suspected Kreacher might have left that little tidbit out when teaching him.

“Dobby wishes he could help Harry Potter…”

“You’ve already done a lot for me,” Harry said. “But if you or other elves would like to help, there’s a secret corridor behind the mirror on the fourth floor that needs to be repaired. I want to use that space to help train my friends to fight dark wizards.”

Harry took Hermione, and consequently Ron, down to the kitchens during lunch the next day. 

“Dobby?” He asked as soon as the fruit bowl portrait had closed. 

“Harry Potter!” Dobby appeared in a whirlwind of Granger knitwear. 

“Dobby, where did you get all those?” Hermione asked, stricken. 

“We can discuss your cultural insensitivity later,” Harry said, sitting down. A house-elf, Taran, hurried over with plates of sausages and mash. “Were you able to get the room cleared, Dobby?”

“Yes, Harry Potter! Dobby and Winky worked all morning!”

“You’ve been meeting with Winky then.” Harry said, smiling. “I’m glad you’re still friends.”

The hats teetered. Either Dobby had sewn them all together into a megahat, or he was using magic to keep it balanced.

“What are you talking about?” Hermione asked. “What room?”

“It’s a secret room behind a mirror on the fourth floor corridor,” Harry said. “I’m also looking for a dungeon room that’s big enough and far enough from the main areas. And a third location, if we can manage it.”

“You want to rotate locations,” Hermione said. “If we’re all in the same place, at the same time, regularly scheduled…”

Ron was distracted by his food, but asked, “What do you mean?”

Harry rubbed his neck. “We were spotted at the Hog’s Head. Mundungus Fletcher was there, and Umbridge found out somehow. We need to do a better job of hiding.”

“Then we can’t all show up at the same time,” Hermione said briskly, writing rapidly on some parchment. “We need to stagger arrivals and departures, possibly by year and house. It’ll make it easier to teach the different year groups, maybe the lower years could arrive first…”

“Right,” Harry said, standing up. He wrapped some sausages in a napkin for later. “There are a few things I need to get ready. Hermione, work out a schedule for everyone. We’ll update it when we’ve got other places ready to meet. You two can start spreading the word that we’ll meet tonight. Make sure they bring their Slinkhard books. There’s a lot to go over.”

“Why do we need those?”

“For a cover story."

Harry hurried to the Room of Requirement. With almost everyone down at lunch the hallways were mostly empty, particularly this high up in the castle. When he reached the right stretch of wall, he began pacing and thinking of the Black training hall. Then he stopped. What his family used might be a little intense, especially for the younger kids like Dennis Creevey. Harry pushed thoughts of it aside—though he was newly determined to show Theo at least some of it—and thought about things a school defense club would need. He opened the door that appeared, smiled at the packed supply closet, and began shrinking things. 

On his way back, Harry passed the landing where Sir Cadogan’s portrait hung. 

“Stand and fight, you mangy cur!”

“I’ve got Herbology,”  Harry said, walking by. Then he stopped, looking at Sir Cadogan on his pony, waving his sword around, recalling the man’s brief stint as the Gryffindor common room portrait. 

“Sir Cadogan, would you like a new job?” 

After dinner that evening, Harry retreated to the common room to work on a curriculum. Hermione had all her notes since the beginning of time and they hammered out a lesson plan. 

“I’ll need you two to master the spells first,” Harry said, looking at Ron and Hermione. “Ron will take the lower years, you work better with them. I’ll take the upper years, and Hermione the rest.”

“You’re really rising to the occasion,” Hermione said with a self-satisfied smile, happily revising.  

“I’m rising like a loaf of bread,” Harry muttered.

They packed up and headed for the fourth floor, watched by the other Gryffindors in their secret club. They made up the majority and would be too big a group traveling the halls together. Hermione had broken them down by class and year, people who wouldn’t be out of place together.

Sir Cadogan raised his sword in salute as they passed. He agreed to not issue any challenges to the people of their group, but would raise a fuss if he saw someone else walk by, greeting them loudly by name. It was a system Harry hoped the knight could handle. 

The mirror was the same kind of illusion as the entrance to Platform 9 3/4, and one had to overcome both the concept of a mirror being solid and walking into yourself to get through. The corridor behind it looked like a regular Hogwarts corridor, and after some time opened into a classroom-sized area. The corridor did continue on to somewhere in Hogsmeade, but Harry hadn’t explored it and had asked Dobby to leave it blocked off for the time being. 

“Where did you get this stuff?” Ron asked, looking around. There were human-shaped targets, cushions for people to fall onto, a stack of chairs, and a small collection of books Harry had screened. Harry would bring in obstacles at a later point. Maybe dump them in the Forbidden Forest for a night. 

“Sirius left it in the Shrieking Shack,” Harry lied, testing the balance on one of the targets. Unlike the Black ones, these didn’t bleed nor, as Sirius had later revealed to Harry, did they scream and beg. They simply fell over after receiving enough damage, and popped back up a minute later. “Like I said, Mundungus Fletcher saw us at the Hog’s Head. That means the whole Order knows. Mrs. Weasley says Ron’s not allowed.”

“Like hell I’m not!”

People began trickling in, and when Luna arrived at eight humming to herself, Hermione called the meeting to order. 

“Thank you, everyone, for coming,” Hermione said. “As the first order of business, I think we should elect a leader.”

“This isn’t a democracy, Hermione.”

“Harry’s leader,” Cho Chang said, smiling at him. 

“We ought to vote on it, make it formal,” Hermione insisted. “All in favor?”

Everyone raised their hands. Harry had won his first election. 

“I would have seized power by any means necessary,” Harry said in his acceptance speech. 

“Harry, save your jokes for later,” Hermione said. “We also need a name. It would promote team spirit and unity.”

Harry stopped himself from pointing out the lack of Slytherins. He knew from talking to Theo that there were plenty of Slytherins who weren’t purebloods, though muggleborns were vanishingly rare, and whose families weren’t avid supporters of Voldemort. There were people who were neutral or indifferent, like Blaise Zabini, people with families who were separatists who wanted less integration with the muggle world, like Graham Pritchard. There were people who had to hide their true thoughts from their families to stay safe, or entire families who sided with Voldemort for that reason. It was a complex situation, and despite the Hat’s song, if a Slytherin were caught in a secret group with Harry Potter, it would get back to their housemates, to their families, and ultimately to Voldemort. 

“The Anti-Umbridge League?” Angelina said hopefully.

“Ministry of Magic Are Morons Group?” Fred suggested.

“I was thinking more of a name that didn’t advertise what we were doing,” Hermione said.

“The Defense Association?” Cho said. “D.A. for short.”

“That’s good,” Ginny said, “only let’s make it stand for Dumbledore’s Army. That’s the Ministry’s worst fear, right?”

This was exactly why Harry hadn’t put his name on the list. 

“It’s a terrible name,” Theo said once Harry had finished his story. They had a free period the morning after Astronomy and were taking advantage of it in the Room of Requirement.

“Not helped by Dumbledore tacitly supporting us,” Harry said. “He’s not a very active headmaster, is he?”

Theo snorted. “I’ve only seen him at meals. What else happened?”

“We separated in groups to practice disarming, which is something they all should have known since our second year.”

“We still talk about Snape blasting Lockhart across the room.”

“It was beautiful,” Harry agreed. “This was…if we had been less organized, I don’t think the room would still be standing. Half of them didn’t hit their opponent, almost none of them put enough magic into the spell, waving their wands around and disrupting the actual movement. One of the Ravenclaws caught on fire…” Harry shook his head. “I’ve told them to practice on their own, with other people from their houses, self-study, things like that.”

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” Theo said solemnly. 

“I don’t want to do this,” Harry said unhappily. “I don’t like telling people what to do, but if I’m teaching that’s something I can accept. It’s an exchange of information. Suddenly they’ve got me as a leader in Dumbledore’s Army,” he bit out. “There was something else I wanted to talk about, now that I’m apparently leading a rebellion.”

“What is it?”

"I'm giving you my invisibility cloak."

Theo's eyebrows shot up. "Why?"

"I don't need it with the map," Harry said. “So we can meet more often.”

They were in the Room of Requirement, sitting in a replica of his bedroom at Grimmauld Place. Harry felt safest at home. He was homesick, scared, disgusted by Riddle's violation of his body and now his mind, and had been constantly on the verge of panicking since his realization about the latter.

“You have another reason,” Theo said, looking intently at him.

They sat facing each other on the bed. Harry gazed into Theo's eyes. Dark, like an endless, starless night. He felt as if he stood precarious on an event horizon, a black hole poised to draw him inexorably in.

He wanted to take Theo and run. But Theo has his own ways to survive. Quiet, overlooked, unobtrusive, overshadowed.

Harry took his hands.

"I can't tell you everything."

"I know. I can't either."

"I want to."

"I know."

"Have you been practicing your occlumency?"

Theo stared at him.

"Fine, that was a stupid question. I want us to test each other."

"You want to learn legilimency."

Harry bowed his head. "I want to use legilimency."

"Is there a distinction?"

"In the pursuit of better occlumency."

Theo let go of one of his hands and tilted Harry's chin up. "Okay."

"What?"

"I'll learn legilimency with you."

"Wha—"

Theo pulled back from the kiss, smiling in a way Harry only saw when they were together.

"Don't distract me! Legilimency is incredibly…"

Theo's smile grew. "Intimate?"

Harry was so mortified he tried to back away, but Theo was sliding fingers into his hair and he couldn't think anymore.

Harry examined the fake galleon and was impressed by Hermione's use of the Protean Charm. It was a subtle and simple solution. Harry held the master galleon, to which all the others were linked. Heating it would heat the others to announce a meeting date, and when he altered the serial numbers to reflect the date, it was mirrored by the others. He’d also managed to secure a dungeon classroom, surprisingly close to the Slytherin common room, but easily accessed via the hidden passage from the second floor. 

“The Hat did seriously consider Ravenclaw,” Hermione said, pleased at the well-deserved praise. 

Leading up to the first quidditch game of the season, Gryffindor versus Slytherin—Harry was convinced the school pitted them against each other every chance it got—Angelina tried to get Harry to join their daily practices, but he threatened to quit the team so she gave up. McGonagall stopped assigning them homework, Snape had the quidditch pitch booked out, hexes were flying in the hallways. Ron wasn’t coping with it well. His insecurities were blood in the water for the Slytherin team and their friends.

Harry had little sympathy for him. It was just a fraction of what he had to endure over the years, up to and including his best friend turning his back on him during the Triwizard Tournament. Harry bitterly wondered if Ron was still jealous of him. 

The morning of the match was filled with surprises. Luna had a realistic lion headdress that roared, though she hadn’t had time to charm a serpent for it to chew. The Slytherins had crown-shaped badges that read Weasley Is Our King. It didn’t bode well, and Harry was curious to see what they had planned. 

Once in the air, the Slytherins in the stands started singing. Ron missed a save, and the singing swelled. It was a catchy tune. 

Harry kept circling the pitch as Ron let quaffle after quaffle in. He kept track of the score, knowing Ron could mess up only so many times before the game was hopeless. He spotted the snitch near the Slytherin goal posts, closer to Malfoy, and shot off. He took it practically out of Malfoy’s hands. Then a bludger hit him from behind, after the game had been called, and he was thrown off his broom. Luckily he was close to the ground. He’d fallen from higher, anyway.

Angelina landed and ran to check on him. Malfoy landed nearby, furious. 

“Saved Weasley’s neck, haven’t you? I’ve never seen a worse keeper…born in a bin, wasn’t he? Did you like my lyrics, Potter?”

“I think my muggle cousin could’ve written better,” Harry said, standing up to greet the rest of his team. “He’s got two brain cells to rub together, not just the one you’ve been working with.” He spotted Ron going to the changing rooms alone. 

Malfoy started shouting about how he’d wanted to include verses about Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Harry tried to hold Fred and George back with Angelina and the other chasers, Alicia and Katie, but the twins had almost a foot on him. It was a lost cause unless he wanted to start throwing spells.

“Don’t give him what he wants,” he said to a struggling George. “You run a prank business, get him back later. Didn’t you notice Umbridge in the stands?”

Malfoy was still running his mouth. George broke free and lunged at him. Harry followed, trying to pull him off Malfoy. Madam Hooch was now blowing her whistle, shouting, casting spells to separate them, and Harry and George were marched to McGonagall’s office where she berated them. 

Umbridge came into the office with Educational Decree Number Twenty-five.

“The High Inquisitor," Umbridge declared, "will henceforth have supreme authority over all punishments, sanctions, and removal of privileges pertaining to the students of Hogwarts, and the power to alter such punishments, sanctions, and removals of privileges as may have been ordered by other staff members. Signed, Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, Order of Merlin First Class, etc., etc. …”

Harry’s stomach sank with dread. All punishments. 

“...really think I will have to ban these two from playing quidditch ever again…”

“I doubt you could stop me playing ever again,” Harry said. “Unless you own every team in the league? Or will you be following me home to knock me off my broom?”

“To be safe, this young man’s twin ought to be stopped too…”

Harry and George walked back to the common room together, leaving the chilly silence of McGonagall’s office. They were still in their quidditch gear. 

“I think the solution is obvious,” Harry said quietly, wary of listeners.

“Is it?” George said testily.

“I told Angelina to look for another seeker at the start of the year,” Harry said. “We should have been training reserve players too. But that doesn’t really matter. She could pick anyone, and we’d just polyjuice as them during the games.”

George shook his head. “Me and Fred would be too obvious, we work better together than other pairs of beaters. And you’re a prodigy, your style of playing stands out too much.”

“Then I’ll polyjuice as Umbridge and reinstate us.”

George snorted. “You couldn’t pay me to be in that woman’s body.”

Ron blamed himself for the game, and was a quivering ball of misery.

“This is the worst I’ve ever felt in my life,” Ron moaned, and Harry thought he had a pretty charmed life if losing a quidditch match was the worst thing ever. 

“I’ve got something that will cheer you both up,” Hermione said, looking out of the window. It was dark and starting to snow. Harry narrowed his eyes at her. 

“Hagrid’s back.”

Harry sighed. “I'll get the cloak.”

Harry still hadn’t told them about the Marauder’s Map, and he had no plans to. So much of his life was public knowledge. What he had to himself he kept close. Grimmauld Place, Walburga and Kreacher, the map, his secret projects. Theo. Often he regretted being so eager to show them the cloak in first year. Too many people knew about it.

After Dobby came back from retrieving the cloak from Theo, Harry headed back to the common room.

It was slow going under the cloak since Ron had to hunch for it to cover all of him, but they made it out of the castle, across the snowy grounds, Harry sighing and clearing their footprints as they went, and to Hagrid’s hut. Unlike his two friends, he was not pleased Hagrid was back. Harry liked him better far away. Far, far away. 

“Should’ve known,” Hagrid said, sticking his head through the door. Hermione screamed, and Fang lost his mind barking and scratching. When they got inside, Harry saw what was wrong. Hagrid looked beaten to a pulp. Blood in his hair, a swollen black eye, cuts, bruises, possibly broken bones. Harry could only conclude he’d gotten into a fight with a full-blooded giant. The question was, how had he made it all the way back to Hogwarts in this condition?

“What happened to you?” Harry asked. 

“Nothing. Want a cuppa?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Hagrid picked up the largest, greenest steak Harry had ever seen and slapped it onto his face.

“What animal is that from?”

“It’s dragon meat.”

“Did the giants beat you up?” Hermione asked. 

“Giants? Who said anything about giants?”

“We guessed,” Hermione said, chagrined. 

“Yes ‘we’ did,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “Honestly.”

“It was obvious,” Ron added. 

His two friends eventually got Hagrid to share his journey into the mountains. Harry learned giant attacks on muggles were covered up as mountaineering accidents. He related his dementor attack and subsequent trial, while Fang chewed on the dragon steak. 

It was an interesting tale. Hagrid and Madame Maxime had taken a trip together first to confuse the Ministry spies, then found the last remaining group of giants in the world, a mere eighty members of what had once been hundreds of tribes scattered across the mountains. Dumbledore had given them instructions on how to appeal to their leader, and they brought him magical offerings. But then leadership shifted, and the new Gurg rejected their next offering. Madame Maxime was forced to use magic to rescue Hagrid, and by then it was a lost cause. They retreated, strategized, but then Death Eater envoys arrived. Hagrid and Maxime had approached individual giants, but the Gurg and his people culled them, further dooming giants to extinction. Hagrid had also discovered that his mother died, years ago. 

Then Umbridge arrived, and the three Gryffindors quickly hid under the cloak. It wasn’t only obvious to them where Hagrid had been. 

Hagrid took them to see the thestral herd. A new foal walked right up to Harry, startling his classmates when it looked like he was petting nothing. A cow carcass was eaten by invisible creatures, to them. Only Harry, Neville, and Theo could see the horses. Everyone else was frightened. Umbridge came by to inspect and exploited his nervous classmates immediately. She asked Neville who he had seen die.

"I wish I could see them," Hermione said longingly.

"Do you?" Harry said flatly, walking away.

Hermione had the decency to look ashamed of herself.

December came, and Hermione and Ron were too busy with their increased prefect duties to bother Harry. It was a relief to have space from them.

He desperately wanted to go home for Yule, but had yet to land on an excuse for why he would want to return to the Dursleys, or why they would even let him through the door. That and the Order spying on him. In Hogsmeade, at Privet Drive. He also had to consider Death Eaters. The Dursleys' address had become public knowledge at his trial. What utility was there in sending him back?

The DA meetings continued, the members slowly improving their spells, but the meetings would come to a halt for the holidays. Everyone else was going home to their families. Hermione was going skiing with her parents, and Ron was going to the Burrow with his siblings. He told Harry that he was invited too, but Harry turned him down. He wasn't going to be trapped there again.

One evening, Harry was the first to arrive at their meeting place behind the fourth floor mirror. It was their last meeting before the break. Someone, most likely Dobby, had decorated the room to shove Christmas cheer down their throats. There were ornaments with Harry's face on them. He packed those away to give back to Dobby later.

Luna came in next, surveying the room. "This is nice. Did you decorate?"

"No, I don't celebrate Christmas. It must have been Dobby."

Once Luna pointed out the nargle-infested mistletoe, Harry tried to burn it down but Luna stopped him. The nargles needed a habitat, after all.

Harry had finally got them through disarming, silencing, petrifying, incarcerous, impedimenta, and stunning. He suspected not many of them practiced outside of the meetings, but there wasn't much he could do about that. They were in charge of how much effort they put in. He was glad to move on to shielding. If they couldn't incapacitate their opponent, dodge, or escape, the next step was to block the attack. Dennis as the youngest student was being taught simple hexes, since the more advanced spells were beyond his current magical ability. 

When the meeting was over, it was Harry's turn to stay back and put everything away. Hermione and Ron had hurried out. He was surprised to see Cho Chang lingering.

"Did you have a question?" he asked as he stacked mats.

"You're a really good teacher," she said, smiling oddly and moving closer. "I've never been able to stun anything before."

Harry was a little embarrassed for her. "Thank you," he said. "I'm glad I could help."

"Mistletoe," Cho said softly, pointing to the ceiling.

"It's to lure the nargles," Harry said.

"What are nargles?"

"Ask Luna, she's familiar with their habits."

Cho made a weird laughing sound and moved closer. Harry took a step away.

"It's past curfew, I'm going to head back," he said.

"I really like you, Harry."

It finally clicked what this was about. "I'm sorry," he said, moving further away, mind spinning. He knew distantly that Cho Chang was a popular girl, and he could tell she was pretty. She was also the seeker for Ravenclaw. That was the extent of his knowledge about her. She would tell her friends whatever reason for rejection he gave her. The entire school could find out. There had been articles in national papers about his love life.

"I'm actually seeing someone," he said. "A muggle. We've been friends since primary school."

It sounded so implausible he almost started laughing. Harry counted on virtually no one knowing about his life before Hogwarts, other than that he had been raised by muggle relatives. No such friend existed, but he could fabricate an entire person if he had to. He could already hear Theo laughing at him in that soft way he had, as if afraid to be too loud.

"How come you never talk about her?"

Harry raised an eyebrow, trying for a mildly surprised look, going with Cho's assumption that he'd date a girl. Why on earth would he talk to Cho about anything? They weren’t friends, much less confidantes.

"Have you read the kind of articles they write about me? The Prophet would have a field day. It's not safe for either of us."

"Oh…I see…"

"Sorry again," he said with a rueful smile. "Have a nice holiday."

He left the room at a casual pace, head reeling with plans for damage control.

Back in Gryffindor Tower, he joined Hermione and Ron near the fire.

"What kept you?" Ron asked from his spot on the floor. Harry sat down, still thinking about what story to give his best friends, people who would presumably know about his imaginary muggle girlfriend before anyone else.

"Cho wanted to talk," Harry said, sinking into an armchair.

"Did she corner you after the meeting?" Hermione asked.

Harry gave her a shrewd look. "You anticipated this happening. That's why you were in such a hurry."

"Did you kiss?" she asked.

Harry recoiled, failing to hide his reaction. "No, of course not!"

Ron sat up. "What? Why not?"

"Because I'm not interested in her!"

"Is there someone else?" Hermione asked, looking up from whatever she had been writing. Harry mistrusted that look, and right then and there decided to lie to his two oldest friends.

"Yes, actually. A girl I went to primary with. I ran into her over summer."

"That's who you're writing to all the time!" Ron said triumphantly.

"What's her name? Why didn't you tell us? It's been months! This is so exciting!"

"She doesn't know I'm a wizard," Harry said. "Yet. And I don't want it getting around. You know how people are. That article in Witch Weekly? She'd be terrified if she got a Howler."

"Harry, you have to tell her…"

Harry covered his face, as if embarrassed, and constructed his lie. He hoped they would understand when he finally told them the truth.

After he had written Theo, who was thankfully amused, and roped Sirius into corroborating his nameless fake girlfriend, Harry went to sleep, emotionally exhausted and distracted by the increasingly complicated web of lies he protected himself with.

Harry rarely recalled his dreams. Mostly he had nightmares, night terrors where he woke up screaming and thrashing. Since he began practicing occlumency things had got better. He'd still wake up screaming, or panting, or with his hand hurting after punching something, but those occurrences were rare. 

So when he became aware that he was inside of a snake, he immediately knew it wasn't a dream. 

It felt real. He felt like a snake. The cold floor against his scales, the sinuous motion of his body, the smell of dust and magic as he flicked his tongue. He had no control over any of it. He was an unwilling witness, like his visions of Voldemort…

Harry was seeing things from inside Nagini.

Snake vision was bizarre, worse and different from being a fox. Harry thought it looked sort of like infrared, where warm things stood out. In fact, he could see one up ahead at the end of the corridor they were in. It looked like a human, and Nagini wanted to bite him.

Too late, Harry realized where this was. When the man shouted and drew his wand, he realized who it was as the cloak he was wearing, useless against Nagini's senses, fell to the ground.

Harry woke up, scar burning, head pounding in agony.

"Dobby!"

"Harry Potter!"

"Go to the headmaster, tell him there's been an attack on Arthur Weasley! Now!"

Dobby vanished. 

Harry rubbed his face, gritting his teeth against the searing pain in his head. He could barely think. Ron's father was dead or dying. No one knew about the visions. Only Sirius. Harry picked up his wand, summoning his patronus. He had only had this described to him, but it would work. 

He distantly registered it was still a bird, then said, "Go to Sirius Black. Tell him there's been an attack on Mr. Weasley, and I had no choice."

The bird vanished in a sapphire blur. Dobby appeared next to him.

"Dobby told the headmaster. Dobby was sent to Professor McGonagall. Professor McGonagall is on her way."

"Thank you, Dobby," Harry said, digging through his trunk for a headache potion. He found one and downed it. "Sorry for waking you up."

Harry threw a robe over his pajamas and went down to the common room, blotting sweat from his face, closing his eyes, picturing a single, flickering flame in his mind, watching it slowly die out until there was nothing left.

He took a breath.

The Fat Lady swung open to reveal McGonagall in her tartan dressing gown, hair and glasses in disarray. 

"The headmaster needs to see you," she said. "The password is Fizzing Whizbees. We'll be joining you shortly."

"We?"

McGonagall was already walking away, so Harry got up and hurried to the headmaster’s office, saying the password and being carried up the stairs. The door was shut, and he heard voices from within. Harry knocked and the voices cut out as soon as the door opened. Harry avoided looking at the portraits of past headmasters and headmistresses. Fawkes was asleep on his perch. Dumbledore wasn't looking at him, staring off to the side.

"Harry, please have a seat. Dobby came to me with a strange message."

Harry sat down, looking at Fawkes.

He and Theo had been using legilimency on each other. Theo’s mind was like an icy pool, cool, reflective. Harry thought it was brilliant.

His goal, what he and Theo had been trying to teach themselves, was to let some emotions through, instead of the total blankness Harry’s occlumency had been. It turned his face into a mask, cold and distant, and it was obvious when he was doing it. Harry tried to find that balance, to let the fear and anxiety through. Confusion, too, though it was harder to fake emotions. They hadn’t managed yet to create false memories. The best they could do felt like daydreams, or imagination. It was hard to describe, but the tenor was very much off. 

So he looked at Fawkes, letting panic thrum through his body. 

“I had a dream,” Harry said. “Of a snake attacking Mr. Weasley. It was the snake I saw in the graveyard, Nagini.”

He could feel himself shaking. He let it happen.

“How did you see this?” Dumbledore asked. He still wasn’t looking at Harry, confirming Harry’s theory. 

“In a dream,” Harry said. “In my head, I suppose. I don’t know how dreams work, I haven’t taken Divination.”

“You misunderstand me,” Dumbledore said calmly. Harry suspected he was occluding, or maybe he really was this indifferent to the people he used. “I mean, can you remember where you were…positioned as you watched this attack happen? Were you perhaps standing beside the victim, or else looking down on the scene from above?”

“It was from the snake’s perspective.” Harry didn’t know if he could pull off an outright lie to Dumbledore, and in any case Dumbledore already knew. His behavior, his pointed questions, gave that away. 

Harry chanced a look at Dumbledore’s eyes, noticing the sharp, calculating look. He didn’t know if he had made the right choice, but Mr. Weasley’s life was important and he was tired and alone with a powerful wizard and a sleeping bird. 

“Is Arthur seriously injured?”

“Yes,” Harry said, exasperated. “It was Nagini, she’s deadly!”

Dumbledore moved with astonishing speed for a man his age. “Everard! Dilys!” The two portraits retreated into the backgrounds of their paintings, visiting their other frames, Harry assumed. 

Harry sat back, still looking at Fawkes, who had started to stir from beneath his wing. Dumbledore sent him off to give a warning, to who or what Harry didn’t know, and the phoenix was gone in a flash. Dumbledore tapped one of the silver instruments on his desk, and a snake of green smoke formed. 

“Naturally, naturally,” Dumbledore murmured, watching the smoke. “But in essence divided?”

The snake split into two, coiling around each other, which pleased Dumbledore somehow, and when he tapped the device again the smoke vanished. Harry went cold with terror and pushed it violently down. Whose essence was Dumbledore talking about? 

He was tired, Harry told himself, scared, confused, curious. He didn’t know what was going on. He looked around the room, noticed the other portraits were alert but pretending to be asleep. He saw Phineas Nigellus Black—sleeping—for the first time, vindicating Kreacher’s removal of the portrait years ago. Harry had no idea where he had been stored, but Phineas was a direct line into Grimmauld Place and, based on what Harry had seen and heard, the portraits obeyed Dumbledore. 

Everard came running back into view. “Dumbledore!”

“What news?”

Harry listened to the portrait explain how he yelled for someone, made some excuse how he heard something, and got Mr. Weasley help. Dilys came back too, and she reported he’d been taken to St. Mungo’s. 

“Minerva,” Dumbledore called out. “You may bring the children in now.”

McGonagall came in with all the Weasleys, troubled and confused in their pajamas. “Albus, what’s going on?”

“Arthur Weasley is currently at St. Mungo’s receiving treatment. I’m sure Molly already knows, given that excellent clock of hers…”

Dumbledore pulled out an old tea kettle and turned it into a portkey. Harry did not like where this was going. 

“What’s happened to dad?” Ginny asked, eyes wide. 

“Your father has been injured in the course of his work for the Order of the Phoenix,” Dumbledore said. “I’ll be sending you to the Burrow.”

“How are we getting there?” Fred asked. Like his siblings, he was pale and shaken. “Floo?”

“The Network is being watched. You’ll be taking a portkey.”

There was a flash of light, and a single feather appeared. Dumbledore caught it. It reminded Harry of his own wand core. Fawkes was Dumbledore’s phoenix, did he know which wands the feathers had ended up in? Did Ollivander tell him? It was another thing Harry had to assume, even if he didn’t know what it meant. 

“She knows they are out of bed. Minerva, go head her off…quickly, gather round.”

Harry stayed where he was as the Weasleys approached the portkey. “Harry, you as well.”

“I’m staying at the castle,” Harry said, not moving. He didn’t have any of his things with him, he wasn’t part of the Weasley family, and he did not want to be at the Burrow for the entire holiday. But Sirius could see him at the Burrow. He could actually go home for once, if he played it right. He was glad he made a habit of sticking everything in his trunk. Ron had no concept of personal space. 

“Harry, I must insist, before we have any other guests. Come along.”

Harry stood up and joined them. As Dumbledore counted down, for a second he met Harry’s eyes. His scar burst into pain, and a murderous rage Harry recognized as not his own threatened to overwhelm him. He cleared his mind—which never helped with the pain nor dried the tears welling in his eyes—and gave the headmaster a watery smile, before the portkey stole him away.