Choices and Consequences

Harry stood in the Room of Requirement on Monday evening, surveying the room. It looked fairly similar to when they had used it for meetings the previous year, and not all that dissimilar from how it normally looked for his training with John Christopher and Mad-eye Moody.

He'd invited all the members from last year to attend, with one addition, and was expecting the first arrivals in the next fifteen minutes, once they made their way from their last lesson of the day to the Great Hall for dinner and then up to the seventh floor.

"Don't worry, lad," Moody said from underneath his invisibility cloak, somewhere off to Harry's left. "Everything will be fine."

Harry just nodded and mentally reviewed his plan for the first meeting. He hoped there wouldn't be too much resistance to what he had in mind. He figured that with the continuing Death Eater attacks most of the students would be happy to learn something, rather than worrying about who was present.

In particular he was a little worried about how the others would react to the additional member of the group - Blaise Zabini. When he'd finally decided to start the group up again, the first thing that Harry had realised was that he needed to expand it and encourage a lot more people to attend. Given that it was no longer strictly banned as had been the case under Umbridge's reign it ought to have been less of a problem, but he understood that the underlying House rivalries would kick into full gear as soon as the Slytherin walked in.

Blaise had been mildly amused when Harry had approached him, and understood exactly the reasons for it. He was someone that the vast majority of the DA members already knew, and knew didn't side with Malfoy, so he was almost a neutral, but he was being used as a test case for their reactions, so that Harry could include other less well-known Slytherins in future meetings that he personally felt he could trust, without creating too much tension among the rest of the group. Harry expected some objections, but knew how he was going to deal with them.

Ginny and Hermione were the first to arrive, and they sat down with Harry on an armchair that popped into view and chatted for a few moments while others started arriving. By the time Ron arrived, ten minutes later, Harry counted all of the old members as present, and he was just waiting for Blaise to make his entrance.

It was only a minute or so later that the Slytherin swept into the room, pausing for a moment as he looked around the gathering to identify those present, and with a quick nod to Harry settled himself down slightly apart from the others.

"What are you doing here?" Ron burst out, to no one's surprise, and was backed up by Zacharias Smith.

"Yeah! What's a Slytherin doing here?"

"I was invited," Blaise responded calmly, smoothing down the front of his black school robes, paying particular attention to the Slytherin crest on his badge.

"What? Who the hell invited you?" Smith yelled, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the room was small enough that everyone could have heard him if he'd spoken in a normal tone.

Harry stood, and a few of the DA members looked on in anticipation as they expected him to throw the Slytherin out of the room.

"I invited him," he said sternly, crossing his arms in front of him. "Does anybody have a problem with that?"

"But he's a Slytherin," Ron objected.

Harry uncrossed his arms and strode forward to peer at the front of Blaise's robes, deliberately and obviously staring at the Slytherin badge on the front.

"Why, so he is, Ron. How remarkable that I didn't notice that."

Ron blushed at Harry making fun of him for such an obvious statement. "He can't be trusted," he said with finality.

"I think that this should be our first lesson of the evening," Harry suggested. "How many of you remember the Sorting Hat's songs the past two years?"

A murmur of assent circulated the room.

"Good. Then you'll recall how pointedly it suggested that the four Houses had to work together, won't you?

"This year it took the drastic step of refusing to Sort the first years - an unprecedented event - why? Have any of you even thought about it?"

He looked from face to face around the room and found that many of his contemporaries were unable to meet his gaze.

He snorted.

"Anyone?"

There was a brief pause as everybody turned to Hermione in expectation of an explanation.

"By splitting us up, it only perpetuates the existing rivalries," she suggested. "Not just Slytherin versus Gryffindor and so on, but it intrinsically keeps pureblood versus Muggle-born at the heart of House ideology. Slytherin was known for wanting to teach purebloods only, and there are enough purebloods sorted into that House with that mindset that it has become the House ideology," she told them all.

"That's close enough," Harry acknowledged, and turned back to the subject at hand.

"The point is that just because Blaise is a Slytherin, that doesn't make him a pureblood bigot, nor does it make him untrustworthy." He looked around at the group. "A fair number of you were in our first NEWT Defence class when we had to duel Silverwood, weren't you? You must have seen the way that Blaise and I worked together to fight him. Bear that in mind if you are ever worried about him not being trustworthy - Blaise trusted me to defend him, and I would have done the same. He stays."

Ron put his head down when Harry tried to catch his eye, but Smith glared at him defiantly.

"If you don't like it, Zach, you're free to leave," he said, waving a hand towards the door.

The disgruntled Hufflepuff hesitated for a moment, but then shook his head.

"Good. I don't care which House you're from. As long as I trust you, you're welcome here.

"Now that we've got that understood, I want you all to know that you are free to bring friends along who weren't members last year, preferably fourth years and above - no offence intended Dennis. I want to get a fair few more people to these meetings so that we have a core that can really defend themselves if required. I've been offered some expert assistance, so don't worry too much that there will be too many people here.

"On that subject, I can also reassure you that you won't have to sign anything if you want to come along," he looked across at Marietta, who smiled shyly.

Hermione had sorted out the hex and the Ravenclaw had dumped the balaclava she'd been wearing on the Hogwarts Express. Harry had needed to persuade her to come along, but she had apparently decided to at least give it a try.

"The only criteria is that I must be able to trust whoever you bring," he continued, looking around at the faces in front of him. "If I say someone can't join, then that's the end of it, no arguing. You're here to learn how to defend yourselves primarily, but you should all be aware that, when the time comes that the castle is attacked or we have the opportunity to deal with Voldemort and his Death Eaters, the school will need people that can be fully trusted to act. We're at war, and we need to be prepared in case the war comes to us."

"I suppose you'll be leading us, will you," Smith snorted.

"That's not my decision to make. That will be Professor Dumbledore's. I can assure you that we're not going to be concentrating on the sort of stuff that will necessarily be on the Defence Against the Dark Arts NEWT exam, so if that's the only reason you're here, you're probably wasting your time - you've got official Defence classes for that."

Still nobody left the room.

"Okay then," Harry changed tack. "Let's see what we can do with today's meeting now we've got a few things established."

He looked around the room too see if he could detect where Moody was lurking, but gave it up as a bad job for the moment. He was clearly being quiet and keeping still, since Harry couldn't hear the sound of his wooden leg on the floor.

"Professor Moody would be very proud of me, because I'm starting to become paranoid - what was it he used to say?"

A chorus of "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" greeted him in response, and Harry sniggered slightly, knowing how much Moody would be enjoying this display.

"Ah, yes, constant vigilance, that was it," he mused. "Well that's the thing here. Moody was right. You need to know all your possible escape routes, and where any potential ambush points in any situation are likely to be. You never know who might be watching you, waiting for their opportunity to kill you. So, how do you find out if anyone is following you, unseen?"

"You mean like under an Invisibility Cloak or something?" Ron asked.

"Exactly. What if I were to tell you that there was someone in this room right now, watching all of you from underneath an Invisibility Cloak?"

"What?" an excited babble started among the students.

"Where, Harry?" Ginny asked, looking around.

"That's for you to find out," he smirked. "What spells could you use to detect someone?"

"You could use the summoning charm," Dean Thomas suggested.

"Good - but you need to have a general idea of where your potential assailant might be. Try it, Dean," Harry suggested.

Dean stood up and pointed his wand towards one corner of the room. "Accio! Accio Invisibility Cloak!" he called out, but nothing happened in the direction his wand was pointed.

Harry did notice a little movement out of the corner of his eye though, as Moody shifted to take a firm grasp of his cloak to ensure it wasn't summoned away from him.

Dean sat down again, a little disheartened.

"Okay, good idea Dean, but if the target knows the spell is coming, there are ways to prevent it from working - not just a Shield charm, which would give away their location, but other more mundane ways, like holding onto the cloak extremely tightly."

He thought he hurt a grunt from behind him, but elected to ignore it.

"Okay, let's try something else," he suggested. "Anyone else got any ideas?"

"You could try a tripping hex, or a ticking jinx," Ron suggested.

"Want to give them a try?" Harry asked, and Ron stood up.

He cast the tripping spell first, and although it looked a pretty good spell, it didn't come into contact with anything. Similarly, his shouted "rictustempra" found no target, and he sat down again with a grimace.

"Good spells, Ron," Harry grinned at his friend, "but again they're not much use if you don't know exactly where your target is. Luna?"

The Ravenclaw had stood up to attract Harry's attention. "I think a nice talcum powder spell would work."

This garnered a lot of laughs. Clearly most of those present felt that this was just Luna being her usual dreamy self, and suggesting something totally ridiculous, but Harry wondered whether that was actually the case.

"Quiet everyone!" he insisted. "Okay, Luna, want to give it a go?"

She smiled beatifically at him and drew her wand. She pointed it high in the air towards the far corner of the room and shouted "sprussotalco", slowly spinning around the room as a jet of white powder spewed out of the end of her wand and began to settle around the room.

The giggling and muttering started up again as she completed her slow twirl, then blew on the end of her wand and sat down again.

To the astonishment of the DA members there was a clear outline of a man standing in the corner, about eight feet behind Harry's left shoulder, looking rather like a white bed sheet covered him. Luna's spell had simply deposited talcum powder all around the room, and where it settled it stayed, clearly identifying Moody's position.

At the same time, it had settled on all the students as well, and those that most of it landed on didn't immediately notice Luna's success as they were busy complaining about the fine powder that covered them.

"Very well done, Luna," Harry complimented her. "Not the most orthodox of methods, I must say, but it certainly worked. Now, Dean, would you like to try that summoning charm again?"

"Don't bother," Moody growled as he removed the cloak. "You've made a right mess of my invisibility cloak, young woman," he muttered at Luna. "Well done!"

Luna flushed with the praise and beamed brightly at Moody.

"I know you've all seen him before, but I don't believe you've been properly introduced. Please welcome Professor Moody - the real Professor Moody - who has kindly agreed to help out with the DA meetings," Harry informed them.

"Just call me 'Moody', everyone. None of this Professor business now - I'm definitely retired," the ex-Auror growled in greeting.

Most of the group hadn't spoken to the 'real' Moody before, but they found him pretty much indistinguishable from the 'fake' Moody that had taught them two years before.

"Right. Umm, does anyone know how to get rid of all this, though." Harry asked, and Luna drew her wand again and performed a simple "evanesco" to dispose of the excess talc.

"Well that seemed to work quite well," Harry noted, "but let's try and tackle this from another perspective: what do you do if you don't know exactly where your potential assailant is hidden? What if they are hiding around a corner, or out of sight somewhere else, inside a packing crate or something like that?"

They looked from one to another, but only Hermione could come up with an alternative.

"You could try the Revealing charm," she suggested. "Does that work on humans as well?"

Moody nodded in approval. "Of course it does."

Hermione smiled. "The incantation is 'ostendo', which basically means 'reveal yourself', and it can be cast over a pretty wide area as long as the caster knows generally what he is looking for. If they don't, they might find a whole load of things revealed that they weren't expecting, especially around Hogwarts, where everything is enchanted."

"Hogwarts, a History?" Harry asked, and chuckled at Hermione's vigorous nod.

"Okay then," he addressed the class, I want you to split up into groups of three and stand in a line so that the people at either end have their view of each other blocked by the person in the middle." He demonstrated by asking Hermione to stand on the opposite side of Moody.

"When you cast the spell in the correct direction, it should effectively force the hidden person to step to one side, revealing themselves."

He set himself Hermione and Moody up in a line and asked Hermione to cast the spell. Harry was nudged slightly to one side as the spell sprang out from his friend's wand and spread a bright light across the room, making him visible from behind Moody's greater bulk.

"Keep alternating the person in the middle acting as the block," he instructed them, "so that you all get plenty of chance to practice."

Remembering some of Fred and George's antics the previous year, he also added a caution. "Make sure you leave plenty of room between groups so that you're not trying to cast the spell on the wrong area."

They split up into threes, and Harry noted that Hermione immediately paired up with Blaise and motioned for Ginny to join them, solving one of Harry's minor concerns. He hoped that the more Slytherins he could get involved, the less of a problem it would be.

"Good start, Potter," Moody complimented him, and wandered off around the groups looking at their technique, as he attempted to dust down his invisibility cloak.

Harry also started to watch the groups practicing, and found that he enjoyed being back in the routine of teaching a class. He stopped now and again to offer words of advice, when it looked as though someone was struggling with the spell, and made sure to spend a good amount of time with each group.

The group he spent longest with was the one of the two Creevey brothers and Ron. Dennis was having particular difficulty with the spell, and Harry took some time out to go through the mechanics of it with him.

Finally the time came round to end the session, and Harry blew his whistle to attract their attention.

"Very good, everyone. I'll spread the word that we are accepting new members for the next meeting, same time on Thursday evening, and hopefully we'll have a few new faces around. For starters, we'll go back over a couple of things we did last year, including the Patronus for those of you that struggled with it before, and if everyone can keep up, we can start learning some more new stuff," he announced.

At his words, they gave a brief cheer, then started to file out, leaving Ginny with Harry alone. She stepped up to him to give him a quick kiss.

"That was really good, Harry. Where did you learn that spell?" she asked.

"Oh, it was in one of the books that Dumbledore recommended I got for Defence class. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be used in quite that way though - the book suggested using it on enchanted parchments and things like that rather than on people, but it seemed to work pretty well. I was a bit surprised that Hermione knew it, though I should have known better," he grinned in reply, as the two of them walked back to Gryffindor Tower, Moody trailing in their wake.

The rest of the week passed by fairly quickly. Harry's training with John Christopher was going well, and his Occlumency was improving yet further. He'd moved on to some of the basic Legilimancy skills as well, and John was pleased with his progress. He supplied Harry with some potions that were supposed to help him focus, so that he could get more out of the lessons, but Harry didn't really notice much effect from them.

The elemental magic lessons with Professor Gaarder were also going fairly smoothly, though very much taxing Harry's endurance. Gaarder had moved on from creating objects to transmuting them into other forms, and Harry struggled with the length of time that he needed to concentrate and focus his magic for the transmutations to work properly.

Of course, he hadn't expected it to be easy to turn lead into gold, as Gaarder was having Harry attempt, but he couldn't help but feel it was impossible and that it was supposed to be impossible.

After one such lesson, he vented his frustration, but Gaarder just met it stoically, reminding Harry that he had achieved a lot in a short space of time.

"Some of these things have come very easy to you," he said nonchalantly. "In this case, it does not. Not everything should be simple, Mister Potter. For this particular task, only the most powerful and skilled wizards are able to make the transmutation permanent, and I expect that if you are to be able to achieve this it will take you a great amount of effort.

"However," he continued, "if you can achieve this particular task, I am convinced that you will find other forms of transmutation quite simple by comparison."

Harry chafed a little at the task he'd been set, and Gaarder's continual pushing of him, but this was exactly the level of skill that he had wanted to learn, and if he were to defeat Voldemort, he would have to continue to apply himself to it.

As it was, the Dark Lord's attacks had continued throughout the week, and each morning's newspaper brought news of murders perpetrated across the country and the Dark Mark in evidence over the victims' houses. The paper called on the Ministry to take more concerted action in dealing with suspected Death Eaters, but the only arrests that had been made had been as a result of Minister Fudge's new laws.

Both Arabella Figg and Mundungus Fletcher had been apprehended by Aurors known to favour the Minister's line, and subjected to questioning under Verisaterum. They had admitted to being members of the Order of the Phoenix, and promptly shipped off to Azkaban.

This annoyed Harry when he read about it in the Daily Prophet, where it had been relegated to a sidebar on an inside page. The Ministry had spent the whole summer prevaricating over what to do with the Death Eaters they had caught at the Department of Mysteries in June, and it had taken four months to get them to trial, while people that were actively aiding the fight against Voldemort had been bundled out in a matter of days.

He suspected that Lucius Malfoy's status as one of the Minister's cronies had delayed the trials, especially given Fudge's apoplexy at discovering that Dumbledore had managed to get the trials run behind his back. It was that sort of thing that Harry admired Dumbledore for - when the time was right, he was willing to put aside the need to curry favour with people in order to take a stand and ensure that justice was done. Much like when he had appeared at Harry's own trial a year ago, he had picked this as a moment to intervene, no doubt judging that the costs of not doing so would be too great.

It was in one of Harry's frustrated moods that he remembered the book that Remus and the twins had given him for his birthday and one evening, after finishing all his classes, he picked the book out of his trunk and found a quiet and unobtrusive corner of the library to take a good look at it, hoping that he wouldn't be disturbed.

The first thing that Harry noticed was that the book was written in a very strange dialect. It was English, all right, but it was so old that a lot of the words were spelled considerably differently than in modern books, and it took him a while to get used to it. The twins had speculated that Godric Gryffindor himself had actually written the original text, and given the archaic tone of the writing, Harry wasn't in the least bit surprised.

The text had obviously been copied though, since the paper it was written on was relatively new - it was aged a little and was yellowing, but certainly wasn't as fragile as he would expect of something a thousand years old. In addition, the text was printed, rather than hand-written. He didn't know when the magical equivalent of the printing press had been invented but he was fairly sure that it hadn't been around when Hogwarts was founded.

It was also annotated, and a thick wad of notes was included at the back of the book. The annotations seemed to be mostly in Fred and George's writing, though there were also some comments in a hand that Harry didn't recognise. Given what Remus had told him, he suspected it was his Father's, but he had nothing to compare it against to be sure. The notes folded into the back were all in the unknown handwriting, but had a brief comment from Remus, identifying them as the Marauders' notes on the book.

The notes started off as a general pre-amble about how the Founders had needed to set aside a special place for their students to learn in peace, away from both the Muggle population and the wizarding world, and how closely they had guarded their refuge. Harry figured that this would be very similar to how Hogwarts, a History described the beginnings of the school, but having never read it, he would have to ask Hermione.

The first Chapter described how the Founders had used their magic to create a living, breathing castle that was sentient in many ways. They had infused it with the strength and magic that each of them had possessed, and had set up a way for the most powerful witches and wizards of each era to tap into that magic. The catch was that anyone who attempted to do so had to have the best interests of the school at heart, rather than looking to use the power for their personal benefit.

Those who tried to use the power for their own ends would probably be able to siphon some of it off, according to the book, but only with long term consequences to their health.

Alongside this warning, another unknown hand had scrawled 'no side effects yet', which made Harry chuckle as he turned the page.

Surprisingly, the next section actually gave details about how to conduct the ritual that would tap into Hogwarts' power. Harry felt a chill run down his spine at the thought of performing it himself, but he wasn't sure whether it was fear or excitement that he felt. He closed the book abruptly and stared into the air in front of him as he digested the information the book provided.

'Had his Father and the other Marauders attempted this?' he wondered.

Fred and George's comments on it seemed to be more in the way of observations of things that made more sense having read the book, such as Dumbledore's apparent omniscience, and the movement of the staircases, and how the Room of Requirement established its presence, so he assumed that they hadn't gotten too heavily involved in it. He really needed to speak to Remus and find out what he and his friends had been up to when they were teenagers that had given them such an extensive knowledge of Hogwarts that they could create the Marauders' Map.

Harry was a little worried, too, and he sat there for some time considering what he had read. It was only when Madam Pince shook him by the shoulder and informed him that she was closing up the library that he realised how long he'd been there, and he muttered a brief excuse, then hid the book under his robes and dashed off back to the common room.

For once there were quite a few people still up and about despite the late hour, and Ginny had waited up for him.

"Where've you been?" she asked as he pushed his way back in through the portrait hole.

"In the library. I lost track of time."

"I thought maybe you were in another detention with Snape," she said with a chuckle.

"No, not this time. Though I don't think he gets quite as much of a kick out of putting us into detention when we have to work on our schoolwork rather than getting one of his nasty punishments like cleaning the floor of the potions dungeon.

"I was busy reading the book that Remus and the twins gave me for my birthday. It's really interesting. I need to owl them and ask them some questions though," he added.

They spent a short while lounging together in a comfy armchair while Harry explained quietly what the book was about. To start with Ginny had been a little upset, no doubt reminded of the way that Tom Riddle's diary had managed to possess her and make her do things against her will, but Harry pointed out that this had apparently been used before, successfully, and reassured her that he wasn't planning on doing anything with the information until he'd spoken to Remus and to Fred and George about what they had actually used from the book.

Eventually, they decided that it was time to head for bed, but before doing so, Harry risked the wrath of the caretaker and jogged up to the Owlery to send Hedwig off with a short note to the twins asking about the book.

Hedwig, while pleased to see Harry, was a little annoyed that she had been neglected for most of the term so far, and expressed her displeasure by nipping Harry on the ear as he greeted her. Having a message to delivery to London mollified her a little though, and she set off into the cool night air with enthusiasm.

The next day was cold and drizzly, and the typical November weather imposed itself on the castle and it's surroundings. It was typical of this time of year, Harry mused, that just when the non-magical world celebrated the defeat of an attempted coup by lighting bonfires and launching fireworks into the sky, nature did its utmost to dampen those celebrations. The light, misty, drizzle hung in the air as Harry trudged back across the grounds from visiting Hagrid.

The half-giant had been a little upset that Harry had decided not to take Care of Magical Creatures at NEWT level, so he'd had to promise that he would still visit from time to time. On the other hand, most of the other Gryffindors had elected to take the subject, and the classes were apparently a lot more pleasant now that the only Slytherin still taking the subject was Pansy Parkinson. Hermione had reported that she was a lot less obnoxious without the whole of her year to back her up.

For once Harry hadn't had to endure any of Hagrid's rock cakes, though he was sure it would take ages for the House-elves to get Fang's slobber out of his robes. Hagrid had been too busy recently re-assuring some of the more timorous creatures in the Forbidden Forest and keeping peace between his half-brother Grawp and the resident herd of centaurs to return to his attempts at baking, for which Harry was thankful. As he walked back towards the castle he greeted his fellow sixth years heading in the other direction - towards their Magical Creatures class.

Free from Hogwarts classes for the majority of the afternoon, he headed up to the Room of Requirement to meet John Christopher for another scheduled training session.

He pushed open the door and was assaulted by an unusual and rather pungent smell. John was sat at a workbench stirring a cauldron, which reminded Harry of the potions lessons they had done together during the summer.

"Potions again, John?" Harry asked as he approached the broad-shouldered man.

John looked up at Harry's surprised expression and smiled briefly.

"Not for teaching you with, this time," he grinned. "Hopefully these should help you with your Occlumency."

Harry looked curiously at the rack of vials that John had lined up on the workbench, the pale purple colour of the liquid inside seeming to shimmer somewhat under the lights.

"I was just finishing the last batch, actually," John noted as he tipped a small amount of the purple concoction from his small pewter cauldron into an empty vial.

He gathered the vials together and secured them with stoppers, then tied them together in a bundle and wrapped them in a wad of cotton wool and handed them to Harry.

"I want you to take one of these a week," he advised. "I'm hoping it will solve one or two problems."

"What are they? What sort of problems?" Harry asked, pulling one of the vials out of its package and holding it up to the light.

"This is a potion that I developed myself, based entirely on natural ingredients. It should have two effects: firstly it should help relieve the nightmares you've been having, which along with your own attempts to reduce the likelihood of some of those horrors actually ever occurring, should help you get more sleep and make you more alert and able to deal with your normal lessons and those that Gaarder and I are giving you."

Harry nodded, seeing the sense in that, but wondering why the potion hadn't been available for Madam Pomfrey to give him instead of the Dreamless Sleep one.

"The second effect," John continued, "is that it should also help your concentration and focus more generally, which will provide something of a boost to your Occlumency skills.

"The side-effects are that, in the shorter term, it might make your mental defences a little weaker, because the clarity of your focus will be more difficult to direct until you get used to it. Unlike the Dreamless Sleep potion, this is neither addictive nor toxic in cumulative doses, it is however, extremely dangerous to take more than the specified dosage at any one time."

Harry eyed the vial warily.

"Oh it's quite safe in such small doses," John assured him. "But that's one reason why I'm asking you to take just one per week."

Harry nodded and stashed the package of vials in a pocket on the inside of his cloak, then hung his cloak on a stand that appeared before him.

"So, let's get down to our lesson," John suggested, seeing that Harry was ready for him. He waved a hand, probably unnecessarily, and the workbench and all the potion-making paraphernalia disappeared.

An hour and a half later, during which Harry's mental and physical defences were pushed to their limits, they called it a day, both exhausted from their efforts. Although John had started using Legilimancy to try and unsettle Harry whilst they were duelling before, this was the first time in more than month that Harry had been able to overcome the dual-pronged attack, which made him feel as though he were finally on the road to recovery from his nightmares and visions.

John prompted him to take one of the potions that night, and advised that they would work exclusively on Harry's Occlumency the next day, and Fabian Gaarder took his place.

"Good to see you back on form, Mister Potter," the grey-haired older wizard noted. "Perhaps you will now be able to concentrate properly on your studies," he reprimanded gently.

Harry nodded in acceptance of the rebuke, and paid good attention to Gaarder for the next hour or so, despite his fatigue.

"Much better, Mister Potter," Gaarder approved after witnessing Harry's transformation of a lead bar into smaller granules of lead that broke away. "Your grasp of transmutation is becoming firmer. I have high hopes for you, despite your occasional lapses in concentration."

Gaarder had broken down Harry's task into chunks once again, so he wasn't now trying to turn the lead bar straight into a gold one, but was undertaking smaller tasks that he would eventually pull together to form the longer process. After three successive successful attempts at disintegrating the lead bar, Gaarder called a halt to the lesson and complimented him on his progress.

"Good, good. See, it is not so difficult as you imagined, eh? I think we continue this progress and soon you will be able to do this without too much trouble," he noted.

Harry looked up at him with a little scepticism. Even the smaller task of breaking the lead bar down had forced him to pull all his magic together and focus it strongly for a good few minutes before he had any success at all, and he had broken out in a sweat halfway through his first successful attempt. He wasn't so sure it was as easy as his tutor was making out, but at least he'd achieved something today.

"Well, I think we can carry on with this later in the week," Gaarder continued. He sniffed the air. "For now though, I think you need to shower."

Harry laughed out loud at the unexpected sense of humour as he left the Room of Requirement and headed back to Gryffindor Tower. He had been worked hard by Gaarder over the past few months, and had seen little sign of amusement from him, so to suddenly discover it was a mild shock.

He was glad to feel that things were becoming more normal now that he had gotten over the worst of his nightmares. Schoolwork once again started to become less of a chore, especially the areas that he'd covered with his tutors, so Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration and Potions seemed to come to him fairly easily, the latter much to Snape's discomfort.

Harry had found it strange to hear compliments towards him from Snape's lips during Potions classes, even if they were few and far between, but it was even more strange that without Malfoy in the class he no longer stooped to singling the Slytherins out as good examples.

The next couple of weeks passed pretty quickly, and although he made progress with both John and Professor Gaarder, Harry was a little frustrated that the progress wasn't astounding. Even when he thought he'd gotten the best of his tutors, they were able to point out ways that he could improve or where he had let himself become vulnerable, and he started feeling as though he was faced with an impossible task to make himself totally impenetrable from Voldemort.

The potions that John had given him helped his focus sharpen immensely, but rather than being able to use that to his advantage, he found that John would place him under greater and greater pressure, no doubt to test his limits.

On the other hand, the DA was becoming a roaring success. Some of the original members had been less than welcoming of the newer attendees, particularly when he introduced Irene and Matthias, the two Slytherin prefects, and Harry resolved to speak to Ron privately about the matter at some point, as he was one of the more vocal of those hostile to the Slytherins.

For the most part the sessions had gone really well, though. They had taken two sessions to review what Harry had taught them the previous year, bringing the newcomers up to speed to a certain degree, but which also acted as a refresher for those who'd let their Defence slip over the intervening months.

In his regular classes, the only surprise was that Professor Silverwood warned them in advance that they would be doing something of a practical test at some point in the coming weeks, to see how well they had learned their work on the counter-curses and strategies for getting into treasure troves, and that they would each have a casket to open using those skills.