Chapter 20

Harry stood up, once Professor Flitwick had left, and handed out the books. Once that was done he said "I want to personally thank all of you for agreeing to help my friends and me. These books that I just gave you are copies of the books that are in my collection; they are now your possessions permanently, as my books do not have any copyright protections. I must warn you though that just reading the books will not adequately instruct you in Occlumency as the information contained inside of them are rather theoretical. So what I would like to do is gain your permission to test your shields after two weeks have passed; the way I would do so is to use what I know of Legilimency and test your defenses. This is the only legal way for a person to use Legilimency without a specific exemption from the Ministry. This will allow me to help you test out your mental shields and I will help you in improving them and perhaps even help you in some way if you come across an obstacle that you can't overcome. I will give an Oath that I will not use any information I find against you and will hold it in confidence. Now when I test your defenses I won't tell you in advance what information I'll be searching for, so it might be more difficult than you might assume." He paused and looked at them and said "if you have any questions concerning this and don't want the others to know of them, then you can find me after the DADA class I'm leading or at the Ravenclaw study period I'm also leading. If you have any questions for right now then please ask them." He paused then said "actually if you could introduce yourselves that would be great as I apparently don't know any of you, sorry."

One of the Slytherin prefects answered him saying "not a problem. My name is Robert Mohan my companions name is Gemma Farley."

The female Ravenclaw prefect stood up and said "my name is Lydia Harper and my fellow prefect is Nicolas Grimmett."

The male Hufflepuff prefect stood up and said "my name is Gabriel Trumant and my fellow 'puff is Camilla Senorix.

The Gryffindor prefect stood up and said "my name is Audrey Boardman and my fellow prefect is Livia Wilkes."

Harry stood up and said "good, as you may already know my name is Harry Potter. To set the record straight none of the books you may have read about me are true except for somehow surviving when my parents were murdered. In fact up until my 11th birthday I never knew about magic or all of this; as my guardians at the time were some of the worst possible people. In addition they are magic hating muggles; so all of the fantasy books that were purported to be about my life before here are completely false. Now onto why we're all gathered here; I recently learned about Occlumency before coming here and seeing as I am one of the magical people in the slight majority of people who receive the benefit of needing less sleep I have advanced quite rapidly in my studies compared to most of my classmates. In addition to the benefit of knowing Occlumency I have access to my family's library so I'm able to read ahead on almost any subject as well." He paused then asked "there is one more reason as well; do any of you know what an I.Q. test is?"

Robert Mohan, Gemma Farley, Camilla Senorix, Gabriel Trumant and Audrey Boardman shook their heads when he asked. Harry nodded and said "an I.Q. test is a test the muggles have developed; this test measures to see how good the learning ability and knowledge base of a person is and it stands for intelligence quotient. The average score is about 100 with a 20 point differential on either side. My I.Q. is about 175 so I learn rather quickly. With my intelligence coupled with access to my family library and the benefits of an eidetic memory from Occlumency I'm ranked in the top spot here and can teach DADA to my fellow classmates." He paused then said "oh one last thing; while we are studying in the room you can ask to borrow any of my books I have while we're there as I have linking books that are connected to my library at home."

Robert looked at him and asked "I do have one question for you." Seeing Harry gesture for him to continue he said "I want to know why you are going across House boundaries in having friends in the different houses as usually it takes until third or fourth year before students have friends outside of their own House."

Scratching the back of his head Harry said "well I started making friends with Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom on the train and we just continued it on from there. Neville is basically the lone Gryffindor in his year that actually wants to learn so he is a bit of an outcast. As for Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass, their father is a friend of mine as well as being my lawyer. They met with all of us on the train as well and after about a month and a half became closer to all of us instead of having to hang around the Slytherins in their year. Apparently that toe-rag Draco Malfoy has been trying to assert his dominance for their year and Daphne and Tracey really dislike him. Heck if it wasn't for him I might even be in Slytherin myself."

Audrey burst out saying "what do you mean about you might have been in Slytherin?"

"Well the Sorting Hat said I could have been in any of the Houses really; but the top three were Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. Apparently my ambition to become the best here is worthy of Slytherin, my desire of knowledge to further that goal is worthy of Ravenclaw and my bravery to defend myself or innocents is worthy of Gryffindor. Apparently I'm not really trusting so Hufflepuff was not quite up with the others."

Nicolas Grimmett murmured "yeah I can see that happening." Raising his voice he asked "You said you learned Occlumency recently right? Was there a specific reason or was it just being cautious?"

Harry smiled and said "I do have my reasons and one of them was I learned that Dumbledore and Snape routinely use Legilimency on the students here. I don't know if they still do, as apparently a code of conduct has been implemented here recently, but I know that they did so in the past."

Livia asked "are you sure about Dumbledore? I mean isn't he the leader of the Light? Why would he do something like that?"

Harry shrugged and said "I know for a fact that he did so, but as for his reasons for doing so, I can't really say; as for his title of Leader of the Light ... What does that exactly mean, being Light?"

Livia thought for a few seconds then said "well it means that he acts for the good of all and always for the betterment of the world and never kills anyone doesn't it?"

Harry looked at her and said "Um you might want to think about that as Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin all believed the same thing. The only thing that I can see that he's done that might lay claim to the title is his defeat of Grindelwald. It's interesting though that Grindelwald's favorite phrase is used by Dumbledore as well."

Camilla had a shocked look on her face as she asked "what phrase is that?"

"For the Greater Good, is the phrase used by both Grindelwald and Dumbledore" Harry replied.

Lydia looked around at her fellow prefects and said "well if those two know how to use Legilimency then I'm definitely learning Occlumency. Besides the side benefits of having a better memory and needing less sleep, I want my thoughts and memories to remain private." Seeing them all nod in agreement she looked at Harry and said "when do you want to test our barriers Harry?"

"Umm how about after the DADA class I run on Sunday two weeks from now? It ends at 1600 so I'll be there about fifteen minutes after the class ends. You can all come at once or singly, it doesn't really matter. What I'll be doing will only take a few seconds in the real world."

Robert looked around and said "I can do that easily so I guess we'll be seeing you there then Potter."

"One last thing that I wanted to reiterate before I go is that I'll start testing your defenses in two weeks so study and please prepare. It should only take at most two hours a day for those two weeks to get decent defenses." When they all nodded their heads in agreement Harry stood up and carried out his normal schedule for the rest of the day.

The next morning at breakfast Harry received two letters; one of them was from Samuel Greengrass-Davis. Reading it there he saw:

Harry thought back and realized that he had never replied to the first letter and mentally smacked his head in frustration as he had completely forgotten about it. Mentally vowing to never let this happen again he wondered what the various means the ward-ship could take place. He thought about it for awhile and eventually decided to talk to Hermione and see if she wanted to attend the meeting or not. In addition to this he also decided to ask her if she had any interest in attending the Ball with him. If so she would need to purchase some formal wear. Opening the second letter he saw:

Harry read the short letter in some puzzlement at what Knifebiter could have found. Shrugging he decided to have the appointment take place before he met with Samuel Greengrass-Davis. Mentally contacting Hedwig he said 'Hedwig I will have two letters for you to deliver shortly. Can you come here as I am currently in the Great Hall.'

'I'm on my way master.'

Harry then wrote out the two letters. The first said:

The second letter he wrote was:

As soon as he had finished the last letter to be sent he looked up and saw Hedwig just landing in front of him. Feeding her some bacon he said "here you go Hedwig. I need this letter to be delivered to Knifebiter and this one goes to Samuel Greengrass-Davis. Wait to see if there is a reply or not ok girl?" Hedwig bobbed her head and Harry tied off the aforementioned letters and watched her soar away. He then took the two letters and put them into his bag. Once everything was taken care of he went off to his first class and carried out his normal schedule.

About 1100 he received a message from Hedwig 'master Knifebiter has a return letter that I am carrying now. Samuel Greengrass-Davis did not so I'm on my way back to you as we speak.'

'Very good Hedwig; thank you and I look forward to seeing you soon.' Harry carried out his normal schedule and read the return missive which only said that an appointment had been set up for him to meet Knifebiter on the 21st at 1400 and if this was acceptable no reply was needed. Harry resumed his schedule until that night when only he and Hermione were in their common room. He looked at her and said "Hermione there are a couple things we need to talk about. The first thing is I need to know if you still want me to take you on as my ward. I am still willing to take you on as such, but only if that is your desire still."

"I do Harry. I never want to go back to those things that called themselves my parents. They cast me out and never wanted to see me again so they will receive their desire."

"Very well then; the second thing is I want to ask is, can you dance?"

"I can, as I took some dance lessons when I was younger, why do you ask?"

"Well I have been invited to the Ministry Yule ball and was wondering if you would like to come with me."

Hermione blushed furiously and stammered "iissss tthis like a date?"

"Yes it can be considered as such" Harry replied slightly blushing. "I will need to practice dancing before though so I was hoping we could practice instead of our normal workout routine. I hope that's ok with you."

"Sure. No problem, but where are we going to practice? We can't really practice in a classroom as there is no music there and dancing without music is almost impossible."

"I know of a room that we can use." Harry thought for a few seconds then said "hey how about this. Why don't we practice at night so we can continue working-out, as I know I would miss working-out. We would need to use my map to avoid the patrolling prefects but we would be safe in all other manners. It depends on you."

Hermione nibbled her bottom lip as she thought about it then sighed as she said "I guess we could do it at night. I can't believe that I'm endorsing this, but our schedule is pretty full right now. I suggest that we practice dancing every other night as I still want to study ahead; deal?'

"Deal; let me get my map and copy the spell for the cushioning charm so I don't hurt you when my feet step on yours." Harry found and copied the charm quickly and gathered his map and cloak. Studying the map he saw that the way was clear for them. Donning the cloak the two of them reached the room of requirement safely. Harry walked back and forth three times asking for a room where they could learn how to dance. The two of them entered the room and saw that it looked like a ballroom. On one side there was a lectern that had a book open on it. Walking over Harry read through the book quickly as it only had about ten pages in it. Once he was done he said "apparently the room will supply a mannequin for the both of us that will teach us how to dance the traditional type of dances that will be conducted at the Yule Ball. In addition it will provide a schematic of where our bodies should go while we are dancing."

Hermione's eyes brightened and said "oh this sounds so useful! I love magic."

The two of them then practiced dancing for three hours then returned to their common room. The two of them carried out their new schedule with alternating the dancing and studying ahead at night.

This continued on until December 6th. That morning when they had just finished training under the tutelage of Patricia she motioned for the group to stand before her. Taking out her wand she cast several privacy spells then said "alright then. As you may know tonight is the new moon which means we're having a gathering. All of us will be in attendance as we will be deciding on a new leader as well as how we're going to select them." She directed her gaze at Harry and said "Samuel said something about how you know of what's he planning and I hope that you can enlighten us."

Harry gulped nervously but said "well the way our ancestors did this was they cast a spell that allows magic itself to choose a group of people and we select the leader from that group. According to my journals the group will consist of a married couple above the age of 17, below 100 and were considered by magic to be the most trustworthy people in attendance. A new leader would be selected every seven years. The male led rituals that dealt with external matters and the female led rituals that dealt with internal matters."

Hermione said "that's a strange way to split it up isn't it? It's also a little sexist as well."

Harry shook his head and said "not really. Remember our religion is based on life and this world. Now physically males and females are quite different in their genitals. So using the logic of nature and the universe it makes sense. As for it being sexist not really as they are equal in all respects, they just have different specialties."