Harry Potter was very different from the shy, mediocre student he presented to the world. In the beginning his underachieving had been honest, he had just entered and entirely new world where nothing made sense after all and he had been understandably confused by how nonsensical everything was. By the time he had oriented himself in his new world Ron was really his only friend and if he was honest with himself he had simply fallen back on old habits and made sure to perform at around the same as Ron.

It had honestly been difficult to keep his work at Ron's level, while Harry's understanding of theory was probably about as lacking as Ron's, at least in those early days, the spell-casting itself just seemed to come naturally. It had taken him about five minutes to discover that this was not in fact normal. That was far from reassuring when he had spent the first decade of his life being derided as a freak by is only living relatives, he did not want to repeat that experience in the society where he felt he finally belonged. When he cast a spell it was as though he had already learnt how to cast it and was just refreshing his memory. Harry followed habit and instinct and kept his skills hidden.

At the end of his second year at Hogwarts Professor Dumbledore had, seeming unknowingly, solved the mystery for Harry by informing him that Voldemort had transferred some of his powers to Harry when he had tried to kill him. Since then he had practiced every spell he could whenever he had spare time, he asked Hermione and even searched the library himself for every useful spell he could find and then went through them all at a prodigious rate.

Harry's third year was a turning point in his life. It had fundamentally changed his friendship with both Ron and Hermione, when Ron refused to talk to Hermione after the disappearance of Scabbers and his terrible attitude towards her until the rat had been found had shown him a side of his best mate he hadn't seen since first year. It was that in conjunction with the Firebolt fiasco which had changed his friendships, when Hermione went behind his back to McGonagall about the Firebolt he had been angry. He loved flying, sure it was a connection to his father who was apparently a great flyer but it was more than that to him, to the boy who grew up in the cupboard under the stairs it was freedom and if his housemates would like and respect him more for flying on the Quiddich team then he would happily do it. When his Nimbus had been destroyed he had been devastated not because it was one of the best brooms around, nor because he couldn't play Quiddich, not even because he couldn't fly (after all he still could as the school brooms while bad were free to use) but because his broom showed that he wasn't trapped that he could fly anywhere any time. After he had calmed down he realised that Hermione was his best friend. She had tried to keep him safe even knowing that he would be angry with her for it. Harry apologised to her the next day and confessed that she was his best friend, something which had only been proven further the next year.

Learning spells went exceptionally well except in third year especially after he discovered the Room of Requirement with the help of Dobby who came to see him one day to tell him that he was now employed in Hogwarts, after the mind numbing terror of Dobby possibly trying to help him had passed he asked if the elves knew of anywhere he could practice, expecting an especially large out of the way classroom and was instead rewarded with the Room of Requirement. His spell practice was not nearly so successful in one case, sadly the one spell he really needed that year, the patronus, seemed to be one Voldemort could not cast which resulted in Harry spending almost a term learning the spell and eventually succeeding despite the fact that most adults could not cast it.

It had also been in third year when Harry had discovered the mind arts. It had been an offhand remark by the twins of all people which had first roused his curiosity, they had been foiled in one of their pranking endeavours by Snape and had commented that it seemed as though he could read minds. What followed was a frantic sprint to the Room of Requirement fueled by the existential dread of Snape being able to read his mind. He was not comforted by what he found. Asking the Room to provide information on mind reading provided information which at first seemed reassuring, there were a few books most of which seemed to dismiss such an idea. Then he saw a reference to legilimency. Asking the Rooms about that instead provided a several books, all ancient foreboding in appearance, which assured the reader that mind reading was impossible however the 'perusal and manipulation of thoughts, emotions, and memories' was very much possible. He was not reassured. Naturally the Room could not tell him if Snape himself was capable of legilimency but it didn't matter he had to learn it, and the counter of course.

The mind arts were clearly something Voldemort knew well, he learnt them with a speed that was certainly unnatural. Occlumency was the more difficult of the two of those precious few who had even heard of it fewer still learned it, mostly the old families, and of those who learned it most were only capable of any meaningful defence when they were aware of the intrusion. The books the Room provided assured Harry it took years to learn even that much and at least a decade to reach a mastery of occlumency which would provide constant defence. By the end of his third year he could almost constantly occlude his mind. Interestingly while occlumency was a counter to legilimency that was neither its original purpose nor its only use. Fundamentally occlumency is simply using magic internally to actively control your own mind, therefore a master occlumens is essentially immune to almost all mental effects including; legilimency, the confundus, cheering, calming, and compulsion charms, obliviation, and potions it also helps in resisting the Imperius curse. Unless you are a master occlumens it is essentially worthless however as you would need to be aware that you are about to have something like that used on you before it is in order to start occluding your mind. The Rooms actually helped in learning occlumency without a legilimens to help since the Room penetrated its user's mind in order to know what to become, thereby providing the mental intrusion to defend against.

Harry desperately threw himself into learning occlumency in order to protect his mind, but he also learnt legilimency along the way. It was not until after the Yule Ball in fourth year, when he had mastered occlumency, that Harry really threw himself into learning legilimency. The 'perusal' part came to him easily and once experimentation on non-magical animals reassured him that he wouldn't accidentally lobotomise anyone he started practicing on muggleborns. It wasn't that he ahd suddenly become a bogot but there was a likelihood approaching zero of any of them having heard about or even being able to find out about legilimency and while the same was true of the half-bloods and purebloods (who weren't heirs or heiresses) there was always the possibility that they had access to a library containing the sorts of restricted texts which mentioned the mind arts.

With total control over his own mind and already significant and growing skill in legilimency which could be performed, weakly, wandlessly the summer after his fourth year was the best he had ever had. Even though Hermione, the two of them growing closer after Ron's betrayal, was the only one of his friends who he stayed in contact with other than his friends telling him that they couldn't tell him anything. After the first week Hermione had called him on the landline, which had gone much better than Ron's doomed attempt a previous summer, she had explained that Dumbledore had told everyone not to write to Harry about anything. Naturally Hermione was not about to disobey an authority she actually respected so she hadn't written and had simply called him to tell him everything that was going on. The knowledge that the Prophet, and by extension the Ministry, was trying to discredit both himself and Dumbledore had certainly annoyed him he resolved to ignore it and focus on enjoying his regular calls with Hermione and his highly entertaining legilimency practice.

The Dursleys had made fantastic targets for his practice since by the summer holidays he could expertly peruse thoughts, memories, and emotions he focused on manipulating them. His first experiment was making them all afraid of him, they were already afraid of his 'mass murderer' godfather so building on that fear by filling their minds with fear whenever they looked at him and going deeper to reinforce the connection between him and fear in their minds.

It took a week for them to flee at the sight of him.

It was after that when he learned how much easier it was to build on something already present rather than trying to add something new to their minds. When he learned that he took advantage of their fear to find and read as many books on muggle psychology as he could get his hands on in the library and local bookstores, he knew he could always pass it off as him trying to work through his grief for Cedric. Occlumency seemed to have no basis in muggle psychology at all but the manipulation aspect of legilimency certainly did. It was then that he learned about his new idol; Pavlov.

After that the holidays were hell for the Dursleys as Harry experimented with what he read. He managed to nearly swap Vernon and Dudley's food intake with Petunia's by making Vernon and Dudley feel sick at the sight of food and even worse whenever they ate and Petunia feel intense pleasure and happiness whenever she ate. Over the weeks Harry learned to manipulate the emotions and feeling of not just the Dursleys but also the neighbors expertly. He had known for a long time that growing up with the Dursleys had broken his moral compass in some irreparable way but the thrill he felt at invading and manipulating the minds of others was something else entirely. He found himself fantasising about moulding the minds of his prettiest classmates to his will, and that thought brought him to thinking about Crouch Jr's lesson on the Imperius curse, watching Hermione's intelligent eyes glaze over with look of contentment and pleasure was possible the sexiest thing he had ever seen and then he got to see the same thing happen to all the other Gryffindor and Slytherin girls in his year. It was thinking back to that lesson that he realised what he was going to use his new ability in mind arts to do.

Now he was waiting to be picked up by Dumbledore after fending off two dementors and being inundated with a confusing and contradictory succession of owls it seemed that he was summoned to a hearing to decide if he would have his wand snapped for using underage magic outside of school and in front of a muggle, his cousin, the fact that this particular muggle already knew about the magical world, and that the magic used was in self-defence did not seem to be considered relevant to the Improper Use of Magic Office.

The Dursleys had gone out for some kind of event which seemed completely uninteresting to Harry. The empty house creaked around him. The pipes gurgled. Harry lay there in a kind of stupor, thinking of nothing, suspended in misery. Then, quite distinctly, he heard a crash in the kitchen below. He sat bolt upright, listening intently. The Dursleys couldn't be back, it was much too soon, and in any case he hadn't heard their car. There was silence for a few seconds, then voices. Burglars, he thought, sliding off the bed on to his feet – but a split second later it occurred to him that burglars would keep their voices down, and whoever was moving around in the kitchen was certainly not troubling to do so. He snatched up his wand from the bedside table and stood facing his bedroom door, listening with all his might. Next moment, he jumped as the lock gave a loud click and his door swung open. Harry stood motionless, staring through the open doorway at the dark upstairs landing, straining his ears for further sounds, but none came. He hesitated for a moment, then moved swiftly and silently out of his room to the head of the stairs.

His heart shot upwards into his throat. There were people standing in the shadowy hall below, silhouetted against the streetlight glowing through the glass door; eight or nine of them, all, as far as he could see, looking up at him.

"Lower your wand, boy, before you take someone's eye out." said a low, growling voice.

Harry's heart was thumping uncontrollably. He knew that voice, but he did not lower his wand.

"Professor Moody?" he said uncertainly.

"I don't know so much about 'Professor'," growled the voice, 'never got round to much teaching, did I? Get down here, we want to see you properly." Harry lowered his wand slightly but did not relax his grip on it, nor did he move. He had very good reason to be suspicious. He had recently spent nine months in what he had thought was Mad-Eye Moody's company only to find out that it wasn't Moody at all, but an impostor; an impostor, moreover, who had tried to kill Harry before being unmasked. But before he could make a decision about what to do next, a second, slightly hoarse voice floated upstairs.

"It's all right, Harry. We've come to take you away." Harry's heart leapt. He knew that voice, too, though he hadn't heard it for over a year. "P-Professor Lupin?" he said disbelievingly. "Is that you?"

Seeing Lupin had calmed his fears of impostors as Polyjuice potion only worked for humans as Hermione had proven in second year and Lupin was after all a werewolf.

"Why are we all standing in the dark?" said a third voice, this one completely unfamiliar, a woman's. "Lumos." A wand-tip flared, illuminating the hall with magical light. Harry blinked. The people below were crowded around the foot of the stairs, gazing up at him intently, some craning their heads for a better look. Remus Lupin stood nearest to him. Though still quite young, Lupin looked tired and rather ill; he had more grey hairs than when Harry had last said goodbye to him and his robes were more patched and shabbier than ever. Nevertheless, he was smiling broadly at Harry, who tried to smile back despite his state of shock.

"Oooh, he looks just like I thought he would," said the witch who was holding her lit wand aloft. She looked the youngest there; she had a pale heart-shaped face, dark twinkling eyes, and short spiky hair that was a violent shade of violet. "Wotcher, Harry!"

Looking at her he couldn't help but imagine slipping into her thoughts and filling her with the urge to kiss him, it was only his occlumency that prevented him from blushing a Weasley red. With and effort of will and occlumency he managed to tear his eyes and thoughts away from the pretty violet-haired witch and focus on the conversation the newcomers were having, it seemed to be them making the seemingly obligatory 'look so much like your father, but with your mother's eyes' statements.

"How do we know it's him?" Moody interrupted them, "it'd be a shoddy job if brought back a Death Eater impersonating Potter. Ask him something only he knows. Unless someone brought any Veritaserum." Harry could help, but didn't, the smug feeling encompass him, after all using occlumency it was possible to beat Veritaserum.

"Harry, what form does your patronus take?" Lupin asked.

"A stag." Harry replied quickly.

"It's him, Mad-Eye" said Lupin.

Conscious of everyone watching him Harry slowly descended the last few steps and re-holstered his wand on his wrist. Lupin held out his hand and Harry shook it as Lupin asked "How are you?"

"Fine" Harry replied shortly, it was after all rather annoying that he had received nothing from anyone indicating that he would be picked up now or indeed at any time and now here they all were standing there as if he should have been expecting them. "You're lucky the Dursleys are out" he continued, more for something to say since the Dursleys wouldn't exactly be a problem as they were now in the habit of fleeing from the sight of him.

"Lucky, ha!" said the violet-haired woman. "It was me who lured them out of the way. Sent a letter by Muggle post telling them they"d been short-listed for the All-England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Competition. They"re heading off to the prize-giving right now ... or they think they are." Harry had a fleeting vision of Uncle Vernon"s face when he realised there was no All-England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Competition. "We are leaving, aren't we?" he asked. "Soon?"

"Almost at once," said Lupin, "we"re just waiting for the all-clear."

"Where are we going? The Burrow?" Harry asked hopefully.

"Not The Burrow, no," said Lupin, motioning Harry towards the kitchen; the little knot of wizards followed, all still eyeing Harry curiously. "Too risky. We've set up Headquarters somewhere undetectable. It"s taken a while..." Mad-Eye Moody was now sitting at the kitchen table swigging from a hip flask, his magical eye spinning in all directions, taking in the Dursleys" many labour-saving appliances. This is Alastor Moody, Harry," Lupin continued, pointing towards Moody.

"Yeah, I know," said Harry uncomfortably. It felt odd to be introduced to somebody he"d thought he"d known for a year.

"And this is Nymphadora –"

"Don"t call me Nymphadora, Remus," said the young witch with a shudder, "it's Tonks."

"Nymphadora Tonks, who prefers to be known by her surname only," finished Lupin.

"So would you if your fool of a mother had called you Nymphadora," muttered Tonks.

"And this is Kingsley Shacklebolt." He indicated the tall black wizard, who bowed. "Elphias Doge." The wheezy-voiced wizard nodded. "Dedalus Diggle –"

"We've met before," squeaked the excitable Diggle, dropping his violet coloured top hat.

"Emmeline Vance." A stately-looking witch in an emerald green shawl inclined her head. "Sturgis Podmore." A square-jawed wizard with thick straw-coloured hair winked. "And Hestia Jones." A pink-cheeked, black-haired witch waved from next to the toaster. Harry inclined his head awkwardly at each of them as they were introduced. He wished they would look at something other than him; it was as though he had suddenly been ushered on-stage. He also wondered why so many of them were there. "A surprising number of people volunteered to come and get you," said Lupin, as though he had read Harry's mind; the corners of his mouth twitched slightly.

"Yeah, well, the more the better," said Moody darkly. "We're your guard, Potter."

"We're just waiting for the signal to tell us it's safe to set off," said Lupin, glancing out of the kitchen window. "We've got about fifteen minutes."

"Very clean, aren't they, these Muggles?" said the witch called Tonks, who was looking around the kitchen with great interest. "My dad's Muggle-born and he's a right old slob. I suppose it varies, just as it does with wizards?"

"Er, yeah. Look if we're going I'll need to pack" said Harry.

"I'll come up and help" chirped Tonks brightly.

The now named Tonks seemed to hop over to the stairs which Harry followed her up taking advantage of the brief view of her toned behind which the skinny jeans she was wearing showed off perfectly. When they reached his room Tonks broke into a smile "This is more like it," she said gazing at the rather disorganised room "rest of the house looks a bit too clean, y'know? unnatural" Harry snorted at the thought of the Dursleys reaction to being called unnatural by a witch.

"Yeah, well I'll just pack" Harry said grabbing the nearest pile of stuff and walking over to his trunk but Tonks grabbed his arm.

"Here, let me," she said with a smile "Pack" and all of his things flew across the room and into his trunk messily. Tonks sighed and shook her head "I'm rubbish at these bloody charms, Mum can get the clothes to fold themselves." she gave her wand a halfhearted flick and one of his socks flopped over.

"It's great, thanks." Harry said as he picked up his newly packed trunk and followed her back downstairs.

What followed was a cold, long, but exhilarating flight from Surrey to London under disillusionment charms and when they arrived the house didn't appear until the others showed Harry a piece of paper with the address written on it. Entering the excessively dark and dingy house Tonks took a tumble over what looked to be an umbrella stand made from a taxidermy troll leg Harry caught her before she fell and she sent him a smile which transformed into a grimace when a shrieking voice echoed from the landing of the stairs "FILTH, SCUM, MUDBLOODED FREAKS, BLOOD TRAITORS BESMIRCHING THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS!"

"What-" Harry exclaimed, alarmed by the sudden hostile voice, only to hear another far more familiar voice as Sirius emerged from the room at the end of the entrance hall.

"Oh shut up you old hag!" Sirius yelled as he struggled to pull some curtains closed over the portrait that was screaming. Once he succeeded he turned to Harry with a grin, "I see you've met my mother."

Harry stared "That was your mother?"

"Yep, welcome to my beloved childhood home." the sarcasm was palpable.

"Oh there you are Harry dear," Mrs Weasley exclaimed as she bustled into the hallway, ignoring Sirius, and smothered Harry in a hug "the meeting's starting soon so why don't you take your trunk upstairs and make yourself at home second door on the left, dinner will be after the meeting."

Harry knew from Hermione's calls, the last few of which had been from a payphone that the Order of the Phoenix was Dumbledore's anti-Voldemort vigilante group as such he was tempted to ask to join in but knew that with Mrs Weasley there that argument was a lost cause, he would ask Sirius about it later. He was pretty sure that he could persuade Sirius into telling him anything relevant to him and if he couldn't persuade him he could definitely guilt him into it.

"Okay, Mrs Weasley." Harry assented and climbed the stairs as the rest of the new arrivals made their way towards the end of the hall.

As Harry climbed the stairs he mentally prepared himself for what he was about to do. Harry had, as much as he hated to admit it, been just as blind to Hermione growing up into a true beauty as seemingly every other male up until the Yule Ball. It wasn't until he felt the surge of jealousy seeing her on Krum's arm that he realised that he wanted her to be his, he hadn't made a prat out of himself like Ron had of course after all he wanted her to be happy.

He would just twist her mind until she was happy being his.