Ron had been telling him to ask Snape to find someone to teach him how to sword fight and when Harry was reluctant, Ron took things into his own hands and began teaching himself how by book so that he could teach Harry. He'd even resorted to talking to Sir Cadogan, and was trying to get Harry to fight him with transfigured objects that resembled swords. Harry wasn't confident in Ron's abilities to sword fight though and had been trying to avoid his impromptu lessons. Hermione wasn't much better. She had been researching Arthur's sword and was irritated that Harry didn't want to spend his time between classes or in the evenings researching as well.

In the end what Harry ended up having to do to try to please as many people as possible was combine activities. He spent time with Ginny at Quidditch, and agreed to go to the library to look up information on the sword with Hermione after dinner a few nights a week if Ginny would come. Ron also went with them, though he was busy looking up sword fighting techniques and trying to shove the books under Harry's nose when all Harry really wanted to do was sit at a table in the back with Ginny and hold her hand as he studied for Advanced NEWT Potions. Snape had allowed him into the class last minute and now he was wishing he had stuck with regular NEWT Potions, because this class was a lot of extra work.

"Harry, there's some information on page four hundred and ninety three of this book for you to look at," Hermione told him one evening in the library, setting a heavy tome down in front of him on top of the book Ron had just set there.

"If you two don't leave me alone, I'm going to run off with Ginny and become a hermit," he said, feeling irritated. "I do have my own work to do you know. How am I going to pass Potions if you won't leave me alone for one minute to study?"

"Don't be silly Harry," Hermione chided him. "You can't be a hermit if you take Ginny."

"That does it." Feeling irritated Harry stood up, pulled his Potion's text out from under the two books his friends had piled on top of it, and grabbed his book bag. Ginny was following suit.

"Where are you going?" Ron asked.

"Somewhere quiet where I don't have to think about myths or sword fighting."

"You need to know this Harry," Hermione said.

"I need to pass potions! Take notes for me and I might have time to read it after Sam's dad is done killing me tomorrow morning for failing tomorrows test."

He took Ginny's hand and they left the library, leaving Ron and Hermione looking surprised.

"You'd think we were taking up all his time," Hermione said, miffed.

"We are," Ron told her. "He's right, take notes."

"Why should I do it all for him? I have my own work to do you know. I'm not an elf."

"Well, you do take good notes," he said, shooting her a grin, and her features softened for a minute. They sat down in the seats Harry and Ginny had just vacated and began talking in low tones about what Hermione had found, and about how she was irritated that Harry didn't seem to care when he was the one who had pulled the sword and it obviously somehow had to do with the prophecy about killing Voldemort.

Outside the library, Harry and Ginny laughed and stole down a dark quiet corridor, gleeful that they'd finally managed to get a few moments to themselves.

"If you didn't get up and leave, I was going to kidnap you," Ginny told him as they stopped to lean against a wall near a dead end and a suit of armour that looked as though it had seen better days.

"I'm just so swamped. I've barely even seen Sam aside from in Transfiguration and Charms. We're only two weeks into the term and I already have a four foot essay due on dangerous classes of Potions and a bunch of other homework."

"I know, I saw you reading a textbook on the way to Quidditch practice yesterday."

"Sorry. I wasn't trying to ignore you. I wish I wasn't in the advanced Potions class."

"You and me both."

Harry and Ginny turned to see Sam coming around the corner, a heavy Potions book in his hand. "Not to intrude on your snogging or whatever it was you were doing here in this lonely dark corridor," he teased Harry, "but I've been looking for you."

Harry sighed. "Here I am." He had a feeling Sam was there to bother him about Lacrosse again.

"I don't know how many feet you finished on your essay, but Severus just told me that he's going to give extra credit to anyone who writes an extra page."

"No," Harry groaned.

"Yes. He told me to tell you."

"I barely managed four feet. I think I'm even a couple of inches short. How am I going to get another page out of it?"

Sam handed him the massive book. "I checked it out earlier this week for my essay. It's about embuing objects with magical powers. Chapter thirteen talks about using Potions to do that. I used it. I figured maybe you could too."

"This is about the sword isn't it? Have you been talking to Ron and Hermione?"

"Ron yes, Hermione not so much. Listen, it's good stuff for the essay. I even tucked a page of notes in there for you."

Harry seemed surprised. "Really?"

He nodded.

"That's what I'm talking about. Notes I can do. It's forty page chapters I can't deal with."

"You owe me a game of Lacrosse for this," Sam said as he turned to leave, and Harry gave him a solitary wave goodbye to agree that he did owe him.

"Is the extra credit that important?" Ginny asked as Harry used his wand to wave up the lights in the hall and slid down the wall to the floor with the book, ready to study.

"It is if I want to pass. We have a test tomorrow on dangerous potions and all the studying we've been doing for the essays is supposed to be tested. Only it'll be impossible to know everything on the test because there's so much to read on the subject in different books. Hermione said she's been reading all summer to pass this class. Snape never offers extra credit, so I'll take it where I can get it."

Ginny sat down next to him, shoulder to shoulder, and pulled out her own books to study while Harry began revising his essay which was due in the morning. He knew Severus wouldn't be impressed with what he'd written, but at least he'd have the homework done.

* * *

Harry thought he might have passed the test, and was allowing himself a break from studying the next day after lunch. He and Ginny happened to have a free period together, and had decided to sit in the Entrance Hall holding hands and relaxing. Sam was standing a little ways away organizing the next Lacross game (or so Harry gathered) with a group of students, when Luke nudged him and said, "Heywood, isn't that your mum?"

Harry and Ginny looked up along with Sam as Jo came in the front doors.

"Mum?" he asked.

She smiled at him and waved at Harry and Ginny.

"No time to talk," she told Sam, and passed them by on her way up the stairs to the next floor.

"You saw her, right?" Sam asked Harry for confirmation. "I'm not dreaming?"

"Heh, what'd you do Sam?" Luke asked. "Must be bad if your mum got called in."

"I dunno." Sam looked at Harry but he only shrugged.

"Don't look at me. I didn't do anything either."

It wasn't until after dinner that evening that they found out what Jo was doing there. Severus wasn't at dinner, so after dinner Harry and Sam went down to his quarters to see what information they could gather. Jo opened the door when they knocked, and let them in.

"Mum, what's this about? I know I haven't done anything to cause trouble yet."

"Except pranking the Slytherins?"

"Is this about that? That was two weeks ago."

She gave him a knowing look but didn't say anything more about it. Severus came out from the kitchen with two cups of tea and handed one to Joe.

"Is this just a visit then?" Sam asked.

"Yes, how lovely that you've come to visit your mother," she teased, but he didn't look amused, so she set her cup of tea down and said, "I've been hired to work in the infirmary."

"What about Madam Pomfrey?" Harry asked. She'd always been kind to him, and didn't ask too many questions when he came in injured, though she did like to lecture him for being hurt so often.

"She's still here," Jo said. "The Headmaster felt it was necessary to have two healers on staff and he thought of me for the position."

Harry looked to Snape for a clue as to why they needed two healers but he had a feeling he already knew.

"An attack on the castle is imminent," Severus said seriously. "I believe Albus is considering hiring a third healer or even a medi-witch in case we have casualties."

Sam looked stunned, and Harry had to remind himself that Sam wasn't used to worrying about these things. Until he'd met Harry, or rather, until his mother had gotten involved with Snape, he'd probably had no idea that there was an Order of the Phoenix, or maybe he still didn't.

"How soon?" Harry asked seriously. Jo gave him a curious look, perhaps not understanding his question, but Severus answered him, equally as serious.

"We are not certain. The Headmaster believes the attack will come before you have graduated, and possibly before the end of the year. It is in sixth year that you begin to learn advanced magic and advanced defensive tactics, and we have it on good authority that He Who Must Not Be Named wants to get to you before you are fully prepared to stand against him."

Jo looked at Severus as if he were crazy at that moment, and Harry wondered if she knew Severus was a spy or a member of the Order.

"Are we continuing Occlumency then?" He hesitated with his next question but decided to ask it anyway. "Ron thought I should ask you about learning to fight with a sword."

Jo looked uncomfortable and moved towards Severus, gently trying to push him out of the room before he could answer. He looked slightly irritated and confused but allowed her to take him down the hall and to another room. Harry and Sam heard a door click shut and heard muffled voices from behind.

"What's that about?" Harry asked.

"Er... the whole Harry against evil wizard thing I'm guessing." Harry was so used to his friends being involved in his fight against Voldemort and knowing about the prophecy that he hadn't yet stopped to think that Sam and Jo didn't know.

"Didn't I tell you about the prophecy?"

"What prophecy? Are we talking about the sword? And you're learning Occlumency?"

Harry scratched the back of his head and tried to hurriedly explain to Sam about the prophecy and his faild attempts at Occlumency lessons in fifth year, before Jo and Severus came back out.

"You're not joking are you?"

"No. I wouldn't make something like that up. That's why we ended up at the Ministry of Magic last year. That's why I've been up against Voldemort five times now."

Sam coughed. "How many times? I thought it was just when you were a baby and at the Ministry at the start of summer..."

"Quirril, the Chamber of Secrets, the Tri-Wizard tournament-"

Sam held up his hand to stall Harry and looked confused. "What are you talking about?"

"You know, in my first year, and then in second and fourth and..." he trailed off, seeing that he wasn't helping things any. "You go to school here. You have to know this." But obviously he didn't and Harry couldn't figure out why. Did the rest of the student body really not know what had gone on for the last few years? Harry and his friends knew, but then again, they'd been in the middle of it. Ron and Hermione's lives had been in danger just as many times as his own had been, and Ginny had a similar number of life and death experiences.

"They never told you," Harry finally said in realization.

"Never told me what?"

"Any of it." Harry felt upset. No wonder people always turned against him and questioned his sanity year after year. It was because they didn't know what he'd been through. About saving the stone or anything. The staff had never let it out that several Gryffindor students had almost died time and again each year. So Harry sat down on the couch and Sam had a seat as well. Neither boy heard the door gently open at the end of the hall. Severus had opened it so Jo could listen to Harry's story, because she hadn't believed anything her husband had said about Harry's fight against Voldemort in their hurried argument in the bedroom.

"Listen... in my first year Professor Quirril had Voldemort sticking out the back of his head under that turban. He tried to kill me a couple of times but Severus or someone else always stopped him. Actually... come to think about it, we'd better up the count of the number of times I've faced him because he tried to get me twice in my first year, once in the Forbidden Forest and once at the end of the year when he went after the Sorcerer's stone."

"Those are a myth."

"They're not. There was one here the Professors were trying to protect, and Quirril wanted it to bring Voldemort back. Me, Ron, and Hermione stopped him from getting it. I killed Quirril on accident and Voldemort dissappeared."

"All they said was they were awarding you and your friends hundreds of points at the end of the year for bravery and services to the school."

"Well now you know why. Then in second year Malfoy's dad slipped a diary containing Voldemort's consciousness into Ginny's bundle of school books on Diagonalley. It posessed her for her whole first year and that's how the Chamber of Secrets got opened and let the Basilisk out. Ron and I went down to the Chamber at the end of the year to go after Ginny and I faced off against the Basilisk and Voldemort. He'd come out of the diary as a younger version of himself and was feeding off of Ginny's life force."

Sam was shaking his head. "They never awarded you points or anything. They never told any of us anything except that the threat was gone and all the kids that got petrified were going to be ok."

"Ron and I got awards for services to the school. I think they're hanging in a case on the second floor near Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and the entrance to the chamber. Then I faced him in fourth year at the end of the tournament. He killed Cedric. He took some of my blood and was able to use it to become fully human again. And then you know about the Ministry of Magic at the end of fifth year."

"There were too many rumors about what happened at the end of the tournament. A lot of people thought you'd made it up, and the papers-"

"The papers lied. The Ministry didn't want people to know he was back. You do believe he's back now though, right?" Harry wanted to make sure that Sam wasn't one of those people that didn't believe him.

"Of course. Tons of people saw him at the Ministry... and Severus, he's part of that Order organization right?"

"So am I. Ron and Hermione and Ginny are too... well, they won't let us jon until we're 17, but between fourth and fifth year we stayed at Order Headquarters and spied on a lot of the meetings since a lot of them had to do with me."

"This is surreal. Seriously Harry, nobody knows anything about the things you've just said about the last five years... a lot of the Ravenclaws just think you're a trouble maker or something. How do you even get any schoolwork done? Or Quidditch? Or anything?"

"My friends," he said seriously. "Hermione takes good notes," he said in a slightly more relaxed voice. "Besides, it's not like I'm fighting him or werewolves 24/7."

"Professor Lupin? You fought him too?"

"Well, no, more like Severus fought him to save me and Ron and Hermione in the middle of the night, but that's beside the point."

"My mum and dad are staff at my school, which is full of monsters and evil beings, and my brother is a monster hunter. I don't know if I'm dorkiest kid in school or the coolest. Who knew Gryffindors were so exciting?"

Harry and Sam left a few minutes later when Severus and Jo hadn't come back out, and when they were gone, Severus opened the door the rest of the way. Jo was quiet.

"It is not me who is exposing him to these things," Severus told her. She'd practically accused him of ruining the boy's remaining years of childhood by telling him Voldemort was after him a few minutes ago. "As I said before, he has wrecklessly thrown himself in harms way year after year without thought to his own wellbeing."

"Is it true, what he said about being a member of the Order?"

"He has practically been a member since the night his parents died. Molly and a few others spent the last year fighting Albus and Black to keep Order information away from Harry. That lack of information cost Black his life and almost cost the lives of Harry and his friends as well."

"I knew you were involved in the Order Severus, but I had no idea what the Order did or was really involved in. I still don't."

"You will. I assume you want to join since you've accepted the Headmaster's offer of employment."

"I have to don't I? If that evil man is going to attack the school?"

"And what position will you take on the flow of information to Harry?"

She looked at him with a look of anger at first, and then uncertainty. "I don't know. He's just a boy Severus. None of this is fair. He should never have faced You-Know-Who once, let alone five or six times. There's got to be someone to stand up and protect him! Especially with this sword thing now. I can't imagine Sam having done any of those things or having to live with knowing a madman was out to kill him."

"Sam is not Harry. They are two very different people with different pasts. I agree that someone needs to protect him. He needs to be protected from himself."

"And everyone else!" she said, seeming angry but not at her husband. "People can't expect a sixteen year old to take down Voldemort!"

Severus looked at her, surprise in his eyes. She'd never said his name before, but apparently she'd gotten angry enough that she didn't care at the moment. "They expect it because of the prophecy and because of his past encounters with him and other evil forces."

"But the prophecy is no guarantee he'll survive! It could be just the opposite! He could die fighting. We can't let that happen!" She seemed desperate for Severus to understand and he moved forward and put his hands on the sides of her shoulders to calm her.

"The prophecy and the sword and I don't know what else Jo. He will survive. He's Harry Potter. It's who he is. The Boy-Who-Lived."

"And I'm supposed to just sit by and watch him be destroyed?"

Severus looked deep into her eyes and said, "You do what I do. You join the Order. Gather information. Train him. Try to keep him sane. I made a promise to his mother before she died to protect him at all costs. It's why I spy on the other side for the Order. The information I gather could not only someday help win the war, but could save Harry's life."

"I don't- I don't think I ever understood why until now," she said quietly. She knew he had the dark mark. She knew he was part of Dumbledore's mysterious Order that was not part of the Ministry, and that he spied for the organization. But until tonight, she had thought it was dangerous and perhaps foolish. It wasn't just a foolish errand anymore though. It was a promise to a boy's mother to protect him, and that she understood.

"I think I'm falling in love with you Severus Snape," she told him, barely more than a whisper.

"I should hope so." He had promised to be Harry's protection even though he had hated the boy for years. He had resented the child for all the trouble he'd gotten himself into, just like James Potter used to, and all the trouble and danger Severus had to go to to get him out of trouble. It had been a lonely task. He was Harry's protection, and Jo was his. He only hoped that by the end of this war, he and Harry were still alive, so they didn't leave Sam and Jo feeling completely alone. He couldn't stand the thought of that.