Harry pulled his shoes on and stuck his head outside the tent, hair a mess, and nodded sleepily. The sun had just barely begun to rise. A look at his watch told him it was barely half five in the morning.

"Olivia is watching my group for now. I'm headed to the staff lounge for coffee and donuts. Do you want anything?"

"Coffee would be amazing," he croaked, and she giggled at him. "Ok, it's your turn tomorrow then. Want a donut too?"

"Please," he said, and she skipped away, positively too awake and chipper at this hour to be human. Harry rubbed his eyes again in the chill air and saw Draco coming out of his tent not looking much more awake than he was. It seemed Harry had been Amelia's last stop before she headed for the castle.

Harry got a small campfire going to warm up by and then went back into the tent to change. According to the schedule McGonagall had given them for the week, he didn't need to have the kids up until six thirty, so it seemed he had some time to himself. After he was dressed, had visited the outhouse and washbasin, and had looked at his schedule again, he went back out to the campfire, and was surprised to find Neville pushing a new log into it with a stick.

"Morning," he said. He too seemed to be more awake than Harry today.

"Don't we have to stay in our own camps?" Harry asked. He realized that might sound like he didn't want Neville to visit, but Neville didn't seem to take it that way.

"Morning is break time," he said cheerfully. "Kids don't get up for another hour. I think that's why the tents are all lined up like this. I can see if any of my campers come out of the tent from here."

Harry nodded and sat down on one of the stumps. Amelia came back twenty minutes later with a crate that had six mugs of steaming coffee, a bottle of caramel pumpkin creamer and a huge box of donuts, and let Harry and Neville each take a donut and mug and then headed down the line of tents to hand out the rest.

"What are you going to do for the rest of the summer Harry?" Neville asked.

He laughed into his coffee quietly and said, "I've half a mind to stay right here."

"It is nice out," Neville said. "My uncle took me camping once when I was younger up on a loch in the highlands."

"That sounds perfect," Harry said, prodding the fire with a stick.

Draco sat around his lifeless campfire ring drinking his coffee and listening and Neville called, "Wanna come over Draco? Our fire's warm." Draco frowned at them and took his coffee back into his tent.

"What do you think makes him more angry?" Neville asked Harry. "That we've been nice, or that he can't think of anything to say to us that won't make him sound like a jerk because we've been nice?"

Harry laughed at that as Willow came to join them a moment later with her own coffee. "What are we talking about?" she asked.

"Just camp," Harry lied. "What activities are you doing today?"

"Charms all day," she said. "Professor Flitwick is teaching ice elemental charms in the morning, and doing stealth games in the afternoon."

"That actually doesn't sound bad," Harry said. He couldn't wait to get to a Quidditch activity, but that wasn't starting until tomorrow.

"Tomorrow he's doing wind elementals and stealth games, and the day after that fire elementals and stealth games."

"What about you Neville?" Harry asked.

"Herbology this morning, but I'm quite interested in those stealth games. Some of my campers talked about the stealth games they did yesterday."

They woke their campers half an hour later and got them going on their day. Harry made sure all of his campers scrubbed their faces, necks and arms so they looked clean before they went out for the day. One of his campers had hair gel and wanted help putting his hair up into a spiky blue mohawk, and several of the other campers wanted to do the same. Apparently just having dark electric blue hair wasn't enough, but Harry helped them anyway and laughed as the younger boys headed out to their activities, hair standing on end.

In the charms room that morning at nine thirty, Draco sat heavily in a seat next to Harry and Neville and said, "Your campers look ridiculous Potter."

"But they're having fun," Harry said. "That's what matters."

Draco was quiet for the rest of the class on ice charms. Flitwick spent two and a half hours teaching them to cast a thick icy layer over any surface, how to turn their shoes into ice skates without transfiguration, how to cast a stream of icy slush out of their wands, and how to send an icy blast of air at an opponent. The icy blast of air wasn't enough to hurt anyone or freeze them, but it was enough to take their breath away for a moment and startle them if they weren't expecting it. "If a witch or wizard were to get creative with these charms you've learned today," Flitwick told them at the end of the class, "they could combine these spells and techniques to form powerful attacks, though that won't be something we'll be learning today."

Harry's mind was turning with ideas. He wanted to know how to turn these charms into defensive spells. He already thought that if someone was chasing after him, turning the floor to ice would be a brilliant way to buy some time to get away. Maybe he could figure out how to turn the icy slush he could cast to spears of ice if he combined that charm with the one that cast an icy blast of wind.

"Are you staying for stealth games after lunch?" Neville asked, and Harry nodded. They headed down to the Great Hall for lunch and into the staff lounge where they found the rest of the counselors sitting and chatting as they ate. Professor McGonagall came in to ask them how their first night in camp had gone and if they had any questions or concerns.

After lunch they went back to the Charms room. Professor Flitwick wasn't there however. Instead there was a note on the chalkboard that said, "I am on the first or second floor of the castle. The first to find me earns a point gem for their camp."

"Oooh," a third year said, coming into the room and seeing the note. "He's hiding. A girl from the unicorn group found him yesterday!" He turned and ran out of the third floor Charms room, determined to find Flitwick first.

"Wanna look together?" Neville asked Harry, and Harry, unconcerned about the camp points agreed.

They methodically checked all the hidden corridors and classrooms, and Harry tried to reach out with his magic to feel for any hidden magic like he'd learned in McGonagall's curse breaking class the day before.

"There's something here," Harry told Neville. He could feel a shimmer of magic rather than see it next to a suit of armor in the first floor Defense corridor.

"Is it him though?" Neville asked.

"I don't know." He reached his hand into the space and got no resistance, and then pushed against the brick wall, which didn't budge. Harry and Neville spent five minutes working counter curses, counter jinxes, and incantations before finally they found one that worked and Professor Flitwick appeared out of thin air.

"Very good," he told them. "A second year knew something was here but couldn't figure out how to counter the charm."

The little man turned to the nearest portrait and told it to call out to the Charms students and tell them to go back to the Charms classroom. The portrait passed the word down the corridor and they began hearing portraits delivering the message.

Harry and Neville went with Professor Flitwick back to the third floor Charms room and the rest of the group filtered in after them. It had only been twenty minutes since the class had started.

Flitwick tapped the chalkboard with his wand and a list of charms and counter charms appeared there. "These are stealth charms, some of which we covered in the stealth games class yesterday. When you have need to hide, spy, eavesdrop, half of your success will be upon how well you can disguise yourself. Some of your success will always depend on luck, and the rest upon your own skill in reading people and thinking about where they might look and might not look."

Everyone sat down and Flitwick went over the twelve charms on the board. "These twelve charms are basic stealth charms that rely on intent more than specific wand movements, and so they are easy to learn and master." After thirty minutes most of the 20 students felt they had the majority of the charms and counter charms down, and Harry noted that several people had written the list down.

"Divide into two groups," he told the class. "Hunters and hunted. Hunted over there, yes, by the door. In a moment the hunted group will have five minutes to find a hiding spot and conceal themselves with one of these charms on the first or second floor. Remember, misdirection is important. After five minutes has passed, the hunters will be released to find you. No one is to go beyond the first or second floor. If a hunter finds a person hiding, that hiding person becomes one of the hunters until four when class ends. At the end of the game, if all the hunted are found, the original 10 hunters get a point for each of their camps. If however at the end of the game there is still at least one hunted hiding, and not caught, the original group of 10 hunted will each get a point for their groups. Do you all understand the rules?"

They nodded. Harry was in the hunted group, though he hoped at some point this week he would also get to try his hand at being a hunter. Draco and Neville were both in the hunter group for now.

Flitwick sent Harry and the other nine kids in the hunted group to go hide and they scattered. Harry's eyes darted here and there to potential hiding places as he went down the stairs to the second floor. Where would they be searching for him? Flitwick had hid near a suit of armor. There were various hiding spots in classrooms under tables and behind bookshelves and teacher desks. He didn't want to hide in any of those places, or in the hidden passageways behind tapestries.

Harry looked back up the stairs, knowing his time was running out, and then stepped to the wall and sat criscross on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. He cast a corium charm over himself and disappeared. This was the charm Flitwick had used to hide from them earlier. Corium relied on intent to look like your surroundings, and Harry had wanted to look like the wall, the floor, and the edge of the bannister. It didn't transform him into those things, it only made those passing by think he was those things. It was a strong enough charm to give people an illusion of touching air if they reached out into the space he was sitting in. Flitwick had told him and Neville that when Harry had reached out next to the suit of armor earlier, that Harry had actually touched the top of Flitwick's head, but to Harry it had felt like he'd only touched air.

A minute later and the group of ten hunters came down the stairs, passing him without a second look. Flitwick cast his eyes down at Harry as he passed and smiled. He must have felt a ripple in the magic in that spot as Harry had.

Several times over the next hour students passed him by, and one even kicked his shoe on his way up the stairs to check the stairwell again. Harry noted that some of the other kids in the hunted group had already been found and were now searching the halls and rooms as well, but no one spotted him.

Finally Harry's watch read four, and a call went down the corridor from the portraits, telling everyone to go back to the classroom except for the remaining hunted.

A group passed by Harry and when they were gone, presumably back in the charms room, the portraits called out again, this time for any remaining hunted to return to the classroom as well.

Harry and a first year girl went back to the room.

"Where were you Harry?" Neville asked.

"Right at the bottom of the stairwell outside this room," he said. "Sitting on the floor."

"And which charm did you use?" Flitwick asked.

"Corium."

"But I used corium and I got caught," a fourth year boy said.

"Who found Ewan?" Flitwick asked, and Neville raised his hand. "How did you find him?"

"He was under a desk in the defense room," Neville said. "From one angle, I couldn't see him, but when I moved around the desk looking around the room I turned and saw him from another angle. Parts of him were invisible, but not all of him."

"What was your intent with the corium spell Ewan?" Flitwick asked.

"To hide on the floor under the desk and look like I was part of the desk."

"And Mr. Potter?" Flitwick asked.

"I wanted to look like I was part of the corridor floor, part of the wall I was sitting against, and the stairs and bannister going up the stairs."

"Harry covered himself from all angles," Flitwick said. "Someone looking straight down at him would see the floor and bottom of the wall. Someone coming towards the stairs would see the floor, the wall, and the stairs and bannister on the other side of him. Your intent must be complete, or you will not be completely hidden."

Everyone in the group of hunted students got a point for their camp. Harry's camp got two points since one of his campers had been hunted as well, even though he'd been found early in the game.

"We have one hour left until dinner. Reverse groups," Flitwick said, and now the hunted became the hunters. After five minutes Flitwick released the group of hunters to go and find the kids who were hiding. Harry was the last out the door, but he turned to Flitwick and asked, "So long as I follow by the rules you set, anything else I do isn't cheating is it?"

"No. In situations as these we do what we must to complete our task."

Harry went outside the Charms room and Flitwick followed, curious what Harry would do. Harry went up to a portrait and said to it, "The game is over. Tell the hunted and hunters to return to the classroom."

Flitwick laughed as the portrait did as it was told, and began delivering the message, which was quickly echoed down the corridors of the first and second floor. A few minutes passed and kids began to filter back up the stairs. As they passed into the classroom door Harry tagged each of the hunted group on the shoulder and said, "I found you. Go sit down."

Draco glared at Harry when he tagged his shoulder but went into the room nonetheless. The entire second round of the game had only lasted ten minutes.

"Eighteen, nineteen, twenty," Flitwick counted as the last of the students came into the room, to be certain he had them all.

"Well that was fun," Flitwick said. "The hunters win this round."

"The hunters didn't win," Draco said. "We were called back to the room."

"By a hunter," Flitwick said, indicating Harry.

"That's cheating," a girl said.

"We do in times as these what must be done to complete our task, which is what I told Mr. Potter when he asked me if he could do something outside the rules I had given, so long as it wasn't breaking one of the rules already laid down. If someone was after you, and you were hiding, you would be expected to do all you could do to hide and stay safe. The same is true if you were an auror, let us say, hunting down a criminal. As long as you work within the law, the rules and boundaries that have been laid down, you would be expected to do what you must to outsmart and outwit the person you are hunting. As I said, misdirection is an important factor for either side. Harry made everyone believe the game was over, when it was not. Another way to think of this is changing the paradigm, which is what Mr. Potter did. He wanted to win without searching, to make it a quick and decisive victory. In order to do that he had to consider the rules, the box you were all placed in, and think outside of that. He decided to play the game differently."

As they left, Draco eyed Harry and scoffed and said, "I'm going to get you next time Potter. I had the perfect hiding place. If you hadn't cheated you wouldn't have found me."

"Where were you hiding?"

"If I tell you, I lose the advantage of using that spot again."

"If this is a challenge, I accept," Harry said, but Draco was already hurrying off.

Dinner that evening when much as it had gone the night before. Harry sent two boys to retrieve the crate for their group from by the greenhouses with meals, and then Harry and the two chosen boys passed the meals out. After dinner the kids still seemed full of energy, so they organized a game of tag with several of the other groups. Draco's group had already made plans to do crafts with one of the girl's groups though, so they didn't join in. At eight, when everyone was tired, Harry had his group wash, brush and get into pajamas and then come back to the campfire to continue the novel from the evening before.

That night Harry had no trouble falling asleep, and neither did the boys in his group. As he drifted off, he thought it would be the perfect game of misdirection to never go home, and just stay at the castle for the summer. The Headmaster would think he was with the Dursleys, but Harry would be right here, where he should be. All he had to do was have the courage to hide in the woods and not get caught.