McGonagall found them after dinner and despite Umbridge's eyes on their little group, said, "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do about this. The Headmaster received an owl a few days ago stating that Professor Umbridge has the Ministry's full support in any educational matters she deems important enough to step in on. "Be careful," she warned them, before stepping away, presumably to go back to her quarters for the night.

"We've still got the books," Ron said. They hadn't received any back in the mail yet, but Neville was confident his Gran would send them a few and Ron had hopes his mum could come up with a few as well. Hermione's would take longer to get there as they had to be ordered in and paid for from Flourish And Blotts. The next morning all three of them received notices written on pink parchment however. Instead of delivering books, the owls they'd used to send of letters to their parents days before dropped the pink parchments on their plates at breakfast, and Ron's owl Pig even pecked him on the finger, making him yelp and shake his hand.

"Hey! What was that for?" Ron asked Pig, but the owl only ruffled his feathers at him and Ron said, "Wait, why are your feathers all messed up? Look Hermione, some of his feathers are missing. What happened to you?"

"What's on the notice?" she said, just before a school owl dropped a pink paper on her plate as well. She picked it up and answered her own question by reading allowed, "As a new student dueling club has already been denied approval to form, any books you had coming in to use for the student dueling club are hereby banned. The letter you sent to Flourish And Blotts has been confiscated. You may write an appeal to have your letter returned, or appeal to Professor Delores Jane Umbridge in written form to have this decision overturned."

Ron growled. "Mine says they have the letter I sent to mum. Now I know what happened to Pig. Umbridge or Filch must have cast a spell to bring her back and grabbed her." He petted Pig's feathers and tried to pat them back down into place. "I'm sorry," he said to the little owl, who looked like he was enjoying the attention after being manhandled.

Neville got up a minute later from his spot a ways down the table and came to sit next to them, pink notice in hand. "Well?" he asked.

"Who's gonna tell Harry?" Hermione asked in return. He hadn't appeared for breakfast yet and they knew it was because he'd gone to the library instead. He'd been obsessing for the last two days on finding books in the potions section they could use, though he'd been smart and hadn't checked any of them out. Instead he'd left them on the shelves in the potions nook so they wouldn't be checked out by anyone else.

Thirty minutes later as they met up with Harry in the corridor outside the Defense classroom, Harry wasn't surprised by what they told him. "So she's checking our mail," Harry said. He felt justified by all the caution he'd taken over the past few weeks to make sure he was never overheard by her. It was more than just charms put up on certain sections of the library and mini-interrogations. They were being watched, or at least Harry and his friends were.

"Watch it Potter," Seamus said, pushing past him on his way into the Defense room, but a Hufflepuff called out from the hall after him, "Watch out, Potter's liable to make you disappear if he doesn't like you."

Back to the Hufflepuff Harry's eyes got a steely look to them as his friends watched his face.

"I'm gonna-" Ron started, taking a step towards the Hufflepuff, who was already down the hall.

Harry held his hand out to stop him and moved into the Defense classroom. He moved to sit up front again, as he had been for the past few weeks, this time right next to Draco, who sneered at him.

"Gawd," Draco drawled. "I'll never get the smell off of me after this."

Harry didn't even look at him. Instead his eyes were on the door leading into Umbridge's office behind the platform she taught from. When she came out and the class settled, he raised his hand.

"Yes Mr. Potter?" she asked sweetly.

"Maam, I've been reading that book you told me about and was wondering if you could tell us how to defend ourselves from vampires."

"My," she said, a glinty look coming into her eyes as well. "That's third year material. Do you need a refresher Mr. Potter?"

"The book was talking about vampiric draining. I have an interest in potions and I was wondering if you knew of any potions that a wizard could take that might make him taste unappetizing to a vampire."

"You have no need to worry about vampires Mr. Potter. The Ministry has long since stopped hordes of vampires from roaming the countryside. That is what aurors are for. They're there to protect you."

"Of course," Harry said. He spent the rest of the class raising his hand to ask her questions though, to the point that she hadn't been able to teach the class anything or assign them homework.

"What are you doing, writing a book?" Draco grouched at him as he got up to leave class an hour later.

Instead of leaving, Harry was willing to be late to Potions to stay and talk to her some more. "I'm sorry to monopolize your time maam," he said. "I know you're very busy. Is there any way I could come to your open office hours sometime to ask the rest of my questions?"

"The rest of them?" she asked, her voice sounding wary for the first time since he'd met her.

"Yes maam. I know the aurors will protect us if we ever run into a vampire, but I'd really like to know about any potions I might be able to use against one. There must be some sort of potion to alter a wizard's blood, right? Something that would make a vampire not want to eat us? It could be a real help to the aurors at the Ministry if a potions master came up with something like that wouldn't it?"

The next class was coming in to sit down, a second year class of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, but Harry showed no sign of budging until all of his questions were answered.

"I'm in my office for one hour after dinner each night Mr. Potter, from six to seven pm."

"Yes maam, I'll be by tonight if it's not too much of a bother."

"Make your way to your next class Mr. Potter," she told him, looking thoroughly tired of him now.

"Yes maam. See you tonight."

Harry left and hurried down through the now empty corridors to Potions. The class had already started and Snape wasn't pleased, though he didn't say anything to Harry as he came in and sat down.

"My office after class," he told Harry a few minutes later as Harry hurried to prepare ingredients for a new potion they had been trying to master for several days but no one had managed yet.

"Yes sir."

When Snape had walked away Ron leaned in and whispered, "What was that?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Hermione's never asked so many questions before."

"Hermione's never had a reason to distract a professor before," Harry whispered, before returning his full attention to his potion.

After class his friends left without him to go to lunch, and Harry followed Snape to his office. After the door was closed Snape sneered at him. Harry was surprised he hadn't called him out right there in front of the class.

"You were late. Explain yourself."

"I was with Professor Umbridge."

"You were in trouble?" Snape said, hands tightening on the back of his chair as he stood there behind his desk.

"No sir, I was asking her questions. I'm going to go to her office after dinner for her open office hours."

The man narrowed his eyes. "I do not know what you are doing Potter, but you're playing a dangerous game."

"I'm not sure what you're talking about sir," Harry said, trying to act innocent. "I've been reading a book she recommended and-" Snape held up his hand to stop him.

"I will not be able to protect you if you are planning something stupid. You are to cease whatever foolish plans you have in place. I still have control over your detentions, but the Ministry has given Umbridge more control than she should have as mere staff. Pushing her will only make things worse for everyone. I will be very displeased if you push her far enough to make things miserable for me."

"I wouldn't do that sir," Harry said.

Snape looked like he didn't believe a word Harry had said, but finally waved him away so he could catch up to his friends at lunch.

Harry couldn't convince her to teach them defense, and he couldn't figure out a way to get books so they could teach themselves. What he could do was distract her so much that his friends could take some books from the library, or get together to practice defense after dinner each night. If he was in her office pestering her she'd be unable to race away to the library when Filch called her, or at the very least she might grow so tired of Harry that she might decide to ignore him and his friends altogether. It was straight out of Rebellion Rising. If he acted as though he respected her and wanted her opinion on everything... if he acted the model student bent on cooperating with her, she might not suspect what was really going on. He could only hope it would work. It was a dangerous game... maybe, but it was one Umbridge and Voldemort had inadvertently conspired to make him play.

* * *

"Maam?" Harry knocked on Umbridge's open office door and she looked unhappy to see him, despite the fake smile on her face.

"Come in Mr. Potter."

He had the book Rebellion Rising in his hand and his Ministry issued defense textbook under his arm along with a notebook and Muggle pen. He sat down in the student chair and opened his notebook, ready to take notes. She watched warily as he opened up Rebellion Rising and noted that he had pages of notes tucked into that as well.

"I was hoping you could tell me more about the measures the Ministry has taken against vampire clans," he said. "We learned in third year that there were vampire clans, and about vampire sires and their ‘children', but not much more than that. How does the Ministry know there aren't secret vampire clans out there holding people hostage today? How does the Ministry keep track of vampires? They do keep track of them, don't they? Are they required to register, or do the aurors just keep tabs on them?"

She held up her hand to stop him from continuing on with his questions. He'd been saying them all in a hurry as though he was excited to get to the answers. "One question at a time Mr. Potter."

He started over again with the first question and as she answered and he took notes (slowly), he let his eyes wander around the disgustingly pink office. It was so different from when he'd spent time here with Remus learning to cast a patronus. There were pink decorations around the room, frilly lace curtains, and plates featuring mewling kittens in white and gray across the walls. There was also a little round kitten brooch on her desk that occasionally vibrated, though she was too distracted by answering Harry's questions to notice.

"Maam?" he asked.

"Yes Mr. Potter?"

"Your little kitten button on the desk keeps vibrating."

"Pay it no mind. If it was a real emergency it would meow to let me know."

"Yes maam. Is it for Ministry emergencies? You must have to deal with that a lot."

"What do you mean?"

"You must be really important to the Minister for him to send you here to make sure we're getting the best defense education we can."

She didn't answer him and he continued. "We've had such a bad run of luck with previous defense teachers. I'm glad you're gonna be the one to stay. At least our education will be consistent for the next few years. I'm learning more from you tonight about vampires and vampiric draining than I have about most defense subjects in the last four years." He paused and consulted his notes where he'd written more than twenty questions. "Speaking of," he said, "have you given any more thought to potions to combat vampires?"

The cat brooch began to mewl, but stopped abruptly. She looked down at it, as if waiting for it to meow again, but it didn't, and she returned her attention to Harry.

"Why so curious about potions regarding vampires?" she asked in a light voice.

Harry was ready with an answer as he'd been thinking about it all day. "If I'm to continue into a second and then a third apprenticeship so I can become a potions master, I have to make a name for myself. I've been giving it a lot of thought and I've decided I want to invent potions that help the Ministry protect people from dangerous creatures like vampires and werewolves. I've asked and I don't know of any other potions masters or apprentices doing that right now, so there's a spot open for me to fill that gap. Master Snape's thing is teaching and mushrooms. He supplies several species to apothecaries across the aisles." Harry went on and on about what he knew of other specialities other apprentices and potion masters were into until she stopped him and told him her office hour was up.

"You'd better return to your dorms for the evening Mr. Potter, I have no more time for questions tonight."

"Yes maam," he said, standing abruptly. "Do you have an office hour after dinner every night?"

"Mr. Potter," she snapped, but then took a breath and said, "Yes. Please confine your questions to Defense should you decide to come back to see me again."

"Yes maam. I have so many questions to ask." He bade her goodnight and left, grin on his face. Ron and Hermione weren't in the library tonight trying to find defense books, but Harry had made up his mind. If he established himself as a pest now, then she might not notice anything amiss when he showed up at a later time when they really needed to distract her.

* * *

Harry tried to ask her more questions about vampires in class on Wednesday morning, but she put a stop to it right away. "No questions about anything other than the subject we are discussing this morning," she told the class, and Harry put his hand down. She smiled and continued on with the lecture, but Harry came to her office again that night, two dozen more questions about vampires written down.

She slogged through each and every question, but not before the end of the hour was up, and looked thoroughly exhausted. "Perhaps you should return Rebellion Rising to the library Mr. Potter," she told him. "You seem to have had it checked out for several weeks now. Someone else may want to look through it." He told her he would return it, and made it a point to take it to the library the next evening after classes. As soon as he'd given it back to Madam Pince, he went straight to the defense section, where Filch followed him from row to row until he stopped in the section about vampires. Umbridge showed up a few minutes later as he knew she would.

"Looking into books on vampires," Filch whispered conspicuously, holding his hand up to shield his mouth from Harry, though Harry heard him anyway.

Umridge stepped forward and Harry looked as innocent as he could. "Mr. Potter, surely not more books about vampires."

"I'm sorry, it's just, you seemed to be getting a little tired of me asking questions, and I need to do research so I can start researching potions bases that might be used as the start to future potions I could develop to ward vampires off."

She held out her hands to look at the books Harry had and he held them out to her. She opened one to look through the table of contents and then handed it back to him. "These are fine Mr. Potter."

"Thank you. If you seem to think these are the best ones, I'll be sure to check these out. Is it ok if I have a look for a few more minutes?"

She held in a sigh and gave a nod. Harry took his sweet time browsing the titles on vampires. There were more than forty to look through just in this section. While Harry was looking and Filch and Umbridge were talking to each other in low tones, Harry hoped Hermione was finding a good book on shields ten or more rows behind them. Filch couldn't alert Umbridge to more students in this section if he was busy talking to Umbridge and watching Harry.

"What about this one Professor?" Harry asked her, holding one out. "Do you think this one has the information I need?" He handed it up to her without looking up at her as he pretended to look for another book. It appeared she had had enough when he took a seat on the floor, legs criss crossed as though he was planning on settling in for a while.

"Mr. Potter, what you have will be fine. It's beyond my office hours and I must retire to grade homework. Please move along to check out the books you have."

"Oh, of course. I know as soon as I finish with these I can come back to get more. I need to go to the potions section to look for books on bases with garlic anyhow."

Filch escorted Harry to the front of the library where Harry checked out the four books Umbridge had ‘approved', and then Filch quickly made his way back to the defense section. Harry wondered how the man had time to do his job when Umbridge had him busy in the library every evening.

After checking his books out, Harry headed into the potions stacks and pretended for twenty minutes to be finding a good book, which he also took and checked out just so Umbridge would be satisfied if she checked for his name on the book checkout sheet, as he knew she would.

Back in the common room Harry found Hermione and Ron in a corner with Neville and Ginny. "Well?" he asked.

"I picked up Evading Hexes and Shielding The Unshielded and stowed them under the the cushions in the potions nook. I couldn't check them out of course or she'd know I had them."

"We can take notes on them in the nook and take the notes back to the common room to practice," Ron said. "Hermione's got a nifty spell that duplicates pages so we won't even have to write anything down."

"Where are we gonna practice though?" Neville asked. His eyes drifted around the common room. It was big, but not big enough to practice dueling, especially not when it was filled with almost 70 kids.

"We'll have to find a place," Harry said. "Maybe out on the grounds."

"I'll look through Hogwarts A History," Hermione said. It was her answer for everything, and though it used to annoy him, Harry adored her for it. It was one of her quirks that was predictable and made Harry glad Ron and Hermione were his friends.

* * *

Ron and Harry had spent an hour copying pages out of the books Hermione had taken from the defense section, and then Hermione had taken the books out of the nook so they wouldn't get caught with them if Umbridge ever did figure out where they'd been spending time. Harry didn't know where Hermione had taken the books to, but she hadn't returned them to the defense section.

"Here," Harry said, holding out his hand for the pages Ron had copied. Harry took them and put them in his bag. They'd be able to keep them in Gryffindor safely and study them there. Hermione had taken it as a personal offense that they were in a place of learning but were not allowed to learn what they wanted.

It was the day after Harry and Ron had taken the newly copied pages of the defense books to their dorms that Umbridge became aware that there were two books missing from the defense section of the library. Harry wasn't sure how she knew but could only guess she had been taking stock of the books regularly somehow, or had another spell up on the defense section that they weren't aware of. There were over a thousand books on defense in that section alone, so Harry didn't think the woman would be in there counting them one by one each night to see what was missing.

"Mr. Potter." He turned and smiled as she called to him from down the corridor on his way back to Gryffindor tower Friday evening.

"Yes maam? Do you have time to talk some more about vampires?"

She gave him a cross look, the first that Harry had seen from her.

"I'm afraid I must check your bag for contraband Mr. Potter."

Harry took his bag off and held it out to her. "Contraband maam?"

"It seems some items that you are not supposed to have have gone missing."

"What's gone missing?" Harry asked as she unzipped the bag and lit up the tip of her wand to look inside.

"Books Mr. Potter."

"What kinds of books? Books about vampires?"

She ignored him and emptied the bag, using her wand to send each item into the air where it could hover for her to examine. She opened the second smaller pocket as well, but all that was in there were quills, Muggle pens, sticky notes, a highlighter, and a mostly empty bottle of black ink.

"What is this?" she asked, pulling one of the books from the air.

"One of my apprentice books," Harry said, but before he could finish she had already released it back into the air to hover.

"And this?"

"That's one of the vampire books you said I should read for my research." She looked at the cover closely, opened it up, shook it to see if any extra pieces of parchment would fall out, and then released it back into the air again.

"It seems odd to me Mr. Potter, that the very night I was speaking to you in the defense stacks that two books would go missing from the defense section."

"Oh no," Harry said, trying to sound horrified. "Madam Pince must be upset. People are supposed to check things out. You mean someone just took them?"

She narrowed her eyes at him and waved her wand to cancel the spell, sending all of the items from the air back into the main pocket of his bag in a jumbled mess.

"Where are your friends Mr. Potter?"

"Still at dinner I think. I was going to the library to return this book because it doesn't have the information I need. They were going to meet me when they were done."

She said, "Follow me," and took off at a fast clip back towards the Great Hall. In the Entrance Hall Harry caught sight of Snape, who didn't look pleased to see her stalking through the castle with Harry in tow. They ran into Ron and Hermione just as they came out of the Great Hall.

"Your bag if you would please Mr. Weasley. Miss Granger," she said, holding out her hand.

Ron and Hermione held their bags out to her and she used the same spell as a minute before to send the contents of each of their bags into the air. Ron had several pieces of trash in his bag, including crumpled up homework that had been returned to him with poor grades. Umbridge unfolded each of those parchment balls and looked over them closely before waving them away. She went on to Hermione's bag which had a lot more books than Ron and Harry's usually did, and shook each of them out to be sure there was nothing in there that shouldn't be before sending the items back into each of their bags.

"Erm, is everything ok?" Ron asked her when she thrust his bag back out to him.

"It is not Mr. Weasley. I certainly hope you had nothing to do with the books that went missing earlier this week from the library."

"What kind of books?" Ron asked, looking bewildered just as Harry had a few minutes before. The only books Ron ever checked out were Quidditch books, and he had one in his bag right now, though Umbridge hadn't been interested in the book about Keeper tactics.

Finally Snape came over, or perhaps he'd been right behind Harry the entire time and Harry hadn't noticed. He'd been tense watching her search his friends bags. They'd been passing the copied pages around the last few days and he wasn't sure if they'd taken any out of the dorms.

"Is something wrong?" Snape asked. His hand came down on Harry's shoulder and Harry stiffened as it squeezed in an uncomfortable way. Snape was definitely pissed like he'd warned Harry that he would be.

"We shall see," Umbridge said, and she stalked off into the Great Hall where the headmaster and some of the other teachers were still finishing up their dinner.

Snape removed his hand and Harry turned around.

"What was that about?"

"She thought we'd stolen some books."

"Did you?"

"No sir," Hermione said.

"You will refrain from answering for Potter, Miss Granger," Snape said angrily.

"I didn't steal anything," Harry said. "She looked through my bag and didn't find anything."

"Return to your common room." He watched the trio of Gryffindors go with narrowed eyes.

When they were back in the common room Ron flopped onto the couch and said, "How did she know they were gone?"

"I'd like to know as well," Hermione said. She had just settled down on the couch next to Ron when the portrait opened and Professor McGonagall came in behind Umbridge. Umbridge looked angry and McGonagall irritated.

"Miss Granger, would you please show us to your dorm. Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley, you are to stay in the common room."

Confused, Hermione took her bag and went up the girls staircase to the girls dorms.

"They're searching the dorms?" Ron asked.

"Do you have any of the papers?"

"Yeah, half of them. I took them back from Hermione this morning."

"Go up there and burn them, or stick them in my trunk," Harry said, and Ron raced off up the boys stairs. He was back moments before Umbridge, McGonagall and Hermione came back down from the fifth year girls dormitory.

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, follow me," McGonagall said, and she led the way up to their dorm this time.

"Which trunk is yours?" Umbridge asked Ron, and Ron pointed. She opened the lid and rifled through it for a moment, did a spell that lifted his mattress to look under there, and then shined a light under his bed, but there was nothing. "Your wardrobe?" she asked, and Ron pointed to the one he shared with Harry.

There were coats, robes and Quidditch robes hanging on the bar, and shirts and pants folded along the bottom shelf and in the two drawers underneath, but nothing else.

"The desk?" she asked.

Harry pointed and said, "We share that one under the window."

She also searched through Harry's trunk, his potions trunk, and under his mattress and bed. When she'd found nothing she went to Neville's trunk and desk and bed and searched there. Harry didn't know what Ron had done with the forty papers but hoped she wouldn't find them.

"Accio Evading Hexes and Shielding The Unshielded," she said. Nothing happened for several long moments, but after almost a full minute there was a strange whooshing and flapping noise. They turned and found several of the copied papers plastered to the outside of the window above Ron and Harry's desk. Ron had opened the window and thrown them out. Umbridge sent the window open with a spell and the forty pages, some of them wet now from where they'd landed outside at the base of the tower, came flying in, landing in a disheveled stack on the desk.

She looked smug. "What have we here?" she asked.

Ron and Harry didn't look at each other. Instead, Harry was watching McGonagall, whose lips were pursed in a thin line.

"Really Delores?" she asked. "You're upset that one of our students has a desire to learn above and beyond what's being taught in class?"

"Above and beyond?" she asked. She took Harry's bag from him and pulled out the vampire book. "This is above and beyond," she said. Then she grabbed the stack of copied pages and said, "These are dueling spells. I've already banned any future student clubs, the proposed dueling club in particular. The only reason for them to have these spells is if they've started an illegal dueling club without permission and without teacher supervision."

McGonagall turned to Harry and Ron, gave them a look Harry couldn't decipher and asked, "Are these yours?" She indicated the stack of papers now being crumpled in Umbridge's pudgy fist.

"No maam," Harry said. McGonagall looked as though she approved of his answer, but then Harry continued. "They're not ours, they're mine. Ron didn't know I had them. When you came up here after searching our bags and went to Hermione's dorm I came up here and threw them out the window."

Umbridge looked smug. "So you do have an illegal student dueling club?" she said.

"No maam," Harry said. "That would be dangerous. Ron and Hermione are Prefects... they'd never stand for something like that."

"Then why do you have them?" McGonagall asked.

"Do not say vampires," Umbridge warned him.

Harry shrugged. He really didn't know what to say. "I just wanted to learn. I want to know how to defend myself."

"Against?" Umbridge asked, but Harry didn't say anything for long moments.

"You said I couldn't say vampires," he finally said.

"Detention Mr. Potter. Several I'm afraid."

McGonagall cleared her throat and said, "With Professor Snape."

"Yes yes," Umbridge said, irritated with the Headmistress. "I'm aware of the rules regarding apprentices." She gave Harry a hard look and said, "I don't believe a week of detentions will be enough to deter this kind of behavior from happening again. The fact that the books went missing the night I spoke to him in the library makes me believe he was deceiving me from the beginning and took the books somehow right then." Her eyes roved around the room until they fell on the open wardrobe and Harry's Quidditch robes. "A ban from Quidditch should be sufficient. Let this be a lesson to you Mr. Potter." She narrowed her eyes at him but then stood up straight as if pulling herself together and gave him a little smile as she tilted her head. "Deception will get you nowhere. I'll be keeping both eyes on you from now on to ensure you keep yourself out of trouble like this in the future." She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room with the copied papers.

McGonagall waved up a privacy spell on the room and leveled both boys with a look. Then she sighed and said, "There's nothing I can do I'm afraid. Learning is not against the rules. I refuse to be upset with you for wanting to learn what every student should be allowed to. I am however upset with the carelessness you've shown, especially since you were warned Harry." She turned her eyes to Ron and said, "Be thankful you have such a good friend Mr. Weasley. She would have had your Prefect badge over this and Hermione's as well."

She let the privacy ward fall and left them there. A moment later the rest of the boys in their dorm came up the stairs.

"What's going on?" Dean asked, seeing all of their trunks and wardrobes open along with their desk drawers.

"Professor Umbridge searched the dorms as well as our bags," Ron said, flopping onto his bed.

"And?" Neville asked.

"Harry has detention and is banned from Quidditch for the rest of the year."

"What did you have Potter?" Seamus asked, curious but angry like he always was towards Harry now.

"Books," Harry said. "On shields and counter hexes."

"Damn," Dean said.

"Relax," Ron told him. "No one else is in trouble, only Harry. He took the blame."

"The blame for what he did you mean," Seamus snapped. "Don't make it sound like he did something here to be proud of."

Harry wanted to close his eyes and block them all out. He was wishing he had a time turner again. The best he could hope to do was go to bed and pass out, though his mind was racing a million miles a minute. Before he could attempt to go to sleep or even get into his bed, another person appeared in the doorframe to the dorm.

"Potter."

All of the boys stiffened at the Slytherin Head's presence. They'd never seen him in Gryffindor tower before. Harry turned, tense, unwilling to take in a breath. Snape curled his finger, motioning for Harry to come with him, and Harry followed him out. This was the moment he'd been waiting for since his uncle and Snape had conspired against him to force him into this apprenticeship. He'd seen Snape angry more times than he could count, but this was the moment the man was going to throttle him for the first time. He'd told Harry there were consequences, and now he was going to find out just what that would be. As they made their way silently down through the castle to the Dungeons, passing Umbridge, who looked gleeful to see that Snape had already collected him for his punishment, Harry kept looking at Snape's bony knuckles. He only hoped the man wouldn't punish him for too long. His uncle usually hit him a few times and then left him alone.

Snape didn't take Harry to his office, which worried him. Instead he took him to the fifth year potions classroom, waved up the lights, and shut and locked the door, warding it against eavesdroppers like McGonagall had done up in the dorms twenty minutes before. He turned on his heel to start hitting Harry but Harry had thrown his arms up over his face and thrown himself backwards a step and into the wall. Something was wrong though because Snape hadn't started hitting him yet. What was the man doing, looking for a stick to hit him with instead?

Harry stayed where he was, arms up in front of his face, eyes clenched shut, and breathed heavily for long moments. Finally he lowered one arm just enough to peek out and see what exactly Snape had come up with to hit him with. The man was only standing there a few feet from him, black eyes staring at him. He looked like he'd just seen a ghost. Harry lowered his arms slowly, still shaking, eyes not leaving Snape in case it was a trick to get him to let his guard down.

Snape pointed at a chair, the one Goyle usually sat in during class time, and Harry moved slowly to take a seat. Snape didn't move from his spot. After several tense quiet moments Snape asked, "Why did you do that?"

"I didn't steal any books," Harry said, but Snape waved his hand to get him to stop, and Harry flinched again.

"Why did you act like I was going to murder you?"

Harry gripped and ungripped his fists. Murder? The man had murder on his mind?

"I thought-" Harry didn't know what to tell him. Uncle Vernon always throttles me. "I dunno," Harry said instead.

"When have I ever even threatened to do you harm?" Snape asked, voice cold.

"You haven't."

The man gave Harry a tired look, turned from him and took a few steps towards the blackboard, and then turned back to him, voice hardening again. "I warned you you were playing a dangerous game. Now she will be watching you even more closely than before. Was it worth it?"

Harry shrugged. "She took Quidditch from me."

"I am aware," he spat, making Harry jump. Severus huffed and straightened up, aware he was still frightening him. The brat. He didn't know Severus had been a death eater, yet he acted like he was going to hex him and hide his body. Weasley had probably told him. Arthur Weasley had been an Order member years ago and worked for the Ministry, and had likely told his children of Severus' past. Now that they knew Harry was his ward... his apprentice, they must have told him. There was only one way to become a Death Eater. You had to kill to prove your loyalty. Severus had not killed anyone, but the information he'd given Voldemort about the prophecy had been the deciding factor in Voldemort killing Harry's parents. Lily and James Potter's deaths... Harry's very orphanness hung over his head as if he'd murdered them in cold blood himself. His eyes came back up to Potter, who seemed to have calmed himself down some now.

"What is the offense you are accused of?"

"Studying defense from books in the defense section of the library."

"Which books?" he asked.

"Evading Hexes and Shielding The Unshielded."

Severus scoffed and shook his head. The two books were barely worth studying. They held little more information than students usually learned in their seven years at school.

"She thinks I was planning an illegal student dueling club."

"Were you?"

Harry didn't know why he was willing to tell him the truth. Maybe it was because he hadn't been throttled yet and hoped telling the truth would keep it that way. Maybe not. "Yes."

"Fool. You've been warned again and again. You don't know what's good for you." He turned back to Harry, who was looking at the workbench in front of him. "And your friends? What were their punishments for taking part in this? I know you didn't sneak books out of the library on your own."

"Nothing," Harry said.

"You were punished but they were not?"

"I didn't want them to lose their Prefects badges. I told her it was all me and that if they had known they wouldn't have taken part in it."

Severus drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He let the privacy ward fall and unlocked the door and left. Harry hadn't been told to stay put, but he hadn't been told he could leave yet either, so he stayed there. Severus came back a few minutes later and dropped the two books Harry and his friends had copied pages out of in front of him. They weren't library copies. Harry knew they couldn't be because they had writing inside and some of the text was highlighted.

"You are supposed to be studying potions, not plotting to dig a hole you can't get yourself out of trying to study defense."

Harry stared at the books, not willing to look up at Snape.

"You have five days worth of after dinner detentions Potter. Use the time to fill your head with shields and counter hexes, or don't. You will not be sneaking books out of the library again."

"I'm banned from the library?"

"You are not. If you pull such a dunderheaded stunt again however, I will ensure you spend each and every detention you are assigned pickling toad brains."

Harry opened his mouth to say something, closed it, and finally decided to ask anyway. "You're letting me read the banned books?"

Severus rolled his eyes. "Minerva would have my head if I punished a student for wanting to learn. Albus would join her in taking it from me. If Umbridge asks you scrubbed floors on your hands and knees for over an hour. You will use the sink to get the knees of your pants wet before you leave tonight to make it look as though you have done a proper detention."

Snape left Harry to his thoughts for a few minutes and returned with student essays that needed to be graded, and a potions journal he ended up reading while Harry stared at the pages of Shielding The Unshielded. It was awkward being in a fake detention with the man. It was awkward to sit and read while Snape sat at the front of the room at the teacher's desk and read. It was awkward the more Harry thought about how he'd reacted by throwing his arms up in front of himself to defend himself from blows that were never going to come. What must the man have thought about him? Harry didn't know, and he couldn't read from the books for the next hour.

When an hour had passed, Harry went to the sink and splashed water on his knees and Snape waved him away. "Make it believable Potter."

"Yes sir."

Umbridge wasn't waiting for him in the dungeons, or anywhere on his way to the dorms. He did pass Filch however, who grinned at Harry, showing several missing and crooked teeth.

Back in the common room Hermione and Ron asked him what had happened. "I was supposed to be scrubbing the floors for an hour," he said.

"You were supposed to be?" Hermione asked. "What were you doing instead?"

Looking confused, Harry said quietly, "Reading Shielding The Unshielded."

Ron grabbed Harry's sleeve and pulled him further into the corner of the common room where fewer people could hear them. "Are you kidding me?" he demanded in a whisper. "McGonagall gave you the books anyway?"

"I dunno," Harry said. "I didn't see her. Snape just brought them to me and told me I had a week of detentions to read them and that I was wasting time because I should have been studying potions instead. He said... McGonagall and Dumbledore would be mad if I was punished for wanting to learn."

Ron and Hermione shared a look and Ron said, "If he's gonna give you the books we want... maybe I'll start going to Potions lab every Saturday."

Harry frowned and looked up. "If you think he's gonna let you read that when you haven't mastered all the potions on the list, you've gone mad."

"He's right," Hermione said.

Ron shrugged. "Couldn't hurt to try."