Between learning Occlumency, Legilimency, and studying the process to become an Animagus, Harry thought his brain might explode. He had never tried to learn so much, so fast in his entire life. He didn't see how Hermione stayed sane during the school year. But the time they had at Number Four was quickly running out, and Harry desperately wanted to have accomplished at least two of the three types of magic before he had to leave.

Harry and Hermione had already been able to use a little bit of Legilimency on each other. Harry was happy to learn that it didn't hurt near as much if you weren't fighting against it. So he figured he must have made a little progress with Snape, simply from the amount of pain he was in after their lessons. That thought made Harry feel slightly better about the events of his fifth year.

What they found, was the hardest part of Occlumency was not only losing yourself in an element, so no one could find your memories, but keep track of yourself enough to be able to function so that no one else could tell that you're Occluding. During one session Harry got past Hermione's defenses and saw the first time she had preformed accidental magic.

He saw her in what must have been her parent's dental practice. She was playing with the controls on one of the patient chairs and had the chair up to high for her too get down. She was starting to get upset because she couldn't figure out how to make it go back down and none of the buttons she was pushing were doing her any good. Hermione's temper was getting the best of her, and she slipped out of the chair. She didn't fall to the ground though, she slowly floated down. Once she realized her feet touched the ground she ran away from the mean nasty chair.

Harry was snickering when she pushed him out. "I really don't see what is so funny Harry, that chair scared me for a long time. I still don't like going into that room." Hermione said in a mock huff.

Harry and Ron found they could relax rather well once lost in their mental elements. Harry had chosen air as his element since he felt at such ease and such freedom on his broom. Ron chose fire for his element, figuring his fiery temper should be put to good use for once, instead of making him look like a prat all the time. But they couldn't do much while they where lost in their elements. That would not do them any good during a duel.

Hermione and Harry saw many instances in Ron's childhood where he was targeted by his older brothers, or where he was targeting Percy or Ginny. But one memory of Mr. Weasley punishing the twins stood out.

Ron was standing off to the side of his father looking kind of scared. And by the looks on the twins' faces, one could tell that they knew they'd crossed a line they never should have toed. Mr. Weasley was angry. He was quietly telling them that they could have killed Ron if he hadn't walked in and stopped them. Poor Ron paled even further at hearing that tone come out of his father's mouth. His mother was scary when she yelled, but all the Weasley children knew that Mr. Weasley meant business when he got the quiet but deadly tone. Ron didn't know what an Unbreakable Vow was, but he was never going to take one with anyone ever again. After Mr. Weasley was done lecturing the twins, he spanked them and sent them off to help Molly with dinner.

"Ugh, Ron, I've never seen your dad that mad before. I can't believe the twins had gotten you to take an Unbreakable Vow. Scary!" Harry shuddered.

Hermione was doing a little better; she could read and occlude, but nothing else. Once Ron used a simple jinx on her she lost her element of water and couldn't keep Harry out of her memories.

Hermione saw quiet a bit of Harry's childhood. Most of it she had guessed about, especially after spending so much time with Harry this past month. One memory was peculiar.

Harry was sitting through one of the worse haircuts Hermione had ever seen. Harry had bald spots and spots where the hair was longer. His fringe was kept long to cover his scar. All in all, the haircut was hideous. He was in his cupboard with his arms around his legs rocking back and forth worrying about having to go to school the next day looking like he did. The next morning Aunt Petunia wouldn't let him have any breakfast, because once again he couldn't explain how his hair was back to being long and messy.

"Hey, Harry?" Hermione asked with that tone that meant she had hooked onto a mystery. "How often do you need to cut your hair?"

"I haven't had my hair cut since that memory you just saw, Aunt Petunia gave up on my hair after that. Why, Hermione?"

"Really? That's kind of unusual. And Professor McGonagall didn't find any Metamorphmagus abilities in you?"

"Nope, not a single one. I guess if I had to choose between being weird for speaking Parseltongue or not having to get my hair cut, I'd choose the hair any day. At least then I wouldn't have gone through second year as the school pariah."

"I wonder what this means though?" Hermione looked perplexed.

Then there was the training to be Animagi. The book Professor McGonagall gave them was very helpful, much more so than the ones Hermione had found. But it was still extremely hard work. All three had managed to sink deeply enough into meditation to see their animal cores, and Harry had even managed to grow a bigger patch of scales. But that was as far as any of them had gotten.

Harry was starting to get bummed out. Between his worries over Sirius' old house, what he considered to be little or no progress in their training, and the attacks they kept hearing about, Harry was feeling awful about not being out there and doing...something.

*~~*~~*

Harry finally had a breakthrough on the second of July. During his meditation for Occlumency he found a pathway leading from his animal core to the foot he'd been working on turning. Pushing more magic into that pathway he felt the change start to take hold. In the excitement he lost the transformation, but at least now he knew he was getting closer.

Hermione had a breakthrough of her own. She was able to keep Harry blocked from her mind no matter what Ron threw at her. Harry was able to push Hermione out but wasn't able to completely block her.

Ron was making progress as well; it just took him longer to push Harry or Hermione out, and his Legilimency wasn't strong at all. They knew they would need a stronger Legilimens to help them finish their Occlumency training.

"I think we should work more on becoming Animagi now that we've gotten Occlumency down. We can't go much further with just the three of us, as it is. None of us are strong enough Legilimens to push us beyond this point." Harry said, rubbing his scar after he just pushed Hermione out of his mind again.

"Well, we will still have to devote time to practice. You don't want to lose the skill you've gotten, now do you, Harry?" Hermione scolded.

"You're right, Hermione, we should continue to practice and maybe fit in sneak attacks on each other now and then. But, I feel we should devote more time to Animagus training now." Harry said, trying to placate Hermione.

*~~*~~*

A few days later found the three friends outside enjoying some fresh air and sunny summer weather. Petunia, Vernon, and Dudley had gone to visit Aunt Marge for the weekend. So they were free to leave Harry's room.

They were sitting in a circle meditating. Hermione had set up a Notice-Me-Not ward around them, just in case a nosy neighbor looked into the backyard.

Harry looked again at his animal core for the pathway. The pathway looked a little different, bigger maybe, and a brighter green. Hoping this meant he was closer to transforming, Harry pushed as much magic down the pathway as he could. The next thing he knew he was looking up at Hermione and Ron from the ground. He had shrunk.

Trying to say something to get Hermione and Ron's attention didn't work. They couldn't hear him. He didn't know if it was because they were too far into their meditation or not. He tried moving over to Hermione to get her attention. He got it all right, practically scared her to death.

Hermione felt something slithering over her lap, and that brought her out of her meditative state. Looking down she saw a medium sized greenish snake sitting in her lap looking up at her. Freaking out, she screamed, jumped up and dumped it onto the ground. Her scream brought Ron back to earth. Looking around to see what was wrong Ron saw a snake, but no Harry.

"H...Har...Harry, is that you, Mate?" Ron stammered out.

The snake hissed something and then nodded its head. Realizing she was safe, Hermione looked around from behind Ron, where she was hiding. "Harry, you did it. You transformed! How does it feel? How long did it take? Can you transform back?"

Getting a bit exasperated at Hermione, since she did just dump him onto the ground after screaming at him, and then expected him to answer her, even though she couldn't understand him if he did, Harry decided it was time to try and transform back. Closing his eyes and looking for his magical core, Harry started pushing his magic back towards it. He slowly felt his body change back.

"Wow! That was amazing. But Hermione, did you really expect me to be able to answer you? You're not the Parselmouth, I am." He said with a grin.

"So, are you going to answer them now?" asked Hermione, she'd never felt this excited before.

"Let's see, I felt fine, kind of low on the ground. I'm not sure how long it took me. I saw the pathway looked a little bigger so I just pushed as much magic down it that I could, and the next thing I knew I was looking up at you. I think you know the last answer." Harry answered, grinning cheekily.

"Ok, so let me get this straight, while you are meditating you can see your animal core and a pathway leading away from it. And you just pushed magic down that pathway to transform? How did you change back?" Hermione asked, looking inquisitive.

"I did just the opposite. I pushed my magic back to my magical core," Replied Harry.

Hermione nodded to Harry then sat back down and started meditating again. Slowly she started to see her two cores. Seeing a pathway off the smaller core she figured that had to be her animal core. She started pushing her magic towards the pathway and felt the change start. Just like Harry before her, she got so excited to feel it begin she lost control and her magic sank back into itself.

Opening her eyes, Hermione squealed. "Oh, I felt it start, I almost had it. How are you doing over there, Ron?"

Hermione's squeal having brought him back out of meditation; Ron looked over to the excited Hermione and smiled. "I had just gotten to the point where I could see my magical core. I haven't found my animal core yet. But congratulations, Hermione."

*~~*~~*

By July tenth, Harry was antsy again. They only had three weeks left until they needed to move, and they hadn't heard from Remus yet. "Hermione, could you send a message to Remus? I'd like to know what's going on at Number Twelve."

Pulling out her coin Hermione said, "Sure thing, Harry, you just want him to owl you or would you rather he visit?"

"Invite him over. I don't want to talk about this in post."

A few days later had Petunia banging on Harry's bedroom door yelling. "You get down there and get rid of that man. I told you, I don't want any more of your kind here. Your lucky Vernon isn't here, he'd have you out of this house before nightfall."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia. I'm sorry, but I have to get a place to stay after my birthday. To do that, Remus will have to visit some."

"Well, just make sure Vernon doesn't see him, ever." With that she stomped back to the kitchen.

Harry walked down to bring Remus back to his room where the four of them could talk. "Hey, Remus," Harry said. "Thank you for getting over here so quick. I hope we aren't keeping you from something important."

"Harry, you know whatever you need is just as important. My guess is that you would like to hear how we are fairing with your house?"

"I'm kind of anxious. We've got just a little over two weeks until I have to leave here, and we hadn't heard anything. There's no place else I can go. I don't want to endanger anyone by staying with them."

"Hey, Mate, you know you're always welcomed at the Burrow. My family loves you, plus we know about the risks and don't care. We'd take you in a heartbeat." Ron said.

"Thanks, Ron, but we'd also never get any privacy there. Plus we can't risk what we're working on." Harry explained.

"Well, Harry, we can't get any of the wards down. I'd say Albus himself put them up. If he did, the only reason I can see for Albus to do that was so only you, Harry, could enter the house. Now, I'm going to take you over myself and see how you fair with them."

"But, if Professor Dumbledore is dead then how are the wards still up if he cast them? I thought all spells ended once the caster died?" Hermione asked while looking completely confused.

"For the most part that is correct, but wards are made to last past the casters life span. The wards on Hogwarts have been there since it was built, each Headmaster and Headmistress have just added a few drops of blood to them to keep them going strong. Since houses are so much smaller and the wards, most of the time, aren't as old, blood only needs to be added when the wards are changed or every fifty or so years to renew them. The fact that Harry is the homeowner and was not yet of age was in Albus' favor. It meant he could cast in Harry's place without Harry even knowing. So, it's very possible that Albus is the one to have changed the wards," Remus explained. "No one with bad intentions towards you, or your property, would have been able to make the magic stick."

"Ok, when are we going? We've had a few developments here that I'd like to share with you before we go anywhere." Harry said beaming. He was very proud of the fact that he could transform almost as fast as Sirius could.

"I'd like to go tonight. Under the cover of darkness would be safest for you, especially since it will just be the two of us. We do not want anyone seeing you leaving here. As you know, we've lost our spy, so we have no idea if you're being watched or not. So, what is this development?" Remus said with a smile, he had an idea why Harry was so excited.

Harry closed his eyes and transformed for Remus. Then slid up to him, and raised up so Remus could get a good look at him.

"Very nice Harry, I believe you're some type of boa, but I've never seen a scale pattern or color quite like that before. It's almost as if your scales are a prism."

Here is where Hermione stepped in. "He's a Rainbow Boa, Remus. The name comes from how his scales have a transparent layer that makes the light strike at different angles, thus making the prism pattern you mentioned. We measured him, and he's just over five feet long." Hermione was in her element, giving information just like when she was in school.

"Very impressive, indeed," Remus said smiling and nodding towards Harry and Hermione. "Can you transform back now, Harry? I'd like to talk to you about how your other endeavors are going."

Settling back down Harry quickly transformed back. "What where your other questions Remus?"

"How are you three doing with the Occlumency? Also how are you practicing?"

"Well, Hermione and I take turns casting Legilimens. I use Ron's wand, so the Ministry would have a harder time trying to persecute me over it. I don't have time to go to another trial anyway. Ron's tried casting Legilimens, and he's just not strong enough. Both Hermione and I could block him from the start. Now all three of us can block each other, even from sneak attacks, we need someone stronger, so we won't be able to get any better on our own."

"I'm not as strong a Legilimens as Snape, or even Albus was. But I'm strong enough to help you for now. I'll test you, Harry, before we leave. Once we get back I'll test Ron and Hermione as well. If need be I can come over a few times a week before you leave here to help more," said Remus.

As soon as Harry heard Remus say he was going to test them Harry "floated" all his thoughts in his air element. He was as ready as he was going to get. Suddenly Remus was attacking, and Harry was fighting back. It wasn't nearly as painful as his lessons from fifth year, but it was bad enough. Remus broke through after a few minutes, and Harry had to struggle to get him back out.

"Very good, Harry, you've come a long way for just the three of you working on this. I'm very proud of all that you have all accomplished these past few weeks. You've each worked hard and accomplished the near impossible. Now, we've got a little time before we need to leave. How about I have Dobby bring us some dinner? I understand he's been feeding you all. Good thing too, the poor Hogwarts elves are upset that they don't have many to take care of this summer."