Harry soon regretted his spontaneous decision to go flying with the Firebolt. After an impressive lecture from his Head of House, Professor McGonagall, and a snide tongue-lashing in passing from Snape, it was promptly confiscated - in his haste to fly the world-class broom, Harry had forgotten to wonder exactly who would send him a broom like that for Christmas, one he would be practically guaranteed to want to try out at the earliest opportunity. Had he done so, he would have eventually realised that the only person who would conceivably have the motive and opportunity (as well as not attach a card) would be Sirius Black; according to McGonagall, he was extremely lucky to be alive, because he had no idea what sort of curses would be on it.

After the humbling half-lecture, half-rant, it seemed Harry still hadn't quite learned to think before he acted, because he then proceeded to ask McGonagall when, if possible, he could get the broom back. The subsequent glare sent him scurrying from the room, cheeks flushing in embarrassment even as he tried to control the shame he was feeling with some of his basic Occlumentic exercises. And so, for the rest of the Christmas break, Harry ensconced himself in the library and studied; with the new term about to begin, and with it his anti-Dementor lessons, he was resuming his research on the creatures and the Patronus Charm itself.

After his first DADA lesson of the new term, Lupin arranged to meet Harry the following Thursday evening, at around eight o'clock. The intervening days passed in a blur of lessons and Arithmancy study (the subject was slowly becoming easier, much to Harry's relief, although he couldn't say the same about Ancient Runes), until Thursday finally came around. When he arrived, Lupin proceeded to instruct him on what the Patronus Charm was—explaining it far more simply than the books Harry had read had managed—and gave him the incantation; after much practice, Harry managed to create a shimmering silver mist, which Lupin said was simply extraordinary for a third-year, considering the spell was technically a NEWT-level spell.

Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—for Harry, Lupin also told him that casting the spell not in the presence of a Dementor was significantly easier than casting it 'in the field', so to speak, but short of taking Harry out of the castle to practice against one of the live Dementors out there, the professor said he had no idea how to remedy that. Personally, if it helped him learn the charm, Harry would gladly go up against a real-life Dementor tomorrow, but when he told Lupin that, the man had looked at him a little oddly, and Harry swore he heard him mutter something like "As bold as James ever was".

The rest of January faded with clockwork regularity into February; the new month brought with it both good and bad news for Harry. The good news was that McGonagall and the rest of the staff had finally finished investigating Harry's Firebolt, and had returned it to him. The bad news, however, was that Harry, even not facing an actual Dementor, still couldn't summon a corporeal Patronus. Lupin was constantly telling him that his progress was already extraordinary, but Harry privately disagreed; he had no doubt that Riddle would have already mastered the spell if they were learning it at his age, and he needed to be better than she was if he was going to have a hope of beating Voldemort.

The end of February brought with it Harry's second Quidditch match of the year, against Ravenclaw. The Gryffindor team were actually highly confident of victory; the Firebolt in their midst seemed to inspire them all to greater feats, and, after seeing Harry fly with it, Wood was quoted as wondering if "this is how lesser wizards felt watching Merlin using magic". He did, however, warn Harry that even though the Ravenclaw Seeker, a fourth-year by the name of Cho Chang, was flying a Comet Two-Sixty, she was "pretty damn good. Not at your level, Harry, but she's got talent".

The day of the match came; surprisingly enough, Malfoy didn't come up to taunt Harry about the Dementors or anything else, although Harry suspected that was partially because his Occlumency training had made it extraordinarily easy to ignore the blonde-haired Slytherin. And if there was one thing Malfoy lived for, it was the reaction he got to his taunts.

As the team made their way out on to the pitch, Harry couldn't help but notice that Cho Chang was extremely attractive; or, at least, she would have been, had Harry not found his mind comparing her black hair to Riddle's. He wasn't sure what was worse – the fact he was doing it, or the fact the comparison favoured Riddle. For Merlin's sake, he didn't have the time to even think about how attractive girls were, not with everything he had to do, let alone start thinking of Riddle as anything other than an enemy, even on such a base level; he couldn't deny she was highly good-looking, but he needed to classify that good-looking as the same sort of beauty one would ascribe to a painting, or a particularly pleasant sunrise. Nice to look at, yes, but not something that would draw his attention away from anything else. That was the way it had to be.

As the match progressed, Gryffindor slowly pulled ahead, Lee Jordan spent more time bragging about Harry's broom than he did commentating on the match, and Harry spent his time either searching for the Snitch, or testing the limits of both his Firebolt and Cho's Comet Two-Sixty; he didn't find the elusive golden ball, and in the latter case, it was fairly obvious the opposing Seeker's broom compared to Harry's only in that they were both brooms. In every other criterion, his Firebolt blew her Comet out of the water.

Both Seekers spotted the Snitch a few times, and although the advantage in speed, cornering and general skill lay with Harry, Cho wasn't afraid to play dirty; she'd obviously noticed that Harry was unwilling to try and roughhouse a girl, and she took advantage of that to put him off the Snitch multiple times. As they fought, Ravenclaw started pulling back Gryffindor's lead – they'd gone from eighty points behind to fifty.

Harry spotted the Snitch again, but Cho reacted quickly enough to dive in front of him before he could pursue it; although Wood shouted out for Harry to knock her off her broom, even if he was willing to, the flickering blur of gold had already vanished by the time his Captain called out. Deciding to pay Cho back in kind, Harry waited a few minutes before diving straight down, like he'd seen the Snitch. Cho followed, but just before Harry was about to hit the ground, he pulled up, trusting to the superior manoeuvrability of his Firebolt to pull off a move he couldn't have successfully done with his Nimbus... and saw the Snitch at the Ravenclaw end of the stands.

He accelerated towards it, and below him, having barely managed to avoid crashing into the ground, so did his opposing Seeker, but his Firebolt was just too fast for her to really provide any competition. Then she shouted out a warning – "Dementors!"

Harry glanced involuntarily downward, half-wondering if it was a trick, but it actually wasn't – what looked like three Dementors were moving slowly across the ground from where the Snitch was, toward him. Reacting as quickly as he could, too high on the adrenaline of a Snitch chase to wonder what he wasn't feeling cold or despair, Harry whipped his wand from where he'd stored it in the nape of his neck and shouted "Expecto Patronum!".

Something vast and silvery-white, shimmering like fine mist but somehow ethereally solid, burst from the end of his wand, exploding towards the Dementors below. Harry didn't watch to see what happened next – he was too busy chasing the Snitch, reaching out with the hand still carrying his wand to snatch it out of the air. Cho Chang was still fifteen metres behind him when he caught it.

The aftermath of the match revealed both good and bad news for Harry. The bad news was that the Dementors had actually been Malfoy, Goyle, Crabbe and Marcus Flint, the Slytherin Quidditch Captain, in disguise – he still hadn't had a chance to test his Patronus against a real Dementor. The good news, however, was that they lost fifty points from Slytherin and were each assigned detention. That, plus the inevitable post-match celebration, made the day one of Harry's happiest in the year.

As Harry's life was wont to do, of course, all that changed with almost astonishing rapidity. Early in the morning, after a particularly strange dream, Harry—along with the most of Gryffindor house—was woken up by Ron's panicked screaming. It took Professor McGonagall to take control of the situation, and it turned out Ron had a very valid excuse for waking the whole House. After all, seeing the face of Sirius Black staring down at you with a knife would be enough to make anyone scream. Harry was fairly sure the only one in Gryffindor more traumatized than Ron after the night's events was Neville, who was the reason Black had been able to get in to the dormitories in the first place. Needless to say, McGonagall was not pleased.

The fact Harry had presumably only survived Black's attack because Ron had woken up before he'd realised he had the wrong boy also drove home another realisation. For all that he'd said about becoming a better duellist at the start of the year, while he had been working hard and actually managing to beat Hermione in DADA, he hadn't practiced fighting other wizards (or witches). He was defenceless against Black; without magic to level the playing field, since Black didn't seem to have a wand, Harry would be killed almost instantly. And Harry, although he might know spells like the Full Body-Bind, which would take Black out of a fight extremely quickly, didn't know how good his aim or reaction speed would be in a combat situation. Plus, if Black ever did get hold of a wand, he'd be, well, completely and utterly screwed. Not to mention the fact Harry was planning to fight Voldemort one day.

Unfortunately, this led to another realisation. Harry knew the absolute perfect person to teach him how to duel, how to fight and defeat other wizards, and they were a resource he should have tried to tap from the very beginning. The only bad thing about the situation was that her last name was Riddle. Somehow, Harry had to convince a teenaged Voldemort to impart all her skills and knowledge to him, knowing full well he was intending to use those skills to defeat her future self. How on earth was he going to do that?

He was in the process of trying to solve the problem, sitting alone in the Gryffindor common room pretending to read a book while really lost in thought, when Seamus came up to him, a hesitant expression on his face.

"Hey, Harry, Dean and I were, uh… wondering something," he said, shooting a glance to his friend in the corner and another toward where Ron and Hermione were sitting, chatting quietly to one another. I was wondering when somebody would bring that up.

"What was it?" Harry asked; he might have a rough guess on the subject, but he wasn't entirely sure. For all he knew, they could be asking to have a ride on his Firebolt.

"Why, uh… why don't you hang around with Ron and Hermione anymore? You guys used to be inseparable," Seamus said; he looked half-curious, half-worried, obviously wanting to know the answer but unsure exactly what situation he might have stumbled in to. Harry swore he almost breathed a sigh of relief when he answered the boy's question without exploding into a rage.

"We just… we just can't be friends anymore. It's complicated, and, well, personal," Harry replied. Seamus must have recognized the dismissal inherent in Harry's response, because with a jerky nod he walked back over to where Dean was sitting. Harry returned his attention to pretending to be reading while he continued attempting to figure out just how to convince Riddle to train him.

A few hours later, he finally came up with what he thought could be an answer, although he was partially disgusted with himself for how Slytherin it was. That said, he was fairly sure he'd have to start thinking like that more often, because he couldn't beat Voldemort without understanding how she thought.

She was sitting at the back of the library, flicking through a book on Charms when Potter found her. When he came in, he was clearly searching for something or someone; his gaze darted back and forth until it finally locked on her, and she realised he was looking for her. He walked up, and, mindful of the fact it didn't serve her purposes for anyone else to notice her yet, she drew her wand and cast a Notice-Me-Not charm, one that would briefly override Dumbledore's and hide both of them from the other students.

"Is there somewhere we can talk privately? Where nobody else will be able to find us?" Well, now that's an intriguing question. What does the boy want?

"Maybe," she replied, allowing a hint of condescension into her tone. "Why do you ask?"

"There's something I'd like to ask you," he replied, looking oddly hesitant.

"I think you're a little too young for me," she said, relishing the crimson flush her remark brought to his cheeks even through his admittedly-impressive Occlumentic control. She'd never actually had any interest in the opposite sex (or any sort of sex, really), but she knew exactly how the game was played. She might despise how men found her attractive, might wish that when eyes trailed her around the room, they were watching her because they respected her, or feared her, and not because they wanted her, but she was never one to waste the weapons life had given her. And as far as she was concerned, that's all her looks were – just another way to manipulate other people.

"Shut up," he muttered, before rallying his self-control; she could almost see his face shut down, restoring itself to the calm equilibrium of one practicing Occlumency. "Are you going to answer the question or not?"

She deliberated for a moment – while she was intensely interested in exactly what the private business Potter wanted to discuss with her was, would it be worth revealing the existence of the Come-and-Go Room? Eventually, she decided to take the risk; when you were trying to manipulate someone, it was important to build up trust, and the Come-and-Go Room was the sort of revelation that would leave Potter very much indebted to her.

"Come with me," she commanded, standing up slowly, stretching the kinks out of her neck and back; impressively, this time Potter's eyes never moved from her face. He had more self-control at thirteen than some of the seventh-year Slytherins had when she was back in fifth-year, and that was with the occasional glance he'd sent her way over the course of their… acquaintanceship.

He followed her through the castle as she made her way up to the seventh floor; when she reached the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy, she paced back and forth in front of it, demanding a room just like the Slytherin common room. Potter was watching her, obviously confused, his confusion shifting to shock and surprise when a door appeared and she opened it, gesturing him to follow her into the room.

"Where the hell are we?" he asked as he stepped inside and took one of the two seats she'd told the Room to give her.

"The Come and Go Room," she said, answering and not answering his question at the same time. "Now, what did you want to ask me, Potter?"

He took a deep breath, and replied. "I want you to teach me how to fight. How to duel."

Well, that was… unexpected. But very, very welcome.

"And why would I do that? I've never heard a more stupid idea in my life," she said. Just because he was acting exactly the way she wanted him to didn't mean she had to let him know that; in her experience, people usually didn't go along with her plans if they knew what they were.

"Look, Riddle, just hear me out, okay?" he said, flustered. Excellent.

"I'm listening," she said, leaning back in her chair with an air of casual boredom.

"I don't know the exact wordings of the Vows Dumbledore has made you take, but I'm fairly sure I can guess the gist of them; you can't hurt me, can't hurt Dumbledore, can't aid Voldemort, anything like that. If you could, I have no doubt you would have done something by now, but you haven't, have you?"

She supressed the flash of anger at a child reminding her how trapped she was, schooling her features into a cool, icy mask as he continued to speak, voice growing stronger, more confident and more assured that he had been moments earlier.

"And then you've been teaching me Occlumency, which doesn't make any sense; surely you could just stop Legilimizing me if you didn't want to read my thoughts. I didn't understand that for a while, but I sat down and started thinking about it a few days ago, and I think I know why you're doing it.

You might be bound, but you're still Tom Marvolo Riddle. You still want power, still want to be dominant over everyone, still want to show everyone your strength and have them fear it. It's why you ended up becoming Voldemort. But you can't do that anymore – you're trapped, stuck, unable to side with your future self. If you try to aid the Dark, you'll die.

But if you helped me, on the other hand, fought alongside Dumbledore and me and everyone else who wants to defeat Voldemort, well… you're an extraordinarily competent and powerful witch. You'd be respected by your allies, feared by your enemies, and the general population would be in awe of you, almost like you've always wanted. And then, if we won, well… there's nothing stopping you from becoming Minister for Magic or something like that and ruling the country once Voldemort is dead – I certainly wouldn't want the job.

Otherwise, you're stuck here in Hogwarts, Dumbledore's prisoner, with nothing to do except attend classes in a castle full of people you can't talk to. I suspect you're already bored out of your mind. Plus, if you help me, I suspect Dumbledore might even start rewarding you for 'good behaviour'. And I'm sure you can see the benefits of being given a little more freedom."

Potter looked at her expectantly, obviously wondering what impact his little speech had on her. On the outside, her face betrayed nothing, but on the inside her thoughts were a chaotic mess of exultant joy, unexpected admiration and tempestuous anger. His pitch mirrored her own reasons for wanting to aid him almost word-for-word, with the exception that clearly all he knew was that Unbreakable Vows bound her to do something, and not that they could be broken if the Vowee—Dumbledore—died. And for a Gryffindor to think along the same lines as her showed her he was firmly in touch with a Slytherin side he really shouldn't have; she couldn't deny that was rather impressive.

Of course, that didn't mean she had to like being made to do something; she hated being backed into a corner, even if it was a corner she knew she had to be in. She was furious, at Dumbledore far more than Potter, for forcing her into the situation she found herself in. She was not somebody's tool. Other people were hers.

Realising Potter was still waiting for her answer, she made a great show of sighing reluctantly before replying.

"Fine, I'll do it," she said, watching the smile break over his face – he still wasn't fully in control of himself, and if he wanted to get anywhere in life (not that she really wanted him to, of course) he'd need to change that. "But I don't have time to deal with incompetence, and you'd better pay attention to everything I teach you because I will not repeat any of it."

After all, it might be part of her plan to draw him into her net, but that didn't mean she particularly enjoyed teaching, and she'd probably murder him—and thus herself—if he turned out to be as abysmal at magic as he was when she'd started teaching him Occlumency eight months ago.

"So, when do we start?" he asked, the excitable eagerness of the teenaged boy he truly was shining through.

"Tomorrow. You will be here, outside this room, at seven o'clock, and at the same time every night thereafter. And you had better be a good student, or I'm calling this whole thing off regardless."

With that, she stood up; Potter was still seated, and as a result of their respective positions, his eyes did leave her face for a little while before he stood up. Her smile was hidden from him as she walked away, out the door; she might hate the fact he was noticing her as a woman, but it was all part of the plan. She didn't want to seduce him—that was beneath her—but she had been very, very good at abusing unrequited sentiment during her previous years at Hogwarts.

The day after Riddle agreed to train him, Harry found himself in the Headmaster's office; Professor McGonagall had informed him after his Transfiguration lesson that Dumbledore wanted to see him. While he was giving the gargoyles the password (apparently, the Headmaster's new passing fancy were Jaffers) and making his way up the stairs, he'd been wondering what the Headmaster wanted, and concluded it was probably something to do with his meeting with Riddle. Hence the fact he was highly nervous.

"Ah, Harry, welcome," Dumbledore said, seated in his chair like it was an emperor's throne. "I would offer you a lemon drop, but I appear to have run out. Now, I suspect you are wondering why you are here?"

"Is it something to do with my meeting with Riddle yesterday, Headmaster?" Harry asked with a trace of nervousness.

Dumbledore chuckled. "Not entirely, Harry. I do confess to being rather interested in what you two discussed, especially as the room you entered is one I was not entirely sure existed; however, I am also curious as to the state and strength of your Occlumency shields. I would like, with your permission, to pit myself against you; Miss Riddle may be talented, but she is not quite at my level, if I do say so myself."

Harry blinked. Well, that was unexpected. "Would you like to know what Riddle and I were doing now, sir, or test my shields first?"

"The former, I think," Dumbledore replied, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't think he was quite mentally ready to try and hold out Albus Dumbledore without some time to prepare. About five minutes later, Harry finished his explanation with a hint of worry in his tone; he didn't know what Dumbledore would think of his reasoning – he was supposed to be a Gryffindor, not manipulate people like a Slytherin.

To his surprise, Dumbledore merely looked thoughtful. "The Come and Go Room, you say? Interesting; that would explain a great many things. As for your training, Harry, do not fear – I see no reason why it should not go ahead. Just promise me you will not become too absorbed in it. You are still a child, and you should not waste your childhood; it is one of the greatest gifts you will ever receive."

"I can't promise that, sir," Harry replied, surprisingly himself with his boldness. "I won't see another Ginny Weasley lose their childhood because I'm not strong enough to defeat Voldemort. Of all the people in the world, who am I not to makes sacrifices in order to defeat the monster?"

Silence fell, and Harry swore he saw something like shock pass over Dumbledore's features, but the serene visage of the Headmaster of Hogwarts returned so rapidly Harry wasn't entirely sure if he'd seen anything. Dumbledore looked at him, staring into his eyes; Harry knew he wasn't using Legilimency, but it still felt like Dumbledore was looking straight through him. The silence stretched out; it felt heavy, weighed down with vast import, like the fate of the world was hanging in the balance and the slightest noise could send it toppling over the edge. Harry didn't know why, but with the way Dumbledore was looking at him and the way the world seemed to have compressed to the two of them, he felt as if what he thought he'd said and what Dumbledore had heard were two very different things. It was like the cartoons he'd sometimes chanced to see on Dudley's TV when he was a child, left alone in the house - somebody said something is passing, and suddenly the hero had a flash of inspiration to solve whatever problem they were currently facing based on that chance remark.

Eventually, the Headmaster sighed. "You are wise beyond your years, Harry." He didn't say anything more, and Harry was left wondering why his words seemed so oddly regretful, like the implicit permission he was giving was costing him beyond measure. The silence extended a moment longer, and then Dumbledore resumed speaking. "Now, I believe I mentioned testing your Occlumency shields earlier?"

Harry nodded, and spoke. "Could I have a few minutes to prepare myself, sir?" He was used to duelling Riddle; she was familiar, and he'd gotten over his nerves fairly early on. Dumbledore? Dumbledore was an entirely different matter.

"Of course, Harry," the Headmaster said, and leant back in his chair.

Harry started clearing his mind (normally he wasn't so ritualistic, but against Dumbledore he felt safer following the full routine); he'd found the best way to do that was to focus on a single image in his mind, and almost pour his attention to it. Riddle apparently did something similar, from their brief conversation on the subject. In Harry's case, he imagined a flame, burning away his unnecessary thoughts and feelings and leaving behind only a void of nothingness. Once his mind was clear—the feeling was somewhat surreal, knowing he was thinking, but thinking only about the concept of nothing—he proceeded to try and strengthen his shields with everything he had, shoring them up, imagining that he was building a shield of pure power around his mind, something that nobody could ever penetrate.

He knew, of course, that he was nowhere near that level, but he'd found that Occlumency depended somewhat on whether or not you believed that your defences were impregnable as you could conceivably make them. Finally, after about five minutes spent working on clearing his mind and strengthening his shields, he looked back up at the Headmaster.

"I'm ready, sir," he said, and immediately felt the touch of Dumbledore's Legilimency.

If Harry had thought Snape's touch was subtle, compared to Dumbledore's the man's more resembled a trumpeting elephant riding a motorbike and shooting off fireworks. If he hadn't been expecting it, Harry doubted that he would have even noticed Dumbledore was using Legilimency on him. The Headmaster's probes were soft, delicate, brushing against his shields as lightly as a summer breeze. But there was a strength about them, even as they quested across the surface of his mind, looking for a weakness in Harry's defences, a strength Harry felt only when Dumbledore finally struck.

One moment the fingers of Dumbledore's Legilimency were still almost-caressing the outside of his shields, the next Harry was completely overwhelmed as a tsunami of elemental fury crashed through his defences in a hundred places at once; his shields literally shattered, breaking into a thousand pieces like they were made of nothing more than fragile glass. Dumbledore withdrew the moment he gained access, but Harry took longer to recover – for all Riddle's casual brutality, even she couldn't compare to the raw power behind Dumbledore's Legilimency.

When he felt coherent enough to maintain conversation, he focused back on Dumbledore, noticing the Headmaster's apologetic expression.

"Forgive me, Harry; I did not mean to be so rough with you, but it has been a while since I actively practiced Legilimency against someone with such impressive shielding," Dumbledore said.

"What do you mean, impressive shielding, sir?" Harry asked – while Dumbledore may have waited almost two minutes before striking, when he actively decided to break through Harry's defences, he'd done it in less than a second.

"You noticed that I spent some time examining your defences before I broke them? I was searching for some sort of weakness, some section that was inherently flawed, as there usually is in those who have not fully mastered Occlumency. What makes your shields impressive, Harry, is that they do not have weaknesses like that. Your 'domes' perfectly enclose your mind in a series of spheres; no one part is weaker than any other. As such, I had to resort to brute force to shatter them.

You must have be rather devoted to practicing your Occlumency to achieve such a level of competence in such a short time, Harry."

"You still broke them far too easily though, sir. When you actually decided to strike, it was as if they weren't even there," Harry replied, slightly downcast.

"That I did. But remember, Harry, I am well over a century more experienced than you are, and my magic has fully matured. There are very few in this world who can keep me out of their minds. So take heart – for someone with less than a year's worth of Occlumency training, your defences are extraordinary. I have no doubt that when you are older, even I may come into some difficulty trying to break into your mind.

And do not forget this – you do not need to keep Voldemort, or anyone else, out of your mind forever – only long enough for you to break eye contact."

Harry nodded slowly, somewhat heartened by Dumbledore's words, and then rose from his seat, recognizing the dismissal inherent in the Headmaster's words.

Later that day, Harry found himself in the Come-and-Go Room; rather than resembling what he presumed was part of the Slytherin dungeons, it looked more like a classroom with all of the desks removed, albeit somewhat larger. Harry stood at one end, where he'd been directed, and Riddle at the other. Without preamble, she spoke.

"The first rule of duelling is one so simple even you should be able to understand it. Don't get hit. Defence is your most important weapon; if your opponent can't touch you, they can't win. That said, never fight defensively; always be on the front foot, and always attack. Of course, to do that, you need to be able to defend yourself well enough so that you don't have to focus on it and can focus on attacking."

She paused slightly before continuing, letting her words sink in.

"So, today, you're going to show me your Shield Charm."

Harry blinked. "What's a shield charm? How do you cast one?"

Riddle's features twisted into a mixture of disdain and fury. "Are you telling me you came to me for duelling practice and you don't even know what a Shield Charm is?" she hissed before spinning on her heels and pacing back and forth, muttering under her breath and occasionally making half-movements with her wand, like she wanted to curse something. Violently.

Eventually, she seemed to calm herself down, because she turned back to Harry and spoke one word, slashing her wand from her hip to her shoulder like she was parrying a sword.

"Protego!"

Something bloomed out of her wand, a rippling mixture of blue and silver mist, like moonlight glinting off ocean spray; it solidified and expanded in an instant, creating an ethereal barrier between him and Riddle.

"This is a basic Shield Charm," she said with the air of one trying terribly hard to be patient and failing miserably. "Cast something at it."

Harry drew his wand and hurled a Full Body-Bind at the shield; when the spell struck, it rebounded off, deflected to one side. The shield shimmered when his curse hit it, seeming for a moment just slightly more solid than before, but the impression quickly faded. Harry raised an eyebrow; now here was a useful spell if he'd ever seen one. Riddle made a short, sharp gesture with her wand, and the shield faded.

"Do you remember the incantation?" she asked.

"Protego, wasn't it?" he replied.

She nodded, and then looked at him expectantly. It took Harry a few moments to realise what she wanted.

"You want me to try and cast it? Now? I don't even remember the wand movement correctly!" he said incredulously.

Riddle sighed exasperatedly, before once again whipping her wand from hip to shoulder; she didn't speak the incantation, but nonetheless the same shield bloomed in between them before fading. Harry paid careful attention to the way her wand moved, and realised his brief, half-remembered impression from earlier was exactly correct - it did look exactly like she was trying to parry a sword. He wondered briefly why that was, before realising the Shield Charm had probably been created a long time ago, when swords were very much in vogue - it was very difficult to model blocking with a shield with a wand, but blocking with a sword on the other hand...

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he decided to attempt casting the spell.

"Protego!" he cried, voice almost breaking, and slashed his wand in a wide arc across the front of his body just like Riddle had.

Nothing happened.

"You need to focus on it," Riddle said. "You need to will the shield into existence. Magic is about intent; are you so incompetent you don't even know that?"

"I killed your Basilisk without knowing that," Harry shot back. "You're pretty much four years older than I am, and you ended up becoming Voldemort. Cut me some slack, would you?"

Still furious, he slashed his wand again across his body, imagining for a brief second he was slicing Voldemort herself from hip to shoulder.

"Protego!"

The shield bloomed out of the end of his wand, an intangible mist quickly solidifying into an impressive barrier between the two of them. Harry looked at it for a second, a mixture of shock and fury, before his anger began to die as success flushed through his body. As it did, the shield began to fade as well; one moment it was there, every bit as solid as Riddle's had been, but the next, as his rage cooled, it began to almost fall apart, drifting into the ether in a shimmer of silvery-blue sparks. He looked at the empty space it had occupied, confused; as he did, he missed Riddle's slow, self-satisfied smile.

"Why'd it disappear?" Harry asked, more to himself than anyone else.

"Because you weren't focusing on it any more," Riddle answered nonetheless. "Rage is a powerful motivator - your anger was fueling the spell, but then you got distracted and lost it. Try again."

Harry wasn't particularly sure he liked the sound of anger fueling his magic; he was well aware of what Riddle was and what she became (would become?), and just because he was asking her to teach him didn't mean he wasn't going to be wary of what she said in the process. With that in mind, he tamped down on any of his residual anger—Occlumency training made the process much easier than it otherwise would have been—and focused on the spell itself, willing it into existence, demanding his magic to create the shield even as he whipped his wand through the air and shouted the words.

"Protego!"

A sparkling mist erupted before Harry; it reminded him of his attempts to cast the Patronus Charm. He tried to pour more magic into it—a task made difficult by the fact he didn't actually know exactly how to do that—but nothing happened - the incomplete shield remained floating in the air before him like a light winter fog. Giving the task up as lost, Harry stopped focusing, and the shield vanished.

"Again!" Riddle snapped.

And so, Harry spent the next two hours casting and re-casting the Shield Charm; by the end of the lesson, he was tired and his very core ached, like he'd been out running all day, but even that couldn't dim his sense of achievement - he'd managed to occasionally cast a full Protego without relying on anger to fuel it, although most of the time he still could only create the Patronus-esque mist that had marked his third attempt.

Over the next week, Harry found himself looking forward to Riddle's lessons despite himself; she was blunt, rude, dismissive and generally put him in mind of a female Snape (now there was a mental image he could do without), but she was a hell of a lot better teacher than Snape ever was. The Shield Charm was a fourth and fifth-year spell, but under her instruction, he'd mastered it in four days. Well, if by mastered he meant 'was able to cast it consistently'. His shield still didn't have very much power behind it, unfortunately; Riddle could usually break it with a single spell, even a simple Stinging Hex.

Amusingly, that was perhaps the only time where he thought he was incompetent and Riddle thought it was a circumstance beyond his control, rather than the usual other way around. She said that he was far too young to have come anywhere near his magical maturity; she was four years older, and he couldn't really expect to be able to hold off her spells for at least another year - unless he fueled his spells with anger, of course. The one other time she'd actually pissed him off enough to cast a shield in anger, her first spell—and the one after it—had bounced off much in the same way his Full Body-Bind had bounced off her shield the first time he'd seen the spell cast.

Unfortunately, not two weeks after he'd started being able to cast the Shield Charm consistently—they'd moved on since then into the realms of actually dodging your opponent's attacks, which made for a very painful process for Harry because Riddle was preternaturally accurate—disaster struck. Harry had just stepped out of the Come-And-Go Room when a voice hailed him, a voice he recognized.

"Hello, Harry," said Fred (or was it George?) Weasley, from where he stood against the opposite side of the corridor next to his twin brother. Both had their wands out, although they weren't raised, and in the other twin's hands was an oddly-folded piece of paper. "Fancy seeing you here. Where's Riddle?"

As if on cue, the door behind Harry opened again, and Riddle stepped out; the moment she did, both Fred and George raised their wands. In a blur of movement so fast Harry wasn't even sure if her arm had passed through the intervening space, Riddle's own wand was suddenly leveled straight back at them, and Harry was suddenly trapped in between her and the twins; the tension in the hallway was so great Harry was surprised the walls weren't shaking.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Author's Note:

I'm sorry, I lied about both the explanation for Riddle getting back her wand, and about Lupin appearing. I don't have room for the former quite yet, and for the latter, I was on the train up to university when I suddenly had an idea that made the scenes I'd planned with Lupin obsolete and, quite frankly, nowhere near as awesome. He will appear next chapter, if not as a POV then at the very least in a fair few important scenes. Sirius and Pettigrew's times are coming, don't worry!

The Prison of Azkaban will be ending next chapter, which will also include the beginning of The Goblet of Fire.

Until next time,

Magery