Harry also met with Remus again during this time. The perceptive werewolf had picked up on Harry's mood as well. He took it to mean that Harry was finally really facing Sirius' death and comforted him as best he could. Harry felt really guilty about misleading Remus, but used the situation to his advantage to sell his grief to his former professor. He knew that everyone expected him to be taking Sirius' death badly, but seeing his godfather every night made it so much easier to forget the pain. But with Harry looking as bad as he did at this time, it made it that much easier to hide his nighttime activities from others.
When Harry finished organizing his memories, he knew he wasn't done with them. He had been suppressing so much for so long, and he was not naïve enough to think that he was over his past, but there were more important things to do now. So he pushed all that aside, trapped in the trunks in his mind for the time being. With all of his memories so organized and stored away, Harry found it much easier to control his emotions and thought processes. He could prevent himself from thinking about certain things if he wanted to, and it wasn't hard to squash any emotions he wasn't ready to deal with by just locking them up and the thoughts and memories that were causing them.
Now that everything was sorted out, it was time to learn how to protect his mind and memories. He read more of the book and found different analogies of how to protect the mind. Physical barriers were one example, while another example likened the process to setting up wards to protect a home or possession. Given Voldemort's strength, Harry decided it was probably best to cover all fronts. He didn't know anything about wards yet, but he had bought a book about them from Diagon Alley. That would be the next book to devour.
In the meantime, Harry imagined setting up physical barriers. He imagined his mind to be encased in steel walls on all sides, the ceiling and floor both steel as well. He then imagined his trunks being reinforced with steel as well. After he felt like he had done all he could with physical barriers, he decided to start reading on wards.
That was how Harry found himself reading through Magical Protection: Standard Wards for the Home today. Harry had been using his assignment notebook that Hermione had given him to help him keep notes to himself and keep track of the days. As he was adding a note to himself he realized the date: July 30th.
Harry realized that it was Neville's birthday. He decided that he would write a quick note to his friend to wish him a happy birthday. He wished he had thought of it sooner so he could have gotten the boy a gift, but he would have to make due with just a homemade birthday card. He set aside his book and pulled out parchment and quill to begin writing.
Dear Neville,
Happy Birthday, mate. I wish I wasn't stuck with my muggle relatives, or I might have been able to get you something. I don't know if you ever realized this, but our birthdays are only a day apart. Kind of funny how despite that, this day could still sneak up on me. But the Dursleys never celebrated my birthday, so it's never been a big deal for me, which has made it easy to forget about it.
I hope your summer is going well. I've been keeping busy studying. I've been coming up with new lessons for the DA this year. That's right, the DA will be back. It'll be open to new members and officially sanctioned by the school, so we won't have to sneak around the school all the time any more. You'll hear all the details about it when we get to school.
Well I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. I hope your day goes well.
Take care,
Harry
Harry walked over to his owl and gave her the letter to deliver to his friend. It was never a strange sight to see Harry talking to his owl at Privet Drive; she was, after all, the only friend he had in the house. Ever since he had found he could talk to Hedwig, he would occasionally change to his owl form and chat with his snowy white feathered friend. He also tried to imitate their mind speak in his human form, but had not found any success yet. He told Hedwig to deliver the note to Neville and that it was the boy's birthday. He wished her a safe flight and saw her out the window.
Harry turned back to his book and buried himself in it. He found a lot of wards that would not help his current problem, but that he read up on regardless because he was genuinely interested in learning more about them. There were anti-apparation, anti-portkey, anti-muggle, and confounding wards. There were wards that would prevent entrance to anyone except in a certain location designated as the gate. There were wards that you could key to certain people to specifically prohibit their entrance. There were also age specific wards like the age line that Dumbledore had used with the Goblet of Fire in Harry's fourth year.
There were a few different wards to create different kinds of silent spaces. One kind would block any sound from leaving the enclosed area but would allow sound to enter, another kind would block sound from entering the enclosed area but allow sound to leave it, and the last ward would block sound from both entering and leaving the enclosed area. There was an imperturbable ward that would prevent anything, living or non-living, from crossing through the barrier.
Harry found that the strength of a ward is equal to the amount of magic poured into it. Long lasting wards can be regularly reinforced to increase the strength of it. That's why such long-standing buildings like Hogwarts were considered to be so safe, because their wards had been active for so long and were constantly being reinforced. In order to break through a ward, one would have to pour as much magic into breaking it as was currently active in strengthening it. But wards naturally deteriorate over time, so if any wards were not regularly strengthened, they would be rather easy to break through.
The book stated that there was a way to amplify wards by keying them into a gemstone. Using different gemstones to house the wards would increase the lifetime of a ward by lessening the amount that the wards weaken over time. It mentioned that many studies have been done on how different stones affect different types of wards and how the size and quality of the stone can affect things as well, but it did not go into any details in the subject. It was just a book on the basics, after all.
Harry found himself very interested in the subject of wards. Hogwarts was considered one of the safest places in the world, yet he had found his life in danger several times throughout his five year career there. He wondered what wards were in place at Hogwarts and how they were protecting students. He wondered how these wards had failed to protect him and his classmates so many times.
Before he went to sleep that night, he imagined placing some of the newly learned wards in his mind. He placed an imperturbable ward around his entire mind space to prevent anyone on the outside from entering. Putting wards up in your mind wasn't exactly the same as it was casting the wards in real life. It was more of an analogy of sorts. You cannot cast magic in your mind, but you can will things to happen a certain way. So Harry just had to will a force field to be erected around his mind for it to happen. He also put a field over each of the trunks in his mind that would allow only him access to them.
That night Harry and Sirius only spent half of their time together training. After a time Sirius called for a halt, and they spent the rest of the night chatting away about anything and nothing. Sirius told Harry that it was his birthday present, since he couldn't actually give him any gifts. He told Harry that his parents, James and Lily, had asked him to wish their son a happy birthday for them. Harry had smiled, eyes glistening with unshed tears, thinking that hearing that was better than any present anyway.
Harry awoke in high spirits. He made a conscious decision to enjoy the day. He locked away all negative thoughts and memories and concentrated only on good things. He jumped into his regular morning routine and threw on some jogging clothes. The sun was low in the sky but bright and cheerful. There were light, scattered white clouds, but the sky was mostly a soft shade of blue. Summer was in full swing. It was warm out, but not unbearably hot at this time of the morning. Harry broke out into his jog to the sound of birds cheerfully chirping in the trees lining the sidewalk.
He had recently taken to keeping an eye and an ear out for Tonks, whom he had overheard telling Remus she always got stuck running after him under her invisibility cloak. He had on several occasions managed to locate Tonks as she trailed after him; she could be quite clumsy even in the best of circumstances, so running around under an invisibility cloak was an invitation to disaster.
Harry noticed that today Tonks was trailing behind him on the sidewalk. Being in the spirited mood he was in, he decided to have a little fun with the goofy auror. He was rounding a corner with a particularly high hedge lining the edge. When he made the turn he jumped off the sidewalk into the hedge and held still listening carefully for the sound of her footsteps. Seconds later he heard her approaching, and just as she was rounding the corner Harry reached out and plucked the invisibility cloak off of her head.
"Wotcher, Tonks!" Harry greeted cheekily.
Tonks whirled around on the spot and clutched a hand to her chest. She was reaching for her wand when she noticed who her assailant was. "Blimey, Harry! You nearly gave me a heart attack," Tonks complained. "What's the big idea anyway? You trying to blow my cover?"
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