The book Professor Lupin had given Harry was thin, brittle at the edges, and filled with warnings more than instructions. Occlumency: A Study in Mental Defense was written in tight, rigid script, as if the author had wanted no emotion to leak into the pages.
Harry devoured it.
Every night, after finishing homework and bidding Ron and Hermione a casual goodnight, Harry retreated to his bed, drew the curtains, cast a Silencing Charm, and read by wandlight.
And it was hard.
Occlumency was unlike anything else in magic. There were no spells. No wands. Just focus. Awareness. Control.
"The human mind," the book read, "is a chaotic library with every shelf overturned. Memories spill out like broken glass—pain, joy, rage, confusion. To master Occlumency is to enter that storm, gather the fragments, and build a fortress."
Harry closed his eyes and tried.
He slipped into meditation as Salazar had taught him—not searching inward for magical strength, but feeling the Force around him. Once calm, he shifted his attention inward. Not to draw power, but to find the core of who he was.
And there it was.
A light inside him, like a star at the center of a galaxy. It pulsed gently with his breath, with his heart. His magical core.
Surrounding it was madness.
Memories—hundreds of them—floated in every direction. Aunt Petunia screaming at him. Ron laughing on the Hogwarts Express. The flash of the Basilisk's eyes. The cold of the Dementor. Ginny's pale face in the Chamber.
Every memory, from his earliest days in the cupboard to just last week in Potions, drifting, like they had no place to belong.
It took him a full hour just to focus on one.
But he did. He pulled it closer. Wrapped it in a silver glow—his will, his magic. And slowly, he imagined a shelf. A high, safe shelf.
He placed the memory there.
And did it again.
And again.
The first stage of Occlumency was order.
Dobby listened with rapt attention when Harry began teaching him.
"Dobby has never learned to protect his mind," he said quietly, "but Dobby always wanted to keep his thoughts safe. When Dobby worked for the Malfoys, Dobby had to hide his thoughts all the time."
Harry nodded. "Then you already know part of it. You just never had the tools."
They sat in silence together, cross-legged, fingers resting on knees, eyes closed. Harry guided Dobby step by step. How to feel the magic around him. How to go into his own mind without panic. How to take one memory—just one—and place it in a safe place.
And Dobby was a natural.
He was born with instinctual magic. He didn't have a core like wizards, but he had something else—raw awareness.
Soon, Dobby was organizing his thoughts like drawers. He created a small house in his mind. Inside it, his most precious memories were locked in a chest with seven keys. The walls were made of stone and starlight. And Harry smiled with pride when Dobby described it.
But there was still the issue of where to train safely.
The Chamber of Secrets was ideal, but too far. Harry couldn't sneak off every night without raising suspicions. And he didn't want Dobby living alone down there anymore.
Then Dobby gave him the answer.
"The other house-elves told Dobby about a secret place," he said excitedly one morning, bouncing in place. "It's called the Come and Go room, sir! Dobby found it! It's perfect!"
Harry blinked. "The what?"
"A room that becomes what you need, sir! And it's just around the corner from the seventh-floor tapestry of dancing trolls! Dobby made it into a training room—soft floors, floating stones, silence! Dobby even brought his things from the Chamber!"
Harry followed him that very night.
They passed the tapestry three times, thinking clearly about a place to train and be alone—and the door appeared.
Inside, the Room of Requirement was perfect.
Wide. Quiet. Circular. The walls were lined with soft crimson panels. The floor shimmered with padded stone. Floating orbs of light drifted above their heads. Objects—cushions, sticks, stones, and even a table—hovered gently in the air, circling like moons.
"This is incredible," Harry breathed. "It's like it knows what we need."
"It does, sir!" Dobby grinned. "The room listens."
So they began training together every night after dinner.
They meditated first, breathing slowly, grounding themselves in the Force.
Then, with hands raised, palms out—they tried.
Harry focused on a stone the size of a Bludger. He didn't wave his wand. He didn't shout Wingardium Leviosa.
He reached.
He pushed.
The stone wobbled, trembled, and then—lifted.
Only inches off the floor, but Harry's eyes lit up.
Dobby squeaked in joy and sent three cushions spinning around him like a protective ring. "Dobby is using the Force, sir!"
Within a week, they were both lifting multiple objects. Within two, they were pulling them to their hands and holding them still in the air while meditating.
It wasn't just about power. It was about control. About trust.
Harry trusted the Force.
And slowly, the Room of Requirement—high above the rest of Hogwarts—became the forge in which Haraldin Slytherin was being shaped.
Two weeks had passed.
Two long, exhausting, exhilarating weeks of meditation, levitation, and internal discipline. Haraldin Slytherin—still known as Harry to everyone else—had progressed far beyond where he had begun. So had Dobby. And now… it was time to return.
The Chamber of Secrets welcomed them with cool air and still silence. The remnants of the Basilisk now stored in reinforced trunks, the space had transformed into a strange hybrid of a training arena and ancient crypt.
Haraldin stepped forward and placed the Holocron on the stone pedestal. Dobby stood beside him, beaming with anticipation.
With a hum of crimson light, the Holocron awakened. The flickering, ghostly image of Salazar Slytherin materialized once more.
"You return," the Holocron said. "Impress me."
Without hesitation, Harry raised both arms. Around him, eight stones rose into the air, slowly orbiting his head like moons. Dobby raised his hands too, his magic guiding a spiral of pebbles to form the shape of a rotating helix.
They floated, balanced, quiet.
Salazar watched.
"Wrong."
The stones dropped.
Harry blinked. "What?"
"You are still relying on your core—on your internal magic. This is not the discipline of the Force. You must reach outward, not inward. Your will must shape the world, not your blood. Until you let go of that crutch, you will just become a wandless wizard."
Dobby's ears drooped. "Dobby thought he was doing well…"
"You were," Harry whispered to him. "We'll fix it."
Salazar turned slowly.
"No matter. You have returned. That is enough. It is time to begin your next phase of training."
"The Lightsaber Combat."
Harry's brows drew together. "Saber? You mean like a sword? We already learn dueling with wands."
"Fools with wands flail. Sith with lightsaber conquer."
"The lightsaber is not a simple sword. It is a focus, a physical extension of power. A beam of plasma, controlled through a containment field, capable of cutting through steel, stone, and ignorance alike."
Harry blinked. "But if you come from a more civilized world, why still fight with swords?"
Salazar's ghost-smile was sharp.
"A lightsaber is not a relic—it is the pinnacle of close-range combat. It teaches precision, movement, balance. You cannot hide behind spells. You learn to control, not just destroy."
Dobby tilted his head. "But… Dobby is very small. How can Dobby fight with something big?"
"You will. Because the Force does not care for size. The Force enhances what is within. You will make the weapon move as an extension of your will."
Salazar gestured toward the side of the chamber.
"Craft your practice weapons. Two sticks. Balanced. Durable. The form must be learned first—then the blade."
Harry and Dobby quickly gathered two strong wooden rods from the supplies in the chamber. Haraldin's was nearly the length of his arm. Dobby's… was longer than his entire body.
He grimaced. "Dobby thinks this stick is trying to fall on him."
"You'll get the hang of it," Harry muttered, smirking.
And then, the training began.
Salazar demonstrated the first form.
Simple motions. Grip. Stance. Swinging from shoulder. Turning the blade downward to block. Sliding step. Parry. Strike.
Harry copied the motions slowly at first, sweat forming on his brow. Then faster. More fluid.
Salazar corrected him with ghostly precision.
"Your foot is wrong. You're over-committing. Again."
Beside him, Dobby spun the large stick in circles. It thudded against the floor twice before he finally caught the rhythm. He grunted in frustration but kept going.
Again.
And again.
Until Dobby's swing nearly struck Harry in the ribs.
"Oi!" Harry yelped, stumbling back.
"Sorry, sir!" Dobby cried. "Dobby's stick is angry!"
"Good," Salazar said. "Let it challenge you. Only then will you learn to command it."
They trained for over an hour, striking and blocking in set patterns, repeating footwork sequences, sweating and panting beneath the flickering lights of the chamber.
When at last they collapsed onto the stone floor, gasping for breath, Salazar observed them both with narrowed, glowing eyes.
"You are not fast enough."
"You are not strong enough."
"You are not ready."
Haraldin sat up, breathing hard. "Then we'll keep training."
"You must learn to augment your body with the Force. Speed. Strength. Sight. When you swing, the Force must flow through your limbs like fire. When you block, it must anticipate your opponent. That is what separates a duelist from a Sith."
"Train. And return when you can make the wind move with a swing."
And with that, the Holocron dimmed and deactivated.
Silence returned.
Dobby groaned. "Dobby's arms feel like pudding…"
Harry smiled weakly. "Mine too."
He stood, raised his stick again, and faced Dobby.
"One more round?"
Dobby picked up his oversized training stick, wobbling.
"Always, Master Harry."
The fire in the Gryffindor common room had long since gone cold. Outside the windows, the stars twinkled softly, casting faint silver light across the floor where schoolbags and cloaks were strewn. The tower was silent.
Except for Harry.
Curled up in his favorite chair by the window, he sat still, breathing slowly, eyes closed.
But inside his mind, he stood in a street of flickering gas lamps and cobbled stone.
Diagon Alley.
Not the real one. But a near-perfect memory of it—rebuilt and refined inside his own head. This was his mindscape, the mental fortress he was shaping, one stone at a time. Shopfronts rose in every direction, each housing memories sealed in vaults behind their doors.
He had considered modeling it after Privet Drive—a place he knew intimately.
But the thought of walking those cold, empty sidewalks again—of filling his thoughts with the home he had loathed—made his stomach turn.
No. His mind would not be a prison.
It would be a vault. A fortress.
And deep in the mental recreation of Gringotts, he began placing his most important memories—organizing, shielding, layering them in magical wards of willpower and clarity. They shimmered inside crystalline spheres, rotating slowly in high-security vaults.
But not all memories were so easily caged.
As he walked through his mental alley, a memory brushed against him, forcing itself into view like a curtain pulled aside.
It was his first year, deep in the hidden chamber beneath the school. Quirrell's face, half-consumed by Voldemort's withered visage, screaming in pain as Harry's touch burned through him. The smell of stone and ash. The weight of death.
Then another.
Second year—the Chamber of Secrets. Ginny's lifeless body. The echo of Tom Riddle's mocking voice. The Basilisk's piercing shriek. The flash of the Sword of Gryffindor.
And now, Sirius Black—escaped, hunting him, his name whispered in every hallway.
He felt a chill that wasn't from the autumn wind.
"All this time," Harry whispered aloud into the empty common room, "I thought I was safe. Protected. But every year… death walks behind me."
He leaned back in the chair, eyes still closed. His breath trembled.
"I don't even know my grandparents' names," he muttered.
The truth gnawed at him. He had spent so much time trying to fit in, to laugh with Ron, to tease Hermione for reading too much, just so he wouldn't seem like the "boy who knew nothing."
He'd chosen mediocrity because fitting in was easier than standing out.
And he'd been lucky.
Twice.
The first time, it was chance that saved him. His mother's love. A burned professor.
The second time, it was Fawkes and a sword that came from nowhere.
"I didn't earn any of that," he said bitterly.
Then came the memory.
The one that haunted him most.
The Dementors. That horrible cold. That sucking blackness.
And in the middle of it—his parents' voices.
His father: "Lily, take Harry and go!"
His mother: "Please... not Harry. Take me instead."
Voldemort's sneer: "Move aside, girl."
They'd died for him. Both of them. Just so he could live.
And what had he done with that life?
Joked about skipping homework. Slept through History of Magic. Mocked Hermione when she tried to take magic seriously.
He had treated his survival like a game.
But no more.
Harry—Haraldin—opened his eyes slowly.
A new fire glowed within them.
He would never be caught helpless again. He would not rely on wands alone. Nor luck. Nor Dumbledore's protection. He would forge his own strength. Through the Force, through Occlumency, through discipline.
Through whatever it took.
He would not die.
And he would not lose.
"Salazar will teach me. The Holocron will train me. I will learn it all," he whispered, voice like steel.
His gaze drifted to the glowing embers in the fireplace.
"If anyone—wizard, ghost, or god—comes for me again…"
He clenched his fist.
"I'll fight. Tooth and nail. With every breath. With wand or saber. Until they regret ever coming after me."
Outside, the night wind howled against the castle walls.
Inside, Harry Potter really died and Haraldin Slytherin born from the ashes.