Neville, Dean, Seamus, and Ron were surprised on their first morning of class with a wide-awake Harry Potter rushing them to make it down to breakfast on time. Harry was normally up first after being forced awake to cook for the Dursleys his entire life, but he was always finishing up homework or doing something else, and absolutely never wanted to go to breakfast. "Ergh! Harry…you know, Jamie would let me sleep a little longer and be late to breakfast," Ron grumbled. He was usually the one trying to get food before class. It was just so early though.

Harry paused in pulling Neville out from under his covers at the code word. He thought for a minute and then seemed to decide that he was showing an acceptable level of strangeness. "Ron…you know you're going to grumble all day and be irritable if you don't get your breakfast," Harry warned. "Hermione always says that it's important to eat in the mornings."

"I didn't think you ever listened to her though," Ron muttered as he stumbled out of his bed and towards the bathrooms.

"Who's Jamie?" Dean asked while he seemed to be having a hard time tying his tie, still being half asleep.

Now that Neville was out of his bed, Harry turned to grabbing all his belonging impatiently. "He's just a new friend of ours. We're basically pen pals since he doesn't go here," Harry explained before tying Dean's tie for him to hurry things along faster. "I'm really starting to see why we miss breakfast so many mornings," he muttered when Dean smiled at him thankfully.

"You never cared before," Seamus grabbed his bag and huffed out of the dorm and down the stairs, making sure with his attitude that Harry knew he was still angry and didn't believe his story that Voldemort had returned for a second.

"Well, I'm on a new health kick," Harry explained to an apologetic looking Dean with a shrug at Seamus's actions. It hurt him, but he had much bigger problems than a prat of a roommate. He hadn't realized his habits were so bad before all this until his dormmates thought it was strange for him to make reasonably healthy decisions. Jamie needed taking care of since he couldn't take care of himself though. "I plan to eat three healthy meals a day and get a reasonable amount of sleep every night."

More than a few Gryffindors, and even some faculty members, were impressed and a little surprised when the entire fifth-year boys dorm made it down to breakfast on time and fully dressed for the first time ever. Hermione was even more impressed when Harry put eggs, fruit, and some oatmeal on his plate and seemed determined to eat it all. "Wow, Harry," she smiled as all the other fifth-year boys sleepily grabbed bacon and toast. "Have you actually been listening to my health talks all these years?"

Harry grinned at her as he speared a strawberry. "I always listen, Hermione. I don't always care though."

She threw a bit of egg at him and laughed. "Well, at least you won't be hungry for a fun day of Transfiguration, DADA, and Double Potions." All the fifth-year boys groaned dramatically and turned back to their breakfast.

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Transfiguration, as usual for a first day, was just McGonagall going over the syllabus for the term and explaining what they would be covering in their OWL year. Harry didn't even have to use magic, so he breathed a sigh of relief at the reprieve. He was also happy that during classes, no one was especially excited or happy. It was much easier to pretend he was a normal human when he wasn't hungry. Hermione and Ron both had to stop him from playing with his locket a few times since there was a beam of light from the window that just touched his desk, and he could get the locket to shine in the light. Overall, there weren't any major slips though, and he went to his first Defense Against the Dark Arts class hopeful that the day would continue smoothly. Yeah…right…

It only took ten minutes before Harry decided that he hated Umbridge even more than Voldemort. Yes, Voldemort was a murdering psychopath, but at least the man was honest about it. Umbridge was going to get them all killed while smiling in their faces and telling them it was for their own good. As the toad-woman went through her asinine spiel about how nothing was wrong and they didn't need to learn to protect themselves, all of Harry's classmates kept glancing at him to see when he'd finally blow up and yell at her. Whether they believed him or not, they all knew his temper and that he was reaching his breaking point.

Keep your head down…don't draw attention to yourself. Harry kept repeating to himself over and over again. The last thing he needed was a ministry official paying him any attention, specifically this one that looked extremely angry and confused when she saw him walk into the classroom like she hadn't expected him to have been there. If Voldemort had killed him over the summer, it would have been in all the papers though. And supposedly she didn't even believe Voldemort was back, so why would she think he wouldn't have made it back to school?

Harry was confused and angry and frustrated that he couldn't just release his aura and scare the living daylights out of the evil woman. He made it almost all the way through class, and even Hermione had kept her mouth shut in her confusion that Harry hadn't risen to the woman's bait. Only a few more minutes to go…

"Mr. Potter," Umbridge turned her beady eyes directly on Harry who stifled a groan. "I'm glad to see the summer has changed your attitude for the better and brought you to see reason. Lying and saying He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned was very naughty of you, causing fear when none was founded."

Yeah…there was only so much one dementor can take, and this was it. "Professor Umbridge," Harry smiled at her just as sweetly and fake as she was smiling at the class. "Of course, Voldemort has returned," he said as if addressing a small child. "Cedric Diggory didn't just drop dead of a stroke at 17 now, did he? I can give you a very good description of Voldemort if you want to write up the report for the ministry…He's about six foot with red eyes, no nose, no hair, very snake-like in appearance, still loves the torture and killing curses though he did try the Imperius on me as well. Also, the Death Eaters who were in the cemetery with him were Malfoy, McNair, Avery…"

"You will be quiet this instant!" Umbridge yelled out before calming herself and plastering the fake smile on her face once more. "I see you are still the liar we all know you to be. Detention, Mr. Potter. Let's see if we get a lesson in honesty to sink into your addled brain."

Harry shrugged and surreptitiously pulled some of the happiness from the pink woman towards himself. She cleared her throat and hurried to the front of the room quickly. The dementor hid a smirk behind his hand and enjoyed his impromptu snack tremendously.

"That wasn't the smartest idea," Hermione sighed as they walked out of the classroom and towards the dungeons.

"I tried, Hermione. I really did," Harry told her sadly. "Can you honestly say you would have done better? I saw you biting your tongue when you realized she wasn't actually going to teach us anything. You wanted to tell her off just as much as I did."

"I know," his friend draped an arm around his shoulders. "She's going to cause you a load of trouble."

"Well…she's a DADA professor," Ron added in as if that explained everything. When his friends looked at him questioningly, he expanded. "When haven't we had a DADA instructor that hasn't tried to kill or seriously harm Harry? Even Lupin almost killed us, even if it wasn't intentional."

"That's actually very true," Harry mused as they neared Potions. "And, surprisingly, Snape has only ever saved my life even though he's the obvious one to try to kill me."

"Huh…" Ron stopped and thought about that as Hermione pushed him towards class again.

"I have a feeling if Snape wanted you dead, you'd already be dead and no one would ever find the body," Hermione remarked unhelpfully, but also very truthfully.

"I'm a little harder to kill than people give me credit for," Harry grinned at her mischievously as they entered the Potions classroom and found empty seats. There weren't very many books on dementors. The only mentions of them he'd found so far (in the library at Grimmauld since he'd been more focused on warding during his one trip to the Hogwarts library) had remarked that there basically was no way to kill them completely, only chase them off. It was an interesting thought…but Jamie was much more fragile, so that was his main concern at the moment.

"Be seated and quiet!" Snape billowed into the classroom in a wave of intimidation. Harry stared at him impressed. However, he made his aura do the power/intimidation thing he was making it do, Harry wanted to know. He hadn't been able to feel and distinguish auras before his change, but now he was very in-tune, and Snape seemed to have an excellent handle and control over his own aura.

The Potions Master didn't seem to notice the impressed and interested look he was getting from his least favorite student as he went into his overly dramatic lecture on OWLs and how this would be the last time he would have many of them in his Potions class. Harry rolled his eyes as Snape glared directly at Neville when he said that. Neville shifted nervously in his seat but definitely looked more than a little happy that this would be his last year in Potions.

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Harry had just shoved a large bite of his dinner in his mouth when a whirlwind of red hair with a green jumper sat beside him. "How was your first day?" Ginny asked as she took the roll off of Harry's plate to eat.

"Hey, Gin," Hermione smiled at the girl with a surprised look on her face, not sure why she was joining them at the table.

"Umbridge," Harry grimaced as he put another roll on his plate to replace the stolen one.

"He's already gotten a detention," Ron snitched on him as Harry gave him a glare.

Ginny sighed and shook her head. "It was probably inevitable," she remarked. "So…you coming with me to the forest tonight?" She changed the subject like Harry knew exactly what she was talking about.

It took him a minute to think about why Ginny would want him to go to the Forbidden Forest with her before he remembered their discussion by the carriages the night before. "Oh, the thestrals! Yeah, I'd love to come. Just give me a few more bites," he said happily and shoved another bite of tasteless chicken in his mouth.

"No hurry," Ginny shrugged as she continued to pick at her pilfered roll. "The fourth years had Umbridge today too. They want to start some kind of study group since it seems like we aren't actually going to learn anything this year."

"That's a great idea, Ginny!" Hermione jumped at the suggestion. "Who's going to lead it?"

Ginny shook her head sadly. "That's the problem. We haven't had very many competent DADA professors, and no one has any ideas about who could lead us yet," she said with a pointed shift of her eyes over to Harry that only Hermione saw.

"Ah, yes, that is a problem," Hermione nodded with a little smile. "I'll give it some thought as well. I'm sure we can come up with something."

"What do thestrals eat?" Harry asked between bites. "I'd like to bring something along for them."

"Don't worry, I got it covered," Ginny grinned. "Do either of you want to come?" She asked Ron and Hermione.

"They can't see them," Harry shook his head, answering for his friends.

"What are thestrals?" Ron asked, mouth still full of mashed potato.

Everyone grimaced in disgust as Hermione went into a long lecture about an animal she couldn't see herself. "And…they're really very lovely," Harry added onto the end.

"Unless the picture drawn in the textbook was completely wrong, I'm going to have to disagree with Harry on that one," Hermione raised an eyebrow at her friend.

"What is beauty?" Ginny questioned with a sarcastic look on her face. Harry smiled at her.

Ron and Hermione shared a look before talking about the twins' new joke product and tuning the other two out.

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Half-way to the forest, Ginny started walking backwards in front of Harry with a broad grin on her face. "So…Harry. I'm very interested to know how exactly does a person become a dementor when they've always been a human before?"

Harry threw his arms up at a loss. "No clue…one minute I'm getting the soul sucked out of my body and knowing it's game over, then the next, I'm checking out my nose less and eyeless face while the dementor who turned me strolled away all unconcerned and unhelpful."

"That's odd…" Ginny frowned in consideration. "I thought dementors spawned in mist, and that's how they multiply. I've never heard of someone being turned into a dementor before."

Harry shook his head as he forcibly turned Ginny around again before she ran into a tree. "I looked around Grimmauld's library but couldn't find anything about it. I'm checking Hogwarts library next, but I was more concerned with wards for Jamie last night, so I haven't looked yet."

"Jamie?" Ginny asked as she peered around trees, looking for the thestrals.

Harry blushed, not realizing his slip. "Er…well, I kind of named the Harry-suit. It's not really a part of me anymore and well…I feel bad for the poor bugger…er, old me, I guess. Anyway, I've come to think of him as like a pet, sort-of. If I don't take care of him, he'll just waste away and die. Plus, you know, I'd like to keep him around so I can still pass as human at least a little."

Ginny stopped at the edge of a clearing and smiled brightly at Harry, her eyes sparkling. "I'd love to study him sometime," she cocked her head musingly. "To see what's left in there and how it's still connected to magic." Seeing Harry's frown, she quickly added in nervous explanation. "I'm sorry; it's a fairy thing. Seeing magic all around us makes us curious how things interact. I didn't mean like study, study, just you know…observe…I'm not making this any better, am I?"

Harry smiled again as a couple thestrals wandered into the clearing. "I just don't like the idea of being studied," he shrugged. "I'll think about it, ok…?"

"Sure," Ginny breathed out a sigh of relief and pulled some raw steak from her bag. "Here you go," she said to a small, awkward colt that stumbled forward.

"He is beautiful," Harry breathed out in wonder at the tiny horse. His aura was so full of life and wonder. "I can't wait to see one fly sometime."

"Here, give them this and they will definitely let you pet them," the fairy handed over a piece of raw meat.

"I was wondering, does Ron not know that you are a fairy? Harry asked.

"Of course he does. Mum has restricted all of my brothers from talking about it with anyone. Even you. I only told you when I noticed you... changed." Ginny explained. "Plus, I think Ron is jealous of me." She added with a giggle.

"But why hide it?" Harry asked.

"Prejudice, Harry, prejudice." Ginny sighed.

"Right."

Harry and Ginny stayed and played with the baby thestral until the sun sank down below the horizon. It was so peaceful and uncomplicated with the horses in the forest. After thanking her for showing him where the thestrals live, Harry made plans to visit with her again the next week. "Don't eat anyone I wouldn't," Ginny called after him with a wave as they parted in the entrance hall. Harry just shook his head and made his way back to Gryffindor Tower to tell Ron and Hermione all about the baby thestral.

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Harry's second night back at Hogwarts saw him wandering out of the tower once more. This time, he left Jamie behind under a crap-ton of wards. He was certain he'd find a few more to add in the coming weeks as well. At this point though, no one could open the curtains, if they tried, he'd know. If anything spiked with Jamie's heartrate or respiration, Harry would know. If any loud noises happened around the bed, he'd know. And if any magic was cast within a meter of the bed, he'd be notified. He knew he was paranoid, but well…people had been trying to kill him since he was born, and they had essentially succeeded over the summer. He wasn't ready to live as a dementor full-time.

Establishing a routine, Hedwig met him halfway to the library again. "I'm not always going to be researching, girl," he told her in quiet screeches. "One of these days, we're going to go flying again or go to the forest." Hedwig hooted in agreement, not really liking being cooped up in the library herself.

This time, Harry was looking for books on dementors. He needed to find out what had happened to him, if it was reversible, and how the ministry might be making the other dementors stay at Azkaban. He had a small stack of books before a quiet pop sounded in the library.

"Mr. Harry Potter, sir?" a squeaky voice whispered out into the library questioningly. Harry put down the books on a nearby table after nearly jumping out of his robes and looked around the shelf in surprise, staying invisible in the shadows.

Dobby the house elf was almost quaking in fear from where he was standing in the corner of the library by the circulation desk, pulling on his purple, knitted hat that Harry recognized as one of the ones Hermione made. "Mr. Harry Potter, sirs, Dobby needs to speak to you," the house elf said in a whisper again as he wrung his hands anxiously. Harry had expected at some point to have either a house elf confrontation or for the fifth-year boys' dorm to never be cleaned and the elves to go on strike out of fear, but he hadn't expected Dobby to come alone to find him.

"I don't know if you can understand me now, Dobby," Harry called out as quietly as he could in the dementor language, still invisible to his anxious friend. "If you can, you should know that I'd never hurt you."

Dobby let out a sigh of relief but looked around the shelves for Harry. "I can's understand, sir. Where are you?"

"Do you know what I am, Dobby?" Harry asked sadly, not planning to come out until he was sure Dobby already knew what he was. There was no way he was going to reveal himself if the house elf didn't.

"Yes, sirs. That's why Dobby's been sent by the other house elves. Dobby says to them that Mr. Harry Potter would never hurt an elf, but they's be scared. They says that Dobby needs to go make sure the dementor doesn't like the taste of elveses," Dobby rushed out in an apologetic tone.

Harry finally drifted out from behind the shelf and dispelled the magic keeping him invisible. "Hey, Dobby," the dementor gave his friend a little, sheepish wave. "I didn't mean to scare the elves."

Dobby jumped, but then took in Harry's appearance. Yes, he was a dementor, but he was hunched over into himself and trying to make himself as small as possible. His hood was pulled low over his face to cover it completely, and there was absolutely no aura emanating from him. Hedwig was sitting on the table between them, keeping an eye on the interaction. Even for a dementor, Harry looked rough. "Dobby knows his friends," Dobby said with a little sob before he rushed over and wrapped his little arms around the dementor's waist.

Harry couldn't cry; he didn't even have eyes. Instead, he patted the tiny back of the elf that was holding him tightly. "Thank you, Dobby," he croaked out.

"You's need to take better care of yourself," Dobby pulled back and admonished the dementor, shaking a little finger at him warningly. "Have you's been eating well? Students are happy at dinner…you need to eat too. They's won't miss a little happy. Quidditch is happy, and Saturdays. Mr. Harry Potter needs food like all students."

"I've only been here two days, Dobby," Harry chuckled in surprise. He couldn't believe Dobby was telling him to take some of the happiness from around him. Or, maybe he could, Dobby was always a strange elf.

"Well, you's didn't eat well before you got here then!" Dobby frowned.

The dementor shrugged. "I've had a bit. I'm not too hungry."

The house elf crossed his arms and stamped his foot. "You eats at least once a week from now on. I know you's been feeding your other body, take care of this one too. Dobby will send Winky to find you's if you don't."

Harry wasn't sure how Winky was a threat, but since Dobby had tried to get him expelled and had almost killed him trying to protect him, if he thought Winky was a threat, then Harry was certain the little elf would probably be hella scary. He didn't want to take that chance. "Yes, sir, Dobby, sir," he said with a little laugh.

Dobby nodded and grinned broadly at his friend. "Now, I's tell the other elves you no danger."

"Please tell them I'm not going to hurt them or anyone else. If I do skim some happiness, I'll make sure to do it so it isn't noticeable, ok?" Harry promised.

"You's better…or Winky," Dobby warned, still grinning. Hedwig hooted in agreement from where she was perched on the table.

"Er, Dobby…could you ask them to not tell anyone please…like the headmaster?" Harry asked sinking into himself a little more.

Dobby scoffed and gave Harry a little chuckle. "Harry Potter, sir, you's not the only magical creature in this school. House elves have been taking care of the students since Hogwarts began. We's follows the rules of the school. All students are fed and cared for…no matters what they are, and we's no snitches."

"Really?" Harry tilted his head wondering who else could be a magical creature besides himself and Ginny. "I bet I'm your first dementor though, right?" He asked with just a little bit of irrational pride at that.

Dobby laughed and nodded. "Yes, that's why the elvses were a little worried. They's follow the Hogwarts rules though. You's easier than wendigos anyway. They don't eat humans anymore, but they has very specific diets, and aswangs are allergic to their food, so we has to keep everything separate when we have both in the school."

Harry's eyes would have widened in surprise if he had any. "Just how many magical creatures are at Hogwarts?"

"It changes based on the year," Dobby smiled and shrugged. "We's never tell…"

"Wow…thank you, Dobby," Harry chuckled. He'd have to talk to Ginny at some point. She obviously knew more than she was letting on if she could tell who all the magical creatures were. "I'll take better care of myself and not eat anyone in the process."

Dobby nodded. "Ok, the elveses will be happy," he said with a little pop as he apparated out again.

"Hedwig…I have a feeling this year is going to get weird…" He remarked as he petted her head. Hedwig hooted out a little chuckle before they returned to their research into dementors.

A/N: Thanks for reading and please vote and comment!