By Brand Spanking New

Word Count: 3810

Rating: PG-13 for violence and some language

Summary: When Harry looks into Snape’s mind during an Occlumency lesson, the professor reacts violently

Harry sighed. “Guess I’d better get going,” he said from his comfortable chair at the hearth of the Gryffindor common room.

Hermione shot him a sympathetic look that still managed to be a bit bossy. “It’s really important Harry. Who knows when… Potions…may save a life.”

“Assuming Snape doesn’t chop him into little pieces for potions ingredients,” Ron said darkly. “Er, good luck mate,” he added when Harry glared.

“Right,” Harry said. “See you later.”

He left his books behind and climbed out of the Fat Lady’s portrait to begin the long walk to the dungeons.

The last lesson had been different, though. Oh, Snape was still rather surly, but he’d actually taken Harry’s request into consideration. That bit about his glasses had been strange, Harry thought. Why would Snape want him to look as though he didn’t have glasses? And why would Snape make them reappear after the lesson was over?

He didn’t like his glasses either, honestly. For one thing, he was nearly blind without them, which seemed like a vulnerability that Voldemort could take advantage of should it occur to him. Not to mention that they were a bit clunky and old fashioned, considering he’d had the same pair for ages and Aunt Petunia had gotten them secondhand from one of those donation bins. She hadn’t seen any point in taking him to an eye doctor when the glasses from the bin were free.

Did wizards have something like what surgery muggles did with a laser to permanently fix a person’s eyesight? He hadn’t heard of it, but the wizarding world could still be a bit foreign to Harry. He seemed to learn new things about it every year.

As he descended the stairs, his thoughts turned again to Occlumency lessons with Snape. The man had seemed mildly pleased with his progress at their last lesson. Of course, the man was never truly pleased with anything, so as far as Harry knew that meant he was doing quite well. And it was really a great improvement by his own estimation. He’d never realized that shoving his worst and most painful memories in the cupboard under the stairs was actually Occlumency. Snape had really done a terrible job explaining himself before. Telling him to clear his mind didn’t really mean anything. No wonder he’d had no luck!

He still wasn’t having the best luck with it, honestly, and he definitely wasn’t looking forward to telling Snape that. Oh, it was simple enough to keep his memories tucked away in the representation of the cupboard under the stairs in his mind. But his scar still hurt when Voldemort was feeling strong emotions, and it had hurt badly enough to wake him from a sound sleep last night. He was tired and irritable and not sure how much of the Potion Master’s snark he could take before losing his temper.

Snape made him nervous. Harry knew that Dumbledore wanted the man to teach him Occlumency for a reason, but he still wished it could be anyone else. Even thinking about the near-whipping made his stomach twist, and he couldn’t help but wonder when the man would lose it again. Snape disliked him as much as he disliked Snape…but the man had all the power here. And that belt of his was nothing to sneer at. Even thinking about it made his backside twinge.

The worst thing about it, he decided, was that since Snape had almost whipped him once, he’d be less likely to stop himself from trying it again. If Dumbledore had been around, Harry might have been able to convince the man to teach him instead. But now Snape was quite literally the only man for the job, which meant Harry needed to stay on his good side.

Unfortunate, then, that the man didn’t have a good side.

Harry started slowly down the dungeon steps. Maybe it would be alright. He’d finally figured out what Snape meant when he barked at him to clear his mind. There had been progress. Maybe the lessons would be over soon and he and Snape could hate each other in relative peace once again.

He paused at the door to Snape’s classroom before taking a deep breath and knocking.

“Enter,” Snape intoned. Harry pushed the door open.

The man was once again grading potions essays and he didn’t look up as Harry walked in. Harry shut the door behind him and stood still just inside the door.

The Potions Master aimed his wand towards the door. Harry heard the lock click. He recognized the wand movement for a basic silencing charm follow.

“Your glasses,” Snape pronounced, tapping the top of his desk. Harry took them off rather reluctantly and placed them where Snape’s long, bony fingers had drummed. Snape tapped them with his wand and they vanished. Harry groped for them, feeling much better when they settled as an invisible weight against his nose.

Snape’s eyes met his and suddenly the peculiar itch that was having another person in your mind started in Harry’s head. The cupboard popped up in his memories and he focused his energy to keeping it closed tightly. The last thing he wanted was for Snape to see his secrets now that he knew how to keep them hidden.

It ended just as suddenly. “You little fool! Have you no common sense? If I break into your mind, I expect to see memories. If there are no memories there, what does that tell me?” Snape’s black glare was harsh enough that Harry took a thoughtless step backwards. He was now well aware of the importance of staying out of arm’s length of the man.

“Uhh…” Harry’s mind went utterly blank. He stared at Snape helplessly.

“Potter, think! Everyone’s mind is chock full of memories, thoughts, emotions. If He enters your mind and finds only a cupboard, what conclusion will be drawn?”

Harry felt rather stupid. The way Snape was glaring at him said that the answer was meant to be simple. But Harry was exhausted from interrupted sleep and fighting pain in his scar all last night, and nothing was coming to mind.

He flinched backwards automatically when Snape’s hand slapped the desktop. The man’s lips flattened at that, and he leaned back in his chair, deliberately folding his arms over his chest.

Snape’s voice was low and precise, as smooth as the surface of a still pond. “The Dark Lord has broken into many, many minds. He knows intimately how the human mind is organized. He is able to tell a trained mind from one untrained to withstand Legilimency. Should he break into your mind at this point, Potter, he shall see a mind of a rather poor Occlumens, yet a mind that has been trained in some fashion. However, because your training is…rudimentary…at best, he would go searching for your hiding places. And your hiding place is less than subtle.” Snape’s eyes snapped into Harry’s.

Again they were directly in front of the cupboard. Harry focused on keeping the door closed tightly, feeling the force of Snape’s mind as he attempted to pull it from its hinges. It clicked for Harry then. He felt the man disengage from his mind, leaving a rather awful headache in his wake.

Harry blinked rapidly, his eyes feeling dusty and dry. “So… You’re saying that I need to leave enough memories out of the cupboard to confuse Vol-er, Him?” Harry said, quickly correcting himself as Snape’s eyes flashed at the name.

“Yes, Potter,” Snape said in a voice reminiscent of one who is talking to a particularly slow child. “That is what I am saying.”

Harry turned his attention inward, to the cupboard that now held his every memory. Good, bad, and terrifying beyond belief, they were all wedged in there indiscriminately. Feeling very hesitant, he cracked the door just a tiny bit.

He could let the good memories out, he decided. They had been loose in his mind before and caused no harm. There was a certain feel to the memories, like silk rushing smoothly over his hands, as he pulled them free from the cupboard. They rushed off to wherever they had been before he’d gathered them up and tucked them away.

Suddenly he felt that strange mental itch again and he knew Snape had entered his mind once more. He could feel the man flicking through his memories and putting them aside one by one.

“Saint Potter,” he heard Snape sneer, the man’s voice rattling around inside his skull. “I am certain that the Dark Lord has seen enough of your mind’s inner workings to know that all is not perfect in your world. And yet, I see only the warmest of memories here. Do you think Him a simpleton?”

Harry winced at that. He hadn’t thought of it like that. Again, he turned towards the cupboard door and cracked it open.

Snape’s presence nearly blasted him off his mental feet, digging through memories at an extraordinary rate of speed. Harry threw all his energy toward closing the door again, ejecting Snape from his mind with an angry mental push. He became aware of the world around him again with a jolt. Snape was leaning against his desk, panting for breath.

Harry gulped in a great gasp of air. “What the hell?” he spat.

“If you are going to be so foolish as to let down your defenses with another person in your mind, boy, then do not be surprised if that person takes advantage of the situation.” The professor flicked a long, greasy curtain of hair from his face with a twitch of his neck.

Huh. Harry hated to admit it, but the man had a point. He nodded a bit stiffly to concede it and saw a flicker in those black eyes.

“You need to allow a mix of memories free reign. In fact, the only memories that you ought to keep hidden are the ones that are directly detrimental to your continued safely, or the safety of the Order. Any secrets that Dumbledore shared with you, for example. These lessons, but only the most recent ones, as the Dark Lord is aware of the browbeating I gave you and would be highly suspicious if he knew that the lessons continue.”

Harry felt himself flush with humiliation at that—Voldemort knew that Snape had threatened him with a belt, like a child. He didn’t understand his own embarrassment. Voldemort had tried to murder him, multiple times, and yet he was still ashamed that He had seen him like that, helpless and scared. Hermione would probably be able to explain why he felt that way, not that he’d tell her. She would probably flip her lid if she knew Snape had treated him like that, and even more so if he told her Voldemort knew. After all these years of friendship, Harry knew her tendency to overreact rather well.

A snap of Snape’s fingers drew his attention back to his teacher. “Have you sufficiently rearranged your memories?” Snape asked. Harry shook his head dumbly and Snape curled his lip.

“Then do so! I assure you, I have no wish to spend my evening sequestered with you!”

Well, that was mutual. Harry turned away from the man so he couldn’t easily sneak into his mind as he rearranged and returned to the mental image of the cupboard under the stairs. He opened the mental door and pulled memories loose. Some felt splintery and rough in his mental grip, others downright jagged and sharp. He quickly let out memory after memory.

…Aunt Petunia swinging a soapy frying pan at his head as he ducked out of the way had the rough consistency of heavy grit sandpaper.

… Picking spectacles from the charity bin was like pebbly gravel.

…Snape swinging that belt in a menacing arc stung like electric shock.

…Cedric’s lifeless eyes staring up into the sky burned like fire.

Faster and faster he pulled memories from the cupboard until they rushed over him like a deluge of grit and fire and pain. They dispersed into his mind proper, until the cupboard was mostly bare. He could sense jagged memories tucked into the corners but left them be out of some sense of preservation. Cautiously, he called up his memories of the last lesson with Snape. They presented themselves to him, another gravel-textured memory; somewhat unpleasant but apparently mixed with something good. He shoved it into the cupboard where it settled with a mild sigh, almost like a living thing. Then again, Harry mused, with magic something did not have to be living to act like a living thing.

He put some of his memories with Dumbledore in there as well, and others that would likely be of no interest to Voldemort but which he did not wish Snape to access, such as the little debacle around obtaining boomslang skin in his second year. They obediently settled down in the cupboard and he shut it tightly, willing it not to open for anyone but himself.

He pulled himself out from his mind, feeling a bit foggy. His eyes met Snape’s.

Again, the tingling, itchy sensation of having another’s presence in his head started up. He could feel Snape calling memories forward, searching for specific ideas. Many of his memories of Snape came forward in quick succession.

…His first sighting of a rather greasy-haired, hook nosed man next to Professor Quirrel and the sharp pain in his scar as those black eyes met his own…

…Professor Snape threatening to see Ron and him expelled for flying the Ford Anglia into the Whomping Willow…

…”My hand may just… Slip… Over your pumpkin juice”…

… Snape talking to Dumbledore at Grimmauld Place-

“Potter!” Snape broke suddenly free from his mind, leaving Harry mentally and physically off balance and gripping the sides of his head. “Are you incapable of following even the most simple directions?” The man stalked towards him and Harry couldn’t help but shrink back a bit. Again, Snape’s lips drew into a tight, flat line, but he stopped.

“No sir,” Harry said, feeling confused. What had he done now?

“I told you to hide any memories that would compromise your safety or that of the Order. That would include memories of myself at the Order’s headquarters, you idiot child!” Snape appeared to be holding on to his temper by a very tenuous grip.

“But I thought He knew you’re a part of the Order!” Harry protested.

Harry could see a muscle working in Snape’s jaw. “Yes, the Dark Lord is aware that I am part of the Order,” he said. “But if you believe that I am so obtuse as to tell Him everything that occurs there, boy, then you are much stupider than even I ever fathomed.” The man’s eyes locked on his again, although this time Snape didn’t push into his mind. Instead, he used words as sharp as his potions’ knives.

“The Dark Lord would do anything to get his hands on you, Potter. The last time He did so, you very nearly died. Were it not for your unbelievable, idiot luck, you would be rotting in the ground at this very moment and the hope of the Wizarding World would be lost. So if you value your life and the sacrifice of your parents one blasted whit, hide your memories.“

Hastily, Harry mentally gathered all his memories of Snape outside of Hogwarts and shoved them into the cupboard. And not a moment too soon, for Snape’s eyes merged into his and that blasted itch began again.

… Curled in a squashy purple sleeping bag under the enchanted ceiling in the Great Hall and listening to Dumbledore and Snape discuss if Sirius Black may have had assistance in gaining access to Hogwarts…

… Snape glaring down at them menacingly, saying, “People may think you’re… Up to something…”

…Three young voices yelling “Stupefy!” and the red spell light hitting the professor in the chest…

Harry could feel Snape’s irritation at that memory and mentally winced a bit. Looking back, he didn’t really understand why Dumbledore hadn’t at least given them detention for that one.

Faster and faster Snape paged through his memories like a muggle phonebook. Finally the man pulled loose from his mind. Harry found himself reeling backwards, half-sitting and half-collapsing onto a desk. He breathed deeply, eyes shut tight, trying to find his bearings.

When he finally opened his eyes, Snape was studying him intensely. He dropped his gaze to the man’s feet.

He heard Snape take a steady breath. “You have improved somewhat, Potter,” he said in a very stiff voice. “Do hide this lesson as well. The Dark Lord believes that these lessons have ended. Should he find out otherwise, it would be… dangerous.”

“Yes sir,” Harry said tiredly to his feet, unable to even find the energy to look up at the man.

There was another pause.

“Do you have any questions?” Snape asked. It sounded like it took him some effort to say the words, and it surprised Harry enough that he snapped his eyes to Snape’s face.

“Er…” Harry said. “That is, I…” Harry stopped. What would Snape care if his scar was still hurting? Perhaps it would be better to say nothing?

He saw Snape’s shoulders rise and fall as the man took a breath. “Continue,” he ordered shortly.

Harry wasn’t a Gryffindor for nothing, so he spit it out. “My scar still hurts. When Vol-er, He’s-happy, or mad, or whatever. I can still feel it.” Cautiously, Harry glanced towards his teacher. “My scar burns. More, the stronger he feels.”

The man’s face was still as stone except for his eyes flicking up and to the left. Harry found himself wishing that he could read Snape’s mind. Anything could be happening behind those eyes.

“And until today’s lesson, you were keeping all of your memories in the cupboard?” Snape queried with a quick glance to Harry’s face.

Harry nodded.

Snape clasped his hands in front of his stomach. Harry could tell the man was thinking furiously, although his face barely flickered. He watched anxiously. Obviously this wasn’t in the normal course of things as far as Occlumency went, if Snape’s body language meant anything.

“I need time to consider this, Mr. Potter,” he said finally. “You will come back at the same time next week. Until then, keep any and all of the memories that you have locked away hidden, including today’s lesson. If you continue to be affected by the emotions of the Dark Lord,” and at this, Snape’s eyes connected with his, “then you may contact me.”

Harry was surprised at that. “Sir?” he said. It was one thing for the man to deal with the weekly lessons that Dumbledore had demanded. But for Snape to offer assistance at other times was, well, pretty out of character for the professor.

Snape sighed. It was a surprisingly human gesture from a man that rarely gave the impression of humanity. “Potter, I cannot be completely certain that your barriers were up correctly prior to today; however, I do know that they are up now. Ergo, if the Dark Lord is still able to affect you with his emotions, then Occlumency is not the solution. Rather than allowing him unfettered access to your mind, it seems important to find another manner of blocking this connection. So if it continues to be a problem going forward, you need to inform me. Immediately.”

Harry found himself gaping at Snape a bit. The man narrowed his eyes. “Do shut your mouth, lest you allow the flies in,” he said irritably.

Harry shut his mouth with a click of his jaw. “But sir,” he managed after a moment. “It’s mostly, er, during the night. Vol-er-I mean, He doesn’t really sleep much, I don’t think. And it pretty much always happens after curfew…”

Snape gave him a sardonic look, arching an eyebrow. “That has never kept you in your dorm room before. I see no reason for it to do so now.”

Harry felt his cheeks go a bit pink and he looked down at the floor. “Right,” he said softly.

He could feel Snape glaring at the top of his head. “That is not an excuse for you to be wandering about after curfew,” he said sternly, his voice dark. “Should I find you out of bed after hours and you are not coming to tell me that the Dark Lord continues to affect your scar and your mind, I shall not be at all lenient with you, Mr. Potter. Do you understand?”

Harry nodded with a very short glance at the man’s waist where that dreaded belt still sat. He had no interest in ever feeling that against his backside. “Yes sir,” he said quietly.

There was a pause. Harry felt a slight frisson against his face and touched his glasses where they had once again become visible. He looked up to see Snape returning to his desk where the stack of parchments waited. “You are dismissed,” Snape said, seating himself behind the desk and returning his eyes to the essays.

Harry got to his feet and plodded towards the door, feeling exhausted and wrung out like a wet flannel. “Goodnight, Professor,” he said quietly as he left the room. Snape did not answer.

He was more than a little bit confused, his mind running wild as he made his way down the Potions’ hallway and towards the first set of stairs. Snape hated him…he knew that. The man had hated him since the moment he had first laid eyes on him. So why on earth would he tell Harry to tell him if his scar was still hurting? He couldn’t imagine that Snape would care about such a stupid thing. Even Dumbledore only cared that Harry’s scar hurt because it was so dangerous for Harry to have a link with Voldemort.

Ah. That was it. Dumbledore, Harry decided as he climbed the steps from the dungeon. The man must still be in contact with Dumbledore, somehow. And if Harry did not tell Snape, then Snape could not tell Dumbledore. That had to be it!

As Harry started down the hallway towards the base of Gryffindor tower, he found himself desperately hoping that the connection between his scar and Voldemort would not be active now that his Occlumency barriers were up. Snape had said he was certain that they were, after all. So maybe everything would be okay now, and he wouldn’t have to worry about bothering the man after curfew anyway. They would both be happier that way.

Yes, with any luck, this whole thing would be sorted now.

The End

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