The bed in the room he had chosen had an old-fashioned feather ticking and a hand-stitched quilted coverlet in blues and greens. Sea colors, noted Harry. The room had its own fireplace—the main reason he had chosen it over the other—and for the first time Harry realized the cottage didn't seem to have electricity. He shouldn't have been surprised—after all, Hogwarts didn't have it either—but the cottage seemed almost Muggle otherwise. He had opened the window a crack at Snape's suggestion that he would sleep better with fresh air coming in. The crank was a bit rusty and he had finally managed to get it to turn freely when he was surprised by a knock on the door.

"Come in," he called out and Snape opened the door and took a step into the room. The room was illuminated only by two candles on the bedside table and a swath of moonlight through the single window. The candle holder was made of a piece of stained driftwood and it cast a twisted shadow against the wall. Snape, Harry noticed, was still dressed in the black trousers and white shirt, but the shirt sleeves were rolled up almost to his elbows now as if he had been grading essays and hadn't wanted to get ink blotches on them.

"You are ready for bed?" asked Snape. He was eying Harry but didn't comment on the old t-shirt he was wearing over faded pyjama pants. Neither fit him well—the t-shirt was far too large and the pyjama pants far too short.

Harry nodded, feeling awkward. "Yeah, I am." Snape didn't move. He simply indicated the bed with a slight nod toward it, directing Harry to get in. Harry obligingly moved over to the bed and pulled back the covers, sitting on the edge on top of the white sheets but not actually getting in the bed. What was Snape planning on doing, anyway? Singing him a lullabye? They'd made dinner together again, this time actually cooking the vegetables and potatoes to go along with the chicken pie, which Snape had produced, already put together—undoubtedly by the house elves at Hogwarts—from the cold cabinet that stood in for a fridge. Dinner had been followed by the promised "pickling of the mollusks," a wholly unpleasant task that involved scooping out tiny mollusk bodies from tiny mollusk shells with equally tiny silver "de-shelling" spoons and tossing them into a cauldron full of briny water. Collecting the little creatures had proven far more enjoyable than dispensing with them.

Snape had then turned Harry free until his 10 p.m. bedtime (10 p.m.? Was Harry 12 or 16?) and Harry had spent part of the time in the bath trying to scrape off mollusk parts (they were particularly disgusting under his fingernails) and the rest beginning letters to his friends. Writing was exceedingly difficult with his injured hand still only partially functional. It was difficult to grip the quill so he exchanged it for a particularly fat one that he normally avoided. He managed letters only to Neville and Luna before he called it a night. He hoped they would understand why he kept abbreviating everything (Hi Nev, How R U?) and why there were ink spots in the margins and even over some of the text. He wasn't sure Snape would even let him send the letters, and he didn't have an owl, but he needed something to do and was so far determinedly avoiding summer assignments. He had decided to ask Snape to post the letters for him next time he went out to Hogwarts or Diagon Alley.

Still sitting on the edge of the bed, Harry reached down and pulled his socks off from the toes, realizing that Snape might have something to say about his lack of slippers. But Snape was still regarding him silently, so he placed the socks on the floor and reluctantly scooted back into the center of the bed, pulling the covers up around his hips.

Snape seemed satisfied with this effort and dipped his hand into his trouser pocket, taking out his wand. He waved it and wordlessly conjured a straight-back chair, which he turned so that the back was facing Harry. He straddled the chair, resting his arms on the top of it.

"Perhaps you thought that the dream therapy this morning would be the extent of your Occlumency training today?" He looked pointedly at Harry, who looked blankly back at him. Really, Harry hadn't thought of it at all. He was too busy wrenching miserable mollusks from their marble-sized shells. In all actuality, Harry was just happy that Snape wasn't going to sing or read to him, or tell him a bedtime story, or worse yet, talk more about Umbridge's detentions. He'd never actually had anyone sing him to sleep or tell him a story at bedtime—anyone except his parents, of course, but his memories of his parents were limited to the day they had died and didn't involve lullabies.

"Mr. Potter?" Harry realized he had zoned out and looked up at his teacher. "Sorry…just tired I guess." He smiled apologetically. Snape eyed him a bit critically but now that he had Harry's attention, continued.

"Starting tonight, you will be going through a series of mental exercises at bedtime. You read about some of these in the first chapter of the Grindewald book." He paused here, the question implicit.

"Mentally Manipulating your shield material," supplied Harry after a moment of thought. "He discussed bricks—mentally laying them out to build a wall, or a fortress, or even a maze."

"Correct…but only after spending time acquainting oneself with the nature of the material itself," countered Snape. "Recall the section about the straw and the mud, forming the brick, baking it in the sun."

Harry nodded. Personally, he didn't see how "being one with the brick" or "getting in touch with your inner brick" could help one with Occlumency. He was suddenly rather glad he'd decided to use water as his shield. Was Snape going to make him reflect on individual hydrogen and oxygen atoms next? But the potions master continued, seemingly unaware of Harry's distraction.

"Fortunately, you have within your realm of experience an encounter with your shield material that is suitable for this first exercise. Mr. Potter, tell me—how did it feel to have gills?"

Harry gave Snape a half smile. He remembered the terror of the transformation, the sharp stabbing pain as the gills opened before he was all the way in the water, not being able to breathe—then that first gulp of water that passed through him, so different than air, but serving the same purpose of sending oxygen to his brain.

"I had no idea what the gillyweed would even do," answered Harry. "Dobby woke me up and handed it to me and all he told me is that it would make me breathe underwater. I took it and ran right to the lake." He remembered how slimy and rubbery the gillyweed had felt in his mouth. "Have you ever used gillyweed, sir? "

But Snape was giving him one of those looks again—the ones that said he didn't quite believe Harry and the topic would be discussed later. He confirmed Harry's assessment when he said, "We will be discussing this Dobby and his gift of gillyweed at a later time, Mr. Potter. "For now, let me revise my question. How did you feel in the lake…once you realized that you could indeed breathe underwater and got over the shock of having gills and webbed hands and feet?"

Harry tried to remember what it felt like in those early minutes of the second task during the Triwizard Tournament his fourth year, before the terror of not being able to rescue his friends in time had set in. He'd felt light, and cool instead of icy cold. He remembered how murky it was, how all sounds were muffled, how his hands seemed to be magnified, how he couldn't see more than ten feet in any direction.

He had a sudden revelation—water had as much obscuring and distorting power as it had brute force. Since his conversation with Snape following the dream, he'd been thinking of the strength of water, evident in a waterfall or the stormy sea or a flash flood. He'd not given any thought at all to this other facet.

"Once I had the gills, I felt at home in the water," he finally answered. "It felt…right, I suppose. I could only see a short way in the murky water, and sounds were all muffled. I couldn't see the grindylows—but they couldn't see me either until I was right on them. Shapes were distorted." He looked up at Snape suddenly. "That's odd, isn't it? I felt at home in the water, but all my senses were dulled. My eyes could actually probably focus better, but the water was so murky they really weren't much use. It was easy to get lost—and hard to know which direction was up."

"Water has life-saving properties yet can be extremely dangerous. It is a requirement of life yet frequently causes death. It is an apt shield material, but it will not shield you in the same manner as bricks and mortar or even iron bars so you must devote time and effort to study it thoroughly. But if you can learn to mentally immerse yourself in its depths effortlessly, you can become a successful Occlumens." He paused and picked up the Grindewald book from the night table. "What else did this book suggest about your shield material?"

"That you experience it as a physical shield," answered Harry. "His examples were to actually close yourself in a stone room to practice, or behind a barred door or windows…." Harry trailed off and looked down at his hands in his lap. He'd found this part of the reading disturbing. Unfortunately, he'd been in those places already. He wondered if he'd chosen the wrong shield—if perhaps a cupboard under the stairs might have been more appropriate given his history.

"Tomorrow promises to be a very warm day," said Snape. He had been watching Harry closely, Harry realized, but didn't ask any more questions. "You will spend time in the water—I will teach you the bubblehead charm as you need to experience the water as a human would and not as a fish." Harry nodded and a yawn escaped. Snape stood, waving his wand to banish the conjured chair and placing the book back on the night stand.

"Now, your nightly exercises to prepare for Occlumency. As you have decided to use water as your shield material, this first week you will meditate on the properties of water each evening for a minimum of 15 minutes after getting in bed and before falling asleep. Recall that your body is sixty percent water, your brain seventy percent. But first…." Snape pointed his wand at the mattress.

"Aqua Cubilus."

The mattress beneath him moved suddenly and Harry toppled over on his side. He put his hands down to push himself up again, producing a wave in the mattress that spilled him onto his other side. His brain finally caught up with his startled body and he flipped, rather like a fish, onto his back.

"A water bed! You could have warned me!" He glanced over at Snape. His professor had tucked his wand away again and was regarding him with thinly veiled amusement.

""I believe you'll find that you sleep exceedingly well tonight, Mr. Potter. Your fifteen minutes will begin when I leave the room." He waved his wand over the bed and the tangled covers rose into the air, straightened themselves out and then fell down over Harry.

"Good night, Mr. Potter."

Snape left the room without another word, closing the door softly behind him.

After a moment, Harry lay very still, feeling like he was floating on the bed below him. He felt heavier than usual, every inch of his body molding to the mattress in motion below him. He never quite got around to beginning his meditation as his body rocked like a boat with his every movement, soothed by the water beneath him. Just before he dropped off, he turned on his side and curled up in a foetal position and had the fleeting realization that a foetus was protected by water, hidden away in its mother's womb. He vaguely hoped he'd remember that in the morning. By the time Snape come in to blow out the candles when the fifteen minutes were over, Harry was fast asleep.