The rest of the day had passed quickly—the immersion experience followed by more reading, then physical therapy, an unplanned nap, preparation for dinner and then dinner itself. Harry had not been able to resist trying out the hammock that Snape had hauled out to the porch while he was reading, hanging it on two hooks obviously placed there for that purpose. Predictably, he'd fallen asleep, but this time Snape had not awoken him during the dream, and it was several hours later when the images from it rose to the surface of his consciousness.

They ate dinner on the porch as the sun was beginning to set. The fish and chips had come straight out of the cold cabinet, ready to eat with a simple warming charm, but Snape had once again given him a knife and this time, several yellow apples. He'd been instructed to peel them, core them and slice them. Harry had the vague feeling that he was practicing for potions—he had had two days of slicing and figured dicing, chopping or pulverizing was next. He regarded the finished product—crunchy whitish-yellow slivers that blended in colorlessly with the fish and chips.

"No mushy peas?" he asked as they ate, understanding why they were often served with the otherwise bland-colored meal.

"You can't be serious," answered Snape dryly.

After dinner, Snape had called Harry into the sitting room, where he lit the oil lamps and placed two of them on the low table in front of the sofa. Once again, as on the day they arrived here, Harry found himself sitting on the middle cushion of the sofa with Snape sitting across from him in the plush chair.

"We have a lot of material to cover in the next days," began Snape. Harry squirmed a bit, getting more comfortable for what he suspected was likely to be a long conversation. "I do not think it wise to push you too hard in the beginning, though you made great progress today in the water. But I will tell you now that you must begin to put everything you learn into play by next week. As you learn to manipulate your barrier effortlessly and to keep up your diversion, you can still become distracted by emotion. This is especially probable when the attacker discovers an emotional weakness and hammers directly on that spot. If you recall our lessons from last year, you may remember certain of your memories that played out more frequently than others. A skilled Legilimens can maneuver into a miniscule crack, discover the most insignificant weakness."

Harry was not looking at Snape. He had his eyes fixed on the flame in one of the oil lamps. He wasn't remembering his Occlumency lessons during this fifth year so much as something else, something more recent.

"But when Voldemort possessed me…at the Ministry…it was my emotion that forced him out. The…love I felt. Dumbledore said so." The name Voldemort escaped his lips so readily that he didn't even think about its effect on his professor. He looked up and saw Snape flinch slightly but he didn't correct Harry.

"Possession is not the same thing as Legilimancy," answered Snape, "though the two share common…intrusive…elements. The Dark Lord is skilled at both—as evidenced not only by the events at the Ministry of Magic but by your entire second year with the Chamber and the diary. You will have to accept that I am right about this—you must deal with certain emotional aspects of your past in order to close those cracks and truly succeed as an Occlumens. The emotions that put you most at risk to intrusion are negative ones—anger, fear and guilt in particular.

Harry felt a cold weight settle in his stomach. He wished he hadn't eaten so many of the greasy chips. He had a very good idea where this was going. Once again he dropped his eyes to his lap.

"Over the last days, beginning with the incident of your uncle running you over with his car, I have had the distinct pleasure of getting to know a Harry Potter that I did not know existed." Harry looked up in surprise—now that was unexpected—but dropped his head again as Snape continued. "I attribute some of this experience to the fact that I was—and am still—experiencing you in a new context. By that I mean that you are not at Hogwarts wearing a Gryffindor uniform and I am not in front of a group of careless students doing their level best to blow up my classroom. However, I also believe you have matured—the Harry Potter that came to Hogwarts and then to Shell Cottage after the accident is indeed one that did not exist before. I believe that maturity has come in part from having to deal with the emotions brought on by your Godfather's death—and of learning of the Prophecy."

Harry jerked his head up at that. What did Snape know about that? Did Dumbledore tell him everything? Did Snape know what he had done to Dumbledore's office?

Snape's expression inexplicably softened. "Do not be so surprised. When the headmaster asked me to take on this task—to bring you here and to train you as he trained me—I gave him every argument in the book. I acted as much like a petulant child as you often do—more so, even, if I am to believe the headmaster. Albus was finally able to convince me that you were growing up, that you were now mature enough to handle the stress these weeks would cause—separated from your friends, thrown into day to day existence with the Professor you hate, made to face your fears."

"I don't hate you," said Harry, still gazing at the steady flame of the lamp. The lamp's chimney must have been very old, for the glass was wavy, causing the flame to appear elongated.

"No, you don't. Not anymore. I am aware of that."

Harry broke his gaze away from the flame and looked at Snape. He could not help the smile that flitted across his face. One could say it was almost a guilty smile—as if he had been caught in some imagined transgression.

"While I believe you have made a great deal of progress in only two days, there are still things that must be brought out into the open. You must face these directly, so you can begin to heal. Facing them will make you stronger all around—not only as an Occlumens. And if you understood the Prophecy as I understand it and as Professor Dumbledore reads it, than you know that this strength will ultimately be needed."

"I don't want to talk about Sirius," said Harry quietly. Not with you was unspoken but understood.

"Fine. Then we will start with the abuse you suffered from that cow Petunia and the walruses with whom she lives."

That was perhaps the last statement he would have ever expected to come out of Professor Snape's mouth. His own mouth dropped open, wanting at the same time to protest the word 'abuse' and goggle at his professor's uncannily accurate description of the Dursleys. Protest won out.

"I wasn't abused. I … I was … neglected."

"Semantics," said Snape. "Your guardians withheld basic human comforts, made you sleep in a cupboard and showed you no affection. Were you ever hugged there? Did Petunia read you stories at bedtime? Were you rewarded when you did well in school? Did she hang up your artwork when you were small? Did you go on family outings? Did they even buy you your own clothing?" The questions came hard and fast, and Harry did not think it fair at all.

"No, they didn't do those things. But what of it? They hated me. They were afraid of magic and I was always doing something weird that embarrassed them. They never wanted me. They didn't ask to take me in."

"You are defending them? It is acceptable to make a child sleep in a broom cupboard? To run a child over with a car and then worry about whether that child would bleed on the seats? Do you realize, Harry, that while we were preparing to move you to Hogwarts you asked us to return your uncle's car? That that was on your mind when you were suffering broken bones and blood loss? Do you love these guardians, Harry? Would you miss them if you never saw them again?"

Harry looked up to meet Snape's eyes. He blinked. "No, I don't love them. I wouldn't miss them. But I don't want anything bad to happen to them either. I don't care about revenge." He paused, hoping Snape could hear that he was sincere. "I just don't want to have to go back there again."

"That is not my decision…unfortunately," answered Snape, leaning in toward the table that held the lamps and gripping the edges with his hands. "Harry, why do you somehow feel responsible for how the Dursleys treated you? That you were placed on their doorstep is not your fault. This conversation alone will not heal this guilt. But you must start somewhere. And I know the perfect place."

"What?" asked Harry. He should not have been surprised when Snape scooted another small notebook and pencil across the table to him.

"You will begin by recalling every positive thing you know about, feel or have experienced with the Dursleys and write them all down in this book. Include, if you must, acts of kindness you have witnessed them perform, even if you were not the recipient of said kindness. I know it's a small book, but I have more if you fill it up."

"They treat Dudley well. They spoil him to death." He managed to say it without bitterness, almost as if arguing for his tormentors.

"Do they? Has he turned out to be a fine human being? Did their shining example shape him into a good person?"

Harry looked at the book in his hand, and then he looked at Snape sitting across from him, looking a trifle smug. He looked again at the book and then set it back down on the table and pushed it across to Snape. He honestly could not think of a single example of kindness they had shown to anyone but each other.

"I'm done, sir," he said.

"Good," said Snape, picking up the notebook and putting it on a side table on top of a stack of books. He regarded Harry evenly for a moment. "I know I have overwhelmed you tonight, but it was a necessary first step. Unfortunately, we cannot stop with this discussion. Tomorrow we will discuss your first sea-dream in more detail, identifying the symbolic elements that have significance to this discussion—those that have important emotional context. And tonight…tonight you will reflect upon guilt before you go to bed." He picked up a larger notebook now and handed it to Harry. "Consider this a journal of sorts. I will not read it, but I will check that you have written in it daily. Today your topic is guilt—what it means, when you feel it, what specific incidents have engendered the feeling in you. We will be discussing this further."

Harry scowled as he took the notebook. "Are you licensed as a psychiatrist?" he asked, not even trying to hide the sarcastic tone. No, they had not spoken about Sirius tonight but they had tackled the emotion that Harry dealt with daily regarding his death and now he had been instructed to go write about it. He realized he'd been duped—next time he'd be a bit more savvy and try to stay a step ahead of Snape.

"Let it suffice that I am very experienced with teen angst," answered Snape. "And I am well acquainted with the mind magics. Nearly fifteen years ago I sat where you are sitting right now. The Headmaster had the audacity to have a very similar discussion with me, about a very similar emotion."

Harry glanced down at the notebook.

"Yes, and he gave me a similar assignment. Though I got a roll of parchment and a quill."

"Did it help you?" asked Harry.

"Ultimately—yes."

Harry raised his eyes and stared at Snape. There was a lot more here, a lot he wasn't saying. He supposed it was enough to know that he'd been on this very same sofa facing similar fears, though Snape had had to face Albus Dumbledore's piercing blue eyes instead of the depthless black ones that looked right through Harry now.

Harry dropped his gaze and clumsily picked up the pencil with his right hand.

"You will concentrate better out on the back porch," said Snape, standing up and picking up the lamps. Harry followed him to their customary table, where Snape put down the lamps, took out his wand, and spelled them brighter. He then pointed his wand at the pencil Harry had placed on the table.

"Engorgio."

The pencil's girth increased until it was the size of a colored crayon like those used by pre-schoolers. Harry picked up the pencil and opened the notebook. Snape retreated to the other side of the porch and sat on the hammock, looking out over the sea where the moon had replaced the sun in the sky. Harry heard the hammock strings creak as he adjusted his weight. The sound brought back a memory. A vague image of two people playing in the sand on the beach came to him. He closed his eyes to try to fix the dream image in place.

"That reminds me," he said, putting down his pencil after a moment and swiveling to face the professor. "I had another dream today, in that hammock."

Snape hesitated. "I don't want you distracted from that journal," he stated, looking pointedly at the open page, on which Harry had written the word 'GUILT' and underlined it three times. The rest of the page was still blank.

"It was about water, again. A moat, around a castle, I think…"

Harry watched as Snape visibly tensed. He stood slowly, walking a few steps closer.

"If you can recall it—bring it to the surface—we can extract the dream memory and review it tomorrow before I return the Pensieve to the Headmaster."

"Dreams are memories?" questioned Harry.

"No, but the memory of a dream can be viewed in a Pensieve. You will find the experience interesting. It will be a good lesson as well, to distinguish real memories from altered ones and from dream memories."

"All right then," said Harry. He sat down again while Snape went upstairs to retrieve the Pensieve. He didn't flinch when the wand touched his temple, when the memory strand came forth with the gentle tug, when it dropped into the basin. Snape touched the not-quite-liquid surface with his wand and Harry saw the cloudy image of a younger Harry digging in the sand while Severus Snape built a sand castle.

Snape looked over at Harry sideways, pressing his lips together.

"Well, I did say castles and moats, didn't I?" said Harry cheekily. He picked up his pencil—again—at Snape's pointed stare and began to write.

When he fell asleep an hour and a half later he had finished a rambling two pages in his makeshift journal and had actually managed the prescribed 15 minutes of meditation. And while he was becoming more at home in his protective bubble, truly in tune with the liquid shield he had chosen, he found his thoughts straying to that brief glimpse of his dream memory and how Snape had reacted. He was reasonably sure now that Snape's own barrier was water as well, and he'd bet galleons that Snape's water took the form of a castle's moat.