"If you waste my time this morning Potter, you will be back at lunch." Figures, Harry thought. He's not only like Uncle Vernon but Aunt Petunia as well. Do what I want or you can't eat. He felt a little bitter towards the man. He wasn't exactly starved here but Snape had the power to cuase him trouble here, Harry had already seen it happen. Perspective, whispered Gan's voice in the back of his mind, but he pushed it away. Not me, him, Harry thought, he needs to get a grip. How is he helping me by tossing me into an impossible situation? He's not and that just means I'll have to help myself.

"I'll do your charm," Harry replied coldly to Snape. He'd been up early that morning at his tree, unable to sleep anyway. He'd been meditating and trying to prepare himself mentally to go underwater to try to preform this charm. The meditation had calmed his nerves some, but had not quelled his fears completly. I'll drown, he thought, as he left his wand with Snape and walked to the water's edge. He turned back to see the man with his arms crossed, Harry's wand in hand. Git. As he turned back to the water though he saw another figure, high above them on a cliff, sitting crosslegged. It was Gan. He couldn't be certai if he was meditating or watching him because he was too far away, but he was there, and if Harry did start to drown he could do something about it.

"Any time Potter," Snape called impatiently.

Harry took a deep breath and kicked his shoes and socks off. He took a step into the cold water and let it lap around his ankles. Closing his eyes he tried to talk himself down from his fear like Gan had done the other day after Snape had dunked him, but he could only hear his own voice.

"Feel the emotion," he whispered, "take hold of it, let it wash over you, then let it wash away with the waves." He let himself feel fearful for five seconds and then he opened his eyes and walked into the water up to his shoulders. He was a good distance from the shore but he could still see Snape standing there, arms crossed.

"Feel the fear, let it wash away." The gentle waves of the cove rocked him back and forth and he used his arms to get a little further out so that his feet were no longer touching the soft sand. He looked up and could no longer see Gan but he thought it was just becuase he had lost his bearings and wasn't sure of where to look.

Harry tucked his arms into his sides so they weren't available to help keep him afloat anymore, took a breath, and went under. He opened his eyes, wondering if there were mer-people here or a shark, but saw nothing but clear water and just below him, the sandy bottom. He was uneasy about this, just like he had been during the Tri-Wizard tournament. At least then he'd had gillywead as his assurance that he wouldn't drown though.

He concentrated on the Bubble Head charm and moved his hands up to his face, trying to channel the energy through them. Nothing happened. He tried harder as he felt his air running out. How long could he hold his breath anyhow? He already knew the answer. Several minutes. It would be something, he thought sadly, if Snape were the one to finish me off. Voldemort wouldn't get the satisfaction then, and Harry could come back to haunt Snape. He brushed the stray thoughts away though and tried again. Nothing.

His lungs felt like they were about to burst. If he passed out, then his body would take control and open his mouth and force him to breath in the water. He didn't want that. Mind feeling fuzzy Harry tried again. How long had he been under anyhow? A minute? It seemed like eternity.

The edges of his vision began to darken and he wondered if he was imagining it. This is what Snape wants, he wants me to try under pressure. If I go up now he'll say I didn't try and just force me to come back. I don't want to do this again. Think, try harder.

Suddenly there was movement beside him and a hand grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him to the surface. The world was spinning for Harry as a wave of dizinness over took him. He gulped in the air and tilted his head back, aware that someone had an arm around his chest and was taking him back to shore. Had Gan come down to get him?

Strong arms dragged Harry onto the beach and as Harry stared up at the spinning sky, a dark silhoutte with shoulder length hair swam into vision.

"Potter?"

Harry tried to sit up but tilted sideways onto the sand again.

"Potter, look at me." Snape said. Harry sat up and stayed up this time as he looked into the Potion Master's eyes. The diziness was slowly fading and Harry wondered if it was all from a lack of oxygen.

"What happened?" Harry asked. "I was trying to do the charm. Why'd you bring me back?"

"You were under water for four and half minutes."

Well, that's a record, Harry thought to himself, or at least he thought it was.

"I was trying."

"You did not think to surface for air so you could make another attempt?"

Harry glared at him. "You didn't want me to! You told me I should do it under pressure!" Why could he never do anything good enough for him? His efforts were good enough in other classes, but not matter what he did, Snape criticized him.

"I wanted you to try to use your dunderheaded brain for once Potter," Snape said. Harry gave the angry man a close looking over. He was soaking wet. So it was Snape who had gone in after him.

"Well so sorry to inconvenience you. You make me do something I begged you not to do, you dump me in the water anyway, and I have to meditate for two hours before I come down here just to psych myself into trying it!"

Snape sat back on his knees. "You what?"

"You heard me."

"I heard you lying and telling me you did everything you could to not complete the assignment." His voice was starting to take on that deadly tone.

"What? I didn't lie! I did everything I could to do it!"

"At no time did you beg me not to make you go into the water. You refused to go like a spoiled little brat who always gets what he wants. The point of this exercise was not for you to meditate before coming down here."

"The point was for me to learn the Bubble head charm." Harry was confused. Had he really told Snape that he'd begged him not to go into the water? He had begged in his head but not out loud. He wasn't at Privet Drive.

"The point was for you to trust me Potter!"

Snape got up and then threw Harry's wand down onto the sand before stalking off. Harry was sure he heard the words 'insolent, foolish, and childish' come from Snape as he went up the sandy path.

"Who's the foolish one?" Harry asked to himself, still sitting in the sand. "Not me." He looked up towards the cliff to see if he could find Gan, but he didn't see him.

Harry skipped his study session with Axle to go change. Once he was back in his cabin, he didn't want to go back down to find Axle though. What he really wanted was sleep, and some time alone before he had to face Snape again at ten for Defense.

He lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. Why was Snape so mad? He hadn't told him the point of the exercise had been trust. The man hadn't been truthful about Occlumency either according to Gan. Harry was supposed to keep Voldemort out of his head and to do that he had to trust Snape. Snape wasn't exactly trustworthy despite that Gan seemed to think that he was. No one was really very trustworthy. Ron and Hermione and Ginny were ok, but even they sometimes made promises they didn't keep, or said things they didn't mean. Harry sighed. It wasn't fair of Snape to mix up tutoring sessions like that on him. Occlumency was supposed to be during Occlumency and Magery during Magery. So really the man had lied saying they were doing magery when the point was to strengthen Occlumency. Why did Snape have to be so complicated? He'd never seemed this complicated at Hogwarts. Snape was just Snape there, mean, unfair, and somtimes ruthless. Here he was something else entirely.

To the rest of the school here he was trustworthy, upstanding, fair, and almost decent. He was being distinctly un-Snape like. Snape would never buy him boots and clothes and a blanket, but the un-Snape had. Snape would never step up to bat for Harry with the other Hogwart's teachers, but the un-Snape had. If Snape was untrustworthy, did that mean that un-Snape could actually be trusted? And if he could, then what did that mean when they went back to Hogwarts? Harry didn't know.

His watch beeped at him and he looked down at it. It was already ten. Damn, he was going to be late for Snape's class. He grabbed his backpack and hurried out of his cabin and down the hill. He ran to the training field and quickly took a seat next to Hermione and the others, earning a glare from Snape. He didn't pause in his lecture to berate Harry however.

"There are only three weeks left before the end of Gemini. At the end of next week, on Sunday, there will be a school wide contest for anyone that wants to compete. It is not mandatory, but it is tradition and it is encouraged that you enter."

Harry noticed that the others seemed interested to hear what this contest was about. "You will likely hear about this contest in some of your other classes today as well. If you enter, you will take what you have learned in Magery, Root Defense, Advanced Defensive Tactics, Muggle Defense, and also Healing, and you will battle other students across the compound and school grounds. There are few rules, and the last five students standing will get a certificate. The goal is to incapacitate as many students as you can and not be incapacitated yourself. We have covered a number of tactics in this class, but I want to go over more advanced evasion tactics today and next week to better prepare those of you that wish to compete. Are there any questions?"

Hermione rasied her hand and asked what the rules were, and Snape said they were secret until the day of the challenge so that students didn't have time to come up with special strategies or that would defeat the purpose of being put in that kind of situation.

When class was over there was excited chatter between the students about the upcoming contest and Draco said he would be one of the last five standing.

Harry was about to leave with Hermione when Snape called to him. "Potter."

Having the feeling that he was about to be chewed out agian, Harry gripped the shoulder strap of his bag tighter and made his way over to him.

"For the next week you should make yourself available at lunch for extra tutoring."

"But you said the Bubble Head charm wasn't the point. I don't want to go back into the water."

Snape sneered at him. "I assume you are planning on entering the contest. It will be a good test of your skills up to this point. What I didn't tell the class was that the last five standing will face off three days before the end of school. The last one standing of the five will receive a second certificate. Anyone with the second certificate is likely to get any posting they want in their Minisitry, especially if it is a posting in law enforcement."

"Oh."

"Come to my building during lunch (that includes the weekend) and we will discuss what you can do to prepare. I assure you that Blazhe and August are preparing their chosen picks for the competition."

"Oh, ok."

Harry turned to leave but turned around again. "So- I'm your chosen pick?"

"You are the one I am tutoring," he said, and then turned away to tell Harry he was done talking about it. As he walked away Harry couldn't help but thinking that he was the one that had to defeat Voldemort, and that maybe Dumbledore was making Snape give Harry this extra help. So Harry wasn't his pick by choice.

"You're going to enter aren't you?" Hermione asked. She had been waiting at the edge of the practice field for Harry to be done with Snape.

"Snape wants me to."

"He does?"

"He said it would be a good test of my skills. Are you going to enter?"

"I don't have much choice, do I?" Her voice was serious as she looked at Harry. He stared at her. He was grateful to have a friend who thought like him, and he missed Ron then. She knew as well as he did that he needed to be here to learn to protect himself from Voldemort. She was part of the fight too. So was Ron.

"No, I don't suppose either of us do. Ron should really be here."

"I told him I would try to teach him what we learned when we got back. He sent me a letter the morning that we met on Diagonalley. He said he was going to work through the summer to save money so he could go next year."

"I would give him money if I had any."

"I know."

They split to go to their separate classes and Harry was quiet through Healing as Adeline taught them about various roots and at what time to gather them when they're most potent. Then he skipped lunch and headed to Snape's building.

Harry found him sitting at his desk eating a sandwich. Great, he gets to eat, Harry thought. If this was how it was going to be, then he was going to stop and get lunch to bring tomorrow.

"I'm going to teach you something that I will not be teaching the others here. You will not master it in one week. You may not master it in a lifetime. It is often considdered the cowards way. Not very- Gryffindor." He paused to gauge Harry's reaction, and then continued.

"I will teach you the art of hiding."

"Hiding?"

"Camoflauge, seeking refuge where others will not look. If you had by some chance mastered the Bubble Head Charm," Harry gave him an unhappy look at the mention of this morning's fight, "then you could have used it on yourself and hidden in the water until the contest was over. Seeing that you have not, I will teach you another tactic." He took a minute to finish his sandwich and then motioned for Harry to come forward. Harry sat in the chair he usually occupied during their Occlumency tutoring (Harry hated that chair), and listened.

"Give me your arm," Snape said, and Harry held it out.

"Metamorphmaguses can camoflage themselves to some extent, like a chameleon. They can change their hair, skin, and eye color to match their surroundings if they so choose. The few of them that there are often make excellent spies for those that would employ them because of this. You are not a metamorphmagus so you will need to learn the magic to camoflage yourself. It helps," Snape paused and narrowed his eyes at Harry, "if you can do it without a wand or without words so you do not give yourself away if yor pursuer is nearby."

He took Harry's wrist and touched the tip of his wand to Harry's arm. Without saying a word, a brown spot appeared there. Snape touched his wand to a new spot on Harry's skin, and another brown rough patch appeared there. By the time the wand made it's way up to Harry's elbow, his arm looked like a tree trunk with bark and moss. Harry stared at it. If he hadn't seen it being transformed, he wouldn't know it was an arm.

Running his fingers over it in awe he asked, "What's the spell?"

"There is no spell. It is pure thought. You can speak it to your wand. This is the base of magic, the way spells are created."

"Is it in a book somewhere?"

"It is not"

Harry looked up. "You made this spell?"

"Yes. And I forbid you to tell any of the other students how to do this whilst we are here. Am I understood?"

Harry nodded. Snape spent the next forty minutes trying to describe to Harry how to accomplish the effect, and just before he had to leave Harry managed a single spot the size of a pencil eraser on the back of his hand. Snape waved his wand and the camoflage on his arm was gone.

"You will practice, when you are alone. On Monday you will show me how quickly you can cover your arm."

Harry nodded and then hurried out of the building to go to Root. What Snape could do was actually sort of... cool. Harry smiled. This would definitely give him an advantage.

Harry's first encounter with Snape that day hadn't gone well and had ended up with him getting yelled at. His second encounter had ended with biterness for the part he had to play in Voldemort's downfall. His third encounter had Harry learning a new spell. As Harry lay on the floor of Snape's building during Occlumency tutoring that day, he thought that his fourth encounter with the man that day was likely to end up as well as the first had.

"Focus Potter."

"I am."

"You have been learning Occlumency far longer than any of the other students, yet they can do more than you can. I find it hard to believe that you are giving any effort at all to this."

Harry gave him a glare he thought Snape himself would have been proud of. If anyone knew the importance of learning Occlumency, it was Harry. He hadn't learned it last year and Sirius had died at the start of the summer because of it.

"Get back in the chair, and stop fighting me."

"I'm not fighting. I'm trying."

"You are struggling with me in your mind. You pull thoughts and memories away. You only succeede in tiring yourself out. Voldemort will outlast you in such a battle of tug of war."

Harry huffed and plopped back into the hard wooden chair.

"Gan said I'm not supposed to learn anything real from these classes anyway, that the Occlumency taught here is just meant to scratch the surface of the subject." He crossed his arms.

"Gan is a foolish old man who does not know how to do Occlumency."

"He said to master it there had to be trust between the Legilemens and Occlumens."

"Which I told you several days ago Potter." Snape was getting irritated, Harry could tell.

"Then how am I supposed to learn this? You're not helping me. You don't help me in magery either. I'm not learning anything."

"You don't learn because you don't try," Snape spat at him. He stood up in frustration and cast a more than irritated look in Harry's direction.

"That's not true. I learned a lot from Gan about Meditation and Root. I'm one of the only few students that came this year that picked up Root."

"Speak to me no more of this. I am not here to have my time wasted listening to you prattle on about other classes."

Snape sat back in his own chair and dove into Harry's mind, and Harry lasted a full five minutes tugging his memories out of Snape's reach before he lost balance and found himself on the floor again.

"Insolent child. You will never learn." Snape pointed to the door and Harry pushed himself up, grabbed his bag, and left. The had ended early and though he felt like he was having a day that couldn't decide whether to be good or bad, he reveled in having a few extra minutes of freedom out in the sunshine before his next class.

During Meditation tutoring Gan observed out loud that Harry seemed in a bad mood again. Harry told him about his day and Gan listened like he always did.

"I also wished to speak to you about the competition. I will also help you to prepare."

Harry stared at him. "Why?"

"Is there a reason I should not?"

Playing with the shoelaces of his discarded shoes for a moment, Harry said, "Well I thought you'd be preparing your own students. Professor Snape said the other teachers would be preparing the students they thought would win."

"I have taught my pupils from Kahr and will continue to do so when we leave. They did not come to learn from me, and I did not come to teach them. All of the Kahr students are receiving extra tutoring from other professors in their chosen classes. You are the student I have chosen to tutor."

"Just me?" Harry was surprised.

"You are the only one who has asked for help or expressed any interest in learning what I have to teach."

That evening, instead of meditating, Gan took Harry around the grounds and showed him three or four different plants that grew that he could eat without preparing that would do things like give him extra energy, or heal his wounds if he made them moist and rubbed them onto a cut to stop the bleeding. Harry couldn't help but feel a little special, to be the only one Gan was taking the time to teach. Harry wasn't used to people taking extra time to spend on him.

* * *

The next few days went much the same as Friday had. Harry spent a mostly sleepless night doing homework or meditating, and would then rise early to meet Snape for tutoring. They were no longer trying the Bubble Head charm but had moved on to other things Snape thought would be useful during the competition, and Harry had managed two spells by that next Friday without words or a wand. Occlumency still wasn't going well and he and Snape had had three more rows, usually only if Harry mentioned Gan, Root, or Meditation. Harry wasn't certain why Snape seemed to get so upset over Gan, but he did.

Harry also took the time to show the special plants Gan had shown him to Hermione, Axle, and Draco, which seemed to surprise Gan but Harry wasn't sure why since Gan hadn't told him not to tell.

In a last ditch effort to prepare Harry for the competition on Sunday, Snape dragged him out of dinner on Saturday night to go to the training field.

"Throw your best at me Potter."

As the wind whipped through Harry's hair and the evening sun made his skin feel too warm, Harry stood there facing him.

"What?"

"Show me your best Potter. I wish to see if you have any chance at winning tomorrow."

Feeling irritated, and perhaps still a bit mad from their many fights during the week, Harry pulled out his wand. He had just raised it up in the air intending to cast the nastiest stinging hex he could at Snape when something tackled him from the side and took him hard into the grass. He struggled but someone was on top of him with his knee on the back of his neck pinning him to the grass. Harry's arms were ripped out from under him and pulled behind his back, where strong arms held his wrists too tight.

"I caught you this time Potter. Hexing a teacher. You'll be gone before night fall."

Blazhe's hot breath made Harry shudder as it blew across his ear and neck as the man laughed and leaned in to taunt him.

"I didn't," Harry ground out, but Blazhe only dug his knee into the back of Harry's neck harder.

Harry was just wondering where Snape was in all of this when the man said lazily from somewhere above them, "Would you mind getting off of my student?"

"What?" Blazhe asked. "I caught him Snape. You should get the others to show them. We'll be right here."

Snape repeated himself with emphasis on the last word. "Would you mind getting off of my student?"

Blazhe looked up. "What, you're actually tutoring him?" Snape must have nodded because Blaze got up and Harry pushed himself off of the grass, neck sore. The man didn't have to use that much force. He could have just used a spell to bind him in ropes or something.

"Yes, I am tutoring him, and you are interrupting. Now kindly remove yourself so we may continue."

Blazhe huffed, gave a warning look to Harry, pointed at him, and then strode away, shoulders squared as if nothing had happened at all.

"How come you didn't rip into him?" Harry asked angrily.

"It would not have mattered. Now, throw your best at me."

Without warning Harry raised his wand and cast his hex but Snape had it blocked before Harry could even finish it, even though he'd done it wordlessly.

"That is not good enough."

"Why not?" Harry spat angrily. He was tired of being put down. Couldn't Snape even manage one word of praise for him?

"I could tell what hex you were going to cast before you'd even finished your wand movements. You must learn to do it without a wand."

Harry dropped his wand on the grass and dropped to his knees. He dug his fingers into the grass and let the life of the grass flow into his fingertips. Then he raised his hands high and forced energy out of them and at Snape. Snape threw up a shield but it passed right through it, though he was able to dodge the force just in time.

"Really Potter? Root?" He shook his head and walked away, leaving Harry there on his knees. Harry picked up his wand. It would have been good enough for Gan.