Sirius was standing in the doorway while Harry packed his trunk, giving him a contemplative look.

“What?” Harry asked after a few awkward moments of this.

“Why are you always at Snape’s house?”

Harry rolled his eyes. This again. “I’m literally at your house right now.”

“Packing for Hogwarts, where you’ll spend even more time with him.”

“I have like two classes with him a week, it’s not like I’ll be seeing him much.”

“No? So you won’t be having private lessons with him, deep down in the dungeons where no one can see-“

“What are you trying to imply?”

“If he’s doing anything inappropriate-“

“Oh my God, Sirius, what is wrong with you? It’s nothing like that, ew!”

“I have to ask!” Sirius insisted, taking Harry by the arm to fully face him. “It’s weird, it is! He could be taking advantage of you for all I know and I can’t-”

“I would never let someone take advantage of me like that!” Harry snapped. “What do you take me for, some kind of-“

“It wouldn’t be your fault,” Sirius said, seemingly trying to be assuring. “People like Snape, they’re so-“

“Why are you so obsessed with him?” Harry shot back, deeply annoyed. Sirius behaved like some sort of psycho stalker when it came to Snape, and it had started to get more irritating as the weeks dragged on.

“Because it pisses me off that he’s your guardian and I’m not!” Sirius burst out. “I’m your godfather, he’s just the slimy piece of shit that’s treated you terribly for years. It’s not fair.”

“I know, Sirius,” Harry said softly, though still not without some irritation. “It’s not fair. But it’s just a technicality, it doesn’t matter.” He’d said that a million times but somehow it was starting to feel more hollow as time went on and Snape had been pretty decent to him. It seemed an injustice to call it that after he had given him so much in such a short time.

“I just don’t want you getting hurt,” Sirius said gently.

“He hasn’t and he isn’t going to hurt me, Sirius,” Harry said. “He’s been a right arse to me for years and it’s never kept me up at night. He’s actually being kind of nice to me now, so I think I can handle him on my own.”

“Just- if he, or anyone else, does anything to hurt you, you’d tell me, right?”

“Of course I would!” Harry said passionately. “You can trust me.”

“Okay, I just- I have to ask. Because you didn’t tell me about the Dursleys, you know?”

Harry shrugged out of Sirius’ grasp, turning back to his trunk and saying in a cold voice, “The Dursleys didn’t hurt me. That’s the difference.”

“Kiddo- I know you’re tough and all, but… we all know they didn’t treat you right, and it’s okay to-“

“I’ve got to get going,” Harry said, looking at his watch. “The others are waiting for me and I don’t want them to be late on account of me.”

“You have a few minutes-“

“I don’t,” Harry said firmly.

Sirius nodded solemnly. “Okay. Just…take care of yourself. And if anything happens…”

Harry closed his trunk before turning back and wrapping his arms around his godfather. “I’ll be fine. And I’ll tell you if I’m not, I promise.”

Sirius hugged him back fiercely. “Okay. Okay. I’m gonna miss you, kid.”

“I’m going to miss you, too. You better take care of yourself, as well. I know you don’t always remember to eat and you spend far too much time in your room-”

“I’ll be fine, Harry, don’t worry,” Sirius said, smiling tightly and ruffling Harry’s hair. “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Harry said, hugging the man one last time before bounding down the stairs with his trunk in tow.

Sirius would now be more alone in that awful house, and Harry felt bad for how very glad he was to leave.

***

Harry certainly hadn’t intended to lie to Sirius, but it’s not as though he’d expected some psychopath woman to go after him the first week of school. He already had one Harry Potter obsessed psychopath in his life and he figured the universe would leave it at that.

He had been wrong.

As he stood in the hallway outside the defense classroom clutching his bleeding hand for the third night in a row, he wondered if perhaps he should tell someone about this. It hadn’t really crossed his mind before, and he briefly wondered if that was part of the problem.

But Umbridge was a teacher who had given him a punishment, and more than that she was a teacher employed by the ministry. Harry couldn’t disobey her without getting another professor involved, and another professor couldn’t go past the ministry on this matter so it really wasn’t worth it to trouble anyone else with the situation.

He shrugged it off and hurriedly headed towards the dungeons for his other evening obligation.

“You’re late,” Snape said, tapping his fingers against his desk impatiently.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said genuinely. “I had detention with-“

“Umbridge. I’m well aware, as this is the third night you’ve had it with her. What in the name of sense made you think it was a good idea to go against her in class?”

“Well,” Harry began, preparing to give another rant, “she was wrong. And I felt that it was my duty to my fellow classmates to inform them of this fact for the good of their education.”

Snape deadpanned. “Really.”

“Yes, really,” Harry huffed. “She was calling me a liar and I’m not a liar! And she’s a bitch, so-“

“So you went off on her, knowing that she appears to be a bit on the unstable side, and has the complete and total power to punish you however she sees fit and however often she pleases? For once, why don’t you use your brain, boy? It’s common sense not to tickle a sleeping dragon, why must you continually do so?”

“Well I certainly didn’t consent to messing with one in the tournament last year! And the one Hagrid had was a baby, it wasn’t that big of a deal…”

“Hagrid had a dragon in this scho-“ Snape cut himself off, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “That is beside the point. You know that I did not mean that in a literal sense. Umbridge is dangerous and you should know better than to mess with her. How many more detentions do you have?”

“Two more, sir,” Harry offered quietly.

“Every night for a week, then,” Snape said, shaking his head. “Even I did not give you that for punishments you deserved. Try to keep that in mind next time your mouth runs before your brain.”

Harry nodded, feeling properly ashamed now. He did know from the start that messing with Umbridge was a bad idea, Hermione had told him as much. He just couldn’t seem to help himself sometimes. “I’m sorry.”

“There is no reason to apologize to me, these actions affect you, not me. You need to have more self-preservation and thought for your own life.”

“I just, you know,” Harry said, waving his arm aimlessly. “I get so angry, all the time.”

“I do know,” agreed Snape. “I hoped that the potion I gave you would help with that.”

“The- the Prozac one?”

“Yes. Do you feel any differences in your anger levels?”

“Oh, um, yeah, it’s helping, it’s just-”

“You are taking it, yes?”

“Of course I am!

Snape stared at him. “You may want to improve your Occlumency skills before you attempt to lie to me again.”

Harry broke eye contact, hating that Snape could suss him out so easily.

“Why aren’t you taking it?”

“I- I don’t know, I just… I don’t really need it…”

“If you had been taking it then perhaps you could have prevented your angry outburst and saved yourself a week’s worth of detention.”

Harry shrugged. Snape sighed.

“You do not have to take it if you do not wish to, though I do highly recommend it. Either way, I do wish you would inform me of such things, and would prefer it if you did not lie to me about it, or anything, really.”

“I’m sorry. I know you go to a lot of trouble to brew it and I didn’t want to waste your time, I just…”

“It is no trouble as I have to brew it for the hospital wing anyway. I simply wish that you felt comfortable telling me when you don’t want to and don’t intend to do something.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Do not apologize, you do so far too often. Let us begin our lesson.”

Harry completed his final two nights of detention and vowed to never speak out of turn again, even if Umbridge was in the wrong. Which she always was. He had another Occlumency lesson with Snape on Friday night and walked out of the defense classroom with a breath filled with both pain and relief.

It was ironic, how Snape told him not to lie again, as that’s precisely the subject Umbridge wanted him to write lines about. Perhaps it was a good motivation for getting better at Occlumency, because when Snape asked him what this last detention had entailed, Harry just said lines and Snape didn’t prompt him any further.

Harry really didn’t know why he felt such an intense need to hide this from everyone. Maybe Sirius was right and the Dursleys really had fucked him up beyond repair. He tried not to think about them, but they were on his mind rather a lot lately, especially with Dudley sending him letters every day asking for an update on his mother and seeing if Harry may be willing to do something about it himself.

He wasn’t.

He’d said goodbye to Dudley before leaving for school, and he’d felt they had left things on fairly good terms. Dudley had been smiling as he’d offered him a handshake, though Harry knew what it was like to go back and forth with emotions and pretend to be happy.

Thinking back, he wondered if the handshake had been less of a peace offering and more of a threat.

Dudley was clearly under the impression that Harry was some sort of super wizard who could do whatever he wanted and succeed in anything. As if he wasn’t fifteen and didn’t have ten older and more experienced wizards behind him who weren’t willing to do anything about Aunt Petunia and certainly weren’t going to let Harry do anything even if he wanted to.

And the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he honestly didn’t want to. He hardly cared what happened to Aunt Petunia as long as she wasn’t in his life anymore. And that was an unsettling realization. What kind of awful person would feel that way about his own aunt, his guardian, the woman who had raised him since infancy? He knew she didn’t love him, sure, but she was still some semblance of a mother to him.

Thoughts like that were why Harry tried to avoid thinking at all, it just caused him to spiral. Dudley’s frequent correspondence didn’t help matters. Harry cast incendio on his cousin’s latest letter that was filled with please and I’m begging before he could really think about the consequences of doing that during breakfast in the Great Hall in front of everyone.

“Harry,” Hermione reprimanded him, looking up from her book to see the flames quickly turn into black ashes on his breakfast plate while Ron stared on with a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. “What on earth was that for?”

Harry shrugged sheepishly. “Um… recycling?”

Hermione blinked at him. “That’s not how it works.”

“Oh… well, I’ll remember that next time,” Harry said, gathering his books in preparation for their first class of the day. Ugh, Defense Against The Dark Arts. Harry truly wanted to throw himself off the astronomy tower sometimes.

“What was the letter about?” asked Ron.

“Nothing important, hence why I disposed of it.”

“Was it from Sirius?” Hermione asked gently. “Because I know you two aren’t exactly getting along right now, but I’m sure you can work it out-”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked sharply. “Sirius and I get along great.”

“Oh,” Hermione said, cheeks turning red. “Perhaps I was wrong, then. It just seemed like…”

“Seemed like what?” Harry said, frowning. He glanced at Ron, wondering what his opinion on this was.

“Well, mate…” Ron said slowly, looking uncomfortable. “You didn’t spend a lot of time together at Grimmauld, and it just seemed kind of tense whenever you did…”

“That’s because things are tense right now,” Harry said stiffly. “It has nothing to do with Sirius.”

“He seemed to be drinking a lot…” Hermione said quietly.

Harry rolled his mother’s bracelet around his wrist, feeling awkward and slightly embarrassed. Hermione wasn’t the first person to mention Sirius’ penchant for drinking lately. It wasn’t as though Harry hadn’t noticed himself, but Harry really hadn’t spent all that much time with his godfather before, how was he to know if that was out of the ordinary? Perhaps Sirius just drank a lot, there wasn’t anything wrong with that. As long as it didn’t make him mean like Uncle Vernon, then Harry felt it was none of his business. Though he had avoided him a lot of times like he avoided Uncle Vernon when he was drinking, so maybe it was a little more relevant to their relationship than he was giving credit for.

“He’s a grown-up,” Harry said at last, wanting this conversation to end. “He can drink if he wants to. It doesn’t bother me.” Though the idea of Sirius drinking and spending so much time alone did concern him. “In fact, I’m going to write him now.” He checked the time, knowing class was to start soon. “During lunch,” he decided.

***

Lunch came and went, as did dinner, but Harry still hadn’t written his letter to Sirius. He thought about it, but he really wasn’t sure what to say. Dear Sirius, how are you? Are you isolating yourself in your room again? Have you eaten today? Have you had anything to drink today? No, it really wasn’t Harry’s place to ask such questions. Sirius was an adult, and he could do whatever he wanted. Harry pestering him wasn’t likely to help with his mental health problems.

Harry had enough of those to deal with himself. It would be rather hypocritical of him considering he often isolated himself, avoided meals, and likely wouldn’t say no to a drink given the opportunity.

He knew Snape would kill him if he tried it though, and then he wondered why he should care how Snape would react.

He tried to clear all of these thoughts out of his head as he was heading to the dungeons to see Snape for their next occlumency lesson. Something that was developing at a concerningly slow pace. He was immensely surprised that Snape hadn’t flipped out on him yet because frankly, Harry kind of sucked at the whole thing and he feared that he would not improve.

“We’re going to try something a bit different today,” Snape said as soon as Harry had knocked and entered the room.

“What’s that?” Harry asked, instantly nervous.

“Instead of attempting to block me out, I want you to invite me in and allow me to help you organize your thoughts and memories and develop your shields. Pending your consent, of course.”

Invite him in? Into his mind? No fight or restraint at all? Harry didn’t think he liked the sound of that.

“It seems you do not possess the natural ability to occlude, and I fear that you will not be able to build your mental defenses without a more… vulnerable method of instruction.”

Vulnerable? Snape was really not selling this idea to him.

“Mr. Potter,” Snape sighed, settling down in one of the chairs in front of his desk and gesturing for Harry to sit in the one opposite of him. “I assure you I will proceed with the utmost delicacy with respect to your inner thoughts and memories. I believe this would be a far more gentle approach to learning if you can trust me to teach you in this way.”

It sounded tempting. Harry certainly hadn’t enjoyed their lessons thus far, full of swirling memories and attempting to push out an intruder that was much more powerful than him. He didn’t think he would make any progress if they continued that way.

But… to allow Snape inside his head without putting up any sort of fight? What if he saw something Harry didn’t want him to see? It had happened before, but at least then he’d been able to throw him off the memory into another one before it got too intense.

“If you’re truly concerned I may see something you wish to keep private, I can fetch the headmaster’s pensive.”

Harry considered the offer but eventually shook his head. There wasn’t anything in particular he really wanted to keep from Snape - there were too many bad memories to keep track of, he couldn’t say what the worst would be. He’d simply have to brave through it and hope that Snape wouldn’t bother him about anything he saw in there.

“Okay,” Harry agreed at last. “We can try it.”

“Good,” Snape said, and if he was a normal person he probably would have smiled or something. As it was, Harry was fine with this. “I want you to enter your place of peace and then I will enter your mind. But instead of trying to push me out, I want you to allow me in further.”

Harry nodded, though he wasn’t sure he totally understood. How much further could Snape come into his mind? He closed his eyes and thought of being on his broom, up high in the air where no one could hurt him, though he knew Snape would soon come and disrupt the tranquility.

“Stay focused. Open your eyes when you’re ready. Legilimens.”

Harry could feel Snape’s presence like a foreign force, though it was becoming familiar at this point. His first instinct was to attempt to expel the intruder, but he knew that he was now supposed to allow him entrance.

“Keep your focus. Your shields are weak but they do exist. Let them down.”

Harry really didn’t know how to do that, but he tried it by letting down his guard, letting the fight leave his body - mind - whatever it was. It must have worked because the next thing he knew, Snape was on a broom right beside him, looking thoroughly disgruntled.

Harry laughed at the sight.

Snape sneered. “You’ve seen me on a broom before, Potter. Granted, never so far off the ground…”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s not like you can get hurt in here.”

“Ah, but there is where you are wrong. Just because it’s in your head does not mean it is not real. If you were to fall off your broom from this height in your mind, you could potentially become brain dead.”

Harry’s eyes widened. “You’ve certainly never mentioned anything like that to me before. Let’s go to the ground before that happens.” They slowly descended back to the ground, Harry keeping an eye on Snape all the while, slightly afraid he would fall off and die right here in Harry’s own mind.

“I can hear your thoughts, you realize,” Snape said, once they’d landed on the ground. “I’m not nearly as poor on a broom as you seem to believe.”

Harry scowled. “It’s not fair you can hear my thoughts but I can’t know yours. Is it because we’re in my mind?”

“Not precisely. It is entirely possible to hear your intruders' thoughts if they were to let their own shields slip, or if you overpowered them, though your own shields would have to be stronger to gain control over this. I believe this is what occurs when you receive visions from the Dark Lord - either by his forceful entry into your own mind, or slips of his own shields.”

“His shields can slip?” Harry asked in surprise.

“I have seen it happen. He puts too much stock into his own abilities and becomes overly confident. He hasn’t much to fear - very few people would dare to attempt to Legilimenize the Dark Lord.”

They strolled along the grounds, and it was only then that Harry realized that his mental Quidditch pitch was the one at Hogwarts. “So, if I was to die in my mind, I would die in general?”

Snape tilted his head. “Granted, it would be difficult to do so, but entirely possible. It’s not as though you could simply jump off your broom in your mind, for that requires conscious thought and your mind would simply not allow you to do that. An intruder could push you, causing an extreme loss of concentration. It is the things we do not expect that can be our undoing.”

“So Vol-” he cleared his throat, “he could just come in here and kill me, then? Why hasn’t he?”

“It would be no different than a physical duel, in which you may remember he has yet to win against you. He can come in here and attempt to harm you, but your mind will not go down without a fight. The shields you build can prevent intruders from coming in, but your mind is already designed to protect itself should it happen. Additionally, it is not risk free for the intruder not to be harmed himself. If he can cause you to become brain dead in here, then you can certainly do the same to him, though it is far riskier for him since he is not entirely in his own mind, but yours as well.”

Harry nodded, though that was a lot to take in and he wasn’t sure he fully understood. “So like right now you’re in both your mind and mine - isn’t that dangerous?”

“Certainly,” said Snape. “But I trust you have no intention to harm me.”

“Not today, anyway,” Harry smiled slyly.

Snape smirked in response to this. “Best I remain on your good side, then. Now, you notice we are no longer flying, but yet we are still in a fairly organized area of your mind.”

“Yeah, I noticed… Does that mean I’m no longer in my peaceful place?”

“To the contrary, I believe your peaceful place is not flying in itself, but the Hogwarts grounds. Perhaps even the castle.”

Harry looked up at the castle, feeling concerned. “But… it’s so large. How could I possibly organize everything in Hogwarts in my mind and call it a peaceful place?” It was like an ADHD nightmare.

“You feel a strong connection to Hogwarts, yes? That is why we are here. Granted, it’s certainly not the easiest choice, but sometimes these things choose us.”

Harry realized something then. “We’ve been in here for a while and there haven’t been any memories or anything - why is that? Usually, they occur by now.”

Snape seemed to almost smile. “You have been concentrating quite well this entire time.”

“That’s just because I’ve been talking to you, and you kind of have to concentrate hard to understand your sentences.”

“But do you understand? You let your shields down enough to allow me in, yes, but they’ve actually been growing stronger the more time we’ve spent in here. I could easily extract a memory with force if I wanted to, yes - but they haven’t occurred without prompting as they often do because your mental strength is sharp at this present moment.”

“Cool,” said Harry. “But I really do think it’s because I’m talking to you - if you were to leave I would probably start thinking about a bunch of random things and lose my concentration. How am I supposed to manage it on my own?”

“You’re not alone just yet. I’m here to help you until you can learn how to stand on your own.”

Something about that sentence touched something deep in Harry, but he opted to push those thoughts to the side lest Snape hear them. Something to think about sometime later. Much later. For now, he would focus on beginning the battle against one of his worst enemies - concentration - with his former enemy by his side.