It was the first time Harry had really been out in the village since they’d arrived. Today was the last day of Harry's scheduled "illness", and he was glad to finally stretch his legs and get outside

He started down a small side path that headed in the direction of running water. Snape had explained to him how they got electricity from a water mill and Harry was mildly curious to see it.

He emerged onto a main lane when a football rolled past his feet. Not very experienced at Muggle sports, since Dudley had always done his best to make sure Harry never got to participate, he let the boy chasing it to pass him and stop it with his foot.

The boy turned to look at him, and Harry thought that he was probably around Harry’s own age. “Fit like?”

Harry blinked. “Huh?”

The teen easily kicked the ball straight up into the air and caught it, tucking it under his left arm and reaching out with his right hand. “I’m Callum.”

“Henry,” Harry said. 

The boy—Callum—smiled. “Me aunt Amy told me about you. I guess you’re feelin’ better, then?”

Harry nodded. Deciding to steer the conversation away from himself so he wouldn’t need to go too deep into the cover story, he asked, “You on a team?”

Callum looked confused, then his face cleared and he held up the football. “Nah. Not enough kids around here. Besides us two, there’s only one other teen in the village, a seventeen year old named Mary. She used to play with me a few years ago, but not so much anymore.” He rolled his eyes and put on a false high voice. “Oh, I can’t! I’m meeting my wonderful boyfriend on the island today.” His tone dropped back to its normal pitch. “She’s away most of the time now.” He dropped the ball and bopped it on his knee. “What about you?”

Most of what Harry knew about football involved stuff that Dean said in the dorm room. He shrugged. “I’ve never played.”

“Really? Wanna try?”

Harry hesitated, then grinned. He’d expected to find living in the village a bit lonely, but it seemed like there was someone he could hang out with. It helped lessen the sting of not being able to see Ron or Hermione. “Yeah, I do.”

They walked down to the beach, where there was more room to move around. They kicked the ball back and forth a few times until Harry understood the rhythm of the movement before drawing lines in the sand for goals and playing for real. Callum  beat him, although Harry suspected that the other boy had gone easy on him since he was supposed to be recovering from getting sick. The sun had almost set before Harry said he had to get back home. “My dad said I can’t be out past dark.” He stumbled slightly over the term “dad”, having rarely used it, but Callum didn’t appear to notice. The word felt strange in his mouth.

“My mum says the same,” Callum rolled his eyes, and the two started walking back to the village. “Like there’s anything out here to get us.”

Callum walked with him to the cottage. Harry was surprised to see Snape sitting on a chair on the narrow porch out front, clearly waiting for him.

“It’s weird to have someone living here again,” Callum said.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked.

Callum’s face turned serious. “My cousin and her husband used to live here. She was Aunt Amy’s daughter, Yvaine. After they got married, they rented the cottage from Aunt Amy for seven months before they were killed in a freak boat accident two years ago. It’s been empty ever since, although Aunt Amy has kept it clean and everything. She never had the heart to get rid of any of their things.”

Harry thought about the clothes in Snape’s wardrobe and the books on the shelves and felt slightly ill. Something about the thought of them just waiting there, unused, as if ready for Yvaine and her husband to come back at any moment even though they never would was unsettling. He wondered if Snape knew.

They reached the porch and Snape stood. “Hello.”

“Hello, Mr. Paine. I’m Callum.”

“Amy’s nephew.”

Callum nodded then waved goodbye to Harry as he wandered back down the road, presumably headed towards his own house. Snape opened the door for Harry, who walked inside with a slight reluctance.

“Did you know? About Mrs. Duncan’s daughter?”

“Yes, I did.” Snape shut the door and motioned towards the kitchen table. “It has come to my attention that you need clothes.”

Clothes?? He’d been wearing items from the wardrobe, just like Snape. They were too large on him, but that was hardly a first for Harry. At least they weren’t holey rags given to him because they weren’t fit to be seen on Dudley. “S-sir?”

“Those don’t fit you,” Snape said shortly. “I have tomorrow off. We’ll visit the general shop.”

Harry didn’t know what to say. He felt that it was really unnecessary. He knew Snape wasn’t making a whole lot of money, and that most of it was going towards food and rent. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Snape sat and looked at Harry, slightly cross. “I am here to keep you safe. That encompasses providing for your basic needs. Now sit.”

Harry sat woodenly. For some reason, he was feeling a bit upset. Perhaps it was because Snape’s prodding into his home life earlier had brought the Dursleys to mind, but he thought about how his own family hadn’t bothered to keep him well-fed or clothed from their comfortable salary at home when Snape was working long, exhausting hours just so they could have somewhere to sleep and yet still was talking about buying him clothes. How come his professor, a man who hated him, was doing more to look after him than his own family?

It wasn’t right.

“Really, I’m okay,” Harry said, as if refusing Snape’s kindness would make his family better people. “Clothes are expensive anyways, and…”

“Harry,” Snape said, and the exhaustion on his face was more evident than it had been all day. Harry shut up, silenced by the novelty of hearing his first name coming from Snape. He didn’t think he’d ever heard him use it like that before.

Snape, too, seemed just as surprised. He paused, cleared his throat, and said, “Do not worry about the money.”

Harry, anxious that he’d offended the man by implying that he couldn’t provide, only nodded.

“Now, Occlumency.” Snape began. “To protect your mind from intrusion, you must be able to navigate it. Not knowing your own mind will make it impossible for you to structure it and form a defense.”

I’m doomed. From his confusion over Snape and his anxieties about school and his future to his nightmares about Cedric and the graveyard, Harry’s mind was pretty much a mess most of the time these days.

“The meditation you have been doing will help greatly in learning to discipline your mind and teach it to follow the paths you want it to go down. This will help you organize it and learn how to shape it to your will. When you achieve mastery of this discipline, you will be able to direct an invader’s mind down the paths you want within your own, where you will have control of the encounter and neither be injured nor have your memories and thoughts compromised.”

“You mean if I achieve mastery,” Harry said lightly, trying to make Snape a little less serious.

“No, Potter. I mean when. You must go into these lessons with the mindset that you will succeed, because you don’t have a choice. You cannot allow this connection to the Dark Lord to continue unchecked. You make yourself a security risk as well as vulnerable to his manipulations.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Recall our chess game, and your readings. Deception.”

“Deception.”

“Deception. As I was saying, you will learn to create pathways in your mind: tunnels of safe, nonsense memories down which you can direct a Legillimens. The more intricate and in-depth your mind maze is, the more chance you have of deceiving an attacker.”

“Wow. Okay, that’s…” a lot. “Good. So, how do I do that? Make a mind maze?”

“That is the ultimate goal. Not today’s lesson. Now, the first step to organizing your thoughts is to sort out your emotions.”

Harry couldn’t help it. He snorted a little, quickly covering it with his hand. When Snape narrowed his eyes in question, he said, “Sorry. Just… good luck with that.”

“Harry.”

Harry stilled, hand dropping forgotten to his lap. The first time Snape had said that, it had been a mistake. A slip-up. This time, however, there was too much deliberateness in Snape’s face and voice.

“You will need to trust me at least a little for this to work. You have to be willing to confide at least a part of what you are thinking and feeling to me so I can coach you through this. Occlumency is almost impossible to learn without a mentor or guide.”

Harry looked into Snape's face and wondered if he could trust anyone that much.

“I… will try,” Harry said slowly, not sure that he hadn’t just made a terrible mistake.

Snape sighed and rested his chin on hand. “That will have to do for now.”

Harry took a deep breath. “So how do I start?”

“Begin by meditating.”

Harry waited a moment to see if Snape would add any additional instructions. Seeing that none were forthcoming, he closed his eyes and began counting his breaths.

When he felt sufficiently calm and his mind cleared, he opened his eyes while maintaining the peace.

“Good.” Snape sat up with an effort. “What do you feel right now?”

“Calm.”

“What emotions or thoughts did you have to ignore to reach the meditation state?”

“Shouldn’t I be trying to not remember them?”

“You need to address them and put them to rest in your mind if you truly wish to do so.”

Harry looked away. After a moment, he said softly, “I kept thinking about clothes.” He waited, but Snape didn’t make a sarcastic comment about materialistic Harry Potter, obsessed with clothes and money. In fact, Snape didn’t say anything at all. He couldn’t bear to look up at the man, but the silence seemed to force him to continue. “And my relatives.”

The silence continued to stretch. He braved a glance at Snape, who at least didn’t appear derisive. He looked away again, staring out the window. The sun had set, but no one had drawn the curtains, and he could see a few stars dotting the sky above the roofs of buildings. “They never took me clothes shopping.” As soon as he said it, he blushed. Why was he talking about the Dursleys to Snape? Like the man cared.

But it wasn’t about Snape, was it? It was about Harry admitting what bothered him.

Bolstered by the idea that the professor didn’t really care about what Harry was saying, the teen found it easier to keep talking. 

“They never bought me new things at all. I got hand-me-downs from Dudley. My cousin,” he clarified, not sure how much Snape knew about his relatives. “He was a bit bigger… okay, a lot bigger than me, and the first set of clothes that I remember fitting me perfectly were my school robes from first year.” There was more he could have said about the Dursleys, but it all amounted to the same thing. They didn’t, and never would, care about him. So he moved on to how it made him ‘feel’ or whatever. “I wouldn’t have cared if they couldn’t afford it. I’m not a prig, whatever you might think. It’s just that they never bothered. And, I guess…” his voice broke, and he hated himself for it, “when you said you were gonna buy me clothes, it made me mad, because that the kind of thing they should have done, but they never did, even though family is supposed to take care of you.” 

That’s why he’d always considered his friends as his family. They took care of him, like family does. But now Snape was looking after him. That didn’t make Snape family… did it? No. That was crazy. Snape only did it because he was ordered to. He’d even told Harry that it was for the war effort. 

Too caught up in the confusion of brand-new questions and old hurts, he stopped talking.

When Snape finally spoke and interrupted his thoughts, Harry thought that his voice was oddly rough. “I think that’s enough for tonight. I know it’s early, but you should go to bed. Meditate until you fall asleep.” He didn’t say anything about trying to let go of the hurts he had just expressed, as if he knew that was hardly an issue that could be addressed in one conversation. He merely steered Harry towards the couch. After the impromptu football game and that mentally draining conversation, he felt exhausted despite the fact that he usually went to bed later than this and allowed the man to gently push him to sit on the couch. He grabbed the blanket and stretched out of his volition. Snape flicked off the lamp on the side table near his head so that the only other light in the room came from the overhead light in the kitchen. That, too, was soon turned off, and Harry heard the sound of the curtain over the sink being closed. The man left the cottage shortly, probably to use the outhouse, and Harry began to meditate.

The last thought he had to push out of his mind before the focused calm settled over his mind like a blanket was that, even if Snape had been ordered to take care of him, he wasn’t doing too bad a job of it.