Harry faced a dilemma. No wonder he was having trouble sorting out his emotions: they didn’t make sense. Because (and it was a shock to learn) he was starting to like Snape. 

Even the thought seemed to border on blasphemy. Life was so simple before this summer. The Dursleys sucked, Voldemort sucked even more, Quidditch was fun, and he hated Snape. This final dogma of his adolescent life had carried him through three days of trekking across country, but was now the point of one of his life’s greatest personal mysteries.

What was even worse was that Harry couldn’t even pin the change one, two, or even ten deep, honest conversations. There was no single instance in which Snape acted in a certain way or explained himself to Harry that made the teen able to understand or like him better. No distinct event had occurred to alter his once firm foundation of hate for Severus Snape. No, it had nothing to do with soul-baring confessions or life-altering revelations; somehow, the thing had occurred over the course of a thousand small kindnesses. Little acts, casually done so neither of them noticed too much, but which somehow imprinted themselves on Harry. If his prior experiences with adults hadn’t been as dim as they were, he probably wouldn’t have thought so much of it. 

As it was, the teen himself hadn’t fully realized what was happening in his own heart until the man had tossed a hoodie at Harry and smiled that strange little half-smirk, half-suppressed grin that he had whenever he was amused and not trying to hide it. He’d smiled back, then been practically bowled over by the sudden awareness that he was glad it was Snape here and not Kingsley or some other order member he didn’t really know.

He glanced up at the man again for the third time in as many minutes. They were sitting in the parlor area, Harry studying and Snape reading. When he looked up, Snape glanced up at him and met his eye. Snape raised an eyebrow, and Harry, embarrassed at being caught staring, quickly looked down again.

“Is there a reason you’ve been watching me over the past half hour?” Snape asked wryly, and Harry shook his head.

“No,” he denied, but he could tell that the man was still watching him while he stared, unseeing, at his book. “Well, I did have a question,” he said, suddenly remembering something he’d been meaning to ask.

“Go ahead,” the man said, taking a sip from his cup of tea.

“Well, I’ve been reading more about wards—” he held up the book on warding in his hands “—and it says here that to place an effective ward of protection on an object, that object needs to have significance to the caster.”

Snape stilled, and Harry was quick to notice that his previously open, relaxed expression grew shuttered.

“Y’see, I didn’t notice when you first gave it to me, but today I looked closer at the pendant you gave me out on the highlands and… it’s a lily.”

Snape slowly set down the teacup, staring blankly at a spot on the floor. “That’s a very personal topic, Potter.”

Harry flushed, regretting bringing it up. He’d just been curious about what reason Snape could possibly have to be emotionally connected enough to a silver lily pendant to cast a ward strong enough to prevent tracking and scrying. “Nevermind, sir. I didn’t mean to pry.” Obviously it was a touchy subject for the man. He buried his face into his book again, hoping Snape would let it go and not think Harry was trying to press for answers.

For a moment it seemed as though the other man would go back to his reading, but then he sighed and closed the book over his thumb. Harry glanced up again and was glad to see that the man merely looked pensive, not angry.

“That pendant was a gift from a… childhood friend.”

Harry nodded. He hadn’t known that Snape had any friends outside of the staff, but supposed that there was no reason he shouldn’t. Harry had been forced to realize that the professor was a human being this summer, and it made sense that he’d have friends outside of his life as a teacher, and that one said friends might give him a gift. He was a bit surprised that Snape would entrust it to him, however. They might be getting along better now, but they’d still thoroughly hated each other when Snape had given it to him. No, lent. It’s just a loan. He wouldn’t want you to keep it anyways. At the thought of giving it up, Harry found his hand wrapping itself around the silver lily. Even before he’d learned about its significance, he’d felt a connection to it. It would sometimes give warm pulses of magic when he was feeling down. “Where’s your friend now?” he asked, becoming curious about Snape’s life.

“She’s dead,” Snape said shortly.

“Oh,” Harry said quietly, hand dropping to rest in his lap. He saw the pained look on Snape’s face and felt bad for putting it there. “I’m sorry.”

Snape looked at him closely, then said, “It is not your fault.” The sentence seemed to have some kind of significance for the man, who turned his head away a moment later.

Feeling like he’d intruded on something private by observing this rare display of emotion, Harry ducked his head and tried to focus on the book again.

“I think,” Snape said as they sat down to another Occlumency lesson, “that we should start with simpler emotions.”

“What about them?” Harry asked.

“Well,” Snape said, steepling his fingers. “What is something that you feel strongly about? Something uncomplicated, no warring emotions or reservations.”

“Quidditch,” Harry immediately said.

Snape rolled his eyes but smiled slightly. “Surprise. Alright, how do you feel about Quidditch?”

“I love it,” Harry said simply. “When I’m on my broom, I feel free. Everything else just falls away. It’s just me, the broom, and the wind. There’s a thrill of anticipation when I see the Snitch, and adrenaline when I chase after it. And when I catch it, there’s this burst of fierce satisfaction that starts in my chest and explodes out, even to my fingertips.” His eyes had closed just thinking about it.

“What about the cheers of your screaming fans?” Snape asked, and although he would have normally sounded insulting about it, Harry only detected curiosity in his voice.

“I don’t hear them at all,” Harry confessed. I just hear the wind and the blood pounding in my ears.”

“Hm,” Snape said. “Alright, bring up your memories related to Quidditch. The first game you won, practices, celebrating with your teammates to what was no doubt an ungodly hour after winning the Quidditch Cup. Line them up in your mind. Imagine them forming a pathway.”

“A pathway of memories?” Harry asked dubiously.

“Yes,” Snape said. “If it helps to visualize it, imagine the path as something related to Quidditch. Maybe the empty rafters under the stands, or like being sucked into a wind tunnel. If you do it properly, an intruder getting forced into those memories will feel the memories as wind buffeting them. It could be quite distracting to an attacker.”

“Huh.” Harry closed his eyes, trying to do as Snape said but finding it difficult. Instead of saying he couldn’t do it (he knew the sarcastic response would amount to “you haven’t tried much”), he admitted, “It’s not easy.”

“No,” Snape conceded. “Try meditating. Instead of calm blankness, fill your mind only with Quidditch. Immerse yourself in the memories. Then begin sorting through them.”

Harry nodded, starting as always with measured breaths. Four counts in, six counts out. He’d had enough time to experiment with it to know what time increments to use during his meditations.

As he thought about Quidditch, everyday memories of practices and being with the team came up that he hadn’t thought about since they occurred. Fred and George messing around in the changing room, cleaning mud off of his ratty trainers, polishing his broom. He felt a smile on his face as he let the memories wash over him. He allowed himself to just enjoy them for a while, allowed the happy feeling spreading through him to settle there, before sorting through them. He first sorted them based on year, then on who he was with, then whether he was playing or not, and all sorts of things. When he felt like he had a good grasp of which memories were which and they no longer blended together, he imagined them forming a wind tunnel like Snape suggested. When he was done, he tried going through the tunnel.

It felt like flying. He was flying, and memories of Quidditch were batting at him like wind, there for a moment and then gone, a dizzying array of red and gold. It was all familiar to him, but anyone else would have been overwhelmed.

He opened his eyes again and grinned at Snape.

“How did it work?” the man asked.

“Brilliant,” he said.

“As I doubt you think of little besides Quidditch, I believe we have just made significant progress then. Only a couple more sessions and you should have organized what little remains.”

Harry huffed good naturedly, knowing from the smirk on Snape’s face that he was just teasing him while actually being very pleased. He blinked, realizing that he was exhausted. He propped his cheek on his hand, yawning. “Why am I so tired?”

“You just reorganized a part of your mind. That is to be expected.” Snape stood and began clattering around the kitchen. Harry’s eyes had slammed shut, so he didn’t know what Snape was doing until a finger tapped him on the head. He glanced up to see Snape holding out a mug.

Harry accepted it gratefully, wrapping his hands around it and letting the warmth seep up through his fingers. He took a sip—it was cocoa—and slouched back. Snape walked past him to his armchair in the sitting area and Harry meandered over a moment later. Setting down his mug long enough to slip into his new (and favorite) hoodie, Harry plopped down on the couch. He fought a second yawn, but it escaped through anyways. Settling into the corner between the armrest and sofa back, he took another long sip of the sweet drink.

“How did you find out about this place?” Harry asked.

“This cottage?”

“The village.”

“Ah,” Snape said. “I was out on the highlands, harvesting potions ingredients, when I saw it in the distance.”

“So you were just out collecting Flumdinger Berrysplash, saw some rooftops, and thought, ‘hey, that looks like a perfect place to hide out!’”

Snape snorted. “Flumdinger Berrysplash? Sounds like a bad soda flavor.”

Harry grinned in reply.

Half an hour later, he briefly woke when he felt Snape pull the empty mug out of his hands and set it on the table. A blanket was pulled up over his shoulders. He shifted slightly, muttering, but a low voice shushed him.

“Go to sleep, Harry.”

Harry uncurled slightly from the corner of the couch and stretched out to a more comfortable position. A hand briefly carded through his hair, and then he was asleep again.