“Concentrate!”

“I’m trying!”

“Try harder.”

“Gee, thanks, I didn’t think of doing that!” Harry probably should have skipped the sarcasm, but he was too frustrated to care. Snape had melded with his mind over and over, and each time Harry had been unable to fully focus on fortifying his mental wall, and now he was tired and hungry and downright irritated, both with himself and with Snape. The professor was just so exacting and impatient.

“I am in your head, Potter,” Snape snapped. “You may wish to wait until a more appropriate moment to disrespect me with your thoughts!”

And rude and picky and a total slave-driver, he thought as clearly as possible.

Snape abruptly let go of his wrists and withdrew his mind from Harry’s. The resulting disorientation was unwelcome, but Harry had become accustomed enough to the potion’s effects that it didn’t overwhelm him for more than a few seconds.

“This is not difficult!” Snape glowered at him. “You did better in your first attempt days ago than you are doing right now. Your mental wall is no stronger than a pile of twigs!”

Harry crossed his arms. “I’m not messing it up on purpose, you know! It’s hard.”

“As all worthy skills are at first. But if you do not want your most vulnerable thoughts or memories read like a book, you will focus on fortifying your mental wall!”

“I know. I’m trying,” Harry repeated, irritated.

“You’re distracted.”

Harry gave him a look that he hoped adequately conveyed the word duh. It had been three days since Remus had gone missing, after all. In the two days since Harry had found out about it, he hadn’t been able to concentrate on much else. Snape had cut short yesterday’s Occlumency lesson due to Harry’s distraction, but he wasn’t being nearly as understanding today.

“If you cannot learn to focus while under stress or duress, then you will never properly learn the skills needed to Occlude!”

“I know,” he said crossly. “But knowing it doesn’t make it any easier.”

Snape let out a breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Again. This time when I exert pressure on your mental wall, do not allow it to cave like a stack of children’s blocks.”

Harry wanted to grumble about where he could put his children’s blocks, but the professor was already grasping his wrists - more forcefully than Harry thought necessary - and was preparing to reenter his mind. Harry took a deep breath, trying to clear it of all traces of irritation. Trying being the operative word.

The last time they’d melded minds, Snape had taken their connection beyond mere observation. Now he was actively engaging with Harry’s mind, attempting to grasp at thoughts and memories outside of his immediate, conscious thought. He’d taken it slow, letting Harry figure out how to block his attempts. This time Harry was supposed to prevent him from being able to access his subconscious by building up a “wall” made up of innocuous thoughts and emotions. He’d learn how to make the metaphorical wall invisible later, Snape had explained. For now, he just needed to build the wall and keep it standing.

Easier said than done, he’d quickly found out. Especially when he was distracted by thoughts of whether one Remus Lupin was alive or dead.

Snape gave him less than a minute to prepare this time before he began to attack the wall. Harry audibly grunted at the forceful push against his defenses. He knew Snape was still taking it easy on him, but he hadn’t even been ready that time!

Then get ready, flowed Snape’s words through his mind.

Knowing he’d get no mercy this time, he concentrated on packing the wall full of memories - the first time he rode a broom, breakfast in the Great Hall with his friends, practicing spells in Charms - and emotions - elation, happiness, determination. He focused his mind on those thoughts and those thoughts alone, imagining them weaving together like he’d seen Snape do in his own mind until they seemed to form a barrier between his conscious and subconscious thoughts.

As soon as it was in place, Snape attacked again. He immediately found a weak spot, and Harry found himself awash in memories - he was walking through the park near Privet Drive…he was skipping a rock into the Great Lake…he and Ron were furiously cramming for their History of Magic exam. He tried to reel them back in, prevent Snape from gaining access to any more memories, but more trickled past: he was watching Dudley ride his new birthday bicycle…Fang licked him full in the face…he was practicing for a Quidditch match against Ravenclaw.

Snape pulled back and the memories stopped. “That was pathetic,” he said aloud.

Harry sucked in a deep breath, keeping his eyes closed. “I was trying,” he said yet again, even more frustrated than before.

“Trying?” Snape sneered. “You practically invited me to access your memories. I didn’t even delve deeply into your mind, merely skimmed a few innocuous memories off the surface of your subconscious. I’d wager you would give it a halfway decent attempt if I had attempted to access your more closely guarded secrets.”

Harry’s blood ran cold, and he forced himself not to think of any of the memories or thoughts that he specifically did not want Snape to see.

“Yeah, let’s not do that,” he said quickly.

“Then block me. Put in an adequate amount of effort this time, and I will not be forced to dig deeper into your subconscious.”

Harry focused on his wall to keep himself from sighing or grumbling or thinking of any thoughts that would annoy Snape any more than he already was. He ran through a few memories and emotions again in his mind, imagining the threads binding, the cracks fusing together, until the wall seemed strong and secure. Snape attacked just as firmly, and Harry managed to hold him off this time. He raised a mental fist in celebration…and then another spot was attacked, and Harry’s wall seemed to fold in on itself. All at once, he was laid up in the hospital wing with a broken arm…then he was running through Hogwarts trying to get to Divination on time-

The memory cut off abruptly as Snape let go of the mental cord. “I did not even exert a fraction of the strength of which I am capable of exerting, Potter. Do something to stop me!”

Harry didn’t bother insisting that he was trying that time. He just clenched his lips together and started again. Oh, but he would fume about this later.

“As will I, if you don’t begin to actually block me!” Snape snapped.

He held him off through three attacks this time, but Harry wasn’t sure if he should celebrate, for Snape seemed to have gone for the strongest spots first. He found a crack in Harry’s defenses before long, and the memories began to flow.

“Stop me!”

“That’s what I’m trying to do!”

Then he felt a more forceful push on his mind, and a new set of memories came forth. He was opening a Christmas present from his relatives - a toothpick…he was hearing his name called after it came out of the Goblet of Fire, stunned and confused…Vernon was lecturing him about getting his chores done, threatening him with an “or else!”…Petunia lifted a frying pan-

“Stop it!” he yelled. “Get out of my mind!”

“You stop it,” answered Snape. “Stop me, as you’re supposed to be doing!”

The frying pan grazed the side of his head as he dodged and made it out the back door to the sound of Petunia’s shrieks…he was furiously pulling weeds, trying to ignore the blisters on his hands. Harry attempted to shove Snape’s mind away from the cracks in his wall, tried to patch them up with memories of school and Quidditch and his friends, but Snape was gaining ground. He felt another push against his mind, and he felt frozen in horror at his inability to do anything about it.

Ron’s lifeless body came through the floo of Grimmauld Place…”Kill the spare,” he heard and Cedric lay dead at his feet…He lay on the ground next to a broken ladder and stared up at the Dursleys’ roof, the wind knocked out of him... Snape’s mind faltered and Harry tried to use it to his advantage, pushing against the invading mind, but he barely gained ground before it rebounded and delved deeper.

Professor Umbridge was staring at him with a smarmy smile and he felt a shiver of fear mixed with revulsion wash down his spine…he snagged a piece of candy from the pantry, hiding it before Petunia could see…he watched through the crack from his cupboard as Dudley opened present after present, wishing he could at least sit by the Christmas tree this time…he was hot, and the teacher asked why he was wearing a sweater; he lied and said he was cold…Vernon grabbed him by his already bruised arm, spittle flying from his lips, he was so angry, and-

“Get OUT!” he yelled, pushing against Snape’s mind, but the presence barely budged.

-and with a push, Harry felt his feet fly out from under him, the stairs wavering in his vision…

Harry tried to wrench his hands free of Snape’s but the man held his wrists with a vice grip.

“St Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys,” Vernon was saying, and the neighbor lady looked at Harry as if he were plotting to kill her cat…Petunia screeched as he tried to swipe a slice of Dudley’s birthday cake…Dudley laughed with his friends: “Leave him! Maybe he’ll freeze to death,” and Harry started crying, his bare feet numb in the snow.

“GET OUT!” Harry screamed and pushed with all his might, a wall of emotion rising like a whirlwind, up and out with a burst of force, and…it worked. Too well.

He felt a great push, and an array of images that were not his own rushed through his mind. A pale, dark-haired boy was watching from behind a bush as a pair of children played…The boy was hiding, crying, as a man stumbled around calling for him…The man was screaming at him, telling him he’d never amount to anything…

Harry’s arms were abruptly released, and he fell backwards from the shock of their minds separating so suddenly. He caught himself with an elbow and groaned. He was going to have a bruise there later. He looked wide-eyed at Snape. The man was breathing heavily, holding his own head in one hand.

He almost asked if he had hurt him, rebounding into his mind like that, but he stopped himself with a rush of anger. So what if he had? It was Snape’s fault it had happened in the first place! And the things he had seen! Harry might have been embarrassed if he hadn’t been so angry. He abruptly scrambled away from Snape, which was difficult when a wave of dizziness fell over him. As soon as he could, he got to his feet and ran to the door. He tried to wrench it open but it wouldn’t budge.

“Let me out!” he yelled. It wasn’t locked; Snape must have spelled it shut.

“No.”

He whirled around. “You had no right! Those are my memories, and you had no right to go poring over them like your own personal film show!”

“If you didn’t want me to view them,” Snape bit out, “then you should have stopped me from doing so!”

“You knew I couldn’t!”

“You could have. You chose not to try hard enough.”

Harry gaped. “Chose? I chose to let you invade my privacy like that?”

“You chose to block me when it mattered enough to you to do so, didn’t you?” the professor yelled right back, getting to his feet.

“Oh, so I’m supposed to thank you now?”

“As I am certain that is too much to ask, how about we get to the part where you lied to the headmaster?” Snape’s expression had turned thunderous, and that made Harry all the more incensed. Harry was the one with the right to be angry in this situation, not Snape!

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Harry said, indignant. “Lied to him about what?”

“You told him that you had nothing more to confide about your childhood, strongly implied to him that he knew all there was to know!”

Harry huffed. “What, did you expect me to tell him about every last memory? That would take a lifetime! He already knows the gist of it. There wasn’t anything more to tell.”

“They tried to kill you!”

Harry stared open-mouthed. “What?” he finally asked, so incredulous that he momentarily forgot to be angry. “Of course they didn’t. Well, I mean, they weren’t too careful sometimes with making sure I was okay, and they could have fed me more, and…well, to be honest, they probably wouldn’t have minded if I’d died, but-”

“Your uncle pushed you down a flight of stairs!”

It took Harry a moment to pull up the memory. “Oh. That.”

“Yes. That!”

Harry frowned, trying to remember just what Snape had seen. “Well…you didn’t see the full memory. I mean, I did kind of fall down the stairs, but I wasn’t hurt all that badly, just a few bruises, maybe a sprain. I think my accidental magic kicked in, made it sort of a…er, soft bounce.”

Snape stared at him incredulously.

“I was fine,” he insisted. “I don’t think he meant to do it anyway. He was just being a bully, like usual, and he didn’t notice how close we were to the stairs.”

“You were a child. He pushed you down the stairs,” Snape repeated as if trying to get a simple concept through to a thick head.

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. He’d been seven at the time, and he’d been scared out of his wits, but he didn’t feel the need to confide that part to Snape. Although…truthfully, Snape probably already knew. He thought Snape might have been able to feel his emotional states, so intense were shared memories with the mind meld. He’d felt Snape’s memories so vividly, after all. The longing as he’d watched the children play, the fear when he’d hid from the man and the loathing when the man was yelling. Now, thinking of it, he desperately wanted to ask if that was Snape’s father…wanted to know if Snape too knew what it was like to have been raised by a bully.

He’d probably hold onto that question until that vein in Snape’s forehead stopped twitching.

Snape wasn’t done anyway. “A fall like that could have killed you - probably would have, had you not been a wizard.” He didn’t let Harry answer before he yelled, “And who forces a five-year-old to work on a roof with no supervision and a faulty ladder?”

“I was eight,” he pointed out but from Snape’s look, he didn’t think that fact had helped matters.

“So you were forced to perform chores on the roof of your house with no supervision and a faulty ladder? At eight?”

“Well. Yeah?” Harry admitted, though he didn’t see how that was as awful as the stairs. After all, “I’d cleaned the gutters before. I’ve got pretty good balance.”

“Until the day you fell,” Snape sneered. “You could have killed yourself in a fall like that.”

“Or I could have killed myself falling out of a tree house, like a normal kid,” he pointed out. “I don’t get why you’re so upset about me not telling Dumbledore about every little-”

“And how old were you when they intentionally left you outside, barefoot and clothed in rags, on a cold and snowy evening?”

“Um, six,” he admitted. “But that was Dudley and his friends. I think Vernon and Petunia thought I was still locked in my cupboard.”

Snape’s face tightened, and again, he had the feeling he hadn’t said the right thing.

“I was fine though,” he pointed out. “I must have done accidental magic that time too, because I woke up nice and toasty warm in the shed next morning.”

Snape scowled and shook his head, then said accusingly, “You stated that your uncle rarely hit you. You implied that the physical abuse was limited to that and a bit of rough handling.”

“Um, yeah..?” Harry had no idea why he was being interrogated about this, and no idea what the right answer was. “What else do you think happened?” he asked nervously.

“You dodged that frying pan a little too well for it to have been the first time it was aimed at your head,” Snape enunciated slowly as if he were slow on the uptake.

Harry bristled. “She’s never caught me with it. Never more than a graze, anyway.”

Snape threw up his hands. “They’ve made a habit of aiming metal objects at your head, put you in dangerous and unsupervised situations at an incredibly young age, locked you out all night in freezing temperatures, and oh, yes, thrown you down a flight of stairs. And all you can think to volunteer to the headmaster is that you slept in cramped quarters and missed a few meals?”

Harry wasn’t sure what to say, so he didn’t say anything.

“Merlin knows what else they’ve done, how many other memories you’ve locked away in there that I’ve yet to view!”

Harry instinctively took a step back.

Snape gave him a long-suffering look. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve seen quite enough.” He shook his head and stalked toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

He placed his hand on the knob. “To fire-call Dumbledore.”

“Wait. What? Why?”

“Because abuse is one thing. Attempted murder is quite another,” he hissed.

“You’re making it sound worse than it was,” Harry accused. “I’m the first to say the Dursleys are awful people, but you’re blowing those memories way out of proportion!”

“Why are you protecting them?” Snape rounded on him. “They have done nothing for you. Nothing! And here you are, trying to defend their reprehensible actions.”

“I wasn’t defending them!” Harry recoiled. “I just told you they’re-”

“Awful people, yes, I know. Hence the repeated attempts on your life,” Snape said impatiently. “So then why sugarcoat what they did to you?”

Harry pursed his lips. He wasn’t trying to defend them, to be honest. He felt the need to defend himself. He wasn’t some poor little kid who could be tossed out in the snow or thrown down a flight of stairs. He wasn’t weak, not like that made him sound, and the last thing he wanted was for Snape to see him that way.

But he couldn’t say that, so, “They’re…family?” he said lamely, not meeting Snape’s eyes.

“Being family,” Snape spat the word as if it were vile, “does not give them license to egregiously abuse a child under their care. You may not care for the headmaster to know all of the particulars, but as the adult most responsible for seeing to your wellbeing over the next several years, he should know these particulars!”

“I don’t see why!” he shot back. “It’s my business, my memories! I should get to decide who knows about them!”

Snape didn’t reply to that, just turned the knob.

“So I suppose you told Dumbledore all about your family, then!” Harry yelled, his self-preservation going on holiday. Still, he knew as soon as he’d spoken the words that he’d crossed a line.

“What?” Snape whispered in his second most dangerous tone. (Yes, Harry had begun to categorize Snape’s tones.) The professor’s face was pinched, his lips a white line, and Harry wondered if he should back away slowly or try to get around him to escape into the hallway. It definitely was not a good idea to dig in his heels and keep going.

So of course, that’s what he did.

“You know what it’s like to be raised by a bully, don’t you?” Harry plowed on, trying to temper his tone. He wasn’t going to get away with this no matter what, but he might still be alive at the end of the day if he sounded marginally reasonable rather than accusing. “Your childhood wasn’t a bed of roses either, was it, and I bet you didn’t go whining about it to Dumbledore.”

Snape was trying to decide whether to murder him. Okay, so Harry wasn’t a Legilimens, but he was pretty sure that’s what he would see if he could look inside Snape’s head. That vein in his forehead was way beyond twitching and now looked ready to pop. And those white lips were too tightly clenched for him to say anything just yet. Harry couldn’t help but wonder just how talented the professor was at nonverbal spells. He brushed his hand against the wand he held up his sleeve, comforted by its presence. Snape wouldn’t really kill him, he knew by now. But the man still had a nasty temper. He wasn’t above a hex or two.

“What,” Snape finally hissed, making no move to move away from the door, “could possibly make you think that you have the right to question me about such matters?”

“I could ask you the same! What happened to me has nothing to do with you-”

“I am an adult and your professor, Potter!” he spat. “I have every right, as your teacher and as someone tasked with your safety by the leader of the Order of the Phoenix himself, to concern myself with such things. I have a duty, in fact, to alert the headmaster to anything that could compromise your physical or mental safety. You have no such duty to me. And so,” he said slowly and deliberately, “you will keep your impertinent questions and observations to yourself. You will respect my privacy. You will not comment on anything you see inside my mind during these exercises, you will not share it with anyone outside this room, and you will not question me over things that are of no concern to you. And if you fail to heed me in any one of these points,” he hissed, his eyes narrowed into black slits, “then we. Are. Done. Do you understand?”

Harry nodded automatically, eyes wide as the full weight of the man’s threatening stance finally got through to him. That, and his scar was starting to twinge. He probably ought to mention that…

Snape didn’t say another word before sweeping from the room and shutting the door firmly behind him.

Harry let out a weary breath and sank to the floor. He was quite suddenly overwhelmingly tired. He’d been trying all week to learn Occlumency while doing his best to ignore that his friends were all in mortal peril and he couldn’t do anything about it. He’d only managed to not have nightmares when he took Dreamless Sleep potion, which he was still trying not to take every single night. And now, after fending off mental attacks all morning, he’d had to give up even more of his awful memories for perusal by Snape, who was going to share them with Dumbledore, and the only way he’d been able to think of forestalling it was to alienate Snape yet again by sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. He was too tired even to worry about the fact that Snape had shut him in here in a clear directive that he was to stay put, that they weren’t finished with today’s lesson. Or maybe Snape just wanted him to stay so that he could yell at him some more when he returned.

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, no doubt mussing it more than it usually was, and closed his eyes. He sat there for far longer than he thought it would take for Snape to make a simple fire-call, and still the man didn’t return. Finally, he began to practice building a mental wall in an attempt to block out his mixed up emotions. All he had to do was to pull up a memory here, recall an emotion there, and use each piece to block out everything he most wanted to think about in this particular moment. No thinking about how sick he felt having had his memories forcefully ripped from his mind. No thinking about how Dumbledore was going to think he was a nut case waiting to crack. No thinking about Snape’s memories, about how he and his professor might have far more in common than he’d thought…

He was mostly successful at Occluding. He couldn’t quite do away with the churning in his stomach, but he was able to hide his thoughts away from his conscious mind, clear it of anything more taxing than leaves rustling through a soft breeze. Breath in, breath out, breath in…and he started to feel calm…

His scar erupted in pain. He yelped and clamped his hands over his head, panting through his teeth.

“Ow ow ow ow,” he chanted as the pain intensified in waves. He felt a wave of panic. His scar never hurt this much unless Voldemort was nearby. Voldemort couldn’t be nearby, could he?

No. No, of course not. They were at headquarters. Protected by a Secret-Keeper. He couldn’t possibly. Not even Remus could tell-

“Ooooooww!” he keened and crumpled to the ground. He lay on his side and drew up his knees to his chest, but nothing eased the pain.

Something was wrong.

“Dob- ow…Dobby!” he called as loudly as he could, and a few seconds later he heard the unmistakable sound of house-elf Apparition.

“Harry Potter is wanting Dobby, sir?” squeaked a happy voice, and even through his pain, Harry felt a little bad that he had been mostly ignoring Dobby since the Weasleys had arrived. He’d have to sit down and have a chat with him someti- ow ow ow ow! “Harry Potter is sick!” the house-elf wailed upon seeing Harry’s state.

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Dob…get…get Snape. Tell-” he let out a moan and said through gritted teeth, “it’s an - ow ow ow - emergency!”

“Dobby will get Professor Snape right away, Harry Potter!” he squeaked urgently and disappeared with a pop.

Harry concentrated on his breathing. In, out, in, out. But nothing could ease the pain of the scar. His vision was wavering, and his ears were starting to ring.

Harry Potter…he thought he heard a voice calling to him, but that was impossible. He was alone…

Harry Potter, it said more clearly, and Voldemort’s red eyes flitted through the darkness of his vision. Come and get what belongs to you. And though his eyes were closed, an image flitted through his mind, as if he were looking at it, of a clearing and a man - Remus - and-

He heard a door open and close abruptly, and hurried footsteps reached his side. “Potter?” Snape’s alarmed voice called from above him.

“Nuuuuuh!” he managed through clenched teeth and scrunched up his face, hoping that Snape would get the picture and have some way to help him.

Come and get what belongs to you, Harry Potter. You have until midnight. Show yourself or more will die.

He felt hands prying his fingers away from his scar, but he strained against them. He couldn’t let go of his scar, couldn’t let go, or the pain would overwhelm him. Snape was the stronger of the two though, and despite his struggles, Harry felt his fingers pulled away from his forehead. His hands felt wet and sticky, and he realized that his scar must be bleeding.

Snape sucked in a breath and let out an expletive that Harry was pretty sure teachers weren’t supposed to say in front of their students.

“Potter, can you hear me?”

“Ye- ooooow,” he moaned as another wave of pain engulfed him.

Tonight, Harry Potter. Or more will die.

He felt his head being lifted, placed on something soft, and a hand brushed his fringe from his face. He didn’t care that it was Snape, didn’t care that Snape knew he was conscious; he grasped the hand with his own, needing some small amount of comfort.

To his relief, Snape didn’t pull away. “Push him from your mind.”

He wanted to snap at the man, tell him that of course that’s what he wanted to do, but this wasn’t usual, was it? But the next instant the pain ebbed, and finally Harry could breathe without reminding himself to do so. He took a long gulp of air and shuddered. The sharp, all-consuming pain was gone, and along with it Voldemort’s presence, but his entire body ached and his head throbbed in time with his pounding heart.

“Harry?” Snape’s voice held an edge of panic, and Harry realized that in his relief and exhaustion, his entire body had gone limp.

“I…” he croaked and tried to clear his throat but that set off a coughing fit. Snape conjured a glass of water and helped him to sit up far enough to drink it. “Thanks,” he breathed and lay his head back down on what he realized was a bundled up cloak. Snape’s cloak, the one he kept on the wall by the door. “I’m okay. He’s g-gone.”

“That was…” Snape shook his head in amazement, clearly shaken. “How often does that happen?”

“It d-doesn’t,” Harry croaked, careful to keep as still as possible so Snape wouldn’t realize that Harry was clinging to his hand again. “It really doesn’t,” he repeated at Snape’s skeptical look. “It was…was awful when he tried to possess me last year, but u-usually it’s only really bad when he’s close by. It can h-hurt a lot when he’s feeling strong emotions, but never like this. This was…new.” He hated that his voice trembled, but he felt like a scared little kid all of a sudden. Voldemort had reached into his mind. Intentionally reached into his mind! He’d never done that before. Well, okay, he had…but he’d never done it to send him a message. And Harry was starting to freak out.

Snape pulled away, and it was all Harry could do to stop himself from grasping at his hand again to keep him by his side. But the man was only gone for a few seconds, and when he returned, it was with a damp cloth. He used it to gently wipe the blood from Harry’s face.

Harry closed his eyes, taking deep breaths. The coolness of the cloth felt good against his pounding head, helped to calm his rising pulse. “Hurts,” he mumbled.

“I can imagine,” Snape murmured. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“He was sending me a m-message. Remus…he’s alive. You-Know-Who wants me to turn myself in. A t-trade, I think.”

Snape paused his ministrations. “It was not a vision?”

Harry shook his head and hissed when that produced a horrible pain in his temple. He reached a hand to his head but Snape caught it, wiping the blood off his fingers with the cloth. “He did it on purpose,” he explained. “That- He’s never done that before, not like this. Why does it hurt so much?”

“Were you Occluding?”

“Yes. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of it, too,” he said miserably.

“He probably had a difficult time accessing your mind.” Snape surrendered one clean hand and reached for the other. “He likely forced himself past your defenses, resulting in the physical trauma.”

“What’s the point then?” Harry cried and immediately grunted at a stab of pain in his scar. “If Occluding won’t stop him, will only make it hurt more, then what’s the point?”

“The point is that the more proficient you get at Occlumency, the more difficulty he will have in accessing your mind, and sooner or later - preferably sooner - he will not be able to at all.”

“So why now?” Harry complained. “He hasn’t set out to get inside my head in months - and even then, it was to trick me, not to send me a message. He’s never done this before!”

Snape laid his other hand, now clean, on top of the first and set aside the blood-streaked cloth. “I told you that he has gained power since his rise. It is possible that he is flexing his powers, testing their limits.”

Harry sighed. The light hurt his eyes. He blinked a few times and then kept his eyes closed. It was probably best not to look at Snape when he said what he had to say next anyway. “He showed me where Remus is. Said if I don’t go to him tonight, by midnight, more people will die.” He tamped down his rising panic. Snape would know what to do. He always knew what to do.

“That is not going to happen,” Snape said darkly.

“What if-”

“Where is Lupin? What did you see?” Snape interrupted, his sharp tone clearly communicating that he wasn’t going to listen to any arguments Harry might make about doing as Voldemort said.

Harry squinted up at him but it was hard to concentrate with the brightness of the room. “It was…a clearing, next to a hill and two big rocks. One was taller than the other, kind of pointy. Remus was tied to a tree next to the shorter rock, and the Death Eaters were there with him.”

“I know where that is.” With a wave of his wand, Snape dimmed the lights in the room. Harry breathed a sigh of relief and opened his eyes a little wider. Snape went on, “The Dark Lord has used that clearing before, for ritual and sacrifice.”

Harry shivered at the images invoked by both of those words. “Remus?” he whispered fearfully.

“You say he is still alive. That is good,” he said, but Harry heard what he didn’t say: Voldemort was done with whatever he’d kept Remus alive for, and now all he was good for was bait. If they didn’t get him back today, he’d probably be dead by morning.

“What do we do?” At Snape’s chiding look, Harry rolled his eyes  - though even that small movement hurt his head - and corrected himself. “Fine. Not we. What are you going to do?”

“The Dark Lord will be expecting the Order to show. He knows that we would not allow you to take the bait.”

“Why send me the message then?”

“To set a trap,” Snape clipped. “However, he also knows that it is worth a try. He knows you at least well enough to know that you would take the bait if no one were around to stop you.” Snape actually growled at that. “If he has no more use for Lupin, then he has nothing to lose by giving him up in an attempt to capture you. I’d wager that not only will he actually be there, the Death Eaters guarding him will only stay long enough to ascertain that you are not there. If they can take out any members of the Order while there, all the better.”

“Are you going to go with them?” Harry hoped the room was dim enough that Snape couldn’t see how much that thought worried him.

Snape shook his head. “My orders are to lie low for now."

“And you always follow orders?” Harry asked with a yawn, genuinely curious to hear Snape’s answer.

“It quite depends on who it is giving the orders,” the professor said dryly as he pulled out his wand. He muttered a spell so softly that Harry couldn’t make it out, and a small mattress popped into being right next to him, complete with a soft-looking blanket and pillow. “You should rest. In here so that I can keep an eye on you for any aftereffects. I’d give you Dreamless Sleep, but the mind melding potion is still in your system…”

“But how can I sleep? Remus!” he protested and tried to sit up, but that only resulted in a stabbing pain in his scar, which reverberated through his head and down his spine. He groaned as Snape guided him back down to the floor.

“I will convey the message to the Order. We will do everything in our power to retrieve him.”

“Promise?” His eyes were drooping against his will, but he searched Snape’s face, needing reassurance. He didn’t know what he would do if he found out that Remus had died. It would be like living through Sirius’s death all over again.

“I promise,” Snape murmured, then half-helped, half-lifted him onto the mattress. Harry didn’t even mind the indignity of being lifted like a child, he was so consumed with gritting his teeth against the ache that flowed through his very bones.

“He said…more would die if I don’t show up. What if-”

“The Dark Lord will wreak havoc and destruction no matter what happens today,” Snape cut him off. “In fact, he would likely cause more harm were he to capture you and successfully use your blood to increase his own powers.”

Harry mulled that over for a minute, then asked, “Do you think he’ll try it again? Break into my mind like that?” He didn’t know if he could deal with such pain twice in one day.

“Not now,” Snape assured. “He relayed his message. But without knowing his plans…and without knowing how his forcing himself into your mind will have affected you, it’s best to be on guard just the same.”

“Professor?” he asked, blinking to stay awake. There were too many things that needed to be said before he could sleep, and not all of them were about Voldemort.

Snape hummed, pulling the blanket over him. Harry found that he quite liked the feeling of being tucked in.

“You don’t really think my relatives tried to kill me, do you?”

That vein in Snape’s temple twitched, but his features were impassive. “Do you really think they didn’t?”

“Yeah,” he answered honestly, voice thick with drowsiness. “They’re probably lucky I didn’t die a few times, but they’re not murderers.”

“Hmm,” sounded Snape noncommittally.

“Did you tell Dumbledore?”

Snape sat next to Harry and studied him for a minute. “No… I gave it further consideration-” He took a breath as if to say more, then simply repeated, “No.” The way he said it, Harry knew he’d decided not to tell Dumbledore at all. He felt both grateful and confused by that.

“Why not?”

Snape hesitated, then said, “You were…correct. You are old enough to choose in whom you wish to confide.”

“I thought you thought Dumbledore needed to know.”

“Yes…well. I reacted… That is, after considering the matter…” Snape glanced away. “I believe that the headmaster knows enough already to make informed decisions concerning you. Anything more…” He looked back at him assessingly. “Anything more will come from you, not me.”

“Thank you,” Harry murmured, and Snape inclined his head in acknowledgment. The professor looked calmer now, like he wouldn’t go off on him, so he added, half yawning, “I’m sorry for prying into your personal life again.”

His apology was met with silence.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me anything,” he mumbled. “Just so you know though, it’s not like I’d pity you or anything. I know we can’t choose our family.”

Snape sighed. “Go to sleep, Potter.”

“You should sleep too,” he murmured, struggling to keep his eyes open. “…look tired.”

“I will. Later. Now sleep, Harry.”

“Mm-kay…”

Sleep enveloped him quickly, but not before a cool hand brushed his fringe away from his face and then settled gently on his hair. It stayed until long after he had fallen asleep.