Harry clutched the book on Occlumency to his chest and forced himself to draw a lungful of painfully freezing air. "I will. I swear."

A bright flash of light made Harry squeeze his eyes shut, and when he opened them a moment later, the Bloody Baron was gone.

HPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSS

An explosive BOOM rocked Severus' chambers, but before he had a chance to rise from his chair and investigate, the concurrent flash of light nearly blinded him. He blinked hard once, then once more. When he could see again, the Bloody Baron was hovering directly in front of him, silver blood pouring from his chest, and looking nervous . . . which, for anyone else, was the equivalent of panicked.

"What is going on here?" Severus demanded, drawing himself up and tightening the belt on his dressing gown as if it were armor. Never let it be said he lost his composure in a crisis.

"I have just left Harry Potter," the ghost intoned, as if that were enough of an answer. In a way, it was.

Severus gave his end table a significant look, where a vase of dried flowers and a wine glass had both fallen over due to the ghost's concussive entrance. "You left his room intact, I imagine."

"I would have to check to make certain. . . ." Severus was half way to the door, before the ghost finished with, "But I have no reason to believe otherwise."

"Despite the manner of your arrival in my chambers."

"Indeed." The ghost was gradually becoming less . . . frazzled. He peered at the side table then gave Severus an apologetic look.

Severus waved him off, then used his wand to banish the mess and turned back to his chair. "Tell me what happened."

"Harry Potter made a Wizard's Oath."

In the process of sitting back down by the fire, Severus froze. "He what?" His question came out strangled. How could the boy have done something so stupid? And since dinner? Fists clenched, he strode to the door, ready to wrangle a moment's peace from The Boy Who Would Not Leave Bloody Well Alone if he had to put him in a Body Bind to do it.

"He did not realize, I believe, what the result of his oath would be."

Severus grabbed the latch and sneered over his shoulder. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Of course not." The Baron glided closer. Oddly, as the apparition approached, he seemed to bring with him an unnatural chill. Severus could see his breaths, and he repressed a shiver. "He swore only to study Occlumency as hard as he can. To learn it, in order to protect his mind against the heir of Slytherin."

Giving the Baron a sharper look, Severus let go of the door. "What, exactly, did he pledge his magic against?"

"He pledged to guard his mind and dreams from the Dark Lord."

With a small sigh, Severus crossed his arms. He traced his lower lip with an index finger, considering the ramifications. "Perhaps that will not harm him overmuch."

"I surmised that, as well." The Baron's gaze was still intense. "What concerned me more was the amount of power he brought to bear in making his oath."

Severus swallowed hard, and almost did not ask. "How much?"

The Bloody Baron sighed softly, a forlorn sound. "I have not seen such raw power in over one hundred years. And in one so young, when the boy has not yet reached his full potential . . . I have never felt its like before."

As if his heart were being crushed by a giant fist, Severus' chest flooded with pain. He could not breathe, could not think. His vision grayed at the edges. Then, an instant later, the fist opened and he sucked in a harsh breath, greedy for air. He dropped his head down low, braced his hands on his knees, and fought for sanity. Dear Merlin . . .

"Are you well, Severus Snape?" The words were faint, as if they had come from far away and under water, yet Severus still managed to think, Stupid question.

It was another minute before he gathered himself enough to say, "You are certain?" He cocked his head to the side, to see the ghost's expression, and what he saw there made his heart sink further into his stomach. Of course the he was sure. The Baron had known Salazar Slytherin himself. All of the Founders, in fact. He had known Dumbledore, when Albus had come through the school a hundred years ago--

Ah, it was Dumbledore's power the ghost had felt before. Of course.

The Baron had been exposed to the magic of tens of thousands of students, over the course of a thousand years since the Founding of Hogwarts. He had known the magic of the Founders, of Albus Dumbledore, of Tom Riddle, and now, of Harry Potter, who was fated, perhaps, to end Riddle's reign of terror. If he had the power . . .

It was not for another minute or two that the Baron's tidings had truly penetrated, enough that Severus could make some sense of it. Somehow, somewhen, he had fallen to his knees. His forehead was lying on his forearms, which rested on the door. His first coherent thought was, "Oh, Harry." Poor, damned boy.

"You must protect him," the Baron said softly.

"I know."

"He is already aware that the Headmaster has designs on him."

Severus nodded tiredly. It was inevitable, really.

"You must aid him--"

"I know! He can't . . ." He exhaled sharply. "His power will be very tempting." The Dark Lord could never learn how much power the boy had, else he would try and take it for his own, one way or the other. Either by enslaving the boy or leeching the magic from his core. Either way, killing Harry would be kinder.

The Baron went on, "Even untried, unrealized, the intensity of his power, even the potential . . . it is enticing now."

Severus could only nod again. He would protect the boy, as he had pledged to do. If that protection must also be from those who would exploit Potter and his magic, so be it. But perhaps even more important now, he would also need to protect the boy from himself, from his own undisciplined mind. Harry would have to learn control and discipline very soon, more so than any other child his age . . . or any age.

Because they were less able to master their emotions, young wizards tended to have a more difficult time mastering their magic. As they matured, they learned control, and their magic responded accordingly. From what Severus had seen, because of the way he was treated by his relatives, Harry had already learned some restraint over his emotions. To not have that self-control in his world had meant punishment or banishment to that damnable cupboard. Yet the boy still had a temper, and with all that power at his fingertips, he could do terrible things, all unknowing. And so. In addition to Occlumency, they would need to work on other types of meditation that would help the boy govern his emotions, his reactions, and his power. Else, he could do some serious damage to himself and the school. Not to mention, without truly knowing what he was capable of, how could he ever fulfill the bloody prophecy?

"I see you understand, Professor Snape."

"I do." He rose and went to his high board and poured out two fingers of single malt whisky. After this conversation, he deserved it.

HPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSS

The first Occlumency lesson started off tolerably well. Severus had scheduled them to begin directly after dinner, so Potter could have as much time preparing for the lesson as possible. Well, that was what he told himself, anyway, when he knew, deep down, that the real reason was so the boy could enjoy his free day . . . and so Severus could wrap his mind around the information the Bloody Baron had given him the night before.

Currently, Potter sat on a chair he had occupied a number of times before in Severus' office. The book by Keating was in his lap. He was biting his lip and looking nervous, and it was all Severus could do not to yank that lip out from between the boy's teeth. Really! Could he be more blatant!

Instead, he said, "How much did you manage to read after indulging in holiday sweets and idleness all day?"

The boy swallowed, gripped the book a bit tighter, and said, "I only got to really study the first half. I read the whole thing, though."

"Did you," Severus said, maintaining his blank expression, though he was secretly pleased. He had no real cause to think Potter was a slacker in his studies -- he had shown no such tendency in any of his classes -- yet he could not quash his immediate assumption that all children, when given the chance to loll about idly, would do so.

"Yes, sir."

"We shall see."

He proceeded to question the boy on various theories and stratagems Keating had presented in the first half of his book, especially on the matter of hiding thoughts as opposed to layering thoughts. Potter was able to answer intelligently, if more hesitantly than Severus might have liked. In addition to learning self-control to master his power, Potter obviously needed to acquire a greater measure of self-confidence. Without it, he was far more susceptible to the influence of flatterers and those who doled out praise, or the promise of it. As Severus knew too well, wizards who used such weapons to prey on the desperate-to-belong and the weak-minded, could draw an unloved, uncertain child like Harry into the fold of Dark Magic very quickly. With his level of power, that was untenable.

The other issue that concerned Severus, was that the boy did not seem to associate what he was currently learning about protecting his mind with the spontaneous episode of Occlumency he had demonstrated the first time Severus had dug around in his mind looking for memories. The night he had discovered the boy was a Parselmouth. At the time, he had merely assumed the boy had an innate talent for Occlumency. But now, some very unsettling possibilities were rearing their ugly heads, and he needed time to think hard on what he was postulating, before he went mad. The facts were hard to counter: Harry Potter, with more raw magic inside him than any two wizards since the time of Hogwarts' founding, also possessed talent in Occlumency and was a Parselmouth, two talents the Dark Lord was known for, the very Dark Lord who had vanished on the night Harry Potter's parents had been killed, when the babe himself had merely gained a curse scar.

Very troubling possibilities, indeed.

In the short term, of course, what it meant was that Severus needed to keep a close eye on the Boy Who Couldn't Just Be Normal for Once, which he was already doing for a variety of reasons. What was one more?

In the long term . . . Who could say?

After an hour of questioning the boy, Severus was satisfied that he at least grasped the main concepts of Occlumency. He was a bit dodgy on minutiae, but that was what having a mentor was for. Severus had a number of drills in mind for specific aspects of Occlumency, once the boy had the general idea.

"Very well," he said at last. "Take out your wand."

Potter nodded and pulled the length of holly from his back pocket. Severus managed to keep from shaking his head in chagrin, but determined he would get the boy a proper sheath for his arm, and soon.

"Wand up! I am about to use Legilimency, which you will attempt to block with Occlumency. The first time I used this spell on you, I requested that you not fight me, do you recall?"

With a frown, the boy nodded. "Yes, sir."

"This time, I want to you to fight. As Keating suggested for beginners, you should try to merely expel me from your mind. Do not worry about doing any fancy layering or creating false memories. Just try to get me to leave. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

Though Severus very much doubted that was the case, except in theory, he inclined his head and held the boy's gaze. "Very well. Legilimens!"

Once he had immersed himself in the boy's mind, images flew past his inner eye immediately, first one of a pile of presents on the end of a bed and Harry's surprise, followed quickly by joy, when he saw they were addressed to him, then a sketchpad and small bottle of ink, Harry drawing the picture that had eventually been given to Severus as a gift, and then, oddly, a dark space Severus recognized as the cupboard where Harry had spent much of his childhood, and he grasped on to that one, knowing Harry would try to expel him from it out of embarrassment. In the darkness, Harry was young, maybe only seven or eight years old, and was kneeling on a narrow cot. With a stub of pencil in his hand, he was shading in a sketch on one of the walls, a picture of a motorcycle flying over clouds, with someone -- a rather large someone -- sitting astride it. From this angle, Severus could see that the interior walls of the cupboard were covered with drawings, some obviously infantile efforts, and others with remarkable detail.

As expected, Harry was pushing hard to get Severus out of his mind, out of this memory, and Severus felt the natural talent for this skill in Potter's efforts. Though he could have stayed in the memory, Severus let go this time, but as he was moving through other dark spaces, something else caught his attention and he homed in on it. Unlike the others he had moved through, this memory wasn't dark . . . or not of a dark place, he amended, but was protected by a wall of dark stone, which was what had made him look twice. He felt Harry scrabbling madly at his presence, pulling and pushing at him to pass this by, which only increased his desire to see. What did the boy want to protect so badly?

Buoying his own defenses against the boy's amplified railing by erecting a false show of leaving -- lessening the pressure of his presence, as if he had given up -- Severus sneaked past the dark stone wall when Harry's attention was momentarily distracted. He was startled to find himself in the girls' bathroom on the first floor of Hogwarts.

Troll, he recalled. Potter and his fellow Firsties had fought a troll in that bathroom, and lived to tell the tale, and here the three of them were, slamming through the door to find the frizzy haired Gryffindor huddled beneath the sinks. The twelve foot tall, gray-skinned, lumpy troll loomed over them.

Potter finally realized that Severus had gotten past his defenses and started fighting back. In the memory, Miss Bullstrode darted to the sinks to coax the courageous Gryffindor out from hiding, and Severus wondered what about this encounter the boy felt it necessary to hide. He'd already told Severus what happened, and been given an essay as punishment, too . . . unless he had lied? With the strength of twenty years of Legilimency practice under his belt, Severus held on against Potter's increasingly frantic attempts to remove him, intent on seeing this memory in its entirety.

Just as in the tale he had been told, Mr. Nott hurled a length of broken pipe at the troll, thus drawing its attention away from the girls, and then Potter was yelling at it . . . No. He was chanting something specific, his wand aimed at the huge beast's chest. It looked like he'd said, Impedimenta. But that couldn't be right; the Impediment Curse was generally learned in Fourth Year Defense.

Before Severus could consider it further, the troll staggered one step over, nearer the sinks, and Potter shouted something else. This time, a bright red bolt of light flashed out of his wand and hit the troll hard. The beast toppled backwards into the position he had been lying in when Severus came upon the scene moments later. That was definitely a Stupefying Charm. Flitwick did not teach that charm until Fifth Year, at least.

Satisfied with what he had learned, Severus exited Potter's mind. The boy was almost prostrate on the floor, gasping for breath, and glaring up at Severus at the same time. When Severus arched an eyebrow, however, Potter swallowed hard and blanked his face, but, to his credit, he did not look away.

Crossing his arms over his chest, with his best I am very disappointed look, Severus sighed. "Explain."