"Is this suitable, Potter? Or can you come up with an emptier location in which to empty your mind?"

Harry Potter glared at the Potions Master.

In truth, when Dumbledore had fetched him from Number 4 Privet Drive, Harry had assumed – very wrongly, as it turned out – that the Headmaster would be taking him to the Burrow to spend the remainder of his summer holidays. Instead, the two wizards had taken a side trip to Budleigh Babberton speak to one Horace Slughorn, before Dumbledore took Harry back to Hogwarts, much to the youth's surprise.

Spending the summer alone in the castle really wouldn't have been so bad, however, except for Dumbledore's condition: Harry had to recommence Occlumency lessons with Severus Snape, who seemed equally unhappy as the Gryffindor at this turn of events.

"Surely, Harry, you must understand" said Dumbledore, politely omitting the word "now" from his statement – "now" referring to the death of Sirius Black in the Department of Mysteries, not to mention Harry's subsequent possession by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named – "how important it is for you to close your mind to Voldemort's intrusion. You must master Occlumency, and you will remain here in the castle until you have done so, even if that takes up the entire summer. Professor Snape has agreed to tutor you once more, and I am confident that the two of you will reach a successful conclusion to your endeavors this time around."

Dumbledore beamed while Harry stared angrily past the twinkling Headmaster's shoulder, and Snape appeared as if he were going to sick up.

"I'll just leave you to it, then," said Dumbledore, wandering off toward his private rooms beyond his tower office.

Snape and Harry took part in a glaring contest for several long moments, before Snape grabbed the boy's shoulder, swinging him around toward the heavy exit door to Dumbledore's private spiral staircase. "Come along, Potter. We have work to do."

"Now?" Harry asked, caught off guard. "In the middle of the night?"

The dark man growled. "Can you honestly imagine that you'll improve your ability to Occlude while alone in Gryffindor Tower?"

Harry blew out his breath in frustration. "Probably not," he muttered.

"Then walk."

To Harry's surprise, Snape did not direct him toward Gryffindor Tower's shortcut stairs spiraling endlessly all the way down to the dungeons. Instead, the figure in black swooped down the marble staircase from the seventh floor, passing multiple floors on his way toward the entrance hall, then strode across the granite stones to open the grand main door to the outside grounds.

"Where are you going?" asked Harry, pausing on the doorsill.

"WE are going to yonder mountaintop," Snape said, heavy sarcasm coating every word. He pointed dramatically toward the bald summit of a mountain far beyond Hagrid's hut.

"Why?" demanded Harry. "Shouldn't we be doing Occlumency lessons in your office?"

Snape whirled around. "Do you think I want to see you in my office, Potter?" He glared sourly at the boy. "And were you ever able to succeed at anything you tried in my office?"

Harry slowly shook his head.

"Well, then, I believe a change of scenery is in order, don't you?"

The man billowed off toward the main gates, with Harry following dubiously in his wake. Somehow, this didn't sound like the greatest idea… Yonder mountaintop? Honestly!

Once beyond the gates, which Snape closed and warded behind them, he extended his left arm to the student. He grimaced before ordering, "Take tight hold, Potter." The moment the teenager obeyed, Snape Apparated them to the mountain, where Harry staggered a bit and tried to regain control of his stomach.

"If you are quite ready… " sneered Snape, and Harry straightened up, hoping his squirming stomach wouldn't suddenly materialize on the ground in front of them.

Trying to distract himself, the Gryffindor looked all around, astonished at the view, even in the darkness, seen only by starlight. He could gaze for miles in every direction, noting black hummocks of hills and other mountains rising up from deep, impenetrable valleys. The Black Lake stretched out before him, living up to its name in this moonless night, and he suddenly thought of the Durmstrang ship navigating the depths of the lake going to and from Hogwarts. The castle itself crowned a hill which looked impressively high from the First Years' boats, but seemed laughably low when viewed from this height. Harry couldn't even begin to guess at their current elevation, but he literally felt as if he were on top of the entire world!

"Brilliant!" he exclaimed, momentarily forgetting Snape in his delight.

The dark man snorted. "I'm so glad the view meets with your approval, Potter. Now, do you suppose we can finally get down to work?"

"Work?" The word popped out before Harry realized he'd said it.

And Snape had replied, "Is this suitable, Potter? Or can you come up with an emptier location in which to empty your mind?"

Harry glared at the Potions Master. "I guess this will be as good as any," he said with a defensive shrug.

"Turn around, then," instructed Snape.

"Turn around? Sir?" Harry stared at the man. "Aren't you supposed to be making eye contact when you do Legilimency, Professor?"

"Do not presume to tell me my business," Snape snarled back. "I will not be performing Legilimency immediately. The point is for you to clear your mind of thought, of all emotion. The Headmaster thought your FAILURE to achieve a state of Occlumency lay in the fact that you have never mastered the ability to properly clear your mind."

Harry sighed, and his shoulders dropped as he thought dismally of Sirius. If only he'd practiced… "Dumbledore's probably right," he conceded.

"PROFESSOR Dumbledore, Potter." The Potions Master's mouth twisted in disgust. "You will show him the respect he's due."

"Professor Dumbledore," Harry muttered, just wishing they could get this over with.

"Turn around and lie down on the ground, facing up, away from me."

Harry's jaw dropped. Lie down? How much more vulnerable could Snape contrive to make him feel? Not to mention, the grass was wet with summer dew.

"Er… "

"What now, Potter?"

"The ground is rather wet, Professor. Am I allowed to use my wand up here? In the summer?"

A distinct growl accompanied a powerful wave of Snape's wand, and Harry knew that the grass was now nice and dry, just perfect for stargazing. Oh, joy. The things he had to do as the Boy-Who-Lived.

He turned his back on Snape, bracing himself for a hex that never came. Plopping down on the ground, he stretched out on his back on the dry grass, feeling the coolness of the nighttime earth beneath the palms of his hands. He could see Snape's inverted silhouette towering blackly above him, backlit by the panorama of stars.

"Close your eyes, Potter," Snape ordered quietly.

Harry closed his eyes, his hands clenching on tufts of unseen grass to keep him anchored in a world suddenly gone topsy-turvy. He stretched out his sense of hearing, and he could detect slight movement from Snape as the man seemed to back away, possibly seating himself on the grass. If it hadn't been for the worry over the Potions Master's presence, Harry could have quite enjoyed lying atop the mountain, feeling the earth beneath him, hoisting him up as if to present him to the inspection of the stars above.

"Attempt to clear your mind, Potter. Feel the emptiness around you. Feel the emptiness above and below you. Let your mind empty into the emptiness. Let your thoughts flow away… "

Snape had spoken so quietly, his words didn't distract Harry. Rather, the soft baritone had filtered into the blackness behind his eyelids, into the recesses of his mind, becoming part of the void that seemed to be forming inside Harry as he lay upon the bare mountain. He could feel his contact with the earth in just a few places – beneath the back of his head, his shoulder blades, his hips, his calves, his heels. Harry and the earth, communing with each other through gentle touch, in the dark of night, beneath unseen stars.

The sound of night insects kept him grounded, too, and he let the rhythmic chirping of a cricket fill the growing void in his mind. The cricket nudged aside residual thoughts until his mind perceived nothing but cricket and earth. Harry was one with the cricket. Harry was one with the earth. Nothing else existed. Just the cricket. Just the earth. Just the cricket. Just the earth. Just the cricket… Just the earth…

"Open your eyes… "

For a moment, Harry didn't register the voice. He continued to lie upon the earth, feeling the earth, hearing the cricket.

"Open your eyes… "

Harry finally realized that Snape was giving him instruction, and he reluctantly obeyed, sorry to think that Legilimency would now destroy his oneness with the cricket and the earth.

Harry opened his eyes…

The universe lay before him…

Stretching into absolute infinity, the universe was his for the taking.

Stars before him, stars above, stars to the left, stars to the right, stars at his feet…

Glued to the side of the planet by gravity, Harry stared ceaselessly at the universe in front of him. Automatically, he clutched the tufts of grass to keep from being thrown off the planet into the empty spaces among the stars. He could feel the earth behind him, from the back of his heels to the back of his head, but in front of him, stars rushed away – though they looked stationary – propelled endlessly by the Big Bang…

Stars, galaxies, and the Milky Way itself teased him, inviting him to leap off the planet and ride to infinity as they made their own journey.

Harry slowly turned his head to the left, seeing the vertical horizon line described blackly against the darkest midnight gray of the celestial heavens. He then rolled his head to the right, and again, the vertical horizon emphasized the incontrovertible fact that he was stuck to the side of the planet, with nothing between him and the universe except gravitational pull.

For the first time in his life, Harry could look down at the stars! They lay below his feet, and it gave him a sense of vertigo to imagine how far he could fall if he just let go of the grass…

Completely losing track of time, Harry clung to the side of the planet, staring joyously out at the universe, down at the stars, feeling the earth behind his heels, wondering how he could have lived almost sixteen years without realizing the truth of human existence. None of us lives upon the earth; we cling to her side like infants to their mother. And just beyond the breathable atmosphere, infinity stretches out in unsurpassed glory, taken completely for granted if one merely looks up instead of out.

If one does look out, however, both a prince and a lowly Gryffindor would view the universe with unfettered awe, for seeing the stars at one's feet would cause even a king to cast down his crown for the privilege of hanging forever on the side of the planet, a hand's breadth away from endless infinity.

Harry finally found his voice, or at least, his whisper. "Do you see it, Professor?"

"See what, Potter?"

"The stars. The universe. It's all out there, just waiting for us to notice."

Snape was silent for a long time. Then he murmured, "I saw it many years ago, in this very spot. A friend of mine showed me the stars at my feet."

"He must have been your best friend, then," Harry said, nodding slightly against the earth behind him.

"She was."

"She?"

Behind him, far enough that he could not see Snape against the stars, Harry heard a sigh.

"Try using this setting, Potter, whenever you need to clear your mind. Think of the bald mountain, the emptiness, the stars at your feet. Let them fill your mind as you tuck your daytime thoughts away. Let the universe fill your mind, every corner of it, every crevice. You can see how large it is. The universe will easily crowd out all of your other concerns. Just give it a chance."

Harry lay staring at the stars beneath his feet. "Did it work for you, Professor? To help in clearing your mind, I mean."

"It did."

Even the cricket had gone silent as they regarded the universe from the side of the planet.

Finally, Harry asked, "Are you going to do Legilimency now?"

Snape rustled in his own patch of dry grass. "Not tonight."

"Why not? You don't want to spoil a good thing?"

A dark chuckle, which made Harry smile, in spite of the fact that it was Snape.

"I would rather that you learn to use the good thing when you practice clearing your mind tonight before you go to sleep."

"Oh."

Snape abruptly climbed to his feet, and Harry thought he could hear a few joints grating here and there. Just above the Gryffindor's head, the man's upside-down silhouette loomed eerily against the universe, and Harry looked longingly down one more time at the stars floating millions of miles below his toes.

"All good things must come to an end, Potter. Get up."

Harry scrambled to his feet, feeling solid earth taking the place of the buoyant stars, and he tilted his head as far back as it would go to look at the night sky from his standing position.

"It doesn't work like this," he complained. "I thought, once I knew how to really see the universe, I'd still be able to see it when I stood up."

"No," Snape agreed. "You can only experience it when you're lying down, flat on your back on the earth, with an unobstructed view of the heavens and the horizons. Tall trees, hills, buildings, and so forth, spoil the effect. That's why I brought you up here on the mountain. That way, there's nothing between you and the universe."

The boy sighed. "Too bad. I don't think I could ever get tired of the view."

Snape looked up at the night sky. "You'll never forget it, now that you've found it. Learn to use it well. Close your eyes and envision the stars. Feel the planet behind you. Let the universe fill your mind. These will be your first steps toward achieving Occlumency."

Harry studied the Potions Master. "How come you didn't teach me this last year?"

Snape hesitated, and it looked like he would refuse to answer. Then, he said, "I honestly didn't think of it at first, and then, when I did, I didn't want to share what was – for me – an intensely personal experience."

"But now you're doing it?"

"You MUST learn Occlumency, Potter. I cannot force the talent into you. I can only hand you tools. Make of them what you will."

The dark figure turned abruptly away, breathed deeply in and out several times, then held out his left arm. "Come, Potter."

Before taking Snape's arm, Harry asked, "Who was she, your friend?"

"That knowledge is not a necessary tool for you, Potter."

The Potions Master abruptly grasped the Gryffindor's arm, and suddenly, the bald mountain lay deserted on the side of the planet, a whisper away from infinity.

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