Harry was silent for a long moment, thinking it over. He didn't want to go back to the pain and humiliation of Snape's occlumency lessons. But if Snape had really changed, maybe it would be better. And Harry had to admit that he hadn't been the best student, either.

He did need to learn- even without his scar, Voldemort could break into his mind, and Snape was the only one besides Dumbledore who could teach him. Besides, he honestly didn't want Dumbledore to know all his secrets. He didn't much want Snape to, either, but between the two, Snape was more approachable...and he knew much more already. If Snape was making a genuine offer, it might be better this time. And besides, he would do anything if it could keep anyone from dying the way Sirius...Harry jerked his head, breaking off the thought. "Y-yes, sir."

Snape looked marginally surprised that Harry had accepted, but his mask quickly covered it. "Very well," he said. "As the previous method wasn't...very effective," (Harry blushed) "we should start with meditation. Think of something soothing and repetitive, like waves on a seashore or leaves rustling in the wind. Something that excludes all other thought."

"Would flying work?"

"Pardon?"

"The feeling of wind rushing past your ears," Harry clarified, "and the feeling of being ungrounded, free. If I focus on flying, I can't think of anything else."

Snape's eyebrows rose. "That...could be quite effective. I personally used brewing as a focus, but I thought we should start simple." His lips twitched upwards a little. "Besides, somehow I don't believe you find brewing meditative." He took a sip of his now-cold tea, as though to give himself time to think. "Focus on that feeling. Let everything else fall away."

Harry closed his eyes, and imagined the wind rushing around him, imagined spreading his wings and launching himself from a branch, imagined himself diving and looping and maneuvering in the air. Distantly, he heard Snape continue to lecture.

"For now, we will use this as a method of clearing your mind. Eventually, you will learn to stay utterly in the moment, using whatever you are doing at that time as an occlumency focus."

Harry nodded serenely, concentrating on mentally executing a long, plunging dive.

"Focus," Snape continued softly. "When you can keep the flying sensation in the front of your mind for ten minutes, I will test you."

Harry started to grow nervous when Snape said "test", and suddenly it was all he could do to keep his thoughts from going all over the place. It took him several minutes to stop hyperventilating and focus on flying again. But now that his attention had broken the first time, it was harder to refocus. He started wondering what Ron and Hermione were doing, and got distracted. He wondered what time it was, and worried about Dumbledore's motives. He began to worry about the horcruxes, and the prophecy, and about the rite of Flamma Aeterna.

"Ready?"

Harry started and tried to refocus when Snape murmured "legilimens".

This time, he managed to keep thinking about flying (well, mostly) but what was most different was Snape's approach. Where before he had crushed his way ruthlessly into Harry's mind, now his mental probe was feather-light and non-confrontational. It took almost a full minute for his shields to waver, and when they did Snape quickly backed out of his mind.

"A good first start," Snape told him.

Harry was grinning uncontrollably. "I did it! Why didn't you try this the first time?"

"Because-" Snape stopped dead in the middle of a sentence. "Because the headmaster told me that we had no time for anything fancy, and that the blunt approach would be best. The odd thing is that I listened to him."

Harry stared at him. "Dumbledore told you what?"

Snape closed his eyes briefly. "That I should use the blunt approach, that it would work better." He frowned. "Surely he knew occlumency should be taught slowly, especially with one of your personality?"

Harry did not like the sound of this. "Maybe he thought you could crush Volde- sorry, You-Know-Who- in my mind?" he said, desperately trying to find justification.

Snape snorted. "That would hardly work without mangling your brain. No. This...this worries me. Shall we try again?"

Harry nodded, and focused on flying again, until Snape said "legilimens".

Snape's probe was a little more firm now, but not painful, and Harry withstood him. But then, all at once, he had a very curious overwhelming urge to reach out with his own mind, meet Snape halfway. Hardly realizing what he was doing, he reached out...and a blistering, blinding pain ripped through his skull, worse than a vision from Voldemort.

It felt like hours before Harry could move, and when he did, the world whirled around him, and his breath came in quick, shallow pants. What on earth had happened? With some difficulty, as his brain was still sore, he raised his head, to see that Snape lay sprawled across the table, senseless, his ebony wand lying inches from his fingers. When Harry shook him, he slowly raised his head, identical pain and confusion in his dark eyes.

What happened? he asked. What did you do? The odd part was that his lips had not moved.

Harry stared at him, and all at once the answer fell upon him like a stack of books. Hadn't Oldest Rituals mentioned something about the possibility of a mind link? He didn't actually know anything about mind links, but this seemed like a plausible explanation for what had just occurred.

Evidently, Snape had heard or guessed his mental speculation, because he started cursing fluently in seven different languages, at least one obsolete. "This changes the equation," he said at last. "Mind links with minors are illegal, as they are either formed by Dark rituals, or...inappropriate conduct."

Harry blushed violently.

"They are also irretractable," Snape continued.

"Irretractable?" asked Harry, who didn't know the word. He was still red.

"It means it's permanent," Snape replied finally, his fear and worry rushing through Harry's mind, and making it hard for the boy to focus.

"So what happens now?" Harry was somewhat in shock. A mind link? With Snape? PERMANENTLY?

"You will have to learn occlumency now, at least as long as the Dark Lord is alive; he could use the link to his advantage. And..." he hesitated, then reluctantly went on, evidently realizing that he could no longer keep any secrets from Harry with the boy's mind tied to his own. "To be frank, you could have me sent to Azkaban for the foreseeable future for this."

"For the mind link? But you didn't do anything."

"The ministry will not see it this way." Snape looked down, unable to meet Harry's eyes, his mind whispering that Harry held his life in his hands. The fear and humiliation that Snape felt trickled through Harry's mind like icy water.

"Who'll tell the ministry?" Harry replied, wanting to reassure him. There had been a time when he'd nursed daydreams of getting Snape sacked, and such, but he felt differently now, and besides, he would never send anyone to Azkaban.

The flood of relief and gratefullness from the Potion Master caught Harry off guard. He would keep such a thing secret? To keep me out of Azkaban? Only Lily; oh, Merlin, he twists his fingers the same way when he's distracted, I wish... The thought was abruptly cut off with a surge of frustrated anger- that's private!- as Snape discovered that Harry could hear his thoughts through his perpetual occlumency shields.

Harry yelped. "Sorry! I don't know how to stop!"

Snape just rubbed the bridge of his nose with a huffing exhalation. "This will be quite difficult to adjust to."

Harry thought that that comment could win "Understatement of the Century".

"Again! What did I just tell you?!"

Harry huffed a frustrated sigh, to tired to try to control his temper. It was half-past midnight, and any shock they might have felt had long since transformed into more volatile emotions. "I'm trying, Professor!" He retorted. "It's just not working!"

Snape's frustrated anger nearly boiled over in Harry's mind. Damn it! Why does the bloody brat make it his life's work to get on my nerves! I swear even James never made me this mad! "I thought, for a short amount of time, that you actually showed some potential." Snape growled aloud. "It seems I was mistaken."

"And I thought, for a short amount of time, that you could try to be nice! I don't think this is going to work."

"Oh, because you're the occlumency expert?" Snape's sneer was only slightly less malicious than normal, and that could have been because he was so tired.

"No, because this is a mind link, in case you don't recall!" Harry burst out finally. "I don't think it works the same! I can't seal you out because you're already in, so you'll never be able to test me!"

"I suppose you have a better idea?" Subdued curiosity trickled through the link, although Snape's tone did not change, and his frustration did not seem to abate.

"No, I'm just sick of trying this over and over and over and over and getting nowhere!" Harry slammed down the cup of hot chocolate he'd been drinking so hard it cracked. (Snape had sent the house elves for snacks some time ago, but they had long since been ignored.)

"Well I'm not explaining to Albus when he starts asking questions!" Snape told him, spit flying in his anger. "You've got to figure it out!"

"Can we just take a bloody break?"

"Do whatever you want." Snape's fingers curved around his wand. "Do whatever the Hell you want, Potter."

Harry was silent for a long time, trying to contain himself. And then he suddenly knew what they were missing. "If we're mind linked, can't you just go in and fix my brain so I can do occlumency? Anything is better than this."

"Don't be an idiot, Potter. How would that work?" Snape's voice sounded disgusted, but his mind lit up with intrigue. What if he's onto something there? Maybe...

"Give me one reason why it couldn't."

Snape was silent, thoughts churning.

"I thought so. So let's try it. I want to go to bed sometime soon."

"You're not the only one," Snape muttered. "Fine. I'll try not to fry your brain."

"Reassuring."

"You were the one who wanted to try it," Snape retorted. He frowned, mind now intent on the problem. Hmm. Do I guide him through the process in his own mind, or would it be easier just to go in and put up the shields myself? The first would be slower, but the second one would likely be more traumatic. Not that trauma seems to faze him, but if he got hurt...he mustn't be hurt.

"So you do care," said Harry, too tired to self censor.

"Shut your mouth." Snape reached for a scrap of parchment and started trying to work it out on paper, like an arithmancy equation. "Do you want the quick way or the painless way?"

"Gee, I get a choice?"

Snape glared at him. "The quick way, then." And before Harry could say a word, or even think, Snape reached into his mind.

It was not at all a pleasant sensation, although it didn't hurt, either. He felt as though someone were rummaging through his brain, reorganizing it, and a strange, serene quality began to pervade his thoughts, as his darkest and most secret memories were packed up tightly and pushed to the corners of his mind. Harry gasped as Snape withdrew, eyes wide and unfocused. "Wait, is that what it's supposed to feel like?"

Snape closed his eyes. "Yes. Now be quiet, some of us have to chaperone tomorrow."

"It's the Hogsmeade weekend?"

Snape opened one eye to glare at him. "Yes."

"And there's absolutely no chance I can get Mcgonagall to let me go?"

"You're an animagus and you have that bloody map. I'm sure you can figure something out. And watch out for Death Eaters. I didn't hear the full plan, but the Dark Lord has something in mind."

Harry grinned, his jubilation only slightly tempered by the thought of the Death Eaters.

"And I never said anything of the sort," Snape continued. "Now go to sleep."

A long silence. And then: "Professor?"

Snape's slow, easy breathing hitched. What does he want now? His mind groused. It better be good. Maybe if I just pretend to still be asleep...

Not gonna work, Professor, Harry thought back. "I was wondering...just one more thing...did Dumbledore tell you about the prophecy?"

The effect was electrifying. Snape jolted fully awake, emotions spinning out of control, self hatred and grief and fury all melding together into a curdling deluge, flashes of images running through their minds.

Dumbledore, sitting on a stool in a shabby private room in the Hog's Head, with Trelawny sitting on the bed, her eyes blank as she began to speak, voice rough and taut with magic.

An old man, with silvered auburn hair and hard blue eyes, gripping Snape by the arm and dragging him away. "Your kind is not welcome here."

Snape, kneeling before a man with dark hair and red-tinged eyes, panting out: "My Lord, I have news."

Snape, expostulating with a gorgeous red-haired woman. "Lils, you don't understand. He thinks it means you, you and your baby. I don't care what James Bloody Potter thinks, you've got to take Harry and get out of the country! He'll kill you, can't you understand!"

Voldemort, younger and still human-looking, breaking out into a deep laugh from his great throne-like chair. "Of course you may have your reward, Severus. After the child is dead, you may take your pleasure with the mudblood."

Snape shivering in the rain, eyes glazed with fear, on his knees before the stern figure of the Headmaster. "Anything," he breathed, head bent in abject submission, greater even than he showed to the Dark Lord. "I'll do anything."

Snape clinging to a pale and limp figure, his entire body shaking. "Lily. I tried. I tried so hard."

Dumbledore, looking down unsympathetically down at the young Potions Master, head in his hands as he wept. "He has her eyes."

"Don't!" Snape burst out like a wounded animal, voice inhuman in his despair. "She's gone! Dead! I wish I were dead!"

Snape, on his knees in an unfarmiliar room, the Dark Lord, now his disfigured, resurrected self, leaning over him and pouring a whole bottle of veritaserum down his throat. "Where do your loyalties lie?"

Harry jerked out of Snape's thoughts through pure force of will, breathless. What. The. Hell.

Snape was blinking away a suspicious moisture, self hatred and breathless grief mingling with his anger at Harry's intrusion. "I expect you saw all of that," he said at last, voice rough.

"I'm sorry!" Harry was still trembling. "I didn't think-"

"You don't often." Snape returned harshly. "I- get out."

"I'm sorry!"

"Get out." Snape said again.

And then Harry snapped. "It was my bloody mum who died!" He spat. "Don't you think I deserved to know the truth? That you sent her to her death?"

Snape stared at him, and the air chilled ten degrees in as many seconds. "You little-" he paused, suddenly, mouth still open, and then closed it abruptly, defeat ebbing from him in slow, murky, despairing waves. And a silent tear slid down the Dungeon Bat's cheek.

Harry froze, knowing in an instant that he had gone too far. Snape was shaking very slightly, his face averted in an attempt to conceal the tears sliding helplessly down his cheeks behind his curtain of silky dark hair. The shared emotions churned in Harry's mind, causing the trapped phœnix inside him to flutter. Harry's human mind was not so forgiving, but even so, it was very hard to stay angry at the man when he could feel his remorse and grief and abject humiliation that a student, that anyone was witnessing his breakdown.

"I- I'm sorry, professor..." Harry said very quietly, not knowing what to do. Snape didn't respond, not even when Harry laid a cautious hand on his shoulder; he looked as though he needed physical contact, but Harry was not going to hug him, and Snape would probably have hexed him off anyway.

For who knows how long they sat in silence, Harry simply listening to the professor's hitching breathing and trying to puzzle out his own mess of thoughts, even after Snape's uneasy breathing had smoothed into a slow rhythm and his head sank back onto Harry's shoulder.

Harry didn't even notice. He had sank into a meditative, half-aware state of mind, pondering: Snape had obviously loved his mother obsessively, which was kind of disturbing from an outside perspective, but also really sad and yet his actions led to her death but he was obviously trying to atone but that couldn't be a mistake how could it be a mistake and what did the prophecy mean anyway and so on and on until at last Harry himself fell asleep.

It was not, however, a peaceful slumber. Strange dreams, an amalgam of his and the Potion Master's memories, haunted him; it was the third task, and he was in the graveyard, dragging Cedric Diggory's body towards the golden Triwizard trophy, but suddenly as he turned to adjust his grip on the limp forearm it was Lily Potter, and he jerked awake with a strangled gasp. It took him several minutes to stop hyperventilating and realize where he even was, and a few more before he was able to sink again into a fitful sleep.

This time he was in the Chamber, and a youthful Tom Riddle was pacing the room. But then Harry noticed that the Chamber of Secrets was full of Death Eaters. And Riddle said kneel, and he did, without knowing why, and the sixteen year old pressed his wand on the soft, pale inside of Harry's left arm, and intoned "Mordisme vinculum forma". And an ugly black mark blossomed on his forearm.

Harry shuddered in his sleep and adjusted his position, green eyes flickering half open. Then he closed his eyes again, sinking into dreams of Quiddich games in which he played James Potter, and dreams of his mother, so beautiful and perfect that it brought tears to his eyes even in his sleep, and of Remus Lupin twisting into a werewolf in the Shreaking Shack, and of brewing polyjuice in the abandoned bathroom, except when he looked up, it was Lily and not Hermione who was shredding the lacewings and putting them into the cauldron.

When Harry next woke, it was obviously morning. He blinked and sat up, unsure where he was. A light cough had him instantly at attention, all the memories rushing back, and he pulled away from his professor, and sat up straight, blushing furiously. He'd fallen asleep almost on top of him! Snape's thoughts did not seem angry, but surely he was. "P-professor Snape?"

Snape sighed, his thoughts churning with resignation and mild anger and a little happiness, just a momentary flicker. "Potter. We should probably call for breakfast. And then you need to return to your dorm before you're missed."

Harry nodded mutely. "I'm sorry, professor," he said at last. "For what I said last night, I mean."

"You...had a right to be angry." The Potions Master scrubbed one hand across his face, as if that could erase the vestiges of a night of crying. "It was, while not entirely my fault, my mistakes and inane choices that caused her to...that caused it. But I do not want to speak about it. Pokey!" he called, changing gear. "Bring something for breakfast!"

A chipper little house elf wearing Hogwarts insignia popped in, called "Yes professor Sevvy sir," and vanished again. A slight smile tugged up the corners of Snape's mouth, which honestly surprised Harry more than the elf, especially since he could feel Snape's mild amusement through the man's occlumency barriers.

"You do know that there's such a thing as privacy?" Snape commented.

Harry started fiddling with the corner of his Gryffindor tie. "Sorry! I'm trying!"

"You are very trying indeed."

It was a few moments before Harry realized he had to shut his mouth. Had Snape actually made a joke?

Snape looked as though he might have commented, but at that moment, Pokey popped back in, carrying two plates loaded with bacon and eggs. "Here you are, Professor Sevvy, sir!" she squeaked, clearing off the tea service and the last remnants of fossilized scones and marmalade and putting down the plates. "Will you be wanting anythings else?"

"No thank you Pokey," Snape responded. Pokey squeaked and popped out.

They are breakfast quickly, and without much talk, the former because Harry needed to be back in Gryffindor Tower as soon as possible, the latter because neither of them actually knew what to say after the happenings of the previous night. What little talk there actually was was mostly mind to mind, with a few comments out loud. Anyone listening would not know what to make of it.

When at last they had finished, and Pokey had cleared away all the dishes, Snape flicked his wand to replace the glamour (which had fallen the previous evening in the Rooms of Requirement) cast a quick cosmetic charm to clean the remnants of his breakdown the previous night, and led Harry to the portrait, which they both ducked through.

They came out into the deserted classroom, and Snape twitched his wand to banish the brined iguanas back to their jars and dispel the smell, which had permiated the classroom. Another wave, and the tubs cleaned themselves and flew back to the back of the classroom to settle in a stack.

"I do not have to remind you to keep this to yourself and Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger?" Snape said as Harry turned to leave the classroom.

"No, of course not- wait, I can tell them?"

"I wouldn't be able to stop you," said Snape dryly.

Harry gave a startled laugh and nodded. "So I guess I'll be going. See you at Hogsmeade?"

"Actually," broke in a new voice, "I would like to see you both in my office. Now, please."

It was the Headmaster.