“Occlumency is the art of shielding one’s mind,” Snape stated.

Harry looked at him dubiously. They were sitting cross-legged, facing each other. Harry resisted the urge to fidget with his hands, which were resting on his knees at Snape’s instruction. “How do you do that?”

Snape scowled at him. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Potter. Now shut up and listen.”

Harry closed his eyes briefly to keep himself from rolling them. From the way the man was watching him crossly, Snape seemed to know it too.

"When the art is fully mastered, an Occlumens can protect himself from mental attacks by another wizard."

Harry was momentarily distracted by this revelation. "You mean that some people can actually read minds?"

Snape glared, as if Harry's abominable lack of knowledge was a personal affront. "Nothing so inane. The mind is not a book, to be opened and flipped through at a Legilimens' whim."

"Legilimens? Is that what they call people who can read minds?"

"They don't— yes, Potter, that is what they call them," Snape huffed, as though giving up on impressing any degree of the nuance of the situation to Harry.

Harry tried not to smile. It was too easy to get under the man's skin.

Then another thought came to mind. “Is Voldemort a Legilimens?”

“The Dark Lord, Potter!” Snape snapped, flinching.

“I’m not some sycophant. I won’t call him that.”

The implication that Snape himself was a ‘sycophant’ wasn’t lost on the man. His face clouded with anger, and he took several deep breaths. Speaking in a surprisingly calm voice, he said, “Occlumency is also helpful in aiding one to tolerate even the worst of people, as the mental and emotional discipline required is vital in resisting one’s more violent urges.”

Harry supposed that made sense. If Snape was a spy on Voldemort, then… hey, did Snape just imply—

“Wait—”

“Now, close your eyes.” Snape cut him off.

Aggrieved, Harry obeyed.

“A talented wizard may be able to set up a false front, a misleading group of memories with which to bait an attacker and hopefully prevent them from being able to notice that the Occlumens is blocking them at all. However, you will practice by simply clearing your mind—”

Harry wondered how much it cost the man to resist adding ‘if there’s anything up there to clear.’

“—as blocking an outsider is not your goal. You are merely trying to reign in your emotions enough to control your dreams.”

Oh. Harry had been wondering what the point of this was.

When Snape didn’t say anything else, Harry took a deep breath and tried to “clear his mind”.

His attention soon began to wander, however, and he snapped his eyes open to find Snape watching him.

“It’s impossible!” he exclaimed.

“And you’ve discovered this in all of five minutes?”

“Maybe you can just turn off your brain, but I find it hard to just not think!”

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. Harry vindictively hoped he would have a headache later. “It’s not a matter of ‘not thinking’; you need to think of nothing.”

“What’s the difference?”

“One requires focus. You need to actively clear your mind and consciously think of nothing.”

“How do you focus on nothing?” Harry asked, frustrated.

“Practice, Potter!”

Harry huffed and closed his eyes again. He really tried to do what Snape said, but now he was annoyed and his brain kept circling back to how irritating Snape is, how much he’d hated these past few days… no. Focus.

He let out an involuntary sigh and squeezed his eyes shut tightly. Focus. Focus.

As if knowing exactly what he was thinking, Snape began speaking softly. Harry distractedly noted the hypnotic quality of his voice. “Take note of your breathing. In. Out. Count the length of each breath. Make your exhales longer than your inhales.”

Harry grudgingly obliged, and found to his surprise that after a few cycles of breathing, his heart rate slowed.

“Focus on the breaths.”

Harry felt calmer. Not perfectly serene, but calmer. Some of the anxiously buzzing worries in his head quieted.

"Now allow your breathing to return to reflex, but hold on to the sense of peace."

Peace. Ha. That'd be nice. Harry had felt no peace for a while now.

No. Don't think about that right now.

While Harry doubted he'd perfected whatever technique Snape was trying to teach him—he’d definitely be doing his best impression of Snape saying “clear your mind” while sitting on the grass amid rocks for Ron and Hermione—he thought that even Snape couldn’t have failed to notice his mood improvement.

Snape moved to get up, and Harry opened his eyes to look at him.

“No, continue practicing.”

Harry closed his eyes again, doing his best to tune out the sound of Snape’s footsteps as he walked a few feet away, probably to see where the tourists were.

He swiftly returned, and Harry peeked through a partially open eyelid to see him quickly fold down to the same cross-legged seated position in one smooth movement.

It occurred to Harry that Snape was a lot younger than the other professors. If he had gone to school with Harry’s dad, as most of his meanest comments and slights against his parentage implied, then he couldn’t be over 40 years old.

“Continue,” Snape said. Harry refocused on blankness. “The tourist group seems to be making their way through this valley. They shouldn’t pass near these rocks, but it may be a couple of hours until they’ve completely passed out of sight.”

“You know, it's kind of hard to focus on nothing and also listen to someone talk to you.”

“If you cannot clear your mind under pressure, you will never make a successful Occlumens.”

Snape sounded so matter-of-fact about it. Harry took another few deep breaths to resist the urge to grind his teeth together and soon focused solely on nothing.

It probably would have been more boring if the calm state it created wasn't such a relief after the past few days of stress and frustration partially spurred by lack of quality sleep. As Harry felt himself sink deeper into the deliberate blankness, he noticed that the prickling pain in his scar seemed to fade. His wrists, of course, were healed, and his legs had grown accustomed to the frequent exertion. In a state of no pain at all for the first time in too many days, Harry slipped into an almost trancelike state.

He was never sure if he actually fell asleep like that or not, but Snape had to shake him slightly to bring him back to full awareness.

“They’re gone.”

Harry stood and stretched, wincing. His legs felt sore from sitting in one position so long. Still, his head felt clearer, and his heart lighter, than when he started. A glance up at the sky showed that the sun had slightly passed noon height. Snape passed him the water jug, and he drank gratefully.

“Did I just Occlument?” he asked Snape hopefully, passing it back and wiping the water from his mouth with the back of his hand.

Snape huffed at him. “Occlude, Potter. The word is ‘occlude’, and no, you did not.”

“What was that, then?”

“Basic meditation. You need to learn how to discipline and control your mind if you want to have any hope of learning more difficult techniques.” He handed Harry lunch. “But I will not be teaching you any more. The ability to clear your mind of thoughts and emotions will be sufficient to lessen the severity and frequency of your nightmares.”

Harry didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. He eyed Snape as they began walking. He had a strong suspicion that they’d be eating on the move more often, now that they had lost so much time hiding from tourists.

The man’s actions had honestly surprised him. Snape had never been anything but mean and dismissive of Harry. Why would he bother to teach him something to help his nightmares?

He considered lumping it in with healing his wrists as “strange things Snape did for no reason” until he realized that Snape was probably more than tired of hearing Harry cry out in his sleep. Or maybe he just wanted to keep Harry from talking for a couple of hours.

Whatever selfish reason that compelled the man to teach him what little he did, Harry was grateful for the potential sleep aid. He wasn’t too interested in learning anything else about Occlumency, however, especially if Snape was going to be his teacher.

Snape suddenly spoke up. “To answer your earlier question: yes. The Dark Lord is a very skilled Legillimens.”

A chill swept through Harry, and he reconsidered his earlier dismissal of the value of learning more Occlumency.

As if on cue, his scar began to burn.