A Year Like None Other

aspeninthesunlight

Story Summary:
A letter from home? A letter from family? Well, Harry Potter knows he has neither, but all the same, it starts with a letter from Surrey. A letter that sends Harry down a path he'd never have walked on his own. It will be a year of big changes, a year of great pain, and a year of confronting worst fears. It will be a year of surprising discoveries, of finding true strength, of finding out that first impressions of a person's true colours do not always ring true. It will be a year of paradigm shifts. And from the most unexpected sources, Harry will have a chance to have that which he has never known: a home ... and a family. (A Snape adopts Harry fic.)
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Chapter 16 - Occlude Your Mind

Posted:
05/11/2006
Hits:
6,818
Author's Note:
Betaed by the Fabulous Mercredi.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, or this fictional universe. JK Rowling, some publishers, and some film companies own everything. I'm not making anything from this except a hobby.

Summary: A letter from home sends Harry down a path he'd never have walked on his own. A sixth year fic, this story follows Order of the Phoenix and disregards any canon events that occur after Book 5. Spoilers for the first five books. Have fun!

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A Year Like None Other

by Aspen in the Sunlight

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Chapter Sixteen: Occlude Your Mind

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"I do believe that's quite enough whiskey for now," Snape announced, leaning forward to pluck Harry's glass from his fingers. "We want you relaxed, not falling down drunk."

Harry giggled a little bit. "I only had one and a haff. No, two."

Snape pointed his wand at the hearth and set the fire alight with a quick Incendio, then seated himself cross-legged on the floor near the flames, gesturing for Harry to join him. When Harry sat down facing him, Snape indicated with a whirling motion of his fingers that the boy should spin around and scoot back.

"Is this comfortable for your hip?"

Harry had a feeling it wasn't, really, but everything had such a pleasant haze to it, after the whiskey, that he really wasn't too aware of it. He yawned a bit. "S'all right."

"Good. Now, lean back. Rest your weight on your palms if you like. I need to touch your temples."

After Harry had done as he was told, he felt cool fingertips sifting through his hair to massage both sides of his scalp. The feel of it seemed to revive him from the lull of the whiskey. Imagining the picture the two of them must make, he couldn't help but giggle again.

"Hmm?"

"Um, I was just thinking it's a good thing you didn't try this technique last year," Harry admitted. "I'm sure I'd have tried to hex you, and things would have gone from bad to worse. Though, I don't see how they could have gotten any worse in the end, actually."

"You're thinking of the pensieve?"

"No," Harry admitted. He'd been thinking of Sirius. "Did you use the pensieve before you came?"

"No, Harry," Snape voice came across, a lazy drawl as his fingers continued to massage Harry's temples. "This won't be like that battle last year, when I would snatch your memories and feared you might do the same to me. This will be... harmonious. Now, stay relaxed. Lean back more if you like; you won't knock me over."

Harry let a little more of his weight fall onto his palms.

"Good," Snape soothed. "We're going to work on clearing your mind, Harry. It doesn't mean to think of nothing, not the way you took it to mean. It means to focus on one thing until it fills your whole mind, until there is no thought left, just an image that consumes you utterly. When done well, you'll cease to be aware even of the image, so completely will it block all thought."

"Uh-huh," Harry mumbled. He was losing himself in sensation, in the steady drone of his teacher's voice, and past all that, it was hard to concentrate. He shook his head a bit, trying to clear it, and Snape's fingers tightened on his temples.

"You were doing fine before," he said. "Relax, again."

But Harry couldn't. "You're practically putting me to sleep," he complained. "And I won't be able to follow your instructions."

"Stop tensing. You're doing fine, I said." With a slight oath, Snape stretched his legs out on either side of the boy, and pulled him fast against his chest. "Feel my breathing," he urged. "Match yours to mine. This is like hypnosis, Harry, have you heard of that? You don't need to concentrate on keeping your mind clear. You need to let go of thought and let me guide you to an image."

Harry pulled in a breath when Snape did, and as he let it out, those fingers returned to smooth up and down across his temple. Snape kept speaking, his voice low and calm, and Harry found that every time he exhaled, he leaned more against his teacher, until he felt boneless. It was a feeling he hadn't liked when Lockhart had caused it, but now, it was actually pleasant.

"All right," Snape murmured. "Now don't try to think, Harry, don't try to feel, or remember, or react. Just let yourself go, let yourself just be. Yes, that's it, melt into me. I'm going to enter your mind, now, but don't be alarmed."

On one side of Harry's head, those fingers still caressed him, but on the other, they were replaced by the hard tip of Snape's wand.

Incantations filled the air, breathy whispers that Harry thought he could have understood, had he really listened. They drifted all around him, twirling themselves against his neck and face, and then it seemed he breathed them in through his nostrils, and he felt an otherness, a presence, alongside him in his mind.

It wasn't like being possessed by Voldemort, or being under Imperio. He was still there too, and in control, but the wispy otherness was there with him. Snape, he was slow to recognise. Snape, waiting patiently for Harry to let him enter further.

Harry slumped, leaning completely against his teacher, and let his teacher fill his mind.

Rivers flowed through him, wide rivers such as never could exist outside the realm of dreams. Then, just one river, widening as he watched, until it filled the entire landscape of thought. He saw it from above, until the waters rose in incandescent glory to engulf him. Submerged, surrounded on six sides, he felt the current, felt the coolness, felt the lull of the waves.

And then the tableau before him underwent a change, for he was no longer in the water, feeling and seeing it; he had become the water itself, and there was nothing in all existence save that great river. No Harry any longer, and with him, no memories. Just a huge rush of water that filled the universe to overflowing, baptizing all creation in a realm of purest being.

Coming out of it all at once was rather like being dunked in the river he had just been visualizing, it was such a shock. Harry gasped, and tensed against Snape, but his teacher's arm held him fast until his breathing had slowed to something approaching normal. Then Harry levered himself up, and swivelled his head to look at Snape.

"That was... well, bloody magnificent, I think."

Snape nodded, his eyes half-closed, his body mired in lines of exhaustion.

"Is that what Occlumency is supposed to be like? I thought I was supposed to turn off my emotions, or something."

"No wonder you did so poorly, last year," Snape wearily replied.

Harry felt like he'd just caught the snitch; it was that same sensation of triumph and excitement, the same surge of adrenaline filling his veins. "Last year, why didn't you tell me it was about... I don't know, non-existence instead of stoicism?"

A long, painful sigh greeted the question. "Don't you understand? It's not even a learned skill for me, Harry. It's a birth power. I just needed to be pointed towards it, really, and the one who taught me was... rather harsh in his methods."

"Oh," Harry said, thinking that over. What Snape had told him before the session was coming back, and making more sense than it had then, even through the drink and the rush of sensation that was Occlumency. Snape had taught Harry the only way he'd known, the way he himself had been taught. But it hadn't worked well, had it, because for Harry this wasn't a birth power. "Hmm, I guess Occlumency is for you a bit like what Parseltongue is for me," he murmured. "Though that's not strictly a birth power, I don't think. But still, I've never had to work at it. It just is."

Snape just gave a groan in reply to all that.

Feeling a bit of a jerk that he'd only thought of himself up until then, Harry turned around more and took a good look at his teacher. "That was kind of hard on you, I guess. I'm sorry. Is it that terrible being inside my mind?"

"The questions you ask," Snape roused himself to murmur, frowning as he crossed his legs again and bent low over them. "It's as if all those years listening to your uncle speak of normal people have convinced you that you aren't one. It's no more terrible being in your mind than anyone else's, Harry. Directing thoughts can be exhausting, that is all."

"Anyone else doesn't have Voldemort lurking around in his mind."

"Not true, although no one else has quite your scar, certainly. At any rate, the Dark Lord wasn't in there tonight. I think that eliminating Kreacher from your house has helped considerably to strengthen the protections charmed onto the structure."

Something about Snape's wording caught Harry's attention. Come to think of it, he'd heard that phrase earlier, too. Your house. He wanted to ask about it, but first things first. "You... um, you don't look so good, Professor. Is there anything you need? A glass of water, maybe, or more whiskey?"

Snape pushed himself off the floor, stumbled slightly, and collapsed into a thickly upholstered, if tattered, arm chair. "Just talk," he said, the request strange in Harry's ears.

"Talk?"

"Yes, is that too complex a concept for you to follow?" When Harry recoiled slightly at his tone, Snape sighed, tipped his head back against the cushions, and explained, "I could Floo back now, though it wouldn't be wise when so debilitated, but neither should I fall asleep here. So talk with me, Harry. Keep me awake until I feel... more myself."

"Uh, okay, sure," Harry replied, flopping full length onto the couch and plumping up his cushions to hold his head up enough to see Snape. "So, how long since you have slept, Professor?"

Snape gave a low, harsh chuckle. "A while. That's not your worry."

Hmm, not exactly a fruitful avenue for conversation. Well, Snape had mentioned that the house was safer for Harry now that that evil excuse for a house-elf was dead, and Harry had been meaning to ask, so he went ahead. "Okay... what happened to Kreacher?"

At that, Snape opened one eye and stared rather fixedly at Harry as though determining how much to divulge. A long moment passed, and then another, until finally Snape said three words Harry wasn't expecting:

"I killed him."

"You. Killed. Him," Harry slowly goggled, his mind feeling like it was playing leapfrog with itself. "Um, because of what he did to Sirius?"

"That certainly made it easier to kill him," Snape admitted, his voice absolutely flat. Harry got the feeling that the Potions Master didn't give a fig that he'd killed a house-elf. Not that Harry had any love lost for Kreacher; he probably would have killed him himself, given half a chance. He was frankly shocked that Snape had done so, though. It wasn't like Snape had gone into mourning over Sirius, now was it?

But Snape confounded him once again, by detailing, still in that level, emotionless tone, "I know what you think, Harry, but I didn't want Black dead. I did once, I won't deny it, but at the time I did honestly believe him responsible for both your parents' deaths and a massacre of Muggles. It took a while for me to rethink all that and understand it had been Pettigrew all along. After that, everything you saw pass between us... it was just the old antagonism still festering. But he was fighting the Dark Lord as he could, as was I. I shouldn't have still been jeering at him for wounds inflicted over twenty years earlier. I'm not proud of it."

"That's what he said," Harry recalled, rolling onto his side and propping his head up on an arm. "About how he and James treated you. I'm not proud of it."

Snape raised his knees to sit sideways in the chair, letting it cradle him.

"But Kreacher," Harry pressed. "Why did you kill him, if it wasn't for Sirius?"

"Many reasons," Snape sighed, curling his body a bit more. "He betrayed his master last year; he couldn't be trusted. He'd already shown an affinity for dark wizards, and for the Malfoys in particular. To give him clothes would send him straight to them, and though he couldn't betray the location of this house, he could give out information the Order needs to keep quiet. Freeing him was out of the question, but so was keeping him underfoot, once you were here. How could I know he wouldn't leave this house again, this time telling tales of Harry Potter having lost his magic?"

"Once I was here," Harry repeated. "Wait. Just when did you kill him?"

"About an hour before you woke up this morning."

Harry blew out a breath. "Couldn't you have waited for me?"

"So you could strangle him?" Snape questioned in an odd tone. "I thought you might want to, but it's not an impulse I would encourage. Besides, it takes magic to kill a house-elf; they do have rather formidable defences, not to mention the capacity to survive quite a lot of punishment."

Harry thought of Dobby beating his head against the wall, and winced.

"It takes Dark Arts," Snape added.

Harry gave a startled laugh. "You used Dark Arts in the house? Today?"

"Yesterday, to be precise."

"I thought you wanted the place free of taints," Harry admitted, confused. "You know, so that Voldemort can't reach me through my scar."

"Sometimes only evil vanquishes evil, Harry," his teacher explained. "I'd already used Dark Arts to unstick that infernal portrait and tapestry from the walls. Kreacher wasn't pleased, though I don't think he realised that he was next. And then, once I'd dealt with him, Lupin and I cleansed the house of dark magic, which is no simple matter, I assure you. He's a better Defence teacher than I gave him credit for, I think. We finished the respelling shortly before you woke up. Hmm, it occurs to me to wonder if that was a coincidence, or part of the reason you did wake up."

"Kreacher was standing on the kitchen table guzzling wine out of Sirius' silver goblet!" Harry exclaimed, his dream snapping into vivid focus in his mind.

"And how, exactly, would you know that?" came a soft question from Snape's tensed lips.

Harry tensed, too. "Um, I dreamed it, just this afternoon."

"You dreamed it," Snape repeated, all scepticism.

"Well, how else would I know? I mean, is it true?"

"It's true, and you would know if Lupin told you."

"Well, he didn't!" Harry retorted. "If you think I'm such a liar, then ask him."

"Harry, it's just that I've seen your Divination marks. You're not exactly a seer. But if you say you dreamed it, then you did, all right?" Snape uncurled and sat up straighter. "Well, at least this goes to show that Marjygold missed something. Your magic isn't completely gone, not if you're divining things while you sleep. What else did you dream?"

"It's a good thing you killed the little shite; he was making plans to get you, in between congratulating himself for what he did to Sirius," Harry recalled out loud. "Oh, and I also dreamed that the Dursley's house spit black energy out all the windows and sort of... collapsed in on itself while Dudley screamed on the lawn. Oh yeah, and the Dark Mark was in the sky."

Snape sat bolt upright and stared at him, then surged to his feet. "You didn't think to mention this to Lupin? You didn't think to tell me straight away that in this house I thought I'd made safe for you, you had a dream from Voldemort this very day? The very first day?" Snape took him by the shoulders, as he had that morning, but this time, he shook him roughly and bellowed, "I need to know these things, Harry!"

Harry jerked his face backwards as far as he could, reflex taking over as he arched out of Snape's grip and slid to the floor. Once free, he jumped up and backed warily away, prudence and experience taking him far out of striking range.

"Dear Merlin," Snape breathed, his expression aghast as he pushed up from the couch himself, and saw Harry's distrustful stance. Then, in tones of self-reproach, he whispered, "I wasn't going to hit you, child."

"I know," Harry whispered back, feeling about as awful as Snape looked. "I mean, I do know that, Professor. I mean, if you didn't beat me to a pulp for looking in your pensieve--"

Snape shook his head. "I should never have told you about Kreacher."

"No, it's not that!" Harry exclaimed, shocked, taking a step forward when it seemed that Snape was unable to move towards him. "I'm not afraid of you, Professor. Getting away is just instinctual, that's all. Bit stupid, really. I know you aren't my uncle, okay? Don't make it out like I compare you to him, 'cause I don't, I swear."

"You did," Snape softly pointed out. "You said that we were quite alike."

"You both belittle people," Harry tried to explain. How had he ever said a thing like that to Snape? The truth was, both men knew how to be unpleasant as hell, but the reasons for the behaviour were night and day. "But with you, it's just some dark sarcastic humour thing going on, do you think I don't know that? Or else it's absolute and genuine. I mean, when you scream at someone who's just had a cauldron explode, you're actually angry, I think, and eager to inspire a little well-placed fear so stupid mistakes won't happen again. Though I do think you could get your point across more effectively if you left us some pride," he had to add. "But with Uncle Vernon, it's just... well, it's sadism, basically. He likes to see me cower."

Harry took a bracing breath and looked Snape in the eyes. "The fact is, when he got really, really angry, he used to shake me by the shoulders like that, and I learned I was better off getting away than staying put to be slapped."

"Muggles," Snape breathed in disgust, shaking his head.

"Don't blame it on that," Harry corrected him. "I've seen Lucius Malfoy with Dobby. Er, he's a house-elf. Anyway, Malfoy was much worse to him than Uncle Vernon's ever been to me. Wizards can be just as bad as Muggles. Worse, if you take into account the kinds of curses we can throw."

"True," Snape admitted, sighing deeply. "It occurs to me to wonder why you haven't asked someone to check on your family, after a dream like that."

Harry widened his eyes. "Same reason I didn't mention it to you sooner. I knew the dream wasn't from Voldemort; my scar didn't even twinge."

"If it does, tell me, or Lupin, at once."

"I thought I was just mad at them," Harry admitted, wincing. "It never even dawned on me to think... But if the thing about Kreacher was true? Do you think...?"

"No," Snape announced, his tones short. "If an attack upon your house had been carried out, or even contemplated, I would know."

"Can we have a firechat with Mrs. Figg, just to be sure?"

"Not at this hour in the morning."

"But--"

"Trust me, Harry. Nothing has happened on Privet Drive. If you still feel unsettled about it later, have Lupin talk to Mrs. Figg through the Floo Network. In no case are you to speak to her yourself."

"Yes, sir," Harry murmured, recognizing the value in that advice. It was probably also why Snape didn't want to deal with the situation; the fewer people who knew he was involved with Harry, the better. "Will you at least tell me what you did to Uncle Vernon in the cemetery? I mean, is he all right? I've been meaning to ask," Harry added, feeling more than a little guilty that he hadn't done so sooner.

"I frankly fail to see why you would care," Snape drawled.

Harry actually had to think about that one; it came to him that he'd asked more out of a sense of right than any heart-wrenching interest in the matter. "Hmm. Well, you're right. Part of me doesn't care, but then there is Dudley to think of. Not that there's much love lost between us, but he really was decent during that last visit. He even warned me not to go to the funeral. And he's just lost his mum, see? He hardly needs to lose his dad, too, even if Uncle Vernon is a right git."

Snape pondered that for a moment, before volunteering, "I used Troneo-Relampagare to knock him unconscious, that's all. A thunder-lightning blast. I imagine he was up and on his feet within five minutes of my Apparating you to here. No doubt he was still screaming abuse."

"Yeah, no doubt," Harry murmured. He'd never had a decent dad. He used to wish for one, before he'd met Sirius. After fate had snatched away all chance of living with his godfather, though, he'd more or less come to accept that there were some things he'd never have.

"I think I'm able to floo, now," the Potions Master continued. Funny how he could keep his face in shadows when it suited him, Harry thought. The lighting didn't seem to matter. He wasn't sure how Snape managed it.

Harry nodded his understanding. "All right. Thank you, Professor."

Snape halted on his way toward the hearth. "I told you not to thank me."

"Yeah, but I have to," Harry started to explain.

"Tell Miss Granger you have a thanking-people thing too, will you?" Snape snapped. Clearly, the man was at the end of some sort of tether. "I will not stand for this idiocy, Potter, is that clear? You will get Occlumency lessons, and whatever else is deemed necessary, because you need them to survive what is apparently to be your lot in life. I would prefer you not die and plunge the Wizarding world into an era of endless dark. No thanks are necessary."

With that, the Potions Master snatched a handful of grey powder from the mantle.

Harry thought about just shutting up, but the truth was, he didn't want to. "I wasn't thanking you for the bloody Occlumency," he called across the room, with some difficulty refraining from adding on a phrase like you great git.

Surprisingly enough, Snape went for the bait. "Oh, do enlighten me," he sneered.

"You treat me like I'm normal, not like I need to be pitied, or worshipped, or hated and feared," Harry announced, standing his ground against a glare from a pair of very, very black eyes. "And you may not believe it, but you're the only adult who does. Ye gads, even Remus today oozed with compassion until it made me ill. But you? You're not afraid to use your magic in front of me just because right now I have none. You don't think I'll break down over it. You don't think I'm weak."

Floo powder fell through Snape's fingers as he flexed them. "I don't," he confirmed. "But Harry, sooner or later, everyone breaks down over something."

Well, that gave Harry some food for thought, but he didn't have time to ponder it then, because Snape wasn't through talking. Just before he flung the Floo powder down and yelled out a destination in the Hogwarts dungeons, he added one more thing.

"And Harry? You are welcome."

With that, he was gone in a shimmering flash of green fire.

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Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:

Chapter Seventeen: Sals

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Comments very welcome,

Aspen in the Sunlight


Betaed by the Fabulous Mercredi.
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