Chapter Text
Harry woke up to a cacophony of voices, overlapping, loud, too many of them to discern to whom they belonged or what they were saying. He tried to concentrate, but found it to be too much of an effort and slipped back into a sweet and quiet oblivion.
When he awoke for the second time, his head was much clearer, and he felt better than before. It could have been due to the fact that there was only one voice instead of a dozen.
'...and once the Belladonna leaf is added at the appropriate time and stirred counter-clockwise, the Amora potion turns yellow, emitting a sweet scent—what the bloody fuck? Add a leaf of Belladonna? Why not, you died two times already brewing this potion, why not make it three, you bloody dunderhead? And here I thought they’d stopped allowing idiots to publish.'
Harry snorted, or at least tried to because it came out as a cough. He would recognise Snape’s voice under any circumstances, but he'd never heard him swear before and found it hilarious.
'Merlin, finally. One would think that with no Dark Lord hanging over his head, he would be less prone to accidents. I’m too old for this shit.'
"Mr Potter. At last, gracing us with your presence."
Harry opened his eyes, blinked, and fumbled for his glasses. Snape's face came into focus, looking as impassive as ever.
"Professor," Harry greeted. He decided to concentrate on more important things than Snape swearing in front of a student, like, "What happened?"
'No slurred speech, no changes to the eyesight.'
"A potions accident. Admittedly, not due to your clumsiness for once. Madam Pomfrey has checked you over, however, and there doesn't appear to be anything amiss as far as we can tell."
Harry blinked.
And blinked again.
Snape spoke twice, he was sure of it, but the man hadn’t moved his lips the first time around. Harry shook his head. Maybe there was something wrong with him.
"What?" He must have imagined things.
'Short-term memory failure?'
"A potions accident. I am reconsidering the second part of my statement."
Harry kept looking at Snape as if he had lost his head. Or grown an additional one. What the bloody hell—
'Something's wrong. Why does he seem confused and—scared? Merlin, help me.'
"Do you understand what I am saying, Mr Potter?"
'Please, please, say yes, say yes, be okay, say yes—'
"YES!" Harry shouted over Snape's mantra, then calmed down with effort. "Sorry, yes, I'm alright, guess I just zoned out or something."
'Thank. Merlin. He’s likely still weak, nothing to be overly concerned about. Hopefully. Unless he’s faking an injury or symptom because—well, why would he confide in you.'
Harry heard Snape’s words distinctly, but outwardly, he saw the professor only nod.
"Madam Pomfrey should return soon, ask her any questions you might have." Snape stood to leave.
'You shouldn't be here. He can talk to her if he needs to. Merlin knows, you’d be the last person on his list of confidants, Snape.'
"Professor?"
Snape paused and looked at him seemingly in indifference.
"The potion. If there were side effects, what would they be? Just wondering what I'm missing out on." Harry hoped his question was innocent enough and smiled for good measure.
'There you are, Snape. He's hiding something and doesn't want to tell you. Perfectly understandable, under the circumstances.'
Apparently, Snape wasn’t fooled, but Harry just listened and watched Snape's expression. It was shrewd and completely matched the words Harry was hearing.
Could he be reading Snape's mind? But how?
"The combination of the ingredients and the timing suggests an influence on the mind and magic, but so far we have not discovered any abnormalities," Snape answered, the calculating look still present on his face. There was only one way to test if Harry's theory was correct.
"Thank you, sir. May I ask you one more thing?"
'Anything.' Only a simple nod accompanied that thought. Curious.
"What is it that you were reading?" Harry figured that Snape hadn’t been reading aloud to him and definitely not swearing in front of a student.
'Why the sudden interest? I wonder what his intention is. What if—NO! Don’t go there. Just—don’t let it be anything serious.'
"Potions Monthly, instructions to the Amora potion. However, I don't believe it's going to tell you anything." Inside his head, he continued, 'unless you've suddenly developed an appreciation for potions, which would ruin me. I have to tell Poppy to keep an eye on him. Let’s hope he’ll talk to her.'
Harry listened to Snape’s monologue on what could possibly be wrong with him as he watched him leave the infirmary. He was flabbergasted. It was impossible, but he seemed to have been reading Snape’s thoughts.
About five minutes later, he heard a different voice.
‘…as if I don’t know how to do my job. Of course I know what to watch out for, I’m not new at this. He’s so bloody infuriating when he fancies himself in the centre of something. And there’s my patient. Good, he’s up.’
“Mr Potter. Let’s take a look at you, shall we?”
‘And get Severus off my back, thank you very much.’
Harry only nodded. He tried not to admit anything even to himself, but this quite scared him. How was he doing this? Was it temporary? Could he control it? And more importantly, should he tell someone about it?
He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he missed most of the examination. ‘… and this is within normal parameters, too. There’s nothing wrong with the boy, thank Merlin.’
“You don’t seem to be suffering from any damage caused by the potion. Unless there’s something you’d like to tell me?”
Harry waited, but couldn’t hear anything. She was genuinely waiting for his reply. Should he confide in her?
“Err, no, I’m fine. I’ll let you know if I notice anything?”
The last thing he wanted was for this to spread around the castle, branding him a freak again. He was quite sure everyone would turn against him. After all, if he discovered that someone had access to all his thoughts, he would keep his distance from that person. Quite certain there were other consequences he was not fully aware of, he left a door open for himself. He could always come back to her later.
“Please do. You’re free to leave.”
‘Now, should I restock the Dittany? Where did I put that… not here. But if it’s not here, where could I have… this is quite heavy… ah, there we go…’
Harry walked briskly in the direction of the common room, wanting to know more about his current state. What easier way was there to check whose thoughts he had access to? But as he neared the portrait of the Fat Lady, his head filled with a swarm of voices, buzzing around, making him feel dizzy. He halted in his tracks. Not a good course of action.
He turned on the spot and ran out of the castle, all the way to the Quidditch pitch that was currently unoccupied. Taking a few deep breaths to calm his racing heart and fight off a headache, he thought about his next steps.
Hermione. He could always count on her help.
He summoned his Patronus, sending it to find her (“Hermione, could you please come alone? Quidditch pitch.”), and went to sit in the stands.
He didn’t have to wait long. He half thought that Ron would be jogging next to her, feeling betrayed at being left out, but no, she was hurrying to meet him alone. He was trying to gauge the distance to get a sense of when the thoughts would hit.
It turned out it was a shorter distance than he originally thought.
‘… not bloodied, good. Doesn’t appear to be bruised, either. God, Harry, what’s wrong? Please don’t let it be anything bad, I don’t think I could handle it, not after everything we’ve been through.’ Then Harry saw a flash of himself being hit by the explosion in the Potions classroom. He was so startled by the imagery he almost didn’t register the following thoughts of ‘Hm, could be related, but I would think Pomfrey wouldn’t let him leave if that was the case?’
Pictures were new.
Or was it also how Hermione thought?
“Harry! What’s wrong?” she asked worriedly.
Harry was distracted a little by the litany of what-it-could-have-beens as he halted her inner monologue with a raised hand.
“Hermione, sit down please.” He pointed to the lowest benches of the pitch. When she did so, no more thoughts were incoming. She was just looking at him, patiently waiting for him to speak. Interesting.
“I think something went wrong during the Potions lesson.” He was hit by an onslaught of thoughts in rapid succession, mingling together in a blur, but he still caught them all quite clearly, even though not a second could have passed. ‘Not possible, Pomfrey wouldn’t have let him go. Unless it couldn’t be detected by magic. Something Muggle?’
“I don’t know what it is. Pomfrey didn’t find anything during her scans, and I couldn’t tell her what I know, because I don’t really understand what kind of backlash it could cause, which is one of the reasons I called for you. Last time I surprised everyone with a weird magical ability, it didn’t go too well.” The last thing he needed was another Parselmouth coming-out.
She looked at him worriedly, but all she said and thought was, “What is it, Harry?”
He glanced sideways before looking at her, saying, “I can read minds.”
“Like a Legillimens?” she asked curiously, thinking, ‘This is interesting. Read how exactly?’
“Not like a Legillimens, no. Snape once said that the mind is not an open book you can read at will. This is probably true for a Legillimens, but not for me. Whatever people are thinking, they are projecting it to me, and I know.”
‘Hm, let’s see. Can you hear me now?’
“Yes,” he replied, smiling.
“No, that was easy,” she said, before switching to thinking, ‘He could have guessed what I was probably going to ask. It has to be something irregular, something he wouldn’t expect, out of the blue, not connected. Hm… My favourite colour? Blue, but he might know. No, something else. Oh, I know! A number. Let’s see, what could he not know? Pi! He would never guess Pi—‘
“Blue and Pi?” Harry smiled.
Hermione’s mouth fell open. ‘Holy shit, he can read minds. Better not tell him about NO DON’T THINK ABOUT IT, THINK ABOUT WHITE BUNNIES, white bunnies,’ He could see a flash of Ron and her in bed, making love, ‘White bunnies,’ Then a different picture, different setting, same scenario, ‘white bunnies—‘
“Hermione,” Harry chuckled. “I’m very happy for you and Ron.”
The chant ended. “Wait, I didn’t say anything internally about that, how did you—“
‘He can see thoughts, too? Holy sh—’
Harry nodded. “Yup, apparently so, but you are the first one to think in pictures.”
She looked taken aback. “The first one? I thought everyone thought in pictures.”
He shrugged. “I don’t. And neither does Pomfrey or Snape. Or not that I noticed.”
“Huh, that’s odd. But I suppose it makes sense that people would think differently. I’m sorry about the images. I tried, but when you try not to think about something, you naturally start thinking about it.” ‘Ah, well.’ “Why didn’t you tell Madame Pomfrey?”
“Because I thought she would freak out. I did. And honestly, I expected you to be more freaked out about it, too. You surprise me.”
‘Hm, he’s got a point. What would a normal person do when they realised someone could read their thoughts directly, with no way to stop it? Think everything they shouldn’t and keep their distance, most likely. And combine this with Harry’s strong and powerful magic, people might ostracise him—‘ Then she looked up at him, realising he could hear her, and blushed.
“Sorry, Harry.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “you’re completely right, which is why I didn’t tell anyone. Which is why I think we shouldn’t even tell Ron.”
She sighed, nodding. ‘He’s right, Ron would freak out and try to hide everything. If he doesn’t know, he has nothing to hide and will function as normal.’
“Yes, but Hermione, I still need your help.” She looked up at him with a shrewd expression as he continued, “I have no idea if this is permanent or not, but let’s say it is. When I get close to a lot of people, I can hear all their voices, and it’s giving me a splitting headache. Do you think there’s a way to block it? Or maybe concentrate so that I can at least pick who I listen to and ignore the others?”
‘Occlumency.’ That was the first word that entered her mind and Harry groaned internally.
“I’m pants at that, honestly.”
She shook her head. “Not necessarily. Remember, you had a piece of someone else’s soul lodged within you. That may have served as a hindrance. I mean, you did experience a growth in power after he killed the piece of his soul in you, and I noticed some slight changes to your moods and behaviour. Nothing obvious,” she rushed to add at his expression, “but I was watching out for any signs of changes.”
‘In case the fragment has done you further damage—shit. Sorry, Harry.’ She looked very apologetic.
He laughed. “Just stop apologising, Hermione, it’s alright. Strange, but I’ll be fine. I will have to get used to this anyway.
“So, Occlumency. Got any quick tips on how to do this?” he asked, cringing slightly as he remembered the headache he felt on his way to the common room. He did not want to experience this on a daily basis for months before he learned whatever he needed. He had to master it and preferably now.
She shook her head. “Not me, Harry.” ‘Snape.’ “You know you need to ask him.”
He looked down and frowned.
‘Yeah, a lot of history, but you have to put that aside if you want to—’
Harry raised his hand and halted her inner monologue before looking back up at her. “It’s not that, Hermione.” He fell quiet, watching the pictures Hermione thought of unfold like a film, or rather a trailer. It consisted of himself and Snape in various stages of anger, defiance, each lasting approximately two to three seconds, but Harry was mesmerised by them. Watching himself from the bystander's point of view shed a different light on their interactions. Getting a glimpse of Snape’s expression when Harry wasn’t looking was a revelation to him. There was no way the man was that transparent. At least not that Harry noticed.
“Could you maybe think about our latest face-to-face?”
As soon as he said that, he saw himself in Snape’s classroom. As these were thoughts from her point of view, they were very quick and in rapid succession, and very sporadic as she didn’t raise her head from her potion too often. But he found what he was looking for. Snape looking at Harry in a way Harry would have never gotten the chance to even get a peek at. He could be wrong, but—
“Hermione,” he said, his voice taking on a disbelieving quality. “I mean, I might be interpreting this wrong but… I think he fancies me.”
He heard her inner scoff and watched another set of images, where Snape appeared angry at him, ridiculing him, together with lots of other imagery that entirely countered Harry’s words.
“Yeah, yeah, I understand, but hear me out, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, smiling lightly. Harry just caught her thinking that it was funny she didn’t even have to speak for him to have a conversation with her, and how happy she was Ron wasn’t able to do the same.
“Sorry,” he smiled at her before getting serious. “When I was in the infirmary, and I was just coming to understand what was happening, I heard his thoughts. He was fretting about my health. Worse than Molly would.”
Her eyes went wide. “Really?”
“Yes. Outwardly, he gave no sign of anything, but his internal chanting of ‘please, be alright’ seemed very odd.”
“Oh, wow. That doesn’t sound like him at all.”
“Yes, so if I’m right and I go to him with the request to once again continue Occlumency, he would want to know why. And I can’t tell him. It would be a huge invasion of his privacy. I did that once, never again. He doesn’t deserve it after everything he’s done. I would be the last person in the world who he'd want to share his feelings with.”
“If there are any,” she said, her mind still unable to see Snape as someone who would be interested in a student. But then she smiled. “Of course, you’re not just any student, are you?” And a new set of images filled his mind where he was fighting Voldemort, looking at Snape when he was bitten by Nagini, defending him in front of the Wizengamot—
“Yeah, I can see why he might just fancy you,” she said, smirking teasingly. “But on a serious note, Harry. If the voices are unbearable, you have to work on it and fast. You can’t miss classes, sleep outside the dorm, and spend all your time outside to avoid this. You have to ask him. He’s an excellent Occlumens, maybe you won’t be able to read his mind once he occludes.”
Harry sighed. “Yeah, you’re right.”
She nodded. “I’ll go get him.” ‘What a way to finish the year. Couldn’t take any time off for the last two months, could you?’
Harry laughed softly after her departing figure because he was sure she meant for him to hear that.
Harry could only have been sitting there for about fifteen minutes before he heard a very concerned adult voice and saw Snape approaching, his black robes billowing behind him, the wind helping them flare even more majestically.
‘—can’t be dying, simply can’t be dying. Not the potions, or the fumes, or the combination, or the combustion, nothing could have been lethal, nothing. So what in the bloody fuck is so dangerous that he can’t make it inside the castle? What if he can’t walk? What if he’s blind?’
Harry could see the man’s steps quicken further. It was interesting how sharp-eyed one was when they knew what they were looking for or what to expect.
Harry got up, walked a few steps towards Snape and waved at him.
‘Not blind, able to walk. So what the fuck—and why didn’t he say anything before? He can’t still be holding a grudge against me after all he’s done for me, not if there’s something wrong with his health, he can’t be that short-sighted, he can’t hate me that much, he can’t—’
Snape was quiet the rest of the way, and Harry realised that he didn’t know the man at all, and that Snape’s concern for him ran possibly deeper than he had imagined.
“Potter,” Snape barked, taking in Harry’s person and mentally cataloguing all he could see, Harry listening avidly. He was beginning to realise how observant the man was and how much of a brilliant spy that had made him. “You have thirty seconds to come up with a good excuse for your behaviour before I assign you a month's worth of detention for wasting my time.”
‘Just be alright, that’s all I ask.’
If Harry hadn’t acquired this insight into the man's head, he would have jumped to the conclusion that Snape simply didn’t care. But as the situation currently stood, he couldn’t help but wonder just how deep Snape's feelings for him ran, and why he was trying so hard to keep Harry in the dark. Surely, he must have realised that Harry would never mock him? Especially if Snape fancied him?
“Sir,” Harry began. He had spent the last fifteen minutes struggling to come up with a plausible scenario that would get Snape to agree to teach him Occlumency without revealing his true problem. Everything was for nought. “Could we sit down, please?”
‘Fuck, this looks serious.’ “I don’t plan on spending an entire day here, Potter, out with it.”
Harry sighed. But he also loved the concern. And the swearing. He wondered what it would take to actually hear him swear out loud. Then he couldn't imagine the kind of relationship they would have to have in order for that to happen.
“Do you trust me, sir?”
Snape snorted. ‘Of course.’ “What kind of a question is that? Twenty seconds left.”
“Sir, I’m in dire need of learning Occlumency as quickly as possible, and you are the only one I can turn to.”
‘Occlumency? What the fuck has that got to do with anything?’
“Why?” ‘The Dark Lord has not returned, you would have known. No Death Eaters alive who are smart enough to rectify that either, thank fuck. Does he feel his mind is being invaded? By whom? This makes no sense.’
“I’d prefer not to say, sir,” he said earnestly.
‘He doesn’t trust me.’ But outwardly, Snape only raised an eyebrow.
“I—er,” Harry began, his mind going through various scenarios, each one ending badly for them both. If he denied Snape's last thought, he would completely give himself away, so there was no way to assure the man that he trusted him the most despite their history.
Then an idea occurred to him, and he decided to go with it.
“It’s my nightmares. I can’t sleep properly, my head hurts constantly, and the neverending castle noise makes it harder on me. I understand you’re under no obligation to help me and that you’re very busy, but I was wondering if you might be willing to resume our Occlumency lessons? To help me learn how to clear my mind before sleeping?”
‘There has to be something else he’s not telling you, Snape. But to spend time with him outside of classes is masochism, you can’t do that.’
Harry watched him, trying to remain unaffected by the inner monologue but with Snape’s every further thought, Harry was gradually more concerned about him. And also, masochism? How serious were Snape’s feelings for him?
“This is the last time I will help you, Mr Potter,” ‘Because then you’ll leave and I can finally—’ “so I suggest you arrive promptly tonight at eight, so we can start immediately.”
With that, Snape pivoted on his heel and strode towards the castle. Harry set off after him, not too close behind him so the man didn’t think he was deliberately following him, but close enough that Harry could still hear him. There was something off about him.
‘You’ve lost your mind, Snape. To put yourself willingly in the same room with him, alone! He’ll hate you again for invading his mind and privacy. Well, he hates you now, he only came to you because you’re the only one equipped to help. Hell, it probably wasn’t even his idea but Granger’s. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with you. And you don’t care, do you, you pathetic fool? Do you like pretending he likes you every time he looks at you? Every time he talks to you? You’re such a tosser, Snape. Such a fucking tosser. Two more months of self-flagellation. Make sure he passes his NEWTs, then drink The Angel. At least, you’ve got some purpose now—’
Harry was so focused on Snape’s thoughts that he failed to notice when he had arrived at the Great Hall just in time for dinner. Well, at least until someone bumped into him and apologised. In that moment, all the voices, loud and silent, assaulted his mind, and he grabbed his head, trying to clear it. He looked up at Snape already seated at the High Table, watching him, but Harry couldn’t get a read on him for all the ruckus in his head. Soon, there were hands gripping his shoulder and steering him away, out of the Great Hall and up the staircase.
“Are you alright?” Hermione asked. ‘He needs to start with Snape as soon as possible.’
“Where’s Ron?”
“I told him to grab some food for you, he’ll join us in the common room.”
“Thank you,” he told her gratefully. “I’m sorry, I’m fine, I just didn’t expect it to be so much all at once.”
“You seemed fine when you came in, though. What happened?”
“I was listening to Snape. Something’s not right with him, Hermione.” Then he recalled what Snape thought earlier and ignored Hermione’s reply of Snape being a triple agent during the war, and what did he expect, as he asked. “What’s The Angel, would you know?”
She gave the password to the portrait of the Fat Lady and they both slipped inside. “I assume you’re not talking about the winged creature?”
“No, this is something you drink.”
She frowned, and Harry was subjected to a myriad of thoughts and pictures, some of them familiar to Harry, some chaotic without any logical connection. “I’ll take a look. It rings a bell but I can’t for the life of me recall where or what the connection is.”
‘...should have taken the roasted potatoes. Why didn’t I grab the roasted potatoes? They were there next to the wings. Easy grab.’
Harry chuckled. “Ron’s coming.”
Hermione smiled. ‘I wish I could hear him, just for a second.’
“It’s not as great as you think. He’s just lamenting not taking roasted potatoes.”
She laughed and Harry relaxed. The portrait opened after that and Ron waddled in, his arms full of food. He deposited everything on the table, his mind blank, as opposed to Hermione, who began mentally admiring Ron’s strength and adorable dimples. Harry discreetly rubbed his face to wipe off his grin, but Hermione noticed and bumped him gently.
He looked at her, his smile genuine. “You’re great, you know that? You make it very easy to be around you.”
She blushed but acknowledged Harry’s statement with a nod.
“Err, what am I missing?”
To Harry’s surprise, there were no jealous thoughts coming from Ron, just a normal curiosity.
“Nothing groundbreaking, Ron. It’s me, it just dawned on me that I have the best friends I could ever wish for.” His stomach grumbled, and he tucked in, listening to Hermione’s thoughts on the food and various family recipes and what combination worked best, and realised with a smile that she was likely one of the few people who couldn’t turn off their thoughts.
“The others will start arriving soon. Maybe you should start practising clearing your mind?” she suggested.
“Clearing your mind?” Ron asked. “Whatever for?”
“Nightmares. Snape said that occluding might help,” Harry replied without missing a beat. He was very proud of himself.
Turning to Hermione, he asked, “How do I do that?”
“Well, what did Snape say the last time?”
“That I should control my emotions.”
Hermione hummed. ‘Controlling emotions doesn’t necessarily mean an empty mind. If an empty mind is the goal, emotional control floods the mind. That doesn’t make sense.’
“What if it’s not about controlling emotions but not questioning them?” Ron mused.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You should be able to occlude while considering various angles to a problem. No, I think it’s about focus. If you’re focused on a specific thing, your mind is pulled in one single direction. You said you were able to do it once. What made you succeed?”
He blushed and looked away. “Er, I—er, was focused on Snape, actually.”
“There you go, then. That’s your grounding point.”
“Ew,” Ron remarked.
“Take a deep breath,” she began, mentally chastising Ron for his immature thinking but ignoring him outside her head. “Deep breaths reset the brain. And once you’re calm, focus on Snape.”
Harry did, listening to her inner chant of ‘In. Out.’ all the while thinking about Snape and his comments and remarks. Why was Snape talking about masochism? Willingly suffering through Harry’s presence in his office wasn’t such a big deal, was it? Even if he fancied him or wanted to shag him, why would he talk about masochism? The man had been through a lot. Harry wasn’t some irritating obstacle that was difficult to remove. Harry didn’t pay him enough attention for the man to talk about masochism.
Harry turned his thoughts inward, trying to empathise. Was there ever a situation where he was being masochistic and suffered through someone else’s presence for some reason?
Yes, he thought immediately. When he watched Cho with Cedric. He still willingly spent time around her even though he knew he didn’t stand a chance. He wanted to be around her despite the fact that she wasn’t interested—
But that would really imply that Snape did more than just fancy him. But why would he? Harry hadn’t done anything that would endear him to the man. Then he remembered Hermione’s images of Harry defending Snape in front of the Wizengamot and to everyone who even dared to speak ill of him—Harry was a strong advocate for him. But how could that be enough? How could Snape interpret that as a sign of affection?
He likely didn’t. He couldn't have thought that Harry was interested in him, but it was very likely that Snape was more than smitten with Harry. Although, shouldn't Snape expect a lot from a partner? He was intelligent, cunning, magically gifted. What had Harry done for Snape that had the man so interested in him? How could defending him have been enough?
Well, when was the last time someone showed any kindness to Snape? That thought emptied his mind. He couldn’t come up with anything, and he was so stunned that it brought him back to the present. At that precise moment, he realised there were far too many people around him, but he couldn’t hear a single one of them. That lasted a full two seconds before all hell broke loose, and he was gripping his head in his hands, willing the voices and images to stop, whimpering pathetically against the sharp stabbing.
“Focus on your last thought. Focus!”
He tried taking a deep breath and recalling his reaction to the last thought he had. People not being kind to Snape. They had used him for their own ends. But Harry didn’t want anything from him.
His mind cleared little by little until he was one big ball of determination. He looked at Hermione who beamed at him.
“Well done!”
He nodded, but then his mind was flooded with other people’s thoughts again. His control was slipping.
“I have to leave,” he choked out and sprinted from the common room in a hurry.
One floor below the common room it calmed down enough for him to take a deep breath. This was madness. How did one keep such tight control over their mind? He looked at his watch. It was almost eight, so he made his way slowly down to the dungeons, his mind sharp and alert to any sounds or pictures. Some of them flitted through, but he didn’t recognise the voices or know what the pictures meant. At one point, he even heard music.
Arriving at Snape’s office, he strained his mind, listening. Then, suddenly, there was a voice in his head, one he had no trouble identifying.
‘He’ll be here soon. For fuck’s sake, Snape, stop this! He’s not interested in you, he doesn’t even know you exist, not in that sense, he would only laugh at your pathetic longing. If you want humiliation, you only need to take off your clothes and run naked in the Great Hall. So stop fucking pining and do your job!’
Harry was taken aback by the verbal treatment Snape was subjecting himself to again. He was extremely harsh with himself. Harry didn’t like it. The man didn’t even call himself by his first name, and wasn’t that odd? Wasn’t it more strange that he spoke to himself in the second person? But now that Harry thought about it more, Snape didn’t do it all the time, did he? Maybe he only addressed himself when he was being particularly cruel. That saddened Harry.
He knocked on the door.
‘Fuck.’ “Come in.”
Harry did.
‘Fuck, he’s gorgeous. Stop it!’
“Thank you for agreeing to see me, sir. I really appreciate it.” Maintaining a regular facade around Snape’s thoughts was harder than he had thought it would be. Harry had no idea how he was managing, but he was slightly proud of himself.
“I’m certain you do, Mr Potter. Now, what makes you think you will succeed in mastering mind magic this time?” ‘Shit. Shit, I forgot to remove my memories. How could I have forgotten to remove my memories?’
Harry heard the inner turmoil, but was very impressed by the man’s grip on his expression. It showed nothing but boredom.
“Well, for one, I don’t have Vol—”
‘NO!’
“—You Know Who’s soul-fragment in me. And two, I would like to explore the theory behind it first, if you don’t mind. I’d feel much better having a solid ground beneath me rather than being thrown into the water to start swimming.” Harry hoped that this would calm Snape down. If there was no practical demonstration, Snape might stop panicking about removing his memories.
‘That’s extremely lucky. But you don’t get lucky, Snape. You’re the unluckiest sod in this entire universe, so why now? Harry’s been strange since the potions accident, enquiring about your reading materials, wanting to resume Occlumency, headaches from too much noise. No, something is not right. You’re lying to me, Harry, and I’ll find out why.’
“Not a good swimmer?” He sneered. “What a pity.”
Harry didn’t understand why he had to be such a jerk when he was obviously stressing so much. Then it hit him—it was a coping mechanism. A pure survival instinct.
“I’m not ashamed to admit that,” he said with a calm he wasn’t feeling.
‘He’s so confident, so strong, maybe if I just—’ Snape pivoted on his heel, his robes snapping around him. “The mind is a very complex set of strings and knots, Mr Potter. Either you learn to live with it or you’re consumed and haunted by it.” ‘I should know.’ “Therefore, you need a firm grasp on it.”
Harry couldn’t help but jump in, “So if I were undergoing some crisis and my mind was in turmoil, how would it work?” Snape was in an absolute mental tirade but managed to keep his composure and Harry would bet all his money that his shields were perfect.
‘He’s hurting. How much? Why didn’t I notice?’
He was taken aback by Snape’s obvious care. He didn’t mean to—what? He still couldn’t quite grasp the fact that Snape had feelings for him; he wasn’t used to taking the man's mind processes in his stride. Snape was an enigma. Someone, Harry realised, he didn’t know at all. And this man, who had been through so much in his life, was concerned for him.
“I mean, the nightmares are sometimes really bad, and if I can’t control their impact on me, how am I supposed to function?” Harry continued hopefully plausibly. After all, Snape’s thoughts and Harry’s insights lasted possibly only two seconds.
‘Maybe his nightmares are worse than you assume, Snape. You’re used to the terrors of yours, but what if his are just as bad? No, they can’t be. If they were, he wouldn’t be here asking for help, he would pray they’d stop. But they never do—’
“Nightmares are just nightmares, Potter,” said Snape in a bored tone. “If you require your beauty sleep, I suggest you take Dreamless Sleep for the next two months.” Before Harry could process why he was so mean to him again, he heard, ‘If he puts too much emphasis on the nightmares, he will begin to live them. He can’t end up like you. Not if you want him to live.’
“The potion is not addictive when taken appropriately and brewed correctly. That should help you ease any burdens on your mind.”
Something was not adding up. Snape’s thoughts implied that he might not want to live? Suddenly, “drinking The Angel” seemed very ominous. Hadn’t he said two more months, before? There were two more months until the end of the school year, what if—
“What if I struggle more once I join the Aurors and all of it comes back?” While Harry did wonder about this, his question was intended to get more thoughts from Snape in order to understand him better. He found himself to be more resilient than he had expected. And although he did have nightmares, he also had friends to talk about everything happening in his life and lots of opportunities to choose from. The amount of support he received was staggering; he didn’t feel alone or lost. On the contrary, he finally discovered he was living. He didn’t think the same was true for Snape.
“Then I suggest you follow a different calling.” ‘Because I will already be dead.’
“You can’t be serious,” snapped Harry without thinking.
Snape approached him as though he were prey. “If you don’t like the answer, you shouldn’t have asked the question.”
“How do you occlude, then? How do you clear your mind?” Harry had to know; he had to push Snape's buttons to find out.
Images of himself anywhere and everywhere flooded his mind. On his broom, catching the Snitch, fighting the dragon during the Triwizard Tournament, eating in the Great Hall; all of that and more, a jumble of images with him at the centre of it.
“That is none of your business.” Snape turned away, leaving Harry frozen to the spot in utter awe of what he had just witnessed. Snape didn’t just fancy him. If he understood all of that correctly, he was everything to the man. However, it caused Snape pain, so much that he wanted to kill himself.
And if it weren’t for the accident, Harry would never have known why.
‘I wish you’d leave. I wish you’d stay.’
Harry wanted to hug him, feeling very protective of him all of a sudden, but knew that wouldn’t lead to anything good. He didn’t have any feelings for Snape, or at least not to the degree that Snape seemed to have for him and it angered him for some unknown insane reason. He did care for the man, obviously, but…
Then Snape’s mind conjured a picture of Harry who tried to recall where and when that happened because Harry was so close.
‘You should have let me die in that Shack. I was happy to lay my life down for you. Finally doing something worthwhile.’
Harry couldn’t listen to this. It twisted his insides horribly, nauseating him.
“How do I block it? How do I clear my mind?” He heard the desperation in his own voice.
Snape turned to face him again, his face devoid of everything as he said, “Inner peace, Potter. You need to find the one thing that brings you peace. After you do, your body and mind will be in harmony, forming a balance that, depending on how strong it is, will fuel your shields.”
He once again saw himself from up close and realised that Snape was occluding. Harry’s mental jaw dropped. This man suffered in Harry's vicinity, but he equally needed Harry to feel peace.
Before his brain froze with that paradox, Harry realised that this conversation was too much for Snape if he felt the need to occlude.
Circling back to the paradox, Harry had to ponder another odd fact. If Harry was his source for peace, why did he want to end everyth—Oh. Harry would leave Hogwarts. He’d be gone, and Snape would have no excuse to go seek him out, hell, he would never willingly do that in the first place while they were here either. But wouldn't Harry leaving be easier on him?
Mentally shaking himself, Harry returned back to the start of his visit. Snape had said Harry would know once he’d found the right focus. Thinking of Snape was helping, but it wasn’t quite right, Harry knew that now. He looked at the man and wished he could do something about their predicament, to tell him he was heard, loud and clear, and that everything would be alright. That he didn’t have to end his life, because the last thing Harry wanted was for someone to die because of him.
Never again.
It dawned on him, then. Snape was the correct focus, but it was an alive Snape that would do the trick. Something in his mind loosened, spreading through his body, and he realised he had found the correct thought. He was filled with determination, with an absolute sense of calm.
“Try to read my mind. I have my focus, try it.”
“It takes a lot of time and a lot of self-denial to find the one true thought that grounds you, you couldn’t have possibly—”
Harry took a step closer. “I said do it!” His voice was firm, but he wasn’t angry, not even irritated or impatient. Focused. Despite Snape’s conviction that he couldn’t have possibly mastered it, he was sure this was it. Hermione’s words from before flashed in his mind and he wondered if the removal of the Horcrux could have caused him to be more alert, more perceptive. Better.
“On three, then.” ‘I don’t want to see…’ “One, two, three, Legilimens!”
Harry watched him calmly. He felt Snape trying to invade his mind, but he didn’t even need to resist him. It was as if Snape was standing at the front door, and it was up to Harry to invite him in. He wasn’t smug, he wasn’t happy, he just… was.
Snape lowered his wand. ‘He really found it. It’s very strong, I’ve never seen a focus so strong. He’s a marvel. Feel free to fall for him even more, Snape. You won’t live to see anything bad come out of it.’
“Well done,” he said before he walked to his cabinet and pulled out a purple potion. “Five drops, Potter, and try to fall asleep to that thought.”
“Yes, Professor, thank you. I really appreciate all that you’ve done for me.” He was determined to drive that home no matter how long it would take.
“Dismissed.” Snape immediately turned away from him. Harry knew why. He walked out slowly, listening to the man, wishing he could be indifferent to Snape’s inner torture, be able to easily block him without feeling guilty.
‘Only two months, Snape. You can last through two months. You’ll resign, pack everything, burn it, and go somewhere where no one will come looking. Everyone will rejoice when you remove yourself from their lives. No one will ever wonder about your whereabouts. No one cares about you, you made sure of that. No one will cry a single tear over your absence… It’s better that way.’
Harry hit his fist against the wall outside Snape’s office. He wished he weren’t the only one who could do something about this. He couldn’t give Snape what he wanted or needed. Confessing that Harry knew about his state of mind would not make things better either.
He calmed himself down and focused on his grounding thought of Snape, alive. Once again determined, he made his way back to the Gryffindor common room.
He wouldn’t let Snape die.
“Hermione, I think The Angel is some kind of poison.”
He decided to tell her at their next library session towards the end of the week. Ron was at Divination, he had taken the class to get an easy NEWT, so they were alone. At first, he wasn’t sure whether he should confide in her, but in the end, he decided that it was much better having an ally.
Since his Occlumency lesson with Snape, his focus had been unwavering, and together with the Dreamless Sleep Potion, his mind had acquired more clarity than ever before.
“Poison,” she repeated and stood up, disappearing among the bookshelves.
Harry kept practising his Occlumency shields on the people around him by tapping in and out of their minds, but he was so happy now that he could block everyone’s thoughts whenever he wanted. He loved Hermione, but her mind never shut up.
Hermione didn’t return empty-handed. She put a small, easily overlooked booklet entitled simply Deadly Poisons down on the table.
“I thought there would be more poisons than this,” he said pensively.
“There are,” she replied, browsing carefully. “These are just very old, difficult to come by, and extremely dangerous.”
“Aren’t all poisons extremely dangerous?”
She threw him a glance that clearly reflected her thoughts. “There are many poisons, Harry. But not all of them kill you. Or at least not quickly. Some torture you, some bring you unimaginable pain, some cause decay in your muscles or damage to your body resulting in your death, but there are only a handful that kill you directly. This,” she said, pointing her finger to a certain page, “will certainly kill you. It’s odourless and tasteless, and you’ll be dead before you realise you swallowed it.”
There wouldn’t be any time to save Snape if he decided to take this. Panicking, Harry stared at the book unseeingly. “How long does it take to brew, and how complicated is it?”
“Extremely complicated. You need a sound mind and a firm handle on things. This potion cannot be done in the spur of the moment. It only takes several hours, but I've never seen a more complicated potion.”
“Does it have to be consumed immediately?”
“No,” she said after studying him a while. “You can store it for several years. Harry, why are you interested in this?”
Harry hesitated for a second. “Snape intends to take it after the school year ends.” He modified his shield so her thoughts could seep through, and he was glad he did when she sported a horrified expression.
‘But, but, but, why? He survived the war, he has a chance to live his life, why throw it away, why, after everything that he’d gone through, that doesn’t make any sense, that’s not fair, that’s not logical.’
Harry occluded again, against the same thoughts he had had the evening before as he had tried to go to sleep.
He had forgotten to take the Dreamless Sleep and had discovered his nightmares to be now centred around Snape. He dreamt that he forgot about him, and before he made it to his rooms, Snape was already dead, and his ghost spoke to Harry, telling him it was okay. That there was nothing he could have done. Harry had woken up cold and shaking. He wouldn’t make the mistake of not drinking it before falling asleep again.
Harry also spent a lot of time thinking about Snape. He simply couldn’t get past the fact that the man was so casual about ending his own life. Almost every night since the first night he thought about how to stop him, but nothing he said or did seemed to have worked in his head. And if it didn’t seem plausible to him in his imagination, then what chance did he stand in reality?