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Chapter Text

Harry drummed his fingers against his desk.  Summer had only begun two weeks ago, but it felt like an eternity.  He drew his fingers through his hair and looked out the window, hoping that this time he would be greeted by the silhouette of an owl.

Vernon had locked all of Harry’s wizarding things in his trunk and hid them away, telling him that he was lucky that it was not Harry who would be spending the summer under the stairs.  Vernon had almost locked Hedwig away as well, but Harry convinced him to let Hedwig go, under the condition that she did not come back with any letters.

“Boy!”

Vernon’s angry voice roused Harry from his stupor.  He hauled himself up from where he sat at his empty desk, and walked downstairs.  Vernon and Petunia were standing by the door, dressed nicely.  Harry recalled Vernon discussing an important work dinner the previous afternoon, and a small bubble of hope began to grow in his chest.  He might have the evening to himself!

“We are leaving to have dinner with the Rockwells.” Vernon told him.  Harry nodded, keeping his gaze to the floor.

  “You are to finish these tasks, and return to your room.”   Vernon's hand shot out and grabbed Harry’s hand, pulling it out and thrusting a list into it.  When Harry flinched, Vernon jerked his hand out farther before dropping it.  “No television, no stealing food, and absolutely no leaving the house.”

After the incident with the dementors last summer, Vernon had stopped allowing Harry to wander outside during the day, believing he would find some way to attack Dudley again.  Harry inwardly rolled his eyes, as if he were the one doing the attacking.  Outwardly, he nodded silently again.  Seeming to feel as if his message had sunk in, Vernon turned and opened the door for Petunia, who left the house silently.

Harry stood at the window, watching the car pull out of the driveway.  He unfolded the list that he’d been unconsciously clenching in his fist.  The list of chores was as long and tedious as he’d expected.  He began them, working as quickly as possible while still completing them to the Dursley’s standards.  He mowed the lawn, trimmed the bushes, mopped the floors and cleaned the bathrooms before returning upstairs and changing into clean clothes.

Harry checked the clock, and estimated he had at least an hour before he could expect Vernon and Petunia to be home.  Dudley was away at a weeklong boxing camp, although Harry suspected it was a weight loss retreat in disguise.  Regardless, Harry found himself with an hour to kill, alone in the house.  He flopped onto the couch, albeit carefully to avoid crushing Petunia’s decorative pillows, and turned on the television.

With reckless abandon, he flicked through channels, pausing here or there to watch for a moment before moving on.  He finally settled on a sitcom.  The episode was halfway over, but that didn’t matter to Harry.  He soon found himself chuckling along with the laugh track, sparing a keen glance at the clock every few minutes.

After a particularly funny joke, the fake audience behind the screen roared with laughter, Harry right along with them.  The moment was ruined, however, as he heard a great bang, and blue smoke poured out of the fireplace underneath the television.  A dark figure emerged from the fireplace.  Without waiting to see who it was, Harry leaped from his seat and ran from the room.

He burst into the kitchen, pulling the biggest knife he could find from the knife block, and held it out towards the doorway.

“What in Hell’s name are you doing, Potter?”  A familiar voice drawled.  The figure stepped into the kitchen, impervious to Harry’s knife waving, and pulled down the black hood shadowing his face.  It was Snape.  Harry nearly dropped the knife in surprise.

“What are you doing here?”

“I am here to collect you and your things.  Time is of the essence.”  Snape peered down his hooked nose at the blade Harry was pointing at him.  “Where is your wand, Potter?”

“Clearly not here.”  Harry replied, his mind spinning wildly with a thousand questions.  “How do I know you're not here on Voldemort’s orders?  How do I know you’re even you at all?”

Snape twitched at the sound of the dark lord’s name.  “ Language , Potter.  I-”

“What spell did my dad use against you?  In the penseive?”  Harry blurted out the first question he could think of.  Surely Snape wouldn’t be going around telling other death eaters what spells his childhood bullies used.

“ Levicorpus.” He answered, despite being clearly unhappy with Harry’s choice in question.  “You need to come with me before they get here.”

Harry stared at him, dumbfounded.  He realized the knife was still in his hand, and pointed at Snape, so he set it down on the table.  “Why?”  He asked.

Snape’s eyebrows began to draw together into an all too familiar frown. 

“Potter, we do not have all day.  This household is in imminent danger, and I have been ordered to take you and your belongings from this house immediately.”

Harry thought of his trunk, locked away in the cupboard.  “Professor, my things are all… well my guardians, they…” He couldn’t seem to find the words.

Snape raised an eyebrow.  “Were they taken from you?  Getting into trouble already, Potter?  We’re barely two weeks into summer.”

Deciding to take the path of least resistance, Harry mumbled that they had, and led Snape to the cupboard under the stairs, where Snape unlocked the door, and then the lock around his trunk.  Snape miniaturized the trunk, handing it to Harry to keep in his pocket.  Harry grabbed the firebolt resting against the corner, and followed Snape back to the living room.

Snape pulled a handful of floo dust from a pouch in his pocket, and flung it into the fire before clearly calling out “The Haven!”  He took a vice-like grip of Harry’s arm, and dragged him into the fire.

They emerged into a rather large, open living room.  It appeared to be a cabin.  Large windows circled the walls, looking out over a lake surrounded by woods.

“Your wand is in your truck, I presume?”  Snape asked, stepping away from the fireplace, and turning to face him.

“Er- Yes.”  Harry responded.

Snape motioned impatiently with his hands, “Well?  Take it out, then.”

Snape hardly waited for Harry to remove the small trunk from his pocket and place it on the floor, before flicking his wand and returning it to its original size.  Harry knelt, opening the trunk and pulling out his wand.

“Keep it with you at all times.”  Snape indicated a large glass bowl sitting next to the fireplace.  “Do you know how to make a fire-call?”

Harry nodded.  He’d seen Mr. Weasley make several in the past.

“If I am not back within the next few hours, you are to call Professor Dumbledore.  If anybody other than Dumbledore or I attempts to enter this house, defend yourself, and escape through the floo to Grimmauld Place.  Do not attempt to contact anyone else.  Is that understood?”

“You’re leaving?”  The question escaped Harry’s mouth before he could stop it.  Snape’s eyebrows began to lower once again, and he hastily added, “Sir?”

“Yes.  As I said before, I should be back later tonight.  If I am not, contact Dumbledore.”

Snape waited for Harry to nod again, before turning away from him and sweeping towards the front door.  He paused for a moment, as if remembering something.  “And Potter?  Do not snoop through my things.  I will know.”

Without waiting for a reply, Snape left through the door, and it locked itself behind him with an audible click.   Harry watched through a window as he strode down a path leading to the edge of the property.  A low wooden fence bordered the cabin, and Snape stepped through the gate, stopping for a moment to pull a mask out of his robes and put it on, then apparating away.

Harry stepped away from the window, head spinning, and sat down on a small couch facing the fireplace.  The adrenaline rush he’d gotten when Snape stepped through the fireplace at Number Four Privet drive had begun to wear off, and he found himself with a lot more questions than answers.  What had happened to make his home dangerous?  Why had Snape been sent, without warning, to pick him up?  Where had Snape gone in that death eater’s mask?

Harry briefly considered that he might have been kidnapped, but the cabin seemed too nice to be a prison.  And besides, Snape had just left him alone in it with an avenue of escape.  Unable to answer any of the questions for himself, Harry looked around the cabin.  It was simply decorated, neutral colors with green accents.  There was a flight of stairs leading to a second story, and a hallway with several closed doors located next to the kitchen.  Harry was tempted to look around, but ultimately decided to heed Snape’s brief warning about snooping.  There was a clock above the fireplace, and Harry watched the seconds tick past.  The sky outside was beginning to darken, and he suddenly felt very alone.  The scenery outside was now blurring together, the trees seemed to loom over the small wood gate separating the lawn from the forest.  The large windows bordering all around the large room made Harry feel vulnerable.

He realized that Snape was unlikely to come back anytime soon, and that he would worry himself to pieces if he didn’t find something to do.  Harry opened his trunk once more, and pulled out his transfiguration textbook.  Studying was boring to Harry during the school year, when much more interesting things competed for his attention, but during the summer, when there was nothing else to do, Harry found enjoyment in doing his school reading.

Harry battled to stay focused on the words on the page, doing his best to avoid checking the clock again.  The knot of anxiety in his stomach began to loosen as he absorbed himself in the book.  As he became more detached from the world around him, he noticed another emotion building up inside of him.  Rage.  He could feel anger writhing, deep in his consciousness.  He concentrated on the feeling, and it grew stronger, as if becoming aware of it had given it more power.

He suddenly wanted to throw the book down, and kick it into the fireplace.  He wanted to smash the glass pot full of floo powder.  He wanted…  Harry realized he had stood up, the book had fallen off his lap and onto the floor.  He brought his hand to his head as he felt his scar twinge.  Even as the feeling threatened to overwhelm him, Harry realized that the anger was not his own.  It must be Voldemort’s.  The pain in his scar struck him again, harder this time.  Harry felt his vision blur, and he had just enough foresight to collapse back onto the couch before blacking out.

***

The Boy!  The Boy!  Where was he?  Harry found himself screaming with rage.  He was back at Number Four Privet Drive, and stood in front of the house.  Smoke billowed out over the neighborhood.  He watched as flames ate at the roof of his childhood home, finally bringing it down onto the building in a great crash.  His Death Eaters circled the building, but they did not approach, not yet.

  The Boy should have fled the house by now.  It had been a simple plan, thought out by one of his more simple Death Eaters.  The house was protected from magical harm, not physical.  They need only set the neighboring houses on fire, and let it spread.  They would smoke him out of the house.

The other muggles had fled long ago, driving off in their cars to who-knows-where.  Harry did not care much for where they went, too focused on Number Four Privet Drive.  Flames had encased the house.  Even with magic, escape would be almost impossible at this point.  He took a step closer to the house, straining his eyes in an attempt to see inside.  He saw nobody, not even the Boy’s useless muggle guardians.  Death eaters circled the yard, waiting for any signs of life from the house.

Now, the second floor collapsed onto the first, producing another great crash.  Surely, nobody could consider that burning wreck a home anymore.  Harry took another step, this one onto the lawn of the house.  No barrier, magical or otherwise, stopped him.  The heat blasted against his face, but he flicked his wand and it ceased to bother him.

“Find him!”  Harry cried, and the other death eaters began to stream forwards, undeterred by the flames and the threat of the curse that they faced.  Not more than a few had made it onto the lawn, when there was a great eruption of noise and heat.  Harry managed to throw up a few shields, before being blown backwards into the pavement.  Debris rained down all around him, and he looked towards Number Four Privet Drive to find that it stood no longer.  It was simply gone.  Great chunks of rubble now cluttered the street, and dust mixed with smoke clouded the air.  His Death Eaters were in disarray.  Several hadn’t had the presence of mind to shield themselves, and lay deathly still on the ground.

Harry picked himself up off of the cement.  He felt rage, stronger than that of the flames still burning in the fiery wreckage of Number Four Privet Drive.  Had the Boy escaped them again?  No, the plan had only been made hours ago.  News could not have reached the order in that time.  So who had set the explosion?

A second thought reached him.  Could the boy be dead?  No, he would feel it, wouldn’t he?  The same way that he could feel when the boy received his false vision last year.  He would know.

***

Harry awoke with a start.  He could still feel the anger, burning quietly away in his chest, but it did not overwhelm him again.  The vision came back to him, with terrifying clarity.  His childhood home, in flames.  The Dark Lord, at his doorstep.

It took Harry several minutes to calm his breathing.  He looked at the clock, and realized it had been more than an hour since he’d looked at it last.  The cabin was still empty, and the sky had gone completely dark.

Harry briefly considered fire-calling Dumbledore, but discarded the idea quickly.  Snape had told him to wait longer, and incurring the professor’s wrath did not seem like a good way to end an already difficult evening.  Sighing, he picked up the transfiguration book from where it had fallen onto the floor, and began to read once more.

Several more hours passed before Snape returned.  The light inside the cabin blinded Harry’s eyes to the outdoors, and he didn’t realize anybody was outside until the door opened and a figure stepped inside.  Harry shot to his feet, pulling his wand out in defense, before lowering it slightly as he recognized the figure.

“ Levicorpus , Potter, it is me.”  Snape said with disdain.

Awkwardly, Harry lowered his wand the rest of the way.  “My house… is it really gone?  Did Voldemort really burn it down?”  The questions he’d been holding in for the past several hours came out all at once.  “Why did it work?  Shouldn’t my home be protected?”

Snape stiffened slightly at the use of the name. “Language, Potter.”  

He crossed the room, taking a seat in the winged armchair placed next to the couch that Harry had been sitting on.  His dark cloak was covered in a thick layer of white powder, which Harry realized was ash.

“You had a vision, then?” Snape asked.

“So, it’s true?  My house is gone?”

“Answer my question, and I might answer yours.”  Snape retorted.

Harry paused for a moment before replying.  “I did.”

Snape raised his eyebrows, motioning for him to continue in more detail.

“I was reading my textbook, and I started to feel really angry.  My scar started to hurt, and then I blacked out.  I had a dream that I was Volde- sorry, The Dark Lord, and that I’d set the neighborhood on fire.  The house collapsed, and I wanted to get inside, but I only got to the lawn before it exploded.  And then I woke up.”  He finished lamely.

Snape nodded, studying his face for a moment.  “Your vision, this time, was true.  The Dark Lord came upon the idea that harm could be put upon the house if it was not done with the intention to hurt you, specifically.  They bewitched a muggle to set fire to his own house, and waited for the wind to blow it onto your house.”

“Why did it explode, then?”

“It was our own attempt to fake your death.  I intend to convince the Dark Lord that the fire caused the gas main beneath your house to explode.  That is the only explanation for the lack of body.”

Harry was silent for a moment, until another thought struck him.  “Everyone will think I’m dead.”

“An unavoidable consequence.”

“Surely we could tell the rest of the order, they’re all sworn to secrecy.”  Harry protested.

“We believe that there is an informant in the order.”  Snape raised an eyebrow at Harry’s sharp glance, “ besides me, Potter.  That is why you are here, and not at Grimmald place.  As for your friends, their grief must be real.  The Dark Lord will be looking for any hint, any reason to believe that anyone in the order knows where you are."

Harry thought of when Mrs. Weasley had been brought to near hysteria by a boggart pretending to be her dead children.  She’d cried then, even as she’d been surrounded by the reassurances of her real, alive family.  What would this do to the Weasleys?  To Ron and Hermione?  Harry’s chest tightened with emotion and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself grounded.

“When will they know?  That I’m not actually dead?”  Harry tried to maintain a neutral tone, but the question made his voice waver.  Tears began to well in his eyes, and he worked hard to keep them from falling.

Snape looked at him with an odd expression.  “I do not know.”

Chapter Text

Harry woke the next morning to the sun shining through the curtains.  He’d fallen asleep quickly in the bedroom that Snape had shown him after their conversation the previous night.  He reached up to rub his eyes, and realized that he hadn’t even taken his glasses off before going to sleep.

Harry went to the bathroom attached to the bedroom, and splashed water over his face.  The situation was surreal.  He was stuck living with Snape for the foreseeable future.  And worse than that, his friends would have heard the news by now, and they would think him dead.

He dug through his trunk for a change of clothes.  He put on a set of wizarding robes, which had always felt more natural on him than any of Dudley’s hand-me-downs.  He took a deep breath, and stepped out of the bedroom to face whatever lay outside.

The living room was empty, as was the kitchen.  There was a note posted on the refrigerator, in Snape’s rigid, uniform handwriting:

Gone until this evening

Food in fridge

Harry opened the fridge to inspect the contents, and suddenly found it odd that Snape even owned a fridge.  Although Harry had only ever visited one wizarding house (the Weasley’s), it was clear to him that muggle appliances were looked down upon by the wizarding world at large.  Thinking about it, Harry realized that it was more than just the fridge.  There were muggle light switches in every room, and to compliment the fridge, there was also a microwave, oven and toaster in the kitchen.  Harry had always assumed that Snape would hold the same derision towards muggles as purebloods like the Malfoys.  Perhaps it was a safehouse given to him by the order.  

The inside of the fridge was rigidly organized, even more so than Petunia’s painstakingly clean pantry.  Harry reached to grab something, but the thought of the Dursleys made him pause.  Petunia had always known when he’d taken extra food because the pantry was so organized.  She’d seemed to have a fifth sense for it.

But, the note had told him that it was okay to take something.  But what would be acceptable?  Harry shifted from one foot to the other in front of the fridge.  He stood there in indecision, leaving the door open so long that the fridge began to beep, bringing him back to reality.  He shut the door and stepped away.  It would be easier to just wait until Snape came back.

Harry walked to the spacious windows overlooking the lake.  It was a gorgeous day outside.  The pine trees outside swayed softly back and forth with the breeze, and the cabin was near enough to the lake that Harry could just quite see the white ripples in the water as it lapped rhythmically against the shore.

The only sound in the cabin was the soft hum of electricity traveling through the walls.  The forest was beautiful, but Harry was too far away to see any living creature within it.  There may have been birdsong outside, but no sound reached inside the cabin besides the occasional gust of wind against the windows.  Harry felt completely and utterly alone.

Harry gave one last look around the living room before retreating back to the bedroom.  He sat on the bed and stared blankly at the wall.  He felt tears welling up in his eyes once again, and this time he let them fall.  He buried his face in his hands and began to weep bitterly, for his friends, his situation, and himself.

Harry was distracted so deeply by his own emotions that it was the piercing pain in his scar that warned him of the incoming vision, before the rage that was lurking beneath overpowered his sadness.  He lost control of his limbs, felt himself falling backwards onto the bed, and then nothing more.

***

Harry looked with distaste at the man sniveling at his feet.

“I thought it would work, My Lord!  I was certain!”  Goyle sobbed.

Harry cursed him again, throwing him halfway across the long stone hall.  Goyle screamed.

There was a clatter at the far end of the hall, and Harry looked up from the figure writhing on the floor.  Snape entered the room, his dark cloak billowing behind him.  He strode past Goyle, ignoring his sobs of pain, and stopped in front of Harry.  He bowed slightly, his dark eyes boring into Harry’s own.

“You called, My Lord?”

“How did the order manage to sneak him out of the house under my very nose, Severus ?” Harry asked, his voice high and unforgiving.

“They did not know he was gone, My Lord.  Not until this morning, when a routine operative came to check on him.” Snape’s voice was steady, calculated.  Harry tried to push into his mind, but it was carefully empty, as always.

“I hope that you do not intend to convince me that the Boy is dead.”

“I only report what the order has told me.” Snape said evenly.  “They do not know where he is.”

Harry dug deeper into Snape’s mind, rifling through his thoughts.  Snape’s jaw tightened at the intrusion, but he said nothing.  Memories of the previous night came to the surface of his mind, the house burning, the smell of the smoke, the ash drifting through the air.  The search for the Potter Boy, deep into the night.  Then, memories of going home, to sleep.  

“May I offer you counsel, My Lord?”  Snape asked quietly.  Harry narrowed his eyes, but nodded.  “I looked into the history of the house last night.  There was a large amount of the highly flammable muggle substance, gasoline, stored beneath it.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Severus?”

“The explosion may have been a natural reaction to the flames, not magic induced.”

They stared at one another for a long moment.  “My patience with you is running thin, Severus.  Find him, before I am convinced that you had something to do with his mysterious disappearance.” Harry said, waving his hand for Snape to leave.

When Snape had turned his back, Harry raised his wand and cried. “Avada Kedavra!”

Snape whirled around, his eyes wide and wand raised.  But it was not him that the curse was aimed at.  Goyle lay still, his whimpers now silenced.  The look of shock on Snape’s face was quickly stifled, covered once again by a mask of composure.  He nodded once and left the room.

***

Harry awoke, lying sideways on the bed.  He sat up, rubbing his eyes.  The light shining through the curtains had dimmed, and the digital clock by his bedside told him that it was nearly dinnertime.  His stomach rumbled at the thought.  He hadn’t eaten all day.

Harry heard a soft click from the other room as the front door opened and closed.  Footsteps crossed the living room, then stopped.  Harry bit his lip, unsure of what to do.  He deeply disliked Snape, but the prospect of spending even more time alone, wondering and worrying, was almost worse than the prospect of speaking with him.  He stood from the bed, and took a moment to gather his courage before venturing out into the living room.

Snape sat in the arm chair, staring into the fire pensively.  He didn’t turn to look when Harry entered the room.  Harry sat on the couch, at the edge of the seat.

“Potter.” Snape’s tone was carefully neutral.

“I had another one.  Another vision.” Harry marshalled his thoughts, deciding how much he wanted to admit to seeing.  “Your conversation with the Dark Lord.  I saw it.  I saw Goyle die.”

Snape said nothing for a long moment.  His eyes never left the fire, and Harry got the feeling that he was deep in thought.  One of his hands was resting on the wing of the armchair, and Harry could see from where he was sitting that it was shaking slightly.  

“That vision was also true.”  Snape finally replied.  “But do not begin a habit of trusting them.  The Dark Lord has proven that he is fully capable of manipulating the bond between the two of you.”

“He doesn’t believe that I’m dead.” Harry stated.  “I could go back to the order.”

There was another long pause, “I spoke with Dumbledore this morning.  He has decided that it is best you do not return to Grimmald place.”

“Are you kidding?!  The Dark Lord knows that you’re lying to him!  He knows that the bond didn’t break, because I never actually died!” Harry exclaimed, the frustration of the last two days pouring out.  “What reason could Dumbledore possibly have for keeping me hidden even though we all know that I’m not actually dead?”

“He doesn’t believe that you’re dead, yet.” Snape told him, his voice lowering to a dangerous tone.  “Your complete and utter disappearance will force the Dark Lord to widen his search beyond the order.  We are trying to buy time.”

“Buy time for what?  He knows the bond didn’t actually break, because I never actually died!  I’m tired of being left in the dark and separated from everybody!”  Harry felt himself getting louder, venting the frustration he’d felt the past two days.

“This may be shocking to hear, Potter, but the world does not revolve around you!” Snape barked, “You have no idea what the Dark Lord is capable of.  He proved at the ministry that he can easily manipulate you to serve his purposes.  Fake death or not, taking you to Grimmald place now would endanger the entire order.”

“I know not to trust the visions now.” Harry protested desperately.  “And I’m well aware of what Voldemort is-”

“ Don’t speak the name!” Snape roared, but Harry had reached his breaking point.

“Voldemort Voldemort Voldemort Volde-” Harry’s mouth kept moving, but the words had been silenced.  

Snape lowered his wand, his face white with rage.  Harry glared, now screaming more protests, but they were simply absorbed by whatever spell Snape had used.  Blinded by rage, Harry reached into his robes and pulled out his own wand.  He yelled a curse of his own, but nothing happened.  He waved his wand wildly, and again nothing happened.  He dropped his arm and glared at Snape.

“A pity you never mastered silent spellcasting.” Snape’s voice dripped with scorn.  “We are done talking this evening, I believe.”  He turned and stalked up the stairs, disappearing into the second story of the house.

Harry clenched his hands into fists, yelling a parting insult that Snape couldn’t hear.  He stood in the living room for a long moment, reeling in anger and sorely tempted to begin smashing things.  It wasn’t long before his sadness overcame his blind rage.  He retreated to the bedroom and began to sob.  He cried in silence for a long while, before the spell wore off, and he could hear his own ragged breathing once more.

Chapter Text

When Harry ventured into the kitchen the next morning, he found Snape at the small kitchen table, his face hidden behind a copy of The Daily Prophet.  There was a place already set for him opposite Snape, a heaping plate of eggs, toast and bacon.  He sat cautiously, and began to eat.

They sat in silence for a long moment, before Snape folded the newspaper neatly and set it on the table.  

“I trust you can read, Potter?”  The question caught Harry by surprise.

“What?”

Snape slid a small piece of paper across the table.  It was the note that he’d left on the fridge the previous day.  “Can you read?”

Harry flushed.  “I can read just fine.”

“And you saw this, yesterday morning?”

“I did.”

“So then, why did I find my inventory the same this morning as it was yesterday morning?”

“I wasn’t hungry.”  Harry said stiffly.

Snape raised an eyebrow, nonplussed by his reply.  “Whatever your reasoning, I need to make sure you understand that when I write ‘food in fridge,’ I mean you are to take some of that food out of the fridge.”

Harry nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“Now that we’ve covered that, there is one more thing that we must discuss.  Dumbledore has requested that I attempt once more to instruct you in the art of occlumency.”

Harry gripped his fork, remembering the long nights he’d spent in the dungeons, reliving his most embarrassing moments over and over.  He opened his mouth to protest, but Snape spoke first.

“I’ve been asked to take a different approach.  It will not be like last time.”  Snape flicked his wand carelessly, and Harry’s now-empty plate flew itself to the sink, and began washing itself.  “However, we must move quickly, so I ask that you give it your complete attention.”

Several smart remarks came to Harry’s mind, but he decided against saying any of them.  “Fine.”

Harry followed Snape into one of the closed doors leading off from the living room.  It was a medium-sized room, the wall papered with a dark green and gold floral print.  Mahogany bookshelves lined the walls, filled with all manner of books and delicate instruments, not unlike the ones that Harry had seen before in Dumbledore’s office.  Two armchairs and a coffee table sat in the middle of the room on top of an ornate rug, whose patterns seemed to subtly twist and turn as Harry studied them.  Another fireplace sat at the end of the room, although unlike the one in the living room, it was not lit.

Snape waved his wand, summoning several books from various shelves.  He dumped them unceremoniously into Harry’s arms.  “You will begin by reading Arin Lumensky’s Art of the Mind, and its companion, Art of the Soul.  These will give you the basics of both occulemency and legilimency.”

The volumes were thin, hardcover books with their titles embossed in gold on the front.  “At the end of each chapter there will be an exercise, which I expect you to complete to the best of your ability.”  Snape said.  Harry nodded, and Snape turned, taking a final book off of a shelf in the back of the room.  With a click the bookshelf swung free of the wall, revealing a staircase.

“I will be working downstairs.  If you have any questions, you may come and ask them.”  Snape disappeared down the stairs without further comment, leaving Harry alone in the room.

He was in rare agreement with Snape that learning to control the visions was important, and Harry intended on trying his best at learning to do so.  He sat in one of the armchairs, flicking through the pages of each book, trying to decide the best place to start.

The first chapter of the Art of the Mind was short, covering the history of occulemency.  The exercise, however, was not.  Harry was meant to sit in silence, with his eyes closed for a full hour, attempting to keep his mind as empty as possible.  He sighed as he took note of the time on the clock over the mantle, and shut his eyes.

Harry tried as hard as he could to keep his mind from drifting, or worse, falling asleep.  He first imagined an empty room with four white walls, and tried to hold that image in his mind as long as he could.  Harry cracked an eyelid after what felt like an eternity, to find that only ten minutes had passed.  He sighed and shut his eyes again, determined to do better.

This time he tried to focus on the black nothingness behind his eyelids.  He imagined a darkness flooding over any thought that came up, swallowing it.  This was a more successful attempt than the first, and Harry checked the clock again to find that twenty minutes had passed.  He tried the same technique again, sending a shadow to smother his thoughts as they came.  He sat there for a long while, drifting in and out of focus.  It felt as though he’d entered the space between waking and sleeping.  His thoughts were slow and sluggish, easy now to push back down.

  It was in that emptiness that he began to feel it.  A distant sense of satisfaction, an emotion that felt as if it had always been there, but Harry had been too busy feeling his own emotions to notice it, like trying to hear a whisper in a crowded room.  Not consciously thinking about what he was doing, Harry concentrated on the emotion.  An image slowly took form.  An older woman, with curly golden hair stood before him.  Tears rolled down her cheeks but it was hatred that Harry saw in her eyes, not sadness.  She opened her mouth as if to speak, but Harry’s confusion made his focus on the feeling waver, and the image dissolved before he could hear what she had to say.

Harry’s eyes ripped open and he looked around wildly.  He was still sitting in the armchair, and the room was silent.  The clock showed that it had been an hour and a half since he’d last checked it.  There was no woman in sight.  She’d been oddly familiar to Harry, although he couldn’t place her in his mind.  The faint satisfaction he’d felt was gone, covered once again by the rest of Harry’s thoughts and feelings.  Did that mean Harry had just reached through his bond with Voldemort of his own accord?

Harry chewed his lip, thoughts swirling around in his head.  He would have to tell Snape about it.  There was no way of knowing whether or not Voldemort had noticed the intrusion.  Perhaps Harry had fallen asleep and the whole thing had been a dream.  But it would have been a very odd dream, and Harry had a sickening feeling that the vision had been very real.  He stood, and suddenly became aware of how tired he was.  His muscles ached, and it felt as if he’d run a marathon.  There was a pounding in his head that felt as if it reverberated throughout his whole body.

Ignoring the exhaustion, Harry went through the doorway left by the bookshelf, and walked down the stairs.  Harry had been surprised earlier to find muggle appliances in Snape’s house, and now he was even more astonished by the contents of the room he now found himself in.  

The whole room was a mix of muggle chemistry and wizarding potion-making.  There was a large fume hood at the back, akin to the ones Harry had once seen on a field trip to his community college.  There were two large marble-topped tables in the middle of the room.  One held several large cauldrons simmering over an open flame, while the other held racks of glass implements, cutting boards, and many types of knives sorted by material, shape and size.   Shelves all along the edges of the room held glass bottles and containers of all sizes and colors, each with a small paper label on the front denoting what they contained in painstakingly neat handwriting.

Snape stood over an electronic scale, measuring some kind of white powder onto a weighboat.  He looked up as Harry entered, a questioning look on his face.  Haltingly, Harry explained what happened, and Snape’s expression darkened with every word.

“Were you pushed out of his mind, or did you leave by choice?”  He asked.

“I think I lost my concentration.”  Harry replied.  “I feel tired now, like it took all my energy.”

“I need to speak with Dumbledore about this immediately."  Snape said, concern evident in his voice.  “It’s possible that you alerted the Dark Lord to your presence while you were there.”

Harry followed Snape back up the stairs to the living room.  With a wave of his wand, Snape summoned several sealed envelopes and put them in his pocket, preparing to leave.  “I will most likely be gone for several hours.  Do not attempt to empty your mind again or do anything that might initiate another vision.  Fire call Dumbledore immediately if you feel that anything is off.”

Harry nodded, numbly watching as Snape made it to the door, before turning back a final time, “And Potter?”

“What?”

“If I am not back by lunch, find something to eat.”