Chapter 7 ~

A/N: Thank you to everyone who is reading, and I pray you, please enjoy, and I hope that you will stay. I am on vacation at the moment, so my limited access to the internet may interfere with slightly, but not in the overall updating process or schedule.

A special thank-you to Hazeldragon, my lovely reviewer.

Cheers everyone.

{Disclaimer: All rights belong to JKR}

-The spell Indigo Inmesical shall be explained soon.

- Minor editing changes continue. This is a work in progress honed to my heart's desire.

-No Slash.

Without giving any thought to what they were doing Harry imagined, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all broke into loud protests, although he noticed that Hermione only said a few words before falling quiet. Yet still, the reaction of the three surprised him very slightly. True, he did not want to take any more lessons in Occlumency with Snape, and most especially not without any warning of the event ahead of time. Ron however did act out in a rather violent manner. Harry's eyes widened when he saw his balled hands at his sides. He tried to catch his friend's eye, but since he and Ginny were both yelling at Snape simultaneously he highly doubted that either one of them had noticed. He felt his heart sink. They were all going to get into more trouble than he could imagine. At this minute, he vaguely felt like putting a foot on top of Ron's own and pressing down hard. Snape looked absolutely livid. Hermione abruptly shut her mouth, glancing at Ron and Ginny nervously. After a full minute of silence, Snape said in a voice of deadly quiet,

"You three- upstairs." Harry had the distinct impression that a nasty swell of flesh inside his mouth caused the potions master to look down at all of them with such obvious disgust that, the three of them could have been one of his slimy experiments up on one of the shelves in his office. As though he had perhaps, bitten his tongue and his mouth now soured at the manifestation. He turned his lips in a sneer such as Harry never could have comprehended, his dark robes swishing towards the other direction, standing now as a rigid board right in front of him. He kept his eyes trained on the dark soles of Snape's boots, while Ron, Hermione, and Ginny finally slipped quietly away from their designated areas, although they appeared reluctant to leave him alone. Harry felt somewhat touched by their concern, especially since he had not informed his best friends of the events surrounding his last Occlumency sessions to any extent. He understood that they did not know the full gist of what he had been through these last few days, and considering the fact that the entire Weasely family was probably in the middle of dangerous Order business at the moment, he couldn't help but to feel moved.

"Potter. It is necessary that you begin training immediately," Snape enumerated. Harry didn't really like this angle in front of the potions master, and wished that he was a bit taller, in that moment. "The Dark Lord has obviously broken into your defenses over the last three days, and Professor Dumbledore has therefore ordered me to continue teaching you where we had left off in the previous year." His voice grew more curt and rapid. Harry scratched the back of his neck, trying to consider what Snape was telling him. His legs felt slightly wobbly. He wondered somewhere, in the back of his mind, whether or not he would actually be able to hold up if Snape were to break into his mind. It was not a pleasant thought. Other thoughts swirled around in his head that all entailed him falling in the most gruesome ways underneath Snape's wand, providing him with a shudder. He watched him carefully upon bringing his head out of this picture, which presented nothing that could be deemed pleasant. Snape's dark tunnels were trained on him. Harry felt like his every move was being scrutinized. He dared not move a muscle.

"What makes Professor Dumbledore think that Voldemort will try to break into my mind while we are here?" Harry asked him, while Snape bared his teeth at his use of the Dark Lord's name. "Wouldn't it be easier to just- I dunno- provide the house with extra layers of shield charms or something? Besides," he added quickly, hoping that he would get his sentence out before he was interrupted, "with all of this Odgen character's odd levels of desires, and er- tastes," he said, looking around at the room at large, his eye catching on one of the pink armchairs next to him, "don't you think it would be easier if we just used some of the enchantments already placed on this house, and tweaked, or maybe enhanced them a bit?" Harry said this in a rush, quickly voicing some of the ideas that had been on his mind ever since they had arrived at this location. He hoped against hope that Snape would consider what he had said. The man in question simply stared at him for a moment.

"While that is all very interesting Potter, protective enchantments alone are not enough to keep someone with a direct connection to the Dark Lord's mind from invading their thoughts and gaining access to their memories. The incident you had with the Dark Lord that occurred last year, as well as the hallucinations you experienced at Spinner's End are proof of his ability to work through any kind of magical enforcement in an external category." His words sounded ominous to Harry, who felt his heart sink into his gut. He had been aware, of course, that Hogwarts must have had magical protection, though he still thought that perhaps another option might have presented itself.

"We are here, Potter," Snape said softly, observing him carefully, "because you did not have any type of protection from the Dark Lord against mind attacks when we resided at Spinner's End. This was due to your weakened state of course, but in addition to your depleted physical energy from Seraphina's attack on your system, you were also in a state of your own magic, which begged that others . . . " Harry looked up at Snape with a start, while he paused. His face was an inscrutable mask, and he had no idea what was going through his mind, "who had been in the vicinity potentially, when your cousin gave precious information away, when the blood wards broke, also had some connection to you." The look he was giving him was odd. The wheels in Harry's head were turning a mile a minute. He recalled Dolohov's visit to Snape earlier, as well as all he could remember that he had explained about the breakdown of the blood wards protecting him within the Dursley's residence. "Dumbledore presumes," he said, speaking in a low tone now, "that because the blood wards have, as he put it, turned against your safety, that it has become easier for the Dark Lord and his followers to gain access to your mind." Harry was quiet.

"But then, why did we move locations?" he said after a moment. "If he can get into my head than that means proximity well, shouldn't matter, right?" Snape was tracing the bottom half of his lip with his middle finger.

"No," he said, "that is not what it means. Proximity matters in magic, Potter. Time and space are important. While you still retain a connection with the Dark Lord's mind, you are less likely to gain any kind of access to it, or vice versa, when in another environment than that has many protective spells and magic which is similar to that which he utilizes. The protection to your own body has weakened, while the Dark Lord's connection with you has, apparently, strengthened." Harry went rock still, while his entire body went frozen, like a vine, climbing all the way up through his nervous system, which made him unable to do anything other than stand there. It shouldn't really have been a surprise, if he were completely honest with himself. But even in this state, a question bobbed to the surface of his mind, through its clutter.

"Why are we safer here?" he asked hollowly. "Why are the spells here less potent than those at your house?"

"They are less sensitive to the Dark Lord because they are not spells which he has ever used," Snape said promptly. "The Headmaster has chosen the dwelling of one of his oldest friends, who he assumed would not use dark magic, but just the opposite."

"So it's less likely that he'll be able to reach me from this location?" Harry muttered to himself, still trying to work it all out. Suddenly his eyes went wide. "But the Order!" he cried. "Why have headquarters been moved here if Dumbledore knows- "

"He also assumed that if you were surrounded by members of the Order of the Phoenix, that it would help to strengthen the protection of which he speaks." His breathing had taken on a shallow murmur that rose up and down, but even as his chest went in, and out, he could not absorb that last sentence. Shadows crawled out from different corners of the strange house in order to grip his soul, and try as he might, struggling knew only turmoil in Harry Potter. He had never become so intimately acquainted, with a feeling in his life, or at least not for a very, very long time. Reigning down upon him with a weight so great, the heavy lead inside him wanted to drag him into the Earth below, into the shadows, so that he would never again see light. How could he have allowed this? A pregnant pause took all of his energy, in that lax moment. Time had slowed down just for him. He stared down at his hands, trying to fight the strangling hold of guilt threatening to choke him. To his immense chagrin, he felt his eyes began to burn, but he blinked hard several times, desperately seeking to regain control-

Snape scrutinized him after he had finished speaking, and the study was one that no one could explain. Harry did not dare look anywhere but down in his lap, while he listened to the soft hooting noises of an owl somewhere in the far depths of the house, perhaps in a corner that he hadn't yet examined. He simply sat there. Snape, turned and swept away while the blackness of the night covered the windows, and raindrops could be heard softly pattering against the wooden boards of which the house trembled beneath. Harry wondered how indeed the wood had not melted beneath all the pressure that Odgen's place had been forced to weather. His eyelids started to droop, for his well being had been, somehow once again underneath his oblivious state of mind, since preoccupation with other items had caused him to subject the pain into nonexistence- but now he licked his lips, watching as Snape revolved around the room upon grabbing onto the back of the pink chair in front of him. That blasted chair.

"You are aware Potter, that this must be accomplished in the small amount of time which we have to peruse." Harry could not decipher any additional meanings to this statement, nor could he pull from Snape's manner anything beyond what words had flown through his ears, save for one notion. Snape's back portrayed a rippling black shield. Harry breathed deeply, trying to consider his options. He found none. "You mean that before the Order returns, I need to learn how to defend myself against his mental attacks?" He took a deep swallow.

"That is correct essentially Potter." His mouth turned to sand. The air in the room swelled with saturated water outside the house, rather than within the space between himself and his potions professor. In fact, water flooded his ears, making him wish that for a small time, he could walk out into that storm. Hit bit on his lip. For all of the pain he felt, his physical body did not mean anything, because he shook his head, ignoring the shake of his limbs, at something terribly incomprehensible. Snape whipped around. The silence in the room cut between the two of them, as well as every other strange eccentric cut out in the soft, dark, light, flaunting a blaring pigment or a silver instrument, each piece of the owner demonstrating the uniqueness of the house, and the reason for their presence here. Harry rubbed his knuckles on the left hand subconsciously with his right one, snapping his eyes up.

"Teach me then." The black eyes glittered strangely in that sallow face. He locked eyes with Snape, but what he saw, he couldn't fathom. His body rippled with determination, fear went throughout the motion of that stream working its way into his system as well, and he did not deny it. Pincer-like grips of a mean spider with cutting legs made of sharp, jagged scissors. To him, the only thing that mattered was this very moment. He did not know why. He did not know all of the details. He knew not what danger his friends and family were currently in, but it was imminent and all-consuming, so the snarl that he may or may not receive meant nothing, because Harry did not care. Whoever must teach him to occlude, would be the one to teach him Occlumency against Lord Voldemort and the tricks invading his mind. If it had to be Snape then, as much as Harry dreaded what was to come, he knew with certainty that only one choice remained.

"Close your mind Potter," Snape said softly, his tone starkly dangerous. "Let go of all emotion." Harry slowly nodded. Wiping a shaking hand across his forehead to remove a damp portion of his sleeve directly afterwards, he attempted to ignore the sweat streaming down his face, which he now felt languidly dripping down his body like the rain he heard outside of the windows. He concentrated on nothing, on the blackness before his eyes. Since the entire room had succumbed to an extremely dim light he did not find this to be that difficult. "On the count of three, then, Potter." A sharp pause drove through his now foggy brain as a tool that only Snape could use through a snakelike hiss plying into his head. "I trust that these lessons will not take the turn they took last time, Potter." Harry waited, the muscles in his neck tensing in a steady pulsation of a heart pounding almost deftly. "Enough. One, two, three- Legilimens!"

The onslaught of the attack brought him up short, since the memories swam around in the manner of an object charmed. He felt that he had been suspended in air for a second longer than he should have, only watching the events from his childhood fly into a space that he couldn't fathom, while he saw the spell but hung back, removed from his own life as it went by him, spinning out of Snape's incantation. That only lasted, until a cupboard closed around him for the first time. He heard his own voice being ripped out of his throat from a point that no longer seemed far away. He was a four year old, screaming to be released.

Although he didn't know how he pulled himself out of the cupboard, a wand clutched in his own hand waved furiously around the room, until he could see more than the shadowy darkness into which his uncle had thrown him into. He was aware of fear, and a trembling in his fingers as the wand vibrated slightly with his magic, but nothing else, nothing until he finally saw Odgen's entire living room once again. Realizing his surroundings were not of that memory, he gritted his teeth, focusing on the potions master, who now had developed into more than a silhouette. Vision cleared, he cried loudly,

"Protego!" The words took on their own beauty as the room ignited with a red blasting the pushed Harry out of his own head. He shook it from side to side in relief of the dark measure taken in his brain, since Snape had forced something terrible, that he did not understand completely as of yet, to be reborn within him. That he needed to push aside for now however. He looked up only to be jolted out of recollecting the worst time of his life at the Dursleys to see Snape scowling, although growling perhaps suited the description better. A nasty welt crossed his wrist, climbing up into the crook of his elbow, which he rubbed hard with the fingers of his left hand.

"You- didn't mean to produce a stinging hex, did you Potter?" he asked him tightly.

"Um . . . no." Snape let out a low hiss.

"That was adequate, Potter," he said finally. "But you did not repel me with your mind. Close it again, concentrating. That's it . . . " he enumerated silkily. "We are going to try again, Potter. One, two, three- Legilimens!"

Swirling, tumultuous, cloudy remnants from his past came up to find him once more. Harry closed his eyes tightly shut, without realizing the action had been taken. He was not aware of himself, or his body. He floated throughout his own life, glaring through a glass bauble that reminded him of Dobby for some reason, until he recognized the bobbing Christmas ornament as one of the sparkling gems that Hogwarts had proudly flaunted before students when the Christmas trees had been erected. He saw them for the first time in his first year at Hogwarts. All of Uncle Vernon's capitalizing efforts could never have created such a tree or bought the garland and the many layers of strings, lighting décor or instruments that should go necessarily unnamed, that he had never seen save in such a place where magic abounded so fresh and sparkly. He reached out with a hand to touch and, perhaps simply stare at the silver bauble in front of him, for what reason he did not know. Harry felt like the little bobbing orb- but wait. No, no, this was not to be his true first Christmas, and he would not relive it now. His friends were in danger. At the thought, fear flooded through his body. Acting reflexively, he cried,

"Indigo Imnesical!" He gasped out, regardless of that Snape had no ears that could hear the exclamation, due to the plunging he had taken into his memories. While Harry hung back in the shadows of a room with a dark violet color splashed crudely over the walls, he licked his lips as though he were a fly, wishing that he was a fly when a skinny, pale teen with long black hair hanging limply around his shoulders walked into the space, shutting the door. He had never visited this room in Snape's memories the first and the only time he had broken into his defenses.

"How dare you." A menacing growl wafted into the room behind the teenage Snape, who sat on the bed near the far end of the corner diagonal from Harry's quiet observation. He wouldn't be seen or heard. The shelf next to his left elbow housed two small sailboats made from paper-mache, held together with wooden sticks. When he leaned back he saw them with a jolt of surprise, that made him start after his initial shock, because he didn't realize that every item in the room had no tangible connection to him. He couldn't feel any of it.

"I never said anything about it," the teenager said in a silky voice, much similar in tone to the real Severus Snape in Odgen's house. Involuntarily, Harry shrunk into the crevice of the wall behind him into the corner that he didn't actually touch. A large man with four to seven chins barreled into the room behind Snape, his black eyes cold, snapping onto the boy, to the window, and then back once more to the boy. He stumbled several times. Harry thought that, strange to note, this man somehow looked exactly like him. Of course. The man was Snape's father, without a question.

"What do you mean you never told?" His speech slurred between the two of them, and was perhaps the reason for which Snape wrinkled his nose, since more emitted from the lack of speech form than the inability to say words correctly. A stench had now crept up into the arena, to permeate around them.

" You didn't mean working for that company wasn't enough to provide income enough." Snape spoke in a low, eerie tone. "Mother came home the other week requesting that you provide her with the disability check. You didn't give it to her . . . " He quirked an eyebrow into the face of the hooked-nosed man, now inches away from his person. Unconsciously Harry sucked in his breath as he watched the scene unfold. But in the space of that occurrence, the scene began to dissolve.

"Are you implying that the company gave the money to me, and I spent it?" An ugly, purplish flush suffused the pale man's face, his breaths labored yet somehow stretched out over the course of listening to what Snape had said, while even still, the beady black eyes drilled into his son's stoic, implacable features. Snape's inscrutable expression molded away into darkness . . .

A girl now ran, tripping over the hem of her black robes that reached just past her trainers, into the trees beyond the patch of meadow she had just streaked across, bumbling and weaving into the thick of the now cooling environment of a forest. She glanced around quietly, before picking up the hem of her robe into the clutch of a small fist, walking down to a small stream that Harry spotted betwixt the brambles and wide trunks in front of him. Shaking his head to orient himself in the new memory, he attempted to follow the red-haired girl, looking around for Snape, since he knew that he must be somewhere within the vicinity. He soon saw a dark figure cutting through the other side of the river, and he immediately locked his eyes upon the greasy haired boy. Snape couldn't have been older than eleven or twelve in this one, he thought to himself.

"Severus!" He knew that voice. As soon as the words formed from Snape's mouth in order to affirm his notion, he knew it was his mother. When Snape found a pathway of makeshift rocks of various sizes, he quickly crossed to the side Lily had traveled. She sat down on the grass while waiting. Harry scrutinized his mother carefully, relishing the sight of her wide green eyes. The flowing red hair adorning her head cascaded down her shoulders, making its own elegant flow of length down her chest, providing a surprisingly dignified appearance to one so young. The boy-Snape lowered himself to the same spot, pulling the hem of his own wizard robes up past worn out trainers that were now sodden from his dip in the water, albeit that they had a moth-eaten, gray look to them suggesting previous abuse.

"I wanted to give you this," said Lily in a soft voice, and Harry noticed that her eyes demonstrated expectation of some kind. The boy averted his eyes. While Snape's black hair fell over his long face in strands that were greasy and unkempt, he mulled over what she was saying. The pallid face, more serene than Harry could have imagined, didn't truly seem to belong to the same person.

"Alright. Alright, Lily. I'll take it." And, before Harry could see what his mother pulled out of his pocket, the memory had evaporated.

Back in his own mind, he shot a look across the room. Severus Snape, the potions master, panted heavily in a bend that halfway to the floor lent him a frightening scope. Dread had taken over Harry's brain, as well as curiosity. An image swam before him of a boy with lanky hair, an inexplicable, but soft gaze. He could not correlate the two people, and it felt like a fly was swimming around up there somewhere, so that soon he would not to wake himself from these strange- imaginings.

Snape made a move to stand, but although his shoulders shook very slightly he did not give any type of acknowledgement, except for the straightening of the heavy robes he wore. The sweat on his brow indicated that Harry would in a moment be deeply distressed by the experiences he had undergone were he comparing prior events to those present. He understood that in a minute's time he would pay for what had just taken place. No, though. Time to think about his friends, and the Order. Surely Snape would allow him to concentrate on the task, or so he hoped that such would be the case. His own body was shaking.

"That was certainly better than usual Potter," Snape said in an abrupt tone which made him wary, after having finished with his bodily reorganization. "Let us try again, shall we?" His black eyes pooled into the depths of Harry's own, but Harry forced himself to meet his gaze, swallowing hard. The memories unnerved him, most especially the depiction of his mother. What had she been doing wallowing around in Snape's thoughts? He wondered. She couldn't have belonged there?

"Once again, then. On the count of three. One, two, three- Legilimens!" This round happened much too soon, for Harry was not ready when Snape raised his wand. He had a visual of a girl with red hair and bright, green eyes, which immediately sculpted into another tall woman with bright green eyes, singing softly. He could see her face, although the picture was vaguer than usual, but he could tell that it was his mother. Recognition dawned sooner than he would have liked, since no longer lived that memory in his mind Lily Evans dominated in sweet serenity. It turned darker. 'Stand aside, girl, now, stand aside.' Fear now coursed through Harry's veins in a cold, chilled ice-box that he'd roughly fallen into. He swallowed compulsively several times in succession while leaning against a wall that never touched him, again, not understanding the dream-like semblance running through his view. Previously he had heard only the voices of his parents during the dementor attacks when they had plied open this memory, but now he saw the description. No, he couldn't watch. Bile rose within his throat at the sight of the languid woman with the stormy red hair, rocking him. The child Harry had opened his eyes wide at the new voice he could hear.

'Stand aside. I'm going to give you one last chance, now.' His mother screamed, simultaneously imploring in her tone, to Lord Voldemort. 'Please.' Her voice was cracking. 'Please no. I'll do anything. Take me instead. Not Harry, please, please not Harry.' The cold, cruel voice of Lord Voldemort fitted his snake-like eyes, and now Harry clearly saw the familiar white face, and the last thing that his mother had ever faced directly before her death. He turned away, feeling as though he were choking off, somehow, while his air-valves protested against movement. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't move-

He opened his eyes to a white, starry ceiling above him, covered in blue and pink dots spinning about in an odd figure, while flowers danced and teased those revolving enchantments. He could not breathe, so strange it was that he'd just relived that, since the fluid time never had stopped, carrying with it that inability to draw air. Would he suffocate? Now he breathed easier, but still needed some more air to draw into his shaking limbs, or perhaps just some comprehension. He gave a great sigh. Finally he knew where they were. They were situated at Odgen's place, signified by the great, looming sign painted in bright, shiny pink that miraculously made an entrance of enigma over the stairwell . . . he had certainly never noticed it before-

"Snape!" He hadn't spoken that aloud in his perception, but a moment later he knew that such a dream would have been only too good to be true. Snape looked furious, and Harry bit his tongue. "I'm- "

His face was as white as Lord Voldemort's. His eyes were livid, and dark. Yet a missing element caused Harry to wonder at what quality exactly he hadn't caught. And then it hit him, far too soon. An idea revolved around in his head, but he did not want to go near it. The implications were more than he could presently handle. Harry looked down at the floor, not remembering what had put him in a spread-eagle work or unceremonious art sprawled across the carpet. He wiped a brow across his forehead. He did not make an attempt to move.

"Potter, how did that last memory come to be inside your head?" Snape asked him. Harry looked at the potions master. He noticed then that Snape was sweating profusely, and that his face was much paler than usual. He regarded Harry with an indecipherable expression in the pools of a snake pit, deep and black, fathomless.

"I don't know," he said weakly, still trembling from the effects the last memory had evoked. He felt nauseas. If he were perfectly honest with himself, he truly had no idea at all as to how he had gleaned a clear picture of his worst memory. In two, or perhaps three, strides, Snape crossed over to him, reached down, and pulled him roughly to his feet. Harry swayed, momentarily. He swiped his robed arm across his face once again. When the fabric came away, they bore tear stains as well. He quickly bent over and tried to wipe the tears discreetly. He hadn't even realized that he had been crying.

When Snape rather jerkily shook him onto the couch, he did not protest. Hatred for Snape boiled in his gut that tremulously moved throughout his system as a snake gently but poisonously slithering inside. He had known Harry's mother, and then he had betrayed information to Lord Voldemort betraying her. The entirety of his family had been vanquished because of him, save for the Dursleys, but then that really did not say all that much. Panting, with the rage threatening to spill over into the air around him like crackling magic, he finally found that he couldn't fight anymore. Sirius was gone. Everyone in the world that could have served as a guardian for Harry was dead. A niggling voice in the back of his mind told him that it was his fault Sirius was dead, but he ignored that deduction. Harry really did not care whether he hadn't practiced Occlumency last year, or that the reason the closest people that had ever been a family of substitution had left to fight against Lord Voldemort tonight, in some way or another one.

He kept his head lowered, staring into his clenched hands, willing away his anger. Weariness spread into his very bones. Snape had arrived at a small desk on the other side. Harry could see nothing but a sea of black, which had been in those memories he'd seen the same black billows. He should concentrate on the task at hand, though. Yet he needed to know, more importantly, what his mother had given Snape. He tried to steady himself, to pool himself back to center, but desperation spared with a burning curiosity.

"What did my mother give you?" Harry asked him through gritted teeth. Snape turned. His black eyes filled with a furious glitter, the likes of which Harry had never seen. He almost retracted the question at the expression on Snape's face. It was worse than that of Voldemort's in his worst temper, although he couldn't figure out why. A curious gleam emanated his pallid features, flanked by the hair which sculpted a clear cut straight from the image swimming into Harry's vision of his mother sitting with the young Snape, at the lake. Those black eyes had been averted. He didn't understand it.

"Curious, Potter. Curious indeed." He emphasized the last word, enjoying withholding the information, gloating, in Harry's opinion, over the precious piece that he desperately need to add to the puzzle. He balled his fists tighter.

"What did she give you?" Harry was shaking now, feeling sick from either the effects of the breaking of the memory shields, or his apparition several hours ago. The thundering in his head grew by the minute, raging in a loud reverberation of drums clanging together at once. Snape's lips were a tight, white line. "I don't believe that this is of any concern to you," he said softly. His eyes were roving up and down over Harry's form. Feeling as though he were about to burst, he suddenly cried,

"I want to know what she gave you, and why you betrayed her!" Snape's face went even paler. "I know that you gave Lord Voldemort information about her whereabouts! She trusted you!" He cried, his voice tearing. Snape's eyes widened marginally. Harry fingered his wand delicately, reading himself and its magic in the case that he decided to retaliate. Yet another deduction that he ignored inadvertently, as Snape disarmed him deftly.

"Hey!"

"Sit down, Potter," Snape snarled, as Harry struggled to arise from the couch. He stared at him from across the room, standing against the wall, with both of his arms crossed. Harry's eyes darted towards his right hand, where the two sticks of magic revolved between his thin fingers. He waited with bated breath, sensing that Snape was capitulating in an odd way. Nothing could have lead him to believe that the greasy boy in the memory was the etched-out man of black, with lines creased into a face that appeared eerie in a parchment-colored light. He stood completely still, the magical bulb of ghostly light wrapping around the oily hair. A figure cut out in the pinky yellow wall of Odgen's fancies. Snape had glanced swiftly to the wands in his hand, making Harry somehow nervous. He stared at the potions master, hard, moving to the edge of the couch, his hand clipping the cushions tightly. Perhaps he would finally get some answers now . . .

When Snape shot him a cursory glance, he moved his left arm meticulously over the right one, smoothly resting both hands over the wands. Slowly, he drew his arm over his chest. His sallow face tinged by a dark ferocity, Snape whispered a silent incantation.

"Expecto Patronum."

A silver doe gracefully bounded over to him, before whisking away, like a ghost or spirit passing by with fluid ease into the night.