"Now, Mister Potter, occlumency is one of the most difficult and obscure areas of magic. Most never attempt to learn it, and of those who do, few master it. According to the headmaster, it is of critical importance that you master it, despite my insistence that you are incapable of such skilled-"
"And this, Snivellus, is exactly why I will be attending Harry's occlumency lessons with him." Sirius said, interrupting Snape's opening lecture from his seat beside his son. "Get on with it."
Harry tried to keep a straight face, but couldn't help but smirk a little at the way Snape's lips thinned in anger at his father.
"As I was saying, Potter, it's a very difficult branch of magic. You need to let go of all emotion and just focus on keeping my force out. Since Black has so much confidence in your abilities, let's begin." Snape said, a smug grin appearing over his features.
"You didn't even explain-" Sirius started angrily, only to be cut off by Snape.
"Now, now, who's running the lesson here?" Snape said, before pointing his wand at Harry and crying "legilimens!"
Harry's mind was immediately infiltrated and before he knew it, old memories from his childhood were flashing before his eyes. Aunt Marge's dog chasing him up the tree, being locked in a cupboard without food for a few days, being strangled by Uncle Vernon-
"NO!" Harry cried, falling to his knees. He panted heavily, and felt his dad rubbing his back soothingly. He could hear Snape and Sirius bickering with one another, but he was more concerned with Snape seeing him at his weakest, against his bully of an uncle.
Once he caught his breath, Harry looked up to see Snape rubbing his arm agitatedly. "Did you mean to produce a stinging hex, Potter?" Snape spat at the boy.
Harry clenched his teeth. "No."
"No sir." Snape corrected.
Harry wasn't sure why he said it - perhaps it was that Snape had just seen his absolute worst memory, or maybe it was a build up of the past four years of mistreatment from his least favorite professor; regardless, Harry would later come to view this slip-up as a big mistake.
"There's no need to call me 'sir,' Professor." Harry said, defiantly meeting Snape's icy cold gaze.
Sirius roared with laughter at his son, too caught up in the brilliance of the joke to notice Snape's change in posture. Harry was smiling back at his dad, and neither had time to react to Snape's spell.
"LEGILIMENS," Snape roared, casting a much more powerful spell than he had before.
Everything went black for Harry - then he was falling. Falling into a pit of blackness, yelling for someone to help him. He was no longer in reality where he had just been, but instead in the pits of his mind, unable to escape. Then he landed, hard, onto the ground. He was physically five years old, and couldn't remember what he was just thinking, but he was scared, absolutely terrified of huge man in front of him.
"Told the teacher you slept in a cupboard, boy? Thought you would get some sympathy?" His uncle spat at him angrily, advancing on him.
The small boy trembled and backed further into the wall, trying with all his might to get away from the closed fists that were threatening him. His cousin Dudley, also five years old, was in the corner, laughing at him.
"Well, it's not going to do any good!" His uncle continued, moving closer and grabbing Harry by his shirt collar. "No one cares about you, you're a worthless freak. You don't deserve a bedroom or sympathy!"
Spit flew on Harry's face and he started tearing up. "I-I'm s-s-"
A sharp smack stopped Harry in his tracks - it didn't really do much damage, but it stung, and made the child cry harder.
"You're not leaving your cupboard for the rest of the week!" Vernon yelled, moving into the hallway and shoving the boy inside. "You will tell your teacher tomorrow at school that you have a huge bedroom, and that we do our best for you. Understood?"
"Y-yes," the child mumbled, curling up in a ball on his cot, cheek still warm from the smack he had just received. He closed his eyes as his uncle slammed the door on him and then, he was falling again, but his body still ached from the last fall and his cheek still hurt from his Uncle's anger. Now he was seven years old and running as fast as his little legs could carry him, despite the pain in his legs from the impact of hitting the ground. He couldn't remember what he was just thinking, but now he knew he was scared, he didn't want to get hurt by his cousin Dudley and he had to outrun him, get away from him.
"Think you can run, Freak?" Dudley yelled. Dudley was too fat to catch his cousin, but his best friend Piers was much smaller and quicker, and before Harry knew it, he had been tackled to the ground hard. The concrete cut against his knees as he fell, but he couldn't shout out because Piers had covered his mouth with his hand. Once Dudley caught up to him, he began to shower him with hard, powerful kicks to his ribcage. Harry screamed and cried, trying to get out of Piers' grasp so he could call for help. They were in the driveway of Privet Drive, if only Aunt Petunia or Vernon would come outside - they normally didn't care if Dudley beat on Harry, but perhaps if the neighbor's saw they would care enough to make him stop until they got inside - at least Harry could make a break for his cupboard that way.
Harry felt one kick bruise his ribcage badly and tears were running down his eyes and finally, he was falling again, but his ribcage and his cheek and his body still hurt so badly. This fall was different though, distantly he could hear a voice. The voice sounded angry, and Harry cringed away from it as his body grew to the age of eleven. However, something about the voice sounded familiar, and Harry tried to latch onto it, even as the darkness changed into another swirling memory.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HIM?" The voice yelled angrily, a twinge of panic in it. "STOP!"
But soon the voice was forgotten and Harry had landed again, feeling all the aches and pains, but not sure where they had come from. Surrounding him was the room in which the Sorcerer's Stone was hidden, and in front of him was Professor Quirrel. Quirrel was advancing on him, and Harry turned to run, only to be faced by a wall of fire.
"KILL HIM!" The voice of Voldemort yelled, and then Harry felt fingers closing around his throat, choking the life out of him. This combined with the medley of other pains erupting in his body was getting to be too much, but he took what little power he had left and placed his hands onto his professor's face. Harry could feel his magic draining out of him, weakening him and before he knew it, he was back in the darkness, feeling weaker and in more pain than he had ever felt in his life as he fell deeper and deeper, landing into the Chamber of Secrets in front of a young Tom Riddle.
Riddle used parseltongue to tell the basilisk to attack, and Harry was running, climbing up the chamber walls, trying to get away from the snake that wanted to kill him. He had pulled the Sword of Gryffindor out of the hat and was attempting to stab the snake, only to be bit himself by the poisonous fangs of the beast, adding another pain to all those that he had been feeling. His cheek was still stinging, his ribs still ached, his body felt so weak, and now a new, powerful pain had erupted in his arm, causing him to cry out as he fell again back into the darkness.
Then there was cold, lots of cold, and his godfather was lying in front of him by the lake, a mess of a man. The dementor's were closing in and Harry couldn't produce a patronus, and there was so much pain, and the cold was closing in and suffocating him, and all he could think was that he wanted to live with his godfather so badly it hurt his heart, adding to the mixture of pain he was still feeling.
Yet again, blackness engulfed him, but he was back at the Dursleys and he hadn't gotten much older. His godfather was there, but Harry didn't feel happy at the sight of the man - he dreaded it, dreaded the disappointment in his eyes. On top of all the other pain he was feeling, the heartbreak at telling his godfather goodbye while he was stuck with the Dursley's was the most prominent. Then, he knew what he had to do - he couldn't lie to Sirius.
"Harry, look me in the eyes and say you don't want to live with me." Sirius said, kneeling down in front of Harry.
"I can't… if I said that, it would be a lie, and I can't lie to you." Harry said, watching a smile form on Sirius's face before his uncle shouted.
"OH YOU'VE GOT IT COMING BOY." Vernon yelled, grabbing Harry around the neck and adding more pain to Harry's hurting body.
He was falling again, and the familiar voice was back, but this time it wasn't angry, it was pleading. He heard his name being called, but he didn't know why, and he couldn't remember why he was feeling so much pain, but he was and he was crying.
"Harry, puppy, please, you can do it, come back to me. You're scaring me, baby, wake up, please."
Puppy.
And then Harry remembered, he had been with his dad and Snape, and Snape had cast some sort of spell and now he was in so much pain because he was living his memories over and over again. He was physically in his worst memories, and he wasn't sure how, or why, but he knew he had to get out because he knew he couldn't deal with the next memories again.
Then he landed, and he tried hard to hang on to his thought process, but he was fourteen again and he was in the graveyard, and Cedric's dead body was lying beside him. He was staring up at a resurrected Voldemort with red, evil eyes, who was surveying him as if he were a feast to be eaten. He felt pain coursing through his entire body, and knew he couldn't handle the crucio's he was about to be cursed with - he had to get out. So he focused, let go of all his emotion, all the pain, and pushed as hard as possible, pushed away from the dark wizard in front of him and back into the darkness that engulfed him.
Then he was in his father's arms again, and he was crying, but he was finally back to the present and the pain had finally stopped - his eyes were open, and he met the kind grey one's above him before letting loose to the sobs that plagued his body.
Sirius hugged his son close - he had been terrified when Harry had appeared to become spastic in his arms. "What did you do to him?" Sirius growled at his old enemy.
Snape himself looked shaken, but he lifted himself up and met Sirius's eyes. "He learned occlumency, my work here is done." Snape began to leave, but Sirius used his wand to lock the door.
"No you don't, what did you do?" Sirius asked, his voice progressively getting louder.
Snape had the decency to look ashamed. "He will not have any problems with occlumency any longer. I used a rather… obscure branch of legilimency that causes the person to physically relive their worst memories - Harry basically has transformed from a four year old back to his current age through those memories. He felt every bit of pain from each of those while he was going through it, and eventually, the situation started to get desperate for him - this caused Harry to push me out entirely. He won't ever have problems doing this again, no matter the strength of the attack."
Sirius was livid - he went to put Harry down on the floor so he could punch Snape, but Harry's arms wrapped tightly around his neck with such desperation that Sirius didn't attempt to move again. "He had only tried it once! You didn't have to resort to such drastic measures, you didn't even warn him! That's how you drive someone insane!"
"I know the boy is completely incompetent, just like his father. I saved him a lot of trouble by getting it over with - he only had one lesson and now he mastered it." Snape said, though he didn't appear to be as harsh as his words implied.
"At what cost? Do you even realize what he's lived through? To go through that once is horrible, but to force someone to relive what he has - that's just inhumane." Harry whimpered and Sirius pulled his son closer to him. "Get out of my house. I'm telling Dumbledore what you did. Don't come back-"
"You can't kick me out-" Snape started angrily, his usual nasty self returning.
"I don't care about Dumbledore trusting you, this is my house and I want you to leave. Now. Get the hell out." Sirius snarled.
Snape stood up straight, then briskly walked out of the room, leaving a traumatized boy and his worried father to sort out the damage.
"Sirius, please, listen to reason-"
"I will not." Sirius said angrily, cutting off the headmaster. "Snape is not to return to Grimmauld Place, someone can relay the information to him at Hogwarts. You're lucky I don't pull Harry out of Hogwarts for this. It's gone on long enough, Harry's not James, and if Snape can't see that, then I don't want them around each other."
"This is headquarters though. Harry won't see Severus here-"
"I don't care, Albus! Did you know he might try that legilimency method on Harry when you asked him to teach him?" Sirius demanded, becoming angrier by the minute.
"No, that should have been a last resort if the other methods didn't work. I have taken care of Severus." Dumbledore said with a sigh.
"So you sacked Snivellus, then?" Sirius asked, a hint of accusation in his tone.
"Sirius." Dumbledore said, looking at his previous student disapprovingly.
"Look, I don't care what you do with your teachers, but Snape's not coming back here." Sirius said, a tone of finality to his voice that he used when he scolded Harry for something.
"Have you considered that Harry and you provoked him?" Dumbledore asked, quirking an eyebrow.
"I don't think that warrants what he did to Harry at all - especially without warning him. Not to mention, Snape started it! He called Harry incompetent before I said anything to him." Sirius said defensively.
Dumbledore sighed. "I was a fool. I should have known that the hate shared between Snape and you boys wouldn't be ignored over the importance of Harry learning occlumency."
Sirius felt that was unfair - if Snape hadn't provoked Harry, he would have kept his mouth shut during the lesson. He would have done anything to help his son, even be indifferent towards his childhood nemesis. Regardless, he shrugged. "Well, Harry has learned it, whether I like it or not. Now help me make my son feel better - he's cried all afternoon. I've never seen him so distraught, even after the tournament and watching Voldemort rise again. I finally got him to sleep an hour ago… I actually probably need to get back in there, he'll have a panic attack if I'm not near when he wakes up."
Dumbledore gave Sirius a sad look. "I don't think there's anything you can do, Sirius. Like you said, Harry's been through terrible things in his short life, and he's been forced to physically relive his worst memories. Just take it slow, give him dreamless sleep every once in a while, and encourage him the way you did after the tournament. He's stronger than anyone I've ever seen, he'll bounce back."
Sirius scowled. "He's very strong and brave, but there's a point where people snap Dumbledore - how much more can he take? I've failed him so much..."
Dumbledore looked taken aback. Then he moved over to the kitchen table, where Sirius was now sitting, fingering a bottle of firewhiskey. "Sirius, you've done the best you can - you being around for Harry has meant more to him than anything, you know that."
Sirius shook his head. "I was in the room with Snape and Harry and I couldn't even protect him from what Snape did - I was too late and now Harry's been… he's been… mind raped. I don't know how else to describe it."
"Sirius, Harry is more like you than I think you realize. Sure, he is like his father and mother as well, but you have really rubbed off on him since he started living with you - And you, Sirius, are one of the strongest students I have ever taught." Dumbledore said kindly, placing a hand on the man's shoulder.
Sirius rolled his eyes, but Dumbledore persisted. "You were abused as a child, just as Harry was, but you came to Hogwarts with more spirit and fire than any student I've seen in a long time. You lost almost all of your best friends at the age of 21, only six years older than Harry, and you were locked up unjustly for twelve years in what some describe as hell on Earth. You could have gotten your revenge on Pettigrew then left, not having a thing to do with Harry, who had guardians and seemingly didn't need you, but you didn't. You committed your life to a boy you barely knew, and you've loved him as much as James and Lily would have. They made a good decision when they picked you, they knew what they were doing. Your strength persevered through practically losing your soul. With you by his side, Harry's will too. Just wait and see."
With that, Dumbledore left Grimmauld Place, and Sirius returned upstairs to check on his son.
A/N: So I know this might be sort of confusing, I got the idea from another fan fiction piece I read. Basically it's the idea of making someone truly relive their worst memories, where they feel every bit of pain they had felt before in those memories - to get out, they have to remember who they are in the present and focus on that. The idea is that, if you can push out this strong of an attack, you can push out anything. So Harry has now learned occlumency... but at what cost? You'll have to find out! Sorry I haven't been updating as much, but I still plan to keep going with this story! Next chapter will focus more on the missions of Order members and Harry's healing before returning to Hogwarts. Please review and check out my other two stories! Thanks!
