A/N: Sorry it took me so long to get this chapter up... lots of stuff happening...and writer's block... but without further ado...
Breakdown
A few days had passed since the initial Occlumency lesson. They had several more lessons, and Snape had extracted several more disturbing memories from the mind of Harry. Snape was brooding over some of the more disturbing memories when Harry came in for his daily Occlumency lesson. Every day was the same. Snape penetrated Harry's mind, extracted images and stopped when Harry asked him to. They did not appear to be getting anywhere, Harry was not getting better. Today appeared to be no different. Harry knocked at the door and Snape bid him enter.
"Good morning Professor Snape."
"Morning Potter."
They both sat for a little bit eyeing each other warily. Neither trusted the other, but to learn Occlumency there must be some level of trust to be productive. Harry sat down in the familiar leather chair.
"Today we are going to start out a little differently." Harry's head shot up in surprise. "You are not learning as fast as you should be, so I want you to start by examining all of your emotions closely and finding the memories associated with these emotions. It is only by knowing your own mind will you be able to block others out." Harry was surprised by civil tone that Snape was using. "I will be back in an hour, use your time wisely." With that Snape got up and went to his potions lab to work on a simple potion for Madame Pomfrey.
Harry sat in silence shocked at what he was being asked to do. He didn't want to look at his memories, he wanted to forget all about them, repress them. He knew that was not a healthy way of dealing with things, but he really didn't care. He had given up on hope, given up on love, given up on life. So he sat for about 15 minutes before deciding to look at some of his memories. He decided to look at the shortest list first, feelings of love. His first memory was of Mrs. Weasley. She had always treated him like a son; she had sent him a Christmas present before she even knew him. After thoughts of Mrs. Weasley came thoughts of Sirius and with those thoughts came silent tears. Feelings of worthlessness, pain and sorrow came unbidden with these memories. His thoughts lingered on Sirius for the remainder of his time.
When Snape came in he noticed the tear stains on Harry's cheeks but refrained from saying anything. He cleared his throat to announce his presence to Harry. Harry hastily wiped his eyes with his sleeves.
"I hope that your time was used wisely. I will give you a minute to clear your mind and then we will start." If Harry noticed the gentler voice from Snape, he did not acknowledge it.
Harry took in a deep breath, closed his eyes and slowly let the breath out. "I'm ready sir."
Snape looked into Harry's eyes and quietly said the spell. Instantly memories started to flash in front of his mind. Snape could feel the pain, the fear and the self-loathing. The memories started with Sirius falling through the veil and moving on into the summer. He saw memories of Harry's uncle beating him, he saw his cousin throwing him down the stairs and his aunt hitting him in the head with a frying pan. Then the last memory was of his cousin coming into his room and tying him to his bed in a spread eagle on his stomach. The worst part was that Harry was naked.
"STOP! Get out of my mind, please leave me be." Harry screamed out. It was obvious what happened in that last memory.
"Harry did your cousin rape you?" Snape asked quietly.
"Sir, please, I am not feeling well, may I please go to my room." Harry thought that he was going to be sick.
Snape was going to have none of it though. "No, you can not leave yet. You need to talk about these memories or you will never get past them."
"Please, I do not want to talk about this, please let me go to my room, please?" Harry was so distraught that he was begging. This was the one secret that he wanted to keep as that, a secret. Now his most hated professor knew and probably thought that it was his fault, that he had asked for it, and why not? Everything was his fault.
Harry decided that he didn't care if he was excused or not, he was not staying in that room any longer. He quickly got out of his chair and ran to the door, but when he got there the door would not budge. It had been locked. Harry started to panic. After the summer he had had, he could not stand to be locked in a room.
Snape noticed that Harry was panicking and that he had started to hyperventilate. He realized what he had done by locking the door.
"Harry listen to me" Snape commanded, "Stop panicking and take a deep breath, now let it out slowly. I am going to unlock the door, but I want you to promise not to run away, do you promise?" Harry nodded his head quickly. Snape unlocked and opened the door. Harry slowly started to relax; tears were still running down his face.
"I know this is hard Harry, but I really need to know what happened this summer. You are not able to deal with it on your own, and I have experience dealing with these kinds of issues. I need you to trust me and to talk to me. Can you do this?" Snape said all of this in a soothing tone of voice.
"I-I don't know if I can Professor." Harry admitted quietly. Realization dawned on him, "You called me by my first name."
Snape smiled his first true smile in a long time. "Yes, I suppose I did. How about you come back and have a seat and we can talk about some things for a bit?"
Harry slowly made his way back to his chair and sunk into it. "Will you leave the door open please?" He asked in a small voice.
"Yes, but I need you to promise that you will not continue to run away."
Harry sighed, "alright, but I can't guarantee that I will talk."
"Fair enough. Harry can you tell me about that last memory? The one with your cousin in it."
"This past year my cousin came to the realization that he was gay. He didn't want to come out of the closet, so to speak, but he wanted some 'action'. He decided that I was just right for that and assumed that because I am a wizard that I must be gay. Don't ask me how he came to that conclusion, but he did. My uncle finally caught him, and I thought that I would finally be free, but my uncle blamed me. He said that I was the one that caused my cousin to act this way and that I must have jinxed him or something. It caused him to give me one of the worst beatings in my life." Harry was talking very softly, almost in a whisper. If it hadn't been for Snape's years as a spy he wouldn't have been able to understand a thing.
"You know that we can press charges on your cousin and Uncle Harry." Snape didn't get much farther than this before Harry broke in.
"NO! I can't do that; it would be all over the front page of the Daily Prophet. Boy-Who-Lived beaten and raped by his family. I can't sir, I can't, I can't." Harry had started to pace but by the end had crumpled to his knees sobbing two words, I can't. This tugged on Snape's heart and he could feel the ice around it starting to melt for the boy-who-carried-the-world. Snape did something he never thought he would do. He walked over to where Harry was, sat down, pulled Harry onto his lap and circled his arms around him comforting him.
"Shh Harry, it will all work out in time." Snape was rocking back and forth by now.
"IT'S NOT GOING TO WORK OUT! I can't do this anymore; I don't want to be Harry bloody Potter anymore. I don't want to be the one destined to vanquish Voldemort, hell; I don't even want to live anymore. I just want to give up." Harry tried to leave Snape's embrace, but he just held tight and kept rocking. The tears continued to fall down Harry's face and ice around Snape's heart continued to melt.
"Harry, I know this hard. Right now your life is not going well. But let me help."
"How? How can you help? How can anyone help? No one can help me anymore; I don't even know that I want to be helped." Harry said the last part so quietly that Snape almost didn't catch it.
"Let me help by talking, by letting me be here for you. I know that I have been a horrible person, and I am sorry Harry. Truly I am, I could not see past the image of your father, but I do now. I see you. I don't see Harry Potter, boy-who-lived, I see Harry a boy going through life in pain. There is pain that I have contributed and I wish I could take back everything I said, I do. But, there is no way to change the past, but we can move forward." Snape continued rocking without saying anything, just letting Harry cry. Eventually he realized that Harry had cried himself to sleep clutching his robes. He gave a small smiled and picked up the small man and brought him to his room. Snape laid him on his bed and tucked him in like a small child; Harry curled up on his side and gave a content sigh in his sleep. Snape brushed the hair off of his face and said, "Sleep well Harry, we are moving forward." With that he left room.
