Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to J.K. Rowling. I own nothing, make no money from anything, and am writing this purely for personal enjoyment.
AU. The story starts at the beginning of Harry's seventh year, but ignores the events of HBP. No parings, Snape mentors Harry. OC's, but they will not be the focus of the story.
A shorter chapter than usual, because of the holidays.
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"Oi, Harry! Wake up! You're going to be late for breakfast."
Harry groggily felt for his glasses and slipped them on. Ron's face came into focus.
"What time did you get in last night?"
"After midnight, I think," said Harry cautiously.
"I can't believe Snape gave you detention on the very first day. I mean, school hasn't even really started! What happened, anyway?"
"I bumped into him standing up from the table."
"Git."
"Yeah," agreed Harry wholeheartedly, concealing his grin. It was going to be okay.
The first day of lectures was its usual chaos, but Harry was comfortably between Hermione with her hissed instructions about the classes, and Ron with his whispered comments about everything but. Claiming his late night, Harry went to bed early and set a silent alarm for a half hour after curfew. He'd rather have given himself extra time to find his way back, but it was too risky to sneak out any earlier. Thankfully, armed with his invisibility cloak, his map and a few spells, he arrived at Snape's 'private dungeon' in good time. He paused uncertainly in front of the door, but decided it was probably best to knock.
"In!"
Harry slipped through, and closed the door behind him. Snape glanced up at the clock, but made no comment.
"Go through to the practice area. I will be with you shortly."
Harry walked over to the middle of the open space. He was looking forward to resuming occlumency about as much as Ron looked forward to a four-week fast, and the ground looked very hard. He rubbed the last sleep out of his eyes, and tried to prepare himself – Snape could come through that door at any minute. When Snape finally did, though, it was anticlimactic. He was still leafing through his papers and didn't even make eye contact as he ordered Harry to lie down on the floor. Desperate to postpone the lesson as long as possible, Harry cast about for a distraction.
"May I ask a question?"
Snape glared at him, but at length nodded.
"What?"
Umm... "You mentioned other mental arts. Are there more than just occlumency and legilimency?"
"Of course there are."
At Harry's continued blank look, Snape put down his notes and sighed.
"Simply put, the mental arts are these - legilimency is the art of reading thoughts, occlumency is the art of hiding them, parimency of creating, and abrogomency of removing."
"I thought you removed memories with obliviate."
"Obliviate is the wand equivalent and as such much easier. It however only acts on large blocks of memory. More to your tastes, no doubt, but abrogomency is completely undetectable if done correctly. You needn't change the facts if you alter the memory of what they were thinking at the time. Their mind will do the rest for you."
Harry frowned. He'd have to think about that one.
"Now, since your track record is so very discouraging, we'll be going all the way back to the basics. Meditation. Now lie down."
Harry obeyed swiftly, flinching slightly as his skin came into contact with the cold stones.
"Close your eyes and count to twenty."
Harry, feeling stupid, obeyed.
"One part of you was counting, but another part of you was worrying what I was going to do while you couldn't see me, trying to figure out why I was making you do this silly exercise, and so on, correct?"
Harry nodded cautiously, wondering if this was a trick question.
"We call that first part the 'reacting self' and the second the 'observing self'. What we need to teach you to do now is separate them completely."
'We' wanted to teach him to do what exactly? Harry had a mental image of himself with full blown multiple personality disorder, having conversations with himself. He didn't see the point of this at all, but he tried his best to follow the instructions - he didn't want a repeat of the previous night. The next two hours might not have been as bad as the original lessons, but they were still overwhelmingly frustrating. At last he was released with a firm injunction to practice.
"Remember, your biggest challenge will not be to block Voldemort, but to lie to Albus Dumbledore and do it so successfully that he never suspects you have anything to hide. If your safety and my own are not enough to motivate you, consider that the Headmaster himself will be killed should he find out about vampires. Consider that the next time you decide my instructions are not worthy of your notice."
Harry fought to keep his fists from clenching. Would Snape never stop rubbing his nose in it? Not trusting himself to speak, he simply nodded and left as quickly as possible. He vowed that this time, he would give Snape no excuse to criticise him. Every evening, after he had gone to bed, he practised the silly and contradictory exercises Snape was giving him. But by the end of the week, all Harry wanted to do was sleep. Even during classes, if he sat still for too long his eyelids started descending without conscious control.
Startled awake for the third time by his head falling forward, Harry dug his nails into his thigh, using the pain to keep himself a little more alert. He pointed his wand at the block of wood he was supposed to be transfiguring into a small tree, and tried the incantation again. He had mostly expected it to do absolutely nothing. He wasn't anticipating it to grow teeth and lunge at him. He pushed his chair back violently, crashing into the desk behind him. Seconds later he was flat on his back, overturned furniture all around him, holding off a vicious set of wooden teeth with both hands.
"Finite Incantatem!"
Harry stared up at the upside –down face of Professor McGonagall in relief until he recalled himself and scrambled back to his feet. This wasn't a good thing. This wasn't a good thing at all. He'd lost control of his vampire impulses, and his subconscious was a little disturbing. Too tired to come up with a decent lie, Harry simply hedged.
"I'm sorry, Professor, I don't know what happened."
"It's all right, Potter. Boys your age often have difficulties with control. Just pay attention to what you're doing and it'll pass soon enough."
When her meaning finally registered, Harry felt like giggling. She thought he was, well... that. That he had 'a perfectly normal physical manifestation of excess hormones'. The whole class thought that... well. It really shouldn't have been a funny thought, but Harry could barely hold on to his hysterics. Keeping his head well down, he cleaned up his desk, and headed down to supper with the rest of the students.
Halfway there, Hermione swung him into a deserted corridor and gave him one of her patented glares.
"Well?"
Shit. He thought he'd come out of this one unscathed.
"Well, what?"
"Well, what happened n transfiguration?"
Harry, ducked his head, pretending to be embarrassed. Don't push this Hermione, please.
"Well... err... you heard Professor McGonagall."Hermione folded her arms and rocked back on one foot.
"Don't give me that. It's never made you lose control before."
"Hermione!" asked Harry, scandalised. "You've been looking?"
Hermione's eyes went wide, and she sputtered for a solid thirty seconds before replying.
"No! Of course not. It's just...Oh never mind."
Thank Merlin. He'd avoided catastrophe twice in one day. All he needed now as for Ron to suddenly become perceptive, and for Snape to find out about it from McGonagall. But at least for now, he had made it. He trailed after Hermione as she made her way down to the Great Hall. Just before they entered, Hermione paused again.
"Harry. You know you can talk to me about anything, right?"
"Yes, Hermione."
"You're not alone, Harry. If there's something wrong..."
"There's nothing wrong."
"Just... I'm here Harry. Remember that."
"I will."
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