AN: I do not own Harry Potter.

No, Harry does not know what is going on; he is just aware of Snape's anger. As a person who grew up in a troubled home, he is keeping track of his teacher's feelings.

Also, Umbridge in this fic is not the person in the series. She likes to gossip, looks for things to gossip about, and makes them write lines with a regular quill. She is not focused on teaching, but is more focused on how she appears to her fellow teachers, and finding fault in others.

Occlumency Plus

Harry rubbed his hand through his hair as he walked down the hall.

He had just left the Headmaster's office. The Headmaster had called him up to tell him something that had seriously disturbed Harry. He didn't tell him much, but from what he had told him, there were a few conclusions that could be drawn. One, not only Voldemort, but also Dumbledore, and presumably Snape for he was teaching the lessons, could enter Harry's head at any time they looked at him if they wanted to, for how could Dumbledore know that he wasn't practicing occlumency if he hadn't tried reading his mind. Two, Voldemort was linked to him somehow by his head, and therefore didn't need to be in front of Harry to read his mind. Three, Dumbledore was afraid of that link and that is why he is having Snape teach the lessons.

Snape, who's mood was sourer than ever, was going to teach Harry how to block people from reading his mind. To Harry, that meant that he was going to have Snape, with his bad mood, in his mind a lot.

However, he had no idea what occlumency was, and his first lesson was that evening. That meant that it was time to recruit help, because he wasn't sure if he would survive otherwise. In other words, it was time to raid the library with Hermione.

Harry sighed. It would be more studying on top of his already large load, because it was fifth year, and that meant OWLs. At least, he hoped, it meant that there would be another skill for him to survive the end of the year problems. He just hated the thought though, of studying more when he wanted to put his warm clothes on and go for a flight. Either way, he had another class he had to go to and study for.

Harry reached the door to Gryffindor tower, gave the password somewhat distractedly, and walked in.

And stumbled into Ron, which resulted in Harry crashing into the floor.

"Hey, mate, you alright?" questioned the taller boy, who had quickly found something to hold onto, a survival tactic found among those with large families in crowded houses.

"Yeah, Ron, I'm fine."

"Yeah, right. I'm not the one on the floor because he walked right into me without seeing me. Let's get Hermione, and meet up then?"

Harry, stood up quickly, and gathered his stuff, groaned, "Fine, I was going to find Hermione anyways."

"Good, because she's better at this feeling stuff."

"And at finding things in the library."

Ron looked at his friend as they moved to find their curly haired friend. He took a deep breath at the flat stare that Harry was giving him.

"You've got to be kidding me. I mean, I know we're in October, but again?"

"Again," Harry said seriously, while nodding his head.

"Okay, mate, we'll find Hermione, and then you'll tell us what's all going on, alright?"

"Okay."

That conversation with Hermione devolved into a heavily emotional rant about privacy and why people's thoughts should be kept to themselves, and if this is a thing, why haven't they heard anything about this before?! You know, that is an invasion of privacy which is wrong on so many levels!

"And Snape is teaching me."

That statement threw Hermione into an angry stewing ball of silence. Finally, she gave a big sigh, and said, "You know, that means that he isn't going to start easy and we're going to have to find at least a book that gives a basic outline so we don't start from ground zero, because, I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to take this as seriously as possible as well. Since he is the teacher, he's going to want that, and I really want to learn this."

"Same here," said Harry, who had been getting annoying dreams from Voldemort before he died again at the end of fourth year.

With that, they entered the library.

When Harry went to Professor Snape's office that evening, he left a few minutes early. The three of them had gone over what they knew of the surly professor and found that Professor Snape was huge on being shown respect. The consensus was, as worded by Ron, "even if we know the git may not have earned it from us, we are going to need to respect that he is going to put in the effort of having you there. Teaching you, that will depend on the effort you show, and how he perceives it. So being early and all that will be necessary for being taught."

He got there a few minutes early, and Snape opened the door when he arrived.

"Potter, nice to see that you can be early for once."

"Yes, sir," nodded Harry at Snape.

"Come in," said the scowling man, which Harry obeyed.

The dark clad professor closed the door as Harry sat in the chair in front of the man's desk.

"Now, you have been told that I am to teach you occlumency. I will not want to waste any time about it, but I should ask what you know."

"I have read the basic description from a wizarding encyclopedia and the beginning chapter of a book about mind arts."

"That is not enough. You are going to read that book by this time next week. First off, do you know what is one requirement about teaching occlumency that I am sure we do not meet is that you and I have to trust each other. Second, do you know what clearing your mind is?"

"No, sir. Could you please tell me?"

"Asking politely, this must mean something to you," muttered Snape, reaching behind him for one of the books on the few shelves of books beside his desk. "Because I cannot teach you without you having a basic idea of what meditation is, you are going to read this book for the next hour and then I want six inches on what is meditation and what is clearing your mind."

He handed the book over.

"Treat that nicely. It is not yours."

"Yes, sir."

Snape pulled out what looked to be a pile of marking from one of the drawers, a bottle of red ink, and a quill, and set to marking as Harry sat in the chair in front of him reading.

"So Harry, what did you learn?"

"Apparently we have to learn meditation first. He had me read an introduction to meditation and he assigned me a short essay on what I read to be handed in to him at Potions tomorrow. Otherwise, we have to finish the book on the mind arts that we found."

"So, we have to start that right away. What else?"

"Apparently, we have to be in a place where we trust the person teaching us? I know that this is going to be an issue with who is teaching, but..."

"But apparently it's necessary. So, we have a place to start? Let's get going, because we have homework, peoples."

Snape ducked his head into the green glowing fireplace for the call.

"Is teaching Potter this year as bad as normal?"

"Somehow he has come to the conclusion that this is something that he cannot slack on. It maybe his intuition that whatever new challenge shows up in October it is necessary to survive the end of the year, for he went at it with the same single mindedness as his little mysteries each year."

"I recall your multiple rants on how you wish he would take his class as seriously as getting involved at the year end. Do you think it would be possible to supplement his reading in another subject?"

"It would depend."

"I was thinking on getting him to read the histories of our nation beyond the goblin wars, and maybe some laws or things along that nature. Maybe even that book I found the reference to the conquest principle in."

"I will see if he is that reliable with the books I give him, because he is not Granger, despite the insistence of the two to follow each other around."

"See that you do and let me know. He has to learn of this, Snape. Our survival depends on this."

Snape curtly nodded before he withdrew.

Halloween day.

The day that Harry had come to dread at Hogwarts.

It dawned red, and Harry groaned, for now he was probably going to be stuck inside because of the weather on top of whatever was going to happen on Halloween. He didn't notice anything. However, that doesn't mean nothing happened.

A snake with an unsavoury passenger snuck into the castle grounds amid the thunder and lightning outside.