Chapter 3

The aftermath of the Quidditch World Cup was a disaster. If Harry considered the campsite with its motley crowds, unceasing shouts and laughter to be the one true chaos then what occurred after was a real hell. Together with Ron and Hermione he was lucky not to be squashed by the panicking flood that were the World Cup's guests saving themselves from Death Eaters who suddenly decided to drop in. Inevitably, Harry couldn't go without a little adventure. He managed to lose his wand which subsequently was used to grace a darkening sky with the giant Dark Mark. The boy was shocked of being initially accused to do it. Well, why not to? It was common behavior of each Boy-Who-Lived to succumb to the dark attributes of the murderers of their parents. All the walls back to his room at Privet Drive were decorated from floor to ceiling with posters of famous Death Eaters. Why wasn't that a healthy hobby for a growing boy?

Fortunately, the remainder of the summer holidays went uneventfully. Harry enjoyed every minute of it. Every day he'd hang out with Ron, Hermione, Ginny and the twins, play a game of Quidditch with them (except for Hermione, of course; they never convinced her to mount a broom), degnome the yard on Mrs. Weasley's request, and go to the river where his friends would teach him how to swim.

For once in his life, Harry was allowed to come to the swimming pool along with Dudley and his friends. Even if Harry was only eight, he didn't delude himself. It definitely was not a gesture of goodwill from his Aunt and Uncle. He was able to attend the outing only due to his cousin's whimpers. Harry then had a good portion of chlorinated water in his lungs after several attempts of Dudley, Piers and other boys to drown him for good. Neither of the adults present lifted a finger to prevent it. They supposedly were cooing at the sight of their babies splashing in the water.

During the first week at the Weasleys' Harry was still sore from the innumerous encounters with his Uncle Vernon's wrath. His movements were slow and carefully calculated which didn't go unnoticed by his friends. He lied to them telling his muscles were tense after doing chores at the Dursleys' and it would pass soon so they shouldn't worry. Well, that wasn't actually a lie, just a half-truth. While Hermione was easier to convince, Ron was pestering him with his suspicions. Because his best mate knew that the Dursleys could go beyond assigning endless chores. He knew they could starve him and lock him like a dangerous animal.

Once one of the conversations on that matter was threatening to go too far for Harry's liking, he quickly got it off them by bringing more burning question.

"Hey, guys, I've nearly forgotten to tell you something!" Harry clapped himself on the forehead. "It seems Snape's gonna teach me Occlumency this year".

"Teach you what?" Ron wrinkled his freckled nose. "Do sound horrendous to me".

Hermione couldn't help huffing exasperatedly, "All unfamiliar and somewhat long words sound horrendous to you, Ronald. Start reading anything but your silly Quidditch magazines".

Ron had audacity to look deeply offended, but as it seemed not on his own behalf. "Nothing is sacred to that girl!" He lifted one of the magazines from his nightstand and to Harry's amusement obsequiously kissed its cover.

Playing along, Harry stretched his hands to the magazine and grunted, "My precious! You stole it from us!"

"Oh, Harry, you've read the 'Lord of the Rings' too?" Hermione cheerfully asked. Upon seeing Ron's confused face she mockingly groaned, "Ron, seriously? Start reading anything but your silly…"

"Shut it already! We are going in circles". Ron exclaimed feeling his traitorous lips twitching upwards. His friends' laughter was too infectious to keep a grudge. Harry and Hermione successfully forgot to tell him the book was muggle written. "So, what about this Occlumency thing?"

At that both Hermione and Ron abruptly became serious again. Now having their full attention, Harry started hesitating. It wasn't as if he was going to tell them the weather for tomorrow. The subject he wanted to present to them appeared, at the very least, to be worrisome. And Harry had to confess he was scared of having some sort of linking to the mad man. He felt as if he was carrying a bomb in his head and he didn't know when it'd explode. What if his friends would deem it too dangerous to be there for him? But on the other hand, Harry mused remorsefully, they had the right to know and make their own choice. So, he spat it out, "I will need Occlumency to block a connection with Voldemort's mind. Recently I've seen a strange dream about him and Wormtail speaking. And I have a very bad feeling that it wasn't a dream at all. A vision actually. It was only once. But who knows if it will occur again?"

When Harry stopped speaking, Ron's room fell into silence. His friends looked dumbfounded and Harry couldn't blame them for that. He himself back then was at the edge of the panic attack when the realization had settled in. With each passing second Harry became more and more anxious. Waiting for the verdict was painful. When he was almost ready to rash out of here, Ron clapped him on his back and pronounced with a feeling, "It's a crap, mate".

Hermione shot him a dirty look and then turned her head back to Harry. "I can imagine, Harry, what thoughts are nagging at you now. I want you to throw them away of that daft head of yours". She moved to the bed where her friends were sitting and put her hand around Harry's shoulders. "I know you don't get along with Snape but you must promise us, Harry, that you will do your best to succeed. We don't want to see you hurt".

"Yeah, mate", Ron assented, "heaven knows, I hate the git, but try not to piss him off. It would be quite a thing to hang out with a disgusted something in a jar".

Harry elbowed him and chuckled.

"And furthermore", Ron continued solemnly, "after what Ginny had to endure with that bloody diary of Tom Riddle, I don't want one more of my family members go through it either". His cheeks slightly reddened at this uncharacteristic sentimentality.

"Oh boys", Hermione's eyes were shining with tears. With a flash of feeling she stood up and briskly hugged them both.

Harry's throat tightened at his friends' touching support. There he really did feel belonged. Perhaps those two were the only ones in the whole world who didn't believe him to be a freak. For him it meant a lot because it was always a case.

His life was conditionally divided in half when his Hogwarts acceptance letter had finally arrived. In the first part of it Harry was a strange and unwanted addition to an absolutely normal family. There was no one who liked him cause of the lies his relatives had been spreading about him. The brain-damaged son of two worthless drunks with criminal inclinations, insufferable troublemaker and pathological fibber – this was all of him. There were times when even he himself believed it since nobody had ever said the opposite. His very existence wasn't within the framework of normalcy.

The second part didn't please him either. Though he found out that all the funny things that had happened to him before were actually magic in its literal meaning, anyway he didn't stop being a freak even among his own kind. During his first year at Hogwarts he felt himself some sort of a circus animal. People were watching him closely awaiting him to produce wonders, no more and no less. But when he stumbled just a little bit, they were ready to slaughter him. If he succeeded in something it was taken for granted because he was the Boy-Who-Lived. Otherwise he was told that fame wasn't enough. Why wouldn't they make up their mind and leave him alone?

When the tension in the room was eased, Hermione switched to her scholar self. She engaged them into an animated speech of how she was looking forward to stride between the bookshelves of Hogwarts library looking for more information about Occlumency. Surely, she would have known all the information available by the end of their first week and she would be retelling it to him and Ron during meals and breaks. Harry internally groaned.

After that conversation with Ron and Hermione he was getting a whole lot better and it would seem all troubles had been left behind. But it was not over yet. Harry grew sure of that pretty soon when a piece of paper with his name written on it had been spat out by the Goblet of Fire proclaiming him the fourth participant of the Triwizard Tournament.

Maybe instead of all of that he should move to Australia to breed there those large rats jumping on their hind legs (he saw them once in some zoological program on telly but wasn't able to learn more as Dudley quickly switched the channels to find something more to his liking). Mmmm, that would be nice.

Snape happened to be just about only one to believe he hadn't put his name into the Goblet. This fact was bringing him down. No, the man didn't start to like him out of the blue. His confidence was based on his opinion of Harry being a below-average wizard to be able to accomplish it. And the Potions Professor never forgot to ridicule him at every opportunity for the amusement of not only Slytherins as usual, but of other houses too. Students turned against him, and Professors (except for McGonagall and Moody, a new DADA Professor) every now and then threw at him disapproving looks. Harry's stay at school was getting more and more entertaining with every passing year.

At first Ron blamed him either. Unlike Harry he was lacking the attention of their peers and was under the pressure in his attempts to prove he was worth something and was not worse than his talented brothers. It wasn't Harry's participation in the Tournament that hurt him. It was the fact that he somehow managed to do it behind his back. Some friend he was!

There was a lot of yelling in the fourth year dormitory. Both of them threw offensive words to each other's faces. It seemed their friendship wasn't so strong after all. Being on edge after the day's events, Harry finally snapped.

"You know what, prat?" Harry pushed him in the shoulder and Ron made a step back nearly stumbling over his own trunk. "If you truly think that I'm capable of all of that, punch me in the face so that we can get it over with! The day was tiring and I want to go to bed".

Ron was gawking at him in astonishment. At some point he was bracing himself to defend his own face – Harry was practically boiling with anger. And this reversion of roles caught him off guard. In the meantime, Harry wasn't appeased yet. "So, Ron, don't have the guts?"

Agitated, the redhead lifted his fist as Harry's face was definitely asking for a good punch. Harry even took off his glasses giving Ron a better access. Ron came closer to him with steel in his blue eyes.

"Do it! Now!" Harry shouted fighting back angry tears. Without his glasses he couldn't clearly see the expression on his friend's face. And truth be told, he didn't want to. He knew that Ron wasn't thinking straight at that moment and their argument was only a temporal occasion. But nevertheless he was afraid to be wrong.

Ron unclenched his fist and was now staring at his fingers horrified by his despicable intention. Was he really going to do it to his best mate? To the very one who always tried to help the others even if it'd cause him troubles or pain? Harry, and so had Ron and Hermione, had never thrown themselves into the void just for the sake of it. All their stunts had been related to life threatening situations to others.

With shame nagging at him, Ron gently unleashed Harry's glasses from his tight grip and hoisted them back on his nose. This action made Harry blink in surprise. He felt as if he was woken from blurry slumber with a piece of his life teared out his memory. Perhaps he hadn't tried to pick up a fight in the first place?

"Keep it together, mate" Ron clapped Harry on his back. "We'll make it through that goddamn Tournament together… as always".

"As always", Harry echoed, anger had long gone away.

Now both boys were grinning at each other like lunatics. Neither of them apologized for their insults and neither of them needed an apology. They had defeated the troll as first year students not for splitting apart in a few years cause of silly dispute. At this exact moment Harry felt pure happiness despite all what had fallen onto his shoulders. His best mate eventually decided to stay by his side.

After some moments of convivial silence, they were startled by the squeak of the dorm's door. Hermione's head popped inside the room. She looked slightly irritated. "Do you quit frightening first years with your shouts?"

"Sure", Ron answered through laughter and Harry followed suit.

Hermione rolled her eyes and muttering something under her breath stormed out.

"It appears we've given them quite a scare", Ron flopped down on his bed. "Phew! What a cowardly lot these kids are! I'd not bring them along to a tea party in the Chamber of Secrets if I were you".

Harry chuckled and settled down facing Ron. "Yeah, you, myself and good ol' Voldemort only. Our tea is exclusive after all. With drops of basilisk venom and all".

"Hey, you forget Lockhart. What a party without a guest star!" Ron exclaimed but then grew thoughtful. "Speaking of stars, do you think Viktor Krum would give me his autograph?"

Like Severus had been dreading the Headmaster appointed him to the task of teaching the Potter brat Occlumency. As if it was manageable at all! The boy always wore his heart on his sleeve and couldn't hold his Gryffindor temper. Over and over again he was proving to Severus that he was easily provoked. If Potter continued like this, his life would be more difficult in the future with the war ahead of them what consequently would complicate Severus' job to keep the boy alive.

So, no matter how the Potions Master felt about the outlook of wasting his evenings on his school rival's son he was deeply involved in it. But if he saw the problem from a different perspective, he could find a good opportunity to knock the entitled celebrity down a peg. He hadn't been ordered to go easy on Potter, so he would be able to officially relieve his heart. There must be something pleasant about this whole mess after all.

Albus told him to start their lessons when all the things with choosing three champions for participation in the silly Tournament settled down. Trust Potter to mess things up even with something that was highly secured from unwanted intruders. Though Severus couldn't say that he was surprised when the Goblet of Fire had joined the Potter fun club. That boy really had mastered the art of rules breaking, be it on purpose or unintentionally. Maybe he should kidnap Potter and lock him in the dungeons until he came of age? That way there were more opportunities for the brat to make it through his school career unharmed.

The student body didn't make things easier for Potter. For once, his involvement in the thick of things was greeted with hostility. Only Gryffindors, of course, were foolish enough to be cheerful about the matter. Hey, dunderheads, it's not one of the Quidditch matches but a game where people die! Not that Potter hadn't tried to decease during some of those matches though… The boy was talented indeed.

As the days were passing by Potter looked more and more down in the mouth. Served him right to find out that he couldn't always surf on his fame and luck alone. The Tournament required skills and knowledge what the boy lacked. It was a little way now until the first task when Severus appointed the first Occlumency lesson.

It was Monday evening when Severus heard the knock on his office door and then very cautious looking Harry Potter peeked inside. The Potions Professor shot a swift glance at his watch on the mantle and smiled evilly. It was three minutes past seven. "You are late, Potter. It seems to me your relatives haven't taught you to value other people's time. If I have to put up with sacrificing my evenings, you could at least have the decency to show up at our lessons on time. Now come stand there".

"Yes, sir", the boy muttered angrily and stood in front of Severus at a distance of ten steps.

"I'll put aside the introductory lecture with the hope that you remember the literacy training from our summer encounter". At the mention of it the boy blushed and looked down. Did he really think that Severus would miss the pleasure to torment him? If he did, then he was dumber than the Professor believed him to be. "In order not to let an intruder to penetrate your mind you are to clear it and empty yourself of emotions. Occlumency is a subtle art, Potter, and your foolish Gryffindor tendencies won't be any help to you this time. A human's brain is a complex and many-layered organ and I want you to use it for once… or what you have in that skull of yours".

Severus regarded the boy with a piercing glare shutting a predictable reaction in advance. Potter was boiling with anger clenching his fists so tight that his knuckles got white. To add more fuel to the fire he said, "Actions of an undisciplined person can lead to disastrous consequences. If he tries, let's say, to go hunting Philosopher's stones, he can lose not only his own life, but the life of his cohorts and eventually end up with nothing at all. We don't want this to occur, do we? The same applied to fighting basilisks and following criminals on the loose".

After Severus felt that the boy's bruised ego was brought up to the mark, he schooled his features and pointed his ebonite wand straight at the center of Potter's forehead. The Gryffindor recoiled and with only a moment of hesitation drew his own wand and took a defensive stance. Severus was slightly impressed that the boy hadn't lost his composure at a supposedly sudden attack. But his acute reaction was strange. Did the boy really believe his teacher was capable of harming a student?

"I didn't attempt to hex you, idiot boy. But if I did, it'd be already late for you", Severus huffed in annoyance he couldn't fathom where it actually came from. To his disgrace he felt the urge to explain his previous motion. "I was inclined to show you that with the bubbling cauldron inside you you are an easy target. Decrease the heat under it. When the surface of your potion is smoothed, you'll be able to clearly see what ingredients the intruder is trying to throw into the cauldron". Severus was slowly pacing in front of the boy hypnotizing him with his even silky voice that, it seemed, was filling the entire room. No, the whole majestic castle was under the charm.

The man came to Potter and put his hand on the messy mop of hair. The boy this time didn't even flinch never everting his eyes from the Professor's obsidian ones. "Don't let the intruder to stir your potion the way he wants. It may lead to the inner struggle and confuse your senses". As if to proof his point Severus run his hand through the boy's hair against the grain tousling it even more.

The silence enveloped them and their lesson strangely transformed itself into staring contest. Though Potter might think so. Sighing in disappointment Severus blinked and stepped away from him folding his arms on his chest. "A moment ago I took a glimpse inside your cauldron and you even didn't notice. Me pointing my wand at you earlier was just a simple destruction and you bought it. With a high level of Legilimency skill you don't need to make a show of waving your wand and shouting the spell. Danger can wait you in the most unlikely of places".

The boy was staring at him speechless from indignation. Finally, he choked, "You… You have no right!"

Severus rolled his eyes. Why adolescents need to be so melodramatic? "Let me assure you, Potter, I absolutely have every right to prepare your harebrained mind to more sever assaults. Believe me, boy, the Dark Lord, unlike me, won't simply touch the surface of your potion. He'll throw a firecracker in the cauldron".

The Potter brat snickered. The nerve of him! Severus should call the lesson to end if he didn't want to hex the insufferable child into next week for his blatant disrespect. "You are dismissed, Potter. Stay a second longer and I'll begin to deduct points from Gryffindor".

Severus didn't need to ask twice. Potter picked up his school bag and fled the Potions Master's office.

On wobbly legs Harry barely made it to the portrait of the Fat Lady before it was curfew. What had occurred down in the dungeons was even stranger than to cross paths with a three-headed giant dog.

It wasn't his intention to anger the man with his snickering. The sound just rolled out of his mouth as a nervous reaction to Snape not being a complete git as usual. Even if the Professor had indeed sounded a bit hilarious with his fanatic potions metaphors, Harry wasn't so suicidal to tell him that. It was another thing that had knocked him off balance. The man had patted his head! Twice actually!

To his dismay Harry found himself enjoying it. Seriously, Harry, the boy berated himself, are you really such a pathetic baby that leans into first offered touch? But it definitely was the first time when someone patted his head. When he received a touch that didn't hurt. And it wasn't Snape's intrusion in his mind in itself that angered him. For a split second back then Harry forgot whom that gentle hand belonged to. He wondered if the wild bubbling of his cauldron was heard through his ribs. But it was only a trick.

As always.