Disclaimer: It is all mine! Harry, Draco, Ron, Hermione, and Hogwarts! Oh, sorry, I must've been dreaming. Nope, none of it's mine except for, well the stuff that isn't actually in the books.

Chapter 1

"Get. Up." Harry barely heard these words as he attempted to not vomit all over the floor. He cracked his eyes open to the unwelcome sight of his bat of a professor crouching over him.

"Why is Dumbledore forcing your hopeless cause upon me? What have I done to deserve this? You will NEVER learn Occlumency if you do even attempt to put an ounce of effort into it!"

With a pained sigh, Harry slowly stood up after falling to the ground for the umpteenth time that Tuesday evening. He put a resigned look on his face, and knew that a response to his professor's question would not be welcome.

Snape appeared to be getting more and more worked up. He was now pacing the floor and wringing his hands. But his eyes were sharp as his gaze focused once more upon Harry.

"I cannot believe how little your situation is impacting your actions. The Dark Lord is accessing your thoughts, causing you pain, and you do not do anything about it! Dumbledore forced me to give you these lessons for a reason, and I refuse to see my time and effort yield no fruit. I could be grading papers, making more potions for the hospital wing, maybe even spend leisurely time for myself. But instead, I am here, not accomplishing anything." The rant, which had started quite loudly, ended in a whisper.

Harry had been hearing the same speeches for the past three months, and it was becoming obvious to both people in the room that they had lost any effect they once had. Harry had more important things to think about anyways.

BREAKBREAKBREAK

Severus Snape sincerely wanted to get this lesson over with. He had a splitting headache that was only becoming worse the more he ventured into his student's mind.

He stopped his ranting and stared at Potter, who was obviously a million miles away in his thoughts. The Potion's Professor felt even more annoyance flood his body at Potter's glazed-over look. The boy didn't even have enough respect to listen when he was spoken to. He was as arrogant as his father, curse his soul.

"Potter, pay attention when I am yelling at you!"

Harry made no attempt to do so.

Over the past few months, Snape was beginning to see Potter's mind as quite a puzzle, actually. Whenever he performed Legilimency, he could feel that Potter was exerting effort to block him, but no memories were actually blocked.

So, he would sift through memories, hoping one would spark some protective emotion from Potter. However, Potter let him stroll through seemingly everything without any resistance, so Snape rationed that Potter must have some different memories to protect.

But which ones?

Snape had been asking himself that exact question for quite a while. Tonight, it seemed the moment was right. Potter was clearly not paying due attention to what was going on, and Snape was getting impatient (a feeling that was incited by his ever increasing headache).

"Alright, Potter. Since you apparently no longer need my tutelage, please show me your expert skill in blocking my attempts at your most personal thoughts."

With these words, Potter looked up from his lap in alarm and locked eyes with Snape, giving him the opportunity.

"Legilimens"

Snape pushed himself harder than he had ever before in these lessons, and

WHAM

knew had gone in deep enough. He could feel Potter pushing back as hard as he could. Potter's Occlumency was much stronger than Snape had thought he was capable of, and had Snape not been a master of Legilimency, he would have been immediately pushed out.

Finally, we are getting somewhere, Snape thought.

He did not care as much about what these new memories would contain, just that Potter was finally performing Occlumency to protect them. It did not stop Snape from being slightly curious though. What could Potter be so protective over?

Snape already had to sit through awkward memories with that Ravenclaw girl, Ms. Chang. What else could it be? Maybe some romantic tryst with a Slytherin.

Snape inwardly chuckled. The Gryffindor Golden Boy would not be caught dead being in any way friendly with a Slytherin. Unfortunate, but true.

Potter's green eyes had, in another life, seen the difficulties of a Gryffindor-Slytherin friendship.

Snape stopped his casual browsing of Potter's memories for a moment to shake his head, hoping to clear the errant thoughts. He needed to stop reminiscing. Now was neither the time nor the place.

He went back to walking along the familiar path of Potter's mind. It had a rough layout of a city, and he was reaching the boundary.

The city limit, he supposed.

Snape then saw something he had never noticed before. A manhole. Not that manholes were in any way extraordinary, but why would Potter's mind landscape have one? Snape wondered what sort of sewage a mind might have, what would need to be kept under the streets.

The possible implications of such an analogy excited him like nothing else had in these three months of lessons. Would this be the key to actually teaching the boy?

Snape felt another twinge from a feeble Occlumency block, as well as a twinge from his frontal lobe. He really needed to sleep after this. And maybe some pain potion.

The fact that Potter was trying harder now than ever before led Snape to be sure that he had found Potter's refuge. Snape smirked as he took out his wand.

"Wingardium Leviosa"

Snape levitated the metal entrance to the manhole and placed it to the side. He then peered inside the hole, and saw that there was a ladder that went down to the bottom. Snape saw no other options, and his excitement made him less averse to shimmying his way down a manhole to places unknown.

The ladder creaked as he made his way down, but it held his weight as he reached the bottom. He felt confident he would be able to ascend again once he was finished exploring.

Snape lit his wand one and took a sweep of his surroundings. It reminded him exactly of a Muggle sewage system beneath the streets of large cities, like London. The walls were made of some sort of concrete, which had begun to take on a slightly green color. The air was humid and smelled of mold. There was about 4 feet of floor on either side of the chamber, and in the middle ran a river of water. Nothing could be heard except for the rushing of water. Snape pointed his wand toward one direction and focused his eyesight, but he could only see blackness with no indication of how long the tunnel was or where it went.

"Hello?" Snape's voice echoed down the seemingly endless tunnel, and predictably he received no answer.

He reached out and felt the walls, looking for any irregularities that would lead him to answers. What did this place mean? Where are the memories?

There is no way the mind would create a place like this for nothing, although it was nothing like Snape had seen in his 30 years of learning the intricacies of the mind. There must be memories in here, but where?

Beginning to feel frustrated, Snape stopped feeling the walls and instead knelt on the ground, studying the floor. It too seemed to have no interesting qualities besides being exceptionally dirty. He wiped his hands on his cloak and focused on the last remaining element, the river of water.

Of course! Why didn't he check that first? Housing the river was obviously the purpose of this entire place. Snape crawled to the edge of the floor and put his lit wand over the river.

The water had a strange iridescent quality to it. It seemed to shimmer in the light. As Snape studied it more, it stopped looking like water. He found that it was stringy in composition, reminding him of the bowl of spaghetti noodles he had for dinner. Or really, more like…

A pensieve.

That's right! The river really looked like it was made up of hundreds of memories all flowing together.

Snape found himself astounded at the pure number of memories. How was Potter keeping so many memories from him? No wonder I thought he wasn't trying at all, Snape thought. It must've taken all his mental effort to keep this place from my notice.

Snape still noticed the faint tugging from Potter. He could back out now and question the boy, or he could find out for himself why Potter had this hidey-hole. Snape thought about those two options, and knew which one would give him the true answers.

And Potter cannot afford to have such a vulnerable spot if he is to go up against the Dark Lord.

And so, he ignored the tugging and touched one of the wriggling strands with his wand. Instead of being sucked into the memory, as with a pensieve, Snape was almost hit in the face by an intangible screen that shot into the air.

He supposed it made sense that memories would be view in this manner here. For memories in a pensieve, the memories have been freely given by the wizard and must transport any viewers to their artificial world. Here, in this sewer, Snape was already in Potter's mind and so mental transportation was not necessary.

The memory began to play like a movie in a theatre. It began with Potter, his face covered in tears. He seemed to be a few months younger than he was now. The memory then panned out to show large blonde man.

His ears heard a pleading, not from the memory, but from the mind itself. "Please, sir. Leave that place. You can't see these… it's forbidden." The words echoed through the tunnel, and Snape couldn't help but notice that Potter's voice sounded especially forced, as if the boy were in a substantial amount of pain.

"Please sir…please" The voice gradually faded away.

Snape was prepared to ignore the pleading. He really was. He was prepared to watch the entire memory, when he found that he couldn't. Seeing Potter weeping was enough to remind him of his own childhood, and his memories of weeping while his parents fought. He would rather die than have anyone witness those memories.

Although that didn't stop Potter last year from seeing my most vulnerable memories, thought Snape.

But another voice chimed in:

Everyone deserves secrets.

The voice sprung up from nowhere inside of Snape's mind. Damnit.

Snape knew he had lost against himself. He turned his back on the memory and climbed up the ladder, and then closed the mental connection to Potter's mind.

Snape found himself back in his office, exactly as he had been. Potter, however, had changed position. He was lying on the ground. His chest violently moved up and down, as though he had been running a marathon while Snape was perusing his mind. Snape saw that Potter's forehead was shimmering with sweat and his face was pale.

Snape squatted down and felt Potter's forehead, which was cold to the touch. His back protested the movement, and Snape sunk down on the floor next to Potter to mull over his options. A quick wave of his wand determined that Potter was not injured in any way and would be fine with some rest.

He gave all his mental effort to really look at Potter, hoping some of his many questions could be answered. Potter had worry lines across his forehead. Not a peaceful unconsciousness at all.

Wait, why should I care if Potter wasn't having a serene nap?

Snape concluded the train of thought and moved on to a more important one. Why was Potter unconscious in the first place, here on the floor of his office?

The most logical answer was that Potter was exhausted from the work of pleading with Snape to leave his mind… tunnel… thingy. He probably should get Potter to the infirmary, but then Dumbledore would assume Snape had abused his privilege of searching the mind of the Bloody Boy-Who-Lived. Which wasn't entirely true. Just sort of.

He imagined what Albus would say.

"Oh, Severus. This is the most important task of all. You are being too hard on him. You need to establish some form of trust for Harry to let you teach him anything, but instead you purposefully look for the memories that will hurt him." The imaginary disappointment hit Snape as hard as it would in reality.

Snape gave Potter's body a poke with his wand to see if he would awaken. This entire situation would be a lot easier of Potter would just wake up and scram. Not that Snape wanted to deal with any accusations the boy might have for him tonight. The boy did not move.

He thought about dragging Potter outside his door, claiming he had no clue Potter had fainted after walking out the door. But then, the dungeons get rather chilly at night and with a cold blanket of sweat, Potter would probably get hyperthermia and die, although he shouldn't get his hopes up. The blame would then go back to Ex-Death-Eater Severus for killing Harry Potter.

Snape wished he could just levitate the boy to Gryffindor Tower, but knew that was not an option. The castle always alerts the House Head when somebody uses the staff password, and Snape did not know the current student password. He really did not want to have to explain himself to Minerva tonight. He made a mental note to stalk the Fat Lady tomorrow for the password.

So, the only good idea Snape could come up with was to let Potter sleep in his living room and tell anyone who asked that the boy was simply exhausted from Occlumency, which wasn't entirely false.

Decision made, Snape waved his wand in the boy's direction and said, "Mobilicorpus."

He levitated Potter's limp form halfway across the corridor to his chambers and whispered, "excessum est liberta."

The door creaked open and Potter stirred slightly before once again going into an unconscious state. Snape lowered Potter onto his couch in the living room. It was a black leather couch, quite comfortable in Severus' opinion.

That couch was in the center of the room and was the key for the aesthetic. Small armchairs in the same leather were scattered around the room, drawing attention to the ebony mosaic fireplace. A flame was crackling madly, reminding Snape of Albus' eyes.

Snape walked to his hall closet door and pulled out a blanket. He also began to pull out a pillow, and then maliciously decided he shouldn't care if Potter woke up with a sore neck in the morning, so no pillow it was. He placed the blanket on Potter's body. Of course, no tucking in happened in any capacity.

He walked past his kitchen toward the bedroom, but on the way passed the door to his personal potion's lab.

Damnit.

Poppy had asked him earlier today to make some more potions for the Hospital Wing. He had been planning to do it after Potter's Occlumency session, but he forgot. Now, his headache had reached migraine level, and all Snape wanted to do was curl up and sleep. But he knew what needed to be done.

Snape opened a cabinet filled with his personal supply of potions. He took out a vial, examined it, and then swallowed it in one gulp. The taste was repulsive, but at least he felt the fatigue leave his body.

He used this potion many times, especially during the school year, because the Dark Lord was thrilled when his Potion's master would present multiple potions every day, potions which would have normally taken days to accomplish. Dumbledore had thought it was important for Snape to ensure the Dark Lord's happiness potion-wise, so that Snape could show his loyalty and devotion without the more… brutal… activities that accompanied being a Death Eater.

Snape agreed with Dumbledore on this, although he didn't tell Albus about the lengths he would go to in order to fulfill all of his responsibilities. Dumbledore would definitely not approve of the constant use of potions to keep up his focus.

As he began working, his nose became filled with the heavenly scent of cauldrons and potion ingredients and a smile went through his body, even reaching the exterior. Snape had almost forgotten that Potter was in his quarters as he proceeded to turn on some classical music.

Snape had discovered that listening to classical music further increased his ability to think and work. So he put up a Silencing Spell as to avoid disturbing Potter.

So that he doesn't learn about my inclination to classical music. Not to ensure the boy rests well or some such nonsense.

The music was almost palpable as it swam around the room and into Snape's head, soothing the ache.

A slight humming to the music, a tapping of the foot, and the Silencing Spell made it impossible for Snape to hear the screaming issuing from Harry Potter on that black leather couch.

I LOVE REVIEWS! THEY ARE EVEN BETTER THAN PANCAKES!