Better Be Slytherin!

susceptible to the influence of flatterers and those who doled out praise, or the promise of it. As Severus knew too well, wizards who used such weapons to prey on the desperate-to-belong and the weak-minded, could draw an unloved, uncertain child like Harry into the fold of Dark Magic very quickly. With his level of power, that was untenable.

The other issue that concerned Severus, was that the boy did not seem to associate what he was currently learning about protecting his mind with the spontaneous episode of Occlumency he had demonstrated the first time Severus had dug around in his mind looking for memories. The night he had discovered the boy was a Parselmouth. At the time, he had merely assumed the boy had an innate talent for Occlumency. But now, some very unsettling possibilities were rearing their ugly heads, and he needed time to think hard on what he was postulating, before he went mad. The facts were hard to counter: Harry Potter, with more raw magic inside him than any two wizards since the time of Hogwarts' founding, also possessed talent in Occlumency and was a Parselmouth, two talents the Dark Lord was known for, the very Dark Lord who had vanished on the night Harry Potter's parents had been killed, when the babe himself had merely gained a curse scar.

Very troubling possibilities, indeed.

In the short term, of course, what it meant was that Severus needed to keep a close eye on the Boy Who Couldn't Just Be Normal for Once, which he was already doing for a variety of reasons. What was one more?

In the long term . . . Who could say?

After an hour of questioning the boy, Severus was satisfied that he at least grasped the main concepts of Occlumency. He was a bit dodgy on minutiae, but that was what having a mentor was for. Severus had a number of drills in mind for specific aspects of Occlumency, once the boy had the general idea.

'Very well,' he said at last. 'Take out your wand.'

Potter nodded and pulled the length of holly from his back pocket. Severus managed to keep from shaking his head in chagrin, but determined he would get the boy a proper sheath for his arm, and soon.

'Wand up! I am about to use Legilimency, which you will attempt to block with Occlumency. The first time I used this spell on you, I requested that you not fight me, do you recall?'

With a frown, the boy nodded. 'Yes, sir.'

'This time, I want to you to fight. As Keating suggested for beginners, you should try to merely expel me from your mind. Do not worry about doing any fancy layering or creating false memories. Just try to get me to leave. Understood?'

'Yes, sir.'

Though Severus very much doubted that was the case, except in theory, he inclined his head and held the boy's gaze. 'Very well. Legilimens!'

Once he had immersed himself in the boy's mind, images flew past his inner eye immediately, first one of a pile of presents on the end of a bed and Harry's surprise, followed quickly by joy, when he saw they were addressed to him, then a sketchpad and small bottle of ink, Harry drawing the picture that had eventually been given to Severus as a gift, and then, oddly, a dark space Severus recognized as the cupboard where Harry had spent much of his childhood, and he grasped on to that one, knowing Harry would try to expel him from it out of embarrassment. In the darkness, Harry was young, maybe only seven or eight years old, and was kneeling on a narrow cot. With a stub of pencil in his hand, he was shading in a sketch on one of the walls, a picture of a motorcycle flying over clouds, with someone -- a rather large someone -- sitting astride it. From this angle, Severus could see that the interior walls of the cupboard were covered with drawings, some obviously infantile efforts, and others with remarkable detail.

As expected, Harry was pushing hard to get Severus out of his mind, out of this memory, and Severus felt the natural talent for this skill in Potter's efforts. Though he could have stayed in the memory, Severus let go this time, but as he was moving through other dark spaces, something else caught his attention and he homed in on it. Unlike the others he had moved through, this memory wasn't dark . . . or not of a dark place, he amended, but was protected by a wall of dark stone, which was what had made him look twice. He felt Harry scrabbling madly at his presence, pulling and pushing at him to pass this by, which only increased his desire to see. What did the boy want to protect so badly?

Buoying his own defenses against the boy's amplified railing by erecting a false show of leaving -- lessening the pressure of his presence, as if he had given up -- Severus sneaked past the dark stone wall when Harry's attention was momentarily distracted. He was startled to find himself in the girls' bathroom on the first floor of Hogwarts.

Troll, he recalled. Potter and his fellow Firsties had fought a troll in that bathroom, and lived to tell the tale, and here the three of them were, slamming through the door to find the frizzy haired Gryffindor huddled beneath the sinks. The twelve foot tall, gray-skinned, lumpy troll loomed over them.

Potter finally realized that Severus had gotten past his defenses and started fighting back. In the memory, Miss Bullstrode darted to the sinks to coax the courageous Gryffindor out from hiding, and Severus wondered what about this encounter the boy felt it necessary to hide. He'd already told Severus what happened, and been given an essay as punishment, too . . . unless he had lied? With the strength of twenty years of Legilimency practice under his belt, Severus held on against Potter's increasingly frantic attempts to remove him, intent on seeing this memory in its entirety.

Just as in the tale he had been told, Mr. Nott hurled a length of broken pipe at the troll, thus drawing its attention away from the girls, and then Potter was yelling at it . . . No. He was chanting something specific, his wand aimed at the huge beast's chest. It looked like he'd said, Impedimenta. But that couldn't be right; the Impediment Curse was generally learned in Fourth Year Defense.

Before Severus could consider it further, the troll staggered one step over, nearer the sinks, and Potter shouted something else. This time, a bright red bolt of light flashed out of his wand and hit the troll hard. The beast toppled backwards into the position he had been lying in when Severus came upon the scene moments later. That was definitely a Stupefying Charm. Flitwick did not teach that charm until Fifth Year, at least.

Satisfied with what he had learned, Severus exited Potter's mind. The boy was almost prostrate on the floor, gasping for breath, and glaring up at Severus at the same time. When Severus arched an eyebrow, however, Potter swallowed hard and blanked his face, but, to his credit, he did not look away.

Crossing his arms over his chest, with his best I am very disappointed look, Severus sighed. 'Explain.'

TBC . . .

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reads and/or reviews! And you'all who've been taking time out to say nice things like, 'Sorry you're feeling yucky; we'll