Not Who You Think

Thirteen

Over the next few days, Harry borrowed the time turner so that he could spent the whole weekend working on his Occlumency and creating a natural barrier while hiding his real shields. He spent most of his turn back on Saturday after he created the basics of the new barrier, which was pretty easy, since it didn't need to be very strong, going through all of his memories to work out which ones he could actually class as 'safe' and if he could find any that he could edit without the edits being noticeable to create more 'safe' memories.

He finally decided on many memories from when he was younger, mainly the tamer memories though, so as to not show the full extent of what the Dursleys had done to him; Snape did not need to know that. He also decided on small snapshot memories of the adventures at the end of each year, bits and pieces of each memory to make it seem more like a traumatic event he was trying to forget. He also grabbed on to the memory that the Dementors brought up and a bit from the start of the graveyard, where Cedric was killed. He decided on some memories from Quidditch, some of classes, and a few from the DA meetings. And finally, he decided to include one or two of the dreams that his father had sent him or that he had glimpsed from his father over that year. Once he had all of the memories decided on, he spent his turn back on Sunday duplicating all of the memories that he had chosen and displaying the duplicates behind his natural barrier, but far enough away from his actual shields that Snape wouldnt think to dig deeper and so that he didn't find his real shields.

The main thing now, was that, even though he didn't want Snape to see many of the memories he had chosen, since they were private or extremely emotional ones, all the memories that Snape would see were safe. As long as Snape didn't dig past the fog and clouds that hid his real defences, his mask would be safe.

Monday came almost too quickly for Harry's liking. He made it through all of his classes, being bored out of his mind in many of them as they were theory lessons for spells he and his friends had learnt already on their own. That was one thing about studying independently and in secret, and hiding behind masks – many of the things they were learning in class they already knew and they were expected to be much further behind than they really were.

Even though he was as prepared as he could be for his Occlumency lessons with Snape, he was dreading them. Dinner came and went and soon enough it was ten to eight, and Harry was walking down to Snapes office. He stood in front of the door, preparing himself for what was to come before letting out a soft sigh and using all of his Gryffindor courage to make himself knock on the door.

Enter, Snape drawled, the door opening on its own. Harry stepped in, closing the door behind him. He found Snape standing in front of a Pensieve, his wand lowering from his head. Harry immediately stored away the information for later, wondering what Snape could possibly want to hide so much from him that he would put it in a Pensieve. After all, there was only an extremely slim chance of the student entering the teacher's mind during Occlumency lessons. Maybe Flame would be able to find out what he was hiding; it could be possible blackmail material or proof about his true loyalties.

"As I told you last week, Professor Dumbledore wishes you to study Occlumency. I will be teaching you the art of this particular mind magic, but it requires discipline and willpower, which I am unsure you possess. These lessons will be just like your other lessons and you are expected to treat me with respect and refer to me as sir or Professor. Is that clear, Potter?" Snape drawled. Harry ignored the thought that drifted through his mind about how his father would react if he heard Snape say that, immediately pushing that thought behind his real barriers so that Snape wouldn't be able to see it, instead nodding his head.

"A verbal answer, Potter."

"Yes sir," he said, gritting his teeth and doing his best to act as if he was the angry teenage Golden Boy having to put up with being around his most hated teacher for longer than he wished. Although, much of it wasn't an act; if he could get out of these lessons, he would.