Perhaps Snape saw as much in his eyes, for the man pressed a glass filled with something thin and transparent into his hand. "Drink this. Slowly. Try to identify it."
Harry was in no mind for guessing games, but the rational part of his mind knew that Snape couldn't be indulging in one, strange as the order seemed. The liquid tasted clean and clear. He strained harder with his tongue, with all his senses, concentrating, trying to taste any elusive hint of anything... and all the while, the Potions Master stared at him as though studying the rise and fall of his chest... as though he were counting his breaths. Snape had that same intensity of focus that he had when he needed to stir something a specific number of times...
Not liking the feeling that he was a potion, Harry finished off the drink. "Water," he announced, his voice wobbling. "Where's the pensieve, then?"
"You aren't calm enough yet." Snape explained, beginning to pace before the bed.
"Give me a proper Calming Draught, then!" Harry exclaimed, frustrated. "What possible use was it to give me water?"
"That wasn't mere water, it was an attempt to make you think of other matters," Snape dryly informed him. "As for an actual potion, I hardly think it wise at the moment."
Harry felt stupid then, realizing that of course taking a potion might interfere with being able to pensieve the dream. He really should have figured out the water ploy sooner, too, which proved that his father was right, and he did need to calm down. He could hardly think straight! But if getting his mind onto other matters would help with that, Harry decided, he'd ask the next logical question. "Dad... if dreams can be pensieved, why didn't we do that with the unadoption one?"
"Perhaps," Snape sighed, "because you waited a week and half to mention it to me." He pushed his hair back from his forehead in a gesture that betrayed his own anxiety, though his voice remained a level, soothing drone. "A pensieve needs to be used the first night, if at all. And too, you had already reconstructed your dream in writing, which process no doubt shifted portions of it from your subconscious to your conscious mind."
Realizing that talking of something else was making his panic recede a bit, Harry went ahead and pressed, "But what about back in Grimmauld Place? That time you woke me up when I was screaming in Parseltongue? Why didn't we use a pensieve then?"
"Then, if you recall, not a single seer dream of yours had come true yet. Lupin didn't understand what we were dealing with, and unfortunately neither did I."
Just the words seer dream had Harry's panic thundering back in. He felt his breath catch, only to have Snape notice at once. Sitting down on the bed, too, the Potions Master turned slightly to regard the boy. "Harry. You simply must get yourself under control. The dream, whatever it means, won't emerge coherently if you are still upset when we attempt to draw it from your mind."
Harry looked down at his bare feet. "I understand. But... well, I can't not be upset after dreaming something like that."
Snape patted the spot beside him as he spoke. "I would suggest Occluding but I believe you're still doing that as a matter of course?"
Harry nodded as he shifted over and felt the comforting warmth of his father wrapping an arm about his shoulders. "Tell me about the Gryffindors in your year," the man invited. "What sort of career do you think each will pursue upon leaving Hogwarts?"
It was a ploy to get his mind off the dream and onto a more pleasant topic; this time Harry was aware of that. He was even aware that Snape was certainly not that interested in the Gryffindors, and that once upon a time, Harry would never have considered giving the Potions Master such information. Who knew what he might do with it? The art of the insult... Snape could turn even the most innocuous details into scathing commentary, were he so inclined.
Ginny and Hermione had made it clear enough that adopting Harry hadn't made Snape any fonder of Gryffindors in general...
But all that aside, Harry did trust the man. Snape would be as snide as he liked and might never get over his tendency to take unfair points from Gryffindor... but what he wouldn't do was misuse whatever Harry told him now.
"Um, I don't know," he said, thinking his way through it as he relaxed in his father's embrace. It was hard to let the dream go, it really was, but like Snape had said, for Draco's sake he had to. "Let's see. Hermione. I can't think that Hogwarts is going to be enough education to suit her. I could see her at Oxford or Cambridge, except I'm not sure she'd want to go to a strictly Muggle university..."
"And Mr. Weasley?"
Harry smiled slightly. "Seven years of formal education will be enough for him. But afterwards... hmm. He talks sometimes about joining Fred and George in their business, but he'll want something with steadier prospects, I expect. A regular job with a regular salary so won't have to wait too long before he can--" Harry abruptly shut up and began chewing his lip.
"Propose to Miss Granger?" Snape drawled.
"I don't know if things'll get all that serious or not," Harry backpedaled.
"Well, I've thought for a good while now that Mr. Weasley has Auror written all over him," Snape said, his tone making it sound far from a compliment. "Not too observant, doesn't do 'subtle.' Can't bear, in his capacity as prefect, to enforce a rule against a friend though woe betide his enemies. Perfect Auror material."
Harry knew, of course, that Snape had good reason to hate Aurors, but it still bothered him to hear the man speak that way. He knew Harry wanted to become one, didn't he? And now Draco did as well. What was he going to think when both his sons were part of the ranks he so despised?
If Draco lived that long, that was.
Feeling his panic rushing back in, Harry abruptly redoubled his Occlumency and pushed the emotion outside the fire protecting his mind. The effort made him a bit lightheaded, but he ignored that.
"I don't think Ron's got much wish to be an Auror," he said before Snape could warm to the theme any further and mention how the lot of them were all sadists, or something. "Anyway, where were we? Oh, yeah... Dean. You know, sometimes I think he'd like to get an apprenticeship to become a Medi-Wizard..."
Snape let him rattle on for a few moments after that, and then standing, opened a large cabinet and fetched forth Dumbledore's stone pensieve. It surprised Harry a bit that Snape would have it so handy, but he shrugged off that issue and tried to remain calm as his father set it on a writing table and beckoned him forward. He couldn't help but feel his tension returning, though Snape helped it quite a bit when he sighed and pointedly asked if Harry ever thought to put on slippers before wandering from his bed at night.
"I had more on my mind than cold feet, you know," Harry mumbled, only realizing then that cold was washing up from the floor in waves to drench him. Had been, for some time. Maybe that was why he'd been trembling so much.
"Well, as we don't want to risk waking Draco..." Shrugging, Snape accioed a pair of his own socks. "Put these on. Then we'll begin."
Harry slipped on the socks, hopping first on one foot then the other, ignoring Snape's slightly derisive stare at the behavior. A toasty warmth at once enveloped his toes, and he realized the socks must be charmed. Before he could comment on that, though, he felt the tip of a wand touching his temple. He began thinking of his dream, of course, but instead of the familiar Pensare non pensatum, his father began instructing, "Close your eyes, Harry. Now, I realize you're habitually Occluding already, but this time when I say to clear your mind, I need you to do what you used to think it meant. Think of nothing at all--"