Harry jerked, his eyes opening in reflex. "You don't want me to remember the dream so you can pull it all out?"
"Imposing conscious thought on it will corrupt the purity of your memory," Snape reminded him. "Precisely why I didn't want you going into details out loud. So now, do exactly as I say. Clear your mind of all thought, all emotion..."
Harry thought he wouldn't be able to; he'd never had much luck before in achieving a state of complete mental blankness, and goodness knew he did used to try... Now that he finally did know how to Occlude, however, this other skill came without too much effort.
He wasn't exactly thinking of nothing, though.
He was falling into a great pool, a calming lake that soothed his every worry and fear, a smooth clean pond that surrounded him with waters that were strangely warm.
Or maybe it wasn't water at all; it was just a sense of being loved. Of knowing he could let go and be safe. Of knowing he could trust.
It was like something inside him unlocked, then, and he felt himself draining away. And then, his mind did clear. Completely. His defenses fell, the fire he'd been hiding behind finally quenched as all thought ceased and he simply drifted, disembodied. Calm.
Finally, completely calm.
"Pensare non reves," the syllables drifted through his consciousness, flowing all around him though the sound didn't seem to impinge upon his thoughts. He had no thoughts; he was simply existence. "Pensare circundatae..."
There was nothing to him but the sensation of a gentle pulling, of a long stream of knowledge being drawn from inside him, leaving him weak and gasping and shocked by the loss. He felt himself falling over sideways, felt a strong arm supporting him and keeping him from collapsing.
Harry's eyes flew open, the air itself seeming to strangle him as his stunned eyes sought out his father. He tried to draw a breath and couldn't, his mind caught up in some sort of tangle as it hunted for what was gone, no thought to spare for something as irrelevant as the fact that he might need oxygen.
For once, Snape didn't drawl breathe, you idiot child at him. As if knowing that this was something beyond a mere panic attack, Snape quietly urged, "Drink, Harry," wrapping the boy's fingers around a teacup brimming with something blue and frothy.
Harry opened his mouth and tried to breathe again, but he still couldn't, so in desperation, he gulped down a huge swallow of the potion, only to spew half of it out, the taste was so foul. It did the trick, though. All at once it was like his brain snapped to attention, or something, and a violent rush of air expanded inside his lungs though he didn't think he actually had breathed, yet. But now he could, he realized.
Snape wordlessly handed him a small towel and watched him mop off his face and hands, then gestured that Harry should drink the rest of the potion. Harry made a face, but complied. It made him sweat a little, so he was glad of the towel again afterwards.
"Better?"
Harry blinked, and wiped a bit more at his face. He felt hot... and above all, confused. Like he'd just woken up... that disoriented feeling when you realize you've been asleep. Only worse. He couldn't remember going to sleep at all, and certainly not in Snape's bedroom--
"What... um, what happened? What am I doing in here?" Harry's gaze took in his own pajamas. Then he noticed Snape's socks on his feet and almost did a double-take. It seemed such a terribly personal thing to be wearing them. Uncle Vernon would have flayed him alive...
Snape though, wasn't anything like his Uncle Vernon. He'd been foisted on the Dursleys, and they'd never let him forget it for one instant, but what had Snape said? You're my son by choice, not obligation.
"Thanks," he said, his voice a bit rough, and when Snape looked at him a bit incredulously, Harry explained, "For the socks."
Snape suddenly scowled, his mood shifting like quicksilver. "If they weren't dead already," he muttered, but then his expression cleared. "Harry, you're entitled to have your father love you enough to lend you a pair of socks."
Harry nodded, a little bit embarrassed that his insecurities were so transparent, but that thought got lost when he noticed Snape's long robe, so blue as to be almost black. His gaze skidded across the simple silver clock hanging above his father's bed. "It's the middle of the night!"
"Yes. Prepare yourself for a shock," Snape dryly announced, gesturing toward a chair. He pulled another chair around the table to place it alongside Harry, speaking again only when he was seated as well. "You've had a bad dream and this time, you had the sense to come to me with it at once. We've just pensieved the dream from your mind--"
The boy noticed the stone bowl, then, so close he could touch it. Funny how he hadn't realized it was there. "You can do that?"
For some reason, Snape's answering nod looked a bit weary. Actually, Harry had a vague sense that they'd had this conversation already, but for the life of him, he couldn't really remember... His whole head felt like it was stuffed with candy floss... but also like he was missing some vital part of it, too.
"Pensieving dreams is a notoriously difficult endeavor," Snape was explaining by then. "And highly unpleasant, as you've no doubt discovered. The mind is well able to cope with the temporary loss of a conscious memory; pensieving a dream, however, involves removing a part of your subconscious. The mind doesn't appreciate it." He suddenly stopped speaking and peered closely at the boy. "Do you need another dose of Breath of Life?"
"Ugh, that blue stuff?" Harry moaned, rubbing his temples. "No, I don't want more." He tried to think past the haze of confusion churning in his mind, though what he wanted more than anything was just to go to sleep. For days, something like. "All right, so I had a dream," Harry said, reasoning his way past the huge empty place in his mind. "And I can't remember it because you already took it out of my head, right. But... um, why can't I even remember coming to you, though? Actually, the last thing I remember is joking around with Draco--"
Fortunately, the exact content of that conversation came clear to him before he finished the sentence and mentioned something about the two of them making so much fun of Snape.
"Your conscious memories at the fringes of the dream were drawn out too," Snape explained. "The better to be sure I swept the whole dream out of your mind."
Harry swallowed, trying harder to remember going to sleep. Had he and Draco kept making silly plans to steal shampoo? He'd die if Snape saw that; he'd simply die. Of course it was hopeless trying to figure out what other nonsense he and Draco might have spouted; his bedtime memories were in the pensieve, not inside his head. "So, um... you're going to see what Draco and I were laughing about, I guess," he murmured, feeling his face heat at the prospect. Better to get it over with, right? Because if Snape was going to see anyway... yeah, better to pay the piper. Or face the music. Actually, Harry wasn't sure why metaphors like that were coming to mind. Probably because he just felt stupid, now. Snape had taken him in, warded him, cared for him, made him his own son, for pity's sake, and what had he done in return? Cackled and howled at the man's expense.
His stomach a churning vat of acid, Harry weakly ventured, "Listen, Professor... Draco and I... we were goofing around a bit. Um, talking about you, actually, but we didn't mean anything by it, honest. I mean, you're a really good father and I do love you, I swear. We were just having a spot of fun--"
Snape was shaking his head. "Harry, do you remember me telling you that you worry too much? I assure you, whatever you and Draco were laughing about, I'm not likely to take offense. I was actually quite pleased to see you two at such ease with one another."
"Could have fooled me," Harry muttered, glancing up through his lashes. Snape was going to be furious with them both, he just knew it. And Harry was the one who'd brought up the whole hair thing, wasn't he, had actually said that his father's appearance embarrassed him? He wished the floor would split open and swallow him, he really did.