Harry Potter 05 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

said Snape dangerously. ‘Now, I want you to close your eyes.’
    Harry threw him a filthy look before doing as he was told. He did not like the idea of standing there with his eyes shut while Snape faced him, carrying a wand.
    ‘Clear your mind, Potter,’ said Snape’s cold voice. ‘Let go of all emotion …’
    But Harry’s anger at Snape continued to pound through his veins like venom. Let go of his anger? He could as easily detach his legs …
    ‘You’re not doing it, Potter … you will need more discipline than this … focus, now …’
    Harry tried to empty his mind, tried not to think, or remember, or feel …
    ‘Let’s go again … on the count of three … one – two – three – Legilimens! ’
    A great black dragon was rearing in front of him … his father and mother were waving at him out of an enchanted mirror … Cedric Diggory was lying on the ground with blank eyes staring at him …
    ‘NOOOOOOO!’
    Harry was on his knees again, his face buried in his hands, his brain aching as though someone had been trying to pull it from his skull.
    ‘Get up!’ said Snape sharply. ‘Get up! You are not trying, you are making no effort. You are allowing me access to memories you fear, handing me weapons!’
    Harry stood up again, his heart thumping wildly as though he had really just seen Cedric dead in the graveyard. Snape looked paler than usual, and angrier, though not nearly as angry as Harry was.
    ‘I – am – making – an – effort,’ he said through clenched teeth.
    ‘I told you to empty yourself of emotion!’
    ‘Yeah? Well, I’m finding that hard at the moment,’ Harry snarled.
    ‘Then you will find yourself easy prey for the Dark Lord!’ said Snape savagely. ‘Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked so easily – weak people, in other words – they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!’
    ‘I am not weak,’ said Harry in a low voice, fury now pumping through him so that he thought he might attack Snape in a moment.
    ‘Then prove it! Master yourself!’ spat Snape. ‘Control your anger, discipline your mind! We shall try again! Get ready, now! Legilimens! ’
    He was watching Uncle Vernon hammering the letterbox shut … a hundred Dementors were drifting across the lake in the grounds towards him … he was running along a windowless passage with Mr Weasley … they were drawing nearer to the plain black door at the end of the corridor … Harry expected to go through it … but Mr Weasley led him off to the left, down a flight of stone steps …
    ‘I KNOW! I KNOW!’
    He was on all fours again on Snape’s office floor, his scar was prickling unpleasantly, but the voice that had just issued from his mouth was triumphant. He pushed himself up again to find Snape staring at him, his wand raised. It looked as though, this time, Snape had lifted the spell before Harry had even tried to fight back.
    ‘What happened then, Potter?’ he asked, eyeing Harry intently.
    ‘I saw – I remembered,’ Harry panted. ‘I’ve just realised …’
    ‘Realised what?’ asked Snape sharply.
    Harry did not answer at once; he was still savouring the moment of blinding realisation as he rubbed his forehead …
    He had been dreaming about a windowless corridor ending in a locked door for months, without once realising that it was a real place. Now, seeing the memory again, he knew that all along he had been dreaming about the corridor down which he had run with Mr Weasley on the twelfth of August as they hurried to the courtrooms in the Ministry; it was the corridor leading to the Department of Mysteries and Mr Weasley had been there the night that he had been attacked by Voldemort’s snake.
    He looked up at Snape.
    ‘What’s in the Department of Mysteries?’
    ‘What did you say?’ Snape asked quietly and Harry saw, with deep satisfaction, that Snape was unnerved.
    ‘I said, what’s in the Department of Mysteries, sir ?’ Harry said.
    ‘And why,’ said Snape slowly, ‘would you ask such a thing?’
    ‘Because,’ said Harry, watching Snape closely for a reaction, ‘that corridor I’ve just seen – I’ve been dreaming about it for months – I’ve just recognised it – it leads to the Department of Mysteries … and I think Voldemort wants something from –’
    ‘I have told you not to say the Dark