Occlumency doesn't come easily to Harry.

It takes hard work and sweat and an extenuating effort to clear his mind and perhaps set a few, weak walls in place.

And even when he manages, it is a hollow victory, because it marks no breakthrough: the next day he is back to ground zero.

It is a struggle that never gets easier, an uphill battle with no rest on sight, the epitome of frustration.

It's as if something in the way his mind is built makes it impossible to learn, really learn, how to protect his thoughts.

He tries the step-by-step approach countless times, stubbornly building the required defences time and again, but no matter how often he walks down it, the path is always as difficult as the first time.

Perhaps it is because he feels so intensely.

His emotions are too strong, his memories too vivid. There is no way to store them safely away, no way to ignore them.

He wears his heart on a sleeve, because it is too big, and beating too wildly, to be constrained inside a shielding screen.

But there is strength in this weakness.

Few can withstand such forceful feelings, such wild storms of sensations. Few know how to cope with such strong emotions constantly filling their hearts, lifting it to soar deliriously or plunging it into despair. Few can endure the wild assault of white-hot anger, the terrible emptiness of loss, the unbearable hollowness of grief, or even the fierce burning of love.

Harry can, and he learns to use this.

He welcomes the invaders and shares his most devastating experiences freely.

His secrets are safe because those who seek them can't reach them. They are overwhelmed and succumb long before they can get what they want.

He will never master Occlumency. He is unable to.

But his compensatory tool is brutally effective.

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