Chapter 1
What She Saw
Legilimency is the art and ability of a witch or wizard to extract emotions and memories from another's mind, and Occlumency is the counter measure used to resist such magical intrusion and influence. Both are ancient skills and both have been added to Defense Against the Dark Arts training at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Students in the more advanced levels must study them just the same as they must brew liquid luck in Potions and turn a rabbit into a footstool in Transfiguration. These lessons are intended, in the precarious days since the return of You-Know-Who, to enable students to recognize when their mind is being invaded and to cultivate a defensive instinct to protect themselves.
The velvety voice of Severus Snape led his class of fifth and sixth years with slow and methodical instructions of the elusive art of potion-making. He droned on as if teaching the class were a terrible bore and an unappreciated inconvenience. "It is of the utmost importance that you maintain control of your thoughts if you are to succeed as a Legilimens. Judging by the parchments that I have been forced to grade this term, the lot of you won't be able to maintain a continuous thought for the time required to complete this exercise. However," he bellowed in a startling contrast to his previous volume. When he was certain he had unnerved the students sufficiently, he continued in the same low monotone. "I am required to teach it to you even knowing that most of you are far too dense to master the art and undoubtedly far too lacking in discipline to do anything with it at your current level of maturity. Professor Dumbledore dictates that it will be taught as a defensive measure, and as I am the most practiced in the art, I have the distinct pleasure," this word he drawled out slowly and with a sneer, as if the word itself tasted sour on his tongue, "of introducing you to it."
"Now then, to begin this exercise today you will make eye contact with the partner across from you. It is not necessary for a practiced Legilimens to face his subject or even to be in the same room, but for your first attempt eye contact will be critical. The person across from you is your partner for the duration of this term.
"Students seated facing the west wall of the classroom will now concentrate on an object; imagine it clearly to make it easier for your partner to ascertain. Envision an object that is distinct in your memory. This needs to be a real thing. Choose something you have seen often and can easily picture in your mind. This is meant to be a primary exercise, so the object should be simple; do not over complicate this. Doing so will undermine any chance your partner has of succeeding and will waste my time. Do not waste my time.
"Students opposite will attempt to read these thoughts; focus on your partners. Silence your own insipid thoughts, slow your breathing, and let everything else out of your mind. Focus wholly on your partner; try to see what they are seeing. You might feel a pressure, but do not be dissuaded; you must move past your subject's mental barrier."
Draco looked at Luna; she appeared as starry-eyed and flighty as always. She would never get into his mind. He was the son of a Death Eater; he'd been raised around people who were trained to keep secrets, people who lived duplicitous lives. His mouth curled up in a sneer and he leaned back in his chair, not as a challenge but as a dismissal. She would surely have no effect on him. This was a waste of his time. He pictured his father's desk. "That should be simple enough for her, he thought. Not that she will succeed, he scoffed to himself. Draco watched Looney Luna's eyes as they wandered to his. She took a big breath that set her ridiculous radish earrings swinging, and as she let it out he saw her pupils widen as she focused on him. He felt a gentle tingling, almost a tickling in his mind. He had the urge to giggle—to giggle? Draco Malfoy did not giggle. That could only mean she was reaching with her silly little mind into his. The sneer melted off his face and he shifted in his chair. This can't be happening, he thought in disbelief, and as the first signs of panic gripped him he instinctively shoved back with his mind, hard. Her eyes unfocused and she slumped in her chair as if he had just physically pushed her away.
Snape droned on obliviously, "Your subject will not invite you into their mind. It is not a dinner date, it is a survival tactic, and it may be the last one you have the chance to employ; it may be the one that makes the difference between your survival and your demise."
Luna's eyes closed, her breathing slowed, her shoulders straightened, her face relaxed; she took on the posture of a serene and stately woman rather than the daffy girl Draco found so easy to dismiss. As he puzzled over this for a fraction of a moment her eyes opened in a flash and he felt like he was pressed into the chair by a stampeding hippogriff.
He saw the desk. He was in the library at the Manor. He was standing in front of the desk in his father's office. He saw the shine of the heartwood the desk was made of. He knew it was heavy, far too heavy for even three men to lift without magical aid. He could smell the ink and parchment that lay strewn across the top. "What are you hiding from me, Draco?" he heard his father's voice ask lightly. His stomach fell when he heard the voice. This wasn't right. He was thinking of the desk. It was his object. He was just supposed to be thinking of a stupid object. He looked at the desk and now he could see his father sitting on the other side of it, eyeing him coolly. Draco felt the sweat breaking out on his upper lip and desperately hoped his father could not see it. His breathing went shallow and his voice sounded strangled to his own ears. "Nothing, Father, I have nothing to tell you."
The silence that stretched across the next few seconds felt like ten years in Draco's mind. He couldn't meet his father's eyes. Instead his gaze roved nervously around the office. He glanced at the bookshelves behind his father's chair, populated with compendiums of Dark magic. He saw the pattern of dappled sunlight that fell through the windows on the west wall. He looked down at the carpet beneath him that was dark red like stained blood, and he felt hopeless.
"I know, Draco. I already know, and now I know that you are a disloyal—" his father's calm voice started rising— "deceitful—" he rose from his chair— "disappointing—" he was shouting now as he picked up his wand— "fool!" Lucius thundered the last and then, under his breath, muttered the curse which which Draco was all too familiar. "Crucio." And then there was white fire.
Draco sucked in a breath that was hot as an inferno. He knew what was coming. He knew his father would not stop. The fire grew jagged talons that ripped his flesh and scraped along his bones, melting them beneath the terrible heat and pressure. Soon his vision tilted as he collapsed under the pain, until all he could see were the legs of the desk as they crushed down the carpet with clawed reptilian feet. Draco knew that he would not be spared; that he would lose consciousness there, writhing on the blood-red carpet at his father's feet. Just as he knew that a scream would be torn from him, and that truth brought him unending shame. He knew he would feel shards of molten glass cut him apart and a ragged sound would be ripped from his throat.
Then, just at the crest of his inhale, he felt nothing but a bony hand on his shoulder and his eyes slammed back into his skull at a hundred miles an hour. He was reeling, panting, and looking up at stringy black hair and the worried gaze of the Dark Arts professor. "Malfoy," Snape drawled slowly, "are you unwell?" His lips turned up at the corners wryly but there was urgency in his gaze that belied his dismissive tone. Draco nodded; it was all he could manage to do as he collected his wits. Snape retreated like a snake uncoiling and disappeared from Draco's gaze, leaving him with nowhere else to look but at Luna again.
She had seen his shame, had delivered him directly to it. She had seen his cowardice. She, too, was breathing hard; her forehead and lip were beaded with sweat and her eyes were fervent, not glazed over in their usual state of dreamy oblivion. In the next moments neither could look away from the other; and together, as one, their breathing started to slow, their tensed muscles relaxed, and their concerned professor discreetly looked on with worry in his eyes.
It would be unexpected, to say the least, thought Snape, for that dunderhead of a Ravenclaw to be a Legilimency prodigy. He had considered that very thing when he had paired her with Draco, thinking she would lack the focus to be of any danger. It would be a desperate tragedy if she had in fact gone for a plunge into the mind of a Death Eater's son and found something she oughtn't to have seen. He had only himself to blame for partnering them with each other. But then, how could he have ever known she would be acute with a mental talent when her own mind was so lost in fantasy? "Class dismissed," Snape growled, his eyes never leaving Draco's pale and clammy face.
The next morning at breakfast Severus mused to himself that perhaps this was for the best. He peered thoughtfully at Luna Lovegood as she gazed sightlessly into space, her meal momentarily forgotten. She would offer testimony that was as far from credible as he could imagine. The only one who might give her an ear would be the Potter prat, but even he knew she was a bit out of sorts. Even if she had seen anything, and there wouldn't likely be anything in young Draco's mind of any crucial importance to the Dark Lord, she would likely think little of it and dismiss it to return to her daydreaming.
After all, he assured himself, her support of Potter and his friends in Dumbledore's Army was based on camaraderie. She was simply following the Golden Trio since they had seemed to befriend her; she knew nothing of what was playing out around her. Surely she had just bumbled into harm's way. Snape pondered Luna's prospects in life. Her bloodlines were impeccable, she was a pureblood, but her father was an unmitigated fool. He was also spineless as a jellyfish. It was a trait which his daughter had seemingly not inherited, to her credit.
No, he decided, putting his mind at rest, he needn't worry about Luna and Draco. The Legilimency lessons would continue unchanged. There would be undue questions if he were to interfere with the partnering, and besides, Draco would surely tell him if there was any cause for concern.
The matter decided, he turned his attention to his own breakfast. Those damnable house-elves couldn't manage to produce toast that wasn't overdone on one side. It was appalling. He'd do well to fix his own meals in his quarters, but Dumbledore insisted he be present at meals in the Great Hall, serving in the capacity of a chaperone, he supposed. Or perhaps it was a misguided attempt to encourage Snape to socialize with the rest of the staff. Dumbledore would do well to leave his personal habits as just that, personal, and keep his meddling to himself. The thought had Snape glancing towards Albus Dumbledore as if guilty of maligning him, if even just in his own thoughts. Dumbledore met his gaze with a smile and a twinkle in his eye, giving a wave with a half-eaten slice of toast in his hand. That was one mind Severus wanted never to see into. He never wanted to know how much the man actually knew; he seemed to be nearly omniscient. What a heavy burden that must be.
