Prompt: Threads
A/N: Well, then. . . I'm back! Is it me or it feels like I'm keeping this Tomione drabble thread alive? O.o I seriously hope not. Helloooooo, anyone out there? As you can probably tell I'm a bit crazy at the moment, because I have finals tomorrow, it is past midnight, and all I want a bloody cup of tea. But no, I don't have a cup. I haven't studied either. I'm so doomed. So doomed.
RIP my grades! ARGHHHHHH!
Anyway. . . This is a continuation of the Professor!Tom Riddle drabble. Part 2 begins here. Or would it be chapter 2? I don't know. Oh, well. Modern + College + Magic + Professor!Tom Riddle AU. Also, I can never quite get over that. Professor Tom Riddle. Yum, yum.
I.
Hermione doesn't just get the psychology books the good professor requested. She came from a Muggle background. She might as well use it. Google provides a stellar amount of information about psychology. She thinks back to the times of early childhoods, back to when her parents thought her as an average child with no extraordinary traits. Follow dentistry, her father had suggested when she was eight. On the subject of psychology, her father dismissed it as a soft science and majorly made up of dubious characters such as one Philip Zimbardo in his Stanford prison experiment.
She looks through the Wikipedia article of his prison experiment. Then she glances down to her lap, to where a Muggle psychology textbook lays. Squints at the words. The experiment didn't just "got out of hand." It went complete bonkers. And vile. Only in the 60s, she thinks. She squints at the date. Or early 70s.
There is absolutely no way they would run an experiment like this today. It wouldn't be morally acceptable.
She flips through the pages. Professor Riddle covers some decent ground of Muggle psychology. He has the class covering the structure of the brain to its intricate, detailed functions. Medulla, cerebellum. . . So many parts that make up a whole.
Her hand runs across the colorful illustrations of the hindbrain. Every single layer, every single part, perfectly labeled and colored in red, blue, orange, pink. . . But what does have to do with Legilimency?
Her fingers underline the highlighted definition of psychology in the Muggle textbook.
Psychology. Noun. the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context.
Study of the mind and its functions.
She taps her fingers against her temple. She has a feeling that learning this, whatever this is, will only be the foundation to whatever the good professor is building up to.
II.
Occlumency Honors. The first class begins two days after Legilimency Honors. She glances around at her class. A smaller group than Legilimency Honors. She wonders if it's because Occlumency is not as attractive as Legilimency or that potential students heard about Professor Riddle's exploration of the minds on Monday. She reckon it was more of the latter than the former.
It's another horror story in the collection of Professor Riddle's horror stories. She has heard from her roommate's friend that Professor Riddle managed to control somebody's limbs that Monday and then made them dance hip-hop. Or bellydance. Or yodeling. Gossip is a game of telephone, and the truth is always scarred beyond recognition, impossible to dig out.
Always about what he has done, not where he has come from. She remembers the way he looks, the way he's dressed. Similar in the aristocratic style as the Malfoys but dressed subtlety attractive. It's not modest. But it is not extravagant, much like how a peacock spread its watchful wings as courtship. His background. Where was he born? What created a mind like his? What was his development? What kind of parental styles was he raised under? Was his parents controlling, domineering? Or perhaps were they neglectful?
Trust versus mistrust. Autonomy versus shame. It goes on and on. Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development. The concept wasn't required reading, but Hermione always likes to cover the material one hundred percent and then fifteen percent more. She would guess Professor Riddle is around his late twenties.
Intimacy versus isolation.
Hermione chooses the front once again. No one sits besides her in the open seats. Instead, they crowd in the back. Not a single word is even whispered as the clock in the front of the room ticks with its seconds hand. Just the smell of sugarless, black coffee. Slowly, just slowly, its bitter scents awakes Hermione.
The door opens, right on time. Professor Riddle steps him. Sporting a black wool coat, he places his dark brown briefcase onto the podium. His coat is tossed over the teacher's desk. White collared shirt, revealed. He rolls up his sleeve, folding back the fabric on both arms. His forearms are pale and sculpted, as if carved from marble. Hermione can't help but watch a gentle dark curl slip down to cover part of his forehead as his mouth pursed in concentration. He looks. . . stunningly boyish all of the sudden.
Someone slap her. Now.
Last time she has felt something close to this was Professor Lockhart back in Hogwarts. She nearly pukes as more recent memories of Professor Lockhart comes to mind. Retrograde amnesia. Memory loss, in which he can't remember anything before the accident but could remember things after the accident.
"Occulumency."
Hermione turns her eyes towards Professor Riddle. Unconsciously, she leans forward, as if she could learn better from the professor. Or perhaps, it is more than that. His voice is warm, soothing, and calm. It has presence, but it also possesses the traits of a true siren, luring sailors to their deaths in dark seawaters where the sunlight never reach.
He peers at every student, every face, every pair of eyes in the room. His foot steps closer to his class. A wand, drawn out from his pockets. His fingers, caressing the wand. He has long, pale fingers. Perfect for a pianist.
She wonders if he plays. She can picture it now. The fingers running across the black and white keys, dancing to each note. Eyes, closed. Heart, open. Eyes, just listening to the music. Mouth. . .
"What is Occlumency?"
Hermione resists the urge to raise her hand. The professor glances over her, and she could swear on her heart, on her soul, that in that single moment, he has arched his eyebrow at her in the most silent, damning challenge possible.
She can hear his dismissal of her provided definition of Legilimency. Elementary, he calls it. Textbook definition.
Her cheeks burn.
"Miss Granger? Would you like to provide a definition?" Mouth, curling.
A pause. She quickly thinks. What does he want to hear? At the tip of her tongue lies a perfect textbook recitation of the definition of Occlumency. But she has a feeling that is not sufficient. That is not enough for him.
But she can't make one up. She can't suddenly pull information out of thin air. Harry and Ron may be able to pull bullshit from nowhere, but she is not them. Not anywhere close.
"I don't know," she softly replies.
In the quiet classroom, her words might as well be a shout.
His lips quirk in amusement. "By the end of this semester, every person in here will know the definition of Occlumency. Not its simple, textbook definition. 'The defense against Legilimency'? That is woefully inadequate."
She lets out a sigh of pure relief. At least, she didn't say it, didn't give him that definition. He would shred it apart and throw it to the floor like confetti. Worse of all, she'll be humiliated. Twice.
He waves his wand around casually as he lectures. A small part of Hermione is tempted to raise her hand and tell Professor Riddle that improper handling of his wand could take out someone's eye, but she has a really strong feeling he wouldn't give a damn about someone's eye. Besides, he'll probably stick it back in.
"The best way to discover Occlumency is to experience Legilimency."
Hermione does not fail to notice the evil, delighted glint in his eye. Nor does she forget the way he twirls his wand around in his fingers.
III.
He gives each person a mental proddle, instructing them to build mental defenses. Hermione wants to scream, yell at him for not giving better instructions. Mental defenses? From the way he smirks, she can tell that he's going to win. He's going to win whatever game he has them all play. He holds all the cards and strings, and with a twitch of his finger, he will force them to dance to his tune.
There is no way she can outsmart him. He knows too much, and she knows too little.
Perhaps she should simply lay back and close her eyes. It's no use looking through the Occlumency textbook like how some of her panicking peers are. The information to building a wall, a block isn't there. Methodology and instructions against Legilimency, in a book about Occlumency, is not included. What a horrible textbook, but she suspects it is precisely the reason he picked this book to include in his curriculum.
"Miss Granger," he says, raising a brow. "Ready?"
She nods. Might as well rip off the bandaid. Then it's over.
IV.
She'll be lying if she says the experience of Legilimency is the same as last time. Something has changed. Perhaps it's because she's far more alert, aware of how Professor Riddle slinks through her memories with frighteningly ease. He prowls through her childhood memories, searching and pausing whenever he finds a memory somewhat interesting. Like the one where she takes standardized tests to measure her intelligence.
Convergent thinker, he muses. You need more creativity.
He stops at a memory where she pours her heart and soul into memorizing the details of difficult wand work for a certain spell.
There's a maneuver, he whispers.
Out of some stupid impulse, she replies back. But it is the more traditional way. Her voice echoes, and she feels louder, bolder than what she really is. After all, he is inside of her own mind, manipulating it to unravel the secrets she has never told.
Traditional, he repeats.
She can feel his amusement. She doesn't care. She can feel his powerful presence lurking among her childhood memories, skimming through the colors and details. She doesn't know where exactly he is, but she can sense a sort of direction, sort of like how she can sense a voice in the back of her mind advising her not to do something incredibly stupid.
If traditions are held true, he pauses, then we would believe the sun revolves around the earth. But that isn't true. We seek to improve what's already there and to build upon it to make the great monument imaginable.
She paces among more recent memories. Hiding among the lethal bargainings with a real estate agent. She still senses his prying open her lost, deep memories. In the deepest part of her brain. Down, down, down. If the brain is an onion, Professor Riddle is all the way next to the core and peeling away each layer. Still digging and digging.
It's wrong, she realizes. Completely wrong.
The core is how she lives, how she breathes, how she survives. If he gets to that core. . . She doesn't know what would happen, but she can imagine the horrors. He could. . . do anything to her.
This is where she thinks. Her own thoughts. Private. And now this professor wants to discover her by forcing his way. He may be gentle and subtle in his movements, but she knows exactly what he's doing.
She has do something. Anything.
Slowly, she withdraws. Folding herself in a neat, tiny corner of her brain. She can feel herself getting stronger, more willful. Even though there's less of her throughout the mind, threads, nerves, connection each section of the brain to the next pass whispers and reports of the intruder casually observing the last and only conversation she had with Professor Albus Dumbledore. Harry's far closer to Professor Dumbledore, managing to talk to him every six months. His parents are friends to the headmaster.
Hermione holds her breath as she dashes towards Professor Riddle. Perhaps he knows. Sees the way there's less of her now. More of a brain filled with memories but without a will to guide it. She is close enough to taste his emotions.
So different than what it was before. Where it was cocky, arrogant, confident.
Now, it is strange apprehension.
But it can't be.
Is she actually doing something right?
He stops looking through her memory. The one where she and Victor Krum kiss on the last day of her fourth year. She winces. She nearly forgot about that. At that time, it was the most glorious and heated kiss of her life. Oh, how little she knew.
Miss Granger, he says in mock surprise, where did you go?
Here, she whispers back. Professor Riddle stiffens, and she reaches for everything she ever remembers. It's so much information, all of these notes and facts she has so lovingly memorized for the future. Potion recipes, spells, wand work, math. But she knows far more than that. She knows the daily habits of Crookshanks, the unique way he hisses at Harry and Ron, the messy gifts he leaves on her front porch. She knows every hair on Ron Weasley's eyebrow, knows the way it thins out. The little details. All the little details of the bigger picture.
Professor Riddle retreats, pulling himself back.
She frowns, instantly suspicious.
His presence, his conscious is still here. But where?
Then suddenly, her world turns upside down. A furious hurricane of memories, not hers, slap by. It's too fast, overwhelming to see the precise details. She picks apart a few pieces. A piece of white cloth. A woman's chilling, sadistic laughter. The echoing sound of a smack across the face. The deep, scent of cigars. The cold, bitter wind brushing the hairs on the neck.
Then the memories recede, drawing back to the source.
She turns and turns in the abyss of her mind until some force shoves her through a memory. But it's not hers.
V.
She sits at an empty desk in a classroom of boys. They are slightly younger, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old. Glancing around, she marvels at the intricate, vibrant details of the stuffy classroom. It's Hogwarts. She's quite sure of it. Moody's classroom. He taught one year at Hogwarts in her first year and then permanently retired.
Slytherin boys. Seventh years.
She spins around. Sure enough, there's this one boy. Abraxas Malfoy is laughing at something while the devastatingly young Tom Riddle calmly and quietly pens in a black journal. A picture of a perfect student. Dutiful, responsible, and dedicated. His sharp Head Boy badge glimmers even in the dim light. His dark hair is styled perfectly.
What is he writing?
The scene freezes, as if someone pushed the pause button on a remote control. Where Professor Moody used to stand is the real Professor Riddle. His hand slams down the chalk, and Hermione quickly turns her head towards him.
He raises his hands together in a slow clap. She isn't sure if it's supposed to be mocking or congratulating.
"Throwing memories at a Legilimens. . ." He pauses, straightening out his cuffs. "Well, I suppose that makes you a shoddy Occlumen."
Hermione reddens, her lips shut tight. If she lets her tongue free, she would use her words to slash Professor Riddle into pieces. It would be completely unbecoming of a student to use such language and diction against her professor.
"What you did was awkward. Much like how a dog would bark," he says. He crouches down, stopping when he's right at Hermione's eye level. His dark eyes gaze right into hers, piercing and searching. "No direction in your attack. Do you know what type of Occlumency defense was that?"
Hermione shakes her head.
The professor answers quietly, "Sensory overload. Where you overwhelm the Legilimens and attempt to confound them with too much information. Combined with Withdrawal, it's a deadly, offensive defense." At Hermione's confused look, he further explains, "Withdrawal is where you center your psyche in one particular area of the brain. It helps strengthen the power of your counterattack. Which you have not. . ." He searches for a word. ". . . inadequately done." From the way his nose scrunches up and his tone of disbelief, not inadequately is a huge compliment coming from him.
He nods at her. "Miss Granger." He begins to pull away.
"Wait," she calls out, standing up from the fading desk. She glances around, her hand gesturing to this foreign memory. "Is this a form of Legilimency then?"
His form, the shape of his body, solidifies again. "Yes. It's called a sticky memory. Used in both Legilimency and Occlumency. It's a way of trapping a psyche in a memory. Keep someone in a sticky memory long enough, and they will be unable to remember they're in a memory."
Before he could slip away from her mind, she blurts out, "Professor Riddle?"
He raises an eyebrow.
"How did you get into the deeper layers of my mind? The older memories?" she questions. "I couldn't tell anything. . ."
A pale hand taps the side of her temple. She shivers, though it's perfectly warm. "You know your mind better than anyone else. No Legilimens can truly understand its depths or behold its true complexities. The greatest Occlumen is a master of their psyche."
"What makes a Legilimen great then?"
Silence.
Professor Riddle slips away. Hermione thinks he's going to leave that question unanswered, just leaving it for her to discover and find.
But she hears a word rebounding, echoing. His voice, his word.
Empathy.
Second A/N: You know I have another test tomorrow, right? I'm so freaking doomed. Oh, well. Hope you enjoyed this!