Chapter 20: Learning Occlumency

The next morning, Harry and Ginny had breakfast before everyone again so that they could start on her Occlumency lesson before anyone could stop them. Thankfully, everyone else were heavy sleepers and wouldn't wake up until the duo were well into Ginny's lesson. Once they were in her room, Harry took her desk chair and sat on it while she sat on her bed.

"Right, Ginny, I need you to look into my eyes now. A key point of Legilimency is needing eye contact to work. Until you're proficient with Occlumency, do not look at any adult directly in the eyes in case they can use Legilimency like Dumbledore. Do you understand?" Harry explained in a more serious tone than normal.

"I understand, Harry" Ginny replied.

"What I'm going to do now is go into your mind. What I want you to do is try and block me as best you can with your natural shields so that we can see what needs to be worked on. I won't be holding back either. I will be trying to pull up a memory. If I make it through to a memory, then the practical session for today is over. However, we can stop right here if you aren't comfortable with this. The memory I may see may not be a good one depending on how close the memory gets to the forefront of your mind. So, do you trust me?" Harry explained.

"Yes, I trust you, Harry," Ginny responded with conviction.

Ginny then saw Harry's eyes shine and assumed that he had gotten inside her mind. However, she kept eye contact and tried to focus. Harry, on the other hand, was wandering around the vast plain of Ginny's mind trying to find her weaknesses. He could see that, like him, she had some natural barriers, but they were extremely brittle to the trained eye. Behind each barrier was darkness. Curiosity got the better of him as he broke through her barriers to see what was behind them. Once the memory started, he would end it straight away and just leave her mind. However, he was unprepared for what he was about to see as he was bombarded by visions of her childhood. None were pleasant.

The darkness held all of Ginny's worst memories that she had tried to forget about. The pain that Ron inflicted upon her and the insults that he sent her when they were alone. The psychological abuse and cruelty of her mother. They were all laid bare in front of Harry now. As much as he tried to get out of her mind, not wanting to invade her privacy anymore than he felt he had, he couldn't get out. It was almost like something wanted him to see the memories. One of the more prominent memories was one of Ginny and Ron when they were about five and six respectively.

"Girls can't play Quidditch! Only boys are good enough to ride brooms!" the younger Ron taunted.

"But I can ride a broom! Just let me show you! Why are you being like this?!" the younger Ginny exclaimed in shock and sadness.

"You're lying, Ginny! Everyone knows that Mum won't let you ride a broom! You're too young and you're a girl! Go play with your dollies or something! I have better things to do than listen to you rambling about how you can be like us or Harry Potter!" Ron shouted.

"But I thought that you guys liked me playing with you..." Ginny sniffed as a tear began to leak out of her eye.

"No, we don't! We just babysit you because Dad can't! We don't want you! And get over Harry, why don't you?! He'll never marry a cry-baby like you! I'll make sure to tell him everything when we're best friends and he won't go anywhere near you!" Ron explained angrily.

"B-b-but Ron, why-?!" Ginny tried to say as she began to sob.

Ron interrupted Ginny with a smack to the face and knocked her to the ground. As she curled up into a ball and cried, he walked away with an evil smirk on his face.

Ginny couldn't tell on Ron to her parents. Her mother would hurt her and she knew that her mother and Ron would convince Daddy that she was lying. Then her mother would hurt her anyway. She was alone until Daddy got home and she would be Daddy's Little Princess again. They wouldn't hurt her then.

The next memory was Ginny with her mother about a couple of years later. Harry had a feeling that this was related to the 5-year-old Ginny's thoughts about telling on Ron.

"Ginny, stop pestering me!" Mrs Weasley ordered irritably.

"But Mummy, Ron keeps saying bad words! He won't let me play with him and-Oww!" Ginny screamed as Mrs Weasley slapped her, knocking her to the floor.

"Grow up, Ginevra! Your brother has more important things to worry about now, so stop pestering him! And don't spout such lies about him either! Ronald is a good boy and I won't have you saying such bad things about him. Do you understand me?!" Mrs Weasley ordered angrily.

"Yes, Mummy," Ginny replied quietly, choking back tears.

"Yes, what?" Mrs Weasley said, glaring at Ginny menacingly.

"Yes, Ma'am," Ginny responded as she began to sob.

"Don't show your father that you've been crying! Go clean your face before he gets home now! Go!" Mrs Weasley ordered.

"Yes, Ma'am." Ginny sobbed as she headed upstairs to the bathroom, "Someone...Please help me..."

Harry finally exited Ginny's mind as he heard her scream in reality, not wishing to see anymore. When he finally adjusted back to reality, she saw her curled into a ball on her bed, not unlike her position in that first memory. Hesitantly, he made his way over to her and stroked her hair. This time, however, it didn't seem to calm her down at all.

"I'm sorry, Ginny. I didn't mean for you to have to relive those memories. I'm so sorry," Harry sighed in despair.

The despair for his best friend soon turned to anger. They did this to her. Ron and Mrs Weasley. They would pay.

"I'm going to kill them..." Harry said darkly as he turned to walk away, blinded by rage.

Harry was then stopped by a hand grabbing his arm. He turned around to see the saddened look on Ginny's face and met her pleading eyes. The pain in her eyes were like nothing he had ever seen before, not even in his own reflection when he was less than 7-years old. He knew then and there that he would do whatever she asked of him. He couldn't deny her of anything with those eyes.

"Don't go, Harry...Please stay..." Ginny requested, pausing in between due to her sobbing.

"Someone...Please help me..." the voice of the younger Ginny repeated in Harry's mind.

Harry sighed in defeat and sat on Ginny's bed next to her. He pulled her up as she rested her head on his shoulder as she cried and he stroked her hair to comfort her.

"They won't hurt you again. I swear it. I will make them pay for what they did," Harry swore.

Ginny merely wrapped her arms around Harry, almost as if she feared that he would leave if she loosened her grip on him for even a second.

"What do you want me to do, Ginny? I will do anything you ask," Harry asked.

"Just hold me..." Ginny requested.

Harry gave Ginny a sombre smile as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. The warm of his body and his heartbeat finally penetrated through the pain she was reliving and began to calm her down.

'Never again.' Harry thought, 'Never again will they or anyone else hurt her.'

A soft glow outlined the two. It was unnoticed by them, however, and only lasted a few seconds, but the seed was sown. This was only the beginning of what would happen to Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley and woe be to those who would attempt to get between them.

For the remainder of the day, it took every ounce of Harry's self-control not to lash out at Ron and Mrs Weasley and destroy them, but he knew of the consequences of such a rash decision. Everything would be for nothing and his plans to defeat the evil in the Wizarding World would fail. No, they had their usefulness...for now. Once that was gone, however, he would drop the justice hammer down on them and avenge the suffering that Ginny had to endure during her childhood.

Ginny had also begun reading up on Occlumency. While some parts she understood relatively well, she did need Harry to explain some things to her every now and again just to clarify the points being made in the book. This continued for about a week until she had read every chapter about Occlumency. She now had a basic understanding on the theory behind it, but now she would have to use that theory to actually protect her mind.

Ginny spent the next week focusing on strengthening her natural defences. Once that was done, she began to add to them, placing barriers around more sensitive memories and, as suggested, placing guards around said memories. These guards were a mixture of aggressive and strong animals, both magical and non-magical. The odd part about each animal was that they had the same eyes and body colour. Green eyes with a black body. It was almost as if she had taken every quality of Harry and put it into animal form. There was a lion representing his strength, a hyena and snake both representing his cunning, a phoenix representing his nobility, a dragon representing his raw power and a wolf representing his loyalty to his friends and his dominance as an alpha-like figure.

All throughout the week, Harry tested Ginny's mental defences to find any weakness. Before she put the animal guards up, Harry was still easily able to break through her defences, but he didn't delve into her memories this time. While he knew that the threat of getting to her memories again may prompt her to improve quicker, it could easily backfire and stunt her improvement if they affected her negatively again. Then again, he didn't have anyone testing his defences and he turned out fine, even if he was a natural at the mind arts. He could only hope that she was too.

Eventually, the constant destruction of her barriers made Ginny more determined than ever to get them right for the next intrusion, and the animal guards were added as insurance. As Harry hoped, the next time he entered her mind, the barriers did not let up easily. When they did, he was surprised, but impressed, to see the animals behind them. He fought them off still, then exited, commending her on her improvement.

Ginny remembered one piece of advice in the book just before the next test of her defences. Harry would never know what hit him. She was right. When Harry finally took her barriers down this time, after a very laborious few minutes, or maybe more, he was extremely impressed by what he saw. Instead of a single animal from each species like the last time, she had created a literal army of animals to protect her mind. He still tried to fight them, not wanting to just give up as a challenge to himself and to her defences, but he found that there was just too many. Much to his surprise, it seemed as though with every animal he took down, another would re-spawn. She had finally done it. He then exited her mind and smiled widely.

"Ginny, that was amazing! You even manage to keep re-spawning new animals to replace those that were defeated. Excellent!" Harry exclaimed.

"So, did I pass?" Ginny asked.

"You passed with flying colours. I almost hope that Dumbledore tries to attack your mind. He'll lose too much energy taking down your barriers, if he even can, then your army will eat him for dinner!" Harry answered with a massive grin on his face.

Harry and Ginny hugged after this and relaxed for the rest of the day to celebrate her achievement. He still advised her to keep adding to her defences, maybe even adding some traps into her barriers like he had, but he was confident that she was at a competent level and would be ready to delve into the art of Legilimency. However, considering how close September 1st was, they decided that they wouldn't start on this topic until they were at Hogwarts. At last, it seemed as though this was going to be a good year after all for Harry and Ginny. How wrong they were.