Chapter 26: Legilimancy

"What the hell is the snake doing here?" Bickslow growled out from between clenched teeth, none of his usual lightheartedness present.

"I… I honestly have no idea why he could be here…" Mira said, still staring at the door that the man in question had just exited through.

"He probably tried to break out again," Lucy said, her breathing heavy, her eyes facing downwards towards her plate. "He's been behaving for months, he probably got tired of sitting around like a tamed pet and decided to try and sneak out of his cage again. Somehow, they managed to stop him, and so they sent him here to Lahar and Doranbolt. They're probably the only one that can keep him on a leash."

Gajeel narrowed his eyes at her, followed immediately by Rogue. She was lying, they could tell. There had been something off about her since he got there. Yea, her heart was beating fast, and while it could be fear, that wasn't fear they were smelling on her, and unfortunately, both of them had intimate knowledge of what her fear smells like. No, she was excited about something. What was she planning?

"Yea, that makes sense," Mira said, "Besides, if they need any help with him, they could just call one of us in. After all, Team Natsu was the one that caught him in the first place seven years ago, and after he escaped the first time, it was Fairy Tail that captured him again."

"Wait, seven years ago? You wouldn't have even been teenagers!" Blaise exclaimed, while Draco just listened intently.

"Oh, right, I guess you guys don't know. Most of us were kinda trapped in a weird time shield that kept us trapped there for 7 years without aging at all, so we're really 7 years older than we look," Lucy said. "Jellal, Sting, and Rogue weren't on the island when it happened, because it was for the Fairy Tail S-Class trials and they hadn't joined the school yet."

"Why were you trapped in the shiel?" Draco asked.

"Well, we were attacked by a dragon called Acnologia, who was going to wipe out the entire island, and in order to save us, First Master Mavis used our combined magic to cast one of the three great Fairy Spells, Fairy Sphere, which encased us and the island keeping us safe from the attack. However, the spell took 7 years to cool off, so we were trapped there, although we didn't even know what was happening at the time, because we were all frozen until the spell wore off," Mira explained to the blonde.

"Why were you on an island like that in the first place?" Pansy said, thinking they all were idiots, "Especially if there was a dragon there."

"Well, the dragon wasn't there when we got there. Zeref summoned him there, but that's a long story. In answer to your question, though, we were there for our guild's S-Class trials," Lucy said.

"What's S-Class?" Draco asked.

"S-Class is a level. There are 4 'magic levels' in our world. The lowest level is a legal mage, who have to be signed up in a legal guild. They vary in strength and magic, and they have the ability to move up the ranks as they get older and stronger. The second level is S-Class. S-Class mages are stronger than the regular wizards and achieved their S-Class status through their guild's S-Class trials and are then reported to the Magic Council who records their status. After S-Class is SS-Class, who achieve their status through a series of tests from their guild and watched over by a member of the Magic Council. The final level is Wizard Saint, there are only 10 in the world, and the top 4 aren't human," Mira said, smiling at them.

Lucy picked up after her, "The reason we have levels is because of mission requests. The only people who can take requests from a mission board are legal mages and up. Then, if it's a particularly dangerous or difficult job, there are the S-Class requests. Only S-Class and up can go on these requests, although they can bring their team with them even if they're only legal mages, as long as there's one S-Class present. In Fairy Tail, Mira, Sting, Rogue and Erza are S-Class. Gajeel and Juvia used to be when they were part of a different…school, but again, that's a long story. The SS-Class wizards can go on what are called Decade or Century requests, which are supposed to take 10 years or 100 years, although for SS-Class wizards, they usually take less. Gil- I mean Professor Clive and Professor Dreyar are both SS-Class wizards. Finally, the Wizard Saints is a position given by the Magic Council for the strongest mages. Like Mira said, the top four aren't human, but Master Makarov is the 6th."

"Who's the fifth?" Blaise said, a little taken aback at the fact that the little old man was considered the 6th strongest wizard in their world, and the second strongest human wizard in their world, whatever that meant.

"Our friend, Jura Neekis, and technically, Lax-, er Professor Dreyar beat him during the Grand Magic Games last year, so he's eligible to be given a position as one too," Mira said.

"Technically, Jellal used to be one of the Wizard Saints too," Bickslow said his tongue falling out.

"Wait, wait," Draco said. "Erza and Mira are S-Class, but Professor Alberona and Professor Strauss aren't?"

"Well, in Fiore, age isn't really considered a factor when it comes to power," Gajeel said, "But, both Professor Alberona and Professor Strauss were up for S-Class promotion on Tenrou. Juvia, Gray, Natsu, Levy, and Freed were there for the trials too. Gramps, Professor Clive, Professor Dreyar, Mira, and Erza were there to help with the trials, and the rest of us were there as the participants' chosen partners, except for Sting, Rogue, and Jellal, who weren't part of Fairy Tail at the time."

"We never got to finish the trials, though, because we were attacked by the Dark Guild Grimoire Heart, and then Zeref showed up, and then Acnologia came, and yea," Lucy sighed at the end.

"Why isn't Jellal one of the Ten Wizard Saints anymore?" Pansy said, still stuck on the sentence Bickslow had said earlier. "And why aren't Gajeel and Juvia still S-Class?"

"That's personal and complicated. If ya want the answers, you'll have to be good enough friends with us to get it from us," Gajeel said, obviously upset at the question and no longer in the sharing mood.

With that, though, breakfast came to an end, and they all headed to class.

…

Lahar and Doranbolt had returned to their hotel room for a few hours before they were meant to return to the Ministry to discuss the punishment of Dolores Umbridge. The Minister had decided that he wanted to go over the facts and possible outcomes in his head before he decided to discuss it with Lucius, as a representative member of the school board, and Lahar and Doranbolt, as representatives of the Magic Council on behalf of Fairy Tail, supposedly.

"What the hell was happening at breakfast?" Doranbolt groused as soon as they entered the hotel room.

"It seems the Fairy Tail group has hatched another scheme…" Lahar sighed, taking off his jacket before moving to sit down at the table.

Cobra smirked, "Actually, it was Blondie, to be exact. She decided that I could probably get some sort of in with this Voldemort bastard."

"And you agreed? To help Fairy Tail? To take out a dark wizard trying to take over another world? Out of the kindness of your heart?" Doranbolt said, his jaw falling open. Cobra just rolled his eyes.

"No one said anything about the kindness of my heart, more like boredom. It means I get to get out of that lovely prison cell you guys have me staying in, and if I'm a good boy, I get to have some of my time in that cell reduced even more," Cobra said. "Besides, it seemed like fun, especially with how much it's going to piss that Natsu prick off that his best friend decided to enlist the help of one of his enemies," he laughed.

"You would find entertainment in this entire situation. This is serious," Lahar said. "You better not try to screw us over. One way or another, we will take out Voldemort. If you decide you'd rather fight on his side, we will take you out too, again. I'm guessing the only reason the Magic Council brought you in in the first place is because this would speed up the process and make it slightly easier, that way we can all return to Fiore and focus on the true Dark Lord."

"Yea, yea, yea, I know. Besides, I would never follow this idiot. He doesn't stand a chance whether I'm part of it or not."

"It's a good thing you can see that, although I don't know how. It's not as if you've ever met the man," Doranbolt said, "None of us have, which is why it could be detrimental for us to underestimate him."

"I haven't met him, but that Lucius jerk has, and I can tell that he wouldn't be worth joining forces with, even if I was free," Cobra said, meaning every word he spoke. "What the hell could I possibly gain from joining him, except more time on my prison sentence."

"Well, we'll have to be careful, but this could help us to wrap this us quicker than we anticipated, but Fairy Tail might stay here longer in order to train, because one day in Earthland is equivalent to an entire month here," Lahar said.

Cobra snorted, at least he would be able to have some fun for once. Sitting around in his cell twiddling his thumbs was more than boring. It was probably driving him to insanity, and he was more than happy to oblige the little blonde if she wanted to use him to get this thing over with.

Cobra accompanied Lahar and Doranbolt to Umbridge's hearing, not really paying attention to what happened to the woman. Instead, he focused his mind, and powers, on Lucius Malfoy, the bleach blonde entitled bastard he was supposed to 'befriend'.

He was avoiding eye contact, that was good. Cobra had purposely made eye contact with Umbridge before repeating her thoughts and also with Lahar. Now, Lucius believed that Cobra's ability had a trigger: eye contact.

Still though, Lucius was doing an excellent job of attempting to cover up his thoughts, being very careful to try to bury his more meaningful and interesting thoughts behind mundane things and thoughts pertaining to the Umbridge case. He really had no idea how Cobra's ability worked, although that made sense, it was alien to him, in a very literal sense of the word.

Still, he wondered how Lucius had managed to learn to compartmentalize his thoughts in such a way, hiding some while bringing others to the forefront of his mind. For someone like Cobra, who could pick and choose through his psyche what he saw and heard, it was no trouble sorting through his thoughts, but for someone who could simply hear or see thoughts, it would be exceedingly difficult to pick out the pertinent information, so he dug through a little bit, trying to figure it out.

Legilimancy. That was an interesting ability Voldemort seemed to have. However, it had a few drawbacks, for one thing, it was insanely intrusive, and if someone was in your mind, you could feel it. The ability of the user to pick and choose memories had to do with the power of the user and the power of his or her victim. It seemed like it was painful as well.

Cobra liked his way better. It may not hurt his victims, but they never knew whether or not he was there, and they also didn't know what he was looking for and whether or not they found it. His victims can't hide from him.

…

At the end of the day at Hogwarts, the Golden Trio, along with the Earthland wizards all met in their private room, where the outrage at Cobra's arrival was made evident through bouts of shouting, while Lucy, Makarov, and Mavis sat there waiting the excited wizards out and the Golden Trio sat with their hands in their laps trying to look inconspicuous and stay out of the way of flying projectiles being flung across the room.

"Everyone BE QUIET," Makarov said, growing large and shouting down at his children. They could be such loudmouths sometimes.

"Lucy, would you kindly explain Cobra's presence on Earth please?" Mavis said, smiling down at her. Lucy came up with the ingenious idea, so she should be the one to deliver it. Also, the members would probably agree with the plan more readily if it was Lucy that delivered it. It was almost a scientifically proven fact that the guild always handled news better, be it good or bad, if Lucy was the one giving it.

"Cobra is here to infiltrate the Death Eaters, a plan I came up with. He was perfect for the job: he has a relatively bad history with us, an extremely bad history with the government, the ability to hear people's thoughts, and finally, boredom so boring he would be willing to watch paint dry rather than staying in his cell a day longer," Lucy began.

"What the hell Blondie? You came up with that?! He can't be trusted! There's absolutely no way that Cobra would side with us over Voldemort!" Laxus shouted. He was probably the angriest out of all the Earthlanders. He may not be able to read minds, but it wasn't hard to imagine what was running through Cobra's head when his gaze landed on Lucy.

"Yes he would. I've seen him since he's been locked up, he doesn't want to try to take over the world anymore, he knows we'll catch him. Besides, Erza said that Voldemort and the Death Eaters remind her of the people that used to run the Tower of Heaven. He had to spend his childhood there too. A bunch of entitled men who want to create a world of magic where they stand at the top is probably a little to similar to the jerks who enslaved him as a child than he's comfortable with," Lucy said.

They all looked at Erza, who nodded. She had mentioned it to more than one of the people present, including Harry, who looked over at her. She didn't seem angry with Lucy for revealing it, or even over bringing Cobra in, actually she seemed approving.

"Yes, anyone who had been forced to work at the Tower would draw parallels between the two, he won't cross over to join them. Besides, he knows we'd catch him, and he probably doesn't want to make his time in prison any worse," Erza said. Jellal nodded, he completely agreed with this assessment.

"So now that you know Cobra will cooperate, how do you feel about the situation?" Makarov said from his position at the head of the table. There were grumbles, but everyone nodded, agreeing to the plan.

"Okay, now there's only one thing I'm worried about, but we can get that cleared up now that everyone's on board. Voldemort has an ability called Legilimancy, it's similar to Cobra's ability to hear and see inside someone's soul and mind. If Cobra goes there, and Voldemort uses this technique on him, which he most likely will, then the whole plan could be blown. Cobra would most likely be able to escape from Voldemort, but it could possibly hurt our plans depending on what all Voldemort is able to find, such as Natsu's motion sickness, or Juvia's evaporation risks, etc.," Lucy said.

This time Mavis spoke, "However, Professor Snape knows how to use Legilimancy, so we will be using Snape to see the extent of which Legilimancy is effective when used on Cobra."

"Effective? What do you mean?" Hermione said.

"Professor Snape?! You can't trust him!" Ron exclaimed at the same time.

Laxus answered Ron's comment first, "Oy, don't speak badly about Severus kid. He can be trusted, whenever he's around Dumbledore, I never smell anything other than pure loyalty and trust. You can fake body language, hell you can even fake thoughts if you know someone's looking, you can train your body not to react in any situation, but your scent never lies. He's on our side." With that Laxus looked back to Lucy, telling her to explain what Mavis meant with his eyes.

Lucy smiled at Laxus, he really had changed for the better. "In Earthland, certain abilities can negate the abilities of others. For example, Bickslow can't use his figure eyes on Evergreen and Evergreen can't use her eyes to turn Bickslow to stone. Because of their similarities in how they're used, they negate the other, and are rendered ineffective against each other. Also, there are spells that can be negated simply because the user has less magical energy than the person the spell is being used on. For example, if Mira were to try to take over a demon that has more magical energy than her, then the demon would end up taking over her. There's a very calculated approach that needs to be taken to certain spells, and there's certain things that render certain magics ineffective.

"However, we're in new territory here, so we're not entirely sure how effective the magic of this world is compared to our magic. For example, when a stunning spell hits one of the dragon slayers' scales, it doesn't really do anything, the scales render the spell useless, but even Erza's swords can be taken from her if she's hit with a disarming spell. We're not certain how all of your spells affect each of our spells."

Lucy paused and looked around. Some of the mages were paying attention intently, waiting for her to continue as they listened to her explanation, namely Levy, Freed, Laxus, Jellal, Evergreen, Carla, Pantherlily, Gray, Rogue, Makarov, Mira, Hermione, Cana and Mavis. Some were trying to follow, but seemed entirely out of their depth and looked very confused, like Harry, Erza, Elfman, Wendy, Gild-arts, Frosh, Lisanna, and Juvia. Finally, there were those that didn't seem to be even trying to understand, specifically Natsu, Sting, Ron, Gajeel, Happy, Lector, and Bickslow.

Lucy sighed, at least some people were getting it, so she continued, "Basically, we don't know whether or not Legilimancy will have any effect on Cobra because of his ability to hear souls, we also don't know whether or not Cobra's ability to listen to Voldemort's soul will be hindered by Voldemort's excellent mastery of Legilimancy. Dumbledore described himself as proficient in Legilimancy, but not a master. He recommended we use Snape to test Cobra, as Snape's ability is apparently close to or on par with Voldemort's, and we can trust him. If Legilimancy does work on Cobra, we want him to be ready, and if Cobra's ability doesn't work on Voldemort, or is hindered in any way, we want to know so that he focuses on someone else to get his information."

Those who understood nodded, as it made sense. Those who tried to understand but were struggling nodded, trying to fake it until they made it. Those who weren't even listening nodded, not wanting to risk Lucy's wrath for not listening, even though she already knew, even if they didn't know that.

The door opened and they were joined by Professor Snape.

"Oh, hello Professor Snape, I just got them caught up on what you're going to help us with. We really appreciate it," Lucy said, smiling at the older man.

Laxus nodded at him, not saying anything, but telling him he didn't need to be uncomfortable, not that anyone thought Snape was uncomfortable of course.

'So this is what their base looks like,' Snape thought, looking around. It was an extravagant set up, and he could tell they were all quite content there. Lucy told them all to relax until Cobra arrived, and they each went off to do their own thing. His eyes went to those that were in his house.

Gajeel was sitting with the insufferable Hermione Granger, along with the little blue haired Ravenclaw girl, who was also a bit of a know it all, but less insufferable. They were both petting Gajeel's cat, or Exceed, or whatever he was, while Gajeel seemed to just be sitting there, listening to the girls go on and on about magic theory in Earthland and on Earth.

Rogue was swatting the blonde haired Gryffindor's hand off of him, sending a glare over his shoulder at the boy, while absentmindedly petting at his own Exceed. He seemed to be quite annoyed with the blonde, but Snape could tell there was some sort of friendship there, albeit a little odd.

Bickslow was talking to the green haired Ravenclaw about something, sticking his tongue out as he always does, his wooden totems repeating his words excitedly.

Laxus was in the corner with the blonde girl, Lucy, the one who had come up with this plan. He didn't normally like Gryffindors, but this one was alright. She was cunning, and she could have been in Slytherin in all honesty.

Mira's gaze was fixated on the two, hearts in her eyes and was saying something. Now there was a girl that belonged in Slytherin. She may only use her scheming to get unsuspecting couples in awkward situations, but it required vigilant scheming nonetheless. Her gaze moved from the two blondes directly over to Cana, who was approaching him.

'Oh no,' Snape thought, remembering Cana's behavior the other morning. Cana sidled up to him, barrel of booze in hand and hiccuped, her cheeks pink.

"Hello, and who knew you would be so very willing to come to our den and play?" she said, getting far to close to Snape for his comfort. He took a step back, holding his hand out to indicate his preferred amount of personal space before responding.

"We are not playing a game. We are fighting a war that has yet to begin, hopefully stopping it before it does," Snape said pointedly.

"Now, now, now, you'll never have any fun if you think like that," Cana said, smiling at him mischievously. Man, this guy was too easy to rile up. Step a little close to him and he nearly jumps out of his skin to get away.

"You're not here to have fun. You're here to work, don't you understand the meaning of the word? You were sorted into Ravenclaw," Snape said, "You must have some semblance of intelligence."

"Ouch, that really hurt," Cana said, putting on a fake pout, "And of course I do. Everyone in Fairy Tail does, but a lot of times, our work comes with pain and casualties, like my father's limbs. That's why we make it a point to always have fun, because life is wayy too short to have all work and no play. If all we did was focus on work, without ever having fun then our lives would be over and they would have had no meaning. It would have been empty," she said, her voice turning serious. She hadn't intended on bringing that point up, but now it was out. It was a little deeper of a conversation than she was going for, but he needed to understand they took this seriously. They just refused to allow something like this to take the light out of their lives.

Snape was actually a bit taken aback by her response. He wasn't expecting something like that from her, but he saw her point. They did things like this all the time, for a living. They had to have failed sometimes, they had to have lost people, lost things they cared about. If they let it consume them, they would turn into someone like him, and he wouldn't wish that on anyone, consumed by guilt, constantly trying to right his wrongs and stuck in the past.

Their attentions were drawn from their serious thoughts by a door of blue magical energy through which Doranbolt and Lahar arrived with Cobra. He smirked at them all, before landing his gaze on Lucy.

He grinned from ear to ear, saying, "So, I'm here because you discovered our little problem with this Legilimancy trick old Voldedork's got, huh?"

"I knew about it before you even got here. We needed to make sure you helped us before we worried about that," Lucy said, looking him in the eyes and smiling. Laxus was right behind her, practically melded to her back, one hand on her hip.

Cobra quirked an eyebrow at him, he was staking a claim. Oh, this would be fun, and not just because of the action, but because he would get to play with these two blondes.

His gaze traveled around the room, landing on Snape. "So you're Snape. The bleached prick had a few thoughts about you running through his head. They seem to think you're on their side. Obviously, they're wrong. You're more loyal to this Dumbledore guy than the lightning rod is to his gwandpa," he said, his tone turning to mocking as he mentioned Laxus. This caused the big blonde to growl out at Cobra, who just ignored him and walked up to Snape.

"Um, excuse me?" Hermione said, addressing Cobra, her curiosity getting the better of her. He turned his gaze to the little bushy haired brunette. She was no threat, she was just insatiably curious.

"Could you please show me a bit of your magic. Not the mind reading, I saw that this morning, I just want to know what a Poison Dragon Slayer looks like," she said, blushing slightly, embarrassed at her request. Gajeel had stepped a bit closer to her, blocking Cobra from seeing her entirely.

"Sorry, Hermione," Cobra said, causing her to look up at him surprised, before realizing how he knew her name. He lifted up his cuffed hands, "I can't, these things keep me from doing anything with my dragon slayer magic."

As if remembering something, Lucy ran over to the side of the room, everyone's eyes watching her as she got a bag out then approached Cobra. She held out the bag to him, "I did promise you some poison if you were a good little snake," she said, her tone teasing.

He grabbed the bag with one hand and her wrist in the other, "I was hoping to try some of your poison," he said, looking at her with an expression that spelled danger.

Laxus came and ripped Cobra's hand off of her, pulling her back a bit, as she was too busy blushing and coming up with images in her head of what Cobra meant by that. Cobra simply smirked, popping one of the poison infused candies into his mouth, before turning to Snape.

"So Severus, let's get to work. Let's see if you can invade my mind," he said.

Snape thought for a second, "Are you sure you're okay with me going into you're mind. It can be very painful and intrusive. I also wouldn't want to impose on any private thoughts." Snape usually didn't bother himself with the feelings of others, but the Earthlanders obviously had some pretty twisted and painful histories they usually weren't keen to share. He had heard small parts of Laxus's history, but definitely not everything, and he knew there was more. He didn't want to invade on Cobra any more than he had to.

"Relax, Severus, if you're pushing too far, I'll just use some of the techniques Luciass was trying to use on me today. Too bad they didn't work," Cobra said.

"Lucius could tell you were in his mind? I thought they can't tell?" Jellal spoke up.

"No, he couldn't tell. He tried using some compartmentalizing techniques, disguising certain thoughts and memories with others. It apparently works with Legilimancy, and even though he thinks I need eye contact, he wasn't sure how my ability worked, so he's on high alert with me around, and he tried his best to keep any thoughts of old Voldy out of the fore front of his mind and put some kind of mental lock on those thoughts and memories. It was interesting to see how he did it. I think I could recreate them if I need to, but instead of just locking them, I'd make them completely invisible."

"What do you mean?" Snape asked, curious about Cobra's abilities.

"I can more than hear thoughts. Actually hearing thoughts isn't really an accurate description of my abilities. I can see and hear souls. Part of the soul is the conscious and subconscious mind. I have the ability to go into someone else's mind and rifle through memories even if they aren't thinking about them. I can see the images they conjure up and here their inner monologue. I usually turn most of my abilities off other than my hearing of the conscious mind. It's somewhat similar to Legilimancy except it's a lot more in depth. People's souls are organized in a way unique to each person, usually subconsciously. Apparently Legilimancy allows you guys to go into a person's mind and rifle through those memories like me. However, its different in that, the person can feel you're doing it to them and they can tell what you're looking for. Therefore, they start to think about it, and that part of their mind comes up to the surface and allows the user to explore it. A person can block off those particular memories with a mental block. Those mental blocks only seem like a sort of wall to someone using Legilimancy from what I can tell, but to me, they look like some kind of lock. My guess is that it's unique to each person, just like a person's soul organization. However, every lock has a key. The key is also hidden in the subconscious mind, again even though the person creating the block has no clue what it really looks like or probably that it exists. There are two ways in particular that I can get inside the locks. The first is to find the key and use it to open the lock. The second is to force my way into to compartment using my own magic. I'd prefer to find the key, because using my magic in someone else's soul can really drain me as it takes a lot of energy."

"How did you figure all of this out? You couldn't have possibly figured out this much about Legilimancy when you didn't even know it existed this morning," Snape said. He didn't want this man double crossing them, he knew Snape wasn't loyal to Voldemort, and it could put everything at serious risk.

"Relax. I had pretty much all afternoon to explore Lucius's mind in detail. He doesn't know a whole lot about Legilimancy, but he's been at the receiving end of it quite a bit, and has learned how to protect himself from it. He never tries to protect his mind from Voldemort, but he sure as hell doesn't want any of the good guys to get into his mind. I learned a lot about Legilimancy from his knowledge of it and his attempts of blocking his mind from me. The only thing is that his mind was boring. It looked like a file cabinet, complete with labels on each drawer. It was even color coded, black for things pertaining to Voldy and the Death Gluttons, grey for Ministry work, yellow for family affairs, red for anger, blue for sadness, and so on. The key to the locks were under the cabinet," Cobra pouted, his mind really was boring. He had been hoping that if he had to study the man all afternoon, he would at least be interesting.

"I see. So what did you mean about making your own thoughts invisible?" Lahar said. It wasn't often he got to learn about Cobra's unique ability, and he wanted to know more.

"Well, I can see my own soul as well as other people's souls. I know every crevice and every hiding spot of my own mind. It won't necessarily be invisible, just hiding. If we find out Voldy can use his Legilimancy on me, I'll know what he's looking for before he enters my mind and before he's looking for it. The subconscious mind works faster than the conscious mind. If I listen to his subconscious mind for what he's looking for, I can rearrange my mind so that he can't find that memory or thought. I'll hide it, it won't come forth. Instead of locking it so he comes up to a mental barrier, I'm going to move it, so that when he arrives there-" Lucy said the last part for him, "it won't be there at all."

"Exactly. Legilimancy is about finding memories in their proper places. The magic, not the wizard, finds the memory or thought's proper place and goes there, trying to find out what's there. It doesn't know how to track a memory down. Most people can't see souls, Legilimancy is probably the closest anyone, even Earthland wizards would get."

"But you can go a step further?" Snape asked.

"Yea, but it's not something that can be taught or trained. You're either born with it or you're not," Cobra said.

"What's your mind look like?" Hermione and Levy said at the same time, their curiosity's getting the better of them.

"A library. Some of the books represent my memories and emotions, a lot of the books are other people's memories and emotions. Every time I map out a person's mind, they get a book in my mind, and I can pull the books out and read through them at any time I want. All I have to do to ensure that Voldy doesn't get his hands on one of the memories he wants is by moving that particular book somewhere else, and he won't be able to find it," he said, grinning wickedly.

"If he can even use his Legilimancy on you, right?" Hermione asked, clarifying. She had been taking notes the entire time, obviously.

"Yea, that's right. So, Severus, why don't we get the show on the road. If you manage to get into my head and you're going somewhere I don't like, then I'll just move that memory out of your path," Cobra said.

Snape nodded, and then began. It required a lot more energy and work than he normally would have needed, but he managed to get into Cobra's mind. Cobra shifted uncomfortably, but didn't change his position. His own sight was bombarded with images and pictures and Snape entered his mind. That was an interesting development. He was getting a look at Snape's mind without trying. He was trying to give the man some semblance of privacy, since he seemed inclined to give Cobra the same satisfaction, so he closed off his sight. He felt Snape's subconscious heading towards his childhood and quickly removed the book and placed it in the section of his mind he had created earlier that day meant that rendered the books invisible.

Snape quickly stopped using his Legilimancy, having found out what they needed to know. "It requires more work, but it is possible for me to use Legilimancy. I purposely reached towards something about his past to see if his technique worked, and it did. I was met with nothing but blackness when I reached that area of his mind."

Cobra spoke up then, "When he breached through into my mind, his memories and emotions flooded through me as well, I turned off my sight so I wouldn't invade his privacy, but while Voldemort's in my mind, I'll have an uninhibited view into his psyche."

"I should have considered that. When someone uses Legilimancy on someone, sometimes the person tries to fight back, pushing them out and back into their own mind. It's a battle of the minds, since the two minds become intertwined with each other. Therefore, if Voldemort pushes his mind into your mind, you wouldn't even need to use your sight to break into his mind, because his mind would already be connected to yours," Hermione said in a single breath, before breathing in heavily, smiling widely.

Cobra grinned, "You got that right chick. I'll have him right where I want him."

...

Whew, that was a really fun chapter to write. Anyways, I'm not entirely sure if that's exactly the way Cobra's abilities work, but I improvised a little. It works for the story, and that's how I want it. Anyways, review and tell me what ya think!