Unlike the muggle world, the magical world doesn't naturally have sociopaths or psychopaths. Instead ours are always made in some way. Which is worse is a topic that has bothered many armchair philosophers in the healer's offices over the last few centuries. But the point is academic. In this research paper we have conclusively traced one cause of sociopathy to root causes. The body is the magic and the magic is the body is a truism that is known and accepted in magical healing circles. It is why we can regrow limbs, eyes, and cure vicious injuries with only a spell, a potion, and time. But the converse is also true, we can't regrow a limb that was lost too long ago, we can't heal injuries caused by spells that also target the soul without first ridding the soul of the spell. This is because our magic changes to reflect our bodies.
Occlumency is a magical discipline that causes changes in the body. The muggles would say that it changes hormone levels in the brain. When this happens in a brain that's still maturing, those changes start to be reflected in the users magic. If the problem isn't corrected by the time they reach maturity, they will find that they have lost the ability to feel and empathise because those pathways will be forever damaged in their brains and the chemicals will not be correctly released. Some unfortunates can still feel fear and anger, and this often leads to them acting out to just feel something.
Daphne woke on a hospital bed with a pounding head.
"Good morning." Madam Pomfrey said in a too loud voice, she didn't remember the headache being this bad last week.
"Miss Brown and Patil haven't woken up yet this morning, although Miss Bones woke up earlier with a slight headache but none the worse for wear apart from that. How are you feeling?"
"Ugh, like an Erumpent danced on my head."
"Oh you poor thing, good thing that today's Saturday, you and the others are going to be here until lunch time so that I can monitor how you're doing. I hope you don't mind, but I took some scans when Harry and Hermione woke me up at two this morning."
"No, it's ok."
"Fantastic! Well I'll get started then." She sounded far too cheerful.
Madam Pomfrey had just finished her scans when the other two woke up. She then bustled over and went through the same thing with them. Daphne was glad of the privacy charms as it allowed her to not hear what she was saying to the others while she went over last night. Her headache was just starting to recede when Harry and Hermione walked in with Caretaker Filch.
Harry made her head start to pound again when he said brightly, "Hi guys, I just wanted to say that you all did really well for your first time, considering that you weren't over prepared for it. Daphne, you especially. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Filch for watching over us last night. I think that we could have been in real trouble if all three of you had started to have problems at the same time without him. None the less, Daphne, you managed to last around 10 minutes, Lavender and Parvati you both managed around 25 minutes."
Daphne nodded at the praise, though her head begged to differ.
"Just so that you know, when you start to delve you will fall asleep as soon as you come back to earth. But by that time we will no longer be able to rely on Filch for aid. So again, thank you Filch, and see you again next Friday."
"You're welcome", he grumbled out, "just wish I could use those manacles." He said as he walked out of the infirmary. Daphne could see the slight smile on his face and the more erect stance he had.
"Well, I've got to see my mind healer in the office here, so I'll leave you to talk to Hermione. See you soon.", Harry walked into the office and shut the door.
"How did the three of you find it?"
Daphne opens with, "If you hadn't warned me just how hard it would be I think I'd have failed from the get go. I just didn't think that the difficulty would be in just how tempting it is to let go. When you told me I thought it would be like something pushing or shoving me in and I had to resist. Instead it was like someone had taken everything that I loved and put it on a table in front of me and said, 'All this is yours, all you have to do is let go'"
"That's a lot like it was for me too." Lavender and Parvati both agreed.
Hermione smiled ruefully, "I know, and it almost killed me. I did this only a few weeks after I met Harry, and I was desperate to prove that I was as good or better than him, so two nights before school started I set an alarm for a few minutes before one. Lucky enough it woke my parents, and Mum came in to see what was happening, as it was so scary. I just couldn't hold onto my magic as it seemed to slip out of my grasp. I think that if they hadn't been there, the good feeling would have carried me away until I just dissolved, but I somehow found the strength to try and pull my magic back in, and from what Mum and Dad said, we were seconds away from dissolving or becoming food for something when I managed to cram it back into it's shell.", by the time she finished tears where streaming down her face.
A pair of arms reached around from behind her as Harry whispered in her ear, "Why didn't you tell anyone? You don't have to be strong all the time."
Spinning round Hermione buried her face in Harry's shoulder, pushing the long hair out of the way. "I couldn't, I didn't want you to see me as an idiot that couldn't take advice."
"Shh, you could never be an idiot. Impulsive sometimes but never an idiot." She stroked Hermione's hair with one hand.
Looking over to Daphne she said, "My healer agreed to see you, I haven't told her who you are, just that I found out you'd been practicing Occlumency since you were 8."
"Thank you. Swallowing hard, her Occlumency shields came down so that she could function as she walked into the office."
───────── ೋღ :hpsd: ღೋ─────────
It was afternoon by the time Daphne came out, and she felt absolutely exhausted. The healer had found extensive damage from the use of Occlumency too young, and she had taken her through her mind to show her just what she'd done to herself. Once that was done, she'd invited Daphne into her own mind to show her what those bits should look like.
She'd then spent the next 20 minutes fighting her Occlumency barriers while sobbing her eyes out. Now that she'd been shown, she couldn't miss the automatic suppression she did when ever something happened that upset her or made her angry, or increasingly happy as well. The healer had kindly explained that parents from old families often taught their children Occlumency as a way of teaching children to be quiet. The problem was that those same lessons became an automatic response, where in an adult they would always remain a conscious response.
The good news was that she could learn to lose her dependency on Occlumency herself and learn how to deal with her emotions properly. It wouldn't be easy, but she could do it. In another couple of years, it would require weekly sessions with a mind-healer, and if she reached adulthood. If she reached adulthood she'd be like her father. The thought that the cold emotionless man that she knew, the man who was strict and distant, but said that he loved them. The man that she'd never seen laugh or smile. She'd be like him instead of her mother, the person who had held her when she cried, who had signed her release form for the meditation, who had taken her to Harry's party so that she could have fun with her friends.
The rest of the time with the healer had been spent learning the signs she needed to watch out for in her own mind. The healer actually approved of the meditation that she was doing, as it would bring her more in tune with her magic, and thus make it easier to feel when she activated her barriers.
She'd then had a talk with her about Astoria, and the fact that the healer had to contact a legal guardian, but it could be done under seal. She asked her to contact her mother, and include the information about why it was a problem.
With everything still rattling around in her head she started to head out. Leaning her head against the door she took a deep breath and then had to struggle to stop her barriers coming down. Feeling completely wrung out, she opened the door and went into the infirmary intending to head straight back to her dorm and try to deal with it. Instead she saw that the other four were still there talking quietly. Harry looked over at the sound of the click the handle made, concern clear on her face.
"Are you OK?"
For some reason the question threw her off, such a simple question, but after the last few hours her normal response slipped out, but it felt wrong.
"I'm fine… Actually, I'm not fine and I just don't know."
"I know what it's like, granted it wasn't until my fourth or fifth session that I got that feeling. Look, I'd rather this didn't get banded about, everyone in my dorm knows as it's kinda hard to hide. But for most of my life both my aunt and I were abused. My first sessions where spent getting comfortable enough with my healer to let her in. Once I was ready, she took me into my mind and I saw just how much damage there was. I have dissociative disorder, and with my ability to switch gender she said that I was only a few months away from developing a second personality. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you ever want someone to talk to, I'm here for you, and I'll listen for as long as you need me to."
"We're here for you." Hermione added firmly, Daphne could see the declaration for what it was, even if Harry was still oblivious to it. Quite frankly she couldn't fault her for it. If she'd met Harry first and got to know her, the fact that she could be married as a man and be the husband and lord of the house meant that she was a prize worth holding onto no matter the opposition.
───────── ೋღ :hpsd: ღೋ─────────
Then next morning the headmaster was present for once. The skin under his eyes the black lines of someone that hasn't been able to sleep properly for a long time. His normally well-groomed beard tattered and unkempt, his robes a simple brown colour. His hand visibly shook as he reached for the noted Professor McGonagall handed him the notice that she received from St Mungo's. The headmaster read it and then blanched.
"No, No! I will not allow it. The ministry has been trying to get it's claws into Hogwarts for nearly 100 years, and I will not allow them to just waltz in here under the pretence of looking after the mental health of our students. Once they're here they'll want to poke around the library, and then they'll steal our knowledge. I won't allow it, my knowledge they're only after my knowledge." Madam Pomfrey calmly stood from the end of the teachers table and stunned him, before casting a couple of diagnostic charms.
"He seems to be suffering from sleep deprivation, symptoms include paranoia, delusions, and hallucinations. I'll need to send him to St Mungo's so that they can put him in an enchanted sleep for a couple of days until his mind catches up. I just don't have the resources here to handle the complications that could arise from doing it here."
"Will he be alright?" McGonagall asks.
"We had to do this to him 50 years ago, and he was fine after a couple of days rest. So probably. He'd been trying to investigate the chamber of secrets due to some attacks. I was a junior healer here at the time. While he was asleep, Miss Worthington was killed, and Hagrid was found with an acromantula. The Aurors put 2 and 2 together, Hagrid was expelled, and the attacks stopped. Albus has maintained ever since that it wasn't Hagrid, the evidence just didn't match up. He even made sure he got his job here. But there wasn't much the headmaster could do, the attacks stopped when he was expelled, so for most people that was enough. This is probably just more of the same, and he'll tell us what he's been working on when he's sure. I wish he'd share the load, but I've known him a long time, and he's been bitten so many times by sharing his suspicions and then the wrong person is punished, and by the time the headmaster finds out no one will listen to him." The two seemed to notice that the room was so quiet apart from their conversation that you could have heard a matchstick turning into a needle.
McGonagall coughed lightly and picked up the notice while Madam Pomfrey levitated the head master off to the infirmary.
"While I can't ask you all to forget that you heard that, please respect the headmasters privacy and not tell your parents or people outside the school what you just heard. It's all to easy to forget that the when the headmaster attended Hogwarts muggles hadn't invented the car as he always seems to be so full of life. As any of your grand parent will be able to tell you, as you get older it becomes easier and easier to accumulate mistakes. For an academic as old as the headmaster that had fame and responsibility thrust on him, he has had more chances than most to accumulate those.
"Returning to the notice that we received. St Mungo's has informed me that they discovered that some of the old houses are still teaching their children Occlumency despite the problems with the practice being well known for the last 20 years. As such they will be sending 3 mind healers to the school for the next 2 weeks. During this time everyone from a pureblood household will be required to see them for confidential interview. I urge all of you to be honest with them, as I have been informed that the consequences of not correcting the problems before you reach adult hood are quite dire if you wish to be a healthy member of society."
Daphne almost jumped from her seat and ran from the hall, the only thing that saved her was Tracy putting a reassuring hand on her leg.
───────── ೋღ :hpsd: ღೋ─────────
For the people in the meditation group life fell into a routine, Neville got his permission a week after Susan, and went through the same process. Lavender, Parvati and Daphne all progressed much faster than the others, for Lavender and Parvati it was down to putting in so much practice last year, for Daphne it was a matter of proving to herself that she could do this, that she was not going to be her father. And so it was after they'd helped take the others into the infirmary that Harry turned to them and Filch and said.
"I think you three are ready to join Hermione and I in going further next week. Daphne I could see that it was hard for you to talk to us for the whole hour, but you did so I'm including you in this because of it. However, I'd like you especially to practice changing the state of your magic over the next week, after every spell if you can, return it to the quiet state, then only release as much as you need in order to cast the spells for the class. Lavender you and Parvati should do that as well, but you've already been learning to control your magic just to be able to come to my birthday party, so just make sure you are comfortable with doing it."