Welp, I was planning on updating this again anyway, but a necro seems like as good an excuse as any.
Sorry about the lack of anything this month as well in general guys, I've been swamped at work with the holiday season starting, and, well, money is money. But I DO have some stuff in the barrel that I'll be shooting off tonight and the next let's say, two days. So that's fun.
Now, on to something else fun.
Chapter 11: My Mind, Is An Enigma
OR
*Insert Image of Spilled Milk Here*
The problem with secrets was that they were only a thing unless the one with the secret died. But then you get into necromancy and spirit-calling to still learn those secrets and then grave warding to stop that, and then counter-warding to break THOSE protections- I'm getting off track.
Secrets are dangerous. Everyone has them, no one else can have them, and ideally their a bitch to pry from my cold, hand-shaped brainmeat.
"And that's why today's class is dedicated to the ages old practice of Occlumency!" I enthused at my currently exceedingly hungover Fifth-Year class, who chorused back with associated moans or growls that did nothing to stop my own grin from growing wider.
Hehe, lightweights always went all in when you gave them free-reign, especially in a generally restricted environment like Hogwarts. For the purposes of this lesson though? It was perfect.
"Now, I'm sure most of you want nothing more than to quietly drag yourselves into a nice dark place to quietly die in for 12 to 14 hours-I drew another round of appreciative groans-but, that's not happening, specifically because that pain you're in right now? Is PERFECT for quick results." I yelled out the word perfect and gave a small chuckle when the ones closest to me clutched their heads like I had smacked a book to their skulls.
"Pain is the necessity of innovation, or something. Occlumency is the practice of protecting your mind against mind reading, but that's more of a new practice from the last hundred or so years. At it's base, the practice is used to gain a sense of the users own mind, for the point of either making it easier to retain certain information, or to block out unwanted distractions. It used to be a more common school of magic to teach children young as it would help them form good learning habits, but was stopped soonly after by the revelation that by doing such a thing from a formative age lead to critically stupid levels of gullibility or out-right sociopathy in the users. Teaching people to better retain information without them knowing how to tell apart good from bad information or block out 'unnecessary' emotions like 'pain' or 'guilt' tends to go horribly wrong very easily. Who knew?" I clicked my teeth as I exposited at the few students who were even bothering to pretend to listen to my lesson while the rest quietly tried to cast the Shut-The-Fuck-Up Spell, Silencio to no effect. ALL shall hear my voice! Especially when I got a one-day ward against that specific spell installed.
"Ha! They always try that. Not on my watch! Plus, doesn't do much when the pounding is coming from your own skull and not an outer source, but breaking through it is still a bitch so none of that now. Back to my point! Obviously, since you're old enough to hopefully have a solid background on what kind of person you are and want to be, alongside most of your relevant interests, we've entered into the 'safe' time to actually make Occlumency useful for you all. So, every week after one of my day-drinking courses, you'll be practicing this rare and largely impractical art to the point where you can put off your hang-overs to later points, with the added benefit of helping you make sense of the generally random signs and notations involved with most Divination work! This will be, largely, the most useful skill I teach to you all, and after getting at least a small grounding in it, I would give no hard feelings if you drop out of this course for something more resume-weighty."
I looked around to see who wanted the first demonstration, then felt my eye twitch a little when I saw the students outright ignoring me with hands over their ears and heads to the desk, some of them having conjured water to guzzle like men dying of thirst.
This was why I generally didn't bother with immediately useful lessons. They just end up ignored.
Just for that, I would be spiking the liquor with some Stinging Charms and just call them pussies if they complained. I never said I wasn't petty.
END OF CHAPTER
There we go, that'll wet the ol' whistle for now. Next up, I'm gonna go play some Nioh for an hour then either work to put out another chapter of something tonight or tomorrow, I'll see how I feel. So leave some love, let me know what silly thing's you've all thought up since the last update, and I'll see ya'll again soon.