Chapter Seven: Building Blackness
June, 1991
Lina Branch slid indelicately to the floor, back pressed against a bookcase, head limp between her knees. Her breath was as ragged as the books that threatened to fall from the sudden impact of spine on spines.
"Stop, Snape. Enough," she panted, closing her eyes in an apparent attempt to rally her strength for one more desperate but very weak attempt to push him from her mind.
He retreated, watching her closely and with mounting frustration. It was odd to force himself to pull back; with most witches or wizards, when no mental defense was possible, a magical defense was mounted. He'd sent Albus flying across the room during their lessons, when the Headmaster appeared too close to memories that he very much considered his alone.
But Lina Branch had no way to fight back. She had, during their first, tense trial, attempted to throw a fist at the sizable target of his nose. She'd thankfully succeeded in breaking only his concentration. He'd moved a large table between them now to discourage any further Muggle methods of retaliation.
And so, excepting the occasions she managed a decent mental defense, he had possessed very intimate freedom with her thoughts, feelings, and memories. He had seen enough to piece together the girl's many weaknesses—to sketch a decent picture of her. This was clearly affecting her ability to repulse his attacks more effectively as well as exhausting her both mentally and physically.
But it was only fair. After all, it was precisely the method the Dark Lord used, searching for the vulnerabilities, tearing straight to the most secretive, the most meaningful. Besides, the girl had seen his past in just as much gruesome, discomfiting detail. Quid pro quo, of a sort.
She had managed to lift herself onto the dingy sofa, hands predictably caught up in the usual, disconcerted pilgrimage through her hair. Despite his disapproving stare, she rested her feet on the coffee table before allowing her head to collapse backwards, eyes pressed resolutely away from his impatience.
"I can't do anymore today," she sighed, without a single move of limb. "My mind's spilt out inside my skull."
With a growl, he allowed himself to sit across from her, conceding to a slight fatigue of his own. She'd lasted longer today than ever before; but he'd seen more as well.
They came in flashes, seeping through chinks in her weak wall of defense. He could generally work at the chinks, until it all came flooding out in a deluge of emotion.
Today it had been a manic mix. A black-clad Muggle woman yelling at the girl as a classroom of her peers looked on. An older Lina standing over a corpse at what he assumed to be Muggle hospital, staring into wide-open and lifeless eyes. Young again, this time hunched over a mixing bowl of what he guessed to be the abortive attempt at Hair-Growing elixir she'd described. Older, staring into the face of a young Draco Malfoy. Very young next, her honey-eyed mother smearing Mimesisalve down the girl's forearm. His own face in the market as she glanced at the pale pink of the Mark.
And then the one that had forced her to the floor. A brief flash of a younger Lucius Malfoy, offering the girl a Lizard Lolly while wantonly stroking the breast of Antigone Branch.
It was the first time he'd felt sorry—felt himself trespassing too far.
Apparently, she agreed.
Her eyes were turned unrelentingly to the blank of the ceiling, but she was somewhere far away. It was one of the unfortunate side effects of learning Occlumency, reliving the past. But once mastered, it ensured an ability to detach from those memories that he'd found absolutely vital to survival.
He opened his mouth, searching for some way to draw her back. "Why was the Muggle teacher yelling at you?"
She did not seem to appreciate the attempt, keeping her gaze quite far from his. "It was at school. A, er, religious school. She didn't appreciate my choice of reading material." Her fingers had left her hair, now working at the knotted base of her neck. "Thomas Gregori's History of Wizarding Europe."
"Ahh," he said, not bothering to keep the disgust from his voice. As usual, he supposed, there was some kernel of truth to that old Slytherin prejudice after all.
Her breath slowed through the next silent minutes, and he solemnly considered how best to proceed with this farce of instruction. On the surface, it appeared she was making no progress at mental defense. Granted, the sort of Legilimency he was practicing was far more violent, invasive, and persistent than when he had first attempted to enter her mind. She could block that fairly effectively. He was unsure, however, if her ad hoc Squib method would ever be enough to fight back true Legilimency, and he knew she must surely be worrying along the same lines. But he could do nothing else. She wanted skills that would protect her from the most infamous Legilimens of the age. His strongest attempts at penetration were nothing short of half-hearted compared to the Dark Lord's.
"I think I need—a bit of a nap," she sighed, finally drawing her eyes back down to his. She had the same guarded, cold look as when he'd first seen her in the market. A quiet, solemn mask pulled over undoubted chaos. She was looking to be excused, looking for a bolthole. "Could we continue this next week? If, that is, you see any point in continuing at all."
"We should continue now. I do not wish to spend the entirety of my holidays with this task hanging over me."
Her chuckle was dry and detached and wholly Slytherin. "Nor do I. But there's no point in putting more time into it today. My mind is feeling thoroughly ravaged, if you must know."
He frowned. "You've not been practicing enough. You're still unable to clear your mind adequately."
This tack was clearly not going to help any mind-clearing or emotional detachment. Her eyes, which had been so dull, now smoldered. Her slouched spine suddenly jerked taut. "I have been practicing, Professor," she hissed, leaning towards him, to be sure her previously slippery gaze fastened onto his, unwavering. "I've done every exercise, read every text, invested hours of my own to your little 'homework' assignments. I'm not one of your apathetic students. I need to learn this; I must learn it. My life could be at stake. So don't talk to me like I'm some snot-nosed first year who failed an exam." Her anger seemed to have run out of steam—or perhaps she'd merely run out of strength. But her voice continued in its firm and certain register. "I'm giving this everything I bloody well can. So, either I'm simply incapable of this, or you should actually teach me something that works."
He felt the familiar tremor of anger attacking his bones. "Perhaps, then, you are merely incapable."
She did not react at all how he'd envisioned. He'd expected a matched bite, the return of spite for spite. He'd expected a tirade and a storming out and a delightful, quiet evening spent devising the most effective means for breaking the news of failure to Dumbledore.
Instead, the spark in her eyes extinguished, and her body crumpled back into a defeated ball. "Yes. Perhaps. It wouldn't be the first time."
Bloody hell. A stab of guilt jostled now alongside the gnawing of anger. Of course she was right. This wasn't some lazy, dunderheaded student who railed against the instructor when her half-hearted effort proved insufficient. No, this was far from her first bout with unsalvageable failure.
He closed his own eyes, far too aware of the clamoring of his emotions. He breathed deep, disconnecting, compartmentalizing. He needed cool objectivity for this. There was no sense in letting himself be tugged between anger and guilt and Merlin knew what else over this girl and her ridiculous—
"There!" she exclaimed, shattering the black desert of his eyelids. "That, right there! That's what I need to learn. Enough damn texts on picturing my emotions as balloons floating away. How the hell do you do it?"
He parted lips, expecting the sharp words to bark forth, but, instead, his mind caught on the idea. He no longer thought of how he managed it. He merely did. But once he'd had a method. Once he'd had a way to build that black emptiness on command.
He let his mind sift backwards, touching those stolen late-night lessons in Dumbledore's office. He'd been slumped in defeat, head spinning, eyes running close on the bright silhouette of a sleeping Fawkes. He'd just seen a particularly violent memory of his father. His mother's unconscious body as he ran his wand over the bruise blooming over her forehead. And he'd thought, Damn him. Fucking Tobias Snape. I wish he'd just disappear from my mind; I wish he'd just never been. He'd closed his eyes and watched as the picture of his ugly, apish father faded, leaving a beautiful, numb hollow. That was the first time—the first time he'd managed the feeling. Absolute emptiness of memory.
That had been it, his secret. The method that by now had been reduced to reflex. To slowly picture himself unutterably alone in his life.
He watched her again, unsure how to teach her any of that. It was a sore little personal wound, and he had no joy at the idea of opening any part of his psyche up to probing eyes. She saw far too much already.
But she was watching him, too, gray stare already dissecting, as if his skull was a crystal ball. She was not masking the plea nor the desperate fear of failure in her eyes. She wanted his help.
How disgusting, he told himself. But he knew, deep down, what he really meant was: how disconcerting.
"Snape—Severus, please. If you know something that you're not telling me…"
His mind finished for her: then bloody well get on with it.
"You've seen—some of what's, er, on my mind. Luckily for us both you haven't seen everything," she almost whispered, but her tone threatened him not to ask what else was tucked away in the corners of memory. No doubt some mysteries of the future she didn't deign to entrust to him. "But he will see everything, Severus. He will if I fall into his hands. If there's anything, you—"
She fell off, apparently continuing the dire predictions in the bone walls of her own mind. Her eyes traveled, slow and dull, elsewhere. She was looking at something unseen; and it was clearly horrible.
Damn it. Damn these prophets with their soft golden words that wrapped about his throat like a noose. He'd heard a prophecy before, all those same deep-purple tones. They'd changed everything. They'd ruined him and saved him. Three corpses would have followed those words—a bizarre ellipsis of death.
Not this time. Prophecies were dangerous business, floating atop the brains of helpless twits like Sibyll Trelawney. There'd be no leak this time; no words eked out to be carried off to him by some foolish bastard. He would build the walls high and impenetrable—or try and help her build them, at any rate.
"Get up," he barked, practically dragging her to her feet and to the spot where they'd faced one another, mind to mind.
"Alright, close your eyes."
She looked up at him warily.
"Just do it," he snapped, moving behind her only when her pale eyelids slid reluctantly shut.
"Now, this is what worked for me. Concentrate, and don't let your ridiculous mind wander."
A muscle along her jaw tightened as if she were suppressing an ocean of insults behind her teeth.
"Relax," he said, softer, tapping the tensed cheek but sure not to allow the same bite in his voice. Low and silk, Severus. She won't be able to do this if she's preoccupied with what a bastard you are.
He shifted imperceptibly closer to her ear. Her hair smelled vaguely of soap and spice. He let the scent tickle his nose, calming his voice even further until it became the hypnotic, baritone hum he knew worked odd effects on the nerves of its recipients.
"Now, picture your father."
The tense twitch returned, punctuated by a sharp intake of breath. "I don't think that is going to help me clear my mind."
"Don't speak; just do it."
He waited a few long moments, trying to imagine the construct of her imagination. Her conjured Lucius was doubtlessly different from anything he'd have pictured. Younger but more imposing, more icily paternal. When he tried to picture Malfoy, he saw nothing but black moments stolen behind mask and hood; despite years of acquaintance, despite boyhood pranks and late-night soirees full of cognac and conversation, he would never see Lucius any other way.
Concentrate, Severus. This is her exercise, not yours.
He took another breath, full of soap and spice.
"Now picture your mother. And your Muggle parents. Your young half-brother. Your most hated school teacher. Your first lover. Your last lover. Your—"
"Slow down," she whisper-barked, clenching her eyes a moment and biting her lip as if trying to catch up. The white unblemished skin of her throat shivered with breath.
"Just picture all the people who have ever made you feel weak," he finished, more than aware of the insinuating vibrations of his voice upon the well of her ear. A tiny spot of pulse along her jaw registered his closeness with a visible squirm.
"Now, look at him. Look at Lucius, right in the face."
Beneath their covers, her eyes jerked.
"Now get rid of him," he growled, feeling the sadistic undercurrent of his speech undercutting the soothing melody like a sudden, rumbling tear of bass.
"Kill—him?" she stammered, barely speaking, clearly resisting the urge to turn at the suggestion.
"No. No. That is too lenient, too easy. To kill him is to admit his power. No—you are his judge. You control him. Merely get rid of him. Banish him from existence. Deny him even the importance of being."
Her swallow seemed very loud, crashing against the close silence of his face. He studied her, every minute turn and lift and stillness. He knew instantly when she'd understood—when she'd succeeded. White teeth released their hold on her pressed-pink lip.
"Good. Now, do the same with her, with your mother. You—"
"Shh," she barely seemed to manage, as if lost in the process. He watched for several moments of spice and soap as she proceeded. He imagined her tumultuous mind, each canvas-flat face fading from around her, executed from existence.
"It's so—black."
"Yes," he whispered, moving soundlessly from beside her, pulling his wand out with the merest rustle of robes. "That is where the power of Occlumency comes into focus. It is black; they are nothing. You are alone. You are whatever I want to see. Do you see it? What I want to see? Do you understand the power of denying it all?"
She only breathed deep and strong.
"Now, defend yourself. Legilimens!"
Yes, it was definitely different. Pushing through the snapped open gray, past the thin veils of flesh and energy, he felt lost for a moment—dropped in the gut of a great labyrinth. The walls were immovable cold stone, and his own voice—his own presence—echoed back at him with all the intensity of his attempts to break through. He pushed harder, and the walls breathed but did not crumble. Desperate, sadistic, lost, he gripped her face, searching for something.
The memory was flat and nonsensical. A picture, a man hanging upside-down from a cross. Emotion trickled then surged: hateamusementrespectfear and—
She jerked away, and it was gone.
"You—touched me," she complained, stepping back but no longer appearing disheveled, exhausted. Her eyes flickered, calm, on his.
"Yes. He will do the same, when he sees the Occlumency," he sighed, feeling slightly dizzy. "It is not enough to be empty, to block. You must allow him to see illusions in that emptiness. To look at the black and see what you want him to. You fill the hollow space with lies."
She blinked and sifted her hair through long fingers.
"I still broke through. I saw and felt. A hint of something real, and a hint of emotion. You're still holding on to something, to someone."
Eyes darted from his.
"Try again. Let it—"
"Shh," she interrupted again, already in waking sleep, rebuilding her defenses. It went more quickly this time.
"Well, get on with it then," she growled, finally, this time throwing her eyes wide open as if in challenge. He could tell by the still ferocity of her gaze that she was tasting the beginnings of victory.
"Legilimens!"
The maze was gone. They were proper hallways now; white tiled floors, lined with doors and uniform windows, thin, white curtains pulled. Florescent light buzzed. Several wheelchairs and trolleys lay empty in dark alcoves. Muggle hospital again. Interesting.
He pushed open a door, and a bright lamp soaked his mind. She was standing over a still form, face half-obscured by tears. She pushed them away, cheeks flat, colorless. She muttered something to the man, as if expecting the deathly stiff lips to speak. Her pale hand trembled over unresponsive skin. The emotional schema rolled forth then, but this time it was controlled. Sorrow. Shock. And he saw instantly—she let him see. This was her Muggle father.
The next door led into a cramped flat. She was young, smallish gray eyes turned on a chocolate frog that was perched, breathing and croaking, on her shoulder. A tall, lean women traipsed past, scooping the sweet from her shoulder and biting it in half with a mischievous grin. The girl laughed, as the attendant emotion presented, and the sound of it was almost maddeningly loud, scratching through ever inch of his brain.
He fell back, blinking once more at the still face of Lina Branch.
"That was—different," he said, finally, feeling a vertiginous pull of fatigue drag him down into an armchair.
A smile broke her severe features, and the paleness of her skin seemed to shine. "Different? Is that all you've got to say?"
His head fell forward, throbbing from the effort. "It was an—improvement."
"Improvement? I did it! Not a single damn one of those things ever happened. They were just, you know, twisted moments. In real life, you know, my mum actually told me off for getting chocolate on my robes. And my dad is fine. I was using the memory of his—are you okay?"
No, he thought to himself, rubbing briefly at his temples. He'd never pushed his Legilimency so hard. He'd never had cause to push against a wall so firm. But it was more. His own mind, apart from feeling fatigued, felt prized open. It was not a normal effect of the process. Something about the girl had not only defended; it had fought back. Her mind, so overflowing with unreleased magic, had eked upstream, fought its way up the synapses.
He felt as if he'd been stung by a nasty jinx. He blinked several times.
But he damn sure wasn't going to tell her that. Her face was already a Malfoyish study in smugness. "I am fine, Miss Branch, he sighed, pushing against the swell of nausea and regaining his confident height. "I am merely exceedingly bored. Be glad; if that's all the Dark Lord should happen to see, you'll be a heroine. You'll bore him to death."
To his surprise, she laughed—a deeper, more mature version of the young girl with the frog. "Professor, if I didn't know better, I'd say you resented your student's success."
"On the contrary, Miss Branch. I am overjoyed," he said, crossing the room to pour himself an admittedly shaky finger of whiskey. "Your success means that this pedagogical farce is now at an end."
"Not quite, Professor," she replied, watching him toss the deep, still liquid down his throat. "I'll need one more lesson, I'm afraid. I need to be sure I can create some—er, as you say, less boring memories. And if we're going to finish this properly, I'll need you to ravage me."
Whiskey scraped down his esophagus, spluttering in his lungs.
"Mentally, of course." She was clearly enjoying her success far too much. "I need to know I can fashion some lies to cover the more—dramatic events of my memory. That is what he would do, what he would seek out, is it not? And, you said he sometimes—grabs the—victim. You'll have to…prepare me for that."
He drowned any answer in another burning draw of spirits.
"Besides, you still haven't found the Velius, have you?"
Damn and hell. Her voice was echoing somehow, mixing with the liquor and the nausea. Was the connection still open? Could she feel it? Hear him?
He was not up to the argument. This was enough. Surely, more than. She made good points, of course. Success at Occlumency meant more than constructing basic lies. She would have to draw on real emotions, real events—things that a Dark Lord would want to see. And again, he had seen it many times: he did have physical methods of throwing a victim off. But Snape had no intention of trying those with the girl.
This time the nausea was from memory. "Good day, Miss Branch."
A chuckle, beating on his brain. "Okay, okay. I've worn out my welcome, I see. I'll leave you here to skulk in priv—"
But he'd already picked her up by the arm, ushering her towards the door. With a deep breath, and trying to ignore her staring back at him across the threshold, he rebuilt the black. He watched her disappear from his mind's eye, all links severed, his head righting itself once more. Emptiness reconstructed.
But she was still there, watching him, eyebrow slightly quirked, smile fading. She was worried; she now recognized the methods he used to maintain his cold stoicism.
At least, however, she was now firmly outside, in every sense.
"I'll be back next week, Professor."
And then she really did vanish, lost behind a solidly-slammed door.
The hallways were dim but not dark. He could hear sobs echoing behind the door to his right, muffled by several feet of thick oak. The door melted at the slightest push, and he saw the soft moonlight drifting across the floor like frost, coating the curved arch of the girl's slumped back.
She was bent over cards, watching their forms grayed by the threadbare streak of midnight light that trickled through the window shades. The images were random to him: a demon with a man and woman in thrall; a woman crying in her bed while swords stabbed through the red lump of her heart; a single stave, strong and vital, dominating a world of shadow.
But he did not need to understand the meaning of the cards. He felt it as the girl felt it, emotion and thought running strong, like music counter-pointing a dance. He will win. The Dark Lord will win. It's hopeless. It's all here. If he merely—
A woman's voice, soft and familiar, tickled the silence.
"Severus!"
He turned. It was not Lina Branch this time. It had nothing, in fact, to do with Lina Branch.
"Severus, is that you?"
Somehow the dim room had blossomed into the bustling of Diagon Alley. People were brushing past, hardly noticing their two forms stopped on the pavement, an island surrounded by jetties of dim faces. The woman—she—was standing before him, green eyes alight but cautious, baby resting on a slender hip. He had her eyes.
"Lily." He wasn't sure he'd said it out loud.
"Severus, how are you? You look tired. They must be overworking you. I haven't heard much from you since—"
No.
No. This wasn't right. Get out. Get. Bloody well. OUT.
The baby vanished. She vanished. Every billboard and shopfront dissolved back to black.
And Lina Branch lay crunched against herself on the floor once again. But she wasn't crying. She wasn't moving. The moonlight had been replaced by the dingy brown-yellow light of a single lamp.
What was—
The surroundings refocused the buzzing in his brain, and he recognized the bookcase. The lamp. The carpet. The thick lace of cobwebs in the corners. The wand grasped, knuckle-white.
Shit.
Lina groaned and rolled slightly, managing, after several moments, to prop herself up, shaking, on one arm.
"Fucking hell, Snape!" she spat, probing her face closely and wincing as her finger brushed a particularly purple patch across her cheek.
Yes, he'd done something. She looked worse than Dumbledore had during that first lesson. Jelly Legs jinx, it had been, leaving him a stunned pile on the floor. He just hoped he hadn't done something worse this time. Occlumency could be a dangerous business.
"You hit me with Impedimenta, you arse!" she hissed, looking highly motivated to even the score with a well-placed slug to the chin. Suddenly, he was quite glad to be dealing with a Squib; he felt quite certain she would have flung any number of hexes at him otherwise.
He offered her a hand and hefted her up unceremoniously, though watching her balled fists for any sign of follow through. "It was unintentional, I assure you."
"Hnh."
"Believe me. I would have chosen a much more interesting curse if given the choice," he grumbled, taking her face firmly in hand once more. She jerked away, trembling slightly, unwilling to let him touch her again. It must have been sometime, he supposed, since she'd met a curse face to face. "Hold still."
"Like hell I will! You're not bringing that sodding wand anywhere near me." She batted the object away as he retook her face.
"Don't be ridiculous. I'm just going to heal the bruise so you don't have to walk around looking like one of Malf—" He bit his tongue very, very hard. Like one of Malfoy's mistresses, he was going to finish. It was a reflexive phrase among his ex-Death Eater colleagues; it would have proven the definition of bad taste in present company.
Either a guess at the unsaid remainder of the comment or an appreciation of his rare self-censorship seemed to sober her slightly, and she lowered her hands, allowing him to replace the blooming black with unmarked white. She reached up, shifting her jaw warily.
She had mastered it now, no doubt of that. She was an Occlumens. In fact, she was something beyond: Occlumens and half-way Legilimens in one. Somehow her Sight or her internally-focused magic allowed her to latch on once a connection was made—to combine memories. The experience was unlike any Legilimency he knew. It was not reading of the mind; it was a meeting of minds.
"Anywhere else?" he asked, releasing her completely and putting some deliberate distance between them.
"No, no," she murmured, finding the nearest seat, testing her repaired cheek with a light prodding. "I just gave the table a good knock."
"Water?"
Her tone was an undeniable you-owe-me. "Whiskey."
Not up to arguing the point—after all, she had provoked it—he conceded, conjuring two small glasses, amber and ice.
She held the cool glass to her face, words fragmented behind the sharp cut corners. "Well—I think I've got it."
"Indeed," he said, jostling ice and avoiding the persistent ache of the memory she'd managed to unearth. Did she realize what she was doing? Could she control it, reverse the process? It was a shame they were trying so hard to keep her out of the Dark Lord's clutches. Who knew what the girl could see if he subjected her to Legilimency. The entire mind of Voldemort opened up to her supposedly defenseless eyes.
The problem was he'd likely kill her when it was done. He had no great love of Squibs and even less of Occlumens who got caught.
He'd only keep her alive if he knew her other ability. And that was what they must prevent—at all costs.
He suddenly felt very strange in this line of thought, going on as if it were eleven years earlier, and the Dark Lord was a real, everyday presence. After all, he wasn't lurking in corners anymore. He was supposed to be gone. There had been no word, no hint of him since that night--
The memory turned in his skull, and he pushed it away with a draw of liquor.
No hint save the faint whisper of the Mark. And the girl's somehow very convincing word.
"So—that was her? Lily Potter?" Her voice advanced, timorous and respectful, but her eyes remained trained on her drink.
He recalled, with an unpleasant lurch, just how much of that memory the girl could understand. Reading his memories, she was merely putting pictures to an already far too familiar story. "Yes." And if you think of saying anything more on that subject, it'll get worse than Impedimenta. His firm glare did all this implying.
But she didn't seem keen on exploring the scene; perhaps she knew enough already. She certainly knew more than he'd ever told anyone—maybe more than he'd admitted even to himself. Damn.
"I—I'm sorry. That sort of slipped in somehow. I think—when I'm constructing the lies—it somehow connected me with you…I didn't try to…"
He frowned.
"But I could feel a difference. Suddenly, everything felt bigger—inside. And when I stretched out, I felt new memories trickling in. When I redirected my concentration, they just—took over." Judging from her wrinkled nose and the habitual track of hand through hair, it had felt quite unpleasant. "Perhaps my pent up magic just rushes out when there's an internal focus available to it. But it felt—dangerous. Like I would get lost if I wasn't careful." She shook her head as if still trying to banish the sensation. "Like those accounts you read about Animagi who forget their human forms. Good whiskey, by the way. I normally hate conjured food and drink, especially liquor. It loses the subtleties. But this—"
"I believe, Miss Branch, that that little demonstration of Occlumency means we are done with our lessons," he said, a bit more sternly than he'd intended. He sipped the last of his own drink. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything to compare to the real stuff he kept. She was being polite, a sure sign that this conversation needed to end. "You seem to have mastered the art, even with my—with the distractions of touch."
"Indeed." Flat words to match flat eyes.
"Assuming, of course, that the little picturesque scene of you reading those cards was—"
"A lie?" She quirked a half-grin. "So you couldn't tell?"
He didn't respond. Whiskey poured from his wand to refill his pitifully empty glass. Perhaps when she left, he'd pull out the good stuff. After all, reason to celebrate—regaining his last month of summer. And, besides, if things went well, he'd have another victory to take to Dumbledore…
She chuckled, holding her own glass forward, brusque. "Yes, it was. I was actually reading my mum's cards then. The emotion was easy to twist."
He refilled her glass deliberately. He did still have that one more thing.
"Well, then you have learned Occlumency, at least as far as you'll need." He shifted his weight, trying to predict how she'd react to what he was about to ask of her. She might not mind—but he doubted that. The girl was secretive, especially when it came to her "gift." But, after all, she had made the deal in the first place…
"I, however, have made lamentable progress in hearing anything as to the whereabouts of your precious Velius…"
She stilled, fully sobered and attentive. Like a good Slytherin, she could sense the prelude to something unpleasant.
He leaned forward, like a good Slytherin, knowing how to press into the stilled fear of an opponent. "You said I would find it; you said you'd seen that…?
And she sat back, perfect complement in their Slytherin push-pull tango. "Yes, I did." Her punctuation had grown physical, her eyes cautionary. Perhaps, her whole demeanor warned, you are looking for another round of combat? Do not, for a moment, make the mistake of thinking me defenseless…
"I'm not calling you a liar, Miss Branch," he tumbled forward, pressing the unspoken gray threat in her gaze aside with seasoned ease. "I was merely curious. Since you have such a gift for peering into such mysteries, have you not considered using your ability to discover the location of the item in question?" He lifted his glass to rest at a calculated angle as he waited for her reply.
"I have. I tried—several years ago." The words were hard, staccato, like the clap of a door slammed shut. "It is—very difficult to read for inanimate objects."
"Ah, but surely not for someone of your skill. What I have seen has led me to believe your ability quite…accurate. Brutally so, even." He sneered, watching her draw a little further into her seat. "And, since I assume you are entirely sincere in holding up your end of this bargain, I shouldn't think you'd object to giving it a good, sporting try."
The column of her neck twisted, and the sharpness of her gaze relocated to an apparently fascinating side table. "Very well. I will try the reading and contact you with the result."
"Would not now be a more expedient solution? I have a table just here. I'll even be prevailed upon to uncork some decent liquor, if that could persuade you." He set his glass aside, slow, with relish, sensing the girl's routes of escape closing off, one by one. "After all, as you have reminded me, this agreement of our is of vital and immediate importance."
Gray gaze lashed against his cheek. Her eyes were shining though the rest of her remained the word-for-word definition of composed. "I—don't have my cards," she said, a bad attempt at breeziness, as if, somehow, she fully expected the countermove before he made it.
Check and mate.
"Well, I acquired a deck for just this purpose," he obliged her, producing a silk-draped package from his robes and laying it on the table with the most gentle finality. "I've borrowed them from a colleague." With great, personal hardship, damn it. He'd had to endure an hour-long Floo lecture on the intricacies of cartomancy from Sibyll Trelawney. Five minutes of conversation with that woman should merit an Order of Merlin. The least the girl could do to reward him was get on with it…
Her eyes did not leave the package on the table, seemingly transfixed. He recognized the expression. Dumbledore had the same creeping stillness when he found himself in check.
A hand rowed through her hair at last as she pulled the silk back to reveal an innocent, inert stack of cards. "I'll take that liquor now, then."
By the time he returned with an uncorked bottle of Banshee's Best, she had separated the neat stack into at least ten haphazard piles, shuffling through one, examining it as he examined a new batch of potion ingredients, face drawn in appraisal. Her fingers slid through each stack, smooth and sure, and he remembered for a brief moment the dexterous movement of her fingertips against his palm as she sorted the odd Muggle notes.
"Any terrific revelations?" he interrupted flatly, laying a small glass before her, careful not to disturb any of the piles strewn across the table.
Her gaze never left the cards. "I'm not reading them yet." She may not have looked up, but the eye roll was more than clear in her tone. "One doesn't simply pick up a new deck and begin anymore than one throws a lot of plants into a cauldron and begins brewing. Cartomancy is a subtle science."
"I see." His grin drowned in his glass. A droll if unintentional choice of words.
She shuffled a few moments, frown growing deeper, etching lines around her mouth that he had never observed. "These cards are—well, they're terrible. They've no essence. The woman who owns them must be a rank amateur at best."
The chuckle broke free before he could stifle it. "I've always suspected as much. But how—I mean, I didn't tell you—"
"How did I know it was a woman?" She'd begun rebuilding the deck, pressing stack to stack with an entirely vexed sigh. "First of all, they stink of perfume and patchouli. Second, I can feel it on them. Certain women leave a distinct imprint on their cards."
Perhaps it was the Banshee's, but he found himself mildly curious as he watched the cards track through her hands, shuffling easily, one atop the next, with a crisp whisper. Maybe there was something to Divination. It had always sounded like irrational squawking coming from Sibyll's mouth, but he could not doubt this girl's credentials. And besides, he'd grown to recognize the look in a Master's eyes: certainty and focus oblivious to all else. In the center of a storm, the Master's eye trained on his object of love.
Just the way Lina Branch now concentrated all her being on the repaired stack of cards before her.
"An imprint?" he asked, destroying the silence and the stillness that had overtaken her.
She closed her eyes, sighing. "Yes. Every reader leaves an imprint on her deck. In theory, the deck and the reader become intimately connected, allowing for more and more accurate readings—like a second pair of eyes. I do not, as a rule, read any cards but my own. And I certainly wouldn't loan mine out. But, with these cards, it shouldn't really matter. I'll hardly spoil such—"
"What about the Vel—"
"There are exceptions." The interruption was clean and matter-of-fact. He recognized it again, an echo of his own pedagogical strategy. If Dumbledore hadn't had reason to keep Sibyll under his eye, and if the girl hadn't been in such a precarious situation, he would certainly have recommended her for the Divination post. She had the natural demeanor of a professor and, of course, a cool mastery of her subject that he found oddly pleasing. "The Velius is such an exception. A very rare few decks were created as tools of great, un-imprintable power. Usually, they were created for the purpose of viewing certain—large matters. For example, the Velius was created by the sorceress Borgia to look into the fates of her most powerful enemies. Making it, then, the perfect tool for the Headmaster's delightful little task." She cleared her throat deliberately, cradling the cards in her hands. "Now, if you please, I prefer some quiet for this. The cards are already going to make this remarkably difficult—more so than it would already have been."
He forgot even to grumble at being chastised in such a way. It felt like he was a student again, setting aside his impatience long enough to dissect the knowledge being offered. He sat back, observing both the cards and the girl very closely.
She paused, another quiet, eye-shut moment before, in a graceful, quick instant, her hands set to their work. He had expected a slowness to the act—some calculated turning of finger and card, mixed with long pauses for interpretation.
But the girl moved as if dancing, with precise, seamless movements almost impossible to follow step for step. Instead it gave the impression of one long motion, images revealed and covered, patterns of color and flesh appearing between them, always trailed by those gray eyes. Gray eyes now gone all quicksilver and well-deep. There was no pause, no mulling, just a dance with the hands, flowing on and on, color and gray, color and gray—
And then it halted. It felt violent, the dancer tumbling to the earth. All the grace backed up, seized, and slammed across her face in an inertial parting of lips.
He looked down at the last image to appear. It was as meaningless to him as the pictures in her memory: a king on a throne, gray sword in pale hands. "What's the--?"
"Do you do Arithmancy?" Her voice, grown three fathoms deeper, seemed to echo, though it was almost a whisper.
"What?"
"Arithmancy? Can you do it?" The sudden, desperate weight of her new eyes was almost too much. It was the illusion of Legilimency gone too far.
"Of course. Why—"
"I need an equation. Well, get some parchment, damn you!"
He began to protest, but she was already reciting. "Eth as a constant in the function of Ysil—"
"Wait a bloody moment!" His hands were fumbling through his roll-top desk, a mockery of her earlier dexterity. "What was the first?" He bit the quill with aggravation before dipping it forcefully into a well of emerald ink.
"No. Too late."
She was whispering now, but the depth of her voice had vanished, now tremulous as a barely-formed breath.
It was followed almost immediately by a resounding pop.
He had to blink, brief and horrified, before the spell of the reading shattered like a scream.
Lucius Malfoy was standing before him, all aristocratic poise and roving, gray eyes.
A/N: Thanks again to Whitehound for her thoughts and help!
Next chapter should be along quite soon…