"you cannot let your guard down! Pay attention and try and block my advance!" Severus hissed the spell again and delved back into the task of ripping apart hermione's mental defenses.

Hermione attempted yet again to throw up a barrier against Severus' barrage attack. This time she built a replica of Hogwarts multinous library and imagined all of her most important memories locked away in the restricted section with Madame Pince sitting inconspicuously at her desk, wand at her side. Sorted by relevence all of Hermiones memories pushed themselves as books into the shelves that reached from floor to ceiling. The good thing about this strategy, was Severus simply felt as if he were walking through one of Hermione's many memories of studying in the dusty old room.

Severus pulled out of her mind and his face held a look of restrained satisfaction.

"Finally. That was an acceptable strategy. I would urge you to organize your thoughts and memories a little differently but overall I could not even tell that I was in the midst of your totem."

Hermione looked up to see his half smile quickly disappear into the thin lines of his face, but realized that she had finally made progress. She uttered a simple "thank you" and relaxed into a chair that she had summoned at the beginning of their mental lesson.

Severus turned to open the door and looked back to see Hermione sitting in his favorite chair with her eyes closed, whispering something to herself nonsensically. He watched her for a few seconds until she opened her eyes and looked back at him tiredly.

"why don't you go get cleaned up and meet me back here to talk over some tea in, say, twenty minutes?" He questioned, and after her slow nod, turned finally and walked out, closing the door behind him with a clinical 'snap.'

As soon as Severus left the room Hermione slumped back down in her chair, her heart in mid-battle against her chest. This was becoming too much. Though she knew it was only beginning. She was proud of herself for catching on in the art of occlumency as fast is she did, but she also realized that the hardest part was yet to come; learning to disguise true memory underneath falsified memor. But she realized that the adrenaline that was still pumping would help with overcoming the fear of meeting with Lucius, and eventually in protecting her mind from Voldemort himself. It was a frightening thought, knowing that one day she would stand in the midst of death eaters, and almost inevitably become one herself. At the same time, in doing so, she would take her place in helping to save the wizarding world.

She picked herself up out of her seat, and stealthily made her way back to her quarters. She quickly took a shower and as soon as she stepped out, looked into the mirror in disgust at her appearance. It would take a lot of work to get THAT head of hair to lay down today. There was just too much humidity for its liking.

After fifteen minutes of conditioners, gels, and flattening spells Hermione's hair was laying in long waves down her back. "Definitely not something I want to bother with everyday," she mumbled as she walked down the stairs. She'd thrown on a pair of old GAP jeans and a white tank top. 'This is going to eat me alive' she thought to herself. She still had no idea what they would be discussing after her evening of 'training' so that made the stress that much more.

0

Severus stepped out of his bedroom, which was located on the top floor of Order Headquarters. He was slightly irritated at Dumbledore for suggesting that Hermione have the rest of the night

off from training. It took a rigorous schedule to get her where she currently was, and to his standards, she was still not up to par.

Despite all of Severus' labored and intense arguments in favor of keeping to that planned schedule, Albus had requested that he spend some time with Hermione, assisting her in revisions for her NEWT's which set her back even further in relation to meeting with The Dark Lord.

She didn't know it yet, but because of her hopefully, soon to be status, Dumbledore had planned for Hermione to sit as many of her NEWT level exams three weeks before the start of her seventh year term. That way, if she did become more involved with the Order and service for the Dark Lord, she would not be struggling in her classes. Severus knew that she could sit the exams with no revision, at this very moment, and score as high if not higher than if she did do revisions. He also grudgingly realized that she could also beat his scores, a fact that he found utterly annoying. He let himself have a small smile, barely touching the corners of his lips. She was most likely going to be the smartest cleverest witch to have walked the halls of Hogwarts only excluding Rowena Ravenclaw herself.

He entered the kitchen and asked Dobby to quickly set up the tea things in the living room, then walked to the aformentioned room and pulled a few of his books off of the shelf and sat down on the sofa to await the arrival of one completely irritating yet enrapturing young woman.