Chapter 7: Legilimens

Balearic Islands, Spain, February 1998

Unrelenting rain pounded above the Cuevas del Drach. The jagged rocks of the cave protruded like mummified icicles, forming an ominous silhouette that provided convenient cover for the occupants within. A man and woman sat on a crude wooden bench inside, shrouded in Notice-Me-Not charms and secrecy spells. They faced a younger man, who stood tall with his eyes shut. The sitting couple stooped low, heads together, murmuring Gaelic lines from a battered red book. There was no telltale glow of spellwork, but the subtle wind shift and mist deflecting off the standing man would hint to any passerby of the powerful ritual being performed.

When they finished their recitation, the couple looked up at the younger man expectantly.

"Well?" the woman asked. Her voice was soft, comforting.

"Try it now, Julien," the man sitting commanded.

The younger man stood up, facing him. He produced his wand with what appeared to be a great effort. "I'm — I'm not at my full capacity. The ritual was more draining than I expected."

"Do it anyway," the woman urged.

"Do it," the older man repeated, his hard tone leaving no room to disobey.

Julien nodded, briefly shutting his eyes as if to prepare himself. Water from the rocks above dripped onto the dirt in a rapid cadence, filling the air with hollow echoes.

But before the man could try anything, loud cracks of Apparition rattled the misty air of the cave within.

Five Death Eaters appeared, their brutal masks and regalia desecrating the scene. Even though the older couple stumbled backwards in surprise, all three of them had their wands pointed out at the intruders in milliseconds.

"You're outnumbered. Give us the Jordan boy," one Death Eater demanded, a sneer evident in his voice. "Or we'll kill you all."

Perhaps she had been too exhausted to dream. Or perhaps her mind had been too preoccupied with questions around the Unspeakable. Either way, Ginny had no nightmares, arriving into the morning well-rested and excited.

When she arrived at the Ministry, Julien was scrawling something in his notebook again. He barely looked up when Natalia escorted Ginny into his office.

"Now that's no way to greet your guest," Natalia mock-scolded.

"Hm. Thank you for gracing me with your presence again, Miss Weasley," Julien said, casting a sardonic glance their way.

Ginny chuckled as she stepped inside. "I thought we were past the 'Miss Weasley' stage."

"Don't get too comfortable," Julien said, once Natalia had left. "I still need to maintain my reputation as an Unspeakable."

"And what exactly is the reputation of an Unspeakable?"

"Hm. Cold. Impenetrable," Julien replied, still writing in his notebook.

"And are you?" Ginny asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Sometimes," Julien said, finally putting his quill down. "That's how we're trained to be. Intimidation is how we retain influence in the Ministry."

"I guess I did tell Lee you were nothing like him," Ginny laughed.

"You met with Lee?"

She had seemed to throw him off guard. His family clearly wasn't a topic he was used to talking about.

"Yeah, but now I'd probably tell him something different."

"Which is?"

"You're serious, yeah, but you're not cold. You're helping me a lot, after all, which I know you don't need to. And I think you're — you're nice," Ginny explained, then felt her face flush. Merlin, what am I even saying? But her comment brought clear amusement to Julien's face.

"Let's see if you'll repeat that after today. You see, I have some training in mind after seeing the state of your defenses last night. I don't believe you'll think of it as particularly 'nice'."

Ginny had trained hard in her life for many things. She had duelled hard in Dumbledore's Army, holding her own in the war. She had trained obsessively as a professional quidditch player, bruising and bloodying her body for the sake of a silly sport. She was a fighter to the end, not someone who would admit defeat easily.

But lying on the charcoal gray mat with the wind knocked out of her for the tenth straight time, she almost, almost, almost wanted to give up.

"Get up," Julien said, his voice rigid, unrelenting. Ginny groaned and rolled on her side, laying her forehead down. The coolness of the mat helped ease the pain in her head a bit, so she was able to crack open her eyes to stare at the walls, all painted the same infuriating shade of charcoal gray.

The monotonous color scheme in the dim lighting made her feel like she was trapped in Azkaban. But no, it was simply a training room in the Department of Mysteries, tucked away in another dark corner on the ninth floor. Julien's black boots stepped into her field of vision, and Ginny reluctantly directed her attention up to his unyielding expression.

"I said, get up," Julien repeated, slower this time.

"I need a few minutes," Ginny said. She rubbed her temples, irritated. "You can't just keep blasting into my mind and then attacking me when I'm still recovering. There's no way I can —"

"Yes, there is. You're almost there," Julien replied curtly, no trace of sympathy on his face.

Drill sergeant Julien was not what she'd expected today, especially after glimpsing a touch of warmth — or whatever that was — last night. It was alarming how easily he switched on this mode, like it was the persona most familiar to him.

Nice, my arse. I take it back right now.

"You get no breaks in a real attack. So get up, Ginny, or you can try again from right there."

Ginny longed to hex the man, but instead she gingerly climbed onto her feet. It was ridiculous how adeptly he could simultaneously duel and perform Legilimency. Ginny considered herself a strong dueller, especially after all the Defense training during the war, but when he assaulted her mental shields along with her physical shields, it became impossible to keep both her defenses up. She could feel herself improving, finding the balance she needed, but her head was pounding and Julien's attacks weren't relenting.

"Don't lose your Occlumency shields when you fire a hex. Your body already knows how to produce magic and channel it, so focus on the Occlumency," Julien instructed.

"Who's going to attack me like this? You really think The Dealer or whatever they call themselves, can do this like you can?" Ginny asked, grasping at straws in an attempt to delay the next round.

"Yes," Julien replied, shooting her a look that said I know exactly what you're doing. "Never underestimate your opponent. Someone who can unlock ancient mind magic from a diary will have these skills."

Ginny only sighed in response. Julien tipped his head, raising his wand. A challenge lurked in his eyes: will you be able to get it this time?

Stupefy.

In her frustration, Ginny fired the silent spell a millisecond before Julien was expecting it. She could identify his surprise by the way he dodged, leaving his right side open in haste. Seizing the opportunity to advance, she crept up two steps and fired a tripping jinx that made contact with his right foot. Julien stumbled for an instant before nullifying it with a flick.

Occlude.

Ginny could feel Julien's mental presence hovering around her like a thick fog, a distracting, creeping vapor that made it nearly impossible to concentrate on her physical presence. A stinging hex hit her elbow and she yelped but didn't drop her wand, drawing a Protego around her body. Her temples ached from the force of the attempted intrusion and she struggled to avoid eye contact with him while simultaneously tracking his movements.

"Petrificus Totalus," she ground out between her teeth, stabbing her wand forward. Julien's Legilimency attack withdrew the slightest bit as he dodged, and Ginny felt a grim satisfaction as the pressure on her head lessened. She fired a blasting curse at the ground in front of Julien, forcing him to lurch into a crouch.

She ran up then, aiming her wand down at his head, accidentally meeting his brown eyes.

Eyes. Shite.

"Legilimens!"

The word slid off Ginny's tongue, the syllables lining up without thought. It was the spell she had anticipated from Julien and she didn't know what possessed her to utter it, but later, she would thank Merlin that the impulse had hit her.

A wave of lightheadedness passed over her and she felt lighter, lighter, lighter with each second, floating away like a feather into the ether. There was a moving cloud of something hanging in the air, although she wasn't sure if it truly existed, not with the way it wobbled in and out of her vision. Was it real? Did it exist?

And suddenly, she wasn't sure if her vision was real, either. She was watching a figure of a girl standing above her kneeling form, a girl with ginger hair, a messy ponytail, and eyes fixed on — wait, that's me, isn't it?

But who am I?

She had an inkling that the question had once been easy to answer, but it was impossible in the moment to reconcile who she was.

Get back up. The red-haired girl transformed into a bald man with a salt-and-pepper beard and deep wrinkles around his hazel eyes. His eyes flashed with a warning, their intensity posing a sharp contrast to his grandfatherly features. Get back up, now, Julien. Now.

But I'm not Julien.

Crack!

Ginny heard her body crash backwards into the mat a second before she felt it. The impact of her shoulder against the mat sent a sharp pain through her left arm socket, and she clutched it, forcing herself to breathe through the smarting waves of pain.

Cracking her eyes open, Ginny found her vision back, reacquainted with the dark gray view she had been cursing all morning. Julien was climbing to his feet, tentatively shaking his limbs out.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah. Sorry. I don't know why I did that," Ginny said sheepishly, rubbing her arm. "It just came out of my mouth in the heat of the moment."

"It wasn't the worst outcome for your first Legilimency attempt," he said, offering Ginny a hand up as he approached. "But don't try it again."

"Wow," Ginny said. Her shoulder still ached like hell but a grin slunk onto face as she clambered back up. "That was strange… but cool. Why are you teaching me Occlumency and not Legilimency?"

"You're not ready yet."

"But wasn't I just able to do it?"

Julien fixed her with a serious look.

"If I hadn't forced you out, you would have lost your mind. Don't even think about surprising me with it again. Had you stayed for longer, you could have forgotten who you were or lost your identity permanently."

Ginny's grin disappeared as she realized the gravity of what she'd done.

"So when will I be ready?"

"Once you can hold me off for minutes at a time. You can't take shortcuts with Occlumency — it's the precursor to all mind arts. Once you're in complete control of your own mind, taking control of someone else's is barely an extension."

"The mind arts will give you control," she murmured, repeating Healer Morrison's words.

"Precisely," Julien affirmed, as if he was familiar with the mantra. "But you have to earn it."

"But what if I need to learn? What if I need to perform Legilimency to use my connection with the diary and The Dealer?"

Julien scratched his chin. "I've been thinking along those lines as well. But I have an idea that won't involve you accidentally losing your mind."

A Trace. Really, Julien had beaten her down to a bloody pulp in training and then suggested he put a Trace on her. If someone gave her a bad haircut and a Hogwarts robe, she would almost believe she was sixteen again.

Of course it wasn't a normal Trace — it was a mind magic Trace. She could only trust Julien's word that it was only monitoring her episodes and not every spell she cast or every internal monologue she pondered. Was it even possible, to monitor someone's thoughts? Probably.

Ginny downed her third Headache Reliever of the day, then flopped onto her bed, tucking herself into her silky gray sheet. She was more than ready to take a nap, or maybe just sleep until Monday rolled around.

At least she had more answers now. After a final round where she landed a nasty Bat-Bogey hex on Julien (witnessing him sneezing out the furry figures brightened her whole afternoon), Ginny had demanded he explain his idea to her.

He would be alerted when she had an episode. Something about the Trace detecting an outflow of consciousness. The plan was for him to Apparate immediately during her next episode and perform Legilimency on her while it was happening. His hypothesis was that he could control the other party through her mind connection with the diary.

There were still risks with this method, possibilities that The Dealer would become aware of the tampering and block the Legilimency, Julien had warned. But this was the best plan Ginny had heard so far, in her months and months of searching for answers. She felt a coil of anticipation embedding itself in her gut, itching for something to spring.