September to October 1941, 4th year
Naenia had never been particularly interested in any of Tom's ongoing projects. She was aware that he was desperately searching for the magical side of his family – he knew that his grandfather had most likely been Marvolo Gaunt, but that didn't make his quest any easier. She was also aware that he was searching for the legendary Chamber of Secrets.
Thinking back on it, it was possible that his interest had been ignited by finding the connection between Salazar Slytherin and the House of Gaunt. Which must have been in first year, since he had already been searching for it back then. It was interesting, that he had asked her about his family only in second year.
She knew he had other projects beside these (he was now part of the Duelling Club, for one), but she had never bothered to ask about them or go out of her way to find out on her own. Tom didn't tell his plans to anyone, not even her.
It came as quite the surprise, therefore, when he told her about his motivation to learn Mind Magic.
They were in the library, each doing their own research, several books piled high on their table. Naenia was comparing the runes they were taught in Hogwarts with those known to wizarding kind and those the Lémures passed on.
Tom was reading books about Legilimency and Occlumency. Which Naenia only noticed after he had asked whether he could practice on her. (Not before casting a privacy charm, of course.)
Naenia couldn't help the stunned expression on her face.
Tom was watching her carefully. "I have already started to practice on my own, but…"
Naenia narrowed her eyes. "You used Legilimency on other students, didn't you?"
It almost seemed like he would deny it, but then Tom sighed. "You know me too well."
Naenia closed her eyes, "Please tell me they neither noticed, nor were affected negatively," and opened them again to glare at her friend, who scoffed at that.
"Of course not," he said affronted. "No one will ever suspect a thing. They're too dense to do."
"Or," she replied, "merely unused to Legilimency and therefore unable to notice anything amiss and identify it for what it is."
"Semantics," Tom said dismissively. "So. Are you willing to help me out?"
"I don't see how that would 'help you out'. You seem to have found enough subjects to practice on already."
"But none of them are proficient in Occlumency. I can refine my subtlety with them, but not my strength."
Naenia tilted her head. "What makes you think I am proficient in Occlumency?"
Tom gave her a look that made her smile.
"Alright, let's assume I am," she continued. "There are still others just as good as I might or might not be. Slytherins like to keep their secrets, after all." She let her smile turn into a smirk. "Why not ask a professional anyway? From what I have gathered, dear Professor Dumbledore is very well-versed in Mind Magic."
Tom scowled. "As if 'dear Professor Dumbledore' would ever allow me to learn such dangerous magic. The old fool hates me."
"Oh, I wouldn't go so far," Naenia said. "He's too nice for that. He's just prejudiced. And," she gave her friend a pointed look, "he has every right to be wary of you."
"No one else is. I don't understand it."
Naenia shrugged. "And I thought he would be the Professor most likely not to let my family's reputation cloud his judgement, but I was proven wrong."
Tom muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "Stupid old man."
"You may use it on me once," Naenia said. "And I won't use Occlumency."
"Why not?"
He didn't protest her other proposition.
She smiled. "You'll see."
Tom nodded. Then he raised his wand and pointed it at Naenia. "Legilimens."
Naenia wondered whether to think about something special, to be more straightforward with her thoughts. She knew he had ulterior motives. Her mind was always such a mess. He certainly wanted to practice. She was a natural at Occlumency for a reason. He also wanted information. But there was just so much to think about. He was hoping to see her memories. She didn't know how the mind of others worked – she had never learned Legilimency, wasn't all that much interested in it anyway.
Naenia was looking down at the first dissected corpse she had ever laid eyes on. How many years ago had that been?
Memories of Necromancy. She didn't even need the shields, not really. Memories of power. It would certainly make things easier for Tom. Things like that. But she was aware her mind was a special case. Was there anything she could focus on? He would not get any. So many thoughts all at once, how they intersected and crisscrossed and parted again to run into very different directions. There were no memories vibrant or emotional enough to be easily accessible.
The Thestrals were restless. Something had upset them, but Naenia didn't know what it was, didn't know what to do, could only lay a hand on the one next to her and speak to it in low, soothing words hoping to calm the Thestral down.
But they were useful, the shields, she thought, sometimes. Her memories were always fading so fast. Did she want to make this easier for him? There was a proper explanation for that. Not that she could think of any moment where she had been forced to actually put up her shields. If she was to exist forever, she couldn't just keep on piling up memory after memory after memory for years and years and years. No, she didn't want to make this easy for him.
Someone looked at her, their eyes cold and piercing, and she didn't know what to make of it. She didn't remember who it was, what she had thought.
So, naturally, her memories faded and rather quickly at that, the good and the bad – nothing to be done about that, she didn't particularly miss them. Nor had she ever needed to force someone out of her mind. Maybe that was why she had problems with expressing her emotions sometimes, because she didn't have any memories to base them on.
There was a dead mink lying on the table. She could just barely make out the events that had led to this scene in the distance, blurry and colourless.
To be granted, there hadn't been that many Legilimency attacks on her mind before and most of those few had come from her brother, to test whether he had taught her sufficiently. Or maybe there was another reason, how was she supposed to know? But still.
There was a girl with light brown hair and a friendly face smiling at her.
In any case, Tom wouldn't get any valuable information out of this. It would be a miracle if he could get any information out of this (other than the mess that her mind was).
She paused.
And in that pause, although she did not explicitly think of anything, she contemplated what to think about next – how she could focus her thoughts into a singular line, if just for a moment.
It seemed impossible, didn't it? To contemplate something while keeping one's mind empty. She sometimes imagined her thoughts to be on different levels. With different trains of thought on those different levels, so if the one nearest to the front – the loudest, the one where her main thoughts were located – was empty, then there were still thoughts on the lower levels, quieter, more subdued, not exactly thoughts, more like suggestions of thoughts.
There was something round and smooth in her hands and the words "I'm sorry, I truly am." hung heavily in the air.
Naenia felt the exact moment that Tom left her mind, because suddenly there was enough space again for her numerous thoughts to freely wander around and multiply and expand, and the small flashes of memories stopped as well.
Tom pressed a hand against his forehead and closed his eyes in a pinched expression.
Naenia might have offered some tea laced with a soothing potion, if they hadn't been in the library at the moment.
"I got some of that," Tom said in a low voice, "I think." He opened his eyes to look at her through heavy lids. "Wasn't it you who said that Legilimency has nothing to do with mind reading?"
"It doesn't," Naenia simply said.
Tom sat up, pressing his knuckles to his temples. "Explain."
Naenia hummed, resting her chin on her left hand, watching Tom. "Let's start with 'mind reading', because that is much easier to explain. Professor Dumbledore uses it quite frequently, if you ever need a reference to look for the signs."
Tom narrowed his eyes at her, but remained silent.
"It has less to do with magic and more to do with reading other people's body language, although magic can enhance the effects. Simply put, you read the person who's mind you want to 'read'. You watch them carefully, their conscious and subconscious body language, how they react to certain words and phrases and your own expressions – things like that. Those who are trained in the Old Magics might use that to their advantage as well."
"How?"
Naenia raised an eyebrow at him. Surely that was obvious?
She continued anyway, "You might enhance your senses, so you won't miss any details. Or you might enhance the way your mind registers information subconsciously and files them away. You might use it to fasten your analysing. Sensing the way magic flows around someone can also tell you a lot about them and their inner thoughts and emotions."
"So it isn't really mind reading at all," Tom stated.
"Depends on your definition, I suppose."
"It's useless if I want specific information, because I can only get generic impressions and put those into context."
"I wouldn't say that," Naenia said, but she didn't elaborate. "As for Legilimency – I would describe it as a very complex art. My understanding of it is purely theoretical, of course, because I have never learned to practice it."
She waited for Tom to nod before she continued.
"Legilimency allows you to look into someone's mind, sift through the various layers and try to interpret what you find. Strong and clear memories are usually easier to find than anything else – as are the emotions someone is experiencing at that moment, but you don't need Legilimency to do that. Hearing what someone is thinking however… Hm, how do I put it?"
At this point, Tom had begun to lean forward in his seat, his eagerness so clearly written on his face that Naenia put in an extra pause just to watch him squirm. It wasn't very often she got to see that side of him.
"You experienced it yourself, just now - how complicated the mind of a person is. The more skilled a Legilimens, the easier they can navigate and find exactly what they're looking for. If you want specific information, then a memory of that should suffice. There's no need to listen in to their thoughts to find that out. Thoughts can be led into any direction without prior training and are so much more complex than people give them credit for. Even the most skilled Legilimens will only be able to access surface level thoughts at best. But protecting one's memories – that requires proper Occlumency."
She smiled.
"Or a messy mind."
Tom leaned back in his seat, lost in thought.
After several minutes of silence, when Naenia had already resumed her rune research, he finally spoke again, "May I try again some other time?"
Naenia raised her eyes to him. "When you have improved, ask me again. But you will have to accept that I may refuse."
Tom seemed satisfied with that, though Naenia doubted he would leave a refusal be that readily.
"By the way," Tom said and a small smile formed on his lip. "Did you ever consider joining the Duelling Club?"
Naenia had no idea what had made him change the topic so drastically, nor had she any interest in duelling and told him as much. But Tom didn't leave it alone.
Over the next weeks he started constantly asking her about it, trying to convince her to try or at the very least watch. Naenia resolutely refused.
The Duelling Club was for boys only. Naenia had no place there, even if she had been interested. She saw no reason to indulge Tom's strange request and therefore she didn't. But she might have underestimated how stubborn that boy could be. He only stopped when something bigger happened to occupy his mind.
The two of them still wandered the castle sometimes. Even after nearly three years of doing this, they still found new aspects every now and then. And even when they didn't, it was still fascinating. What they had not encountered so far, which was quite surprising in hindsight, was a Boggart.
They were creatures that fed on fear and liked to hide in dark and confined spaces and Hogwarts was full of those.
They had covered Boggarts in Defence Against the Dark Arts before. Naenia remembered that particular lesson for a number of reasons. It had been interesting to see what her classmates feared. She had also been curious what shape it would take for her.
Well, seemed like she either had no fear or the Boggart just hadn't known for whatever reason. So it had changed into different shapes, most of them familiar as ones it had taken for her classmates. Naenia had found it rather amusing – to the point where she had forgotten that she had been supposed to cast a spell to get rid of it. In the end, Professor Merrythought had had to intervene and cut the lesson short.
Back then Tom had calmly cast the Riddikulus, though no matter how hard she tried, Naenia couldn't remember what exactly he had transformed it into.
Back then he had known what awaited him, had had the time to prepare and steel himself.
Now he did not.
There was debris lying around, dust covering the pale, grey body lying still on the ground, making his normally dark hair appear nearly white while his empty eyes stared up at them.
It was a scene Naenia had seen often enough whenever she had accompanied her family to help with the aftermath of the bombings. Marin approached it slowly, carefully sniffing an outstretched hand. It didn't quite smell right, not like a real dead body covered in debris and dust was supposed to smell.
Next to her Tom was perfectly still. He stared at his own corpse with an impassive expression, not moving a single muscle.
"Tom?" she said softly, but he did not hear her.
Naenia raised a hand and then stopped. She let it hover in the air, unsure how to proceed.
When she finally decided to lay her hand on his shoulder – as a reassuring gesture, maybe? – Tom flinched so violently that she pulled back instantly. He looked around with wild eyes, their gazes locking for only a second, and then bolted.
Naenia stared after him, then at the Boggart that hadn't changed shape yet, at Tom Riddle's fading corpse.