Chapter 49 - Mind Arts

Waiting until next year. Yeah. That wasn't happening.

Iris pulled open the door of the familiar grandfather clock, and began her descent down the long and narrow wooden path, now having to crawl half the way ever since she had grown too big to still fit into the secret passage properly. She at least remembered to go in reverse so she wouldn't tumble out of the smaller clock head-first. Finally, she kicked open the exit with her feet and clambered out of the tiny watch face, until she found herself in the familiar dark crooked aisles of the restricted section.

Alright... where to go from here. She had one idea, but she had never tried it before. But it did work kind of like the Revealing Charm, so...

Destruction plus Illusion, and wha-bam! "Point Me towards books on Occlumency!"

The purple glowing wand started to spin in the palm of her hand, until it came to rest pointing straight ahead down the aisle. She had of course considered attempting to get rid of the charm right away, but she figured it really would be better to at least look into Occlumency first, especially if Snape had been right. There was no use remembering what it was she forgot, if she would keel over the moment she did. With a nod, Iris took off down the dark path, passing familiar shelves, until she reached the dusty piano and repeated the spell.

She had to make a few more turns, but finally, her wand had come to rest on a single bookshelf. Bringing her floating light closer to it, she inspected the titles.

The Mysteries of the Mind by Q. Goldstein.

Curiosity peaked, she pulled the book from the shelf, settled down on a nearby wooden crate, flipped it open, and began to read.

Of all the wonders of Magic, the Mysteries of the Mind are both some of the most fascinating as well as most dangerous. A simple thought, in the right place, at the right time, can change the world; whether to its betterment, or otherwise. Of the many facets of Mind Magic, only two form the core foundation of most other disciplines; those being Legilimency and Occlumency. Both are similar in concept, yet in practice could not be different. The one thing they have in common however is the central cornerstone of the Mind Arts—the Promise. When dealing with Magic of the Mind, agreements and promises may hold more weight than the mere words that convey them, which in turn ties into the core foundations of both Legilimency and Occlumency. This work will explore the purpose of both, the theory behind them, and several possible mental exercises to achieve and improve on either.

Iris nodded. Jackpot. She flipped the book closed, stuffed it in her bag, and set off back the way she came. She had considered taking a shortcut through the shadows, but the recent revelations had put a damper onto that impulse. Luckily, she still had other options right now.

~V~

Iris took another breath and closed her eyes again. Emptying her mind... Empty... how the hell does one empty their mind? Like... probably not by thinking about it...

This exercise seemed to be specifically designed to taunt her. She had absolutely no issues thinking about stuff, rather, most of the time she was thinking about too much stuff. But emptying her mind? The book might as well ask her to make the sun rise in the west and turn the sky green. None of the three exercises had worked. Focusing on her breathing only made her hyper-aware of her own breath, which caused her to breathe consciously and consequently be annoyed about the fact she was now breathing consciously and couldn't stop.

The same with focusing on a single point on the wall. As soon as any external stimuli would quieten down for just a second, her thoughts would immediately drift off course towards the problem at hand, towards the giant hole in her mind, towards whatever happened with the heir, and towards Harry.

This wasn't working.

Groaning in frustration, she flipped through the pages ahead, just to see what else there was to it, all the other impossible steps she would have to go through.

Once sufficient control and awareness is achieved, an Occlumens will be able to direct their mind into the state of Occlumency, a state of utter calmness, of greatly enhanced order and control within one's mind, which grants a firm grip over one's own thoughts, emotions and memories. This is achieved not just through mental exercise, but through magical means as well. The final goal of these exercises is not just to gain awareness and control over the mind, but just as much to direct Magic to interact and merge with it, which is required for the final process. Since there aren't any spells to do so, this can only be achieved through a very focused and concentrated effort of will. In a way, it is similar to accidental magic, except much more conscious and controlled.

So it wasn't purely mental then? Well, she guessed it made sense, if it was supposed to help against magical mental attacks as well. But then...

Could it be that it wasn't working for her because of her broken magic again? Or rather... Well, there was no way she was achieving the 'emptying her mind' part anytime soon, if ever, so maybe she could try the magic part directly? The book said that the exercises worked to help direct ones magic into your mind, but...

What if she just skipped all that nonsense and took the direct approach? The tip of her finger lit up in the deep Blue glow of the Mind aspect—a small orb floating above it—and she held it out in front of her, staring at it hesitantly.

There was no way it could be that easy, right? Right?

"Well, here goes nothing..." Iris mumbled, and with a shrug, she placed the finger on her temple, and pushed.

The glow shifted, and then disappeared. It was definitely still going, somewhere inside her brain probably, but nothing much else had happened. Iris blinked, looking around her room. Huh.

Then she started to giggle. Right, as if that would have worked. That must have looked kind of silly.

But would that be dangerous? No, probably not. It should just be blue light, well that, and Magic, both of which wasn't really harmful to the human body except in very large intensities. And she hadn't focused it to a single point, she had spread it out into her orb shape... well, better spread it out all the way, just to be sure then. She just hoped that whatever she was doing wouldn't just break the memory charm and leave her suffering whatever consequences that could have. But... as long as it didn't kill her... if it would help her find Harry—which wasn't that important, he was probably fine anyway—which was bullshit! Where had that thought even come from? She was sure that she wasn't sure whether Harry would be fine, yet, she also... No. This wasn't natural. Her brain wasn't making sense. And she had been thinking this the whole day, and for no reason. And come to think of it, so had Tracey. She had been worried sick when Harry had been on his stupid adventure where he almost got hurt because she wasn't there, and where Hermione and Neville had gotten petrified, but now that Harry was missing, she was just shrugging it off. This sounded more and more like the work of something like a Compulsion Charm. But then if Snape had looked into her mind—which had been a strangely familiar sensation—why hadn't he noticed something so obvious that even she could tell it while being affected herself? Snape wasn't stupid! A stupid arsehole at times, yes, but not stupid! Unless the compulsion was buried somewhere underneath the Memory Charm that Snape didn't want to touch? But why would he want her to think Harry was fine? Come to think of it, if someone had messed with her memories, and had confounded both her, and Tracey... who was to say the same hadn't been done to Ron and Susan? Had anyone checked them? They had been the only ones to even see Harry, otherwise people would have thought he was missing because of the chamber... Holy crap! Would Harry? Had Harry— Lockhart allegedly said that the heir had gotten eaten by his own monster, but she hadn't heard of any other missing students or staff... But there was no way it had been Harry, right? Fuck but what if—if that walking toothpaste commercial had done something to him, then she'd fucking kill him—

Iris gasped for breath and her eyes snapped back into focus as she let go of the light.

"Whoa."

What the hell?

Taking a few more breaths, she slowly managed to gather her thoughts again.

A state of utter calmness? Yeah, right.

Greatly enhanced order and control her arse.

Whatever that had been, she wasn't sure, but it probably hadn't been Occlumency. Or at least not what it was supposed to be. Her thoughts had been all over the place, with absolutely no control, and her emotions along with them. But somehow... She blinked as she rolled back through the revelations of those last few... seconds? Minutes? She had kind of lost her sense of time there.

That couldn't be healthy in large amounts... right?

Alright, where was she? Right, Harry. He might be in serious trouble—he was probably fine. Okay, this was... kind of scary. The only way she had caught herself there was because she still remembered from just seconds ago. It seemed like without the light, her mind was still very much at the mercy of the magic buried within.

Maybe... maybe it would be less chaotic if she didn't quite make the light as bright? Iris closed her eyes and called the light back; except she was trying to keep it a lot less bright this time.

Now that she was looking for it, there was a distinct difference. Nothing in the way she felt, or anything she'd see or hear. It was more in the way she thought. Several trains of thoughts almost running by themselves, the erratic switching between different trains somehow becoming more frequent and uncontrolled, but also... It felt like at least some things became a lot clearer. She distinctly noticed the times when she thought about Harry, and where her mind would almost contort itself into echoing its rhetoric that he was probably fine. But also, other things. Mostly memories. Like... Myrtle. She hadn't seen the ghost for a while now, and come to think of it, part of her had sort of an aversion with trying to go look for her, which she couldn't pin down. And if she tried to follow that line of thought, she ended up in front of a very familiar road sign. That meant, that whatever had happened had to do with Myrtle. And also, she had neither seen her room anywhere, nor even considered to go looking for it, which logically didn't make sense, but still felt like the correct course of action.

There was absolutely no calmness, or sense of control, but the thoughts just kept coming.

Inspecting the road sign, and more specifically, the road block in front of it... she might be able to climb it, but she wouldn't be able to break it. That meant probably, that she would be able to take peeks, gleam some information, but couldn't fully pass it without breaking it. It was a road, not a walkway or something. Peering above the barricade was useless if you couldn't get your car past it. Getting curious, she tried to apply pressure to it—and she had no idea how she was doing any of that, she was just going by instinct right now—but it wouldn't budge. Hitting it with all her force only caused her imaginary fists to start hurting. Right. Not that easy. Should she risk a peek? Or would she risk exposing herself to the danger lurking behind it, even without breaking the charm? Well, she was making at least some sort of progress, so she figured it was best to put that off for now. Speaking of progress, maybe she'd be able to do the exercises now, now that she had fixed the issue with her magic? Iris blinked and tried to focus on her breath.

Inhale...

That... that felt weird, and it reminded her of something, something she had thought of before, but it was kind of slipping—right, that strange sensation when Snape had cast the Legilimens spell on her. And that had still somehow felt familiar. What on earth was she—

Exhale...

Crap, she had gotten distracted again, empty her mind, come on, it wasn't that hard, right? If her weird magic brain powers could just do what she wanted for once, that'd be great. Also, the way this felt—the memory charm, not what Snape had done—something about that was also familiar, strange, right! The bathroom on the second floor! Or rather, when she had returned to find... well, nothing! Had someone messed with her memories back then as well?

Iris gasped as she had almost forgotten to inhale again.

Yeah, this was even worse than without the light. Way worse. In fact, with everything the book had told her, what she was doing right now, how she felt, it was like she was making negative progress; at least if she was trying to achieve Occlumency. Then what about the other half of the equation? She hadn't really looked into it much, but she had read that the most essential thing about Legilimency was eye contact. So if she could do something strange like this with her brain... what would happen if she put the light into her eyes instead?

Eyes literally glowing with anticipation, she did exactly that. And it was kind of burning her eyes. She promptly let out a yelp as she predictably blinded herself. Iris was blinking furiously, trying to get the afterimage out of her eyes.

"Stupid. Right, a bit less light."

She had to tone it way down, far past the point where she would usually use her orb as a reading light, which required a very precise level of intensity that turned out to be incredibly difficult. With light as faint as this, it would mostly either fade completely or become so bright that she couldn't see anything else anymore. How the hell was she supposed to do this? The fact that she was still holding another light in her brain wasn't helping things. And also, she really had to come up with a better name for that.

She barely heard the door creak open and only after she noticed that someone had entered the room did she realize that a book she very much wasn't supposed to have was still sprawled across her lap. But once her eyes met the person who had entered, they widened.

"Whoa, Iris! What's wrong with your eyes?"

Well, that looks creepy as hell. But also kinda cool? What in Merlin's name is she doing this time?

Iris blinked and quickly cut off all of her lights.

"Uhm... sorry. I was just trying something..."

Yeah, actually what? Now that she had cut out the light completely, and her thoughts had settled down again a bit, she felt like slapping herself. That had been one tangent after another, but nothing that helped even a little towards either finding Harry or learning Occlumency proper.

What was the point of magic-infusing your mind if it just became a completely uncontrollable mess? And her mind still felt kind of woozy, even though she had already cut out her light...

"Like what? Something like night vision? Or are you just burning your eyeballs for fun?"

She... wait, it had actually worked, hadn't it? Well, damn. Could she tell Tracey what she had just been doing? Was that even legal? Also... well, even if she did want to use that in the future, there was the slight issue that apparently, it left some pretty visible evidence, if Tracey's reaction was anything to go by. Still, something to keep in mind.

"Nah, I was just reading your mind," she replied with a grin.

Tracey rolled her eyes. "Sure. Don't tell me, then."

There. Crisis averted.

Tracey kept looking at her expectantly for a while more, causing Iris to squirm and hope that Tracey wouldn't notice the book laying in her lap. "You know I told you you can talk to me about things, right?"

Iris carefully re-engaged her mind light, trying to come up with an answer. Could she just tell her? But then what if she freaked out? Or what if she told someone, even if she didn't think Tracey would do that, but what if—

Yeah, this wasn't working.

Finally, Tracey sighed. "Alright, if you're not going to tell me things I want to know, how about instead I... tell you things you don't want to know."

Iris swallowed. That went in a direction she hadn't been expecting. What the hell was she talking about?

"You know when you asked me what I was doing when I left the library before Ginny got attacked?" Tracey began with an ever-growing grin.

Yeah, and she also remembered that Tracey had done her very best to avoid that question, which was the only reason she hadn't completely dismissed the idea of her being the heir at the time.

"Well, the thing is... after you tried to get us to kiss like that... and Harry found a way to weasel out of it... well, once you left, one thing led to another..." Tracey was somehow both grinning like a madman and blushing to high heaven.

But somehow, in her magic-addled state of mind, the only thing that managed to stick was, "I... I did what?"

Tracey blinked, and her gleeful grin wavered a bit. "Huh? You know. Truth or Dare in the library? Just before you left?"

What on earth was she talking about? Iris had left for Myrtle's room way before Tracey had arrived, she had only learned that she had been there at all from Harry once she returned and the attack had already happened...

Had someone been impersonating her? Like... with Polyjuice? Or... Or... But there was no way, was there?

But there was that road sign again. Iris felt a sudden feeling of dread in her stomach. No...

"I... I gotta go," Iris mumbled absently, stuffing the book in her bag, and picking up her wand.

She had to make sure. Make absolutely sure about Myrtle, and about her room. Because if her current theory had even the slightest hint of truth behind it...

"Iris? I-" Tracey began.

"Sorry," Iris called over her shoulder, and hurried out of the room.

She made it all of five steps down the hall, before she stumbled into someone unexpected. Although she wasn't really sure how it was unexpected, given the girl occupied the room next to hers. She was just standing there, next to her door, staring off into nothingness, and not even showing the slightest reaction to her hurried approach.

Something had been off with her, for a while now, but she hadn't been able to figure out what, only that the clues didn't quite fit with the Heir of Slytherin business.

"What are you... Lily?" Iris burst out, her mouth slowly catching up with her mind.

The girl flinched heavily once she heard her own name and stumbled back, until she pinned Iris with a terrified expression. What the hell was her problem? She hadn't even done anything to the girl! Would... could that work?

Without thinking about it, Iris focused on what she had been doing before, and carefully brought the Indigo back to her eyes, this time hopefully without blinding herself completely. It still made it pretty hard to see in the dark.

It's her! Help! I... it hurts!

What's wrong? You wanted to be friends with her, didn't you? How about you stay for a little while longer?

No! I won't let you! I-I can't, please! Help me!

What the actual fuck?

There were two distinct voices, both kind of sounded like her, yet also as different as they could be. One second later, the girl's eyes lit up in a very familiar deep blue, and suddenly—

What is going on? Why are you—

Nothing, nothing, we're just having a chat...

Please, help, I... it's getting worse!

Now there were three of them? What was even going on anymore? The new voice sounded completely different, in fact, it kind of reminded her of—

"What are you doing?" a whispered voice with an edge from the side that made Iris shiver, and she looked up and Iris met the eyes of Lily's roommate.

What the hell was sheeee̶̘̓e̸͈̐e̷̡͑é̷̡̺̥̳̽ĕ̸͚́e̷̹̦̲̗͇̒̅͗͝E̶̠͚̖̯̓̊͛̀̋͝E̶̘̻̟͈̒E̷̪̎͗̌͐͒͂̓͜E̶̡̞̐̆̈́̌͑̏Ễ̶̩̩̣̏̋̊̽̅̈́̔̑͋̿̕E̶͙͓̼͎͈̗̻̥̞̗͕̍É̸̩̦̠̬̻̗͈̥̜͒̈̊̾̌̈́͊̂̓̊͠ͅE̸̛̛̩̠͓͎̬͚̜͔̞͖̫̹̅̃̀͌̊̔̑̒̿̂́̒̈͜͝Ě̵̡̘̼͉̘̲͍͎͕̠̤͆̔̉̈́́̕ͅĖ̴̮̥̝͇̩̰̹̫̎̉̑͘͠E̷̠̝͙̘̒̌͆͝ͅÉ̸̞̦̊̀̃͒͛̍̾͌̅͊̈~̶̧͉̻͍̬͇̪͎̿̂͆̽̓̌̓͝͝~̷̢̡̟͙̬̻̳͈̺̘̪̯̫̩̝̀ͅ

Iris let out a scream and stumbled to the ground. Her brain was hurting. Her ears, her eyes, her everything. What the hell had that been? Iris shifted the blue light back from her eyes into her mind, trying to understand what had just happened.

She had just turned to look at Greengrass, and once she met her eyes, her own thoughts had spiraled out of control, almost like some sort of acoustic feedback loop... And she had still been using her blue light, but that would mean, that maybe she heard her thoughts, and if that created a feedback loop, that would mean... Narrowing her eyes, she called a small amount of shadows and drew it into her wand, just enough to be able to cast Depulso if it came down to it—the only surefire spell she knew that should be able to take the girl down in one hit.

"Stay away from her," came the girl's voice, before she had finished getting to her feet, and Iris noticed that Greengrass must have collapsed as well.

Iris narrowed her eyes and growled back. "What have you done to her?"

Lily had some serious issues going on, with not two but three voices apparently in conflict inside her mind, and now it turned out that her roommate knew some level of Mind Arts as well; the conclusion wasn't that hard to draw. Also, it made a lot more sense now how she had beaten her so easily, how she had just predicted and countered all of her spells. She had been reading her mind.

"You're hurting her!" hissed Greengrass.

Iris froze. Something about this... she wasn't sure what was going on. From what she had heard before... but how? She hadn't even done anything to her! No... more likely, she was just saying it to throw her off.

"You were—" Iris began, but was cut off.

"Stay. Away. From. Her," came a whisper accompanied by a glare and an unspoken promise that froze her in place.

What was she supposed to do here? There were just too many questions and she...

No, she decided. Her brain hadn't quite caught up to its own reasoning in her magic-addled state, but she had a plan. Maybe. Lily could wait for now.

"Fine. But you're coming with me," Iris declared, pointing her still-glowing wand at Greengrass.

Greengrass only stared back for a second, before seemingly making a decision and pushed the door to their room open with one hand, and without a word, Lily entered, walking as if on autopilot, and the door slammed shut behind her.

Iris jabbed her head and directed the black-haired girl down the corridor and towards the shared bathroom at the end of it. Greengrass entered, with Iris following behind, her wand still firmly in place. If the girl was as good as she suspected, she couldn't allow herself even a single second of inattentiveness, should she try anything. Her only ace was the still ready-to-cast polarized spell on the tip of her wand. No matter what kind of spells she would throw at her, it would be useless if the girl could twist her mind around before she even gathered enough light to cast the first spell.

And there was a good chance she could. Only now she had remembered something she had almost forgotten. Greengrass had been in Quirrell's office, right before her own detentions. And given what they had been doing there, it wasn't that hard to guess what the girl had been there for, either. And she had just heard her voice from Lily's mind somehow, without the girl even having eye contact or being in the same room. This girl was dangerous; an intangible threat. But also, perhaps, an opportunity.

"Well?" asked the black-haired girl, sounding a lot less unnerved than Iris was feeling, while pinning her under an unreadable gaze. "What do you suppose this is?"

Iris took a breath, and firmed her expression. If Snape wasn't going to help her, maybe this was her next best shot.

"A deal."

~V~

Gilderoy wiped the sweat off his brow as he put the final ink to parchment. Just a minute ago, yet another owl from that Merlin-damned Potions master had arrived; and this one hadn't stopped screeching at him, until he had not only taken its letter, but also opened and pretended to read it. Even in the safety of his so-called holiday retreat—which was not really deserving of the name, it was just an abandoned wooden shack that he had refurnished by himself—he couldn't escape the reality of this newest sword of Damocles once again at his neck. But things had never before been this dire.

He had forgone his usual drafting phase, and had just Dicta-Quilled the entirety of the climax of the story into existence in one go, and was now furiously making some last-minute adjustments by hand.

It had all gone wrong. He had to rewrite half of what he had already prepared to remove the Boy-Who-Lived from most of his manuscript and turn him into more of a side-character. It would have been perfect, undoubtedly his masterwork, his bestseller. Gilderoy Lockhart joining forces with the Boy-Who-Lived to take on a thousand-year-old basilisk left behind by Salazar Slytherin himself.

But that wasn't happening anymore. Everything had gone wrong, again. And in the end, he had to obliviate the girl as well, leaving yet another glaring loose end, which meant, he was now on a timer. Either of the Potter twins could cause the entire affair to blow up in his face at any point now, and there were too many people already looking into the whole thing from the start. He had hoped he would have a lot more time. Right now, every single tick of his wooden pendulum clock felt like a nail in his own coffin.

He knew he should have just retired when the Merlin-damned Dark Lord had returned. But no. He just had to go and try to be the hero one last time. And now, even if he wanted to, he couldn't change anything anymore. He had to follow this through to the end.

Gilderoy gave the final pages another once over, and then—entirely skipping his second and third pass—wrapped it up into a bundle, tied it shut, stuck it in an envelope and addressed it towards his publisher. Sure, it wouldn't be his best work, neither in prose nor in structure, but it would have to be enough. At this point, people would buy it anyway, as long as his name was printed on the cover. He just hoped it would be engaging enough for them to actually read it.

Finally, with one last look out the window—where he spotted yet another blasted owl approaching—he handed the letter containing the final edit into the trusted talons of his barn owl Aurelius, and watched him take off into the evening sky with a screech at the other bird, until he was barely a speck on the horizon.

There was no other way to save his reputation at this point. And he'd be damned if he let all of his years of work go to waste. The name Gilderoy Lockhart would go down in history the way it always should have. And then... Then, he'd finally retire.

~V~

"A deal?" Greengrass echoed with a raised eyebrow. "Explain."

"Well, let's see," Iris began, turned to slowly pace along the door, and raised a finger. "You said you're here to learn, but you don't care about grades. Yet you're obviously still trying to improve yourself, to the point where you're at the top of the wanded classes, and you even went out of your way to get extra lessons with the Dark Lord. Which tells me you have a goal. Something that is so important to you that you'd risk your entire future for it, but something that has nothing to do with Hogwarts."

She then added another finger. "Whatever it is you're doing, you seem to be doing it alone. Also, what was going on with Lily felt more like you were protecting her; I still don't really understand what's going on there, but I don't think it has anything to do with your goal. And that means that sooner or later, you might need help. But you can't ask for help, because you can't trust anyone with something like that."

She raised another finger. "Both of us have leverage on the other. I know about your Legilimency, you know about my polarized magic. You did something to Lily. I was about to cast an illegal curse on you," she added while waving her still glowing wand. Come to think of it, the girl had shown very little reaction to her drawing the shadows just before—except some amount of wariness—almost as if she had already known about it. Also, she didn't really know much about what was going on with Lily, but it wasn't a complete bluff either. Not that anything like that would work anyway if the girl was reading her thoughts. But she had no way to tell whether whatever was going on with Lily was Greengrass' fault, or if she was just trying to help, but she just took a stab in the dark with that one. She also left out any of her other suspicions about what she had done, in order to make the leverage not appear too slanted in her favor. Not that that would help any if she was reading her mind.

The last finger came up, and she finally met her eyes. "I have a problem. A problem that can be solved with Mind Magic. And I suspect you could help me with that."

She then let her hand fall, and gave her a determined look. "If you can help me, I will help youin turn."

The bathroom fell into silence at last. The two girls were just staring at each other in the silvery light of the moon shining through the sole window, none of them even blinking. Greengrass was probably reading her mind right now, but she didn't want to risk another migraine to try and find out. A stray thought caused Iris to have to hold back a smirk. This conversation had gone exactly the opposite way of the first one they had.

Finally, Greengrass let out a breath, and spoke up. "You're agreeing to help, without knowing anything about it?"

Iris blinked. Yeah. That was the weakest point of her argument. But in truth, she didn't have a choice. No matter how much the magically indoctrinated corner of her mind would insist otherwise, Harry was in trouble. Everything else came second.

"You don't expect me to... explain... before you agree?"

Iris nodded her head. She obviously wouldn't explain anyway. The leverage she held over her was way too flimsy for anything else. This was the only way. "No. As long as you can help me, that's all I need to know."

How bad could it really be? But she was being serious. Iris had to; she was reading her mind. Iris would follow through, unless there really was no other way. Then she'd just have to find a way to deal with her. She... crap, had she heard that? No! She hadn't meant it like that.

A single drop of water escaped the showerhead on the other side of the room and hit the ground with an audible plop.

"Very well," she finally said, and tilted her head. "It's a deal."

Iris stared at the pale girl for a second. With her homebrew brand of occlumency still dialed up, it was plainly obvious that this wasn't a good idea. Despite what she told herself, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was making a deal with the devil. But the time for hesitation was past. Her decision was made. With a simple smile, she nodded. "Deal."