Chapter 127 - Occlumency Instruction

An old witch in a tattered cloak hobbled along the street.

She stopped and started, forced to rest every few steps. Her body seemed to be in very poor condition.

At the intersection marked by a green postbox, the old witch turned and shuffled into a dim alley.

"How did it go?" Lupin looked anxiously at the "old witch" before him. "No one spotted anything suspicious?"

Tonks pushed back her hood and let out a heavy breath. "Excellent. Your cloak added some real conviction to my disguise."

A magically conjured worn cloak was nowhere near as authentically shabby as Lupin's actual one.

A flush crept across Lupin's sickly face.

"Tonks!" He coughed twice. "I was asking about Ms. Purnell."

Two years earlier, Lupin had briefly served as Hogwarts's Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. He hadn't been able to keep the post, but he had at least collected some wages.

After his forced resignation, Budget Wolfsbane Potion had begun appearing on the market, greatly easing his financial burden.

Starting last year, he had taken up residence at 12 Grimmauld Place, which eliminated his room and board expenses entirely.

The tattered cloak was already an old one of his, but Tonks's teasing still made him self-conscious.

Recalled to the task at hand, Tonks dropped the joke and got back to business.

According to intelligence passed on by their secret agent Snape, Dolly Bulstrode was the Death Eater specifically assigned to guard Ms. Purnell.

On receiving this information, Tonks had disguised herself as a local witch and tailed Mrs. Bulstrode.

Stealth and tailing were two subjects Tonks had nearly failed at the Academy. She was also reckless, prone to stumbling into things at inconvenient moments. No one had felt entirely comfortable putting her on this assignment.

But Dumbledore had pointed her to a shortcut: disguise herself as someone with impaired mobility.

It worked brilliantly. Over 3 days of surveillance, Tonks had played a frail elderly woman, a limping middle-aged man, a woman with a game leg, and not once had she been detected.

On the first day, Tonks mapped Mrs. Bulstrode's route.

On the second day, she pinpointed the flat where Ms. Purnell was being held.

After Mrs. Bulstrode had left, Tonks looked up from the alley and found a room on the third floor with its window boarded up with wooden planks. Traces of magical interference were still visible on them.

Today, before Mrs. Bulstrode's arrival, Tonks had pretended to take a wrong turn and slipped into the apartment building to investigate.

"The door's been enchanted," Tonks said, a note of puzzlement in her voice. "No way to open it short of brute force. Then the old Squib next door opened his door when I was right there. I asked him for directions — turns out he's mute."

Lupin nodded. "The Death Eaters are probably worried Ms. Purnell might fake some kind of emergency to lure whoever's guarding her into opening the door."

A guard who thought, "It would be trouble if the hostage died," could easily be tricked into it.

A mute couldn't give away secrets, and a Squib couldn't dispel the enchantment on the door. No matter how silver-tongued Ms. Purnell might be, she'd get no response, and she certainly couldn't get a magicless Squib to open the door for her.

Lupin clapped Tonks on the shoulder. "Well done. Let's head back now — "

He didn't finish the sentence. His hand shot out and pulled Tonks into the shadows. Tonks stiffened. She had no idea what had happened.

A long moment passed. Then Lupin released her and peered out in the direction she had come from. "Bellatrix Lestrange?"

"What?!" Tonks said. "Why the sudden switch?"

Could there be a traitor among them, someone who had leaked the intelligence Snape sent back? No. No. Tonks refused to suspect her own comrades.

If there were a traitor, Snape's identity and the Order's safehouse address would already be compromised. Not just this one piece of intelligence.

Lupin tilted his head. His throat moved; he blinked rapidly several times. "Something's wrong. They may have a new operation underway."

The whole reason Mrs. Bulstrode had been assigned to guard Ms. Purnell was that her public identity was still clean.

Even in The Quibbler, Bulstrode's name didn't appear. Harry had never met Mrs. Bulstrode and couldn't name her.

But Lestrange was a wanted fugitive. Voldemort couldn't possibly have sent her to take over Bulstrode's duties.

It looked deeply wrong. Lupin just couldn't fathom what was going on inside the heads of these fanatics.

He lowered his voice. "Tonks — I'll follow and see what's happening. You go back to base and get reinforcements. We move the rescue plan forward!"

"Are you joking? Absolutely not." Tonks shut that down immediately. "You don't know the terrain. I should be the one to follow. You go back and get reinforcements."

Lupin could never agree to let Tonks face Lestrange alone. Tonks had only officially become an Auror the year before last. Two years on the job. That was it.

Two years, with no experience facing fanatical Death Eaters.

And Bellatrix Lestrange was not merely a fanatical Death Eater. She was the fanatical Death Eater's fanatical Death Eater. She and her companions had tortured two Order members into madness.

Going back and forth like this was getting them nowhere. Lupin had no choice but to take the risk, he brought Tonks with him, and the two of them went to assess the situation together.

---

"Just the two of us?"

Harry looked left.

Then right.

Only once he was certain Snape was not here did he let out a breath.

He had spent a long time steeling himself before stepping into this office. Even so, the moment he was through the door, he couldn't stop his mind from going back to that day.

Praeris opened the cupboard and took out a jar. "Black tea?"

Harry's eyes went wide.

How on earth were there tea leaves here?

"Potter, this is my tea jar." Praeris gave a short laugh. "Put away whatever foolish notions you're having."

A few minutes later, steam rising from the teacup fogged Harry's glasses.

He was actually being offered hospitality in Snape's office, instead of being put through the wringer by Snape's apprentice.

Praeris beckoned him over. "Come with me."

Harry obeyed without thinking, carrying his teacup as he followed her.

What he didn't expect was where she led him: a Pensieve. The very same Pensieve where he had once glimpsed Snape's memories.

"This Pensieve is empty," Praeris said calmly. "Place the memory of the day you and Professor Snape had your conflict in here. Once the lesson is over, you can take it back."

"Why?"

The question came out before his brain caught up. The moment he realized what he'd asked, he wished he could take it back.

Praeris's tone turned cold. "To preserve the barely functional teaching relationship between us."

She couldn't guarantee that after seeing that part of Potter's memory, she wouldn't reach for her wand.

At last, the two of them sat down across from each other.

"The professor should have already covered the basic fundamentals with you," Praeris began, methodical as ever. "So tell me, how do you currently understand Legilimency and Occlumency?"

"Er..." Harry drew a breath. "Legilimency is about reading another person's mind and interpreting it. Occlumency is about preventing such intrusions."

"I'm very pleased you memorized the answer," Praeris said softly. "But you don't seem to actually believe it."

"Are you using Legilimency on me right now?" Harry asked uneasily. "I didn't feel anything."

Praeris shook her head. What need was there for Legilimency here? Her Occlumency had been taught by Snape himself.

There was no need to think twice about it: Harry's answer was lifted straight from Snape's own words, with certain parts quietly edited out.

"Potter, when you're saying something you resist, don't inhale so heavily." There was a pointed note in Praeris's voice. "People always need more oxygen when they're lying or speaking against their will."

Harry found himself thinking, for the first time, that having Snape teach him might not have been so bad after all.

Praeris gestured for him to take a sip of tea and relax. "You don't need to fear Legilimency. Its applications are far broader than you'd imagine. The Sorting Hat, for instance, it uses the same principle to determine which House a person belongs in."

All four founders had been masters of Legilimency, and they had used that magic to enhance the Sorting Hat's capabilities.

In that era, the Sorting Hat was far more than just a Sorting Hat. What it could do then dwarfed what it does now.

Harry had encountered the Sorting Hat more times than most students, but he had never once thought about how it actually sorted.

"There are also Wampus cats," Praeris continued. "A magical creature that resembles a panther. They excel at hypnosis and Legilimency. Ilvermorny even has a house named after them."

"Legilimency, in simple terms: the practitioner obtains a portion of the subject's thoughts, then interprets them. Both steps are essential."

She used Harry's earlier inhale as an example.

For someone who hasn't learned Occlumency, their memories cannot lie, but the people within those memories can.

If Praeris used Legilimency on Hermione, and in Hermione's memory Harry was talking to her, and during that conversation Harry kept inhaling heavily, touching his nose, swallowing, repeating himself,

then Harry might have been deceiving Hermione.

From that alone, Praeris could conclude: Hermione wasn't lying to her, but the information Hermione had received was itself flawed, which meant Praeris had been indirectly deceived.

There was another layer, too. When someone lies, they rehearse the lie inside their own memory, rationalizing and editing it into something plausible. If that person doesn't know Occlumency, every one of those memories and thoughts is laid completely bare.

"Therefore," Praeris concluded, "it is an exceptionally subtle and wondrous branch of magic."

Her emotional state throughout the lecture was rock steady, and she drew examples with obvious ease from an enormous breadth of knowledge.

Harry, who had arrived braced for the executioner's block, found himself listening with genuine interest, and nearly forgot there was still a practical component waiting for him.

"I can see that you resist this," Praeris said, her tone easing. "Partly because it is genuinely difficult to master. Partly because you have mistaken ideas about Occlumency. Don't be impatient, "

Harry started to say something, but Praeris stopped him.

"Harry, may I call you that?" She spoke without hurrying. "The mind is a treasury. Inside it are everything we have earned through effort: knowledge, precious memories, and emotions we hold dear."

"Since entering Hogwarts — have you collected happy memories there?"

Harry couldn't help it. His mind went back: the first time he'd stepped into the wizarding world. The first time Professor McGonagall had named him Seeker. The first time he'd helped Gryffindor win the House Cup. The first Quidditch championship.

He remembered learning of Sirius's innocence. Receiving the photograph of his parents. So many other things.

He nodded, firmly. "Yes. Hogwarts... compared to where I used to live, Hogwarts is more like home. No, it is my home. The time I've spent here is the happiest time of my life."

"Then Occlumency," Praeris said, continuing the example, "is the lock you put on that treasury. So no one can take what's inside."

She felt these particular words were necessary.

It had taken Harry Potter's interview being broadcast widely before some people even began to grasp that a crisis was approaching. By the same logic, if Harry Potter never truly understood why he was learning Occlumency, he would never give everything he had to learning it.

"If the Dark Lord can simply reach into your memories and thoughts, and you happen to know Dumbledore's plans, "

Praeris left the rest unsaid.

For most of the evening, Praeris had been filling in the gaps in Harry's theoretical understanding of Occlumency. Only in the final half hour did they move to practical training.

The practical session could best be described in three words: complete, utter disaster.

Harry was a Gryffindor through and through. He had far more instinct for attacking than for defending. Every time Praeris entered his mind, he couldn't stop himself from trying to push back in kind, counter-invading instead of shielding.

Fortunately, Praeris and Harry bore each other no particular grudge.

So her composure held, and she deflected his "counterattacks" time and again without breaking a sweat.

"Mr. Potter, very commendable," Praeris said, with a smile that didn't reach her eyes at all. "You have a remarkable natural talent for Legilimency. But may I perhaps assume that the purpose of this session was to teach you Occlumency, and not to give my own a thorough workout?"

Harry was so mortified he wanted to find a crack in the floor and disappear into it.

Praeris drew a pocket watch from her robes and glanced at it. "Harry, time is about up for today. Retrieve your memory from the Pensieve, and we'll end here. Two days from now."

"When you get back, make sure you practice on your own, unless you'd like me to see certain things again..."

Harry sat up straight immediately. "You said you wouldn't — "

"Of course. I'm excellent at keeping secrets, and equally excellent at Occlumency." Praeris nodded, perfectly composed. "Don't slack off. I'll have Hermione keep an eye on you."

Tsk, tsk. Who would have thought the Chosen One was still quietly pining away.

A pity, really. Cho Chang already had someone she was devoted to. And she and Potter had fallen out over the matter of Marietta, to the point that even a simple friendship was now hard to sustain.

Cho Chang and Potter simply weren't on the same wavelength. She hadn't grasped the severity of what was coming. She thought Marietta's betrayal, done for family, was understandable, even forgivable.

Praeris shook her head, found a room somewhere in her mind, and locked these thoughts about Potter away inside it.

➤ Next: Shedding Skin — Tears Unshed