"Cornelius is acting a little strange today!" In the corner, Old Ronaldo watched Fudge and Harry Potter's retreating backs with a frown and spoke quietly to Anton.
"Indeed. He seems in a hurry to get something done, as if he's running out of time. He doesn't look flustered at all, but I can tell." Anton raised an eyebrow.
He couldn't glean any information with Legilimency now. The telltale slips that had occasionally surfaced in Lucius's mind had completely disappeared, as though the fat man before him really were Minister Fudge.
Clearly, Lucius was deliberately using Occlumency at high intensity right now, keeping his private thoughts from turning over in his mind.
After studying the Six Elements of the Soul to this point, Anton had developed a deeper understanding of Thought.
The human mind was extraordinarily complex. Countless pieces of information could spring up in an instant, and all of them moved through Thought. Sometimes, they even carried fragments of memory with them.
With Legilimency, it was as if a screen had been installed above Thought, allowing someone to peer in without restraint or detection.
Occlumency, on the other hand, didn't seal off Thought. Instead, it stuffed any thoughts a person didn't want others to glimpse into another, virtual Thought, making it seem as though those thoughts weren't in the mind at all.
A wizard could cast Occlumency without being detected, too. It produced no magical fluctuations and relied more on controlling the magic within oneself.
But if a wizard hadn't mastered Occlumency well enough, some of the information they were trying to conceal would still slip into Thought at lightning speed, where Legilimency could catch it.
So...
Why was Lucius using Occlumency so intensely right now?
"Perhaps you should go over and take a look at our minister." Anton spoke