Occlumency

Occlumency?

Seeing the word, Harry could not help remembering the feeling of being probed by Mind-Peering when he had worn the Sorting Hat.

Over the past week, apart from completing his schoolwork, Harry had spent almost all his remaining time practicing Occlumency and Mind-Peering. He had made some progress with Occlumency, but none at all with Mind-Peering.

This Occlumency?

Was it something like his own Occlumency?

Harry opened the booklet and skimmed it, quickly confirming his guess. It described a form of magic that could block outside mental probes. Most intriguingly, it also described two spells it could counter.

Legilimency and the Imperius Curse.

Harry knew about the Imperius Curse, one of the infamous three Unforgivable Curses. As for Legilimency... although he had never heard of it before, the name alone gave him a fair idea of what it did. It was probably magic similar to Mind-Peering.

Unfortunately, while the booklet contained detailed instructions and descriptions for practicing Occlumency, it only described the other two spells, without giving their incantations or the details of how to cast them.

Prying into someone else's memories was definitely a vile thing to do. Harry thought it was even worse than stealing their belongings. But to be honest, if he had that ability himself, he was not sure he could resist using it.

In fact, he very much wanted to learn it right now, and wanted to use it, too.

Unfortunately, the booklet did not explain how, so Harry could only focus his attention on Occlumency.

After reading a little, Harry felt that this Occlumency shared some similarities with his own, but was not entirely the same. Perhaps studying them together would help him improve his own Occlumency?

With that thought, Harry took the booklet with him.

The books in the Hogwarts library were divided into different access levels. Some could not be borrowed by younger students, while others were kept in areas those students were not even allowed to approach.

The book Harry had seen earlier, Powerful Potions, belonged to the former category. Students below sixth year were not allowed to take it out of the library without special permission from a professor. They could, however, read it inside the library.

Tips and Essentials for Learning Occlumency, on the other hand, was an ordinary book. Madam Pince merely glanced at it and had Harry sign his name, without saying anything else.

When Harry returned to Padma and the others with a book called Famous Duelists of the Middle Ages, Ron was already looking rather dazed.

He was writing an essay on the conflict and cooperation between medieval witches and the Muggle Church, one of the two essays assigned that week by Professor Binns, their ghostly History of Magic teacher.

It had nearly exhausted every brain cell Ron possessed, but the results did not look promising. Professor Binns required at least a foot and a half, while the writing on the parchment in front of Ron covered less than half a foot...

Neither Parvati nor Padma made any attempt to hide her disdain.

Clearly, Padma could no longer bear to watch. She was standing beside Ron, pointing out where he could embellish his wording to pad the essay and where he could add more information to support his arguments.

But one look at Ron's expression, utterly impervious to knowledge, told Harry that at least half of Padma's advice had gone to waste.

When she saw Harry return, Padma stopped and went back to her seat.

They sat on either side of a long table for six. Harry was naturally on the same side as Ron, with Padma opposite him. The table was narrow enough that, if they both turned sideways, they could talk things over together.

"How did it go? Did you find it?" Padma asked as Harry sat down.

Harry waved the hefty tome in his hand and chuckled.

Padma began quietly showing Harry which passages he could copy in full, which he needed to draw the key points from himself, and which required some of his own opinions.

Unlike when she had been helping Ron, Padma spoke slowly and softly, with great gentleness. Still, Harry was not absorbing much more of the information than his good friend Ron had.

It was not because his brain could not keep up. Rather, he and Padma were just a little too close, and the pleasant, flowery scent coming from her kept drifting into Harry's nose.

This was far too distracting!

What was he supposed to do if he kept wanting to sneeze? Would sneezing in front of a girl make a bad impression?

Harry and the others had arrived very early, so there had been few people in the library at first. After all, not every Gryffindor possessed the courage required to get up early on a weekend.

One such little latecomer arrived just then. Wearing a little yellow floral dress, Lavender Brown flitted into the library like a cheerful little magpie and came over to their table.

It was a table for six, and there was an empty seat beside Parvati. But Lavender threw herself onto Parvati instead, leaned close to her ear, and whispered:

"I was wondering why you got up so early on a weekend. So you were studying with... hmm, your classmates? Hmph, and you didn't even invite me." With that, she even gave Parvati a quick, birdlike peck on the cheek.

Parvati's pretty face immediately turned red. She gave Lavender a gentle push. "Stop it."

Harry and Padma were both stunned. Two pretty girls kissing? Wasn't that a bit much? Ron-well, Ron had not noticed. His head was down as he fought his second battle to the death against his essay. He was currently losing and had no attention to spare for anything else.

Lavender seemed to realize she had gone a little too far, and her face reddened too. She hurriedly hung her little bag on the back of a chair and sat down before greeting the others.