Chapter 7: Exposure

The shame was overwhelming. It felt entirely different from the physical violation of having her mind breached. The shame was personal, tied to the forbidden nature of her feelings for a professor, a man who consistently treated her with cold indifference or outright disdain.

By the time she reached her house's common room, the fire had been banked low. Only a couple of sixth-year students remained, quietly studying in the corner. She avoided their glances, heading straight up to the seventh-year girls’ dormitory. Her head was pounding, both from the lingering effects of the intrusion and the relentless cycle of her own mortified thoughts.

Changing quickly into her nightclothes, she climbed into bed, pulling the thick curtains closed around her four-poster. Sleep would not come easily. The events of the evening replayed in her mind, creating an endless loop of panic and humiliation. She kept imagining Snape recalling the memories of her watching him in the Potions classroom, or the absurd moment where she had tried to thank him for the earring, only to be shut down. He had seen the nascent, embarrassing attraction, hidden beneath layers of academic focus and professional deference.

She was meant to be an adult, 18 years old, in her final year, preparing for her NEWTs, aspiring to be an Auror. Yet, she had let her mind be exposed, revealing the sort of ridiculous, schoolgirl crush that should have been long outgrown.

The next morning, Friday, she woke late, deliberately missing the standard breakfast hour in the Great Hall. The thought of facing the busy room, of encountering friendly faces, particularly her own housemates, felt impossible. She certainly couldn't risk running into Snape in the hallway, though she knew he usually breakfasted early. Regardless, she felt certain that everyone would somehow be able to tell what had transpired the previous night, reading the terrible secret immediately in her expression.

She stayed sequestered inside the Tower, later decided that she needed to investigate, so she made her way to the library. The massive room was quiet, offering the anonymity she craved. She headed straight to the farthest corner shelves, the ones dedicated to advanced magic, particularly obscure branches of spellcasting and defense.

She bypassed the general defense texts, going directly for the treatises she knew would contain solid information on the specific mental arts Snape had demonstrated. She pulled out a heavy, leather-bound volume titled Interpreting the Mental Landscape: Advanced Legilimency.

She settled at a small, secluded study desk positioned behind a tall stack of shelves, providing a semblance of privacy. She flipped through the book, her fingers trembling slightly as they traced the arcane diagrams and explanatory text. She started reading about basic Legilimency, moving quickly to the sections detailing greater mastery.

The text confirmed her initial understanding: Legilimency allowed a skilled caster to penetrate the mind, accessing surface thoughts and recent memories. However, the section on Deep Cognition Access was what she truly needed to understand.

“The master Legilimens does not merely observe scattered memories,” the text cautioned in dense script. “This level of penetration reveals the inherent structure of the subject’s mental architecture—the foundational beliefs, the persistent emotional echoes, and crucially, the active desires that fuel decision-making.”

She paused, rereading the phrase 'active desires.'

A cold dread began to form in the pit of her stomach. She hadn't just accidentally shown him a few disjointed memories about an earring. Snape, clearly a master Legilimens given the swiftness and power of his intrusion, would have seen the why behind those memories. He would have sensed the context of her preoccupation, the forbidden thread of attraction weaving through her thoughts about him.

She pushed the book away momentarily, leaning back against the hard wooden chair. Her earlier embarrassment intensified into a profound sense of exposed vulnerability. The memory of her touching the silver earring in the dormitory, the feeling of quiet gratitude mixed with an undeniable curiosity about the person who had so carefully repaired it, had been exposed. The Legilimency intrusion had brought that feeling, that private, foolish attraction she harbored for him, directly to the surface.

She remembered the look on his face, that moment where their eyes met across the office before he turned back to his papers. In that instant, before he definitively dismissed her, she had felt certain he knew everything.

The remainder of Friday passed in a blur of obsessive rumination. She skipped every meal, claiming a stomach bug to the few students who checked on her. She stayed in the library until closing, alternately reading the dense material on mental defenses and staring blankly into space, consumed by the magnitude of her exposure.

What did he think now? Disgust? Contempt? She knew he disliked most students, considering them inadequate and foolish. But this was worse. This was a direct, inappropriate admiration from a student under his care. It violated every professional boundary imaginable. He must consider her utterly beneath contempt, perhaps even calculating whether this situation represented a dangerous complication he needed to manage.

The memory of his curt dismissal—“Leave”—rang in her ears. He had ended the session early and doubled her commitment, a contradiction that made no sense unless he was trying to simultaneously punish her uncontrolled power and ensure she never managed to display such an emotional leak again.

Saturday and Sunday were equally torturous. She avoided everything, spending every free moment holed up studying, channeling her panicked energy into academic work. The proximity of Tuesday, the next time she would be forced to face him in class, loomed like an execution date.

By Monday, the internal shame had hardened into a desperate need for control. She spent Monday evening practicing basic relaxation techniques, attempting the mental blankness exercise Snape had failed her on. If he was going to see her twice a week now, she needed defenses that would hold, that would deny him any further access to her foolish heart.

Tuesday arrived, bringing with it her double Potions lesson immediately after lunch. She walked to the dungeon classroom with a heavy, leaden feeling in her stomach. She sat at her usual desk, setting out her cauldron and ingredients with meticulous, stiff precision.

When Snape swept into the room precisely on the minute, the atmosphere shifted instantly. He moved with his customary grace, his face a mask of cold professionalism, yet today his reserve seemed deeper, more rigidly enforced than usual. He cast his dark gaze over the class, but his eyes slid over her without lingering, without pause, maintaining a calculated neutrality that felt more intentional, and thus more damning, than outright scorn.

He began the lesson, immediately launching into a blistering critique of a student's preparation two rows over. The rhythm of the class became one of severe instruction and pointed correction.

She focused entirely on her cauldron, measuring her powdered root exactly, stirring counter-clockwise with the required specific number of turns. She was determined to perform flawlessly, to give him no academic justification for further interaction.

He began his round through the classroom, his robes swishing softly as he moved between the rows of desks. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a rhythm that seemed deafening in the silence of the dungeon.

He stopped at the desk directly next to hers, correcting a student on the improper use of their bronze scales. He spoke in low, sharp tones, criticizing the student's lack of attention to detail, before moving on to the next desk without addressing her. She allowed herself a small, internal breath of relief, thinking she might somehow escape his notice.

But as he moved past her desk to the row beyond, he paused, circling back with deliberate movement. He did not look at her face. His gaze was fixed entirely on the surface of her potion, a pearlescent liquid currently heating over her flame.

“Your flame is fractionally too high,” he stated, his voice flat and devoid of inflection. He sounded like a machine reading out a technical fault.

She glanced at the flame, noting the barely perceptible difference. She immediately adjusted the rune beneath the cauldron, lowering the heat by perhaps three degrees.

“Tincture of Lobelia, you are adding the extract too quickly. It must be introduced as a slow, cohesive stream, not a deluge,” he continued, still observing the liquid, his hands clasped behind his back.

She carefully lifted the vial and began to pour the syrupy tincture into the brew in a thin, continuous thread, concentrating fiercely on stabilizing her hand.

“Sufficient,” he said, the single word cutting off the minor interaction. He then moved swiftly past her without further comment, walking directly to the nearest student five desks down to begin a new critique.

The entire interaction lasted perhaps ten seconds. He had found two minuscule faults, corrected them precisely, expressed no personal feeling whatsoever, and then retreated entirely.

She sat back at her desk, her hands still shaking slightly from the tension. His professionalism was absolute. There was no sign in his mannerism, his eyes, or his tone that he had seen her most private thoughts. But the calculated coldness felt worse than any open anger.

She interpreted the calculated coldness as disgust. He was avoiding contact because the memory of her feelings was repugnant to him. That must be what he thought of her now: a tiresome, overly emotional student who mixed clumsy power with inappropriate sentiments. The condemnation was palpable in his strict adherence to procedure, the total absence of acknowledgment that they had shared a powerful, secretive moment three nights prior.

The rest of the class period dragged on under the weight of this oppressive realization. When the bell finally rang, dismissing the students, she packed her things quickly and left the room without a backward glance, needing air that didn't feel saturated with the lingering scent of her failure.

She was barely out of the classroom when she collided with someone stepping into the corridor. The impact wasn’t hard, but enough to send the books in his arms slipping loose.

“—Oh, Merlin,” he muttered, crouching immediately as parchment scattered across the stone floor.

“I’m sorry,” she said, dropping down to help without thinking.

"It's fine, really." He smiled as he picked up some books.

They gathered the fallen books in quick, quiet motions. When she handed him the last one, their fingers brushing briefly, and she pulled her hand back out of reflex.

They smiled at each other for a second too long. He then glanced back toward the classroom door they’d both just come from.

“Potions?” he asked, unnecessarily.

She gave a small nod. “Unfortunately.”

That earned a faint smile. “Yeah. Same here. He was… in a mood today.” He added in a low voice.

She huffed softly before she could stop herself. “That’s one way to put it.”

"Elliot Vane. Ravenclaw," he said, shifting the books under his arm. “We share the class. I'm two rows over.”

"Oh," she corresponded to the handshake, while she nodded, "I'm..., I've seen you."

“If you ever miss anything, I’ve got notes. I write too much.” He smiled.

That drew a brief, genuine smile from her. “Thanks.”

"I'll see you then," he said, lifting a hand in a small wave.

She waved back.

They parted a moment later, heading in opposite directions down the corridor.

The hours passed until eight o’clock on Tuesday evening, the time for her second Occlumency lesson. She walked the familiar route down to the dungeons with a forced, stoic tread. She was mentally prepared this time, though the preparation felt more like bracing for an expected impact than an attempt at learning.

The hours passed until eight o’clock on Tuesday evening, the time for her second Occlumency lesson. She walked the familiar route down to the dungeons with a forced, stoic tread. She was mentally prepared this time, though the preparation felt more like bracing for an expected impact than an attempt at learning.

She tapped lightly on the office door.

“Enter.”

The office looked exactly as it had on Thursday, save for the fact that the scattered books had been returned to their shelves. Snape was standing behind his large wooden desk, which was currently clear of papers, leaving only a single black quill and an inkwell visible.

She closed the door behind her, standing just inside the threshold.

“Professor,” she managed, her voice tight.

He did not invite her to approach the desk or instruct her to sit. He remained standing, maintaining a significant distance between them. In the center of the room, the single chair remained from the previous session, but he made no gesture toward it.

“Our goal for this session is to establish basic compartmentalization techniques,” Snape stated, his voice resonating with an almost clinical detachment. He adjusted the cuff of his black sleeve. “What occurred on Thursday was a demonstration of why an immediate, rudimentary barrier must be constructed. We will not be attempting Legilimency again until you can demonstrate reliable control.”

Relief washed over her, thin and fleeting. She realized how much she had been dreading the recurrence of the mental intrusion.

“The mind stores information in a disordered fashion, mingling sentiment and fact,” he continued, beginning to pace slowly behind his desk, effectively using the furniture as a barrier between them. “Occlumency requires discipline. You must learn to mentally separate and label the contents of your thoughts, filing them away under separate, organized categories.”

He stopped pacing, resting his hands flat on the desk surface, his expression unreadable.

“Imagine you are sorting a collection of vials in a laboratory. Each vial must be clearly identified, capped, and stored in the correct cabinet. You will begin by focusing on three distinct categories of thoughts.”

He proceeded to outline the technique, speaking entirely in technical terms, using metaphors of storage, organization, and labeling. He instructed her to close her eyes and begin classifying her current thoughts into three mental boxes: academic concerns, immediate logistical plans (like what she intended to eat later), and emotional residue associated with events outside the curriculum.

The last category was the hardest to manage, encompassing the shame, the fear of his contempt, and the persistent, throbbing realization of her exposed affection. But she focused on the mechanics, forcing the emotional content into a conceptual box, snapping the imaginary lid shut.

Snape offered corrections every few minutes, his voice never rising above a detached monotone.

“The concentration on homework is slipping. Pull the barriers tighter around that particular compartment.”

“Slower. Do not merely shove the thoughts into the category. Label them clearly. If you cannot name the emotion, you cannot control it.”

He walked her through the exercise for nearly forty-five minutes, maintaining the distance of the desk and his calculated emotional reserve. He offered no commentary on the sudden, uncontrolled burst of raw magic from the previous session, nor did he reference the memories he had seen. The lack of personal acknowledgment was absolute, a precise reflection of the dismissal she had felt in the Potions classroom earlier that day.

Finally, he glanced at the grandfather clock ticking quietly in the corner of the office.

“That is marginally acceptable progress for one session,” he announced. His hands left the desk, signifying the conclusion.

“It is adequate for a basic foundation. We will continue this methodology on Thursday.”

He didn’t need to say “Session is concluded.” The abrupt shift in his demeanor, the return to his typical, curt brevity, was the dismissal.

She opened her eyes, feeling mentally exhausted but physically alert. She stood frozen for a moment, processing the fact that the session was over, that she had endured the agonizing proximity without further humiliation.

“You may go.”

She gathered her books, careful not to scrape the chair legs on the stone floor. She walked toward the oak door, her movements hesitant. Her hand reached for the cold metal handle, ready to twist it and escape into the hallway.

But just as her fingers curled around the brass, she heard a sound not directed at her, but quiet, almost a low, guttural murmur meant only for himself. Snape was still standing behind the desk, his back partially toward her as he appeared to adjust something small on the surface.

“Training requires discipline,” he spoke, his voice unusually strained, entirely different from the flat pronouncements he had used moments earlier. He didn't turn around. “But training a student whose mental architecture is already compromised by such... volatile vulnerabilities... requires risks I had not intended to take.”