Chapter 6: The First Lesson

"Clear your mind."

Snape's voice came from behind her somewhere. She couldn't see him from where she sat in the isolated chair, facing the empty stone wall. The instruction seemed simple enough on its surface, though actually accomplishing it proved considerably more difficult when her awareness kept tracking his footsteps as he circled slowly around her position.

"Occlumency requires the construction of mental barriers," he continued, his tone falling into that same measured cadence he used during complex potion instructions. "You will separate memories and emotions, what you wish to protect from intruders."

His steps were deliberate, creating a steady rhythm against the stone floor. She tried to focus on the wall in front of her, on the rough texture of the stones and the shadows cast by candlelight, anything to keep her thoughts from scattering in too many directions at once.

The footsteps stopped directly behind her chair.

She felt the shift in air pressure when he moved closer, though he didn't touch the chair or make any sound beyond the quiet intake of breath that suggested he was preparing to continue the lesson. Her spine straightened automatically, some deeply ingrained response to having someone in her blind spot.

"Most leave their thoughts unguarded," Snape said from his position behind her. "Memories surface. Emotions cloud judgment. Secrets are accessible to anyone skilled enough to extract them."

The proximity made her acutely aware of how close he was standing. She could hear the faint rustle of his robes when he shifted his weight, the almost imperceptible sound of fabric moving against itself. Her pulse quickened despite her efforts to maintain steady breathing.

"Close your eyes."

She obeyed, shutting out the view of the stone wall. Darkness replaced it, though not the comforting kind she experienced when falling asleep in her dormitory. This felt more vulnerable, sitting in an unfamiliar room with Snape positioned somewhere behind her where she couldn't monitor his movements.

"Clear your mind of all thoughts," he instructed. "Push aside your awareness of this room, of my presence, of whatever concerns occupied your attention before arriving here tonight."

Easier said than accomplished. Trying not to think about something inevitably made it more prominent in her consciousness. She attempted to focus on nothing, to create the mental blankness he was describing, but fragments kept intruding. The cold temperature of the dungeons. The hardwood of the chair beneath her. The sound of Snape's breathing, barely audible but present enough that she could track it.

"You are failing to achieve even basic mental discipline." His voice came from a slightly different angle now, suggesting he'd moved without her noticing. "I can practically hear your thoughts racing from where I stand."

She tried harder, concentrating on the darkness behind her closed eyelids. Breathe in. Breathe out. Let everything else fade into the background.

"Better," Snape said after what felt like several minutes of silence. "Though still inadequate for proper Occlumency training."

His footsteps resumed, moving around the chair again. She kept her eyes closed, trying to maintain whatever minimal progress she'd made toward mental stillness.

"I will now describe several scenarios," he continued, his voice dropping to something quieter than his usual classroom tone. "Your task is to maintain that mental blankness regardless of what I say. Do not react. Do not allow emotions to surface. Simply continue clearing your mind of all thought."

She nodded slightly, acknowledging the instruction.

The footsteps stopped somewhere to her left. When Snape spoke again, his voice was positioned near her ear, close enough that she could feel the faint warmth of breath against her skin.

"Imagine you are brewing a complex potion in class," he began, each word spoken with deliberate slowness. "You have followed every instruction precisely, measured each ingredient with perfect accuracy. But when you add the final component, the potion explodes, covering you in corrosive liquid that burns through your robes."

The mental image formed automatically despite her attempts to suppress it. She could picture the cauldron, the sudden, violent reaction, the pain of chemical burns across her arms and chest.

"Maintain your mental barriers," Snape said, his voice still positioned near her ear. "Do not allow the scenario to provoke emotional response."

She tried to push the image away, to return to that state of blankness. Her breathing had accelerated without conscious direction.

"You are in the Great Hall during breakfast," Snape continued, moving to stand behind her again. "The entire school watches as you receive a letter from home informing you that someone you care for has died. Everyone stares while you read the words, waiting to see how you will react."

The scenario hit harder than the first one. She could feel grief welling up in her chest, that particular hollow ache that accompanied the thought of losing someone important. Her grandmother's face appeared in her mind, the same woman who had given her the silver earrings.

"Clear your mind." Snape's instruction was firm, cutting through the emotional response. "Compartmentalize the feeling. Separate yourself from the reaction."

She struggled to comply, to shove the grief into some mental box where it couldn't affect her. The blankness wouldn't return completely, but she managed to push the worst of the emotion aside.

"Insufficient," Snape observed. "But marginally improved from your initial attempt."

He circled around to stand in front of her chair. She could sense his presence even with her eyes still closed, the shift in air pressure indicating his position directly before her.

"Open your eyes. Meet my gaze."

She obeyed, blinking against the candlelight after several minutes of darkness. Snape stood approximately three feet away, his dark eyes fixed on her face with that same intense scrutiny he applied to potion-making. His expression revealed nothing about what he was thinking or planning next.

"I will now attempt Legilimency to test your untrained defenses," he said flatly. "Maintain your mental barriers. Do not allow me access to your thoughts or memories."

Her heart rate accelerated again. She'd read about Legilimency in the textbooks he'd assigned as preparation for these sessions, understood intellectually what the spell would do, but reading descriptions and experiencing the actual intrusion were entirely different matters.

"The sensation will be uncomfortable," Snape continued, his wand appearing in his hand though she hadn't seen him reach for it. "Organize your thoughts into compartments, and deny me access."

She tried to prepare herself, to construct some kind of barrier in her mind as he'd described. Her thoughts felt scattered and disorganized, impossible to categorize into neat sections when panic was already building in her chest.

Snape raised his wand without further warning.

"Legilimens."

The intrusion hit her like a physical impact. She felt the uncomfortable sensation he'd mentioned, centered behind her eyes but spreading throughout her skull with sharp intensity. Her vision blurred momentarily, and then images began flashing through her mind without conscious direction.

The silver earring sitting on her breakfast plate, polished and repaired. The memory appeared with perfect clarity, every detail preserved exactly as she'd experienced it that morning. She could see the Great Hall around her, mostly empty except for a few early-rising students, and the small package beside her plate.

The image shifted abruptly. Now she was in Potions classroom, watching Snape move through the aisles during Tuesday's lesson. Her perspective from the memory showed him stopping at the desk behind her, his attention divided between the student he was correcting and her own cauldron. She remembered the way her pulse had quickened when his gaze had lingered on her workspace for that brief moment.

Another shift. She was standing at his desk after class, trying to find words to thank him for returning the earring. The memory captured her own nervousness, the careful phrasing she'd prepared, and then Snape's cold denial when she'd finally worked up the courage to speak.

The memories continued flashing past in rapid succession. She was signing the Occlumency training sheet. Reading the notice that she'd been selected. Walking through the dungeons toward his office tonight, with her heart beating too fast.

She tried to stop the flood of images, to construct some barrier as he'd instructed, but everything kept spilling out beyond her control. Each memory led to another, creating a chain she couldn't break.

Then the intrusion reached something more recent. She was in her dormitory, lying in bed the previous night. The memory showed her fingers touching the repaired silver earring she'd worn daily, turning it over to examine the fixed backing that proved someone had taken time to mend it properly.

Panic flooded through her when she realized what Snape was seeing, what the memory revealed about her thoughts regarding who had returned the earring and why they might have bothered with such careful repair work.

Her magic reacted without conscious direction.

A sharp explosion of raw magical energy burst outward from where she sat. The force knocked several books off nearby shelves, sending them tumbling to the stone floor with loud impacts. Approximately half the candles illuminating the office extinguished simultaneously, plunging portions of the room into shadow.

The mental connection severed abruptly. The pressure behind her eyes disappeared, leaving her gasping in the chair while her vision slowly returned to normal. Her hands gripped the armrests hard enough that her knuckles had turned white.

Snape had stepped back several paces, wand still raised. He didn’t speak immediately, merely observing the scattered books and flickering candles, fingers tapping lightly against the desk.

She stared at him, chest heaving while she tried to process what had just happened. The scattered books lay where they'd fallen, and smoke rose from several of the extinguished candles. The magical discharge had been powerful enough to physically affect objects throughout the office.

"That was—" She started to speak, then stopped, unsure how to finish the sentence.

Snape lowered his wand slowly. His dark eyes remained fixed on her face, studying her with an intensity that made her want to look away. Several seconds passed in silence while he appeared to be evaluating something.

"Raw magical resistance of this magnitude is exceptionally rare," he finally said. His voice had returned to its usual flat tone, though something in his posture suggested he was reassessing whatever conclusions he'd drawn about her abilities. "It indicates significant untapped potential that will require intensive training to harness properly."

She loosened her grip on the chair's armrests, though her hands still trembled slightly. "I didn't mean to—"

"The discharge was instinctive. Not controlled," Snape interrupted. "Which makes it more dangerous, not impressive. Uncontrolled magical reactions can cause considerably more damage than what you have demonstrated here tonight."

He moved to collect the fallen books, bending to retrieve them from where they'd scattered across the floor. She watched him work, unsure whether she should offer to help or remain seated. Her pulse was still elevated, adrenaline making her feel shaky and unfocused.

"Your training schedule will change to twice weekly instead of the originally planned weekly sessions," Snape said while returning books to their proper shelves. "Tuesday and Thursday evenings. At the same time as tonight's lesson."

Twice weekly. That meant she would be here, in his private office, twice as often as the other students he'd selected for Occlumency training. She tried to determine whether the change was punishment for her loss of control or acknowledgment of the potential he'd mentioned.

"Is that because—" She started to ask for clarification.

"Irrelevant. Your schedule is twice weekly. End of discussion. This incident is not to be mentioned. To anyone. You are forbidden to" Snape cut across her question, turning to face her directly. "Not your housemates, not other professors, not the additional students receiving Occlumency instruction. What occurred here tonight remains between us. Do you understand?"

She nodded, though confusion still clouded her thoughts. "Yes, Professor."

Snape moved to his desk, setting down his wand with deliberate precision. The gesture seemed to mark the conclusion of some internal decision-making process. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to something quieter than his usual classroom tone.

"Session is concluded." Snape's dismissal was abrupt, delivered in the same flat voice he used when sending students away after detentions.

She glanced toward the window set high in the office wall. The darkness outside suggested it was probably around nine o'clock, maybe nine-fifteen at most. Their scheduled session was supposed to last until nine-forty-five.

"But we still have—" She gestured vaguely toward the window, indicating the early hour.

"I am aware of the time." Snape had already turned his attention to the papers spread across his desk, effectively dismissing her presence. "Leave."

She stood from the chair on unsteady legs. The magical discharge had drained more energy than she'd realized. Walking to the door required concentration to keep her steps even and controlled.

Her hand reached for the door handle, ready to pull it open and escape into the corridor where she could breathe properly again. But something made her pause, some impulse to look back toward where Snape remained at his desk.

He was watching her. Not with the casual observation of a professor monitoring a student's departure, but with an expression she couldn't quite identify. Professional assessment mixed with something more complicated, something that made her pulse quicken for reasons entirely separate from the Legilimency intrusion or magical discharge.

Their eyes met for perhaps two seconds. Then Snape's gaze returned to his papers with deliberate finality, ending whatever moment had just passed between them.

She left the office without saying anything else, pulling the door closed behind her with hands that still trembled slightly. The corridor outside felt impossibly cold after the relative warmth of Snape's office, and she wrapped her arms around herself while walking back toward the main section of the castle. She then remembered what her mind showed him. Heat flooded her face. The embarrassment of having those private thoughts exposed felt worse than the physical discomfort of the Legilimency intrusion itself. He saw her. And now… what does he think of me?