August | Hermione Granger x OFC

Chapter Seventy-Six

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

The next day brought with it intimidating looks from Umbridge and intimidating Occlumency lessons with Snape after dinner.

So, those were happening again.

He did not bring up the events of summer, or whether he knew where exactly she had been hiding out or not, so neither did she.

She was all right at Occlumency now, she thought, but still not an expert or anything. Good enough to keep an average Legilimens out of her thoughts, but she struggled, still, to completely rid herself of emotions, especially when she was now constantly thinking about Hermione.

Bloody teenage hormones.

...Also, Snape was no average Legilimens.

At the same time, she had more motivation than ever to protect her mind, which translated quite well in her lesson.

"Satisfactory," said Snape as he retreated from the complicated maze in her mind. She would take that – he wasn't big on complimenting. "But this year, we will delve even further into the art of Occlumency. That is, you must now learn to create false memories. Quickly, think of something...humiliating."

Humiliating? She'd had a few humiliating moments over the years. The most obvious was the singing dwarf on Valentine's Day in her first year, courtesy of Olivia and Astoria.

'I really hope she's gay,' he had sung in front of the entire Great Hall.

Well, he was halfway right.

It had been humiliating, but funny, too. She could take a joke.

Either way, it was the first thing to come to mind, so she would use it.

She cleared her mind first, then built the familiar maze to keep Snape away from her memories. This time, however, she didn't stop there. Instead, she quickly came up with a false memory – Draco giving her a Valentine's card, which did not arouse any emotions in her at all.

(If it had been Hermione, for example, she would have been happy, excited, whatever, but it was just Draco. Meh).

Plus, there were similar connotations between the two. In both memories, she was presented with...something on Valentine's Day. One was a performance, the other a gift.

She felt Snape enter her mind then, and they both watched the faux memory of faux Draco in the Great Hall handing her a faux card as she gave a faux smile. And then Snape wiped the faux memory away and entered the maze for all of two seconds before leaving her mind completely.

She gulped.

"The real memory?"

"A dwarf singing to me on Valentine's Day, sir."

"I see."

He was silent for a few moments, thinking something over. She waited nervously.

"For a first attempt, that was not...intolerable," he finally admitted. Again, he wasn't big on complimenting. Again, she'd take that. "You made an interesting choice in creating a false memory similar to the real memory."

"Sir?"

"Indeed, you can, as you have demonstrated, create a false memory that is similar, thus making it more believable. However, this also leaves you more vulnerable to recalling the bona fide memory. Alternatively, you can create an entirely false memory with no relation whatsoever to the one in which you are trying to conceal. The choice is yours, Miss Rosier."