𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 | 𝐡. 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫

𝟖𝟓 - 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞

Warning! Description of underage sexual acts below— please take caution if that's not what you're into.

"Okay, concentrate." Said Ophelia, whilst stirring her bubbling cauldron counter clock-wise, "Let your mind go blank... dissolve every thought, feel your mind in your head and let it go."

Harry sat there with his eyes closed, concentrating on not thinking at all, but all that kept running through his mind was thinking of trying not to think, which in of itself was hyperbolic.

"You're still thinking." Said Ophelia rubbing her temples as she watched her fourteenth attempt at recreating Snape's potion fizzle and disappear at the bottom of the cauldron, the foul smell of singed rusty wool being the tipping point to Ophelia's frustration.

"It's kind of hard to stop." Said Harry, "And besides don't you think that me having a direct link to his mind is quite useful? I know stuff he knows without him knowing about it."

"But you don't know that." Said Ophelia looking up at him, "And besides, it could be a two-way mirror—he might be able to have an advantage over you too. Whether you like it or not—Snape has a point—he knows that Voldemort won't hesitate to put you at risk or turn you against us if it meant he had an advantage."

Harry blinked a few times, shaking his head he said.
"I think I would be able to tell if he was trying something on me—it's sort of a feeling he gives me. And anyway— even if he did looked into my head, what would he see? Me doing my homework? You kissing me? I doubt any of that will be of importance-"

"Me resurrecting the dead, my powers, the secrets of the Order — and advantage over your mental state, you're getting stressed the closer we're getting to exams which makes you vulnerable. Harry, there could be a plethora of things that he could find useful that you couldn't even think of — it's safer for the link to be closed, like how I tune out the dead... I don't know who they are and why they're listening in, what they did in their life or if they deserved their deaths— I just have to go by my judgement." Explained Ophelia, tapping the top of the cauldron with her wand to empty it, before she began to redo her potion except this time—she'd add a little more dark root — that seemed to get it closer to the colour it needed to be, and the smell it usually had.

"But I saved Mr Weasley through this link — what if he starts hurting someone else and I don't know about it and they end up worse than Mr Weasley, what if they die? I can't have that on my conscience." Said Harry leaning against his cushions.

"Harry, Mr Weasley knew the risks... he signed up to the Order, he agreed to guard whatever it is they're protecting in the Department of Mysteries... but it's bound to happen with Voldemort after it, and think about it— if by some miracle, Voldemort doesn't know about the link and he attacks someone else who's supposed to be alone in the middle of the night — how would it be, that they would be saved when no one is supposed to know they're there or that they weren't discovered dead in the morning by some unfortunate soul." Said Ophelia, slicing the root instead of dicing it. "It's a horrible moral predicament you've been put in, and as much as I find Dumbledore to be a man of his own means — you did promise him that you would Occulemency."

Harry looked at her, and he felt cold all of a sudden—like when you're sat warm by a fire when you move to grab something elsewhere, the chill that washed over him was as quick and as unforgiving as the bubbling violent anger in his stomach, directed entirely at her.

"You find this easy don't you?" He said harshly.

The sudden change in his tone forced Ophelia to lift her head to look at him, she wore a poker-face as she spoke as candidly as she could, yet her eyes shifted to purple involuntarily as she kept his gaze level with her own.