Occulemency and Beyond

Detention in the Dungeons

Chapter 2.

Detention in the Dungeon

After a long day of revision Hermione was almost looking forward to a bit of muggle cleaning, almost. She sighed deeply, it was six forty-five.

"Well, I'm off to detention you two. I'll leave my notes with you lot, take care with them!" she told her friends.

"Don't let Filch get you down 'Mione! He's a real git, giving you detention when he knows you need to study." replied Ron.

She answered him with a smile and left. She had to run down the steps to the dungeons but she entered the potions classroom just in time.

"Stand there silently and wait." Professor Snape instructed without looking up from the papers he was grading.

Stopping in her tracks Hermione complied. She watched him as he read through essay after essay, scratching out entire lines with his bright red ink. He seemed to grow more frustrated with each paper graded. This made Hermione to wonder if the school was as full of dunderheads as the professor had always claimed. After twenty minutes or so he graded the last essay and stood, motioning for her to follow he strode into the door behind his classroom desk.

Nervously she slowly followed him into his personal office. He sat behind his desk and motioned for her to take one of the two seats.

"Do you think yourself intelligent?" the professor addressed her finally.

"Well.. Yes sir."

"Your intelligence level will not help you learn occulemncy. You must have self control. Something I doubt you possess, yet I find myself hoping you may succeed."

"I'm sorry sir, I don't quite see what you're getting at... Harry needs to learn occulemncy, not me." Hermione disputed.

"Potter will not set foot in my office again. I will attempt to teach you to occlude, if anyone can get through Potters thick skull it is you. If it weren't for all the help you give him and the Weasley boy they wouldn't have made to fifth year."

"I don't know if that's..."

"I will only offer once Granger!"

Hermione thought for a moment. Weighing all the pros and cons she could think of; OWL revision, DA meetings, there were definitely more cons than pros but there wasn't really much of choice was there. The same voice that had earlier given her gumption to stand her ground was now insisting the single positive outweighed all the negatives.

"I will try my hardest to learn Professor, thank you for the opportunity."

"Do not thank me so quickly! I will give you a brief lesson tonight and another exactly one week from now if you learn enough to prove you are at least somewhat capable I will continue teaching you. If I am not impressed with your progress next week will be our final lesson. You are not to tell anyone that I am teaching you, especially not Potter. If my terms are not clear this is your only chance to ask any questions."

The only question she wanted to ask was why, but she wisely bit her tongue.

"Very well, Occulemncy is a branch of magic which is used to shield the mind against magical intrusion and influence. The Dark Lord is highly skilled at Legilimency, legilimency is the ability to extract feelings and memories from another persons mind." he lectured, pausing to give her a chance to absorb his words.

"The Dark Lord is especially adept at knowing when he is being lied to, based on that small amount of information I just gave you how do you think he can tell when someone is lying?"