The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

Occlumency Practice

Lily was already sitting on the floor in the Occlumency section when Severus arrived there. He had snuck out of his class and arrived to the library a few minutes later than they'd agreed upon originally, so he was relieved to see she'd waited. She had a large book called The Brain Is an Open Book and was paging through it with a nervous look on her face as she went on. She hadn't even heard him walk up.

Severus dropped his own book bag next to her and dropped to the floor, too. "Hullo," he greeted her. He leaned closer to see the book's pages. "What's this?"

"Just one of the books about legilimency," she answered. "I wanted to catch up is all. You've already done a fair amount of reading on it, and I haven't, so -- I didn't want to be behind." She closed the book. "It's quite an interesting subject, really," she added, turning to look at him as he sat down beside her.

Severus smiled. He liked being the focus of an interesting subject. It meant that he would be holding her full, undivided attention for some time and that it would be rather easier to talk her into these clandestine little meetings where he could be all alone with her. "It is very interesting," he agreed, nodding eagerly.

Lily crossed her legs and asked, "Severus - are you going to read my mind?"

"That's the idea," he replied.

She twisted her lips off to one side. "Are you reading it now?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"Truly?"

"Truly," he said. "I don't know how to read anyone's mind yet, remember? That's what we're trying to figure out together. How I can control this stuff."

Lily asked, "So... so you'll read my mind once you can, then?"

"Do you want me to?" he asked.

Lily shook her head.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because," Lily answered, "I have secrets and stuff." She shrugged, her cheeks turning just the teeniest bit pink.

Severus's voice was hurt, "Secrets? From me?" he asked.

Lily laughed, "Of course, Sev. Every girl has secrets. Loads and loads of secrets!"

"Even from me, your best friend?"

"That's just how we're built!" Lily said with a smile. "Besides. It's not as though you don't have any secrets from me."

Of course Severus had secrets from her. He had plenty of secrets from everyone, really. He had the secret of the Dark Lord appearing in the fire of the Slytherin common room. He had secrets about his family, about the darkest days of his childhood, when his lousy muggle father had been treating his mother like rubbish. But his biggest secret of all was the way he felt when he was alone with Lily, like right now, sitting close enough their knees touched. He couldn't bare to think about what it would be like if Lily knew.

"No," he said, "I don't."

Lily rolled her eyes, "Liar," she accused. "Everyone's got secrets."

"So what are you saying, then, Lily? That you don't want to help me anymore?" Severus demanded, frowning.

"No, I want to help you," Lily argued, "Just... promise you won't go reading all of my mind. Like just stick to the stuff on top, okay?"

"Alright," Severus answered.

"Okay then," Lily said, smiling, contented. "So how do we do this?"

Severus had been planning this moment for some time, ever since he'd asked her to help him out with this whole project, he'd been envisioning this moment. He cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter. "Well, first, I think it's important to start a connection."

"A connection?"

He nodded, "Yes. Of my life and your life."

Her eyes were wide, "How do we do that?"

"Holding hands," Severus answered. He held out his palms to her and his heart raced as she placed her warm, soft hands into his cold, clammy ones. He'd been dying to feel her touch again. He took a deep breath, trying to steady his heart rate, because he was sure that even if she couldn't hear it pounding that she'd be able to feel the throb of his pulse accelerating through his veins in his hands.

"No what?" she asked, staring benignly at him.

"Now..." Severus tried to recall what else the books had said. "Well, I guess you've got to sort of push your thoughts at me."

Lily thought for a moment. "How does someone push their thoughts?" she asked.

"I don't know," Severus admitted, "Maybe just sort of concentrate a bit; maybe imagine your thoughts going through our hands, sort of."

"Okay." Lily scrunched up her nose and concentrated really hard.

Severus concentrated hard, too, trying to read her mind. He closed his eyes to keep from being distracted by how pretty she was.

"Do you feel anything?" Lily asked.

The only thing he could feel was the hangnail on her left ring finger, digging into the heel of his palm and his still rather speedy heartbeat over the thrill of her touch. He tried to open his mind's eye but all he could see in there was a mental image of the pretty gold color of her fingernails, shiny like a galleon. Alice Bell had shown her a charm to make her fingernails all sorts of colors - purple and blue and gold and red of all shades.

"Not yet," Severus answered her.

They sat there like that for some time on the floor of the library, facing each other and holding hands, before Lily broke the silence. "Severus?"

He knew what she was going to say, but not because he'd read her mind or anything. Her stomach had growled several times in the last half hour or so, and he'd felt her fingers beginning to get fidgety in his hands.

"Severus, I'm rather hungry. It's dinner."

It was a miracle that Madam Pince hadn't come back there and shooed them out anyway. He let go of her hands, reluctantly, and nodded, "Yeah, we should go eat," he agreed.

"We can try again on Saturday," she said, thinking his reluctance was because of the lack of results more than it was about their time together coming to an end. She put a hand on his shoulder, "You'll be great," she said, "We just need more practice, that's all." Lily smiled. "Soon, you'll be reading everybody's minds all over the place." She stood up. "Don't be discouraged."

Severus nodded.

Lily smiled. "Okay, that's settled then. I'll see you on Saturday. I'll keep reading some of these books, too," she added, scooping them up, "And I'll see if I can come up with a better way to practice."

"Alright," Severus said. But he liked the way they were practicing now, results or not, it was nice to be so close to Lily.

"Well... bye, then," Lily said, and she walked off with the books balanced in her arms to check them out and then go off to dinner.

Severus sat in the quiet of the Occlumency section for a time, staring at the spines of books that surrounded him. He ran his finger along one dusty shelf and closed his eyes. If he sat really still and really quiet, now that Lily's scent wasn't distracting him, he could hear a quiet whisper in his mind - as though there were a far off crowd that he could almost overhear, way in the distance.