Chapitre 391: Occlumency Practice
After a long and painful month of January, February finally arrived, and with the new month also came Oleandra's first Occlumency teaching session after Professor Snape's comprehensive evaluation of Harry's capabilities, which had been scheduled to take place on the last Friday of every month.
So, on the third of February, Oleandra climbed up the Astronomy Tower's stairs to the Room of Requirement, where she found Harry already waiting for her.
"Heya, hero," Oleandra greeted him as usual. "So, how did it go with Professor Snape?"
"Badly," said Harry unpleasantly; he was obviously in a bad mood. "He said that you went too easy on me, that you should concentrate on teaching me how to keep others out of my head."
Unlike Oleandra, who was usually gentle when she poked around Harry's thoughts and memories, Professor Snape enjoyed causing unnecessary pain by being overly rough when he went about rooting through Harry's brain matter.
"But even if you can keep others out of your head," Oleandra argued, "how are you supposed to do so if you don't even know they're in there? Voldemort's getting to you in your sleep…"
"How should I know?" Harry grumbled. "You're supposed to be the expert."
At this point, if he was dreaming about the corridor, Harry could be fairly certain that it was Voldemort's doing. But the thing was, Harry's curiosity was getting the better of him, and despite knowing better, he was finding himself more and more eager to find out what was awaiting him at the end of that bloody corridor…
"I'm just trying to help," Oleandra snapped.
Upon seeing Harry's frown turn slightly apologetic, Oleandra sighed. She had promised Dumbledore she'd do a good job of teaching Harry Occlumency, and if Snape deemed her approach inefficient, then she'd change how she went about doing things…
"Have you been seeing the same dreams I have?" Harry asked quietly.
Oleandra shook her head, much to Harry's disappointment.
"Not since the snake thing," she said wearily. "Voldemort might have noticed the connection, so if you're the only one having the dreams now, then it means he wants you, and only you, to have them."
"But why?" came Harry's inevitable response. "Why me? Why does he keep showing me that corridor?"
"The one that leads to the Department of Mysteries?" Oleandra asked, intrigued.
"I thought you said you hadn't been having these dreams," said Harry suspiciously. "Unless… Astoria?"
Astoria had eavesdropped on many meetings at number 12 Grimmauld Place, and she had also been present when Harry had questioned Arthur Weasley about the Department of Mysteries at St Mungo's.
"In my opinion, Voldemort's trying to tempt you into going there," said Oleandra thoughtfully. "Why else would he keep showing you that place in your dreams? In any case, my advice would be: don't go there."
"I won't," said Harry irritably. "I just wish I knew why he keeps showing me all of this…"
Oleandra could think of a few reasons as to why Voldemort would be trying to lure Harry to a secluded area, but since there was no way to verify her theories, there was no point wasting any more time thinking about such things; not when she could be teaching Harry to resist mental intrusions.
"I highly doubt that Voldemort would go for the brute force method, since he's so far away from us and he can't possibly make eye contact without being in the same room as you, but if Professor Snape thinks it's for the best, then I'll come at you full force, okay?"
Remembering the pain that Snape had inflicted on him previously, Harry wasn't especially eager to have a repeat of that experience, so he tried some last-minute delaying tactics.
"Wait," he said desperately, "what does eye contact and him being so far away have anything to do with Legilimency?"
"Magic weakens over distance and time," Oleandra explained patiently. "Even space-time magic such as Apparition has its limits."
It just went to show just how powerful the stars' magic was, if their power could reach the Earth, light-years away. Or maybe, did it have something to do with the World Tree connecting everything…?
"And the eyes are the windows to the soul," Oleandra continued cryptically. "But if Voldemort can ignore all these requirements, I think…"
Oleandra paused; the subject of the soul was one she knew next to nothing about, and it was one that bordered on the sacred for Wizards. Besides, she didn't want to think of the implications for her own soul, if what she suspected had happened to Harry was also true for her…
"…I think it's all the more reason to get started with practice," Oleandra finished weakly. "Now, wand at the ready, Harry… Legilimens!"
This time, instead of penetrating Harry's mind with ease, Oleandra was faced with a wall composed of images of Cho Chang. Conjuring a mental image and focusing on it was the simplest way to counter Legilimency, though it would make it obvious to the intruder that you were aware of them.
Blocking a Legilimency attempt in this fashion wasn't nearly as complicated as generating a false set of thoughts and memories running parallel to your true intentions, which was something that only true masters of Occlumency could do, but it would suffice in a pinch.
And so, to his credit, Harry put up a good fight against Oleandra, whose comparatively alien mind was especially well suited to intruding into humans' thoughts. After all, she was a Greater Fairy in the body of a human; a Greater Fairy's speciality wasn't head-on confrontations, but trickery!
Soon, Oleandra found a flaw in Harry's mental defences, his fortress built on his fond memories of Cho. Harry didn't speak much, but he did think a lot with his overactive mind, which made it difficult for him to concentrate on a single thing for extended periods of time. Worries about the future, about his friends…
Oleandra exploited a momentary lapse in his concentration to worm her way in.
Indistinct figures in the darkness, a cold voice, a blinding flash of green light, her own lifeless face, despair…
White-faced, Oleandra drew in a sharp breath, reeling away from Harry as if she had been struck. She had just revisited that fateful night when Voldemort had killed her right in front of Harry. Despite telling herself that she had moved on, the loss of Viviane, Oleandra's other self and mentor, had deeply scarred her.
Whatever bad feelings she could internalize, she had hidden away to the deepest depths of her psyche; the rest, she had turned into barely repressed anger issues, and externalized them as violence masquerading as adventures…
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
Azure_Abyss
Azure_Abyss You have to hit your lowest point before things can start to get better :)
From here on, Oleandra's winning!
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone