Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 385: Occlumency Tutorial

The next afternoon, Mike waited quietly for Harry to arrive in the dormitory.

Hermione will also come with him. Originally, the two of them were planning to persuade Ron to come with Mike to learn Occlumency, but Ron's condition is still not optimistic.

Although Ron fell asleep after dinner yesterday because he couldn't bear it anymore, excessive fatigue and severe emotional fluctuations still made Ron seriously ill. He is now lying in Madam Pomfrey's ward receiving treatment.

Mike, Harry and others were all very worried about this.

After all, Ron has encountered too many things recently. First, his father was seriously injured, and then he caused Dumbledore to leave the school.

It is easy for people to have extreme behaviors when they experience so many things in a short period of time. Fortunately, Madam Pomfrey also took Ron very seriously and released a monitoring spell in his room to keep an eye on Ron's changes.

But in a sense, it is a good thing that Ron is lying in the infirmary at this moment, because after the cause and effect of this incident was thoroughly spread, many people thought that Ron was the culprit who made Dumbledore leave Hogwarts, and thus hated Ron. Now that Ron is in the infirmary, a lot of trouble can be avoided.

Neville's situation was exactly the opposite of Ron's. After the news of his refusal to obey spread, he instantly became a hero of Hogwarts.

Almost all Gryffindor students were fanatically following him, and some even wanted to tear off his clothes to see the scars on his body.

It's a pity that those scars have long disappeared without a trace under the power of magic.

"Boom! Boom!"

Just as Mike was thinking, the dormitory door suddenly rang.

Mike hurried forward and opened the door, and saw Harry and Hermione standing outside the door awkwardly.

It was not until Mike let them in and closed the door that they breathed a sigh of relief.

"Phew! Mike, I was so embarrassed just now!" Harry shook his head. "As soon as we approached your dormitory, all the Ravenclaws in the common room started staring at us!"

Hermione patted her chest and said:

"Yes, it was not a good experience at all. Those Ravenclaws, their eyes... um... how should I put it? Very... hostile!"

"Don't worry too much, they are just overly nervous. As you know, yesterday's incident was a bit of a fuss." Mike said with a smile, "By the way, would you like some tea?"

"No, are you the only one living here?"

As Harry spoke, he looked around Mike's dormitory, and his eyes lit up when he found that there was only one bed in the entire dormitory.

"Yes, there are too few boys in Ravenclaw, so there are many empty rooms."

"That's great! Oh! I'm certainly not saying that Gryffindor's dormitory is bad, but you know what? I have to fall asleep every night listening to Ron's snoring and Seamus's farting. It's really not a good experience. But to be honest, although they have so many shortcomings, it is generally pleasant to live together. At least I like it very much. After all, living alone is too lonely. Oh! I'm not saying that it's not good for you to live alone! What I mean is..."

"Okay, Harry!" Seeing that Harry wanted to say more, he quickly stopped him and said, "I know what you want to say. Dormitories and single dormitories each have their own advantages, right?"

Hearing this, Harry nodded quickly, and Mike turned his head to look at Hermione beside him.

At Hogwarts, girls can enter the boys' dormitory at will, but not vice versa.

But despite this, Hermione looked extremely uneasy, as if she was entering a boys' dormitory for the first time.

Her feet were shaking restlessly, but her eyes kept wandering around the furnishings in the room. When her gaze fell on the photo of Mike and Penelope on the desk, Hermione's pupils shrank suddenly, and then she quickly lowered her head.

"Are you okay, Hermione?"

Mike's voice startled Hermione. Her body shook violently, and then she said without raising her head:
"It's fine!"

Mike nodded, but did not expose the girl's thoughts. Instead, he said:

"Then let's get started."

"Okay."
"Since Hermione is new to Occlumency, I'll start from the beginning.

Occlumency is an extremely advanced spell that closes your brain so that others cannot know your thoughts.

But in fact, brain occupation should be divided into two kinds of spells - brain emptying and brain occupation.

This is because the most basic and important form of Occlumency is to empty your mind, that is, to think nothing and feel nothing. This feeling is very similar to being in a trance, and indeed many people confuse the two and have difficulty learning Occlumency, but it is fundamentally different from being in a trance. Because even when humans are in a trance, they are still thinking, but you are not aware of it.

This is the traditional method of practicing Occlumency, but I combined it with Muggle psychology to create a more effective method - self-hypnosis.

You may not know that self-hypnosis is actually a very simple thing. For example, before a running race, if you just close your eyes and repeat to yourself "I run super fast!", then after the race starts, your speed will often be faster than usual. Of course, the speed increase will not be too high, after all, self-hypnosis is not magic, and it cannot turn you into a superman.

But there is no doubt that self-hypnosis is effective. My self-hypnosis method is added to the original brain occlusion training method. While you are in an absolutely quiet environment and empty your mind, I hope you can repeatedly say to yourself "I am a stone", and at the same time believe that you have really become a stone without thoughts. This will make it easier for you to enter the brain occlusion state, understand?"

Harry looked at Mike in amazement. He had already known most of what Mike had said before from Snape, but what he never expected was that Mike had created a more effective practice method on his own!
This is really amazing!

Hermione next to her also came out of her previous shy state and entered a learning state.

At this moment, she was looking at Mike with shining eyes, and at the same time she was writing notes quickly in the notebook she carried with her.

Mike waited until Hermione finished writing her notes before continuing:

"Harry, since you have studied with Professor Snape for some time, in order to determine your learning progress, I will cast the Legilimency spell on you in a while. Are you willing to accept this?"

As soon as these words came out, Harry's expression suddenly turned ugly.

Snape had used Legilimency on him several times before. To be honest, it was not a pleasant feeling to have your brain forcibly invaded.

But remembering Dumbledore's expectant eyes, Harry gritted his teeth and nodded.

"Very good, then I will give you half an hour to prepare. In order to be able to test more accurately, I will not wake you up after half an hour, but will use Legilimency on you directly. Oh, by the way, Hermione, you don't have to be so nervous. I will not use Legilimency on you without your consent, so you don't have to worry."

The worried expression on Hermione's face eased a lot. She had been hiding a lot of shameful thoughts in her heart. If Mike really invaded her brain and saw those thoughts, she would probably not live. "Well, let's get started now, Harry."

Mike turned his wrist, and a completely transparent translucent soundproof shield enveloped Harry.

Watching Harry slowly lying down in the shield, Mike came to Hermione and began to explain to her other knowledge about brain occlusion.

Hermione, who had entered the learning state, completely turned into a learning machine. She wrote down almost every word Mike said in her notebook, even those useless nonsense.

It was not until Mike said half an hour was up that Hermione closed her notebook reluctantly.

"Hermione, the Legilimency spell, which is the opposite of Occlumency, is what you will learn next. I will demonstrate it to you in person now. Please pay attention."

As he spoke, Mike took out the blackthorn wand under Hermione's expectant gaze.

Since this was for teaching purposes, Mike did not use any fancy spellcasting techniques, but instead used his wand to draw complicated lines in the air, and finally pointed at Harry, who was lying on the ground and breathing steadily:

"Legilimency!"

As Mike's voice slowly uttered, a hazy light flashed by, and then all kinds of memories that did not belong to him appeared in front of Mike's eyes.

These memories are all from Harry's first-person perspective, and most of them are trivial details of daily life, such as playing wizard chess with Ron, eating and attending classes together.

But among these useless memory fragments there are also some more valuable memories, such as some words Dumbledore said to Harry, some memory fragments he took Harry to watch in the Pensieve, and so on.

Mike originally wanted to read all these memories, but prolonged Legilimency would cause mental damage to the person being affected, and there would be many similar opportunities in the future, so Mike just took a quick look and then withdrew his consciousness from Harry's brain.

As soon as he finished casting the spell, Mike saw Hermione looking at him intently. When he opened his eyes, the two of them looked at each other.

Hermione was startled by Mike's sudden awakening and jumped back as if she had been electrocuted.

Mike coughed twice in embarrassment.

"Um, what was the result? Did Harry master Occlumency?"

Hermione tried to change the subject, but Mike smiled bitterly and shook his head without saying anything.

To be honest, Mike really didn't understand what Harry was doing with Snape during this time.

Mike's Legilimency just now was quite crude because he had to teach Hermione, but such a simple Legilimency easily invaded Harry's brain.

And after checking, Mike discovered that Harry's brain was not empty at all, and the bizarre scenes in it seemed more like a dream!
In other words, Harry didn't actually clear his mind during this half hour, but fell asleep!
When Hermione saw that Mike didn't say anything and had an ugly expression on his face, she immediately realized that Harry's performance was not ideal.

So she immediately shut up and stopped asking questions. She still had some emotional intelligence.

"Harry, wake up, wake up..."

Following Mike's call, Harry slowly opened his eyes. His pupils were slowly converging, and when he found that Mike and Hermione were looking at him, he immediately jumped up from the ground.

"I...I fell asleep!"

Mike slapped himself on the forehead and looked at Harry helplessly.

He is really convinced by Harry now!

Hermione next to him was also quite speechless. It was not a glorious thing to fall asleep during training. It was a good thing that Harry could say it so loudly.

"I'm sorry, Mike!" Harry looked frustrated. "I don't want to do that, but I always do this."

"It's okay. To be honest, your situation is very common. Many people fall asleep when practicing Occlumency. After all, emptying the mind is a good activity before going to bed."

"really?"

"That's right," Mike said firmly, "but if you want to learn Occlumency, sleeping all the time is definitely not a good idea. So, you two should hurry up and continue your training."

Hearing this, Hermione nodded solemnly, then used Transfiguration to turn a book into a recliner and sat on it (Mike originally wanted Hermione to practice lying on his bed, but Hermione refused, saying that she couldn't practice lying on it).

This action made Harry open his mouth in surprise, he was lying on the floor just now!
As Harry and Hermione closed their eyes one after another, Mike returned to his desk and began to study the email from Penelope.

That’s right, Penelope has found the answer to the question of whether the pendant in Chris’s hand is real or fake.

After he provided Penelope with his detailed memory of observing the pendant box, Penelope and Uncle Mario immediately summoned several fairies with rich experience in appraising treasures to come and determine whether the pendant box was genuine.

After a whole day of careful observation, the fairy treasure appraisers made the final judgment - the pendant box was real!
Nodding with satisfaction, Mike threw the email into the fireplace.

For Mike, destroying the Horcruxes is definitely his most important task at this moment.

As for the Horcruxes - it didn't matter whether Slytherin's locket was in Umbridge's or Chris's hands.

Because he has plenty of money, enough to meet most of the other party's financial requirements.

Of course, if the other party is too greedy and the request exceeds Mike’s psychological bottom line.

Then Mike doesn't mind using force to take it away.

Anyway, the power of the Freemasons has now developed to an astonishing level. Mike thinks it is not a difficult task to destroy a small pure-blood family without anyone noticing.

Thinking of this, Mike's mouth corners couldn't help but rise.

But at this moment, Mike's dormitory door was knocked again...

(End of this chapter)