Another Year at Hogwarts

I had quickly finished my breakfast and headed in the direction Snape had walked in. When I found him, he and I walked deep into the garden. We eventually came to a small clearing within the center of the garden—surrounded by tall, yellow-green hedges. There were also two small benches, and Snape and I headed over to them.

“You are already aware of how to use Legilimency, as I recall,” Snape said as we sat down.

“Occlumency, on the other hand, is must more difficult to do. You must clear your mind—suppress anything you don’t want anyone else knowing about. In your case, your life in the Muggle world, your past year at Hogwarts, and the knowledge you hold about the future.”

“So, basically everything I am,” I interrupted.

“Yes,” Snape agreed. “It won’t be easy. It’s best if we start. This,” Snape said as he looked at me, “may take a while.”

“Please, don’t sound so hopeful,” I said sarcastically. “So, anyways, what exactly am I supposed to do?”

“Keep me out of your mind. Or at least deceive me when I do,” Snape said as he pulled his wand out. I had expected him to allow me a moment to prepare myself, but I was obviously wrong. Before I knew it, Snape had exclaimed Legilimency.

Images—moments from my life—soon flashed before me. The first things I could make out were the faces of my family—Karen, Mom and Dad. I saw times we were sitting and laughing at the dinner table; times my parents, Karen and I played outside in the snow before coming inside and warming ourselves up with hot chocolate. I then saw myself by the Christmas tree opening a present—revealing the first book of the Harry Potter series. Following that, images of me sitting in my room reading and watching the Harry Potter series appeared. In between these memories, images of birthdays, school events and family outings flashed through my mind within a matter of seconds.

There was then a sudden shift. I saw myself driving the in my car, and the sound of a loud scream echoed in my ear. Then Harry, Hermione and Ron’s face flashed before my eyes. I saw a sunrise before me, and then Harry was standing next to me. He slowly began to reach his hand out towards me, and as he did, his hair turned pale, and his green eyes turned blue. I was now in the Hospital Wing with Draco. He was staring deeply into my eyes as he said, “There’s never any spark in your eyes when you’re with Potter.”

The next thing I knew, I saw myself lunging a fist at Draco. I hit him across the face and just yelled at him. The look of despair on his face dissolved into nothing, and then a picture of the two of us in my room appeared before me.

“You can’t let what happened in the past control the rest of your life,” I heard Mother saying. And then, Tom Felton’s voice popped up in my head saying how Jade Olivia is his everything and his soulmate.

“If you really want to help the don’t EVER return!” I heard Snape shouting. At the same time, I saw myself within Snape’s house—demanding that he sends me home.

The scene then shifts to the hallway with Draco and me. As I saw him glaring down at me, I heard his words for the previous year screaming in my ears: “YOU MADE ME FALL FOR YOU! You pretended that you had feelings for me as well, when it was obvious that you didn’t”; “Why is it that you’re always on the break of tears whenever you’re around me”; “Do you ever wonder how things would have turned out if you were in Slytherin instead of Gryffindor”.

I then reached out and held Draco’s face.

“…don’t forget the person you are now—at this moment, with me,” I heard myself say before Draco wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me in for a kiss.

The last thing I saw was the picture of Draco and me disappearing off the screen of my camera, and the word DELETED appearing before me. In the background, I could hear Draco calling out my name ever so softly.

I gasped as my body came rushing back to the white bench I was sitting in. I continued to try to catch my breath as Snape stared down at me.

“That was—“

“Don’t even say it,” I interrupted. “I did horribly, I know.”

“You must clear your mind!” Snape repeated. “We will accomplish nothing if you cannot do so.”

“You’re saying that is though I’m not trying,” I snapped while glaring up at him. “This is the first I’ve ever done this, if you recall.”

“You seem to easily grasp the usage of magic, though it doesn’t even exist in your world. I do not see how this is any different,” Snape commented.

“Well, that’s because I’m the daughter of Scarlet Angel,” I remarked sarcastically. I then took a deep breath and said, “Okay, let’s do this again.”

I don’t know long my session with Snape went on for. But as we continued, and I failed again and again, Snape suggested that we work on parts of my memory at a time instead of having me try to manipulate all of my memories. And as we went through with the new plan, I began to get the hang of Occlumency. Soon, the faces of my family members remained, but I was no longer there. Instead, Victoria Baker’s face replaced mine. She’s replaced my pictures and my place in the Bell family.

Snape and I then concluded that these memories of my family could simply be the fantasies of Victoria Baker. The hopes she had of finding a family who would love her after the death of her father. After all, what orphan wouldn’t want to find to be loved by a nice family?

I would have to say that the easiest thing for me to do was replace the memories of my real parents. Because I actually was two when they died, I was able to use what I remembered and manipulated it. Instead of both my parents dying, I imagined that it was only my father who had died in that plane crash. As for my mother, I had to remove her entirely from my memory. According to the story that Snape gave Voldemort, Scarlet had died before ever meeting her daughter.

The only difficulty I had was concealing Harry, Hermione, the Weasley family and, of course, my memories of Draco. Snape lectured me that I was too emotionally attached to these memories, and why wouldn’t I be? Unlike my family, I couldn’t pretend that being friends with Harry Potter and having a romantic relationship with Draco was a part of Victoria’s hopes and dreams. I had to conceal them completely from my memory. Because of this, every time Snape penetrated my mind, I couldn’t stop him from seeing the memories of Harry and the others.

I didn’t know how long this lasted. All I knew was by the time Snape told us to stop it was already nightfall.

“Let’s end it for the day,” Snape said as he placed ins wand back into his robe pocket.

“No!” I quickly shouted. “We can’t stop. We’re so close!” I said breathlessly.

I was covered in sweat at this point, and my vision was hazed. But I knew that we couldn’t afford to stop. If I didn’t master Occlumency, all hell would break lose if Voldemort found out I wasn’t who Snape said I was. If that ever happened, it was a guarantee that Snape and I would be killed. And if Snape died, everything Dumbledore did would have gone to waste. Everything Snape had done would have gone to waste, and I couldn’t stand the thought of that.

“You’re exhausted,” Snape objected.

“I’ll be fine!” I assured. “We’re so close—you said so yourself. You said you could barely make out Hogwarts when you’re in my mind now. And you can’t even see—or detect—that I know anything about the future.”

“And that is fine for now!” Snape said.

“But—!” I began to say as I stood. But as I did so, my legs gave out on me and I began to fall towards the ground. Thankfully, Snape was there to catch me.

“Stop this!” Snape bellowed.

“We can’t afford to!” I reminded while gazing up at him. “We cannot afford to put this off. If the Dark Lord ever found out—“

“He won’t,” Snape assured.

“You don’t know that!” I said. “He can try to penetrate my mind at any moment, and if I can’t conceal Harry and the others then everything that you and Dumbledore have done will go to waste!”

“Well, thankfully for you, the Dark Lord is away,” Snape informed. “Now, let us to inside. Tomorrow we return to Hogwarts.”